Dasnir's abrupt entrance and demand had seemingly stood time still for a brief moment, preventing Ronnie's next kick from affixing the psycho gang leader's shoe to Rae's abdomen.

Ronnie's brow furled in utter contempt, not only at the content of the request that just filled his ears, but also the entitled tone with which it found its way to him. He had lost his sadistic sense of pleasure at torturing his favorite toy, and his smile became a frown. As a result, his head slowly looked up from Rae and creakily cranked itself around towards the source of the impetuous ultimatum. Rae took this opportunity to scurry away from his attacker. But he did not make it far, as Roland's familiar boot slammed into his face and toppled him back over.

"Where da fuck do ya tink yer goin fa**ot?!" Roland taunted, as he smirked down at the helpless boy. "The Boss isn't done wit ya yet —Loser."

"Ahh! —mmgf!" Rae yelped and whimpered.

No one had seen him move, but somehow Dasnir was now looking up at a slight angle into Roland's face. He had caught the idiot-brute's foot from a second stomp that was heading down towards Rae. Like a practiced master of martial arts, in one fluid motion of a maneuver he recoiled the Bulldog's leg and sent him flying back onto the ground several feet. The startled bully's evening cigarette flew from his mouth and he blinked and stared dumbfounded with an expression which said: "What the hell just happened?"

Wes's eyes narrowed as he attempted a roundhouse kick to the Prince's face, like the Shepherd was testing the strength of the newly appeared enemy. This too was rejected with a single palm, and then a second palm relaying to the boy a message of inferiority as it struck his chest and knocked him down.

Dasnir's Warrior spirit began to tingle up awakening from its slumber; he grinned with slight interest at the possibility of being able to release some of his soldiery desires.

Kane interjected himself between his Hound and this new challenger swiftly, but the Retriever was met with a punch to the face as Dasnir's need to fight burrowed through to his prospective target.

The Prince had no interest in tussling with small-fry subordinates; he hoped that their leader would entertain him, and provide him a bag with which to punch away just a bit of his aggression. The Dogs retreated behind their alpha, almost cowering, in what was for their gang, an unusually needy display.

"Buddy," the Hound began, as his pack regrouped to a safer distance, "do you know what a mistake you just made?" The sly, often emotionless, gang-leading psychopath gave a new kind of look; as he cocked his head, brushed back his bowl-cut hair, and pursed his lips with a smack of faux serenity. His body began to radiate a tensile wave of anger and frustration, the only two emotions he ever felt strongly, at having been abruptly dislodged from tearing the stuffing out of his squeaky-toy.

"Do you know I couldn't give less of a fuck?" The arguably smugger Prince retorted.

Dasnir had his usual flat affect as he spoke, but it was briefly interrupted by a tiny grin as he realized he had properly used human word contractions and an appropriate human curse for the occasion. He had been practicing a bit to improve his speech patterns over the last few days, since Rae had been instructing the Aliens every evening to increase the humanness of their mannerisms. He thought to himself that he would have to brag to Fulbrik later, for he had begun to get the hang of it much quicker than the awkward Guardian.

Fortunately or Unfortunately, Ronnie did not take a liking to the grin on this interloper's face. He immediately answered it with a swift flying fist, which missed Dasnir's head equally swiftly as the boy skillfully dodged from it's path. And though the Warrior knew he could not use his Eniris in this impending fight, for it would obviously reveal his true nature...

...A sudden thrill of excitement filled his breath —as the Prince's wish was seemingly granted.

Dasnir's silver-circles narrowed in a sudden show of beady blood-curdling-lust, and in the blink of an eye, the ferocious Warrior descended upon the oblivious psychopath like an Eagle snatching a Snake up from the ground. Fate was about to introduce Ronnie to a bigger fish from the odd ocean of the cosmos.

The dust stirred beneath both boys' feet and a brisk rhythm between the two debuted. Like two alpha stags happening upon one another, they began butting horns and thrashing about to prove their prowess.

A quick jab from Dasnir's right hook connected to Ronnie's face and caused the boy to slightly stumble on one leg. Ronnie's eyes jotted past the Prince's fist to leer at his opponent; he accepted Dasnir's challenge. The psychopath's left hook retaliated, in kind, and struck the Prince below his right eye, though unlike Ronnie the Warrior did not budge at all; his face was unaccustomed to being moved so easily.

