Notorious space thief Hoshiya Fujioka snuck down the various long metallic hallways, evading being detected by the many guards onboard patrolling the alien space station. He wanted to avoid combat as much as possible, not that his wishes ever came true whenever it came to doing another mission for his uncle, Keichu. But things might be different this time due to the new camouflage system programed into his black skintight spacesuit, which made him invisible to the naked eye, from helmet to boots. Even so, he kept his back against the wall, constantly looking over his shoulders, and made as little noise as he possibly could.
At last, he reached the doors to the laboratory, and he lifted his right wrist up to the control panel that was to allow access to the lab on the other side. He pulled out a cable cord from his wristlet miniature supercomputer on his gauntlet and plugged it into the outlet on the panel.
He asked, "Jizo, can you hack into this mainframe and—?"
But before he could even finish what he was going to say, Jizo, the artificial intelligence program that he'd bonded with and made a mutual deal with not too long ago, responded quicker than he expected, "Got it." As he said that, the control panel glowed green to indicate that the door was unlocked. "I'm eight steps ahead of you, partner."
As soon as the metal doors slid open, the plug unconnected on its own and zipped back into the side of Hoshiya's gauntlet. Then Hoshiya quietly, cautiously, yet also somehow dashingly entered the laboratory that strangely had no one else inside. He paid it no mind, though, and his eyes scanned across every piece of equipment and experimental object assorted around the large room. His helmet's scanners also identified each piece he came across, glowing in his peripheral in bright numerical form until he found what he was looking for. It was an alien artifact: a steel cylinder with a red-holed pistol-like barrel sticking out of one end and was just big enough to fit in his hand.
Hoshiya grabbed the artifact from its incubation chamber, but almost instantly, a strong shockwave of static electricity sparked in his hand. These electrical sparks stung Hoshiya throughout his whole body. There was an interference between the artifact and his space suit that started through mere touch, and it caused his suit's camouflage to malfunction and deactivate. He looked down at himself, his eyes scanning up and down, examining his arms and torso. As a result, he was now exposed to the secret surveillance cameras hidden in the laboratory.
Suddenly, the security alarms went off throughout the whole space station. A red light flashed on and off in the lab. He heard the clanking footsteps of numerous guards rushing towards the lab, carrying firearms. He had to be quick. He surveyed his surroundings and found an air vent close to the floor, big enough for him to fit through. By the time the guards arrived on the scene, Hoshiya was already crawling through the ducts in search of a clear place to get out. He soon found one, and thus he kicked open the vent, he dropped to the floor, and then he ran.
It wasn't long, though, before he stumbled upon and crossed paths with three guards coming down the hallway in the opposite direction. Hoshiya didn't stop. On the contrary, he charged forward into the barrage of lasers shooting out of the guards' guns. He dodged left and right over and over again until there was a mere yard in distance between them, and he leaped into the air above the guards' heads. He had to do like he was playing leapfrog, using his feet to step over while also onto their faces that were covered by their gray and black metal helmets.
This left the guards disoriented and dizzy for a few moments, enough time for Hoshiya to get far enough down the hall and turn left at the corner, out of sight. He kept running down the elongated, twisty hallways until he made his way back to a docking bridge where a hundred or so guards were waiting for him. His feet slid along the smooth metal floor, and he came to a screeching halt. After a quick assessment, Hoshiya realized he was completely surrounded.
The guards had clustered into a semi-circle formation. Those wielding large metal laser-proof shields were in the front row, and the next row all pointed their firearms at the intruder. Several snipers were positioned on the catwalks on both sides three floors high. On top of all that, there was a glowing purple wall-like barrier cutting him off from the starships on the docking bridge, including Jizo's main spacecraft body.
Standing in between him and this barrier were the many guards, and they had every intention of not letting the intruder pass through here. Hoshiya slowly reached for the pistol holstered on his right hip, but some of the soldiers fired a few shots towards his feet, missing on purpose and leaving black scorch marks on the floor.
