Wow, I seriously wasn't expecting the response that I got. I mean, it's been a month, and my first story hasn't gotten more than 100 views, and no reviews. I've already passed the halfway point in views, and already have reviews on this one. Anyway, better stop rambling. See you at the end of the chapter.

Warning: Mild Language

Disclaimer that you have seen in any other story: I do not own anything from the game canon. I only own the story concept, original characters, setting that isn't in the games, etc.

Of course, I didn't always know I was a human. Originally thought I was a rare type of cheetah. Ironic, isn't it? My enemy originally thought he was a different species as well. Anyway, I might as well start twenty years after the war, when I learned what I was…

-Eighteen Years after the Intercontinental War-

Omega stood upon the deck of the Excelsior, the flagship of the Zetan pirates. His slightly long black hair shifted in the breeze that was sending the ship towards its target, a merchant ship of one of the trading companies that controlled these waters. His tan skin was covered by full, brown leather armor that was studded with iron between the layers of the leather, with a steel sword hanging in its sheath upon the right hip. On his left hip was a crossbow that only went down to his knee, a custom design that he had made, which allowed for him to reload it nearly as quickly as fairly quick archer utilizing bows. However, the crossbow only had a range of ten meters. A gun barrel was mounted below the stock, but the reload time made it useless after the first shot. Attached to the armor was a cowl that he wore whenever they went on a raid, covering all but his eyes. His blue eyes were focused upon the target that they were gaining upon.

Omega looked towards the bipedal vulpine manning the ballista next to him that had, coming off the bolt, a rope, of which a portion was held around his right hand. Her name was Silonya. Her fur was dark auburn fur that transitioned into black below her knees and elbows, with white predominating the end of her tail. She wore black leather armor that signified her place as protector of the 'son of Chrateh', Omega. She had the armor from when she was a master thief, before she joined the pirates after being found trying to steal from the hoard. Ordinarily, this punishment would have warranted death, but Chrateh was impressed with the abilities of the vulpine, and allowed her to join the pirates.

Silonya noticed Omega looking at her, and gave a false seductive smile and took the same tone when she said, "like what you see?"

Omega replied, barely stifling laughter, "Of course not! I've seen bottom feeders with better looks than you!"

They both laughed at this. They knew that during her days of thievery she had been able to seduce people whom were in highly committed relationships, of the same gender, no less, to enter their homes and steal what they had. Silonya stopped laughing, and a serious tone came into her voice. "Are you entirely certain that this will work?" she asked, pointing to the bolt and arrow.

Omega replied, a smile still on his face, "It has better odds than any other plan I have made."

"That doesn't lessen my concern."

Omega thought over these words, yes most of his plans had a tendency to go wrong somehow. Be it by unforeseen events or something that he didn't consider. However, they always wound up working themselves out. "Don't worry," he said. "I've been working on this one for a long time. And don't worry; I have a backup if it fails." He gestured to the rope that he had attached to his crossbow's loaded bolt.

Silonya turned her head back to the ship that they were chasing to capture. The voice of one of the crew rang out, "Prepare to board!"

There was a rush as the crew began to organize themselves, anticipating the coming action. Omega raised his cowl over his face during this short time. Eventually, a shout rang out, "Fire!"

The ship's three ballistae fired, the front penetrating and latching onto the fore of the ship, the back latching onto the aft. The third ballista was the one with the rope that Omega was holding onto. It was fired into the center mast, and he went flying along for the ride, nearly having his arm dislocated. He let go when it was still in flight, landing upon the sail as the rope attached to the ballistae began to drag the merchant ship back towards the Excelsior. The slope of the sail, combined with the pull from the Excelsior, caused Omega to begin to slide down the fabric of the sail.

'Not part of the plan! Not part of the plan!' thought Omega frantically, drawing his blade to attempt to catch it upon the fabric of the sail and slow himself down. He was a little late, though, and went flying through the air…landing right upon the merchant ships captain, his blade piercing the skull of the mole. When he realized what had happened, he spoke aloud, "Just as planned." He then noticed that all of the guards of the merchant ship were looking at him, weaponry in hand.

It was at that precise moment that the pirates had pulled the ship close enough to board, and everything proceeded to blow up.

Most of the crew charged to engage the pirates, but five, three cheetahs and two wolves, instead attacked Omega. Omega raised his sword quickly, barely blocking the first sword strike from the nearest cheetah before jumping over the axe of one of the wolves. He defended himself well, but he was unable to land any blows upon his enemies, because whenever one opening came up, another blade was coming his way, and required for him to parry it. He was eventually forced back to the railing of the ship opposite the Excelsior. He jumped up onto the railing after dodging the blade of a cheetah, but lost his balance and fell off the side of the ship. He lost a hold of his sword, causing it to fall into the water below. He paid this no heed, because he was drawing out his crossbow. He aimed towards a portion of the mast, and fired. The bolt was sailing towards the mast, when the rope was cut by a stray arrow coming off the deck of the ship. This fact sunk in, just as Omega hit the water.

