NYTE CLUB LEVEL FIFTY

  THE NYTE TOWER

  SMUGGLER’S HAVEN

  PLANET SKILIA

  THE SERPENUS GALACTIC SECTOR

  “RAGGUS… I THINK THAT’S ‘HIM’ OVER THERE,” the yellow-skinned, pink-eyed, and portly-looking Snorixan Bounty Hunter Plo Clavan. “I think that’s the one we’ve been searching for sector after sector for… THE WORLD-BREAKER.”

  “Urgh… The thrack are you on about, skogger,” Raggus Vaun, the most feared Drogarthian Bounty Hunter in the whole Known Twenty-Four Galactic Sectors, angrily asked Plo.

  Pointing over at a disheveled, humanoid-looking man who had long, dirty blond hair that ran all the way down to his mid-back area, a big bushy beard, and was draped in an old, hole-ridden hooded cloak, Plo stated, “I said that I think that's who we’re after, Raggus. ‘The World-Breaker’. You remember the bounty, don’t you?”

  “‘Course I remember the thracking bounty! How could I forget a bounty that's worth…”

  “TEN BILLION CURRENS,” said Satyr-looking, four-eyed Foan Bounty Hunter Calryin whilst he nursed a goblet of Skilian Ale.

  Glancing over Calryin, Raggus seethed, “I THRACKING KNOW.”

  “Grand. Just making sure, Boss. Heh, heh,” Calryin chuckled, which made Raggus even MORE angry.

  “I say we zero’em,” Plo said while retaining a twisted look in his eyes as he stealthily ‘unclicked’ the latch on his Pulsar Auto-Pistol’s thigh-holster.

  Noticing this, Raggus gritted, “Keep your impenametal DOWN before I shove it down your throat, raxx-head.”

  “A-Apologies, B-Boss,” Plo nervously stammered. “I was just…”

  “Just NOTHING, you kroone! You know the rules in ‘Lord Nyte’s’ Tower. Absolutely NO violence of any sort. ANY. THRACKIN’. SORT.”

  Finishing off the last bit of his ale, Calryin turned to his rather ‘foul-smelling’ Snorixan ‘ally’ and said, “Better listen to him, P. I heard that the Nyte puts whoever crosses him the wrong way in the SKILIAN WAR PITS to die painful… AGONIZING deaths.”

  Drenched in a cold, nervous sweat now, a terrified Plo asked, “Ruh-Really, Cal?”

  “Yeah, P… REALLY,” Calryin smirked whilst taking note his fellow bounty hunter’s rising fear.

  “Urgh… For the love of the High-Elders… CUT THE RAXX!!!” Raggus raged, which made Calryin and Plo straighten up immediately.

  Setting his eyes back on the cloaked man, who sat all by his lonesome up at the circular pink and blue neon-lit bar that served any patron who populated the fiftieth floor of mysterious Intergalactic Warlord Nyte’s club ‘ultrastructure’, Raggus asked, “Plo, how do you even know if that skogger’s the thracking ‘World-Breaker’?”

  “Yeah,” Calryin followed as he too began to examine the cloaked man. “He could be just some lowly skogger who spends what ‘little currens’ that he has left on either Ale, TOX, Pleasure Mistresses… OR MASTERS. Heh, heh…”

  Scrunching his brow as he looked back over at the cloaked man, Plo said, “Well, I don’t know if it’s him. Not for sure, but I mean, he matches the holo-vid descriptions. Here… LOOK!”

  Bringing up his personal Holo-Gauntlet that was latched around his left forearm, Plo tapped on its holo-screen to bring up a holo-projection of what the notorious ‘World-Breaker’ looked like before he ‘went off the deep end’.

  “Alright. Now here’s what he looked like before,” Plo said as he displayed a slowly rotating holo of the World-Breaker’s former ‘clean cut’, regal-looking self to both Raggus and Calryin. “Let me update the holo-proj and… HERE. Here’s what he should look like today-cycle.”

  After updating the holo-projection, Plo revealed the brushy, ‘mountain-man’ virtual representation of what the World-Breaker would look like in the present time.

