“Oh wow, look at you, hot stuff!” cried Tyler, looking up from his video game as Dylan came into the living area.

It made Dylan laugh out loud. “Well thanks bud. I scrub up ok, don’t I?”

“Is this the chick you were messaging pretty much all throughout our Vegas trip?”

“We weren’t messaging throughout it… But yes, she’s the one I was texting. And she asked if I wanted to go out on a date.”

“She asked you? Cringe!” Tyler said grinning. “What have you got planned?”

“I wanted to see the second ‘Bite Mark’ film but it’s not really a romantic first date kinda film.”

“And I thought we were going to see that!” Tyler protested.

“We will, but I would’ve watched it again,” Dylan assured.

“Good because after the way the first film ended, I have to see how this one goes.”

“Right, well I have to go. Enjoy being by yourself tonight.”

Tyler puffed his chest out with a kind of pride. “I’m having a night of self-love. That’s all I need.”

“I don’t think I need to know anymore,” Dylan said, pulling a perturbed face.

“No, I meant, I’m going to game all night. Pizza, soda. Having a cheat night. I can’t wait.”

“You do what you gotta do. Enjoy, man.”

“Thanks! You too. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. And use protection!” he shouted as Dylan hurriedly shut the door.

***

Dylan, and his date Angelina March, were sat in the car at the drive through cinema as Grease started to play.

“I can’t believe you’ve never seen this movie,” she said.

“Well it’s really old isn’t it? Plus it’s not something Tyler and I would sit to watch together,” he said chuckling.

“You two have missed out,” she teased, taking his hand and intertwining her fingers with his.

They were having a nice time together, but during ‘Born To Hand Jive’, things took a turn for the worse.

Angelina first snatched her hand away and started to fidget uncomfortably in her seat.

“You ok?” a concerned Dylan asked.

“I… I er… don’t think so.” She started itching her privates, quickly getting more frantic with it.

“Woah, steady!” Dylan said, backing up against his driver’s side door.

“What the fuck?” she groaned out of frustration and anxiety at her sudden situation. “What have you given me?”

Dylan couldn’t believe what he had heard. “Say that again?! You’re accusing me of giving you something?”

“Well we did have sex before coming here! Oh my God I should’ve listened to my friend! You have probably slept with so many girls before!”

“Ok that’s not f…air,” he trailed off, noticing some cars around him honking their horns and speeding off. Other people were running from their cars, some hysterically. Dylan opened his car door and got out.

“Oi, what’s going on?” he called out to a guy a few cars away who had the same desperate and pained expression on his face as he frantically scratched at his crotch.

“The itching! It won’t stop man! How are you not?” he said before running off himself. Dylan got up onto the roof of his car to give himself a proper look.

“Dylan?!” yelled Angelina from the car. “Get me home now please!”

“Hang on, something’s not quite right,” he replied, scrolling through his phone. I should really have him saved as Astral Sheriff so I don’t have to scroll to D in emergencies, he thought.

“Sheriff, I need you. There’s been an outbreak,” Dylan said when the phone was answered.

“Of what?”

“A sexually transmitted disease. Everyone’s got one.”

“Well that’s just the problem with the young generations of humans. I was reading-”

“No! Everyone’s got an STD. Now. But I haven’t. I think it’s Outbreak!”

“I’m on my way. Ping your location to my HUD. If you see him, keep your distance.” The Sheriff disconnected the call.

“Dylan! I really need to go!” Angelina barked.

“I know but something’s not right here.”

“No shit!” she screamed hysterically. “My crotch is crawling!” She slammed the car door closed and ran off, leaving him on the car roof, watching his date leave.

“I am sorry about all this,” a voice behind Dylan said, making him jump. “Alright, I am not actually,” it said again. Sticking out through the sunroof of a car close nearby was Outbreak. “When I learnt all about the difference between the decapod crustacean type of crabs and the pthirus pubis sexually transmittable crabs, I was incredibly fascinated! When those Purist morons suggested I sabotage this for you personally, I was intrigued... and I am not disappointed!” he marvelled.

“Me? Personally? Why? I hardly know you. And why am I not itching?”

“Because wasn’t Angelina’s reaction just priceless!? And also, we wouldn’t have been able to have this chat now.”

“How precious,” Dylan mocked sarcastically. “We won’t be talking for long. I have a Sheriff coming.”

