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You've heard about this one. They say he's immortal. That he can shape shift, influence others' minds, and even shoot lighting out of his fingertips.

They say that other bounty hunters have gone after him before. None have even made it back alive, much less with the bounty.

They say all this and end it with "we want him alive."

You know it's a bad job. Normally you wouldn't take it. But you're strapped for cash. The last 3 jobs didn't pay out and you're getting desperate. Desperate enough to take a sketchy job.

You pull together the last of your funds for the trip. You don't have enough but eventually a sleazy barge captain offers you passage in exchange for a cut of the bounty. It's either this or nothing, so you accept.

You don't have enough money left over for ammo, which is ok since you have to take the bounty alive. You don't have enough money left over for armor, which is less ok, considering the lightning thing.

You have just enough money left over for one vial of Star-Whale tranquilizer. Ever since Star-Whales were hunted to extinction, the stuff has been super cheap; even a small amount of Star-Whale tranq is enough to kill pretty much anything smaller than the beasts, which includes but is not limited to small planets.

You hope that what they said about him being immortal was true.

Four days of crappy cooking, less-than-stellar living conditions, and listening to the barge captain tell you about all the crimes he has committed (you almost consider capturing the captain, instead. Alas, no bounty) you finally arrive.

Your target has chosen a back-water planet to live on. Apparently, the local civilization is hundreds of years away from space travel. A guide book you picked up says the civilization is in the "Bronze Age." You find out that that means the civilization uses bronze tools.

No wonder your target chose this planet. As an immortal being living in a civilization that doesn't even know space exists, he must be treated as a god or something. That would be the life, you think. You bet gods don't have to pick up sketchy jobs out of desperation. You think they probably give out sketchy jobs for fun.

The barge captain lets you borrow the landing craft. It barely makes it through the atmosphere. You land in a forest and hide the craft with branches. After the atmosphere, you're worried that the weight of the foliage might break the craft forever.

Your target lives on a mountain. The tallest mountain in the area, in fact. It takes you half a day to walk from the craft to the base of the mountain, another day-and-a-half to climb it. You arrive at the false peak, where they said he would be, in a state of near exhaustion. You have nowhere to rest: the false peak is above tree-line and it is windy! This job sucks, you think. At this point, you believe, death would be a good option.

You find him sitting on a rock at the apex of the false peak. He faces away from you, staring intently towards the peak.

He is not what you expected. He is old, almost ancient. Long, white hair and tangled beard. Skinny, frighteningly so. Skin clinging desperately to bone. His eyes are white: he is blind.

"Zeus?" You ask in confusion...

To be continued when I figure out how to end it

Is the twist going to be people don't believe in him anymore so he lost all of his power?

"Whiskey. Neat." She said, slipping onto the dessicated barstool, and tapping the counter twice, fingerless gloves worn with heavy use.

Barman squints at her. Frowns.

"You ain't from around here - could tell the moment you strutted in here. I don't like that." He says, polishing a mug with a glinting metal arm. "Some advice, girl. Core world slickers like you don't last long out here. I suggest you take the next ship home before you get yourself shot." He finishes, side-eying the woman sitting across the bar and spitting onto the ground, before pouring her a shot and sliding it across towards her.

Jane, black Gambler hat - a Stetson - pulled low over her face, downs the shot in one go. Slides over a holo-chit, which unfurls to display Zeus's mug in a blue-tinted hologram. He's balding with patches of red hair, sand-worn, lined, and ruddy skin, bulbous green eyes. And a nasty fuck-off burn scar running down from cheek to jowl across the right of his face. "Looking for him. Seen him?" She says, ignoring the barman's provocations despite him being dead-wrong about her being an offworlder - and getting straight to business.

Barman snorts. "You're shittin' me. Thin little thing like you thinks she's a bounty hunter? Gimme a break, girlie. Just 'cause you dress the part, don't make you a hunter." He grabs the holo-chit, holds up the projected face of Zeus to his face. Face grows pale. "Now hold on here... Yer goin' after that Zeus? Nuh uh. No way. Ain't telling you shit."

She looks up at him, and he gets a good look at her face for the first time since she's wandered into his dingy little saloon on the outskirts of Vamury, the largest developed city and what passes as capitol on a backwater planet as Hedalos Prime, a rocky and dry dustbowl of a planet. She's got chin-length dark hair, piercing, predatory gray eyes, and a sharp thin nose. Mouth's a curt and small slash across her face, currently locked in a snarl. A scar runs across her left eye, which had been replaced with a Kraussman Combat Optic implant, with its tell-tale glow in the iris, and the Kraussman Company name and logo embossed in very fine print on the sclera just around the pupil.

