"I suppose that means the real test begins now."
With a sudden, violent motion, Dinosaurus hit a heavy master switch on the central console. The entire magma cavern instantly came alive with a deafening screech of gears and a low, terrifying hum.
From the ceiling panels and recessed wall alcoves, hundreds of heavily armored, magma-resistant drones detached in a synchronized blur, swarming the platform in a thick, metallic cloud.
"Finally!" Anissa smiled in sheer, unadulterated delight, her eyes flashing as she braced herself to tear the mechs to ribbons.
As the swarm descended, I immediately brought the suit's combat system online, firing the shoulder micro-missiles and the forearm repulsor blasts. The concussive shocks blasted drones out of the air in fiery arcs, but my HUD's tactical analysis software was suddenly working overtime, painting glowing red lines across my vision as it processed the enemy's code.
Wait a second... I thought, my eyes narrowing as I watched their evasive patterns and weapon-shifting capabilities. These aren't just generic drones. They move exactly like Robot's.
He's somehow hacked or replicated Rudy's tech, my libido chimed in nervously from the back of my mind. If he's done that, then what else has he been up to?!
Anissa and Eve tore into the drone swarm like a pair of wasps attacking a bee hive. Anissa was a hyper-lethal blur of pure kinetic energy, ripping mechs in half with her bare hands and crushing titanium exoskeletons into scrap. Beside her, Eve blasted incoming waves out of the sky with dense, razor-sharp pink energy constructs.
But as I blasted another drone trying to flank me, a cold realization hit my gut. The mechs weren't trying to overwhelm us with sheer number and damage alone; they were systematically spacing us out.
They're trying to stall us, I realized, blasting back another drone.
Across the platform, Dinosaurus was typing furiously at his supercomputer terminal.
The massive tectonic "tuning forks" suspended over the magma vent began to vibrate violently, emitting a low-frequency hum. Below them, the surface of the magma lake began to churn and surge, bubbling up in terrifying, incandescent waves.
Oh, shit, my libido communicated. It might be minutes away from triggering a super-eruption.
As soon as Anissa spotted it, she effortlessly batted away a cluster of drones. Her gaze locked onto the vibrating seismic machinery with lethal intent.
"Get out of my way, pests," she hissed, preparing to blitz the machine and probably smash the detonators to pieces.
"ANISSA, STOP!" I screamed over my suit's speakers, throwing myself directly into her flight path. "Don't touch it!"
She stopped her movement. "And why shouldn't I?!" she questioned. "If that machine fires it will mean the end of you!"
"Because If you apply brute force to those unstable detonators, you'll prematurely trigger the eruption!" I yelled, my HUD flashing warning triangles. "We can't just smash it. We have to defuse it another way!"
Without missing a beat, I patched a secure frequency to my logistics team back at Invincible Inc. "Get the engineering department on the line right now! Dinosaurus integrated GDA technology into these detonators. I need a bypass protocol to shut down the Yellowstone sequence before it hits critical mass!"
At the same time, I opened another sub-channel to Titan. "Titan! Radio Cecil and the GDA immediately! Tell them what's happening at these coordinates. Tell 'em to evacuate the surrounding region, and to prepare for a potential tectonic crisis!"
"Consider it done," he replied, before the channel cut out.
My logistics lead's voice cracked through my comms a second later, rushed and breathless. "Sir! We're looking at the telemetry data stream you sent! There's only one way to stop a chain reaction of that magnitude without setting it off—Eve's matter manipulation! She has to alter the isotopic composition of the detonators right down to their core, turning the unstable core into something completely inert, like solid lead!"
I immediately relayed the instructions to Eve, who landed heavily beside me, her chest heaving as she brushed back a strand of red hair.
"I can do it just give me time," she said, as her body began to glow pink.
"You heard her!" I said, turning to Anissa. "I need you to help me keep the drone swarm—and Dinosaurus—completely off her back while she does her thing. Do not let anything touch her!"
Anissa glanced at Eve, and her jaw tightened.
"Anissa!" I called. "Can you do that?!"
She looked like she wanted nothing more than to blast Eve through the cavern wall for forcing her into a defensive role, but her blue eyes flicked toward the vibrating seismic towers, and she begrudgingly nodded. She absolutely loathed the Earthean woman, but she was fiercely dedicated to keeping me alive. "Fine. But if this world burns because of her incompetence, I will personally throw her into that magma."
Without another word, Eve launched herself off the platform, soaring directly into the blistering heat hovering above the magma lake. She leveled her hands at the vibrating, colossal tuning forks. A massive beam of concentrated pink energy erupted from her palms, bathing the unstable isotopic cores in a blinding light.
