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To judge a potential raider on their personality rather than their skills was to look at a blade and judge it by the tint of its metal. So long as the blade cut swift and sharp, it mattered little what type of aesthetic value it held. Zodyl held this belief firm, refusing to budge on the matter even in the face of the most unruly candidates.
Fu was a bit… different.
Most freakish trainees arrived with deranged energy in a similar vein to Jabber’s. They craved violence, chaos, and the promised, looming threat being an underling in the raiders called for. Zodyl valued his crew, but he knew better than to offer leniency with a collection of long-time thieves and miscreants. And having a silent scourge lurk over their heads was what some of them craved above all else; he didn’t mind aiding in their twisted fantasies a touch if it meant they performed better.
Because as a boss, that was his role. Discover the faults of his lackeys and see if he could nurse them into stronger, quicker, more ruthless fighters, through any means necessary. Up until now, violence and punishments had been the clearest path, and an effective one at that.
And then there was Fu.
Zodyl did not know how the verminous boy heard of the raiders, or how he’d decided he’d be a good fit among them, considering their unsavoury reputation. He jumped at every stray noise, and even in a relaxed atmosphere he still trembled like an unsocialized chihuahua. But he was eager, to work and to please, to perform whatever tasks Zodyl required of him. And when he wasn’t impersonating a wet piece of cardboard folding in on itself, he proved a very valuable asset, with his raw strength and ability.
So Zodyl permitted him to stick around and continue working, but the boy seemed to insist on hovering nearby him as often as possible. He found it difficult to tolerate the seeds of discomfort sprouting in his gut every time those beady, buggish eyes landed on him. They were so… expectant. And when Zodyl did not respond to his requests for commands, or simply ignored him, he drooped his bottom lip and his eyes went weirdly sparkly and Zodyl did not like it one bit. He did not consider himself equipped to deal with any form of pouting.
The most logical course of action? Send him away at every opportunity. Whether it be for missions or menial labour, Zodyl ended up dispatching Fu on at least two different excursions each day. Most other raiders would complain about the frequency of work, but not Fu–as long as he had a destination and instructions, Zodyl imagined he’d be happy to work every hour of the day.
(Somewhere, a voice spoke to Zodyl telling him something was off about Fu, in his insistent obedience and lack of complaints. A voice he’d shoo away, because it wasn’t his problem, and he was no caretaker.)
Unfortunately, Fu always found his way back to Zodyl’s side, and would restart the game of ‘stand close to Zodyl on the verge of tears until he tells me to wash the dishes’, or whatever it was they were doing.
Zodyl had run out of errands for him to run today. Three different times the boy had offered a salute as he ran off to perform his jobs, and each time he returned he’d park himself next to Zodyl and wait for new instructions; like a dog playing fetch.
But now it was twelve-o-clock, Zodyl was tired and preparing to head off to bed, and Fu was crouching, back to the well, in the hall of their abandoned warehouse. Blinking at him in the manner of a shy cat awaiting affection.
Zodyl stared at him, standing in the doorway out of his temporary office space. Usually, the late hour would whisk Fu away for sleep on his own, yet tonight he’d decided to remain. Zodyl cared not for the reason, or what he wanted–he already knew, because all the boy had ever asked for was orders–as Zodyl’s plans for sleep were set in stone.
He pried his gaze away from the boy and began to walk down the dim hall in the direction of the stairwell. As soon as his feet began trudging along, a cacophony of scuffing and thumping of limbs against a solid surface echoed behind him. In three steps, a mangy brat had squeezed around him and appeared to block his path.
Zodyl’s face fell into a frown, jew clenched. “You’re in my way.”
Fu’s eyes practically bulged out of his head. “S-sorry, sir! My apologies, sir!”
Sir. Zodyl really didn’t care what his subordinates called him, so long as they did their work, but all of them seemed to insist on a specific title for him.
“Then move,” Zodyl said flatly.
