It was a late starry night on a lonely road in the northern Japanese countryside. A lone red car drove along carrying its single passenger, a recent high school graduate named Ryuko Matoi. She gripped the wheel firmly with an irritated yet depressed look on her face, "Why on Earth did they have to have their wedding at Lake Mashu? I know it's pretty but if the drive all the way there from Kanto wasn't bad enough now I have to drive all the way back out of bum-fuck nowhere by myself!" She relaxed a bit in her seat and continued to talk to herself, knowing no one was listening so there wasn't any harm in it. "Mako Gamagoori hmm? She finally got married. Settle down, start a family and have lots of little kids..." Ryuko took out a picture from under the dashboard and looked at it. "Mako...was there really anything between us? I guess in the end he gave you what I never could. Ah-" She shook her head. "Ugh, get a hold of yourself girl! You and Mako were always just friends...just...friends..." She paused. "Besides, she's a girl like me, we're both supposed to settle down with a nice husband right?" The car continued on for an hour or so in silence, save for the occasional sigh from its driver. The sky was beautiful that night. So far away from the big cities, you could see every star in the sky. Ryuko stared at the mesmerizing, nebulous abyss above and wondered. Wondering if things could have been different, wondering why after everything had happened she was the only one left that couldn't settle into a normal life. Her gaze drifted from the stars above back down to the red bride's maid dress she still had on. Eventually, the car slowed down until it stopped at the side of the road and the horn blared at the empty road a moment later.
"Damn it! You said you wouldn't do this," she yelled to herself as her fist smashed against the steering wheel. "You promised yourself you wouldn't cry! You knew this was coming, you were the first person she told when they got engaged... Damn it, damn it, damn it!" After moments of sulking, Ryuko eventually stepped out of the car. She took a seat on the hood and just stared at the night sky. "She's a girl like me...it isn't right for me to have these thoughts about her like this. I should be happy for her. But...what if she still has the same thoughts about me?" She shook her head, "No, I wouldn't want that. I wouldn't want to confuse her or get in between her and Ira. So... maybe I should just go away." She stayed quiet for a little while longer, thinking to herself. Sifting through memories and nostalgia, wondering why how she could feel this way about another woman. She had never really been with anyone of any gender. Suddenly, she burst out in laughter.
"Look at yourself! Sitting on the side of the road in the middle of hick central! What, am I trying to get myself mugged?" She said with a laugh before standing up and getting back in her car. "I better get going before this turns into a scene from that Deliverance movie. Not that I'm scared of a couple of country bumpkins. Why are western movies so weird anyway?" Just as she was about to turn the key and start the engine again, she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. A bright light whizzing in and out of view. "What the hell?" She asked squinting at the light as it rapidly approached. She turned the key, but the engine didn't start. "Oh come on not now," she grunted in disappointment. Ryuko desperately tried to rev the engine as the light grew brighter and brighter. Panic began to set in swiftly but just as it seemed like the source of the light has reached her, she turned back to it with a challenging glare. And then... blackness.<|im_end|>
How many promising young scientists were granted permission to head out into the outer reaches of known space? Okay, so technically the Solar System containing the planet "Earth" (and what an unimaginative name) wasn't quite on the outer reaches. It was more like territory that people had mapped out and explored to some degree, but hadn't really taken the time to slow down and analyze. Still, the position was not something that was generally handed to scientists first out of the Academy, no matter how promising they happened to be or what genetic clutching they happened to have hail from.
So Akeema, third of her Clutching, had been thrilled with the prospect and put together a scientific shuttle post-haste. Naturally her ship had been equipped with the finest in observation technology, plus a heavy dollop of shielding and at least one or two cannons (because going into space without weaponry was asking for trouble; debris alone often hindered progress and exploration, let alone considering pirates or unfriendly natives). The shuttle could technically sustain a crew of four or possibly more if the species were smaller than Akeema. However, she'd opted for a solo mission, her reasoning being that if she needed to make any contact with the local species, only one "alien" would be preferable to a ship full of them. She'd been quite confident in her abilities and, in hindsight, she could admit this: she'd been fairly hungry for the glory that would come from a solo mission.
For the most part, the ship was therefore comfortable. Akeema had more than enough room for experiments and studies, while still having a life-pod to keep her regular five hour sleep cycle somewhat steady, her race naturally preferring to sleep standing up due to their digitigrade legs and all. Not that they couldn't lie down; it wasn't as if they had swollen heads or anything. Some of their clutchings did possess impressive crests, but Akeema didn't really have quite that. She did have impressive psionic extensions, which she'd rather not caress too openly. Their glowing pink should've been an indicator even before she'd set forth, but no, she'd been eager and confident.
And how her ovipositor was threatening to puncture her uniform. She could feel it throbbing between her legs, the eggs likely having been built up inside her body. Hell, they almost felt as if they'd somehow drifted into her tail, though she knew that to be physically impossible, if only because said tail kept twitching with light agitation. Frowning, Akeema's fingers flew across the dashboard, her vision blurring enough for her to blink both eyelids. She knew precisely what was wrong with her: she'd entered estrus, and a rather heavy one at that. It probably wouldn't have been so bad had she tended to her needs a few sleep cycles ago. She might have even been able to simply clutch inside one of the waste tubes and be done with it. But again: studying had come first, and so now the alien was fighting off a need that threatened to potentially permanently nibble at her excellent mind.
Akeema leaned back and studied her monitors. She knew what she had to do. She'd heard tales of this sort of thing before, travelers picking up natives to either "study" or more likely enjoy. Why else would there be so many rumors about probing waste holes? It was considered highly unseemly and more than a little unprofessional, especially for someone such as herself, who was supposed to be here studying the civilizations. But given the biological imperative... she was fairly certain she could mark this one off.
"Let's see," Akeema said, typing into her ship's computer. "According to research, I want somewhere away from urban centers, and likely in Japan." This latter came from watching human art forms, which seemed to like to pair the alien sexual encounters with the island nation. Akeema wasn't sure she saw the connection, but it would be easier to clutch in a Japanese female because of it. She entered the coordinates into her ship, letting it guide itself. She had to lean back, shivering with anticipation, her hands going to her lower torso, where she knew the eggs to already be percolating.
The ship informed her of a lock on, letting her know that the transfer was going to drop the target into the cargo room. Akeema shifted the teleport, carefully guiding it to the receiving area for living targets. She already had a few lesser Earthing species in there, so hopefully it wouldn't surprise the target overmuch. Akeema caressed a psionic extension, knowing that she'd have to somehow convince the human to touch or be touched by it for communication to work. It did look a little like human hair, so perhaps that wouldn't be too strange?
"Only you would worry about the meat-sack you're abducting to clutch in," muttered Akeema, sighing as she pushed away from her console and headed toward the transport room. It would at least look more or less like the humans' science fiction features, albeit with chairs suited to Akeema's slightly stiffer and heartier build: an open space with pads. Well, there were the open cells, where the psionically controlled species would be. Akeema didn't think she had anything dangerous or poisonous in there... she quickened her pace regardless, just in case.<|im_end|>