For you guys in the reviews of the last chapter saying that it was a reference from Ed Edd n Eddy…

YES!

YOU'RE SPOT ON! It was, and it's one of my ultimate favorite shows of all time, childhood was straight fire with that show along with Codename, Code Lyoko, Tom and Jerry, this list goes on. If you're wondering where I got that from, I recall the episode being Attack on Kanker or something like that. *snaps fingers* Anyways...

Just another day of saving lives and kicking bad-guy asses. Nothing unusual, of course.

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Another Day of Work

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Mahro, the city the four Troopers were in, was completely destroyed. The buildings have crumbled, and the streets were too ragged to walk through. Four culprits of this big mess were now facing the four Pride Troopers who came with the Commander, Kahseral. He had already had many of the civilians evacuated from the sight, just in time before the big baddies: Serya, Hyuni, Kosh and Steel could unveil a riveting bunch of attacks, and Kahseral called the Troopers in for this job. Cocotte, Vuon, Tupper, and Zoiray were the ones who showed up, and they were now engaged in a full on fight with the two women of this villainous quartet: Serya, and Hyuni.

A quick Zoiray-whirlwind sent Tupper's variable-weighted body towards the adversaries, who did have enough time to block but not fully repel the hefty duo-attack. Tupper's tenton body mass pushed them back to the point where their feet were planted within the ground. Serya, one of the opponents, turned both palms away from her forearms to energetically push Tupper off the both them.

Her other accomplice, Hyuni, supplemented the attack with a quick force of wind pressure that was strong enough to send Tupper back a dozen meters. She was about to send off another wave of wind when her wrist was grabbed from behind, and she turned around to see the very yellow lasso gripping her wrists. She was thrown backwards by Vuon, who jumped up while she was airborne and kicked her square in the bag, sending her flying into a pile of rocks.

"Hyuni!" Serya turned around, and in a moment of weakness she made herself open to a ki blast send off by Cocotte. She flew backwards but caught herself quickly, doing multiple backflips and catching herself to throw a horizontal ki blast at the female Pride Trooper. Cocotte swiped her hands in front of her to create a frontal barrier while running towards the adverse woman.

"You really think that's gonna be enough to stop me?" Cocotte scoffed a laugh, raising her hand with a charged blast in tow.

"No…" Serya smirked. "But this will…" She clapped her hands once, the same horizontal blast folded inwards to trap Cocotte and slam her right to the ground. Her black eyes lit up at the sight of victory.

"How dare you!" Zoiray flew upwards. He threw a barrage of ki blasts at Serya to keep her distracted while he went to Cocotte. Due of Serya dealing with Zoiray's blasts, she couldn't sustain the ki-hold on Cocotte and she broke free, Zoiray helped her up from the ground. "You alright?"

"I'm fine, I'm good." She smiled down at Zoiray, and turned towards Serya, who was emerging from the smoke cause by the blasts. The three looked at each other, and Serya looked at them. She let out a snide chuckle and charged at the two Pride Troopers who did the exact same, already rolling in for battle.

And speaking of rolling, Tupper's giant-mass body smashed right into the concrete divider that Hyuni was trying to hide behind of. She high jumped and was met with Vuon's fist. She blocked it, and the two exchanged punches and kicks before Hyuni dropkicked Vuon downwards. The dinosaur Pride Trooper landed on both his feet, just in time to whip away the sharp blasts Hyuni threw at him. They haphazardly hit different already collapsed buildings, debris and shrapnel flew around behind Vuon. Her forearm and his wrist made a harsh impact, the sheer force of her speed making Vuon plant his feet against the ground.

Tupper came in from the left with a somersault kick, hitting Hyuni's side. A wince erupted from her mouth, her heeled feet skidded against the ground as she placed both fists into the concrete surface to slow herself down. She looked forward, at the two Pride Troopers who were now side-by-side with one another.

Hyuni harrumphed, her husky voice went to a slightly foiled tone. "Take turns, gentlemen." She crossed her pink, toned arms. "Two on one seems quite unfair, don't you think?"

"We do whatever we will to knock you and your cohorts down." Vuon said, his purple eyes growing defiant. "Don't think you have the right to call on a fair fight!"

"Don't think you have what it takes to knock me down!" Hyuni crouched and dashed to the two with both palms outstretched. Her sharp pink ki blasts came towards them like discs, and Vuon and Tupper couldn't simply deflect them due to the magnitude of speed they were traveling. Hyuni flipped forwards and up into the air, placing two fingers in front of her palm and exacting V-formation ki blasts at the separated Pride Troopers. Vuon's feet hit the wall of a building, he ran horizontally on the wall as the blasts followed him and Tupper was far across from him. He skid against a ramped concrete floor before running until he was behind her scope of view and side stepping, distributing much weight to his feet and kicking a big rock towards Hyuni who was not facing him. She turned around too late, the rock had already hit her hard and made her stagger a bit in the air, stopping her ki assault and leaving her open to Vuon to attack.

