The World Beyond [Gladis&Hideki](Private)

[Gladis]

Calum couldn’t help but emit an exuberant chuckle at the passion with which Asher expressed his indifference, allowing him to pull the shirt up over his head. Part of him wondered why he’d even bothered putting it on at all, though any such thoughts were quickly pushed aside to the back of his mind. Asher’s lips felt hot against his skin, every kiss, lick and bite only serving to muddle his mind further. His chest was heaving and falling rapidly, his breath catching a little in his throat as Asher’s wet tongue slid over his nipple.

 

”It tickles!” He noted jovially, although he didn’t find it unpleasant. His hand came up to curl itself itself into Asher’s hair, and he let out soft little noises of approval, his semi-hard cock twitching wantonly between his legs. Almost as though Asher had been capable of reading Calum’s mind, his hand coming down rub him through the fabric of his trousers. He shuddered, his hand coming down to rest on Asher’s shoulder as he tilted his head back a little, heat coursing through his abdomen. ”A-asher...” He groaned, all but begging to be freed of his confines – to feel the rough texture of Asher’s hand against his tender skin. Calum felt dizzy with arousal, his body ravenous for the Xenonian’s touch.

 

Raising his buttox slightly to assist in the removal of his trousers, he felt a small sense of relief and stronger desire still as the heat of Asher’s hand engulfed first his balls and then his shaft, the friction sending small, dizzying waves of pleasure over him. Soft moans spilled from his mouth, and he found himself biting down on his bottom lip to prevent himself from making all too much noise. The walls were thin, after all, and he was still well aware of his grandmother’s presence on the other side. Yet despite his best efforts he wasn’t able to keep his voice from rising, as Asher’s thumb pressed onto the slit and pushing under his foreskin. Blood came rushing into his cock, his grip on Asher’s shoulder tightening as he stiffened in Asher’s grasp.

 

”Let me-” he gasped, withdrawing his legs from under Asher as he drew himself up into a sitting position, ”-let me touch you too…” his heart was racing and his breathing was slightly laboured as moved his hand to Asher’s cheek, pulling him into another kiss. As his lips parted to allow Asher’s tongue into his mouth, Calum rested his free hand on his lover’s thigh, working his way along the inside of it in a teasingly gentle stroke. As he came closer to the bulge in Asher’s underwear, he began to apply more pressure, until at last he was rubbing him, feeling the the size and shape of it through the fabric. Breaking the kiss, Calum took a moment to catch his breath before sliding the hand on Asher’s shoulder down to curl around the waistline of his boxers.

 

”Help me…” He murmured, mischief and desire glowing in his eyes, ”I can’t pull them down like this.”

[-Hideki-]

Calum’s moan and the call of Ash’s names were echoing through the room so erotically and it made him burn for the other and lusting over him even more. The younger man’s dick was throbbing in his hand and he had just begun to stop teasing him but to stroke his length when the brunette wanted to speak but was letting out an aroused gasp instead. Asher was a little confused for a moment when the other pulled his legs away from underneath him and the other man’s dick was sliding out of his hand.

 

Blue eyes were following the other when he sat up watching him in a questioning manner curious about what the man wanted to do now and when he sat he finally managed to speak with a heavy breath telling Asher to let him touch him as well. A smile that was wide enough to strain his scars again appeared on his face and he moved a little closer to the other again as he was already pulled into another kiss. The soldier indulged in the kiss, his hand grabbing the other man’s neck while the other hand found its way to the younger male’s erection again stroking him as he let himself get carried away with the passionate touch of their lips, his tongue all too gladly taking the invitation to slide into Calum’s mouth where it feverishly licked and played with the other’s tongue.

 

As they kissed he could feel the younger man’s hand run up his thigh and it made sparks shoot up into his crotch, making his cock twitch in anticipation of touch and when he felt the brunette’s palm rubbing over the bulge in his boxers Ash gasped into the kiss, his heart rate was going up and his hips pushed his cock into the hand that was feeling up and groping it.

 

The kiss left him breathless and his eyes gazed into the green ones hungrily when the shorter man’s hand was running down his shoulder to his waist taking a hold of the hem of his boxers and the Xenonian wanted the man to pull them down already and free his heated rod from its fabric prison but Calum decided to tease him and ask him to help him with his boxers. An impatient groan came from him when he took his hands from the brunette man’s body to pull down his boxers, shift back and forth a little to strip them off completely and throw his boxers against the wall where it now hung on the edge of a picture frame while the cool air was greeting his throbbing manhood.

 

With lustful glaring eyes he grabbed the brunette’s wrists and pinned him down onto the bed, towering over him again, staring into the other man’s eyes with his horny gaze. He positioned himself over the other man, grinding his hips, rubbing his veiny, throbbing cock against the other’s pulsating hardness feeling sparks of pleasure lighting his body on fire further. Wanting to feel more friction and more intense pleasure he was letting go of one of the younger man’s wrists as his hand wrapped around both of their erections firmly, using pressure as he was stroking them while at the same time thrusting his hips into it and against the shorter man’s dick in a slow pace the feeling of the other’s hard dick against his own arousing him even more, as the pleasure was increasing and Asher was starting to let out deep gasps and to pant, the breath he exhaled feeling hot as if he was a dragon able to spit fire like his whole body had become hot.

 

Kissing the other man wildly and lewdly he wanted to bath in the pleasure, he wanted to be consumed by it entirely and the urge to be buried inside the other man again, to feel those tight, hot insides chocking his dick like that another time was getting stronger while their cocks had gotten all slippery due to the pre-cum they leaked over Ash’s hand.

 

 

As he broke the kiss he was pressing breathless, heated kisses down the male’s throat and over his body, letting go of their dicks as he shifted. His hand was spreading the brunette man’s legs apart and he positioned himself and Calum’s butt in a way that was convenient and worked for him. Spreading the other man’s arse-cheeks open with his hand he saw that tempting rosy hole surrounded by some brown hair that was growing between the butt-cheeks and his dick twitched, the sight turning him on even more, water building in his mouth and as he rubbed his index finger over it there was a thought popping up in his head, an impulse and the Colonel was bending down, moving his head closer to the slender male’s spread arse-cheeks sticking out his tongue as he let it lick over the rosy, tempting hole of the younger man. He pressed against it with his tongue, then licked again before he took his fingers to help and spread the man’s entrance open to be better able to bury his tongue inside, moving the slippery muscle around there, penetrating his anus with his tongue, blue eyes peering up at him to note if he was doing something crazy but he figured if the brunette hated it he could just shove his head away.

[Gladis]

”A-asher?”

 

Surprise registered on Calum’s face and there was uncertainty in his voice as Asher suddenly grabbed hold of his wrists, pushing him back down onto the bed. As he was met with that icy blue, horny glare, he wondered if his teasing might have been too much. Judging by the impatient groan Asher had emitted in response, it sure seemed like it. Still, it wasn’t as though Calum was given much time to think about it any further.

 

He let out a shuddering breath as Asher positioned himself over him, grinding his cock against Calum’s. The friction it caused felt great, and it was incredibly hot. His heart raced and his cheeks flushed, his breathing becoming more labored as his mind clouded with arousal, forgetting all about his earlier concerns. All he could think about was how incredible it felt when Asher’s hand wrapped around them, the increased friction of their sensitive skin rubbing together drawing a soft gasp from Calum.

 

He groaned into the kiss, squirming a little as he pushed back against Asher, desperately wanting to feel more. It was getting unbearable. The overwhelming desire to feel that big, throbbing cock spreading him apart, pounding him like there was no tomorrow. A desire that only became stronger with every kiss trailing down his burning body. Anticipation rose within him as Asher shifted, spreading Calum’s legs apart as he positioned him to gain better access. Yet unlike what Calum had expected, it wasn’t Asher’s fingers that pushed past his tight ring of muscle. His pre-cum coated cock twitched, glistening in the moonlight that came streaming through the window as surprised laughter spilled from his lips.

 

”You keep catching me off guard!” He noted a little breathlessly, although it was clear that he did not at all mind. If anything it was a good sign that Asher was figuring things out so quickly. Pulling his legs up, he wrapped his arms around his thighs, pushing his knees against his torso to give him better access. He shivered, enjoying the feeling of that wet, slippery muscle squirming around inside him. His front teeth came down to rest on his bottom lip, digging into the supple flesh as he tried his hardest to hold back his voice. Yet it also served as an ample reminder of how much he yearned for Asher’s cock – a thought that was slowly beginning to drive him insane.

 

”A-asher…” he gasped when he could no longer stand it, unable to keep the neediness out of his voice, ”Asher, I want you to… please…” he begged, his heart pounding so hard in his chest that he could almost hear it.

[-Hideki-]

Calum didn’t seem to dislike what Asher was doing at all as he was moving to give him better access and with it an even more erotic, arousing view and Ash felt his cock twitch between his legs as he was rimming the brunette. It was quite ironic to think that he was doing something like that and actually getting hot from doing it while before he would have deemed the mere idea completely absurd and bonkers. But he eagerly moved his tongue around, then bodding his head, letting his tongue penetrate the other man letting it reach as deep as it would, making sure to drench the hole in saliva in the process, feeling how the other man’s muscle relaxed more.

 

After a while he could hear the younger man’s needy and horny voice call out his identification code or how the Earth people said name and it triggered the automatic impulse in him to say ‘Yes’ but he had his tongue up the other man’s arse so he couldn’t actually do that as he had to pull it out and then he could hear the other man’s heated voice again, begging him to take him and it was so hot that Asher’s cheeks started to glow and he felt like he was going to burn again but this time from the inside out.

 

He sat his body up and looked at the spread hole, then he spat into his hand, coating his dick in saliva before he got closer and rubbed the tip over the hole, sparks rushing through him as he was prodding the other’s entrance with his thick huge cock, letting it enter slowly and carefully as the man’s anus was spread a lot further apart and for a second that conversation about the size of his penis came back onto his mind but he shoved the thoughts aside and his dick inside of the brunette. Once completely buried between the man’s legs he felt the tight, hot insides wrapping around himself and he leaned over, his hands placed next to Calum’s face, kissing him deeply and passionately as he started to slowly move, letting the other adjust to his size and finding his rhythm.

 

Sticking their tongues out and letting them dance and lick each other he was thrusting in harder and deeper, the head of his dick pushing against Calum’s prostate. He shifted his weight onto the left arm and let his right hand close around the brunette’s manhood, starting to stroke him as he was increasing the speed. The tight muscle clenching around him made pleasure spark through him and the more pleasure he felt, the more he panted and the faster and harder his thrusts got. He pressed his lips against the brunette man’s neck kissing and biting the skin, pounding the other man harder, hitting his prostate again and again, the muscle choking his dick tighter and intense pleasure was streaming through him and Ash growled deeply and pleasured into the younger man’s ear.

 

“I can’t ….” He moaned out, shifted a little, took his hand from Calum’s cock and grabbed the other’s hips firmly, with both hands, raising the man’s butt a little, throwing his legs over his broad shoulders as he was going a lot harder and faster, mercilessly hammering onto Calum’s prostate as he was ravaging the man’s hole, fucking him into the mattress, unable to hold himself back as the pleasure was consuming his body made him moan and thrust his hips in ecstasy. “Calum!” he moaned out the man’s name his hand holding the man’s waist strongly as he pounded into him and the man’s tight hole was grabbing him too hard that he felt as if it was devouring his dick, making it melt inside of him, the pleasure taking over. His eyes were half closed and his vision blurred with pleasure which was all that he could think about by now: The pleasure, Calum and Calum’s arsehole grabbing his dick so tightly.

 

“Fuck!” he growled relentlessly pushing into him, hitting the prostate like a nail all over again, feeling himself on the edge of climax. “So tight.” The soldier moaned pounding the other deeper into the sheets, reaching out his hand again, giving the younger one ‘s cock some pumps before he couldn’t focus on that anymore and grabbed his waist firmly again, his muscles constricting, getting more visible as well as the veins that were sticking out. His thrusts lost their perfect rhythm but got harder and he felt that he would cum every second now. “I’m gonna cum.” He informed the other in a voice distorted not by the combat suit but by pleasure.

[Gladis]

The stretch of time between when the wet tongue vacated his saliva filled hole and when Calum finally got a taste Asher’s thick, meaty rod rubbing against his entrance seemed to last an eternity. His cock twitched in anticipation, his heart raced and his cheeks glowed rosy red. Calum felt hot, and like a bitch in heat – desperate for cock. So desperate, in fact, that the sense of relief that overcame him when Asher finally made his move mightily overpowered the initial discomfort of slowly being spread apart. Relinquishing the breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding, Calum let out a low, needy moan, letting go of his thighs to better engage the the heated kiss.

 

Tongues danced, saliva was exchanged and as Asher started to move, Calum’s body slowly relaxed around the invasion, becoming capable of accommodating quicker and harder thrusts.

 

The first wave of intense pleasure came suddenly and without warning, sending sparks of heat rippling through Calum’s body. He tossed his head back, clamping down on Asher as his lips parted to elicit something between a yelp and a gasp. It was only then that he remembered to keep his voice down, biting down hard onto his bottom his bottom lip to stop the noises drawn out by Asher’s continuously to thrusting against prostate. He inhaled sharply as Asher’s hand wrapped around the throbbing length, his rough skin hot as it worked its way up and down his erection.

 

It was a lot to take in at once; the increasingly relentless abuse of his prostate, the kissing and nipping of his neck, the hand tightly wrapped around his dick. His mind reeled with every wave of pleasure that came over him and he mewled, his cock leaking precum onto his stomach. It hardly came as a surprise to Calum that heat had begun to pool in his abdomen, and yet as it turned out Asher was nowhere near done. He felt him shift, letting go of his cock in favour of grabbing hold of Calum’s hips, lifting him slightly to achieve a better angle. What followed had Calum crying out, his eyes widening as he was so relentlessly pounded into the sheets, he would have worried about the bed breaking, if not for the fact that all he could think about was how good it felt.

