《Get me off this Spaceship!》 Chapter 1: The Consequences of Erasing a Military Complex Space is cold and lonely. This is a fact. The fact that space is cold and lonely becomes abundantly clear when you¡¯ve been floating in space for nearly 6 months, as I have. I¡¯ve been floating in space for almost 6 months. Fuck. Maybe I shouldn¡¯t have been so impulsive, but truthfully, I¡¯d do it again. They were pissing me off, and had been pissing me off for weeks. So I did the only rational thing and turned the entire complex into a pressure cooker bomb. You see, the benefit of reflective energy barriers is that they reflect energy both ways, regardless of which side of the barrier someone¡¯s on. The other benefit of reflective energy barriers is that they are powered by reflecting things. All I had to do was release a tremendous amount of energy. Those barriers were for security, I guess. Surrounding the military complex¡¯s six sides, as well as covering the sky and underground, it made entering and exiting the base a pain, but it was secure. Jokes on them, I guess. So after suffering through foppish bureaucratic nonsense for who knows how long (about 4 days), I snapped. You can¡¯t just bring someone someplace, and then make them sit and wait with no good explanation besides ¡°your magic is dangerous,¡± or ¡°how exactly are you alive right now?¡± So I showed them what they wanted to see. In case you didn¡¯t know, releasing energy like a supernova is an inherently thrilling experience. It¡¯s liberating; watching energy barriers whine, flicker, and explode, the resulting pressure wave sending guards and office workers flying down the hallway. It was funny, watching those with some semblance of strength mount a defense. Standard bullets won¡¯t pierce my skin, and magical weaponry gets dispersed by the sheer magnitude of energy I was releasing. Bombs and lasers add heat, but can¡¯t hurt me. Sure, there were some attacks I had to dodge, but I was really playing the waiting game. It took about a minute for those interrogator scientists to realize the temperature was rising across the entire military base. They probably tried to turn off an energy barrier, but the place was already in lockdown, red lights and alarms blaring. I was just getting started. You see, energy is energy. It doesn¡¯t matter if it¡¯s magical in origin, it obeys thermodynamics. And here I was, adding energy to a closed system. Things didn¡¯t get fun for a while. Some evacuation voiceovers, people running away or bursting into flames, and one smarter man simply begging me to stop. About 10 minutes later, the whole space was a sweltering sauna, the plants outside the broken windows drooping in the heat. I moved to the center of the complex, which was apparently a park. It quickly became a burning park. Another 10 minutes later, with everything around me in flames, metal melting, concrete cracking under the heat, it was finally hot enough to begin fission. Magical fission is a lot like nuclear fission. Under conditions others would call ¡°extreme,¡± you slam mana together until it degrades into weaker mana and pure energy: heat and exotic types of light commonly called radiation, no nuclear fallout or heavy metals required. Just boom. So several minutes later, much of my mana exhausted, I still shone like a star (literally) in the center of what was once a military complex. The heat had long surpassed anything reasonable. Everything within the reflective energy barriers that wasn¡¯t heavily protected was plasma: plants, buildings, people, you name it. I¡¯m not stupid. I¡¯d be in a bit of trouble (okay, a lot of trouble) if I was caught after literally evaporating a military base of the intergalactic federation. Especially if I was caught while drained of mana. So I did what any sane person would do. I started attempting magical fusion, something I had only hypothesized before without being able to test. It was probably around this point that the reflective energy barriers started to bulge outwards. Magical fusion is a lot like nuclear fusion. Under extremely extreme conditions, slam mana together until weaker mana creates stronger mana. And so there I sat, or rather kinda floated in a soup of plasma, experimenting with magical fusion. I succeeded. I slammed the residual environmental mana together until I had something as strong as my own. Then I started dredging the bottom of my mana reserves, feeding everything I could into that tiny, magical star. I kept compressing and compressing, using the physical heat to force every last drop of mana I could find into one tiny point. The second I succeeded at making a minuscule, magic based singularity (magic black hole? Magic hole? No. Mana singularity sounds much better) physics started getting wonky. Unsure of what to do with my newfound toy and the plasmatic ashes of a military complex, fully aware of the probably rapidly approaching army and heat reaching levels even I couldn¡¯t withstand, I defaulted to instinct. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I ate that mana singularity. It was indescribably delicious, like the first mouthful of brain freezing ice cream a child ever tastes. What? Someone (myself) was whispering I could handle it. I was right. I could. I did handle it. You see, my magic is simple. All I¡¯m doing is alternating magic and antimagic rapidly. By doing so, I create very thin, very strong barriers. It¡¯s more like collisions get erased, or perhaps confused. Mana will microscopically collide with mana, or be erased in a burst of energy by antimana. So my entire body is an explosive repulsion field, and if I trip up I¡¯ll probably explode like a nuclear bomb, the waves of magic and antimagic colliding with each other rather than what¡¯s around me. I wrapped that barrier around the mana singularity. It was the best idea I¡¯ve ever had, if I say so myself. Impervious to the burning of the singularity, but unable to handle the mana it released, I exploded with yet another, fiercer, wave of magic and energy. What? I had never eaten a singularity before. How was I supposed to know it would flood me with rich mana and antimana like some fabled mana fountain? Imagine handing a very smart, well meaning, angelic child a theoretical philosopher¡¯s stone. What happens to the child? They either learn to control their newfound toy or turn everything to gold like midas and die. But it¡¯s a smart child, an angelic child, so of course they learn to control their power. All it cost was one Intergalactic military base. So there I was, wine drunk off power if you will, trying to fight off my own tipsiness to manage the output properly. And you know what happened? You won¡¯t believe it. A reflective barrier failed. The ceiling reflective barrier failed. I got launched through the stratosphere at a significant percentage of the speed of light. So did the rest of the base, or as I like to call it, ¡°military branded atomic soup.