Equan waved his sentient ship, the Duat, away as he faced down the foe before him. A wide smile etched into his face. His eyes shone with arrogance, and he swaggered down to the being in front of him. His gold-and-silver armor clicked up over his face, and he gave a thumbs up in amusement to the dreaded creature he now faced. 

The beast was five times the man’s height and thirty times wider. Its cerulean skin had gorge-like cracks in it, and its feet were stumps. A massive maw made up the entirety of the front of the creature. As the creature’s beady eyes stared down at Equan, it screeched a battle cry and howled as its tongue blew out of its mouth, and it charged at the man. 

Equan stood where he was as the mighty beast charged. It was no problem for the likes of him. How could it be? He had superior tech to this primitive being, and the massive cannon-gun in his arms could take down a dwarf planet. 

The creature shrieked again as it prepared to headbutt the man into a red smear. But as he got close, Equan sidestepped it, moving faster than any normal human with his power boots. This angered the creature, but it didn’t matter. 

“Is that all? Really?” Equan taunted as he jumped high into the air, doing a front flip which landed him directly on top of the creature. The creature shook and trembled, trying desperately to remove the man who clung to his head, grasping onto one of the cracks in its skin. 

“Now I feel kind of bad. I didn’t need this much artillery for the likes of you,” Equan said, and the creature whimpered as if it could read his murderous intent. 

He pointed his cannon-gun down, blasting a crater-sized hole into the thing’s head. Brain matter splattered up from the hole, and blood gushed soon thereafter. Bone fragments scattered in the star space like shrapnel, a piece scratching along Equan’s armor which soon regenerated. The man now stood soaked in crimson. 

He sighed as his armor condensed down into a piece only on his chest, and he wiped off the blood of the chest piece on his arm. What a waste of time, he thought. He was meant for more than a fight like this. The technology was wasted when used on such a low-level void dweller. He clicked his tongue and floated back to the Duat. 

“Welcome back, Equan,” the ship welcomed as he walked again on its deck. 

He made a tss sound, saying, “Tell me you’re sending me somewhere better next mission. That was a bore.” 

As Equan walked through the ship, the robotic-voiced AI followed him, and he sat down on a chair to calm his nerves from the disappointment of such an easy task. But then the Duat cleared its non-existent throat to catch his attention. “Alrighty then, would you like to face a living sun?” Equan grinned brightly. 

—

 Equan cleaned up his cannon-gun and attached a few other shiny trinkets to himself as he waited for perhaps a good fight. When the Duat announced their arrival, he nearly leaped out of the ship in his excitement, and then he stared at who he knew was his adversary. This Battle would be legendary. 

Equan's power armor glistened in the thin atmosphere. His display showed it had pockets of methane. An ideal battlefield for someone made of plasma, but terrible for someone that risked damage in an explosion. Equan, however, had more to him than a gun. With a thought, metal flowed into a glorious saber, its edge fine enough to cut diamonds like butter. If it was going to be a fight here, it'd be up close and personal. 

The figure looked more or less human, aside from the intense starfire billowing from ports in its armor. The figure leveled its axe and launched with a kick that shattered the ground beneath it. Equan barely had time to guard. A microsecond later and he would have been blown away by the force that turned the valley around him into a scorched crater. 

"That was fast, but I saw it coming. I've got this!" Equan was smiling, completely immersed in the moment as he brought his sword in a gleam, burying the blade into the creature's chest. Equan knew he had severed his spine, saying "Too easy." 

The warrior was completely dumbstruck by the blow to his head. He felt blood vessels burst in his eyes, and a crunch signaled a fracture of his skull. The armored figure spoke in a shockingly human voice, only marred by the harsh rasp of the armor's speakers. "Oh please, you'll have to do far better than that to put me down." 

To Equan's horror and shock, the sword wound fused shut. Strands of plasma filled in the cut, leaving the armor with a new weld patch. What was this thing? 

"You…can talk?" Equan felt nauseous. He usually had an idea of how to fight, a preternatural sense, but here he felt only a sense of foreboding and worry. It was as though a pit had opened beneath him. Still, he knew this would be his victory. He had never known defeat, and this would be no exception! 

"Do you take me for a monster? If so, you're nothing but a dog. Enough talk." The figure’s axe blazed with the incomparable energy of a sun Equan edged back into a ferocious stance, this would end in one blow, it was obvious, he would see if this bag of burning gas could live without a head. 

One moment the two warriors stood, staring each other down, the next, they had disappeared. Their movements were too fast for anything to trace them. Equan was sure as they clashed, this was no monster, but rather a man as ferocious and fiery as his axe. This was his last thought as his head was cut from his shoulders