Corruption

The Artūghzians

The air on Artūghzia was rather thin. Not so much to where he could he couldn't breathe, but still uncomfortable. He also realized that the black spots in the land he saw from space where the black leaves of all the plant life there. The trees were curved in the shape of a crescent moon facing towards the dim sun. It was so small that it looked perpetually dusk. He also noticed that on top of the air smelling strangely like red wine, the gravity was also allot heavier. Heavy enough to where he considered using his Urzuhg half. He ended up using it when Miranda asked if he was having trouble keeping up with her power walking. With the aid of his Urzuhg genes, he was able to handle the gravity, but Miranda was still going a bit fast for him. He noticed she glanced at him at lot more often whenever his eyes turned green. He wondered about that.
         As they power walked towards ZuhTanga, he noticed what looked like golden eyes peering from between the black blushes. "I think we're being watched," Nelson muttered. "I see them," Miranda replied. "Those are the native Artūghzians. The Urzuhg kinda forced them into hiding. When our planet was destroyed, one of the places some of us went were here, among other planets. We mostly stayed on our ships though. These guys aren't too dangerous by nature.."  Just  ahead of them, they spotted a tiny Artūghzian under one of the Crescent trees, who was just a bit too short to reach some kind of dark brown fruit looking thing. "See there's a little tiny one," she told him. It was a very strange looking creature, he thought. It looked like a polar bear, with yellow reptilian eyes, and what looked like little wings on it's back. It also had a long tail. It seemed sad. As the walked past it, Miranda appeared to take note of how it struggled to reach the fruit, and she went over to it and got it down for it. It licked her hand before it ate it. She had a small smile on her face. "What?" Miranda asked, "He needed help." Nelson shook his head, smiling a little bit. That was when a much bigger Artūghzian came up and approached them. This was clearly an adult. Presumably one of its parents. "Bet that's the mother," Nelson commented. Miranda shrugged. "Maybe." The adult one walked over to Miranda and also licked her hand. It then turned its attention to Nelson. He smiled and waved. "Hiii," he said. "You know they can't speak," Miranda told him. "They're probably looking at you like some kinda weirdo." However ironically, the adult Artūghzian seemed to smile when she said that. "They are kinda cool though," Nelson said. "Well lets go," She said, "We don't want to risk running into any Urzuhg."
Nelson nodded and they went the rest of the way to ZuhTanga. The city wasn't overly large, but it wasn't really small either. The buildings were all for the most part shaped as octagons, and were made out of some strange green material. The Urzuhg walking around all took noticed of their entry. Most of them seemed to snort and walk the other way. A few outright stared. One of the Urzuhg walked up to them. It had an Artūghzian chained up following it. It looked beaten and tired. They're enslaving them?? Nelson thought with a frown. The Urzuhg immediately greeted them in its own language. After a brief exchange with Miranda, it switched to English. "Of course. Welcome to ZuhTanga. I apologize human. I didn't realize you didn't speak Urzuhg. We were informed of your arrival. I assume you need the core for the project?" Miranda nodded. I still don't know what this fucking project is exactly, or why they couldn't just use Miranda. She's a better hybrid than me, he thought irritably. "Well follow me," The Urzuhg told them. He noticed a few of the others there were definitely not too happy to see them. They were frowning and a few growling, but none of them did anything. As they walked, the Urzuhg told them, "Yes, you might call me Trūhditz. (True- dis) I'm a human specialist of sorts. From what I understand you lived a portion of your life with the humans on Earth?" "Not really," Miranda replied. "I guess you could say that," Nelson said. "I must ask," Trūhditz began, "Is Dr. Seuss truly humanity's greatest poet? Rivaled only by two packs?" Nelson smiled a bit. "You mean Tupac?" Trūhditz nodded with apparent great interest. "I'm already learning stuff," he said eagerly. "What about this though, do humans really eat toilet paper?" Nelson raised and eyebrow. "Huh?" "While in orbit around your planet, we intercepted some radio signals from some location called You too? Or something of that nature. Some Human female was eating what she called toilet paper. We were still under the impression that you ate other creatures." He must mean YouTube, Nelson thought amusedly."We do eat animals," He clarified, "She's just weird. I promise we're not all like her."
"I see," Trūhditz noted, "Surely you've noticed the animal mutilations that have been occurring. On top of the toilet paper girl, we have intercepted a number of.... concerning radio signals. We were double checking the animals to see if your animals you normally eat were going bad or something. It's starting to look like you're on the verge of a mass extinction.. again." "Yeah they aren't too smart down there," Nelson agreed. "Funny you should say," Trūhditz replied, "Anyhow, you should find that core in here." He pointed them towards the large octagonal skyscraper. "Ask for Kurdíl. He should have what you need by now. Also, as I'm sure you noticed, all of us here aren't BBBFL. Don't wonder around." With that, Trūhditz took his leave, dragging along his whining Artūghzian by the chain.

         Miranda put her hand on the front of the door, and it lifted right up to let them in. An Urzuhg stood perfectly still in the middle of the other wise empty room. It had two of its four arms behind it "Kurdìl?" Miranda asked. The Urzuhg nodded. "I assume you came for this?" It asked.  It held up a golden sphere holographic looking sphere. It seemed to be moving around in Kirdìl's hand. "Yeah," Miranda said slowly looking around. "Well look," Kirdìl said, "You're not gonna be using this." The door behind them slammed down shut. Nelson's green vision intensified as he realized what must be going on. He put a hand on Nightmare, and the other on the extraterrestrial gun (which he thought looked like a shotgun). "So that's how it is," Miranda said, her own eyes glowing green now. She looks kinda cool like that, Nelson thought, temporarily getting distracted. "You're focused on the wrong thing, human," Kurdìl growled as it took a purple weapon of its own and shot it at him. Miranda, with unbelievable speed, took out her gun and fired a green shot from it that managed to hit the purple shot mid air before it hit Nelson. A greenish-purple smoke was left where the shots intercepted each other. "Did you just shoot his bullet mid air???" Nelson gaped. "Focus!" She told him. "No sweat," Nelson said, taking Nightmare out, "We've already killed one before, remember?" "Yeah, but we have to be careful this time around," Miranda told him, "Let's get this over with, the trigger is on the right side. Just hold it down."
          Nelson and Miranda then both fired their weapons at him. He dodged both of their bullets and fired back at them both. Nelson and Miranda both rolled out of the way, but in different directions. That was when he got an idea. He threw Nightmare point first at Kurdìl. It effortlessly caught it. "Are you serious?" It laughed out loud. "Humans are so stup..." it paused in its tracks as Nelson began controlling Nightmare with his mind. He controlled it to stab Kurdìl in the face. He was a lot a better at it than he was on Earth since he had been meditating constantly when he was stuck in that room. "Impressive," Miranda remarked. "How..." Kurdìl struggled with Nightmare inching closer to its face. Miranda lifted up her weapon and began firing. They completely overpowered Kurdìl, and his light gray milky blood splattered everywhere along with its Urzuhg yell. "Another one bites the dust," Nelson smiled. "That was pretty awesome, I'm not gonna lie," she told him. "Now all we gotta do is..."
          But she was cut off by seven other Urzuhg rushing in in them. Four of them rushed Miranda and three rushed Nelson. He managed to dodge two of them, but was knocked unconscious by the third.