Stepping through a Star-Gate wasn't a walk; it was a cosmic mugging.
One moment, I was standing in the humid, oily filth of Aethryx; the next, the universe grabbed me by the ankles and whipped me through a straw. My vision inverted, my stomach tried to exit through my ears, and then—WHAM. I hit a wall of air so cold it felt like my lungs had been flash-frozen in liquid nitrogen.
"AGHHH! MY VASCULAR SYSTEM IS CRYSTALLIZING! I CAN TASTE MY OWN EYEBALLS!" Vax shrieked.
We didn't land. We plummeted. The "Elite Scavenger" spoofing code Vax used didn't apparently come with a "Parachute" or "Dignity" sub-routine. We fell through a rift in the sky and slammed into a snowbank deep enough to swallow a hover-car.
I sat up, gasping, as my breath turned into a solid cloud of frost. My HUD was a mess of flickering red warnings.
[ WARNING: AMBIENT TEMPERATURE -62°C ]
[ SUIT INTEGRITY: 10% (Tattered Coat is now a Frozen Cape) ]
[ STATUS: POPSICLE IN TRAINING ]
"Kuro? Pod?" I managed to wheeze. My teeth were chattering so hard I was worried I'd bite my tongue off.
A black tail flicked out of a pile of powder nearby. Kuro emerged, looking less like a majestic mentor and more like a very angry, very wet ball of soot. He shook himself, sending ice shards flying like shrapnel.
"I hate space," Kuro hissed, his ears pinned back so far they disappeared. "I hate the vacuum. And I especially hate you, Fuen. If my whiskers snap off, I am weaving them into a noose for your neck."
Bloop-brrr! Pod popped out of my pocket.
He wasn't neon blue anymore; he was a pale, sickly frosty white. His jelly had hardened into something resembling a lemon sorbet that had been left in the freezer for a decade. He tried to bounce, but instead of a springy leap, he just hit the ice with a dull, pathetic thud.
"Where's Vax?" I asked, squinting against the blinding white glare.
"I am... currently... a part of the landscape," a muffled, vibrating voice came from beneath a pile of blue ice. Vax's long, purple legs were sticking straight up out of the snow, kicking feebly like an upturned beetle.
Before I could pull him out, the ground beneath us began to vibrate. It wasn't an earthquake; it was a rhythmic, heavy Thump. Thump. Thump.
"Vax, get up! Something's coming!"
From behind a jagged pillar of frost, the Iron-Crabs appeared. They were the size of small tanks, their shells glowing with a pulsating violet light—raw, concentrated Pulse-Ore.
Their claws were serrated metal blades that sparked as they scraped against the permafrost.
"Oh, look," Kuro muttered, retreating behind my leg. "The locals are here to greet us.
They look like they've been waiting for a snack. And unfortunately, you're the only one here made of meat."
"Pod! Sync! I need a shield!" I yelled, drawing my kinetic-baton.
Pod tried to launch himself at a discarded mining drill nearby, but he was too frozen. He landed in the snow with a wet splat. The lead crab hissed, a sound like steam escaping a pipe, and raised a massive claw to crush my skull.
ROOOOOOARRRRR!
The sound was so violent it literally rattled my teeth.
A massive white blur descended from a high ledge above us. It wasn't a fall; it was a controlled demolition. It was a Polar Bear.
But he was huge—nearly ten feet tall—wearing a rusted, oversized chest plate and carrying a massive, blunt metal pillar strapped to his back like a club.
He landed directly on top of the lead Iron-Crab. CRUNCH. The sheer weight of him shattered the Pulse-Ore shell into a thousand violet splinters.
"Stupid rocks!" the bear bellowed. His voice was deep, echoing, and—let's be honest—he sounded like a guy who had spent way too much time talking to himself. "Rocks not for eating! Rocks for smashing!"
He grabbed the second crab by its legs and swung it like a flail, slamming it into a third one with a sickening K-BOOM!
The bear turned around, his black nose twitching as he sniffed the air. He looked at me, then at the frozen Pod, then at Vax, who was finally standing up and dusting snow off his four eyes.
"Are you... small, hairless bears?" the bear asked, tilting his massive head. "And why is your purple bear so thin? He looks like a toothpick. I could use him to clean the crab-meat from my teeth."
"I am NOT a toothpick!" Vax screamed, clutching his scanner. "I am a high-level specialist of the Xandarian Drifters!"
"He's a loud toothpick," the bear grunted. He stepped closer, towering over us. "I am Bjorn. I live in cave. I guard the shinies. But I get bored. Shinies don't talk back. And they taste like metal."
"I'm Fuen," I said, cautiously lowering my baton. "We're here for the ore. And... we might be looking for a team member who can hit things. Very, very hard."
Bjorn's eyes lit up. "Team? Like... a pack?
Do I get to smash things?"
"You get to smash everything," Kuro said, stepping forward and looking at the bear with royal approval. "Finally, some decent muscle. I was tired of watching the human try to look intimidating. It was embarrassing for both of us."
Bjorn let out a happy roar that caused a small avalanche on a nearby peak. "I like cat! Cat is small and fuzzy! Like a snack, but I will not eat friend-snack!"
"Stop calling me a snack," Kuro warned.
[ NEW TEAMMATE JOINED: BJORN (THE GLACIER) ]
[ LEVEL: 8 (BEAST-TYPE) ]
[ INTELLIGENCE: 2 (BUT HIS HEART IS LEVEL 100) ]
"More crabs coming!" Bjorn pointed his massive paw toward the horizon. Hundreds of violet lights were flickering in the dark, closing in.
"Vax, give us a path! Bjorn, clear the way!" I shouted.
"I smash path! You follow Bjorn!" the bear yelled, swinging his metal pillar and sending three crabs flying into the air like basebal-sized pebbles.
"Bloop!" Pod cheered, finally warming up enough to turn blue. He hopped onto Bjorn's shoulder, sinking into the bear's rusted armor. Suddenly, the armor began to glow with neon-blue energy, and small hydraulic thrusters popped out of the bear's shoulder pads.
"Ooh! Bjorn is a glow-bear now! Bjorn is fast!" The bear laughed, charging into the swarm with newfound speed.
I ran behind him, laughing despite the freezing wind. We were a disaster. A purple nerd, a bossy cat, a slime-powered polar bear, and me.
"Aethryx isn't ready for this!" I yelled.
"Aethryx isn't ready for us!" Vax corrected, firing a flare into the dark.