"What the..." My voice—my body? Impossible.
I awoke struggling in a pile, half-buried in entrails and ash and smelling burnt material beyond recognition. The sky above throbbed green, as if radiation seeped through clouds. The acrid smell of smoke drifted over my face and distant plasma fire crackled through my ears. The ground beneath my cheek was sticky-hot—gore-covered rather than lava—sticky beneath massive clawed white paws as big as hubcaps. Fear began to churn beneath my ribs. My chest scraped with stench of something old and seething breathing. I peered about. Devastation. Annihilation. The butchered carcasses of alien animals littered about as broken mannequins. This wasn't Earth. This was a battlefield on one of its worlds and I was standing in it as if I'd blinked at the end of all things.
Then came the memory out of nowhere—cinematic and gruesome, as if I were being shown a preview of my own kill reel. Metal slammed into metal, bone shattered, something screeched, and I was laughing. I recalled a name as if it were mine for all time: Thokk. Battle Beast. I didn't channel him—I became him. Warrior. Champion. A living war machine who lived for one thing and one thing alone: the kill. The college freshman in me requested a refund on life. Too late; it was already awash in red.
More visions came pouring in—battlefields and arenas and challengers dying by the score. All victories. All empty. Thokk never wanted to win. Thokk wanted to die in some manner worthy of dying. But I wasn't Thokk yet—still had my memories and my own voice echoing back to me something profound. "Isn't there more than just dying?" There used to be solace in textbooks, microwaved pizzas and goofy crushes. Now I felt it seeping away like mist in sunlight, burnt by whatever was timeless.
And then I felt it. Not purpose. Not anger. Low and sexual and needy. My alien physiology pulsed with testosterone—every muscle coiling in instinctual need. This form was designed for combat. and more. Dominance wasn't idealistic. It was biological. Reproduction was war number two. And my form yearned for it—mate, claim, imprint. Not love. Not romance. Nature. Pure, unadulterated need. And I didn't just know it—I hungered for it.
In my former life, my closest encounter with ecstasy came from hitting a deadline. Nowadays? My senses roared like a rave during war zone chaos. Everything was exaggerated. The scent of women nearby wasn't perfume—it was pheromonal thunder. My primal nature cried to leave a trace in claw marks and biology. And honestly? I was close to capitulation.
Then, movement. Someone appeared behind me—slender, artificial, identifiable. Machine Head. The chrome-faced kingpin with a tone as broken as a synthwave song gone wrong. His LED eye sockets glowed purple, an odd complement to the toxic sky. He needn't have said a thing. I already knew more than enough about where this was headed.
"Battle Beast," he snarled gruffly, sneering perpetually. "You look... operable. I have work for you."
An adrenaline surge ran through me. This was it. My first mission. My first target. I did not even blink--this was textbook Invincible. I read his beats ahead of time before he even said them. "Speak," I growled, half lion and half demon and all-around predator.
He smiled anew somehow. "I need muscle. Earth's full of costumed vermin. You're built to shatter gods—I need that kind of pressure on my team."
My student half shivered. Machine Head was filth. But Battle Beast? He lived for this. And together? I wanted the combat, yes—but I wanted so much more than that. I wanted excess. Consumption. To lose myself in it. Sex and blood and glory—that is all being presented to me now. The cosmos is inviting me to the feast.
"I accept," I replied, and my voice now shared with Battle Beast. Born in war and rebirth. "But I do not fight for honor anymore. I fight for the rush. For destruction. For it all."
Machine Head grinned, his nuclear reactor-like eyes glinting. "Perfect," he said gleefully, his cold, mechanical voice rising in excitement. "You'll fit right in."
**
The skyscraper rose up as a stabbing blade driven into the heart of the city, symbol of arrogance and power. Its top story a sanctum of criminals—screens flickered with coded tactical inputs, neon cabling pulsed like arteries through dark spaces, and the floor an unyielding sheet of chrome beneath scuffed and stained combat boots that had walked in blood. This was Machine Head's domain—half office building, half war zone. Its rosters contained some of Earth's most anarchic powerhouses: Kursk, former KGB and living Tesla coil; Furnace, walking blaze; Magmaniac, molten monolith bubbling constantly; and Tether Tyrant, mad grappler with symbiotic coil armor. All so powerful in their own right. But all unsuitable for me.
