CATCHMECATCHMECATCHMECATCHME...! [closed]

[grabme]

The thing about space is that, frankly, it's enormous. Bloody massive, in fact. Just so very much of it stretching in so many different directions, and here, right now, currently drifting among the assorted debris caught in the Earth's lunar orbit in a slow, forlorn arc, Wheatley finds himself thinking that space, space is just - well, it's terribly overrated, really. It all looks more or less the same, to be honest. Big, black, empty space, with a little dusting of stars here and there, nothing special, just a few pinpricks of illumination to highlight his current complete and unending isolation.

Not complete maybe. Not entirely.

"Space," hums a delighted, dopplering voice in his audial processor for the millionth time in - well, Wheatley's not entirely sure how long he's been up here, but he's certain it's been quite a while. Ages, in fact. Some very long, very lonely, very loud bloody ages. The shared link between his audial processor and his companion's has given him some company, he can say that much, some sort of radiowave variation to offset the noiseless vacuum of space, but it's not saying a whole lot in the end, as said company is not exactly the best or most engaging conversationalist. In fact, the only other personality core around has exactly one topic on hand to discuss at inarticulate and immense length, and that is -

"SPAAAAAAAAAAACE."

"Right," sighs Wheatley without much enthusiasm. "Bang on. Space. Got it in one. Loads of it. Don't ever plan on running out, no sir, we can check that one in the column of things that we have at our, at our collective disposal. Space." Wheatley has long since come to accept the fact that emotional modulation doesn't seem to have much of an impact on his hyperactive companion's extremely one-track mind - regardless of how angry he's gotten, how desperately he's cajoled or pleaded or politely asked or screamed for the other core to pipe down for just a sec, mate, just one bloody second, is that so HARD?, the space core remains, as always, blissfully, elatedly, happily unaffected, lost forever in its euphoric personal daydream.

"Yeah," says Wheatley, watching the star-studded perpetual night spin lazily past. "Yeah, look, mate - d'you mind keeping it down over there? Trying to reminisce here, terribly important."

It was all his miserable, miserable fault. He'd been greedy, and bossy, and monstrous, and he'd mucked things up so colossally that she'd had no choice but to launch him into the great empty vastness of space. Really, he doesn't blame her for that - who would? She'd made the best choice she could, and he'd - well, if he's honest with himself, which has become increasingly easier here, in space, with no one to listen or care for a word coming out from discarded, broken, tiny old Wheatley's vocal processor, he'd conversely made the worst choice.

Hence: the banishment. To space.

Until, suddenly, he's not anymore.

He doesn't get a great deal of time to adjust. He gets the briefest impression of white, intensely hot light, and the barest flutter oh god, it's happened, I've been knocked out of orbit, I'm about to fly into the flipping SUN, and then, just as abruptly, he's somewhere else. It's terribly bright, and something's wrong with his optic, something's got to be off there, because everything is just more than a bit wonky, and, most impressively - no space! No space at all!

Wheatley does not get very long to process the latest in this unforeseen string of events as he's dropped, literally, on top of something squirming and squishy and moving like it's got limbs and he's got limbs, and he realizes he's got limbs and realizes the person beneath him has got limbs and reacts in the only reliable way he knows and understands: he screams, realizes he's acquired an entirely different vocal processor and screams again, and tries, with absolutely no coordination behind the movements or any idea what to to do with his newly-acquired body with its variety of long, gangly limbs, to scramble upward and off and away from the person beneath him, all with the absolute maximum of volume available to his vocal processors.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Comments

[grabme]

It takes a bit longer than it should, entailing far too much yelping and nearly crashing into things and actually crashing into things and pulling fur and pulling hair and a thoroughly trampled patch of grass, but he makes it, wobbling coltishly about as he tries not to look down because it is high, it is frightfully high and he's still getting used to the idea of being so far up all the time.

"Right, then," says Wheatley, far too brightly for someone who has just spent the past ten minutes doing what passing bystanders can only assume is meant to be a twisted full-body imitation of a pretzel. "S'pose there's something to be said for the body after all, isn't there? No rail, for one! No rails, and binocular vision, that's gotta be a step up, eh?"

He grins at her, and immediately the expression crashes into a frown. "Wait, what's that you are now? Meant to serve a purpose, is it? All...four-legged and furry?"

[wildmage_daine]

It takes Daine a few moments to respond. She let her mouth lapse into a canine shape, and as his struggle to stand wore on, she took a less alarming - and a bit taller - wolfhound shape, instead. She's panting from the dual challenges of helping him stand and not getting crushed by him when gravity got the best of his uncoordinated limbs.

"I was a wolf," she explains once she's caught her breath enough to reshape her mouth. "And now I'm a dog. They're related." After a beat, she adds, "And I was a tiger before that - when I had stripes." She tips her head back to look up at him. "Do you not have those where you come from?" He didn't seem to think much of humans, but at least he knew what they were. You'd think a familiarity with two-leggers would mean he knew what animals were, too.

[grabme]

"Tigers," says Wheatley thoughtfully. "No. No, think I'd remember something like that." Something all big and impressive and striped-y, yes, he's certain he'd remember. Maybe it was something in the databases. Probably was, now, wasn't it, something She had listed away as one of those many many species that were simply no good for testing, and once he'd become Her he hadn't paid anything much mind if it wasn't related to testing just the same. Tigers and dogs and wolves simply hadn't been a blip on the testing radar.

Lucky them, thinks Wheatley ruefully. Lucky, lucky them.

"We just had humans, mostly," he admits. "Well, not mostly. Not very many at all, really. Human and ummmm, and - birds! Awful lot of birds."

And space, plenty of that too, but he doesn't think he should be counting that. He shudders.

"We going anywhere?" he asks brightly, not terribly eager to relive his memories of the old place. "Not that I'm not loving this whole field here, it's, um, it's very nice, very lovely, very - very green, that, it's just that, well, I'm given to understand there's something of a day-to-night sequence, is that right?"

[wildmage_daine]

Mithros. What sort of miserable place only boasts two-leggers and birds? He had seemed surprised to learn that they're in a city - maybe there was some sort of disaster in his universe that wiped almost everyone out.

Little as he likes being stuck in human shape, Daine can't help but wonder if the Rift did him a favor, bringing him here.

Daine resists the urge to give her fur a shake; that might send Wheatley sprawling again. "I can take you to a place where folk like us are living," she says. "Once we get around more people, though, I'll have to stop talking." After a beat, she adds, "Dogs don't normally talk." Not aloud, anyway, or in ways most two-leggers could understand. But Wheatley's still new to animals in general; she doesn't want to bog him down with too much information at once.

[grabme]

"Don't talk?" he repeats, more than a tad bamboozled. So what point do dogs have, then? Do they just wander about generally like woolly, mute, disreputable carpets? No wonder there weren't any lying about in the old Enrichment Center.

He claps his hands together in very much a 'gathering oneself' fashion, all good and raring to go.

"Right, okay, moving, then." He bounces on the balls of his feet and by some miracle of physics does not immediately go sprawling. "All right and ready to do that. Moving. Straight ahead. One foot in front of the other. Walking."

His rate of nervous bouncing subtly increases.

"Got to, um, got to get the legs working, the feet, the big ol' linear step, eh? Just going toooooo - "

He inches forward, wobbling precariously, and, upon realizing he hasn't gone pitching over onto the ground again, nearly whoops with delight.

"Look at this!" He points gleefully at his feet, looking between them and Daine in a rapid back-and-forth. "Look at tiny Wheatley now, walking and moving about like a regular old human, how's that?"