“Amalthea, get out of here!”

“No, we can still do it! We just have to combine—”

“Separate!” Hyperion, the Blue Titan, forcefully detached the other Titan Mechs. 

Amalthea tried to regain control of her Titan, but a red screen blared in front of her, denying her access. “Hyperion, what's the meaning of this!? Listen to me! I’m the leader here—”

An explosion rocked Amalthea’s spacecraft, sending her spiralling into the voids of space. The overdrive activated by itself as her fellow members appeared on the screen.

“Party's over, Captain. Get home for us.”

“Don’t worry, we're gonna hold the line.”

“Don't forget us. We're gonna give them hell!”

“Everyone, stop!” Amalthea, the Red Titan and leader, shouted at her comrades as she failed to override the console. She slammed her fists on the dashboard. “Don't do this! We have to flee together, at least!”

The screen focused on him. Hyperion chuckled, and his cracked black visor revealed his deep red eye behind the helmet. 

“With Atlas and her titan out of commission, command falls to the second in command of the Titan Force,” said Hyperion before another explosion shook their crafts. His helmet broke against the wall, revealing his tousled teal hair and a faint smile curled with blood. “I command everyone to stand their ground! Ensure Atlas’ safe escape. Make our last stand against the enemy.”

“Hy— Valerian! Don't,” Amalthea begged and witnessed how the remaining Titans transformed back, but lacked their crucial centrepiece, her. They drifted towards the enemy in the asteroid belt, where the evil leader and their army crept closer towards them. 

“Live, Amalthea,” asked Valerian. “Don’t let hope die.”

Amalthea’s titan disappeared in a bright flash into a new star system. Her screams echoed inside her craft as she got pressed against the failing walls of her titan during the hyperdrive. Through the hyperplanes and ancient dust, they sped through the void, stopping briefly at each system of singular, tertiary stars or nebulas before reactivating and tossing Amalthea around some more. 

The systems stressed and fumed. Sparks flew; Amalthea vomited blood and lost consciousness multiple times throughout the journey. Hours, days, or possibly even weeks blurred past her as Atlas’ systems progressively failed. The last things to hold out were the engines. When the life support shut off, Amalthea lost her hope of surviving. The red craft fell into the atmosphere of an unknown planet with its engines still running. 

People of an unknown planet would see a bright shooting star illuminating the night sky. Dragons and griffons veered past the burning pile of metal as Amalthea tried her best to bring the systems back up as her body was cooked alive from the heat. 

“I have to abandon him,” realised Amalthea, gritting her teeth to hold back her tears. “I'm sorry, Atlas. Thank you for everything.” 

She slammed her fist into the emergency panel and fell unconscious on the floor. The Titan detached into two sections. The backside exploded somewhere on the mountainside, and the other crashed down on the outskirts of a nearby city. 

A city where the fate of many would change by the sole survivor of the Champions of the Stars—Protectors of Worlds. A Star Guardian and member of the Titan Force, Amalthea, the Red Titan Atlas.

‧. .ᯓ★. .‧

“Wanna say that one more time, punk?” 

“You heard me,” spit the boy, struggling to stand up on his own. “The Star Guardians don’t exist—” The tall, black-haired boy sent the other flying into the rest of his gang, who now covered behind their bullying leader. “You punched me… again!” 

“There’s more of it,” threatened Ajax, cracking his knuckles, and making the bullies back away. He glanced at the cowering boy in the corner before returning to the bullies. “Throw your fists at others one more time, and I'll—”

Ajax shut up when a stone hit his head from behind. He bent down, holding the back of his head as he whimpered from the pain. 

“Stop that attitude, Ajax,” warned a diminutive, blond girl about his age. She flung another stone, but now at the bullies.  

“Right, you’re just looking more stupid like that,” said another, but now a pink-haired, short, and plump boy, who cowered behind the girl. “At least hit them below the gut. That’s where it hurts the most—” chuckled the boy before the girl hit him right in the gut. 

Frightened, not by Ajax, who just hit them blue and black, but by the girl, the children ran away. Ajax wiped the blood from his nose. He made his way to the hidden child and offered his hand. “Hey, you alright—” 

The little kid screamed. Startled, they hit Ajax in the stomach, who crumbled to the ground. The pink boy laughed. “S-see? T-told you i-it hurts, *bleurgh*,” he threw up on the ground. 

Ajax watched as the child he tried to help ran away. “I didn’t expect a thanks, but not this either.”

“You never help with the fights,” Ajax complained. “So, why do you keep following me to them, Marius, Lydia?” 

