The Beginning
It’s been a long day. The thought ran through the crimson skinned man’s mind as he took a long drag off of his cigarette, taking it away from his mouth a second later and flicking the ash off at the end. Part of the ember dropped into the ashtray as he blew the smoke out through his nose, letting it waft around his face with that familiar, satisfying tinge of burnt material on his senses. Sitting back in the comfortable train seat, he looked out the window, which showed a dark, black sky spare the little twinkles; little pinpricks of light all over the place in the distance. Stars. Billions of them, scattered around his field of vision from inside the compartment. A black expanse, with no oxygen, no material to grab onto sat less than three inches from him. If it weren’t for the pressurized cabin, he’d die just like anyone else. He was flying through space on a hyper-rail. His destination was Xacaba, a small, desolate planet ruled by a regime that was sending new drugs throughout the systems in the galaxy. He’d been employed to go and take out a high tier leader under the guise of being a new recruit for a bodyguard. He had no idea who his employer was, either, which he had thought was odd. But in this trade all that matters is the money, he silently reminded himself. And his employer had offered a lot of money.
He took another drag off the cigarette, flicking the ash into the tray again as he slid his left hand down onto the waistband of his loose pants, adjusting them and pulling the belt up to bring his wear higher onto his body as he sat back. He blew the smoke out again, watching it waft through the air again. This time it came from his mouth, which upturned at its corners as he looked to his left. An automaton servant stood there with a drink poised atop an elegant silver platter. The model number K-8920 was labeled across its midsection.
“I’m afraid I must inform you that this is not the smoking cabin, sir. I have prepared and brought your drink as requested, Drakar Likel aged thirty three, but I must ask you to put out the cigarette, sir,” the bot’s voice came out from a module in its cranium. It was shrill and automatic, like a young boy’s voice mixed with a teenaged girl. The crimson skinned man huffed, making a sound of annoyance. His eyes looked back to the window, and he took another drag off the cigarette.
“Yeah, well, shove it. There’s nobody else in the cabin, bot,” he grumbled. The bot reached forward to pull down the drink tray on the back of the seat in front of the man, which directed his attention toward it once more out of the corner of his eyes.
“I insist you put the cigarette out, sir.” The bot stood there still, holding the platter atop its right hand and waiting patiently. It wasn’t going to let up, which was clear. “This is not a designated smoking area.” The crimson man sat up a bit more in his seat, adjusting his belt with his left hand once more and flicking the ash off the end of the cigarette as he turned his head to the bot, blowing a waft right at it. The bot stood still. His eyes scanned over the bot as his gut spoke to him. Telling him to analyze for combat, he followed his feeling.
The bot had a plasma revolver, poised underneath the tray with a cloth over it, pointed directly at the crimson man. A slight sliding sound came across the floor, and the man stared at the bot, reaching to put the cigarette out while staring directly at the bot. His left hand met the edge of the tray, pressing and swiping the ember out on the long stick as he nodded to the bot.
“Alrigh’, friend,” he said softly. He had a gentle accent when he spoke, peculiar in diction and curious to listen to. The bot stared at him, the gun clicking back the safety, which began to warm the end of the revolver. It glowed red. Six foot two, model number K-8290. From the Jkill line of business servants. Total weight is 82.73 kilos. Center of gravity is located in the cranium where the gyroscopic chip lies. The thoughts ran through his head, his eyes locked dead on the bot while his right hand went for the drink, bringing it to his lips as he decided on a line of action for the next few moments. He just had to wait for the strike. There was the sound of something dragging across the floor. The bot’s head tilted down somewhat as its finger went onto the trigger, looking for the source of the sound.
That was the moment. He threw the glass at the bot, sliding to the left out of the chair into the aisle. The glass slammed into the bot’s head, disorienting its chip for a quarter of a second as that same dragging sound came through the air, now the sound of a whip. He brought his right hand underneath the chin of the bot, forcing it back even more as it tried to maintain its footing. Right foot of automaton in front of the left, the whipping sound came from the man himself. A long, prehensile tail almost four feet in length came from underneath his heavy leather jacket, wrapping around the ankle of the bot and pulling toward him as his right hand came to the bot’s chest, forcing it to fall back.
Click. The trigger being pulled. Throosh. The sound of the first plasma shot as the bot found the back of its head slamming into the edge of the table on the opposite side of the aisle. The ocular lights in its cranium went dim, quickly coming back alive as the plasma shot went straight into the air, through the roof of the cabin. Immediately, the entire cabin went dark as the lights were forced out, their main connection tore through. The bot’s lights flickered, and the crimson man pulled his tail back. His eyes flashed, and used the light to improve his vision in the dark, exhaling all his breath as he could feel the cabin quickly becoming depressurized. He had less than a minute until he boiled alive from the inside out.
He forced himself atop the bot, pinning its shoulders with his knees and wrapping his prehensile limb around the base of its head, where it was the weakest at the joint. Pulling up and straight to the left, the joint popped, and the entire central circuit for the automaton went limp under his weight as the central power for the servant was disconnected.
He was already beginning to black out. His vision began to fade, tunnel vision going into full effect as he mouthed the words of an incantation. An unnatural flame suddenly washed over his body as the cabin’s top was torn open by the nanobots trying to equalize the pressure, throwing him into the reaches of space. Cold and black.
Above him, as he was passing out, only kept alive by whatever magic he had used, the last thing he saw was a portal opening directly in front of him, the pressure equalization forcing him to be sucked in and tossed to the ground while it air rushed back into his lungs.
His eyes regained their focus for only half a moment before he finally fell into the throes of unconsciousness. What he saw, his mind could barely process.
A brightly toned and colored room with a ludicrously tall ceiling, colored purple to dark blue. And above him, what looked like two horses, both with a crown of some sort on their head.
“Celestia, what is this creature?” came a soft, powerful voice.
“I have no idea, Luna. But the spell brought it here, so this might be just what we need.” Another voice, less elegant and more concerned. He coughed up some blood, tilting his head to the side as his vision went black.