Dasnir poised with a radiant pulse of primal rapture, and slammed his taught fist into the boy's gut. Like an impact wave from a tsunami hitting a high-rise, Ronnie doubled over in the first show of agony he had ever experienced. Small droplets of blood and spittle escaped his slackened jaw.

A brief pause and the now very pissed-off psycho recovered.

"RRRGGAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!" The Hound howled, as he put the full force of his whole frame into his next strike.

Flailing against a hurricane, Ronnie whirled his right knee into Dasnir's stomach. This time the torrential force was moved ever so slightly and gave a tiny grimace but not a stumble.

"Not bad for an amateur," the Warrior quipped, "you'd make fine cannon fodder in war."

Amused as he was by the strength and swift movements of the human, the Asgeeri decided to show the boy the inescapable distance between their strength. He tilted his head back flashing a smile of pure animalistic pleasure, as he felt the uncontrollable urge to release a tiny portion of his pent up Warrior stamina. As if to reveal a heavenly halo of Divine Right down upon the Prince; in this moment, the sun aligned with the angle of his skull and sent rays of light shooting through a tiny corona about the boy's dark-hair. And bringing the weight of his crown to bare he swiftly leaned over his opponent's arched leg to perform a headbutt.

The sound was a: "Crackkkk!!!"

Blood and sweat dribbled between their foreheads, but only Ronnie felt a dizziness follow.

"Hheeeee" In the aftermath, Dasnir gave a soft, strange exhaling breath of excitement.

"We should help him." Kane said quietly, as he observed the mouthful too big Ronnie had bitten off.

"Are you fucking nuts?!" Wes responded. He seemed to be the only of the three enemy onlookers who could envision the inevitable outcome of the battle. "Ronnie's the Hound for a reason you dumbass, none of us fight better than the Boss. And do you want to risk his wrath by stepping in and embarrassing him? Be ready to grab him and run." He gave a sweaty nervous expression through pursed lips. "That guy's insane; I think Ronnie might actually lose for once."

"No fuckin way will da Boss lose, watch yer mouth Wexler before I shut yer trap for ya." Roland threatened, as he puffed his replacement afternoon cigarette hanging from his lips. He was too dumb to understand the seriousness of what was happening, though his own odd sense of loyalty towards the Hound remained.

As the three Enforcers were discussing options, Dasnir picked up pace in his assault on his opponent. Even though Dasnir was restraining himself to fight without the use of Eniris, the Prince became a near blur of cannon-like motion as he bombarded Ronnie along the bow.

One strike, Two strike, Three strike, Four...

The cadence of cacophonous blows quickened and strengthened, warping the mass of Ronnie's Head, Torso, and Limbs into boundless directions; the clueless boy had not even a chance to react. His body became a pile of bruises, breaks, and bloody scrapes as he was swung wildly about in mid-air by Kinetic force. And just then, as if the eye of the storm passed over the helpless Hound, Dasnir grappled Ronnie around the waist, and succinctly slammed him onto the rough, hard sidewalk below.

The psychopath did not have the strength of emotion to feel fear, as a normal person might in similar circumstances; but as he looked up at the wild-eyed savage incarnation now kneeling above his torso, there was a tiny twinge of feeling in Ronnie's Amygdala, as if the petrification of this moment was so intense it shifted even his character. His blurry bruised eyes struggled to focus on the new found rival who was out of his league, but when they did, in his mind's eye, he did not see a person —though he did not know what it was, he could tell this was something beyond human.

The ferocious creature before him appeared not as a mortal man, but rather in an amalgamated likeness: with the voice of a lion roaring into the sky beneath the sunset in a far away savannah, with the eyes of an eagle gazing down from lofty heights upon lowlier creatures, with the strength of a gorilla poised unwavering betwixt the trees of it's jungle domain, and with the authority of an elephant stomping across the land wherever it may please.

The previously enraged gang leader had fallen silent and still, being beaten to a bloody pulp of karmic justice. He felt the impending sense of a Doomish-Death staring at him in the face, as if he could see his own demise before it had even ended him. If it had not been for the unfathomable circumstances of the Prince's current predicament, the shark would have surely caught the smaller fish, and swallowed him whole.

