Karnas Volk adjusted his grip on the Reaper's Fang, the rifle’s cold weight a familiar comfort as he turned his head to survey the wreckage of the human’s dwelling.

  The lab—if it could even be called that—lay in ruin.

  Fractured glass crunched beneath his boots as he adjusted his stance, scanning the scene with deliberate precision. His upper eyes scanned the chemical haze, the lower pair tracing jagged shadows from the pale flickering red of the emergency lights.

  Debris scattered the floor in uneven piles. Shards of glass, melted bits of metal, the outlines of what had been makeshift equipment. Nothing worth salvaging. Nothing of value. Worthless.

  Humans were filth given form, waste given hands. They had no structure, no worth beyond what others could wring from them. Volk exhaled sharply, his helmet’s filters dulling but not erasing the stench of their failure.

  His chest tightened with frustration. This should have been easy. A quick haul.

  A semi-populated area, and the vehicles he had seen around it seemed large to a degree that denoted human family structures—a perfect start to a profitable run.

  His shipmates would’ve been put to shame by the efficiency. Instead, he had this—a smoldering, chaotic mess, and no prize in sight.

  "Reckless filth," he muttered under his breath, the syllables biting as his gaze swept the room again. Humans. So fragile, so clumsy.

  The thought of their ugliness, their strange, unbalanced forms—two eyes.

  Always two.

  It made his stomach churn, in ways neither the Turian or Asari could..

  The explosion hadn’t been part of the plan. It shouldn’t have happened. But humans never seemed to know when to surrender, always flailing, resisting, dragging things out longer than necessary.

  Still, dead slaves didn’t sell.

  His chest rose and fell with a slow exhale, frustration simmering under the surface.

  Another job botched.

  Another target too stupid to know to surrender to their natural superior.

  He stepped forward, careful not to disturb the unstable remnants of the equipment scattered around him. The dust swirled thick in the air, illuminated in patches by the occasional sparks of dying machinery.

  He scanned the room again, irritation prickling at the edges of his mind.

  Karnas had seen the dust cloud erupt and had heard the muffled gasp before silence fell. Its insolence gnawed at him like an unfinished deal. The shot had been precise, calculated—meant to incapacitate, not obliterate. Yet, it moved.

  He needed merchandise intact, not scattered across the workshop floor.

  "Pathetic," he muttered, lip curling beneath his visor. How humans had managed to stumble their way into galactic society was beyond him.

  Just as he turned to leave, the sound hit him.

  At first, it was faint—a low, uneven stutter, threading through the haze like a whisper. His upper eyes narrowed, focusing on the direction it had come from, while his lower pair scanned the room’s edges for movement.

  A voice.

  No, not just a voice—

  Laughter, it took him more than a second to realize.

  It came in bursts, broken and uneven, rising and falling like static.

  A sharp, grating sound that clawed at his nerves. He’d not heard much laughter from the humans, so it might as well be natural, ugly as it sounded. His mouthparts tightened beneath his helmet as his grip on the reaper’s fang instinctively firmed.

  He pivoted, the rifle’s barrel slicing through the air as he trained it toward the sound even as the laughter grew louder, more erratic, needling his nerves. His upper eyes narrowed, the lower pair tracing its source. The swirling powder made it impossible to see more than a meter ahead, but the sound grew louder.

  "Hoo, hah... Ha! RushNumThreeWhatDoYouSEE- oooopssh. Broken spiiiiinnnner. Spin, spin, spinning... not yet, no-no-no. Still workinkit out-justapuzzle–justpieces!"

  The words crashed against and over each other, tumbling out in a chaotic stream, half-sung, half-spat. Karnas’s upper eyes fixed on the source of the noise, his lower pair flicking to the corners of the room. No movement.

  No clear target.

  His pulse quickened.

  Not unease, never unease.

  Just... vigilance.

