It took me a minute to even fully comprehend what Behemoth had just said. My fingers were still tingling from the energy I'd just released from them, and honestly my mind was still reeling from everything that just happened in general.
Retina was the first who managed to speak. "So... that was extremely cool, what you just did. But who are you?" She asked, looking at Behemoth.
"I'm.. well, a member of the team, like you. I was told about a lot of these things in advance, even before St- I mean, Chiron. I'll be helping you all assimilate into the team."
"Ah... alright". Retina looked noticeably confused still, but some part of that explanation was clearly enough to satisfy her. Finally, I spoke.
"Wh- what did I just do?" I managed to sputter.
Before Behemoth could answer, a loud cackle reverberated throughout the city. It seemed that the Old Lady wasn't finished yet- she lifted an arm, and suddenly the bottom of the robot chicken opened up again, releasing another egg. This one cracked open, and a menacing medium-sized robot chicken leapt out. Its eyes flared up with a bright red glow, and all the smaller robots began to gather around it.
Beside, me, Retina groaned. "Ugh, classic Gladys. Never knows when to quit.. I told her that she needed to see a therapist about all this pent up aggression. To think she was going to use all this on her poor husband. Well, not that he's completely innocent either..."
I shot a look at her, like "Is this really the time to be talking about this?".
My muscles ached, and I was sore all over- partially from battling the chicken, and also from getting beat up earlier. But mostly, it seemed that when I created that spear, it made me extremely fatigued- I felt as if I had spent all day working in a forge, making the thing by hand. My energy was spent, and I could tell that Blur's was as well. He still seemed to be dealing with the shock of not being fast enough to save that person, which I found strange. In the end, they had been saved anyway. This is what being part of a team was all about, right?
"Can you do anything about this, Retina?" I asked her, and she sighed in response.
"My eyes are killing me... but I guess this is the life of a superhero. We push ourselves until there's nobody left to save... and sacrifice everything to do so. Even our last bit of energy.." Retina responded, putting a hand to her helmet.
I expected another bright, powerful blast of energy to come streaking out of the helmet- but only a dull red stream came out, hitting the medium-sized chicken and leaving it without even a mark. "Well... so much for that. I guess I really am out of steam. Any ideas, leader?" She asked me.
I genuinely had no clue what we were supposed to do. I looked at Behemoth, who had been silent this entire time. He seemed completely unfazed by the Old Lady and the chicken alike, it seemed he was just trying to see what I would do next.
Behemoth intimidated me a lot more than I cared to admit, but I felt like I was at the end of my rope here; and admittedly, I felt pretty annoyed that he seemed to know a lot more about my powers than I did. I mustered up as much courage as I could, and with an air of confidence that betrayed the unease I felt, I said "Hey. You're part of my team too. How about you deal with this problem, so I can see what you can do? It's the least you could do after throwing me into this mess, and letting me get beat up by Super Semicolon without even teaching me about that spear thing I did earlier."
Behemoth looked at me, then down at his feet. He seemed to be contemplating what I'd just commanded him to do. Technically, he's the same rank as Blur and Retina..I thought. I'm well within my rights to command him like this.
After a couple minutes, he simply shrugged. "If you say so, Boss."
His mutant arm rose, and a giant stinger crudely emerged from the flesh on the back of his hand, shaped like the sharpest dagger I'd ever seen. In a flash, he was amidst the robots- and apparently smashed every single one of the smaller chickens with a single strike. I say apparently, because in that single moment, all the smaller robots exploded, and Behemoth's arm was impaled inside the chest of the medium-sized bot.
The chicken's wings suddenly began to transform, and missile launchers emerged from beneath them. But just as this happened, Behemoth's metal eye began to glow red- and the missile launchers retracted again. He flicked the wrist that was inside the robot, and suddenly the robot lay in two pieces.
At that moment, the old lady managed to unpin herself from the building. When the spear came loose it simply evaporated into purple energy. She flew around Behemoth, and fired at him using machine guns that were built into the gauntlets of the super-suit. He simply deflected every single bullet with a swipe of his tail, the stinger perfectly colliding with every single bullet.
Right then, he aimed his robotic arm at the ground, and his hand rearranged itself so it formed a cannon-shape. A burst of energy came blasting out of his arm, apparently with enough force to propel himself into the air, and in the direction of the old lady.
As he rocketed toward the Lady, he outstretched his mutant arm, and his palm began to morph into something that resembled a spider's abdomen. A perfect web made of thick spider silk flew out of his arm, and bound the Old Lady nicely within it.
Behemoth's metal arm began to vibrate, and so did the Old Lady's suit. Evidently, it was magnetizing the suit- and Behemoth swung his arm toward the ground, sending the lady hurtling in the same direction, and smashing down into the concrete right in front of us. I was worried she might have gotten hurt, but then I figured that super-suit had to have been good for something.
Behemoth fired another blast in midair, this time away from himself, propelling himself toward our direction. He landed neatly next to us, and his mechanical eye was glowing bright red. A small antenna had grown out of the side of the eye, and Behemoth seemed to be speaking to someone.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
"-Yeah, 45th street. I've apprehended the suspect. I'll leave this in your hands."
Then I assumed he "hung up", because his eye stopped glowing, and his organic eye appeared to focus back on us.
"I took the liberty of calling the police. Now, I'll warp us all back to the ship, so you guys can recuperate. And... well, I hate to say it, but that was a one time thing. You're not ready to have me help out.. it'll only stunt your growth."
A bright flash of light engulfed us, and we found ourselves back aboard the ship.
* * *
We appeared to be in a lounge. There was a bright, inviting wallpaper all over the walls, tan colored with dark flower shapes adorning it on each corner. There were three large couches, around that massive TV screen- the one that was about 50 feet tall. On either side of the room, was the entrance to a hall. Overall, this was a stark contrast to the last time I'd been here, in the massive metal room.
