Oscar Ward
My boomboxes are gone. It’s a credit to how hard he hit me that the constructs disappeared, but rather than setting them up again… I hesitate a little. That punch, well it hurt. But I’m fine mostly. More than fine, actually. I straighten up completely, experimentally rolling my shoulders and feeling out my ribs with each breath. Nothing feels broken or cracked. Though my stomach still aches where he hit me.
I look down the street where Zoe and the Viltrumite are still staring each other down.
…How strong am I now? I know what the ring said. Stronger than Mark and The Immortal but weaker than Nolan. For one, those are estimates. Right here, there’s a Viltrumite that I’m pretty sure is stronger than Mark and The Immortal. So, what I’m about to do is pretty stupid, but I think I’ve got this all in hand… mostly.
Ring, don’t remake the boomboxes for now.
Please confirm. The frequency substantially impairs the Viltrumite’s equilibrium and ability to fly.
…I know, but I wanna see what I can do without it. With Zoe here, it’s as safe as an environment I’ll get at least till I return to Earth.
“Ozzy!” She looks over when I shoot out of the building.
“I’m good!”
“Where are the boomboxes?!”
“Taking a break!”
“What?!”
“...You won’t use the accursed boxes again, that I promise you.” The Viltrumite moves.
Zoe barely gets her arms up before he slams into her. She shoots backwards, and he immediately goes after her. …Okay, there’s a big difference, apparently. I rocket after them. The Viltrumite catches up to Zoe before I do, grabs her by the ankle, and swings her straight down. She twists in his grip. Her free leg whips across his face, jerking his head sideways without doing much else. I arrive a second later as he turns to face me, throwing my weight behind a punch.
His forearm catches my fist, and the air explodes between our stalemate. His eyes narrow when I push against his arm. My grin comes back. Don’t get me wrong, he’s strong.
…But, as it turns out, so am I! I know that I said I’d return this, if possible, but I’m hoping to ask to keep this permanently, just because of how much of a power boost it affords me on top of my ring.
The Viltrumite’s eyes flick from my fist to my face.
“...Surprised?” I ask.
His other hand shoots for my throat. I knock it aside with my left and swing for his ribs. He twists away, catches my wrist, and yanks me past him. A knee slams into my stomach before I can stop myself, then he grabs the back of my helmet with both hands and throws me straight down.
The street rushes up. I twist in the air and hit feet-first instead, cratering the road beneath me. Before I can launch back up, Zoe drops out of the sky behind him. Her fist catches him square across the jaw. The Viltrumite spins with the hit, but instead of fighting it, he carries the turn all the way around and backhands her across the face.
She goes flying.
I deepen the crater beneath me as I jump out of it. The Viltrumite’s attention snaps back just in time for my shoulder to bury itself in his stomach. We shoot upwards together while he hammers an elbow into my back. On the third hit, I wedge his arm between my ribs and bicep and drive my armour-covered forehead into his nose.
Blood sprays across my helmet. He catches my head before I can pull away with his sole free hand and headbutts me right back so hard my HUD glitches.
“F-Fuck!”
I let go of his arm, veering back, and now he has the room to pummel my side. When I finally catch one of his punches, the Viltrumite pulls me into another headbutt, this time sending me flying. Around us, armoured Gelderians battle similarly armoured Kresh and enslaved Viltrumite soldiers.
The clouds around us burst apart as the Viltrumite closes the gap. I raise my guard. His fist cracks against my gauntlet. Another follows underneath it. I turn enough that it glances off my chest instead of hitting me dead centre, grab his shoulder and throw a hook into his ribs.
He grunts. “...Y-You’re strong, but what are you without that Gelderian skin, Terran?”
“...A Green Lantern, I guess?”
“What?”
Current Charge: 78%
More than enough!
A green arm unfolds over my shoulder and swings for his head. The Viltrumite ducks, only for another to form low behind him and drive a fist into his kidney. His body jerks towards me, setting up my punch to his mouth perfectly. He answers with one of his own. I lean out of the way, grab his forearm, and pull him past me while another construct hand catches his opposite shoulder. Between the extra pair of hands, I wrench him around and bury my knee in his stomach. He grunts, taking hold of my thigh before I can pull it back. So one of the construct hands lets go of his shoulder and punches him in the face.
His grip loosens enough that I kick free and fly backwards, the constructs themselves fading as I stop focusing on them.
“Is that trinket on your finger the source of your power?” He hurtles after me. “I’ll rip it off your corpse.”
…Ring, can you put the Gelderian armour over yourself, please?
Affirmative.
I ease out a breath; two green hands close around his ankles from behind. He tears straight through them without even looking, but the interruption is enough. Mjölnir forms above him, held by a green hand. The hammer catches him across the temple. He spins away, catches himself, and looks at the hammer floating beside him.