  His breath hissed through the helmet’s filter as he took a step forward, the barrel of the reaper’s fang steady in his grip. whatever it was—whoever it was—they were still here.

  Waiting, hiding, laughing.

  He squared his shoulders, forcing the tension out of his posture.

  This was just another human. Nothing more.

  Weakness was the first step toward irrelevance, toward losing the place he'd clawed for in the hierarchy. He wouldn't let this human make a fool of him.

  Volk's teeth clicked sharply, grinding like stones with disgust.

  This room—its disorder, its filth—wasn’t merely an insult to him but a wound upon his bloodline, a slash across the face of his caste. To lose here, in this chaos, was to lose everything that had been clawed for generations.

  Powdered debris clung to the air, sticking to his helmet, dulling his HUD, smearing the edges of his vision even as his filters worked to clear it. Everything about this scene was wrong. He tightened his grip on the Reaper’s Fang, the rifle a steady weight that grounded him.

  Rage, like coals under his ribs, smoldered low but constant.

  “You are to reveal yourself!” his bark tore through the haze, sharp and biting, a demand carved from steel. His voice was a blade, cutting through the filthy stillness, but the air swallowed it.

  The human didn’t answer.

  Instead, it laughed.

  A broken, uneven cackle crawled out from somewhere deeper in the room. The sound was sharp, metallic, digging into his ears like a jagged edge.

  "dust—powderpowder—s'fine, s'fine. d'you knowwhat happens if you stack wrong? wrong? ohohohowrongstackitfallsitFALLSitFALLS!"

  Karnas’s nostrils flared—an involuntary tell that would have shamed his ancestors. The human's madness had purpose, each nonsensical phrase a calculated distraction. A sudden clang behind him confirmed his suspicion. As he pivoted, rifle raised, his four eyes split duties: upper pair tracking shadows, lower pair scanning the glass-strewn floor for movement patterns.

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  The human wasn't just hiding—it was hunting.

  His rage burned hotter, sharp and bitter like spoiled meat. The human’s insolence struck at him as he fought the urge to rage and gnash his teeth. Losing a slave was shameful enough. Losing it in battle was intolerable.

  A scrape above him, deliberate and slow, drew his gaze upward.

  “don'tlookup, don'tlookback…”

  The voice split into jagged laughter, fractured and chaotic. The sound burrowed into his mind like a parasite. Karnas’s upper eyes narrowed, scanning the beams above, while his lower pair remained fixed on the floor.

  “ohOHshit! why'dyouLOOKWHYDIDYOULOOK—"

  A sharp whirr snapped through the air, followed by the scream of metal slicing through metal.

  Karnas ducked instinctively, blood memory of millenia of being prey ringing through his blood, just as a saw blade tore past his helmet, grazing his barrier with a crackling flash before burying itself in the wall behind him. The impact sent shrapnel scattering, fine shards pinging against his armor like tiny teeth.

  His breathing quickened, sharp and measured through the filters.

  The human’s game had teeth.

  "TricktricktrickspinspinSPIN! oh, don't go-youdon'tgojustyet... stillgotquestions! doesitcrack? willitBREAK?"

  Karnas grit his teeth, the muscles in his jaw pulling taut. This wasn’t combat.

  This was humiliation.

  Every strike, every word stripped layers of his dignity, shredding the face he had built for himself and his people. His rage simmered, no longer his own but something older, deeper—a boiling curse carried in the marrow of his bones. He adjusted his stance, rifle raised, his four eyes darting in tight, controlled patterns. Each movement was calculated, precise, even as his heart slammed against his ribs.

  “Face your better, human!” his voice thundered, raw with the weight of authority, of caste. The fog around him swallowed the words, its insolence a mirror to the human’s.

  Another clang. this one closer.

  Karnas of Clan Volk turned, firing a tight burst into the haze. The rifle barked, its light ripping through the fog, carving it into fragments.

  Nothing but empty space.

