Moving as quick as lightning, the sci-fi cowboy yelled out "Draw!" and pulled out his revolver, he aimed his sights on Jiro shooting at him twice from the hip, the first bullet knocked Jiro's gun from his hand and the second broke his fancy looking pistol.

Right when the Gold Myr woman tried to turn her sights on him, a vent dropped from the ceiling, hitting her in the head and brought her to her bronzed chitin covered needs, out of nowhere a small woman dropped from the ceiling and landed on Marishka's back, from my position all I could see was that the small woman was dressed like she was a high school girl of sorts with a thick bulletproof vest and tactical gear.

It didn't take long for Akira and Ash to get a clue and go for their weapons, I could see the two set their sights on Mishka and right before they could shoot, she dangled me in front of the two of them in an attempt to stop them.

Then Akira surprised me, instead of doing like Ash did, he actually fired at me trying to hit Mishka, the pellets from his shotgun ripped through the flesh in my arm and my only reaction was to groan in pain before Mishka threw me at the two." Jiro quit rubbing your wounds! Karat stop sitting around! Marishka stop giving that little bitch a piggy back ride, take down this cowboy and this girl and clean up the rest of them!" Mishka yelled at them before surprisingly enough, she began leaving.

Once Akira noticed Mishka leaving, he jumped to his feet chasing after her." I'm not letting you get away damn it!" He shoved his way past Jiro and knocked over Karat before going after her. I tried getting to my feet with the world spinning around." Kira wait!" I tried yelling to him only to be pulled down just as Jiro was about to shoot me. Ash pulled me into her cold armored embrace, I could feel her hands shivering as she held me, as much as I wanted to, I didn't break free from her grasp, I didn't want her to feel scared even with all that armor on, I closed my eyes and only sighed hoping that Akira would be okay.

" Hold on there china man! Your fight is with me." I heard James taunt the suited guy. I pulled out my knife stabbing the giant latex woman in the back several times before she jumped back first to the ground, I leaped from her and next to James on my feet.

Then the suited man spoke up." I'm Japanese, you ignorant American." He drew another pistol from his suit jacket and shot off James' hat running towards him, the giantess then turned her attention to me cracking her latex covered knuckles." I'm going to rip out your spine bitch." She threatened me like a knuckle dragger then soon the two stood in front of us and I quickly asked." Want to switch?"

" And risk dueling someone almost as good as me? It wouldn't be a fair fight." The cowboy told me with a bearded grin.

I pulled a flash grenade out of a pouch on my rig and threw it at the two blinding the big woman and not effecting the suited guy, from a quick glance he looked like an old school Terran Yakuza, the anger in his eyes told me. Then I had to pull my attention back onto the giant woman covered in latex, despite being blinded, she charged in my direction, I swiftly rolled out of the way as James began leading the suited man away from the store shooting at him." Just try an' shoot me ya Jap." He sprinted off as the Gold Myr began getting to her feet and noticed her two allies gone.

" Guys! Mother said clean them up, not run off and kill them in the public!" The glowing breasted ant girl screeched.

Right when she laid her black eyes and antennae on me, she aimed all of her pistols at me, just when I thought I'd have to berate James for running off, one of the robbers wearing a blue jacket tackled the ant woman and tried to stab her. I turned my attention back on the big woman, she wiped out her eyes and stared down at me."Didn't think I'd need to use this on you, but I'll squash you like the skinny bug you are." She slammed a closed fist into the buckle of her belt and her muscles began rippling, latex covered veins began sprouting on around her black spandex covered, even her height grew taller, she matched the size of an ape on steroids.

I got low to the ground, someone of her size would have to be slow, the massive hulking woman moved almost as fast as me, nearly crushing me with a giant fist and cracking the concrete pavement. I drew my knife again and dragged my knife across her gut while dashing behind her and expected blood to splatter along the pavement, but to my surprise her latex was tougher than I expected, I quickly jumped onto her back and tried to stab her in the back of her neck, just to be quickly grabbed this time and thrown up in the air.

I thought fast grabbing onto a gutter pipe and clinging tightly to it before climbing to the roof, it didn't take long for the beast of a woman to launch herself onto the roof and nearly bring it down while landing on it, once we were face to face again, she began chuckling as I glared at her." Your little knife won't be able to cut through my body glove, it's a good piece of Hale federation tech boy."

I sheathed my knife again." Fine then, I was trying to challenge myself. I pulled out my Salamander Smg from between my rig and my shirt." I guess I could just shoot you instead." I shove a magazine into the compact machine gun before I started emptying the magazine firing on the woman.

Putting one foot in front of the other, I brought the well suited to a park where many of the dog people and some of my people let their kids play, but once they heard me fire off my revolver they grabbed their kids quickly and scattered like cockroaches. I Jumped over a sandbox as the Jap behind me reloaded his handgun for the third time while chasing me." Whoo boy, if you're running was like your shooting, I'd be dead by now." I taunted him.

My well suited opponent growled before pointing his gun at me again, twisting my elbow and squeezing the trigger, I shot his gun out of his hand, again, I flipped open the cylinder emptying it out and putting in a speed loader, snapping it shut and dropping it back into my holster. The Jap cracked his wrist before simply taking out another pistol from his nice jacket and loading a magazine into it." You're pretty cowardice for a cowboy. Plus, you seem to be a couple centuries too far into the future, John Wayne."

I had my hand hover next to my revolver." Well, you seem to be far from home mister Jap, are people like you cutting off pinkies and drinking rice wine?" I could see the anger welling up in his eyes and when he started aiming his gun I yelled out."Draw!" before grabbing the handle of my big iron.

When the coast looked clear, I nervously looked back and forth as I crawled towards the store on my hands and knees hoping nobody spotted me. Yan gave me a ski mask before he rushed off following his nose, I felt a mix of anger and fear as inched myself closer to the store, and once my fur covered hand felt glass I spotted Bates trying to overpower a gold Myr before anything else. The ant woman threw the tanned human off her and grabbed a piece of glass trying to stab him, I quickly went for the fire extinguisher and clubbed her on the back of the head with it and knocked her out.

After I knocked her out I remembered the small pistol Yan gave me and wanted to face palm myself for not using it." Ven." My name was called out. I looked over to see Gaz, but something was different about him, he was on his knees and clinging to him was Ash, she was shivering in her heavy armor before looking up to me with big worried black eyes." G-Black, Yan c-"

"Stop it, just call me Gaz, Ven I need you to find Akira, you gotta find him, I need you to." He grabbed me with one of his hands getting a good grip on my jeans." Find him for me, he ran off after Mishka he wants to avenge his brother." He looked up to me, face covered in blood, red tears welling up in his eyes. " I-I'll find him." I told him.

I rushed out of the store pulling up my codex and began searching for Akira's signal before I began running in any direction, when I found his signal on my GPS, I began following it as fast as could and each time I turned a corner, I laid my eyes back on the digital map, then soon just had it in front of my face as I kept running, then I slipped on something wet, it was a spot of blood on the ground. Part of me wanted to scan the blood to know who's it was, the spot had a trail in front of it leading into an, I wanted to scan it with my codex to make sure it was Akira's but I didn't think about it and charged down the alley, hoping that I wasn't too late, the piss smelling alley let to a tiny empty lot with Kira's body sprawled out on the ground." Akira!" I shouted his name before a heavy thud landed on the back of my head.

The giant brute began slamming their fist into the tiles and roofing materials as I pelted them with burning energy ammunition, I quickly dodged out of the way of her large fist as she smashed an ac unit, I ejected my empty mag before slamming another one in my SMG, smoke was rising off the massive woman as I got ready to empty another magazine into her." Hold up!" Yelled a gruff voice followed by two shots from an Eagle handgun. One of the shots hit the woman in the belt and the other hit her belt buckle making a loud hissing sound, behind me a large man quickly jumped to help me." She's mainlining something in her belt, it makes her the way she is, now that it's broken we need to wait for her to shrink down." He spoke as if he knew the woman, but now wasn't the time question someone coming to my aid.

Long almost endless streams of a bright orange substance came from the woman's belt as the hissing noise grew louder, the monster looked to the both of us before ripping out a ventilation duct with her shrinking hands, she hurled the mangled metal at us, and in the heat of the moment, the large man stepped in front of me and let his shields take the blow, his shields crackled and fizzled out taking the blow he stood in for. I quickly got in front of him before I started firing at the slowly shrinking body builder, steam began to rise from her body glove as I emptied the entire magazine into her suit, with each connecting shot more steam began to rise from her and she decided to just jump off the roof and to the street below, I didn't bother chasing after her and looked to the guy.

" You won't be a bother too will you?" I asked him, pointing my empty gun at him.

He held his hands up before telling me." What! No, I called one of you to help us." He told me.

" Well, I expect you and your group to pay me and my partner well for this." I told him before briefly thinking about James.

Once the Jap fired, we both shot each other, apparently he wasn't that bad of a shot as I first thought, the two of us got an arm shot on one another and his bullet nearly made me drop my piece, dived and rolled behind a slide and turned on my shields. Whatever bullets he was using made my wound, burn hotter than Ausaril during summertime, I put a hand over the wound before peeking out at the guy and nearly losing my head peeking. I leaned on the slide before saying." You're pretty good." I spun my revolver around my trigger finger, then I rolled out of my playground cover to nobody being there, he just vanished into thin air." Damn, gone already." Suddenly I had a feeling something was behind me, instinct kicked in and I spun with my revolver first only to have my hand stopped.

I spotted the well suited guy out the corner of my eye, he put his gun to the side of my head and pulled back on the hammer."Sayōnara, Space cowboy." Before he could send me to the great desert in the sky, he hesitated and pulled out his codex. On the other end there was someone yelling."Damn it!" The Jap yelled before someone else stepped into my execution and shot my would be executioner, the sound of the rifle was none other than Simo, then his voice buzzed in my ear." If the director saw this he'd kick you back to your old ranking, your lucky he's not a target."

The Jap held his fresh gunshot wound before he surprisingly turned invisible before my very eyes." What in the Hell?" I heard his footsteps move away from me before hearing his voice once more.

" You live today cowboy, if we meet again on my, I'll be sure to show you I'm better than 'pretty good'." He told me before I heard him run off

" You got lucky James, this will stay between the three of us."

I thanked him over the communicator.

" You also should also need to work on shooting from the hip, next time just aim down your sights instead of going for style." He lectured me, I didn't bother trying to explain it's not just style, it's much more than that.

When I came to, Mishka kicked one of my legs before walking out of the alley way spitting on the ground." Fucking garbage right where you belong." Once she was gone, I pulled myself together and crawled over to Akira, I laid a fur covered hand on his bloodied face, I wiped some of the blood off his face and he coughed to life.

" Kira!" Pulled his head into my lap." Are you okay?"

He struggled with his words, breathing them out."I...I can't move." He told me between breaths." My..My neck hurts Ven." Bloodied tears streamed down his face.

It took me a while before I could get Ash and Noi to the Van, with Ash clinging to me like a scared child, and having to drag a depressed Noi. When I pried Ash off of me, she curled up into the van with Noi just looking as depressed when I first found her. Personally, I felt like someone slapped me in the face with a dick and I felt like I couldn't do anything about it, then I had that feeling of anger welling up in my stomach that made me just wish I could the entire heist over again but this time know what was coming and handle it or just have us abort the whole thing.

I put my hands on my face before taking a deep breath and focusing on the situation, I checked the van noticing Yan was gone, I couldn't leave him behind, plus he had the keys to drive the damn thing, Bates on the other hand just looked pissed." Noi look over Ash." I told her before calling Ven hoping she wasn't dead or was to much of a coward to actually do as I said.

When she answered she sounded like she was in the middle of getting her ass kicked and sounded scared, she was babbling too quickly for me to process anything and I told her to."Calm down."

Once she took a deep breath, she told me." Gaz Kira's I don't know he's hurt bad, he can't move, I don't know what I should do."

" Is Mishka there?" I asked.

" No, she's gone."

"Okay, when I see Yan we'll make our way." I began hearing sirens." Shit! Alright, we'll meet you when we can."

"So now the cops finally get off their fat asses to do something." I reached into the Van and pulled out a Laser shotgun, but before I could do anything, Bates just took the shotgun from me." Gaz I'll lead them away from you guys. Ash isn't in any condition to fight, I'll send them on a goose chase, lose them, then meet back at the hideout."

I was about to stop him, but he was already dead set on his idea and ran off towards the sirens. Then, almost as if it was scripted to happen or just fated to, Yan and the small schoolgirl both arrived, when I laid eyes on the blonde body builder, I gave him a 'where the fuck was you!' look and he just crossed his arms and told me."Hand over the loot Gaz."

" What?" I told him.

" I said, hand over the loot, knowing you, even if this turned into a shit show, I know you snagged some loot, you at least have one bag."

Not wanting to argue with him I grabbed the single bag filled with something me and Bates scrapped together before leaving, I gave the bag to him and he handed it to her." It's probably not much, but I think it covers our lives."

The school girl un-zipped the duffle bag looking inside of it and zipped it shut." I guess it does." She told us in an almost apathetic tone before walking away.

"Yan we have to get to Ven, Akira's badly hurt, we need to go get him."

" What about Bates?" He asked.

" He went to go distract the cops, he'll meet us at the hideout."

The two of us got in the Van and tracked down Ven, when I got to the alley a million things filled my head, I wanted to yell at the fucker for running after Mishka, I wanted to feel sorry for him, I wanted to punch him in the face, but the one thing I wanted most was to just get him out of that alley. I slowly made my way down to the small empty lot and spotted Ven cradling Akira's head, I didn't know what to say to him, I just stared and he looked back at me just coughing up the word."Sorry." "I'm sorry."

I grabbed his legs while Yan grabbed his arms and put him in the Van, when Yan started up the engine, Ven asked me."What are we going to do with him?"

