Chapter Four
"Who is this man and how dare he maim the delegate of our planet!"
Selvala gripped Todd's staff as she once more checked over her dress to make sure it was presentable. Turning to Todd, she noticed his body was still limp, as it was held up by two guards dressed in black. His head was sunk below his shoulders. "He meant no harm. With all due respect, Rooku was the one who provoked him. Anyone like him would've reacted."
"What do you mean 'like him'?"
Looking up into the crowd, she made eye contact with Meku Roveskl, the speaker of the delegation under times of normalcy and the Grand Master of The Union of Free States. He squinted his tiny, old eyes at the youthful looking vixen below. "He holds a power you cannot understand, Grand Master. This is Todd McEdek, the bio-weapon."
Gasps and laughter echoed throughout the congregation and carried to the domed ceiling. "You must be joking!" Roveskl shouted.
"No. I am not."
A sudden hush fell over the crowd. "Our entire alliance has entrusted you with its protection," he spoke sternly. "Uno has become a key member in this union, as you have managed to find the position of power among us. If you dare sabotage this–"
"I would never sabotage. I never hide my intentions."
"Then what do you have to say for your so-called secret weapon? Look at him! He's as limp as a dead man!"
"You don't know the half of it," muttered Selvala.
"Well, what does he do? Is he a sharpshooter? An assassin? Does he bend the space-time continuum?"
"No."
"Then what?"
"He fights with something our world hasn't understood for a long time."
"Which is?"
She held up his staff. "He fights with the Chaljsko." She gritted her teeth when she watched the entire floor groan and shake their heads. Roveskl put his head in his webbed hands and sighed dejectedly. "He is good! He's very strong with his moves and has the wit of one thousand men! He can kill with a single touch and protect with a single tap!"
"And save the galaxy before bedtime, right, Selvala? Please. Don't bother us with your people's primitive fighting techniques." He rolled his eyes. "You are inches from a discharge, Unonian. I must say it is a shame, but still an example of how one terrible error in judgment can mar an otherwise spotless record."
Rage infected her face once more. "You do not give me orders! You've always been after my power anyway! If this man cannot kill whatever you bring forth to him, I will not only resign, but will throw myself off this tower!"
"Then you truly are crazy."
"I'm serious!" she groaned under gritted teeth. "I didn't secure this half of the galaxy just to lose it because of your lack of belief!"
Roveskl shifted in his seat. "Then so be it. He will face a beast of my choice. Unchain the prisoner."
"What gives you this power?"
He arched an eyebrow. "Care to ask for a vote on the measure?"
She paused. "Hold on! If he does succeed, I mean, when he does, he is to be freed from any charges brought on him by this delegation. And…" she scanned her tongue over her teeth. "You will be abdicated from your position."
He laughed. "Very well. Unchain the prisoner!"
The two large sentinels undid the shackles to Todd's wrists, ankles, and neck. He tumbled to the ground like a rag doll as the heat of laughter struck his back and the vixen who knelt down to him.
"What's going on?" he groaned.
Selvala placed a hand on his back. "Can you fight?"
"Yes."
"Good. In order for your crime to be absolved, you have to kill something."
"Something?"
"It's not our choice." Gripping him by the armpits, she tried to pull him up to his feet, but even his thin body was too heavy for her grip. So she resorted to keeping him upright against her amidst the taunts and laughter from the delegation. "Ungrateful bastards. I fought for every single person you see before us, and now they laugh."
Todd blinked hard. "Why don't you believe?"
"What?"
"Success is the best dress for revenge. Don't fear."
"I am not afraid!"
Suddenly, Isos appeared at their side. "M'lady, the appropriate ships have moved to the orbital zone." He paused. "What's happening? What's wrong with the bio-weapon?"
"My name is Todd," Todd snapped.
"He's facing trial for severely maiming a delegate that deserved it," Selvala informed.
The two robotic guards from before camped down on Todd's wrists and wrestled him from the grip of Selvala despite her struggles. Still too weak to respond, the Chaljsko fighter submitted to their might quickly, as he was dragged across the main floor and down the steps, where his boots clumped like clockwork.
Selvala looked down and suddenly noticed something. "His staff! Wait! He needs his staff!"
When the guards stopped to check with the grand master if it was approved, Todd looked back at Selvala. He held out a hand already wrenched by a heavy clamp and stared at his staff. It instantly tore itself from Selvala's grip and sailed to his grasp. The robots, which were having trouble with the communication within the room, noticed his weapon in his hand, so they pressed on, moving out of the room from a large arched opening.
