The next morning, a disguised and tired Marty found himself on the deck of the Sylvering ship. The previous day, the girls and their best to keep from laughing as they knew full well that it was him on the news. Embarrassed, Marty chose to ignore their teasing smiles until he collapsed from exhaustion. Even after a full night’s sleep, Marty did not feel fully recovered. However, with his Ki being inexhaustible, his overall power did not change too much.

Before Marty went onto the ship, he made sure to make an electronic alibi for himself. The reason for this was because the girls were too high-profile during their first contact while he was absent. It was possible to link his current disguised form if he didn’t cover his tracks well.

Angelica anxiously looked around the ship as she waited for Marty to tell her what to do. Marty sensed the nervousness and fear building in her, though he could hardly blame her because her mother was in jeopardy.

“Alright, I’m ready,” Marty said.

“What do we need to do,” Angelica said hurriedly.

“Nothing. The ship does not need to move it all. We should appear in your reality around 15 minutes after you left, so it may be within your best interests to immediately jump.”

Angelica hesitated for a moment. “All right, in five minutes, we shall be ready.”

Marty nodded. “Since I have some time to kill, could I take a look at the SRIN you collected?”

Angelica noticeably froze before she turned to a nearby guard and nodded. The guard left and quickly returned with a highly secure container that Marty opened to find the currently inactive SRIN. He closed his eyes and focused his mind on the little machines within the container.

Angelica’s ship got extremely lucky. The small size and number of the SRIN limited their ability to perform tasks as well as their computing power. However, the SRIN had invaded the ship with the initial goal of replicating a certain number of subsequent troops before receiving further orders from the Mother SRIN. The ship had ended up on Earth just before they finished their replication and were unable to obtain new orders, thus becoming inactive.

Angelica looked at Marty, wondering what he was doing before she saw something that caused her and all the crewmembers to reach for their weapons. The SRIN had begun to move. It was already clear that they completed their previous instructions and could not receive further here, so their movement was terrifying.

“Relax,” Marty said as he put his hand into the container. The SRIN moved in a way that appeared to be liquid metal into the palm of his hand before they formed into a single entity that mirrored their smaller selves.

Angelica’s silver face was notably whitened as she spoke with a shaky voice. “You can control them?”

“Wasn’t too difficult. You won’t mind if I keep these, right?”

Angelica looked at him as if she was looking at a monster. Their advanced technology had been unable to hack into a single SRIN. They couldn’t understand the code that the SRIN operated on, nor could they overpower the signal. At best, they could only isolate a small area. “You can keep them, but if you come to my reality, then the Mother SRIN will probably retake control.”

Marty shook his head. “Not possible. I made them unable to receive the signal sent by the Mother SRIN and completely changed the programming language. With both the medium gone and the language changed, the Mother SRIN should have no capability of even beginning to figure out how to control them until it gained grade 5 intelligence.” Marty replied.

Angelica looked at Marty, surprised that he knew the different grades of the Mother SRIN as well as being thoroughly astonished at his understanding. A grade 5 Mother SRIN would have to take over an entire planet full of the resources necessary to replicate enough SRIN. In its essence, the whole world would need an ocean of SRIN for the computing power to reach that high of a level. It had happened once, but that Mother SRIN was destroyed along with the planet they had given up.

Given that the Mother SRIN would no longer be controllable at grade 3, the current Mother SRIN would be lower else they couldn’t be controlled. However, this reminded Angelica something she had temporarily not noticed due to her worry. The person before her had hacked and obtained the database of the ship without the AI, specifically designed to detect and mitigate security breaches, from noticing. Additionally, he also could freely move between worlds. These two abilities combined made her reevaluate Marty. All of a sudden, he became the top of her threat list as his skills would threaten her highly technical civilization. At that moment, she made the decision not to make him her enemy.

“Luckily, there weren’t too many of them, and the Mother SRIN wasn’t in communication. It would’ve been far more difficult to do so otherwise.” Marty continued.

“Can’t you circumvent AI anyway?” She asked before realizing she may have given way too much.

Marty gave Angelica a short look. “Yes, that’s because your AI was added to your systems and not your system’s core. The Mother SRIN is solely an AI. Anything I do will automatically be detected... Probably. As such, it is challenging and time-consuming to obtain control of any SRIN influenced by the Mother SRIN.”

