Chapter 1: Anguish
Chapter 2: Uncertainty
Chapter 3: Questions
Chapter 4: Lament
Chapter 5: Grind
Chapter 6: Pack (You are here)
Chapter 7: Reunite (Not Proofread)
Epilogue

"So is this what our moon looks like up close?" Shia asked as they traversed the surface, their armors making prints in the soft dust. "I don't know why, but I was expecting... more."

"Well, it's not exactly your moon." Khaun corrected. "But yeah, it looks similar."

Shia, and his two Avali friends were traversing the surface of a moon. As they had said, not his world's moon. But one similar to his. They were clad in metallic armored suits, complete with  see-through helmets. Shia himself wore a similar set, one more suited for his own body. It came with a helmet that was custom-tooled for his ears, but the back ends had an upward point, for reasons that Shia did not understand.

There were bars, numbers, words and symbols in front of his face. He had to admit, it had been very weird and off-putting seeing his 'Heads-Up Display' when he first saw it, but by the time they'd arrived at the base, he'd gotten used to it.

"Alright, we're here." Eilumi announced as a large building came into view. "Cut the chatter, and keep your eyes and ears peeled. Especially your ears."

Shia nodded. This wasn't some sort of vacation. The three of them were here on a mission. 

A large metallic door opened with a hiss. Some air rushed out into the cold vacuum around them before they entered, and came to a second door as the first one closed behind them. As the second one opened up behind, Shia looked on in wonderment at what he saw. 

Computers, and lots of them. A bit like the bridge of the ship, but somehow less... rounded. And a bit dirtier looking.

"Okay, now that we're in the facility, let's go over the op order one last time." Eilumi ordered with a serious tone. "According to the contract, this Erchius mine has suddenly gone dark, and we've been contracted to investigate. I don't know what's going on here, so as I said earlier, cut the chatter, and keep a sharp eye out for anything out of the ordinary."

Shia was not exactly sure what 'out of the ordinary' meant here, since he didn't know what 'ordinary' looked like around here. 

"Let me see if I can't pull something off one of these terminals." Khaun said as he approached one. He pressed some buttons on one of the 'terminals', aka one of those weird metallic boxy-things on the ground. What Khaun got was...

"...Nothing." Khaun sighed. "They aren't powered on."

"Wait, what about this one?" Shia said as he wandered over to one. One that still had... something across the flat surface of it. He reached out for one of the buttons.

"Shia wait!" Eilumi reached out a paw to stop him. But the Shinx's covered paw had already pressed the button. Suddenly, dim lights brightened, the other monitors came on, and the hiss of a metallic door opening could be heard. 

"Oh, well. That looks good." Eilumi sighed with relief. "Khaun?"

"Already on it." The other avali typed on some buttons on the keypad in front of him. "Humans and their blasted keyboards and monitors. Why can't they just get neural jacks like us? It'd make things so much easier." Shia heard him grumble under his breath.

"Okay, so, this facility has undergone a lockdown." Khaun announced as he looked back towards his two other crew members. "Unfortunately, I can't ascertain a reason why. However, the good news is that the reserve power is back online."

"I can see that." Eilumi deadpanned. "Welp, so much for doing this the easy way."

"Indeed." Khaun sighed in irritation. "We'll have to press on. See if we can't find any employees or something."

"I'm honestly surprised there aren't any up here right now." Eilumi remarked. 

'Yeah, now that he brings it up, that is a good point' Shia thought to himself. Something about all of this felt odd to him. And that was a part of it, but he didn't think of it until now.

"Alright, we'll have to go in deeper and see what's going on. As always, keep an eye out for anything suspicious... something doesn't feel right here." Eilumi ordered. Everyone nodded, and followed him.

They looked all around the surface terminal of the mine, but found no one, save for a few strange metallic beings wandering on some sort of bizarre continuous elongated wheels. Something Eilumi identified as 'security bots'. Eilumi had said he found it odd that they'd been activated, but weren't hostile. Shia was happy for the latter, as he was not sure what they were capable of.

"Can't get this door open." Eilumi grunted as they came to a dead end. "And some of the power is still out, so the way into the mine is still locked..."

"Vent?" Khaun suggested as he looked up into a large entrance in the ceiling. Shia wondered what they were going on about.

"Alright." Eilumi turned to Shia. "Shia, this might be a good time to test out that 'double jump' tech you've been equipped with. Jump in the air, and then use the tech. It will give you a small mid-air burst at your feet, enough to propel you high enough to make it into that vent up there. If you need help, we'll pull you up."

"Uh... okay?" Shia said as he scratched his head. He remembered being briefed about these 'techs' they'd added to his suit. But he had no real chance to familiarize himself before they'd gone on this mission.

"We'll go first, to show you what that looks like." Khaun said. He looked up, and jumped up, but just short of the vent to make it up into it. But as Shia watched, a small, sudden burst erupted from the armored Avali's feet, propelling him high enough to make it into the vent above. He heard the clank of metal inside as the Avali disappeared from view.

Eilumi went next, likewise jumping into the vent and using his 'double jump' to make it to the top. Unlike Khaun, however, he did not disappear from view. He merely turned around and looked down at Shia from the vent.

"Alright, your turn."

Shia nodded. This was his first time using this. 'Please work.' He thought to himself. He jumped up, and thought to himself 'double jump.'

He felt his body being propelled upward just as he was beginning to fall, easily reaching the top of the vent... a little too easily in fact, as he hit the top of it with a loud 'clang'. 

His arms flew out to grab the edge of the large vent. He saw Eilumi come over and offer his arm. Shia took it, and with Eilumi's help, pulled himself up into the metallic vent.

"You need to learn a bit of control." Eilumi commented. "But still, first time and all."

"Yeah." Shia replied. "Thank the Nexus for the helmet. Else that would have hurt." Yes, he'd even adopted their habit of using 'The Nexus' in lieu of 'The Maze.'

'Fuck The Maze, in all honesty. What has it ever done for me?!' Shia thought to himself on a tangent for a moment, before returning to the reality at hand.

"Where's Khaun?" Shia asked once he realized that Khaun wasn't there with him.

"He's gone up ahead." Eilumi explained. "Turns out this vent doesn't go very far. Just over the closed door."

Shia followed Eilumi through the thankfully very short vent, and dropped down on the other side. 

He looked around, finding himself and the others in a dark room save for one very odd glowing source of light.

"Hey Eilumi." Shia asked as he reached out for it. "What's with these glowing purple crystals?"

"Don't touch that." Khaun quickly told him. The Shinx quickly retracted his hand. "Those are Erchius Crystals."

"Erchius crystals?" Shia questioned. "You mean the things they mine here?" 

"Yup." Eilumi confirmed. "They refine that into a liquid and then it's used to power ships. Or at least, that's one of the things used to power ships. Ours takes a bigger variety." Eilumi explained. "For example, we prefer algae biofuel. Because then you don't get this kind of nonsense." 

"Speaking of this 'kind of nonsense.'" Khaun interrupted, "That's not a good sign. They should be deeper into the mine, not up here."

Shia took a closer look and saw something off about it. "Hey guys, you think we should follow this hole?" He asked, as soon as they realized that the crystals were surrounding a massive hole in the wall.

"No." Eilumi commanded. "That hole is not part of the facility, and we don't know what's in there. But do keep an eye on it."

"Yes sir." Shia responded.

"Okay, so, I found a pair of switches here." Khaun announced from a ways away. "According to my readout, if we throw these switches, it should restart the generators and open up the rest of the doors."

"Alright. Throw them." Eilumi ordered.

'I have a bad feeling about this.' Shia thought to himself as he looked into the hole. 

There was a loud hum as the lights came back online. The doors opened. 

"Welp, powers back online, now let’s-"

Eilumi was cut off by a growling from inside the hole in the wall.

"Hold up. Boogie." Eilumi announced as he extended his hand down and off to the side of himself. He drew his pistol, as did Khaun. Seeing the other two do it, Shia pulled out his pistol and knife as well.

Wet, sloppy footfalls rapidly made their way through the tunnels. Shia gripped his knife as it drew near. But nothing prepared him for what finally came out: Some sort of large, bipedal, pink, disgusting... thing. In Shia's mind, it looked like an unsuccessful mating attempt between a muk and an espeon. To say he was horrified by this monstrosity was an understatement, and he wanted to gag just from looking at it.

He silently thanked himself for the helmet, as he really didn't want to know what this thing smelled like.

Suddenly, the creature turned its head towards them. It let out a gurgled roar, and barreled towards them. 

"Hostile contact!" Khaun yelled as he trained his gun on the creature. Before he could, however, Shia closed the gap. Gripping his knife, he drove it into the creature's chest. The creature gave a distorted scream in pain as Shia withdrew the knife, stabbing it again and again in rapid succession, just as he'd been trained. A couple of bullets whizzed by his head as Khaun and Eilumi both shot it into the head, spattering pink matter and blood onto the wall behind it. With a hard push of his knife, Shia pushed the creature away, the knife leaving the last stab wound as it fell lifeless upon the floor.

"Are you okay, Shia?" Eilumi asked worriedly as he and Khaun both came over to it. 

"I'm fine." Shia replied as he caught his breath. "It just took me by surprise." 

The two of them waited by his side.

"Just..." Shia panted as he regained his bearings. "Just what the fuck was that thing?!" 

"I don't rightly know." Eilumi replied.

"Some sort of mutated... Erchius creature?" Khaun suggested with a shrug.

There was a roar from the now open door. They looked up into the hallway, and saw four more of these creatures headed straight for them. This time they were far enough away from Shia that he could use his pistol. He aimed it the best he could and pulled the trigger. The gauss pistol let out a bang as it fired one of its slugs. A bit of pink flesh was ripped off the shoulder of one of the creatures. Shia had just grazed it.

