Wanted

By C.M. Rich (Magnetman)

Episode 10 - Of Sound Mind

May 31st, 20XX, 12:23 PM , PST

“Uugh…Wha…Whatha ‘ell…?”

Slowly, carefully, the tank stirred, mindful of the pain he awoke to.

“Goddamn…Head’s killin’ me…”, he noted, rubbing a massive metal hand against his titanium-plated skull, causing the distinct symphony of metal-on-metal abuse.

For a few moments, he struggled to remember the events that led him to this place, then attempted to recall why he was unconscious, crouched down and on his knees in the fetal position- not an easy position to crawl into when you weigh four tons.

Then the memories gradually came back into focus before Hardman’s mind, replaying in a foggy, distorted way, but still recognizable.

“…Oh yeah…Got hit by a missile. Again…”

He remembered seeing the ring leader of this little circus call out his thugs, surrounding the Mechs. Then, the bomb. Or missile. Or rocket. Hard didn’t really know, since it hit him from behind. It was probably a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher, now that he thought about it. There sure wasn’t a tank handy when they first walked into this place. You tend to hear those things sneak up on you, too.

He also vaguely remembered a desire to protect someone as he went down, forcing himself into the strange position in doing so, shielding a teammate from the blast.

Hardman looked down and saw an unconscious SparkChan beneath him, protected from the terrifying fire of the explosive, but not its concussion. Hell, it was so strong, it even knocked him out.

Hardman tried to remember where the others went. Soon, he came to the conclusion that they had split off, and were fighting elsewhere. Listening closely, he could hear confirmation of this hypothesis, as the sound of battle a ways away cued him in. It was probably the government hit-squads whole plan.

But, if that were the case…Where was his hitman? Or was the rocket supposed to take him out?

Fat chance. These guys did their research. That special electromagnet rifle Mr. Trenchcoat used on him earlier proved at least that much. No, there had to be someone here. The fact that he even woke up was unsettling if that really was the case.

“My, aren’t we the item…”, a cold voice observed from close by.

Bingo.

Hardman looked down at the knocked out knockout below him, and realized his position above her made him an easy target for speculation. As quickly as a ten-foot-tall battle tank could, he scrambled to his feet and sought out the voice.

It wasn’t hard to find, even in this dusty sandstorm.

“Ohh, jeez…Not exactly the handsome type, are you?”, the woman chided from her high ground.

She looked fairly ridiculous. She wore a black, form-fitting jumpsuit on her slight, somewhat underweight frame, with a stark white laboratory coat over that, sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Her back and upper arms had large, elliptical contraptions strapped to them, and a dark visor covered her eyes beneath black hair, streaked with crimson.

“…What the hell are you ‘spose ta be?”, Hardman said, his eyes a bit wild as he tried, but not very hard, to hide some laughter.

“Me? I’m the mother of the Pale Riders…I’m the one responsible for creating this team that will bury you pathetic wash ups.”

Hardy chuckled, putting his massive hands to his hips.

“What’s so funny?”, the “mother” demanded to know.

“Lady…It’s a good thing Classi’s not awake ta see this. I don’t wanna hear her bitchin’ later about how I smashed some chump like you, lady ‘r no lady. I’ve had a damn lousy day.”

The woman heard this and let out a laugh of her own, surpassing Hardman’s on the spine-tingling ratings scale.

“Sir, you’re in for a hell of a lot worse. Let me show you what Akoustolith can do…”

As she leapt off of her miniature mountain of crumbled steel and mortar, Hardman merely rolled his eyes.

“Jesus…Th’ names these kids think o’ these days. I tell ya…”

Hardman woke up a few meters away, a few minutes later.

“…H-Holy…What the HELL!”

It was the same force from before. A tremendous blast of…Whatever. It sure wasn’t any damn rocket or bomb. All she did was stick out her hands and…Well, here he was. About half a football field’s length away from where he was last standing upright.

He waved off the dust and patted himself down, causing a hollow “klong” noise to sound out from his body, as it usually did. Oddly enough, his outer panels barely had a scratch on them. Well, new scratches. He already had a few from the past week or so, and today’s thus-lovely adventure into Hell.

“Goddamn it…It’s a friggin’ psychic!”

As she approached again, slowly, she heard this and let a maddening grin carve a place onto her face. Then she held out her hands again.