Angelica nodded slightly, dumbfounded when the SRIN disappeared. Naturally, she had no idea that there was a space within his ring where he could store items. She repressed the curiosity in her mind before she looked back at Marty. “By the way, how should I address you? I never garnered your name.”

Marty shrugged. “You can call me Sir Knight.” He replied, not caring.

Angelica nodded as she didn’t care that the name is false.

“Princess, when ready.”

The Princess nodded. “Good, prepare to proceed in two minutes. The something I… I need to take care of.” Angelica said before she left the bridge.

Marty frowned but did not say anything as the faster they left Earth, the less likely something terrible would happen.

Angelica said through the comm system.

Marty nodded. “I will count down from five and will open the door on ‘go.’ We will arrive in orbit at the planet you initially jumped from, as it is easier for me to open a door in that area. We will arrive approximately 15 minutes after you jumped so you should be prepared to jump immediately. We will be facing the nearest military outpost... Five, four, three, two, one, go.” Marty said before opening the door. As he did so, he felt a wave of exhaustion hit his mind. This door was the largest he had ever created, and it additionally needed to move to take the ship.

In the next moment, the crew was astonished to find that they were suddenly in space.

“Confirming position. Position confirmed, jumping in 3, 2, 1, jumping.” The helmsman said before the ship took off.

Marty was somewhat underwhelmed traveling such distances. Unlike conventional propelling engines, these engines affect space shortening the distance needed to travel.

“Commander, the princess isn’t on board.”

“What! What do you mean?”

“She took the prototype scouting ship and left as soon as we returned. With her clearance, she was able to hide her actions completely.”

Several officers begin to argue about whether or not to go back, but Marty clearly understood the situation. Going back was impossible. Due to the nature of the ship, sending information would be slower. To get the word out as quickly as possible and get a sufficient military force to rescue the Empress, they could not return. After asking a couple of questions, Marty found the apparent reason for Angelica’s behavior. The Princess had been relatively cold to her mother for over a decade for unclear reasons. However, this coldness disappeared during the attack. Angelica probably felt remorse for her past treatment of her mother and was more desperate to rescue her as a result.

Upon getting this information, Marty couldn’t help but sigh. Was the Princess foolish or courageous? He really couldn’t answer that question. But what he did know is that he felt envious towards her. When his parents passed away, he was not able to do anything regardless of whether or not it would have mattered. He was in a coma through all of it.

Sensing the mark he left on the Princess while they were still on Earth, Marty took several seconds to calculate the jump as she was in a moving ship. The next moment, he disappeared from the ship deck and reappeared in the small cargo hold behind the cockpit. The ship had limited personnel space and supplies to ensure that the numerous stealth systems had enough space and power. However, Marty didn’t have time to think about this as he quickly used Ki to protect himself.

*Bang!*

With force, Marty struck the back of the compartment. As he got himself up with a grimace, he suddenly found a pistol in his face. The fact that it was very similar to the one Nero had used, which caused him to quickly scan the information he had taken from the ship database.

“What are you doing here?” Angelica asked.

Marty rolled his eyes, “You’re not my mom. You can’t tell me what to do. (To help.) “

Angelica’s eyebrow twitched, her expression soon relaxed, his presence reassuring her. “You’re bleeding.” She replied as she noted the blood that seeped out from behind Marty’s mask.

Marty quickly checked his condition. “Light nosebleed from stress. I’ve been abusing that magic without taking sufficient rest.”

Angelica nodded with a hint of disappointment because of Marty’s inference that he would unlikely be able to use magic in the short term.

Suddenly, Marty’s face turned grim. “We’ve been found.”

“Impossible. Even the SRIN shouldn’t be able to find the ship.” Angelica replied.

The scout ship they were on was the latest model, and it had the highest level of technology available. Every revealing factor: heat, sound, visual, etc. was exceptionally well masked to the point where a person would not notice the ship flying 10 feet overhead.

“You should never be too overconfident,” Marty said as he shook his head. “Indeed, the SRIN couldn’t detect you normally. So what would happen if a SRIN suddenly ran into something that wasn’t there?”

