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Tango covered his head with his cloak and looked around cautiously, making sure he was out of sight from the wanted posters plastered on the wall. He walked through the crowded streets of the trader’s planet, planet 0-2618. It was small, and larger species like him needed a ‘Gravity Balancificatior’, as he likes to call it, to keep him walking straight.
To make sure he wasn’t spotted he had his cloak and also had his oxygen mask, but he wasn’t sure if the small face covering would help conceal his identity completely. The Blazeborn quickly maneuvered out of the way of different species walking around, trying to get to a certain shop.
There were a myriad of different shops from all sorts of species, there was a shop for traditional Avian garments, Wolfian carnivorous food stops, tourist stands for souvenirs and other shops like that. Tango walked past a few more stands and shops before finding his destination.
He smiled and took in the shop in front of him. It was another one of the hundreds of food shops, with minimal seating and almost no customers in sight. The criminal walked in and took off his cloak all together, walking straight into the ‘employees only’ door despite not having worked there a day in his life.
Inside the room sat two other men, one with multiple small white wings hovering and attached to his back and head, with an almost blinding halo hovering over him. The other man had small horns coming from his head and a large black tail.
“Tango!” Skizz and Impulse smiled. Tango waved at them and set down his stuff, walking over to the two and sitting down at the couch.
“We didn’t know you would be visitin’ the shop today!” Skizz smiled and patted his back.
Tango shook his head, sighing. “Oh I’m just here to grab a few things! I can’t be staying for too long.”
“Of course, the whole ‘wanted’ thing..” Impulse frowned. “You can’t stay anywhere in this solar system for too long after that.”
Tango scoffed. “I didn’t even do anything wrong! I just took a couple things.”
“You’re basically a bandit.”
“Toe-mat-o, Ta-ma-to.” Tango shrugged, Skizz just laughed at the two. “So if you’re just here for a bit what’re you stopping here for?”
“What, I can’t say hello to my two best buds?”
Skizz and Impulse looked to each other then back at Tango, raising an eyebrow.
“Why are you looking at me like that.”
Impulse sighed and shook his head. “Nothing, nothing. Do you have the stuff that you need?”
“Not yet, it's a couple shops down.”
“Don’t steal! We won’t be balling you out.”
“Yeah yeah, like I'll get caught!” Tango scoffed and crossed his arms, looking at his friends in feigned betrayal at the thought of him even being noticed.
“Just get goin’! Don’t want ya getting caught, Top!” Skizz laughed and Tango huffed, getting up and grabbing his stuff, throwing his cloak over himself and waving goodbye to the two. He left the breakroom and the shop entirely, walking through the still crowded streets of 0-2618.
“Redstone, redstone, redstone.” He repeated to himself as he looked around for a redstone shop. There had to have been some around here, right? The last time he was here wasn’t too long ago, not much should have changed. He swore there was one around the corner.
He clinged to the side of the wall of a random building, waiting for a crowd of people to pass. A rando suddenly slammed into his side, banging his head against the wall of the building.
“Aw- what the–!” The perpetrator was gone and Tango was left looking around for them. He rolled his eyes and stopped when his eyes caught a wanted poster of him. His eyes widened and he quickly snatched it, shoving it in his bag quickly and running off to find the shop again.
A few more minutes of walking proved successful as he quickly found the redstone shop, rushing inside and looking around. He smiled slightly and walked over to the counter, looking at all the different contraptions around the shop made with the solar system’s native power source, redstone. He waved slightly at the man behind the counter, talking with him shortly. He was only here to collect his order.
As the employee nodded and left to the backroom to presumably collect his order, the door opened and two men, both seemed strong and taller but were Felines.
A relatively weak species, Felines were a deviation of earth centric animals. A species ‘man-made’ as the Humans called it, from ‘Genetic Engineering.’ They adorned special hats that had a small badge on it with intricate designs. He shuttered a bit and tried to ignore them as he waited. Tango tapped his foot on the ground and fidgeted with the oxygen-control watch on his wrist to ease his nerves.
