FA+
Shop
1141
Views
Views
8
Favorites
Favorites
Category
Story / All
Species Alien (Other)
Size 120 x 120
File Size 43.5 kB
Report this content
More from Tapewolf
Listed in Folders
Chapter 6
Xerian stared in terror as the translucent figure stepped through the wall and hovered in front of him, feet not quite making contact with the ground. They resembled a polecat with glasses and scruffy hair. Although shirtless, the creature wore shiny arm-length gloves and leggings, much like the ones Niall had given him. Like Niall, he had wings on his head and back, but unlike most of those Xerian had encountered so far, they were leathery and dragon-like. He was about four feet tall.
"Fear not," the figure exclaimed grandly in a theatrical voice. "I am the great god, Bob! I have chosen you for great things!" He made an expansive gesture and closed his eyes. "Know that it was I who brought you unto this place, that you may perform a service to Me. Serve Me well, and great boons shall be thine..." the spectral figure broke off, suddenly realising that he had no audience. Xerian had gone.
Bob closed his eyes. He didn't really need to, since the glowing figure was essentially a manifestation of His will, but from long practice over tens of millennia, He had found that visual cues like that went down well among His followers, and it had become a habit.
There... two rooms down. Bob floated through the wall before realising that that was probably one of the things that had spooked the Chosen One. He made sure to enter the room normally and found that the Synth was curled up in a corner of the room, sobbing uncontrollably.
Ah shit, Bob thought, and went to find Jakob.
Xerian sat there in a foetal position, clutching his tail in both hands, wings wrapped in front of him as if to shield him from the world. Niall and Jakob were crouching beside him with a look of deep concern. Bob remained tactfully hidden.
"What's the matter...?" the wolf asked gently. "Are you hurt? Can we help you...?"
"D-doesn't matter... Nothing does... It's all a dream... nothing is real... I... I'm probably dying..." the Synth wept.
Jakob blinked in confusion and his head-wings fanned out asymmetrically as if he was cocking his head. "Uh, run that past me again?" he said. "I've got my emotion filters maxed out here, and I don't think me looking through your mind will help right now."
"The... this stranger came through the wall... Can't be real," Xerian sobbed. "...said it was a god. But it can't be! This is all a dream, or I'm hallucinating! I've gone mad! In reality, I'm lying in a coma somewhere, or dying after a vehicle accident, or wandering the streets out of my mind with a malware infection and a pair of underpants on my head! Even in the dream I'm dressed like a pervert in these shiny pants - who knows what they are in the real world!"
"Oh no," Jakob said, patting the stricken Synth on the head. "No, no, no. You are really here. This is the real world."
"Of course you'd say that," Xerian sobbed. "You're part of the dream! Supposedly I'm in a magic land full of shapeshifting, thousand-year-old telepathic sex demons with rubber fixations, and giant 50-foot tall overlords who can be in several places at once, and, and... tiny gods that just walk through walls... Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds?! What my therapist would say if I described this to them?! They'd put me away as a lunatic! It's like some bad fantasy story from a pulp magazine! It can't be real! It's got to be a dream or an hallucination, that's the only rational explanation!"
"Heh, when you put it like that," Jakob grinned. "Listen. You've been thrust unceremoniously into a backwater world that has a bunch of weird social problems, a weird dress sense and an entire ecology founded on principles which don't even exist in your homeland.
"A culture-shock like that is enough to drive anyone crazy! I don't blame you for having a panic attack at the sight of Bob, and you're not the first person he's freaked out by a long shot. But I assure you, you're here with us, you're fully conscious and safe and you're not going to die if I have any say in the matter.
"Given how far out of your element you are, how much trauma you've been through, you've been coping really well, Xerian, and we're proud of you. Please, don't give up on us now..."
"I've never been great at dealing with people," Bob said quietly. "Even before my apotheosis. Although spending twenty thousand years as an incorporeal entity probably hasn't helped either. It might be why I'm stuck with this weird cult rather than a decent worldwide religion.
"Look, I'm sorry I startled you, Xerian. Most people are impressed if I give them a big show like that. But if it helps, you can think of me as an extraordinarily powerful hyper-dimensional being rather than a literal deity. To be honest, even I don't really know what I am. What you're seeing is effectively a hologram projected by sheer force of will."
"Is it true?" Xerian asked, anxiously poking his head out from over his wing. "Did you cause the rift that brought me here?"
"Uh, yes," Bob said, looking awkward. "I didn't think it would kill you!"
Xerian laughed bitterly. "I guess you can't be a god after all, then!"
