Wanted

By C.M. Rich (Magnetman)

Episode 25 - Victory

May 31st, 20XX, 6:35 PM

Above the crater, Requiem Mass continued to make the two battle-weakened Mechs’ lives a living hell, batting at them, swiping with his massive arms, and stomping with his tremendous feet.

All the while, SparkChan maintained her distance, painfully aware of her own injuries, continuing to punish the monster with her fully-charged Spark Shock.

It was an unfamiliar feeling for her, all that power realized at her fingertips. It wasn’t a good feeling, either.

Geminiman had run out of the power to produce his clones, and was going at it by himself. With his wounded leg and back, dodging was a painful thing. It was only a matter of time before he slipped up, and he knew it.

Still, he had to keep the monster away from his Electric Lady at all costs, even if it meant his…life.

One errant swipe later, and Geminiman was knocked back, rolling far away.

Dazed and hurt, his arms were outstretched as he struggled to remain conscious. At his fingers, laying close to him, he felt something not originally a part of the devastated environment. With his hampered vision, he looked at it.

And he smiled.

May 31st, 20XX, 6:41 PM

Gauntlet was searching now, skidding down the steep slope of the crater wall, its make-up sand-like. He wasn’t particularly worried about escaping the crater so much as concerned with reaching the helicopter and praying to God he reached Alicia before Victory realized the gravity of the situation.

A few minutes ago, even in the extreme wind, he heard gunshots. He couldn’t get his mind off of it.

It was nearly pitch black in the crater, only getting darker as he forced himself to continue blindly.

Finally, in the distance, he could see a minimal amount of light, presumably from a fire. Racing on ahead, he pushed himself against his nagging body’s pleas for rest and repair.

Finally, he could see the silhouette of the helicopter, draped across the bottom of the crater, completely broken. At his feet, there was more dust.

And a human hand, still gloved.

The landscape was dirty, but there was something else. With each step closer to the chopper, the ground sagged with blood, squishing under his boot.

“Victory…What the hell have you done…?”

There were body parts strewn about, all clothed with the familiar gray uniform of Victory’s men. And then, Gauntlet found her.

It was just…heart-breaking.

The little girl was in several pieces, the largest of which was her head still attached to a part of her torso, her little hand lifeless.

Gauntlet bit his lower lip. He fought back the un-robotic urge to cry.

“Oh God…Alicia…Oh God, I’m too late…I’m so…sorry…”

A little girl was now dead, killed for…what? Some psycho’s own machinations?

Victory…

Shadowman forced himself to look away from the dead child to search out this monster. He forced himself to journey a few more steps. He was finally rewarded with the location of Victory.

The white-armored man was on his back, shaking in fear. Above him stood Dr Enstehung, drenched in the soldiers’ blood from head to toe. His back was turned away from Shadowman.

“…Doctor…?”

He didn’t bother to answer. Victory, however, wasn’t silent, but screaming. A few steps closer revealed that his legs were no longer attached to his body, severed away from him.

“E-Enstehung…What…Are y-you?!”, Victory meekly inquired. He felt himself going into shock now, the massive blood loss from his severed stumps depriving his brain of oxygen. He had to say something, anything, to keep his mind active if he was going to live through this. Luckily, his suit sensed the problem, and tightened the area around his severed legs automatically, forming a fast tourniquet.

The crimson-stained form of the supposedly weak and frail doctor smirked in a way that added hideous waves of fear to Victory’s already shivering body.

By now, the two realized they had another guest, who didn’t know what to make of the situation at hand- he expected the opposite, frankly. The last thing he thought he’d see was this small man, whom last he saw was drugged and incapable of moving under his own power, standing over the body of his daughter’s killer.

“Sh-Shadow m-man!” Victory cried out upon seeing him. “H-Help me! He’s a m-monster!”

“Him? He’s the monster?”, Gauntlet found himself saying. “You killed his daughter, didn’t you?”

“…N-no!” Victory claimed. “HE did!”

Shadowman was taken aback. Still, the doctor did nothing to defend himself from such a vile claim.

“Doctor…Is that true?”, he asked flatly.

No answer from the doctor, but Victory insisted upon his story.

“It’s true…ah God…he killed her! He killed my men!”

“…How?”

“Ah…oh Lord…H-he…I don’t know…He took something from her, a-and…”

“And what? What did he take?”

“…Th-those…blades! Oh God, the son of a bitch cut off my LEGS!”

“Enstehung! Say something! Tell me this isn’t true!” Shadowman demanded.

A strange, barely audible chuckle emanated from the doctor, still looming over Victory.

