Chapter 54: The Meltdown
[Third Person POV]
There was an undeniable mathematics to the human psyche.
Ever since John had been dragged into this reality of space fascists and cursed monsters, he had been subjected to a relentless barrage of trauma. It was one catastrophic event after another.
His existence had been a restless exercise in subtraction.
Imagine an eighteen-year-old pampered kid dying from a pathetic addiction in his previous life, only to be thrust into this grim world where false gods walk the earth.
You subtract his safety. You subtract his peace of mind. And you finally surprise his sense of self by forcing him into withdrawals for his addictions.
A human mind, having gone through so much physical and emotional devastation, was bound to break. Fortunately, John had his familiars. He had Nakime's unwavering devotion. He had Sebas's stoic guidance.
But then, he watched Sebas sacrifice himself tragically to a beast of unimaginable power.
These kinds of trauma do not just disappear. They sit there, festering down in the dark, piled up in layers, compacting under its own weight, fraying rope holding a fragile sanity together. And when a mind has no more bandwidth for stress, that rope is destined to snap.
John's thread snapped after so much anguish. when Conquest smiled.
There was a momentary blankness in John's mind. A deep, suffocating frustration he had been hiding since Sebas's death that finally reached its tipping point.
But before his brain could even process the command to move, Conquest blitzed.
It did not even look like movement. It looked like the universe deleted the space between them as the old Viltrumite's prosthetic gauntlet launched forward, aiming directly for John's chest.
Before the blow could land, Nakime surprisingly appeared before John. She did not hesitate and placed her own body between her master and certain death.
The impact was catastrophic.
Conquest's fist punched clean through her torso with a wet, meaty tear. Flesh separated from flesh as bone shattered into fragments.
The force sent the lower half of the demoness's body hurling backwards, tumbling through the air in a spray of arterial red, and smashed into Mauler II with enough force to fold the clone in half. Mauler II's ribcage caved inward with a nasty CRUNCH. His body wrapped around Nakime's legs like a broken action figure and the two of them cratered into the dirt twenty yards away
John barely caught Nakime's upper half. The residual momentum dragged him backwards, his boots carving deep trenches into the grass from the friction.
It all happened in less than a split second and when John came to, his heart stopped completely.
He dropped to his knees, with hands soaked in her blood. He called out to her.
His voice increased in volume and panic with each desperate cry. "Nakime... Nakime, wake up... Nakime WAKE UP!!"
"Master! I... I am fine... I just need blood," Nakime whispered. Her single eye focused on his face, entirely unconcerned with her own horrific state.
Seeing Nakime's legs already straining to regenerate, John's heart finally started to beat again. He whipped his head around to see Mauler I. The surviving clone had already ditched his crushed brother, dragged Allen's body and was running straight toward them with a frantic expression.
"Mauler, quick, get Nakime the Immortal flesh!" John barked in a cracking voice, "Nakime, open a gate!"
But as he was speaking and saw Nakime struggling to lift her broken biwa, he remembered they weren't alone.
He looked up and saw Conquest floating above them, eyeing the group as if looking at zoo animals, taking in all their angles with an amused grin.
"No, no… don't stop on my account," Conquest goaded, his voice dripping with manic arrogance. "Let me see your little parlor tricks. Show me the sorcery that had the great Nolan tuck his tail between his legs."
TWANG
As the tatami gate opened, Nakime's bare legs fully reformed. But before she could even stand up, Mauler I scooped her and Allen's body into his massive arm and bolted for the door.
"Master… John! Hurry and get inside the castle!" she screamed, reaching her blood-slick hand out toward him
John stayed silent at first. Still on his knees, still full of so many complicated emotions. He looked at the floating Conquest and then looked back at Nakime.
"Go!" John ordered, his voice cracking. "He is here for me. He wants entertainment. If I tried to escape with you... He'll just turn us all into mincemeat before we can take a single step in the Castle."
Nakime screamed in denial, "No! I'd rather die than let you be in danger! Please John, you are more important—"
But Mauler I, trusting his survival instincts, carried her and Allen into the Infinity Castle, strung her biwa with a thick finger, and closed the door behind them.
Conquest smiled, taking masochistic pleasure in cornering his prey.
"You are smart for a monkey, aren't you, little sorcerer?" Conquest chuckled, his dead right eye staring sightlessly while his left tracked John's every microexpression.
John's heart was hammering so hard it felt like it was trying to crack his sternum from the inside.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
Trauma. Stress. Grief. Rage.
All the overwhelming emotions held together by a single thread of logic finally snapped.
"GAAAAAAH!"
John let out a feral scream and threw a desperate punch, aiming directly for Conquest's head.
The Viltrumite did not even blink and swatted John away like a gnat.
The backhand sent John's body dragging across the ground, carving a violent trench across the field.
"Is that all?" Conquest sighed, sounding bored. "I was told there would be resistance. Was Nolan mistaken?"
John, after coughing up a thick mouthful of blood, spilling onto the grass, forced himself back up.
"That hurt, you bitch!"
John finally realized how weak he still was, even after the Zenkai Boost from nearly dying to Battle Beast and all those radiation doses.
