companionwolf

“You want to do it,” asks PC, “or should I?”

Alex looks at the Shard, at the Gate, grimaces, and hands it off to him. Espeon jumps down, Alice teetering on her back, to join the group in standing a bit away as PC steps up to the Gate. He takes a deep breath.

What if it works? Eylion’s voice.

I’m not sure, he says. I don’t think it’ll notify the Elders, but I also wouldn’t put past them to have some kind of ... alarm, or something. 

I am watchful, it says, and he feels something where a stomach should be heat with Psionic potential. I will be ready. 

“Here goes nothing,” PC says, and gingerly reaches a hand holding the Shard into the empty space of the Psi Gate. 

For a moment nothing happens, and continues to not happen, and PC is about to withdraw his hand and sigh when the Shard sparks light inside of it, and there is a pulsing about the rim of the Psi Gate. Alex visibly cringes, blood gushing anew from their nose. 

“I think you’ve got something there,” they say thickly as the pulsing of the Gate gets stronger, faster, until a bright white flash emits from the Shard, PC wrenching his head away from the flare but managing to keep the Shard in place. The Gate’s rim has stopped pulsing, the inner part of the circular shapes a bright purple now, and all at once they flicker and psionic energy crackles across the empty air between—

“Whoa, are you guys seeing that?” Tulip’s voice, half muffled by the new loud hum that comes from the Gate, steady and deep. PC blinks the light spots from his vision, and sees what she means- it’s a clear image into what he can only assume is the alien base. Half built structures and empty rooms inside glass paneling to keep out the water; PC doesn’t seem much in the way of things he recognizes, but he thinks that’ll change when they actually get in there. 

“I guess it’s working,” says Alice, who’s come up to PC’s feet and peers into the Gate. “They must know the door is open, even without some tripwire or trap.”

PC waits, hands shaking slightly around the Shard that hums alongside the Gate, but there is no Elder appearing to chide them, there is no wave of Psionic energy or Dragonball Z type laser. Just the empty base and its empty metal floors, faint flickers of aquatic life passing the glass walls. He cannot see the Elder’s sarcophagi from here, which he supposes makes sense; they are in the last room in the game, that must apply here as well. 

PC pulls the Shard back, the light emitting from it dims, and the image between the rims collapses on itself as the inner of the circular almost ring fades to dark. He blinks, looks to his friends.

“Guess we don’t need your ship engine after all,” says Espeon.

“Wait, like you’re serious about having a ship?” says Davey. “Are you... actually not a person?”

“I thought this was obvious; no, I am not of your planet,” the Spartan says. “That is not a matter of concern at the moment.”

Davey looks like he’s going to argue, to Espeon climbs up his body like a tree and settles onto his shoulder, where a Awakened tail gently settles itself against his mouth. “You’re doing the human thing of getting distracted,” she says to him.

Alice shakes her head at them, and looks up from her place at PC’s feet at the Outsider Shard. “Someone will have to stay behind to hold it up,” she says. “I will do this, or perhaps Sam will.” 

“We’re not going now, are we?” asks Tulip, sounding incredulous. 

“Oh, no, no,” says Alice, matter of fact. “You are nowhere near ready, I think. The Spartan speaks truth in that you need to practice. But I’m sure between them and PC you’ll be able to learn and prepare sufficiently.” 

The Spartan’s visor flashes. “I can help those with firearms learn to weld them properly,” it says. It looks toward Pillow Central. “You seem to possess ability in melee combat. You teach that one-“ it points at Davey- “how to best make use of it.”

“We can probably go over Psionic stuff too,” PC says, nodding at Alex. “I can try to teach you the things I’ve picked up.”

“What about mind control?” asks Tulip, and PC hears Davey inhale sharply. 

“I’m not sure,” he admits, “but we can workshop ideas. We have time, I think, it’s not like—“

As soon as the words leave his mouth, the Gate hums to life again; the humans scramble back, behind the Spartan, Alice running with them and ducking behind their legs. PC stands frozen as the Gate powers back up and the image of the alien base appears once more, only this time obscured by a humanoid body with a palm outstretched to them. 

“AVATAR,” he mumbles. Or something similar? How can they have Avatars now?  There’s been no invasion, so no blacksites, no gene processing—

He feels Eylion prod at the being in the middle of the Gate, and hears it snort. It is not a Psionic being itself, says the Ethereal. It is only a husk. A crude imitation. A robot. There is nothing human or genetic at all. They simply sit in it; killing it would not kill them— it is not like the one within the GRE, or like the Avatars of the game. They haven’t gotten there. 

The being stares at them from beneath a purple visor about its face. PC stares back.

The being speaks: “What naive bravery,” it says. “We almost find it endearing.”