“Enstehung!!”

“It’s true.” He finally spoke up, still not facing Shadowman. “I did this.”

“…How? How could you do that?! What the hell?!” Gauntlet shouted madly. “She was your own daughter, for God’s sake!”

“My…daughter, you say?” Enstehung spoke up. “Why, she could have been anything I wanted her to be.”

“Enstehung…What the…?” Victory uttered, more blood escaping his mouth.

Enstehung dug his fingers into the flesh beneath his eye sockets, peeling his skin away quickly, sending even more blood onto the horrendously stained ground at his feet. He stood over Victory, leaning closer to his head, bleeding profusely over Victory’s face, forcing his eyes shut and his mouth closed as his nose tried to keep the crimson fluid from entering his body.

Victory and Shadowman shared one thing at this moment- horror.

By the time the mad doctor had finished, he had peeled off his entire face and a large portion of his chest, and hastily threw the bloody mass onto the dirt by his feet as his scalp slid off of his cranium.

“H-he’s out of his fucking m-mind!”

Gauntlet’s mouth was aghast. What can you do in such a situation?

The demonstration did indeed explain things much better than words alone would.

“…Enstehung…?! Wh-what are…you?!”, Victory’s voice rose a few octaves, despite his agony.

The mutilated man laughed a bit, then leaned down towards Victory even more, his skinless face still seemed to smile. “Mmm hm hm…You’re a Horseman, correct? Named yourselves after a Biblical group, have we?”

The blonde-haired black operative was obviously perplexed by such an observation. Still, the apparently cybernetic doctor continued.

“Share a Revelation with us, Horseman! Chapter nineteen, verses eleven to sixteen, if you would…”

“You’re…”, Victory stuttered.

The bloody form seemed displeased by what he perceived as a lack of knowledge on Victory’s part. “Hmm…Disappointing…”, he grumbled.

“’ Then I saw Heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.

 
His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed which no one knows but himself.

He is clad in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, followed him on white horses.

From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, King of kings and Lord of lords.’”

“Th…The…Fifth Horseman…?”, Victory summarized, finally beginning to understand what the cyborg was getting at.

“…Jesus Christ.”, Shadowman further elaborated. Inwardly, he also wondered how he could enunciate those words so clearly without lips…

“Very good, the both of you! There may be hope for you yet!”, Enstehung applauded. Then, his expression soured during another stare with Victory. “…No…There is no hope for you. I am…the Savior! The one who will save this planet from the likes of you. Virus…the wrath of God is here…The God of Death…And any good version of Death needs…his scythe…”

Enstehung glared at the near-dead man with a look of loathing, and placed his hand upon the man’s chest in a healing fashion. In an instant, it appeared as though the doctor’s power had burst a hole through Victory’s chest, finally killing off the last remaining Horseman.

Gauntlet, however, was privileged with the sight of the source of this android’s power, as he held it in his hand before the ninja.

“…God…”, he rasped, coming to a realization.

“You’ve finally put it together, have you? Good for you.”, the doctor commended, holding a blood-soaked pair of burnt and cracked shears in a confident pose as he slowly stood upright above the emaciated body of Victory. He turned around to face Shadowman at last, his face nothing but a skull.

A skull of metal, rather than bone.

“You…There wasn’t anything left of you, though. Rich…He…”

“Valiantly gave his life in order to snuff mine out? Well…He tried. He did succeed in all but destroying my body, forcing me to create this; my new form…But that was a blessing! It allowed me to assume a human identity, after all. Besides…I seem to recall seeing our good man Mr. Kassidy here today, alive and well…At least for a little while.”

“…What?”, Shadowman scoffed. “He wasn’t here.”

“Kyeh…Heh heh…I’ll let you think that for the time being…Alas, I had hoped to gain some measure of revenge upon the Sinister Six for…this”- he proclaimed, gesturing to his skinless appearance- “But they’ve since disbanded.”

“So, you picked us instead…”, Shadowman accused.

“Not at all! That was the work of your lovely government entirely. I can’t take all of the credit for such wonderful destruction…Though I can take most of it.”, the formerly orange terror claimed, sticking his black tongue into the air to catch some of the dust in his mouth.

“Disgusting, isn’t it? This dust…”, he said, testing his palate.

Shadowman lowered his head slightly, already expecting the next sentence or two. He glared at the genocidal monster, his eyes intently focused in rage.

“The human body is mostly water. The bomb that caused all of this…My microwave bomb…Is particularly devastating towards human anatomy. It’s a brilliant concept- accelerate moisture to the point of…*poosh*…Gone. Instant evaporation! I suppose you can deduce what this dust is, then…”

“Bone.”

