Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ethan was beyond irritated. Sorry, wait, Abel was beyond irritated. This hadn’t been the plan, this was not what he’d wanted. When he ran off to join the military the idea was to make proper use of his arguably sizeable intellect, have an amazing adventure, and maybe get a boyfriend. The Galaxy Guard was not the freaking plan. It was for criminals, for the washouts and the unwanted. If they thought-

He stopped himself before he went on a long, internal monologue. It was his father’s voice, the voice he was trying desperately to escape. He downed a regulated breath, the inside of his helmet fogging up against the heat of his body, then opened his eyes.

The transport vehicle, called a Detach, was tiny. Normal GG squads had six roles to fill. The one he was a part of now was only four, and they were suctioned together like sardines. If Etha- Fuck, sorry . If Abel even so much as moved an arm, he was sure to get scolded by everyone but Deimos- who would only stay quiet because he didn’t care enough to get vocal.

Abel had been around the squad for a total of one Earthen week, consisting of 24 hour days. It was hardly enough time to get their personalities manageable, let alone trust them to watch his back during a mission. Nevertheless, HQ thought it just to send their team, Team Rowes, to a level 1 planet.

Essentially, HQ decided to murder the lot of them, and Abel was still unclear as to why he was here. It had been perfect grades and an easy civilian life up to now. There wasn’t a single blemish on his background check, save for an accidental subscription to a barely questionable website that was quickly cancelled. He didn’t fit in with the other three at all. Not with temperament, not with priorities, not even with food preference.

The medic, Deimos, was tiny and quiet. Most certainly Martian, he wasn’t as vocal against Earthen ruling as his companion and bestfriend, Cain. Deimos was often in the shadows of conversations, reading the scrolling updates broadcasted to the palm of his suit. Given a choice between immortal life, or five seconds spent with Cain, he was sure to cling to the taller Martian’s side until he keeled over. Able wasn’t sure what kept them so close and, in all honesty, he was afraid to ask.

Cain, the enforcer, easily the tallest and loudest of the team, spent his free time either punching the training dummy on their decaying rig, or arguing incessantly with their captain on topics ranging from Abortions are bullshit to I think cake is a good dessert. He was handsome, strong, and his voice could probably melt all of the ice Abel had ever seen. What took away from that Perfect Boyfriend image was the fact that Cain was completely aware of all of it. Far past confidence, he oozed narcissism.

Of all of them, though, the captain was the one that bewildered Abel more than anything. Captain Phobos, a child, barely one year older than Abel, and in charge of a military unit. A unit for criminals and idiots, mind you, but still a unit. He was Earthen, with his pale skin and silver-blue hair. The personified version of a cold dagger was all Abel could think when he saw him, like Phobos’ eyes could kill with a single blink. Pompous, nearly to Cain’s level in confidence, the two of them argued and argued and argued and-

It felt like a broken record. Surely, this was hell. There was no other explanation. Abel’s mother had been right, when she broke down into tears that fateful day, god was going to punish him for his tastes. Or, rather, he was in the process of being punished now.

After being delegated to the Galaxy Guard, Abel was sent hurtling towards the farthest system they had an outpost on. For him, the travel took seconds. In actuality, it was about half a year he spent in a tiny metal tube. There was no returning to Earth, there was no going anywhere else. This was his life now, unprofessional behavior and all.

“For the love of fukin god,” Cain hissed between his teeth, glaring across the way to Phobos as their knees knocked together, “You kick me one more time and I’ll-”

“You’ll what? ” Phobos asked flatly, “ Stand up? ”

That would have been impossible, they were locked into position as the Detach thunked around the atmosphere of the planet Weaver. Its GPS had gone haywire and, while Abel was actively trying to fix it, there was no helping the ancient machine. The Galaxy Guard was the most unfunded government program in existence, and this post the most forgotten. It made for a perfect, horrible, storm.

“I swear to god, Phoebe...” Cain muttered lowly.

“You keep calling me that like it bothers me,” Phobos smirked across the Detach, his evil face illuminated by the red of the captain’s LEDs, “What? Still having issues over my promotion?”

“ Literally suck my dick. ” Cain spat, taking it upon himself to do just what he’d warned Phobos against. He kicked his captain’s shin. Phobos was unaffected as a holographic shield absorbed the shock, still smirking to himself.

“Don’t waste the shield power.” Deimos said absentmindedly from beside Phobos, the reflection of his palm screen reflected in the glass over his face. He looked up, round face dyed a forest green by his lights. “Our charging port is very weak.”

“Well, not my fault.” Cain grumbled. He moved his arms like he wanted to cross them, but was refrained from doing so by the Detach’s systems. “Ugh, can’t we just land this thing anywhere?”

“No...” Abel trailed with a shake of his head, “That’s... not really how a Detach works...”

“Well, you’re the computer guy.” Cain turned as best he could, glaring down to Abel, “How about you write some strings, or code a function, or whatever and make it land?”

“Don’t talk about things you don’t know, Cain.” Phobos groaned with a roll of his eyes, “That’s not how programming works. You can’t write some strings and expect anything but text to change.”

“I’m not looking for a fucking lesson, captain . I just want to get out and shoot shit.”

“What shit are we going to shoot? This planet’s been abandoned for almost fifty years.”

Deimos lowered his hand, looking between all of them, “I caught heartbeats on my monitors while we were in orbit.”

Phobos groaned nice and loud again, his eyes looking up at his forehead, “ Through the fucking atmosphere. ” He thunked his helmet back against the Detach’s hull, “ Nothing is trustworthy if it’s through an atmosphere. ”

“Can you all just... Uh... Please stay quiet while I try to override this?” Abel knew he came off a little on the weaker side. It was in his nature to compliment other people’s personalities, to foil them. Unfortunately that meant being the more submissive end of the spectrum against all these raging alpha psyches. He’d had a few talks with himself in the mirror of his bathroom about stepping up to them, but they never left the room in any form other than hope.

“Since you said please , baby.” Cain conceded with a barely visible shrug.

It wasn’t the pet name that bothered Abel, it was that Cain thought he was so cool. He didn’t stop the irritated glance over to the smug Martian, but quickly went back to his holoboard. With the quiet of the Detach, he was finally able to locate the command line that was rerunning a stupid safety clause. He tapped it a few times, switched two words, and the rattling of the hull finally stopped.

They could feel the ship descend at a slow, steady pace. It let up, and there came four simultaneous hisses from uniform places outside as the docking gear was unsheathed. Abel expected there to be a clunky, shaky landing. Instead, thankfully, the Detach wasn’t so abused that it couldn’t come to a gentle rest on Weaver’s surface.

After a moment of settling, in which the light inside the Detach turned green, Phobos gave a now-unlocked button at his side a swift elbow. The floor began to unmake itself, metal tendrils snaking away from one another to reveal the surface of the planet maybe twenty feet below them.

“Alright, keep your helmets on and your guns set to stun- we are looking for a pair of Starfighters.” Phobos advised, “Of course, they’d be nearly seventy years old by now, but, HQ’s beyond retarded.”

That’s insensitive.

“We’ll agree on that one, Phoebe.” Cain gave a stern nod up, and then his rig was released from the Detach’s bounds. He fell down the twenty feet, landed with a huff , then looked up as his gun materialized in his arms. “Well? I’m waiting.”