  Then the laughter came again, louder, its pitch rising into something frantic.

  "Bangbangclick! wrong spot, you MISSED—" the voice cracked into a sharp shout, “MISSED!”

  Silence.

  His lower eyes caught the movement first—a shadow against the settling dust, low and crouched, its shape coiled and wrong. His upper eyes locked onto the glint of something jagged, a weapon made crude and sharp, jagged and unclean.

  The raider froze, teeth clicking with suppressed fury. A crude weapon, held by a crude species, yet still a threat. His place, his face—everything rested on quelling this insult.

  “Wanna know somethin’?” the human’s voice cut through the stillness, low and venomous, dripping with mockery. "Pipeain'tclean—s'rusty. oh, oh? whatwasthat? tetanus? nahhhh, nahhh. puncture. Riiiiight here. right. here."

  The figure lunged.

  Karnas fired. The shot went wide as the human moved—erratic, fast, its motions sharp and unnatural. The pipe struck his rifle, wrenching it to the side with jarring force.

  A knee struck his chest plate with crushing force—barriers flared uselessly. Karnas twisted, claws grasping empty air as the human's bloody spittle fogged his visor. The pipe followed, each impact methodically testing his armor's weakpoints. His mind screamed for control, but the human’s movements were too much.

  Its strikes weren’t just an attack—they were an insult, a degradation. Every impact was a challenge to his caste, his purpose, his place.

  Karnas staggered back, barriers flaring with impact, but they flickered weakly—too slow as the human held his rifle and bashed at his body through the armor.

  Kinetic barriers weren’t made for melee.

  Not those that bore the title of combat-rated.

  Not a flaw, not an oversight, but simply part of what it meant for modern warfare.

  The laughter was deafening now, this close as the human’s gaze snapped to his, eyes wild and gleaming, pupils blown wide like black holes as it tilted its head to the right. A slow, drawn-out noise escaped its mouth, clawing at his nerves. “....oooohhhhhhh,” it crooned, one long syllable dragging through his rage, carving deeper as it stepped back, looking down at him as if aware of who he was facing for the first time. “Batarian? BATARIAN?”

  The slaver’s lip curled as he rushed to his feet, a snarl caught halfway between contempt and fury. disrespect upon disrespect. His grip tightened on the rifle, fingers digging into the metal as if to crush it. “Silence yourself!” Volk barked.

  It was not his demand but the demand of the Hegemony itself, spoken through him. To defy was not insolence—it was treason against one’s betters.

  It didn’t stop.

  It didn’t pause.

  instead, it leaned closer, words pouring out in a torrent that smashed against his restraint. “do you KNOW?” The human hissed, voice crackling with raw instability in every single word from its ugly thick lips. “doyouKNOWw whatyoujust... fuck. whatwasit? oh. YEAH. ‘boom.’”

  Rage sparked into panic.

  The creature moved—not with the halting steps of prey, but with a predator’s speed, limbs twisting unnaturally as it lunged.

  Instinct fired the shot. The blast caught the human’s shoulder, spinning it sideways. Volk didn’t wait for it to fall. his rifle swung up again, aiming for the kill shot.

  But the human didn’t fall.

  It moved, body jerking into motion, hand lashing out to grab something—an object wrenched from the floor, its shape warped in the haze. The next swing smashed into his rifle, knocking it downward with brute force.

  The impact rippled through his arms, staggering him, but he dug in, lowering his center of gravity. He could already feel the cold judgment of the hierarchy pressing down on him—failure was unacceptable.

  “TicktickTICK BOOM!” the human screamed, its voice raw, its words splitting into fits of jagged laughter. “BOOMTHEBATS!”

  A sharp kick struck his knee, armor absorbing most of the force but not all. the jolt sent him stumbling back, balance slipping just enough for the human to close the gap.

