7- EDGY

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“What are you sticking me with?” I asked, as Aurora swabbed my arm.

“It’ll help slow down the process and might take the edge off a little,” she whispered.

I nodded and looked up at the bright lights above. As she got closer to me, I smelled an interesting blend of cigarette smoke and floral perfume. The needle’s sting was a weak pinch compared to the throbbing pain throughout my body, especially in my eyes. As soon as she pulled the needle free, the medicine kicked in and I felt like I could breathe easier.

“That might’ve bought you a couple more hours,” she said before returning to her seat.

She fixated on the screen to her right. They weren’t responding to our calls, and we lost the feed on Todd’s visor. I couldn’t shake my fear that something had gone horribly wrong, and that I wasn’t the only one dying today. Taking a deep breath, I hoped they were okay. Aurora sat back in her chair and pulled up another holographic screen showing the cameras outside and the dark city beyond.

“How long do you think I have?” I asked, unsure I wanted the answer.

Aurora’s shoulders drooped, and she shut her eyes. “Maybe a little over a day.” She looked down. “I’m sorry, I really am.”

She kept blinking and her breathing sounded weird. Was she, was she about to cry over me? I looked away. Being on death’s doorstep was one thing. Seeing people cry about me was beyond painful.

“Any brothels nearby that do house calls?” I asked.

Aurora’s eyes widened, then she chuckled, “hell no. You are not getting freaky in my clinic.”

“Not even as a dying penguin’s last wish?”

She laughed even more as she crossed her arms. “Best I can do is get you a sandwich from down the street.”

“A sandwich? Really?”

Aurora laughed, “their fish sandwiches are damn good. Don’t press your luck or I won’t get you one.”

I forced a smile. “I think I’ve pressed it one too many times.”

“Yeah,” Aurora’s smile slowly faded.

We sat in silence for a few minutes as the mood turned heavy again.

“Hey,” she spoke up, “do you remember anything about your parents?”

I shut my eyes and thought hard about it. Honestly, I tried not to think about them. Every so often, I’d have these nightmares, more like flashes of memories. I only remember putting my tiny flipper against a piece of glass, and a woman calling my name from the other side. I know that the voice belonged to my mother. Her trembling voice was heavy with fear, pain, and sadness. It was like she was saying goodbye. That’s where the nightmares ended, and I’d wake up, pulse pounding, short of breath, and muscles clenched like I was expecting a fight. I remember the smell and sight of blood on both sides of the glass, and warning beeps from nearby machinery. Whatever happened next is all a foggy haze. Before I realized it, I was lying in the middle of an ice field, my blood pooling around me. With blood seeping from my head wound, I could barely see anything. I felt a fire nearby and smelled it. The rescue crews said I had been in a special escape pod with limited subspace capabilities constructed by penguins. As I told Aurora this, she remained silent and just stared at me.

“You were there,” she whispered.

“Aves? I…I guess I survived whatever happened,” I said.

Besides the hum of the machinery, a chilling silence filled the room.

“Do you remember anything else?”

“No,” I said, “doctors said the wound on my head wasn’t responding to any advanced healing treatments like medi-gel or healing accelerants. They had to sew it back together and hope for the best. I was stuck in a hospital for two months.”

“I’m so sorry.”

I heard a notification and noticed the door camera. Six guys were standing outside, all wearing silver suits. I jumped up, pulling the equipment Aurora tethered me to.

“What is it?” Aurora said.

“Shit!” I growled while removing the sensors.

“What!?” She asked, standing.

“The Golden Sevens!”

How the fuck did they follow me here!? I covered my tracks and made so many subspace jumps there was no way they could’ve followed us! All the color drained from Aurora’s face as I finished removing the equipment and got to my feet. I could barely stand on my own. In my condition, I doubted I could handle a shoot out. My legs wobbled beneath me as I forced myself upright.

“Why are they here?” Aurora asked, her voice quivering.

“They’re here for me, but they’ll kill you too.”

I looked her in the eye.

I could see the fear in them. Unlike me, she was unfamiliar with firefights.

“Does this place have a lockdown mode!?”

She nodded and pressed the button. I heard shutters coming down and extra thick doors closed between us and the lobby.

“What do we do?” Aurora asked as I limped towards my coat and grabbed my belt.

“You got a gun!?” I asked while undoing the safety on my pistol and activating my body shield.