"Don't you run from me!" On the other hand, Serya's horizontal ray-like ki blasts went towards Zoiray, who had backed away from her and deflected her attacks with his whirlwind. Cocotte zoomed forward, and the two women were kicking a blocking each other's hits before Serya got the upper hand, punching Cocotte square in the gut. The female Pride Trooper gasped in pain, and then was kneed so hard and fast she ended up flying backwards.

Zoiray made an attempt to go after Cocotte's flying body, but stopped when he saw Tupper jump forward to catch Cocotte before she'd make any fatal impact with a building wall. He turned towards Serya again… but she wasn't there.

"What the-"

Zoiray painfully winced when he felt a boot collide with his face from his side. His back hit a nearby pile of rocky rubble, and he quickly flipped himself back up and side jumpe to evade Serya's punch.

"Thanks." Cocotte smiled at Tupper, who gave her a sweet one back as well. She jumped from his arms and went to aid Zoiray. She kicked Serya on her neck, making the woman stumble forwards just as her accomplice fell right next to her after and attack Vuon threw her away. Then, the four Pride Troopers stood side by side, raising their palms and charging up ki of different colors. Vuon, Zoiray, Cocotte, and Tupper combined their blasts together, going off in a swirl that traveled faster than both Serya and Hyuni could dodge.

"JUSTICE STREAM!"

The two villain accomplices screamed as their bodies were being overtaken by the heated blast of the four heroes, their screams fading as the area in and around them became a fiery trail of the blast's aftermath. The building wall behind them blew apart and collapsed under the force of the blast, lighting up the vicinity in an orange hue. The four Pride Troopers stood tall and high, before turning away from the large scale explosion, the heat making any hair on their heads blow softly.

Somewhere ahead of the others, Kosh was busy looking over the destruction of the city. He was far above in the air, just before the clouds that would touch his forehead. The man was about a hundred feet tall, and mostly made of silver metal though parts of him were organic. He smirked down at the Pride Troopers splitting up to handle the two strong females, but then that smug look on his face was wiped when he saw how they were instantly taken down by the four Troopers.

"How in the…" He shook his head, to ward off the worry of losing two helper-hands at the palms of the heroes themselves. Kosh crossed his arms and was about to zoom down to the very ground to end these Troopers off, but was stopped when the air around him got scarily cold and still.

Before he knew it, something hit him faster than he could register it as even an impact, and he was sent flying at least hundreds of times faster than a fighter jet.

"Has everyone been cleared?" Tupper held his watch up, speaking to the Commander on the other end.

"Yes, the civilians have evacuated safely. I haven't seen the other two men who were involved in the destruction ye-" Kahseral suddenly cut himself off, the call was on but he was interrupted by something.

"Kahseral? Kahseral, come in, Kahseral!" Almost instantly, Vuon reacted with much concern to the sudden interruption.

Zoiray floated upwards towards Tupper's watch. "What happened over there?"

Kahseral sounded really confused on the other end. "...Something just zipped across the sky and made a weird noise as it did so."

"What thing?" Zoiray asked, and Cocotte pointed up at the sky because said thing was actually in their view. As it got rapidly closer, it sounded like a male screaming, and looked like a giant metal construct of some sort. The guy barely swooped several meters above every single one of the confuzzled Pride Troopers' head at terminal speed, before slamming back-first into a hard, foundation-clad wall behind them.

When the dust settled, all they saw was Kosh's sprawled out body against the wall, before he fell stomach down to the floor with a pained grunt that ironically made his voice crack.

Zoiray, Cocotte, Tupper and Vuon all blinked while approaching this dude who was a part of the destructive quartet. Usually, they would have dispatched of him in an instant because of his affiliation, but Kosh flew so fast and was slammed into the wall so hard that they initially had to check to see if he wasn't mangled and dead already, which he wasn't because he did grunt.

Kosh shakily brought himself up, looking down the ground and then all around the concrete floor. "...How did I get here?"

"You… flew." Vuon was the first to break his group's silence by answering Kosh's question as best as he could, because they honestly don't know how the heck he ended up turning into a failed rocketship.

"Well yeah, but…" Kosh was way too confused to fully take into account that he was talking to the very people that he was supposed to smack down. Let's just say this interaction is due to everyone still being under the rouse of shock. "I was up in the air and then I'm down here."