 

”Oh gods, Asher!” Calum gasped, unable to keep himself from eliciting sharp moans of pure bliss. He didn’t think he’d ever been fucked this hard before, and he was loving every second of it. Clasping his hands over his mouth to at least muffle the noise, he pushed his head into the mattress, his vision becoming blurry as he tried his very best to hold back. He couldn’t. It was all too much.

 

”No don’t!” He tried to yell as Asher’s hand wrapped around his cock, but with his own hands clasped tightly over his mouth it only came out as a muffled cry. Removing his hands from his mouth, he gasped, trying to gather himself enough to speak. ”I-I’m sorry, I can’t…” He shuddered as his body grew ridgid, his muscles constricting as the heat in his stomach exploded in a powerful orgasm. His insides convulsed around Asher’s throbbing cock – thick, white cum dripping onto his stomach as he came.

[-Hideki-]

Just when his hand had gotten a hold of Calum’s cock and given it some strokes and Ash had informed the other by moaning out that he’d not bear it much longer before he’d cum the younger male left out an inarticulate cry that was muffled down by the other man’s own hands over his mouth before he felt that the other was cumming, his muscle choked Ash’s dick so tightly and hardly that he growled deeply, heated pleasure overtaking his body as he was thrown over the edge by Calum’s orgasm and erupted inside of the young male, reaching his own climax, filling the other man’s hole by the same time the brunette shot his load of sperm over his own stomach.

 

The Colonel’s chest was raising and sinking incredibly fast, his body temperature was still high, he was a sweaty mess and his heart was pounding like a bass drum. The tightly constricted muscles were relaxing again and the soldier leaned over and kissed the other man’s lips completely out of breath and messily, catching for air when their lips parted before he pulled his huge dick out of the brunette male’s tiny hole, his seeds leaking out of it, dripping down the brunette’s thighs.

 

Rolling his heavy feeling body to the side he sank onto the bed like a bag of potatoes at complete relaxation and without any tension in his body although his breath was still calming down. This had been intense, intense and incredibly satisfying and pleasurable and there was a stupid pleased smirk on his lips as he lay there. For a moment the Xenonian closed his eyes but they stayed shut as he fell asleep almost instantly and started to snore a few minutes later.

 

It was probably the deepest sleep he had ever had, there wasn’t even a dream to disturb it and he didn’t wake up a single time in between. Only when the sun was shining brightly and high already and its light and warmth was falling onto Asher’s face, he could hear the loud knocking at the door but only ever so faintly as if it was distant and he slowly started to wake up and blinking his eyes, hearing a female voice scolding them through the door but he was too tired and still half asleep to catch onto anything that was said or to realise who exactly it had been. Ash stretched his naked, scarred body out on the bed and yawned before he rubbed his eyes and sat himself up on the bed.

 

Slowly the last night came back to him, the hard and hot sex he had had with Calum, the pleasure he had felt and how he had just fallen asleep. That had been amazing and he felt like doing it every time before he went to sleep like this now if he’d sleep that decently afterwards. But then he realised how high the sun stood and the annoyed female at the door and he noticed that they had overslept. Asher had never overslept in his entire life. This had never happened to him before but he still wouldn’t want to miss the touch of the last night and that deep and refreshing sleep.

Now they’d have to hurry though or he’d understand if Elizabeth would flog them later. “Calum, we should go and wash ourselves, we’re late.” He told the other before he stood up from the bed.

[Gladis]

Calum was breathing heavily, only just beginning to come down from his orgasmic high when Asher leaned down to seize his lips in a kiss. Shutting his eyes, he reached up to tenderly stroke Asher’s cheek. His heart was still pounding hard, and felt dizzy, exhausted and just a little bit sore. Yet above all, Calum felt completely and utterly satisfied.

 

He felt Asher’s cock slide out of him, leaving a trail of cum to slither down his thigh. Somehow it reminded him of their earlier conversation, and he couldn’t help but chuckle softly. ”You’re right,” he murmured against Asher’s lips, reaching up to gently touch his flushed cheek with the tips of his fingers, ”a relationship that so fundamentally lacks dicks would be terribly sad.” Calum had never given much thought to his sexuality before. Since their culture didn’t concern itself with policing any such aspect of life, it had never really been something he actually needed to think about in the first place. He had simply gone with what felt most natural at the time, and beyond that never dwelled on it again. Yet now that he was thinking about it… well, Calum wasn’t too sure. Although he had told Asher that the thought of sleeping with women didn’t gross him out – and it really didn’t, he also realized that it wouldn’t be compatible with some of his other preferences. Calum liked to bottom. He had always preferred it over the alternative – which admittedly, he had only ever tried once, and under less than ideal circumstances. The awkward experience may have contributed to cementing his feelings on the matter, but it wasn’t just that. He also just really enjoyed it. And considering he’d just experienced some of the best sex he’d ever had… well… it didn’t exactly serve to change his mind.

 

”You did great,” he added softly, as Asher’s large body dropped down beside him. He heaved himself up, leaning over to place a tender kiss on Asher’s cheek. Then he got up, deciding that he should at least wipe off the worst of it.

 

By the time he was done and crawled back into bed, Asher was already sound asleep, his snores clearly audible. Calum couldn’t help but smile to himself, snuggling up against his Xenonian giant as he finally allowed himself to drift off into a deep and satisfying slumber.

 

***

 

The following morning he was woken up by the feeling of Asher shifting beside him, sound of someone banging their fist against the door and Asher saying something about them being late. He groaned in discontentment, pulling his pillow over his head in an attempt to shut out the noise. His body felt terribly sore – something that, he quickly realized, hardly came as a surprise. Even so Calum refused to regret even a second of the time they had spent making love to one another. That didn’t make the prospect of walking all day – in his current state, any more appealing. And the only one he really had to blame was himself. Well, perhaps Asher carried some of the blame as well. He wouldn’t have needed to be so rough… but oh, gosh, diddly, dang – had Calum enjoyed it. And he wanted to do it again, whenever the opportunity presented itself.

 

”Asher, Calum, get up! You’re late already. We need to go!”

 

”...” Calum let out a long sigh, reluctantly pulling the pillow aside as he sat himself to sit up, squinting against the harsh sunlight. ”I’m sorry, Liz. We’ll be with you soon, alright?”

 

”You better be! I expect the two of you by the big tree in half an our.”

 

The silence that followed told Calum that she had left. He stifled a yawn, groggily raking a hand through his messy brown hair as his gaze settled on Asher’s naked form. In spite of himself, the corners of his lips pulled into a slight smile. ”Mornin’, gorgeous," he mused, before deciding that he’d stalled enough and finally forced himself to get out of bed. Yet he had barely even taken one step before he allowed himself to fall against Asher, wrapping his arms around his waist as he pushed his face against his lover’s chest. ”I’m so sore…” he complained, feeling the need to get it off his chest. It helped, if only by a tiny bit. Tilting his head back, he offered Asher a smile. ”S’pose we better get ready ’fore Liz bites our heads off, huh?”

 

***

 

After washing up, Calum slipped into his clothes and the protective gear he’d received from Elizabeth the day prior. It was nothing like so fancy as Asher’s combat suit, but at least it still ought to serve its purpose just fine. He checked and double checked his bag to see that he’d really remembered to pack everything, before slinging it over his shoulders and nodding at Asher to signal that he was ready to leave.

 

***

 

It seemed to Calum as though half the village had gathered by the tree to see them off. His grandmother was there, and Anya, who was the first to come and greet them with all of her usual cheer – and more. Sasha was there as well, still looking slightly disgruntled, but as though he had accepted the situation. Ellie stood beside him, bouncing little Tommen on her hip as she smiled at them. Even Jack was there, sleepily rubbing his eyes and stifling a yawn.

 

”Hey there, big girl!” Calum laughed as Anya came rushing at them, picking her up to swirl her around in the air. She giggled heartily, and when he set her back down she threw her arms around him in a tight hug. ”How are you on this fine morn’?”

 

She craned her head to look at his face, still giggling softly. ”Healthy as a horse!”

 

Calum laughed again, reaching down to gently ruffled her hair. ”Well, I’m glad to hear it!”

 

”Promise you’ll be back, okay?” She was still smiling, though it seemed a shadow of concern had settled on her features.

 

Calum knelt down so that his eyes were on the same level as hers. ”Of course we’ll be back. We’re not going far, see, and if everything goes according to plan – which I’m sure it will, we’ll be back in just a couple of days, alright? There’s no need to worry.”

 

Anya nodded her head, hesitating briefly before leaning over to kiss Calum on the cheek. Then she turned to Asher, and although she initially wore a large grin, she suddenly seemed to turn a bit shy. There was something hesitant about her behavior, as though she didn’t quite dare utter what she’d intended to say. She nervously fiddled with her braid.

 

”Go on,” Ellie encouraged her, ”show him what you made.”

 

”Uhm…” she bit her lip, her cheeks turning a faint rosy color as she slid her hand into her skirt pocket. As she withdrew it, Calum saw her clasping a oval shaped, small, wooden plate, holding it out to Asher. Upon closer inspection he would see that she had painted what vaguely resembled a fox face onto its surface. Or maybe a cat – Calum couldn’t quite tell. ”I-it’s a good luck charm,” she explained shyly, the rosy color on her cheeks deepening, ”to keep you safe…”

[-Hideki-]

Asher was standing in front of the wardrobe and was getting some fresh clothing and some towels out for them when Elizabeth voice was calling them again and Calum responded sounding a little sleepy still but at least he seemed awake now as he had not responded to the Xenonian at all when he had told him that they should get ready. When Elizabeth had gone and Ash was taking the last item they needed out of the wardrobe and had placed them to the other stuff on the table he could feel the green eyes on his naked body followed by the brunette saying ‘Morning gorgeous’ what confused the soldier for a moment and he turned around looking over his shoulder if someone gorgeous had entered the room without him noticing while he had had his head in the wardrobe but there was no one. So apparently the Colonel was ‘gorgeous’. “Good Morning Calum.” He greeted the younger man with a smile on his face and he felt the impulse to crawl onto the bed again, lean over to his sleepy head Earthling and kiss his sweet lips, spending the morning in bed naked with him, but he didn’t because they couldn’t.

 

He had just wanted to grab his old clothes and put them on with his combat suit for the way to the bathhouse when the brunette who had finally left the bed fell against him, the slender body leaning on his, arms wrapping around Ash’s naked waist. A little surprised he looked at Calum before the brunette expressed how sore he was in a complaining manner and the soldier’s cheeks flushed red and he chewed on his scarred bottom lip. “I….” he started to talk but he didn’t really know what he could say about having losing control and fucking the other into the mattress like a maniac. “I didn’t want to make you feel sore. I thought you enjoyed yourself too. I can try to be gentler next time.”The man tried to work with the criticism still somewhat red faced. He hoped that it wasn’t because of his size as he obviously couldn’t change that he had a large cock, he just had.

 

After the younger man had agreed that they should get going he got dressed and went to the bathhouse where he could wash himself up properly and then get into clean clothing and put on his combat suit that he had checked the day before too to make sure everything worked as it was supposed to. They still had to go back to the brunette’s house though because the man had to get his bag that he was checking dozens of times even though it would have been a lot easier to give J.O.S.H. a list and let the system check it.

 

When the other was finally sure that he had everything packed he gesticulated Asher that they were ready to leave and the soldier walked down to the tree together with Calum, holding the man’s hand in his, throwing one or the other gaze to him as he found that he looked cute and a little unfitting in that ancient protective gear he was wearing what led to the man chuckling to himself under his helmet. From afar it was already clear to see that there wasn’t only Elizabeth waiting but a larger crowd of people and the Xenonian soldier knew all of them by now and had grown fond of some of them too, not in the way he had come to like Calum but still. And for a moment he realised something. Back then dying had been just a risk of his job and dying in battle had been a heroic death, the best way to die and to bring honour to the nation, he had never feared to die but now… if he thought about dying now it just seemed like such a waste and not honourable anymore. It seemed like a waste of time that he could spend with Calum that he could hold him and be close to him, it seemed like a waste of effort because dead he wouldn’t be helpful and able to protect any of the people in that village anymore. He didn’t want to die and put his life on the line. It was strange. A strange feeling and he wasn’t sure if he understood it.

 

As they arrived the young girl was running up to them jumping the brunette man again as it was usual for her to do and Asher smiled at the both of them when he saw the man swirling her around in the air. That was something he had only seen on Earth too. No one on Xenon would have picked up a child already that old and swirled it around. Well, no child got swirled around no matter the age. But toddlers who couldn’t walk yet or had to be put onto furniture were at least carried around by their assigned adults. The man overheard their conversation and he really didn’t get that the kid was saying she was healthy as a horse; she was obviously braver than those coward creatures. They reminded him more of the poor lad who was hanging on his mother’s hip and had been born with the ‘shy’ disease, really unfortunate.

 

Once Calum had assured the girl that he was coming back he thought they’d say their goodbyes and be on their way but Anya turned around to him grinning. The grin died off though and he asked himself what was wrong now. He had not done anything obviously but the girl acted as she had never acted around him before as there was no comparison to their first encounter where she’d cried and had been scared of him either. She seemed nervous and played with her hair and the soldier looked at the kid questioningly also not knowing what to do now at all. He didn’t have to though because the kid’s mother was already encouraging her resulting in Anya stuttering and blushing red.

