---

CHAPTER 7

The elevator was almost on floor seven-hundred-seventeen. I couldn’t contain my excitement as the doors opened in front of the central area where the railing was. Two aliens stood there, both in hoodies. The moment they saw me, they reached into their coats clearly drawing weapons. I used the cannon on them in low-power mode. The beam only vaporized the first guy’s chest and diced the second guy in half like a knife through melting butter. A fiery orange streak and trail of smoke adorned the wall. I readied my pistol and continued down the metal corridor.

A homeless person sat by the wall. He panicked and fumbled for his gun. Two rounds hit his skull before he could draw. The speakers abruptly came on, and a corny psycho laugh blared over them.

“Attention all employees of Woo pharmaceuticals. There is an undesirable among us.” Dr. Woo’s unhinged voice spoke. “Find him! Kill him! Burn him with acid!” He shouted in a somehow even crazier voice. “Oh no, don’t burn him with acids. Penguins are rare; he’ll make a nice test subject, yes! Yes!” There was a delay. “Woo, buddy, it’s not always about the science. It’s about sending a message!”

The fucker’s talking to himself, I thought. Before I knew it, the entire floor had turned into a warzone. People erupted out of doors with beam weapons and regular guns, and some nutjobs brought knives to this fight. I switched the laser to medium power and fired. The laser pointer of death demolished an entire row of apartments, leaving a giant trail of melting metal, fire, and a few vaporized bodies.

Bullets and beams rushed past me as I tried to aim and fire the laser with one hand and shoot the handgun with the other. I moved as fast as I could down the hall, leveling apartments full of Woo’s goons as I made my way to the steps. As I neared the staircase, a group of aliens with four arms and pistols approached. I raised the cannon, but it beeped, indicating it was empty.

The gunfire started. I had to duck behind a column as their shots ripped through it. I pulled the side handle back. The large battery pack dropped on the floor with a loud thud. Multitasking between reloading, dodging, and counterattacking proved challenging. The body shield absorbed some of their shots, but I kept to cover. The handgun clicked empty after I finished killing three of them. I dropped into a crouch, yanked out the second battery, and shoved it in. I pulled the charging handle forward; the gun accepted the new battery and the laser’s lights returned.

Just in time. More thugs approached from behind. I liquidated the entire corridor behind me with a single shot, leaving an even bigger trail of super-heated melting metal and fire. I brought the cannon forward and trained it on the mooks in front of me.

“Oh, fuck this!” One of them screamed before dropping their weapons and running for it.

“Are you serious!?” Another shouted after their friend.

“We don’t get paid enough for this shit!”

“You can either run like a bitch or turn into a pile of goop on the floor.” I told the remaining two gangsters as I had my flipper on the laser’s trigger. “I’m down with either.”

One of them wanted to be vaporized. I obliged. The other one ran for the hills. I headed up the steps to the next floor.

Woo’s laughter came through the speakers. “Whoever kills the bird will get a pay raise. Do not disappoint me! My work is more important than all of you combined! That wasn’t very nice. Woo, we should be more encouraging and less threatening. Fear keeps these animals in line. Now be quiet and focus on the research! Fine.”

I kept moving and ran into a fresh problem. A giant plasma turret blocked the hallway leading to the next floor. I had to duck as a perpetual torrent of blue-white death came flying at me.

I tried to get a good look at the turret and what I could hit in between volleys. The turret had six rotating barrels, each capable of energizing and firing plasma at a ridiculous rate per second. That wasn’t the major problem. The problem was they had installed an energy shield projector that protected all but the tips of the barrels from weapons fire. I tried shooting with the laser, but the shield absorbed it. My cover was melting as the plasma streams continued.

I needed a way past it before I’d ended up as a cloud of vapor. I remembered that the plasma they used was heat sensitive. So I set the laser cannon close to max and waited for them to stop shooting. Then I leaned out of cover and fired the cannon.

The beam at seventy-five percent power was bright enough to blind someone if they looked at it directly. Several guys near the turret covered their eyes and shrieked as the beam slammed into the shield. The shield held, but that wasn’t the point. After a few seconds, I already heard the hissing and knew their ammo supply was getting excited.

