Chapter 10: Familiarity

Rex was sitting in the pilot's seat aboard his ship, staring into the infinite expanse of stars and planets that lay before him. He had a plan in mind; find a planet to gather a mass amount of resources in and create another base of operation. He lost track of the planet that he made his first base on, and only recently found out about the function on the teleporter that allowed the registration of a Planet as a 'Home Planet,' being able to teleport there without the cost of fuel. This was a page after the page that said that the ship had a voice control from the book Liax gave him. Of course, he knew about the voice control, thanks to Alicia, but it was still good to know that Liax made sure he stuffed EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING in the little notebook.

He wasn't, however, in the mood to actually put that plan into motion. He just felt sorta… empty. Like his heart was torn out of his chest and fed to a monster right in front of his eyes. Rex, was alone. And it seemed like it would have to stay this way, seeing how Malix went off to adventure with Jane, and Liax went off with his new Girlfriend, Lasecil, and his parter, Maria, leaving Rex by his self. He just felt like sitting there in the Pilot's chair for the rest of his life. His will to do anything ever again left with Liax, Malix, and the others. He got up, which required just about every bit of willpower he had, and walked into the main room of the ship, using his matter manipulator to place down a bed. He decided to sleep the thoughts away, despite the fact that he wasn't very tired.

He shut his eyes, after getting in a comfortable position, and attempted to empty his mind.

Muted screaming and sword slashes can be heard.

Rex's eyes flashed open, and he fell out of his bed, screaming. He stopped yelling once he hit the floor, and stood up, rubbing the part of his head that he landed on. He looked around his spaceship, trying to find the origin of the screams. He ran to the cockpit window to see if it was coming from outside, but found nothing out there, save stars and planets. It sounded so real, but must've been in his head, as he couldn't locate where it came from. Cautiously, he walked back over to his bed, and attempted to sleep, once again. He calmed down after a bit and, after getting comfortable, fell asleep.

"…I'm sorry, Celite…"

Rex jumped out of bed again, doing a small flip in the air before landing flat on his back, which was as painful as it sounded. He got up quickly, disregarding the pain in his back, darting his eyes around the ship's interior in an attempt to, again, locate to originator of the sound. It was a feminine voice, Rex was sure of that. And, for some reason it sounded familiar…

Suddenly, he happened to notice the Pilot's seat, like it was calling him, or something. That's when he snapped bak to reality. There was no TIME for to do nothing for the rest of forever! He would've gotten bored of that anyways. Shoving off the two noises that forced him to jump out of his bed, and realizing that begin alone was, inevitably, a part of his journey, he walked over to the Pilot's seat. "Open the star map." He ordered.

The ship responded, opening the large expansive map of seemingly endless planets. He lost track of the solar system with a lot of planets, which was a good find. He'd have to punish himself for that later. While scrolling through the star map, a certain forest planet caught Rex's attention. It looked similar to the other forest planets that he had seen, but something felt different about this one. But, despite the fact that it only had one other planet to explore from there, he seemed to have pressed the GO button, anyways.

The data panel opened up, scrolling down a list of a whole bunch of data that talked about the condition of the ship and what parts of it turned on which, again, Rex found no use for. He took into account the distance from his current location to the current targeted location, and decided that a nap would be a good idea. It turned out that he, along with his friends, had been in that lab for 2 days. And that was just considering him and Malix. Who knows how long Liax and Maria were actually there, too?

As he lay in bed, getting in a comfortable condition, another sound emanated from a different location. Rex was able to ignore it, as it was a light sound, but it was still present, so it took longer for him to fall asleep that he would have liked.

The second voice could be heard crying quietly.

• • •

Rex yawned, rolling over slowly, until he fell off of his bed, which jerked him up to his feet. He walked over to the cockpit and looked out of the window to see that he had stopped over the targeted planet. He hasn't been on another planet in a while, and this one would have to be his home, for resource gathering and the such. He felt like such a human for going in a world to drain it of it's resources, but there wasn't exactly much of an option here. He armed himself with the sword he got from Liax and beamed down to the surface below, via the teleporter.

