Aboard Talon [Class V Light Cruiser], Hovering at 8,000-feet
Fyres [ruin city], Conquilous [planet], Despæ [star system]
13 May; 05:42:32 Hours
Snow fell around a sleek, black, and gray cruiser that’s side hatch was open, though a bright blue forcefield separated the bitter cold from the warm common area. Several three-dimensional and blurry holograms stood around a tall, hulking, bearded man who adorned a black full-body chainmail-like suit. There was a static charge to the air as one of the holograms, a woman, Amelia Donte stepped toward him and yelled, “Goddammit! What were you thinking? Huh, Theo?”
“I couldn’t let it go down that way, ‘Melia,” Theo admitted while slicking his brown hair back with blood that covered the right side of his face, smudging through it. “I, I just couldn’t.”
“Bro,” one of the men, Gabe Hightower rubbed the back of his neck as he said, “come on, she’s a Shim - She wasn’t worth saving, let alone blowing up all of the hard work we put into trying to save this corrupt universe.”
“We had one damn job,” Amelia mumbled as she now turned her back to Theo.
“Watch it, Gabe!” he warned. “You’re the last one to be deciding what’s worth blowing up all of our hard work over!”
Gabe’s left eye squinted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t play stupid with me - The Shaomhav Quarter!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t know? Really?” Theo tilted his head toward Gabe who looked away from him now. “How about Te’ev? Or what about Umbrudge? Xel Lek? Braska of Skies Rim? Those cities certainly didn’t blow themselves up!”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, bro!”
“I don’t know what I’m talking about? Heh! You and your terrorist organization have blown up multiple cities across the U on your little ‘freedom crusade…’”
Gabe simply shook his head while his nostrils flared.
“…and now you want to stand there and crucify me?!”
“What we did isn’t like what you did!” Gabe barked. “We’re fighting dictators and oppressors, while you - you just went and destroyed all of our work for ONE of them!”
Theo’s face contorted with fury as he yelled, “I wasn’t going to be apart of another senseless slaughter just to benefit the Union - No! I’ve been their weapon one too many times… Not this time, dammit! Not this time!”
“Senseless? No, you just decided to betray everything - All of the work we did, and all of us…And for what? For some tiara-wearing-Shim—”
“Shut up - Both of you!” Amelia shook her head, glancing to the two before at Klaus Walker who had yet to say a single word. “It’s done. We’ve all jumped without a damn parachute in this one. There’s nothing we can do about it now… But, um, where, where’s Drake and Sarah?”
Gabe shrugged his shoulders as Theo stood silent but Klaus stepped forward. He was a massive man, taller than them all, and built like a house. Though he spoke softly, “They said they were going to draw the search battalion's attention, that they’d get in touch when they could - not before, so we’re not to reach out to them. They’ll reach out to us.”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Amelia sighed. “It wasn’t.”
“So… What’s the plan now, Commander?” Gabe folded his arms, looking at the man he had considered his best friend since they were 6 years old and nothing more than boys on a backwater planet who were oblivious to everything beyond.
“I,” he stammered, “uh, I, um, I hon-honestly don’t know.”
Amelia’s eyes then sunk; Gabe threw his arms up in the air; and Klaus bit his lip after they heard Theo. It was the first time that any of them could remember seeing Theo like this; shaken, defensive, and shortsighted. The silence in the common area became deafening before he shook his head and finally suggested, “We can’t be seen together for a while. So, uh, just stay low - Stay safe, and, um, let’s check in with each other in 72 hours… Okay?”
Instead of responding, Gabe ended his side of the transmission with his hologram dissolving before the three.
Klaus nodded. “Oh-okay, Theo. Kyra and I are going to head—”
“No,” he interrupted his brother, “don’t tell me where you’re going, Klaus. I don’t want your location being compromised in case we’re being monitored.”
“Okay… Stay safe,” he said before his hologram too dissolved, and then Theo’s attention slowly turned to Amelia who was standing with arms folded and teary-eyed.
“Tell me why,” she whispered.
“Why what?”
