CHAPTER 2:

The next morning, both Hunter and Talia woke up early, with Talia trying to get a groaning Hunter out of bed. Talia managed to make a very quick breakfast, her signature eggs and ham. They sat in the small living room in their small apartment…it wasn't a luxury apartment by any stretch of the means. The walls were ugly faded green, the wooden floor stained, carpets muddy. It was a piece of crap, but it was home on a budget, at least while they were here in Chicago. The real home was the even smaller, much colder, and less comfy Hopper ship they have parked away.

Talia turned on the holographic screen on their coffee table to display their bounty, while she sat on the leather guest chair. The bounty on screen was a beast, both literally and figuratively. The mug shot was that of a muscular lizard humanoid, with beady yellow eyes, dark gray scaly skin, and rows of yellow sharp teeth. A long purple tongue slithered out of the teeth, as it stared hungrily at the camera, as if ready to eat the person staring at the picture.

"Luckily, the bounty is still active," Talia said with a sigh of relief, "Target's name is Colvarn Drask, and apparently he's a Zorgon from Dimension 02048. Supposedly he stole a Hopper from that Earth and crash landed on some medieval kingdom called Carona in Dimension 02062. Mostly hidden, but recently he caused a ruckus when some local village saw it and chased it down the forest when it disappeared." She peered at the screen noticing a strange detail.

"Looks like Colvarn stole something from the other dimension as well," she observed, "And the client wants that back or 'terminated'. Strange…but I guess it must be a big deal if it's worth this much."

"Talia," Hunter finally spoke up from his couch, "I thought you said you were making eggs and ham." Talia turned to Hunter with an incredulous look on her face. Hunter was just sitting on the couch, staring at his uneaten plate.

"Hunter did you even listen to a word I said?" she asked. Hunter just kept looking at the plate.

"There's no ham," he said, "So you can't call it eggs and ham." Talia scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"We got this major job that can pay us big time and you're concerned that I didn't have any ham left? It's Christmas time, okay? Ham is being sold like wildfire! But can you just please pay attention?"

"Target's a lizard guy who's in Carona and he has this secret package we need to retrieve or destroy," Hunter said without blinking, "I got all that. I'm just saying that if you didn't have any ham, you shouldn't call it 'eggs and ham.'" Talia just shook her head as she turned off the screen.

"Just finish up and get your gear," she sighed.

"Yes, mom," Hunter said with a teasing smirk.

The two siblings eventually found themselves walking to their special ship, which they named the Hopper. The Hopper was a cheaper model, small and modest enough to fit a small crew of about 10 people, but it was just Hunter and Talia. It was triangular shaped with bulky panels, thrusters, and various lights, while a spherical structure was embedded in the middle. The Hopper was spray painted in a colorful pattern (mostly of Hunter's creation) of green and purple. The entry ramp opened and Talia and Hunter walked in, seating themselves in the spherical pilot's chamber. Talia pushed a few buttons and flipped some switches as the ship slowly lifted from the ground, before shooting upward toward the sky. With a few flicks of switches and then the light pressing of a lever, the view outside their viewport began to change as purple ripples started to creep on the edges, eventually colliding into a vortex of purple and dark black, with stars dotting the black parts. This was No-Space, the space between dimensions, and only a specially designed ship like the twin's Hopper is able to traverse through it.

Roughly half an hour of flight time has passed, which Talia decided to pass by playing some Christmas songs on their radio. Hunter just rolled his eyes and leaned back on his seat, chewing on a candy cane…the only thing next to the presents that he truly enjoys about Christmas. He had on his head a dark black cowboy hat, which he had leaned down over his eyes in an attempt to look like he's asleep. The hat was a souvenir from one of their earlier trips, one that had them nearly derailing a train full of troll dolls before helping out a local cowboy and some random space superhero save it. Not their best paying work that day. Talia wasn't sure why Hunter kept trying to emulate a cowboy… the most she could get out of him was "Why not?" Talia did admit that cowboys were cool…like Cole. Ew! Talia quickly thought, Don't equate Cole with your brother! What's wrong with you?

