Saelil stared at Scott as he lobbed another FAE at the crowd of zombies below. His constant use of his new power baffled her. Never before had she seen a magical ability or spell that could be used so freely.

"I think this power of yours is entirely unfair, beloved," said Saelil, a delicate frown on her lips.

Scott laughed lightly and made a few more friends when two more zombies staggered into the friendship miasma down below. "Man, it's too bad we have a time limit. I'd love to keep making new friends."

"Really?" asked Samantha with a digitized chuckle.

"What? Making friends is hard for me," said Scott with a grin. "I've always been a bit of a loner."

"I like you guys..." said one of the zombies below.

Another one spoke up and said, "I have kids... Wanna see pictures?"

"Pitchers? I could go for a beer..." mumbled a third zombie.

"Yeah. Me too buddy!" called out Scott with a laugh.

All of the zombies looked up at him as one, though their heads wobbled a little. A cacophony of screechy voices and stuttered words erupted from their throats. The clearest among them said things like, "Bro wants a beer,' and 'Let's go to the bar, bro.'"

"Seriously?" asked Samantha, amusement in her voice.

The zombies waved their hands at him in a stiff, but inviting manner. "I wonder," said Scott.

A brief moment later, he grinned and hopped down from the roof. Time to test out the limits of this new discovery.

"What are you doing?" asked Kitty suddenly. "That's dangerous, you know!"

"I'm going to the bar with my friends," said Scott. He lobbed another FAE into the crowd. The zombies flailed around a little then started to sound a mildly excited.

"Do we really have time for this?" asked Saelil.

"We've got one more side-mission we can complete. Honestly, though, we can leave and head back to the exit now if you want," said Scott. "Don't know about you, but I don't know when I'll get the chance to walk around with friendly zombies again."

"Can't you just use your power again later?" asked Saelil.

"Who knows? I might never get another chance if the Friendship Rose doesn't pop up in my purchase options back home," he said.

A zombie staggered toward Scott, a ridiculous smile on its face. "Hey, buddy!"

"Hey, man. Sup?" asked Scott lightly.

The zombie glanced up toward the girls, its head wobbling a little in the process. It leaned in a little and whispered, "In-Interduces me to the ladies."

The girls leaned back in surprise, Samantha included. Scott merely laughed and nodded. "Sure, what's your name?"

Long-dead eyebrows rose up. "Dunno that... W-what wazzit?"

"Bob?" asked Scott curiously.

The zombie made a strange noise that sounded like the unholy love-child of a screech, a gasp, and a gurgle. "Thas must be it! Troduce me, wouldja, bro."

"Hey, girls!" called out Scott boisterously. Scott slipped his arm around the dead man's shoulders and shook him in a friendly manner. "This here's my friend Bob!"

Bob threw one hand up in an attempt at a wave. "Hey, ladies!"

"Hi, Bob!" called back Kitty before she leaned forward and shook herself a little. "Nice to meet you!"

Samantha put a hand to her helmet and sighed loudly. "Can this day get any weirder?"

"O-only if I'm lucky," said the zombie before it gurgle-screeched in joy once more.

"Oh..." said Samantha before backing away a step.

"N-nah, just kiddin..." said the zombie. He wobbled his head a little then looked toward Scott. "Y-you know me buddy, tells her Iz was kiddin..."

"Yeah, Bob's a goo-ood guy," moaned another zombie.

Scott glanced at the other zombie then looked to Samantha, "Yeah, Bob didn't mean no harm..."

"This magic that you used... The properties are strange," said Saelil.

"Yeah, I know. All of the powers from that world are weird," said Scott. "Fun, though."

Bob broke into the conversation. "Was fun," he said while nodding his head in a wobbly manner. However, immediately afterward he stood up straight and made a concerted effort to blink. Several other zombies also did the same.

Scott took his arm from around the dead man and stepped back. They were acting strange, a bad sort of strange.

Slowly, Bob turned toward Scott. Viscous black blood began to trickle from his eyes. "Thanks, bro."

