BRAUS STRAUS ARE UGLY CRIERS, blubbering out their fat tears alongside an excessive amount of drool and sweat. Jaiyra never understood how beings so tiny could produce gallons and gallons of liquids or where they stored such a water supply within three and a half feet. He doesn’t think Enoch Gris would be willing to tell him. Or even able to, with the way the tears flood her gaping mouth and her sobs rock her small frame.
Rai Jaiyra didn’t take Braus Straus bounties for that very reason. His floors got all wet and all the grunts and moaning gave him a nasty headache. People weren’t willing to cough up much for one either, pricing them at a few thousand credits despite the hassle. Meaning all he’d get out of catching one, if he managed to catch them as tricky as they were, was a throbbing head and lunch money for a week. It was better for business and his own state of being to hunt down a Daeadem or Origin, even with how dangerous they could be. At least he’d be getting properly compensated for them.
Enoch Gris was a once in a full moon type of opportunity. Priced at six billion by the Pleiad forces and hiding out in one of the Outer Rims, she was an easy meal ticket for the next six months and an expensive upgrade to the hunk of junk he called a ship. What she’d done to get on the Pleiad’s bad side enough that they wanted her alive must have been a feat, but he hadn’t cared enough to ask and she hadn’t stopped crying long enough to answer.
All she does say, when they see their first Spyre, a fiery orange one as eye-catching as it is ominous, is, “Cerutieth Rai.” Jaiyra isn’t well practiced in the dialects of Braus Straus, but he’s heard the statement enough to understand the sentiment. And even if it were his first time hearing it, her tone and the grit of her fangs was easily translatable. Death to the Rai.
All who’d told him that ended up dead themselves within the next few hours. Quirking half his lips up into a slanted smile, he decided to let time tell her that itself and sped up into the belt of wormholes.
Enoch Gris gasped when the Pleiad ship came into view. Jaiyra was impressed she had enough air in her to make so much as a sound. Drenched in the shadow of Armegeddon, he was having trouble just filling his lungs.
Stretching across the star-speckled horizon for over fifty kilometers, it was by far the largest spacecraft in the Proioxis galaxy, if not the entire known universe. And as if the size alone wasn’t intimidating enough, the myriad of artillery proudly adorning its surface as grotesque regalia was enough to make even one of their most decorated of their kin break into a sweat.
As the Rai with the most bounties under his belt, Jaiyra could confirm. His pits were soaked.
Bringing the ship to a slow stop, he stared up at the hulking frame and tried to imagine himself on a small planet in the Cores, dread coursing through him at the sight of the silver and vermillion. There they called the ship a death sentence, a ghost ship, the grim reaper. For good reason, in the past few months it’d destroyed sixty-nine of the Cores and two moons of Daeadem, killing hundreds of Origins and Daea in the process. Slanting his eyes towards the Braus Straus, who’s reddish skin had flushed a blotchy magenta, he wondered when they started going after their small planet as well. At this point, by the end of the year the whole galaxy would be gone.
A few Rai had already left for Aracia, closest to the Prioioxis galaxy, and even Rai Hela had mentioned planning to leave soon. As lucrative as this galaxy was, and as safe as it was with all the Spyres clustered on one end of it rather than spread throughout, it was worth nothing without anyone. Rai’s business relied on hunting people after all, and there wasn't a business where there weren't people.
The Pleiad ship didn’t have a clear entry point, which made sense with how much they relied on tech. Over half of their soldiers were at least some form mechanical, it was natural that their ship would be too. Finding an empty wall near the bottom of the ship, where he assumed they kept their captives, he hovered his ship before it as he started fiddling with configurations.
He’d never been good at phasing, which was why his ship was so messed up in the first place. It was either he covered too little of the ship in his calculations, permeating only half of it and resulting in a nasty crash on one end, or he covered too deeply, nearly having a heart attack in the extra seconds it took for his molecules to recollect and put him and his ship back together. Somehow, he’d never been lost to the universe, his atoms spread apart far enough that they couldn’t find each other again the way many had before. And he planned to keep it that way as he pushed his steers forward, towards the steel wall.
One moment they were among the still quiet of the galaxy, stranded amongst the stars and the Spyres, then Jaiyra blinked and all he could see was cold steel and Pleiad vermillion. They had entered the belly of the monster.
A docking station greets them to the left, informing Jaiyra that he'd guessed right on the entry point, and a Pleiad soldier waves him over with a wire-y, copper arm. The Rai rolled his eyes as he brought the ship to a stop before it. Dealing with bots was annoying at best. Bots didn’t have the emotional capacity to shake in fear when he pulled out one of his pistols and aimed it at them, meaning there was no way to properly argue with them by Rai standards at least.