The elevator creaked like a warning whistle. Fear heavier than smoke filled the air. The walls hummed with static as if the place itself knew that some thing tectonic had arrived. The villains spun about, their eyes narrowing, their breathing halted. I advanced, massive and quiet, my white coat rippling as if war itself trailed behind me. The room drew inward on itself. The air chilled. I did not need to say anything; my arrival said it all.
Ever a showman himself, Machine Head welcomed me with his conceited chrome smile soldered onto his faceplate. "Battle Beast," he declared theatrically, as if introducing a god. "My latest... acquisition."
Gold coins rang in my palm. Valueless in the grand scheme. I'd received them as symbols, not as coinage. These little trinkets were all ritual, ceremonial payment for combat. I wasn't concerned with cash. I wasn't concerned with their admiration. What I needed—what Thokk needed—was war. An opponent that didn't threaten my dominance, but challenge it. This room did neither. No sir.
But I wasn't here to fight. Not now. I came for something older, deeper. For a mate. For a worthy one. Not some crawling life form to be trampled into dust at my heel, but an opponent in bed as ferocious as in combat. Battle Beast fought for renown. But I—we—sought legacy. And who better to have it than the Guardians of the Globe? They had superheroines. If a human contained enough fire, enough rage. I would take her. Willingly. Battle Beast didn't take by coercion, didn't take without consent. I wasn't a monster. I was a predator with discipline. An alien, yes. But one bound by a code.
The ceiling ripped apart like paper showering rains of clown white and light upon us. Two figures descended as judgment from above: Invincible and Titan. The former a hero proud in his prime years, and the latter a walking piece of obsidian with an iron-willed heart hardened in desperation and need. Debris rained about. Laughter ceased. Eyes widened in awe. The heroes touched earth at once in harmony—Titan on one side flexing his muscles over grinding gravel; Invincible on the opposite side hovering that now resembled stormy sky about to burst.
"Machine Head," Titan growled over walls shaking like an earthquake. "You're done for. Stop the attacks or we destroy you."
Invincible drifted upward with his fists blazing in rage. "It stops here and now. Why, Machine Head? Why injure all those people?"
Machine Head cackled, his cogs ticking beneath his metal mouth. "Because I can," he said as he spun about to face Titan in almost inhuman haste. "But you're not here for them, are you? You're here to see what I brought to the table." He pointed a metal finger towards me. "Ready to move out, Battle Beast?"
The tension crackled in the air. Even their fluorescent lighting seemed to stutter. My bristles rose up on my arms. Pre-bout scent, scorched metal, and adrenaline flooded over me as perfume. They didn't know what they were in for. Not exactly. Titan boasted muscle. Invincible held promise. But both lacked substance. They were flies to a lion's lair—and I was famished.
Kursk fired—the bolts shrieked through space to try and scorch Titan's nervous system. Furnace released a blast that warped space with heat waves. Magmaniac melted into flooring and flowed towards Invincible as magma set out on a mission. Tether Tyrant's tendrils flailed out as serpents hungry for grip. A lovely whirlpool of sadism tore through space. But I? I did not blink. Calm. Watching the storm build up. Waiting for thunder to beg on my behalf.
Titan slammed into Kursk, their combined might blasting through a wall. Invincible struck Tether Tyrant and sending him sliding only to be grabbed onto by his own tether. Sparks rained through the air. Blazing fire erupted through the air. But the main event hasn't event started. Not yet. Not until I moved.
And then came a shout that sounded like a war song as I launched into action.
Titan moved too late. My paw dropped in meteor form, shattering his guard and propelling him crashing across the room. Rock-hard skin cracked like spiderweb fractures over his shoulders. Invincible came after that—flashy. quick and predictable. I caught his punch in my jaws. The crunch was exquisite. His cry of pain, that sweet sound of learning one's place in line. I threw him away like garbage. The others hesitated. They saw. Furnace withdrew his flames. Kursk ceased crackling. That stage now belonged to me.
Invincible rose groggily from the ground, wiping his chin with blood. Stupid. Brash. He charged at me again, all rage and no technique. I stepped into his blow and sliced—one clawed arm through him as easily as a scythe through an oat field. He went flying over the ground till he slammed into a terminal and exploded in a shower of sparks. Titan attacked once more. Ever a brawler. His rocky fists slammed into my chin with all the strength of a cat—and I barely blinked. A mountain does not blink at a breeze.
I parried a stroke that whirled his huge bulk around like a top. He grunted; he staggered; his footing failed him. I stepped forward. The ground trembled under my feet, and it was not because I was large; it was intention; I was the battle. I was war incarnate and death made flesh.