Angelica’s eyes widened as she realized. “We didn’t even have this technology during the last war. How did the SRIN discover and already develop a countermeasure?”

“In all likelihood, it is most likely due to Hydra.”

“You know about Hydra?”

Marty nodded. “We’ve had previous confrontations. Most likely, they controlled the SRIN for longer than you realized as a spy.”

“That shouldn’t be possible. We have many anti-SRIN precautionary measures in place.”

“The EM pulses are only effective on the smaller ones as they are too small to have countermeasures. The larger ones will be tough to infiltrate any of our facilities. But when it comes to security, especially involving cybersecurity, there’s always a weak link. With enough patience, they probably gained access one way or another to sensitive information. That, or you have a mole.”

Angelica was about to retort when Marty’s expression changed, and he rushed to the cockpit and got into the pilot seat.

Angelica ran up next to him. What do you-” she began to ask, interrupted by a sudden maneuver which consequently caused her to fall into his lap. Angelica had a flash of anger and was about to yell before the familiar green glow of plasma flew past the cockpit window. Taking a glance outside, she saw several small ships that were little more than large plasma cannons with engines.

“Get in the gunner seat and strap in,” Marty said as he pushed her off his lap.

Angelica’s expression flashed anger and shame as she had never been so physically close to a male, nor had she been spoken to or touched in such an aggressive way. However, she was knowledgeable and knew that the situation made it impossible to expect any politeness.

She quickly got to the gunner seat, slightly regretting not taking any crew members. The scout ship they were on was extremely minimalistic as was without a shield generator or an AI core, which meant it had to be controlled manually. However, a confident look flashed in her eyes as shooting was one of her fortes. She then turned to look at Marty. “How are your flying skills?”

“I’m a quick study,” Marty replied.

The confident look that had appeared on Angelica’s face quickly disappeared as she cursed under her breath. She would’ve said more, but the sudden maneuvers Marty used made her worried about biting her tongue, so she kept them to herself.

At this point, Marty had turned off all of the stealth systems. The ship had a limited power supply, and he had put all the energy into the engines and the EM generator. He would only be able to use an EM pulse once or twice in the short term as it consumed a tremendous amount of power.

The SRIN’s swarm also made it extremely impractical as the EM pulse’s range was limited. If currently used, he would only end up flying back into the net of SRIN, revealing his whereabouts. Additionally, the SRIN plasma cannons were keeping a constant distance from him. They remained far enough away so that he would have ample time to react as he could monitor them with his mind. However, this also positioned them just outside the effective range of EM pulse. If they could get out of the SRIN swarm, they could use the stealth systems to hide from the SRIN plasma cannons. However, they would have to reach the edge of the ever-moving SRIN swarm and use the EM pulse. Unfortunately, it would also cause the stealth systems to be inoperable for a dozen seconds. In other words, to escape, they would have to take out the SRIN plasma cannons either with the EM pulse or at the edge of the SRIN swarm.

Marty’s brain regularly processed plans and possibilities while he monitored the SRIN around him. Luckily he could sense all the active SRIN, and this included the plasma cannons alignment. Using this information, he could quite accurately figure out when they would shoot and began to dodge right as the SRIN committed their shot.

Marty and Angelica’s stomach’s lurched to their throats as they quickly plummeted towards the ground, both to pick up speed and to make the ship harder to target.

The SRIN seemed to have no concept of energy conservation, and they fired whenever the chance to hit was high enough. However, after half a minute, their tactics began to change as not a single shot had struck its mark due to Marty’s excellent evasive piloting. Given that the number of misses was statistically improbable, the SRIN plasma cannons began to change their tactics from individual shots to teaming up.

At this point, Marty had leveled out only slightly above the vegetation below. With his mind, he could sense that five SRIN plasma cannons were chasing them. However, the good news was that he was outpacing the swarm and should theoretically be out of it soon.

Lining up a shot, Angelique was about to fire, but wildly missed as Marty had to take an evasive maneuver right as she shot. “Would you hold the ship steady?” she said in anger as she thought she would hit for sure.

“Princess, if you have a death wish, that’s fine, just don’t take me down with you.”

