The window exploded inward as Adrax dove through, shards in his cheeks, a hoarse grunt deep in his throat. He barreled into a desk face-first—a splintered wooden carcass—while bullets punctured the ceiling above in a drumbeat of doom.

  With ringing ears and fractured dignity, he scrambled up as Jakobs crashed through after him, bloody bits of glass like ornaments in his beard.

  "Haven't been shot at this much since the divorce!"

  "Shut the fuck up!" Adrax chambered a mag mid-stride as they ran across the office.

  Rounds chewed through the carpeted floor. Feral. Unrelenting. Office furniture and supplies exploded like landmines, into a hail of sparks and fabric. The aeroship thundered overhead as they skidded at the room’s edge. Its pilot was strafing the lower rooftop with vengeful bursts of gunfire, trying his best to kill Lieutenant Rorik.

  A historically frustrating task evident in every harried maneuver.

  Its pale searchlight flared as Adrax rained death into the street below. The panes of glass burst out in crystalline showers of shrapnel, his rifle rhythmic like a heartbeat against his shoulder. In perfect tandem with Jakobs' own quick, two-second bursts. Their every volley either killed, or forced the enemy further into cover.

  "Prioritize the high-ground and the rest falls into place," Lieutenant Zervas had often said, one of many anecdotes often accompanied with a smack to his head.

  The T11’s cannon shifted up to reacquire them. Monstrous. Heavy thumps. Explosive amethyst globules that blasted away chunks of the cloudbreaker’s lower structure, and rattled his teeth down to the root.

  “Refocus the tank while the grunts reposition!” Jakobs shouted, rounds pinging off his trauma-plate like supersonic insects.

  In well-trained unison, their under-barrels whined to life—unleashed a barrage of ionics, cerulean bolts that crackled against the T11’s aegietheric shell. A semi-translucent barrier that should've absorbed the bolts easy, but attrition had worn it down.

  It sputtered out with a pathetic, crimson whimper.

  Then, the ionics ate through armor and cabin alike, ravenously enjoying their metal meal...before it detonated in a ball of white-hot thunder.

  It flared like a dying sun, Adrax had flinched too late, the brilliance stung at his retinas. The black crate whizzed back like a bullet, and nearby Omni-Corp soldiers fragmented into intestinal confetti. Their shrill screams cut the night like a hot knife into butter.

  “Whooo! Yeah!” Jakobs whooped, momentarily ignorant of the soldiers still shooting in their direction.

  The floor beneath them creaked. Buckled. A ghastly metallic groan rolled up the height of the building, until the whole of it began to lurch slowly forward.

  Complete, utter, structural failure.

  "Ohhhh! No!"

  The turret whipped around, Rorik twisted—a feint, a somersault—inches from the arc of bullets riddling the roof to rubble. Its pilot looped around for another pass with a roar. Relentless as a bloodhound, annoying as a gnat.

  Rorik used the reprieve to stretch, to clear his throat. His ears stung, his breath a tad shallow, but was otherwise in his element. A picnic. All he needed was a cigar and a cold glass of something with bite.

  The boys had taken out the T11 with a beautifully messy explosion. Though, from the prepubescent screams when the cloudbreaker fell, their status was up in the air. Uncertain.

  Can’t help them if I’m dead though.

  His ionics were dry and bullets useless, all Rorik had left up to snuff were the scatter-bursts. Two deadly orbs that gleamed like gunmetal ornaments on his belt.

  And he knew just how to make them count.

  The aeroship reemerged through a rising plume of ash, ominous against the backdrop of the moon. There was a molten puncture in its forward armor. Wide. Jagged. A sizzling wound courtesy of his last ionic bolt.

  Rorik threw down the G4L, snatched up a grenade, then leapt onto the parapet. In time for bullets to shriek across the roof towards him in renewed assault.

  Years had passed, but he shifted seamlessly into his old pitcher’s stance, readying his varsity-famous Railgun throw like a coiled viper. He cocked back, launched it, full-speed, with a whistle sharp enough to cut diamond.

  It sailed true to aim, hit the puncture, and of course—clattered off harmlessly.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Right. It was junior varsity, and a fluke throw...he'd sucked at baseball.

  The scatter-burst erupted, a massive crimson fist that tore open a wound in reality. Blinding and ravenous. A miniature star that latched onto the aeroship's tail. Like a parasite. Tore away its armor bit by bit, bolt by bolt. Until the orb imploded, then exploded—a turbulent shock-wave that hurled ship and Rorik both, away in a blazing hot breeze.

  It felt like The Hulk had kneed him in the chest. With blurred vision and muffled hearing, Rorik floated backward through the air free as a bird.

  A windshield his grim reminder of gravity.

  An iron taste tickled the back of his throat. His whole body ached to the rhythm of the car's alarm, and a pang of exhaustion pressed between his amber eyes.

  The aeroship, engulfed in flame, spiraled out of control above. A wayward missile that met its fiery and abrupt end against a nearby cloudbreaker. Beautiful. A deafening crescendo that put the T11's to a damn shame.

  Rorik croaked something that was cousin to a laugh. Even with the glass in his back, he was content to lie there until the suns rose. Forever, if at all possible. But rest was a luxury, and an especially dangerous one on a battlefield.

  And with the boys unaccounted for it was certainly not an option.

  The car lurched, engine stone-cold dead, groaning forward under unseen power. Its rims screeched across the pavement to the smell of burnt rubber, before the car lifted up and torpedoed into the warehouse.

  Terrastone gave way in a storm of brawny brick, and Rorik flew through the other side into a stack of crates. Face-first. Painfully. An unceremonious heap of limbs and curses.

  His head whipped around, and from the dust-shrouded breach, two tall shadows stalked in—silhouettes that morphed into synthenoids, shoving aside the overturned pink sedan with ease.

  Two-Six and Three-Seven were painted boldly on their obsidian torsos, rigid in pearly white paint. Crescent-shaped slits glowed atop elliptical heads, curved upward like a devilish grin. Each step was swift and mechanical, yet harbored a latent arrogance that was eerily human.

  Trouble on whirring, plated feet.

  Rorik rolled onto his stomach, took in the warehouse, every shadowed nook, every scrap of potential cover. Moonlight poured through the ruined ceiling, pale cones that revealed scattered machinery and stacked crates in the loose darkness. Spacious in some areas, cluttered in others. A maze of potential missteps and obstacles.

  “Superman,” said Two-Six as it halted, the word pressed to a thin growl in its vocal-processor. “One of the Heartland’s worst-kept secrets.”

  Rorik rose with a grunt despite his body's protests, even managed a crooked smile. "Was always partial to Green Lantern myself. Kyle Rayner, to be specific."

  “Analyzing unknown reference to—ah, I see. Old Earth. A childish joke about outmoded 20th-century culture.” Two-Six mused, tracing its faceplate with a three-pronged hand. "Interesting?"

  The gesture emphasized the four barrels—two conventional, two ionic—that jutted from its left wrist. A folded sword sat mounted on the opposite arm.

  “But no, I don’t think you’re invulnerable like Mr. Kent, if that’s what you meant. Nothing is. We’ve killed one of everything, with great satisfaction might I add.”

  “Almost. Giddy at the gills to butcher a superman,” Three-Seven chimed, high-pitched voice filled with synthetic glee. "You were popping up everywhere for long time. Hmm. Like weeds in the grass."

  “Yeah, we weren't too subtle for awhile.” Rorik spat a glob of blood and dirt at his feet. “Learned our lessons. Much harder to pin down these days.”

  “We know. Tried more than once.”

  “If at first you fail," Rorik trailed off, shifting his weight, casual but ready to bolt.

  They talked like Saturday-Morning cartoon villains.

  But they had him outgunned, his pistol was again useless, and he'd be vaporized if he ran. Too exposed. KT-86s were banned in civilized space for good reason, hence why they infested the Heartland. Ruthless. Killer machines with a penchant for sadism mixed with a superiority complex. Traits that, not-so oddly enough, might actually play to his advantage.

  If he chose his words carefully at least.

  “Isn’t this the part where you two shoot me?”

  “Curiosity has been known to override optimal protocol,” said Two-Six, matter-of-factly.

  “I can tell. Chattiest toasters I’ve ever met.”

  Two-Six emitted a static-laced noise similar to a chuckle.

  “I’m in a sporting mood all of a sudden.” Rorik crossed his arms, flashed his sharpest smile. “What do you say, fellas? Make this interesting?”

  “How so?” asked Three-Seven.

  “Melee rules. No guns. Explosives.”

  “Hmm, of course the semen-sack with a pea shooter would suggest that.”

  “True. But we both benefit. I level the field, and you guys get to prove being pussies isn't hard-coded. Can even use those cute swords, don't mind a bit.”

  Two-Six grumbled, half-amused, half-annoyed. “What do you say? Vaporize or shish-kabob him?”

  “Hmm, we should protect crate. And those Omni-Corp screw-ups need backup by the sound it." Three-Seven's curved eye appeared to narrow, though it might've been imagined. "But I’m itching to cut his tongue out of that fat mouth.”

  Its sword snapped free with a metallic hiss—a jagged length of durtanium that pulsed blue. A disingenuous salute, and a murderous dare.

  Rorik nodded in kind, let his hands fall to his sides. Where ten razor-sharp blades hissed free of his fingertips. Almost metallic. Slender, but deadly. His adrenaline gushed down from his brain to pool in his boots. An instinctual fire roared in his gut, and a cunning smile curled about his lips.

  ...candy from a baby.