Feeding Time

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This article, Feeding Time, contains the following: Adult Content. Reader discretion is advised.

Note: it is recommended that you read Memories of a Bloodless Thrall before reading this story.

Her memories were slipping away. Floating through space, Naemi tried to hold on. Her eyes spasmed in a futile effort, and she was distracted by the power signatures of millions of beings on the nearest planet. Not a single one was Cyren. The girl closed her eyes; it would take hours to drift into the atmosphere. Her body ached from Cooler’s attack. A deep, waning heat warmed her skin. She wanted nothing more than to rip his throat out and feast upon his entrails. If she ever met him again, their next fight would not go like the last.

The embrace of sleep came upon her suddenly. There was some remnant of a memory, some unburnt scrap, that kept recurring in her dreams. In her weariness, it wriggled its way to the forefront, beyond her comfort.

“Come on Nae, let’s go!”

Her mother had been chipper that day, bubbling with excitement. That was the last time she had ever been happy. She hadn’t known what would await her on Cyren. It was a bitter thought, but true. To this day, Naemi felt a deep sense of guilt over what had happened.

Spitting out sand, she awoke on a beach. Daylight rained down upon her from a cloudless sky. A space crab of some sort had been poking at her hair. A foaming, greenish ocean lay behind her. Ahead, the beach gave way to what looked like several rows of trees and a military complex.

Though she was well-rested, Naemi needed to feed. Feeding was the only thing that kept her strength up. She still felt sore from her fight with Cooler. She would not go for the natives unless she had to. From the looks of it, there were plenty of animals around. A shaggy grey-feathered bird circled overhead. She jumped and caught it, broke its neck, and consumed it before landing in a puff of sand and feathers. There was some slimy, pinkish beast crawling near the shore, so she went for that next. She skewered a line of fish with a yellow energy beam underwater.

As she hunted a lizardly creature in the dunes, a group of twelve aliens landed around her. They wore the same armor as Cooler’s soldiers, she recalled, although theirs were different colors. They also wore those strange, blinking eye-devices.

“Stop!” one of them said. She was sleek and thin, weighing less than Naemi, with blue skin, and a fleshy cartilage-looking thing sprouting up in a crescent shape from the top of her head. A pair of tentacles descended from it down the back of her neck. Naemi had never come across this species before. To be fair, aside from the Cyrens and the occasional space monster, she had not encountered any other sentient species. She didn’t know how to interact with them.

“What are you doing on our planet?” asked another alien. “Answer me, or I’ll put you in chains!”

“I… fell asleep and drifted for a while, then ended up here. Where am I?”

“Where’s your ship?”

“Don’t have one.”

“You can breathe in space?”

“Appears so.” Her eyes darted to the left, tracking a fish in the shallows.

“You are trespassing on Planet Cooler 155 in the empire of Lord Cooler. If you know what’s good for you, leave.”

“Sure, after I’ve fed.”

“No. Leave now, or we’ll have a problem.”

The Cyrens would have been right at home with these savages. She flicked the hair out of her eyes, glancing upwards. It was a warm day. She felt loose. Maybe she would stay for a while.

“Leave me alone, or I’ll feed on you,” she told the imperial detachment.

While Naemi didn’t enjoy consuming sentient beings, if forced to, she wouldn’t complain. These aliens weren’t going to leave her alone. So be it. She could use the energy.

“Big mistake. Now you’re dead!” roared their leader. She created a pink energy blast between her fingers. Her detachment did the same, yet the colors of their energy varied.

Before the aliens could attack, she released a Claw Throw, which consisted of several dozen colorless energy spears, no more than a half meter in length, flying in all directions. Most of the aliens were taken unaware, dying without knowing they were in danger, but a few, including their leader, cried out before they succumbed. She eyed the outpost, a seawind on her nose, and made sure that when the next detachment came for her, she was long gone. Even so, mere hours later, a ₩3,000,000 bounty was put on her head.

After Naemi raided the nearby sectors, murdering dozens of guards and feasted on as much wildlife as she pleased, her bounty was raised to ₩15,000,000. Now that was a proper price right there–enough for any self-respecting bounty hunter to consider her worth the effort.

She staved them off, at first not knowing why they were hunting her. Eventually, the truth slipped out, and she grew more cautious. Since she could read power levels, she could choose when to engage, when to flee, and when to remain hidden. Naemi kept to herself and moved from planet to planet. However, every world was owned by the Planet Trade Organization. Theirs was a vast empire, and she was stuck in the middle of it. While she didn’t mind fighting the bounty hunters, the more she won, the more her bounty was raised, and the less she could sleep. At least she was eating well.

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One time, she went to a planet called Lipanto. It was a crowded world, a world of commerce and bargaining and betting. She especially fancied the merchants’ flamboyant styles. For some reason, there were species found mostly in a single city, or in a cluster, while others were spread evenly across the planet. She didn’t really care to understand the reasoning behind these cultural distinctions, though.

While a green-skinned man sweet-talked passersby into purchasing his cheap space linens, a girl screamed and dropped a vase. The pink glass shattered in front of Naemi. The crowds, moving this way and that through the merchant stands, didn’t slow down, or so much as react. They had places to be.

“Sniveling little brat. Don’t care if you’re a kid. You break it, you buy it.”

Her mother searched for space woolongs in her purse while the owner continued to swear. “N-no, mommy, it wasn’t my fault. That hideous monster frightened me.”

The girl with the elfin face pointed at Naemi. She didn’t understand. She hadn’t done anything to her. When the store owner asked her to pay up, the others started making crude comments about Naemi. Guards were called, but she flew off before a fight could break out. The entire time, the alien girl had continued sobbing. She had never thought of herself as a monster–it had never occurred to her while serving the Crimson Throne. Now, she couldn’t shake the image.

Naemi drifted on for a while, only visiting worlds with few natives–those which would allow her to feed without being seen. Fewer and fewer bounty hunters came after her, and fewer and fewer reports about her made it onto imperial news waves, and she began to fade from memory. Most assumed she had died. If only they had known the half of it.

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A frosty wind blew through the outpost of Planet Frieza 294. The evening sky swirled with oranges and purples and blues. A few spots of grey hinted at the approaching rain. Maybe it would turn to hail. Clutching a bundle of harvested larzune, a worker bot flew overhead. She cracked her knuckles and stretched her jaw while looking over the fields. Her breath frosted before her. The planet’s population was 588. No livestock, no fish, no birds. Just these 588 and their crop fields.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes; her belly rumbled. Opening them, she flew into the field, the wind on her face. Shame would no longer guide her. She would clear any planet she came into contact with from now on, not for the sake of hunger, but to give a little back to the illustrious Emperor Cooler and his glorious empire.

Two days later, Naemi’s bounty was raised to ₩90,000,000.