Chapter Text
The smoke and blood is thick enough that he can taste the air on his tongue, which is bitter and vile. He can hardly see through the clouds of smog, his lungs burning as he pushes himself through the unseen. While his body was distant and foggy, his legs were sure and steadfast as they led him through the wreckage. His mouth spoke without his control, seemingly far ahead of him.
"Robert?!" he yelled, his voice hoarse and tight, as if magma was crawling within his esophagus. Yet, he will not stop even for a moment. "Robert!"
"Dad?"
The whole world seems to freeze as a cold hand grabs his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks. He can hear nothing, nothing but that voice. He turns around, hoping to see his child, freckled face and rosy in the cheeks, with wide, bright eyes. Instead, he's met with an empty, lifeless gaze and a bloody visage.
"Robert?"
"Why dad?" the child says, blood spilling from a hole in his head right over an eye, the weight forcing it shut. "Why would you let this happen to me?" He holds his other hand against a hole in his chest, blood pooling and staining the plain, blue shirt a black red.
"I didn't- I tried-" he chokes out between sobs. "I tried to stop him. I'm sorry."
"Did you?" the boy says sharply, speckles of blood flying from his mouth and landing on the man's face. He doesn't care for the blood, as he turns around fully to grab Robert's shoulders.
"Yes, I swear I did, Robert. Why won't you believe me? Please believe me!" desperation slips into his tone as he lightly shakes the dying teenager within his arms, beggings slipping off his lips. Yet Robert just shakes his head, closing his other eye and turning away with an air of disappointment. "Robert please!"
Robert's cold body begins to fall apart, disintegrating into ashes that he clutches in his shaking hands. He finally collapses to his knees, releasing out a roaring scream as an unidentifiable alarm begins to blare.
Robbie awakens with a start, his body soaked in sweat and his chest heaving with strangled breaths. He pushes back his moist, grey hair, glaring over to the blaring red alarm which woke him up in the first place. The red numbers showed him it was 1:00 AM. With a heavy hand, he turns off the alarm and rises from his bed, stretching out his body to crack his weary bones. Once he's adequately stretched, he turns to the bathroom to clean himself of all this sweat. Today is a big day after all.
A few months ago, Shroud broke out of prison after years of serving a life time. As such, Robbie has been keeping an eye on the man, watching him collect his lackeys and put together his plans, believing he has gone unnoticed by the Mecha Man he so despises. What a fool he was, because Robbie has noticed him since the very beginning, and now he was ready to strike. He quickly discovered that the steel mill called Llewelyn Steel Works is the so called Red Ring's main base of operation, and he has managed to break in and map out the area several times completely undetected. Honestly, it's kind of pathetic how easy it was to put this all together. Shroud might as well want to be found. Well, if so, Mecha Man will make him regret ever even breaking out of jail.
Once he's showered, he pulls on his fabric suit, slipping on the mask of a hero with familiar ease. Then, he ties up his armour to stay secure against his body, giving himself a do over in the mirror before he gets up to leave. Not before the lone photograph on his bedside table catches his eye. Behind the glass frame, his son's smile brightens up the whole image, his face dirty and bruised up from a round of training. His hair is being ruffled by Robbie, the man wearing his fabric suit without the armour plate or the mask, much more casual than he has allowed himself to be in years. Robert was only 15, a month or two off from turning 16, and only a week away from death in the photo. How could he have let it happen? His boy had been so smart, so good, sometimes too much so, and so full of potential; both as Mecha Man and as an ordinary man. He never got to finish school, make his own family, his own friends, his own team to support him into the future. All that potential died with the bullet through his heart.
He turns away from that photo, leaving the room and going down to the garage, where the Mecha Man suit rests in waiting, grabbing the Astral pulse off his work desk. On his own, the travel time from his house to the steel mill would take too long, but thankfully the suit shortens that time greatly. The trip is only a few minutes, and he's soon standing on the outskirts of the base, where he straps out of the suit and goes alone. Getting in is light work, avoiding the guards on duty as he walks through their blind spots. He pulls out the map he made once inside and hidden, looking over all the weak spots regarding security within this base. Honestly, he could easily avoid every single person within this place if he so desires, but he can't. He needs a weapon before he encounters Shroud. After all, he hasn't had his own gun in over a decade. He enters deeper into the building, finding a section where he knows a guard patrols the halls alone. He lets the man walk past him once, two times, before he kicks him in the head from behind, knocking him out cold, taking the gun from his grasp before moving on just as swiftly. It is extremely easy to find Shroud's office. He's delighted to find the room occupied just as he suspected, with the villain in his chair, turned away from the door and facing the copious amounts of screens showing camera footage of the base.
