Things weren't exactly looking great. Bavran carries me through the ship, my body locked in his iron grip hand. We enter a strange looking room that resembles some sort of nest. There's a giant hollow in the middle, which looks like his resting place. Bavran lifts his fist, rips the spear from my shoulder and launches me across the room.

The spongy floor is soft, but it still hurts somehow as I hit it. I bounce off the floor and tumble a couple of meters across the uncomfortable surface before coming to a stop at the middle of Bavran's hollow. The giant Horkax lumbers across the room toward me, stripping his yellow armor from his body.

"Oh god. Please don't." I throw my hands up in front of my eyes, deciding that I really don't want to see that. He drops his giant armor to the floor and it clangs with its weight. He lumbers forward, and I scurry back, catching my hands on the jagged floor. Looking down I realize that the floor of his nest is covered in bones. "Jesus man, what is this shit?"

"I sleep here," he rasps. "I mate here. I even eat here. This is my nest."

"No, this is fucking gross, you need to learn some basic hygiene. What is this shit anyway? I look down at the bones and see what look to be the tatters of Horkax uniform. "Are you eating your own people?!"

"Cannibalism is an everyday part of Horkax life. The strong eat the weak and grow stronger. How do you think I came to be this size?"

My eyes trace up to the giant that is lumbering toward me and I shiver with sickness. I don't really care Bavran, is what I want to say, but I hold my tongue for now, because something glimmers in the dirt of his nest floor, and I think I might have found an out. There among the bones of his consumed followers is a laser pistol. I crawl toward it slowly, keeping my gaze on the Locust beast all the while. "I don't know. Please tell me. You're so big. You're so attractive."

The urge to vomit jumps up in my throat but I fight it back. I want to keep Bavran distracted, and he seems like the type that thrives on flattery. I inch closer to the gun, reach my hand out and grab it. Bavran's mandibles flutter and he drops the last of his armor to the floor, revealing the full splendor of his revolting naked body. 

"Enough talk," he hisses. "I will attempt to mate you now. I regret to tell you that my anatomy will most likely rip you to shreds. But, oh well."

"Yikes. Slow down Bavran. Why not buy me dinner first?"

The bug man lumbers closer and there are literally feet between us now. He turns his head and clacks his mandibles in confusion. "What?"

"Never mind, let's skip dinner and head straight to dessert. It's laser pistol parfait!" I grab hold of the gun, jump up to my feet and fire a torrent of laser fire into the yellow giant's insect chest. The lasers burn bright copper holes into Bavran's hard exoskeleton. He roars in response and flails backward from the force of the shots. I carry on firing until the gun overheats in my hand. The cool metal turns to fire and I drop the smoking pistol to the floor. 

I turn and sprint for an exit. Any exit. Bavran curses loudly in the background, and I glance back briefly to see if he's giving chase. He is. Fuck. I'd half-hoped that a few lasers to the chest would have killed the fucker, but I’m not on the home straight yet. I punch my arms through an orifice-like door, struggle through some sort of gooey plant membrane and sprint for dear life down another ribcage corridor.

My racing breath is the only sound for a few seconds before the wall in front of me explodes in a cloud of root and dust. Bavran piles into the hallway, filling every square inch. His strange bug eyes have glazed over with insatiable rage. His mandibles are flared out and looking for blood. I turn and run. He charges.

"Get back here bitch!" he rasps behind me. 

I pump my legs down the hallway as fast as I can, hoping that I can find a way off this godforsaken vessel. The wound in my shoulder is burning something fierce. My legs hurt like hell. I burst through another door and find myself back in Bavran's throne room.

I'm close to thinking that I’ve given him the slip when the ceiling collapses open in front of me. The twisted yellow giant bug crunches onto the floor, swipes his hand forward and grabs me, crushing me under the weight of his insane strength. He jerks me up to his face, covering me in foul saliva while cursing in his strange alien language.

"Thought you could get away, did you?! No one bests Bavran! No one!" 

Bavran snaps his arm back and hurls me through the air, sending me crashing into a wall on the other side of the room. Heat explodes and fire flares across my body. Sound whistles out of my ears for a second and when my hearing comes back all I can focus on is immense pain. I’m doubled over on the floor struggling for breath, trying to find the strength to stand and run. My legs quake with weakness and I drop back to my knees. Running isn’t an option.

The huge Locust General swoops forward, picks me back up again and squeezes his hand around my body. I want to beg for mercy, I want to cry for release, but there's no air left in my lungs and I’m pretty sure he broke all my ribs on the last throw. Another throw like that and I’m dead.

He lifts his fist up into the air again and snaps it back, taunting me as he prepares to deliver the killing blow. "You're about to learn what it means to mess with the Horkax!"

I close my eyes in that moment and wait for death. The air is a cocktail of rancid insect breath and blood. My body throbs from head to toe with immeasurable pain. Everything feels hot. Everything hurts. In those final few moments the only thing I can think of is Vax. Where was he now? What was he doing? To hear his voice would be a blessing right now, even if it was just to lull me into that final sleep.

