-9- CATACLYSM
Stumbling through his surroundings of destroyed machinery, fallen walls, and massive debris, Cosmo's mind writhed and kicked. An assault on his consciousness was taking place, translating into the world of his surroundings as a wild, panicked breakdown. Through it all, Cosmo remained mute. He only ran and tripped, tumbled and fell repeatedly, all sense of location gone.
Within his mind was chaos. He had been greeted by visions before, haunted by voices and their warnings. But the visions and the voices returned with overwhelming aggression. Image after image poured through Cosmo's mind, having no idea he was erratically moving through the ruins of a giant building. The white void, the beach, images of a city that changed by the second. Sounds of explosions, screams, moments of peace, before the cacophony resumed. But amidst the barrage of sounds in his mind, the voice from before, the one who had assigned him his name returned. It uttered its words with great urgency.
"Cosmo…" came the voice, deep, loud and booming.
"Hear us, Cosmo…" came the addition of a second, less familiar voice he had not heard since his awakening in the ruins. The visions bombarding Cosmo's thoughts slowed in their intensity for a brief moment, replaced instead by the white void. The void however was occupied by rows and rows of the metal spheres Cosmo had seen from the vision before. He stood surrounded by them, peering into each one but unable to see their contents like before. The spheres extended as far as Cosmo could see, infinite and unending.
"He has found us…" the first voice said, echoing through the void. "We will not survive."
"You must remember, Cosmo…" the second voice followed up. "Remember who you are. One of us…you are one of us."
"You will never see us again…" the first voice warned forebodingly. "This is the end for us. But you must go on. Do not let him succeed. You are our last hope…" As those words from the first voice he heard echoed into the void, Cosmo began watching as the metal spheres entered a spiraling roll around him, slowly gaining speed until they became spinning gray blurs from where he stood. The fast-moving blurs of gray that were once those metal spheres eventually took over the void, going from a flat white to a gray static. But no longer did Cosmo feel overwhelmed by the vision. A calm was overcoming him, and as it did, the two voices uttered in a whispering unison, "He is here…"
The gray void Cosmo was standing in darkened to pure black and from the corners of his vision blue streaks began arching their way onto the black background he was standing in. The slithering tentacles of blue swirled around each other, alive with movement until they began colliding in blotches. This mysterious color scheme was that of the goo from his vision before, and that of his own body recalling the reflection he looked at in the ocean from his first vision. He could not articulate it, but he felt a kinship with these colors, and when the blue and black in his vision began to slowly vanish, he felt disappointment and a longing to look at them again.
The black background became the labyrinth of ruins he had been waking up from his visions in, the blue swirls becoming the white sky that could be seen through the great openings in the ceiling of that pit. Cosmo found himself lying on the ground again, his limbs aching. He examined his surroundings, and while still ruins indeed, they were different than the ones he remembered first waking in.
Cosmo tried standing up, every part of him stiff. He remembered the words of the voices speaking to him through visions, began pondering their meaning.
The questions he was asking himself came to an abrupt halt when he heard two more voices in the distance. For a moment, he thought they were the cryptic voices from his visions, but unlike those voices these two new ones were not echoing. They were temporal. They were voices of beings sharing these ruins with Cosmo. They were physically near Cosmo.
Something about this terrified him. Cosmo forced himself onto his weak feet, panicking and looking around for somewhere to hide. The voices were drawing closer, unintelligible from their distance to him. Cosmo looked for a large piece of rubble or debris to conceal himself behind, but was stopped when the sources of the voices appeared not far from where he stood behind other ruins. Cosmo stood frozen in unexplainable fear, and as he stood unmoving, the two beings who had been talking in the distance caught sight of him.
"Hey!" the red and yellow one of them shouted, waving at Cosmo. This broke Cosmo's frozen stance as his fear escalated into a panicked dash away from the two figures that had just appeared.
