Chapter 94 Brain-dead.

Chapter 94: 94 Brain-dead.

"Kill him."

"Yes, sir!" Flabbius answered, his grin spreading across his face until it became almost grotesquely wide.

Then came a sharp beep from behind him.

I glanced past the mutant and watched the cages lining the room unlock themselves. One after another, the metal doors swung open, releasing the various creatures Delirium had been keeping inside. They crawled, staggered, and lumbered into the room, filling it with an assortment of growls, screeches, and other sounds I couldn’t quite identify.

As if that wasn’t enough, something behind me crackled with electricity.

I turned to find the chrome war machines beginning to move.

Their silver bodies jerked as their systems came online, mechanical heads swivelling toward me until their single red eyes locked onto my position. Buzzsaws spun to life while laser cannons charged with a rising electronic whine.

Welp.

Should have seen that coming.

I didn’t fight monsters particularly often. Most of them were usually somebody else’s problem. Order villains liked throwing them at heroes, governments dealt with the aftermath, and occasionally some unfortunate stretch of countryside got turned into a battlefield.

My job was to make heroes look good, not save the world.

Still, I’d dealt with creatures before. Some had interrupted jobs, and during my Death Rumble days I’d crossed paths with a few intelligent enough to know exactly what they were doing.

I didn’t need much more than a glance to know this collection of freaks was dangerous.

"Girls," I said, stepping away from Glacia and Psyren as I reached out with my powers. I could feel the metal inside the machines surrounding us, every circuit and moving component becoming part of my awareness, while loose pieces of metal from around the room began lifting into the air around me. Wrenches, bolts, cans, and scraps of iron floated at my command, ready to become weapons. "Fuck them up."

"Yes, sir," Glacia replied, her hair lifting as the temperature around her dropped. Her white coat billowed in the sudden wind while frost began creeping across the floor beneath her.

Psyren, meanwhile, pulled off her headphones and flashed me a grin. "Best. Date. Ever!"

Her eyes crackled with bright pink energy.

The monsters charged.

They came at us in a howling mass of claws, hooves, teeth, and limbs, while the war machines raised their weapons and opened fire.

I answered with a pulse of electromagnetic power.

The robots immediately seized up.

Their heads jerked violently as sparks erupted from their bodies, their circuits overloading under the sudden surge. One machine crashed into the wall while another collapsed onto the floor, its weapons going dead before it could fire.

At the same time, I sent the metal I’d gathered flying.

A wrench smashed into one creature’s face. Bolts peppered another. Pieces of scrap slammed into the charging horde, forcing several of the beasts backward and disrupting their advance.

They shrieked and stumbled over one another, some raising their limbs to shield themselves while others tried pushing through the barrage.

That was when Psyren raised her hands.

"Stop!"

The command sent a sharp pulse of pain through my skull, and judging by the reaction of the monsters, I wasn’t the only one affected.

Every creature froze.

One unfortunate beast had been halfway through a leap when Psyren stopped it, leaving it to drop heavily onto the floor. Another remained standing with one claw raised, completely motionless.

Dozens of eyes turned toward Psyren.

Pink hearts appeared in their pupils.

I stared at her for a moment.

"Uh... nicely done."

Psyren giggled. "Thanks, boss. But these guys are practically brain-dead."

"Still, that’s—"

Glacia suddenly screamed.

I whipped around and found Flabbius looming behind her, that ridiculous grin stretched across his face as a mass of tentacles burst from beneath his coat and wrapped themselves around Glacia’s body.

"Surprised?" he crowed, tightening the tentacles around her. "You shouldn’t be! For I am my master’s greatest creation!"

He laughed as the tentacles squirmed around her.

"Yes! Once I was merely a fisherman, mocked by fools who couldn’t appreciate the beauty of the creatures beneath the sea. Then I met the master, and he gave me the powers of a squid! The perfect predator! Nature’s most lethal and—"

His teeth suddenly began chattering.

A chill swept through the room.

I looked at Glacia.

She was glowing. Not literally but you know what I mean.

Frost spread across the tentacles holding her. The moisture in the air crackled as it froze, and the expression on her face had gone from anger to something considerably colder.

"How dare you," she said.

Flabbius’s grin disappeared as ice began crawling up his tentacles.

"How dare you put those filthy things on me?" Glacia demanded, her voice cold enough to match the temperature around her. "Only one man is permitted to touch me, and you are certainly not him."

The tentacles froze solid.

Glacia jerked her body, and they shattered around her like glass.

Flabbius screamed as she stepped free. "My tentacles! My precious tentacles!"

"Silence!"

Glacia thrust her palm toward him, and a concentrated beam of blue light erupted from it. The blast struck Flabbius squarely in the chest, instantly spreading ice across his body.

Within seconds, he was frozen solid from the neck down.

His teeth chattered as he stared helplessly at her.

Glacia lowered her arm, breathing a little harder as she turned toward me. "Sir? You may observe that I left his head clear, as you instructed."

I blinked, coming back to myself.

"Oh. Uh... great. Good job, Glacia."

She smiled.

Psyren raised a finger. "Can I make his monsters eat him?"

I looked toward the creatures still under her control. The pink hearts in their eyes were pulsing as every one of them stared at the frozen Flabbius.

It was tempting.

Very tempting.

But we had more important things to worry about.

"No," I said. "Have them return to their cages."

Psyren shrugged. "Sure, boss. Okay, babies! Back to your cages for mommy."

The monsters immediately obeyed.

They shuffled backward on claws, hooves, and hands, moving with the strange obedience of puppets as they returned to their cells.

Once the last creature was inside, I closed my fist.

The cage doors slammed shut, and I twisted the locking mechanisms with my magnetic powers until every one of them was secured.

With that taken care of, I turned my attention back to Flabbius.

"Alright," I said, walking toward him. "Now you’re going to tell us where your boss is."

"I-I w-will n-never t-tell," he stammered, his teeth still rattling from the cold.

"Funny," I said. "That’s the second time I’ve heard that recently."

"I am afraid he is telling the truth."

I looked down.

The holographic pad was still active, Delirium’s distorted projection staring back at me. I lifted the device with my magnetic powers until it floated at eye level.

"Is that right?"

"Oh, yes," Delirium replied, his projected smile returning. "I made absolutely certain of it."

Something about the way he said that made my stomach tighten.

I lowered my gaze toward Flabbius.

The mutant looked sick.

He’d already been pale, but now his face had gone almost completely white. His sagging flesh looked swollen, and his eyes bulged from their sockets.

They were bulging like—

"Get back!"

I shoved Psyren and Glacia behind me as I thrust one hand toward the floor.

The metal deck groaned.

With a violent wrench, I ripped an entire section of the floor free and bent it upward, forcing the thick metal into a curved shield between us and Flabbius.

Whatever Delirium had done to his creation, I had a feeling we were about to find out.