A/N: I know it's WAY late, but I couldn't find time to just sit down and write out a mega scene like this. So here you go. The overdue chapter that I've been promising.
Sidenote: Concept hit me like a ton of bricks. Title was a bit harder. Then I came up with it. And tied it back to a song. Lyrics are a lil' somethin' like "So try to look in my eyes/And tell me you're not surprised". I'll give you the artist at the end if I can think of it. Also, set prior to "Six Minus Six". I mean, set in the future, but minus the events in that specific episode.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. At all.
As The World Keeps Spinning
The Keep hovered over the desert wasteland of Abysus. Rex watched through windblown goggles as Providence soldiers in their crisp white and black uniforms dropped from the craft into the barren world below. Ropes tied them to the ship until they were low enough to unhook and fall onto the cracked earth close to the Nanite Keeper's castle. The Hispanic teen gave a quick look back to Holiday, who shot him a quick thumbs-up, and then the EVO dropped from the Keep to fight with his comrades.
At nearly the same time, a small, cylindrical ship shot from a larger port in the bottom of the Keep, Cesar's tiny lab dropping down with a warrior and a scientist inside. The Hispanic scientist looked to Six, the green-suited ninja holding onto a counter and other grounded items for dear life. Of course Cesar didn't kick in the actual flight part of the craft until they'd nearly been smashed into pieces on the ground.
Wings shot out of Rex's back as the Boogie Pack spread out behind him. The whirring of the rotating blades was music to his ears as the fierce winds began to spray dust at his face. He could taste war in the air. A smile planted itself on his features. Finally. They were taking the fight to Van Kleiss. At last. Cesar had been smart enough to take the initiative to insist that Providence take out their enemy once and for all instead of waiting for something to happen. Rex had been wishing for something like this all along. A reason to ruin his rival once and for all. He dove down and flew over the heads of the troops as they marched towards the dirt castle surrounded by thick vines and black stone figures. This was the fight he'd been waiting for.
"You think they'll be alright?" asked Bobo, loading his weapons into their holsters while holding onto the rope. His one good eye was scanning below for Cesar's soaring lab and for the familiar orange of Rex's machines.
"I'm not waiting around to find out." Holiday had already grabbed onto her own rope, wrapped her legs around it, and, with a gun in her lab coat, had begun the plummeting descent to the world of Abysus below. She wasn't going to wait around to see bodies come back rather than going out there and protected her boys herself. Besides, she knew how to pack heat just as the other soldiers did. What was the difference on the field? They'd stop Van Kleiss either way.
Bobo dropped soon after, his toes clinging to the rope as his arms stretched down into the empty air below, one holding onto his fez as the other was at his waist, ready to grasp his weapon when necessary.
Rex was the first to reach the fortress. The Boogie Pack was sucked back into his back, the machine vanishing as fast as it had appeared. He peeled the goggles from his mahogany eyes and watched as the rest of the troops march in like the commander would of his soldiers. Sadly, Knight was prisoner in his nanite-free room.
Cesar's lab landed nearby just as the warriors were nearing the castle, the thrumming of rhythmic footsteps making the ground shake like an earthquake. Six was the first one out; he didn't even bother to use the elevator. Jumping seemed easier for someone so adapted to ninja-like moves. Katanas slid out of his sleeves. "You ready?" he asked his partner, eyes behind the glasses looking over the boy to be sure he was prepared for anything they would come up against in that house of horrors that Van Kleiss called a home.
The elevator to Cesar's lab hissed as it lowered him to the ground. With a victorious glint in his eyes, he patted his weapon and gave a confident, "I'm ready!" He knew the question was not directed at him. He drew his magnetic weapon, a little shock zapping off the end of it into the air between the three.
"Me too." Smirking, he pulled his goggles down again, nodded to his partner, and let the Punk Busters unleash themselves, replacing his legs. "So let's get this show on the road!" With one massive leap, he was on the hill leading up to the fortress, malice glowing in his brown-tinted orbs.
After shooting a brief, unseen glare at Cesar, Six followed his apprentice on swift feet, tie flying over one shoulder as he moved with the speed of Hermes. His katanas had been sharpened the night before; Six was ready for anything.
Cesar stood and waited until all the troops had moved past him. They were in rows of five and there were at least twenty columns. Yet he couldn't help but think that a hundred of these trained Providence fighters couldn't stop the forces about to be unleashed inside this castle. He moved forth, slowly and steadily, watching as even Bobo and Holiday surged through the ranks of Providence agents to get to the frontlines.
Biowulf was the first to show up in the corridors of the fortress. He howled out an alarm only to have a Punk Buster slam him to the floor. Rex continued on, letting a row of agents and Six carry out the rest of that battle. He had retreated to his Rex Ride and was zipping down the halls with blood boiling in his veins; he had bigger fish to fry, Van Kleiss in particular.