This time, Hardman saw it coming. Barely.

He launched himself into the air with his internal engine, and the tail end of the invisible tidal rift smacked into his feet, sending him into a forwards somersault in midair, crashing onto his back after spinning twelve times rapidly.

At least he was still awake this time.

Once again scrambling to his feet, he felt it was necessary to be ready for a follow up attack.

Psychics. Friggin’ psychics. Man…Was there anything worse than fighting one of these guys?

Well, to be more correct, she’s telekinetic. Telekinetics lift things off the ground and blow stuff up with their minds. Psychics play with tarot cards and hang out with David Blaine. There’s a difference.

You know, Hardy thought to himself, it’s so much easier when it’s just a fight with some big stupid thug.

“Do you know what Akoustolith means?”, she asked of the giant blue battle mech.

“…Ya watch too much Sam’rai Jack?”

“What?...No…(Samurai what now?)…Akoustolith was a type of building material that was an effective sound dampener in the early-to-mid twentieth century.”, she explained without a hint of amusement now.

“So…Sound's your game…Guess that explains a lot.”

“I should hope so. And as it just so happens, you’ve got oh-so many empty cavities in that massive body of yours, big boy. Lots of crevices for my concussion blasts to reverberate around in.”

Hardman thought to himself: Dammit, she’s right. There’s at least one huge spot in my armor that her sound waves can use to cause damage. I can already feel that some of my guts are messed up. I won’t be able to take too many hits like that, or I’ll blow out my engines.

Well…Hope she’s not as fast as the speed of sound.

Hardy launched his half-ton fist at her without warning, the giant Hard Knuckle guiding itself to her as if it were on rails. It smashed, faithfully, right on target.

Well, it would have been right on target if she didn’t have the audacity to move out of the way.

“Ugh…She’s not supersonic, but she’s still pretty fast. Probably a cyborg, or maybe one of those super drug users.”, Hardy speculated to himself.

She stood a few feet beside the explosion as Hardman reeled back his Hard Knuckle. Looking at her posture, as well as the fact that she experienced some sort of involuntary tremor, she was either mentally deranged or hooked on a real nasty drug. Or both.

“Your ‘friend’ killed my son today. Viscous was such a sweet thing, too…And you miscreants ended him to avoid facing justice. You’re nothing but a gaggle of cowards.”, Akoustolith accused.

“Yeah…Mags is a dick like that. Yer boy prolly deserved it, though.”

That’s right. Get mad. I want you to.

“Viscous…He always a bit more headstrong than he needed to be. Still…I’m rather upset that my foremost telekinetic soldier is no more. The least I can do is take away the Mechanical Maniacs’ own enforcer as payback.”

C’mon!

Akoustolith reared back her hands and thrust them towards Hardman once again, accompanied by the faint whine of some sort of machinery, likely from those ridiculous looking objects taped to her torso. A thunderous boom, like an airplane smashing into the Sears Tower , escorted the blast from her body.

But Hardman was ready this time.

A split second after her blast wave shot out, he set forward his own plan. Crashing his knuckles together with as much force as he could, the two ultra sonic sounds collided with each other in midair, and a tremendous concussion swept not only the twisted Rider from her feet, but the blue bulldozer off of his as well.

Hardman, however, was still awake.

“…Heh…It worked…”, he grinned as he peeked over his giant barrel chest at Akoustolith, who was rolling about on the ground in agony. She certainly wasn’t taking the blast very well.

Hardman climbed to his feet with a bit of a grunt and looked over to Classi down the leftover street. She seemed okay- luckily the explosion didn’t manage to reach back to her. If she was alright, he only needed to make sure the little banshee here wouldn’t keep giving them trouble later on.

“S’matter? Can’t take yer own medicine?”, he chided as he lumbered over to the downed Rider.

She was convulsing, but not in a seizure-type of way. She was probably going through some sort of “I can’t believe you beat me” fit, with her hands covering her ears and her eyes darting over the broken landscape in broken thought as she ground her teeth.

“Ya had me, y’know…Til ya gave away yer secret. When ya mentioned th’ sound bein’ yer real power, th’ gears in my head got to turnin’. All I had ta do then was figure out how ta’ cancel out yer own wave, which was simple ‘nough.”