 

The bright blue eyes behind the helmet followed the hand of the kid that was getting something she had apparently made herself out of her weird legless trouser’s pocket. The girl still was hesitant and it took a while for her to actually take out a small plate of wood that she was holding tightly in her tiny hand before she was holding it to him apparently giving him this as a present. The soldier had not expected that and he was taken off guard, looking a little confused and surprised. Then the girl spoke and told him that this was a good luck charm and it was meant to keep him safe. It was sweet even though Asher had no clue what a good luck charm was and the kid blushed an even deeper shade of red as she spoke.

 

What the man did get was giving soldiers something to express good wishes and the hopes that they’d be successful and would turn home in one piece. The Xenonian people did this too just totally different. After large parades, in a festive manner, the people gave them something their working groups had made for them so he could understand the general gesture although there was a major difference. This was much more personal and emotional. That girl had done this on her own impulse and not because it was a ‘tradition’ and part of how she was supposed to show her respect and honour to the soldiers as a collective, she wanted to give this to him, to Asher the individual man, because she wanted that he would be safe and it obviously meant something to her too because otherwise she wouldn’t blush and wouldn’t be so nervous to hand it to him.

 

Ash was getting down on one knee, the other foot placed up on the ground as if the girl would be an old king bestowing knighthood on him. His metal coated hand took the wooden plate and he looked at a face of an animal that was drawn onto it. Unfortunately J.O.S.H. couldn’t identify the picture of the animal so the Colonel had no idea what it was. The platinum haired man brought the object to where his lips were hidden under the helmet, then his fingers closed around it in a fist and he smacked his fist against his chest where the heart was beating in it, bowing his head. “Thank you young lady!” he said, nodded and placed it into the pocket on his chest. “I will be successful and return safely and I’ll make sure to keep Calum safe too.” He promised her. Then he leaned forward and moved his head from one side of her cheek to the other without touching it though and before he got up from the ground again, patting the kid’s head as he always did. “And you take good care of your people here little warrior.” He said to the boisterous girl with a smile.

 

 

Having said their goodbyes to the other people too they were taking the known way out of the villages, passing the fields, the ruins of the aliens battleship and would soon get to the place where the coward horses were. “Do we walk? Or is there any kind of vehicle you own for missions like that?” he wanted to know from Calum - whose hand he was holding again not caring how that looked for a strike force - and Elizabeth.

[Gladis]

”Don’t worry about it, Asher.” Calum said softly, leaning up to place a loving kiss on Asher’s jawline – which was just about how far he could reach without the considerably taller man’s assistance. Being short sure sucks, doesn’t it? ”I really did enjoy myself. In case, you know, the way you had me screaming with pleasure didn’t make that obvious enough.” He grinned up at Asher, only to be struck by a stark realization a moment later. Now it was his turn to blush. ”There… there’s no way ’nan didn’t hear us, is there?” Then again, so what if she heard them? It was not as though there was any need for them to hide their relationship. The more he thought about it, the less he found that it bothered him. ”Well, who cares?” Chuckling softly, he shrugged his shoulders and reached up to grab Asher’s face, this time drawing him into a proper kiss.

 

As for who cared – most likely, his grandmother did. Not because their relationship bothered her in any way, but rather because all the noise had made it quite difficult to sleep!

 

Calum could only guess what she must have been thinking. Probably something along the lines of: Oh, kids these days!

 

***

 

Anya blinked her large, blue eyes, watching the Xenonian soldier carefully – and perhaps a bit curiously, as he sunk to his knees and took the handcrafted good luck charm off her hands. She held her breath – almost as though she expected him to reject it. Instead, much to both Anya and Calum’s relief, Asher slapped his chest and accepted it with genuine appreciation. Anya’s face lit up with the biggest grin she could possibly manage – Asher had told her exactly what she wanted to hear. She giggled when her hair was ruffled, nodding her head in response to his words.

 

”I will keep everyone safe in your absence!” She promised, and Calum was sure that she meant it with all her heart.

 

Just as well Asher doesn’t realize the symbol holds religious significance... He found himself thinking, a small, almost secretive smile tugging at the corners of his lips. The bear – which after a moment of closer consideration Calum realized it must be, symbolized strength and protection. It was just the sort of charm you would give someone about to go on a dangerous mission.

 

He was put out of his thoughts when, much to Calum’s surprise, Sasha stepped forth, placing a large hand on his daughters shoulder.

 

”I should hope so.” He said in response to Asher’s promise to bring Calum back home safely. For a brief moment Calum thought his brother was being sarcastic, but then he saw his expression – filled with regret, genuine concern and a different emotion entirely – embarrassment. He awkwardly cleared his throat. ”Asher, I know… that we...uhm…had a bit of a rough start…” he rubbed his head, seeming to have difficult time putting his feelings into words. ”But...uhm...I suppose I just wanted to apologize for my behavior. Take care of my little brother, okay? And be safe – all three of you.” He solemnly glanced around at Asher, Elizabeth and at last Calum, allowing his gaze to linger as he reached out to affectionately ruffle his brother’s hair – like he used to do back when they were younger. ”Don’t cause too much trouble, you hear?”

 

A faint blush spread across Calum’s cheeks. He pouted. ”Gee, Sasha – way to put your trust in me.”

 

Sasha’s lips pulled into a grin. ”But that’s where you’re wrong. I do trust you, Cal. Anywhere except in the kitchen!” He chuckled, before adding, ”See, here’s the thing. If I make you think I don’t, you’ll do everything in your power to disprove me. Remember that time I was supposed to teach you how to swim, and you absolutely- ouch!” Whatever Sasha had intended to say was cut short by a hard kick to his shin. He sighed, smiling ruefully at Calum, who’s cheeks had turned bright red. He folded his arms across his chest and turned away from his brother.

 

”Come now, don’t be like that!” Laughed Sasha, pulling the disgruntled Calum into one of his bone crushing bear hugs. Yet even after getting the air squeezed out of him, Calum’s sulking did not seem to have subsided. ”Take care, Calum.” Sasha said softly, in a last attempt to smooth things over. It seemed to have worked, because Calum dropped the sulky attitude and reluctantly returned his smile.

 

”You too, brother.”

 

Next in line to say goodbye was Ellie. After handing little Tommen over to her husband, she pulled both Calum and Asher into as simultaneous hug, wishing them well on their way before moving on to do the same with Elizabeth. Jack gave his words of encouragement as well, and like that it seemed to go one for quite some time – with every present villager seeming to have something or other to say. At long last they were approached by his grandmother. She smiled at them, and Calum could see a combination of fear, but also pride in her eyes.

 

”May the gods keep you safe.” She said softly, and although it was such a simple and standard phrase, it was filled to the brim with her love and affection. Calum knew that it was her way of, perhaps quite literally, blessing their journey. Although she had initially been against it, her words were laced with pride.

 

”May the gods keep you safe.” He echoed, leaning down to pull her into a tight hug. For quite some time, he refused to let go, burying his face in the crook of her neck. She smelled of faintly of peppermint and soap. For a brief moment Calum no longer felt like the twenty-plus young man about to head off into the waste, but the four year old little boy who had been throwing a tantrum at his mother’s funeral – kicking and screaming for hours on end.

 

I want mama! I want mama! Give me mama! Give her back! I want her back! Mama! Mama!

 

Until at last he had lost his voice completely, and he had no tears left to shed. He could still remember how he had collapsed in his grandmother’s arms, burying his tear streaked face in her skirts, and how he was lulled to sleep – by that faint scent of peppermint and soap.

 

”I love you, nan.” Calum murmured, as they finally parted from their embrace.

 

”I love you too, Calum.” She smiled, gently placing her soft, wrinkled hand on his cheek – allowing it to linger there a short moment as they simply gazed at one another. Then she withdrew it, turning to look at Asher.

 

”I know what you think of our customs and traditions, but I will pray for your safety regardless. I hope you don’t mind too much, young man.” She flashed him a warm, yet at the same time almost cheeky smile.

 

And then, at long last, they were finally on the road.

 

Elizabeth smiled in response to Asher’s inquiry. ”Normally our fastest mode of transportation are the horses,” she said as they passed the pastures, ”but as a general rule we don’t take the animals when we go east. It’s a hazardous enough environment for people – horses have historically fared even less well under these conditions. Quite frankly, it’d be a waste of resources. So we walk. I hope you don’t mind…” she spared Calum and Asher a glance, arching an eyebrow as she saw that they were still walking hand in hand. Her lips twitched into an amused smile, although she refrained from making any remarks.

 

The first couple of hours passed more or less without incident. It was hot, however, and as the sun rose higher, so did the temperature along with it. It wasn’t long before Calum began to question whether he had overdressed. The protective gear was heavy and had already begun to wear him down. Added to that was the fact that he still felt sore, and that – although his stamina wasn’t bad per see, he was unused to walking for hours on end – especially on such uneven terrain. Although they for the most part kept to the beaten path that curved and slithered its way through the woods. Not only was it full of bumps and dents, but it was littered with stones, roots, stick and branches. Every now and again it would split around an ill placed tree, or a canopy of leaves branches weighed down by late summer fruit would square off the path. It hardly helped that as the initial excitement of finally getting to explore at least the outskirts of the waste wore off, the samey scenery consisting of trees, bushes, rocks and more trees – seemed to stretch on for all eternity. Occasionally he would hear the pooling noise of rushing water – presumably because of a nearby creek, but even then it took quite some time before he had the opportunity to even catch a glimpse of it.

 

He was reluctant to admit that it was a slow, tiring and monotonous walk. At first Calum had at least been taking part in a lively conversation that kept most of the frustration at bay, yet as time went on and he became increasingly silent, simply focusing on trying to keep up with their quick pace. Elizabeth seemed to have noticed, because she actually slowed down a bit, yet that only served to make him feel worse about it. He was slowly turning into the liability he had so much feared that he would become.

 

”Let us take a break.” Elizabeth suggested as they eventually reached a clearing. By then it was late in the afternoon, and the sun was filtering through the leaves to sprinkle the plants and overgrowth with its golden light.

 

Too tired to argue, Calum found a rock to sit on, taking a moment to catch his breath. He felt hot, exhausted and if he had felt sore before, it was nothing compared to how he felt now. His feet in particular ached, and he began to wonder if all of this equipment was really necessary. Yet Elizabeth was wearing just as much – if not more, and she seemed to be doing just fine. Calum sighed heavily, dropping his gaze onto the ground. It was only then that he realized that his designated ”rock” was, in fact, not a rock. It was far too flat and evenly shaped to be a rock, and the few visible patches between all the moss were oddly whitish gray. His eyebrows drew into a frown, and he began to use his gloved hand to peel off the vegetation. More and more of the smooth, white surface became visible, and his frown deepened. His suspicions had been confirmed.

 

Whatever he was sitting on, it really wasn’t a rock.

 

It was a slab of concrete!

 

And it was part of a far larger construction than he had initially believed it to be.

 

Hit by the sudden realization, he forgot all about his exhaustion, springing to his feet to take in his discovery. Sure enough, beneath all the grass and the bushes and the trees and the moss, he could identify what looked like the ruined foundations to a large building – far larger than any building he’d ever laid eyes on. His eyes shone with pure and utter excitement. Glancing around, he noticed that little patches of gray concrete could be glimpsed through the overgrowth, and as he glanced up beyond the trees, he could see the tall towers he was so used to seeing from the Myre rise above them, endlessly stretching into the sky. The landscape had begun to mutate around them, and Calum had been too disgruntled and exhausted to even notice!

 

”Look, the towers!” He exclaimed, unable to keep his excitement underwraps. ”They’re so tall! I never realized how tall they were!” Although they still had quite a bit to go before they reached them, it was becoming increasingly clear to Calum that they were considerably larger than they had seemed from so far away.

 

Elizabeth laughed. ”Well, stop gaping and help Asher gather some firewood. I think it’s about time we put up camp for the night, and this seems like a good spot. I’ll go get water by the creek.”

[-Hideki-]

Upon learning that they normally used the coward animals for transportation he was glad to hear that they’d be walking. The mere idea was completely absurd to him and he’d never ever in his life use something as transportation that had its own brain and that was uncontrollable. This was madness. Those people were crazy to actually climb onto the coward animals and depend on them to carry them to the destination. How did they even program the creatures to get them to walk where they were supposed to walk to? “Walking sounds great.” He clearly stated. “I would never climb on those coward animals. There is no control over something that lives and has its own mind. How do you even program them to carry you to your destination?”the soldier wanted to know as they were leaving the fields behind.

 

Neither the heat nor the change of the ground mattered to Asher. J.O.S.H. precisely determined the temperature and then regulated the combat suit in a way that would ensure the Xenonian to constantly have the ideal body temperature so he wasn’t feeling hot at all. His boots adjusted to the ground and his feet, constantly massaging them so that they wouldn’t start to ache. The march itself was nothing either. He could march for days without a break if need be. It was a requirement of the space force.

 

Hence his mind was wandering around freely as he was walking and taking in the landscapes that had a lot of the green stuff that made him sneeze. The Xenonian thought about the moment Calum’s brother had stepped forward and had addressed Asher and had actually apologised to him. It had surprised him and he had not understood the sudden change of heart but he had acknowledged that it took courage to apologise and to admit having been wrong to your foe and he had given the man credit for that and thought that maybe there was still hope for this guy after all. He hoped so because it was the brunette man’s brother after all and he was important to the younger man and Calum was important to Ash.

 

Then he thought about Sasha’s wife who had hugged him that tightly. She was a really nice woman. He had found her friendly the first day he had met her already and he loved her apply pie. It made him even sadder about whatever disease it was that made her stomach like that but the stomach had gotten even bigger, the condition had obviously worsened and he hoped that he’d get to see her again and she wouldn’t die by exploding or by the parasite that she had, he had still not asked the woman about what she suffered from.

