Alex thought that the fighting would get less intense when he finally got inside one of the towers. He was wrong. It had just changed. Instead of him dodging the large, electric warheads, Alex was now fighting a swarm of enemies in tight quarters.

The hallways in the tower resembled the corridors on a submarine. For someone of slightly taller than average height such as Alex, he felt like he was going to hit his head with every step. The walkways weren’t very wide either and Alex found himself subconsciously striding through them slightly diagonally, even though he had room to walk normally. There was a low, crimson hued lighting to the hallways. He could hear a dull siren toning in the background. Alex wasn’t sure if that was an emergency siren or if that was a battle stations alarm.

His brisk walk took Alex past a few rooms with either closed doors or ones that were barely ajar. He peeked in one of the open doorways and found that it was a sleeping quarters with four bunk beds inside. The room wasn’t big enough for four bunk beds, but it had them nonetheless.

I couldn’t be a sailor. I’ve been inside this stupid tower for less than five minutes and I already feel claustrophobic.

There was a sudden movement in one of the beds. A Zotari shot up from its sleeping position, and Alex nimbly ducked behind the door. Nimbly meaning he knocked over a metal stick that looked like it was a rack of some type. It crashed to the ground. If the Zotari hadn’t been fully awake already, it definitely would be now.

“Screw it,” Alex said as he dove into the room. He closed the door hoping to dampen any sounds of a struggle that would happen inside.

Before the Zotari could make so much as a peep, Alex had his hand pressed firmly on the alien’s mouth. A quick jab to the face knocked the sleepy Zotari back into its slumber.

Well that wasn’t too bad. I’m surprised that they actually have soldiers stationed inside the tower. I guess it makes them ready for rapid deployment. That’s the reason we have the navy out with their boats all the time. That way when something happens, we have somebody that we can send out.

Alex didn’t finish off the Zotari because he still felt really crappy about killing lower leveled enemies. If he wasn’t able to take the time to dispatch them, he had no problem killing them. He didn’t have that much of a hero complex. If it was between him and killing somebody, he would choose to live. But, he wouldn’t take out some weakling just for the heck of it. The Zotari wouldn’t feel great when it woke up, but that was far better than dead. Alex didn’t have much control over his life currently, but until the Forge forced him to kill everyone, he would abstain whenever feasible.

This encounter did make it clear that he needed to be as silent as possible, especially by the open doors. He was given a rough map of the towers by Krizzik. Map was not exactly the right word for it. It didn’t guide him through the structure. It more helped him recognize pattern in the rooms. Certain types of room should be grouped together. By finding the certain clusters, it made finding the engine room that much easier to find. The living quarters were not on Krizzik’s map, but Alex guess ed that the engine room wouldn’t be close by.

A few more minutes stumbling through the narrow passageways and Alex came across his first stairway. This was great because Krizzik had said the engines would be closer to the middle of the structure. You couldn’t get to the middle without ascending, so his first step was done. The only problem was the group waiting for him at the top of the landing.

There were five warriors in all, and two of them looked different than the others. The Zotari race was nearly identical aside from small distinguishing features. Alex had asked Krizzik once just how similar they were and he had said around 90%-95%. So, to say they looked different was noteworthy. One of them, instead of having the trademark black skin, was more of a grayish hue. It still leaned dark, but was significantly lighter than its counterparts.

Alex wasn’t sure what that would mean for him going forward. Were there others like this one? What kind of abilities would they have? Did they even have any special abilities? For all he knew, this could just be a super recessive gene in the population that only showed itself on rare occasions, kind of like black sheep. At least that’s what he hoped, because the other was a more familiar variant he had seen already—the brute. The brute had been much stronger than any other Zotari he had seen yet. If the gray skinned warrior had its own special abilities, Alex would be in for some trouble. He had handled the last one, but it had been by itself aside from the two idiots that Alex had dispatched fairly easily. Having two variants in the same group didn’t bode well with Alex. This would no doubt be the first of many groups he would encounter today.

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Alex would normally engage first, but the group had an elevation advantage. He knew from the experience of a wise space wizard that you didn’t mess around when you didn’t have the high ground. So, instead Alex waited for them to make the first move. He would make them come to him.

