Amalgamverse Anthologies

by BlazingPhoenix17, Corona_Blaze, Godzillawolf

Summary:

An anthology series following many self-inserts from Amalgamverse authors living in the world we've created.

Chapter 1: The Sun Goddess and the Idiot

Fair warning: some of the art shows explicit nudity.

Cute sexy Robutts
An Amalgamverse Anthology

Chapter 1: The Sun Goddess and the Idiot

Jesse McFeron just got done with the best sleep he’d had in literal years.  Now, normally one wouldn’t give a damn about that, and we wouldn’t blame you for feeling the same.

 

The difference is, it was 2012, and this guy wasn’t some happy-go-lucky teenager.  Nope, at the age of 24, Jesse was working his buttocks off at one of the most soulless jobs he ever knew of.

 

“Jesse.” An angelic voice whispered in his ear, causing him to squeeze his face tighter into his heavenly-soft pillows.  “It’s time to wake up, hon.”

 

“Mnmnnmnfnf, fife moar minnus...” His attempt at going back to sleep lead his his ‘pillows’ to pry themselves away...and promptly smack him across the face. “HELLOWELCOMETOMCDONALDSMAYITAKEYOURORDERPLEASEPUTTHEGUNDOWN!”

 

“Well!” The voice piped up again. “My only ‘order’ is that you wake up so we can enjoy ourselves before work.” Jesse felt heavenly lips press against his cheek and the reality of his day came flooding into his mind.  

 

Jesse Thomas McFeron, an easily depressed, perpetually stressed 24 year old who had rapidly become a fan of a series that was quite special in many ways, and led to him making many unexpected friends.  Not the least of which being one Princess Celestia Harmonia.

 

Celly was… special, to be sure, mostly because while she was named after the My Little Pony character, she was based on her, too.  The serenely-flowing borealis-esque glowing mane, pearlescent white fur, and those hauntingly beautiful eyes.  But instead of the body of a pony, she had the body of a different kind of goddess, one much more human in shape.  A one-of-a-kind gynoid developed by Knightmare Industries that Jesse, through a stroke of luck, won in a contest...there’s no way someone paid below minimum wage could hope to afford something like her, but every day he was thankful, he’d never have made so many friends without her pressuring him into it.

 

“So.” The portly man asked, “Are you joining me today or do you have some zany scheme up your sleeve?” He rolled out of the thankfully spacious bed and did his best to avoid landing face-first onto the floor.  Much to his surprise, during one of his depression fits, it seems the princess decided to clean it.  “Uh...”

 

“I know you’ll thank me eventually but before you get worried, no, I didn’t throw away any of your porn, any snacks that were still edible, or any of your sewing materials.” The man relaxed considerably, running a hand through his messy hair.  “Oh, by the way?  I’m showering with you.”

 

“Wait what?”

 

“I’m. Showering. With. You.”  In response to his blank stare, she stood up, buck naked and with her fur a mess.  “You forgot to shower after work last night, and I didn’t get around to bathing after cleaning in here.  We both smell like dead pigs.”  She gave his butt a sharp spank.  “Shower, now.”

 

“Or else what?” Jesse replied, a defiant look on his face.

 

“Or else tonight You are going to satisfy me whether you like it or not...and you know how hard I can clench .”  The young man offered a brave salute and looked around his old bedroom.  Grabbing his waterproof earpiece, he hooked it up to discord and stepped out of the room.  Second floor of the house was all clear, the guest room was empty and he could hear his mom watching her usual mystery shows downstairs.  Opening the bathroom door, he heard her shout.

 

“ MAKE SURE YOU GET A SHOWER! ”

 

“That’s what we’re doin’, mom!” Jesse replied, ushering hiss trusted companion into the room with all due haste. 

 

The bathroom was, predictably, cramped.  And here Jesse couldn’t deny something that bothered him.  Not in a bad way, he rather enjoyed it, but nowhere but this close, especially as they got in the shower, was it clear just how much taller Celestia was than him.  Mind you, Jesse isn’t ‘small’, or ‘short’, he’s a perfectly average 5’9”.  But now, water running at just the right temperature, he had to wait.  Not for the pipes to fill.  But for Celestia’s face-washing to finish, since the water was pooling into her cleavage, before finally spilling out onto his head.

 

He couldn’t help but look up, dealing with the sudden splash each time her cleavage parted, spilling water into his face, just watching as the warm, soapless water was enough to cleanse her fur of filth and grime, leaving only that beautiful sparkling white it normally was.  She finally picked up some soap, her breasts smothering his head as she bent down, and began lathering up her bosom with soap.  Kneeling down, she let her bosom rest on Jesse’s shoulders and began seeping the soap into his hair, cleansing out grease, burger chunks, and lord knows what else.

The pair continued their bathing, with Jesse rather enjoying getting to help his beloved princess with her own hard-to-reach spots. By the time she was done, they were both ready to dry off and get properly clean.  Stepping onto the bath mat, the pair got themselves tidied up and dried off, and Jess stepped out to give the princess her privacy.  And to get his work uniform on.

 

Back into his bedroom, he opened his closet to find his various work shirts clean as can be, even with the minor damages fixed with flawless care.  He couldn’t hide the smile, that pony-bot had become his guardian angel since she arrived.  He quickly got dressed and, giving his freshly shined shoes a stamp on the floor, felt it echo around the room.  Ever since he’d been approved to work at the new KI workshop in Nashville he’d been giddy to bring his old life to a full close.  New friends, new job, new house and the biggest bedroom he’d had since, well, ever!  All he needed to do was survive his last day at McDonalds and he’d be scott free.

 

Once dressed, he waited for her.  By the time he was getting worried, the door opened, casting the tiny hallway in golden light.

 

“Tadaa!”

“I...”

“Stunning, I know, what do you think?  It arrived just yesterday!”

“...I want to say ‘yes’ but let’s… try and get through my last day on good terms?”  The young lad winced, silently begging forgiveness from the goddess before continuing.  “Don’t you have something more… covering?”   Celestia deflated, silently pouting at the response.  Truth be told, this was more to brighten Jesse’s day, she had no intention of actually wearing it.  But a few quick additions and she was in something much more manageable.

“Better?” She asked, playing up the pout.

 

“...For going outside? Yes.” Was the response, clearly enjoying the sight silently wishing he’d remained silent, especially considering what he’d be in for at work. 

 

Heading downstairs, they spotted Jesse’s mom, Shiela, waiting.  She looked the pair over and gave them both a harsh stare...

 

“Do you have anything more decent than that?” She asked, her voice stern and harsh, staring Celestia right in the eye.

 

“Honestly?  Not really, unless I borrow one of Jesse’s workshirts.”

 

“Then it’s either that or you can stay home tonight.” Celestia winced… then had an idea.  “I’ll go ahead and wear one of Jesse’s shirts, we need to return them anyway.” she hopped back up the stairs with a grin and, in moments, returned...wearing one of the infamous red polos and black slacks, but several sizes too small for her seven foot tall form.

 

“...I’ll never convince you to stay, will I?” Mother replied, the question more rhetorical than anything. “Fine, but if you get fired then don’t come crying to me.”

 

“Kinda pointless to fire me on my last day!” Jesse chuckled, leading Celestia out the door.  The rain was beating down and the setting sun was in the distance.  Thankfully it wouldn’t be too harsh.  Ashley, Illinois was a tiny town, despite calling itself a city, but this was one of the nicer ends of the neighborhood. 

 

Even better was the guaranteed comfortable ride, a gift from his old aunt from California. A massive and bulky 1982 Buick LeSabre sedan with all the trimmings.  Far outdated by today’s standards, but through the chipping, poorly-added red paint over the original green, Jesse still spoke of it like an old soldier.  ‘The Beast’.

 

“Here, lemme adjust the seat.” Jesse chimed up, setting the passenger seat back as far as it could and laying the back down.

 

“...Jess, if you just wanted to see my boobs bounce you just needed to ask.”

“Celly, hon, sweetheart...you’re seven feet tall. It’s this or you ride on the roof.”

“Lying on my back it is.”

 

*****

 

It had been barely a few blocks and already the scenery made a stark, startling shift.  Jess had just gotten done talking with the gate guard to leave the town for the night.  Any journey out of town was, frankly, kinda scary these days but a journey to the next major town, especially a half hour long journey, was a risk.  Especially at night.

 

Passing by the town’s cheap chain link fence and sparse lights was the ultimately dark highways of southern Illinois.  Bleak and lonely save the quiet but pleasant company.  But even these two couldn’t QUITE handle no sound at all.  So with a tap to his earpiece, Jesse entered a voice chat with his group of fellow fans of a very special fanfic.

 

“Corona Blaze, calling Drifty, I repeat, Corona Blaze calling Drifty, do you read?” Jesse said, with Celestia linking in to join as they waited for one of their buddies to respond.

 

There was a click on the other end as Jesse’s friend picked up. “ Jesse, now is not a good time, ” his friend said, his tone completely serious and devoid of his usual sarcastic bite.

 

“...Judging by the tone it’s less ‘I haven’t had my coffee yet’ and more ‘Me and Rena are about to go on a mission’, right?” Jesse winced, genuine concern in his voice. 

 

“ Yeah, ” Drift sighed. “ Just got out of briefing. Full night mission and load. Flare and echo pods, NV goggles, everything. ” There was a pause. “ I’m going on point for my team. ” 

 

“...oh...oh lordy...” Jesse gulped.

 

“Wait.  Flare and echo pods, full load out, night vision...” Celestia rubbed her chin.  “Is it a Gyaos swarm?  Has the local area been warned?  ...you’re not still on Kwaj, are you?” That last line was spoken with an odd mix of hope and dread....  “Rena, I know you can hear me. Keep him safe, okay?” 

 

“ I’ll do my best, sis, ” came a sultry voice from the other end. “ Whether the demon bats cooperate or not is another matter. ” 

 

“ Look, it’ll be fine, ” Drift said. “ Reports say it’s not a big flock, at least, not yet anyway. Only about thirty to forty, tops. A squad can clear them out, with help. Just… be careful tonight, okay Jesse? ” 

 

There was a door slamming on the other end. “ Monnot! Ready line, on the double! ” 

 

“ Copy that Staff Sergeant! Gotta go Jesse, stay safe! ” And then in a heartbeat, the call ended. 

 

“....Stay safe, Gabe.”  Jesse sighed.  

 

“Hey, he’ll be okay.”  Celestia laid a hand on Jesse’s shoulder.  “I know you’re worried, he’s one of the youngest mech pilots in the GDF, but it’s because he’s a prodigy.  If anyone can survive, he can, especially when he’s got Rena, NineBall, and Anji by his side...”

 

“Heh, true, and to think the group jokes about me being the harem protagonist...” Jesse shook his head, trying to hide worries away.  All the while, no one noticed the dark clouds slowly blocking out the moon seemed… sharper than they should.

 

*****

 

“Huh, that’s new.” Celly spoke up, the marble alicorn’s eyes catching onto something in the distance. Jesse looked over and saw just what she was talking about. In an effort to try and protect more people inland of their signature countries, the GDF had gone and built a number of so called ‘Quick Reaction Stations’ for any possible kaiju or alien attack. The one The Beast was approaching now was one such installation. 

 

Immediately, Jesse and Celly saw the multitude of multi-barreled anti-air cannons, pill shaped RADOMEs on top and painted in white. And beyond the chain link fence those guns were guarding were only a handful of buildings, a lot of cars, and… 

 

“Whoa… actual ASPs!” Jesse said, leaning in to look as he drove by. The ‘ASPs’ were a few armored humanoid figures, most of them down on one knee as crews worked on them, checking their engine blocks, testing motors, and… Jesse’s gut sank as he saw the massive guns being brought out in heavy duty forklifts, drums of ammo getting fitted onto the mechs. 

 

“Oh...oh lordy...”  His gut sank even more when he spotted a soldier, shorter than the rest, marching towards a familiar red and black ASP. “It’s… NineBall.”