 

His brain however got hooked the most on the brunette man’s old grandmother who had said such unspeakable things again and the Colonel’s toes had dug into his boots, his muscles had gotten tense as this had been an automatic reaction of his body to religion and gods. It was a little like the dog Calum had, when someone knocked at the door it started to bark and when someone made a religious statement Asher’s body prepared for the fight, as if this was a basic instinct of his. That had made it all the more difficult to keep quiet, to not comment on it and to let the old woman speak. The real challenged had been when she had turned from her grandson to him though and had told him she hoped he didn’t mind too much that she’d be praying for him regardless of his hate for religion. The first impulse had been to lash out and tell her he pretty much minded damn well if someone committed something like a prayer in his name, that instinct he had suppressed with all force he could come up with though and while he had been suppressing it and while he had been about to keep himself from lashing out at a sweet old woman who had been kind to him and whom he had gotten to grow fond of he had questioned why he specifically minded the prayer itself.

 

Questioning had made him think that she just wanted him to be safe, she had good intentions with this and maybe there was nothing much so different about expressing good wishes or just generally hoping that he’d return safe as well and there was nothing wrong with that. Sure, there was the gods things she threw into it that he despised and condemned but from that action the woman wanted to perform no harm could come. Her hopes would be just hopes like everyone else’s because there were no gods to hear the prayer anyway. And his mind had started to think up more stuff and he had been about to get a major headache and severe confusion from the questioning right there as he stood opposite to the elderly lady and he had shaken his head to make the questioning thoughts that confused his mind so much fall out of his head and he had mumbled something about “If I can’t keep you from it anyway…” before he had looked to both sides and then to Calum’s grandmother again before he had hugged the elderly woman not so sure where that had come from himself. But he had done it still and had told her “Thanks.” Before clarifying: “Not for the pray thing but for your hospitality and kindness.”

 

After he had gone through all of that stuff, the conversations with Elizabeth and Calum had kept him entertained and when they had talked enough Asher had at one point started to hum and sing Xenonian war songs and their anthem as he was marching! It had not escaped him though that the brunette was getting slower and slower and was apparently struggling to keep up the pace and to walk as long without a break and he had just wanted to suggest taking a break so that the other could acclimate himself again when Elizabeth suggested just that and the brunette was sinking onto something that looked like a ruin of an ancient building to him immediately, making Asher chuckled as he found the man really cute how he let himself sink there in exhaustion before he noticed what he was sitting on and got totally excited about something that didn’t make the Xenonian blink an eye.

 

The sky scrapers were medium height and not really impressive to him. In Xenon, they built monumental, big, high, impressive and intimidating. Especially the capital where he had been raised and had always lived. This was a joke against what he knew and to him this was just some ruins of an ancient civilisation that had destroyed itself. But Calum was impressed and he was staring at the towers that were standing there. “Some apartment complexes.” He shrugged but his lips were curled up in a smile under his helmet because he just found the other cute and attractive when he got that excited and curious and the wish to show him Xenon and to have him admire their architecture grew even more in him.

 

When Elizabeth told the brunette to stop staring at the buildings but to help Asher gather fire wood instead the Xenonian shook his head. “Not necessary. You can rest.” He told him and activated a small, almost invisible laser on his combat suit as he was cutting branches from a tree that fell onto a pile under it. “Fire wood gathered!” he reported and went to the pile and brought it over to a decent place and lit the pile of wood on fire with a shoot from another weapon installed in the combat suit.

 

The alien then sat down next to the younger man and laid his arm around the other man’s shoulder, pulling him closer. “How do you like your first mission so far?” he asked, a little teasing in his voice as the other looked exhausted already. “You have a lot of that green stuff here. We don’t have any on Xenon. Only in the breeding halls and reservations for it.” He told him. “But we have many higher and more impressive towers.” Asher said proudly since Calum seemed to be fascinated by them.

 

Suddenly there was a noise in the bushes and he could see something move. On alert he stood from where he had sat down, took his weapon and aimed it at the place where something was moving ready to shoot whatever it was. The creature jumped out of the bush and onto the grassy ground but it was a lot smaller than he had thought and it seemed not to pay them any mind at all. Then again, it looked weird, fascinating but weird, like something that shouldn’t actually exist naturally. The little animal’s skin was glowing in a radiating green, it had no skin like them but no fur either but scales. It was moving in jumping motions, had a long pointed tail and large ears. Asher waited for Josh to analyse what it was but the system showed an error. “No information stored. Uncategorised life form. Do you wish to categorise?” the system asked and Ash said. “Categorise!” and Josh analysed the animal’s vital date, scanned its body and saved the data in the system. “Designate species.” J.O.S.H. said and Asher looked at that thing. It was odd that there was no information about this. J.O.S.H. knew about all life that had existed on Earth before the planet had been destroyed. What meant that this was a new creature. “How do you call those? I want to categorise it in the data base.” He asked Calum.

[Gladis]

All Asher’s question about the horses achieved was to make Calum drew a complete blank. Blinking his eyes, he stared at Asher, wondering what sort of transportation of this day and age didn’t have a mind of its own. Boats, he decided. Boats don’t have a mind of its own. Presumably Asher’s metal cocoon hadn’t had a mind of its own either, but considering it had come crashing down onto earth, it also didn’t seem like a particularly reliable way of getting about.

 

In the end, all of Calum’s thoughts culminated in a single, very simple yet all-telling question.

 

”What does ’program’ mean?”

 

Even after Asher’s explanation, Calum wasn’t quite sure he could wrap his head around it. Sure, it made sense that most machines that, as everybody knew, lacked a soul possessed no ability of thinking for themselves. Thus, back in the day when they were still being used as tools of mankind, they would have needed a way to order them about. Calum understood that much at least. It was the process behind it all that confused him, and he found that it occupied his mind for quite a portion of the trip. At least it helped with passing time, until eventually he just gave up and abandoned those complicated ideas entirely. There were other, much more important things to think about. Like… how nice it was that they were finally taking a break. It also came as a small relief to Calum when Asher told him he didn’t need to get back up, although he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow when the soldier proceeded to beaming branches off a tree.

 

”Asher… I very much appreciate your help, but you do realize that the point of ”gathering” firewood is to find dry branches, right? Fresh wood doesn’t burn very well.” And indeed, although Asher had managed to get the wood burning, it was a pitiful flame that lapped at the branches. There was a lot of smoke too, and a wheezy piping noise as the water in them was brought to a boil and evaporated. But then, Calum was too exhausted to do anything about it, so he shrugged his shoulders and dropped back onto the slap of concrete. ”It’s not cold though, so it’s probably fine…” he trailed off, shutting his eyes as he leaned into Asher, contently listening to the older man’s musings about ’green stuff’ and towers.

 

Pausing, he opened his eyes again to peer into the tinted glass of the helmet.

 

”Even more impressive towers, huh? You know, now I really do kind of do wish I could see Xenon for myse- Asher?”

 

Having overheard the faint rustling in the bushes, Calum looked at his lover in confusion as he suddenly rose from the slab of concrete, weapon pointed at the overgrowth. A tense moment of silence passed, and Calum’s hand instinctively moved towards the holster attached to his belt. Yet before he’d even had time to draw his weapon, a small, green little creature emerged from amongst leaves and the branches. Calum immediately relaxed.

 

”Oh, it’s just a neon hopper. We use their scales to make green paint that glows in the dark.” He explained, giving a small shrug of his shoulders. ”They’re harmless, though, so don’t worry.”

 

He leaned forward, picking up a stick from the ground to poke around the fire.

 

The bushes rustled again, but this time it was Elizabeth who emerged from amongst the trees. She was carrying a pot filled with water, which she set up over the fire so that she could bring it to a boil.

 

”On my way to the stream I looked around a bit. There’s something like an old underground room nearby. Can’t promise it’ll be much in terms of shelter, but perhaps we could at least have our dinner there.” She glanced at Asher, whom she was well aware would not be able to eat out in the open.

[-Hideki-]

Asher looked at Calum laying his head to the side a little not quite getting what the other found wrong with his fire wood telling him that he shall have gathered dry branches from the ground because those apparently burned better. “It’s wood and it’s on fire.” The Xenonian stated as it fit the definition of ‘fire-wood’ quite well in his opinion. The soldier had never gathered fire-wood or made a fire like that. He had seen this for the first time on primitive planets that people set wood on fire and actually used that fire for different purposes. On Xenon they had technology for all of this. “Do you want it to burn more?” he asked mumbled something to his suit and shot at the pile of wood again setting not only the wood but the surrounding leaves and branches on fire with what seemed to be a little explosion. “There. Burns perfect now.” The alien found as the flames reached for all that was near enough to devour, including a bird that had dug for some worms in the ground.

 

Relaxing before the now all too lively fire he felt the other’s head resting against his shoulder, closing his eyes and Ash let his fingers run through the brunette strands of hair. He took the hand away again when the other opened his eyes and expressed that he wished he could see Xenon for himself now while Asher had been thinking about how much he’d love to show his home to him at the same time but then there was that rustling in the bushes that set the soldier on alert for what turned out to be nothing before the radiating creature appeared and jumped around on the ground before him. J.O.S.H. was scanning all about it and waiting for the Xenonian soldier to name the animal the system couldn’t find in its data base.

 

As soon as Calum had told him that they called it a neon hopper after the foreign man had asked him he repeated that to his combat suit. “Species categorised as ‘Neon Hopper’. Data send.” J.O.S.H. said and while Ash listened to the brunette man telling him that they used the creature’s scales to get green paint that shines in the dark expressing that those animals were harmless the profile with the gathered data of the creature got shown to the soldier and his eyes narrowed into small little slits when he saw the radioactive symbol flash up next to the species name. “It is not harmless.” The Colonel said. “You should not use its scales for anything! Don’t get close to it and never touch it.” He told the other. Since the younger man didn’t even know what programming meant he obviously wouldn’t understand this but maybe he’d trust him enough to stay away from it.

 

His body was tense in the presence of the creature, not because he was afraid, he was wearing the combat suit after all, but because he was worried about Calum and he only relaxed again when the animal had hopped back into the bushes and disappeared. How? How could that creature live and be that highly radioactive at the same time? The soldier sank down next to the other man again watching him poke the fire that had enough power in it now to consume the end of the stick immediately. ‘They don’t understand what has happened to this place!’ he thought as he looked at the brunette looking rather carefree in the moment and he sighed deeply, feeling concerned what they’d find at this place. The Emperor fled from the planet before its completely demise, before everything got wiped away from it. He knew a lot, probably even more than he had published but was it possible that the Emperor didn’t know all about the end of planet Earth? It was an absurd thought that had never occurred to him before but now it did. Or had he just kept a lot of things secret from them?

 

Raising his head again, fully on alert another time when the bushes rustled again Elizabeth returned to them with a pot filled with water that she placed onto their fire informing them about an old underground room. “Sounds good.” He said but then scepticism was spreading within him. “We shall make sure that it’s not contaminated first though.” Ash then said. Who knew what was in this underground room. Who knew what the ancient people of Earth had stored there and what might have outlived them. Or what weird species that had evolved might live there. Asher slowly came to understand why that ‘waste’ was supposedly a dangerous place but probably not for the same reasons Elizabeth and Calum deemed it a dangerous place. Their scientists had always said that Earth was hostile to life, that one couldn’t live there anymore, that the place was destroyed and contaminated and Asher had been more than surprised to have stumbled across humans on the planet but it appeared so that probably only a few places on the planet had alright living conditions to people again and the vast majority of it stayed contaminated or in one or the other ways hostile to life.

 

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Xenon; Capital; Department Of Classification and Speciation

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Five high towers were reaching far into the Xenonian sky, their shimmering metallic coloured facades reflecting the light that was falling onto them. They were creating an arch the way they were built next to each other and each tower was connected to the other by bridges completely surrounded by crystalline. The bridges were not only practical and necessary to get from one tower into the other but they too were a symbol, a statement for how the different fields of science were all connected to one another. On the left there was a black tower a huge logo proudly informing that this giant tower was the capitals research centre for technology and engineering, followed by a silver tower which apparently was the research centre for physics that was followed by a blue one the research centre for chemistry. And in between the research centre for chemistry to the left and the white tower of the research centre for medical science to the right stood a green tower, the capitals research centre for biology and genetics.

 

In a room at the lowest floor that seemed a little abandoned sat the department of classification and speciation that concerned itself with non-human species of all different planets. They were often overlooked or their work was mocked by other departments in the tower but it was pretty unfair. The data they gathered about non-human animals was often of great use to other fields such as medicine, toxicology, biochemistry and even weapon technology. But it seemed that their contribution wasn’t acknowledged much so they sat one floor over the cellar amongst themselves staring at large screens, experimenting and calculating. Number 216-470-531-824-0-XY simplified identification code Percy was sitting on his chair his mud green eyes scanning the data of a seldom frog’s toxin when the screen suddenly started to blink and a window popped up which informed the man that a new species had been added to the data base. Percy sucked on his lower lip as he clicked onto the window and the system started to show him the new entry. “Added to database at 9:24am CXT; Location Earth; Species classified as ‘Neon Hopper’; classified by Number 997-361-899-979-7-XY.” J.O.S.H. sounded through the room and his colleagues were turning their heads to his place in the round room they were sitting in. “Show data!” Percy ordered and it was as if the system let the scientist land on Earth where it showed him the location where the creature had been detected with a red point on the map before he gazed onto a weird little thing with a radiating colour, scales, long ears and a pointed tail. “Project!” Percy ordered the computer and the 3D graphic of the animal as well as its data appeared over a table in the middle of the room, the radiation symbol blinking next to it.

