Sooo I've been watching a bunch of Subnautica playthroughs... and this popped into my head.

The story of the game is basically perfect to match the story of RQ, I just have to switch a few hierarchies and bits about the Kharaa around, and boom. One pretty darn cool AU. Dogs? They're cuddlefish now. The Steves? Different kinds of an alien amphibious species. 'What about Origin? What's he gonna be?' Sea Emperor. Duh. Creepers? Crashfish. Farm animals? The different kinds of non-sentient fish in the game. I'll probably explain those later, right now here's some story :)

(Also if you don't know what Subnautica is, go check it out, it's a masterpiece of a survival game)

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[Sabre's POV]

I wake up in my lifepod to the sound of something banging against the bottom of it, as per usual for every morning since I've met him. I groggily sit up from laying on the ground, and stretch out to try and ease the cramps in my back from sleeping on the metal floor.

"Sabre, come on! Get up!" My alien friend yells through the now open bottom hatch of the lifepod, his head poking out. "You said we can scavenge together today!"

"I'm up, Orange, I'm up." I mumble. "I know, I didn't forget. I'll be out in a minute."

Orange smiles, then drops back down into the water, closing the hatch. Y'know, I kinda regret teaching him how to open that thing... Oh well. At least I'm not alone anymore. It was extremely depressing to find out that all of my crew is dead after watching the ship explode days prior to finding that out, but Orange has been keeping my spirits lifted and my hopes high. Who knows, maybe I'll even be rescued.

I stand up, and seconds later a Peeper is thrown into the lifepod from the upper hatch. I chuckle, knowing Orange was the one who threw it. He's been doing that since he found out I'm running out of food that I know is safe to eat, and then brought over different kinds of fish so I could scan them and see which were safe. So far it's just Peepers, but hey, at least I won't starve. I pick up the Peeper and walk over to my fabricator, which quickly cooks it. I climb out through the upper hatch, carrying the cooked Peeper, and find Orange already sitting up there on the lifepod's roof. I sit down next to him and munch on my breakfast.

"How come you always sleep in so late, anyway?" Orange asks.

"Well, there's actually two reasons." I reply. "One, my species isn't really built to be swimming so much, so by the end of the day all my energy is entirely used up. Two, I don't have a bed and have to sleep on the floor of the lifepod, and it takes forever to fall asleep when you're laying on steel. So by the time I actually manage to get some rest, it's already past midnight usually."

"Oh, that sucks..." Orange Steve says.

"Eh, I'm getting used to it." I shrug.

"Can't you build something underwater, like we can?"

"Well, I have to get enough materials to construct a certain tool first, and then I have to get more materials so I can actually build something, sooo... it's gonna take a while. Once I do that, though, I definitely can."

"And then you won't have to sleep on the floor anymore, so you won't be so grumpy all the time."

"Heyyy!" I playfully shove Orange.

Orange laughs, then let's himself fall off the roof of the lifepod and into the water. He surfaces, and raises his arms up.

"Point proven!" He says.

"Oh, shush." I say, finishing the last of the Peeper. I then stand up, and put my diving helmet on. "Heads up, buddy!"

Orange dives below the surface again, and I jump off the lifepod and dive in after him.

For a second, I can't see because of the bubbles, but when they clear I see my friend's face smiling back at me. I take out my Seaglide and swim in a circle to test that it's still working, Orange copying me. We both giggle, then Orange leads the way in a direction he told me where some wreckage is. Pieces of the Aurora have landed across the planet, and Orange told me that plenty of his people and others have been using them for scrap after the radiation cleared. I'm glad I fixed the drive core of the broken ship, now all of the radiation can pass without more being added into the ocean.

"Remember to watch out for Reapers." Orange says, my helmet's systems picking up on his voice. "They've been gathering around bigger wrecks because they heard them hitting the ocean floor."

"I will... although I don't know what one looks like." I answer.

"You'll know if you see one." Orange laughs. "Then you run! Er, swim, I guess."

As we travel through the waters, Orange Steve and I play along the sea's underwater hills and plants, occasionally going up to the surface so my oxygen tank can refill. Soon, we come across a variety of scrap gathered on the sea floor, some furniture sticking out from both the wreckage and the sand. This is definitely part of the Aurora.

"Woah, the heck is that?" Orange says, suddenly swimming down to the sunken scrapyard.

