The Super Wizard From Space and the Hermit Wizard From Space were trapped in an asteroid belt by a swarm of gigantic space-bees!
As it's fellow drones circled uniformly, one particularly grusome space-bee broken from the formation. It was as massive as any of the drifting asteroids, it's gigantic yellow black body big enough to drag smaller free-floating rocks behind. It's four crystal clear wings gave choppy strokes and rapid rotations, providing quick and flexible movement in the blackness of space. But the front of it, in place of eyes or mouths or any sort of face at all, a dozen fat, short, black tentacles writhing in the general direction of it's prey.
The tentacled space-bee let out scented transmissions to the damaged rocket-ship behind their circular blockade. "Leave now, octopuszz. We have what we want, you are no longer neccesszzzary."
"Y'all don't have ta tell Pete twice," was the crackling staticy reply. The rocket-ship made a wide turn and left the vicinity, moving clumsily deeper into the solar system on what remained of it's navigation systems.
The hermit wizard stood and yelled out after the retreating rocket-ship, barking madly in angry radio waves. "Damn you, Cephalo Pete! Damn your hide!"
From the formation, another buzzing shape made a haphazard move, streaking toward the hermit wizard. It's entire front half was dominated by a single oversized bloodshot eyeball and it's spear-lengthen stringer was like a missile, a glint of purple toxin at the barbed point.
The hermit wizard outstretched both hands in the air in desperation, creating a protective domed shield of pale blue light around the asteroid he stood on. But he froze in horror as the fast-moving space-bee tore through it as if it was cotton. It was impervious to his powers! It knew his name! They all knew his name!
"Move, Gavrilo!" said the Super Wizard From Space as he flew with great speed across the surface of the asteroid. He tackled the stunned hermit wizard and zipped them both away from the rocky surface, barely dodging the space-bee's charge. The stinger embedded into the rocky surface, burying deep into the stone with a vicious series of cracks. Drops of the purple toxin seeped into the cracks with a hiss.
The remaining space-bees broke their circular pattern, attracted by attack pheromones, and started diving into the asteroid field.
Gavrilo regained his senses. When released by his companion, he wrapped himself in a light cocoon to fly under his own power. They dived between the tumbling space boulders, trying to use the larger ones as cover and thinner areas as hiding places.
"Queen Buzz's Monster Bees!" shouted the super wizard to Gavrilo, pointing back at the eyeball space-bee as it freed itself from the rock. "Watch out for their poisonous sting!"
They saw a terrible transformation happen to the asteroid as the cracks filled with purple liquid. The shape of it became longer. One end stretched out in a pointed pole. Orifices cracked open at the other end. Stone legs broke free from underneath and opaque glass wings unfolded from above. The new stone monster seemed confused for a moment, but it too took to the scent of the attack pheromones and began hunting.
"I... I didn't think it was actually true! They're lycanthro-bees!" exclaimed Gavrilo.
Two of the smaller drones, each with magificent rainbow-coloured fish fins rather than wings, spotted the pair of wizards and made a bee-line toward them. "Stay behind me," warned the Super Wizard From Space as he clenched his fist. A solar fire started within his palm, spitting orange licks from between his fingers. As the finned pair turned their spears downward, the super wizard snapped his arm, letting the blast of flame unroll like a whip. The fire blasted in the blinding arc of a solar flare, the fusion fire vaporizing the attacking pair instantly.
The rest of the swarm easily spotted the flare and changed course. They raced toward the source from all directions. The super wizard barely had time to wave his hands in the air above him, forming an egg shaped shield around himself and Gavrilo.
Multiple stingers stabbed at the shield, hardly penetrating, but the purple toxin seeped into it's pale light. As it spread, the shield took on a sickly red blue tint. The energy shield started to bulge at the edges, taking on a frighteningly familiar shape.
"No," the Super Wizard From Space said under his breath. He spread out his fingers wide, feeding the shield more pale light. The ghostly crown hovering over his head glowed brightly as it mixed in with his own science sorcerous powers, burning away the poisonous transformation. But as the super wizard burned away the purple toxin from one part of the shield, the swarm stung at other places. Infection and burn and infection and burn.
"They're going to get through," said Gavrilo in panic.
"No," said the super wizard through gritted teeth. "I have this."
"I think can make it to the planet while they're distracted here... I can still beat Pete to the Silver Skull Machine!"
"No!" demanded the super wizard, flinging pale light at the shield frantically to burn away creeping toxin. "I have this! You have to stay."
"I can blind the one with the big eye and slip through! I can use the machine to fix all this! I can use the machine to save you!"
"Gavrilo, no! You have to stay! This isn't about me..."
The hermit wizard stopped listening, focusing entirely on the unnatural gaze of the one space-bee's oversized pupil. It drew readied it's speared stinger, preparing to thrust the deadly point back at the light shield. Gavrilo closed his fist and let out a blue-white flare in a snapping arc at the space-bee's gigantic eyeball. It screeched and danced about chaotically, trying to avoid the fiery fate that had claimed it's fellow drones.