After the flight, the ship's system chimed that they were approaching Earth-02062. Talia gently pulled the lever back as the vortex of No-Space emerged to them flying over a pleasant green forest. In the distant horizon, Talia and Hunter can see a glorious castle, with some quaint cobblestone buildings climbing up towards it. That must be the royal kingdom of Carona, ruled by this king and queen as well as a princess rumored to have extremely long, golden, apparently magical hair.

There was a beep on the Hopper's monitor showing a red dot, the last known location of their bounty. Talia gently steered the ship to a forest clearing, and landed the ship gently on the grass below. Eventually, the twins stepped out of the Hopper into the forest. Hunter sniffed the air for a bit.

"Do you smell that?" he said, his hat pulled back on his head. Talia looked curiously at Hunter before smelling the air for a bit. As scents went up her nostrils, her cybernetic eyes began to relay the information on the scents that hit the nerve ends inside her nose. It picked up pollen from roughly five different flowers and a distant spring.

"What am I supposed to be smelling?" Talia asked somewhat confused.

"That is fresh air," Hunter said satisfied. Talia raised an intrigued eyebrow at Hunter after that response.

"I didn't think you liked the outdoors," Talia said, to which Hunter looked back at her with mock surprise.

"What? Just because I'm a good-looking bounty hunter doesn't mean I can't enjoy my own stuff?" he said, "That's awfully cynical of you." Talia giggled as she waved Hunter to walk with her down the forest to a nearby road.

Hunter had on these thick black gloves with purple wiring and slabs, while Talia had on her back a long black staff with purple linings. In Talia's hand was a small tablet, which continued to beep the red dot from the Hopper, showing the bounty's last known location. They followed the beeping tablet almost like a compass, taking them down the sandy road amongst the forest with the bright colored flowers. The tablet eventually lead them to a small building, a ramshackled pub like environment. A couple muscle bound thugs in leather armor and rusty metal caps were chatting with each other happily drunk. The sign of the establishment hung to the side of the road, by the wooden bridge that leads to the establishment. It has a rusty golden duck that swung to the wind, with the name underneath scrawled in yellow: The Snuggly Duckling.

"Cute," Talia said in response to the sign, "Though Snuggly is not a word I'd use to describe this place."

"Think our bounty is in there?" Hunter asked.

"From the sound of all the raucous laughter, I'm going to say no." Hunter turned to Talia with a strange look.

"That's your basis?" he asked. Talia rolled her eyes.

"That and our tracker here says no," Talia said, "Though it's possible they saw something."

"So we go in and ask?" Hunter said.

"Yep," Talia agreed, "And if they see anything, we better memory wipe…I don't want us charged again for potential dimension hopping exposure." Hunter rolled his eyes.

"Sure, and you remember to not hit anybody again," Hunter said. Talia glared at Hunter.

"Once again, wrong place to touch," Talia sneered.

The twins opened the door to the Snuggly Dugling, a bit more loudly than they attended. Inside was a circus of drunks and thugs in otherwise raucous fun and happy moods. They all ended up looking up at the two mysterious strangers as the music inside suddenly stopped. The twins both just stood there, awkwardly as all eyes were suddenly on them.

"Uh, howdy," Hunter said putting on his tough guy cool persona, "Don't mind us, the sister and I are just passing through." The bar kept quiet, still looking at them. Hunter's smile kind of quivered in awkwardness while Talia tried to refrain from rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, uh, listen has anybody seen a giant humanoid lizard round these parts?" Hunter said, "Mean looking? Lots of teeth? Probably heavily armed?"

There was a brief pause, before the entire pub erupted into laughter. It was loud, overwhelming, and almost humiliating, as thugs mocked at the idea of a giant lizard walking around. Hunter and Talia tried to speak up, to try and quell the laughs and hopefully get proper answers, but almost as quickly as the laughter began, the twins suddenly found themselves lightly pushed outside the pub with the door slamming close in front of them. The two stood there, stunned and a little embarrassed.

"Well," Hunter said finally, "That went well."

"At least we didn't break anything," Talia admitted, still stunned.

"Or hit anybody," Hunter continued. Talia didn't even respond to that. Suddenly, the door opened again, and out walked a very short elderly man, with a big bushy white beard, not wearing anything except what looks like a diaper. And he was clearly, VERY drunk. The man stumbled forward, mumbling a song happily, before eyeing up Talia and smiling.

