“MEET US AT THE OTHER FACTORY!” Myasma yelled over the deafening rushing sound. Flint obliged, sprinting out of the door on his side of the factory and sealing the hatch behind him.
The impact had completely torn the sector of The Ray they were in asunder. The gargantuan battleship wing divided the entire main hallway of The Ray, and Flint imagined that, from space, it must have looked like someone inserted a flat slab of metal completely into the prison’s ring-shaped outside. As he ran to the other end of The Ray, Flint noticed that the air was getting thinner. Impacts similar to the one he had experienced were draining The Ray’s air supply into the void of space outside—there couldn’t be much more time before everyone not already evacuated would suffocate.
He ran for some time, savoring every breath of metallic-tinted air, until he encountered something unexpected. Tro was in a rec room, single-handedly fighting a mass of prisoners who were attacking Tro so aggressively it was as if every one of them had a personal grudge.
“Don’t let him escape!” one prisoner said. Flint couldn’t help but notice that the squabble was like a group of insects fighting some much larger creature. Tro threw them off of his massive body with massive swings of his arms, utilizing such strength it was hard to believe his power was being suppressed by eight stamps. “We can take out a Keila big shot right here if we don’t let him escape!”
Keila soldiers were positioned in the hallway nearby, some utilizing Vals as weapons and others opting to use assault rifles. They had apparently come to retrieve Tro and were taking shots at the attacking prisoners, but it was hard to get a good shot in without hitting Tro himself. Keila big shot or not, watching so many people gang up against a single person made Flint burn with anger. Flint stepped into the chaos and boomed:
“Get the Keila soldiers! If we take them out, Tro can’t escape!”
Tro recognized Flint’s voice and turned his gaze to him. Tro’s eyes burned with a deep, murderous anger that struck fear into Flint’s heart. Until, at least, Tro realized what Flint had done. The attacking prisoners turned their focus onto the Keila rescuers and began to consume them until only a sparse few stragglers clinged to Tro’s body.
“Follow me!” Flint shouted to Tro. “There’s a better way out!”
Tro nodded and threw off the final few prisoners. As Flint led Tro through the prison, he reflected on what he had done—he had helped an impossibly powerful Keila official out of a rare weak moment. Strategically, this could only hurt him. But the idea of leaving Tro alone to fight against an unfair majority, already in his weakest state, seemed even worse to Flint. While Tro had his Val-suppressing stamps in his neck, he wasn’t immortal—Flint couldn’t just stand by and watch such an imbalanced fight play out. Tro didn’t talk as Flint led him to the factory, but the gratitude in Tro’s one nod told Flint all he needed to know.
Once again, Flint reached The Ray’s shipbuilding factory, the only intact one remaining. Aurein, Myasma, and Allef had already arrived, Aurein and Myasma bringing Allef the parts she needed to complete the spaceplane’s construction—Myasma was carrying a thin, angled wing piece, Allef was holding a wing up with all her might, and Aurein was carrying a heavy metal tube. The three turned to the sound of the door opening, looking at Flint and Tro with awe.
“Yes!” Aurein said. “I knew you’d find him.”
“We’re working together to escape,” Flint explained to Tro. “The ships Tymin had us assembling are still intact and available for escape. The one with the robot arms is Allef—she’s an engineer.”
“Give me a hand!” Allef said, still holding up the wing piece. Tro took massive strides to Allef and held the wing piece in place for her. Allef gave a nod of thanks and welded it to the ship. Myasma watched the sight with an unreadable expression.
The construction of the spaceplane finished in relative peace—aside from the constant rumbling of The Ray from stray shots hitting it, no ships impacted the factory this time.
“Okay,” Allef said with a huff. “We’re done. There’s enough room for everyone in the spaceplane, but I’m assuming we’re dropping you off with Keila, Tro. Unless you want to join Talo with us, of course.”
Tro chuckled. “No, thanks. I have a few responsibilities of my own to deal with. Keila’s working out just fine for me.”