“Tell me why you threw everything away for her.”
“I… Heeeeh, I don’t know, ‘Melia.”
“Don’t lie to me, Theo - Don’t!”
“‘Melia,” he said as he walked toward her, but she put her arm out as if to stop him.
“Puh-please, I swear to you, I don’t know why - I guess it’s like what I said to Gabe…I’m tired of being a Goddamn weapon for them. They’re not the Stars-and-Stripes any—”
“I said not to lie to me!” she cut him off, but then flinched as his eyes grew large and he yelled.
“Fine! Dammit, do you think that I wanted it to turn black? Do you?” He pointed to his right at the armory, where his once silver and glistening armor now sat jagged and scorched upon a manikin while a blackened haze began to emanate from him as he went on, “No! This is their fault! Not mine! Not hers! Theirs! And… And, and I’m tired, ‘Melia! I’m. Just. So. Tired.”
Amelia looked him deep in the eyes; the left remained blue-green with the whites of it instead being black, and his right had completely succumbed to black. The black eye-paint remained caked around them with fresh blood, as the gash over his right eye was still bleeding.
She subtly shook her head at Theo, but then slowly began to turn her back on him to end the transmission when he called to her, “Hey! ‘Melia… I’m sorry.”
She looked over her shoulder at him and he asked, “What’re you going to do?”
“I’m going to spend time with my kids, Theo,” she said as her hologram began dissolving. “But I think the question now is: What are you going to do?”
He watched her fade away and he sighed, “Watch the snow.”
The common area went silent again as Theo stood in the center of it alone. He looked down at his hands that subtly shook, covered in blood, before clenching them tightly, and slowly he approached the forcefield. There he looked through its blue haze at the falling white flakes, as the gash over his eye slowly began to close, causing him to grit his teeth.
But after a minute, Theo cracked a smile before he called out, “You’re gonna have to be a lot stealthier than that… Sparky.”
“You should’ve killed me.” A dark olive-skinned woman who had white-and-silver dreadlocks, donning a circlet that possessed a glistening teardrop-shaped stone at the center of her forehead emerged from the hallway to the sleeping quarters as she softly spoke, “You should’ve just followed orders, and taken it.”
“I don’t want it!”
“You’re a liar - Everyone wants it, and it’s the sole reason that you and your title came after me.”
“Oh Sparky, don’t flatter yourself,” Theo chuckled at her.
“Stop calling me that!” the woman, Dax Qrow snapped.
He walked right up to her, smiled as she scowled, and pushed a couple of dreads behind her ear. “Look at how cute you look when you get mad.”
Dax blushed and her eyes fluttered, but then she snapped back with her brow furrowed and hands waving around, “You kidnapped me! You kidnapped a Princess of the Sovereign Kingdom of Wendale - THE military might of the U! You were ordered to kill me and retrieve it, but instead, you killed your own soldiers and betrayed your title…You doomed us both!”
“Ah,” a voice with the thickest of British accents called from overhead, “Finally a lady who gives you a run for your money, sir!”
“Who, who is that?” She flinched and looked around.
“Shove it, Edmund!”
“Of course, sir,” the AI sarcastically said to him. “I was programmed to please!”
“And hey!” Theo returned his attention to Dax, growling, “I did you a favor, Sparky…”
“Stop. Calling. Me. That!”
“…but if you don’t like my chivalry - Nothing’s keeping you here!”
Dax’s eyes fluttered again as her head clocked back. “Ex-excuse me?”
“I believe that Master Theo is suggesting you might enjoy the frigid winter of Fyres, Your Highness,” Edmund now sarcastically responded for Theo.
“Who is that?” Dax spun around, looking for who and where Edmund was.
Theo chuckled. “That, that would be my AI… but he’s right - You’re free to go Sparky, I’m not going to hold you here. Hell, I saved your ass and pretty much threw away everything in the process. So, please, do whatever you want.”
“What do you mean you saved me?”
