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Redux Vol1 Ch1: Misunderstanding...

That last punch felt like he had kissed a freight train. He felt the burning sensation that felt like someone had taken his face and pressed a hot iron onto it. He knew from experience he would have a miraculous bruise on his left cheek tomorrow. It made him mad, no pissed, he hadn't hit them in the face, only gut and chest shots, he had to go to work tomorrow, and now he'd look like he was in a fight and he'd have to explain it to his boss and every nosy customer that walked in through the front door, and he knew all too well that most of the customers were of the nosy variety, especially when it was none of their business.

It hurt, but Jack was used to the pain, it was a sensation that he had become very well acquainted with over the years. Throughout his entire childhood, he was in similar and often worse situations. Up to the point his father had taught him how to fight. He had relentlessly drilled four different styles of martial arts into him from the tender age of five.

These jerks had no class. But then again what did he expect from the group of three that he had found cornering and harassing a lone woman.

Vermin.

'Fuck it,' he decided that even if he walked into the store with a black eye, and a few missing teeth it would be worth it if he could stop these pricks. With a guttural growl that sounded like a dog from hell, and a smile that would make a serial killer back down he rushed the man in front of him again. The brute was a good head taller than he was and probably weighed almost twice as much. It didn't bother him, his entire life he had gotten into fights against guys that were bigger and older than himself, and this time was no different.

A punch came in from his left side, all force and no technique, Jack stepped forward into the punch, and raised his right arm, allowing the man's inner forearm clash against his own harmlessly before countering with a quick forward jab.

The blow connected squarely with the man's jaw and sent him staggering back, his head snapping back with the force of the strike. Without waiting for him to get his bearings back, Jack kicked him in the stomach with a crescent kick, the force of it doubling over the man went down on his knees, which allowed Jack to grab him by the head in both hands and drive it down hard as his knee rose up to meet it. There was a sickening crunch as the man's nose broke on Jack's knee, splattering blood all over his tan khaki work pants. He dropped like a marionette with his strings cut.

The sound was like a hunk of meat hitting the floor, which on further reflection was not too far off the mark.

Turning, he looked at the other two guys, who had up to this point been raining passing blows on him from behind. Both looked at him with wide eyes as he settled back into front stance, his legs in front and to the side of the left, they glanced first at him and back to the big man he had just taken down again. It was evident from their horrified looks that that man was the muscle of the operation, well that had been obvious by just looking at them, these two were obviously just the cronies that liked t hang around and beg for scraps. Jack laughed to himself as they stood looking at him with their distressed and angry expressions.

The tall lanky one turned and ran, tripping the other in the process as he fled.

Scum, they didn't even stick up for each other, Jack shook his head and stood up straight, stepping out of his stance and forward, he crossed the distance between himself and the downed man in three long strides. Picking up the clearly shaken man by the front of the shirt he looked him in the eyes. "If I ever see you or your buddies in this area again," he nodded over towards the big man, threat imminent in his eyes. "Lets, just say I won't be so nice." He growled, he planted as hard a punch in the guy's stomach as he could manage, making sure the blow drove up and under his ribs driving both all the air out of his diaphragm as well as the contents of his stomach. He dropped the thug, leaving him there to explore the contents of his half-digested dinner.

"Are you alright?" He asked turning to the girl.

She was wearing a rather strange outfit, if Jack had to describe it he was pretty sure he would say it was like some sort of Scifi cosplay. It consisted of a black skin tight, and he did mean skin tight undersuit that had a few pieces of blue plating strapped to it at different places, on the chest for example. It also had a high circular collar and a hood that fell around her shoulders. The plating did very little however from hiding all the curves though he was pretty sure that was the intent to begin with.

"I'm fine, thanks." She whispered softly as he helped her to her feet.