No response. She kept rocking around on the ground in despair and shock.

“Hey! Ya deaf ‘er sumthin’?”, he bellowed as he kept walking towards her until his shadow eclipsed her.

Suddenly, reacting to the lack of light, she snapped back to her feet and dropped her hands. Blood streamed down her cheeks from her eyes and ears, the effects of the concussion wave taking a serious toll on her flesh.

“…I…I can’t…I can’t hear myself think!”, she screamed, launching a massive shock wave into Hardman’s beltline. Once again, the slab-sided Mechanical Maniac was sent hurtling into the air. A few seconds later, when he landed, Akoustolith was right on top of him with inhuman speed and sadistic rage. Like a feral animal, she punched and pounded Hardman’s unconscious body, doing much more damage to herself than his rigid frame…But not caring, all the same.

When her hands wouldn’t ball up into fists anymore, due to her knuckles breaking, she slapped her palms down onto Hardman’s chest, and her sound plates began purring once again. A deadly blow, at point blank range, would annihilate Hardman’s inner structure…And likely herself as well.

Akoustolith let out an animalistic scream as she revved her amplification engines, but was struck from her killing stance mere fractions of a second from accomplishing the death blow. The sonic wave flew astray, blazing a path through the non-stop sandstorm of Los Angeles as it escaped into the sky.

The jolted Akoustolith rolled about on her back for a few moments before regaining her footing to see a very much awake SparkChan looking woefully as she placed herself between the sonic witch and the unconscious tank-man. Her conductors were at the ready, as they were used to shock Akoustolith with just enough electricity to knock her from her perch, and keep her from killing Classi’s normally drunken “brother”.

“Leave…”, she half demanded, half pleaded.

SparkChan herself wasn’t sure about what to do next. She doubted this mad woman would go just like that, but she didn’t want to fight her.

SparkChan’s plea was met with another savage charge from the feral female fighter, who seemed incapable of communicating beyond animalistic screams and hisses. Thinking quickly, SparkChan generated a strong shield around her and the un-moving Hardman, which Akoustolith plowed into head on.

SparkChan was mere inches away from Akoustolith face as she forced herself deeper into the electric barrier. The electric lady could smell the mad woman’s flesh being seared by the electricity, and watched her hair burn away from her scalp until she finally was flung back by the shield. Akoustolith seemed to be going through some sort of seizure as she lay on the ground, but was still far too insane to be stopped by any physical limitation as she clambered to her feet, stubbornly, one more time.

A familiar hum emanated from her form as she activated her sound equipment yet again. Classi had serious doubts as to whether or not her shock shield could withstand the tremendous force of the acoustic concussion.

She’d never find out, however.

Just prior to her releasing the wave, a massive meteorite-like object crashed down upon the savage woman, unseen until far too late. In a split second, Classi knew her opponent was dead, definitely smashed between the object and the unforgiving ground, broken as it was.

After a few seconds of watching, in horror, the after effects of the stray meteor-like mass, it emerged from the crater it had made, returning to its resting place upon the elbow of the damaged battle tank that stood behind Classi. SparkChan slowly turned around to look at the culprit- a weary, but sympathetic, Hardman.

“Class…”, he uttered, as softly as his giant voice would allow him to. “I’m sorry…”

The electric lady managed to look at his face a few seconds later after glancing at his blood-soaked knuckles, which he hid behind his massive frame.

“Sorry.”, she echoed. “Sorry? Is that all you have to say for yourself, Hadrian?” she said, her voice raised slightly as she turned away from him. “Who are the good guys now? This…This isn’t what heroes do, is it? Do heroes…do cops go around killing people when they’re in trouble?!”

“…Class…We ain’t got that kinda choice…”

“No…I don’t believe that…I…”

“You wanna go ta jail? Y’know…Robot Jail? Th’ place where they rip yer head off an’ put it onna shelf? Ya really want that, Class? Cause I sure as hell don’t.”

“I…Don’t want to go to jail. I don’t want…any of us to go to jail.”

“Class...”, Hardy sighed, putting his cleaner hand on her shoulder. “I know…this ain’t what ya wanna see. It ain’t what I wanna do, ta be frank…

Classi began to tear up, putting her arms around the big lug. “Hardy…I…I hate this…”

“I do too, Class…I hate it too.”

