Jack didn’t think this day could get any weirder, but apparently whatever cosmic force had thrown him here in the first place had a sick sense of humour. Today was his first day outside the temple since he arrived in this insane hellhole, and he was fully regretting it already.

Well...almost.

He had been told early on that Hive Station Bastilla, and indeed much of the known galaxy did not have an organised structure of laws and government, and thus it was a state of fluctuating anarchy. There were some authorities that were bastions of law and order in the ocean of chaos but they were far and few between. The Temple of Hope he had been inhabiting was fortunately one of them, with several churches of various good and amicable gods banding together for a common cause. He owed the Church of Astara, the Goddess of Justice in particular, his life, as it was her priests that had helped him begin to adjust and adapt.

The school day apparently wasn’t too long by Earth standards so it was agreed he would be introduced to the class at the end of the day to get the initial paperwork and excitement out of the way and make sure there were no problems before he started attending regularly. He had met the principal - a stern skeletal looking creature that towered over him and seemed to hate and talk down to everybody, even the priest that had accompanied him as a ‘responsible guardian’ where he had to put up with a several-hour-long lecture on the strict rules and regulations of the school.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

The fact that there was a school shooting before he got to the classroom was bad enough. The fact that these were for some reason a very common occurrence disturbed him even more. Even with the promises that the medical droids were very good at patching people up and could even in many cases resurrect fallen students with nanobot technology within the confines of the school he was unsurprisingly not reassured.

It started with the urging of the High Priestess Cornelia that he meet someone his own age, rather than just the older temple workers he had been assisting to earn his keep since he arrived. Alora volunteered at the temple often as she worshipped one of the other gods, but she was eager to meet Jack when she heard about his strange story, and told him many positive stories about the outside. The Eladrie was slightly taller than him, slender, hell - Jack would even say elf-like. She had light grey, long curly hair that he swore changed subtle tones as she spoke. Certainly her freckles all along her light-grey moonlight skin did.

She always tried to put a positive spin on things when she talked to Jack, keeping up a cheerful attitude no matter what the circumstance. She talked about school, her friends, and her house that she shared with a few friends - which she was looking for a housemate for. With encouragement from High Priestess Cornelia, who overheard this development, Jack eventually took the next step.

He did his best to play it cool when meeting the rest of his homeroom class for the first time, though as an introverted teen, he really didn’t like being the centre of attention. Widespread active use of magic and firearms aside, some of these aliens looked really intimidating! He thought it went as well as it could though; his chad older cousin had given him some good social advice over the years, and he did his best not to show that he was shy or scared when he most definitely was. Claiming to be a Deathworlder would hopefully force them to keep their distance...

It couldn’t last though. He didn’t know what he did as he went to his seat but he seemed to startle three of the girls sitting next to him and get them into trouble somehow. Great. They and those that saw it happen probably hated him now. He kept the sinking feeling in his stomach to himself as Alora showed him the facilities and told him about several of the clubs and societies they had operating at the school, though he had no idea what the vast majority of them even were.

As he and Alora walked back towards the house, Jack once again took in the unnatural sights, sounds and smells of Hive Station Bastilla. There was nothing to compare it to back home. It was an endless city sprawl, with seemingly infinite district sectors: some dedicated to a specific megacorporation, others were simple slums with all types of aliens staring at him, one they went through seemed to be dominated by a militia who were looking for volunteers to liberate other sectors controlled by monsters or vicious gangs, and another one just seemed to be populated by alien trees.

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Fortunately, the house wasn’t far. District Sector ST976624SA was unusually tiny, only having about 4 spacious houses in all, though 3 of these looked unoccupied or abandoned in various states of disrepair. There was a brief scare when several autoturrets pointed in Jack’s direction, but a quick command from Alora told them to back off and recognise Jack as a friendly. As they walked down the abandoned road to the only obviously occupied building they heard noise from within, like some kind of argument, presumably Alora’s friends. Jack was pretty nervous about meeting new people, but he hoped they’d be able to break the ice in a non-awkward way.