Getting Enoch Gris off the ship is a hassle. He nearly loses the tip of his thumb to her and a hunk of his arm, but jumps back just in time before her teeth make contact. When she realizes she isn’t going to get a bite of him, she starts crying again, and it’s harder to avoid the snot and spit than it is the teeth. By the time he hits the ground with him, his shirt has a large gross, green stain splattered across the middle of it that the Pleiad soldier evaluates before beeping a few times in greeting.
“Rai Jaiyra collected Enoch Gris as requested.” it said, curtly and informingly.
Jaiyra blinked and glanced down at the Braus Straus, who he had to lift a few centimeters off the ground when she started kicking at the floor. “No shit, really?”
“Follow.” it said, turning on skinny copper legs and starting down a dark hall. Jaiyra, still without his payment, has no choice but to follow, holding the Braus Straus as far from himself as possible to avoid her violently swinging feet.
As a Rai, he’d been in the dungeons of many ships–both as the detained and the detainee–but nothing prepared him for the grotesque sight of the Pleiad dungeons.
It’s dirty. Stains, some bubbling and fizzing and others moldy and stale, painted the floor dark greens and tainted yellows. Down the first few halls, Jaiyra would do his best to avoid the mysterious substances, balancing on the tips of his toes and making clumsy leaps, but around the seventh he’d given up, resolving himself to a night of scrubbing his shoes clean.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
He had to hold his breath to bear the scent of rot and piss and puke, which only got worse around every corner. But even worse than the putrids scents, was the scent of despair and abandon. The prisoners he does manage to make out in the grim darkness of the cells are crumpled against the walls as broken dolls, heads bowed and shoulders slumped. None of them notice their small party; too far lost to the horrors of the Pleiad dungeon. Enoch Gris’ feet stop swinging around the sixth corner turn, but her breath comes out in quick gasps. Jaiyra holds her closer and for once, feels some semblance of pity for his bounty.
The Pleiad soldier marches onward without notice of anything beyond himself, stepping in puddles of whatever without any indication that it knew it did beyond an occasional slight slip. It’s so focused on taking its next step forward and reaching the end of the hallway that it doesn’t notice when Jaiyra stops at the sight of cerulean blue.
A blue Daeadem sits in one of the cells. Jaiyra had never seen one in person, being that there was only a single Cerulean Daeadem in existence at the moment, but it’s easy to place him with his blue skin and long, white hair. Even before the Daeadem turns to look at him, Jaiyra knows the piercing of his silver gaze and beyond-white iris, as broadcasted as it was. The last place he’s supposed to be in is a Pleiad cell, it’s clear just by looking at him, without knowing the context. For him to be here, meant the galaxy was far more fucked than he’d originally assumed.
In the darkness of the ship, the shadow of death hanging over him, the fairest grace has somehow managed to avoid every one of the sticky and burning substances Jaiyra had slipped and slid through on his way there. His skin of pale blue was entirely unsullied, not even a blemish of torture marring the perfect shade. His head was tilted upwards, proud and pretentious even in his imprisoned state.
In a cell next to his, a group of Braus Straus, small but staut, far stronger than the svelte Daeadem, are on their knees in their cell, crying their ugly tears. Within another, Jaiyra can’t even decipher a species. The beings are just bloodied buddings of flesh now, their faces smushed in and any notable limbs missing. If the prince is fearful of where he is, he doesn’t show it, tilting his head towards Jaiyra and setting a look of slight interest on him, calm and collected in spite of the smells and the screams and the wails. As to be expected of one of the sons of the Valorous reign, the Fairest Prince and second born, Malvedae.
Whichever Rai caught him must have been paid trillions.
“Rai,” the Daeadem prince addressed, voice fluid and strong, cutting through all the sniffling and sniveling. “You’ll get lost if you don’t follow closely.”
Jaiyra frowned at the piece of advice, wondering how the prince thought he was in any place to give it, as trapped as he was. Offering a slightly strained smile, he said, “I’ll manage, your fair grace.”
Malvedae glanced him over, from the Braus Straus beginning to fuss in his hands again to the putrid green stain on his shirt. Meeting his eyes once more, his crinkling as though he was in on a joke Jaiyra was not, he returned, “Oh, I’m sure.”
Jaiyra was just barely registering the comment as sarcastic when the Daea prince turned away again, ending their conversation. From what he was aware they hadn’t been playing a game, but for some reason he felt as though he’d lost. And he was the one walking off the ship six billion credits richer, while the Daea prince would likely never see the light of day again.