“Entertainment,” replied Lydia, whistling innocently. “You always pick fights with the others. Even hit girls. That’s mean, don’t you think?” 

“Technically, you and the girls throw hands first,” commented Marius. “I’d say it’s fair game. Gender equality and such— *bleurgh*,” Marius threw up again when Lydia hit him again. The blond girl brushed back her hair, revealing her large, rounded ears, befitting a halfling. 

Marius held his gut in pain. As a dwarf, he could take a few hits, but hated it all the more—Lydia simply had a mean fist despite how small she was.

Ajax huffed at them. “You don’t get it,” he said. “It’s about what’s right.” 

Flexing with his shoulders, Ajax reset his joints, accentuating at the same time his developed muscles at his back. For a 14-year-old boy, he was quite tall and trained. He brushed at his simple black linen shirt with strings on the front and brown pants, and brushed back his tousled, shoulder-long black hair, revealing his ears. 

The sharp-edged ears of an elf with deep green eyes were features that made him categorise him as a wood elf. Despite that, neither the elves didn’t accept him, nor anyone else in the city. But nothing stung more than the insult to his idols and their ideals.

“A Guardian can’t overlook bullying like that. We have to strive for—”

“For being good, protective, and lend a helping hand. Geez, we know that,” Lydia complained, irritated. 

“Lydia, there are so many great heroes in the skies above,” said Ajax. “We have to honour them. We have to do better, protect others and—.” 

“And that’s why no one likes you, Star-boy,” said Lydia, irritating Ajax with his nickname. She played with her suspenders and circled Ajax, kicking up the mud with her large, bare feet. “That’s why even your own folks hate you. No one likes it when you lecture them. Especially adults when a child tells them what they should or should not do. Newsflash, no one cares!” 

“I care!” Ajax yelled indignantly. “We all should. We need to strive to be better.” 

“Who is ‘we’?” Marius asked with an ugly chuckle, scraping his knuckles. “Those strange heroes from the stars you always talk about? They’re legends. No one ever saw them before.” Clapping with his hands, Marius produced a ball of wind and blew it against Ajax and Lydia, ruining their hairdos before going over his pink tuft of hair. “We have genuine heroes here, and they are more wily than justly.” 

“He’s right.” Lydia straightened her hair and threatened to hit Marius. “Pull your head out from the clouds,” cautioned Lydia, patting his back comfortingly. “You live an absurd dream. No one can reach the stars! Do you want to prove your mantle? Slay a laughing dragon and steal their treasure horde of guarded socks!” Lydia laughed. 

“We can reach the stars!” Ajax shouted and turned to the passing people on the streets. “The stars can be reached. The guardians are out there protecting us!” He saw their glares. He knew he was right, and they couldn’t accept it, but Ajax had to keep pushing. “Do good people! Protect your neighbour, don’t lie, and—”

A push got Ajax out of balance. He fell into the mud of the city’s streets. The people snickered at his clumsiness after talking so haughtily. “Hey, the hell was that for?” he yelled at the hooded person passing by him.

The woman stopped briefly. “You were in my way, boy,” she said with a fierce fire in her eyes and wobbled past him with her cane. “Go and dream elsewhere, hero.”

His friends and the people kept their distance towards the limping woman who radiated an aura of, “Come near me, and you get it.”

“It's that old raven again,” Lydia covered behind Ajax.

“Scary as ever.” Marius shivered, covering behind Lydia, who covered behind Ajax. His face turned red. “So scary, but she looks amazing underneath the hood.”

“Ergh,” Lydia groaned at him and jabbed his stomach.

Ajax sat cross-legged in the mud, watching the woman. Her name was Thea, and she was an enigmatic stranger who appeared some full moons ago in the city after a mysterious shooting star fell from the skies. 

Adventures often dubbed these events as gods and goddesses granting blessings, but Ajax knew it was more than an ordinary event in their lives. A shooting star brightened the night, and then a strange, injured woman with bandages covering her body and a leg brace appeared in the city, taking no nerve from anyone. 

Whenever she was around when Ajax talked about the guardians in the stars beyond their little world, she would inadvertently push, trip, or demean him. Sure, others did so too, but he thought she had a particular vendetta against him for how often she tripped him up or tramped his foot with her cane.

“You're staring, Ajax,” noted Lydia. “Are you interested in that older woman?” Lydia snickered, not expecting the next reply.

“Yes,” answered Ajax without batting an eye. He noticed a faint trail of stardust trailing behind the hurt woman. “Very much so.”