The furred girl stared up in shock at the figure on top of her, warm water cascading down on them both. A massive blush soon overtook her face, and with a scream she Force Pushed him off of her and scrambled out of the bathroom, still naked as she was when she walked into the shower.

“MAAAAAAAAAASTEEEEEEEERRRR!” she cried as she ran out.

‘...The fuck just happened?’ the figure - Richter Douglas, fledgling Undead - thought blankly to himself as he got back up on his armored boots and looked around the bathroom as the adrenaline from his frankly terrifying near-death experience wore off and left him rather numb and lethargic.

The best he could describe said bathroom was minimalistic and very futuristic. The shower wasn’t tiled or anything like most, and was instead solid metal. Silver, metal, at that. There was no curtain, only a sliding door of some kind of glass that hopefully managed to just obscure any naked forms that would be within the shower.

The sink beyond the shower was also made of metal, and overall very simplistic. The toilet next to it was honestly the more intriguing bit of plumbing, oddly enough, as it had no lid and instead a bunch of pipes leading from it to the ceiling, along with some strange, rubbery seal of a seat.

The ceiling and walls bore simple floodlights that glowed with cyan light. All in all, he was not sure where exactly he was besides some weird futuristic house.

‘Huh. Not a ship; no swaying. Also not a building, feels...cramped. Bunker?’ Richter wondered, stepping out of the shower with as much care as a wet floor deserved and then making his way out of the room.

As soon as he made it out of the room, he saw that he was in, at the very least, a lengthwise building, with a few other rooms hanging off to the sides. The entire hall was styled similarly to the bathroom; futuristic, made of silver metal, and with those same cyan floodlights. To his left, from the entrance of the bathroom, was what seemed to be two small rooms, the doors bearing no handles or knobs. It was likely they were pneumatic, or hydraulic, and opened via some other input.

Beyond those doors, further down the hall and at the end, was three other doors, the one in the middle painted with a familiar symbol - the symbol of a Tearstone, specifically the Blue Tearstone.

Off to the left wall, there was a final door beyond the other door on that wall. He had no idea where any of those doors went.

‘Oookay, Tearstone door is a point of interest. Goody,’ Richter mused as he eyed the door for a few moments.

Then he turned his head to the right.

And was met with a veritable wall of hulking futuristic armor. Familiar, armor. In fact, it looked like the Faraam set now that he looked at it- Suddenly, his throat was being constricted, and he was lifted off the floor.

“How did you get on my ship?” the armor spoke, voice tinny and utterly unidentifiable as either male or female, hand outstretched toward him like it was trying to squeeze him.

Richter shrugged with his hands held palms-up and violently shook his head in the universal way of saying ‘I have no fucking clue.’

The armor looked to the girl behind it, who looked very much so like some kind of anthropomorphised animal. Brown fur with darker brown splotches over her eyes and torso, a short but very bushy tail with a darker brown base and lighter brown tip, dark brown furred hands, and dirty blonde, short hair with a style similar to pageboy cuts, but with two much more prominent ‘tail’ like fronts that ended with brown fringes. Her left eye was silver, and her right was an icy blue.

The girl was shaking, still nude, and still wet.

“I-I-I don’t know either, M-Master, but he just...he was just o-o-on top of me out of nowhere and his hands w-w-were, were…!” She blushed and looked away, hugging tighter to her apparent Master.

The ‘Master’ looked back to the Undead they were still strangling with some unknown power. “...” Then, Richter was released from the grip and dropped down to his hands and knees, gasping for breath. “Then there are only a few explanations. He is either an assassin of the Equusi Union, trained in long range spatial teleportation, or,” The Master stared down at him, their visor seeming to bore into his own with a coldness he’d never felt before. “He is a Displaced, like Hamin.”

Richter just cocked his head to the side, arms slumped at his sides and his body language basically saying ‘The fuck are you talking about?’

“Hm. So you are as new to it as I was. I see.” The Master sighed and looked back at their apparent apprentice. “Emica, go get changed. You don’t need to be naked right now. Let me deal with him.”

Emica nodded rapidly, and scurried off past them and into the room with the Tearstone symbol on it’s door, the door opening like he thought - hydraulically, and soon closing afterwards.

The Master crossed their arms over their chest as they looked down at Richter. “Displaced are humans or in some cases random individuals from other worlds or Earths that are dimensionally misplaced into either an Equestria, or in my case, a universe with one. Typically, they are brought there by some third party known as a Void Dweller, and most often by one called The Merchant. Do you follow so far?”

Richter stared at them for a few moments as his brain registered their words, then he mimics someone reaching into a cloak and then opening it up, and then gestured to his armor and the Darksign with a black vortex swirling around it that had been burned into his right hand, and finally points at her.

They shook their head. “No. I was brought here by a different Void Dweller.”

Richter slumped with a sigh, immediately regretting it when his throat caught fire (metaphorically) and he started hacking and coughing, which only made it even worse.

“I can only assume that you are an Undead, yet, I sense you do not have an Estus Flask,” The Master began marching towards the second door on the left of the hall, past him. “Remain there. I will return shortly.”

Seeing as how his coughing fit had yet to let up and had brought him to his knees, the Undead wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.

Thankfully, after only a minute, the Master returned from the room they’d gone into, holding a familiar emerald flask, but one that was filled with green liquid and not the fires of a Bonfire. “The liquid inside is Kolto, and should do well enough for your throat as Estus would. However,” they offered it to him. “It will not restore itself like Estus. The flask should still be serviceable as an Estus Flask in the future, however.”

The man snatched the flask from her hand and downed the ‘Kolto’ shit like it was going out of style, then stopped with less than a quarter left and let out a sigh of relief that his vocal cords were no longer dousing themselves in lye.

“Haaaaah...thanks. Needed thaaaa- oooh, damn, it feels weird to hear my voice after so long. Did...Did I always sound like this?” Richter said and promptly went off on a tangent as he rubbed his throat. “Cuz...shit, I sound several octaves lower than before.”

“I expect you to repay me for this service, understood?” the Master stated, crossing their arms again.

“Fuckin’ name it! For the world’s fastest-acting liquid throat lozenge, I owe you an entire damn planet!” Richter replied, rising to his feet and rolling his neck to get some of the pain and tension from his brief bout with strangulation out.

The Master seemed to snort at this. “I have no interest in owning a planet. That is something only the Sith and the Republic wish for.”

“...Thought that hand gesture and sensation of asphyxiation looked familiar. So, uh...whaddya want in return?” he asked, right as he felt two vertebrae that had slipped out of alignment audibly snap back in. “AGH, thaaaat smaaaarts, but it feels sooo gooood.”

Ignoring his latter remark, the Master replied, “Simple,” they pulled out a disc-like object, pressed a button on it, and a hologram of what looked like a wanted listing appeared, with a picture of an alien of sorts on it. “You will help me with my next bounty.”

