Chapter -38: Fight For Your World

A few days later...

After wrapping up a check-up on a few Tribes, Sarajin was taking a moment to just settle down and fly over the land and enjoy the wind.

Becoming one with the sky and birds around him, he smiled and was able to comfortably lay on his back and fly without concern of losing control.

But before he got too deep into his relaxation he remembered he still had one major task to handle for today, "Oh right, better see how Catherine's doing."

She was convinced to move her damaged shuttle below Arc Hurricanos so it'd have less of a risk of being snatched up by one of the Ten Sages or someone else who could misuse it.

She's been working hard at it...when she hasn't been distracted with wandering off to other locations.

He's felt a bit like Moses while watching over her, or even like another parent to her.

The only thing that mattered was that she didn't arouse too much suspicion upon herself and the best way to avoid that was to keep her away from the southern and western quarters of the planet.

Albeit, she did seem to require some form of heat source to power the rockets, so he escorted her to Canofloe for a brief period of time.

Magmankey wasn't too happy about that.

"More of those bugs dropping in from outer space?" He grumbled out loud.

But Sarajin just sort of treated him like the grumpy old man he was being and continued to feed into Catherine's curiosity as long as she remained safe.

However, he wasn't the only one showing their concern towards the sudden outsider sharing space with their lands...

Sarajin dropped by today to find her on her back under her shuttle with her lab coat off and hung up on two fishing poles standing up and tied together by the wire.

She had created something called a "wrench" and "screwdriver" by enlisting the aid of the blacksmiths of Oreore, a little bit of heat from Canofloe, and her seemingly endless ingenuity.

The shuttle was no longer the broken mess it was as she had given all the dented metal and frayed wires to Oreore for them to reuse, determining that nothing she was giving up would "make their society advance too much" whatever that meant.

She had plenty of shade to work under but her diligence still drenched her in a heavy sweat and left her arms and face covered in soot.

She pushed herself out from under the shuttle, laying atop a small board of aura with wheels attached to it.

"Whew...that takes care of the landing gears! Now to reinforce the hull and get some coolant back in the engine," She looked up and with a smile shouted, "Oh hey Sarajin! You're just in time!"

"Huh? No, I'm...early actually, dinner isn't for another half hour."

Catherine blinked a few times then ran over to her lab coat to dip into one of her many pockets, "Huh, my clock's still off? Your planet has a weeeeeeird magnetic field..."

Sarajin smiled and shook his head, "Looks like you're doing fine today though."

"But of course!" She proclaimed, crossing her arms and glaring at him with fiery determination straight from the furnace that was her heart, "I built shuttles like these when I was five years old!"

She took out a cloth from another pocket and started to dry herself off, taking a moment to sniff the cloth once it was damp enough, "Aaaaaah, the scent of a fulfilling day!"

Sarajin smiled a bit more, "I wish everyone could smile through the hard times like she does."

She then turned her head and nudged her eyebrows knowingly, "Oh ho ho, I sense words of praise behind that gaze of yours!"

Sarajin blushed and then shook his head a lot before laughing, "You know, I can still offer my assistance anytime you want. Just say the word."

"Have you seen me out here? Trading, chatting, fixing, I'm perfectly fine on my own! Helps that everyone has been very cooperative!"

Sarajin made a quick glance towards the fishing rods and felt a bit of sweat trickling down the side of his face, "Yeeeeah, I still think Lulu is waiting for you to return those..."

He then looked at Catherine and reluctantly admitted, "I-I see your point, but-"

"So hey, when's the big bird gonna stop glaring down at me anyways?" She nudged her head back and as it turned out the source of the immense shade in her work area was Twinbeak perched atop a medium-sized rock formation.

"Haaa, Twinbeak, I keep telling you, there's nothing to worry about with her." Sarajin said.

The Titan tilted its head left then right before brushing its wing up below its beak, "We're making certain that this girl only takes back what she came here with."

"Ha ha ha! Only villains would go so low as to take what doesn't belong to them!" She boasted.

Twinbeak glared, "Aurian blood runs through your veins, for your sake, pray that a liar's tongue hasn't followed."

"Haaaa..." Catherine shrugged and then looked at her only friend in the area with a smile, "Sounds to me like my people did a number on their trustworthiness on this planet."