 

A video segment of the creature in a forest that J.O.S.H. had recorded was shown in the room and the eyes of the team looked at it fascinated and questioning when the door opened and a tall, slim man with a bald head and a perfectly white laboratory coat stepped into the room, a cup of purple liquid in hand. “What is that?” the man expressed when he saw the creature hopping in the middle of the room and Percy brushed a black strand of hair out of his pale face looking at the man who had just entered. “A rabbit-lizard-rat hybrid thing I suppose.” He guessed and the bald man raised an eyebrow turning towards the other looking at him as if he wasn’t clear in the head. “Rubbish!” he exclaimed. “Have you viewed its DNA data and searched for accordance with other species in the system yet?” the man asked. “No Professor!” Percy admitted looking into the grey eyes of the professor. “Then how about you do that now you genius?” the man told him and with a:”Yes Professor!” the scientist got to it while the bald head was stepping closer into the middle of the room, pressing a button on the table to make a consol appear viewing the scanned interior of the animal and how its organism worked beginning to study it. “It’s a pity we don’t have a specimen here.” He said before he was saying absolutely nothing anymore other than directing the members of his team for hours.

 

The room was completely silent; one could only hear the sounds the computers made and the typing and clicking of their fingers onto the consoles while their eyes were hooked on the screens. “It uses it. It’s vital for it.” The professor’s sonorous, slightly sluggish voice sounded as though he was thinking out loud. “Pardon?” the youngest member of the team Percy asked wanting to know what the man meant. “Its body basically works on nuclear power. It has evolved to be a little like a tiny biological atomic reactor.” The professor said not turning away from the creature that was projected in the middle of the room. “Impossible!” the black haired scientist snorted laughingly but the professor ignored that. “Really fascinating.” He said instead. “Call me a chemist here right no….” He was cut off. “Do I have to? The biochemists have lunch break right now and they are always so smug and I don’t want to ask them for anything.” The young man complained and the professor turned around to him. “Not the biochemists. A chemist! Call the blue tower! And the silver tower, I want a physicist too.” He ordered. “And get me someone from the mission to Earth. Both the leading scientist and the leading military official! I am certain that they want to know what awaits them. And also that their Colonel is apparently moving and doing just fine! Although I am sure that this muscle head has no idea what he has just found.” The professor said taking a sip from the purple liquid in the cup. “What muscle head?” Percy asked and the professor sighed and rolled his eyes. “The Colonel of the space force! Number 997-361-899-979-7-XY! ” he answered brashly. “Oh!” Percy said. “Yes, Professor!” he then nodded.

[Gladis]

It seemed that Asher would never cease to surprise him. Everything from the blast of light setting half to meadow on fire, to his harsh reaction when Calum told him what they used the scales of the neon hoppers for. To say that it baffled him would have been an understatement. After all, Calum couldn’t even begin to imagine why these creatures were harmful to them, and yet he certainly didn’t doubt Asher’s assessment. Even if he didn’t agree with everything Asher said, he had proven his superior knowledge in certain matters time and time again. So if Asher said they were dangerous… well, then that was probably the case.

 

”A-alright….” there was a brief moment of silence. ”... Would you mind explaining what makes them dangerous? It’s not that I doubt you or anything, but I would very much like to know.” It must have been Calum’s innate sense of curiosity that had driven him to ask for clarification on the matter. He had never liked to be kept in the dark, and always yearned to know more. It was that same sense of curiosity that had driven his strong desire to leave the Myre and explore the world outside, and perhaps also why he had come to accept Asher so quickly. He invoked the same sense of wonder in him, as the stories of his fathers adventures had when he was a still but a lad of few years.

 

As such, it would not be entirely unwarranted to assume that this very curiosity also contributed to the surge of excitement he felt when Elizabeth returned with the news of having found a shelter. Now this was the sort of thing he had always wanted to explore – the remnants of the lost civilization. It was clear that he did not share Asher’s skepticism, and despite his earlier exhaustion, the promise of seeing something new filled him with the motivation to get back on his feet.

 

So, after refilling their water bottles with the water Elizabeth had gathered and putting out the fire, the trio set back out into the woods.

 

As promised the entrance to the underground ’room’ wasn’t particularly far off, although it took them off the trampled road they had previously followed, making the traversal even tougher. The last section of their walk was characterized by a descent down a steep slope, which lead them to quite the peculiar hole in the ground. It was fairly wide and shaped like a square, containing a worn down stone slab staircase that seemed to lead into some kind of space below the ground. Although it was too dark to tell how big it was, Calum kind of got the sense that it had to be more than just a room.

 

”If you want to check the contamination, now's probably the time." Elizabeth Said, glancing Asher whilst simultaneously beginning to unfasten the electric torch attached to her suit. Calum still found himself slightly awestruck at the fact that she had one. Old world technology like that generally cost a fortune. Then again, she was a seeker, and they were also the ones that provided the markets with valunle goods like the batteries they salvaged from places like the waste, so perhaps it was not so strange after all.

[-Hideki-]

There was a deep frown on his scarred face under the helmet when Calum expressed that he liked to know what made the neon hoppers dangerous. He could see why this interested the other man and that he wanted to know but at the same time his answer would probably not help the man much. “It’s radioactive!” Ash told him his voice stern. “Contact with it may result in radiation sickness and other diseases. If you have offspring even the offspring might suffer from negative effects.” The Colonel let the man know. He’d seen it. The results of radiation sickness! Seen footage during weaponry class and even footage of their own soldiers who had survived a nuclear attack of Zyan at one of their many colonies! “Just don’t go near it and don’t touch it.” Asher firmly repeated taking a hold of Calum’s hand, squeezing it, feeling the need to press his lips onto the man’s skin but the helmet was in his way. It worried him. He didn’t want the man to get contaminated. He didn’t want to see him suffer a cruel fate he…. He had made other people suffer such a fate and he had made their lovers…. Asher shook his head wanting to make himself stop right there. His mind had just entered a dangerous territory. A forbidden territory! His actions had been right, necessary, for the greater good and absolutely ethical! He shall not question his orders! His orders came from the emperor and Xenon and one shall not question the emperor!

 

It left a weird feeling. An intensely weird feeling. The way he felt for the brunette, the fact that he cared about him, didn’t want to see him hurt and didn’t want to lose him made his mind go to weird places, made him think weird things. Gave him crazy feelings about the most natural things he had never questioned before. Was that the reason why interhuman bonds were frowned upon on Xenon and condemned? Or at least one of the reasons? Because it blurred the clarity, the priorities and the simpleness of things? Brought too many varying factors into an equation that to Ash had been as simple as putting one and one together before without a reason to take anything into account?

 

He just knew that he was thankful when Elisabeth returned with the water and declared that she had found something although that caused new scepticism. And he couldn’t shake the newly found suspicion about that whole territory off in the slightest as they were stamping through the undergrowth. It didn’t take all too long and they reached a rundown subway entrance. The soldier from Xenon gave the two of them a look and he couldn’t help but to smirk to himself seeing just how fascinated and excited Calum got over an ancient trashy subway station and the subway that probably had been so slow, stinking and primitive that on Xenon it would have only been good enough to put into a museum of early human history if anything.

 

When Elisabeth then let him know that if he wanted to check it for contamination now was the appropriate time the soldier snorted. “Yeah…” he said. “Thing is, that’s not a room.” The man told her. “I can check the entrance area and the station before going in alright but this is a subway. It leads into a tunnel system that runs through the entire city that must have been here once.” Asher stated. J.O.S.H.’s analysis of the entrance of the subway and the particular station didn’t show any radiation or biohazard though, so he went down the stairs. It was nothing compared to what he was used to from home. Where their mass transportation was under ground, no rails needed and vehicles used by individuals in the air and on the ground! No one would have used some worn out, dark smelly staircase like this one for certain.

 

It was pitch black at the end of the stairs and hadn’t Ash had his suit that granted him to see everything as clear as in brought daylight he would have run against a pillar. There were yellow, mouldy sheets of papers hanging in a fogged glass box, screens and displays that were lose on different sides, cables hanging out, rusty railways leading away from the station into the tunnel and everywhere, even at the seat area had nature made its attempt to reclaim the subway.

[Gladis]

Calum may not have understood the word ’radiation’, but he did know the words ’sickness’ and ’disease’. This, along with Asher’s firm tone and almost desperate squeezing of his hands went a long way to convince him that touching them was indeed a very bad idea. There was a part of him that wondered if this ’radiation sickness’ was the same as the curse that tended to befall seekers who spent too much time scavenging the god forsaken lands such as the waste. It was a known fact that many seekers died young – if not because they were killed, then often because of mysterious health issues. It was also not unheard of that children to seekers were often born with defects. In that sense, both Sasha and Calum had been incredibly lucky.

 

”I promise I won't,” Calum said softly, ”And I’ll make sure to spread the word so that other people understand the danger too.” After all, as the Myre’s future healer it would be his job to keep his peers at good health. Instructing them on threats such as these was definitely something he considered to be a part of this job. ”Thank you for explaining it to me, Asher.” It made a lot more sense to him when Asher actually took the time to simplify his explanation, as opposed to just throwing about a bunch of complicated terms Calum had never learned.

 

Judging by the silence that followed this conversation, and pertained for most of the walk to the underground ’room’, he could tell that something was bothering Asher. He didn’t know what and he had no proof that this was actually the case, but it was a feeling he got. Yet by the time he finally decided to inquire about it, they had already reached their destination.

 

Elizabeth and Calum followed Asher down the stairs, her electronic torch lighting the way. Just as Asher had been kind enough to point out, it did not at all resemble a room. It was in fact more like a large, diagonal hall that stretched out a wide distance beneath the earth, with a presumably equally long, raised platform in the middle. How far it stretched, Calum couldn’t actually tell. It was too dark down there to see properly, and the blue light of Elizabeth’s torch did not reach very far.

 

”You mean to say that there is a system of tunnels like this under the entire city?” Calum asked, breaking the thick, almost eerie silence that seemed to permeate the place. His voice was filled with fascination.

 

”I’ve heard of these.” Elizabeth chimed in, taking a few, careful steps ahead, ”Some seekers use them as shortcuts to get around the waste, or to enter areas that are no longer accessible from above ground. Complete maps of the entire system are hard to come by, however, and most seekers agree on that the possible dangers with using them outweigh the benefits…” she trailed off, allowing her light to sweep across the dusty granite floor and down, off the side of the platform, letting Calum catch a glimpse of the rusty track that disappeared into a dark tunnel. ”These days, the tunnels are supposed to be crawling with all kinds of nasties.” She scrunched up her nose in disgust.

 

”These days?”

 

Elizabeth gave a nod of her head. ”They say there was a time when people used to live down here. After The Great Scourge, when most of the surface was still too hostile for human life. That was a long time ago, though.” She paused for a moment, raising her hand as if to silence Calum before he had even begun to reply. At first his brow creased into a frown and he looked at her in confusion. But then he heard it too – the loud bang of a gunshot echoing from within the closest tunnel, followed by the most bloodcurdling, inhumane screech he had ever heard.

 

Calum shuddered, because he knew this could only mean one thing – they were not alone.

[-Hideki-]

As he was staring at the subway he was asking himself when it had gone on its last ride, if the people it had transported had been able to reach their destination but judging by the position of the subway he had his doubts about it. The almost dead seeming dark silence was cut through by Calum’s voice which echoed back in the hall when the male unbelievingly repeated what Ash had told him before that the subways tunnel system underwent the city that once had been on this ground and Asher turned his head away from the old measure of transportation and looked over to the short male, smiling widely, his blue eyes having something almost warm about them under his helmet because he couldn’t help himself finding this fascination the man felt for the ancient human’s things really adorable and likeable. “Yes.” He confirmed his eyes still on the other man. He had been glad when the brunette had promised him to not touch the neon hoppers again and to spread the word of the danger they were to his people and although he couldn’t help his concern and scepticism about the whole place he felt better knowing that he at least didn’t have to worry about the other getting harmed by paining stuff with the scales of this weird creature that was radioactive.

 

What followed was Elizabeth telling them she had heard about the subway tunnels before and explaining how the primitive people used them, stating that it was told that there lived some nasty creatures down here before telling them that the humans had used to live down there when Earth had been destroyed. Now that was interesting and it made him ask himself what other means the humans must have used to survive what – as Asher knew – had not been a ‘scourge’. Sure, he had gotten aware that he didn’t know all about how Earth had come to its end and had faced destruction but again he apparently knew more than the two Earthlings did who attested the downfall of the planet to a ‘scourge’. “There was no scourge!” he cut her off but went silent when J.O.S.H. detected movement down the tunnel into their direction.

 

The soldier was turning around into the complete opposite direction which he had initially stared into and he could hear faint noises. Apparently Elizabeth had now realised it too because she was gesticulating Calum to stay silent but just a second later a gunshot was echoing through the tunnel system, loud and familiar and distinctive how just a shot from a gun sounded. That however was followed by a screech. A screech that wasn’t from a person! A screech that was as unknown to the Colonel as the sound of guns felt almost homey to him. “Put on the gas masks!” his deep voice ordered just in case, one never knew and maybe Ash had to use chemical weapons.

 

Ready to head into the direction the gunshot had come from he had wanted to tell Calum to stay where he was and to not go near anything and not follow until Asher would come back and tell him that the territory was clear and that there was no danger anymore. Then he realised that it probably wasn’t much safer for the younger man to stay where he was on his own so he instructed him differently. “Stay behind me. Hunker down and try to stay out of it.” He told him, his head slightly turned before he headed into the tunnel, ready to eliminate whatever there was.

