My eyes hurt again. I could see everything around me, but the pain underneath was clear as day. All my allies were merry making and yet what was supposed to be a world full of color was ever so gray.
I was gifted from a young age, or at least that's what I was told. I was born with a special gift called the eyes of Centauri. I never fully understood the powers that came with this gift but apparently I could see the future or some shit like that. "A mere child possesses the eyes of Centauri, if the rest of the world knew about this, our planet would be at war!" I remember a time when the elders of our planet were screaming at my parents who were crying on the floor. Some guard nearby was standing with a whip. I'm not sure why he was there but he didn't hesitate to beat my father till his legs bled and then whip and rape my mother in a room nearby where everyone could hear them. "Maybe you can sire me a child with the eyes of Centauri as well, you slut!" he screamed at my mother as she cried bent over with a gag in her mouth. I heard she was enslaved as a prostitute in order to improve the strength of our planet's defenses or something like that but I think those sickos just got off on some power fetish while fucking my mother. That was some 15 years ago and I never saw her again. My dad was apparently tortured for withholding state secrets. They thought that if the "bitch" (my mother) wasn't the source of my power then it must've been from my father. All of this at the time meant that my sweet little picturesque life of a special blue eyed little boy playing with his peasant yet smiling parents was taken away from me as quickly as my memories of a childhood. I was 5 the day all of this happened and since then my world was never the same.
Nowadays people call me Io. I'm working as a mercenary on some scrap planet called Spleen, yeah, after the organ. Apparently the planet had some galactic name like U-87 or something but was such a shit hole with shit hole people that one day someone lost his fucking brains and punched a hole in the gut of the guy next to him. Whatever came out of that guy's guts left such an impression on the people here that people took to calling this shit hole Spleen ever since. Why am I here? Well, it's to clear out some shitters who think they own the place and are trying to tame the natural monsters of the planet: a fringe terrorist group, if you will. Me and my team's job is to kill those bastards and move the fuck on to the next planet for whatever our next job is. Yeah, I was supposed to be some kind of mythical hero but life isn't so story-like in the real world. Sometimes shit happens and your eyes fucking hurt no matter what you do. As I was busy ruminating about all this, she walked over to me. "Hey Io, are you still distracted little boy?" Her perfume filled up the space around me and filled up my senses as she straddled my lap and gazed directly into my eyes. All I could see was the tinge of red in her crystal brown eyes and the way her wavy, orange hair floated down once she settled upon my lap. The next thing I knew she had taken a gentle hold of my jaw and placed her tongue around my tongue. I swear her ass also grinded upon my crotch as she was doing this and then all of a sudden she stopped. "You know I'm always down to eat you Io, in case you need some ... distracting," she said as she licked her lips. This was the woman known as Cassie. Cassie was some cross breed of vampire/succubus. Apparently she was quite the cute kid back in the day but when she turned 18, her inherent sexual appetite turned ravenous and she lost all higher purpose but to mate with the strong. I couldn't help but smirk as I took in the voluptuous form that was Cassie in front of me. And as my temptations were going to get the better of me, Cassie moaned as someone slapped her ass from behind. Cassie turned around to look expectantly at Luke, our leader. All of a sudden all the attention that was mine was now focused on Luke and I knew that the reason I never looked at Cassie past the surface level was because all she wanted was to fulfill her sexual desires, and it didn't matter who did that for her. I gave Cassie a light push and she deftly moved off of my lap. Although her attention was on Luke now, I could tell Cassie got excited by my sudden assertiveness. "Hey Io, I'm going to steal Cassie here for a quick fuck, Lord knows she'd want you to join, what do you say?" "I'll pass, I'd rather have her one-on-one than give in to some baseline temptation for a couple minutes." "Suit yourself Io. Remember we're going to storm the enemy stronghold in 2 hours so make sure you're ready before then, whatever it takes." I proceeded to watch Luke drag Cassie away and although Cassie seemed to still be worried about me, she didn't really stop him, I assume due to her vampiric, succubistic natures, whatever that meant.