 

An experimental prototype, sometimes called the ‘Half-Dragoon’, NineBall was an… oddity. The chassis itself belonged mostly to the GDF’s new M9 Hornet series of ASP, with lean limbs and booster nozzles visible behind the knees and back. And supposedly, that was where any similarities ended. Drift couldn’t tell Jesse much, but he did know that the ASP had an AI in it, and that it had a tendency to go, in Drift’s words, “On a fucking butthurt rampage of bullets and swearing when pissed.” 

 

“Oh my. Drift is definitely not in Kwaj right now. But if he’s here...”

 

“Then that means the Honor Guard likely is as well,” celestia finished.  “But if they’re here...”  Sure enough, the main door of the base opened and what came out was a mech unlike any other, followed by her younger, more conventional-looking duplicates.  Four of them in all, plated in armor, bristling with weapons, and big enough the ASPs could ride on their backs like warhorses.  But the shocker of the lot was their leader.

Anjira, the Behemoth Prototype; equal parts beautiful and terrifying.  A massive quasi-felinoid mech aesthetically modeled after Anguirus and designed as a self-subsistent combat unit, and the groundwork for the Behemoth anti-kaiju support mechs, the tanks of the modern age. And NineBall was not only picking up a drum fed autocannon, a gimbal mounted missile pod over one shoulder, no, he was actually walking over to Anjira. 

 

She knelt down and allowed Nineball to load onto her back and, with a nod, urged the others forward, the titanic green horned felinoid tanks stomping forward, the very ground quaking under the weight of their loadouts.  Each armed with twin high-powered maser cannons and enough missile salvos to replicate the 4th of July for a week.

 

It was with a rising dread that the pair realised where they were heading... East, towards the town of Nashville… the same place Jesse worked.  Their hearts skipped a beat and they realised that they’d left the base on the horizon and it was time to pay attention to the long lonely road again.

 

*****

 

“Hello, welcome to McDonalds, may I take your order?” Jesse said, his best, fakest ‘I’m in a good mood and here to help’ smile plastered on his face, trying his damnedest to not think about the looming danger and his friend facing it head on.  The large, LARGE man in front of him mumbled something under his breath.  Jesse didn’t respond immediately, expecting the man to simply be thinking of what he wanted.  When the man began glaring at him, he chimed in again.  “What was that, sir?” He leaned in.

 

“Ah shed Ah want a double cheezborgur!”

 

“Standard toppings on that double cheeseburger, sir?”

 

“No veggies, extra mayo!”

 

“Consider it done, sir, that’ll be a dollar and fifty cents.”

 

“FIFTY SHENTSH!?” He screamed. “I AUGHTA SHLAP YER ASH YOU BRAT, THAT’CH ON THE DOLLER MANYOU!”

 

“I’m sorry, sir, a single cheeseburger is on the dollar menu, a double is a dollar fifty.”

 

Celestia sighed, quickly realising why Jesse hated this job so much  This was the tenth customer in an hour to be rude to him for something outside of his control, all the while the kitchen seemed to be a disaster, with the same cook constantly cutting his hand on the spatula, patching up, and going back to work with the same unsanitized spatula, the guy on the fry station seemed to always have his hand in his pants, and the manager was constantly berating everyone on the front line, but refusing to even comment about the kitchen’s chaos.

 

“Goodness gracious, this place is run by idiots.” She muttered, just as her horn began to light up. “Huh?”  Getting a warning like that was serious, and merely seconds later, the TV in the dining hall suddenly shifted from cartoons to a newscaster.

 

“Warning, this is a red alert to everyone in the Washington County area!  A small gyaos swarm has been spotted approaching the area of Nashville, Illinois! Please stay in doors, blockade any entrances and barricade all windows! The GDF is on their way, just please remain safe! Do NOT attempt to evacuate if you’re in the affected area, you won’t be able to make it far!”

 

Celestia turned back, with everyone looking on in shock. Before anyone could say anything she began her work.

 

“Everyone, get to the back!” She shouted, urging people into the kitchen area.

 

“You can’t do that, we can't have customers back there!” The manager shouted, trying to shove her back.

 

“Then YOU can sit out here and wait for those cannibalistic carnivores to rip you apart, I’m more concerned about the civilians!  EVERYONE! INTO THE BACK!” When the manager tried to shove again, she simply one-handed him to the ground and went back.  

 

Jesse wasn’t sitting around doing nothing, rushing out and grabbing tables and chairs and pulling them back, hoping to set up some kind of barricade between the lobby and kitchen.

 

“Shut off the grills!” he shouted.  When all he got was a chorus of ‘fuck yous’, he officially lost his temper and marched back there.

 

“LAWRENCE!” He shouted, grabbing a scrawny teenager running the main grill, “Every FUCKING day you come in here high as a fucking kite and injuring yourself, do you have ANY idea how often that shit spreads because of you spilling your own blood all over the food!?  Get the FUCK out of the kitchen and gimme that spatula!”

 

The teen ran to the back, having never seen Jesse THIS angry, many others began to follow, except the punk at the fry station.

 

“And YOU , George, if you honestly think no one knows why the fries keep having hairs in them, then you’re fucking WRONG , we know full well you jack off during work hours, literally, now get outta there before I throw YOU into those oil vats, dammit!”

 

The manager finally got back to his feet, and saw Jesse taking charge, if a tad aggressively.

 

“JESSE! You’re-”

 

“Fired!?” Jesse growled, whipping the spatula out, dangerously close to the manager’s neck. “Fuck you Ryan , today was my last fucking day at this shithole as is!  Now if ya wanna live, GET IN THE FUCKING BACK!”  With Ryan the manager now sprinting back and crying, Jesse spoke out.  “Anyone with the stones to do it, help set up a barricade to protect the rest, anyone else, get into the back area! The doors are steel and the walls are foot thick brick, we’ll have better hopes of defense back there than out here!”

 

In a rush, everyone sprinted to the back, making their way through the greasy kitchen, a few close calls from the messy floors.  One ‘brave’ soul, the overly portly man from the front counter, slammed through the back door and screamed his only coherent sentence since he’d arrived.

 

“CYA LATER YOU DUMB FU-AAAGHK!”  His screams were quickly followed by the familiar cries of ravenous Gyaos.  Quickly it was decided that attempting to run was very much a BAD idea.  

 

Back at the entrance, Jesse and Celestia were working fast, with the robotic equine using her superhuman strength to pry tables and chairs from their moorings and seal up gaps, while Jesse set up for a rather dumb plan that popped into his head.

 

“...Jesse what the hell are you doing?”

 

“Gyaos are dangerous because they’re constantly hungry, right?”

 

“Yyyessss…,” came Celestia’s hesitant response. 

 

“Well… why not feed any that come in?” Jesse suggested. 

 

“That is the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard… but it’s better than no plan at all.”

 

With a final double check of the barricade, the two were convinced they were set… until they heard a shrill chirp behind them. Jesse gulped, terrified. 

At first, with its happy purple eyes, pudgy little belly, and arrow-like head, it certainly LOOKED like a Gyaos, but the happy chirp it made suggested something was off.  And then Jesse realised what he’d forgotten.

 

“The drive thru windows!” He shouted, rushing to block and lock them down.  The baby gyaos launched herself at him and latched her maw onto his arm, though he failed to notice in his panic.  Celestia, however, launched herself in to rescue him, stopping upon realising something off.

 

“...No blood?” She looked confused, then looked at the gyaos.  Somehow a genetic anomaly doomed the poor baby in a way no one had guessed, a death it was cheerfully unaware of.  “....It’s toothless.”

 

“Well keep ‘er distracted, we’ve got bigger problems!” Jesse ran frantic, familiar thoughts of hellish lunch rushes filling his mind.  Bolting to the kitchen, he frantically got to work on the grills, heating them back up and tossing freshly frozen patties onto them, just in time to hear the hellish shrieks of larger, nastier gyaos bash into the main lobby.

 

Moving like lightning, he realised these murderbats would be far less of a hassle to deal with than most customers and simply began flinging the freshly cooked burgers through the tiny gaps in the barricade, causing the Gyaos inside to begin mauling one another for the hot, greasy patties.  

 

The smell of blood and screams of pain got the little toothless baby shrieking, equal parts worried for her nestmates and hungry for some food.  Celestia, realising this could only cause problems, decided to slip onto the other side and began setting chicken nuggets and french fries to heat up, cooing to the baby in hopes of calming her down.

 

And then, much to Jesse’s surprise, tremors started shaking the ground . At first faint, and then very quickly getting stronger, the former employee’s widening as he realized just what was about to happen. A thought that almost immediately came true as the explosive buzz of an ASP’s main gun cut through the cries of the kaiju outside. In the lobby, twenty millimeter armor piercing rounds punched clean through the walls at supersonic velocity, mutilating the Gyaos inside as Jesse ducked down, Celly joining him on the floor as a line of holes popped through the walls of the kitchen, stopping just short of the walk in fridge. 

 

Jesse looked up, and saw a glimpse of the grisly carnage outside his barricade. A Gyaos shrieked, leaping out of the store before something hit it. There was a sound of a giant blade being pulled out, and then the Gyaos was shoved back inside, the wall crumbling under it as an ASP shoved its bayoneted cannon into its chest deeper before pulling the trigger. Jesse was saved from hearing loss only by Celly’s hands going over his ears, though the sheer force of the gun firing shook the McDonald’s anyway. 

 

Among the chaos, Jesse could barely make out the terrified cries of the baby Gyaos under Celestia’s wing, clinging to her like a frightened child clinging to a trusted adult.  Looking up himself, he saw something that to most small kaiju would be a waking nightmare, but to him was a sign of hope.

 

Standing mere feet away, drenched in Gyaos blood, barrel still smoking, was none other than Nineball, Gabriel Monnot’s own ASP.  And he wasn’t alone.  Announcing her presence with the deafening thud of a larger Gyaos hiding the ground with a snapped neck was the Behemoth Prototype, Anjira, both backlit by the full moon and prepared for war.

 

“....Nice save, Drifty.” The young man smiled.  A ‘ Ding !’ went off, to their surprise and Celestia leapt up from the ground.

 

“Nuggies are done!” She shouted, grabbing them and letting them drain, before dumping them into the bin and setting the baby down to snack, punching a larger, dog-sized Gyaos in the face when it tried to attack the helpless toddler.

 

“So, we got a pet, and did our best to keep the place safe… how’s your night going?” The angular camera housing that served as NineBall’s head looked at Jesse, and he could see the flat look that his friend was no doubt giving him. 

 

“ I have four drums of ammo left, two flash pods, and I’m covered in monster guts, ” Drift said through the mech’s speakers. He looked to the walk-in fridge, then back at Jesse. “ Survivors? ” 

 

“They’re in the break room and storage, past the walk-in.  That thing’s too cold to try and hide kids in.”  He urged Drift to follow him and revealed, in the back, the two heavily barricaded doors everyone had hidden in and were, for the most part, safe. 

 

“ Good thinking, ” Drift said, nodding. “ Now look, the town isn’t safe yet, the flock’s starting to scatter. So stay put, keep your head low. National Guard will be here for armed evac out of here while we hunt the stragglers down. ” Drift looked up, froze, and then twisted in place. Jesse could only watch as a Gyaos emerged from the night sky, mouth open wide to unleash its sonic beam. “ MOVE! ” 

 

Jesse launched himself towards Celestia, who grabbed him and tried to take flight, managing to only barely escape the path of the sonic cutter.  The young man let out a yelp of pain and looked down, seeing that half of his foot was now simply gone.

 

“...oh fuck.” 

 

Drift had only just evaded the cutting beam himself, NineBall’s armor plating getting a new scar on his left pauldron. In response, Drift aimed his cannon and pulled the trigger… and the missile pod on his shoulder went up and launched one of its last missiles right into the monster’s mouth. The Gyaos had a split second of instant life regrets before it exploded, showering the street with bits of bone and brain before the rest of the body crashed. 

 

The mech looked back, and then recoiled as it saw Jesse and his half missing foot. “ Jesse! ” The soldier could only watch as Celestia came to a landing and began searching for the first aid kit, hoping it had something useful.  Meanwhile Jesse was left in NineBall’s shadow, babysitting the toothless Gyaos whom, unknowing of what it was doing, had begun dunking its chicken nuggets in the young man’s blood.  Seeing his distress and pain, she thought she was helping by offering him the bloodstained nugget of pulped chicken chunks, but realised maybe he wasn’t in the mood for food when his only logical response was to vomit.