“Shut up.” Phobos sighed, and Abel whispered the words simultaneously under his breath. The three that were remaining on the Detach followed suit, landing one after another onto the surface of Weaver. Abel raised his hands so his holoweapon could materialize easier, then turned to the team as he felt the weight of his shotgun come into being.

Phobos looked around, a small pistol in his hand, then gave a dry laugh. “The hell is this..?”

It was dark on the planet. Of the few that revolved around the sun Arachne, Weaver was the second farthest. Light fell weakly on the wide, prehistoric palms that plagued the bottom of the hill around them. The stems seemed luminsicent, though not as bright as their suit LEDs. They stood on a raised rock, plenty wide enough to be the foundation for the Detach on stilts. They could see far from this vantage point and, not half a mile down the hill, was an old metal fence that stretched out in either direction before being swallowed by overgrown flora.

“Fence.” Deimos put simply.

“No shit,” Cain added with an elbow to his friend, “Phoebe means Why’s there a fence? ”

“The file did say that this used to be an old tourism system, maybe it’s...” Abel trailed off when he saw all three of them looking at him. He frowned, cocking his head, “...What?”

“File?” Phobos asked.

“Yeah, the file in the archives HQ sent us...”

“Wait, they actually sent us something useful?” Cain seemed surprised, then gave an amused laugh, “Holy fuck, and we didn’t read it!”

“You didn’t read the file?” Abel asked in awe, staring at his captain.

“ Shut up. ” Phobos scoffed, then turned to put his back to his team. “Well, then, Abel. What did the file say?”

“Uh,” Abel took a moment to think more specifically, on account of his team being completely unprepared. They wouldn’t be able to correct him if he got it wrong. For god’s sake, he’d only been in the GG for a week. “Well, it said this was an old tourism system.”

“Yeah, we got that, Blondie.”

“The Arachne system was known for its diverse animal population. The man who owned the majority of the planets was a big evolutionist too. I think I read something about a zoo?”

“A zoo?” Phobos raised his eyebrows, glancing back to the fences, “Like keeping animals captive?”

“Yeah, a big collection from all over the galaxy.” Abel nodded to his captain, “The file didn’t say why the place had been abandoned.”

“Probably money, like everything else.” Phobos looked back to the fence, then shrugged to himself. “Well, I guess that’s what he gets for building a tourist attraction at the edge of known space.”

“We’re going to check it out?” Cain asked, cocking his head as he clicked the safety on his rifle.

“I didn’t read the file on Weaver, but I did for the Starfighter team. They crash landed here, I’m sure they would have wandered away from their ship after they realized help wasn’t coming. Even if it was fifty years ago.” Phobos hopped down off the main rock and to another much lower. He turned, his head at their knee level. “Come on, the sooner we find this the sooner we can get back to the Hub.”

Chapter Text

Deimos was happy with his life. Far from those that used to dish out bodily harm upon him for no reason, and under the arm of a man who understood a strong no in more than one situation, he felt life was finally treating him right. He’d always been smart and, regardless of anyone’s impressions of him, he did have a caring heart. That heart was just selective, of course.

Unlike the rest of his team, he was short enough to skate under the spread palms that coated the ground of Weaver. That meant, unfortunately, that he couldn’t lead them in any helpful direction. All he could see was the black soil beneath them, and the white splatters of what looked to be spider webs scattered in random.

His suit, which he had personally modified past the bullshit one HQ issued, listed all of his team’s vitals across his screen. Should his eyes focus on something past his helmet, it fell severely translucent. Currently, everyone but Phobos was calm. This was normal, though he’d been expressly forbidden from voicing it aloud.

“Can these trees take a break?” Cain grumbled, finally drawing his short sword and hacking at the limbs. As with all of the man’s tech, it glowed teal blue. “I’m just trying to walk, and they’re existing and shit.”

“Will you ever say something substantial?” Phobos complained from the head of the group. He was sure to bring the branches he walked through back enough that they whipped Cain’s helmet as hard as possible- not giving him a chance to cut them down.

Deimos started up his heartbeat scanner again, ignoring anything within GG rigs. Even if the ancient Starfighters were alive, their suits wouldn’t be advanced enough to register as human military. His diagnostics came back, giving him survivability percents in case of suit failure.

“The air is mostly nitrogen,” He informed the group. “Built in advising recommends keeping helmets on but, if you need to remove it, you won’t immediately die.”

“Hopefully that’s a good thing.” Cain said blandly.

“Are you scared?” Phobos asked, the heart rate on Deimos’s screen spiking up a few points under his captain’s name. Before another pointless argument could arise, they reached the metal gate. Phobos held a hand up, and the squad paused as Cain went to town murdering the purple plants.

“Can you read any power sources, Abel?” Phobos asked.

“Oh, I was... supposed to be running those tests?” The new guy was smart, Deimos was under the impression he was smarter than Phobos. Whatever IQ he had didn’t matter, though. Not when he was expected to be perfect after a week of learning absolutely nothing about this job.

“ Yes, Abel. ” Phobos groaned.

“Give me a moment, then.” Abel sounded exasperated, calling up his holoboard from his belt to run a proximity scan for electronics. While that was going, the team fell into silence. While the team was silent, there came a bird like caw , and the rustle of feathers overhead. Deimos craned his neck back as a collection of tall, winged animals crossed over the fence at least a hundred feet in the sky.

They almost resembled the trees, with the way their feathers were arranged. Long legs ending in talons, glowing white eyes. Deimos thought they looked cool, and Cain’s heart rate increased.

“That’s strange...” Abel trailed, eyes flitting this way and that on his screen.

“Strange? That’s never good.” Cain peered over the man’s shoulder like he could make out the meaning behind a single word, “What’s that mean?”

“There’s still power to the park.”

“So, it is a zoo?” Phobos asked.

“Yeah, and it has power.” Abel looked up, shrugging weakly, “Not nuclear, I’m not sure what else might last this long and leave this kind of effect.”

“Is there a barrier?” Phobos turned to face the fence again, “Can we breach without being blown to bits?”

“No barrier, but I wouldn’t know where we are in the park once we breach.”

“Oh, that shouldn’t be an issue!” Cain raised a fist triumphantly, “We can just pick up a park map! We’re tourists now, you guys!”

“Please shut up.” Phobos tossed his pistol away as it disintegrated, and called out his cutter. Formed from holograms, like everything else a GG team used, a handheld spinning blade drew itself into existence. Once it was settled, after ten seconds, Phobos began to cut the metal before them with an echoing whir .

More birds took to the skies, their caws drowning out the cutter, all headed into the park. Deimos could have watched them forever. He’d planned on spending the time waiting doing just that but, he realized something was very wrong.

I didn’t see them on my heartbeat scanner...

He looked down into his hand, the moldable screen welded to the palm of his suit flickering to life. He watched a radar circle blink out from his position and, despite a horde of birds right above his head, nothing was picked up.

“My scanner-”

“Done!” Phobos ripped a chunk of the fence away with a cacophonous screech, then tossed it aside to crash against the short palms. What lay ahead was tall grass, taller than even Cain, purple as the leaves currently surrounding them.

“Did you say something, Deimos?” Abel asked, frowning down to him, his holoboard half raised. “I thought I heard you.”

“My scanner seems to be malfunctioning. The heartbeat one. It didn’t register the birds.” Deimos nodded to Abel, looking up to the yellow LED helmet, “We might need to look over the hardware at our next stopping point.”