Sarajin waved his hand out and remarked, "That's...an understatement."

"But they can't all possibly be bad people! The guy with the big scarab shell on his back even helped me pick out the perfect metal to bend into springs for my wheels!"

The girl's yells of praise were grating on Twinbeak's ears. And Sarajin had to slightly tilt his head and let out an "Ehhh" through some degree of restraint.

"Got some bad seeds spoiling the bunch?" She deduced.

"I mean, feels to me like you could say that about any world." Sarajin said, a bit of defeatism slipping out.

But she proudly held her head up high and declared, "Ha ha ha! Ain't that the harsh truth! But that's what makes our continued fight so darn important!"

A loud growling noise could be heard coming from her stomach and her expression took an immediate nose-dive into embarrassment.

She quickly steeled her face back up and with a grin proclaimed, "Bwahaha! Hunger pains, my cursed nemesis! How dare you rear your ugly head!"

"I suppose work will have to be postponed until tomorrow! I must make haste to your wife's delectable dinery!"

She then ran past Sarajin who looked over his shoulder and told her, "I'll catch up with you in a moment! So don't take any detours, ok?"

"'Tis of no concern!" She proclaimed.

And right as Sarajin was ready to look the other way he flinched as she yelled, "Just don't think about meddling with my shuttle! I will know if you fix anything!"

Sarajin was mildly embarrassed but held his head high as he got beneath Twinbeak's shadow, the Titan gazing longingly as the young girl ran out of their sight.

Sarajin gestured up to them and wondered, "Is it...really that big of a deal if she's an Aurian?"

"That is hardly an issue..."

"It is more...disturbing that she found this world to begin with. It sets an ill precedent for the future..."

Sarajin thought for a moment and then rubbed his chin before snapping his fingers aside, "Right, I've been meaning to ask."

"One thing that stuck out to me about her story was when she said..."

"The signal was strong but I saw naught a world in sight."

"It sounded like she couldn't see our world at all," Sarajin gave the side of his head a quick scratch and mumbled aloud, trying to piece together what he was missing, "...But I could see it when I left it."

"Mmmmrrr, you recall that all Wellsprings serve to maintain a different function on our planet?"

"Of course."

"Luminesca's Wellspring is...different from the rest. Their purpose not as clear."

"You would be right to suspect that a Wellspring of Light would bring forth an everlasting glow to the world, and in the spirit of this thought...That is true. It is because of Luminesca's Wellspring that the moon shines brightest in the night sky."

"But that is restraining the element to its basic nature. Light is more than a soft, warm glow...To keep it simple, it is what allows the human eye to perceive the world around them."

"Thus, in the days of yore, Luminesca manipulated this aspect of Light across the entire planet's atmosphere, preventing it from being perceived by outside forces."

"Aurian's visual receptors function on a different level than a human's though. Their eyelids are considered to be a second lens that filters out light and leaves only the aura of their surroundings intact."

"That doesn't sound like how Catherine found us though." Sarajin pointed out.

"There is already an Aurian presence here, that doesn't surprise us in the slightest that another of their kind could find us. We just hadn't considered the possibility of there being others."

"A mistake we can't afford to make again."

"But, what about me then?" Sarajin wondered.

Twinbeak shook their head and remarked, "Don't think too heavily about it. You were born and raised in this world. Luminesca would never dare to have denied Her people the ability to see their home."

"...I wish I could have met Luminesca while they were still alive." Sarajin said mournfully.

"She would have loved you the most."

"We all do miss her so."

Sarajin nodded, shedding a tear he couldn't quite explain.

He then looked up to the Titan and said, "Well thanks for clearing that up, Twinbeak. Now could you leave Catherine to me? I'll make sure she gets off the planet nice and clean."

"...We suppose we owe you that trust, Sarajin Stratos."

"And we will tell Voltneir to stop messing around with her trinkets as well."

Sarajin turned his head with a slight hint of amusement and disbelief on his face, "V-Voltneir's doing what?"

"Ha ha, we all have our little...quirky side."

The wise beast then took off with a heavy flap of their wings to the higher ground they called home...

A few more days later...

Sarajin decided to just go around and enjoy another flight in the sky, maybe survey the land for any trouble happening.

And...trouble was happening, to who else but Catherine.

