04-03-2010, 05:29 AM
The Collector Hive grew eerily silent after Belle and the Reaper disappeared into the abyss below the hexagonal battlefields. Juno knelt behind the low walls of cover, his chest heaving up and down as he continued to breathe deeply. His muscles contracted, becoming tenser by the second; his taut fingers tightened their hold on the rifle he held, having taken it up again at the appearance of the Reaper. Now, however, the monster he faced and the ally who had stood at his side were nowhere to be seen.
Juno was well aware that only one of them would return.
Zaeed sat lazily just feet away from him; he had propped his weapon up against the organic wall, and was in the process of attempting to hastily light another cigarette. The hybrid scowled - what the hell was the thinking? “Hey,” Juno hissed, and the mercenary’s attention was captured, “What the hell? Belle could be dead, and you’re taking a smoke break?”
“Red’s gonna be just fine, kid,” Zaeed whispered, blowing a small smoke-ring as a period to the sentence. “Don’t look so damned stressed, you’re gonna get everyone all worked up.”
“Listen here, you son of a bitch,” Juno spat, rising to his feet and taking a couple of bold steps toward the grey-haired mercenary. “Who the hell are you to tell me what to do? You’re not even real.” The older man’s face darkened, stung - if only slightly - by the hybrid’s last statement. It was true, though. Zaeed Massani was no more than a figment of Gamer’s distraught imagination; if there was anyone Juno wasn’t going to get ‘all worked up’ about, it was the hired gun.
The seer’s eyes gazed over the edge of the platform, his sight cut off by the perpetual darkness that filled the chasm. Belle was somewhere down there, but in a way, Zaeed was right; all they could do was wait. It wouldn’t do the redhead any service to get themselves killed, too. No - right now, they had to deal with the threat at hand.
The Reaper was still alive. It had to be; the hybrid had been led to believe that the giant metallic skeleton was their main target, so he assumed that until it had been taken care of, they would be trapped here, in his event. The only plausible reason he could think of as to why he still stood on these hexagonal platforms in the middle of the Collector Hive, then, was that they had not defeated their enemy. What did that say about Belle’s fate? Juno tried not to think on the subject, but the few thoughts that did cross his mind did not bode well.
The metal battlefield quaked beneath his feet. His head craned around toward the disturbance, and he raised his rifle cautiously. His eyes darted from one end of the arena to the other, and his ears perked up, listening for any sign of the Reaper’s return.
His eyes glazed over, and he saw the gargantuan monster before him, firing a beam of pinkish-red energy from his mouth. He leapt to the side, and as his Foresight deactivated, he found himself well ahead of the blast. The Reaper’s hands slammed into the platforms as it pulled itself up, and shot the beam of red ki from its jaw. Juno took a deep breath - this was it. The last stand.
“Come on, Juno,” he coached himself, kneeling behind a low wall of cover as another blast of energy burst from the gaping maw of the Reaper and slammed into the barrier, “You can do this. You know you can do this.”
A distinct, gutteral feeling fell upon him as he realized what had become of the fiery redhead. If the Reaper stood here before him, then that could only mean one thing - Belle was dead. It was simple deductive reasoning; if the hybrid girl’s attacks had not defeated the monster that now stood before him, then the only logical conclusion was that the monster had, indeed, overcome her. For whatever reason, Juno felt the slightest tinge of sadness strike him as the reality of Belle’s fate set in.
The menacing creature lifted its metallic hand, and balled it into a fist, slamming it down - hard - on the conglomeration of hexagons. The platforms shook, and one disconnected yet again, plummeting into the abyss, landing with a distinct thud that echoed throughout the cavern.
He closed his eyes, letting the darkness settle in. In the void, he saw Belle, standing there, her red hair flowing down her back. He saw her pale face, smiling fleetingly at him before turning away and stepping out of sight, into nothingness. He sighed, attempting to concentrate on many things at once. He concentrated on breathing steadily; inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. He concentrated on holding his gun steady, not taking his mind off of the weapon until it was completely still in his hands; it wasn’t trembling with the fear he knew he felt. He concentrated on letting his ki flow through him, slipping in and out of his veins, through his arteries. He pushed energy into his fingers; he pushed energy into his toes. He let the bright inner power that he knew he had bubbling up inside of him travel through his body, lodging itself in every nook and cranny it could find.