The boy jumped in place, hands flying up to twiddle his thumbs below his chin. “Right! Right…” He shuffled a few paces back, providing a short runway of space between them. “But, um, did you have any…”
“No. It’s past midnight. Go to bed.”
Fu squawked and flailed his arms in front of him. “Of course! Obviously! I’m so sorry!”
And then he didn’t move, trembling in place as if frozen to the spot.
Exhaustion chewed on Zodyl’s bones the way a toothless baby would; enough to annoy him but not enough to make him act senselessly. Still, he was not in the mood to deal with whatever order-refusing epiphany Fu had stumbled into.
Zodyl moved forward, reached over one of his shoulders, and dug his fingers into the thick cloth at the back of Fu’s sweater. He gripped the section tightly, hoisted the boy up into the air and, ignoring his shrieking cries, carried him down the hall while he dangled limp in his grasp. As though Fu were a mere fish and his arm a fishing rod.
Passing into the entrance of the stairwell, he plunked Fu onto the ground next to him, and started his ascent before he could attempt another conversation.
The slim staircase prevented the boy from slipping around him to reposition himself as a barricade, but offered no protection from the incessant whines and the tugs on the end of Mishra as he followed Zodyl up the stairs.
“Sir…” Fu sniffled. His wavering voice embodied the sulky look Zodyl was certain lived on his face.
Zodyl continued to climb the stairs, letting himself believe that if he just kept moving and didn’t acknowledge his presence, Fu would grow bored and leave him alone.
When he reached the top of the stairs he paused at the entrance to the floor he’d designated for living quarters. The faintest creaking of metal and electricity buzzed in the air, but no nervous peeps came from behind him.
Zodyl had run this circuit too many times to believe he was truly alone. He shifted forwards to give himself enough room to turn around and stare down at the kid trailing after him.
“Fu.”
“Oh thank goodness–er, I mean, yes? Sir?”
“Go. To your bed. Now,” Zodyl demanded.
Fu’s mouth opened into a big circle, clamped shut, opened again, closed again, and repeated this motion for about five cycles before he noticed Zodyl’s eyebrow twitching in annoyance and choked on a squeaky noise. He attempted a smile, though his jowls seemed compelled downward by their own intense form of gravity, pupils as small as the head of a sewing pin.
“I–my–the room–”
“Spit it out,” Zodyl grumbled.
The boy took one deep inhale, and began to spew words as if under the panicked belief that he’d die if he didn’t get them out all at once. “Jabber was trying to get me to try this poison but I didn’t want to because it’s poison and poison is–i’m not good, very good with it, so I said no and then he was mad and he said we should fight but I didn’t want to fight but then he tried to fight me anyway and I ran to my room and then he…” Fu began panting, his voice trailing off into a whisper as he finished his rant. “...used mankira, and my mattress… um… it’s kind of… destroyed?”
Over the course of his speech, Fu’s head had melted further and further into his sweater, the bottom of his chin obscured by a shield of violet.
“Destroyed?” Zodyl asked. Fu was not the type to exaggerate details for his own gain, but he struggled to picture the damage in his mind.
“I-I can show you! If you want!”
Zodyl huffed a long sigh and nodded. Fu scrambled past him down the hallway, tossing his head over his shoulder once to make sure Zodyl was following him, and then stood at attention in front of his door, reminiscent of a soldier waiting for their room inspection.
Zodyl used the sole of his boot to kick the door open, and his face contorted into a strange, foreign expression of shock and astonishment.
The room was destroyed. Wrecked. Torn to smithereens, quite literally. Slash marks and large cuts covered the space from floor to ceiling, large gaping wounds in the drywall and floorboards. The desk formed a graveyard for itself in the corner, a snapped chair acting as its headstone. And the bed–Zodyl was impressed the metal frame was still standing. The mattress, however, could barely be referred to anymore, old fluff gutted from its stomach and spilling across the floor.
