Wanted

By C.M. Rich (Magnetman)

Episode 8 - Hell's Lantern

May 31st, 20XX, 12:29 PM , PST

NeedleGal picked herself up from the floor, shaken, but not all that injured. Whatever had hit her managed to smash her a good hundred yards away from the other Maniacs- a giant beast of a figure.

She stood up in the wide open warehouse-like structure, which surprised her, considering not too many other structures were left standing. It was also remarkably barren, with few objects being contained within the warehouse. Then she looked down and noticed the floor. It was wooden, with patterned lines and designs adorning it, with large piles of the white and grey dust settled onto its surface.

A basketball court.

It must have been a high school’s, given the Los Angeles Romans logo centered in the floor. Parts of the ceiling had collapsed, though, with dusty, visible beams of light managing to penetrate the otherwise dark atmosphere of the gymnasium.

NeedleGal lowered her multi-part visor, its amber eye-covers glowing to life as she used the low-light mode to better see what was lurking around. She knew someone was entering the building now.

As it turns out, the low-light vision was scarcely needed. In fact, it hurt her eyes once the target appeared. Whatever it was, it glowed with a monstrous force. Or perhaps, angelic. It was a serene, heavenly light, actually.

However, the being that emitted this light was far from an angel. It looked to be as far removed from God as the Devil itself. It was a hideous, beastly creature, with tubes carrying its glowing life-blood tracing external veins throughout its hulking body. A heavy iron-looking mask shielded its lower face, with even more tubes erupting from behind it.

“Oh…my God…”, Needle gasped at the sight of this menace. This…tortured thing.

The monster stood still for a second, heaving heavy breaths and shivering, not of fear, but perhaps rage, or even pain. It seemed to stalk its prey, NeedleGal, like a lion, its primal mind deciding the best course of action for only a handful of moments before it sprang to life again, blazing a maddened path towards her with the intention of killing her immediately.

Needle would have none of that.

Raising her arm cannons, the hellish hailstorm of Needle Cannon fire ripped holes across the monster’s flesh, but it seemed to shrug it off, barely even acknowledging the surely blinding pain.

Blinding.

Each puncture wound it received made the creature glow even brighter, so much so that Needle momentarily looked away out of reaction as the savage monster slammed into her, pinning her to the ground.

She struggled against him, and felt his “angel’s blood” pouring down on her armor, watching it burn holes the longer it sat.

“…Plasma!”, she deduced, feeling only a little bit better about not having more human blood douse her, but only for a moment before the heat started to really hurt.

Thinking fast, she utilized her Needle Chain in a new way, sending one of her head-mounted spikes into a nearby wall, helping her escape her predicament. As she left the grip of the monster, she grabbed a hold of the strong facemask that provided it with its most prominent protection- it was obviously shielding a weak point.

The face shield held fast, and instead, both NeedleGal and the monster careened into the wall, smashing into it at full force. Feeling the need to escape even more, she fired a second Needle Chain at another wall, and let go of the monster’s mask, successfully escaping as it attempted to regain its bearings.

She quickly hopped back onto her feet to check herself for damage, as well as keep an eye on her hunter. Four holes had melted down her chest and stomach plates almost to her jumpsuit. It wasn’t an easy task, being that her armor was the second best on the Maniacs, next to Hardman. But after watching Hardman be felled with a single gunshot, she knew that this government-backed team had some nasty tricks up their sleeve.

Including this…beast.

It was back on its feet now, sticking its fingers into the multiple holes carved across its chest and abdomen, wincing in pain each time, and taking stock of the white hot burning substance within.

It roared…or tried to. It hadn’t much of a voice, probably due to that heavy plate of metal adorning its face. Its seemed…saddened, then angered by what it had discovered in its wounds, the glowing fluid.

“This is seriously messed up…”, NeedleGal muttered to herself, leaning over and away from the beast. She was pale, on the verge of throwing up. Actually, she wasn’t sure if robots could throw up, but she felt like doing so upon seeing the disgusting sight.

Almost in response, it looked back at her, and the monster reinitiated its pursuit of the spiky Maniac. Needle realized already that shooting it meant she risked blindness, even if it did damage this beast in some way.

That mask…It had to serve some sort of purpose.

Getting close wasn’t an option, though. This monster could simply bleed all over her and melt her at this rate. Using her Needle Cannon just made him glow brighter. Based on what she’d seen so far, her needles barely dig into his skin before his white-hot blood melts it long before they hit anything vital. Fortunately, for her, this…thing didn’t seem very intelligent.

Then again, it didn’t matter if it was smart or not if it couldn’t feel pain.

Hmm…

As a test, NeedleGal shot at the ceiling above the roving beast, causing parts of dilapidated building to fall and crush the monster.

For a few moments, it didn’t move. By now in her super heroine life, though, Needle knew this meant very little. She’d seen this trick before.

Sure enough, after two minutes of inactivity, the monster beneath the rubble stirred to life, snarling in pain and anguish, but probably out of anger, mostly. It didn’t take very long for it to refocus that rage on his spiky foe.

A change of scenery was in order.

NeedleGal decided to take the fight outside, where hopefully the somewhat dimmed sunlight could help counter this thing’s inherent glow.

“Okay, good…Now what?”, she asked herself, still not too sure what to do.

She fed more of her razor-sharp cannon fire into the monster’s mass, which shore away more of the skin over its plasma core, but made him even brighter. By now, even in the obscured noon day sun, she could barely look at the monster.

It charged her again, even faster, more fueled by pain than before, with the obvious, ominous intention of smashing the life out of the dark-armored android.