They hadn't trained him that heavily on gun usage, so he was still new to using them. Gunnery was not something he had gotten the hang of yet.

His two packmates fared better. They aimed their pistols and fired, the two of them putting bullets in the 'heads' of these monsters. The beasts fell onto the floor as the two others pressed on. Shia fired again. This time, the bullet hit one of the legs, causing the creature to fall to the floor.

Unfortunately, there were four of them. The remaining monster closed the gap quickly and leapt at Shia. In the heat of the moment, he activated another one of his techs. "Dodge". It worked almost like the double jump, but instead of a burst at the feet, it caused him to quickly shift to the side, and the creature's well-aimed leap quickly turned into a clumsy pratfall upon the floor. 

With the opportunity now open, and his target almost point-blank, he aimed his pistol again, and shot the creature in the back of the head before it could get the opportunity to get back on his feet.

Shia let out a sigh of relief.

Just then however, he felt something grab his leg. He looked down, and saw a form of one of the pink monsters grasped around it. 
The one he'd shot in the leg. In the heat of the moment, he'd forgotten about it - and now it looked like he was about to pay for his error as the creature's maw opened, ready to attempt to take a bite through the Shinx's armor and take a leg for a leg.

But it did not happen. Before it could, a black, thin spear slammed into the back of the creature's head, causing it to fall dead almost immediately.

Shia looked up as he pulled his leg away from the now lifeless monster, and saw Elilumi holding the other end of the spear. 

"Good thing I decided to bring this along for close encounters." He grunted as he pulled it out, a bit of the disgusting creature's blood coating the long tip of the weapon.

"Alright everyone, listen up." Eilumi ordered as everyone stood to attention. "The situation has changed. This mine has been infected by some sort of erchius mutants. Our mission is now to seek out the source of this infection, while also keeping an eye out for any survivors. Understood?" 

"Yes sir!" Both Shia and Khaun replied. 

They proceeded deeper into the mine. In the rooms below, more of these creatures patrolled the once productive caverns, filled with machinery that was now no longer operating. Luckily, they had managed to be far enough away to get the drop on them this time, and took them down quickly. Eilumi had just finished putting a bullet through the brain of one and was in the mid dle of changing out a magazine when a voice rang out.

"S-S-Stay back! I-I got a weapon!!"  They didn't know who it was, but it was clearly male. And not one of the monsters.

"Possible survivor. On him!" Eilumi shouted as he finished loading his gun. The other two quickly followed. 

Shia saw more of those weird mutants, but more importantly, something else. A lone human, armed with what appeared to be a sledgehammer, swinging it around and trying to keep the mutants at bay.

"D-Don't come near me!" He shouted scaredly, shaking in position. The monsters had him surrounded from one side, and at any moment, it looked like one of them was about to strike.

Shia and his allies wasted no time. Khaun raised his pistol, aiming true as the head of one was split in twain. Eilumi leapt forward, and impaled a second on his spear. Shia, in the heat of the moment, did something he hadn't done in a while, he used one of his pokemon attacks on the mutant: thundershock. The electricity leapt from his armored, outstretched hand, and collided with the slimy pink being. The flesh popped and sizzled and turned black as the creature convulsed. Bits of flesh exploded as it inadvertently leapt back and onto the floor, its convulses only stopping once the electricity subsided.

'Wow' Shia commented to himself as he looked at his paws. 'Has it actually been that long since I used that?'
 
Normally, a Shinx's electricity came from the cheeks. However, Eilumi had told him the suit had been modified to re-route it through his hands, allowing it to 'shoot' the electricity more accurately. From what he'd seen, he hadn't lied.

His thoughts were interrupted by the suited human miner turning around. 

"A-are you the rescue team?" The human shuttered. 
"Yes, you could say that." Eilumi replied.
"T-Thank you! You guys saved my life-" 
"Head to the surface," Khaun interrupted him. "You'll be safer there."
"R-Right. Thank you! I owe you my life!" The human made a small bow before he ran back the way he came.

At that moment, Shia realized something. This was the first time he'd ever just saved someone's life. He'd saved his friends from bad mons every now and then, but it wasn't the same as... this. 

And it felt good.

Before he could bask in the feeling any longer, the three of them were on their way again. They ran into more of these things, and once again, Shia found himself using electricity against them. 

"Seems they're quite vulnerable to your electric attacks." Khaun noted. 

"Yeah." Shia replied. "From how slimy they are, I guessed they must be part water, so I thought to use an electric attack against that one attacking the human back there. Seems to be super effective against them."

"Good observation. Keep doing that." Eilumi instructed, getting a nod from Shia.

They continued on, descending deeper and deeper into the mine. Groups of beings continued to attack them, and they learned that they did indeed have some sort of ranged attack. At one point, one of them extended a melted 'hand', and ejected more of its viscous fluid from it at high speed in an attempt to spray the three of them with its bodily matter. Thankfully, it missed its target, and they were able to take it down shortly after. Shia observed the damage the attack had done to the metal floor, and saw that it appeared to be not unlike an ekan's acid attack. The suits they had could protect against it, but not for long.

After crawling through a hole in a collapsed part of the mine, the three of them came across another door. Shia moved towards it to open it.

"Wait." Eilumi instructed. Shia froze where he was. "Let's see what's behind there, first."

"Er, how are we going to do that with the door closed?" Shia asked.

"Simple. Switch to heat vision." Eilumi ordered. The two of their helmets changed color, and Shia, having now remembered that was a thing, did as instructed.

When they looked past the now still closed door, Shia gawked at what he saw, and was very glad that Eilumi had thought to stop him before he could open the door. Heat signatures showed at least 20, maybe 30 of the things. Far too many to simply charge in without some sort of plan.

"Damn." Eilumi muttered. "There's too many for us to take all at once."

"So what do we do?" Khaun asked. "Go back?"

"Can't." Eilumi replied. "This is the only way deeper into the mine. We tried the other door back up there, but it's jammed."

The three of them put their hands to the underside of their helmets in thought.

"Grenade?" Eilumi proposed.

"Still too many, and they're too spread out." Khaun shot the idea down.

"Guys..." Shia began, and the two avalis looked at him intently through their helmets. "I have an idea."

"Alright little guy, go on." Eilumi said encouragingly. 

"I'm going to gather them all around me." Shia said seriously. "Then, I'll use an electric attack on them."

"Y-You can't be serious!" Eilumi exclaimed. "That's way too dangerous."

"If this works, I'll be fine. Hopefully." Shia said. "But I need you to trust me..."

"I... Okay." Eilumi said. "But if this goes foul, I'm going to try and pull you out."

"I'm counting on it." Shia said, unsure if Eilumi could see the weak smile through the helmet. "Oh, and I'd suggest you guys stand back a bit. It's going to get messy." He quickly added.

"I... I don't like this idea." Khaun grumbled. "But it's the best we've got."
"I just hope you know what you're doing." Eilumi added worriedly.

With a quick count and a nod, they opened the door. Khaun and Eilumi got their attention, gunning a few of them down, while Shia charged in with his knife, quickly earning himself the center of the monster's attention. He slashed a mutant's throat, and, after a few shots, legged another one. However, he quickly ran out of ammo as the others ran towards him. It took all of his self control not to use a thundershock or similar attack right there and then as he saw the horde close in on him.

'No... I need all the electricity I can muster for what I'm going to do.' He thought as he began to charge himself, gaining as much power as he could as he held off the swarm.

Sure enough though, in mere moments, the mutants had their attention almost completely upon the armored Shinx. They quickly surrounded him, even jumped over one another in an attempt to swarm the poor boy and rip him to pieces. 

'Perfect.' He thought as they came mere inches from his face. At that moment, he let loose the biggest discharge he could. A wave of electricity washed over the mutated monsters, their bodies sizzilng, convulsing, and some even vaporizing under the sheer voltage. 

Shia fell to the floor, panting in exhaustion as the remaining sparks of electricity died. His ears could barely register the screams of the few remaining stragglers, nor the gunshots of his two comrades finishing them off. 

"By the Nexus, Shia!" Eilumi exclaimed. "Are... Are you alright?!"

"I'm... I'm fine." Shia wheezed. "I just... need... a moment... to get my breath."

"I thought they'd gotten you!" Khaun cried.
"Yeah, don't scare us like that!" Eilumi said as well.

"S-Sorry... Had to... no other way." He panted.

The two let him catch his breath. Once he felt like he was ready, he put one knee forward. He felt his two friends help him up.

"Thanks." Shia said as he rose to his feet.

"It's what pack members are for." Eilumi responded reassuringly.

Once back on his feet, they pushed on, making their way up this large cavern they had found themselves in, and two doors on either side. One they found led back to more huddled human survivors, and a further door that just led back to the locked door they had tried to go through in the first place. The survivors took the opportunity to use it to flee to the surface, while Shia and his buddies were forced to head back to the other door.

As they pushed on, they did encounter a few more of these moontants, but none to the same extent as before. It seemed that the large cavern that Shia had used discharge in had held the majority of them.

Past another group of survivors, they dropped down into another part of the mine. However, they were in for a nasty surprise. Without thinking, they flipped a switch to a nearby door, and in front of them, was not a moontant like they expected, but rather, some sort of weird moontant-like creature with the helmet and clothing of one of the miners. Like some sort of half-mutated human. It was wielding a large hammer.

WIth a gurgled yell, it hulked forward, as it wasn't able to run like its bare-skinned brethren. The crew wasted no time, the two avali opened fire upon it. Shia, being the closest one to it, gave it a thundershock, hoping to put it down quickly like the others they had encountered. However, the attack seemed to fizzle out, doing nothing at all to it as it raised its hammer. Shia barely managed to leap back in time as it swung its hammer sideways.

