Enzo’s hand automatically dropped to the blaster strapped to his thigh, floundering when he found the holster there empty. Cando laughed and lifted up his hand, and to Enzo’s utter dismay he saw his own three barrel weapon dangling from between two long white fingers. He clenched his fists at his sides, nerves grating at the man’s cocky smirk.

Cando wiggled the weapon in the air, head cocking to the side. “I think you dropped something, boy.”

“What do you want from me?” Enzo snarled, feeling unbelievably vulnerable without his weapon in his hand. He heard the unmistakable sound of a barstool scooting on the wooden floor and resisted the urge to turn and see who had moved. The last thing he needed was for someone to go to whatever passed for the authorities around this place, but turning his back on Cando was a terrible plan.

“I don’t want anything from you,” Cando said, though the smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth indicated otherwise. “I just wanna talk.”

Enzo scoffed. “Right, like I’d believe that bullshit. Last time we saw each other you tried to kill me!”

“I never tried to kill you,” Cando said, scratching the end of his nose. “Maim, maybe, but kill? Far as I can tell you haven't done anything to me to warrant a killing. Although, it was a pretty nasty trick the way you stole that slave from me.”

“I didn't steal anything from you!” Enzo snarled, stepping forward with one booted foot. “You can't steal a person. He was just a kid, and you're no better than those fucking slavers, talking about him like he's a damn object.”

Cando actually laughed, and Enzo couldn't help thinking that when he did, when the genuine smile stretched over his face, it softened his features and made him look, well, handsome. The look was gone in an instant, though, soft laughing eyes replaced with golden flintlike hardness. “You don’t know anything about me, kid.” He lifted the stolen blaster to examine it, and Enzo took a quick glance around the room while those eerie eyes were distracted.

“I know you’re a bad person,” Enzo snapped once he’d taken in his surroundings. “I know you’re a pirate, and I know you’re a murderer. I know how you lost it when Kade took out your father, how you murdered those men for turning him in when he turned to slaving.”

As he’d suspected they would, his words made Cando’s lip pull back from his teeth in a snarl. “You have no clue what you’re talking about, you little shit!”

Enzo grinned, cock-sure and mean in a way that had driven many-a-mercenary to violence, placing one hand on his hip. “I know exactly what I’m talking about. What, you thought Kade wouldn’t tell me how your father took to slaving, how he was forced to execute him because he betrayed literally everyone?”

Cando growled, actually growled at him - which, okay, inappropriate time to think about how hot that could be in a different setting - and suddenly Enzo was staring down the barrels of his own blaster. He grinned, and before Cando had even finished raising the weapon he drew on his power and flickered out of sight.

“Aw, fuck!” Cando hissed, firing off a shot where Enzo had been standing a second before. The bar stool that had been behind him shattered and a woman screamed, but Enzo was already up on the bar, creeping along until he’d drawn level with the irate pirate. He crouched down, watching as Cando spun around searching for him, maybe just a bit pleased at the ire he’d managed to draw out of him in such a short time.

Enzo was just about to make his move when Cando turned to his own shoulder and started mumbling to it. It was such a weird thing to see someone doing that it gave Enzo pause, and he felt his head cock to the side.

What the…?

“Can you find him, Echo?” he was saying, though Enzo had to lean forward and strain to hear it.

Echo? Was that like his name for his version of an exosuit or -

He barely stifled his yelp as something darted out of Cando's pocket. It was small, about the size of a rat maybe, with a long fuzzy body the exact same shade as Cando’s inky black hair and two wings. It seemed to nod at Cando, and then it was swiveling its head around the room, searching for something. Too late Enzo realized what was happening, and then it was focusing its golden eyes (also, he noted, the exact same shade as Cando’s) right where he was crouching.

“Shit,” he mumbled as it squeaked and darted towards him. Cando grinned and aimed the blaster at him once more, but Enzo wasn’t dumb enough to stay in the same place that much longer. He jumped onto one of the wooden stools lining the bar just as the creature reached him, using its sudden tip forward as momentum and launching himself across the room. He skidded to a stop by Cando’s side and tapped him on the shoulder not holding the blaster, choking back his snicker when the man looked in that direction. Before the other man could blink he had snatched his blaster out of his slack fingers and was dashing towards the back door.

Whatever the creature was, it was fast, and he hadn’t even reached the door when it flapped down to hover in front of his face, squeaking at him in clear irritation. He spared a thought to wonder how the hell this thing kept finding him when he’d gone dark as he ducked under it and slammed into the door. Once he’d spilled out onto the street he dropped his cloaking and kicked the door shut, reaching up to press the button on his comm as he hurled his body down the alleyway.

“Terrance, I’ve got a situation here,” he snapped into the device.

“I can see that. Where the fuck are you running to, kid?” Terrance replied, and the grainy quality to his voice indicated that they were out of orbit still.

“That’s what I need you to tell me, dammit!” he hissed, skidding in gravel as he took a sharp turn into another alley. “I’ve got a tail, and I don’t know how but he can find me when I go dark. He’s using some kinda animal to track me, I dunno, but I need to get out of sight quick.”

“Alright, alright, don’t get your damn panties in a twist,” the captain said, and Enzo could hear his fingers tapping away on the ship’s holo. “Okay, coming up on your left is a fire escape. You see it?”

Enzo looked up and to the left, and sure enough there was an old rickety looking metal ladder dangling eight or nine feet above the ground. “Got it,” he barked, turning to the side and jumping at the wall. His foot landed on the brick and he kicked off, launching himself up so he could grasp the bottom of the ladder and pull himself up.

