(A/N- start)

Hey everyone! Sorry for the dearth of updates. The job hunt over the last, what, six months? That hunt had crushed my muses into (maybe) a sentence a week.

Now I have a new job (starting on the 9th of January), and I will be working for a consulting company- with an actual paycheck!

*runs in circles to bleed off joy*

It pays enough that I might be able to move out of my parent'a house in six months!

*more running in circles*

Anyway, since I got the call and signed the contracts, I have felt my muses becoming more active, and so I pulled on one, and it gave me this!

This was inspired by the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit (book and movies), and the fanfiction In This Strange Place by DragonlordRynn. Check it out- it's really well done.

I will be updating my other stories eventually. Unfortunately, my muses are slow to return, but I will not stop writing.

As usual, I don't own Prototype or the Hobbit.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy. And, as always, I love when y'all review my work. It makes this worth it.

Time to drop someone out in space!

(A/N- end)

Ch 1 - Descent

John-clone, and everything within several meters of the experiment, had experienced the unique event of being kicked out of one universe, and the even more unique event of being forced into another, alien one.

Around him,the stars spun- but nearby, only one sun stood out brighter than the rest... And it was far away.

Spreading out his mass, John-clone anchored the debris around him into a single lump, and forced his body to adjust to a new form. Three large panel-like eyes, each a flexible compound eye, extended from stalks in his main body.

Well... There was a star. The growth of a fourth eye allowed John-clone to move his viewpoint in very direction, and, as he looked around, he noticed there was a planet close by... And it was big.

On a nearby planet, a dark lord had just been defeated, the one ring of power cut from his hand by a broken blade wielded by one of the Dúnedain Kings.

Back in distant Solar orbit...

It was a light purple gas giant.

His exclamation of "What the fuck?!" Was lost in the vacuum, and so, John-clone exchanged his massive eyes for the biological equivalent of solar panels, and, tossing out pebbles of debris to stabilize his spin, began thinking of what he could do while he was out here.

Sleep.

At least the list was short. After taking a few days (or weeks- time is hard to judge if you have no biological markers to use to measure it), he concluded that he was slowly dropping towards the inner system. A few minutes (probably not hours- he liked to think he was faster than that) thought, and John-clone was using some of the components from his probabilistic displacement drive to rig a crude frame shift drive. Unfortunately, there were not enough parts to build a fusion torus- mostly because he was missing the expensive plating that covers the inside of such a thing, and the gas needed to make such a generator- so he used his own body to build some high-efficiency electrical storage organs.

The hundreds of electricians, chemists, physicists, and engineers he had consumed over the decades were a useful resource here, and soon John-clone had enough capacitance to briefly run the drive. Now, all he had to do is figure out where he could go... Eh, may as well figure it out when he had collected enough power.

A tiny part of his mind set to watching the energy levels, and another watching the surroundings, John-clone drifted to sleep in the inky, starry void.

An indeterminate amount of time later...

John awoke slowly at first, his dreams having solved the dilemma that all clones shared with a simple solution- he would be John until he met himself, then fuse.

For all living BlackLight entities, sleep was usually a risky venture- if only because the minds of those they consumed were always trying to regain control. John, his infector (or sire if you want to use the vampiric term), and infected siblings had learned how to utterly break the minds of those who were consumed, shards of their consciousnesses dissolving into the torrent that was the prevailing consciousness.

But before that, sleep was brief, and always filled with risk as one mind may gather the strength to fight back and take over. It happened to James Heller, driven him mad, and it could happen to others before John spread his method of shattering the minds of those consumed.

Now? He was woken up by the fact that the tips of his solar power collection panel-organs were burning.

The relative vacuum didn't make his yell of "Fuck!" audible, but he felt better... Right up until the point that he realized that he was rotating, and another panel burst into plasma streams, skimming wisps on the edge of an atmosphere.

Each new expletive was swallowed by the void.

It wasn't a nice atmosphere either. It was deep orange, burnt orange with strands of green and yellow clouds spinning violently beneath him.

Quickly retracting his panels, John considered his position. On one tendril, he was skimming the atmosphere of what could only be described as either a tiny mutant Jupiter or evil Venus duplicate- oh wait, there's a large hurricane. Dwarf mutant Jupiter it is. On another tendril, he was fairly sure that falling into that planet would not be good for him.

On the third tendril, he didn't quite have a full charge to power the drive on full for more than a few seconds, and wouldn't be able to break lightspeed in any case.

Still, survival took precedence, and he connected conducting filaments between the cells he had stored up all that electrical goodness.

Then pain. Lots and lots of pain. Also speed. Lots of that too.

The planet below him vanished in a burst of acceleration even as the cobbled intersystem drive began to sheer from internal flaws, space and time twisted in an intricate braid around the debris that shielded his central body even as another planet expanded into view ahead.

It's moon was in the way.

The space-distorting field around him clipped one of the mountains on the surface of the moon, obliterating it in a spray of molten rock even as the drive finished dissolving, internal sheer forces too great for the jury-rigged drive components.

John was left tumbling, all his protective debris flying off as his extremities, though only a few meters away, experienced gradients of dozens of times earth's gravity.

At least I am heading towards a blue-green planet. John mused as he began venting small puffs of water to try halt his spinning. Looks pristine too.

Several hours earlier...

Deep in the Shire, Bilbo Baggins (of Bag End) sat on the antique bench and blew smoke rings into the afternoon sky- only for one of his rings to spontaneously change into a tiny smokey insect. With a tinkling of chimes, the smokebug fluttered into Bilbo's face, only to burst as it tried to land on his nose.

As he blinked away the fumes, Bilbo finally noticed the tall man wreathed in grey robes, with a distinctive pointy hat and usually large walking stick. "Ah... Good morning." He greeted politely.

