The boy was trembling as he clutched to Tristan. Tristan glanced around the beam he'd dived behind to give them cover from the mark’s men, assessing the situation. He couldn’t see the mark anymore, but he was screaming obscenities. Five guards to take down. Five well trained ex-military people who will shoot him the moment they can get a bead on him. Very bad odds. He grinned. When did the universe ever put the odds in his favor? He leaned back against the column. And took a breath, preparing himself. He adjusted the blast strength on the Harken to max, it was the only way to ensure it would go through the armor. Unfortunately, it only gave him half a dozen shot and he’d have to run away from anyone with a gun to take them out of here. He could take two of them out for certain, after that— He saw motion in the darkness. Had more guards joined them? Had Alex missed some that were closer? A woman moved with a beam of light and he saw a dirty brown jacket with patches. She moved cautiously scanning around, gun in hand. Tristan could make out a handful of people behind her. Mercs he could deal with. “Buddy,” he whispered, “We’re going to have to run while people shoot at us, can you do that?” The boy looked terrified, but he nodded. Tristan squeezed his shoulder. Then stood. He indicated the direction the mercs were in, and the boy tightened his grip on his leg, but nodded. “Buddy, I can carry you if you prefer.” The boy shook his head and released Tristan’s leg. Tristan took off for the mercs, making sure to go no faster then the boy could keep up with while weaving around. One of the mercs in the shadows pointed at them. “There.” Guns leveled in his direction. “Don’t shoot,” the woman said. “You idiots might hit the kid.” Perfect. Tristan fired three times and three of the mercs dropped, burnt hole in their chest. At least one of them didn’t care for their leader’s orders and fired back, missing by a wide margin. A shot came from behind him that took down the mercs’ leader. Tristan fired twice more, downing the last two and ducked behind another column. More fire in his direction and he heard permacrete clatter to the floor where they hit the column. He dragged a merc close, a large man who, when Tristan turned over turned out to have pale gray skin with ridges where the eyes should be. Not human, but not a species Tristan was familiar with. The hole in the vest rendered it useless, but the man had four guns on a harness. Tristan unclipped that and hastily put it on. He could hear the guards approaching, as well as a large group of people moving closer in the darkness. The man had a few grenades. Irshkom breaching grenades. He eyed the wall in the distance. He’d have to get closer to use them on that. The wall exploded. Tristan pulled the boy to him and turned his back to the explosion. He felt burning on his back as superheated permacrete which hadn’t had time to cool completely hit him. He ground his teeth. After a moment he glanced over his shoulder. Daylight was pouring it, casting a large group of merc in shadow. Tristan looked at the boy. “Buddy?” His eyes were still filled with terror, but he nodded. Tristan was impressed with the boy’s tenacity. He’d worked with plenty of mercs who would be useless whimpering masses with half the fear he saw in those eyes. He ran toward the opening. Took a grenade, lobbed it in that direction and pulled the boy with him as he ducked behind a column. He took out a gun and fired into the darkness to keep those mercs on their toes. The explosion was loud and bright. Breaching grenades were also great for killing a large number of people. Body parts fell around. He ran for the opening, shooting at whoever was moving. When the gun stopped firing, he dropped it, took out another and kept shooting. When he walked by a body he checked for weapons, and replaced the guns he’d dropped. They didn’t fit well in the harness, but they held. Outside his eyes quickly adjusted to the brightness. Ships were flying around, firing at buildings and each other. Everyone wanted to be the one to claim the bounty, or take their revenge on the man who’d set all this up. Tristan didn’t care, he was just happy for the added chaos. A group of mercs was moving purposely along the side of the warehouse. The woman leading them pointed in Tristan’s direction, yelled something he couldn’t make out due to the distance and abundance of other noises and started running. He judged her distance and took out the remote. The bombs were inside the warehouse, but there was one in that area. He detonated all of them. The wall where she stood ballooned outward and then she and her mercs disappeared in the explosion. Tristan waited for the other bombs in the warehouse to go off. The nice thing about the mercs who had breached this wall was that they had destroyed the explosive he’d put there, so he and the boy were safe. The dust and debris caused a pause in the fighting closest to the building, and when that settled enough for Tristan to see, he started running again, When he looked at his side he wasn’t surprised to see the boy there. Running as hard as he could. Tristan fired at anyone in their path, dropping drained guns and picking up replacements as needed. He didn’t kill anyone up close, to keep from pushing the boy past his breaking point. He couldn’t afford to lose him now, not until he was certain all of this was over. It was slow going, having to hide from people who’d stop fighting each other the moment they’d noticed his dark furred body to fire at him. He cut through a few buildings, but had to fight more people there than he’d expected, there were so many mercs here that they spilled out over everything. Just how many had showed up for this? Alex had said something about the amount of the bounty bringing out even the amateurs, and Tristan hadn’t particularly believed that. Now he had to admit that he might have been right. At least the lack of skill a lot of them demonstrate played in his favor. For the boy’s benefit Tristan left far more unconscious bodies then he preferred, but killing them in cold blood while efficient would certainly send the boy running away. As he approached the hangar where his shuttle was the sky cleared up, the majority of the ships flying off toward one taking off in the distance. If the mark had survived the warehouse’s destruction, hopefully that was