(on a windy and rainy coast...)
“Look at him. He's being all like, 'Wow, look at me! I'm a big shark and stuff!' The nerve of some people...”
“That's exactly why you had us build MechaAxel, right, boss?” asks a subordinate. His black glossy rubber gloves holds up a clipboard to his tightly-trimmed face. His short glossy hair is gelled to a side. He squints through his black glossy goggles, until he simply lifts up a side to see the clipboard.
“That's right,” the boss of this devious facility replies. “And MechaAxel is a beast of a monster, indeed. He will certainly knock down that mutated fish a peg or two! He will never wish the day Higher Power granted him his grand size and all that hubbub, for he has committed the unthinkable! That dumb trout crossed Lesser Power! He crossed us! He stepped in front of our secret master plans! Now it us up to us to show who is the biggest fish in this ocean!”
“....Yeah!” his subordinate shouts back, cheering in agreement.
“You know what, that didn't really sound right,” the boss continues, turning to his lackey with a more subtle tone. “There are a thousand fishy proverbs out there. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe there should only be a couple, so when I'm trying to say something important, I don't have to worry about mixing in too many. I mean, that didn't sound dumb, right?”
“No, you're fine.”
“Are you sure? Cause, I am sensitive about this. I mean, sure, I am the leader of the big and bad Lesser Power and we're a seriously evil organization bent on some really evil, yet secretive, objectives, but I have feelings too. Don't let all these black glossy accessories fool you, I am a real person under here. I'm not a cold-hearted robot, you know.”
“I assure you, sir. It was clear of confusion. Very precise and threatening.”
“Well, thank you for the support and kind words.” the boss expresses, throwing a firm, yet appreciative, pat on his subordinate's back. “How has MechaAxel's maiden voyage been going? Deployment was routine, I imagine.”
“Yes, everything is on schedule. He has been ripping the coast line to shreds. Giant amounts of flooding and wide-spread damage. Displaced fishing vessels and the whole lot. Quite the nasty scene, actually. The enemy would be blind not to be lured in a fight. In fact, we are expecting the target rather soon. We have him on radar.”
Just then, the overhead monitor flickers on. It's panoramic view shows both a destructive MechaAxel, completely focused on smashing coastal buildings, and the newest addition to the defenders of Alternae, Axel the Mutated Shark, stomping up from the depths of the ocean behind his mechanized counterpart.
“Here it is: the time to see if all our hard work and determination will prove that 'Lesser is Better!',” the leader states. “And to see MechaAxel turn Axel into chum!”
Axel the Mutated Shark lets out a mean roar, signaling his disdain for brainless destruction. It catches the attention of his nuts-and-bolts version of himself, which also turns with a robotic roar of itself. It's multiple rows of teeth rev up in a chainsaw fashion.
Axel stomps forward, locks up with the metal beast, and tries to throw it over into the beach, but the giant mecha proves to be a bit heavier and bulkier than expected. MechaAxel lets out a screeching laugh through one of the various speakers in it's head, and counters with a hammerhead-style head butt. It doesn't do much damage, but it startles Axel, now understanding the power of machine combined with evil human ingenuity.
Recovering quickly, Axel replies with a blow of his own, applying a heavy elbow smash to the top of MechaAxel's dome. This too only rattles the combatant. MechaAxel shakes the blow off his steely skull and charges forward. His fin arm instantly unravels into a collection of blades and saws, all of which appear to leave nasty marks on anything it touches. He darts forward with his Swiss Army fist looking to land something of a running punch, but Axel sees it coming. He steps to the side and attempts to parry it, grabbing onto the robot's extending arm.
He wrenches hard, and it all but seems to feel implanted into the sand, but then, all of a sudden, MechaAxel is launched into the air, flipping over it's own momentum. Axel, taking another side step, watches as the robot takes a vicious fall on the beach.
The giant machine hits the sand in a giant cloud of steam and smoke. To the sound of grinding gears, the giant mechanized shark tries to instantly get back to his fins.
“Just a minor misstep,” the leader comments. His subordinate looks on, a little more worried.