“Correct! Much of it is human bone, mixed with loose debris from the environment. The government loved my bomb!” he claimed, stepping away from Victory’s emaciated body, his arms grandly gesturing now. “All of the quick, war-ending effects of a nuclear bomb, sans the radiation, environmental risks, and messy clean up. In a mere week, the wind will die down, and most of the structures left standing can be brushed away, the land ready for new civilization almost immediately since only previously existing structures are weakened by the device.”

The doctor began tearing off the remaining bits of his human alter ego from his frame, revealing a bare skeleton beneath, connected by a few cords and hydraulics.

“I apologize…This guise was revolting, but it did grant me the perfect position in which to manipulate this government.”

“You played Washington like a chess game to set this up.”, Shadowman concluded, his face grim.

“Exactly.”

“…Why?”

“Because it’s what I do!”, he proclaimed proudly. “Besides…killing these…vermin gets boring if you do it in a straightforward way. Why not have a bit of fun with them by playing their own insipid game?”

“But now you’ve been forced out of your hiding place by the Horsemen…You can’t pull the government’s strings so easily now.”, Shadowman warned.

“I haven’t the need to do so anymore.”, Cutman claimed. If he still had lips, no doubt he’d have a massive sneer etched into them.

“…There’s more microwave bombs.”, Gauntlet surmised.

“Correct again…Ten microwave bombs, to be exact! And to be honest, this bomb was a mere baby. A prototype. The other ten could wipe half of the state of New York off the face of the planet without cracking the Earth in two…Beauty itself.”

“If that were true…You wouldn’t need to be here. You’d have done so by now, and your actions thus far prove it.”

Again, the “phantom smirk”.

“Excellent guess, but that’s only half right. No, I didn’t have direct access to the prototype bomb, even though I created it. I needed to trick the Horsemen into using it, mostly to satisfy my curiosity. I needed to make sure the bombs would work, after all. The United States ’ government’s laboratories gave me all of the tools I needed to make my wonderful little device…All at their urging.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you’re here, Cutman.”, Shadowman countered.

Casually, the mechanical skeleton circled about, until his “daughter’s” head was at his feet. Just as casually, he picked it up, reached inside of her cranium, and produced something.

“Is that…?!”, Shadowman’s eyes grew wide.

“Yes…The core element to my microwave bomb! An element I myself engineered in secret over the course of many years in my home world. I haven’t been able to find the raw materials I need in this world…yet. However, until then, these ten cores will give me enough power…to plunge this planet into Armageddon, from which the phoenix- the robots of this planet- will rise to recreate the Earth as I see fit.”, the maniacal android proclaimed.

“You still haven’t-“

“Patience, Shadowman…My, I never imagined you’d be so talkative. In my world, the Shadowman there is far more silent…Hmm, a rather noteworthy observation, actually…Anyway, I tricked the Horsemen into using the bomb by sending my ‘daughter’, Alicia, here, and leaked information to them that she had the cores, and was going to deal them to terrorists on my behalf. They panicked, naturally, and decided to blow up Los Angeles in order to avoid such a dangerous bomb from landing in the hands of even more barbaric human beings…Personally, they’re all barbarians to me.”

“Speak for yourself.”, Shadowman scowled, looking at the shredded remains of Alicia within the General’s hands. She may have been an android created with the sole purpose of being a decoy, but Gauntlet didn’t particularly enjoy seeing the form of any child…dead.

“Oh, don’t worry about her…If you’d like, I’ll simply rebuild her! She can live in my new world in complete peace as a reward for her role in helping to create it.”, the skeletal Cutman offered, toying with Alicia’s head as if it were a basketball.

“There’s not going to BE a new world, Cutman…I’m not letting you create it.”

Cutman dropped Alicia’s head, his eyes growing distant, insane.

“Kah…Kyahahaha! You…Expect to stop…Me? Let me tell you something…I’ve been ‘killed’ a few times before…I’m not afraid of anything you claim you can do to stop me. Normally, I’d offer any robot the opportunity to help my cause…But I know I’d be wasting my breath on you…Not to mention the fact that I know you’ve been recording this entire conversation.”

Shadowman stood there, quietly, shutting his eyes. “Damn…He caught on…But it's too late.”, he reassured himself

“No matter…Even if I am beaten here…There’s always next time.”

What an uncharacteristic thing to say, Gauntlet thought. Something’s wrong…

“There isn’t going to be a ‘next time’. I don’t care how many times you’ve cheated death, or how many genocides you committed, or even how many worlds you’ve taken over…You can’t have this one!”