 

The data the suit showed got more specific the closer they came and long before the person in the dark could even see them coming the soldier knew that there was one human, female, alive, mildly wounded, holding a gun in the left hand and something that the system didn’t know but that it classified as dead. No radioactivity and no biohazard. Continuing his way forward he went over to holding the weapon in one hand and use one of his suits weapons instead, firing it and as if the woman holding the gun was attacked by a ghost the weapon was pulverised immediately. Now he came to a hold, gesticulating Calum and Elizabeth to do the same, standing in the pitch black darkness not to see for the human lady whose only weapon he had destroyed a moment earlier. It was foolish to head into those tunnels with just one weapon the way Elizabeth had described them hence he figured that the person must have either lost other weapons already or they had gotten destroyed.

 

The Xenonian’s deep voice then sounded, amplified by the suit and by the tunnel system. Adjusted in a way that would make it impossible to detect the position the three were in as it was seemingly coming from everywhere, surrounding the stranger.

“Identify yourself!” he demanded. “What are you here for? Who send you? Do you operate alone or are there comrades of yours further down this tunnel?” he wanted to know from the person who was standing there disoriented in their black hooded robe with trying to figure out where that mechanical voice was coming from. “And what is that thing you just shot? What are its abilities? Why is this thing here? Are there more of its kind here?” he asked further, the system gathering what little information it could gather from an unknown creature that was laying dead on the ground over some rails, blood flowing out of its head.

[Gladis]

Calum blinked, looking at Asher in confusion. He knew that the others knowledge in certain things reached far beyond the capabilities of his own people, yet to claim that there had been no such thing as The Great Scourge… sure, by now it had become a hotly debated topic, with a dozen of myths and legends attached to it – so much so that what really had transpired during The Great Scourge remained a mystery to most. Yet that certainly didn’t make the term they used in reference to that time in human history any less fitting. What else would you call a chain of catastrophes so severe, that they eventually brought a once so mighty civilization to its knees? Surely no one would argue that it had not been a time of great suffering. The word ’scourge’ means exactly that. Something or someone that causes great suffering. So what did Asher really mean when he said there had been no scourge?

 

Calum really wanted to ask Asher about it, yet was prevented from doing so when the gunshot was heard from within the tunnel. The questions that had lingered on the tip of his tongue sunk along with his pounding heart into his boots. An odd combination of fear and excitement surged through every fiber of his body, and though he knew it was too dark for him to see, he kept his emerald gaze peeled on the tunnel entrance.

 

There was a brief moment of tense silence, followed by Asher’s gravelly voice as he issued the command to put on their gas masks. Calum did not have to be told that twice. Pulling the metallic protective gear up to cover his face, he followed Asher into the tunnel, making sure to remain at a small distance distance whilst whilst keeping as quiet as possible.

 

Although Elizabeth had turned off her torch, deciding to rely on the night vision of Asher’s suit entirely; as not to immediately reveal their location in case they really were facing a threat further down the tunnel, he could hear her walking beside him; breathing through her gas mask whilst brandishing what he could only imagine was one of her weapons. Calum too, remained on high alert. It almost seemed to him as though being plunged into complete darkness only served to sharpen his other senses, and he found himself holding out for any sound that could have indicated the presence of another human (or non-human) being.

 

Then Asher once again came to a halt, his voice cutting through a darkness so thick, it seemed almost tangible. There was a moment of silence, followed by the sound of something heavy being dropped to the ground. A moment later someone spoke – a woman, judging by the sound of her voice.

 

”I go by Zorya and my companion is further down the tunnel. Reveal yourself and we may talk.”

 

Elizabeth immediately relaxed, turning her electronic torch back on to reveal a cloaked figure. At her feet lay a creature unlike anything he had ever seen. It was large and black with leathery skin, and lay in a puddle of blood. It’s wide maw was large and half open, revealed rows of sharp, yellow teeth. Judging by the pale, filmy look of its eyes, the creature mainly used its other senses to get around. Curved claws extended from its hideous front and hind paws, and a ring of grayish brown fur was visible around its neck, shoulders and chest.

 

Calum shuddered, turning his gaze back to the cloaked figure. She had pulled down her hood by then, revealing the weather beaten face of a middle aged woman. Her long, salt and pepper hair had been pulled back into a tight braid that fell down her left shoulder, and a pair of alert, amber eyes gleamed back them as she looked the three of them over. Slowly but surely, her lips slowly pulled into a small grin.

 

”Although your suit is terribly battered, I recognize the emblem.” And then she straightened up, curling her gloved right hand into a fist before slamming it against her chest, proceeding to say something in a foreign language neither Elizabeth nor Calum could understand. ”May the emperor’s wisdom be the radiant light that guides us into the future.” With the formalities out of the way, her posture relaxed somewhat, and she once again addressed the trio in to the native tongue of the area. ”You must be Asher. I have heard much about you, colonel, and I will be more than happy to answer any questions you may have. However, I ask that you walk with me as we speak, because this is neither the right time nor place for extensive conversation. My companion awaits us further down the tunnel.”

 

Without further ado she turned on her heels, turning on an electronic torch of her own to light her path as she led them through the darkness.

 

”Oh, and for future references, colonel; should you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to choose between obliterating a person or their weapon, choose the person. As I’m sure Elizabeth will be more than happy to tell you, resources like these don’t exactly grow on trees.”

 

”She means you should find a more cost-effective way of disarming people.” Elizabeth translated, having become rather well versed in Zorya’s dry sarcasm throughout the years.

 

”Only if you don’t want every encounter to turn into a massacre.” She turned her head sideways to glance at Asher, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips, ”Normally I’d say you owe me, but since I’m sure you three will be kind enough to escort me and my companion back home… well, I’ll let it slide.” It was then, however, that her smile faded and her demeanor became considerably less jovial. In the distance an orange dot had become visible, which as they came closer grew into the flickering glow of a campfire. It illuminated the ground and the tunnel walls, along with a man who had been propped up against a barricade of wood that could only have been built to block off the path where the tunnel split in two.

 

”That said, there is something else I would like to ask of you.”

 

The man groaned softly in response to the sound of their approaching footfalls, though he made no effort to move or look in their direction. Upon closer inspection, Calum realized the man had been severely injured. Matted, dark red hair stuck to his sweaty forehead, and glazed over, pale blue eyes feverishly stared at the ceiling. Blood stained his face and soaked through the cloths that had been tightly wrapped around various parts of his body, and he was breathing wheezy, jagged breaths.

 

”If he is not given the right medical attention, he will surely die. I have done what I can, but without my tools what I am very limited. I need to take him home, yet I am not physically strong enough to carry him on my own. So please, will you help me?” She turned around to look at Asher, Elizabeth and Calum – a look of genuine concern and something edging towards desperation burning in her amber gaze.

[-Hideki-]

“You seem to misjudge the situation you’re in if you think you can dictate the conditions! Answer! Now!” Asher ordered not amused by the stranger daring to tell him to reveal himself to her. However he had just finished the sentence when he felt Elizabeth next to him relax and a second later the light of the electro torch she had shone onto the woman and the dead creature in front of her, revealing their groups location. The Xenonian soldier was not amused and he wanted to scold Elizabeth for doing that before it got clear to him that those two apparently knew each other. The middle aged lady who was now showing her face to him had something of a piece of metal that had defied the storm for too long and had rusted over time. She looked austere and had something unyielding about her. The unyielding sternness of her face however got washed away by the hint of a grin that was forming on her face as she looked at Asher who suspiciously narrowed his eyebrows and instinctively strengthened the grip at the weapon he held in hands.

 

What followed next had him wondering and didn’t help but to eliminate the suspicion and he immediately thought of her to be a spy of the enemy stationed on planet Earth when she told him that she recognised the emblem. He closely watched her, not blinking, when she slammed her fist against her chest and he heard her speak his language. The tongue of the Xenonian people! The words she spoke made him want to slam his own fist against his heart and yell the correct response to that line, it was almost a natural urge of his, but he restrained himself regardless of it being difficult in that moment because there was a chance that she had learned their language and had caught up that line and was now trying to use that to get Asher to trust her. He wouldn’t fall for that obviously! He was cleverer than that Zyan cockroach. He had not believed it when she had send that letter in Xenonian to him. He’d check for her identity for sure. He still had his suit. That was much superior to the Zyan’s combat suits obviously! No doubt about that. Hence he made J.O.S.H. identity her. The suit scanned the woman’s iris and her finger prints and in a matter of seconds Ash could see that ….. she was not Zyan…. Instead she was number 591-011-850-918-5-XX; Engineer; deceased 14 years ago …. The failed expedition to Earth! That was impossible! But there she stood! And there was the data!

 

It was probably good that Asher was wearing his combat suit because he was completely baffled and he had been prepared for almost everything but not that! Not to stumble across someone who was supposed to be dead. Someone of their own people! Then again, Xenon too thought that he was dead. So maybe it was not as impossible as it seemed to be. He had caught himself again when the woman addressed him by his simplified identification code and told him that she’d answer every question he may have on the way as they should not remain for too long where they were. That was true and Asher started to move, next to her, looking down at her. “You are number 591-011-850-918-5-XX! A part of the failed expedition to Earth! You should be dead! Not have reached Earth safely! But here you are!” Asher spoke in his native tongue, raising his eyebrows. “If you are alive, why haven’t you tried to contact us all those years? I am certain that you didn’t turn your back on the empire and our emperor did you?” He asked and there was a mixture of condemnation and threat in it and it was still his native language he spoke.

 

As they were walking the woman went out of her way to criticise him pulverising her gun telling him that he should shoot the person next time in the language that Calum and Elizabeth spoke and it was roaring in Asher’s chest as he was making himself large and raised his head. “A pulverised person won’t answer any questions anymore!” he barked. “Besides you are not a warrior type but an engineer. So keep to what you’ve been bred for and let the actual soldiers judge such situations. Understood!” he reprimanded. The man from Xenon screwed up his nose when Elizabeth told him that the woman had wanted to tell him that he shall find more cost efficient ways to disarm people and a displeased frown appeared when that woman had the audacity to tell Asher that he’d normally owed her something but that they’d be even if he’d escort her and her mate out of the tunnel system. “It seems like someone has lived in that shithole for too long and has to relearn manners and respect before authority.” The Colonel stated, talking back to her again using the language of Xenon.

 

Since he was still examining her closely it didn’t escape him how her face suddenly lacked that smug grin and looked rather serious. Before them there was the light of a torch and a man. A wounded man! An Earthling! Leaning against a barricade! Severely wounded! He groaned in pain and was hardly breathing. Had he sounded like that too when he had been burned? Had he made those undignified noises and shown weakness? It wasn’t even a question deep inside he knew. He had screamed his lungs out in his battle ship. He shoved away the thought because he felt like he had failed showing weakness in the eyes of death and intense pain. Standing by the man who was too weak to care to look at them or pay them any mind Zorya spoke stating that there was something else that she had wanted to ask of them, telling him he needed treatment or would die but she was too weak physically to carry him home. And as he looked at her he could see concern and sheer desperation. She was worried about him! She cared about him! She too had probably…. Like Asher… And in that moment he felt less harshly and less antipathy for her then before. Ash’s blue eyes looked into her’s, then to the man who was probably dear to her and then at Calum.

 

Wordlessly the Colonel stepped closer to the man, squatted down, laid the wounded male’s arm around his shoulder and took him off of the ground bridal style, carefully, to not do any more damage. “You’re not a warrior type, as I said.” He grumbled into her direction in regards to her saying she couldn’t carry him because she lacked the physical strength but there was nothing cold or harsh about how he said it, there actually was something like compassion sounding through it. “Which way?” he then asked. “Should we get back to the station and head out of the subway again or would that take too long?” Ash asked the fellow Xenonian.

[Gladis]

The smile that flickered across Zorya’s features as Asher recited her identification number was not without a touch of cynicism. Almost as though hearing that number combination after all these years triggered feelings within her she would rather have left dormant. Or perhaps it was the questions that followed that brought about her change of attitude.

 

”Failed expedition…? So that’s what they decided to call it?” She chuckled, shaking her head slightly as the corners of her lips curled into a wry smile. ”No, Colonel. As you can see I am still very much alive, and to my knowledge, so are most of the crew members that came here with me. Although I must confess, many of them I have not heard of in years.” She sighed softly, thoughtfully rubbing her arm. ”If it makes you feel more at ease, I’ll be happy to inform you that we did not turn our backs on Xenon.” Although Calum could not understand a word of what she was saying; Zorya too was speaking the Xenonian tongue – he recognized a note of bitterness and sadness in her voice.

 

It was quite fascinating, to hear them banter in such a foreign language, and he found himself listening in very carefully. He was curious to see if he could decipher the meaning of even one of those words. After all, the Xenonian word for ”suit” had been kind of similar to their own. Sure, the pronunciation was drastically different, but in the end Calum had still been able to figure it out. Perhaps one day Asher would be willing to teach him the language of his home planet. Wouldn’t that be something? If he learned to speak the native language of an entirely different world? Would it be useful? Probably not… but it was still an integral part of Asher’s life, and that was good enough a reason for him to care.

 

Calum was brought out of his musings when they switched back to his own native tongue. It seemed Asher had not taken kindly to her critique, and was now trying to put her in her place. An attempt that fell utterly flat on its face, as she casually brushed it off with a smile and a wink.

 

”Aye, aye, colonel. You’ll have forgive this poor castaway for some minor indiscretions. Although, perhaps you are right. Spending a decade and a half on this planet has put some of the things I once firmly believed in into perspective.”

