[Chapter #0.1.2 - Life is a Bridge]

Grimm awoke as soon as he felt his consciousness slipping. His heavy metal body laid upon a metal floor, vibrating at a steady, machine-like pace. It wouldn’t be hard to guess he was still on a spaceship. The bigger question was which spaceship, though. And why were there alarms and yellow warning lights blaring all over the place?

“Tequila, Axis, Waddle-Dees, we’ve got readings on enemies approaching the bridge.” The man’s voice was soft spoken and clear as he issued his commands. Tequila found himself standing beside a woman dressed… well like a cowboy, sort of, toting a gun at the ready in her hands. “Aye aye, Captain. We’ll get em good in no time, right, Teq?” She gave Tequila a punch on the shoulder. Tequila knew the girl, she went by the name of Axis and was the main combat pilot on SS Philemon and one of the few combat-ready personnel on board. She was always eager to jump into action and she’s the one who taught Tequila how to fly a small spacecraft. That was her specialty, after all, outer space dogfights; but obviously, she could hold her own with both feet on the ground just as well. There were Waddle Dees all over the place as well, helping out at the unmanned control stations and gearing up for combat.

Tequila and the Waddle Dees would notice Grimm, laying face down on the floor a few paces behind the Captain. Grimm most certainly wasn’t there a few seconds ago, so this sudden appearance would catch them all off guard. As Axis turned to run out of the bridge, she’d notice him as well, stopping in her tracks. “Huh? Guuuuuuuuuysssss, who failed to tell me there was a party last night!?? What’s this guy doing passed out here?”

“Hmm?” The Captain turned around towards Grimm, smiling. “Oh? Another newcomer? We can be grateful it wasn’t a Shadow or a Demon that manifested here, at least.”

Grimm would have no issue standing up if he wanted to. He felt good and well, as much as he could, having found himself in a strange and unfamiliar spacecraft during an obvious moment of crisis.

It really sucked when all one wanted to do was kick back and relax for a while, but instead found rather annoying lights and alarms going off in the ear. It was quite the pain honestly, all the racket that was happening, but instead heading all over the place like some had when this all started, Tequila would find himself heading straight for the bridge area both to see if he could find out what was up from someone not in panic mode and also because he was having a bad feeling about what was happening. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something about this whole thing that was putting him on edge and it helped none that Lokita and the spirits seemed to be more on edge than him.

Keeping his cool despite all this, he had managed to make it to the bridge area where the captain, the Waddle Dees, and Axis were. It was nice to see the familiar space cowgirl there in all her glory and while he might’ve joke around with the girl, he found himself not being able to do that too much as his earlier feeling were confirmed. They were under attack by Anti-Space and it seemed that things were a mess all over the place too. They had some new arrivals it seemed and luckily for them the Captain remained calm and helped them out. Well while the boss man worked, the machine would find that the bridge looked to be a calmer area. So lucky him, right? Not really. Just when he was thinking how nice it would be not to have to go war with creature from hell had come aboard with the whole leak mess, he heard the Captain speak of enemies approaching their location not too long after he had gotten comfortable here. Man, so much for thinking he could nap until it passed over, huh? This really was a pain in the ass. How sad.

To the sound of an attack approaching Axis would become lively as usual. To her words and the punch on the shoulder, Tequila would find himself smirking despite it all. “Well now that you’ve gone and said that, how can I possibly say we won’t?” He’d poke back as he gave her a light shove with his shoulder being careful not to be too heavy on the shove, so he wouldn’t knock her over. Though she was probably used to it since she had gotten on his good side by introducing him to something entertaining and useful to boot. Anyway... “Don’t worry, Cap’, we’ll have the trash out before you know it. Even more so with the little ones helping to clean,” he would say, his tone as easy going as usual. Despite really wanting a nap over fighting, he couldn’t let this place get trashed and lives wasted for no reason at all. Besides, the folk here had been kind enough to him and gave him a place to stay when he really had none. It was only fair payment for him to work to keep it safe. So then, time to work.

He would move to go alright, but would stop as he blinked at seeing a person just there all of a sudden? Eh?

Axis would move to charge, but saw the guy too and immediately started complaining about missing a party? Heh. Typical Axis. Had love the gal all the same. The machine would hmph amused at that one. “Trust me there wouldn’t have been a party without me noticing,” he would say before hearing what the Captain said and also what Axis said following that too. He’d shake his head at her eagerness to drag everyone along. Guess he'd have to be a bit of logic here.

“A new arrival, eh? Well we are certainly lucky in the fact it is not one of them, but I wonder how strong our luck is,” he would turn his focus to the man that had just appeared there. “Sorry for rapid fire of questions, but: Still functioning fine? What’s your name and can you fight?” Unlike Axis he wasn’t about to jump the gun and assume this guy could fight. For all they knew this one could be some unfortunate soul that wound up here at a rather bad time and couldn't fight all. He much rather know some details before throwing someone that just appeared here on the front lines against the "other guests" onboard.

