ORIGIN

An Honest Cowboy

Meanwhile, carefully trying not to startle Ezrith while he slept soundly, the girl (who only pretended to be passed out on his lap) stuck a syringe filled with a truth serum, disguised as an earring in her ear, in Ezrith's neck. When Ezrith woke up, before he knew it, Chronesius' third sun was on the rise and he and the girl were on his bed pillow talking half the morning away.

"So, what do you do for a living, she asked him, as she dreamingly gazed into his eyes. Is war your work security? If so, I think it's sexy. "Actually...I'm a bounty hunter," he said. "Oh yeah?" She said, stretching the glow-in-the-dark bubble gum out of her mouth with her finger. "That's sexy, too, in a clean-cut way!" Soon, the girl became more and more inquisitive about specific details involving the Star Brigade until, finally, she right out asked: What prison is your detainee, Ato, in?" Ezrith began to wonder why he kept telling her everything he knew. Nevertheless, he kept spilling the beans. And she kept eating up the information until her appetite was fully satisfied. If only Ezrith had known that he was under the influence of a potent truth serum. But even if he had, there was nothing at all he could do about it. As soon as Ezrith told her that Ato was being held at Zynnis Prison for interrogation, she got out of bed and quickly pranced into the bathroom as if she had to use it.

When she went into the bathroom, she quickly shut and locked the door behind her. She immediately started to contact her superiors on Volcrim from her wrist gadget. Then, Shimoto, the second in command of the Shinobi Nobles, appeared on her wrist gadget. "Where's the boy?", he asked her in the Volcrimese tongue. "He's being held in Zynnis. The Star Brigade facility's not too far from here." She replied. "Send me the coordinates to Chronesius, pronto! I'm going to have a little chat with the bounty hunter." "Don't harm him, sensei! I believe he's an innocent man!" By a certain look in her eyes and the expression in her voice, Shimoto could sense that, for some reason, she had some kind of sentimental connection with the bounty hunter. This was something he had never seen in her before so he didn't know how to confront the potential matter, at least not at that moment.

While the girl was still talking to Shimoto in the bathroom, Ezrith grew more and more suspicious by the minute. But not only of this doll-faced stranger whispering in his bathroom but also his complete inability to omit his intel' to her. So, quickly, he took his digital shades out from under his pillow and played back everything they recorded from their lenses the night before. That's when he saw the girl drugging him in the space taxi. But he had to play it cool when she came out of the bathroom because he didn't know exactly what she drugged him with or when it would wear off. When she came out of the bathroom, Ezrith saw the earrings dangling from her ears. It was the right one that she used to drug him. "Want some breakfast??" she yelled from the kitchen. "Sure," Ezrith yelled back, as he grabbed one of his photon pistols from under a pillow.

While she was in front of the stove, Ezrith snuck up behind her and stuck the barrel of his gun to the back of her head, saying: "Who are you? And what have you done to me?" She turned around casually with a half-smile and asked: "Are you really going to shoot me? Or are you bluffing?" "I'm bluffing," Ezrith said, as he lowered the gun with a bewildered expression on his face. "Well...does that answer the question?" she said, sitting Ezrith down at the kitchen table. "Which question?" he asked. She sat in his lap, faced him, and said: "The question about what I did to you." "Yes. That does answer my question. You - you drugged me with a truth serum!" "Bingo!" she said, smacking on her gum, as she was slowly reaching for the gun in Ezrith's hand, which hung over the arm of the chair. But as soon as she grabbed it, Ezrith swiftly stuck her in the neck with her earring and yanked her close to him, saying: "Now! About the first question I asked: Who are you?" My name is A - A - Akira," She said, trying to fight off the effects of her truth serum. "Who sent you?" Ezrith demanded. "I was sent by the Shinobi Nobles to get information from you about Ato." "Why is my bounty so important to you, anyway, honey-trapper?" "He's my brother. We're both slaves to Volcrimese outlaws and their leader who is called The Laughing Shadow!" Akira pointed Ezrith's gun at his head. "It only responds to my fingerprints," Ezrith said. That's when she said: "Look! I know you're not directly involved with the imprisonment of my brother. The Laughing Shadow just wants his Wolfpack slaves back; what rightfully belongs to him. And he thirsts revenge on whoever took them from his possession without consent or payment." Ezrith responded: "That would be the Darksiders! Not me!"

Suddenly, Ezrith's living room window was shattered and four Shinobi Noble henchmen acrobatically jumped into the house from a ship that hovered just outside. They approached Ezrith and Akira, who were both half-dressed in the kitchen. As they entered the kitchen and slowly surrounded Ezrith with a little caution, Ezrith looked at all of them. They wore black spacesuits with scary-looking masks that resembled the faces of different Volcrim animals. They were also all armed with laser blasters connected to the tops of their wrists. "Drop the gun!" one of them said. "Don't shoot him! We can use him!" Akira yelled. "He's not involved! He's only a chess piece used by the Darksiders! They're the ones who recruited Ato and the Wolfpack without consent! Plus I think he's very cute and would like to go out on a real date with him!" "What??" one of the henchmen said.

Ezrith knew that the Shinobi Nobles knowing about the Darksiders stealing their slaves could spark a possible three-way war between them, the Darksiders, and the Plumoritan district of the Star Brigade. That wasn't good for the galaxy. Something had to be done to prevent it, if at all possible. So Ezrith slowly put down his gun, as one of the henchmen approached him. A real-time hologram of Shimoto came from the henchman's wrist gadget, which they all bowed down to. Ezrith said to Shimoto: "Look. I can get you the culprit. His name is Baino Helzer. He's just been promoted to arch commander of this sect of the Brigade, which jurisdiction Volcrim is not under. That's non-sanctioned territory. And, legally, since Baino isn't an honest agent, as far as I'm concerned, you can do what you want to him. You can get him to lead you to Ato and even to the Darksiders, too. But no innocent blood should be spilled! Okay??" Ezrith pleaded with Shimoto, who had nothing to say in contempt. He knew that Ezrith was being honest since he was still under the influence of the truth serum.

Meanwhile, at Zynnis, Ato was being escorted down a corridor by four, huge, muscle-bound prison guards, two on each side of him. They were armed with machine guns fully loaded with target-tracking ammo. Each machine gun's target-locked infrared beam was locked onto Ato and was guided by his DNA. Ato's feet were shackled and he had on a straight jacket with a muzzle. It turned out that this kid was way more dangerous than he appeared. He was an espionage-like master of mental manipulation, not to mention the Wolfpack's most skilled at the triple-jointed fighting style called noble fist. He and the guards passed Baino Helzer in the corridor. Baino made eye contact with the kid. But because of the memory zapper he was hit with by Shellshock, Ato didn't recognize Baino at all. Baino's eyes followed Ato down the corridor until his attention was grabbed by a coded message he received on his wrist gadget. It was an urgent one from his fleet.

Ato and the guards made their way to a small room with a pretty woman sitting at a desk with her legs crossed. The lady was Zynnis' mental assessor. Her name was Dr. Kelli Holland. Ato sat down in a chair in front of her desk. When the woman gave the signal, the guards backed away into the shadowy corners of the room. But the fluorescent targeting beams were all still locked in the same spot on Ato's chest.