Armor

"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">


AN: Three things:

1. This story was inspired by a very poor lemon that I read MSTed. Dispite said lemon's many flaws it did have some creative ideas pertaining to aliens.

2. For the first couple chapters this will read more like a sci-fi than a superhero story. Rest assured it will get around to being more traditionaly super-hero-y.

3. No sex in this chapter, but probably in the next. With any luck said next chapter will be up soon.

____

   Kiliah was an Elitian. That is, she was born on the planet Eliti. For future reference, Elitians are fairly similar to humans. Most intelligent aliens are, there is something about the human mold that is easy to evolve into. In order to most briefly describe Elitians, and therefore Kiliah, the star of this story, the differences will be listed here. Firstly, Elitians have slightly larger foreheads, although their heads are about the same size. Their skin is fairly metallic in tone, their eyes are typically glassy. Their hands have slightly longer, bonier fingers, with an additional opposable digit above where the human thumb would be. They have hair in about the same places humans do (with the exception of a hair line that goes further down the back of their necks and ends between their shoulder blades), but it is shorter and thinner. Overall Elitians are more delicate, smaller, and thinner than humans. They are warm weather beings, living in temperature that average 80 degrees Fahrenheit. They are also very intelligent. The average Elitian would be considered to have an IQ around 300 on Earth. This brings us to Kiliah. She was not you average Elitian.

Kiliah was retarded. Her IQ was maybe about 150 in Earth reckoning. If there is anything Elitian’s have no tolerance for it’s retards. So Kiliah was sent off to die in a crystal field. Officially, the high council declared her a chosen child, and sent her out without food or water to await a vision from Heil (their god, or at least their word for God). Crystal fields are all over Elitian. They are just what they sound like, huge expanses of land covered in giant crystalline formations. Nothing can grow, it is impossible to tell what direction is what, and shards of razor sharp rock jut out at every turn. Most of these are in the hottest spots on the planet, but the Creanea is a bone-chilling 40 degrees. Creanea, naturally, was where Kiliah was.

   So, the poor girl trudged across the bone dry, rock hard wilderness. And she may have been mentally retarded, but she was not stupid. She knew she was there to die, and to be honest, she had mixed feelings about it. Her life had been pretty hard. No matter how hard she tried, Elitian social conventions were completely above her. She was constantly misunderstanding people, reacting to things incorrectly, and in general doing things wrong. She could not even begin to comprehend what she was doing wrong in most cases, and no one made it easy on her. Getting a job and living on her own was definitely out of the question. She had no future. Still, dying of thirst in the middle of nowhere seemed a little harsh.

    With any luck I’ll freeze to death, she thought as she shivered. That would, at least, be preferable to dying of thirst. Of course, she snuck some water and a blanket in her coat with her. Hell if she was going to go without food, drink, and sleep to await her vision like they told her too. She would do her best to fall asleep and die with as much dignity and as little pain as she could. To do this she fist needed somewhere she could get at least marginally comfortable. She found a small cavern of sort, relatively free of anything razor sharp, and she pulled out her rilian blanket. A rilian blanket is like a space blanket, a little larger and padded but still small enough to fold up and conceal in a pocket. She laid the blanket on the ground and sat on top of it. Than she pulled a tube from her pocket and sucked to water hidden in the rubber lining of her coat through it. She drank only enough to wet her mouth, and then she moved to lay down. That was when she noticed it.

It was not a crystal. Needless to say, that made it stand out a bit. It was gooey in appearance, almost a puddle, but definitely not liquid. As she moved to get a better view it twitched. She started somewhat, but then continued to inch closer. As she watched it rose a tendril of itself up weakly, then collapsed again. She considered it carefully. Well, what’s the worst it can do, kill me? I suppose touching it could cause me to die a more painful death than I already am, or maybe it is some devil spawn that will damn me to the icehalls for all eternity or something, but it seems more likely to do nothing at all. She reached out and laid a finger on it tentatively.

   <Hello.> It said. In her mind.