 

“That’s not ketchup, Nugget!” Jesse growled, trying to set himself up in a safer spot, away from the blood-frenzied predators and giant robots.

 

As if things couldn’t get any worse, it was then the deafening wingbeats filled the air.  The nest matriarch was here. Drift slumped, a none too easy feat for a 16 foot tall mech. “ You’ve GOT to be fucking shittin’ me, ” Drift drawled in annoyance, dumping the drum in his cannon and reloading. “ Celestia, find Jesse’s foot, then drag him into the fridge, ” he ordered. “ Cold should slow the bleeding a bit, and preserve the foot. ” 

 

“Got it, already on it Sergeant!”  The pony princess had managed to locate the missing chunk of her lover’s foot and, first aid kit in hand, hauled him and the baby into the walk-in cooler, then deeper into the actual deep freeze, using her wings to keep him and the baby from freezing to death in the bitter cold.

 

As if things couldn’t get worse, however, they could feel the concrete floor rumble and crack underneath them.  Something BIG was coming… and it was coming from underground.

 

“HEADS UP BELOW, DRIFT!” Celestia shouted, relaying the shout over comms before shutting the door and praying for the best. 

 

NineBall’s AI, had it a physical body, would have flinched at the flood of profanity Drift uttered in anger. “ ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?! SON OF A MOTHERLESS FISHMONGER FROM-!! ” Drift yelled, dashing outside and looking around to see where the new threat was going to be. “ Anchor One, this is Guardian One Actual, I need an assist at- !” 

 

The Matriarch made herself known with a deafening screech, her wings blotting out the moonlight.  The other Behemoth mechs lit up their spotlights and, to everyone’s horror, it was no ‘mere’ Gyaos leading the swarm.

 

It was a Hyper Gyaos, her wings stretching farther than any had considered a possibility.  It seemed there was more than enough food even outside of the city for her to grow to truly titanic sizes. Drift stared at her, dumbfounded. 

 

“ ...God. Be real with me. Who the fuck did I screw over in my last life to warrant this amount of cosmic bullshit? ” 

 

The ground shook, the earth itself heaving from underneath the defenders.  Expecting another attack, the GDF troops braced themselves for the next kaiju...

 

And yet, instead of some nightmarish terror, they see bursting from the hole a massive three-horned-ceratopsian- like Titan with fierce angry eyes clawing its way out.  The beast looked up at the Hyper Gyaos, then around himself at the GDF troops… and tilted its head quizzically.

 

“ I think I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque...again. Where the fuck even am I? ” Gomora thought in his head, waiting for a response. Which he almost instantly got. 

“ Nashville, Illinois. I’m pretty sure you’re in the right place,” a voice in Gomora’s head responded , “You seeing what I’m seeing?” Gomora gave a nod, and narrowed his eyes upon the current threat at hand, the Gyaos. 

 

“Go kick some ass” the voice said, Gomora pretty much able to picture the smirk in his partners head.

“ That's the idea.” Gomora responded. The tri-horned Titan horns began to vibrate, the molecules in the air heating up, the heat being absorbed into the side horns. The energy quickly transferred into the nasal horn, before a sudden shockwave of energy came forth from it. This Oscillatory Wave, as it was called, eviscerated several smaller gyaos as it ripped through the ground,  before hitting its intended target. The blast crashed right into the hyper gyaos, with several energy shockwaves blasting into her. The result of such concussive force sent the Hyper Gyaos crashing into the ground below. 

Gomora ripped himself out of the ground and struck a defensive stance in front of the GDF mechas. So long as he was here, nobody else was going to die. The Titan let loose a deep guttural growl. Whether one could understand him or not,  the young Titan’s body language was clear with his message towards the Gyaos; Bring it on. 

Unprepared for this new threat, but all too eager to tackle it, the Matriarch dive bombed directly at Gomora, charging up its sonic cutter.  The rest of the swarm weren’t going to hold back, the swarm diving in at the small army of defenders, their own cutters charging up to fire. 

 

“ All units, cover fire for… ” Drift paused, trying to figure out which kaiju it was before shaking his head. “ Just keep the little bitch bats off of Tricorn Head! ” Taking aim, he let loose a stream of shells that tore the wing off a Gyaos. The surviving ASPs, and the Behemoths as well, opened fire, tracers filling the air as missiles and flak shells exploded. 

Anjira, not one to hold back, curled into a ball and rolled into the fray, embers of extreme heat flaring out with her imitation of Anguirus’ Thunderball, the prototype bouncing into the air and incinerating any Gyaos caught in her path, all while maser cannons and micro-missiles erupted into flak bursts, shredding smaller Gyaos that tried to get too close.

The Subterranean Knight smirked as he rushed to hit the Hyper Gyaos head on. The ground shook as the young Titan charged forward, slashing and thwacking the oncoming Gyaos. Upon noticing that this… smaller Anguirus was doing some damage to the gyaos in a ball like form. A lightbulb popped into Gomoras head, the kaiju getting an idea. Backing up a bit, Gomora threw forth a kick, kicking Anjira forwards, not using a whole lot of force as he didnt want to damage the mecha. But it was substantial enough to send the Anjira flying forwards and through several swarms of Gyaos. The young Titan then looked up, seeing the Hyper Gyaos descending towards him and bracing for impact. 

 

The Hyper Gyaos slammed face-first into Gomora, plowing the Titan into the ground, thankfully not landing on the Mcdonalds but the impact was more than enough to crack the walls, sending the survivors fleeing to any semblance of safety AWAY from the fight’s ground zero. With the myriad of innocents fleeing, ASPs and ground troops were running themselves ragged, protecting the fleeing civilians from the Gyaos. Drift saw a Gyaos approaching the store, the pilot bringing it down with a burst. 

 

“ Shit Shit SHIT!! ” he shouted, bringing his weapon up and skewering a Gyaos that tried to dive bomb him with the bayonet. Slicing the monster’s belly open, Drift ignored the half digested contents of it as he looked at the pair of larger kaiju. Drift looked at his cannon, then at a passing ASP. “ Spencer, rail! ” he snapped, pointing at the Hyper Gyaos. 

 

The other ASP followed Drift’s finger and brought itself to a knee, a series of clamps hitting the asphalt as it’s pilot brought the much bigger weapon to bear. There was a high pitched whine, a capacitor glowing white hot, and then… 

 

Kra-BAAAAAANG!  

 

The ferric tungsten penetrator round erupted from the ASP’s rail cannon with a force comparable to a battleship cannon in terms of scale. The slug crossed the dozens of meters between the humans and the Hyper Gyaos in a near instant, and the kaiju outright flinched as the round struck her in the eye. As powerful as the cannon was, it didn’t blind her… but it sure as hell got her attention. 

 

“ Scatter! ” Drift ordered, firing off a burst as he sidestepped away, Spencer doing the same. “ And where’s our goddamn fucking support?! ” 

 

“ HE IS THE SUPPORT, SIR! ” One ASP pointed up at Gomora, who now had Anjira sitting on his shoulder, firing micro-missiles at nearby Gyaos.

 

The shot that distracted the Hyper Gyaos gave Gomora the time he needed to counterattack. The young Titan roared with sheer determination. A simple body slam? To Gomora that did about as much damage as a bike getting hit by a bird. He lurched his left hand forward, grasping onto the right side of the Gyaos head, digging his claws into her crest and cheek. He twisted his hips a bit, moving his arm in tandem. The Hyper Gyaos shrieked for a brief second before her vision and mouth got filled with concrete and dirt as Gomora slammed her face first into the ground. He lifted her head up and slammed her into the ground face first once more. Only to then toss her aside, sending her into the oncoming Gyaos, crushing the lot of them. He shook his head and rose back up onto his feet, letting loose another mighty roar. His horns once more vibrated the molecules in the air, absorbing the energy into them. If the Gyaos decided to make another play, he would be ready this time. 

 

The swarm was thinning rapidly, and Gomora’s heavy assault was certainly one of the bigger factors.  The Hyper Gyaos’ rage and desperation were astronomical, and the only thing the beast could think of was to dive back into the fray and hope to overpower the small titan through sheer brute strength.  With the remains of the Swarm at her back, the Matriarch launched their final assault.  It was all or nothing now.

 

Her recklessness would lead her to her downfall. Gomora planted his feet square into the ground, waiting for the right opportunity for the Hyper Gyaos to make the wrong move. A smirk formed slightly on his face as the Hyper came right in range. Gomora roared as he spun around with surprising speed, slamming his tail right into the charging Gyaos head. A literal shockwave occurred followed by a gruesome snap and ripping sound was heard when the Gyaos’ head was sent soaring through the air and into the ground. The body of the Bat crashed just a few meters away from it. A small smile grew on the Titan’s face; all things considered, that was pretty fun. There wasn't a whole lot of collateral damage, and the Gyaos were mostly taken care of. Gomora’s grin grew a little wider, brownie points. 

 

By the end of the gruesome brawl, the morning sun had already begun to peak over the horizon.  By then, Nugget was the only Gyaos left alive, shivering away under Celestia’s wing, worriedly chirping at Jesse.  During the mayhem numerous boxes of frozen meat patties had fallen on them and it was all Celestia could do to keep the crushing weight off of her vulnerable charges, especially while struggling to patch what she could on the young man’s bisected foot.  It was only the stomping footfalls of the ASPs outside that let them know it was safe at all. 

 

The footsteps halted, and then the door to the fridge opened, a worried pilot rushing inside, an SMG hanging from his shoulder. “Jesus H. Christ on a pointy stick,” Drift muttered, rushing to Celestia, Jesse, and the infant’s side. “How is he?” 

 

“He’ll live, I hope. But that front-half of his foot won’t if we can’t get to a hospital in time.”  She shoved the boxes off of herself and carried Jesse outside.  Nugget the Gyaos had taken to resting on her shoulder and the baby handed the severed foot to Drift.  Whether as a snack or to take care of it none could guess.

 

“...hoooly fuuuuck...” Was all Jesse could mumble out, seeing the sheer expanse of the damage done.  While the bulk of the fighting was way out here, stragglers and escapees had clearly made it dangerously close to the city, with Gyaos corpses visible laying atop factory roofs and in craters on the highway. Unable to deal with this crap much more, he gave in to unconsciousness just as the wail of ambulance sirens filled his ears. 

 

Drift sighed, holding his friend’s foot as he connected to the radio. “Central, this is Sergeant Monnot, Guardian One Actual, I have a civilian with a KI gynoid en route to the nearest hospital,” he said. “I have the front half of his foot, granting priority access to surgical grafting ASAP. Also, be advised, civilians and gynoid have a… baby Gyaos with them, do not, I say again, do NOT separate or attempt to separate until higher command is on site, over.” Sighing, Drift let his COs argue while he looked at the carnage around. 

 

“...God I fucking hate this job.”

 

Gomora was double checking to make sure every Gyaos was dead, he didn't want any stragglers. Luckily not only was his aim still on point, but the young Titan still knew how to make his opponents hurt. The Subterranean Knight sighed, happy he was at least able to arrive on time. Had he not, things might have gone a little differently with that Hyper Gyaos around. As Gomora began to head back, a familiar voice popped into his head. 

 

“Excellent work Goms, you never seem to disappoint.” the voice said, Gomora smirked. 

 

“Since when do I? I mean, today I might have had it not been for your shit directions Rei,” Gomora jested at his partner, who was probably safe inside a GDF base somewhere. 

 

“Look Goms, I’m a psychic, not a GPS. Plus arent’ you subterranean? I thought traveling like that would have been easy for you!” Rei retorted, chuckling a bit to himself. 

 

“Just because I prefer underground doesn't mean I know where I’m going when it comes to finding a city! They all look the exact same to me!” Gomora responded in kind, snorting hot air from his nostrils. 

 

“It worked out didn't it? Everything worked out in the end,” Rei said optimistically, which Gomora himself couldn't argue with, nodding his head in agreement. The young Titan marched his way back to the hole he came out of.

