The History of Cosmic
The Volkian Incident, Part I
“We’re dropping in eight minutes.”
Mark Nemo felt a tight knot form in his gut, the rookie grabbing his handle firmly as their spacecraft started to edge closer to the planetary atmosphere. It had been several weeks since he had been brought on with the team, and though he was confident in his powers and abilities, this was his first real mission after all, and he had every right to be nervous. His deep breath was met by a firm hand grabbing his shoulder, Mark looking at his squad mate for reassurance. Dark haired, blue eyed, humanoid, older with little humor about him, he was Collider, and Mark was pretty sure the guy hated his guts.
“Relax, Mark.” Collider said quietly, “It’s all in your head. It’s different when we’re down there, just let us do the talking and follow our lead. You’ll be okay, I promise.” The words sounded so foreign and alien from the, well, alien lieutenant serving under Mentor. He looked over at Soldier for a moment, who gave a casual thumbs-up to show his approval. Mark nodded, and gave Collider a weak smile.
“Thank you,” He replied, “I just don’t want to mess up after training for so long. I don’t want to let any of you down.” The response earned an earnest laugh from Collider, the first Mark had ever heard from the man.
“It’s natural to fear failure, but failing something means you get to learn from it. Hopefully enough of our wisdom rubbed off on you, and you don’t need to make the same mistakes we did. You have whole new failures to make, all on your own, and that’s perfectly fine.” Mark looked at Collider strangely, the Corpsman removing his hand and his gaze from Mark, refocusing elsewhere as the timer began to tick down further. He slowly rose to his feet, and walked over to the spaceships’ exit. “It’s about time. Let’s go meet our charges for the evening.”
As Collider spoke, both Soldier and Cosmic rose from their seats and joined him at the door, the senior member twisting the lock and sliding it open, revealing a vast sky filled with green clouds on a red sky, the scenery shocking Mark Nemo for a moment. His trace was broken as Collider ignited his energy aura, and flew out of the ship without warning. Soldier flared his own power, and looked at Cosmic expectantly. Closing his eyes, Mark brought forth the energy stored within, and bathed his body in dancing flames. Soldier was follow Cosmic so that he would surely jump, and after taking a deep breath, Cosmic leapt from the ship, and twirled along the clouds for a moment.
Flying was something one needed to practice and perfect, and was something Mark trained hard on while in space, but the real deal was so much more liberating and freeing than he could ever imagine. He moved and flew gracefully, almost forgetting that he had a job to follow Collider, but snapping to it as Soldier blew past him and disrupted his trance. Flying fast to catch up, Cosmic followed behind his two superiors like a proper recruit, and watched as they softly landed on the ceramic tiles of a large palace seated in the clouds.
“Greetings,” Collider announced, a small group of insect-like aliens emerging from the inner walls of the palace and walking slowly toward him, Soldier, and Cosmic as the other two landed. “We are members of the Ultra Corps, an interstellar police force looking to keep order and peace throughout the cosmos.” The insect race bore a superficial resemblance to praying mantis’, and though they spoke in clicks and chittering, the Corpsmen were able to understand them through their connection to the Ultra Force.
“Honorable guests,” A lavishly dressed, older appearing alien called out, his exoskeleton painted with vibrant colors and decorated with jewels, clearly denoting high stature on this world. “I am Broodmaster Xenon, I lead what little remains of our race, you may know us as the Volkians. Four clutches previous, a band of marauding Vandols took up residence on our second moon, and from there, launched raids against our hives. They would set the entire structure ablaze, murder each Volkian, juvenile and adult alike, and remove the clutch to their lunar base.”
“I see,” Collider responded, “We have been looking for those raiders for a while now. They evaded capture several months ago, and their space piracy dropped as a result. We did not know they would target your world in this manner, and on my honor, we shall remove this pest from your system.” Turning to look back at Soldier and Cosmic for a brief moment, Collider looked once more at Xenon. “I must ask permission to operate on your world and moons, so that my men and myself can properly deal with the Vandols. Do you accept our services, free of charge, so that the cosmos may be a safer realm for all inhabitants?”
“Of course, of course, Corpsman,” Xenon replied, laying down an immaculate scepter of sorts, and prostrating himself on his wobbly knees. “Please, avenge the losses we’ve suffered, rid us of the Vandols that took so many daughters from me.” As Xenon knelt, a distant rumbling shook the palace, gaining the attention of Soldier and Cosmic. Far away, a large and ominous ship jutted down below the cloud cover, causing Xenon to panic. “They are beginning another raid!” The Broodmaster shouted, “We have so precious few left, please, I beg of you! Save us from this menace!”
Collider nodded, turning away from the alien and walking towards Cosmic and Soldier, who seemed ready to launch in the direction of the spaceship. “You two see to the raiders.” Collider instructed, turning his eyes then to look up at the pale moon in the distance, “I’ll go to their base myself. Communicators on, no surprises.” Collider exploded skyward, aiming toward the celestial body while Soldier flew towards the ship, Cosmic directly behind him. As the pair dipped below the green clouds, a hellish landscape was made apparent. Littered with craters and broken structures, the scene of a brutal extermination campaign well-under way was all Cosmic could imagine, and his shocked face was made even more fearful as Soldier whispered to himself, loud enough for Cosmic to hear.
“What have these monsters done…”
The pair neared the site of a large spire that rose almost high enough to pierce the cloud cover, a Volkian hive-city, the settlement besieged and bombarded by the large black ship of the Vandols. It returned fire when it could, but the hive’s blasts were no match for the energy shield of the vessel, nor were it’s physical defenses able to withstand the raw might of the cannons armed on the ship. It punched holes into the spire that bellowed out in callous black smoke, staining the green clouds with it’s darkness. “Cosmic!” Soldier shouted, “You enter the hive, I deal with ship.” The blue humanoid increased his speed, Cosmic nodded and gulped, his first bout of actual action finally upon him.
