Mechanical Maniacs: Life After Life

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

CHAPTER 14: Brawl

"Ah, th' ol', tired, robot supremacy nonsense," I sneered. "Thanks fer sayin' it. Now I've REALLY got a reason ta kick yer ass."

"You posed no challenge to me before. You fled from my mght. Why should I worry now?"

"Yer not pickin' on a guy approachin' his fifties anymore," I said. "Now yer up against a force ta be reckoned with, and I'm gonna grind ya inta th' dirt."

"You should be cautious of who you mouth off at, epecially when you don't mind your footing," Concreteman smirked.

I felt the shift in the street through my feet before I knew what was coming, The entire road bucked under me, pitching me backward and away from my opponent. I landed hard on my back and rolled to the side to scramble to my feet, standing up just in time to see a pillar of cement, molded out of a nearby buidling's wall, sail right past my head.

Kept off balance by the sudden attack, I stumbled to the side only to get caugh in the face by another pillar coming from the other direction. I punched and swore, the pillar crumbling as easily as most building do when I take offense to them, trying to clear my vision of the chunks of rock and clouds of dust I'd kicked up.

I fired my left hand at Concreteman, not entirely surprised when a wall of solid stone sprang up between the two of us, the Hard Knuckle spending its momentum shattering the impromptu barrier. Even as my fist returned to me, though, I was already charging forward with a kind of ferocity that hasn't been halted by very many forces on Earth.

Unfortunately, I'd never dealt with an enemy who could mold the entire landscape between he and I to his advantage, and I found myself fighting against the steepness of a sudden hill which rapidly became a cliff and then a wave of shifting street which crashed on top of me and knocked me to the ground again.

"Okay," I coughed, struggling to my feet as the ground beneath me began to shift again, "I commend ya on knockin' me down more 'n most people've ever managed, but seriously, stop bein' a dick."

"And surrender my advantage to a brutish relic?" Concreteman mocked. "Not likely."

"Worth a shot," I commented, literally throwing another two punches that met with heavy resistance. The rubble of the twin barriers that defended Concreteman from my assault seemed to melt into the pavement of an unmarred street.

"Interestin' trick," I admitted as my hands reattached. "Lemme guess... nanomachines? The ability ta manipulate porous stone 'nta whatever ya need? Mold it t'yer will, so ta speak?"

Concreteman laughed. "Now you begin to see how outmatched you are? The very environment here is mine to command, to mold and shape! Not only do I forever posses the advantage of terrain against you, but my physical specifications are high above your own, making a drawn out physical conflict something that does not favor you either. I am your superior in every way!"

He punctuated his statement by dropping the ground under my left foot and raising it under my right, sending my sideways in a kind of goofy cartwheel that I'm sure must have been amusing from an outside perspective. I stood back up and stayed low, trying to account for the constantly shifting ground.

"Look, kid, I'll give it ta ya straight. I've fought bizzaro clones, bad copies, demons fr'm another dimension, evil versions o' some pretty good pals o' mine, the puzzle prick fr'm hell, a pair o' walkin' glass windows, MYSELF, some bumblin' knights, and a frickin' hotel, along with all manner o' arrogant assholes, officious pricks, th' law, th' outlaws, th' good, th' bad, th' ugly an' th' architecture. I'd have ta say most o' 'em were, on paper at least, in a higher class 'n me, and yet I'm th' guy who's standin' here listin' 'em off instead o' lyin' in a grave somewhere an' rottin' away." I breathed in, a little surprised at myself for rambling on like that. "I don't think yer really gonna gimme too much trouble."

A surge of street welled up and knocked me backwards again. "Do you EVER shut up?" he demanded.

I laughed as I hit the street. "Not if it annoys ya!" I got up again, slower this time. "Ya c'n roll me around all day if ya want, but it ain't gonna kill me."

"You're right," he admitted.

The world went dark and I was suddenly encased in concrete. I could feel it pressing in around me, and were I a less sturdy machine, I'd probably be in trouble. I swung my arms wildly and the covering eventually gave way, giving me the windw I needed to tear myself free of the asphalt prison.

"I'm warnin' ya," I shouted, firing a Hard Knuckle at him, "stop bein' a dick about this. It's just gonna make th' beatin' I hand ya eventually worse."

"Fool," he grinned. "My power alone may not be able to kill you, but I can garuntee that my monstrous ally can do that."

Only now did I notice that he'd been forcing me backwards, out of the protective cover of the buildings that had surrounded us. I looked up and over the ruins of the part of the District I'd been running away from to see Cityman, standing now on solid ground like some gun-bristled Godzilla, just as he looked in my direction.

"Oh, crap."

The guns swiveled in my direction and I kicked on my jet engine. Normal robots can propel themselves into the air with their legs. The price I paid for all of my armor and stability (which Concreteman had managed to turn into a joke) was that I need a LOT of assistance in the 'getting airborne' department. Of course, when I get going, I can get some pretty good height and distance.

