Galactic Earth (32 page)

“Give me that,” said Gudama snatching the weapon.

He rapidly hacked at the arm, splitting it into two. The enormous arm slithered away retreating. Sam started the engine, but it didn’t respond.

“It’s not working!” she cried.

“Dame,” Gudama said banging the counter.

They both ran out to take a look and found the squid interfering with the boat’s systems.

“Dammit, he’s jamming the engine,” he said.

“What do we do?” asked Sam.

“You keep trying to start the boat, I’ll deal with him,” said Gudama eyeing the cephalopod.

Gudama leaped back down the deck while Sam continued trying to start the boat. She figured to turn on the heat exhaustion to burn off the squid. Opening a compartment, Gudama found the spears he was looking for. As he reached for one, a tentacle swiftly wrapped itself around his forearm preventing him from grabbing it.

“Huh?” Gudama said surprised as he grunted, pulling to get loose.

Another arm confronted him and whipped at Gudama’s face only to be caught by his vice grip.

“No you don’t!” he said holding it.

Hurling him in the air, the two arms swung Gudama around, slamming him all over the boat. He managed to get a hold of ground again and pulled with his might, bringing the arms closer, and bit one viciously. His face expressed disgust from the taste. Escaping, Gudama knife struck the other and chomped ferociously regaining freedom of his limbs.

Wasting no time, Gudama picked up a spear and hopped on top of the captain’s cabin to take aim. With a deep breath, Gudama let out a battle cry and threw the spear, piercing right through one of the monster’s eyes. Just then, Sam cracked the heat exhaust to full power. Their combined efforts shook off the giant squid and the engine roared like a lion.

“Sam! Full speed ahead!” shouted Gudama pointing forward.

Dashing onward, Gudama fell off the boat as it zoomed away. He felt silly as he emerged and began swimming after it.

“Wait, what am I doing?” Gudama said.

Activating his antigravity belt, Gudama flew out of the water and caught up with Sam, landing on the boat safely shaking his head rapidly to dry off.

“What in the world was that?” asked Sam.

“Giant squid and he isn’t friendly,” he said.

“Where did it come from?”

“I must have awoken it when I took the pearls.”

Their boat suddenly jerked around and began losing speed.

“No way, how big is this thing?” said Gudama as they saw two tentacles latched onto the back of the boat. Emerging thirty feet to their right was another sea creature.

“Loch Ness Monster, but they’re only a myth!” Sam cried disbelieving her eyes.

“Not anymore,” replied Gudama.

The aquatic dinosaur submerged, its massive tail trailing at the end.

“Great, what else could go wrong?” said Gudama.

Squid arms began rocking the boat vigorously, tossing various items nearly flipping it over. Water splashed all over, and Gudama and Sam fought to stay aboard.

“This entire boat is going to topple over if we don’t do something!” Gudama said.

Sam was knocked over to the end of the deck where two tentacles arose.

“Look out!” Gudama said shoving her away.

An arm whipped at them, catching Gudama’s wrist. The other slapped him across the face, and the wrapped arm flung him through the captain’s cabin across the other end of the boat.

Getting up, Gudama quickly sprinted back to check up on Sam who was fine. He fought the arms head on, dodging them and landing multiple powerful strikes. The Loch Ness poked its head by the side of the ship, scaring the daylights out of Sam. It went for a bite, but Gudama caught its mouth and shoved it away. Jumping high to finish it, Gudama went for the kill, but missed as the Loch Ness submerged its long neck into the water. Instead, Gudama received a whipping blow to the ribs from its tail, crashing into the lower end of the boat.

Defenseless, Sam hung on for her life as the sea monster shook the boat back and forth. Down in the dark bottom of the boat, an infuriated Gudama peeled his eyes open, “That does it,” he said.

Screaming through the top of the cabin, Gudama soared high and hit the Loch Ness in the face hard with a devastating punch knocking it out cold.

Trouble continued from the fury of the squid’s tentacles as it launched itself through propulsion, catching up with the boat and attaching itself to the bottom. Its long arms emerged extending all around the boat in all directions, preventing Gudama and Sam from escaping.

“We’re trapped!” exclaimed Sam.

They both retreated inside the captain’s cabin as the squid arms were beginning to crush the boat. Their visibility became darker as the arms were sealing them in, preparing them to be fed into the squid’s mouth.

“Look out!” shouted Gudama sensing danger beneath them.

Drilling through the floor emerged the squid’s beak. Gudama let out a battle cry and punched the gigantic parrot like beak, slicing it into pieces with multiple lethal chops. He fired several energy blasts at the arms forcing the squid to retreat. All became still as the ocean became calm. Gudama and Sam looked around on all sides for the squid, but found nothing.

