April 10th
Quentin
“I caught some fish for us,” Scarlett said as she dropped off a basket near our campfire. She shook off the water on her fur before sitting down next to me. We were next to our crashed spaceship. We were wearing clothes that we managed to cobble together from the animals that Scarlett hunted. She wore a feline fur loincloth and bra while I wore a similar feline fur loincloth. We didn’t want to ruin our good clothes. Besides, it seemed like a cool idea to dress like this.
“That’s great, honey,” I said with a sigh. I stared into the fire with longing. After everything we’d done, we were stuck here. While Scarlett and I fixed as much of the ship as we could, there were several holes in it. I placed the fish on sticks before putting them over the fire.
Once they were cooked enough, I took one of the fish off and bit into it. It was gross, but I forced myself to swallow it. I hated fish, but it’ll have to do. Otherwise, I just looked at Scarlett and said, “I miss having a table. It’s so simple, yet it makes eating all the more enjoyable.”
“I miss it too,” she replied as she took a hesitant bite out of the fish. “Even in slavery, we had tables. But I’m not going to ask to be enslaved. They already turned me into a mutant. I don’t want them to turn me into an actual fox next.” She chuckled at her joke as she continued to slowly eat her meal. “I hate fish.”
“I do too,” I replied before taking another bite of the fish. We ate in silence as the fire flickered.
The sun was setting when I heard footsteps approaching. Scarlett and I jumped behind our makeshift barricade around the crashed ship. We drew the weapons out of the wreckage and aimed our guns at the source of the sound. We had to fight hostile wildlife and natives on this world. Even though our SADs worked and translated what they said, they still attempted to attack us for the metal.
An inky figure emerged from the bushes. Scarlett cocked a shotgun and shouted, “If you’re here to rob us, you came to the wrong neighborhood!”
“You know me, Ms. Campbell!” Mr. Black said as the inky figure became more defined as him. He walked up to us and said, “I came back to help you repair your ship.”
I crossed my arms and asked, “Was Harry too busy to come here? Because it’s honestly very rude of him to not come.”
Mr. Black smirked and said, “In fact, he is. Gruma got back her throne and Harry is fighting the last remnants of resistance. He’s a one-man-army, which is what she needs after her sister depleted the population.”
We lowered our guns as he jumped over the barricade and examined the damage. As he searched around, I felt a sense of relief wash over me. It was promptly interrupted by a shotgun shot nearby. Scarlett chuckled and said, “Sorry, I was just unloading the gun to be safe.” I looked her way and noticed the literal smoking gun. She scratched the back of her neck and squinted her eyes as she slowly lowered the gun to the ground.
We waited as Mr. Black examined the ship. The flying lizards and swaying trees were serene, reminding me of how untouched this planet was. Unlike the industrialized Earth, where telephone lines ran through otherwise seemingly untouched land, there was truly wild land here. Places where no one went, and which nature went its way.
I looked over at Scarlett and asked, “Would you like to live out here in the wilderness? You know, away from artificial suffocating corridors?”
She smiled but shook her head as she looked at me. “No thank you. You can’t really play videogames or watch movies when you live in the middle of nowhere. I wish to live near civilization, even if my appearance makes it difficult,” she said before looking at the spaceship.
I turned to face the spaceship, only to be greeted with a familiar voice. From the depths of the ship emerged a floating TV screen. It turned on to reveal Roqar. “You came here with us!” I shouted as I raised my fist towards it. Scarlett growled and showcased her claws.
Roqar’s screen changed to display slow clapping of disembodied hands. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t my allies,” he said before showing a cartoony display of me and Scarlett. “Unfortunately, the two of you outlived your usefulness.” The cartoony display of us was thrown into a garbage can.
“Outlived our usefulness? We could’ve helped you fight the Qarri!” Scarlett growled as she took air swipes at him. The screen changed to showing a Qarri trembling before changing to the Qarri laughing.
