The Primordial Weapon

[Proto Man]

How long had it been? Thirty minutes? Thirty hours?

Proto Man’s internal clock told him one thing, but his perception of reality told him something else entirely.

Having failed to cripple the creature in their first string of attacks, the makeshift group pulled back, hoping to salvage a strategy from whatever they could piece together. As the others made to return to what remained of their explosives, Proto Man paused and turned to glance back at Atelos, who was still favoring one his legs. The stop of the preteen machine caused Whirda to pivot and tilt her head.

“I’ll buy you a little time to figure out a plan, okay?” He said with a grin as he lifted his Proto Buster. “Trust me… it’s kind of what I do best.”

There was a brief moment of silence before Whirda nodded her head and was gone with the rest of them, leaving Proto Man and a still groggy Atelos just a few hundred feet in front of the lumbering Tarrasque. “What are you doing?” The Spartan inquired as he sat up and brushed off his knees.

At that, the preteen machine lifted his hand cannon. “Stalling.” He muttered as he released another over-charged bolt of energy up at the creature heading their way. The blast ripped through the sky before slamming into one of its eyes and causing it to grumble and slam one of its feet down with enough fury to shake the landscape. Neither Proto Man nor Atelos wavered as they stared up at the creature. The Spartan readied his free-floating swords and prepared for the force of nature to once again bear down upon them.

“Strategy?” Atelos asked as the two backed up a few paces.

“That’s what they’re doing back there,” Proto Man muttered as he started to charge another attack in the barrel of his weapon. “We’re just here to make it bleed.”

The Spartan furrowed his brow, and although he glanced back at the rest of the crew, he didn’t move from his spot next to the preteen robot. Turning back toward the Tarrasque, the Grecian adjusted his dented helmet and slammed his empty hand against the front of his shield. “Come get some!” He screamed as a giant hand came crashing down at the twosome.

Throwing himself hard to the left, Atelos hit the ground and rolled up into a crouched position. With the adrenaline surging in his veins, he spun around and threw himself at the creature’s appendage. The swords that had once orbited him leisurely now launched themselves at the Tarrasque’s body, hacking and slashing with hapless abandon. Although the blades were powered by all the fury the Spartan could muster, they failed to bite into the scaled flesh of the monster.

“Spartan!” The voice of the boy caused Atelos to glance over. He saw Proto Man standing just a few yards away—a wide grin on his chin—as he held one of the explosive charges in his opposing hand. “Catch.” With a grunt, the youth hurtled the makeshift bomb over to the Spartan, who caught it and immediately dropped it onto the monster’s limb. Before Atelos had a chance to properly run for his life, the charged blast shot through the air and slammed into the explosive device. It was only the primordial instinct to swing his shield around that spared the Grecian from being consumed by the enormous blast that threw him a few dozen yards away from the scene of the skirmish.

With a smile, Proto Man watched as the Tarrasque reeled back. A giant chunk of the creature was missing between two of its fingers, rending both of the limbs momentarily useless as they dangled from magma-soaked tendons and structurally unsound bones. Glancing back over his shoulder, Proto Man saw that the other members of the group were falling back with what remained of their arsenal. If he knew Whirda, the woman probably had a plan by now. If not here, the man known as Dio would certainly have something up his sleeve. Something about him gave the impression of an individual rarely caught off guard, even when carefully planned situations went sour.

That left Proto Man as a makeshift barricade against a massive, lumbering heap of monster. The Tarrasque loomed above him, its long shadow bathing him in darkness as he watched the creature take a moment to look at its ruined hand. Did it register pain? It roared and bellowed and made all the other noises that one often associated with injury, but it never seemed to slow down. To make matters worse, only the explosives seemed to have any long-lasting effect on the creature. The wounds to its face inflicted by the Prototype Robot Master were nearly healed, with only some dried magma left behind to indicate any trace of former injury.

Was this creature even killable? Dio and his group seemed to believe that their weapons could slay the monster, but the reality staring them in the face showed otherwise.

A glance at his HUD revealed that the Robot Master was starting to quickly burn through most of his reserves. While some of the minor scuffles were attempting to mend of their own accord, the majority of his ancillary systems were starting to power off in order to reroute the energy to where it could serve a better purpose. It was times like this where he felt like he was a human being freezing to death, and his body was jettisoning its extremities to protect its core from the elements.

“This is pointless, child.”

Proto Man glanced over to see an irate Spartan limping toward him. Atelos’ helmet was gone, revealing a head of partially singed hair, and despite the fact that he was clearly injured; the man’s aura blazed around his dirt- and blood-stained body. All it took, however, was a look into his eyes to see that something had changed behind closed doors. There was a vile, repugnant fierceness in the Spartan’s gaze, and all of his mannerisms conveyed a carefully maintained maliciousness just waiting to be unleashed.

“Do you have a plan then?” Proto Man demanded. He might be a child, but the machine wasn’t a pushover. Omni himself could shove him down, and the robot would stand back up and get in his face.

Upon hearing the child’s question, ‘Atelos’ snickered and slapped a hand across the surface of his shield. “I’m going to kill it.” At that, the Spartan rushed forward, his shield in front of him as he made for the creature’s hind leg. A few minutes later, Atelos was gone, having started an ascent destined to take him atop the fel monster.

Ignoring the Spartan warrior, the Tarrasque had set its sights upon the boy with the gun arm. It was at a methodical pace that the primordial beast approached Proto Man; much like a wolf would stalk a wounded lamb. He may have been battered and wounded, but the preteen machine didn’t think of himself as a bleating farm animal, and he’d be damned if that was the impression he was going to leave for posterity.

A flash of color washed over Proto Man, replacing his normal color palette with one of orange and red. After taking a brief moment to flex out his worn legs, the android sprinted forward and jumped, hoping against all things that he still had enough juice in the thrusters to get the job done. As the preteen robot soared through the air, he released a stream of fire designed to keep the creature off guard. Whether or not it did any lasting harm to a monster that literally had lava coursing through its veins, Proto Man couldn’t be certain. At the very least, the diversion allowed him to come crashing down on the back of the Tarrasque’s neck.

“Now then…” Proto Man muttered as he turned around and scrambled up onto the creature’s head. With one of its horns blown off, he was able to slump over the stump and try to process the situation.

Legs are shot. Arms are barely within functioning parameters. Buster close to overheating. Power cells need to be recharged sooner rather than later. The notice on his internal display told him that he could ill-afford to keep fighting at this capacity without suffering from very adverse effects. Since he didn’t fancy reliving his exeunt from the Ashen Steppes, Proto Man knew he’d have to be a little more conservative from this point forward. After all, the creature’s death might only be the beginning of a protracted conflict, especially if there was anything more than just ‘fame and glory’ to be had from its demise.

“What are you waiting for, Boy?” The rasping voice of Atelos snapped Proto Man from his calculations. He turned to see the Spartan clawing his way up onto the creature’s cranium. “Put up or shut up. I’m not waiting around all day for them to science this beast to death.”

With that, Atelos shoved passed Proto Man and made right for the less dense carapace near the front of the behemoth’s face.

Switching over the Proto Sword in the hope of conserving some energy, the android followed behind the unhinged Spartan. If they were lucky, the group below would come up with something before the two of them got smashed and/or devoured.