"We're gonna take him to the hospital, take off his body armor and get rid of anything that will make him look like a criminal." I put a hand on Akira's shoulder and looked down to him." I should've just listened to your brother, told you to get an education be smarter than us, don't be like us. But I was too fucking stupid to listen."

When me and Yan got Akira into the hospital, nurse droids and doctors put him onto a stretcher before taking him down the halls and out of sight, one of the nurse droids soon approached me and Yan, she began asking what could've happened to Akira for him to be that injured, I quickly came up with something to tell her." He got into a bad fight with a couple guys in an alleyway, I don't know if they were trying to rob him or kill him, we just found him that way and he couldn't move and I wanted to just kill the bitch that did this to him."

"Sir, please calm down, we will report your friend's assault to the local police and they can make an investigation."

Once she began heading to the front desk, I stopped her." Wait, when can I see him?"

She looked up to the ceiling as if she had to think about it for a second then told me." Around an hour, sir." The gynoid told me." But I'll be sure to tell you when you can visit him, but right now I need to proceed with procedures in my programing sir."

I let the robot woman go before sitting down in the waiting area, Yan put a hand on my shoulder telling me that he'll take the others to the hideout before he left, once he was gone, I sat on a bench for what felt like hours, I watched people come in and out, watching people argue with the nurse droid about random things or the paperwork she'd give them, then saw another person just, vomit when they came in, then another person just arrived to get a prescription filled. Once the nurse droid waved me over for what felt like hours, I walked over to her and listened to her tell me Akira's room number and after running down a couple hallways and past many patients and doctors, I found Akira.

He was bandaged and lying in bed with one of those EKG machines connected to him, he looked over to me as I pulled up a chair to the side of his bed." I fucked up didn't I?" He asked.

I wanted to be casual with him and tell him that he did more than that." Forget about that, did the doctors give you something to help you? They tell you when you're going to be out of here?"

He looked over to me with his eyes before saying." I don't know."

I leaned forwards asking him."What do you mean? You don't know?"

" Dude, They told me my neck and back are broken, they told me something about vertebrae in my spine being out of place and my neck being broken, they said that it was like my neck was in a vice."

I held back tears sighing before telling him." Fuck, I'm sorry, I guess no more anime cons or rouges for you then."

His eyes went wide." W-what?" If he could get up, he probably would." I can't be in the gang anymore man?"

I stood up, looking down at him." You can't walk, you have a broken neck and vertebrae in your spine." I walked over to the chart by his bed reading what was wrong with him." Even if you recover from your broken neck you'll be paralyzed from the waist down."

" I, I could get like a pair of walking pants or get some cybernetics and have robotic legs like you, or get some prosthetics, I can still be with the gang, you don't have to kick me out."

I set the chart down."If your brother was alive right now, he'd be beating the shit out of me and crying his eyes out at the same time, and I wouldn't blame him for doing it. He never told you, but he wanted you to be better than the both of us, he wanted you to go to college and make something of yourself, but the both of us were in over our heads and Mishka reminded us, it's all fun and games till reality kicks you in the teeth." I put a hand on his shoulder."I'm." I swallowed my words."I'm sorry man, but you're out."

He didn't cry, he was probably holding back his tears and just told me."I-I understand."

"I will make sure your money gets to you." I told him.

I began turning around to leave, but then he told me something else." Gaz, it's not your fault, I was stupid and now I'm paying for it."

Standing in the doorway, I looked back to him." No, it wasn't Kira, everyone I care about around me dies, you got lucky."

As I left him with that and walked down the hall, I felt surprised with how far we are in the future and can't yet fix a spine properly, medical tech must've come far but not far enough for spinal and neck injuries. Then in the corner of my eye a familiar old small Asian woman came into my sight and came right for me, she grabbed me by my hoodie with her tiny hands, I instantly knew who the woman was when I saw the wrinkles on her face and graying hair."Gaz, I told you not to involve my boy in your stupid little gang. I already lost Akihiko because you boys wanted to play gangster and joined a gang. I told you I didn't want Akira playing with you anymore."

I could see the tears in her eyes." Now I got one boy in the grave and one in the hospital because of you!" She screamed at me.

Looking down at the mother I told her."I wasn't with Akira, he doesn't even hang out with me Ms. Itō I-."

" Don't you bullshit me boy, you might be able to fool the stupid girls around your little block and the ones you play around with, but you can't bullshit someone as old as me, Akira would talk non-stop about how cool you were and the things you would do." Many people in the galaxy would eat up my lies as if they were candy with others being able to see right through them, Akira's mother was the small minority that could see through my sweet words as the bullshit that it actually was."I don't want you to go near my boy again, I don't want you to talk with him at all."

I didn't argue with her, I knew it was the right thing."Don't worry, I won't get near your son ever again Ma'am." I told her in a sincere tone.

She had a surprised look on her face as she let go of me."T-thank you Gaz, I just want to make sure my boy has a future in this big scary galaxy is all."

"I know, I didn't see it till it was too late, I didn't take Akikhiko's words to heart and ignored what he wanted and used him to my own agenda, no amount of apologies could express my regrets or quell any pain towards you or Akikhiko's spirit." I started to sound like I turned Japanese.

She left me alone to go see her son and I took my time walking out of the hospital, the first face I met once I got to the lobby was Ven oddly enough, I was surprised that she was here of all people.

"Gaz is he going to be okay?" She asked."He looked as if he was going to die."

"His neck and back are broken, he may not fully recover and his mother told me to never speak with him or see him again. He's not a part of the team anymore, I told him that he's out."

"Oh." She looked away from me as her dog ears flattened against her head." I, uh, nevermind, we should get back to the hideout." She looked at her watch wrapped around her furry wrist." Or I should get to work." She left. Once she left I stood outside as a rainstorm rolled in, I stood in the rain just thinking about ways I could've turned everything around, I began wishing I could just go back in time and tell myself to do prep work, scope out the store, maybe we could've found out Mishka was there, or hit it a day where she was out elsewhere. But Greed and excitement, the idea of having gems from unknown planets roll out of my hands and Cyn giving me dozens of credits for them made me rush in, I forgot the rule of not letting greed get a hold of me and blinding me.

After that jewelry store job and getting manhandled by Mishka, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth, my mood turned into shit and my ego was kicked in the teeth. I kept second guessing my thoughts of future jobs, I felt like the others either shrugged it off or moved on thinking that the job was just bad luck, but I felt as if was some sort of sign and not just a sign that I fucked up and got someone crippled for life, no it felt bigger than that. I felt my robotic left arm shake while sitting in the hideout, a lingering fear that Mishka will be here and just end everything I built up, then I heard the door swing open and instinctively turned to it reaching for my guns but only having my hands greet empty holsters.

A dark silhouette of Mishka walked into the hideout, a fire sparked up around the warehouse and I felt frozen in fear, screams began filling my head, the images of Akira and Rika flashed in front of my eyes before Mishka grabbed me up by my neck, my eyes didn't meet normal eyes, but met hollow white sockets." Gaz, your nothing but a one armed bandit." I felt an immense amount of pain in my left arm as she pulled it out of my shoulder and threw me to the ground." See?! You're nothing but a fucking failure! Everything you touch dies and those fools will die along with you."

I snapped away in my room in a cold sweat, I looked at the synth flesh on my arm seeing it still attached before I got out of bed. I jumped into the shower thinking about if I should leave the group myself, when I got out and donned my favorite hoodie and some jeans, I managed to lay back on the couch before someone came into the hideout. Unlike my dreams, I broke out my hammer pistols and aimed at the figure standing in the doorway, but when I noticed the big wolf ears, I put the guns down as Ven walked in with something wrapped up in her hands." Void damn it Gaz! Why are you so jumpy?"

As she walked closer to me closing the door behind her I questioned her." What are you doing here today?! Don't you have work or something?"

"No, I have the day off, so I decided to get something for you." She unwrapped the object and showed me my gas mask." I went back to the store and decided to get it back for you. I was thinking about what you said a couple days ago, and I'm sorry, you are right, I haven't felt the pain you and the others have felt and in the moment I was just angry."

Once she handed me the gas mask, she apologized again and I stared at the cracked plastic and beat up looking respirator, I saw my reflection in the remaining plastic before I let out a smile. I couldn't explain it, but something calmed me down a bit and made me feel a bit better. I took the broken gas mask and slapped Ven upside the head with my left hand mostly hitting her ear, her face twisted into a scowl." What the fuck was that for? I did something good for you, asshole! I got your mask!"

" Yeah, but at the cost of almost getting caught by the police, what if the cops saw you and followed you back here?" I told here?"

Her face changed from a scowl to a look of surprise and fear she put her hands on her ears, she started sweating." There... There weren't any cops there, there were a couple drones, and a small area set up with evidence and stuff, I snuck around the drones and took the mask from the evidence table and nobody saw me, I'm sure, I know that nobody followed me, who the hell wants to follow someone as boring as me?"

I plucked her on the nose before telling her."If nobody saw you then you shouldn't be worried about it pup."

Suddenly I heard chitin covered feet on the upper level of the warehouse and looked up to see Ash leaning over the railing in just a tank top and her panties." What are you two yelling about?" The myr questioned us.

"Fur ball here went back to the scene of the crime and got my mask back, and I'm taking the ship." I pushed myself past Ven heading outside to see Bates and Yan talking." Big guy, I'm going on a journey." I told him." You're in charge, so do fuck any guys at the gym for too long and make sure Ash doesn't get lazy and lay around too much."

I headed over to the garage passing the Renegade and laying eyes on the ship, I slammed my fist into the button and opened the garage ceiling before Yan and the others chased after me and stood behind me in the garage doorway." Gaz where are you going?" Yan asked." A soldier should inform his squad of his actions."

"Yeah, how do we know you're not just up and leaving us?" Ash asked.

Looking back to Yan and the others, I gave them a warm smile."One, Yan we aren't soldiers and we're aren't a squad of them." I told him." Two, why would I leave you guys? I'm just going on a quest, might take me a bit of a while to get back though. But have I ever steered you guys wrong or too wrong?"

Bates chimed in."Well, there was the last job we were on."

"Bates shut up, that was a bit of bad luck really." I defended myself.

I turned to the ramp and went up inside the ship, I made my way past the small common area and into the cockpit to see Noi in the co-pilot's chair, she had her face shove into a small pile of bright blue powder covering most of the dash, I could instantly tell it was Rush, Noi's favorite nose candy. I snapped my fingers twice getting her attention, she pulled her face up and I got to see her nose and cheeks just covered in the blue powder." Hey! Hey, get that stuff outta here, scat scat!" I made her scoop up the small pile and take it with her out of the ship, and then feeling as if the cat girl sticking around, I decided to change my mind." Nevermind, come on get back up here Noi."

She slowly made her way up to the cockpit and put her rush powder back onto the dash right above the controls."Where we going?" She asked while playing with her nose.

"Right now we're gonna get space bound and get near the warp gate really, I need to find someone, so I'm gonna get on the dark net. We're going on a journey kitty kat."

I had us drift around in space for a bit as I access the Darknet to get more info on the person I needed to find, it took me hours before I began getting anywhere, Noi began playing around on the ship cutting the gravity on and off and floating around the low gravity before turning it on and having a number of things just hit the floor. I ignored her before I found the planet we were heading off to." Noi, get your furry butt up here and stop playing with the gravity." The purple cat girl rushed into the cockpit and jumped into the co-pilot's seat before spinning around in the seat." Oh where are we going?" She asked while trying to spin herself around faster in the chair.

" Easy, the Sol system, we're going to Earth, L.A to be more specific." I told her.

" Cool, we're going to the blue planet!" I stopped her from spinning anymore in the chair.

Turning off the ship's internet computer, I cut off several ships before going straight for the warp gate out of the system and to Earth, before I could think about how the planet would be, Noi blurted out my thoughts asking me the same thing I was thinking." Gaz how is Earth?" She asked.

" If I'm right, it should be like Koth is, has different seasons, cities, towns, humans and probably even aliens as well. The planet is the origin planet to all human kind, but I've never been to Earth myself and people who are fancy like to call it Terra."

I noticed Noi cock a purple eyebrow at me and look at me curiously, for once she looked as if she was using her head." Wait." The gears in her head were starting to turn." If you have never been to Earth that means you're an alien Gaz, you're not a human, you lied to me." And they didn't turn far enough.

" No, I'm Human Noi, just not from Earth, so I'm not an Earthling, I'm from a planet like New Texas out on the fringes, I'm from New Finland, it's probably gone by now, though, it's a human colony so I am a human, just not from Earth." I explained to her the best I could." Like how you are a modded Kaithrit, but you aren't from their homeworld Rosha."

She started to get it slowly nodding as the Earth came into view."Whatever happened to your home world?" She asked.

" That's a story for another day Noi, the planet's right there." I quickly hit the exit door to the conversation. Now that we found the planet, I needed to find where the place was, the blue planet looked more like a planet that was green, blue, white and brown, not too much blue more of a blend of other colors with blue being the base of everything. I pulled up a hologram of the planet and searched for the state? Or country that we were looking for as Noi sat in the co-pilot's thinking up a badass game plan for when we land and meet the person I'm looking for, quickly glanced in her direction and noticed her groping her own tiny breast as she was coming up with the plan and blankly staring at the planet as we closed in on it.

Once we were planet side and in the air, the planet looked a little bit greener, but that probably was just from the area we were in, the second I found us an uncertified area to land, just a patch of empty land, I debated getting Noi a leash so she wouldn't run around and get lost or hop on people randomly, I shrugged before dragging her along with me outside the ship and locking it up.

The second we began our search and saw a couple people, I slowly began regretting coming here. Some of the first people we encountered was a human couple with their child sitting in a park, they were giving their toddler mods to change up their appearance and very being, part of me felt it was kind of messed up for parents to do that to their kid, but I felt it wasn't enough of my problem for me to do something about it.