It needn't have worried. The arc passed over it without causing any damage whatsoever. The hermit wizard's whip-like fusion fire snapped through the asteroid belt, blasting scars and melting boulders, but the knowledge of Gavrilo's name protected the space-bee from the power.
Wrapping himself in light, Gavrilo drilled through the shield and past the blinded space-bee and raced out beyond the asteroid field. He didn't risk a glance back. He ignored the radio wave shouts of his fellow super wizard and the pheromone-laced battering of the swarm still trying to pierce the shield. Instead he tried for more speed as he found the rocket-ship's fading trail, following it into the solar system.
Deep into the system's gravity wells toward a familiar looking planet. A planet briefly revealed in the data-cylinder's holographic map! Almost there!
Coming through the atmosphere, flying at gigantic speeds over the surface, Gavrilo recognized abandoned cities and architectural ruins that that he had only ever seen in sketches and history books. These were definitely the right types of buildings! Almost there!
Flying past overgrown fields and cracked highways, he approached a vast mountain range with an artificial valley. Gently falling to the surface, he could make out dusty walls of what used to be some sort of research centre, the remains marked with long forgotten alphabets. But nearby was a massive strip-mine, gouged out of the earth in a long single rectangle. A giant grave, excavated and emptied. King Argentum's grave! Almost there!
Gavrilo landed by the main building of the alien research centre, he could see the rocket-ship. It seemed to have come in hard, suffering from melted thrusters and destroyed navigation systems, finally gouging into the surface and crashing to a stop against the research centre. Lights flickered weakly and the airlock door was limply hanging open.
No, was he too late? Had Pete made it out? Climbing into the rocket-ship, he cast a yellow halogen glow out in the dark corridors, searching compartment by compartment for the octopus alien. "Pete, are you alive in here?"
As he moved up the main hallway toward the rocket-ship's cockpit, Gavrilo heard the faint metal clicking eight ray-hammers being pulled back on eight loaded ray-guns. He had just enough time to flare his yellow glow fully at the cockpit before taking cover in a hallway nook. A blinded complaint sharply came from behind the co-pilot's seat as a series of wild ray-beams ricocheted down the hallway.
"Codswallop, Gavrilo! I cain't see!"
"That's the general idea, you ambushing son-of-a-scallop!" spit back Gavrilo. He could keep the overly bright light in the general direction of the cockpit, effectively denying Cephalo Pete a clear shot, but the nook he was backed up into didn't provide much cover. Worse, he was badly outgunned, his powers as useless against the octopus alien as they were against the space-bees.
But he saw a glint of bloodly ink wetting the floor of the cockpit, and he could swear there was a troubled rasping behind Cephalo Pete's swearing and shouting.
"You two wrecked my ship!" Cephalo Pete threw back. "I could barely nurse it here all the way hereabouts afore all the landing equipment done gone belly up on me! You coulda killed me!"
"Well, you shouldn't have tried to pick us off at the pass! Those weren't warning shots you were throwing in our warp tunnel!"
"You shouldn't have cracked wise 'bout my mother!" More ray-beams came crazily down the corridor. Even blind, the shots were coming frighteningly close. It was only a matter of time before Cephalo Pete scored a lucky shot.
"I'm sorry about that," the hermit wizard admitted. "I shouldn't have said anything."
"We was partners for all them space-years, looking for proof about the silver skull machine. Looking for that damn map. I figured you of all sentient beings woulda understood about regrets. About mistakes you thought couldn't been taken away."
Gavrilo couldn't say anything.
"Well we're here now, Gavrilo! This here's that lost planet under our suckers! That there's the silver skull machine, just inside that there mess of a building outside! A real, honest-to-space-betsy time machine! A way to get back to that fishing vessel and save my deep departed mother! A way to get back to one of them cosmic crowns and have the power to do whatever I want! A way to change everything! A way to fix everything!"
Gavrilo frowned. "Fix everything, Pete? Like ambushing me like a rat? Like selling out my friend to Monster Bees?" He had a shiver down his spine at the sudden thought. "Goddamn Monster Bees, Pete! You know what their sting does? What their venom changes you into? And you traded my friend to those things! I don't have any trust left for you!"
There was a wheezing sickly cough from the cockpit, and the sound of spitting blood before Cephalo Pete said back, "Your friend's fate is on your own head. We didn't know you'd rustle up any help."
"...what?"
"You heard me fine, you whiny bastard," Pete said. "That swarm wasn't there to ambush him. That swarm was there to ambush you!"
A thunderous buzzing suddenly filled the air followed quickly by the sound of wrenching metal. The rocket-ship shook fiercely as the hull suddenly gave way. Gavrilo could only watch as a spear-like stinger made of purple-tinted light tore through the cockpit, through the panels and instruments and tossed-together cover, and through Cephalo Pete.
The alien octopus screamed in pain he was slammed around the cockpit, impaled on the massive stinger. Clawed legs peeled open the rocket-ship like an aluminum can, and the Hermit Wizard From Space watched as the space-bee flew up into the air with it's poisoned prey.
A monstrous space-bee, the size of an asteroid and made entirely of purple-tinted shield energy.