Work Text:
1. Delphia
For as long as she could remember, Delphia-Sirnial-Shamtul wanted to fight the Yeerks.she didn’t know where that dream came from, just that she had it.
She didn’t want to fight them the way her mother, Forlay, did, from behind the scenes. But how her father, Noorlin, had fought enemies of the Andalites – in a different time and a different place – as a young man.
The Andalite military had long been a hotbed of patriarchal bias and unbending chauvinism, but Delphia did not care. The small-minded views of a few bureaucrats was not going to stop her from causing maximum damage to the enemy that threatened all her people stood for.
Her father and mother were, of course, not happy about the idea of their one and only child becoming a warrior. Already concerned for the wellbeing of their slightly eccentric daughter – with her dreams of combat and abnormally large tail blade – this was not joyful news.
But Delphia had a destiny to fulfil.
If only I could get into the fight, I know I will make a difference, she told herself, like a mantra.
Of course, Delphia was a realist as much as she was an idealist: she knew the truth.
Despite all the propaganda, the Andaliates were desperately outnumbered, outgunned and constantly being pushed back and back and back by a seemingly unstoppable enemy. Everywhere they turned, the Yeerks were there. World after world fell to them, but still the Andalites fought on, the lone beacon of hope.
The warships in orbit over the Yeerk Homeworld may have added much needed numbers to the fight in open space, of course, but what good was retreating when such a move would only release more of the Yeerk plague onto the galaxy? As long as the warships stood guard over the Ellimist-foresaken little rock the Yeerks called a homeworld, anything going in or out was fried to a crisp.
The vision of fried Yeerks may have made some feel sick, but Delphia was made of sterner stuff than that.
< Wouldn't you rather be a strategist like your mother? > Noorlin asked.
< I want to be out on the front lines like you were! > Delphia protested. < I want to cause them direct damage, not move warriors around a map like pieces in a game of herzeth! >
Reluctantly, her mother and father relented, allowing her to enrol in the courses at school required for all those who wished to enter military service. Philosophy, to train the mind. Biology, to understand the body. Flight, to fight the enemy in deep pace, and to do so effectively. Ancient physical combat techniques at which Delphia – and her abnormally large tail blade – excelled.
The day she received her acceptance to the military academy was the best of her life up to that moment.
She might have been female and ergo half the size of some of her male classmates of the same age, but she didn’t care.
She’d show them all exactly what a woman could do.
After all, Escafil was a woman, wasn’t she?
***
2. Arbrina
She knows the war with the Yeerks is one the Andalites must win. There is no other option. They must win, defeating the slugs and returning them to the backwater, foresaken rock from whence they came, but that doesn't mean she wants to fight on the front lines.
She's an exodatalogist, for Ellimist's sake, not a warrior. She doesn't know the first thing about tail blade fighting or shooting shredder fire in such a way it will actually hit a target.
Arbrina isn't sure what to think of the only other young female Andalite aboard the StarSword. Delphia has to be one of the strangest young girls Arbrina has ever known.
Maybe those two extra days aboard warped her mind? Arbrina muses to herself.
Delphia's two extra days aboard the StarSword have caused such a stink between them they are two days Arbrina wishes she'd had the sense to spend aboard the ship, too. But how was she meant to know the only other cadet on the ship would voluntarily arrive two days early?
It hardly gives her the right to try and pull rank on me...
But she has to admit a certain amount of admiration for Delphia. She has a fire in her Arbrina has to admire...even if its intensity frightens her sometimes.
Arbrina copped a lot of teasing for being one of the few females studying exodataology at such an advanced level. She can only imagine what mocking and belittling Delphia would have withstood in her journey to be a warrior aboard a Domeship.
< She was chosen above more than 200 male students, > Arbrina had overheard one of the ship's numerous swaggering fighter pilots say to his friend. < There was a real stink at the Academy over that. But you have to admit she's talented with that overgrown tail blade of hers... >
Arbrina smiles. Maybe she and dear old Elfy will be friends after all.
***
3. Lars
Lars has always been accused of having an over-active imagination so when he awakens to find himself face-to-face with a giant cockroach on his left and a little grey man from Mars on his right, his first instinct is actually to pinch himself, not scream.
Looking behind him, he can see Henrietta. She looks like she's out cold.
Well, shit... Lars thinks. How the hell am I going to get us out of this one?
"Err," Lars says.
At the sound of his voice, the giant cockroach breaks out into an alarming series of high-pitched scratching noises, gesticulatingly wildly at his grey companion. Dangling somewhat precariously at the end of one the alien's many spindly arms is a shiny silver object which Lars could swear is some sort of weapon...
BOOM!
Lars and his captors are sent flying as a massive wave of heat blasts into the room. While Lars spends much of his time pretending his father never existed he has to thank him quietly for his unhinged survivalist ways. Wrestling both the strange creatures - which Lars assumes are aliens - to the ground is so easy Lars feels it was too simple. The two aliens struggle to their feet, raising their arms in the air as they slowly and cautiously back toward the wall.
The grey one is saying something which Lars assumes is directed at him, but he can't be sure.
"Stop talking!" he snaps. "I can't understand what the hell you're saying!"
These aliens have a damn hide talking to me after they kidnapped me! Lars rages to himself.
"Where the hell are we?" he demands of the aliens, recognising how ridiculous it is to ask aliens he can't understand questions.
Can they even understand me...?
The thought dies as the doors to...whatever it is Lars is in (a spaceship?) blast open and two creatures even stranger than the two in front of him step inside.
Centaurs? Lars thinks.
These new aliens look like purple centaurs with some sort of long, thin horns atop their heads and tails resembling that of a scorpion.
Noting his hesitiation, they step forward.
“Freeze, horsey!" Lars snaps, aiming the weapon at them. "One move and I pull the trigger. I don’t know what this gun will do, but I’m willing to bet you won’t like it.”
The grey alien is talking again, this time to the purple centaur closest to Lars. He is winking one of his large eyes at the purple alien in a way that makes Lars very uncomfortable.
< Perhaps this will be the lesson required for you to stop seizing innocent aliens from worlds which do not concern you, > the purple alien says coolly.
Lars' blood freezes in his veins. The alien's voice...it's in his head. Like his own thoughts.
< We have come to rescue you, > the purple alien says to Lars.
She - at least, her 'voice' sounds female - turns to face Lars. Looking up, Lars realises they aren't horns on top of the alien's head at all, but actually an extra set of eyes atop moveable stalks. She has the most startlingly green eyes Lars has ever seen.
And no mouth.
Oh God...
< I mean you no harm, > she says softly, stepping forward.
"I said freeze!" Lars yells. Fear and adrenalin is flooding his system.
< No harm will come to you, > she says.
“Why can you understand what I'm saying?" Lars demands. "Why can I understand you? I can hear you in my head, but you’re not really talking.”
she says calmly, looking straight into his eyes, completely ignoring his question.
She's brave, Lars thinks. I think I'll like her a lot better than the last set of aliens...