Angelica gritted her teeth but didn’t reply as she went back to her monitor.

“Aim at segment 5E,” Marty said.

“What?”

“Just do it quickly!”

Realizing this wasn’t the time for indecision, she focused the scope at the segment, confused as there were no enemies there. The next moment, Marty made his most significant maneuver yet to dodge three plasma cannon’s simultaneous firing. However, not only did this maneuver cleanly dodged all of the shots, but it also placed one of the SRIN plasma cannons directly into segment 5E. Out of pure reflex, Angelica fired, and the SRIN plasma cannon exploded. “Got him.” Angelica mumbled under her breath before turning to Marty with a smile on her face, “I got him!”

A strange flash appeared in Marty’s eyes before he replied, “Great kid, don’t get cocky!”

Angelica reacted like a cat who had her tail stepped on. “I am not a-” she began to reply but bit her tongue due to Marty’s next maneuver. Giving an expression like she was a bullied child, she glanced at him before she went back to her weapons monitor.

The chase continued for another three minutes. At this point, Angelica and Marty had teamed up again to take out another SRIN leaving only three plasma cannons behind them. Although it seemed effortless, Marty knew it couldn’t continue as he felt a wave of exhaustion begin to creep upon him. The constant gathering of information and the calculations were beginning to take its toll. However, his face lit up as he realized that he had found the edge of the SRIN swarm with a large outcropping of rocks above a nearby canyon that temporarily cut off visuals. Decisively, Marty maneuvered towards the outcropping.

“Hold onto something.” He shouted as he cleared the SRIN swarm and maneuvered behind the rocks. Angelica was about to ask why but firmly kept her mouth shut as she realized that the ship was coming to a stop faster than recommended. Angelica’s vision flashed black from the massive G-forces that they were experiencing. Marty expertly controlled the scout ship so that they stopped as quickly as possible without her passing out.

At this point, the SRIN had lost both physical and visual confirmation. They had no way of knowing the scout ship began to stop so abruptly. The SRIN plasma cannons and a large portion of the swarm quickly approached much closer than they had before, well within the range of the EM pulse. As soon as the SRIN plasma cannons rounded the corner, Marty resolutely activated the pulse. The SRIN swarm in the area immediately deactivated and would no longer be able to function at all. The SRIN plasma cannons, however, were only stunned for a couple of seconds. However, this was more than enough time for Angelica, who quickly fired off two shots, destroying two of the three SRIN plasma cannons.

Before she could fire off the third shot, she was surprised to find that Marty had suddenly appeared at the other weapon station and simultaneously taken out the remaining SRIN.

“We did it,” Angelica said she flashed him a smile.

Marty smiled and nodded in response and was about to relax, but he instinctively did not. His years of training knew that the moment that one relaxed was the moment where one was most vulnerable. Though tired, he extended his mind as far as he could. Upon finding no SRIN active in the vicinity, he began to relax his mind. Then he was shocked when a signal suddenly appeared out of nowhere. It was another SRIN plasma cannon on the ground. A thousand thoughts flashed through his mind, and he realized it had been a trap. Upon realizing that the scout ship could not be shot down by normal means, the SRIN seem to have figured out they could be detected while powered on. They used the team firing to corral him in a specific direction, close to a deactivated SRIN plasma cannon, which he could not detect. How this SRIN plasma cannon was activated, external or timed, was unclear and unimportant. All Marty knew at that moment was it would be impossible for him to maneuver the ship and dodge.

Gnashing his teeth, he Gale Stepped and embraced Angelica. Angelica was momentarily stunned by surprise before a flash of anger overcame her. She thought he might be trying to take advantage of her good mood, but was shocked when a massive amount of Ki suddenly surrounded them both.

With a resounding boom, a bolt of plasma shot through the scout ship right where Angelica stood a moment ago and grazed Marty. Even using his Red Ki, draconified body, and even reflecting a tiny bit thanks to his adamantine armor, a vast feeling of pain wracked him. The smell of his burnt flesh assaulted their nostrils. However, Marty had no time to react as the plasma shot was very accurate and destroyed a vital system. The consequential explosion sent the two of them through the hole the plasma cannon had initially shot through in a blaze of fire. That was the last thing Marty remembered before he blacked out into unconsciousness with only a single thought: [I’m still too weak].

