Chapter 5: The dangers of Science

Alicia sat there near the small pool with her feet in the water, her heart still beating at a million miles per hour. The 'Dark Floran' dominated any other thoughts she attempted to think of. Then she decided that, seeing how the topic in her head was never going to change, she should think about… 'it.' Alicia never even caught if it was a boy or a girl. Then again, if she got too close to it to try to find out, it would rip her in two, maybe three. She couldn't help but to think of Rex though, as an attempt to not think about the Floran. Her notability and interest in the Blue-haired, literate Floran made it easy to disregard the Dark Floran. Rex had gone back to the makeshift house to pick up the campfire and and the different crating stations that were in there, but he would leave the building itself, as it made a pretty good underground base of operation.

Alicia couldn't help but to think about Rex a bit more… romantically, than normal, which she thought was a bit weird. She had to admit, he had a sort of irresistible charm about him. And even though they hadn't known each other for the LONGEST time, two days tops maybe, she still felt that they were really close friends. Alicia shook her head, she already had a boyfriend. And a bunch of other guys were after her at the moment anyways, so now wasn't the time to think about that. Still, the thought of Rex and Her being together didn't exactly go away, it wasn't even regressed. She was still fully aware that she was think about them being together. The thought, while strong and seemingly invincible, was quickly over powered when a harsh bang hit the door, making an ear-splitting, metallic ring. She looked over to it to see that a GIANT dent had been made in the door separating them from the Dark Floran.

Rex had apparently heard this, and came out of the door. He put the last of the crafting items into his bag and walked over to where Alicia was. She pointed at the now-dented wall, eyes widened, and looked at Rex, fright clearly spanning her face. He looked at her for a bit, before turning to see what she was pointing at. His eyes widened and he took a small step back, which seemed to be replied to by another bang on the door near the same spot, creating a small hole in the door. Hissing and growling and mumbling could be heard on the other side of the metallic wall, and the two looked at each other, mouthing the same word in unison.

Floran.

Alicia stood up and, alongside Rex, ran to the part of the room that they fell down when they first came into the clearing that they currently occupied. He quickly made a makeshift stairway out of stone using his matter manipulator. They climbed the staircase just in time to witness the door to the lab being completely demolished by the Dark Floran. As it walked through the rubble that use to be the metallic wall separating them and it, the Floran began to scan the room looking for, what Rex assumed, them. Turns out he was right, as the Floran looked over in their direction and let out a surprisingly loud hiss-roar, which was followed by it beginning to climb the staircase in pursuit. The two screeched a bit, and Rex spastically placed cobblestone in the path. He then grabbed Alicia's hand, and ushered her to run up the path they took from the surface. She blushed a bit before following.

The two ran as fast as they could, periodically stopping to place more stone in the way, as they assumed that if it could break metal, it could break stone, but it would still halt SOME sort of advancement. That, and they heard hissing and growling behind them. Things were going pretty smoothly until monsters that looked very similar to the ones from the cave clearing that they took over started littering the cave.

"Oh, NOW they show up!?" Rex muttered in slight anger, pulling out his sword.

Alicia pulled out her bow and began to shoot the father away monsters, while Rex took care of the closer ones with his ranged attacks. They were taking very little damage from the creatures, and they thought that they were doing pretty well, pace-wise. Then again, they had also forgotten that they were being chased by a murderous flower.

The Dark Floran was now visible and running towards the two at a scary pace. Alicia took out her matter manipulator and placed as many layers of stone as she could, and turned back around to help Rex with the fighting. Turns out Rex took out the rest of the creatures that were currently visible, and was waiting for her at a turn, matter manipulator in hand. As she approached, he placed more stone, sealing off even more of the cave, putting a bigger wall between them and the Floran. From there they ran, not bothering to stop to place stone behind them, as that would take up too much time. There were more creatures on the way up, but were easily dealt with with a running slash that didn't halt or slow their progress.

The cave entrance was visible now, and the two couldn't help but to smile. They ran outside, but their smiles faded quickly. Rex face clawed and Alicia shook in fear a bit. It was night time. So much for the sun not being able to screw things up. They looked back in the cave to see the floran running towards them on all fours, keeping a rapidly increasing speed. The two took off running again, Alicia screaming and Rex franticly looking around to view the masses of approaching monsters. They ran through the forest, ducking and weaving through and over trees and bushes, rocks and curving around the mountains. It didn't do them much good though, as the house was still a ways off and the monsters were curving them in different paths in order to avoid them. Not to mention the rapidly gaining Floran.

