Author Notes: This is a follow-up to Worthless? But for once, I think Stan needs to figure something out for himself to save everyone else. He doesn't do that often.

Things had been quite ineventful since their ordeal on 7XZ. Kai was fully healed, and if he wasn't in his room "angsting" as Stan would call it, he had taken to practicing his assassin capabilities in the cryochamber. He didn't want another episode like the one with the Infected, and he knew he had to adapt to fight better to avoid injury or death. When he'd been dead, he hadn't had to think about anything, all he had to do was freeze himself until someone needed him.

Now his mind was blocked with dark thoughts. Every night the voices of those he killed and their images haunted him in his sleep, so he'd taken to staying awake at long intervals to evade those nerve-clenching screams. He hadn't spoken with Xev much since the kiss in the passageway. Sometimes he'd catch her staring at him, but everytime he made eye contact with her, she'd break it, or vise-versa. Kai didn't blame her. He didn't know what it was, but something was telling him that she was what mattered, and she could never be happy with a dead person. True he was alive, but he knew it wasn't in him to love. He was a killer, and nothing more. Everything he was before His Divine Shadow killed him was gone, and there was absolutely no point in trying to retain any of that. He was a shell. Prince had showed him what he was back in the lab.

Speaking of whom, what about Prince's little deal? He'd asked Kai to help him find a box. Of course he declined, but Kai couldn't help wondering why Prince would want a box. The only answer could be that something evil was inside it. Xev had made sure Prince survived the insect attack, since she was a good heart no matter what. Now Kai was beginning to wonder if the box had anything to do with their practically stowaway Time Prophet. It was pretty clear that Vlad was the most important rejuvenation specimen in that annex now. It wasn't so much that they were after him, as they were after her. Now instead of questioning her reasons to be brought back, he was throughly questioning his own. Just another reason to deem himself worthless, Kai figured.

Stan on the other hand, spent his days trying to teach the new Lexx things the old Lexx could do. This Lexx grew fast in three months, almost to the size the original had been, yet it was even scarier, since he and Xev never really took the time to explore it. Then again, neither of them cared much at first. The first days after the Earth incident, Xev was almost catatonic. The shock didn't hit her immediately, but after a few hours, it was plain to him that she missed Kai. He didn't blame her, it did feel weird not having the dead guy around anymore. She persisted in looking for a body to find that there was none of course, and then she got this idea in her head, after her near-rape on a nearby planet, that she had to make up for "lost time". Her whole personality changed. Sex no longer interested her (unless of course it was with the now living Kai, and Stan didn't see that happening anytime soon), only finding a new home and killing the insects mattered to her.

He had no clue what was causing the insects, but everywhere they seemed to go, they attacked. He felt it had something to do with Kai and Vlad being revived. He had run this idea past Xev several times after Kai's mysterious rejuvenation under Prince's control, but she said he was crazy. Stan didn't think so, since Xev was willing to feel that Kai's ressurrection was a good thing under any circumstance, even though any idiot could see that Kai considered it a living Hell. He hadn't tried to bounce the notion off Kai either, since any sane person who had an affinity for their limbs stayed out of the cryochamber when Kai was in it. (Stan understood that Kai had to push his accuracy back up to where it had been, but did that mean he had to be throwing around machinery that was twice as big as his head?)

The Time Prophet had once said that time moved in a cycle, right? Well, the Time Prophet had been killed, not by Vlad as everyone had come to believe, but rather she was Vlad herself. Well? The Time Prophet, even though reluctant, was alive and running again, wasn't she? Who knew what kind of images were popping up in that crazy woman's head!

The Last of the Brunnen-G was supposed to die at the hands of the Divine Order, which he did, and then destroy them after death, in which he also suceeded. He existed an extra four-thousand years as a dead person until getting restored to life by Prince, and then being killed that same moment. Well, three months and a machine that brings back the dead later, here Kai was, slightly in shock, and definitely in denile, but alive nonetheless. Stan figured, that if the Time Prophet was alive, the Insects were back, and the Last of the Brunnen-G had been brought back from the afterlife, then there had to be something out there that completed this mess. He didn't want to mention, think, imply, or guess it, but somewhere in there, he knew there was one right answer to that question: His Shadow.

Stan really hadn't had much time to think on the subject though. Most of the time, he was either off exploring some evil planet with the crazies he called his crew, or he was too scared that Vlad was going to pop out of nowhere and skewer him like the pig she probably thought he was. Kai had told him several times that she was no real potential threat since only her abnormal physical strength was an issue, and that she could be killed if need be. Stan didn't like it one little bit. Fangs or no fangs, she could predict his actions by looking into the time cycle now. That was the most dangerous thing she posessed. Xev on the other hand was just daring Vlad to come out of the shadows for a rematch. Apparantly, the love slave still held a grudge for everything from trying to kill Kai to actually killing her, and was just wanting to eat the woman's brain.

