Large beads of sweat rolled down Dagger Ixur's face. His breathing labored, he was outnumbered as the group of assassins closed in on him without a sliver of mercy.
Why would they? His family never did.
Their blasters pointed at him with dead-on precision, he was finally cornered to no chance of survival after four years on the run. Untrained and subjected to the cunning schemes of those responsible for his fall from royalty, Dagger educated himself on the laws of primal survival and all that it entailed on the streets. From 'spoiled' prince to fugitive with a staggering price hanging over his head, his descent was grand but his rise into being Dagger Ixur was nothing less than impressive.
If only his captors hadn't underestimated him, they might have collected the money for his capture, or death. He could practically hear Eriadne's insidious laughter ringing in his ears as she held onto his head, severed from the rest of his body.
Confidence grew among the bounty hunters, greedy for the ridiculous amount of credits promised as reward. As soon as they had him sprawled on the ground, Dagger played the waiting game as one of them hunted for the cuffs to ensure his stay in their custody. The one holding him down, forcing him to breathe dirt and dust into his lungs, protested in annoyance for his companion's lack of efficiency.
“What? Did you bring your makeup too? Fetch those damned cuffs already!”
The angry rant went on and on until the other had finally managed to retrieve the shackles and hand them over.
And still, Dagger waited.
Click.
One wrist left to bind. Absolute relief poured over Dagger from the one with his knee (and most of his damn weight) crushing his spine. The metal slid around the remaining free wrist, but the click never came. In a move of boldness, or reckless stupidity (depending on the perspective), the fallen prince wheels his body, swiping the bounty hunter's blaster. The surprise painted on the collective faces of the small group of greedy bastards, who were only in the business for the profit, amused him.
But Dagger Ixur wasn't born of amusement. Driven by cold, unmitigated vengeance, he rose to unleash all he knew of. Pain and death.
Assuming the blaster's settings had been switched from stun to kill, he aimed the weapon with impressive skill and speed to his first target —the one that had made eat dirt. Literally.
And shot.
The unceremonious tumble of a lifeless body to the ground, drawn by gravity's pull, rammed home the meaning of his name in his native language.
Dagger Ixur, a dark blade through the heart.
Mayhem brought chaos, and together they rose from the sands in literal geysers as the remaining assassins rained down blasts on him after the death of their accomplice. Four years, Dagger would have been already lying dead in a pool of his own blood after the stunt he just pulled. Back then, he lacked the ability of recognizing the telltale signs of the peril he was walking into and the vultures that lurked in eager expectancy of consuming his rotting flesh. Today, he bore the scars of hard lessons that had brought him to the brink of death on multiple occasions. Courtesy of his dear grandmother and Tadara of Andaria, Eriadne eton Anatole, after deeming him as a criminal for crimes he didn't commit.
High treason. Murder. Attempted murder. Assault. Theft. Kidnapping. Terrorism. Cyber crimes. Arson.
The bitch did it only as another of her valuable lessons. That no one crossed the Tadara without ending up dead.
—Duly noted.
For the whole of his miserable life, he had been a pawn in Eriadne's hands. One slip had him disowned, exiled and marked as Outcast. For all of that, he'd been on the run since his warrant had been issued.
Rolling his now athletic body, a drastic contradiction to his overweight body from a time he wished he'd forget, over the grains of sand, a cloud of dust emerges in camouflage against the nonstop rain of blasts meant to kill him. As he moved to be lying on his back in full offensive mode, both hands gripping his blaster, he shot the other two who shouted angry expletives at him. In the midst of madness, he found the time to appreciate old paranoias and gaming addictions. Dagger could only attribute his impeccable aim to that and the valid fears of being shot in the back by one of his cousins.
Apprehensively, he rose to his height whilst scanning the surrounding area. He was sure there had been four after him. Assuming the last one ran for his life in the face of Dagger Ixur's merciless death, he slapped his legs, arms and chest to make himself more presentable before heading to his initial destination. The filthy hole they call a bar where most criminals and pariahs seek asylum for limited time to escape the blistering suns of Steradore.
He could practically feel the relief found in darkness of the dimly lit establishment when he felt the stinging bite of metal on his side. Cursing his inability to learn from past mistakes, he drew his blaster from the inside of his coat to shoot the bastard who had escaped him earlier. Fire erupted from his wound into his veins.
“Minsid hell.”
Closing his fingers around the poisoned knife, he pulled it out of his flesh slowly to avoid quicker infection of the poison. Not that it would matter. The stench of the poison told him all he needed to know. He'd be dead soon enough. Staggering his way to the dead bounty hunter, he brought his boot to the body paralyzed by the stillness of death to roll it over and verify he wouldn't get back up again and finish the job.
