by Drew Hayes
“Well, in rescue work, suddenly using more strength than I’d planned could be dangerous,” Titan replied. “I need near perfect control in those delicate situations.” He looked at the stomping mech, and then at Hexcellent all the way up at the top of her rabbit’s shoulder. As he turned, he also caught sight of a small group of reporters getting in for a closer view. Well, that would make Lenny happy, at least.
“But you know, seeing as I’m playing defense today anyway, a little extra pep in the step might not be such a bad idea.”
“Really?” It was one of the few times Titan had seen Galvanize truly taken aback, even his composed smile faltering with uncertainty. “Are you sure? I mean, you don’t actually need my boost. You’re plenty strong enough as it is.”
“No doubt about it.” Titan took Galvanize by the shoulder and pointed to where the camera crew was setting up. They didn’t know it, but when Misdirection’s illusions dropped, those reporters would be in for a hell of a view. “However, there is one thing we can all agree on, be we Heroes or PEERS. Sometimes, you have to give the people what they want.”
“Ninety-five percent mark cleared,” Dispatch said. “Misdirection, drop the illusion; we now want all attention on the melee distraction team.”
The air around the waiting Heroes shimmered like pavement on a summer afternoon. When the spectacle ended, the mech’s eyes turned toward them. There were audible gasps from the nearby reporters as a giant armor-wearing rabbit suddenly came into view.
“That’s our cue,” Titan said.
“Then by all means, Titan. Do your best.” Galvanize turned toward the giant rabbit as its legs tensed, ready to launch itself forward. “You too, Hopcules.”
Titan’s whole body tingled, like he’d gotten an unexpected rush of adrenaline. Carefully, he shifted his weight, noting the way the concrete cracked and splintered under him. In almost any other circumstance, this would be dangerous, but facing off against a giant metal monster was one of the few times he didn’t mind having a little extra gas in the tank. If nothing else, it would be interesting to see just what his metaphorical top speed was nowadays. It had been a long time since he needed to find out.
“Thanks,” Titan said, moving with extra caution as he stepped forward. “Now, stay by Topsy. This whole area is about to become a warzone.” With that, Titan leapt forward, only to be passed by Hopcules a few seconds later.
114.
Whatever programming the mech had been built with, whatever counter-strategies designed around the data compiled from previous robot/Hero battles, it had most definitely not been given a ready response for being attacked by a twenty-story tall rabbit. Hopcules’ first punch caught it completely by surprise, leaving a massive dent in its six-eyed head. The bunny followed up with a sucker punch to the torso. The echo from the second blow rang through the street. Hexcellent immediately heard Jeremiah’s voice snap in her ear.
“Avoid the body blows, if possible. It’s already tough enough to move around inside this thing without getting shaken like a martini.”
“Don’t mind Jeremiah, he’s just mad because you made him fall and look undignified,” Aether added, her tone much less annoyed. “But do please focus on the extremities. Those are going to do the most damage to the surrounding areas.”
“Not a problem.” Hexcellent tightened her grip on the bunny’s fur and yelled up to its ear, “Grab an arm and snap that shit off!”
Luckily enough, an arm fitted with what looked like a half-dozen machine guns came toward them, no doubt intent on filling the attacking rabbit with countless holes. Before it could take aim, Hopcules grabbed the wrist area, just below the guns, and slammed another hand into the upper arm, straining the elbow joint. Since the damn mech didn’t have a back there was nowhere to twist to, so Hopcules just kept piling on more pressure, trying to make the joint snap.
“I’m going to take a wild guess that Hopcules was formed during a time when you watched a lot of wrestling.” Titan sounded surprisingly calm given that he was darting around on the other side of the mech, throwing punches into its legs as he tried to cripple the thing’s mobility. Hexcellent could already see a tilt in the giant robot’s stance, meaning at least one of its legs was now shorter than the others.
