Deadlines [Open---see note]

[morphitudinous]

Miraculously, happily, Billy had finally set foot on Transmigration Nine once more. It wasn't the cleanest or happiest of reunions on-board the ship, but what mattered most to him was that he had survived. His task now was to return to the routine as much as possible and assist with the Melting Clock situation.

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[things_go_boom]

Someone was on the prowl, sneaking into engineering. A tiny girl, with one heck of a poofy afro trailing around her. She hadn't noticed Billy yet, and was trying to, unsuccessfully, pull out some pieces of metal out of one of boxes of stuff lying around.

"Urrgh! This is so heavy!" Her voice was a few octaves higher than before. In frustration, the afrogirl gave the box a kick. "Stupid box! Let me get this metal pipe! I need it!"

[morphitudinous]

Billy's head shot up, his body instantly in alert mode. Those noises were almost never good, especially from a faintly familiar voice.

He stepped out from behind his desk, finding a smaller Lash. How much time had he lost while he'd been captured? Was she still going to hurt him? Things were bad, very bad. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he snatched up a piece of metal as a shield and approached her.

"Just what do you need the pipe for?" If he's crouching behind the shield, it's only because he remembers Ron's story.

[things_go_boom]

"Billy!" She says nearly jumping up and down. "Hiii!" Lash appeared to be excited at seeing him, and there seemed to be no violence and kicking in the man parts in his future...for now. At his words, she turned again and kicked the box one final time.

"I'm building a small car," she explained, her tiny voice contradicting rather strangely with all the large words she uttered. "I need it to help propel my vehicle without melting like the other materials I've been trying during the entire day. You wanna to pry it out for me?"

[morphitudinous]

Billy blinked once, then twice. She remembered him...and she seemed fond of him? Was this a trap? He cautiously lowered the shield, moving to the offending pipe.

"Sure," Billy answered, using some leg leverage and some careful pulling to yank it out. Soon enough, he had it out and presented to Lash...who reminded him of his younger self. He'd used big words at that age as well, and he'd been inventing. "Are you feeling better?"

Was there a better way to say it?

[things_go_boom]

She grabbed the pipe, nearly falling over from its weight.

"Well for someone who's loosing her mind and remembers a lot of things they did on the ship as an adult, I guess I'm not too bad! I mean, you guys are going to fix everything right?!" She paused, dropping the pipe with a loud clang, before taking out a black book from her hair and presenting it to him like her greatest treasure.

"See? See! I wrote all the stuff every day I kept getting younger and younger. You guys were right, you guys were right! I know I should be more angry at the fact I'm loosing my mind but...all I want to do is go around and invent things! I haven't had this much energy since...I was a kid, tee hee hee! Did you know I invented a Black Bomb able to kill people in a four mile radius when I was this age?"

INNOCENT GRIN.

She opened up the book and quickly lifted them. Billy might have seen daily reports, hand notes, sometimes artwork that got cruder and cruder as she got younger. Something about Zetta is cool and pudding? Zedd being a big poopie head?

[morphitudinous]

Billy squatted to help her, ready to move the pipe wherever it needed to be. "Then...you understand," he realized, a worried expression quickly taking over. To be fully aware of what was happening. Not all of the kids were, and it had to be scary from her perspective.

"Yeah. We're going to fix everything. There's no other choice." He took in what he could of the book, nodding along until she said---

---"bombs? Wow, your life really was different. I wasn't inventing lethal devices until I joined the crew."

Her ability to take losing her mind in stride almost unnerved him, but he knew it was better that she was happy.

[things_go_boom]

Not if you believed everything would be fixed Billy! Then it was just a wonderful world of exploring all the possibilities this once-in-a-lifetime chance gave you.

And cause mischief. Mischief was fun.

"Tee hee! Oh Billy, you're supposed to be really smart too! Of course I worked on bombs, I was born in Black Hole, remember? While I didn't become a Commanding Officer until I was ten, I spent most of my days inside the labs inventing stuff since I was really good at it! Everyone loved to see what I did! Well, maybe not the people who I used it on but that's okay, there was always plenty new people to test it on!"

It was a bit horrific how she could speak of human life so freely and still grin like an innocent child.

[morphitudinous]

Lash, when you grow up again, Billy is going to tell you that you are scary. Very, very scary, but somehow lovable anyway. Especially with the large afro framing your small face.

"I was only allowed to invent friendly robots. I must've been deprived as a child," he joked, carefully running his fingers over her chosen metal object with destructive capabilities.

"Where do you need the pipe?"

[things_go_boom]

Lash's fro was fabulous.

"That must have sucked!" Lash said, obviously missing the joke. She then giggled. "Tee hee, I said sucked I--sometimes it's weird being a kid." She shook her head and picked up the pipe again.

"I'll be fine carrying it myself. I didn't know you were back tho, or else I would have talked with you first. How was the mission?"

[morphitudinous]

Billy blinked, raising a finger to make some suggestion about refraining from that phrasing for now. That was incredibly disturbing to hear from a young girl, actually.

"It went well at first. Then...we were captured, tied up, starved, beat up, left to rot for three days, and would have been beheaded and incinerated without our sleight of hand skills. It took a long bath to expel the stench." Yeah, his week was great! Can't you tell he's in a wonderful mood?

[things_go_boom]

"Wow that sounds like you had a really rotten time!" Uhh being at that age, picking up other people's emotions pretty much passed second to her own. She let out a giggle. "Sounds like the type of training we'd get at Black Hole! Separates the worms from the soldiers, or whatever Sturm would say. I get to watch a lot of it!"

Sometimes, it was hardly a mystery as to why Lash acted and was who she was.

[morphitudinous]

Billy raised his eyebrow. That was...casual, everyday experience for her? That explained so much.

"Do you have to figure out how to survive unarmed against a small army of armed guards too?" Oh, that had been the best part. So wonderful.

[things_go_boom]

"What do you think? It's army training right? You have to be prepared for anything!" As a demonstration, she did a hand fighting move that looked completely ridiculous when it was preformed by tiny kid. "Only the very best soldiers survived Black Hole training."

[morphitudinous]

Billy nodded slowly. Warily. Did he mention that she was scary?

"That's great, Lash. I'm glad you made it."

That part, at least, was totally sincere. He didn't know what he would do without her. And that meant he had to get to work, fast.

"You'll show me when the car is ready, right?"

[things_go_boom]

She was scary.

"What do you think? I'll ride it all the way to here if you want! It's going to be the best car! Because I made it!" Also because it might have jetpacks, lasers, a fancy coffee machine...

[morphitudinous]

"It's going to be far better than anything I've ever built, right? I can hardly wait to see what you've done with it."

Not that Billy minded too terribly much. He was still proud of his old Radbug, no matter what anyone else thought. So long as it hadn't been damaged, he was fine.