Chapter Text
Meouch’s ship slammed into the asteroid hard. It skidded and tumbled along its surface in the low gravity, and slowly rumbled to a stop. Its left wing was gone, shot clean off by a blast from Lord Phobos’s ship, and Meouch counted himself lucky that his harness held him in place and his cockpit wasn’t filled with flames.
Lord Phobos’s civilization had completely collapsed about three weeks ago, and Meouch had been on the run ever since, because for whatever reason, Phobos blamed him for the whole thing. Sure, he happened to smuggle some Funk onto the planet the day before it all went down. Sure, something spread across the planet like a plague, killed almost all the inhabitants, and drove the survivors completely mad, but it wasn’t Funk. It couldn’t have been. None of this was his fault, there was no way in hell! But apparently Phobos seemed to think so, and now Meouch was in a smoldering husk of a ship in the middle of an asteroid field, with plenty of bruises and a fierce headache.
“Okay, motherfucker,” Meouch grumbled, tugging on his helmet and locking it into place. “You wanna fight? I’ll show you a fucking fight.” He made sure his blaster was attached to his hip, kicked the cockpit hatch open, and climbed out.
Phobos was already standing on top of his own landed ship, with his jetpack humming and glowing red, and his sword drawn. All-gold armor, standing there all high and mighty, silent and dramatic. Ugh, this guy. Meouch didn’t even have a planet to call home, and you didn’t see him taking a vow of silence. Pretentious nobleman pricks. When Phobos first hailed his ship three weeks ago with the computer-generated message that he wanted revenge and that he’d gone voluntarily mute to honor his people, Meouch’s eyes had practically rolled out of his skull. How fucking archaic could a guy get? How the hell was a vow of silence supposed to help anybody? It at least meant that Meouch didn’t have to hear him talk, but still, hearing the same pre-recorded message each time they met was starting to get old. The whole act was so holier-than-thou. It pissed Meouch off then, and it really pissed him off now. Phobos really just had to go and destroy his ship, didn’t he? Well, now Meouch was just going to have to kill him and steal his ship. Not exactly his idea of a fun afternoon, but he supposed nothing involving Phobos was fun. Probably because he was the Lord of some square-ass no-fun planet. What a jerk.
A transmission came over Meouch’s radio, broadcasting right to his helmet. “My name is Lord Phobos,” said a monotone robotic voice. Ugh, again with this shit. “Commander Meouch, you killed my people. You brought about the end of my civilization, of my home, of everything I knew. I have taken a vow of silence, not to be broken until you are dead.”
“I know, asshole!” Meouch yelled, unholstering his blaster from his hip. “You send me the same exact goddamn message every time your ship gets in range! Will you stop?!”
Phobos tilted his head to the side. His expression was unreadable through his dark visor. He pointed his golden sword directly at Meouch, and his jetpack started to expel fire and smoke.
Meouch fired and landed a few shots with his blaster, though Phobos’s armor protected him from most of the damage. Phobos rushed him, slammed into him with all the force of that jetpack. Meouch went flying back. He tumbled across the surface of the asteroid, spinning, trying to get some sort of purchase with his hands and feet before he escaped its weak gravity entirely. He jammed his heel into a crater to slow himself down and fired three more shots, one of which connected with Phobos’s leg. Phobos came at him with the sword, swinging down at his head. Meouch blocked with his blaster, holding it with both hands while still searching for his footing. He found it and sidestepped, throwing Phobos off of him.
“Hey, douchebag!” Meouch yelled. “I’m gettin’ real fuckin’ sick of this! How many times do I have to tell you? I didn’t do shit!” Phobos, surprise surprise, didn’t respond, aside from swinging his sword wildly in Meouch’s direction. Meouch jumped back, narrowly avoiding the furious swings. He sailed backwards in the low gravity, the toes of his boots just skimming the rocky surface, and fired another few shots. Misses. Phobos was moving around too quickly and erratically to get a clean hit on, even at close range.
Phobos had the upper hand in maneuverability, and quickly closed the gap between them. He got a swing and his sword connected with Meouch’s non-blaster arm. The blade sliced into his bicep, a sharp burst of blood misted and boiled as soon as it hit the void of space, and Meouch kicked Phobos away to give himself some breathing room. Meouch hissed as the pain shot up his arm and Phobos and his sword tumbled away.
His suit automatically mended itself, all the nano-fibers that made up the material quickly stitching themselves back together, but his arm wasn’t as lucky. The brief brush with the freezing void stung and burned, and Meouch could barely resist the urge to drop his weapon and clamp down on his arm. It burned like fire up into his shoulder and down almost to his fingertips, and he could feel everything tingle with every heartbeat.
“Fuck,” he gasped, holding his blaster tight and stumbling to catch his balance. He fell, tumbling onto his back, kicking up dust and rocks as he connected with the ground. He looked up and saw Phobos stumbling too, the kick having thrown him off-balance and the jetpack making it difficult to find his footing again. This could be his chance.
Meouch got to his feet, planted himself as firmly as he could, and pointed his blaster at Phobos’s chest. He was getting fed up with this shit.
A strange ship popped into existence about twenty feet away, and both their weapons were pulse-blasted clean out of their hands without blowing their arms off. The blaster and sword both flew out of sight. Meouch’s mouth hung open as he stared off into the distance where his blaster disappeared, too stunned to do anything else. He looked around for his gun, only able to process one thing at a goddamn time right now. He couldn’t find it, a small gray object lost among the gray asteroid forever. What he saw instead was a beam of light coming from the unfamiliar ship, pointing right at the ground between him and Phobos, where someone was being beamed down to the surface.
The man was humanoid, short, and wearing a bright yellow and black suit. He had a visor over his eyes, a black metal mask over the bottom half of his face, and a tall orange pylon on the top of his head. His hands were exposed, with only what looked like fingerless gloves protecting them. What, was he immune to the crushing void of space or something?
“Hello gentlemen!” he said with a cheery voice and his hands heroically on his hips. His voice buzzed through Meouch’s helmet, so loud it was almost painful. “My name is Doctor Sung! Now, if I could interrupt your fight for just a moment, I’d love to ask you both--”
Phobos either didn’t notice Sung in his rage, or just didn’t care. The jetpack fired up and he slammed into Meouch again, sending both of them tumbling over each other across the craggy asteroid’s surface. Sung yelled something, but Meouch couldn’t hear it over the sounds of his helmet being slammed into the ground and Phobos’s fists pounding on the glass.
“Son of a--” Meouch grunted, trying and failing to shove Phobos off of him. He could barely tell which way was up, and while his helmet could withstand a lot, he didn’t exactly enjoy getting punched in the head. He brought his knee up, slamming it under Phobos’s ribs, and Phobos reeled back. His jetpack sputtered out, but that didn’t stop either of them from slamming into the ground, fast and hard. Meouch bounced against the rock like a stone skipping across a lake, head rattled around and body bruised. By the time he skidded to a stop, he didn’t know where Phobos was, didn’t know where Sung was or where their ships were, and was barely conscious. All he knew was that everything hurt.
He could faintly hear Sung saying something, the voice crackling through his helmet’s radio, but he couldn’t make it out, due mainly to the ringing in his ears and the fuzzy feeling in his brain. He vaguely recognized that someone was picking him up, his near-weightless body falling away from the floor, but he couldn’t see who it was. His vision was clouding up and getting dark… was that a crack in his helmet? He didn’t remember that being there. Weird. Oh well, the glass could repair minor damage, right?
As the oxygen gushed out of his helmet, that was the last thing Meouch thought before he passed out.