Abel nodded back to him, letting his holoboard collapse onto his belt and returning his shotgun to his arms. “Alright, no problem.”

“Let me go first, since I’m the only one using my sword.” Cain cut in front of Phobos, climbing through the hole in the fence. “C’mon pussies, follow your fearless leader.”

“You’re not even second in command, Cain.” Phobos reminded him with a heavy sigh. He was next through, and Abel paused to let Deimos move ahead of him. It wasn’t worth questioning, so he followed his captain and was backed up by the newbie.

Most of the journey was quiet from then on. Cain hacked away at the thin grass as they cut a path straight forward. Finally out of the trees, Deimos could glance back and see the docked Detach ship. It sat stoic on top of the rock formation, elliptical in shape, a single blinking light on top that flashed their assigned colors in order.

Red

Green

Teal

Yellow

Deimos was glad to have been given green as his colortag, soft on the eyes, and very different from the glaring red he had been used to back on Mars. Calming. He looked forward now, after Abel gave him a questioning cock of the head, and found that they’d reached a half fence.

Cain hopped over it and onto a blue bricked walkway. His sword was replaced by his rifle once more, then he gave the area a quick glance. “I guess we were in an exhibit.” He explained as the rest of the team joined him on the sidewalk. “A grassy one.”

“It would seem so.” Phobos looked around as well, both hands on his pistol. “What an odd little place.”

Deimos had never been to a zoo. He hardly got the concept behind it either, trapping animals in cages for... viewing pleasure? Earth always confused him, Earthen humans especially, with their need to dominate and own. From what he’d heard, Lunars were the same way. Still, Deimos had seen an amusement park once or twice before, and this was remarkably similar.

There was a plastic figurine of some oddly shaped animal not too far from where they stood. It had stripes, polka dots, and seven arms. He’d never seen the animal before, and he wouldn’t speculate what it was until he needed to. Ankle-high fencing sanctioned off the sidewalk from the landscaping. Whatever had been used to fill empty space was dead, only the black soil with white splatters remained.

“The colors are tripping me out.” Cain said almost absentmindedly, “Purple grass, purple birds, and what’s the white stuff on the ground?”

“Spider webs.” Both Deimos and Abel answered. They looked at each other, and Abel nodded, “I noticed too. Weaver’s known for spiders, they live underground and in caves.” The boy looked up to Cain, “So poisonous that touching one might kill you.”

“Oh, that’s fun.”

“I think we really do need to find a map.” Phobos conceded to himself, like he’d been debating something quietly. “Try and notice one of those sign map things.”

Deimos took the moment to conjure his own weapon, following Cain as he walked down to the right of where they exited the grass. An old fashioned crossbow fell into his grasp comfortably.

“Everytime, with the stupid bow.” Cain sighed softly, glancing over his shoulder to see Abel and Phobos searching the opposite direction. “You can’t just use a gun like a normal human being?”

“No.” Deimos answered simply, watching a bolt load itself into the bow. He lowered the weapon to look up to his friend. He stared for a long moment as they walked, glowing shoes harsh against the brick beneath them.

“What?” Cain asked flatly, pulling them to a stop as they exceeded the proximity from Phobos and Abel, “Got something to say?”

“No.” Deimos repeated.

“Then, what’s with the staring?” Cain turned his head, the circles over his ears on either side of his helmet glowing rainbow, “ We’ve got nothing here. ” He said over group comms.

“ Same. ” Phobos answered back, “ Just turn around. ”

“I’m not staring.” Deimos advised Cain in real time, “Just looking.”

“You always stare at me, Kiska. ”

“No, I don’t.”

“It’s because I’m so cute, isn’t it?”

“No.”

All four of them met back up in their original spot. Abel looked pleased to be reunited. Or, more likely, pleased to not be alone with Phobos. “I guess we just pick a direction.” The programmer said, looking down to the yellow lights on his shoes, “You guys didn’t see anything? ”

“Hold up, blondie, I give the orders- where have you been?” Phobos pointed a finger to Cain and Deimos, “But, yeah, did you see anything? ”

“Nah, just some grass.” Cain shrugged, “Nothing for you either?”

“No, we-”

There came a low growl that was more of a vibration than a sound. Deimos felt the reverberation in his lungs, and even in the ground. He dipped his eyes down to read the scanner in his palm but, still nothing. A quiet thirty second span fell upon them and, the moment Cain went to speak, the growl returned much closer.

It was down the sidewalk, from the place Cain and Deimos had just checked for a full ten seconds. Heavy, on more than two legs, the creature made padded noises against the brick, accented with the scrape of thin claws. Deimos hadn’t thought it was too dark until that moment, when he was searching frantically for the source of this terrifying noise.

Cain was the closest to it, rifle arms tense, heart hammering into the highest digits Deimos had seen from him. Phobos moved an arm like he wanted to step closer but was stopped when the creature was finally revealed.

Its body was that of a large dog, heavier than Cain, skin scale-like and shimmering. It had a long snout, ragged teeth jutting out from both the top and bottom lips. Hair grew from its spine, long enough to brush the ground, a stunning pearl color that seemed to shine different colors as it moved. The beast itself was ugly in form, but beautiful in color.

It gave another growl, stopping and sinking low to the ground. A single antenna sprouted from the base of its neck with a bulb, like a closed flower. The claws on the blue brick thickened, shimmering like its scales.

“...The fuck is that..?” Cain breathed, the circles over his ears dancing rainbow again as they cut real time communication entirely.

“No idea...” Phobos answered back.

“It’s... an animal...” Abel contributed pointlessly, the shotgun in his hands vibrating as he shook. “It’s...”

The creature took a single step forward, and Cain raised his rifle without hesitation, letting fly with the trigger. Teal colored jets of light sprayed out in quick succession, mocking bullets, digging into the beast’s skin and sending splatters of green blood into the air. Phobos shot forward, pulling Abel back so hard that he toppled over onto the ground, his shotgun bounced far enough away to disintegrate.

Phobos could only join Cain in time for two shots before the animal had reached them. Its skin moved like it didn’t have a fixed point on its body, giving the pair new and fresh places to shoot. Cain shoved Phobos to the side but, before he could turn and pull Deimos away, he was pushed by a powerful shoulder from the beast. It must have had great strength, because Cain was thrown back against the fence, and flipped over it to land in the grass. Then it was on Deimos.

He didn’t have time to do much. It was true, he wasn’t the most apt of fighters. Most of his warrior’s blood came into play with humans, not powderkeg animals. He was tackled and, lucky for him, the creature put both of its hefty paws on his upper arms, where the holoarmor was strongest. The light flickered as he was face to face with with beast, his suit diverting power to those crucial places.

The mouth above him opened and, before Cain could even try to return in a blaze of glory, Deimos’s helmet was wrapped up in a green colored tongue and gums. He was wrenched upwards with such a strength that, if he weren’t in a functional Galaxy Guard suit, would have detached his head from his shoulders. He beat his empty hands against the scales, but found it hard to move, let alone cause damage.

Battered, he couldn’t make sense of the world. He heard his team screaming into his ears, a few shots from their assorted weapons, and then a noise that terrified him beyond comprehension.

Crack.

The screen before him, the one that displayed everyone’s vitals, split straight down the middle. It took a second to fizzle, to lag and shake, before it all died. His green backlight fell dark, and he knew that the beast was crushing his helmet to death.

