Escape! Into the City. (open)

Steele cooed questioningly, shuffling a ripple of small spikes in a questioning gesture. The ball of living metal had been taken out of its cage and placed on the exam table. It could tell because of the hard surface underneath it and the lack of tiny echoes to it's question that would have come from the metal wire of the cage. Shuffling came from across the room, the human getting some object or other, evidenced by the very faint scraping of the hinges of the bang-proof cabinet door.

"Is music?"
Steele's metallic voice called clear through the room, faint echoes coming back, clear against the glass of a window that was supposed to show something called "outside," and muffled from the surrounding walls. The human that usually ran tests sometimes let Steele listen to music after tests if they asked. Sometimes the human let them listen to music without performing any tests.

With a shiver of dismay Steele realized this wasn't that human. The footsteps were completely different. As the ball of metal flattened itself and sent spines shooting up in defense, a menacing click and crackle split the air. Steel's wavering screech of terror and pain sounded a moment before the taser touched them and they felt the electricity course through their body. Spikes shot out and retracted at random, and the normally tightly-formed sphere collapsed into a creeping puddle. This was a stronger current than Steele had ever felt before. Creeping out two arms of metal to grab the stinging object from the human, Steele attempted to crush it, only to feel the current increase.

Half deafened by pain, Steele rolled themselves around the counter. Spasming spikes shot them toward the other wall, crashing through the window, and then the sphere was plummeting toward the ground. On impact many noises surrounded Steele on all sides, bouncing off of a multitude of moving and nonmoving objects alike. The new, disorienting sounds combined with Steele's own wavering shrieks of pain, disorienting the living metal as it rolled itself at top speed around the ground, attempting to dislodge the device stuck firmly in its side. Steele could hear human screams of surprise, and loud honking noises, felt the tremors in the ground as humans ran out of Steele's path and large, heavy objects swerved around them. There were also multiple impacts, against everything from metal, to wood, to stone. Spikes flying around Steele's body tore out chunks of each material, only to drop them in moments when they retracted, working in erratic spasms as the electricity continued to shoot pain through the metallic body. Another scream was uttered, the space metal unable to coordinate the proper frequencies to cry for help in the Human's language due to the electricity coursing through their body.

Alex looked behind him one last time as he ducked into an alleyway, gasping for breath.
"Oy," said Donald between breaths. "We need ta exercise, more..." Alex peaked around the corner, only to come face to face with the officer chasing him.
"Just come with us kid," he said. "We only want to help you. You're mentally ill."
Cassius rolled his eyes.
"You pigs never learn," he said in a rather annoyed tone. The police officer stepped towards them, reaching out with a pair of handcuffs. Cade glared at him.
"We're not mentally ill," he told him. "We're freakin' people!" Cassius gave a yawn, then smirked at the officer.
"Come on, keep coming. That way, I can call it self-defense." D-don't hurt him, thought Casey. Suddenly, the officer lunged, and Cassius turned their torso to stone, causing him to jump directly into solid rock, which might possibly leave him with a concussion. Either way, the policeman was now on the ground, unconscious.
"You idiot," growled Hunter. "The more we do this, the harder it's going to be for us." The sound of sirens made them jump, and they took off without another thought. They tore out of the alley--

and almost tripped over a ball of metal.

There was an impact, and the shuffling of human feet as they attempted to regain balance, quite close to Steele. Someone must have tripped over them. The impact had jostled the device that was creating the shock, though, giving a moment of reprieve. In that moment the living metal was able to finish engulfing the device and crush it, shrieking when a last bolt of electricity coursed through their body. Steele shivered, small spines extending and retracting in a rippling motion around their body.

Even without the electricity muddling the sounds of the street, Steele was still quite disoriented. There were so many footsteps that any one pair was indistinguishable from the others. A low murmur of human voices thrummed around the area, almost drowned out by the roaring of something made of metal not far away. Steele could tell they were between the metal growling and a large surface similar to stone, but with fewer irregularities, judging by the way the ambient noise reflected off of it. Beyond that, however, the surroundings were muddled, reflected noise being cut up and drowned out by the many humans and metal growlers constantly moving.

It had only taken Steele a matter of moments to gather what information they could about their surroundings. Remembering their manners, the sphere extended a small flexible "arm" from their body's mass and waved it, chiming in gratitude.
"Human help. Much thanks!"
The voice chimed with a metallic, bell-like quality, and reflected off the human that had nearly tripped over the living metal. Tiny, hair-like needles extended out from the mass of the metal's body, shorter than the "arm" appendage, to better interpret the echoes coming from the human and form a better picture of their shape.

Alex quickly regained his footing, and looked down to see what had nearly caused him to kiss the ground.
"Oy, what is--OH MY GOSH IT TALKS! Dude, can we keep him?!" Alex shook his head, sighing. "We don't even know what it is...it could be dangerous." Alex rolled his eyes, then returned his gaze to the orb. "Uh...you're welcome? What did we do?" Oh, he's cute!~

The living metal's body rippled in what could almost be called a shrug, small metal spikes extending and retracting in two waves down opposite sides of the orb. This human was different from the others Steele was accustomed to, and that was rather confusing. Voices were the first way they had learned to distinguish between humans, each one having unique vibrations; pitch, tone, cadence, volume, each was unique, and generally quite predictable. This human, however, had a much more variable speech pattern. Steele rolled around the human, emitting a few chimes, attempting to gauge if perhaps there was another human with them.

