Wow. I finally made part three. This is an omen, man.
Anurak was a lot of things. He was a pale man with stark white hair, dressed in an open black leather jacket, pants, and boots, with gold-rimmed Aviator sunglasses. He was a Muay Thai master. He a resigned Army Captain. Above all, though, he was a bounty hunter.
Anurak, along with a young hunter named Zeith, a slightly narcissistic diplomat named Dredge, and a Dragoon named Kain who said little about where he’d come from, spent their days in the capital city of Mesopotamia, catching thieves, killers, rapists, and pretty much anything that could be considered a threat to society.
Today, he was sitting on the couch of his team’s base, his feet up on the table in front of him, strumming Snow ((Hey Oh)) on his guitar, watching Dredge organize legal documents across from him.
“Hey, Dredge,” He said, managing a smile. “How come we’ve never met your wife?”
Dredge, a man with the small, fit frame of Bruce Lee, looked up from the papers for a moment, smiling back. “Oh, well that’s easy enough a question to answer. I’m afraid she might like you better.”
Anurak laughed, and stopped playing for a moment. “Really, though. I’d love to meet her. She sounds lovely. Impulsive, erratic, and inexorably positive. She’d certainly be better company than Zeith.”
Dredge thought for a moment, then put down the stack of papers he was holding, stood up, and straightened the tie of his open black suit. “Fair enough. Let’s go. I’ll finish our property taxes later.” Anurak laughed again. In the fifteen years Anurak had known Dredge, neither of them had paid a single tax. Anurak lost his house for it, Dredge didn’t. In fact, it was almost as if Dredge was making the government pay taxes to HIM. After sharing a building with Dredge, he’d come to realize it had something to do with actually writing something down on the papers given to you.
“Right-o. I can’t wait.” Anurak stood up, slung his guitar over his back, and followed Dredge out the door shortly after changing his black leather jacket for his dull green Captain’s jacket, adorned with several honorary stripes, along with the Medal of Honor on his right chest.
After ten minutes or so, Dredge had led them to the front door of a three-story house that, aside from its size and obviously well-kept lawn, was unremarkable. It was the house of a man who knew he was rich, but didn’t care. Dredge confidently turned the knob and pushed the door in, shouting, “Come downstairs with your hands up! This is the police!”
There was a small crashing sound, and a feminine figure rolled into the room on a computer chair backwards, her arms raised as she made airplane noises. The chair slowed to a stop and the woman turned around, grinning madly. She was German and Japanese, miraculously inheriting the greatest physical features of both races, with large green eyes and naturally tan skin. Her jet black hair was pulled back into a ponytail. “Dredge~!” She raised her arms, nearly tackling Dredge to the ground with a vicious attack hug.
Dredge spun her around once before letting her down gently on the floor. She stared at him lovingly for a moment before turning to Anurak.
“Hiya! Who are you?” she said, with a cheery enough expression to make the most hardened criminal’s heart melt.
Dredge chimed in. “Krystal, this is Anurak. He’s my friend, and a partner of mine in the bounty
hunting business.”
Krystal’s expression brightened even more, and she embraced Anurak in a hug, which he returned. Anurak glanced over to Dredge, who gave him a ’Yes, I know I’m lucky’ smile. Krystal released him after a moment, and invited them inside.
Leading them past a spiral staircase into a living room, Krystal committed herself to friendly rambling.
“Dredge always talks about all of you. There’s Zeith, who, from what I gather, is a brat, albeit one that can use a knife and aim a crossbow. Kain sounds nice enough, but a bit too quiet for me. I can’t say any of that for sure, though, because SOMEONE decided never to introduce me!”
Dredge looked out a window nonchalantly.
At the precise moment that the three of them sat down, a particularly tall and muscular man in a suit entered the room, presumably a bodyguard.
“Forgive me, Dredge. He refused to leave until he could speak with you.” Anurak directed his attention to the comparatively small boy clamped in the guard’s grip, in clear discomfort.
Dredge stood up immediately. “Ah, Zeith! Wonderful timing! That will be all, Craig.” The bodyguard relinquished his grip on Zeith and exited the room.
Zeith cast his gaze at Krystal for a moment before muttering, “A brat, eh?”
Krystal looked at him, dumbfounded. “What? How did you-“
“People in my trade have sharp ears. Very sharp ears.”
Anurak straightened his Medal of Honor and piped up. “So, Zeith, what brings you here? I know you didn’t waste that guard’s time just to say ‘I heard that’.”
Zeith pulled a crossbow bolt from his waist, examining the tip. “No, I didn’t. Have you ever heard of the Ancient Lord Stefan?”
Krystal cocked her head to the side. “Oh, you mean that guy that’s like a billion years old because he forgot how to die? Yeah, didn’t he start burning down towns lately, with sticks and stones, pretty much?”
Zeith glared at her. “He’s an Immortal. It’s a semi-human race that more or less went extinct some five hundred years ago. They stop aging somewhere in their mid twenties. And no, the village burning wasn’t him. He also doesn’t use sticks and stones. His kingdom was around in the time of swords and bows, so that’s what he arms his… men… with. While bows may have been long replaced with actual firearms, swords are far from obsolete. So to put it simply: No.”
Krystal threw her hands in the air. “Well sooooo~rry! Why does he matter to you, anyway?”
Zeith looked over to Dredge and Anurak. “Call Kain. Stefan and I need to talk.”
Oh, and by the way, when Zeith mentions that “Swords are far from obsolete,” That is applying to a fantasy world. Not Earth. Please don’t join the military expecting to be a swordfighter.