Richter nodded, “Then I’ll die as a meat shield, cuz I have precisely negative combat experience. It’s...barely been a day, since I ended up in Equus Triad or whatever, and I was a lazy schmuck that tricked himself into being a functional member of society, aside from playing videogames. And shooting some guns with my father.”

The Master stared down at him, then sighed deeply and pushed the button again, hologram disappearing. “Then it seems I am doomed to be a teacher again.” They shook their head as Emica came back out of the room, dressed in a set of robes not unlike those that Richter recalled Obi-Wan wearing in the movies. “Emica, as of now you have a fellow apprentice. Show him around while I bring us to a favorable planet for training.” The Master then walked away, towards what Richter assumed was the bridge.

“B-But-!” But they were already gone. Emica groaned, slumping her shoulders. “Ugh...She never asks me what I think…” Sighing, Emica straightened and walked over to Richter. “So...uh…” She blushed a bit, rubbing her arm. “I’m uh, Emica Hiroto.”

“Richter Douglas. Sorry. I was falling to my death when I dared the universe to send me to yet another world, and my Darksign and I and the fog burst into flames, it hurt, and then I was on top of you. Don’t know even a quarter of what the hell is going on, so...uh...yeah,” he replied, with an apologetic shrug. “If it makes you feel any better, I...literally didn’t even notice you were naked until your, uh, Master said it.”

Emica blinked, looking down at him in surprise. “Y-You had your hands on my boobs, th-though.”

“...” Richter stares at her and holds up his gauntlet-clad hands. “Metal. Lethal levels of adrenaline from falling into a roughly 200-meter-deep ravine. I didn’t even notice I was in a shower until thirty seconds after you ran out screaming.”

“O-Oh, w-well,” She offered her hand. “It’s good to meet a new appren-”

“Brace for hyperspace jump,” the Master’s voice crackled over the intercom, and without warning the ship lurched forward, thus causing Emica to yelp and tumble...right on top of Richter. Whose hands were on her breasts again. Emica blushed a furious crimson at this as she stared down at Richter through his visor.

Richter stared back, thoroughly bewildered by how the same situation had played out twice in the span of...five, six minutes? How the hell had his hands even ended up at her chest? They were at his sides right before the jump and he sure as hell didn’t move his hands in the 0.817 seconds it had taken to end up on the floor.

Regardless, he realized he’d been staring at her for longer than socially acceptable and decided the best course of action was conversation, “I get the feeling the universe is gonna torment me by having us end up like this a lot, or in even more compromising situations.”

Emica immediately pushed herself off of him and into a sitting position, stammering away. “I-I-I-I-I-! Y-You, I, uh, um-!” She looked away, playing with a strand of her hair as she looked away, unsure what to say as her face seemed to literally steam with her embarrassment. “S-Sorry for...f-f-falling on you…” She squeaked out eventually.

“I fell on you, you fell on me. I’d say we’re even. Though, come to think of it, I was roughly at terminal velocity at the time I spontaneously combusted, so how did my weight and the weight of my armor coupled with my velocity not carry through and turn you into a fresh coat of paint all over the bathroom when I landed on you…?” Richter waved her off, then chased a mental rabbit all the way to its den, ignoring or not noticing the look Emica was giving him.

Emica then looked away, still playing with a strand of her hair. “T-Tanuki are...very durable. Royal Tanuki like me e-e-even more so…”

“Even so, that means I would have still turned into a rather off-color crimson coat of paint all over the bathroom from the impact. Did the mechanism that brought me here cancel out all my momentum, or did it just shove it onto some other poor, unsuspecting asshole somewhere?” Richter continued with his hypothesizing, completely disregarding how casually he described himself popping like a zit on impact while going at terminal velocity.

Emica blinked, finally looking at him and tilting her head. “M-Maybe you weren’t actually going at, um, terminal velocity?” At his look, she continued. “It takes a little bit to gain that kind of velocity, doesn’t it? Are you sure you actually hit that speed?”

“Roughly two hundred meters above the ground based on 9.8 meters per second of gravitational acceleration and the time it took me to fall for about...what, thirteen seconds? Only saw the bottom for about a third of a second, so probably wasn’t at terminal velocity. But even so, I should have gone splat from the speed I was going when I landed on you. So that means however I was sent here, all momentum was just canceled out harmlessly. If I can replicate this more than once, I could have a way of quick escapes from imminent death or hopeless odds,” Richter replied with a half shrug of one of his shoulders.

Emica stared at him for a moment, before giggling. “You’re a funny guy, you know that?” She stood up, brushing herself off and offering him a hand up. “Come on, I’ll show you around the ship.”

The Undead took the offered hand and was summarily pulled to his feet, “I fail to see how I’m funny, but, uh...thanks, Emica.”

Emica only giggled again. “You’re welcome. Now follow me.” She turned around after letting go of his hand, walking towards the second door on the left of the hall. As they reached it, she stopped by it. “This is where the ammunition for the guns on this side of the ship is stored and loaded. According to Master Gladfield, her guns use different systems than most in the galaxy, so she has to actually change or refill on ammo a lot. She tells me it’s very effective, though.”

“Projectile-based weapons, as I assume hers are, do tend to pack more punch when you get them big enough. Lasers attenuate in air and get weaker, plasma loses heat and mass as it travels, and both require power sources. Ballistic weapons just need gunpowder, rifling and you’re good to go,” Richter nodded in understanding. “What does she use for her guns, by the way? High-Explosive Armor-Piercing, Hollow-Point Incendiary, what?”

Emica smiled and shook her head. “Carbonized lead rounds, actually.”

“...You telling me this is a ship from EVE?” Richter asked blankly, staring at the door.

Emica tilted her head at him. “‘Eve’? What’s that?”

“...A sector of the universe known as New Eden, hence ‘EVE’, the mother of humanity. They use carbonized lead as cheap ballistic weapon ammunition, usually in railguns,” the Undead explained after wracking his head for any information he still remembered of the game.

Fuckin’ grindfest and JRPG status effects level of complicated skill mechanics, that one.

Emica blinked a few times. “That’s...really interesting, actually. Master just told me she doesn’t know how humanity started in the galaxy, but if there’s a sector of the universe named after their mother…” She hummed, cupping her chin. “Maybe I should ask her about it later…”

“Well, anyways, on with the tour?” he suggested before she started thinking too much into it and problems started arising because he was a nerd.

Emica blinked, then giggled nervously and scratched the back of her head. “O-Oh, right.” She turned around, walking towards the third door of the left wall. “This is the way out of the ship,” she then gestured to the two doors on either side of the Tearstone door. “Those doors lead to the engine room and cargo bay, and the one in the middle is the bedroom.”

“Wait, there’s only one bedroom?” the Undead asked, looking between Emica, the bedroom and the direction her Master went off in. “How does THAT work?”

Emica giggled again, rubbing her neck once more. “Very awkwardly, I’ll admit. Master never really expected she’d ever get someone living with her on the ship, so she’s always had just the one bedroom.”

A thought popped into Richter’s head.