Yeah...that hope got crushed pretty quickly.

When Jack and Alora walked in, they were met with two partially-undressed alien girls laughing and hammering away at each other with cushions, with one other hovering in the background having not noticed them enter. To his horror Jack recognised all three of them…

One of the two ‘combatants’ was light purple skinned with translucent matching wings and was about his height, with large, wide, black pupilless eyes and thin antennae curling around the top of her head, cushioned by a tuft of dark purple hair. It was quite a coincidence it was done in a pixie hairstyle, because a pixie was the closest thing this girl looked like to Jack.

The other girl swinging away with her own cushion seemed to be much better equipped to brawl. Completely covered in various shades of pink fur, Jack could still see the thin, tempered muscles on the girl's arms. She was a head shorter than her friend, not counting her large pointed ears and long, thick tail swishing back and forth. To Jack, she looked like a cross between a tiny part of human and catgirl, and the rest mostly kangaroo.

Jack couldn’t see much of the final girl at the back, but he still thought he recognised her from the classroom. The pale blue skin, silvery grey hair and thick glasses were quite memorable, after all. Before Jack could even think to turn away in the name of dignity, Alora spoke up and broke the ‘good’ news.

Sephy reacted quickly, dashing forward and leaping in the air with her wings before coming down in what she thought would be a cool looking skid, but really wasn’t.

“Oh shit....damn...no...fuck...maybe…phew,.” the purple Skritta grunted as she hopped forward, trying not to fall over before finally holding her balance and standing up right next to Jack, putting her arms around him. “I mean-” she gave a winning smile and stared right into his eyes “...Hi! I’m Sephy!”

“Hello Sephy!” Jack replied with a polite smile, not sure how to react to being hugged by a total stranger as his arms hovered around her awkwardly, too cautious to embrace back. Considering her shirt was undone, it took all of his willpower not to look down…

“Someone needs her meds” Nika grinned, as she wrapped her tail around the Skritta’s waist and pulled the eager Sephy away, who giggled as she released the hug. “I’m Nika. You’re Jack right?” Nika put her hand out for a handshake which Jack reflexively reached for, the Kizun grabbing his forearm below the elbow, linking their arms in a Roman-like greeting.

“Um...yep, that’s me!” Jack replied, not expecting such a warm welcome from the two girls. Weren’t they annoyed with him? “Err...sorry if I got you guys in trouble back at class by the way.”

Alora, Nika and Sephy looked confused for a nanosecond before they realised what he meant with a loud cackle of laughter. Nika quickly spoke up once she recovered. “Oh don’t worry about that, it wasn’t you at all, rather this degenerate trouble maker over here!” She led the group to the sofa where Chiyo was revitalising, looking up at the girl who she knew would still be lucid enough to sense their disapproval - and the presence of Jack.

“You should probably ask her about it when she wakes up!” Sephy piped in, with a malicious grin, remembering what Chiyo had done to get them into trouble and wanting a little payback.

“That’s how she sleeps?” Jack asked, confused.

“Kinda!” Sephy replied. “Though she puts up a repelling telekinetic barrier of some kind. Watch this!” She grinned as she threw one of the cushions at Chiyo before quickly ducking behind Jack. The cushion stopped abruptly just before it would hit Chiyo, before being violently yeeted back towards them. Having a short moment to realise what Sephy was doing and react to it he quickly dodged to the side as the cushion zipped past him and clobbered Sephy in the face, completely clotheslining her to the raucous laughter of both Nika and Alora.

“Nice reflexes!” Nika called to Jack, trying hard not to show just how impressed she was. “And nice try Sephy!”

“Dammit!” The Skritta clambered to her feet as Jack offered her a hand up. He was chuckling for what must have been the first time in weeks.

Yeah. Things weren’t completely bad after all.