Week 31.2 – Crushed

Previously: As Digger lay unconscious, Metalord faced the Cobalt Czar alone while Twain tried to free Yi Fan from a constricting cable. And now…

“Hurry,” Twain heard the Ghost Dragon’s voice whisper in the wind that swirled around him. “I’m losing her. I’m fading.”

“Hang on,” Twain said to Yi Fan. He felt the crystal’s power like a warm pulse from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, making him feel stronger, more alive, somehow more there than he ever had before. He laid his hands on the cable and pulled, and amazingly, it moved.

***

The copper tubing had been straightened completely, stretching dozens of feet into the air. As Metalord kept up the barrage of sharp debris, he set the tubing to reforming itself.

The Cobalt Czar stepped forward as if there were no storm of metal debris battering him, as if he were merely walking through rain. “You have no hope of winning, and you are beginning to annoy me. Run while you can. I’m going to count down from ten. Ten…”

Metalord let the useless debris storm drop, summoned some of the harder steel of the compressor motor while trying not to look past the Czar at the tubing still spiraling into a long, thin cylinder like a gun barrel: a tube of tubing. His power over metal wasn’t strictly magnetic, which meant he could do things like reshape the steel motor parts into a very hard, very sharp spike. “Plan E,” he said and launched the spike at the Czar’s heart as hard as he could.

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”left”]He moved his hands as if molding clay, directing his mind to rip the spike in two and reform it into two smaller, thicker nodules. Then with an upward flick of his fingers, he sent the two metal ovoids up the Czar’s nostrils. “Plan F!”[/blockquote]The spike struck the Czar’s chest just off dead center and crumpled without penetrating, though it did dent the skin a little. “Nine…”

Metalord stepped back a few paces to give himself room to maneuver as the Czar advanced. He moved his hands as if molding clay, directing his mind to rip the spike in two and reform it into two smaller, thicker nodules. Then with an upward flick of his fingers, he sent the two metal ovoids up the Czar’s nostrils. “Plan F!”

The Czar’s eyes bulged almost as big as his nostrils as his air was cut off. He opened his mouth to inhale, only to have another ball of metal get caught in his trachea. “Plan G!”

The Czar’s entire body seemed to ball up like a fist as his skin darkened almost to purple. His veins distended, his limbs shook as he gathered his strength. He arched back, then threw his head forward as he snorted with the force of a rifle going off. Twin balls of metal ricocheted off the fallen bricks at Metalord’s feet.

Metalord resisted the urge to form barbs on the ball of metal in the Czar’s throat to keep him from coughing it up. After all, he just wanted to beat the guy, not kill him. The Czar took in a huge breath, his face purpling as his neck muscles worked to dislodge the obstruction. Then he spat the stell ball out so hard that it burrowed into the pavement like an artillery shell. He huffed once and growled, “Seven!”

Can anything hurt the Czar? Join us for the next episode as we try to find out.

To read from the beginning, click here…