Soldier crashed directly into the starship and made it shutter to the side, piercing the energy shield that protected it, meanwhile, Cosmic ducked around the vessel and entered the hive through one of the holes made by the cannons. Inside was nightmarish as well, dimly lit by glowing fungi along the walls, fires spread all around the structure as Volkians young and old tried to flee, many of whom held large white orbs in their claws and close to their body. A series of central walkways and bridges were collapsing, trapping several hundred insects on a floor with no chance of escape. Looking for a spot to begin, Cosmic by chance glanced at a pair of dark-armored raiders assaulting a group of Volkians, trapping them between their menacing presence and a raging flame.
Wasting no time, Cosmic blindsided one raider and launched him into the other, pinning both into the wall of the hive. “What the hell are you doing?!” He demanded, flaring his energetic aura, “They’re hatchlings!” He reasoned, grabbing one raider by his neck and lifting him up, the enemy forming a ball of dark energy in his palm and blasting Cosmic in the chest with it. The attack blew Cosmic back and caused him to let the raider go, but by that time, the second raider recovered his bearings and launched a full attack on the recruit. Two solid punches and kick, Cosmic turtled up and tanked the hits, finding an opening and blasting the raider with a straight punch laced with Ultra Force, sending him fly back into the wall once more. His partner was equally fast, though, and managed to grab Cosmic’s outstretched arm and pull it into his body, colliding Cosmic’s chest with his armor-plated knee, another ball of dark energy charged and waiting in his palm. Gently placing it in front of Cosmic’s face, the raider smirked under his helmet and blasted Mark once more.
Flying into the opposite wall of the hive, the entire structure shook violently as Cosmic landed. Gathering energy all along his hand, Cosmic was about to free himself from the crater he had made when the second raider pounced, his dark-laced fingertips embedding themselves in the wall where Cosmic’s chest was, the interloper moving just a few inches to avoid the blow. Reaching out with his energy-infused hand, Cosmic grabbed the side of the Vandol’s face and detonated his force, exploding the raider out of his armor and blowing a good side of the wall away. The raider began to fall down the immense length of the hive center, Cosmic getting a good look at the gray skinned, red-eyed humanoid before he plummeted, and turning his attention to face the remaining footsoldier.
Cosmic leapt from the wall and nailed the raider with a shoulder bash, preemptively striking the armored foe and redressing all of his forward momentum. The adversary back-handed Cosmic and blasted forward with black energy, Cosmic reaching out and grabbing the raiders’ wrist, twisting to the side abruptly, and causing the blast to fire harmlessly into the wall. Cosmic returned the knee he was given earlier, cracking the black armor of the foe in the process, and following that hit up with an energy-infused upper-cut, completely shattering the helmet and upper armored torso of the assailant. Flying upwards, the raider regained his composure and stared down at Cosmic, who stood idle with his energy flaring. “Never thought I’d have to see a Corpsman again.” He spoke, his red eyes shifting to malice as a grimace cursed his face. “Especially defending these vermin.” He declared, charging both hands with dark energy, blasting one directly at Cosmic and the other at a nearby grouping of Volkians, Cosmic easily slapping the attack away while the Volkians let out a fearful screech, before being engulfed in an explosion.
Gasping audibly at the sensely cruelty, Cosmic fly upwards to meet the Vandol raider, grabbing the man’s exposed neck and flying higher until the wall curved toward the center as the spiral narrowed, slamming the grey humanoid into it abruptly. “Why are you killing these people?” Cosmic demanded, rearing back his fist and charging it with energy, the raider giving Mark a smirk.
“These aren’t people, kid.” The Vandol reasoned, “Not like you and me. These Volkians are an infestation, they seed meteorites with their eggs and launch them at other worlds, moons, anything they can to start a new hive. The impact gives whatever existed there an extinction-level event, and the infestation gets plenty of exploitable resources to grow and continue the cycle.”
“Okay so,” Cosmic began, “How exactly is that any different from another species going around and colonizing planets and moons?”
“They aren’t as disgusting.” The raider spat, Cosmic not bothering to give a reply this time, and simply punched the man’s torso hard enough to crack apart his ribcage, and blow a new hole in the side of the structure, sending him flying far away from the hive. Cosmic rapidly descended back down the structure and landed at the gigantic base, bringing up dust and debris from the broken bridges and walkways that fell from up above. The dust began to clear as the yellow-orange aura began to shine through, a narrow-eyed Cosmic staring down another group of raiders, seven in total, collecting the eggs from dead Volkian carcasses and amassing them in a large pile. They all stopped and stared at Cosmic for a moment, the human unfolding his arms and increasing his energy output as he too made eye contact.
All around him on several floors above, more raiders looked down to see the ongoing commotion, Cosmic feeling their energy, having gotten used it to from the first two he fought. There were over a hundred in all, and as more floated off of their floors to join the battle, Cosmic tightened his fists, clenched his teeth, and let out a low growl as he spread his feet apart and raised his hands in front of his face to fight. Rather than wait for the raiders to make the first move, Cosmic thundered toward them, knocking into as many as possible in a blind charge, his fists, elbows, knees, and feet like whirlwinds of energy-coated death slamming into the dark armored foes that were simply endless as more continued to jump down and join the battle. As the raiders became occupied fighting Cosmic, several Volkians began to make their escape from the hive, but some stayed behind, cheering on their hero as he handed the Vandols their collective asses.