“Don’t worry, Belle,” he muttered, so silent that nothing else could hear him, “I’m going to beat this thing. For you.” And suddenly, that seemed to calm everything. The world seemed to slow down, and he slowly loosened his fingers on the rifle, letting it fall to the copper floor, and he pushed himself off the ground, leaping onto the top of the low wall of organic matter and holding out both of his hands. As quickly as he could, he conjured a Pop in his hand, and as the Reaper fired its pink-red hued energy, Juno released his violet ki blast.
The beams of ki flew toward one another at lightning speed, crashing into one another with an impressive force. The blasts collided, red mixing with purple, and stayed constant for a moment. Juno held his attack strong, not about to let the Reaper best him in a bout of energy against energy. Come on, he told himself, You’re just as good as Kaden at this. Don’t let this thing beat you. He wouldn’t.
His pep talk seemed to work, at least for a moment, as he continued to hold back the Reaper’s ki blast; his offensive power was short, however, and so the priori incantatem was held even, equidistant from the two combatants. Juno grunted, and pushed all of the might he felt inside him into the blast, and slowly but surely, his violet ki beam started to overtake the Reaper’s. The black-haired half-saiyan smiled; maybe this wouldn’t be a losing battle after all. He forced all of his energy into the attack, knowing that if this failed, then there was nothing else he could do.
I’m going to avenge you, Belle, if I have to kill myself to do it.
He exerted himself further, hyper-extending his arms until they were as far separated from his shoulder joints as they could be. He pushed the ki through the muscles in his forearms and into the palm of his hand, allowing the explosion of plum-colored energy to grow larger and larger with each passing second. He swallowed nervously, watching as the Reaper slowly tightened its grip on the platforms, eventually squeezing so hard that it created cracks in the surface of the arena.
Zaeed watched the battle of wills from afar, rifle cradled in his arms. He glanced from Juno to the Reaper, and back again, and slowly felt the same pride that the black-haired half-saiyan was motivated by.
Juno closed his eyes and made one final thrust of energy, shooting forth all the strength he could spare—but it was unnecessary. The pinging of Zaeed’s rifle firing soon entered the seer’s ears, and the half-saiyan’s eyes opened to see the same energy shots that had left the mercenary’s weapon pelting the remaining red eye of the creature. It squealed in pain, not only devoid of its second eye but also finding itself vulnerable to Juno’s blast. The hybrid launched the Pop forward, and it crashed into the monster’s skull, sending his neck craning backwards, continuing to expand until at last it snapped.
The creature’s neck had broken in two, and now the gigantic head fell backwards, plummeting into the dark caverns below, landing loudly at the foot of the cavern. Juno collapsed to his knees.
Zaeed rushed over, placing a hand on the hybrid’s back as he fell further, holding himself aloft using the palms of his hands. Eventually, however, even those slipped from him, and the mercenary was forced to catch Juno, lying him on the ground to rest for a moment. “You okay, kid?” the older man asked in a raspy tone, but Juno could barely blink, let alone speak. His eyes flitted over to the headless body of the Reaper.
It was falling rapidly, collapsing into the chasm now that its head was missing; the red light on its chest still shined brightly, though. This wasn’t over. Not yet. They had won the battle, but they hadn’t won the war. Knowing this, and knowing that at least for a moment, while the Reaper recalibrated itself, he had time to rest, he shut his eyes, and slowly slipped away into unconsciousness.
He didn’t know where he was. Everything was black, except for silhouettes that seemed vaguely recognizable. He looked about at the different figures that surrounded him, not sure whether to frown or to smile as he gazed upon each one individually.
