Hard Luck Hermit

“Get back,” Kacey snapped. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

Kacey had a pointy-looking rock in her hands, and the four members of the Church of the Guiding Truth facing her down had rifles in theirs, but she never backed down, if only because she was out of room to run. The cultists were ahead of her and a canyon ledge was behind her, leaving her nowhere to go.

“Where’d you learn to talk like that?”

“Same place she learned to talk back in the first place, I imagine.”

The chatter among the church members came to a halt as their ringleader raised his hand and stepped forward.

“That’s enough of this, Kacey,” he said. “Time to come home.”

“I’m not going back,” Kacey stammered. She held up the rock as if it could possibly threaten a man with a high-powered assault rifle. “I want to leave. I want to find my sister.”

The casual, concerned demeanor of the ringleader broke as he failed to restrain a single bark of laughter. The low chuckling from his fellow cultists made Kacey’s blood run cold.

“You want to find your sister? Take a step back.”

Kacey’s heel scraped the edge of the cliff as she flinched.

“Or we could give you an express ticket,” one of the cultist’s said, as he tightened his grip on his gun.

“No,” Kacey gasped. “No, no, no, you’re lying! Shut the fuck up!”

“Don’t you talk to us like that,” the ringleader snapped. “You sit down, shut up, and do as you’re told, before you get what your sister got.”

The grief on Kacey’s face transformed in an instant, as wide, fearful eyes trailed upwards, above the heads of the cultists.

“No no, don’t look at God,” the ringleader said. “Look at me.”

“She’s not looking at God.”

A bolt of white hot fire tore a hole through one of the cultist’s chest and raced off through the night. The ringleader traced the bolt back to its source and found, to his bone-chilling shock, Corey Vash, smoking laser pistol still in hand.

“She’s looking at me,” Corey said. He holstered his pistol. “Hi, Dad.”

The initial shock of seeing his presumed-dead son wore off, and Corey’s father finally registered the wall of blue standing behind the not-so-dead man. The alien mandibles of the behemoth twitched with rage as they stared downwards at the humans cowering below it. Corey also glanced up at his monstrous companion.

“Well, actually, she’s probably looking at my friend here. You can imagine why. Doprel, if you wouldn’t mind?”

The hulking abomination reached out and grabbed the two surviving cultists on either side of Corey’s father, grasping them so tight everyone around could hear their ribs snap. They barely had time to register the pain of that before Doprel hefted them off the ground and slammed their heads together so hard it created a cloud of fine red mist and pulp. Doprel tossed the bodies aside, and Corey brushed a chunk of brain off his shoulder.

“Thank you Doprel,” he said. “Now. Let’s talk. How have you been, dad?”

At this point, the instinctive terror of seeing his dead son and an alien behemoth wore off, and Corey’s father remembered he had a gun. In a panicked, flailing frenzy he almost managed to aim the gun in Doprel’s general direction before a searing flash of white light sliced the gun in half.

“Rude,” Corey said. He took a step back and let the blade of light sizzle in the air for a moment, just to show it off, before he deactivated the blade and continued. “I was trying to have a nice father son chat.”

The deactivated hilt of the blade stayed firmly pointed at Corey’s father as Corey himself took slow steps closer and closer. Unarmed and alone, his dad slowly backed up, until he too was at the cliff’s edge, just a few inches away from where Kacey still stood, frozen in shock at the scene unfolding before her.

“Like I said, dad, how have you been? Still been doing the same old same old, beating women, children, the elderly, everyone who doesn’t give you exactly what you want when you want it? Still getting shitfaced drunk every night despite spending every sunday preaching about how alcohol is the devil’s communion?”

Corey’s father backed up as far as he could, and nearly stepped over the edge of the cliff. As he caught himself, the business end of the laser sword’s inactive hilt pressed into his chest. It was still hot enough to singe his skin through his shirt.

“Still being the same old piece of shit?”

“I-”

Doprel stepped forward and let loose a series of clicking growls, sharp whistles, and a loud snarl. Corey’s father shut up.

“Thanks, Doprel,” Corey said. “In case you haven’t figured it out, dad, this isn’t actually a conversation. I’m just getting some shit off my chest before I decide what to do with you.”

With one hand on his gun and one hand on the hilt of a laser sword, Corey had everything he could ever need to fulfill several of his many fantasies about killing his shithead father. Though the laser sword was admittedly a recent addition to the fantasies. He’d kept it more conventional in the past.

“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this,” Corey said. “But I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about other things too. And I’m starting to think maybe I don’t need to kill you. I just-”

Corey’s stinger got interrupted when Kacey reached out, grab his dad by the throat, and then hurled him over the edge of the cliff. He screamed a pitiful scream all the way down, before landing with a loud crunch. A small smile appeared on Kacey’s face when the scream ended.

