Chapter Text
"GODDAMN SQUIDS!"
Captain Avery Heron of the HBS Rockrabbit likes to think himself a decent person. He did his damnedest to be friendly and polite to every sapient he met and leave a net positive, or at least neutral, influence on the multiverse.
Unfortunately, the space-squids currently attacking him didn't seem to care. He was just a deliveryman! There isn't supposed to be a damn nest on his route! What the hell's he supposed to do about this?!
The sirens blaring through his ears were making it hard to focus. The windows of his ship were starting to break, cracks spiderwebbing across his sight. He could hear the metal screaming its protest against the beaks of the enraged cephalopods.
The lone captain felt the hot wave of panic flowing through his body. He could only hope that when his ship gave out, the squids got him before the vacuum of space did. Imploding doesn't sound like a nice way to go. Fuck fuck fuck, think Avery! Think! His panicked thoughts did nothing to drown out his surroundings.
Hang on a second! He had an idea; common sense said dimension-hopping in a severely damaged ship was a bad idea, but... what other option did he have?
The desperate avian could hear the hissing of the squids outside, or maybe it was the air leaking out of his ship. He had to hurry if he didn't want to end up as squid-food.
The back-end of the Rockrabbit snapped off with a horrible creaking screech. Good thing he makes a habit of closing bulk-heads. He didn't want to die.
Splinching is better than being eaten alive, right? He slammed the ship into warp.
~(͠≖ ͜ʖ͠≖)👌~
A destroyed ship finds its way into The Inbetween. Its pilot is unconscious, which is probably for the best. Mortal minds were not meant to see their realm.
The Watcher watches, patient, as the delivery cruiser drifts closer to them. They should do something about that. Hmm.
They could just toss it back from whence it came, it wasn't their problem what happened to it afterward.
Ah, but...the deity was hit a strange sense of... pity, for the creature inside; less than an insect to a god of their status. Interesting.
An eternity passes in the space between dimensions. Time didn't matter in a place like this, entirely divorced from the space-time continuum.
A decision is made. This could be a chance to have some fun they haven't had in eons! Simply watching mortals can get so boring.
With a twitch of a seven-knuckled thumb, the remains of the ship and its contents disappear from the space between dimensions. Along with a little present, of course.
~(͠≖ ͜ʖ͠≖)👌~
Captain Avery Heron of the HBS Rockrabbit awakens in his decimated ship.
Oh god, everything hurts. He felt pain in places he didn't know he had. But at least he's alive to feel the pain. Owww...
He needs to focus. You're supposed to check supplies after crashes, right? Avery peels himself off the destroyed driver's seat. A cursory glance around the bridge reveals torn plates, shattered glass, and flickering consoles. Maybe he can get a distress signal out if he's lucky. Heh, yeah right. Lady Luck has something against him, for sure.
Okay, he should check for injuries. He tries to check vitals on his wrist-com. Scratch that; it's busted. Goddamnit. Manual check it is, then.
Avery feels his way around his head and beak, noting some bent or broken feathers; it hurts, but not immediately life-threatening. The chitin shell on his arms is cracked in some places, limiting his movement with pain. His small wings on his lower back are... mostly fine. It's not like they do anything anyway. His left leg is more of the same; cracked chitin and missing feathers. The right's got a nasty slash through the side, preventing him from moving it properly. Okay, yikes. He'll have to address that when he has supplies. The grey spandex he had on was torn in places, leaving his purple feathers open to the elements. Hey, his name tag's still on! Cool. Overall verdict; lots of pain, but he can move around at least. He let out a sigh. This is gonna suck, isn't it?
He limps to the bulkhead that separated the bridge from the rest of the ship. To his dismay, it's bent shut. Great. The only other way out of the wreck is through the windshield, still covered in sharp, broken glass. Yeah... no thanks.
Maybe there's something around he can use to break the door? He looks around the room again; it's still just broken plates, broken glass, and broken consoles. Oh, and add a broken chair to the list, too. Wait a minute. He keeps a laser pistol near the center console, doesn't he? Avery stumbles back to the captain's chair, digging through the rubble.
Aha! The pistol is mostly unharmed from the crash, only a dent near the handle indicating anything even happened. You're not supposed to shoot a damaged laser weapon, but... it'll be fine. He flicked the safety off and fired a test shot at the offending bulkhead.
A loud bang sounds out, making his ears ring. The door was still standing, to his disappointment. Damn. Looks like he'll have to turn it up to full power. If he does that, he'll run through the battery, and he'd like to have a weapon when exploring a foreign dimension. Plus, it could still explode.
Avery cranks up the power and holds it as far away as he can. Here goes nothing.
BOOM! The muzzle flash nearly blinds him. The bulkhead flies off its hinges and lands with a loud clang. The gun is well and truly useless now, and it just had to burn his talons on the way out too. Ouch. He chucks the stupid gun at what's left of the windshield. It doesn't help his burns, but the gun does break off some of the shards. He feels a little better, he supposes.
With the door out of his way, Captain Avery limps out of the bridge and into the Captain's Quarters.
~(͠≖ ͜ʖ͠≖)👌~
Avery makes it past the doorway before he notices... something...
"Where's my ship?!"
Ah. Right. It was torn off by the squids. He was so close to forgetting. Fuuuuuuuuuckk... He was banking on, y'know, the rest of his ship being here!
Looking outside, he thinks he crashed in some kind of forest. And... he caught sight of the rising sun. Avery forgets his anger in favor of taking in the view in front of him. Wow. When was the last time he'd seen a sunrise? Or a sun, for that matter. Wasting your life hauling cargo across the multiverse doesn't lend itself well to sightseeing. Avery gazed upon the horizon, as the beautiful yellows and oranges cascaded across the sky; it's like he was looking at a painting. He wishes that his wrist-com wasn't broken so he could capture this moment forever.
A split-second rustle of leaves to the right was the only warning he got before he was attacked.
He screamed in shock as the monster narrowly missed his hurt leg. All Avery could make out was a grey-brown blur, maybe some white mixed in. The beast skidded to a stop some distance away from him, exposed teeth bared at him.
They stared each other down, unmoving. He was absolutely scared shitless. Before the creature could correct its mistake, he bolted. Weaving his way through the dense forest and slowed by his injured leg, he didn't get very far before the thing caught up to him. It slammed into his back, ripping out feathers and toppling him over. The pair rolled around from the momentum, claws digging into feathers and flesh, finally coming to a stop near the edge of a cliff.
Oh god. Oh god oh fuck. He's going to die here, isn't he? Alone, eaten by some dimensional abomination. This isn't any better than the fucking squids!
A crack rang through the air. Suddenly, they were falling. The monster let go of him, but he was more concerned with the fact he was about to hit the rushing rapids at the bottom of the cliff.
"OH SHI-"
Avery hit the water and knew no more.