"No, hey, wait!" the same voice repeated, but Cosmo refused to look back or respond. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him into the surrounding ruin to hide from these strange newcomers to his environment. He had no desire to speak with them or look at them, they were too alien and strange. In his panic and uncoordinated, stumbling running, Cosmo eventually felt his right foot become caught on a piece of metal sticking out of the rubble ground. The force of his run coupled with this abrupt obstacle sent Cosmo off his balance and crashing onto the ground. In yet more pain, Cosmo began crawling away rather than running. As he did, he turned his head briefly to look behind him. The two newcomers were running after him, and this accelerated his crawling. He eventually tried using his elbows to lift himself back onto his feet when he found himself approaching a dead end. He looked for anywhere else to run, but found himself only being able to turn and face his mysterious pursuers.
The two figures, one with a yellow face and in yellow and red armor, the other in with a blue face and in blue and red armor, stopped in their chase when they saw Cosmo had been trapped. Both of them were holding boxes and guns of some sort.
"It's okay!" the yellow and red armored one from before insisted. "We're not here to hurt you." Cosmo could not shake his fear of them and did not respond. The two beings slowly began moving toward Cosmo, further trapping him where he sat on the ground.
"We just want to talk," the other blue and red armored one said. "Here." Then he set his gun and box on the ground and stuck his hands up in the air. He looked at his friend and motioned for him to do the same. The yellow and red one too set his gear on the ground next to him and raised his hands.
"See?" the yellow and red one began. "We only want to talk." As the two began boxing Cosmo in where he was sitting, the blue and red one neared him with his right hand extended outward to Cosmo.
"Take my hand," he offered, shaking his hand gently to indicate his willingness to help Cosmo up. As there was no escape from his position, Cosmo accepted whatever was to come next and reluctantly stuck his own hand to link with the newcomer's. The two clasped hands and the blue and red newcomer tugged Cosmo up slowly.
"There you go," he said. "On your feet." Cosmo's stance as he was helped to his feet was still shaky, and the newcomer that had offered his hand moved next to him and put his hand on his back to help him stand.
"Don't freak him out, Tag," the yellow and red one said. The blue and red one, "Tag," shot a brief glare of annoyance before returning to help Cosmo. As Cosmo stood up, he finally felt firm in his stance. He looked at his hands and where he stood. He then turned to this "Tag" and then to his yellow and red armored companion. All of them stood at roughly the same height, and Cosmo further examined their appearances. Although the colors of their bodies were different than his, he recognized the design. Recalling again the vision where he looked at his reflection in the ocean, Cosmo realized he too shared that same common design. This realization subdued any lingering fears he had about these two. Cosmo decided in his mind that they were not his enemies.
"Okay, you alright?" the blue and red one asked. Cosmo knew he was being spoken to, but could not muster the words to respond. He knew what words to say, but ever since his strange awakening in these lands he had never once opened his mouth to voice anything he was thinking. Conversation was an ever more worrisome proposition.
"Right," the blue and red newcomer said, accepting that he was talking to a near-mute. "Well, I'm sorry we scared you back there, but we didn't know any other way to speak with you other than to just come to you."
"Hopefully you'll speak back," the yellow and red one added in a bullying tone.
"James, shut up," the blue and red newcomer said to his companion. He then turned to look at Cosmo again with a welcoming smile.
"That's another thing," he said. "Perhaps we should introduce ourselves before we presume permission to speak with you." The blue and red one placed his hand on his chest, continued, "My name is Taggart Meltforge." Cosmo understood then the nickname "Tag." Taggart then motioned with his hand behind him to his yellow and red armored friend, said, "And this is-"
"James Burnweld," the one named James interrupted, moving up with a nod of his head and wave of his hand. "A pleasure. And you are?" Both James and Taggart then looked at Cosmo, who still found himself unable to say anything. His mouth hung dumbly open in nervousness, his eyes darting between James and Taggart.
"Oh boy," James mumbled. "Come on, you've got to have a name."
"Give him some space, James," Taggart said in embarrassment. "We probably scared him chasing him here." Taggart then looked at Cosmo, said, "Didn't we?" Cosmo suddenly found the ability to respond, but only in the form of a nervous nod of his head.
"A response, incredible," came James again.
"This was your idea," Taggart argued.
"I thought our friend here was going to be cooperative," James said meeting Cosmo with his own eyes. "Especially considering he's one of us." Something about what James said triggered a physical reaction in Cosmo, a twitch and a shiver. Both Taggart and James were startled by this.
