Week 31.4 – Crushed

Previously: In battle with the Cobalt Czar, Metalord aimed a long copper coil at his chest and said, “Ever heard of railguns?” And now…

The question was purely rhetorical, for in the moment that the unspoken question mark passed Metalord’s lips, he released the sharpened steel spike he’d been holding. The spike accelerated through the copper coil so quickly, it almost seemed to teleport. A sonic boom might have heralded its departure for New Genesis, if the Czar hadn’t stumbled back from the impact.

The Czar clutched a hand to his right upper chest. Red seeped out from between his fingers, blazing against the blue of his skin.

Cole Chen also stumbled back. The long copper coil fell to the ground. It probably made a noise, but Metalord couldn’t hear it above the whine that filled his ears. He leaned against the crumpled wreckage of what had been a car and looked to the man he’d come to fight.

The Czar pulled his hand away from his chest, and Metalord saw a strange discoloration on his skin. It was gray and flat and shaped something like an alien blossom. The Czar wiped some of the blood away and gripped the thing, and Metalord realized that it was metal. The Czar pulled it out, causing a fresh spurt of blood.

Metalord realized that the metal blossom was the spike he’d fired into the Czar’s chest. It had penetrated the muscle to a depth of only an inch and a half; the rest had just flattened against the Czar’s skin.

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”left”]nobody on Earth was more miserable than physicists nowadays, faced with an army of beings the world over who refused to follow the old laws anymore. Physicists were the new Luddites…[/blockquote]The Czar had let a tiny groan escape his lips as he pulled out the spike. Now he fixed Metalord with a baleful glare. His bushy black mustache bristled and his eyes flared a brighter blue as he growled, “Four.”

Metalord was breathing hard after all the exertion, and his gasps threatened to turn into sobs. The Czar was unstoppable. Every desperate gambit had failed: his strongest lightning, the plethora of cars he’d thrown with all his might, the induced heart attack, even the railgun trick that physicists at Lawrence Berkeley had assured him would never work the way he had it designed. Physically impossible, they’d said.

But then, nobody on Earth was more miserable than physicists nowadays, faced with an army of beings the world over who refused to follow the old laws anymore. Physicists were the new Luddites, insisting that the world should retreat to an earlier, simpler time when everyone and everything followed the rules. Usually, Metalord vastly preferred the new order of the world, except when giant blue men were advancing on him, saying, “Three,” and he was too tired to do anything more about it.

Metalord stumbled back a few steps, searching for the strength and inspiration to to take one more shot, anything. The Czar was the toughest man he’d ever met, by far, but he had to have some sort of weakness. He was beatable. He had to be.

But not by him, Metalord realized, at least not today. Unbelievable as it seemed, he had lost this one.

The Czar advanced another step, death glittering in his eyes. “Two.”

I know it’s been a delayed week, but seriously, I think I will have the next episode up by midnight tonight! And you won’t want to miss it!

To read from the beginning, click here…