¡± But I, still reeling and probably not in a perfectly normal state of mind, had a brilliant idea in that half a second. Let¡¯s open a wormhole. If I open a wormhole, the intergalactic federation cannot chase me. This is true, but this was also my mistake. I thought it was a joke when my aunt Deborah drunkenly told me never to open wormholes at high speeds. Well, she was always drunk, and I thought everything she said was a joke. I reevaluated some of it during my (approximately) 6 months of floating in space, but that¡¯s besides the point. You see, apparently at relativistic speeds entering coordinates requires an entirely different calculation system. To put it simply, I accidentally launched myself to who knows where. My first order of business was getting my new little singularity under control. The little guy was an absolute torrent of energy, which wasn¡¯t particularly compatible with, well, normal life, so I had to reign it in until the output was barely noticeable. That took a couple of weeks. Only then did I realize I was truly lost in space, as I should¡¯ve crash landed like a meteor at home by about the 3 week mark. And then I remembered what my aunt had told me. I practiced swearing into the void for a while. Space would be a lot more fun if there was an echo, or rather any sound at all. I then spent another couple weeks agonizing over releasing an SOS signal as I freely floated through space. The reason was simple, I probably had a (very handsome) wanted poster from the federation plastered everywhere by this point, which made the likelihood of being picked up and promptly attacked very high (assuming I was in federation territory). About 1 month into my free-floating in space, there was a problem. I was hungry. Given the current form of my body, I shouldn¡¯t be able to get hungry. So something had changed, and it was obviously my new mana singularity friend. He was hungry, so I was hungry. Not that I¡¯m really clear on what would happen if he was starving, or starved to death. I assume I¡¯d pop with a bang. There was a secondary problem. I was bored as hell. Still moving quickly at a speed that would probably jettison me straight through a space station was fine and all, but it¡¯s not like the scenery changes quickly in deep space. It barely changes at all. So I gave up and started sending out SOS signals. Simple waves of mana and light, in regular patterns, hoping someone or something nearby would come grab me. So there I sat (well, floated), looking at empty space and sending out a signal as close to every 12 hours as I could manage. So I kept doing that. For nearly 3 months. Nonstop. God it was boring. With all the time in the world, I worked on my magic spells, trying things out, testing how my abilities had changed thanks to the mana singularity I was effectively now married to. It was enough to stop me from going insane, I suppose. Finally, a bit over 4 months since the incident as I will now call it, a massive spaceship approached, slowly gliding through the void and catching up with my speed and direction. A bit of knowledge for you about tractor beams. Tractor beams hurt, apparently. As durable as my body is, it is not made of spaceship, and is not the ideal target of a tractor beam. I was violently yanked towards an open hatch in the ship. Hungry, tired, my skin being yanked by the tractor beam, blinded by the newfound lights I hadn¡¯t experienced for months, pure joy rose within me despite my discomfort. Finally! Other people, who had food and water and internet access! As the tractor beam pulled me closer to the hatch, I noticed an issue. I wasn¡¯t moving towards the center, I was moving towards a corner. Swearing loudly, I tried to readjust, struggling and spinning in place. It didn¡¯t work. With a loud bang, my head was slammed into the outside of the ship¡¯s hull as my body ragdolled and was pulled into the hatch. Reeling from pain and the force of the impact, I felt my consciousness fading. Maybe some head trauma was revenge for roasting so many people? Who knows. I passed out. Chapter 1.5: Cassiuss bad day Cassius was lightly banging his head on his desk. Repeatedly. He looked almost human, only vertically slit pupils in his blue eyes and his undyed, short light blue hair sold him out as an alien race. To be precise, he was a dragon in human form. In front of him sat a military incident report. As an officer of the highest rank on the planet, the incident had unluckily fallen to him to handle. Cassius groaned and picked himself up off his desk, looking at the report in front of him again. An entire military complex, and all its personnel, evaporated. When the reflective energy barrier broke, the resulting shockwave and heat blast led to fires and broken glass for miles. That in turn led to endless complaints, not to mention the injuries the surrounding soldiers sustained trying to protect the citizens. So what had been the cause? A single fexel, first name Mikatil. White hair, black eyes. Tall. Everything else was unknown, as barely any information came from the complex after it had locked down. Cassius guessed it was because the interrogation room was relatively close to the central broadcasting room, so if the incident started there, it would be one of the first places to evacuate from the heat. As he returned to leaning his head against the desk, his aide walked in with a few holographic screens flashing in front of him. He waved his hands and the holographic screens flew from hovering in front of his face to hovering over Cassius¡¯s desk. ¡°Luckily the records were backed up. Here they are,¡± said the aide. His tone was unusually subdued. Cassius read the content quickly and sighed. He banged his head back onto the desk, harder this time. ¡°So you¡¯re saying Mikatil was illegally grabbed off the street because the patrolling mages sensed antimagic from him, he was mostly cooperative for three days, and a fight broke out the fourth day.¡± The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Antimagic was undoubtedly dangerous. The magical equivalent of antimatter, it could chew through spells like acid, and tended to explode with aggressive force when in contact with mana. But fexels couldn¡¯t be arrested for manipulating antimagic. It was an impossible situation. Mikatil was illegally detained, but also the mass murderer of an entire military base over the course of an hour. Every actor on the stage had done something wrong. Every actor (along with many bystanders) were either confirmed dead or launched into space. So far, only one survivor had been found and collected, and he had no useful information. He was originally on the opposite side of the complex when fighting broke out, so he simply protected himself from the extreme conditions until rescued. Cassius groaned again, putting his face in his hands. ¡°Assuming Mikatil¡¯s alive somewhere, even if we manage to capture him, there¡¯s no way to make charges stick. There¡¯s just nothing left. No video surveillance, no witnesses, and unlawfully detained.