"Something wrong?" James asked. It was only after James' words that Cosmo found the strength to speak.
"One…of us…" he said in a whisper. Cosmo himself was surprised at his voice, one he never remembered having heard. It was a low, deep voice that surprised even Taggart and James.
"Yeah…" James continued awkwardly. "You're one of us, a citizen. That not occur to you?"
"Citizen…" Cosmo repeated slowly.
"Do you know what citizen robots are?" James asked, this time more sincerely. Cosmo only looked at him in confusion.
"Wait a minute," Taggart began. "Do you know where you are?" Cosmo looked back at both of them before shaking his head.
"You're kidding," James said, discouraged. "Do you even know what happened here?" Again, Cosmo shook his head. Taggart and James looked at each other in sudden comprehension of what was happening.
"You…don't remember anything?" Taggart asked. Cosmo shook his head again.
"James," Taggart said. "He must've lost his memory during the Cataclysm."
"Oh, this is great," James said with a roll of his eyes.
"Cataclysm?" Cosmo asked.
"The Makuhero Cataclysm, the burning of the city, the end of the Hero Factory. Any of this ring a bell?" Cosmo searched his blank mind for any connections to those words, but found nothing and shook his head again.
"You must have gotten knocked out during the Cataclysm," Taggart assumed.
"Do you at least have a name we can call you by?" James asked with little hope in his voice. It took time again for Cosmo to respond, but he had been growing ever more comfortable with his newfound company and eventually responded.
"C-cosmo," he replied, as if unsure of his own name.
"Cosmo?" Taggart asked to reconfirm.
"Yes, Cosmo." The second time, Cosmo felt more confident in the name. He was increasingly certain it was his. But putting voice to that word, hearing it repeated back to him not in a vision but in reality triggered that same sense he felt when looking at the blue and black void he saw in his last vision. He longed to hear his name again, to understand it.
"Wonderful, now that the mingling has commenced," James said somewhat sarcastically. "Do you remember anything about this place? Maybe, like where Quaza was stored?"
"James!" Taggart spat back.
"Quaza?" Cosmo asked.
"Yes, it's what we're here for," Taggart answered.
"And, it's why we came down looking for you," James continued. "We thought you might know where we could find Quaza. Clearly, that's out of the question."
"Listen, James," Taggart said, turning away from Cosmo to face his friend. "I'm trying to be welcoming to our new friend Cosmo here who you insisted we go after, on a journey you concocted on a whim."
"I don't want our buddy Cosmo to be dead weight," James defended. "If all he's going to do is wander around with no helpful information, then we don't need him."
"We might not need him, but he needs us. Who knows what he's been through? He's a fellow citizen and our kin, and we need to help him. We could take him back to Makurotown."
"And split the profits three ways with someone who did none of the work?" James asked in disbelief. "Forget it."
"If you're so confident we'll be rich from this trip, let alone survive it, I think it's a small price to pay, and a good deed to do."
"Who are you two?" Cosmo asked suddenly. James and Taggart looked at Cosmo in surprise.
"Didn't we just tell you?" James asked, heated from the boiling argument between him and Taggart.
"Yes, but…" Cosmo struggled to find the words he wanted, but managed, "Citizens…I do not remember…"
"Look," Taggart began, putting his hand on Cosmo's shoulder. "If you don't remember what happened, we can tell you, see if that jogs any memory." Cosmo looked at Taggart then at the less amused James, before nodding in agreement.
"Well," Taggart began. "Uh…where to start…well, this…" and Taggart extended his arms outward into the air of the ruins. "All this, here? These are the ruins of the Assembly Tower, which used to be the headquarters of the Hero Factory. Remember anything?"
"Hero Factory…" Cosmo repeated to himself.
"Right," Taggart continued patiently. "They ruled the universe for as long as we can remember. Outside of these ruins are the ruins of an entire city, 'greatest city in the universe' they said. The city was threatened many times but the 'Heroes,' who were the soldiers of the Hero Factory, they always protected us, as much as we hated them. And, yes, James and I lived in the city. We shared in a rundown apartment and worked in foundries."
"I worked the foundries," James corrected. "You did paperwork and bookkeeping."
"Someone had to do it, bub," Taggart spat back.
"You two were friends?" Cosmo asked. Taggart and James both laughed.
"Regrettably," James replied with good humor returning to his voice.
"Though I suppose you wouldn't guess that from looking at how we banter," Taggart admitted. "Our work brought us together. And though you might not remember it, somewhere in your past you also worked in this city, I'd assume anyway."
"What happened to the city?" Cosmo asked. Both Taggart and James looked to the ground somberly.
"Well, that…" Taggart stopped himself.
"That's sort of tricky," James finished. "It's not an easy story, but…" James inhaled deeply and looked around, stalling having to tell the story of the Makuhero Cataclysm. At last, he explained it.
"So you had the Heroes, right? Well, there were also 'Villains,' those who hated the Hero Factory and everything about it. They never beat the Heroes before, until the day that they did. I don't know the whole story. Some say it was one Villain, others say a crew of them. The point was, they had the power to destroy this entire city, and they did. In one day, boom. We called it the 'Makuhero Cataclysm' after the city's name. We don't really know why they did it or where they went, but by destroying this city and this building we're in, they ruined the Hero Factory and the universe as we knew it. Can't take spaceships between planets anymore now that Hero Factory's network is offline, so everyone's stranded on whatever planet they're on, everyone to their own devices. That stuff we're looking for, Quaza, was the power source for Heroes. Without it getting replenished, all the Heroes in the universe have probably died. So, it's just us citizens left with the damage." Cosmo remained silent from hearing the story, looking up at the great walls surrounding the ruins they were standing in. There was something in that story that Cosmo felt he had heard before, but he was unable to recall any details.
"Did any of that jog your memory?" Taggart asked. Cosmo's gaze was brought back down to Taggart and James.
"I am…sorry, no," Cosmo said in a stammer. James sighed and Taggart set his hands on his hips, puzzled as to what to do.
"Why are you looking for Quaza?" Cosmo asked after running through their story in his head.
"Honestly, sometimes I wonder," Taggart replied with a smile. James heard this and frowned.
"You think too much," James accused Taggart, turning to Cosmo to answer his question. "If we find a power source like Quaza, we can bring it back to our town, sell it, and get rich."
"Town?" Cosmo asked.
"Bunch of hovels, really," Taggart corrected. "Survivors of the Cataclysm banded together and built it. Called it 'Makurotown' to mock Mr. Makuro, who used to run this place." Cosmo's mind exploded into thought. Though nothing connected, simply hearing the name "Makuro" sent his brain spinning. He stumbled where he stood, eventually collapsing back onto the ground. James and Taggart rushed over to him.
"Whoa, hey!" James said, moving into a kneeling position to help Cosmo up. "Easy!"
"Cosmo, what's wrong?" Taggart asked with concern. Cosmo put a hand to his head and stood himself back up without the help of James or Taggart.
"Are you damaged or something?" James asked, unable to hide his annoyance. "Because we've got a lot of Quaza to carry and we don't need a body to boot."
"James, let me do the talking," Taggart insisted.
During the moment of quiet as Taggart helped Cosmo adjust to standing again, a set of two distant voices could be heard. At first the three citizens thought it was the wind, but then when the sound of a conversation not far from where they stood registered in their ears, they froze in place.
"Who is that?" Taggart asked in a frantic whisper. James quietly moved over to where he set down his gun and box. He picked up Taggart's gear and tossed it to him before picking up his own gun and box. Cosmo stood in the corner they had found him in worry, guarded by the armed duo of citizens.
James slowly moved outward in the direction of the noise, approaching the edge of their corner of ruin. He leaned into a large piece of debris and peeked around the corner to see who was talking.
"James," Taggart said with a sharp whisper. James turned back and shot him a glare demanding he remain quiet. James then returned to looking out, hearing the conversation grow slightly louder as its source neared their position.
In the surrounding ruins, ever nearing their nook of rubble and ruin, two massive figures were trudging over the uneven ground. They each wielded frightful weapons. The smaller one was red in color with burning spikes jutting out of his shoulders. He had gruesome tusks and spikes on his head, and he spoke with a gruff scratch in his voice. This red figure carried with him a gun of some sort in one hand and a brutal spiked club in the other. Next to him was a much larger figure, orange and black in color, wielding two different firearms and with what looked like a helicopter rotor welded to his back.