“Is it dead?” asked Sam.

“I don’t think so,” replied Gudama.

Breaking the hiatus, the enormous squid leaped nearly fifty feet out of the water on top of the boat, its arms extending all around it. The weight of the cephalopod caused the boat to submerge underwater temporarily engulfing Sam and Gudama in salty seas. Upon emerging, both of them gulped air to recover while coughing up water. Gudama checked up on Sam who was miraculously ok.

“What is he going to swallow the entire boat?” said Gudama as the arms began sucking them towards the squid’s mouth. Sam fired several emergency shots from her flare gun. Gudama projected rapid energy attacks, finally getting the giant squid off their boat. Its aggression wasn’t over as it latched itself to the edge of the boat determined to conquer.

The giant squid’s head emerged revealing its size of monstrous proportions. Gudama and Sam were amazed of its incredible unbelievable size.

Battling back, Gudama held his own avoiding multiple strikes from the giant squid’s arms, but was snatched by one. He was rescued by Sam who pulled out another emergency gun in case of sharks, and fired at the squid. Gudama leaped on top of its head and pounded its naked eye. An arm caught him in a choke and flung him towards the ship.

Swinging around the mast, Gudama launched himself at the squid and punched right through its bruised eye. He landed back on the dock as his opponent retreated underwater. One of its arms however caught Sam, securing itself tightly around her and lifted her up in the air knocking the gun from her hands.

“Gudama!” cried Sam.

“Sam!”

Gudama sprinted after her evading several attacks along the way and jumped high towards Sam splitting the arm into two with a knife strike. Another arm caught Gudama from behind pummeling his back. He landed safely on the deck of the boat with one knee down.

“You ok?” he asked Sam.

“Yeah,” she replied.

Shocking them both, the squid re-emerged. It nestled itself on the side of the boat.

“Get out of here,” said Gudama pushing her away.

Dark gunk spurted out of the squid’s ink sac into Gudama’s face blinding him. An arm snuck underneath and swept him off his feet pulling him in. The other arms joined in and completely wrapped Gudama’s body with his face sticking out. One arm struck him rapidly in different directions across his face while he was held tight, ending with an uppercut to his chin. The massive arm then arched back and came down hard on Gudama’s face.

“Oh no, Gudama,” Sam cried as she helplessly watched the arms feed him into the squid’s mouth swallowed him whole!

Hopeless, Sam fell to her knees ready to accept her presumed death as the enormous cephalopod edged closer nearly tilting the boat over like a seesaw. Just then, Sam heard a voice from within the giant squid and before her eyes projected a massive beam of sun light from inside the squid’s body, creating a crater in its skull. Out popped Gudama screaming in victory as the remains of the giant squid went limp. A big smile wiped Sam’s face upon seeing him.

“Gudama, are you ok?” she asked as he returned.

“I’m fine, just got this gunk on my face,” he said wiping it off repeatedly, “What do you say we get of here?”

“Aye, aye captain,” she said over joyed.

Dry Land Never Felt So Good

Thirty minutes later, they managed to tidy up the boat and let it run on auto pilot.

“Well, it looks like we lost most of our treasure, but at least we’re alive,” said Sam.

“So long as we got what we came for,” said Gudama looking at a pearl between his fingers,

“Layla better love them.”

Sam laughed and began rambling on about her college plans which bored Gudama out of his mind.

“Wait, ah how long till we get back to shore?”

“Mmm…I’d say three hours,” she said looking ahead with a hand blocking the sun.

“Three hours? Argh,” grunted Gudama.

Sam talked about her goals and asked multiple questions so fast that Gudama didn’t know how to respond. She was a chatter box, and he preferred to listen to the sounds of the ocean.

“Ah Sam, with all due respect, I’m the guardian of earth, not a guidance counselor. I’m not the best person to talk to about this.”

“Yea, but I thought you could give some advice. I mean didn’t you go to college?”

“Yes, I did,” he said hesitantly.

“Well, how was it?”

“I was happy when it was over.”

“Do they have school on other planets?”

Gudama nodded. Sam asked for more info. Gudama explained that alien schools are much better than earth’s and free of charge, “When citizens graduate, they have the equivalent of multiple PhDs in virtually every field, art, science, music, and more,” Gudama said reclining enjoying the breeze.

Fascinated, Sam asked about their daily lives to which Gudama explained involve many things from higher study to even space travel to learn more about the universe and themselves in order to evolve to the highest levels. Sam said with sarcasm that she’d like to go to space to learn. Gudama remarked she wouldn’t qualify. Taking his response as a joke, Sam laughed and continued her blabbering on random topics of her interest, providing a fitting climax to Gudama’s negative experience with sea travel.