He didn’t like where it led.

“I think I’m just going to use the cargo bay and some crates as a bed. Far less chance of what’s happened twice now happening again, and even less of a chance of me ending up dead,” Richter wisely decided with a sage nod to himself.

Emica nodded slowly. “Yeeeah, probably a good idea.” She then shook her head, and pointed to the direction of the bridge, specifically toward one of the walls where a table lay below a strange, hole-like device. “Over there is where our food is made, but aside from that, there’s just the bridge,” she pointed to the stairs leading up to another door. “The other ammunition room,” she pointed to the one door on the right side of the hall. “And the bathroom, which you’ve already, um, seen.” She pointed to the door he’d originally come out of, then looked away with a small blush.

“It is a very nice bathroom,” Richter said, not knowing what else to say about the incident. “Very sleek and well-designed.”

Emica nodded slowly. “Y-Yeah, it is.” A silence fell over them for a moment, both unsure what to say, before Emica seemed to gain the courage to speak. “S-So! Um, uh,” She started to play with her hair again. “What’s, um, what’s a Darksign? You said something about it earlier, but never explained. Is it something to do with some Dark Side tattoo, or…?”

“It’s the ring thing on the back of my right hand with all the swirly darkness. It’s a physical manifestation and representation of the Undead Curse that afflicts me, and is supposed to bring me back from death whenever I die at the nearest Bonfire - a fire made of the bones and ashes of another Undead with a spiral sword sticking out of it. The bonfire heals me, replenishes strength, and so on. To make a long explanation somewhat shorter: I’m a walking, talking corpse that absorbs the souls of those I kill and use them to grow stronger, all the while cursed to never be able to die for good until I go Hollow and lose all semblance of consciousness and sanity,” Richter ‘helpfully’ supplied.

Emica stared at him, eyes wide and shocked. She gulped. “Y-You...you’re a zombie th-that...eats souls?” She took a step back.

“Yyyeaah, I am, but since I haven’t killed a single thing aside from some trees and because I’m not an asshole or a Hollow, you don’t have to worry. Besides, you and your Master could kick my ass, and I’m not even sure if the Bonfire I last rested at can resurrect me,” Richter replied with a quick reassurance that he didn’t really feel was that reassuring.

“Y-You promise you won’t, ya know, kill me a-a-and, st-steal my soul?” Emica asked fearfully, dreading the answer.

“Of course, as I said, I’m not an asshole or Hollow,” Richter quickly promised the rather terrified racoon woman. “And, again, you and/or your Master could easily kill me or kick my ass and toss me out the airlock if I tried anything.”

Emica watched him closely for a moment, studying him as she took in his words. Then, she slowly, shakily nodded. “O-Okay. I’ll trust you. B-But I’m watching you, okay?”

“That...was obvious long before you even said it. Your Master is gonna be watching me like a damn hawk,” the Undead stated flatly with a stare that was just as flat. “Besides. I have exactly...zero combat experience. Shot a few guns and stuff, but never been in a fight before, so you could just flip me onto my back and stomp on my neck to kill me, to be perfectly blunt.”

Emica stared at him with a clear measure of horror at that. “I don’t want to kill you though!” she looked away. “I-I mean, yeah, you’re scary, and if you do g-go all, um, crazy, then...I guess I’d have to, but still!”

“...You lived a rather awkward, somewhat sheltered life before your Master took you in, didn’t you?” Richter asked with a slight adjustment to his right gauntlet. A small puff of blue powder fell out of it at the movement.

Emica blinked, previous fear forgotten at his words as she looked back at him. “How did you know?” Her eyes widened. “Can you use the Force like Master?”

“Nnnooo, (A) you act like someone who was never really let out of the house because there were peasants out there or something, and (B) you just told me,” Richter denied with a slow shake of his head.

Emica blinked, then blushed lightly. “O-Oh. I guess I am pretty obvious, huh?”

“As obvious as I am dead,” the Undead said with zero regard for her feelings.

“Now coming out of hyperspace,” the Master’s voice rang out from the intercom again, and the ship once more lurched. Thankfully, though, this time the two simply fell against the wall.

The impact dislodged and dispersed the remaining blue powder that he despised and that had clung to his armor into the air, leading Richter to suppress a frustrated growl as his skin got itchy again and he felt that same fuckin’ annoyance pop right back up.

“The moment I get back home, I’m burning all of those fucking blue flowers. I hate them. I hate them with every fiber of my being,” he grumbled, but nonetheless got back to his feet and popped a vertebra back into place.

That was starting to become somewhat worryingly common.

“Um, is something wrong?” Emica asked as she stood up herself, looking to him worriedly.

“See the blue powder shit? It comes from some blue flowers that were all over the forest I ended up in and they kept releasing this blue powder. The few animals I saw seem to avoid it like the plague given the absence of tracks in the area, but all I know is that they make me itch like I’ve got turbo fleas and I feel inexplicably annoyed after a minute or so,” the Undead scowled beneath his helmet, then raised his Pyromancy Flame-

The Undead stopped and stared at the flame on his right palm, “...How the hell did I forget that I have a Pyromancy Flame? How did I forget that I have instant fire on speed dial? How did I forget that I have my own personal soul-fueled flamethrower? Am I just stupid, or does being an Undead make it hard to remember shiiii- I realize that was a dumb question. Uh, wait, what did you say again?”

Emica just blinked at him a few times. “...Are you normally this weird and forgetful, or is that all Undead?”

“Not sure. The Undead Curse does make you forget everything about who you were prior to death, but since I wasn’t always Undead and still remember my life before ending up in this situation, I guess it just makes my memory somewhat worse than before. As for being weird...eh, we’re all weird in our own ways,” Richter said, holding his Pyromancy Flame
up to one of the lingering clouds of blue and grinning with vengeful delight under his helmet when the cloud went up in a flash of light and a puff of smoke.

Emica frowned, ears drooping. “I’m...sorry to hear that. Losing your memory like that doesn’t sound very fun at all…”

“Agaaain, I still have all my memories because I wasn’t made an Undead the normal way,” the Undead reminded her with a soft poke to her forehead.

Emica went adorably cross-eyed at this, but nonetheless kept her frown as she gently pushed his finger away. “But you could still lose your memories is the point I’m trying to make. Doesn’t that worry you?”

Richter nodded, “Obviously, but I haven’t died yet and thus I haven’t tested whether
or not I forget stuff with every death. So why worry about it if it’s not been proven yet?”

Emica’s frown deepened. “But-”

“Both of you come to the bridge and get ready for landing,” the intercom crackled again, interrupting Emica.

Emica looked to the speaker that emitted the voice, then sighed deeply and started to walk towards the bridge as told. “...Come on, we should do what she says or she’ll make our training a lot worse.”

The Undead needed no further incentive, already marching himself to the bridge with the soft clanking of chainmail and plate.

When they reached the bridge, they saw outside the viewport a fairly massive planet that only grew larger as they sped towards it. Said planet was verdant and green by and large, with only a few pockets of blue on its surface. Hopefully that blue was water, and not something else.

