Seaside 4: Where Every Week Is Shark Week

[Rebonack]

[A Secluded Beach]

Another Alex, but how many Alexaions?

Anywho!

Alexaion.

That... feels a bit better?

But maybe not quite right still.

What happened to me? Why am I so discombobulated?

Should probably do something to get recombobulated.

Alexaion nods at first, but then raises an eyebrow. "Wait, why? Is this like a Bruce Banner vs Hulk thing?" he asks. He really can't think of any other reason why someone would use different names to describe themselves.

[Deathkeeper]

[A Secluded Beach]

"What? No. Gara's a girl name. So I don't use it when I'm a guy." Grant seems pretty embarrassed by this.
It's totally normal!
He swears!
And it's not because Nurse wrote Gara under the medical information for two of his forms and it just feels natural to go with it.

[Rebonack]

[A Secluded Beach]

"So... when you're that dragon thing you're a girl," Alexaion says. By saying this allowed, he hopes it will make more sense.

It doesn't.

"But when you're humanish shaped, you're a guy."

He presses his lips into a thin line and then shrugs.

"Okay. Sure. Whatever. I've seen some pretty weird stuff since eidolons started showing up. This is just one more weird... thing..." Alexaion says before trailing off.

Fear. Fleeing. Running from a shape, a presence. I didn't get away. And then...

"Oh... one of them got me, didn't it?" he says, his voice shaking a bit. "It ripped something out of me. And... and they were trying to put me back together."

He glances back at his tail.

His tail sticks out its tongue at him.

"But it didn't work quite right, did it?"

[Deathkeeper]

[A Secluded Beach]

Grant shakes his head.
"Oh no, I have a girl shape too. I have three shapes exactly. It was Nurse's thing, don't worry about it." he waves a hand.
A pause.
"What's an eidolon?"

[Rebonack]

[A Secluded Beach]

Guy, girl, and dragon.

More weird.

"Okay, now I KNOW I'm not in Kansas anymore if you don't know what an eidolon is," Alexaion says, looking concerned. "Okay, story time I guess. About a year ago-"

A pause as he has a coughing fit. A few stray wisps of something neon-lavender escapes from his mouth.

The big one.

Not the tail mouth.

It curls strangely, almost like filaments, before dissipating.

"-sorry. About a year ago this meteor hit Earth, right? The crater left this... this hole in space. And out of the hole came these ghost things. Eidolons. They hunt for people. I guess some scientists think they hunt for a specific person? Then they take part of the person to make a physical body for themselves. I guess kind of based on what part they take? But they make these crazy monster bodies for themselves with, like, magic powers or whatever. Most of the time the victim just dies," Alexaion explains. Memories are coming back now, and in his excitement he's talking faster. "And then the eidolon goes on a rampage. But sometimes, even though they've ripped a vital organ out of someone, the victim stays alive. And if they die, the eidolon dies too. No one knows how it works but scientists have been trying to figure it out. But when that happens, the eidolon will protect their host. It's like... a digimon trainer or something. You have Mario, so you know what digimon is right?"

He figures they should.

[Deathkeeper]

[A Secluded Beach]

Grant squints at him.
"Wait."
"Is this like that anime about the guy with the freaky talking monster hand?"

"But um yeah I've played Net Detective." Grant seems unwilling to get near the gross neon spit.

[Rebonack]

[A Secluded Beach]

Alexaion looks momentarily mortified.

"Eeww, what, you mean Parasyte? No way. It isn't like that at all."

He pauses to think for a moment.

"Or... okay, maybe sort of? Eidolons don't disguise themselves as normal people and then... like... have their head split apart into a giant mouth or whatever. They just take part of them and build a body out of it. The body is usually WAY bigger than whatever part they took. I... I saw one take a lady's liver once. It was..."

Blood.

There was so much blood.

"I had forgotten about that... but now all the memories are coming back and I kind of wish they didn't..." he mutters.

Alexaion suppresses a shudder. "No, it's definitely more like digimon. One person with one monster. And the monster protects the person. The bond usually makes that sort of eidolon stronger than the the wild ones since they can keep getting more powerful. But there are WAY fewer of them. And the world is so messed up, a lot of the people who get their own eidolon just use it to be jerks. It probably doesn't help that they mostly go after kids. The scientists think that it has something to do with how we're still growing."

[Deathkeeper]

[A Secluded Beach]

Grant looks at his new friend.

This sounds a lot like a really weird RPG pitch. He can't even really comment that since Alexaion is literally comparing it to one.
"Okay, so....one of them tried to rip your spine out and put you back together so now it's attached to your butt? Or is it you? You don't seem to match any of the rules you just told me." Grant tells him, adjusting his glasses irritably. This doesn't make any sense! If it wasn't a horrible crime against free will Grant would check his stat page with the Bridle.

