[center][h1]Dare[/h1][/center]

Now this was nice. In a way it reminded Izumi of the few times that she and her mother had vacationed on FH-K4, a planetoid that had been cultivated by some back-to-nature hippy cult for their own purposes. Granted, a cult with members from multiple solar systems, but a hippy cult nonetheless. Of course, like most cults, the moment that authorities threatened their way of life after the leader had slept with too many minors, they had, as her mother had put it, "Drank the Kool-Aid." Apparently it was some kind of euphemism from Earth's late 20th century for suicide by mass poisoning. That aside, Izumi had loved the little cabin that they'd rented, and playing in the conifer forest around it and the lake; then again, the entire planetoid was covered in coniferous forests, so it might not have mattered if it had been the same cabin or not.

Once the big boss had made his introduction and told the group to get comfy, Dare found herself drifting off into a corner by herself. She wasn't thirsty (least of all for alcohol; the first-- and [i]last[/i]-- time she'd had booze she'd wound up sleeping with her roommate. Leave it to a girl to know how to make a girl feel good. So she merely examined the group through her visor, committing their faces to memory. She'd never been good with names, so she'd figure those out later. The lady who had led them here had looked so Viking-ish it was scary. In all honesty, if she wouldn't have been so chesty, Dare would have sworn she was a man.

The next thing she noted was a very curious sight: a droid/robot and a (very literal) fairy. She'd seen plenty of the former in her life, but the latter she'd only seen in books and movies. [i]Then again, we live in a damn big universe[/i], thought Dare. [i]Fairies running around with robot bodyguards isn't as far-fetched as talking space cats, robot vacuum cleaners, or gorillas piloting spaceships shaped like Lady Liberty's head.[/i]

Izumi shifted her gaze to the left... and nearly shit bricks. Admittedly the guy she was looking at was sort of handsome, but what got her attention most was [b][u]the giant freaking spider[/u][/b] following him like a pet dog. Her first instinct was to bust out her shotgun and blow the bug away, like that Klendathan Arachnid she'd run into on a cargo ship. However, she kept her cool. But if that bug came anywhere near her, there [i]would[/i] be trouble.