Shooting Stars and Reploid Arms: Remixed
Remixed Chapter 10
There were few things in the universe that would ever change. Water would be wet, fire would be hot, the Fates were never kind, and a medic ward would always smell of death no matter how much disinfectant was used on it. Or what species frequented it.
It was with a twist of will X pushed the imagined scent of death out of his head. This, was Dr. Fraiser's medical ward. This, is where he had a job to do. There in the corner dozing peacefully was an airmen recovering from a broken leg. Behind a curtain next to him was his teammate, this one recovering from a broken arm. None too far away on the other side of the hall was yet a third airmen, this one wrapped in a bandage swath, another partial victim of a Super Soldier's upgraded weaponry.
An image of Axl dressed in a hooded black robe and carrying a bone-white beam scythe danced across his field of vision, cackling in some insane scheme. The visionary Axl tapped the Super Soldier wounded airman's IV, checking it. The Axl-Death shook his head, green eyes alight with mirth, and X had the strangest feeling he was being mocked. Robe floating outward in a twisted rendition of butterfly wings, the phantom Axl danced away.
And strangely enough, the scent of death vanished with him.
A soft human hand touched his shoulder, startling him.
"Xavier? Are you alright?" It was Dr. Fraiser. Short, sweet Dr. Fraiser, the one human woman X knew who could send Zero into cold sweats of fear just by glaring at him. Her soft eyes echoed motherly concern for the one she considered an apprentice and – and friend. "You look like you've seen a ghost," she explained.
Allowing his sight to linger a moment longer on the spot Axl, phantom or not, had stood gave X pause to pull his thoughts together. Axl, cackling, had always herald laughter for others. Ample doses of chaos mixed in with said laughter, but laughing joy nonetheless. So then for Axl-Death to have come, and laughed, and gone away empty handed...
At length, X said, "Yes... Yes, I think I am, Dr. Fraiser. I think for the first time in a month, everything is going to be alright." Pulling down his lab coat so as to straighten it, X gave Dr. Fraiser a curt nod, before excusing himself.
"Good morning, Franklin!" X tapped the IV down – the same IV Axl-Death had examined seconds ago – and found it in need of changing. "Looks like the last dose of painkillers have run out. How are you feeling, aside from that?"
There would be no death today, X realized. Not with Axl watching out for them all.
A cold flash lit by the starlight of thousands of star systems. A brutal feeling of being flung molecule by molecule across the vast empty void of space only to be spat back out as though found distasteful by some giant monster.
Spat straight out into a shin-high pile of sand and a scorching yellow-red sun blaring down on you in a hello.
Zero pulled himself up by his bootstraps, metaphorically speaking, and hauled himself out of the sand trap. Hunter training quickly took over as he examined his surroundings. Desert, desert, and more desert, with about three guys in desert camou cresting a sand dune less than two hundred yards away. Tok'ra, he catalogued, given that the combined units of SG-1 and SG-3 weren't already under heavy fire. In quick dash range located just outside of 'Gate-splash was the DHD tactfully hidden under yet another mound of sand. Keeping his larger firearm square on the incoming – didn't hurt to be careful, even with the SGC's "allies" – Zero subtly, casually, moved to guard their sole way out of this hell-hole if worse came to worse.
"Bloody freakin' damn-it, what is it with these snakes and deserts?" someone, likely Dallas, hissed snake-like under his breath.
"Be nice," Makepeace half ordered, half suggested. Dallas rolled his eyes but otherwise appeared willing to obey.
"A desert makes sense," Zero pitched his voice so Dallas could hear. "If you were a Goa'uld, would you spend a lot of time planning your next conquest to be that of a resource-less planet?"
Listening to Zero's words, Colonel Jack O'Neill fidgeted. Add one more to that list of stuff that didn't just quite make sense about the Diner Trio...
Three humans in desert camou came ever closer, revealing themselves to be the Tok'ra Anise, Tok'ra Ambassador Jacob Carter, and one generic looking bodyguard.
"Colonel O'Neill, Sammy," Jacob greeted the SGC's point men casually.
"Dad," Sam returned the greeting, breaking with protocol long enough to give her father a much-needed hug. She hadn't seen him in a little over a month, not since he had gone back to the Tok'ra with a request from the SGC.