Emica’s Master flipped a few extra switches as they sat in the pilot’s seat. “Welcome to AH-649.”

“...Looks like a high-gravity world that my sorry armored ass is going to suffer on,” he deduced after a few moments of examining the planet.

“It is,” Emica’s Master replied bluntly.

The man sighed in resignation, “Oh, that’s nice. Here’s hoping I don’t break my neck or spine falling off the ship.”

“You’ll break both in the end anyway,” they said with even more bluntness. “Forossa Gladfield, by the way.”

“I’ll be seeing and hearing your name in my nightmares, then. And you know I’m Richter Douglas. Well, let’s get this over with.”

Forossa said nothing as they piloted the ship into the planet’s atmosphere, the entire vessel trembling mightily as it entered. Emica, to keep herself from falling over again, held onto the co-pilot’s seat. Richter, meanwhile, just pressed himself against the wall and hoped for the rest.

Thankfully, entering the atmosphere was quick, and soon enough Forossa angled them up to avoid crashing into the earth, soon soaring over a sea of trees that stretched as far as the eye could see. As they sped through the sky of the massive planet, Forossa searched for a good landing spot. Then, Emica, Richter and Forossa saw what called these skies home.

Massive creatures seemed to swim in the air around them, all of them looking like literal slugs of the air, twisting and swerving and turning in the sky with their cloud-white bodies. Lines on said bodies seemed to glow with bioluminescent light.

Emica’s eyes widened as she looked on in awe. “Woah…”

“Eh. Lemme know when we land,” their sole male passenger said from his little section of wall, back still pressed flush against it.

Emica shot her head to him. “You don’t think this is cool? Look at all of them! They’re beautiful!” She gestured to the strange sky slugs.

He shrugged in response, “Meh. They just look like giant sky slugs to me.”

“Exactly! Slugs don’t fly in the air! And these things are doing it so beautifully, and they’re glowing and so shiny and white and-!” Emica started to ramble, gesturing wildly to the native animals.

“Landing,” Forossa interrupted as they tapped a monitor on their console, veering the ship towards- Richter and Emica’s eyes both widened as they saw where they were now headed. A massive island...in the sky. With crystals making up its lower half that glowed a bright green, water cascading down a number of its sides and onto whatever lay below. The island itself looked to be an entire continent on its own, just sitting in the sky and taking up the entire view of the horizon. Mountains, forests, and more covered the island’s surface, and as they reached an open field on the island, Forossa angled the ship for a landing.

“I hate this planet already,” Richter said with a bizarre amount of cheerfulness. “Giant floating continent suspended thousands of feet above the surface, and a terrifying fall to my demise. Have I mentioned that I hate heights yet?”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Richter! I’m sure the island isn’t gonna fall or anything! Just chill out and enjoy the view!” Emica said, trying to reassure the man.

“You just jinxed us,” the man looked at her in something akin to betrayal. “You have sealed our doom. Watch as the island plummets to spite you.”

Emica rolled her eyes. “You’re so paranoid.”

As the ship finally touched down, Forossa flipped a few more switches before standing up from their seat.

“Enough, both of you.” They ordered, turning and marching out of the bridge. “Follow me, and keep quiet.”

‘Easy enough, given I was a self-imposed mute until recently,’ Richter thought to himself while following Forossa a short distance behind them.

...The silence only lasted a second or two before Richter started feeling antsy and broke it with the subtlety of a club to the temple, “So, why are you named after a nation from my neck of the woods, and why are you wearing a power armor version of the Faraam armor?”

Forossa stopped by the third door on the left of the hall, Emica stopping behind Richter, looking worriedly at her master.

“...Because of choices you needn’t know about,” Forossa replied, before pressing a button, the door opening and a ramp lowering from it as the now open portal revealed the outside world. Without any other words, she stepped out of the ship.

Emica sighed. “She doesn’t like talking about herself much. It’s best to just leave her personal information a secret.”

“...Wait, Forossa is a woman?” Richter asked as if he’d...no, wait, scratch that, he had actually just registered that.

Emica nodded. “She is, yeah. She’s also the same race as me.” Emica blinked, then waved her hands frantically. “Don’t tell her I told you that though, okay?! She’ll kill me if she finds out!”

“Uh...ooo-kay, then?” Richter agreed somewhat with some hesitation as he slowly returned to trailing Forossa.

“I know it’s weird,” Emica said as she followed after him. “But she’s just...very protective of her secrets.”

Any response Richter had was cut off when he took a step that he shouldn’t have over a two-foot drop and found himself eating dirt in the time it took to blink.

“...Oh right, higher gravity. Ow,” the Undead said, pushing himself back onto his feet with more effort than normal.

Emica giggled at him. “You really are a funny guy.”

“Uhh.”

“Clumsy and uncoordinated,” Forossa corrected, having turned to face them both, arms crossed over her armored chest.

“I’m on a planet at 4.8 times normal Earth gravity, I’m in heavy armor and I’m technically a walking corpse. Not entirely my fault,” Richter countered, counting off his ‘excuses’ on his left hand.

“Excuses will get you nowhere,” Forossa replied sharply. “200 hundred push ups. Now.”

The Undead fell flat (almost) on his face with his arms in the required positions, then began the push-ups.

To no one’s surprise, he fell short.

To his own surprise, he fell short by one. The last push-up failed because he genuinely had no energy left after 199 push-ups under almost 5 G’s of gravity.

Forossa hummed as Emica came to stand by her. “Hm. It seems you do have the strength and endurance I expected. Not quite the same as our level, but...acceptable.” She motioned for him to stand. “Now, stand. It’s time for the first lesson.”

“Forossa. Gladfield. Madam. Why do you think I haven’t gotten up already? I. Am out. Of energy. My muscles refuse to work. Watch,” Richter said as she could see the faint outlines of his biceps twitching and flexing in ways that should have lifted him...but didn’t.

“Then make them work. No warrior worth his weight in gold lets his body decide when he is done. Only his will and mind say when he is done,” Forossa said simply, seeming to not care what he thought.

Richter’s head snapped upwards to stare her in the eyes.

“...Yeeeah, no, you’re not understanding. I have no calories in my-”

“Forget your science, boy,” Forossa said coldly. “I understand quite well how bodies work, as well as human bodies. But I also understand that willpower is and can be far greater than our bodies themselves.” She sighed, walking over and hoisting him up roughly. “Though I can see now you lack the insight and experience to understand even that much.” After hoisting him up, she stepped back a few paces. “So, we shall start with the very basics. Hit me. As hard as you can.”

“You’ll stand there and take it, or is this the classic ‘hit me, but I’m going to dodge everything and make you feel weak, insignificant and further fuel your growing depression by forcing you to realize your inadequacy’ shtick?” Richter asked without a hint of amusement.

“You shall see. Now, attack,” she ordered.

