"Done!!!" Xander shouted as he slammed the shot glass onto the table. Everyone around him cheered as he broke another record on the planet of Maratos.

"Hey, pretty boy," a big man on a neighboring table grunted. "Are you still playing?"

"You think I would ever back out of a good game of blackjack?" Xander replied as he made his way over and gracefully forgot about the pretty boy comment. After all, he did get a lot of those with his dirty blonde hair and light brown eyes. It was a common appearance on Earth but was very rare on the other side of the galaxy.

Xander sat down at the blackjack table and continued playing the game which had managed to travel across the galaxy from Earth, much like him. After a couple of rounds of winning he was interrupted by a very familiar and annoyed looking face.

Zaria walked up to the table wearing all black pants and a shirt along with a leather jacket that, no doubt, concealed an assortment of daggers although she did leave one dagger on the side of her belt for everyone to see as if she was daring them to approach her. Zaria's dark brown hair was tied back, her dark brown eyes staring daggers at him while she had her hands crossed over her chest.

Xander was very much aware of all the other men at the table staring at her, one even going as far as drooling on his cards. He couldn't blame them. It wasn't necessarily because she was pretty, although she was, but rather because of her fierce warrior look. People around these parts loved that, especially in Maratos. It was refreshing to see someone like her in the midst of the kind of women that hung out around here. And then there was the way she carried herself around with total confidence. It got even the strongest of men to bend at her will.

"Wanna play?" Xander asked jokingly. Zaria sighed before doing something completely unexpected.

Zaria sat down in the chair next to him and said, "Hit me."

Xander stared at her as the dealer passed the cards out.

"What?" she asked giving him a sideways look.

"I think you need to stop hanging out with me. You're becoming a little unpredictable."

"Afraid that someone's gonna steal your spotlight?" Zaria asked as she gave a taunting smile. "Besides, how else was I supposed to get your attention. You weren't listening to me before."

"So you still think we should leave Maratos and go back to Command?"

"I don't think, I know."

"How?"

"It's a gut feeling. Aren't you all about gut feelings?"

"Sure. But I don't understand why we have to go back to Command. We've taken the entire Zeldanian Army and Space Force, saved thousands of people at a time, and we even decimated an army of thousands by ourselves. I'm the best pilot in the history of the Galactic Empire and you're the best warrior of our time! We shouldn't have to hide in the shadows against some tiny Zeldan wannabe!"

"How do you even know that the threat is little?!"

"Because if it was huge we would've known by now!"

"So you want to put an entire planet in jeopardy because you want to enjoy yourself and get drunk when you know that you would be the first name on a kill list?!"

"YES! BECAUSE THERE IS NO THREAT!"

At this point, both of them were standing up and screaming in each other's faces with many people surrounding them watching the exchange like it was a tennis match. Zaria opened her mouth to say something when a loud explosion cut her off.

A column of fire erupted in a neighboring building, no doubt from a bomb. People were screaming and running around as Xander and Zaria fell to the floor from the shock wave. Xander's ears hurt from the blast sound and he held them as he stood up, Zaria following suit. As the pain decreased he opened his ears and looked around him at the chaos.

Zaria looked at the carnage around them as she half-heartedly whispered, "I told you."