Stardust

When Mitch O’Connor’s spacecraft touched down on the world of Stardust, he couldn’t believe how small it was. It truly was a retreat for an introverted hermit like Marcus Edge. The door to the pod-like spacecraft opened and Mitch clunked down the stairs in his spiked metal power armor while carrying a gauss rifle that was bigger than his own arms. “Oh, this is too easy. Too damn easy!” he said to himself.

Stardust wasn’t the most complex world in the galaxy. Smallness aside, it appeared to be a jungle land complete with coconut trees, dirt trails, tall grass, plant life, just your everyday nature trail on planet earth. Even for a planet this tiny, Mitch still had a problem finding his target Marcus Edge. It didn’t help matters that the space mercenary was stomping around on the ground in his gigantic metal boots. Then again, his job didn’t require a great deal of stealth, so he didn’t dwell on it much.

“Marcus Edge!” shouted Mitch through an amplified microphone inside his space helmet. “I know your ass is around here somewhere! I’m feeling pretty good today, probably because toasting your little world is going to be the easiest thing I’ve ever done! So here’s what I’m going to do, Marcus: I’m going to give you the chance to get your hermit ass off this planet so that when I burn down the plant life and kill all the animals, you won’t have to be a part of it. My boss at World Corp wants to turn your little home into a vacation getaway. It don’t look like much of a vacation right now, buddy boy. It looks more like…”

Before he was allowed to finish his oratory, Mitch O’Connor’s legs were snatched up from underneath him and he hung upside down on a vine. He was so far off the ground that when he dropped his rifle, he couldn’t pick the damn thing back up again. “Oh, you’ve got traps now?” he said. “Well, I got news for you, smart ass: I’ve been doing this shit for a whole decade and ain’t no vine going to stop my ass from burning everything in sight!”

His boldness turned to fear when he found himself face to face with a Venus Fly Trap, the owner of that tight vine. This particular plant had teeth the size of railroad spikes and blood oozing from its mouth like a waterfall. Mitch’s lips were vibrating and his eyes widened at the sight of this monster. And then he went back to being bold when he said, “Wait a minute! Why the hell am I scared of a goddamn plant?”

With his metal space helmet, Mitch O’Connor unleashed a powerful head butt to the Venus Fly Trap, loosening a few teeth and spraying some more blood, but more importantly, loosing the vine’s grip on the mercenary’s legs. Mitch plummeted to the grassy ground below, but his metal armor protected him from injury, so he pretty much picked himself up, dusted himself off, and found his rifle again.

“Is that all you got, Marcus? Some stupid plant? Oh, this is going to be easier than I thought! And I’m making millions off of this job! It’s like Christmas came early!” boasted Mitch.

“Don’t be too sure of that, you disgusting human!” said the busted up Venus Fly Trap in a raspy voice. With Mitch watching in awe and horror, the plant morphed into a human being wearing bear skin clothing and a raccoon cap on his head. This was him alright: Marcus Edge, hermit druid.

“Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be, huh? You want to put up a fight? Well, goddamn, man, you’ve got one now, bitch!” shouted the soldier for hire when he raised his gauss rifle and opened automatic fire. That many plutonium bullets would have been enough to shred a normal human being into dust. Hell, the surgeons would need a microscope to put his sorry ass back together again. But when the storm of bullets ended, there was no corpse.

Instead all Mitch O’Connor got was a deafening bird squawk right in his left ear. Marcus, who now morphed into a parrot, continued to blast his windpipes in his opponent’s ear and double the man over as he got a headache. When the druid believed his adversary had enough, he flew off into the sunset and left Mitch to clutch his aching head.

The sudden drop in volume inspired the mercenary to aim his rifle and unleash another rainstorm of violence upon his opponent. The shredding impact only resulted in one feather this time. On measly little feather.

“What the hell’s going on here?!” Good question, Mr. O’Connor. What was going on was that Marcus Edge had now morphed into a charging rhino. The tank-like beast barreled and stampeded his way across the grass and knocked a few trees over. With little time for his opponent to react, Marcus gored Mitch and sent him flying backwards several feet, knocking a few trees over himself.

That power armor was a blessing for Mitch since he had just survived a high drop and getting spear tackled by a rhino. But now the mercenary was feeling the pain. He was so exhausted from these attacks that he took longer than usual to get up. He crashed into trees, for god’s sake. Trees! Yet he continued to be brash and cocky in the face of danger.

“Is that all you got, you son of a bitch? What are you going to change into now, a small puppy? Are you going to bark your way to victory?” yelled Mitch.

Changing from a rhino back to his human form, Marcus slowly approached his nemesis and said, “No, I’m not going to do any barking today. That’s been your job since you landed on Stardust, you asshole.”

With Mitch watching in awe of his opponent, Marcus continued his speech with, “You know what I detest about the human race? You people think you have the right to conquer whatever the hell you want. You did it on earth with pretty much every group of people that wasn’t white, including Indians and Africans. That’s all you guys do: just take, take, take. You have some oil? I’ll take that. You have human rights? I’ll take that as well. Is that supposed to be impressive? To who, exactly? Your mother? Your father? Your trophy wife? The president himself? How many more people have to die before you’re finally satisfied with the things you already have! You make me sick! You all make me sick!”

An uncomfortable hush had fallen over the scene and then Marcus laid into Mitch some more, “That’s why I came to Stardust: to get away from it all. And now some space jockey like you decides to come to my world and sell it to some rich asshole? Let me fill you in on a little secret, buddy boy. Stardust isn’t just any tiny planet. It’s the product of my own imagination. As long as I keep being creative, I can manipulate any part of this world I want while you only have that stupid rifle to overcompensate for your small penis. To put it in words even a money-hungry thug like you can understand…you were screwed the minute you stepped foot on my world.”

This would have been the best time for Mitch O’Connor to get back in his spaceship and tell his bosses at World Corp to shove it. Just leave now while he still had his peace of mind and still had his health. But instead he decided to keep playing the role of an arrogant jerk-ass. He yelled, “You worthless piece of shit!” prior to opening fire yet again.

Except this time it wasn’t just plutonium bullets. It was also fireballs, ice sickles, lightning bolts, biological sludge, and laser beams, all of which were hidden compartments on his rifle and all of which were necessary in doing his job to destroy entire planets to get them ready for flipping.

After unloading a cataclysm of agony that Armageddon itself could never produce, Mitch didn’t even check to see if there was a corpse this time. He just dropped to his hands and knees, breathed deeply, and laughed his ass off. “I got you, bitch! I got you this time! And there ain’t nothing you can do about it!”

Mitch was so busy laughing his way to insanity that he didn’t realize he was sinking in a mud pit. Even when the mud was completely covering his space helmet, he couldn’t have cared less. It was when he was underneath the mud pit and into a cavern of filth that he realized what was going on. The realization hit him even harder when Marcus was standing there with his arms folded saying, “What took you so long?”

“No…no…this ain’t happening, man! This ain’t happening! Don’t you ever fucking die, man?!” screamed a deranged Mitch O’Connor.

Marcus laid a hand on his invader’s metal shoulder and said, “Old druids don’t die. They just get better.” With Mitch shedding tears of defeat, Marcus Edge transformed into a gigantic grizzly bear and started chewing and mauling his way through the metal armor, which at this point was a lot like opening a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli. Oh, the meat sauce inside was going to be so worth all this rage.