Condition Evolution 2: A LitRPG / Gamelit Adventure by Sinclair, Kevin (black female authors txt) 📗

the day before, but with a good night’s sleep behind me, I now marveled at my new shape in the gym room mirror. I was nowhere near huge, but I was very happy with the direction things were taking. Then, Ember said, “Stop mooning over yourself and lift some weights, you jerk.”

“Don’t worry. You won’t have to be as jealous by the end of the day.”

“I’m not jealous, you jackass. Now, let’s see what you’ve been banging on about.”

We started training in earnest. Ember did all of the same workouts I did, but with weights geared to her strength level. By the time an hour had passed, we’d done a number on ourselves and went for a huge breakfast. Then the axe did his thang!

“Oh, my god! This is so cool. Come on, let’s do it again!” she said excitedly.

Unfortunately, on our way back to the gym, Ogun caught us. “Good to see you are up and about, Ember. You’re both looking very well.”

“Thank you, Ogun. I don’t know what’s coming next, but we’ll be as ready as we can be,” Ember said, unusually cheerfully. I suppose being rescued from certain death has that kind of effect on people.

“I’m glad to hear it, and I know you won’t disappoint. Gus is awake and, if you don’t mind the interruption, would you mind joining us in the medical room?”

“Of course not. Lead the way,” Ember replied.

We both went over to Gus when we got into the room. Ogun had to wait as we made sure Gus was okay, and talked about how well Mick was recovering.

Once we had finished, Ogun began, “You’re probably wondering where we are going and what we’re doing. I thought I would get you all together because this is not a conversation I want to have multiple times.”

He moved to stand at the edge of Gus’s bed while we sat on either side and continued, “The truth is, we are on the run now more than ever. It was bad enough when they came for us on Earth. At that stage, I had just allowed you to evolve, for which we were in trouble no doubt. Now, we’ve killed a number of Fystr. To them, that’s the ultimate crime. They will throw immense resources at hunting us until we are all dead.”

“That sounds like something the arrogant pricks would do,” Ember said.

“Yes. Well, this is where we find ourselves. Hunted. As for future plans, I won’t lie. We have none. Only that we need to escape the Fystr Empire, which covers about thirty percent of this galaxy. The other parts of the galaxy are not dominated by humans. There are many other races out there, but it will be a dangerous place.”

“More dangerous than hanging around where the Fystr control?”

“No, definitely not that dangerous. We have three ships, including the Hunter Ship that we took from the Fystr on the supply station. We have our people spread evenly on the Thoth and the Seshat and four on the hunter ship. That should be enough to navigate non Fystr empire space in relative safety. That is, until we can come up with a workable plan. I hope you realize that this was never my original plan. I still haven’t gotten to the bottom of how they discovered my work. But here we are, and we will make the best of it.”

“Have they destroyed Earth?” Gus asked.

Ogun answered, “I imagine the Fystr will be there in force now. They will have sent a full occupation party. Probably around ten million of our soldiers. Their usual M.O. is to dismantle all technology and modern structures. If there is any resistance, it will be annihilated. This normally includes massive collateral damage. Unfortunately, we can’t do anything about that. If we did try to fight them, we would last less than a second against the Fystr war machine. They are simply too strong and there are too many.

“In the meantime, they will continue to hunt us. If, and when we can return, we will try and help the people, so they don’t end up regressing back to the Stone Age in a couple of generations.”

We all sat there in silence, processing everything we were being told. Finally, Ember spoke, “So… I mean… can we ever really escape the Fystr?” She half stuttered but forged on. “We’ve managed to lose them once or twice, but they’re still following us.”

“I really don’t know, Ember. I wish I could give you definite answers. I imagine their Hunter Ships will continue to track us, but I believe with our firepower we should be able to manage them when they show up, providing there are not too many of them. They are the fastest ships the Fystr have. If they send a fleet after us, it will be travelling much slower.”

“So, there’s like real aliens out there, and we're gonna try and hide amongst them. How do they feel about the Fystr?” Gus enquired in disbelief.

“My god. You people are really fucking naive,” the axe said. “There are thousands of species out there. I should know, I’ve killed quite a few different types.”

I was only half listening to the conversation anyway, so I started to talk to the axe instead, “You’ve met and killed aliens?”

“Shit, yeah! Mostly when I wasn’t sentient because the purge was ages ago. Occasionally, the exiles would roam into our territory, normally to steal from dopey humans. Jotun and the rest of his now dead crew would go in and decimate them.”

“HA! I can’t believe those pricks are all gone.”

I phased back out from the conversation with the axe to listen to Ogun once more.

“You should be worried,” he was saying. “It’s a completely alien planet, but we have no other choice. We are getting stronger as a team all of the time and can survive this. Just look at Shaun.” He pointed to me as he spoke. “He has somehow managed to do a month’s worth of human bodybuilding in a day.”

“Oh,