Theo rolled his eyes and scoffed at her, but then he saw she was being genuine and Theo squinted his left eye as he said, “You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“My title and I weren’t sent for you…”
Dax’s eyes got exaggeratedly large as she motioned her hand for him to go on.
“No, Sparky, we were sent to take out your father.”
Dax smiled and laughed at him. She shook her head, refusing to make eye contact at first, but then slowly realization started to set in. “Pfft! Hah-ha-ha-ha! Why are you lying to my face? My father cha-changed, um, he, uh, changed the personnel that, uhm, who were sent to th-the outpost two days ago and sent me in-instead…”
“Huh, what a ‘king’ of a father you got—” he sneered, though before he could get his full thought out, Dax punched him. Her fist caught him over the right eye and he went stumbling several feet back where he hunched over.
Dax bit down on her lip, tears filled her eyes, and she grabbed her hand as it felt like she had just broken it. Though Theo whipped back up, his eyes completely flooded black, teeth had transformed into razor-sharp fangs and he let out a thunderous roar that shook the cruiser. Dax backed away from him, where she pressed back first against the steel table behind her. Her eyes had sunken with fear, trembling at what was before her, but as his eyes closed and fluttered open, they blinked back to normal.
Theo’s brow remained furrowed despite his eyes, pointing to the open side hatch. “Go! Go on - Leave!”
She stood before him in awe for a moment, only to subtly shake her head while approaching him. Dax looked at the gash over Theo’s eye, which had pulled itself together moments prior, though her punch reopened it.
“Let,” she stammered, “let me help you… please?”
“I’m fuh-fine.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” Dax quipped. “Now please, allow me to help you.”
“Sir,” Edmund asked, “would you like me to retrieve the Princess the medical aid supplies - Or are you going to continue being pigheaded?”
Theo didn’t say anything but instead, he looked at Dax, who for the first time since meeting her, let out a tiny smile as she placed her hand on his chest. “Please?”
He sighed before nodding. “Retrieve the medical supplies for her - And before you ask, Edmund, yes, Sparky can use them.”
“My name is Dax, Dax Qrow,” she softly told him, as they sat down at the table. “Not Sparky.”
“I know… Sparky.”
Her eyes grew large as she bowed her head slightly, looking up at him like she was hurt. “Why do you insist on calling me that? Would you like it…Would you like it if I, if I called you Beelezika? Huh?”
The entire cruiser went ice cold for a moment. It was like the sound was sucked out from it as the two just looked at one another; Dax’s eyes remained large, puppy-dog-like as her bottom lip was puckered out slightly, and Theo’s left eye squinted just slightly again as a smirk slowly broke out of his stone cold face.
“Heh. Kill some golden-eyed-pointy-ears and next thing you know, you’re branded Beelezika - the Black-ape-fiend,” he softly told her. “But you know what? I don’t care,” and he nodded in the direction of his armor before tilting his head so the gash over his eye was more clear to her, “As they say where I come from, ‘If the shoe fits, lace that sumbitch up.’”
“I’m, um, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean anything by that - I just don’t understand why you’re calling me Sparky. I was trying to make an example.”
“Don’t be sorry - It’s okay.”
“No, I shouldn’t have,” she said as she looked away from him. “That’s something my father would’ve done to me, and I hate when he does.”
The center of the steel table opened before a kit slowly rose as Edmund said, “Sir - I’m not one to second guess you,” Theo’s eyes immediately fluttered and his head clocked back slightly, “but are you certain that she can be trusted with needles and scalpels? She did just punch you moments ago - Perhaps you received a concussion and aren’t thinking bloody straight.”
Theo started to chuckle but Dax’s brow furrowed and nostrils flared as she yelled, “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, Your Highness, you just assaulted Master Theo not too long ago - How are we supposed to know if you are sound of mind, let alone that you won’t try to kill him with something in the kit?”
“You know nothing but ones-and-zeroes - You don’t know me!” she yelled at the ceiling before turning her attention back to Theo, grabbing a small towel from the kit that she used to wipe the blood from his wound and face. “And what are you laughing at?”