I must be hallucinating, because I even think I do hear his voice.

"Get your hands off her you piece of shit."

The giant insect hand loosens around my torso and next thing I've dropped to the floor. I force my eyes open and crawl away from the yellow giant. Every move is agony, but I have to put distance between us. Looking up, I realize why Bavran let go of me.

"Vax!" My cry comes as a broken whisper. I've barely got the strength left to speak now, but it's him. It's really him! God bless that giant blue idiot. He's here! He found me! He's really here!

"Look at that, another Argonian rat has appeared. I killed the last one. I can kill another just as easy!"

Vax stares back at the bug man with a contempt which is palpable. He drops his black staff to the ground and steps toward the General. "You messed with the wrong Argonian pal. You think you can knock my woman around like she's some piece of trash. Think again! I don't need human eyes to see that you're different from the rest. It's gonna be a real pleasure killing you."

"Do it then!" Bavran jumps forward through the air, raising both his fists up and crashing them down towards Vax. I'm almost certain he's dead, when he blocks the blow with his arms, holding back the alien general's monumental strength. The block takes Bavran by surprise, but he looks even more surprised when Vax starts shifting.

I lay there on the ground staring in amazement as Vax's body swells in size. His muscles inflate like balloons. His arms and legs stretch to monstrous proportions. When he's done he nearly ends up the same size as Bavran, though there is still a few feet difference. He holds the bug man's arms in his grasp. Calamity fills Vax's gaze. A manic grin fills his face. He's wants revenge, and he's going to take it.

A fight breaks out between the two and I lay there on the ground watching the giant aliens punch and throw their way across the room. The sheer weight of their fight is terrifying, and I try my hardest to scramble out the way so not to get crushed. I'm halfway across the floor when I come across Orbis's body. Orbis. Christ. I'd completely forgot about him. I feel like I should wait here with him until Vax is done. A strange voice whispers behind me, and I turn to see a... a woman?! 

"You must be Piper! I'm Rose! Vax has told me all about you! The ship is this way! Come with me!"

The dark-haired woman helps me up onto my feet and puts her arm around me. "We have to get Orbis first! His body!" I nod down at Orbis's dead body. I don't want to leave him here. Not in a place like this. Rose looks down at Orbis but circles me away from him.

"I'm sorry Piper. There's not enough time." We both flinch as Vax and Bavran come crashing across the floor behind us. I limp hurriedly in Rose's grasp while looking back at the fight. Vax pins Bavran to the ground and slugs with a hard blow, but Bavran lifts his insect legs up and drives them into Vax's chest, sending him through the wall behind.

We exit through a door, Piper drags me down a corridor and into a hangar of sorts. "But Vax!" I shout. "We have to help him!"

She steers me toward a fighter ship in the middle of the hangar and we go up the ramp. "You saw the size of that thing, we'd both get crushed into paste if we—"

Crashing thunders all around us and we both turn around on the ramp to see Vax as he launches Bavran through the wall and onto the hangar floor. They’re both covered in a myriad of alien-colored blood. Bavran is looking weak. Vax is looking pissed to all hell. 

"I warned you!" he roars while slamming the bug general's head against a wall. One fist grips his throat while the other digs into his stomach with hard punches. He delivers a blow with each word. "You! Messed! With! The! Wrong! Woman!"

The alien general falls to the floor in a bloodied-heap and laughs up torrents of fresh blood. "You just don't get it, do you? You can't kill me Argonian. My body is fused with metallonium. You'd need a bomb to kill me."

Vax brings a knee to the face of the bug man and send him flying onto his back. "There's a saying, I’m not sure if you're familiar with it. Never tell an Argonian he can't do something. He'll only prove you wrong." Vax punches two holes through the wall on either side of Bavran and pulls out fistfuls of dark roots. He ties the roots across Bavran's chest, essentially chaining him to the wall. The General is too weak to fight back, but still has enough energy to run his mouth.

"You can escape here, but there's an entire fleet waiting outside to turn you to dust. Your friend is dead, and you'll die too Argonian, along with that whore you call a mate."

Crunch.

Vax sends one last blow into Bavran's face and the bug drops his head momentarily. Rose helps me to my feet. All Vax has to do is get on the ship and we can go, but he doesn't. "Get on board and start the engines Rose!" he roars. His stature is already shrinking. It looks like his body is done fighting, which is probably a good thing, because he wouldn't fit on the ship in his current state. Rose hauls me up the ramp. "But Vax! We can't leave him!"

"He's coming honey, don't you worry." Rose sets me down in a chair and fires up the ships engines.

I use all my strength to push myself forward to see out the ship's windows. Bavran sits against a wall, struggling against his restraints. Vax is gone, but he appears through the wall a moment later. I look at his arms and understand why he left now. He went back for Orbis. 

Vax sprints across the hangar floor, his body shrinking back to its normal size with each step. He steps into cockpit and lays Orbis down on a bed at the back of the room. Next thing he's on his knees at my feet, his hands holding my head against his. "I thought I'd lost you." The words whisper over me like a prayer, sending shivers across my skin. He presses his lips against my forehead and holds there for a moment. I want it to last forever, but I know as well as he does that we have to move.