The first was a blonde man, complete with crimson jacket. He stood tall and proud, his eyes looking at Juno. In his hand he held a small cerulean orb of ki, and he nodded to the half-saiyan encouragingly. The hybrid wasn’t sure whether or not the real Kaden would’ve gone out of his way to motivate him, but this figment of his imagination sure seemed to think that was within the courier’s realm of thought, and that was good enough for the seer.
The second was also blonde. Her hair cascaded down her back, covering up part of the royal blue, form-fitting dress she wore. She looked over her shoulder at the ex-fortuneteller and offered him a smile, and then held out her hand. He reached out to touch the priestess’s fingers, just a small brush of his skin against hers, but with each inch he moved closer, she seemed to float farther away. Something was trying to taunt him, and as Sophia moved farther and farther from his vision, he felt a furious anger boiling up inside.
The third figure, standing in between Sophia and Kaden’s silhouettes, was the most recent addition to Juno’s acquaintance. Red hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing a form-fitting suit was Belle Hibiki. The ginger girl knelt down and whispered something inaudible to him—he sure hoped it was something encouraging—before smiling and beginning to float backwards toward a bright white light that had steadily grown before his eyes.
The three silhouettes met at the light and coalesced into a giant splotch of white energy hovering on the horizon, and as that glow merged with the other, they slowly grew into a menacing silhouette, one that the hybrid had been met with far too recently. His dream turned into a nightmare, he fought with himself to escape as slowly a skeletal hand began to approach him, its mechanized fingers opening up as it attempted to drag him into the depths of darkness.
If there was one thing that you could say about the black-haired hybrid, it was that his will to live was outstanding. Even when faced with death’s door itself, he fought with all his might against the forces that would have him gone forever. He wasn’t about to just lose this game, just like that. Not when he was so close to finding that teenager and beating the snot out of him.
He let out a vicious scream as he sat up abruptly.
“Whoa, Juno,” Zaeed muttered, attempting to calm him down, “What’s wrong?” The older soldier’s concern did not come unfounded; the hybrid was shivering, trembling from fear, or from the cold of this dank, damp cavern. Something had unnerved him, the mercenary knew, and from what he’d seen of Juno, not much could do that. Juno remained silent, but Zaeed pressed on, not content with no explanations. “Come on, Juno, what’s wrong?”
“Sophia,” he muttered, “Everything’s… everything’s falling apart, Zaeed.” The silver-haired man placed a hand against his forehead, but once again, he felt perfectly healthy, no fever whatsoever.
“No, man,” the mercenary assured him, “We won.”
“No, Zaeed,” Juno said knowingly, “We haven’t won yet. Belle—the Reaper—they’re not dead yet.” At this, the hybrid struggled to rise to his feet, and slowly leaned against the low organic wall for support as he braced himself for the Reaper’s final onslaught. “We can’t let the Reaper win, Zaeed. One of us—Belle or me—has to get out of here alive. That Reaper has to be stopped.”
The mercenary nodded, and the two men looked down towards the abyss as a low, muffled roar signaled the creature’s final charge had begun.
A mechanical clanking sounded throughout the cavern as the headless Reaper clambered back to the platform, no longer about to shoot a pinkish-red energy beam from its mouth but still having the menacing physical weapons its creators had endowed it with. Juno looked up at it triumphantly, his eyes focused solely on one goal: destroying the Reaper. If he was going to die in this fight, this beast would die with him.
“I’m not going down without a fight, you bastard!” Juno shouted, breaking free from Zaeed’s grasp and leaping at the Reaper’s chest. The skeleton clawed at the half-saiyan but he moved as quickly as possible to evade, barely escaping the fist of the blind monster. He vaulted towards the creature, grasping onto the ledge that sat just below the Reaper’s ‘heart.’ He breathed heavily, and climbed up onto the ledge. “Take this, you son of a bitch!” he yelled, charging up one final Pop.
Suddenly, however, he felt himself being yanked telekinetically off of the Reaper, sliding back onto the hexagonal platform. His face slammed into the copper arena and he slowly looked up, seeing the magma-encased form of the Harbinger standing before him.