"I'm trying my hardest," Bob said. "Look. What I need is a spaceship with transstellar jump capability, and someone to fly it to and from the destination I give. You happened to be handy, so I figured I'd reroute you here. I calculated the probabilities of success... and maybe got things a bit wrong. But you're here now, and you're alive. And more importantly, I can send you back to your own universe. If you want."
"And will I still be alive when I get home?" Xerian asked, animated eyes narrowing.
"Promise. I mean, I'd prefer it if you did that favour for me first. And it would help make sure your ship still works. But given the trouble I've caused for you, I guess we could call it quits if you really want. But then I'd have to find someone else to do it."
"I need time to think about this," Xerian said, making a convincing sigh.
"Can't ask fairer than that," Bob said, and faded away.
"What you were saying earlier," Niall asked. "About insanity and being put away. Does that... well, do Synths go off the rails much?"
"We're intelligent, sentient creatures. We're pretty self-stabilising but sometimes things can go wrong. If you get hit by a car, you're going to have panic attacks when you cross the street, same as an organic.
"But you want to know if we're likely to turn violent, I guess?" he grinned sadly.
"There was this famous case," Xerian continued. "One of us started suffering paranoid delusions and believed she had to fight back against the organic oppressors before they killed us all. So she set out to... to crush the heads of as many as she could."
"What happened?" Niall asked, looking extremely concerned.
"Oh, they apprehended her in the fruit and vegetable aisle of a supermarket, surrounded by a pile of broken gourds. Someone had infected her with some malware and she hallucinated it all. After they had erased it she recovered perfectly, apart from the embarrassment, of course. The perpetrator of the malware was incarcerated for 15 of our homeworld's years. Probably about 14.75 of your years, if my calculations are correct."
"Ah, so your fears of being found with underpants on your head and a rubber miniskirt around your waist aren't entirely baseless," Jakob said.
"Such things have happened, yes. Not to me, though..." he added quickly.
"If you want it to happen, I'm sure I've got one somewhere!" Daryil chimed in, and was quickly shooed away.
"When you're suitably recovered, we should probably get you back to your own room," Niall suggested. "We can get a panther to watch your door and deter intruders. It won't help against the likes of Bob, but if it helps you feel safer, we can do that."
"You mentioned the panthers before," Xerian said. "You said my new brain was based on theirs?"
"It's a long story," Jakob said, "And I know you were designed to sleep at night while you recharge. Sleeping is optional with the panthers, but we enabled it for you anyway to try and recreate your original physiology as closely as we could."
"That's true," Xerian said, with a sigh. "Maybe I'm acting a bit weird because I'm tired..."
Jakob closed his eyes and concentrated. A minute later the door opened and a glossy black jaguar, obviously robotic, padded into the room. The serial number L-TRK was stencilled on the side in white letters.
"Yes, boss?" the creature asked.
"Oooh," Xerian blurted, and lifted the startled feline into the air with surprising ease, as if they were a pet cat. "Are these helper bots?"
"...I'm not sure," Jakob said, looking almost as surprised as the panther. "Also, please don't startle the panthers, they can be dangerous if they think they're being attacked."
"Oh, sorry," Xerian said. "Yes, we have helper drones, but they're usually spherical. They have a gravity planer so they can float around, and a brain, but it's less complex than a Synth brain. They can't speak and they're not really sentient, as far as we know. But we still treat them as if they were, just in case. They have little retractable arms so they can carry groceries and such for you. Sometimes we call them 'perv balls' because they have this weird tendency to stare at the more attractive girls. Or guys.
"When I was a kid there was this playground rumour that, if you were a bad Synth, you'd be turned into one," he said, absently stroking the panther's armoured head.
"Like, if you k-killed someone, they'd take out your brain and put it a perv ball chassis for the next 25 years. At least, I think that's just a rumour..."
Jakob's mouth had opened slightly much like Xerian's had earlier.
"I, uh..." he started, train of thought clearly derailed by Xerian's excited outburst. "No, we don't really have anything like that here. The panthers are guard robots. By default the sex drive is turned right down since we want them to concentrate while they're on duty, and they can't really satisfy such urges anyway. So if they do start ogling you, I want to know about it, okay?"
"So, uh, will you be needing me?" the panther queried, looking embarrassed at the turn of the conversation. "Or was this just to show us off to the visitor? And can they put me down now?"
"Right, yes," Jakob said. "His bedroom is two doors down and I would like you to guard it. Make sure no-one disturbs him."
"But he is allowed out, yeah?"
"Yes. Otherwise we'd just lock the door. If Xerian does feel the need to wander around at night, you are to accompany and protect him. He deserves some peace of mind after all he's been through."
Shortly afterwards, Xerian was curled up in his bed once again, hoping against hope that he would wake up in his own home, or at least a hotel somewhere in known space.
