I stared at Conquest hovering there, his massive cybernetic arm dripping with blood. A terrifying, psychotic grin split his scarred face.
"Anissa went on and on about you," he boomed, his voice rumbling like an earthquake. "She went on and on about how frustrating, yet interesting, her little chat with you was. Then Kregg sent word that you actually put up a decent fight alongside your traitorous father against Thula, Lucan, and Vidor on that bug planet. I have to admit, that's when my curiosity peaked."
He casually tossed the bottom half of The Politician aside and drifted closer to us.
"Well technically, I was sent here to evaluate your progress. After all, you were given orders, you were given time, and you were given far more leeway than most Viltrumite agents to prepare this planet for assimilation," Conquest continued, rolling his shoulders with a sickening series of pops. "And yet I find this planet way underprepared for the arrival of our Viltrum empire. But that matters little, because I decided to come early to see what had Anissa so worked up."
His singular, bloodshot eye locked onto me, burning with absolute thrill.
"When I entered this planet's atmosphere, I found a trail of destruction leading straight here. I saw a bunch of weak, pathetic copies of you flying around. A few of them even said they knew me. Said they wanted to kill me," Conquest laughed, a deep, barking sound. "I had no idea what they were talking about, but I slaughtered a few of them anyway just for the fun of it. Then, I followed the trial to the real carnage. And looking at this?"
He gestured to the ruined landscape and the battered Apex variant.
"I'm not disappointed in the slightest," Conquest grinned, his teeth stained with the blood of the variants he had crushed on the way.
"I don't give a damn who sent you," I spat, my voice dripping with venom. "You picked the worst day to trespass on my planet. Get the fuck out of here before I bury you right next to him."
Conquest's grin only widened.
"The Empire anticipated your resistance, which is why they sent me. I have never failed to assimilate a planet. And honestly? I want you to resist," he said, spreading his arms out. "I'm not here to spread the greatness of the Viltrum Empire. I'm here because I enjoy this. I enjoy the feeling of my fist drenched in blood. So, both of you. Please resist."
Mhhm, just as I thought. He's crazy as fuck, I processed immediately, then glanced at the Apex variant. And ifI fight them both here the collateral damage will be unthinkable. I need them to focus on each other while I replenish my reserves and take them both out.
"So, it's bad enough you had to jump me with fourteen other guys," I sneered, plastering a look of mocking disgust on my face. "But you needed to send for backup from my universe, too? Pathetic."
The Apex variant's face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated fury.
"I don't need backup from what's soon to be a corpse!" he snarled, then turned his burning eyes toward Conquest. "I slaughtered the Conquest of my dimension with ease. You'll die just like he did!"
Conquest blinked, clearly confused for a fraction of a second. Then, he threw his head back and let out a terrifying, psychotic laugh.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, but I love the enthusiasm!" he roared.
The two powerhouses charged at each other, resulting in a shockwave that ripped through the area, completely shattering any remaining glass below and caving in the streets.
Now with these two occupied, here's my chance, I thought, instantly shooting straight up towards the upper atmosphere. If I could just break orbit and bask in the unfiltered solar radiation, I could supercharge my reserves and come back down with enough power to wipe them both out after they weaken each other.
I didn't make it.
Down below, the Apex and Conquest were locked in a brutal battle of grapples, trying to fight for dominance. However, the momentum swung when Conquest spotted me flying upwards. He instantly drove a knee directly into the Apex's already-injured ribs. The sheer force cracked his sternum, breaking the grapple and staggering the older variant backwards.
Without missing a beat, Conquest pushed off the Apex and used the momentum to shoot straight into the sky.
He reached me quickly and clamped his massive cybernetic hand down on my ankle like a vice.
"And where do you think you're going?!" he screamed, his eyes wild with bloodlust. "All the fun is down here!"
He violently spun me like a ragdoll, using my own upward momentum against me, and hurled me straight back down toward the Earth.
I descended like an extinction-level meteor.
I slammed directly into the staggered Apex variant. The kinetic transfer was so massive that the battlefield shifted in seconds. We smashed through the dense forests and granite peaks of the Appalachian Mountains, tearing a jagged, burning trench through the mountain range.
Before the Apex and I could even untangle ourselves from the rubble, Conquest dropped out of the sky, landing on us with a seismic boom.
What followed wasn't a methodical duel between three warriors, but a three-way deadlock of instinctual chaos.
We didn't give each other an inch to breathe. Every strike traded was meant to be lethal. My Bio-Reactive suit became even more tattered, as my body took more significant damage. My ribs fractured under a roundhouse kick from the Apex. While the Apex's face was quickly reduced to a bloody, swollen mess from my reciprocating blows. And Conquest bled from his mouth and ears from our constant blows, but he didn't care. He was experiencing absolute glee.
