Theon felt his heart rate skyrocket as the wargs turned to him and started charging. Thoughts of trying to help save the random people vanished in an instant and were replaced by thoughts of his options.

He had the shotgun, but he wasn’t some kind of professional with it and he doubted that he could rely solely on it. He had the police cruiser, but he was worried they would break through the windows and get to him. His best option, he figured, was to pick them off one at a time.

He turned the cruiser away from the wargs and started accelerating slowly. He wanted to let the wargs catch up to him, then he planned to shoot them one at a time through the passenger’s window. If anything went wrong, he could just accelerate away.

The plan went perfectly at first, he kept pulling to the left to force the first warg to come up on his right side. He saw people scattered outside watching him being chased by giant dogs, and he realized he still had the siren going. He wasn’t too concerned about it, he was too busy pumping the shotgun and positioning it on the window seal.

The first warg was coming up his right side, and he used his right arm to angle the shotgun back. He didn’t want the warg to get a chance to leap through the window. It was large, and he doubted it would fit through, but he didn’t want to test the theory.

The warg had a gait that was bringing its body up and down and Theon was worried he would miss. He sped up a little to keep the warg there while he watched its gait, trying to time the shot.

The warg started to put on a burst of speed and Theon panicked. He pulled the trigger and was again deafened by the sound. He expected it this time though, and he watched in his side mirror as the warg tumbled and rolled in the street until it came to a stop.

He pulled the shotgun back in the cruiser and pumped it while he checked his mirrors to see where the wargs were. There were two left, but he could only see one, it was on his driver’s side racing along the sidewalk.

Theon drifted the car back to the center of the road and was forced to the right lane when another car came racing from the other direction. That’s when he got an idea.

He drifted back into the left lane again and let the warg come up beside him. He matched its speed, so they were parallel. The warg growled as they eyed each other.

“Yeah, eat this fucker!” Theon growled back as he jerked the wheel to the left.

He slammed the cruiser into a parked van on the side of the street as he crushed the warg between the two vehicles. He could hear scraping metal and saw sparks as he nearly lost control of the cruiser.

He pulled right bringing himself back into the center of the street, but during the loss of momentum, he heard something thumping on the back of the cruiser. He looked in the rear-view mirror just in time to see the third warg jumping through the broken glass and land inside.

It slammed into the divider between the front and the back of the cop car. There was thick plexiglass on top that he could easily see through, and the bottom was metal. He didn’t think it could easily break through, but it was terrifying having a warg just inches from his face.

He didn’t see a way he could shoot through the divider, so he kept driving trying to think of some way to kill the warg.

After a minute he slammed on the breaks to stop the car, hoping the warg would get out, but it didn’t. He watched it for a handful of seconds as the plexiglass flexed inward every time the warg slammed its maw into it. Fear that the plexiglass wouldn’t hold started to eat away at his stomach as he devised a plan to evict this unwanted guest.

He strapped his seatbelt on and put the cruiser in reverse. He knew after he did this he would probably be on foot, and there were still six orcs chasing him. The orcs were using the wargs to track him though, and without them, he might be able to escape he figured.

The quest did say he was supposed to kill the orcs and wargs, and if he could he would. His primary goal however, was to survive.

He slammed the accelerator of his stolen police car as he aimed towards the tree he planned to crash into. He leaned back in the bloodied seat after he got the cruiser lined up and closed his eyes, preparing for impact.

There was a sound of twisting metal and splintering wood that could be heard over the siren as he collided with the tree. He heard the warg yelp loudly and he hoped it was dead or dying. He tried to pull the car forward as he rubbed the back of his stiff neck. There was a whining screech, but the car wouldn’t budge.

He didn’t even bother to shut off the engine as he tried the driver’s side door. It wouldn’t open so he made his way to the passenger’s side and forced that door open.

The first thing out was the shotgun, and it was pointed in the direction of the yelping and growling. The warg wasn’t dead but its rear legs didn’t work. They were being dragged behind it as it used its front legs and crawl towards Theon.

