Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Earth 2001

A blonde haired 10-year-old with bad braces sat in a hospital waiting room. He’d become a fairly regular fixture around there ever since his mother had fallen ill a few months ago. Everyday after school he’d ride the city bus three, his beat up walkman his only companion in the age of mp3s the throwback was a laughing stock, but it was all he could afford. He would arrive promptly at 4 pm, sometimes some of the candy stripers would offer to help him with his homework, and only at 10 pm, after he had fallen asleep, would his grandfather collect the boy to take him home to sleep. Then it would all begin again the next day.

He sat in a chair, the only moderately comfortable one (that took lots of trial and error to discover), headphones on, curled up and thumbing through the same Crash Nebula issue for the umpteenth time. A shadow loomed over him for a few seconds; when it didn’t move he finally looked up.

“Hey there kiddo,” the older gentleman said as he crouched down to his level, making him tilt the comic down. He tapped his ear, signaling to the boy to remove the headphones, which he did. “She’s asking for you.”

The boy paled a little; even though he had been coming here everyday for weeks, he’d only seen his mother twice, and both times it was through a glass window. His grandfather gave him an encouraging smile though, and with a light pat on his shoulder, managed to coax the boy from his chair. He replaced his walkman, headphones, and comic in the recesses of his backpack, then let himself be led into the hospital room.

Several people moved out of the way, all relatives of some sort he didn’t really know. But once they moved, there she was. Her golden hair was all gone, lost from all the chemo therapy. Various electrodes and wires connected her to machines that beeped in time to her life signs. Her green eyes had dulled from the illness too, but when they lit upon her son, a little bit of light returned to them.

“Chester,” she said softly, “My baby…come here…”

He hung back, uncertain what to do; she looked like she would melt away like wet tissue paper. His grandfather gently nudged him forward.

“You’ve gotten so big and so handsome…just like your daddy,” she coughed slightly, a sickly dry and painful sound, “He was an angel…”

“Sweetheart,” the old man said gently, “You had something for Chester?”

“What? Oh…yes,” she coughed again, failing to move the small brightly wrapped box and envelope that was resting on the bed by her hand.

“Go on kiddo, take your mother’s gift.”

He was still frozen, unable to deal with the reality of how sick his mother really was. The cancer had been going on for over a year now, but up until a few months ago there had been hope things would turn around. But now, this all just made it too real. The old man seemed to sense that, so he grabbed the small token for him and safely tucked it into the boy’s backpack.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.”

“Thanks daddy,” she sighed painfully, but forced her eyes back open to look at her son, “You’ll open that after I’m gone, yeah? Don’t you worry though, your grandpa will take care of you until your daddy comes for you…he’ll come back for you…”
She started coughing again, worse this time. All of the adults exchanged a knowing sad look.

“Chester,” her voice strained, desperately trying to reach for him, “Take my hand baby…please.”

He couldn’t, he just couldn’t do it. Tears were threatening, so he did the only thing he could and tried to hide against his grandfather. The older man tried to get the boy do as his daughter asked, but the boy just couldn’t.

“Ches…ter…”

A machine started to whine at that. The boy looked to the bed fast at that, but the woman laid there still with eyes closed. It was only then that it fully hit him what had happened.

“Momma? Momma no…No!”

He cried, trying to reach her, but his grandfather had already scooped him up and pulled him from the hospital room as various medical staff came running in.

“Chester, Chester look at me,” he tried to calm the distraught boy as he set him back on his feet, “Chester, son, I’m so sorry…”

He couldn’t take this anymore, this couldn’t be real. He pushed away from his grandfather and ran, ran as fast as he could. His mother couldn’t be dead, there was just no way! She was strong, vibrant, just an amazing person-a good person! And good people didn’t die! Not like this! She was all he had. She couldn’t be…

He couldn’t run anymore. He collapsed on the hospital’s front lawn, sobs wracking his entire body. She was dead. She was dead, and he’d just stood there and let her die…

A blinding light suddenly came up overhead. He looked up through the blurry tears, but really only saw the glowing. A force wrapped around his body, he could feel himself being lifted off the ground. He cried for help, for anyone, for his mother. But no one came.

And just like that, Chester McBadbat was lost from Earth forever.

Chapter Text

13 years later
The abandoned planet of Boudacia

Boudacia had once been a fruitful and prosperous planet, but conquest ages ago had caused the inhabitants that survived to flee to a new home world, leaving nothing but ruins and scavengers; both animal and pirates. A ship came flying in low, finding a clear enough spot to land. After a few moments, the bay doors opened and a masked figure in a long coat stepped out. It surveyed the surrounding area for a moment, and then took out a scanner of sorts from a coat pocket. It projected a map of what had once been upon the environment before him as he walked; this made locating his destination all the easier.

He came upon the main cathedral of the city when he returned the scanner to its designated pocket. It was but a few steps up, then through the empty doorway. The inside of the building reflected the devastation of the whole planet, but at least it was out of the main elements. A tap to the side of his head caused the mask to retract, revealing that the masked figure was a humanoid blonde covered in freckles with bright green eyes.

“Well, ‘bout time to get down to business,” he mused aloud, reaching into another pocket in his coat, pulling out a rather well kept walkman and set of headphones. He always liked to do his scavenging with a killer soundtrack.

Navigating the ruins was really easy, especially since his goal was the antechamber, aka the most fortified room in the whole building. A few lizard-rats hissed at him as he went along, but were really no hindrance at all (heck if he had more time on his hands he would even be all for catching and roasting one or two-he loved critter on a stick!). He found the doors to the antechamber and found them easy to open.

Inside was a single pedestal, with some sort of silver orb trapped in its center inside of some sort of electromagnetic field. That was odd, seeing as the whole planet was dead, but not unexpected. He turned his music off, removing the headphones from his ears; now was the time to focus. First he dropped down a light orb to better see his objective, and then he set up a grav-trap. With one press of a button, the silver orb started to pull away from its guarding field, drawn uncontrollably to the grav-trap. After a few more seconds it was successfully free; he reached down to take his prize while the guarding field on top of the pedestal died away.

“Well now,” he grinned a silvery smile, “That wasn’t so hard.”

“Freeze!”

He spun around quickly, suddenly finding half a dozen armed men behind him. Apparently while he’d been working, some other ship had landed. But who these goons worked for, he didn’t know; their uniforms didn’t look familiar.

“I said freeze!” the apparent leader repeated, a tanned man with purple eyes and a black ponytail not hidden by a visored helmet. “Drop the orb.”

“Now how can I freeze and drop the orb at the same time?” he tried to take a half step forwards, but half a dozen weapons clicked into place n him without hesitation. “Wow, ok, calm down guys. I’m just a scavenger here, no need to get feisty.”

“You don’t look like a scavenger,” the leader’s eyes narrowed.

“What can I say, laundry day. Whatchya gonna do? Am I right?”

His audience didn’t seem to be appreciating his brand of comedy stylings so he tried to switch up tactics.

“Hey look, why don’t I just get out of your hair and be on my way. I’m sure there’s like 50 other people you should be holding at gun point right about now…”

Again his attempt to move was met with readied fire power.

“Who are you working for and why do they want the orb.”

“Dude, like I said, just a scavenger. I don’t even know what this thing is. I just saw that it was shiny, and people typically like shiny things.”

The only answer he got to that was a cold stare.

“My name’s Chester McBadbat by the way,” he offered his free hand to the leader in greeting, “And you would be?”

Purple eyes flickered to the appendage for a moment before the leader lowered his weapon and turned to leave.

“Take him. I’m sure Roman will want to question him.”

“Ah, but you might know me by another name!” he was trying to stall now.

Luckily it seemed to work because the man paused, looking back with a mild interest.

“ChesStar,” he said rather dramatically.

“What?”

The blonde groaned, “Oh c’mon. You know, ChesStar, galaxy’s greatest outlaw, thief extraordinaire, Robin Hood on the moon.”

The leader turned away again. “Take him now.”

“Yeah, don’t think so.”

As two of the half dozen moved to grab him, the blonde kicked back the light orb, causing it to explode against the back wall. Those closest to it reeled back in surprise, giving him enough time to draw his own weapon and shoot the rest of them all fast. It was over within mere seconds; once again he stood in the center of a pile of unconscious bodies.

“Well now,” he smirked as he tucked both the orb and weapon away, “That was easy…”

No sooner had the words left his lips than he noticed the leader of the little group was rising; he was not happy with what had just happened.

“Oh smoof.”

Chester acted quickly on his feet, running at the leader as he got his weapon ready again. The blonde activated the rockets on his boots just as his attacker fired, in effect jumping over both the man and the attack. A tap to his ear and his mask was back in place as he flew speedily out of there. The tan man growled, activating a private comm. channel to tell his other men to be at the ready.

The blonde sped through the air as fast as his rockets would take him; his green coated form cut through the burnt out landscape in a blink of an eye. He saw the armed men at the base of his ship, waiting for him, and he silently cursed to himself. As he drew close, he suddenly veered away, but as he hooked away, he threw another grav-trap in the middle of the men. The four warriors were pulled down to the trap, but since none of them were able to touch the center trigger, it just kept pulling them down, keeping them immobilized.

Chester hooked back up and shot into a top port of his ship. He landed in a tumble, but that didn’t slow him down. Mask retracted as he dove upon a control panel, urging the ship to boot up.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon! Don’t fail me now!”

The man in the cathedral was running towards the ship, the he’d brought with him in tow. He hissed as he saw the scavenger duck into his ship.

“Hurry you fools!” he barked, “We can’t let him escape with the orb!”

But they weren’t fast enough on their feet. With still too many meters between the band and their goal, the ship finally took to the sky. The leader growled as he stepped over to the grav-trap holding his other men immobilized and easily disabled it.

“What do we do KorJuan?”

He growled again. “Shoot it down.”

Meanwhile, Chester was flying high-literally! He enjoyed watching the looks on his would be captors’ faces as he took off; it was always fun to run away from people who wanted to shoot you with guns. Now was the easy part, just fly off this forsaken rock and get this thing to his buyer…

“What the frack!?”

Something hit his left side. He pulled up a screen fast and saw the apparent registered lazer damage. Those guys were shooting at him from the ground! Some people just didn’t know when to let things go it seemed.

He quickly averted the next set of lazer fire, but that landed him smack dad in the middle of a water geyser just as it so happened to be erupting. The forceful liquid tore into the ship’s outer paneling; various errors and warnings flashed and chimed at him. The water stopped as suddenly as it had started. The ship started to plummet now; he was thrown backwards with every other piece of equipment that wasn’t bolted or strapped down. Sensors yelled about the encroaching surface. Chester pulled himself against the force of the decent, reach for a control panel. If he could just reach the one button…

A hand found its mark and the engines suddenly spurted back to life. The ship leveled out, and all the loose equipment fell in a loud crash. He was still half draped over the console he had been clinging to, laughing up a storm.

“Well that was fun!” he straightened up, wiping away the tears from his laughter. “Now for the easy part-”

A hatch in the floor suddenly burst open. Out of reflex his hand went to his side holster, but he relaxed the moment a russet colored girl popped up from below.

“Chester? What, what was that all about?”

“Oh hey…you…” he greeted unconvincingly.

“Missy,” she supplied for him, raising an eyebrow at that.

“Missy, right, of course,” he flashed a silver studded sheepish grin there, “Honestly, I totally forgot you were here,” before she could say anything in response to that, he then added, “But don’t worry, I’ll take you home lickety-split. I’ve just got one more errand to run.”

He took the silver orb out of his pocket then, setting it on the nearest flat surface. The girl eyed it curiously for a moment.

“What’s that?”

“Honestly, I have no clue.”
***
Back down on the surface, the band of warriors just watched their quarry fly off and far out of their reach. The purple eyed leader was bristling; this would not bode well with his master. They had been sent to retrieve the orb, and now…

“KorJuan,” one of his men spoke up; he did not look away from where the ship had disappeared into the atmosphere. “What do we do now?”

“We go back,” he finally said flatly, turning away from the lost quarry, “Roman is waiting for our return.”
***
Missy sat boredly down in the sorry excuse for a galley on Chester’s ship; honestly it was just a large crate with a board on it he called a table. She picked through a bowl of mixed nuts he’d give her, while he stood with his back to her, watching the video stream he’d pulled up down there.