The man walked out and called his name, well, an alias, but he collected the bag and turned around quickly, his eyes caught the sight of the two Felines and they looked at each other. One slowly pulled something out of his bag, and Tango quickly realized that the item was the wanted poster, his wanted poster.
His eyes widened and he sprinted past the two Felines, running out of the store with the two very quickly following suit. Tango panicked and looked back, bad decision, he thought as they were closer than they seemed.
His pace quickened and he shoved past a bunch of people trying to make it back to his ship. Shouts could be heard, and the two Felines screamed at him to stop.
His hood fell off with the wind as he ran, but he didn’t quite seem to care anymore. He made it to the ‘Parking lot’ of sorts with the ships, but struggled to get past anymore as he was starting to get surrounded by more and more species. There were some in small ships and some standing in front of larger ones holding guns out at him. Tango sighed and gave up, holding his hands up in surrender.
He felt the furry hands of one of the Felines cuff him. He huffed, the air around him getting slightly hotter. He felt the hair on his head catch fire, but it didn’t worry him. The feline held his wrists tighter and Tango whacked his tail at the Feline. The Feline kept his grip on him and pulled him to one of the, who he assumed, was the police ship.
“Can I atleast unpark my ship!” Tango shouted and the two just yelled at him to shut up.
—
Tango was harshly shoved into a cell, it was small and cramped, but he could still walk around just a bit and stand. Tango watched as the two Felines locked up the cell and spoke to each other before turning to him. “The Sheriff will speak to you.”
Tango watched in fear as the two left and he was alone. The Sheriff? What's a Sheriff? Tango shuddered, he didn’t get a name or anything. Just Sheriff.
The cell was claustrophobic and creepy, it was bland and dark with one window to the side of the cell. Windows, an odd choice. Not many species tend to actually use windows other than earth centric ones. But he supposes since the officers were Felines then this was probably an earth centric ship. Which would make sense why his stupid oxygen mask was taken from him, which, in his opinion, was unfair! That was his property after all. He made it himself so he didn’t need a bulky helmet. An earth centric ship would mean the air was oxygen for most people on it.
He frowned and laid down, he shouldn’t have been so careless. Impulse and Skizz were right. Oh, they weren’t going to bail him out were they? He was stuck in foreign-solar system jail for the foreseeable future.
Tango shot up as he heard footsteps coming from around the corner, he rushed to the bars of the cell and looked around, frightened.
“Which holding cell is the bandit in?” Said a relatively normal voice, normal for a species not from his planet. There was ruffling and a humm, then footsteps slowly fading away.
After that a silhouette had walked in, slowly getting closer to the cell. “Who’s there!” Tango foolishly said, trying to find any features on the face of the species who had walked in.
“Calm down, space bandit.” Said the voice, Tango’s anger grew and he could feel his tail and hair getting hotter. Suddenly an idea popped in his head as he let his tail set fire. He flicked it in front of them for a light source, the species flinched and took a step back.
A Human, he thought to himself. That was the man he was so scared of? A weak species?
Humans were the original ‘sentient’ life form on a large planet called earth, they were an old species but still one of the last to leave their home planet. Humans were considered one of the more peaceful species, as of their weak build and their position on the Intergalactic Council which always strives for peace. This makes the entire species look useless to the rest of the species around them. Along with this, they don’t have much over any other species physically other than how tall their males could grow. So yes, it was a bit surprising seeing such a weak species be the one he was so scared of.
The Human, who seemed to be a male, looked agitated, holding a wide stick with glass at one side pointing to it, he was banging on the back of it before it suddenly lit up with light. Tango hissed at the new light and moved his tail, covering his eyes and hiding away from the bright light.
The man smiled and pointed the light at Tango, he blinked slowly and looked up at him to adjust. “Mind pointing that away from my eyes?”
The Sheriff scoffed and pointed it away from Tango and down at his chest instead. “You have no right to demand stuff, Space Bandit.”
Tango blinked and tilted his head. “A what bandit?”
“A spa– whatever. You just need to stay in this holding cell until we get to planet Xeolia.”