Especially when I'm being propelled by the force of an explosion that is taking place where I'd been standing only seconds earlier.

I rocketed into the sky, way faster than I originally intended. Pillars onf concrete rushed up after me, trying to knock me out of the sky, but they couldn't stretch far enough before Concreteman's power ran out of material to work with. I, on the other hand, was in my element now. Secondary, positioning engines flared to life, tilting me in the air as subsystems ran through hordes of calculations to acquire a targeting solution on Concreteman. It was only a mere moment before the jet engine in my core flared to life again, this time rocketing me downward.

At this hieght, at an ever increasing speed, with all four tons of my mass behind the impact, I was about to make a big impression on Concreteman's life.

I cursed in my head as he rode another wave of asphalt back and away from my impact point, but there was no way he'd get away entirely unscathed. In a desperate move to catch him off gaurd, I made an on-the-fly adjustment to my course, tilting myself at a shallower angle of impact, and released both Hard Knuckles. With a starting point of my terminal velocity, the twin fists blurred as they flew away, the air around them screaming.

I hit. Hard. I mean, I'm Hardman, that's what I do. Unfortunately, with most of my upper body buried under the street, I had to wait form myarms to return before I could haul myself out.

Standing back up, I assessed the damage. There was a lot of it. I'd punched a hole straight through the street and I'd ended up in a subway tunnel. Luckily, with the area evacuated, no trains were running, which meant I could take my sweet time climbing out of the hole without having to worry about cleanup.

Rubble was strewn in a wide pattern from my touchdown point, most of it spread out and behind where I'd come down. The street was still buckled where Concreteman had been trying to surf away, but I didn't see my foe anywhere. I moved fast, out of the hole and around to where I figured I'd find him.

Sure enough, he lay there, a large dent triumphantly smashed into his side. LUCKY old man, i thought to myself. One of the Hard Knuckles must have glanced off him. I cast a glance around to see where te other knuckle had landed, and saw a deep furrow dug through about ten feet of street. Nice.

Concreteman groaned and sat up as I approached. I gave him my best scary grin as he looked up at me and I grabbed him by the metal-collar and hoisted him up. "About them superi'r specs..."

He swung a fist up that caught my side, but I barely felt it, still riding on the high of one of the most destructive things I've done in fifteen years. I did, however, grunt as I returned in kind, my free hand slamming home into the already dented section of his body.

He broke my grip and tried to back away, but only got a step backward before I was on him again, using a very short range Hard Knuckle to smash him in the lantern jaw before I stepped forward and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. He tried to jerk away, but I held on tight, sucking up a punch to the side of the head as I broght my knee up and into his stomache region. He didn't quite buckle like I hoped he would, but slammed me in the side of the head again, this time managing to pull free of my grip and back away again.

The street below me started to move again, and I bounded forward, a sudden rise in the ground catching my foot and sending me tumbling forward. Trying not to make the whole effort a total loss, I threw my unbalanced wieght forward into a punch that landed solidly on his knee just as I let off the Hard Knuckle. The force of the blow and the sudden constant push killed the balanced he'd regained and he nearly flipped forward coming down on top of me.

My hand reattatched as he tried to pin me down, but he was still unstable enough for me to roll over, bringing an elbow up into his face that sent him off the other side of me. I barely bothered to get to my knees long enough to throw my own weight on top of him, driving another elbow into his side.

He flailed his arms, socking me in the nose almost purely by luck, and I grabbed the offending arm by the wrist, slamming his own elbow with another punch, listening to the satisfying shattering sound as the joint gave away under the blow. He screamed in pain and I let the arm go, scrambling to my feet and delivering another rocket-powered fist to his face.

He tried to shift away, but I decided I wasn't done with him yet. I brought my foot down heavily on his leg, eliciting another scream before I crouched down, assaulting his body with a series of lefts and rights that sent a steady, pounding echo of metal on metal through the street.

"This - is - what - ya - get - fer - bein' - a - dick!" I shouted over the noise and in between punches as I slammed him over and over, the concrete around his body beginning to crack in a spiderweb way as I beat him steadily into the ground.

Finally, I grabbed his big jaw and hauled him up by it. "Not so tough without th' ability ta concentrate on makin' th' world work FOR ya, are ya?"

He shook in my hand, trying to regain some sense of stability to start using his power again. "You relic," he wheezed, "what right do you have to judge me?"

I grinned before I said something I'd been wanting to say for a while. "S' just a matter o' th' strong rulin' the weak, kid."

I sank another punch into his forehead, and his jaw uncermoniously detatched from the rest of his head. He sank to the ground, a wreck of his former self. I tossed the scrap of him in my hand aside.

DAMN that felt good. Hopefully everyone else was faring just as well.