For all intents and purposes, Grimm was rather confused to find himself face first on a metal floor, the sounds and surroundings he could note before even moving not coming off as very familiar. He certainly didn't remember anything out of ordinary happening that could have caused whatever this was...but then again, would he even know had something in fact happened? He was hardly an expert on stuff he hadn't even dealt with before, assuming that's what this fell into the category of.

There was no time to ponder the meaning however, as he was apparently being addressed, and thus had to deal with that first. Pushing himself off of the floor, and eventually up into a standing position, he'd 'eye' the crowd surrounding him. "I have no idea what you are talking about. I don't remember choosing to 'come' here, whatever that is supposed to mean." Was this some teleporting mishap? They were making it sound like that. And they were already hustling him off into battle? Not that it bothered him, given he had done plenty fighting before, but this was quite...random, if he had to put a word to it in any way.

However...

The waddle-dee's where working areound the ship as usual, moving to and fro, helping with maintenannce, helping people just get by, and helping with ship operations wherever they could, and most people didn't notice them much, treating them for the most part like the bulkheads that made up the ship.

And then the ships alarms went off, and with pricision the Waddle-dees around the ship started to try to evacuate people to safe locations, while reporting to other Waddle-dee's of the situation going on. It was through this that one of the Waddle-dee's had written on a note pad the current situation as the Waddle-dee's around the ship seen it and handed it to the captain.

it was about that time that Teq appared in the bridge, and as the others talked, the Waddle-dee's prepared for the emergency, moving to and fro once again, mostly under the notice of the others talking about the situation, a group of them grabbing their plugs and locking them in and running through the set up they had been shown before, as well as grabbing their gear they would need.


It was then that the group was called upon and told that enemies were coming, a group of 100 of the small creatures haveing gathered by the door, and one of them saluting to the Captain as they turned to face the door, the others where still talking, and so the little ones took it upon themselves to watch the door, just incase the incoming enemy made it to the door before the rest were ready, especially with the appearance of a new person on the bridge.

It wasn't a new thing to see for the Waddle-dee's, and with the Captain realizing that it wasn't a threat, none of the waddle-dees made a move against the new arrival, they simply formed up into their little squad, a mixture of different Waddle-dees, even a couple of the larger variants, and they waited, weapons ready to defend if the enemy came in while the new person was brought up to speed.

"Now now, Axis, Tequila and the man are correct, you shouldn't jump at a stranger with a request like that." The Captain gave a small laugh, barely audible, before continuing, turning straight towards Grimm. "Regardless, I know you must be confused, as are we. You're currently aboard the Star Ship Philemon and I am its Captain. We've suffered a collision that likely, according to our data, caused some sort of spatial disturbance. This might be the reason why you've appeared here, at the epicenter of this event. There's another issue altogether. The collision damaged our engines and we've been thrown into Anti-Space. With our hull breached, Shadows and Demons have begun leaking in."

Axis nodded, frowning confidently. "The ship's a wreck! We've gotta protect the people on board!"

"Indeed. We must hold out until the engine has been restabilized. Matty, what's the position of the Shadows? Are the gates still holding? Good. Dees, put the living quarters in affected areas under lockdown." The Captain commanded, arms crossed. It felt he had the situation under control. For now. Grimm and the others would be painfully aware that physical gates couldn't prevent Anti-Space leakage and Shadow/Demon attacks for long.

Tequila would watch the other the slight smile on his face never leaving as he saw the man get up more or less easily enough. He was confused as expected for a person appearing against their will on a ship in chaos with Waddle Dees and strange personalities surrounding him. Hell, if he were in the guy’s position, he wouldn’t be nearly as calm or friendly. He probably would’ve been quite agitated to be frank. Guess it was a good thing it wasn’t him and Lady Luck had given them a calmer one for now.

Anyway, he’d get a name and nod. “Alright then, Grimm. Nice to meet ya,” he would say friendly enough before falling silent as the Captain filled the newcomer in and the Waddle Dees did what they could to prepare for any form of battle or threat. A valid thing considering that while they did have measures to slow down their unwanted guests, they wouldn’t last forever and the more time they gave those fuckers to roam about the more the damage and death toll would go up. It was indeed a pressing matter.

