Chapter Text
A quick supply trip. That was all it was meant to be. The planet already had Wilbur feeling antsy. The landing zone they were in was dry , the planet itself was small , the people were sketchy . It was uncomfortable. Wilbur hated it. He chittered nervously beside Techno, walking along with the brulin while Phil walked up ahead a few feet.
Just a quick supply trip , he repeated in his head, over and over to calm his nerves, we’ll be out and back on the ship soon . He felt stupid for being so freaked out about such a little thing, they’d handled worse, truely. But he’d already been strung out before landing, with trying to keep track of the ridiculous amount of cargo they had, making sure that it was all there and unbroken. He’d almost dropped one of the crates due to a slip up on his part while loading up, and the one they were delivering for nearly had his throat for it.
Luckily, it really would be over soon. They already had the fuel and other things that they needed desperately enough to stop, and Phil was only grabbing some quick last minute items from the small market before taking off. That was good. It helped calm Wilbur down, just a bit.
“A human?” He heard Phil exclaim, questioning. The phantlin blinked, and hurried over to him with Techno at his side. “What do you mean?” Their captain repeated, seemingly talking to some jewelry seller at one of the booths.
The seller, a shulk with a hard, difficult to read expression, like all shulk, shook his head with a sigh, “S’right. A human. It’s out in the woods righ’ now, actually. Has been for a week or so,” He explained, jabbing a thumb back towards the large grouping of trees that took up half the small planet.
Phil frowned, wings flicking tensely behind him. He seemed to have forgotten all about what he was shopping for, “You’re sure it’s alive? Most cases of humans escaping onto planets have them showing up dead not long after,”
Wilbur chittered again, tense as he shuffled over closer to Techno. The brulin chuffed comfortingly, but Wilbur was still nervous. Humans were dangerous. Really dangerous. The shulk shook his head again, “Nope. S’alive. And worse yet, it took a kid,”
Wilbur nearly jumped away when Phil’s wings bristled, puffing up to nearly twice their size. “ What ?” He breathed, voice tight. The shulk seemed shocked, blinking wide eyed at the elytreen.
He nodded, “Yeah. Not sure how long it’s had it, but someone spotted it. Might’a snatched it off someone who had docked here for a while, or maybe it’s been hiding it in the trees since it got here, who knows. But I reckon there ain’t much of the kid left at this point. There’s not much food out in those woods, and it hasn’t been spotted in the market, so…”
Wilbur did not like what the shulk was implying, and Phil, quite clearly, didn’t either. “What-” He broke off, inhaling deeply. “What was the child, do you know?” He asked. Wilbur was pretty sure he understood the question. It was valid. Some races had young who all but took care of themselves, and might be able to slip past a human, even if it was, well, a human . Or shulk children, for example, have tough shells like the adults. Surely not even a human could break through that. And if the answer were anything like that, then they could likely leave, and Phil wouldn’t feel quite as guilty as he could have.
Unfortunately, things took a terrible, jolting turn when the shulk answered. “Elytreen chick, I think. Little downy feather wings an’ everything.”
Phil didn’t wait. Wilbur had to shield his eyes from the dust Phil stirred up when he spread his wings and shot up into the sky. He didn’t stay there for long, landing on the edge of the treeline because he likely knew it’d be impossible to see anything from above. He turned, only once, back to Wilbur and Techno as he called, “You two coming?!” Before disappearing into the woods.
Wilbur sighed, and glancing up at Techno once with a worried frown, the two hurried off after their captain.
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A child. A chick. Phil felt sick. He couldn’t even stand to wait to get more information out of the jewelry seller, he just had to go. His heart and mind and soul felt like they might explode if he didn’t because it was an elytreen chick. A child of his race. He felt violently inclined to save it. He wasn’t allowing himself to believe that it wasn’t alive. He wasn’t. He didn’t think he’d be able to handle it.
Distantly, or not, maybe he just wasn’t hearing right, he picked up on the rushed and fumbling footsteps of Techno and Wilbur chasing after. Good , he thought. At least he wouldn’t be facing this alone. Though he did feel bad for dragging them with to what might be their doom.
Yeah. Huh. He might be getting himself and his crew killed for the sake of a random child he didn’t know, who might very well already be dead. Funny.
Somewhere in the middle of the woods, the shulk had said. That’s where it was spotted most, before people generally stopped going in altogether. It hadn’t been there long , but if you saw a wild, dangerous killer in their kitchen more than once, you really wouldn’t want to go in again. And you’d tell everyone else too.
But the planet was small, thus so was the woods, and he made it to what had to be the center fairly quickly, Techno and Wilbur panting and tripping along behind.
“ Phil ,” Techno breathed, somehow winded despite everything about himself, “Come on, you gotta know that this is-”
“Rash, risky, stupid, DANGEROUS?” Wilbur offered, wringing his hands and cooing in worry.