Eylion spits at the being’s feet. It raises its other hand from its side, and a Psionic grasp grabs PC by the collar and pulls him, he feels the ripple of the portal as he is brought through, and suddenly he is inches away from the proto-Avatar, on the other side of the Gate, feet dangling above the ground as it clenches his shirt in its Psionic fist. Panic raises in his chest, and he struggles, kicking and twisting. The Elder, because that is what this is under mechanical hood, watches. 

“You are but a child,” it says, “both in host and self. We pity you. You could have been something far greater. This world, yet, has that possibility still.” It looms over them, and PC chokes because the grasp has moved to his mind mapped throat, because the looming is too much like how the GRE’s servant did, chokes because he is back in that small space, back on fire, chokes—

“You would do better to walk with us,” it says. “You have redemption possible yet.”

Eylion manages to spit on its visor, pure Psionic in form, and the tiny Psionic glob crackles and dies as it hits the glass.

The Elder shakes the head of its proto-Avatar, and tosses him roughly back through the portal onto the hard floor of the Psi Gate housing. He lands on his stomach and rolls for second, gasping and flailing because some part of him is back on fire, he’s on fire, and then there is Alex helping him to his feet and asking what happened, Alice being pressed into his hands—

“Deep breaths,” she says.

He breathes. She coaxes him through a quick grounding exercise - what do you see hear touch - and by the end, he is steady again. He explains what happened to the group, and they listen in rapt attention. 

“I don’t know if they’ve got other aliens in there too,” he finishes, “but I think we’ve got a lot of training ahead of us to do. And to do fast. We’re reaching the end of the proverbial rope here with time before they finally call in the invasion, I think. I’m terrified I just sealed its happening, and when I say happening I mean soon.”

Even without words, as he gets near, he sees the hurting. He feels eyes on him as he reaches up and gently pets the head of a mismatched pokemon plushie- part of it is a Jolteon, the other a Umbreon. The prices alternate, paws and ears and tail. He sees the pupil of the red eye move; it looks toward his fingers.

“Those aren’t real,” it says, and its voice is raspy. 

“Hello,” says Alice from the hoodie pocket.  The Frankenstein-Pokemon looks down at her, and Pillow Central is glad the attention is off him. “Are you... what is it like,” she continues, “to be in your state?”

“What do you think?” snaps the plushie, and both eyes narrow. Then they soften again, and a smaller, kiddish voice says “It hurts. I’m scared.” 

“Be not frightened,” says Alice, but she trials off, and Pillow Central feels her shift uncomfortably in his pocket. 

“I’m sorry she did this to you,” Pillow Central says. Louder, he says “I’m sorry she did this to all of you.”

Somewhere, higher in the tree, a plushie begins to wail, ignoring the hisses and shushes it brings. Pillow Central looks nervously around, but the occasional cars just continue pass, and there are no walkers on the street. 

“She’s selling us now,” says the one at his hands. “She puts things inside us.”

If it was possible for his ears to perk, they would. “Things?” he asks.

“We don’t know what they are,” says the Jolteon side. “We’ve never seen stuff like it before. It’s metal bits and green rock...”

Alarms go off in Pillow Central’s head. Metal bits and green rock sounds uncannily like alien weapon fragments. “Do you know where she got these things?”

The plushie shakes its head. “You could buy one and see for yourself,” it says, and then laughs bitterly.

“Perhaps we will,” Alice says, and Pillow Central glances down at her. 

“We will?”

“It would be interesting to get to know one of these souls better, and you stiffened when it described the things— you think there’s something there.” 

“So I’m gonna... have to talk to her.”

“It really isn’t that hard,” Alice says. “Humans are very very easily manipulated, and are very unperceptive.”

He shifts foot to foot. “Okay,” he says finally. 

“She’s home now,” says a plushie hanging above him from a string around its neck; it wears a face similar to Espeon, and it hurts to look at. “You should hurt her. Hurt her like she’s hurt us.”

“I can’t do that,” he says.

“Sure you could,” it says, and it rattles its body at him, a mockery of laughter, something inside making a sound similar to the noise he’s heard from rattlesnake videos. “You’re just enamored.”

“Human lover,” hisses another.

“They’ll cut you up!”

“They’ll burn you alive!”

“They don’t really care about us! We’re just toys.”

The one at his hands nods affirmatively at the jeers. “If they cared, they wouldn’t do this.” 

“Like all her kind, she doesn’t know,” Alice begins, only to be drowned out by louder wailing and the angry calls of  “Seasonal prop!” “Doorstop!” “Dog toy!” 

One of them, slightly elevated, sneers at Pillow Central as he passes on the way toward the woman’s front door. “I bet your ‘owner’ doesn’t even love you. Not like they would a real toy. You’re not even a animal,” it says, flicking its Flareon ears.

“You’re just a soft thing for their heads! You’re not better then a teenager’s fuck toy!” howls another, lashing a long Vaporeon tail.

