It was another five minutes of stomach clenching spasms and convulsing before they finally subsided enough for Athea and me to get back up. After a few attempts to shout out for the others, we both seem to conclude to just wait until the shocking dissipated. Athea must have been first again, for the uncomfortably familiar healing sensation flowed over my body like a warm jello. My uncontrollable shaking eased and my breathing normalized.

            “OH!” I groaned.

The minutes of clenching my muscles took its toll. Once I could release the tension and take a full breath, my stomach decided that it wasn’t ready to relax as it doubled up in cramps.

            “Wha… oh, that’ll pass.” Athea said derisively.  

            “Wha… What… is your problem?” I shouted at her, pulling myself back up.

She turned on me with that devilish helmet. Athea looked as if she was about to shout, but decided against it. She took a deep breath and just shook her head. Stepping up to her, I placed a hand on her shoulder. I didn’t know what she was going through. I doubt many people have, but there was definitely no appropriate answer for her.

            “I will not say that I know what you should do, but I know that feeling you are juggling.” I said, lowering my helmet.

            “What feeling?”

            “The feeling that there is nowhere to turn. Each path to see, there is only darkness.”

            It was quiet. She stared at me for a long few moments before she replied.

            “What happened to you?” She asked.

I gave her a sad smile, but didn’t reply. I decided that the next time we had time to sit and think, I would tell her about Pinky and Sayla. More so, the months after their murders and me having to force myself to take a step each day in the right direction when all I wanted to do was to lie down and die.

            “Let’s go look for the others.” I said.

            I moved towards that evil ladder, but before I moved a foot, Athea spoke.

            “They’re not here.”

            I turned towards her, re equipping my helmet.

            “What do you mean?”

            “Deckel and Camilla, they’re gone.” She reiterated.

            “Where are they? I didn’t see them go.” I asked.

            “I don’t know.”

            “How do…”

            “I can track our party members’ distance. They were close, then they were gone.” She explained.

            “Party? I thought… Marrin isn’t here. How are we in a party?”

            “I made it.” She said bluntly.

            “But… how… am I?”

            “Imona put you in it.”

            “She… WHAT?! IMONA!” I shouted at her.

            “Yo?” Her cheery, robotic voice echoed out of the ship’s external speakers.

            “Are you doing things without telling me? AGAIN?” I growled.

            “I do a lot of things without telling you.” She said.

            “Ho…” I sighed. “I don’t even want to go into that, seeing as you are my bloody armor… but answer the damn question, you know what I mean!”

            “Weeeelllll…” she began.

            “Not now. We need to figure out what to do next.” Athea interrupted.

            “This conversation isn’t over with.” I told my Hud mentally.

            “Tsk.” was all she replied.

            “Right… what did they take?” I asked Athea.

            “All my food. All my medical supplies are missing, but luckily, I don’t actually need them normally.”

As she answered, I pulled up my inventory. I never had much in there to begin with, but thanks to Sam, he was able to incorporate what I held on my body into my extra-dimensional space. It was depressingly empty from its initial stock. All but three of my pin blades remained. My money was left untouched, but everything else was gone, no protein paste, no equipment, nothing.…

            “Oh… shit…”

            “What?” Athea asked.

I looked at my friend. I never told her. I never told anyone. Honestly, I completely forgot about the small golden crystal until now. I didn’t know what it was, neither did Imona. It didn’t appear to be a consumable; it was just… there. And now it was gone. The Immoral Seed, it was gone.

            “Bas?” she asked again, sounding worried.

            “Right… shit… we need to find those little… GOD DAMN IT!”

The anger exploded out of me from deep inside as I punched Marrin’s ship. It made a large dent as three of the Ticklers whipped down towards me. I slapped them away and turned back towards Athea and, behind her, the massive amounts of what I assumed was fake blood over the ground.

            “Bas! Calm down. What is missing?”

I didn’t reply, but that was not because I didn’t want to answer. It was because an idea came over me. Deckel landed the ship on a large column. One among hundreds in what appeared to be a dock hundreds of feet up from the planet’s surface. Thousands of buildings stretched to the sky above, breaking the threshold to heaven. Incalculable shuttles and hover crafts buzzed through the buildings, up and down. I didn’t know if they were in a normal city rush or if it was because of the imperial ship that appeared in the sky. The clouds concealed it, but news about the imperial ship must have spread.

