Conquest stood up from the shredded metal of the hangar floor. The ambient emergency lights flickered, casting a harsh red glow over the remnants of his still-healing skin from our last fight. He had a new, massive, gleaming silver cybernetic hand, whirred with heavy mechanical tension.
"I knew they would send their best if we hit the relay station," Conquest rumbled, his voice echoing like grinding stones. "I engineered this entire trap specifically to draw you out, boy. You humiliated me on your miserable planet. But today, I finish the job. Today, I reclaim my pride."
"Are you done babbling, old man?" Battle Beast interrupted, his deep voice vibrating with absolute menace as he stepped forward, dragging his mace. "You speak of a rematch, but you fled before I could tear your other eye out. Today, I finish the hunt."
I paused, looking between the towering lion-man and the scarred Viltrumite. "Wait, you two know each other?"
Conquest scoffed dismissively, his one good eye glaring at Battle Beast. "A rabid animal I put down some time before our meeting," he said to me, then turned to Battle Beast. "I'm surprised you didn't bleed out in the dirt, beast."
Battle Beast's lips curled back, exposing his massive fangs in a terrifying snarl.
Interesting. So does that mean Conquest was stronger than him at that moment? I mused, casually reaching into my wristband and pulling out one of the heavily reinforced stasis extraction vials the Maulers had given me. And if he was able to fight against Thragg on nearly even footing some time later, then does that mean his power grows exponentially? Maybe it's based on how much he wants to fight the person and his body adapts to grow stronger? I guess I'll just have to look into it after the war.
I turned to Battle Beast. "If you don't mind, I'd like to take him on again," I said smoothly. "Our battle never concluded, and it never really was a one-on-one fight. While yours, from what I'm gathering, had. You can have the three backup dancers, though."
Battle Beast instantly stiffened. His grip on his mace tightened so hard the metal whined, and a low, dangerous growl vibrated in his chest.
"Ah, don't be that way," I said, holding my hands up in a placating manner. "If you're feeling slighted in any way, then look at what I'm about to do to him as a preview of the level of power I'm gonna bring onto you for our battle."
Battle Beast's anger evaporated in a fraction of a second. His eyes widened with pure, bloodthirsty anticipation, and a ginger, razor-sharp grin spread across his face.
"I expect nothing less," he purred before letting out a deafening, earth-shaking roar and launched himself at the three Viltrumite soldiers, officially kicking off the brawl.
The three Viltrumites moved in perfect, coordinated formation, clearly underestimating their opponent.
"Three of us against one overgrown-feline?" the lead Viltrumite smirked. "You've lost your mind."
He flew in at Mach 5, throwing a haymaker directly into Battle Beast's face. The impact cracked the reinforced floor beneath them, but Battle Beast's head barely even moved. The smirk instantly vanished from the Viltrumite's face. Battle Beast reached out, grabbed the soldier by the throat, and slammed him into the hangar floor so violently the metal rippled like water.
I watched the carnage from the sidelines for a moment, leaning casually against a support pillar as Battle Beast swung his mace, batting a second Viltrumite out of the air like a baseball.
"Well," I said, turning my attention back to Conquest and nodding at his cybernetics. "Oooo, those are new. Do they light up?"
"A new toy from our previous encounter," Conquest growled, flexing the mechanical fingers. "They'll look nice covered in your blood."
"Ever the ambitious one, aren't you?" I sighed, rolling my shoulders. "Well then, don't keep me waiting now. Let's get this over with. I've got a war to end."
Conquest roared in fury and charged. He closed the distance instantly, throwing a devastating right hook with everything he had.
I sidestepped it effortlessly.
Conquest spun, throwing a vicious horizontal slash with his metal hand. I ducked right under it. Frustrated, he planted his feet and launched a brutal uppercut toward my jaw. I raised my hand, effortlessly parrying his forearm, and drove a palm thrust directly into his chest.
The impact sounded like a cannon going off. Conquest's ribcage cracked as he was launched backward, skipping across the metal floor before violently slamming into the hangar wall.
I stood there, perfectly balanced, watching him struggle to his feet. He had a look of shock on his face.