Aurora nervously punched in a code on the bottom drawer of her desk and it opened, revealing a compact tan handgun. The Ellikor pistol, made of low grade resin, was cheap but reliable. She grabbed the two extended magazines in the safe and stuffed them into her shorts.

I looked at the camera. One goon brought a giant device with a large cylinder in the back and a long box shaped opening at the front. I immediately knew what it was. A plasma cutter. The giant crackling blade of white hot plasma illuminated the darkened gray street outside, casting a harsh, flickering pale light on everything nearby. The large alien carrying it stepped forward and plunged the blade into the door, dragging it down the length and showering the area with sparks.

“Got a body shield?” I asked Aurora as she loaded the gun and racked the slide.

“N-no!” She said.

Dammit. I deactivated mine and tossed it to her.

“Here!”

“What about you?” She asked.

No one else was going to die because of me, especially not a doctor just doing her job. I heard the door fall. They were inside. Their footsteps roared down the hall towards us. The doors between us and them would barely slow them down. What could we do? I looked around. An adjacent room faced the door. That gave me an idea. Grabbing Aurora’s flipper, I pulled her into that room, knocked over a thick shelf, and told her to get behind it. As soon as we did, we both heard the hiss of the plasma cutter slicing through the doors. Sparks, smoke, and the smell of burning metal filled the room as I tried to steady my grip on the pistol.

It felt far heavier than normal, like I was carrying a lead brick in my flippers. I started coughing, and I felt something wet fly out. Looking down, I saw what seeped from my beak. Blood. Aurora gave me a worried look as she struggled to keep the pistol steady.

“You know how to use that?” I asked before I coughed up more blood.

“Y-yeah,” she whispered. “What did you do to piss them off?”

“Long story,” I answered, wiping away the blood.

Sparks cascaded from the door’s heated wound while the plasma blade hissed and carved. In my condition, I could barely keep the gun steady and my vision was blurring. Everything rocked like a raft in an ocean storm. I felt lightheaded, and I struggled to focus.

“Get ready!” I said.

They split the door in two. Both halves clanged against the ground; the sound echoing throughout the clinic. I squeezed the trigger, but the guy with the cutter had a body shield that deflected every shot I fired. The blue flashes from the gun only worsened my vision. Aurora joined in, and we watched his shield go from blue to yellow. Then he dropped the cutter and pulled out an energy rifle.

Our cover meant jack shit.

“Move!” I shouted to Aurora.

She followed my lead as the glob of energy shredded the shelf and the wall behind it, eating through it and filling the area with smoke. Moving like that made me feel like I was going to die. I couldn’t breathe. The deafening sound of gunfire echoed through the air, drowning out all other sounds. Each bullet impact on the walls sent shockwaves reverberating through my body. I felt a thousand times heavier as I lay slumped against the wall, trying to get my breathing under control while bullets pierced the wall we stood behind. Each breath was a struggle, as if the air had thickened. The world blurred into a chaotic frenzy, the only clarity coming from the flashes of gunfire.

“Edgy!? Stay with me!” Aurora said, grabbing me.

Capturing my breath, I leaned around the melting wall and opened fire. Now, all six of them crowded into the room. I hit at least two before my gun clicked and they retaliated with a hail of energized bullets that melted through the wall. Both of us had to duck as the hailstorm of bullets and plasma shattered the wall above us. Bits of melting plaster and concrete rained down on us and dug into my exposed back. Dust scalded my eyes and made them water. My entire body wobbled as I struggled to reload.

Focusing on the alien with tusks and the cutter, I rose and aimed through the hole. His shield dropped to red before we had to move. A blinding blast of blue-white energy punched a gigantic opening in the wall. Smoke and embers billowed out of the gaping hole. Aurora ran ahead, keeping a wall between us and them, but we had nowhere to go as I heard them moving to flank us from the entrance on the other end of the U shaped area.

I couldn’t shake the sense of dread as my legs gave out, and I collapsed.

“Come on, Edgy!” Aurora shouted, dragging me.

I noticed a metal cabinet at the back of the room, big enough to hide her.

“Aurora,” I whispered, “get in that cabinet!”

I had no other choice. I forced myself to stand up. What I was about to do was suicidal. Even when not sick to death, using my powers would likely send me to a hospital. I guess now it would send me to a morgue. I felt the surrounding area grow hotter and a crimson aura engulfed me.

“What are you doing!?” Aurora asked.

“Stay down and cover your head!” I growled as I let my anger run wild.

