[IC] Beyond the Horizon

[Hostile]

RIFT TUNNEL EN ROUTE TO UEG COLONY WORLD HIEMAL
FEBRUARY 4, 2841
1300 HOURS (SYSTEM CLOCK)

Lance Carter sat in the cockpit of his personal ship, his feet resting on the console as he relaxed in his command chair. He was in his set of powered armour, and he didn't really want to get out of it because he simply really, really liked wearing it. Sure, it was old and outdated compared to what was standard-issue for Marines, but it provided enough protection to easily shrug off small arms fire, and its powered exoskeleton meant it boosted the wearer's strength by three times. It essentially turned anyone who wore the armour into a superhuman killing machine. Other than that, it also came with inbuilt systems such as temperature regulators, night vision, scanners, and a set of helmet-mounted flashlights. The armour itself bore many scars from Lance's years as a mercenary, most of them served as memoirs from those engagements, although they could be easily repaired and polished. And so Lance sat, idly watching as several streaks of light passed by outside the ship, in the RIFT tunnel.

The Relative Interdimensional Field Transit, or simply RIFT, is humanity's answer to the limitation of sublight travel. Up until the late twenty-third century, humanity had been limited to the confines of the Sol System, living on Earth, Luna, and a terraformed Mars and Saturn's moons. Earth was overpopulated and polluted by that time, and only the rich and powerful lived on the terraformed moons and Mars, while Luna's population comprised of a handful of colonists, functioning as workers in Luna's many spaceports. With the technology of that time, before the introduction of Quantum Repulsion Engines, or simply repulsors, primitive rocket boosters or Hall effect thrusters were the norm for spacecraft. Journeys normally took months to travel from Earth to one of the colonies, and passengers were normally cryogenically frozen.

It wasn't until the year 2238 that a breakthrough was made. Scientists stationed on Mars succesfully opened a tear in reality when testing out a prototype warp drives. This tear proved to be one of the greatest scientific acheivements, as the scientists learned that the tear more or less tunneled through time and space, making it so that the speed of light was much faster in this alternate dimension. Of course, humanity quickly went interstellar and spread to the stars, colonising planet after planet and becoming a thriving interstellar empire.

Now, more than six centuries after this discovery, faster-than-light travel has become so common that any ship big enough are equipped with RIFT drives. Travelling to neighbouring star systems has become as easy as taking a walk to your neighbourhood supermarket, which is what quite a few people do in fact. Travelling to another planet to pick up groceries that colony specialises in. FTL-capable ships are similiarly commonplace, easy to find and easy to get, though they cost quite a bit and were guaranteed to leave a hole in your pocket. Lance's ship, for example, was a retrofitted and upgraded ageing Moray-class patrol craft. The mercenary had since modified it to fit his needs, replacing its old Chevron CK 451 RIFT Drive into something much faster, and stripping several rooms for additional storage space and comfort. He had also replaced many outdated weapon systems, and even added more guns. The ship wasn't exactly very big, being only thirty-eight metres in length and five metres tall, much smaller than the kilometre-long warships the UEGNC fielded. It was a second-hand, however, and Lance had bought it only after careful bargaining.

Now, Lance sat in the cockpit of the Renegade, travelling to the UEG colony world of Hiemal. Sure, it was a frozen ice cube, but he had heard that the drinks there were pretty good. Great for celebrating his most recently finished contract of raiding a pirate den with several colonial militia. "Heard they serve drinks in glasses made of ice on Heimal. That true?" He asked what seemed to be thin air.

But less than a second later, a tiny holographic figure of a man in powered armour appeared, lacking a helmet that showed his grizzled face. "Pretty sure. I've gone through several tourist reports and planetary customs. You gonna get a beer or something?" The figure said. Cutter was Lance's A.I. assistant. He handled ship navigation, maintenance, and other things. Human-built artificial intelligence constructs were divided into three categories: basic, standard, and advanced.

Basic A.I.s were stupid, to say the least. These were meant to perform simple tasks such as guiding an unmanned spacecraft or controlling a continental computer network. They were unable to learn and were often seen as simple machines.