Back at the dock, Gudama couldn’t wait to jump off after Sam parked the boat. Bystanders were amazed by Gudama’s appearance and formed a small crowd taking pictures of the God of Earth‘s face covered in sun dried squid ink. Gudama told Sam he had to hurry and told her to keep the gems and other valuables collected. She gave him a hug in gratitude for her new wealth and Gudama escaped from the crowd, but encountered a tall thin young man with messy black hair who pled for help regarding sexuality. Sensing it was an important issue, Gudama reluctantly agreed, the humanity getting the best of him once again despite his obligations.

Gudama and the gay talked about his homosexuality at a bar in the local diner. Not wanting to waste time, Gudama got to the point.

“You want know where all this started? Long ago in imperial times, kings couldn’t bare the expenses of additional generations and kids out of wedlock. To counter act this, priests and other clergymen who were instructed to fulfill the sexual needs of boys, tricked them into believing it was ok to obtain such pleasures from other men. Since then, this evil plague has corrupted the sexual union of man and wife, all in the name of money,” said Gudama, “and the funny thing is people condemn such acts, yet don’t even realize it was their own old corrupt government who started this disgusting nonsense.”

Puzzled, the gay young man didn’t know what to make of this information.

“Homosexuality is an invention of psychotic fanatics, designed to control the population for eugenics, and monetary profits,” Gudama continued walking up to him, “It’s a disease created from the old world. No animals exhibit such behavior unless there’s a human interference. If you’re a man, your place lies in the arms of a woman. It’s very easy to discover who you are, just look down below. Take a good look at your anatomy,” he commanded.

“You are designed to be with a woman! Don’t you understand this simple concept?”

“I’m not religious,” continued Gudama pointing to his chest, “but I know science, and biology proves that male mates with female. If you screw around with nature’s laws, you seal your own fate. You can tell yourself all you want that you’re a bird with your so called “personal choice,” but you’ll be living in denial,” he said talking sense into him.

“If I continue life believing I’m a bird, I suffer, understand? Likewise, you have two choices, go on living in a delusion which you may never wake out of and will have to fix in another life, or accept who you are now and step up to fulfill that path. Your decision,” Gudama said walking away.

“Take some of these supplements,” he said handing the gay few bottles of his newly created herbal powder from his utility belt, “They’ll flush out the toxic chemicals that have screwed up your hormones. Within days you’ll feel like a man, a real man,” said Gudama slightly raising his eyebrows.

With that, he bid farewell. It was hard to take in, but the gay understood he meant well.

An old friend

Washing up, Gudama felt rejuvenated after splashing his face in the bathroom. He rubbed his face with a towel, but growled as the ink stain was still there.

“Grrr stupid squid ink!”

While walking outside he noticed a mothership in the sky slowly descending over the horizon.

“Oh now what, you’ve got to be kidding me!” he said slamming his towel assuming it was an enemy ship, “You know what fine, come on bring it! You want some? I’ll give ya all you want!”

The ship made its way closer to his location.

“You picked the wrong day,” said Gudama snarling ready to fight.

Instantly, he felt Andy presence and rejoiced.

“Andy? Oh thank god! You picked the perfect day!”

He said happily. Andy saw his ink covered smiley face on his ship’s screen as he came closer.

Floating over Gudama, the mothership readied to receive him.

“Beam me up Andy, get me off this crazy planet!” said Gudama with open arms and a big smile.

A bright blue beam projected downward and levitated Gudama up to the ship. It then flew away up in space, disappearing from view.

“Andy!” said Gudama overjoyed to see his friend.

“Welcome back Gudama,” Andy replied.

Gudama hugged him tightly, lifting him up and turning back and forth in love. He then remembered that Andy was a high being of the sacred order and it was impolite to violate his physical space. Quickly, Gudama put him down.

“Sorry, I just…I missed you buddy,” he said.

“It’s quite alright…what happened to your face?” replied Andy.

Gudama didn’t know where to begin and just dropped his arms with a loss of words. Andy placed a hand on his head and read his mind.

“Oh my, perhaps you’d like to bathe?”

“That’s why you’re the man,” said Gudama.

After cleaning up, Gudama was pleased to see his face squeaky clean and clear in his reflection. He went over to Andy who smiled at his perfect appearance, “Glad to have you back,” he said.

“So like what I’ve done with the planet?”

“It certainly has improved, although it has taken much longer than you had originally planned.”

“Yes, you were right once again. I’ll listen to whatever you say from now on,” said Gudama scratching the back of his head.

“Then I hope you listen to what I have to say regarding the woman, I have uncovered some new findings that hopefully will make you reconsider your future decision.”