It looked like Jabber had tried to kill someone.
It looked like Jabber had tried to kill Fu.
A part of him wanted to go find him and ask, yet based on Fu’s anecdote and his solid familiarity with Jabber’s psyche, he really didn’t doubt he’d been trying to play some form of game with Fu. Perhaps a version of whack-a-mole where he was the hammer and Fu was the mole.
If there was anything he wanted to know, it was how carnage on this level happened and he hadn’t even heard it.
Zodyl was far too tired to interrogate anyone over anything, and doubted the task would produce much useful information. Fu also remained stationed in the hallway, and Zodyl didn’t particularly want to deal with him either, but it’s not like he could cast blame on him for the unsavoury circumstances.
None of the beds in the old warehouse were very nice, since they were hard to come by and expensive, and frankly Zodyl didn’t see the point in stealing the nice kind when the raiders moved locations so often anyway. Sacrificing luxuries for the sake of progress was kind of the core philosophy of the raiders.
He failed to see a way to salvage the war-torn mattress in front of him, though, and the late hour made acquiring a new one impractical, so improvisations had to be arranged. They didn’t really have a couch or a futon anywhere, and most of the chairs in here were metal.
Zodyl stepped back out of the room, and looked down his nose at Fu. His nervous grin persisted on his face, accompanied by a single bead of sweat from his forehead, looking like he might pass out the way a scared rabbit would in the face of danger.
“Sir?” he said, voice hesitant.
“Come on.”
Zodyl was no caregiver. He did not like dealing with kids, and he did not like kids that whined and cried and pouted. Especially the pouting. And the sniveling and the whimpering and whatever other terrible, lamentable noises children made. And he really did not like having kids in his personal space.
Yet, here he was, marching his way to his room at the end of the hall and planning to let Fu sleep at the end of his rickety bed, because he didn’t have the resolve to tell him to figure it out himself.
What a dreadful turn of events.
Zodyl shoved his door open and plodded through the sparsely filled space–only a bed, desk, and chair lived within its walls. He pivoted on his heels in front of the bed and flopped down on top of it, a spring hissing in protest as his back sunk into the thin, scrap-worthy mattress. He let his feet hang off the side of the mattress, not bothering to tug off his shoes.
If it weren’t for the looming presence of the boy in his doorway, Zodyl might’ve passed out in an instant. Yet, when almost a full minute passed and the bed never dipped with the weight of an invading scrawny vermin, he cracked an eye open to leer at the boy.
Fu appeared to be locked in a staring match with the floor, palms clasped and rubbing together nervously.
“Fu.”
At the sound of his name, he startled, a whole body shudder snapping him out of his daze.
“Yes, sir?”
“Just get over here already.”
Fu made to start running to the bed, turned around to seal the door shut with an unnecessary level of gentleness, and then whipped back around and tripped over nothing as he scurried across the room. He caught his balance before he took a nose-dive, and as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other at the end of the bed, Zodyl prepared another command on his tongue.
As though sensing his mounting frustration, Fu hopped over his legs and huddled into the corner, teetering over onto his side in a compressed ball.
Now he truly resembled a little purse dog, curled up at the foot of his bed.
He stared at the wall, wearing the face of a person who’d just seen a real ghost. He shuffled up the bed in tiny movements, slow and steady, until his head smacked into Zodyl’s knee and he elicited a garbled sound.
“Sorry, sorry.” He jerked his head away from Zodyl.
Against his better judgement, Zodyl raised an arm and planted his palm onto the top–side, from his angle–head. His arm stiffened in place, an uncomfortable tension wrapping around his middle at enacting such a casual display of affection with no prompting. Fu began to relax, though, and Zodyl was willing to convince himself the relief he felt was caused by the boy calming down enough for him to rest at last, and no other possible reasons.
As Zodyl closed his eyes, he knew that if anyone ever found out about this, he would have to kill them.