¡± fexels were a race that were widely accepted as magical powerhouses on par with dragons, but had a tendency to hyper specialize their magic into one type. Despite their decidedly cute humanoid appearance with furry ears and a tail, their species was elusive, insular, and not very social. They, like dragons, were classified as an intelligent magical beast that could polymorph rather than a humanoid race. Due to a couple incidents that had happened in the distant past, it became illegal to detain a fexel for anything related to magic, as the act of doing so usually brought disasters in their wake. Conversely, military recruiters chased after fexels relentlessly, begging them to join the warfronts due to their frequently overwhelming magical prowess. They rarely saw much luck. ¡°Send out a wanted person¡¯s alert. We have to do something when the damage is this great,¡± Cassius continued, tapping his finger on the desk.¡°And make a new requirement for all non-frontline military bases: reflective energy barriers must shut off if the control room is compromised. We don¡¯t want rebels getting any ideas.¡± While unlikely, Cassius was worried someone would attempt to replicate the explosion in a different base, smuggling in some sort of reactor or energy bomb and roasting the place to a crisp. Cassius stood up, muttering under his breath, and prepared to report to the higher ups. It was almost certain someone would get demoted, if not fired. Cassius just hoped it wouldn¡¯t be him. Chapter 2: First Contact, First Altercation I woke up in some fuckass metal tube with a glass window hatch and bright green light slowly scanning from one side to another. Like any reasonable person, I crammed myself into a corner to avoid the approaching possible death laser beam, but it ignored my plight and continued to scan the inside of the tube, passing harmlessly through my body. I may have overreacted. The scanning light (let¡¯s just call it a scanner) kept bouncing back and forth slowly, so I relaxed and looked out of the hatch instead. ¡°Okay¡± I said, calming myself down. ¡°Where am I?¡± Peering out through the glass hatch, I could see the inside of a spaceship. It was mostly white with some nice light green highlights. The classic sleek and modern appearance wasn¡¯t really suggestive of one type of spaceship or another. There was one other odd thing: The spaceship was huge, and everything inside of it was huge as well. I could make out a table with another metal tube thing on it, but the scale was giant, the table probably about 25 feet tall. The tube scanner on the table was clearly bigger than the one I was in, and appeared to be empty. It looked like I was in some kind of laboratory. Dammit, did I get picked up by an insane group who liked to run human (well, fexel) experiments? I perked up my ears to listen and started a stretching routine. It had been a long time since I had been under the forces of gravity, although I felt lighter than usual. I think it¡¯s probably a quirk of the spaceship, maybe they were saving energy by having less gravitational force. While I was doing a hamstring stretch, using my tail for balance, the scanning light stopped. I looked at it for a while, then continued stretching, listening for any changes. It was clear the tube had some kind of airlock system, which was why there was no atmosphere inside of it. That was rather unfortunate, as it had been a long while since I had breathed, and I liked the feeling of breathing, regardless of if it was critical for my survival or not. The tube was otherwise nondescript inside, just sleek metal, about 7 feet in diameter, so I had a little wiggle room. There were no handles to open it from inside or anything like that. As I was rightfully getting bored of stretching and debating trying to exit the tube, slow, large footsteps started echoing through the room. I tensed up, ready for anything. Was someone coming to arrest me? I¡¯d like to see them try. The footsteps got louder and I heard a door open with a hiss. Something walked in, and a massive shadow was cast against the wall. It was moving closer to me, but I couldn¡¯t see who or what it was due to the direction of the glass window in the cylinder. It certainly didn¡¯t seem like a friendly shadow. What did I do? I punched the glass pane, hard. It cracked with a hiss, and then the thick glass imploded at the rush of warm air filling the tube, the pressure sending me flying backwards. My ears popped and I took a deep breath, finally able to breathe air. I brushed off the glass shards before jumping through my perfectly made escape route. The platform I landed on seemed to be another table, white and shiny and a little slippery. I heard a loud voice and the footsteps approaching got faster, pounding against the floor. I stuck my head around the edge of the now broken scanner tube, looking to see what was approaching, and swore. An incoming giant. Gray skin with barely visible scales, four arms, and bright pink hair. It was clearly a humanoid form, but by my rather professional standards, it wasn¡¯t particularly humanoid at all. And please, bright pink hair is tacky and completely out of style. The other issue was their size. I was no slouch at about 6 foot 5, counting the ears of course, but I was completely dwarfed. The giant was probably eight times my height. I could probably stand comfortably in its cupped hands. Pinky, as I will now call it (him?), was wearing skintight black pants with pink embellishments almost the same color as his hair. It seemed like some type of body suit, except it didn¡¯t cover his chest or arms at all, stopping above his stomach, just kinda floating there somehow. What a stupid design for clothes. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. I looked down at my own clothes and grimaced. They had survived the heat, radiation of deep space, tractor beam, and being sliced to pieces by glass shards, but ¡°survived¡± was a bit of an overstatement. My clothes were barely holding it together, and I wasn¡¯t much better, being covered in ash and glass dust. What had once been a nice graphic tee was a holy mess, emphasis on the holes, and my pants looked like I had dragged them through a war zone twice, which I guess I kind of did. I ran my hands through my hair only to realize my normally pristine white hair was probably ash colored, and shook out some broken glass. Well, I had run out of time. Despite being not exactly presentable, I could still be polite. The giant had made its way in front of me and stopped, so I took the opportunity to come out first. I smiled and spoke in Intergalactic Common. ¡°Hello big guy, would you mind telling me what the fuck is going on?¡± ¡°??? ???? ???