But this wasn't like the other times where she had almost wandered into the wrong territory. It looked like she was just going through the motions of getting back to her ship but only veered juuuuust a little ways off enough to get within range of the Rot Walkers' senses.

Now she was evasively dealing with their ambush while hauling around an aura wheelbarrow full of metals.

Sarajin dove right in and landed smack dab in the middle of the Rot Walkers. Fortunately she had only managed to attract the weakest beasts, so they easily were pushed aside by his landing.

He then took up a defensive stance with his hands and started pushing at the beasts with sheer force off his palms.

The decaying fiends snarled and were briefly repelled, but snapped their hanging jaws and charged at him undeterred a few moments later.

Sarajin positioned his back closer to Catherine's general position and told her, "I'll hold them off, just clear out of here!"

Instead Catherine wiggled her glasses and smirked, "Perfect timing, Sarajin! I needed someone to buy me a few seconds...!"

"Buy you a few seconds...?" Sarajin echoed in a baffled tone, then looked over his shoulder to see her standing perfectly still and curling back her sleeve, "W-Wait, did you purposefully aggravate them?!"

"Heh heh...! In the name of science, sometimes you just gotta be bold!" Under her sleeve was a thick, square-shaped bracelet crackling with electricity.

"This should work...!" One button press later she swung her fist up towards the sky and the bracelet released a four-prong sheen, "Come forth! Proto Armor V2.06!"

Sarajin sensed a subtle electrical pulse shooting up off the planet and figured he could hold off for a few seconds to see what she was doing here.

He grit his teeth and kept swinging his body around to avoid having rotting teeth chomping skin deep in his body.

As long as he applied enough power to his punches and kicks the Rot Walkers never bothered focusing down Catherine.

He was still a novice at fist fighting but this was the best for everyone involved at the moment.

Even doing something he wasn't experienced with, these Rot Walkers were little more than pests for him at the moment.

It was a little cathartic holding them off with such ease, like every punch he threw was killing off an old nightmare for good.

But he was careful not to get too swept up in the moment and always ensured Catherine remained at his backside.

Then, heavy noises reverbed across the air as these chunky, carved away cubes fell down around her, strands of electricity shooting off her bracelet to magnetize them around her body.

"Time to show these beasts a thing or two! CONNECT!"

The cubes lit up with strange, jagged yellow lines snapped in halves as they levitated over her arms and legs. Then they clamped back together, forming a sort of guard similar to grieves only bulkier and looking a little unwieldy.

A smaller but denser material extended out of the sides and bottoms to slide over her hands and feet, and then finally her suit of armor was capped off by a final cube landing over her head, where it twisted around a few times to make a five-pointed glass mask.

In an instant Sarajin felt the hairs on his arms rise up in awe of the electrifying output her armor was capable of.

She crash landed on the ground and lunged right at the nearest Rot Walker to scoop it off the ground by the face and suspend it in the air.

The natural decaying state allowed it to be capable of breaking free, but she was ready and willing to lock it down with her aura.

"You ain't escapin' on my watch buster!" She dug her feet deep into the ground to the point of cracking it and the cubes on the back of her shoulder started to extend out, each progressive one smaller than the last.

The hollowing out portion of her arm was lined with aura and a grin flashed through the glass.

"I'm the hammer of justice, bub, and you? You're about to be my nail!"

All the extended cubes smashed back down into the arm in one swing, creating a powerful shockwave contained within her aura that reverberated inside of the Rot Walker.

Instantly the beast was splattered into a million pieces that went flying through the air straight into a cube of aura she had created beneath her notice.

She clamped the cube shut and though the pieces squirmed and tried to merge back together, they were doing so within a space they had no room to fit in.

After the ground finished trembling Catherine stumbled over her own two feet while the other Rot Walkers immediately turned their attention onto her.

Catherine stood tall and wound back her right fist, but found it was dragging itself towards the ground.

"A short-circuit now! Bah!" She thus switched off to her left fist and uppercut one of the Rot Walkers hundreds of feet into the sky, "JUST ANOTHER TRIAL TO OVERCOME!"

Sarajin jumped into the fray and smashed his foot into the ground to spear the Rot Walkers upward with rock. This delayed their charge and gave Catherine sufficient time to correct her right arm.

