"Ah, there they are." A deep cracking voice echoed through the bridge from a haunted spaceship, which was flying in front of the Blackcrow. Not pleased that their disguise got unmasked by a magical force, a dark blue ghost bean slowly floated closer to the middle of their bridge. "Seems like they noticed us by now. What a shame."
"Captain Spec, their spaceship is bigger than ours." Another voice behind him raised up. It didn't seem like their captain cared about this certain detail at all. He swung himself around and glared at one of his ghostly members; a bean with forest-fire like colors and a body shape that closely resembled an axolotl.
"You forgot about one thing, Saul." He then went and reminded: "The size of a spaceship doesn't matter. What matters is who will be leading it. A captain's personality and strength of will is more important than the size of their spaceship."
That wise advice made Saul sink away in silence. With respect, the axolotl ghost nodded and floated back into the shadows. The captain turned once again around to look at the giant spaceship again and studied it closely with his pitch-black visor for a fleeting moment. "We have been assigned the mission to distract them from General Cole's attempt to steal a certain material, which Tricon needs back. Don't be careful, be rough with our victims. Have I made myself clear enough?"
"Aye, Captain." Only one did answer him in return, a purple ghost with spider-like legs that seemed to erupt from his back. The others understood silently and faded away.
"That was just a foretaste, Blackcrow." Spec was quietly mumbling to himself. Determined to fulfill Lord Mobulous's mission. "The real fun, begins now."
"S-Saros? Do you know what that thing is?" A worried voice raised up: it was Moon who's thoughts got distracted by worries. With her visor focused on the mysterious spaceship, the cyan bean listened closely to Saros's answer.
"I've never seen this kind of spaceship before, Moon." The wizard admitted. "I'm not sure what it is. All I can say is; it doesn't look like the cleanest spaceship."
It truly didn't look clean. Whoever this ship belonged to, they were really lazy with cleaning or repairing the damaged parts.
"Zipper, contact them." An order came from Pitch, he wandered away from Moon to make a gesture that he felt better. At least, that's what Pitch pretended. Zipper, from his workstation, tried to contact the strange ship. But no one responded. Nobody seemed to be on board. He wasn't even able to scan it. It was there but its actual existence wasn't.
"I can't contact them, Captain." Zipper reported. A mumbled snarling was the only response from Pitch which his members heard.
"I guess we have no other choice but to explore this spaceship on our own." Totally startled and puzzled about their lord's sudden demand, everyone looked at Pitch from their positions.
"Pitch, are you crazy?!" Hawk said in frustration and fear. "You have no clue what could wait for us on that spaceship once we step foot on it!"
Hawk was right in a point, a point which even Moon could understand. Not even their own daughter was happy to hear about this suggestion from the black captain. Sure, she knew that Pitch was just doing his duties: duties to investigate, to increase knowledge and perhaps to make new friends and allies. But that spaceship didn't look friendly a single bit. Something with its current spooky aura gave Starla the creeps and her mother as well.
Insecurities were filled up in them and the family continued to look at Pitch with a worried and fearful expression. As Pitch turned himself around, he noticed that his members weren't ready to explore the ship. But someone had to do it. Someone, c'mon.
"I'm not, Hawk." Pitch refuted. "However, before we can continue with our work, we need to get rid of this bewitched spaceship. I have the assumption that they have to do something with Ulgara's citizens' sudden change in behavior."
"But uncle Pitch...?" Starla raised up her voice, but he only shook his head at her.
"Shepp, Flash, Starla, Cain and myself will go on that spaceship. Everyone else will keep their visors on the Blackcrow's well-being and our surroundings." The order was given out, boldly and sternly. Hawk couldn't believe that Pitch wanted to send Starla on this mission. The purple captain stepped in front of Pitch and waved as a gesture that he wanted to contest such an order, especially on behalf of Starla.
"No, Pitch." He said and pointed his purple finger angrily at him. "My daughter won't be going anywhere on such a dangerous spaceship."
The young bean didn't want it either but on the other hand it would be her first mission ever. Nobody could have ever imagined telling her that her first mission involved a spooky spaceship. Starla kept thinking about it, the more she thought about it... the more she wanted to go and explore it anyway.
"Alright uncle Pitch, I'll go with you." Starla decided.
