Gx the Space Gremlin/The Tie that Binds

From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

Paragon City, 2003.

"Ready or not, here I come!"  Cindy heard the shout from across the elementary school playground and bit her lip to keep from giggling too loudly as she burrowed down into the sand beneath the bottom of the slide feet-first.  Her mother would be furious when she saw how filthy her frilly yellow and white dress was, but Cindy didn't care.  She hated wearing it anyway.

Cindy went still as Taylor scampered past the slide in search of their classmates, and was delighted to realize she'd gone undiscovered.  She grinned as she heard a dismayed shout from inside the plastic tunnel that connected the two halves of the playground's central apparatus.  Sounded like Sabrina got caught in the same place she always chose.  Now Taylor was prowling back this way, but it looked like he was more intrigued by the benches at the edge of the play area and still didn't suspect Cindy's hiding spot. She clamped her hands over her mouth so as not to laugh, thinking to herself: I am the best hider!

Two more kids were found before the seeker's attention turned back towards the slide, but before she could check beneath it something happened to distract all the children on the playground from their various fun and games.  Up in the sky, what appeared to be a comet streaked across the atmosphere, a churning trail of black smoke billowing in its wake.  This was not just a shooting star, however.  In fact, it quickly became apparent that the glowing red object was rapidly descending directly towards the school!  A few of the kids screamed in surprise as they realized it, but the object roared overhead at a safe but shockingly low altitude.  It disappeared over the treetops of the woods just a few hundred yards north of the playground, and a collective sigh of relief spread through the children and the school staff monitoring them.  An instant later, birds exploded from the trees and a shockwave rolled out of the woods with the object's impact into the Earth, shaking most of the children off their legs, though they almost all scrambled back up in an instant, astonished.

Cindy scampered out from under the slide, shaking from the excitement.  Several of the children at recess looked around, exchanged daring glances.  School employees were fanning out on the playground to shepherd the children inside, and most began to trickle back indoors with disappointed looks.  Not all of them did, however.  Two older boys, 4th graders they looked like, seemed to be trying to help get some of the younger kids over to the adults, but as soon as the teacher closest to them turned his back, they spun around and bolted for the chain link fence around the playground.  Overcome in an instant by the promise of adventure, Cindy kicked off her polished black shoes and ran through the sand to a spot in the fence she had seen the maintenance crew repairing the previous day.  The mesh hadn't been reattached to the new pole they'd installed yet, and it was easy for her to wriggle through.

There were shouts from the playground as the adults noticed some of the children were missing, but Cindy and the boys disappeared at breakneck speed into the woods before anyone caught sight of where they'd disappeared to.  They barreled excitedly through the trees and brush in the direction the dissipating smoke trail left by the object indicated.  It wasn't long before they came to a clearing, or what was now a clearing, where it had smashed into the ground, the force of its impact flattening several trees immediately around it and leaving a deep trench in the earth.  The three of them pulled up short as they came to the edge of that trench and could see what the object was.

The two boys gasped in surprise, while Cindy just let out a delighted, "Cool!"  Nestled in the end of the trench its impact had dug was a genuine spaceship, a small one; Cindy guessed it couldn't hold more than a person or two.  Despite the force of its impact, it looked like it was in one piece.  The hull of the craft had a strange texture, like a lizard's skin, though charred all over.  "Do you think anything survived?" asked one of the boys behind her as the other dropped down into the trench.  Cindy followed close behind, further ruining her dress as she slid down the curved wall of warm, muddy earth.

As if to answer the question, there was a sudden hiss from the strange, fleshy ship, and a section of skin facing them seemed to dislodge.  Smoke billowed from inside as the segment pushed out, then rolled to one side, a hatch opening.  The boys froze in their approach, while Cindy took two eager steps forward, eyes wide.  There was movement inside the craft!

"Hey, uh, maybe we should go get..." mumbled one of the boys uncertainly while the other looked around frantically before grabbing a stick off the ground, a jagged splintered branch knocked off a nearby tree in the crash.  "Kid get back over here!" he hissed as he saw Cindy stepping closer to the craft.