Silver blades slashed out, scraping metallic skin and leaving mere marks on the cybernetic body. It was scarcely a dent. The half-machine, half-dog creature stood back up, and, with a roar, unleashed his claws upon Six, talons against katanas. The ninja kept up his slashing, dodging claws here and there, only taking a set of five bloodied marks across one pale cheek. Rage building, he fought harder.
Holiday rushed past, watching as her hero and approximately ten of Providence's warriors took on the one lone wolf. She moved on at Bobo's call of "Doc, this way!" She wasn't fighting for Six. She was fighting for Providence. Move along.
Vibrant ruby and ebony portals ripped out of thin air and swallowed about half of the army that had been marching through Abysus. Rows and columns of men vanished with just a swipe of a gateway into what could be another dimension, another time, or another country. Or maybe she was just dumping them all outside the castle. All they could do was be swallowed. A few screamed. Sometimes a splash could be heard as uniformed men fell into oceans or lakes around the world. More than once, Holiday thought she could hear the raging roar of fire on the other side of the portal. She kept her goal in mind and kept moving forward.
Eyes ablaze and blood roaring in his ears, Rex let the Rex Ride fall away and instead let the Boogie Pack shoot out of his back as a portal ripped open in front of him and the horrible eyes of Breach stared out, beckoning him to be sucked in, to die a terrible death at her merciless hands. He soared over the portal and let the surviving agents take her out, the blasts of a few stray guns seeping into the hole and making the girl inside shut it quickly before a shot clipped her.
Another ripped open and sucked a few more of the Providence agents inside. A few more screams came loose and a few splashing deaths were relished as the four-armed girl stepped out of another crimson hole in the fabric of space and time. "So long," she breathed with that creepy voice before taking a quick shot in the back that had been delivered from the barrel of Bobo Haha's favorite toy: his gun, of course.
"So long to you too!" he hooted as she crumpled. He leapt over her unconscious body and followed his friend towards the head honcho of Abysus. No way was the chimp going to miss out on this one. The final fall of Van Kleiss… His yellowed teeth were bared as a smile touched his furry features.
Holiday trudged on, perfectly aware of Breach's barely breathing body and of how she'd left Six behind two halls to the left, three rights and a left back and how she'd last seen him a minute and twenty-two seconds ago. He could've been dead by now for all she knew.
A diamond shard stabbed into her shoulder; the doctor dropped like a ton of bricks at the sudden pain that coursed through her system. The heavy stone had pierced her skin and shattered a bone at the least, possibly both in her upper arm. Her other arm, the good one, raised the gun she'd kept in her lab coat and shot bullets at the target: Skalamander. Her vision was a tad fuzzy from the burning tears and the sudden loss of blood, but she carried on.
The bullets ricocheted off the monster's tough as nails skin. One left a wound along his leg that seeped blue blood. He gave a hideous roar and raised a crystalline fist to shoot out more of the jade-tinted diamonds at the onslaught of still-coming opponents. About ten of the hundred warriors were left; they fired their weapons, casings shooting out of the cartridge and onto the stone and dirt floors. Few penetrated his hardened green skin, but many of the Providence combatants took crystals in the chest and legs. They all dropped like flies.
Bobo, who had slipped past after Holiday had gone down, held his red weapon to the back of the beast's ugly head. When the monster's eye had been focused on the warriors at hand, the chimp had taken the liberty of putting a nice laser into the EVO's face. At point-blank, the massive body lurched and a groan was emitted before the beast went down, slamming into the stone ground and making the earth shudder beneath his weight.
With a quick move, Bobo was down and checking on Holiday. He took off his little red fez and pressed it around the massive diamond that still embedded itself in her shoulder. "I gotcha, Doc." He looked over his shoulder at the quickly disappearing form of Rex like a fading blip on the radar. He was going in to face the beast all alone. The primate looked back towards the hallways where they'd left Six facing Biowulf, hoping that the assassin would come out and go save Rex from getting killed.
Biowulf had dropped, heavy body shivering under the last blow that Six had scraped out of him. Two of the agents still remained beside him, the others just beaten and bruised bodies, victims of war. He touched the earwig and tried to call to Rex. "Rex, where are you?" There was no response, just static fizzing in his ear. "Rex?" When no response came, he hissed and motioned for the two remaining fighters to follow him. They did.
The corridors twisted and turned, but Six's eyes remained on the prize: finding Van Kleiss and ripping his throat out. The man didn't stop until he had come across Cesar. The man was standing there with the magnetic device. A quirky smile had planted itself on his cold, crisp, straight-line lips. "Six." His finger pushed the button.
