Hardman's Bar

By Hadrian Howell (Hardman)

Chapter 10

“Deal with Golemman, will you?” Needlegal called out to me. She was farther back from the fight, and she came into view in the night gloom first. She stood there like a pillar, pumping rapid needle-fire at shapes in the thickening fog.

One of those silhouettes was easy to recognize. Warman’s distinctive three barrel design looked like Napalmman on steroids, and he was easily as dangerous. He seemed to be falling back under the combined fire of Needlgal’s Needle Cannon, and Magnetman’s Magnet Missiles. One of the other figures, possible Spinman or Clawman, was also taking a pounding. I caught the third, hulking shape of Golemman out of the corner of my eye and turned in a wide arc to pursue him.

Oddly enough, he was charging at me too. Unfortunately for him, while he have similar builds in body type and armor thickness, I had a lot more distance to build up momentum. As he raised one of his massive hands to level a blow, I simply threw my shoulder into his torso and let my inertia spend itself. There was a terrific clang as our armors met, and a tortured scream from my shoulder guard and his chest plate as they both bent under the pressure.

Golemman’s main power lies in his enormous strength and the focused application of it. His Golem punch is something I’ve felt on more than one occasion, and I wasn’t too keen on feeling it again. This in mind, I pressed my attack, throwing a punch at his face too keep him off balance.

I connected, but I’d forgotten that Golemman has an annoying habit of ignoring pain. A sledgehammer blow came down on my already battered shoulder, while another caught me across the face. My ears ringing, I righted myself again and stared him down.

“I have had a terrible week,” I growled low, “I’m glad I get to share some of that with you.”

“Golemman crush puny robot,” he intoned in a slab-like voice. It was pretty much all he ever said to me. Banter was pretty useless with this one.

I threw a punch that he caught easily, but then again, he was supposed to. I felt a momentary stab of pain as he started to tighten his grip on my hand before I fired my main weapon, the Hard Knuckle. The sudden force propelling my fist forward caught the lumbering hulk off guard, leaving him wide open for my other fist to slam home under his chest plate, pulling it back quickly to hit him across the face.

The monster started to go down, but he caught himself and managed to hit me with a wild backhand which actually made me stumble back a step. I swung ineffectually at him to by time for my other hand to return, which it did quickly, clicking into place. I brought him back to the center of my vision as he raised one of his fists, now glowing, high to bring it down on me.

As he brought the Golem Fist down, I caught it with both hands and fired both Knuckles at the same time. It’s a credit to Wily’s ingenuity that instead of knocking Golemman off guard again, the force behind my Knuckles simply canceled out the force behind his fist. However, I managed to use the momentary confusion of the much less mentally inclined Robot Master to deliver a swift kick to his stomach. That probably caught him more off guard than anything. I think that’s probably the first time I’ve kicked someone as Hardman.

As the Knuckles spent their energy and started to return, I backed away as the Golem Fist came crashing down into the pavement. A spiderweb of cracks shout out like lightning from the point of impact, but I wasn’t about the let the chance go by, raising my arms to bring the down heavily on Golemman’s back. The Robot Master stumbled, but he didn’t go down.

Getting a little upset with him at this point, I slammed both hands into his back again, but he still didn’t go down. I went to hit him again, but he wheeled around and slammed a Golem Fist home into my chest. I hit the pavement hard, about ten feet away from him.

“Hardman!” I heard Needlegal call out. I coughed before standing up, and Golemman was already on top of me. I got out half a swearword as another Golem Fist caught me in the side, making my fold like a dollar bill. As he drew back for another punch, I came up, summoning my fading strength, to hit him once in the stomach and one in the chin.

The other massive Master started to tumble backwards, but one of my hands shot out almost on its own to grab his usually protected neck and pull him toward me again. I drove my other hand into his face again, firing off the hard knuckle to finally send him falling backwards. The windows in the closest warehouse probably would have shattered again if they hadn’t already done so when I had hit the ground before.

As the Hard Knuckle spent its energy literally into his face, I decided I wasn’t done yet, and I crouched low before leaping into the air. There’s only one attack I ever do from the air, and I could feel myself hang there for a moment as I turned upside down before the jet engine that makes up a large portion of my lower torso roared into life.

All I ever saw was Golemman’s chest plate before I hit, then there was blackness, but no pain. One of the amazing things about the Hard Press is that my entire body enters a kind of shielded state for the attack, just like my hands do when I use the Hard Knuckle. For an instant, my entire body becomes immune to pain, at a velocity that causes car alarms for miles to go off when I hit the ground. It’s my most destructive attack, and one of the hardest to hit my opponent with.

A secondary engine in my head fired briefly to get me out of the ground and I stood back up, surveying my handiwork. Golemman had managed to shift just enough to keep his torso through my attack. Well, most of his torso, anyway. Pretty much all of his left side and arm had been crushed. The rest of his body was probably ruptured from being so close to the shockwave. There was a crater in the concrete, almost five feet in diameter and almost two feet deep at the bottom.

I drew in a long breath and then let it out. Magnetman and Needlegal approached me through the fog. A lack of urgency in their motions told me that Warman and Spinman/Clawman had either been dealt with or had gotten away. I turned to Needlegal, alert that my side still hurt and was probably dented.

“You and I need to talk,” I coughed.