"F-for what?" asked Scott, thoroughly freaked out by the situation. These zombies were acting weird even for zombies.

Bob's torn lips attempted a smile, even as the black ichor began to plop and flow faster from his eyes. "Thank you..." he said again. Before Scott could ask what was going on, several other zombies thanked him. It was obvious that many of them were crying black tears as well.

A slight breeze blew through the area, causing the miasma to begin to shift away, slowly. The friendly zombie's eyes widened briefly. He then tilted his head back, the breeze lightly blowing his filth caked hair. "The wind feels nice, bro," said the zombie just before its body froze up. Like a marionette whose string had just been cut, Bob collapsed to the ground. A soft white mist rose up from the unmoving corpse, and not long after it was followed by a bright green number three. Scott earned three experience points.

The body soon caught fire, causing Scott to step back. Not long after, the other zombies started to thank him once more. A few even said other things. One even said, "Honey, daddy's coming home," before his body collapsed.

"T-the hell?" asked Scott, his eyes wide. One by one, zombies began to fall to the ground. Each of them bore happy expressions on what remained of their faces. Scott threw out a few more FAE's when some of the other's seemed to begin to regain their former aggression.

Several minutes passed in this way, but one by one the zombie all reached a point of near-coherence. They spoke almost like normal people, and seemed strangely content.

"W-what did I just see?" asked Kitty.

Saelil shook her head. "Seems like some sort of sacred power to cleanse the undead, but I've never seen one quite like it."

The moment the last zombie fell, the world grew silent. No one spoke for a while. This was not like shooting zombies in the head and watching their corpses stack up. Something profound had just occurred.

Scott looked at the palm of his hand. He'd been having fun with what he thought were charmed zombies. What really happened when he used that power? "The more I used it, the smarter they became..."

Even stranger, he'd earned ten times the experience that he normally acquired when he killed a zombie. The bizarre moment passed in time. The quarter slowly regained their sense of reality. They recalled that they were on a mission.

"There's just over an hour left. Let's go see what that other side-mission is, so we can decide on what to do with it," said Scott.

"Right," said Samantha, her voice a little shaky. Even she was a little rattled by what she'd seen, and she'd seen some fairly strange things.

The team moved off down the street, and headed toward their final destination. As they came near, it became apparent that something was strange, even for this place.

"So, the side-mission is in an underground car park?" asked Scott.

The others shrugged at him, or made some other gesture to indicate their ignorance. He was the expert. They followed his lead.

They crept slowly into the area. There was no way to know who, or what, might be in there.

Scott motioned for Samantha to break off and check the area from a different direction, while Kitty and Saelil were sent in the other. He moved straight down the center.

Plasma shots fired from Samantha's direction not long after she broke off, but other than a few stragglers, no one saw sign of zombies until Scott reached the interior. He heard the scratching and growling before anything else.

His eyes narrowed and then opened wide as he saw something that he'd hoped not to see. Several large dogs turned to look at him, their fur matted with filth, and their bodies rotting away. The ribs showed freely on the side of the smallest beast, and the largest was missing its hind-leg.

A low, threatening, growl escaped the throat of the biggest dog. A split-second later, the tension broke. They raced toward him with lethal intent.

Nowhere to hide and no safe elevated place to stand, Scott was forced to leap to the side. He jumped atop a car and then leapt away to reach the top of another vehicle.

The zombie dogs chased after him, the biggest one launched itself atop the car that he'd just jumped away from.

"Shit!" shouted Scott as he tried to get a little distance from the dogs. He did not know their fighting strength, yet, but they were already considerably stronger than the average zombie due to their speed and jumping ability. Their intelligence was animalistic, but still better than anything short of the berserker zombies or those just below them in zombie rank. If nothing else, choosing to jump and coming at him from different directions proved that much.

"What's going on?" shouted Samantha.

"I tried to make friends, but they don't—" began Scott, before leaping from the back of a pick-up truck in a bid to reach a large white van. "—seem to like me much!"

