Bird and the Worm [Vince/Shen]

[Midi]

One day as he wondered around Vince had spotted a job added posted that was calling for mechanics to board and work on a passenger ship in open space. As he had been looking to price himself independent he had grasped onto the opportunity and rushed to interview for it. Not that in a place like Cancer the interview was anything too formal. They looked at him, asked if he could do the job and that's how he had ended up bored in the cargo bay.

Turns out there wasn't a lot he could do but sit around and wait. He had imagined more action, something exploding and needing fixing or at the very least a light bulb to change. The start of the trip was turning out to be incredibly uneventful though and the more hours passed the worse his boredom grew. Vince wasn't used to having absolutely nothing to do and even his tail had started to tap rhythmically out of frustration.

After some more hours had passed he had given up on trying to be professional, instead laying back over a cargo box, head thrown back toward the floor as he messed around with his Communication Device, completely distracted. He expected this to be his fate until his shift was over for the day and he could just go sleep but before he got to that he felt that weird sensation he only felt when something was about to happen. It was like a sixth sense as his mother had explained it to him growing up and he had learned to trust it just like a gut feeling. Whatever this was didn't leave him feeling very relaxed too.

Before he knew it he was getting up and moving to where he had been told the escape pods were. Better safe than sorry even though he wasn't even sure where one of those things was meant to land him even if he did end up getting in one. Whatever, that was something for the future him to worry about.

[Cheesigator]

Vince would soon find that once again his mother had truly known best, because his sixth sense was right.

The ship gave a massive shudder, and down the halls he could likely hear the alarmed cries of the crew and passengers as red lights started flashing: the ship was warning them all that she had sustained damage.

The captain of this particular vessel was a surly man with decades of experience; he announced to everyone that pirates had been detected, and in the face of imminent danger with people to protect he had only two options.

Option A, use the commercial vessel with limited offense capabilities to the best of its abilities to try and engage the pirates' ship in battle, or,

Option B, do what every seasoned sailor of the starry seas knew not to do: venture into the nearby asteroid field infamously called Death Incarnate.

Considering this ship was a commercial cruise liner and both choices were terrible, he swallowed the lump in his throat and turned towards Death Incarnate, despite his crew's outcries and swearing. And soon enough once they passed into the field, asteroids floating ominously outside the windows, the pirates veered off course and gave up the chase.

"We'll just wait it out here, no need to go much further in." He announced over the intercoms, and everyone seemed to let out the collective breath they were holding (and unclenched their assholes.)

The moment of respite was brief; there was a loud bang and the sound of shrieking metal; the alarms sounded again and the crew was met with a sight unlike any other they'd seen before. It passed by the windows as a flash of black feathers, a massive creature 2-3 times their own ship's size.

The sound of metal being pushed to its limits made everyone's ears ring and the captain barely had the time to yell "EVERYONE TO THE ESCAPE PODS," before the entire ship shuddered and everyone was thrown to their feet as their vessel continued to shake and sway as if it were a mouse being carried in the talons of a very large predatory bird.

[Midi]

Vince had gotten in all sorts of trouble in his short life but perhaps none that felt as big as this one was starting to feel, probably because he wasn't usually stuck in open space with no way out. As the red lights started flashing along with the alarm that made his ears ring, his tail curled around his leg in an attempt to comfort himself and remain calm. After all he still didn't know the magnitude of the trouble and as he listened to the captain's voice through the speakers he tried to hold into hope.

Death Incarnate did sound like a place where one wouldn't want to be though and his sixth sense kept on sending shivers down his spine even as everything seemed to quiet down. He put his left hand to the wall, feeling the cold metal wall beneath it as he started to move. He should go see if he could fix some of the damage from earlier he thought, it was his moment to shine. This idea quickly fell apart though as the sound of the metal shrieking made him close his eyes tightly, ears pulling back in an attempt to try to escape the awful sound.

This also triggered his fight or flight though and in this moment he picked flight. He had not come out here to die so he quickly turned on his heels. He was rushing to the escape pods before the captain's voice even told them to. He was really close too so he was the first to slip into one, frowning as he looked around, trying to spot the right level to push and get him out of here. Perhaps he still wouldn't get any chance of survival by escaping but as he finally reached for the level and pulled it hard he was ejected from the main ship and sent out. He couldn't lie, this felt terrifying but he thought as long as his Comms kept working he could still contact his family and get them to send help to get him. He really did want to see them again. He hadn't even exactly said goodbye before he embarked on this journey, just telling them he had a new job and rushed out to do it. Urgh. Stupid idea.