Standard A.I.s, on the other hand, had the processing power of a thousand basic A.I.s or more, and were the norm for everything that required computerised aid as they could easily fulfil the problems basic A.I.s could not. These could also freely learn and perfectly communicate with humans, using whatever avatar they chose, although they were still rather limited in terms of thinking capacity.

Then you had advanced A.I.s, which were exactly what it said on the tin. These constructs were the most advanced and sophisticated of any human-built intelligence programs, capable of effortlessly controlling and overseeing the networks of entire human worlds, and performing quintillions of calculations per second, and could basically learn anything. These were mainly used in government agencies to watch over human colonies, and the most important scientific research. They were, however, incredibly expensive and rare.

All in all, these constructs were still common and a part of daily life for UEG citizens.

Lance shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe whiskey or some-" He was cut off by a multitude of alarms going off all around the ship. Startled, he shifted into a more natural position, sitting correctly as he tapped his holographic console. "What the hell is going on?"

"RIFT drive malfunction!" Cutter informed with similar panic in his voice. "Something's gone wrong with the thing damn thing!"

"How? I just bought that thing two months ago!"

"You bought it from a shabby backstreet dealer on Sanction! What did you expect?"

"Uh..."

Cutter groaned. "I'm performing an emergency RIFT dropout. We're coming out of hyperspace in three... two... one."

The area in front of the ship opened up to reveal the inky blackness of space as the Renegade shook from its sudden transition back to realspace. There were hundreds of millions of twinkling stars all around the vessel. That, and a planet right in front of the ship. "Uh... where are we?" Lance asked.

"Don't know." Cutter replied, tapping away at a set of holographic interfaces. "But according to the position of the stars, we're twenty-three lightyears from the nearest colony. That planet's uncharted, but capable of supporting life."

Lance's heart sank at that. "So... what? We're stranded?"

The A.I. shrugged. "Pretty much."

The two sat there for a full minute before Lance finally spoke. "Fuck." He muttered, staring at the blue and green marble beneath him. "At least we'll be the first ones of explore a new habitable planet."

[datadogie]

AVALON - OUTSIDE THE INDIGO FAMILY RESIDENCE
3:00pm

Something could look good at first, yet prove bad in future, though at the same time perhaps something could look bad at first, but seem good in the end. Skye had been through both experiences. Avalon was a wonderful town. Though was that from living in it for most of her life, or was that just because the people in it were so friendly, the buildings so nice? Both, at least, to Skye. Sometimes she wanted to live in Avalon again, perhaps she would one day, but for now she liked to have some peace.

Though family was family, and Skye had to visit once in a while, even though her father was more dominant than he had been before and her stepmother was, how could she put it nicely, a bitch.

The visit to her father had went spectacularly, Skye thought sarcastically to herself. Her father wanted her back at home, and when she refused to go he threw a tantrum. Skye had found comedy that her mother had then yelled for her to go to her room, like she still lived there and was under her parents' rule. She had taken her leave then, walking out of the family home and making her way to the fields.

It was not uncommon for someone to be carrying a weapon in town, rather somewhere between common and uncommon. A few guards eyed Skye and her bow nervously, but the veterans shrugged it off; as long as the weapon remained sheathed, they paid no heed as she trotted through the small wall that marked the border of the town, and towards home, leaving the path soon enough and trotting her way through Red Crow Field in the direction of her home.

[Hostile]

RENEGADE, LOW ORBIT OVER UNCHARTED HABITABLE WORLD
FEBRUARY 4, 2841
1315 HOURS (SYSTEM CLOCK)

Roughly fifteen minutes had passed since the Renegade had dropped out of hyperspace around the planet, and Lance had brought it into a stable low orbit. Cutter was busy scanning the planet, and Lance was getting bored. He was idly staring at the live feed of the planet taken from the ship's onboard cameras, but there was nothing special other than the fact that it looked a hell lot like Earth, and Lance hadn't even been to the homeworld of humanity before.

