“Situation report,” said a tall, beautiful protagonist-type character directly into her wrist. She looked around nervously. “I am blending in with the population. They do not seem to realise I am not one of them. While my chances of returning home seem slim, I shall endeavour to study this strange, alien planet for the purpose of expanding our understanding.
“The first fact that I have learned is that the locals call their homeworld… Earth.”
Suddenly, the image of the beautiful and mysterious protagonist-type character fizzled and vanished under a sea of static, to be replaced with an image of a man in a labcoat carefully pouring out a purple liquid into a measuring jug.
“Hey!” yelled a voice, and a cushion followed right after. “I was watching that!”
Mitsuyo Senmatsu regarded her little brother with an amused smile. “Yes, you rather were,” she said. “Honestly, that kind of thing will just rot your brain. Science fiction, indeed! Give me science fact any time!”
The little twerp stuck his tongue out and lunged for the remote. Which she was ready for, naturally. He got it back, but she’d already snuck the battery out while he wasn’t paying attention. With a bit of a satisfied smirk, she slipped out the front door while he furiously mashed the buttons, showing off just how much the stupid programs had affected his thinking. She would have thought to check the battery, or just used the controls on the television itself. So far as he was likely concerned it was just a magical device that he didn’t have a hope of understanding.
And honestly, that really bugged her. Everything could eventually be understood given the chance to analyse it under the scientific method. The key word being “eventually”, and another important handful of words not used in that particular sentence were things like “resources”, “money”, “lack of bias” and “integrity”.
The public perception of science had been twisted around in recent years, in part due to the popularity of that stupid, thoughtless genre. Oh, people always said, “I’d have thought you’d have liked<i>Star Wars</i>”. Feh! Unrealistic pap! You can’t hear things in space. Sound doesn’t carry outside an atmosphere! And if a lightsaber was powerful enough to cut through metal, then merely looking at it without protective gear would render a person blind! And don’t get her started on the damn Force! <i>Star Trek</i> was just about as bad! Oh, sure. All sentient species on far-off distant planets just happened to evolve into humanoid forms where the only discernable difference was something that could be covered in makeup. Never mind that there was such an overwhelming diversity of life on our own little world, oh no, sentience <i>requires</i> the humanoid form! Evolution doesn’t work that way!
Mitsuyo stopped and shuddered a moment, remembering the time she’d watched that one episode of <i>Star Trek: Voyager</i>, “Threshold”. She’d woken up the next morning with scribbles all over the walls detailing highly inventive means of inflicting punishment upon everyone involved in creating it. Her friends had reassured her that though they were fans of the genre, they had a very similar reaction to the episode.
Mitsuyo’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by something just on the edge of her peripheral vision, prompting her to turn her head, where she found herself staring at the “creepy forest” that everyone in her neighborhood avoided. There were stories about it, because of course there were. People vanishing. Ghosts. Supernatural things dreamt up to scare children. She puffed out her chest, and allowed herself a little bit of a smirk. She’d never gone in herself, of course, because it was still a forest and the stories were unsettling when she was very young. But now? Well. She was rather a tall girl, and sure. Anyone lurking inside the forest would probably come to the immediate conclusion that she was pretty in a bookish sort of way. Which she was. Practically the archetype of the “beautiful nerd”, and though her main obsession had always been science, that was only the case so that she could apply it to other skills in her life. For example. Her knowledge of human anatomy and a long since refined ability to perform rapid calculations meant that when she had taken up martial arts, it hadn’t been all that difficult for her to become really, really good really, really quickly. People were certain she was cheating somehow, and in a way maybe she was. But it worked. Of course, it would only work if a human attacked her instead of, say, a wolf but -
Screw it. Why not? That glint of light was hitting her curiosity button like a pneumatic drill and if Mitsuyo had a weakness (aside from her natural obnoxious nature) then it would have to be that. Saying no to her curious side was like trying to defy gravity. Unless she put in quite a lot of effort, she’d back under its power very, very soon. So. With that in mind Matsuyo carefully strode right on into the forest that everybody she knew was <i>terrified</i> of, casually picked up a large stick from the ground as she passed, and searched out the source of the light with a peculiar gleam in her eye that she would absolutely deny was there if anyone ever asked.