Gudama looked up wondering what Andy meant.

“I finished studying Layla’s biochemistry. The data confirms she’s not of earth she is a rare survivor of the Ieliohoffs, a hybrid breed royalty that once ruled Impheius. She possesses super intelligence-”

“Heh that explains everything,” Gudama said cutting him off, “Well great, I always told my mom if I ever marry, I’d end up with an alien,” said Gudama chest out with his head held high.

“Yes, but did you want a seducer?”

“What?”

“In addition to healing powers and beauty, she possesses the ability to mesmerize anyone she lays eyes on. This explains why she’s able to befriend others easily. I don’t think she even realizes it due to her naïve nature. She has no idea the power of her gaze. Even her presence is enough to demand favor. That’s why she gets attention, good and bad.”

“But she had enemies, people she didn’t like,” Gudama reasoned.

“Yes, one flaw in her character is her temper. I believe earth people call it, a feisty nature. When anger is generated, it turns off her seduction ability and may even have an opposite effect.”

Gudama shook his head, “I’ve been trained to resist such mind traps. I was able to withstand Abella’s temptation and defeated her. She was the most seductive temptress in the galaxies!”

“Indeed, however you were aware of her charms and subdued her immediately. With Layla, you were blissfully unaware. Your prolonged exposure to her eventually won your trust, letting your guard down.”

“So what are you saying, she seduced me, that I’ve been mesmerized?” Gudama questioned.

“I’m only merely indicating its possibility,” stated Andy.

Gudama stood concerned looking at the floor with hands placed on his hips, contemplating the probability of Andy’s prediction.

“There is more,” he continued.

“Oh great,” said Gudama raising his arms, “go ahead, let’s hear it.”

“After vigorous efforts, I’ve finally cracked the mystery of that crescent moon on your head.”

Gudama’s eyebrows rose. He listened attentively, eager to hear this.

“It is as you expected the result of years of meditation, giving you tremendous focus, persistence, strength, and immense focus. Not excluding your supernatural eyesight.”

Gudama folded his arms, “Tell me what I don’t know, your new finding,” he said waiting.

“However, there’re other unknown powers dormant within as if waiting to be activated. One such ability however, has been applying its force without your knowledge or even mine.”

Gudama’s ears opened up, ready to pick up every minute sound uttered from Andy’s vocal cords.

“It seems you too acquired a similar power much like Layla. Whereas her ability lies through her eyes, yours however, works through your moon third eye
.

“T
hat makes sense, Princess, Layla, the girl at the jewelry store, they all were mesmerized,” said Gudama accepting Andy’s words.

“How did she end up on earth?” Gudama pondered.

“It is uncertain, but irrelevant. Your priority right now is Impheius. Have you forgotten your promise?”

Gudama couldn’t reply in guilt.

“I’ve been watching you Gudama, your earthly interference, personal quests, and your new love affair. I monitored all this and was waiting, waiting for your come back to your senses and return to where you belong –alongside our allies to free Impheius. Yet, now I see you have other plans.”

Gudama looked at the floor in shame.

“Now you wish to foolishly bind yourself to earth by wedding one of the inhabitants neglecting your higher responsibilities.”

Sensing his thoughts, Andy knew Gudama understood and was ready to do what he wanted.

“Very well, we shall depart for Impheius at once.”

“Now, what about earth,” Gudama retorted?

Andy showed android replicas he made from Gudama’s DNA.

“Robots, heh, always ten steps ahead the game huh Andy?”

Andy smiled.

“What about Layla,” asked Gudama?

“Hmm…” Andy pondered.

“Look, just have the ship ready, I’ll be back in two hours. I have one final speech for earth.”

“And of the woman,” asked Andy?

“I’ll handle her, alone,” said Gudama entering the teleportation portal. He warped instantly back home to where Layla was awaiting outside sitting on a rock holding her chin.

Tough Decision

Layla ran up to him embracing him in a big hug. Kissing him deeply, she welcomed Gudama warmly. Gudama requested to sit down but Layla was so energized she could barely keep still. Her joy of seeing him forced her to pamper him.

Gudama had her sit next to him, avoiding looking into her eyes.

“I brought you something,” he said revealing the pearl from his sachet.

“Oh my God, it’s beautiful! How did you get it?”

“You don’t want to know,” Gudama replied shaking his head with a serious look.

Layla smothered him with affection, kissing him all over his neck, face, and of course, lips. Gudama tried to retract, but Layla was madly in love with him.

“Layla please, there’s something I have to tell you,” he pleaded trying to break away from her passionate advancements.

“Can’t it wait?” she said continuing on.

“No, Layla please,” he said as she laughingly pursued.