¡± Oh. Uh oh. We do NOT speak the same language. Oh dear lord, how far into space did I fling myself? Intergalactic common is the primary language for a couple thousand light years! Did I really catapult myself all the way across a galaxy, or straight into a neighboring one? Goddamnit. The language was an odd combination of sounds, clicks, and some type of magic wave. To put it simply, it was complicated. To put it realistically, it was really fucking complicated. Ohhh boy, this is going to suck. The giant and I stared at each other for a few seconds. Pinky was smiling at me, rather awkwardly. All four of his hands were slowly reaching closer. Uh oh. I ran. Of course I ran. I booked it for the far edge of the table, looking around quickly. Besides the two huge tables, one wall was completely taken up by a massive lab bench, complete with random science gadgets and shelving. What? I don¡¯t know what they are, why would I know how to describe them? The rest of the room was mostly empty, and given the scale the room wasn¡¯t actually that large, it just felt huge to me. I could now see a massive door across from me that Pinky had entered through. I¡¯m not sure if I can jump to reach the doorknob, low gravity or otherwise, let alone push the door open. Dammit. I¡¯m stuck in here with him. I¡¯ve decided to call Pinky a him due to the length of his hair and generally muscular appearance, as well as the lack of boobs, but who knows? I sure don¡¯t. Maybe this race of aliens doesn¡¯t even have distinct genders. If there were a couple more individuals of Pinky¡¯s¡­ stature, I could probably get a better picture, but I wasn¡¯t really in the mood to run away from multiple giants today. Maybe tomorrow. While I was thinking of the appropriate swear words to use, Pinky was fumbling after me, clearly trying to grab me. He spoke intermittently, but all I gathered was ¡°??? ???,¡± whatever that means. It didn¡¯t matter much, I felt great. Now able to breathe oxygen again, and maybe a little light headed with all the blood rushing to my brain, I was practically bouncing around the room, jumping from table to table and scrabbling against their slick surface. After a moment of thinking, in which I decided Pinky was male, I leapt to the floor and used Mana to up my speed, running to the opposite corner of the room. Pinky followed rather quickly, given his large build, talking at me and spreading out his arms to prevent my escape. A few minutes of what was probably a very funny looking chase sequence later, I was caught. Not that I hadn¡¯t tried everything. I pushed objects off of shelves, tried opening the door, and even threatened to break an expensive looking microscope-thing, not that Pinky understood me. Next time I¡¯d better pantomime the threat instead. I got a splitting headache, probably from the stupidity of being unable to communicate. Now held firmly in two of Pinky¡¯s hands, I realized their skin was durable and impossible to scratch. I considered trying to bite, but that¡¯s not particularly classy, so I refrained. Waving my tail about angrily, I waited to see what would happen. Pinky used one hand to open the door, and called down the hallway before walking out. The final hand was used to pat my head. Maybe I really should bite him. Is the point to humiliate me? It didn¡¯t help that I kept getting dizzier, so I stayed put. The hallway of the spaceship looked very similar to the room, although it was now spinning in my vision. The headache was getting worse. Maybe I¡¯m just bad with this particular method of transportation, being manhandled by a giant. Either way, I started coughing. Breathing felt weird now, like I needed to exhale more than I could. Pinky seemed to speed up after a voice said ¡° ???????????????? ??????????????????????? ?????????????????? ?????????????? ¡± Oof, now my hearing is going too. As pinky rounded a corner, I gave up struggling and passed out. Again. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s revenge for vaporizing a military base this time. Chapter 3: New Room, New Body, New Food I woke up in a significantly smaller room, although the scale was still huge. I was lying on some type of padded blanket, and I quickly sat up. First order of business, there was a mask on my face, with a clear tube running to a port in the wall. I breathed deeply. I felt normal. Damn, I¡¯m stupid sometimes. Less than other people of course, but I never bothered to check if I could breathe the atmosphere on the ship, although I¡¯d argue that I didn¡¯t have time to. No wonder I fainted. Unfortunately, gas exchange is something I have difficulties controlling. Ignoring my silent surroundings for now, I curled up and focused on my body. Making a humanoid form is like molding extremely complicated clay. Very difficult to learn, but surprisingly easy to modify once learned. Fexels, myself included, preferred to keep a couple traits from our real forms in our humanoid forms. Big ears you can swivel about and a prehensile tail are both extremely useful, so we obviously ported them over to the humanoid version. Imagine living normally your whole life, and then someone says ¡°okay, time to learn to walk on all fours, and have these noise cancelling headphones glued to your head!¡± Does that sound like a good time to you? No, of course not. So fexels keep their superior senses in human form to remain superior. First order of business: making myself look bigger. I made myself a couple inches taller, stretching the arms and legs and spine, and broadened my shoulders and chest a touch. I also made my ears bigger, making them somewhere in-between a regular fox and a Fennec fox¡¯s appearance. To wrap up the changes, my tail was made larger too, now a white, fluffy foxish tail almost six feet long. What? My true form looked kind of like a fox, so my humanoid form looked like one too. Better than being classified as a catboy. Finally, we had the initial issue to deal with. I pulled the mask off my face and inhaled one breath of the ship¡¯s air. I then stopped breathing for now, trying to puzzle out the most convenient way to adapt to this new air. The air was reasonably close to what I could consider habitable, like a lizard dying slowly from a cage 10 degrees too hot. Unlike a lizard, I could change things. As a space faring race, fexels are great at dealing with changes in pressure, temperature, and atmosphere. Unlike most fexels, I haven¡¯t had to deal with changes in atmosphere much, so I was bad at modulating it. Funnily enough, I was great at not breathing instead. For that, all you really have to do is a little magic to break CO2 back into O2, easy peasy. Changing your blood to deal with a different oxygen concentration? That seems several magnitudes more complex to me. ¡°You literally just change the amount of red blood cells¡± said someone, possibly a drunk aunt Deborah. Yeah, well, I don¡¯t want to. So