Ealnem closes the distance between her and Lex, who’s entirely focused on shooting the bounty hunter. With her powerful leg, she kicks him up off the ground, actually getting him to his feet. 

With a horrified expression, he gets a good look at Ealnem. 

She recalls the martial arts classes she took as a youngling; granted, it’s fairly easy to disarm someone when you have four arms of superior strength against an opponent with only two. 

She bars his arm holding the gun. 

“Well, I’ll be damned! They actually sent a Nogailma after me, that’s downright sinister!”

Ealnem doesn’t say anything back. 

Predators don’t talk to their prey. 

She simultaneously twists his wrist, making him drop the gun, uppercuts him, and twists him to drive her knee into his torso. Ealnem kicks the gun to the side, far out of his reach. 

DNA-embedded instincts take over as Lex extends claws from his 4 fingered hands and swipes at Ealnem who jumps back in time to avoid a nasty gash. 

The townspeople gather around to see the Nogailma and Ardenlev fight. 

Ealnem starts a barrage of punches from varying angles, Lex manages to dodge a few of them but when one lands he starts to succumb to the assault. Her fists meet little resistance against his clothes, meaning they aren’t modded with any protective technologies. 

Lex somehow lands a kick to her chest, pushing her back. Zenith gets down from the rooftops and runs over to help. 

Lex pulls off his jacket and rips his shirt, exposing the large pores his body is covered in. The Ardenlev holds his arms out at his sides. 

Zenith is only a few feet away. 

“GET BACK!” Ealnem shouts as she knows what’s about to happen. 

The pores of his body percolate violently before a thick, greenish-teal cloud of gas erupts from his body. 

A defense mechanism his species developed over time, the toxic clouds Ardenlevs emit contain a deadly cocktail of gasses and metallic particles toxic to most living organisms. The only viable defense against the ever persistent predators that are Nogailmas, if it doesn’t kill them then the cloud provides sufficient cover for them to escape. 

The human bounty hunter and the crowd won’t stand a chance against the malicious cloud. 

Zenith skids to a stop and takes a gadget out from her jacket while removing her hat. A finger-width and length black rod. She bites down on it, activating its function. The rod produces an airtight mask around her head. The rod, held in place by her mouth, becomes a rebreather. Such a device can provide air in an oxygen-deprived environment for a time, but won’t hold up against this cloud. 

Zenith puts her hat back on and attempts to usher the crowd to safety. 

Ealnem knows this cloud spreads fast, and it’ll be faster on this low-gravity planet. She doesn’t have much time. For protection, Nogailmas have developed an increased lung capacity and the ability to seal their facial orifices shut, allowing them to hold their breath through the cloud. That won’t stop it from poisoning everyone here; but what will has been with her species since they started walking. 

Ealnem takes a deep breath, sealing her eyes and nose shut. She pulls her clothes off quickly and starts to rub her four arms all over herself, hoping she can do it in time. 

Perhaps as an ironic twist of fate or a cosmically coincidental turn of events, but the ultimate defense Ardenlevs developed already had a countermeasure. 

With only muted sounds to rely on Ealnem applies more pressure to her vigorous friction. 

Though they didn’t have the scientific understanding at the time, Nogailmas learned how to dispel the toxic clouds Ardenlevs create. They keep it a close secret to keep the upper hand, but there’s no better reason to use it than now. 

The short fine hairs all over Ealnem generate static electricity at an alarming rate, which is why many Nogailmas have difficulty finding clothes that they like. It was discovered, by accident, that the metallic particles in the toxic cloud are very easily magnetized and the gasses are flammable but disperse quickly. 

Ealnem picks up the pace, hoping she can do it in time. 

She feels the electricity build up all over her body, and braces herself for what comes next. 

The gasses ignite and the metal particles are forced together as the electricity arcs from Ealnem. The flames make everything uncomfortably warm but are gone in a flash. 

The Nogailma opens her eyes, doing a quick inspection to see she isn’t burnt, the clothes she dropped didn’t survive, however. The crowd of people are also okay, save for a few with singed clothes and a hat that’s halfway gone. But the alternative is coughing up blood, having capillaries burst, and going into cardiac arrest, so this is the preferable outcome. 