“Eriadne won't be pleased to know I died and she didn't get my head.” Misplaced laughter left his lips in his continuous vexing of his grandmother as he dragged his feet into the bar by sheer will only.
With fingers pressed against the bleeding wound, he walked toward the table in the farthest corner before sitting down with a grimace of agony. He knew it was imperative to demonstrate no weakness or else he'd be dead sooner than expected. The parasites crawling the bar would be ruthless in their attack were they to find out how badly wounded he was. Especially if they learned the price on his head. Hell, if he had half a brain, he'd turn himself in for all those credits.
Panting, he tugged his coat to cover the blood seeping into the t-shirt that had seen better days and less holes before drowning in the seas of stoicism to conceal the pain under a mask of boredom as the waitress approached him.
“You got thirty cronas, slag? You can't stay otherwise.”
The smugness exuding from her smirk would have been wiped out in another times if he ever were to venture into this place as the heir of the two largest fortunes in the Nine Worlds. On this day, he was only the heir of shit. With a condemning sneer, he tossed the coins at her. With the creds in her possession, his gaze wandered as he asked for the one drink known to be forbidden in most planets for the dangers of its consumption.
“Tondarion Fire.”
In a forsaken place like this, he knew the only kind he'd drink would be bottom shelf shit. Garbage. After confirming the authenticity of his money, she left him with his thoughts and fetch his drink. From behind red-tinted glasses that sat over the bridge of his nose, Dagger concealed the slapping truth of his genetic code and the ill fate the union of his progenitors marked him for. A hybrid, he was both human and Andarion. And he was neither.
The humans curled their lips over his abnormal height, claws and the red rimming his eerie hazel brownish-green eyes. Andarions prouded themselves of their beauty, strength and warrior race. To be ruled by a half Andarion/half human reject was frowned upon amidst their society. And his grandmother had never been shy to deal that hand and trap him to the point of yielding beneath her iron fist.
Hissing, he prayed for a quick death as he bled out. And at the rate he bled, he wouldn't hurt much longer. Perhaps the gods would finally grant him the peace he sought for all his wretched life. His thoughts took a drastic turn as he pulled his link out of his coat to study the picture where the undeniable love his parents felt for each other was imprinted upon. And it slapped him until he was bleeding.
Why couldn't they love him too?
He wondered what scalded him more, the flames of that fire darkening his soul. The venom pumping through his body at an alarming tempo or the loneliness that clawed at his heart with mocking laughter. No one gave a single shit he was dying. Haunted by that truth, he slid the link back into his pocket.
Drawn to the commotion to his left, his fingers flew to his blaster out of habit in expectation of it being more assassins or enforces looking for him. When it turned out to be just two humans and an alien dragging in a weeping kid in chains, Dagger let out a breath of relief. Assuming it was just a prisoner being transferred, he started to revert back into his sorrows and near death when the kid gave fight to those holding him. He seemed to be around the age of fifteen.
The alien brought his large hand to the kid's face in a move of brutal intimidation. The resounding slap carried unwanted memories from his own 'happy' childhood as tiziran.
“Don't bruise the merchandise, asshole!” The human with money in his hands snarled angrily. “He won't be worth this amount of credits I'm paying you if he's somehow injured.”
Flinching at the cruelty of the slaver who was looking for quick profit over a child's innocence, Dagger was already on his feet. He refused to stand on the sidelines while a child was robbed of his childhood like he had. The boy was supposed to be at home, surrounded by friends and family. Not in the hands on a greedy slaver.
Besides, he was already dead anyway. Best to go down fighting the good fight than to die in the corner of a bar, drinking the shit version of Tondarion Fire.
His thoughts consisted mostly of his own selfish fears in the past and how they had paralyzed him to the point of bending him to others' will. Back then, he had convinced himself that had been his only option of survival. Moron. All it had gotten him was a premature death in a backwoods planet.
Alone.
Probably lying, face down, in a pool of his own blood. And his, still warm, corpse raided for whatever values he possessed. A few creds, his signet ring and weapons.
Pulling his coat back to reveal the glistening of the sleek metal from his blaster, Dagger ensured everyone that he wasn't in the mood for verbal exchanges. The cold killer, Dagger Ixur had been reborn as he faced his defeat and fall in a cracked mirror of an abandoned building on his lonesome, sober for the first time in years. What a piece of shit he was. Today, as he inserted himself in a transaction that didn't concern him, he hated himself for knowing his old self, the chemically-numbed Jullien eton Anatole, would have stepped away without a second thought given. Thankfully, he had buried that version of him four years ago. And today, he would live up to no one's expectations but his own.
“Let the kid go.”
A few pairs of eyes trained on him, some more amused than others. The one buying the kid snorted and dismissed him. But the one selling the kid turned to him with a sickening smile.