A dome of pale blue light went off, followed by a loud bang that shook the entire building. When the light died down, I was staring at a burning, collapsing corridor. Flames engulfed the room, dense smoke filled the air, walls and floors lay in ruins, and an enormous hole gaped in the ceiling.

It was awesome.

I smiled as I checked the laser cannon. It had enough for another medium powered shot or two if set to low. Then I checked the battery pack on my right hip. It was my last one.

I heard gunshots and looked down over the floor’s edge. I saw muzzle flashes from at least twenty floors down.

“Hey Todd, what’s going on?”

“Um, city security has arrived. Woo’s guys are fighting with them. Shard’s moving in. They’re a floor above you, but on the opposite end, they’re getting hammered by corrosive gas grenades.”

“Todd, is there a way around them?”

“Um… l-let me see,” there was a delay, but I could hear Todd’s flippers hitting the keys. “Okay, I got it. When you get up the steps, there’s a path leading to the indoor park. Use the other end’s elevator to reach the next floor and avoid the crossfire.”

“Sweet. I’ll let them handle Woo’s goons.”

“So, you will not help Shard, despite jeopardizing this operation?” A voice spoke from behind me.

I turned around with the pistol ready, but I saw Zoltar in his usual uniform and no other protective gear. His right arm was a sharp wooden blade, and the other arm resembled a launcher with spore pods loaded into it.

“How did you get in here without turning into an ice sculpture?” I asked, lowering the gun and not happy to see the Shroom.

“We celium are adaptable. I kept generating a hardened shell to protect me.”

“Lucky you.”

“You’ve caused quite a lot of collateral damage, I see. We could’ve avoided this had you stayed out of it. We need to help our men and regain control over the situation.”

I ignored him and started up the steps. “Whatever, I’m going after Woo. You can do whatever you want.”

I felt one of the spore clouds hit me in the back. The mask blocked them out. I snapped towards him with the pistol. He had his blade arm aimed at my throat.

“Apologies. Maybe I wasn’t clear. That was not a suggestion.”

My arm shook as I pressed the gun against the top of his mushroom cap. “You’ve read my file, right?”

“I have, several times, and it does not do your impulsive, volatile nature justice.”

“Did the file mention what happens when I’m livid?”

Zoltar’s eye blinked rapidly, and he pulled back the blade. “I read what happened on Callisto.”

Zoltar was an annoyance before, and now he was pissing me off. I grabbed his blade arm, letting the rage take over for a second. The temperature rose in the room, unrelated to the fire. As my flipper touched the blade, it started to blacken and burn, and embers formed on it. Zoltar pulled away and jumped back. He raised his gun arm.

“Go ahead, piss me off further, and see what happens!” I growled.

The inside of the suit felt like a pressure cooker. The ground smoked as I stood there and scowled. It would be so easy to kill him. I’d barely have to use it on him.

Zoltar took another step back. “You’d bring this whole building down on us all!”

“We both know I’ve survived worse. If you think this is collateral damage, you haven’t seen shit!”

Zoltar didn’t lower the gun. He had to know it wouldn’t do him any good, especially since he read about Callisto. If he attacked again, he’d be a deep-fried shiitake. Zoltar lowered his arm, realizing he had nothing to threaten me with.

“Hylus will know of this.”

“Do I look like I give a damn?”

I took a deep breath. Letting it take over was much easier than forcing it down. I used my communicator to play metal music and took a moment to close my eyes. The sudden temperature rise stopped, and my heartbeat slowed. I turned my back to Zoltar and headed up the steps. He followed behind me.

“You looking to get scorched?” I asked.

“No, I am still auditing you.”

I ignored him. “Just don’t slow me down.”

I followed Todd’s instructions, ignored the gunfire from the corridor ahead, and took a right. The interior park was much nicer than everything else I had seen up to this point. The room, still in its box-like shape, was adorned with neat plants and trees. Sprinklers misted the room with fresh water, and heating units kept the area humid. The pond in the middle teemed with fish of many vibrant hues. There were benches and a holographic sky that looked like what I’d expected to see on a planet with normal weather. They even had UV lights to mimic the sun. It wasn’t all perfect; there were piles of trash, and the cleaning bots covered in graffiti and bullet holes.