Those who'd been chasing him arrived and were moving in. Rellik Ars Volk, their buff, red-skinned ogre of a commanding officer, was among them. His mighty Warhammer in hand, he inched closer to Hoshiya while smiling big to reveal his crooked yellow teeth. "So, thought you could just waltz onboard, steal from us, and then escape, did you?" He said in his home planet's native tongue. Hoshiya had already learned this language and could speak it fluently if he wanted to insult Rellik. But he bit back the urge as Rellik continued, "Well, I've got news for you. You will never, ever, in a billion years leave this station ever again."
Rellik took one final step forward and stood right in front of Hoshiya, looming over him like the giant he was. He gripped his giant weapon handle with both hands and swung it down to squash Hoshiya's small scrawny body. A cloud of dust exploded and spread vastly from the impact. Rellik's smile got even wider, he had gotten rid of the most intrusive pest the cosmos had ever seen since those cursed Noandalians. Finally. He's no longer a problem to us. Rellik thought to himself.
Once the dust cleared, however, there was no blood where he'd struck his huge weapon. There was no crushed guts or bones or any sign of Hoshiya's innards in that spot, either. Rellik looked all around, and the guards did the same until one of them spotted Hoshiya hiding on Rellik's back, holding onto his back plate armor as though he was a backpack.
Then this guard foolishly fired at him only for Hoshiya to let go and drop down just in the nick of time and the lasers hit Rellik in the butt. Hoshiya rolled on the floor before getting back to his feet in a crouching position with one knee on the floor.
While Rellik winced from the pain in his butt, dozens of more lasers from several different guards shot at Hoshiya. But he was speedier and dodged each one by running ahead and across the area of the docking bridge that didn't have guards blocking him. After half a minute of just dodging, Hoshiya pulled out both pistols that had been holstered on his hips and began returning fire. He managed to knock the larger firearms out of several guards' hands as well as aiming for their shins and knees that bent backwards, making them unable to stand.
This was all before Rellik found the strength and stamina to chase after Hoshiya while swinging his Warhammer from side to side, trying to make it hit the intruder. All Rellik wanted now more than ever was to see Hoshiya bleed.
That was when Hoshiya spun around and fired a laser at Rellik's head, but Rellik blocked it with one flat side of his large hammer. The laser was reflected off the hard metallic surface and it started bouncing around the room, hitting the walls, ceiling, and floor, almost hitting the other guards as the dodged out of the way. This lasted about half a minute until the laser finally shot into the back of Rellik's bald yet somehow fuzzy head coated in extra short light brown fur for hair. Rellik fell to his knees while rubbing the back of his head with his left hand and still holding his Warhammer in his right.
It was a good enough diversion for Hoshiya to get ahead as he was approaching the wall of guards holding up their laser-proof shields. Hoshiya jumped over them by using the rockets in his boots, which left scorch marks on the guard's helmets as they still felt the blazing heat from the mini rocket blasters. He also did a few forward flips in the air before landing his feet on the wall in the back.
A few more guards fired shots at him as he was crouching on this wall like a spider, but he dodged out of the way to reveal that the control panel for triggering the barrier was under him. The guards' lasers hit this panel and it malfunctioned, with the purple barrier blinking in and out as it tried to stay activated.
Hoshiya ran through an opening in the barrier just before it shut off altogether. More lasers began shooting at him from the guards who were wielding the larger rifles positioned on the catwalk, and one actually managed to land a hit in the back of Hoshiya's left calf muscles as he was still running. He winced in pain for a moment and his leg gave way making him fall to his hands and knees.
Several guards started to approach him when they all heard screams and metal slamming against metal behind them. They looked back to see Rellik fighting and total demolishing his own guards, sending them flying into the air and knocking them out cold. That blast to the head must've screwed up something in his brain because he was fighting on pure instinct now. Rellik got closer while making his way through the crowd of guards trying to get him to stand down to no avail.
Soon he was almost looming over Hoshiya again when the sounds of an engine revving up came from behind Hoshiya. Jizo's main body, an orange motorcycle-shaped starship, drove over to defend his rider. Jizo stood between Hoshiya and Rellik, neither of them making a move, and everything was silent for a few moments.