"Shroud! This ends now!" he yells, entering the room. He can hear the man in the chair begin to laugh, but he gives him no chance to continue before he uses the stolen gun to shoot at one of the copious screens. Glass shatters all over the floor and electrical sparks fly from the broken screen, making the villain scream in terror. The moment he hears that voice, too sharp and too loud, he knows that Shroud is not the one in that chair.
"Ah, what the fuck!" the man yells, turning his chair around to reveal a man covered in tattoos and baggy clothing, his face scrunched up with anger. Of course Shroud wouldn't just stay out in the open like this. Coward. "Are you trying to kill me!?"
"If it will get me to your Boss quicker, then I don't mind giving it a try." he quirks the gun in the man's direction, making him flinch and squirm in his seat before he settles down with a mean spirited grin.
"What? Do you think I'll actually tell you? Just because you threatened me with some gun you stole from one of the many useless fuckers?" The villain relaxes back in the chair, when he's suddenly overtaken by a bout of glee. "You know, I've heard some things about you, and your son, from the grapevine."
Of course. With a sigh, Robbie turns to his control pad upon his armour. It is time for Mecha Man to take the more destructive path. Meanwhile, the man in the chair puts on the most annoying, mocking voices as he carries on with his story.
"Did you know that when Shroud shot your kid, the poor baby pissed his pants? Well, of course you know, you were there. Just jogging your memory, old man." Robbie merely scoffs in response. This fucker is like a splinter deep beneath the skin, one that you have to pick out with a needle because your nails can't reach. "Anyway, apparently there was so much piss, even more so because he was wearing shorts, so the little bitch had one last moment of being a pathetic baby before he realised he was entirely fucked."
"I'm done with this." Robbie mutters, feeling his veins popping from holding back the instinct to choke the motherfucker in front of him
"What? Going to cry-" the taunt is interrupted by the Mecha Man suit breaking through the wall, crushing the man under its foot, bending him in ways humans shouldn't be. Robbie ignores his whimpers of pain in favour of climbing inside the suit and strapping in. Once inside, he lifts his foot off the crushed man, slightly wincing at the sorry state of the fucker.
"Are you still alive?" he asks, and the villain only whimpers as he lifts himself from the ground, limbs twisted and snapped in angles that limbs should never be in. Yet, he still moves, as if the pain is only secondary. "I've already guessed you have some sort of power, so use it already so we can fight properly, from hero to villain."
In that moment, the man's face of pain twists into a delighted snarl as he seems to be overtaken by a green goop, his limbs straightening out and turning as malleable as liquid, thick and hazardous liquid. In a moment, there is no traces left of the human man, instead replaced by a man of slime, although the intimidating factor is kind of lost upon Robbie, considering his penis is out in the open.
"Woah, buddy! What happened to wearing clothes?" he asks, half genuine and half mocking. "Is your name Dick-out man or something?" The sludge man's face turns with anger at the mockery.
"No, you asshole! You may call me Toxic, and I will make you regret ever laughing at me." the villain says before attempting to throw a punch at him. Mecha Man dodges with ease, leaving Toxic to fly past him and straight into a pile of equipment. However, he recovers quickly, rising from the pile up with a grunt of anger.
Toxic continues to go at him with multiple punches, but Mecha Man dodges all of them with ease, grabbing his leg and knocking him against the ground several times before throwing him across the room. He doesn't rise immediately, which gives time for multiple powered villains to join from the shadows, attempting to knock him down but failing to do so. Eventually, one villain made of a pink rubbery sludge attempts to jump at him from behind, beginning to blow up like a balloon and consume the suit in the sludge. Before the sludge can fully take over, Robbie turns on the engine, shooting into the air, causing the pink villain to disintegrate and collapse to the ground, pulling themselves together piece by burned piece. Guards with laser guns climb upon platforms and start shooting at him, but he manages to expertly dodge the shots. Unfortunately, Toxic has risen from the ground and has managed to fly up behind Mecha Man, grabbing onto him and shooting his powered chemical waste into the suit, burning holes straight through. Some even manages to drip inside the cockpit, landing on Robbie and burning through his clothes and straight into his skin.
"Fuck!" he whispers to himself at the sharp sting the liquid leaves behind. The one short moment of lost concentration is enough for multiple shots to hit the suit's arm, nearly removing the arm off for good. He hears Toxic laugh on the suit's back.