Whatever mundane thing she was expecting to find in the forest, and indeed, her expectations were quite remarkably low, well… They would be exceeded by the discovery of not one lifetime, but two.
<hr>
It was the second dawn over Parixia, that special time of day where their first sun had turned pink in the sky due to a strange combination of atmospheric interaction with the light and their second, orange sun was beginning to peek over the horizon. The air had a bit of an odd hue to it, but hey, when you grow up with anything peculiar it just seems normal. Why would it be any different?
Our attention must linger on what must, since we are being rather pressed, be charitably called a street lined with what we can also with a bit of imagination state was lined by a series of houses. Not really houses or streets as we would recommend them. There were no roads or pavement to speak of. The buildings lacked numbers entirely, and instead appeared to be colour coded in some manner. Indeed, colour seemed to be quite an important factor to the people of this society as odd dashes of garish colour seemed to be absolutely everywhere. Not a hint of gray, black, white or anything in between. It almost seemed as though a rainbow had been sick all over everything, provided that rainbow had first been on a diet of neon. It was to the human eye quite garish and disorienting. To the locals, it was home, simply because wherever you lived and set down roots was home by definition. They were comfortable here. They liked living there. And from this street’s bright green front door a young woman strode out. Well. Woman as we would understand it; the term is being used here more to create a visual impression than anything else. This woman was, after all, not human. Merely looked like one.
Well. Yes. It looked like a human woman indeed, but for a single small difference. That skin was blue. Bright blue. The rest of her was pretty normal. Hair so red it looked like it was on fire, a smiling pretty face, a trim waist, a rather significantly large bust, legs that seemed even longer than they really were. A real knockout so far as human standards went, and the strange jumpsuit she was wearing did a really good job at highlighting this. It seemed to shimmer and shift its design with each step she took, but remained curiously beautiful no matter the pattern. This was Kyo. She had no second or family name. Nobody she knew had one either.
“Good morning, Kyo!” her neighbour called, in a language that sounded surprisingly like a certain one that exists on Earth. “Off to the laboratory again?”
“Naturally!” Kyo declared. “Where else would I be going? There’s a lot of work that needs done.”
“Maybe so,” her neighbour said, wagging a finger. “But you really should get to finding a mate. All work and no play -”
“Makes a Parixian’s mouth dry up,” Kyo finished, rolling her eyes. “I’m not interested in finding a mate. You should know that by now.”
“Suit yourself,” her neighbour said with a shrug, and Kyo went on her merry way. Yes. It rather did suit herself. The work was what really mattered to Kyo, not bothering with that relentless dating scene. She had enough of that from - Well, everyone she knew, to be honest. She was hardly going to settle down when there was still so much work to be done!
Her finger brushed against the leaves of a small plant, and all of a sudden where there had been a busty young blue-skinned woman with red hair, there was now a tall, handsome red skinned man with blue hair. Quite a curious thing to occur? Not really. If one were to watch as others passed down the street they would see similar kinds of sights. One green-skinned man with yellow hair had a leaf fall upon his head, and there was a yellow-skinned woman with green hair walking off, just like that. It was a quirk of biology, perhaps intended by evolution to make it easier for them to find a mate. Perhaps. Who could say? Evolution doesn’t really intend anything by its very nature. There are very few processes in the universe with intentions behind them, after all, and all of them should be feared. A fact that the Parixians knew rather well from their ancient history…
It suddenly occurred to Kyo that he was running quite a bit later than originally intended. That necessitated a bit of a shortcut, which meant taking this turn right here through a little-used alley. It was a bit of a squeeze but was certainly within his ability to get through…
Except that just then, out of nowhere a young woman with peculiarly pinkish skin and brown hair, wearing the most peculiar clothes and - for some reason - carrying a rather nasty-looking stick sort of popped into existence right about a foot above where he had been dashing off.
- Kyo quickly realises Mitsuyo is human, and intends to take her in for study.
- Kyo doesn’t realise Mitsuyo is human, and the two part ways not liking each other much.
- Mitsuyo is hurt, so Kyo takes her to one of their hospitals.
- Kyo is hurt, so Mitsuyo tries to get help for him.
- Something else
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