Wanted

By C.M. Rich (Magnetman)

Episode 20 - Cancerous

May 31st, 20XX, 5:39 PM , PST

War took the first shot.

It was a bright orb of plasma that buzzed past Snakeman’s cheek just barely as the nimble-yet-exhausted Robot Master managed to side-step the glob. Behind him, the red-hued collection of energy smashed into the dusty Earth, splashing apart upon contact and searing everything within a few feet, the plasma slow to dissipate.

“Slow-burn plasma!”, Geminiman alerted. “Look out! That stuff’s worse than napalm!”, shooting off a Gemini Laser towards Famine, who proved to be a difficult target.

“I’ve had enough burning for one day…”, Shadowman grumbled, taking three kunai in his hand from his back.

Attempting to disarm the massive red war machine as quickly as possible, the world-weary Shadowman launched all three daggers at War’s armament, growing frustrated by the rogue mercenary’s technology.

The kunai were deflected by an ion field produced from an oval-shaped bulge on War’s forearm, which was only visible due to the dust hitting it. The ion field appeared to be automatically activated, and not by the soldier, making things that much worse.

“Damn it.”, he spat, looking over the Horsemen and spotting the ion generators in various places all over their armors. They were rather inconspicuous before, but now they were ominous in their simple shape, meaning it would be a tremendous obstacle just getting past those to inflict any damage to the Horsemen.

Before he could come up with another plan of action, Topman was getting rather impatient, opting to test the Horsemen’s close quarters combat potential against a flurry of seemingly random spin dashes and whirling roundhouses.

“I’ve got this!”, Famine yelled, stepping in front of his brothers quickly.

The black-clad mercenary’s rifle barely made a noise as its projectile unloaded itself in the form of a mass of grey-tinged air-hard to see in the hellishly dust-infected atmosphere.

SD was having a hard time finding the impending attack, but rolled to the side at the last second, the mass of silvery dust somewhat colliding with his left inner knee. After a few rolls without feeling much effect, Topman stood up and took stock of the damage, if any.

“Oh! Shit!”, he yelled, trying to brush off the ash that was eating away at his outer layers, disintegrating his gloves slightly, exposing the synthiflesh and metallic bone ever so slightly beneath his fingers.

“A caustic cloud.”, Snakeman named the deadly munitions. “It’s like a cancer. It’ll eat through just about anything.”

“Thanks, Mr Wizard.”, Topman said dryly, finally spinning the last of the cancerous creation off of his body.

“Hehehe…You guys are completely outclassed.” Famine gloated. “Even Dr Light’s brilliant mind couldn’t match our R and D lab’s capabilities. Meredith and the good doctor here are only a scratch on the surface of our technological might!”

“Meredith?” Geminiman echoed.

“Probably one of the Riders we killed.” Raijin concluded. “Spark, give me some cover, alright?”

“Coming right up!”

SparkChan stood to the side of the serpent sniper as he kneeled for a level shot. Electricity crackled to life in the sandstorm, and a very visible field of amber plasma formed in front of the pair.

Snakeman squeezed the trigger, watching his armor-piercing bullets disappear against the ion fields generated by Death.

“Worse than I thought.” the scaled sharpshooter grumbled between shots. “Those fields are instantaneous and a lot more powerful than they should be. I think- LOOK OUT!”

In his concentration, Snakeman hadn’t noticed the near-seven foot tall War approach from the side, attempting to club the sniper with the butt of his rifle. As Snakeman rolled away, Classi turned her attention towards him, using some of the power she had generated for the spark shield to stun the Mars red merc.

“Gla-ah-ah-ah-ah!!”, he screamed as the Spark Shock smacked into his shoulder, arcs of electricity tracing lines over his body for a few seconds before he dropped to a single knee.

“Oh…my…I didn’t think it’d…”, a concerned SparkChan defended.

“Good work, Spark!” Snakeman commended, on the other hand. “Electricity doesn’t seem to be their friends.”

“Same with my lasers!”, Geminiman chimed in from a few yards away, overhearing the conversation. His Gemini Laser was indeed having a notable effect on Death, who sported a few new scorch marks on his silver and black attire.

“Their shields are meant for solid weapons, not energy-based attacks.” Snakeman surmised. “G, any luck with you?”

Shadowman wasn’t having as much success against Famine, nor was Topman:

“These guys aren’t exactly sitting still for us.”, he shouted back, ducking a rifle swipe from the onyx black warrior as SD’s whirling kick was rebuked by an ion field.

“These damned force fields are all over these guys!”, Topman added in dismay, rubbing his foot.

