Moonhawk 2 - The Blackcrow

Chapter 18 - A Fateful Punishment

The environment slowly returned to normal after the paranormal crew disappeared for good. The spaceship was no longer trapped in their dimension. Even planet Ulgara recovered from the damage that those demonic ghosts had caused. Every leaf turned back to their common colors, trees, rivers. Everything.

A handful of Captain Wedly's crew went down to check on the citizens a while ago. The Starfall members realized for sure that the citizens and environment were manipulated by those demons and tried to take care of the dragon beans as best as they could, while the battle up there was ongoing. That's all they could do to help their friends out. King Blu, who ruled over Ulgara, was unconditionally grateful for their help, even gifting the mission squad from the Starfall crew a bag full of powerful crystals and healthy flowers, which they could plant in their greenhouse.

In the meantime, Captain Pitch and the whole Blackcrow crew were relieved that the chaos was finally over. Everyone was panting out of exhaustion. The glowing sword disappeared almost immediately after the battle was over. The black captain glanced down to his claws as it flickered away into nothing.

A quiet whimper raised up behind the Lord before he could ponder the familiar aura the sword emanated. In all that mess, Pitch almost completely forgot that Saros was once again injured. The wizard was lying in Moon's arms, tired and overexerted. His common blue on his visor was looking significantly paler. Saros was begging softly to get some well-deserved rest and sleep: To charge his energy and magic.

"Hngh ..." Saros groaned, obviously in pain and discomfort. He wanted to sit up, but Moon advised him to take it easy.

"Take it easy, Saros." Moon said softly.

Captain Pitch did hear them and turned slowly around. Secretly, he was thankful for Saros's help. He wasn't sure if he should say thank you. In the face of these feelings, Pitch was insecure. But after a few thoughts the captain decided to kneel down to him and Moon.

As the black Lord knelt down, Saros winced in fear and concern.

"I-I did everything I could, C-Captain", He stuttered. "I-I am sorry if I'm still a disappointment for you..."

A disappointment? Pitch thought and realized what he was referring to. After all this time, he felt sorry - Pitch felt empathy towards the wizard. To show that he wasn't mad at Saros for helping them, he laid his hand on Saros's hand that was already placed on his stomach and said:

"I'm in fact extremely grateful for your help, Saros." Pitch took a breather. "Thank you."

Saros was speechless to hear that Pitch said thank you to him; knowing all too well that Pitch has never said thank you to him before. Even the others around them were surprised to hear something rare like this from their captain. Hawk was especially proud of Pitch for this as well as Moon.

"Alright, I'd hate to interrupt your peaceful moment, but we've got another huge problem." Their doctor suddenly disturbed their quiet moment as he walked over to Pitch.

"What is it, Doc?" Pitch asked as he stood up.

"Look around", The black doctor wanted everyone to look around. The medbay was destroyed and in a total mess. Each medical supply got destroyed, all the medicine which had been carefully stored were now all broken and unusable. "The medbay is destroyed and in a total mess. It'll take ages to clean everything up. Especially to get new supplies."

"In that case we have to go back to our space station." Pitch pointed out.

Without any more interruptions, Captain Pitch instructed to everyone to go back to their own workstations. He told Moon that she should take care of Saros together with Starla. Shepp gently scooped up Zin and Tin into his hands and took care of the still terrified fluff balls. He swore to himself in silence, that he'll take care of them even if he had to risk his own life... For Slimey: for his friend.