Lopne sat crookedly on his bar stool, casting an uneven eye over the holocon blaring on the wall. "Verkana Prime begs "Mercy,"" ran endlessly beneath the bickering, pandering talking heads. "Xarvans pledge end of the Verkana. Galactic Council's hands tied."

"They better not do that," Lopne muttered as the bartender shuffled by.

"Oh? And why's that." The bartender turned to face Lopne.

Lopne sat back and looked at his glass. "There's a legend. Well, a legend of a legend really."

"Perhaps, more even of a myth. I don't know? What do you call a myth that everyone knows, regardless of where they from? We all know it, but nobody knows where it came from... And the only people who don't know of it, are children. So we tell it to them."

Another patron nearby listening in leaned over and said, "Ionno w-wuttafuck yeer takkinb-bow," hiccupping intermittently.

"Well then," Lopne chuckled. "Then it must be a legend of a legend of a legend, I suppose... Then again, let's see."

"Quit being cryptic," The bartender slapped the bar with a wet rag, startling several other patrons, looking up from their tables and cons.

"Humans."

A hush fell over the room.

"Ah, see?" Lopne wiggled a finger around. "You do know what I'm talking about. Humans. We all know of them. Every world knows of them. But from where the stories come, nobody can determine. Nobody remembers. But the story is always the same."

"H-humsnsm isn't r-real."

"Yeah!" Piped up another patron. "Just a boogeyman!"

"Yeah," said the bartender. "What does it have to do with this? We all tell our kids to be kind or the Humans will get them. Boohoo. I doubt the Xarvans finally ending this centuries long Civil War will have the humans go "You weren't very nice!" It's just a story."

"But all stories come from somewhere, do they not? The humans are no different."

"The humans," a new voice piped up, "were a member of the Galactic council for a very short time, if I recall correctly! They grew angry with the way the council had treated them and withdrew."

"You are?" Lopne asked.

"I am a professor of Galactic History at Norjadi Station."

"Impressive," Lopne said. "So what can you tell me about the humans?"

"Uh, well, they joined, as is customary, the galactic council shortly after first contact, offered by the council upon detection of FTL in their sector."

"Mhm, and what then?"

"Shortl-"

"W-wait. Hwot? Humanssis rell? Oh m-man."

The professor cast an annoyed look at the drunk lad.

"Shortly after their admittance, they were contacted by the Koldrans, whom asked their assistance in building a new space station. From the human's point of view, workers complained of unusually harsh conditions, and there were more deaths than one would normally expect from such an endeavor. But the Koldrans otherwise held up their end of the bargain, paying on their contract, and even death benefits without question. This went on for ten years." He glanced around the room as several people whistled. "That was when the humans finally understood that the convoluted legal language used by the Koldrans to press "unseemly members" - criminals and such - into slavery and declare them "socially dead." The humans were unaware their race was being enslaved. After petitioning the council for the freedom of their members and being denied on the basis that they shouldn't have signed a contract they didn't understand - It was after this that they withdrew. Nobody has seen them since. That's all we really know. "

The bartender shook his head. "Damn. Did them humans absolutely dirty. Nobody warned them? Really? Council was a bunch of jackasses back then."

"Absolutely right," said Lopne. "Except for the last part."

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"What do you mean?"

"You have to know there's more. A little race getting shit on and leaving the council, that happens all the time! You never wondered how this one became the boogeyman?"

"Well..." the professor faltered. "Actually no. That is strange."

Lopne smiled. "It didn't stop at their people being enslaved. No... The Koldrans claimed that petitioning the council violated their contract... Which said that they were entitled to 100% of all their money back."

"They didn't!" Someone gasped.

"Oh yes," Lopne nodded. "And their AI was way more advanced than anything the humans had. Simply hacked in and took every credit on the planet. Completely bankrupted the humans. The Shindar, whom had been trading with the humans stopped, not wanting to upset their agreements with the Koldrans - plunging them into debt. The Rakta, whom had been contracted to upgrade the human cities with Galactic standard fittings, claimed anything unpaid for as theirs and tore it all down to reclaim materials. Their cities lay half destroyed, their infrastructure in shambles. The Aemon, who was working with the humans to create Galactic Standard ships, claimed any and all spaceships they could, citing payment... Left the humans with nothing but mothballed ships, their original FTL designs. They left them destitute and isolated."