The armor had neglected his legs, focusing solely on the area encased in the beast’s hold. He felt the brick against his knees, bruising them, scraping the paper-thin metal, threatening to split it. Deimos’s each and every breath was labored, fighting not to be his last. He shook his body, tried to dig the fingers of his suit into the scales, and then another crack split across the front of his helmet.

I’m going to die.

Whatever was beneath him was now softer, like he was being dragged far away from his screaming team, off to a nest to be devoured. Something happened, the creature slipped and its jaw loosen just enough to where Deimos’s chest and neck were completely free. His reaction time was nothing less of robotically accurate. The moment he released himself from the helmet it was crushed into shards of computer chips and sputtering LED lights.

Deimos was on his front, panting, the sweet air of Weaver stabbing him in the tongue and eyes. He couldn’t hear Cain, Phobos or Abel any longer. He wasn’t sure how far he’d been dragged. It’d seemed like seconds, but he’d been inside of a monster’s mouth. If it had been dark before, it was nothing compared to this helmet-less experience.

He scrambled to his hands and knees, praying to god his suit could conjure a proper weapon, but froze when he saw the beast staying completely still. Blood was leaking from its mouth, green and thick, damage done by the crushed helmet. The bulb-like antenna anchored to its neck swayed almost hypnotically, and then started to open petal after petal, a beautiful golden beacon against the gluttonous night.

Deimos was enamored, eyes wide, his skin burning as it tried desperately to adapt to the new air around him. He knew he shouldn’t be stopping, that this must be part of the trick but, why now...? Once the flower was completely open, the creature still as stone, glowing flecks of golden light started to float from it like pollen. They danced on the air, slow and ethereal, swirling down to surround Deimos’s bare head like a collection of fireflies.

Beautiful...

He heard warboled words, like he was underwater. They came again, once more, and then a barrage of bullets from an assortment of guns. Deimos wasn’t fully aware of himself until the creature toppled over, and the flower antenna’s light dwindled off. Cain was in front of him suddenly, face dyed teal from his LEDs, shaking Deimos by the shoulders.

“Holy fuck, are you okay!?” He seemed to realize Deimos was back from whatever trance he’d been in and leaned forward, eyes a fraction calmer. “Deimos...?”

“I...” He raised a gloved hand to his mouth, not used to the sound without his helmet filter. “Cain, I-I...”

“What’s up with your hair...?” Came another voice from beside him. Deimos turned, watching Abel pluck up a long lock of black hair.

Long...

He frowned, raising his hands and touching either side of his damaged shoulders. His original hair barely reached past his jaw, and now it was easily two inches down his chest. What was weirder still, the glowing pollen that had been floating from the antenna on the dead beast was stuck there, peppering the black, glowing with yellow light.

“I don’t...”

“We should find a place to start making him a new helmet.” Phobos stood from where he’d been knelt, giving Abel a firm nod, “Give him your regulator.”

“I can give him mine,” Cain started, reaching up to smack a hand to his chest and dislodge the reg, “And-”

“No, you on point.” Phobos snapped his fingers for show, the sound muffled by his suit, “Abel and Deimos in the middle, I’ll take the back. We follow the trail we’ve just come off until we get to a building, then you can argue with me.”

Cain did nothing more than get to his feet and angrily check over his rifle. Deimos was pulled up by Abel, and realized he was insanely dizzy. The world shook, and his legs immediately turned to jelly as the programmer kept him from toppling back down. Cain moved to help, but was scolded by Phobos before he could do anything else.

“I’ve got you,” Abel said more to himself than Deimos. He tapped a hand against his chest, and the regulator whirred before it popped free.

“I can’t walk...”

“Just give it a second...” Abel pressed the holographic mask over his mouth and nose. Deimos felt the static shock as it suckered to his skin. After a breath or two, the world seemed easier to stand in. He took a moment to relax, then gave his team a nod to signal he was ready to go.

Chapter Text

Cain had very few things left going for him. He still had his looks, he still had his skills, even if these were both trapped here in the most forgotten portion of space. In fact, anything he ever claimed to have was currently stranded here on this fucking dumb ass Weaver planet, and the one person he felt connected to beyond belief had nearly been snuffed out from under him.

Deimos was currently sitting on the floor of a dusty food court restaurant. The regulator glued over his mouth and nose hummed yellow with each intake of breath. It was almost the exact shade of the glowing substance peppering his hair, which had apparently grown six inches in the span of a minute?

Cain didn’t bother with the how , or even the why . All that mattered was that it had happened, and now they would deal with it. Phobos finished the final button press on the popup printer, and rocked back to stand up. It would take a little under half and hour to print out a new helmet base- and that helmet wouldn’t be as specialized as the one Deimos had personally edited.

“Do you feel alright?” Phobos asked flatly, looking down his nose to the long haired medic, “What’s with... the...”

“I don’t know.” Deimos answered through the filter on his regulator, “The animal had some... antenna of some sort...”

“That... grew ... your hair?” Abel asked in awe.

“It would seem so.”

“But... why?” Phobos questioned, raising a hand and shaking his head, “What would the point behind that be?”

“Who cares? ” Cain drew irritably, “Shouldn’t we be running tests of some shit? Like, is it poisonous? Radioactive? If-” He stopped when Deimos turned his head. His face looked thinner with the black frame of his new hair. The thickness of it was forcing one eye to be almost completely obscured, he kept having to try and pile it behind an ear, but it was too thick to fight. The expression Deimos wore was content, visibly content. It made him hold back the rest of his verbal worry.

“I’m already running tests, idiot .” Phobos rolled his eyes, “It doesn’t come off his hair, so, the process will be slower than normal.” He cast a look to the doors they’d come in, and Cain remembered the burn in his arms as he’d lifted and shoved every possible thing in the room to barricade it shut.

He and Phobos had given their suit batteries to the printer to speed up the helmet production. They were running on their residual power, which meant it was harder to move the skin-tight metal encasing their bodies.

“I can’t believe you got out of that vice. Once the thing got you in its mouth, it moved so fast.” Abel was shaking his head, still in disbelief, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“There’s bound to be more and worse here,” Phobos groaned to himself, smacking his hand over the front of his helmet, “ Should have read the damn file. ”

“Well, I read it, and it still didn’t say anything about that specifically. ” Abel added with a weak shrug.

“Shut up, Abel.” Phobos rolled his eyes, then looked back to Deimos, “Should we, like, get you a shot? You’re our medic. If you die, we all might as well shoot each other.”

“I wouldn’t know what to give myself.” Deimos admitted bluntly, “I wasn’t bitten. I wasn’t scratched. My skeleton is fine. My blood is fine. My brain is operating properly.” The man shook his head, a wave of light humming down the yellow dots in his hair, “Do you have a suggestion?”

“Just stop talking, your voice pains me in large segments.” Phobos drew a deep breath, sitting down and crossing his legs. Cain was quiet for a tested second, bouncing on his feet before finally speaking again.

“Shouldn’t we call HQ and tell them to fuck themselves?” He suggested, “Or yell at them until they give us proper information?”

“The reason I’ve been calling Deimos a bigger idiot than normal is because this atmosphere is nearly as thick as Venus’s .” Phobos shook his head, looking to Cain, “Earth has issues connecting to the base there, and not nearly as far as Weaver.”

