Chapter 4

The 13th Out Of Nowhere

The explosion had been earth shattering, making the entire world burst apart for Courage before his eyes. He saw his vision shudder up and down violently, everything became blurry triplicates, even his own paws that went for his eyes to shield him from whatever would come flying at him. The squid beside him had clung to his body in the explosion out of fear...or perhaps for protecting Courage, it was unsure. She felt cold and rubbery, but not slimy like the dog expected her to be, rather giving the illusion of a snake's flesh. It looked slimy but was dry and like leather or rubber. She clasped her tentacles around the front of his waist, her body on his back. Perhaps Courage felt heartened by such a protective friend, but when her body clasped his, he felt oddly...stronger. All of his misery were slowly fading to the back of his mind. Which was good, as he didn't need them for what happened next.

It has begun, whispered the Starmaker. She told him to go forward, out into the main street where the explosion had come from. The dog gulped heavily. He wondered what was worse. Waiting and hearing the thing causing him fear and letting his imagination concoct demons as horrific as he could make them, or seeing the thing itself and possibly bring a new level of imaginative terror unto his mind.

He wasn't going to get rest anytime soon, so he walked forwards into the main street, the darkness of the alleyways slipping from his body like a silken cloak, the Starmaker tight around him, her saucer eyes staring around the place like a child in wonder.

Courage looked south along the road, and saw the creature that caused the explosion.

It was a chicken. A space chicken, to be exact. Not the one he remembered with hate, but another one. This one was orange-eyed. It wielded a strange rifle-like weapon in its wings, which managed to hold the weapon like human hands, wings bent in swooping arcs around the barrel and hilt. The rifle was red and had rings along the barrel length along with wires attached from the hilt to the main ammo case, seeming to pump power from itself. It looked directly at Courage with something akin to hate. But it was different from hate. It was not the personal deep-centred level of hate. It was the soulless generic mass-produced form of hate that a soldier would have against a common enemy.

So, began the alien with a cold voice, you are the one who opposed our master. Courage could only nod. He knew little of their capabilities now, or how he could defend himself against this scout. At least it wasn't a higher rank of experienced space chicken soldier.

You seem to be of little threat, nothing more than a bloated frightened pup. Nevertheless, my master informed me of your powers. You have two choices. The alien aimed his rifle at Courage. They were both 5 feet away and he came closer slowly. We are conquering this planet for our conquest of the universe. I see also you have the missing Starmaker with you. Either surrender both you and the Starmaker to us, or suffer the genocide of your world so that no one shall interfere with us.

That became quite a sudden weight. Did he truly mean that? Could the space chickens actually destroy an entire planet's population? He didn't know how powerful they were entirely, but judging from what the Starmaker told him, he assumed they could.

But he also knew he could not surrender. He had to fight them off somehow.

The chicken came closer, now 2 feet away. The rifle seemed to blink and slowly hum, probably charging up for a blast. Courage had to think. He needed someway to deal with the chicken...something...and then he felt the Starmaker's tentacle slowly press on the back of his head. He felt his eyes close and his arms twitch suddenly. What was she doing? She was trying to do something to him...she seemed to be shifting through his memories, finding something as a remnant of power.

In all honesty, Courage had almost forgot his strength after the farm fire. It was a thing of shame even though he did not know that, but somewhere with intuition, he knew it was. Because it hurt people.

And now, he needed it again.

Just when he requested for his strength to return, the Starmaker found it.

Courage saw through his mind's eye a power he had. The power to be stronger, the power to be more than other dogs could. More faster, more harder to kill, more cunning. He began getting flashbacks of all the enemies he had fought before. He remembered those that he had managed to defeat all by himself.

And that gave him pride. He felt something course in his veins. He felt...courage.

I will NOT SURRENDER! he screamed at the chicken before dodging back towards the alleyway behind him, the chicken angered now as he began to fire shots. The shots were green lasers that pockmarked the wall of the buildings as he tried to aim for the dog, but Courage had gained his speed and dodged into the alley, finding a bunch of near-full trashcans. He could distract the laserfire with the trash.