"Orange, wait up!" I shout after him, following him to the ocean floor.

Orange then drags what's left of a bed out from a pile of sand, holding onto the ripped-up blanket in order to do so. I catch up to him while he's confusedly staring at the broken piece of furniture.

"Oh sweet, I can scan that for a blueprint I need." I say, taking my scanner tool out of my pocket.

"You can?" Orange asks. "What is it?"

"What I really want for the base I'm planning to build;" I answer, using the scanner to get the blueprint. "A bed!"

"Yay, only five minutes in and this scavenging mission is already successful!" Orange says, clapping his hands.

"Remember, you can pick up stuff you want, too." I chuckle.

We spend a few hours digging through the rubble. So far, I've found blueprints for habitat windows, some fragments of a laser cutter tool, blueprints for bigger storage lockers, blueprints for plant pots, blueprints for shelves, and even some flower seeds and some blueprints for a vending machine and a coffee machine (Oh man, I'm excited for that one). I also found some items that I can just carry back with me, like a bobblehead, some posters, a model of the Aurora, and a plushie of a cat. Orange Steve found some stuff he liked, too; A plushie of a pig, a picture book, an abandoned survival knife (I already have one, so I let him have it), and a pastel white-and-orange scarf. Just then, my PDA notifies me that I'm low on oxygen, so I nod to Orange so he knows where I'm going and swim up.

I'm only gone for a few seconds, but when I dove back down Orange grabs my hand and quickly drags me beside him, swimming away from something.

"Woah, what's happening, man?!" I ask Orange, who looks panicked.

"Sandsharks! A group of them!" Orange screams.

I look behind me, and sure enough, there's a group of about five Sandsharks chasing after us. I hurriedly put my Seaglide into high gear and pull Orange close to me so he doesn't get left behind.

"Hang on, buddy!" I yell.

Orange grabs onto me, and I put the Seaglide on full speed, leaving the Sandsharks to eat my dust. Even though the rabid sea predators fade out of view quickly, I don't stop until we're back at the lifepod. Orange and I let go of each other, and I catch my breath. I had to keep swimming to keep the Seaglide active, it's dumb how it functions with kinetic energy...

"You alright?" Orange asks me.

"Yeah, I'm good, just tired." I reply. "You?"

"They didn't bite me, but they had Kharaa on them-"

"WHAT?!" I panic, quickly taking out my scanner tool. "C'mere, let me see if it got you."

Orange holds out his arm so I can scan him. As I do, we're both holding our breath that he didn't get infected. The Kharaa is an infective disease that mind controls anyone who's too far gone, identified by dark rashes that are tinted green on an infected organism's skin. So far, there's no real cure other than the chromatic Crystals' purification ability, however that only works on one person at a time. Somehow, I'm immune to it, and that's been getting the Steves excited about a potential permanent cure.

I finish scanning Orange, and thankfully the screen reads 'Normal'.

"Alright, you're clean." I say, Orange letting out a sigh of relief. "Don't scare me like that, man..."

"Sorry, I should've let you know sooner..." Orange says.

"It's alright, at least you're okay, and that's what matters." I reply, then smile at him. "Wanna go inside the lifepod and see what we both came up with?"

"Yeah, sure!" Orange smiles back. "Besides, you just said you're tired from that chase, you probably don't wanna swim anymore."

I open the lifepod's hatch and climb in, Orange coming in after me. There's barely enough room for the two of us, but we don't mind. We're already having fun looking through our findings. Turns out, Orange Steve found some titanium scrap and other materials, so that's bringing me closer to that habitat builder tool.

Before we know it, the sun is setting, and Orange has to go back home. He waves goodbye as I stand atop the lifepod, me waving back to him.

"Be safe!" I yell. "Don't get caught by another Crashfish!"

"I won't, seeya Sabre!" Orange yells back, the submerges into the now pitch-black water.

I jump back into the lifepod, and take out the plush cat I found earlier. It's dried out by now, and I can use it as a pillow so I'm not completely on the floor as I sleep. At least it'll be a little more comfortable.

It doesn't take as long for me to drift off tonight. As I fall under the shadowy comfort of the unconscious, I wonder what adventures tomorrow will bring with my alien friend.

Well, since I crash-landed on his people's planet, I guess I'm the alien here.

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Ack, I wanna make this a book, but I already have two!

Hhhhhhhhhhh

...Do I?