"What can I getcha there fella?" Was what the Barman of the Neon Wench tavern asked the big helmeted stranger.

The man pulled up to the end of the busy bar.

He pulled off the helmet of his multi suit to reveal a black complexion and big curly hair.

"My particular poison would be…" he swiftly pulled out a credit chip and minted enough for his drink and plenty extra for a tip.

"Snarksbane gin" his quick guttural accent was hard to place.

"Comin' right up!" The jolly, pink snouted barman said as he poured a red drink into a cup and slid it down the table to the man.

He sat and sipped it quietly, politely declining the whores and pleasure bots who came to sell their wares.

"Another barman…" the stranger said gently, placing his empty glass on the counter.

Nearly immediately after, a cowled drunkard at the end of the bar slammed his mug on the counter.

"Meeeeshshh tooo barrry." The drunkard slurred out obnoxiously.

The barman obliged and whilst doing so saw fit to ask the stranger;

"So what brings ye yo Fuego Prime fella? Business or pleasure?"

He put the strangers full glass on the table before heading to pour the beer for the drunkard.

"Well it falls under business but…" He abruptly stood and pulled a pistol out and pointed it to the barman, who froze in his step while pouring the drunkard his beer.

"But I certainly do find it pleasing." He said as he activated the laser aimer that settled on the barmans forehead.

His lip trembled for a moment. "Hey if this is about that time with the Fanauan kid I swear." He began to ramble.

"Let's put a pin in that for now." The stranger said calmly before slowly moving his aim to the cowled drunkard who was slumped over the counter.

He was too intoxicated to notice.

The bar went silent and still for a moment.

The stranger whipped out a holo chip and activated it.

On it was a wanted poster of a roguish looking rapscallion.

The name below his hologram was Hans Dangerfield.

"You're a hunter!" The barman gasped.

"Ain't after you grogger… you got my next paycheck slumped there like a dead fish. Mind if I cash that check?" He asked without really asking.

The barman nodded as the stranger cautiously approached.

"Jussht one moment theresh big guy…" Hans abruptly sat up and put a finger up towards the bounty hunter.

"Ill come wijth ye… jush lemme finishh me drink?" He asked in an almost childlike jovial manner.

The hunter creased his brow and nodded.

"Ha! Yer a good mansh…" Hans said before gulping down the pint that was in front of him.

"Ahhhhh mushh better… now, where were we?" He said with a burp before he threw the mug at the hunter and tackled him to the ground, knocking his blaster out of his hand.

The music returned to the tavern as the raucous atmosphere returned.

The hunter stood but his prey was nowhere in sight.

He heard the doors slam closed and darted out without hesitation.

Just as he exited he was met with a fierce blow to the cheek, but he didn't falter, just spun with the momentum and went to unholster his blaster.

"Damn!" He forgot it was knocked onto the tavern floor.

"You're pretty quick on your feet, huh, twinkle toes." Hans antagonised as he held the hunters gun in his hand.

He was drunkenly swirling about, trying to aim.

The hunter merely smiled.

"Go ahead, pull the trigger."

"Ha! If you say so slick." Hans fired only for the bio identifier to activate and self destruct the weapon.

Hans was stunned and fell back on his back.

The hunter, not wasting a breathe, jumped to Hans and held him down as he swiftly brought out a pair of cuffs.

He then proceeded to cuff himself to his jostling, drunken captive.

"There, now you're coming with me, ya hear?"

Hans became still as if he had either conceded his freedom or consciousness.

Moot point for the hunter who relaxed his hold on the captive.

"Ha!" Hans barked out and in one quick movement he flung himself into the canopy beside the entrance to the tavern.

Fuego prime was the man made jungle planet made as a respite for weary travellers.

The neon wench was built on top of a hill that overlooked a dock.

The two now found themselves tumbling through the foliage that hugged the hillside.

A few bruises and broken bones later and the two were at the bottom of the wrong side of the hill, surrounded by jungle and darkness.

"Well, just as I was thinking it was too easy…" the handcuffs had broken and they now faced each other in the dark.

"Owww, you wouldn't happen to have a spare rib would you?" The wanted man jived.

The hunter launched himself at his prey.

They fought for a little while.