“Oh no, the vulpine freak is attacking me! She’s obviously a wild animal despite clearly showing restraint and a disdain for fighting that way! I’m so scared!” he mocked before switching the screen to show a scowling face. His tone changed from mocking to contempt. “That’s a scenario I don’t want. A strong humanity would require effort to suppress. That’s why I sabotaged your ship.”
Scarlett screamed, “Ugh! I never should’ve trusted you! You’re a snake! You tricked us into helping your empire with your fake story of overthrowing an empire! What a fool I was!”
Roqar showed a crocodile crying before laughing at her. “I’m not with the empire, but I’m not on your side either! Our scientists will create a technocratic oligarchy where only the best and the brightest will rule! No longer shall religious lunatics or ideological fanatics stand in the way of progress! Take heart, Scarlett. Be glad I’m going to give all humans light mutations like yours,” he said with seeming glee.
“Light mutation? I don’t know about you, but humans aren’t canines on Earth,” I replied while pointing at her.
He laughed harder as the screen changed to display a body diagram of her. “It’s very light compared to what we’re capable of,” he explained as he displayed her internal organs. “As you can see, her internal organs are completely unchanged. Her DNA is as similar as it could be to a baseline human while giving her a special appearance. This was easier to do than completely changing her, but I’ve grown fond of it. If nothing else, it’s a great demoralizer for humanity.”
Scarlett smirked and said, “Let’s say you demoralize those you mutated. If that’s the case, then how do you control those born mutants. They would see themselves as what they look like, meaning that to them, humans losing their original appearance wouldn’t be a tragedy, but an interesting fact. When that day comes, you’d better prepare for a rebellion.”
Roqar showed two bar graphs rising. The one on the left rose faster than the one on the right. The left one highlighted as he explained, “This is the power of our rebellion, and the other is the power of humanity. They’ll both increase, but ours will increase faster until you're subsumed by us. Don’t worry too much. Since the two of you were kind enough to help me, humans will be able to join the leadership ranks after two thousand years of evolution. Though perhaps looking more like the adorable little kit girl.”
I smirked as I pointed at the screen with an accusatory glare and shouted, “You monster! You’re a dang furry! I won’t let you turn humans into freaks on my watch!”
“Takes one to know one,” he replied. I growled, making him add sarcastically, “Besides, it’s far more horrific than the fact that they’re test subjects for our empire that'll never see the light of day again.”
Scarlett looked at the screen and asked, “Why are you telling us this? You expect us to just listen to you talk?”
“No, Ms. Campbell, I expect you to die,” Roqar coldly replied before a loud and high-pitched noise radiated from the floating monitor. Scarlett and I fell to the ground as we tried to save our ears from the horrible sound. Once the noise was over, I had difficulty hearing over the ringing in my ears.
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Roqar explained in a voice I could barely hear, “I’ve alerted the failed experiments on this planet to your location. The Qarri scientist we assigned here ditched his duty and started constraining his experiments to animals, but his Taraxian victims are still alive and here for you.”
Scarlett walked up to me and said in an oddly loud manner into my ear, “I can’t hear anything. I can’t even hear myself talk.”
“Are you sure?” I whispered back into her ear, only for no twitch of the ears. She didn’t even turn to face me. My blood ran cold as I imagined how horrible it was going to be if she was deaf. My terror quickly dissipated as I felt a flame in my chest. I clenched my fists and shouted at Roqar, “You made her deaf, you monster! I’ll make sure to tear you circuit from circuit!”
Roqar looked at me and replied, “The hearing loss isn’t permanent, stupid human! And for your threat, go ahead! I’m merely a subroutine that’s in the process of being snipped. You thought I was paying special attention to you? Laughable. There are bigger fish to fry.” The monitor then short-circuited and fell to the ground. I turned it over and could confirm that it was fried.
