A human gets body-swapped with a short avian havenworlder just before a band of vorax attack, they find the 'human' cowering, and the chirpy bird missing... -- Anon Guest
[AN: Mind swaps are silly episode ideas so this is entirely non-canon to my pet universe]
"Aw, what the hell?" complained Human De, currently Thelid De, since hir mind was in Thelid Vaax's body. "This is like every badly-written filler episode in the history of everything!"
Human Vaax, once Thelid Vaax said, "I don't know what that means, but you must practice the calming breaths. Your current body is not made for Human levels of emotion."
Worse and worse, the attacking party was coming towards their fortified space. Vaax did not know what to do. De, unfortunately, did. Ze was already breathing in a regulated manner and looking at the world around them as if it owed hir fifteen dollars. "Where's your combat-rated livesuit?" De asked.
"In my quarters. Why?"
"Activate mine and hide. I'm going to mess up their shit."
"But you're a Havenworlder now!"
"A Havenworlder with an amazing amount of knowledge concerning unregulated chemicals and where best to use them. Your body's going to be fine. I won't be taking any risks with it."
Vaax came to the unsettling realisation that Human De's livesuit didn't have calming medication on tap. Ze activated all possible protections and found a place of concealment. For a subjective eternity, all was the sound of hir own breathing.
One of the crates Vaax was hiding behind moved, revealing a cobbled-together livesuit apparently made of parts from other species. The faceplate was occluded, and the rough shape was vaguely anthropoid, but that would not narrow down the species[1]. What their livesuits did have was every possible weapons mod they could cram on to the exterior.
Vaax had a very Human thought: So. This is how I die.
"Heads up, flakkers," shouted Vaax's voice, and two canisters flew at the enemy before exploding. The visual field filled with foam and smoke, and Vaax could hear scuttling through the air vents. More distant pops as the foam fizzed to deflation and the smoke dissipated.
Finally, a sound Vaax thought ze would never hear again. That of hir own footsteps.
"Ullyullyuxenfree," singsonged De. "They're all gone. We're safe. Next... we figure out whatever this bee ess is."
"Thank you for making sure we survived," sighed Vaax.
"Don't think of it as a harrowing near-death experience. Think of it as re-enforcing your genes for the next generation."
[1] Despite what scientists say, anthropoid is an astonishingly popular body model. So is arthropoid.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / AlexLMX]
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