As Selvala turned around, she noticed a great screen drop from the ceiling, which immediately switched to a dungeonesque landscape with hanging irons from the top of the chamber and metal bars strewn across one thick wall to the next. Grates and drains lined the floor, which seemed to be dirty metal at best. It appeared very dank and dark, but the light from the ceiling was enough where one could get a good view of the entire chamber.
The Kral Commodore swung around to the delegation. "I will not approve of this display! He's not an act, not a caged animal! He truly is all I've said and more – not a story or a display!"
Roveskl moved in his seat once more and scratched his large triangular ears. "If he is, then he will win and we will absolve him." The delegation added their approval.
"It's barbaric!" Isos shouted. "A… monstrosity for such an intellectual society to administer such trials!"
"Perhaps, but I was not the one who suggested it."
A roar of cheers and applause entered the scene. Selvala turned around and noticed Todd had been thrown into the chamber. He was almost collapsed on the floor and looked to be catching his breath.
"Bring forth number eighty!"
A large gray door opened from within the chamber. From the audio receptors on the camera, Selvala could hear a great growl coming from the portal slowly lifting to the ceiling. At an instant she was tied in fear. A great creature with six arms, a human head, white skin, and glowing red eyes burst through the entrance and shrieked at Todd, jutting its head forward and showing all its teeth. Its fangs protruded almost to its eye sockets, and it clattered like a bug as it scampered toward him. The picturesque being from hell entered the scene.
Screams of terror from the delegation fell into Selvala's ears, but she could not keep her eyes from the ever-changing camera, which always tried to get the best view. Suddenly, Todd stood from where he sat. He pointed his staff directly at the creature and watched as it used its ten spiny fingers on one hand to swipe at him. People cheered, but the beast missed completely. It then moved in and backed Todd into a corner, where it tore a metal beam from the ceiling, snapping off the supportive bolts like toothpicks, and attempted to smash the small fox. The vibrations from each crashing beam jostled the camera considerably, but Todd managed to duck and dodge every single hit. This angered the beast considerably, and it flashed its red eyes at Todd, which would have turned him to a torch had he not rolled out of the way. Moving once more, he found himself backed in the corner. As the creature tried to grab him, he swiped at it with his staff and cut off a finger. But, to everyone's surprise, another smaller arm instantly grew from the defect and grappled the fighter in a tight hold, so tight Todd looked to be on the brink of suffocation.
"Oh no," Selvala muttered as the shouts and cheers from the delegation intensified.
It tried to bite Todd out of its hand, but each time the creature missed just barely. It then let out a demonic shriek, which somehow seemed to take much of the strength from the Chaljsko fighter. He collapsed in its hand as the creature brought him to his mouth covered in sharp, twisting fangs. A single clomp and he was gone.
Selvala gasped. "No! It… it can't be!"
"It seems as if you were wrong about your lost hero, Kral Commodore McEvo."
She blinked hard as the screeches and shrieks of the white-skinned, grotesque beast echoed in her mind. "It can't be like this."
"Well, he has lost. Now, what were you saying about…"
Suddenly, Selvala turned to the screen. Something was happening with the creature's right eye. It began to bulge and finally protrude out of the socket much to its dismay and quick movements to try to fixate it back in to place. But the same thing happened to the other eye rather quickly. From behind the eye emerged Todd, toting his staff, and careful not to get knocked off by the beast's desperate attempts to fix its sight. As it accidentally smashed its right eye between its fingers, letting out an ear-splitting bellow, Todd climbed to the bridge of its nose and forced the axe-like blade of his staff into the skull. Another bellow came from the creature. He then turned his staff ninety degrees and unsheathed it. The beast finally shook him off, and Todd landed on his feet.
But that was all he needed to do. The crack grew with each thrash of the devil's head and began to tear it apart. Brain matter, orange and gelatinous, flew in all directions. Finally, as the crack made its way around the base of the back of the head, it hit the ground with a deafening thud, its body still twitching from the strain. Vivid red blood oozed everywhere.
"He did it!" Selvala shouted. "Now what do you have to say about him?"
Roveskl grimaced. "Number forty three!"
"What?" she barked.
Another door opened from behind where Todd stood. This time, two beasts appeared – a spider-like creature with glowing green eyes, white skin, and no mouth, and a giant, massive biped with dangling arms, red fluff all over its body, and a small head which housed two jet black eyes and a great horn-like appendage protruding from where its mouth should be. They slowly closed in on him.
"We never agreed to this!" Selvala blasted. "And that gok is capable of sucking his very soul! No one's ever figured out how to safely kill one before! All these creatures aren't even from our galaxy!"