"No!" Hawk interrupted without thinking further and walked closer to his daughter to have a more serious talk with her. "I deny it. I won't allow you to go down to this dangerous spaceship. You aren't ready for such a deadly mission yet."
"But dad, Pitch said I'm old enough. Why can't you take me seriously? I'm not a baby anymore!" That truth was obviously hurting the purple dad in secret. To hear that from his own daughter. For him, Starla was always a tiny child. A sensitive bean which needed a lot of care and love from her parents. He didn't want to believe that she was all grown up now as an adult. Because she wasn't. In Hawk's mind, not yet.
"You are still my child, Starla. You won't go on that mission!" Hawk kept saying and she got annoyed the more her dad was talking about it.
"Grrr, enough you two." Then, Pitch stopped the discussion. "Hawk, go back to your sleeping-quarters, immediately."
It was a very rare occasion that Hawk ever growled in public. Moon could clearly feel his anger as she heard him growling. For Starla, was this a rare situation as well that she heard her dad snarling like this. Without saying anything in response, Hawk turned around and left the bridge with angry, thundering footsteps.
In the Blackcrow's hangar, two shuttles soon started their engines simultaneously, set to launch out of the open airlock and fly to their destination. The scary spaceship loomed even larger the more they flew in its direction. Starla was teamed together with Flash and Pitch in one shuttle, the others took the second one. With ginger footsteps, Flash carefully stepped outside first as they arrived and landed. The material which this spaceship was made out of felt weird. Not even Flash could recognize the substance. All he saw was that the ship's inner walls had a red glowing aura. Highly because of the strange color from the lights which were attached evenly on the walls and hallways.
Flash detected broken pieces as well as he completely stepped outside the shuttle around him. They had entered into a storage room it seems, a storage room stacked with boxes and stuff the crew had haphazardly stored within. Wires were dangling lazily above their heads; the yellow bean had to be careful to not hit his helmet against one. Cobwebs were also seen as well.
"Ouch!" But Flash was too clumsy. A broken banister that had jutted from out the ceiling and was cut in half and hanging down had gotten in his way and he hit his helmet accidentally. It made a short metallic-kind of echo sound and vibrated through the whole spaceship. The way it echoed creeped Flash out and gave him goosebumps all over his body.
"Stupid banister." The yellow one muttered to himself. "Captain, you need to see this."
Flash then whispered after his pain faded away and Pitch clambered out the shuttle, followed by everyone else. Red lights made the atmosphere into a scary mood. Dust surrounded the explorers so much to the point that Starla had to sneeze. Her lady-like sneeze echoed through the corridors too.
"What a messed-up place." That sentence said Shepp beside Cain and Starla. "Whatever crew who owns this spaceship really should clean it. Seriously, I mean c'mon: look at those broken storage boxes and all the garbage that's laying on the ground! Ergs. I wouldn't even store my sword in there." The sheep-like bean complained.
There were indeed stacks of very old boxes which Shepp saw a few meters away, laying chaotically on the ground or stacked. Most of them were peppered with holes and scratch marks and were technically unusable. Captain Pitch however, ignored his complaint behind him and walked a few steps ahead. The others followed him until he stopped. He turned around to look at his members to order the following:
"I'd suggest we split into two groups. I'll go with Cain and Starla. Flash and Shepp, you two will explore the other side of this spaceship."
Pitch made a short pause before he continued:
"Use your communication chips when needed." His deep quiet voice echoed as well as he spoke.
They followed his order accordingly.
Damaged spaceship pieces on the ground and the walls around the trio made it difficult for Pitch, Cain and Starla to wander by. In a line walked the explorers; followed by Pitch, in the middle was Starla and the end represented Cain. More and more boxes and trash blocked their path as they walked further down the corridors. Captain Pitch had to gently kick some of the dusty boxes aside to make room and to see the ground. Nothing special seemed to be here.
Not yet.
On the Blackcrow was Moon very nervous about her child's well-being on board that scary spaceship. She kept her visor locked on that spaceship and trembled nervously with her leg. She sat on Hawk's chair in the main bridge and was thinking. Not just about her daughter but about Hawk's well-being too. Zipper could clearly sense her nervousness and got annoyed from it. He remained silent until Moon decided to stay up.
