I woke but didn't open my eyes. Just letting myself lay back and listen to the hustle and bustle surrounding me. I could feel their eyes on me. Even the hushed whispers. I open my eyes just a smidge to see armorer watching me with a curious glint in his eyes. I stretched out letting them know I was awake. They salute and nod respectfully as they pass by me. A few greetings as I stir.
Recognition. Companionship. Control. All of these things came about due to my power. Watching them, like ants bustling about. I consider my lot in life. My purpose. An age-old question, one that many have sought an answer to.
To live, to procreate. Is what many say. Others say life is pointless, a means to an end. Even more say that life is a journey, a journey to prepare us for what's next. Such questions seem ill fitting at this time. But seeing these people moving about. Laughing and chatting with little care. The empty abandoned ships lying about of those from the past. The lights beaming from above that threatened to blind me if I stare too long.
It occurs to me… That I've rarely taken the time to get to know those around me. Always rushing, running to the next goal post. Aiming for the simplest path forward, A Super Saiyan. Everything around me felt ephemeral. Like castles built in the sand. The laughing chatting bodies mere shadows brought forth by my light. A means to an end.
What is it I wanted? Was it power? It couldn't be… Power wasn't a purpose. It was a tool, a key to something greater. With power I can achieve what I wish. Which makes me wonder, what do the pirates aim for? What is their goal? Their purpose?
Why would they go on such a mission? Why do they fight? It felt so simple, but so stupid. I didn't want to assume. But I didn't know how to ask. Or who to ask…
"Doing alright there?" I blink out of my musings. My eyes focus on the instructor. He was wearing a helmet, but I could recognize his stance, the ki roiling off him.
"Just thinking…"
"Thinking, huh?" He takes a seat next to me. A silence descends over us as I think… Words pour out of my mouth. My own blood denying my cowardice. My own fear.
"Why are you a pirate?" I see him fold his arms and lean back. His eyes gazing up at the hangar ceiling. I imagine him staying silent. Not speaking, but he surprises me.
"When I was young. I found myself on an alien planet. I didn't understand the language. The people were strange and confusing. I was afraid. Frightened. I felt helpless.
And my master found me."
He sighed, the sound quieting as I focused on his words. Instructors figure before me filling in like a caricature filled in with broad strokes of a brush.
"He took me in. Trained me. Taught me in the only way he knew how too. Violence. There was no backtalk, only more work. He taught and I was expected to learn. No questions. No answers. Only the endless pursuit of power."
"And?" I noted how this had nothing to do with being a pirate, but I stayed silent.
"I killed him. Like he had killed his master, and his master before him… A cycle of perpetuating violence. I never considered it. Never second guessed it. Not that I could. It was kill or be killed."
A sigh escaped his lips.
"I spent years after mastering the techniques I was taught. Years pursuing the pinnacle. Fighting… Training… Constantly sacrificing for the smallest gains. One day, I was given a choice. A chance to join a major martial school. A guarantee to be a student under a greater master. A chance to become something more, as they said.
I rejected them. I wanted to accept, but as I reached my hand out, I remembered my master. The man that pulled me from nothing. I knew I could never take another master. Not after what happened. I wanted to prove my worth even as I was pushed out of any martial association due to the backlash. Forcing me to be a pirate. Which eventually led me here, to you. I suppose."
"And what is it you want? Power?" It sounded like it, but… Something was missing.
"No… Not power. I used to think it was power, but when you woke my ki up. When I felt it flowing into me."
He puts his hand to his chest.
"I think I understood. I felt my master. His master, and his master too. And I felt in that moment that power was never the point. It was freedom…"
Freedom? He didn't say anything else, but I found my eyes wandering. Was that why these men and women gathered here? Why they fell under my banner? Was that really a pursuit of freedom?
Why did pirates become pirates? Wealth? Glory? Fame? Women or men? Power?
Wealth was a form of power. Glory and fame are a means of recognition. Women and men, a form of companionship. And power? A simple means to an end. Was it truly the freedom they sought? Or did they too forget the purpose, the goal? Why does anyone throw in their lot with others?
Love? Friendship? Shared ideals? Or is it more selfish? That people work together from so many different cultures and races for a singular goal. A goal they all would be willing to bleed and die for. Abused by the governments and authorities only to become what they hate. Truly, very few pirates ever lived that long. To become the very villain, they sought to fight against. Or maybe that was the point for some?