"You know something then you damn well better tell me, Barman. It ain't a request." She says in a low voice. Her optic flashes red as she stares him down, eyes narrowing, her one remaining organic eye exuding a wave of killing intent.

"Listen, I don't know nothin'. Not if it's him." Barman says, putting down the mug and staring back into her eyes defiantly. "You think you're the first hotshot hunter come thru here, looking for Zeus? No girlie. You ain't the first, and you ain't the last. Turn back now, and this time I really mean it. Or you're getting sent back in a fucking bodybag, bet my last credit on it." He spits again.

Quick as lightning Jane draws her revolver from the shoulder holster hidden beneath her sand-coated duster. Points it at the barman's gut. "Wrong answer." She says, words laced with venom. A killer's voice.

Barman starts sweating now, and she can tell from his shifty eyes glancing from the engraved barrel of her revolver and back to her eyes that he's trying to decide whether or not to call her bluff. Grabs a clean rag from a drawer beneath the counter and wipes at his forehead. Shakes his head, sighs. "Fuck me. 'Run a bar out in the boonies,' they said. 'Good money, good living' they said." He mutters, then sets the rag down. Looks to his left and right furtively, before leaning in. "Alright, I can tell you wouldn't think twice about really pulling that trigger - had you pegged wrong, I admit it. But word gets around that I talked? Then it don't much matter whether you shoot me here now or when Zeus and his crooks get me later. So - I need you to give me your word as a Hunter - you didn't hear any of this from me."

"You have my word." She says, lowering the gun but still resting it on the counter. "Talk."

He shakes his head again. "You sure know how to pick 'em... Reckon this bounty's more trouble than he's worth, if you ask me." He mutters.

"Not about the money. Not for this one." She replies with steely eyes.

He blinks at her. "...Right. Well, Zeus is a big-time kingpin. Has Vamury City by the balls. Colonial Administration officials and local sheriffs, even the fucking Corpo-rats, all in his pocket. So, what I'm tryin' to tell you is..." He leans in closer, voice drops to an even smaller breathy whisper. His breath stinks of rum. "You want his head, you'll be dealing with Corporate Special Forces, Col.Admin. Privateers, and the cops. All coming down on your head. He snaps his fingers, and you're gone. Still wanna get him?"

"Keep talking. Where's the son of a bitch holed up?"

He looks at her, incredulous. Licks his chapped lips. Starts to sweat even more now, and not just because the bar's aircon's on the fritz. "You're fucking insane. Alright. Fine. It's your funeral. Just- remember, wasn't me that told you. Last I heard on the ol' scuttlebutt rumor mill, Zeus's living large now, suited up and has his own office in one of them Corporate towers in Vamury City. Think his company's called Olympus Technologies. Playing with his Zeus handle, I guess."

"Olympus Tower, then." She mutters, holstering her gun again and getting off the stool. Dirty boots touch sun-baked asphalt as she steps out of the saloon.

Gets on her hovercycle, a sand-blasted and sleek old thing. Dons her goggles, revs the engine and blasts off away from the outskirts and towards Vamury City downtown, duster fluttering in the wind behind her and throwing a vortex of sand in her wake.

. . .

"Davis. You got my shit ready?" She says, speaking through her holo-phone.

"Uh-huh, yeah. Motherfucking A/V with gatling gun, and a crew of cyborgs tooled up and jumps when you say jump. You want some fuckin' caviar with that too? Maybe the clothes off my back?" He replies.

"Good. Thanks. Call it even now." She mutters back, ignoring his sarcasm.

"You bet your ass we're even now. Killin' me with this shit, Jane. No more favors, alright?"

"Sure. Oh, speaking of favors... MizunoCorp's stopped sending hitsquads after you, huh. Wonder why?"

"Oh for cryin'- you gonna hold that over my head forever? Fuuuuck. I get it, okay? Mi casa, tu casa, just fuck my shit up."

"I'm kidding, Davis." She says, chuckling softly before hanging up on her Fixer.

Crew assembled, getaway vehicle and heavy artillery ready. Time for the main event.

. . .

. . .

Aerodyne rumbles along the night-time sky, choked with neon and light pollution. Grim-faced men and women, augged to the gills in chrome and tooled up with an arsenal of guns sat in the back. Airship was rattling as it passed through clouds, turbulence. Shaking and rattling teeth and titanium bones.

Jane sprung out the cylinder of her revolver, checked it was loaded and gave it a spin before clicking it back into place. Rubs at her right arm, checking her monofilament. Monowire burning at over a 1000 degrees, capable of whipping out and slicing up fully armored borgs into cauterized bits of sashimi.