"Major General," Colonel O'Neill gave the Tok'ra ambassador a loose salute. "Got your message. Sounded pretty urgent, so we came runnin'." Despite the fact he was wearing combat grade sunglasses, O'Neill still managed to make it clear he was giving Anise a Class A Look. "Please tell me it's not another wacked-out gismo you want us to suicide-mission test."
"As much as my colleague here would like to pass off a new tech toy," and at this point Jacob gave the normally leather-wearing female a stern glare which cut any comments in the quick, "No, I'm afraid we don't have anything for field testing. What we do have, however, pertains to what General Hammond asked me to look into regarding P4X-666. Let me tell you – it wasn't pretty."
Daniel watched out the corner of his eye as Zero stiffened. No, he figured. There'd be no way Zackary Wily would have forgotten the name, such as it was, of the planet on which Wallace had fallen.
"Oh goodie," O'Neill sighed with heavy sarcasm, purposely ignoring the death glare a certain blond was giving him. "This is just a quick pickup and run?"
"But I..." Anise began to say, only to be cut off by her superior's death-laden glare. "Yes," she began again, giving Jacob a look. "Everything we could collect per the SGC's request has been packed and is ready for transport. Although I must protest," again, her voice added the otherwise missing word, "about transporting one unit in specific."
Jacob/Selmak countered the Tok'ra's resident mad scientist with a sharp statement in cutting Egyptian. Whatever it was, it wasn't pretty, and made Daniel's eyebrows jump a few inches closer to his hairline. The end result made the Tok'ra's escort bite down a chuckle and gave Anise the look of a scolded child.
"Alright then. Anything more to say, boys and girls?" At the echoing silence, Jack could only smile. "Great. SG-3, you've got the 'Gate. If we don't check in inside half an hour..." Jack shrugged. "Well, you know the drill."
"Yessir," Makepeace saluted.
Jack returned his attention to Jacob/Selmak. "In the illustrious words of those crazy sci-fi writers: Take us, to your stuff. Or... something like that."
"Dallas, Wily, on that DHD! Thompson, with me on point!"
"Sir!"
Moving closer to Jack as SG-1 crested the hill, Teal'c asked as softly as he could, "Are you sure leaving all of SG-3 behind is a wise decision, O'Neill?"
"Well, it's either that, or worry about the DHD being blown to pieces by a surprise attack." At the odd looks sent his way by Teal'c, Jackson, and both Carters, Jack yelped incredulously, "What? I get paid the big bucks to be paranoid!"
All listening, even Anise and the unnamed escort, found themselves chuckling.
Elsewhere, in another place, in another time...
"Oh, shit."
It was amazing how two little words could sum everything up so completely.
"In Laymen's terms," Dr. Light fought back a small chuckle. "Albert, I believe its best you take it from here."
Dr. Wily nodded, standing from his seat with an air of casualty about him which made one think he was about to lead a symposium round-table discussion. "This," he pointed casually to the newspaper article in question, "is only the latest in a set of mistakes set in motion and allowed to remain in motion by our original benefactors, the Ancients."
Forte somehow repressed a like-that-wasn't-obvious snort.
"They are doing this to punish Oma." And before anyone, human or otherwise, could jump in outrage, Wily had his hand up for silence. "Let me finish."
Dr. Cain put his bottle of whisky back in his lab coat pocket before returning with grumbled curses to his seat. The Russian Dr. Cossack looked no better, and it was a surprisingly even tie between Blues and Forte on who looked more prepared to throttle someone. Preferably several some ones if Roll's glare was any indication of her boyfriend's mood.
"Oma -- the majority of us have been occupied with other tasks recently, so here is her conviction in brief. Our kind Oma has allowed two beings to ascend recently – relatively speaking. Both of them descended within a year of their ascensions and each did so for their own reasons. However, since it was Oma who allowed them to rise in the first place, her fellows have decreed no action shall be taken to either assist or hinder these two beings. One of these two beings is a Dr. Daniel Jackson; a human anthropologist, gentle soul, and a true reformer. It's somewhat of a shame none of our group managed to meet him. We might have talked him into joining up with us crazy mad science types."
There was a less than subtle cough from Forte's direction, a hint to the Bioroid's sole creator to stop rambling and get on with it.
"Yes, well... The second of the two beings Oma helped ascend goes to prove that even the Ancients are fallible. Anubis, a Goa'uld System Lord, who Oma thought to be honestly reformed, has been forced to middle-ground status due to... Let me put it this way. Mix Forte's attitude with my general "Ruler of the World" position at the start of the first Robot Rebellion, and you have Anubis in a nutshell."
