AN: So, I did warn you that it wouldn't be all zombie apocalypse stuff. :) Also, that this had many elements of comedy and parody. enjoy.

Chapter 5: Bounty Star

The chirping birds mixed with the dim light of early morning to create an atmosphere of tranquility that most did not notice due to the fact that the hustle and bustle of the common day would begin soon. Most people still slept in their warm beds, and knew nothing of the splendor that is the natural world.

Scott Davidson was not such a person. Though he did not care much about the splendor of the natural world, he was certainly up at that time of morning. In fact, he had never gone to sleep at all.

"Talk to me man." said Scott into his headset while he used his controller to manipulate his onscreen avatar through a narrow hallway. He had been up all night playing online games with his supposed friends. They were not especially close friends, and that's how he liked it. They had never met offline, or tried to do so.

A voice that seemed vaguely feminine came back over the headset. Andy, the person Scott played with most often, had a strange voice. He talked like a boy, but sometimes his voice would go high like a girl's for reasons that were never asked or explained. "I've got the mines planted. They're silently activated, so when you go through, go through running."

"Roger that good buddy. Let's blow our load on these turkeys." said Scott. Sure, his euphemism was shaky at best, but he had been up for thirty-three hours gaming over the long weekend. At this point he was lucky to even be able to speak at times, much less be coherent.

"Sounds... Fun." said Andy.

Scott turned the corner, black clad Turks hot on his trail. They fired at him every chance they got, but it did not matter.

They could not hit him often enough to bring him down when he was in partial stealth mode. He half-ghosted around the corner then slowed down for roughly two seconds before entering into a dead sprint. The Turks on his trail rounded the corner just as he passed the delayed detonation mines that had been placed and ran right into the middle of them as the mines exploded.

A raucous laugh echoed from both ends of the headsets as Scott and Andy enjoyed the virtual deaths of the computer generated idiots for that level. The plan had gone off without a hitch.

"Well, that's enough for me for one night." said Andy, after the end of level cut scene had finished.

"Wuss. Be a man dammit." said Scott cheerfully.

"I can't. I just can't." said Andy with a yawn. It was his favorite catch phrase for some reason. He only used it whenever Scott demanded that he be a man.

Scott looked at the screen as it replayed images of their recent kill. Perhaps it was the thirty some odd hours of murdering digital avatars, but a strange quiet overtook him. "You ever feel bad for the poor little things?"

"What, your dick and balls?" asked Andy in an amused tone.

"No. That's a lost cause, and I've come to terms with it." said Scott in a dismissive tone of voice.

Andy's laughter pealed through the headset. After it died down Scott nodded his head lightly then said, "I'm talking about the mobs in these games."

A sleepy, surprisingly high pitched laugh echoed through the headset. "What kind of drugs are you on?"

"Dunno." said Scott. "Just... It's sort of sad that they were made just to be killed. You know."

"Fuck those one-one-zero-one bitches. They ain't nothing." said Andy with a yawn.

"Yeah, yeah. You're Mr. Hardcore. Kill 'em all and take their shoes." mumbled Scott before the infectious nature of yawns caught up with him.

"G'night. Spank ya later." said Andy with a half-laugh.

"I'm not into that sort of thing." replied Scott in customary fashion.

"Who says you get a choice?" mocked Andy before he disconnected.

Scott squinted at the empty air for a moment then closed his eyes. "Why does shit always turn weird with him?" He yawned again, cursed the high-pitched bastard for infecting him with sleepiness, then shut down for the night. He had a few more hours until he needed to be up for another round.

As Scott fell into bed, his eyes snapped open in complete darkness. It took a moment for him to realize what had happened. He had dreamed about his recent past after falling asleep in the dark room. He sat up quickly and looked around the room.

"Shit. It's all still real, huh?" he asked with a sigh. Three days had passed since he had cleared the school. Those days hard been brutal and hard. Somehow he had managed to survive each of his missions, though on more than one occasion he had left body parts behind.

Scott sat up then yawned once. He was not certain why he was so tired. Restoration completely healed him each time, including his need for sleep. Yet, he had wanted to sleep anyway.

The situation that he was in came back to him completely after a moment. He frowned. "Something's got to break soon."

If things continued as they did currently, he would die. In the last few days he had pulled low-end missions that barely covered the cost of restoration and continuing his existence. He had not even bothered spending EXP on anything as he had needed to bank a little just to be certain he met his daily quota. One day he had only earned sixty EXP across three different missions due to how much damage he took. Without banking his EXP he would not have been able to keep his life counter cushion intact. Two or three bad days in a row would kill him even if he survived the missions.