She looked at Zipper and said: "I need to check on my husband. Could you call Berry and Bane to keep an eye out on the bridge with you?"
Without anything as a response, the grey bean gave a short nod. Moon walked out to make her way to their sleeping-quarters. As she arrived and entered their room, the cyan mother spotted her husband standing in front of the window. He was watching the stars outside and was trapped in worry. Some asteroids floated in his view before they disappeared out of sight.
"Hawk?" Moon's soft voice calmed the purple captain down. She walked closer until she reached him and gently wrapped her hands around his stomach. Her cuddles were gentle and the purple dad enjoyed her touch. His own hands moved up and laid them instinctively on top of Moon's hands. The first thing the cyan bean could notice was his nervous short breathing.
"You are worried about our daughter, aren't you?" Moon then said gingerly and kept petting his stomach and chest, in hope to calm his worried breathing.
"Yes, my strawberry. I am." He admitted.
"I'm worried about her too. But I can understand that she doesn't want to be treated like a baby anymore." Upon hearing that statement from his wife, the purple captain shook Moon's hands off his stomach to walk to their couch. He sat down onto the soft furniture and sighed, frustrated. A glass of water was standing on the table near him, he took it in his hands and took a sip. He kept the glass in his hands whilst Moon joined him on the couch. She was sitting beside him and rubbed his back softly.
"She's still our child, who needs a lot of care. I can't just... let her be on such a dangerous spaceship. I don't want her to get injured." Cracking and a worried undertone was heard from Hawk's voice. Moon could clearly see that he was exceptionally worried.
"I know, Hawk." She answered and cuddled closer against his body. "We could send her a message through her communication chip, maybe that'll help a bit?"
That idea was great.
Without hesitation, Hawk laid his glass back on the table and took his communication chip out of his pocket. Moon and Hawk both typed a message together and sent it to her daughter. All they hoped now was that she would receive it. The cyan bean cuddled even closer against Hawk after the message was sent. Hawk sunk into her cuddles, resting his head on her cheek. Tiredness began to overflow their bodies. As Hawk looked down to his wife he could see that she fell asleep. Hawk decided to join her and closed his visor as well to take a well deserved nap.
Old tools were seen in some of those boxes on that rusty spaceship as they walked around their halls. Ahead of them laid another path to a separate room. It smelled different than the others, maybe it was their cafeteria? Curiously, the explorers wandered over to that room to check it out. It led to another room whose halls and ceilings contained black scratches down the metal walls, cobwebs were above them in each edge the room had too, everywhere they walked in. Pitch led the trio inside the room.
It took a few seconds for them to realize that they had reached the kitchen. There were certain cooking tools that Pitch could immediately recognize on their rotten tables.
Whilst Cain and Pitch were walking around their old ovens and cooking supplies, Starla was distracted by something else: a big silver container which had a giant dark hole in it. Different kinds of fruits caught the young one's attention and curiosity as she wandered nearer. Her curiosity was too strong to not ignore it. Wires were attached on this thing, big and small ones. Looked like a freezer, probably. White lights were also attached on the container. Its form was like a cube. Starla spotted a bit of red blood on it as she walked closer. Before she could touch the object to check out the stored unknown fruits, her communication chip began to blink. The rose-colored bean took the chip and saw that she received a message. From her parents.
Annoyance flooded up inside her like a fast river as she saw the notification, but she gave herself a push and read it in her thoughts:
"We love you, Starla. Please, be careful on that spaceship. We care and think about you. - Mom and dad."
Starla sighed quietly but laid the communication chip aside and continued with her work without any more thoughts on that message. She looked down to the stored fruit. One of them looked strange. She grabbed her courage and took the weird looking fruit, which reminded of an apple. But it wasn't an apple. The form might be close to one but its dark spots clearly indicated it wasn't. Orange and brown, mixed with black and purple spots. It was tiny and fit in her hand. She gasped silently out of shock as the fruit moved sharp legs out, four, like a spider. The young bean let the fruit fall to the ground and it made a blunt noise. Suddenly, something else was moving a fruit aside. A sharp and small claw. Starla became even more curious, until something unexpected happened.
