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“Where’d you learn to fight like that?” Khaathra hissed, tucking what remained of her severed tentacles against herself as she kept on him. It seemed he hadn't been the only one taken by surprise in this encounter.

When Elliott had set out to teach himself hand-to-hand, he’d favored the Gheroun method—which served him well now.

It relied on evasion and fluid motion, twisting and meeting one’s opponent in a dance that rarely halted in movement.

It had worked well enough on keeping certain tenacious bounty hunters at bay.

And now it was proving surprisingly effective against the head of the Gheroun people herself.

She’d chosen to take him on alone. She’d decided to do it in melee combat, likely just to prove she could.

Elliott wanted to hurt her where she was most vulnerable—her ego.

He felt the grin spreading across his lips now, something lupine. “I taught myself. Do you like it? Do you like that I can take you on? Or does it infuriate you that I’m going to win?”

“No one wins against me. Especially not someone like you.”

He was vaguely aware of voices filling his ears now—the desperate back-and-forth of Niko’s and Lady Death’s parties. He couldn’t pay them enough mind to pick up on the specifics of their communication, but the panicked tone of their voices was enough to tell him about how much they were struggling.

Khaathra took another swing for his neck with a jagged star knife.

Elliott met and deflected it with his own blade, sending her knife clattering to the ground.

Her tentacles were too slicked with blood now, making it nearly impossible to keep a grip on him.

He slipped away from her, finally free, and took several steps back.

Then he laughed. “You’re pathetic.”

She answered with a violent laugh of her own, a manic, too-wide grimace splitting her face. Elliott could hear the crack of her teeth under the strain of how hard she clenched them. “Making me work for it, are you? The ways I’m going to break every one of you…”

“No. You’ve broken enough people,” he said. “We know our place, and it will never be beneath someone like you again.”

“You’re no one,” she seethed. “You’re nothing.

You just got lucky you made it through this little game of yours this far.

” She began screaming her words now, somewhere between rage and desperation, spittle flying.

“I’ll string you up and hang you from the palace wall, where everyone can come desecrate your worthless corpse for entertainment! ”

Elliott could see the emerald of her skin had begun paling now, her features turning sallow, her wild and angry eyes appearing sunken into her face. She was weakening. Yet even now, she wouldn’t capitulate.

Not that Elliott would let her. She was a blight on the galaxy that needed to be put down. She’d abused her power and influence for too long.

He had already won this—it came down to a matter of time, now. He could wait her out, keep the fight going until she bled out. But he needed to make this quick.

A fragment of Niko’s voice crackled over his comm lines. “—trying to get there, D, but it’s not looking good over here. They have us completely surrounded now.”

It was time to end this.

He beckoned her toward him with a wave of his knife. “Come on, then.”

Khaathra leapt at him, her tentacles shooting out and attempting to bind him again, but he spun to the side, evading her, and buried his knife hilt-deep in her sternum, right where her primary heart lay.

She coughed out a spatter of thick blood— a gesture so disturbingly familiar that even now he had to glance away—before stumbling back and finally sinking to the ground.

It was slow. Even defeated and bleeding out, the Imperator of the Gheroun Empire refused to die.

Her remaining tentacles still snaked up him sluggishly, weakly attempting to entwine themselves around his arms and legs.

They strained to get at his knife again and again.

He shrugged out of her grip with ease and took a step back.

She sagged into herself, her breathing ragged now, and tilted her head to gaze up at him.

“You… killed me,” she whispered, astonished.

“How many people have you killed, just because they couldn’t fight back?” he spat, staring down his nose at her. “It was only a matter of time before someone could. You did this to yourself.”

Khaathra didn’t answer. She merely sat, her three unseeing eyes still open, blankly pointed towards his own. No one was behind them anymore.

She disgusted him.

Elliott bent, panting, and retrieved Repartee from where it had tumbled to the ground. His entire body trembled from exertion, adrenaline, and fear. He had actually bested her. He’d taken on the head of an empire today to protect Niko’s family… and had won.

Somehow.

Cleo had been with him today. He could almost imagine glancing over his shoulder to see her grinning at him. Would she have been proud?

“Status, Niko?” Lady Death’s voice over the comm line tore him out of his reverie.

