“She’s gone berserk!” Froyia shouted taking a step back, “Nothing is worse than a crazed Cartollian.” Froyia leaned her back on the wall close to the entrance, if she had to make a hasty retreat she’d be one of the first to reach safety.

“The hell did you guys do!?” Gabe looked at the cowering people garbed in white clothing, a few were trying to stop the bleeding of one other who was currently missing a hand. Just about everything thing that was done to him made him bleed out faster. Yet no one answered Gabe.

He reiterated his question, “What did you guys do?” He could feel his rage building, once again his feelings for this Xeno was reaching levels of absurdity. Perhaps he should have VeVa look at him.

One of the armed men currently stationed to protect the medical practitioners spoke up after minutes of faulty communications, “Nothing, They removed the bullet an’ closed the wound.”

“Thank you, that wasn’t so hard, now was it?

“If’n you can calm this beast down, I’d appreciate it, Rather not lose a hand’er two.” He looked over at the fastly paling man who looked as if he wasn't going to see tomorrow. Gabe looked back over Zara. Her normally feral eyes looked wild, lost void of any real intelligent thought. His determination was renewed, he’d try anything to get her back to her normalcy.

“Now those guys didn’t manage to piss her off, then why is she like this.” Gabe’s question was directed towards his best-known source of xenology, Froyia.

She shrugged. “She hasn’t had that stuff in a while. So maybe it’s withdraw?”

Stuff? Gabe had to think for a second, “Oh shit...You know, you have a fifty-fifty chance of being right?”

“I’m aware.” She crossed her arms underneath her breasts, making their size once again apparent.

“If we successfully just make an even more crazed Zara, you know we’ll all die, right?”

“Still aware.” She scooted closer to the door, Still the ever-same loyal coward.

Gabe smiled, “Do you have any with you?”

Froyia uncrossed her arms her facial expression was exchanged for a mildly worried one, “No, I thought you had some.”

“Great, such a simple solution and we step into a situation like this.”

“I think she has some on the ship since you need me to fly back here any way you’ll take it then.”

One of the chains holding down Sala’zara’s arms began to break, her incessant pulling caused the metal to weak on the links. It was only a matter of time before the raged induced humanoid lizard girl would begin her murder spree.

“No time!” Gabe shouted turning his attention to Zara. The armed men were just one squeeze from turning her into swiss cheese.

The presumed leader of the group put his hand on Gabe’s shoulder, “If’n you plan on doing something, do it now.” Gabe held his head down to think of something, He began to have a flashback of a much simpler time.

“So, Captain Anaya, his blood is valuable to the Sellophans, Cartollians and the Oozes of Zendraks seven.”

Now that he understood Caloricean, remembering the past words became quite clear to him. He raised his head, looked the man in the eyes then at the knife on his vest, He took a hold of the knife and pulled it from the sheath causing the man to flinch but he did not do anything more.

“I’m about to do something very stupid.” He drug the blade across the palm of his hand. In seconds blood began to pool in his hand. He looked at the woman, and sighed. He approached steadily to one side. It wasn’t clear if this would exactly calm down the raving beast, but it had to do something if Blitz said it was valuable to them. Nothing was ever gained but standing around.

“Zara!” He shouted her name, whether or not she was aware of it was irrelevant he still got her attention.

He turned his hand to drip his blood on her face. At first she shifted her head back and forth trying to avoid the stream of red liquid, but a little must have gotten inside her mouth seeing as her snake-like tongue started to lap up the liquids on her face. Her movements stopped thrashing she was entirely satisfied with her meal, Gabe looked into her eyes they began to go into those full moons he was so familiar with.

A minute or two later he stopped the blood feeding, one of the people around gave him a rag to wrap around his hand. Zara sat upward once it was over, so looked around the room, she saw the carnage that was left of the room, At some point, the man without a hand had fallen unconscious, she turned to Gabe.

“You’re race is very squishy.”

Gabe chuckled and sat down next to her, “Good to have you back.” Everyone was able to release the breath they were all holding from the intensity. Zara tried to move her arm upward but the chains stopped her.

“She good now?” The man came back to Gabe, “Next time just give her a Snickers.” He blinked and ordered his men to release her. Gabe got up to make room for the guys releasing her, He stood next to Froyia.

