Elfen Odyssey (Sci-Fi and Fantasy Short Story)

The place was as boisterous as vivid. Leg was walking in a bazaar, making a hasty passage to what seemed to be a pawnshop. The door was rescued and on the side of it was a sign that read: -not allowed entry to elves -. Leg adjusted his balaclava hat and sunglasses. He turned the doorknob and then walked into the bazaar.

"Welcome Sir,” an old man of short stature like a child said in an accommodating tone. He has green skin and pointed ears. He was inspecting an object with a magnifying glass. "May I help you?"

Leg remained silent. He took something out of his coat and nodded to the merchant as if indicating that he wanted to do business with him.

"How much for this?" Leg told him, leaving on the counter a large fang that looked like some kind of predator.

"An Australian dragon fang? EH..." The old man said in a throaty voice. He took the thing between his hands. There was a kind of sparkle in his eyes as he inspected it with his magnifying glass. "They're pretty weird on this side of the planet, where did you get that?"

"That's irrelevant, how much?"

"You say it's irrelevant, I see, you're the kind of person who likes to do business with"

At this point the old man was showing a smile full of malice. He was sneaking his hand under the counter.

"However... It's such a pity you're a dirty elf." With dizzying speed, he had taken out a stylized firearm, like a pistol that displayed an intense blue glow from the tip of his cannon. However, he’d barely noticed that something extremely pointed was aiming towards his head. Leg was tensing a white metal compound bow, a stylized arrow with engraved characters on its surface was positioned and ready to pierce the goblin's skull.

"The fact that you're that good with a bow is just a genetic quirk set by those Tolkenians who were our creators, don’t be so cocky," The goblin said in a guttural voice. His face was sweating a lot.

"The fact that you are green, ugly and greedy is also a genetic caprice imposed by them. What about that?"

"And more intelligent, you avoided to point that out, that sad excuse of disguise cannot fool a goblin." The goblin lowers his weapon slowly and forces a friendly smile, more like a grimace. "In any case, what does an elf in this goblin domain?"

"Trying to make some money. But you all are incorrigible."

There was a prolonged silence. A sound like an alarm sounded in the place.

"As I said: smart, we're smarter than you cute little kids." The Goblin was holding a cylinder in his hand that glowed with a flashing red light. "There's nowhere to go... Hahaha" Leg abruptly interrupted the goblin's deranged laughter by releasing the rope from his bow. The arrow slid between his brows, a red thread of blood trickling down his face.

Leg hurried to the store's glass. Six ships with cylindrical and green shape; Like gherkins, they were approaching leaving a trail of condensed black smoke. He turned toward the body of the goblin and withdrew the arrow from the skull with a sharp pull. He put the arrow in the quiver and went out the back door at full speed.

He heard the ships land and he accelerated his step. After a few moments of running, he heard a step behind. He glanced back and saw four figures: two small as children, on the other hand, in contrast, the other two were corpulent.

Leg immediately recognized the small goblins, however, they were surprised by the presence of orcs in this place.

One of the orcs threw a knife that went very close to Leg's left shoulder. Without stopping he prepares his composite bow. He aimed and shot one of the goblins that fell rolling. He knew he had to deal with the goblin cheats first, these ones could even be more problematic than the orcs.

He had reached narrow streets with small buildings that served as residences. It was a neighborhood of goblins. He crossed a corner and found a dead end.

He turned with his bow raised and adopted a defensive position. One of the orcs attacked Leg with a bastard sword with a tile shine on the edge. Leg stepped back, making an elegant pirouette backwards and as soon as he landed, he placed an arrow, tense and released immediately. The arrow landed on the right eye of the orc, it fell instantly dead.

Leg climbed to a wall deploying her parkout skills. He jumped through a series of fences in his attempt to lose track. He came to a somewhat populated park, there were a considerable number of humans and elves. Everything indicated that he had left the neighborhood of goblins.

The image in front of him made him remember his distant childhood. He approached with disdain towards the people in the place. In front of him was a girl with pointed ears and hair like silver threads. With her was a boy with a round face of the most ordinary. An elven girl and a human child. The moving image perfectly represented the alliance that has existed between elves and humans since the genetic divergence two centuries ago. Leg could not help feeling moved; the same long ago before being the vagabond hunter of now, had served as a volunteer soldier of elf-human alliance.

Suddenly he heard a rumble. A series of bursts of lasers passes inches from him. He quickly looked in the direction from which they come and see the orc the goblin that had left back before. These wastes could be stubbornly persistent, Leg knew beforehand. He quickly grasped his bow in his hands, he points. He heard a scream and lost his composure. It was the elven girl. A goblin from behind firing bursts and hit him in the leg. The boy was next to her, he was trying to drag her somewhere far away.

Leg hurried quickly and shortened the distance between him and the children. His bow in hands began to shine an intense red on a par with his eyes. He positioned himself in front of the boys taking a crouched position and tilting his bow up. He placed three arrows in parallel and tensed the string. He breathed deeply. Then he listened to the sound of the lasers ripping the air and released the string from her bow releasing three bright arrows in the air. It was the psionic abilities acquired through the genetic manipulation that in today's society would be called “magic”. The arrows like flashes flew in the air and took curved trajectories towards their targets, like thermo guided missiles.

The three arrows hit their respective targets sending them flying backward. Leg sighed with satisfaction. However, he felt a cold shudder suddenly. Reddish drops dripped from his abdomen to the ground. When they collapsed on the floor the two children crouched beside the sobbing.

In this world disturbed by the scientific ambition of a few, he had been faithful to his principles until the end. He looked at the sky with satisfaction and left out a last breath.

Sources: Image 1.