Titan's bluster let him down. He stiffened his shoulders. "You're not what we expected," he sneered through his wheezing.
"And you," I rasped out, my voice a sound scraped metal against stone, "are less than I hoped."
The white and red blurred as I leaped at him. He raised his arms—but I didn't strike them. I went through them. I scraped my claws over his chest, through his rock-hard flesh, through layer upon layer of his shell. He shrieked—a groaning shriek of sheer agony. I threw him to the ground and the foundation groaned beneath his landing. Dust exploded as he landed with a release. Lights shook. I pinned him with one foot as his body writhed upon itself. He wasn't conscious for long.
The air shattered again—thunder smiling through glass—the Guardians of the Globe descended upon us in numbers. They didn't so much enter but it was burst in through the smoke with a slash of color and rage. Black Samson slammed into the ground with a seismic footfall with sparks shooting through the air. Monster Girl descended beside him partway through her transformation as her young face stretched into a snarl and her form warped. Shrinking Rae zoomed into the room small as a bullet and Dupli-Kate exploded into three upon striking and each clone shot towards a different target already. The cavalry had arrived. Another din rang through the room upon which Battle Beast threw itself anew. Another opportunity to feel some semblance of life.
Furnace, Magmaniac, and Tether Tyrant moved to close upon them like starving hounds after scraps from the table, and even Kursk shot lightning bolts at Black Samson with newly acquired courage. But I perceived through reality—the beat behind the movement. My team was not alone. They were staying afloat because of me. I didn't need them, not really. They struggled as white noise to the opera I danced to with claws out. When Monster Girl came charging at me, I greeted her with a swipe that swept her backward through one of the data towers. Shrinking Rae tried to creep up close, but her hum was a cue to my senses. I plucked her out of the air, fingers clenched but soft on her, and slammed her into the wall like an insect. She struck with a grunt and did not rise again.
Black Samson roared at me with a punch that burst like a cannonball but without any weight behind it. I took the punch with a grunt and landed a knee into his belly that launched him flying with a crunch that resounded somewhere above and below his ribs at once. He doubled up like wet cloth. The others saw it and stepped back. That was their mistake. Battle Beast never gave second chances.
Only Dupli-Kate still stood, though "stood" is a generosity—her clones were bruised, scraped and desperate but in movement together, making a flicker-triangle shape around me. She was beautiful to look upon now. Not because fragile things were beautiful, but because a fire is beautiful when it's burning your house down. There was assurance in her movement, rigor in her attacks. A tactician. She ordered. Her clones attacked—two in a pincer and the third with a leap kick while airborne—but I moved as death in speeded-up film. I crushed the first's throat with a twist, stepped through the second's defense with an elbow that shattered the body and snagged the third by the head before she could blink. Her own flesh gasped in the corner, sweat dotting her brow, fear etching her face—but she did not retreat. She fixated on my eyes. In spite of fear, she kept her stand upright. And that sealed her fate.
I dropped the clone prior to smashing its head under my heel.
The others were finished—comrades defeated, villains whimpering and unconscious, scattered about like meat puppets torn from their strings. It was done. The battle did not end in a victory—it ended in quiet. The kind that comes after thunder. I strolled over Monster Girl's prostrate form, gazed down upon Titan's fallen form, and approached Dupli-Kate as a king approaches a ruined kingdom. I could still hear Invincible grunting somewhere behind a pile of contorted metal.
Dupli-Kate stepped backward, her bosom heaving. "Back away," she cautioned, her tone as tight as a bowstring.
I did not say a word. Words were for cowards and poets. I reached my own side and drew out a device—round and small and inscribed with Viltrumite runes acquired in an earlier war. She retreated as the device whirred, its energy warping the air about it.
"You're insanr," she spat out.
Maybe so. But Battle Beast never operated on sanity. He operated on need.
And I needed her.
I moved in an instant. She attempted to summon another clone to her side, but I captured her wrist and drew her into me. She fought—clawed, elbowed and swore—and I held tight, her energy amazing even in its futility. Not prey. Not victim. But a conquest. My prize.
The others would see it as cruelty, an abduction, & call me a monster—but Battle Beast reveled not in cruelty. I chose her because she might be more. That she might stand beside me, and not my shadow. The portal whirred its opening behind me, snapping with the scent of somewhere-else-ness. With a final glance at blood-soaked ground and shattered bodies, I stepped through—Dupli-Kate held tight in my grasp, her screams overwhelmed by folding space.
And then we departed.