At one point, we dragged the fight across the country. I grabbed Conquest by his cybernetic arm and hurled him directly into Lake Erie. The Apex and I chased him down, plunging into the depths. We fought on the muddy floor of the Great Lake, our constant shockwaves displacing so much water that millions of gallons instantly flash-boiled. A massive, towering geyser of steam erupted into the atmosphere as the lakebed practically evaporated around us.
We burst out of the steam cloud, a tangled mass of bleeding Viltrumite limbs, and brawled across the sky until we crashed into the barren, cracked earth of the Nevada desert.
All three of us were taking catastrophic damage.
I was coughing up blood, the Apex's left eye was completely swollen shut, and Conquest's cybernetic arm was sparking, the metal dented and warped.
"MORE!" Conquest roared, completely ignoring his injuries.
He lunged forward, grabbing both the Apex and me by our throats. He flew up to a staggering height, then drove us straight down like two meteorites. We smashed into the Earth's crust and he dragged our faces through the bedrock for miles. The sheer friction burned away whatever remained of my armor and tore the skin from my cheeks while he laughed hysterically.
I quickly flared my energy, breaking his grip with a localized kinetic burst that depleted a portion of my already exhausted reserves, causing all of us to erupt back up in a shower of molten rock and sand.
We landed outside a massive crater formed by the impact. We were all ragged, breathless, and soaked in our own blood from the hours of continuous fighting.
The Apex took the brief moment of pause as an opportunity to strike.
Running purely on the last bits of stamina he had, the Apex blurred towards me. I tried to parry, but my reaction time slowed for a microsecond. He shaped his hand into a rigid spear and drove it towards my heart. As he did, I had no other choice but to shift my body enough for the strike to only hit a non lethal spot in my abdomen.
His arm pierced straight through my gut, exiting my back.
Agony, hot and blinding, flared through my nervous system as I looked down at the gaping, bloody hole in my torso. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Conquest speeding toward us from across the crater, both of his fists positioned forward to deliver a strike that would undoubtedly kill us both.
My mind raced, understanding that there was only one option available for me.
Instead of trying to pull away from the Apex's impaling arm, I lurched forward. I clamped both of my bloody hands down on his biceps, physically locking his arm inside my body so he couldn't retreat.
I began to channel my energy inwards, pulling every ounce of reserved solar radiation I had left and funneling it straight into the gaping wound in my abdomen where his arm was trapped.
The Apex's one good eye widened in sudden panic as he realized what I was doing.
I activated my Solar Flare and a blinding, white-hot supernova exploded from my core. The sheer heat was incomprehensible. The Apex variant didn't even have time to scream. The solar energy channeled directly into his bloodstream, incinerating him from the inside out. His flesh boiled away, his bones turned to cinder, and within a second, he was completely vaporized, leaving nothing behind but an ash-covered skull that slowly crumbled to dust in the wind.
The massive area-of-effect blast expanded outward, completely engulfing the incoming Conquest in the miniature sun.
The surrounding bedrock melted into a lake of glowing obsidian.
When the blinding light finally faded, the silence of the wasteland rushed back in. I dropped to one knee, the scorched earth crunching under my weight. I was completely exhausted. My once-limitless reserves of radiation were nearly depleted as blood poured freely from the massive, gaping hole in my abdomen, pooling onto the glassed earth.
Man, that always takes a lot outta me, I thought, attempting to stem the bleeding. But they're gone, which is all that matters right—
From the center of the smoking crater, a figure suddenly stirred, cutting off my contemplations.
Conquest stepped out of the ash. His Viltrumite uniform was completely burned away. He was bleeding heavily from dozens of wounds, and his skin was heavily charred, peeling off his massive frame in thick, grotesque strips.
But he was smiling.
He looked down at the pile of ash where the Apex had been, then slowly raised his gaze to me. His singular eye was completely wild, dilated with a pure, intoxicating rush of adrenaline. He casually wiped a layer of charred flesh off his own cheek. The psychotic grin widened, splitting his burned face in half.
"Yes! Yes! YES!" Conquest screamed, his voice vibrating with absolute euphoria. "Anissa wasn't wrong at all! But you're more than she could even comprehend! Let's see what else you've got! Give me more!"
How the fuck is he alive?! I fumed, attempting to force myself up to my feet.
Every nerve in my body was screaming in agony. But, I was able to dilute the pain and stand up as a murderous rage filled my entire body.
"Looks like I have to erase you from this existence, you twisted old freak!" I promised, my voice a raspy, guttural snarl.
I expended the last drop of my reserves as Conquest let out a primal roar.
We pushed off the ground, shattering the floor beneath us, and collided in mid-air, officially initiating the end of one of the most brutal battles in Viltrumite history.