//------------------------------// // First Meetings At The Lake // Story: A Metal Man Makes A Good Protecter // by Dr Equinox //------------------------------// Hey there peoples, chapter number two is this. Right down there. Uh huh, just below this text. Um that's it you know, nothing else... are you only still reading this because there was text here? Probably. Whatever, onward! One thing Estra wanted to do today was to go get a drink. That's it. And she did just that, albeit with a few of her specie beside her. The moment was nice and calm, not something one would normally see in a hive this size, where everyone had a job to do. When a moment like this happens though, it is always appreciated, especially since the failed invasion. That plan had set back the entire hive by what seems like a century because of the loss they had suffered. It was not easy to recover from it, they hardly managed to save themselves, but they had done it. Now a days though the sites were not the same. There was no longer time for just sitting back. If you could work, you worked. It was an unfortunate but undeniable truth. The population had suffered a great decrease and that had changed everything. Especially the workforce. Estra was currently enjoying the time she had, as she had finished her job only an hour ago. She worked as an overseer of sorts, watching over various parts of the small colony they now had. The thirst of hers had been quenched about as soon as she got to one of the small underground lakes the colony used for water. She mainly stayed now for the conversation that the others had been going on about for 45 minutes. The two changelings that had been talking were unknown to her, a not very uncommon thing for herself as she rarely did any socializing. While the conversation had been lost on her the instant she heard it, she enjoyed the sound of there voices. They soothed her mind, which had been riddled with strange emotions today. In fact it had been like that ever since the Queen had come back with only a third of the forces she had taken with her. None were undamaged. All the while Estra and the two others had occupied themselves they had failed to see the movement in the water, or the thumps and shaking of the ground until both had gotten close enough for all three members to simultaneously feel the ground beneath there feet shake. THUMP "Whoa what was that?" said one of the others as they all looked around the large room for the source of such rumbling. THUMP "There it is again!" Said the other THUMP "What's in the water?" questioned Estra. At her comment they all looked down the lake, where the lighting was sparse. Through the shadows though, one in particular could be seen 'moving' toward the shore. It seemed though, that even with the amount of darkness encompassing it , the being was much closer than it appeared, as they could now clearly see a light protruding from the darkness. Looking toward the mystery changelings, Estra barked out: "You two, go and alert anyone you can find and have them come back here armed. " Hearing her orders the two quickly left in search for any other member of there species to come back and see if they could assist, while Estra stayed behind. She quickly backed up near the entrance and took a fighting stance. She would be dammed if she let some strange thing come into her home and wreck it. Only when it was I who came out of those waters did she regret not going with the two to look for assistance. She was expecting some strange creature that would live in a place like that ,that was possibly just very large and not an extremely large, but still challenging, opponent. What she was not expecting was to see a creature much different than anything else she had ever seen in her whole life. It was bipedal and tall, even taller than the Queen she would say. It had what appeared to be leather skin, with some portions of it being a metal of some type. What would be assumed its face was just a glowing orange oval shaped (sideways) glass, the only other features being a smooth bronze-looking type metal that encompassed the rest of its head and neck area. Its legs looked like they were made out of the same fabric as the rest, the boots being a pure metal design. The worst part about this creature was not how intimidating its appearance was, it was the very large drill that replaced its right hand like appendage that it had on its left. And when they saw each other they stood and stared. Well glaring in Estra's case, but she had good reason to be. I mean have you seen an Alpha Series Big Daddy? There huge and scary as all hell. So ignoring the fact that Estra's legs were shaking, the creature lifted up its arm slowly, and moved it from left to right repeatedly. While the implications of this gesture was not lost on Estra, she could not grasp that something so fierce and intimidating would just wave a little 'Hello' as a first contact greeting. This had caused her to become extremely rigid and made the situation even worse, somehow. That was nothing compared to what happened next though. You see when I talk it doesn't come out correctly. Instead of simply saying "Hello" I had instead done this: "RAAAAAAAWR And Estra had done what I consider the appropriate response for a situation like that. She just screamed back. "WHAT IN TARTARUS ARE YOU?!" So that was a fun first contact wasn't it?