“I may or may not have enjoyed the occasional cage match in my childhood.” Hexcellent heard the crunch and pop before she actually saw Hopcules pull away the front part of the arm. Her moment of triumph at seeing the threat neutralized was short-lived, however, as a blow from behind sent Hopcules stumbling forward. Only his gigantic feet saved him from losing his balance entirely.
Whirling around, Hexcellent quickly put together what had happened. While they were trying to take care of one arm, the bot had swung another around and fired a laser blast into Hopcules. Hexcellent scrambled across the shoulder to look down at her summon’s back and assess the damage. A huge part of his armor was eroded, and there were singe marks along the skin with burned-off patches of fur. Hopcules didn’t seem to have slowed down, but he had to be hurting.
“Don’t worry, buddy. We’ll pay him back for that.” Even Hexcellent was surprised at the fury kindled inside her. Just the sight of her old friend in pain was enough to make her want to turn that fucking mech to bits so thin it could be mistaken for glitter. But she couldn’t, because then it would win. So they’d just have to settle for taking away its limbs.
Hopcules swung back around to face its foe, and to Hexcellent’s surprise, the mech stepped back slightly. It had seen that the bunny had the upper hand in a melee fight, so now it was trying to keep distance between them. The damned thing was learning, because of course it was: that was what these bastards did. Every time, every iteration, they just came back stronger and more organized, with no actual goal aside from collecting resources and-
“Titan. And Dispatch. And whoever else is listening. I figured it out.” Hexcellent couldn’t believe it had taken her this long to see what was happening. Though, to be fair, RTS had always been one of her least favorite genres to play. “I know what the robot’s motives are.”
“We’re all ears.” The voice was Jeremiah’s; Hexcellent was relatively certain she also heard some explosions in the background.
“It’s a video game.” Hexcellent had to pause as Hopcules leapt out of the way to avoid another laser blast while working to close the gap. The mech kept sliding back, trying to line up its next shot while also dealing with the smaller yet potent threats on the ground.
“Going to need some elaboration,” Titan said.
“All of this: the mech, the robots, the motives, it’s a real-time strategy game. You make troops then send them out to fight and get resources. You use the experience from those encounters to make more, bigger troops and repeat the process over and over until you can wipe out the enemy. That’s why no one could figure out what the fuck these things wanted. This is what they want. These fights.”
“Why in the hell would someone go to all this trouble just to play a game?” Gale snapped.
“No idea, but it’s the first theory I’ve heard that actually fits the pattern,” Jeremiah replied. “Though if anything, it drives home how much we need to make this work. An attack more powerful than this one and the city will be leveled. Distraction team, keep it up; we’ve got a potential match for the signal relay, I’m en route to confirm.”
“Okay, no more slacking,” Hexcellent yelled up to Hopcules. “We got one arm, three to go. You ready?”
In response, Hopcules leapt forward, barely avoiding the latest volley of laser blasts. Fire breath was out since it would melt the people inside the torso as much as the mech, but there was still good old-fashioned grappling. Hopcules slid its giant foot beneath the mech’s legs, knocking three of the remaining four upward. At the same time, he grabbed onto the laser gun that had been taking shots at him with both hand-like paws and jerked upward, trying to use the weight of the falling mech to force a separation at the shoulder.
The idea was a
good one, but if failed to account for one important element. After only a few feet, the mech’s fall stopped cold. It righted itself, spinning another arm around to slam the back of Hopcules knees, this time successfully sending it to the ground. While Hexcellent couldn’t understand how something that big could stop itself with one leg, Titan knew all too well what had happened as he watched the rabbit fall. Those damn gravity distorters, the ones that made the mechs viable in the first place. It had changed its weight to save itself.
Hopcules struggled to get up while Hexcellent did all she could to hang on, but they were no match for the mech’s inhuman reaction time. The laser arm whipped around, pressing directly into Hopcules’s head, between the ears and the eyes.
At this range, there was no chance the mech was going to miss.
115.