Snakeman took this in for a second, then turned to his associate.

“Spark…I know it’s not what you want to do, but you’ve got to go on the offensive.”

“Raijy, you know that’s not-“

“Please. If you don’t, we’re probably not going to get out of this one alive. You’re the one in the best position to help us win this.”

“I…” she said, turning away to watch Geminiman get smacked in the face with a nasty left hook from Death. “Okay…”

“Good. Now-“

Snakeman felt the shadow a bit too late as War had recovered, literally crushing Snakeman with his powerful arm, mashing his face into the Earth, almost drowning him in the sand-like ground.

“Got a little cocky, junior.” War admonished. “It’s the last mistake you’ll ever make.”

“Ka! Class…Gyrahh!...N-now!”, Snakeman pleaded under War’s grip.

Hesitant, Classi had to force herself to watch Snakeman’s suffering for a second before realizing she had no choice. Her conductors were ready, energy gathered. She looked up at War.

Who was pointing his rifle dead at her face with his free hand.

“Another mistake.”

May 31st, 20XX, 5:46 PM , PST

Lennon could almost feel the shot from the ten yards distance between he and his elusive love interest. Instantly, he turned around, completely ignoring Death’s attack barrage.

“No…CLASSI!”, he screamed.

Death wasn’t about to let such a golden opportunity escape. He kicked out Lennon’s knee from behind, forcing the Twin Terror onto his knees.

“The worst crime you can commit on the battlefield,” he started with a raspy voice. “is taking your eyes off your enemy, even for your friend.”

Death wrapped his arm around Lennon’s throat keeping him steady as he pulled out another weapon from his belt. The familiar buzz of a beam blade accompanied the sight of the knife held next to Lennon’s throat.

Still, that took a backseat to…

“Spark! Answer me!”

He couldn’t keep his eyes off of the motionless figure of SparkChan, still smoking from some place on her upper torso, her head turned away from him.

“Stupid child.” Death berated, digging the fiery laser knife into Lennon’s face.

“Yeaarrgh!”, he screamed, his attention now back on his current peril.

He struggled like a rat in a trap, finally pushing the snickering Death away from him, grabbing his face as soon as he could. A major part of his left cheek had been burnt down to the metal beneath, which was also sporting a deep groove.

“You bastard…”, he hissed at the silvery menace that clutched two beam knives. “Hope you can handle the receipt. No one touches my face, least of all leftover trash like yourself.”

Geminiman matched Death’s weapons with two of his own, his riot batons. He was far from agile or showy with a back-handed smack, which was deflected by the handle of Death’s knife. The two then matched attacks, holding each other at bay at arm’s length.

“Boy…This ain’t a game. This isn’t about honor or pride or anything so meaningless. This is way bigger than that.”, the silvery menace coldly stated.

“Keep telling yourself that if it makes killing civilians that much easier for you. Do whatever you need to delude yourself to sleep at night.”

Death delivered a swift knee strike to Lennon’s upper thigh, which was blocked with his free hand. Using Death’s imbalance to his advantage, Lennon thrust his own foot down towards the mercenary’s grounded leg, hoping to break it.

Again, he was thwarted by an ion field, his foot stomping down awkwardly as it glanced off of it, his back momentarily turned away from his enemy. That was all the silver-clad soldier needed.

After only a second, Geminiman was now attempting to remove one of the glowing knives from his back, planted right between his shoulder blades in an instant. Death wasted little time in following up once more, jamming the other knife straight through Lennon’s right knee from behind, going straight through to the other side.

“Ahhhgh!!” the Twin Terror screamed as he collapsed under his own weight just as Death reclaimed both of his weapons with calculating effort.

Lennon turned over on his back, propping himself up with his elbows, his head tilted backwards in total pain.

Death took only a moment to look over his enemy, then kicked away the twin riot sticks cautiously, then resumed stalking his prey.

May 31st, 20XX, 5:31 PM , PST

“Gaunts! We’re definitely NOT winning!”, Topman observed, watching Lennon fall a few meters away as he avoided another blast of sickly, cancerous air from Famine’s rifle.

“Noted.”, the ninja acknowledged, though he had realized this a few minutes earlier, taking the time to send a few kunai in Death’s direction between masses of the cancerous clouds shot at him.

Death’s attention turned towards the pair of Famine-dodging Maniacs.

“He’s all yours, Top.”

“Oh, great. Thanks.”

Gauntlet unsheathed his ninja-ken to get up close and personal with the matter-melting Famine, hoping to at least negate that ever-so-deadly caustic cloud. A quick twirling leap later, and Shadowman was perched atop Famine’s own rifle just as he was about to take another shot.