Clawing and kicking at the sand, MechaAxel gets back up to his feet. His fleshy opponent charges in, looking to capitalize on his aggressive momentum, and latches onto the chassis of the metal beast. He looks to lift him into a suplex, but the evil robot lowers his bottom jaw revealing a deadly laser cannon deep within his gullet.
A devastating ray of blue energy sends Axel back reeling, clutching the seared skin on his chest. MechaAxel gives him zero time to recover. He runs in with a metal boot to the side that connects hard. He follows with some extra damage, hitting him with his tail. Axel rolls about the sand, overwhelmed, and then MechaAxel looks to squash his fishy counterpart with a giant body splash.
The robot jumps into the air, extending all his limbs, aiming his entire weight to crash on the damaged Axel, but Axel has it in him to lift his legs and flip MechaAxel back once again. The machine crashes again, springs and cogs shoot forth – probably not a good thing.
MechaAxel is slow to come up, but gradually does. To his dismay, his is only met with more pain and punishment for his efforts. Axel runs over, hits a bulldog face-plant, that drives the mecha's head into the sand. A strange mechanic exhale roars from the crinkled bot. Now down, Axel hoists the machine and lifts it into a pile-driver. Completely vertical, Axel drives his enemy into the shore like a metal pole into the earth. Thick black smoke plumes out of every crevices in the machine.
Axel the Mutated Shark measures up his opponent. The machine staggers up, discombobulated or operating with ruined core components, and seems completely unaware of his surroundings. That's all Axel needs, running and lifting off in air with a breath-taking drop kick that expels Lesser Power's evil robot back into the depths of the ocean. A few smokey bubbles surface and that's all.
The leader of Lesser Evil watches the monitor in silence.
“Well, that didn't work out very well,” his subordinate sighs, shaking his head. “I guess we have a lot of fine tuning and customizing left to do. The laser cannon works well though. Maybe we can just amp it's output. Maybe adding some amphibious functions will be better too.”
“How about you just get him, you idiot, and bring him back!” the leader blurts out, interrupting the brain storm session. “I don't want to hear about your plans. Just bring him back and get the teams working on something bigger – and better.”
(meanwhile, wrecking havoc in the city...)
Eyegore stands on top of his ally in agony, BlunderBus. BlunderBus is an evil, possessed, school bus, and with an equally crazy eye-ball monster standing on him, the pair skid around the city blocks, wrecking whatever they can run over or reach with their orbital appendages.
“Keep up the speed, BlunderBus!” EyeGore shouts, with child-like enthusiasm. “Eye feel like a million bucks!”
The bus honks back in agreement, and if this wasn't so destructive and horrific for the ones that actually built homes in these buildings, you'd almost imagine these two beast as the movie stars in Titanic. Giant ugly grins spread across the pair of them. Summer may be long over, but no one could tell these two fun-loving criminals. But someone is there to try. Bummer. Party is over, guys.
“You guys actually like smashing things?” Citius states, coming into frame and standing in front of their way.
“We were actually hoping this was some sort of ploy to get us to fight you,” Blake says through SatelLight's speaker system. “We hoped this thing was personal.”
“That way, we can just beat you two up like last time and call it a day,” Citius picks up. “But, come to find out, you guys are just sickos. So, we're really going to bring the pain this time.”
The evil duo roars, but the heroes cut the formalities and cut straight into battle, catching the baddies off-guard. SatelLight swoops into and takes EyeGore clean off the of the school bus with a lightning tentacle clothesline, leaving Citius to blast BlunderBus' grill open with a single Tesla coil shot.
The pain doesn't end there, Citius charges forward and boots Blunderbus in the face, peeling him off the pavement and balancing on his two rear wheels. There, he delivers a quick series of uppercuts to the undercarriage guts of the evil bus. BlunderBus howls in pain – this is an obvious weak spot.
EyeGore is quick to recover and punches SatelLight. Blake's orbital weapon hovers away, looking to distance himself, but EyeGore exercises that telepathic future-seeing again and speeds up. He begins to deliver another punch-kick combo, but then a flying bus connects with the eye monster and takes him out of the picture. Citius, not too far away, laughs out loud.
“Now! Blast the heck out of them!” Citius shouts, cutting off his joking manner sooner than he would have liked for his perfect football throw.