The big dog was hot on his trail, and leapt toward him not long after he cleared the jump. Scott took a page out of Kitty's book. He jumped to the side as the massive beast reached the top of the slick van roof. The zombie dog slid forward while scrabbling at the roof of the van to find purchase with its paws, but Scott kicked him right in his furry undead ass. The explosive power of his strike lent enough additional force to the beast's forward momentum that it slid right off the top of the vehicle.

Scott lobbed a FAE at the beast, but to his chagrin the creature truly did not seem interested in being besties. "Shit..." he muttered before being forced to defend his position from another leaping dog.

He pulled out his gun just as Samantha, and the others arrived on the scene. "Careful! Zombie dogs!" he shouted before firing at the biggest threat.

His warning was heeded, not that it was needed. Samantha easily downed one of the rotting pups with a few well-placed shots. Scott hit the boss dog in the head with a plasma round, but to his surprise it only knocked it sideways. The beast looked up at him, and growled menacingly.

"Bad dog! Daddy said, sit!" snarked Scott with more bravado that he felt. He fired a few more times, and the over-sized canine finally fell down and died. Right about that time, the third dog made the mistake of trying to play with Kitty.

It leapt for her throat, but was met with a smile. Rather, it wasn't met but avoided completely. As the dog leapt through the air, rotting jaws wide and tongue lolling out, Kitty's body flashed with a bright light. She rolled forward with incredible speed, and then without even bothering to look back, she flipped backwards in a beautifully athletic arc. She landed atop the beast's back just before it was about to hit the ground.

Kitty crushed it down under her weight. Utilizing speed that belies her supposed stats, she crouched down before the creature finished hitting the ground, gripped its rotting flesh, and rolled backwards with great force. The hapless undead mongrel was hurled back into the air with a powerful, but playful double-kick.

While the beast flew upwards in an uncontrolled arc, Kitty regained the momentum of her roll. She rolled with the beast's movements and snapped up at exactly the right moment to finish the battle with a brutal leaping uppercut that caused Scott's eyes to widen. The dog's body practically exploded as Kitty's claws tore it apart.

She landed in a crouch, and looked at Scott. She lashed her tail from side-to-side. "Meow..."

"Now that's just unfair," said Scott. That level of physicality and agility was just ridiculous. Her stats were not even that much better than his right now. That realization hit him quite succinctly a brief moment later. Shouldn't he be able to move like that? His physical stats were well above even an Olympic athlete and gymnasts could do all manner of ridiculous maneuvers. What was the difference between him and them?

Kitty laughed happily then rose to her feet. "I like playing with neighborhood dogs..." she said, with a smile. She amended her statement a moment later as her nose wrinkled. "The smell, though..."

Samantha chuckled a little. "I wouldn't know."

"You and your damned environmental filters," groused Scott playfully. "Take your helmet off and smell the glory of battle."

"No. thank you," said Samantha with another chuckle.

Kitty pouted at Samantha. It wasn't fair. She wanted to not smell things, too.

Saelil glanced at them briefly then noticed something. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" asked Scott.

Kitty looked to Saelil then blinked, "A heartbeat?"

"Yes," said Saelil.

"Someone's alive in he—" began Scott, but then he stopped. Of course there was someone alive here. The dogs were after something!

"I bet they're over here," said Scott, before he returned to the door the dogs had been scratching at earlier. It was the door to a maintenance closet.

Surprisingly, the door was unlocked. Zombie dogs were apparently unable to open doors with door knobs despite their slightly higher cunning than normal zombies.

"Get ready," he told the girls.

They drew up ranks and nodded. Scott opened the door and took a quick peak inside. The source of the heart beat revealed itself readily.

Scott blinked then knelt down. It was a woman. No wait... It was either the world's most muscular flat-chest woman, or a strangely dressed man. He was wearing a dress after all.

A moment later, Scott's eyes widened. "No way..."

"What is it?" asked Saelil. She could see clearly due to her eyesight being far better than most. "Seems to be a dying elf."

"Sir Chaine?" asked Scott before reaching out to check the downed Hero of Ha' Ruul. "Damn, he's burning up..."