“So you’ve gotten us stuck on the surface of a weird zoo planet and without our medic’s proper gear?” Cain settled a sour look on his captain, one hand perched atop his belt, “In all your promoted glory?” Phobos left a second of open air, which Abel took painfully.

“Maybe we should just calm down and wait for Deimos to get his helmet?”

“ Shut up, Abel. ” Phobos and Cain groaned together.

The programmer’s face flushed, tainted yellow from his LEDs, and he whipped his head between the two other men. “ Okay, listen. ” For the first time he seemed firm. Irritated, but with control. “I get that your thing seems to be arguing in times of stress. I get that I’m new, and you don’t want to listen to me. But. Maybe. Instead of doing it that way, where little gets done. We try it this way, and see what happens?”

Cain wasn’t shocked into silence but, it was rather amusing. What a cute little guy, talking so strong and mean. He’d assumed Abel was just a doormat and, while it would still be no chore to run him over, it was possible the programmer might be capable of leaving a few scars. He chuckled for a second, then laughed, then shook his head and glanced Phobos’ way.

“ Wow ,” Cain started, “That was-”

“ Fine. ” Phobos rolled his eyes, crossing his arms. “Everyone shut up until the helmet’s done.”

Now, that was shocking. Cain froze mid chuckle, and he never liked to pause mid chuckle. Those were important, they showed his I don’t give a fuck about anything attitude rather nicely. What blasphemy, how rude.

“Wait, really?” Cain looked down to Abel, who seemed just as surprised, “You’re taking his advice?”

“I said shut up , Cain.” Phobos made a face through his red LEDs as he got to his feet, sticking in tongue out in the Martian’s direction.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Don’t think I won’t mute you.”

“The fuck, Phoebe?”

“Mute him, Abel.”

“Oh, uh,” The blonde called his holoboard out again, glancing Cain’s way like he might get tackled. “Wait a second.”

“If you mute me, so help-” Cain cut himself off when he saw the giant red MUTED blaring across his helmet screen. Taken aback, not used to hearing his voice echo pointlessly against the glass, he swore loudly for a split second.

Before him, Abel said something inaudible, staring right up to Cain. He waited for a response, got none, then grinned in such a smug way Cain hardly recognized him. Phobos was looking at him too, smirking with all the spite in the world. He spoke for a few seconds, and elicited an actual laugh out of the otherwise unaffected Deimos. It was a fully blown, hand-to-the-mouth, eyes-wide laugh that surely ended with an instinctual snort. Deimos turned to put his back to Cain, both hands covering himself to hide as much as possible.

“ ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!? ” Cain yelled against his dead transmitter. “ WHO DO YOU FUCKS THINK YOU ARE!? ”

Abel seemed to try and stifle a laugh as well, watching Cain scream into the void. He turned his pretty head to the side slightly, still holding the holoboard. In the midst of his team being fucking assholes , Cain heard the softest of bangs come from outside his helmet. He frowned, and Abel’s change in expression told him something was amiss.

“ FUCKING UNMUTE ME! ” He yelled as loud as he could, taking an aggressive step towards them. Abel turned a concerned look up to Phobos, who must have been saying something that was cut off. The bang thundered around the area once more, and Cain noticed his barricade against the door jump like it was being beaten on.

He couldn’t hear whatever bullshit orders Phobos was spouting, and he took it upon himself to call the rifle back into his arms. The process faltered though, the hologram glitching and jumping with his unpowered suit. As he stepped forward, between his team and the barricade, he drew the short sword from his belt. Before he could thank standalone power sources, the collection of tables and boxes before the door jumped so violently a few toppled over.

Cain felt Phobos grip his shoulder, and he felt the trembling in the ground as whatever was threatening them prepared to breach the room. He kept waiting for the MUTED warning across his helmet to disappear but, he didn’t have enough time to glance back and make sure Abel was still working on a fix. Sword in hand, his captain gripping his shoulder, standing between his team and danger, Cain went battle mode. It would have been impossible to be prepared for what happened next.

He’d expected a repeat of the creature that had attacked Deimos. Maybe the glowing hair shit was a tracker of some kind and a weirdly skinned animal was about to bound its way in to eat the pretty head from his shoulders. Instead, before Cain could even think, a wall of light cut through the door, the blockade, and traveled so fast no one was sure what they’d seen. It split the group in half, Abel and Cain to the right, Phobos and Deimos to the left.

He didn’t move until he saw the spray of dark liquid across his helmet, until the weight of Phobos’s hand fell with a thunk to his feet. Whipping around, barely aware of the cutting light from before, he witnessed his captain fall back into Deimos’s lap, holding his right elbow, spewing blood blacker than any Cain had ever seen. His arm ended in a nub, and the holoarmor was now activated, pulsing around the spot where his wrist and hand would have been. Too late. It responded too late.

Deimos had his arms around Phobos. The regulator, unpowered from being sliced in half, fell from his face as he turned a wide eyed look up to Cain. He was sure he screamed something into his helmet. Probably RUN! but, it didn’t much matter. Another wave of light came, this time illuminating and shocking the entire room. Cain wondered if he’d been sliced in half, if he were dead. He could still feel the weight of his suit around him, gravity pulling down on his body, but nothing could be seen.

He was pushed to the side, thunking to the ground, and then rolled over. Something heavy fell on him, inorganic, a flat surface starting to crush him. Another thing crashed down on top of that, like he was under a collapsing building. A tug to his arm, a shove to whatever was panini-pressing him, another, and then he was free and running on his own accord.

Vision returned slowly, his arm being held by his savior, leading him in some unknown direction. The person pulling him along was Abel, glowing yellow and chasing after something made of pure black. It looked humanoid, the armor shiny and glinting with every flash of light that came from behind them.

Back outside, racing into a tall forest of dark pink trees, Cain was finally awake enough to think properly. Phobos and Deimos were not with them, not behind them, not in front of them. That was enough to get him to hit the brakes, despite his brain throwing up frantics warnings to keep sprinting away from the flashy war zone at the building behind them.

Abel was forced to stop, and soon the shadowy person did as well. The blonde whipped around, yelling something, then his expression changed to almost fear. Cain didn’t know why. Abel took a split second to breathe, then ripped his helmet off. The veins in his eyes popped, surrounding the black pupils in red blood, and his lips darkened.

“ Just come on! ” He yelled, his voice warboled against the helmet Cain still wore. “ We need to move! ”

The person in the black armor, who no longer looked like a shadow, came up behind Abel. His head guard didn’t have a glass cover, face free to be assaulted by the elements. Human, probably forty-five years old, his eyes a cutting yellow. He spoke in a Martian accent, practically snarling. “ Trust me! ” He yelled, clinging to Abel’s arm, “ The others are safe! ”

Abel put his helmet back on, keeping his hand on his enforcer’s wrist. Despite Deimos’s wide eyed stare dancing across his eyes, Cain let himself be dragged into the forest and away from the flashing building they’d previously taken shelter in. On and on they went, hopping over exposed tree roots, carefully maneuvering across rivers of acid. They got to a part of the woods so dense that they were forced to travel in a single line, curling around the thick trunks to proceed.

Eventually they came to a stop in a small clearing. It looked dusty, abandoned, but the man in the black armor thunked down onto a pile of assorted blankets with a tired groan. The ground was exposed dirt, free from white spider lines, occasionally disrupted by the bump of a tree root or two. Cain breathed heavily against his helmet, glared between the seated stranger and Abel, then ripped it off in an angry fit. The air tasted sweet, his skin crawling against the unfamiliar molecular makeup, eyes and lips burning softly.