“Alright I’m heading out, lemme know if you need anything else Brother,” Gomora stated, ready to head out.

“Sure thing. Oh and by the way, be sure to tell Raiga I said hello,” Rei teased, with Gomora rolling his eyes.

“Go eat a dick.” Gomora jested as the two shared a hardy laugh together, with the Titan digging away and leaving the city in safe hands. 

 

Cute Sexy Robutts Chapter 1: Complete

Chapter 2: Langoud Lunacy 1: The Gatlin Fireball

Summary:

Theodore wylder winds up in the town of Gatlin, it ends about how you expect.

The elderly man yawned. 

 

“Gonna be honest... not the weirdest thing I’ve had to deal with this week.”  He grunted, looking at the scene before him.  He stood in a clearing of a massive cornfield, stretching as far as the eye can see, and in front of him was a dusty old ghost town, formerly Gatlin, Nebraska.  And between him and the town was a motley crew of children, all wielding farming implements as if they were divine weaponry.

 

The man, Theodore Wylder is his name, was strapped by corn-husk ropes to a large wooden cross, situated above a pile of dried weeds and wood scraps.

 

“LISTEN WELL, BROTHERS AND SISTERS!” screamed a young boy, their apparent leader, known as Isaac, was short and clearly the only thing stronger on this boy than his faith was his damned lungs.  “TODAY, ANOTHER SINNER WALKED AMONG US!  AND HERE HE WAITS!  FOR HE WHO WALKS BEHIND THE ROWS!  WE  SHALL LIGHT THE PYRE, AND END THIS SINNER IN HOLY FLAME!”

 

The children cheered, bloodlust on their minds.  Theodore, however, began counting down from an arbitrary number, fondling something in the palm of his hand.  Watching, waiting, as dense clouds began to roll in, and something in the distance roared.  

 

No longer listening, or honestly caring much, the old man nudged aside the fur trim of his old peacoat to get a better view, as an older boy, the ‘priestly’ Isaac’s brutish enforcer, Mordecai, stepped up, presenting the younger boy with a torch, lit by a burning grain silo not too far off, and carrying a rather hefty-looking scythe.  Too hefty for grass-cutting, but not right for cutting corn...

 

“AND NOW WE PRESENT THIS SACRIFICE, FOR HE WHO WALKS BEHIND THE ROWS!  A SINNER, FOOLISH TO INVADE THIS HALLOWED GROUND ALONE!”

 

Theodore laughed, a mocking bark echoing out even as the pyre caught ablaze.

 

“YOU MOCK US, SINNER, YET HERE YOU BURN!”

 

“Mock you?  I’m mocking whoever this ‘he who walks like a load of shit’ is for not telling you! You honestly thought I came alone?  No, a SMART battlemage always has his Eidolon and Familiar at hand!” With a snap of his fingers, a massive bolt of lightning careened down from the clouds above, blasting the cross to splinters, and scattering the pyre to the winds, filling the field with smoke and flame.  And from the shadows cast by the firelight, a form bubbled up from the ground.  It...LOOKED human, feminine even, at least in silhouette...but the glowing white eyes were the first clue, as the creature stepped into the firelight, and its bony white face, wreathed by black fur that bristled and twisted like burning shadows, let out a guttural growl that struck fear on a primal level.

 

“GRRRUUUUUUUUEEEEEEE!!!!!” The beast howled, pouncing onward to the young cultists, bleeding in and out of shadows as it grappled with the armed youngsters, tossing them to and fro in the melee.

 

Isaac, struck dumb from this, looked back to where the pyre once stood, and saw Theodore, now free, stepping forward with a golden scythe in his hands.  And above him, a humanoid wreathed in lightning floated, guarding him even as he approached.

 

“H-...how...” Isaac muttered, praying to his ‘God’.

 

“You call this thing, this ‘He who walks behind the rows’ your ‘god’....but all I smell is a demon.... and Demons only have one place where they belong.” Theodore stopped, smiling as an alien horror rose out of the smoking cornfield. This...THING looked ALMOST human, with a vulpine face and a crown of gnarled horns on the body of some sort of humanoid centipede, with clawed arms wriggling every-which way.  Its bulbous eyes stared down at Theodore’s back, and he turned just as The Grue pounced upon Isaac, dragging him into the darkness.

 

“So...you’re the ugly bastard behind all this?” Theo looked up at the nightmarish beast.  “I’m… honestly not at all impressed.”

 

“ Bold talk, mortal,” the hellbeast spoke. “But boldness only marks you for death.”

 

“Hah, get in line, bitch.” The man twirled his scythe. 

 

“Your ‘pets’ will not be enough to best me.”

 

“Again with people thinking we’re alone...” The roar heard earlier echoes again, now more audible… a car engine.  A car that, specifically, was a bright pink 1967 Cadillac convertible, custom, being driven by a goat-like humanoid with pearlescent white fur, with a squirrel wielding a blessed sword in the passenger seat, a red and gold reptilian-maiden in the back… and a soldier in GDF mechanized infantry fatigues standing on the hood, blasting violet-colored flames out of his mouth.  The car sped around the beast, burning a circle, then cut through it six times, forming a Hexagram, better known as the Star of David.

 

“LET ME HAMMER IT HOME YOU OVERGROWN EARTHWORM!” The old man shouted, catching the monster’s attention.  “I am Theodore Rasputin Wylder, The Last Battlemage of humanity, and head of research and development of the GDF’s Paranormal division, Langoud!  My family, the Wylders, are the greatest DEMON SLAYERS of the modern age, with a bloodline going back to the era of the First Civilization, in the Pre-toba world!  YOU ARE SCUM ON OUR BOOTS AND WE CAN AND WILL PROVE THAT FACT!”

 

“BOAST ALL YOU WISH, WHELP, IT MEANS NOTHING WITHOUT PROOF!”

 

“How about my daughter kicking your teeth in?”

 

“What?” he who Walks Behind the Rows felt something… unexpected.  A tap on its shoulder.  Well, one of the uppermost-sets.  It turned around to face the red and gold reptilian, one Tytanna Soline Wylder, whom had with ease grown to match It in size.  And her fist was pulled back for a punch. “...oh...”

 

“Yeah,” Tya replied, “‘oh’.” She swung her fist, striking the demon with enough force to send it flying clear into the town.  Immediately the family went to work.

 

“GABE, MOM!  You two torch the corn, that’s how it channels its power!  Leave no stalk standing!”  Tu’tori’al Wylder and Gabriel Hopkins-Wylder saluted, the pyromancer Glaistig and pyrokinetic hybrid getting to work on incinerating the vast field of corn.

 

“Haley, you… can probably already guess.”

 

“Mass exorcism?” The squirrel replied.

 

“That’s the job, ‘big’ sis.” The man smiled, pulling out his holy symbol of choice, the Curves of Bah-Rhest, a simple symbol of their family’s ancient lineage back to the ancient Goddess of Love.  Haley, however, pulled out The Cross of Saint Peter, better known amongst goths and wanna-be satanists as the inverted cross, and the two got to work, following The Grue to where she hid the kids of the cult so they can undo the magical brainwashing.

 

Tya, however, was having the time of her life.  With aerial support from Aurora, the little dragoness-bot’s Megaflare laser enough to keep the monstrosity blinded, she was laying down every new move she’d learned, from Savate to pankration, and even a bit of good old fashioned bare-knuckle boxing, it seemed a nice throw-down was just as effective at leaving a demon wracked with pain as it was a kaiju. The demon though attempted to recover, blocking some of Tya’s strikes as it was forced back away from it’s cornfield, the infernal beast snarling with every foot it was forced to retreat. 

 

“IMPUDENT LITTLE CUR!!” it snarled, slashing at Tya’s face with its claws. “THOU SHALT NOT WIN THIS FIGHT! THY SOUL I SHALL CONSUME, AS MARROW FROM BONE!! I-!” Any further ranting was cut off when Tya lifted a tractor and slammed it into the demon’s side, sending it flying into the ruins of an old barn. 

 

“Yeesh, you talk too much!” Tya commented, rushing after the demon as all around her, mass chaos broke out, and broke out quick . 

 

Literally just two seconds prior, in that very same barn, Theodore and Haley had arrived and learned, rather quickly, that the Grue forgot something important, as for all of the creature’s primordial age and ancient power, the skull-doggo was lacking badly in common sense.

 

A clash of metal on metal sounded out, Theodore’s instincts triggering just in time to bring his bladed warhammer up to meet the weighted scythe.  Mordecai, barely eighteen, had just tried to lop off his head, and was holding his ground against the older man.  Isaac had returned to his ranting and raving and the kids were all up in arms, ready to kill.

 

“BE SILENT!” Haley bellowed, the knee-high fluffball still managing to hold a tone of authority.  “You want violence, FINE!  Trial by champion!  You win, we die.  We win you brats shut your traps and deal with it!”

 

“OUR CHAMPIONS ARE CHOSEN, WHORE OF THE FALSE GOD!” Isaac screamed.

 

“...Grue, maul him.” Theo growled, the spectral predator lunging at Isaac, even as he shoved Mordecai back.

 

“NO, BAD DOG!” Haley shouted, leaping at the ancient predator.

 

The tussle was afoot, Theodore’s sleek, dance-like moves deflecting Mordecai’s rageful, violent slashes, and Isaac was busy screaming like a little girl whilst Haley and the Grue used him as a mud-wrestling match without the mud.

 

And with a deafening THUD , the walls fell down as He Who Walks Behind the Rows landed, dazed and confused from the latest blow in his fight with Tytanna, whom was coming in hot for her favorite attack.  The tail-sliding double dropkick.

 

Theo, however, was getting tired of fighting Mordecai and held up one hand, his left hand to be exact.  Why that hand specifically?  Because the moment it intercepted the enraged teenager’s scythe, the hand itself shifted, revealing itself to be a mechanical prosthetic… and in place of fingers was two massive vice-like claws, sharp as any knife, which bit down on the wooden haft of the weaponized grass-cutting tool, snapping the blade clean off.  With a flick of his wrist, his other hand brought the carved bust of his hammer down on Mordecai’s skull, hitting just hard enough to knock him out, with only slight bleeding at the skull.

 

“Well...” Theo looked down.  “Looks like I win.”  And immediately, the kids bolted for freedom.  “....kids.” 

 

The demon shrieked, it’s head slamming into the ground from Tya’s kick. “ DAMNABLE SLATTERNS, ALL OF THEE!! ” it roared, rising to its full height as it glowered at Theo and the others. “ THINE SOULS SHALT NOT SEE THE FIRES OF THE PIT, NOT AFTER THIS SLIGHT!! I SHALT BRING THEE SUFFERING UNKNOWN TO THEE, AND I SHALL DELIGHT IN EVERY SECOND OF IT!! ” It swiped at Tya, finally landing a good hit on her and sending her flying back out of the barn. The demon smirked… and then did the closest thing it could to paling when it saw Gabriel through the hole in the wall, a vast expanse of unharmed corn behind him. “... no …” 

 

Gabriel raised his hand, and snapped his fingers. 

 

Fwa- BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!  

 

A colossal fireball erupted from behind the hybrid, the corn catching on fire easily as the demon shrieked in agony, falling to the ground. 

 

“Not so scary without your grounder, huh?” Tya snarked, grabbing the beast by its horny crown, “You sit here, mocking actual deities, and for what?  So a bunch of kids will look up to you and revere you?”  She grinned.  “You’re no better than a pedophile.”

 

“How dare-” Tytanna slammed its face down into the dirt. 

 

“Tut, tut now, you’ve said more than enough tonight.” She smiled and looked down at her father, the human man known as Theodore Wylder, carving a line of light with the blade of his hammer, forming ancient and powerful runes....  Ending with one, resembling a broken O with a diamond in the center...the symbol of-

 

“OBLIVION!?” The monster screamed, “No, please, I beg of you, anything but that!”

 

“To bad, so sad, but that’s where all Demons go eventually...now it’s your turn.” She slammed her fist down onto its head, keeping the monster from interrupting the ritual.  Sparks of energy filled the air as the final rune was completed...and a gateway cracked open.  ‘Small’ by most standards, but it was enough, and the demon was pulled in by ethereal winds, dragging it out of the mortal world, and into the broken un-reality of Oblivion, the realm where the dead go to die. 