“What a shame,” Zoltar remarked.

I kept going. However, those pretty fish looked tasty. I’d have to see if I could find somewhere that served them. We were nearing the edge of the pool.

Gunfire slammed into me. My shields stopped the first three hits, but not the fourth. I felt the bullet hit my stomach, and I fell over and hit the grass and dirt below. The internal plates stopped the bullet from going further. I heard Zoltar attacking them with his spores.

Now I was angry. The surrounding grass caught fire. Zoltar jumped back as it threatened to swallow him up. I undid the strap of the laser cannon and let it fall to my side as I stood up. Woo’s goons kept shooting. The wave of heat intensified. Their bullets melted before they touched me. I aimed the pistol at the center of their group. I focused all of my anger on the barrel of the pistol. The gun glowed a fiery orange.

I pulled the trigger.

A gush of fire erupted from the barrel, and it plunged into the ground directly in the center of them. The explosive energy I had infused into it went off. A sea of orange and red devoured them. The sound was louder than the meanest thunderstorms. A wall of superheated air slammed into Zoltar and me. I didn’t flinch; I was used to it.

Only a smoldering crater of warped metal remained. Embers filled the air and set parts of the park ablaze. The fire suppression systems kicked in and filled the room with a gray cloud.

I’m not sure how I can do this. Maybe I was born like this. It first occurred at the orphanage, where I met Jeff and Todd. Someone was bullying Todd, and I snapped and ended up giving him some severe burns. This is a mystery to everyone, including Hylus. I only know two things, one, it triggers when I’m pissed, and two, it knocks the wind out of me when I use it. Even though that wasn’t much, it made me lean against a tree and take a minute to catch my breath, like I had done laps around the track.

“The file was referring to this?” Zoltar said, stepping out from behind the bullet-ridden tree.

Too exhausted to talk, I nodded to him. I heard a groan and investigated. One of Woo’s men was still alive and crawling across the burnt ground. The fire burned his body in half, leaving one side overcooked and the other side undercooked. I staggered over to him.

“P-please.”

He was begging for his life. It didn’t matter. I ended him.

“Was that necessary?”

“Mercy will get you killed.”

“He wasn’t a threat anymore.”

“He signed his life away when he shot at me.”

I grabbed the laser gun and checked the pistol. Funneling that red power into firearms seemed to always break them. I reinforced this one, and it paid off because the gun still worked. Two goons blocked the way to the nearby elevator. I took them out with the pistol and set it to the next floor. Zoltar hesitated at the door.

“You can either go back and help them or come and help kill Woo. I don’t give a shit which.”

He climbed into the elevator. I was hoping he’d help Shard instead. While in the elevator, I loaded my last mag into the pistol.

---

CHAPTER 8

“Todd, anything I should know?”

“I don’t know what’s on Woo’s floor, but city security is also dropping in from the roof. It looks like Woo has guys on the floors above seven-hundred-twenty.”

“How’s Shard doing?” Zoltar asked.

“From what I can gather, they’re at a flight of stairs, but Woo’s goons have a turret blocking them from getting past it. A backup team is approaching using the elevator.” Todd told him.

The floor was empty. I readied the cannon. “Smells like a trap.”

“It most certainly does.”

Following Todd’s route, we reached the building’s central part with a view of upper and lower floors. We could see the roof, twenty stories above us. That wasn’t what caught my attention.

A lineup of armed goons and turrets stood on the other side of the gap.

“Shit.”

Woo’s cackle came from the speakers and his face projected as a giant hologram in front of us. Calling him ugly as fuck would be a compliment. His eyes had no pupils. They were just a solid piss shade of yellow. He was beyond skinny. He looked like a skeleton in a skin-tight bodysuit. You wouldn’t need an X-ray machine to check his bones. His skin was pale as a corpse and covered in chemical equations. Some painted on with marker, and others cut into his skin. He wore a black gas mask with green tubes sticking out of it, and his four bony arms were doing something just out of frame. The two antennae on his head twitched as he watched us. His long head had a sharp spike at the back and gray hair patches sticking out. He was an aflatox. That mask he wore wasn’t because he had a bad pair of lungs. Their home planet, Aflatoxus, has an atmosphere so poisonous they evolved to breathe it instead of oxygen.

