Amalgam Universe

A 2288-post collection

Challenge #03030-H107: Tea and Socialisation

I can't help it Internutter, I gotta see! Mr. Sunshine introduces Jay to his one, and only, true friend outside the Pax Humanis organization, Ms. Lilicoon. Her hands have healed quite a lot now and she keeps in regular contact with Sunshine and even has permission to visit his home on occasion, of course she always makes sure to ask first in case he's busy. Now that he's got a new student, and to show him that there's hope for even ones like them, he decides to invite her to lunch and have her meet the young man currently under his wing. https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-02975-h052-a-jay-of-sunshine The other story to this is "Challenge #02612-G055: Befriending Sunshine internutter (69)in #fiction • last year Where she had lunch with sunshine. But it's giving me the "Error Akimet has flagged your posting as SPAM" again each time I try to do a steamit link -- DaniAndShali

[AN: The other story referenced here is this one so you don't have to go trawling for them]

Needlework was good practice, the therapists said. Fine motor control training was dull unless there was something to achieve, and motivation to achieve it, but Lilicoon had goals in mind. Such as her current cross-stitch project - a portrait of Mr Sunshine as the conquering hero. He had painted her as a glorious queen, so turnabout was fair play. The shining armour mirroring the pattern of his ubiquitous sweatervest was, she thought, a cute touch. His mighty sword was a paintbrush, of course. She still had a lot of surface area to fill in, but it was starting to come together.

Mr Sunshine had a friend with him as he entered the teahouse. Younger, certainly. This new person had that gangly look of a Human who had yet to grow into their hands and feet. This fellow was a little less neat than Mr Sunshine. Rolled-up shirtsleeves and practical slacks held up with both belt and braces. Yet, still wearing the same warning colours as Mr Sunshine. Pax Humanis had a new trainee.

Lilicoon felt safe, of course. Mr Sunshine liked cats and refused to see them come to harm. The guarded teen in his shadow would not hurt her. He did boggle at Lilicoon for a second before darting his gaze towards every potential threat vector in the room. She put her work away in its carry-bag and wriggled her fingers proudly for Mr Sunshine.

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Challenge #03029-H106: Experiments in Friendship

The ship was doing a long-haul taking a mix of human and havenworlder colonists to one of the few mixed-colony worlds. A human child, with their havenworlder friends, had begun exploring the ship and found their way to the engine room. When the parents found them, they were being given a lesson in how the engine works, and being allowed to be helpful, as much as kids can be. -- Fighting Fit

The world that Planetary Survey had found was perfect. Perfect

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Challenge #03028-H105: Swim the Light Fantastic

They flew past me all the time inside those massive metal machines. Though some were bigger than others. My people have been floating among the stars, bright spots in what, for most, would be otherwise pure darkness for as long as I can remember. We had bodies, once, and needed such machines before, but we evolved past that. My family called me, we were heading to a new asteroid belt. Holding out hands, we, as bright flames, flew to see those that

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Challenge #03027-H104: The Paper Anchor

The book was old, beyond old, really. It had been passed down from parent to child for a millennia. It was, now, so thick and large it was carried in a careful satchel and, due to being so ancient, the oldest of the pages yellowing, only carefully opened with gloves. The newest pages, however, were much fresher and had been added to the book almost weekly over the past hundred years. But now, the owner, dying gracefully of old age, called to

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Challenge #03026-H103: Worn Away

The family went to court just as the parent said they would. Recordings of the cruel abuse the students, and instructors, of the Alliance - run school were shown as evidence. And now these people were forced to see, and hear, everything they did to her and face their crimes. Of how Barbara would stop, turn away to hide her tears, something the cameras saw, though everyone else ignored. It wasn't just the parents who intended to teach the instructors, the students,

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Challenge #03024-H101: Mostly Harmless You Say

Pib's parents are on a station for a while as the ship they normally work on was in for repairs, and these repairs were going to take some time. The instructor at the primary school reads the transcripts of young Pib from aboard the ship and sees the injury / kill count of the child and their jaw drops. Some of the pirates wounded, or killed, by this larval human were not exactly amateurs, or small-fry. The parents just smile. -- Anon Guest