Instants. That was what it always seemed to come down to. All the planning, all the training, all the endless hours trying to imagine how one would deal with a situation, and the truth was that most fights and losses were determined in a span of less than a half-second. That was the hardest thing to try and teach potential Heroes, that in the dire moments they’d be leaning on their instincts. This was why the HCP was so tough on them: when those moments arrived, their reactions had damn sure better be the right ones or people would die.
Titan wasn’t perfect. He had a list of names that proved that fact beyond all debate. But he’d been doing the job for a long time, and even if he’d been off for a while, some things never quite faded.
In that moment, as the mech swung its laser cannon towards Hopcules’s head, with Hexcellent so close there was no way she wouldn’t be caught in the blast, he moved without hesitation, because there was no time for such a luxury. He was betting everything, Hexcellent’s everything, on the fact that the mech hadn’t changed its weight back from when it stopped its fall. If it could stop itself on one leg, then maybe it could be moved by the same appendage. It was still a roll of the dice, one where snake eyes meant Hexcellent would die. If it came to that, she wouldn’t go alone. The least Titan could, and would, do was make sure whoever made these mechanical monsters was sent to join her.
“Everybody hold on!” Titan roared into the comms as he wrapped his arms around the bottom of the mech’s nearest leg. No time to try and drag; it could still get off a shot. He needed to completely disorient the damn thing. Slamming his legs through the concrete for stability, Titan’s arms crushed into the metal of the leg, creating an unbreakable grip. With all he had, he jerked upwards and to the side, away from Hexcellent. It was ridiculous, it was a flea trying to move a rhino, but it was all he had. He was a strongman. This was the only thing he could do.
But by the gods, he could do it like no one else.
The robot rose from its position atop Hopcules, caught by surprise and unable to react to going suddenly airborne. In the span of seconds it realized what was happening, and Titan felt the metallic beast began to grow rapidly heavier in his arms. None of that mattered, though, because the real work was already done. Hopcules quickly rolled to the side and sprang back to its oversized feet. He looked unshaken, as near as Titan could tell by reading those glassy black eyes, and no worse for the wear.
“H-holy shit. Kind of thought we were goners there.” Unlike her bunny, Hexcellent was clearly rattled, and Titan couldn’t blame her for that. For someone with no real combat training, she was holding together better than a lot of others would.
“What kind of legendary Hero would I be if I let some asshole machine hurt my teammate?” Titan released his grip on the leg, which came crashing down a few feet away. He wondered if the mech was debating stomping on him, though it had to have realized what little good that would do.
“Clearly not the kind who can manage to keep things smooth for those inside,” Jeremiah grumbled. “Mercifully, we think we’ve found the signal relay. If you can hold out for a few more minutes, I need to get the tracker inserted and let my team do their work.”
“Put a little pep in your step, the bunny almost got taken out,” Titan replied.
“Um. . . yeah. Birdsman, you’re the veteran summoner here. Have any of yours ever. . . changed?”
Hexcellent’s voice had gone from scared to confused, and it took only a quick glance at Hopcules for Titan to understand why. The giant rabbit was shifting before their very eyes, long serrated claws slipping out of his hands, and new spiky armor growing out of the old. From behind, a vast pair of bat-like wings sprouted. The wings flapped once, sending a breeze across the entire area.
“No. No, I cannot say I’ve ever seen anything quite like that before,” Birdsman replied from atop his flying stone roc. “Trust me, that’s the sort of thing that would stick in my memories. And my nightmares.”
From above Titan, the mech took another shot with its lasers, and this time Hopcules didn’t dodge. It took the blow right on its chest. The new armor burned but refused to give way. In one shift, the tables had turned and the weaker warrior had grown strong. For the first time, Titan had a feeling of what it must be like for others to fight him.
“I’m no expert, but I’m going to toss out a theory,” Titan said, yanking his feet free from the concrete and making a run for the leg already dented with his handprints. Crippling mobility was the best way he could help now; the rest was going to be up to Jeremiah and Hexcellent. “Hopcules was supposed to keep you safe, right? You made him to fight your fears?”