"That ain't all you got, is it?" I taunted him, my voice dripping with disappointment. "Because if it is, then you should be ashamed of yourself for going out like this."
Enraged beyond reason, Conquest ripped a multi-ton automated defense cannon off its ceiling mount and hurled it at me. I sidestepped it, letting the massive hunk of metal crash into the wall behind me. Then, he ripped out a massive, glowing plasma fuel cell from a nearby ship and threw it.
I ducked as it exploded against the bulkhead, creating a massive smokescreen of fire and debris.
Using the smoke for cover, Conquest launched himself forward with terrifying speed, aiming a lethal spear-hand strike directly at my chest with his cybernetic arm.
My hand shot out and caught his strike mid-air. Conquest's remaining eye went wide as I tightened my grip and effortlessly snapped his new mechanical wrist completely in half.
The sheer horror of the truth dawned on his face; I was leagues stronger than I had been on Earth.
I pulled Conquest roughly toward me and unleashed a surgical, blindingly fast combination. A heavy palm strike to his face shattered his nose. I drove my knee deep into his stomach, doubling him over. An upward elbow caught him under the chin, lifting his feet off the floor, before I spun and delivered a devastating backfist to his temple.
Conquest collapsed into a bloody heap. I pinned him to the floor with my knee, unsealed the stasis vial, and quickly extracted an ample sample of his blood.
Well, he did have the virus in his system at one point so it may be used as a good control group, I thought, sealing the vial and storing it back in my wristband. But, I probably need to get one that's already infected and hasn't been treated, which is going to be a tall task in acquiring from the Coalition.
While I secured the sample, the sheer destruction of Battle Beast's brawl echoed across the cavernous hangar.
The three Viltrumites had quickly realized their initial arrogance was a fatal mistake. They were currently trying to overwhelm him with their flight speed, ping-ponging off the bulkheads and attacking in a coordinated, three-pronged blitz.
But it wasn't working.
One of the Viltrumites dove from the ceiling, moving fast enough to break the sound barrier, aiming a two-handed strike directly at the back of Battle Beast's neck. The lion-man didn't even bother to turn around. He simply swung his massive mace backward in a blind, brutal arc. The heavy metal head collided directly with the Viltrumite's torso, shattering his ribcage instantly and sending the soldier crashing completely through the hull of a parked transport ship.
"Is this the mighty Viltrumite Empire?!" Battle Beast roared, his mane matted with blood—none of it his own. "You fight like fragile children!"
The remaining two soldiers paused in mid-air, a silent, unfamiliar panic setting into their eyes as they looked at their fallen comrade. Relying on sheer desperation, they rushed him simultaneously from opposite sides.
Battle Beast dropped his mace and met them bare-handed. He caught the first Viltrumite's fist in his massive palm, the resulting shockwave shattering the reinforced plating beneath his feet. Without missing a beat, Battle Beast lunged forward and brutally headbutted the soldier, caving in his facial bones with a sickening crunch.
Before the third Viltrumite could land his flank attack, Battle Beast spun, grabbed the stunned, bloody soldier by the ankle, and swung him like a literal club to swat the third one out of the air. The horrific collision of Viltrumite against Viltrumite echoed like thunder.
Battle Beast let out a booming, euphoric laugh, reveling in the absolute slaughter as he casually picked his mace back up and stalked toward the broken, bleeding survivors.
Suddenly, across the room, the Viltrumite that was battered by the mace and launched through the ship's hull dragged himself from the wreckage and pulled out a metallic detonator.
What the fuck?! I thought as I pushed off Conquest's prone body to fly toward him and rip the detonator away, but a heavy, cybernetic arm suddenly wrapped around my ankle in a vice grip.
"Our mission... was to take out this outpost at all costs," Conquest wheezed, holding onto me with desperate, dying strength. "And we plan to follow that through... one way or another."
A suicide mission?! I thought, my eyes wide in genuine surprise.
"Battle Beast! Stop him! Don't let him hit that switch!" I yelled across the hangar.
Battle Beast leaped toward the injured soldier, but the other two heavily bloodied Viltrumites threw themselves in his path, completely abandoning their defense just to slow the lion-man down long enough.