'That was too close!' Shia thought to himself as he rejoined the others, who were likewise having little success. As the creature approached Khaun, he leapt up, back up into the shaft from which they had come just as the hammer came down on where the avali had stood. 

Shia felt an armored pair of hands grab his waist, and, before he could even say anything, felt himself being carried back into the shaft by Eilumi. The creature roared in anger as it looked up at the three of them. They couldn't see its face due to the helmet, but if they could, Shia imagined it would have a look of pure rage.

"Okay, now a grenade." Eilumi said as he took out one of his grenades, pressed the button, and dropped it below. The mutant looked at the strange device. It picked it up, and inspected it closely as it beeped. Exactly three seconds later, the grenade exploded in the creature's face with a loud bang. Debris, mutated blood and flesh sprayed everywhere upon the walls as what was left of the monster's corpse fell to the floor.

"What... " Shia gasped in disbelief as he saw the damage. "What was that?!"

"I don't know." Eilumi replied.

"It looked like it was some sort of infected human miner." Khaun added in with his own guess.

"I-Infected?!" Shia stammered. "This stuff.. It can turn... people... into that?!"

"I'll have to give us a once-over once we're back." Khaun said. "I do find it odd though that we didn't encounter these sooner, and in higher numbers."

That did little to reassure the shinx as the three of them dropped back down into the now thoroughly messy room. There were two doors on opposite ends of the room, one leading to a small room where the infected miner had just come out of with its own door opposite of it, and another one leading somewhere else. Eilumi tried to go to the former.

"Great. Another locked door." Eilumi groaned. It looked like they had to go the other way. They went through a small series of doors and halls, and at the end of it, they opened one more door.

What they came across... was something they did not expect in the slightest.

It was a well-lit barracks room, currently occupied by three humans. Two pairs of clothes were strewn about in the room. One human sat alone, looking forlornly as he watched the other two.

The other two, a man and a woman, were on a nearby bed, completely naked. The man was on top, with the woman below him, her legs widely spread as the man's hips pistoned his rod into her spread depths, all the while her sizable breasts bounced in the air. The bed rocked and creaked as their bodies moved. The two of them were moaning up a storm, making it apparent that they had been at this for quite some time before the trio's arrival. 

A blush formed on all six of their faces as the group entered the room. The two on the bed only paused for a second before continuing with their rough rutting. 

"What? If we're going to die down here, we might as well have a good fuck before the end, right?" The man rationalized his actions irritably. The woman simply gave an 'mmhmm!', not even paying the newcomers any mind.

"You're free to join in, of course." The man said as he continued to plow the only female in the room.

Seeing this happening suddenly in front of him, was more than enough to make a certain part of Shia excited. He felt his own dick pressing uncomfortably against the crotch of his armor. The sudden offer didn't help either. Shia wondered what Eilumi would do, or if-

"Keep it together, Shia." Khaun grumbled to him.

"Maybe some other time." Eilumi said.

"Eh, suit yourself, I guess you can be just like Bob there." The nude human said dismissively as he tended to his business below him. This caused the other man in the room to look at the three of them.

"Wait, so are you three the rescue squad?" 'Bob' suddenly asked. "I thought Lethia made it clear that they weren't sending anyone?"

"Lethia?" Eilumi asked. "Shit, no wonder this place is in such a wreck."

Shia didn't know what he meant by that.

"Anyway, yes, you could say that." Khaun added in. "But we need to proceed deeper into the mine. Would you happen to know how to open the door down there?"

"Back room, there's a switch. That opens the door. Wouldn't advise it though, as there's more mutants down there."

"Thanks." Eilumi said as he headed back there, only to emerge a second later. "We'll... just leave you to do your business here." 

"Much appreciated!" The naked man replied as the three left the room before the situation could get any more awkward for everyone involved.

Part of Shia had wished that Eilumi had elected to join in, and allowed him to do so as well. Though, he had to admit, this was not really the time and place for it.

Once they made their way back down the long hallway and got the images of what they'd just seen out of their head for the moment, they opened the previously locked door and saw another large cavern. Fortunately, it wasn't full of moontants like the last time.
Unfortunately, it instead played host to another one of those mutated miners they had encountered earlier.

"Yeah, I don't think so." Eilumi said as he took out another grenade, and tossed it at the being before it could spot them. The monster reached down, picked it up, and upon seeing the three of them, let out a roar and shuffled towards them, grenade in hand - but it didn't get too far before it exploded into a chunky, messy paste.

However, the commotion soon led to another one climbing over the side of one of the scaffolding. It shuffled its way towards them just as Eilumi reached for another grenade.

"Crap, out of 'nades." Shia heard him say as the monster approached.
"Looks like we do this the hard way" Khaun said as he took out his pistol. Shia and Eilumi nodded, the former drawing his knife, while the other drew his spear. 
Eilumi distracted the creature with his spear, getting its attention while Khaun tried to plink it with his pistol, while Shia snuck around the back. The shinx remembered how Eilumi had taught him to use the knife, and from the rear, he stabbed and cut at the hulking figure as if it was one of the dummies.
He knew by now not to waste his time with electric attacks, as unlike the pink ones, these were apparently all but immune to them.

The monstrosity turned around and raised its hammer to strike the shinx dead, only for Eilumi to grab its attention again by poking it with its spear. The two of them divided the brainless beast's attention this way, Shia attacking from the back when Eilumi had its attention, while the latter went in with the spear when it tried to draw its attention to Shia.

They stabbed, poked, slashed, shot, and cut the beast with great effort. It soon fell to one knee, its hammer dropping out of its hand. Khaun, now out of bullets, took the opportunity to run in. He quickly kicked the hammer away from the beast and drew his own knife, joining Shia in slashing whatever life was left in it out of it. Eilumi leapt up into the air. Using both his species's natural jumping abilities and his double-jump tech, he gained as much air as he could. When he reached the roof of the cavern, the avali pushed off from it, speeding down, spear first, towards the creature's head. The spear severed the creature's spinal cord from the force of the impact, finally killing it and causing it to slump down onto the ground.

WIth some effort, Eilumi pulled his spear away and the three of them, now tired from the fight, panted with exhaustion. They rested there for a few moments, before they continued.

"Let's hope we don't come across any more of these things." Shia said hopefully.

Luckily for them, they didn't. In fact, they didn't encounter anything else as they dropped down a large mineshaft. The three of them were beginning to wonder if they were even going the right way - at least until they entered a door which, thanks to a broken catwalk, caused them to drop roughly into a very large room. 

"Oww!" Shia whined as his armored head met the rough cave floor. He did not have wings like the others, so he hadn't been able to right himself when he fell. As his two companions landed beside him, they reached toward him, but he extended an arm out in refusal, tacticity telling them that he was fine.

After they had gotten their bearings, they looked around in the room they found themselves in. It sported a series of catwalks surrounding what appeared to be a giant floating purple crystal, with some sort of thing below it.

Shia could make out... something, or rather some things, inside of it, but he couldn't tell what they were.

"Is this the source of the infection?" Eilumi wondered. 

As if answering his question, part of the crystal shattered, revealing a very angry looking crystal eye. It opened slowly, and then looked at the three beings below it. It let out a loud bellowing roar, and the eye narrowed with anger.

"Yes, yes it is." Eilumi answered himself. Suddenly, a pair of steady, hot, beams of light erupted from the crystal-creature's side. The three of them barely managed to get out of the way as the wide beam swept the area where they had been standing. 

Wasting no time, Eilumi and Shia both took out their guns and fired at the thing. Even with Shia's sub-par aiming skills, there's no way he could miss something that big. Unfortunately, the bullets simply bounced off the hard crystal, doing nothing to it. 

Desperate, Shia charged his paws with electricity, and fired a thunderbolt full of electrical power at the crystal. It however, had similar effects, namely, nothing at all.

"Well now what do we do?!" Khaun yelled as he dodged another sweeping beam, as Shia and Eilumi did their best to do the same.

Suddenly, the beams stopped. Shia guessed at that moment that it was taking time to charge another attack. Eilumi used the opportunity to look around quickly. He looked at the scaffolding, upon the terminals that lay upon them, and then back at the thing below it.

"I assume that's some sort of mining laser." He said quickly. "And if my readout is right, those four things power control it. I'll take the bottom two, Shia, use your double jump to reach that one up there. Khaun, the other one."

"Yes sir!" The two of them said as the beams started again.  Shia narrowly dodged the hot purple laser, using his double jump to leap up up the scaffolding. Just like the obstacle course. The beam tried to chase him, to melt some of the scaffolding. He ducked and leapt over it as it chased him. 

Finally, Shia reached his destination. Upon seeing the terminal, he wondered how to operate it. As the beam followed him, however, he realized that he had no time left to ponder. He elected to push the big red button on the side of the console. 

"Eep!" He yelled as he ducked right after pressing the button, the beam sweeping past his head. He heard a noise from the bottom. Followed by another, and then another. He looked up from his hiding spot. Khaun had activated his terminal, and Eilumi had activated both of his, and was now making his way to the huge mining device itself. He watched as Eilumi made a dive for it, the sweeping laser barely missing him as pushed the button at the laser's base. 

The device roared to life, and a blue, concentrated beam of light erupted from the shaft, slamming into the floating purple crystal above it at full force. The crystal screeched as it hit, shaking and convulsing as the beam pierced its bottom. Only a few seconds later, the blue beam shot through the top of the crystal, the eye in the middle bursting as cracks quickly formed on the creature's 'body'. With a loud crack, the crystal broke into many pieces, just as the blue beam died.

Shia made his way down to the base as the two halves of the creature hit the floor. The little 'things' that had been inside of the creature were free, and began to stir. And Shia could finally see what they were.

Humans. More specifically, miners that had gotten trapped inside of it somehow. They'd been thrown from the beast the moment it shattered and died, and were now rousing from their forced slumber.