Sure, he heard of the tales of when ancient humanity still fought over the last few drops of oil. The conflict known as the Resource Wars was fought over Earth dwindling natural resources. Lance still couldn't imagine a time where everything was fueled by natural resources, and he certainly couldn't imagine living in a time where people were willing to annihilate each other just to get those last few drops. That was before humanity had discovered alternate ways to generate power, and more or less unlocked the secret of unlimited power. Still, the mercenary was bored, and he decided to loudly announce this fact. "I'm bored." He complained. "Are you done with those scans yet?"

Cutter flashed into existence next to him, an annoyed expression on his face. "Hey, come on, man. It's been fifteen minutes. I've barely even scanned ten percent of the entire planet." He said, turning around and going back to staring at nothing (to regular humans). Lance rubbed his face and stared at the planet down below, seemingly thinking of something.

"Take us down."

"What?" Cutter was taken aback by Carter's sudden decision.

"You heard me. Take us down."

"Wait wait wait, we barely even know anything about this planet, and you want to land?"

"Yep."

Cutter groaned. "Fine. I'll take us down. I guess we'll land on that big landmass down there." The A.I. pointed at the largest continent down below. The ship suddenly moved and pointed downwards as its main thrusters powered up, the repulsor engines glowing a bright blue the Renegade descended into the planet's atmosphere. The blackness of space slowly shifted into a clear blue sky, and fluffy white clouds replaced the stars. Eventually, the vessel was flying over a large forest surrounded by mountainous peaks and shimmering lakes. The ship, despite its size and shape, gracefully skimmed through the air, before stopping and hovering over a rather large forest clearing overlooking the lake down below. The craft slowly descended, its landing gear deploying and its engines kicked up a large amount of ground and organic matter, emanating a low hum all the while.

It sat there for a while, its engines powering down before it died completely filling the forest with silence once more. After a few more minutes, a ramp on the underside of the vehicle lowered, and Lance slowly walked out, fully suited in his armour and his rifle out. He walked a fair distance, looking around at the trees general landscape. "Huh. This place is pretty neat. I wouldn't mind getting stranded here for a while. You got that distress pulser up yet?"

Cutter, as usual, appeared right next to Lance's head. "Yeah. Should take a while for anyone to receive the signal, though."

Lance nodded, looking up at the sky. "We'll have plenty of time to explore, then."

[datadogie]

RED CROW FIELD
3:15PM

The fields were beautiful to Skye. Walking through them just made her feel at peace, one with nature. Fortunately, it wasn't raining, for she didn't like the feeling of getting drenched. Instead, the sun was only blocked by a few sparse clouds, and there was a nice warmth in the air.

The sun did, however, get blocked, and Skye looked up as some sort of humming sound, way off, started. This sound started to get louder, until soon she spotted something flying not that far from her. At first, she believed it to be a dragon, one made of steel! Soon, however, she saw that it had no form with wings that flapped. In disbelief, Skye stared as it flew and landed a bit away from her, some sort of legs deploying before it lowered into a clearing of the forest.

Skye was tempted to believe what she was seeing was only a hallucination. She was tempted to just forget about what she saw, and continue on her way home, before relaxing in front of a fire and perhaps having a snooze.
However, curiosity lingered within Skye. She wanted to see what the thing was. Plus, it was in the vague direction of home, and she could take a peek at it.

It didn't take a moment later for Skye to come to a decision. She began to run her way forward, following the hum the strange thing was making. She was getting close as the hum, which had been declining all the while, died entirely. Reaching the clearing, she hugged a tree as she looked at the large, metallic thing up close. It was quite big! She peered at it, before her eyes met... A knight? It was certainly someone or something humanoid, and it looked to be wearing armour. Unless it was some sort of metal creature, and the thing that flew was it's steed.

She stood in silence, watching the knight looking man that had descended from the flying creature, barely concealing herself from the shock she had from seeing something she would never had thought she see in seventy lifetimes!