"This is the Residential Wing of the ship. You are all free to hang out here, play games, watch movies, and each of you has a room prepared for you in the event that we must trek to other galaxies and be away from earth for an extended period of time. You may also stay here permanently, if you wish."
Retina raised her hand, as if we were on a field trip or something and Behemoth was our teacher. " Hey... But, um, if we go to other galaxies... wouldn't we be away from earth for decades at a time?"
"We have condensed the travel time to only a few months, sometimes a year or so if it's very far. But that issue was solved by people much smarter than I am, a long time ago."
Behemoth then walked down the left hallway, and motioned for us to follow. Eventually, the bright wallpaper gave way to the familiar metal grayness I'd seen during my first trip here.
As we walked, we passed various rooms, too many to count. Behemoth stopped to explain every single room, in a process that almost felt more taxing than fighting The Old Lady in The Super Suit (Yes, this became her "villain name").
There was a room tailored for animals we might have to bring aboard, roars and squawking noises could be heard coming from within. There was a greenhouse with various aromas wafting from within it, a deluxe kitchen, and a couple massive rooms(Think, the size of two football fields each, right next to each other) that Behemoth said were for "Training Purposes", which I think was one of the rooms I'd punched the dump truck in.
There was a medbay, with several rooms within it. The most notable was one with a bunch of serums and pills adorning the wall. Apparently, they ranged from cures to many common ailments, to cures for deadly viruses, to even drugs that would temporarily grant superpowers for a limited time. Granted, they were a lot weaker than someone that might naturally have those abilities, but still quite useful nonetheless.
The cockpit was near the front of the ship, and looked a bit strange. It was a single swivel chair, with a couple of futuristic-looking gauntlets, and some weird helmet suspended above the chair, by two thick wires that ran up to the ceiling. There was no steering wheel, but there was a medium-sized console with three chairs in front of it. Various buttons, levers and lights adorned the surface of the console.
"How do you even fly this this thing?" I asked Behemoth.
"I don't, you do. You'll figure it out when the time comes." Apparently, that was as good of an explanation as I was going to get, since he left before I could say anything. Again, he motioned for me to follow.
During this tour, we'd lost most of "the class." Blur had decided to stay in one of the training rooms, and was doing laps or something, mumbling about needing to "compensate for the watch". Retina had stayed in the medbay, and talked to the ship's medical AI about something complicated I couldn't quite follow, but it had to do with her vision.
That just left me, and Behemoth insisted that I stay with him. Which was literally the only reason I was still here. I wanted to check out all the other rooms more in-depth, but he said he had something more important to show me.
He brought me through the ship's weapons system, which was apparently in the bottommost-part of the ship. There were massive guns, seemingly connected to chairs that were similar to the piloting mechanism in the main cockpit. Behemoth lead me past all of it. Past the weapons, past the mannequins with various costumes lining the walls, past the portraits of who I assumed were all my predecessors- Diamondback looked proud, and strong. She looked way more confident than I'd ever felt in my entire life.
Finally, Behemoth brought me to what he was trying to show me this whole time.
A glass case, and within it was a mannequin sporting glistening purple armor. The material looked the same as the spear I'd fired at the Old Lady... but in such a large quantity, I could swear it was shimmering, as if made of pure energy. The design was reminiscent of Viking armor, but was entirely comprised of beautiful metal plates.
The helm was more like a helmet, with three trident-like prongs coming off the top of it. A golden asterisk was present on the chestplate as well as on the "forehead" area of the helmet, with the topmost arm of the golden asterisk covering the middle prong of the helm.
"This is yours. It was created for you with the same primordial energy that you used to make the spear... and was ready for you from the time you got your powers. Actually, it took about as much time to forge as you did in the chamber. You could say it's as new to this as you are."
"I... what? Really? Why didn't you show me this before I went to find Blur? Maybe it could have saved me against Semicolon!"
Behemoth scoffed when I said that. "Right."
Ignoring my question, he continued talking. "Your codename, akin to Blur and Retina, will be Starlight. You are the leader of the Champion's of the Universe. I have someone upstairs who can take your training to a new level. You will train with him over the next few days, so you can fully get used to your new abilities and grow into that hand-to-hand combat prowess you've inherited."
This was all a lot to take in. Looking at the armor, I definitely felt a powerful connection to it... like an old friend that I'd somehow known for a long time.
"C-Can I equip it?" I asked. Behemoth nodded.
"Of course. It's yours, you're free to do whatever you want with it."
I touched the glass, expecting to have to feel around for some sort of clasp that would let me take the front panel off; However, when I touched the glass, it simply slid up into its frame, exposing the armor within.
I touched the armor, again, just trying to pick it up, but suddenly I could feel all that "Universal Awareness" to an even more powerful extent than ever before, and the armor became bright purple energy. It threw itself onto me, and encased me in a feeling of security I'd never felt before- like as long as this thing was on me, I would never be brought to harm. The light cleared, and I found that I was wearing the armor, and I could swear it fit better than anything I'd ever worn.
I lifted both hands, and attempted to generate the spiral galaxy again, like I did earlier; but this time, without even thinking, I'd managed to make two different models of the galaxy on each hand. Again, I could sense everything in the universe at once- planets, galaxies across the universe. Even small things- The Old Lady, Super Semicolon... but this time, the connection was much clearer.
The armor fit as if I'd worn it my whole life, and felt extremely light, And the ease with which I was able to generate those galaxies while wearing it was even more than when I'd done that the first time.
Looking down at the power I now possessed, I truly felt like I could be the Champion of the Universe someday.