“Oh please…”, Cutman sighed, rolling his amber-colored eyes. “I can TAKE whatever I want, regardless of your blessing.”

Not desiring to hear more of the tired old rhetoric he had heard so many times before, the weathered old android flicked the blades in his hand, shedding the last of Victory’s blood, causing the few reflective parts of the shears to gleam menacingly from the dim light of the fire next to him. In the same action, he held the microwave bomb cores to his mouth, swallowing the whole unit for safe keeping. His cybernetic innards accepted the cylinder quite easily.

Slowly, he began to march towards his shinobi foe, his arm outstretched. Acknowledging the threat, Gauntlet reached for his sword once again.

Cutman stopped short a few feet, perhaps to properly size up his enemy. Or, to play some sort of mind game.

Whatever the case, the two wound up locked in place, Gauntlet with his hand halfway-griped around his sword’s hilt, and the old General, pressing his shears against his hip, tapping the broadside very slowly and methodically.

Shadowman wound up staring into the cold, unblinking, and ruthless eyes of the self-proclaimed “savior” of this world. Was he telling the truth? Had he succeeded in this genocidal mission once before?

General Cutman would be grinning slightly if he had lips, he felt. He remembered the last Shadowman he faced like this, back in Elysium. He remembered…cleaving him in two. How nice; he did so love reruns.

Shadowman’s foot twitched.

The two met, their weapons smashing together with a terrific clang, with a light show of sparks to accompany the collision. For a moment, the two newfound enemies locked eyes, each sending the message of death into each others’. Brutishly, Cutman shoved Shadowman away from him, and lobbed his shears in decisive fashion.

The shears plowed through Gauntlet’s chest, but by now, Cutman was able to see through the hologram trick, and whirled around to clutch the incoming blade with his bare metal hand at the hilt, stopping the swing. Despite his appearance, the skeletal remains of the General seemingly retained his improved strength, much to Gauntlet’s discontent.

The mad General casually called back his shears into his hand by his side, immediately attempting to bury them into Shadowman’s face, who blocked it with a palmed Shadow Blade.

With a quick circular motion, Gauntlet maneuvered both hand held blades out of each others’ grasps, disarming Cutman again. Not one to back down so easily, the General buried his thin metal fingers into Shadowman’s throat, digging straight through to Gauntlet’s own titanium frame beneath.

Out of desperation, Shadowman attempted to plunge his sword through Cutman’s midsection, but with barely anything to actually pierce, he merely grazed the monster’s spine. Still, it appeared to be enough to convince Cutman to release his grip.

Gauntlet stumbled back, pressing his free hand to the gaping wound on his neck. Had he been human, his head would already have fallen off his shoulders. Still, this huge hole would leak even more of his android blood, and he could lose functions the longer this continued- he had lost enough of it today already.

At that point, he realized a severe problem. Even though General Cutman appeared to be frail, his design was much more secure, and most of his main “arteries” were contained within his bones. With so many round surfaces, his piercing attacks would have to be deadly accurate, or else they’d simply glance off. Slashing wouldn’t do much good either, as he risked breaking his sword against the menacing General’s rigid body- it wasn’t like fighting The Dusk earlier. This was a metal being.

He also realized that General Cutman had come to this conclusion earlier than he did, and wasn’t afraid of getting close to him, despite the superficial disadvantage.

This…was bad.

“Is that…despair, I see?”, Cutman taunted, summoning his blades again. “You look as though you’ve lost something!”

“Nothing at all.”, Gauntlet asserted, more for his own good than to threaten Cutman. He had to think of something while maintaining his composure.

Cutman charged at Shadowman with surprising speed…Perhaps on par with Elecman. With a wide, almost graceful kick, Cutman buried his metal foot into the ninja’s shoulder, making him wince in agony as he was reminded of one of many nagging injuries. Within nano seconds, Cutman threw down his shears towards the earth at full force, catching Shadowman’s shinobigatana along the way, stealing it from his grasp.

Shadowman was forced onto the defensive, dodging lithe blows of fists and knees, attempting to shadow dive a few times, but failing in doing so. Cutman was obviously able to calculate Gauntlet’s likeliest re-entry points simply by noting his own shadow- an uncanny ability, probably born from experience.

For a few moments, however, Gauntlet mounted a successful offensive, beating back the General with a flurry of rarely seen ninjutsu techniques, many of which he had used only once or twice in the past. Desperation, it seemed, was Gauntlet’s best and only ally now.

Until Cutman decided to fight dirty. The skeletal Robot Master grabbed the pointed edge of Shadowman’s head crest and shoved it down and inwards, gouging into Gauntlet’s usually closed right eye.