Chapter 7: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/37968355/
Chapter 1: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/36864702/
Xerian stared in terror as the translucent figure stepped through the wall and hovered in front of him, feet not quite making contact with the ground. They resembled a polecat with glasses and scruffy hair. Although shirtless, the creature wore shiny arm-length gloves and leggings, much like the ones Niall had given him. Like Niall, he had wings on his head and back, but unlike most of those Xerian had encountered so far, they were leathery and dragon-like. He was about four feet tall.
"Fear not," the figure exclaimed grandly in a theatrical voice. "I am the great god, Bob! I have chosen you for great things!" He made an expansive gesture and closed his eyes. "Know that it was I who brought you unto this place, that you may perform a service to Me. Serve Me well, and great boons shall be thine..." the spectral figure broke off, suddenly realising that he had no audience. Xerian had gone.
Bob closed his eyes. He didn't really need to, since the glowing figure was essentially a manifestation of His will, but from long practice over tens of millennia, He had found that visual cues like that went down well among His followers, and it had become a habit.
There... two rooms down. Bob floated through the wall before realising that that was probably one of the things that had spooked the Chosen One. He made sure to enter the room normally and found that the Synth was curled up in a corner of the room, sobbing uncontrollably.
Ah shit, Bob thought, and went to find Jakob.
* * *Xerian sat there in a foetal position, clutching his tail in both hands, wings wrapped in front of him as if to shield him from the world. Niall and Jakob were crouching beside him with a look of deep concern. Bob remained tactfully hidden.
"What's the matter...?" the wolf asked gently. "Are you hurt? Can we help you...?"
"D-doesn't matter... Nothing does... It's all a dream... nothing is real... I... I'm probably dying..." the Synth wept.
Jakob blinked in confusion and his head-wings fanned out asymmetrically as if he was cocking his head. "Uh, run that past me again?" he said. "I've got my emotion filters maxed out here, and I don't think me looking through your mind will help right now."
"The... this stranger came through the wall... Can't be real," Xerian sobbed. "...said it was a god. But it can't be! This is all a dream, or I'm hallucinating! I've gone mad! In reality, I'm lying in a coma somewhere, or dying after a vehicle accident, or wandering the streets out of my mind with a malware infection and a pair of underpants on my head! Even in the dream I'm dressed like a pervert in these shiny pants - who knows what they are in the real world!"
"Oh no," Jakob said, patting the stricken Synth on the head. "No, no, no. You are really here. This is the real world."
"Of course you'd say that," Xerian sobbed. "You're part of the dream! Supposedly I'm in a magic land full of shapeshifting, thousand-year-old telepathic sex demons with rubber fixations, and giant 50-foot tall overlords who can be in several places at once, and, and... tiny gods that just walk through walls... Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds?! What my therapist would say if I described this to them?! They'd put me away as a lunatic! It's like some bad fantasy story from a pulp magazine! It can't be real! It's got to be a dream or an hallucination, that's the only rational explanation!"
"Heh, when you put it like that," Jakob grinned. "Listen. You've been thrust unceremoniously into a backwater world that has a bunch of weird social problems, a weird dress sense and an entire ecology founded on principles which don't even exist in your homeland.
"A culture-shock like that is enough to drive anyone crazy! I don't blame you for having a panic attack at the sight of Bob, and you're not the first person he's freaked out by a long shot. But I assure you, you're here with us, you're fully conscious and safe and you're not going to die if I have any say in the matter.
"Given how far out of your element you are, how much trauma you've been through, you've been coping really well, Xerian, and we're proud of you. Please, don't give up on us now..."
"I've never been great at dealing with people," Bob said quietly. "Even before my apotheosis. Although spending twenty thousand years as an incorporeal entity probably hasn't helped either. It might be why I'm stuck with this weird cult rather than a decent worldwide religion.
"Look, I'm sorry I startled you, Xerian. Most people are impressed if I give them a big show like that. But if it helps, you can think of me as an extraordinarily powerful hyper-dimensional being rather than a literal deity. To be honest, even I don't really know what I am. What you're seeing is effectively a hologram projected by sheer force of will."
"Is it true?" Xerian asked, anxiously poking his head out from over his wing. "Did you cause the rift that brought me here?"
"Uh, yes," Bob said, looking awkward. "I didn't think it would kill you!"
Xerian laughed bitterly. "I guess you can't be a god after all, then!"
"I'm trying my hardest," Bob said. "Look. What I need is a spaceship with transstellar jump capability, and someone to fly it to and from the destination I give. You happened to be handy, so I figured I'd reroute you here. I calculated the probabilities of success... and maybe got things a bit wrong. But you're here now, and you're alive. And more importantly, I can send you back to your own universe. If you want."
