Chapter Text
A’zawa had seen some things in his life. The universe is a large place full of horrible people doing horrible things after all. It probably didn’t help that half his job description was to go find those horrible things. And the other half was teaching kits how to go looking for those horrible things. So it wasn’t too surprising when the horrible things came to him for once. Although he wishes it didn’t happen during a routine flying exercise with his students.
Awakening in a cell, A’zawa rises to see Bak’go, Sero, and a young Deflie Sprite, all of which are all hyper focused and displaying their species' respective signs of fear. “What’s the situation?” No one takes their eyes off whatever they’re looking at or even acknowledges he said anything. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t allow it, but this is a rather extreme situation.
Doing his best to shake off the residual effects of the Foggit toxin they got him with, A’zawa walks over to the bars of the cage, the buzz telling him they’re clearly electrified. Following his students' eyeline he sees a cage across the hallway from them, with M’naa and Denki inside it, huddled together and clearly terrified while they stare at something in the opposite corner of their cage. That’s when A’zawa sees IT.
It was laying down to sleep so it was hard to tell how big it was, but it was definitely bigger than the kits it was caged with. It seemed to have spikes on its back while it slept on its front with its limbs curled up under it. Its large pointed ears were positioned towards the top of its head, folded back while it slept. The fur it has was mostly shades of black and darker green, the exception being its stark white face with lipless needlepoint teeth. Those features along with the closed front facing eyes let A’zawa know it was a predator at least. And that’s all he knew about it.
After an incident that shall remain nameless, A’zawa lived a majority of his adult life governed by the fear that his lack of preparation will lead to someone dying, so he made sure to know about as many different species as he could. So the fact that A’zawa had no clue what this creature is or where it came from scared him more than being in a cage did. It wore the same grey garb they all appeared to be given, so their captors at least assumed it was sapient, but A’zawa has enough experience to know that sapient doesn’t always mean reasonable or safe. Lucky for him, he woke up just in time for rations.
A squeaking sound is the only warning A’zawa is given when a trolley with trays of ration pellets appears along with one of the traffickers that captured them. A’zawa made sure to speak softly, hoping not to wake the sleeping creature in a cage with his kits. “Hey. What is that thing?”
After putting the rations through the slot, the guard turns to the opposite cage. “No idea. Boss bought it before we found you. And I’m not paid to know. Hasn’t done much except eat and sleep. Live prey might change that though.” Putting the food through the slot at an angle that had them slide over to the unknown being, the guard bangs on the bars with his stun baton despite everyone’s protests before racing off with the food trolley.
A’zawa watched in horror as the creatures stirred, blinking away tiredness from its solid green eyes. And it UNFOLDED. The creature slowly extended itself as it rose, pops and cracks emanating from its joints as it rose, and the captured U.A. students and their teacher discovered that this creature could apparently shrink down to less than a third of its size while sleeping. Then it hit its head on the roof of the cage.
It let out some kind of rough bark as it rubbed the back of its head with a five fingered, clawed appendage. Not only had the guard disturbed the creature's sleep, but now it was agitated. A’zawa was not a religious Lyx, but as its eyes seemed to hone in on the students it had been caged with, he sent out a silent prayer to the universe that the ration pellets were more appetising, as unlikely as that was.
Apparently the universe decided to give A’zawa a break and the creature averted its eyes after a few tense moments and started eating the rations. Of course that left the new problem of how Denki and M’naa were supposed to get their rations without approaching or provoking it.
Apparently the universe was keen on providing a second miracle, and after looking between his students and the trays a few times, it used its hands to slide them over. And if the sheer length of its limb didn’t terrify him before, it reaching out like this let him know it didn’t even need to move too far to teach his students.
No one so much as breathed too hard until it had finished its rations and curled its gangly limbs to sleep.