Starborn: Origin of the Stars

Robin clenched his fists in anger as he quickly circled around the clearing together with Happy and Timothy.

He felt like back in the alien relic site with Patience when they were surprised by the smugglers. She had to step forward and fight for their lives. She had to tell him to get his shit together and keep moving. She was it, who risked her life for their sake.

Now it was all the same, wasn’t it? He was frozen in fear and Ang’Tue had to step forward to save his useless ass. Oh boy, and fear he felt. The beast was huge with intelligence glinting in its eyes. Intelligence as well as rage and bloodlust mixed with an unnerving feeling of superiority. After Robin realized that their weapons were doing shit and Sevastian was stuck in his own fight already, fear ultimately crept up his spine and with it came an overwhelming sense of dread.

“Fuck you, Robin!” He chided himself, “Get your shit together and concentrate on your own job!” That was right, he still had things to do. It was his responsibility to make sure they wouldn’t lose Ang’Tue when he was done doing…? Doing what exactly? Robin never really got out of the old man what exactly his mutation was capable of. The only thing he had understood by now was that the Eltaran will have to pay dearly for whatever he was going to do.

“Everything comes at a price!” He muttered when he led his two friends back onto the clearing a short while later. He heard them panting and gasping for air behind him but his eyes never left the scene in front of him.

A big black cloud of thick nebula completely hid the figure of Ang’Tue. Nothing was left from the mutation’s stealthy feature, instead it was like a beacon that warned anyone not to step any closer. The Stalker apparently also got the message and was warily circling around the menacing cloud, always keeping its distance when the mist tried to get closer. Robin couldn’t make out what was going on inside, but at least the beast looked like it was already suffering from some effects that made it sluggish.

A few meters away from that stalemate, Sevastian was just done beating the last remnants of life out of one of the Stalkers. His metallic fists mercilessly went down on the beast’s head again and again. Too stunned to get away it quickly collapsed dead on the ground, all light had left its eyes. The second beast had tried to intervene here and there to stop Sevastian and save its comrade, but the huge man mostly tanked the hits to ensure his victory on the first one.

When the Stalker fell and blood poured out of its cracked skull, the second beast lost all reasoning and madly charged at his selected foe. Which wasn’t the bloody Sevastian any longer but the dark, ominous cloud of mist behind the man. An unhealthy cocktail of rage and adrenaline made it lose all sense for self-preservation as it rushed forward.

Robin saw the Alpha open its maw for a noiseless shout, but whatever message it tried to convey, its brother was no longer listening. The wild charge turned into a jump as it pounced at the Eltaran hidden in the mist, maw wide open and claws fully extended.

The next moment, it was gone as if the darkness had swallowed it whole. Sevastian, the Alpha and Robin and his friends just stared, not knowing what to do. Robin’s mind went through different ideas how he could save the old man, one worse than the next, when the cloud suddenly churned wildly and retreated a bit, before it calmed down once more. In the space where it had been moments before, lay the corpse of… something. Its flesh was melted as if it had rotten for ages already with white bones peeking out of gaps between the slimy and tattered hide.

Arrogance and haughtiness quickly turned into dread and terror as the Alpha slowly backed off, step by step, not taking its eyes off this incomprehensible foe.

Robin saw the beast hesitating, not able to decide if it was away far enough to attempt an escape, when the cloud suddenly receded. It was as if it sunk into the ground, becoming one with the long shadows of the surrounding trees. When it was completely gone and nothing remained, the Stalker looked around in confusion. Like the dangerous smoke, his enemy was gone, too.

While the beast was more stumped because of its missing prey, Robin began to panic. Did Ang’Tue lose control and just leave? Should he activate the shackles and risk killing him or was there still some time left? Maybe the Eltaran had a plan of sorts?

He noticed that Sevastian also had stopped dead in his tracks. He too had tried to back away from Ang’Tue, but now he was the perfect target for the Alpha.

The beast didn’t need long to decide that the most valid course of action would be to let the human in front of it pay for the humiliation it had received. With two long jumps it was right above the man and all Sevastian could do was dodge backwards until he felt a tree in his back block his way.

“Oh-h-h… not good!” Happy stammered.

“Where did Ang’Tue go? And what is that mutation?” Timothy asked, more himself than actually expecting an answer.

“We give Sevastian a moment. If it looks like he can’t keep up and Ang’Tue doesn’t return, we rush in and…” Robin said and began to slowly cross the clearing.

“And what?” Happy hissed while tagging along, “You wanna ask it curtisfully to leave?”

“We will improvise, okay? I’ll not leave Sevastian here on his own!” Robin grumbled and tightened the grip on his pistol. He would find a way. He always did…

While the three slowly closed in from the distance, Sevastian was literally fighting for his life. He dodged left and right when claws aimed for his arms and ducked down or rolled away when the Stalker tried to bite off his head.

Slowly but surely he was losing ground, backing away time and time again only to be repeatedly blocked by trees. Sometimes he could use them as a shield and other times they prevented him from completely avoiding an attack which was why he collected more and more bloody gashes on his body. In the midst of the forest, there was just too little space for proper movement.

When the Alpha once more missed his head, Sevastian finally saw his chance. The beast had clamped its jaws around one of the trees with the spiky trunk and its eyes went wide in pain. It wanted to back off, away from the hurtful spikes, and lost its focus on the human for a short moment.