Immediately, blood started trickling from Eve's nose. Her hands shook violently against the sheer resistance of the isotopic radiation and the ambient heat of the cavern. Transmuting complex, highly unstable energy into solid matter was taking an agonizing toll on her body.
From his terminal, Dinosaurus's reptilian eyes locked onto the glowing pink aura.
"Ingenious," Dinosaurus noted, his deep voice carrying over the roar of the magma. "But I cannot allow you to tamper with the cure."
He abandoned the supercomputer, his massive leg muscles coiling. With terrifying, explosive speed, the giant lizard launched himself across the cavern, charging directly toward Eve.
"Anissa! Intercept!" I yelled, firing my thrusters to follow him.
Anissa blurred forward to cut him off, but Dinosaurus tapped a rapid command into his wrist console. Instantly, the drone swarm abandoned me entirely and converged on Anissa. But they didn't just physically dogpile her—the drones simultaneously triggered high-frequency sonic emitters.
You've got to be kidding me, I thought, watching as a deafening screech echoed through the cavern. He got his claws on those too?
Anissa clamped her hands over her ears, her hyper-sensitive hearing completely overwhelmed by the concentrated sonic assault. She snarled in pain as the drones began self-detonating against her in bursts of intense thermal energy, effectively burying her under a mountain of kamikaze metal.
With Anissa pinned, Dinosaurus leapt into the air, his massive claws extended toward Eve's exposed back.
Rerouting all power from weapons to the primary repulsor thrusters, I shot forward like a bullet, slamming shoulder-first into Dinosaurus's midsection.
The impact sounded like a train crash. We tumbled out of the air and crashed heavily onto a raised catwalk, the steel grating groaning under our combined weight.
Dinosaurus recovered instantly. He rolled to his feet, casually brushing sparks off his red scales.
"That armor is a marvel of engineering, Invincible," he said calmly, stepping toward me. "You built it to protect lives. I orchestrated this eruption to protect the planet. We are both acting in the interest of preservation. Why are you fighting me?"
"Why?!" I roared through the external speakers, raising my armored hands. "Have you lost your mind?! You plan on sacrificing millions of innocent people to accomplish your goals. That benefits nobody!"
I fired a concentrated repulsor blast at his chest. Dinosaurus didn't even flinch. He tanked the blast, stepped through the energy beam, and swung his massive arm. His claws shredded right through my left kinetic-absorption shield, ripping the glowing blue projector clean off my forearm.
What?! I thought, as my eyes widened.
"The planet is dying by human hands. A volcanic winter hits the reset button. It cools the atmosphere and purges the parasitic elements," Dinosaurus countered, his tone perfectly reasonable even as he drove a knee into my armored stomach.
The titanium alloy held, but the kinetic force was devastating. I gagged as all the air was forced out of my lungs, my ribs instantly bruising under the plating.
"The calculations are undeniable," Dinosaurus continued, grabbing me by the helmet and lifting my heavy suit right off the floor. "Your morality is a biological flaw."
Fuck you and those calculations, I snarled inwardly.
I triggered the suit's emergency overrides. The plating on my right hand shifted, exposing a point-blank micro-missile. I aimed it directly under his elongated snout and fired.
BOOM!
The explosion engulfed his head, forcing him to drop me. Dinosaurus staggered backward, smoke pouring off his charred scales, a low hiss of pain escaping his throat. It didn't put him down, but it definitely pissed him off.
Oh shit, that actually stunned him, I realized, my HUD flashing green. Can't let an opportunity like this just slip by now, can I?
I didn't give him a single second to recover. Firing the repulsor boots to maximum, I launched myself forward. Dinosaurus swung a massive, blind backhand through the smoke, but I dropped my weight, sliding cleanly under his razor-sharp claws. Using my forward momentum, I drove a jet-propelled, armored uppercut right into his exposed jaw.
The impact sounded like a cannon firing. His massive head snapped back, his feet momentarily leaving the steel grating. Before he could regain his balance, I lunged, wrapping my arms tightly around his thick torso.
"Let's see how you like the calculations on this!" I yelled, igniting my back thrusters at full capacity. We blasted backward across the platform in a blur. I drove him spine-first into a massive steel support pillar with enough force to buckle the metal beam and send severe tremors through the entire catwalk.
But Dinosaurus was a genuine monster. He didn't even gasp for air. Instead, his massive hands instantly clamped down on my shoulders, his claws digging terrifyingly deep into the titanium alloy.
"Get off!" I screamed.
I instantly triggered the suit's close-quarters countermeasures. An electrical grid flared across the outer plating, discharging fifty thousand volts directly into his scales. Dinosaurus roared, his muscles violently seizing up as the current temporarily forced his grip open.