“...Fine,” Richter sighed, taking a step forward...and then another, and another.

He wasn’t sure how that was happening since he’d just burned every calorie of his energy, but he had a feeling it had something to do with his Darksign burning and an emptiness in his gut.

Then, after calmly walking up to her, he reared his right fist back.

“If I hit thin air I’m just going to feel sad.”

Then he thrust his arm forward, and made contact with her chest.

The hit actually stung her a little beneath the armor, at the cost of his gauntlet crumpling in on his own hand and every bone in his forearm, hand and wrist shattering.

The Undead didn’t know if it was the higher gravity and thus higher acceleration, his newfound Undead strength or if her armor was just that durable, but he did know he was in too much pain to actually scream.

Forossa hummed at this. “Hm. Seems you still have some energy.” She looked to his now limp arm for a moment. “But you are not used to that energy and your own power.” She looked back up to his helmeted face, then raised her fist at him, where a small compartment on the gauntlet soon shot out a dart at him. As it sunk into his broken arm, he felt it start to heal. Not as rapidly as his throat did earlier, but certainly faster than it would have been with the modern medicine he knew of from Earth. “Give the arm about ten minutes to heal, and then twenty to rest, and you should be fine.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “For now, your form.”

Forossa pulled a fist back, then snapped it forward, but with a twist, stopping her blow right before his visor. “Simply punching straight on creates less of an impact than twisting and snapping your arm forward.” She then pointed to his feet. “Furthermore, your stance is too lax. You need to have your feet wider and lower to the ground.”

Richter abruptly hopped backwards and landed in roughly the right stance, though it was a bit off. His head was tilted slightly to the right and his upper body was slumped forward an inch or two.

Forossa shook her head. “Head straight, and stop slouching.”

“Best...I can do...when my body...is on zero energy. That hop...was all I had left.”

Forossa looked him over for a moment or two. “...You said you’d been an Undead for only a day, correct?”

“Yes, I did,” Richter confirmed a bit forcefully.

Forossa sighed.

“What is it, Master?” Emica asked, walking over.

“It would seem the boy is far less ready for training than expected. Obviously when he was Displaced he was left with little energy,” Forossa started to walk off, towards the nearby forest. “Come with me, boy. We are going to have to sate your hunger. Both of them.”

Emica tilted her head. “What should I do, then?”

“Stay with the ship. Meditate. Practice your forms,” Forossa replied, still walking away.

“Keep looking cute,” Richter said offhandedly as he forced himself to follow after her, his body probably breaking down muscle for energy by this point.

Emica’s cheeks heated up at those words. “Wh-What?”

Forossa said nothing as she and Richter disappeared into the brush, but she had a smile under her helm.

Emica was thus left alone to stew on the fact she had just been called cute. Naturally, her flushed cheeks only grew more red and warm.

Forossa led Richter through the forest, following some path that only she knew yet did not show upon the earth itself. Brush, foliage and trees surrounded them, the sounds of alien wildlife all around. The trees themselves were similar to what Richter knew of from Earth, but at the same time not.

It had been roughly ten minutes of trudging through and hacking at plants to clear a path, and Richter was only feeling weaker and weaker, and more exhausted, the pressure of the increased gravity weighing on him.

At that point, he hardly had the energy to so much as talk, instead devoting all he had left to following the probably sadistic Forossa wherever she was heading.

Then, thankfully, Forossa finally stopped and pulled the sniper rifle off her back, the dual barreled weapon’s steel-gray metal glinting in the light of the planet’s sun. Slowly, she laid prone, looking through the scope of the weapon at something only she could see.

“Keep quiet, and don’t move,” she ordered as she adjusted the scope a few times.

Considering his body had just locked up on him and refused to budge, he couldn’t have moved or made a peep if he wanted to.

Roughly three seconds later, Forossa squeezed the trigger and the rifle made its report, a white blaster bolt connecting with something in the distance, followed by a roar of pain that swiftly petered out, and was then accompanied by a soft thud.

His body was abruptly filled with warmth, fullness and vitality as he felt something enter him.

“Oh...oooh that feels gooood,” Richter said breathlessly, now moving his limbs with ease and vigor. “So...thank you, Forossa.”

Forossa stood up, placing the rifle back where it belonged, the weapon clamping magnetically to her jetpack. “We’re not done yet. We need to make sure you get as much energy as possible.” She pulled a knife from a hidden sheath under her faulds, walking through the brush in the direction of the kill she’d made. “We also need to secure food for myself and Emica, as well as you. The rations my ship gives are nutritious, but getting actual food is nice now and again.”

“I think I might have an idea for the food bit, if we need any more,” Richter said as he followed after her, not really knowing what else to do.

“Appreciated, but this kill should serve us well enough, at least for a week or two,” Forossa explained as they reached the kill. Richter’s eyes widened as he understood why it would serve so well.

The beast was massive, easily twelve feet long and, while it was standing, probably ten feet tall. It was covered in green fur that bore splotches of black, it had at least five eyes, with one looking like it had been not only melted but cauterised through to the skull. Six legs were crumpled under its now dead weight, and a scorpion’s tail stretched from it’s back. Its mouth, however, looked to have mandibles as the teeth. There were literal rows of mandibles inside the mouth like teeth, instead of like, well, mandibles.

“Uglier than Jabba’s inbred mother, this one,” Richter remarked with a wince at the thing’s mouth.

Forossa ignored him as she knelt down to the creature and started to carve into its hide with her knife. “It will be feeding us for the next two weeks.”

“I can definitely see that...but, uh, does this thing have any predators? Or will its corpse attract anything else?”

“It is likely to attract others, yes, and it does have predators, just not many,” Forossa explained, pulling out a very viscous looking slab of meat, likely some type of organ. “Which is why you,” She pulled another knife out from under her faulds and offered it to him. “Will help me gut it so that we can get done more quickly.”

“Oh, this I can do,” Richter took the knife and, after looking over the corpse a bit, stuck it in a softer spot and started separating the hide from the flesh with surprising finesse and speed.

Forossa hummed at this as she pulled out another organ, this one as solid as stone. “Exaci have a variety of extra hearts, livers, and lungs, so keep that in mind.”

Richter yanked three large masses - two of which were still beating - from their home, “Two hearts and a...lung, I think?”

Forossa looked them over for a moment. “That would be a spleen, actually, not a lung.” She turned back to her work. “If you find a kidney, you’ll know because it’s as solid as stone. A spleen, on the other hand...” She glanced at the spleen in his hand. “...Let’s just say it’s good for making entrances.” She turned back to her work. “Lungs can be identified by the viscosity of the chlorine that they excrete.”

“Oh. Oooh,” the Undead said simply, treating that spleen with all the care one would give to an armed nuclear warhead and setting it down as gently as possible. “Good thing I probably don’t need to breathe.”

“Considering you can choke and cough, I’d disagree,” Forossa said flatly, pulling out another lung, ironically.