May 31st, 20XX, 1:03 PM , PST

“You know…”, Topman grunted, digging his dirt encrusted hands into the ruins again, “One would think a ‘demon priest’ would have much quicker and more efficient methods of treasure hunting…”

Both he and Geminiman were clawing downwards into the ruins of the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, passing by timeless, invaluable, and very broken heirlooms of history on their way down, with Xelloss still refusing to tell them exactly what it was they were after.

“Tut, tut!”, the robe-clad demon chided, still refusing to get his own hands dirty with the task. “That would take all of the fun out of our little scavenger hunt!”

“Fun!”, Geminiman spat, “Yeah, you hear that, Top? We’re supposed to be having fun as we sweat for this jerk. Remind me again- why the hell are we doing this?”

The Spinning Demon sighed. How many times did he have to go over this, now?

“Xelloss has promised us vital information in exchange for finding…whatever it is we’re looking for. We’re not in a position to turn it down.”

“Damn it.”, the illusionist master growled. “I’ll bet that Gauntlet already knows about whatever ‘hot tip’ this purple-haired doofus has to offer.”

“Oh, I assure you, Mister Geminiman, that Mr. Gauntlet hasn’t the faintest clue as to what I know!”

“Yeah…Right…”, Lennon muttered.

“Ah! There! Just a little bit further down! You’re almost there! Whoo hoo!”, the demon priest exclaimed with a deepening grin.

He let the two Robot Masters continue digging just a little bit longer, then motioned for them to step aside as he finally used a small fraction of his reserved power to move the final bits of debris that stood between him and his objective.

It lay within a pile of shattered glass, which was no doubt a protective case at one point. Xelloss casually picked up the single page and held it up at arms’ length in triumph.

“Ah, very good! Nobody knew of the kind of power this single scrap of paper contains, so here it rested!”

“Power? What is that, anyway? Your mom’s recipe for peach cobbler?”, Geminiman jokingly inquired, though he knew this artifact must have been some sort excerpt from a spell book or some other source of sorcery.

“I wouldn’t worry about it…”, Xelloss smirked as the page burst into flames and disappeared in a flash.

“…Must have been some recipe.”, the orange android quipped.

“Right…Anyways, about that info…”, Geminiman bluntly arrived at, a bit too weary to really care about whatever it was Xelloss had burnt to ashes.

“Ah yes! That!”, he answered back. “That…Is a secret!”

“Wh-what?! What did you just say?! Quit screwing around and tell us!”, an incensed Lennon ordered, his patience finally giving away.

As the chrome-plated ghoul-seeker lurched forward to grab Xelloss’ robe and extract the information out the “fun” way, the mischievous priest merely giggled, then vanished in a wisp of dark smoke that disappeared as quickly as it had come to cover his escape. Geminiman found himself with a fist full of nothing as a consolation prize.

“I’m…not feeling really good about that little episode, I’ve got to say”, Topman uttered.

Lennon slowly turned around to look his closest ally in the eye.

“Don’t…Tell Gauntlet about this. Not a word.”

A perplexed expression painted its way onto the Spinning Demon’s face as he countered the order with a question: “And why exactly would I want to do that?”

“…You know why.”, Lennon murmured, a hint of defeat in his voice.

Topman slowly skated over to Geminiman.

“Look, Len…I know you’ve got this big…thing with G…But this is probably something really important. The others really should get to hear about something like this. Now that Xelloss is involved, things will likely be even more strange.”

Lennon quickly shot out his arm and snatched Topman’s coat’s lapel, which he used to raise the diminutive demon clear off of his feet.

“Not a word. Do I make myself clear?”

His message clear, which Topman received with a slow, stunned nod, he promptly dropped his fellow Maniac back to his feet. The weirded-out orange android readjusted his coat once again as he scanned over the strangely rage-laced expression of his comrade. However, he knew that pursuing the reason behind the anger, at least right now, could be hazardous to his health.

“L-Let’s reconvene with the others…”, he stammered slightly, to which Geminiman nodded in quiet, seething anger.

As the two began the long walk back to their rendezvous point with the other Mechs, Topman couldn’t help but wonder exactly what was getting to Lennon so much.

Hopefully, for his sake, Lennon will have calmed down by the time he meets back up with Gauntlet.