Jaiyra glanced at the prince one last time, taking in the blue, and wondering once again how the Pleiad had managed to get their hands on him. He was supposed to be untouchable. Protected and secured upon Daeadem by the hundreds of moons surrounding it, and all the armies retsing on each one, battle ready. Then, he wondered why the Pleiad had kept him alive in their cells rather than continue with their plans now. What was the point in delaying the death of the prince and the destruction of the galaxy? He started down the hallway, mind still orbiting around the thought of shades of blue and prisoners of war.
He only made it a few feet away from the cell before realizing the bot had already turned at the fork and disappeared down one of the corners, meaning he wasn’t managing quite as well as he said he would.
Knowing this already, the Daea calls out from behind him, laughter laced through his words: “Turn left at the corner, reverent Rai.”
Heat rushing to his face, Jaiyra grunted and stomped forward, deciding he didn’t care all that much why and how the jewel of the Daea had gotten himself caught or what it meant for the galaxy as a whole.
Thankfully, the bot had stopped around the next corner in front of an empty cell that Enoch Gris hisses at as if it’d do anything to prevent her from being shoved into it. Jaiyra glanced it over for only half a second before turning to the bot expectantly, waiting for the fruits of his labor to be paid off finally. He could get cameras installed all the way around the ship, maybe even a new paint job. His ship would shine for the first time in decades, since before even Rai Hela had passed it down to him.
Shoving the Braus Straus into the cell came with no remorse, even after she fell to her knees and started sobbing all ugly again.
When the bot clicked the cell shut, its eyes flashed vermillion twice before it began dispensing the credits from its chestplate. Before, when Jaiyra had first dealt with bots, he’d been beyond disgusted by the forms of payment. He slowly came to learn that money was money, even if it came out of someone’s mouth or ribcage. There was no need to be picky as long as he was reimbursed properly.
Jaiyra was picky however. Because rather than continuing to dispense the proper amount, the Rai stopped after only four bills, twenty-five thousand each, came out of its chest.
At first, assuming that maybe the money had just stuck together, Jaiyra shook the one million credits, as though a couple more bills would appear if he willed it hard enough. And then, assuming there was a malfunction with the bot, he pounding a fist against its chestplate, reaching out to begin shaking it. Sometimes machines just needed to be hit a few times to work, it happened once or twice before with his engine.
Just when he’d got his hands on the bot’s shoulders it began to beep wildly, eyes flashing red. “That’s rude, Rai Jaiyra. Remove your hands.” it said, monotone in its robotic voice.
Jaiyra arched an eyebrow, but complied nonetheless. Holding up the measly amount of bills, he shook it before the bot’s eyes, and when it didn’t respond immediately, asked, “Where’s the rest?”
The bot went motionless for a few moments, as though processing what he said, before beeping again. Raising one of its thin, tin arms to the Braus Straus, it responded, with much more sass than it had any right to obtain as a non-sentient being, “Where’s the rest?”
Jaiyra huffed, glaring at the Braus Straus quivering in her cell. He figured this conversation would come up, but surely it wasn’t worth five billion being taken off his payment. All that mattered was that she was brought in alive, after all. “She was missing the fingers before I found her–”
“And her left arm?” the bot interrupted, cutting to the chase.
Jaiyra rolled his eyes. “She has most of it.”
Truthfully, it was less than half. Sacrifices had to be made in an attempt to round her up, she didn’t come easy. And it was more her fault than his that she’d lost the arm anyway, she’d been the one to run into his blade. So he’d been swinging it, he hadn’t actually been aiming to hit her until she tripped and lobbed her own arm off. Regardless of the fact, it still wasn’t worth taking five billion off. The Pleiad were the richest empire in the galaxy right now, surpassing the Daea even. They were rich enough that five billion meant shite to them.
“I–I’m missing five teeth too,” Enoch Gris chimed in, unhelpfully. She’d managed to stop crying long enough to say as much, shooting Jaiyra a sneer even.
The Rai glowered right back. “Your missing teeth have nothing to do with me–”
“And I’m missing the top half of my left ear.”
Jaiyra pursed his lips at that. “Your teeth still have nothing–”
“Rai Jaiyra,” the bot interrupted them, somehow managing to sound exasperated and emotionless at once. “With the damages to the bounty, I can pay you 2.6 billion. We a seeked the whole Braus Straus, not sixty-seven point twenty-three percent of one.”
Jaiyra did not still have a migraine beating at his head and green whatever plastered across his shirt to be told that the tip was worth only 2.6 billion. Sure, it was more than enough to pay off his meals for the next few weeks and get a cool design ingrained into the side of the ship, but it wasn’t the six billion he’d been promised. A Rai doesn't compromise when it comes to business.
“You can take your percentages and shove them up your ass,” Jaiyra snarled, reaching for his shooter only to be stopped by the bot’s eyes flashing red once more.
He hated doing business with bots.
The scream of an alarm scraped against his head.