[Hostile]

The mercenary and his A.I. assistant stood there for a while, looking out towards the horizon and snowy mountain peaks, the sun reflecting off the crystal-clear lake at the base of the hill. Lance didn't have much need for his rifle right now as all was peaceful, so he clipped it to his armour's magnetic clamps located on his back. He stretched and reached to his helmet to disengage its locks, intending to slip it off and take a deep breath of air. Scanners had shown that the atmosphere was breathable. But before he could do that, Cutter spoke.

"We're being watched."

Lance was on alert almost immediately, and his rifle was in his hands and he had shifted into a combat position in less than a second. "What?" He asked, training his gun on the treeline. Of course, he was probably being a little too paranoid, but he was currently stranded on an alien planet with no way of knowing what lived there. He had seen some native wildlife on the planets he had visited, and quite a few of them were mean motherfuckers. Especially the Charybdis ocean creatures on Rapture. Those things were terrifying.

"I'm not exactly sure." Cutter said, vanishing from his perch. "But from the looks of it, the bio-signatures are, well, human."

Lance did a double take as his rifle arm twitched. "What?"

"Signatures match up. Of course, I can't be that sure yet, but whatever it is, it's hiding in the trees over there." A blip appeared on Lance's HUD. Cautiously, he began to walk towards it. "Hey, anyone there?" He called out, his rifle up just in case.

[datadogie]

Skye watched with a mixture of fear and curiosity as the armour-clad person suddenly shifted into a pose of what she could assume was combat. It was hard to say whether or not he was holding a weapon: For all she knew, the thing in his hands was some kind of religious thing, and he was clutching it in his hands in hopes that it would grant him some kind of victory.

Perhaps it was a weapon, as he was holding it toward the treeline in her vague direction, as one would hold such a weapon when confronted with a threat. Does he possibly know I'm here? She asked herself mentally, before her suspicions grew tenfold. The thing had started to walk toward her!

She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her thoughts, as he called out. It seemed that he, Skye had clear clarification that the thing was male based on his voice, spoke perfect English.

As the man came closer, Skye knew for sure that he knew where she was, and she needed to stand for herself or he may follow her.

Skye sidestepped out from behind the tree she was hiding. Simultaneously, she whipped out an arrow, drawing it in less than a second, pointing it to the armoured knight.

"Who are you?" Skye asked, her voice as cool and calm as the blue sky above. Her arrow never wavered.

[Hostile]

Lance froze his tracks and slightly lowered his gun in shock, his eyes wide behind his reflective visor. "Okay," He said, raising his rifle again, though in a non-threatening but suspicious way. "Not exactly what I was expecting." Well, maybe he was expecting that. Cutter was never wrong, after all. The A.I. had taken scans of the general landscape within a matter of minutes, and when he announced that the atmosphere was a perfect match of Earth's, Lance was pleased to know that he wouldn't have to go outside in his helmet and armour all the time.

What he wasn't expecting, however, was that the unknown signature was... well, a girl. And a pretty damn attractive one at that. Strange thing was that she was dressed in somewhat strange apparel, namely a cloak. Who the hell even wore those things in this time and age? Also, she had a feather in her light brown... grey-green... dark grey... hell, Lance didn't know, but she had a white feather in her hair for some reason. She was also holding a bow and arrow. So, of course, with someone dressed up in that clothing and using that weapon, Lance immediately assumed that she was one of those fantasy roleplayers.

The mercenary relaxed and lowered his gun. "Right. I bet you're one of those bullshit Dungeons and Douchebags roleplayers, aren't you?" He sighed, walking closer to her. "Can you point me the way to the nearest spaceport, please? My ship's having some problems with its hyperdrive."

"I'm not even sure if this place even has a spaceport, Lance." Cutter said from Lance's internal helmet speakers. "I didn't detect any signals whatsoever coming from this rock."

Lance switched off his external speakers so that only Cutter could hear what he was saying. "It's worth a shot. Either this is some lost colony, or this is some really elaborate roleplaying game."