“Great! And I have a squad, here already. I wonder if the Sheriff will be here in time?”

“...In time for what?” Dylan asked, growing concerned. His answer came soon enough, when from behind him, from cars and the cinema screen, popped up a squadron of Purist soldiers wielding staffs.

“Gotcha,” Dylan muttered, readying into a fighting stance. He leapt in the air, somersaulting backwards, coming to land behind the nearest Purist. With a swift duck to avoid an elbow strike, Dylan came back up and smashed the man’s face into his knee, knocking him out. One down, dozens to go…

Dylan crouched and circled the car, using it as cover to sneak around. He rolled to be behind another car.

“You may well hide, but we will still find you!” Outbreak called out cheerfully.

Dylan suddenly became overwhelmed with nausea, causing him to throw up violently.

“Oh there you are!” Outbreak cried out, hearing where the throwing up was coming from.

Dylan wiped his mouth and cursed, hearing the footsteps of the approaching soldiers converge on his exposed hiding spot.

He got up in time to whack the soldier in their privates but couldn’t react quick enough for the one grabbing him from behind. Dylan tried to turn out of it but slipped in his own puddle of vomit, taking both him and the soldier down, bear hugging him from behind.

“Yuck!” Dylan cried out before nausea hit him again, causing him to throw up over himself this time.

The disgusted Purist instinctively let go of Dylan and gave him the opportunity to roll off.

Another Purist soldier appeared, standing over Dylan about to stamp down on him, when from above came a beam of Astral Stardust, fired straight into their back.

The Sheriff came into view, descending from the sky in full armour, against the backdrop of Grease still playing on the screen. From his spot in the air, The Sheriff blasted and incapacitated the remaining Purists and then turned his attention to Outbreak, who had been watching the whole spectacle from the sun roof of the car he was still in.

The Sheriff came into land just in front of it. “You make me sick,” he said to his villainous fellow grëhman.

“Sadly as we already know, on this planet, that is not remotely possible,” Outbreak bemoaned. “Because, I would really love to make you sick.”

“How long is this going to go on for?” The Sheriff demanded to know.

In the background, Dylan could be heard throwing up again.

“Oh, just for twenty four hours. Tell him it will pass.”

“No!” The Sheriff shouted. "This game we are playing. Because that is what makes me sick. It makes me sick to think I could not see through your games and allowed you here, only for you to keep doing this! So I just want to know, how long is your alliance with The Purists going to last before I have had enough and snap your neck in two?”

“Well nothing is stopping you from doing that now,” Outbreak suggested curiously.

“I know that to be a lie, and I suspect there is a contingency in plan to literally stop me from doing exactly that.”

“In that case, I best be off then.”

“Let me give you a hand,” The Sheriff said, gripping the bottom of the car Outbreak was in and hurled it up into the air through the middle of the large LCD screen, causing it to go black on impact.

***

“Please tell me that’s not Angelina calling again?” Tyler asked as he entered the living area, seeing Dylan stare at his vibrating cell phone at the breakfast bar.

“Yup.”

“Either hang up or speak to her,” Tyler said.

“Do you think I should?” Dylan asked.

“I literally couldn’t care, but the constant vibrating and chimes is doing my head in. I could be in there trying to study.”

Dylan laughed. “Yeah, ok.”

“I said I could be.”

“She just wants to apologise again.”

“Then let her,” Tyler argued. “It’s been three days.”

“She made some unhealthy assumptions about me though, Ty. That was her default thought. That I would’ve given her something nasty like that.”

“If only she knew the truth that you live like a born again virgin.”

“Heyyy! I’m not that bad either!” Dylan protested over Tyler’s laughs.

“Sure stud. Look, just accept her apology and move on. Let her make it up to you,” he said, winking at the last part. “Or tell her you’re hurt and don’t think it will work out. Either way, just get to pay for the car to be deep cleaned because I ain’t gettin’ in it until it is. Urgh!” He shuddered dramatically as he walked off back towards his bedroom.

Dylan weighed up his options and decided to text her. Opening up the messages, he typed, SORRY FOR BEING CRABBY WITH YOU. WAS A BIT CROSS AT YOUR ASSUMPTIONS OF ME BUT WOULD LIKE TO SEE YOU AGAIN. DYL X