"What do you mean?" Asked the wizard, his face a mockery of serious thought.

Bilbo puffed on his pipe as he let Gandelf talk- the wizard seemed to like the sound of his own voice. It was one of the many things that people rumored about the old man... Although his age was in question, as many hobbits remembered their grandparents having stories about the wizard.

"Do you mean to wish me a good morning, or that it is a good morning whether or I wish it or not?"

Bilbo seemed to lock up as he thought about that one, even as the wizard looked more and more amused.

"Or, perhaps, that you feel good in this particular morning!" Gandelf was on a roll here. "Or are you simply stating that this is a morning to be good on?!"

After a few seconds more consideration, Bilbo gave a mental shrug. "All of them at once, I suppose."

After an awkward silence the wizard still hadn't walked away, and Bilbo felt compelled to ask. "Can I help you?"

"That remains to be seen." Gandelf muttered ominously. "You see, I'm looking for someone to share in an adventure." He pitched his voice so that it would seem to be enticing, but Bilbo knew better.

He took the pipe out of his mouth. "An adventure? No..." He pointed east. "I don't think anyone west of Bree would have much interest in 'adventures'."

He stood up, all three feet of him, and walked to the mailbox. "Nasty, disturbing... Uncomfortable things." He fiddled with the catch, and pulled out the three letters that had been in his box since the morning. "Make you late for dinner!" Bilbo chuckled.

"Hm..." Gandelf looked skeptical, even as Bilbo looked through his mail, puff on his pipe, and generally just... Do nothing.

Bilbo was quite aware of his status of doing nothing, and smothered his pipe. "Well... Good morning!"

"To think that I should have lived to be 'Good Morninged' by Belladonna Took's son!" Gandelf was somewhat amused, but also annoyed. "As if I was selling buttons at the door!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You've changed... And not entirely for the better, Bilbo Baggins."

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" Bilbo did, but only through heresay.

"You know my name, although you don't remember I belong to it." The wizard muttered the second half of that sentence. "I'm Gandelf, and Gandelf means..." He looked momentarily flummoxed, before finishing with "Me!"

"Gandelf... Gandelf..." Bilbo knew who he was, but he liked to play along sometimes. "Not Gandelf the wandering wizard, who makes such excellent fireworks!" Gandelf looked pleased. "Old Took used to have them on midsummers eve!" Bilbo chuckled before going deadpan. "No idea you were still in business."

"And wherelse should I be?" Snapped the wizard.

"Where else? Ahem..." Bilbo huffed, and vaguely gestured around in the general direction of several places which were not here.

"Well I am pleased to find that you remember something about me." He looked uncomfortable. "Even if it's only my fireworks..." He studied Bilbo intently for a moment, before nodding abruptly. "And that's decided!" He switched which hand was holding his staff. "It will be very good for you!"

Bilbo was now a little concerned.

"And most amusing for me."

Now Bilbo was even more concerned.

Gandelf smirked. "I shall inform the others!"

"What?.." Bilbo was nonplussed by this, and needed a second to get his wits about him. "What! No, no!" He waved the still-gently smoking pipe at Gandelf. "No, wait!"

Gandelf obligingly stopped walking.

Bilbo ran up the steps. "We do not want any adventures here! Not today, not-" Gandelf smirked at him again. "-no. I suggest you try Over the Hill, or Across the Water." Bilbo shook the pipe to indicate various other, unspoken directions to go, before running out of things to say. "Good morning."

He quickly took shelter within his house, and locked the door.

As night fell, Gandelf watched the stars as he walked. The moon was very beautiful out here in the Shire, and he said so to no one in particular.

"You're right about that sir." Said a passing elderly hobbit, and Gandelf grinned. They were such a cheerful people-

The flare of light around the edge of the moon illuminated the Shire as if it was day for a fraction of a second, but it was enough to be noticed.

"That was... Unusual..." Gandelf muttered to himself. But, after a few minutes of waiting there didn't seem to be any odd things about to happen, he returned to walking.

Interestingly, on his way through the Shire, Gandelf had been delayed by his observation enough to notice Thorin Oakensheild wandering lost by the big oak tree, and was able to hasten him to Bilbo's before dinner was finished.

Two days after his abrupt deceleration via lunar impact. Two days of falling towards a planet, while beautiful (and rather nice since now he had a gauge for time spent), was also nerve wracking.

Two days were spent desperately forming insulating shapes and ablative surfaces at angles that John knew would keep a small bit of him alive... In theory.

He encapsulated, like a spore, killing off his body outside the spore save for two living structures. First was the living core- a lump the size of a human fist, the absolute minimum needed for him to stay self aware, and then there were the remaining energy cells that he had been using to store energy for this jump.

Specifically, they were fuel cells- hydrogen and oxygen separated via electrophoresis, and then recombined under controlled conditions for power. But those were also the same ingredients that were used for liquid fuel rockets, and so the only other living part within the teardrop-shaped mass that used to be all John was the equivalent of a thruster.

John could see with the segment of living tissue he had reconfigured into rocket nozzles, and so, when he judged the re-entry flames beginning to flicker around the dead shell, he activated the rockets.

This promptly blew up the top segment of his tear-drop as containment failed, and John retracted his remaining flesh into the center nodule.

Landing would be uncontrolled, but he should survive that... Probably.

It would certainly suck. A lot.

I really, really don't like reentry...

End Ch 1

Hey everyone! I hope you enjoyed that. Rumors of my death have been a little exaggerated, and I am alive and kicking! Even better, I have a job now!

Anyway, my question for this chapter is the following: How screwed do you think the plot of the Hobbit is going to become?

Please review! Thank you, and Happy New Year