Is freedom what I wanted? Desired? It didn't sound right. I was free, right? I had a ship of my own. I could leave whenever I choose. I wasn't bound by these people. I was merely here of my choosing, an exercise in freedom. The only way I could lose my freedom is if something stronger than me appeared. Which led back to power.
I needed power. Power was the skeleton key. If a door doesn't open it just means I don't have enough power. But it felt like… A moving goal post. Like a carrot that was dangled in front of me and jerked away just as I was about to reach it.
Instructor… had changed. He was calmer now. His style changing, becoming more… accepting. Less hard and more fluid like water. He let my hits come more often. He reacted less harshly, instead flowing into more powerful combo's as he redirects and reflects my force.
I could see the tension in his shoulders had lessened from when I had first seen him. He was no longer a starving wolf devouring all it could for even the smallest of gains. Now he was a lumberjack. Calm, steady, unceasing. He chopped and chopped with a steady rhythm, each hit with the same surety as a beat of a heart. He worked day in and out. Taking moments to sharpen his axe, hone its edge.
In a vein I couldn't stop. I felt like I was running against the tide. The further I go the weaker I seem to be. The more wood I cut the harder it gets, not easier. I could feel that Instructors help to hone my edge was the only thing keeping me from dulling. From my axe shattering as I pushed and pushed.
Had I continued my original plan… went to DEPP's frontier planets. Would I have slaughtered and slaughtered. Desperate for even the smallest gains. My mind would fracture, crack under the force. My own sanity chipped away as I push and push towards Super Saiyan… In a way, I think I understand Vegeta's problem.
Instructor would hit my level eventually. His pace was slow, but steadily picking up. His ki grew more solid by the day. Every step he took was stable as a mountain. Nothing like my own steadily falling apart mountain of sand blowing away in the wind. I wanted power. I needed it. Why, I wasn't sure. But at least with it I could keep my power of choice. To always have doors to open.
I just needed to not become a Lu Bu. Betraying each and every person I knew as I worked my way up until I had no more doors. Locked in an end with no way out save for execution or slavery. But… could I keep my head on straight as my blood pulsed and pushed. A part of me was beginning to consider the validity of slaughtering these men and women. Just killing them all and ditching. Just letting go...
I lifted my hand and grasped at the light as if my hand could swallow it. A simple gesture, a hand grasping at light. Hope... I gave myself a self-deprecating grin. I didn't need help. I needed more. More and more power. I let my hand down and leaned back and sighed. My eyes shut closed as I feel myself drifting back off to sleep.
Footsteps echo out. My eyes flutter open. A figure coming into view.
"Boarding captain?"
"Just call me Boarder and we'll be fine captain."
I considered that for a second with my foggy brain. "Sure, thing boarder." His grizzled face a sight for sore eyes.
"We're about ready to continue on, but we need you to fly a technician up to the monitor." He points up to the hangar control center. I turn and see Instructor still sitting at my side. "Instructor why don't you give it a shot?"
He shrugs. "Can't fly yet." "Well figure it out. I can't be the only one to fly on the ship." I retort, but I don't wait for his reply and stand, stretching. Letting my spine pop and crack as I straighten out the kinks. Instructor didn't mind my reply, merely shrugging it off. We both knew he was afraid of flying. He just needed to get over it.
"So, the guy?" A guy in a familiar suit shows up. The same carapace design as I have. He was a bit bulky for a techie, but that didn't really matter.
"Captain!" He salutes.
"I'm carrying you up then?"
"Yes, Ma'am!"
Wow, he was gung-ho about this.
"Alright, let's do this." He rushes over, and to my back… wait. "The hell are you doing?"
"Getting on your back?"
I just stared at him. "Yea, no… Up front." Nervously he walks around and I put my arms under his armpits and lift him from there. He doesn't move as I slowly drift up to the second floor. He stands a good few moments, with his arms outstretched before slowly loosening.
"T-thank you!" He stutters out and rushes to the monitor. Within minutes I feel something change. A loud grinding sound echoes as the flashing lights dim. I float down with my eyes locked on the slowly opening doors. A ghastly deluge of air blows in. The smell of long rotten meat and blood. Of stale air floods in. I feel the pirates fall in behind me, lights lancing into the blackness before us. A hush falling over us as we stare.
An entryway, what once used to be a processing center for new arrivals, now laid mangled and wrecked. Palisades and what must have been sensors turned into twisted metal and junk. The floor near the doors thick in old blood. Like a paint job where the painter just kept re-applying paint without bothering to evenly spread it. We looked out to the mangled remains. Eyes searching the open expanse as we played out their final moments.
I felt a body near me. "We going in Captain?"