No, only one human.

Perhaps there was interference from the ambient noise? The metal orb stopped when they had reached their starting point, halting their movement by sending out spikes in the opposite direction, causing them to rock back and forth slightly on the ground. Steele had ignored the first bit of the human's speech, as it wasn't addressed to them. It had been difficult to learn at first that not everything said by humans required a response, resulting in many harsh words by the scientists. The living metal's voice chimed out, distorted slightly by a wavering pitch, "Big shock, pain, Steele unable... not control movement. Human help move big shock machine, crunch, gone." As if to prove the point, Steele's body deformed from it's perfectly spherical shape, spikes prickling erratically. A small whine that sounded like metal scraping against metal sounded before a crushed electronic device was forced out of the center of the orb. A shudder of spikes ran down Steele's body as they emitted a wavering chime, an unhappy sound. This had been a new experience for Steele, and it had not been pleasant at all.

"Oh, uh...yeah, you're welcome..." Alex frowned slightly. "What exactly...are you?" He took a step back as Steele shuddered spikes, but then smiled and took a step closer. "It's n-not gonna h-hurt us...are you, l-little fellow?"

Steele rolled in a tight circle, barely moving from their spot. A small metallic cooing sound could be heard above the bustle of the busy street. "I am called Steele..." There was a pause, and the orb of metal stopped rolling in place. Flattening toward the ground a little, tiny spikes prickled in an uncomfortable gesture out of the top of the space metal's body. The truth was, Steele didn't have the proper words to describe their life thus far. Steele themselves hadn't even thought about it much in the past two years.

How could one describe the years spent floating in space, dormant for long periods of time until something interesting happened. Steele hadn't even had language to think with at the time, and was still struggling with the Human's language. Beyond that, even, the metal's body at the time was difficult to gauge. Steele knew that they were currently small and spherical, information gathered from they way sound waves interacted with their body, but there had never been a way to get external information like that in space. The truth was, Steele didn't know their origins. The fact itself didn't bother them; Steele greatly preferred living on Earth, with no desire to learn about their history or origins. It was the inability to answer the question that bothered them.

"I... am called Steele," the living metal repeated. In an attempt to not leave the question unanswered, Steele skipped forward in their history, "Fell from lab, uuh... don't know where." A small metallic coo sounded, the orb's feeble attempt at finding where they had crashed through the window of the lab. Even if the street wasn't so loud, they wouldn't have been able to locate it; the window was too high up, and at this angle Steele wouldn't have been able to find the hole in the glass to distinguish between the window they had crashed through from the many others studding the buildings on the street. A human, able to see, wouldn't have such a hard time. The street showed obvious signs of Steele's frantic attempts to escape the device that had caused them so much pain; cracks in walls where they had slammed against them, dented trash cans, a tiny crater where they had first landed on the sidewalk, covered in shards of glass from the broken window four stories above the street. A cold-faced scientist stared out from the window, trying to spot where the living metal had got to, no doubt intending to recapture it.

Back on the street, Steele cooed reassuringly to the human. "Steele no hurt... human no hurt Steele?" The living metal had never voiced it, but they resented when the scientists from the lab would run painful tests, like the electricity that had just inadvertently aided Steele's escape. But the scientists had always run tests like that, and this was the first hint Steele had gotten that perhaps it wasn't as normal as they thought. Quieter than before, almost drowned out by the traffic on the street, the small orb added "No send Steele back to lab?"

Alex blinked. "Uhh...no, we're not sending you back to any lab..." He frowned. "Wait, what lab?" Is there any reward?, thought Cassius.

Steele was relieved at the human's assertion that they weren't going to return them to the lab. The orb also noticed again the odd variation to the human's voice. They picked out two distinct speech patterns this time, both similar to parts of the human's previous statements. There had been more speech patterns, though, making Steele wonder exactly how many there were. But first the human's question must be answered. In their metallic voice, the living metal replied, "Lab, up somewhere. Long fall. Steele come through window. Should move, humans no like things broken." Steele extended small spikes from their body that contacted with the ground to push them down the alley the human had come out from. Secretly, they were worried one of the scientists would be along soon to collect them, and they weren't entirely wrong.

The orb rolled a little further down the alley and rolled back again, calling out, "Come, human. What name?" Steele's verbal skills were patchwork at best, and they knew they still had difficulty in conveying their intent, with their own vocal tone often obscured by the wavering, metallic quality of their voice. A few moments after the question the living metal emitted a high-pitched chime to better view the alleyway. It was quieter between the two buildings that formed it, with much of the noise of the street blocked off. Even so, the sounds that did enter the alley echoed up and down its length, still causing quite a bit of disturbance in Steele's interpretation of the surroundings.