She then collapsed her palms together and yelled at Sarajin, "Just let me handle the rest! I only needed the one!"

Sarajin felt immense power diverting into her hands, with the cubes unfolding into a five-pointed series of panels .

He quickly jumped out of the left as violet energies shook out from the center and then began to spread along the panels, creating the shape of a star with the heat intensity of a real sun.

The Rot Walkers regained their shape and lunged their bodies off the spikes to try and pile atop her.

"SHOOTING STAR...!" Three clamps emerged out of the sides of her legs and braced the back of her legs and with a powerful grunt she screamed joyously at the top of her lungs, "IIIIIIIIMPAAAAAAAAAAAACT!"

All that energy blitzed the sky so fast that the Rot Walkers were incapable of regenerating from it quick enough to avoid being carried into the sky along a trail of sparkling electricity.

Once they were carried high enough the electricity burst off into an outline of Catherine's face and a thumbs up.

Sarajin's mouth was agape as the lights flashed off it for a good while.

Catherine dropped on one knee and the smoking cubes dislodged off her body, losing all their spark.

"Baaah, still have a ways to go...!" She quickly sprung up onto her feet and nudged her elbow against Sarajin's hip, "So? Come on. Whaddya think?"

Sarajin lightly brushed his pointer finger up in the air and murmured, "T-That's not going to get rid of them..."

Catherine crumbled her brow and took this as a serious offense, "Ack! Come on, who sees an awesome finishing move and immediately deflates it with a comment like THAT?!"

"S-Sorry...?" Sarajin said while rubbing the back of his head, "I'm just...confused?"

"Or too dazzled to think straight?!" She was proclaiming with 90% certainty, "Yep, what you just saw is a prototype power armor I've been working on in my spare time."

"Power armor?"

"Well I ain't exactly the toughest stick in the tree, if ya catch my drift! I gotta rely on my brain to keep up with the biggest bad guys roaming the galaxy! The problem I keep running into is too much bulk...I need to figure out a way to make the design more sleek, more flashy!"

"...Is that really important?"

"But of course!" She shouted with pride, "People, whether they're human or alien, will always feel safer when they're being protected by someone they can relate to! Expressing oneself isn't just about the personality, but the image you leave in people's minds."

"A sleeker frame around my armor will help retain the cute, relatable human shape that immediately jumps into most people's brains! It's a proven design, trust me."

Sarajin looked up at the lingering image her final attack has left in the sky and dryly chuckled, "I don't know, I feel I won't forget this anytime soon..."

"Yeah but if you didn't know me before this would you be willing to trust someone who walked up to you wearing a bulky suit of armor?"

She was quick and concise in her critique and Sarajin immediately bought into the point she was making, "N-No, I probably wouldn't."

"Heh heh!" She reached out and patted him on the shoulder twice, "You jumped in to help without hesitation, you've got some kinks to work out but you definitely have what it takes to be a great hero, Sarajin!"

Sarajin shivered and clammed up upon hearing that word. Franklin's voice echoed it in his head...

His sense of amazement began to dull and he loafed around asking her any further question while she spent some time picking up the pieces of her armor and loading them up into her wheelbarrow.

When she was about ready to collect the caged Rot Walker, Sarajin finally looked her way and muttered, "S-So what are you planning to do with that?"

"Study it, duh! I've never laid eyes on a creature this fascinating before! It exists in some weird quantum state between life and death, yet seems to still maintain a glimpse of consciousness that allows it to react to familiar energies."

"Yeah, they're drawn into intense negativity and elemental energy."

"Elemental energy?" She remarked with a hint of surprise and passing intrigue in her voice.

"You've never heard of it before?" He replied.

"Can't say I have. I'm guessing that's how everyone in this world is able to control stuff like metal and water?"

Sarajin nodded and Catherine giggled with glee, "Sounds fascinating! I'd love to study it over, but I'm more interested in this baby!"

She turned back to the Rot Walker and remarked, "If I can figure out how its self-regenerating malleable nature works I might be able to transfer the properties into my power armor..."

"Can you only study it on that...space station you mentioned?" Sarajin wondered with some hesitation.

"Yeah, I'm packed with gizmos but not a whole gosh dang lab!"

"Well you're wasting your time then."

