“I haven't even been following you for a cycle yet and I've already been captured three times. Is this common for you?” Froyia tested the strength of the handcuffs currently on her hands, they were made sturdy but were no match for a Caloricean. Easily the chain link connecting the two cuffs could have been snapped apart. But, Zara’s life was in the hands of the humans that were leading them. She thought it would be best to contain herself and not put herself in a position where she recently made lover would also want to kill her, her life already was in his hand’s, she didn’t want to lose his kindness.
“More or less, yeah.” Gabe was continuing to stare at Zara obviously pained state. Gabe didn’t know why, but the same feeling he got earlier was acting up, it was a sudden urge to protect her. An urge that went deeper than what he knew he could feel. The source of why he felt this way was still unknown, considering that he met her like a week ago.
The human that carried her was a tall man, Zara being closer to Gabe’s height was much shorter than the man, but he was thinner. He body didn’t look large enough that he would be able to carry a full grown woman, but Cartollians weighed significantly less than due to their bone structure being on a whole different level to humans, he had very little problems carrying her.
“Wait, three times?” He looked over to shackled Caloricean, He knew she was trying to get his attention away from Zara, He knew that’s exactly what he needed, worrying wasn’t getting them in a better situation. He continued the small talk. “I know about now and when you landed. What's the other time?”
One of the humans shoved her forward, most likely to get her to close her mouth and focus on walking. She growled back in retaliation turning back to Gabe she continued her defiance and talked. “During your coup.”
“Oh, right. How’d you even get caught?”
It seems she didn’t think he would ask what happened, She gave a slightly embarrassed chuckle and started to fidget, “I was bored so I was heading to the shooting range. When I left my bunk the lights went out and a few Cartollians brought me to you.”
Gabe could tell this was an obvious lie, everything in her body movement was getting out of character for her, her typical behavior was to be relaxed in situations that would make most uncomfortable, whatever was being left out was highly upsetting to talk about for her. Probably if she trusted Gabe a lot more she’d be more willing, but he decided not to pry.
“Quiet!” One of the men escorting Gabe shoved him. Already being in an emotional state he snapped.
“Look asshole,” Gabe turned around to face his assailant, their face was obscured by a green bandana that was tied around their mouth. What Gabe could see was the exposed upper part of the face, it was dirty and heavily scarred. “ I am not afraid to turn the rest of my race into a legend. I’ve made creatures the size of buildings die.” Although most of the warlords he’s killed were from being lucky and cheap tricks he still did have a track record of killing quite a few things.
“Try me, kid.” The man got closer to his face, making absolute sure eye contact was being made.
“Take this cuffs off me and we’ll settle this man to man.” The one thing Gabe had forgotten in his time around mercs and space lizards. Humans are dicks.
They stared at each other for a whole minute before a smaller male, dressed similarly walked up from behind, he smacked the back of the man’s head.
“Ty, we don’t have time for this.” His face wasn’t covered by anything revealing that he was relatively young and that he had much softer features.
The man walked past Gabe making sure to shove his shoulder into him. Once the man known as Ty was at least ten paces ahead of them he spoke up once more. “It isn’t safe to travel during the night.” It wasn’t a threat but Gabe was a lot more compliant being told this instead, after all, whatever happened during Earth could still be happening and more active during nightfall.
“Alright.” He turned around caught up to Froyia, They walked side by side thankfully the rest of the Humans didn’t go too far, the commotion between Gabe and Ty must’ve been something they stopped to watch.
“If you guys need a planet, you’d fit right in on Claroicea.” She joked but Gabe was too far angry to laugh about it. He went back to looking at the man carrying Zara.
They reached the human camp before night fell. In fact, the camp was actually a place that Gabe still knew, The police station. Of Course, it looked different now, the barbed wire fences and armed guards gave that away. In a post-apocalyptic Earth, a secure location like this must be a haven.
Most of the group split up leaving around four people escorting the Gabe and Froyia. While the others took Zara to another location. Minutes of walking they were led to a man. He looked well fed compared to a good portion of the humans they had passed reaching to this place. He wore a hat very reminiscent to those of cowboys. Sweat stains could be seen around the collar of his shirt.
Just moments before he had been talking to someone with an eye patch, they had started to leave just as Gabe arrived. He eyed Gabe silently, the atmosphere was so tense it was nearly palpable like a mist slowly engulfing the room. Gabe’s attitude wasn't helping either, he tried to hold back the urge to punch this guy into a pulp for just being in relation to the band of humans that shot Zara.
“Someone care to explain why an alien and a kid are standing next to me?” He extended his arms and motioned around the room for someone to speak. It didn't take long for someone to respond.
In fact, it was very expected that no one was surprised to see an alien after all Earth was in a constant state of disaster it would probably take a lot to make these people surprised.
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“We found them while we were trailing Keller's men. We shot one of them and the robot that was with them ran off.”
“A robot?” He looked around the room spotting only the men, Gabe and Froyia. “Well, where is the robot?”
“The robot ran off by the time we captured those two.”