As I lost sight of them entering a tent in the distance, I became keenly aware of the smoke that filled the air of this shithole planet. The ground here was a form of red dustrock. It wasn't totally rock but it wasn't totally sand either. The dust along with the nasty fumes coming out of all the half tent-half house structures on the streets gave this planet a hazy feeling as if you were slightly numb for the duration of your stay here. For me, it felt the same as always. When exactly I started feeling numb, I can't say, but this place felt oddly conforming to my current state of mind and I can't say I was too happy with that. Although I knew I was haunted by my past, that didn't mean I wanted to be stuck on a shithole planet doing god knows what forever. Despite all that, however, I had to admit that Cassie's brief promiscuous behavior brought me out of my head and into my dick. As that faded away as well, I found myself present to the world around me. I was sitting around a campfire on a log that was a little too hard for my ass to be comfortable. Our camp was in the dark and to the side of one of the mainstreets that no one seemed to bother with or care about. There were a few tents that weren't too close to each other. Despite that I could still hear moaning coming from one of the tents in the distance. I guess Cassie and Luke were in the middle of it now. "Oh Io, Yes, harder Io!" "Shut it with the Io crap Cassie," shouted Luke. I guess despite her sexual proclivity, Cassie still found ways to make me feel better. I had to thank her one of these days. Our party consisted of three more people. One of them was Tina, our scout/assassin who was currently hiding somewhere in the dark around us. The other was Reggie, our frontline. Despite being the frontline, Reggie was of average height and build but his sword was way too fucking big. I heard he read something called "Final Fantasy" from one of the archives and got obsessed with something called the Buster sword. Fucking weirdo. He's not a bad guy though, tries to keep us all motivated and uplifted during our excursions. Reggie was out with Sally, who was considered a priest or healer? Sally had beautiful golden hair and wore clothing like religious nuns. She wasn't some kind of pure character mind you, however, but that didn't mean she was totally unhinged like Cassie was. Reggie and Sally were collecting information and buying supplies before we were to storm the base of the terrorist group "Entra."
I'll tell you what the rest of my party looked like before I go on about why Entra was a problem. Luke had dirty blonde hair, not beautiful like Sally's but somewhat rugged and cool looking. It was styled in a mohawk with short sides. His eyes were somewhere between green and brown, it's hard to say. He was built like Brad Pitt from Fight club, you know what I'm talking about. He's usually a good guy except when he's fucking Cassie during which he becomes a little fucking psycho. I heard his mom was shot right in front of him a couple of years ago and he has a bit of a complex around that now. He's our leader because the rest of us can't be fucking bothered. That's a lie, it's probably because the rest of, despite all of us being fucked up in our own ways, have more difficulty than Luke does in focusing on what needs to happen around us. Luke lost his mom which sucks, but I can't even recall half the shit that's happened to me if that's any consolation. Tina has beautiful dark black hair. I think she has a crush on me but she never talks and seems expectant on me to do something about that. As a guy it's not like I'm opposed to having sexual relations with a woman even if it's not something serious, but I have a feeling that if I go down that route, Tina will cut my dick off in the night if she finds out that I allow Cassie to make moves on me. Look, we live in a fucked up world and I'm working on a planet called Spleen. This isn't a world in which faithfulness is rewarded, or pursued. Tina seems like a rare breed because of that. I might've made it sound like Tina is also somewhat unhinged, and she is, but since she's quiet most of the time, that's not the vibe someone new would take from her. But if you ever see her, well I've warned you. Reggie's probably the most fucked up out of all us. He doesn't seem like it though and no one knows what happened to him. However, unlike with Luke who can you tell is deranged yet brings himself back to reality, Reggie, for all intents and purposes seems like a normal fucking dude. But what's a normal fucking dude doing in a party with the rest of us? Now that's grounds for suspicion. Reggie never makes me feel threatened, however, so I've never brought it up with him. Oh by the way, he has red hair that looks like an anime character, but he always has his characteristic 5 o'clock shadow so you can't really call him a kid. Sally on the other hand is as I said a beautiful blonde priest. She was kicked out of the church however because she enjoys drinking and occasionally fucking a corrupt power figure here and there. Like I said, she's not Cassie unhinged, but it's not like she's picture perfect either. I enjoy Sally's company because unlike Cassie and Tina she doesn't have the hots for me. She says she prefers older guys with lots of money, so go figures. As a result, although all of us have had sex with Cassie, no one's had slept with Sally yet, and God knows no one wants to risk making a move on Tina. Well that's the rundown on my team, you'll learn more about them later.