"Eh?" She tilted her head back.

"Rot Walkers can't leave the planet," Sarajin pointed his thumb up at the sky with a bit of defeat weighing on his shoulders, "Our Titans tried it. Didn't work."

"Huh, well ain't that a curious conundrum!" She smiled with glee while adjusting her glasses to flash that light off the lens.

She then crossed her arms and remarked, "Fine, I'll take your word for it. Figured life couldn't be THAT convenient!"

She then patted the cube and pawed at the snarling maw attempting to form inside, "I'll let this little guy out once we're a safe distance away."

"But YOU!" She thrust her gaze straight at his direction, "I'm picking up the pieces little by little but I get the feeling there's a lot of context to this puzzle that you haven't told me yet."

"Well it's not like you settle down enough to listen..." Sarajin thought in a fond tone, then waved his hand out and said, "How about I tell you along the way back to your shuttle?"

Sarajin just had to give her the bare details about the state of the world. She was smart enough to piece together everything else that she cared about.

"Ah! So my suspicions were narrowly close to the mark!" After adjusting her glasses she explained herself, "The inconsistent growth between all the Tribes suggested that there was a lack of unity, but I never would have guessed those 'Rot Walkers' were tied to the lack of resources found on this world."

Sarajin gestured at her and remarked, "In all fairness, this has been a very quiet week."

"And a good thing too, I can almost imagine her leaping into a conflict..." And then his mind immediately jumped to her 'finishing move' wiping out an entire battalion of soldiers and bit his teeth with a hint of regret, "Yeah I should have brought this up sooner. I'm such an idiot...!"

But that didn't happen so maybe there was no point fretting over it.

By the time they walked up to the shuttle Sarajin paused and realized how much work had gone into it. All she had left to do was finish repairing the outer plating and she'd probably be ready to go.

And she made sure to ensure that he wouldn't be ignorant of that, "Alright, leave the rest to me, Sarajin! I'm just about wrapped up here."

She took off her lab coat and flung it onto the line, stretched her fingers to crack the knuckles and then dropped onto her knees to begin working.

Sarajin hung back through the sounds of sparks flying off metal being welded onto the ship, as silent as a rat.

A part of him...didn't want her to go.

He admired her tireless spirit through all tribulations, and her dedication to what she enjoys the most.

But more than that he wanted to know...

He squeezed his hands against the sides of his hips. Despite months of rest to regain his focus and think about life he was still questioning parts of his actions in the past, and how much worth he can give moving forward.

With one brave step forward he shouted out to her, "Hope. Inspiration. Love."

She immediately stopped what she was doing and looked over her shoulder with a puzzled glance.

"Are...are those the most important things someone needs to be a hero?"

Catherine sprang to her feet and with a deep hum, crossed her arms firmly against her chest and proclaimed, "But of course!"

It was the shout that rang deep through Sarajin's heart, penetrating him with the obvious answer he knew, but could only feel it confirmed through someone else's judgment.

He breathed a gentle sigh of relief as his heart shook off a quiver.

"Why do you ask?" Catherine pressed onward, causing Sarajin's heart to retreat a little bit back into itself.

"W-Well...Because lately I had doubts about what it really means to uphold those ideals," He clenched his fist against his chest and closed his eyes, "I swore an oath to never take a life, to prove that violence wasn't the only solution to our problems."

"But my journeys took me to a world where I was faced with a great injustice...a-and before I knew it, I lost sight of myself, and killed the people responsible."

"Well, then you did the right thing." Wasn't what he expected to hear come out of Catherine's mouth.

Sarajin looked up at her with pupils shrank and blurted out, "Y-You've killed people too?!"

"Nope! Nuh uh! Don't put that dirty label on me!" She said, still maintaining her bubbly smile.

"But-"

"There's a HUGE difference between 'killing' someone and 'murdering' them. And you're seeing 'killing' as the latter when you should be thinking of it as the former."

Now he was just confused...

"Murder is senseless. Villains revel in it because they think it makes them look strong when it only makes them look weak and cowardly!"

"'Killing' is...complex. Sometimes you're going to run into a villain who can't be reasoned with, so what are you going to do? Just let them go? Let more people suffer?"

"Maybe putting someone down is an act of mercy to save them from suffering a cruel fate."