I take a moment to look over the arrayed bodies, the techies and support prepping the various equipment. The mecha just behind.
"Aye." I step forward, our columns march the moment I cross the threshold, the moist air smacks me in the face. The air thick with the scent of meat and blood. We went in, and as we crossed past a chipped yellow line, the lights flickered on. The mist hanging above near the lights revealing countless lifts and elevators lifting above and beyond.
"I guess they processed resources through the hangar too."
I heard boarder say. I stopped just shy of the mess ahead.
"We setup here." Boarder didn't argue, his voice echoing out as support lined up. Laying out a metal strip that extended out and with a push of a button extended up into simple barricades. Weapon emplacements were placed. The mecha took up their positions as we fortified. Nobody questioned me. A good thing.
My instincts were screaming, screaming that we were about to face a fight. A very dangerous fight. It didn't set my blood boiling, like most fights did. Instead, I felt an odd sense of suffocation. A muffling over me that kept me from actually enjoying the moment, or even looking forward to it. The emotion was so strange, so stifling. Like having something tasty rammed down your throat without a chance to taste it. A good thing gone bad.
It was only as they finished that the hammerers stepped forward, smashing and separating the wrecked masses before us. As one of the pirates took up position on the line. The was line stalwart, its weight falling on my shoulders, nearly making me bow. But I've had worse on my shoulders, the collection of squidizen souls brought to my mind as well as those others I killed while a monkey. I stood tall, floating just above like a guiding light. An angel. A god.
I float forward. Taking the center. The ship screams.
A voice screeches over the intercom. The voice off and distorted from the damaged intercoms.
"Warning! Containment breach detected!" Was all the warning we had as the doors to the hangar hissed. The techies around it bolted through, barely avoiding the scything doors as they slam shut like a guillotine. A loud series of clanks and clunks were loud, especially as the shrill alarm blared. The lights flickered and red alarm lights flared. Turning the quiet room into a strobe of light and color.
It barely hid the loud screams that echoed through the various shafts and elevators filling the room. My senses pinged back, a massive life form in the center of the pyramid stirred. The whole of the ship lit up with ki signatures as they began to move and coalesce like water flowing through the point of least resistance.
"INCOMING!"
I cried out, my voice only barely echoing out over the noise. Lights slammed on. Flooding the room as the techies plugged in various floodlights and the lights attached to the mecha's shoulders activated. The sudden deluge of light instantly reduced the blaring and strobing lights into a minor inconvenience as the pirates lined up against the wall. Hammerers took their position and techies moved to be ready to provide support.
What followed was a painful wait. The sound of countless claws crawling and scrabbling quickly filled the room. Pirates huddled together, shared glances and hushes curses as they readied. I loaded up as many ki blasts as I could to unleash a full barrage. The light of the energy immediately noticeable as if countless suns were orbiting my frame. Tension hung in the air as we stilled, waiting.
They came like a flood of meat and bone. Their flesh pale white, pulsing and wrong. I loosed. The blasts and arrows of ki carving out and hitting the wave of meat. I began to prep again, only to be shocked as I saw them push through barely harmed. I settled with a series of energy balls thrown out as they closed the distance with to our lines rapidly. They were hit, but my ki was almost absorbed or repelled by them. Their ki, or lifeforce, something inside them making them nigh immune to my energy blasts.
The realization chilled me, but still. "OPEN FIRE!" I heard a voice echo out when the bodies were mere feet from the line. Lancing gunfire scythed them down. The high-powered rifles and slugs mincing all that hit. The rifle mecha fired their guns. Their weapons were automatic shotguns with the range of a rifle. Each bullet a cannister that shot out and burst obliterating masses of creatures with every shot.
For an instant the tide pushed back under our material might. The sound of gunfire, blood, the clink of rounds impacting the ground filled the room. Incessant, unceasing. A machine of war at work grinding away the meat and bone of our opposition with an endless hunger… Clips were emptied and thrown down, only to be picked up by the techies and slapped into large towers that whirred and clunked as they rapidly reloaded the magazines. New magazines were placed next to the pirates.
A constant maneuvering of material as we functioned as a single coherent unit. Well, all except for me as I gawked at the sight. I shook my head to dispel my shock and awe. I was the head, I was the light. The leader. I had to lead. If not by word, by action. Seeing as my ki blasts were useless I had another move to try at least.
