I’m lying on the ground, face first. Justine had just kicked me in the head and stormed off in a huff. Blake had given me an exacerbated look before she ran off after her to defuse the situation. I still didn’t get an answer as to why I was naked though. I do know that Justine was thoroughly embarrassed as her face turned a deeper shade of purple before she thought that my head was crooked and needed some adjusting. This seriously hurts. Sure the nanites prevent bruising and all but they can’t do shit about the pain. The pain will still linger for a bit.

“Dear older brother?” I moan, still lying face first into the ground. I know for a fact that Volt has not budged a single inch during the face kicking and is still sitting quite comfortably on the couch. Fucker. “I think I may have pushed her a little too far there, although, I do not know how or why.”

Volt doesn’t say anything which I take as confirmation. Damn, even in this world, girls are fucking confusing. Slowly, I push myself up and sit on the ground, facing Volt. He is rubbing his temples, something he normally does when I have annoyed him enough. Or when he is in deep thought. Or both. It has been a relatively stressful day after all. We woke up on an alien planet with nothing but the clothes we went into our cryopods, the guns that Volt and Blake packed, and some survival kits. Our AI tells us that we are stranded on this planet until we can find a way home, IF we can find a way home. In all likelihood, we probably are stuck here forever. Then we, well, I, get attacked by a Daemon who somehow is able to not only control the elements on this planet, but essentially be a part of it. It’s a lot to take in and I don’t doubt the stress is getting to all of us.

“Linds, what do you make of this? Of our situation?” Volt asks me without looking up. Damn he looks exhausted.

“Think Blake and Justine can hear us?” I look at the doorway that the girls left through as I directed the question at Volt. He gets up from the couch and walks over to the doorway and looks out. After a second or two, he walks back and shakes his head.

“I don’t see them,” he answers as he extends a hand towards me. I take it and he pulls me back on my feet. Sighing, I brush the dust off of me and ran a hand through my hair. Volt is not going to like what I’m about to say.

“Well, that alien probably can hear us anyways. Who knows how good her hearing is. But honestly, I think we're a bit boned. I highly doubt we’re anywhere near our solar system. Hell, we may not even be in our own galaxy for all I know. We’re aliens on this planet but fortunately, somehow, I don’t know how, but we can understand the natives here. So either there was some divine intervention at play here, which I highly doubt, or the language evolution just coincidentally matched Earth.”

“Maybe it is our universal translators?”

“Impossible. The universal translators only work on languages that are known. There is no way it could have known the languages on this planet. Besides, there would have been a long delay between the time Justine spoke to us and the translation being played into our ear. We would have first heard her language BEFORE hearing it again but in English. Oh and I never activated my translator since I have been on the planet. You?”

“No. I haven’t either…This doesn’t make sense, Linds.”

“Sirs, if I may,” Sky chimed in from the couch. It has been pretty silent throughout this entire exchange. Volt and I both turn our heads to look at it. “There is another theory I would like to add. I believe we may not be in our universe anymore.”

I nod at Sky. That thought had occurred to me as well. Wormholes are a true mystery and we are the first travelers through one. The theory of parallel universes isn’t new. The idea is crazy and sounds almost impossible but based off of what we have already seen and experienced here on Erde already, I’m entertaining any and all theories. If this IS a parallel universe, then it would be too far-fetched to say that Erde is this universe’s version of Earth. That may also explain why the natives here speak English. I’ll bet that there are other languages as well but let’s not worry about that now.

BANG

Gunshot. We all turn and look at the doorway then at each other. I shrug and say what I’m assuming we are all thinking, “Justine probably went ballistic and Blake had to shoot her in the face. That or they found prey and Blake shot it and we’re going to have dinner soon. Either way is a win for me. Sky, you said before that you had detected lifeforms as energy sources. Is Justine coming off as an energy source?”

“Processing. Unknown. There is an anomaly within Justine that I cannot comprehend. If I have to theorize, I believe it is her affinity with the elements. But she is not the energy source I had originally detected. However, there are traces of the energy source I had originally detect is coming from her exterior.” Well that doesn’t answer anything except that I’m fairly certain Sky will not try to use Justine as a battery. At least, I hope it won’t. But given her attitude and love for abusing me, I might just allow it.

“Alpha, are you able to display an image of Erde?” Volt inquires.