“And finally, after so many eons of fighting, both the leaders of the Bux and Waxel Prime have signed the long desired peace treaty, putting an end to all of the bloodshed…”

“Blah, politics,” Chester rolled his eyes and waved the new stream away.

“Mmm,” she hummed in agreement, not really paying attention.

“Good news for you I guess,” he shrugged, lacing his fingers behind his head, “You’re from Dimmsdandar, right.”

“Mmm,” a light started to blink on the remote beside her nut bowl, “Chester you have an incoming call.”

He looked back as she said that, but before he could finish saying “Don’t answer that!” the russet girl had pressed the button.

“Chester!”

The blonde cringed slightly as he looked back to the video stream in front of him, now displaying the face of a blue skinned man he knew all too well.

“Hey…Normander…” he flashed his best silver studded smile, “This is an unexpected surprise. What’s up?”

“Can it brace face,” the man on the other end of the video chat spat, tilting down his sunglasses to look him dead in the eye, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Let’s see, I’m planet side, you’re not, and neither’s the orb. Know what that says to me?”

“Oh Norm, I’m hurt! You really think that I would go behind your back and do something like that? That I would go and get the orb without you like that?”

“You mean this thing?” Missy lifted up the object in question behind the blonde, clearly for the blue man to see.

Chester shot her a look for that; then ran a hand over his face as he turned back to the screen. “Yeah ok, so I was in the neighborhood. Figured I’d save you the trouble.”

“Uhhu,” Norm said gruffly, not buying a second of that; he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, “You better not be lying to me kid. You know how much work I put into this deal.”

“Making a few calls is not “work”.”

“Don’t get smart with me! I saved you, don’t forget that.”

Chester rolled his eyes. “Here we go again.”

Norm seemed not to notice that comment as he kept on his rant. “My men, they wanted to eat you. None of them ever tasted earthling before, but I wouldn’t let them.”

“Oh man, would you look at that, we’re about to go through an asteroid field. Better disconnect before I loose you.”

“Don’t go pulling that trick on me, I invented that trick! Just give me your coordinates and maybe I’ll let you keep breathing without a tube.”

“What? I can’t hear you,” he picked up the remote and started hitting every button he could. “You’re breaking…I can’t…asteroids…cheesey biscuits.”

“I can see you, you idiot! You can’t con the king of conmen. If you don’t give me your location in the next 5 seconds, I swear I’ll-”

The threat was left unfinished as the blonde hit the disconnect button. He let out a growly-sigh, leaning against the lame table (without knocking it over somehow), running a hand down his face again.

“He seemed nice.”

Chester turned back around to look at is guest. She gave a nonchalant shrug at that and popped a few more nuts.

“Haha yeah,” he said sarcastically, looking back to the now empty screen, “Real nice.”
***
Back on Bodaccia, Normander was not happy. Not happy at being disconnected, not happy with loosing out on the booty, not happy at loosing the blonde. He growled, snapping shut the portable handheld screen he had, and turned with a sharp flourish. His crew parted to let him lead; obviously they were heading back towards their own ship.

“You just gonna let him get away with that?” one of the men in a green cap spoke up, keeping pace beside his taller leader, “Gonna let McBadbat run off with the loot?”

“I ain’t letting him get away with anything,” the blue man spat, readjusting his glasses then turning the action into a stroke of his goatee, “I want a bounty put on him. 40,000 credits. Alive. Send out the word.”

Another of the men nodded, but the shorter green themed one argued back,

“Alive, seriously? You’ve always been too soft on that kid. You should’ve just dumped him when you were supposed t-”

Norm stopped and spun fast, grabbing the man by the collar and wrenching him roughly. The crew all froze still, eyes on the pair. The man visibly swallowed hard as his captain reached up to tilt his sunglasses down.

“I want him alive so I can kill him myself,” he hissed those words slightly; his now free hand poised as if to snap his fingers, “Any other critique on my leadership Jeff?”

Eyes darted from the poised hand to the owner’s face. The one called Jess shook his head, so Norm roughly let him go.

“Good to hear,” he pushed his glasses back up and turned swiftly with a flourish of his coat, “Now let’s get off this rock.”
***
Deep space, on the edge of Bux territory

A lone dark ship sat in the middle of a decaying steroid field. Deep inside resided what some would call a mad man. Roman the Accuser had been described as a fanatic, solely on the fact tat he was, as he felt, the only member of his entire species that remained true to the Bux way o life. For generations, the Bux had fought against Dimmsdandar and the Empire it had created. The Bux were superior, wealthier, there was no way those foolish poor Dimmsdandians could be called their equals.

“And that is what this pathetic peace treaty of theirs suggests,” he scoffed, “As if that worthless collection of words could erase the eons of blood those low brow scum owe us, owe me. My father, my father’s father, all fallen at the hands of such parasites. If my government refuses to take the necessary action, then the task shall fall upon my readied shoulders…”

He came bursting through the main doors, following a series of agonizing screams from another chamber in the ship, to what would be considered as his “throne room”. His red eyes didn’t even glance at either of eth women who stood on either side of his seat. Instead he just sat and directed his focus upon the tanned man standing off to the side.

“What have you brought me KorJuan,” his voice was commanding, “Where is the orb.”

“My lord,” the purple eyed man stepped forward, trying to appear confident, “When we arrived, a scavenger had already located the artifact.”

“A scavenger?”

“Yes sir, an earthling, calling himself “ChesStar”, he-”

“A single man took down you and all your men.”

KorJuan faltered at that; the presence his master was projecting was dangerously thick and oppressive. “My lord, it wasn’t that simple-”

“Enough!” Roman commanded, “Without that orb, Crockus will not fall Dimmsdandar in my name. Do you understand what your failure has cost me.”

“Father will be most displeased by this failure,” the green skinned woman to his right purred threateningly, “Such a simple task…”

“All hope is not lost,” the blue on the left stepped forward, getting a cold stare from the green, “I have intelligence that puts this thief as being on Dimmsdandar.”

“Where else would the gutter scum go,” the dark blue man scowled, taking a moment to consider the options. “Fine. Vike, you will go and retrieve the orb.”

The green woman started to nod at that, but again the blue cut in,

“I would not advise that. This is a man who bested your own troops. I doubt our father would be happy to know you let his prize slip away twice due to incompetence.”

Vike growled at that. “I am capable of taking one man down. I am as much a daughter of Crockus as you are. We have had equal training.”

“And I know Dimmsdandar better than you do,” she said evenly, staring own her sister.

“Enough,” Roman cut the building tension between the two women, “Tootora will go to Dimmsdandar and retrieve the orb.”

Vike growled, but she stood down. “Of course, as you command Roman.”

Tootora also nodded. “I won’t let you down,” she looked from Roman to Vike, “Either of you.”

Chapter Text

The free planet of Dimmsdandar

It was a bright clear day on the central planet of the Free Republic. About the most “melting pot” of any of the core planets that hadn’t started out as some sort of mining colony. That’s why, as unusual as this certain odd couple in the main square should have been, no one gave either of them a second look.

“Alright, let’s see what we’ve got going on here…”

He was a man on the smaller end of what would be considered “average height”, with a nice even cinnamon complexion. His attire suggested he worked in some sort of mechanical service, which wasn’t too far off the mark when you stopped to think about it. He called himself Daemon, and he was not a native to this world; he wasn’t a native to any world anymore in his opinion, not after what he’d been through. He pulled the goggles down from the top of his head, and used them to start looking at the various people that moved about in the main square while he sat on a fountain’s edge.

“Uhg, all these organics,” he mumbled to himself as the program in his visor sought out various faces in the surrounding crowds, “How anyone gets anything done analog these days is beyond…hello, found one.”

A selection box closed in on the face of a man on one of the overhead walkways. Another window came up on his visor, scanning through various data bases until it found a match; seems he had just found himself a Mr. Chester McBadbat, with a nice bounty price tag.

“Bingo,” he reached up, pushing the goggles back on top of his head, “Time to go, we got a live one.”

He got up to go, but noticed his partner was not following suit. He turned and groaned, shaking his head at the sight.

“Seriously F’Rooc?”

Beside the foreigner had been sitting what was, at first glance, one would think just a large piece of stone, complete with several birds perched on it. But at the sound of its name, black eyes opened up and the being came back to life, stretching with a wide yawn and sending the content birds flying off.

“What have I said about sleeping on the job,” he scolded as the stone figure stood up, easily towering over him, “We’re supposed to be professionals here, and professionals don’t nap on the job.”

The stone figure just shook, much like one of the very birds that had been roosting on it moments ago, seemingly ignoring his words.

The dark skinned man just shook his head and picked up to shoulder the bag that had been sitting beside his feet.

“Come on F’Rooc, we’ve got work to do.”
***
Doug Dimmadome was the owner and operator of Doug Dimmadome’s Dimmsdandarian Emporium, a very nice, very high end shop. He was known for his exquisite wears, his ability to procure rare items, and a boisterous attitude. Usually that wasn’t a good trait in a middleman broker like himself, but somehow it only added to his charm. After all, you had to be well liked and personable to get where he was in both wealth and reputation. He had been in the middle of inspecting some Aster-rubies when his front door opened. A quick look up had him setting aside his work.

“Chester McBadbat!” he greeted in that odd drawl that wasn’t native to any planet the blonde had been to in eth past decade, “Fancy seeing you strolling into my shop like this.”

“Hey don’t sound so surprised Doug,” he flashed a grin as he set the orb on top of the counter between them, “One doo-hickey, as requested.”

The older gentleman raised an eyebrow at that, “And where might our Mr. Normander be at then?”

“Couldn’t make it sadly, sends his regards,” he covered, “Also said to tell you, you have the biggest hat, like ever.”

Doug chuckled slightly, brushing the pointless compliment aside. Chester grinned again, knowing he’d just won his bluff.

“So, those credits?”

“Alright, alright, hold your horses kid,” Doug waved him off, then started pulling small gold tablets out from under the counter, “It’s a dimma-deal.”

“Any idea what this thing is?” he figured he’d try making some small talk, plus his curiosity had been burning this whole time.

“You know I can’t tell you nothing like that, even if I know. Client-”

“Confidentiality,” Chester finished, rolling his eyes and turning so he could lean against the counter while waiting for his money, “Yeah, yeah. Was just wondering since I almost got killed for the thing.”

“Oh really now,” he wasn’t interested in the conversation at all, busy counting out currency, it was just his professional courtesy kicking in.

“Yeah, buncha guys saying they worked for some Roman guy, I don’t know.”

That caught his attention and he immediately froze. The action went unnoticed by the blonde, what with his back to the broker and all.

“Di-did you say Roman?”

“Yeah. What? You know the guy or some…”

Chester started to turn around to face the older man, but before his thought was finished, something was being pushed hard into his chest. Out of reflex he grabbed it, surprised to find the object was the orb.

“Hey, what the-”

“I dimma-don’t want that thing. Get out now.”

The look of terror on the broker’s face was a new sight to the scavenger; it was also unnerving.

“What? But you said-”

“Dimma-don’t go contradicting me boy,” he said quickly, moving around eth counter, revealing he was considerably shorter than the blonde, to push him towards the exit, “If Roman wants this thing, I dimma-don’t want anything to do with it!”

“Who’s this roman guy??”

“He’s a Bux zealot who wants to exterminate Dimmsdandar and all its people, who I happen to be one of. So if he wants it, then I dimma-don’t!”

“But we-the deal-Doug!”

“Sorry Chester, but dimma-don’t be coming back!”

And with that the blonde was shoved out the door, which promptly shut and locked behind him. He was lucky enough not to trip as he was shoved or loose the orb. After a stunned second, he turned to pound on the door, yelling at the old man inside to let him in.

“Bad day?”

He stopped fighting with the door and finally looked to the right to see a blue skinned woman leaning against the building, munching on some sort of fruit. He instantly calmed down, turning on that dorky charm of his with a flash on his silver smile.

“Eh, not so much anymore.”

“Oh really?” she took another bite of her fruit.