Me and Noi moved on from the park and eventually stumbled upon a dog park, where people were leashing up Ven's people and walking them around as if they were animals, also they were having normal Earth dogs play around with other normal dogs and somewhat avoiding the Ausars. As we watched the dogs, one of them a massive husky breed caught my eye as it sniffed an Ausar woman's butt before it's owner yelled something in Russian."Pyatka!"

The dog leaped back from the canine woman before running to its owner. It was the woman that helped us at the jewelry store, she was wearing a thin hoodie with the hood up on her head and some small shorts, Noi followed me as I walked through the growing crowd of Ausar and pups playing with each other, once the dog owner spotted me and Noi, I could tell by the way she looked at us that she knew who we were.

" Hey, I need your help with something important, and only you and your people can help me." I told her

The pale petite woman looked back and forth at the people around us subtly without drawing attention to either one of us." Listen bank robber, I'm not a thief like you, I don't rob banks and fight waves of cops. If you need my people's help then you use the Darknet to make a contract or get in touch with the academy." She spoke in a whispered tone.

I crossed my arms and watched Noi cuddle up against the woman's large husky, rubbing her face into it's groomed fur." Well, I was just asking where I could get my pet cat there euthanized, but I guess you just look too busy."

She glared at me with big blue eyes." That's a really messed up thing to say."

" No, what's messed up is what happened back on Koth." I told her." We all were nearly "euthanized" and I need help to prevent something like that from happening again."

She put a hand on her forehead before saying." Let's take this conversation somewhere more private?" She groaned." I'd rather not have this conversation get attention."

I grabbed Noi by the back of her cat collar and pulled her to her feet as we left the park, the woman took us up the side of hill before taking us to her home, it looked somewhat like a small mansion with a couple houses nearby. The second we got inside I looked around before she went into the kitchen and poured a dog bowl filled with dog food, not surprising me, Noi rushed over along with the husky to eat some of its food and try to push the dog away from his own meal, but the dog growled before nudging her away and started eating." Noi bad cat, leave the dog alone." I told her like a pet owner berating their pet for doing something bad.

The woman set down a bowl of water before pulling a pistol out on me and I instantly raised my hands." Alright, now I know how this may actually seem, but I want you to know this is how most people like me, and others I know speak. So now, I'm going to ask questions and you're going to answer them and once I get answers I like then I'll put the gun away."

" First question, how did you find me?" She asked.

" Easy Darknet, if you ask the right people they can find anything, no matter how stupid it is or dangerous." I told her.

" Second one, why did you find me?"

" Like I said before, I don't want us to have another situation with Mishka like that. I need to be tougher, stronger, I need training and from what I know, the academy is the best without me having to join a military outfit or become some wannabe merc. I need to be better to take her down."

She stared at me for a minute before lowering the weapon, she sighed looking me, I hoped she didn't think I was trying to lie to her, she walked up next to me saying." I'm not a teacher." Before walking behind me." But I can help you." She told me before hitting me in the back of the head and I dropped to the floor, I struggled to stay awake before my eye lids grew heavy and soon darkness overtook me.

I don't know how long I was out, could of been days, or just a mere amount of hours. The second my eyes slowly opened I was in a different area, it looked a little like the hideout, but the floor was stone cold concrete instead of wooden planks, as I rose off the ground slowly, a female's voice behind me yelled out." Freeze!" I stood still going full statue mode. Behind me were heavy footsteps, almost the same as Mishka's boot steps, but the voice that yelled for me to freeze was too feminine to be hers and too feminine for the woman that knocked me out.

" Now turn around." She told me. I turned around standing as if I spun around a million times and took a step to balance myself and was greeted by the sight of a giant. She was a bright caramel colored giant, with breast were bigger than my head and hers, on her face were a small pair of glasses, She wore what looked like simple black jeans, and a bright yellow sweater, her stomach was gravid and massive in size, she looked as if she ate a couple people before telling me to stay still. Then out of nowhere she gasped and held her massive belly." If only they wouldn't kick so much." She looked down at her gut rubbing it before her eyes locked onto me.

I took a moment to collect myself before I asked her where we were, she held out her arms before annoucing." We're in the backdrop!"

" Backdrop?" I parroted." Backdrop of what?"

Before the giant could answer, a door at opened by my side and I instantly turned towards it." It's the backdrop of an ancient fun house." The new guy said to me. He wore a dark trench coat with stylish sunglasses while we were indoors." Personally, I wouldn't care what Eiko does in her spare time, but this is a breach in security, you should not be here." The guy spoke with a mix of calm anger.

Before I could even have a chance to defend myself, another door opened up, for some reason I didn't hear the water of a shower running because, at my back, this time was a door leading to what looks like a shower room, coming out was the albino I met the almost nearly a month ago. He was wearing only a towel around his waist and looking confused about the situation." What's happening here?" He asked.

The guy with the trench coat pointed a robotic carbon fiber finger at me before saying." Eiko is breaking one of the rules of a safe house appointed by the Director himself. She allowed a bank robber inside of the place and now she's nowhere to be found." He still sounded calm but angry.

The albino stared at him with calm red eyes for an awkward amount of time, then simply told him." So." Adjusting his towel he continued." I trust Eiko, I doubt she would bring someone here and put our lives in danger John."

" I don't like this, I'm reporting it to the director." He turned around and left the room and before I knew it, another person walked in. A lanky woman with long blonde hair tied into a ponytail, she was wearing a burgundy vest with a black dress shirt and matching colored pants, peeking out from her rolled up sleeves were snake tattoos, she had a toothy grin that a cat would be jealous of, speaking of cats." Where's Noi?"

" Who?" The giant asked.

" Purple hair and fur cat girl, bought her contract cheap, snorts a bunch of rush and has a jacked up libido."

The giant put a finger on her chin as if she was doing her best to remember." She was here, but I took a nap and ate, then she was gone. Eiko must've taken her."

Great, not only was the person that took me here to help me vanished, but she had my only traveling companion. Suddenly the blonde woman slapped me on the back and grabbed my shoulder." Eh, don't worry buddy, Ei-chan will be back, she went chasing after her big ass dog."Out of nowhere she slapped me be on the ass and pulled herself close to my ear." But I guess we could waste some time before you get down with Ei-chan."

I pushed her away from me and she gave me the smile of a goblin from a video game ready to get down to business." I think I remember you buddy boy." She told me." White hair, dark skin, hoodie." She put a hand on her pointy chin and stared down at me with a malicious grin." Jiro would be really happy if I brought you to him." She mentioned Mishka's baby boy, the space Yakuza." But Fuck him, I care too much for Ei-Chan to go against her."

Before anything else could happen, the woman of the hour showed up, by her side was Noi crouched down like a dog and covered in mud, or at least I hope it was." Your cat got mounted by my dog and rolled around in some mud with him." She told me bluntly, she kicked Noi in the muddy backside with her boot before Noi began coming at me.

"No, stop!" I yelled as Noi stopped just before touching me.

"Oh, so she listens to you, but she doesn't listen to nobody else. I'm not a.." She snapped her fingers twice." What do they call it? A Tard wrangler."

I almost instantly petted Noi before recoiling my hand from her muddy hair, but it didn't stop me from going to her defense." Noi isn't a retard, she's just eccentric, and fun loving." I caught a whiff her and wanted to hold my nose." And stinks like Ausar shit."

" Enough!" She snapped her finger a second time." No more of this small talk, we need to get down to brass tacks. You want to be tougher for that monster you need to kill right? Well, these people can help you."

" Not this person." The albino told us as he sat on a couple ammo crates." I'm a sniper, I don't get in people's face, I shoot them in the face from miles away." He finished before drying his hair with another towel.

" I know something that could toughen him up." The giant told them.

It didn't take long before me and the pregnant giant took a journey out the back of the safe house, the two of us took a trip down a hill and to a waterfall and she sat down on a massive stump just big enough for her." Alright strip down to your undies big guy." She told me while cradling her belly.

I looked at her as if she spoke an unknown dead language before she waved one of her hands." Oh come on, it's not like you don't have anything I haven't seen before." She then thought about it before saying." You don't have anything I haven't seen before have you?"

I shook my head telling her don't have anything before taking my shirt and hoodie off and taking off the rest of my clothes." Wow, you sure have a body that tells some history." She commented on my form." Alright, go stand under that waterfall." She told me." The water is extremely cold this time of year and it should make you tough."

Thinking about it, I almost didn't want to do the damn thing, then the thought of Ash clinging to me in fear and the feeling of being manhandled by Mishka popped into my mind, the thoughts of everyone around me being dead or dying came to mind. I leaped onto a rock and without hesitation stood under the waterfall as freezing water came down on my head and shoulders, I felt an odd feeling in my head as an endless stream of cold water came down on me, I could feel my skin turning numb to the water and as I struggled to stay under it the giant lady spoke.

She pushed up her glasses on her face before saying." Humans on Earth, use to do rituals similar to this, they would have special waterfalls with special water, they would do this for martial arts and Pilgrimage, they-"

She stopped the second I fell out of the waterfall's current and nearly landed face first into the rock I was standing on." Maybe this isn't for you." She thought to herself before we headed back.

Once we were back in the same room from before, and I was in slightly wet clothes, I got a good look of the room, there was ammo lining up some of the walls of the room, some boxes stacked to the ceiling and others sitting badly stacked. Then out of nowhere the Agent Smith with the trench coat walked in and approached me this time he looked a little different." Listen, since you're not asking for training, I'm willing to help you quote un-quote toughen up, Follow me."

He brought me out to the rest of the fun house backdrop where there were long hallways, he brought me out to long massive room with targets set up, mostly cardboard cutouts of what must've been the fun house's old occupants. Nearby shooting from the hip was the cowboy from the other day, he was bandaged up and firing a revolver at some of the cutouts, he was fanning the hammer of his revolver with each shot, getting head shots on the cutouts, when he noticed us he emptied the cylinder." Who's this snake on stilts fool?"

I wasn't sure if he insulted me or complimented me, his old western jargon was something I didn't understand correctly." He's a bank robber." He stood in front of me before putting both hands on my shoulders, his hands were clearly robotic and had some weight to them." I use to be a bodyguard and still do it from time to time, so I'm going help you not get knocked down so easily, or not stunned as badly as you usually would be from some attacks."

I cocked my eyebrow, thinking about how he could help me, he went to a corner of the large room and grabbed a wooden plank and placed it on my shoulders," Keep that there." He told me before grabbing two ammo boxes." Alright, this is some of the heaviest ammo we have, due to my augmentations, I can heft these up without trouble, for you it will be the weight of your team."

Before I could ask him how does he know my team, he put one box on then the other and it felt I was holding Yan and Ash on my back." Now that you're carrying the weight of your team on your back, imagine I'm everyone you hate." He told me before slugging me in the chest with his carbon fiber coated fist, all of the wind was knocked out of me, I almost fell as he threw another one and hit me in the chest as hard as he could.

" Don't fall, endure the pain, get angry and let it fuel you." He told be before slamming his metal fist into my gut and then into my shoulder in his best attempt to make me drop this heavy shit.

It felt like I was being slugged in the chest and gut for hours, the pain of his metallic fist just felt like pokes to me at this point, pokes with a very massive finger, then I remembered that this guy wasn't supposed to help me, and this shit here was starting to feel stupid, I threw the ammo boxes off my back and heard them break open as the guy stopped punching me." What's wrong?" He asked, as if he didn't think that I would catch on to this."You're just fucking with me aren't you?" I asked." You accepted this to just punch a guy you think is a piece of shit didn't you?" I asked.

He looked away from me back to the perforated targets the cowboy lit up with his revolver, then looked back to me." No, I didn't do this because I wanted to slug you in the chest, If I really got off on giving peoples' pain, I'd be like Chi smiling like a fool." He went off on me in a strange calm rage." I did this so someone doesn't get the upper hand in slugging you in the chest, it dulls the pain of your stomach, you never know when someone will punch you in the gut and try to bring you to your knees." I turned away from him going back to the room with the giant and Noi, I slammed open the door to see the Giant and some of the others laughing." Alright, Eiko, I don't want your buddies giving me tips like standing under a cold waterfall naked or taking some punches to the gut, I want you to give me some training, I need to make sure my team doesn't end up dead, I came to you for help, not them."

Eiko sat on a large crate rubbing her big fucking dog's coat, she stared at me the same way the albino guy did for a second before getting up." Fine, you're right, you did come to get my help, so I'll give you the help." She hopped off the crate." I can't exactly train you." She told me again." I'm in a different weight class as you, I focus on different fighting unlike you. You shoot guns with two hands, I leave one open, and use a different style, so I think I got one last ditch effort to help you Gaz."

" What?" I asked holding out my hands."Knocking me out and moving me to a different spot?"

The moment I said that she pulled a gun on me, Noi leaped into action only to be held back by the giant woman and be put into a headlock." Yes, just exactly that." She squeezed on the trigger and instead of a loud bang, the only noise was the gun's trigger. I looked down to see if I was hit by her gun only to see a dart jutting out of my chest, I felt my body growing heavy and the last thing I could feel was my shoulder hitting the stone cold floor.

The moment I woke up, I noticed that this time I was in a dark room, I slowly got to my knees as a red light appeared in a corner. The floor felt very metallic instead of like stone, then an intercom creaked to life." Good finally you're awake, best that you are, we're nearly at your drop off." Eiko's disembodied voice told me. Then I realized where I was, I was on a ship, and from Eiko's words I could tell that she was that I was in the drop bay." Where the hell are you dropping me?!" I yelled in a hoarse tone.

"We're dropping you in at Hardy." She answered." It's a test by me, if you pass or fail, I'll do my best to mentor you if you want, but it will take a long time."

Right when I was about to answer her, she cut me off without realizing and the light changed to green." Oh, we're over the point get ready for drop."

