Late at night, in a room where only a desk lamp emitted a soft, non-glaring yellow light, under an atmosphere that felt like a discussion of One Thousand and One Nights or fairy tales.
Little Emperor first happily enjoyed Vincent's petting, and then this Flerken Cub, lying on the bed, slowly opened its cat-like mouth, revealing tiny teeth, and a miniature, bottomless black hole appeared in its throat.
Rumble!
Under the gaze of Diana and Vincent, in a short while, Little Emperor spat out a palm-sized starfish from its mouth.
The starfish was almost a miniature version of the alien species Starro's main body, colorful, with a slightly larger eye in the very center of its strange body.
However, unlike those split-off bodies that only instinctively absorb energy, the starfish's eye now showed a glimmer of wisdom and emotion, and it showed no intention of attacking Vincent and Diana in front of it.
Of course.
Even though Diana was just quietly warming the bed at this moment, if the starfish showed any intention or act of aggression, it would likely be instantly wiped clean.
Little Emperor also eyed the spat-out starfish with vigilance; although its own existence might be for the purpose of finding Starro, it still chose to stand by Vincent's side.
Under the vigilant and scrutinizing gaze of the two people and one beast.
The starfish, as a Starro clone, gave a deep look at Little Emperor who had spat it out, and then, like a strange gentleman, bowed to Vincent and Diana beside it.
It had no mouth, conveying its meaning through mental thought: "I am very sorry, I misjudged before."
"At that time, my heart was filled with the rage and hatred of revenge. When I saw that Black Cat, I mistakenly thought it was just pretending to be a Flerken, so I instantly lost my mind and launched an attack. It wasn't until it used the Flerken species' exclusive ability that I knew it was truly a Flerken... cub."
The starfish's gaze fell on Little Emperor, its single eye showing a hint of doting?
Vincent nodded in understanding; at that time, as a Three-in-one, he could indeed not be considered a Flerken.
"Starro, may I call you that?" Vincent asked.
"I am honored, young sir." The starfish nodded quickly, bowing slightly, giving a very comfortable gentlemanly impression, which was vastly different from its ruthless and violent behavior in the island nation.
Vincent's hand was still stroking Little Emperor's soft, smooth orange fur, and he asked curiously, "I want to know. Why does Little Emperor know you, and why has it always wanted to find you? What is your relationship with it?"
"It has been looking for me for over twenty years..." The starfish trembled upon hearing this, and its single eye flashed with a shimmering light.
"Meow!" Little Emperor truly seemed not to recognize Starro, only happily narrowing its eyes, rubbing its cute little head against Vincent's hand, and making soft, milky sounds like a normal cat.
Vincent instinctively felt that the "it" Starro referred to was not the current Little Emperor.
The Starro clone was silent for a moment, its single eye filled with reminiscence, and then it sighed mentally: "Everything started more than twenty years ago."
"I and an adult Flerken—Goose—were good friends. I liked to float and wander freely in space, while Goose liked to travel through various cosmic spaces."
"We journeyed together for a long time, approached the legendary divine realm of Asgard, touched the netherworld where no living beings existed, visited the most prosperous central civilization of the Milky Way Galaxy, traversed the space controlled by the Green Lantern Corps, and witnessed hundreds of thousands of brilliant and beautiful space civilizations!"
Those places all sounded very dangerous, but when Starro and the adult Flerken were together, their survival ability was truly too outrageous; Vincent had personal experience of this.
The starfish paused, then continued mentally: "Until, twenty-two years ago, Goose and I followed Danvers' spaceship to Earth."
"Wait a moment." Vincent didn't want to interrupt the other party, but there was one thing that greatly concerned him: "Did you just say Danvers?"
The starfish replied: "Yes. Carol Danvers, she originally thought she was an alien, but she was actually a native Earthling."
Vincent fell silent, not expecting to hear that name from Starro.
Carol Danvers.
Vincent had heard this female name mentioned once or twice by his adopted father when he was at his junior's, Kara Danvers', home.
That was Kara's adopted father's biological daughter, and one could say Kara's sister.
However, according to Kara's adopted father, Carol Danvers had already passed away long ago, the cause of death being a fighter jet out of control incident during military training.
"You continue." Vincent temporarily suppressed the doubts in his heart and said.
"After Danvers left Earth, Goose and I remained in this World, and that was the beginning of the nightmare." The starfish recalled the events of that time, still feeling anger and trepidation: "That day, Goose and I briefly separated for foraging. I was just floating in Earth's outer space, sunbathing, and accidentally fell asleep. I was captured by a passing U.S. space shuttle and directly imprisoned in the Kodomatis Research Institute in the island nation."
Starro's emotions calmed down slightly, and it conveyed mentally: "Next, you should also know that I was imprisoned there and researched for twenty whole years until I finally escaped today, which is why I wanted to destroy that human city."
Vincent's mind stirred, and he looked at the Flerken Cub, which resembled a kitten: "So, Little Emperor is..."
The starfish nodded, also looking at Little Emperor with its single eye, its gaze full of doting: "Yes, it should be the offspring hatched from an egg laid by Goose."
Flerken are oviparous.
This was something Vincent hadn't expected before; he had been too misled by Little Emperor's overly cat-like appearance.
"Goose might have left Earth for some reason, so it left one of its eggs behind and imprinted a goal of finding me through racial memory. Although it hasn't found me all these years, it still placed its hope in its offspring..."
As it spoke up to this point with its mental thoughts, a tear suddenly rolled from the Starro clone's blue crystal-like eye.
"Meow..." Little Emperor seemed to sense something, gently placing one of its cub paws on the starfish.
Vincent had one last question, which he asked directly: "Is the Flerken race's Devourer Space interconnected?"
"Not exactly." Starro explained: "It just splits infinitely. Let's put it this way: when the first Flerken was born in the Universe, its Devourer Space was as large as our current Universe, equivalent to a parallel Universe. However, when it laid eggs and gave birth to offspring, its Devourer Space would directly split with the number of eggs, and the new Devourer Space that split off would become exclusive to a certain offspring."
"I understand." Vincent suddenly realized; with this, everything made sense.
It turned out.
The alien and warship wreckage in Little Emperor's Devourer Space were swallowed by the adult Flerken Goose back then, and split off along with the space when it laid its eggs.
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