The Viltrumite slammed his thumb onto the detonator.
And as I looked around to brace for the impact of the explosion, nothing happened. Then, I looked down at Conquest, who was glaring up at me with pure defiance.
"You didn't think we'd let them all go off at the same time did you?" he said with a wicked smile on his face.
I quickly realized that the bombs were set in sequences, so that at least one of them would cause the outpost to go down.
Seems like they came to bring this place down no matter what, I thought, then turned my attention towards Conquest. Fine by me. However, they've made an error in judgment in giving me time to process the situation.
I instantly focused a concentrated amount of stored solar radiation from my suit and channeled it directly into my leg. The heat spiked to the temperature of a localized solar flare.
The metal of Conquest's cybernetic arm instantly superheated, melting and fusing agonizingly directly into his nerve-endings and stump. Conquest let an agonizing groan escape through gritted teeth.
I grabbed him by the head, lifting him slightly. He looked up at me, breathing heavily, ready for the end.
I looked at him with genuine, heavy pity.
"The Empire took everything from you before you even had a chance to know what it was," I told him quietly, my voice steady. "They molded you into a monster because that's all they knew how to make. You've spent thousands of years bleeding for an empire that never cared for you. But that all ends here. You don't have to fight anymore. You can now rest."
Conquest's one good eye stared at me, processing the quiet mercy in my words. Slowly, the fight left his body. He closed his eye and accepted it.
"Thank you for your service," were the final words he heard as I channeled a massive surge of concussive energy into my palm and fired a point-blank blast.
There was a sickening splat, resulting in a mountain of blood splattering everywhere, and a now headless Conquest going limp.
What a way to go, I thought, looking at the aftermath of the action. If only—
BOOOOOM!
The first bomb went off near the docking bays, blowing a massive hole in the hangar wall and cutting my thoughts short.
The pressurized oxygen immediately began screaming out into the vacuum of space, pulling debris and bodies toward the breach.
The outpost isn't completely gone yet, I thought, anchoring myself against the violent suction of the depressurizing hangar. And if that one went off, it'll only be a matter of time before the others do too. But, if I can just locate the other bombs in the sequence, I might be able to absorb the impacts and keep the station from breaking apart.
I closed my eyes and rapidly extended my thermal senses outward. Because the bombs were designed to crack a heavily fortified space station, their fusion cores burned incredibly hot as they armed themselves. In my mind's eye, I immediately "saw" three remaining massive, rapidly spiking heat-blooms charging up through the walls of the facility.
I blurred into motion. Moving at speeds that defied physics, I slammed through the metal bulkheads, reaching the nearest bomb in the northern corridor. I wrapped my body entirely around the explosive just as it detonated.
The nanites in my suit flared wildly, glowing a blinding white as they absorbed the horrific kinetic and thermal shockwave. I felt my ribs ache from the raw concussive force, but the blast was contained. The surrounding corridor sustained some structural damage, but the station held.
I didn't stop to catch my breath. I launched myself to the next thermal signature, crashing through the floorboards and throwing myself over the third bomb, letting my body act as a living blast shield once again.
I was burning through my stored solar reserves rapidly to negate the damage, but it was working.
Then, my senses locked onto the final thermal signature. It was massive—much larger than the others—planted directly in the central structural pillar of the outpost's core.
Holy shit, I thought, looking at the massive bomb. If this one goes off, the entire station will crack in half regardless of what I do.
There was no time to carefully disarm it, so I grabbed the heavy, reinforced plating the massive fusion bomb was attached to and brutally ripped the entire section free from the central column.
Turning on a dime, I blasted upward, tearing straight through the roof of the station and flying out into the dead, silent vacuum of deep space, trying to get the explosive as far away from the outpost as possible.
But I didn't make it far enough.
The sequence engaged.
The bomb detonated with the force of a dying star. The silent, blinding explosion consumed me entirely. The blast violently shattered a large chunk of the outer outpost's shielding as well as the various asteroids surrounding it and sent my already accelerating body soaring uncontrollably through the black, silent void of deep space.