I decided not to breathe for now. I finally looked around the room. Again, I was lying on a white padded blanket, now smeared with a good amount of ash and glass dust. The rest of the room was pretty empty, besides the humongous door and a large window with a comically large windowsill attached. Okay, the windowsill was probably normal sized for the scale, but for something I almost had space to roll around on, it seemed more like a weird platform embedded into the wall that happened to be in front of a window than a windowsill. It did mean the walls of the spaceship were exceptionally thick and sturdy though. That was nice, I guess. I don¡¯t want to be in deep space again for a long while. The rest of the room was plain and white, a nondescript large cube. I stood up and walked onto the floor, leaving what remained of my shoes (basically nothing) on the blanket. The floor¡¯s texture was a little odd, like soft tile, somewhere between thin carpet and squishy metal. The walls were the same. I sniffed and smelled¡­. Food? I turned towards the door and saw large dishes in one corner. They weren¡¯t huge, maybe the size of my head, but they had a completely random assortment of food on them. One held mysterious leafy greens, another brightly colored alien fruits, and a third cubes of raw mystery meat. There was also a plate full of seeds (???), another of what appeared to be live grubs (??!?), and a final plate with something beige and round, whatever it was. I wasn¡¯t too keen to find out. It was like going to a new buffet restaurant after taking 3 tabs of acid and a cigarette for good measure. Completely mystifying. There was also a very large bowl of crystal clear water off to the side. Almost big enough and deep enough to swim in. I was ravenously hungry, so I walked over to the food first. Ignoring all the weird options, I focused on the fruits I had never seen before. They smelled sweet. Stolen novel; please report. I carefully picked up a large chunk of a hot pink fruit and gave it a lick. It was good, tasting somewhere between cherries and watermelon. I used some magic to cut it into smaller, bite sized pieces and started chowing down. The food I was eating was only kinda sorta nourishing my body. Most of the energy I needed is dealt with through magic. Waste is magically turned back into food, just like turning carbon dioxide back into oxygen. Basically, I use magic to act like a plant, turning energy and CO2 into sugars and oxygen over and over. It¡¯s just simple chemistry. The problem with this method is you need a large amount of mana, which of course I have, but that became much easier when marrying my mana singularity. Now with the benefit of infinite mana, I could survive without external input theoretically forever! The problem? The mana singularity was slowly, almost imperceptibly, shrinking. You can¡¯t just let your wife starve to death like that. The solution? Feed my wife. My mana singularity is in my stomach anyways, so all I¡¯ve gotta do is eat. All of the fruits were quite tasty, but my favorite was definitely the hot pink one. I¡¯m partial to cherries. I stared at the rest of the dishes. I could technically eat them all, but no way in hell did I want to. The leafy greens were the obviously edible choice, but I wasn¡¯t feeling up for an unseasoned salad (or as I would call it, a crime). I walked over to the rounded beige lump sitting on the final plate, ignoring the others. Who the hell would eat bugs or random seeds? I¡¯m not a bird. The beige lump smelled vaguely like bread, so I carefully tore off a piece. It was spongy, kinda like a cake. After taking a nibble, I confirmed it was probably alien bread, so I started eating. Considering the amount of food I was consuming, it was clear I wasn¡¯t eating with a normal stomach. Between the alien bread and fruit, I had easily eaten my body weight in food, clearing both dishes. With that, my wife¡¯s hunger from starving for several months was satisfied. Yes, I¡¯ve decided to call my mana singularity my wife. It¡¯s fitting isn¡¯t it? Inseparable ¡®til death do us part. Mostly satisfied, I turned to the bowl of water. I used my cupped hands to take a sip. It was a little metallic, but honestly pretty good for spaceship water, as it didn¡¯t taste like chemicals. I took a look at my disheveled appearance, reflected on the surface of the water. Grimy hair and ears that were no longer white, black, tired eyes and schmutz smeared across my skin. My tail was in a sorry state as well, appearing more gray than white, and my clothes had not miraculously regenerated overnight. Having human skin was kind of a pain sometimes, but it¡¯s easier to clean than fur. I had decided. I needed a bath, so I jumped in. I stripped down to my underwear first, of course. I relished in the cool water on my skin, as it had been a while since I could identify any temperature at all besides the disappointing vacuum of space. After a couple minutes of flopping about in my slightly too small makeshift bathtub, I was about as clean as I could get, and the water was turning gray. I released some energy, effectively cranking up the heat, until I was in a nice, piping hot bath. Well, more like a kiddy pool. I only got to relax for a few minutes until I heard the thumping of someone rushing down the hall. Uh oh. I¡¯m soaking wet and wearing only a moderately damaged pair of black briefs. This¡¯ll be slightly embarrassing. I cringed as the door burst open and Pinky ran in. He was looking ¡­big as usual. His pink hair fluttered in well defined chunks, and his facial expression was one of worry. He started rushing straight towards me as the door slammed shut. Ohh no. I¡¯m not being grabbed again. I darted out of the water and ran to a back corner of the room. ¡°???? ???? ??? ??¡± His four hands were moving around rapidly, clearly uncertain of what to do. Man, I hate looking up at him. We should be at eye level. I shoved my back into the corner and with some effort, started scaling the wall using my hands and feet. Water still dripped from my head and tail, which didn¡¯t help, but the weirdly squishy nature of the walls and the low gravity made it pretty easy. Pinky¡¯s nervousness only increased, his cheeks flushing green. Wait, green? Ew. There we stood, in a stare-off, Pinky clearly not wanting to get too close, and me perched three quarters of the way up the wall, staring into each other¡¯s eyes. I had a scowl on my face, obviously. ¡°???? ????¡± ¡°Ah yes, I know exactly what you mean.¡± ¡° ???? ??? ??¡± ¡°Look, can you just back off?