“Yup,” he rest a hand on his hip, flashing the silver orb in the other, “What do you say to you and me, a night out in the stars, after I manage to unload this of course.”

“Oh? What’s that then?”

“Dunno. But if one guy was willing to pay that much for it, I’m sure another would-oof!”

Before he finished his flirting he got a foot to his gut. He fell back a few steps, orb flying from his hand. A black leathered glove easily caught it; its owner being the owner of the foot as well. She shot him a smirk before she ran off. It took him less than 5 seconds to realize what had happened; once it clicked, he was fast on his feet chasing the blue girl.

“Hey! Get back here you!” he yelled after her.

They bobbed and weaved between people on the walkways; people moved lest they get run over after all. When it was clear she would still hold the lead over him, he pulled a tangle tarp from one of his coat pockets and threw it at the blue woman; the electronic bolero found its mark, wrapping around her legs, causing her to fall to the ground. He finally caught up to her now, but as he reached her, she was faster and kicked him with both feet, both in attempt to knock him down and break from her bonds. Both worked, but as he fell he tried to grab her, halting any attempt on her part to immediately get up.

They exchange some hand to hand blows while lying flat on their backs. Chester went for his blaster, but in a remarkable display of flexibility, she kicked it immediately out of his grasp. As he reached to recover it, she rolled, now straddling his mid section. He looked back up fast, just in time to see her with a rather large knife in hand.

“You should have just let me go,” she hissed, ready to plunge the weapon deep into his chest.

Before she could strike the killing blow though, she was struck with a wave of energy that sent her back a few feet and off of him. Two figures came over now; a tan man in goggles and something that looked like a giant walking stone figure. The stone one was also carrying a sack, which it took with it as it moved towards the girl. He took this as an excellent opportunity to make his getaway. He spotted the orb about an arms’ length away, most likely dropped when she fell, so he grabbed that and started booking it.

“What are you doing, not that one,” the tanned one chided, “We want the gu-hey get back here!” he had just now noticed that his intended prey had escaped when he wasn’t looking.

Chester didn’t hear that part, he was just running as fast as he could right now; let the random freaks deal with the crazy blue chick, not his problem! He was yelling at people left and right to get out of his way as ge ran. The two some moved then to follow him, leaving the woman alone to recover from the stunning blast. She was immediately on her feet and to the walkway railing; she tapped the side of her head and a small holographic display formed in front of her right eye. A quick scan of the crowds below let her spot the blonde; another second and she’d thrown her knife at him.

The orb flew from his hand as the weapon knocked it away; it rolled off the walkway he was running on and rested in the middle of the main square below. She was quick then, hopping over the walkway railing and landing square footed on the main square below. She went running and grabbed the orb without missing a step.

Chester saw all of that, and also realized there was no way he’d be able to catch up to her if he just got up and ran. So he stood up, removed one of his rocket boosters, and then ran a few paces down the walkway before jumping over the side just as she was passing under the spot. The two tumbled to the ground yet again, rolling around for dominance. She ended up straddling him again, one hand on the orb that he had also grabbed in the struggle, while her free hand had found another dagger.

“You should have learned the first time,” she hissed.

“Yeah, that’s my problem, I’ma slow learner,” he slapped the rocket booster onto her side, “Explains why I flunked the 5th grade really.”

He pushed the button on his belt, activating the booster. She went flying off of him yet again, this time leaving the orb in his hand. He was quick to his feet, taking the moment to watch his attacker go flying into the main fountain. He smirked, backing up slowly, tossing his prize in his hand triumphantly.

“Well now, that was eas-”

He bumped into something quite solid and quite large. Before he could look to see what it was, a sack was quickly put over his head and pulled all the way down to engulf his whole body. Then he was swept up and off his feet; whatever this was, it was carrying him in a sack! He tried to squirm, tried to make noise, but the sack seemed strong enough to contain him.

“Finally,” Daemon scoffed as he steppe dup to his partner, removing his goggles, “Could you have moved any slower?”

The stone being just grunted, hefting the sack into a better position to hold.

“Whatever,” he waved it off, trying to lead them out of the center square, “Let’s just get out of here so we can collect-”

Just as he turned, he found a blue fist connecting with his face. He was then shoved aside by the said blue hands. She was soaking wet, but that didn’t matter as she drew a sword. The stone beast growled, dropping its sack, black eyes locked on the blue woman. She lunged at him now, sword slashing; he fought back with stony claws. Seeing she could barely scratch the exposed stone hide, she instead moved to slice through a series of bandages on the creature’s arms. He hissed and quickly moved to cover the spot with his opposite hand. She took that as opportunity to forcefully kick his feet out from under him; the beast fell.

She hissed now, growing irritated with all these interruptions. She stepped swiftly over to the sack, fully intent on ripping it open, killing eth useless man, and taking the orb. But as she ripped the container open, she was met with yet another shocking blast. She fell to the ground, letting Chester have the opportunity to finally get to his feet and run again.

The tanned one was finally regaining himself, managing to sit up and rub at his sore jaw. He caught the blonde’s movement out of the corner of his eyes and hissed.

“Screw it,” he pulled back out his blaster from his bag, aiming it dead on to the escaping blonde, “It said alive, not undamaged.”

It took only half a second for the blast to it its mark. Chester cried out as the energy shocked him and he fell to the round, out for the count.

Daemon groaned slightly as he stood up now, dusting himself off a bit.

“No way she hits like a girl,” he looked up as the stone one came to his side, stilling holding the exposed arm, but also looking him over concernedly. “I’m fine, stop hovering. Just go pick him up so we can get paid alight. I’ll rewrap you later.”

Before either of them could move though, golden tinted tractor beams came from above, surrounding them. They were slowly lifted off the ground whiled a group of patrol pods lowered into view.

“Please don’t…”

One of the pods’ intercoms came to life with a crack as the pilot inside addressed them, “Subject 04062014 drop your weapons immediately.”

“Aw smoof, not these guys,” he groaned as he did as he was told; this was not going as well as he’d hoped it would.

The other two bodies were being picked up as well now; both the unconscious blue woman and the blonde man were now held aloft alongside the tanned man and the stone beast.

“By order of Waxel Prime, you are under arrest for disturbing the peace and destruction of private property. You will be immediately taken to the central hub for booking and processing.”
***
The headquarters of the Free Republic was a great and towering building at the heart of the capital city on Dimmsdandar. All law and order directives were issued from the central beacon by none other than Waxel Prime herself; she was the leader of the Paxel Core. She was an older lady, just starting to get on in years, but she had done many great things for the Republic. She had hoped she would be remembered by history as the leader who had finally brought an end to the war with the Bux, but the latest turn of events…

“Roman is destroying every Dimmsdandarian outpost he can lay his hands on,” she explained to the Bux leader on the screen before her in her office, “He is killing women and children with no mercy. I would think our peace treaty would call for some sort of action on your part.”

The blue man on the screen did not seem pleased, or interested in what the woman was saying. “We signed the treaty, what more do you expect from us?”

“I want you to put a stop to Roman!”

“We’ve told you, Roman is not affiliated with our government, thus we have no control over his actions.”

“Well if you won’t chain your dog, at least issue a statement condemning his actions,” she huffed.

“I’m afraid we cannot take part in this. It is your problem Waxel Prime, not ours.”

And with that the blue man closed his side of the conversation, leaving her staring at a blank screen on her office wall. She slumped back in her chair with an angry sigh, holding her head. A swift knock came at her door, to which she bid entrance. One of her aids came in with a report in hand. He handed it to her as he explained its contents,

“We’ve good new ma’am. Seems we’ve managed to pick up one of Roman’s compatriots this afternoon. She’s in processing as we speak.”

Chapter Text

Elmer Dey and Bob Boil were what earthlings would call “desk jockeys”. They were part of the Plaxel Core, the peacekeepers of the free Republic, under command of Waxel Prime, sure. But that was mostly just in title; the two rarely got out of the booking station to see any “real action”. Yet, they did get to see plenty of the galaxy’s most wanted, so they at least got the cool stories to tell (and embellish) later to civilians at whatever bar they slummed to after hours. So when this lot came in, Elmer quickly called Bob over to his viewing station so they could check them out together.

“This is Tootora,” Elmer started reading off the wrap sheet the control panel at his work station provided to go along with a holographic reference, “Surgically modified and trained as a living weapon. Adopted daughter of the crazy titan Crockus. She and her sister Vike were recently leant to Roman, which puts evidence to the theory that Crockus and Roman are working together.”

He slid that image and folder off of the main screen and onto the next.

“Subject number 04062014, alias Jayce Daemon. He was part of an illegal cybernetics experiment that was shutdown on Fridgidarium a while back. After his rescue, he’s constantly been avoiding staying in judicial custody for very long.”

He moved onto the next one, but before he could read the wrap sheet, Bob spoke up,

“No way, I thought the Vegon Gargoyles were on our side?”

“Hang on, let me read the notes,” he scrolled through the text, seeing a lot of the charges matched with the previous criminal’s, “Says he was excommunicated from the Order.”

“They can do that?”

“How should I know? I’m not a Gargoyle expert,” he shook his head, “Apparently he’s with the cyborg though.”

Bob snorted. “Pet rock.”

Elmer had a good chuckle at that too before sliding to the last file in this bunch.

“Chester Bucky McBadbat from Earth. Raised from youth by a band of mercenaries lead by Normander Djinn. Says he’s your garden variety thief for the most part.”

“What a weird bunch. Where they going?”

Elmer scrolled down to the bottom of everything, “Seems Waxel Prime has ordered them to be sent to Abrakatraz.”
***
Abrakatraz
Maximum Security Prision, outskirts of the Free Empire

They hadn’t really seen much after being shoved through processing and booking, then dumped on the first transport off world; seems the Plaxel Core didn’t want them hanging out on Dimmdandar longer than they had to. As the transport drew towards the docking bay of the old, dark, prison satellite, there was no question where they were. Abrakatraz had a reputation to it.

“Abrakatraz hu?” Daemon commented as they were led single file down the hall from the docking bay to the central station, “Never had the pleasure. Looking forward to cracking my way out of this nut house same as the other 15 they’ve stuck me in.”

Tootora was in front of this line and had stayed silent the whole trip here, save for a few times when she tried to get the tanned man to shut up. The gargoyle had remained silent, almost in a meditative state even as his smaller companion had practically talked the whole ride here.

“You know you’re lucky this chick showed up when she did kid.”

“Kid? You look younger than me,” Chester mumbled.

Daemon just kept going, “Otherwise F’Rooc and I would’ve already collected our bounty, and you’d be getting drawn and quartered by Normander by now.”

“Hey, lots of people have tried to kill me over the years, nut no one’s done it yet, and you know why?”

Daemon snorted, “Dumb luck would be my guess.”

“Nuuh, it’s because I’m not that easy to kill. Heck, I’m probably unkillable then!”

“I change my answer; you’re too stupid to have dumb luck.”

Chester considered smacking the shorter man in the back of the head for that since he was in front of him, but ultimately decided against it; more because of the walking wall behind him than the cuffs on his wrists of course.

“So…” he tried a change of topic after catching the blue woman in the lead casting a glance back at them, “This orb, you know the really shiny one that’s got “Eliminator 2: Judgment Day” written all over it. Yeah…what’s that all about?”

“I don’t need to explain myself to a dishonorable petty thief.”

“Petty?”

Daemon snorted again. “Dishonorable? Pretty fancy word for a genocidal maniac, don’t you think? Too good to talk to, but not too good to kill I take it?”

She half turned with a step to look at the tan one directly in the eye; he didn’t even falter.

“Yeah, you heard me. Can’t hide who you are here.”

She looked away with a frown, yet a note of worry lingered in her eye.

“Yeah, we know who you are,” Chester puffed up, and then tried subtlety asking over his shoulder, “Who is she?”

The gargoyle just growled low and pushed the blonde a little to make him keep pace.

“Hey watch it.”

“I wasn’t retrieving the orb for Roman,” she finally gave, realizing that at this point it didn’t really matter anymore, “I was going to betray him. I was going to sell it to a third party, then get as far from thus galaxy as I could.”