In particular, one had landed right in front of them. A female, and as naked as the one he had seen earlier. 

A deep blush formed under the helmet as she got up, her body in full view of the little shinx. It deepened as she looked at him.

"Are... Are you the ones who saved us?" She asked, still primarily looking at Shia.

"W-We are." Shia said, a little proudly. 

The female human hugged the still-armored Shia. Even though he couldn't feel her body against him, it still caused him no small amount of embarrassment.

"I... Uhhh.." Shia stammered.

"How can I ever repay you? She asked.,

"Well, I... uh..." Shia clammed up, not sure what to say to her.

"Okay okay, I think this is a good place to cut this." Khaun suddenly said as he waved his hand. At that moment, the cave, the crystals, the people, their suits, everything began to fade away, and in its place, a familiar black room came into view.

Oh yes, this had all just been another simulation. One modelled after a previous mission the crew had undertaken, back when they were in their prime.

Shia had forgotten that in the heat of the moment.

This had also been why Nine hadn't joined them on this 'mission'. This mission had been undertaken by the crew back when they were still four Avali, not what it was now, so it would make little sense for Nine to join them.

Plus, the idea was to train Shia. Having Nine there might have... complicated things.

"Soo" Shia asked as he took off his suit. "What happened after that? I mean, with the survivor and all?"

"You mean the naked girl that hugged you at the end?" Eilumi laughed. "To make a long story short: Sex. Lots of sex."

Shia blushed at this, yet somehow wasn't surprised. Seems Eilumi and his crew had always had this perverted streak to them.

"You make it sound like we simply fucked her on the spot." Khaun groaned. "You know there was more to it than that."

"Okay, okay, fine." Eilumi grumbled. "There was a meal back at the ship, a debriefing, and a day of rest or two later, but then... yeah. Lots of sloppy pack sex."

"And Renali just went along with this?" Shia questioned.

"Yes, yes she did." Khaun sighed. "Remember what we told you about avali packs?"

"All activities are pack activities." Shia recited. 

"Including sex." Khaun added.

"Especially sex." Eliumi also added.

"I... see that." Shia said dismissively. At that moment, his thoughts drifted elsewhere. 

It had now been almost one whole month since Eilumi, Khaun, and Nine had plucked him from Rai's grasp. It felt like he had been there much longer during this time. And looking back upon it all, well... It all felt so different now.

When he had first been brought here, Rai had all but beaten and raped every last scrap of resistance out of him. He'd turned a boy that had eagerly stood to defend his friends into little more than a pleasure pet deprived of hope, one willing to bend to just about any of Rai's commands.

Now, however, he felt stronger. Faster. More confident. Even moreso than he'd been before that terrible day. 

'If I faced Rai again...' She thought to himself proudly. 'I bet I could beat his ass straight into the ground!'
Shia checked his prideful thought-boast. 'Well, I might have a little difficulty, considering that iron of his, but still, even with it, I'm sure I could win!'

And that was only by himself. With his new friends backing him up, Rai wouldn't even have time to draw the thing, let alone do any damage.

That happy thought however came crashing down into depression as another thought relating to his homeworld came to him.It had been a month since his rescue. Which meant that there was not much time left now before his new friends left this planet for good. And there had still been no word regarding his old friends. No clues, nothing. And it hadn't been for a lack of trying on their part. They'd brain scanned more mons than they needed to, both in the Dynamo Sands area and elsewhere. Eilumi had deployed drones to search for anything resembling his friends. They went back to Sandstone just yesterday to double check, and still found nothing.
They even tried tracking down the three mons that had interfered that day, but they were, of course, long gone.

Nothing had worked. It had all turned up nothing but dead ends and red herrings. It was as if his old friends had vanished off the face of the planet. 

'That must mean they're dead by now.' Shia silently sobbed. 'We could probably spend another few years looking for them, but still turn up nothing.'

'I guess I'm just going to have to accept it.' He internally sighed to himself. 'It'll be hard to move on. Just like it's been hard for Eilumi and Khaun to move on from Renali. But... Move on I must. Veera especially would not appreciate me moping.'

He looked to the ceiling in thought.

'I just hope... they're in a better place now.'

"You did well, Shia." Eilumi 's words shook Shia from his thoughts. He smiled a bit upon hearing that.

It was then that he noticed Khaun and Eilumi looking at each other, and then back to him.

'I wonder what they're up to now?' He couldn't help but wonder.

"We have something to tell you." Eilumi informed him. Shia could pick up just a hint of worry in his voice. "But... after dinner." He quickly added.

Shia knew he wasn't going to get anything more out of either of them by prodding at the moment, and he was hungry anyway. So he simply followed them into the kitchen. 

Nine was, as usual, cooking. They sat down, and Nine served their meal. They began eating, and Nine sat down on his huge bean bag chair. 

They ate in silence. Not a word was spoken between them, which was very odd, since normally, the four of them would be quite chatty during their meals. The mood was unusually tense and awkward. Shia couldn't recall this level of awkward tension since that very first day on this ship, when he couldn't understand him. Something that seemed so distant now. 

The three of them would exchange glances at Shia, worried ones. He couldn't help but wonder what was going on, but they said they'd tell him after dinner, and he had no reason not to believe them. So, like the others, he ate in silence.

As soon as he was done, Eilumi got up, and quickly left the room. Khaun soon followed, leaving only Nine and Shia alone. 

"Are you done with your meal?" Nine asked. It was the first words spoken to him since he'd sat down.

"Yeah." He said, looking at the empty plate.

"Very well." Nine says. "Come with me."

"Is something wrong?" Shia asked him. "Did I do something?"

"No, no. It's nothing like that." Nine said, his visor betraying an expression of worry. "It's just... Well, Eilumi will explain soon enough. He is waiting for us in the Medbay. If there is nothing else, we should not delay."

"Okay." Shia sighed, getting up as well. As soon as he did, Nine left the room, and Shia followed the large protogen to the Medbay. True to his word, Khaun and Eilumi were both there. As soon as he came in, they both looked at him with an expression of worry, uncertainty, and regret on their faces. Nine joined Eilumi's side, his expression likewise the same as the others.

It was then that Shia noticed that Eilumi had both of his hands behind his back. 

"Okay, I'm here." Shia said. "So, what's going on?"

"As you know, there's only one day." Eilumi replied.

"What do you mean? One day for what?" Shia questioned.

"Only one day before we leave this planet, of course." He said with a tone of sorrow and regret in his voice.

'Oh, that's right!' Shia suddenly remembered. 'Tomorrow is the day they leave. Of course it has something to do with that.'

"Is... Is that what this is all about?" Shia asked. 

"Yes... And no. Look, first things first." Eilumi replied quickly. "I must formally apologise."

"Apologize for what?" Shia asked a little fearfully.

"I apologize that we were not able to find your friends during this time, and that we must now cease all further attempts to do so. I'm sorry."

"It's.... It's alright." Shia reassured him. "You guys did your best. And besides." Shia forced a smile. "I've already come to terms with it."

"That's a lie, and we all know it." Khaun deadpanned sadly.

"It's that obvious, huh?" Shia sighed after being called out on his bluff. "You're right. I... I'll just need some time to get over it. But... I understand. Like I said, you did your best. I don't blame you guys in the slightest."

The three of them gave a weak smile in return.

"Though, I do have to ask... what will become of me now?" He quickly asked. Their expressions quickly returned to what they were when he entered the room. "What are your plans for me?"

"That..." Eilumi responded with a small pause. "That is why we're here."

"Or should we say, why you're here." Khaun corrected.

"Right." Eilumi replied flatly. "We need to discuss your future. Since Khaun will more than likely tell me to just get to the point, I'll be blunt. Shia, you've progressed a lot further in your training than we could have anticipated."

"Oookay?" Shia asked. "What does that have to do with-"

"Originally, we planned on continuing your training once we left," Nine explained. "We were going to take you with us until a certain time, then come back here and present this choice. Though, since you've come so far in such a short time, we've decided to do it now."

His visor shifted into a smile.

"Shia, I'm proud of you, and whatever choice you make here, I just want you to know that."

"Choice? What choice?" Shia asked a bit worriedly. "What do you mean?"

"Why, the choice regarding your own future, of course." Eilumi said as he pulled his two hands from his back, and placed them in front of him for Shia to see. In his two hands were two objects. A pill in his left hand, and an auto-injecting syringe in his right. 

"What... What are these?" Shia asked.

"In my left hand here, I hold a sleeping pill." Eliumi explained. "If you choose to take it, you'll be asleep in a matter of moments. Once knocked out, we'll give you either a citizen's badge, or a guild badge - or rather a reproduction of one. You'll wake up in a bed somewhere in your world, in a location of your choosing. You will live your life as you see fit, and you never hear from us again."

"I ... I couldn't-" Shia stammered.

"Let him finish." Khaun instructed. Shia clammed up, and once he was silent, Eilumi continued.

"In my right hand, I hold a syringe containing military-grade guardian nanites. These are the same ones that flow within our own veins. If you take it and inject it into your arm, you will become a part of this pack."

Shia was about to make a reach for it when Eilumi spoke suddenly.

"Before you decide too quickly, I should warn you of two things regarding the nanites." He said sternly. "First, if you make that choice, there is no going back. I repeat..." His eyes narrowed, putting on the most serious look he could muster. "This. Choice. Is. PERMANENT. You will never return to this planet. EVER AGAIN. You'll be with us. FOREVER."

That did stop Shia for a moment, but unfortunately, Eliumi wasn't done.

"The second, and perhaps, more important thing I must warn you... is that if you inject those nanites, it will not be a pleasant experience."

"That's putting it incredibly lightly." Khaun added in.