"Maybe you like… got hit by something?" Zoiray shrugged. "Or your confused butt forgot how to fly."

"I know how to fly, short stack!"

"Watch your tone with me, toasty!"

"Why are you guys arguing?" Tupper looked at the two, bringing everyone back to reality. "We're supposed to be fighting."

"... You're right on behalf of that." Kosh now got up, and he suddenly raised his hand. "Now die!"

Energy blades came hurling from Kosh's right, hitting him and initially making him lose his balance before he was completely thrown off track by a few meters the other way. Kosh made a weird sound as he was being hit, once again rendered to being airborne, and then groaning in pain and annoyance when his face skidded against the ground. Kahseral's boots landed against the ground he 'sheathed' his energy blades when he saw his fellow Trooper gang.

"I had to follow the direction of this thing, I didn't know what it was." The Commander said, now that he had the civilians moved somewhere else he could help his squad with this giant strong man.

Unfortunately for Kosh, due to being slapped down at an unregistrable speed by who knows what, his energy pool was lower than normal. These five Troopers against him at this point would be overkill, so he held his wrist to his face while still on the ground. "Steel!"

A whole line of explosions started erupting around and in the already destroyed buildings, amongst the fiery atmosphere out jumped a man with electrically charged fist. He was about a hundred feet in the air, and when his feet slammed down on the ground the entire surface shook with electrical currents strong enough to make the Pride Troopers jump up from being electrocuted. His knees raised from the ground, and while his gaze was downcast, he raised both hands to light up the sky above the Pride Troopers with electrical bolts that went out their way to seek every single one of his adversaries.

Zoiray attempted to whirlwind himself again, but the simple act cause the currents around them to get stronger, and he zapped right on his back. Cocotte opened up a large dimension bubble that encapsulated every Trooper with her before they could get hurt any further.

"Don't hide in that bubble of yours!" Steel zoomed forward and put both his wrists together with his palms outstretched, emitting a large electric impulse that forced Cocotte to put her hands against the bubble to maintain it. From behind came a supercharged Kosh, who gotten much of his energy back from Steel's shock incursion, started punching at the energetically conjured bubble, making it diminish slowly with the impact of his fists.

"Damn it…" Cocotte was struggling to keep her barrier up, it was breaking up from the combined electrical interference both Steel and Kosh were making. No one could step out because they would risk being electrocuted, even though they were all powered up Cocotte still struggling to maintain the dimension. Kosh reeled his fist all the way back, and with a loud roar, he punched so hard that the entire bubble collapsed completely, the Pride Troopers having to attempt blocking out some currents with their ki alone. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough, pretty much everyone ended up getting horridly affected by the electricity in almost no time.

Kosh propelled himself real high into the air, and charged up a super attack that brightened the door colored sky. Steel clasped his hands together, every digit brought out a current that surged the surface of the ground, serving as a large scale power up for the mech that was about to throw down the final, fatal attack.

"Now, heroes," Steel's silver radiant eyes gleamed maliciously, "You cannot escape this grasp from the height that you being held at."

The electrical tendrils went around the five Troopers, painfully electrocuting their bodies but not enough to knock any of them out, prolonging the torture. The light from Kosh's attack disappeared, and Steel continued. "You will face death here in this deadened city. This is where you end." He stopped charging up the ground around him, and looked up at his mech subordinate with an evil sneer. "Kosh!"

… But Kosh wasn't there.

Steel frowned deeply, he still held the Pride Troopers in the air with the airborne reactor he created. He leaned to his right as if trying to get a better glimpse of the sky, and to his left, and then he blinked in confusion. "Uhh… Kosh?" He was up there just several seconds ago, how could he possibly vanish into thin air that fast?

Without warning, a bullet-like object penetrated through the same reactor Steel had made; judging from how quickly it was gaining speed, this bullet has been falling for a long time, at least about a few miles above where he was. It shot right through a couple walls before hitting the gas outlet of a truck, causing the truck to explode into fiery bits behind Steel. The force of the bullet's speed cause the reactor to go haywire, releasing Tupper, Cocotte, Kahseral, Zoiray and Vuon from their grasp. The five hit the ground in thuds, as Steel looked up at the sky, or where the reactor was supposed to be.

"NO!" He looked frantically around, looking for the source of the bullet, or at least what he thought was a bullet. He then looked over to where the bullet stricken, and ran to the area after the dust had settled, leaving everyone else wincing at their bodies retaliation from the electricity, and looking over to where this dude was running off to.