  “Hm. I still don’t know, P,” Calryin said warily. “Seems like a bit of a stretch to me… AND AN ALL TOO CONVENIENT COINCIDENCE.”

  “I’m tellin’ you guys that it’s him!” Plo said erratically.

  Looking up at Raggus again, Plo asked, “What do you think now that you’ve seen the holo-proj, Boss? Do you agree or…”

  “NO,” Raggus gritted.

  “Nuh-No?” Plo stammered.

  “That’s what the Boss said, P,” Calryin followed.

  Plo’s face then dropped as Raggus kept his eyes pinned on the cloaked man.

  “Wuh-Well… Okay then. Auh-Alright,” Plo stuttered. “Apologies for wastin' your ti--”

  “Shut the thrack up, Plo!” Raggus barbed, silencing his subordinate.

  Letting out a deep sigh, Raggus grunted, “Urgh… Thrack it. Follow me, raxx-eaters.”

  “Fuh-Follow you?” Plo asked in confusion. “Follow you WHERE, Raggus?”

  “OVER THERE to the thracker in the RAXX-COVERED cloak.”

  Confused, Calryin asked, “Wait a milli-cycle, Raggs. Don’t tell me that you ACTUALLY believe that…”

  “I believe in NOTHING, Cal,” Raggus stated firmly. “I just want to see what a piece of raxx like that is doing in such a ‘prestigious’ club as this one. Something tells me that he isn’t just here for the ale.”

  Shaking his head, Calryin said, “Ugh… I don’t know, Boss. Somethin’ ‘bout this doesn’t feel right.”

  Glaring at the Foan, Raggus asked, “You wouldn’t be disobeying me now… WOULD YOU, CAL?”

  “Ugh… No, Boss. No ‘disobeying’ here. Lead the thrack right on.”

  Raggus let out a heavy huff as he turned his head back around towards the cloaked man.

  Tightening his crimson-skinned hands into hardened fists, Raggus gritted his fanged teeth before he, Plo, and Calryin all went over to confront the mysterious club patron.

  “Another,” the cloaked man said to the female, seven-foot-tall ‘Avian-Humanoid’ Birilian bartender, who had a red, blue, and yellow feathered, slender body.

  “Another?” the Bartender repeated in ‘Reg-Speak’ through her ‘beakish-mouth’. “You sure about that, sweetie? That’ll make it your fifthtee…”

  “ANOTHER,” the cloaked man grunted in a louder, more annoyed sounding tone, causing the bartender’s avian eyes to widen.

  “Oh… Uh, alright then. Another shot of Skilian Tonic comin’ right up for ya.”

  “Grand thanks.”

  With his shot glass now full once more after the bartender had filled it up to its metally brim, the cloaked man picked it up with his right hand and was about to knock it back until he felt a hard nudge pressing against his lower back.

  “You him?” Raggus asked the cloaked man in a normal tone, which sounded like a whisper over the club’s ‘synthwave sounding’ music that several different species of alien females and males were dancing to whilst other club patrons sat upon levitating purple pedestals that had glowing pink stripper poles attached to them… With the best dancers the Nyte had in his ever-growing stock.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Keeping his shot glass only a few inches away from his mouth, the cloaked man froze up whilst Raggus Vaun proceeded to ask, “I said… ARE YOU HIM? THE WORLD-BREAKER???”

  The cloaked man did not reply.

  Instead, the cloaked man brought the rim of his shot glass up to his chapped lips and sucked back the tonic in one quick slurp.

  “You’re really drinkin’ when my boss just asked you a question, raxx-head?” Calryin asked the cloaked man as he watched him down his shot of Skilian Tonic.

  Lowering his right arm, the cloaked man placed the shot glass gently back down on the bar’s glowing neon blue top.

  “Ah… All done, I see. So, want another, dar--” the Bartender was saying until she saw Raggus and his fearsome crew standing right behind the cloaked man.

  Eyes widened in fear due to knowing the blood-soaked history of the notorious Bounty Hunting Trio, the Bartender just stepped back and started serving other patrons all the way on the other side of the circular bar.