“Huh, Guess I should make sure I'm not pregnant. Don’t want you to give me a mouthful of blood.” Froyia joked.

“Wait, rewind for sec… Pregnant?”

Froyia actually looked surprised. “You spent how long with them? You didn’t even bother to learn how they reproduce?”

“The question never really came up in my head so I didn’t really ask!” Gabe was now more than a little bothered.

“Well, I guess in this situation she was going berserk for maternal reasons, like finding nutrients that she was being starved of, which so happens your blood had everything she needed.”

“So these intense feelings that I’ve been having we-”

She interrupted his question with a continuation of her lecture, “Cartollians believe it or not are very psychological. So basically you guys are kinda… bonded?”

“Shouldn’t you have some feelings too if-”

“The bonding only work with the opposite sex.”

“I see…” The thought of Gabe literally having a child, hit him hard. He had always thought that he was incompatible with every species, so the possibilities of having a hybrid child was both exciting and terrifying at the same time.

“But hey, props to you not everyone can get a Cartollian knocked up.” she wrapped her arm around him. Embracing him in a one armed side hug. She was obviously mocking him at this point.

“Since when did you become so snide?” Gabe asked her.

She smiled, “Gotta pick your battles before you make them.”

After a bit of teasing Gabe, Froyia was sent off to get the ship. Zara was allowed to rest a tiny bit before they went out on the mission.

The two crossed an intersection, the streets were void of any signs of life, whether they made noise or not would be totally pointless since you’d have to be blind to not see a near six foot tall, red haired lizard woman. The mission was to scout out Keller’s base which happened to be on the other side of the city. It would be entirely foolish if they rushed in without even a half assed plan.

“Gabe, your people are so...strange. Your people are so soft, yet you build towers that touch the sky.”

“Yeah If I were to explain to you all the weird things we do, you’d and I would be talking for a few years.”

There was an awkward silence between the two as they walked down the sidewalk. Gabe, of course, was the first to speak.

“So Froyia told me that-” Before he was able to finish that sentence he was shoved out of the way. He stumbled a good foot away before regaining his balance.

“Zara, What the fuck! Oh.” He was looking at a seven-foot lobster looking monster. Zara was busy holding its claws at bay. Her strength was either not at its peak anymore or the creature was simply stronger.

“The sword!” She yelled out in between her gritted teeth.

Gabe ran up behind her to pull the blade from the sheath she had on her hip. When his hand touched the handle the creature that he assumed was a locust forced Zara onto the ground making him drop the blade.

“Ngh!” She grunted as her back slammed onto the ground.

The blade skittered near a storm drain and stopped, threatening to fall in if even an aggressive gust of air hit it.

“Fuck!” Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see another Locust skittering across to him. He scrambled to his feet and went for the storm drain. Its shell could be heard scraping against the concrete The Locust made clicking noises as it clawed its way towards its prey. Presumably to communicate with the other one.

The locust didn’t make it in time to give kill an unarmed food source but it got damn well close enough to swipe at Gabe. He lifted the blade to defend his body from the oversized creature but in a ray of blinding light. He closed his eyes to protect them from the light.

“Huh?” He opened his eyes. he was no longer in the same situation. But he was in the same location. The time had also changed, from what was mid day turned to night in just a matter of seconds. He looked around, the overgrowth was gone, the Locust he was fighting was gone, the one on top of Zara was gone, what replaced everything was a sidewalk full of people. In the street he could see a limo and three other cars, all black.

“W-What.” Gabe stood in the middle of a busy sidewalk holding a sadistic looking machete. The people around all avoided him. Judging by the clothing he has on, a good majority of the people probably thought he was going to some convention or something.

The area was similar to where he was, but, everything was completely different. There was a neon sign hanging on the building next to him which in fact didn’t exist a few seconds ago.

Just ten meters away there was an explosion on the leading vehicle, that’s when all hell broke loose. What could be assumed to be zombies well, what else could you call a group of shambling pale individuals? ran to the remaining vehicles from the end of the road. The occupants of the vehicles disembarked and began to fire assault rifles. A slightly heavy set man was ushered out of the limo but it didn’t take long for the group to become overwhelmed and have the man’s escort get grabbed.