“I’m impressed you made it this far,” he began. “You know Woo Pharmaceuticals is always hiring. We could always use some more muscle around here.” His brows furrowed. “Especially since these worthless chumps are too inept at protecting me from door-to-door salesmen!”

They pointed a shitload of guns at us. Even if I had reinforced my shields, the guns would have shredded me in seconds. Zoltar seemed to realize they had outgunned us here. I doubted I could let that power out again or create a large enough blast. Then I remembered I had some grenades, but the problem was, could I get them out fast enough before they tore us to pieces?

“Ah, I can’t stay mad at you guys. Some of you are my best customers too,” Woo said, being friendly and polite. “So, penguin, what do you say? There are plenty of medical benefits and free checkups. After all, I am a doctor.”

I felt something tapping my leg. I looked at Zoltar to see what he was doing. He was growing something from his legs. It snaked across the wall and took shape: cover. His eye gestured to the nearby apartment a few feet away with a window.

I turned back to Woo.“No thanks, I’m good.”

“No one says no to me!” He shouted. “Kill em boys!”

The wall came up. A storm of bullets, lasers, and plasma slammed into it. It wasn’t holding up at all. Bullets brushed me, and bolts of plasma closely missed me as we sprinted. Grateful for the suit, I jumped through the window without getting a face full of glass. The second I hit the floor, the barrage resumed. Bullets ripped through the walls and hit everything, lasers melted through the walls, and globs of plasma followed. I was prone and trying to ready the laser cannon.

Zoltar followed me, cobbling together a dome of plant matter on his back. The incoming torrent shredded it. He climbed into the window and killed the dome. He looked exhausted too.

“Well, now what?”

I ejected the low battery and shoved in a new one. I cranked the laser to maximum. The screen on the gun told me the battery didn’t charge properly, meaning I’d only get one full-power shot.

“Can you cover me from the other window!?” I shouted.

Zoltar nodded as plasma rounds knocked the door off the hinges. It hit the damaged table and collided with the bullet-riddled fridge. Zoltar made a break for it. He grunted and grew arms on his back. They ended in spore launchers. He began shooting. I doubted he was doing much to them, but he got their attention.

Propping the gun on the shattered window, I fired it. The light was too bright; precise aiming wasn’t possible, even with the mask filtering out the glow. I didn’t need to aim. From secure cover, I raked the death ray across the line of apartments.

Similar to the other turret, the plasma cells ignited, but the explosion was much stronger. After the initial eruption, I couldn’t hear anything. A pressure wave slammed into us, and any windows that hadn’t already shattered were now in millions of pieces. I fell on my ass and so did Zoltar as the entire structure bucked like a pissed off bull. When the wave subsided, I assumed it was over.

It wasn’t.

I felt secondary explosions throughout the building. Then it all went quiet. I pulled the laser off the window, swapped out the empty battery for the almost empty one, and stood up. The explosions caused half of Woo’s building to be annihilated while the other half melted and caught fire. The blaze reduced around twenty apartments near it to rubble. Deadly explosions occurred in the same location on the floors above and below. Even with the mask’s filters I could smell all the smoke.

“What did we just do?” Zoltar asked.

“I think the laser fried the heating units. Must’ve blown them all up.”

Zoltar shook in anger and shock. “So much damage in a densely populated area, Hylus will not be happy about this.”

“Who cares? Right now, let’s make sure Woo is d—”

A roar sounded. From the balcony, I looked down at the floor below. A security guard with a pistol tried fending off a mutated person. The mutant pounced him and tore him apart like pulling drumsticks off a chicken. That’s when I noticed the white mist spreading throughout the building.

More screams sounded from all around us. The building was getting high on Woo’s supply and was about to have one hell of a roid rage. Zoltar’s face changed, and he grew something there that I guess would help filter out poisons.

“Todd, what’s going on?”

“Woo must’ve been prepping the airborne strain! It’s spreading throughout the building! Shard and security are getting torn apart!”

I winced at that. “Alright, what about Woo?”