It wasn't far from where he was, only about thirty feet behind his previous point, so when Steel moved the bits and pieces of concrete and debris off, he was surprised to see a weird looking inch-long capsule with…

"What the h- KOSH?!"

Oh, and Kosh's giant hundred-feet metal arse was sealed in it too.

Steel turned to give a vilifying look at the Pride Troopers, who were now standing and looking at where he was. "What sort of magic gimmicks are you Troopers pulling off now?"

The five were confused as to what he was talking about, but that shouldn't stop them from taking care of the matter at hand. If they were to see the little capsule that Steel had found, they would have known just what he meant…

Pushing the possible questions aside, Kahseral raised his hand before pulling it down with a fist. "You and your posse trashed this entire city for your own selfish gains. We will not allow this injustice to stand!"

All Steel could do is glare at the Commander, the very last bits of his electrical fuselage were completely used up, and it would take a while to recharge them. And by a while, that meant longer-than-punching-these-Troopers-into-oblivion long. So basically, at this point, he was defenseless.

But that didn't mean his mouth wasn't. "And? What can you possibly do to me? You're all weakened to the point where none of you could do any of those fancy moves on me." Obviously, Steel was saying this to hide the fact that someone like Vuon could smack this dude and he'll cry out in pain. It sucks having all your granted power taken away from you.

"That doesn't mean anything for us." Cocotte held her hand up anyways to throw out a ki blast. The blast itself wasn't even that powerful, but Steel only managed to partially dodge it, the rest of it hit his side and made him wince audibly. Steel faltered a little holding his right abdomen, he made a tiny noise that sounded like he just got kicked in the balls and lost the bass in his voice for a nanosecond.

"Now, villain." As petty as it might seem to the common eye, Kahseral mocked Steel's earlier monologue while he had them trapped under his currents. He and the four Troopers walked closer to him simultaneously, Kahseral placed his hands on his hips. "You're nothing without your three subordinates, every plan you had has been foiled. Surrender while you have the chance."

Steel looked really, really offended at the brashness of this hatted-Commander's tone. He slowly stood up, and angrily walked past the heroic quintet while scoffing loudly. "You really think I'm gonna just kneel down and let you all take me?" He turned around completely to face all of them. "How delusional, I would slap everyone single one of you Pride Troopers before you could even attempt to register the fact that I hit you." He keep talking as he was backing up, every single one of the Pride Troopers went oddly silent. "None of you fucks could do anything to me, nobody in your circle do come close to-"

Steel's body legitimately froze the second he felt some rock hard body against his own back and head. He didn't move, he didn't blink, he didn't even look like he was breathing, all he did was stare straight forward. For a moment, he raised his arm up to make sure that he wasn't hallucinating, and moved it a little behind him. The back of his hand did make contact with a taut and hard bicep, and that's when he realized this might just be the only Grey of the universe right behind him, the actual unbeatable hero… right in front of his back.

Everything in Steel's face screamed that he may have shat himself just now.

The five Pride Troopers looked at Steel, and then up at Jiren, and then back at Steel. The man was now tensing every muscle in his body, and then he swallowed hard. "Ohh…" He quickly shut his mouth, what else can you possibly say after shit talking for so long and then having some universe-buster tier dude right behind you? What do you, a brave villain in that matter, do at that very moment? That's right, you don't back the fuck down.

Perhaps… perhaps fear breeds some of the best worst instincts in a few of us, yes?

Steel slowly looked down at his left hand, barely moving his face as he did so. He angled his hand, and then looked down at the ground, feigning defeat for a moment. Suddenly, in a swift turn and a quick warcry, Steel held his palm out and spun around, purposely slapping the Grey's upper bicep. Jiren didn't even move from the contact, he didn't even react, he just looked down at the crafty Steel who looked mildly confused. Then, Steel cocked his neck back, and looked down at his hand.

It was broken.

Steel held his wrist as he screamed at the sudden pain that wracked his arm. The rest of the Pride Troopers exchanged awed looks at the trepidity, and stupidity, of Steel. "AHHH, HOW THE FUCK?!"

Jiren kept his arms crossed. "Fool."

Vuon raised a brow while blinking. "...Did he just slap Jiren's arm and break his own hand?"

"Yup. He did." Zoiray nodded slowly. Cocotte sighed and shook her head.

Tupper smiled. "Another meme in the books, guys."

Cocotte leaned a litte. "Did Jiren even move?"

"Nope." Vuon shook his head.

Steel was too busy knelt over with his left hand held to talk anymore shit now. He was looking down at the ground while yelping in pain, both Jiren's boots were visible to him. He continued leaning forward on his knees until his head touched the ground, all the while making noises of pain as he did so.