They were coming around the corner. I drew the knife on my belt and activated the energy blade. My power dulled the pain slightly, but I doubted I’d have more than a few seconds to use it. As they approached, I charged. I couldn’t run in a straight line and tripped over myself. They opened fire. I jumped.

The aura’s scorching heat overwhelmed them, and I plunged the knife into the first goon’s throat. His blood boiled as it came into contact with the red energy crackling around me. His friend tried to shoot me. I rammed into him as hard as I could, almost knocking myself down. I felt a sharp pain in my chest and gripped the wall as my stomach convulsed and I spewed up steaming blood. My pounding heart roared in my head, drowning out all other noise.

The guy I knocked down, despite his suit catching fire, rose. His rifle slammed into me. The impact was brutal, jarring my entire body as pain exploded across my face. My brain rattled inside my skull. The sharp edge of the rifle’s butt tore through my skin, leaving behind a searing trail of agony. As I collapsed, disoriented, my vision blurred with a cascade of shimmering stars. The world around me tilted and spun. Every breath was a struggle, as the taste of copper filled my mouth and the metallic tang of blood mingled with the air. The guy trained his gun on me.

A bullet slammed into his side, making him flinch. Out of the corner of my blurring vision, I saw Aurora there. Rising, I shoved my flipper into the gangster’s gut. I tore out his roasting, blood-soaked entrails and watched him scream and stagger forward a few feet before collapsing on the ground, dead. I fell again and thought I was down for the count as blood trickled from the wound on my face. Aurora was still in danger. Reaching out, I grabbed the gun of the mobster I just killed and used it like a cane to pull myself up.

Limping around the corner, I saw two in cover on the opposite end of the bed. They turned to me and opened fire. Pain exploded through my right arm, making me drop the gun. Time slowed as I watched a geyser of blood erupt from the wound. The force almost made me collapse. Almost. Rage was my sole driving force. I gritted my beak, ignoring the searing pain that radiated through my arm. Bullets whizzed past me, their deafening sound echoing in the small room.

I ran forward. Another bullet grazed my side. I fell against the bed.

“Times up birdie!” One of them gloated as my lungs tried to suck in air.

My eyes refused to focus, and the floor rocked on a seesaw.

Maybe they were right.

Maybe it was my time.

One thing was sure.

They were gonna have to fight like hell to take me down!

Funneling all of my anger into my left arm. I grabbed the bed so hard I felt the dense metal crumpling. Roaring at the top of my lungs, I stepped forward and tossed it as hard as I could. It crashed into them and sent them hurtling through the air like bowling pins. I heard their ribs snap, and they both wheezed and struggled to pull in air. The bed crashed into the opposite wall, shattering the glass and plaster tiles.

I fell to my knees. I couldn’t stop shaking. A feeling snuck into my mind. This was it. My stomach kicked like a mule and out came a shower of blood and bile. The smell making me want to heave even more. I felt my sense of self fading away, as if drifting off to sleep. One I’d never wake up from.

I heard a scream and footsteps. Aurora! I looked up and saw the one with tusks dragging a squirming Aurora by her throat, while a lankier one with a hat stepped out.

“Don Nelvo sends his regards!” The lankier one shouted while training his drum mag machine gun on me.

The short barrel and chromed metal on the gun and drum reflected the cyan lighting around us. Defiantly, I stared down the barrel of the gun while also watching Aurora. The big alien drew his energy pistol. I knew what he intended to do, and I had to stop it at any cost. Regardless of what happened to me.

Aurora bit the man’s hand, getting him to let go. She tried to flee, but she didn’t get far. He backhanded her, knocking her into her desk. As she hit her head against the counter, a surge of rage flooded my decaying system.

I leaped at the big one. I felt a bullet graze my face and another slice down my side. As I smashed into the larger alien, I tackled him and we both crashed through the damaged wall. I cut myself on the jagged edges of the shattered wall. With my last ounce of energy, I threw a punch before he responded. The crimson crackling aura engulfed my arm, making his skin boil and melt. I embedded my flipper in his skull, sending chunks of bone and brain into my face.

As his body spasmed in its death throes, the red aura faded and with it, so did any fighting strength I had. I rolled over on my back, unable to breathe. The world melted as everything merged. My eyes grew heavier. If I closed them now, I’d never open them again. Over the sound of my raging heart fighting the inevitable, I heard the skinnier mobster rising near me and readying his gun.

This was it.

