By C.M. Rich (Magnetman)
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.