The bounty hunter removes her hat and takes out the rebreather. 

“Please get back inside, it’s not safe folks!” Zenith says to the crowd. “Did anyone see the feller that did this?” She also asks. 

“There he goes, over there!” Someone points out. 

Sure enough, Lex the Trident is trudging along out of town. Their defense mechanism physically exhausts Ardenlevs, on top of the beating Ealnem just delivered to him, he’s a little worse for wear. 

“Make sure these folks are okay, please?” Zenith asks of Ealnem. She gets a nod in response and walks toward Lex. 

“LEX THE TRIDENT!” She shouts after him. He doesn’t turn around or stop but one can imagine his dissatisfaction with the fact she’s still alive. 

“YOU’VE HURT AND KILLED A LOT OF PEOPLE! YOU PUT THESE FOLKS IN DANGER!” 

Zenith sees that Lex isn’t trying to escape but he’s going for his gun. She doesn’t increase her speed, still sauntering after him. 

“I FIGURE YOU THINK THAT MAKES YOU SPECIAL, HOW MUCH HURT YOU CAN INFLICT ON OTHERS!”

She’s gotten a few feet from him.

“But might don’t make right, not now, not ever.” There’s no need to shout anymore. “Not on this planet, nowhere in this universe does acting the way you have make you better than anyone else.”

She rests her six-fingered hands on her guns. 

“I’m taking you in alive, Lex. Not ‘cause you’re worth more that way, but it’s ‘cause I think you can do better. Be better. And the only way you’ll get the chance is if you live to see it.”

Lex is getting closer to his gun. 

“I'm giving you that chance now, Lex. Stop, surrender, and lemme take you in.”

Her guns are fully loaded. 

He hobbles over and picks up his gun. It still has some charge left in the cartridge. 

“Spare yourself the hurt,” she asks of him. His breath is ragged, he’s sweating profusely, and his shooting arm ain’t steady. 

He levels his gun at Zenith. 

She’s seen the power of that piece. If she dodges, the blast will go through the building behind her. She hypothesizes it’ll go right through her shield. 

Someone will get hurt if she doesn’t stop him right now. 

Lex blinks rapidly, trying to get the sweat out of his eyes. He tries to steady his breath, steady his arm. He aims right at her chest. His trigger finger twitches as he blinks.

Zenith has her guns out and without hesitation lets out four shots. Each expertly non-lethal, two just above his knees, two for his shoulders. 

Lex opens his eyes to see his hand let go of his gun. The one that helped make him so infamous. He watches it drop to the ground. He looks at himself start to crumble from the pain. Lex doesn’t register the impact as he hits his knees, because he’s too stunned by seeing the bounty hunter run over. 

She slides on her knees in time to catch him before he falls face first. She turns him over and starts placing CaduceusGel on the shots she gave him. The golden gelatinous blobs pull out the slugs and cover the wounds to stop the bleeding. 

Lex passes out. 

Ealnem makes her way over, looking at the Ardenlev. 

“He’s alive,” she assures the human. “Making those clouds always tire them out.” Zenith nods as she lays him down. 

“The folks over there okay?”

“None of them are dead, so that’s a good sign. Those clouds kill like nothing else.” 

“Well, that’s good. Any precautions they should take?” Ealnem shakes her head. 

“If they breathed it in, you’d already know.”

“That was quite the risk you took, wasn’t it? Couldn’t you have burned up?”

“What about you, Lex could’ve put you out to orbit with this thing,” she says while picking up the unique weapon. “You could’ve shot while his back was turned.”

“I needed him to know why I was doing this and to look me in my eyes while I did it. I’m here to help folks, not just hurt those who stray.”

Ealnem nods solemnly at that, wondering what drives the human to such lofty ideals. 

The duo makes sure everyone is safe once more, with promises of compensation from the bounty hunter to a few folks. 

Zenith gets her silver bracelet back from Ealnem and puts it on Lex. When she puts her on him also, they become attracted to one functioning as handcuffs. 

Hauling Lex on Xenon, they walk back to Orion’s Dancer. 

At first in silence, but Zenith can only hold in her amazement of Ealnem for so long. 

Ch. 2 End.