Say it.

The disembodied voiced called to him, making Rex stop running. The caused Alicia to stop as well, turning to face him. "…Rex?" She asked, unsure as to why he stopped. He didn't reply, which made her worry quite a bit, as monsters slowly advanced on them. The Floran wasn't being so subtle, however, and ran at them, full throttle. "R-Rex! We have to move!"

"…Tel…"

"…Rex?"

"…e…"

"Rex!" At this point she was stifling tears, grabbing Rex's hand. This is where she would die.

"…Port."

Suddenly a red light engulfed them both, making it impossible to see each other, which quickly transitioned to a white light, then another red light, and finally they could see again. They were standing on the teleporter of Rex's ship.

Alicia was shaking like crazy, gripping Rex's hand like it was the only thing keeping her alive. She walked closer to him, and embraced him in a hug, sobbing all the while. This snapped Rex back to reality, and looked around, realizing he was on his ship. Then he looked down a bit to the hylotl hugging him. He couldn't help but to smile. "Uh, you okay, miss Alicia?" He asked.

She looked up at him, teary eyes and all. "I- I thought w-w-we were going to d-die down there…" She somehow managed to say in her seemingly endless waterfall of tears.

He put his arm on her shoulder. "Well, we're fine now, aren't we?" He said, casually.

This earned a little giggle from Alicia, followed by the ending of her crying session. She sniffed, wiping some of the water from her eyes, and stood straight up, letting go of him. Then she stared at him, looking really confused. "Why d-didn't you use that b-before?" She asked, still sniffing, but as little as she could.

"Didn't know I COULD use it." He replied, simply.

She smiled.

• • •

Rex was sitting in the Pilots chair, putting his feet up on the control panel, and placing his hands behind his head. "So, what now? Star-wards to your home planet then?" He asked the purple Hylotl, who was standing next to him.

"Yeah, I guess so…" Alicia replied, obviously sad by the fact that this was about to be goodbye. "Oh, right." She reached into her bag and pulled out some of the mineral bars that they had created down in the mine. "Here," She said, holding them out for Rex to take. He sat up in his chair, looking at the bars, confused.

"But… don't you need these?" He asked.

"Yeah… but… you risked your life to help me out. And I wouldn't have been able to get any of this without you. Besides, you'll need ores eventually."

He accepted the mineral bars and placed them in his bag. He looked back up at her and smiled. "Thanks." He said. "So, you ready to head home?"

She nodded, smiling. Alicia handed Rex a hologram-board looking object with an X coordinate and a Y coordinate written on it. He accepted it and typed it into the computer, making sure he kept note of their current coordinates, as he wanted to come back there after dropping Alicia off.

The ship whirred to life after inputting the coordinates. The DNA scan authentication came down and scanned Rex, making sure it was the pilot controlling the ship, and not some sort of ship stealer. The fuel cost was, as expected, 200, which brought Rex down to 1600. The window that contained the ship's run data opened up which Rex left opened, as he walked into the main part of the ship for some redecorating. Alicia stood there, looking out the window closest to the cockpit in awe as he was placing the lab tables and vials that he… 'borrowed,' from the abandoned laboratory.

After placing a little lab station, Rex joined Alicia at the window. He looked at all the planets and stars and asteroids and moons that passed them by. "You know…" Alicia started, followed by Rex's eyes looking in her direction. "I don't think I'll ever get old of this. Stars and planets flying by, unexplored containing many different wonders and secrets." She looked at Rex. "Even though I won't be flying a ship any time soon, I expect you to visit sometimes and tell me stories."

Rex smiled. "Of course! Just… uh… other Hylotl's don't know that I'm… well… yeah."

"Oh, right. Well, I can attempt to persuade them, maybe?"

Rex shrugged. "Worth a shot."

She smiled, as the ship made a very quite hissing noise, that only Rex could probably hear because of his wolf-ears, signifying that the approaching planet is near. This was confirmed by a window that popped up, saying that the teleporter was able to send them down to the planet below. The Rex and Alicia nodded at each other, and Rex stuck out his hand. Alicia shook it, smiling all the while. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Rex."

"The pleasure was all mine, Miss Alicia."

Then Alicia grabbed his hand tighter, and dragged him into a hug.

"Bye, Rex. Hey, look, I have something cool to tell everybody in the village that no one else could ever top."

