Event Horizon

Sorry Charlie

"Hello, NGC 205," I said, feeling a broken jaw and shattered teeth, "Can't say I am pleased to see you again."

Too many in too few of days. Can't they just go suck down their own galaxies?

"The name is Charles Messier on Earth." He smirked as he watched my pop my jaw back into place and funnel energy to speed the healthing. NGC 205's face was just as churlish and weasel-like as I remembered. "Charlie, for short."

I spit out a tooth. "That's great, but I regret to inform you that I didn't ask."

NGC 205, Charlie, sneered. "Always so droll. Didn't anyone ever tell you that some people don't like to be talked to like that?" And as fast as light speed, another two punches slammed into my body.

I pulled energy from my mouth and bolstered my ribs for the next set of punches. It was like being beat with the weight of two planets. Charlie must have learned the trick of channeling mass in specific limbs, something I thought that was exclusive to myself. Black holes only know how to give energy to our entire body, but Charlie must be channeling his wormhole into his hands.

Two can play at this game.

I funneled mass into my torso, making the bed beneath me creak and shudder. That's another thing; humans are terrible carpenters. These beds can hardly stand up to any amount of true weight, but if you would-

Ouch, I thought as Charlie feinted and threw a jab at my side, I should've seen that one coming.

My eyes became slits of pure focus as I bent the cosmic energy in me to my feet. With a swift motion, I curled my knees to my chest and pushed off the bed, feet landing in the dead center of Charlie's chest. The visitor was flung across the room, slamming into the wall with a loud crack, making the plaster around him spiderweb into fissures. I sprang into a balanced form, anchoring my feet with more mass and sinking into the floor as I did so.

Charlie pulled himself from the wreckage with a murderous look on his petulant face. What a boorish person. He charged at me head first and rammed into my gut. I bent over and gasped, but I didn't budge. As he stood up, I picked up a foot and placed a kick to his forehead, snapping his neck around until a human's neck would have broken. While he tried to righten himself, I ducked low and pummeled his ribs and stomach, weighting my hands with each blow. Suddenly he grabbed my head in his hands, brought his knee up to my nose, and then flung me back against the fall where I flopped onto the bed, breaking the legs from beneath it. Above me, I heard Charlie laughing as he advanced on me, his footsteps breaking the floor beneath him.

My hands curled around a stray piece of plywood from the bed. When I heard his ragged sneer standing over my prone figure, I leapt to my feet and swung the piece of wood as hard as I could, catching him in the next with the jagged end. Charlie fell back, staggering and grasping at the giant splinter plunged into his skin. Finally, something good comes of human ineptness.

Charlie pulled out the splinter of wood and flung it across the room so hard that it stuck into the wall. He looked at me with savage eyes and gave a low growl, but stayed back. I found my balance again, held up my fists, and motioned him forward.

He advanced.

We sparred back and forth, powered by cold logic and the pure hatred we shared for one another. Beneath the impacts of our bodies and fists, the walls were disintegrating, glass was shattered, the tv broken, and the safe thrown out the window. One lamp was completely crushed as I held Charlie against a wall by his throat, my fist pounding his vexatious little smirk into a pulp.

Charlie reached up and grabbed my fist and twisted me away. I spun through the air, landing on the remains of a cedar coffee table that had been tucked away in a corner. I lay on the ground, coughing up wood chips and plaster. My chest felt as if my entire mass was sitting on it and my body ached. Energy trickled slowly from my mouth in Triangulum, too slow to be of any real help for healing or speed. I struggled to get up, but my arms collapsed under me. With a triumphant smile, Charlie stumbled over to me, one foot breaking through the floor of the hotel room, his hand reaching out to grab at the wall for balance. He miscalculated and his hand to his elbow disappeared into the wall.

A slow smile touched the corners of my lips. Charlie was losing control of his mass distribution throughout his body, causing him to swing wildly under Earth's gravity. I could use this.

I lashed out with my foot in between his ankles, tripping him easily with his unstable walk. He fell backwards and a dent imprinted into the floor. I pounced on him, pinning him down with my knees. "So," I asked with a ragged voice, transferring all my mass into my knees and hands, "Are you still working with Andromeda? How is the she devil?"

Charlie only struggled beneath me for an answer. I punched him hard across the mouth. "I asked you a question," I barked at him, pulling him close to my wicked grin and enmity filled eyes, "Or are you too ashamed to admit you sold yourself to be Andromeda's bitch until she decides to devour you?"

A glob of spit hit me right in the eye.

I curled my fists, lifting my arm high. "Goodbye, NGC 205."

A frantic pounding at the door made me snap my head up.

"Open up! This is the Chicago Police and we will use force to open this door!"

Shit.

How could I have been so negligent? Of course the other occupants of the hotel would have complained to the front desk of a brawl. An especially loud, destructive one. And the desk clerk would have called the police.

"We're going to ram this door down in 60 seconds if you do not open up!"

Shit shit shit.

Momentarily distracted, Charlie got the upperhand. He pushed me off and let me hit the floor. With a malicious grin on his face, he kicked me once more on the ribs and then flung himself out the window, parting with the words, "Until next time, Q!"

The Police sounded again. "You have thirty seconds until we burst down the door!"

I pulled as much energy as I could from my mouth and stood up, trying to stay calm. I rushed over to my luggage and pulled out my wallet and threw Earth currency onto the bed, more than enough to fix this poorly crafted room.

"Ten seconds!"

Humans are so inconvenient.

And with the last of my energy, I teleported out of the room, out of the city, out of the country, so I would not be there to see the aftermath of my species' blood feud.