Chapter 156 Vines.

Chapter 156: 156 Vines.

"That’s what you want to use it for?" I asked. "You helped build a machine capable of absolute, global mind control, and your master evil plan is to turn the human race into mulch?"

"Fool!" Doctor Green roared, pounding a heavy rubber glove into the rail, bending the rusted iron with terrifying ease. "Do you have any idea how maddening it is? Watching you parasites pave over paradise! Pouring concrete over the roots of the earth! Spraying chemical herbicides on anything you can’t commodify, cage, or consume! You cut down ancient redwoods to make disposable napkins! Well, I am the planet’s immune system! And humanity is the disease!"

He threw his head back, his wild, mossy hair flailing. "But I will have the last laugh! Hahahaha! Though The Mind may have absconded with the primary Override Array, it is no matter! Once I have the psychic battery, I will simply grow a new one! And when I do, the world will finally understand its true place in the food chain! Gya ha ha ha ha!"

Well. That was absolutely all I needed to hear.

In fact, it was significantly more than I needed to hear, but the unhinged ranting had given me plenty of time to get a solid magnetic grip on the iron architecture all around him. I raised my free hand and bunched it into a tight fist.

In immediate answer to my command, the wrought-iron railing around Doctor Green suddenly violently twisted, ripping itself from the catwalk and wrapping around his torso like thick ropes of steel.

The mad botanist yelped in surprise as the metal wound tight around him, pinning his massive arms against his sides.

"Alright," I said, resting the heavy steel head of my sledgehammer casually against my shoulder. I used my powers to lift myself into the air, floating up to his eye level. "Here’s how this is going to work. You’re clearly insane, and you’re definitely not going to give up this composting plan of yours. So what we’re going to do is have Psyren rummage around in your skull and make you forget all about her, the Override Array, and probably how to tie your shoes."

"Fuck yeah!" Psyren shouted from the ground. "You tell him, boss!"

"Ha! You think the great Doctor Green is threatened by some twisted metal?" Green spat, his manic grin never fading. "I knew I would need to overcome security to seize the girl. And I planted my seeds accordingly! Now, let us see if your armor can withstand... my Verdant Thralls!"

Hydraulics hissed loudly. I looked down sharply as every single one of the bubbling green hydroponic vats along the walls suddenly drained.

The heavy glass cylinders slid open with a mechanical whirr, and thick, noxious mist poured out. I gripped the handle of my sledgehammer tighter as the figures within climbed out.

Oh boy. That wasn’t good.

There were at least a dozen of them, and they were massive. Their skin wasn’t flesh; it was a hardened, corpse-gray bark. Their bodies were so thickly corded with pulsing, hyper-dense vines that their arms looked as thick as tree trunks.

Universally faceless, their heads were smooth domes of fungal growth, save for two glowing, bloodshot-red eyes and a gaping maw of jagged wooden splinters. Ape-like, they shambled out of the containers, dripping with viscous green fluid.

"Intimidated? Ha ha! I’m not surprised!" Green cackled from his metal bindings. "Their bark is thicker than the hide of a rhinoceros! Kinetic force means nothing to them. And their limbs can tear through an armored tank like roots cracking concrete!"

"Pfft! So what? I bet they’re as dumb as you," Psyren scoffed.

She raised her hand, pointing directly at the hulking plant-monsters. Pink hearts pulsed vibrantly in her eyes as she pushed her raw psychic power toward the Thralls, her voice thrumming heavily in the humid air.

"KNEEL!"

I winced slightly as I felt the familiar psychic throb of her using her powers, but the monsters merely staggered half a step.

They violently shook their fungal heads, completely ignoring the command, and turned their glowing eyes directly upon her. Psyren’s arrogant smirk instantly faded.

"Gya ha ha! Fool!" Green cackled triumphantly. "They were grown specifically to capture you! Your mental powers cannot affect them! They have no central nervous system, only a mycelial network! They are unstop—!"

A concentrated ray of sub-zero air violently smashed into the chest of the nearest hulking figure, blowing it entirely off its feet.

The Thrall hit the ground hard, doubly so because its head and torso were now encased in a massive, solid block of jagged ice.

Glacia lowered her hand, freezing winds swirling aggressively around her like the first blizzard of winter. "Ah," she said smoothly. "It appears they are not immune to a hard frost. How unfortunate for your harvest."

Well, I was genuinely impressed. Glacia had clearly been working not just on her combat output, but her banter.

"Well done!" I called down to her.

Glacia beamed, straightening her posture. "Thank you, sir."

"Cheater!" Doctor Green snarled. "Thralls! Eradicate them!"

The brutes roared—a horrific sound like splitting timber—and charged toward Glacia and Psyren.

Immediately, Glacia wrapped an arm around Psyren’s waist, lifting the pink-haired psychic into the air on a swirling pillar of freezing wind.

With her free hand, Glacia blasted another ray of frost, erecting a thick wall of sheer ice between them and the charging plant-monsters.

But the Thralls had clearly been engineered for raw, overwhelming strength. They smashed through the ice barricade almost instantly, bellowing as their heavy, bark-covered fists clawed and swung toward the ascending pair.

"Glacia!" I shouted—but a terrifying groan of metal cut me off.

I whipped my head back just in time to see Doctor Green literally flex his way out of the iron wrapped around him. Thick, green vines surged and bulged under his skin, tearing the steel bindings apart as if they were made of cheap tin.

"Fool! I have engineered roots that can shatter bedrock!" the homicidal botanist roared as he lunged forward, throwing a massive, vine-corded punch directly at my head.

I instantly brought the handle of the sledgehammer up, reinforcing my stance with my magnetic field to block the strike.

The impact was like getting hit by a speeding freight train. Even with the armor plates and the hammer taking the brunt of it, the sheer kinetic force launched me backward through the air.

I hastily pushed my powers against the far wall to arrest my momentum before I crashed into the glass, but Green was already moving.

He leaped off the ruined catwalk, landing so hard on the concrete floor that it cratered beneath his boots. It barely slowed him.

Without missing a beat, he dashed toward a heavy steel door at the rear of the atrium, fleeing deeper into the complex.

"Shit!" I swore, steadying myself in the air.

"Take him, sir!" Glacia shouted over the sound of shattering ice. I looked down to see her blasting another Thrall point-blank in the chest while dodging a massive sweeping arm. "We will handle the weeds!"

I hesitated, but I knew Glacia’s combat record. She was the one who had held out for hours against a coordinated siege of mutants and robots not too long ago. She could handle overgrown houseplants.

"I’ll be back! Don’t let them touch her!" I ordered, and instantly sent myself shooting through the air after Doctor Green, crashing through the rear doors right behind him.

Fuck! I could not lose him in this massive complex. If he slipped away, who knew what rotting hole he’d crawl into next.

I might never be able to track his biometrics again, and there would go my peace of mind.

I’d spend the rest of my days wondering if some maniacal florist was lurking in the bushes waiting to snatch my psychic.

To hell with that. I gripped my sledgehammer tighter. I was going to turn him into mulch.