¡± As we were having this very informative standoff, the door opened again. I craned my head to stare around Pinky. In walked another giant alien, same gray, scaled skin and four arms. This one was wearing something like a four sleeved lab coat as well as skin tight black pants with no embellishments. The face of the newcomer was in a slight scowl, and thin glasses were perched atop their vaguely masculine face. With dusty purple hair that fell to ¡­his? Shoulders and bags under his eyes, he looked every bit like an overworked scientist. Glasses was carrying a tablet of some sort, and after observing our standoff for a few seconds, he smacked Pinky over the head with it. They started talking to each other, maybe arguing. ¡°???? ????¡± ¡°??? ??? ? ??¡± While their discussion continued, I let myself slide down the wall and started wringing water out of my tail, which had returned to a mostly white color. Brushing off as much of the dirty water as I could, I started releasing heat to dry off, which startled the aliens. Glasses carefully crouched down and stared at me from a respectable distance, watching closely as I dried myself off. One of his arms grabbed Pinky to stop him from getting closer, which I appreciated. While being stared at was uncomfortable, it was much more comfortable than being manhandled, so I let it pass. I decided being stripped down to my underwear wasn¡¯t embarrassing because they were aliens. As this uncomfortable standoff continued, I stared out through the window into space, ignoring the gazes on me. What in the world have I gotten myself into? Chapter 3.5: The Little One Schast, Petra, and Granodi sat clustered in front of a monitor. Through the screen they watched a small humanoid toss and turn in his sleep on a blanket in a nearly empty room. They were engrossed. ¡°I still can¡¯t believe that little one gave you so much trouble,¡± Petra murmured. ¡°I think Schast never would have caught him if he didn¡¯t start fainting from the difference in atmosphere¡± replied Granodi. ¡°Stop teasing me.¡± Schast huffed, crossing his four arms. ¡°I doubt either of you could¡¯ve caught him either, he punched his way straight out of the med scanner! He was fast, and seemed to know what in the lab was expensive. I can¡¯t believe he realized he could threaten me over Gran¡¯s confocal microscope.¡± ¡°He was scared,¡± said Petra, gazing at him sternly. ¡°You ran straight at him. I would¡¯ve done the same.¡± ¡°But he¡¯s so small and cute! Just because you don¡¯t like me, Petra, doesn¡¯t mean he dislikes me too.¡± As if to prove a point, Schast hugged Granodi, wrapping all four arms around his shoulders and putting his chin on his head. Granodi kept staring at the display, taking notes. ¡°Can¡¯t we keep him?¡± Schast whined, staring at the other two with the biggest, wettest eyes he could muster. His pink hair and eyes seemed to shine a bit. Petra sighed. ¡°We have to keep him. Even while unconscious, he¡¯s radiating mana at a rate similar to that of a warp drive. We needed a new mana source anyways.¡± She turned away from the camera footage and walked in front of the neighboring display, which had the health scan data. The scanned data was rough to interpret. Besides the scan identifying the skin and skeleton, almost everything else appeared fragmented. Petra stared at it in frustration. The mana source seemed to be the entirety of his skin and hair, rather than a single point. They couldn¡¯t remove it even if they wanted to, let alone the danger of doing so. ¡°I think there¡¯s a nigh impenetrable barrier sitting just beneath the first layer of skin, which was interfering with the scan,¡± said Granodi. ¡°It¡¯s probably an adaptation to survive in space. The internal body is protected from temperature and pressure fluctuations, but the barrier still allows sensory information to flow in and heat to flow out. I¡¯d bet he can control it carefully when he¡¯s awake.¡± Granodi picked up a very small vial of blood they had managed to obtain from this little alien after he passed out the second time. They had to use a rather thick needle to pierce the barrier. Granodi was almost certain the same size needle wouldn¡¯t work if the little alien had been awake and watching. It probably would¡¯ve snapped like a twig. ¡°Are the bloodwork results in yet?¡± Petra asked. ¡°Not yet, but the blood doesn¡¯t have its own magic. You won¡¯t get any useful information, I¡¯m afraid.¡± Petra clicked her tongue and returned to quantifying the mana signature. The room the little alien was in absorbed mana through the walls, and returned it to the ship¡¯s storage. Despite the valuable data it provided, the flow of mana wasn¡¯t stable, as it rose and fell every few seconds. She looked back and forth between the two screens, before deciding the variation in mana was due to his breathing. As if the source of mana was breathing too. Inhale, the mana flow decreased. Exhale, it rose like a torrent. She told this observation to Granodi. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Their situation started 3 weeks ago. About 4 months into their expedition, their warp drive had fizzled out. Something that was theoretically improbable happened, and it stank of malicious intent. While the alien¡¯s team wasn¡¯t particularly well known, they had a few important members and more than a few enemies. Such was the fate of working with royalty. They had enough mana reserves to last a while, but not enough to warp back home. It seemed like a carefully calculated plan to have the 1 year expedition end with no contact, and the crew assumed dead or missing. How they managed to implement the sabotage, as well as the who and why were for the captain to deal with. Petra was only in charge of managing all magitech on the ship, so it was her duty to find a way to keep everyone alive and gain enough mana for a warp. And she had been the one to identify a signal in space that had the same signal markings as a functional warp drive: regular mana pulses diffusing through space. Everyone assumed they had found the remains from a wrecked spaceship by chance, and with a bit of luck the warp drive was still functional. When the tractor beam pulled in an unconscious alien animal, that was a shock. When the small health scanner barely read, it was more of a shock. While they were trying to study the alien and set up a habitable environment for the little one, Schast had gone to the laboratory to check on him once he woke up. That was a mistake, as the rest of the crew got to watch a very entertaining chase sequence when the little alien suddenly busted out of the scanner, which was no easy feat, and started sprinting around the room. ¡°Petra, Gran, come look! He woke up!