“What the hell, lady!”

“Maybe you didn’t need to kill him,” Kacey said. “But I did.”

“I was still going to,” Corey said. “I was just making it a twist, you know, getting his hopes up before I stabbed him anyway.”

“Oh. Uh. Sorry.”

“Ugh, it’s fine,” Corey said. He rolled his eyes. “Dead is dead.”

Kacey jumped as the giant alien started to click and whistle again, reminding her of its presence. Corey looked up at Doprel and then down towards the canyon.

“Really?”

He walked to the chasm’s edge and peered over it as well.

“Oh shit, he really is still alive.”

Kacey peered over the edge as well. Sure enough, Corey’s father was still alive, lying on a ledge just a few dozen feet down the chasm. Though judging by the twitching of his limbs and the rapidly expanding pool of his own blood he was lying in, he would not be alive for long. Doprel clicked and whistled again.

“Well, we could just leave him-”

Doprel clicked at Corey again, more harshly this time.

“Okay, fine. But we’re doing it my way,” Corey said. He pointed to a large boulder near the ledge. “Give me a hand with that.”

Doprel did the bulk of the lifting, but Corey did the steering. Kacey also put her hands on the boulder, just to feel like she was helping.

“One, two, three,” Corey said. “Alley oop!”

The trio tossed the boulder over the ledge and waited for a very satisfying crunch and splat. Corey brushed the dirt off his hands and gave a satisfied sigh. He was glad to have that behind him. A lifetime of physical and mental abuse from his father hadn’t exactly been resolved in the healthiest manner, but it was resolved.

Kacey, who was still in the midst of several ongoing crises, jumped again when Doprel pointed at her and started to growl. Corey stepped up between them to assuage her fears.

“No, no worries,” Corey said. “This is Doprel. He says he likes you.”

Kacey did a double take between Corey and the titanic six-eyed alien that resembled some horrifying hybrid between a gorilla, a fish, and an insect.

“Thanks, Doprel. I, um, like the way you smashed those guys.”

The thoroughly smashed bodies were starting to attract flies. Kacey took a quick step away, and Doprel started clicking and whistling again.

“He also has a sewing kit if you want your skirt repaired,” Corey said. “I’d take him up on the offer. I know he’s got huge hands and everything, but he’s surprisingly good at sewing.”

Kacey looked at the hems of her skirt, which had been torn to shreds by the brittle underbrush of the Utah badlands. It was a mess -but then again, this was the ‘modest attire’ the Church had thrust upon her.

“No thanks,” Kacey said. “I am never wearing this again.”

“Fair enough.”

A small device at Corey’s belt clicked on, and an odd, guttural string of syllabic gibberish started pouring out.

“Understood,” Corey said, before returning his attention to Kacey. “We’re going to start heading back to the Church compound now, if you want to join us.”

“Fuck no,” Kacey said. “I am never going back.”

“Oh really? Because I have some friends doing some redecorating.”

Corey pointed into the distance. They weren’t all that far from the compounds gates, and Kacey could still see the outlines of buildings in the distance

“I think you’ll like what they’ve done with the place.”

The giant blue alien started strolling in the direction of the Church compound, and Corey followed. Kacey decided against standing around alone in the desert with a bunch of corpses, and trailed behind. Eventually her nerves caught up with her, and the presence of the big alien started to seem a little more normal.

“So...you’re Corey Vash?”

“Corey Amadeus Vash, pleased to meet you.”

“They used to tell us about you, you know,” Kacey said. “About how you and your mom left, and God punished you both.”

“I imagine they would,” Corey said. “What do you think they’re going to try and spin this story as, huh?”

As they got closer, one of the church window’s exploded in a large fireball. Corey shielded his eyes from the flare and then took off running.

“Hey! Save some for me!”

Corey dashed off with surprising speed, with Doprel close behind. The still-exhausted Kacey took much longer to catch up, arriving just in time to cross paths with a musclebound red alien hurling a firebomb into a nearby barracks. The residents within had long since fled into the night, some of them still audible as they screamed in the distance.

“You were right, Corvash, these guys had a pretty good stash,” Kamak said. He had a crate of alcohol under one arm and a gun in his off hand. “Excited to see if Earth booze is worth a shit.”

“We’ve got some good stuff,” Corey said. He’d always figured the Church leadership had a stash of ‘devil’s communion’ lying around. Hypocrites. Dead hypocrites now, which made it much easier to stomach. With Corey’s guidance, the crew had killed off the worst of the worst and left everyone else to be sorted out by the others. Corey knew there had to be at least a few good people trapped within the ranks of the Church of the Guiding Truth, so he’d saved his avenging fury for the absolute worst. With one exception.