" Wait, what?!" The bay doors began opening under me and soon I was dropped out of the ship, massive winds whipped past my head, my eyes nearly teared up as I spotted the ruins of Hardy from above, the place looked like it was asking to be demolished. I reached around my back as quickly as I could, hoping that Eiko didn't just drop me into the retard cat kingdom to die hitting the ground, my hand met a pull string and the situation felt a little bit less tense. I yanked the cord and felt the parachute pull me back as it deployed and slowed my descent, before I even touched the ground, one of the worst smells in the galaxy hit my nose and I wanted to just puke, I suppressed the urge to vomit from above and watch where I was landing.

I passed by a water tower before landing in Hardy's main street, the town was small and filled with beat up old buildings, I ditched the parachute once my feet hit the ground and in almost seconds, a number of cat girls swarmed the parachute, many of them smelled it and licked it as if it could be food, before a number of them began fighting over the chute to keep it for themselves. It was like a town full of Noi with all of them almost rabid, I made sure to get away from the gang of cat girls fighting over the parachute. I ducked down an alleyway to keep away from them, probably a dumb idea for me to do as they would probably be coming down here any minute once the winner of the fight gets away with the chute and goes home, I thought on my feet, climbing up a fire escape I went to the roof of the building with the water tower and chilled out on the roof.

Suddenly my codex vibrated to life, turning the device's screen on I noticed Eiko made a contact for herself, then I noticed she sent me a picture of a medium sized lot surrounded by buildings, the picture looked familiar, it wouldn't take me long to find it, she also attached to the photo."Don't catch Furpies." I read aloud.

Pulling myself off the roof, I went to the ledge, part of me thought about jumping for a split second and knew it was a stupid way to die, I began looking around from above, I first spotted a trio of cat girls surrounding a stack of cartoonishly thick waffles, from what I could guess from the trio in the alleyway they were arguing before two began clawing at each other and the third took the chance to scarf down the food as fast as she could. Taking my attention off them, I looked from a different part of the roof and spotted the winner of the cat girl gang, a really tough looking petite cat with her kitten child following her as she pulled the chute away from the bloodied scuffle.

Looking away from that, I began concentrating on where the empty lot could be, then it hit me, I knew where it was, I knew the place I needed to go and leaped down onto the fire escape and raced down to ground level and began following my memory, I ran across the main street, stepping over the knocked out cat girls before heading into another alley way and nearly running right by the narrow back alley leading into the empty lot. Stepping into the empty lot, it oddly looked better than the rest of the town, it was dirty sure, but it had less dirt than the rest of the place, I looked around to see some trash in the corners, but nothing else, before I could wonder why I was here, my codex buzzed again, it was another text from Eiko, she just told me to wait.

Walking further into the lot, I looked up to the cloudy gray sky and hoped I wouldn't be here overnight, the clouds had no opening to show the sunlight, just an endless expanse of of the puffy gray stuff, I started to feel glad Noi wasn't just dumped here, then the sound of metal on asphalt broke me away from my thoughts, I turned to come face to face with who I hoped was Eiko, I was wrong, the fully armored being standing at the only exit of the empty lot was someone completely else. The armored being had to be a Hale, the armor was different from the other troopers, his was a dull pale gray color the same as the sky, mounted on his arm was a metal shield, in his other hand was an odd pistol, one I've never seen before." Bates! I'm here to bring you in." He told me through the helmet.

He put his shield in front of him and aimed his pistol at me from behind his shield, I wanted to yell fuck you to Eiko, right as drew my pistols and looked around for cover because shooting this guy was gonna be a bitch.

Neither of us wasted time in a stare down, I ducked and rolled, firing as many bullets as I could at the guy, but most of my shots just ended up hitting his shield." Fuck you and your Shield!" I yelled out as he began firing his pistol from behind it. His gun oddly enough was an automatic, it blasted out rounds in a three shot burst, he was putting more bullets in the walls instead of my shields. I quickly reloaded my guns as the guy tossed his metal shield on the ground and pulled out a second pistol like his first, why a guy with full armor and helmet would need a shield was beyond me, the both of us began trading shots, with him missing each of them as I kept moving to avoid staying still.

Each of my shots hit the guy's armor plating, with each hit ringing out with a loud "CLANG!" As my ammunition began to run low, I could feel the guy behind the helmet was getting angry with me. He pulled a grenade from behind his back and slung it at my feet, before I had the chance to hop back from it, the thing flashed and I felt a shiver run up my legs. I looked down to see ice creeping up my jeans and soon I felt it run up to my waist and chest, once it got to my neck, I couldn't move, I struggled against the ice coating my body with my limbs shivering.

The armored Hale approached me putting a finger on one of his gauntlets." Suspect Apprended." He spoke. The idea of taking the wrap for Bates began entering my mind, I wasn't going to jail for that serial killer. I don't know what kinda energy was in me, but pushed myself to break out of the ice and shake off the cold feeling it gave me. The Hale jumped back telling his gauntlet." Suspect resisting!" The armored Hale put his fist up and threw a punch at my gut, I returned the favor slugging him with my left hand knowing that it would be enough to actually hurt the guy.

He retched himself forwards in pain from the punch before bringing his dull colored metal fist across my face, I held my breath before punching him in the chest with a left hook, then smacked up his helmet, revealing his black body glove mask before punching him in the nose and knocking back and almost off his feet. The guy pulled his helmet down before standing up straight and breathing heavily right with me, I couldn't see his face, but I could tell from the heavy breathing that he was out of breath. Suddenly the guy charged at me and tried to deliver a head butt, but at the last second I moved my head out of the way, grabbed him in a bear hug and slammed him on the ground, knocking his helmet off.

Taking advantage, I punched him across his masked face several times before I stopped and felt like my lungs were on fire. I felt sore all over before taking a knee next to the guy and instead of punching him again, I put a hand on his shoulder and looked down at his masked face, I looked the guy in the eye before saying." You should use semi automatic pistols, not fully automatic, due to their small size and small magazine you'll end up spitting all your ammo into the walls and environment instead of your target. Sure full auto works when you're surrounded, but against one guy, it's stupid, stick to semi autos. Besides that, you're pretty good, you could've actually arrested me."

"Pretty good?!" He groaned. Out of nowhere the guy had a burst of energy and tried to grab me with one of his arms. Thinking quick, I pushed him down into the ground with my arm and his eyes squeezed shut, then he groaned again before letting out short breaths.

The moment I stood up, I realized a couple things, in that fight I went all out, doing the best I could in order to avoid being caught by that guy. Then I also realized I just gave a guy who's gonna probably try coming for my ass in the future tips on how to better kick my ass. I left the alley way and went back onto the main street thinking about how much I was worried of Mishka killing me, then I thought back to my crew. Then something hit me, where the hell was Noi? I yanked my codex out only to see Eiko had texted me saying."Nice job in that fight back there. Now do you want that training?"

I quickly texted her back."No, I want my cat back damn it!" It may have taken me a bit of time to realize it, but I forgot what I told Ven back at the hospital, this isn't just about me, it's about the whole team. When Eiko texted me back she sent me coordinates and a picture of a location, I pocketed my codex before jogging to the coordinates she sent, I was fucking up hard being away from the crew and not giving them anything to do. As I closed in on the Harbor, I began thinking I was turning into one of those dorks from one Akira's mangas or Anime he watched so god damn much.

At the coordinates, there was a backpack, I picked it up and looked it over noticing it had strings like the parachute. Before I could think too long about why Eiko would give me a fucking parachute she sent me another message telling me it was something along the lines of a Fulton recovery device, just put it on and it will take me into the sky. Thinking twice about being sucked into the sky by a balloon, I put it on and tug on the cord. I only had a second to look back as a group of white orbs erupted from the backpack and quickly inflated in seconds, I felt my feet be lifted off the ground before being pulled into the sky.

After passing through the clouds and watching the ground grow smaller and smaller, I looked around danging from a string thousands of feet in the air as if my surroundings would change, then in the corner of my eye I noticed a dark colored starship cut through the clouds and close in on me. The ship flew right for me, and the moment I expected it to slam into me and just kill me, the ship caught the string between me and the balloons and pulled me along for the ride and I ended up behind the thing, I felt the cold wind and the speed before things began to slow down and I began to thank whatever gods watched over us that the pilot slowed down.

The back of the ship soon opened up and I saw who I could guess was the pilot in an all black jumpsuit and flight helmet, it took me a while, but I managed to swing myself into the back of the ship and took the damn Fulton backpack off. I looked to the pilot as they closed the ship's cargobay, I called out to the guy feeling somewhat out of breath." Hey do you have a cat girl on board? One with a single tail, Purple fur, probably very annoying and trying to grab your crotch."

They took their helmet off before revealing that they were Eiko, the petite pale woman who likes to knock me out." Of course I do, but I had to restrain her, several times."

"How many times Freckles?"

She glared at me taking notice to the freckles going across her nose before telling me." Seven."

"Well she'll be fine, take me to my ship, I want go home and back to my team."

The skinny Asian woman put the hemlet on saying." Fine, gonna be a bit of a flight before we get back to Earth so get comfy."

Split second

Once I got back to the hideout with Noi, Yan had done some prep work to a job, it was kind of a big job, or at least big by my standards. He began going over the heist in front of the white board filled with blueprints, pictures of the place, and several drones that hovered around outside." Okay, listen up, double for you Noi." He pointed to the hectic cat girl." This job will have us split into two teams with Gaz the leader of team two and me the leader of team one."

As he said that I raised my hand as reclined into the couch."How come my my team is team 2? I want to be team one."

" Gaz we can fight about team names later I'm going over the plan."He tried to get back on track." Team one will be Me, Ven, and Noi at a shipment hanger getting the containers ready for you guys."

I raised my hand a second time." Hold, Hold up. I want Ven this time around, she's with me I'll trade her for Ash."

The red myr woman leaned forwards to look at me giving me a sour look."Why? What does Ven bring that I can't?" She held out her arms probably feeling confused.

"Well, thinking about it now Ash you don't really do well when the situation is stealth." I thought of a word to say besides, she's still kinda chubby and the armor is loud, then I thought, fuck it." Plus Ash you're still chubby and that armor is heavy and fucking loud if you haven't noticed." Noi began laughing."All you hear is a just a series of heavy footfalls then security is calling the cops because of a fat myr is running around in heavy armor with a light machine gun like she's gonna shoot up the place."

"Fine then, you bastard!" She crossed her arms

"He's right, you know, plus you might actually be more use than Ven would be, we might get into more of a shootout than the other team will." Yan attempted to calm her down." Now team 2, you guys will be sneaking into the car shop and looking for the keys for the show cars."

For the first time, I was actually surprised that Bates actually said something." Wait aren't show room cars just fakes? Or are they gutted?"

Just as surprised as I am, Yan took a second before he answered." No, showroom hover cars are actual cars on the they take from a lot. Now before you Ask Gaz, I paid an inside guy to fuel them up and get them ready, we're only stealing a couple of them."

"Yeah, no shit when there's only six of us." I brought up.

"Unless you can find someone to take another spot to help us, then I doubt it will help us." The big guy told me.

Thinking about it, I did know one person that could help us, but I couldn't tell if they were ready or if they were well enough to help us."Actually I might know somebody that may help us and not those fucking assassins."

Yan put a hand on his chin, thinking about it."Are they trustworthy?"

I thought about it a second time and decided this is probably not the job to bring them in on." Yeah, but we shouldn't bring them for this, might be too much for them in their current state."

"Fine then." Going over the plan one last time and telling us to finally shut the fuck up, Yan went over the new improved plan." Alright, here's the plan, Team one will be at the Hanger and securing the area and making sure nobody ruins the plan or stop us from shipping the cars into the containers. Team two will be at the car shop getting the keys and stealing the show room cars, remember this must be done without the cops showing up, no matter how much we could try, I doubt any of us could tell Aliens that bullet holes, warped metal, and melted paint are a feature of these cars. Anything else I need to go over?"

All of us told the large man, "No" at the same time before we geared up and piled into the van. The drive to the car shop Yan told us about was a short ride it felt a bit different though, once we hopped out of the van, I grabbed a gym bag before he took off to take care of his part of the heist. Once he was off, Ven stared at me before looking at the store for a brief moment." Uh, Gaz I should've said this earlier, but I don't think I'm exactly. Uh stealthy."

"What?! But how did you get my mask back?" I asked." Wait are you just getting some performance anxiety? You can tell me."

The dog woman shook her head with an honestly worried look painted across her face." That was just something I got lucky doing and got even luckier nobody noticed me or noticed I did anything." She tried to play down what she did before.

I pointed to the car shop across the street." Don't worry Ven, me and Bates will sit back and watch you from across the street." I told her.

" I can't do all the work you jerk!" She barked at me before I plucked her nose."Stop that!" She rubbed her button nose.

"No shit you can't do everything, fuzz butt, that's why you'll be setting up the short cut for us." I pointed to a small section of the street nearby with construction cones and small hologram barriers, it was lucky that the street was vacant and the place looked like it was about to close up." Me and Bates will move in through the back entrances of the shop while you get rid of those barriers and set up the explosives, when you're done we should have the cars and I'll speed over to pick you up." I told her.

The Ausar took a deep breath before nodding and taking the gym bag from and slinging it over her shoulder, the dog woman pulled her mask over her face and jogged over to the small construction spot to work on the part of the plan I told her. I looked into my old mask considering to put it on before I put the cracked gas mask over my face

Fast and Furious

While Ven started setting up the short cut for us and Bates disappeared decided to go around the back through the shop's employee parking lot. The cars around the back weren't as flashy or good looking as the cars inside, and I'd rather not fuck with them at the risk of breaking the stealth at the moment. I crouched down between two of the hover cars as Bates spoke into my earpiece."I found the key box." he told me before Ven spoke into the piece next." Okay the charges are set up for the short cut, what am I to do now?" She asked. I put two fingers in my ear telling the ausar."Just wait for the signal and run inside, make sure you aren't next to or standing on the charges so you don't blow yourself up." I told her.