Regardless of that, the machine would give a few nods before refocusing on Grim. ”It is unfortunate you landed in shit creek right after waking up here, but we’d appreciate the help. Maybe after work is all said and done, we can have a nice drink and sit down to talk it out, hm?” Tequila would say, curious about this one and what sort of information he may have and he was pretty sure the other would have questions too. While he’d love just chat time, right now they had a crisis on their hands so all that wasn’t important would have to wait if they wanted to be thorough and efficient and solving the problem. Cold or even harsh thinking maybe, but this was about survival, life, and death. They could not rest until the issue of being sucked into oblivion or eaten by demons or shadows was gone right? Speaking of that, “Cap' how much time do we have left and how many of our unwelcomed guests are left, anyway?”

There would have been no point in causing a scene. It wasn't like that typical human reaction ever really got the one acting out more or better information about what was going on, did it now? Besides, in the midst of an impending battle, as far as he understood at least, it'd only be an unnecessary danger. Too much panic at the wrong time is how you die. He was certainly interested in figuring out just how a 'collision' would cause people to warp from different parts of the world or the anti-space, given that hardly sounded normal, but it was obvious he wasn't being afforded the time to do that right now.

"Well, which is it then? You can't be shipping me back where I came from and sitting for a drink to chat at the same time." He didn't seem to be particularly bothered however, his tone rather calm, despite what might come off as a quip response. Honestly though, he doubted they had a way to send him away that simply when they weren't even entirely sure how this was happening outside of speculations, so he wasn't even getting his hopes up to begin with. As long as he was still alive, it wasn't that terrible of a deal in the end.

"I'll fight, but I suppose you can still talk while doing so unless something happens...so, anyone up for telling me what this ship is all about? It looks like I landed into a mix of human and alien, at glance at the very least." He was fine with protecting people, that had technically been his job all along anyway. Nevertheless, he could use that time to get a better picture of the situation too.

The captains orders came in, and the Waddle-dees passed on the order to the others in the ship, and in short order the Affected Area's where under lockdown and guarded by large numbers of the little guys all armed and ready to defend the people they were protecting, and they were not the only ones getting ready.

The Waddled-dees in the bridge where all fully ready to head out once given the order, the only thing holding them at the moment was the fact that the Captain had sent them with the others, and they were not about to leave the new person confused and unsure as to what was going on. Not that they could properly inform him about the situation.

It was then that one in the squad seemed to get an Idea and the Idea was passed along all the little aliens till one ran up to the captain with a note pad and quickly wrote down a note for him "Why not make a little informational pamphlet to help explain to people what is going on in case something like this occurs again?" Was written on the note.

Again it was the Waddle-dee's natural need to help out that drove this Idea along, and as the Waddle-dee stood there waiting for the captain to respond, the squad itself was ready by the door, all armed with Bows and oddly...Parasols? but each one, like all other waddle-dee's on the bridge, and more then likely the ship, had plugs installed for combat, or rather, for defense of the people in their new home, and each one didn't seem scared at all at the coming battle.

"Display the enemy data in my visual feed." The Captain commanded in response to Tequila's question. Hearing Grimm, he turned towards him, ready to start explaining, when he noticed the Dees handing him a note. He took it, read it over and chuckled. "If this keeps on happening we may as well have to do that." He told them before focusing on Grimm once again. However, by then, Axis had already jumped the gun. "This ship? It's a transport ship. And yeah, we take in everyone and everything, humans, aliens, robots... So long as you're not trying to kill us, of course. In which case..." She pointed her gun in front of herself, sticking her tongue out and closing one eye, as if aiming. "BANG! We'll just kill you instead! Haha!"

"Oh my, Axis, you're making us sound like a criminal organization." The Captain added with a smirk. "We are an independent goods transport company. And yes, we employ all sort of people and other. I don't particularly mind and neither does anyone else aboard. That's why you see things like these little ones swarming all over the place." He gestured towards the Dees skittering across the floor, busy with their jobs.

"And Tequila, about that question you asked, you'll find out in 3... 2... 1..." The Captain spoke so nonschalantly one might assume he was merely joking. His face and posture gave away no sense of worry. Yet, no later than he stopped speaking, an inhuman screeching cry would be heard from the other side of the bridge gates. "They're in the hallway beyond. About 10 of them or so, but it's difficult to pin down the exact number considering how tightly they're huddled together. Regardless, the hallway is an enclosed space which should function well as a good choke point. They won't all be able to attack you at the same time, is what I'm trying to say."

So the enemy was at the gates. Which meant there was no time to lose. Axis ran towards the gate.


She commanded as a red light enveloped her, transforming her outfit and hair, turning it a twin shade of white and a soft toned red.

Tequila receives the following:

Axis Tension:

“You’ll have plenty of time to chat with me until they can get you back home more than likely,” Tequila would say amused at the other’s comment. Before falling silent to process everything that followed afterwards. And there was plenty to try to follow.