him taking off to be hunted down past the edge of the universe. Let the man who’s set so many mercs on Tristan’s tail deal with them now and see how he liked it. With the ships flying off, many of the mercs on the ground ran for their own ships, not wanting to be left out of the chase. This should mean they would have an easy time leaving this place. Glancing inside the hangar he was surprised to see the number of bodies littering the ground. And a cluster of them fighting away from his shuttle. He looked at it, but other than a couple of burn marks it looked fine. Staying against the wall he guided the boy, keeping his gun pointed at the cluster of fighter. He didn’t want to fire at them and be noticed. A woman fell and Tristan saw Alex, knife in each hand, covered in cuts, hold off the seven left. Tristan stopped and almost fired in the group to even the odds, but then he noticed the gleeful expression on Alex’s face. Tristan lowered his gun and continued to edge toward the shuttle. By the time he reached the ramp, tree more of Alex’s attackers had fallen. He turned to the boy. “Buddy, I need you to go to your room, lock the door and don’t unlock it for anyone, okay? When it’s safe me or Alex will open it, okay?” The boy nodded, but didn’t move. “Is he going to be okay?” Tristan looked at the fight in time to see another man fall. “Yeah, I think he will be.” He gave the boy a light push. “Come on, go in, and lock your door.” The boy disappeared inside. Tristan watched Alex fight, wondering where exactly that level of skill came from. He’d trained with the human and he’d never shown himself to be this good. Anger surged, but he kept it down. Alex had kept something from him. He walked toward the fight as a woman fell to the ground, blood pouring from her cut throat. Leaving only two. A moment later there was only one left and he decided he didn’t want to die. He turned and ran, but before he’d made it six steps he had a knife in the back of his neck and crumpled down. “I’m impressed.” Tristan took a step toward Alex. “But I’m also—” He backed off and a knife came within inches of slicing his neck. Alex moved with him. Slicing and stabbing, but Tristan dodged the attacks. “Alex, stop this, now.” The human kept attacking him. Tristan searched the human’s face for a clue to explain why he was attacking him now, but all he saw was the same gleeful expression he’d worn the entire fight. It was almost maniacal. With a growl Tristan unsheathed his claws and swiped at the human. He felt pain up his arm as Alex avoided the strike and slashed almost faster than Tristan could see. Tristan slashed with both hands, but Alex avoided almost all of them, and those that did connect, the human didn’t seem to notice. Tristan collected cuts on his chest and arms until he had enough of this. No one attacked him and lived. He intercepted the next stab with his arm, letting the knife sink deep in the muscle and then wrenched it out of Alex’s hand. He aimed his blow at the human’s throat, intending to cut it open, but at the last moment he closed his hand in a fist and pulled the blow to avoid crushing his throat. Alex stumbled back, and fell, gasping for breath, but he didn’t stop moving. He glanced around and went for the closest knife. As his hand closed on it Tristan slammed his foot on top. Finally the pain seemed to register with the human and he screamed. When Alex looked up at him, there was panic in his eyes instead of the maniacal glee. Tristan lifted his foot and Alex backed away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I was— I can’t—” Tristan stepped toward him and Alex backed away. This kept up until Alex was against one of the landing legs of the shuttle. Tristan pulled the knife out of his arm. “What is this?” “I can—I can’t.” Alex was so terrified he couldn’t form a full sentence. Tristan grabbed him by the neck and pulled him off his feet. He didn’t squeeze the life out of his, but Alex still had to grab on and pull himself to be able to breathe. Tristan turned and indicated the massacre. “How? I’ve pushed you. I know what you’re capable of. You should have died here. How did you fight them off? What else are you keeping from me?” The fear in Alex’s eyes turned to anger. He raised his feet and kicked at Tristan’s stomach, catching him on one of the deeper cuts. The pain was enough that Tristan lost his grip on the human. Alex was in a crouch, rubbing his neck. “You think I wanted to do this? I hate it when this happens.” Tristan pushed the pain away, he wasn’t going to show any weakness in front of this human. “I saw you fight. I saw your face. You loved it.” “No!” Alex on his feet, trembling. “I hate it. I am nothing like you. I don’t like killing anyone.” Tristan looked at the human, a smile forming on his lips. “You think I enjoy killing?” He laughed. “I’ve seen your file,” Alex growled. “I've seen the massacres you’ve committed. Only someone who loves killing does that.” “Those death were necessary.” His tone was even. He didn’t care if Alex understood, but he was going to disabuse him of this misconception. “Blowing up a station full of people? Families? Kids? Was necessary? Why?” “To sent a message to someone who had tried to have me killed and destroyed the town I lived in.” “You didn’t kill him?” “I wanted him to suffer.” He couldn’t keep the hate from his voice. He’d spent a decade establishing his identity there, and Justin had sent mercenaries to lay waste to the place. Alex looked at him. He could see him thinking. Trying to fit that in what he thought he knew. “You’re right. We’re nothing alike. I kill to ensure my survival.” He indicated the bodies. “You killed them because you enjoyed it.” Alex’s body shook, the anger in his eyes turning into rage. Tristan prepared himself, but instead of attacking him, Alex’s eyes rolled back and he crumbled to the ground. Tristan was confused for a moment. Cautiously he approached the human, was this a trick? He knew Alex could be cunning, but this? When the human didn’t move he checked him. He was unconscious. His wounds had finally taken their tolls. Tristan lied down next to him and with no one to observe him he groaned in pain. It had been a long time since anyone had hurt him this badly. He chuckled at the absurdity of it. This human had hurt him worse than even the Butcher of Kraven Claw. He really should leave him here to die.