[Rebonack]

[A Secluded Beach]

"Mouth and esophagus. I lost... or... did I take...?" Alexaion begins, giving his head another shake. Everything still feels really muddled up. "This team of scientists thought they could put me back together again. I would be stronger and I wouldn't be as vulnerable, either. Talking was a giant pain. Because... well. You know. And hey, who doesn't want to get strong, right? I think... I'm pretty sure it worked. The more I focus on stuff, the more I'm remembering things from two different points of view."

That has to be it.

That's why my memories are so messed up.

Because I've got two sets of memories and my brain is trying to piece everything together.

It really worked.

"But why the hell did I get tossed into another dimension?" he mutters. "What's that got to do with anything? Maybe because the eidolons came through a weird hole in space to begin with?"

As good an explanation as any.

[Deathkeeper]

[A Secluded Beach]

"Okay. So you are the digimon. Partly. And also the tamer.
Oh no.
That makes you like...a season 4 digimon. I'm so sorry. " Grant ponders as he desperately tries to make his new friend feel better. At least he isn't a season 7 digimon. Or an overly edgy cat.
"Maybe they didn't give you enough anesthetic and you accidentally used your eidolon powers to space-shift? Or maybe you went too deep into the secrets of the cosmos."
You clearly shouldn't get Grant's brain going like this.

[Rebonack]

[A Secluded Beach]

"I... I think both, yeah," Alexaion replies with a nod. "That isn't normal, though. This was an experiment. We've been trying to get to the meteor and destroy it to stop any more eidolons from coming through. But no one has ever been able to get close. The tamer always gets killed since they're still just a normal person. So, y'know, what if there's no difference between the tamer and the eidolon?"

He leans back against the rock.

It feels better being able to make sense of things.

All his thoughts are gradually falling back into place.

Everything knitting back together.

"But apparently combining tamer and eidolon back together means oh boy portal! or whatever. I wonder why it just took me..." he mutters.

And as if on cue?

A gash spontaneously opens up in the sky above the pond, disgorging ruined machines and gibblets of flesh.

Alexaion gags slightly at the sight.

"Okay, maybe not just me..."

[Deathkeeper]

[A Secluded Beach]

Grant gags a lot more than a little. He goes as far as to pull on Alexaion's shirt and try to stand up.
"Okay if that's going to happen again I advise we walk somewhere else where it isn't raining THAT. " he exclaims, clearly not okay with how any of this just happened.

[UncleWolf]

Operation Sea Slug

Now the lich seems to be ignoring Will again. "Feminine? Like me?" She grins, well, grins more as she seems to have a hard time stopping.

Then suddenly Will is acknowledged once again as she points him out with a bony finger. "You, explain what she means by that. You are her owner, yes?" The two orbs of light that make up her eyes focus on him as he's put on the spot.

Meanwhile, Tammy starts gesturing at something near the lich but doesn't say anything as she didn't seem too eager interrupting the gigantic lich. If Will looks at where she's pointing, he see movements on the stones near which the gnoll skeleton sat down. It appears to be the other members of the team, being just the same tiny size as they are.

[Operation Sea Slug]

Will gulps. He can hardly look away with those ice cold beacons staring down into his soul. Hopefully not literally.
”I would assume she meant human feminine, not gnoll feminine, ma’am. Though I’m sure anyone would be lucky to look like you.” he says, slipping into flattery as that gaze continues to stare down at him. Darn it, why does she have to be so intimidating? Though he isn’t lying either. If she looked anything like Sargrera, she was probably huge. Will did notice the size increase between his leader and the male gnolls in the party.
”Human women are -generally- a little smaller than our men and are wider in some places and smaller in others? Um, I don’t know if Tammy is a good example but I think goblins are closer to my people than yours. You seem to be pretty experienced I’m sure you’ve seen a picture of us at some point.
And uh, knightly means she wants to look noble and strong, shiny and armored.
Oh and I’m her commander not her owner. She’s no slave.”
Will’s hand gestures probably aren’t helping in this case given the size. This was so much easier when Jinn just took this information out of his mind. Though in hindsight that should have been a serious red flag. Maybe he didn’t do that at all and just lied about it. Will never got that shiny new body did he?

Operation Sea Slug

"I said feminine, NOT human. Being small would be a di-di-disaster as I am made for combat." TTN points out firmly. She did NOT want to be small, let alone smaller than Will. "In this co-co-context, I would say it is meant to be more streamlined and gr-gr-graceful instead of bulky and blocky. But I will settle for wh-wh-what I can get or whatever you are wi-wi-willing to provide."