"Fucking zombie virus costs a small fortune to heal every damned time." groused Scott. Whenever he was infected he had never managed to get away with anything less than fifty EXP to heal himself. It usually cost him a great deal more because he would be missing an arm, a leg. Once he had lost an eye and part of his nose.

The timer revealed that he had another thirty minutes before missions would become available once more. He had done all of the ones he had been granted that day. One of the reasons he had decided to try and get some sleep was to make the time go by faster.

Scott leaned back against the cold wall of his cell and sighed. He was not hungry. He was not thirsty. He merely existed in a state of total lack of stimulation. How could he be so bored? He did not know. What he did know was that without any stimulation, time seemed to take forever to pass.

It was inevitable that he would feel memories of before creep into his head. He reveled in them for a time. He remembered his favorite past time, gaming. Since the day he first learned about video games it had been like he had found his calling. He could spend days doing the same repetitive things on an endless loop just to make a character slightly stronger. Never once did it concern him that he might be wasting his precious, irreplaceable days on something useless.

Scott barked out a laugh after he reviewed all of the different games, movies, and other things he had invested his life into up until this point. "It's like I've always lived in a world like this, one populated by impossible things."

He closed his eyes and took a few breaths. "Maybe I was training for this my whole life."

It seemed as good a thing to do as any. No amount of console gaming prepared someone for a zombie apocalypse, but it did ease his mind a little.

"Shit. Even the zombies are better than this." muttered Scott as he waited for the timer. Once his missions ended, there was nothing but the depressing darkness of his room and the wait for something new to happen.

The darkness and the quiet continued for far longer than he would have liked. One minute felt like ten. A half hour felt like a day. However, time did inevitably pass. The siren blared at midnight. A new day had come.

"About damned time." groused Scott. He walked over to the door and read the information. It was nothing new. He had done the exact same sort of mission several times already.

Mission Briefing

Exterminate! Exterminate! You have been tasked with killing all of the zombies at the Altman Strip Mall.

This mission will occur in a sealed environment. You must kill every zombie on site. Time will be synchronized to the time in your personal chamber. You will be unable to leave the area until all zombies have been slain. The zombies will not be able to wander off, either.

Difficulty: H-1

World: Dead Men Walking

World Type: Survival Horror

Force Response Authorization: Solo Mission

Primary Goal: Total Extermination

- Enemies Remaining: [98/98]

Reward: 10 EXP

[—]

"Shit. This sorry ass mission. How am I supposed to get EXP like this?" Scott was annoyed with the mission selection. He would be lucky to manage even one hundred EXP with this mission since zombies rarely gave even one full EXP point. The big guy a few days back had only counted for a little over two points.

"Whatever. Let's do this shit." Scott readied his equipment then accepted the mission.

He stepped out into a sunny mid-morning at a small strip mall. It was an outdoor affair where people would normally walk in the open from one shop to the next. "Less than a hundred zombies, probably not a single one of them special."

It did not take long before moans echoed through the air. Scott sighed and turned to view the oncoming undead. They were slow, so damned slow.

"Fuck it." he muttered. Scott strolled off from the battle scene. He had all day to fuck around. He was in no mood to end things quickly. The last few days had been like this, or worse. Either the mission difficulty was too easy, or he ended up in a situation where he was forced to run from the sudden arrival of a special zombie due to the higher difficulty level.

Scott ignored the shambling idiots while he sought out the edges of the area. There was no point in this mission. It was like he was being punished for surviving before.

The edge of the world turned out to be roughly half a mile, by his estimation, from the center of the strip mall parking area. By the time he had finished wandering around, roughly half the zombies he had to defeat had gathered into a mini-horde by following him around.

"Whatever." said Scott absent-mindedly. He opened fire on the zombies with a loud sigh. His dexterity had improved slightly after the fight with the special zombie, but he had upgraded at all since then. He did not see it happening today, either.

Three shots blasted out. The air became distorted as a crackling sound emanated from his weapon. A blue bolt of energy raced out and missed the target that he aimed at. However, it hit the zombie behind it and to the left. Its head exploded in a shower of gore just before its body fell limply to the side. Scott saw the little green EXP symbol, but the zombie was too far away to see what he had earned. Given recent events, it was probably about thirty percent of one EXP.

Scott continued to fire until his ammunition ran out. Four more zombies fell to the dirt. He switched on the safety of his weapon then calmly walked away a short distance for about three seconds. The safety was turned off, and he lifted his weapon. Another dozen shots were fired. Three more zombies hit the dirt.