"Yeah. He's not kidding." Eilumi added back. "Normally, we Avali are given these at birth, before we can remember the pain. And even then, it's only the civilian ones, so we upgrade them once we join the military. However, we don't have that choice here, so you'd have to go in cold turkey."

"And on top of that," Khaun interjected again, "your bodily and genetic structure is a lot different from ours. So I'm not sure how exactly it's going to be. But if Nine's and my calculations are correct, we can assure you of one thing."

"It will be the most painful thing you ever experienced in your entire life." Nine replied sadly.

"Brief, but painful." Khaun added.

"Like... how painful?" Shia asked shakily. 

"Painful as in... it's going to make Rai's rape of you seem like a massage by comparison." Eilumi said sadly.

"Worse, you won't even be able to pass out to escape it." Khaun said. "The nanites will simply kick you back into consciousness again and again. It's also why we can't simply give you the pill and then put the nanites in."

"It's part of the reason we didn't do this sooner." Eilumi said. "Well, that and protocols."

"Right." Khaun replied flatly. "Anyway, I estimate the pain will last an upwards of two to five minutes."

"This is due to the nanites rewriting your entire system, installing a neural jack and other augments." Nine added.

"And since your biology is so different from anything we've seen before, I can only suspect it's going to be worse than it normally is."

"Did... Did Nine have to go through this?"

"Yes... And no." Nine replied sadly. "Being part machine, I already had nanites in me, so they merely upgraded mine. I am sorry you'd have to go through this."

"You understand now why we're giving you this choice?" Eilumi asked. Shia nodded. 

"If... If I take the Nanites..." Shia stammered. "Will you be there while it happens?"

"Of course!" Nine exclaimed. "We'll be right here when it happens, and afterwards."

"Afterwards?" Shia asked. "What happens afterwards? Will it always be constant pain?" 

"No, of course not." Khaun reassured him. "After they've done their job and taken your body for their own, they should start injecting painkillers to counteract whatever pain the procedure caused."

"Alright. So unless you have any more questions." Eilumi interjected with a serious tone. "It's time to choose. Although... Before you do, I'd like to say one thing to you, Shia."

"And... what is that?" Shia asked.

"Shia..." Eilumi sighed sadly. "Regardless of which choice you make, we're glad to have known you, and we're proud of what you've become in such a short time frame. Should you choose the pill, we will miss you. Regardless of what you chose, I hope you'll do great things, with or without us."

A tear came to Shia's eye at those words. He blinked and removed it with his paw, before looking over the objects. 

His eyes fell upon the pill. The idea of him being in a pain worse than what Rai did to him did not exactly appeal to him.  Taking this would be an easy way out. A way to put all of this behind, and forget it ever happened.

'But what exactly would I be returning to?' Shia thought to himself. Besides Veera and Loona, he had no friends back on his planet. He had no connection to his homeworld. No connection to the Maze. That had always been Veera's thing. 
And speaking of them. They were gone. 

'Perhaps I could look for them?' He thought. 'If I join this pack, I won't come back. I don't know for 100% certain that they're gone and-'

He shook his head mid thought. 

'Even if they are alive, where would I even look? How would I even come across them? We searched Sandstone top to bottom, and found no trace. I don't think I'll do better on my own. And besides...'

He paused, not liking where this last thought went.

'They're probably not alive anyway. And if that's the case, what's the point? I mean, I could hunt down Rai and make him pay for what he did, but then what? I'd have nothing. No one. I'd just have another set of friends I'd never see again. Just regrets. '

No. There was nothing that pill could offer him now. Not anymore.

For Shia, this choice was already made. He made it the moment he asked them to help him get stronger. 

'Even if I had found my friends and they refused to join us and forced me to choose between them and these new friends of mine... there's still only one real choice here.'

Shia's eyes immediately shifted towards the injector. With a sudden, swift motion, he grabbed the syringe out of Eilumi's claws. He took the handle end into his paw, and aimed the business end toward his arm.

"Are you 100% percent sure about this?" Khaun asked.
"This is your last chance to back out." Nine said sorrowfully.
"Yeah, if you put that in, there's no going back." Eilumi added.

"My mind is made up." Shia said sternly. He jammed the needle into his arm, giving a slight grunt as he pulled the trigger, the fluid in the glass tube draining as the nanites were cycled through the device and into his body. Once it was empty, Shia pulled the device out, and tossed it to the side, caring little for the moment of the litter he'd made. He'd clean it up later.

Shia gritted his teeth, his body growing tense as he suddenly felt....
Nothing. Nothing at all.

The others looked upon him, wide-eyed, and fearful.

"Are you sure about the pain thing, guys?" Shia asked them. "I don't feel anythi-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

At that moment, the most intense pain he ever felt hit his poor shinx body. He was barely aware of the fact that he had fallen to the floor in lieu of the sheer agony that wracked his very being. It felt like his body was being stabbed over and over again by a thousand pieces of the sharpest iron daggers in his world. He screamed as his skin felt like it was being burned by a hundred fire types and then frozen over by a hundred ice types, only to instantly melt and start over again.

He could hardly breathe in between screams as every muscle, every nerve, every inch of skin, every bone, every organ hurt in ways he never felt possible.

The long past days of Rai beating him, spanking him, and abusing his ass seemed like a gentle lover's massage compared to this.

"MAKE IT STOP! AAAAAGHHHHH!!" He screeched as loud as his pain-filled lungs could allow. There were voices in the background, he could hear them, but through his own scream and torment he could barely make them out.

Shia's eyes were closed as hard as they could as he hugged himself, trying in vain to block out whatever pain he could. He felt himself slip, the consciousness leaving him...only to return a second later, his eyes shooting open as he was roughly yanked back into the world of the living as quickly as he'd been taken from it, back into the world of sheer torment.

"NNNNRRRRRGHHHHH! AAAAAGHHHH!!!" He yelled out. Just when he thought that the pain could not get any worse, it intensified. He felt himself black out yet again, only to be yanked back into consciousness. Again and again, as these things denied him sweet release, even for a moment.

He felt his guts twist, his organs felt like someone had ripped him open and were hammering away at them with an Iron mace.

"Please... someone... AAGHHH!!!" He pleaded into the nothing around him. "Just... JUST LET IT END!! AAAAHHHH!!!!"

Suddenly, as if someone or something heard him, he slipped from consciousness one last time as he remained out for some time. Finally free of the torment in his body, he fully embraced the dreamless feeling of nothing.

"Shia..." A familiar voice called out to him. "Shia!!"

With a twitch, the shinx slowly opened his eyes. The medbay slowly came into focus. The blurs that were his friends slowly began to focus into view. 

"Shia? Can you hear me?" Eilumi asked worriedly as he hovered over him. 

"Is... Is it over?" Shia asked as he slowly came to.

The pain... he could feel a small amount of 'phantom pain'. But, thankfully for him, it seemed to have left as quickly as it came. 

He looked around, seeing his friends surrounding his laying form. He saw the white, metallic walls of the medbay.

And... other things.

"I... Wha..." He asked with confusion as he sat up. He closed his eyes, and gripped his head. The room and his friends disappeared as his eyelids closed, enveloping his vision in darkness. But something remained in his vision.

"What is all this?" He asked as he reopened his eyes, once again seeing his friends and the room, and...

Numbers. Letters. Words. Pictures. All cycling before him. Familiar looking, but in the dazed state he was in, Shia could not remember where he had seen them before. All he knew was they were a part of his vision that wasn't going away, no matter how hard he tried to close his eyes.

"It's your built-in hud." Eilumi explained as he held Shia's back up. The Avali was kneeling beside him, as were the others. "It's like the simulations, remember? But it's permanent now." He explained.

"They should disappear momentarily. It's just part of the bootup sequence." He heard Nine say.

Phrases began to appear and disappear from his vision.

*GUARDIAN NANITES: INSTALLED*

*PAIN SUPPRESSION: OPERATING*

*VITALS STABILIZING*
*VITALS STABILIZED*

*NEURAL JACK: INSTALLED*

*NEURAL HUD: ONLINE*

*LEG TECH SLOT: INSTALLED*

*CHEST TECH SLOT: INSTALLED*

*HEAD TECH SLOT: INSTALLED*

*NEXUS CONNECTION: ESTABLISHED*

*HAZARDOUS ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTIONS: ONLINE*

*WARNING: UNSTABLE GENETIC ANOMALIES WERE DETECTED.*
*NANITES HAVE ATTEMPTED GENETIC STABILIZATION*
*GENETIC STABILIZATION WAS SUCCESSFUL*

*REGISTERING NEXUS USER: SHIA. *

*NAME: SHIA*
*SPECIES: 'SHINX'.*
*PACK: GHOST BEAR*
*UNIT REGISTRY: AVALONIAN EXPLORATORY FLEET, 21ST HIGHWIND REGIMENT*
*CREW MEMBER ROLE: INITIATE*

*USER REGISTERED. AEF LEVEL 1 ACCESS GRANTED.*

*WELCOME TO THE REBORN ILLUMINATE.*

That last phrase was the last of it he saw, before it, and the other hud junk, faded from his vision, returning it to what it once was.

"Need help getting to your feet?" Eilumi asked. 

Shia gave hima small nod and rose to his feet as Eilumi held his back, and Nine pulled his arms up.

"Thanks." Shia said. "Is... is it over now?" He asked weakly.

"No, it's not over." Eilumi cheerfully. Shia felt his heart sink. "This is just the beginning! You are now a part of this pack. You are now truly one of us-"

"He meant the pain, Eilumi." Khaun interjected flatly.

"Oh." Eilumi replied back a bit sheepishly.

"Yes, the pain has ended." Nine assured him. "But as Eilumi said, this is just the beginning of your new life with us, Shia. You're now one of us."