As I knelt down to check the screen, I heard Scarlett sniffing the air. It was louder than she normally sniffed, but I could assume the temporary deafness made her not realize her volume. Her lack of volume control confirmed it as she shouted, “They’re coming!” She pulled out a minigun and placed it on the barricade. It was bought back on Mandern. She sniffed the air and swiveled the gun towards a random patch of trees. She started firing. While I wondered how she could carry the minigun, it didn't matter.
I heard groans and screams in reply as bullets hit the trees. Then, suddenly before my eyes, I could see the imagery of trees fade away as a massive abomination fell to the ground. It was massive with a shape so unrecognizable that if Roqar didn’t explain it, I wouldn’t have known it was even a Taraxian once. My shock was interrupted by more minigun rounds hitting other monstrosities.
Scarlett shouted loudly, “Though I may not be able to hear them, one of the advantages of my mutant form is helping me! We’re surrounded!” She sniffed again and shouted, “Quentin, fire to the left! I can smell one quickly approaching you!”
I spun on my heels and unloaded several rounds into what I thought was thin air. At least it was until some of the bullets struck something invisible as purple blood pooled where they disappeared. I moved onto shooting some visible monster as the one with purple blood became visible and fell to the ground. The monster was easily ten feet tall with three heads and could breathe fire. Unfortunately for it, its bullet-resistant skin wasn’t bullet-proof, meaning that some high-caliber rounds could kill it.
Despite how many monsters we were shooting down, more kept coming. I had to save Scarlett from a few due to her temporary lack of hearing. Her inability to hear made me have to save her every now and then. The invisible monsters were gone, now replaced with visible ones. The small numbers of massive abominations were replaced by vast hordes of “merely” corrupted Taraxians. Some were a little taller than Gruma while most were half our height. Their height may have been changed to mass produce them.
For each of the “zombies” that we shot, two more took their place. A whole swarm came about. The empty looks in their eyes along with their rapidly deteriorating bodies told me they were gone. There was no way I was going to be able to discover a cure for them. The only bright side was that it probably wasn’t contagious. Unless it was a disease that was a hybrid of rabies and leprosy.
“Out of bullets!” Scarlett screamed as she switched to her blaster pistols. A click of my assault rifle told me I was also out of bullets. There were still hundreds of zombies while I had no other guns. And from what I saw of Scarlett’s blasters, she was also running low on ammunition. We would have to resort to melee combat, which was our weakness.
I grabbed my emptied assault rifle and swung it over the barricade. The butt-stroke (the official term for the act, not the dirty meaning) knocked the heads off of them. I was taken aback until I heard my SAD announce, “You’ve unlocked the Mental Muscles power.”
Mental Muscles Unlocked
I nodded to myself before jumping over the barricade. It was a shabby structure, so it wouldn’t have held up for long. I shouted, “Come and get me, zombies!” Groans surrounded me, filling me with dread. Just like the movies about the fictional ones, the size of the horde was the most dangerous part. They didn’t attack one at a time, but as soon as they could. They lacked discipline. Not that we were disciplined ourselves, but having only two against a swarm made it difficult.
As they surrounded me, I held my rifle out at the head level of the shorter ones and spun in circles. It worked at keeping them at bay. Heads flew off as purple blood sprayed onto me. I knew Taraxians bled red blood, which meant that whatever the scientist did, it seriously messed with their genetic code.
After a few minutes, I ran out of momentum and needed to stop the world from spinning. Unfortunately, that was just the moment the horde needed. As I stumbled back to the barricade, several zombies surrounded me. They launched themselves at me, knocking me to the ground. The combined weight of several decomposing Taraxians kept me pinned as they scratched my skin and bit me several times. My vision turned black as one of them stomped on the back of my head.