He looked back the two captives. “Where is my hospitality. Uncuff these two.” He snapped his fingers and waited, it was very obvious by his southern accent that he was not from around here.“ I am so very sorry for these idiots who fired at you. Abel by the way.” He extended a hand out to Gabe. He looked at it for a moment, He anger began to subside just slightly. As trustworthy as this guy man seem he probably wouldn’t hesitate to stab a baby in its crib. Gabe shook his hand.
“Gabe, the girl is Froyia, she possibly has Stockholm syndrome. You have another one of my friends, she’s Sala’Zara and she was shot by one of your people.”
“I will make sure that we do all that we can to help your friend.” As he said that several people in the room left. “As I can see from you two’s appearances you’re not from Earth. So the colonies worked?”
“Dunno, I’m from here. Just not from this time.”
“Pardon?”
Gabe pulled out his wallet with his ID, He showed Abel. He got closer and squinted, “This here says you’d be over a few centuries old.”
“Momma always told me to respect my elders.” He let out a quick chuckle. The way that he reacted was about the same as someone finding out that the sky was blue. Not like that would give them any useful tips or a way to survive “Your last name, Capursi. I reckon I heard that before...Boys do any of you know any Capursi?”
A smallish male that Gabe recognized as the one who gave him the warning stepped from the crowd. “I know a few Capursi.”
“You do?”
“Me and my sister.”
He laughed, “Alright, Take your grandpappy to his living accommodations. Gabe, I have a favor to ask you in the morning.”
The softer faced boy nodded his head and turned out indicating that Gabe should follow behind.
“I don’t trust that weird sounding guy” Froyia leaned into his ear and spoke softly.
“I don’t either the way he talks seems too friendly,” Gabe responded in a hushed voice, not that anyone could even understand the two.
“I think we should escape when they leave us alone.”
“No, I’m not going to risk the safety of Zara, we stay until she’s at least forty-five percent better, then we leave, forcefully if we have to.”
It was a short walk down the street once they left the station. The space they were using for sleeping happened to be a restored, mostly restored hotel. They went up the stairs to the third or fourth floor. They stopped at a door with the numbers 324.
“So are you really a Capursi?” The boy asked he looked roughly around the same age as Gabe.
“Yeah, for as long as I can remember.”
“Then... Are you like, my great great grandfather?”
“Hah. no, I never had kids. You’re probably from my brother’s bloodline.” Gabe started to think about the math of the situation. “If everything went right, then you’re my great, great, great nephew.”
“That’s pretty...strange.” The kid looked a bit anxious for a moment like he was full of questions but had nowhere to start. “I...have to go relieve one of the guards for the night watch, I'll tell my sister to go meet you in the morning.” The boy started to walk off.
“Hey, you never told me your name!” Gabe called out to him as he was already halfway to the stairs
“It’s Lucas!” And with that, he descended down the stairs.
The two entered the room, seems the locks were busted. Good to know, the room was run down, the carpet was missing in several places. Appliances and other things were broken or downright gone and vines entered through the windows.
“Cozy,” Froyia said as she accidently knocked over a mug that was on a table. “So who was that kid, he had similar eyes to you.”
“Apparently, one of my brother’s descendants.”
“I don’t know anything about humans, does sharing blood make him trustworthy?”
Gabe plopped down on the couch, its deterioration wasn’t as drastic as most of the room, but it was definitely one of the better pieces of furniture.
“Probably not. It’s possible we aren’t even related, we humans can share names and have no relations.”
“Your race is very much like mine.” she sat down next to him except she put her back towards Gabe and leaned on him.
“Oh yeah, Caloriceans have clans full of non-blood relatives.”
“Yeah… How’d you learn that?”
“Apparently, I somehow got myself into a clan.”
“Which one? Roriya? Yellifiya? Bon-fif-fiya?”
“Anaya.”
“What!” Foriya shot upward and looked at Gabe, her eyes were wide in surprise.
“Is there something wrong with them?” Gabe was genuinely confused.
“Is there something wrong with them!?” Everything is wrong with them! I’ve never met one personally, but I’ve seen reports that involved them.”
“And?”
“And they always go and make situations worse, Just before I joined you we were getting reports about an attack on an Ithori officer party, The building was nearly leveled before the Galactic Union stepped in! Reports said that the stolen ship belonging to Selarixa Anaya was in orbit.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right.”
“What did I just get myself into? She leaned back onto Gabe and covered her eyes with her hands. “If I'm found with an Anaya, that’s a death penalty.”
“I’m gonna take a guess, but, since you basically deserted wouldn’t that be a death penalty?”
“Yeah, but that’d be a shoot on sight, being in affiliation with a highly known criminal like that lands you a warrant for extreme torture or ‘interrogations’ as they call it.”
A pair of metallic claws appeared from the window, It was VeVa. It had climbed its way all the way up to avoid detection. It dropped to the floor.
“Afternoon, Gabe.”
Gabe suddenly got up from the couch causing Froyia to frantically flail her arms around as she fell onto the cushions. “Perfect timing, I want you to stand guard in case of intruders.
“Understood, Gabe.”