I couldn’t move anymore. My vision focused for a second and I saw him adjusting his chromed fedora. No nose on his flat face, only small vents, and his six eyes were slits. His thin lips curled into a sickly smile as he stepped closer. Likely, he’d get a huge bonus for taking me out.

Then I heard a hiss, followed by a bright glow. Turning, the mobster’s eyes widened as a ball of energy vaporized him from the knees up. The smoke stung my eyes and the smell of burning meat flooded my nares. Aurora stepped around the corner, struggling to lug the energy rifle almost as tall as her. The left side of her face took on a purplish hue from the bruising. I tried to smile, but I didn’t have the strength to.

Everything faded. I heard Aurora shouting, but everything got drowned out by my beating heart. I felt her lifting me up and dragging me. As my vision faded, I think I heard something else coming from outside.

Footsteps.

8- TODD

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I tightened my grip on the translator and took a deep breath as I limped towards the top of the mountain. I couldn’t breathe as I neared the base of its neck. Every time it moved, I felt the ground shake as it created a noise like thunder. This was it, either this worked, or we all died. I double checked the trembling translator and ensured that I set it to the Jurakian Devil Plant’s language. The screen on the back confirmed I had it right.

I looked at the energy rifle dangling in my other flipper. I hoped desperately this didn’t end in a fight. Especially because once I began speaking, the killer plant would pinpoint my exact location, leaving me with minimal options to prevent it from crushing me. I looked back the way I came. Thanks to the sounds of the massive plant, I couldn’t hear if Jeff was still fighting at the base. I hoped he was still alive.

I took a deep breath and brought up the translator and set the volume to maximum. There was no turning back now. I looked back at the giant plant. Tremors ran through my entire body and my stomach twisted in knots as I readied myself to plead for help.

“Um…excuse me ma’am,” I said into the translator.

The device turned my voice into a bunch of low, long booming growls that sounded like a tree snapping in half played at ultra slow speeds. She turned her gigantic head towards me. The ground trembled, like an aftershock. All of its eyes locked on to me and I swore it radiated pure contempt.

“May I have the Jurakian Devil Bloom flower on your head? I know it takes ten thousand years to grow and you need it to breed, but my friend is dying and that flower is the only thing that can save him,” I said.

Again, the translator turned my entire statement into a long, complex series of growls. It tilted its head, as if understanding my words. The giant plant lowered her head, somewhat like she was trying to get a better look at me. Hearing her low growl, I checked for its significance, yet the translator remained silent.

As she got closer, I realized how insignificant I was to her. Saying I was like a tick or a flee in comparison wasn’t accurate. I felt like a little microbe next to it. Its sounds grew louder as it continued to gaze at me, exposing its monstrous face with sharp teeth protruding from the interlocking vines. Patches of thick grass and dense moss covered its body. As the growls grew louder, I felt them rattling the ground and my bones. I couldn’t tell how she received what I had said. After a few seconds, she got up and continued to observe me.

The fact she didn’t instantly turn all my bones into crushed gravel made me think we could talk this out somehow.

I heard the creature inhale. Next thing I knew, I flew through the air, and I thought my eardrums were going to explode as the giant beast roared. The amount of force from it blew back the surrounding trees and ripped branches and leaves off them. It felt like a category five hurricane just slapped me. Both my glasses and my visor cracked just from the sound. The ground shook as it continued to scream. After it ended, I glanced at the translator.

Let’s just say she vehemently objected to me having the flower.

As I grabbed the translator, I felt a shadow loom above me. I looked up to see her long vines high above cracking like whips. Imagine whips wider than school buses and longer than football stadiums. One of them came down from above, trying to flatten me like a roach.

I made a break for it, or limp for it, I guess. I didn’t get very far. When the vine crashed into the ground, it sent me flying like a bomb had gone off, and it sounded like it too. Rolling across the ground, getting mud in my mouth, I screamed as I hit my burned foot on a random rock and my entire body erupted with pain. I felt like someone had shoved a piping hot metal rod through the back of my ankle. When I came to a stop, I stared up at a second vine high in the air above me.

It was hell-bent on flattening me. Scrambling to my feet, I dived for it.

The vine came down again with enough force to smash several trees and shower me in razor sharp splinters like a fragmentation grenade. Shards of wood sliced into my face and arms, making me grimace in pain. Not knowing what else to do, I raised the energy rifle and started shooting at the gargantuan plant. As crackling high heat energy bolts hit the beast, I saw little fires break out across it.

If those fires did any damage, I couldn’t tell.

