#spark-gem

You laugh, "Alright mister dance master, bring it on!" You respond, giving him a look of determination, "I'll pick the song." You say, going through the list of music. You stop on DARE by Gorillaz and get your Wii remote ready, "You ready to lose Roddy?"

"Ha, in your dreams!" He says gripping the Wii remote in his holoform, "Watch how a pro does it." he smirks as you pick the song and it starts up.

Step after step, arm swing after arm swing, you and Rodimus practically line up perfectly with the dance steps shown on screen. You manage to best him with a twirl and drop though, much to his dismay.

"Hey c'mon now! No fair, I'm the dramatic one here," he chuckles, "Best two out of three?"

"You're on!" You say, standing back up, "You can pick the next song." You say, handing him the main Wii remote.

"Sweet." He scrolls through the music and picks Eye of The Tiger by Survivor.

"I should have known it'd be an 80s song." You joke.

"Yeah because that era had the best music!" He says, defending his choice, "Although a lot of 90s songs are pretty cool too." 

You laugh, "Alright. If you win this round I'll let you choose the next song too."

"I will." He says with a smirk.

And sure enough, he does. Maybe he's just powered up by 80s music, you think to yourself, but either way, you're determined to win the next round.

"Next one is the winner." He says with a smile, sweat glistening down his cheek. You didn't know holoforms could sweat but you guess this is quite the work out for both of you, as you can feel the beads on your own forehead start to slide down.

"Alright, I'm not gonna go easy on you this time."

He laughs, "Me either!"

He, of course, chooses Girls Just Want to Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper, another 80s song. 

Unfortunately he didn't expect you to be a master at the dance moves involved and pouts when he loses.

"Sorry Roddy, should've picked a different song," You laugh, "I do that one a lot."

"Damn, no kidding." He pauses, "Best three out of five?"

You laugh and stretch, "Alright, I guess, but after that we need to take a break. We could play some more tomorrow if you want to."

You headed out, making sure to first let those closest to you know you probably wouldn't be back until it was close to dinner time.

Once you reach the forest you pull out your camera, immediately taking a picture of the scenery. The light shown through little spaces from the tops of the trees, giving the forest a magical look to it. You soon spot some daisies that a bumblebee is resting on and slowly point your camera closer to get the perfect shot of the bee on the flower. After you take the picture you decide to get a shot of the flowers together, that's when you hear a rustling from behind you.

You turn your head to the right, hand ready to slip into your pocket for the pepper spray, and slowly stand up, "Hello? Is someone else here?" you ask, rather quietly.

The rustling sound happens again, this time happening to the left of you. You turn and ask once again, "Is someone here?" 

You notice something quickly go into one of the bushes. It was just a glimpse of something, something that looked like a tail, so you calm down a bit, knowing that it's an animal. Still, you're on alert, you know well enough that just because it's a little animal doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. You're hoping it's just a little opossum hunting some food, or maybe a stray cat roaming around. You figure since it's an animal you'll probably be fine if you don't mess with it, so you start to walk away. You'll find another area to photograph, one where you won't be bothering a little creature just looking for something to eat.

You stop at a place not too far away from the rustling bush that has a fallen tree, taking a picture of it. It looks like it's fallen pretty recently, probably from one of the storms you had a couple of weeks ago. You hear a rustling behind you again and turn around. You spot the same tail quickly hiding itself behind a very big tree, but this time you get a good enough glance to notice it's blue and red.

Weird… you can't think of any animal around here that had that kind of tail. Well… other than maybe a snake or some other reptile, since they can be very colorful at times. You start to get a bit creeped out, almost like whatever that is… is following you. You put your camera away and press forward, not stopping until you come across a huge rock that you immediately duck behind.

You peek out from behind the rock but all you can see is the tail disappearing behind the other side of the rock. You do a small gulp and take out your pepper spray as you turn back to face forward. So it is following you. And whatever it is it's far too close for your own comfort right now. 

You peek around again, this time on the other side, and yet you still don't see what this thing could be. You turn back, only to be met with an azure, somewhat metallic face with sparkling turquoise eyes peering at you upside-down from the top of the rock. 

You let out a scream and the creature screams as well and retracts as you fall forward and shuffle to your feet, shakily gripping the pepper spray as you aim it at the creature.

"WHAT ARE YOU?" You shout.

"What are you?" The creature asks back, peering over the rock at you.

"YOU CAN TALK?!"

"So can you!" The creature hesitates for a moment, before slithering back to the top of the rock, "At least that'll make this easier I guess." He says coming down from the rock in front of you.

You can see it clearly now, this thing looks like it's half snake, half robot, and it towers over you. It's metallic in some areas and looks like a snake in others, it's lower half is that of a snake, a San Francisco Garter Snake from the looks of it, and the top part is more man- er, machine, and it's voice is somewhat robotic.

"Stay back!" You say pointing the pepper spray.

"Hey, it's ok! I'm not gonna hurt you!" He says putting his hands in front of his torso, palms forward, "Look, I kind of crashed my ship and got stuck here but… I'm not exactly sure where here is."

"Ship?" You ask, tilting your head a little and lowing the spray a little.

"Yeah. I tried asking some other native creatures for help but… they couldn't really speak any language I could download."

You stare at this creature, so many thoughts racing through your mind. 'This is an alien? Certainly looks like it could be one. Am I going to die? Is it going to eat me or dissect me? What does it mean by downloading language?'

"Hey are you-" The creature slithers closer but stops when you raise the pepper spray again. He stares at you for a moment then backs up, "I swear I'm not here to cause trouble, I just want to repair my ship so I can go back to Serpentron."

"Serpentron?"

"It's my home planet."

"So you are an alien." You look down at the ground for a moment, 'Holy shit, a real live alien! It's in front of me! Crap I put my camera away…'

"Can you help?"

"Huh?" You turn your attention back to the creature.

"Can you help me repair my ship?" It asks again, a pleaful look in his eyes.

"Sorry, I don't think I'd know how..." You say.

"Oh," the creature gets a sorrowful look that almost makes you feel sorry for him, "Ok. Maybe someone else in the forest can. Sorry for scaring you by the way." He says before he starts to turn around.

"Wait!"

He looks back at you.

"I don't know if I'd go around just showing myself to anyone around here if I were you." You tell him. You're not even sure why you're giving advice, but there's something about this creature, now that you really look at him, that you feel is trustworthy and good, something worth protecting, "Since you're not from this planet some people might try to hurt you… they might try to experiment on you or something to learn how you work."

A look of shock crosses the creature's face, "Oh! Well, thanks for letting me know that. So some of the people here are hostile? I guess I'll have to be more careful from now on. I guess I'm lucky you're one of the good ones then." He smiles, and it's such a pure, sweet smile that you feel at ease.

"Uh, yeah, I guess."

"Sorry again for scaring you," He says.

"It's alright," you say, slipping the pepper spray back into your pocket, "Is your ship in this forest?"

"Yeah, it's closer to the end of it on the west side though."

"I uh… I doubt I could actually do repairs, but I might be able to bring you some tools some time." You offer.

"That'd help a lot!" He smiles that cute smile again.

"I'm y/n, by the way." You say inching a bit closer to the creature now that you realize he's not a threat.