"Consider this a test of just how good he truly is," the grand master chuckled.
Selvala turned around to face Todd. "Why do you have these things anyway?"
"To apprehend prisoners, of course," Roveskl replied.
Todd dodged the gok and went for the spider-like creature. He swung his staff directly at the head of the creature, but it bucked like a horse and revealed hundreds of jagged mouths on its thorax and abdomen. Ducking from the gok and avoiding its suction power, he leapt high in the air and caught a leg from the spider-like creature. It immediately brought the leg closer to its underside, but Todd anticipated this, and gripped the top of the thorax after a well-planned jump. Heavy grinding noises emitted from the spidery beast as it tried to remove the fighter from its top. But Todd quickly began to carve holes into the beast, as if he was searching for a right spot. While keeping an eye on the gok, he finally found what he wanted – a thick cable-like cord running down its top. He quickly severed it and the abdomen of the being went limp. Then, as the gok attempted to suck him into oblivion once more, he fell to the bottom of the great arachnid. It made a series of crunching noises, as it seemed to be chewing on something.
"Now he is done!" shouted Roveskl.
"He survived the ro-oh, he can't lose to a xixdra!"
Suddenly the xixdra went limp. As the camera turned its position to get a better view of the beast, it revealed the xixdra was feasting on its abdomen, which must have killed it. Immediately Todd crawled from it.
"See! I told you he was good!"
Now his focus was completely on the gok. Though it was terribly powerful, it was comparatively slow compared to its adversary, and Todd somersaulted to position himself directly below it. He slashed at its round body with the axe-like blade of his staff, but it instead only revealed more flesh, as if it were layered on the beast.
"Soon he will create a hole in it and invariably be sucked into its oblivion!"
Selvala watched in fear as the massive creature positioned its body between its legs to vanquish the opponent, but Todd was way too fast for its liking. Immediately he grabbed the horn-like appendage protruding from its face and clung to it as the beast lifted its head and tried to shake him off. Instead, Todd scampered to the top of its head, to which the gok tried to suck him. It moved its horn around and clamped on its forehead as Todd slipped off and out of sight from the beast. One sickening gulp was all it took for the beast to be caught in its own horrible thirst for lives, and it suffocated roughly ten seconds later.
"Ha!" Selvala shouted. She turned around to face the grand master. "Now you must submit to my demands!"
A large portion of the delegation applauded respectfully, but Roveskl shook his head. "Number one."
All doors opened in the chamber, displaying a total of three goks, three xixdras, and three ro-ohs along with two robots appearing strikingly familiar to the guards who apprehended Todd earlier, only much larger. They slowly crept toward him, and Todd looked them all in the eye, turning his head about to watch for any sudden movements.
Then, the camera went out.
"No!" shouted Selvala. She kept her eyes glued to the screen, moving her head around slightly as her ears bent back, but nothing happened. Not even any audio reception came through.
"What's happening?" Roveskl shouted, full of perturbation.
Everyone paused, but, after only a moment, began to whisper and lose interest.
Isos placed a hand on Selvala's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "At least he died a true hero."
Selvala nodded as a beam of light streaked across the sky above them. "Yes. Now he's at peace again, so long as the goks didn't get him."
Suddenly, the screen began to blip. It fuzzed and clicked, but finally it turned on to view the room, but in only black and white. There, in the center of the chamber, stood Todd, holding his staff at rest and staring directly at the camera. Every single beast was vanquished, the only things left of them were mere traces of blood, parts, and metal. Even the room looked different, like the metal had changed colors or had been severely weakened.
The entire delegation gasped. "If he can do that, what have we to worry?" shouted someone from the back row.
"Nothing, nothing at all," Selvala replied. A great grin stretched across her face.
The camera zoomed in on Todd's face. He slowly pulled his shades higher on the bridge of his muzzle and held out his hand.
"What is he doing?" Isos asked.
A series of sounds, like snapping metal, emitted from the delegation. Selvala spotted the source quickly, as the Grand Master's chair began to unhinge from the platform he sat. He wailed in terror as the last bolt snapped and sent him hurtling toward the screen. He struck the great object in a swift, fluid jolt and electrocuted his body so intensely his skin burnt off. Echoes of his final scream still filled the room, but were quickly overthrown by the shrieks of terror from the entire floor.
People fled the scene, and some even bumped into Selvala, but all she did was smile at the charred body in the middle of the screen.
"M'lady!" Isos shouted. "Why do you not run?"
"Just like in the storybooks," she whispered.