I create another Mjölnir, holding it by the strap and spinning it. Just a little bit of lightning laces the construct before I send it after him. He slips beneath the first Mjölnir’s swing, smashing the construct hammer and hand to pieces. The Viltrumite ducks underneath the one and only lightning-laced hammer, rushing towards me. I propel myself forwards, recalling the hammer with a thought as his forearm meets my punch.
It smashes into the middle of his back, emerald lightning roaring across his body as I throw myself to the side. Before the Viltrumite can recover, I recall Mjölnir, holding the hammer above my head. The clouds around us darken, gathering around the hammer as my life aura surges.
Current Charge: 69%
Emerald lightning rips down from every direction at once, meeting at Mjölnir before a blinding bolt roars from the hammer and swallows the Viltrumite whole. His body locks up, arms thrown wide as the bolt carries him down with it. The mostly-fucked streets below erupt. Stone and dust blast out from the impact, swallowing whole buildings around him. Even some of the fighting around me as allies and the enemies alike veer away from the thunderclap.
Current Charge: 48%
Mjölnir disappears from my hand as I dip into my subspace and pull out one of the rings and drain its battery.
Current Charge: 100%
I dive down. No way I’m letting this opportunity slip me by. But Zoe beats me to it. She comes down on him from above, double-kicking the Viltrumite’s shoulder as he staggers to his feet. She kicks away before he can grab her. I let the constructs go and form a battering ram in front of myself. It fires forwards.
He plants both hands against its head, and the ram stops dead. I put another one behind it. The second slams into the first, and while his arms don’t buckle, the constructs carry him through the side of a house.
Zoe stares after him. He comes back through the wall before either of us can move. His shoulder catches me in the stomach. We smash through the entirety of a different house together. Walls disappear around us one after another. Furniture, stone, and chunks of whatever else explode past my helmet until we burst through the opposite side. I manage to keep hold of him.
Though so does he as we hit the next building. I drive both knees into his stomach, the two of us bursting apart into a street that, till now, managed to avoid utter ruination. Zoe comes back the other way from behind him as the Viltrumite attempts to steady himself. Zoe flies past underneath him. She dips up, turning her back to me with her arm cannons already open and whirring to life.
The Viltrumite looks up. Blue-white light takes him in the chest. He digs both feet into the street as the beam shoves him backwards. The road tears apart beneath his heels, carving two trenches behind him.
“Little help?!” Zoe shouts.
Green light floods through the road, solidifying beneath his feet as a pair of thick wedges form directly behind his heels. I ram them forwards, kicking his feet out from under him. He goes flying, bringing down a four-storey building with him. The dust rolls back, buffeting us as we hover in the air.
Zoe hovers beside me. “...Okay.”
“Yeah.”
“That was kinda cool.”
“That was really cool,” I say.
“I was talking about me.”
“I know. I was talking about myself too!”
She laughs. “...Dick.”
The dust cloud bursts apart. My HUD flashes, and I let my suit puppeteer me out of the way as we split. The Viltrumite shoots between us and grabs nothing. I turn immediately and fire a beam after him. He rolls around it without slowing, loops through the air, and comes straight back for me.
I make a shield only for him to punch through it.
“Oh, come—!”
His fist batters into my chest, sending me flying. Zoe intercepts him before he can follow, but this time he catches her punch. She throws the other, and he catches that too, smiling as he starts to overpower her. I create Mjölnir once more, spinning it for momentum’s sake, and throw the hammer to force him into letting her go. The VIltrumite scoffs, letting her arms go and tanking her punches without twitching.
Then Zoe’s legs snap around his waist. She throws herself backwards, hands planted on the cracked ground, and flings him at me. I brace, having barely just gathered myself.
He sees me.
I see him and wince at the mental image my brain just cooked up. …Fuck it. Green light pours out around my arms. A baseball bat the size of a bus forms over my shoulder. The Viltrumite’s expression changes.
“BATTER UP!” I swing. The construct bends cartoonishly around his body, stopping him dead right before he just fucking vanishes. The crack rolls across the capital a second later.
I take off and follow the rapidly shrinking dot until he ploughs through the top of a building, skips off another rooftop, and finally crashes somewhere beyond the next street.
Zoe straightens from her handstand. “...Was that a baseball bat?”
“Mhm!”
“...You’re such a fucking goofball.”
I think she’s saying that affectionately, so I’ll let it slide.
“You couldn’t have just punched him?!”
I turn my armoured head to hers. “...Boring!”
“You—!”
A boom cuts through our argument.
“Fucking hell,” I curse.
The Viltrumite comes back slower this time, rising above the buildings with half his face covered in blood. One eye’s already swelling shut. His uniform is torn to shit, and one arm hangs lower than the other.
Current Charge: 91%
He wipes his mouth. “Enough.”
“...Technically,” I say. “You attacked us, buddy.”
His good eye settles on me. I don’t see the punch, and while I can feel my suit steering me away, I’m too new to this dynamic to surrender quickly enough. My head snaps sideways. The second punch catches my ribs before I can correct that mistake. By the time I do, the third… doesn’t come?