That was all Sevastian needed. Robin watched in awe as the man leaped forward with his metallic fists raised high. Like a hammer he brought them down directly on the beast’s head. It only had enough time to bend its knees a bit and get into a stable stance before the heavy hit landed. That was how Patience must have made a bloody corpse out of the beast she had fought, right? Satisfaction rose in him when he heard the loud cracking of bones breaking and splintering apart. The beast went down as did Sevastian - however while the Stalker instantly got back to its feet, shaking its head to clear the dizziness, Sevastian let out a blood curdling scream. With a last effort, he managed to back away from the stunned Alpha, his arms hanging twisted and mangled at his side.

“No!” Happy, Robin and Timothy screamed as one and began to rush forward when they saw the Alpha stepping towards their wounded friend. They wouldn’t be there fast enough…

Robin desperately took aim with his pistol and fired a few shots at the huge beast, but that didn’t even flinch and never took its blood-red eyes off its prey.

Black smoke began to rise from the Stalker’s back and it took Robin a moment to realize that it was Ang’Tue who must have come back. When the cloud of mist swallowed half of the beast already, he finally could see the Eltaran who was clinging to the back of the Stalker. With all the smoke he couldn’t make out any details, but he didn’t look too well either.

The Alpha trashed around, trying to shake off its attacker, however Ang’Tue managed to tighten his grip after melting two holes into the beast’s hide with his hands. Slowly, painfully slowly, Robin and the others watched as the huge beast began to rot from the inside out, its mouth opened wide in silent screams of desperation and pain.

Only after more than a minute of struggling did death finally relieved the Stalker from the torture. It fell to the ground as nothing more than a wet sack of bones and tattered hide.

“Fuck…” Timothy muttered and Robin could only agree.

“What the hell did we just see?”

When they arrived at Sevastian’s side, Ang’Tue was still lying on the ground and black smoke obscured most of his figure.

“Sevastian, buddy, how are you faring?” Robin asked and kneeled down to inspect his wounds. There was a lot of blood everywhere but Robin, as sad as it may be, was used to that by now. He quickly checked the many small and big scratches but couldn’t find anything dangerously deep or long. That brought his attention to Sevastian’s arms. They hung loosely but twisted to his side and even though Robin wasn’t a doctor, he understood that nothing was as it should be. They were completely and utterly shattered.

“I don’t feel my arms…” The man whimpered.

“Oh boy… oh boy…” Happy stammered in panic, not knowing what to say.

“Have I lost my arms? Where are MY ARMS?” His whining became a fearful scream to the end.

“Mate, look at me!” Robin said as calmly as he could, “Look at me!”

“My arms… my arms are gone!”

“Sevastian!” Robin said and grabbed the man’s face between his hands, “Your arms are still there. They are pretty wasted, but still there, okay? The pain was probably too much so your-”

“...Uhm… Robin?” Timothy interrupted him.

“... your nerves probably just shut down-”

“ROBIN!”

“What? Don’t you see that…” Robin angrily roared and turned around, “Ohhh fuck!”

Behind them, Ang’Tue had crawled back to his feet. The column of deadly smoke once more rose into the sky for many meters. Slowly the Eltaran stumbled forward step by step.

“Uhm… Ang’Tue? This would be a good moment to turn off your skill and rest, don’t you think?” Robin asked hesitantly but the old man didn’t stop approaching.

“Ang’Tue, please! I really don’t wanna use the shackles now. We need to take care of our friend here, don’t we? You have won already. You saved our lives and defeated the ones who wanted to hurt us…”

Ang’Tue showed no reaction at all, slowly he came closer and closer while the grass to his feet wilted under the smog’s rotting effect.

“Can’t you just turn on the shackles and shock him awake?” Timothy asked.

“Well, I would really like to refrain from that because there is a high risk of killing him and if it doesn’t… I don’t see him coming back from wherever his mind had fled to because of some electroshocks that weren’t enough to knock him out.”

Ang’Tue finally stopped and stared at them. For a moment everything went still, even the birds and all the other animals that normally created this great jungle-noise they heard before had gone silent for quite a while already. Then in one fluid motion the Eltaran raised his hand and a stream of black clouds shot out towards Happy.

Robin’s eyes went wide, but luckily Happy managed to evade the attack due to her mutated reflexes. She jumped to the side in a split second and the deadly mist splashed against a tree behind her former position. The spikes instantly fell off, then the bark withered before the whole tree broke off because its rotten trunk couldn’t sustain its weight any longer.

“Holy mother…” Timothy gasped.

“Ang’Tue! It’s me, Happy!” Niu yelled, “Calm down and remember who you are!”

Once more everyone remained still and waited to see if the Eltaran would be able to fight against whatever had possessed him. Then a painful groan interrupted them when Sevastian finally felt something in his arms - pain, unimaginable pain.

Robin quickly took out the remote and pointed it towards Ang’Tue.

“No!” Happy shouted in panic, “Please!”

“It’s too dangerous and we need to help Sevastian!” Robin argued.

Happy took a deep breath and with firm steps walked directly to the Eltaran. She stopped not even a meter away from the cloud of death.

With a pleading voice, she stammered:

“Look at you! Is this who you want to be? What would your granddaughter think if she saw you like this?” She paused, “...Ang’Tue, tell me, what would Gaya’Beo think of you?”

That name triggered an instant reaction and the old man yanked his hand up once more...