"You can't be walking around here dressed like that," he said, looking her up and down, there was a lot of exposed skin around her midriff and shoulders, and it was not the warmest of nights seeing as it was mid-October at the moment. She stood about five foot two and looked to be at least eighteen, her long hair dyed a light shade of blue, or at least that was the color he thought it was, the alleyway was dark after all. With a sigh he pulled off his work smock and wrapped it around her. Her eyes widened as she looked back between him and the work shirt that was now concealing her upper torso, it wasn't thick but it was warm with his body heat and should help her some. "Where do you need to go? I'll walk you there."

"Huh?" She asked, looking up at him. She was slightly in a daze, probably still scared out of her mind from before. "Where I need to go?"

"Yeah, where do you live I'll walk you there."

"I don't live in this city," she stated simply.

"Ok then, you're visiting? Do you have any family here, friends?"

"Nope, and nope!" she said, cheerfully, a bright smile on her lips. He narrowed his eyes at her and thought through the situation carefully, she had no family or friends here, that would mean she was renting a place for the night or something.

"Ok, so where's your hotel?" He asked, of course if she didn't have any friends or family here she would have a hotel right?

"Don't have one!" She laughed. There was definitely something wrong with this girl, she was walking around the city, dressed like that, she had no friends ,family, or even a place to go? "I was hoping I could spend the night with you, you don't seem too bad." She said softly, looking up at him, her teeth worrying her lower lip.

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It was extremely seductive, but after the initial turn on he started to think about the situation. Here was a girl wearing a set of rather skin hugging outfit despite the chilly night, willing to come over to his house even though she had just met him. He might have misenturpreted the situation now that he thought about it...

"Listen, I don't take women home on a whim like that." He said bluntly, her eyes widened at his words and before he could open his mouth again she started to tear up, and Jack wondered if he had come to the wrong conclusion.

"I'm not a- I'm not like that you jerk!" She cried out as she threw a hard fist into his face. The blow snapped his head back and sent him reeling, the only reason he kept his feet was because his flailing hand reached out and came to rest against the rough bricks of the alley wall. He shook his head in an attempt to clear the ringing from his ears, but he realized that was a mistake as his vision started to go blurry and a spike of pain shot through his head, causing it to feel like someone had lodged a knife directly into his brain. "Sorry, sorry! I didn't mean to hit that hard I'm so sorry." She said, running over and attempting to steady him.

"Isss Finnee" he mumbled as he wobbled there. He was having real trouble speaking, let alone being eloquent "Srry, didddnt mena to be ru-" he started to apologize before he promptly passed out in the street.

***

He awoke, not the instant awareness of being jolted by an alarm or the gentle rising from dosing in and out but a gradual recognition of existence. All he heard was his breathing, and as he breathed in he smelled a strange mixture, it was familiar, a smell he well knew, but mixed in with it was something sweet, with a hint of musk to it. Confused he opened his eyes and looked up at the popcorn ceiling that he woke up to every morning. As he did memories flowed back into him, patchy at first but quickly shifting to full memories.How did he get home? And for that matter why wasn't he aching all over? "Don't tell me it was all a dream?" He groggily shook his head and started to roll out of bed, unexpectedly he found his face pressed against an expanse of something soft and smooth.

It didn't take him long to realize what he was looking at.

Breasts.

Looking up he found the girl from last night was attached them. "Good morning!" she said brightly, before wrapping her arms around him and pulling him closer into her.

"Good morning," he managed to choke out as his brain started working again, no longer frozen by the sight of a naked woman with him in bed, this wasn't the first time he had seen boobs after all, but there was something disconcerting about waking up and having your face planted in a pair from some woman you didn't even know. "Ah, can I ask why you are naked, and in my bed?"

"Because this is the proper location for your future wife to be? And also sleeping in clothes is so uncomfortable."

"Wait, future wife to be?" he choaked out, but before he could express how ridiculous this all was he looked over at the clock. It was a merely habitual action, but in the alarm clock's place there was nothing but a pile of ruined plastic, metal, and glass. "What happened to my alarm clock?" He yelled in shock. She looked over at the ruined pile of debris as well, following his gaze.