Their guards stopped them in front of a door now. The one leading Tootora held his arm against the seamless black paneling, pressing in a code against the keypad that was surgically grafted into the appendage. Once the door was opened, they were moved forward again. Chester didn’t seem to move fast enough for the gargoyle’s liking because he pushed him again with another low growl, this time almost causing the blonde to fall into the tanned one.

“Hey watch it, I’m moving!” the blonde cried, “Geeze, never seen a guy so eager to get locked up before.”

“He isn’t eager to get in, he’s eager to get those cuffs off,” Daemon explained, unphased by almost getting crashed into apparently, “Ever hear of the Gargoyle Order of Vegon?”

“Ye…ah…no.”

He snorted. “Figures, not many do. Lets see if I can explain this in terms an Earthling would understand, just hope I can dumb it down enough for you.”

“Hey,” he glared at the back of the speaker’s head.”

Daemon ignored that. “Ok, so imagine a bunch of stone gargoyles, brought to life by magic, who are charged with protection of justice and divine wrath, or whatever.”

“Magic? Seriously?”

He rolled his eyes, “For the sake of your limited brain capacity, yes magic. Anyways, F’Rooc here was excommunicated from the Order for breaking some covenant vow, so they removed all his wards and ripped off his wings.”

“Ouch,” he looked over his shoulder up to the stone beast, “Tough break big guy.”

F’Rooc just growled with a narrowed look at the human; Daemon continued on though,

“So, even though it’s not his job to be all “guardian of justice” anymore, being on the wrong side of the law rally irks him.”

“Well, I guess that’s good too…”

They were passing a series of gated rooms; no doubt they were once cell blocks before the station had been expanded. What had caught the blonde’s eye though was a guard in one of the cells pawing through their personal affects; more specifically his things, even more specifically, his walkman.

“Hey!” he managed to snake into the cell before the door could close on him (must have activated when his cuffs crossed the thresh hold), “Put that down that’s mine!”

The man didn’t comply; instead put the headphones on as a song was starting.

“Hey, you listening to me, take those off! Those belong to me, and they belong in impound not in your grubby little mitts!”

He’d been arrested enough times to know his rights; too bad this particular guard didn’t feel like listening to him. It only really hit him afterwards how stupid he was for going in and threatening this armed guard when he was cuffed in a prison; after he was being electrocuted by the guard’s baton that is. The others were still standing in the hallway, watching it happen. Daemon was the only one who dared to comment though.

“Tsch, idiot.”
***
He was stripped and thrown into a chamber where he was blasted with this slime green cleansing chemical. The fact that it was pressurized like 20 fire hoses should have been bad enough, but oh god did it sting! It was like dousing paper cuts all over his body in a bath of rubbing alcohol, lemon juice, and salt water! It peeled away layers of dead skin and all the bacteria that went with it sure, but oh god it was torture!

After his shower he was shoved into a temporary barred cell with a set of yellow scrubs. The blonde twisted around as he was thrown in, but several drones swarmed him at the display of aggression. So he could only watch the door slide shut with a growl.

Chester did the only thing he could now in the cell, which was get changed into the tacky colored scrubs.

Several minutes later the door slid open again, but this time the tanned man was shoved into the cell. He turned to hiss something he didn’t catch at the guards, but apparently it wasn’t aggressive enough to alert the drones. Daemon kept his back to Chester as he wrung out the remainder of that horrid cleansing chemical from his hair. The blonde couldn’t help but let his eyes follow along the goldish-coppery circuit patterns and rough looking implants that marked the shorter’s back from shoulders trailing down. He twitched, sensing the other staring, so he turned slightly with a sharp look; green eyes quickly looked away.

“Can I help you?”

“What? No, sorry. Just admiring-I mean looking at the ink…”

Daemon snorted, quickly turning back away to pull on his own set of scrubs. “Neurologically grown and grafted cabling.”

“What?”

“Not ink,” he pulled the shirt on over his head, already having the pants secure, “I’m a cyborg.”

“Oh…well that’s cool.”

Daemon shook his head, taking up a sitting perch now after ripping some off the hem off his shirt to use as a tie to pull his hair back. “Idiot,” he muttered under his breath.

It was another several minutes before the door opened a third time, this time the stone beast was forced in, but unlike the other two, he was being much more vocal about his discomfort. Snarls and hissing, punctuated by the static shock in the air as the guards’ batons made contact with stone skin. That did little damage to the creature, but it just infuriated him more. He was finally herded enough in though for the door to snap shut.

Now Daemon moved since taking his perch, going to the gargoyle’s side, stopping him before he could attempt to tear through iron bars. When dark eyes lit upon the tan man, the beast’s whole attitude did a 180. It almost looked like he was…fretting over the shorter being? The way he swatted away the stony clawed hands also seemed to fuel that idea. Chester was fascinated by that from his corner a safe distance away from the pair.

“Quit it, I’m fine,” Daemon chided, picking up the oversized scrubs that had been thrown in to go with the new comer, “Sit so I can rewrap you.”

He did as instructed, though he was still taller than the tan one even sitting. Daemon started to tear up the large shirt into strips before using them to rewrap the gargoyle’s arms. Now for the first time the blonde could clearly see what the wrappings had been hiding before; deep and most likely painful gnashes were cut into the stone hide. He almost thought he saw the hint of a marking along the edge of one of those wounds, but the man covered the section before he could take a second look. The chest that had also been wrapped seemed fine, but there was a bright colored gem resting in the center of his chest that seemed to pulse with each breath.

“You’re staring again earthling.”

“What? Oh, uh…”

F’Rooc now looked at the blonde and growled a little warningly.

“Those…look bad.”

“Told you they took his wards and his wings,” he tied off the one set of bindings, then moved to go do the other arm before using the reminder to bind his chest and back, “Stone doesn’t heal quickly.”

He had to step over and in between the gargoyle’s legs to get to his chosen destination. As he did, the beast took the opportunity of closeness to nuzzle the smaller a little. Daemon again tried to swat the affection away.

“Quit it or you can do this yourself.”

Chester shifted a little uncomfortably now, purposely looking anywhere else other than his companions. Suddenly he was feeling like a serious third wheel.
***
Once they had all been cleaned and dressed (Tootora had thankfully been given a separate cell to dress in), the four were escorted to the general population. As they entered the bottom floor, they were each given a thin bed roll. That didn’t really matter though; it would probably get stolen in 5 minutes top by a senior prisoner. And once they got a good look at just how large an area they were in, that seemed very very plausible.

The main floor was huge with prisoners milling about and a guard tower in the center. But along the outer walls were the cells, and stacked upon them were more cells; each level of cells had a walkway that went around the room, leaving the center of the “floor” open on each hew level, so the whole space was open all the way to the top. There had to have been at least a hundred floors of cells for how many high this reached; he almost feared to calculate how many cells that meant (mostly because he hated math).

He was distracted from marveling at the sheer space by some piece of trash just narrowly missing hitting his ear. He turned around quickly, looking for the source; 5 seconds and somebody already wanted him deaf, that had to be a record! But no, they weren’t aiming for him. A row of prisoners on a higher level were cat calling and throwing things at them…no, just the blue girl. Their actions got the attentions of several others around, so all eyes were drawn to them now. She tried to stand tall under all the hate thrown her way, but as she passed him, the blonde caught a hint of the fear in her eye.

“What’s all that about?” he found himself asking as he scanned all the cat calling prisoners.

“Like I said earlier, chick’s got a rep,” Daemon commented as he moved past him not too, “Lots of people in here have lost people they cared about to Roman and his goons. Taking a little payback out of her hide would be prime entertainment.”

F’Rooc pushed past the blonde a little roughly now, intent to stay close to the tan one. Seeing he was being left behind, Chester moved to catch up, slipping around the gargoyle to get back to the cyborg; F’Rooc acknowledged that move with a little growl.

“Well the guards here will protect her right?”

Daemon snorted. “The guards are paid to keep us in, not to mediate. Plus I’m pretty sure a bunch of them would love to get their pound of flesh too.”

“You two don’t have to waste your breath worrying about me,” Tootora looked back to them, seemingly calm, “Whatever the future holds, it will pale to the nightmares behind me.”

“Nightmares behind…what are you talking…” Chester started to say, but as he was so lost in the blue girl’s metaphor, he didn’t realize there was a large buff man standing in their path-more specifically his path-until he bumped into him. “Oof! Hey sorry about…” he looked up slowly to the wall of flesh he’d just made contact with, “Yikes.”

“Well, well, well, what do we have here,” the tall muscular figure’s eyes narrowed as he inspected the small human, “Fresh meat, and with such pretty hair,” he tried to caress the blonde locks even as the human tried to duck away from the touch, “Jorgan is going to have so much fun lathering you up in Yugopotamium jellies before making you scream…”

F’Rooc stepped up now, growling threateningly as he stood at his full height (Chester wasn’t sure, but he swore he heard his bones cracking even-could stone even crack like that-did gargoyles even have bones?). The gargoyle easily towered over the taller being and picked him up by the scruff of the neck. This “Jorgan” squirmed, trying to break free, but the grip on him was solid stone. F’Rooc brought him up close, close enough to show just how large and sharp his teeth really were.

“Alright everybody, listen up!” Daemon climbed up on the nearest thing to add elevation so everyone could see, “This sorry excuse for an organic right here,” he pointed at the blonde who went “Hey!” at the comment, “Is our booty. So if any of you try to mess with him, you’ll have to go through us, or more pointedly him,” he now thumbed to the stone being.

Whispears were passed around because lots of them had heard about the Gargoyles of Vegon, and a handful had probably even faced one; everyone smart enough knew though not to mess with one. The point being made, F’Rooc dropped the man without a second thought, and then moved to offer his partner a hand down, which Daemon batted away of course. The other prisoners parted so they could go by; the point had been made.

Chester looked for Tootora, but the blue shinned girl seemed to have taken the gargoyle’s actions as an opportune distraction to slip away. He looked back at the people around him, the man still on the floor where he had been unceremoniously dropped.

“What, I’m with them.”

He stepped around the one called Jorgan and quickly moved to catch up to the odd couple; he had no problem being a third wheel now.
***
She had done just as the blonde had suspected (not that she’d have known he had). Other prisoners still crowded around her, hurling insults of ideas of the things they would do to her given the chance. Luckily, the all seemed to hold back from following through with any threats thanks to the gargoyle’s display of might. But she knew that once they realize that “protection” wasn’t extended to her, they would be upon her like a wild pack of animals; she was a realist after all.

She locked herself into the first empty cell she could find. Even as the door shut, the vermin pressed against the class of the small window; their muffled words of hate and fear still leaked through. She closed her eyes tightly, trying to block out all the sounds and sensations in this horrible place. She shouldn’t be here; this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. But now she was stuck, she was sure, and she was lost. That was not a comforting thought.

The crowd around the door dissipated, the people going back to whatever was considered as “normal lives” within these prison walls. The commotion from the gargoyle too had died down, so the main floor was clearing out. One figure remained sitting at a table; gaze firmly locked on the door the blue woman had disappeared behind. His eyes were hidden, but the snarl on his lips and his balled yellow fists were enough to prove that whatever he had on his mind, it would not be pleasant.

Chapter Text

To say this was the first pile of random guys he’d ever slept on would be a lie (sad as that may be). Over crowded prison, no one enforcing closed cells, so yeah sleeping piles were an obvious thing. Chester lay on top, rather uncomfortably, staring off into nothing and with nothing going through his head either. No, actually he was thinking about how this one guy had his arm draped across his chest and that it was pretty creepy…

A yell caught his attention, a distinctively feminine yell. He looked up from his pile as he saw a handful of gnarly looking prisoners dragging Tootora who knows where. After a beat once they were out of sight, the blonde moved to get up, making sure to move that creeper arm. His movements didn’t seem to rouse any sleeping in the pile luckily. It was only as he was about to cross the threshold that he stumbled over his own feet. He luckily caught himself, but the sound had woken the tan man curled up sleeping in the gargoyle’s lap on the corner.

Daemon blinked a few times, warding off sleepiness. He caught the human as he left the cell they occupied. He silently groaned, leaving his spot and going to the doorway, looking down the walkway, catching the tail of the human once again.