“And what do we have here? You're a fancy one, aren't you?”
The sound of stupefaction that clashed with rolling tension made him question the human's sanity.
“Really? Because of what? The shower I took last week?” Smelling like a rotten corpse already, he was bloody and sweaty. The opposite of fancy. Even he couldn't help but being disgusted by his own stench, a true offense to his regal upbringing.
“Shoot him already, Eben.” He demanded with an eye-roll meant to judge the weight of sarcasm drenching Dagger's words.
The man had barely raised his arm to level his blaster when Dagger shot him, driven by quick reflexes and a shit-ton of hours spent gaming in his youthful years. A blast that landed right between the human's eyes with frightening aim. Once again, Dagger found himself in the midst of an outlaw showdown. Screams and angry bellows left those who either ran in fear of being caught in the middle of an exchange of shots or those who strived for the appropriation of his weapons.
As if that would ever happen as long as he has life coursing through his veins.
Twirling to escape incoming blasts, his arm stretched to shoot the other three who promised no mercy in their approach to him. Muscles, honed by experience gained during his years of running from the authorities, acted swiftly in the physical exchange of defensive moves as he danced between those attacking him with the recurring offense that returned to bite them all with vengeful interest. When the alien made another move to neutralize him, Dagger wasted no time in kicking him back with a rain of punches and kicks that pulled him into unconsciousness.
Dropping to his knees, Dagger unshackled the frightened kid before letting his gaze examine the boy to make sure he stood unharmed. Then, he quickly pushed his link and wallet that housed nothing but a few coins and his royal Andarion signet ring. The only thing that held any real value and the last piece of his old life he still carried with him. The reasons why, he was unsure. For some reason, he could never part with it.
Until now.
At last, he gave the innocent kid the only thing that became his lifeline throughout the years on the run. His fully charged reserve blaster.
He reached for the holster on his back, retrieved the weapon and made sure to unlock the biolock on the trigger so the boy could defend himself if necessary. The astonishment written on the kid's face was nearly comical, but Dagger encouraged him with a subtle inclination of his head.
“You should have enough in there to get you home. And don't stop for anything until you're home, surrounded by your family. Shoot anyone who tries to keep you from getting there. Conscience be damned. Whatever it takes, chizzi, you get yourself home. Now, run!”
Shouting, he pushed the boy out of harm's way as some of the others started to regain consciousness. Pulling himself up to a stand, he groaned as his wound scorched his sensory nerves, drowning him in pain and misery. But the boy refused to leave. Instead, he curled his fingers around Dagger's coat, coaxing the bleeding fugitive to join him in his return home.
“You need to come with me. They'll have you for sure.” The boy's cryptic words gave Dagger pause. He leaned and whispered, “I know who you are.... tiziran.”
Shit. No, double shit.
Bewildered, he stared at the kid, wondering how in the Tophet he knew his real identity. He quickly decided it wouldn't matter in a few minutes as he was a walking corpse. The Korilon was coming for him.
Dagger closed his hand around the boy, hoping to pull him from the mess he left behind as far as he could. In their escape and in a most ill-fated plot-twist, another group of outlaws barged in. Armed and looking for trouble. Dagger knew enough of Tavali pirates to recognize their gear. And their thirst for profit.
Well, at least his luck never ran out. More accurately, lack thereof.
They would gut him faster than the rest of the vermin crawling this bar if they were to smell money. And Dagger was a bottomless pit of it if captured. Instinctively, he hauled the kid behind him in protective impulse. He would fight to the very end, even if the charge of his main blaster had run out. He still leveled it to the female leader who stormed into the bar, wearing a dark red leather outfit that outlined her curves to perfection. Her red lace mask concealed her features to his gaze in a most mysterious fashion. In turn, she angled her weapon at his heart.
Before Dagger got the chance to speak up, the boy inserted himself between the duel, crying in loud supplication.
“Don't shoot him! Auntie, please. He's the one who saved me.”
The laser dot, targeting his heart, wavered for the first time as doubt shocked the woman.
“What?”
“Just look around! He was helping me escape after freeing me.” The bodies scattered supported the boy's claims, somewhat easing the ruthless female's rattled nerves.
Weakness overtook him, bringing Dagger to knees. The buzzing in his ears made it nearly impossible to pay attention at his surroundings, he tried but failure was unyielding. His arm suddenly heavy, he lost his aim but directed all his remaining energy on what truly mattered. The boy's safety.
“Are you safe, akam?” The tone of lingering protectiveness and desperation surprising him and those witnessing the moment.
“Yes.”
Letting gravity take its toll on his dying body, his blaster dropped on the floor with a sobering thump right before his quivering body followed suit. And he embraced the darkness, at last.