Comparatively, Angelica was much better. Under Marty’s protection, she was lucky and got off with only minor injuries. However, her injuries were the least of her concerns as the cold wind whipped her back into reality as the two of them fell down the deep, dark canyon.

Angelica was momentarily stunned as she tried to process her situation before she realized that Marty was slowly slipping away from her. Upon discovering he was unconscious, she quickly grabbed him. She was inherently a prideful person, and she fully realized that he had saved her life several times and brought himself into fatal harm to do so. She gritted her teeth with resolve and removed the large cape that fluttered behind her. If Marty were awake, he would be quite surprised as she had two large and pure black feathered wings that were not a staple of her race.

The Sylvering race was known for two things, being predominantly silver in color and the fact that they were all female. Although their race was capable of reproducing parthenogenetically, they would prefer to procreate with males of another species. They would use some of the DNA from the males to help facilitate genetic diversity and avoid the genetic degradation from continual parthenogenetic reproduction. As a result of the Sylvering’s unique reproduction, all children born to Sylvering would be solely Sylvering without any traits of their fathers. However, Angelica’s wings were a racial trait that should not appear on a Sylvering.

With a grimace, she unfurled her wings completely as pain wracked her back due to the sudden wind resistance they caused. She did manage to slow their descent to a glide thanks to the heat from the wreckage below them. Unfortunately, she realized that they were still moving too fast and would be severely injured, if not dead, once they reached the ground. She tried to flap her wings, but this only caused her to lose balance and sped up her dissent. At this point, she began to regret not practicing or exercising her wings. As they were unique, she felt that they separated her from the rest of her race, so she hid and ignored them and had begun to regret it. If she did manage to survive, she resolved to practice so that her wings would be usable.

Just when Angelica was about to despair, strange light energy suddenly appeared from Marty’s unconscious body. She watched in surprise as it formed into the shape of a circle beneath him. This action was a subconscious one that perplexed her. However, these thoughts when she realized that they were very quickly decelerating. To her relief, they eventually came to a complete stop for a moment before they began to slowly accelerate once again before they traveled at a consistent, slow speed. Once she realized that Marty felt extremely light in her arms, she concluded that the circle underneath them was another form of magic that could affect gravity. Momentarily stifling her curiosity, she used her wings to help control and guide them down the canyon.

After a short time, she finally saw the bottom. The position of the sun and the flames from the wreckage lit up the canyon interior enough to see the surroundings. With a glance, she found a cave in the bottom and steered towards it to fly inside and gently land. She was about to set Marty down when the magic circle suddenly disappeared. Unprepared and unable to hold Marty’s weight, she suddenly found herself on the ground with Marty on top of her. A feeling of anger and shame momentarily flashed through her body as Marty’s masked face was pressed firmly in her cleavage. However, those feelings went away when she looked at his heavily cracked mask with traces of blood seeping out of it. The realization that she did not feel any disgust was noticed but quickly pushed away as she tried to lift him off her as gently as possible.

With some effort, due to the weight of his armor, Angelica finally managed to lay him down on his back and get a good look at him. What she saw slightly made her tremble. Nearly all of his clothing was torn, and there was a small trickle of blood flowing from his mask. His side was completely exposed to the air revealing a massive first-degree burn. Her whole body trembled as she was unable to comprehend the amount of pain he must’ve felt protecting her. She slightly teared up but wiped them away as she began to look around the cave while her eyes adjusted to the dark. When she did so, she suddenly saw some movement and felt a tremor spread across the ground.

Angelica fumbled for a second with a small light before turning it on. What she saw made her pale in fright. Not 20 feet away was a massive reptilian beast that showed signs of drowsiness as it had just been woken up by the noise and the smell of blood. It had the head of a snake with the body shape and size of a rhinoceros with natural armor. It’s tongue extended, which revealed its carnivorous teeth as it made its way towards them.

Angelica panicked. As she was in between the beast and the exit, she subconsciously made the smartest decision for her survival and made a step towards the exit. Her movement stopped with that one step as it had brought her right next to Marty’s head.