“That’s how I remember it, but I was a kid,” Hexcellent replied.
“Like I said, this is just a guess. If we assume that’s how it went down, though, then maybe Hopcules is still doing that. He came out so big because you were facing an overwhelming force. Then, when you almost died a few seconds ago, you got scared again, so he grew stronger.”
“Can summons do that?” Hexcellent asked.
“Every Super is different, so it’s possible,” Titan reminded her.
“There have been cases of summons with alteration capabilities under certain situations.” Dispatch was calm, which Titan imagined was only possible because she hadn’t just watched a twenty-story rabbit shape shift. “However, none that we know of were on quite so grand a scale.”
“As someone who has to listen to this without knowing what the hell is going on, may I just request that someone take pictures?” Jeremiah asked. “Because it sounds absolutely fascinating.”
“Let’s just say that after I lifted the whole mech, Hexcellent upstaged me.” Titan grabbed the same leg once again, this time digging his hands in and climbing up toward the knee joint. The lasers from the mech’s underside fired at him, but this did little more than singe his clothes. He really needed to ask for a raise; the suit costs were piling up.
“Oh, you want to complain? I just went from being a top-level summoner to some asshole on a bird,” Birdsman added. “At least you got to do something cool. I’m flying around dodging shots.”
“You know, this isn’t quite what I pictured the conversations of Heroes to be like,” Hexcellent admitted.
“We only sound like this when we’re winning,” Jeremiah assured her. “Which, by the way, we are. The tracker is implanted and my team is tracing the signal. Everyone inside the mech, evacuate. As soon as I get confirmation that we’ve found the location, Aether and I will be out of here too. Think you and your upgraded rabbit can handle things from there?”
Titan smashed his hand through the knee joint, causing the mech to wobble as it fired wave after wave of lasers and bullets at the Heroes keeping it distracted. When the machine tipped, he got a clear view to the other side, where Hopcules was flexing his claws and testing his wings. Hexcellent’s words crackled over the comms a moment later, all traces of fear gone from her voice.
“You’re damn right we can. Nobody puts my bunny back in the box.”
116.
“Evacuation at eighty percent.” Dispatch’s reports were helpful, but it was visibly obvious that the mech wasn’t clear yet. Colorful costumed forms
could be seen leaping from the holes in its body, some breaking into flight while others vanished in midair or landed heavily on the ground.
Hexcellent stood on her rabbit’s shoulder, waiting for the cue to strike as Hopcules dodged the occasional blast. The distraction team had done a great job: the damage to the surrounding area was almost minimal, and the smaller robots were being picked off or contained by the other Heroes. It was hard to call anything in a day like this a win, but knowing how much worse things could have been, Hexcellent felt proud about what they’d accomplished.
That pride was all the more magnified knowing that she’d been able to help. It was almost over; it had only been a taste of the life in the first place. Just one last course to go and she was determined to enjoy it. While Hexcellent didn’t lick her lips in anticipation, it took effort. Part of her wanted to be sad at the ending in sight, at wondering when she would ever be able to summon her oldest friend again, but she pushed those thoughts away. There would be a lifetime of worry and mourning for lost chances when the day was won. Until then, she still had a job to do. For at least the next few minutes, she was a Hero. She was damn sure going to act like it.
“Evacuation at ninety-two percent,” Dispatch said.
“The last of them should be out in the next thirty seconds,” Jeremiah reported from within the beast. “As soon as they’re clear, you need to take this thing apart. I’m not sure if the central system has a way to tell if it’s being tracked, but at this point, we’d be idiots to assume otherwise. We have to scrap this tin can and then book it to the signal source before it has a chance to run.”
“We’ve got teleporters on standby to get us close, and I’m ready to haul the team if it’s a place they’ve never been,” Gale told him.