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It's been a week since Facty was sent into space.
Martian hasn't been able to sleep since that day, convinced this whole thing was his fault. It's always his fault, isn't it? Lighty wasn't really any better either to be fair. He's been very uncharacteristically skipping meals, stating he's “Saving extra for Facty when they get home.” They both know he's lying, but it's easier to simply go along with it rather than address how dangerous that mindset is.
It doesn't help that they've received zero signs about Facty's wellbeing whatsoever. Martian tried contacting his boys numerous times yet he was always met with no answer or simply a “Who?” whenever Facty was brought up, not even something as simple as confirming that Facty's alive.
Tonight would be no different, the duo assumed. Another day without a word from Facty or their captors, no clue what their intention with Facty is or if they'll ever even let them go.
That was until Lighty picked up a hat that read ‘I'M READY TO RETURN TO THE MOTHERSHIP’.
. . .
“What are you doing with that?” Martian asked, staring at Lighty in the expanse of their dim kitchen like he was about to bash his own head in.
“I'm going to rescue Facty.” Lighty stated, dead serious.
“I- heh,” Martian tried grabbing the hat from Lighty only for it to be swiftly swiped away from her and over her head. “Seriously?” Martian stepped back, scoffing. “You know how dangerous it is. Especially for you.” Martian knocked on her head with wide eyes. “If you accidentally bonk your head on the UFO you'll die.” Martian looked towards the floor, she wouldn't be able to bear losing another friend.
“I'm not going to die. I'll protect my head with this duct tape!” A roll of duct tape spawned in Lighty's hand. Once he took notice of Martian's conflicted expression the lightbulbs grin widened.
“How would duct tape even protect you? Wouldn't that kinda do nothing…” Martian's antennae curled inward.
“Nope! This is industrial grade duct tape, it's so strong it prevents me from even the smallest of cracks, like Flex seal.” Lighty replied in a commercial-like tone.
“You're not going alone. You know that right?” Martian said, shaking their head in disbelief.
“We can't go together, Martian.” Lighty grabbed Martian's hands. “I know how much you care about Facty but it would be safer if I just go alone. I don't want to run the risk of the both of us getting captured.”
Martian slithered his hands out of Lighty's grasp. “The both of us getting captured? I know those aliens, those are my boys. If anything it'd help you if I went with you.” His wavering voice raised slightly.
“Martian-” Lighty rubbed his face. “I just don't want you or anyone to get hurt.”
“No one's gonna get hurt if we go together. Do you think I'll get us hurt? Do you not trust me?” Martian frowned, her voice turning into a whine.
“No no no no, that's not what I meant. Of course I trust you, you know that.” Lighty sighed, twirling the roll of duct tape around his finger for a moment. “You know what, let's just go together.”
Martian's eyes widened and their frown immediately formed into a smile. “Seriously? Or are you just saying what I wanna hear?!”
“Nah I'm serious.” Lighty replied.
Lighty knew Martian wasn't going to handle being told to stay at home, all Lighty could hope for was for nothing out of the ordinary to happen. Or at the very least, nobody dying.
. . .
Martian and Lighty made it to the skatepark, the place where Facty was last seen. It was night time by now so hopefully they'd have a better chance at being abducted. The two put on their hats and waited… and waited… and waited. For a good ten minutes no one showed up, not even a blink of light in the sky indicating that a UFO or anything else would drop down and capture them.
“Didn't you call your boys?” Lighty asked, staring up at the lone moon.
“Yeah, but they said they were busy.” Martian replied, looking up at the sky too and admiring the stars.
“Hey, you see that constellation right there?” Martian pointed towards a clump of stars. “That's the Big Dipper! Ya know, it got its name because it looks like a huge soup spoon! Isn't that hilarious.” Martian giggled, tracing the Big Dipper in the sky.
“Lighty? Did you hear what I said?”
Martian looked behind herself only to find that Lighty was gone.
Her heart sank. She scanned over the whole entire skatepark yet there was no sign of Lighty. Her heart was racing now. Why did Lighty get abducted but not her? Was Lighty okay? That duct tape couldn't have been that strong.
Before Martian could worry any longer, she got picked up by the UFO, quickly shooting her 400,000 feet in the air up into space.
The landing wasn't that friendly, he was basically hurled into the trunk of the spaceship. His head immediately collided with the ceiling of the ship which sent him flying towards the back of the ship, tumbling over miscellaneous boxes and unopened cans of soup that were definitely not for human consumption.
“Martian?” Lighty's voice cut through the ruckus.
“Nnhhyeah?” Martian groaned weakly, trying to untangle their limbs from underneath the boxes.
“Are you okay?” Lighty appeared before Martian, carefully helping remove some of the boxes from their way.
Martian's head peeked out from underneath the rubble, he squinted, spotting no one around except for him and Lighty.
“Where's Facty?” He asked, kicking away a can labeled “???” and stood up a bit unsteadily, haphazardly grasping at Lighty for support.
“Uhh,” Lighty looked behind him. “I don't know.” He turned back around, grabbing Martian and carrying her out of the rubble by the space in-between her second set of arms.
“There seems to be a code on the door over here.” He pointed behind him and carried Martian in his arms towards the other end of the spaceship, examining the illuminated code next to the large purple doors. “But it's all in some alien language.” He frowned, glancing towards Martian.
“Err, put me down, let me try to decode it.” Martian said and Lighty put them back down. They pulled and pressed on their fingers as if they were cracking their knuckles despite only having two fingers, they took their glasses off and squinted at the foreign glowing symbols.
