Another Mother

by Croabadrake

Chapter Six: Zan and Zod Spot Some Odd Pod Squads

Zan and Zod moved about in a room at the edge of the hive, most of the movement consisting of Zod trying to get out of Zan's way as he scurried around the room on his six legs, looking for something.

"*sigh*, you're sure there's something here?" Zod said as his massive circular maw ringed by needle-like teeth stretched to its full extent in a yawn.
"Yes, told you. Saw something move here. Or here," Zan replied, moving over to what he assumed was a multi-layered couch and nearly flipping it to look underneath.

Zod shook his head and turned his pale lumpy humanoid form over to the window. Zan tended to do this a lot; ever since an incident involving an angry little blue man with red hair and a flute, Zan would occasionally become paranoid about thinking he saw something small hide behind something. The fact that he was now living in the company of similarly-sized Changelings didn't help at all.

Zod flinched as a pot of some kind shattered on the wall next to him. He whirled around to see Zan with a very large, crooked-toothed grin on his face.

"Got it!" he said proudly. Zod simply shook his head and placed his palm over the top half of his face.

Zod turned back to the window and continued to look out of it. Zan eventually came and sat down next to him after checking a few pieces of furniture one more time.

"What you thinking of?" He said after a moment of silence.
"...What do you think about these 'changelings' we're allying ourselves with?" Zod asked.
"They seem nice. Small and tricky, but they seem nice," Zan said. Zod saw him shudder a bit at the word "small", but that was normal for him.
"And what do you think our mother's intentions for this place are?" Zod continued, not breaking his gaze from something out in the valley leading away from the hive.
"She wants best for us. She did not want us to fight them, they are too many."
"Yes," Zod acknowledged, "but she's never been one to bow down completely to another. Not after the Shadow Lord's orders got her killed, I would think."

There was a moment of silence as Zod watched a changeling in regal-looking armor round a bend in the valley, towards where he had just watched his siblings Jin and Jod disappear.

"I think there are more plans going on here than we might think," Zod continued, not breaking his gaze from the valley.
"I think you think too much," Zan replied, suddenly fascinated with some shards of the pot he had broken. Why did he throw it again?
"I think you don't think enough," Zod remarked. "Our mother is intelligent, like I am. Or should I say, I'm intelligent like she is, considering the order of family. I don't think we're being kept here entirely out of sincere benevolence, Zan. I think they are keeping us here for another reason as well."
"Something else, too? You mean you think there is some nice in it?" Zan asked after giving up on answering his previous self-questioning.
"Yes. I could see it in their queen's eyes, she had some sort of respect for our mother. She looked over us with a kindness similar to that which our mother shows us, though of course not the same."

Zan flinched and Zod sighed, knowing what was coming. Again, Zan began to look around the room in a small panic. He moved towards the couch as Zod turned towards him, reaching out to stop him but what he saw caught him off-guard.

Zan had picked up the couch again, but this time there was something under it: a small changeling, seemingly quite young. It was stunned at having been found out and cowered before Zan's intimidating form. There was a moment of silence before Zan suddenly roared in rage and began to reach for the changeling.

"STOP!"

Zan froze, his hands nearly around the changeling's small form. His eyes cleared and he stepped backwards with his palms up, having suddenly regained control of himself. The changeling on the ground was whimpering and slightly crying, covering its eyes with its hooves. After a moment when it didn't feel itself being hurt, it slowly stopped shaking and uncovered one of its eyes to see Zan backed up against the wall on the other side of the room.

"You there," Zod said, causing the changeling to flinch and look at him. "Come here," he continued, motioning to a spot next to him on the bench he was sitting on.

It took the changeling a moment or two to decide what to do before it slowly got up and slinked over to the bench. Zod didn't look at it, instead keeping his gaze out the window as he waited for it to seat itself, which it did so as far on the side of the bench away from him as possible.