The process repeated itself for a while. The horde had no chance to stop him. It was easy EXP, but it would not even remotely be enough to grow. Once the finally zombie in the min-horde fell, Scott scouted the area once more to count the bodies. His plasma rounds easily killed the shambling morons that still straggled around the parking lot. "Thirty-two to go... Oh joy."

Surprisingly, it seemed like the stores had not been looted much. The food and clothing was gone, of course. The pharmacy was empty. However, the other stuff still remained. He found a lot of money and electronic equipment.

In fact, while he wandered idly through the local Game Paradise store, he took the time and effort to look at all of the games that had been left behind. He laughed at a few of the times. They seemed to be plays on words, or parodies of popular games from back home. "Emo Fantasy Thirteen-Six: The Quest for Coherent Plot." His laughter tore through the store for a moment. He would have played the hell out of that just to see what it was.

A zombie shambled out of the backroom. Scott shot it with little fanfare and continued to browse the local selections. As he wandered into the retro-gaming section, something strange happened. A noise off to his right caught his attention.

"It was a time of high science, and space villainy..." said an overly dire sounding voice.

"Hello?" called Scott. Would there be local people in this mission? He had only met the high school harem to date.

"Space Pirates roamed the spaceways. The United Federal Galactic Military Space forces were stretched too thin by the last space war..." said the dour sounding man.

Scott worked his way over to the sound then opened his eyes wide in surprise. One of the flat screen TVs actually worked. There was no power to the store, but somehow the thing was working.

"Due to the number of space pirates that had begun to crop up, bounty hunters had been granted license to do what it took. These bounty hunters did not work for honor, or glory. They wanted credits and a life filled with adventure and violence...in space."

Like a moth to a flame, Scott could not help but walk toward the opening introduction to the only working videogame he had seen in days. He did, however, notice that the introduction used the word space a lot.

"Would you become such a person? Do you have what it takes to make your fortune as a space pirate bounty hunter?" asked the dour voice. A series of images flashed onscreen, followed by a simple menu that asked if he would like to start or continue. The continue button was greyed out.

Scott was more than a little leery of the situation. Why did this thing work when nothing else did? Still, it was a game. It was a game!

He picked up the old school controller. It only had two active buttons, plus a control pad, a start button, and select button. Scott clicked on start just to see what would happen.

"So it begins..." said the dour sounding man as the start option was highlighted.

Scott blinked when the screen went blank. The power to the game system seemed to die. He waited there for a moment, like an idiot, then frowned. "Man, what a rip-off."

He tossed the controller down in disgust then started to turn away. Suddenly, light flared from the television screen. Scott snapped his head back around just in time to see some sort of whirling vortex appear. He tried to run away but he was too late. Lightning snaked out and then seemed to grasp him like a lasso. He was yanked into the screen while he screamed in panic.

Once again in darkness Scott fell toward a distant light. A cheerful feminine voice flared within his mind followed by a strange sound reminiscent of a sixteen-bit, midi-style, plunger sound. "Warp Zone Unlocked! Now entering Bounty Star.

Scott screamed right up until he hit the ground with a meaty thwack. It took a moment to get his bearings, and another one to realize that he was not hurt despite his hard landing. He looked up just in time to notice several overly large insects were flying toward him at a high rate of speed.

He instinctively raised up his weapon and fired at them, however his plasma rounds did little more than annoy the pumpkin sized bastards. "Shit!" cried Scott as he was forced to roll sideways.

They flew in a predictable manner, but they were fast, and did not give a damn about plasma rounds for some reason. Scott dodged too late after the third flyby, and the beast slammed into his shoulder with a glancing blow. He felt a great deal of pain surge through him. The bastard had blasted through all of his hit points with a glancing blow!

It was then that something even more bizarre happened. A loud *Ptoom!* sound echoed through the air. The fast moving insect froze in place as a blast of energy slammed into it.

The same thing happened three more times and the insects were stopped in their tracks. Scott looked up in expectation that he would face the same fate. Instead, he was greeted to the sight of some sort of robot, or heavily armored person deciding from far up above. The armor was a hot pink color with bright red shoulder plates. Further, it was a bit big at the shoulders compared to the waist.

"What the hell are you doing here like that, you idiot?" asked the newcomer in a synthesized voice.

"Say what?" asked Scott. "How the hell should I know?"

"You don't know?" an electronic snort carried through the air. "Whatever, part of my job is to get any left-over civilians out of here before the place blows all to hell. I had thought that the space pirates had gotten them all."

