Just as we prepared to throw our lives away again, the heavy, thrashing chords of tallica blasted from the heavens.
We looked up to see the source of the sound, only to find two blue cots streaking down, getting bigger and clearer as they got closer to the ground.
As they landed, the shockwave blew the dust clear, and we saw heavily ard, humanoid chs.
"Tech Syncros Incoming," a chanical voice announced over the heavy tal track.
"Eat plasma, space fascist!" the larger ch yelled as his hand transford into a massive energy cannon, blasting a beam that actually pushed the Viltrumite backward.
"Hey, how many tis have I told you we're not using that na!" the bigger ch yelled in frustration.
"Eh, but why? We are a team after all!" the smaller, sleeker ch replied.
"Oi, Robot," I mocked to take my mind away from the flaring pain. "You didn't tell you had siblings?!"
The chs turned to . Their helts retracted, revealing two very human teenagers.
"Hey, who're you calling robots? We are full-fledged humans, you know!" the big one said.
"Yes! We are the Tech Siblings!" the female added.
[Image Here]
"Sis, I never agreed to that na either!"
"I believe Cecil has given you the details of the situation," Robot interrupted, ever the buzzkill.
The duo nodded, their helts snapping back over their faces. "Yeah. I'm Zack Thompson, and this is my sis, Zoe. We've got orders to deal with four eyes over there."
The Viltrumite pushed himself out of the rubble, eyeing their armor. "How... how does this backwater planet have Geldarian armor? And two of them?!"
"Yo! Vidor, right?" Zoe said, aiming her arm at him. "I really like your glasses. Wanna trade?!"
Her arm shifted, firing a point-blank cruise missile directly into Vidor's face.
Dealing with two coordinated chs seed too much for the alien.. And for the first ti since this whole nightmare started, the Viltrumite wasn't the one hunting. He was getting jumped.
Monster Girl kicked it off. She ripped the flaming chassis of a city bus right out of the pavent and teed off on Vidor's jaw like it was the bottom of the ninth. The crunch was loud enough to make my own teeth ache, and it actually staggered the bastard.
Before he could even spit the soot out, Black Samson was on him, but he wasn't just throwing haymakers anymore. Bathed in that crackling yellow energy, he was a blur, zeroing in on Vidor's joints. Kneecaps, elbows, insteps, anything he could get his hands on while others distracted the Alien. He was fighting dirty, trying to buckle the guy's foundation.
Vidor snarled and raised a fist to turn Samson into paste, but Robot stepped in. Tin-can didn't bother throwing a punch and instead dumped a swarm of lasers straight onto Vidor's collarbone.
That was the opening the new kids needed.
Zoe dove in low. Her blue 'Geldarian' armor whirred as her arms morphed into super-heated plasma whips. She lashed them around Vidor's wrists, threw her thrusters in reverse, and pinned the guy's arms down hard.
"Batter up, bro!" she yelled.
Her brother Zack rocketed straight up, turning his entire torso into a massive freaking boltgun. He fired a solid slug that hit Vidor square on his back with the force of a falling teor. The impact dropped the Viltrumite right to his knees and skidded to the end of the campus.
Vidor roared, now totally humiliated. He flexed, his ridiculous alien muscles starting to snap Zoe's plasma whips as he got ready to launch himself.
But Eve wasn't having it.
She flew overhead, glowing bright pink. Instead of throwing a shield, she transmuted the pulverized asphalt right under Vidor's boots into boiling tar. He sank up to his shins in seconds before she snapped her hands, turning the tar into a solid block of titanium.
His feet were locked in and the bastard was finally stuck.
And that was the dinner bell for the ReAnin.
Cecil's three undead cyborgs didn't hesitate. They dogpiled the trapped Viltrumite like rabid junkyard dogs. One locked its hydraulic arms around Vidor's throat, while the other two just sank their tal teeth right into his ears, nose, eyelids or whatever soft tissue they could find.
It was glorious. They weren't fighting like heroes trying to put a bad guy in handcuffs. They were fighting like cornered alley cats, using every terrifying trick on this fascist piece of shit without giving him a single second to breathe.
I leaned back against the rubble, gritting my teeth as my new robotic arm synced up with my nervous system, recovering my stamina to use my powers again.
But I wasn't just lazing around. I was grood to be an assassin capable of overthrowing governnts. So, I watched. I observed the way he fought, the way he moved his head to protect his visor and those weird screws on his temples.
The siblings high-fived mid-air, physically linking their ch arms together to form a gigantic, unified blaster and fired a massive beam that launched Vidor high into the sky, finally giving the team a few monts to breathe.
"Hey, Eve!" I called out, running over to her. "Can you use your powers on him?"
"Rex, how many tis do I have to say this?" she panted, wiping sweat from her brow. "I can't alter living organic matter. I'm sorry."
"Tch! Get out of your own head, woman, and let finish!" I snapped, the adrenaline making abrasive. "I'm talking about the visor. It's inorganic! And permanently attached to the inside of his skull! If you—"
I was cut off as Vidor crashed back down like a teor. His uniform was in tatters, his skin scuffed and bleeding. His eyes were bloodshot with absolute fury.
"You insignificant, mud-dwelling apes!" Vidor roared, his voice booming with enough force to rattle my teeth. "I am an elite soldier of the Viltrum Empire! I have broken entire civilisations more advanced than you! You think your pathetic, asly bunch of tricks can match pure Viltrumite blood?!"