Splintering, splitting, earth-shattering pain shot through Six like someone had just stabbed a dagger of agony into his soul. He let out a crisp, broken cry; his hands clasped his head, and he fell down, shoulder hitting the cold ground first. It felt like everything was about to fall apart, that the world was shattering around him, tearing at the seams, that reality was ripping itself apart-
Rex caught sight of the EVO on his throne, a mound of molded dirt and mud. Machines pulled back into his body as he watched the king of Abysus rise to his feet, terror in his eyes. "Rex," breathed the king, horror evident in his cold, scared voice, "what have you done?" He swallowed down his fear, body stiff with the realization of what the teen had wrought upon him.
"I brought my army," said the kid, voice cocky as the BFS ripped out of his shoulder, the tip of the blade rotating on the axis at maximum speed. "That's what I did." A smirk appeared on his tanned features, dark eyes glimmering with victory already. He could see the panic on Van Kleiss's face.
"Rex." The man's eyes came back after a quick search of the premises with his plants and nanites. "You don't understand what you've done." His breathing was harsh and his mouth was a straight, tense line. "You brought your brother."
One of Rex's brows quirked in confusion, the confidence that had consumed him suddenly fading like fog at dawn. "What about Cesar?"
"The doc needs help," said Bobo, looking up to the elder Salazar. He'd tried to keep the dark-haired woman from bleeding out, but Holiday had already fallen unconscious, and the chimp was torn between the lady and his friend. Bobo was completely aware of how dire a situation Rex was in with facing Van Kleiss all alone. "Can you take care o' her? I gotta go help Re-"
The sonic sound reverberated through his skull, sending searing pain through his body. The monkey cringed and took his furry hands away from Rebecca's bleeding form and tried to keep his brain from exploding inside his skull. A howl of pain, an animalistic scream, erupted from Bobo, and he fell to his side. The blackness consumed him after that.
Holiday was lucky she was already unconscious.
Cesar moved on.
"Your brother is the reason behind the event, Rex." The severity in the king's voice was harsh and scolding. "He turned you into a monster; he's the reason you can't remember anything." His dark eyes glared and yet held a fear deeper than anything imaginable. Cesar would be the death of him. Today would be his final day. Van Kleiss just knew. "He has no limit, can't you see that?"
"Why should I believe you?" asked the teen, a grimace pulling his mouth taut. "You've always lied to me!"
"Because it's not just my life at stake here, Rex!" This was the first time the EVO had ever seen desperation in his enemy. "We're both going to die if we do not stop him together! He's going to kill us all!"
Rex took a moment, considering his options. Van Kleiss… had been generally unreliable. But Cesar… was a little messed up. Both were questionable, but for some reason, Rex's faith seemed to lie in the king of Abysus. With a sharp intake of air, he turned and pushed a finger into his earwig. "Six, do you copy?"
No response.
He tried again. "Six?"
Static. Emptiness.
"Doc, you there?"
There was nothing from Holiday either.
One last attempt. "Bobo?"
Silence.
Footsteps came from the hall, sharp and fast. "Rex," said Cesar's voice as the elder Salazar appeared from the shadows like Death himself. In his hand was his little magnetic device, finger hovering over the button, a cobra ready to strike. "It's good to see you left some of Kleiss for me to help with." He gave his brother a charming smile.
A dark dirty seed of suspicion was already planted in Rex's mind. He kept his sword out; it was aimed at his brother rather than his opponent. "Yeah. He said he wanted to see you." Part of him was panicking over Six and the others, but this was the present, this was now. He couldn't be worried about his adopted family when the present moment had his own life on the line.
It was fast when black vines stabbed their way into the open air under Van Kleiss's control. They aimed blows at the scientist only to be swiftly dodged with ninja-like moves. Cesar jumped over one, ducked under another, and took one quick step backwards to dodge the third. And he began to move forward, weapon held up in his hand like a torch ready to set the witch's stake on fire.
More vines jolted out of the earth to be dodged. It was when Van Kleiss and Cesar were a mere yard away from each other that the button was finally pressed.
A scream ripped from the EVO, and he dropped to his knees, fear radiating from his bones, his scream pained. Agony seared through his body, burning his limbs and veins. Such a frequency- He lay dead a moment later.
Rex, not as close, had been hit with a bit of the aftershock of it. He'd heard the magnetic forces in his nanites and felt them ripping at his insides. The Omega-1 had reacted violently by creating more and more nanites to kept itself safe, to divert the magnetic pull; Rex had felt it. His eyes like a fire's dying embers watched as his brother kicked the EVO king's body to make sure that life had been ended. The teen watched as his brother turned on his heels and began to move towards his brother.
"Your turn."
A/N: Review?
~Sky
P.S. I think the song I mentioned at the top A/N was by NJATA… Jsyk.