“Alright,” Allef said. “Once everyone’s in, we’ll turn on the ship’s weapons to blow up the factory wall, fly through, and we’ll be home free. Oh, Myasma, do you need to be dropped off somewhere, too? I know you said you had business to attend to-”
Allef turned around to find her sister, but she was nowhere to be seen. Flint noticed that a part of the ship’s wing was missing.
“Myasma?”
Flint heard a subtle metallic sound from behind him. Myasma had leapt into the air behind Tro, wielding a knife-like wing piece in her hands.
Myasma stabbed the wing piece deep into the back of Tro’s neck, destroying two of the eight stamps implanted in his skin with small sparks. Tro yelled and turned around, grabbing Myasma and throwing her against the factory wall with frightening force. Blood poured out of his neck, dripping audibly on the metal floor.
“DIE, YOU SON OF A BITCH!” Myasma screamed, recovering from the throw and charging at Tro again with the metal wing piece. “I’ll make Zero suffer the loss of every one of his subordinates before I tear him to shreds!”
Tro threw a monstrous punch at Myasma’s head, but it turned into gas, floating around his knuckles harmlessly.
“MYASMA, NO!” Allef screamed.
The rest of Myasma’s body attacked Tro again with the wing piece, but he snatched the blade from her hands and immediately flung it at Allef. Myasma screamed, turning away from Tro and rushing uselessly towards her sister. Stunned, Allef couldn’t react in time, but Aurein grabbed the wing piece midair just before it hit.
“You fuckin’ distracted me!” Tro boomed. “Was this your plan all along? Get that perfect moment to assassinate me? Be your faction’s damn hero?”
Flint looked at Tro, mortified, realizing that Tro was talking to him.
“No, I-” Flint stammered.
“I’m here only to kill you!” Myasma yelled. “Allef, help me out! This is our chance!”
Tro was gripping his neck wound, blood coating his hand, breathing heavily. The blood coagulant was doing its work, and his stance clearly indicated his exhaustion. He was undoubtedly weak, and the six Val-suppressing stamps that remained in his neck stifled his otherwise monstrous regenerative abilities. But through it all was a rage, a genuine expression of betrayal directed solely at Flint.
“I can’t let ‘em live,” Tro said to Flint, quieter this time. “They tried to kill me. I have a duty—I can’t let ‘em live.” The words were so matter-of-fact that it made Flint physically flinch when he heard them. Flint finally perceived the monster that was Tro in front of him, a member of Keila’s Big 5, at his weakest but entirely terrifying. Big T had vanished from Flint’s eyes, and all that remained was the titan that was Tro.
“I won’t let you,” Flint said, locking eyes with Tro. “You’re not leaving this prison, and you’re not getting to my comrades.”
The direction of the tension shifted away from Myasma and stuck between Flint and Tro.
“Get out of here!” Flint told the others. “I’ll hold him off!”
Aurein replied, “Flint, you-”
“LEAVE!” Flint boomed. Even Myasma relented, and the three began to board the spaceplane.
For another moment, Flint and Tro remained in a standoff. Then, they exploded into action.
Flint pulled out his ghostly guns and took shots at Tro. Tro watched each bullet as it was fired, dodging at a speed uncharacteristic for his size, until he rushed towards Flint. The skill at which Tro anticipated each shot shocked Flint—it was as if he knew exactly what would happen at any given moment. Before Flint knew it, Tro was immediately in front of him. Tro reared a fist, Flint braced, and Flint was thrown all the way to the front of the factory where he impacted the metal wall with a bone-breaking smack.
All of Flint’s breath was ejected from his body, and he remained on the ground for what felt like an eternity trying to suck air into his lungs again. His mortal instincts screamed for him to get away from Tro, from the threat hunting him, but Tro was already striding confidently towards the spaceplane where his friends were huddled.
Tro gripped a part of his neck with a wince, and then with a yell and a horrible ripping noise, tore the skin off the back of his neck, and all of his stamps with it. He threw the stamp-ridden flesh to the factory floor, but in only the time it took for Flint to watch it fall, the skin on Tro’s neck had grown back. His Val had been unleashed.