An army of Collectors was approaching from whence Juno and Belle had arrived, slowly but surely buzzing in, their wings flapping in an even more insect-like manner than before.
Juno looked from the Harbinger to the horde of insectoid aliens to the Reaper. This seemed to be a losing battle, for all intents and purposes, but there was nothing inside of him that said he couldn’t try with all the power he had left in his scrawny frame to win. He wouldn’t give up—perhaps it was his Saiyan blood finally showing after his talk with Orion, or perhaps Kaden’s good guy persona was rubbing off on him a bit. Perhaps it was his commitment to get back to the carnival, to survive and live to fight Gamer another day. Perhaps it was his hope that he would get to see Sophia at least one more time. Perhaps it was the promise he’d made to Xenia.
“I’m going to win this game,” he had said to her inside the tower, “For both of you.”
You can do it, Juno.
Against all odds, he knew that he could win this. Even if he didn’t make it out of here alive, he could try his best and know that he had done that much—and hey, Sophia hadn’t said anything too bad about death while he was in her company, so he hoped that the lack of bad testimony was, indeed, confirmation that being dead wasn’t quite that bad after all. But why all this morbid talk of death? Who said he was going to die? He was going to win, dammit.
“Alright, guys,” he scoffed mockingly, transitioning back into his old, confident self, no matter how scared he might’ve been on the inside, “Come here, I’ve got a nice ass beating I’d like to show you.”
Juno’s attention focused on the Collectors, Zaeed glanced at the Reaper with a growing anxiety. “Uh, hey, Juno?” the mercenary asked nervously, “What the hell are we going to do about this big ol’ son of a bitch over here?” Juno chuckled—Zaeed had always been vulgar, even when Gamer had trapped him in the body of the fish-man guy thing.
“I thought that you could handle him, Zaeed,” Juno chuckled, picturing all the color drooping out of the silver-haired man’s face. The hybrid looked around at the group of about six or seven Collectors, led by the glowing possessed puppet of the Collector General—the self-proclaimed ‘harbinger of his destruction.’ “So, what do you boys say? You ready to get your asses kicked by a cripple?” The Harbinger, not to be outdone, once again left off the prefight bandying and bickering with the last words.
“I will show you true power.”
Juno was well aware that only one of them would return.
Zaeed sat lazily just feet away from him; he had propped his weapon up against the organic wall, and was in the process of attempting to hastily light another cigarette. The hybrid scowled - what the hell was the thinking? “Hey,” Juno hissed, and the mercenary’s attention was captured, “What the hell? Belle could be dead, and you’re taking a smoke break?”
“Red’s gonna be just fine, kid,” Zaeed whispered, blowing a small smoke-ring as a period to the sentence. “Don’t look so damned stressed, you’re gonna get everyone all worked up.”
“Listen here, you son of a bitch,” Juno spat, rising to his feet and taking a couple of bold steps toward the grey-haired mercenary. “Who the hell are you to tell me what to do? You’re not even real.” The older man’s face darkened, stung - if only slightly - by the hybrid’s last statement. It was true, though. Zaeed Massani was no more than a figment of Gamer’s distraught imagination; if there was anyone Juno wasn’t going to get ‘all worked up’ about, it was the hired gun.
The seer’s eyes gazed over the edge of the platform, his sight cut off by the perpetual darkness that filled the chasm. Belle was somewhere down there, but in a way, Zaeed was right; all they could do was wait. It wouldn’t do the redhead any service to get themselves killed, too. No - right now, they had to deal with the threat at hand.
The Reaper was still alive. It had to be; the hybrid had been led to believe that the giant metallic skeleton was their main target, so he assumed that until it had been taken care of, they would be trapped here, in his event. The only plausible reason he could think of as to why he still stood on these hexagonal platforms in the middle of the Collector Hive, then, was that they had not defeated their enemy. What did that say about Belle’s fate? Juno tried not to think on the subject, but the few thoughts that did cross his mind did not bode well.