“Processing. Affirmative. I am able to replicate a small an image of the planet with the metquids available to me. Please stand by.” Sky’s body starts to twist and convulse as it conforms into itself. It’s a bit disturbing to watch to honest. Imagine a falcon the size of a….falcon, wow I have a way with words, start to implode into itself and then expand like a balloon to the size of a black basketball. Little bumps start to form on the ball that has now left the couch and is floating in front of us. Eventually, the ball stops moving and Sky informs us that this is what it was able to scan before we crashed. From the looks of its scans, there are 2 main landmasses. One of which encompasses nearly half of the globe whereas the other landmass a few thousand miles to the west of the first landmass covers maybe only 1/80th of the planet's surface.

“Currently, we are located here.” A pillar forms on the west coast of the gigantic landmass, which I will affectionately dub Big Ass Land until Justine tells me the name of this continent. I look closely at the planet and notice something peculiar near our location.

“Sky, what is this line you formed along the west coast of Big Ass Land?” I trace the line that stretched all the way from north to south of the landmass. Curious.

“That is the Barrier,” I hear Justine call from the doorway. She enters with what looks like a cross between a deer and a lizard slung over her shoulder. What the fuck is that? It has the head of and body of a deer but legs of a lizard and a wicked long tail? Oh and Justine is completely soaked in blood right now. Somehow, she looks incredibly sexy…and frightening. Blake walks in right behind her gives me a thumbs up, letting me know that she has successfully calmed down Justine. That woman probably could tell a bunch of killer bees to take a nice little nap instead of trying to kill everything in their vision. But I’m going to guess that she gave Justine her rifle to shoot at the deer lizard…thingy. Shooting something does wonders to calm someone’s mind. She probably imagined the prey was actually me. Shudders. Yeah, she most definitely did. I should watch my back.

Justine’s eyes flashed a look of surprise at the sight of a black ball floating in midair but it quickly passes. Man, she is relatively calm for someone who is facing "witchcraft."

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“The Barrier is how we keep the Contagion swarm out of Pangea.” Pangea? Okay that parallel universe theory is becoming more and more likely. This is more than just a coincidence now. Pangea, in case you don’t know, is the supercontinent back on Earth before it broke apart.

Putting that thought aside, I point to other landmass and ask, “I’m assuming this is where the Contagion is?”

Justine nods in confirmation and looks away. After a moment, she walks into a different room with the…animal to I assume butcher and cook it. Huh. I bet that is where the Daemons’ original home is. From her previous reactions, whatever the Contagions are, they must have chased out the Daemons and caused them to scatter throughout Pangea. Man, that’s rough. I wonder how long ago that was. Obviously the Barrier was not built overnight but then again, it probably was considering how the natives are able to control the earth, well, erde as Justine called it. Hell, I would not be surprised if someone told me that the wall was built within the last hour. The amount of shit that has popped up recently is enough surprises for a lifetime. Whatever, I won’t press for details. Either she’ll tell us or someone else will. Or nobody will and we will just be fumbling around like ignorant tourists. Doesn’t matter right now.

“So what have my two favorite boys been talking about?” Blake comes over and plants a kiss on both Volt’s and my cheeks before grabbing Sky. Sky in the meantime deflates and turns back into a falcon. I will never get used to its transformations.

“Hey babe. Did you give your gun to our host to shoot that thing?” Volt inquires.

“Nope, I shot it. She was fuming and you know how I don’t trust anyone to handle a gun when they’re angry. It’s a good thing I used the air pellet. That thing’s hide is ridiculously tough.”

Guns these days are amazing. You can easily interchange them between shooting air pellets that is formed from the surround oxygen or inserting a battery to shoot laser bullets. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Air is loud but powerful. It is however very slow and takes a few seconds to create a pellet to shoot. Fortunately, so long as oxygen is in the air, you won’t run out of ammo. In the case of using batteries to shoot lasers, you ideally would want to bring a few packs if you’re going to shoot all day. They’re rapid fire and incredibly silent. But they lack the same punch as an air pellet. Why? I don’t know and I never bothered to find out. Just trust me on this. The batteries run out after 10,000 shots but are self-sustaining. So, you deplete one battery, switch it out, and depending on how shit your aim is, you probably can go an hour or two before the first battery is fully recharged. I never bought my own gun. I was going to get my own pistol after I got back from my mission to Europa but obviously, that won’t be the case anymore. Volt and Blake each brought their favorite guns with them in their pods, which in hindsight, was actually a pretty smart move. I guess I’ll just have to hope that our weapons locker is nearby to arm myself before it gets found by someone else. It would be bad if some native found it and started to get ideas of world domination or something.