Richter grumbled and just kept gutting the thing, taking two or three organs out at a time while avoiding the instant-death ones like the plague and leaving them in for someone more experienced - read: Forossa - to handle them.

Eventually, they finished their work, and Forossa stood up, looking at their work. “Can you carry the meat?” She asked. Richter looked at the meat, then grabbed it all in a bear hug and threw it onto his back. She nodded. “Good. Bring it back to the ship, but don’t cook it until I return.” She stretched a hand out, using the Force to pick up all the other gore. “I will dispose of the refuse.”

“I’ll yell if anything tries to steal this or eat my intestines on the way there,” Richter remarked, then headed off in the direction of the ship.

Forossa simply nodded, then started to walk further off into the brush, disappearing soon after in the shadow the plant life provided, gore following her.

The trip back to the ship was uneventful, thankfully.

He was half-worried he’d have to toss a spleen as a damned grenade.

“Emica? Mind helping out?” Richter called out, looking for the tanuki so he could get some help loading all of it onto the ship.

He saw Emica sitting cross-legged in front of the ramp, eyes closed. If she heard him, she made no move to show it.

“...I have explosive spleens and poison gas-filled lungs that I can quite easily just drop to the floor if ya really want me to,” the Undead deadpanned at the apprentice.

“Huh?” Emica opened her eyes, and immediately noticed Richter and what he was carrying. “Oh!” Swiftly she got on her feet and rushed over. “Sorry! I tend to get lost in my meditation a lot!” Carefully, she took some of the meat from his arms, then winced as she noticed what they were. “Ugh, Exaci meat. Only good thing on them is their hearts and spleens, if you ask me.”

“I also have this one’s explosive spleens. Please grab them before one falls off and we- wait, no, you’re a Force user- before one falls off and I die.”

“No problem,” she closed her eyes a moment, before the spleens started to float out of his hands and into the air, towards the ship. Opening her eyes, she smiled as she saw the spleens floating through the air, then walked towards the ship. “Come on, there should be room for all this in the cargo hold.” Her tail swished from side to side. “Much as I hate the other meats that come from Exaci, their spleens are frikkin’ great for eating. Really spicy.”

“Is it weird that I wanna touch and cuddle your tail?” Richter asked suddenly, eyes fixated on the pendulous appendage before him. “Always wanted to say I touched Fluffy Tail.”

At those words, said tail fluffed up and Emica tensed. “Wh-What?!” She immediately grabbed her tail with one hand, looking back at him and holding it protectively. “N-No way! You can’t! I-I mean we just met and I barely know you a-and-!”

“Are you actually fucking telling me your tails are erogenous zones only mates and spouses are supposed to touch, or that touching one’s tail is a sign of courtship? This is a thing that’s happening. Okay, yep, I’m just gonna shut up before the universe decides to spite me again and makes us end up in some weird situation again,” Richter said more to himself than to her, hurrying past her with the meat in tow.

Emica slowly, nervously nodded. “Y-Yeah, probably for the b-best…” She agreed, following.

In a matter of minutes, the meat and organs were set down in the cargo bay and their work was done.

Which left Richter with nothing to do. Again.

“...Well. I’m bored. Probably gonna go try and see if I can use some shit around here to make a bed. If I start yelling, don’t come and get me, it’ll probably already be too late,” Richter gave the tanuki a wave, then marched off in the direction of the tree line.

“W- Richter, hang on!” Emica started, rushing after him. “You don’t even know what’s on the island, and you said yourself you don’t have any combat experience!” She glanced back at the ship. “Hang on, I’ll be right back! Don’t you go into the forest until I’m back, or you don’t get any food!”

Richter watched Emica run into the ship and kept his gaze on the last spot he’d seen her, then slowly swiveled his head to gaze at the forest.

Stay and get food...or go out and make a bed?

Food...or bed?

Sustenance, or slumber?

Were he insane, he’d probably be hearing the forest call out to him like a siren call.

Thankfully, before he could decide, he was interrupted. Not by Emica, though, but by Forossa coming back out of the trees, smelling of ash and chemicals.

“You smell nice,” Richter said genuinely, though his brain may have short circuited at the smell of ash and associating it with a lovely campfire smell.

As Forossa stared at him blankly, Emica soon came out of the ship carrying a pistol. “Here, you can use guns, right? This should-” Emica stopped cold as she saw her master standing behind richter.

“This isn’t suspiciously mutinous at all,” the Undead stated rather unnecessarily, looking between the two. “Nope. Nooot one bit.”

“...” Forossa marched past Richter, towards Emica, silent as the grave as she did.

“M-Master, I swear, I wasn’t going to-!” Emica started, but Forossa, to both her and Richter’s surprise, simply walked past her and into the ship.

“Just ask for permission next time,” she said bluntly.

Emica blinked, turning to look at her master. “You...aren’t mad?”

Forossa didn’t stop walking, yet her voice still carried through to them both. “I was planning on giving him a blaster at some point either way.” Thankfully, she finally paused in her steps. “Oh, and Richter? Kill only the prey in the forest.” Then, she was gone within the bowels of the ship.

“...She’s definitely trying to hide all her baggage behind a blunt and uncaring persona, or something like that,” was all Richter said as he turned away from Emica and headed towards the forest.

“W-Wait! You’re just going to forget about the blaster I have for you?!” Emica seemed to almost whine.

“Slugthrowers for life,” the Undead said without looking back, disappearing into the trees.

“Whu, but I-!” Emica fell to her knees with a groan. “After all that you just leave me here?! Whyyyy?!?!”

Richter pulled back and looked at his crude stone axe with some pride.

“Axe complete, time for deforestation,” he said, twirling it in his hand and walking over to the nearest tree before starting to hack away at it like some slasher movie killer.

The tree died a gruesome death in short order.

Another followed suit, just to be sure that he’d have enough for the bed.

Also because it was the same shade of blue as those fucking flowers and he felt like venting a little.

“Alright, wood acquired, now for lashings aaaand some bedding. Vines all around for lashings, so just have to get bedding...where could I find something soft and not all that stuffy or hot?”

A small, furry creature that looked like a mushroom with legs was unfortunate enough to wander into view.

The two locked eyes.

Richter slowly raised his axe with malicious intent.

The future bedding ran away.

...Or, at least, it tried to before an axe was lodged in its skull.

The Undead blinked with his axe hand still outstretched, “I...wasn’t expecting that to work, in all honesty.”

Nonetheless, he approached the still-twitching corpse and yanked the axe out with a squelch.

“Well, at the very least, you’ll make a good pillow. Wonder if there are more of you around here, or any bigger ones,” he wondered as he picked up the little thing’s body.

That was when some kind of gas seemed to leak out of the creature’s small, lifeless body, making him feel a fair bit tired, eyes already drooping.

“...I hate my li-”

Blackness.

He regained consciousness to the sensation of being dragged.

Blearily, Richter opened his eyes to see what looked like giant mantis talons dragging him by the leg. When he looked up, he saw what seemed to be a wolf...with a chitinous exoskeleton, praying mantis eyes, four legs, and two mantis claws, both currently dragging him towards a dark cave.