“Idiot,” he mumbled as he went after him.
***
Tootora was dragged into another room, away from the cell blocks. The two physically dragging her toed her to some sort of pillar, while another stepped up to her with some crude knife in hand. He leered at her with red eyes and a dirty crooked smile.

“Tootora,” he hissed, inching the blade close to her throat, “Consider this your death sentence for your crimes against the galaxy.”

“What do you think you’re doing!”

The men all froze at the sound of that voice. Slowly, all eyes went to the entrance of the room. A figure stood there, solid, bright yellow. Eyes were hidden behind long unruly hair, but all could feel the burning of his eyes into their souls.

“You know who I am,” he said again sternly, stepping into the room.

The men who had handled her moved away, leaving the one who had spoken to more or less face the titan alone.

“You are Turner…the destroyer,” he said pitifully, clearly intimidated by this yellow beast.

“And you know what I have done.”

“You’ve slain countless members of Roman’s armies…”

“All in the name of my family,” he stood right in front of the bound woman now.

It was at about this time that Chester came upon this little showdown, but he hung back at the doorway upon seeing the yellow giant. Daemon was fast on his heels, but after a signal to be quiet from the blonde, curiosity got the better of him, so he joined the human in watching what was going on, rather than drag him back to the cell as had been his original plan.

“Mother. Father. Even my younger brother. He took them from me. Made me watch as he did it, and he LAUGHED!” he looked away from the woman to the pitiful man instead, “Her life is not yours to take. He took my family,” he looked back to her now; she had to look away, “So I will kill one of his in return.”

“O-of course Turner,” he said meekly, offering the titan his crude knife, “By all means.”

As the blade passed hands, Tootora struck. She kicked the blade up into the air, and managed to pull free of the shoddy knots he’d been bound with. The blade was now in her hand and at the titan’s throat. She stared him down straight and true.

“I feel your loss, but I am no family to Roman or Crockus,” she stood down, dropping the weapon to the floor with a clang, “I am your only hope in defeating them.”

Turner growled and lunged for her, pressing her firmly back against the pillar with a hand against her neck.

“Your words mean nothing to me witch!”

And that’s when Chester made his move. Daemon hissed slightly as he missed the opportunity to grab the blonde and hold him back. That earthling was going to get himself killed before he could collect his bounty at this rate.

“Whoa, whoa, now why don’t we just pause and take a step back here,” he said, making sure to keep his hands up to show he wasn’t a threat, “Look dude, if your sole purpose in life is to kill Roman, I really don’t think killing her is gonna do it.”

Turner just growled.

“No, no, I’m serious. Look, I know chicks can be crazy. I mean dude, the stories I could tell! I mean one time, there was this Anccipidon chick, I think her name was Ronnie…”

The titan looked away; the human tried to switch tactics fast to get him back on track.

“Look, hey, she was betraying him, no joke, so the thing to do is to stick by her side, so when she does that, you get to, you know,” he ran a single finger across his throat in a killing gesture.

“Why would I run my finger over his throat,” Turner huffed, obviously missing the meaning of the gesture, “That is pointless.”

“What? No, no, I meant you slit his throat-”

“That is an ineffective killing method; I would sooner cleave his head clean from his shoulders.”

“Dude, no, it’s not meant for that specific, it’s just a general sign for killing. Right, right, everyone knows that,” he looked to the red eyed guy.

He started to nod, but when Turner looked his way he quickly shook his head.

“Look, what I’m saying is that you’ll wanna keep her alive if you want to get close to Roman.”

Turner looked from the blonde to the woman, seemingly weighing his options. Finally he released his hold on her with a grunt; she fell to the floor with a cough.

“Fine. But I am keeping the knife,” and the titan just turned and left.

“Aw…but that was my favorite knife…”

“Would you guys get out of here,” the blonde shot at the three goons who’d caused all this mess.

They quickly scattered out of there; they did not want the wrath of the titan AND gargoyle coming down on them. Chester moved over to offer her a hand up, but Tootora just shot hi, a glare, getting to her feet on her own, and stormed out of there. Chester groaned slightly, going to follow her. As he passed the tan man, who hadn’t moved from his spot at the door yet, he just had to add his two cents,

“Real smooth Romeo.”

“Shut up,” the blonde tossed over his shoulder.

He easily caught up to the blue woman as she was using the walkway to get back to her own cell.

“Hey, where you think you’re going?”

“Back to my cell alone,” she hissed, “I don’t owe you anything.”

“I never said you did.”

She stopped and spun around to face him, “then why not let him kill me if you don’t want anything from me?”

“I never said I didn’t “want” anything, just that I didn’t say you “owed” me.”

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, waiting for hi, to further explain himself then.

“Look, way I see it, we still have this orb to sell. I lost out on my buyer, but you’ve still got yours.”

“Yeah, uhhu, and how exactly do you purpose we sell the orb, buyer or no, when we and it are locked up in this place?”

“Well if I recall, somebody was bragging not too long ago about breaking out of 15 prisons,” he turned a quarter of the way to include Daemon, who had been just a few steps behind him, in their conversation, “And I’m betting he’s looking to make an even 16.”

He snorted, “Well du, we are getting out of h ere, piece of cake even with my wireless interfacing blocked.”

“See, problem solved.”

“Uh no, because the minute we’re out of here, F’Rooc and I are handing you over to Normander and collecting our bounty here kid.”

“Yes, mhmm, but how about a counter offer,” he had his finger tips pressed together like some old timey negotiator, or something, “How much was good old Norm offering?”

“40,000 credits.”

“I see,” he pointed his finger tips at Tootora now, “And how much was your buyer paying you?”

She hesitated for a moment, knowing exactly where this was going. She rolled her eyes with a sigh, “4 million credits.”

The way Daemon’s eyes widened at that, Chester knew he had scored. So he clapped his hands with a shiny grin in place. “And bingo! 4 mill split 3 ways, everyone goes home happy.”

“4 way.”

Tootora and Chester gave Daemon a curious looks for that.

“What do you mean 4?” the blonde questioned.

The dark haired man held up a finger for each person he listed off, “Well there’s you, me, her, and F’Rooc. That makes 4 brainiac.”

“Seriously? I thought you and the big rock would just share.”

Daemon snorted, crossing his arms, “Well if you feel so strongly about that, why not tell it to him yourself.”

Suddenly the two felt hot breath against their backs. A quick look up proved that at some point the large stone beast had snuck up quietly behind them and just stood there in perfect silence. Now facing the 10 foot tall rock beast, Chester wasn’t feeling so bold, so he just put up his hands in defeat.

“Yeah, ok, 4 way split seems fair enough.”
***
Crockus’ Asteroid, on the edge of Buxian space

Crockus had not been pleased to learn that Roman had let the orb slip through his grasp not once, but twice now. He had been summoned to face the great titan now. He was a warrior though, and he was not intimidated by the stories surrounding Crockus; he only cared about the concrete facts and the end results. He needed this audience to go well, or Dimmsdandar would not fall.

The moment he and Vike had arrived, things were immediately not to his standards. The green woman had secluded herself to sitting on a nearby rock as she fiddled with a cybernetic panel on her arm. Which left the mighty blue man standing, facing the back of a floating stone throne, while some old crone in a hood was lecturing him.

“You have betrayed us Roman,” the crone accused.

He growled, clenching the hilt of his hammer hard, “It was not my fault that she was captured.”

“Yet you allowed it to occur.”

“With all due respect Crockus,” he addressed the back of the throne, annoyed by this chattering crone, “It is your daughter at the fault here, yet I am the one being punished?”

“Tootora and Vike were put under your care.”

“When she was captured by the Paxel Core-”

“And you have nothing to show for it,” the crone cut him off, not even bothering to listen to the excuse.

“Your sources say she intended to betray you the entire time!” he bellowed to be heard.

“Lower your tongue you worthless-!”

That was enough for him. Roman shot the crone a death glare, which his hammer mirrored with a wave that struck and took down the offender. Vike paused in her tinkering, looking between the man and the throne, waiting to see who would make the next move, and what it would be.

“I only ask that you take this matter seriously,” Roman finally spoke.

The throne now turned around slowly, revealing the one sitting within it to be a rather large and imposing figure. He was cast in heavy shadows still, but it only added to the dramatic effect. His armor in shades of deep, yet brilliant blue, stood out against the shading; as too did his glowing red eyes.

“The only matter I do not take seriously is you boy,” Crockus’ voice resonated in the most indescribable of ways, so much so that it actually made Roman advert his eyes, “Your ambitions and politics bore me. You are little more than a pouting child in my eyes. What more, you have lost to me my favorite daughter.”

Vike looked away from the scene at that, biting back the hiss that was on her lips.

“However,” the mighty being continued, “I shall honor our agreement, if you return to me both her and the orb. Fail though, and I will make sure to bathe the stars in your blood. That goes for the both of you.”

“Sounds fair, thanks dad,” Vike rose from her seat, snapping the control panel shut on her arm before walking to Roman’s side, “This is one fight you won’t win,” she warned him, then continued walking, “We better be heading to Abrakatraz then.”

Roman lingered a moment, glaring at Crockus. But for now, he would heed her warning and shove away his wounded pride to follow her. They had an orb to track down after all; he would get pay back later.
***
Abrakatraz’s main floor of the general population

It was chow time in the general populous. The food looked…well, unappetizing wasn’t right, but neither was uneatable…Chester just really preferred not to dwell on thinking about it. So instead he focused on t eh plan the cyborg was discussing, rather than the eyeball on his oatmeal (dude did it just blink at him?!)

“Alright, if we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna go it right,” he led the small group through the various prisoners, heading towards a table to sit at, “You’ve seen the control pads the guards have so they can move in and out. I need one of those.”

“Consider it done,” Tootora said.

Daemon nodded. “Next. See that guy over there,” he pointed out another prisoner, walking around on a very basic looking robotic limb, “I’m gonna need his prosthetic leg.”

“Seriously, his leg?” Chester cocked an eyebrow, “Just the leg?”

“Well I don’t need the rest of him, lookit the guy, he’s a wreck. Course, if that’s your type, by all means don’t let me stop you.”

The three o them took up seats at a table, setting their trays of slop down as well. The gargoyle stood still, not having bothered getting any food.

“Lastly, see the blinking light on the wall over there,” he thumbed behind himself; all three sets of eyes looked, “Behind that is an Irken battery. Purple box, ‘bout yay big, gonna need it or the whole thing’s a no go.”

“How do you know all of this?” the blue woman asked.

Daemon just smirked, “They may have blocked the wifi, but I still got my hard lines,” he showed a port-jack of some sort located at the base of his wrist.

“Hah, that’s what she said.”

The other two gave the blonde seriously questionable looks for that.

“Yeah…ok, freaky cyborg stuff then,” he coughed slightly trying to cover himself; Daemon’s look hardened for that last comment, “That blinky light is like 20 feet in the air-”

“15.”

“Oh I’m sorry, 15 feet in the air,” he rolled his eyes at that, “In like the most guarded spot in this place. How exactly are we supposed to get at it without being caught?”

“Don’t look at me, you two are the “action heroes” here,” he looked to the woman now, “Apparently some of the freaks here find you attractive, maybe you could work out some sort of a trade.”

“You’ve got to be joking,” she huffed.

“No, for some reason they find you attractive. Me, I just don’t do organics.”

She rolled her eyes and sat back in a huff, arms crossed.

“Look, we got time to hammer out that little detail,” he waved it off, “The battery’s the last piece anyways. The moment that thing is disconnected, this place will go into lock down riot mode, so we’re better off getting it after we get the other pieces first-”

Suddenly the lights all went out, then red backups kicked in. an alarm started to sound. The tree turned in their seats, finding their fourth member had gone off on his own and now had the battery in hand.

Daemon groaned, running a palm down his face. “Or you know, just grab it first and watch the smoof hit the fan works too.”

Chapter Text

F’Rooc had been listening while his companion discussed the escape plan with their new partners. He grew tired of their arguing though, so he decided to take it upon himself to go get things started. He really hated being in this place; he was still a creature of law and order after all, so being here just made his skin crawl. The sooner they were out of here the better.