“We’re gonna try to make a go for it,” Niko responded. “But they’re bringing in more reinforcements. Lots of them.”

The fear in his lover’s voice snapped Elliott back to the matter at hand. His job wasn’t done yet.

He stumbled away from Khaathra and turned back toward the ship. Oliver Delamar peered out nervously at the aftermath of their exchanged carnage. Despite everything, the bizarre sight of the man appearing to peek out from a doorway suspended in the air made Elliott emit an exhausted snort.

He didn’t have time to think any more about it, though, already halfway up the Sonadora’s ramp now.

“Niko.”

“Elliott? Hey, babe, I… Things aren’t going so great out here. Think we might have gotten in over our heads, a little.” After a pause, he added, “It’s really good to hear your voice, though.”

“Hang on just a little longer,” Elliott insisted. He made his way toward the pilot’s seat, glancing toward Oliver and Loolae, who watched him with uncertainty. “Find something sturdy and hold on,” he instructed them as he passed. “This might be a bit of a wild flight.”

“Wait, what?” Niko interjected. “Listen, I—I’m gonna need you to take Dad and—”

“No. We’re all making it out of this alive.” Elliott sank into the pilot’s seat, ready. “Do you still trust me, Niko?”

The city of Zaaka Narai was a labyrinth of tangled, winding streets that looped in on themselves and then back again, circling grand and towering cone-shaped buildings.

The Gheroun people, it seemed, had a particular aversion to corners and straight lines, and it made navigating a city built by alien minds all the more confusing to Niko.

He kept a map hologram projected on his visor at all times, his only savior in being able to make good time navigating the shortest path that led to where the Legend had gotten cut off from Deleera’s group.

Despite the size and grandeur of the city, its streets were eerily empty and quiet now, belongings left scattered and spilled across the ground, vehicles left parked haphazardly, their doors open, their engines left running.

The Imperial government must have called for a hasty evacuation of this sector.

On every horizon, the lights of Gheroun Imperial Guard vehicles flashed and glimmered like furious purple and gold stars. By the minute, more and more blue and red lights of Galapol crafts joined them.

It was a sight that would have comforted Niko once, not all that long ago.

His lungs burned from having run so far. His legs sent ominous pangs of electricity burning up through his spine. With Elliott's ORA, he'd managed to keep up a good pace and reach the Legend's location more quickly than would otherwise have been possible.

Seeing the old bounty hunter again was shocking and surreal. They'd custom painted his armor to be a respectable replica of Niko's own, glossy and black. The sight of him—rifle out and crouching down behind an alleyway dumpster for makeshift shelter—was like looking in a mirror.

“I have visual of you,” Niko said. “Coming in from six o’ clock now. I’ll be approaching in stealth.”

“Kid!” the old man lamented over their line. “Damn fool is what you are. The young ain’t supposed to die for the old.”

“Nobody’s dying here today,” Niko said. He closed in behind the Legend, and the old man instinctively spun, waving his rifle vaguely in Niko’s direction.

“It’s just me.”

“Thought it was another one of those drones. Damn things have been the worst part of this.” Above them, a Galapol drone sped past, delivering a series of shots that sent both men crouching behind the dumpster for shelter.

The Legend took aim at it. “Speak of the devil. They keep sendin’ these things and I’m just about outta—” He pulled the trigger, but his rifle gave a useless click, the chamber empty.

“Yep. Well, shit. You came just in time.”

“I’ve got it,” Niko said, and raised his own rifle. Seconds later, the drone ruptured into flaming shards from an explosive round.

“Listen, I have some things you need to use if we’re going to make it out of here,” Niko started, crowding in closer.

He briefly deactivated his ORA to avoid the awkward dance of trying to exchange items while in stealth.

“Take this. We have to move quick.” He handed the old man the shield generator, explaining how to work it, then Elliott’s ORA.

“So, you see that switch there on the top? You’ll need to hit that and—” He watched as the other man completely vanished, only a faint outline of himself remaining. “You got it.”

“Eh? Stealth, huh?”

Another drone came flying their way, hurtling straight for Niko on a collision course and visibly laced with explosives.

He took it out mid-air with a quick shot.

This time, the drone exploded with such force that the windows lining the alleyway shattered and came raining down on the two of them, tinkling loudly as they struck the dumpster and their armor, then the ground.