“Hmmm..” She stuck her tongue out, pressing her face up against the code.
“Dude, if you can't decode it, its fi-”
“No! I got it.” Martian pressed their hand against the code, inputting 5 random symbols at once and in an instant the huge doors slammed open, causing Martian to stumble back a little from the force whipping him in the face.
“This place is huge…” Lighty muttered as he walked into the main area of the spaceship.
The place was huge indeed, purple LED lights were strewn all the way across the room, the ceiling was completely transparent, looking as if there were no ceiling at all. The stars illuminated the rest of the room, casting shadows and specks of light across the furniture. One corner of the room looked like a pretty modern dining area, four chairs were seated at a dark brown table with a golden chandelier floating above them with nothing attached to it. It seemed like someone had just finished eating due to the empty plate left behind.
Lighty went to inspect the dish, noticing some stains on the otherwise perfectly clean plate.
‘Is this-?’ He thought, wiping some of the residue onto his finger.
‘Spaghetti sauce?’ The lightbulb glowed. Immediately he called Martian over, basically screaming for them to look at the sauce on his finger.
“What Lighty? What is it?” Martian scurried over, looking at Lighty as if he was going insane.
“Dude! Look, it's Spaghetti sauce!” Lighty exclaimed, pointing his finger right in Martian's face.
“So what?” Martian licked the sauce off of Lighty's finger, much to his disgust. “OHH. Spaghetti sauce!” She shouted, the taste of the crushed tomatoes rejogging her memory.
“Facty was here! Facty's alive!!” Martian squealed, her second set of arms wagged like a tail.
“We have to preserve this, it's the only proof we have that Facty was here…” Lighty picked up the plate delicately, treating it as if it were a snowflake.
Out of the corner of Martian's eye he saw something cross the hallway.
Lighty was too busy worshipping the used plate to even notice Martian sneak out of the room.
Martian scaled down the hallway, noticing something oddly bright blue through the crack between the wall and a door. He looked up, reading the handmade sign made from paper and red colored pencil above the door. ‘Facty's Room’ it wrote. Martian kicked the door open without much care, spotting a familiar face sitting on the floor playing with something.
Facty flinched from the door slamming open, the items in their hands fell to the ground.
“Martian!?” Facty stood up instantly, reaching their arms out for a hug.
“Facty!!” Martian exclaimed, running towards his friend and immediately getting swept up into a hug, Martian was knocked off his feet.
“Oh my goodness! I missed you so much!” Facty laughed. squeezing Martian even tighter.
“I missed you too!! I'm so glad you're okay!” Martian smiled despite the air being drained from her lungs.
“I missed you so much.” Facty's voice became smaller, trembling. “I don't know what I would've done if you didn't come to see me.”
That last sentence worried Martian.
“Hah, good thing we found you then!” Martian giggled, trying to ignore it.
“We?” Facty let go of Martian, sniffling, they dropped Martian to the floor, accidentally leaving her a little dizzy.
“Lighty's in the, err, other room.”
Facty sped past Martian. rendering him dizzier than he already was. The items Facty was holding earlier were left behind, laying discarded on the floor.
Martian knelt down and picked up the yellow clay figure that resembled Lighty very closely. Even the signature ‘Fact Attack Adventures’ shirt was painted onto the doll. It looked like Facty really took a good amount of effort to get every detail correct. The green doll on the left also resembled Martian himself extremely closely, they even got the red glasses on point.
It was only until Martian put the dolls in her pocket that she realized she herself was crying.
Martian exited the room and returned to the dining room to see Lighty and Facty reuniting. Both of their faces were flushed either from crying or laughing, probably both.
“You ready to go home?” Lighty asked, happier than he's probably ever been in his life.
“Yes! Oh jeez, I can't wait to finally see birds again!” Facty smiled, their hands shaking in excitement.
Instantly a light green alien with curly antennae spawned into the room, Martian felt a disturbance in the air before they even appeared.
“Hi!!!!” Martian shouted. The alien responded in an equally high pitched shriek.
The alien spoke with bird-like calls and screeches, Martian replied with noises adjacent to tweets and rumbles.
After a short while Martian ended the conversation with a “Thank you!” and the alien vanished into thin air yet again.
“What were you guys talking about?” Facty asked.
“Going home. The floor is going to open up in about five seconds and send us back home!” Martian replied, tapping on the back of their wrist.
“Five seconds?! And we're just gonna what? Fall through space??” The brightness in Lighty's eyes dimmed.
“Pretty much.” Martian responded with a shrug.
Within the next second the floor gave out underneath them.
Facty and Lighty anchored onto each other, rightfully scared out of their minds. Every few seconds the light would be completely gone from Lighty and he'd go limp in Facty's arms, but by the next second they'd turn back on and continue freaking out.
Not too long after, the trio would finally make it home. Lighty and Facty weren't in great shape due to falling through the sky without any type of prior skydiving training. As soon as those two made it inside the house they collapsed onto the couch. Lighty was halfway on the floor but Martian supposed he didn't mind.
Martian decided to join in too, they crawled over Facty and lodged themselves between their arms and Lighty's torso.
The small clay dolls jabbed into Martian's side, he took them out of his pocket and placed them next to Facty's head.
Maybe they'll be thankful for Martian saving those trinkets, maybe they'll find it weird, it doesn't matter. That's a problem for tomorrow.