  Volk’s lower eyes caught the glint of metal first—a jagged weapon aimed directly at him. His upper pair followed the human’s trajectory, tracking the unhinged creature as it drove the blade forward. He twisted to avoid it, but the human was too fast, too wild. The blade pierced his armor at the ribs, sliding in with sickening precision.

  Pain shot through him, sharp and immediate. “FIXitFIXit—thenitBREAKS!” the human hissed, the words cutting through the haze like broken glass.

  Volk lashed out, his fist catching the creature’s side.

  The blow landed with a solid crunch, but the human didn’t even flinch. Its bloodshot eyes burned through the fractured visor, locking onto him with an intensity that made his stomach clench.

  This was no ordinary human.

  “Batarian-batarian... hoo-boyyouLOOKfunny…” The words dissolved into a manic giggle, the sound snapping at his ears. “G-getit, LOOK!”

  Volk's rifle swung toward the noise, the barrel shaking with rage. Every shot that lit the room wasn’t for the human—it was for himself. A batarian’s place was built through knowing one’s place and enforcing that of others’. He would burn this creature’s defiance into the air, carve his dominance into the smoke.

  “...eyestwoFOURsetspreyhunthunteverwonderedifitPULSESwhenitPOPS?"

  the voice was closer now, pressing against his temples.

  The next strike came from above—a jagged piece of machinery crashing down with force onto his helmet. The visor cracked, a spiderweb of fractures splintering his vision. He staggered, feet sliding against the debris-strewn floor.

  The human was on him again, relentless, clawing and laughing, words spilling out in a fevered frenzy. “Click! Pop! Ohhhh, Whatsthis? Pressurepoint? Weldedjoint?”

  Then pain.

  The blade—a crude, rusted tool—pierced his chest with an unnatural precision, sliding into the sacred space beneath his armor. His barriers were gone, flickering uselessly without speed to activate as the weapon struck again, and again.

  "Click! POP!" the human hissed, each thrust accompanied by a rasping laugh.

  Volk gasped, the pain flooding his senses, drowning him in a sea of red. His body betrayed him, collapsing to the floor as blood pooled beneath him. His rifle slipped from his grasp entirely, useless now.

  The human crouched over him, head tilting at an angle that defied reason and respect altogether.

  "F-f-fixedyou. Hah. Fuckedyou."

  Karnas Volk’s vision blurred, the edges darkening as his four eyes failed, one by one. All he saw was madness, grinning through blood and haze. Laughter—sharp, searing, and final as the two-eyes picked up his Reaper’s Fang.

  “The w-w-weapon of the ENEMY, we willNOTuseit. ” It hissed with that ugly face twisted into a grin, teeth gleaming through the haze, bloodstained and sharp.

  Karnas could only gurgle as he choked on his blood.

  “We will ABUSE it.”

  – o – o – o – o – o – o – o –?

  First Blood (100 FP)

  Trophy Hunter (100 FP)

  FAIL: Into The Future (400 FP) [Galactic Civilisations II] {Time): “Know where you're going - or you'll just get lost. Science has a vast spectrum of possibilities open to a society, from advanced construction methods and ecological engineering to weapons technologies and faster FTL drives. It's enough to make one's head spin - but your people know how to stay grounded, possessing a nearly prescient ability to determine how useful any particular scientific effort is going to be, how long it might take before it starts to offer tangible results, and even what further options it might lead to. This doesn't eliminate the need to figure out what the options are to begin with, and you might still have to choose between developing a better Hyperwarp or pursuing Discovery Spheres instead - but you'll at least be able to make an informed decision on which path to pursue.”

  ROLL: Bandit Gunsmith (100 FP) [ Borderlands] {Crafting - Technological}: “You have amazing technical insight and when shown a pile of broken weapons or energy shields you can use parts from some to reassemble others into decent condition. Don't expect it to be pretty, but you can nail 15 repeater pistols together to make a functional shotgun, or use bits of five shields to make one that works.”

  Forge Points: 200 FP