“You fools!” Woo snarled from the smoldering path ahead of us.

He stepped out, blood trickling from his face. He did not look happy to see us.

“Months of research just gone like that! All because of you trigger happy morons! You ruined everything! Now I’ll have to go back to formula!”

I noticed his lower body was robotic. His waist was a giant metal saucer-looking thing with six thin mechanical legs beneath it. He stood up and calmed somewhat.

“Oh, come now, there’s one bright side to all of this. What’s that!? What could possibly be the bright side to this!? Think of it as an unscheduled field test for the aerosol version. Plus, there’s one thing we can use them to test.”

While he was having a riveting conversation with himself, I raised the laser gun. He didn’t seem that concerned with a laser aimed at his face. When I fired it, I saw why. His shield stopped the beam cold. He reached into a compartment on the saucer and pressed a button.

There was a roar, followed by something approaching.

The giant creature knocked me down before I could get a clear look. Woo’s trademark cackle sounded again; this time even more unhinged.

“Meet the super mutant I’ve been working on! His name is Bubba! Bubba, can you kill them for me!?”

Bubba’s response was a roar. Woo turned and fled. Zoltar tried hitting him with spores, but they had no effect. He fired a blade, but Woo was already down the hall. Bubba raised his arms and tried to turn me into tomato paste. I rolled back and grabbed a beat-up shotgun on the ground. Fortunately for me, the mag tube had ammo. I pumped two rounds into Bubba.

My shots bounced off his body. He stood on two legs, with crab-like claws and a tough shell. On his back were a pair of long arms ending in sharped blades. Bubba shrieked and stabbed with those. Shooting again, I aimed for the armored face. It didn’t break through, but stunned Bubba for a second. I ran for it, trying to get some distance.

Bubba was fast.

Real fast.

He caught up to me and knocked me into an apartment. I crashed into the mostly intact stove, and I felt my helmet dent. I saw stars as I sat up. Bubba stepped inside and began flattening the kitchen island between him and me. I looked at the stove and realized that it and the oven were gas. I turned them both on and cranked the burners to the maximum. Bubba stepped over the shattered island and roared.

I got up and tossed a frying pan at him. While he recovered, I reached the doorway. I fired the shotgun, aiming for the stove. The explosion engulfed the entire apartment. Compared to what was happening earlier, it was nothing.

“Edgy!” Zoltar called. “Woo made it to the elevator.”

I ejected the used shotgun shell, and I realized that was the last one. I could barely walk properly as I limped towards Zoltar and the direction Woo went.

“Alright, let’s go after him,” I said between breaths.

I discovered a fucked up rifle on the ground, similar to my current state. I found a somehow intact magazine and grabbed that as well.

“Todd! Get the ship over here now! Be ready to pick us up!”

“I’m almost there already.”

Then I heard something behind me. Out of the burning apartment came Bubba, and he was angry. Parts of his shell had turned from blue to red, but the explosion hadn’t bothered him.

“Are you fucking kidding me!?” I growled, firing the rifle at him.

That did nothing but make him madder. He came running after us, using his giant claws to knock all the debris and rubble out of the way.

“Todd! I need your help!”

I tried to run, but my bruises were slowing me down. The elevator was right there. Zoltar tried hitting Bubba with spores and blades. Both were useless. Without losing speed, he snatched Zoltar with his claw and slammed him onto the ground. Then he caught up to me. I spun around and emptied the mag into his face. Bubba snarled and moved to avoid the gun. Then I felt his claw collide with my stomach.

It felt like a freight train and then some. He knocked me into the air, and then I hit the ground hard. Bubba stomped and roared. I couldn’t move; I was too busy coughing up lunch. He raised the back limbs to stab me. Then Bubba stopped and turned.

Two sapphire lasers slammed into Bubba. The mutant stumbled back and hit the railing. Another blast followed this one and sent Bubba off the edge and down all seven-hundred-and-twenty floors below.

I grabbed the railing and pulled myself up, then I glanced at the hole in the wall. My ship was there.

“Thanks Todd.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Woo’s probably escaping on the roof,” I said.