¡± The two stopped their calculations and turned back to the security monitor, joining Schast once again. The little one sat up, glanced around, and then flopped over on his side, curling up. It looked cute to the three of them. After a few minutes, Granodi muttered ¡°I think his tail and ears are growing bigger,¡± to which a small argument started over Gran¡¯s mental health. Schast was arguing he spent too much time in the lab. A few minutes later, the little one stood up, pulled off the mask, and started exploring the room. He beelined straight to the food and stood staring at the dishes in confusion. ¡°It¡¯s not our fault we don¡¯t know what you eat, the scanner didn¡¯t work¡± murmured Schast in a slight baby voice. ¡°Oh no, he¡¯s completely enamored,¡± said Granodi with a slight smile on his tired face. His gray eyes returned to the screen. The little one was devouring the fruit with frightening speed. ¡°He must¡¯ve been hungry¡­¡± said Schast, watching him finish eating the fruit and start eating their dining hall soda bread. ¡°He¡¯s definitely eaten over his body weight. Where is it all going?¡± asked Granodi, ignoring Schast¡¯s smitten mutterings. Petra, appearing bored, looked back at the mana readings before answering Gran¡¯s question with a start. ¡°The mana readings are increasing. He¡¯s releasing more mana than before.¡± ¡°So are you suggesting he eats food not for sustenance but to forcefully convert it to mana?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know, that doesn¡¯t seem feasible, it would take more energy than it spends, right?¡± The two professionals continued their discussion, ignoring Schast who remained glued to the screen, barely blinking. After a few minutes, Schast jumped up with a yelp and ran out of the room. The other two stopped and turned to the monitor, seeing the little one mostly naked in the large bowl of water, completely submerged, barely moving. Gran sighed. ¡°What is he worried about this time? Does he think the little one is drowning? Why would he think that? He¡¯s been floating in space for who knows how long without breathing. No way he can drown, he¡¯s just holding his breath.¡± ¡°You figured out what he¡¯s thinking, you go stop him,¡± said Petra. Gran sighed and left the room, walking down the long hallway after Schast. Petra looked back at the little alien lazily scrubbing himself clean in the water bowl. ¡°I guess I should make some new clothes¡­ and grab some soap.¡± Chapter 4: New word - Mikatil After I had finished drying off, I stopped releasing heat. The entire process of getting dry only took a few minutes, and I now felt a lot cleaner, although I still needed soap and shampoo to be fully clean. Glasses was still staring at me curiously. He was muttering something under his breath, and started messing with the tablet. Pinky hovered nervously, but seemed to have calmed down. His cheeks weren¡¯t green anymore either, thank god. What was his deal anyways? I stared at glasses, smiled widely, and mocked him. ¡°You like what you see?¡± I did a little twirl before walking back towards my clothes, ignoring the perverts who liked to stare at almost naked aliens. I took a look at my clothes. They were completely, utterly beyond saving. I was more surprised they had lasted as long as they did. At least the underwear I was wearing was in okay shape. Ignoring the decimated clothes, I walked over to the plate of grubs, picked up a few, and hurled them at Glasses¡¯ face. I went back for another handful and threw them at Pinky this time. Glasses just blinked at me, startled, but Pinky gave a much better reaction, running away and backing up to the door. ¡°??? ??? ??¡± ¡°? ?? ??? ? ???¡± Great. They were now leaving. Unfortunately carefully. Glasses was staring at me, making sure I couldn¡¯t sneak past him as he exited. Rude. With nothing else to do in the now empty room, I walked over to the blanket, flipped it over to the clean side, and dragged it towards the window. With a bit of a struggle, I managed to hoist the blanket up with me to the very large windowsill. Floating is difficult for me, but jumping or throwing with a ton of force isn¡¯t, so I practically threw the blanket up with myself. I cocooned myself into the blanket, staring out the window into space. While the service wasn¡¯t the best, it definitely wasn¡¯t the worst either, so I guess I had to begrudgingly accept the alien¡¯s ¡­goodwill? And not immediately try to punch through the glass. I¡¯m almost positive I could punch through the glass, however thick it was. But that would be rude towards a group that fed me mysterious and suspicious food, offered a blanket, and put me in a fuckass metal scanning tube for some reason. Okay, maybe breaking out wouldn¡¯t be that rude. There was a problem though. I really didn¡¯t want to be free floating in space again, and although it was survivable for a while, it¡¯s certainly not comfortable. Nor do I want to be that bored again. Floating in space is terribly cold and lonely, and I¡¯d rather not willfully experience the same fate again. Okay, so I''ll stay on the ship. At least until it approaches a nice planet, or until there¡¯s another ship to jump to that hopefully speaks my language. Case closed. No more thoughts of demolishing the ship, but harassing the inhabitants for harassing me is certainly fair game. So all that leaves is finding entertainment, eating well, and catching up on sleep and rest. I suppose that¡¯s a good enough plan for now, until I recover enough to start experimenting with warp teleportation or other more magical methods of getting off this ship. I yawned and stretched. I was tired, as I had to be partially awake to survive in space, constantly regulating my mana-antimana barriers to prevent my body from becoming an irradiated, dessicated husk in space. I feel like I could sleep for a solid month, but my stomach (and the rest of my body) probably wouldn¡¯t agree to that. For now, at least, I snuggled into the blanket and went to sleep with the distant stars watching over me. I woke up several hours later at the sound of the door opening. Jumping up, I turned around and came face to face with an alien I had never seen before. She (?) had long, bright red hair that reached her waist and fell in chunky waves. Combining that with a stern expression and blood red eyes gave her a generally intimidating presence, but she was holding something while carefully approaching me. I just stared as it didn¡¯t seem like she wanted to grab me. Approaching slowly and quietly, she reached out one of her hands towards me while lowing herself to about my eye level. On her upturned, giant palm were two sets of clothes. I happily grabbed them, saying a ¡°thanks¡± I knew she wouldn¡¯t understand. The clothes were rather simple, one set in white and the other in black, both stitched with a thick red thread: drawstring pants and long sleeve shirts. I immediately put on the set of white clothes. The fabric was soft and slightly stretchy, but the clothes were loose fitting, with the pant legs and sleeves billowing out wide in a slightly unusual manner. Overall, they were probably a tiny bit too small, but because of the flowy nature of the clothes I actually preferred it this way, as the shorter sleeves and pant legs couldn¡¯t get in the way of my activities. On the right breast of the shirt was some type of stitched emblem, looking like a leaf growing out of a test tube, sewn in black, red, and white. I didn¡¯t pay much attention to it. The alien in front of me suddenly gave a beaming smile, softening every feature of her face. Uh oh. What¡¯s this about? Is she that happy i''m clothed? Okayyyyy¡­ If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. She then held out another of her arms, this time revealing a small sliver (well, okay pretty big for my size) of something, seeming to offer it to me. ¡°??? ?? ??? ?