Veyra limped back to the inn as the sun bled out behind the dunes, plunging the desert into a deep, cold twilight.
The common room was empty save for Raiji, who was sharpening Baneblade by the light of a single glow-stick. He looked up, his eyes missing nothing.
RAIJI: "You're back. Your leg's injured."
VEYRA: (Leaning heavily against the doorframe, breathing hard) "Scouting is easy. Scouting when they have advanced sensors that can see through stealth tech is... hard." She hobbled to a stool and sat down with a pained grunt. "He grabbed me. Had to put a round through the one gap in his gauntlet to make him let go."
She pulled up her pant leg to inspect the damage. The armor weave was torn and stained dark.
RAIJI: "You need wine for that. To clean it."
VEYRA: (Peeling back the torn material) "Maybe a bit... Looks like the power-diffusion layer did its job." She probed the swollen, brutalized flesh beneath. With a sharp hiss, she pressed two fingers to the side of the wound and a flattened, deformed bullet popped out, clinking onto the floor. "Just a deep bone bruise. And a lot of blood."
She took the bottle of rough grain-alcohol wine Raiji offered, uncorked it with her teeth, and without ceremony poured it over the mangled leg. Her jaw clenched, but she didn't make a sound.
SAHARA: The innkeeper appeared from the back, her eyes wide with concern. She held out a roll of clean-ish cloth and a jar of pungent herbal salve. "Here. For the bruising. It'll draw out the heat."
VEYRA: (Nodding her thanks as Sahara began to expertly bind the wound) Her voice, which had been all business, dropped to a low, venomous simmer. The pain was fading, replaced by something colder and sharper. "Now... I want revenge."
Next day. A heavy sandstorm howled outside, turning the world into a blur of ochre rage. The wind screamed against the hull of the grounded airship.
At the edge of the storm's veil, a convoy arrived: trucks and hovercars, their lights cutting through the dusty gloom. Leading them was the same scavenger leader Kiro had beaten, now standing beside a new, more imposing figure.
This man was covered in intricate, savage tattoos swirling patterns of red and black that coiled like serpents and depicted snarling desert animals across his bare arms and chest. He exuded a silent, predatory calm.
SCAVENGER LEADER: (Yelling over the wind) "Boss! This ship is parked illegally! We should seize it!" At his signal, men scrambled forward, throwing heavy tow-cables and grapples onto the ship's landing gear. Engines roared as they began to pull.
The entire ship groaned and shuddered.
Kiro burst from the airlock, squinting against the stinging sand.
KIRO: "What are you idiots doing?! Scavengers again?!"
SCAVENGER LEADER: (A vicious grin splitting his face) "Boss! That's him! The one who attacked us and stole my pet! The ungrateful beast!"
The tattooed boss turned his gaze on Kiro. It was as assessing and cold as the storm.
THE BOSS: "So. You're the one who tamed my property." He didn't raise his voice. He simply gestured with one tattooed hand. "Get him."
KIRO: (Cracking his neck) "Again? Don't you guys learn?"
SCAVENGER LEADER: "Nope. Not 'again.' This time, the boss is here."
KIRO: He let out a sharp whistle. "Saber! Get them! Show me how angry you are!"
From behind the ship, a low growl answered the storm's roar. The massive sabertooth launched into the fray, a blur of brown fur and fury. He barreled into a group of scavengers, sending them flying, then swiped a powerful paw at the leader.
The leader was knocked back but drew a jagged blade. "How dare you, you traitor!" He lunged at Saber, aiming a punch at the beast's muzzle before swinging his blade in a vicious arc.
The leader's blade came down in a fiery arc. Saber, snarling, twisted and dodged the first few slashes, the heat singeing his fur. But one blazing strike connected, carving a searing line across the sabertooth's chest.
The beast roared in pain but didn't retreat. Enraged, he reared up and brought both massive paws down in a crushing blow, slamming the leader into the sand. Saber pounced, ready to finish it.
The leader scrambled up, blood streaming from a gash on his head, his armor now sporting deep claw marks. He swung another wild, flaming slash. Saber ducked under it and lunged from the side, his jaws closing not on flesh, but on the leader's armored shoulder plate. With a mighty shake of his head, Saber lifted the man and hurled him through the air before delivering a final, disdainful kick that sent him tumbling.
The leader lay still, defeated.
A hush fell over the other scavengers, their bravado gone. Then, slow, deliberate footsteps crunched on the sand.
The tattooed Boss stepped forward, his expression unreadable. He walked directly toward the panting, wounded Saber, who bared his teeth in a warning growl.
The Boss didn't flinch. He simply raised a hand and placed it flat on the sabertooth's broad head, right between the eyes.
THE BOSS: His voice was a low, undeniable rumble, a sound of pure dominance. "Sit."
The growl died in Saber's throat. A conflict flashed in the beast's eyes the loyalty to his new friend versus the ingrained, primal obedience to the alpha who had once owned him. The instinct won. With a low whine, the mighty sabertooth lowered his haunches and sat in the sand, subdued.
THE BOSS: (Giving Saber's head a patronizing pat) "Good beast."
He then turned his calm, deadly gaze to Kiro.
KIRO stared, shocked, as Saber whined in confusion but obeyed the primal command. The beast's eyes glowed a sickly, controlled red as he turned, muscles coiling against his will, and lunged at his new friend.
Kiro dodged the magically-enforced swipe, grabbing the sabertooth by the scruff and using his momentum to throw him aside. "Saber! Fight it!"
