Author: Maddison Foust | Banner: Landon Soto
Heavy crimson wings flapped, pulling a blood red predator through the star speckled expanses of space. Bagorah, as the bat-like monster had come to be known, was on the hunt. Her hyper-advanced hearing was utterly unrivaled, capable of picking up a scream from galaxies away. And that was exactly what had happened. A series of shrieks, falling somewhere between sheer panic and blistering rage, told the Korghan beast exactly where her next meal was.
But, as it flew through the Milky Way, the scarlet huntress’ ears picked up a new sound. One much fainter, more subdued, but detectable nonetheless. A strange industrial humming, interspersed with occasional beeps. And, from the sound of things, it was coming closer. Bagorah’s emerald orbs narrowed, pupils darting to the sides as she came to a halt. Quietly she hovered in place, ears perked up, tentatively holding her breath as she focused on the rapidly approaching object. Tension filled the empty void surrounding the extraterrestrial chiropteran, growing so thick it felt as if it would crush her. Then, in an instant, it disappeared as a quartet of zagged electric rays pierced through the cosmos. At once, Bagorah leapt out of the way, elegantly gliding out of the blast zone at the last possible second. The goliath space bat spun 180 degrees, angrily laying eyes on her attacker.
Four glimmering golden spaceships, each radically different in shape than the next, ominously drifted through the void as if they were one, keeping perfectly in formation. They continued to emit that same industrial humming as they approached, perfectly monotone and flat. Bagorah could do nothing but glare at the armada. She immediately recognized the metallic fleet as creations of lesser beasts, bite-sized creatures utterly powerless by their lonesome. There were many of those scattered among the stars. It was a fact learned from centuries of experience, for her countless travels had introduced her to just about all of them. So often did they deploy such feeble machines, whether it be in an attempt to repel her insatiable hunger or to hunt her down. But time and time again they proved inferior, and even worse, they proved repulsive to the taste.
Both disturbed from her travels and cheated out of a meal, the Korghan beast snarled, before stretching her jaws as far apart as she could muster. As far as the space demon was concerned, this nuisance was just that. It had no use to her, and as such, she opted to end it with haste. From Bagorah’s cavernous maw, a deafening blast of weaponized sound waves erupted forth, entirely consuming the beeping pests. Throughout her countless years of life, such an attack had proved truly formidable, shattering the hardest of metals and rupturing the sturdiest of armor.
That’s why the huntress was blindsided when four more beams punched straight through her scream and converged upon her chest, detonating directly above her lungs. A tremendous shockwave exploded forth, violently jerking the chiropteran backwards against her will. Weaponized shrieks turned into those of shock, and then to fury.
A quick flap of the bat’s wings righted her unbalanced form, with a second making her shoot across the void like a torpedo. The hovering armada prepared to fire yet again, only for the huntress to spin out of the way at the last possible second. Without a moment to waste, Bagorah unleashed another one of her ear-breaking screams. Except, this time, she focused in, concentrating the rampant flood of sound waves into four thin beams, one for each of the offending ships. Bursts of sparks flew from their shining metal hulls upon contact, but no more than that. The crimson scourge snarled, cursing the resilience of the golden machines. It seemed as though this battle would be more time-consuming than she anticipated, as much as she hated to see it. The ships began to reposition themselves as if they had never been hit at all, clearly preparing to unleash yet another volley of energy rays. Bagorah hadn’t the time to inspect the damage from the first time they had struck, but the lingering pain was enough to tell the Korghan beast everything she needed to know.
Sickly orange talons crashed against carefully polished steel, clamping down as best they could. Teeth soon followed, snapping shut around the golden fortress’ hardened exterior. The natural weapons failed to pierce through, but the space monster had expected as much. Bagorah’s ears stood perked, anticipating the slightest shift in the audio output of the small ship’s larger companions. She didn’t have to wait long. The moment she heard the sound, she leapt away from her perch atop the runt at the quickest speeds she could muster, allowing an onslaught of dazzling rays meant for her to zip right on by, finding their mark upon the impenetrable hull of her former target. A mighty explosion rang out, ever so subtly blackening luminescent golden armor as small fires broke out on the point of impact. Bagorah took no time to watch such things, however, already barreling toward the next one. A mighty headbutt crashed into the twin rainbow panels of the second smallest ship, sending it backwards but a few meters. The bat-like beast reeled from the impact, her skull feeling as if it would split in two. Nevertheless, she thought fast and kept up the assault, spinning around to strike the machine with her spear tipped tail.
The appendage cracked like a whip as it fell upon its intended target, transmitting enough force to scar the toughest of hides. Just as before, however, the spacecraft was pushed back no more than a meter or two, and Bagorah soon found that her tail had been bruised in the attempt. She snorted. So be it.
Jagged beams came from every direction as the bat fell back, forcing her to veer off course in the effort of self preservation. The hideous beast flew through the inky void with the precision and grace of a seasoned acrobat, making the task of avoiding such a terrifying onslaught look like the easiest thing in the world. Her sights fell upon the largest of the formation, leathery wings propelling her toward it. However, at the last moment, she abruptly banked to the side, diving again for the smallest. Predatory claws fell upon the simply shaped UFO, picking it out of the void and carrying it at speeds faster than it ever naturally moved. In but a moment, Bagorah released her quarry, sending it hurtling toward the ship she had nearly busted her head open against. The two collided with a deafening boom, forming a shockwave which nearly launched the chiropteran away. For the first time, she stopped for a moment to flash a smirk, admiring her handiwork. But the pause lasted no more than that, as she went right back on the offensive.