“Alright,…C’mon!”, she challenged. “Damn it, I’m out of options already…Hope this does something, at least…”

She stood her ground as the savage creature charged her like a rhinoceros. A split second before he made contact, though, a multiple-part sound of metal sliding past metal filled its ears.

It felt the few dozen needles pierce its skin once more as it tackled its prey, and as it kept running with her, every attempt to free itself merely tore more and more flesh away.

It was unbearable!

The beast wanted to get away from this cactus-like thing, to escape its hellish prickly grasp. By now, NeedleGal was fighting the monster on her terms, knowing her armor was being eaten away. However, she felt it was necessary at this point.

Necessary in order to reach…

She struggled with the creature’s flailing arms for a few seconds before grasping the chunk of metal that surrounded its face. Against all of its writhing and clawing, she managed to peel it back, slowly, pulling on the bolts and screws that held it to the being’s clavicle.

When it was finally off, NeedleGal did her best to get away from that…mess. What a horrific display…

It was probably human once. What was left wasn’t human now. The face looked like a man’s, albeit with glowing veins weaving their way around its maddened eyes. Its jawbone was missing entirely, as was its tongue. Replacing that was a nightmarish weave of glowing tubes erupting from within, as they disappeared down its throat.

NeedleGal scrambled back to her feet a few steps away from the tortured mess. It didn’t continue its assault immediately, though…It stood in its place, carefully touching the healed over edges of its surgically removed mandible, confirming that it was indeed missing.

It seemed as though it had never had the chance to notice, as that heavy metal plate blocked its fingers from the butchered jaw. In horror to this discovery, it panicked and began clawing at the tubes that were shoved down its throat.

Finally, it pulled the entire mess free, sending pints of the white-hot plasma onto the broken, weathered concrete at its feet from deep within as it choked. For the first time, whatever was left of its vocal cords sounded like a human voice, albeit barely recognizable, and unable to form anything close to a word.

NeedleGal was in a state of shock and utter pity. Was this a governmental project? Some dark secret to be used as a trump card? It was…horrible. In this day and age, how could any supposedly civilized nation possibly commit such a monstrous act on another human being? It didn’t matter what this man did to usher in such a wretched existence- nobody deserved such a fate. Nobody.

The...man...This man sat on his knees, hunched over, and unable to do much else, as the burning life-blood continued to drain itself from his severely disfigured body. Needle had to step back a few feet as the pool of glowing fluid continued to grow around him, blinding her to the point where she was forced to look away entirely.

From behind her, she could hear the man stir and attempt to stand, failing a few times on the wet, glowing fluid, but eventually using all of his strength to reach a standing position.

NeedleGal felt like crying, but it wasn’t the time or place. She knew what this man wanted. He wanted to retain the last of his dignity. Somehow, that one instinct…No, that shred of humanity managed to escape the insane pool that his mind was reduced to.

He wanted to die on his feet.

Needle forced herself to turn around and look this man in the eyes. With the extraordinarily blinding light produced by the puddle, which had almost entirely drained itself from his body, Needle was left looking into a silhouette…A possible shadow of what this man probably looked like before…that happened to him.

He trudged forth, each step small and agonizing. Somehow, though most of what was probably his blood was drained from him, he continued to drag himself towards her.

Shakily, she raised one of her Needle Cannons to his head.

It was for the best, she told herself.

For the best.

May 31st, 20XX, 12:29 PM , PST

“Y’know…I was wondering when you’d show up…”

Geminiman and Top both looked upon their unwanted accomplice with much disdain. Wherever this guy showed up, so did trouble and a whole lot of aggravation.

“Oh, don’t be so glum, Mister Geminiman!”, Xelloss exclaimed in his forced and much-too-pronounced optimism. “I’m only here to keep you company! It's lonely out here.”

“We don’t need your company, though.” Topman explained.

“Well, you’re no fun! And here I am, here to give you very important information to show you just how great a friend I can be…Buuut, if you don’t want it, that’s okay…I’m sure Gauntlet would be happy to hear it…”, the demon priest proclaimed as he turned away for extra effect.

Lennon winced at Gauntlet’s name. He knew what Xelloss was trying to do…But he still didn’t want to let his rival get any important information before he did.

Geminiman sighed.

“Priest…You’ve got some nerve…Alright, what’s the deal?”

“Oh, come on, Gem!”, Topman pleaded. “You’re not going to actually trust what the guy has to say, are you?!”

“Hey, I don’t exactly see any other means of finding out what the hell’s going on here…This PDA barely has anything on it, besides the map!”

Xelloss smiled innocently, enjoying the clash of interest before him. So interesting were these robots. Every time.

“What do you have for us, Xelloss?”, Lennon snapped.

“Only…Everything.”

Topman whispered to Geminiman in a way that Xelloss would be allowed to hear. “Shenanigans.”

“I assure you, Mister Topman…I know the full story…And you’re not going to like it!”, the trickster decreed with glee.

“Let’s hear it…”, SD muttered.

Xelloss’ grin magnified as he held out his hand, gesturing “not so fast” to the Spinning Demon.

“…Great…”, Lennon grumbled. “Let me guess: you need us to do you a favor?”

“Very perceptive, Mr Geminiman! Bravo!”

“And I assume we’re not going to like that, either.”, SD glumly said with his shoulders hunched low.

“Tut tut! No need to be such a downer, Mister Topman! It's very simple, actually. It may even be fun for you!”, Xelloss exclaimed.

“…Fun. Yeah…”, Geminiman grumbled. “Whatever.”

“Follow me!”, the priest ordered with his trademark smirk.

Geminiman and Topman looked at each other sullenly before traipsing behind the demon priest.

It was going to be a long afternoon.