[datadogie]

The man's words confused her. Dungeons and what? Skye thought, resisting the urge to run a hand through her hair in thought. Instead, that hand remained on the arrow, ready to release. The way the man was treating her, in her eyes, was passive aggressive. He had called her a bullshit roleplayer, or something like that, and mentioned dungeons. Was he insulting her? She was not a bullshit person. Was he trying to capture her? He was definitely mentioning a dungeon, no communication error there.

She began to feel a little scared on the inside. Skye had done nothing wrong! Was he some sort of captor from another land, going to try and steal her and make her work as a slave wherever he came from? That seemed the most likely, dressed in such threatening apparel and acting in such a manner he was. The stereotypical rough slave driver popped into her head.

He hadn't answered her question either, so he was clearly trying to remain anonymous. No, she wasn't going to-

Skye's hand released the arrow the second he took a step closer, without her even thinking about it. The conclusions she had come to had triggered the response. She froze, however, when the arrow struck the man's chestplate and did not penetrate, just fall to the ground. She reached back to pull a second arrow out of her quiver, going to fire this one at the man's faceplate if she got it drawn fast enough. Go for the eyes, her mind told her. The man had no eyes, but a faceplate, and she hoped it would be weaker there.

[Hostile]

Lance tensed as his HUD tracked the girl's fired arrow. It shot through the air and impacted his chestplate, before bouncing off with a donk. Lance stared at the girl, then at the arrow, then back at her, before he sighed. "Wow. Congratulations. Nice shot." His voice was practically dripping with sarcasm. "Seriously, I think you're taking this little game of yours too far." He was slightly miffed about the fact that the girl had just shot him with an arrow, as in those made of wood. He wasn't worried when the girl readied another arrow and aimed it right at his visor with fear in her eyes.

After all, his armour was composite duratanium, an alloyed metal of titanium and duranium. Duranium is a metal commonly found in asteroids around ringed planets or asteroid belts. It was a lightweight and sturdy metal with a high melting point, and combined with another metal with similar properties, titanium, the result was an almost unbreakable metal used in the construction of almost everything, from ships to armour plating. His visor, while not duratanium, was made from reinforced polyglass, glass that could withstand high heat and massive amounts of force. Even then the black bodysuit Lance wore beneath the metal was made from carbon nanotubes, also incredibly tough to penetrate. The arrow would have a snowball's chance in hell at actually piercing his armour.

"Look, I'm being reasonable here." Lance spoke, though it was clear that he was losing his patience. "Tell me where the nearest spaceport or city or town or whatever is, before I designate you as a legitimate threat and SHOOT YOU!" The last part came out harsher than he intended, but he wanted to get the message through the girl's head.

[datadogie]

Skye fought to keep her fear off of her face. The man did not care one bit about her arrows. As far as she could see, she didn't even dent his armour. "You think this is a game?" Skye asked, once he was done speaking. She took a deep breath, lowering her bow just slightly. "I understand I might have been a little hasty with my arrow, but you're the one that flew here in your ship, which I don't believe by the way, as ships cannot fly, creating a racket that probably scared off my food for the next few days."

"And also, I do not respect you landing here, and upon first meeting me acting so rude, referring to me as bullshit, and then asking me to point you to a space port or be shot. What is a space port? And what are you going to shoot me with, I see no arrows nor a bow."

Skye's eyes suddenly turned downcast. "I just don't understand. Why have you arrived so... Aggressive? So mean? Have you come to take our lands? To enslave us? Are you a warlord, or a king's scout?"

[Hostile]

Lance took a breath. Then another. And then one more. Then he lost it. "You DENSE MOTHERFU-" The mercenary stopped mid-sentence and gave an exaggerated sigh. He took a hand off his gun and rubbed his armoured temples. "Okay, okay, look." He stopped and stared at the girl. "I'll just play along for the sake of immersion, okay?" He relaxed and clamped his rifle behind his back once again, though he kept the power on and safeties off, just in case something else happened. "Let's put away our..." He glanced at the girl's bow. "Weapons, and cooperate, okay? I just want you to take me to the nearest point of civilisation. I don't care if it's a city or town or goddamn farming community, just take me there."