I don't know if she felt angered by what I said or insulted, but."Do you think I'm Noi or something? I'm not that stupid." I then shushed the dog woman as I closed in on a back door and started fiddling with the lock." Don't start yelling and barking you'll break the stealth for me and Bates, and someone might come around on the block and see you, we don't need the cops arresting a crazy ausar foaming at the mouth and yelling at the sky." I told her as I unlocked the door and pulled myself into what looked like a trash room. I didn't need to see Ven's face to know she wanted to yell at me over the link, but she knew I was right and shut herself down, if I could only see her face it would've made me chuckle.

The trash room led out into a stairwell, and there was a door leading to the rest of the first floor, I began picking the lock knowing that the door leads to the showroom floor, as I heard the lock click I felt someone behind me and soon they touched my shoulder and acting quick I spun around throwing my back to the door with one of my hammer pistols drawn, but it was only Bates he wasn't bothered by me pointing a gun at him and just moved it away from his face." So that's how you got in here." He spoke casually. I put my gun away before asking him how he got in." I climbed up a pipe on the other side of the building and went across the roof."

He cracked the door open slightly to get a look at how many people were outside the showroom, he closed it quietly telling me there are mostly civilians out there, but too many for the three of us, I started to wonder if Akira was here we could tie everyone up." The box for the keys aren't that far, if we act fast and get into the manager's office we could get the keys, but we'd have to get Ven over here."

I groaned before pulling my guns out."Fuck it, fast and furious it is then." I kicked the door to the showroom down and rushed into the room, I fired off two shots into the ceiling getting everyone's attention." Alright, everyone be cool this is a-" from the second floor a guard shot me in the chest and threw me off my feet, the wind was knocked out of me and quickly Bates threw what looked like a knife at the guy's head and helped me to my feet; it was moments like this I was glad to have bought a bulletproof vest. Once I got back to my feet, Bates sprinted off to the manger's office as if his ass was on fire, and soon Ven arrived with her lame ass laser pistol, and what felt like a split second, Bates came back and threw a set of keys at the both of us.

I caught my pair, as Ven's pair smacked her in the face and hit the ground." Blow it!" I yelled to the Ausar as she fumbled with her keys, she pressed a button on her codex and the ground shook as the three of us jumped into the sports cars, we charged the hover cars through the glass and down the hole Ven made; it took us down into a series of snake like tunnels with more construction equipment sitting idle, I took up in front of the two leading them to the shipping yard. Wanting to tell Yan on how well we did, I called him up on the info link." Yan we're heading to you guys now have the containers open and ready." Instead of hearing his gruff voice on the other end I just heard static, I shrugged knowing that whatever the problem was Yan could handle. Once we came to the end of the tunnel and to the shipping yard. The first thing I spotted when exited the tunnel was a figure in some sleek gray tactical body armor, a pair of dark goggles; in one of his hands he held a black modified ZK rifle with a silencer attached to the barrel, tight in his other hand was a long dark baton; at his feet were the bodies of Ash, Noi, and Yan, all three of them taken down by this spooky looking motherfucker.

Slamming my foot on the gas, I remembered that I would need to thank Yan Later for having us steal hover cars instead of ground ones, I aimed the car for the night ops looking motherfucker and he jumped over my car as if he was clearing a hurdle or just leaping over a small gap. I hit the brakes just as he landed on Ven's car filled the hood with bullets and making her car lose control and crash into a wall of containers; I stepped out of my car as the spec-ops dude hopped from the car, and Bates pulled up and hopped out of his car knife at the ready, in the middle of us stood the guy still holding the ZK rifle in his one hand, he glanced at me, then set his sights on Bates.

If this guy was another Ranger, I would have to reconsider Bate's position on the crew, but if he was a Ranger I'd have to wonder why he has a gun; But before I could keep thinking about who he could be running with, I noticed that he threw a grenade my way. I pulled both my guns and fired at the guy before a bright flash of white light blinded me, my eyes burned like a roaring fire like somebody put a lit cigarette out in them. Tears began streaming down my face as I felt a heavy object hit me in the shoulder and make me drop like a sack of loot, when my vision came to I spotted the guy with his baton raised high about to hit me again, but right as my eyes cleared up Ven pounced on the guy's back and nearly sent him tumbling to the ground.

I took the moment to get to my feet and wanted to shoot the guy, but with Ven getting a piggy back ride, I didn't want to hit the fluffy girl, she had work tomorrow. I put the guns away rushing the guy, only to run into a kick to the face and get Ven thrown on me, the both of us tumbled to the ground with the goggled agent towering over us; then he surprised me by turning away from the both of us to be greeted by Bate's knife to his stomach.

The knife only slid across the fabric of his clothes, before Bates could even act, the guy delivered a punch to Bate's nose and shot him in the shoulder; instead of hearing the crackling of shields, the bullet from the modified ZK rifle ripped through Bate's shoulder leaving a nasty wound, he was using shredder rounds. I tossed Ven's furry ass off my back and ran in for a sucker punch, but the second I got close to both of them, he swung his baton my way, keeping the blunt weapon out towards me, but." You should work smarter, not harder." A heavily robotic like voice emerged from the guy as he slightly turned his head my way.

I tried to quickly draw my pistols ready to shoot the guy in the back, only for him to kick me, back onto Ven and put a foot onto my chest." Listen here, I've got this drum solo I've been working on!" He raised his baton high and before he could club me with his baton, or I could shoot him; Noi surprised me with her saw, she cut the baton in half with a clean slice then sliced the guy's stomach with the energy infused saw. The spec ops guy leaped away from the cat girl and aimed his rifle at Noi only to hesitate for an awkward amount of time and put his sliced baton away."Wow, that was a nice workout! I think I'll have a protein drink and hit the showers!"

Before I could shoot the guy, he pulled some weird glassy cloak across his body, the moment he disappeared, I fired several shots where he was only for each bullet to hit a wall missing him." The fuck just happened!" I yelled out.

Yan pulled himself off the ground covered in bruises."No time!" He spat a bloody loogie before telling us."Get the two cars into the marked containers, The cops could be on their way to our position right now."

Know Your Enemy

The moment the Announcement was over, I called Yan, he use to be a member of their military and probably could give me info on how the Halions could affect future jobs, the both of us had to wait a while before he showed up and sat down across from us. The big guy leaned forwards and started talking.
"I heard the announcement earlier at the gym the general in charge of this sector will end up forcibly removing the P.Ks, then replace them with their own. The soldiers that will end up on the streets will be a mix of Halions, Ausar, Rask, and Askoii."

"Askwhoo?" Ash tried to repeat the word.

"Askoii." He corrected." They were the first race my people came in contact with, they assumed my people were humans at first, but after learning their language and protecting their people from pirates, both our race and theirs saw eye to eye."

"So they are the big horned people with the gray skin." I wanted to cut the big guy off before he would go on about his people's "Rich history of bloodshed."

" Yeah, they are." He confirmed." They have two fingers and a thumb on their hand, the women of their race are pretty fast runners, while the men are just like Halions, big tough and sometimes just dumb. They have these black nails on their fingers that look almost like claws, they sometimes use their horns to gore people, and yes they do lift people up off the ground with their horns after goring them through the gut or chest."
I held up my hands after he spoke about their physiology." I don't need to know about the people, just what we might have to go up against when we get some work."

The Halion scanned the restaurant with his black and blue eyes he ran a hand through his blonde hair and leaned back into the booth before looking back at us." I know how you don't like me repeating myself, we wait for everyone else, and then I'll tell everyone." I agreed with the big alien guy.

I Jumped in front of the growing line of people getting a bunch of people yelling at me and some even swearing at me before I got to Ven I told the ausar to take the graveyard shift so we all could talk about something. The dog woman fought her urge to leap across the counter to tear me apart like some rabid dog and took a moment to recollect herself then put on a welcoming smile." Welcome Mcburger world sir, how may I take your order?"

Taking that as a yes, I went back over to Yan and Ash, the big guy began telling us about the tall gray Ox people. The guy went on and on about their mannerism, culture, and physiology. While he spoke, I began to wonder how many aliens did I know in our galaxy and if they were modded or not."But most of all, they hate gene modification, the Askoii believe it's best to be yourself and not striving to remove what made you, you."

While the two of us almost struggled to hear the rest, nightfall came quick and soon the others were showing up. The moment Bates showed up, Ven made sure to lock her co-workers in the break room, when Ash asked if they would be okay Ven blew her off saying."They'll be fine, most of the time they are in the back fucking because Tiffany had to get Treated."

Yan slammed his hand on the table." Listen up, with this new change of the Hallion forces swooping in we're gonna be fighting a force a stronger than the usual Peacekeepers."

The guy took a moment before he started going over the Hallions." Okay when it comes down to off-world peacekeeping or law enforcement, there will be a couple types we will encounter during our contracts in the future on this planet."

"Okay, number one the grunts or rather frontline forces, they are mostly medium to lightly armored units that will carry rifles, and use omnidirectional mobility packs to keep up with criminals." He put up a second finger and before he could speak Noi tried to repeat the last couple words.

"Omi...Oni...Obi."

"Omnidirectional mobility packs." He corrected her." They are similar to jetpacks, but blast pressurized air and combined with grappling hooks make them almost impossible to escape from."

"Next is the standard shield unit, nothing much about them besides they carry shields. Third are the combat medic unit, they usually don't see the combat part and take wounded from the front lines to a place of safety while armed."

"Sounds like a normal S.W.A.T Peacekeeping unit with extra gear." Ven interrupted.

"I'm not finished. We also have Capture units, members that use non-lethal weapons similar to Rangers they mount arch casters to lasers set to stun or guns firing rubber bullets. Next, there are mech units operated by mostly Ausar."

I looked at the big guy and asked him if there was any more to them.

"We may be fighting these guys with the same tactics as the old police, but these guys will be... Better."

"I don't care how better these guys think they are." Bates lit up a cigarette." If they get in my way or if I find a reason to, I'll put them down like anyone else in my way."

I grabbed my chin and leaned back in the booth, even with the info given to me I wanted, no, I needed a little more, I needed to see how they would respond to robberies, but I didn't want to risk getting into a fight I couldn't handle or we couldn't handle.

Red Rock

After the last night meeting, I ended up passing out on the couch in the hideout face down in a pillow with Ash's snoring as my white noise. The moment I woke up, I went to check the darknet contracts, but the only thing I got was an empty folder I got up from my computer and headed for the shower, but when the contract notification bloorp sounded off, I quickly checked back with the contract. The moment I clicked on it, what seemed like thousands of pictures of mushrooms appeared instead of the usual audio file and text I skipped ahead hundred or so photos and the first picture I saw was a picture of what looked like a Myr soldier, but they had fungus growing out of their head.

While I scrolled through more pictures of more Myrmedions, I only continued to wonder what this fungus was and soon my questions of this fungus were about to be answered. A second bloorp popped up with another contract, probably someone who doesn't know how to use the darknet, the folder had a video attachment, I clicked the play button on it and leaned back as I watched footage from a body camera of someone holding a black light rifle. The man was rushing down a hallway filled with spores and taking a moment to look behind him he reached a door vacant of the fungus growing off the walls and hit a button with a closed fist before a screeching sound erupted behind him, the guy began firing at the darkness behind him before backing into the room he was heading for.

The video jumped ahead with the man inside of an elevator, one similar to the great one that takes people to Gildenmere; once the doors opened up to the surface, instead of seeing the usual DMZ, the doors opened to a small base with several small structures no higher than one story. The man with the body cam sighed before taking a step and made a crunch sound down at boot and robotic foot there was a half crushed mushroom, then a massive monster with heavy footfalls rounded a corner to face the guy.

The video then stopped before anything else could happen, I searched the rest of the file and found a set of coordinates when Ash stumbled into my doorway."Gaz if you're taking me to the gym again today then you're taking me to breakfast first." She tried to bargain with me then spotted my computer and the video." What's that a video game?"

"No some weird video I got in the darknet contracts, they gave coordinates to somewhere on Myrellion, I'm not sure what is in store for us, but it doesn't look like a cakewalk."

Before I knew it, there was a third message from this guy and done the right way. The guy wrote up something talking about an outbreak or something in the file briefly, then went on about how the J.A.F pulled out of the area leaving him and some Dr. Quinn behind to die, finally, he wrote that he needs people to help him get back into the under base before the U.G.C thinks about glassing the surface.

"So Gaz we're taking this one right?" Ash hit me with the question.

A lot of me wanted to tell Ash "Hell no, we're not doing that." But telling Ash that her planet was gonna be fucked over by killer mushrooms was a dickish thing for me to tell her."Well, if this guy knows of a way to stop this, then I guess we can play hero for once."

I called in the crew to the hideout and explained to them what was happening and what we're going to do.

"So let me get this straight, all of us are going to bug planet."

"That bug planet has a name Vennashire." Ash interrupted.

"Right, Myrellion, we are heading there to fight infected myr and preventing the U.G.C or J.A.F from nuking everything?" Ven repeated most of what I said.

I tightened my bulletproof vest and nodded."Yeah, I thought I cleared that up when I said it the first time."

"Okay, if you don't mind, I'll be staying on the ship for this contract then and work the info link, like always."

"Cowardly dog!" I yelled at her while she started speed walking for the ship.

Bates standing next to the door shook his head at the contract." I'm not joining you on this one." He told us and before I could ask he explained it." I have around forty-seven hours, to kill my target if I miss my window, then he will be next to impossible to find again."

"Just don't get yourself killed out there bud," Yan called out to him

Once Bates was gone we were missing a person and needed a slot to fill, sadly I couldn't call upon Akira, but then someone else came to my mind. We swung by the hospital and rushed to her room, nearly breaking down the door to their room, I burst into Rika's room while she was fiddling with something on her bed, she was still mummified and wearing a patients gown.