“Good, okay, now three stories up there’s an open window.” More clicking, followed by the unmistakable sound of a door closing. “Scans indicate no lifeforms in the room, but it’s a heat scanner so there could be a Draconian in there or something. Be careful either way, but once you’re in head out into the hallway and up the stairs to your right.”

“Who’s that?” Farris asked, and Enzo repressed a groan. “Oh, it’s Enzo. Did he fuck up already? It’s been, like, thirty minutes.”

“Shut up, Farris,” Terrance snapped.

Enzo ignored them, darting up the stairs, sending a jolt of power to his feet to muffle the agonizingly loud clanking his boots would have been making while he stormed up the steps. He didn’t have time to lament the fact that the window Terrance had been talking about was five over from the fire escape, and he jumped to land on the railing. There was no pause before he launched himself off and latched onto the nearest windowsill, shimmying over until he could hop to the next one, then the next.

It was as he was pulling himself in the open window that he heard the unmistakable sound of boots skidding into the alley, followed by a shouted, “Hey, you asshole! Get back here!”

“Holy - is that Cando?” Terrance barked into the comm.

“Yup,” he grunted, pulling his body the rest of the way inside. Just in time, too, because a second after he’d landed on the filthy carpet under the window a pair of strong, tattooed hands landed on the sill.

He pulled himself hastily to his feet, thanking the stars that the room was tiny, yanking open the door at the other end so quickly he nearly tripped over himself. He was developing a theory about Cando’s powers, and as he slammed the door shut behind him he pulled out his blaster and changed the setting on it. The metal door handle melted easily under his blaster’s beam. A thump and a muffled curse from the other side proved his theory right, and he grinned as he pelted over to the stairwell and opened the door to slip into the room. “Okay, he can’t use his power to go through walls or any crazy shit, but if he gets in this stairwell with me I am so fucked.”

“God damn, kid, how the hell do you get yourself into these situations?” Terrance breathed. “Alright, what floor are you on now?”

Enzo paused his run up the steps to look at the plaque on the wall. “Five.”

“Go up one more flight and exit. There’s another empty room, two doors down from the stairwell.”

“Okay,” Enzo panted, and he’d never been so grateful for all the running Kade always made him do in drills in his life. He reached the sixth floor quickly, and as he darted out into the hallway and shut the door behind him he heard Cando slamming into the stairwell. He paused, clutching at a stitch in his side. “I am never going to outrun this guy, he can fucking teleport!”

“Not if you don’t keep moving! Stars, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Terrance was all but shouting now, and Enzo knew him well enough to read the clear panic in his voice.

“Hold on, I’ve got an idea,” Enzo mumbled, already tapping a code into the sleeve of his exosuit.

Farris groaned on the other end of the comm. “It better not be one of those bombs you made, Zo; seriously, we can’t risk another explosion.”

“Nah, it’s something better,” he said, snickering to himself as his suit emitted a faint beep and spat out a paper-thin disk about the size of his palm from his forearm. He hastily pressed three fingers to it and slapped it onto the crack in between the door and the frame before turning on his heel and finding the room Terrance had been talking about. The wood splintered as he reared back and kicked it inward, and he heard a cut-off shriek as he slammed it shut behind him.

“Oh, uh, hi,” he said, waving jovially at the short scaly Draconian person - man? Woman? It was so damn hard to tell with the lizard-like species - before running across the room and out the thankfully open window.

Just on time, he heard the sound of his disk going off followed by a very loud enraged yell, unmistakably Cando’s. “Got him,” he chuckled, careening up the fire escape. It would buy him time, at least, though he doubted it would be much.

“What did you do to him?” Farris, who had always been not-so-secretly interested in Enzo’s weapons, asked.

“I call it the BDSM,” he said, barking out a breathless laugh. “It’s got a Taurian powder in it, and when it meets with oxygen it expands into this - huff - this really wicked sticky stuff. He’ll get out of it, but - huff - it should pin to the wall for a minute or so.”

“Alright,” Terrance interrupted once Enzo pulled himself up onto the roof. “You gotta hop over to that short rooftop two buildings over. You see it?”

“Yeah, got it,” Enzo said, legs burning as he put more force behind his running steps. He didn’t hesitate as he reached the edge of the roof and launched himself off, hurtling through the air to land on the next building with a tuck and roll. Then he was on his feet again, making his way rapidly across.

“The BDSM? Seriously?” Farris asked incredulously. “You’ve got issues. Really. We should talk to Kade about them.”

Enzo huffed out a laugh. “I’m just - hff - just a normal kid with a healthy sexual appetite!”

“Shit, kid, he’s out!” Terrance yelped, and suddenly Enzo found himself face to face with a snarling pirate. He barely skidded to a halt in time, stopping just inches from Cando who was covered neck to hips in vibrant yellow goo.

“Yeah, I - uh, I see that,” he panted, skittering back a few steps so he was out of arm’s reach even though he logically knew that this guy could fucking teleport and it would do him no good.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, I’m so dying for this,”Terrance groaned. “We’re coming for you as quickly as we can, but - fuck! Fuck, fuck, what the hell happened to the goddamn street cams?”

Enzo sucked in a breath and Cando smirked at him. “I’m guessing by that stupid look on your face that they’ve probably figured out that we disabled the street surveillance, huh?”

“Hold on, kid, we’re - “

He yelped as his comm was ripped from his ear, and when he whirled around he saw that creature holding it in its two tiny goo-covered paws. Thinking quickly he surged forward to snatch it away, but the thing was quick. It whizzed around him and as Enzo followed its path he saw it fly straight over to drop the device in Cando’s outstretched hand.