I heard a beep and looked at the oxygen levels for my respirator. They were dangerously low. I was running out of time!

Something wrapped around my ankle and yanked my legs from under me. My head collided with the bark and I felt my brain rattling around in my skull. Numbness overcame me and the world spun, making me feel nauseous.

I felt the wind slamming into my face and the mountain continued to shrink from view. It took me several seconds to realize it had pulled me high into the air. That’s when I saw it. The Jurakian Devil Plant was below me with its gigantic mouth wide open. Each of its teeth was the size of buildings. I felt it lowering me closer to its mouth.

My heart raced as I realized there was nothing I could do.

She was going to eat me.

I was going to die.

Edgy was going to die.

We were all going to die.

I should’ve expected this. What was I thinking? A scrawny shut in like me going to a dangerous planet? How stupid was I for thinking I could save Edgy!? He practically told me we would all die, and I didn’t want to believe him! This was all my fault! I wish I had a better plan!

As she brought me closer to her gaping maw, I realized I was looking death right in the face. I just hoped it would be quick. A thought entered my mind. What would Edgy do in this situation? I knew the answer: he would fight, even if it ultimately served no purpose.

I still had a death grip on the energy rifle. I tried my best to aim while upside down and through my cracked glasses and visor. Calling that a disorienting ordeal would put it mildly. I squeezed the trigger and fired several energy bolts. The creature was so big and so close it was impossible to miss. It did nothing, but likely annoyed her even more.

As she brought me closer to where I could smell her putrid breath through the mask, I noticed one of her front teeth was so eroded and rotted that it had turned black. Even the surrounding gums were rotten. Another thought entered my mind. Maybe shooting that tooth would cause enough pain for me to get out of this. Or at the very least, I’d die from the fall. I hoped that would be less painful than an acid bath.

Squeezing the trigger, I fired several shots into the cavity. After several direct hits and many misses, I watched the tooth dislodge from the gums and go flying out of its mouth and onto the ground below. Emerald blood gushed from the wound and a giant wall of dust erupted from where the tooth hit the ground. A thunderous boom sounded. The creature roared and screamed, shaking me violently and making me drop the gun. I couldn’t breathe at all.

When I was on the verge of vomiting, it stopped. The world continued to spin and shake. I saw double as she brought me to her eye level and started growling again. I realized I still had the translator on the magnetic holster on my back. I drew it and saw what she was saying.

“That rotten tooth was driving me crazy! Been trying for months to get that wretched thing out!” The translator said, “thank you.”

“Uh…you’re welcome?” I said, not sure how to respond.

I hoped this meant she was rethinking her decision to eat me. She kept me suspended upside down. I felt all the blood rushing to my head. Hanging in midair, I gazed into the colossal eye, curious about its thoughts. Seconds later, she gently lowered me down, moving me back towards the mountain. She sat me down and then released me.

“Since you dislodged that tooth, I will help you,” the plant said. “Do you need the entire flower or just part of it?”

“Uh…I need two more petals to help our friend,” I replied.

The creature brought her head down closer to me, and I watched her plucking the petals off. Removing them seemed to cause her a bit of pain, but she did it anyway and gave them to me.

“Do not waste them,” she muttered, “go save your friend.”

I checked my oxygen levels. I wouldn’t make it back in time.

“Um…I came here with a friend. He’s stuck at the base of the mountain. Can you help get us back to our ship?”

A growl came from her; for a second, I feared I lost her favor. Yet, her vines lifted me up. She dragged herself around the side of the mountain and I saw movement near the base. Jeff! He was alive! I watched those creatures scattering away at the sight of the giant plant monster. She skewered several on roots that erupted out of the ground. The rest of them fled into the woods. I sighed in relief, we were both okay.

“Jeff!” I shouted.

As she grabbed him and brought him up to my level, I saw just how bad he looked. His blue hoodie was stained red with his blood and torn to shreds. Indigo blood caked his blond hair, and fresh, bleeding cuts covered him.

“Damn, you look like shit,” Jeff said to me.

“I feel like it,” I replied, forcing myself to laugh.

Jeff looked up at the giant plant holding us both.

“So, you two are cool?” Jeff asked, looking surprised and confused.

“Y-yeah,” I told him, still struggling to believe it myself. “Aurora! We’ve got it! We have the flower!” I said.

No response.

Jeff looked at me, eyes wide. I froze.

“Aurora!? Edgy!? Hello!?”

Silence.