It didn't take much convincing to get Rika to join the team, once we hit the warp gate, and after I almost slammed us all into the ass end of a cargo freighter, I put the coordinates from the contract in, then sat back as we began to cruise to where ever it was taking us.

Outbreak

The situation on the Myrellion outpost was worst than I expected from the air, we were lucky the myr biplanes didn't show up as we closed in on the fungus covered outpost. The Outpost was just as small as I expected, several lanky buildings covered in a strange thick fungus growing off the outpost's walls, several pacts of what looked like red and golden myr shuffle stepped together bumping into each other and the buildings.

" What is this?" I felt Ash' hand land on the back of my chair before she pulled herself closer to the windows of the ship." This doesn't look like any fungus I've seen before."

When we entered the airspace of the outpost a massive monster, probably the same one from the contract video, rounded a corner looking pissed off before making eye contact with us. Getting a better look at the beast, it's body was composed of mostly myr corpses with the fungus acting as a form of glue, its fingers were composed of a number of chitinous arms, its head a mangled set of mutilated bodies broken in half at the hip and its teeth made of the rib cages snapped to be sharp enough to eat its prey and ensure that their deaths are painful, from what I could see of its torso it was mostly fungus and gold myr glowing teat flesh, unlike the rest of its body its legs were thick stubs made of the fungus.

As we gawked at the abomination constructed out of Ash's people, the monster raised a piece of rubble over its head and flung it in our direction. I did my best to dodge it, but the debris clipped one of our engines and setting off alarms." Damn it! " Yan and I yelled.

The Ship began spinning out with the control unresponsive Yan nearly smashed the intercom button with his massive fist before telling everyone on board." Brace for Impact! "

I pulled back on the controls trying to level us out and regain control before we landed on the roof of a building and smashed what looked like the cap of a mushroom its gunk splatted on the front windows blocking all view as we drifted across the rooftop just stopping before the ledge from what I could guess. I laid back in my chair sighing and looking over to Yan." So you mind hitting those wipers for me?"

The bulky alien thumbed a button for the wipers before my suspicions of us being on the ledge were confirmed, we had a good view of everything in the outpost from our new parking spot. The monster was even in sight, but its attention was off us and onto something else a survivor armed with only a knife was taking the thing on by himself taking swings at it before hopping away.

"Survivor spotted!" Yan called out.

" Yeah, I see'em too big guy. Turn on the targeting computer."

The muscular alien turned to a different computer, just arms reach away from him and took up the controls for the main cannon." Alright, I have the target in sight when ready."

"Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed, I have no clue what the broken button does, but I'm still pressing it. "

" Roger. " He fired the front cannon blasting a superheated hole into the monster's chest." First shot confirmed hit." He followed up with a second shot to its head vaporizing everything on its fungal encrusted shoulders. " Second shot is a confirmed hit, target neutralized."

The two of us high fived before I spun around to see Ash laying upsidedown with her ankles on both sides of her head." Hey, Chubs you still alive?" I asked the red Myr." You know you don't look that bad in that position."

"Fuck. You. Gaz" She told me slowly.

"Not right now, after this contract."

She groaned before flipping herself right side up I slapped the intercom button."Anyone not dead after that crash get over to the common area so we can come up with a plan."

"Gaz" Yan pulled my attention away from the intercom." That survivor is gonna need a hand getting up here."

I took a moment sucking my teeth before taking my hand off the button." Well, Yan go grab a weapon, some rope and get down there we'll wait for your ass to bring them back."

Ash and I left him groaning as we went to the common area. Everything was trashed and tossed around, I picked up the table and set it back up between the two circular couches before putting my feet up on the table with Ash sitting next to me reclining. Everyone else slowly joined us taking up a place next to the table as Yan returned with a tactical spade in hand behind him was the survivor of this mess.

They were a combat medic with drab-colored gear and a mask to cover their face, across each piece of their armor they had a logo of a medical plus with paired wings surrounding the logo. They looked directly at me with tired eyes asking." You the rescue team?"

I took my feet down and pressed my knuckles into the table saying." No genius, I'm the guy here to kick your ass for not knowing how to use darknet!"

" Oh funny, now that we're past the funny crap maybe we can focus on the task at hand."

Yan threw his spade on the table and sighed." He's not joking Gaz those Myrmedions out there are feral, that beast wasn't the only thing that was plaguing this outpost."

The combat medic took his helmet off saying." No shit Sherlock." He put his helmet on the table before putting his white-gloved hands on the table." Now listen up, I don't know any of you, but this here is serious business. Under the outpost here I and doctor Zackary uncovered a fungus from an abandoned section of caves that we should've left alone." He looked around at everyone.

" We thought at first it could be something we could control, something we could make into a genemod and sell off to Xenogen or even to Steele Tech if they wanted such a thing. But Zackary got some itch as she always does and then came the testing, and the groups of reds volunteering to inhale these spores to get some result She wanted."

" So she's a Quack," Ven spoke up.

" No no, she's a genius in her field, not well known, but a genius when it comes to genetics. If anything she's probably the only one who can stop all of this, we must handle this before the J.A.F catches wind of the spores and chooses to quarantine the planet."

" Wait, but wouldn't that be a good thing?" Ven asked." They could take care of the situation better and have soldiers come in on the ground."

The combat medic waved his hand." No, if they were to see what it does to myr they would purposely spread it to the main cities and claim the planet inhospitable, they already hate the war going on with the two main races and this would be just the excuse to evact, nuke, and move on." He looked Ven in the eye." Trust me I've been forced by other Governments to do much worse."

I retook my position with my feet up and hands behind my head." Shit, never thought we'd get a contract like this, doc you better have a stack of credits hidden under that outpost somewhere, because I don't put my team at risk for nothing."

He slammed his fist into my table hard enough to make the shovel fall over." Credits!"

I nodded."Yes money, cold hard cash."

He looked away before looking back to me." Damned mercs wanting nothing but money nowadays, no better than pirates, don't you see that an entire race could be wiped away with this virus?" He pointed to Ash." What about your Myr friend there? What do you think she thinks about you doing this for money."

I looked over to Ash leaning on the food replicator." I've spilled enough blood for my people and fought for what felt like centuries." She told him before taking off her armored helmet and staring at him with her black eyes." But I'd rather not see them wiped out by this fungus. We'll get paid as usual don't try to get out of it by asking me to do this "For my people." Because I've done enough for them."

The first circle

Once Ash gave her answer, I stared at the doctor giving him one the most intensive stares I've given to anyone before, while I was looking cool locking eyes with the combat medic, I was really trying to form up a plan to do all this without getting my brains eaten by those myr women down below, if they even ate human brains; after coming up with something I put my feet down and stood up, I pointed to Ash first."Ash you're gonna play defense on board the ship, I can't have you going down there with us and risk you getting eaten or ripped apart by those Myr. I also can't risk you getting infected and eating Ven's brains like your third lunch."

"Hey!" The blue haired dog woman yelled."I'm sitting right here!"

"Yeah so what?" I asked

"Ass."

I then turned my attention over to Ven now," Vennashire, you're gonna keep the engines warm for us just in case we gotta run off and escape fast." The Ausar let out a sigh of relief before I continued." Also it's because your a big pussy when it comes to insects and anything that has chitin and more than 2 legs." Her face twisted from relived to anger before she could yell at me I pulled on one of her wolf-like ears to shut her up and got a bit more serious." Go over the start up process with Yan a couple times and memorize it correctly so we don't take off only to nose dive into something."

Ven nodded before I pointed to Rika, before I could say anything Rika already had some form of a plan or idea of what I wanted her to do, the mummy girl had sat herself on the floor surrounded by a number of homemade molotovs." Rika I-" She cut me off by putting a bandaged hand up and playing her tape recorder." Crowd control. To first control the star ship, one must first use the proper start up sequence." She pressed the stop button. I thought about it and figured we would need the outside cleared when we got back outside and agreed with the little pyro."Y-Yeah roast a shit ton of them Mummy."

I spun around to Yan pointing at him with both hands."Yan get use to that shovel and grab your boomstick, you're coming with us and killing some of those deadites."The subhuman man sighed and rolled his eyes." Gaz this isn't some ancient b rated movie, we fuck this up, we're all dead and I don't know." He shrugged.

I got serious and looked him in the eye." Yan, you are the only one who've fought these things besides the good doctor here."I motioned my head in their direction, I pulled him in close to me and whispered." Plus, I don't see these guys as extra lives to a House of Zed videogame man, I really want to make sure we all get the hell out of here together. Also this is a bit more honorable than robbing a bank." Yan looked down at me and gave me a nod, he didn't want to go back out there, but he was willing to do it.

Once most of the others had an idea of what they were doing, Noi nearly jumped on me asking me what she could do even giving me a salute as her roller blades struggled to stay still on the floor plates, gave it some thought before snapping my fingers." Easy, you're coming with us and keeping the doc safe, if it comes to it Noi bite'em, we can always get another crazy cat girl from a pirate group." She spun up her saw ready with an excited grin.

The saw almost gave me the idea of replacing my hand with it and taking it from Noi, but seeing how she's gotten attached to the thing it would almost be a sin to do it, plus it would probably cramp my style walking around with a saw for a hand. With my little dream team together, I figured we could do this, or die horribly trying to do this and have the planet risk being nuked, yeah no pressure no pressure at all.

Before we opened up the cargo bay to get into this mess, I asked the combat doctor if the we could get infected, excluding Ash from the group." Well from what I know, it won't infect us, or has enough time to adapt to infect us, yet. I wouldn't suggest eating the mushrooms we find down there could have...Side effects."

"So, don't eat anything." I looked at Noi.

Before I hit the cargo bay doors, Ash tried running to catch up to us and put her hand on my shoulder huffing and puffing."Gaz take this." she handed me her old revolver and tried to tell me something but it was hard to under stand her with all the huffing and puffing she was doing. The red Myr took a knee trying to catch her breath before we opened the cargo bay doors. I looked at the revolver Ash gave me, it looked like a real hand cannon unlike those other revolvers that I've seen on Myrellion, I spun it around my trigger finger catching the handle in my palm and looking down it's iron sights." Damn, you might not get this back Ash." I shoved the gun into the back of my pants before we started heading down.

When our feet hit the metal plating of the ground, it was like a dinner bell, groups started to coming towards our position, Rika acted quick igniting and throwing her molotovs at the groups setting them on fire before they could get close. The smell of roasting Myr filled my nose and nearly made me gag, it was an indescribable smell, actually, it was something close to having a bowl of bugs on fire along with a pot of flesh, I nearly puked from it but held off the urge when a couple of them stumbled through the flames.

I pulled out Ash's revolver and kept it at the hip squeezing the trigger as I eyeballed my shot, when I fired my first shot I twisted my elbow best I could as my shot connected with a Myr and half the zombie soldier's head exploded; I began thinking to myself that this is kinda like house of the Zed right now, one shot to the head and nearly their whole head explodes. But before I could yell about it to Yan, the combat medic grabbed my shoulder and fired on a couple more of the red and gold Myr dropping them and pulling me with him to the main building.

When we got to the doors, I ordered Noi to cut'em open as Rika began using her molotovs and flamethrower to roast the Myr, she broke away from us and started climbing up on several of the Mushrooms catching their attention."Rika has the horde's attention, we gotta be quick so she doesn't run out of fuel."I told the others before the door broke down in on it's self.

Suddenly gunfire came from above down on the horde, it was Ash gunning down most of the other Myr I could see her light machine gun spraying down on them, she then stopped and with her barrel going hot red and reloading. The Rest of us headed inside where more fungus was growing off the walls and some of the corpses strewn about the main hall and front desk. The atrium inside this place was massive with mushroom caps lining most of the ivory walls and floor, bodies of humans, Ausar, and a couple lizard people were thrown over the front desk attached to the walls and I think there was an Ausar arm attached to the ceiling; how these fuckers attached one of the dog people to the ceiling made me wonder if the bothric were.

Soon my thoughts were answered, by the elevator at the other end of the hall there was a Quadomme botheric covered in the shit colored fungus, making a clicking noise with their mouth. All of us dived for the front desk taking cover behind it, I glared at the combat medic." What the hell man? I thought you said."

"I never said anything about the Bothrioc, they were contained along with the Quadomme, they joined of their own free will." He tried to cover for himself.

Yan looked over the desk before sharing his own thoughts."The more I hear about all of this, the more I hate about all of this."

"Same Bud." I agreed.

"Listen we did this in the name of science and furthering the races on this planet, don't judge me because of this outbreak" He tried to defend himself.

" I think it's blind we could walk right by it if we're quiet enough, or lure it away from the elevator." Yan explained.

" Throw'em the doc." I suggested." They'd be more pissed off at him than they would be at us."

" Your crew mate was right, you are an ass."

I chuckled before pulling out a one of my hammer pistol clips, I thumbed out one of bullets and flicked it over the desk, when I heard it land and the sound of the Quadomme's feet across the floor I wave the others to follow me as I crawled along the floor heading towards the elevator. I felt a bit more relived when we made it to the elevator but when I hit the button for it and the machine dinged to alert the Quadomme I groaned as it shrieked at us.

"Shit's really dim sometime."

I rubbed my rag deep into the armor left behind in my quarters, staring into my reflection in the helmet old memories began flooding back into my head, my home and it's people, the war that tore it apart, everything that remained afterwards, and how I got here. Squeezing the rag, I closed my eyes reminiscing trying to find something enjoyable from the past but nothing was there that I wanted to see I huffed and tried thinking on the now but it only reminded me of my contract holder and all the debt she's been collecting.

"Koschei!" I heard her voice echo from down the ship's hall.

She soon caught up with her yelling and poked her head into the room hooking her arm around one of my own.