“ What the fuck!? ” He roused, lips curled in irritation, “What was that!? Where’s the other two!?”

“Keep your voice down!” The man pushed, sitting up in his blanket throne, “Holy shit, man, we’re trying to be safe ...”

The seal broke on Abel’s suit and he too lowered his helmet. He gave Cain a long, calming look, “I have a few questions too... Let’s just be quiet...”

Fuck, Cain wanted to yell some more. He wanted to scream Deimos’s name until he got an answer, then kill every living thing standing between them. But, the look in Abel’s eye was actually... kind of terrifying... Like black steel. Firm, cold, unforgiving. He was in charge, in control of the whole situation, responsible for the present location and prepared to take over.

“Okay.” Was all Cain could respond with. He honestly hoped it came off genuine but, the image of Deimos, and even Phobos, being brutally sliced up toyed with his voice. Unexpected, being so emotional was unexpected.

Abel turned back to the man, still getting used to the new air. “What was that thing...?”

“It’s called a Luma,” The man answered slowly, “Well, we call it a Luma. Invisible until it fires off like that, it eats microscopic molecules in the air...”

“ We? ” Abel asked.

“Me and my partner, Selene.” The man sat up, one hand to the chest of his armor, “He’ll have your other two, the Nair victim and the guy who got his arm chopped...”

“You said Selene...?”

“Yeah, my Selene.”

“That’s...” Abel threw a wary look back to Cain, “That’s the name of... Holy shit, ” The programmer took a step towards the blankets, eyes wide, “You’re Helios?”

The man nodded with a frown, “I am... How do...” He rocketed to his feet, mimicking Abel’s expression, reaching forward to grip the blonde’s shoulder, “Are you with the Alliance!?”

“You should be... So much older...” Abel breathed, “You disappeared during the Colteron war- over... fifty years ago...”

“Wh- H-” Helios looked bewildered, “You... Huh? ”

Cain stepped up, shoving Helios away with a strong hand and pulling Abel back to separate them. He spoke, and he tried to sound as serious and controlled as he could, “We’re with the Galaxy Guard, we’re here to collect your old Starfighter.”

“ Fifty years?” Helios repeated. He clicked a button on the back of his neck, his bracer falling down and revealing black hair in an undercut, dotted with white. “It’s only been five here...”

“What?”

“For us, here on Weaver, it’s only been five years.” Helios shook his head, closing the space between him and Abel once more. “Has it really been that long on Earth?”

“Even if that’s true... Then, you should be much younger ...” Abel shook his head slowly, still confused, “What happened after you crashed...? What’s-”

“ No ,” Cain pushed, pulling Abel back a few feet again, “That can happen later . What’s going on now? Where is the rest of our team?”

Helios turned his yellow-eyed stare over to Cain, eyebrows raised. “Oh, well, me and Selene were on the hunt for food and... we heard the Luma... We didn’t know why it was firing in on that building but, he heard someone scream and we came in to help... The roof started falling in, you guys were split in half. Selene took the one that needed medical attention, and I took you guys...”

“Medical attention? So, this guy’s treating Phobos?”

“Is that the one with the long hair?” Helios asked, “Or?”

“The one who was cut.” Abel answered cooly, “Who lost his hand.”

“Oh, well,” Helios gave them a weak look, “Selene’ll be able to stop the bleeding and all that, but... I don’t know about fixing his arm.”

“But, he’ll be okay?” Cain pushed, “He’s not going to die?”

“Not from bloodloss, at least. They’re a beacon, though, with the other’s Nair problem.” Helios motioned long hair, then glanced around the little clearing, “You must have run into one with a Pairing Plant- his hair wasn’t normally that long, right? Or.. glowy?”

“No...” Abel trailed, “We ran into a different creature than the Luma.”

“Called a Nair,” Helios raised a finger, “We didn’t name that one, saw it on a picture. There’re three types. Male, female, and Pairing. The Pairing Plant marks a target, gives them that glowy pollen, and attracts the other two for supper.”

“So... we should find them right now?”

“Not until I get the signal.” Helios pulled a box-like machine from his belt, wiggling it before their eyes, “When Selene gets to a safe stopping point, he’ll let me know where they are.”

“I thought you said they were beacon, so they’re not going to get safe?”

“As safe as they can get, then.” Helios sighed, then chewed on his lower lip for a long moment. “I can’t believe it’s been fifty years... And, we’re not at war with the Colterons anymore...?”

Chapter Text

Phobos was sitting at the dinner table, just as he did in all of his dreams. Nightmares. All the same. He could remember the taste of every single bite he put into his mouth, the blend of seasonings the chef had meticulously prepared. His sisters and mother chatting so excitedly about the next party, the next event.

His chair was always dark, the spot he sat in always cold. Never included, not unless they had unkind words they’d never dare direct to each other.

You’re too pretty for a boy.

You think too much.

Do you really want to give people that impression?

Smile once and while.

Words of poison. Words he hated. When he’d had enough it had been so easy to leave. His methods were on the darker side, the kinkier side, a place most people tended to overlook or pretend didn’t exist. If giving his body over to an older man brought him freedom and happiness, then so be it. Who was anyone to judge, to call him disgusting, to call his lover disgusting?

They did, though, when they found out. They strung his boyfriend out to the press, revealed their secrets, they took away the one thing he’d made for himself, the one love he’d ever be able to acquire.

Poison. Tasteless. A single drop in each of their cups when not a soul was looking. No one paid attention to him. They wanted him there, but they didn’t. A toast to themselves, to future love and wealth, and then they were all vomiting into their plates.

So, there he sat, studying their pretty hair coated in prepared food and the contents of their stomachs, wine soaking into the table cloth, the smell of acid on the air. It didn’t fix everything. It didn’t bring him back, but an easiness came to his breathing, chains falling from his limbs, each and every movement felt unencumbered by their eyes or words, their thoughts.

In actuality, the police had responded within minutes of the butler calling them. Here though, in his nightmarish dream, Julian could sit and dine with their empty shells. He’d have to live with the fact he’d killed five people, his family. With them gone, none of his blood was left. It echoed often in his head, even brought a touch of sadness. That was overwritten by this uplifting sense of freedom, even knowing that he was declared guilty in court.

He wondered why he was dreaming now of all times. He couldn’t recall going to sleep. The last thing he remembered was putting his battery into the printing machine, to make Deimos a new helmet.

No... No, there was more...

His fork clattered down onto his plate, dropping the square of steak he’d been prepared to eat. He frowned, looking down at his right hand. Palm up, still as stone, it was like it was looking back at him, trying to tell him something he couldn’t know. From the tips of his fingers down, the skin turned black and blue, infected. Then it started to disintegrate, fading into nothing, reaching an inch past his wrist.

With a startling amount of scraping and squelching, sounds of cracking bones, the heads that rested in the plates at the table turned to face him. Covered in rotted food, blue from death, they all watched him. Lips with faded makeup smiled secretly, softly. They knew something he didn’t, even as he went to scream, their empty eyes echoed with things only the dead would know.

“Holy shit, you’re awake!” The voice that came to him was rooted in reality, a voice of curiosity, intellect and confusion. Phobos felt his head get moved, rolling on a hard surface. He blinked away his delusion and was eye-to-eye with a doubled-over, ebony boy.