"Destructo Disc!" I slammed out the whirring blade of sawed energy. It swung in with a curve as I controlled it with gestures and my mind. I aimed it for the densest parts, hoping that they don't negate it. They didn't, not quite. The saw blades chewed flesh, spraying meat and blood with chips of bones in a gory spectacle before the energy blade fizzled, its energy spent as its teeth chipped and faded.
It dented the tide forced them back just enough that it was worth continuing. Each additional disc momentarily halted the tide as the saw blades mangled and forced back flesh. Mixing together bodies like a demented blender before dissipating. The pirates began to cheer at the carnage. The blood spraying over their bodies, chips of bone pinging off armor. No, not cheer. They roared, the bloodlust taking hold as the tide pushed further and further back… And then they reversed course. The quality of the creatures taking a sudden uptake as they no longer disintegrated under the rain of metal death. Now they became living sponged, holes drilled into their flesh as bullets impacted only dying once perforated completely and wholly.
Only my disc had a marginal effect and the mecha guns as they blasted out pushing back the tide, no longer obliterating but visibly pushing them back with the sheer force of their attacks. The tide gained momentum, pushed by the newly arriving additions. The tide grew and swelled as they crawled over each other, ignoring as their claws and spikes impaled their fellows as they scrabbled with a manic frenzy to consume us or worse.
The line went rigid. The pirate's bloodthirst peaking and for an instant it felt like the tide stalled and receded. But my heart chilled at the sight. Like a tidal wave gathering strength they receded and gathered. We wouldn't hold! The larger emplaced guns opened fire. The heavy weapons unleashing hell as the line was forced back with a wave of superheated slugs. Forcing the tide back, but only barely as the big guns began to whine from the abuse.
"GRENADES!" All at once the line moved, the sound of clunks echoing as they aimed the rifles out. "FIRE!" As the wave was at its peak. A rain of grenades shot out from the rifles under barrels, slamming into the line. A burst of explosive heat and shrapnel smashed into the tidal wave of meat. Smashing their growing momentum as the few that passed the lines were launched into or behind our lines. The techies grabbed knives and pistols, finishing them off even as pirates and emplacements continued to gun out at the flooding masses. Emplacements fired on and off, allowing for the heavier weapons to cool and re-belt.
This time as they closed the ranks with an unstoppable force, their quality once more improved into loping creatures. The first wave all leaping in a single charge like tigers hunting prey. Hammers blurred out smashing and pasting a majority of the leapers, those in the center I intercepted. Slamming them back or ripping limbs from their bodies as I beat them back. Strings of hellfire from the emplacements eviscerated others, raining meat and bone down upon us as we held the line. The few stragglers slammed into our lines, but few made it unscathed. The pirates moved with a single-minded ferocity that weathered the storm, rationality fading into an almost primal frenzy. Knives and guns beat them back as they liberally beat them down.
Even as they did so, many more pirates ignored the threats in their midst not letting up as they continued shooting. Ignoring death given form right by their side as they laugh and continue gunning. Fully and wholly believing in those around them, or perhaps it was an unrivalled selfishness that pushed them to believe such a thing couldn't kill them. A single-minded thought towards slaughter.
The creatures over extended, and on instinct I slammed forward. Bodily smashing into them, using myself to simply bat them away with whatever I had on hand, be it hand or body. The line surged forward as the pirates pushed back the tide. Slaughtering the leaping creatures in an instant. And at the crest of our push, we heard it. A crunching grinding from the opposite of the room. The main elevator. We pulled back, moving with the tide.
The door slammed open, and I only got a brief look at armored forms as they opened fire. Their weapons cleared out hordes of creatures as they fired liberally and without care.
"They allies!?" A pirate yelled only for a string of bullets to clip their helmet blowing off a portion of it. Leaving her sweat streaked face open to the world.
"SCRATCH THAT!" I cried out, we took the moment of confusion as the tide of meat stalled from the new arrivals to run back to the walls. A three-way war began. The tide grew and grew, split between killing us and the armored figures. Guns ran white hot, barrels hissed on touch as bullets lanced out. Hammers slammed into the crowd as they moved with impunity like giants among ants.
I noticed a hammerer out of position, his feet slowly crawling forward trying to push against the tide even as the creatures' scored cuts and gouges on its legs. The very act was almost like watching ants take down an elephant. I slammed forward blasting back the tide surrounding the mecha away, I turned to the cockpit.
"Retreat!" He ignored me, continuing his rush forward, lost in his bloodlust. I slammed into him with my body, forcing back the mecha, nearly causing it to fall on its back.
"Fuck Off! I'ma kill'em all!" It swung its hammer at me, I punched it back, the rebound loud as it echoed my arm hurting from the exertion. But the show of force was enough to make the mecha pilot reconsider.