"Come on chitin butt let's go! I want you to see my daddums." She just couldn't contain herself and wanted to her dad, she almost reminded me of a big kid that wanted to run to the candy shop and ran off to the ramp. Slinging my rifle on my shoulder I followed after her to make sure she wasn't overzealous towards anyone or hurt herself.

The second I went knee deep into the snow, the cold wind of Arx kissed my antennae and almost blew them to the back of my skull, the cold breeze and no coat froze me to the bone and I hugged myself in a vain attempt to keep warm, just a little chilly she said, it's not cold this time of year she said. If she wasn't holding my contract I'd probably have a number of harsh words with her.

Among the white snow Verrax my contractor's green wings stood out as she unfurled them and fell back first into the snow and started wiggling on the ground at the space port. I did my best to pull her off the ground and brush off any snow clinging to her before glaring down at her." You said it would be just a little chilly?"

She cocked her head to the side."What? It always gets this cold on Arx, it's like this then spring comes, this isn't anything it's just chilly is all." She turned towards the main street and pointed to the large complex down the snow covered streets; looking around there weren't many people outside and it was probably for the best with how cold it was out here." Alright Let's get to the prison."

"The prison?" I parroted. I noticed the massive complex again, it's what she was was pointing too now and it made me slightly uneasy with how quick she was willing to go into it and how she wanted me to just follow without questioning really." Yuppers, Daddums is in there and has the best prison cell out all the prisoners there." She said it without breaking her smile.

The journey to the prison wasn't a long one, but once inside it felt like hours before we could meet with Verrax's father, the visitation room felt small in a way. Once the guard arrived with Verrax's father I was shocked, the patriarch of her family was a woman and soon my staring was answered." Is staring at people you don't know a part of your people's greeting miss? Because in some cultures it's considered rude."

Her voice was silvery as she spoke but looking deeper into her face she looked like Verrax, but more pale and with a dark vein on her neck, I shook my head and responded to the woman."S-sorry Ma'am, my name name is Koschei Ashari, but most people just call me Ashari or Ash."

The dragonoid woman had a pale smile that looked weak."Nice to meet once of your kind after the whole thing with your people. But my name is Vertex." She turned her attention back to Verrax and looked her daughter in the eye."It's nice to see at least you again hun, your sister Vertrice doesn't bother visiting and your mother practically lives close by."

Verrax practically hugged the glass window to show her affection to her mother."Well I'm trying to get my fortune dad and when I do I'm gonna buy you out of prison so mom can be happy."If I could see them, I would guess she had a confident look in her eye like she would do it.

Vertex's smile somewhat withered before she sighed." Honey bun I don't think I'm gonna be coming out of here, I think this place may be my coffin." She looked away from Verrax briefly and put a hand in front of her mouth then her reptilian eyes focused on me."Verrax, sweet heart if you don't mind could I speak with Ms.Ashari."

Nodding, the childish dragon woman put her hands on her ears, once she began humming Vertex looked me in the eye and her eyes went glassy."I really don't know how many days I got left Ms.Ashari, take care of my daughter don't let her do anything stupid or get herself killed out there in the cosmos, she never was one to do much thinking and always had a big heart."She bit her bottom lip with sharp teeth and held back tears." I'm dying." She told me.

"I got something, from my old crew after I butchered them over a bunch of damn rocks." She swallowed hard and shook her head."Now I'm in here and the ones I wanted to provide for and make a better future for are out there and." She took a deep breath."And I'm afraid, I'm afraid of it all. I'm sorry you wouldn't understand."

I didn't know what to do, I just silently put a hand out on the glass and gave her a look of confidence to reassure the dragonoid parent." I'll protect Verrax, even if I gotta protect her from herself, I promise. You got nothing to be afraid of."

Vertex smiled weakly feeling a bit better I was hoping after getting that off her chest, when she tried to speak again she went into a coughing fit and hunched over the table on her side of the glass, when she looked up several veins had sprouted up on her visage and she collapsed on the floor. Immediately Verrax slammed her fist on the window crying out for her father, the guard on the other side of the glass went to Vertex's aid calling for medics, once Vertex was gone I kept her words burned in my mind. "I'm afraid"

The visit was cut short because of Vertex's sickness getting the better of her, after we got our weapons I escorted Verrax back to her ship through the snow. The second we got back on the ship I was glad we we were gonna be off world in a couple minutes and we were gonna be back to what crazy venture that Verrax had planned for the both of us.

I huddled around the heater in my room trying to get the feeling in my fingers back before Verrax appeared." Ashari there's kind of a problem." She looked unsure to me of what we could do before telling me the problem." We're grounded and can't take off, and there are these scary looking soldiers outside." She had a worried look on her face.

I sighed and cracked my neck before we went to the loading dock and extended the gang plank allowing them on." You're letting them on!?" She shrieked, I put a finger over her mouth and shushed her like a child."I'll do the talking there's nothing to be screaming over." Vertex's words were still fresh in my mind. "She never was one to do much thinking."

"Should've said isn't too brave too." I mumbled as the cold wind froze me stiff.

Suddenly a trio of civil protection officers walked up the plank and into the ship. The one in the middle being their leader she had long flowing black hair as dark as the tunnels on my home world." Ms.Parallex and Ms.Ashari, it's nice to see you once again but I wish it was on better terms."

I was starting to remember this woman, I saw her at the founding party of Civil protection, instead then she was wearing an evening ball dress, she was dressed up in her officer uniform and brown winter coat, she pulled out her badge reminding me of her name and rank.

"We've had sightings of an escapee in the area and we're checking for stowaways on board ships, I'm not doubting you're ability to protect your mistress Koschei." She fixed her cap then looked me in the eye with a different air about her." But I'd rather we conduct a search of the ship."

The way she told me that they were gonna do a search put me on edge, then I noticed she was starting back at me, I think my own non answer was making her and the other two officers tense. I felt could take them but I would need to be quick, my first move could be my last, suddenly Verrax bumped into my back and I knew what we had to do, I chuckled and put on a false smile." Your planet, your rules right?"

She returned the smile back with her own that seemed more smug than happy. "I'm glad you see it that way Koschei." She removed her cap and ran a gloved hand through her curly hair." For your own safety why don't you wait outside or at one of the local places, I'll send one of my officers to retrieve you once we're finished the search."

"Alright captain Zaora, we don't wish to cause any trouble, we'll take some of our stuff and allow you to do your search." I grabbed some of my equipment and let Verrax grab some of her random stuff, the second we were off the ship I had Verrax spin all the way around.

"Verrax take that power thing from out the ship and hide it before we leave."

"Huh?"

"That power thing you wouldn't stop talking about, the supply thing to power down the whole ship."

"But Ash taking it out will just stop the ship from flying is all." She shrugged.

"That's the point, it's just in case if anything happens and they try to steal the ship."

"But why-"

"Verrax just do it." I stopped her from trying to argue anymore and let her scurry under the ship, I heard a pneumatic hiss and soon Verrax was back at my side." Don't worry, they won't be able to find it."

"Alright, let's get somewhere warm before I end up freezing into a popsicle."

As we walked away from the ship I kept wondering if that was the real reason she wanted us away from the ship, I didn't see any of those hologram wanted posters up, but with all the snow covering the ground and how freezing it felt I ended not really caring much about the prisoner but worried more about not catching my death.

Out of nowhere I felt Verrax's wing come around me and cover me, for some reason she felt really warm." Hey Ash how about we stay over there?" She pointed to a bar." I don't care as long as it's not cold."

We strode through the snow to the bar and the warmth of the place almost felt heavenly, I sighed letting it wash over me before Verrax said something."Huh the place is empty?"

I looked around seeing only one other patron and the bartender." Yeah it gets that way when the snow gets pretty high, I use to get some of those guards who'd sneak off for a quick drink and mercs but they'll be here later."

Sauntering up to the bar and sitting on the stool closes to the bartender I noticed the other guy was well working on a bottle of some green alcohol and at the far end of the bar, once Verrax sat down he scooted over making me expect he was up to something before he held up his bottle." You ladies want some? I got ton of credits."

The second I wanted to tell the guy to leave us be, Verrax accepted his offer." Sure! Ash you should get some too it will make the time fly."

I sighed feeling reluctant but the bartender already had a glass for the both of us, and the guy was shaking while pouring out the last of his strong smelling liquor. Verrax quickly gulped down the drink and I reluctantly swallowed down the green liquor and it felt like I swallowed a cup of fire, my head started to spin and my balance on the stool felt wobbly.

The guy cheered telling us." That stuff will put hair on your chest. Bartender! Give us another bottle!" He yelled smacking a credit chit; one, two, three, more drinks and I was starting to feel like I was in another world with a fire burning hot in my gut. The second he offered me another glass I pushed it away noticing how Verrax was doubled over the bar counter passed out.

The guy buying the drinks leaned into my shoulder and glanced over at Verrax."So you ladies bounty hunters? You look the part but not the dragon lady."

"No, I'm just a bodyguard we were visiting her father or Mother, whatever her race has as a sire or whatever."

He looked at Verrax a second time a little more intensely like he was trying to see through her." Is." He let out a hiccup." Is her father a dragon too?"

"Yeah older looking woman, pale skin, green scaly clawed hands and a tail. Why?" The questions were sobering me up.

He leaned further into me and whispered."I'mma tell you a story, I probably shouldn't but I like guys."

The guy let off a soft belch into his fist." That girl's pappa is a bank robber and thief, their crew stole over a billion in physical money, goods, and even ships; they also killed anyone who got in their way, civilians who were too nosy, planet side cops, soldiers and everyone inbetween."

I felt Verrax's father had to do something evil to be sent to this frozen ball in the middle of nowhere. The guy took another swig of his drink and breathed out a heavy aroma of liquor." Vertex's crew finally hit the big score, a chest full of platinum 188."

He stared at me and my unchanging face,"Whaaat?! You don't know platinum 188? It's like worth more than space gold, its so valuable that you wouldn't know what to do with the money the second you got it."

He leaned on the bar's counter before continuing the story, not caring about whispering anymore." So they hit it big and got a ton of this platinum from their last job and you know what happened? Take a guess."

I cracked a grin and played along." They got caught and went to jail?"

He shook his head quickly." No no, not yet. I heard that Vertex slaughtered her crew, every member of her ship from the most fucked up members to the Mess cook, then she spaced them and got caught and thrown here." He motioned to the prison in the frosted window.

Just when I thought he was finished the story and done he picked up back where he stopped." Now before she got caught she hid the platinum here planet side."

When he said that I tensed up, and I wasn't feeling as drunk." But Civiees caught her before she could end up hiding, they didn't kill Vertex because word of the platinum spread around even to our little backwater planet. Now in jail they watched all her moves and read all of her letters, checking for any little hint to see if they could find it, but Vertex is smarter than we've thought."

He finished off his drink and wiped his mouth." She had a guy tattoo ou-there bodies in her people's dragonic symbols and runes, they way they did it was by using shitty tools and even more shittier perma body paint."

He started to wobble on his stool and fell over on the floor snoring, I got up and decided to give him a hand, but the moment I grabbed his shirt I noticed a strange marking on his collar bone. With the story still running fresh in my mind I undone some of his shirt buttons and just like the story, he had tattoos painted across his chest, acting fast I closed his shirt up before the bartender could see them.

I immediately stood straight up and grabbed Verrax trying to get her out of the drunken sleep she was in. In the same moment I felt something with my antennae and turned back to see the guy gone from the floor and rushing to the bar's back door.

"Shit!" I grabbed Verrax and threw her on my shoulder taking her with me, the guy ploughed though the backdoor and out into the snow. As the cold wind whipped past my head I wondered what was pushing me to charge like this after the guy for story, then the reason for why wiggled around on my shoulder grumbling about how they feel like they will vomit.

Soon the snow began kicking up into the air and almost becoming blinding, and the feeling of the cold started to get to me, I dropped Verrax and hugged myself and fought the urge pull my hair out."Damn it!"

All I could really do was scream at this point, I expected Verrax to be the one to get us into a situation like this, but now I was gonna have us both freeze to death because of Verrax." Ash why are we this far out into the wilderness?"

The dragoniod pulled her face from out of the snow trying to get a lay of the land." I was trying to help you Verrax, that guy was someone who had a map of your father's treasure. A treasure that would pay off all of your mountain of debt."

"Dad's treasure?" She put a finger on her chin." Ashi we should get out of the cold your getting cold stroke."

"Its heat stroke that effects you in that way, hypothermia that's gonna kill me."

"No you won't." She put her face back I to the snow and pulled her head back up." Nope, there's a creek with trees nearby that hikers use as fire wood." She grabbed my hand and led me along.

"Don't worry Ashari, winter on this planet ends soon, but it always gets to its worst before spring arrives."

I was skeptical to Verrax's whole, "Gets worst before it gets better." Then right before my eyes the shadows of trees came into view and an oddly shaped structure. As we closed in on the small structure it looked like a small cone with a blanket covering the entrance of it.

Pushing our way in we were greeted to a pleasant warmth with only a slight draft, I sat on the floor and felt a fuzzy feeling noticing the floor inside was a patch work of fur, and in the center of the room was a small fire pit with sticks scattered around the dark cone shaped room.

Knowing What Verrax could do I put all the scattered sticks into the fire pit and let her spit an ember into the pit. The entire cone began to heat up the whole cone and I felt my cold numbness melt away." Look Verrax your father didn't do good things, but they are a good person, one of the bad things they did was keep a stolen treasure and that guy that ran from the bar knew about it."

Verrax had her wings covering her body and was silent before cocking her head towards me." So I guess you want to just abandon me and go chase after my dad's treasure?"

"No." I shook my head." I'm going to protect you while we collect what's yours."

"But Ash I don't really want it." She looked away from me." I kinda want my own fortune, not my dad's money."

I groaned." Verrax, it is yours not your father's money, you're just collecting what's rightfully yours from people that would use it for worst."