The Captain was getting information for him about enemies. The Waddle Dee were working their asses off and passing notes that amused the Captain? Okay…that was kind of nice to see, but he couldn’t go all mushy here and lose focus over something cute. Besides, he had a reputation to uphold. He would not  let anyone here see that side him. Ahem. Anyway... Grimm was asking questions and agreeing help them fight. Whoo for that one. It was all good to have extra fighting power along for the ride. Axis was being herself and filling in the most important pieces for the guy in the most elegant of ways causing the Captain to try and smooth it out a bit. Those two were always amusing creatures even in a time like this. It was nice to see and reminded him why despite everything that had happened, he still held onto hope for these beings.

In any case, he’d remain more or less chill even when the Captain did his countdown for information in his usual seemingly carefree way. It wasn’t until that sound from the other side came that the smile he had been wearing up to this point faded as he focused on the door and Lokita began to growl. He’d hear the number and information given and nod. “Got it. Thanks Cap’ that should help a ton,” he would say before the smirk was back on his face as saw Axis go into battle mode and of course give him a command like she was his boss or something. How amusing.

“As if I was going to walk out here without supplies like you,” he’d tease back. There was no need to tell him twice, he was not about to go on a battlefield without anything in hand. Who knew what those things could do anyway?

…

Well...He could take a guess, but wouldn’t focus on that as he got the items from the Captain. He’d give the guy another thank you before focusing on the task. “Come on. Time for work,” he would say his behavior upbeat despite probably marching into a hell zone. With that he would move to follow Axis to the gate and whatever waited them. Lokita would stay behind to protect the Captain anyone else in the area in case those things got through them, but you could bet he'd be torn apart before he let that happen.  

Action:

Tequila – Level 1:

Axis Tension:

"I'm not really the type." Sitting to chat with a stranger when there were other important things to do, given how unusual this situation was...well, that wasn't quite his style. Though, if this guy knew a lot about this place, perhaps it would be to his benefit, as much as he didn't have a lot of interest in casual chit-chat. Being super welcoming sounded like a way to get one's ass bitten one day. The dumb ones would maybe attempt to straight up kill and get taken care of, but that was hardly the only way things could go, was it?

Still, he supposed he could at least take a bit of amusement from this situation, if nothing else. He'd have to deal until he understood more about what had happened, and why. It'd be unwise to act out of line too quickly after all. "Right." He'd turn to follow the other two towards the gates, keeping a mostly calm and serious demeanor, compared to the two who were a little more upbeat. Especially that girl. Besides, he wanted to actually see these enemies before getting all fired up for the action.

Action:

Grimm:

The Waddle-dees heared the sound comming from the doors, the captain was calm, as were the Waddle-dees, even if the demons busted through that door they would do the task asked of them by the captain, even if it meant the others ran to safety they would do the task, thankfully it didn't sound or look like that was going to happen. The Waddle-dees knew Axis was not going to run away, the issue with her was stopping her from runing to far ahead.

As for the new person it seemed they were willing to talk and help, that was very good to know, at least it meant more allies to help in the fight. So as the man walked with Teq and Axis towards the Gate, the Waddle-dee's all nodded and headed out with them, one waving back to the captain and then saluting before rushing off with the rest of the Squad.

The other Waddle-dee's on the Bridge also geared up, just incase they needed to buy time for the rest of the bridge crew and the captain to escape if nessecary, they didn't expect the team sent out to lose of course. It was just standard procedure for the Waddle-dee's, their home was a place to defend, as was everyone inside that home that had given them shelter.

As the Squad gathered around the larger members of the team and walked with them, they all activated their Modules, A Dark mist suddenly absorbing each individual Waddle-dee before fading, At first it would look like nothing was different, they were the same size, the same shape, even the same color, but then what had changed was their faces, rather then the rather innocent, and some would argue cute, faces they normally had, now they had only one large eye as well as two little hairs sticking out the top of their heads, still rather innocent looking but different none the less.

action:

Waddle-dee Squad:

The group proceeds through the gate. Axis picks up her gun, firing a few warning shots that force the group of Shadows to back away from the gate, giving the party enough time and momentum to get out into the hallway and the gates to close behind them. They were alone with the Shadows now and it was time to dish out some pain!.

Shadow Green Lady, Level 7:

Shadow Slogutis, Level 5:

Shadow Fravashi, Level 7:

The Waddle-doo's marched forward, taking the lead as the group approched the Enemies, and as they did their eyes all started to shine and glow with light, before suddenly they all unleashed a blast of electrical energy at the enemies, the bolts from them all being launched in a massed volley.

action:

Waddle-dee Squad:

Right. This was certainly some freak show right here, although Grimm had other things on mind at the moment, as he pulled out his weapon, taking aim at the enemies up front.

Action:

Grimm: