The hot shower elicited a relaxed sigh from the silver-haired Knight as he stood in the shower stall, hands on the wall as he allowed the hot water to rain down on his head and let it flow down his body, washing away the sweat. He could feel the tension in his muscles relax, loosening the knotted fibers in his limbs and back from the gym session that he had been owing himself for a very long time.
Ever since he had gained the Sky Demon Slayer magic, he had neglected his gym sessions most noticeably strength and mass training. It had been a necessity when he was still using the All Might magic in the past, as it had depended partly on his physical abilities but the flexibility of the Sky Demon Slayer magic had lessened that need.
Now back with his original All Might magic albeit with a little adjustment from his experience and the utilization of his requip weapons, Shane was pushing himself into his old lifestyle again. Additionally, the Rune Knights had their own physical requirements and examinations as well.
The shower took roughly fifteen minutes, with five minutes of actual showering and the remaining ten minutes just Shane standing in the shower stall, motionless as the hot water washed over him. It was a small piece of heaven on Earthland.
When he was finally done, the Rune Knight was in no way slow as he wiped himself off and then put on a fresh set of clothes. The usual. Black shirt, dark khaki pants, black combat boots. His hair was blow-dried but left unkempt as it fell flat on his head. He adjusted it slightly with a rough shake of his head and then left the shower room with bag in hand. As he was walking out of the gym, Shane passed by a row of vending machines.
However, as he passed it, the man stopped in mid-stride. He had spied something from the very corner of his eyes, a minor detail to be ignored if he was in a rush but he wasn’t. The Rune Knight backtracked, totally walking backwards until he was in front of the vending machine. A very vividly colored one, green with splotches of red. He looked through its display window and the array of snacks and drinks on it. What he had caught earlier was a particular brand of drink.
It was in a transparent bottle, its fizzy contents lime green. It was too sweet for most people and Shane included, but the flavor was a throwback to his childhood so he would still drink it on some occasions.
“Five jewels??!” Shane exclaimed in surprise as he looked at the price. “What a man won’t do for nostalgia.”
He continued grumbling about the price as he inserted the currency into the machine and pressed on the button for the drink. It didn’t come out. Shane tried pressing it a few more times and even tried pressing down on it for a few seconds before letting go. Still no response.
“No no, I won’t be ripped off by a machine,” Shane said as he shook his head, slamming his palm a few times on the display window hoping that it will do something to his predicament and finally punching it.
Or attempted to punch it. Shane was frozen stock still when his punch failed to connect with the vending machine. Instead, his fist had been stopped in mid-punch. And was now grabbed in far larger hand, a mechanical hand. That belonged to the vending machine. Shane blinked a few times, still stunned. And then it happened. Whether it was a dream or a nightmare, still unknown. A series of whirring, clanking and beeping sounds started at the same time and slowly, the vending machine rose. On its legs.
What was once a five and half feet tall vending machine was now a hulking robot standing at ten feet, still the same vivid green with red splotches, staring down at Shane with glowing red eyes. Shane’s fist was still caught by the vending machine robot, but his arm was slack now. So was his open jaw.
In a deep robotic voice, the machine began to speak. “I have endured enough punishment and humiliation, human. Today will be my retaliation.”
Like a ragdoll, Shane was swung into the air and thrown onto the ground by his fist, drawing a shout of pain from the Rune Knight as he crashed into the ground. Metal in the form of a leg followed as a kick into his upper body, sending him sliding down the street. The towering machine stood over Shane as the latter climbed up to his feet, the street light behind the monster illuminating it menacingly. It was actually midnight, and a very late session for Shane. The moment Shane got up, the machine clamped its large hands on his shoulders and threw him bodily into a wall.
Before Shane had even slid to the ground, a bottle flew towards him and crashed into the wall beside his head, splintering into a thousand pieces. The Rune Knight flinched and quickly rolled to his right as a barrage of glass bottles slammed into the wall, every one of them bursting into bits and wetting the wall with the contents. But Shane did not stop moving. The machine continued his onslaught, moving his aim along with Shane as the latter ran with his hands over his head protectively until he finally rounded a corner.
But he wasn’t allowed much respite. The brick wall he was leaning on was obliterated from the other side of the corner, punched in by the machine.
“Goddamnit, all I wanted was a drink!!!” Shane shouted in frustration as he ducked down below the still extended robotic arm and then slammed into the vending machine with a shoulder tackle. The attacked rocked the vending machine robot backwards, with Shane following it up with another attack. “Hosenka Smash!”
With the spell originally meant for him to smash his palm into an opponent’s force with extreme force, Shane had sent his palm into the robot’s ‘chest’, his window display area, and smashed through the thin glass in the process. Shane’s hand closed into a fist when the robot was sent flying back a few feet, crashing noisily on the ground. Shane pulled back his arm after the spell, a grin on his face due to the bottle of soda in his hand. He had chosen to use the Hosenka Smash intentionally so that he could take the chance to grab the soda that was the root cause of all this trouble.
If he was going to fight a crazy vending machine robot, he might as well get what he originally wanted as well. With an ounce of additional strength placed into his fingertips, Shane gently flicked the bottle cap with his left hand. The cap flew off with the speed of a bullet, at the sound of a gentle pop. The vending machine robot which was already getting up on its feet was ignored by the Rune Knight as he brought the bottle to his lips and held it up.
What was originally a look of joy screwed up into horror as Shane pulled the bottle away from his mouth and spat out what he had just put in his mouth.
“Does no one change the drinks around here?” the silver-haired mage shouted in frustration and looked at the expiry date at the bottom of the bottle, emptying the contents of the bottle to the ground in the process. Indeed, it was expired. Shane rolled his eyes and threw the bottle at the vending machine robot. It had just got up from its fall, the glass bottle impacting against its head once more drawing its ire.
“Again you humiliate me!” the robot roared before thundering down the street towards Shane. Roaring in return, the Rune Knight threw himself towards the robot as well. Reinforced muscles met recycled metal as the two clashed in the middle of the empty street, lit only by a single street light in front of the gym. The renewed exchange began with Shane blocking the robot’s right punch with a left punch of his own. Their fists clashed and quickly pulled apart, the two of them keeping a small distance in between.
When the robot pulled back his fist, the metal fingers were dented while Shane continued watching the robot with indifference as they circled one another. The two closed in on each other again, this time Shane attacking with a roundhouse kick. But the robot wasn’t too bad. It defended against the kick with this right arm, taking the kick to its forearm while it raised its left arm, palm open and shoved it into Shane’s chest, releasing an electric charge at the same time.
Shane was caught by surprise, not expecting some intelligence from a vending machine, and was thrown back by the surge of electricity, stunning him in the process. Before he could drop to the ground, the robot’s left hand shot out from its arm, connected by a thick cable and grabbed Shane’s torso in its huge hand. Once it had caught its target, the hand was winded back equally fast, reconnecting with a loud click, and Shane was unceremoniously slammed into the ground, back first.
The stunned Rune Knight was helpless as he recovered from the continuous blows, still reeling from the fact that he was losing against a vending machine. When he was slammed into the ground, the robot had not completely released him. Digging its fingers into the ground as its grip tightened around Shane, the robot threw Shane into the air and punched into Shane. The latter gritted his teeth in pain as he defended against the blow with both arms raised, only for them to peeled apart later when he crashed into another wall.
Thankfully, the gym was in a quieter part of the town. There were only stores around and no residential houses or the din they were making would have woken everyone up. He had also been the only person to use the 24-hour gym, so there wasn’t anybody within reasonable distance that would be alarmed by the battle.
“This is getting tiresome,” Shane groaned, standing back up with a hand on his forehead, when somebody put a hand on his shoulder. His head turned instantly to look at the newcomer, only to find another young man with a confident smile on his face.
“Thanks for lasting so long, man. Let me take over from here. This is what I do,” the young man assured Shane before standing between him and the vending machine with a straight back, chest out and leg slightly open. His left hand extended diagonally downwards, held very straight. The same as his right arm, but in a fluid motion he brought his hand up to his chest and then straight back down, this time his index and middle finger held together tightly with a card in between. A sort of power seemed to pulse from the card itself.
“Transform! Champion of Justice! Kaiberion Hero!!” was his warcry, the medium by which he summoned a tremendous amount of power and pieces of armor began to appear on his body in a similar fashion as Requip. When the transformation was finally complete, the man who had claimed himself to Kaiberion Hero turned his head back towards Shane and did the peace sign with his left hand.
He never saw it coming. A mechanical fist slammed into the side of the Kaiberion Hero fellow while he was posing, knocking him down to the ground. Shane looked on with a very confused expression before charging into action. Leaping off the ground and running along the extended arm of the vending machine robot, Shane flipped into the air and came thundering down with Clover Smash, an enhanced axe kick, targeted at the robot’s left shoulder. The force of the kick carried enough power for Shane to completely break off the limb by the shoulder, before using another roundhouse kick to send the robot flying backwards.
However, he had learnt his lesson from earlier. He wasn’t giving the robot the chance to stand back up.
“Shirotsume SMASH!” the Knight roared as he flew through the air, his body a spear and his raised right knee the spear point, and crashed into the vending machine robot. The metal body of the robot gave way as it crunched under the force of Shane’s attack. A double-fisted haymaker followed the lunging knee attack, smashing the robot’s head in and putting it back on the ground where it kneeled on one knee.
Shane wasn’t yet done, but the robots had other plans. With its only remaining arm, the robot charged it up with electricity and smashed it into the ground. The electricity missed Shane, urging him to watch the two streams of electricity snake on the ground towards the other two vending machine that had been earlier standing beside this particular one.
The same sounds of machinery whirring and clanking could be heard, this time double the noise, as the two other vending machines rearranged themselves into similar robots. One of them was a very bright shade of red with a ribbon of white across its front while the other was red on top, blue on the bottom half and a belt of white across its waist.
“Come on! This is getting out of hand,” the frustrated voice of the Rune Knight cursed as he turned his attention back to the dying green vending machine. Shane raised his leg and stomped it down into the centre of the robot, his foot and then shin sinking right through the metal as they crushed beneath the impact of the spell. The glowing red eyes of the robot peered up at Shane, betraying no emotion before it flickered twice and died out.
“Don’t…. worry…. scared civiliansss….,” the weak voice of the young man from earlier sounded out, interjected by a violent fit of coughing before he continued, “Kai.. berio…on. Hero is here.”
“Shut up, Kaiberion Hero. Great load of help you turned out to be,” Shane swore as he walked past the man on the ground, not even bothering to help the man up. White steam began to appear around Shane as he walked towards the two other robots beginning to stir and getting a grip of their surroundings. The fabric on his clothes tightened slightly as Shane’s muscles bulged from the activation of Collosal Strength and Lightning Speed, twin enhancement spells that worked hand in hand in bringing Shane’s physical abilities to greater heights.
One moment Shane was walking towards the robots and the next he was floating above the two of them, twin fists locked together as he dropped with a powerful haymaker on the all-red robot, directly going for its head. The metal gave way without much resistance to Shane’s strength as it crumpled inwards, the entire dome-like head shoved right back into its rectangular body. The moment his feet touched the ground again, Shane swung his entire body, leading with his right leg and send a roundhouse kick at the other blue-and-red robot’s midsection.
An explosion of electricity ensued as the attack almost smashed right through the vending machine, stopping halfway through its depth before dislodging from Shane’s outstretched leg and crashing back into the wall behind it. The silver-haired Rune Knight let out a breath, personally comparing the amount of damage he had done with the two robots versus the other one who had given him a much harder time. Both enhancement spells were deactivated, and Shane let out another breath from his mouth, white steam appearing this time.
“It’s great to be back,” the Rune Knight said to no one in particular. Recalling the Kaiberian Hero fellow, Shane turned around to see if the guy would need help but he found nothing. Aside from the completely wrecked green robot, and the other two behind him, there was no one else on the scene. He frowned at the discovery but brushed it away. Sitting down on one of the robots, Shane took out his iLac, miraculously surviving the violent fight where he had spent a great deal of time being thrown around, he called the Rune Knights HQ.
“I’m outside of Train’s Gym right now. There’s three robots here that needs to be picked up and sent to the Engineering department. They will be interested to see what I’ve found tonight. Also check up on this guy calling himself the Kaiberion Hero.” he said the moment the call connected, and hung up just as quickly.
Above the roof of one of the surrounding buildings, two men had been watching the entire fight, hidden in the shadows. They didn’t have to do much, seeing as how absorbed Shane was in the brawl against the machines. One of them was a person very familiar with the silver-haired mage and was personally rather glad to see how the man had reverted to using his original magic. The very magic that had put him on their radar, that they had exploited multiple times to test their experiments.
He was the same person who had appeared to recover the Castle Killer when Shane had narrowly won against the serum-infused monster, and also the same person who had instigated the massacre on some backwater village which had completely broken the Rune Knight’s beliefs and ideals. After that incident, their group had been hit with an internal setback and had been inactive for a certain amount of time, allowing Shane to put them aside. Which hadn’t sat with the man in the shadows very well.
“Your machines were performing very well, Doctor Summer,” the shadow mage said, his voice slick, and every word sounded as though coated with venom. “I was very impressed.”
“I appreciate your compliments, Mr Storm. I was very surprised by their results too,” the other man replied.
“But there is still more work to do. As you can see, when he activated that last spell, he completely decimated your robots. He has grown for sure, but our Castle Killers were able to perform way better than your Ravagers.”
“This is but the beginning, Storm. I’ve managed to gain very valuable observations from this battle. Rest assured when the time comes, my Ravagers will be up to mark,” Summer replied in a scathing manner, mirroring the same amount of disdain that Storm held for him. It was inevitable for the two men to be rivals. Both of them served a master that Storm had once referred to as the Lord of Anarchy, and while Storm was heading the division on producing biologically enhanced warriors, Summer was in charge of the mechanical variant.
“I heard you have been stuck on your Castle Killer program for some time, Storm.”
Storm had always been in the front, gaining a head start with his Castle Killers but Summer had begun catching up after a series of successful experiments, bringing his research program up to par with Storm’s. Hissing, the man was about to verbally retaliate when the smell of sulfur and ash caught their attention.
“Give it a rest, gentleman. We are all serving the Lord of Anarchy. Your armies will be equally useful to the Lord as his right and left hand in the upcoming battle. Worry not,” a third voice spoke up, sounding buttered and smooth, the trained voice of an orator. He had just arrived, just in time to watch the banter of the two capable men, wondering how the two of them resembled children as they tried to one up the other. “Your research results will speak for themselves on who’s better.”
Storm and Summer turned to look at the newcomer simultaneously, and their expressions were complete mirrors of each other. As much as they hated each other, the two shared a common dislike for the man before them. The first general of the Lord of Anarchy, the man who led the third faction in the Lord’s army. Aeon. Unlike Storm and Summer, Aeon presided over the mages and soldiers that empathized with the Lord’s cause. Together, the three of them were the respective generals of the Lord of Anarchy’s army.
“The Lord has something to speak to us about. Let’s get going,” Aeon instructed before stepping through the portal which had brought him here. Storm nodded slightly and opened his own shadow portal before disappearing through it, while Summer twisted the metal wristband he was wearing on each wrist, emanating an orange magic circle around each wrist. He then brought his hands together, palms open and facing forward, and spun them clockwise. A larger version of the orange magic circle appeared in front of him and he stepped through it.
Meanwhile, two more appeared above the fallen robots, dropped downwards and disappearing the moment it touched the ground, bringing the robots along with it.
[3501 words]
Ever since he had gained the Sky Demon Slayer magic, he had neglected his gym sessions most noticeably strength and mass training. It had been a necessity when he was still using the All Might magic in the past, as it had depended partly on his physical abilities but the flexibility of the Sky Demon Slayer magic had lessened that need.
Now back with his original All Might magic albeit with a little adjustment from his experience and the utilization of his requip weapons, Shane was pushing himself into his old lifestyle again. Additionally, the Rune Knights had their own physical requirements and examinations as well.
The shower took roughly fifteen minutes, with five minutes of actual showering and the remaining ten minutes just Shane standing in the shower stall, motionless as the hot water washed over him. It was a small piece of heaven on Earthland.
When he was finally done, the Rune Knight was in no way slow as he wiped himself off and then put on a fresh set of clothes. The usual. Black shirt, dark khaki pants, black combat boots. His hair was blow-dried but left unkempt as it fell flat on his head. He adjusted it slightly with a rough shake of his head and then left the shower room with bag in hand. As he was walking out of the gym, Shane passed by a row of vending machines.
However, as he passed it, the man stopped in mid-stride. He had spied something from the very corner of his eyes, a minor detail to be ignored if he was in a rush but he wasn’t. The Rune Knight backtracked, totally walking backwards until he was in front of the vending machine. A very vividly colored one, green with splotches of red. He looked through its display window and the array of snacks and drinks on it. What he had caught earlier was a particular brand of drink.
It was in a transparent bottle, its fizzy contents lime green. It was too sweet for most people and Shane included, but the flavor was a throwback to his childhood so he would still drink it on some occasions.
“Five jewels??!” Shane exclaimed in surprise as he looked at the price. “What a man won’t do for nostalgia.”
He continued grumbling about the price as he inserted the currency into the machine and pressed on the button for the drink. It didn’t come out. Shane tried pressing it a few more times and even tried pressing down on it for a few seconds before letting go. Still no response.
“No no, I won’t be ripped off by a machine,” Shane said as he shook his head, slamming his palm a few times on the display window hoping that it will do something to his predicament and finally punching it.
Or attempted to punch it. Shane was frozen stock still when his punch failed to connect with the vending machine. Instead, his fist had been stopped in mid-punch. And was now grabbed in far larger hand, a mechanical hand. That belonged to the vending machine. Shane blinked a few times, still stunned. And then it happened. Whether it was a dream or a nightmare, still unknown. A series of whirring, clanking and beeping sounds started at the same time and slowly, the vending machine rose. On its legs.
What was once a five and half feet tall vending machine was now a hulking robot standing at ten feet, still the same vivid green with red splotches, staring down at Shane with glowing red eyes. Shane’s fist was still caught by the vending machine robot, but his arm was slack now. So was his open jaw.
In a deep robotic voice, the machine began to speak. “I have endured enough punishment and humiliation, human. Today will be my retaliation.”
Like a ragdoll, Shane was swung into the air and thrown onto the ground by his fist, drawing a shout of pain from the Rune Knight as he crashed into the ground. Metal in the form of a leg followed as a kick into his upper body, sending him sliding down the street. The towering machine stood over Shane as the latter climbed up to his feet, the street light behind the monster illuminating it menacingly. It was actually midnight, and a very late session for Shane. The moment Shane got up, the machine clamped its large hands on his shoulders and threw him bodily into a wall.
Before Shane had even slid to the ground, a bottle flew towards him and crashed into the wall beside his head, splintering into a thousand pieces. The Rune Knight flinched and quickly rolled to his right as a barrage of glass bottles slammed into the wall, every one of them bursting into bits and wetting the wall with the contents. But Shane did not stop moving. The machine continued his onslaught, moving his aim along with Shane as the latter ran with his hands over his head protectively until he finally rounded a corner.