"Space pirates?" Scott rose to his feet. It was like the game that he had wanted to play. The voice had mentioned a warp zone. He realized what had happened after that. The television had been some sort of transportation gateway to another world setting.

"Yeah... Space pirates." said the pink armored guy. "Look civilian. We don't have time for this. We need to get off this rock before the whole place blows. You stick with me and I'll get you out. Go off on your own and I won't even report your death."

"Got it..." said Scott. He had no real idea what to expect from this place. Sticking with the only person around who did seemed like the best plan. Besides that, the guy reminded him of something, but he could not quite place it yet.

"Right. Come on." the armored man ran off in the opposite direction. However, the strangeness of the moment did not abate. The world suddenly froze and then turned a strange shade of grey. A bright blue screen appeared before Scott.

Mission Briefing

You have unlocked a new world-setting [Bounty Star]. Your previous mission is suspended until your new mandatory mission ends. Your current mission is to escape the exploding planetoid XEV-97. Both you and your partner must survive.

Difficulty: G-4

World: Bounty Star

World Type: Action|Platform Hopping

Force Response Authorization: Partner Mission

Primary Goal: Escape Planet XEV-97 in under six minutes.

Reward: 70 EXP

[—]

After Scott read the screen it disappeared. A six minute timer appeared in the air overhead. The world started to move again, and the clock began its countdown.

Scott was used to trying to beat the clock due to the way that the doors worked. He ran after his power armored savior as fast as he could.

"Damn you're slow!" called back the man up ahead. He immediately jumped straight up and easily cleared a debris field that was several times higher than he was tall. Scott was forced to scurry along the debris like a demented monkey in order to get over the top. The sound of gunfire on the other side told him that there were enemies to face.

By the time Scott got to the other side, the insects had all been defeated. The pink armored warrior had started forward once more.

Scott did his best to keep up, but there was a lot of fallen debris, and his companion did not bother to kill every monster. His pistol worked fairly well on a few of the insects that came along. Thankfully, not everything was immune to his equipment. He did learn quickly that the black beetles that had come for him the first time did have resistance to plasma fire.

He hurdled a short boulder the fired several times as he came across some sort of caterpillar creature. It exploded into a shower of light, but those little lights turned into butterflies. The butterflies giggled like small children, a sight that thoroughly creeped him out.

"Move your ass civilian!" snapped the armored warrior. He easily hopped up several boulders to clear a series of debris mounds that had to be at least four stories tall.

"Three minutes left?" Scott ran as fast as he could and did his best to clamber up onto the boulders. He was forced to waste well over two minutes just getting to the top. Thankfully the debris was arranged in a way that allowed him to climb with relative quickness.

On the other side, he could not see his companion. However, he could hear his distinctive gunfire easily enough. Scott wasted no time in racing down the corridor. In the distance, he saw what appeared to be some sort of ship. As he came closer her heard the gunfire once more and looked to his left. His companion was pinned down by several monstrous insects firing from the ceiling. They used some sort of corrosive substance that melted the rocks around the area. Some of that gunk had begun to eat away at the pink clad warrior's armor.

Scott did not hesitate. He fired on the critters overhead. They blew apart quite easily, to his surprise.

The pink clad warrior pulled free of the gunk surrounding their legs then ran over to Scott. There was a brief silence followed by the warrior snatching Scott up in one arm. He cried out in surprise, but calmed down as he noticed the world go by in a blur. The timer read twenty-seven seconds at this point.

The seconds ticked away as the warrior ran toward the ship. At the fourteen second point, they reached the side. He raised his arm and some unseen signal cause a hatch to open in the bottom. He hurled Scott inside like he was a feed sack then leapt up into the ship immediately afterward.

Before the hatch had even closed fully, the warrior ran toward a set of stairs. Scott followed after him. At the five second mark the warrior leapt into a comfortable looking command chair in the cockpit and cried out. "Emergency take off! Maximum Speed."

Scott fell to the ground, hard, as the ship powered on fully and then blasted upward. His lips wriggled and his face pressed to the floor as the forces of acceleration pinned him down.

The timer continued on as they left the thin atmosphere of the planetoid. Just as they escaped the atmosphere a loud series of explosions rocked the gigantic space potato that Scott and his partner had just escaped. The ship, a vessel that looked a bit like a crab, raced off into space as a shockwave lashed out toward them. The timer hit zero, and the shockwave overtook them. Scott was sent flying forward, and he rolled end over end to slap uselessly against the command seat.

The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was the pink clad warrior looking down at him. He did not know how much time had passed, but when he awoke it was in a room that smelled of antiseptic.

