800 Credits

Gretal left the ship before the human could say anything else, she changed her appearance, again, into a Proelia* soldier but was intercepted. A Proelia soldier was a light armored humanoid with hair covered ears and a long tail.

"Which planet are you from?" Asks the Retinal.

"I'm from the Eastern Galaxy, the Gelu Empire," she replies.

"Gelu? That empire has been long gone, which planet have you been living on?" One of them ask.

Silence follows the already soundless space when it was suddenly shot to life (literally) Gretal's transformation was as fast as the bullet that whizzed past her. She grabs a nearby soldier and slam them hard onto the surface.

She leaps across the rapid fire bullets shot at her, not bothering with graceful moves as she takes them out and their weapons one by one.

She was quick to take out everyone when she was about to finish off the last one, she had to dodge because a stray bullet was aimed at her arm.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? These are central enforcers!" Frank exclaims.

Gretal ignores him and grabs the soldier by his neck, he was struggling out of her grip, trying to escape after snapping out of the shock.

"Tell me, what are the llosgi planning?" She threatens with a knife that seem to appear out of nowhere.

"A̵̡̫͋h̵̝͍͐͠a̷̯͇̓͂g̷̢͋̓e̵̮̗͆b̷͓͛̑d̸̬̱́̏k̵͒̒͜s̶̈́ͅo̶̫̔̚q̷͔̊h̴̜̽̄q̴̝̞̃x̸̫͘a̴͍̠̕s̶͚̊ñ̸̠̆," Gretal quickly leaps away, throwing her pink disk towards the pile of soldiers as incomprehensible noises sounded from their uniforms. It expands and covers the soldiers and a huge muffled explosion could be heard, shaking the asteroid and breaking it.

"Move!" Gretal exclaims, shoving him into the ship as her command has the ship whirl to life as it goes into emergency flight mode, the disk that was containing the explosion, shrinks and zips towards the doors before they could close as they fly away from the breaking asteroid.

It was quite big in size, hence the explosion must have been very strong to break it into space dust. Frank doubt the ship would have survived if it had gone off without protection, his first reaction however was curiosity instead of anger, just how strong was it able to contain a blast like that?

It must have been stronger than it looked. But then the anger settles in again.

"Are you crazy? The one thing I wouldn't want to go into a crazy bar fight in was with a central officer! What if they had captured your appearance?!" He exclaims.

"Then it'll be a good thing," Gretal simply replies as she transforms back to her usual self.

"What are you anyway? You don't look like a Reista* nor you don't look human; because last I checked, humans don't use ancient magic," Frank replies.

Gretal frowns at the word 'ancient' before going to the controls and setting their destination.

"It's not something you'd know anyway," she replies before pulling the lever and driving the ship away from the belt.

Frank frowns and looks ahead, it looked like their destination wasn't that far off seeing as she isn't using the warp. The only sound in the ship is the whirring of machines.

When they reach the bar, Frank could easily spot his ship, still parked there. Thank goodness for he was sure that Sw would have dismantle or sold it.

"Thanks for the ride, sorry for the trouble," Frank waves as Gretal parks the ship.

"Try not to get into too much trouble," she warns as she goes back to her seat.

"Hey wait! I want to ask you-" he starts but the ship doors slam shut and it takes off without delay. Frank pouts before going to his ship.

But his vision was suddenly turned upside down, it took him a second to realize that it was because someone was holding his leg.

"Hey!-" he protests but he noticed that it was the woman who knocked him out earlier.

"Who the- what are you still doing here?!" She exclaims and suddenly his world is turning back around, but his fall was numbed by the lack of gravity as he lands on his feet.

"I could ask the same of you!" He complains.

"Is that your ship?" She demands, pointing towards his Tilter.

"Yes?" He asks.

"It's a central command ship," she frowns.

"Oh that? Was borrowed," he raises his hands up on surrender as he backs towards the ship.

"I'm just a normal traveler, making my way home," he tries to sound non threatening, but was stopped by another figure behind him. Maybe it was because the figure was way smaller than him that he hesitated in shoving her away.

"Um... lady, is this your friend here?" He asks.

"Please, we need a place to hide, could we come with you?" The little one asks in a small voice. Frank's cheeks twitches into a fake smile until he felt a heavy arm on his shoulder, almost crushing it.

"There's no need for that," her deep voice booms above him before he closes his eyes for the impact that never came.

"Merquri!" The little cloaked figure dashes towards the cloud of moon dust in the distance. Frank whips around to find the undeniable shade of pink.

"You?" He asks.

"I forgot, you owe me ship fuel," she replies.