‘Nope. Nuh-uh,’ the Undead thought to himself, his Pyromancy Flame igniting in his right hand a moment before he gently prodded one of the talons with his hand.

It looked down at him in confusion, then surprise when it saw him looking right back at it with a flaming hand.

“Hello, there,” Richter gave it a wave with his flaming dominant hand, then chucked a fireball at its face.

Naturally, it screeched in pain, dropping him as it rolled around on the ground, trying to put the flames out. It’s screeches were like the pained howls of a dog mixed with Xenomorphs from the Alien movies, making it all the more horrifying as it continued to let its pain be known.

Richter kicked himself up from the ground, checked if he still had his axe, felt relieved that his unconscious body had the decency to keep a death grip on it, then walked up to the thing and slammed the blade down onto the thing’s neck.

To his surprise, the axe only bounced off the chitinous, burning hide, but, he heard a resounding, sickening crack at the impact, and heard the thing shriek even louder, swiping at him with one of its claws in retaliation.

Without thinking, he swept his axe in the opposite direction the claw was coming from in a parry. To his surprise, it worked...sort of. The claw was bounced back, but the axe broke in half from the impact and the force behind it.

Stone Axe #2’s sacrifice was worthwhile, given that he plunged his flaming fist right into its eye socket and tried ‘flicking’ a fireball into its brain pan.

It succeeded, and with an earthly shudder and shriek of pain and agony, it soon went limp, corpse still burning away and occasionally twitching.

Richter quickly started kicking dirt onto it to try to put the fire out before he lost anything useful. Once the fire was out, he gave his fallen axe a salute, then looked for his future pillow, assuming the damn thing hadn’t eaten it.

After what felt like ten solid minutes of looking, he found nothing but what might’ve been the bones of other creatures in the back of the cave, all piled up in numerous corners.

“...Welp, time to drag this fucker back,” he sighed, grabbing the mantis wolf by a talon and dragging it behind him as he followed the furrow in the ground his armored ass had left behind.

He managed to find...some bits of his once-future pillow scattered around, while the wood and vines were still there.

At least he got a bunch of souvenirs out of it in the form of a dead alien insect-dog thing.

Bundling up his spoils, the Undead dragged it all back in the direction of the ship.

About twenty minutes into the walking and dragging, he heard a sound that made him nearly jump out of his skin. It echoed throughout the forest, and above all sounded wrathful.

Richter looked around frantically, eyes scanning the tree line as he picked up the pace with his corpse-and-materials-dragging.

To his relief, nothing attacked him on his way back. In fact...the forest was silent. Dead silent.

“...Silence is a bad sign, usually. So, universe, what are you going to throw at me now? Cuz I kinda recognize that roar from somewhere and the setting I heard it in frankly has me terrified of what you’ll drop on my head,” Richter asked the silent forest without a hint of sarcasm or irony in the fact he was talking to the universe itself.

“But ya know what? Bring it on, bitch.”

Yet, nothing came after him even after that declaration. So, with high-strung nerves he made it to the ship, only to find Forossa there, arms crossed, and even with her helmet on, he knew she was glaring at him.

“You killed it.” She stated.

“Yes, after I was trying to make a pillow out of a little furry thing and got gassed, this thing was dragging me off to its den. I wasn’t about to test my mortality and/or immortality in such a painful way, so I shoved my Pyromancy Flame in its head and cooked its skull,” Richter nodded in confirmation and gestured with a lift of the dead mantis-dog’s leg. “Lemme guess, I fucked up so royally that I invited an apex organism to come find and kill me.”

Forossa shook her head. “No. It’ll be here for me.” She pushed past him roughly. “Expect even harsher training after this,” She unclipped her strange, runic blade from her back. “Stay in the ship with Emica. Whatever happens, whatever you see or hear, do not come out to help. You’ll simply die your first death, followed by many more. Xeneth does not like outsiders.”

Richter blinked beneath his helm, “That’s enough incentive to stay inside. But if Emica comes out to help, I make no promises on still staying inside the ship-”

A sharp glare from Forossa stopped him cold. “If she even tries to get out of the ship, you WILL stop her. If you don’t, expect me to toss you off the planet and into space to die as many times as it takes for you to go Hollow.” She said nothing else as she turned her head back around and marched off into the darkness of the forest.

Richter wisely went inside the ship.

Emica was right next to the door, giving him a sad look. Her small ears were drooping, and her tail was in a similar state. “Wh-Where’s Master going, Richter?”

“To deal with some apex organism named Xeneth out there. If you leave the ship, Forossa will space me and leave me in the void to Hollow after who-knows-how-many deaths,” Richter replied with an unseen appraising look at Emica. “...Typical parental or maternal protectiveness, really. So please don’t leave the ship.”

Emica’s eyes widened. “What?! She’s going out there alone to face Xeneth?!?” Emica immediately started to run for the armory. “We have to help her! Xeneth is as dangerous as the Tunnelers back home!”

“Emica, let me explain somethi- oh shit,” Richter said as he caught up to her and grabbed her by the tail instead of the intended scruff of her neck when he lost his balance a little.

He IMMEDIATELY let go, and stepped back, “Shit, sorry! Sorry! I didn’t mean to, I just- I lost my balance, and-”

Emica’s tail had fluffed up immensely, and in that brief moment he’d grabbed it, he swore he felt some kind of electrical surge go through his body. He saw her body go extremely tense as well, and she turned to him with wide eyes, and the heaviest yet cutest blush he’d seen on her. Her previous fear for her master had immediately vanished.

Richter was too mortified to care at the moment that he’d at least distracted her.

“Did...I just do something so forbidden that the Force or whatever is going to smite me?” Richter asked with the first bit of genuine nervousness she’d heard out of him.

Emica slowly shook her head, looking away and squirming as she played with a lock of her hair, another hand hugging her tail. “N-No...um,” She, somehow, flushed a brighter shade of red. “U-Um...T-Tanuki have...cultural, values on touching tails. We uh...we consider it to be like an instant declaration of love… And, well...Royal Tanuki like me are…” She gulped. “W-We have more values based on tail t-t-t-touching…”

“...I’m just going to find the nearest edge of this landmass and jump off so that Forossa doesn’t get to kill me and so that we don’t have to force ourselves to go through the embarrassment,” the Undead Knight said and turned on his heel to go back to the airlock.

“N-No!” Emica suddenly latched onto his waist, holding him back.

“Please let go before you somehow get hurt and Forossa murders me thrice over for it,” Richter pretty much pleaded with her, trying to pry her off without damaging a single hair on her.

She shook her head fiercely. “I don’t care! If you go out and kill yourself I’ll get hurt anyway!”

“...Please don’t tell me touching the fluffy tail metaphysically linked our beings together such that my injuries affect your health. Please,” he full-on begged the tanuki, looking at her with desperation clear in his body language.