 

“ No! No, no, NOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo-!! ” the demon screeched as it was dragged into a place worse than hell, the creature pulled in with a sudden tug and in a heartbeat, the portal snapped itself shut with a muted POP . Outside, Gabriel and Tori watched as they finished torching the cornfield, leaving the others to begin the long and slightly tedious process of exorcising the children still in the barn. 

 

“Hell of an op,” Gabriel muttered, sending a stream of fire into a stretch of foliage, turning it to ash and charcoal in seconds. 

 

“Eh, we’ve dealt with weirder. The Winter war, Der SandMann, that weird tentacle thing on Shoukushu island, MULTIPLE Dracula meetings...” Theodure shrugged, helping the last of the newly-exorcised kids into the bus.  “Still...this was pretty grim.” He sighed, before looking to the family matriarch.

 

Tori smiled, adjusting her tunic slightly.  “...I’m not gonna be able to adopt them, boys.  I got my hands full with you kids.” They laughed together.  “C’mon, let’s get home, Joanne’s probably bored outta her mind.”

 

“Not with Auntie Sera there,” Gabe countered flatly.

 

“C’maaaahn!” Tya growled, “Let’s get home, I wanna play Smash Bros. with mom!”

 

“I’ll meet you there, sweetie.” Theo replied, pecking his baby girl on the cheek. “I gotta give the official report and Gordon’s not far away, I’ll see you soon!”  He stepped back and whistled.  “Aurora!  Airborne!” In a flash of blue, the dragon-bot swooped down and scooped him onto her back, and they were off like a light.

Chapter 3: Langoud Lunacy 2: You're Only Second Rate!

Summary:

The Wylders are called in to deal with a very special serial killer. Theo has way too much fun.

“It’s a lovely evening in the village of Springwood, and you are a horrible hero.”

 

Had it been anyone else, Donald Thompson would have called this entire plan idiocy.  But after too many instances of that monster coming back and killing again, and with his daughter Nancy being attacked for a third time, the Sergeant wasn’t taking any more risks.  If his associates in Pasadena were right, this punk might be their best bet for being rid of the Nightmare on Elm Street for good.

 

He watched calmly as the man, barely past thirty, laid in his daughter’s bed, holding a small charm of some yellow metal, sipping on a small cup of tea.  Before his eyes the man seemed to grow younger, almost to a teenager’s age, before drifting off to sleep.  At his side were several… oddballs, including a towering woman in black armor, a GDF soldier with a very big gun in hand, and numerous others.  Despite the absurdity of the situation, all those present were taking this as seriously as he took his investigations.

 

He glanced out the door just as the young man slipped into unconsciousness to the other parents, some of which had children that the bastard recently killed, while others were survivors of his previous attacks.  Some were praying to God, others were praying to other forces, all in hopes this monster could be slain for good.

 

What happened next occurred over, technically speaking, a manner of a few seconds.

 

**KADDATH, THE DREAMLANDS**

 

Theodore Rasputin Wylder, master engineer and magus-in-training, leader of the GDF’s paranormal research and defense division, Langoud, opened his eyes.

 

What he saw was, frankly, anticipated.  His memories of Kaddath, the Dreamlands, an altered world where Lucid Dreamers are in control, roaming a reality between realities, were able to ever-so-slightly corrupt Freddy Kreuger’s demonic Nightmare Realm known as ‘The Boiler Room’.  The Nightmare King’s ‘kingdom’, an ever-expanding and seemingly eternal boiler room, suffused with hot steam, choking smoke, and a dim red light, was no longer the flawless place of fear the monster intended, as creeping vines of livingwood trees wove themselves over pipes, and gildenwing faeries flitted amongst gouts of hot steam.  

 

Theo gave a wry smile.  Simple unconscious action was enough to uncorrupt this fractured segment of the Dreamlands.  That alone was enough to put a spring in the man’s step.  Whistling a playful tune, he wandered the gangplanks and catwalks of the Nightmare realm.  As if becoming impatient, Theo’s ears picked up the keen shriek of metal on metal, a sharp knife scraping against rusty steel. With a wry smirk, the engineer put on his best acting chops and spun around, a painfully faux panicked look on his face, lips puckered and eyes bugged out cartoonishly as he searched for the sound, catching footsteps behind him.

 

Theo jumped, spinning around to face this ‘newcomer’, fear careening across all of his features but one.  His eyes locked onto the figure approaching, a tall man in a red and green striped sweater, wearing an old worn-down prospector’s fedora and, covering his right hand, a leather glove covered in metal plates, with eight inch knives springing from the finger tips, glinting in the dim light.  The figure flicked his wrist, mercilessly decapitating a faerie, letting her lifeless corpse drop to the ground, where he stomped upon it with a sickening crunch.

 

“Don’t bother faking it, brat.” The figure spoke, stepping closer into the light.  What shone back was barely human, a face covered in horrific third degree burns, exposed muscles, and blackened, sharpened teeth, a glint of evil red shining from the black pits of his eyes.  The humanoid creature’s crooked nose twitched, sniffing the air, as the being known as The Nightmare King stood to his full height.  “I can smell fear, I can taste it. And I know you’re faking it...”

 

Theo smiled, the exaggerated reactions dying down as he stood tall, his cane appearing under his palms.  

 

“Well, Mister Krueger?” Theo spoke, “Are we just having a staring contest, or are you going to do something scary?”

 

“Oh, I’ll teach you what ‘scary’ really is.” He stepped forward, suddenly in Theo’s face, claws raised high, his voice imitating that of Theodore’s birth mother. “But first I’ll teach you some RESPECT! ”

 

The claws came down, what was meant to be a face-scarring slap meeting open air and the faint scent of ozone.

 

“Y’know.” Theo said, now sitting on one of the rails, slowly mending the ruined cadaver of the faerie Freddy killed. “You’d think you, of all people, would know to NOT try and scare someone with traumatic memories...”  He stared Krueger dead in the eyes, “It tends to trigger rage instead of fear...”  He smiled calmly, lifting his hand up to reveal a very alive and uninjured faerie fluttering off to safety.  “Thankfully I have more self control than that.”

 

“Self-control my ass!” Freddy howled, the Nightmare King winding up for another attack.  In a flash three copies joined him, attacking with harsh stabs from all sides.  Once again, the scent of ozone and now a faint ‘pop’, and Theodore was, yet again, out of reach. 

 

“HOW!?” The Freddys howled.  

 

“Simple, you can't teach respect if you don’t have any.”  The world seemed to crumble around them as the increasingly pissed Krueger broke his own world just to limit Theodore’s mobility.  A colossal visage of the hideous King of fear rose up from an infernal flame, towering like a kaiju over the puny human boy.

 

“ Dodge this, bitch! ”

 

“Oh my Goddess you are so cliche.”

 

“THIS IS GOD!” He struck, knives heating up like meteorites as they came screaming down tot he tiny platform, too small to dodge from, and with nothing close enough to see to escape too.  The impact held such force that the unreality of the dreamlands seemed to crack under the pressure as the thoroughly sick-of-his-shit Krueger poured his all into the blow, determined to end it now before this punk could become a real threat. 

 

“Who’s laughing now!?” Krueger cackled.

 

Theodore was-

 

Honestly kinda fine.  There he was, just standing there, on a steel grate catwalk with barely two inches of movable space, his hand up and holding the knife-tips of Krueger’s claws wit his thumb and pinkie.  Gone was the stoic face, and the frightened facade, replaced with a wry grin.

 

“ Why, I believe it’s...me. ”

 

“...what the fu-”

 

Theo interrupted...by singing.

 

I must admit, your parlor tricks are amusing

 

He yanked on the claws, bringing Krueger right next to him.

 

I bet you've got a bunny under your hat!

 

Theodore smiled, yoinking off Krueger’s hat, revealing a tiny rabbit in a Freddy costume.

 

Now here's your chance to get the best of me

Hope your hand is hot!

 

A storm of poker cards appeared, revealing an array of lovely ladies in revealing attire.

 

C'mon, clown! Let's see what you've got!

 

Theo stuck a big red nose on Freddy’s face and gave it a honk.

 

You try to slam me with your hardest stuff

But your double whammy isn't up to snuff

 

Freddy tried to warp reality back in his favor, launching a storm of knives and even pulling out a grenade on him. None seemed to even phase Theo

 

I'll set the record straight, you're simply out of date

You're only second rate!

 

Theo shoved Freddy into a wheelchair before dropping the floor out from under him.

 

You think your cat's a meanie, but your tiger's tame

 

Krueger shifted into a panther-like form, the cartoonish parody known as ‘Eddie Cougar’, only to be turned into a kitten by a swift bop from Theo’s cane

 

You've got a lot to learn about the genie game

 

Theo rapped Freddy’s knuckles, revealing them to be in a well-lit classroom.

 

So for your education, I'll reiterate

You're only second rate!

 

The floor falls again, leaving Freddy in the palm of Theo’s hand.

 

Men cower at the power in my Pinkie

 

The pinkie leans in and turns into Pinkie Pie, who greets the serial child-murderer with a cheerful ‘Hello!’, with Sonata and Megalon popping up behind her.

 

My thumb is number one on every list

 

His thumb pushes in, revealing The Grue’s skeletal face grinning at him.

 

But if you're not convinced that I'm invincible

Put me to the test!

 

Theo stood with arms wide and a broad smile as cannons and lasers and kaiju all tried and failed to so much as scratch him.

 

I'd love to lay this rivalry to rest!

 

Theo slams the ground, causing a tombstone for Freddy to pop up and tip over, falling onto Krueger’s noggin.

 

Go ahead and zap me with the big surprise

 

Freddy tries to just BLAST Theo with raw force.

 

Snap me in a trap, cut me down to size

 

Theo gets stuck in an Iron Maiden which is then run through a sawmill

 

I'll make a great escape, it's just a piece of cake

You're only second rate!

 

Theo turns the deli-sliced Iron Maiden into a wedding cake that he and a small army of lovely monster girls proceed to broadway dance down from.

 

You know, your hocus-pocus isn't tough enough

 

Freddy tries 

 

And your mumbo-jumbo doesn't measure up

 

And fails to do some kind of damage.

 

Let me pontificate upon your sorry state

 

Theo rests his elbows on Freddy’s head, further enraging the Astral Lich

 

You're only second rate!

 

Theo stares into Freddy’s eyes and, for the first time in nearly thirty years, Freddy Krueger is scared .  He sprints for an escape from his own realm.

 

Zaba-caba-dabra!

 

Theo appears in a lightning bolt in front of the fleeing murderer

 

Granny's gonna grab ya!

 

Pepper, disguised as a granny, grabs Freddy in a headlock as Theo begins to rise up in front of them.

 

Alakazam-da-mus

 

As the music begins rising to a crescendo, Theo’s visage grows not only bigger than Freddy’s own from earlier, but his mouth splits open revealing teeth that act like lightning rods, spaying bolts of energy everywhere as he hoists his cane, now Bah-Rhest’s mighty warhammer, into the air

 

And this thing's bigger than the both of us!

 

He brings the hammer down with a thunderous crash as the Nightmare Realm begins to shatter.

 

So spare me your tremendous scare!

 

Theo mockingly blows off Freddy’s attempt at being scary

 

You look horrendous in your underwear!

 

Whilst Pepper yanks Krueger’s pants down, revealing heart-print boxers.

 

And I can hardly wait to discombobulate

 

Theo tears Freddy literally limb from limb

 

I'll send ya back and packing in a shipping crate

 

Grue and Pepper begin tossing the parts into a wooden crate

 

You'll make a better living with a spinning plate

 

Theo sends the crate into a topspin before shoving it into a wall

 

You're only second rate!

 

Freddy stood up from the wreckage and prepared to attack Theodore and retaliate, dark energy welling up around his body...before he realised he wasn’t in HIS realm anymore.  Around him was vibrant starlight, polished white marble and stone as black as pitch around him, and in the center, standing atop an Altar, the ghostly visage of a long-dead goddess behind him, was Theodore.