Shia's heart was full again. He smiled widely as he looked at Eilumi. Before any of them could say anything, Shia hugged his friend- no, his packmate. He felt himself being hugged in turn by Khaun, and Nine. A new sensation washed over the Shinx as tears fell from his eyes - tears of joy at this new sense of belonging that enveloped him.

This had been the most painful day in his life. But ironically, the happiest.

"T-Thank you." Shia cried happily. "Y...You don't know what this means to me." They didn't reply to that. His packmates simply remained in his embrace for quite some time. Shia lost track of how long they remained like that, before Nine slowly pulled away, followed by the others. He himself did the same to Eilumi. 

"Do you require rest?" Nine inquired. "You did go through quite the ordeal."

"No." Shia said, wiping the last of his tears away from his face. He did not feel tired. In fact... "I've never felt more alive and awake than I do now!"

It was true. For some reason, he didn't feel tired. Or sleepy. He felt full of energy. Like he'd just woken up from a long slumber, had a good breakfast, and was raring to go.

"Now that you have your nanites, you'll have to learn how to use them." Eilumi instructed. "More specifically, how to use your neural jack to open doors, operate parts of the ship, that sort of thing."

He paused. But before Shia could get a word in to ask, Eilumi spoke again.

"Oh! This also means you no longer need the suit when operating the holodeck."

The three of them spent the next hour or so explaining all of his hud information to him. He'd been familiarized with some of it in some of the more recent simulations, but this was the first time he was able to operate it first hand.

Finally, at his request, they took Shia back to the holodeck room.

"Activate the obstacle course." Eilumi instructed.

Shia saw his neural jack interface interact with a small part of the room - a little part he hadn't noticed before. He selected it, and it gave him an option to select various scenarios, including the option to create his own. He would have to try that latter option some time, but not now. As per his packmate's instruction, he selected the option called 'Shia Obstacle Course.'

He felt flattered that they named the filename after him.

Once selected, he saw the room shift and fade into the familiar world of the maze-themed obstacle course. The sands, the corridor, the stones making up the obstacles. They were all there.

 "It's been a while since you last ran this." Eilumi commented. "What with all the pack exercises. Get used to more of those, by the way, since you are part of this pack now."

"Right." Shia simply responded. "I wonder how much I've improved since then?"

"Well, no time like the present to find out." Khaun encouragingly replied.

"The first time you ran this course, you got 7 minutes 34 seconds." Eilumi reminded him.

Shia nodded, and, using his HUD, pulled up his own stopwatch in front of him. He got on the ground, onto his hands and feet, and got ready to run.

"On your mark... 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.... GO!!" Eilumi yelled.

The clock started when he did. And Shia did not waste a millisecond. He dove onto his stomach as he approached the first obstacle, using his momentum to slide underneath it on his belly. Once he was clear, he used his hands and feet to leap back up, quickly righting himself so his feet were under him.  He landed on his feet and ran on, quickly leaping over the next rock by pulling himself straight up by his hands, and then putting his two feet on top of the rock. He leaped off the rock with a sideways somersault, once again landing on his two feet and pressing on.

His next obstacle was the crawlspace. He leapt up into it, wasting not a moment as he crawled through it in less than 3 seconds.

He navigated the rock platforms like they were nothing, and leaped over them. Shia smirked to himself as he saw the monkeybars and the pit, remembering the first time he not so gracefully fell into the pit on his stomach.

'Not this time.' He thought to himself as he did something he had seen Eilumi do once. He ran onto the side of the rock, running along it sideways for a brief moment before finally leaping up at once of the rocks. He grabbed it with his paws, and gracefully swung along them, skipping rocks where he could to save time.

It had taken him multiple tries, and multiple falls into the pits earlier to do this, but he was able to do it now without breaking a sweat, let alone falling into the sandy abyss.

Next was the rocks over a pit. He had minor troubles with this his first time. But now, this was nothing. He leapt from rock to rock with an almost practiced precision. 

Finally, he came up to the giant rock climbing wall. He swung his arms, crouching down, and then leapt onto the rock as high as he could muster, grabbing onto the hand holds. He pulled himself up along the rock as fast as he could muster. When he had done this the first time, he had been exhausted by the time he'd reached the top. Now? Only slightly winded, but not tired. He was easily able to pull himself over the top, and leap down onto the sands below, landing on his two feet gracefully.

A familiar click was heard off to the side as he stood up.

"Four minutes, fifty-three seconds."

That time was correlated by his own stopwatch widget in the upper left hand corner of his vision, which had stopped.

He looked over and grinned at Eilumi and one very-impressed looking Khaun.

"Wow, you could have given Eityu a run for his money." Khaun commented at that display. "Er, discounting techs and wings of course."

Shia was amazed at how far he'd come in this time. He still remembered when he struggled with the monkey bars and hopping rocks. Now?

Now he felt like a lucario.

They spent the rest of the day doing exercises - running the obstacle course with minor improvements in time, hitting dummies and bags in the 'dojo', lifting weights, etc.
When he'd first lifted, he could barely manage 10 lifts at 20 pounds. Now? 40 at 40 easily.

He punched and kicked the dummy in front of him, using a combination of regular kicks, punches, and electrically charged attacks. He 'finished' off the dummy with a spark attack.

After taking a small moment to rest, Shia held out his hand. The familiar form of a carbon knife appeared in it after he selected the option from his hud menu. Once he had refreshed the then singed dummy, Shia went to work on the dummy with the knife, furiously slashing, stabbing, and slicing it. He tried to switch grips one-pawed, though, sadly, he still struggled with that. Nonetheless, he was able to get the most out of his backhand stabs. He tossed the blade into the other paw, as he quickly reached behind the dummy, and did a back-bladed slice as he pushed the dummy forward. If it were standing, it would have fallen on its butt.

He was not quite up to par with Eilumi, but he was getting there.

---

"I wonder what life will be like now?" Shia wondered aloud as he chewed his slice of piruza. 

"Well..." Eilumi responded with a full mouth. He swallowed his food, and then continued. "After this, we'll probably go back to anti-piracy and anti-slaving patrols for a while. Maybe take another mission like this one. Or see if the Peacekeepers have anything on tap."

"We'd rather avoid the Miniknog for a while." Khaun added.

"That would be for the best." Nine also said. "As much as I do so enjoy sending those monsters to the great beyond, I do not think that going after them would be the best choice at the moment."

"Soooo..." Shia began. He took a quick bite of his pirizaa and swallowed it. "What will become of this planet, I wonder? I mean, you did mention that the council will more than likely do something."

"Ah, yes." Eilumi replied. "The Illuminate of old would have been more than happy to hide behind the 'prime directive' nonsense of the Protectorate and done nothing, despite the fact that the Illuminate of old and the humans hated each other. But the Reborn Illuminate? Well, they'll likely intervene in some manner or other. If for no other reason than to prevent the Miniknog from getting its banana-filled mitts on it and making things even worse than they are now."

"There's also the ideological reasons." Nine added.

"And the trade reasons."  Khaun also added. "And a bunch of other reasons."

"... Right." Eilumi replied. "At any rate, the Reborn Illuminate will more than likely want to uplift and get this collection of races space-capable as quickly as possible. How they'll do that, I don't know. That's well above our paygrade. One thing is for certain though: most of this planet's problems lie solely at the feet of the so-called 'nobility'. If this planet is to have a future at all, they have to go."

"Soo how would they go about doing that?" Shia asked. Even though it was no longer really his concern, part of him wanted to see this world improved. If for no other reason than to ensure what happened to him and his old friends never happened to anyone else ever again.

"Well, the first and most obvious choice is direct conflict." Nine explained. "Swoop in with Avali firepower, blasting all the nobles, corrupt guildies, and anything else that stands in the way."

"So straight up-conquest?" Shia asked.

"Sadly, yes." Nine said. "Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, this is also not a very optimal option, and is also the one least likely to be implemented. Not only would it, as you said, turn us into occupiers and conquerors, it would also be quite nonoptimal in the sense that in order for it to work, it would mean having to leave a garrison on the planet at all times." 

"And a rather large one at that." Khaun added in. "Even with drones, that's still a lot of effort. Especially if the avali are not gaining anything from it."

"On top of that," Nine continued, "it would mean having to set up our own governmental system in lieu of the one we take down, and having to put down any remaining reactionaries and misguided 'revolutions' trying to make trouble, something that's bound to cause an unnecessary loss of innocent life on both side. In other words, this is the worst option for all parties involved."

"And besides, this really isn't the Avali way anyway." Khaun chimed in. "This is more the realm of despots and conquerors like the USCM or the Miniknog. Though, with the former's disbandment and absorption into the latter, there really isn't any difference between them. Not that there ever was to begin with."

"Even in the best scenario, you'd end up with a traumatized society that simply bends over to what the 'savior Avali' tell them to do. A slave society in all but name. And while the Miniknog or even the Humans might revel in that sort of thing, that's not how ours operate." Eilumi finished.

"The second, and probably more likely option they'll take, is that they'll get a hold of or create a faction or few that might be interested in overthrowing the nobility for their own reasons, and offering aid to them." Eilumi proposed.  "According to our brain scans, we've heard mention of  a group calling itself the 'Wallbreakers' that might do the trick."

"Of course, that isn't without problems." Khaun added. "Namely, trying to find said faction or factions, and making sure they don't turn into a carbon copy of the people you're trying to overthrow, dealing with betrayals, etc."

"Or maybe they'll just take a bunch of dungeon dwellers and do what they did with you, but on a much larger scale. I mean, it did work with you." Eilumi jokes. "I'm kidding... well maybe. Not really."