In the corner of the street, there was an alleyway, someone had yelled out “Senator! Over here!” The assumed senator must’ve been balls to the wall afraid to trust a hooded man because he ran to him. Gabe decided that it probably was safer than to be there so he followed.

The hooded man and the senator travelled through some complex path, Left, Right, Right, Left. It didn’t take long but the path ended up at an abandoned loading dock, in other words pretty much a dead end. Gabe nearly lost them several times but he hide behind a dumpster and watched the scene play out. The senator turned around to face the man that was now behind him, his face was a mixture of shock and fear.

“What the hell! You said you were going to help me!”

“Senator Mann, I did help you. I got you away from the Infected.” He removed his hood, revealing black dreadlocks and dark skin. “But, I’m also going to kill you. So you’d need like a second person to help you now?”

Senator Mann spits on the ground, “A Host. I hope you rot in hell.”

“Sorry Mann! Already been there and I like it better here!” He removed his gloves, his fingers had looked like they were burned until the skin melted off and had metal claws grafted to the bone. “But Senator, if you just agreed to not pass the law that made us public enemy number one...I wouldn’t be here and you wouldn’t have pissed off all of U.S.I.”

He took a step back, “This is why I voted for it! All of your infection spewing scum!”

“Ouch that hurts, Mann.” He put a hand on his chest to mock a blow to his heart. “I’d love to hear you call me more names, but I heard that there was breaking news about a senator going missing and I’d love to go see that develop.” He pulled a small device from his pocket and clicked a button, The doors of the loading dock roared open. Over thirty people here inside the loading deck but they looked pale. Gabe assumed these people were the so called infected. The senator looked at the horde and back to the man standing in front of him.

“I thought you said you were going to kill me, you coward!” Senator Mann yelled.

“I turned these people myself, So technically, I’m killing you through them.” He started to turn away from the senator, using his clawed hand he tapped on a piece of metal, The ‘ping’ that was created alerted the infected to the food in front of them. They took off full sprint to Mann. He tried to run away but backed himself into a corner. The infected began tearing into his flesh. He screamed at the top of his lungs, The sounds he made increasingly became less human as his vocal chords strained until they themselves were ripped from his body.

“Clara, The Senator is dead. Who’s next?” The man spoke into his phone. Then he spotted Gabe hiding behind the dumpster. Gabe instinctively backed away from the threat.

“Who’re you?” The man questioned, He glanced down at Gabe’s Cartollian blade, “You here to fight?”

He felt uncomfortable as he stared into his eyes, They were sickly, bloodshot the pupils were nearly white. “Ugggghh.” Gabe had no idea what to do in this situation It was the first time he’s seen someone be so sadistic. A fight was the last thing on his mind

Before the conversation was able to continue from that moment the blinding light once again appeared. Once he opened his eyes again he was several feet away from where he was making him directly behind the Locust that attacked him. Now was not the time to try and figure anything out, He’ll do that after he saved Zara. Using the element of surprise he snuck up on the locust he was previously fighting and impaled the creature. He took a step back as it thrashed about bleeding on the ground, the cries of that creature alerted the one fighting Zara. It let go of her to deal with the greater threat.

Zara sighed once the creature left her alone. But she wasn’t going to allow it to help out its friend. She climbed on top and clawed her way into the monster until she moved enough exoskeleton to start ripping out its internal organs. With the rage she had built up it didn’t take her long to finish the job. Before long both creatures were both dead or bleeding out on the ground. Gabe approached her.

“Are you okay?” The amount of worry that he had for her just about doubled now that she has a bun in the oven.

She growled and kicked the creature. “Yeah.” She didn’t even hide the disgust and anger in her voice.

He let his guard down in relief. “Oh, you’ll actually never believe what just happened.” He let her know the details of the events that transpired, The infected, The explosions, although he did omit his fear for the man.

“I wasn’t even aware you had left.” She was sitting on a nearby bench, well she was sitting on the backrest and using the bottom for her feet.

“Yeah, that’s the crazy part. It felt like I was gone for like twenty minutes but when I got back...It was like nothing changed.”

“Heh, I’m not even entirely sure you’re a ‘badass human anymore’” She reused the term he told her. “I think you might be something entirely different now.”

With traveling to another dimension added to his list of things, He wasn’t entirely sure he was either. Either way, he quietly began making names for himself.