The metal battlefield quaked beneath his feet. His head craned around toward the disturbance, and he raised his rifle cautiously. His eyes darted from one end of the arena to the other, and his ears perked up, listening for any sign of the Reaper’s return.
His eyes glazed over, and he saw the gargantuan monster before him, firing a beam of pinkish-red energy from his mouth. He leapt to the side, and as his Foresight deactivated, he found himself well ahead of the blast. The Reaper’s hands slammed into the platforms as it pulled itself up, and shot the beam of red ki from its jaw. Juno took a deep breath - this was it. The last stand.
“Come on, Juno,” he coached himself, kneeling behind a low wall of cover as another blast of energy burst from the gaping maw of the Reaper and slammed into the barrier, “You can do this. You know you can do this.”
A distinct, gutteral feeling fell upon him as he realized what had become of the fiery redhead. If the Reaper stood here before him, then that could only mean one thing - Belle was dead. It was simple deductive reasoning; if the hybrid girl’s attacks had not defeated the monster that now stood before him, then the only logical conclusion was that the monster had, indeed, overcome her. For whatever reason, Juno felt the slightest tinge of sadness strike him as the reality of Belle’s fate set in.
The menacing creature lifted its metallic hand, and balled it into a fist, slamming it down - hard - on the conglomeration of hexagons. The platforms shook, and one disconnected yet again, plummeting into the abyss, landing with a distinct thud that echoed throughout the cavern.
He closed his eyes, letting the darkness settle in. In the void, he saw Belle, standing there, her red hair flowing down her back. He saw her pale face, smiling fleetingly at him before turning away and stepping out of sight, into nothingness. He sighed, attempting to concentrate on many things at once. He concentrated on breathing steadily; inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. He concentrated on holding his gun steady, not taking his mind off of the weapon until it was completely still in his hands; it wasn’t trembling with the fear he knew he felt. He concentrated on letting his ki flow through him, slipping in and out of his veins, through his arteries. He pushed energy into his fingers; he pushed energy into his toes. He let the bright inner power that he knew he had bubbling up inside of him travel through his body, lodging itself in every nook and cranny it could find.
“Don’t worry, Belle,” he muttered, so silent that nothing else could hear him, “I’m going to beat this thing. For you.” And suddenly, that seemed to calm everything. The world seemed to slow down, and he slowly loosened his fingers on the rifle, letting it fall to the copper floor, and he pushed himself off the ground, leaping onto the top of the low wall of organic matter and holding out both of his hands. As quickly as he could, he conjured a Pop in his hand, and as the Reaper fired its pink-red hued energy, Juno released his violet ki blast.
The beams of ki flew toward one another at lightning speed, crashing into one another with an impressive force. The blasts collided, red mixing with purple, and stayed constant for a moment. Juno held his attack strong, not about to let the Reaper best him in a bout of energy against energy. Come on, he told himself, You’re just as good as Kaden at this. Don’t let this thing beat you. He wouldn’t.
His pep talk seemed to work, at least for a moment, as he continued to hold back the Reaper’s ki blast; his offensive power was short, however, and so the priori incantatem was held even, equidistant from the two combatants. Juno grunted, and pushed all of the might he felt inside him into the blast, and slowly but surely, his violet ki beam started to overtake the Reaper’s. The black-haired half-saiyan smiled; maybe this wouldn’t be a losing battle after all. He forced all of his energy into the attack, knowing that if this failed, then there was nothing else he could do.
I’m going to avenge you, Belle, if I have to kill myself to do it.
He exerted himself further, hyper-extending his arms until they were as far separated from his shoulder joints as they could be. He pushed the ki through the muscles in his forearms and into the palm of his hand, allowing the explosion of plum-colored energy to grow larger and larger with each passing second. He swallowed nervously, watching as the Reaper slowly tightened its grip on the platforms, eventually squeezing so hard that it created cracks in the surface of the arena.
Zaeed watched the battle of wills from afar, rifle cradled in his arms. He glanced from Juno to the Reaper, and back again, and slowly felt the same pride that the black-haired half-saiyan was motivated by.