Frank frowns, did they ever discussed about ship fuel? His brain is trying to find out when, but from all the adrenaline, he can't exactly think straight.

"I thought that was when you paid my room?" He asks, after remembering what he said last night.

"I didn't transport you here for free-" she replies but was cut off when she was suddenly blocking a huge, burning weight. Literally, a flaming hammer was brought down onto her disk that appeared in the blink of an eye.

"What is up with you and fighting people?" Frank complains before taking the chance to run into his ship.

"Move aside, then I might spare you," the giant Merquri warns as Gretal drops onto one knee, shaking a little at the strength.

"Merquri! Please! Let's not fight anymore!" The little one exclaims. That seem to distract her for a while, which gave Gretal enough leverage to kick her hammer away and put some distance between them.

To be honest Gretal didn't come here for ship fuel money, she just saw Merquri ambush Frank and wanted to help him. But even if he knew that, his ship was long gone, leaving the three outside the Southern Bar.

"Merquri Cobgar, aren't you supposed to be guarding someone in some castle?" She tilts her head at the small figure hiding behind her, prompting her to tighten her grip around her weapon.

"You can't have brought the Princess of Seuthaieus could you?" Gretal frowns.

"Urgh, I can't tell if you're ancient or very up to date!" Frank exclaims from the side.

"How do you know that?" Merquri asks, they don't look like Southerners, was the King really that desperate? the small girl looks up at Merquri in worry.

"Maybe we should go to some desolate planet..." she mutters, Frank looks at the girl, though she doesn't look like royalty with her faded clothes, if a royal from Seuthaieus were to blend in, they definitely wouldn't be easy as they are very used to flashy clothes.

"There is no where we can go..." Merquri mutters back, Gretal seems to be contemplating something, as if scheming but in reality, it just reminded of them when they were on the run when they were young.

"I have a hiding place for you if you're willing to follow," Gretal replies.

"Really?" the princess asks, Merquri glares at her, obviously this person isn't anything good, who the hell wear flashy clothes in the open? Like a bright shiny bullseye target in the dark.

Gretal was in their magical warrior form but to make themselves look less threatening, they change back to their human form.

"You haven't seen my kind before haven't you?" they ask.

The two of them look at each other before looking back at her.

"Aren't you a Commutatia?" she asks.

Frank being confused at these new terms ain't new, while they may live for thousands of years and have probably traveled almost a one-tenth of each universe, he has only ever been in the southern and central system and he goes to bars to party and low level planets to rob- er... he meant to borrow stuff from.

Gretal doesn't seem to know what a Commutatia means either they sigh.

"I've been pretty good at hiding for thousands of years, you can say I'm a forgotten race," they reply.

"So much so that you are still using a disk... seriously..." Frank sighs exasperatedly.

Gretal stares at him and he stops complaining.

"This puny guy won't be following would he?" Merquri asks.

"Hey- I'm at least twice taller than that princess-" he starts but zips his mouth again when she slams the ground with her hammer.

Suddenly, a door bursts open from the bar, Sw pokes out a stick head and hisses at them.

"Frank I still haven't gotten you to pay for that sink!!! Let me beat you into a pulp as repayment!" he exclaims.

"I'm going! I'm going!" he runs back to Gretal's ship as Sw starts to crawl after him but from a look from Gretal, he shrinks back before going back into the bar for safety, he has his ship so he is bound to return anyway.

Merquri looks down at Princess Pira who is already skipping over to the ship. Without a choice, Merquri follows the princess into the ship. Gretal looks at them before looking back at Frank's ship.

Pira looks at the ship in awe, it looks antique in their eyes but spacious, like the ship was a whole house. She was about to go exploring when Merquri drag her back into the control room.

"Don't wander around, it's rude," Merquri scolds out of habit, Pira nods, rather docile. Frank didn't know what to do with the two, so he just settled by his seat and takes a quick nap, he hadn't been sleeping as much as usual which is... a lot, it's been a while since he got out to some action.

He was about to doze off when the door opening grabbed all of their attention.

"About that fuel money..."

- line break -

Proelia - comes from the latin word with the same spelling, means 'warrior' or 'fighter'

Reista - comes from the word ρέστα in greek means to change. In this universe they refer to a creature of the dark that can change its form depending on what they want others to see

Seuthaieus - 'see-you-thay-ee-yus' is a planet in the southern system that is pink in color

Commutatia - means "commutator" in Latin, it refers to a species in the eastern system that can change into smoke and teleport at high speeds. It's a new species that looks a lot like humans only with more smaller bodies.