 

“Are you DONE jerking me around you little punk?” Freddy snarled, uncaring that he wasn't at his prime in someone else’s region of the Dreamlands.

 

“That depends, Freddy.” Theo replied, liquid starlight flooding off of the altar and onto the floor, filling thin voids amongst the polished marble bricks. “Are you done being a murderer?”

 

“Done!?” Krueger laughed, “Ifuck that, I won’t be DONE until I’ve killed EVERY child on the planet, including YOU!”

 

“It figures, you Slashers never seem to want to learn.”

 

“Learn this, bitch!” Freddy howled, rushing at Theodore, claw raised.

 

“Mother, mind dealing with this useless prat?” Theo asked, sweet as candy.  The ancient goddess smiled and raised her hand, the liquid starlight flowing from the altar lashing out like chains, pinning Freddy in place. 

 

“Thank you!” He smiled before stepping down and approaching the pinned Demon.  “You know, it’s funny.” Theo let out a chuckle, “You talk such a big game...because you have to.”

“What the fu-” Krueger’s mouth was sealed shut, silencing him for now.

 

“I’m not done talking.” Theo replied, less like he’s dealing with a criminal and more akin to a petulant child.  “Y’see, Krueger.  Your power relies on FEAR.  Know what else relies on fear?”  He waved his hand, causing The Grue to manifest.  “She does.  She feeds on it.  Eats it...and anyone afraid of her is prey.”  He leans in and whispers, “Even you.”

 

Krueger’s eyes bugged out, staring down the skull-faced humanoid canine, his long-dead heart racing for the first time ever.  Not fear of defeat, he’d ‘lost’ before albeit temporarily, but something much more primal.

 

“You see, Krueger.” Theo continued, “I...don’t feel fear.” He smiled, “I CAN’T feel fear.  That part of my brain was destroyed by radiation poisoning.  I can feel anger, and hate, and spite just dandy. But fear?  Couldn’t feel it if I tried.”  He openly laughs now, “Me?  I’m your friggin’ kryptonite.”

 

“And, you, my man, ain’t very super.”  Theodore lifted his cane and, with a flick of his wrist, shifted to the sharpened spike.  “See ya in the waking world, bitch.”  And with that he brought it down.

 

The Waking World

 

Donald had only turned away for a moment before he heard the crash.  He spun, gun at the ready, and found that bastard right in front of him, dazed and confused, with a bleeding gash across his face.  

 

Krueger blinked, trying to right his vision.  The Nightmare King stood up, flicking his claws open, and opened his eyes.  Only to find multiple armed officers, a soldier, a paladin, a fae battlemage, and THE Demon Mercenary staring him down.  But the one that spooked him the most was laying down in the bed, staring at him with a smile.  Theodore stood, not through normal means, but by electromagnetically levitating himself to stand face to face with Krueger... just as the de-aging tea wore off and instead of a young, helpless-looking teenager, Krueger was staring down a man several inches taller than him and clearly QUITE capable of taking him in a fair fight....

 

“So....” Krueger started, the awkwardness of the moment not lost on him.

 

“...Frederick Charles Krueger?” Theo said, smiling, “You’re under arrest.”

 

“....fuck.”

Chapter 4: Langoud Lunacy 3: Firestorm Nightmares

Summary:

The wylder brothers and Pepper take on a warmachine gone wrong, things get messy.

War was raging, so close yet so far away.  As the end of an era began, so too was another journey coming to a close.

 

The Wylder Brothers were all too familiar with the signs that things were reaching a head.  They had been called in by an anonymous tip from the MARS Corporation to investigate one of their loosely controlled subsidiary research stations, known simply as “BSL”.  What, at first, seemed like a normal fortified research facility quickly proved itself more dangerous, and more unsettling for the two, their allies and family forced to wait outside, to ensure their quarry couldn’t escape. 

 

What said quarry was, however, they still didn’t quite know, only its purpose as a ‘Rapid depopulation weapon’ and its name.  

 

Nightmare.

 

“Pepper,” Theodore spoke, the slightly-older sibling kneeling next to a set of exposed wires.  The sparking energy responded, a rhythmic hum only his ears can translate responding. The slender gentleman stood, mulling over this news, adjusting his peacoat in contemplative silence.

 

“Well, I still don’t speak magical lightning rat,” Gabriel responded. The grizzled old soldier gripped his gun tighter, steam rising from his fingertips, waiting with a soldier’s patience for his elder sibling to respond.

 

“She’s not gotten a good look at it, it keeps destroying any cameras she hijacks… as if it can ‘smell’ her.” A metal finger taps a scarred chin, “Whatever it is, it’s big, it can fly, and it’s most likely just down the hall.” 

 

Gabriel grunted, hefting his rifle before sliding open the breech of his underslung grenade launcher. Pulling a larger explosive charge off his vest, the soldier slipped it in and closed the launcher, ensuring the safety was off before going to swap out the main magazine. Theo looked at his brother, catching sight of the orange and yellow tape on the magazine’s base. 

 

The brothers shared a sharp nod, stepping closer towards the door ahead.  

 

“So.  Map says this area is meant to be a ‘free roam’ area for their… things.  Keep them from going stir-crazy.” Theo leaned up to it, only for a low rumble, and some kind of mechanical-sounding wailing to pass by. A nameless dread filled the two, the same kind they knew all too well.  But it didn’t make them falter, merely steeled them for what was about to come.  Theodore let out a sharp whistle, and the coursing of energy through power lines jolted for the door. Theodore brought his pistol, a high-caliber revolver, to bear, while Gabriel brought his rifle up to a firing position.

 

“OK Pep, count of three, two...” At a silent lunge, the door flew wide open, with Theodore sweeping the room and Gabriel quickly moving in to take point.  The room beyond was massive, and would probably still have been massive had it not been for the sheer number of torn, shredded, or otherwise ruined walls and doors.  It looked as if someone had tried to carpet bomb the place from inside. 

 

“Well… this is different,” Gabriel commented flatly, his attention laser focused on scanning and clearing the room. “Reminds me of the aftermath of one of Queen Gene-Bitch’s science projects.” 

 

“Aye,” Theo added.  “Pepper, any cameras left?” More of the harmonic static filled the air as the pair continued inward. Moments later,  a mechanical droning cry filled the room, a massive shadow passing by and shaking it.

 

“Well?” Gabriel asked, gun at the ready.

 

“Only in some junk hea-” More static, sounding frantic. “Alright keep it pinned as long as you can!” Theo turned to Gabe, “Pepper’s found it, it went into the Junk Heap room on the other side of the facility, she’s got the doors locked but it’s already shooting out cameras.  This may be our only chance to take it down.” 

 

“Well that’s just peachy,” Gabriel muttered. “Should’ve brought Nancy if we knew it was going to be this bad…” The soldier pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well, too late now. Adapt and overcome and all that Jazz.” 

 

“It’s our only option now.  We still haven’t gotten any clues just WHAT this thing is capable of.”  Theo grumbled, rushing through the broken halls as best as he can, listening for that mechanical scream. “There, down that way,” he said, climbing up a path made from a collapsed armored wall to the floor above. Gabriel followed, keeping his rifle pointed behind them as he followed his brother. 

 

Out of habit, Gabriel took his left hand off his rifle’s handguard and snapped his finger, a small flicker of flame dancing in the air next to his hand. The soldier grunted, waving his hand and making the flame die as he continued moving. “...you know Theo, it wouldn’t surprise me if this thing was fireproof,” he commented. “I mean… most kaiju fucking breathe fire after all.” 

 

“Maybe, or it might be vulnerable.  Our contact wasn't keen on spilling what it was meant for or its capabilities. We might just be testing it.  Either way.” Theodore flicked his wrist, a ring of lightning forming between his finger tips. “We’ll see if it can survive the Firestorm.” 

 

Gabriel rolled his eyes at Theo’s dramatics, thankfully keeping his mouth shut. All the same, he let his rifle hang from his shoulder strap so that he could check his sidearm, a modified revolver with a much heftier barrel than normal, balanced out only by the ironwood grip. Gabriel flipped the cylinder open, checking the rounds. AP, as he had kept them. Gabe grunted, flipping the cylinder shut again before holstering the handgun. 

 

Heavy static filtered through the door ahead.  “Only entrance,” was all that could be made clear to Gabriel’s ear.  

 

“She’ll join us when we’re in… hopefully being pinned will keep this thing from running off again.”  The two stared one another down before making a move for the door, rushing in guns drawn into the room beyond.

 

It was pitch dark, the stench of blood and rust filling the room, and when the door slammed shut, it was pitch black.

 

Before either brother could grab some form of night vision, a dark, violet light began to seep into the room from beneath a pile of wreckage.  The thing rising out was lit from beneath by an engine, a Type-44 antigravity engine to be precise, one of the strongest known, plated over by heavy armor and connected to a strange, squared-off funnel, tubes and wires connecting and weaving through its structure.  Two long, flat ‘arms’ hung off the sides of its head, graviton pulsars on each segment, arcing with energy and prepared to fire.  But what caught the brother’s attention most was its face.  Not the smooth metal plating one expects from a MARS product, nor the clean, lifelike shapes of Theodore's creations, but some ungodly patchwork, resembling a shoddy old rag doll.

 

The creature let out that same unholy mechanical scream, a scream not unlike a baby in pain garbled by broken machines. 

 

“Pepper, you gonna join us?” Theo shouted, and joining the two brothers was a bolt of lightning given form, taking the shape of a humanoid rodent-like being, lightning arcing across blue nodes on the feminine being’s white and brown body, as if its skin was just barely containing the living storm.  

 

Theodore opted to start the fight off, taking aim with his heavy revolver at the grav-engine, expecting the supersonic bullet to easily hit the target.  But just as he pulled the trigger, the room filled with an unbearable pressure , as if the world itself was bearing down on them.  And with a sharp ‘tink’, the freshly-fired bullet landed, barely a few feet away from Theodore.

 

“....OK, ranged weapons, not a good option.” 

 

“No shit!” Gabriel sniped, letting his rifle hang down as he held his hands up, literal fireballs forming in his hands. With a strained grunt of effort, he launched a fireball, hoping the psychokinetic ball of plasma would at least reach the target before dissipating. ‘ Come on, come on, HIT!! ’ Gabriel thought. 

 

Unaffected by gravity, the fireball managed to land a blow, searing hot psychokinetic flames melting a divot of slag into the creature’s armor plating.  But just one wouldn’t be enough, not with how durable the creature was, especially with the gravity well increasing in power.

 

“My turn.” Theo sat down and began forming symbols with his hands.  Where psychic flames may sear metal, maybe arcane lightning could damage circuits. Using Pepper as a focus, Theodre charged up the Eidolon, small searing-hot cuts forming as his body fed its lifeforce into the arcane creature. With a crack of thunder, Pepper launched into the beast, barely cracking its armor, but overloading the gravity engine, allowing Gabriel an opportunity. 

 

Gabriel concentrated, the remaining fireball in his hand growing hotter, whiter in color. The heat started to make him sweat, his brain feeling pinched with each passing second until he roared, sending a searing-hot lance of plasma streaking across the room to cut into the engine, carving past armor plating and thermal buffers to melt the delicate circuits inside. The pain in his head left, but Gabriel still gasped, nearly out of breath as he grabbed his rifle and took cover. 

 

Time was fleeting in the fight, they’d managed to land a good blow, but the creature seemed to be repairing itself with each attempt to take it down.  Angry at this, Pepper fed her magic back into Theodore, his wounds sealing up with nasty scars.  She helped him up, and gave the elder sibling his old cane, the sharp blade and hammerhead of the weapon a comfortable feeling in his hand.

 

“Go on, boss, you know what to do.  I’ll help Gabe keep this thing distracted, ok?

 

“Sounds like my kind of plan.” He turned to his brother, “You ready, Gabe?” 

 

Gabriel responded not with words, but with a burst of fire from his rifle, armor-piercing explosive rounds impacting the creature’s body to relatively little effect. It did, however, take its attention away from Theo as Gabriel continued to pump lead into it. The rifle clicked empty, and the soldier rushed to a new piece of cover, reloading as he did so. 