"Ouch," Blues whistled.
Rockman was the one to drive the spike home, adding, "And that's just when he was having a good day, huh?"
Dr. Wily sighed, "Yes, Rockman; and given how much knowledge he cannot be stripped of given his half-ascended status, every day appears to be a good day. Thomas?"
Dr. Light stood as well, the dead-serious scowl clashing with his otherwise jubilant features. "Through no fault of anyone within our company, and through no fault of Oma or her cluster of close associates, Anubis has learned of Reploid technology. Nothing more complex than how to build a fully functional Z-Class Buster, not yet, but he is actively integrating it into his soldiers' armories. In the time Dr. Wily and I have had between Rock's alarming report and our gathering here, I have been doing massive research via Dr. Wily's Mechaniloid spy system."
"Che," Dr. Wily snickered, "Be grateful one of our contract loopholes lets us build and send out insentient entities beyond the boarders of our little pocket of space. And that I still remembered those blasted plans." The German scientist buried his head in his hands. "Mein Got, if only I'd never used the teleportation device..."
Rockman gently patted his former nemesis on the back. "You could have never known the system would fry a bit of your brain, Dr. Wily."
"As much as I'd like to consol our colleague there," Dr. Cain cut in, "I'm more worried about what's got Dr. Light pissed." Because if Dr. Light was upset, then that meant X was in deep, deep trouble.
"What has me pissed, as you so eloquently put it Dr. Cain, is that Anubis was the one who broke Lumine's seal. And those blasted, self-centered, utter loons calling themselves Ancients, bloody let him! Those bastard idiot fools ignored our warnings about what Lumine could do to the universe as a whole – and let Anubis break him free. Just. To get back. At Oma." It was with an effort that Dr. Light managed to calm himself enough to add, "And it is only by quick thinking on the parts of Skaara and his ilk that, beyond Anubis freeing Lumine, our own home world has escaped attention."
Bless their desert-born hearts, all of them. The moment they had caught wind of what Anubis could do with even the most basic Reploid tech at his disposal, they had acted. Moving quick as sand vipers, the former inhabitants of Abydos had done the equivalent of deleting Gia – Dr. Light and company's home world – from the master map of the universe all ascended beings used to get their bearings between the ascended plane and the mortal one. If a planet was not on the master map then it was not on any map an Ancient could get a hold of. And with Gia off the map, off any known Stargate network, and undiscovered by space-traveling mortals, their planet was safe.
For now.
Tucked deep within the home base of the Tok'ra resistance, Colonel O'Neill asked the one question both he and his superiors had been dreading.
"So. Jacob. How bad was it?"
Jacob Carter, Major General of the United States Air Force turned Tok'ra Ambassador to Earth, released a long, exhausted sigh. "On the plus side, Jack, it could have been worse."
"On the not-so-plus side?" Jackson asked.
"On the not-so-plus side, Dr. Jackson, we've got two good men dead and no way to revive either of them and a next gen Kull manufacturing plant about ready to kick into high gear." Jacob patted the bulky crate currently sitting on a space-age dolly, ready and waiting for transport. "Fortunately, Anise had just finished modifying an Al'kesh for stealth work and needed a crazy test-pilot when I came home with your request. Otherwise, we'd have none of this stuff."
"Wait a minute, dad, you said two good soldiers." Sam granted her father an odd look.
"Were you unable to recover the third body?" Teal'c voiced SG-1's next question.
Once more, Jacob patted the travel ready crate. "What's in here should be able to answer that question. We cremated the two human bodies and sterilized everything else that we found just to be on the safe side. Anubis isn't a bio-weapon-friendly Goa'uld like Nirrti, but given how many rabbits he's pulled out of his hat recently, including this one, I really didn't want to run the risk of sending anything non-Earth native back home."
"Good call. I think." O'Neill was now giving the crate a look. "What's in there?"
The crackle and hiss of emergency radios snapping to life cut Jacob off before he could answer.
"We're under attack! Super Soldiers came out of bloody nowhere! 'Gate wasn't even open for longer than a second and...!" Reports of gunfire echoed under the static-warn connection, words clear and furious despite the radio's distance induced crackle.