In the distance heard Pitch and Cain Starla loudly screaming. They looked wildly around and couldn't see her anywhere. Pitch was mad that he lost her.
"Where's Starla?!" Pitch asked out of panic to Cain behind him.
"I don't know, I thought she was with you." Cain answered and another scream was heard. The black captain gave his best to locate her screams and looked rapidly around. He ran back in hope to see her at the entrance, and he was right.
"Starla!" The black captain screamed her name. There she was, fighting with a weird looking creature which attacked her. The creature resembled a rat, it had red glowing eyes, white long sharp teeth and was half as tall as Starla herself. Fruits were chaotically smashed around them.
Cain took his chains on his body as he spotted that rat-like beast and shackled it around its body, like a lariat. But it didn't seem to bother the creature. It continued hissing at them.
"Pitch, Cain! Help me!" She begged after another one of those monsters decided to join. Four of them. Four of them surrounded the explorers. Cain had one in his chains shackled. Captain Pitch took his sword and jumped in to help Starla out. But the creature was still hissing and moving around. The beast couldn't die like Pitch expected it to do after he stabbed the beast's body. Their red tail began to glow as the sword kept stabbing the one which Pitch had in his control. But nothing happened as they brightened up.
"Careful, Captain!" It was Cain who warned his captain about another rat who wanted to jump on him. The rat could scratch on the black one's spacesuit, but Pitch wasn't bothered by the pain. He hid his pain to himself, punched the rat away from his body and held his sword with the other hand. The last one pinned Starla on the wall, where fruits were stacked behind her. The undead rat was hissing and tried to scratch her rose-colored spacesuit.
"Ah! Help!" She continued screaming in fear. The dark cyan bean Cain threw his chains up in the air to whip the other rat in his chains grasp in order to help Starla out. The undead beast crashed painfully into the kitchen's ceiling.
A few clear scratches got the young one after Cain helped her to get rid of the beast. Starla ran towards Pitch as her path was free.
"What are those things!?" Starla wanted to know but Pitch and Cain were too busy with defending themselves to answer back.
As Cain was free, the dark cyan bean detected very long knives attached on the wall above a cooking table. Tools which could have been used earlier but he didn't complain. He took some of the longest knives and threw them directly to the rats, to stab them. Pitch was gasping for air. He took that short pause to take a breather. With exhausted steps Pitch toddled a few meters backwards to Cain and Starla and said:
"Undead rats."
"What?!" Starla was speechless. Why would someone have undead rats on their spaceship? "Undead rats?!"
"Aye."
Before Pitch could raise up any more words, the fighters quickly spotted a shadow on the ground. A shadow from which a black visor opened and crawled up the wall to concuss them. A red glowing dot was seen in its visor as he looked down to them.
"Who dares to attack my minions?!" A cracking voice was heard as echo. More hissing was heard through the room from those beasts and their tails began to brighten up again. That glow on their body was a warning system. A giant ax came out the shadow and with that, a blood-colored ghost.
"AH! Ghost!" The young one Starla yelled again. Not even Pitch or Cain could believe their visor.
"Run!" Ordered Pitch as he saw the ghost coming out of his shadow. The blood-colored ghost raised up his other ghostly claws and removed the knives from his minions' bodies with a levitation force. He swung wildly around with his weapon with the other claw in a vengeful rage.
"Attack them! Tear them apart!" The ghost commanded. After the knives got removed, those undead monsters chased our heroes down multiple corridors with dogged determination. The ghost threw the knives in the direction towards the trio but they dodged the attack successfully. Luckily, nobody got hit. Challenges after challenges got in their way as Pitch, Cain and Starla ran towards a vent where they could successfully distract the rats while hiding themselves. Cain closed the vent in time before the malignant monsters could notice that they were hiding. It was hard for Pitch to keep up with his breathing, he gasped exhausted for air. So did Starla and Cain as they leaned themselves against the vents four walls. A cobweb got entangled in Starla's purple hair however and she almost gasped out of fright out loudly. Cain removed the cobwebs from her hair with his claw and laid his other hand on his captain's shoulder.
"Seems like we have to deal with something way bigger than we thought." Cain meant but Pitch shook his hand off his body and growled, exasperated.
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Edited/Corrected by: https://www.deviantart.com/spectra-shift