The Blaster made a high pitch whine as Gabe imitated the button pressing Anaya did. He took aim at a pair of double doors, Noting that this time the door was locked. He pulled the trigger.

The force of the shot was actually too much for him to handle. The recoil forced him to be pushed back a few meters forcing him onto his butt. The air escaped his lungs with a loud “Oof” as the stock collided with his chest. Confirming that he did make a solid hit. It did damage but not a whole lot. A large circular hole

“Whew. Damn.” He had expected the hole to at least be big enough to slide on by. Using the gun as a crutch he picked himself up. He walked over to the hole to at least see what he was dealing with.

Bad Idea was Bad. As soon as he poked his head through. He spotted maybe seven on the ground and maybe ten guys on upper platforms before they started firing in his direction. Falling to his knees he was able to avoid being shot.

The mercs on the other side of the wall didn’t stop firing. It was actually safe to say that all the lasers that were going through joined together to create one big laser.

Leaning as close as possible to the metal for cover, he looked around the room for a plan. To the left was the corridor that leads to the cell that Blitz was being held. Going right was the nothing but a stack of crates that took up most of the small room.

But then he looked down. It was a small grate possibly being an air duct. The lightbulb in his head went off. He squirmed away from the clearly disadvantageous position to his escape plan, his smaller stature was perfect for the hole in the ground.

After struggling to lift the grate, It was pretty heavy, after all. He threw the gun in first and slithered down only to be rewarded with cramped spacing leaving him only enough room to lay flat on his stomach. There had been barely any light. Fortunately the duct he was in only had two directions. Forward and back, luckily his destination was forward, and so he wiggled onward.

Just a few minutes in and he already found the first source of light. Getting closer he saw that it was another steel grate that was inside the next room. Pushing it out was a lot easier than it was pulling. Grabbing the sides he pulled himself out onto the floor of the room. His escape plan left him pretty much unnoticed. But that wouldn’t last long seeing as some of the mercs were stacking up at the door to either breach or just spray the ever loving fuck out of everything on the other side.

He aimed high for one of the more heavily armored mercs, his finger lightly touched the trigger before he rethought his action.

There is no telling if he would be able to kill all of them. But it was guaranteed he’d shoot at least one of them. He’d have to think of something clever to make it out alive...Or he could not shoot them at all and run to the nearest exit. The area behind was practically clear since most of them had been positioned closer to the entrance. So he did just that, He dropped his aim and took off in a mad dash. Just in time too because it only took a matter of seconds before he saw lasers fly past him.

“Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!” Gabe somersaulted forward past the doors archway. As fast as he could he stood up on one knee and shot the door’s control panel, the door shut almost immediately.

“I guess that actually works.” Gabe stood up and turned around only to receive a swift headbutt to the face. He dropped his blaster.

“Goddamn! What the fuck?” His voice was muffled covering his nose with both hands. Taking a few steps he looked to see what the hell hit him.

His question was swiftly answered by something grabbing his leg and throwing him across the room.

Gabe groaned seeing his vision split with stars bouncing around.

“Gabe!” A voice called out to him. He responded with a gurgle.

“Gabe!” The voice called out again this time he managed to sit up and looked for the source of his name calling.

The voice called out once more and he found out where it was. It was Rhenixa she had been chained to the wall. Her face looked distorted with worry. Why was she so worried. “Get up!” She yelled.

“Wha-” Gabe’s leg was grabbed again and he was thrown to another side of the room.

Gabe laid on the on the cold metal floor until he heard Rhenixa call for him to stand a fight, she also called him a ‘Lemrex’ whatever the hell that was it probably wasn’t good. Gabe stood on his feet, unsteadily but still, he stood.

Meeting his opponent was a two and a half meter hulking lizard man. It’s clawed arms hung close to it’s sides much like a raptor. Most of the body was pretty bestial while keeping a humanoid figure, the creature’s long tongue came out its mouth to lick the corner of it’s face.

“Run!” Rhenixa yelled a command that Gabe didn’t need to hear because he was already thinking it. But before his brain could execute the command for his legs to move. The creature wrapped its thick tail around Gabe’s foot.

“Waaah.” Gabe’s legs were picked up once more but instead of being thrown across the room. The lizard held him face to upside down face. It’s tongue came out and started from his forehead down.

Taking the initiative, Gabe used a little of his own mouth action to bite down on the pink exposed flesh. The beast screamed in pain and backed away dropping Gabe on his back.

“Fuck.” Gabe groaned slowly lifting himself from the floor, green blood trickled from his mouth.

“Rhenixa, What is?”

“Zelgrek.”

“Zelgrek?” He had thought he would’ve been fighting a creature that was closer to a human. Not a goddamn human-raptor hybrid that was fed steroids on a daily basis.

The creature roared and began running towards him at max speed. Gabe narrowly escaped being crushed to death by the charge by rolling to the side. Despite having some muscle, he doubted he could make a dent in something that looked probably took after alligators, he had to find a weapon to fight with.

The monster straightened itself upward giving the appearance of him being taller. It let out a throaty roar at Gabe. The heat from its mouth reached him from across the room. Good thing his nose was filled with blood, he had guessed its breath probably didn’t smell like cookies.