"Ah, shit…" He swore suddenly aware of where he was. He backed off with me supporting him back to our line. From there it became a steady tedious war. The intensity of the combat began to affect the pirates, but they only became more vicious. It became harder to keep them in line as they fired more rapidly, discipline failing as they frenzied. Grenades launching at random and bullets pinging off me and leaving bruises whenever I found myself in front of the line.
I was hurting. My whole-body quivering from using myself like a living battering ram. Long cuts scored my frame and ripped into my armor as I tried to avoid the wall of claws and failed often. I couldn't think, focusing on the fight before me. I didn't feel pleasure, no joy from killing these things. I felt distant, cold. Empty as I ripped and teared into the crowds. As I heard pirates get pulled into the mass. As my discs sawed through the mass.
Our only reprieve was the line of armored figures on the other end of the room. They were reinforced as the elevator continued to clink and clang. The sound of the massive doors akin to the slamming of jaws. The sound of its ascent and descent like a rollercoaster filled with people. A slow steady clunking as it ascended followed by a shrill banshee like wail as it descended.
Our ammo was running low. Our bodies, though casualties were minimal, were exhausted. The fierceness of the pirates began to transform into an almost suicidal charge as they broke ranks to charge into the mass. For a moment, our lines broke as the empty guns were used as clubs to beat back the mass. For a second, I thought I saw the mass shudder and fail… I thought it was a lie, but when I sensed out, sending a ping of ki… The mass of numbers were as I checked trickling down to a small dribble compared to the deluge. Except… Something else was… The elevator's raucous clicking of its ascent seemed to skip. The whole room halting like a heart missing a beat. A clock missing a tick. As if time held still. What followed was a final loud shrill cry followed by a horrific crash as the elevator slammed down and time resumed. Blasting the doors out and devastating the armored figures as they went through anything in their way. Stopping short of our lines as they devastated the meat wall. Leaving streaks of painted meat and bone in their wake. And almost as one the tide, the writhing mass of creatures ceased.
Not because of any special effects, but because the flow had been cut. And with the flow cut off, the stragglers were killed off in a near instant. Breaths were held, even as I felt something surge from the elevator shaft. A massive wormlike creature, its body had a white fleshy texture. It was covered in sutures like countless pounds of flesh that had been sewn together to create the monstrosity before us. It had countless arms and legs it used to drag itself forward. A massive yawning mouth filled with teeth and mangled remains greeted us as the thing gave a weeping howl.
"KILL IT!" I didn't know who spoke, but they spoke what we all thought in that very moment. Grenades and bullets, what was left screamed out as the pirates backed. The fierce near suicidal momentum broken by the sight of such a thing as the indomitable line was forced to pull back. I didn't think, I put my palms forward my yell echoing out as I compacted my ki. This had to be powerful, impactful.
The thing reaped through the armored figures lines, crunching down on them or crushing them under its weight as it lurched into the room segment by segment. As its frame filled out half the room, I loosed.
"GALICK GUN!" The bolt lanced out, right into its gaping maw. The energy carving through even as its body absorbed and tried to counteract the energy, until its whole form bloated, and blood gushed out as it fell. It wasn't dead. It twitched trying to stand even as it wept blood from every burst vessel and suture along its frame.
I charged another as the thing crawled forward like an inevitable force. The line was abandoned as it crashed closer and closer. Pulling itself down the reception hall as it wailed and keened. Countless arms and legs undulating and moving as it thrusts its way forward with slow lurching movements. I focused and pushed all my ki into another blast. A kame would take too long, and the nature of it would find most of its force dissipated or absorbed before it could be dangerous. Whereas Galick functioned more like a powered railgun. It was a hyper dense energy that pierced and shot through. Which made it exceptionally good for breaking through the thing's defenses, especially if I hit it in its gaping mouth.
Just as we hit the sealed door, guns fired into the thing's maw. Perforating its insides with metal and making blood rain down on us as if we were standing next to a waterfall. Hammerers tried and failed to beat back the monstrosity. I loosed once more.
"GALICK GUN!" This time it shot through the things form. Its body expanding and bursting as the shot went through its maw and back out. The thing gave a final wailing cry as its body expanded, the many sutures ripping free as blood and organs pooled out and with a final pop, its body fell, slamming onto the ground. We breathed and swallowed our hearts that found their way into our throats. Our stomachs dropped. People heaved at the sight of the thing before us.
We were terrified, but we knew… It was dead. As it should be.