Tink tink.
HellOOOOoooo
You in there?
"WAKE UP!"
Kei jolted awake and jerked upright into a sitting position. His eyes were met with the blinding light of fluorescent bulbs shining from a high ceiling . The HUD in his helmet flickered into existence as he turned his head in a circle. He was in some sort of small hangar or cargo bay. Various crates lay in small piles around the room, restrained by thick nets that prevented them from toppling over.
"So. Are you gonna tell me what you were doin' floating through space tied to a piece of junk?"
The Guardian flinched in surprise and turned towards the voice, blinking in surprise when his gaze connected with that of an awoken woman, two more awoken stood behind her, both held very deadly-looking rifles.
Kei sat there for a moment, unsure of what to say. Should he tell them? What about the others? Surely they were still looking for him, how long would they go without finding him only to find he had already been picked up?
"Hey! I'm talkin' to you!", his attention was once again drawn back to the very angry trio of Awoken.
"I-I-"
"Oh for the sake of the Traveler, Speak Up!"
Kei jumped and raised his hands above his head in a sign of surrender, "Okay! Okay! M-my ship blew up and I got lost, that's all!" It wasn't technically a lie, but before he knew it he was spouting out a response he hadn't really planned out. "Wait. You said Traveler. You know of it?"
The woman gave him a strange look. Somewhere between annoyance and impatience, "Everyone knows what it is. You're one of them aren't you? One of those, what are they called…"
"Guardians?"
She looked him straight in the eyes through his helmet, as if just hearing the word left a particularly bad taste in her mouth, "Yes. Guardians…" She turned her back to him, a snarl just barely concealed on her face, "The Almighty warriors that the Traveler created with its dying breath. Protectors of all. Defenders of peace."
She pushed her way between the two Awoken and made her way through a door behind them, "Kill him."
Without a second's hesitation, the two awoken lifted their rifles and promptly blew a large hole in Kei's head.
His body fell heavily to the ground. Blood seeping from the cracks in his helmet as the two Awoken moved to drag him closer to the airlock, preparing to launch his body back into space.
"Huh.", one of them began to talk to the other, "Kinda warm for a dead person." The other nodded, heaving the body closer to the exit of the cargo bay before making his way over to the panel near the door.
Whoosh!
The two Awoken jumped and whipped around, their eyes widened in shock as they watched the man they had killed burst into flames and rise to his knees. His glowing figure planted his hands on the ground and pushed himself into a crouching position, he rose to his feet and faced his would-be executioners.
One of them fainted on the spot. The other sank to the floor and cowered, whimpering as the flaming Guardian walked over and punched the release on the door to the rest of the ship. The hatch opened with a bang to reveal another very startled looking Awoken woman, the same one who gave the order to kill him. She quickly pulled out a rather large hand cannon and fired it twice into the Kei's chest. Her mouth opened and closed silently as she watched the bullets slow to a stop mid-air and melt, falling to the floor as red lumps of metal before even touching the Warlock.
"That wasn't very nice…", Kei removed his helmet to reveal an angry scowl as flames continued to flicker in the air around his head and body. "If I were you. I wouldn't be pointing a gun at someone who's just spent who knows how long drifting through space."
"Is that a thing with you Awoken? The angry I'm-better-than-you attitude?", Kei had gathered the crew of the small ship, a stolen Cabal cargo ship that had been repainted and dubbed Iron Vengeance. He stared at the small group of people in front of him, two male Awoken, two female, and a Frame.
Allie, the Awoken that had given the order to kill him, stared back defiantly. She matched his glare with one just as fierce, "So are you getting off my ship now?" One of the male Awoken to her left snickered at her snide remark. "'Cause this is my ship and I won't have it taken by some random stranger I found floating through space. Actually I'd go as far as to say you owe us. If we hadn't saved you, you'd still be a ball of ice drifting through the void."
Kei sputtered in fury, "I owe you? I owe- You shot me in the head! How does that, in any way, give you leverage over me!?", he huffed and turned his back to the group, "Fine, whatever, just drop me on the nearest inhabited planet and then you can forget all about me. We can pretend that none of this even happened."
"I was- Testing you.", Kei just barely caught the split second hesitation in her response. She was lying. She had definitely meant to kill him, and now she was stuck with a seemingly unkillable Guardian on her ship. Kei prayed to the Traveler that she didn't know about light energy and how it worked. If she realized that his fireborn ability could only be used once, it probably wouldn't be pleasant.
The Captain put a hand to her face and sighed into her palm, "Rok, get us underway to our next port. I want to be there as soon as possible so we can dump this freeloader and get back to our regular supply runs."
An Awoken male with pale-blue skin and ragged black hair nodded and jogged through the door on the far side of the hangar.
"Katie, head back with Bill and make sure that engine stays together."
"You got it boss!"
"I am happy to comply"
The other Awoken female and the Frame exited the hangar as well.
Allie turned to the last of her crew in the room, another Awoken man. "Ok Kyle. You, uh… Just, guard the Guardian for me, ok?"
Kyle visible sagged in place as his Captain slapped him on the back and left to join Rok on the bridge.
The two stood there in the hangar, the air heavy with an awkwardness as the silence dragged on.
"Uh… Sorry I kinda made you faint earlier…", Kei spoke up in an attempt at conversation.
"N-no problem. As long as you don't roast me alive, I guess it's fine."
This is gonna be a long trip...