He looked about 23, his black hair cut to his shoulders, fading to white at the tips. There were markings underneath bright yellow eyes, accenting them, making them practically glow. He smiled, then frowned, then seemed worried.

“I mean...” He started, “I guess it’s better than dead?” Before Phobos had a chance to respond, finding his mouth numb and uncooperative, the man knelt back and messed with something on the ground. It was dark, they seemed to be in a collection of trees. When Phobos stopped fighting to sit up or move, he stared at the palm leaves above him, purple and exotic.

“Hey, uh, you,” The man said to someone unseen, “Can you make some kind of clotter? Cauterizer? Bandage? ”

“Yes.” Came Deimos’s voice. Phobos turned his head to the side against the leave-littered ground. The medic was seated at the basin of a tree, cupped by roots, his hair long and beautiful still. Phobos noticed something, he himself was helmetless. The raw air of Weaver fell stinging on his cheeks, like a soft reminder. Other than that, all seemed normal.

“What’s...” He managed to get out with a harsh breath, “What’s going...”

“Don’t try to move too much.” The mysterious man in a white EVA suit said, laying a hand on Phobos’ chest, “You might break the seal, we can’t have you bleeding anymore.”

Blood loss... I...

It hit him hard, especially as he went to feel the ground with his right hand and was left with a spinning mind. He bent his arm before the man could restrain him, bringing it up to reveal nothing but a disgusting nub at the end. Shock, shock so cold that he was sure he’d just died spread out from his nerves, turning his limbs into ice.

“Captain Phobos, please...” The man moved his hand to the wounded arm, pressing it back down to lay against the exposed roots, “The only way to help is to stay calm.”

“My... My hand...”

“Are you in pain?” He had good bedside manner, which was a change of pace from Deimos. His voice seemed warm, touch human, despite the alien look to his face. “I’ve numbed you as much as I can.”

“No... No...” Phobos could feel the shock in his throat, wondering why he wasn’t screaming bloody murder. He should be dying, he should be dead. “Where’re... The others?”

“We are split up.” Deimos informed his captain from his throne of roots, “Selene says he can save you.”

The man waved down to Phobos with a little smile before returning to his work at the neck of the GG suit, “I’m Selene, by the way.”

“Selene...”

It sounded familiar, but he wasn’t given the chance to voice his question aloud before the metal circle around his throat hissed and snapped apart. Phobos was so used to the awkward weight that it felt like he could breathe a million times easier. His heart stopped pounding so hard in his ears, and he was made more aware of the absence of his right hand.

It was cringey, it was severely uncomfortable. He wanted to reach over with his left arm and touch the space his hand should be occupying. Confirm tangibly that it wasn’t there.

“I figure the ring’s part of the hologram armor that keeps showing up when I try to touch you.” Selene said as he was handed a newly printed vial of glittering powder, “I need it gone for a second or two.”

“That’s...” Phobos managed, staring at the vial, “That’s...”

“I know, it’ll sting.” Selene moved against the ground, laying a leg over Phobos’ chest to keep him down, “Even through the numbing.”

“Wai-” He was cut off as Selene ripped the thin plastic top off the vial, then poured the powder over the makeshift seal on Phobos’ stump. It sizzled horribly for a second, itchy as hell. That itch turned into pure pain, and he dug his heels into the soil below as he screamed against his teeth and lips.

The sizzling kept up, dancing across the bloody mess, sending up terrifying sparks. Phobos couldn’t see, but new skin started to grow over the wound, blemished and scarred. Selene kept him pinned well, throwing inspective glances down to him, making sure all was as good as it could be.

When the pain turned to ice Phobos’ felt his body relax. In turn, Selene released him and let out a sigh. “Sorry, my seal just wasn’t going to be enough once we started walking.”

Words came easier, like his brain was allowing him proper thought. His voice still sounded hoarse, though. Almost teary. “Walking...?” He started, laying limp on the ground, “I can’t fucking walk... I can barely breathe...”

“Then, I guess I’ve got to carry you.” Selene rocked up to his knees, resting his hands on his thighs, “Because your Deimos here is a beacon, and we can’t fight the monster stalking us on our own.”

“The one that made my hair this way...?” Deimos asked, still seated at the base of his tree.

“Yeah, a Nair.” Selene took a breath, and then was pushed to his feet by something that solidified the he’s an alien thoughts. When the man was completely upright, a thick lizard-like tail extended down to curl against the splotchy soil. It was yellow in color, like the markings on his face, and he turned back to Phobos, “Can you sit up a bit?”

“You have a...”

“I’m human.” Selene pressed a soft hand to Phobos’ chest, “I promise. With the Alliance. Can you sit up a bit?”

Phobos had never been carried by someone so small, not that Selene was any smaller than him. It was weird to be lifted bridal style, and floated along like he weighed nothing. Weeks had passed since someone held him up this like, and it had never been so chaste.

Selene was walking them along a barely beaten path. It was thin, long straws of purple grass towered over their heads as they wound deeper and deeper into the forest. Phobos was sure he lost consciousness more than once, but he was in the presence of his medic Deimos, and this strange, not-alien, Selene character. The best hands he could think of, in case he suddenly lost his heartbeat.

After what felt like a midpoint between five minutes and five years, they stopped before a strange structure that seemed to be made of metal. When he was set down outside of it, resting against a horizontal log, he recognized the symbol painted across the forefront slab.

“Is this your Starfighter?” Phobos breathed, feeling Deimos kneel next to him with probing eyes. He watched Selene stand, glancing back to the combination of metal and tarps. When he faced Phobos again he nodded.

“Yeah, she got pretty wrecked when we crashed here, repurposed her.”

“How’d you... dismantle it like that?” Phobos asked in awe, “That’s crazy, they’re built to... withstand...” His stamina failed him, rendered to a panting mess on the ground from just a few words. Deimos laid a hand on his shoulder, long black hair glowing with alien pollen.

“You shouldn’t waste energy on speaking...” The medic advised him.

“He’s right,” Selene assured them both with a nod, crossing his arms across his chest. Apart from the thick tail, and the strange markings on his face, he looked incredibly human. Seventy-five years ago, the only sentient aliens humans had made contact with were the Colteron so, whatever had happened to this Navigator, it had changed his DNA.

Phobos felt his skin crawl in revolt, curling his lip against the thought of having his body desecrated further. When he caught his breath, sitting with his stump of an arm in his lap, he looked back to Selene.

“What... happened to you...?”

Selene raised his eyebrows. Maybe at Phobos’s refusal to shut up, or maybe surprise at being asked that question. He cocked his head, ombre hair swaying to one side, “Me and my Fighter were on a recon mission. Something was orbiting this planet, the owner had pull with the Alliance and, we came to investigate.” Selene chewed on a lip, glancing down to his boots, “We were... unable to take up our own orbit... It was like the planet sucked us in.” He turned glowing yellow eyes to them, expression soft, “We’ve been here for nearly five years now. You two are wearing Earthen symbols... are you Alliance?”

“Did you just say five years?” Phobos asked in awe.

“We are Galaxy Guard,” Deimos corrected, hand still on Phobos’ shoulder, “A sub-branch of the Alliance.”

“Sub-branch...?” Selene frowned, walking forward to kneel down before them, “Are we not still fighting the Colteron?”

“Man, we’ve been done with that,” Phobos pushed irritably, “You went missing over seventy-five years ago, you’re supposed to be dust.”