Emica blushed and looked away, still holding him. “M-More like if you die...I could.”

“...” Richter stared at her, unblinking and uncomprehending, until he looked up at the ceiling, “I take it back, universe. I hate you with every fiber of my being for forcibly tying her and I’s fates together in the most dickish way possible, but I take back my bravado from earlier. I don’t want Emica to suffer because I suck at life and because you want to see me suffer. Don’t drag others into this; I don’t want that kind of guilt haunting me.”

Emica only hugged him tighter. “Stop talking like that, you vreka…”

Richter squirmed in her grip, “Uhhhhm…c-could you let go, if I promise to, uh, not run to my death?”

“O-Only if you also promise to stop being so casually pessimistic too,” she said, burying her head in his back.

Richter looked down at her, then glanced aside as he contemplated whether or not he could go about the rest of his life with a cute and fluffy tanuki pseudoparasite clinging to his back instead of casting aside his casual pessimism.

In the end, the idea of a sad tanuki was too much for him to bear and he let out an immense sigh of defeat, “F-fine, I promise I’ll stop, just let go before this gets any more awkward for me, okay?!”

To his embarrassment, she didn’t let go. “...little longer. I...need something to hold until Master gets back. I’m worried for her.”

“Have I mentioned I’ve never been hugged by or even been in physical contact with a woman for this long that wasn’t my mother, sister or family members?” Richter said rather urgently as he tried to think of a way to pry her off without making things worse.

Emica blinked, looking up at him for a moment. Then, slowly, she buried her head in his back again, tail swishing from side to side cutely. “Don’ care,” she said, muffled as her voice was with her head being, well, buried in his back.

“Please let go,” Richter pleaded with her, now actively trying to pry her off him with his hands.

Emica only tightened her grip. “Jus’ lemme have this.”

“...I’m very uncomfortable right now, but fine, I’ll let you have this,” he finally conceded, grumbling as he walked to the cargo bay, dragging over a hundred pounds of clingy tanuki with him.

‘Uncomfortable’ was a rather broad term to describe his utter embarrassment at having an adorable tanuki girl clinging to him with her head buried in his armored back, when he’d never been in an actual relationship before. Plus, his mind was starting to conjure rather bad and inappropriate thoughts he’d much prefer not having given the situation.

When they stopped inside the cargo bay, he noticed that the meat he and Forossa had previously gathered was cooked and made into a stew and was sitting on what looked to be a makeshift stove.

“...I’m sorry I’m making you uncomfortable,” Emica said, breaking him out of his observation. She blushed a bit. “...And th-though...um...I’m flattered you think I’m...attractive, I don’t think I’m...or, either of u-us are ready for that.” Before he could interject with the obvious reply, she added, “I won’t fault you for the thoughts, though. I...don’t mind that much.”

Richter’s head was promptly filled with his internal screaming as he realized not even his mind was private anymore.

“I’m eating now. Where are the bowls and utensils?” he asked, pointedly suppressing his thoughts so that he wouldn’t have to internally scream any louder.

Thankfully, this was when she let go of him with an, “Oh! Hang on!” He turned around just in time to see the girl rummaging through the surprisingly large valley of her furry cleavage.

The screaming went full-blast.

“Never mind I’ll just starve, but thanks for being considerate,” the male immediately backpedaled, purposefully turning away from her before anything else happened.

Emica looked up at this, then looked down at herself. Then back to him. She blushed, yet still pulled out the items she needed. “S-Sorry, I’m uh...used to being alone with Master and just...doing that.” She shook her head, then closed her fist around the objects. A short moment later, and she opened her fist, revealing a new set of forks and spoons. “I, um, made sure to try and get rid of any fur in their makeup. I-Is that a bit better?” She asked, offering the newly made utensils to him.

“...No. But it’s the best I’m going to get,” the Undead deflated and took the utensils from her with the same grip one would give a bag containing something one wouldn’t want to touch directly.

Emica’s ears drooped as the man found a bowl near the pot - how he missed it was anyone's guess - and started to portion out his share of the food. “D...Do you think my boobs are that gross?”

“More like I don’t want to get an erection from the thought that these were between your breasts and that I’m indirectly touching them right now,” Richter replied stiffly, then proceeded to lift his visor and basically pour the stew into his mouth.

“E-E-E-E-E-Erection?!?” Emica stuttered out, hands going to her breasts. “Y-You, I, um, I-!” She looked away, squirming as she frantically fanned her face. “I-I’m uh, going to go and um, sit in the cockp-pit!” She squeaked, before rushing out and doing just that.

“My reaction exactly, except internalized,” Richter called out after her, still basically binge-drinking his food.

Thankfully, the food managed to distract him from his thoughts not long after. It was honestly just like Emica described. The meat was explosively spicy, but had been expertly tamed with some obviously very practiced techniques and masterfully added seasonings. Said seasonings added hints of creaminess to the broth and even the meat, but not to anything close to overwhelming. Some white flakes in the broth, he found, were even sweet, yet also surprisingly bitter.

Yet, everything was balanced carefully.

Forossa definitely knew how to cook, it seemed.

“Delicious. Could use some more salt though,” he shrugged and got another spoonful of stew in his bowl.

“Is there a reason I now sense a Force Bond between you and my padawan?” came Forossa’s voice from the door, sounding unamused.

“Accident born of the universe fucking with me. You know how that is, surely,” Richter replied without looking back, too afraid that making eye contact would be tantamount to having a staring contest with Medusa.

“I deserve a far better explanation than that, boy. Especially after I almost had a very physical argume with a very old friend of mine,” Forossa intoned darkly. “And you should know to look a woman in the eyes when she wants an answer.”

“Accidental touching of the fluffy tail when I tried to stop her from going to the armory to go out and help you. Meant to grab the scruff of her neck, I lost my balance and ended up touching her tail,” Richter explained as he turned to stare her in the eyes. “Ya wanna call bullshit and murder me, fine, whatever, but remember that this Force Bond or whatever the hell it is will hurt Emica too.”

Forossa looked back at him for a time, arms crossed over her armored chest. “I am far more aware of how a Force Bond works than either of you are, boy. Do not even attempt to lecture me.” She sighed, shaking her head. “But regardless, the Bond has been made. And I do not plan on severing it.” She turned around. “If you wish to sever it yourself, however, there are only two known ways. Let one of you die and survive the backlash, or change your relationship to the point the Bond becomes too weak to sustain itself. Food for thought I figured a fool like you would like.” She walked out after that.

“...I fucking hate today,” the sole male on the ship said after a few moments of being alone in the silent cargo bay.

Author's Note

This is the first of the crossover chapters with Timeless Celestial/Timeless Lord Slayer’s Star Wars Displaced story.

If it seems like things are off or out of character...meh.

Again, these chapters won’t be published on his story for a while yet. That doesn’t mean that I won’t be posting these chapters as soon as they’re and as soon as I’m able.

Hope you all enjoy this chapter, and I’ll see you in the next one.