He held up his hands to show that they were empty, and walked up to her. At this point, he didn't care if the girl tried to shoot him again, because what would that do? Even his armour's paint was engineered to be resistant to damage. Once he was just a metre or so away, he noticed that he was much taller than her, and his armour added a few more inches to his height. He looked pretty imposing, his grey armour casting a shadow over the girl. "I really need a drink right now." He muttered.

[datadogie]

The man's words of sudden anger made her shudder a little. She wanted to be brave, to stand strong, but it seemed almost impossible when he who she faced looked to be stronger in durability and strength than a tree. As such, she took the man's words of putting away weapons as more of an order than a pleasantry. "F-Fine," Skye said, still downcast.

Skye turned and began to walk back the way she came, back to Avalon. As she walked, she could not help but worry. The man was so aggressive, so rude and mean, he clearly meant to hurt someone or something. Was taking him back to town really such a good idea? What if he sought to slaughter everyone there?

Even so, she had little choice. Skye began to quiver as she walked, knowing that she would be the one blamed for taking him into town. And she couldn't mislead him, if he found out she was lying... Skye didn't want to think about what could happen.

Taking the man the shortest route, Skye quickly found the road and walked, silent. She wasn't going to say a word to the man, not any more. She was going to take him to Avalon, and then tell the guards. She had a few friends, thanks to her father's past military connections, in the guards who would make sure that the man was locked up for a long time.

After a short walk, Skye heard the galloping of horses from behind her. She turned, and even from the short distance away could pick out the apparel of a bandit. She relayed this to he whom she was accompanying with the single word, "Bandits!" She unslung her bow, and prepared to fire.

[Hostile]

"'Bout fucking time." Lance grumbled as he followed the girl out of a forest and onto a cobblestone road. It wasn't really that wide, though maybe a small vehicle could speed through with little effort. He kept a foldable hoverbike back on the Renegade, but he didn't want to use it just yet. And so, the two of them walked down the path in silence. The landscape looked pretty normal, with vast fields and patches of trees here and there. It wasn't exactly Dover, but it resembled the general landscape of the colony world.

Just then, he heard the galloping of horses, followed by his companion shouting something along the lines of 'bandit'. Lance growled as he turned around, seeing a couple of men riding towards them on horses. The wore what appeared to be pieces of metal and cloth scrapped together. All of them were holding some sort of sharp object. He glanced at his companion, and saw her unsling her bow and prepare an arrow. Meanwhile, Lance simply stood unmoving as the 'bandits' closed the gap.

Then he began to laugh.

"Alright, seriously?" He said between breaths. "Fucking bandits? I mean, come on. This is one hell of a roleplaying game." Staring at them, he spread his arms wide. "Guys, come on. I'm not part of this. Can we just pause for a second and help me out here?" Lance asked, obviously not taking them seriously.

[datadogie]

Skye couldn't believe it. The man was not taking the bandits seriously, almost treating them like children in some sort of game. Can we just pause for a second and help me out here? She fought not to laugh. Whoever he was, he wasn't the brightest, it appeared. He seemed so strong, but perhaps his weakness was his intelligence, or his perception of threats.

Whatever it was, Skye could think of it later. She had to save herself from being robbed first, and talking with the bandits would get her nowhere. As the horses galloped closer, she released an arrow, and had the satisfaction of seeing it plunge into the chest of the leading rider. She changed targets, missing the second rider but hitting the third horse thanks to the tight group they were travelling in.

It only took a second longer for the riders to close in, and they didn't hesitate. Seeing that their next prey were actually fighting against them, they were inclined to kill for whatever they wanted to steal. They attempted to slash at the man in armour, and Skye herself had a horseman ride past her, missing her by an inch.

[Hostile]

Lance lowered his arms when he saw that the bandits weren't stopping. "Oh, come on. Seriously-" He was cut off when one of the bandits rode past him and attempted to slash him with whatever he was holding. Well, it was time to take them seriously. Sticking his arm out, he caught a bandit rider by the throat. With one swift movement, he plucked the unlucky bandit off his steed and slammed him into the ground. Several cracks followed as the bandit hit the rocks, knocking him out. The other bandits froze.