 

By the time they had reached the wounded man, however, all of her lightheartedness and sass seemed to have faded. The expression she wore was grim and filled with concern, and her response to Asher’s comment about her not being a warrior type a lot more humble. She gave him a tired smile, and there seemed to be something sad, almost melancholic about it. ”Life was a lot easier when all you had to concern with was the one true purpose of your creation.” Her amber gaze flickered to the man that now lay numbly in Asher’s arms, and it was clear that whomever he was, she cared deeply for that person. He let out a soft, blubbering groan, and her face twisted with unvoiced concern.

 

”It’s going to be alright now, Adam,” she murmured softly, gently stroking her thumb over his cheek. ”You’re going to be alright. See? I found help…” Then she tilted her head back to look up at Asher, pointing into the darkness ahead. ”This way is considerably faster. If we took the route above ground, we wouldn’t be there until tomorrow morning, and besides, it’s dangerous to travel along that route at night.”

 

Calum wanted to point out that traveling through these tunnels seemed like an equally dangerous prospect, yet kept his thoughts to himself. After all, if their only choice was between two dangerous routes, and one of them was supposedly shorter – the latter would definitely a safer bet. Before they set off, however, there was something he wanted to do.

 

”Wait! I think I have something...” He said, stopping Zorya in her tracks. She paused and turned around to look at him as he took off his bag and began to rummage through it. After a brief moment of searching his hand reemerged, extending to her a small vial that contained a dark liquid. ”Here. It won’t do much heal him, but it should at least dull the pain a bit.”

 

Zorya (perhaps understandably) eyed the vial sceptically, but in the end accepted it regardless of whichever inhibitions she might have had. Holding it up to the light, she squinted her eyes, presumably in an attempt to read the small printing on the label. Then she silently nodded her head, unscrewing the lid before tipping a couple of dark liquid drops into the injured man’s mouth. ”Just hold on until we get back home, alright, my love?” She murmured soothingly, gently stroking the back of her hand over the man’s cheek before turning back to Calum with a solemn expression. ”Thank you. All three of you.”

 

She extended the vial to him, yet he simply shook his head. ”Keep it for now. You might still want to use it as we go. Speaking of which, we should get going. I don’t need to be a Xenonian super genius to realize that father time is not on our side.” He cast a pointed glance at the injured man named Adam.

 

And so the five of them set off, with only the night vision of Asher’s suit and two electronic torches to guide them through the darkness.

[-Hideki-]

It was a noise, not a word, not even a real groan, that came from him when Zorya responded to Ash’s remark about her not being a warrior type by pointing out how life had been a lot easier for her when all she had to concern herself with had been the purpose of her creation since by that she was expressing exactly what the soldier felt. It couldn’t be truer! Life on Xenon was easy and secure. The Xenonian’s seldom had to worry about anything else than their work and mission. The government regulated every aspect of their lives for them. They were told what the right thing for them to do was and how to live their lives, they had their lives managed for them by an almighty state in precise detail, starting by what they ate and when they ate to what philosophical and political views they should hold and what to think. The planet was incredibly safe, violent crime as good as non-existing and as long as one stayed in line and was fitting into the system one could live a satisfying, carefree life. It only got dangerous if one left the path laid out for oneself or deviated from what was seen as desirable.

 

Earth and how life was on the planet was confusing, chaotic and exhausting with all the questioning, all the varying aspects he had to take into account, all the decisions to make, all the options to take, no one telling him what was the right and the wrong move to make and then there were the people and all those … bonds and feelings…. Yes, he knew exactly what this woman was talking about! And sometimes it was even scary, as though he was in free fall or lost in a labyrinth without any directions, without a plan! “Do you miss it?” he asked, in a quiet, almost mumbling tone of voice. “Do you want to return?” the Colonel wanted to know and this question had nothing of the interrogating half-threat he had made earlier on. This he asked purely out of personal interest as he observed the engineer interacting with the wounded man who was called Adam by her that gently and softly. It was odd. To see a fellow Xenonian acting in such a way! Then again hadn’t he been gentle with Calum as well? Different than her gentleness, sure, but still gentle?

 

Ash, who didn’t know the route and the planet was starting straight away at ‘this way’ already as if it was an order from a navigator and as with every of his orders an explanation wasn’t necessary and no question even asked. An order was an order and if he got an order he obeyed the order as that was the order of orders. He stopped in his tracks though when the brunette suddenly told them to wait and he turned around looking at the other searching for something. What he handed over to the Xenonian woman got identified as one of the same liquids Ash had gotten from Calum’s grandmother after they had pulled him out of his battleship. It didn’t take long and the man the Colonel was holding was getting the medicine before they started to head further into the darkness of the tunnel system. It was wet, dark, slippery and dilapidated in need of maintenance and reconstruction.

 

As he was walking, carrying Adam who was bleeding onto his suit and passing out from time to time, he was asking himself what she had meant by Xenon ‘deciding’ to call it a failed expedition. He also was asking himself what things could have gotten into ‘perspective’ for her what to Ash sounded like she was in need of relearning in one of their retraining facilities.

Every once in a while, when he was not busy having his eyes on Calum in an attempt to keep him from any harm, he was throwing glances at the woman next to him and more and more questions popped up on his mind. “Why were you here in this tunnel? What for?” he wanted to know. “How did this man get wounded?” he asked. “Who is he to you? And where do you know him from?” the soldier was curious and the way long and for some part nothing much happened.

 

Until something did happen when they passed about the tenth station and Asher mistook a ticket machine for an attacker blowing it up. Well, better safe than sorry. And the next thing he blew up was actually another of those creatures that J.O.S.H. detected before the creature knew that they were there. It reminded him of the unanswered questions he had asked after disarming Zorya though. “What are these things? What are they capable of? And why are they in those tunnels?” he repeated them as they continued their way.

 

When they finally arrived at the station where they were supposed to leave the tunnel system, hearing the wounded male in his arms groan as he was carrying him up the stairs, they came from darkness into darkness. Had it been bright sunlight when they had entered what Elizabeth had thought to be an underground room it was now past midnight. His boots adjusted to the new ground and he looked around and then up to the sky. Would he ever get used to this sky? This sky that looked different than the one on Xenon? With only one moon? Some things he had gotten used to, like eating more flexibly and not having a food plan but he wasn’t so sure if he’d ever fully get used to this planet and that way of life. And did he even want to? And did it actually matter what he wanted? And what difference would the answers to any of those questions make if he had no choice and would never get the opportunity to get back anyway?

[Gladis]

”Do I miss it?” Zorya’s amber gaze rose to stare into the black glass of Asher’s helmet. She laughed, yet there was nothing but sadness and melancholy in her voice as she continued. ”All the time. I often find myself thinking back on home, and what my life used to be. There is a part of me that still longs to return to the simplicity of it all. Yet were I ever presented with the opportunity… I don’t think it would be possible for me go back. Not after all these years on this planet. I have changed too much…” she trailed off, and after that there was a long moment of silence. All that could be heard was their boots crunching gravel as they continued their trek through the darkness.

 

”To reajust back into a life so drastically different from how I have lived the last fourteen years; to leave everything I have worked so hard to establish behind …” Zorya slowly shook her head, and her gaze almost immediately traveled to the wounded man in Asher’s arms. ”A Xenonian, by design, does not know what it means to love another person. What we feel for our people, for our nation, for our emperor… it is an emotion akin to love, but it is not the same. So tell me, colonel…” she redirected her piercing gaze back onto Asher, and although it was impossible for her to know that Calum had practically seduced him, in that very moment… in almost seemed as though she did. ”Once you have tasted the forbidden fruit, how do you forget that experience? How do you unsee the things you have witnessed, and unlearn the things you know?” She became silent yet again, allowing her words to sink in before continuing.

 

”My time on earth has been the most difficult in my life, but it has also given me many of my fondest memories. To go back would mean that I’d have to sacrifice the person I have become – the person I am now.” She paused for a moment, allowing a wry smile to tug at the corners of her lips. ”Not that I think Xenon would even want us back in the first place. If they did, I doubt they would have left us here to die.” There it was again. That same, unmistakable note of bitterness that had also been present in her voice when she spoke about the accident fourteen years ago.

 

”With the risk of sounding insensitive, why did they leave you here to die?” Calum asked, unable to keep a slight frown from creasing his forehead.

 

Zorya threw him a glance, giving a light shrug of her shoulders. ”Frankly, we were never given a proper explanation. All they told us was that the upper echelons had issued an order to immediately shut down the project, and that we were supposed to await further instructions. Well… as you can see, those instructions never came. We tried contacting them many times after that, but our line of communication had gone cold. As days turned to weeks and weeks became months… we were eventually forced to accept the truth – that we had been cut loose. Why these decisions were made we may never know. On our part, all we could do was speculate.”

 

”I see…” Calum paused, but only briefly, ”it must have been quite scary, to suddenly realize that you would never be able to go back home.”

 

Zorya smiled. ”We had been aware of the possibility that we would never see Xenon again when we set out. Even so… I don’t think any of us could have imagined that it would end as it did.”

 

”What happened to the rest of the crew?”

 

”There were a couple of disagreements amongst some of us, and eventually we all went our separate ways.”

 

”Oh…”

 

Again there was a moment of silence. Then Asher broke it by making a couple of inquires about what they had been doing down here, and who the man he carried was.

 

”His name is Adam. He’s my…” and then she hesitated, as though she wasn’t quite sure whether to proceed. Perhaps a part of her was afraid of how her fellow Xenonian would react. ”He’s my husband. We came down here to verify some rumors that have been floating around recently. Normally I send seekers on these kinds of errands but… this was something I wanted to verify myself. Adam wouldn’t let me go alone, so he insisted on accompanying me. You know the creature I shot? We were surrounded. I think you can figure out the re–” she cut herself off mid sentence, when a sudden scratching noise above alerted her to a presence ahead. She stopped right in her tracks, nearly causing Calum to bump straight into her back. Yet he was too nervous to even notice. His heart pounded so hard he could almost hear it.

 

Yet when Elizabeth shone her light on it, all it turned out to be was a fat rat that squeaked in dismay before scuttling off into the darkness. Calum released the breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. It was, after all, just a rat. Honestly, barring the one encounter that Asher took care of so quickly it didn’t even really count, rest of the hike through the tunnel was surprisingly eventless. He was still glad when they made their way back to the surface. The warm summer nights breeze felt refreshing after the cool dampness of the tunnel system. Although it was so dark that he could barely see, it still felt considerably less claustrophobic.

 

”It’s not very far now.” Zorya informed them, and true to her promise, they soon arrived at the witch’s hut. If it could even be called a hut. The building was considerably larger than any hut he’d ever seen – almost as big as the community building of the Myre, in fact. It had two stories, and seemed to have been built in a completely different style than anything Calum was used to.

 

”We were lucky enough to find it almost intact. Took some time to fix it up, but it’s served us for years now.” Zorya said, as though it somehow served as an explanation for it all. Then she lead them up a staircase, took a moment to type something into a panel and reached for the door. Yet before she even had a chance to open it, a light in the hallway turned on and the door flung open. A boy with fiery red hair, who looked like he could be no older than twelve, emerged.

 

”You’re ba-” he cut himself off mid sentence, his expression shifting from excitement to horrified concern as he noticed the state Adam was in. ”What happened?”

 

”Not now, Micheal. Move aside and let the man through. Your father is severely injured and needs immediate attention.”

 

Upon Zorya’s strict orders, he gave a quick nod of his head before moving aside to let Asher and the rest in.

[-Hideki-]

Those creatures that had severely wounded the man, whatever else was in that tunnel, the things that didn’t feel pain and ate the death, the savages, possible war none of that was something that would have triggered even a hint of fear within the Xenonian soldier but as he listened the Zorya, a fellow Xenonian, explain to him why she thought she couldn’t ever go back, how she had changed too much through the life on earth, maybe even beyond recognition, that she wouldn’t fit in on Xenon anymore, that the life on Xenon wasn’t for her anymore, that outright mortified him. The idea that he’d change and develop into something incompatible with anything Xenon stood for, so much so that he’d see Earth as the place where his life was and where he had established himself made him want to run! Not even in the burning battle ship had the impulse to run away been that strong. He could feel this weird feeling in his stomach, crawl up his back and into his neck and he hated every second of it but it didn’t go away.

 

The circle of his terrifying thoughts was broken by the woman when she brought a question to him, with a gaze that was as though she was aiming to look right through him, into his brain and memory and Ash was getting uncomfortable as it felt like she knew everything he had done since he had been on that planet, from touching himself, to lusting over that farm worker, his sex fantasies including the one that contained the threesome and having sex with Calum! It wasn’t possible that she did though and he told himself that as he answered her questions in regards to forgetting those intense experiences and what he had seen and come to know. “There still are the retraining and relearning facilities of the government aren’t there? I’m sure they could help with the issue and that they have their methods which work!” he said but what was supposed to be a statement came out as half of a question, maybe even a worried question because what would happen if Asher would be damaged beyond repair? So much so that not even the retraining facility could turn him back to how he was? To make him want to go back to his ways and old life! But at the mere thought of the device, the sterile, medical atmosphere of it all, to never touch himself again, to never be touched and touch another man, was creating resistance within him.

 

Critically he looked at her when she stated that she doubted that Xenon even wanted them back, asking why they left them to die on the planet then wanting to know from Asher why they had left him to die, saying something weird about not wanting to sound insensitive before she had done so. The sceptical look on his face didn’t disappear and he didn’t believe that the crew was left to die by Xenon, there must have been another explanation to this since he knew that it had been regarded as a failed expedition and the circumstances hadn’t been clear either. A four star General had once told Ash how suddenly all communication had died, all signals had been cut off and how the emperor had not been amused about this incident at all. “You weren’t left to die by our people! The leading scientist of the expedition was a hero after all.” the Colonel told her. “The project got never cancelled either. If that’s what you’ve been told, you’ve been fooled.” He added. “As for me, I wasn’t left to die. My battleship was shot down in combat. I am deemed dead as chances of my survival were incredibly low to begin with.” He explained.