  “HEY! I ASKED YOU A QUESTION, SKOGGER!” Raggus shouted at the cloaked man over the club’s synth-techno sounding music.

  With Raggus jamming the barrel of his Pulsar Auto-Revolver into his lower back even more, the cloaked man knew that he was in quite the predicament.

  “I don’t think that he’s gonna answer you, Boss,” Plo said to Raggus.

  “He will if he wants to make it out of this club in one thrackin’ piece,” Raggus angrily replied.

  “Or PIECES. Heh, heh, heh,” Calryin snickered while the cloaked man still kept his head facing forward.

  Not wanting to turn around because he knew that any sudden movement he would make would be taken by the hunters as a threat, the cloaked man quaintly said, “You are making a mistake.”

  “A mistake? Heh, heh… ‘Scuse me?” Calryin asked before turning to Raggus. “Hey Raggs, did you hear what this piece of festering RAXX just said?”

  “Oh yeah, Cal,” Raggus gritted. “I heard’em, alright.”

  Leaning in closer towards the cloaked man, Raggus said into his right ear, “You are ‘him’… AREN’T YOU?”

  The cloaked man did not respond, making Raggus and his cronies grin like maddened fools.

  “Heh, heh… Well, thrack me sideways,” Raggus chuckled. “You ARE the ‘Word-Breaker’. Raxx, man! There’s been a bounty on your hide for quite sometime now… QUITE SOME THRACKIN’ TIME! HEH, HEH… How long’s it been, eh? A couple…”

  “WALK… AWAY,” the cloaked man ordered firmly.

  Shaking his head, Raggus chuckled, “Heh, heh… Oh no, World-Breaker. No, no, NO. I’m not gonna ‘walk away’. Neither are my… ‘associates’. Heh, heh… We’d all be stricken thrackin’ MAD if we were to walk away from such a MASSIVE payout as you. What’s it up to now, eh? Ten billion currens, right? That’s what that ‘maddened skogger’ VOLTAIR set it at after you went all ‘breaky-breaky’ on him and his Empire.”

  “Please. Just walk away. I beg you.”

  “Beg me? Oh, so you ‘beg’ now? The oh so Universally feared Breaker of Worlds BEGS??? Heh… Oh, how ‘the mighty’ have fallen, eh, World-Breaker? Heh, heh, heh…”

  The cloaked man kept his lips sealed whilst the Drogarthian continued, “Y’know, long ago, I once heard tales of you and your own crew’s rather DESTRUCTIVE exploits. Heh, heh… Now, what was your little ‘merry band’ of PLANET DECIMATORS called again? The Galactic Avengers? No, that wasn’t it. The Solar Defenders, maybe?? No. No, no. I don’t think that was it either.”

  “THE GALACTIC DECIDERS, Boss,” Plo ushered as he, along with Calryin, checked to see if anyone was currently watching Raggus put his firearm up against the cloaked man’s back.

  “AH! RAXX! That’s it!” Raggus erupted. “Well done, Plo! Well thracking done!”

  Plo nodded to Raggus as the Drogarthian continued, “The Galactic Deciders. Heh, heh… That’s what you all are… WERE called. Heh, heh... The Breakers of Worlds, as you lot were ALSO called… By MANY, if memory serves right.”

  The cloaked man still remained silent and motionless as Raggus hissed, “Oh raxx, World-Breaker… I cannot believe this. I just simply cannot. Heh, heh… And to think, we only came here expecting to drink copious amounts of ale and lay a GRAND THRACKIN’ PLENTY of Pleasure-Mistresses, but alas… We’ve found ourselves a TEN BILLION CURREN payday-cycle. Heh, heh, heh… Oh, what a day-cycle. What a thrackin’ day-cycle…”

  Feeling a tingle deep down inside of his chest that he had not felt in a long time, the cloaked man desperately tried to keep it from rising… But he could not any longer.

  Instead, the cloaked man gave into temptation.

  A temptation that he locked away… PURPOSELY… For the fate of everyone that existed all across the ‘Verse.