But the sandstorm chose that moment to intensify. A screaming wall of grit and howling wind slammed into them, reducing visibility to arm's length. It was chaos and Kiro used it.
He became a ghost in the storm. One moment he was by Saber, the next he had closed the distance with the Boss through the blinding fury. He drove a fist into the tattooed man's chest with a sound like a gong.
The Boss skidded back through the sand but caught himself, his feet digging twin trenches. He wasn't hurt, just... moved. For the first time, a flicker of something other than calm passed over his face interest. He looked not at Kiro, but past him, toward the lights of Scrap Town shimmering in the dusty haze.
Meanwhile, back at the inn...
SAHARA: (Frantic knocking on Raiji's door) "They're here! For the payment! And they're not happy they want more!"
Raiji opened the door, awake instantly, his usual groggy demeanor gone. He picked up his swords without a word.
RAIJI: "Lead me to them."
In the common room stood five bandits. Four were typical muscle. The fifth was their leader: a tall, slim man in an improbably clean white suit and glasses that gleamed in the low light. He looked like a bureaucrat who had wandered into a warzone.
BANDIT 1: "You stand down! You must pay one hundred scrap, or"
He didn't finish. Raiji's hand shot out, not for a sword, but to grip the man's jaw and slam his head into the doorframe. The bandit crumpled, unconscious.
RAIJI: (His voice a low, deadly monotone) "Talk. Fast. You in the glasses. Or you're next."
THE LEADER - ANTON: (His voice sharp, carrying a precise, German-accented clip) "I am Anton. I am here for our boss. You pay one hundred. If you do not, you become our property."
RAIJI: "Slow down." As he spoke, he moved. Two more bandits lunged; with a single, blurred horizontal slash of Baneblade's hilt, he cracked their heads together. They dropped. "You don't make the rules. My terms: you leave. Tell your coward of a boss to come out and fight me himself. If I have to come to him, I will cut down that skull lair of his.even in halve"
ANTON: His composure cracked. "How dare you give me orders?!" He moved with shocking speed for a slim man, his foot a blur aimed at Raiji's face a move that shattered the floorboards where he stood.
But Raiji was no longer there. He had stepped inside Anton's guard. Without drawing the blade, he slammed the heavy pommel of his sword into Anton's temple.
Thud.
Anton's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed into the splintered wood.
Raiji stepped over him, sheathing his sword. "Tell him when he wakes up," he said to the last, petrified bandit, before walking out into the building storm.
VEYRA stepped into the common room, blinking against the early morning gloom seeping through the storm-shutters. Five bandits were groaning on the floor. She'd heard the commotion and come prepared.
"Bit early for a brawl," she muttered, raising her pistols. Pfft. Pfft. Pfft. A series of soft reports, and sleeping bullets found their marks. The remaining bandits slumped over before they could even turn around, joining their friends in unconscious heaps.
RAIJI: (Wiping a speck of blood from his lip) "Oh. You're up. Sorry about the noise."
VEYRA: "I was having a good dream, too. Anyway, I'm heading to Kiro. Remember, you might need him to draw out the real boss." She headed for the door, then paused. "Don't get knockhim out or kill him."
As she slipped out, the man in the white suit Anton stirred with a groan, pushing himself up from the splintered floor. His glasses were cracked, but his eyes were sharp with fury.
ANTON: "You are fast. But I am faster."
RAIJI: He didn't respond. He simply drew both blades and settled into a ready stance.
Anton vanished in a blur of motion. To Raiji, it was less like seeing a man and more like seeing a flash of displaced air. A barrage of kicks came from all angles high, low, sweeping. Raiji's swords became a silver wheel, parrying and blocking each strike with sharp clangs of metal on reinforced bone.
He saw an opening and slashed. Anton bent backwards at an impossible angle, the blade whistling over his chest, and rebounded with a kick that cratered the floor where Raiji had stood.
Raiji dashed back, creating space. "Wind Strike!" A crescent of compressed air shot forward.
Anton didn't dodge. He spun and kicked upwards, dispersing the air blade with a shockwave. "Thunder Kick!" he shouted, his foot crackling with blue-white energy. He launched forward.
The lightning-fast kick connected before Raiji could fully block, the electrical discharge surging through him and launching him through the air. He crashed through a table and slid to a stop.
Anton stood panting, a smirk on his face. "Had enough, swordsman?"
From the wreckage, Raiji pushed himself up. He brushed debris off his shoulders, his expression unchanged. "These iron ribs are good. I barely felt it." He wasn't boasting; it was a clinical observation.
He raised a hand. "Mini-Nado."
A tiny, violent tornado of razor-sharp wind erupted around Anton, too fast to escape. It wasn't large, but it was concentrated chaos, shredding his pristine white suit and slicing shallow cuts across his body. With a cry, Anton was lifted and thrown hard against the wall, slumping to the floor, defeated.
Raiji walked over, the tip of Baneblade resting against Anton's throat. "Now. Talk. Who is your boss?"
ANTON: (Gasping through the pain) "Fine... I am one of three leaders. The other... your friend is meeting him now. He is stronger than me. But the boss... the Sword Thief... he is on another level. Skill, swords... way better."
RAIJI: (A cold fire igniting in his eyes) "Scum like him only steals. He never wonders what it means to wield." He glanced toward the door, the sound of the storm a constant roar. "Never wonders what Kiro is doing out there in that."
Meanwhile, outside the city... The sandstorm raged at its peak.