[Rebonack]

[A Secluded Beach]

"Something got into the lab..." Alexaion breaths through his teeth as he slides off his rock and begins sprinting toward the wreckage. "Nothing should have been able to get into the lab. Wasn't it shielded or something?"

This is bad this is bad this is bad...

As he nears the ruined machines and meat, he skids to a stop when something moves.

Grant will see it wriggling out of a crumpled bit of machinery like a swirl of vapor. A swirl of vapor filled with clashing, stinging colors. Here and there it's shot through with holes reminiscent of eyes. Eyes fixed on Grant and what it might be able to harvest from him. With a sound like radio static and glass grinding against glass, it tries to zip around Alexaion and dart toward someone a bit more appetizing.

"Oh no you don't!" Alexaion snarls as he pounces on the thing, his claws (did he have claws before?) digging into the incorporeal creature and pinning it to the sand.

The eidolon begins wriggling ferociously, mindlessly, as it struggles to escape. Where it touches, the sand warps and twists into geometric shapes shot through with iridescent, metallic colors.

"Don't get close!" Alexaion warns as he uses his other hand to pierce the horror further up its length. "It's hunting for a host!"

Then?

He yawns his mouth wide, clamps down on the phantasm, and rips the nasty thing in half.

With a discordant, tooth-rattling scream, it disintegrates in a shower of metallic sparks.

[Deathkeeper]

A Secluded Beach

Grant takes a step back, panicking.
But before he can really process what’s happening Alexaion takes care of the problem. Grant still decides to start going around, blowing bubbles out of his mouth which land on the sand and pop into strangely exact shapes.
”I bless this place in the name of Lady Civiron. Evil shall not trespass here. I bless this place in the name of Lady Civiron...”

[Rebonack]

[A Secluded Beach]

Alexaion hops to his feet, brushing sand away, as he glances up and down the beach. He looks... a little less human than before. A little more monster-y. But he's swiftly... deflating. For lack of a better word.

What else could have come through? Are there any more? How did they even get into the lab? Those bits of meat... someone must have been harvested. Or... torn apart.

Calm down.

Focus.

You're here. Not there.

You can't do anything about there.

Focus on here.

Alexaion glances over at Grant and... watches him blow bubbles?

While chanting?

"What are you doing?"

[Deathkeeper]

A Secluded Beach

Grant blushes.
”Oh. Um. It looked like a ghost. So I’m blessing the beach to keep evil ghosts away. I don’t really know how to tell you this but gods kind of...exist here? I work for a goddess named Civiron on the side. She’s the Lady of Hope. And pink things. So...yeah. Blessing the beach.” He’s pretty sure that is how cleric stuff works.

[Rebonack]

[A Secluded Beach]

"Like real, honest to goodness gods?" Alexaion replies.

Organ-harvesting extra-dimensional beings that arrived in an evil meteor? That's one thing.

But somehow gods are crossing the line.

"How do you know they're not just super advanced aliens, like in Stargate?" he asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

Gotta maintain skepticism.

Even if this place is crazy.

Then he waves one hand, "Actually, no, I don't care. And eidolons aren't ghosts. They weren't ever human. They're... I dunno. Something else?"

Spirits?

Daemons?

Really awful?

"And... uh... is there somewhere I could go?" Alexaion inquires. "This is a nice beach and all, but you said there's a city? Back home things have been getting increasingly Mad Max, so an actual place with running water sounds amazing right now."

[Deathkeeper]

[A Secluded Beach]

"Advanced aliens don't give people the power to turn into cute pink dragons that blow bubbles." Grant says flatly.
"Well, yeah, I can take you to the city. There's places you can stay there. I think you can crash at my place for one night if I tell my parents you're a nexus newbie." he offers, though that's always a risk. Can't let his parents figure out about the whole...pink...thing.

[Rebonack]

[A Secluded Beach]

There's brief consideration there. Why wouldn't advanced aliens be able to modify someone's physiology like that? Wasn't that the whole point of Animorphs?

It still doesn't matter, though.

"That would be amazing," Alexaion says. "I would rather not be sleeping under a tree somewhere if I can help it."

His gaze turns down at this point. To the bag Grant has been carrying around. It has been bugging him for a while now, but he never got around to asking. Other more important things were coming up.

"What's the bag for?" he asks, pointing. "Were you picking up trash on the beach?"

That prompts him to regard the heap of mechanical rubbish and meat bits nearby.

Those count as trash. Probably.

The birds will probably take care of the latter. But the former?

[Deathkeeper]

[A Secluded Beach]

”Okay. Well. If you come with me the only thing to remember is to not mention the dragon thing. Or talk about my tail. My parents can’t see it and I haven’t told them I can shapeshift. It’s a long story.

As for the bag yes, I was picking up garbage. It was my good deed for the day. Um, if you think they aren’t too heavy we could put those things in there. Um...” They’re kind of gross though. And Grant doesn’t want to touch gross bloody and possibly radioactive computer parts.