"Dallas, n--!"
At once, Jack was reaching for his radio. "SG-3, do you copy? SG-3, do you copy! Damn it, Makepeace, what's happening up there?"
Nothing but static answered.
"Well, crap." Jack pulled his always present hat off, ran a hand through his hair, then replaced his cap. "Daniel, help Carter and Carter make sure this thing is set for transport. Teal'c, with me. And if you don't mind loaning us a few of your Jaffa friends, Ambassador? I'd really like it if we could keep another team from getting massacred."
Taking what cover he could behind a sand dune, Colonel Makepeace took aim and fired, hoping to do at least a little damage to their enemies' armors. The odds were against his team, even with backup in the form of SG-1 on its way. SGC's flagship team had managed to pull miracles out of situations more desperate than this, or so Scuttlebutt said, but given that sinking feeling in the pit of his gut, Makepeace knew Colonel O'Neill wouldn't be able to save the day this time.
'Gate-guard duty had been going so well a handful of seconds ago. His team had done as ordered, Wily and Dallas securing the DHD while he and Thompson picked ideal guard posts just outside of 'Gate splash range. All four of them had set their packs down and gotten to work setting up camouflage tents to wait under – nothing fancier than a desert camou tarp suspended on four short poles just big enough to provide each individual a little bit of shade – when the ominous click of a Stargate's ring coming to life caught their undivided attention.
"Damn," Thompson had muttered. "We've only been here ten minutes."
All four of his men, even Wily, had dropped where they were to make themselves as tiny a target as possible. The 'Gate had opened as it always did – with a beautiful, terrifying splash of white and blue which sprayed outward, an inverted waterfall, before being sucked back into the 'Gate to form a serine pool of liquid blue light. Ten flashes of off-white color shot out of the 'Gate the second it had finished stabilizing. And then, just like that, the 'Gate closed.
Thinking on how those ten off-white flashes had then grown and turned solid to become ten Super Soldiers reminded Makepeace in a weird way of his son's favorite kid show. Only instead of the good guys warping in, it'd been the Psycho Rangers on steroids.
Makepeace had done the only thing he could, then. While his team let into death itself with every bit of ordinance they had on hand, Makepeace grabbed his radio, and called for help.
"We're under attack! Super Soldiers came out of bloody nowhere! 'Gate wasn't even open for longer than a second and...!"
And Makepeace could only watch as the youngest Marine on the team utterly lost it.
"You fucking bastards!" Dallas shouted. Berserk, he pulled a naquadah-laced grenade, loosed the pin, and proceeded to play Superman-turned-Rambo. His own safety tossed to the wind, Dallas surged up from behind the dune he and Wily had been using to cover the DHD, charging forward with reckless abandon.
"Dallas, no!" Thompson tried to stop the insanity with words alone, already knowing it was too late. The poor kid was planning to make a martyr of himself in an effort to save the team, to avoid a repeat of Wallace's death...!
A Super Soldier, seeing nothing more than a target, took aim at the crazed Lance Corporal. Knowing he would fall before reaching the optimum detonation point, Dallas threw the grenade so that it landed between the three forward-most Soldiers and the spread-out seven-Soldier strong rearguard. Ignorant of the grenade, the Super Soldier drawing a bead on Dallas fired.
A wordless war cry cut out across the desert. Makepeace only had time to see Wily – and what the fuck was Wily doing out of full combat gear?! – charge up and over the dune and forward past Dallas all inside a second, moving between Dallas and the freshly loosed shot. Later, after the dust had settled and he'd had a few drinks with his men to keep insanity at bay, Makepeace would come to realize Wily had been glowing when he'd made that fateful charge. Honest to heave above glowing.
Two explosions went off with around half a second's difference between each.
The first explosion was at, or at least bloody near, where Wily had charged in front of Dallas. This first one was nothing more than a brilliant burst of white energy. A soundless explosion of light coupled with a whimper of a shockwave, harmful only if looked at directly without the cover of sunshades.
The second explosion was the naquadah-laced grenade. That one, Makepeace had to duck and cover for.
The dust and ash kicked up by the naquadah-laced grenade was enough to choke a horse. Makepeace and Thompson kept their heads down and turned away, covering their faces as well as they could with whatever was available. Thompson had yanked his hat off and was using it to cover his mouth and nose instead of his hair. Makepeace, on the other hand, dropped closer to the sand, burying his face in his right elbow while his left arm kept his firearm out of the way.
