Graviton and the Space Pirates

5- Backup Plan

Kneeling by the vault door, the three pirates watched the dim hallway, waiting for something or someone to appear. After what felt like hours of sitting in silence and watching the surroundings, they got back to work breaking into the vault.

Suddenly, the door behind them burst open. Turning around, the three saw a tall, muscular figure standing where the doors used to be. Staring them down, he began to charge the pirates, shaking the halls as his feet slammed onto the steel floors.

"Shit!" Lux exclaimed, jumping out of the way of the brute. Landing on his stomach, the captain turned onto his back to watch the stone-like grabbing Ser by the throat and pummel him into the ground. Turning her head fast, Guardian Babe raised herself and faced the strong attacker. Throwing her fist, the cyborg pirate tried her best at keeping the new foe away from their gear, especially the CyberSphere, the device that they were using to slice a hole in the vault door.

But it was no use, the stone-skinned enemy raised his hand to block the punch, and with his other hand, he collided with Guardian Babe's stomach, sending her flying across the room and into the wall. Standing up, Lux pulled out two of his blasters and began firing them at him. With the bolts of energy hitting, it would prove ineffective, as the rocky skin only caused the bolts to dissipate after colliding. Turning his head, the rock man slowly turned around and began to approach Lux.

"Oh fu-," Lux would begin exclaiming, but before he could finish his words, the brute grabbed Lux by the neck and lifted him into the air.

Slapping his hand and trying to get him off of him, Lux gasped for air as the strength of the unexpected man squeezed his neck.

Meanwhile, outside, Onyx was taking heavy fire as more and more guards came out to try and capture him. Still hiding behind the rock, he watched as pieces of it fell off and hit the ground because of the many blasts of energy that were hitting it.

Checking his blaster to make sure its energy core was good, Onyx closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Once he was ready, he opened his eyes and stood up, firing multiple blasts at the guards.

As he moved from the rock he was behind to the next cover, he managed to shoot multiple guards to either their deaths or to a state of unconsciousness. He continued to fire more, dodging as many blasts as he could, but his luck soon ran out, as when he went to dodge an attack, he leaned into another, causing it to hit his shoulder, leading to him falling to the ground in pain.

Crawling to a nearby rock, Onyx groped his shoulder with his hand. Wincing in pain, he'd take off his hand slightly to see the damage, only to realize this one had hit him much harder, causing blood to leak fast.

"This isn't good," he murmured, going to reach for his blaster. But it wasn't there. Looking to his left, he saw that it was in the middle of the ground where there was no cover.

As he sat there, pissed off and accepting that this might be his end, his hearing picked up on footsteps getting closer and closer. They knew that he was hurt, which is why the firing stopped, and now they were getting closer to capture him.

Holding out his other hand, he looked at it and scowled. Concentrating, he attempted to form a metal spike in his hand. Grunting and shaking, he'd stare intensely at it trying to create what he used to be able to with ease, however, it was no use. He couldn't create it.

Sitting there, he began to accept his fate. Taking his hand off his shoulder, he realized just how much blood he was losing.

But suddenly, the footsteps stopped, and the blasters began firing again, however, it wasn't at him. After a few minutes of hearing the blasters, yelling, and the sounds of people getting hit, Onyx decided to take a look over the rock.

Raising his head over the rock, he saw something surprising. Standing over the unconscious bodies of the guards was Neena, well, multiple Neenas. But as he was about to ask how there were multiple of them, all of her but one began to shake and flew into one of the Neena's. In the end, only one remained.

"How did you do that?" Onyx asked, standing up and moving out from behind the boulder.

"It's my power, I can create clones of myself. Anyone of my race can do it," she answered, walking toward Onyx. "Are you okay? You're bleeding pretty bad there."

"Yea, I'll be fine. We need to get inside and help the others, who knows what they're dealing with in there," Onyx said, kneeling and picking up his blaster.

Nodding, she waited for him to stand up again and the two ran inside the building together.

Inside, Lux was close to being completely dead. The stone man now had two hands around his neck and was laughing while doing what he was doing.

Suddenly, the sound of whirring began to the left of him, and as he turned his head to look, he watched as Neena shot a large blast of energy out of Ser's gun.

Being caught off guard, the attacker would be sent flying into the wall due to the force of the blast from the rifle. Dropping to his knees, Lux let out a gasp for air, coughing mid-breath.

"Who the hell are you!" Onyx yelled, demanding an answer.

"My name," the stone-covered being said, standing up and brushing off dust from his shoulder. "My name is Abalvak, I am the leader of this here mining colony, and what you five are doing is a huge mistake!"

As he finished his statement, Abalvak began to yell and charged the two remaining pirates. Shocked that he recovered from such a hit so fast, the two didn't have enough time to move from the leader's attack. Once he hit them both, they went flying, with Neena hitting the adjacent wall and Onyx landing on the ground, yelling in pain due to his shoulder.

Looking around at all the pirates on the ground, Abalvak let out a hearty laugh. "Pirates! I hate pirates! You come to steal the things we work hard to achieve!" Abalvak screamed, looking at Lux, Onyx, and Neena as he did. "And now, I am going to end ALL OF YOU!"

As he finished, he began running toward Neena and picked her up. Watching as he squeezed the life out of her, wrapping his hands around her neck, Onyx winced in pain as he sat up.

Looking around, he tried to find a way to stop Abalvak from killing them all, and that's when he saw it. The CyberSphere. It was just about done cutting a hole in the vault, so if he was able to wait it out long enough, he could maybe use that to stop him.

Standing up, Onyx began running towards the vault, there were only seconds before it would be finished, and he needed to get there fast. And he did. Just as the device turned off, and the piece of metal that the device cut off began to fall forward, he slid underneath and grabbed the device off of it.

Now holding the CyberSphere in his hand, he looked at it and back at Neena. Taking in a deep breath, he stood up straight.

"Hey, Abalvak!" He screamed, getting his attention. "Catch this!"

And with that, Onyx activated the device once more and threw it at the leader. Confused and curious, however, Abalvak dropped Neena and caught the CyberSphere with ease.

"What is this?" He asked, unaware of what was about to happen. Just as he looked back down at the device, it activated, shooting a laser through his stone-like skin, and cutting his head clean off.

Falling onto his knees, Onyx panted and took a moment to catch his breath. They were finally done fighting. Looking over to Lux, he was trying to wake up Ser and Guardian Babe, who were still unconscious. Standing up, he stepped onto the fallen circle that was cut out from the vault. Walking inside, he instantly saw hundreds of glowing canisters of a blue substance.

"What is all of that?" Onyx asked, mesmerized by their glowing properties.

"That, my friend, is the mined variant of what we're after. Hydrokyncein," Lux answered, putting a hand on Onyx's good shoulder.