Even though Angelica had never seen this alien beast before, she knew it would be capable of traveling faster than her. Escaping on her own would be extremely difficult, much less bringing an unconscious person. The next thought that ran through her mind was that Marty might leave the beast content, allowing her to escape. However, she abandoned that thought as soon as she saw Marty’s broken mask. She collapsed next to him, her head just above his. He hadn’t given up on her. It was her fault that he was here; that he was injured. Whether the reason she stayed was due to fear, pride, righteousness, or other feelings she did not know; she only knew that she had to stay. If they died, they would die together.

Angelica felt the ground tremble as the creature moved up to them. Her jaw shivered, and she began to tear up as she looked down at the masked face below her. “I’m so sorry I got you into this mess. It doesn’t seem like I’ll ever be able to repay what you have done for me.

“Mother, sorry I wasn’t able to save you. I’m sorry I wasn’t the best daughter. I’m sorry I won’t be able to tell you how much I love you.” Angelica said as a single tear escaped her and fell into the eye socket of Marty’s mask. At this point, she could feel the heated breath of the beast behind her on her back. Her body shook as every cell in her body screamed for her to run away to protect herself, but she finally firmly denied it. Futilely, she spread herself out over Marty’s body in an attempt to protect him. Behind her, the beast growled, and she could hear the slight slap of its mouth as it opened in preparation to strike. She closed her eyes, and her body stopped shaking, and a feeling of serenity overcame her. She felt at peace, as though she had accepted the Fate that was about to befall her. Behind her, the creature bared its fangs, lunged forward, and an enormous, powerful, and defiant roar shook the cave.

Disorientated by the violent movement, the roar, and belief in impending death, Angelica took a minute before she realized something was wrong. There was no pain nor coldness as she expected to feel. Instead, she felt warmth. She slowly began to open her eyes before they snapped open to take in the view before her. She was now sitting being gently propped up by Marty, who stood next to her. In his other hand was a black katana shrouded in black flame. Red Ki surrounded his body as it flowed from violently like water through rapids. What caught her attention most was the eyes behind his heavily damaged mask. They were red with vertical pupils, completely different from the eye she had seen behind his mask before. A snarl to the side diverted her attention. She found the beast that had nearly attacked her was pinned up against the side of the cave wall by a giant red dragon, which originated from the energy emanating from Marty. The creature’s tough hide allowed little penetration as the Ki Dragon attempted to pierce the creature’s neck.

Marty finally moved as blood dripped from his body. With each step, he couldn’t help but grimace and grunt in pain as he slowly made his way to the beast. Barely able to maintain consciousness, he was unaware of the shock that appeared on Angelica’s face with his first grunt that slowly turned into tears. This was because of Angelica’s ability, which she considered a curse.

Ever since Angelica could remember, so long as a person made a verbal gesture, she would hear it accompanied by whispers of their real intent or meaning. This ability was what kept her from lashing out against Marty when they first met, wedged a gap between her and her mother, and spurred her innate hatred towards males.

Due to Angelica’s position as the daughter of the current Empress as well as her astounding intellect, she would often be approached by men with ulterior motives. If they said ‘you are beautiful,’ she might hear something like (flattery to seduce you). With most of the males having ulterior motives, her father out of the picture, her loathing of males increased with her age. The reason why she suppressed her loathing of males with Marty was that she was desperate, and the whispers she heard from him were always positive, rather than negative. She rarely ever heard them with Marty, which meant that he was a straightforward and honest person. This ability was the reason for her tears because, with every grunt he produced, she heard the whisper: ‘Protect her. Protect her.’

With her status, Angelica was no stranger to being protected. Many had uttered those words before, but they were accompanied by the whispers (flattering the boss) or (it is my duty to protect you). But she did not hear this from Marty. It was a simple (protect her). With his injured body wracked with pain, the only thought in his mind was to protect her. Those two words cut into her heart more effectively any sword could.

