Chapter 2: Just Keep Swimming.
Elsewhere, outside of Sul in the year 2112.
"Hungry… pretty… hungry… ooh pretty… mmmm hungry…"
A fish was swimming.
And thinking.
Thinking of food… but also getting distracted by other things.
Like the stars.
"Shiny…"
This had been going on for years.
The fish would tend to forget about its own hunger constantly just by staring out at the stars. This particular fish was distracted by the same star he'd seen countless
Kepler-442b. The very same destination Leo had in mind for his new home.
And this fish was planning to sunbathe near it, as it had done many times before.
"Food… warm… cozy…"
For a fish, it was incredibly intelligent, though it was still a fish. Even if it was an Astral Beast.
A titanic monster capable of devouring entire moons was planning to sunbathe at its favorite spot, completely forgetting its hunger for warmth and sleep.
Meanwhile,
"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"
"PANIC! PANIC!"
"HUMANITY IS CURSED! CURSED, I TELL YOU!"
The reason people were panicking was simple. While most of the people went into cryo, some people were required to come out of cryo whenever something went wrong on their voyage.
And something was very, very wrong.
"Why is there a giant fish chasing after us?!"
"Why didn't the scanners show this THING before now?!"
The captain of the ship had a pale face as he realized the problem.
"This thing is moving at a speed we can barely react to! The scanners just saw it half an hour ago! We need to abandon ship! Drop the pods out of the airlock!"
The captain proceeded to press the emergency evacuation button while he watched the smaller colony ships simply fly out of the way.
'Of course our ship had to be the biggest one! We can't move out of the way in time!'
Minutes passed, and the captain was already back in cryo and floating in space. Fortunately, each pod had the ability to self-pilot on its own to reattach itself to the hull of the closest colony ship.
Whether the pod survived the journey was up for debate, however.
As for Leo?
His pod was different. Bigger, armor-plated, secure.
In other words?
Slow.
Within seconds, the main colony ship found itself getting devoured by a giant that looked like a betta fish.
"Hmm?…"
The Astral Beast felt something hit its mouth. Something lodging between its teeth. Barely noticeable.
Not worth eating.
So it ignored it.
Just like that, Leo was stuck in the teeth of a betta fish with way too many eyes scattered all over its body and scales that constantly changed colors.
If Leo were awake to see it in full glory, he might even call it beautiful.
Present day,
{After that you—
"What?! I can't hear you over the gunshots!"
{… Nevermind.}
For some reason, he felt like the system was upset at him.
Whatever, it doesn't matter. I just need to get somewhere where I can think straight.
Just as I thought that, I crashed into another person, pushing against them and throwing them against the wall, and watching them turn into a pancake!
"F**K!" he shouted for what felt like the tenth time today.
Just as he turned left at the junction, he saw three people with swords in hand—probably guards or something who heard the shouting.
One of them whispered under their breath, "Woah, pretty," for some reason.
Before I could stop to ask what they were talking about, they prepared to slash at me.
I instinctively raised my hand up in fear.
'Why did I do that?!' I quickly thought as I waited for the sword to cut my arm off.
I waited, but nothing happened.
I opened my eyes and realized the sword had struck me, yet nothing happened. I just looked at the sword in confusion, wondering if it was dull or if there was a trick or something.
Yet when I looked back at the pirate, he too was surprised.
Before his face went pale and he backed away, with the other two following suit.
I ran past them, but not before pushing one of them back.
He tried to dodge, but I was quick enough to tap him on the shoulder with a bit of force. That seemed to be enough to send him reeling back in pain.
'Did I just break his arm? And tank a sword without feeling it?'
The more he started thinking, the less he began to panic and look back on his earlier encounters. He didn't even see the original guys attacking him chasing after him.
So they either grew tired of chasing him, or they realized what a monster he really was.
After running for a little bit, he finally calmed down and took stock of the situation. He looked around and found what looked like a map.
After looking it over, he found where he was and realized he was actually really close to the captains bridge.
After looking over everything, he quickly realized how odd the design of the ship was. It was purely bare minimum.
You had a cargo hold, bridge, engine room, and barracks.
Which is fine. The problem is what was outside of all that. This entire ship was built like a human-sized ant colony, but without the dirt. It was literally a rectangular box with no hull, armor, or any meat on its bones.
Just the occasional small rocket to make sure we go in the right direction.
"This place is a safety hazard!"
Just as he said that, he heard shouting and noticed many people with makeshift weapons coming towards him.
So he quickly went back to running. Not out of fear of their swords and spears, but because he was afraid if he didn't hurry to the bridge, they would do something drastic.
After a little bit of running, he realized he had outrun his tail.
He stopped and looked back in confusion.
"Maybe they grew up on asteroids or something? They must have weak bones."