Just as we prepared to throw our lives away again, the heavy, thrashing chords of Metallica blasted from the heavens.
We looked up to see the source of the sound, only to find two blue comets 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 armed, humanoid mechs.
"Tech Syncros Incoming," a mechanical voice announced over the heavy metal track.
"Eat plasma, space fascist!" the larger mech yelled as his hand transformed into a massive energy cannon, blasting a beam that actually pushed the Viltrumite backward.
"Hey, how many times have I told you we're not using that name!" the bigger mech yelled in frustration.
"Eh, but why? We are a team after all!" the smaller, sleeker mech replied.
"Oi, Robot," I mocked to take my mind away from the flaring pain. "You didn't tell me you had siblings?!"
The mechs turned to me. Their helmets 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 name either!"
"I believe Cecil has given you the details of the situation," Robot interrupted, ever the buzzkill.
The duo nodded, their helmets 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 mechs seemed too much for the alien.. And for the first time 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 pavement 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 meteor. 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 ReAnimen.
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 metal 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 groomed to be an assassin capable of overthrowing governments. 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 mech 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 moments to breathe.
"Hey, Eve!" I called out, running over to her. "Can you use your powers on him?"
"Rex, how many times 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 me finish!" I snapped, the adrenaline making me 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 meteor. 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, measly 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 schemer, understood instantly. He ordered the remaining three ReAnimen to dogpile the blinded Viltrumite.
As they clung to his limbs, biting him into place.
I sprinted forward and slammed my remaining human hand onto the metal chassis of the closest ReAnimen.
"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 me 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 ReAnimen had bitten him... it was ripped open, exposing metal. Those screws on his temples were some 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, metallic 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 sometimes organic objects to such extreme, unstable speeds that the kinetic energy ripped them apart. Causing the trademark Rex-Explosion.
I forced the atoms of the metal 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 time for a highlight reel of every miserable memory I'd spent my life burying under sarcasm and explosions.
I saw my old man's face the day he sold me to the government. Not a shred of regret. Just pure, pathetic relief that trading his own flesh and blood meant he'd finally get a hot meal.
Then came the sterile labs. The endless, agonizing surgeries turning my bones and blood into a living detonator. They built a brainwashed attack dog, pointed me at targets, and told me I was the good guy.
But the real kicker? The one that still makes me 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 American Dream, and there was absolutely zero room in it for a broken, explosive monster. They were better off without me.
It's why I obsess over those stupid home design magazines. Because beneath all the cocky bullshit, all I ever wanted was a real home.
And Eve... Eve tried to give me one.
She pulled me out of the dark, gave me my name, even my freedom... she actually loved me. But guys like me don't know how to handle something 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 me I was too fucked up to deserve her anyway.
I shoved the memories down, swallowing the bitter lump in my throat as the kinetic energy flared blindingly pink around my finger.
I pushed the memory away. If I was a weapon, at least I finally got to choose where to point it.
But I felt something cold and sharp enter my abdomen.
I looked down. Vidor had blindly thrust his arm backward, punching clean through my gut. His fist emerged from my stomach, slick with blood, pulling a horrifying mess of my intestines out with it.
"Rex! NO!" Eve screamed.
"No!" "What?!" "Wait!" I heard a cacophony of voices screaming at me to stop.
Vidor gasped, trying to pull me 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 jammed 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:
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