 

With every instance Gabriel had to dive into cover, Pepper launched herself at its engine again, re-damaging it to stop the gravity pressure and buying Gabe precious moments to get to cover, reload, and open fire again.  With each attempt to do this, the Nightmare fired graviton bolts at them, the ‘pellets’ of supergravity tearing up more scrap and digging pits into walls.  Just one stray shot could end either of them.

 

Theo, knowing time was of the essence, moved as quickly as he could.  Whispering prayers to an ancient, long-dead Goddess, the arcane engineer dug into the machine’s armor, the pick of his cane finding purchase in tiny, nigh-microscopic seams in the armor, letting him pull himself onto the engine, up the creature’s back, and slowly make for its disturbing, doll-like face.

 

Gabriel saw his brother, the soldier flipping the switch on his launcher. “Theo, the fuck you doing?!” he shouted out, firing off a micro-missile from his launcher. The explosive hit one of the Nightmare’s cannons, destroying it as the monster screamed. Gabriel quickly reloaded, sliding a fresh rocket into the launcher, the tip an unusually white tip. 

 

“Cracking open a weak point!” he uttered, finally reaching the back of the creature’s head.  Switching his cane to its hammer face, Theodore whispered out a quiet prayer.  “Bah-Rhest, by all that is holy, from whatever Otherworld you’re in… grant me strength for one blow to strike true...”  A faint, barely noticeable light flashed around the hammerhead, ancient runes glowing on the intricate curves of the weapon.  And Theodore brought it down, right between the creature’s eyes, golden light spider-webbing out from the impact, the sound of a gong reverberating through the room.  And for a brief moment....it was all silent. 

 

Then the monster screamed, the faceplate on it shattering as Gabriel flinched, covering his ears from the sound as the Nightmare flailed its limbs out. As Gabriel got used to the sound, he looked up and paled. “Oh sweet merciful fuck…” 

 

The beast’s face was… well, nightmarish, a twisted parody of a face. Flesh seemed to be melting away, it’s complexion a sickening green and eyes that would normally be considered jaundiced were more red than yellow. Shoving his disgust away, Gabriel aimed his gun at the monster’s face, his mind connecting to the payload in the launcher. 

 

“FIRE IN THE HOLE!” he yelled, pulling the trigger. Theo jumped off as the rocket flew out, the missile slamming into and then detonating in the Nightmare’s face, setting it on fire.  Theodore stepped back from the blaze, his ears assaulted by the piercing infantile screams of the monster.  His balance faltering, he stumbled from the beast’s head, into the waiting arms of his Eidolon, clutching the storm-elemental tightly.

 

Backing away, the brothers and maus watched the flailing war machine’s face begin to melt, its six bloody red eyes oozing down its face until nothing but a flaming puddle of glop remained, and the terrible machine finally died, powering down for good. Gabriel looked at the twisted corpse, and then reloaded his launcher. 

 

Moving to the front, Gabriel looked the body over… and then fired his last missile into it, sending more chunks of gore flying. “Yup, it’s dead.” 

 

“Better safe than sorry, I guess,” Theodore grumbled, wiping some of the gore from his face, turning to Pepper, he had to fight to avoid laughing, as one of its half-melted eyeballs had lodged itself into her cleavage and she was struggling to not scream in shock and frustration, the sticky mess clinging to her hands as she tried to push the ungodly globule of gore from her chest.

 

“Y-...yeah I’d say mission complete canwegetthehellouttaherenow?” The electrical rodent humanoid groused, struggling back a whimper of disgust. Gabriel nodded, giving the corpse one last look before he started to head back to the entrance. 

 

“I’ll get out, give base a call,” he said. “Tell ‘em we got the thing. And that as of now, this is ours , and not MARS’, no matter how much they bitch.” Theo laughed at the crass statement. 

 

“Already on that,” Theo added, “I’ll contact Winter and tell him-”

“Tell me what, pray-tell?” The pair turned around to see who was addressing them, only for both to hold up their weapons upon seeing another mechanical body standing behind them. At a second glance though this body seemed to be much slimmer, lacking in thick plate armor or weapons, and instead bore a screen across its chest that showed a very - unfortunately - familiar face. “That you have succeeded in putting down the ‘monster’, as I’m sure you always do.”

 

“...Winters.” Theodore said, his voice as level as can be.  “The hostile has been terminated, yes, but the GDF is officially taking ownership of the cadaver and wreckage of the entity for future study, just in case there’s more of these things out there… You understand, right?  You’ll get it back when, and only when, the GDF R&D teams feel they’ve learned enough about how it was made, how to counter it easier, and more importantly, what psychopath MADE this thing in the first place.”

 

The robot leaned down so Winters could leer at the destroyed corpse with obvious disgust. “Believe me, you can have this… thing as long as you wish. I had and have no desire to involve myself in this farce of science and development, and only want the issue taken care of permanently so that my business and our relationship with the GDF is no longer at risk. Do what you must.”

 

“Of course he’d say that,” Gabriel muttered to himself, leaning on the doorframe, gun lowered. “Don’t want to scuff up those ten thousand dollar Armani shoes after all in here. Prick.” 

 

“Regardless, I suggest you get a proper crew in to clean up your ‘pet’s’ mess and recapture whatever other abominations you had. Next time you intend to create something designed to do cataclysmic structural damage, try NOT housing it with random Tiptree abominations, okay?” Theo smiled a professional smile before, as if second nature, grabbing the eyeball that had begun burrowing into an increasingly-horrified Pepper’s cleavage. “By the way, I think this is yours.” He then proceeded to volley-lob it right into the face of Winter’s drone.

 

The drone smoothly sidestepped the oncoming piece of gore, Winters’ unamused face staring back at him. “I am insulted that you think I had any kind of hand in this at all, Wylder. You should know me better by now. If I wanted to make a death robot for mass sale, I would make something far more elegant and… sane than whatever that monstrosity turned out to be. Besides…” The robot leaned forward, the screen zooming in so Cameron’s face loomed large in the view. “ I don’t need outside help to deal with my issues. Have a pleasant day. And enjoy the paperwork.”

 

Without another word the robot’s screen went dark, the bot shuddering with internal sparks before falling powerlessly to the floor. Theo tapped the robot before shrugging, hoisting the taller rodential-maiden onto his shoulders and urged for his brother, “Shall we get the hell outta dodge before Nathan tries to stick us with the paperwork?” 

 

Gabriel shrugged. “Eh, sure.” He snapped his fingers, and the power cell for Winter’s drone caught fire, a high pitched squeal in the air. “Besides, if Winter wants his drone back, he can come for what’s left of it himself.” The trio headed out, the drone soon exploding a few moments later. 

 

Chapter 5: Can't Turn a Blind Eye

Summary:

A young man walking down the street has to choose rather to risk exposing a secret or turning a blind eye to a wrongdoing in front of him.

Kenneth 'Kenn' James walked down the street late in the evening from an eventful day of getting footage for a review of a new Knightmare Industries product or two that required a bit more space than his house. Being the contracted youtuber of one of the biggest companies around had its advantages, such as a decent income and exposure, but it also meant having to put the work in. He didn't mind, so long as his reviews made someone happy, that made it worth it, even if the profit was nice to have and beneficial to his family. 

Still, he wore a frown as he walked through his small town, past the people going about their normal lives. Some of them recognized him, but unfortunately, to avoid too much attention, he'd had to hide his face on the way back. It always bugged him…especially because he knew there was a good reason for it. A very important reason, and the only way he could get rid of that reason was to move to the other side of the country. His hand moved over a bracelet-like device on his right wrist, feeling an energy radiating into his body. The 'battery' was draining away just from providing the energy necessary for his mask as well as to sustain him. A life support system in his mind. Right now, he just wanted to get home so he could relax as himself.

He shook his head to take it off of that, producing a tablet and checking on current events. Rodan had intercepted a flock of…Gyaos. 

The snapping jaws of a Gyaos pushing its way through a car that it'd split in two with its Sonic Cutter flashed through his mind. Predatory eyes complete bereft of mercy. Seeing the terrified, frightened family as nothing but slabs of meat.

Kenn's trembling hands nearly dropped the tablet and he had to steady himself. He slowly looked back to the tablet, focusing on the image of the Guardian Beast of the Air having successfully driven off the flock and saved an airliner in the process. There were many opinions on the kaiju now dwelling in their world, but Kenn was decidedly in the corner of the ones on humanity's side. Godzilla III saving several of his friends and family stopping Trespasser had ensured that.

The young 21 year old continued walking…until he heard muffled screaming a normal person would have difficulty hearing and his legs stopped moving, a hand carefully stopping the cart carrying his review topics behind him.

Turning, Kenn looked down an alley way. In the darkness at the end, he saw a man, not overly large but still big enough to be threatening to the average person, pinning a young woman against the wall. In his hand was a knife, pointed directly at her throat with obvious intent.

"Struggle all you want, you aren't going anywhere…" the thug said, a look on his face that Kenn knew only meant 'nothing good.' Maybe greed, maybe something worse. Reading emotions…wasn't the autistic young man's strong suit…what mattered was the obvious implication this woman was in trouble. 

Kenn looked around frantically. He should call for help, get the cops…but then the man would have a hostage, or have already got to do something worse. However…if he did what was on his mind to do…if he…

The woman started crying. And Kenn started running, body seeming to unfold as he did once far enough that no one could see. The image of a 100 meter tall mountain of charcoal gray charging into San Francisco and a cyborg jumping into the fray to stop a Gyaos with the young man in its claws replayed in his mind.

The thug put the knife to her throat. "You better keep quiet or-"

Suddenly, a clawed hand covered in white fur grabbed his wrist. His arm was roughly pulled backwards, knife no longer threatening his hostage. Looking up, the man saw an 9 foot tall humanoid, its head a mixture of draconic and lupine attributes, feathered wings stretching out from its back. The creature was covered in fluffy white fur with blue markings, four upwards curving horns on the back of its head, chest fur puffing out like a canine's. The thug could feel scales beneath the fur, and looking down saw a long reptilian tail with a bushy tip encircling digitigrade legs ending in wolfish paws.

A couple years ago, on a family trip to Point Pleasant, circumstances had awakened something inside Kenn. Long buried fae ancestry, Dracomorph, a type of elf who could shapeshift into draconic form, and Wulver, a type of benevolent Irish Werewolf cousin, to be exact. He was what Langoud called a 'Dacian Dracomorph,' after the most famous member who'd inspired their country's usage of the Dacian Draco emblem. The mixture of traits had resulted in what was normally used as a cute special effect 'costume' for his Youtube show. 

This meant rather than an elf could shapeshift into a draconic form, he was a draconic werewolf who could turn into an elf. He wasn't as strong compared to a pure Draconmorph, but was an Unseelie fae with this as his default form. Power exchanged for efficiency, as well as a few other mostly sensory benefits from his Wulver half, not that his mana reserves or conditioning were anything that special. He was certainly the weakest of the three known Dracomorphs by an astronomical margin even if he had been pure blooded and always would be. Still, this was his true face, and the one most comfortable for him to be in rather than wearing the mask that had once been his true appearance. However, now he was using it for something else…something the back of his mind told him he shouldn't be.

Kenn pulled the man back roughly, not stronger than a normal human by a tremendous amount, but comparable to someone who worked out regularly without even having to lift a dumbbell. More than enough to yank the smaller thug away and hold him with some effort, and being far larger made it easier to keep it that way. Especially when the understandably furious woman took advantage to knee the thug in the groin as hard as she could, doubling him over with a groan and allowing Kenn to pull him further off her. "Run! Get the cops! I've got this!"

The woman nodded quickly, not looking a gift horse in the mouth and questioning the appearance of her rescuer. "Thank you!"

As she dashed off, Kenn turned back to the recovering thug…right as he punched the fae in the face several times. Kenn didn't even flinch. Instead his ears pinned back, his lips pulled back to show very predatory teeth as he did his best impression of an angry wolf. What was normally a cute, family friendly mix of dragon and canine now a terrifying visage. Especially when he allowed wisps of foggy, cold vapor to rise from the corners of his mouth. He lacked the mana reserves to do more than blind him with a layer of frost at best, but the thug didn't know that. If he absolutely had to, Kenn still had his claws and teeth.