Upon landing on the ground, Rex saw an Apex running away from some creature in a purple robe holding two daggers. Before he could consider what was happening, or who the purple-robed humanoid was, he witnessed the Apex trip over a rock in the ground. It fell to the ground, and the purple-robed creature leapt in the air, falling to the ground and driving both of the daggers into the Apex's back. The tailless monkey stopped moving after that, and the purple-robed creature began to look it's remains for, what Rex assumed, money and gear. This all happened so suddenly, and he began to back up slowly, so that he wouldn't get spotted. Unfortunately, he backed up into a tree that had a monster within it's branches. When he hit the tree, the monster fell out and landed in his arms, and then proceeded to make a screeching sound and Rex chucked it, as if it were a reflex.

The purple-robed creature noticed him, however, and stopped it's current action of corpse robbing to kill it's next target. Rex went into it's ready stance, as the creature that gave away his location scurried towards the one in the purple robes. It used it's knives to cut the creature up quickly, and it's remains hit the floor. His charge continued, and Rex ran up the tree behind him, just in time to narrowly avoid a double-knife stab, which instead got themselves stuck in that tree. Rex took this opportunity to slash at the purple-robed creature, and he watched as his body sank to the floor. Naturally, he felt guilty about killing someone, but it was short lived, as he walked over to the Apex corpse, burying it with his Matter Manipulator, and placing some stone which was then followed by the use of his sword, to engrave the words 'R.I.P. Unknown Apex.' He actually wrote that better than he though considering he used his sword for a writing utensil.

Rex set to work, taking out his Axe to begin chopping down the nearby wood for starting out. After a while, he had a few stacks of it in his inventory, and proceeded to start mining around for some ores. After a few failed attempts of finding nothing but stone and dirt, he located some coal, which procedurally led to iron and silver. A while after mining all if the ores he could find, he started climbing out of the hole he dug himself into. As he was nearing the surface, he heard the sound of about 50 guns reloading, as well as the sound of rapid gunfire. He peeked his head out of the hole to see an army of a ton of Apex with guns firing at a smaller, but obviously more nimble groups of the purple-robed creatures from before. Rex decided to dig under the war, and began to tunnel below all of the shouting and screaming and sword swinging and gun shooting in the opposite direction of the advancing Apex. This wasn't his problem, but he didn't want to stay on the planet any longer than he had to. He DID, however, find some ores along the way. Some silver, copper, and coal never hurt anyone, unless, of course Rex made a weapon out of those materials and hurt someone. But that should've been obvious.

He mined himself another hole to pop out of. Coming out, he was unaware that he was covered in dirt, rocks, and dust. It was much more peaceful over in the new setting, as none of those Apex or purple-robed creatures were visible, which made Rex wonder just how far he traveled underground to get to the new location. Just then, he heard footsteps behind him, and was standing face to.. stomach with a towering monster that had hair like a festive native-american hat, and was covered in orange-ish fur. It had a beak, and stood on it's hind legs, which looked like normal feet despite it's resemblance to a bird. Rex was prepared to fight it, but it walked past him, like it didn't even care if he was there or not. It never dawned on him that some of the creatures of the new worlds would actually be neutral. He took a step and slipped, falling flat on his chest. He flipped over from this position to look at his feet, and he found out that he was covered in dirt, and his feet in slippery mud. It then dawned on him that he hadn't done anything to clean himself for days.

Just then, the orange-ish creature from before, along with two other's of it's kind, came along and picked Rex up. He had no opposition to this, seeing how he both couldn't move his arms and legs, since they had them locked into place, and that they were, like, twice his hight, and there was no clear escape root. It especially didn't help when he saw they were going into their territory so the creatures became more frequent. The came to a pool of water, which Rex was confused about, until the creatures carefully placed him in their. It wasn't cold water, it was actually quite warm, and the dust and debris from his body was actually being resolved off of him instead of growing and manifesting in the water itself. Rex let him sink in a little deeper, before sitting up quickly and turning around to face the creatures that brought him there. He looked at one in the eye, and that one looked him back in the same manner.

Rex tilted his head both ways, curious as to why they helped him. He assumed they wouldn't understand him, or if they did, they wouldn't be able to reply, but he asked anyways. "Why did you guys bring me here?" Then they did something unexpected.

They spoke.

"You are Rex, correct?" The middle one asked.

"Uhm… yessss…" Rex replied, with an elongated 's,' too. "How do you know my name?"

"The Great One told us." Another replied.

"Yes, yes. He said you had quite the journey ahead of you, and to prepare you as best we could for your adventure." The last one said.

"I'm not following."