"Dude, yeah! You could let someone have their fun with a story all about them, and then walk up to them and tell them, 'Well I stared death in the face, and lived,' and walk away! They won't even be able to argue anymore."

Alicia giggled.

"Bye, Alicia. I'll see you around."

She let go of the hug and walked over to the teleporter, activating it. As she was being drawn out of the ship through the warp effects of the teleporter, she waved one last time. And, as the light of the teleporter almost engulfed her, she yelled to Rex, hoping he would hear; "Oh! And one more thing! Ships have a voice control!"

"What?"

And just like that, she was gone. Rex sighed, realizing his adventures with the Hylotl had come to an end. He was still perplexed about the voice control thing, though. He sat in the pilot's chair and put his feet back up on the control panel, and putting his hand behind his back. He decided to give the voice thing a try, since there wasn't any reason not to try it. "Star map, open." Suddenly the area in front of him was occupied by a giant map of Solar Systems that he could explore. This amazed Rex as convenient. He supposed that Alicia learned about this from her ship. He attempted to try another command. "Coordinates, X, enter, 8913345." As he said this, the spaces in the x coordinate box in the star map input filled with the vocalized words. "Y, enter, 9132561." And the same thing happened as it did with the X. "Launch."

The ship whirred to life and, again, opened a page with ship data. He got up and walked out of the cockpit, over to one of the windows, and began to stare out of it, viewing the passing stars and planets and the such. He now planned on returning to the planet he was just at to do something with the ores that he had. But more importantly, he wanted to investigate the Dark Floran, It was clearly some science experiment gone wrong. Rex walked over to the small lab setup he had, sat in the chair, put his feet on the table, and took a nap.

• • •

Rex walked through the door to his base of operations to see that everything was exactly as he had left it. He went upstairs to the crafting room and placed a newly crafted anvil on the ground and got to work crafting a shield and a one-handed sword so that he could defend and counter attacks. Besides, a data analysis confirmed that it was stronger than the weapon that Liax had given him. He also made a better pickax, a copper one, but decided to save the rest of the bars, since he took note of an item, the Distress Beacon, that he thought might be important. He didn't know why, he just had a feeling.

As he was doing this, Rex heard some sort of scratching on the door. This paralyzed him completely. He didn't know for sure, but it was possible that it was the Floran. Thinking about it, it would be kinda odd for it to just be checking the house out now, as soon as he beamed down to the planet. He thought it could have been checked multiple times, but he would expect claw marks somewhere. After a bit, he just ignored it, thinking it was a monster. And monsters can't open doors.

This logic was, however, flawed very quickly when he heard the shattering of wood downstairs, followed by hissing and growling. Rex sorta fell to his feet when the shattering occurred, being caught completely off guard. He quickly got to his feet and rushed downstairs in time to see the dark floran crawling through what use to be a doorway on all fours. It seemed like it didn't know Rex was there for a bit, but stared at him shortly after, obviously aware of his presence.

Close up and in the torchlight, Rex could see more of the Dark Floran. It was a fair amount taller than him, maybe it was about 20, 21. Its skin color was a darkish purple and its leaves and flowers and the such, including its hair, were all a shade of black. Its eyes were red with anger, emitting a faint glow that seemed to paralyze Rex in his tracks. The Floran was wearing a very tattered and torn lab coat with some shorts, which actually, in Rex's opinion, looked pretty cool. He also noted that it was a male, so that's a thing. However, he studied the Floran's appearance a bit too long, as it was already running towards him, growling and baring its sharp teeth. There was little time to react, but it was still time, nonetheless.

Rex was able to roll to the left, just in time to evade the Floran's leap. It became a bittersweet action when he rolled into the walls of the house. It wasn't exactly the biggest battle arena. Rex got to his feet, groggily, pulling out his new sword and shield, followed by getting in a ready stance. The floran ran for him, which ended in it smashing its head on his shield. The caused the floran to fall backwards in pain, clenching it's head. Rex took this opportunity to slash at it, which may have either been what the floran was waiting for, or it recovered at that exact moment, because it grabbed Rex's blade, flipping him upside down and releasing the sword from his grasp.

The Floran flipped the blade so that the handle was in it's hand, and held the weapon's tip above Rex's chest. Just then, before it attacked, Rex could hear voices, which stunned him more than the Blade did. The other Floran must have heard it too, as its movements ceased, almost instantly. The voices drew nearer. "I saw it go this way!" Rex heard one say. "Into the house with the… broken… doorway."