The thug screamed and kept punching him, doing little more than make his own arm tired. If there was one physical attribute that Kenn was genuinely superhuman in rather than just on the higher end of what a normal human could do (not counting the wings), it would be his durability. Enough so that a sledgehammer to the face would stagger him and sting a little, but not do much more than that. Kenn finally grabbed the thug's other hand, pulling it back and holding it with effort.

"You can't hurt me. You can't get away. Just give up and wait for the cops," he warned, keeping his intimidating expression going and lowering down to eye level to make his point.

The thug, instead of doing the smart thing, pulled his head back and headbutted the fae in the face as hard as he could. It was hard enough for him to actually feel it and stagger him a little bit from sheer force, but as Kenn was both considerably larger and much more durable than a normal human, the end result was the man's head bouncing off, having knocked himself out cold.

Kenn sighed. "Warned you…" he said, taking the man up on his shoulders and hauling him outside the alley, setting him down on the curb to wait for the cops. He gave a small smile, knowing that the woman was safe because he'd chosen to act…before something hit his conscious mind like a truck. The fae's rush of joy at having saved someone soon turned to shaking and panicked breaths. He touched his face where he'd been hit and not reacted in the slightest. Suddenly terrified, he looked down at the man and took a few steps back…he'd seen.

He knew.

Kenn considered running and leaving the thug to the cops, but that'd just make things worse. So he merely waited…knowing this would probably warrant a talk.

====

Kenn paced back and forth along the sidewalk, heart racing and hands messing with his head fur, muttering to himself. The area had been closed off for investigation and the Langoud agents living in the town for his sake had ensured he'd not be bothered anymore than he already was. Ears pinned back against his skull and a slight chill in the air around him. He tried to calm down, but each passing minute simply resulted in the cycle of panic in his mind spiraling.

"Kenn!"

The fae jumped, turning to see his sponsor slowly walk his way, metal-on-stone tapping of his cane ringing through the hall. "T-Theo, I…I'm sorry, I…"

The leader of both Langoud and Knightmare Industries merely looked somewhat confused. "For what?"

Kenn's hands continued to fiddle with his head fur as he paced. "I…I used my fae powers in public. He saw me shrug off everything. What if someone saw me transform?" the young man rattled off, tone becoming more and more frantic as he practically started hyperventilating. The heat was involuntarily sucked out of the air until every breath was nothing but fog and the window next to them began to mist up. Images in his mind of monster hunters, condemning him as something that should exist, hunting him…and maybe his family down. This was not some paranoid delusion, it was something he knew could happen. He had one of Theo's family living with him as a bodyguard and multiple Langoud agents moved here for the sole purpose of protecting him, and he might have messed it up because he couldn't just call the cops. He and his family might have to relocate across the US to Pasadena, uprooting everything because of him. "I'm sorry, I know I'm not supposed to, but I-"

"Shut." Theo pressed a single finger against the young man’s lips, silencing his rambling rant. He then transitioned to grabbing him by the shoulders and looking him in the eye. Fortunately, Theo was used to looking fae and robots much taller than him in the eye. "It's okay. I'm not mad. I'm proud of you. Sal was too when she heard about it."

Kenn just stared, the death spiral his mixture of autism and anxiety disorder tended to get itself into at least pausing. "Y-You are?" 

"Yes. You stood up for someone and held yourself back from hurting anyone. You did exactly what I would have," Theo told him, giving a smile. "If anything, you did better, because I’d have tormented the scumbag first."

"B-But…I'm…" the fae stuttered, looking down, hand still fiddling with his mane. "I'm not supposed to let anyone know I'm a fae…"

"And you didn't," the battle mage let out a sly grin, pointing to Kenn’s unusual form. "As far as they know, you're in a floofy full body fursuit, heck an ‘armored fursuit’ was what you’re meant to review next week. All you did was shrug off a couple punches and then the dumb a&&hole knocked himself silly on the metal inside your cute little muzzle. Easy cover story." He then blinked and gave a chuckle, as if noticing an inside joke only he got.

The fae began to slowly calm down, breathing returning to normal and heat slowly beginning to return to the air. "O-Okay…You sure?"

Theo flexed his mechanical hand, breaking off ice that'd formed on it. "Yes, trust me, this is literally what I do for a living. Now come on, Floofer, let's get you something to eat, you earned it. Want some ice cream?" 

"That…would be nice…wish the fair was in town, I'd get some funnel cake…" Kenn said, awkwardly as his claws rubbed his arm, but giving a small smile. Had he really earned it? He hadn't been in any danger. There'd literally been no chance of that thug hurting him at all…had he really been heroic when he'd never had a chance of failing? He didn't know.

"Oh, I've got some in the field lab," Theo replied, fiddling through his pockets. "Now where did I put it?"

Kenn blinked. "...Why do you have that?"

"Because funnel cake is bleeping delicious, that's why."

"...Did you just say bleeping?"

"Well, I can't exactly cuss right now, can I?"

Chapter 6: Civilian Point of View

Chapter by Corona_Blaze, Godzillawolf

Summary:

As K-Day is happening, another watches from the other side of the country with worry for loved ones in harm's way and can only pray.

West Virginia, 2010. 'K-Day'

Kenneth 'Kenn' James hated the news. He'd always hated the fear mongering and politics…which was one reason he'd had his new boss and protector set things up for him to patch in to a certain news station in California he'd come to trust.

"The kaiju thus far is continuing its rampage unopposed. GDF forces have managed to distract it, but thus far nothing has stopped its advance. Maser Tanks have yet to arrive," said the stilted, but oddly reassuring in its theatricality, voice of Traakor, Pasadena News Network's premier news anchor and Vortaak defector. 

Kenn's chest tightened and his breathing quickened as he watched the four armed behemoth with an ax-like skull continuing its advance. An enormity still difficult to believe could exist despite looking much smaller on the screen and the presence of kaiju in the world at large. Lupine ears pinned back to his skull as magically mutated vocal cords gave his panicked whimpers a distinctly more canine pitch. Clawed hands fidgeted with head fur around draconic horns as frost spread over his body and chilled the surrounding air in response to his emotional state. While it was clear on the other side of the country, it hit far closer to home. Friends and family of theirs had already lived in California, but only a few months prior, Kenn had been there in person after an incident in Point Pleasant with Gyaos and the Mothman had spurred his 'awakening' into an Unseelie fae. Even if he didn't intend to move there and uproot his family, a newborn fae needed to be taught to control his powers and what lifestyle changes he'd need to make. Well, that and learn to walk properly after his legs went from plantigrade to digitigrade. Pasadena had been the best place for that, being the GDF and Langoud's sanctuary for beings like him.

 

 

You don't live in a place with nice people who understand you better than around ninety nine percent of the world's population can without making friends, even if only for a short period of time. And now those friends were in the path of a kaiju. Kenn knew in the back of his mind, Langoud had evacuation procedures for this exact situation. He knew the GDF had picked up steam on streamlining such things for the surrounding area of a kaiju attack. But that didn't matter. Even if he didn't have anxiety disorder, the thought of his loved ones being at ground zero of a kaiju that seemed to be actively targeting people filled him with dread.

His mother put a hand on his shoulder, skirting around the long tail and large, feathered wings emerging from his back. A hand now encased in a glove and attached to a woman wearing a specialized coat, both provided by Langoud so she could touch her now ice elemental son when he was having a panic attack that sent his innate cryokinesis out of his control. Extremely weak as it was (normally only enough to keep a drink cold), there was still a risk of frostbite with prolonged contact during times like this. "It'll be okay, Kenn."

"I-I hope so…" Kenn stuttered, icy tears running down his cheeks. As the kaiju turned its way towards the bridge, he heard his mother sending frantic prayers up to Heaven. Despite Kenn's awakening changing his life in ways he couldn't even begin to describe, some things had not changed and never would. The Dacian Dracomorph bowed his head and said his own prayer. Even if he didn't share the belief of some that certain beings on Earth were to be worshiped, he still believed God could work through them to bring about miracles.

Looking up as he said amen, the fae saw a distant helicopter camera's POV follow a bright red minivan frantically speed over the bridge, intentionally seeming to draw the behemoth's attention and lure it away. Kenn could only sit transfixed on the scene. He didn't know who the driver was, and the helicopter pilot didn't dare get close enough to the rampaging titan to get a closer look…but it didn't take a telepath to feel the almost palpable sense of bravery someone would have to have to do what that driver was doing. 

As Trespasser finally disabled the car, looming over the woman who emerged from the driver's seat, time slowed down. The woman didn't run. She didn't panic. She merely stood. Somehow, even if there was no way Kenn could see her face let alone make out her expression, he couldn't imagine anything other than defiance on her face after what she'd just done. He said another silent prayer that whoever that brave person was, she would be saved…

Right as the arm came down, salvation arrived.

Kenn and his mother recoiled from the television as San Francisco Bay exploded, a flash of charcoal gray and azure sending Trespasser crashing to the shore with a thunderous boom and massive welt over its torso. The camera was filled with the 100 meter tall form rising from the depths, water cascading from its body. Mother and son could only stare in shock for a few moments until the helicopter got far enough out to actually tell what had arrived.

"Everyone watching from home, it would appear Godzilla III has arrived in San Francisco," Traakor's voice rang out over the stunned silent room. Despite the tone, there was a hint of hope in his voice, or at least Kenn believed there was despite reading emotions not being a strong suit for the autistic fae. 

Kenn had never seen the little infant dinosaur in Kyoto except in pictures. He had no personal connection to the atomic saurian now facing down the invader on the other side of the USA, baring the sheer coincidence he'd been born the same year (which seemed to run in the family, given his mother was born in '54). But what he did know four years ago he'd seen Steve Irwin tearing away the image of a feral beast as he and his crew watched Godzilla swim gracefully through the sea at a distance. So, helpless to do anything but pray, Kenn chose to have faith in his God and in Godzilla.

"KICK HIS BUTT GODZILLA!" roared the Dacian Dracomorph in a mix of excitement and desperation, almost literally as he forgot how powerful his magically mutated vocal cords were until he saw his mother quickly cover her ears and blushed icy blue with a sheepish smile. "S-Sorry…"

'Kicking his butt' turned out to be one of the most accurate phrase Kenn could've uttered outside of 'mauling' for what followed. The seemingly unstoppable juggernaut that had seemed so implacable before had become a chew toy for the King of the Monsters…but both Kenn and his mother noted how the fight was being forced into the bay.

An hour later, they were watching Godzilla stand, holding the severed head of Trespasser after giving the invader what would become known as 'the Kiss of Death.' 

"HE DID IT!" Kenn cheered, elation flowing through him as the realization his friends and family were safe and he hugged his likewise cheering mother. Both sent up a prayer of thanks to the Almighty.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Traakor said, evaluating in his theatrical tone. "It appears the hostile kaiju has been destroyed by Godzilla."

There was a momentary pause as Godzilla's victorious roar echoed from the TV…and he slowly looked over the city that still stood because of him before turning to return to the sea. Kenn had no clue what was going through Godzilla's mind as he stopped his departure to look at something on the ruins of the Golden Gate Bridge…but Kenn and his mom did see features soften from the fierce monster that'd just mauled Trespasser into an unrecognizable mass of scorched tissue. The fierce monster king becoming the gentle giant Kenn had saw Steve Irwin showcase four years ago. It might have been the now personal gratitude the family now had towards the kaiju, but in that moment, any doubt the two of them had this had been anything other than the intentional salvation of the city of San Francisco disappeared.

Kenn knew there was no way in heck he could convey what he felt to the giant. To thank him for the fact his friends and family in California were presently safe and sound because of him, along with countless others…but he still said it anyway as icy tears of joy ran down his cheeks. "...Thank you, Godzilla."

Notes:

Thanks to Zeroviks for the picture of Kenn's fae form.

Thanks to Corona Blaze, BlazingPhoenix, and Tarbtano for looking this over.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of The Amalgam Universe