“Oh yeah, Linds, you should go help out Justine. She said that after dinner, she will take us to her clan,” Blake says to me.

“Sounds like a plan, I’ll go check in on her then. Volt and Sky can let you know what we learned about this planet,” I nod to both Sky and Volt as I turn to leave. It goes unspoken to not let Blake know about the idea of us being completely fucked in a possible parallel universe. She doesn’t need that despair added on.

As I enter the room that Justine went in, I called out, “Hey Miss von Gustogh do you need any help with the anim…Oh…Fuck me….” Apparently, Justine decided to not only wash the animal, but also herself. In fact, she is standing in the middle of the room completely naked, wings out and all. Her glorious purple body is on full display here and her silver hair is dripping with water. I notice that her skin is slightly paler where she wore her armor when compared to her face. Her breasts seem to point at me with their nipples fully erect from the cold. Water slides down her flawless body. Those fiery red eyes seem to glow brightly as she glares at me. I’m going to run away now. Yeah, I should get out of here. I turn and start to walk away. Actually, I should run. And duck. As I duck, a ball of water flys over me at an incredible speed and lands on the wall, leaving a signifant dent. Scary. 

“GET BACK HERE SO I CAN KILL YOU, PERVERT!!”

“THAT’S NOT INCENTIVE FOR ME TO Get BACK! Would you believe me if I said I didn’t mean to see your naked body? That’s the last thing I wanted to see! Well, maybe not. But you know what I mean! Besides, you already seen ME naked!!!”

I feel a gush of wind and instinctively duck as a slab of stone flies overhead. I turn around just in time to see Justine screaming at me. “SO MY BODY IS DISPLEASING TO YOUR ALIEN EYES?!?!”

“THAT was what you heard? You do realize that you’re really hot right?” I dive to the right as a fireball hits the spot I was just standing. I see smoke rise from where the fireball hit. The bitch is trying to kill me!

“YOU DARE TELL ME HOW I LOOK?!?!”

“What?? You want me to say you’re ugly?? That’s just going to...aaaand there it is…” I jump back a few feet as a gush of wind slices the ground. I find it’s actually pretty to dodge when you keep an eye on the movements of the caster.

“YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO CALL ME UGLY?! I SHALL TEAR YOU LIMB FROM LIMB, LITTLE ALIEN!!!” I seriously can’t win here. This is either going to end with me in pieces or me dead or me beaten until the nanites in my body just say “fuck this shit, you’re on your own.”

Suddenly Justine zooms across the room, arms outstretch. She’s definitely going to strangle me. I could dive under her but this will only prolong this fight. If you can even call it a fight. I’m just dodging and not even attempting to attack her. Might as well let her catch me work out some of her anger issues. Shit this is going to suck…

Justine wraps her hands around my throat as I predicted, lifts me off my feet, and starts to cut off my circulation. I was tempted to grab her boobs to get her to stop or something but decided that would only make her angrier. WHY IS SHE SO STRONG?!?! Air…need...air. Where…is…my…crew? And just like that, she releases me. I fall to the ground and massage my throat as I cough and gasp for that precious oxygen. Oh you, sweet glorious oxygen. I will never take you for granted again.

“Justine! Have you calmed down now? This was my fault. I told him to come help you. I swear we didn’t know you would be cleaning yourself right now!” Blake, oh you, sweet dear sister of mine. She has grabbed the Daemon’s arms and holding on tightly. Justine is still thrashing as she attempts to break loose from Blake’s vice like death grip. Volt is in front of me with his guns drawn and pointed at the Daemon. Sky is hovering above me, ready to interfere if everything went south. Yeah, great crew members. Great family. I love you guys. I won’t think about hating you guys ever again.

“It has been a long day, Justine. Let’s eat and then you can beat the shit out of him later,” Blake states flatly. Wait what? I look up and I see Volt smiling at Justine and nodding his head. Sky…is emotionless.

I fucking hate you all.