Juno closed his eyes and made one final thrust of energy, shooting forth all the strength he could spare—but it was unnecessary. The pinging of Zaeed’s rifle firing soon entered the seer’s ears, and the half-saiyan’s eyes opened to see the same energy shots that had left the mercenary’s weapon pelting the remaining red eye of the creature. It squealed in pain, not only devoid of its second eye but also finding itself vulnerable to Juno’s blast. The hybrid launched the Pop forward, and it crashed into the monster’s skull, sending his neck craning backwards, continuing to expand until at last it snapped.
The creature’s neck had broken in two, and now the gigantic head fell backwards, plummeting into the dark caverns below, landing loudly at the foot of the cavern. Juno collapsed to his knees.
Zaeed rushed over, placing a hand on the hybrid’s back as he fell further, holding himself aloft using the palms of his hands. Eventually, however, even those slipped from him, and the mercenary was forced to catch Juno, lying him on the ground to rest for a moment. “You okay, kid?” the older man asked in a raspy tone, but Juno could barely blink, let alone speak. His eyes flitted over to the headless body of the Reaper.
It was falling rapidly, collapsing into the chasm now that its head was missing; the red light on its chest still shined brightly, though. This wasn’t over. Not yet. They had won the battle, but they hadn’t won the war. Knowing this, and knowing that at least for a moment, while the Reaper recalibrated itself, he had time to rest, he shut his eyes, and slowly slipped away into unconsciousness.
He didn’t know where he was. Everything was black, except for silhouettes that seemed vaguely recognizable. He looked about at the different figures that surrounded him, not sure whether to frown or to smile as he gazed upon each one individually.
The first was a blonde man, complete with crimson jacket. He stood tall and proud, his eyes looking at Juno. In his hand he held a small cerulean orb of ki, and he nodded to the half-saiyan encouragingly. The hybrid wasn’t sure whether or not the real Kaden would’ve gone out of his way to motivate him, but this figment of his imagination sure seemed to think that was within the courier’s realm of thought, and that was good enough for the seer.
The second was also blonde. Her hair cascaded down her back, covering up part of the royal blue, form-fitting dress she wore. She looked over her shoulder at the ex-fortuneteller and offered him a smile, and then held out her hand. He reached out to touch the priestess’s fingers, just a small brush of his skin against hers, but with each inch he moved closer, she seemed to float farther away. Something was trying to taunt him, and as Sophia moved farther and farther from his vision, he felt a furious anger boiling up inside.
The third figure, standing in between Sophia and Kaden’s silhouettes, was the most recent addition to Juno’s acquaintance. Red hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing a form-fitting suit was Belle Hibiki. The ginger girl knelt down and whispered something inaudible to him—he sure hoped it was something encouraging—before smiling and beginning to float backwards toward a bright white light that had steadily grown before his eyes.
The three silhouettes met at the light and coalesced into a giant splotch of white energy hovering on the horizon, and as that glow merged with the other, they slowly grew into a menacing silhouette, one that the hybrid had been met with far too recently. His dream turned into a nightmare, he fought with himself to escape as slowly a skeletal hand began to approach him, its mechanized fingers opening up as it attempted to drag him into the depths of darkness.
If there was one thing that you could say about the black-haired hybrid, it was that his will to live was outstanding. Even when faced with death’s door itself, he fought with all his might against the forces that would have him gone forever. He wasn’t about to just lose this game, just like that. Not when he was so close to finding that teenager and beating the snot out of him.
He let out a vicious scream as he sat up abruptly.
“Whoa, Juno,” Zaeed muttered, attempting to calm him down, “What’s wrong?” The older soldier’s concern did not come unfounded; the hybrid was shivering, trembling from fear, or from the cold of this dank, damp cavern. Something had unnerved him, the mercenary knew, and from what he’d seen of Juno, not much could do that. Juno remained silent, but Zaeed pressed on, not content with no explanations. “Come on, Juno, what’s wrong?”
