Beast Form

The squad leader had said that Kelioux’s dispatch would arrive in 17 minutes. Garou had gone and trusted the splotchy officer, which had proven to be a phenomenally bad decision. He recalled the alien’s face from somewhere, but his amnesia had given great cause for confusion about memorable faces. As it turned out, the PTO soldiers and grunts were not a squad under his control. There was no mission, and there wasn’t even any PTO presence on this piece of shit planet, wherever it actually was. The Keliouxian dispatch had been there from the start, attempting to capture the pirate crew called the Flying Aces.

When their officer caught wind of Garou, they made the most of the confusion and attempted to capture him instead. It was an added bonus for the splotchy fucker that Garou had taken care of that pirate gang for him as well, one that would likely end in a promotion. The only blessing here was that Garou had utterly failed to lead the Keliouxians to his ship – The Interloper was safe for now. Hopefully.

In what felt like less than an hour, Garou had gone from reveling in gladiatorial combat to extreme nausea and murdering a crew of pirates, ending with his capture and imprisonment in a ray-shielded high-security prison. And at that moment, the splotchy purple Keliouxian decided to come question Garou. The alien stood several feet away from Garou’s cell despite its ray shielding, as if he were afraid that Garou would somehow break out anyway.

“What do you want?” Garou spat through a thin smile. “You’ve already seen what I can do, and now you’ve got me trapped in this cage. I am at your whims, Officer...?”

“Sergeant, actually. Sergeant Gomi. And I just wanted to look you over a few times before you’re transferred away from Juno. Naturally, there’s a bounty on any of the PTO thugs that happen to set up shop within the Keliouxian Empire’s borders, but you really managed to outdo yourself. I’m honestly surprised you didn’t run when you saw me. You’re slipping, White Wolf.”

Despite Garou’s circumstances, his thin-lipped smile grew full. He could see a light at the end of this tunnel, one that illuminated his grand escape and return to the PTO. He gave a hearty laugh, sitting back against a hard metal wall. “You’re certainly right there, Sergeant. I’m glad you told me your name. Where I come from, that means ‘trash’. I may be slipping, but what you just did would have earned you that name in my culture.”

Garou’s eyes began to whiten and glow, a sinister energy filling the cell. His ki spread like smoke, filling the metal vessel until even with ashen hair on Garou’s head could not be seen from outside. All that Gomi could see was his own reflection in the ray shields, and the endless rows and columns of cells behind him. A low rumbling began to spread throughout the entire prison from Garou’s position, shaking the very foundation of the building. When the haze inside the cell was so thick that Gomi thought he was looking into a mirror, he started running for backup. But he was too late.

Cement and metal shattered, the explosion powerful enough to decimate not only Garou’s cell but all the cells around it. And lucky for Garou, that meant the energy emitters for the ray shielding were destroyed as well. The sergeant was literally blown away, vaporized either by the blast or an unfortunate collision with one of the ray shields on the opposite side of the prison; Garou couldn’t tell and didn’t care, so long as he felt that garbage’s ki signature wink out of existence. Hovering in the midst of his handiwork, the slender figure waited. Smoke and falling debris hid his hair and face while the jet-black clothing he wore camouflaged his body. Guards ran around in a panic as Garou bid his time, thinking of the last few words that Sergeant Gomi uttered in his life.

You’re slipping, White Wolf.

Am I slipping? I still don’t know what happened to me back then, in the gladiatorial fights. When I came back to my senses, I was in a new place with people I didn’t recognize. My body acted on its own, and I’m free now. So was I really slipping? But I can’t say for certain whether I’ll always be able to get out of this mess...

Garou didn’t have time for an internal debate just then, as a number of guardsmen stormed the hallway to keep any escapees in hand. Unfortunately for them, Garou was positive that the inhabitants of the cells surrounding his had been vaporized as well. The white wolf snorted, blowing away some of the smoke that obscured his face. His golden eyes pierced the very soul of the first guard to meet their gaze; the burst of ki that followed pierced a hole in the guard’s skull.

Screams echoed in the metal and cement structure; guards had become prisoners, and their captor felt no mercy. Garou descended to a walkway filled with Keliouxians, imperials who at their core were no different from the PTO. They just disguised their lust for power and control. The closest to Garou discharged his weapon at the white-haired warrior, but the blast never reached its mark. It dissipated just as it met the black of Garou’s chest, reforming around him as a vest of flame that stretch from his fingertips to his toes. “Now, who else wants to try that?”

Garou laughed menacingly as he took a single, slow step forward. With all the weight of his body in the toes of his left foot, Garou took off in an instant to land a right cross on the unsuspecting guard’s nose. Flames leapt from the lone wolf’s hand and engulfed the being unfortunate enough to come into contact with them. The guard sputtered, stepping back and almost lighting her fellow guardsman on fire. She caught her bearings and launched towards Garou, but the Zoranite was waiting for an attack in the first place. After all, being on the offensive was too boring.