"Because, numbskull, then we'd have to split his power between all six of us," the red figure said in the middle of his conversation as he became fully audible to James. "This way, we'll get it all to ourselves."
"But what if he's too powerful for just you and me?" the orange figure asked. The red figure swung his club into the orange figure, sending him backward.
"Ow!" the orange one exclaimed. "What was that for?"
"For being a pain in my backside!" the red one bellowed. "We don't need the others, and if you question my plan again, I will waste you and keep all his power to myself! Don't make me regret dragging you with me! Are you a sappy Hero or a Villain for crying out loud?"
James was overcome with fear, a fear that had been lurking within him since the beginning of the trip, a fear he had been suppressing and denying, concealing beneath a tough exterior. It was the grim scenario that seemed totally unlikely yet never impossible, the one situation that had stalked the shadows of their journey.
"James!" Taggart said in a brief but high pitched whisper to get James' attention without causing too much noise. James slowly turned his head to Taggart and Cosmo, his eyes bulging with fear.
Taggart motioned erratically at James, mouthed soundlessly the words "Who-is-it?" James looked back around the corner, saw the two massive figures scouring the ruins. He then looked at Taggart again and mouthed the word, "Villains." Taggart needed no sound to know what James had seen. Panic swelled through Taggart, Cosmo unable to understand what was happening.
James hurriedly tip-toed back to Taggart and Cosmo. When he was within earshot he whispered, "Your gun loaded?"
"What?" Taggart asked, hoarse in whisper. "We can't fight them! We have to run!"
The thick footsteps of the Villains James had seen were approaching them from the other side of their hiding spot. James then motioned with his hands for the three of them to crouch and hide, to try and make no sound and hope the Villains would pass. As the three of them ducked, the Villains could be heard a few meters away from where they hid. All three of the citizens held their breaths.
"What about behind here?" the dopey voice of the orange Villain James had seen asked. Taggart and James looked at each other in panic. "Behind here" could have meant anything, but they expected it meant behind the slabs of ruin they were concealed behind. Cosmo looked back and forth between them, not understanding what was happening. Taggart had begun trembling. He was glaring at James, communicating his anger at his friend for assuring him the Villains were gone from the area. His entire body rattled in nervous agitation. In his panic, Taggart's trigger finger twitched and accidentally pulled the trigger on his gun and fired a shot. The loud zap sound that came with the firing of the gun blasted into the still air, and the impact of the ball into the ground sent a loud crunch and a cloud of dust up into the air.
"What was that?" the gruff voice of the red Villain said behind their hiding spot. "Von Nebula, is that you?"
James shot a furious stare at Taggart, then preparing his own gun for the possibility that they'd have to fight. He mouthed voicelessly to Taggart, "Idiot!" Taggart was mortified, and had frozen in fear, staring at where he had fired his gun. He silently set the weapon onto the ground, afraid he'd fire it again accidentally.
After that exchange, Cosmo had immediately stopped paying attention to the situation. His mind had been removed from it entirely. He was not conscious of anything happening around him, unaware of the great danger he was in. Cosmo had entered a trance more complete than any of the trances his recurring visions had placed him in. Every sense of his had been swallowed in an all-encompassing new vision, a vision of a thousand sights pouring into his mind. Events, memories, images, words, all were colliding forcefully into Cosmo's mind. This new, total trance had been triggered by a single word, a single sound that came from the Villain who spoke it.
Von.
"Rotor, go see what that was," the rough voice of the red Villain commanded to his companion named Rotor.
"What? Why do I have to do it?" Rotor spat back. "You go look!"
"Do what I say!" the red Villain shouted, and the sound of his club smacking against Rotor's armor again could be heard from behind the slab of ruin.
"Fine, lousy bag of bolts!" Rotor mumbled in defeat. James and Taggart could hear the sound of Rotor's massive feet pacing their way to their hiding spot. Both prepared their guns and waited.