“Hey Aunt Betty, how you doing?”

Corey’s aunt had always been something a middle ground in his mind. Absolutely a piece of shit, but she’d never been physically abusive to him or his mother in any way. Just mentally. Corey didn’t want her dead, but he did want her to feel exactly as bad as she’d made his mom feel. Kamak had wrangled her up and left her kneeling in the dirt outside the burning church.

“I don’t know what devil brought you back, Corey Vash, but our Almighty Lord will put you all in your place!”

“Damn. Least you’re a true believer,” Corey said. Another reason her fate was complicated. Unlike the rest of the leadership, who were just using faith as a cover for their heinous crimes, Aunt Betty actually believed in every bit of shit she was spewing. “How’s Uncle Richard?”

“The Lord bore him up on a bright light, something you will never-”

“About that. Doprel?”

Doprel reached into a large pouch at his belt and withdrew a morose trinket. He tossed it to Corey, all too glad to be rid of the grim gift.

“Brought you a present, Aunty Betty,” Corey said, as he plopped Uncle Richard’s severed head into the dirt in front of her. The matron of the church shrieked at the top of her lungs and sprinted away as fast as her legs would carry her. Corey watched her run with a smile on his face, and then punted his Uncle’s head to the side. As a “known associate” of Morrakesh, he’d been made a bounty target, and provided some very helpful inspiration for Corey’s current stunt.

“Got plenty more shit to burn, if you’re in the mood,” Tooley said. “Church is mostly gone, but there’s a lot of little buildings around here.”

“I think we’re good,” Corey said.

“Okay. This has been incredibly fucked up, by the way,” Tooley said. Then she grabbed him and pulled him in for a kiss. “I love it.”

The mood was spoiled by flashed of red and blue on the horizon. Corey looked that way and rolled his eyes.

“Shit. Cops.”

Kacey looked at the flashing sirens too.

“What are you going to do?”

“Run away, obviously,” Corey said with a shrug. “What’s the Church going to do? Tell them a dead kid showed up with a bunch of space aliens and burned their shit down?”

With their leadership dead, their resources burned, and more than a few mysterious corpses to explain to the police, Corey was confident the Church of the Guiding Truth was done for. Whatever was left of them would be dealing with the fallout of this incident for years to come.

“Let’s get moving, it’s better if we’re out of sight before the cops show up,” Corey said.

Farsus threw one last firebomb and started to pack up, bringing an end to the chaos. Kamak appraised his collection of stolen booze one more time before he noticed the way Corey and Kacey were locking eyes.

“I’m not adopting another human,” Kamak grunted.

“What’re they saying?”

“They’re saying we might be able to give you a lift, if you want to get out of here,” Corey said. She didn’t have a translator chip, so he was free to make some light embellishments. He’d get Kamak to forgive him later.

Kacey took a look around at the dust and rubble of the Church, and the building itself, which was not yet done burning.

“I’m okay,” Kacey said. “I’m going to...try and help people get out, I think.”

Even with the Church collapsed, there would still be many people stuck in the mindsets it had taught them. They would need a way out, and more often than not, someone to help them on that path.

“Good luck with that,” Corey said. He turned around and followed his friends back to the ship. Tooley got them airborne and out of the atmosphere before the police had time to see them. Or at least she sure hoped so. Either way, Corey didn’t care. Earth was behind him now, in more ways than one.

As the pale blue dot became a pale blue speck and then faded into nothingness, Corey found his way to the cockpit, hung his jacket over the back of his chair, and took a seat. Tooley finished up calculating their route out of the system and then kicked her feet up on the dash.

“Satisfied, Corvash?”

“More than you can imagine,” Corey said. He dropped his gun to the ground and grabbed a bottle of shiiv, then stared out at the stars.

“We can always go for another bombing run, if you really want to,” Tooley said. “Or probably conquer the whole planet, actually. You guys are seriously behind in the tech field.”

“I’m good,” Corey said. He had no desire to run a planet, especially not Earth. “We got shit to do.”

“Work to do, booze to drink, people to kill.”

“Yep.”

Corey leaned back and relaxed. The new ship had much comfier seats.

“You thought of a name yet?”

“Yeah, actually,” Tooley said. “What do you think of Wild Card Wanderer?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Good, because I already picked it and I wasn’t going to change it. Just asked to be nice,” Tooley said. She took a sip of her drink and flipped a switch to send them racing off into the stars.