He walked up to the wall where the yellow light was located; no one really seemed to scare enough to stop him. After a few seconds of study, he determined he could reach it without assistance and did just that. The panel of the box came away without much trouble, revealing the purple battery openly. He set the panel down, and then reached to pull the battery out. This part though was harder to move than the outer casing had been.

It was also at about this time that the gold titan Turner took notice of the stone being’s actions. He came over, studied the struggle for a second, and then looked back to the arguing three.

“What do you thin you are doing?”

F’Rooc just hissed, having no time to answer this silly man’s questions. It was hard enough work trying to remove the battery without destroying it. Finally it paid off though, and the battery came free from the wall. He smirked, pleased at himself for doing such a good job. As he started to turn, to go back to his group, top deliver his prize, the lights suddenly went out.

Turner too was surprised by the blackout, and looked around quickly as the red backups came to life. An alarm went off; he went on the defensive.

The gargoyle looked back to his group, to his partner, catching him smack himself in the face. He hadn’t done well it seemed; if he had still had his wings, they surely would be drooping right now.
***
The alarms were sounding, it was only a matter of seconds before the drones showed up. The blonde and the blue girl looked to each other quickly.

“I’ll get the band,” she said.

“And I’ll get the leg,” he responded.

Then they were both off, sprinting in opposite directions for their respective goals. This left the tan man the last at their table, watching as the drones swooped in right on cue. The drones orbited around the gargoyle that was still standing in the middle of the room. He snarled at the one or two that drifted too close to him, but the beast did not strike.

The guard in the central tower started flipping switches then spoke into a microphone that fed the PA system, “prisoner, drop the devise immediately and retreat to your cell, or we will open fire,” he ordered.

F’Rooc was having none of that; he had been a great guardian, these pitiful fleshlings could not do this to him! He growled deeply, free hand had his claws cracking as a thin aura started to illuminate his body. His dark eyes lit up as well, and he let out a mighty roar at these machines that threatened him.

The guard in the tower took that as a refusal to his order without hesitation. “Fire!”

The drones opened fire on the stone giant, but F’Rooc just savagely beat the flying nuisances away. Robotic parts went scattering through the room; inmates were trying to dodge burning and exploding parts alike. He just kept attacking them, both his aura and stone hide insulating him from any damage the drones tried to inflict.

“All prisoners return to your sleeping areas!” the tower guard called out over the chaos.

A drone suddenly came out of nowhere and targeted Daemon. He had to think fast since he was unarmed. It fired, but he dodged it, jumping from the table he had occupied to another. The drone followed him, shooting every five kicks or so; he timed his movement perfectly to them. Finally he got the upper hand on it and did a back flip over it, grabbing it from behind and dragging it down with his descent.

“F’ROOC!”

The stone beast turned at his name, just as the man threw the disorientated drone at him. The beast smashed it away effortlessly.

But there was no time for any sort of breather; both sets of eyes looked up and saw even more drones headed their way. Daemon cursed loudly as F’Rooc moved quickly to guard him from the impending attack.

“Idiot! How’m I supposed to fight without my stuff!” he snapped as the battery was dropped in his hands, “You’re not getting a thank you.”

The gargoyle just growled, crouching low to the man, eyes still glued on the incoming drones. If only his aura could protect the smaller one too.
***
Regular guards were running in now, weapons at the ready. Though admittedly they had not expected this level of chaos.

“Holy smoof!”

“Get a hold of yourself!” another scolded.

Their C.O just growled, holding his weapon high, aimed directly at the central cause of this mess, the gargoyle, and shouted, “On my mark fire!”

Turner had stayed where he’d been standing, somehow overlooked in the fray of things. When he saw those guards appear, and heard those words though, he decided to intervene. He rushed the guards, completely taking them by surprise. He threw punches, he threw men; honestly he was having the most fun he’d had in a long time. He wrenched the last one, the C.O., up by the collar and just grinned before head butting him into unconsciousness. He then picked up one of the weapons, and turned back to the center of the room, where the gargoyle was now crouched low to protect a man.

“Small one!”

Daemon snapped his attention towards him, catching sight of the weapon being tossed from the corner of his eye.

“Arm yourself and fight or die!”

He rolled out from under his protector, coming flat onto his feet with hand raised to catch the offered weapon. As he caught it, he pivoted on a heel, taking the weapon into proper grasp, and allowing some sort of cabling to extend from his wrist to hook up into the gun. He grinned, blinking once to allow the weapon’s systems to display in his own sight.

“Now this is more like it.”

As the first of the new wave of drones dove in, a plasma blast shot right past the gargoyle’s face hitting it dead on. He looked back confused for a moment, but then his eyes lit upon the cyborg as he pumped the rifle.

“Don’t look at me, fight!” he shouted at the beast.

F’Rooc grinned and turned back to the oncoming swarm, aura pulsing with renewed vigor.
***
As all hell was breaking loose, and prisoners were running to escape the wrath of guards and drones by hiding or returning to their cells as instructed, a pair of inmates were seemingly shooting the breeze in an open cell.

Binky wasn’t the smartest, or the toughest in Abrakatraz. Heck, he wasn’t the luckiest either; his missing leg was prime proof of that. So when this blonde fellow came up to him, during a riot none the less, it wasn’t that out of the question to just really stop and ask,

“You want my what now?”
***
Meanwhile, the blue woman was running down a walkway, chasing one of the few unarmed guards that were on duty. She ducked and dodged loose sparks, and jumped up to tackle the man to the ground. He tried to throw her off, but he was faster with the punches. Just as she thought she had him, another guard came running to the fallen’s aid, and this one was armed. She was up off of her target fast; dodging a plasma bolt sent her way. That allowed the target the chance to get up, so now she was faced with an attacker on both sides.

Nothing she couldn’t handle.

She threw a loose wall panel (caused by the plasma damage) at the armed guard, then spun to block the physical attack from the unarmed one. The weapon was lost, but the second guard moved to strike with a baton. She spun again, kicking the secondary weapon out of his grasp, and then kicking him back before she caught the falling stick. she followed through with the movement elegantly, spinning to lock the first guard’s attack, with her leg wrapped around his arm with the implant. The baton was held at the ready to club him if he moved wrong.

“I’ll be taking that now.”

The guard snorted, “Good luck, it’s internally wired.”

She smirked, “I’ll figure something out.”

She untwisted from him and slammed the electrified baton into his face.
***
Chester was running now, leg in hand (haha that’s a funny sentence), headed back for the central tower. As he turned a corner though, some fresh guard with a hand pistol turned and spotted him.

“Drop the leg!”

He took a step back, holding up both his free palm and the leg.

“I said drop the leg, and return to yo-”

he started to act like he was going to comply, but instead took that leg into both hands and swung it up hard to smack the guard. The guy fell, completely caught off guard and now out. Chester grinned, hopping over the still body, throwing his hands into the air.

“And McBadbat hits one right out of the park, the crowd goes wild!”

A missed shot from a drone made him stop his fake crowd cheering and brought him back to his senses. He quickly dashed off now before the next shot could actually hit him.
***
Tootora had her part, and she was running. She reached a center trailing, spotting the odd couple still on the ground floor, taking out the latest batch of dispatched drones.

“Daemon!” she yelled as she threw the component.

He turned fast, and caught the piece of tech, dropping and disconnecting from the rifle. He nodded up at her; she already knew where she had to go.

“F’Rooc, watch tower!”

The gargoyle nodded, picking him up and heading there. While he was being carried, Daemon started hooking the battery up to the control pieced, using his own data hookups to do so.

Tootora mimicked their movement from overhead. She leapt from the one walkway to another, and then ran down the path towards the central tower. Again, she had to leap across the void to get to it, but it was an easy feat for her.

When they reached the tower, F’Rooc did his best to hold Daemon up towards its platform. The gargoyle was too short though, so the cyborg had to climb the rest, with device in hand. As he reached the top, the girl reached over to give him an extra hand up.

“Loving this plan of yours,” she commented.

He shot her a look for that, “Don’t even start woman.”

Meanwhile back on the ground, Chester ran up to the gargoyle, leg still in hand.

“Hey big guy!” he tried to call up, “One more going up!”

Before he could react, a drone swooped in, dead set on Chester. It was suddenly pulled out of the air though before it could attack; yellow hands ripped it apart furiously.

“You!” Turner turned upon the blonde now.

Chester looked up as F’Rooc looked down to him, waiting to see how he should react to that.

“Make that two going up.”
***
This was not good, this was so not good. The tower guard kept pressing buttons, flipping switches, trying to get anyone to talk to him, to send him more men. A light on the console beeped at him now; that one only did that when the door to this room opened…

He slowly turned around, finding five prisoners standing in his doorway. He suddenly felt very small, and very terrified. They started to step in, the woman actually pushed him away from the console. He just looked helplessly at each of them, silently pleading for them not to kill him. At last it was a snarl from the hunched over gargoyle t hat sent him running away.

Having the tower control room free now, Daemon moved to the main control panel and started pulling pieces off. F’Rooc just sat against the door, the fight having drained a portion of his energy. Tootora turned to give the cyborg more room, to work, but came face to face with the gold giant.

“What are you looking at,” Turner huffed.

She snapped her attention to the blonde as he moved up beside the cyborg, “What is he doing here; I don’t remember him being a part of the plan.”

“I promised him he could stay by your side until he kills your boss, and I always keep my promises to crazy whack jobs who can kill me,” he dropped the leg on the console now, “Here you go, one fake cyber-peg leg matey.”

“What? no, I was kidding about that,” the tanned one said as he connected two sparking wires, “I only needed these two things,” he half nodded to the controller and battery hodgepodge resting on the console directly to his right.

“You what?!”

He snorted, “What, can’t a guy make a joke?”

“I had to transfer him 30,000 credits to get that leg!”

“Well was it worth it to watch him hop around on one leg?” he grinned; the blonde just groaned, holding his face, “Hey lighten up blondie, because we…” he got the wires to connect, “Ha! We are gonna be out of here in a jiffy.”

More drones came into the main population and immediately swarmed the guard tower. As the cyborg finished his sentence, several shots were fired at them. Luckily the glass was meant to withstand such an attack…to a degree.

“How exactly are we going to get out of here,” Turner warily eyed the glass as it started to splinter under repetitive hits.

“He has a plan,” Chester ducked out of reflex from the shots, “Or is that another thing you were joking about?”

Daemon hissed slightly, moving from one exposed control panel to another, “I have a plan!”

“This plan of yours does not seem to be working.”

“Sad to say, I’m starting to agree with captain obvious here.”

Turner snapped his attention to the blonde for that, “I am no captain, why would you think that?”

“What? Dude, no I didn’t mean-”

“And my name is not “Obvious”.”

“Dude, it’s a metaphor-”

Turner growled, getting defensive, “What did you just say?”

Chester groaned, “Dude-”

“Save your breath,” Daemon snapped, flicking switches quickly with one hand while he was jacked in on his other wrist, “His species is very literal, it’ll just go over his head.”

“Nothing goes over my head,” the golden man huffed, “My reflexes are too fast.”

Tootora just shook her head, holding her temple, “This is it. I’m going to die, in a room surrounded by the galaxy’s biggest idiots.”

More guards came rushing in, fully armed and highly weaponized; this riot was about to be officially stopped one way or another. They surrounded the tower, the commander giving the order to fire. Multiple plasma bolts hit their mark, rocking the whole watch tower.

“Hurry it up Daemon!”

“I don’t see you helping any!” he snapped back at the woman, flipping switches quickly, almost desperately.

Another round of shots; the glass in the windows fractured further.

“Daemon!”

“Shut up!” he messed with the devise they’d stolen, unhooking and rehooking the jury-rigged wiring.

The others in the room braced themselves for the next and most likely final assault from outside. But before it could come, the cyborg hit a final button and then there was…nothing.

Literally, nothing. Guards started floating, loosing grip on anything that wasn’t attached to their persons. They watched them, try to fix themselves, quite comically actually.

“You turned off the gravity everywhere…but in here,” Tootora marveled.