Luckily for him, he didn’t have to wait long. The three normal Zotari and the brute rushed forward, the grayish one staying behind. Alex didn’t like that, but he had his hands full and couldn’t worry about it until it became a problem. Since the stairwell was tight quarters just like the hallways had been, Alex didn’t have to deal with all of them at once. He was able to focus on the first one coming through. It was a warrior that, while not terribly weak, wasn’t particularly strong either. It swung its standard issue knobby club in his direction, or at least it tried to. Apparently these warriors weren’t used to fighting in these cramped hallways either. The end of the stick collided with the wall, stopping its motion as its wielder yelped at the sudden unexpected impact.

Alex, embarrassingly, had flinched at the incoming strike. He thought he would have been used to fighting now, but still had some room to grow evidently. To his credit, he quickly recovered cocking his fist back and launching it forward to collide with the Zotari’s face. It fell backwards into the soldier behind it. Unfortunately for the leading warrior, it was the brute that stood behind it.

The brute had little regard for his ally and unceremoniously tossed it into the wall where it crumpled into an unmoving heap.

Who needs enemies when you have friends like these?

The brute screamed and Alex identified it.

Zotari Brute

Level 52

Alex breathed out in relief. At least it was lower leveled than him. The numbers disadvantage would be less stressful for him. He still knew he had the gray Zotari to worry about. He couldn’t see it, otherwise he would have identified it as well to see what he was up against.

The brute took a few rapid steps forward. Alex expected a punch to be headed his way and readied himself for impact. He guessed wrong as a massive foot hurtled towards his midsection. Alex wasn’t fast enough and the kick sent him flying through the wall.

Talk about thin walls.

Alex rubbed his neck, but quickly shot to his feet as the Alex shaped hole started to get significantly larger. Two meaty hands shot through the gap, tearing the metal apart with a terrible screech that made Alex’s whole body tense. Before the brute could make it all the way inside, Alex was already moving. An uppercut connected with its broad jaw. A grunt of surprise came from the Zotari as he tumbled backwards. Alex bombarded the downed alien.

The brute recovered faster than he expected, grabbing Alex's arm and hurling him over its shoulder. He slammed into the opposite wall this time, however he only left an indentation instead of plowing through. Alex, a little dazed, put up a pitiful defense for the double team that came his way.

The two remaining regular Zotari started to pummel Alex. Hits landed in rapid succession, so fast that Alex would hardly register where they were landing. He tried to push them off, but these two must also have been close to his own level.

That’s pretty douchey to send their weakest guy first. Even if their own guy hadn’t taken it out first, it wouldn’t have been that hard for me to take it out. I mean, I guess nobody sent that one first, it was just the first one to react.

The blows kept landing, and Alex was starting to grow tired. He now had enough power stored to mount a counter offensive. He channeled the energy into his midsection. Alex had been playing with a new idea for a while and now seemed like the perfect time to test it out. The energy built until it reached a tipping point. If he didn’t release it soon, it would start to burn him from the inside. Instead of channeling out his energy in a focused beam, Alex wanted to see if he could release a sort of area attack. In theory, this would diminish both the strength and range of the attack, but it should also help in situations just like the one he currently found himself in.

To do this, Alex envisioned a star burning inside him. His energy began to bubble out of his body. Without a focus point, it just sort of poured out of Alex. He bottled in it as long as he possibly could before allowing it to pour out of him all at once. As expected, it didn’t have the same explosive power, but it had enough to knock his assailants away, burning them in the process. The brute and the gray Zotari were largely unaffected. The brute most likely due to a higher durability and the gray one because it was still on the stairs for some reason, far enough out of reach to avoid the attack.

The two normal ones were not killed, but they were dazed enough for Alex to take the offensive. A flurry of empowered strike left one barely alive and the other in only marginally better condition. Before Alex could finish the two of them off however, the brute had rejoined the fight. A surprise attack sent Alex rolling down the hallway until smacking into the wall at the end. Like a bull, the behemoth charged down the hall. Each step felt as though it was shaking the entire tower. Alex barely had time to react by the time the hulking figure reached him. He instantly dug into the ground with his Eonsteel to brace himself. The thick tendrils he shot downward pushed him forward and Alex crossed his arms receiving the charging alien head on.

The quick brace helped, but not much. Once again, Alex was sent flying through the wall. The room he was now in was as large as three of the bunk rooms. He didn’t know if it was a gathering hall or something like that, but there were couches and other seating strewn throughout the room. This was both good and bad. He now had much more room to fight, but now so did the brute.

Oh, and the grey Zotari decided to join in on the fun.