Just then, with the two baddies piled upon each other, Citius and SatelLight empty their canisters of energy weapons on them. A miniature mushroom cloud rises from the mass that once piled the two baddies. Even the two heroes are all little taken back at how much damage they actually did. They surely didn't mean to nuke part of the city or kill both EyeGore and BlunderBus, just get them to stop doing bad things, but they look on and understand there is a pretty good possibility they did just that.
“Wow,” Blake says through SatelLight. “Think that was too much?”
“I dunno',” Citius solemnly replies. “But, at the very least we should go stop the fire and clean that up.”
The heroes stroll towards the wreck. Cinders of crackling metal and eye-ball flesh fall and roll from the burning heap. They approach and quickly look around to make sure the damages are only on the late BlunderBus and EyeGore. But then, suddenly, the wreck moves, leaps up, and throws fiery bits every which way.
“You think you could get rid of us that easily?” the burning heap asks, coming to life. “We are immortal, you fools! Nothing can kill us!”
Citius and SatelLight jump back, ready their gunnery, and look to put this hellish creature back into the smoldering hole it birthed from. The smoke clears and this inhuman mass can only be described as a horrifically formed monster of both parts of BlunderBus and EyeGore. It's as if these two monsters melted together to make one composite abomination. BlunderBus' metal vehicle frame served at the skeletal structure, hands, feet, head and face. While EyeGore's eye-ball bits acted like the muscles that protected the frame, with the head of EyeGore now located in the chest area of this monstrosity, shielded by a few rows of metal ribs.
“Oh, no...”
“What the...”
“That's right, you lousy heroes,” BlunderGore shouts back. “Look at me in amazement, for we are something to be feared now. We are the strongest things around these parts now! Funny how the tables have turned so quickly in our favor. Now prepare to die!”
BlunderGore jerks forward and the heroes flinch, double-readying their weaponry for a counter attack, but nothing happens. BlunderGore again tries to move forward, but fails. Frustrated he looks down at his horribly mutated body and tries to make some sense of it.
“Okay, what is going on down here?” it shouts at itself. “Do we even have legs that work anymore?”
“Oh sure! They are right there!” a mass of eyeballs quickly replies. “Clear as day.”
“Okay, yes, those are supposed to be legs,” the bus grill argues back. “But you can't just weld metal bars down there as legs without any pneumatics or anything and expect them to work. This isn't some crazy movie-monster garbage! This is real science!”
“Fine, we have legs, but nothing is hooked to them,” the eyeballs says back. “Same goes for our arms. Actually, everything. Nothing works anymore, but then, what did you expect? We were melted together by some crazy mini-nuclear blast. It's a shocker we weren't just killed!”
“Oh, this is quite a bummer.”
Citius and SatelLight look on, surprised, confused, but also oddly pleased that BlunderBus and EyeGore were not killed, just composed into something that may never wreck havoc on this city ever again – or move another inch for that matter.
(outside the research facility...)
A loud thud. A door swinging open and hitting the wall. Someone collapses to the floor.
“M-M-Mjaeder... I am sorry...”
A beaten and battered Blue Mantis falls to the floor, his blue superhero costume torn nearly to shreds. Blood spatters around the edges of his mouth. A black eye is already forming around his left socket.
“Mantis!” Mjaeder shouts, running over and coming to his aide. “What happened to you?”
“Nyarlath,” he quickly answers. “He's back, like he promised. He wants to dual you-”
“-That's fine!” The proud viking warrior blurts back, coming to his feet and retrieving his hammer. “I will give him a mighty dual and I will not rest until his Reign of Terror has ended!”
“No, Mjaeder, don't do it,” Mantis pleas, crawling up to his knees. “He's used it. He's used the brain-control device – the carbon molecule modulator. He's used it on himself. Y-Y-You can't beat him now.”
“I have to try.”
The Mighty Mjaeder barges out from the hollow confides of the once invaluable research facility. Blowing through the doors, he remembers the hopes he had for this world. He remembers barely defeating the galactic tyrant Megapwn, only with the help of every heroic hand available, and capturing the brain-control device that enslaved the planet's governments and armies. He had so much hope for this planet, it's people, and their technological future, but that all seems like a future never meant to be because of him – Nyarlath, Demon of Terror.