While the spaceplane rolled closer to the factory wall, something unusual began to happen to Tro’s body. His stance widened, and his legs slowly grew and split into thick roots that anchored themselves in the floor. Tro put his arms together and aimed them at the ship. His arms twisted and morphed into the head of a bizarre alien creature. The creature’s head was angled and edged, shaped like a turret, and light glowed from its mouth. A projectile attack. Flint had to act fast.
Trying to get up and physically move Tro from his position to stop the attack was pointless. Flint spotted a fuel canister Allef left behind from fueling the ship just in front of Tro, but Flint couldn’t get a clear shot without hitting him. He pulled out his ghostly gun and fired anyway.
One advantage of being a ghost was that Flint could control whether he and his weapons phased through objects or impacted them. The translucent blue bullet he had fired soared through the air, through Tro’s thick body without hitting it, and then became physical again just before it hit the fuel canister. The canister exploded in Tro’s face, stunning him enough to throw off his aim. A gargantuan ball of yellow light erupted from the creature’s head that had once been Tro’s arms, grazing the spaceplane and tearing a sizable hole in the factory wall, exposing the vacuum of space outside.
The spaceplane wasted no time in escaping through the hole, launching into space alongside other various mechanical parts that were being sucked out of the factory. Flint pulled himself out of the factory against the pull of the escaping atmosphere and shut the hatch behind him, hoping to trap Tro in the vacuum of space. For a moment, Flint thought it worked, catching his breath in the wide hallways of the prison. Then, another massive ball of energy tore apart the dividing wall and Tro stepped into the hallway, unfazed by both the explosion and the lack of air he had experienced. He stepped resolutely towards Flint, expression calm, and Flint had to suppress a visible flinch of intimidation.
Flint was backpedaling at a consistent rate, taking shot after shot at Tro with his ghostly guns. Every bullet tore through Tro’s body before the newly-created hole was almost immediately filled by regenerated flesh.
“I’ll be fair to you, Flint,” Tro said as he walked, unfazed by each fleeting wound. “So I’ll tell you how this works. I can change my DNA, and the DNA of anything I touch, into any creature in this universe. There are things out there that defy logic, like what I transformed into earlier. Fightin’ you would be a waste of my time, given the fact that you’re immortal like me. Don’t draw this out—I’m just gettin’ into a Keila escape ship so I can chase your comrades down and kill ‘em.”
Tro wasn’t even trying to stop Flint anymore—Flint was entirely powerless in stopping Tro from getting to the docks. He wasn’t even an afterthought. Flint eventually relented and let Tro walk past him, and with a jolt of frustration, realized that Tro hadn’t even slowed down a little bit. Tro nodded to Flint as he walked away. The same feeling of powerlessness he’d felt his entire life as a ghost, unable to affect the living world, consumed Flint once more. No. He wouldn’t let this happen.
Flint sprinted ahead of Tro, hoping to beat him to the docks. Tro quickly realized Flint was up to something and sprinted after him. He arrived at the docks barely before Tro did, finding a group of Keila soldiers guarding the airlock that led to a Keila escape ship. They were evacuating Keila members even as Flint watched, guiding them through the airlock in almost-total darkness, save for the glow of nearby terminals, thanks to the failure of the overhead lights in this area. Flint found the gold bomb Aurein had gave him prior in his pocket, still undetonated, and held it between his fingertips.
“Hey!” Flint shouted at a soldier, and tossed the gold bomb at him. The soldier caught it, confused, and Flint immediately left his current physical body, becoming a ghost. His soul soared into the soldier’s body, and after a brief mental squabble between Flint and the host consciousness, Flint possessed the soldier. His new body pocketed the gold bomb just before Tro arrived.
As soon as Tro arrived at the docks, he threw Flint’s old body at the wall, smashing it into a flat mass of flesh. He then looked around the air, expecting to see a ghost, but Flint was already hidden.
“Tro, sir!” another Keila soldier said. “You’ve arrived! Are you ready to escape?”
Tro looked around warily once more before saying, “Yes. There’s a ship I need you to take me to.”
