Chapter Text
The thing in the alley was not a car. Alex was sure of it long before it moved.
Cars, at least cars on Earth, did not hum like that.
The sound vibrated through the wet pavement beneath his shoes, low and strange and alive in a way engines were not supposed to be. Rain hammered the alley in silver sheets while the massive yellow vehicle sat wedged between brick walls, steam curling faintly from beneath its frame.
Its headlights were off, but something still glowed underneath the windshield.
It was a bright electric blue.
And he knew in his heart that it was watching.
Alex stopped walking, staring in an awe made completely of fear as the thing moved.
Metal shifted with the harsh scream of grinding panels. Parts folded into places they physically should not fit. Wheels rotated inward, pulled into spaces that hadn’t appeared only seconds ago. The entire vehicle unfolded upward into something towering and humanoid and impossibly enormous.
And Alex forgot how to breathe.
Thirty feet of yellow metal stared down at him. Glowing blue farces of eyes widened slightly. For a second, he could almost convince himself that this eldritch creature was just as scared of him as he was of it. And then common sense caught back up and he almost laughed at the ridiculousness of that thought.
Behind the mountain of bright yellow metal, voices echoed within the alley. Or, perhaps voices wasn’t the right word. Harsh mechanical sounds layered beneath bursts of static and electronic chirping that pierced his brain in a way no human noise ever could.
He hoped it was a language. That this creature standing before him was capable of intelligent thought and reason. Because if it wasn’t…what hope was there for him to ever attempt to leave its grasp?
Alex hadn’t moved a single step since happening upon the robot, but he knew that he was done for. There was not a single smidgen of hope in his heart that he would be allowed to leave this encounter alive. The best case scenario would be to be taken along with it and attempt communication once his heart managed to acclimate instead of jackhammering away like a wild rabbit staring down a fox.
The giant robot jerked toward the noise behind it, the movement encouraging another scream of metal on metal as it moved.
And then, its head snapped back to Alex.
For one terrible second they stared at each other before the robot lunged and Alex screamed.
Massive metal fingers closed around his body with startling gentleness. The robot shoved his body against warm metal plating as the alley exploded with blue light and reality tore open.
A circle of glowing energy split the air at the far end of the alley. More giant shapes appeared through it, the few images he caught sight of through his captor’s unrelenting hand showing silver armor, sharp angles, and glowing red lights.
The yellow robot made a sharp series of electronic clicks to which a newcomer barked something back.
Around him, weapons powered up and fighting stances were raised.
And then, the yellow robot transformed.
Alex felt the shift happen. Metal folded over his body. Panels sealed shut, confining him in darkness even as light burst behind his eyelids. Suddenly, he was falling into a crevasse inside something hot and mechanical and all too strange while the world outside roared to life.
The world vibrated violently, the movement slamming him sideways.
Then-
A sound unlike anything he had ever heard split the universe apart. Someone else might have attempted to call it the deafening rumble of a storm or the brutal crash of bombs throughout a battlefield.
Alex disagreed. This was space itself screaming.
Curled against cold metal, Alex clamped both hands over his ears and prayed for everything to stop.
It didn’t.
The vibrations intensified.
The air felt wrong.
Pressure crushed against his skull.
But with a pop it all disappeared and silence fell.
Not true silence, no. That would be too much to hope for, and at this point, utterly strange in and of itself.
This was the silence of engine’s. A silence that meant the movement around him had stopped.
The sort of silence that meant he was no longer where he had been before.
Outside the cramped confining space Alex was trapped in, muffled through layers of metal, the giant robot made a low sound.
Not words.
Just sound.
Alex spent the next several hours trapped inside an alien robot.
He cried once. Then he got angry about crying and stopped.
The compartment around him was barely large enough to sit upright in. Warm metal walls curved around him on all sides while strange vibrations pulsed rhythmically beneath the floor. They felt like a motor’s engine at first, but the longer he went without light or interaction, the more it felt like a heartbeat.
Strangely, that didn’t make him any more comfortable.
He tried pounding on the walls after a while. Nothing happened. He wasn’t sure if he wanted anything to happen to be honest. What was the likelihood that a human would have been the one to pry open the metal sheets and save him?
Not high enough to justify wishing for it.
Eventually exhaustion dragged him into an uneasy sleep.
He woke to voices.
Mechanical voices.
At some point, he stopped wondering whether or not the sounds were just that, or if they really comprised another language. One not meant for human ears. What did that say about his sanity?
Probably nothing good.
“…kshh-tik… vrraa?”
Another voice, this one was deeper in pitch, answered immediately. A day ago Alex wouldn’t have been able to point out the differences in these automated sounds. Now he was assigning them to different persons without even seeing them.
The robot he was inside responded with a string of chirps and electronic clicks.
There was a short pause and then the compartment above him split open.
Blinding white light flooded inside.
Alex scrambled backward with a startled shout at the several enormous faces that appeared overhead.
Blue eyes focused on him.
The yellow robot from the alley looked almost guilty, shrinking back as he stared.
Another mountainous figure leaned closer. It had white and red armor and sharper features. Bright scanning lights flickered across Alex’s body.
The scanner hummed and the white mech made a startled sound.
Another robot, red and blue and broader than the others, stepped closer.
Alex pressed himself against the compartment wall.
Nobody spoke English. Not one recognizable word.
The yellow robot made a soft sound towards him. In his delirium he would almost call it melodic.
Alex stared, “…what?”
For all that he had wanted a chance to talk and try to communicate with these aliens, he hadn’t quite thought out what that would entail. And now that he was being given that chance, he had absolutely no idea how to go about it.
The white mech extended one enormous finger into the compartment.
Alex recoiled instantly and the mechs paused, waiting for him to untense.
The yellow one chirped again, softer this time.
“It’s okay,” Alex whispered automatically, though obviously nobody understood him. And really, he had no reason to feel any need to comfort these huge creatures. But years of automatic niceties leave a mark, and manners were something engrained into him at this point.
The white mech slowly scooped him into its palm. Alex grabbed onto one finger immediately to avoid falling.
In response, several of the robots made soft sounds.
They were interested, or maybe surprised. Either way, it was better than disgusted. Alex would take it.
The red and blue mech crouched lower, eyes brightening slightly as it looked at him.
Alex looked back.
Then the horrifying realization struck him all at once.
They weren’t talking to him. They were talking about him. He was never given a chance to try and explain himself, to introduce himself, even to attempt and defend himself. He was simply cooed over like one would to a smaller animal that had made a fool of itself getting into things it shouldn’t.
The yellow robot pointed at him while making a questioning trill.
The white mech answered with a longer stream of clicking consonants.
The others looked down at him with unmistakable fascination.
“Oh no,” Alex whispered.
Nobody understood that either.