Galaxy Pirates

Chapter 42: Baxus' Family

"You damn icicle, I've missed you so much!"

Baxus wasn't late to respond to his brother's welcoming punch – he blasted him with explosive impact, bursting a big hole through his stomach. A friendly battle of the brothers broke out, while the Bakhals whooped and roared in their squealy tongue. Fortunately for the frightened Hawthorne family, this showdown was brief – Chief Jobakh could well notice Baxus had brought guests which included some humans, so he realised he should be more moderate than usual. After the exchange of explosive hits and kicks, the two brothers rebuilt themselves and Baxus presented the humans as his maternal family.

"You're so tiny and cute like Chiefess Julie!" Jobakh exclaimed in Aenglish once beheld Marie and her daughters. He had a rough Bakhal accent, but it sounded rather cuddly than violent when articulating soft and flexible Aenglish words. "You're the same size as Julie, you'd fit on my hand! Violet is a bit tinier, I'd caress her only with my forefinger, and this one... aww, so minuscule! Ellie, right?"

He rubbed the little child's head with his little finger, substituting his icy-lava skin with dry sand in order not to affect her too much. Ellie giggled in amusement. Baxus then presented him as his brother Jobakh Meelias – the current chief of the Bakhals and one of the few to have travelled on Earth long ago. It seemed that young Jobakh (who was now more than one-million-year-old) had followed his mother Elexiba on her journey to Earth. While Elexiba was named 'Laufey' in human legends, Jobakh received the name of 'Loki' – a mischievous god, hinting upon his complicated character which he had retained even to this day.

"Humans created a lot of weird legends about us. We heard about them only later when Chiefess Julie took abode here," he told his guests much amusedly while showing them around the underground Bakhal city corridors, "They counted us as fearsome demonic beings or even gods. Mother and I, together with the Bakhal Jotunn who had accompanied us, had much fun back there. We even brought some of the Bankalix on Earth. Back then, it was still icy cold in many parts of the planet, so we coped with the climate quite well. Chiefess Julie told us about fictional creatures such as the yeti and the bigfoots. We could only conclude that humans referred so to our Bankalix they had seen ages ago".

"So our cultures were connected even in the past?"

"Oh, Ellie, not only the Bakhal but every culture has been connected to Earth at some point," Baxus smiled, "The Earth has proved to be one of the best planets, so many aliens had been casting their faulty experiments there to find out whether these latter ones could make it or not. The pegacorns, the Radenoids, the Reptiloids, and many others have used Earth as a new home for their creations".

"For a long time, the Reptiloids had been taking over, since they had created a vast population of the dinosaurs," Dohta added, "Even the Hubassukk and the Bulbul had long sent down their insects and fishes on Earth. These species coexisted with the Reptiloids' creations".

"Yes, but in the end, humans prevailed," Arubah cut in with a proud smirk, "The Radenoids annihilated the dinosaur population in order to free some space for their new colony. I guess that is the reason the Reptiloids do not wish to give up on it even now".

"Those damn lizards don't deserve any more than their base planet Retti!" Baxus sneered, "They're annoying to all of us".

"Well, they're certainly not getting here in Bakhassa. So you guys can take as much time as you need and relax from your toils, more so that father would certainly want to meet Chiefess Julie's family!"

"Of course, Brother Jobakh! So, where's our dad?"

While Baxus and Jobakh led the guests through corridors deeper and deeper into the ground floors, they could behold the Bakhals' daily fuss: running around creating new tunnels and blasting some old ones; getting blasted by the unpredictable explosions occurring in many places of the planet; rebuilding their parts or dying right on the place to be eaten by their friends for these latter ones to grow even stronger and sturdier (since the Bakhals' diet included stones, fire, and lava – the very substances they were made of); hunting the Bankalix – these strange round creatures with big white fur, no eyes, and colour-changing skin; getting hunted and eaten by the Bankalix; bathing in lava and smashing each other for amusement; accidentally killing each other during these fun activities then to consume the slain comrades as if nothing; fighting on purpose and blasting each other with nobody stopping them but rather even encouraging them to destroy each other's cores because a dead Bakhal meant a new feast; casually dropping new stones into the lava-incubator so that they would hatch into babies when it was due, and if these very stone-eggs were to burn down by any chance, then so be it, they apparently were too weak to deserve their birth, at least they'd strengthen the lava-incubator for later babies to come; and of course, squealing at each other to "damn open the passage", "get out of the way or be blown up", and "smash and die for the sake of it".