I tried to back away, firing my thrusters to put some distance between us. But I severely underestimated his speed. Fighting through the residual electricity, his hand shot out like a whip, his claws wrapping violently around my right leg. He didn't go for my body this time—his grip locked directly over the primary repulsor thruster on my calf.
With a single, effortless squeeze, he crushed the titanium housing into scrap. The thruster violently sparked and died, instantly killing my mobility and grounding me.
OH SHIT, IT'S JOOOOEEEVEEEERRR! my libido screamed.
Before I could even attempt to stand, Dinosaurus lunged at me, driving me into the floor. He methodically began to tear the armor apart. He crushed my right arm's repulsor with a single squeeze of his massive hand. He swung his tail, batting away my desperate counter-punches, and drove his claws deep into my chest plate. The "indestructible" alloy groaned and peeled back like a tin can under his monstrous strength.
Warning klaxons screamed inside my helmet as the HUD shattered into a web of static and cracked glass.
"You cannot win this, Mark," Dinosaurus said, raising his bloodied claws for a lethal, finishing strike.
WE'RE SO COOKED!my libido screamed in absolute panic.YOU GOTTA DO SOMETHING! ANYTHING!
Ight, I responded, as I proceeded to close my eyes, bracing for the impact. Maybe I'll have better luck in the next life.
But the strike never came.
Instead, the deafening, low-frequency hum of the seismic tuning forks abruptly died. The cavern was plunged into silence, save for the bubbling of the magma below.
I forced my cracked visor open. High above the vent, the blinding pink energy faded out. The massive, unstable isotopic detonators were no longer glowing. They had been completely transmuted into dull, heavy, inert lead.
The eruption sequence was stopped.
Eve gasped for air, the last of her energy spent. She dropped out of the sky like a stone, collapsing onto the metal platform below in a state of total exhaustion.
She did it, I breathed, a bloody smile spreading across my face beneath the shattered helmet. She scienced that shit.
Dinosaurus froze, his massive claws hovering just inches above my shattered visor.
His reptilian eyes darted away from me, looking up toward the cavern ceiling. He took in the dull, gray slabs of solid lead that used to be his apocalyptic detonators. His grand, extinction-level machine was completely dead.
"Fascinating," Dinosaurus murmured, his tone entirely devoid of rage. "She completely altered the molecular density of the isotopes. A flawless transmutation."
He looked back down at me, realizing his geographical advantage was completely gone.
Suddenly, a booming, concussive shockwave echoed across the cavern. Anissa burst from the pile of kamikaze drones like an erupting volcano. Her white uniform was singed, her hair was wild, and she looked absolutely feral.
She took one look at my torn-up armor and the giant lizard standing over me, and her eyes practically glowed with murderous intent.
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF HIM!" she roared.
Anissa launched herself across the platform. She moved faster than my human eyes could even track—a bullet of pure Viltrumite rage aimed directly at the center of the dinosaur's chest, intending to rip his heart right out of his ribcage.
Dinosaurus didn't even try to block or evade. He didn't even look at her. He simply tapped a single button on his wrist console.
VMMMMM.
A sharp, intensely familiar technological hum filled the air. A split second before Anissa's fist connected, a blinding flash of blue light erupted across the platform.
Dinosaurus completely vanished.
Anissa's fist passed through empty air and slammed directly into the solid rock wall behind where he had just stood. The impact created a localized earthquake, punching a crater thirty feet deep into the cavern and showering the platform in pulverized stone.
I lay there in the sparking, ruined shell of my suit, my blood running colder than ice.
That blue flash... I thought, my eyes wide in absolute horror. Impossible. He shouldn't be able to do that yet.
It wasn't alien tech. It was Cecil's personal teleportation frequency. Dinosaurus hadn't just duplicated Robot's drones; he had somehow cracked the GDA's most guarded travel technology.
A sudden hiss of static drew my attention. The crackling speaker of a half-crushed drone near my leg sputtered to life.
"An impressive countermeasure, Invincible," Dinosaurus's voice echoed calmly through the cavern. "We shall meet again. And next time, the advantage will not be in your favor."
The drone sparked one final time and permanently powered down.
Anissa pulled her fist out of the crater, her chest heaving with frustrated rage. Across the room, Eve was still unconscious, her breathing shallow from the massive energy expenditure.
I pushed myself up onto my elbows, groaning as my bruised ribs shifted underneath the torn alloy. I stared at the empty space where Dinosaurus had just been standing, a grim, suffocating dread settling into my stomach.
In the canon timeline, he learns to do this much later, I thought, the terrifying reality of the situation finally sinking in. But with him having it now... there's no tracking or predicting what he might do next.
I forced myself to my feet. Things have just gone from bad to worse, I thought. Angstrom needs to get here fast.