"Oh my god..."
The whisper was barely there, but it was enough. Makepeace dared the remaining sand and looked up. Already, even though the explosion was only a second old, the dust was clearing, pushed away by a chill breeze which sent every hair on the back of both Marines' necks rising in fear.
Closest to where Dallas and then Wily had been standing were three silhouettes. The first figure to become clear was Dallas, the blast having kicked him off his feet and down onto his rump, his eyes wide as he looked at the figures before him. The kid didn't look hurt... But it was who – and what – was standing in front of Dallas which had rocked Thompson to the core.
Where Wily should have been standing was instead something completely different. A tall humanoid decked out in blood red and bone white armor stood with its arms cross in guard and feet apart for balance. The last remnants of smoke could be seen wafting off its rounded forearm armor. Green orbs glistened in harsh sunlight, one on each ankle and two adorning its chest. Adorning its head was a helmet crafted of red metal tapered to look like two sets of rising demon horns centered by white metal and outlined in gold trim. On the helmet's forehead was a blue gemstone shaped like an inverted pyramid. And in the very back of the helmet, located at the base of the humanoid's skull, was a round hole just large enough to allow a fountain of blond hair to fall downwards into a ponytail long enough to reach the humanoid's ankles.
But it was the unmistakable form of Alex "Axl" Wallace in a black hooded robe and carrying a bone-white energy scythe standing between Dallas and the armored humanoid which sent Makepeace's jaw falling towards sand.
A white gloved hand lifted from the folds of his black robe. Lifted and, with feather-like delicacy, brushed across the blonde's armored shoulder, dusting settled sand from it. Alex "Axl" Wallace leaned forward so that his lips were even with the armored blonde's helmet covered ear. The being with Wallace's face dressed in Death's garbs whispered something – his lips moved, but the words were so quite no one else but the armored blonde could hear. The words of an angel granting a demon leave to take its tithe of blood.
The ghost vanished in a flutter of black.
The red and white armored warrior reached back over his right shoulder. White gloved hand incased in blood armor closed around a handle of some sort. There was a sound of an electric clank reminiscent of an industrial strength magnet being pried loose from a sheet of metal. The handle came loose of whatever held it with ease and came to be held horizontally before the blood armored warrior. The softest of soft clicks could be heard, a hidden button being depressed.
Green light snapped outward from one end of the handle, jumping across his chest and solidifying into a single blade of ethereal green energy. Colonel O'Neill, if he had been there to see it, might have quipped about Yoda calling, wanting his light-saber back. To Colonel Makepeace, the iridescent green blade looked like death incarnate.
The first of the Super Soldiers to recover from Dallas's grenade staggered to its feet. It raised its upgraded weapon, the muzzle of the thing already glowing with golden death. Faster than its comrade had in shooting Dallas, the first Soldier on its feet let off a quick half-powered blast.
The armored blonde batted the blast aside with a lazy strike of his saber, treating the amber death-orb as nothing more than a tennis ball. The shot struck home in the face of a second Soldier just gaining its bearings. It crumpled, helmet shattered, like so much silly putty.
Everything after that was pure blur.
Two bursts of fire ignited on the underside of the blonde's feet, two dash thrusters propelling him forward like a bullet. The first Soldier, the one who had fired off first, found itself missing a head with a casual blade stroke. Twisting with that same stroke, blonde danced out of the line of fire from the third Solders. The fourth and fifth tried pinning him in a crossfire – the armored blonde jumped upwards, effortlessly dodging their shots. The dash thrusters kicked in again at the crest of his jump, propelling him even higher. Another wordless shout cut across the desert, the red and white armored blonde's battle cry. Spinning one full vertical circle looking so much like a hedgehog with blond and green quills curled into a tight ball, he fell back to earth, his blade using the spin and gravity to split the sixth Soldier in half.
One of the now seven –
A Super Soldier released a liquid scream when the blonde's saber cut it in half horizontally –
Make that one of the remaining six had realized there was less threatening prey than the blonde available. Makepeace managed to tare his eyes away from the green and blond and bloody dance to catch sight of that unlucky Soldier using chaos as cover to get closer to the still stunned Dallas.
"Cover fire!"