He played the King of the Monsters as a fool. The demon stole the mantel of their foolish Blue Mantis, while he was out of commission, and deceived Mjaeder to entrust the secrets of this mysterious device onto him. With Megapwn driven back to the farthest reaches of space, the last thing the valiant viking had on his mind was another danger so close. He agreed then, and now the regret burns inside his chest like a thousand suns.
The doors behind him clap closed and above the viking is a sea of coiling and swirling clouds. Bolts of lightning shoot across the hellish sky, connecting one blood red cloud to the next. In the center of it all, floating effortlessly in the eye of the storm, is the demon himself.
“I told you I would come back for your head,” Nyarlath boasts, from a great distance, high in the clouds. “And today is that day. Now you're skull is mine and you're death will cripple the spirit of this world. It will hurt them all so deeply, I can barely contain my excitement.”
“Enough talk, vile demon!” the viking hero shouts, pointing his hammer into the sky. “Face my might!”
The Mighty Mjaeder takes off, soaring towards the red thunder storm, and within seconds he exchanging blows with the evil Nyarlath, floating high above the city. He can see, despite the furious melee, the ring-like device is hanging on Nyarlath's wrist like a bracelet and targets it. He takes a mighty swing at it with his hammer, misses, and Nyarlath responds with a scaly knee to the face of the viking. Again, the viking looks to disable the incredible weapon, but falls short again. Nyarlath pulls Mjaeder forward, exposing his back, and punches him in the center of the spine. A paralyzing shock comes over the champion, just for an instant, but he recovers and jolts back into action. Mjaeder goes for a spinning back fist. It connects against the demon's chest, and once again, the viking goes for the mind-control device on his wrist. Once more, it proves to be a worthless endeavor. This time, Nyarlath lands a series of skin-breaking uppercuts and crosses to the hero's face, and then tosses him back to the ground, unceremoniously.
Mjaeder drops like a falling comet, smashing through a building's roof and possibly all the floors until he hits the earth. Nyarlath looks on, trying his hardest to hide his wide, devilish grin, as if he was a kid who got away with raiding the cookie jar.
“It's useless, viking,” Nyarlath laughs out loud. “You die today.”
“I am not dead yet,” Mjaeder mutters, rising from the hole in the roof. “Far from it, actually.”
“I am glad to here it, “the demon continues. “I wanted to test this thing out a little more.”
Nyarlath puts his free hand on the device and begins to turn compartments within it like a dial. A powerful energy begins to glow from this newly-fashioned bracelet, and it begins to seep into the demon's skin around his red, jagged, scales. As the unknown energy flow into the him, he begins to get larger. His muscles also get larger and more intense. His claws become longer and sharper, and his toolbox of special abilities, unbeknownst to Mjaeder, may have just been magnified as well.
“Ahhhh!” the demon exhales. His voice now considerably deeper in tone. “That feels really good.”
Then, without notice, a red flash.
The giant Nyarlath is back on the viking hero. His giant fists pummel the flesh on his face. His kicks bend and wrench his body in every which way. Mjaeder does what he can to avoid or parry the onslaught, but even the residual wear and tear of blocking such powerful attacks begin to weight heavily on him. Despite that, he fights back, through the pain – through the storm.
The Mighty One drives his hammer into the chest of the beast. It collides hard with the scales like a blacksmith hitting red hot steel, and he hits it again. Punch by punch, Mjaeder weathers the storm, fighting on. Every blow delivered upon him, he returns with every fiber of might in his body. Yet, some instinct inside his mind tells him his fighting a losing battle. He distances away, just out of reach, and goes on the defensive. He dodges a couple attacks, sees an opening, and then goes in for a clean strike.
Nyarlath chuckles, pauses the attack, and cranks on the device around his wrist again. It glows again- brighter and more intense than last time. More energy pours into his demonic body. Again, larger, meaner, scarier, and more violent. Now the demon nearly triples the size of the King of Monsters, with his clenched fist eclipsing what would be Mjaeder's entire upper half. Not to be defeated by this bad news, Mjaeder opts to fight on. The entire world hopes he does.