"Get up."

Reality snapped Steel right back as he paused to look up at the Grey in front of him. Steel shook, the other Pride Troopers were lowkey smirking hard over this guy's betaness. Steel brought his ass right the heck up, because what else are you supposed to do when Jiren orders you to do something? Go against it?

Steel couldn't even look him in the eyes. Jiren didn't need to put in effort to fully break the pride in this electric man's bravado; he didn't beat it out of him, he didn't even move from his spot. His deep, smooth voice showed seldom irritation at the man before him, but it was serious, and all he said was one word:

"Surrender."

And just like that, Steel dropped to his knees, looking more defeated than a world class cricketer. Kahseral, Zoiray, every single one of the Pride Troopers seriously did not expect to see Jiren here at all. Kahseral approached and grabbed Steel by the wrists, of someone who created a mess of this magnitude, they should be sentenced.

"Come with me." He pulled Steel up to his feet and looked at the fellow silent Grey. "Thank you, Jiren." The Pride Troopers gave their bits of gratitude for Jiren stepping in so quickly, albeit they didn't know he was around the area for quite a while.

Which made Vuon question… "Jiren, were you the one who threw that metal guy into a building?"

He nodded.

Kahseral was busy sending him off to the global police of this particular planet, which left the four Troopers alone with Jiren. Zoiray frowned. "Where did he even go?"

"I sealed him."

"What?" Tupper's eyes went wide. "How'd you seal him that fast?"

"He was in the air." Jiren said, which further solidified that bullet-thingy that flew down and saved the Troopers. "I took him and sealed him."

We can't ask how Jiren just took some hundred-and-then-some feet metal dude and just sealed him with such finesse, that would be too many questions in one sitting and we already know Jiren gives some of the simplest, elusive answers.

The police force of this planet came by as the Troopers went around looking for any possible civilians who haven't left the area, as well as notifying the city ministers of that villains being quarantined. There were a few, in which the citizens showed much gratitude in thanking and praising them. Their work here, was done.

A relay ship was brought to take the Troopers back to a base after they had finished. Zoiray, Vuon, Tupper, Cocotte and Kahseral were about to enter the ship before realizing that they were missing another person.

"Wait," Vuon turned around to see Jiren walking in the opposite direction of the ship's stairs, "Jiren, where are you going?"

He did stop, and turned his head to the side to address Vuon. "I'm leaving the planet."

"Are you gonna go meditate?" Tupper asked. "We can just drop you off at another far away planet."

"No."

Was all Jiren said at first, which left the others very confused. So the Grey decided to stipulate on behalf of why he didn't want to be taxied to a rogue planet. "The ship is too slow."

...Okay, most spaceships in Universe 11 travel at least 216 million C's; to put that in perspective the slowest ship would take around 4 hours to travel across our Milky Way galaxy, from one end to another. This spaceship was hypersonic, meaning it goes above 1 billion C's and takes less than an hour to go across our galaxy. The ship was about 2000 times faster than light… and that's too slow?

"Uhh… well, alright." Tupper blinked. With that, Jiren flew off and into the atmosphere, out of the planet and into space. The quintet looked up momentarily, and then looked at each other and collectively shrugged.

Zoiray looked down at his watch. "You guys wanna play a game when we get back to Netfiss?" The five did consider the idea, and Vuon nodded.

"Alright then." He completely entered the ship. "I call shotgun on first player."

"I came up with the idea first!" Zoiray's little feet stomped on the ground. "I automatically get dibs on being the first player."

"Why do you guys wanna be the first player so bad?" Cocotte shook her head. "It's not that serious."

Both Vuon and Zoiray, since they are two out of the three members that play video games, turned around at the same time with defensive looks. "Yes it is!"

Tupper chuckled, scratching his mustache. "Let them be. They'll solve it amongst themselves when we get there."

"No, this must be handled now." Vuon and Zoiray looked at each other, as if this was a WWE match they approached one another and got into similar crouching stances. Then, they both raised an arm… before intensely rock, paper, scissoring each other over this squabble.

Kahseral shook his head with a chuckle, looking down and tapping against his watch. "I'll call Dyspo and tell him to load up the console. I'm sure the rest of the guys would love to hear about what occurred today..."

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I didn't even realize I lowkey referenced a character from Akame ga kill… Is that the right name? I dunno, you tell me.

Bruh, okay… you know what's ironic? Steel claimed he'd slap everyone before they could react to it, but then slapped Jiren and took too long to realize his hand was broken. Boi…

This chapter took quite a while to come out. I've just been dealing with things that had me down in the drain for a while. It's not gone, but it will be.

See you in the next one!