[Cheesigator]

With a reassuring kshk-kssssshhhh the lever he pulled shut the door to the escape pod and it launched. Jettisoned out into space, surrounded by the darkness with only asteroids and stars around him, it became eerily quiet.

A few other escape pods managed to set themselves free, and right as Vince's had drifted far enough away to get even somewhat of a glimpse of what was happening, there was a loud explosion as the entire ship careened from being torn in half. Some of the escape pods were caught in the explosion, but the force from the blast sent his tumbling through space, small asteroids clanking and bumping into the thick window that was his only view into the world outside.

Eventually the thrusters righted themselves as it started to plot a course for the nearest habitable place, but there was a crash as another asteroid hit it, and a warning came on the screen saying the engine was damaged. Vince's only way of surviving was tumbling helplessly through the cosmos before suddenly impacting with one of the largest asteroids further in in what would probably result in one of the worst cases of whiplash Vince would ever experience.




He continued to flex as his talons dug deeper and deeper into each end of the ship, watching as the few remaining escape pods crashed into asteroids and exploded or somehow managed to make it out of the asteroid field. A few survivors would be fine, it just meant more people to tell the terrifying tale of "Death Incarnate" so even less people would bother him than before.

With the beating of his wings he flew in further into the field, bringing the dead ship with him to toss into the collection in the asteroid field's center. He would be able to properly scavenge and pick it apart later, but right now he was starting to get kind of hungry. So it was time he turned back to the largest asteroid in the whole bunch, and after a quick swoop around he located the main cavern's entrance and shifted to his smaller, somewhat-human-ish form to land on the rock.

His attention was quickly directed to the fact that he was not the only one on his rock; he saw one of the escape pods from earlier had somehow ended up this far in the field and crashed here so it seemed, dug and wedged in pretty deep. It was still smoking, though because this was the one asteroid Shen maintained an atmosphere on, and thus there was oxygen, it behaved like regular smoke and the pod, with what energy it had left, opened the door upon registering that the environment was safe enough for its companion inside.

Shen, not being the best with social queues, simply tilted his swirling purple "head" of energy slightly to the side out of curiosity and waited, seeing if someone had survived such a rough landing and would indeed come out.

[Midi]

Vince had his alien blood for surviving the impact. He had lost conscious for a moment and most definitely seen stars that weren't there but somehow it didn't kill him. If it was not for the fact he had had his arm ripped right from his body before in a freak accident this would have been the worst pain he had ever experienced. Because of that it came twice though and as his eyes opened again he groaned. The smoke made him cough too but he had landed somewhere and the door was open.

He didn't immediately asphyxiate so that should mean he could breath. Either that or he was actually dead and yet to realize it. Either way he pulled himself to sit, try to drape himself out of the pod, the smoke making him cough. Fuck. All the spinning had really messed with his stomach too and he was just glad he had not eaten yet before all this took place. He was too shaken still to realize he wasn't alone here, his sixth sense still trying to look past the soreness of, well, everything.

[Cheesigator]

After a few moments of intense waiting and silence interrupted only by the hissing of the escape pod's inner workings trying to cool down the engine, there was finally a cough. ! Goodness, they actually survived!

Shen wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Shen wasn't an outright nasty creature who wished for the deaths of innocent beings; he was just a simple void bird that wanted his asteroid field to be left alone and for his life to go relatively undisturbed. It would likely be many more thousands of years before his services would be needed by this great universe, so he'd like to take it easy as much as possible before then.

He crossed his arms over his chest, thinking intensely as a rather thin little alien scrambled out of the pod, coughing and wheezing. Yeah, that probably hadn't been the most fun ride.

Oh! Right. Before the alien noticed him, Shen quickly changed to his most human face so perhaps he would scare the little guy a tad less. They were probably pretty well shaken up.

Right, he didn't really WANT to hurt anybody when it wasn't necessary. Maybe he could help this one get back to land or something. He carefully stepped forward, clearing his throat to alert the other to his presence.

"Hey there, easy," He said, his voice a deep, rumbling timber, "You were just mixed up like a cocktail in a cobbler shaker."