The Mighty Mjaeder flies in, hoping he can buzz around Nyarlath's now lumbering size and use some dexterity to his advantage, but before he can even get the plan in motion, a giant tree trunk of a fist swats the hero like a bug in mid-air. Mjaeder goes crashing back into the earth, this time crashing violently into the street, shattering the pavement around him.
“Give up, Mjaeder,” Nyarlath suggests confidently. “This place isn't worth dying over. This planet isn't worth the sacrifice. Just leave, in exile, and never return. Leave this land for me, and you can die an old, happy, viking man somewhere else. Just go back into the wormhole and forget you were even here.”
“I can't do that,” Mjaeder coughs, pulling himself out of the broken street. “I can't do that anymore, not now. The heroes here need my help. The planet relies on our might. The people - I am one of them now.”
“How touching.” Nyarlath winds up for an energy blast, looking to put the final nail in Mjaeder's coffin, before thing get even more sappy. A giant fireball crackles from his open palm and rockets towards the viking. It screams through the air, crashing down, but then, somehow, the viking swings his hammer and bats it away.
“Try again,” Mjaeder taunts, with a glowing blue light projecting from his eyes.
Nyarlath readies another fireball and shoots it down. Again, it's effortlessly smashed to the side by the viking's hammer.
“Once more,” Mjaeder orders again. The glowing light now encompassing his body.
The demon quickly fires once more, just in case the third time would be the charm, but this time this newly-powered Mjaeder The Mighty merely punches it. His glowing blue fist enters the fireball and destroys it from inside.
“What the hell?” Nyarlath wonders, out loud. “How are you -?”
Just then, a series of vicious lightning strikes crash into the viking, but instead of killing him instantly where he stands, he grows larger, stronger, meaner, and seemingly rejuvenated. Nyarlath now looks at what appears to be giant lightning elemental that appears to look like Mjaeder. He doesn't know exactly what to do.
The lightning monster doesn't leave much time for the demon to think about it. It darts forward, delivering shocking punches and kicks. Nyarlath shouts in utter pain, trying to avoid the damage, but each attack, even blocked, feels like hundreds of lightning strikes at once. The demon is overcome, leaving himself open for a mighty lightning blast that propels the beast through the sky. As the demon travels along the clouds, they rain down bolts of shocking pain upon him. He finally crashes down on the ground, in a smoldering heap.
Nyarlath rolls about in pain, but remains conscious. He scatters about, frantically looking to power himself more with the bracelet before the lightning monster gets too close. He cranks on the the device's dials, but nothing happens. He looks away, worried, towards the monster closing in. He quickly turns back to the device and cranks again. Still nothing happens. Panic sets in.
“It looks like your luck has ran out, Nyarlath, Demon of Terror,” the god-like lightning beast says, floating towards the unsettling demon. “And so has your Age of Terror.”
The lightning beast reaches high into the clouds and removes a gigantic lightning hammer, the size of a building itself. He raises it above his head and the demon covers his face.
“Be gone.”
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“Hey, buddy, are you alright?” a voice calls out, from behind a wall of darkness. The Mighty Mjaeder, dazed and bewildered, comes to, opening his eyes.
Helping sit up is Blue Mantis, with his arm around his shoulder. Behind him stands the rest of the heroes: Citius, SatelLight, and Axel the Mutated Shark.
“Y-Y-Yes, I believe so,” the viking King of the Monsters replies, slowly finding his bearings.
Cheers and jubilation erupt and The Mighty Mjaeder has to look around once more to see he is not just surrounded by his heroic brethren, but a mass of appreciative humans.
“You did it again!” Mantis cheers. “I don't know how, but you saved the world again!”
“W-W-Wait!” Mjaeder shouts, instantly putting the cheers on hold. “The Carbon Molecule Modulator – where is it? Where did it go?”
“Don't worry, Mjaeder,” Blue Mantis replies. “It was finally destroyed.”
A look of complete relief comes over the champion. Now he can rest.
(elsewhere...)
“Nyarlath, you fool, why did you think you could control the power in my device? You were merely blindly hitting buttons, but I appreciate the effort, I suppose. You created enough distraction. You've caused enough damage and trouble for the people and heroes of Alternae. You've given me enough time to plan out my return.”