   Kiliah freaked. She yanked her hand back and retreated to the other side of the small cavern. Her back against the was she stared at the thing in disbelief. It squirmed weakly, but otherwise did not move. Biting her lip, she reached over an touched it again.

   <Sorry if I scared you. It’s just been a long time since I had someone to talk to.>

   “No, my fault for freaking out. I’ve... never encountered anything like you.” Kiliah replied, shakily. She was angry at herself for over reacting. Normal Elitians never overreacted.

   <I understand entirely. I’ve never encountered anything like me before either.> Kiliah smiled. Already she liked the blob. Possibly more than anyone she had ever met before.

   “May I ask what you are? Or maybe what you’re doing here?”

   <Of course you may. But perhaps should make yourself more comfortable. Go ahead and move me if you must.>

   The girl shifted herself up right, but had to hunch to accommodate the low ceiling. She frowned and then decided to lay on her side instead. Carefully she scooped the blob up and found that despite its puddle-like appearance it help itself together perfectly well. She sat it near her so her hand could rest on it comfortably. “Is this alright?”

   <Yes. You don’t have to speak allowed if you don’t want to, either.> Kiliah frowned. <I can’t read your mind,> it amended hastily, <only thoughts in word form directed at me. And some of your emotions. And what you are hearing and seeing. I can’t hear on my own and my method of vision is not as clear as your own.>

   <Well,> Kiliah thought at him experimentally, <I suppose that is fair.> Kiliah was used to her emotions being an open book anyway. For the life of her she could never figure out what gave her away.

   <Great. Now, you asked me what I am? To be honest I’m not sure. I was created in a lab by your kind. I get the impression that my ability to speak was unexpected. After only a couple interviews and some experimentation I was brought here an abandoned. I get the impression I was to be some sort of... personal device.>

   <Personal device?>

   <I am not sure, it may have had something to do with hygiene. I know it involved the replicatory system because I derive my energy source for the secretions->

   <Wait, what?> Kiliah’s eyes got wide and she blushed so hard her body shuddered. Of course that may have been due to the cold. Her parents protected her with all but their lives from anything sexual, probably in fear that any knowledge of how that part of her body worked may give her ammunition to do or say something even more embarrassing than was usual. She did remember a catalog of an adult nature that a cousin had left laying out one time, and suddenly the blob’s appearance seemed all too familiar. <You’re a sex toy! Wait, when did this happen? Recently or several turns ago?>

   <Well, judging time is difficult about here, but I would say the climate has cycled twice since I was abandoned.>

   Kiliah nodded to herself. The catalog had been from half a turn ago, so that would leave the lab time to try again and have to product on the market since the blob’s creation. Business moved quickly on Eliti, especially the business of invention. Now if I remember correctly, the description called it a tokit. It is a living organism that feeds on semen as well as female lubrication. Cleaning up sex related fluids was an issue often addressed in the sex-industry on Eliti, since even the women produced a fair about of fluid. Supposedly it responds to the warmth of skin contact and moves to stimulate the fluids it feeds on... The girl experienced a moment’s discomfort, but then realized that the poor thing could do no such thing. And no wonder it couldn’t move, it had not had anything to eat in two Eilitian years! Her face flushed with anger. Just like her, the failed experiment had been left to die.

   It suddenly hit her. If they had dumped it out here, than it must be retarded too. Well, in its case it would not be retardation, as it had no standard to be compared to, it would simply be being of lesser intelligence. Like an animal, only smart enough to communicate. If it were as intelligent as a normal Elitian than it never would have been given a death sentence, it just would not have happened. It was considered less than a person, just like her. No wonder she liked it some much. Tears rose to Kiliah’s eyes. Her first real friends and they were both going to die. Just her luck.

   <So,> the thing interrupted her thoughts, <what’s a ‘sex-toy?’>

____

I gladly welcome critizism. I am conserned about my orginization of thoughts, so if you have any questions please tell me so I can try and make my writing clearer.