Now sufficiently pissed off, Lance reached for his pistol and raised it into the air. A series of deafening cracks followed, the 10mm rounds breaking the sound barrier, coupled with the sheer amount of energy released through the weapon's magnetic coils. That done, Lance lowered his G121 and spun it several times. "Alright. Enough games." The anger in his voice was present. "Go away with your bullshit roleplaying and tell me what planet this is," As fast as lightning, he raised his gun again and pointed it at the nearest bandit. "OR I FUCKING SHOOT YOU! I'M NOT AFRAID TO SPLATTER YOUR BRAINS ALL OVER THE DAMN PATH!" Lance shouted, his helmet speakers amplifying his voice to terrifying levels. He had enough bullshit for one day.

[datadogie]

Skye was impressed with the man's strength, managing to take a rider off of his own horse as he rode past. It brought a small amount of happiness to her that she wasn't just walking with a useless person who could barely defend themselves from a fly. Skye suddenly dropped her bow and held her hands to her ears when whatever the man was holding began to crack very loudly. What is that!? she thought, her ears ringing.

The bandits appeared quite fearful of the weapon that the armoured man was holding, however Skye found out the hard way that not all of them were so dumb as to stare at it. The bandits all had their hands up, in surrender, and one of them quickly answered the armoured man's question. "A-Avalon," he said, his voice fearful.

The young woman was just starting to recover when a bandit seized the opportunity. He certainly did not like the fact that Skye had shot arrows and drawn the blood of one of his friends, and so was inclined to return the favour. Skye was barely able to avoid the sudden lunge of the bandit, with his dagger out like it was some kind of spear. It stabbed into her side briefly, causing her cry out. Her hand reached down to the sheath of her own dagger, and threw it, making it embed in his chest. The other bandits watched, hoping they didn't get shot, as both Skye and the bandit collapsed to the ground.

[Hostile]

Lance paused to consider the answer for a while and lowered his gun, before raising it again with renewed fury. "LIES! This ain't Avalon. You know how I know, huh?" He asked, though it was more of a rhetorical statement. Nonetheless, the bandits all shook their heads. "BECAUSE I WAS BORN THERE!" Lance suddenly bellowed once again, the bandits all scrambling away in fear. "This place looks nothing like Avalon... well, maybe, from the ground. But nothing here matches. So I'm giving you another chance. You tell me the truth, or-"

He spun around as he heard his companion cry out in pain, seeing her drop to the floor, along with another bandit. The bandit had a knife in his chest. Okay, now he knew they weren't kidding around. Turning around again, he holstered his pistol and pulled out his rifle. "I warned you..." He aimed it at the bandits and depressed the trigger. Immediately, a hail of 8.41x63mm rounds was unleashed from the barrel, piercing through the flesh and bones of the bandits, sending blood and viscera splattering all over the ground. Within five seconds, every single bandit had been gunned down. "Fucking drugged-up lunatics." Lance muttered, turning around and walking towards his companion.

He crouched down and kept his rifle, examining her wounds. Scans showed that it was just a flesh wound, but she was bleeding quite a bit. Sighing, he reached into one of his pouches and pulled out a small, pistol-like object with a screen. He pointed it at her wound. "Applying bioheal." A pencil-thin beam of light suddenly shot out and surrounded the wound. Then, it suddenly seemed to repair it, closing the skin as bacteria was killed, blood cells replaced, and tissue regenerated. It only took a few seconds for the wound to be fully healed, not even leaving a scar. That done, he stashed his device away and helped the girl to her feet. "Let's just keep moving. This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder."

[datadogie]

Yet another surprise happened. What felt like hours of pain, but in reality was less than a minute, vanished as Skye's companion seemed to heal her wound with some strange object that shot... something at her. She couldn't really get a good look at it. Looking at the wrecked bodies of the bandits, she felt sick. "I... What... How did you heal me?" She asked, trying to take her mind off of the bodies. Skye turned and started to walk again, only stopping to retrieve her dagger from the body of he whom she had thrown it at.