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Scarlett
I jumped over the barricade as I saw the zombies piling onto Quentin. I screamed at them, but I couldn’t even hear myself. Roqar did a number on my hearing, which really hampered the fighting. And now Quentin was being savagely murdered by the monsters! As I watched him fall unconscious, I froze in terror. Was he dead? If he was, then that meant I had to go home alone. I couldn’t do that! Not after all we’ve been through together! No! Suddenly, a fire burnt in my heart and steadiness filled me.
I looked at the zombies and felt no fear. I pulled out the laser sword I bought and activated it. The horde charged at me, but I simply closed my eyes and took a deep breath. My hearing came back as I felt a burning conviction. Their groans were loud, but they were nothing compared to the power granted to me. The holy fire flowed through me, giving me strength.
Mental Muscles Unlocked
Speedster Unlocked
Fiery Fury Temporarily Unlocked
I pulled back my sword and leaped into the crowd. With inhuman speed and without a thought, I spun in a circle. Faster and faster I went until I could see a fiery tornado surrounding me. Any zombie within the tornado was burnt to ashes. I propelled forwards, shooting towards Quentin without having to walk.
When I got over him, I noticed that my fires didn’t harm him. I stayed over him, not wanting those zombies to touch him again. No one would hurt the handsome man while I drew breath. My fires burnt through all the zombies as they came.
After a few tense minutes, nothing remained of the zombie menace. I slowed down and tried to calm myself down. Groaning came from near my feet. I looked down to see that Quentin had barely regained consciousness and was looking at me. A smile came to his face as he quietly asked, “Scarlett, are you an angel? Did you die first and are now going to lead me to heaven?”
I was about to respond when I saw my arms. Surrounding my arms was a green fire. It encased my entire body as far as I could see. I held out my laser sword and could see that it encased it as well. It now resembled a fiery sword, much like one described as being wielded by angels. I put up my sword and picked up my boyfriend. I flashed a grin at him and said, “You’re going to live, Quentin. Though I know I’m beautiful enough to be mistaken for an angel.” He laughed at that.
The ship was finally right-side-up, so I opened the hatch and walked over to the medical bay. I laid him down on the hospital bed. Almost instantly, the unit stirred to life and started operating on him. As I watched him be anesthetized for them to do some surgery on him, I felt warmth fade away from me. Looking down, I could see that the fire encasing me was gone. I fell to my knees as I felt my own strength flee me. It didn’t take long for me to fall on my face as I lost the ability to control my limbs. Everything felt stiff. I was barely able to ask, “What’s going on?”
The RNU booted to life and rolled over to me. Its scanner scanned my body before explaining, “Scarlett Rose Campbell, it seems that you have a case of psionic burnout.”
“Psionic burnout?” I asked as I heard the rest of the ship turn on. It seemed that Mr. Black was finishing up the repairs.
As if on cue, I heard the catman say, “I finished the repairs on the ship. It’s not very good, but according to the calculations that I ran on the ship’s console, it should last until you reach Earth.” He then walked out as the ship shook.
“Course plotted for Earth. Will arrive in four weeks,” the ship announced as it took off.
Unlike earlier launches, this one didn’t throw me around as it left the planet’s surface. It wasn’t long before I heard it announce, “We have left Besmen.”
Once all that was out of the way, I attempted to move, but still couldn’t. The RNU waited for a few seconds before explaining, “Psionic burnout happens when you use higher level psionic powers. Because of the power of Fiery Fury, your mind exhausted most of its capabilities. It’ll take a few days for you to regain full movement. Until then, you’ll be bedridden.”
I looked down at the floor as my ears drooped. “Can you at least take me to my bed? I prefer to not sleep on the floor,” I asked.
The RNU complied and picked me up. It rolled over to my bedroom and placed me on my bed. As it left, I thought about how Quentin was doing. He was hopefully going to survive, but would he remember me. What kind of brain damage could he have sustained in the fight? I would have to wait until I recovered, which was killing me. Not only that, but I couldn’t even watch TV in my current state. All I could do was stare at the ceiling until I fell asleep.