The hunter was surprised by the drunk's skill in combat.

Eventually the movement got the better of Hans' mental state and he vomited on the hunter before falling into his arms.

Black out drunk.

'Eugh' the Hunter grimaced, once again cuffing the ruffian.

He pulled out a small remote with a button on it and a few moments after pressing it a small interplanetary glider hovered overhead.

It parked itself in a hover a foot above the ground.

He threw his cargo in with more force than necessary and hopped in himself.

Then, a second later they were hundreds of kilometres above the stratosphere, indecipherable from the stars that speckled the night sky.

Hours later Hans awoke to a rancid scent and a screaming headache.

He opened his eyes with a groan to find himself in a conglomerate holding cell.

All manner of miscreants surrounding him, from murderous eight armed insectoids, barely keeping their cool to big fat gluttonous blobs.

So fat that Hans couldn't even tell what species it was.

All of his senses were delivering him a garbage trucks worth of distress, coupled with the lingering effects of last nights drink, he felt nothing short of a walking corpse.

"Well look who finally woke up." The hunter was leaning on the outside of the cell bars, tapping away at his holographic interface.

"Best sleep I've had in an age… say you wouldn't happen to have any poison on you would you? I figure you for a flask kinda guy." He said, his tone sarcastic.

The hunter gave a gutteral chuckle.

"I don't want nothing more to do with your dishevelled, shit smelling, alcoholic ass. As soon as I get paid, I'm splitting." Said the hunter, no emotion permeating through his voice.

Hans laughed.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"You're all business shadow man. Tell me how much is my taut little tush worth huh? Whatever it is, I'll double it, and on top of that, I'll buy you a beer if you let me out of here." He said, his jovial demeanour intensifying rather than diminishing.

"Do you think I'm stupid? You're a criminal and a liar. I've done my research. Hans Dangerfield, the galactic bum. A nuisance to traders all through the Conglomerate. Plundering, pillaging and then taking off for the nearest gin joint to blow it all. I know your type, scum of the Galaxy, no good, aimless vagrants who deserve to be put in their proper places, behind bars!" Said the hunter, a tickle of anger arising from his voice.

"Haha says the one that feeds off the scum! If we're the dung, then you're the dung beetle my friend. You act all high and mighty but the truth is, you can't live without us. People like us, we sustain you. Now I need a drink, trust me I'm a bad drunk but worse sober, it's for your own good."

This seemed to have hit a nerve as the hunter gripped the bars tight enough to turn his knuckles white as his brow furrowed.

Before he could bark back an insult, a tremor shook through the building.

"What was that?" Hans asked with a grin as everyone in the building stopped and hushed.

Suddenly the building shook and trembled as if a giant sledgehammer was being swung into it repeatedly.

The alarms went off as screams began to break out.

Eventually a hole was shot into Hans' cell, blowing him into the bars behind him, denting them as his body slammed into the gate.

"The cities being attacked!" A random guard yelled out amongst the chaos.

"He's a bright one." Hans added as he groaned off the pain.

Both he and the hunter looked out of the hole in the wall to see a giant floating sphere in the sky with two gigantic laz canons jutting from its sides.

"Well, you don't see that everyday…"

"Citizens of Vesunia." A highly distorted voice resonated from the ship, piercing into everyone's ears on the ground.

"You, truly fortunate souls have been chosen! Chosen by the great apostle Lord Timus, to be united with the great elder god of us all! Lord Vol-Drung! This moon will be enshrined and dedicated to our lord as his second coming is nigh!" The voice echoed through the entire planet.

"Huh… Well, I'm not eager to stick around for that." As he spoke a small creature who was hiding in the shadowy corners of the cell scurried up near Hands who began to pat it on its head.

"What did they get you for, little guy?" He mumbled as he began to saunter to the newly made exit to the building.

"What are you doing! We're ten floors up!"

Hans merely winked and walked out of the opening, dropping off the edge and out of sight.

The hunter watched in shock and bemusement, pausing a moment to register what was going on before another blast from the invading ship shook the building again.

Being brought back to his senses he unlocked the prison gate and rushed to the edge, trying to catch sight of the escapee.

He saw him hopping from ledge to ledge, scaling down the side of the building with great agility.