Before Rotor rounded the corner of their protective slab or ruin, something tore into the air of the massive half-enclosed pit of ruin inside the Assembly Tower. It echoed, its shrill sound being carried through the air. It was sharp, painful to the ears, ringing across the ruins within the Tower. The noise was a screaming sound, high-pitched and scraping. The scream woke Cosmo from his powerful trance, throwing him back into reality. He recognized this noise, the scream from before, the same screaming sound that echoed through an earlier vision and returned him to the real world.
"XPlode, did you hear that?" Rotor asked, a rare fear present in his voice.
"Course I heard it!" the Villain named XPlode shouted back. James and Taggart looked at each other after hearing that screaming sound, terrified. Both shook their heads slowly, having no idea what to do. They could only eavesdrop on the exchange between the Villains named Rotor and XPlode.
"Where'd it come from?" Rotor asked.
"How should I know?"
"What do you think it was?"
The scream came again, louder, suggesting the source of the screaming sound was getting closer. James and Taggart looked up into the air, searching the interior of the pit for anything that could have produced the noise. From the direction it came, it seemed as though whatever was screaming was high above them.
"XPlode, I don't think Von Nebula's here," Rotor said with worry in his words.
"Be quiet!" XPlode blasted. "He's here, I tell you! Let's ditch this place and keep searching."
"What about that noise we heard behind this slab?" Rotor asked.
"Forget it," XPlode insisted. "Something probably fell. This whole place is falling apart, and I don't want to be here any longer than we have to. We keep searching for Von Nebula."
"What about that scream?"
"Who cares? I don't even want to know what it is, so let's move!" From their hiding spot, the three citizens could hear the two pairs of large feet belonging to the Villains stomping away from where they stood. As the sounds of their feet got farther and farther away, James began slowly moving to the edge of their hiding spot. He craned his head out just enough to see where the Villains had gone. As he looked out, he could barely make out the small red and orange figures the Villains had become, long having forgotten about the noise they heard from Taggart's gun. James breathed a sigh of relief and sat himself against the slab of debris they had been concealing themselves behind. When Taggart saw this, he did the same.
"Wow," Taggart said, exhaling. "We made it."
"No thanks to you!" James spat. "What were you thinking firing that thing?"
"I'm sorry, alright?" Taggart replied defensively. "I got freaked and jittery and twitched on the trigger. It was an accident!"
"Well maybe you let me do the fighting," James asserted harshly. "If they found us we'd all be dead." Taggart had no words. He knew he failed his two companions. James shook his head then walked over back to where Cosmo and Taggart were sitting.
"How 'bout you, Cosmo?" James asked. "You holding up okay?" When no response came from him, Taggart then turned to look at him. James did the same.
Cosmo was staring intently at the ground, zoning out. His eyes were held wide open in an eerie expression neither of them had seen before on their amnesiac companion.
"Hey, you alright?" Taggart asked, repeating the question. After a pause and very slowly, Cosmo turned his head to meet Taggart directly in the eyes. Taggart leaned back slightly from Cosmo, disturbed by the expression the mysterious citizen had sent him. On the black armor of his face, Cosmo had wrapped his metal mouth into a subtle and thin smile. The width of his eyes, how much they had expanded, combined with the first smile James and Taggart had ever seen on him, came off together as almost psychotic.
"…Cosmo…" James asked quietly. Without moving his head, Cosmo's eyes darted to James', somewhat startling him.
"You okay, buddy?" James asked reluctantly. There was a pause, Cosmo unflinching and unblinking in his staring at James. After a few seconds, Cosmo responded.
"All is in order now," the black and blue armored citizen affirmed. Something alien had entered Cosmo's words, a presence, a tone, something that was recognizably absent from their first encounter with the formerly timid citizen.
"That's…good…" James managed awkwardly.
James and Taggart were wholly unaware of what had happened to Cosmo. The trance he had entered, initiated by the word "Von" registering itself in Cosmo's mind, had reawakened a dormant personality within him. Where once he had no memories, where once he was but a shell of a being, Cosmo had now been overcome by a familiar self. With this familiar self came his memories, everything that had transpired since the so-called "Makuhero Cataclysm." All that he had been made to forget had returned, and his true self had finally taken over again.