¡± I walked over to her hand and picked up the large sliver. It was white and kind of creamy. I sniffed it. Soap? Soap! I looked back up at her. My savior! ¡°?? ? ?¡± She cupped two of her hands together and beckoned. What did that mean? I¡¯m not climbing on. No way. I won¡¯t be carried around like some trophy. Her expression gradually faded from a smile to a clearly despondent face. Giving up, she walked back towards the door. ¡°??? ? ?¡± Instead of leaving, she stood at the door, beckoning. Ooh, would she lead me there? How reassuring, a bodyguard. I hopped off the windowsill and started following her. The spaceship was annoyingly large. Even for the scale of the aliens, the hallway was wide enough for three to walk side by side. Everywhere was made of metal, the walls painted white with green stripes in various shades accentuating the shape and texture of the metal. Relatively standard spaceship design, I think. As I followed her down the hallway, I noticed her face had returned to its impassive and stern expression. Odd. Passing a couple sleek metal doors, once again with no discernable handles, we ran into Glasses, who walked out of one of the doors looking surprised. The two said a few words to each other, which I won¡¯t recount here. You get the idea, ??????, how useful. Some translation would be greatly appreciated. Wait. I smacked my own forehead and groaned, drawing looks from the two aliens. One of the few regular spells I knew was translation magic. Classified as old magic, it¡¯s mana cost was immense, but it forcefully taught words between sentient races. It¡¯s still indisputably powerful on colonization missions, where the amassing of enough magic can forcefully convert an entire city¡¯s population into speaking Intergalactic common. The problem was the method. At the end of the day, it can¡¯t compare to learning the language properly, instead forcefully rewriting word associations in the brain to cause one word to translate to its correct translation. It works for communication, but for nothing else, like writing, math, or explaining culture. Exceedingly high mana cost, severe limitations, and impractical. But I could do it thanks to my wife (read: mana singularity) providing me with a ton of mana. Thanks to eating a good meal yesterday (?), I was practically overflowing with mana, enough to start warp portal experiments soon. Hmm. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Okay! I¡¯ve decided. I¡¯ll use a little mana to translate some words. Seems useful to get more out of my alien roommate buddies. Or maybe I should call them coworkers? I¡¯m not entirely sure what relationship they were going for, as I couldn¡¯t talk to them. I waved my arms and gave a couple ¡°Hey!¡± shouts to attract their attention. At some point, Pinky had joined them, emerging from the same room as Glasses, as well as the head of someone new peeking out of the door. This new alien had what looked like split dyed black and blue hair, as well as painted nails. He (?) was gazing at me rather indifferently. Once I had everyone¡¯s attention, I activated the magic and pointed at myself, standing as tall as I could. ¡°My name is¡¶Mikatil.¡·¡± I was met with a few seconds of silence, before Glasses responded ¡°¡°?? Mikatil ??.¡± Perfect, it works. Now they know my name, and can teach any others, assuming there are others. I ignored Pinky¡¯s positively ecstatic gaze, and especially ignored the fact that his cheeks were flushing orange. What is up with these aliens?? Actually, everyone¡¯s cheeks were flushing orange, save the girl, who appeared as impassive. Weird. Is she two faced? A phony? Everyone started talking with each other, seemingly shocked by their ability to now understand my name. It still sounded like a lot of weird clicking mana wave incomprehensibility to me. What species uses their pitiful quantity of mana for communication and language anyways? What¡¯s wrong with them? And I was down 40% of my mana just from a word. The cost of the spell increases the more different the languages and anatomical structures of the two species are, so I wasn¡¯t particularly surprised. I needed to eat more and/or wait to regenerate mana. I also got a nosebleed. Whoops. I guess I shouldn¡¯t overuse that spell, I¡¯m not used to using regular magic at this point. It was always a careful game, avoiding the antimagic within me to execute a regular spell. I¡¯m not very good at it. Eventually the female (?) alien waved off the other three and continued leading me down the hall, past a couple more rooms. It seemed like the spaceship was arranged like a giant donut on this floor, with a large circular hallway going all the way around. The second we were alone her expression softened a lot, and once we entered the bathroom she started smiling like an idiot again. What, enamored with my charm? I don¡¯t find that flattering at all. A phony indeed. ¡°Mikatil, ???? ? ?¡± I looked over. Okay, knowing when they¡¯re saying my name makes communication a lot more reasonable. I watched as Phony filled up a massive tub with warm water, just until it was as deep as my chest. She then handed me the chunk of soap, and grabbed a pump of some product she pantomimed rubbing into her hair. Okay, shampoo. And the next one is probably conditioner. She placed the two in small dishes next to me, and then gestured for me to hop into the tub, smiling. Oh boy, another pervert. I¡¯ll oblige. I jumped into the tub fully clothed, laughed at her disappointed face, and started using soap to scrub myself down inside of my clothes. Phony didn¡¯t take her eyes off of me the entire time, looking like she found something adorable. What, me? Why? After washing my body, I used the shampoo on my hair, ears, and tail, before going for a quick freestyle swim to wash off the suds. The tub was so big there was basically no worry of being in scummy water, so I just enjoyed a bit of a swim. Afterwards I used the conditioner , rinsed it off a little, and hopped out of the water with a little difficulty. The tub was slippery, so I missed my first jump, prompting Phony to stick a hand in the water to help me. I grabbed on to one of her fingers and used it to launch myself out of the tub and across the room, rather than let her pick me up. Now standing on regular solid ground again, I started releasing heat to dry off. This didn¡¯t startle Phony at all. Darn, I wanted to see her reaction. I¡¯ll do something more dramatic next time.