"T-that's fuckered-dup."

"Mhm. Professor, how long did you say the Humans were part of the council?"

"Uh... The professor flicked at their con. "Two hundred and thirteen years... But a full hundred and eighty nine of those years were... Radio silence. Final transmission received was their resignation... Oh. With a message. "We are they who sought mercy and found none. To those who have no mercy, you shall drown in your own sin. To those who seek mercy, but find none, speak your sorrow and we will be your vengeance."

"They couldn't even send a proper message to resign, Langra above." The bartender said. "Okay so they're the boogeyman because virtually nobody ever has gotten as fucked as hard as they were and... that's a pretty ominous last message. Mystery solved."

"Yes, but that was the end of it." The professor stated. "They've never been heard from or seen since. All attempts at contact have gone ignored. And they are so far out in the rim that to my knowledge, there's never even been an attempt to visit."

"What happened to the Koldrans about a hundred years after that final transmission?"

"The Koldrans... The Koldran's moon above their home planet was struck by an asteroid made up of almost pure gold. It was devastating to the ecosystem of their home world... they've been financially crippled ever since."

"How about the Shindar?"

"Three hundred or so years after the Koldrans, the Shindar's sun began to behave erratically. It was producing carbon billions of years ahead of schedule. It destabilized and went nova, destroying the entire system. All that remains is one of the biggest diamonds in the known universe, but it is far too radioactive to ever approach."

"Rakta?"

"Two hundred and thirty years after the Shindar, the Rakta's home world experienced a rapid mutation on one of their primary crops, which caused it to put off a poisonous gas in the stages just before harvest. They were barely able to escape. Their entire planet suffocated within days, nothing but plant life exists there anymore, all with the fatal gas as part of their life cycle. It will never be inhabitable again."

Lopne closed his eyes. "The Aemon?"

"... The Aemon had a wormhole to an incredibly hostile, volatile dimension open near their homeworld, forcing them to become isolated on their home planet, unable to leave, unable to receive help..."

"H-holy shit, humansis for real r-reals!"

"Stupid." Muttered the professor. "All coincidences. Multiple other worlds have had similar fates, both before and after humans were around."

"True." Lopne twirled his beard. "But tell me this. Look up a race called the Priod."

The Professor flipped at his con again. "The Priod were a race that was wiped out by the Felmarrians, after begging the Galaxy for help. The Felmarrians... Eight years later, their planet underwent such tectonic upheaval that all four super volcanoes on the planet detonated... Simultaneously..."

"The Kubburrat."

"... The Kubbarat was a race pressed into slavery by the Ilignion... A peace loving race, they asked their children to be spared. The Ilignion obliged to spare the children slavery by... Killing them. The Kubburat begged for mercy and the Ilignion replied "this is mercy."

"And their fate?"

"The Ilignion experienced a plague that caused only one in ten thousand births to survive into adulthood..."

"Astrivio."

"The Astrivio were financially destroyed by the Nakaro. The Nakaro tricked the Astrivio into selling them the rights to their entire asteroid field and exclusive trading rights... They took everything worth trading and made the Astrivio pay exorbitant amounts of basic resources for anything of value. The Astrivio exhausted every financial avenue they had but found no banks would work with them. They sent out pleas of charity but it was known their home system could never pay it back... They eventually starved to death."

One of the ladies in the crowd let out a loud sniff.

"And what happened to the Nakaro?"

"The Nikaro received a shipment of rare Tidal Nebula sapphires from an unknown benefactor... The sapphires found their way into every level of their society before they realized that the Sapphires had been harvested in the Gerontian Nebula, previously believed to be unreachable due to the rare and unstable Gerontian radiation. It contaminated their entire planet. They died... Horrible deaths."

"My point is," grumbled Lopne, "That when a species asks for mercy and doesn't receive it? Eventually their attackers meet a truly gruesome end, as did everyone who slighted the humans." He sipped on his glass, sitting back and obviously tired. "So maybe the Xarvans should chill."

The bartender twisted a rag around the glass. "How does that nursery rhyme end?"

From the back of the crowd came the Professor's quivering voice. "Now children remember, be kind, be kind! ... Be kind lest a human sneaks up behind, whispering so softly, "vengeance is mine."