As the impacted ships drifted away from one another, the Korghan beast’s talons stretched out once more, reaching for the runt of the fleet to repeat the maneuver. But, to Bagorah’s absolute shock, the golden machine shot to the right so fast that it nearly became a blur. Her eyes shot open as wide as could be, her mind failing to compute what had just happened for the few crucial seconds required to stop the second craft’s energy ray from lancing into her chest. Chunks of charred skin fell from the point of impact, a pained wail leaking from the scarlet huntress’ maw. The agonized cry faded in but a second, transforming into a deafening, rage-fueled howl. A great audial shockwave flew forth, its grandiosity wasted upon nothing but empty space as the intended recipient of its earth shattering might zipped out of the way. Bagorah’s eyes narrowed at this and, with a snarl, she flipped around, just in time to bear witness to a most unexpected display.
The quartet of machines flew through the void in circles around one another at speeds their enemy had thought them incapable of, twisting and contorting. Antennae retracted deep into the bowels of the still-pristine steel, the lower half of the fleet’s greatest splitting in two as if to form arms. The second did the opposite, seeming to sprout such extensions. Then, one by one, the ships slammed atop one another, letting out firm clicks as they did. The Korghan beast’s eyes went wide, her mouth parting slightly as she watched in sheer awe at the sight. In the span of seconds, before her very eyes, the fleet had become one, forming a magnificent golden fortress. An invincible automaton. The pinnacle of the universe’s scientific knowledge.
King Joe.
Bagorah was snapped out of her stupor when the robot shot itself like a missile, slamming right into her tattered chest. A mix of blood and saliva sprayed from her twisted lips and crooked teeth, flowing freely into the abyss. The crimson bat, on the other hand, was not given the same quarter, hopelessly trapped under the war machine until they crashed into a rogue asteroid no larger than two hundred meters across. Her spine felt as if it would shatter right then and there, and her ribs felt as if they already had. King Joe gave her only a moment of reprieve, backing off for the sole purpose of rotating 180 degrees and slamming feet first into the beaten predator. One hundred thousand tons landed upon her, splitting the rogue mass of rock in two and allowing the warring pair to rocket through to the other side. Bagorah screamed, but not out of pain. A hyper-concentrated ray soared across the abyss, spearing into the golden machine’s ever-so slightly blackened midsection.
Sparks flew from the point of impact as the space robot froze up, its dreadful industrial ambience ceasing. As fast as possible, the hunter-turned-hunted slipped out of her attacker’s grasp, her wings blurring into mad streaks of red. Not a moment too soon, either, as King Joe came back online after but a second of malfunction. The machine’s spotlight eyes suddenly failed to locate prey that had been right beneath its feet just before, something Bagorah would have cocked a sly smile at if not for the dire circumstances. King Joe was caught entirely off guard when talons clamped around its left shoulder, a lengthy tail slithering around its right. Bagorah stomped her free limb down onto her foe’s back, beginning to both push and pull with all her might in a bid to tear the machine’s limbs clean off. A blinding flash consumed the robot’s bulky form, heralding the formation of a lethal field of energy. Golden power scorched the Korghan beast’s three appendages, electric currents traveling up her entire body.
The moment she found herself capable, Bagorah let go of her quarry, attempting to fall back yet again. Unfortunately, such an attempt was quickly thwarted when a cold, metallic hand snatched her ankle in its grasp. The bat cried out in agony as her bones snapped in two under the pressure exerted by the rogue fortress’ mighty grip, flailing her tail madly in the vain hopes of taking an eye from her foe. A second reached out to snatch the tail all the same, but it fell just short of the unpredictable appendage, inadvertently allowing Bagorah to wrap it around the Pedanian machine’s wrist. Turning around, the predator opened wide, gathering everything she could for what may well have been the most powerful scream of her entire life, focused directly at the robot’s self-inflicted weak point.
Two dazzling rays became one, punching effortlessly into the huntress’ chest, her lungs detonating in a sea of flame.
It was not a planet shaking sonic blast, but a feeble gurgle which left Bagorah’s throat. Her movements ceased as her mind went into a state of shock, allowing King Joe to take back its tethered arm, fingers closing down upon the crimson tail as was intended. A horrible crunch rang out as the appendage’s bones were crushed, snapping the Korghan beast back into reality. Her mind raced, staring with abject terror at the blank faced automaton. If she didn’t do something immediately, she would surely be torn limb from limb by the rogue machine. But what was there to be done? The answer became painfully clear when a shield of energy formed around King Joe’s body, zapping Bagorah’s captive limbs until the crimson hide became black. Zagged bolts of power traveled throughout the monstrous bat’s entire body, frying her remaining organs and charring any bit of flesh left untouched until she was nothing but a floating husk.
A series of clicks denoted the detachment of the ships which made up the seemingly indestructible weapon, not that anything was alive to hear them. The automaton’s computers began to calculate, putting the data it had acquired from the strange bat through its systems. In no time at all, the fleet had determined Bagorah’s intended flight path, pinpointing exactly where they would be headed next. A small, seemingly insignificant blue planet. King Joe did not know what its prey had wanted there, but it must have been something, and in time the machine would find out. The golden armada began to move once more, deep industrial ambience never ceasing, on a direct course for Earth.
Winner: King Joe
