5: The Snake in the Grass (1/3)

"Whoever they were, I doubt they could have survived for 16 years... Come on, help me... Get... This..." The Archmain's help grabbed the ship and brought it up to the surface, when opening the engine module and Cal found himself being familiar with how to fix it, "that's odd, that's odd." Phen thought Cal was on about the shipping modules but Cal told her that he recognised all of this, Cal's head began to experience immense pain, and Cal began to see dark imagery; A war, blade wielders and a mysterious figure being shot while helping a child ... Evacuate. It only got worse until Phen snapped him back into reality. "What is it? What did you see?" He couldn't say anything to Phen so he just told her, "Just a bad headache, it'll wear off." Phen didn't like Cal's story but went with it nonetheless, Cal and Phen spent 3 hours fixing the ship only to find that it needed something, "an energy goo." Phen didn't understand why Cal needed something like that, "normal fuel or ink can be useful but ships like these require special goo that can be found in... Planets... Like these."

"What type of goo are you looking for? Many creatures reside on this planet and some rarely produce goo... Except... Zenthezine goo." Phen found a trail of Zenthezine goo leading to its nest where they found countless bodies of soldiers absorbed in their energy, all that is left is their pale bodies with their blank eyes. "Rest in peace." Cal went to all of the dead bodies and said "rest in peace" to all of them, they looked up and saw that there were two that were Ku and a familiar-looking girl, "please ... Help (gasping for air) Phen shot the string that kept them captive.

As they were both freed, Ku went into Cal's arms while the girl slapped him and shouted, "where were you? I was almost Zenthezine food because ... Of you... Wait for a second... You are not one of us... But you look like one of us... And you even have that badge... You can't be... So there are others." Cal decided to grab Phen and Ku and leave the girl by herself but she kept following them until they went back to the repaired ship to which she gasped, "you can't be!" Cal had enough and asked her, "enough of the riddles and tell me what you are talking about!" Then a large explosion came from the Zenthezine's nest and they heard screams, "we need to get out of here." Cal Phen and Ku went inside the ship except for the girl as she ran back to the nest, "damn it!!" Cal ran after her.

Only to find her stopping in front of a new fresh corpse, she then went on her knees as she was traumatised, the Zenthezine finishing her last victim went to attack the girl but Cal went in her way and use the Arkomanan blade that the stranger gave to Cal. He used it to protect the girl but the Zenthezine was attacked by the Hymeno Locust, it saw Cal and the girl but dismissed them by using its insect tail to throw them into the ship. Cal saw Ku being tied up by Phen, "what?! He tried to attack me and take the ship for himself." Ku begged Cal to get him out but he refused and punched Ku in the face, knocking him out.

"Right choice, now let's get out of here." Before doing that, Cal said goodbye to all of the creatures of Aaakwla, after that he, Phen and the girl along with Ku left the planet into outer space but Cal realized something, "who got the goo?" Phen denied that she got it and Ku denied it as well, "so then..." Cal didn't have time to talk about it and they were off to another planet only to find themselves a map and an audio log. They first looked at the map and saw all the planets of the Andromeda galaxy, Cal commented it was, "beautiful." It started to mark all the planets that Cal had went, from Beydia to Aaakwla, "wait I have been to other planets and it only marks the plane that you have been in, it's like it knows you or that you may have a connection to this somehow." Cal denied all of that and told Phen that Venom had raised him, "are you sure? What if you... Lived a life before meeting Venom or that amphibian for that matter, maybe there's more than meets the eye."

Cal turned on the audio to ignore Phen on what she was saying, a cloaked figure whose voice sounded familiar. "My friend, if you are reading this then I have met my end, first I had to go into hiding because of the war and I abandoned and erased my student's memory, I can only hope that someone can fix the order, many of my brothers and sisters died by the hands of them and many remain, I fear my rime will end soon in Aaakwla, whoever you may be, I entrust my message to you." The audio ended leaving Cal saying that he was going to bed, he made an excuse just to cover up something, why would he do such a thing?