Sandlance

Casildo Shukr was born into wealth, privilege, and expectation in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. His parents, Sharif and Roha Shukr, were among the city’s most prominent citizens: wealthy, educated, influential, and deeply committed to the future of their nation. Casildo’s first name carried a proud meaning — “boy with a lance” — though no one in his family could have known how sharply that name would one day fit him.

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When Casildo was still a toddler, the Soltan Star Empire invaded Earth.

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Dubai was nearly destroyed during the invasion. Towers burned. Ports collapsed. Entire districts were shattered under alien assault. The Shukr family could have fled, but Sharif and Roha did not. Instead, they became resistance leaders. Using their wealth, contacts, intelligence, and courage, they helped organize one of the most effective resistance cells in the Middle East. Working with other local groups, neighboring nations, and people who would later become important figures in the international peacekeeping force known as G.U.A.R.D., the Shukrs helped obtain and distribute some of the first effective weapons used in the region against Soltan ground forces.

By August, the Soltans were driven from Earth.

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Dubai survived, but it did not survive untouched.

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The city needed rebuilding, and the Shukr family poured enormous resources into the effort. It was later estimated that nearly forty percent of Dubai’s early reconstruction funding came directly or indirectly through Shukr family assets, foundations, contracts, and emergency redevelopment efforts. Casildo survived the invasion, but he rarely saw his parents after it. They were too busy rebuilding a broken city and trying to help stabilize a wounded nation.

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Then, for a brief moment, joy returned to the Shukr household.

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Roha learned she was pregnant again.

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The news brought celebration into the mansion. Casildo, still young and not fully aware of the world around him, was going to have a younger brother or sister. After years of war, death, reconstruction, and sacrifice, the Shukr family finally had something that felt like hope.

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That hope ended when Dawid came to the house.

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Dawid was the leader of a notorious criminal organization known as the 40 Thieves, though the gang did not actually number forty. He and twenty-five of his people entered the Shukr estate posing as contractors. Once inside, they killed the compound guards, drove out the household staff, and took the family hostage.

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They wanted the vault.

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Rumors claimed the Shukr estate held millions in UAE dirham, along with private reserves of wealth hidden from the public after the Soltan invasion. Dawid believed he was about to take one of the great fortunes of Dubai in a single night.

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Sharif Shukr tried to bargain. He asked Dawid to let his wife and son go. Dawid responded by murdering Roha in front of him.

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Then he pointed the gun at Casildo.

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Sharif gave him the vault combination, but warned him he would not like what he found.

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Dawid opened the vault and discovered almost nothing: only a few thousand dirham, not even enough to cover the cost of the operation. The great Shukr treasure was not there. The heist had failed before it had even begun.

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Dawid was furious.

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Sharif understood then that Dawid would kill both him and Casildo regardless of what happened next. So he lied. He told Dawid to send Casildo into another room, out of earshot, and he would reveal where the true Shukr treasure was hidden.

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Dawid agreed.

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Three thieves guarded five-year-old Casildo while Dawid returned to Sharif. But Sharif Shukr was not finished. He broke free of his restraints, cursed Dawid, slashed him across the face and eye, then stabbed him twice in the chest. Bleeding and desperate, Sharif ran to rescue his son.

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Dawid shot him in the back.

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Sharif died before he could reach Casildo.

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Dawid, wounded and half-blind, staggered into the room where the boy was being held. He raised his weapon and fired at Casildo.

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He missed.

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He pulled the trigger again and again, but the gun was empty.

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One of the thieves handed Dawid another weapon. Before Dawid could fire properly, Casildo began to change.

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The terrified child’s body started breaking apart into sand.

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His skin dried, cracked, and fell away in soft grains. His arms, chest, and face lost human shape as his body collapsed into a living mass of sand. Casildo cried as it happened, unable to understand what he was becoming.

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Dawid fired anyway.

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The bullet tore through Casildo’s sandy head, and the boy’s body fell into a pile of moving sand.

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Dawid did not know whether Casildo was dead, alive, cursed, or something more valuable than the money he had failed to steal. Security forces were already closing in, and Dawid was bleeding badly from Sharif’s attack. He ordered his men to gather every grain of sand they could, even if they had to use a hand vacuum, and escape through one of their prepared routes.

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The robbery had gained Dawid no fortune.

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But it had given him Casildo.

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Weeks later, the sand reformed.

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Casildo woke in human form inside a locked room with no windows, heavy doors, and towels stuffed under the cracks to prevent him from escaping as sand. He cried out for his parents.

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Dawid came to him wearing a fine business suit, not the criminal clothing he had worn during the attack. His wounded eye was now covered with a patch. Casildo did not recognize him.

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Dawid introduced himself as a man of honor and prominence. He told Casildo that he had found him abandoned on the street, alone and forgotten by parents who had left him behind. Dawid claimed he had taken pity on the boy and brought him into his home. He said Casildo would become the son he never had.

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Casildo was grieving, confused, traumatized, and alone.

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Over time, Dawid’s patience worked.

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Casildo accepted him as his new father.

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Dawid had not adopted a child.

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He had captured a weapon.