“Okay, I’ll try to take h—”

A rocket slammed into my ship. Security was trying to take on my ship with one of theirs. Todd broke off and tried to give them the slip. I limped to the elevator. Zoltar employed vines to drag his damaged body into the elevator with me while he quickly fixed himself up and reattached his limbs. I noticed the missing chunks from his mushroom cap, and a green fluid dripped from it. I guess that’s his equivalent to blood. While we sprinted up the steps, I hastily loaded the rifle.

“Security is trying to take us down! I’m trying to give them the slip!” Todd told me.

“Shoot them down. Don’t let them damage my ship!”

“But they’re just doing their j—”

“I don’t give a damn. Hurry up and get rid of them. We need to go.”

I looked at Zoltar. “You aren’t going to say anything?”

“You wouldn’t listen to me.”

I smirked; he wasn’t wrong. I put on the helmet again as the elevator approached the roof. When we made it outside, we found Woo surrounded by dead security. Their bodies were a dead gray and looked like grapes left in the sun for way too long. Woo turned to us, surprised to see us there.

“You escaped Bubba!?”

“He’s probably paste on the ground floor by now.”

Woo checked something on his wrist and laughed.

“What’s funny?” I asked, raising the rifle.

I got that answer real fast. Something broke through the roof. When I saw the claws, I knew what it was: Bubba. Only now he had four legs, and the back arms mutated into wings. He had also grown a lobster-like tail covered in little legs and an extra pair of claws from his abdomen.

“Oh, just fucking great!”

Woo threw his head back and laughed. “You nearly had me! But you should know better than to cross someone like me!”

Woo jumped off the building. A ship rose from below. He stood on it and climbed down the side.

“I’ll leave you to my creation. I’m eager to see the results of this clinical trial!”

When he made it inside, the small ship rocketed skyward and swiftly left the planet’s atmosphere. Only Bubba, Zoltar, and I remained. He rushed us. The Vermillion loomed nearby and Todd intercepted with a barrage of cannon fire from smaller rapid-fire guns in compartments on the thruster arms. The volley of energy rounds created clouds of blue smoke and dust.

Something happened when the smoke cleared. Bubba’s claws crackled with lightning, and they opened. Two beams of energy shot from them and almost hit the ship.

“You have got to be shitting me!”

Not only could he shoot energy from his claws now, but he had also grown a second layer of armor and looked completely fine! He turned to us and snarled as he stood up on his four main legs. Just one way to end this now.

“Todd! Toss me the black hole gun!”

“The what!?”

“You heard me!” I shouted.

Todd hit it again with the cannons, but they had even less effect. He steered the ship over us and kept firing.

“Jeff, take control and keep shooting!” Todd ordered.

“Alright bro.”

Bubba started firing back again. Jeff’s dodge was slow, but the armor held and Bubba only grazed the ship. I wasted the rifle on it, and when it ran out, I seized one off a dead guard and used the attached grenade launcher.

“I-incoming!” Todd shouted.

I looked up as Jeff brought the ship closer, and Todd tossed me the long white and black gun with a big ass battery in the back. Several panels covered the barrel area and got thinner the closer they were to the front of the gun. Behind the barrel rested two cylinders, one black and one white, containing the black hole materials. When I caught the gun, I forgot just how heavy that bitch was, and I nearly fell over. My other hand went to the forward grip as I rested it on my shoulder. I adjusted the black hole’s duration and diameter using the golden-framed screen on the gun’s side. The gun was halfway charged as the ship’s cannons fell silent; they were out of ammo.

Bubba stood up and aimed his claws at us.

Gunfire slammed into it from the opposite rooftop. Security deployed snipers on the roof. Their rounds only staggered it for a moment and drew its attention. It quickly annihilated them with a blast from its claws, engulfing the rooftop in fire. The gun finished charging. I squeezed the trigger. A ball of black and purple light shot from the gun and floated out towards Bubba.

“Go! Now!” I shouted.

Jeff brought the ship to the edge of the roof. We jumped for it just as the orb changed. It became a giant black orb with a glowing purple rim. The world distorted around the black hole. The edges of objects appeared to stretch, and any light around it vanished. Bubba screamed as his body stretched, as the black hole’s pull was inescapable. The shell instantly started to crack and break apart. Then the hole swallowed him. Bubba had vanished without a trace.