"You see, the Great One can predict the visitors of this planet, and he spoke of you; a blue-haired Floran that will go on many adventures and accomplish amazing feats."

"He ordered us to aid you as much as possible. Foot rub?"

"No thanks. Is there any chance I could meet the 'Great One?'

"Yes, he requested an audience with you once you've finished rejuvenating. We'll see to a new wardrobe and a portable hot spring for you."

This all seemed to good and too weird to be true. Rex had just seen a massive war a little bit ago, and now it was all peace and kind gestures. He decided to keep an eye on everything that transpired around him, but still decided to go along with everything. He finished up in the hot spring and the creatures came, dressing him up in his newly cleaned scarf, a sort of fancy jacket adjourned in gray and blue over a comfortable, white undershirt. He was also given some gray shorts, which he was very pleased about. He was brought through a door into a little structure with an older-looking version of the creatures that helped him out so far, sitting at a table with food on it. He was ushered through the door that was closed behind him.

"Come, sit." The elder said, motioning for him to sit down at the table. The food DID look pretty good. He did as he was told. "Are you hungry? This food was prepared for you, after all." He graciously accepted the offer, and began respectfully eating the assorted meats and fruits that were laid before him. The elder's voice sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. " Ah, you have the thought in your mind, that you've hear me before."

Rex stopped, and looked up at the elder, with food staying stationary in his hand and mouth. He Put down the current leg of some animal and swallowed. "How did you know that?" He asked.

Simple.

The familiar voice from when he first started out popped in his head.

I can read your thoughts. That's how I knew that.

Rex looked at the elder with his jaw dropped.

There is no time to be confused with the fact that I was the voice the entire time. Do you recall when I said how I will always keep watch over you?

Rex thought back to when he first passed out on his ship after he first got it. He nodded in understanding.

I… unfortunately… cannot keep that promise. I must leave you to your own destiny, lest you wish to parish.

He looked at the elder again, with a face of disappointment and confusion.

I've done all I can to help you, but now you must forge your path on your own. You may stay the night here, but in the morning, you shall leave, and look back. Our settlement will have disappeared, replaced by only a flat expanse of land. I know this is happening rather suddenly, but I thought that you would have liked to know that your friends from Earth are that ones that informed me of your existence, so that I may assist you.

"M-my friends?!" Rex yelled. Standing up and slamming his hands on the table. "You mean Lyra, Serenity, and Axis!?"

The wolf, Terraroost, and dragon, yes.

He sat down is his chair slowly. "So they're looking after me…" He muttered quietly.

"Yes, this is true." The elder answered, in his non-disembodied voice. "But their time of guidance has run out. Time on Earth will be frozen, and your journey will not parallel any other."

Rex looked down at his food, with no desire to eat anymore. The elder was able to sense this, obviously.

"Go on eat. You'll need your strength. I know this all seemed to come at you so fast, but you must be responsible about this situation. You shall sleep, and, in the morning, start your journey, aided by no outside force. Is this understandable to you?"

Rex nodded, and went back to eating, even if he didn't feel like it.

• • •

The creatures had directed him to a bed in another separate structure. He had ben laying there for what felt like hours, thinking about all that has happened. It all happened so quickly, but he made sense of it. Or, at least, of as much as he could. His friends had tried their best to support him as much as they could, and now the rest was up to him. He had all of his gear, as well as some extra clothing. He was also given the portable hot spring, which took the shape of a waterfall that one could walk through, and it would instantly clean whoever walked through it. From here on, he would need to craft, mine, and make his way through the new adventures and obstacles that got in his way without any hints or anyone to rely on besides himself.

Rex sighed, bobbing his foot up and down, signifying his nervousness about this all. Suddenly, this was all faced with confidence and a newfound respect for his task, which was to explore the UNIVERSE! He actually felt a bit queasy, but not overwhelmed. Sure, some of the planets will be straightforward and designed for nothing but resource gathering, but there are a bunch of planets out there that are filled with different journeys and adventures to go through, and they were all for the taking. He stopped tapping his foot in the air, and closed his eyes smiling.

"I suppose this is REALLY where my adventure starts, huh…?" He whispered to himself, before drifting off to sleep.

That night, he had a dream about a girl, and the murder of her two family members. It was more like a nightmare, than a dream. The sounds all sounded familiar for some reason, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Suddenly, his dream shifted to something else, and he forgot about what he was just dreaming about.