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Dawid told Casildo that if he wanted to truly belong to the family of the 40 Thieves, he had to earn his name. Until then, he was not treated as a son or heir. He was treated as a tool in training.

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The training was brutal.

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Casildo was forced to master his sand powers long before he was emotionally or mentally ready. He learned to reshape himself, flatten into dust, stretch through cracks, slip under doors, spy through vents, form limbs from sand, change size, harden parts of his body, and escape traps designed specifically to break him. Dawid and his lieutenants created test after test, all of them cruel, exhausting, and dangerous.

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When Casildo failed, he was punished with pressurized water hoses. The blasts scattered his body and forced him to spend hours — sometimes days — pulling himself back together grain by grain.

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Casildo learned quickly.

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He learned who ruled the house.

He learned obedience.

He learned theft.

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He learned survival.

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For his final test, Dawid ordered him to infiltrate one of the largest gold exchanges in Abu Dhabi and steal its gold without being detected. Casildo spent four harrowing hours moving through alarms, security systems, vault protections, locked rooms, and human patrols. He succeeded.

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It became one of the most infamous gold heists in UAE history.

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After that, the boy who had been called only “boy” was given a new name by the 40 Thieves: Mansur, meaning “the one who is victorious.”

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For years, Mansur served Dawid as the perfect thief.

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He stole from businesses, private estates, shipping firms, banks, museums, warehouses, and criminal rivals. He could enter places no human could enter. He could vanish when cornered. He could take a blow, scatter apart, and reform somewhere else. Witnesses spoke of living sand, a desert spirit, a monster, a curse, or a supernatural thief. Authorities often dismissed the claims as hysteria or fraud, and in some cases victims were blamed for their own losses.

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Mansur grew arrogant.

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He became proud of his reputation. He called himself a master thief and spy. He enjoyed proving that no lock, wall, vault, or security system could stop him. He did not kill, but he did hurt people when they stood in his way. He told himself that was enough of a moral line.

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Dawid encouraged the arrogance.

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In his own twisted way, Dawid came to view Mansur as his son and heir. He intended to one day pass leadership of the 40 Thieves to him. But before that day came, Dawid planned one final operation that would make the gang untouchable.

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He would steal an American warship.

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Dawid arranged to work through the sea-pirate organization known as the Maritime Marauders. The plan was to seize an American naval vessel and sell it to warring factions in the former Yemeni region for five hundred million U.S. dollars. Three hundred million of that would go to the Maritime Marauders as their share.

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Dawid had no intention of paying them.

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His secret plan was to use Mansur to kill the Maritime Marauders after the exchange, allowing the 40 Thieves to keep the full payment. Dawid also believed the murder of such powerful pirates would establish Mansur’s reputation as the new head of the 40 Thieves and force other criminal groups to pay tribute.

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Dawid told his lieutenants the truth.

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He did not tell Mansur.

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Instead, the lieutenants were instructed to manipulate Mansur at the proper moment by falsely claiming that the Maritime Marauders had tried to murder Dawid. Dawid believed Mansur’s loyalty would do the rest.

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Before major operations, Mansur had a private ritual.

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He would leave the compound, move beyond the fence line, dissolve into a simple patch of sand, and pray. Despite everything Dawid had done to shape him, Casildo Shukr had not completely lost himself. He remained a devout Muslim, though his faith had become private, hidden, and almost disconnected from the life he lived as Mansur.

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That day, while he prayed in sand form, several of Dawid’s lieutenants walked nearby.

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They did not know they were standing on Casildo.

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They smoked, talked, and revealed Dawid’s plan. They discussed the double-cross against the Maritime Marauders, the false story they would use to provoke Mansur, and the money they would receive for keeping quiet.

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Mansur was angered by the manipulation, but not shocked by the betrayal. Dawid was a thief. Deception was part of the world he had raised Mansur to accept.

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Then the lieutenants laughed about something worse.

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They mocked Mansur for never knowing that Dawid had murdered his real parents during the Shukr estate robbery. They laughed about how Dawid had killed Sharif and Roha, shot Casildo, gathered his sand body, and raised him as a weapon.

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The memories came back all at once.

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His mother falling.

His father fighting.

Dawid’s wounded face.

The gun.

The room.

The bullet.

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The lie.

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Casildo Shukr remembered who he was.

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He remembered what Dawid had taken from him.

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He remembered everything.

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Casildo nearly attacked the lieutenants then and there, but before he moved, something else happened. A man was following them — a man Casildo had not noticed until he stepped directly across the sand that made up Casildo’s body.

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The man was invisible.

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He followed the lieutenants back toward the compound, then reappeared from cover. He wore a dark naval-style uniform, a captain’s hat, and a long black coat. Casildo did not know his name yet.

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The man was Captain Seawolf.

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Seawolf was conducting covert surveillance on the 40 Thieves operation. Casildo listened as he radioed what he had overheard. Seawolf understood that Mansur was being set up to commit murder and that GUARD’s pending operation would likely capture him along with the 40 Thieves and the Maritime Marauders.

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Seawolf did not speak of Mansur as a monster.