"You're not getting away that easily…" the hunter gritted as he also began scaling the building.

Meanwhile Hans had found his way to the bottom of the building, the little creature clung to his back throughout the entire descent.

"You're a clingy little fella aren't you?" He patted the creature as it chittered away in some alien dialect he couldn't understand.

On the ground citizens screamed and ran around in a mass panic as laser cannon shots rained down upon the city.

Hans began to sober, his memories starting to flood back to his mind.

Pain, death, hopelessness, torture, pain.

Was all that ran through his mind with corresponding images of blood, gore and terror springing to the forefront.

He held his hand to his head as the creature hurried to his shoulder and looked at him empathetically.

He groaned in agony.

"Let's go get a drink and get out of this shit hole hey?" He said as he calmly made his way through the chaos on the streets to a nearby bar.

Everybody had fled so he helped himself to some whiskey.

Just before he could take a sip he saw out of the corner of his eyes the hunter with his stun blaster pointed at Hans' head.

He pulled the trigger but this time his target was too quick and dodged the shot.

'What! He dodged it!'

Hans smiled before taking a swig of the drink.

"Ahhhh not quite enough but hits the spot hey little guy?" He offered the bottle up to the little creature who shook its head disapprovingly.

"Oh you try being human and see if you can get by without a drink!"

'Is he joking right now? And what the hell is that thing on his shoulder? Some kinda monkey?'

"You're coming with me." The hunter said, although he was thrown he did not make it obvious.

Hans weighed up his options and with one more swing of his drink he said:

"You drive a hard bargain my shadowy friend, let's get out of here hey?" He threw the bottle to the monkey and put his hands out as if to be handcuffed.

Bemused at the man's strange behaviour, the hunter approached cautiously.

He handcuffed the smiling rogue and made haste to the exit.

All they found on the street was calamity and terror.

Citizens running to and fro in an ocean of frenzy.

The hunter was about to call his ship when one of the invaders came down to the street in a smaller sphere craft.

"Fear not my children! Your salvation approaches. Surrender your lives and your children to your true lord, Vol Drung! And you shall have the blessing of being one with our eternal saviour!" He preached as his robed soldiers ran from the ship once it landed to begin taking prisoners and killing all who wouldn't comply.

The hunter grimaced as he snuck around the corner of a building, dragging Hans and the critter behind him.

"Come on, you're gonna get us killed!" He said in hushed panic.

"Wait! I have to see…" this time Hans sounded serious as he peered his head around the corner of the building.

He saw a group of at least two hundred people forced to their knees around the so-called holy man.

He walked through and among them chanted praises to his lord.

"Give your children to serve under the righteous sect of Timus. They will become enforcers of the great lord." He said in a ritualistic manner as he gestured to a family of three that knelt holding onto each other in fear.

The mother began to scream in hopeless defiance as the soldiers walked towards her and pointed their long, double handled laz blasters to her head.

Yet she would not give her baby, no matter how the soldiers threatened and yelled.

It was the father who took the bawling baby from his own partner and gave him to the soldiers.

"It'll be alright, it's going to be alright…" is all he said to the mother who was now hysterically sobbing in grief. She pushed her cou terpart away and began to scream hysterically.

A soldier simply shot her and held his aim to the man.

"Yes! A true man of our lord! May you spend the rest of eternity in bliss as one with our master!" The robed man said, lifting his arms up in the air prophetically.

Hans watched with an expression of extreme disgust.

A strong torrent of emotion sprung from deep within him.

He dropped the whiskey bottle and let it shatter.

"Hey come on, let's get out of here!" The hunter urged Hans to the ship that had just arrived nearby.

Without saying another word, Hans broke the cuffs with his bare hands, stripped the creature off of his back and before the hunter could even blink Hans dashed into the centre of the street and lifted the prophet up by the neck.

"Who are you! How dare you put your hands on a holy prophet! Guards!" Before anyone could even take a step towards the two of them, Hans crushed the neck of the prophet, as he spoke.

His words turned to blood sprayed all over his killer who seemed remorseless as he dropped the limp bag of bones to the ground.

In an instant the street returned to its prior state of chaos as everyone fled as the soldiers began to fire at Hans.

