Mickey attacked first. His forward charge, fast and violent, shook the ground and tore through the air around him, creating a powerful explosion so intense that the soldiers near him almost ruptured their eardrums.
Starfish attacked immediately after. It too, with extreme agility and unnatural, viscous movements, lunged straight toward the soldier.
It all happened in a matter of seconds. Not even three seconds later, the two fighters collided halfway. The impact between them unleashed yet another shockwave. The ground beneath them cracked open into a massive crater. Debris was swept away as if it were scraps of paper blown by a light breeze. For a few moments, everything around them trembled violently.
Mickey roared. His helmet split open into massive, jagged jaws almost instantly, so abruptly that the tube attached to it snapped and was flung away, releasing a brief burst of white vapor. The roar sounded more like an electrical alarm than a voice. His vocal cords seemed made of iron. The sound was powerful, almost like a direct insult to the creature he was fighting, as he attacked in a terrifyingly animalistic way—throwing punches, clawing, growling, producing guttural sounds just as horrifying as Starfish's, which tried to evade them.
Moments later, finding a blind spot, Starfish broke free from the soldier's aggressive pressure. It struck his right side and began to tear into his arm, trying to rip through the metal with its sharp appendages that resembled teeth as they pierced into it. Every time the tentacles scraped against the arm, an unbearable metallic screech echoed, accompanied by sparks from the bladed limbs, as if they were painting an expressionist canvas across the metal.
Starfish restrained Mickey, binding his arms and legs so tightly that, for a brief moment, his bones seemed to creak with a disturbing, painful sound. Another appendage wrapped around his throat, lifting his head slightly and stretching his neck with such force that it seemed ready to tear free from his body. Mickey couldn't roar—only choking sounds escaped him, "chra…," and he couldn't react, completely immobilized by the immense strength of those limbs, which felt like concrete despite their rotten, fleshy form.
…LESS THAN 42 SECONDS…
Starfish brutally tore off Mickey's arm. The grip was so powerful that the limb snapped under the crushing force.
It made a dry, horrifying crack, followed by torrents of blood and fluids cascading like waterfalls, flooding the ground and the bodies of both monsters. Mickey screamed in agony. In that moment, he was a pitiful creature, one that could only inspire grief. The armor had no eyes, yet somehow you could still see its desperate tears. He struggled harder and harder, but it wasn't just rage. He was in the middle of a full hysterical breakdown—furious, disturbed, desperate to kill the beast in the most brutal ways possible. Yet at the same time, he was afraid. He feared that monster as if it were superior to him, staring at it with the kind of terror one would feel before an ascended god, as if he were trying to escape divine punishment, begging forgiveness even for his own rage and murderous instinct raging inside his mind like a twisted sin.
Then Mickey began to smoke.
His armor—or rather, his human body—started releasing thick black smoke, carrying heavy flakes of ash. It poured from his torso, arms, and legs, slipping through the narrow joints of the Kariudo and spreading rapidly around him. It even came from his mouth. From there, along with a red, incandescent glow, blood-red discharges began to spark—equally scorching and corrosive. These contributed to slowly, intensely frying the tentacles wrapped around him.
The sizzling of decaying flesh, hissing in a distorted, sickening way as it crackled and charred from the bubbling surface, was unbearable for Starfish. As the heat increased—along with the pain—the creature tried to pull away from Mickey, writhing frantically. But it couldn't free itself.
It wasn't just that the intense heat and burning had fused the tentacles to the Kariudo. Nor was it due to any neurological effect of the smoke. The creature itself refused to let go. It was as if it both wanted and didn't want to stop suffering. As if Mickey was forcing it to hold on, to absorb all that pain, feeding its own grotesque and insane pleasure in it.
Mickey was completely engulfed in black smoke. Starfish's tentacles were already burning, merging with the soldier and forming something like a twisted, angelic halo—an obscene contrast to his sadistic expression, his razor-sharp teeth, his wide, grotesque grin as he watched the monster that had been killing him now suffer even more.
More—because the smoke had a side effect.
It was seeping into the creature through every pore, suffocating it from the inside, burning and slowly erasing it. The creature writhed, yet remained completely still—unable to escape, pinned down as if crushed into the dirt, into mud and filth where even the crawling insects seemed to fuel that torture and blind violence.
And Mickey laughed.
It was a violation.
The soldier snapped the tentacles around his arm. This time, it wasn't difficult. He did the same with those around his legs and chest. The blackened, fragile fragments dissolved into the air, falling like ash or drifting in a slow, weightless dance with the wind.
Freed, and seeing Starfish retreat in terror from the unbearable heat—but not fleeing—Mickey walked over to the severed arm the creature had torn off moments before.
He bent down, picked it up, stared at it for a moment, then forced it back into the socket.
It was disgusting.
The soldiers behind him, who until then had only watched and fired, stared in horrified awe.
"What the hell is that…?"
The flesh didn't just stitch itself back together. The intense heat radiating from Mickey caused the tissue to fuse with the metal itself. The bones bonded stronger than before. The muscles tightened and intertwined. The blood seemed to evaporate, boiling and popping as bubbles burst one after another, releasing smoke and a foul, rotten stench. Muted, depressing sounds followed.
Mickey began to grunt again. It sounded like a sadistic laugh as he watched Starfish thrashing in agony.
"He… he… he…"
The vibrations of that chuckle shattered the souls of the soldiers who heard it.
Mickey began to roar again. At first, he trembled. Not like a leaf, but like a roaring engine. Each roar sounded like a broken, deafening instrument. It was as if a volcano were erupting at that very moment, its explosion—the most powerful in the world—spreading instantly. Even the heat itself seemed to have a voice of its own.
He was completely engulfed in flames. Smoke and ash kept pouring out of his mouth. Every one of his roars felt like an earthquake.
Starfish tried to counterattack. Its roars were just as powerful. They almost pushed Mickey's back. In fact, the two forces repelled each other. For a brief moment, that was the clash—a contest of who was more grotesque.
They reset. One against the other. Face to face. Demon against demon.
Starfish was suffering immensely. An insatiable thirst for blood made it salivate from what could barely be called a mouth.
Mickey, on the other hand, could hardly wait to tear his opponent apart. He was hungry too.
In an instant, they charged again—faster and more ferocious than before.
…15 SECONDS…
They had entered the decisive phase.
"He's wasting time…" one of the soldiers said, horrified.
"If he can't do it, I swear I'll kill him myself instead of the Ijo."
Mickey launched himself into the air toward Starfish. His goal was to crush it as quickly as possible.
There was nothing logical behind it. What drove him was pure, twisted instinct. And it almost worked.
Starfish was aggressive, but weakened. Even that minimal instinct had been overwhelmed by the smoke tearing it apart from the inside. To the soldier, it was nothing more than a struggling prey.
It should have been easy.
Instead, the arrival of a second Ijo at Mickey's side ruined everything. Mickey was sent flying, struck and overwhelmed by the brutal impact of the second creature's armored body.
…LESS THAN 1 SECOND…
…0 SECONDS. INITIATE INHIBITOR INJECTIONS.
Immediately, a series of needles pierced him from within—fast and agonizing. He collapsed to the ground, dragging himself, completely paralyzed.
"Acht… Ah…"
Moments later, he lost consciousness.