I held the Blades of the Blood Nova down and out, circling the Lycoan. The chaos and noise in the background faded away, the pulsing, thumping beat of the club music dampened by my focus on the task at hand. The Giant Lycoan wasn’t fazed by my renewed vigor, instead snarling and jumping into the air once again. Unlike the other two times, he faked a downward swing of his electrified club and used the centrifugal force of the swing to spin himself around in the air, coming down hard with the clawed fingers of his right hand. I managed to sidestep slightly, but his claws found purchase, scraping across my flank. I winced but managed to stay focused. I twisted to the left just as he raked my side and brought both blades to my left side. I let the momentum carry me, mimicking the Lycoan’s move, and spun around completely, bringing the blades up along his massive hairy back. They didn’t cut deep, but they did cut him. The Wolfman arched his back, threw his head back, and howled in pain. The wounds began to glow with a slight tinge of red as my blades did the same. Though I hadn’t spent much time training with the blades, I immediately understood what this was. The Swords ability: Blood Nova.

  I jumped back, ensuring I was out of the range of the electrified club as the Lycoan spun to face me once again. I saw his black eyes dart to his left toward a stairwell, and I couldn’t believe it…he was about to run. The Lycoan dashed up the stairwell, sprinting for the third floor of the club. It wasn’t the smart move to follow him, but the adrenaline pulsing through my veins ensured I would chase him. I sprinted after him up the stairs, and he burst through a set of double doors into a large open ballroom. The floor was bone white with green embellishments. Two curved, ornate stairwells trimmed in gold spiraled up on each side. A large gold chandelier hung from the ceiling above a green crest of sorts. I regretted my decision to follow as more security guards pressed down into the main room from each stairwell.

  I took a deep breath and pulled my plasma pistol into my right hand, returning that blade to my inventory with a thought. I rushed to the stairwell on the right, two guards rushing me as I ran. I couldn’t tell their races because these guards all wore black helmets, hiding their identities. I used the butt of my pistol, and with my right hand, I slammed it into the temple of the first. He scorpioned sideways to his right side, and I brought the blade in my left hand up, piercing his neck. Without stopping, I pulled my blade and threw it point first at the second guard, piercing him through the chest. As he fell, I ran past and removed my blade, continuing my push to the stairwell. I saw a guard on the left side stairs, almost to the floor. I pointed my plasma pistol and fired two rounds as I ran. He fell.

  I continued running as I heard a song that was familiar to me start to play.

  “This one goes out to the only human customer this place has ever had!” A voice said in a cheesy DJ tone. “Big Red! Here is your favorite song, IIIIIT’s FREEBIRD!”

  The song started playing on the back half where it gets fast and goes into the screaming guitar solo. The DJ had mixed club-style drums with it and the song blared through the entire building. I didn’t know exactly what was happening, but if I had to kill a bunch of people to a soundtrack, this was not a bad choice. I saw another guard standing to the left of the stairwell, pistol trained on me. I threw my blade at him, andhe flew off his feet and fell to the ground. I pressed into the stairwell, picking up an ornate plate from a stand beside the stairwell. I ran up into another descending guard. I took the plate and slammed it into his throat. My increased strength caused the dull plate to dig into the meat. Blood splattered everything as he fell.

  My eyes flashed, and I saw two red mist trails form on the stairwell in front of me. This was how the Blades of the Blood Nova allowed me to track my target. I glanced down and saw my forearms pulsing with power, ripples running repeatedly up and down each arm. I couldn’t use most of my abilities; my armor was off-line, but the entity was itching to be set free. “Working on getting you back online. I’m gonna have to handle this one myself, though.” I grunted as I ran, following the red mist. Two more guards rushed, and I dropped them quickly with two plasma bursts. I ran to the top of the stairwell and turned right through another set of doors into a smaller room. The room almost resembled a conference room, but there was no furniture, just open space. The Lycoan stood there, panting, club to his left side.

  “I honestly expected you to lean more toward fight than flight. I guess people will surprise you,” I said with a shrug.

  “I can tell you where the other human is. I have seen him around here. I can help you!” The Lycoan pleaded.

  “Honestly, I think we will find him on our own. We’re kind of past the whole beg for your life thing,” I said, holstering my pistol and recalling my second Blood Blade. Before I could make a move, a door on the left side wall of the room slammed open. A naked human with a flash of red hair stumbled into the room, and without warning, he rushed the lycoan.

  “Red! Be careful, he has a big boomstick!” I shouted.

  Red turned in my direction, bobbing sideways like he was drunk, “Boomstick, you call that a boomstick!” he slurred, pointing at the Lycoan’s weapon. The Lycoan, confused, kept looking back and forth between Red and me, and Freebird continued blaring.

  “This is a boomstick!” Red shouted, pointing toward his dick with both hands. “Hah! Watch this, Captain!” Red rushed the Lycoan. Before the Lycoan could react, Red was on him, landing alternating hooks to his body. The lycoan heaved into the air and swung his clawed left hand in retaliation. Red ducked the blow and side around to the Lycoan’s back, landing three more right hooks in quick succession. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I would have sworn that Red was drunk when he entered the room, yet here he was doing his best Mike Tyson impression.

  Red stepped back, raising his fists near his chin in a defensive stance, “C’mon bitch boy! Show Big Red watcha got!”

  The Lycoan rared his left fist back, but before he could throw the punch, Red hit him with two left jabs. The Lycoan flinched back and raised both clawed hands, preparing for a downward strike. Red hit him with a perfect straight right, and the Lycoan doubled over from the loss of air in his lungs. Red pounced. Two more left jabs to the snout, A right hook that caught him in the temple, and finally, a Left uppercut that lifted the Lycoan off his feet. He fell to the ground unconscious. Red then mounted the Lycoan and began raining blows on the unconscious alien. Blood leaked from every orifice on his head; his long tongue lulled out to one side.