He pumped the shotgun, aimed it at the wargs face and pulled the trigger. He noticed the sound wasn’t as bad outside as it had been inside the cruiser.

Theon watched as the warg crumpled down and went motionless. There was a massive cavity where its brains used to be. He stood there staring at it for several moments, shocked by everything he’d gone through.

Light was fully out now, and he took a moment to load a few more shells in his shotgun. He grabbed the spare shell that had fallen to the passenger’s side floorboard and then grabbed the sword from the back to use as a crutch. He didn’t know what happened to the flashlight, but it was gone now.

The sword from the back was made from some sort of black metal, it was Damascus-esque except the lines were multicolored and quite beautiful. There was no cross-guard, but the handle was wrapped in leather of some kind with a crude sphere at the base. The blade had uneven wavy peaks and dips making it seem almost serrated.

Holding the base of the sword he stabbed the point in the ground and used it to help him walk. His right ankle wasn’t as bad as it had been, it was more of a severely sprained ankle now. Still, it hurt to put pressure on it, so he hobbled toward the nearest building. It was a common house, but the front door was open, so he hoped it was unoccupied.

“Hello?!’ He yelled into the house.

There wasn’t a response, so Theon moved inside and shut the door behind him.

When Theon normally entered a house, he would notice the rooms, the furniture and so on. This time however, he saw the windows as weak points in its defense, the back door, his escape route. The furniture was just a barricade for the doors and windows.

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He set to work pushing a couch up to the front door, he closed the blinds on the windows and positioned himself next to one. It was the first opportunity he had to take a moment since he’d seen the orcs earlier this morning.

He checked his leg again, it was swollen terribly. His health was up to seventy-one out of eighty, though. The flashing exclamation point informed him he’d gained four hundred galactic credits for killing one orc and three wargs.

“Stats menu?” Theon asked hesitantly.

Name:

Theon Osman

Race:

Human

Gender:

Male

Title:

None

Level:

8

Unspent Points:

7

Health:

71/80

Mana:

0/140

Stamina:

16/60

Strength:

6

Vitality:

8

Endurance:

6

Dexterity:

11

Agility:

8

Intelligence:

11

Willpower:

9

Psychic:

14

Perception:

12

Charisma:

7

Luck:

0

Theon looked over the window that appeared in front of him. He was level eight with seven unspent points, meaning he got one point per level. His highest stat was psychic, he wasn’t sure what it meant, but he figured it related to his mana since it was fourteen and 140 respectively. It also looked like vitality eight and health eighty were linked as well as endurance six and stamina sixty.

He closed the screen, he doubted pouring his seven points into strength would be any help with the orcs, so he looked to his credits.

It was in the top right of his screen near the greyed out mini-map location. He focused on it and another screen filled his window. It was titled Galactic Marketplace. There were several warnings that flashed up telling him he was unable to buy any weapons with a technology level higher than one. He swiped them away and started searching for a weapon of some kind first.

Theon was presented with a list of categories for weapons. He selected the range category and started looking for a gun. It had all kinds of guns, but he was mostly being presented with human guns. The other weapons looked like anything from a cube to a long pole. Some of them were gun like but their proportions were generally off, like an extremely long barrel or a huge or tiny grip.

He gasped when he looked at the price. For just a simple revolver it would cost him tens of thousands of credits. He knew the orcs would be close if not here already, so he changed his search to a guide or helper of some kind.

There was an insanely long list of options for guides and companions too. There were AI’s and different types of creatures, some looked like nightmare fuel and a few even looked like humans. All of it was way too expensive. He filtered everything higher than four hundred credits out and picked one at random. He figured he could just sell it back if it didn’t work. He got a glimpse of it before he accepted the transaction, it looked like a hairy caterpillar.

A splitting pain shot through his head as he turned to pull the blinds back and peak outside. He saw the cop cruiser, it had caught on fire now. Off to the left six orcs were gathered, he could see the leader talking to the rest of them before they split up. One of them was coming in his direction.

