Close Nemesis

Chapter Twenty-Three: Discoveries on Giurokaj

NYGYL:

Upon our arrival at the stone building, Petara used his powers to see through objects and explained that he had found that the building contained no life forms-only the decomposing bodies of superpowered beings.

"What happened here?" I had said dryly, due to the hot sun drying out my skin.

Petara shrugged, then gasped in horror, pointing towards a dusty red marking painted onto the side of the building. It is the symbol of the Hero Complex Management Program; this is the same program that I've been in for the last several months.

"Did they leave them here to die, do you think?" I inquired.

Petara nodded, and I could see tears roll from all of his eight eyes. The tears-soaked parts of Petara's fur, which appeared dark green. However, the heat quickly dried the tears away.

I unzipped the black bag Petara carried and took out a drink of water, barely replenishing my thirst.

"Can't you slow down the effects of thirst?" Petara asked.

"I guess I can," I responded croakily. "Let's head back to the space plane and begin-"

Bang.

Instinctively, Petara and I spun around to see the flaming wreckage of our plane. A guardship appeared from the black smoke, revealing its slim greenish grey hull and the triangular wings that extended from it. The artillery attached to the ends of the guardship's wings projected a spray of fire bullets towards us, kicking dust from the dry ground. I grabbed Petara's hand and made time go as slow as it possibly could before sprinting away from the plane. By the time we were about a kilometre away from the plane, I turned around to face the plane, motionless in the sky in the same position as where we last saw it.

Then, I continued running in the same direction as before, with Petara in tow. My thirst had no effect on me, as time was no longer existent as I ran. Gradually, my running slowed to a walk, and we eventually came across a prison settlement containing various stone buildings.

That was over an hour ago, and I have since resumed time to its natural speed. When we arrived at the settlement and I resumed real time, I presume only a minute had passed since the guardship fired at us. But I'm just guessing. I could be wrong. In fact, I could be way off. I don't fully understand my powers.

Anyway, when we arrived at the settlement, Petara and I began our search for the Islatopian pirates. After about an hour, we couldn't find any, so Petara and I started on our way out of town when we bumped into a short haired Islatopian with birch skin. Excitedly, I asked her whether she was a member of Lygor's crew. She said no, so I told her that were looking for the members of Lygor's crew who were imprisoned on Giurokaj.

She invited us into her stone walled residence, and we agreed.

Only moments ago, we sat down in the stone floored lounge room of her home. The nearby fireplace flickers a dull orange, and a stone pot of some kind of reddish-brown soup bubbles over the flames of the fireplace.

"What's your name?" I inquire, as the figure stirs the soup in the pan.

There is minimal lighting in this room, and there are no windows. The only light comes from the flames of the fireplace.

I scan the open floored house, noticing a nearby kitchen, bedroom, and a curtained off shower.

"My name is Sophalie," the Islatopian responds, her eyes still focused on the fireplace.

Orange light dimly illuminates the splinters in her wood, and I scrutinize the splinters impatiently. I lounge back on the green sofa, staring at the nearby painting of a stone-grey planet covered in white dots. The painting sits within a frame the appears to have been made out of the same stuff as the ground.

"What is that planet?" I ask.

"Kiral," Sophalie explains. "That is my cousin Idaj's homeworld!"

"It's really pretty and stuff, but we need to find Lygor's pirate crew so that we can rescue him."

"Lygor?" Sophalie beams inquisitively.

Petara nods his green furred head in response.

"I've heard of him. I've never gotten the chance to meet him, but I've heard of him. He must think I'm dead. I heard that my cousin joined his crew in an attempt to find me following my vanishing. I had been taken away from my home on Islatopia when my powers developed. I was transported to Teglyo, where I competed in many battles. Eventually, after an attempted escape, I was exiled here."

"What are your powers?" Petara buzzes bubbly, earning himself a hard slap on the arm from me.

"Dude," he responds in an annoyed tone, before turning back to Sophalie.

The green pupil of her singular eye stares towards us, and her body flickers as it becomes a fridge. I stand up and turn to look at towards the kitchen located on the right of the couch. Where the fridge would normally be, Sophalie stands unmoving.

Then, she flickers, and I hear Petara briefly say: "Turn around!"

I do so, and instead of finding the glossy white fridge, I find Sophalie has returned to her original spot.

"Woah, so you have some kind of teleportation powers?"

Sophalie shakes her head.

"I didn't even move. I just switched molecular structures with the fridge. I use my powers to trick people a lot. In fact, that's how I almost escaped the fort on Teglyo. Of course, they caught wind of this very quickly, and I was subsequently recaptured."

I roll my eyes. "I don't really much care, Sophalie! I just want myself and Petara to complete our mission and get out of here!"

"Dude, can't you see?!" Petara cries. "We're better off here than in that hellhole! Do you really want to go back to Teglyo after what we saw?"

"We still have a mission to complete, and honestly, I'd rather be there than here!"

Petara growls at me grumpily.

"OUR SPACEPLANE BLEW UP! WE'RE STRANDED, NYGYL! ACCEPT THAT!"

"But this place is sooo borrrring!!" I groan.

"Nygyl, this is my homeworld! I'm finally free from the grasp of the superhero management centre!"

"YEAH, WELL, THIS ISN'T MY HOMEWORLD!" I screech. "You may be in your natural habitat, but I'm not, okay? I'm stranded on a strange world, so you can't tell me that it's gonna be alright!"

I storm away from the lounge room, exiting the house through its rusting front door. I stroll along the dusty soil of Giurokaj, turning my gaze to the distant rock smoothed by the radioactive winds of erosion.

I may have been a vigilante before my time at the Hero Complex Management Centre on Teglyo, but this is too much for me. I'm still so young.

Still so inexperienced.

If only Shenelda had accompanied me instead of Petara.

Would we have entered the same situation Petara and I face now?