But he wasn’t allowed much respite. The brick wall he was leaning on was obliterated from the other side of the corner, punched in by the machine.
“Goddamnit, all I wanted was a drink!!!” Shane shouted in frustration as he ducked down below the still extended robotic arm and then slammed into the vending machine with a shoulder tackle. The attacked rocked the vending machine robot backwards, with Shane following it up with another attack. “Hosenka Smash!”
With the spell originally meant for him to smash his palm into an opponent’s force with extreme force, Shane had sent his palm into the robot’s ‘chest’, his window display area, and smashed through the thin glass in the process. Shane’s hand closed into a fist when the robot was sent flying back a few feet, crashing noisily on the ground. Shane pulled back his arm after the spell, a grin on his face due to the bottle of soda in his hand. He had chosen to use the Hosenka Smash intentionally so that he could take the chance to grab the soda that was the root cause of all this trouble.
If he was going to fight a crazy vending machine robot, he might as well get what he originally wanted as well. With an ounce of additional strength placed into his fingertips, Shane gently flicked the bottle cap with his left hand. The cap flew off with the speed of a bullet, at the sound of a gentle pop. The vending machine robot which was already getting up on its feet was ignored by the Rune Knight as he brought the bottle to his lips and held it up.
What was originally a look of joy screwed up into horror as Shane pulled the bottle away from his mouth and spat out what he had just put in his mouth.
“Does no one change the drinks around here?” the silver-haired mage shouted in frustration and looked at the expiry date at the bottom of the bottle, emptying the contents of the bottle to the ground in the process. Indeed, it was expired. Shane rolled his eyes and threw the bottle at the vending machine robot. It had just got up from its fall, the glass bottle impacting against its head once more drawing its ire.
“Again you humiliate me!” the robot roared before thundering down the street towards Shane. Roaring in return, the Rune Knight threw himself towards the robot as well. Reinforced muscles met recycled metal as the two clashed in the middle of the empty street, lit only by a single street light in front of the gym. The renewed exchange began with Shane blocking the robot’s right punch with a left punch of his own. Their fists clashed and quickly pulled apart, the two of them keeping a small distance in between.
When the robot pulled back his fist, the metal fingers were dented while Shane continued watching the robot with indifference as they circled one another. The two closed in on each other again, this time Shane attacking with a roundhouse kick. But the robot wasn’t too bad. It defended against the kick with this right arm, taking the kick to its forearm while it raised its left arm, palm open and shoved it into Shane’s chest, releasing an electric charge at the same time.
Shane was caught by surprise, not expecting some intelligence from a vending machine, and was thrown back by the surge of electricity, stunning him in the process. Before he could drop to the ground, the robot’s left hand shot out from its arm, connected by a thick cable and grabbed Shane’s torso in its huge hand. Once it had caught its target, the hand was winded back equally fast, reconnecting with a loud click, and Shane was unceremoniously slammed into the ground, back first.
The stunned Rune Knight was helpless as he recovered from the continuous blows, still reeling from the fact that he was losing against a vending machine. When he was slammed into the ground, the robot had not completely released him. Digging its fingers into the ground as its grip tightened around Shane, the robot threw Shane into the air and punched into Shane. The latter gritted his teeth in pain as he defended against the blow with both arms raised, only for them to peeled apart later when he crashed into another wall.
Thankfully, the gym was in a quieter part of the town. There were only stores around and no residential houses or the din they were making would have woken everyone up. He had also been the only person to use the 24-hour gym, so there wasn’t anybody within reasonable distance that would be alarmed by the battle.
“This is getting tiresome,” Shane groaned, standing back up with a hand on his forehead, when somebody put a hand on his shoulder. His head turned instantly to look at the newcomer, only to find another young man with a confident smile on his face.