Flint turned to a nearby terminal. On it was a screen displaying all nearby spacecraft. He searched the screen for the ship that Aurein, Myasma, and Allef had escaped in, and hailed it. As soon as there was an audio connection with the spaceplane, Flint whipped around and threw the gold bomb at Tro. Tro caught it with precise skill, holding it between his fingers. He looked at Flint’s new body with realization.
“YOU!” Tro shouted.
“AUREIN, NOW!” Flint shouted at the terminal. “DETONATE IT, NOW!”
The gold bomb erupted into a colossal mass of metal, tearing apart the dock and everyone inside of it. Flint was thrown into the prison hallway, deeply wounded, but still in remarkably better shape than anyone closer to the epicenter, Tro included. Tro had been reduced to two feet with the calves still attached, and his skull was in several pieces embedded in the metal walls. A fresh wound had appeared in The Ray, more atmosphere rushing out into the vacuum of space through the hole the explosion had created.
Flint begged that Tro would stay down, that the pieces he had been reduced to would remain inanimate. But, through the smoke and debris, Tro’s large figure emerged again, his skin sewing itself back together over newly-created bone, muscle, and flesh.
“I’m sorry, Flint, for underestimating you,” Tro said, stepping towards Flint on brand-new legs. “But I know now that you’re too dangerous to be left alive. For my faction, I have to stop you here. Your endless determination—what caused all this—” Tro gestured at the chaos the prison escape had created—“is too dangerous. I know that if I don’t stop you here, you’ll become a threat to Keila eventually.”
“The same to you,” Flint said. “I can’t let you run free.”
Tro’s arms slowly coated themselves in a thin, dark, scale-like material. Eventually, both of his arms were like long, brown-black blades, and he rushed at Flint with them.
Flint successfully dodged one arm, but the second one sliced his body clean in two. Dying too quickly to feel pain, Flint found himself in his ghost form again where his body once stood. But Tro didn’t stop his attack—he swung a blade-like arm at Flint’s ghost, who barely leapt out of the way in time.
Then, something unexpected happened. He felt pain. Flint watched as a small cut opened in his translucent right hip, bright light pouring out of the wound in his soul. Tro had cut his soul.
“How did you-” Flint started.
“I’m well aware that dense enough materials can touch you,” Tro said. “You wore dense handcuffs when Tymin captured you. I’ve transformed my skin into scales dense enough to hurt even your ghost.”
Flint immediately fled. He ran across the hallway to a fleeing prisoner and entered the prisoner’s body. Once more, Flint was transported to the realm of the mind where his soul confronted the host’s, and the two fought. The prisoner’s will was stronger than Flint expected, and his soul suffered several injuries before the host consciousness was destroyed. Now possessing a new body, Flint fled Tro once more.
Flint only lasted a few seconds in his new body before it was sliced in two by Tro. He repeated the process, finding a prisoner to possess, possessing them, and running away, but he ultimately got nowhere before his body was destroyed again. Flint kept running, kept dying, suffering blow after blow to his soul. The cycle continued, over and over, a new soul getting destroyed every time Flint possessed a new body.
Then, the prison fell apart. One more boom, one more stray shot from the battle outside finally tore apart The Ray, and its pieces spun through the vacuum of space. Tro and Flint were in one such crescent-shaped piece that had once been one of The Ray’s long corridors. The remaining thin atmosphere was finally sucked into space, leaving the two in a vacuum. Any prisoners, guards, or soldiers who hadn’t escaped already were left to suffocate, Flint included. His ghost was ejected from his body one more time, leaving him at Tro’s mercy.
Flint and Tro ceased their battle for a moment, locking eyes as the part of The Ray they were in floated into the emptiness of space. The host star of this solar system shone its light into their metal refuge from one end, then as the piece they were in rotated, the sunlight fell away to darkness. The sun rose and fell over and over within the corpse of The Ray, bathing Tro and Flint with fleeting light before appearing again.