I grabbed one of her wings and looked her in the eye." This platinum that your father has hidden away it would be enough for you to actually get rid of all that debt you have, to fill up your ship's tank more than just a single flight from planet to planet. You can't sit here and tell me you like saying up all night looking at the numbers and knowing that sooner or later your debt is gonna catch up to us."

She pondered the idea for a moment."O-okay Ashari, let's get that platinum for dad, mom, and even Vertrice."

I nodded and smiled."Good, your mother wouldn't want something she worked hard for to be handed over to those disgusting prisoners."I took a moment to peek outside, all I could see for miles was the whiteout we came in from, the guy wouldn't get far in this when I thought on it again."Once this blizzard passes, we're gonna go after this guy again."

The warmth of the fire started to make me feel lethargic and sluggish and I found myself falling asleep from the comfort of the fire pit. I suddenly snapped awake at the sound of growling and the entire cone shaking, I threw my head back and stood up getting my pistol ready, Verrax some how managed to still stay asleep while the entire cone rocked back and forth, then it abruptly stopped and the growling did as well.

I stepped out with my pistol in front of me and my thumb back on the hammer scanning the snowy landscape, large impressions of paws dotted the snow around our cone hut, judging from how deep they were and the look they had they looked almost similar to terran bear paws but they looked almost three times bigger or heavier. While I was examining the paws I heard Verrax emerge from the cone hut and jump on me from behind pressing her boobs into my back.

"Ash! I thought you abandoned me for a second I bad this weird dream where I was eating a sheep and you were talking about the treasure and I then the sheep turned into a bomb."

I spun around patting the dragon girl on the head, but tried to focus on which direction that guy ran off to."Alright Verrax we gotta get an idea where the guy went off to, then find the others that he mentioned."

She looked like she didn't want to be bothered with that."Come on can we just go back to the ship? This seems like too much work!" She groaned.

Feeling a little bit annoyed by that I pushed here hair up and looked her in the eyes." Come on you aren't just gonna give up on the thing your mother worked so hard for are you?" I asked." You're lucky to have had something that your mother kept for you and to still have her around to give advice." I was beginning to lecture her.

With the sun out it wasn't as cold as it usually was, the warm sunlight coming down on me felt like it was filling me with energy and with all the snow on the ground and not in the air made it better to see, the trees bare and lacking leaves with the nearby almost frozen river. Without all the cold stuff littering the place the planet would be better; suddenly there was an explosion in the distance collecting my attention something gave me the thought that this must've been him, he had to be trying to signal someone for help, it was lucky we are nearby.

The two of us closed in on the area where we heard the explosion, midway there we climbed up a hill and surveyed the little area from above. Unfortunately it wasn't the person we was looking for, but the scene we stumbled upon was a large man clad in power armor fighting several members of what looked like civil protection with only a long sword. Dozens of members were cut to pieces or had their bodies littering the clearing, long red streaks painted the snow, and armor pieces stuck out of the ground like shrapnel.

I quickly checked my pistol ammo and got my knife ready, something in my gut told me that this guy might know something about the prisoner who escaped from us." Ash you aren't thinking about going down there are you?" Verrax asked me.

"I am Verra, he might know something about those prisoners or about the one that got away, hell he could be one."

She looked worried but held back on telling not to go."J-just don't get yourself killed."

Acknowledging the advice she gave me I slid down the hill and almost into the thick of it, with the only thing stopping me being one of bodies from the Civil scouts. Once I was on my feet I noticed the guy was taller than I thought. He stood taller than me for sure maybe a couple more inches taller, his armor I thought to be power armor, was simply metal armor with a lot of dark paint scraped off, his sword looked almost like a great sword.

His back was turned to me as he slain the last civil protection officer, I dashed through the snow as fast as I could and pressed the barrel of my pistol to the back of his head."This ends here!"

In flash, he spun around slicing the barrel of my gun with his sword then with his other hand grabbing my neck and raise me off the ground, I felt the point of his sword against my stomach for a brief second then he sheathed his sword." Oh you're not one of these guys, that's a bit more reassuring."

The hand he was holding me with felt unnaturally cold, like a piece of metal, his right hand and most of his arm was robotic. He dropped me to the ground and pointed his long sword at me." Alright who are you with? Those scum bags with Civil protection or some kind of bounty hunter or merc?"

"Neither, I'm a bodyguard and I'm looking for someone." I told him.

"Looking for who?" He questioned me.

Suddenly the sound of several howels filled the air, and it took our attention away from each other. Just at the edge of the clearing there were almost a dozen sets of eyes on us from what I could guess to be Arx wolves."Damn it the battle drew them!" He yelled out.

He moved fast, rolling and jumping over a number of bodies and tossed me one of the weapons, the multi barreled shotgun met my hands and I quickly pulled myself up on my feet. A pack of large cyclops wolves broke through the brush, charing at me and him, I pulled back on the fore end handle firing at one of the ark wolves. A cold burst of blew on me from the guys position and when I glanced over I spotted him cutting an entire wolf in half with his sword and in the same swing he crushed another wolf into the snow.

Focusing on him I didn't notice one of the wolves pounce on me, the smell of terran blood on the monoeyed creature's teeth. I held back the monster from trying to tear into my neck, right as I could feel it's breath on my neck the guy ran his sword through the wolf's red eye lifted the whole animal on his sword and threw it over his shoulder.

As I got to my feet a number of howls filled the air as the arx wolves retreated into the tree line. I caught my breath and wiped the wolf blood off my chest."Why'd you help me?"

"Because, you aren't civil protection." He stepped over the bodied of the fallen officers and stopped over one wearing a thick coat, he practically squeezed the corpse out the coat and held it in my direction, the hand holding it a retro looking robotic arm."Here take it, you gotta be cold I'm freezing my ass off in this armor."

I reluctantly snatched the coat from him and zipped it up."Now this might not look like it, but it's not as it seems. These "Officers" were beating a kid for answers."

It felt hard to believe that the people protecting the civilians were interrogating a child."That's impossible, Civil protection wouldn't hurt anyone that doesn't have it coming!" A familiar voice roared behind me.

Verrax walked past me puffed her chest out to the towering man, she was being stupid brave and naive."I'm guessing your looking for her?" He asked me.

"Hey! Don't ignore me tiny." Verrax demanded his attention." Civil protection would never harm a child you are lying to try and get away with mass murder, what's your real reason for slaughtering them?"

The guy looked down to the snow as if he was searching for something then pointed to a direction in the trees where small foot prints led into."I told you once already, they were hurting a kid, they were wearing animal furs." He explained.

Verrax crossed her arms."So it's one of those people?"

"One of who?" I asked.

"Junkers, they are dirty scrap people who spend their days drinking animal pee and think anything that's on the planet belongs to them. They are all just savages."

Out of the blue the guy grabbed Verrax holding her off the ground." Listen here miss dragon, it doesn't matter if they are savages and drink animal piss, a kids a kid and I'll do the best I can to protect them."

I quickly decided to interject before Verrax got herself cut in half or something, I put the barrel of my new shotgun under the tall man's chin."Listen here, put her down or I'll add you to this massacre."

He turned his gaze upon me and the moment he opened his mouth we heard a high pitched scream like one that would come from a child. Acting fact he dropped Verrax and nearly knocked me over as started running in the direction of the sound. "Hold up damn it!" I yelled.

My mind was racing with the thought he could be one of the tattooed people and just killed the officers to get them off his trail but some part of his story felt true. I took off after him hoping Verrax was behind me, I dodged trees and leaped over exposed roots before finally coming to the edge of the forrest with my lungs feeling like they were in a burning vice grip.

The three of stood at the edge of a small cliff with the heavily armored man staring over the edge, I charged up next to him and grabbed him by the shoulder pad, I was ready to interrogate the bastard before I heard another yelp and looked down off the cliff. It was a child, and they hanging on to a log while moving down an ice river, like he said there was a child and suddenly I was feeling more like an asshole for not beliving him.

He pushed me off him and looked like he was gonna jump in to save the kid, but as he made it to the ledge Verrax yanked him back and down into the snow to stop him."Do you have some kind of deathwish? You're wearing metal armor and gonna jump into a river you don't know how deep."

"I don't see you stepping up to save them Ms.Dragon." he growled at her.

"Why should I risk passing out and drowning for a terrorist child?"

Before the two could bicker any further I dropped my guns and leaped off the cliff, right before I hit the water Verrax's words rang in my head, the words she told that fool earlier."You don't know how deep."

Lucickly it was deep enough, I went in the water deep before coming back up for air and catching up to the child, the cold ice floating in the river nearly made me freeze up and just try to warm myself in anyway, but I knew I had to catch up to the kid. As my hands met the log I grabbed the kid in one of my arms and pulled us to the edge of the river and pulled us out.

The moment we were out I was cursing this planet and Every thing about it, the damned winter and the freezing river and just coming here with Verrax and now I was probably gonna freeze. The kid managed to be okay shivering but he didn't drown, he started to franticly look around and I could tell what he was doing when he grabbed sticks."Starwalker, grab wood or we'll freeze."

I could barely take my arms from my sides, the cold was messing me up so bad, the kid already had several twigs thrown in a small pile."Starwalker, w-we need fire to t-thaw." He was starting to shiver just like I was and their face began to contort to looking really apathetic like he didn't care about the situation.

I forced myself to drop low and get some in one hand and put them on the pile with his, and when he added more to make a suitable fire I groaned, it wasn't out of pain or anger, it was out of how futile our efforts were."D-Damn it w-we could rip the w-whole forest d-down but it wouldn't start a f-fire!"

It was too much to hope for this kid to have a lighter or a book of matches or even a laser pistol, we were done for. Losing all hope, I put my face in my hands before slipping on some thing and feeling the cold snow on my back freeze me just a bit more and the kid gasped."Starwalker, you dropped this thing!"

He almost jumped on me and showed me a silver lighter, I nearly teared up, I took it from the kid and flipped it open, with just a couple tries we had sparks igniting the wood and the fire slowly grew. I slowly took my jumpsuit off and sat back to back with the kid."So kid what's your name and why were Civil protection interrogating you?" I asked.

He looked over to me for a brief second then turned his head back towards the tree in front of him."My name is Wiaat."

"Oh it sounds alot like Wyatt, I'm Koschei."

He grumbled some thing before asking me."Are you gonna ask about those tattooed people like those other people did?"

"Yes, but I won't hurt you, if you don't know anything then that's fine Wyatt."

He went silent and the only thing I could hear was the fire crackling and the water of the river pass by us."I saw one of the tattooed people, he was in the mouth of a Grokisu, it was carrying him off somewhere." He turned to look at me and asked." Why are you looking for him? Did he do something wrong?"

I covered myself with my hand."He is a bad person who went to prison, and he's got something that me and my friend need." I thought on it a second time and told him what I knew."He's got a tattoo on him that will lead to a hoard of platinum, something highly valuable."

"Platnum? You mean the mineral right?" He questioned, when I confirmed it he was surprised."I was told by my grandparents that our people planned on buying the lands and rights to the Starwalker ports, many villages even came together working for the starwalkers and mining the platinum out of our mines and sifting through it in the rivers. They collected more than enough of the platinum and space money to fulfill their mission but then demons arrived to our village slaughtering many of the people and taking the minerals, we later found out they were all starwalkers and my people haven't been the same since."

I thought back to the guy at the bar's story and started piecing things together, Vertex and her gang stole from the natives and mustive hidden the gold on the planet, before getting captured she must have killed her crew and then put the map on the prisoners, but why didn't she just find a different way to get a message to her child.

While I struggled to make sense of all this, Wiatt asked me something to break my concentration."Are you like the guy who helped me? A warrior who sells their body to others?"

I tensed up, not just from the words he used but also from the fact I left Verrax behind with that guy." N-no I'm not like that, I'm a bodyguard."

He stared at me from over his shoulder, looking at me as if I spoke an unknown language." Isn't that the same thing?" He asked.

I began stuttering trying to explain it to him before my antenna picked up on a sound, the soft step of snow crunching under someone heavy foot, and second foot crushing the snow lightly. I shushed Wiatt and turned my head into the direction I believed the sound was coming from; I grabbed the quad barrel from before and aimed it at the brush before a dark metallic hand broke through the bushes.

It was that guy again, his helmet was covered in scratches that Imma guess was given to him by the person behind him. Verrax stood behind the stranger with her licks poked out and trying yo look angry at me. The guy turned his head away from me as they both approached us."What's wrong haven't seen my kind unclothed?" I asked.

He coughed into his robotic hand."N-no I just thought that you'd be embarrassed or something."

Before I could say anything Verrax pushed him out of her way and pouted at me."Ash how could you leave me with this guy?" She asked me."He could've killed me, he could've eaten me, I don't even know what he is."

"I said I wouldn't hurt you!" He tried defending himself.

I groaned."I think I'll jump back into the water and let it freeze me to death." I thought out loud.

"Ash, I'm sorry but I can't have you as a bodyguard anymore, you're fired. B-but you can still be on my crew."

"What!?" I got to my feet staring Verrax down."That makes no sense Verrax, you'll fire me but keep me on your crew."

"Y-yeah because you couldn't do your job while we are looking for this platinum."

"Platinum?" The guy parroted.

I held my face with my chitin hands and groaned again, after explaining it to the big guy around the fire, we all came to some form of an agreement.

"Alright, new plan we find the platinum and return it to Junkers, it belongs to them and if we can take a little bit it would be enough for Verrax's debt." I explained it to them.

"Its fine with me, I don't really want the platinum myself, but my people could use it." Wiatt told us.

"I don't care about any shiney rocks or credits. I'm here to put someone in the ground and since they are one or your escaped convicts I'm willing to help you out."

"Good." I nodded to him, "What's your name?"

"Lynx."

"Alright, Lynx Wiatt. We're going to hunt down this beast and get this skin."