The man had shown nothing when he shot the bandits. They hadn't even done anything, they were standing in surrender. Only one bandit had attacked, yet he had slaughtered them all without remorse. Her theory that he was going to kill everyone or try to enslave everyone at the town of Avalon grew. She saw no compassion from this man, nothing at all. Skye's father lived in Avalon, and even though she disliked him, he was still her father, and she loved him. And, she had friends there.

In her mind, she had to stop him from getting to Avalon.

She still had the dagger in her hand. With the speed and accuracy only a ranger could have, Skye spun, throwing the dagger directly at the helmet of the man. She almost knew it wasn't going to do anything more than piss him off, but it was mainly to give him one more thing to focus on as she herself joined the knife, throwing herself at the man, attempting to grab the rifle he had in hopes to turn it on him. "YOU WILL NOT GET TO AVALON! YOU WON'T HURT ANYONE THERE!" Skye screamed, at the top of her lungs. "GO BACK TO SPACE PORT OR WHATEVER YOU CALL IT, AND LEAVE US IN PEACE!"

[Hostile]

The mercenary said nothing, even as the girl tossed her knife at him. He didn't say anything as he simply reached out and punted the knife away. He didn't say anything even as she attempted to throw herself at his rifle. His powered exoskeleton was tough, being built with a recoil dampener, and it increased his strength so that he could go up against three or more normal people. Lance simply pushed the girl away, then with one hand, grabbed the front of her clothing and lifted her up to his eye level. "Look." His voice was quiet, but there was still untold fury behind it. "Those bandits tried to hurt us, hurt you. They were probably going to kill you if I wasn't there. I don't know if you're being serious or not, but this clearly isn't a roleplaying game anymore." He dropped her and stared down at her. "So just bring me to this 'Avalon' or whatever so that I can get some repairs, and I'll leave." He turned around and calmly reloaded his rifle, not sparing the corpses a passing glance.

"I think that was a little too harsh, don't you think?" Cutter finally spoke after deciding to remain quiet the whole time. "She's probably terrified." Lance said nothing, and simply slammed the magazine into his gun. "Uh, Lance? It's probably not a good time right now, but I've taken optical scans, heart rate, everything that girl has for any sign of lies, but, uh..."

"Out with it." Lance interrupted, clamping his gun to his back.

"Well, she's not lying."

"What do you mean?"

"She doesn't know what a spaceport is. Hell, she doesn't even know what a rifle is."

The mercenary sighed. "At this point, I'm not surprised any more. I have to get off this planet."

"Maybe I should talk to her."

"Do whatever you want. I don't care."

Permission granted, Cutter appeared in his tiny holographic form right in front of the girl. "Hey, sorry about that. My friend here's been having a rough day. Don't worry, he usually doesn't live up to his threats. But really, we need you to show us the way to the town. I promise he won't kill anyone there." He turned to Lance. "Promise?"

Lance simply grunted in response.

[datadogie]

Skye fought even as she was lifted off of the ground, before she slowly started to realize that her efforts were wasted. She felt slightly insulted by his words: She was a fully trained ranger, born into the business of being one. If she couldn't take on a few bandits, she deserved to be a slave, receiving a whipping for every wrong and right. Of course she would look like she needed help if she was the weaker out of the pair of them: When a cat is paired with a wolf, the wolf always looks stronger, even though the cat has it's own skills.

Once she was dropped, the young woman moved over to grab her dagger back once more. Grumbling to herself, Skye prepared to continue the short walk to Avalon, however she was interrupted by yet another surprise when someone appeared right in front of her! Skye would have been even more surprised if she hadn't hit her surprise quota for the day. Sure, maybe it was a bit surprising, however at the current point in time Skye half expected the man to suddenly sprout wings and fly.

"Fine," Skye said. She walked around the man that had appeared in front of her, before stopping, her back facing them. "By the way, it would be nice to know some names." She started to walk once more.