"Wow, the bitch actually did it." he says, jumping off a second later. Before Robbie can start wondering what he means, a warning goes off, telling him there is a foreign object on the suit. He turns his vision around to see a bomb strapped to his back, and it appeared that it was about to go off.
His heart suddenly beating at a much faster rate than before, Robbie unstraps himself and grabs the Astral pulse, shoving it in his pocket. The cockpit door opens up a second later and he jumps out, uncaring for how high up in the air he is. In the next moment, the bomb goes off, the suit exploding into pieces. Robbie lands harshly against the ground, hearing a crack and a stab of pain from his right arm that leaves him queasy. He also hears a small clinking of glass, and he looks up to see the Astral pulse has fallen from his pocket and rolled away several inches from him. He attempts to crawl closer with his one available arm, ignoring whatever anarchy is happening around him. His breaths are loud and heavy in his ears, and his right arm burns with pain, along with his numerous other injuries. His head aches, and his vision's blurry, and he just hopes to all that is holy that whatever head injuries he's got isn't too dangerous.
Right as he's about to reach the Astral pulse, a black boot lightly steps on it to stop him. He looks up to be met with a familiar red mask looking down upon him with those analytical and robotic blue eyes.
"Shroud." he hisses out. The mask has no mouth, but he can hear the huff of laughter the man above him lets out.
"It's truly wonderful to see you again, Mecha Man. Or should I say, Robbie Robertson?" he hears a cackle behind Shroud, and he recognises Toxic's grating tone that leaves him burning. "Either way, it's been far too long, don't you think?"
"Not long enough. I could go a hundred years without seeing your ugly maw, Shroud. Or should I say, Eli Connors?" he spits between his teeth, delighting in feeling the rage rising in the man before him. The feeling simmers down when Shroud decides to stomp on his broken arm, the pain turning from a burning match to a flaming dagger stabbing down on him.
"You never could help yourself from turning me into a fucking joke, holding the carrot right over my head yet refusing to allow me the prize." he says, voice calm and steady yet the anger clear underneath the façade. He removes his foot from the broken arm, only to kick Robbie in the head before turning away to pick up the Astral pulse. He chuckles to himself as he holds the glowing cylinder up to his face. "I don't understand why you're being so protective over this. It's not yours, after all."
Using a sudden burst of energy, Robbie shoots up to his feet, running with his fist raised to crush that stupid mask. However, Shroud turns and strikes him across the face before he can get close enough, expecting this very action. Shroud laughs at the hero's stupidity. He cups the man's face, wiping away the blood that has started to trickle from the man's nose.
"It's nice to see you being the pathetic one for a change." he says in a soothing voice, petting the other man's cheeks as if he were cradling a crying infant. Robbie looks him in the eyes, filled to the brim with hatred. How dare this man behave as if he was hurt? As if he didn't kill his child, the child he watched grow up as the weird but good-natured Uncle Elliot, and doesn't even feel a slight bit of remorse about? How dare he...
"Sure, perhaps I'm pathetic, but let's face the truth-" he says, moving closer until he's right next to Shroud's ear. "you will always be the most pathetic bastard this city has ever seen."
With that final word, he grabs the Astral pulse and throws it against the ground hard enough for it to shatter into pieces. Shroud pushes him away, his analytical eye going berserk.
"What have you-" yet before Shroud can finish his question, the remains of the pulse explodes, pushing both men back and causing the building to start collapsing as flames start to lick up the walls. Robbie is thrown back against a wall, a loud crack echoing in the air that he can't recognise if it's from the wall or his head. Either way, his vision goes muddy as the smell of burning metal fills his nose. He can hear the panic of the other villains as they scramble to get out as fast as possible. He can feel his clothes melting into his skin, yet he couldn't bring himself to care. For once, the smell of smoke and blood didn't send his chest into a raging frenzy. If anything, he felt peaceful.
Sirens blare in the distance, but Robbie could hardly care as his eyes struggle to stay open. He could use a nap. A nice, long nap. Goodness knows his weary bones deserve a rest. He lets his body slump over as his eyes continue to struggle to stay open, to try to make out what is happening around him from years of practice staying alert. It doesn't matter anymore. None of it matters anymore. He's achieved his mission, he's defeated Shroud for good, he's avenged his son's death, there's nothing more for him to do. He can nap now. Just one nap. If he can get lucky, maybe he'll never wake up again.
His eyes flutter shut, and the world goes dark.
Silence. At long last.