"Well, I do recall from one brain scan that a bunch of dungeon dwellers did try to set up a commune of their own peacefully, only for the local noble to then crush it without a second thought without rhyme or reason." Nine recalled thoughtfully. "I daresay that it might not be that much of a stretch that the Reborn Illuminate might elect to give them the same opportunity but on another planet, this time under Avali protection and guidance."

"Or maybe they'll do something we haven't thought of." Eilumi finished. "At any rate, it's not really any of our concern at this point. That's not our pack's role, and we've accomplished what we've set out to do here. Starting tomorrow we'll make our final preparations to leave this orbit we've been in for a month, send the reports, and then we'll be speeding off to whatever new adventure awaits us."

Shia smiled as he ate another slice of his delicious piruza. He couldn't wait to start his new life, with his new pack.
---------

"Uuugh... huh?"

Shia's eyes slowly opened as he awoke. He got up, slowly, and found himself in the room he fell asleep in. 

But something was... wrong. The room was... different. And it didn't take him too long to figure out what it was. One of the walls wasn't there. It was open out to the pure abyss of blackness surrounding it.

"Another dream. Lovely." Shia groaned. He hadn't had one of these since that one with Renali. He hadn't missed them.

He wondered why he'd woken up here, instead of in the shack like he usually did. One good look across the abyss revealed his answer soon enough. The shack was some distance away from him, the two of them separated by the deep void. He could see into the shack, as it too had a missing wall. Or he could just see through it for some reason.

And sure enough, inside the shack was its occupant. The mon that had tormented his life a month ago, and had tormented his dreams for a long while since.

Rai.

His back was turned to Shia, and he could see the raichu's paws behind it. 

"So..." Rai said without a hint of emotion as he slowly turned around. Those glowing orange eyes of his stared at Shia from across the gap. A disapproving frown was clearly visible on his ex-tormentor's face.

"You've escaped." He said. "I can no longer reach you now."

"That's right, Rai." Shia responded proudly from across the safety of the gap.

Rai said nothing in response. 

"I've moved on. Grown stronger thanks to my new friends. And tomorrow, I'll be gone. I'll be going away, and I will never return."

A smirk crossed Shia's lips. "You wanted to break me. To turn me into you... I think? Or just keep me as your little butt-boy forever. One of those two. Well, either way, you failed. You will no longer dog my dreams."

"It's true." Rai sighed sadly, his eyes closing as he bowed his head. "I have no power over you..."

But then, a grin slowly appeared on his face as his eyes shot open again.

"... But that's just fine." Rai said happily, taking Shia by surprise. "I don't need you anymore."

"You... don't?" Shia asked as he raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

Rai's grin grew wider. "Of course not. While you were gone, I've found suitable replacements. Or should I say, they found me?"

"Replacements?! What replacements?" Shia asked angrily.

"Let me show you." He said as he stepped and turned to his side, his paw extending to a sordid scene behind him. Shia's eyes narrowed as he looked upon the scene, only to go wide a moment later as he recognized the figure Rai had just revealed.

"L... Loona?!" Shia stammered desperately as looked on. 

There was no mistaking it. There was Loona, tied to Rai's bed. Bruises, blood, and dried cum were visible on her body.

"Oh yes, my dear Shia." Dream-Rai taunted coyly. "She came to save you, but found no one there. No one but me."

"N... No! That can't be true!" Shia cried. "T-They're dead-"

"I was the one who told you they were dead." Rai laughed. "And you believed me, like the little idiot you are."

"W-Wha?" Shia heard a voice in the room, a female voice. He saw his linoone friend's eyes open. Her head moved up, and she tried to move her limbs, but they were tied tightly to the bed itself.

Her aqua eyes locked with her friend's red ones from across the void. They went wide, as she tried to wiggle free.

"S... Shia..." She pleaded. "Help me!!"

Every muscle in his body, every fiber of his being screamed at him to leap over there and help her. And yet, he knew he couldn't. Even with his techs, there was no way he could leap across this gap.

"He cannot help you now." Rai laughed as he turned to her. "You're mine now, babe."

"N... No!" She yelled as Rai approached her. Shia could do nothing but watch as Rai climbed onto the bed, his dick hard and ready to go.

"G-Get off her, you monster!" Shia yelled from across the gap. But it was of no use. 

"Come over here and make me, Shia." Rai laughed as he took his cock in hand, and guided it towards his friend's abused pussy. "Oh wait, you can't."

"G-Get away from me, you creep!" Loona yelled, only for Rai to forcefully kiss her as he pressed himself against her. She yelled into his mouth as he forced himself inside of her with one hard thrust.

He broke the unwilling kiss as he did this, letting out a moan of pleasure.

"Oh yessss!" He yelled. "I can see why you wanted to fuck her so badly, Shia! She is tiiiiiggghhttt!" 

Shia could only sit and watch helplessly as Rai's hips began to move. He could no longer see her face, but he could hear her sobs and cries from where he was.

"Ohhh I wish you were here right now Shia." The rapist rat taunted. "I might have even shared her with you, and allowed you to make her your own!"

"You beast!" Shia screamed. "I would never do that to her!"

"Oh wouldn't you?" Rai laughed as his dick sank into his victim again and again. "We both know you would have done anything I told you-" 

"You may have held that kind of power once, but not anymore!" Shia yelled back. "I'd never hurt her like that. Never again."

"Hmph, well, no matter." Rai commented as his attention turned completely to Loona. "A shame, though. She has spunk, Shia." He said as his pace increased. "In more ways... than... ONE!!"

He gave a yell as he pushed into her with one final thrust. Loona's shrill yell filled Shia's ears, filling him with equal parts anger and guilt. He could see the white liquid begin to spill out of his friend's abused cavern, just like it had the day they were ambushed.

"It will be fun to break her in your absence." Rai chuckled. His penis slowly withdrew from his victim, spilling seed over the bed and the floor as it leaked from both her abused vagina and his own dick. "Just as I broke you."

"You..." Loona growled from the bed. "You will never break me!"

"Shut up." Rai growled as he reached over, and slapped her in the face.

"Leave her alone!" Shia yelled angrily, even though he knew he couldn't do anything to stop him.

"Ah yes, very fun to break." Rai repeated as he climbed off the bed, his cock was still hard, and still dribbling. "Unlike your other friend..."

"No. You don't mean..." Shia said desperately.

Sure enough, a female eevee in the corner came into view, She was beaten, and similarly broken. She had a collar tied around her neck, and around it a rope leading to a ring high up on the wall. 

"Veera... no..." Shia gasped to himself as Rai sauntered over to her. As if on cue, she woke up, and sure enough, Shia was able to see his friend's green orbs, confirming that it was indeed who he thought it was.

Veera simply looked up at Rai, hopeless and fearful. Rai responded to this display by reaching down, grabbing her hips, and forcing her on her hands and knees. The rapist held her ass up with one paw, and took his still hard cock with the other.

"Please.... No..." Shia heard her sob. He watched as Rai lined himself up, not with her pussy, but with her ass.

Rai of course ignored her pleas as he rammed himself into her.The two of them yelled out loudly, one in pleasure and the other in torment - the same torment that Shia had been through a month ago.

"She... sadly..." Rai huffed as he roughly rutted her ass without mercy or care. "... Is not... Nghh... as fun... Ahhh... As the other one. NNNghhh!!!"

"N... Nooo!!" Veera sobbed as her ass was roughly violated.

"I'll... ah.. Find some use for her, don't you mmmm, worry! Ahhh!!" He taunted as his cock sank into the eevee's poor, abused rear, causing the little mon no shortage of distress. Veera's screams cut at Shia's heart, causing him to tear and cry as he watched helplessly from across the void. "But... MIght as well... Enjoy this while... I... CAN!!"

Like before, he yelled as he pushed himself into the unwilling vee one more time, the two of them both giving loud yells as the raichu's body shook. His penis pulsed as it filled its victim full of whatever was left of the raichu's thick, hot cum, a little bit of it spilled out the sides of the eevee's abused hole.

Rai withdrew himself from his friend, causing said friend to collapse onto the floor. She panted and sobbed.

"Why... Shia?" She cried. "Why have you abandoned us?"

"Because he has more important things in his life now than a couple of useless cunts." Rai told the sobbing eevee.

"That-That's not true!" Shia yelled. "None of this is true! This is all just a bad dream! They can't be there! We spent the better part of a month looking for the both of them-"

"And yet you, nor they, never once thought to come back and look here, did you?" Rai smiled as he turned around.

"...." Shia had no answer for that.

"You go run along and have fun in space, Shia." Rai chuckled. "I will take good care of your ex-friends." His pupils went wide, the glow in them intensified as his open-mouthed smile shifted towards the demonic. "Forever," his tongue hung out of his mouth as his teeth grew sharper, "And ever, AND EVER!!"

"Like hell you will!!" Shia yelled. His fist sparkled with electricity as he slammed it into the ground of his empty room. "I'm going back down there, and then-"

"It's too late now, Shia." Rai laughed. "You said it yourself. You leave tomorrow, and they've already told you that they will no longer search for them-"

"They'll listen to me!" Shia yelled back. "We'll come back, and I'll take my friends back!"

"... Then you know where to find me, don't you, Shia?" Rai laughed.

Before he could respond, Shia's eyes flew open. 

"RAAAAAIIIII!!!" He yelled into the room, causing everyone that had gathered there to sleep with him to suddenly bolt awake.

"Uuungh, wha-" Eilumi grumbled as he rubbed his eyes.

"Ugh,  waiter, check please." Khaun grumbled as he shook his head. "Oh hi Shia."

"Shia?!" Nine said as his deactivated visor came to life. A worried expression quickly filled it as he hugged the little Shinx. "Did you have a nightmare?"

"I... I.. I..." Shia began as he got his bearings. As soon as he did, he shook his head, and stood up. "We have to go back!" He finished in a panic.

"Go back? Wha?" Khaun asked, still weary from being woken up prematurely.