He ripped a chunk of titanium off his boot, crushing it in his fist.
"Nolan be damned! I will raze this miserable dirtball to ash! I will burn every single one of your cities to the ground and make your entire species beg for extinction!"
But the team didn't give him an inch. Zack and Zoe pressed him hard with their synchronised barrages.
Using the distraction, Eve flew up behind him. She reached out, slamming her glowing pink hands onto the sides of his visor.
Since she couldn't alter him, she altered the glass instead.
She transmuted the inside of the transparent visor into six-inch, jagged tungsten spikes.
Vidor let out a horrifying shriek as the spikes drove directly into his eyes. He clawed blindly at his face, trying to rip the reinforced visor out of his own skull.
"Now!" I yelled.
Robot, ever the scher, understood instantly. He ordered the remaining three ReAnin to dogpile the blinded Viltrumite.
As they clung to his limbs, biting him into place.
I sprinted forward and slamd my remaining human hand onto the tal chassis of the closest ReAnin.
"Get back!" I roared as I accelerated the molecules of the undead cyborgs till their whole bodies were charged up with kinetic energy.
Their bodies finally lit up like miniature suns.
The team scattered, and Zoe whipped behind her armour.
BAROOM!
The resulting explosion was the biggest I had ever mustered. The shockwave levelled the remaining campus buildings for miles, sending a mushroom cloud of fire into the night sky.
When the smoke finally cleared, I saw Vidor finally on his knees.
His suit was gone. His skin was burned, blistered, and bleeding profusely. The blast had finally shattered the spiked visor completely.
But I saw it. The ear where one of the ReAnin had bitten him... it was ripped open, exposing tal. Those screws on his temples were so kind of cybernetic implants connected directly to his visor.
While the alien was in a daze, seeing his pathetic condition, I didn't hesitate.
I leapt over the rubble, launching myself onto his back and thrusting my finger directly into the bloody, tallic hole right beneath the exposed screw on the right side of his skull.
It was maybe less than even a second, but I poured my soul into it.
My power wasn't limited to 'making fire.' I accelerated the molecules inside inorganic and sotis organic objects to such extre, unstable speeds that the kinetic energy ripped them apart. Causing the trademark Rex-Explosion.
I forced the atoms of the tal deep inside his brain to accelerate, building up a catastrophic amount of kinetic potential energy.
Pain does funny things to the brain. Instead of just passing out, my fucked-up subconscious decided it was the perfect ti for a highlight reel of every miserable mory I'd spent my life burying under sarcasm and explosions.
I saw my old man's face the day he sold to the governnt. Not a shred of regret. Just pure, pathetic relief that trading his own flesh and blood ant he'd finally get a hot al.
Then ca the sterile labs. The endless, agonizing surgeries turning my bones and blood into a living detonator. They built a brainwashed attack dog, pointed at targets, and told I was the good guy.
But the real kicker? The one that still makes want to blow my own head off? The night I tracked my parents down years later where I was shivering in the dark while I watched the glowing warmth of the fireplace inside their cozy little house. They had smiles. They had two new, perfect kids. My sacrifice had bought them the Arican Dream, and there was absolutely zero room in it for a broken, explosive monster. They were better off without .
It's why I obsess over those stupid ho design magazines. Because beneath all the cocky bullshit, all I ever wanted was a real ho.
And Eve... Eve tried to give one.
She pulled out of the dark, gave my na, even my freedom... she actually loved . But guys like don't know how to handle sothing that pure. I was so insecure, and jealous of anyone who even looked at her—especially Mark—that I panicked. I sabotaged the only beautiful thing in my life. I pushed her away, and blew the whole damn thing up, just because my broken brain convinced I was too fucked up to deserve her anyway.
I shoved the mories down, swallowing the bitter lump in my throat as the kinetic energy flared blindingly pink around my finger.
I pushed the mory away. If I was a weapon, at least I finally got to choose where to point it.
But I felt sothing cold and sharp enter my abdon.
I looked down. Vidor had blindly thrust his arm backward, punching clean through my gut. His fist erged from my stomach, slick with blood, pulling a horrifying ss of my intestines out with it.
"Rex! NO!" Eve scread.
"No!" "What?!" "Wait!" I heard a cacophony of voices screaming at to stop.
Vidor gasped, trying to pull off, trying to stop the kinetic charge building inside his own head.
For a race used to being invincible, the realization that his own skull was turning into a nuclear bomb shattered him. He thrashed wildly like a trapped animal, a desperate, gargling scream tearing from his throat as the orange kinetic energy began to violently bleed out of his ruined ears and eye sockets.But I didn't let go. I kept my fingers jamd in his skull, the energy glowing brighter and brighter until it illuminated the entire crater.
I looked at Eve, tears streaming down her face as I mouthed.
'Sorry…'
[Image Here]
I looked at my bruised, broken friends, even those weirdo siblings.
I looked past them, at the horizon. The first rays of dawn were breaking over the ruined campus.
It was the most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen.
I smiled and let go.
BOOOOM!!
Author's Note:
To celebrate finishing Arc-1, I'm also putting a 50% discount across ALL tiers until June 1st.
If you want to read up to 15 Chapters in advance, check out my P@treon - Max_Striker.
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