Frustrated, he activated Wind flight and flew straight at Conquest, only to be effortlessly kicked in the temple.
John pinwheeled through the air and fell in the opposite direction, crashing straight through a line of thick oak trees along the way.
"Maybe I was mistaken," Conquest mused aloud, floating higher to survey the damage. "That means Thula and Vidor will get to the real sorcerer first!"
He looked toward where John was getting up again. The boy was flying at Conquest at full speed, blood flooding from the deep cut on his temple.
"You worm!" Conquest's voice finally cracked as genuine anger bled through. "You disguised yourself as the sorcerer and let my actual prey be hunted by someone else!"
Conquest cocked back a haymaker to finally deal with this inferior nuisance.
But suddenly, something changed.
Electricity crackled all over John's body. He activated Impulse and suddenly accelerated, lowering his height to barely slip under the incoming fist, and tackled Conquest at the knees.
Conquest, already planning to leave and hunt down the real sorcerer, had taken his prey lightly. He did not see the change in John's eyes, and before he could even flex his muscles to resist...
A sharp TWANG rang out in the air.
Conquest felt himself being pushed backwards as he found himself passing through a wooden frame of sorts, and then suddenly, he realized something was very, very wrong.
Their position had changed entirely. He quickly used both hands to hammer down on John's back, forcing the boy off of him. Conquest looked around to finally realize he had been teleported.
He could feel the blistering temperature in the massive, cavernous hall; he could even feel the wrongness of the air, and most importantly, he felt the same sensation he got whenever he flew too close to a star.
That was the dread invoked by a fully critical, ready-to-explode nuclear reactor.
The walls were lined with thick lead and concrete. The massive cooling pools glowed with the haunting and utterly lethal blue-green light of Cherenkov radiation. It was a cathedral of toxic energy.
"Ha... haha... hahahah!"
Conquest heard a manic laugh from down below. He saw John coming out from the very core of the reactor pool. The boy's skin was boiling red from the blistering heat, his clothes already burnt off, but he was grinning like an absolute lunatic, reminding Conquest of himself.
"I can't fucking believe this!" John screamed, his voice psychotic and reedy. "I come to this world ready to go 'all in!' But I end up face to face against Nolan, the entire Flaxan armada, then fucking Battle Beast, and now Conquest of all people! And it has been what? A month since I got dropped into this shitshow?!"
John floated up, his eyes locking onto Conquest. It wasn't the look of cornered prey anymore. It was the look of a gambler who had just pushed all his chips to the center of the table. To Conquest, it was the look of a warrior.
Maybe I was not mistaken after all!" Conquest grinned, his bloodlust flaring.
As the Viltrumite tensed to dive straight down to crush him, John put two fingers to his mouth.
Phewit!
"Come here, boy!" John called out.
Conquest watched in eager anticipation, letting his prey show the same power that forced the great Nolan of all to seek help.
He saw, almost in slow motion, as a black sludge covered in green circuity encased the boy whole, its frame expanding and hardening.
Green energy raced across his body as matte-black armor formed around him piece by piece. Heavy gauntlets locked over his arms, reinforced boots slammed into place, and glowing green lines lit up across the suit's surface like flowing circuitry. With the final snap of the helmet sealing shut, he stood transformed into a six-foot-tall mech suit, an advanced bio-mechanical armour, cloaked in black with glowing neon-green circuitry.
Reminding Conquest of the Geldarian battlesuits!
"You know," a heavily distorted voice came from the suit's green faceplate, "when I first found out Nolan fled Earth, I knew that somehow, someway, he'd come running back to finish what we started. So, I had my people prepare something special."
John, in his armoured form, spread his mechanical arms wide. "A proper battleground."
Thrusters ignited around the armor's back, accelerating John straight up toward the descending Viltrumite.
"Welcome to Merica' arsehole!" John roared.
The nanite-covered metal fist connected with Conquest's Jaw, sending the old Viltrumite flying backwards, crashing into the boiling radioactive water of the reactor core with a massive SPLASH.
Inside the suit's HUD, John heard Nakime's mental voice.
'Master! Neel has put everything in place; all rectors across the eastern seaboard are in a critical state, with evacuation already in progress. But are you sure you want to face this monster and not come back to the safety of the castle… to me?'
'I can't, Nakime,' John replied, his thoughts moving a mile a minute. 'I'm terrif… I'm shit scared. But I am also so unbelievably fucking angry at the world, throwing its worst at me again and again relentlessly while I am just trying to get by. at this point, I need to take a stand right here, right now.'
'Master, please, now is not the time to be stubborn!'
'Do as I say Nakime! Get in touch with Cecil! There are at least two more Viltrumites out there, three if you count Nolan. We need to save as many citizens as we can to—'
Nakime cut him off.
'No! John, you need to think of your own safety! Why would you even think about saving those humans when you are in mortal danger?!'
'Nakime…sweetheart, don't let panic cloud your mind.' John soothed her. 'Do you not remember my True Hero trait? I need you to save as many people as you can to give me the biggest stat boost possible!'
After a moment of pause, a voice of conviction echoed in his mind. 'Your wish is my command, Master.'
[A/N]: Thus began the High-octane and super-emotional Climax to this Arc.
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