[CosmicHobbit]

[An Island Surrounded By Fog]

In Seaside, there's an island surrounded by fog. Through the fog, a large figure looms. A figure of a ship! As it comes in view from the beach, it's revealed that the ship is a galleon. It sails straight toward the beach, showing no sign of slowing or turning!

On the ship, there's a man with tannish-gray skin, a black hair, and a peg leg. Oh yeah, and he has an anchor tied to his wrist with a rope, and he holds the anchor in just his right hand. He also has a shark chewing on his left shoulder, with his entire arm down it's throat. Also on the deck are a large amount of skeletons covered in barnacles. The man hits one with the anchor, sending it flying across the deck, where it skips twice before falling off of the ship.

[Rebonack]

[A Secluded Beach]

"I... umm... alright?" Alexaion replies a bit uncertainly. "I mean, sure, I can do that. But why? Why wouldn't you want your parents to know what happened to you?"

He would have wanted HIS parents to know what happened to him.

But then again, keeping it secret would have been hard.

Mostly because his mouth had been replaced with seriously creepy looking black void. That and he couldn't talk. Both of those things would have been pretty hard to explain.

Gosh being able to speak again is great. He's glad that he didn't totally forget how over the past few years.

And then? Frowning at the metal and meat.

"Just leaving the scrap laying around is probably dangerous," Alexaion says as he picks up a chunk of a flat-screen monitor that looks like it was bisected. "I don't think the remains are... I mean, they're not dangerous. Maybe we should bury them or something? I can get rid of the big scrap chunks."

SHCHOMP!

His teeth gnash together and the monitor is just gone.

I'm not eating that meat. I'm not. Not going to happen.

[Deathkeeper]

[A Secluded Beach]

"My dad would be a jerk about it and Mom would worry. It's not worth the hassle." Grant explains.

Then he reluctantly expands back into his dragon shape which he uses to dig a reasonably large hole. "There. That should be fine. Probably?" I mean, she still doesn't want to touch the gross meat pieces...

[Rebonack]

[A Secluded Beach]

Alexaion winces.

"That sounds pretty lame," he admits as he picks up another sheet of metal and uses it to scoop the giblets into the hole.

This...

Doesn't feel like the best way to dispose of this stuff.

But just leaving it to rot on the ground doesn't seem great, either. With gulls picking at it and stuff.

No, instead crabs and sand fleas will pick at it.

But at least people won't see it.

Then? Then he'll dispose of the rest of the scrap. Watching his teeth sheer through metal like someone might rip apart a doughnut might be a little disconcerting. How the heck does he even digest that stuff? Must have something to do with what Alex' eidolon could o.

"Okay, that's better, right?" he asks as he turns back toward the trail leading up the bluff. "Are you ever going to tell your parents about the... y'know. Pink girly dragon thing?"

[Deathkeeper]

[A Secluded Beach]

"Oh, I'll tell Mom someday. She might even get to meet my boss. Dad doesn't get that. I don't think ever. And Mizutsune are not girly!" Gara exclaims. Being a girl dragon and being a girly dragon are entirely different concepts. And she is not girly. Just pink.

[Rebonack]

[A Secluded Beach]

Alexaion appears skeptical, though he doesn't add anything further here.

"So, did you just walk out here?" he asks. "Or is there a train or something?"

That's an important question.

Walking many miles is tiring.

Especially when you just got dumped into another universe.

That, and riding on a train would be cool.

Public transport can be hard to come by where he came from.

Y'know, what with the end of the world and everything.

[Deathkeeper]

[A Secluded Beach]

”We’re about a half-mile from the riftline station. We can take that into the city. If you take the garbage bag I can give you a ride.” Gara says, crouching down.
Gara just kind of assumes that Alexaion would want to ride a dragon.
She doesn’t think she wants to meet anyone who doesn’t. They’d be nuts. Or afraid of heights that’s understandable.

[Rebonack]

[A Secluded Beach]

Alexaion gives a VERY audible snerk when that question is posed. He does his best to stifle a laugh, waving one hand. "Ah, heh, no thanks. I'm good."

A few seconds pass as he starts heading in the indicated direction.

Well.

A bit more than a few seconds.

But given how he's smirking it's clear he's not going to be able to last for long.

"Geeze. I meet you like fifteen minutes ago and you ask if I want to ride you?"

Yeps.

Teens making stupid teen jokes.

[Deathkeeper]

[A Secluded Beach]

Gara looks at Alex in total confusion.
And when he says his second line, she all but wails. ”Alex! That’s not cool!”
He might then get hit in the back of the head with a sticky pink bubble that will stubbornly refuse to pop.