Flint could tell that Tro was getting tired. His Val, like any, required energy to use, and the excessive use necessary to kill Flint was draining him. Tro had to alter his DNA into a new form to combat the lack of atmosphere, and remaining in that form would drain his remaining energy quickly. Flint just had to last a bit longer.
Then, Tro’s gaze left Flint and focused on something floating in the void of space. Tro moved to the edge of the broken hallway they were in, preparing to leap, until he eventually jumped. Flint jumped after him.
Tro was floating towards a large, cylinder-shaped object in space with four spokes connecting to it—The Ray’s core. When Flint realized what Tro was planning, his heart dropped into his chest.
“I think I used to be a god. Some kind of higher being.”
If Tro really could transform his DNA into any creature in the universe, did that mean, with enough energy, he could return to his old form? The massive nuclear fusion reactor at The Ray’s core was still intact—what if Tro somehow absorbed energy from that?
Tro arrived at The Ray’s core before Flint did, transforming his head into that of a new creature, its bizarre, edged skin a dark purplish color. He tore open the metal walls of the core, breaking his way inside, and Flint climbed into the core after him to see a horrible sight—Tro had found a thick cable connected to the reactor. Tro looked at Flint one final time with the eyes of the creature he had transformed into before his head bit down into the cable.
There was an immense flash of light as Tro absorbed the energy of the reactor through the cable. The energy flowed into Tro’s already massive body, making it grow larger and larger with the aid of his Val. The light surrounding his body grew and grew until Flint could hardly bear it. Then, Tro’s voice appeared inside of Flint’s head.
“I’m returning to a higher being, Flint,” the voice said. “I’m sorry it had to end this way.”
Flint, floating freely through microgravity within the core, was unable to escape. He braced himself for what was to come.
There was another flash. The ball of light that once was Tro’s body appeared to be split in two. No, it wasn’t just Tro—the entirety of The Ray’s core had split in two. Each half of what was left of The Ray slowly drifted apart, and Tro’s ethereal body quickly reformed itself. Flint heard Tro’s voice inside of his head again, but it was a grunt of frustration.
There were several more flashes, but Flint quickly recognized them not as flashes of light, but brief sparks coming from every sliced inch of metal around him as it was cut. Something was cutting Tro apart, and the entirety of The Ray’s core with him.
The light emitting from Tro waned until Flint could make out his regular, physical body again. He appeared to have been sliced into several clean parts, regenerating himself with visible frustration.
Then, the source of the cutting came into view. A man in a spacesuit wielding a massive, immaculately-crafted sword was floating in front of Tro. When the sword-wielding man turned to Flint, he recognized a familiar face.
It was Talo’s supreme commander, Jim. He was mouthing something to Flint and gesturing towards the hole in which he had entered the core from. From the hole in the core, Flint saw the edge of a massive spacecraft—Talo’s flagship.
Flint pushed off of the wall towards Jim, who sliced Tro cleanly into dozens of pieces for good measure. The fusion reactor Tro had been sucking energy from was now thoroughly destroyed, and Tro continued to regenerate himself with growing anger. Jim and Flint left The Ray’s core together, leaving Tro behind, until a Talo scout ship picked the two up.
In the airlock, Allef, Myasma, and Aurein greeted Flint with relief. He, too, was relieved, but he had trouble sharing much of their elation at being free. He didn’t know why—escaping The Ray was what he had dreamt of for months, and he finally had the opportunity to pursue the Terminus again—but Flint felt like he had lost something somehow. He didn’t know what it was, and was certain that he didn’t miss being a prisoner, but he felt like he had lost something important that he once had. He felt like a vital opportunity had passed him by without him knowing. And he knew that, whatever he had lost, he wouldn’t get it back.
Flint suppressed the urge to punch the wall with rage and frustration. What had he lost? It was like something was missing now, and he didn’t know what…
Jim, Talo’s leader, popped the helmet off his spacesuit. He was laughing.
“Hahaha… whew!” Jim chuckled. “That was something else. I can’t believe all that happened. The Ray, destroyed!”
Jim turned his gaze towards Aurein and Flint, still smiling. “Ah… oh, man. You guys are in a lot of trouble.”