  A temptation that he swore to use ONLY in the DIREST of circumstances.

  Well, traveler… THAT RULE’S ABOUT TO BE BROKEN.

  “Heh, heh, heh… Oh joy,” Raggus chuckled on while he kept his Auto-Revolver pressed up against the cloaked man’s lower back. “Oh thracking jo-- GURGH!”

  “I warned you,” the cloaked man gritted beneath his bushy beard.

  Just then, before Raggus could finish his sentence, a feeling arose inside of his body.

  A ripping feeling.

  A tearing feeling.

  A ‘feeling’ as if every single vein that coursed throughout the Drogarthian’s body started to break away from their base locations and rise to the surface.

  Seeing that Raggus’s whole body looked to be frozen in shock all of a sudden, Calryin asked, “Hey. Y'grand, Raggs?”

  “Yeah, Boss,” Plo followed nervously. “Everything alri--”

  SPLATTER!!!!!!

  Before Plo could finish asking his question, Raggus Vaun immediately burst into SEVERAL bloody chunks all over himself, Calryin, and anyone else that was within ten to fifteen feet of the area.

  With his whole entire backside covered in Raggus’s blood and bodily chunks, the cloaked man lowered his hooded head and sighed.

  “WHAT THE THRACK?!?!” Plo cried out in shock as he tried to figure out what had just happened to Raggus.

  “Ruh-Raggus?” Calryin said in confusion as he tried to look around for the Drogarthian.

  Realizing that he was covered in whatever was left of him, Calryin shrieked, “OH THRACK!!! AHHH!!!!”

  As Calryin desperately tried to wipe down his armored-sleeves, chest, and uncovered face of Raggus’s bloody remains, Plo looked back at the cloaked man in fear.

  “You… You are…”

  “The Decider of your fate,” the cloaked man said in an emotionless tone.

  Then, in another quick instant, the cloaked man used his telekinetic-like ‘world-breaking’ abilities to reduce Plo into a pile of bloody entrails.

  “AHHH!!!!” Calryin continued to cry after he witnessed Plo explode right in front of him as Raggus just did.

  At this point, everyone that was on the ground floor level of Club Level Fifty started to scatter around and frenzy in the wake of the two bounty hunters being mutilated in such gruesome ways.

  While the ground floor level began to empty out, the cloaked man was left behind with the still stunned Calryin.

  “You should have just left me to myself,” the cloaked man said in a strangely calm tone of voice as too scared to speak Calryin stared at him in shivering shock.

  “But no. That… You could NOT do,” the cloaked man continued as rose up from his seat at the blood-covered side of the circular bar to face the lone hunter. “COULD YOU???”

  Meeting his own four eyes with the cloaked man’s humanoid two that were glowing bright, stark white, the Foan did not know what to do.

  All that Calryin could muster up to say was, “Ha… Have muh-mercy?”

  “Mercy?” the cloaked man asked with his dirtied, wrinkled brow scrunched. “You ask me… FOR MERCY???”

  Calryin remained silent once again as the cloaked man continued, “Tell me, after all of the beings that you and your DEPRAVED, GLUTTONOUS cohorts have killed throughout the cycles, did either of you, at any point in time EVER, at once, show them mercy? If so, then please… TELL ME THEIR NAMES.”

  Calryin didn’t reply… Because his and his crew’s ‘kill counts’ were far too many to recall.

  Shaking his head, the cloaked man sighed, “Ugh… What a pity.”

  Using his abilities once more, the cloaked man caused Calryin’s whole body to explode as well.

  “Skoggers,” the cloaked man cursed as he now was covered head to toe in Drogarthian, Snorixan, and Foan blood.

  With the fiftieth floor all cleared out save for a few remaining stragglers, the blood-soaked former ‘Commanding-Leader’ of the ‘once grand’ Galactic Deciders of the Voltairan Empire stood there by the circular bar... All by his lonesome... How he always was.

  Raising his head up with his glowing bright, stark white eyes now closed, the cloaked man just stood there, pondering through his memories as the club’s music still blared overhead.

  Taking him back to a long, but sadly not forgotten time.