“Hi.”

Famine dropped his rifle to the ground, hoping to unbalance the cyber shinobi. No such luck for Famine, as Gauntlet merely shifted his weight, landing on his feet, managing to kick the rifle away, much to the ninja’s relief.

“You! Well, you can’t even lay a finger on me. Not with this armor.”, Famine reminded in a shaky tone.

“Hmm, I’ve been wondering about that, actually.”, Gauntlet confessed, ducking below a bladed elbow from Famine. “It’s a pretty good defense, but I think you’re relying on it a bit too much.”

“Is that so? Ha! I’ve had my fair share of battles. In fact, I was probably retired around the same time you were a toaster waiting to be recycled into a hunk of scrap robot. I’ve got nothing to prove to you!”

“Now, that’s not very constructive.”, Shadowman admonished. “You’re just going to let your equipment do the work for you? What if your equipment fails?”, he questioned after coming around Famine using his shadow warp.

“Not bloody likely! This armor is absolutely perfect! It was, after all, reverse engineered from some of Dr Light’s own designs and improved upon a hundred fold!”

“Is that so?”

Gauntlet leapt backwards suddenly, lobbing a few more kunai at his onyx black “friend” in the process.

“Heh! I thought you’d le-earrrrgh!!”

Famine fell back, his hands wrapped around his shin as he looked at the cause of this new, unfamiliar pain. A kunai was sticking out of his leg, halfway deep. In a sense of shock, Famine pulled the blade out as quickly as he could, feeling even more pain as he did so.

“Rrrrghh!! Ahhh!”

Keeping an eye on Gauntlet as he slowly, cautiously walked around him in a circle, like a lion observing his prey, Famine checked the ion generator on his shin plate that should have deflected the damned kunai. It was then he realized the small, egg-shaped device was slashed open from the side, almost from behind.

Shadowman smiled, quite evilly.

“…Death! They’ve found a way past our ion fields!”, he reported to the nearest Horseman, who was busy trying to stab and slash the ever-whirling Topman.

“Negative!”, he retorted. “YOU allowed them past YOUR field, dolt!”

“Just sh-shut up and get over here! I’m wounded!”

“Let your suit do the work, retard.”, Death reminded.

“Y-yeah…Alright…”

Like that, Famine realized his leg was already feeling much better, the sharp pain easing to a dull throbbing in a matter of seconds. He remembered now, how his armor could tighten and loosen around a body part when it sensed a wound, forming a splint and a tourniquet, and injecting morphine through the dermal layer while releasing trace amounts of serotonin into the brain, all in a matter of seconds.

Gauntlet’s smile faded as Famine literally hopped back onto his feet, seemingly unaffected by the nasty wound he had given to him not more than twenty seconds ago.

“Hehehehe…Tougher than you thought, eh?”, Famine gloated, flexing his leg outward.

Shadowman stepped backwards, sinking down into his own shadow instantly. Almost simultaneously, Famine felt a new pain in his newly healed limb, this time in his foot as he watched a ninja sword pierce the appendage from his own shadow.

Shadowman then dragged the blade out, cutting down towards his toes before finally exiting and withdrawing the sword.

“Fix that.”, he demanded, reappearing from another shadow.

May 31st, 20XX, 5:51 PM , PST

“Big man, you’re not going to get off very easy.”, Snakeman warned his enemy, wiping away a trickle of chilled blood from his mouth. He was covered in dirt from his chest up to his helmet, barely managing to kick his way out of War’s grip.

“I’m absolutely shaking.”, War brushed off.

“You just might in a second.”

War noticed his scaly adversary wasn’t looking him in the eye, but at his shoulder. The red-plated monster followed suit, looking at his shoulder. At the very corner of his eye, he saw one of Snakeman’s minions, obediently chomping away at his chest and shoulder plates, behind the ion field.

“Hhgh! Damn!”

War pulled the menacing robot critter from his shoulder, bits of metal falling from its mouth as the enraged mercenary crushed its neck in his grasp, eliciting a small wince from Snakeman.

“Sorry Makoto.”, War thought he heard Snakeman mutter. That was just as he felt another new feeling in the same area the snake was chewing, only this was more familiar.

He touched his hand to the affected body part, bringing up fingers doused liberally in blood. He’d been shot. It was then he realized the snake was targeting one of the ion fields on his body.

“H-heh…Pretty clever.”, he granted Snakeman, grasping his shoulder, protecting it from further damage.

“We’re just getting started.”, Raijin promised, his face grim. “We’re just getting started…”