He moved back from the window and called out quietly, “Hello? Guide, helper thing, you there?”

A rough voice, common to people who drink and smoke way too much responded. “Hold your horses kid, just getting up to speed.”

Theon looked around for the hairy caterpillar creature, then he froze. “You’re in my brain?”

“Oh boy this is great, I get put on a doomed planet stuck with some idiot for the rest of my short life.”

“Look, um, creature thing, I need your help there’s an orc coming this way right now!”

“Yup, I know, I know.” The creature said casually.

Theon checked his shotgun over, making sure it was primed and ready to go before asking, “So are you gonna help or what?”

The creature sighed slowly and said, “Fine, give me control.”

“Give you control of what?” Theon asked as his stomach dropped.

“Your body stupid.”

Theon peaked out the window again, he had maybe half a minute until the orc reached the house.

“Look I’m not giving you control of my body, I need to return you and get a refund.”

The creature laughed in its rough voice. “You can’t return things to the Galactic Marketplace,” the creature said before continuing its mocking laughter.

Theon felt a chill go down his spine as the front door shuddered under an impact. He pointed his shotgun at it and eyed the back door. It was a glass sliding door and maybe 25 feet away. He wouldn’t be able to outrun the orc, so he knew he’d have to kill it.

The top of the door dropped inward with the orc on top of it. He must have rammed the door with his shoulder and it tipped at the middle over the couch.

Theon pulled the trigger, pumped the shotgun and pulled it again. The orc didn’t move, and it was covered in the dark blood that was leaking out of it. He crept closer before pumping the shotgun again and then nudging the body with the end of the barrel.

He sighed with relief when it didn’t move. Then the orc reached up and grabbed the barrel of the shotgun. Theon jerked, startled by the sudden movement and pulled the trigger. The orcs head turned into shredded meat as a massive hole was punched through it.

“Not bad, not bad,” the creature said as Theon jerked the shotgun free. “But there’s more coming so I really think you should give me control.”

Theon’s attention was drawn outside the doorframe. There were several orcs racing in his direction from other houses now. He picked up the sword and started using it as a cane to help him make it out the back door.

“Look kid, if you die, I die. Your stamina is almost out. There’s no way you’re gonna get away on foot, especially with that ankle.”

Exasperated, Theon stopped walking and replied, “And what do you propose I do? Give you control of my body? No thanks, I like my body and I’d prefer to keep it under my control.”

“It’d just be for a little while, I’d give it back after I take care of these orcs of yours. Like I said, if you die I die, probably anyways,” the hairy caterpillar mumbled the last part.

Theon sighed and gritted his teeth, “How do I know you’re not lying?”

“Well I could explain that to you, but unfortunately we’re out of time now.” The creature said as the first orc made it to the front door and started charging through the opening.

Theon aim and fired at the orc, the shot went wide, and he took a chunk out of the wall.

“Damnit kid, you’re gonna get us killed! How many shots do you have left?”

Theon ignored the creature and pumped his shotgun, he took a moment longer to aim this time before firing. The orc let out a howl as he dropped to the floor holding his hands over the hole in his chest.

Theon checked his shotgun, he had at least one round in it. He pushed his last three rounds into it from the bottom.

“I should have at least four more rounds left,” Theon said.

“Okay, and how many more of those orcs are there?”

“Four I think.”

“Cuttin’ it a bit close aren’t ya?”

“The leader orc has a shield too,” Theon thought out loud.

“If you give me control of your body and your stats page I can probably get us out of this.” The creature said.

“I’ll get control back?” Theon asked.

“Yes, it’s your body.”

Theon watched as the next orc raced toward the front door. He was tired, he was beyond tired actually. He had never felt this exhausted before. It felt like making a deal with the devil, and his stomach was in knots as he started slowly nodding. He wasn’t sure if he was more terrified of the orcs or losing control of his body forever. However, he knew his chances of doing this alone was practically non-existent.

“Fine,” he mumbled.