He picked one up and threw it as far as he could, high into the air which made the chicken look up instinctively. It would land about a foot away from the chicken, but Courage had quickly picked another one up and chasing after the trashcan, running towards the chicken. As the chicken looked back down, he saw the purplish dog charging at him with garbage can held high. Before he could even aim right, the dog had thrown the trash at him, as waste flew out and hit the chicken dead on, his laser shooting into the air as he fell back in surprise. Courage had grabbed a trashcan lid and slammed it at the chicken's throat, damaging it badly, making the invader cough and try to breathe in a near-violent fit.

Courage took the opportunity to wrap his paws around the chicken's damaged neck and began strangling him fiercely. The soldier released his rifle as the power began to sap away from him, unable to even lift it now from shock of losing air, his eyes becoming puffy, clawed feet waving about madly under the dog, trying to scratch him but only making the dog grit his teeth.

Soon enough, the loss of air became too much as the chicken's body began to feel painful all over, muscles dying from lack of oxygen, his vision turning blurry as life slowly ebbed away from him. Soon, the wings fell to the ground, a last gasping breath from the chicken escaping from his body. The invader had been stopped.

Courage kept his strong grip on the neck awhile, making sure he wasn't playing dead, before moving off of him. He panted hard, feeling the adrenaline in his veins pulsing hard, his body turning fierce but trying to slowly slip out of the state.

Wh...what have I done? he asked himself.

You halted their invasion for a while, replied the Starmaker, answering the question for him. They shall reconsider strategies for a day before attacking once more. You should best use that time to try and find a way to reach their mothership.

Wa-wait a minute! he shook his head in aggravation. When was there the idea to invade THEM?

It's the only way we can save my siblings, and to save your planet from either enslavement or death. Personally, I believe either choice is something you do not want.

She had her point there. Even though Courage had travelled to places as far as the sea to demon sub-realities, he never got over how the world he knew had become nothing more than a bubble to protect humanity from the real dangers. Things worse than anything you would hear in the news.

Although he had his fair share of stories to report.

The dog shook his head and looked at his paws. He looked at them as if they were cursed objects, things to be reviled and feared intensely. In a way, he did fear his strength because of his crimes in the past. But he also knew that the same strength granted him the power to save the world. He managed to utilise his adrenaline far better than most others could. Whereas most would either run a little faster or fight a little stronger, Courage became deadly powerful. He had lifted things 20 times his own weight, he could run with the speed of a cheetah, he could create three cunning strategies within 2 minutes or even less.

He never knew precisely how he could do so, but he knew that it laid within him, liquid courage itself. Adrenaline. And he had it better than anyone else he knew.

Courage nodded and sighed slightly.

Okay, let's do this. Do you have any plans to reach the ship?

Well, the obvious course would be to find a rocket. There is a military space base 50 miles from Nowhere on Route 13. We should find a car and drive out there.

Route 13...he knew that road very well.

It was the road that went straight past the old farm. Courage shook it from his head for the while as he had done a few times before, as he looked around for a car. He found a steady-looking red Buick and walked over to it, breaking the side window with a brick nearby and climbing into the car. The humans had dispersed from the invasion and would not return soon. The army would come sooner so he had to act fast. He began hotwiring the car, the squid moving off of him to sit in the passenger seat and as he unlatched the wiring, the dog talked more to the Starmaker.

So...did you look inside my head to find my strength?

Indeed I did... She then became oddly silent after saying this, looking downcast at the car floor. Courage looked at her with sympathy.

What's wrong?

It is nothing...I...I just miss my family. While this was true, this was also a lie. She wasn't sad for missing her family there and then. She was sad because she had seen the memories of the poor dog.

Memories that his mind unconsciously were wanting to forget. Memories other than the fire of the Bagg farm. She also discovered an oddly blocked memory in his mind. A memory more powerfully blocked than the others, as if some impenetrable storm cloud wrapped itself around it and would never let anyone penetrate it. She didn't want to peer into it for fear of being hurt by the mental barrier.

But she knew...something lurked inside Courage. Something that, should the dog ever remember, would probably destroy him.

With that thought, the engine chugged to life. Courage had successfully spliced the wires of the Buick.

Only good thing Eustace ever did was let me watch him hotwire, he muttered with vitriolic hate, before he sat up on the seat. The seat was low for him and he couldn't see out the front window, so he asked the squid to sit on his head and be his eyes. She agreed and clambered onto his head, latching tightly on him with her tentacles.

They headed out onto Route 13, southwest of the main street, leaving Nowhere and entering the grand dustbowl of the American Southwest.