He tried to sit up, but an electronic voice told him to stay down. Various computers and screens nearby kept track of his vital signs. "What?"

Another electronic voice answered him. "You were badly injured in the escape. I took you to my sick bay."

Scott blinked. "I... Thank you."

"I always pay my debts. We're even now." said the voice.

Scott looked over as best he could and saw the pink clad warrior. "Are you alright?"

"Me? Of course. I have power armor. Though it'll take a while to repair it after those Ooze-Ooze bastards gunked my gear and kept me from changing weapons to deal with them. Can't believe I let them get the drop on me." replied the armored man.

His helmet turned to Scott then a loud hissing noise emanated from it. "Guess we're going to be stuck together for a while. Might as well take this off and try to repair it."

He reached up and clasped the sides of his helmet. "Hey, you try anything funny and I'll space your crippled ass."

Before Scott could response the warrior lifted his helmet off and revealed that he was surprisingly good looking. Scott immediately hated the pretty bastard. No man should look that good. Of course, the rest of the suit came off right after, and Scott suddenly fell in love with the good looking bastard.

"A wom—" began Scott. The warrior cut him off, though. "Why does everyone assume that I'm a man just because I wear power armor? Sexist pigs."

Scott blinked twice then his eyes rolled back in his head and he began to laugh maniacally. Now he knew what this reminded him of, and damned if it was not hilarious.

"What's so funny?" asked the blond pony-tailed bombshell. She wore a hot pink, skin tight, suit that left little to the imagination. There was a lot worthy of a man's imagination in what Scott had seen.

"Nothing really. I was just reminded what sort of life I live."

"Right..." remarked the beautiful woman. "Look. Thank you for helping me out earlier."

"Thanks for saving my ass." said Scott.

"What? Not going to ogle me or go on about a woman in power armor?" she asked, curious.

"Do you want me to?" he asked with a pained laugh.

She snorted then shook her head. "Prefer not. I don't like to kill the people that I save."

"Sounds fair... So, my savior. Can I have the pleasure of your name?"

"Samantha Jeran, bounty hunter." She tilted her head to the side. "You are?"

"If you didn't threaten to kill me I would have said, in love but you'll have to settle for my name. Scott Davidson." he said cheerfully.

"Right." She took a step closer then casually lifted up his pistol to inspect it. "So, want to tell me who you are? You're no scientist. The federation's never heard of you."

"I'm just a guy who stumbled into the middle of something." he said.

She snorted beautifully then glanced over at him. "You expect me to believe that you just stumbled across a planetoid deep in unincorporated space?"

"Sure. Why not?" asked Scott pleasantly. What was he supposed to tell her?

She snorted again. "I can't get any money for bringing you in, so I'm at a loss."

"Are you?" asked Scott.

"Yes. You helped me get out of there, so I owed you something. I got you out of there, so I feel that pays you back. The problem is that I'm not a taxi service."

"I'm about as penniless as it gets." said Scott.

"Penniless?" she asked, confused.

"Broke? Without cash? Credit-lacking." replied Scott. He started to drift off again as the various medicines performed their work on his injuries.

"I see. You'll just have to owe me then." she said lightly.

"Seems so. What'll—" He nodded off a little but then snorted awake once more to finish his question. "What'll I owe you?"

She sighted the wall through the crosshairs of his pistol. "You know, I've never seen a gun like this. It's practically ancient technology. Yet, it packs a nasty little punch."

"Can't— Need to keep that." mumbled Scott.

"Oh? Well... I can't take a man's only weapon. Do you know where I can get one?"

"Sure." said Scott drowsily. "I upgrade them... after missions."

"Hmm? You upgrade them after missions, huh? You can make stuff like this?" she asked curiously, her eyes alight with interest.

"Sometimes. Expensive, though. Can you give it back to me?" he asked in a slurred speech pattern.

Samantha offered a slightly predatory smile. "Tell you what. You owe me for the ride. Get me something like this and bring it to me some time. I'll call it even."

"Sure, if I can find you again." said Scott.

"Great." she said before walking over and placing his gun on a table nearby. "Don't forget."

The bounty hunter stretched languidly then looked Scott over once more. He was a curious man. Not much to look at, but she had seen far worse. Hell, she had shot worse in the face recently.

As he drifted off to sleep she could not help but consider his words. He was someone who could acquire strangely powerful archaic weaponry and did so after taking missions. Those two things rattled around in her brain and merged into a single decisive thought. He didn't look like much, but he smelled like profits.

They would have another discussion when he woke up. That much was certain.