Garou's Rival

Chapter 9 - The Alien Invasion

Metal Bat hits the head towards us and Iaian cuts it in two. Before it can regenerate, I grab both halves and slam them into the ground, destroying them further. For a moment, something in the head glints and catches my eye, but the halves slip through my fingers like sand and reform together. "Disgusting creature, take your hands off of me!" it shouts.

"Alright, I'll just use my feet!" I flip over it and kick it into the ground. Before it can reforms, I grind it into the ground and try to file it down to nothing. "Try regenerating from nothing, dirt-ball!" I shout as it scrapes on the jagged rocks. Quickly, it shrinks to almost nothing, until only a small ball is left in my hand. I hold it up to my eye and look closely at it. There's some kind of moving liquid inside it. The monster comes back together and looks at me furiously, flying towards me.

"Give that back! You don't know what you're dealing with!" It yells, growing spikes out of its body.

I throw the marble at Metal Bat. "Hey, Metal Bat! Destroy that marble!" I call. Without saying a word, he takes aim and swings, destroying the marble to dust. Screaming and melting, the head falls apart in front of me and falls to the ground, dissolved. Yes! We found a way to beat it! "Hey, everyone!" I shout, running towards the main battle. Some heroes turn towards me. "For each head, there's some kind of heart in the monster! Just keep damaging it until you find a marble. Then destroy it!"

While it's distracted by almost a dozen heroes, I jump on the back of its neck and try to rip off one of its heads. If I can just do this, it'll be a lot easier to deal with it myself. But the monster picks me off and holds me up, watching me struggle and scratch at its hand. "I was growing that head for 100 years. To think that it would die in a dump like this, to trash like you..." It starts to tighten its grip and this starts to feel like the Deep Sea King all over again. "Unfortunately, I'll have to settle with killing you all for revenge!" Atomic Samurai cuts off its arm and I fall to the ground, quickly clawing through the arm to see if I can find a marble in it. As the arm decomposes and the sand starts to fly past me back to the body, something shiny flies by my eye. I frantically run after it and barely catch it in my hand. It's a struggle just to overcome the attraction between it and the body.

"How's this for trash?!" I shout. It turns around to see the marble in my hand right as I put it in my mouth and crush it in my teeth. "2 down, 3 to go!" Another head melts on its neck and it it makes a blade out of its arm.

"That's enough from you! Your little schemes are over!" It swings the blade towards me and tries to cut me in half, but I barely jump over it, the ducking under and running away. There's so much power in all of its movements, I can't get hit by this thing. I doubt any of the other heroes would be able to survive a direct blow either.

Puri Puri Prisoner pummels the monster with a combo of punches, and Superalloy Darkshine puts a huge hole in its middle. Finally, Atomic Samurai darts forward and cuts the monster to pieces. "Atomic Slash." Now just a swirling cloud of brown sand, everyone looks around for the marbles in the air. However, it seems that no one has found another. The monster comes back together, and punches Master Bang directly before anyone can react.

"Master Bang!" I shout, running over to him. A direct hit! That's not good. When I finally reach him, he's on one knee from dropping onto the ground from the wall he hit. "Are you ok?!"

Slowly, he gets up and stretches his shoulders. "Phew. I'm a bit stiff since I haven't had a good fight in a while. Perhaps I should start getting into my hero work more just to keep myself sharp." Amazing! He took that punch and shrugged it off. He suddenly looks at me. "What are you doing over here? The mission is far more important than some old man's life, you know!" he scolds me.

"R-right! Sorry, Master," I say, nervously bowing to him and running back. Darkshine, Tanktop Master and Puri Prisoner are attacking it with basic punches, while Atomic Samurai cuts it up as much as possible. Metal Bat is focusing on blindly swinging his bat in the hope that if he swings fast enough, he'll eventually hit one.