"He must have already left here." Another said. "The house owner must be dead. Maybe we could find some scratches and calculate when the Experiment was last here, and where he was headed."

"Good idea, AxepII." Another complimented.

The Floran looked at Rex with worry, allowing him to get up. Sudden generosity. He saw where this was going, and looked at the Floran with unamused eyes. And to even confirm the fact that Rex knew where this was going, the Floran growled 'help.' Rex sighed, face clawing at how wrong these circumstances were.

"Fine…." Rex agreed, looking slightly irritated. "But you're going to have to hear me rant as to why I shouldn't agree to this, alright?"

The Floran nodded, and Rex dragged him upstairs to the top floor, and used the matter manipulator to place some blocks around them in a way that made it look like that was how it was suppose to look. Once inside, the Floran was clawing at the sides, sort of hypnotically. Rex snapped to get it's attention, and shushed him as he put his wolf ears to the ground. The Floran stood there, twitching and moving constantly. Rex sighed, keeping his ears to the floor. He could faintly make out a conversation.

"These claw marks are dangerously fresh." One voice stated.

"Yes, almost as if it just left." Another said.

Rex stiffened a bit, realizing that this could be put to their advantage. He began to mine out the wall separating them from the rest of the house quietly. As he finished this, he looked back at the Floran that was shaking with uncontrollable fear in the corner. "Stay here." He commanded quietly as he blocked off the wall again. Rex walked downstairs, putting away anything that he had in his hands, and pulled out some wood so that it looked like he was going over to fix the broken doorway in his house.

He walked to the ground floor of the house to see three humanoids in lab coats and glasses scouting around the room. Their faces had fur on them, and they looked kinda ape-like. Rex assumed that these were people from the Apex race. "Uhm… hi?" Rex asked, trying to look confused as to why they were in his house.

The three stared at him for a bit, obviously shocked to see that he's still alive. "S-sorry." One of them finally replied.

"We thought that the owner of this house was deceased." Another said.

"Well, I'm still alive and the owner of the house, so I guess that means you were wrong, weren't you?" Rex replied, sorta stay-off-my-lawn-you-kidsish. However, he must have said something wrong, or they took offense to that or something, because after he said this, they stared at him, wide-eyed. Then he remembered that he was a Floran. They're suppose to have grammar issues.

They shook their heads to snap back to reality, and bowed. "We're sorry to have disturbed you, but have you seen a black and purple Floran running around at all?"

"Well, I DO think that's who... er... WHAT, broke my door. But, I didn't see any details."

"Alright, thank you." And with that, the three of them walked out of the hole in the wall, and Rex could see them beam up to their ship.

He took out his matter manipulator and replaced the wood and door that were broken when the other Floran decided to drop by and say hi. He sighed, and walked back up to where he was hiding the floran, and broke the wood around him. The Floran was still shuddering like crazy, and had his head to his knees, and wrapped his arms around his legs. "Okay," Rex reassured. "Their gone."

It looked up at him, terrified. "H-help… Malix…" it growled.

"Malix? Is that your name?" Rex asked, kinda freaked out about this.

Malix nodded.

"I'm Rex, and, uhm… You're asking for help after trying to kill me which is kinda… well… odd."

"Malix… sssorry…" He replied. "Malix… Human… Floran… Sssavage…"

Rex pondered this for a second as Malix got up, then he figured it out.

"Wait… are you saying… that you were a Human that turned into a very hostile Floran savage?"

He nodded again, which sorta made Rex look at him in a different light. "Wait… then who were those people?"

"Experiment… on… Malix… turn… into… Floran… Sssavage…"

"Th-they did?"

Malix nodded.

"Is there any way to turn you back?"

"Find… Machine… Apex… Planet… Reverssssse…" Malix said, looking fairly sad and hopeless.

"What's wrong now?" Rex asked, kind of annoyed by the different moods this guy shifted into.

"Ssstuck… as… Floran… forever…"

Rex smiled, taking this opportunity to grab Malix's arm. This made him look a bit confused, and sort of scared too. Rex took note of this, and replied to this. "Oh, don't be so confused, Malix. We've got to hurry if we're going to follow the Apex ship."

Despite this, Malix was still looking a bit confused, so Rex dragged him outside, under the sun. "We're making you a human again." And this surprised him a bit.

"How…?" Malix asked.

"You'll see," Rex replied, and looked up to the skies. "Teleport!"

And with that, a red and white light engulfed the both of them.