“Sophia,” he muttered, “Everything’s… everything’s falling apart, Zaeed.” The silver-haired man placed a hand against his forehead, but once again, he felt perfectly healthy, no fever whatsoever.
“No, man,” the mercenary assured him, “We won.”
“No, Zaeed,” Juno said knowingly, “We haven’t won yet. Belle—the Reaper—they’re not dead yet.” At this, the hybrid struggled to rise to his feet, and slowly leaned against the low organic wall for support as he braced himself for the Reaper’s final onslaught. “We can’t let the Reaper win, Zaeed. One of us—Belle or me—has to get out of here alive. That Reaper has to be stopped.”
The mercenary nodded, and the two men looked down towards the abyss as a low, muffled roar signaled the creature’s final charge had begun.
A mechanical clanking sounded throughout the cavern as the headless Reaper clambered back to the platform, no longer about to shoot a pinkish-red energy beam from its mouth but still having the menacing physical weapons its creators had endowed it with. Juno looked up at it triumphantly, his eyes focused solely on one goal: destroying the Reaper. If he was going to die in this fight, this beast would die with him.
“I’m not going down without a fight, you bastard!” Juno shouted, breaking free from Zaeed’s grasp and leaping at the Reaper’s chest. The skeleton clawed at the half-saiyan but he moved as quickly as possible to evade, barely escaping the fist of the blind monster. He vaulted towards the creature, grasping onto the ledge that sat just below the Reaper’s ‘heart.’ He breathed heavily, and climbed up onto the ledge. “Take this, you son of a bitch!” he yelled, charging up one final Pop.
Suddenly, however, he felt himself being yanked telekinetically off of the Reaper, sliding back onto the hexagonal platform. His face slammed into the copper arena and he slowly looked up, seeing the magma-encased form of the Harbinger standing before him.
An army of Collectors was approaching from whence Juno and Belle had arrived, slowly but surely buzzing in, their wings flapping in an even more insect-like manner than before.
Juno looked from the Harbinger to the horde of insectoid aliens to the Reaper. This seemed to be a losing battle, for all intents and purposes, but there was nothing inside of him that said he couldn’t try with all the power he had left in his scrawny frame to win. He wouldn’t give up—perhaps it was his Saiyan blood finally showing after his talk with Orion, or perhaps Kaden’s good guy persona was rubbing off on him a bit. Perhaps it was his commitment to get back to the carnival, to survive and live to fight Gamer another day. Perhaps it was his hope that he would get to see Sophia at least one more time. Perhaps it was the promise he’d made to Xenia.
“I’m going to win this game,” he had said to her inside the tower, “For both of you.”
You can do it, Juno.
Against all odds, he knew that he could win this. Even if he didn’t make it out of here alive, he could try his best and know that he had done that much—and hey, Sophia hadn’t said anything too bad about death while he was in her company, so he hoped that the lack of bad testimony was, indeed, confirmation that being dead wasn’t quite that bad after all. But why all this morbid talk of death? Who said he was going to die? He was going to win, dammit.
“Alright, guys,” he scoffed mockingly, transitioning back into his old, confident self, no matter how scared he might’ve been on the inside, “Come here, I’ve got a nice ass beating I’d like to show you.”
Juno’s attention focused on the Collectors, Zaeed glanced at the Reaper with a growing anxiety. “Uh, hey, Juno?” the mercenary asked nervously, “What the hell are we going to do about this big ol’ son of a bitch over here?” Juno chuckled—Zaeed had always been vulgar, even when Gamer had trapped him in the body of the fish-man guy thing.
“I thought that you could handle him, Zaeed,” Juno chuckled, picturing all the color drooping out of the silver-haired man’s face. The hybrid looked around at the group of about six or seven Collectors, led by the glowing possessed puppet of the Collector General—the self-proclaimed ‘harbinger of his destruction.’ “So, what do you boys say? You ready to get your asses kicked by a cripple?” The Harbinger, not to be outdone, once again left off the prefight bandying and bickering with the last words.
“I will show you true power.”