The craft's inhabitant came into view through the dissipating smoke as it lurched up from inside the cockpit, clinging to the lower edge of the hatch and kicking at the inside as if freeing itself from a snare.  Its foot came loose and it tumbled head over heels over the lip of the hatch to splat face-first into the mud of the trench, then rolled over making a sputtering sound and swiping with a hand at its mouth and nose, or where its nose would be if it had one.  It was a bluish-gray creature, not even as tall as Cindy, wiry and wide of build with long skinny limbs, with long pointy ears jutting out from its head and little antennae wiggling on its forehead.  "AK!" it squeaked as it struggled to its feet; one arm hung limply at its side, and it made a pitiful squeal when it tried to lift it.

Cindy gawped in awe -- a real alien!  Behind her she heard harried, squelching footsteps as one of the boys ran.  She on the other hand scurried forward, her legs shaking from the excitement until they gave out and she skidded and slid to within only a couple feet of the creature, who jumped, startled by her approach, and made a wary keening sound as it watched her.  Behind her the boy who remained, the one wielding the stick, ran up.  "Are you stupid!  Get away!  It's a Rikti, we have to kill it!"

Cindy rolled over and got up on her knees to shout back defiantly, "It is not, dummy!  They don't have scales or tails!"  The fourth-grader wasn't listening, and he raised the stick high over his head as he charged towards the little alien beast.  The sight of the raised stick sparked an immediate reaction from it, a high-pitched whimper as it cowered down and lifted its good arm to try to shield itself from the incoming blow.  It didn't have to, however.

Furious, Cindy sprang to her feet and ran to intercept the boy, swinging her little arm in an awkward but nevertheless effective arc, throwing her fist forward right into what her daddy called "The Panic Button", the spot she was supposed to hit anyone she didn't know who tried to pick her up after school.  The boy cried out and crumpled, dropping the stick and clutching between his legs as he rolled over and started crawling quickly back the way he'd come, cursing the little girl.  Cindy whirled back around and saw the creature quaking in terror against the side of its ship, staring at her in confusion with huge green-lensed eyes.  "A-ak?" it whispered frightenedly as she approached it again, slowly.

"Shh...I'm not gonna hurt you!" she promised in a soft voice, though she couldn't keep a note of excitement out of it.  She walked over slowly and knelt down next to the huddled little thing, untying the bright red sash around the waist of her dress.  She held out a hand to the alien, moving slowly to take the wrist of its injured arm.  "Can you move it?  Does it hurt?"  Cindy moved her own arm up and down at the elbow a few times in the hopes the creature would understand.  It still regarded her with wonder, but it seemed to get the idea pretty quickly and tried to lift its arm across its body as she had demonstrated.  It winced and whimpered, but it could at least bend the arm a bit.  She helped it the rest of the way, then pointed to its other hand meaningfully.  It understood, and held its injured arm in place with the good one.

Very carefully, she wrapped the sash under the elbow and brought the ends up over the opposite shoulder and tied them together, making a crude sling to help support the arm.  The creature gave a little contented sigh as it tested it and found that the arm was decently supported, and made a few more of its strange "ak" sounds.  It was hard to tell with its thin, perfectly sealing lips, but Cindy was pretty sure it was smiling at her.  "See?"  She returned the smile, beaming happily, then got back to her feet and held out her hand.  The alien looked at it for a minute, then cautiously gave her its scaley little paw.  "I'm Cindy.  What's your name?"

It looked at her uncomprehendingly, so she pointed to herself, jabbing a finger against her chest and sounding out slowly, "Ciiin-deeee."

"Shiin-dih." came a gurgling approximation, then a second time as it tried the sounds out more confidently.  "Seen-dee?"  She grinned, gave an enthusiastic nod and then waited patiently.  A moment later, it made a sound.  It was guttural little mixture of hiccup and hiss, but it repeated it pitch-perfectly when Cindy didn't seem to understand at first.  "Gx.   ...Gx!"

"Gx?"  Cindy tried it out, wrinkled her nose, then giggled.  "Okay, Gx.  C'mon!"  She tugged gently at his hand, urging him to follow as she heard the sirens of fire trucks and the whirring of a helicopter in the sky drawing nearer.  Cindy looked back at her new friend as they scurried off into the woods, her eyes drawn to the knot of the red sash next to his neck.  It occurred to her to wonder whether or not her big stuffed rabbit with the bow tie was about the same size...