"Oh that thing? It kept making this annoying buzzing, and you were sleeping so well, and I couldn't make it stop, so I kind of 'Made' it stop." There was a small little smile on her lips, like she was afraid he would rebuke her. He grabbed his phone from the nightstand and looked at the time, and his heart nearly burst.

10:49 am

He had a staff meeting that was going to be held at 11:00 and the boss had made it clear that anyone who showed up late to that would be terminated, period.

"Shit!" He flew out of bed, not even pausing to question why he was also naked. He was pretty sure that never before in the history of man had someone gotten dressed that quickly. He was halfway out the door when he stopped and looked back at the girl who was still naked and looking at him with fascination. "Wait right there, I have a meeting to go to, I'll be back in an hour or two." He didn't actually think that she would be there when he got back; he figured she would disappear, never to be seen again. Just like a one night stand, not that he had any actual experience with them, that's just how they were described to him by friends.

***

"You owe me," Jean teased him as he stood there panting, "I knew you would be late, so I clocked you in and said you were helping me with the trash, let's go, the meeting started five minutes or so ago." Jack simply nodded his thanks as he was out of breath and could not yet speak it. "But don't think I'll let you slide for this one mister, no sir!" She laughed to herself in a malicious but cute way.

"Yeah well, you would not believe the sort of night I had last night," he muttered to himself as he followed her back towards the meeting room in the employees' section of the store. Before he even pushed open the scuffed black rubber door leading into the stocking area he could hear the manager droning on and on. He closed his eyes, sighing slightly before pushing open the door, the pained expression on his face replaced with a carefully neutral one.

"And as for the shrink this quarter it's up by .05 %, as I am sure you are all aware that is unacceptable!" The manager was droning on and on so much that Jack doubted he would have even noticed that he was late.

***

Earth was such a strange place, peaceful, for the most part strange. The people here were a lot like her people. But they lived a more refined life, or rather a more in caged life. She was here for a total of three days before she met him, the man that would be her husband.

Just thinking about it caused her to blush; he had come out of the darkness, taken down three assailants and wrapped her in his clothes. She smiled as she pulled the smock out from a dimensional ring. In her culture the only man that was allowed to give a woman clothes was either her father or her husband. Any man that gave her something as intimate as something that touched her naked body, that was a proposal, there were deep cultural significance to wearing something someone else had given you.

"Hello Hisra," a deep voice called out, and jumping in panic she quickly removed the smock from her embrace and tucked it back into the dimensional ring.

"So you found me, father." She said, using the blanket on the bed to cover her nakedness before turning to look at her father. He was taller than her, but shorter than Jack, yes that was his name, Jack. A smile bloomed on her lips but she quickly hid it. But she was unable to do anything about the blush on her cheeks.

"What kind of father would I be if I didn't know where my beloved daughter was?" He looked around the room, "your mother is worried sick, I told her not to be, you were after all trained by me, but you know her. Come we are returning."

"Ok, let me pack some things first," she said simply, and in a bright flash of light she was wearing the clothes she had met Jack in. she had seen how his eyes had wandered down and up her body and she was willing to bet he liked the look of it based on the heat she had seen in his eyes the night before. That also brought a blush to her cheeks, but she had turned away so her father couldn't see it.

"Oh, pack things?" He looked over the room again, this time with a look of confusion. This room was used, how had his daughter acquired all of these things? He had assumed it was just a temporary place she was staying, but as he looked around he found everything organized and placed in such a way that it had a personalized touch. How had she gotten all of this stuff in the mere three days since she had disappeared?

"Well yes, Jack won't have anything if we are going right away." She stated matter-of-factly. Her father nodded at this logic, up till the point it clicked, and he asked the question that started to burn in his mind.

"Jack? Who is Jack?"

"My fiancé of course!" She said, a slight bit of a mischievous glint in her solid blue eyes, a small smile pulled at the edge of her lips as she watched her father's face go from confusion to shock in under two seconds.

"FIANCE?!!? "