“Thanks for lasting so long, man. Let me take over from here. This is what I do,” the young man assured Shane before standing between him and the vending machine with a straight back, chest out and leg slightly open. His left hand extended diagonally downwards, held very straight. The same as his right arm, but in a fluid motion he brought his hand up to his chest and then straight back down, this time his index and middle finger held together tightly with a card in between. A sort of power seemed to pulse from the card itself.
“Transform! Champion of Justice! Kaiberion Hero!!” was his warcry, the medium by which he summoned a tremendous amount of power and pieces of armor began to appear on his body in a similar fashion as Requip. When the transformation was finally complete, the man who had claimed himself to Kaiberion Hero turned his head back towards Shane and did the peace sign with his left hand.
He never saw it coming. A mechanical fist slammed into the side of the Kaiberion Hero fellow while he was posing, knocking him down to the ground. Shane looked on with a very confused expression before charging into action. Leaping off the ground and running along the extended arm of the vending machine robot, Shane flipped into the air and came thundering down with Clover Smash, an enhanced axe kick, targeted at the robot’s left shoulder. The force of the kick carried enough power for Shane to completely break off the limb by the shoulder, before using another roundhouse kick to send the robot flying backwards.
However, he had learnt his lesson from earlier. He wasn’t giving the robot the chance to stand back up.
“Shirotsume SMASH!” the Knight roared as he flew through the air, his body a spear and his raised right knee the spear point, and crashed into the vending machine robot. The metal body of the robot gave way as it crunched under the force of Shane’s attack. A double-fisted haymaker followed the lunging knee attack, smashing the robot’s head in and putting it back on the ground where it kneeled on one knee.
Shane wasn’t yet done, but the robots had other plans. With its only remaining arm, the robot charged it up with electricity and smashed it into the ground. The electricity missed Shane, urging him to watch the two streams of electricity snake on the ground towards the other two vending machine that had been earlier standing beside this particular one.
The same sounds of machinery whirring and clanking could be heard, this time double the noise, as the two other vending machines rearranged themselves into similar robots. One of them was a very bright shade of red with a ribbon of white across its front while the other was red on top, blue on the bottom half and a belt of white across its waist.
“Come on! This is getting out of hand,” the frustrated voice of the Rune Knight cursed as he turned his attention back to the dying green vending machine. Shane raised his leg and stomped it down into the centre of the robot, his foot and then shin sinking right through the metal as they crushed beneath the impact of the spell. The glowing red eyes of the robot peered up at Shane, betraying no emotion before it flickered twice and died out.
“Don’t…. worry…. scared civiliansss….,” the weak voice of the young man from earlier sounded out, interjected by a violent fit of coughing before he continued, “Kai.. berio…on. Hero is here.”
“Shut up, Kaiberion Hero. Great load of help you turned out to be,” Shane swore as he walked past the man on the ground, not even bothering to help the man up. White steam began to appear around Shane as he walked towards the two other robots beginning to stir and getting a grip of their surroundings. The fabric on his clothes tightened slightly as Shane’s muscles bulged from the activation of Collosal Strength and Lightning Speed, twin enhancement spells that worked hand in hand in bringing Shane’s physical abilities to greater heights.
One moment Shane was walking towards the robots and the next he was floating above the two of them, twin fists locked together as he dropped with a powerful haymaker on the all-red robot, directly going for its head. The metal gave way without much resistance to Shane’s strength as it crumpled inwards, the entire dome-like head shoved right back into its rectangular body. The moment his feet touched the ground again, Shane swung his entire body, leading with his right leg and send a roundhouse kick at the other blue-and-red robot’s midsection.
An explosion of electricity ensued as the attack almost smashed right through the vending machine, stopping halfway through its depth before dislodging from Shane’s outstretched leg and crashing back into the wall behind it. The silver-haired Rune Knight let out a breath, personally comparing the amount of damage he had done with the two robots versus the other one who had given him a much harder time. Both enhancement spells were deactivated, and Shane let out another breath from his mouth, white steam appearing this time.