As the guardswoman stepped into her own wild haymaker, Garou slipped under her arm, flowing like a snake about to constrict its prey. When her weight was too far forward and there was no way to step back, Garou wrapped his arms around the woman’s midsection and turned his back to the other guards. Squarely in the middle of the cluster, Garou arched his back and hugged tightly, slamming the woman’s head and neck into the pavement behind him and sending her flying into her comrades.

The wolf didn’t wait to defend another attack, fearing that wasting time would lead to a lockdown. While he was certain that he could escape any prison of this level, any further delays would lead to a tighter search net, and that would be nothing but a pain in the ass. Engulfing his fist in devilish ki, Garou punched the weakened ground and let it shatter, taking the certainly underpaid guards with it. Garou remained as he was, unaffected by such a silly thing as gravity with the weight of his ki keeping him afloat. Instead, the warrior cloaked himself in a dazzling aura of white and launched upwards. The ceiling didn’t hold him for even a moment as he blasted into an infinite sky over an even more infinite wasteland of scrapped ships.

The beauty of the infinite scrapyards covering Juno did not interest Garou, however. His only interest at the moment was finding his ship, and getting off this planet. As he scanned the horizon for a good starting point, Garou began to recognize the surrounding area. Without a doubt, he was close to his initial landing spot. Which meant, he hoped, that said ship of his would also be nearby. Before the white wolf could set off, his honed battle senses gave him a premonition. But even Garou could not react to an attack of that scale.

Juno’s red skies were filled with white pillars of light, consuming the landscape like the heavens swallowing the land. Except, this light came from below. Garou had felt the energy rapidly building, yet his instincts led him to dodge upwards and he lost the time to react adequately. His mind was white with rage, barely registering the massive attack that had torn through his body from below. The light had ripped away a piece of his side, as if some creature of impossible strength bit into his flesh and swallowed it whole. Blood was everywhere, even dying Garou’s snow-white hair with the crimson that he so often saw from his foes.

This is bad gotta run gotta get out of here gotta escape can’t fight like this-

Garou’s mind ran through every possible route of escape from an enemy that he didn’t even know existed until it blew a hole in him. He had no indication of the scope, yet suspected that it couldn’t be any of those idiotic guardsmen. One had died to his eye beams, the rest surely fell to their deaths. Even if they had survived, they didn’t have the strength to launch an attack of that scale.

All it took to answer Garou’s every question was a single voice, calling through the still air.

“I told you, Wolf. You’re slipping,” the loudspeaker was filled with static and interference, but Garou recognized the speaker nonetheless. “I’m not holding back here. You think we care about this backwater planet? All they’ve got here are some ships! You’re worth much more than that to the Empire, you fucking stray.”

With every word, Garou’s rage grew, overcoming any sense of rationality that the former monk may have had. That TRASH was alive?! That’s not possible. It SHOULDN’T BE POSSIBLE! I FELT HIM DIE! What pain he may have felt vanished, replaced by a berserk power that had laid dormant since his childhood. Purple and yellow splotches with a flat nose, Sergeant Gomi ascended to Garou’s height from the wreckage of the prison. The sergeant was grinning with a demented confidence that Garou himself was intimately familiar with. It was the confidence of a hunter, closing in on his target.
“KNOW YOUR PLACE, TRASH!” Garou shouted, ki overflowing from every orifice on his body. It was not his normal aura, but malignant and alive on its own. The energy burned everything it touched, searing even the massive area on Garou’s side shut. Blood bubbled away from the wound, condensating back onto Garou’s head. His own eyes began to boil and rupture, turning the whites as crimson as his bloodied hair. A sickly pallor was taken over by the visage of death itself as Garou faced the sergeant.

“You think a little hair dye is gonna scare me, son?” Sergeant Gomi was unfazed by the Zoranite’s transformation, flying closer with a battle cry. Jab, jab, hammerfist and haymaker fell upon Garou’s frame, still bubbling over with sinister ki. Gomi’s attacks yielded little reaction, as if bouncing off an invisible force field. The sergeant reacted quickly, drawing a fist back and encasing it with ki before striking at Garou’s chest with a blade of pure energy.

Finally, Gomi elicited a reaction. Coated in crimson, Garou’s hand slapped away the ki blade in a single motion. He allowed his momentum from the quick slap to carry him, spinning 270 degrees into a backhanded hit aimed at the Keliouxian’s jaw. Gomi evaded deftly, leaning back and swiping with his ki blade at Garou’s arm. The blade skimmed along Garou’s figure, failing to cut but managing to push back the enraged Zoranite.

Everything feels... muted, Garou thought, his body mindlessly fighting on his behalf. I just want to get back to my ship. I need rest. What’s happening to me? I had all the energy in the world moments ago. Am I dying...?

With force of will alone, Garou blasted the burning ki away from his body in an omnidirectional shockwave. Blood dribbled from his lips as he spat at Gomi’s face, landing a sucker punch in the sergeant’s gut while the splotchy alien dodged sputum. He took full advantage of the opportunity, slamming both arms down on the doubled-over sergeant and sending Gomi back down into the destroyed prison.