She looks to her men. "You know the plan. From the top - A/V flies in and we storm the floor where Zeus's parked. Want him alive - nobody, and I mean nobody, kills him but me. We drag him back into the aerodyne, fly out. Fast in, fast out. Do not get protracted firefight. We will leave you behind if you're not back on the aerodyne by 5 minutes past landing. Clear!?"

A chorus of "Clear!" rings out from the group. But one of the guys speaks up.

"This a personal thing, Calamity?" A man going by 'Crow' as his handle asked Jane, using the Handle she gave him. "This feels like a personal thing."

"None of your biz. Just do what I paid you for." Jane mutters, glaring daggers at him.

"Creds ain't good if none of us are left to collect." He says quietly. Then shrugs, and goes back to cleaning his rifle. "...Just don't get too distracted, s'all I'm saying."

...

Aerodyne activates stealth mode and banks towards Olympus Tower, a black-glass brutalist eyesore piercing the heavens, and with Zeus at the very top of it all, presiding over the City and fancying himself its God.

Jane, cigarette dangling out the corner of her mouth, pulls out a faded photograph, time-worn, and stares at it silently, as the aerodyne makes its approach. In the photo, her late husband, and late son. Grits her teeth. Wipes at her eyes. Then stuffs the photo back in her duster pocket, filled with a fresh resolve.

Stands and moves toward the door of the aerodyne, which was unfurling upwards and letting in deafening gusts of wind and the whirr of the A/V's engines. She avoided looking down, no sense in getting vertigo. "This is it. Go, go, go. And remember. 5 minutes, and we leave with or without you. Move it!"

[1 of 2, character limit reached -_-]

[2 of 2]

She and her team rappel off the Aerodyne after the ship makes an initial strafing round of gunfire with its gatlings, shattering the floor to ceiling windows in explosions of glass and flying bits of cement. She and her team swing in, her combat helmet's faceplate protecting her from the billowing dust and asbestos of the wrecked office. Dead and dying Corpos crawled on the ground, riddled with bullets. Klaxons rang out.

EMERGENCY. EMERGENCY. CODE RED. SECURITY PERSONNEL, REPORT TO FLOOR 50 IMMEDIATELY. NON-SECURITY PERSONNEL, PLEASE EVACUATE THE BUILDING.

She moved in with her team, shooting and killing any Security troopers that happened to be on that floor, before kicking down Zeus's office doors while the rest of the team engaged in a firefight.

He stared at her from across his ornate desk of real-wood. Mahogany. Flanked by two Zaibatsu Samurai, chromed and hulking.

"Who the fuck are you?" He barked, more angry than scared at the mess she's made of his little kingdom.

"You seriously don't remember? You piece of shit. Look at them. Fucking look at them as you die." She says, lopping off the heads of Zeus's bodyguards with a single flick of her monowire before shoving the faded photo into his face. "You and your men shot them dead. At least fucking remember that before I give you permission to die."

He looks to his right, then to his left, his men laying in pools of spurting blood. Then back at the photo. Eyes wide with fear. The acrid stench of ammonia wafts through the air as he evacuates, the piss running down his legs. "Ok. Alright. You've made your point. You want money? How much? H-how much you want? Name your price. Hell, I can give you the whole fucking city."

She pistol whips him with her revolver, sending a tooth flying. "I want you to remember them, and what you did."

He spits out some blood, coughs. "F-fuck! You're psycho, lady! I don't know who the fuck these guys are, alright!? C'mon... let me go and I'll set you up for life. I got contacts, hands in every pocket in this fuckin' city. I'll make some calls... you can rule over it all-"

BLAM.

His head rocks back against his leather-backed hair, eyes roll up and show bloodshot whites.

She pulls the trigger a few more times, watching his limp body convulse with each impact, fresh holes oozing crimson in his chest. Fires again at his head, and again, till his face is no more recognizable than synthetic protein paste.

...

In a rundown motel room out in the desert, she sits on a rickety chair, whiskey bottle on a faux-wood table. She drinks, and she cries, faded photograph laying on the table.

Killing the bastard, after all these years... didn't bring them back. Didn't make her feel any better. Made her feel empty inside, in fact. She'd lived her life fixated on vengeance the past few years.

But it was something that had to be done, and she could finally put this behind her. New bounties awaited, and Davis and the others in her little mercenary outfit of Hunters were waiting for her. She'd leave this dustbowl of a planet for good, and not look back, having severed her last remaining ties to the place, where she once had a family, and where her old self died.

...

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