 

The part about the members of the crew having had their disagreements was making him curious though. How? Xenonians stuck with their Xenonian brothers! And how had there been disagreements? Every crew had its hierarchy of authority. It became more and more dubious the more he heard about it. It also didn’t escape his notice when she paused before telling him that the man he was carrying was her husband. But the Colonel didn’t blink an eye; he just kept walking and carrying the man. Husband he had learned was a term for a male who committed to his sexual and romantic partner with a lifelong contract. Ash had deemed that oath and that contract positive. Aside from the questionable idea of romantic bonds and interhuman relationships in themselves, that two people swore to be there for each other a whole life no matter what, through all odds and hardships and would stay loyal and true to each other, contained out of values that resonated extremely positively and strongly with him. After all he had sworn an oath to give everything, even his life for the empire and the emperor too.

Aside from that he had had sex himself and he would do it again. He’d lay with Calum like this as soon as he got the opportunity, it was certain that this would happen.

 

As she was talking about rumours that had made them go down into the tunnels by themselves his mind immediately focussed on that. “Rumours of what?” he asked directly, examining her as she suddenly stopped speaking and he realised that while he had his suit and could see the rat for what it was, the other’s only heard the noises and got alarmed.

 

Once out of the subway it didn’t take them long anymore until they arrived at an old house. It wasn’t comparable to anything on Xenon, way too small, but also completely different to the village Calum was from. This was a house of the ancient civilisations. And without asking he was informed that it had taken Zorya and Adam quite some time to fix the house, telling them that it had served its purpose for years now. He followed the woman up the staircase and to the door which was flung open from within soon after, a red haired child storming up to them, the joyfulness of its face turning to worry as soon as the boy saw the man Ash was carrying.

 

There was that one word that made the soldier flinch and under his helmet his eyes stared at the woman and then the injured man in shock. And that word was ‘father’. Ash had been on that planet long enough now to know that those weren’t military or working ranks and that this meant that the man he was carrying and Zorya had engaged in uncontrolled reproduction and that this was the offspring that had come from it. Condemnation was mixing with the shock. Sex was one thing! It was a public nuisance, a minor offence only but uncontrolled reproduction was a severe crime, with severe punishments and consequences. Zorya indeed couldn’t ever go back to Xenon since the retraining facility wasn’t where she’d go. She’d go straight into prison to wait for her trial while the inner division would take “care” of the offspring.

 

Why? Why had she gone that far! Why had she purposefully done something as despicable! As unethical and disgusting! It was different when Calums people did it obviously, they didn’t know better, they didn’t know something else, they didn’t even have the technology but her, she should have known better, she had learned all he had learned. The Colonel shook his head, his body getting stiff as he carried Adam inside and placed him onto the sofa gently. The guy wasn’t to blame, he was a local from a primitive society, naive in so many aspects, she was the one to blame! She was responsible for that!

 

His gaze was hard and merciless as he was putting off his helmet, slamming it onto a wooden table, revealing his displeased scarred face. He screwed up his nose and tried to calm himself internally, to keep it in, he was struggling to do so but then he brought out a barking: “So… what did you send me that invitation for? What do you want?” instead of directly lashing out on her about it, his blue eyes staring at her. “You must have had a good reason taking that risk! As I could have turned out being from the inner division after all!” he turned his head to the kid and then back to her, making very clear what he was getting at there. “Why did you decide to commit this offence?” he then wanted to know as he couldn’t understand it, he really couldn’t. Why both Ash and Zorya alike had ended up having sex was explainable - they lacked the device and their libidos and sexualities had come to the surface but this? This was not explained by attraction, desire, lust and libido! Not even by feelings, bonds and romance! This was just highly unethical and immoral!

[Gladis]

There was a moment of drawn out silence after Asher pointed out that they couldn’t have been abandoned by Xenon; that she must have been lied to. The corners of her lips twitched, and for a moment it looked like she wanted to say something, but then she simply shook her head. Perhaps as far as she was concerned, there was nothing more to be added to that conversation. And so she shrugged her shoulders and instead focused on Answering Asher’s other question.

 

”Rumors of an old underground military base, with a supposed entrance from somewhere within the metro. It could be just that – rumors, but if they’re not, that’d mean there may still be plenty of well preserved old world equiptment for me to play around with.” Zorya ran a hand through her hair, suppressing a heavy sigh. She glanced at her husband. ”Although… now I’m beginning to question if it’s even worth the risk…” she trailed off, and as though she wanted to take her mind off her current predicament, she changed the subject. ”Tell me, Asher – what is the name of the operating system you are running now? As one of the engineers who worked on I.R.E.N.E, I can’t help but be at least a little curious.”

 

Their back and forth continued like that all the way back to Zorya’s abode, and to Calum, it seemed they had reached at least some kind of understanding. A mutual respect, of sorts.

 

All that changed the moment the child named Micheal came into the picture. The atmosphere in the living room became so thick that it was almost tangible, and even before Asher had opened his mouth, he could tell that his lover was fuming. Zorya meanwhile went through three different modes of expression. First confusion, then understanding and at last irritation.

 

”What are you… oh, you think that I… that we...” she laughed wryly, shaking her head. Then she turned her back on Asher, gently placing her hand on her husband's head. ”Micheal, would you mind getting me the medical kit, please?”

 

The boy nodded his head, and then he was off.

 

”Asher, I strongly advise that you stop jumping to conclusions like that. I don’t see how it’s any of your business, but if it puts your heart at ease, I’ll be happy to inform you that Adam and I did not meet until 9 years ago. At the time, Micheal was already three years old. Medicine boy–”

 

Calum blinked when he realized that she meant him. ”Yes, ma'am?”

 

”What’s your name?”

 

”Calum, ma’am.”

 

”Calum, do you have any medical experience?”

 

”Yes ma’am.”

 

She turned around and smiled at him mildly. ”Good, I’ll need your assistance, lad. Come along, I’ll get you clean clothes and disinfectants.” And like that, the two of them were off, leaving Elizabeth and Asher alone with the wounded Adam.

 

She turned towards Asher, a slight frown creasing her forhead. ”What was that all about?”

[-Hideki-]

His carotid was making a clear appearance on his face, pulsing furiously when the woman started to laugh before disregarding Xenon’s ways and disrespecting authority yet another time by her comment, implying that it wasn’t any of Asher’s business if she had committed that atrocity or not. The soldier slammed his fist onto the table, causing it to shake. “What business is it of mine you stupid woman?” he repeated aggressively and condemningly. “You are a citizen of Xenon number 591-011-850-918-5-XX and so am I. And as a decent and upright Xenonian it is my duty to report whenever fellow Xenonians disobey the law of the empire especially if they risk the purity of the national corpus! It is every Xenonians duty!” Asher nearly screamed now, reminding her of what she seemingly had forgotten. The citizens of the empire were told from an early age on to report every misbehaviour, conspicuousness and disobedience of the law of their fellow citizens directly to the inner division or the government, preferably the inner division so that they could take action right away.

 

It also didn’t make it better that she again thought that she could give him ‘advice’ and the advice she gave him was a complete waste of time anyway. Calum had told him that he shall not jump to conclusions once before too but Asher was bred and raised to analyse situations, judge the situations on his own, come to a conclusion and solution and act based on that in mere seconds. On the battlefield there was no time to ask questions. He also wasn’t going to believe this woman, she obviously wasn’t trustworthy judging from the way she had responded to this and she definitely posed a threat to the national corpus the way she was apparently thinking about this, trivialising one of the most severe crimes on Xenon. Hence his next words were mumbled towards his combat suit, which he aimed onto the boy. “Compare subject’s DNA with number 591-011-850-918-5-XX!” he ordered J.O.S.H. and the system was scanning the kid, its whole data appearing in front of Ash’s eyes next to those of Zorya. “Genetic relations – subject with 591-011-850-918-5-XX - negative!” it confirmed the information she had given him. “Lucky you!” Ash snorted into her direction, not happy to see her waving Calum over and then disappearing with him in another room.

 

The Colonel was definitely angry and the same dislike he had initially felt for her was back, just a lot stronger than before. This woman was weird. There were moments in which she acted like a real Xenonian and where he actually felt them getting along and then there were others where she was as far from Xenonian as one could possibly be and he hated that side of her. He hated the disrespect, that insolence as well as the sassy humour; he had no appreciation for any of that at all. It was only raising antipathy within him. The Xenonian’s humour was dry and plain. So much so that the Zyan’s said that the Kriegans weren’t funny but the Xenonians outright humourless. Sure enough as long as they had talked about the rumours of a military bases with hidden weapons - what had made Ash think about how helpful finding it would be to exterminate the savages when they attacked - and his combat suit -Asher letting her know that I.R.E.N.E. had been outdated for the longest time, that the spaceforce’s combat suit was running on a system called J.O.S.H. which was the third that had come after I.R.E.N.E. and that the inner division had gotten the newest suits running on T.Y.R. , it having gotten clear how badly Asher would have liked to have those amazing pieces of technology for himself and his men too but they had still to be approved for the spaceforce - it had been all fine and dandy but on a personal level they were apparently as far away from each other as could be. Zorya having nothing about her anymore that was valued and respected on Xenon!

 

Letting himself sink down he crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned back against the rest of the chair, grumpily looking at his helmet and then to the door, mumbling something about her not having even answered the question as to what she wanted from him in the first place when he heard Elizabeth’s voice asking him what this was all about. “What was about what?” he asked and then shook his head. “I suspected her of having committed something that is regarded as a severe crime on Xenon. She apparently didn’t but it’s gotten clear that she’s a threat to the Xenonian national corpus regardless.” His eyes narrowed. “This woman has gone down the path of decay. She has no respect before authority, she is ill behaved, has no manners and doesn’t seem to care what is right and wrong anymore.” He shook his head, putting off his gloves, exposing his to a point disfigured, burned fingers that were completely scarred and not exactly even anymore, rubbing his hands over his face in exhaustion.

[Gladis]

”I can hear you, you know.” Zorya said as they re-entered the living room, her pointed glance at Asher indicating more than just mild irritation. She opened her mouth to say something more, but was immediately cut off by Calum, who was now almost entirely dressed in white.

 

”No.” He snapped in agitation.

 

Zorya and Elizabeth both looked at him in surprise. ”Wha-”

 

”No!” He repeated, this time considerably louder. Raising his gloved hand, he first pointed at Zorya and then at Asher. Anger burned in his eyes. ”You two, zip it. I will not hear another word out of either of you until I’ve finished working.” He allowed his green gaze to sweep around the room, before at last settling on the middle aged woman. ”You want me to save your husband, ma’am? Then shut up, because I have only done this procedure a couple of times before, and I need to be able to focus. If you absolutely feel the need to bicker like children while this man is dying, then be my guest, but get the fuck out of my sight. Are we clear?”

 

”I-”

 

”Ma’am, are we clear?”

 

”Yes, sir.”

 

Calum shut his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. Then he grabbed the medical kit the boy had brought and headed over to where the wounded man lay stretched out on the sofa. Despite his calm exterior, Calum felt incredibly nervous. He had assisted his grandmother with sewing countless of times, he’d only had the opportunity to do it himself twice, and never with gashes this this severe. He was well aware that if he messed up, this man would most certainly die. And yet despite his protests, Zorya had insisted that he be the one to do it. When he had asked her why she didn’t do it herself, she explained to him that after an injury she had sustained, her hands were no longer stable enough to manage. It was a valid argument, but it hardly made him feel any better about the situation. Really, the last thing he needed right then was for Zorya and Asher to distract him with their petty arguments.

 

As far as Calum was concerned their debate was such a non issue – especially in the face of what really mattered; Adam’s life, that he would have liked to beat some sense into both of them. But of course, this was hardly the right time for that. He needed to focus.

 

”Elizabeth, could you please come over here for a moment? I need you to move him so that his legs are raised, can you do that? Asher, I need your help too. I doubt it’ll happen but if he waked up and starts to move, I’ll need you to hold him down.”

 

While she did that, he leaned over the man, placing two fingers against his neck to feel his pulse. He grimaced. It had become worryingly low. Adam’s breathing too was getting increasingly shallow, and despite Zorya’s best attempts to stop the bleeding, it was clear that he had already lost a lot of blood. At least she had managed to stabilize him to the point where he was no longer bleeding profusely, and Calum found that he could safely remove some of the bandages to clean out the wounds. Unfortunately, some of them already looked infected.

 

Elizabeth gently touched his shoulder. ”Don’t worry, Calum. You can do it. I believe in you.”

 

Calum couldn’t help but grimace. ”At this point, it’ll be a miracle if he even makes it through the night…”

 

She smiled sadly. ”May the gods be with us.”

 

Perhaps this time they were, because when hours later Calum stepped out onto the terrace to breathe in some fresh air, the man was somehow, miraculously still alive. The first rays of sunlight had already risen over the horizon, casting a pale, almost melancholic glow over the garden. The air was cool but fresh, and perhaps the one thing the most after having worked tirelessly through the night, using every bit of knowledge that had been passed on to him from his grandmother that could possibly help.

 

Taking off the bloodstained gloves, he tossed them aside, shutting his eyes as the wind gently caressed his face. This was it. He had cleaned and mended Adam’s wounds, as well given him the antibiotics Zorya had provided him with. All there was left to do was to wait. As far as Calum was concerned, Adam’s fate now rested in the hands of the gods.