And before Dasnir connected what would have certainly been a last lethal blow to the boy's head, he stopped, electrified by the memory that he must stay hidden. He closed his eyes, in a seemingly practiced manner, and exhaled a long bullish breath, so as to lock away his Warrior spirit and blood-thirsty desire.

"What a bore, I was hoping for at least a bit of a challenge. It would be an insult to myself to kill such a weakling." Dasnir said, as he rose up off the pulpy Ronnie remnants.

Dasnir gave a tiny smirk again at his new found human-like speech, because for him he had thought to say: "What a bore, I was hoping for at least a bit of a battle. It would be an insult to my honor as a Warrior to kill such a weak human." And so he did feel a tiny bit of pride as he talked, not for the pathetic fight he had just won single-handedly, but for the small progress he had made in blending in with Rae's help.

Ronnie sputtered, trying to talk through his swollen cheeks, and a tooth fell out of his mouth. "I—ll mak yoush payth sumday." The snake's cut off head threatened.

"I seriously doubt it. And you would be wise to never show yourself to me again or touch him." Dasnir pointed back towards the crumpled sitting Rae. "Unless you want to give me an excuse to do this again?" He asked rhetorically, and began to walk away.

The Enforcers scrambled like a pack of wounded dogs running with their tails between their legs. They hoisted up their nearly unconscious Hound and fled.

Rae had been sitting on the sidewalk observing in awe, jaw slightly slack, at the true depth of the Prince's Warrior strength. It was in one way terrifying to watch, and in another way majestically beautiful, like he was watching a force of nature save him from an all too familiar fate. He was not sure if he felt excitement and pride to have such a ferocious friend, or fear and apprehension at how quickly the bigger Alien boy could transform into a dangerous threat. But he did know one thing about what he felt at this moment; he felt grateful to have been saved.

As the Prince was leaving, continuing towards the meeting place for their taxi, Rae stood up and rather instinctively wrapped his arms around the Prince hugging him in a show of immense gratitude. This had been the first time anyone had ever stood up to and stopped bullies from beating him, other than his mother, and so he shed a small tear of joy as he clung to his savior.

For a moment so affectionate and pure of heart, it was short lived as the Prince uncharacteristically and gently moved Rae's body off of him and to the side. As with all their other interactions, there was still a lingering, mysterious cloud of distance forcibly placed between them by some unseen force. The Prince had recoiled and shuddered when the smaller boy's touch reached him, but this time even though there was a rebuke to follow, there was a softer sentiment about his warning.

"Rae, I told you not to touch me..." Dasnir said in an authoritative, stern, and calm manner.

Just then the Ishtari's ears perked up at an unexpected accompaniment to the scolding. —Dasnir had intentionally or unintentionally called him by his name without prompting; this was a first.

"I'm sorry." Rae croaked out with a sad tone, and hung his head in embarrassment at what he had done without thinking. "I-I just wanted to thank you, no one has ever done that for me before. They usually all stand by and watch while those guys beat me. I'm sorry I didn't think—"

The Prince did not acknowledge Rae's apology, but instead the Warrior gave a small frown and then replied. "You should train to use your Eniris. I will have Fulbrik teach you how to perform the basics. You are too weak. Do not expect me to come to your rescue every time..." Dasnir paused for a moment at this point, with an unusual sense of hesitation before continuing. "...sometimes one must prepare themselves, because help will not reach them. Make sure you prepare yourself."

Rae's ear twitched and his eyebrow raised in confusion. "What is he even talking about? Why is he so serious all of the sudden? ...I do want to learn how to read minds though. —Hehee" Rae thought, and gave a nerdy grin at the delightful thought of learning about Eniris.

"Regardless, we are even now. I repaid you for saving me from the pod. Do not expect me to do it again." The Prince said, returning to his usual colder tone.

Not long after, the Trio called their evening taxi for their trip from school to the Aliens' hotel suite. And as Rae sat squished against the right car door, thanks to Fulbrik's absurd overgrown body, he couldn't help but notice Dasnir staring blankly out of the window, with his hand on his chin and a frown on his face the entire trip. It was like he was being eaten by something. Rae couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he wondered what it could possibly be and wished he could cheer up his savior.