"Hope, inspiration and love are very important to being a hero, but there's a fourth element people forget to consider...Justice!"

"Justice?" Sarajin tilted his head.

"It's the will and desire to see good be carried out. As long as justice burns bright in one person's heart, the will to fight on will live on through the darkest of days!"

"That's been my life this past century, Sarajin. Going from planet to planet and using my extraordinary talents to bring justice to lands that have lost that spark, and leaving behind the hope, inspiration and love they need to carry on without me!"

Sarajin leaned in and tilted his mouth in an expression of mouth, "How do you know if that's enough?"

"One smile." Catherine stated in the most plain statement of the bunch.

She then crossed pulled her whole body back to give a powerful nod forward, "If your justice can ignite the light back into one person's smile, then it was all worth it."

"Aaaand normally, the state of this world will warrant a little bit of my justice, buuuuut I think I'm safe to leave it in capable hands!"

Sarajin widened his eyes and wondered, "Huh? Whose?"

"Uhhh, duh! Yours!" She said with a dash of confidence.

Sarajin's heart fluttered and with a smile growing across his face he turned his head aside and whispered, "T-Thank you, Catherine...I think...I needed a real hero to tell me that."

Catherine's expression faltered for a moment with a stunned look, but then she nudged her glasses and chuckled, "B-But of course! I am the cutest, brightest, and smartest superheroine in all the galaxies!"

Afterwards she immediately returned to her shuttle to continue repairs.

Settling into a more relaxed state of mind, Sarajin decided to just sit down and enjoy the sounds of hard work combined with the birds cawing overhead.

It didn't take more than an hour for Catherine to wrap up, and the shuttle looked as clean as a newly forged sword.

Sarajin didn't really know how to enjoy it otherwise, it was an object completely beyond his time, but maybe...Someday, these sorts of things will be commonplace for the people of his planet. He had a little more faith he could make that happen now.

And just as soon as she had entered his life, Catherine entered her shuttle, prepared to leave it.

Sarajin stood and met her halfway into entering and shouted in a playful tone, "Leaving so soon? I thought you wanted to learn more about your Aurian powers?"

"I still do, buuuut, I can sense this isn't the appropriate time for it."

"If not now, then when?" Sarajin pointed out, to which her confidence continued to soar higher than her little body stood.

"I ain't saying goodbye to this planet, ha ha ha! You've vastly underestimated the power of my brain! I've analyzed the planet's rotation cycle by paying attention to the sun. Once I've logged the data into my space station I'll be able to find this place again anytime I want, invisible or not!"

"Geez, intelligence is a powerful tool." Sarajin said, feeling a little embarrassed by how lacking he was in comparison.

"It'll be a while, but I promise to return! Oh, but in case of an emergency, I'll be teleporting a communicator to your wife in the meanwhile."

"Well I'll still be here when you get back, that's a promise." Sarajin held his hand out and Catherine jumped off her shuttle to run over and give him a firm handshake.

"I look forward to seeing the sort of world your justice will bring forth, Sarajin!"

Sarajin firmed his eyes and nodded, but before he let go he felt there was one thing he wasn't going to let her go without hearing, "One bit of advice though?"

"Yeah?" She said with surprise.

"Don't keep doing everything by yourself," He said in a soft, mature tone, "You're very capable, but I think you'll find that you'll be able to get even more accomplished when you have people you can trust watching your back."

"Trust me." He said with a fond smile.

He then pulled his hand away and she paused for a few seconds to let the advice sink in and to his joy, she nodded and smiled, "Alright. I'll give it some thought."

She then crawled back into her shuttle and sealed herself in glass. With one last look out the window she waved him off and shouted, "Until next time, keep your eyes in the sky for the brightest star shining in the night!"

Sarajin waved her off and then stepped back as the engines roared and the wheels below it helped point her towards the sky.

Her vehicle shot off and was a dot in mere seconds. Sarajin stood amid the smoke and held the back of his hair before it could be blown off by the pressure.

With a big smile he thought fondly about these past few days and realized he'd come to cherish them a lot more than he expected.

It was a surprise, but a welcome one.

Fate. Destiny. Who could say?

But he knew deep in his heart that this wouldn't be the last time he'd see this bright and heroic young girl.

Next Time: Reach for the Moon