The building soon followed. It peeled apart layer by layer like an onion. We were out of harm’s way, but we still felt the hole’s draw on the ship. The buildings around it warped, and their windows cracked and exploded. The glass floated into the vortex as it descended deeper into the building, swallowing it whole.

Then it stopped as it reached the entryway. The orb of destruction collapsed in on itself, and with a blinding flash, it vanished. Only the building’s foundation remained. I took a deep breath and put down the black hole gun.

“Hey Edgy, Hylus sent a message. He wants you on Moxia,” Jeff spoke.

“Jeff, plot the longest route you can to Moxia. I’m getting out of this shit and getting a stiff drink.” I shut the door behind me as Todd stared with his mouth open.

---

CHAPTER 9

I was standing in a dome-shaped room overlooking the massive green gas giant. Hylus was on the other end, and Zoltar stood next to me. Zoltar’s report on Karr and Maegar left Hylus fuming.

“Let me get this straight. Not only do you own a black hole launcher, you fired it in a densely populated area and leveled an entire city tower!”

“Actually, the lobby is still standing.”

“That does little to remedy the damage you have done! How many people died because of you!?” Hylus growled.

I shrugged. “Hey, the building was full of mutants anyway.”

“A problem you caused by blindly rushing in there instead of trusting me and my plan! Woo has escaped and will go further underground now thanks to you!” He shook his giant fist at me. “I’ve read Zoltar’s report, all of it. Somehow, you are even worse than I imagined. You abandoned my team, you have several WMDs on board your ship, and you do not understand the concept of restraint!”

He wasn’t lying. “Are we done here? I need a replacement laser cannon and more graviton materials for the black hole gun.”

“You did approximately six million credits’ worth of damages to Maegar City!”

“Only six million? I thought it would be higher than that.”

“This is a disaster! I will withhold your pay for the rest of the universal standard year!”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do to keep the ship running, Hylus!?”

“Perhaps you should’ve thought of that before you defied my orders!”

I crossed my arms. “Fine.”

“You may go.”

“Wait! My lord, are you not going to request he surrender the weapons I included in my report!?” Zoltar spoke up.

That got me to stop in my tracks and look at him. “Zoltar, try that shit and I’ll incinerate you right here, right now.”

He recoiled back in surprise.

“Enough!” Hylus boomed. “I will not attempt to take his weapons.”

“But Lord Hylus! He is a loose cannon, you said so yourself! Are you certain it is safe to allow him to carry such destructive power!?”

“Even if I were to have him surrender your comprehensive list of destructive armaments, there is nothing stopping him from acquiring more.”

He left out an important part. If he tried to take them, I’d fight back. I would cause so much destruction and wouldn’t need a gun to do it. I’m already a walking WMD.

“But—!”

“You should listen to your boss,” I muttered without looking at him.

I felt Zoltar’s eye on me, as if he still wanted to protest. “Yes, my lord.”

With that, I left. Members of Shard, in black and red armor, eyeballed me. Their whispers stopped after I gave them a stern look. I’m sure they knew what happened the last time Shard ended up on my shit list. When I got back to the ship, Jeff and Todd were there.

“How bad was it?”

When the doors closed, I laughed. “He’s cut my pay for the rest of the year!”

Jeff’s and Todd’s eyes widened in shock.

“But how are we going to pay for things!?” Todd asked, after hyperventilating into his shirt.

I put my flipper on his shoulder and smirked. “Guess we’re back in the bounty hunting and raiding business for a while,” Todd shivered at that. “Relax, Todd. What could go wrong?”

“Everything!”

He wasn’t wrong. “It’ll be fine. Let’s go hit up a bar.” I set a course for a local dive bar.

“Then what?” Jeff asked.

“We’ll stay in the Epsilon Sector, find some gangsters to raid for all their cash.”

Jeff stood up and fished out another joint. “So our usual?”

As we disconnected from the Shard vessel, I smirked and flew away. “The usual.”

There was an entire jumbled-up multiverse to explore, and if there was one thing I knew, there were plenty of ways to make money and plenty of chances to blow some shit up.