Makepeace's thunderous command was enough to knock his unit back to their senses. Thompson and Dallas both ripped their eyes off the blonde dodging and killing and dancing in death long enough to grab their respective weapons and fire at the advancing Super Soldier. The bullets themselves did nothing more than distract it – but it was enough of a distraction for the blonde to slip behind it and cleave the thing in two.
"Pick a target and concentrate fire!" Makepeace roared over the sounds of Super Soldier death keels. Damn if he was going to let the blonde do all the work!
In short order, with Makepeace, Thompson, and Dallas's firepower acting as a booming distraction, the blonde in red armor was left with only a single living adversary.
The blood armored warrior removed the last Soldier's head in a single cold slice, stilling its twitching. Panting with exhaustion, he – it – looked up from his work, looking towards Makepeace, Thompson, and Dallas. The Colonel and Major were flaking Dallas on either side, the trio secured as well as they could be behind a makeshift dune. All three of their guns locked in on the blonde – just because it/he had taken out the Soldiers didn't mean it/he was an ally.
Another silent click and the green death blade fell back into the hilt. The blood covered warrior moved deliberately, slowly returning the mundane-looking hilt/handle to its slot on the backpack-like object on his back. Blue eyes regarded their weapons with cool disdain.
"And here I thought Marines were more civilized towards civis."
Makepeace would not let his jaw drop again. Not with the lethal weapon who'd so casually been slaughtering Super Soldiers less than a moment ago staring at him. Staring at him the same way he'd once seen Wily stare at Wallace when the kid had been about to do something top-grade idiotic with a pair of homemade hand grenades and O'Neill's locker.
Wait... The same kind of look as Wily?
Thompson's brow furled in confusion. If he were to take away the armor then, strangely enough, the blonde would look like... "Wily?"
"Yeah," the armored blonde sighed. Resting a hand against his helmeted temple, the armored blonde added, "But my name's not Wily. It's Zero."
"Zero, huh?" Makepeace shifted his weapon to take better aim. "So what are you? Some kind of next generation Super Solider sent by Anubis to crash the SGC's party?"
"If only things were that simple," Zero grumbled.
"Zero doesn't work for Anubis," a voice whispered out of memory.
Later on, Makepeace would congratulate both himself and Thompson for clamping down on the instinct to shoot first and ask questions later as a twisted shimmer of gold and black appeared between Zero and SG-3. The shimmer flickered once, then blinked into physical existence.
"...Axl..." Zero's voice dropped to a whisper.
"Wallace!" Dallas half shouted, half cried, his weapon swinging loose in his grip.
Axl-Death stood between the three Marines of SG-3 and the armored blonde named Zero. Both of his hands were clasped together in front of him, making him look like an odd rendition of Death begging for pardon.
"Please, Colonel Makepeace, Major Thompson, Lance Corporal Dallas..." Light green eyes caught and held each gaze in turn. "Please," Axl pleaded, "don't tell Colonel O'Neill or Major Carter or... or anyone about Zero. At least not for a little while." Makepeace moved to object, only to be cut off by Axl adding, "I know you have to eventually. But for right now, please... Please, let Zero switch back into SG uniform, let him cover his tracks. If you don't, then Major Carter will do the same thing to Zero that Anise did to me. Only Major Carter won't realize she's doing anything wrong because of what Zero is in body. But he's alive, like me, and he doesn't deserve that kind of fate. Please... Please..."
There was silence for a beat, then two. "Damn it," Thompson whispered, lowering his firearm. "Sorry, sir, but I'm not dumb enough to ignore a pouting dead guy."
Makepeace lowered his own weapon. "Neither am I." The colonel pinned the visiting ghost under a cutting glare. "We're putting our necks on the line for your friend here, Wallace. Keeping his butt intact had better be damn important."
"Oh, right," Zero crossed his arms in a sarcastic snort. "Let's forget all about the fact I just single handedly saved your collective asses."
"Zero – hurry!" Axl implored his still living mentor.
"I can't hurry, oh figment of my overworked imagination." At the demanding glare from his student's shade, Zero added under his breath, "I forgot to fully charge the armor unit."
Axl-Death openly stared at the punk blonde. Slowly, his hands clenched into tight fists, and a growl of frustrated anger escaped his snarling lips. "...Zero... You are an idiot!"
Axl-Death lifted a single hand upwards. Black and gold light flashed outward in a blast of energy. And then – nothingness, as conscious thought went dark.