“Yeah,” The brulin finished with a nod. “Those. And just plain illogical. Phil, this kid- There’s no way it’s still alive -”
“Hush,” Phil snapped, feathered ears pricked up and tuned for any sound. A rustle of leaves here, a branch snapping there. He blinked and took off ahead, slightly to the left, and with a groan and a sigh the others followed. Of course, his hearing had been correct, for only a minute later he found it. Holed up in a large, long abandoned den of some creature was the human, hissing and barking, limbs spread out to cover the entrance. Phil bristled, wings spread to make himself look bigger.
Wilbur shrieked when he saw it, and Techno only tensed, hand over the gun on his belt. But much, much to their surprise, Phil’s included, the being knew common . Which was shocking on a multitude of levels, for a multitude of reasons.
“FUCK OFF! GO AWAY! I KILL YOU!” It spat, kicking dirt up at Phil and shooting a deadly glare at Techno when he stepped forward.
The fact that it spoke proved that A; it was sentient, and B; well, it had kidnapped a child willingly . This wasn’t just some wild animal dragging in its prey. This was a person , who had potentially taken the life of a child . There was more to this that he could process later, for now, he wanted to see the forest floor run with the blood of a child killer.
“Phil,” Wilbur whispered harshly, glancing rapidly between the elytreen and the human, “ Phiiiil !”
Phil ignored him, stepping forward toward the den. Most of the human’s loud show of violence died right there and it dove down into the den without another word.
The elytreen acted fast and snatched the being by the ankle before it could completely disappear inside, and it shrieked .
Wilbur gasped and covered his ears, and Techno, always a stark contrast beside him, only frowned in discomfort, long ears drooping slightly away from the sound. Phil’s only reaction was a slight twitch of his eye as he yanked the human back out of its hole.
Its eyes widened and it stared in shock for a mere millisecond before moving to writhing and clawing around trying to get free. Phil inhaled heavily, clamping his talons down over its neck. It gasped, and Phil could nearly feel its heart skip a beat.
There weren’t even any bones, no sign of them, no blood, they’re dead, child killer, monster -
“ ᦔꪖᦔ !!” A frightened squeak rang out from the hole as a dusty black elytrian chick climbed out and ran over to the human fearfully.
Phil stared, shocked. He had fully come to believe that the child was dead, but there he was, alive, healthy, if a bit skinny, and panicking. At first, he very much believed it was because of the human. Why wouldn’t any child be afraid of such a dangerous thing? But then the kid was chirping brokenly, like he didn’t know how to make the noises a chick was meant to make, and desperately clawing at Phil’s talons.
“ ꪶꫀꪻ ꫝ꠸ꪑ ᧁꪮ! ꪶꫀꪻ ꫝ꠸ꪑ ᧁꪮ! ” He yelled, sounding demanding. But Phil… Phil didn’t know what he was saying . It wasn’t common, it wasn’t anything remotely elytreen. It sounded…
“ ᦓꫝ᥅ꪮꪊᦔ! ” The human choked, reaching out a hand to try and stop the chick. There were tears in its eyes, and Phil faltered at how scared it looked. “ ᦓꪻꪮρ! ᧁꪮ ꫝ꠸ᦔꫀ! ” It pleaded . He couldn’t understand what was being said, but he hated listening to it.
Mostly out of shock, Phil stumbled back, releasing the human from his hold. He blinked, unable to do anything but stare. Wilbur and Techno glanced between him and the human and chick before them, not sure what to do with their captain acting so unsure. But Phil couldn’t tell them if he wanted to. What is happening? He thought.
As soon as it was free the human, which Phil was beginning to realize was much thinner and younger sounding than any other he had seen or heard videos of, pulled the chick close to it and hid his face from view. “ ᦓꫝ᥅ꪮꪊᦔ, ” It breathed, sounding relieved.
Phil blinked. He couldn’t understand.
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They’d taken the human back, quite literally, kicking and screaming. For some strange reason Phil decided that they needed to bring it with them on the ship. The chick too, of course, and Techno nearly lost a hand when he took it away from the rowdy beast. He also nearly lost a finger just from holding the chick, and he was fairly sure biting wasn’t normal behavior for young elytreens.
The kid acted… wrong. Techno knew enough about Phil and his kind to see that. The chick chirped and chittered horsley, spoke in weird human barks and snaps, bit them, ran around oddly rather than hopping like chicks should , never tried to fly, not even once flapped his fluffy little wings, and on top of all that what few feathers he had coming in were not preened right at all .
Techno could see the way it physically pained Phil to watch, but he couldn’t do anything. The kid just wouldn’t let him near. They’d literally wrapped him up snug in a blanket like a worm so he couldn’t go anywhere, but he was sure trying.
Phil quickly flew them off planet and set the ship on course to their next stop, Techno waited outside the human’s cell for his captain, and Wilbur, well. Techno would admit they gave him quite a difficult job. The poor phantlin had to babysit the feral animal they called a child.
So, Techno waited for Phil, tapping his foot on the floor and listening to the human thrash around and shriek and scream and throw all the tantrum that could be thrown inside, before the elytreen finally showed up.
“Alright,” He breathed, running a hand through his hair, “Let’s interrogate a killer human, I guess,”