The hunter and the little creature watched in disbelief as the man who could barely stand the night before was dodging laser fire.

Ducking, weaving and flipping, Hans made his way around the battlefield as if he were a ballerina, every movement he made a deliberate and measured one in his symphony of death.

He snapped necks, slashed torsos with weapons he stole from the corpses of his victims and shot his way around the street.

A whirlwind of carnage and death before there was no one left on the street except one rage filled man who seemed more beast than human.

At least two dozen men lay in a homogeneous spread of blood, guts and bone around as the fires from the attack crackled around him.

He was not finished there though.

He then jumped into the drop ship, activated its minigun and began blasting a relentless volley of laser blasts at the mothership.

A futile effort, as it could not penetrate the great sphere in the sky and as soon as the attackers noticed the nuisance they sent a blast down to the drop ship.

Obliterating it to kingdom come and launching Hans down the street straight back towards the hunter.

The little red critter jumped from the hunter's shoulder and rushed to the man on the ground.

The hunter snapped out of his trance and followed.

He expected to find a dead man but Hans lay breathing.

Broken boned and somewhat battered but still breathing.

'Holy hell, what is this guy?'

He quickly boarded his glider, loading Hans in.

"Let's blow this joint." The hunter mumbled before blasting out into orbit.

From there he could see dozens of the invaders' crafts, all descending onto the moon.

All presumably with the same intentions as the worst.

"Hmmmmm… something big's happening…"

Light years away, the once dense tropical jungle area that surrounded the ancient Val-Drung temple was nothing but gloomy canyons.

With the continuous rain and thunderstorms presenting a wet hellscape.

It was as if the lifed was sucked out of its, vibrant, breathing body.

What was before a luscious green landscape that spread to the horizon in all directions, was now a shrine of power, showing complete and utter dominance by means of power over everything around it.

This is where all of the captives were being brought by the rapidly growing following of Vol drung.

They were brought there as either slaves or sacrifices, unwillingly giving their soul to build the power of Vol Drung.

It was in the throne room where the ancient being sat.

Now he was large and powerful enough to sit on the edge of his throne.

"Timus!" He yelled as the head apostle entered the room, another group of sacrifices in shackles and chains following him.

All naked, bloody and afraid.

He bowed meekly.

"You have done well my disciple. I feel my power growing by the second."

"Anything to please my lord." He was beside himself in servile glee.

"Don't flatter yourself! As I have regained my former strength I have learned of the mess you allowed my dominion to fall into!"

"B-but m'lord…" he tried to interject but was immediately interrupted l.

"The church was left to ruins! Power in the galaxy fell into the hands of puny mortals! Wars broke out in my absence and the absence of my brethren, the ancients. We have been all but forgotten in the new order or heresy and sin! And where is my beloved Dar-gul?! Where is my hammer?" He jumped from his throne and levitated over his lackey who cowered in fear.

"L-lord please forgive me… the church… it turned against me… and the people… they threw themselves into debauchery. It wasn't my fault! And the hammer! We have located one of its pieces, before long it shall be whole once more!"

"Enough!" Vol Drung ended the conversation with the added emphasis of sucking the life out of the two dozen captives held behind Timus.

Growing even larger and more intimidating from doing so.

"If I did not have a solution I would crush you to ash in my own hand." He crushed a skull that he was holding in his third hand.

"Solution?"

"The Galaxy obviously needs a shepherd… you were not competent… you cannot be blamed. I suppose gods exist for their purpose just as a plumber must exist for his."

"My lord?"

"Need not worry my child… go find Dar-gul, bring me my weapon whilst I regain my strength." he ordered, his voice flat.

Timus meekly bowed and hurried out of the throne room.

"Do not fail me again…"

He walked out of the throne room and down the hallway before reaching a door steeped in shadows.

He walked through it to see in the corner a naked woman's torso lay limp shackled to the wall.

Her face was frozen in a terrible screech.

Her blood shot eyes staring down at the gorey carnal mess that was her lower body.

"She was far too weak…"

He walked to the centre of the room where there was another naked woman who stood shivering and sobbing.

Her eyes were blind folded and her arms and feet were shackled to the floor.

"Will you be the one, strong enough to take my seed? To spawn my progeny?"