"And will I still be alive when I get home?" Xerian asked, animated eyes narrowing.
"Promise. I mean, I'd prefer it if you did that favour for me first. And it would help make sure your ship still works. But given the trouble I've caused for you, I guess we could call it quits if you really want. But then I'd have to find someone else to do it."
"I need time to think about this," Xerian said, making a convincing sigh.
"Can't ask fairer than that," Bob said, and faded away.
"What you were saying earlier," Niall asked. "About insanity and being put away. Does that... well, do Synths go off the rails much?"
"We're intelligent, sentient creatures. We're pretty self-stabilising but sometimes things can go wrong. If you get hit by a car, you're going to have panic attacks when you cross the street, same as an organic.
"But you want to know if we're likely to turn violent, I guess?" he grinned sadly.
"There was this famous case," Xerian continued. "One of us started suffering paranoid delusions and believed she had to fight back against the organic oppressors before they killed us all. So she set out to... to crush the heads of as many as she could."
"What happened?" Niall asked, looking extremely concerned.
"Oh, they apprehended her in the fruit and vegetable aisle of a supermarket, surrounded by a pile of broken gourds. Someone had infected her with some malware and she hallucinated it all. After they had erased it she recovered perfectly, apart from the embarrassment, of course. The perpetrator of the malware was incarcerated for 15 of our homeworld's years. Probably about 14.75 of your years, if my calculations are correct."
"Ah, so your fears of being found with underpants on your head and a rubber miniskirt around your waist aren't entirely baseless," Jakob said.
"Such things have happened, yes. Not to me, though..." he added quickly.
"If you want it to happen, I'm sure I've got one somewhere!" Daryil chimed in, and was quickly shooed away.
"When you're suitably recovered, we should probably get you back to your own room," Niall suggested. "We can get a panther to watch your door and deter intruders. It won't help against the likes of Bob, but if it helps you feel safer, we can do that."
"You mentioned the panthers before," Xerian said. "You said my new brain was based on theirs?"
"It's a long story," Jakob said, "And I know you were designed to sleep at night while you recharge. Sleeping is optional with the panthers, but we enabled it for you anyway to try and recreate your original physiology as closely as we could."
"That's true," Xerian said, with a sigh. "Maybe I'm acting a bit weird because I'm tired..."
Jakob closed his eyes and concentrated. A minute later the door opened and a glossy black jaguar, obviously robotic, padded into the room. The serial number L-TRK was stencilled on the side in white letters.
"Yes, boss?" the creature asked.
"Oooh," Xerian blurted, and lifted the startled feline into the air with surprising ease, as if they were a pet cat. "Are these helper bots?"
"...I'm not sure," Jakob said, looking almost as surprised as the panther. "Also, please don't startle the panthers, they can be dangerous if they think they're being attacked."
"Oh, sorry," Xerian said. "Yes, we have helper drones, but they're usually spherical. They have a gravity planer so they can float around, and a brain, but it's less complex than a Synth brain. They can't speak and they're not really sentient, as far as we know. But we still treat them as if they were, just in case. They have little retractable arms so they can carry groceries and such for you. Sometimes we call them 'perv balls' because they have this weird tendency to stare at the more attractive girls. Or guys.
"When I was a kid there was this playground rumour that, if you were a bad Synth, you'd be turned into one," he said, absently stroking the panther's armoured head.
"Like, if you k-killed someone, they'd take out your brain and put it a perv ball chassis for the next 25 years. At least, I think that's just a rumour..."
Jakob's mouth had opened slightly much like Xerian's had earlier.
"I, uh..." he started, train of thought clearly derailed by Xerian's excited outburst. "No, we don't really have anything like that here. The panthers are guard robots. By default the sex drive is turned right down since we want them to concentrate while they're on duty, and they can't really satisfy such urges anyway. So if they do start ogling you, I want to know about it, okay?"
"So, uh, will you be needing me?" the panther queried, looking embarrassed at the turn of the conversation. "Or was this just to show us off to the visitor? And can they put me down now?"
"Right, yes," Jakob said. "His bedroom is two doors down and I would like you to guard it. Make sure no-one disturbs him."
"But he is allowed out, yeah?"
"Yes. Otherwise we'd just lock the door. If Xerian does feel the need to wander around at night, you are to accompany and protect him. He deserves some peace of mind after all he's been through."
Shortly afterwards, Xerian was curled up in his bed once again, hoping against hope that he would wake up in his own home, or at least a hotel somewhere in known space.
Chapter 7: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/37968355/
Chapter 1: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/36864702/
Category Story / All
Species Alien (Other)
Size 120 x 120px
File Size 43.5 kB
Comments