"Well hello there beautiful," the main said, "Are you a tall glass of water? Cause I sure am thirsty here!" Talia looked down at this…thing, her face cringing in disgust.

"Uh, sorry, not interested pal," Talia said.

"You sure?" the man said, trying and failing to lean casually on the pub wall, and giving this very ugly looking smolder.

"Pretty sure," Talia said. The old man shrugged, his smile not leaving his face.

"Alright," the old man said, "But if you change your mind…"

"She won't," Hunter finished as he stepped forward, "Trust me." As he stepped forward, he balled one of his fists, and the glove began to glow. The old man looked at, his eyes widening…not in fear like Hunter hoped, instead of amazement.

"Woah! Shiny! Kind of like what that scaly guy had!" the man said. Hunter paused, turned to look at Talia, who had the same surprised reaction, and turned back to the man.

"You saw our giant lizard?" he said. The old man belched before looking up.

"Yep," he slurred, "Last night. He came out of this metal bird right over there." He pointed towards a direction, to which both Hunter and Talia turned to face. On the river was a crashed dimensional ship, scarred and smoking, but also pretty obvious…to the surprise of Hunter and Talia.

"How did we miss that?" Talia asked to Hunter, not really expecting an answer. Hunter turned to the old man again.

"Did you see which way the lizard went?" he asked.

"Oh yeah," the man slurred, "He went that way." He pointed the other direction, down where the river was heading. Immediately Talia went to that area, and with her cybernetic eye, fortunately found her clue. The lizard man's footprints, almost like dinosaur prints, peppered the muddy dirt. Her eye painted them red for her and Hunter to follow.

MEANWHILE…

Emerging from a cave which had a curtain of willow branches blocking its entrance, the Zorgon emerged into a bright and beautiful clearing, valleyed inside an area surrounded by mountain and waterfall. In the middle of the valley, rising high and proad was a tower of white with purple linings and roof. The Zorgon eyed the tower before running up to it and leaping up to its wall. It's claws dug into the white stone as it began to climb impossibly fast up the tower, climbing over the open window into the dusty interior. It was old, mostly wooden with some furnishings that have gathered dust. The paintings on the walls started to fade a bit.

The Zorgon sniffed the room and flicked its tongue. No sign of any presence inside. He made a grunt of approval as he pulled from his bag a silver orb with a purple line surrounding its circumference. The Zorgan then walked around the room, looking at the various nooks and crannies in the room until he found his place. Gently placing the orb in the hiding spot he designated, he then pulled out a tracker antenna and placed it carefully next to the orb. Finally, he punched something in his tablet, a command code to have the antenna self-activate in five minutes. Once he covered up the orb, he stepped back in relief…his task completed, or at least partially completed.

It was at that moment he smelled him. The Zorgon turned to see standing behind him, in front of the window he climbed in, was a giant hulking man in a thick black trench coat. On top of his head was a thick brimmed hat and his messy black hair framed down his face. The handles of two very powerful guns could be seen over his shoulders. The shadowy interior of the room didn't provide the Zorgon any proper details, just an intimidating outline illuminated by the window.

The giant man tilted his head at the Zorgon, and he heard a chuckle, a thick and gravily one of amusement and intrigue.

"You are fascinating," the giant man said in his low voice, "I would love to closely examine a specimen like you. That is, if I wasn't already on an important business matter." From his coat, the giant man pulled out two, obnoxiously huge guns, one in each hand. With his clawed glove hand, he primed them both, which let out a whirring whine.

"Now," the giant man sneered, "Where is it?" The Zorgon sneered at the giant man, who just continued to look blankly at him. Eventually, the Zorgon roared and charged.

Two shots from the massive guns were all it took. The Baron looked gleefully at his fresh kill before disappointment settled in again. He was supposed to find something, and he just killed the one thing that could reveal where it was. No matter though.

From his coat pocket, he pulled out a black cylinderal object which began to float in the air, as several spider like legs lowered from it and a red oculus lens emerged on the top.

"Keep an eye on this place," the Baron said, "If anybody else arrives here, let me know." The Baron slipped his big guns back in the coat and looked down at his kill. A smile crept on his face as began his work.

Hope you enjoy this chapter, written by my friend Ajer0695. See ya'll next Chapter ;D