"Go back where?" Eilumi asked. 

"We need to go back and save my friends!" Shia exclaimed in a panic. 

"Shia..." Nine replied with concern and worry. "We've already looked everywhere for them. We couldn't find them."

"Yeah, what he said." Eilumi also said with a yawn. "We tried brain scans, drone scans, we looked in Sandstone, multiple times-"

"No!" Shia said shakily. "There's one place we didn't think to look!" He slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. "By the Nexus, how could I have been so STUPID to not think of it! How could we have not thought of it?!"

"Thought of what?" Khaun asked. "Shia, what are you on about?"

"The one place we should have looked from the beginning!" Shia yelled desperately.

"Shia!" Eilumi yelled back. "Calm down, and tell us what this place you're referring to is."

"Deep breaths, deep breaths."

Shia did as instructed, he took deep breaths, and as soon as he was calm, he finished his explanation.

"The one place we haven't looked." He continued. "The place... where it all began."

At first, the two avalis didn't know what he meant. However, before any of them could ask, Nine beat them to it.

"Do you refer to the place that I believe you are referring to?"

"... I am."

----------

"Ung... Oh fuck yeah... Oh yeah.. AAAHHH!!"

Rai yelled as he gave one last hard thrust into his unwilling victim below him, filling her with jet after jet of his spunk, after yet another rough session of rutting her pussy.

"Hooooh... ah..." He panted. "That was good..." His eyes opened to see his victim below. Her eyes however, were tightly shut.

"Oh. You're fainted again." The rogue raichu sighed with irritation. "You've got spunk and resistance, but no stamina." Part of him wanted to slap her awake, like he'd do sometimes.

'Eh, not this time.' He thought to himself as he pulled himself out. 'Don't really feel like it.'

He stepped off the bed, and inspected his handiwork. The Linoone lay sleeping, in tormented slumber, as her spread pussy leaked his seed. She'd been delightfully angry when he started, like she always was, cursing him, telling him that she'd never break no matter how many times he did this, and promising to kill him once she got free.

'Like that's going to happen.' Rai laughed to himself. As long as she stayed in binds, she was as harmless as an egg.

Although speaking of eggs, that had turned out to be another annoying aspect of the linoone he'd captured, and why he preferred boys in general: the fact that females had this bad habit of becoming pregnant. He wasn't sure who had gotten her pregnant the first time, whether it was him, the quilava, or someone else. But it didn't matter. He'd been left with an egg to deal with. Quite messy.

Oh well. It was a big maze, there were plenty of places to drop unwanted eggs.

 'I wonder if she was already pregnant that day, or whether it came later.' He thought. He reflected back onto that fortunate day when Loona the linoone had graced his presence and tried to kill him, only to end up in his bed instead.

When he fought her- 

'Well, fought is the wrong word.' He laughed internally. No, he hadn't fought her. He'd simply toyed with her. It was apparent she had no idea how to use that knife she had, and it made him wonder just how she'd gotten ahold of it in the first place.

'Someone must have given it to her, or she encountered a guildie or noble even worse at using it than her.' Rai suspected. 'Well, no matter.'

He'd let her believe she'd gained the upper hand. He even let her cut him, and then he'd ran back into the hut to 'retreat'. When she'd foolishly followed him, she hadn't even noticed that Shia, the mon she was supposedly there to rescue, was in fact not there at all. 

'Dumb bitch.' Rai sighed to himself. 'I had to actually speak his name for her to even notice!'

Once he'd let the name slip, she'd idiotically looked around for him. Once she realized that she'd been had, it had been far too late. He used a quick attack on her, and knocked her out. 

Even though it had been too easy to capture her, he nonetheless knew just how dangerous she could be. So he kept her in binds at all times since that day. 

'One can never be too careful.' Rai reminded himself. That lesson had been learned the hard way the day the aliens came across him, and it was one that he kept close to heart.

It was well worth it though, as she proved to be quite the entertaining little fuckpet.

Still, he could definitely see why Shia wanted her so badly.

"If only he was still here." Rai sighed to himself aloud. "I'm sure he would have come around once I taught him the joys of spinning the wheel. I could have shared her with him."

Alas, it was not to be. Shia was dead, and that was that.

A small cough from another part of his shack broke his thought. He looked to the source of this cough. She was likewise bound to the corner of his shack. Unlike Loona, he had not needed quite so stringent methods to keep her here. A simple cord to the wall and a collar sufficed. Unlike her 'friend', she was so submissive that he did not require anything else.

Annoyingly so, in fact, this 'Veera' person.

She had shown up some time after Loona had, with some goodie-guildie hotshot Breloom in tow.

'Ashshell Guild, if I had to guess.' Rai thought to himself. 'There's no way in hell anyone from the Sandstone Guild would go on a mission like this. Especially for a savage.' 

Said guildie and him exchanged barbs, and they fought. Despite the fact that the guildie had no iron, she'd put up a terribly good fight, unlike Loona. Much to his sheer annoyance. It'd been far too long since he had to actually try. That scuffle with the aliens notwithstanding, of course.

'A shame that fight ended the way it did.' Rai thought to himself. 'I would have loved to put that bitch in her place.'

They'd exchanged swings, and once Rai had taken the fight seriously, neither of them had been able to get in a hit. He'd even had to resort to throwing sand in her face at one point. However, as overconfident guildies, especially of the goodie-goodie variety, often do, she'd made a slip. She'd missed a punch, which had given him just the opening he needed with his Iron. He'd lopped her arm straight off, and while she had been reeling from the hit, he had kept the momentum of the swing, and lopped her head off with another swing.

It had been a pity. Part of him had wanted to play with her, to fuck her, break her, and then throw her back out into the wild. And a month ago, he would have done just that. 

But when the aliens had kicked his yellow rat ass, he had learned one thing.

'One can never be too careful' Rai recalled the lesson he was taught that day.

He had been arrogant back then, and he'd almost paid for that arrogance with his life. He realized that if he had allowed her to live, she'd simply come back for revenge at a later date, like the linoone had tried to do, with or without the rest of her guild buddies in tow. 

That, or she would have pulled some trick on him while she was down. Once he thought about it, she was a grass type, and plant types were rather notorious for pulling crap like that. It was the reason why they were one of the only three types truly feared by iron users, with the other two being flying types and psychic types. 

Either way, he simply could not allow that. So she had to die. 

'Besides, I already have one deliciously feisty slave on my hands.' He smiled as he briefly looked back at Loona. 'I don't need another.'

Once that breloom bitch had gone down, that silly Veera had run out from her hiding spot to mourn and clutch her fallen friend's body in her arms - momentarily forgetting that Rai was right there.

'What a stupid cunt.' Rai had thought at the time. That opinion had not changed at all with time.

By the time she'd realized her error, the blunt end of Rai's sword had already found its way to the back of her head, and when she'd woken up, he'd already secured her sorry ass to the wall of his cabin.

It did come to a complete surprise on his end though when she'd asked about Shia, and even more so when she apparently knew Loona. It had taken him some time to connect the dots, as he didn't recognize her at first, but it brought a very twisted sense of irony to him when he realized just who exactly this jolteon was, and why she'd come here.

This was 'Veera', the other 'friend' of Shia's. The weak and vulnerable little eevee. Seems that the evolution she'd undergone hadn't helped her at all.

Unlike with Loona, it had taken hardly anything to break her will. Hell, him telling her that Shia was dead and gone was pretty much enough to kill most if not all of the fight she still had left in her.

And it had made her... boring, in his eyes. He'd fuck her pussy, he'd fuck her ass, he's take her mouth, but she'd just lie or sit there and take it. She didn't even protest or whine. She was just a lump of flesh. Broken to the point of boredom. She didn't even scream when he roughly fucked her ass.

He'd even tried to spice things up by teaching her to masturbate on command, or forcing her to eat out her friend. But, nothing seemed to do the job, so these days, he mostly ignored her in lieu of her other, much more fun and lively friend.

Normally, he'd have simply tossed her out on her sorry butt, told her to piss off by now and leave her for the other mons in the maze to have their way. But he had recently received a very interesting offer from someone of very high importance looking for just such a mon to rescue and get gratitude from.

Of course, Rai knew full well what was really going on here. He knew who this VIP was, and what they were really up to. They'd ride out to the maze or get some guild sap, probably from the sandstone guild, to 'rescue' Veera at a determined location. They'd play out some mock theater battle, Rai would 'retreat', and then she'd be indebted for the rest of her life because of said rescue.

It's how the nobles got around the whole 'slave ban', after all. Well, one of many ways they got around it.

In fact, he was expecting Lord Gaben's representative to drop by any moment now. They'd exchange details, and money. And, knowing them, he would be paid VERY well for this. After all, Gaben was desperate for a Jolteon, and the original offer was astronomical.

All in all, life couldn't be going any better for him at this time. Despite the setback with losing Shia, everything was going his way.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.

'And speak of The Drought.' He thought as he headed over to the door, opening it to greet the representative-

"Heya shitbag! It's been too long-"

Rai's eyes went wide.

"NO!!" He screamed. He immediately slammed the door shut, and pressed his back as hard as he could against it, using his weight to barricade himself inside. His pupils had shrunken to pinpricks as his once happy expression had quickly morphed into one of absolute terror. "No, Draught, please no! No! NOOOOOOO!!!!!"

'Comeoncomeoncomeon' He looked around his room desperately as he tried to find something to barricade the door with. 'There's gotta be something here!!'

Because if he didn't, his life was over.

Because they had returned.

Chapter 1: Anguish
Chapter 2: Uncertainty
Chapter 3: Questions
Chapter 4: Lament
Chapter 5: Grind
Chapter 6: Pack (You are here)
Chapter 7: Reunite (Not Proofread)
Epilogue