He smirked, “Hunny, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

He sent a very specific, very special command to the drones that surrounded them. Each drone embedded itself into the side of the control tower’s control room, rocket boosters swiveling to face downwards so when they all activated at once, the compartment was lifted from its base. The three standing in the room had to steady themselves at that shift, but once it clicked what he was doing, they were in awe at the genius of the plan.

“Now then,” he looked over his shoulder with a cheeky grin, “Who’s ready to blow this tin can?”

Chapter Text

They had to move fast; Daemon’s little trick with the gravity would only slow down the guards for so long. If they were going to make it out of Abrakatraz, they had better do it sooner rather than later. The band tore into various crates in impound, searching for their personal belongings; weapons and your favorite jacket were always nice to have when breaking out of jail after all…oh, and that’s where the orb was too, they’d need that.

“Seriously?” the cyborg scoffed, directing his comments to his gargoyle companion as he started pulling things out of the crate with his name on it, “They fold your single pair of shorts nicely, but they stiff all my stuff in a rumpled mess. How rude.”

Chester found the one with his name stamped upon it and ripped it open without hesitation. At first everything seemed to be there. Coat, pants, weird orb, boots, gun…

“C’mon, they’ll be here any minute,” Tootora pointed out.

“Where is it, where, grah!” he growled, having pulled everything out but not finding what he was looking for, “That looser didn’t put it back!”

“Chester, we need to,” her words were cut off as he thrust most of the contents of the crate into her arms, “What the frack?”

“Take these and get to my ship.”

“But Ches-”

“Just go, I’ll catch up,” he tossed over his shoulder as he left impound, dashing down a nearby corridor.

She sigh-growled at that; this human was starting to be more trouble than he was worth…

He shrugged, throwing the last of his personal effects over his shoulder, “Works for me, let’s get moving then.”

Meanwhile, Chester went down a series of corridors that seemed somewhat familiar. As he ran he put his facemask on with one hand, the other armed with one of his blasters; he had only handed the blue girl most of his stuff after all. Suddenly then a door opened in front of him, revealing three guards behind it.

The guards tried to react, but the blonde was faster. He shot the middle one and punched out the one on the right. The one on the left tried to grab him, but he hit him with the butt of his weapon. The first one he hit tried to get up to run, to sound more alarms; Chester just looked back boredly at him, sending off a shot. The man fell from the shock of energy. He turned away from that, moving to go forward when the last one made a groan; with an eye roll Chester sent a shocking blast into him at point blank. He did not envy the headache that guy would be having when he woke up.
***
Finding Chester’s ship had been easy, getting out of the station a no brainer. The cyborg had the security system wrapped around his little finger by the time the blue girl decided to join them in the shuttle bay; he hadn’t even noticed the blonde wasn’t with her until they were out of the station.

“Well what do you mean he’ll catch up?”

“He seemed distraught over something that was missing from his crate.”

“Well how is he supposed to get to us out here?!”

She growled slightly, “He neglected to share that information with me.”

He grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose as he crunched some numbers, guessing the various odds. He didn’t like anything he came up with. “Screw him, I’m not sitting around for an Earthling with a death wish. You got the orb?”

“Yes. It is,” she opened the bag she had seen it put into before being shoved at her unceremoniously, but didn’t find what she was looking for, “What the-!”

Daemon grumbled, slumping in the pilot’s seat, “Perfect, just fragging perfect.”

“What do we do then?” Turner questioned.

“Well if we sit around here for much longer, we’ll be shot down and turned into slag.”

“We are not leaving without the orb,” Tootora hissed.

Daemon turned around and glared at her, “Look lady, big payday is nice and all, but staying alive trumps credits in my book thanks.”

The gold titan was about to add another comment when a sight outside the window he was beside caught his eye. “Well would you look at that.”

The arguing pair stopped and looked now as well; both were agape with surprise at the sight. Sure enough, Chester McBadbat was flying straight for them.

The blue and yellow beings moved to the back of the ship where the entrance hatch the blonde would be using was. It took a few minutes, but sure enough the human came climbing up; Turner bent down to offer him a hand up.

“That was mighty impressive. You have determination, which will be important when we face Roman. Tell me, what was it you went to retrieve?”

“What, oh yeah, whatever,” he pressed the walkman into his hand, “Be careful with that,” then he moved towards the cockpit.

Turner looked down at the device for a moment, confused. “This…” he looked towards where the man had gone, “Idiot.”

Meanwhile, Chester reached the cockpit, sliding into the second chair and started flipping switches.

“So glad you could join us,” Daemon scoffed, also engaging in pre-acceleration setup.

“What, I knew you’d wait for me,” the blonde grinned, “Somebody’s gotta fly this old bird after all.”

He snorted at that, “Please, I could fly one of these things with my eyes closed.”

“Yeah, well don’t.”

Daemon just smirked, “Better hold on tight then.”

Then it was just only a one, two, three, and the small ship was headed out into deep hyper space away from the prison with its group of five escapees.
***
They’d been flying for an hour or two, maybe three at this point. Tootora had input their destination’s coordinates, and since it would be awhile before they’d reach any sort of habituated space, the auto-pilot guided them, letting the five beings mull about the ship to do whatever. Chester took the opportunity to lay claim to the shower first (his ship, his rules after all); that may not have been the best move on his part, he soon discovered as he left the wash racks, toweling off his hair.

Daemon was sitting in the middle of t he main bay, various metal and mechanical pieces scattered all around himself. The gargoyle was sitting off in a corner, seemingly meditating, but well within earshot. As the blonde got closer he recognized several of the parts the cyborg was using as pieces of his ship.

“Whoa, whoa, hey, what do you think you’re doing Officer Murphy?” he tossed the towel to the side, “Who said you could take apart my ship?”

“What, it’s just a few nonessential components,” Daemon never looked away from the piece he was working with as he spoke, “We shouldn’t crash.”

“Shouldn’t?” he asked incredulously, picking up one of the metal bits from the floor, “What are you even making?”

“Well this is supposed to be a neuro-refractor,” he meant the piece he was working on, “That though is a bomb.”

“A bomb?!” he dropped it, “You just leave a bomb lying around on the floor?!”

“Don’t drop it!”

“You left it on the floor for anyone to pick up!”

Daemon rolled his eyes, setting down the piece he was working on before pushing up his goggles, “I was going to put it in a box,” he said boredly as he pulled over a box of spare parts and bits he’d found earlier.

“A box? What good will a box do? It’s still a bomb.”

Again the tanned one rolled his eyes; some people just didn’t know how to hold their explosives. He pulled out a small wrapped package from the junk box, eyeing it curiously for a moment.

“I guess this’ll work.”

No sooner had he said that then the package was snatched from his grasp. The blonde held it close to his chest, almost protectively. Daemon raised an eyebrow at that.

“What’s in the box?”

“Nothing for you,” the blonde practically spat.

The brunette’s brow was still arched with curiosity though. That look just made Chester more defensive. He scowled, turning away, ready to go and hide his package from prying eyes.

“Just stop breaking my ship and don’t leave bombs just lying around,” he muttered before leaving.

Daemon watched him go, still curious by the behavior, but really, why should he care. He just shook his head, making to pick back up the piece he had been looking at before being interrupted.

“Organics, who can figure them out,” he mumbled.

A small rumble, something akin to a chuckle, caught his ear. He looked up and caught one dark eye open and peeking at him; a smirk also lined the gargoyle’s features. The cyborg frowned, shooting an accusing finger towards his partner,

“Now don’t you start.”
***
A little while later, after Chester was sure he’d hidden the package somewhere none of his “guests” would ever find it, he decided to make his way up to the front of the ship. Tootora was there, flipping through holographicly displayed star charts, the orb just within hand’s reach resting in one of the seat’s cup holders. Turner was there as well, attending something similar to a machete with a whetstone. The blonde carefully bypassed the yellow titan with the murder sword, and plopped down in the vacant seat beside the blue girl.

“So how much longer we gonna be on this boat?”

“We’ll get there when we get there,” she said dryly without looking at him.

“You know,” he sat forward in the seat, facing her, “If we’re gonna be partners, we should really trust each other.”

She snorted at that, finally looking at him, eyebrow raised in amusement, “And you trust me.”

“Well I’d trust you a whole lot more if you told me what this was,” he snatched the orb from the cup holder before she could stop him, “Like seriously, is it a weapon or some really lame cereal box prize?”

She tried to take it back from him, but he made sure to keep it just out of her grasp.

“I don’t know what it does, just that it’s valuable.”

“If it is a weapon we should use it on Roman,” Turner stated firmly from his seat.

“Yeah, would love to see you try,” she scoffed, snatching the orb back.

“What was that?” the yellow one growled, pausing in his weapon maintenance.

She didn’t respond, going back to her star charts. That made him angry; he hated being ignored.

“Did you hear me murderess, or must I repeat myself,” he growled.

“Do whatever you want princess,” she mumbled.

Turner slammed his whetstone down as he stood, the sharpened machete tight in hand. “I am not a princess!”

“Then stop acting like a spoiled little bra-”

he reached forward and tore her seat around to face him, the blade held evenly to neck, “I have killed men for saying less to me she-devil!”

“Ok that’s enough!” Chester cut in, on his feet now too, “No one is killing anyone else on this ship, you hear me. This is my ship, my rules. Now we’re all gonna be stuck together until we get the money, so everyone has to play nice. You get me?”

Turner frowned, but removed his blade from the woman’s neck, “I have no need of your money,” then he moved to grab his whetstone and leave.

“Great,” Chester said through partially gritted teeth, “That means more for the rest of us then,” he looked down to Tootora, “Partners?”

She turned back towards the main console and the star charts, looking away from him again. “We have an agreement, nothing more. I would never be partners with the likes of you.”

He rolled his eyes, tossing his hands up in defeat, “Fine, whatever, just keep the bloodshed limited.”

She rolled her eyes as he left the compartment. “Highly doubt you’d notice. The place is filthy; a little blood might actually be an improvement.”
***
Back at Abrakatraz…
The prisoners were all huddled together, pressed down to the floor. The guards had assumed that the first ships that would dock after the riot would be allies; they were completely wrong. Roman’s men filled the corridors, pulling people-prisoners and guards alike-for the master to interrogate. Vike had the most recent in a headlock as the man pleaded and claimed he had no idea where the escapees had gone.

“If he knew anything he would have told us by now.”

“This is getting us nowhere,” Roman growled, growing impatient with each passing second.

Vike released her captive, only to have one of Roman’s guards take possession, so she could tap the comm. in her ear as it sounded. She looked to her master as she received the news.

“The Plaxel Core has sent a fleet of ships to contain the prison.”

The blue man nodded, turning away from the man he had just been interrogating, “Then it is time for us to take our leave. Vike, with me.”

The green girl nodded, moving into step beside him easily.

“Send out Necro-crafts to every corner of the Empire. Find the orb. Any news, any prince.”

“What of this place?”

“We cannot allow the Core to know we were here, or what we are after,” he gave a command with his hand and from behind them a shot was heard, no doubt ending the man they had just been talking to, “Cleanse the whole place.”

Chapter Text

Dimmsdandar,
Central Planet of the Free Empire

From the moment the pair of scavengers had entered the shop, Doug Dimmadome-owner and operator if Doug Dimmadome’s Dimmsdandarian Emporium-had been uneasy. This wasn't the first time he’d dealt with Normander Djinn, but after what had happened when his protege had visited, plus the blue man’s own reputation, he wasn't expecting this to go well for him. So far, he had just been looking through the display cases while his companion stood guard at the door. He seemed to finally find something he liked because he bent closer to have a look, tilting his sunglasses to see better even.

“Hey, you got anymore of these?” he pointed at some crystalline figures of an animal, “I like lining them all up on my control panel. Makes everything more festive and fun.”

Doug blinked at that. “I honestly can’t tell if you’re being serious or yanking my chain.”

“Oh he’s serious,” Jeff said from his post at the door.

“Well then, in that case,” Doug moved around his counter, hoping maybe the prospect of this sale could smooth everything over for him, “If you look over here-”

“No so fast chubby cheeks,” he pushed his glasses back up and stood in the much shorter man’s way, staring down at him from behind dark lenses, “Before we do any of that, you and me got some talking to do.”

“Whatever about?”

