DESTROY ALL HUMANS: INTO THE VOID

FOURTEEN

Phil quickly dug through the rubble and searched for anything and anyone. The village was completely demolished. The Nexos left nothing standing.

"Why didn't you tell him?" Pox asked.

"...Because..." Phil angrily kicked aside a stone brick.

Gladys walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "We were always taught to help others. If we told Magnus where the hand was, he would have killed us all. It's better to just let go of our own personal ties in order to save others." She wiped a tear from her eyes.

"In other words..." Phil kept a stern face. "Would you rather save a city with thousands of people or let it die in order to save the rest of the world with billions...?"

"I wish we could do both," said Pox.

"Well it's not how life works." Phil went back to digging and occasionally thought he had found something, but it was just more rubble.

Off in the distance, Magnus's mother ship took off from the cliff and receded from Kalkam.

Gladys and Phil sat there and watched while Tigra purred gently and nuzzled Gladys's hair.

"I got something!" Crypto yelled.

Pox hovered over with the two Kalkamans and they watched as Crypto unearthed someone's arm from the pile of stone. Crypto yanked it out with all his strength and gasped at the sight of the body.

His eyes were closed and his body covered in ash and bruises. His shaggy black hair was singed from the rocket blasts.

"Gary..." Gladys fell onto her knees and buried her face in her hands.

Phil gazed at the body and muttered something under his breathe.

"Who is this?" Crypto asked.

"...One of our close friends."

"I'm sorry." Pox moved forward and covered the body with a rag hanging from a snapped clothesline. "Did you guys have any family here?"

"...We're both orphans, but Gladys had a stepmom."

"Which I don't care about." Gladys said, still sobbing. "She was anything but a mother."

Crypto drew his sword as he saw something glimmering in the distance. "What is that?"

Pox looked in the direction of the light and shielded his eyes. "I don't know."

Crypto walked towards the light and readied his sword to attack. "Whatever it is, I'm not in the damn mood," he mumbled. He shielded his eyes from the intense reflection and then looked down to see what he had almost tripped over. It was his weapons cube. "Thank you very much kind sir!" He stuck his middle finger up in the direction of the mother ship's flight and snatched up the shining cube.

Pox ran over with Gladys and Phil and Tigra following behind them. "What is it?"

"My weapons." Crypto reached inside and pulled out another of his giant guns. It had a bright orange sphere in the middle. "I'm gonna blast him right out of the sky!"

"Crypto. Don't." Pox gestured towards the two Kalkamans.

Crypto lowered his Meteor Strike. "Whatever..."

"So, what now?" Gladys asked.

Pox and Crypto turned around to face them. Phil was scratching Tigra's chin. "Do you guys have anywhere to go on the planet?" Pox asked.

"We could go to the city, but Kalkamans only like to take care of their own children..." Gladys looked up into the sky and took a deep breathe.

"-Come with us," said Crypto.