There was another moment of silence as he waited for the changeling to stop cringing as though it expected him to turn and gobble it up at any moment. When it finally did, he spoke while still looking out the window at the changeling in armor from before as it came back around through the valley.

"What's your name?" he asked, with a tone closer to curiosity rather than the demanding tone he had been speaking to Zan with.
The changeling was once again quiet for a few seconds before answering. "M-my name is Piece, sir..."
"Now now, Piece, there's no need to address me as 'sir'. You may call me Zod if you wish," Zod replied in a surprisingly soothing voice that one wouldn't think someone that looked like him could manage.
"Okay..." Piece said.
"Now then," Zod continued, "why were you hiding in the room with us?"
"I was... I was curious si-... I mean, I was just curious..."

Zod raised his eyebrows, maintaining his outward gaze though the changeling in armor had disappeared by now. There was a moment of silence, and Zan could tell that Zod was thinking something over.

"You were curious?" Zod asked. "About us? You know, we were alone in here in the first place because most of your... siblings, yes?... most of them were made nervous by the appearance of my brother and I."
"Well... I'm kind of scared too, but you're both not bad, are you? You didn't try to hurt anyone and you stopped your brother from hurting me..." Piece replied.
"Yes, so it seems," Zod said. Ah, the naivety of youth; it seems that childish innocence wasn't lost to changelings.
"How old are you?" Zod asked, changing the subject.
"I'm four months old," Pierce said.

Zod raised his eyebrows again, partially at what Pierce had said and partially at something that was happening out in the clearing around the hive; particularly around the area where the clearing tapered off into the valley as it lead away. There was some sort of electricity beginning to arc around the ground out there, but he paid it minimal attention: it was probably the doing of changelings somehow.

"Four months?" Zod said, surprised. "My, your kind grows quick."
"Yeah," Pierce said, sounding a little bit more comfortable. "Mommy and the duh-ver-rer say we grow faster than other kinds of things. It's one of the things that make us strong, they told us."
"M-hm, I see..." Zod replied, contemplating Pierce's answer and the energy outside as it increased in power.
"And the duh-ver-rer plays with us too," Pierce continued of his own accord. Zod suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, knowing the storm he was about to have to endure.
"And he teaches us to play hide-and-seek, and he always does it in another part of the hive so we can learn where stuff is, and sometimes Mommy joins in too, but I don't like Juke because he's not as funny as Mommy is, and he sometimes trips over us and he tripped over me one time and broke a mirror, and mommy laughed and the duh-ver-rer laughed but I didn't laugh because it kind of hurt, and it looked like it hurt him too so I didn't think it was funny, but then--"

Zod raised his finger, signifying Piece to stop talking: he did. Zod was now staring intently at the field of electric-looking energy as it arced wildly around the edge of the clearing in that one area. Shapes were gathering in the bright glow. Familiar shapes.

The electricity dispersed in a bright flash and his eyes widened at what he was now looking at. Forty humanoid shapes of almost identical build and coloring, all wearing grey armor. They looked human but their expressions communicated an aura of utter seriousness and inhumanity.

Grey Guards.

"Piece," Zod said. His tone had returned to its former seriousness. "I need you to go with Zan to the throne room and alert our respective mothers of what I have just witnessed."
"What did you see?" Piece asked while peering out the window at the Grey Guards as they looked around, getting their bearings.
"Zan, take him and alert our mother that there are four pods of Grey Guards outside the hive. Queen Chrysalis should know as well. Go now!" Zod commanded his brother, who quickly nodded, grabbed Piece (who squeaked in surprise), and ran out of the room.

Zod lowered his head while watching the Grey Guards below. This was not good, not good at all. Grey Guards were ruthless, and whatever reason they were here at the hive for it couldn't mean anything positive.

There was a sound of smashing glass from a floor above, and Zod saw two large shapes blur past the window he was at. They landed, and he recognized the two very familiar shapes as they stood directly in the Grey Guards' path to the hive.

Comments

[Razzy]

Eeeeeeeeeeeee, kid changelings, so cute!