As Marty neared the beast, it began to struggle more vehemently as it sensed the threat of death approaching. Marty was not doing well as his consciousness began to wane from the excruciating pain he felt, so he made a couple of quick steps towards the beast. The creature struggled more intensely, but Marty’s eyes obtained a trace of black with gold sparkles. In direct response to this, the Ki Dragon had a small change. Its eyes had a trace of black along with its teeth and talons. With a sudden crunch, the armor that the Ki Dragon could not pierce crumbled under the Ki Dragon’s new strength. The beast howled in pain before it’s bloodshot eyes looked back at Marty. The last thing it saw was the tip of the blade covered in black flame as it inserted into its eye, pierced its skull, and penetrated its brain. The beast lifelessly collapsed to the cave floor, along with Marty’s katana still stabbed into its head.

Marty stood without moving as the Ki Dragon dissipated. Angelica, who finally came to her senses, immediately got up and rushed up behind him. “Why?” She asked, trying to hold back her tears. “Why did you come here? Why didn’t you run away? Why do you insist on protecting me?”

In Marty’s hazy consciousness, several reasons came to mind, one of the more prominent being his regret being able to protect his parents. She was willing to brave incredible dangers for her family, something Marty respected.

Gritting teeth into a small smile, he slowly turned toward her as the straps on his mask finally broke and revealed his face. He slowly raised a trembling hand to her face, gently stroked one of the bangs from her messy hair, and pinned it behind her ear. “Because good girls should be treasured.”

Angelica waited for the whisper that would tell her it wasn’t the truth; that he had done so because of her looks or position. One second. Two seconds. Angelica’s chin trembled more violently with every passing moment. He saved her with such pure intent that she, who had been surrounded by intrigue and malice for her entire life, couldn’t process the reality presented before her. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Her mind was a whirl of thoughts and feelings that she wanted to express, but she couldn’t understand them, much less put them into words.

The next moment, Marty’s eyes rolled up to the back of his head, he began to collapse forward.

“Wait a minute, what are you-” Angelica began before Marty fell on top of her. Inconveniently for her, Marty’s face firmly planted itself between a pair of hills. Slightly angry out of shame, embarrassment, and shyness, Angelica immediately began to struggle to get him off. She suddenly stopped when she realized her hand was wet and sticky, and she raised her hand to her face and saw it covered in a red substance. “This is… Blood?”

No longer trying to his violently escape from under him, she more gently attempted to push him off of her. After she did so, she gave him a quick look over. She knew he was severely wounded, but the wounds were even worse than before. And then it dawned on her. If the visible injuries were this bad, what about the internal ones? In a rush, she reached for a device on her body. It quickly unfolded out resembled a small holographic tablet. A beam of light emanated from the tablet and proceeded to scan Marty’s body.

Angelica waited by Marty’s side impatiently for the results of the scan. When the results finally appeared, she looked at them, rubbed her eyes, and checked again. When she confirmed what they said, her silver face became pale white, and her entire body began to shake. “No.” She said under her breath. In a panic, she dropped the holographic tablet and dashed out of the cave. In her haste and panic, coupled with her vision impaired by her tears, she stumbled and nearly fell several times. She managed to keep her balance at the last moment before she forced herself to run faster than she thought possible.

The results of the scan gave two alerts. The first was of little consequence as it only noted an abnormal recovery speed. The second alert was that one caused Angelica to panic as it read: Warning - the subject is mortally wounded with a low chance of survival without emergency medication.

[He’s going to die!] Angelica thought as she forced her numbing legs to move faster towards the wreck as the medicine he needed was there. [He can’t die! He can’t die! I have to run faster!] The minute it took to get to the wreck felt like an eternity to her. Luckily, the ship had broken in such a way that it was close to the medicine. She climbed up the wreckage and coughed from the smoke created by several still raging fires and quickly made her way to the compartment with the medicine stored.

The compartment had been broken open in the crash, so Angelica could easily reach out and grabbed the handle of the medicine case. However, she hesitated for a moment as it was surrounded by fire. Not only would she have to stick her hand in the fire, but the medicine case itself would also be scorching. Her mind flashed as she remembered the massive burn wound he received to protect her. Her eyes flashed with resolve, and she gritted her teeth. She quickly reached out, snatched the medical case, and withdrew it in one swift motion accompanied by the sound of her sizzling flesh. Her fingers felt as if they had melted into the handle. With a grimace, she tried to hold back, but the pain soon became too much, and she couldn’t help but scream. After a couple of seconds, she turned away and began to run back to Marty as fast as she could with her pale face covered in sweat.