Zoe catches his arm. He whips around and drives his elbow into her face, cracking her helmet. She stumbles back far enough for him to turn on me again. But by then, I’ve got both my hands up and am mostly ready for him. He barrels into me anyway. We skid through the street together, my boots tearing trenches through the road while he drives his shoulder into my chest.
I bring both fists down against his back over and over while he keeps pushing. So, I form a green hand behind his head, yanking him back by the hair. Another jerks his shoulder back. His face comes up. I knee him under the chin, feeling his teeth clack together. Zoe blasts out from behind me, and her boot catches him across the temple from the other side.
He staggers.
I hit him in the stomach. Zoe hits him in the ribs. He swings at her, but I catch his wrist, only for him to try to punch me with the other. Zoe catches that one, and for, like, half a second, the three of us just stand there, pushing.
Zoe kicks the side of his knee, making him buckle. Before he can regain his footing, I headbutt him, sending the Viltrumite onto one knee. Just in time for Zoe’s arm cannon to open. The Viltrumite sees the blue light gathering there and rips his right hand free from mine, forcing the barrel aside right as she fires.
The beam tears through the street.
I punch him in the face twice, but his grip stays locked, even when blood sprays from his nose. So I make a construct hand around his wrist and pull with it. His fingers finally come free.
“NOW!”
Zoe creates another barrel and fires again, taking the Viltrumite point-blank in the chest. He flies backwards, but I’m not planning to give him the recovery time. A giant green mitt catches him from behind and shoves him straight back into the action. Zoe keeps the beam on him. I turn the mitt into a wall, focusing on nothing except its sturdiness with all the will I can muster.
“KEEP GOING!” I roar over the beam’s howling.
“S-SHUT UP! I AM!”
The Viltrumite stops trying to break my wall and instead forces himself forwards… one step at a time, even as the beam destroys his armour and brands what’s left into his skin.
His hand reaches through the beam.
“U-Uh, Ozzy?!”
“Yeah, I see him!”
I create three boomboxes around his head once he surfaces, raw-red and bald-headed. His non-swelled eye widens.
“Fuck your promise,” I say, flicking them on with a mental command.
The frequency hits, and his entire body seizes, launched off his feet by Zoe’s beam now that he’s unable to resist. The moment he’s gone, she kills the beam. I shoot after the Viltrumite, spinning a green lasso around my head that snags around his throat. I drag him through the ground, landing knees-first on his torso before straddling him.
My fist comes down, armoured and completely uninhibited. He tries to cover his face. I make four construct hands—two for each arm—to pin his arms. …And maybe one more before he decides to headbutt me, I reckon. Once he’s thoroughly pinned to the ground, I pick up where I left off until my arm aches.
His face is practically one bruised slab of meat, save for his somehow still-unswollen eye. Blood pours down his face. His chest rises underneath me in short, ragged movements. I get off him, only just realising the boomboxes playing the Depth Dweller’s frequency have been gone for a while.
…Was I that focused on beating the shit out of him?
For the first time since this whole fucking thing started, there isn’t an explosion happening within twenty feet of me. The sky’s still a special kind of hellscape, though. The battle is still going on above us.
Zoe looks up. “So... what now? Dr Relsa said these guys heal from basically anything, right? I don’t think we can take him prisoner either. I don’t think I want to either.”
Her helmet retracts. She’s sweating buckets underneath it. Whatever cleaning systems her suit has, they’re not much help at the minute. Neither are mine, to be fair. Ugh. I retract my helmet and wince at the sweat in my eyes.
“He’ll just get back up,” I say, looking down at the Viltrumite.
Zoe doesn’t answer. She lifts her hand. The cylinder slides out underneath her forearm. Blue-white light starts gathering inside it as she points it at his head. The light keeps building but… nothing really happens.
“Zoe?” Her hand’s shaking.
The Viltrumite hacks underneath her.
She swallows thickly. “I-I… I dunno why I can’t do it! I’ve killed before!”
…We both killed Kresh on that moon. A lot of them, in fact. They weren’t any less alive than he is. Probably less monstrous than this Viltrumite, if only by a little. Far less human-looking, which I guess is what this hesitance boils down to.
The Viltrumite coughs. “...P-Pathetic. You have the strength to kill me… yet neither of you has the s-stomach.”
Zoe flinches, her beam dying as she moves away from his body.
Green light gathers in my hand. Mjölnir takes shape, forming from the handle-up as I clench it in my fist.
“Ozzy...”
“I told you, we can’t take him prisoner. If we leave him alive—”
“I know.” She looks away.
I tighten my grip around the handle. The Viltrumite looks at the hammer as I raise Mjölnir over my head.
“...Well-fought, Terran,” he whispers, entirely hairless.
But I notice the muscles behind his eyebrows relaxing. My arms don’t come down. I close my eyes, only to open them again. If I’m going to do this, I’m at least going to fucking look at him.
His one good eye meets mine, and I bring the hammer down a final time.