All until Jizo said to Hoshiya, "What are you waiting for, a written invitation?! Get on now!"
Despite the fact he was now walking with a limp, Hoshiya worked through the pain and hopped onto the rider's seat of his StarCraft Jizo. At the same time, Rellik roared at the top of his lungs (or whatever organs he had that allowed him to breathe and speak), and he raised his Warhammer high above his head.
Hoshiya quickly shifted gears and continued to rev Jizo's star engines by squeezing the steering handles, gaining momentum and getting the wheels in both the front and back to move. The wheels skidded across the metal floor just as they finally got moving forward before the mightiness of the Warhammer could connect and squash them both.
"Let's get outta here, partner!" Jizo said.
Hoshiya rode Jizo towards the edge of the docking bridge where nothing but the vast emptiness of outer space lied. The edge was still a good several hundred feet away, and Rellik kept on their tail, scarily sprinting after them and miraculously keeping pace with Jizo's lightspeed.
"Jeez, this oaf just won't quit." Jizo said aloud as he sensed Rellik catching up to them.
At this rate, he was going to follow them off the docking bridge. Hoshiya then got an idea.
He reached with his left hand for his pistol holstered on the back of his utility belt. He grabbed it and aimed it at Rellik once more. He waited until Jizo's wheels made it off the edge of the bridge to pull the trigger, and a red laser shot out and hit Rellik smack in the middle of his forehead in between his pitch-black eyes. Rellik felt the force knock him backwards as he was just a few feet away from jumping off the docking bridge. He fell onto his back with his eyes closed.
Simultaneously, Jizo's wheels transformed and shifted by separating at the center and becoming like electric fan hovercrafts with bright blue light powering up and the rocket thrusters for them to move through outer space.
The rocket boosters in the back of the vehicle throttled and fired up. Hoshiya turned his gaze to back in front of him after putting away his third pistol, and he grabbed the handles again, continuing to rev up the engines to make a swift getaway. Blasts of blue fire erupted out of the ends and gave them the motion of forward momentum. Before they were blasting off, the few remaining guards, those who'd somehow recovered from getting pummeled by Rellik's temper tantrum, approached the edge of the docking bridge. Two of them tried shooting at the moving target getting further away, but they'd gotten out of reach.
Jizo exclaimed loud enough for them to hear, "Sayonara, suckers!"
It was only a second later when the intruders were out of sight and long gone. The guards watched as only a twinkle of light shone left behind in their path. Then Rellik regained consciousness but had no recollection of what happened after he got shot in the head the first time. When it was explained to him, he grabbed the three foremost guards by their throats and lifted them up off the floor in just one of his massive red hands.
"Are you freaking kidding me?!" he said. "Those guns were specifically designed to erase the memories of whoever gets shot with them, and you're telling me not a single one of them hit the intruder?! How else are we going to get him to stop that pest from coming back and stealing from us?!" He began strangling the three guards by clenching his fist.
"With all due respect, sir," one guard said through his choking windpipe, "It never seemed like a good plan to begin with."
"Yeah. If we did wipe his memories, then what would we do with him?" Another guard who wasn't getting strangled approached them and asked.
Rellik dropped the three guards and they fell to the floor on their backs and butts, gasping for air. Rellik then turned to the fourth guard standing next to him, leaned in his face and said, "Isn't it obvious?! We make him relinquish to our side, you dumb son of a Glorth! With great skills like that, how can we not afford to have him working for us?!"
"But sir! What if he were to discover the truth later on?" a guard on the floor enlightened.
"I don't make the rules, idiots! Believe it or not, even I have to take orders from the higher-ups!" Rellik informed in a rather pouty tone.
With this new failure on his hands, Rellik walked away while dragging the heaviest part of his Warhammer along the floor as it made an ear-splitting sound of metal scraping against metal. He was thinking of how it was going to take more than another raid on a lesser planet to make up for this fiasco once word of it reached his bosses.