When Angelica finally made it back to Marty, the case was cool enough to touch. With a grimace, she gnashed her teeth she forcibly tore her fingers from the case which revealed terrible burns and even bone in places. Stifling a scream, she quickly opened the container revealing many vials and bottles. She retrieved one of the vials and began to attempt to force him to drink its contents. However, she realized she needed two hands for the job, but her right hand was crippled. She took a look at the vial and back to Marty’s mouth, took a deep breath, poured the medicine into her mouth, used her fingers to open his mouth, and administered the medicine. After successfully giving him a dose, she pulled back to reveal a deeper shade of silver and a shy expression before it eventually turned into a complex one.

In some circles of Sylvering society, kisses could be considered to be more intimate than intercourse. Angelica found herself to be strangely calm after doing so, and she rationalized that the kiss was a small price to pay, even if it was not to save his life.

She then took one of the bottles and sprayed his external wounds and burns before she sprayed her hand and crudely wrapped it up before she wrapped up Marty’s wounds. After she was finished and had taken something for pain, she sat up next to Marty against the cave wall. She felt a wave of weariness but quickly realized that it would not be a good idea to fall asleep. Luckily and unknown to her, the combination of the crash and the territory belonged to the now slain beast meant that no creatures would come close anytime soon.

After Angelica calmed her senses, she began to look around, trying to think of something to do to keep herself awake. Her eyes glanced around the cave, to the beast, and then to Marty. She stared at Marty for a while as she had not had time to study his face before.

[He… He’s kind of handsome. Wait, what am I thinking?] Angelica thought as she quickly shook her head. The concept of handsomeness did exist in Sylvering society, but nearly all Sylvering’s agreed that no race’s males fit this category. [It must be because humans have so many Sylvering traits.] She thought, trying to give herself an excuse, though it was a good one. Aside from the silver features, a normal Sylvering was nearly identical to a human woman.

Additionally, all other known races had a drastic difference to Sylvering’s facial or physical features.

[Yes, it must be those traits.] She thought with a nod as if she was trying to convince herself. Suddenly, her eyes lit up. [That’s right. We assimilated the humans’ primitive network. I’m sure if I see other male humans, I will find that they will also be handsome.] She thought as she picked up her holographic tablet. If anyone on Earth could see what was on her tablet, they would be extremely shocked as it contained a modified and assimilated snapshot of the entire Internet.

After thinking for a moment, she ended the search phrase ‘images of handsome males.’ After the results appeared, she blinked a few times, screamed, and clumsily dropped her tablet as her face took on a darker shade of silver. Taking a minute to calm herself and change some settings, she renewed her search. She was relieved to find that she found male humans to be handsome, which meant she was not one of those strange Sylverings who had strange fetishes. Assured that this person was more handsome than Marty. She took the tablet next to Marty to compare their faces. As she looked back and forth, the smile on her face began to fade before she sat down and renewed her search. After a few minutes, she found another image to compare with him. Once, twice. Every time, her smile would lessen until tears began to form. She couldn’t understand it. Marty’s face was dirty, pale, and his hair was plastered to his forehead with blood. His appearance was not in his prime, but she couldn’t understand why he seemed to be more handsome than anyone she compared him to. As she looked at his face, she couldn’t hold back the impulse, and she took a picture before she reeled back as if she had done something wrong. After a few more minutes, she finally calmed down as her curiosity got the better of her, and she continued to look through the Internet.

...

Time slowly began to pass by, and Angelica began to feel waves of exhaustion creep up on her. Glancing over at Marty, she noticed he was occasionally shaking. She wasn’t entirely sure why, but the surrounding temperature was a little cold. Knowing that the cold was not good for an injured person, she decided to try and warm him up. She had little ability to make a fire, nor was it advisable within the cave as they could get smoked out. So, she resolved herself to warm him up with the only source of heat she had; herself. Embarrassed, she snuggled up close to him on his uninjured side to make sure he stayed warm. Strangely, she felt a sense of warmth and comfort from their proximity. She continued using her tablet in an attempt to stay awake, but the pull of sleep soon consumed her.