Xeolia? A planet that didn’t hold any sort of native life that was even bothered to be named, because it was a prison planet. “Xeolia? Is that really necessary, Sheriff sir?”
“Sheriff Jimmy, to you Space Bandit.” The Sheriff seemed annoyed, and glared at him.
“I don’t care for your name, Space Sheriff. ” Tango snickered.
“Yeah yeah, laugh it up.” The Sheriff– Jimmy, he reminded himself, looked away, his face grew a bit red but Tango pretended that he didn’t notice. Tango crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at him.
“You don’t look like the scary warden– or well– ‘Sheriff’ I was expecting.”
“What! I am plenty scary!” The man’s voice went funny and louder, and Tango fully laughed at him and bent over.
“Sorry sorry, I can’t help it. Cuties like you aren’t as scary as you think.”
“Alright thats it, Flick, Norman, Shut ‘em up!” The man grew even more red and shouted at who he assumed must have been the two Felines. Tango quickly shot up, “Wait no! You don’t need to do that!”
“Good.”
Tango glared at him and looked him up and down. “How did someone as weak as you get to be in charge of such authority?” Jimmy looked shocked and scoffed at him.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, well, you’re a Human! How do you expect to keep a Blazeborn locked up and away with the way you are!” Tango explained, talking with his hands.
Jimmy glared at him and pulled out something from his belt. It was black and shiney, and had a hole through the middle of it. He was holding it from a handle and he pressed it up against Tango’s chest through the bars. “You better can it, you arrogant thief. There has been no record of an alien surviving a shot from a Human gun. I don’t think you want to try and be the first, Handsome .” Jimmy mocked the use of the other flirty nickname Tango used earlier, but Tango only focused on one word.
Alien. The Human word for beings not from earth. Tango shivered at the word and backed off quickly, not wanting to anger the man further.
“Fine.” Tango muttered and went to sit back on the cot. Just then, his watch had started buzzing. He looked up at Jimmy, who was still watching over him to see if he heard the small buzzing noise. The man didn’t seem to notice and just watched the entrance of the cell. Tango quickly clicked on the watch, watching as the connection from his watch to his oxygen mask had disconnected. He smirked as he got the notification, because if he got the notification, so had someone else.
He’d programmed the mask to be hooked up to a notification system, in case anything had happened to him. If his mask were to be disconnected from him or his watch a few people would be notified and would ask if he was okay.
The Sheriff looked at him and raised an eyebrow, “What are you planning, looking so smug.”
“Nothing, Nothing.” Tango snickered and looked out the window, just patiently waiting for his ride to arrive. Jimmy just rolled his eyes. “Listen Space Bandit, We’re almost at Xeolia.”
“If by almost you mean a cycle away.”
“In Human terms we like to call it just hours away.”
“Who really cares? Not me.” Tango rolled his eyes,
Jimmy slowly got angrier and opened his mouth to yell at him, but got quickly cut off by a loud bang and a large object flying through the window of the cell. Jimmy screamed and dodged it by a hair, pulling out his gun to protect himself. The two Felines ran back into the room, holding their own guns.
The broken window was slowly leaking the oxygen from the ship, and Tango held his breath, poking his head out the window to see Etho’s own small speed ship right under the broken window.
“Hey Etho!” He quickly shouted. Etho waved at him, and Tango could hear shouts coming from behind him.
“Get back here, Bandit!” Shouted the sheriff. Tango just laughed at him.
“It truly has been fun but I can’t afford to go to prison!” Tango saluted and jumped out of the window, holding his breath.
Etho’s ship sped up and Etho reached a hand out to pull Tango in. He grabbed the wolfian’s hand and allowed himself to be pulled into the small speedship. Etho then shot off, quickly speeding away from the larger ship.
“How’d you manage to get yourself into trouble this time?” Etho sighed. Tango just hummed, “Not sure.”
Etho sighed and just continued to drive the ship. Tango looked behind to watch as the larger ship slowly faded away into the dark nothingness of space. He thought about the sheriff, there’s no way he’s ever going to go back to this solar system now. Not even if Skizz and Impulse want him too.