Honestly, this city was not what I expected as the capital of Pirate Planet. It was gorgeous, clean, and futuristic. The gleaming windows from the adjacent buildings shone with a brilliance that would make the cities back on Earth look like an inner city rift raft. It was exactly what I would picture as a futuristic city, with the vehicles zooming and people flying around on a variety of hover devices. Gold and chrome seemed to plate everything screaming of its wealth. I knew the truth. Without going down there, I knew. I lived in a city like this once.

An anxious Athea watched me in silence. Something had agitated me, and she didn’t want to poke the bear even though her curiosity was ready to tempt fate. I lowered my helmet again and took in a deep breath. City smells flowed into my lungs. Exhaust, rubber, sweat, the tears of those on the bottom and the cigar smoke of those on top. Oh yes, I knew cities like this, and now I was not afraid. I turned back, but not towards Athea, towards the gallons of drying fake blood.

I knelt, draping a finger through it. Thick, with the rich smell of iron, it was quite realistic. I rubbed a bit through my fingers, getting a sense of the material. Was it enough? I think so.

“What are you doing?” Athea asked.

Shadows exploded from by back. The dark mist wasn’t corporeal, it was an enigma to the eyes as it was not shade, or even the shadows that I use so quickly to describe it. Rather, it was the absence of light, fuzzy at the edges to a deep emptiness in its center. It formed into a massive hand with too many joints, with me in its palm. The fingers reached around and touched the fake blood on my fingers, then the blood on the ground. A light sizzle came as a small bar filled at the edges of my vision.

Athea, being the only other one to witness this ability, stayed quiet. Though her abilities allowed her to know the locations of her party members, they had to be within a certain distance. Now that the others weren’t, her abilities were useless. I didn’t know if there was a distance limit with my tracking ability, but seeing as it stretched the near ten miles of Perfection, I figured I would be good now, as long as I had enough blood.

The fingers slithered back into the emptiness on my back, then dissipated completely. Letting my helmet materialize back in place, I stood and faced Athea. I didn’t notice it then, but at some point, I forgot to stop summoning my cloak and hood. I pointed out into the city.

Mazen climbed a fire escape three buildings away from the dock platforms. Being the largest dock in the city, it was also the easiest to reach once entering the atmosphere. Being commonly referred to as the Pirate Planet, it never ceased to amaze the boy just how many tourists come to visit. They made easy pickings.

He almost called it off once seeing the scans of the ship. All were users, only Class Four, but still users. But Mazen was nothing if not an over-preparer. His friends always made fun of him for it, but after today, he thought they would reevaluate that opinion. The haul they would bring in would feed their crew for months to come. That was, as long as they could fence the goods, and then there was that strange thing. It looked expensive, but was too heavy for him to pick up, so he had to slide it into his extra-dimensional space. 

The others, Silt, Mya, Tya, Brin, Quinn, and Took, all move ahead of him. Staring at their backs, something came over him. Something stroked the back of his neck that made the hairs stand on end. He paused and turned back. From here, he could see the platform and the rather intimate looking ship they came in. Mazen zoomed in his electro-binocular eye, spotting the two figures, each obscured by some darkness. It was too far to tell what it was.

Mazen heard a sizzling and something warm coming from his chest. Zooming back out, he stared down in amazement as the fake blood that stained his shirt was gone. Though it sizzled, there was no smell, there was nothing… it was just gone. Mazen had never felt fear before. In fact, he never really felt much emotionally. Those with emotions usually would die a quick death on Bonney Jack Morgan. But when he looked back at the ones he just mugged, he felt something. He felt… fear. It was strange, but his heart seemed to beat an extra time when staring at the two of them. Two intimidating figures stood, one, the typically provocative armor Huds shaped on the woman’s body with its in tight curves and a devilish red helmet. The other in thin void black armor with a light iridescent purple. An emptiness shaped around the man, consuming his head in a dark hood while a cloak billowed out behind caught in an invisible wind. He pointed straight at Mazen.