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  “I think you got him, bro,” I said, approaching to try and pull Red off the nearly dead Lycoan.

  “Almost only counts in hand grenades and dynamite,” Red said as he stood up and began stomping the Lycoans head to a pulp. “Now that is a dead werewolf!” He shouted as he raised his hands into the air, proclaiming himself the victor.

  “W…what the fuck, man?” I said, looking at the gruesome scene. “Where did you learn to fight like that? And did you have to stomp his head in?”

  Red turned to face me, still naked and with a goofy smile on his face. “It’s a skill I got a while back, it’s called Bar Brawler. Basically, I have some symptoms of being drunk…sort of. I can fight like a demon when it is activated, and any pain or damage I take is dulled,” Red walked up to me and tapped me on the forehead. “It’s. A. Pretty. Fucking. Cool. Skill.”

  I swiped his finger away and pulled him into a hug, “It’s good to see you, brother. I wasn’t sure what had happened to all of you. I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa there buddy!” Red said, backing up and pointing his finger at me. “Don’t try that shit with me! I’ll have you know I don’t swing that way! Captain or not!”

  I chuckled, “Calm down, buddy. Let’s see if we can find you some clothes and get you outta here.”

  “My clothes are in my room,” Red said with an exaggerated point to the door he came through. “I was taking a break from all the wonderful ladies here, and I poked my head out of my room to see who else but my Capitan!” he said with a Spanish flare. “I couldn’t let you fight that dog guy alone, so I jumped in,” He thumbed his nose, “is no problemo. ya know?”

  “Thanks for that. Now, let’s get your clothes,” I walked toward the room and opened the door. I was taken aback at the site. There had to be 15 different women in the room of all species and mostly naked. “Red…what the fuck, man?”

  “Oh, yeah. We had that money from winning on the Red Moon of Alcara,” he said, walking up and throwing an arm over my shoulder. “You can pay 100 credits and have one of them for the whole day, THE WHOLE DAY, Captain. Well, I had 25,000 credits, and the dating scene on Earth had been kinda rough, ya know?”He backed up and held his hands up defensively. “Hey, don’t get all judgy on me. These girls are really nice. Apparently, they love working here and get some good benefits. The owner only hires chaff for the place, so they all have classes that let them level up by working here. They were more than happy to keep me company.”

  “How does that even work? We didn’t get offered any classes like that. I mean, I’m not judging here; as long as they were willing participants, it’s all good,” I looked at him and shook my head, “15 though? Isn’t that kind of overkill, man? I mean, you couldn’t have been here that long. I’m kind of impressed, to be honest.”

  “Red smiled a big toothy grin, “I been here four days. Four glorious, joy-filled days, Cap.” Red walked into the room as a couple of the women stirred. He assured them everything was okay and told them to go back to sleep before getting dressed. “So here’s the thing, Cap. The owner of this place is a good dude. His name is Theodrus Duplichin. Get it?” Red looked at me, smiling.

  “I raised an eyebrow, “Get…what?” Red slapped me on the back and chortled, “Theodrus…Duplichin…T.D’s! Big T.D;s… It’s his initials, but it also means…” Red held his hands in front of his chest and puffed out his cheeks for some reason. “It also means big ti…”

  “Aaalright then.” I waved his hands down. “I get it. Let’s go ahead and get you out to that transport and back to home base,” I urged Red down the hallway toward the front entrance. The sounds of fighting had stopped, and since we hadn’t been attacked by any more security guards, I assumed the squad had finished things. We walked down the spiral stairwell, being careful to step over the bodies.

  “WOah,” Red gaped and pointed at the body with the plate jammed into its

  throat. “Did you do that without your armor? You are kind of a psycho, Cap. Ya know that, right?”

  I sighed, “Seeming more and more like that might be the case.” We walked down to the first floor to see that the nightclub portion of the place was deserted save for the squad. They were standing near the front door smoking stingers and talking to each other as I approached.

  “You all good here, boy?” Kindo asked.

  “All good. Got Red, he is a little drunk and probably in dire need of some fluids but his okay.” I said walking to the group, Red in tow.

  “You mean we did all that just to save your friend from death by orgasm?” Dan spoke up. The group all nudged each other and laughed.

  “That’ll be enough, you bunch of ballsacks. We had a job and completed the job. That’s that. Everyone haul ass to the transport, and let’s get outta this place.” Kindo said, pointing toward the door.

  Red nudged me, “This dude is kind of a hardass, right?”

  I chuckled, “That hardass is gonna help us get the rest of our crew, and we need all the help we can get.” We exited the club and emerged back into the night air. It had gotten colder outside, or maybe it was just me coming down from the nervousness and adrenaline. As I walked, my vision began to glitch and flash. I stopped, blinking my eyes to try and figure out what was going on as my vision went dark. In a couple of seconds, everything returned to normal. Hell, it was better than normal as I saw my interface had returned. I could see my health bar and experience bar as well as my mini-map. It seemed that “saving” Red had given me my interface back. I whooped at the realization. It wasn’t my armor, but it was a start.

  “What was that about?” Red asked.

  “I’ll tell you in the transport. Let’s just get out of here,” I replied as I stepped into the transport.” “Oh my. Who are these ruffians? Why are we riding in a panel van? Oh, dear God. Captain, have you joined a gang? I couldn’t have been offline for too awfully long. It makes sense, though. I did sense a fair amount of white trash in you.

  I smiled as I sat down. “Hello, Sherlock. Nice to have you back, asshole.”