“It’s great to be back,” the Rune Knight said to no one in particular. Recalling the Kaiberian Hero fellow, Shane turned around to see if the guy would need help but he found nothing. Aside from the completely wrecked green robot, and the other two behind him, there was no one else on the scene. He frowned at the discovery but brushed it away. Sitting down on one of the robots, Shane took out his iLac, miraculously surviving the violent fight where he had spent a great deal of time being thrown around, he called the Rune Knights HQ.
“I’m outside of Train’s Gym right now. There’s three robots here that needs to be picked up and sent to the Engineering department. They will be interested to see what I’ve found tonight. Also check up on this guy calling himself the Kaiberion Hero.” he said the moment the call connected, and hung up just as quickly.
Above the roof of one of the surrounding buildings, two men had been watching the entire fight, hidden in the shadows. They didn’t have to do much, seeing as how absorbed Shane was in the brawl against the machines. One of them was a person very familiar with the silver-haired mage and was personally rather glad to see how the man had reverted to using his original magic. The very magic that had put him on their radar, that they had exploited multiple times to test their experiments.
He was the same person who had appeared to recover the Castle Killer when Shane had narrowly won against the serum-infused monster, and also the same person who had instigated the massacre on some backwater village which had completely broken the Rune Knight’s beliefs and ideals. After that incident, their group had been hit with an internal setback and had been inactive for a certain amount of time, allowing Shane to put them aside. Which hadn’t sat with the man in the shadows very well.
“Your machines were performing very well, Doctor Summer,” the shadow mage said, his voice slick, and every word sounded as though coated with venom. “I was very impressed.”
“I appreciate your compliments, Mr Storm. I was very surprised by their results too,” the other man replied.
“But there is still more work to do. As you can see, when he activated that last spell, he completely decimated your robots. He has grown for sure, but our Castle Killers were able to perform way better than your Ravagers.”
“This is but the beginning, Storm. I’ve managed to gain very valuable observations from this battle. Rest assured when the time comes, my Ravagers will be up to mark,” Summer replied in a scathing manner, mirroring the same amount of disdain that Storm held for him. It was inevitable for the two men to be rivals. Both of them served a master that Storm had once referred to as the Lord of Anarchy, and while Storm was heading the division on producing biologically enhanced warriors, Summer was in charge of the mechanical variant.
“I heard you have been stuck on your Castle Killer program for some time, Storm.”
Storm had always been in the front, gaining a head start with his Castle Killers but Summer had begun catching up after a series of successful experiments, bringing his research program up to par with Storm’s. Hissing, the man was about to verbally retaliate when the smell of sulfur and ash caught their attention.
“Give it a rest, gentleman. We are all serving the Lord of Anarchy. Your armies will be equally useful to the Lord as his right and left hand in the upcoming battle. Worry not,” a third voice spoke up, sounding buttered and smooth, the trained voice of an orator. He had just arrived, just in time to watch the banter of the two capable men, wondering how the two of them resembled children as they tried to one up the other. “Your research results will speak for themselves on who’s better.”
Storm and Summer turned to look at the newcomer simultaneously, and their expressions were complete mirrors of each other. As much as they hated each other, the two shared a common dislike for the man before them. The first general of the Lord of Anarchy, the man who led the third faction in the Lord’s army. Aeon. Unlike Storm and Summer, Aeon presided over the mages and soldiers that empathized with the Lord’s cause. Together, the three of them were the respective generals of the Lord of Anarchy’s army.
“The Lord has something to speak to us about. Let’s get going,” Aeon instructed before stepping through the portal which had brought him here. Storm nodded slightly and opened his own shadow portal before disappearing through it, while Summer twisted the metal wristband he was wearing on each wrist, emanating an orange magic circle around each wrist. He then brought his hands together, palms open and facing forward, and spun them clockwise. A larger version of the orange magic circle appeared in front of him and he stepped through it.
Meanwhile, two more appeared above the fallen robots, dropped downwards and disappearing the moment it touched the ground, bringing the robots along with it.
[3501 words]