The beast decided to walk forward instead of making a mad dash for Gabe, seems Zelgrek was testing Gabe’s abilities. Apparently, it ruled out that he wasn’t dumb enough to stand and take it.

Gabe took steps back and to the side in concert, not wanting to close any distance closer to him. Anything within a few meters to Gabe was known as the kill box since his tail would undoubtedly wrap around his legs.

“Gabe!.” Rhenixa yelled out.

“I’m busy!”

“Duck!” Gabe didn’t know what to make of that command. Then a laser narrowly missed him. Some of Zelgrek’s goons had made it to the upper platforms of the room they had been in. This took an unexpected turn.

Zelgrek hissed and actually spoke with it’s animalistic face. The language was not one that Gabe knew.

His minions stopped firing and watched the fight that was going on. For a complete monster, Zelgrek had some form of an honor code that he stood by. But Gabe did not, he spotted his blaster off to the side and made a run for it, Surprisingly he was able to touch the handle. Picking it up was rather hard considering Zelgrek stomped down on it snapping it in two but allowed a single round to go off.

Now Gabe was left with a metal stick, and with that metal stick, he would slay the evil beast that stood in front of him! He pulled the metal upward to Zelgrek’s chin the most it did was change the direction he head was orientated.

The retaliation shot was a tailspin straight to the stomach sending Gabe slightly airborne. Hitting the wall with extreme force. Gabe slid downward to see a furious creature charging at him. Surprisingly rolled forward and managed to slip in between his legs causing the impact to hit nothing but the wall behind him.

Now Gabe was really out of options, punching it was out of the question, Shooting it was now exhausted. His metal club was just as useful as punching. Maybe he could create a diversion and run awa- A large machete-like knife was thrown from the top floor. Looking up, Rhenixa was free and leaning on the railing were one of the goons had been.

Seems that stray shot that went off must’ve hit the chains that were binding her.

“Make it good!” She yelled cupping her hands around her mouth.

Gabe dove for the knife. Zelgrek saw the minor advantage he was given and charged for the knife himself.

Gabe turned around laying on his back and stabbed upward. The knife penetrated Zelgrek’s reptilian skin. His eyes went wide as his body lifelessly dropped to the ground.

Rhenixa dropped down from the upper platform. “Impressive, but yah got your ass handed to yah. Most of the time.”

It’s true Gabe wasn’t a strong fighter. If anything he was more of a technicist then anything. Sadly that skilled proved useless in a fight.

Gabe rolled his eyes and pulled the knife out of the corpse.

“Let’s just go.” Gabe sounded exhausted.

Rhenixa grabbed the back of his shirt. “Yah gotta cut a path for us first.” She pointed to the still warm corpse of Zelgrek. “Those mercs yah left alive won’t fight if their employer is dead.”

Oh, right, he did run away from like ten guys. Gabe sighed and sauntered over to the corpse to perform a decapitation.

Fifteen minutes later and it seems Rhenixa got the control panel working again.

“Ready?” Holding the head at an arm’s length, Gabe nodded.

She pressed the button and the doors swung open. Heavily armed mercs swarmed the two with tactical movements. Each one soon dropped their aim when they saw the desecrated corpse. One by one they took their leave. Most not even bothering to say anything to each other, after all their relationships together had been one of work.

Alongside them were Gabe and Rhenixa walking out. They reached one of the two Elevator shafts that Gabe came from.

“Wait.” Rhenixa stopped walking to put on a clear mask. She turned to Gabe who was standing and watching. “Put a mask on!”

“Why?” He questioned her.

“So you don’t die?” She said with a tone of voice as if he should have known the answer.

“I came without one.”

“So you can breath?”

“Yeah, little.”

She squinted her eyes at him, she now had more questions that she wanted to be answered.

They rode the elevator up, mostly in silence. After all, she barely knew anything about him. And then his entire attitude looked like he didn’t want to talk about anything anyway.

Reaching the ship was pretty simple. Most of Zelgrek’s forces decided to jump ship and head to other places to find work.

As soon as they both entered the door they were greeted with Anaya throwing her arms around both of them and shouting something. Her breath smelt of berries.

“C’mon! Celeberashe!” Her words were slurred as she ushered the two to the kitchen. “Blish and I raided Zelgresh’s storage and found half a million credish!”

Seems she was drunk, and inviting the crew to get drunk with her. Gabe was down, after all, he did get thrown around a room like fifteen times.

Sitting at the table she put two large glasses in front of them and poured the glasses almost full. Seems her size definition of ‘shots’ was the same as a normal cup.

“Hey, Gabe!.” Anaya had a dumb smile on her face. “Think yah can beat your Captain in a contest?”

Gabe stared at her with a determined almost serious look. He never backs down from a challenge.

“Oh no.” Rhenixa sounded almost worried.

“Contest, Accepted!” Gabe said downing his glass for them to start fresh.

Oh speaking of rewards, He wanted Anaya to free him of his slave collar, Well he guessed it could wait until after he kicked her ass after she kicked his.

Turns out the ‘alcohol’ they were drinking had no effect on the human digestive system, it was essential just crushed berries to Gabe.