Selene cocked his head again, and there wasn’t nearly a just amount of surprise in his eyes. “I see.” He said softly, “I suppose time is a little screwy when you’re trapped on this anomaly.”

“Anomaly?” Deimos echoed, curiosity was a strange color on him. He hardly asked questions, unless it pertained to Cain. Though, this might constitute, considering his fellow Martian was trapped on the said anomaly as well.

“I’ve had nothing to do for the past five years other than study and...” he looked himself over, the tip of his tail digging into the soil at his feet, “ Other things...” He turned up to them again, “Subtle gravity shifts, animals acting out of their nature, change in the makeup of the air... This planet is weird .”

“Obviously,” Phobos grumbled irritably, “Have you seen yourself?”

Selene chuckled, sitting cross legged on the ground, giving Phobos a sharp-toothed smile, “This was the best of my options, believe me.”

“When will we meet up with the others?” Deimos asked, half of his face obscured by his strange, thick hair.

“We set off a proximity alarm when he walked into the area, my partner knows it’s me, and that you’ll be with me. When they’re safe, they’ll make their way to us without bringing anything dangerous.”

The need to scream in painful irritation rose in his throat quickly, shocking him as he swallowed the instinct down. His stump pulsed with pressure, reminding him on its nonexistence, teasing with phantom sensation. “Is everything on this planet dangerous?” Phobos managed to gripe through his wave of nausea, his one hand clutching just above the repaired, scarred skin.

“I’d say about eighty percent of the animals are aggressive. Of that, half seem almost magical in nature, like the Luma that took your arm.” Selene nodded down to Phobos’ lack of a hand, eyebrows furrowed in sympathy, his tail dancing against the ground, “Don’t eat any plants unless I say it’s safe. Don’t do anything unless I say it’s safe, really.”

“Is it safe to stay out here?” Phobos sighed, glancing to the remains of the dismantled Starfighter, panting through his recovery “Wouldn’t it be better to go in there?”

“No, I can’t risk Deimos transferring the pairing pollen into the nest.” Selene crossed his legs, still before the pair of Galaxy Guards. He was quiet for a time, eyes flitting between Phobos’ face and the ground, the rouse of something tickling his lips. “I... have to ask for a favor...”

“A favor?” Phobos drew slowly, eyeing the sharp teeth in the pink of Selene’s mouth, “What the fuck kind of favor do you need?”

“Something... unconventional...”

“If you needed to eat human flesh, you should have just stolen my hand.” Phobos laid his stub across his lap, hiking his legs up in a form of aversion towards Selene’s attitude. The Starfighter didn’t look predatorial but... whatever he was talking about, it was going to be just what he said. Unconventional.

“No, it’s not... cannibalism exactly ...”

“ Excuse me? ”

Selene raised his hands in defense, the yellow markings on his face glowing for a split second, “That sounded really bad, sorry!” He swallowed, cleared his throat, then sighed, “It’s blood... I... draw power from the chemical makeup of blood... Specifically blood with a residue created by breathing Orb Weaver’s air...” The man’s eyes trailed downward again, holding onto one of his arms as his tail laid limp on the ground, “And... Captain Phobos... your’s seems particularly-”

“Holy fuck, you’re going to drink from me and kill me, aren’t you?” Phobos shook his head, glancing to Deimos, “Don’t let him do that! I barely have any blood left!”

Before Deimos could even begin to rise, Selene shot his hands up again, eyes wide in fear, “No! That’s not-” He took another breath, settling to sit on his knees, “I’m not stealing your blood... I’m regulating it between my body and your’s it’s...” Selene shut his eyes painfully, shaking his head, “It’s fine, sorry I asked... Just, if something shows up... I can’t fight...”

“Regulate blood?” Deimos hummed from beside Phobos.

“It’s fine, Deimos can just use his suit to fight.”

“Oh,” The Martian glanced between Phobos and Selene, shaking his head, “My battery is compromised... and... your’s is abandoned back on the printer... We have no way to conjure holo-weapons.”

“Holo-weapons?” Selene hummed back, cocking his head in Deimos’ direction.

“You’re kidding...” Phobos groaned, “You’re absolutely kidding...” His first instinct was to offer up Deimos for whatever blood ritual nonsense Selene was spouting but, without knowing exactly how it all went down, he was unwilling to risk losing the medic. It was strictly logistics, of course. Phobos didn’t actually give a flying fuck about Deimos on a personal level. Not at all. He blew a lock of his icy hair from his face, giving Selene and hard glare.

Selene raised his eyebrows in response, looking poised to start a conversation with Deimos about Galaxy Guard mechanics and programming.

“Tell me about this... blood... regulation...” Phobos managed with unsure lips, the corners of his mouth twitching in uneasiness, “If you lie, I swear...”

Selene gave the man a soft smile, shaking his head, “We really don’t have to do it... I’m not looking to hurt my only chance at getting off this planet by lying to him...”

“Just tell me about the fucking vampire bullshit.”

“I’m curious too.” Deimos added, though it was entirely scholarly. He didn’t seem ready to offer his neck, or anyone else’s, to this reptilian-tailed human. “What do you mean by regulation?”

Selene scooted forward a few inches, opening his mouth to show them the bottom of his top row of teeth. He pointed out the two sharpest ones, the thickest ones, then looked forward again. “I have tunnels in my teeth, they connect to my bloodstream.” His thick tail bounced once more on the ground, like a tell for excitement, “When I drink, I bring in blood from my host and oversaturate my body with the imperfections in their veins.”

Deimos frowned, hair glowing mutely against the purple flora, “You clean blood...?”

“I guess you could put it that way, but, I thrive off of bloodborne mutations... I use that to create what can be called bio-weapons, I suppose...” Selene raised his hands, looking between them, “Usually I use the blood of passive animals... I’ve never tried humans before, I’m not sure what I’d be able to do...”

“Bloodborne mutations...” Deimos echoed thoughtfully.

“And, you’re not sucking me dry?” Phobos asked quietly.

Selene shook his head, “No, I basically feed you my blood while I clean your’s... It’s a cyclical system...”

“That won’t... infect me?”

Again, the boy shook his head, “No, to get like me, there’s this whole... awkward process...”

Phobos glanced to Deimos, and he couldn’t believe he was considering this course of action. The odds were stacked against them, and they had to be precautionary. If the beast that attacked Deimos returned, there was no fighting it. If the light from earlier flickered their way, they would lose more than just Phobos’ hand.

What.... would Cain do?

That was a ridiculous question to ask, because Cain would surely beat Selene into unconsciousness until they figured out what the hell he was. The fucking moron. Phobos brought a hand to his head, gritting his teeth, “Okay...” He managed softly, “We can do it...”

“...Really...?” Selene asked, and the surprise in his voice nearly made Phobos change his mind.

“Yes, really, just- How long will it take?”

“Depends on how dirty your blood is.” Selene crawled over to sit next to the GG Captain, smiling with glinting teeth, “You should be able to tell me to stop, if something feels off or wrong... I’ve never done this to a sentient being before... one that can talk, anyway...” He glanced to Deimos, brow raised, “You’re... okay with this...?”

Deimos looked to Phobos, his arms crossed loose in his lap, “I don’t give orders...”

“You’re right, you don’t.” Phobos cleared his throat for what felt to be the eightieth time, pulling his hair to one side of his head, “Just... fucking vampire me already...”