He winced as she aggressively dabbed and rubbed the wound. “Oh, nothing.”
“Again, you are a terrible liar.”
“Lying was never part of my job description, so, hey, can’t blame a knight.”
She paused for a moment, looking him in the eyes as hers squinted. “I… I can’t tell if you lied just then, or not.”
He just smiled and after several seconds, Dax hesitantly started back at cleaning his face and wound. She soon looked at the towel, and squinted her eyes yet again, though this time she asked, “Wuh-what are these silver grains?” and she leaned toward him, looking more closely into the wound where she saw many more that were moving within it, “There’s more in your gash - Her, her sword didn’t break, and, and your helmet surely didn’t give off steel shavings this small. Wuh-what is this?”
“Staedraem.”
“Oh-okay… But, um, but why are they in your wound?”
“Because they put themselves there.”
“They put themselves there? Wuh-what?”
Theo chuckled again before holding his left-hand palm up, as he closed his eyes before the silver grains crawled out of his wound and levitated down onto his hand.
“You’re, you’re a Stark?” Dax gasped as she watched.
“What a curse, right?”
“No,” she shook her head while reaching into the kit where she grabbed a needle and medical thread, softly saying, “There are many who would kill to have been born with your blood ability.”
“Well, they can have it,” he growled before pointing to the gash over his eye. “The second I get hurt, it does that—”
Dax threaded the needle. “It’s protecting you.”
“I… Heeeh, I know.”
“And apparently, you need it.”
“Hey now, my armor’s gotten me this far.”
She looked at him with a straight face, her head tilted slightly to the side and she exaggeratedly blinked. “Two on the side of your head; your knuckles; I see you walk with a slight limp at times, which means your leg has been broken at least, what? Three times? Exactly how many of these scars do you have?”
Theo could only crack a smile at her.
“That’s what I thought,” and she reached out, pinching the gash closed as best she could, saying, “Now hold still.”
The entire cruiser drew quiet for the fifth time, as Dax carefully proceeded to stitch the gash closed. Though Theo couldn’t take his eyes off of her, smiling the entire time as Dax caught him every couple of stitches before her eyes would dart away. When she finished the upper portion, she cut the thread, closed her eyes for a second, and then looked at Theo with them wide open, before she snapped, “Yes?”
“Oh, nothing,” he said, but her left eye squinted.
“No, no, no, there’s something? What is it?”
“It’s, it’s just been a while.”
“Excuse me?”
“No, it’s just that it’s been a long time since I’ve seen such warmth in eyes. Such good.”
“Please,” she sighed, “don’t.”
Theo turned to the right as he watched Dax get up and walk over toward the side hatch. He was now the one to squint, saying, “Don’t what?”
“Lie to me.” She watched the snow.
He came up behind her, and she turned to find him standing so close that their mail grazed, and he whispered, “I’m not Sparky.”
The two stared into the other’s eyes, their heads tilted slightly to their left as their lips neared, but just before they kissed, Dax’s eyes grew wide and lit up bright blue. Immediately an aura of shining white ignited off her, like flames. She quickly pushed Theo away as a sharp hiss screeched free when her hand touched his mail.
Theo immediately raised his hands, bowing his head just slightly as he said, “Hey, calm down—”
“Sir?” Edmund’s voice called, “Is everything alright? Should I enact emergency defensive actions?”
“I’m sorry!” She panted, “I, I, uh, I can’t! I, I can’t do this!”
“No, Edmund, everything’s fine!” He shook his head, then focused on Dax who was crying, and he said, “It’s all right, Sparky. I, heh, I crossed a line - My fault.”
“No!” she yelled. “You don’t get it! We’re not meant to be… to be fall—We just can’t!”
Theo nodded his head, softly saying, “Okay, Sparky. Okay…”
“I can’t betray my Kingdom… My home… My father…”
“…but, can you finish stitching me up? You’ve seen the job I do,” and he pointed to the side of his head, “and I don’t know if I want to give those a brother.”
Dax had her head bowed but a smile popped out as she heard him, and then slowly she looked up at him.