So back to Entra. What the fuck is Entra? Entra's a terrorist group that apparently wants to make moves on the galactic federation. The galactic federation is the organization that makes sure countries don't just kill each other willy nilly. They're also the organization that funds my little mercenary gig. They have galactic enforcers, which are sort of like the knights of the roundtable but no one wants to send Knights to a shithole like Spleen for a threat that may or may not be looming. That being said, it's usually small groups like Entra that have the greatest possibility of becoming a threat later so the Galactic Federation forces mercenaries like us to take them out before anything serious can happen. That's why we're going to storm the caves we believe their leader to be hiding in. I heard the leader of Entra is a really hot woman called Lisa or some ugly bastard called Rubio. Their fate is doomed either way but at least seeing a beautiful woman will make me feel better for the time I have to spend on Spleen, ugh.
That's about when Tina showed up in front of me. I knew she was hiding around the area keeping an eye out but if she's here it means it's time to start preparing. She walked up to me slowly and I looked at her somewhat apprehensively. It's not like Tina was always scary but as an assassin you never know what her plan of attack was. She took a couple of gentle steps towards me and brought something out from behind her back. It was a small blue flower, a Centauri to be specific, known to be native to only the planet Centaur, my home planet. I don't usually talk about my past but I suppose as the team's scout she had access to more information than the others might. She placed the flower in my hands gently and the next thing I knew she was gone. I wanted to continue thinking about Tina but I could only focus on the flower in front of me. As my eyes became watery, I could feel my silver/white hair start to glow. This wasn't good. I had to control my emotions or bad things would happen. What bad things? I'm not sure. I could never remember much if I got too emotional. I wanted to crush the flower in my hands and throw it away but I remembered the look in Tina's eyes as she handed it to me. It was a feeling between something like a silly crush and a desire to help me, to truly help me. Or at least that's what I thought. I decided to place the flower above my ear in my hair. I couldn't throw it away out of my concern for Tina, but that didn't mean I wanted to see it all the time. I'm sure I'd forget about it being in my hair pretty quickly too, as long as nobody pointed it out, fuck I didn't think about that. Well most of my party members know how to read the room, except maybe Cassie who'll use the flower as a means to get me to fuck her. Although I'm not sure that'll be all that bad.
It was around then that Reggie and Sally came back from their trip and Luke and Cassie made their way back to the campfire, albeit they were walking a little wearily. That wouldn't last long however. I knew Tina was somewhere around us keeping watch and so I took note of the time on my watch: 9:50pm, exactly when we said we would head out. Reggie gave me a warm smile and Luke returned to his somewhat passive state, although his head was still getting over his brief session with Cassie. Cassie was looking at me while licking her lips while Sally didn't care whether I was here or not. She was, however, holding a beer in her hand, which was standard for Sally at this time of day. That's when Luke said, "Alright, I'm sure you all know the drill, let's make some noise in the caves, nab the leader, destroy any important resources they might have and get the fuck out. Once we've handed the leader over to the enforcers, we can get off this shithole planet."
"Amen," replied Sally while Reggie raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement. Cassie walked over to me and grabbed my ass with some vigor, "And then maybe Io and I can finally spend some alone time later."
I poked her cheek and made my way to the table we were standing around.