He takes the pilot seat and readies the ship's thrusters, firing up from the ground. 

"How'd you find me?" I ask.

"Radio said that Orbis was taking prisoner by a General. I had Rose here find the needle in the haystack. Getting in wasn't too much of a problem, all the ships around here are deadweight."

"I killed his lieutenants. You need to kill him Vax, or we'll never win!" I say with a choke as our ship lifts off. We pull back through the great doors of Bavran's yellow ship, turning to the black of space once more. The ships around Bavran's fighter might be down, but there are still a million Horkax fighters flanking us in every direction. 

"Don't you worry about him," Vax says while turning the ship around to face Bavran's fighter once more. He taps away at the command terminal in front of him then turns to Rose. "Remember that gun I told you not to use? Use it."

Her face lights up. "The Quanto-laser? Really?!"

"Yeah. But aim well. I took off the power cap. There's one shot of high energy. Once it fires I'm doing a reverse jump to the edge of the battlefield." Vax turns back to his command terminal and taps more commands before leaning in to talk to the panel. "Army of Argonia, come in, do you hear me? This is Vax Enzala. All Argonian ships retreat from the battlefield at once. Repeat. Retreat at once. I have a payload in place and it’s about to go off. Safety is available at the coordinates being beamed to you."

A hundred different commands crackle back over the terminal, all saying the same thing. Roger that. Got it. Hear you loud and clear. I have to look over at Vax and wonder what's about to happen. An image flickers on our ship’s screen and we all take notice. Bavran must have freed himself from his restraints because he’s managed to find his way to a communication terminal.

“Argonian! Wait! Is that a Quanto-laser? What do you think you’re doing?!” Blood drips down the face of the huge locust man and he sways in the frame. He sounds desperate.

“You issued me a challenge bug, remember? You said you couldn’t die. I’m going to prove you wrong.”

“Stop!” he rasps. “We can come to some sort of agreement! Take my fleet! A million soldiers for you! Imagine the war you could unleash with that!”

All is silent for a moment. Rose and I both look over at Vax, who sits in silent contemplation. A small smile curls on his lips and he leans forward. “You paint a tempting offer bug man, but I’m afraid I’ll have to decline. It’s over. I’m sorry.” Vax turns to Rose. “Now!”

Rose pulls the trigger and bright laser fire erupts from our ship. The bolt of energy is blinding and fills our cockpit with pure white light. The blast connects with Bavran's meagre fighter ship and pulverizes it instantly, turning the ship into a cloud of molten fire. The deafening roar of thunder shakes the air. Vax hits the button to jump, and we leap back from the battlefield at lightspeed, tearing away from a wall of fire that ignites the cosmos itself.

The central explosion from Bavran's ship sparks a chain reaction across the rest of the Horkax fleet, and I can only watch in abject fascination as a million locust ships go up in fire. Our tiny ship bursts across the vastness of space, running from the wall of fire that spreads out across a thousand miles. The air grows hot. Sirens flash. The ship shakes. Vax grabs my hand and I squeeze hard.

We outrun the explosion and come to a stop in the safe zone, which is now an ocean of Argonian fighter ships. For a moment I wonder if a group of Horkax have somehow survived and followed us, because streams of light erupt from every ship, illuminating the sky with showers of colored lasers.

"They followed us?!" I shout to Vax. He jumps up from his chair and comes over to me, shaking his head with a broad smile. "They're celebrating. We won." He scoops me up in his arms and kisses me. It's the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted. It's the taste of my man. The man that saved two races from extinction.

"I love you," I say as I pull away. We're stood in the window of the ship, silhouetted by a firework show that dances across the cosmos. Vax looks down at me with those sparkling blue eyes, his hands held tight against my body.

"Love,” he says. “This thing you have told me about. The highest feeling you can feel toward another person.”

“That’s right,” I say. I stare up into his beautiful blue eyes and lose myself in those glistening depths. “You don’t have to say it back Vax. I know Argonians are different, it doesn’t matter to me. I know you care in your own special way.”

He squeezes me tight. “That is correct Piper Denzel. I would behead a thousand Aroks for you. I would end suns, I would wade through oceans of blood and fight until my last dying breath. In the war of our love I am the greatest warrior.”

I look up at him and laugh, wrinkling my nose in confusion. “Vax… what in Vutaz are you trying to say?”

He pulls forward and kisses me again, stealing all the air from my lungs. We break away and he looks down at me. “I guess I’m saying that I love you too, Piper Denzel. Today, tomorrow, and forever. My heart is a warrior, and it will fight for you until the end of time.”

I lean in and wrap my arms around the giant oaf. “You know what Vax? I think you might just be getting it after all.”

We stand there hand-in-hand before the victory canons of a thousand Argonian ships, joined as one before a future full of promise. I’d found the thing I was looking for, and it was better than I ever could have imagined.