"You know him?" asked Samantha.

"Never really met him, but did meet him... If that makes sense," said Scott. "He shouldn't be here, though."

Scott looked Chaine over and noticed the heavy sheen of sweat and corpse like pallor of his flesh. It did not take long to find the reason. There were two deep bites on his left arm and leg.

"Damn, if I'd been any later..." said Scott, before pulling out a cleanser. There was no way that Chaine could swallow it on his own, so Scott pulled out a bottle of water from his spatial storage and put the cleanser inside. It dissolved quickly, and Scott administered it as best he could.

He lightly stroked the tunic-clad man's throat to help him swallow the medicine. "You said he was not supposed to be here, beloved?" asked Saelil.

"Yeah, he's from a different world. I don't even know how he'd be here unless he took a warp for some reason," said Scott. He continued to baby the liquid medicine down the man's throat as best he could. The last thing he wanted to do was make him choke on it. The process took longer than he would have liked, but the effects began to occur immediately.

The wounds did not heal, but the color of his face began to regain some semblance of normalcy, and the heat began to fade from his flesh. Scott finished using that bottle, and prepared another using a healing pill. After it dissolved into the water, he repeated the previous process.

The wounds on Chaine's arm and leg began to heal over at an accelerated rate. They closed before the eyes of the onlookers.

It was not long before the fallen man began to mumble in his sleep. "I'm coming princess... Hold on."

Scott's eyebrows pressed inward. It was obvious that Chaine did not come here for a social call. Something major was going on, and time was short. "Come on, man. Wake up," said Scott.

As the minutes passed, Scott began to despair. The timer slowly ticked down. If Chaine did not wake up soon, they'd have to drag him to the exit and hope to find a way to help him there.

Soon, only thirty-three minutes were left. Scott frowned then stood up. "If he's not away in a few minutes I'll carry him back to the gate. We can't stay here much longer if we don't want to be trapped."

"Who is he?" asked Samantha. "He's not native to this world?"

"No. He's from another world. His name is Chaine, but I know little else about him," said Scott. "I'd wager he's a good person, though."

"Why do you say that, beloved?" asked Saelil.

Scott shrugged. They did need to have that conversation in the future, but now was not to tell them in detail about how their entire lives are parodies of fictional characters. It was mentioned here and there, but no lengthy discussion occurred so far.

Thirty-one minutes before the mission gate would open, Chaine awoke. He immediately rose up with a start and reached toward his back. "Where?"

"Sir Chaine, is that you?" asked Scott.

The elf-eared hero of Ha' Ruul blinked and looked into the face of the man across from him. "You... I know, you..."

"We don't have time to discuss it. We need to get out of here," said Scott.

"No, I can't go. I have to get to the princess," said Chaine.

"The princess?" asked Scott.

"Yes, she's been taken!" snarled Chaine angrily. "Gone to some place I cannot reach..."

"Damn..." said Scott.

"I'd love to help—" began Scott

Chaine's eyes darted toward Scott, and a hopeful expression appeared. "Do you truly mean that? If it's you then it might be possible!"

Scott started to tell the man one thing, but the sudden shift in the world caused him to hold his tongue. The world froze in place, including the counter. The typical bright blue menu screen appeared before him.

Sir Chaine, Hero of Ha' Ruul has beseeched your aid as a champion. Your nature is known to his people, and they are aware of your ability to travel through the worlds due to dealings with past champions.

Be advised. Acceptance of this request will end your current mission, and you will begin an emergency rescue operation. Currently, that operation is classed as a [D-1] difficulty rating.

Had you not chosen to expand your mission into this area of the town, another champion would have been granted this mission. However, you are the champion who has acquired the opportunity. Your choice will be final. No others will receive this mission, now.

You will return to your home point with Sir Chaine as a temporary guest companion if you accept the request.

Scott did not even need to consider it. A chance to go on a mission to save the princess with Li— er, Chaine? If he doesn't do it, no one else can help? That was no choice. There was only one proper answer. "Hell, yeah. Let's do this."