The moth landed on the bridge and Stan looked up as Xev came out of it, shaking her head. "I've been all over the place looking for Vlad," she said. "Nothing,"

"Divine Executioners are good at not being seen," said Kai, stepping onto the bridge.

"Hey, dead man!" said Stan. "You decided to come outta your cave for once,"

"I suspected that I would be needed," said Kai.

"And you're right," said Xev. "While I was looking, I didn't find Vlad, but I did find some weird kind of box in the Lexx's second stomach,"

Kai tilted his head. "Do you wish for me to recover it?" he asked.

"If you want to," said Xev. "It's not often we get things like that, or at least I don't think so,"

"I say we leave it alone!" said Stan. "Every time some foreign object comes on this ship, something I really don't like happens,"

"Then it settles it," said Xev, walking around the bridge, her arms behind her back.

"What, settles what?" said Stan.

Xev smiled mischivously. "Kai, go get the box,"

"I don't like this," said Stan, circling the large stone obstruction. "I mean I really don't like this,"

The box itself was pretty plain. It was made out of some light stone, and had an ornately carved seal on its side, and the top of it was encrusted with marble lettering. The only thing that made it chillingly eerie, was that both the seal and a large symbol on the lid were in the shape of the Divine Order symbol. "You should not," said Kai. "As it seems to be an artifact sent to the Dark Zone by His Divine Shadow,"

Xev flicked at the lid curiously. "How can you tell all that just by looking at it?" she asked.

"I have many memories, including those of linguists from the League of Twenty-Thousand," said Kai, tracing his fingers along the first line of script. "It vaguely reads that he who opens it shall sleep the most blissful sleep while those on the outside experience the worst terror imaginable,"

"Vaguely, whaddya mean vaguely?" said Stan.

"As I only carry memories of the language, either the inscription is a warning or an elaborate recipe for fruit salad. I suspect that it is not the latter," said Kai.

Stan scoffed, and shook his head. "I'm getting away from this thing right now. You guys can tinker with it all ya like, but I'll meet you on the bridge, away from this thing,"

As Stan's footsteps faded away down the passageway, Kai went behind one of the cryopods and reappeared with a metal pole. He proceeded to stick it in the small gap between the lid and the seal, and applied his weight to it, trying to crack the seal open. "Kai?!" Xev said in astonishment. "What are you doing?"

"Do you not want to see what is inside?" he said, stopping to look up.

"I thought the dead didn't experience curiosity," said Xev.

'Though it is true that the dead do not experience curiosity or motivation, I am aware that cluster lizards are curious animals by nature," he said flatly.

She smiled, seeing that he was at least thinking about her. She would have opened it herself, except there he was, struggling to pry off the seal on his own. "Would you like some help?" she asked brightly.

"The dead do not see any need for help, yet the living understand that it is necessary," he said.

Xev rolled her eyes as she stepped behind him to take hold of the pole. She really wished he'd just talk like a normal person for once, but no, he always had to give her the dead answer. "Like this?" she asked, pushing the rod up and down in the slot.

"Yes," said Kai.

They cranked it a few times, until the stone made a dry grinding sound against itself. "Stop," said Kai. "I believe you should stand behind me and allow me to finish this on my own. That way if something dangerous is in there, you will not be the unfortunate one,"

Xev shrugged and did as she was asked. With a heave, the two of them found themselves being blasted off their feet as the pole hit the ground with a steel clatter. Xev landed in one of the divets in the floor, while Kai bounced off the middle cryopod, ironically the place where he used to reside. They looked up to see oddly sparkling blue dust filter through the room, and dissapear into thin air. Kai peeled himself off the glass of the pod, and rubbed the back of his head. He offered his hand to Xev, and yanked her back upright. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yeah. What was all that?"

"I do not know," said Kai. "However, I do believe our disturbing it has had reprocussions,"

He leaned closer to the lid, to see that the Divine Order symbol on the lid had opened into a darkness inside the box.

Stan looked up from his post, as he heard Kai and Xev returning to the bridge. "So what'd you guys find? Insects, a mummy, fruit salad, what?" he asked.

"I'm going to bed," Xev said huffilly.

Kai followed suit. "I will too," he said. "And Stan, I assure you there is nothing wrong with your sleeping chamber. Wake me for only dire emergencies,"

Xev whirled around and snickered. "What?" she asked. "What have you been doing Stan?"

Kai fixed his emotionless eyes on her. "For the past six nights, Stan has awakened me because he believes he is being threatened. I have checked around his chamber. There is no potential threat," he said innocently.

Stan rolled his eyes, unable to understand how Kai could be one of the most feared assassins in the Light Universe, and at the same time have the innocence of a child. He could simply tell you too much because he couldn't lie to save his life. Xev sighed. "Goodnight then," she said.

"Yeah, goodnight," said Stan, calling after them. "I'm not scared!"

As soon as Kai and Xev were well beyond earshot, Stan jumped as he heard someone scream in pain down the opposite corridor.