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He spoke of him as someone trapped in Dawid’s lie.

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That mattered.

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For the first time in years, Casildo saw a path that was not Dawid’s.

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He could follow the plan, kill the Maritime Marauders, and inherit a criminal empire built by the man who murdered his parents. Or he could wait, be caught in GUARD’s sting, and spend his life judged only for the crimes Dawid had groomed him to commit.

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Or he could choose justice.

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Not revenge alone.

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Justice.

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Casildo reformed behind Captain Seawolf.

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The two fought briefly, but Casildo stopped the fight and made his offer. He would help GUARD shut down the 40 Thieves, recover the stolen American warship, capture the Maritime Marauders, expose Dawid, and help identify stolen wealth and treasures so they could be returned to their rightful owners.

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In return, he wanted a chance to answer for his crimes without being treated as Dawid’s willing creation.

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Seawolf did not simply take him at his word. Over the next hour, GUARD verified Casildo’s claims. Fingerprint analysis confirmed who he truly was: Casildo Shukr, the lost son of Sharif and Roha Shukr. GUARD leadership reviewed the evidence, and the matter was escalated to the World Court under emergency authority.

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A deal was approved.

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Casildo would avoid prison, but only under strict conditions. He would serve under GUARD supervision for ten years as payment for his crimes. He would assist in dismantling the 40 Thieves network, recovering stolen property, and supporting future operations as assigned.

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Casildo accepted.

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Within hours, GUARD moved.

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When the Maritime Marauders completed the exchange for the stolen American warship, GUARD descended on the deal site. Other GUARD teams hit the 40 Thieves compound, the Maritime Marauders’ escape submarine, and Dawid’s hideaway. With Casildo’s intelligence and cooperation, the operation succeeded.

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The 40 Thieves were broken.

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The stolen warship was recovered.

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Several Maritime Marauders were captured.

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Dawid was arrested.

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The World Court later sentenced Dawid to ten life terms for multiple homicides and related crimes. His lieutenants, thieves, and associated henchmen were also convicted. Casildo’s own tribunal was separate. The court recognized that he had committed serious crimes, but also that he had been abducted as a child, manipulated, abused, and weaponized by the man who murdered his parents. It also mattered that Casildo had never killed anyone.

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The court upheld the ten-year GUARD service agreement.

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Casildo was grateful — especially to Captain Seawolf, who had taken a chance on him when no one else had reason to.

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After the tribunal, Casildo visited his parents’ graves and the remains of his former life. There was no fortune waiting for him. Under national law, the Shukr family assets had long since been absorbed, claimed, dissolved, or lost because no legitimate challenge had been made within the required time. What remained was only a shadow of what his family had once held.

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Casildo Shukr was alive.

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But the life stolen from him could not be restored.

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Within months, the imprisoned Maritime Marauders escaped custody. Dawid eventually escaped as well, aided by the teleporter Sally Port, then working with the Gold Syndicate. But the original 40 Thieves organization was devastated. Its stolen money, artifacts, merchandise, and records were seized. Over the next year, much of what could be identified was returned to victims and rightful owners.

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Casildo entered GUARD service with nothing but his powers, his guilt, his faith, and the strange relief of finally doing the right thing.

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He requested assignment with Captain Seawolf, SEAGUARD, and eventually the Seaguardians. He was trained as a super-powered GUARD operative and given the codename Sandlance, honoring the meaning of his birth name and reclaiming something Dawid had tried to bury.

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The first years were difficult.

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Sandlance was arrogant, brash, and still carried the habits of a thief. He had to learn discipline, teamwork, restraint, and trust. His teammates had to learn that he was more than his criminal past. Over time, he proved himself. He became reliable, clever, brave, and surprisingly effective in maritime and undersea missions.

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He also discovered something unexpected: his powers worked well around water.

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Unlike ordinary sand, Casildo’s transformed body could maintain cohesion better in wet or coastal environments, allowing him to operate in ways that made him especially useful to the Seaguardians.

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Today, Sandlance continues to serve with the Seaguardians. He has already completed six years of his mandatory ten-year GUARD service agreement, but he is in no hurry to leave. What began as a sentence has become a calling.

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He remains arrogant.

He remains proud.

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He remains quick with a boast and quicker with a challenge.

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But he is also a trusted teammate, a capable hero, and a man determined to prove that the boy Dawid stole did not become the monster Dawid intended.

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Casildo remains a devout Muslim and openly rejects radical violence, murder, and extremist interpretations of faith. His belief has become part of his recovery, not an excuse for revenge. In the United States, he has begun courting an educated Arab woman whose independence, intelligence, and strength challenge him in ways he never expected — and he is, despite himself, deeply in love.

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Still, the past has not finished with him.

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Recent intelligence reports suggest that the 40 Thieves may be rising again. New super-powered thieves have been linked to operations carrying the gang’s old signature. Worse, CIA reporting indicates Dawid may once again be leading them.

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If true, Sandlance’s old father, old enemy, and old prison are returning.

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This time, Casildo Shukr will face them not as Mansur, the weapon of the 40 Thieves.

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He will face them as Sandlance of the Seaguardians.

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