“I’ve always wanted to do that…”, Cutman “sneered” through his skull-shaped face as he watched Shadowman scramble to remove the object from his face, his hands shaking in pain.

“…Bastard…”

“Precisely!”

Cutman summoned his shears one more time from their resting place, and deftly gouged an angry hole into Gauntlet’s shoulder, close to his chest. A nearly orgasmic look swept over his eyes as the deranged General relished the feel of the cut, taking his time in prolonging his enemy’s agony.

Finally, Shadowman managed to push him off with all of his might, sending Cutman skidding backwards, but still obviously enjoying himself.

Until he caught sight of what was in Shadowman’s hand- his stomach.

With his hand still held tightly against his injured eye, Gauntlet managed a small smile as he took a risk and crushed the organ, and its contents, in his hand before the megalomaniac’s eyes.

Horror and anger swept over General Cutman’s affixed expression, his eyes and the gnashing of his teeth betraying his sense of cool.

Shadowman dropped the useless organ to the ground, crushing it with his heel for good measure.

“It’s pointless to keep fighting. You’ve lost.”, Shadowman decreed, hoping that revenge wasn’t always the first thing on Cutman’s to-do list.

Cutman glared at Shadowman, then looked at his own body part smashed to the ground, along with his plans. He then let loose an eerie giggle.

“He heh heh…Kyah…Pointless…As I’ve said, I do have back up plans. This isn’t even a setback!”

“Stop it, Cutman.”, Shadowman yelled suddenly. “You’ve got nothing to gain now!”

“I have EVERYTHING to gain now. And you’re helping me!”

“Never.”

“Its not up to you to decide. Your free-thinking rights were revoked the moment you set foot in this pit of death! You’ve been helping to build an even better weapon all along, so think what you will…You’ve helped me.”

“…You’ve lost your mind, General. I can’t let you leave this place alive…”

Yes, something was definitely wrong. Judging from his reaction, the cores were barely a factor, despite being the center of this entire mess. He really does have something else planned. Something even worse than the microwave bombs, Shadowman thought.

I have to kill him.

Cutman seemed almost capable of reading his foe’s thoughts, as it appeared as though his suggested smile only grew since the cores were destroyed.

“Yesss…”, he cooed.

Shadowman produced some of his Shadow Blades and threw them straight at the metallic menace before him. Though he dodged a few, one of them managed to hit his chest, and phase through it seamlessly, stunning Cutman in the process.

Not wasting a breath, Gauntlet smashed his knee across the demented robot’s back, and followed that up with quick shots to the back of his head, causing dull clangs to sound throughout the air as metal met metal.

Shadowman was unrelenting. He knew he couldn’t give him an inch. He couldn’t give him the slightest opening. Realizing Cutman’s next move, he pinned one of his hands down with a Shadow Blade, wedging the point of the blade between his metal bones. The next blade sandwiched his opposite elbow to the ground.

In an instant, General Cutman was looking at something only a handful of people knew about. He was staring down the barrel of Shadowman’s arm cannon- his last trump card.

More so, he was looking at an eye so full of hate, he was nearly frightened.

Cutman couldn’t help but appreciate the situation.

“…Kyeh…Kahaha…Human after all…”

Gauntlet pressed his lips together so tightly they turned white as he lamented on his decision for a second before reaching the logical conclusion.

Shadowman pulled the trigger.

The burst of white-hot plasma escaped the barrel half a second too late as it crashed into the dusty earth, the leftover energy crackling for a second as it dissipated, having failed to hit anything metallic.

Gauntlet looked up at the sky and caught a glimpse of something that made his blood run cold, then boil with rage.

He looked up to the remnants of a teleportation beam that had transported General Cutman away at the very last second.

Victory’s death had shut off the anti-teleportation grid.

It was rare for Gauntlet to be this frustrated. Frustrated beyond rage or fits. Angered beyond screaming threats no one would hear. Gauntlet was simply so disgusted with this turn of events, that he clutched the dirt between his fingers, gnashed his teeth, and smashed his hand against the ground over and over and over again.

A half-second. That’s all it took. One mere fraction of a moment. It robbed him of solace for the rest of his life. That simple act of humanity…The desire to second-guess death as a solution to anything…It betrayed him this time.

And just that thought…The thought that he agreed with Cutman’s observations about human nature on that one single moment…That’s what made him so sick.

Shadowman sat there…Silent. Unmoving. He would stay that way for the next three hours before his comrades found him. Alone. Tired.

Disappointed.