'Well that could've gone better,' thought Omega as he tried to bring himself to the surface. Whenever he did, waves struck him, sending him back under. Omega was as calm as he could be at the time, which is to say that he was panicking uncontrollably. Just as he thought he was going to die, a shape dived into the water and grabbed onto him with a single limb, dragging Omega inside a sphere of air that it had brought with it. The entity brought Omega out from below the water, and Omega's vision began to clear. He saw that the entity that saved him was a gray wind dragon. Two segmented horns were predominant upon the dragon's head, with four more coming off of the back of the jaw. The dragon's tail ended in a bodkin arrowhead shape, and its frame was leaner than most, but that is due to the nature of wind dragons.

Omega shouted towards the dragon, "What took you so long, Gust?"

The seventy year old male dragon didn't even glance towards Omega as he replied, with slight anger in his tone, "Hold your tongue, youngling. You should have waited for the actual boarding, rather than trying to take the whole crew on yourself."

Omega just smiled and replied, "At least I waited longer than last time!"

Gust replied, "Yes, and that skurvywing still has only now healed."

Omega shrugged and looked towards the merchant ship. The entire crew of the ship was lined up and killed, if they weren't dead already. Only five of the pirates of the current hundred creature crew of the Excelsior had been killed. Gust carried Omega back to the merchant ship, where Chrateh was boarding the ship, followed by Silonya, and shouting orders to clear out the goods from the cargo bay. The tan colored, gray spotted cheetahwoman's brown eyes moving on, when the person whom she gave the orders to rushed off to finish them. When Gust drew near and dropped Omega, her gold cloak billowed in the gust from his wings, causing her red leather armor to be seen. The cheetahwoman turned towards Omega, and spoke to him, disappointment evident in her voice, "I thought I told you never to go through with your plans without speaking to me first."

Omega replied, face becoming downcast, "Sorry, mother."

Chrateh sighed, "Damnit Omega, you need to be more careful, you almost died today!"

"That arrow cut my line!"

"I'm not talking about the arrow! I'm talking about how you landed right in the midst of the guards! You were lucky! If the rest of the crew wouldn't have made it across then, you would have been attacked by every one of them on the ship!"

Omega became even more downcast. He knew it was true. Before he could reply, though, one of the Excelsior's crew ran over. "Captain Chrateh!" the vulpine shouted.

Chrateh looked over to the crew member with annoyance, "What do you want?"

"Look at this," the crew member said as he held up one of the gold bars from the cargo hold. It had the symbol of the Avalar Nation upon it. The crewman took out a knife, and scraped it along the length of the bar, revealing it to be lead.

"Damnit!" shouted Chrateh, raising her voice higher, for the whole crew to hear her as she continued, "We've been set up! Sink this one and get back to the ship!"

No sooner had she finished the sentence than a cannon shot rang out, and hit the deck of the merchant ship, Chrateh, Omega, and Silonya dodging out of the way. The crew wasted no time in complying with the orders, cutting the ropes that tied the two ships together and jumping over to the Excelsior. A couple went down into the belly of the decoy ship with powder kegs, as Chrateh, Omega, and Silonya jumped over to the Excelsior as well. More cannon shots rang out, as the crew hastily got the ship ready to embark, those who set up the powder keg bomb leaping over. Gust took his place at the aft of the ship, and directed the wind into the sails, allowing the ship to accelerate quickly. The decoy ship detonated when the Excelsior was just out of range. Without the decoy in the way, Omega got a better sight of what was shooting at the Excelsior. It was the flagship of the Avalar fleet, the rebuilt Fellmuth. Though officially it went by a different name, everyone still called the ship by the name the Skavangers had given the ship. The worst thing, though, was that the ship was under the personal command of the former Malefor puppet, now legendary savior, Cynder.

I think an accurate description would be "Oh, shit." But why would they send a capital ship to escort a decoy. It's almost as if they knew...no, they couldn't have. Or could they? You'll find out next chapter.

Oh, you know something interesting? I'm not using a beta. And these chapters are mostly 'write up the whole thing and send it out.' I thank the 'If Bay Forum were a mountain hall' and it getting roughly a page by the time you build up a short post, and by then what you were writing about could have already been changed beyond belief. And everything needed to be well written. (well, at least grammatically)

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