The jeers fall quiet as he stiffly steps up onto the porch and knocks on the door. Pillow Central tucks his hands into the hoodie, gently rubs one of Alice’s ears between his fingers; he feels her place a paw on his hand, and the touch makes the hot red anger pooling in his stomach cool. 

“Listen not,” she murmurs. “They are only saying what they know.”

He does not get a chance to answer; the door opens, and the woman who he guesses is Hazel is standing in the doorway, staring at him from beneath her auburn bangs.

She’s in a tank top, and jean shorts that fray at the bottom. Pink flip flops clash with the black and neon rainbow leggings. She twists her nose piercing as he gapes. “You want something or what?” she asks, and her voice drawls Texan more then the owner’s ever has. 

“Your— uh, the tree—“ 

“Yeah? You from the city? You can’t make me take it down, it’s my property—“

“No, no,” he says quickly, “I- I want one.”

She blinks. “Well,” she says, “that’s something. I haven’t had a order in a while.”

Pillow Central frowns. That contradicts what the plushies on the tree told him. But maybe she’s keeping those under wraps, if she really is sending out toys with weapon fragments hidden in them.

“My, uh, my nephew bought one from you,” he says, “and said there was weird hard things it in it? So I came to personally get them a new one.”

Hazel squints at him. “I don’t remember selling to any boys recently,” she says. 

“It might have been late last year, you know how busy the holidays are,” he says.

“You got the old one? I don’t take kindly to people claiming my products got something in it,” she says.

“Um, they uh, they removed the items themselves,” he says, and goddamn it he’s stammering. “But they’re... their sewing skills aren’t great and I don’t know how to do it myself and we thought this would be easiest.”

“What they do with them?” she asks.

“Oh, it’s still with them—“

“Not the plushie, dumbass,” she says, “the stuff inside.”

“Oh, uh, I think they kept a few pieces of it; said it was some kind of rock? And they uh, collect rocks...” If he could sweat, he’s certain he’d be sweating now.

Hazel studies him. “You’re too fidgety,” she says finally. “And no one would be wearing that get up at any point in this state.” Her eyes narrow. “What do you want, really?”

He feels Alice press her paw harder against his hand. He glances around, and steps a little closer. “I know there’s something weird going on,” he says. “I want to help.”

Hazel is quiet.

“A - a anonymous source told me you’re putting unknown materials inside your orders,” he says. “And I really— you really shouldn’t be doing that. Not with what you’ve got.” He shifts. “I’m with the government,” he says, and wow now he’s barreling toward XCOM levels here we go, “and we’ve had a few other instances like yours-“ 

“So you know what it is?”

He avoids her eyes. “Yes.”

“Then you’ve caught me, govie. And I guess then I’ve got something to show you. Maybe you’ll know what to do with it,” she says, and gestures for him to come inside. 

He hesitates, the words from the tree plushies echoing in his head, Espeon’s fearful expression in the forefront of his mind. 

Then he thanks her for her cooperation, takes a breath, and steps through the doorway.

In the passengers seat, a folder with official documents (a driver’s license, a birth certificate, a Social Security card, a ID card and key back to the Owner’s room) a wallet stuffed with cash and a pair of bank cards (one credit, one debit), and a old laptop and iPhone that light at his touches; in the back the seats have been removed to create a sleeping space, filled with pillows and blankets and sporting AC adapters for his electronics. 

Pillow Central takes the driver’s license from the folder and puts the rest away in the glove box, tucks the laptop under a pillow in the back, and shoves the wallet, phone, and key into his pocket. He sets Alice and Espeon in the now empty passenger seat, and then sits himself at the wheel, realizing that his hands (now visible as regular human hands to those who see him) are shaking.

“I don’t know how to drive this,” he says.

“Trust in Awakening,” Alice answers. “It’ll guide you.”

“Very unprofessional sounding advice from a science and research loving therapist,” he murmurs, but finds she’s right— he lets his hands fall to where they tug to, listens to the slight hum of being that dictates how to push on the pedals and move the stick, and all at once he is driving down the street, the truck rumbling and bumpy from its age. 

“This is weird,” he says, as if speaking the feeling of oddity will lessen it. 

“Welcome to humanity, it’s all weird here,” Espeon answers.

He makes a noise in his throat, and then his breath catches- he doesn’t have a throat, not really; the printed ink he perceives as his body is nothing more then that, the astral limbs only a replacement for what he lacks. He has so little compared to so many of the others—

“Dude, that’s a green light,” Espeon says, as a honk breaks him from his spiral. 

“Oh,” he says, rather hollowly. “Right.”

They drive in silence for a while, Pillow Central curbing the innate need to gaze in awe at the city into a perhaps overly tense  focus on the road. Alice speaks suddenly when they come to another red light. “Let’s go to the store,” she says. “The beings there might have heard things.”