Norm chuckled slightly. “Oh I don’t know, maybe let’s say, what this orb is all about and why everyone and their grandmother seems so intent on getting it. Oh and it’d be real nice if you’d tell me who out there would be willing to buy it too, since we’re such good friends Dougey.”

“The high end community-”

“Uhbuhbuhbuh,” the blue man cut him off.

Doug raised an eyebrow but tried again, “The high end com-”

“Lalalalalalalala!”

“The high-”

“Ehhh! Wrong answer.”

“Normander please!” he was getting exasperated, “I cannot possibly betray the confidentiality of my buyers!”

“Oh Dougey,” he threw back his coat and snapped his fingers, causing a pointed shaft that had been dormant in a hip holster to fly up and head straight for the short man; it stopped and hovered mere millimeters from piercing through that stupid white ten gallon hat. “Only person you gotta worry about betraying us me.”

Doug tried to back away, but the arrow mirrored his movements. Normander and Jeff stepped closer, the former still holding a snap poised and ready.

“So Dougey, you gonna tell me who this buyer of yours is, or,” he tilted his glasses down to stare him directly in the eye so there would be no doubt he’d follow through with his next threat, “Or do I snap my fingers again and repaint your pretty little shop in brain matter gray?”
***
“Hey where is everyone?”

Chester had just woken up from a nap (seriously, what else could he do locked in this floating box with a band of criminals and murderers?) and found the main bay surprisingly empty.

“Guys, seriously,” he called out, “You better not have killed each other…”

“Shut up kid we’re all here!” Daemon yelled from the cockpit.

He rolled his eyes, climbing the ladder up. “Again with the “kid”? Seriously, how old are you even…”

His words trailed off as he took in the sight the others were all beholding. They were flying towards what almost looked like a giant-like planet sized-decaying skull floating in space. But that was silly, wasn't it?

“What is it?” Turner said what they were all thinking.

“It’s called Knowhere,” Tootora explained as she flew them in through one of the eye sockets, revealing what looked like a very flourishing city and mining operation within, “The severed head of an ancient being, dead for millennias. Everyone be careful once we land, the regulations of the Free Empire don’t extend out here.”

Chester was practically pressed against the glass as he watched the scrawling, stacked buildings rise below them; saw the various drones and operated pods flit about collecting pieces and parts from the environment around. They landed shortly, the whole gang leaving the ship, the orb firmly in Tootora’s possession. They walked down the crowded street, but Chester couldn't help still staring in wonder.

“How can a place like this even exist?”

“Hundreds of years ago the Tiban Group sent in miners to collect organic matter within the skull. Bone, brain tissue, spinal fluid, all rare resources on the black markets all across the galaxy. It’s dangerous and illegal work. Perfect breeding ground for outlaws.”

“Hu,” he pondered that for a moment, “Well you know, I come from a whole planet of outlaws. You know, we had Jesse James, Bonnie and Clyde, Liam Neeson.”

She did not seem as impressed as he’d hoped she would; Turner on the hand,

“This sounds like a place I would like to visit.”

“What? Oh yeah sure, you totally should big guy. I’ll take you out for a Big Mac and everything.”

A group of kids came running at and around the small group now, laughing to each other or begging for change. Chester shoved his hands in his coat pockets, then pulled his coat tight around himself as he stepped around one of them.

“What your wallets guys.”

Most of them all moved forward, unhindered. F’Rooc though hung back as a red haired little girl stopped in front of him. He smiled gently, going down to one knee. The girl watched with curiosity as he showed her his empty palm before clasping his other hand atop it. He closed his eyes, concentrating; for a moment she thought she saw something flash in his clasped hands. He smiled again, opening his hands to reveal a small butterfly of light. It fluttered and flew up, leaving a little trail of sparkling dust. The girl squealed in awe at that, making the gargoyle’s smile widen as he stood up.

“F’Rooc!”

He looked forward, seeing Daemon had noticed his absence and was now several steps behind their group. The gargoyle gave the girl’s head a gentle pat before he moved to catch up to his partner. The tanned man wasn't happy with his falling behind, and pushed away the hand that tried to pat him now too.

“Don’t think you can weasel your way outta that by being cute, I know what stuff like that foes to you.”

F’Rooc just shook that off, making his companion rejoin the group. Which was good, considering Tootora was directing them to a bar that looked like it wanted to collapse if you just sneezed on it wrong.

“The buyer’s in there?” Daemon snorted, clearly unimpressed.

“We’re instructed to wait here for the buyer’s representative to make contact,” she explained simply, “So just come along.”

Turner grumbled, eyeing the line of rudely dressed people outside, and the bouncer throwing out some drunkard. “This is no respectable place. What do you purpose we do while we wait?”
***
It didn’t take long for the small group to find something to keep them occupied with once they were inside the seedy bar. There was a large group gathered around what someone might call a roulette table, but instead of poker chips and a spinning wheel with a ball, a lizard-like creature was set loose to chase after smaller frog-mice. At first it looked like some sort of race, until the lizard started tearing apart the frog-mice and eating them. The crowd cheered each time that happened. Even Daemon and Turner seemed to be getting along as they watched and tried to out drink the other.

Seeing they were busy and that the blue woman was absent from the scene, Chester moved to go find her. As he left the main room with t he “game table”, he passed the gargoyle who was sitting in a shadowed corner, intently watching the crowd.

“Hey, keep an eyes on them hu,” the blonde said unnecessarily, only getting a half grunt in reply.

He ended up fining her standing on a balcony off another room in the bar, over looking a cascade of stars. Her back was to him, so he took an extra moment to smooth out is hair before he walked up to join at her side.

“You know for what they charge for fuel out here, I may end up loosing money on this deal.”

“You’ll be paid, don’t worry,” she didn't look to him as she spoke, “The buyer’s just making us wait.”

“Hey I get it, standard negotiation tactics,” he leaned against the balcony railing, flashing a silvery smile, “I’m all over this, no worries. You’re looking at a grade-A negotiator here. I’m ready to get all diplomatic on this dude and everything.”

She cracked a slight smile at that. “Well, at least one of us is. My father never really stressed diplomacy as a vital skill unfortunately.”

“Your dad? You mean Crockus?”

She shot him a shark look for that, but there was pain deep in her eyes. “Crockus is not my father,” she looked away again, trying to keep her voice from cracking, “When Crockus invaded my home world, he killed my parents right in front of me. He then tortured me, turning me into a living weapon. When I learned he was going to destroy an entire planet for Roman, I just couldn't…”

He wanted to say something to comfort her, but before he could even half form any thought, she reached to the Walkman that was clipped to his belt in open view.

“Why did you risk your life to go back for this?”

He looked down to it as she took it up and flipped it over, examining it closely.

“It was my mom’s, she gave it to me,” that caused her to look up to meet his eyes, “She used to love sharing with me all the pop songs she loved growing up with you know. And mp3s were all the rage, but we couldn't really afford that, so she always said the classics could only be properly enjoyed via mixed tapes, and how vintage was cooler and would make a comeback, just so I wouldn't feel bad about being poor…” he trailed off a little, green eyes lingering down to the object in blue fingers, “It was one of the few things I had with me the day…I left Earth.”

“And what do you do with it?”

“Listen to music, dance even.”

She scoffed a little, handing it back to him. “I don’t dance.”

“Say whaaat?” he grinned teasingly, “Everybody dances.”

“I’m an assassin, not a dancer Chester.”

As she turned to leave him, a most brilliant idea crossed his thoughts and he couldn't help but smirk.

“You know, we have a legend about people like you on my planet,” she paused at his words, “It’s called Footloose.”

Her curiosity was piqued, so she came back to him, eyebrow quirked in interest. So he continued with his story,

“It’s about this great hero called Kevin Bacon, who teaches an entire city filled with people with sticks up their butts, that dancing is the greatest thing there is.”

She blinked for a second at that, “Who put the sticks up their butts?”

“What? No,” he rolled his eyes at that, waving it off, “It’s just a phrase used…” he clicked the play button, and then removed the headphones from around his neck to place them on her, “Just listen, trust me.”

She was hesitant as the human put the odd devise on her head, but it was instantaneous that she heard the smooth melody of a slow love song played.

“The melody is quite pleasant!” she said a little too loudly.

Chester just nodded at that, despite just being yelled at technically. He of course knew the song by heart, and he was gently helping her move in time to the rhythm. She barely noticed his actions until a hand slid slowly against her hip, and only then did she realize just how close the blonde had gotten.

“No!” she pulled away quickly, drawing one of her daggers as she pushed him away.

“Wha-hey!”

She held the blade tip pointed at him, “I know who you are Chester McBadbat, and I am not some starry eyed waif who will fall for your pelvic sorcery!”

“I wasn't-wait, my what?”

She tore the headphones off and thrust them at him hard before she turned to leave.

“Tootora, wait no, I wasn't,” he tried to reach to go after her, but a loud crash and yelling from the main bar caught both of their attentions.

The pair returned just in time to see the gargoyle throw the yellow titan clear across the gaming table.

“Oh c’mon,” Chester growled; they separated in an attempt to get to their companions quicker.

Meanwhile, F’Rooc was now scrambling over the table to get at the other, only to have Turner punch him down. The gargoyle fell to the floor and the titan was fast on him, unhindered by the fact his opponent was made of stone apparently. The crowd of people around the brawlers were cheering them on, enjoying the free blood sport. The beast was snarling and trying to claw the yellow man off of himself through the flurry of punches.

Tootora reached the fight first and dragged Turner off of the gargoyle. It was also at that moment that Daemon broke through the crowd with his weapon drawn and aimed at the titan. Luckily Chester also made it through the people and pulled the cyborg down.

“Dude! What are you doing?!”

The tanned man pulled away hard, and now the blonde could see the beginnings of a black eye and a busted lip showing that the other had been hit already it seemed.

“Stay out of this kid!” he hissed, glaring daggers at the yellow man.

“This, this thing has no respect!” Turner accused.

“So what?!” Daemon spat back.

“It is an abomination to the natural order!”

“Keep calling me a thing and I swear-!”

“Will you two just calm down!” Chester tried again.

“So what, so all of you can sit there and laugh at me,” the cyborg hissed, “You organics on your high horses, think you’re so mighty. Well you’re not! You’re weak, and pathetic, and breakable, and, and…”

“Daemon you’re drunk, no one’s laughing at you.”

“No, he just spits at me,” he growled, though tears were threatening the corners of his eyes, “Calling me a “thing”, an “it”, treating me like property. I had it tough enough before someone decided they were bored enough to make me. I didn't ask to be sold like a slab of beef for spare parts. I didn't ask to be torn apart over and over, have everything I thought I was destroyed and replaced with metal and circuits. I never wanted to be a monster!” he hissed, choking back the tears and raised his gun again. “So let’s see you call me a toaster again after I liquefy your internal fleshy organs with so much electricity-”

“Daemon please!” Chester tried again, “Four million credits Daemon. Just keep it together for one more day and you’ll be richer than you ever dreamed.”

The cyborg wavered, looking between the blonde and the brunette, pain, anguish, and rage still evident in his teal eyes. It was a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, F’Rooc getting onto an elbow to look at him, that finally made him stand down. He looked away, holstering his weapon.

“Fine. But I won’t promise that once this is over I won’t kill every last one of you jerks,” he mumbled.

Chester was on the verge of tearing his hair out by the sound of the frustration in his voice, “See, that’s why none of you guys have any friends,” he turned and included the blue woman and yellow man in that statement, “Five seconds after you meet someone, you’re already trying to kill them!”

The gargoyle was getting to his feet, going to try to comfort the cyborg who just pushed away the attempts. The titan pulled away from the woman’s grasp, but addressed the human evenly,

“We have raveled halfway across the quadrant, and Roman is nowhere near closer to being dead,” and with that he moved away from them all, through the crowd (who easily parted for him), heading for an exit.

Chester sighed, “Turner, come back!”

“Let him go,” Tootora came over to join him now, “We don’t need him.”

The blonde was about to say something about that when the closest door opened and a woman dressed in white with reddish skin walked in.

“M’lady Tootora, I’m here to fetch you for my master,” she said evenly, bowing sweepingly towards the door for her to follow her out.