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Challenge #03022-H099: Situational Education

Human children have a propensity to pet anything that's soft and furry. It's just a part of what seems to be observable human nature from childhood into adulthood. However, sometimes children had to be taught to not pet the fuzzy. In this case, they meet a havenworlder who has a soft, fluffy, service animal that has a sweet, little purr. The havenworlder, due to very advanced age, has gone very hard of hearing, the service animal makes sure they stay calm. --

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Challenge #03020-H097: With Stone Tools

The Vorax were stranded on a planet with several humans, both ships having been taken down by an unexpected solar flare of significant intensity. Due to the fact this was a survival situation, the two factions, for now, put aside their differences to work together. These Vorax, like many others, had heard stories of humans and their abilities. But it really did not hit home how true these stories were, until they insisted on going with the humans to hunt prey animals

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Challenge #03019-H096: The Walking Wounded

They had anxiety issues, didn't sleep well, often awakened in tears. After years of war, living in peace was very hard. They left to get groceries and returned to find a shocking discovery. A massive tank was in their apartment with an odd arrangement. One side was the life support system for the tank, the other side was a large metal box, almost as tall as they were, attached via wide metal tubes. Inside the tank was a huge octopus, or what

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Challenge #03018-H095: Time and Effort

A: Can I borrow a knife?

B: What do you need it for?

A: What do you mean?

B: What you need it for will determine which one I give you.

A: How many knives do you have?!?

B: What do you need a knife for? -- FightingFit

"No, no, no," said Human Arin. "I gotta go down this rabbit hole. How many knives do you own?"

"One for every purpose and then some," dismissed Human Bob. "I have a collection."

"That's

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Challenge #03017-H094: Benevolent Weeds

Those lovely blossoms known as dandelions to us. Whole thing is edible, though better when its young. There are a few other plants like that where the entire thing is edible. Well, she was a botanist, not that she let her family, or the deregger, government knew she'd become so well educated. A well-educated young woman there? They'd kill her for being too smart and her family followed the CEO's like they were gods.

Everyone thought her too simple to be of

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Challenge #03016-H093: Well, There Was That One Time...

Humans had just begun their exploration of space, they'd not yet met any other species. The first, early, days of human space travel. A kind and gentle elderly woman, who lived alone on a farm far into the countryside, found a very large, odd-looking, "bird" gathering seed from the open feeder she had and they seemed shaky and unwell. When they collapsed, she hobbled outside, loaded them onto the flat part of her walker, and hobbled back inside. Imagine their shock when

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Challenge #03015-H092: Minor Disaster Averted

H: Ow.

A: What happened? Do you need medical?

H: Second, I'm on my way to medical already. First, I jarred the ankle on my good foot while trying not to mess up my bad foot further. Um...one A I guess?... I think I sprained something again.

A: Stay right there, I'll get a chair with wheels on it.

H: Oh yeah, I didn't think of that. That would be WAY faster than trying to limp there...

A: And it would

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Challenge #03011-H088: The Soft Spot

Defiant Human: "You can't make me talk! You know damn well how tough we are, so do your damndest I won't break!"

Interrogator: "Are you sure about that?"

Defiant Human: "Try me."

Interrogator: "You asked for it." Calls to their associates who brings out a box of the cutest, most adorable, little fuzzballs on the planet. Several young kids giggle and begin to play with, and cuddle the fuzzballs that coo and burble sweetly.

Human: "What's that supposed to do??"

Human -

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Challenge #03010-H087: Secrets of the Network

They were the sons of the owner of a DeRegger system. Their father was the CEO above all other CEO's, and his word, and theirs by extension, were law. However, seeing all the degradation in the worlds their father commanded, they decided to change things. They'd had the best education money could buy, even being allowed to get a higher education in the Alliance worlds, "to know their infidelities, insanity, godlessness, and excess my sons" was their father's reason. However, that education

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