Pillow Central swallows, squashes the looming momentary inner crisis about the action that is not a action, and then nods. He pulls the phone from his pocket and soon enough, the tinny GPS voice is ringing out in the quiet of the truck. 

The rest of the trip to the Target is uneventful, but even still Pillow Central begins to fiddle nervously with the strings of his hat as he parks (with some difficulty and mocking from Espeon). He looks down at the others from where he stands in the truck doorway.

“Just ask some of the Easter displays if they’re heard anything,” says Alice. Her yellow stitched :3 mouth flickers at him. “You’ll be fine. No one really notices anyone else unless you make a scene, you just think they notice because you’re anxious and put too much importance on yourself.”

“Thanks for the free therapy,” he says, and it comes out a little more snippy then he means it too. “Sorry,” he follows up quickly, “I’m just... this is all really new.”

“It is for all of us,” Alice says. “But no worries, Central— I lived Awoken in a Target for weeks before I was chosen, and I assure you, no one in there cares about you.” A pause. “Er, in the sense they don’t care about what you are doing. As long as you’re not shoplifting, I don’t think pausing and whispering to the stuffed rabbits will get you many looks.”

“Okay,” he says, still tugging at his hat strings. “If things go wrong—“

“That’s very unlikely,” she interrupts. “Take a deep breath.”

He does, ignores the blaring scream in his head of ‘you’re not REALLY breathing, you’re not really alive!’, reaches over and gives Alice a last nervous tick rub of one her ears between his fingers before he shuts the truck door and makes his way across the parking lot.

It’s easy enough getting inside, just go through the door that slide open when he approaches, but once there he stops, and the thundering need in his chest to stare manifests— he stands in the lobby, blinking against the manila colored floor’s light glare, eyes sweeping across the registers and the clothing and beyond.

Pillow Central feels, all at once, very out of place.

The feeling evaporates as a man roughly moves past him; he takes a few hesitant steps, waiting for someone to point at him and call him out on his non humanity, but no one does, and he finds he is able to walk down the aisles relatively unaccosted.

It takes a accidental turn into the grocery area and then a slightly uncomfortable wandering through the woman’s clothing section before he manages to find the stuffed animals. There’s obviously Easter theming going on— there’s rabbits and deer and chicks, all piled on top of each other, limp and soft to the touch. 

He wonders how many are Awake, how many are scared because of it, how many are not. 

On the bottom rack of the stuffed animal shelves are a few larger toys; one he recognizes as a Squishmallow from the Owner’s amazon account wishlist- this one is a unicorn, and not the cat they want, but it’s familiar enough. 

Pillow Central leans down, picks up the toy, and wow. He can’t help but squish them a little. They are very nice to squeeze. He feels his cheek flush at the action, and then there’s the creeping horror of that being simulated, and then a vague nothing as he kicks that feeling away. 

“Excuse me,” he says, quiet, quiet.

The Squishmallow is silent, but—

“There’s something— there’s these—“ He stumbles over how to begin, absently squeezes the Squishmallow again. He settles with a easier question: “Are you Awake?”

Just so slightly, he sees the embroidered eyes narrow. He smiles, breathes a sigh of relief. “Sorry to keep squeezing you...” he says.

“It’s ok,” says the Squishmallow. It stares at him with unblinking eyes. “Do you need something? I’ve never seen anyone do what you’re doing.” It’s voice is like a child’s, high and squeaky.

“Yeah, I was wondering if... if you’ve heard anything strange? Relating to stuffed animals?”

“Like recalls?” 

“Anything,” he says. “I’m looking for anything.”

The eyes narrow a little more, this time in thought.

“I heard a little girl say she saw her stuffed dog move,” it says. Pillow Central holds in a snort; kids are easier to Awake around, and to be Awake around, but Kitty told him they’re also much more likely to perceive Awakening where it isn’t. 

(“Powerful little creatures,” she said, quite dreamily. “Sticky, colorful, powerful little ones.”)

Besides, stalking and breaking and entering is not something Pillow Central is quite ready to do, especially to a child. That’s... too weird. Even with alien occupation on the line, he’s not quite ready to do that. Maybe next week. 

He’s not hit peak XCOM, is what he’s trying to say. 

“Anything else?” 

The Squishmallow thinks. “Go ask Creeper,” it says finally. “In the fourth aisle, with the Minecraft Stuff. You know Minecraft, don’t you?”

Pillow Central nods; he knows Minecraft very well. It’s one of the Smalls’ favorite games. 

“He’s been Awake forever,” the Squishmallow goes on, “but never been bought; he’ll know something.”

“Thanks,” Pillow Central says as he sets the Squishmallow back.

“Good luck with whatever it is you’re doing,” it answers. 

“Good luck getting, uh, purchased,” he says, and feels something in him lighten at the sound of the Squishmallow laughing as he heads to the recommended aisle.