Monstercat: Origins (Part 1)

Chapter 30: Protos

"From the mysterious reaches of infinity, a gigantic astral body hurtles towards the Earth, to terrorize and seal the doom of an unprepared mankind!"
The human beings, in the midst of a Sonic war, now lived in fear of the Cult and what it brought with it, the Alchemist. The only people on Earth who had any inclination that the Cult wasn't a giant evil death ship were the Italians, who, thanks to the distraction of the Alchemist, were now being invaded from the South.
Camon woke up standing in the tank, looking out through the glass. His eyesight was so much... clearer? He looked over at Predictbot. Then he looked down at his hands. That's when he realized that what he had weren't hands anymore. Camon had black paws. And, as he looked more, he noticed that he had black everything. He touched his head. He was taken aback by two pointy cat ears on his head. Predictbot looked around for something reflective. It managed to find a piece of broken glass, but because of how dirty it was it couldn't see itself perfectly. It brought the glass over to the new Camon. He instead looked directly at Predictbot, who had reflective metal for a coat. All he saw inside was black. He felt his face and started panicking. "Why don't I have eyes!" he yelled. "Can you see at least?" asked Predictbot. "Yeah I can. Wait, we need to get back to the holodeck now, don't we?" Camon continued. The loudspeaker came on, "Here I come, Camon!" It was Vario again. Camon had an idea. He went over to a pillar by the door and pushed it in front of the opening. Now half of it was covered. He dashed to the other side and started pushing. Predictbot waited directly in front. Vario bounced through the small crack in the closing pillars. "Hah, thought you could trap me, huh?" questioned Vario. "No, we did," Predictbot retorted. They both dashed through the same small opening in the pillars and Camon pulled them closed. Now Vario was trapped in the dome. They heard muffled yelling from inside. They then went out into the dead garden. Camon remembered how beautiful it was in his dream. They got there quicker than expected. "That's the benefit of the cat legs," Predictbot said gesturing to the wall in front of them, "Along with extreme agility." Camon got the gist of what he was saying. He dashed towards the wall and jumped. He continued to jump from wall to wall, a lot. Eventually he was jumping through balconies and searching for the elevator. When he finally found it, he wall-jumped in the empty elevator shaft as well. They had made it back to the hallway containing the holodeck. They dashed to the door and kicked it open again. Once they were inside, they looked for a hatch or some way to get underneath. Predictbot found it under the steering wheel. "Here!" it exclaimed. They lifted up the hatch and jumped inside. Vario came over the loudspeakers again, joined with a lot of static, "I don't know what you are doing, boy, but you need to stop immediately!" Ninür came on as well, "You better get out of that core!" They looked forward at a giant rotating gear with a large orb in it's center. The orb was known as the quantum core. Camon remembered from his research that this core could only be shut down by an overload or a manual shutdown through the holodeck, which was currently occupied. So, they were looking for a giant circuit controller to shoot lasers at. They split up and looked for the breaker box. Camon eventually found it on a nearby wall; however, they needed a key. Predictbot approached the core. "What are you doing?" asked Camon. It stuck it's arm in the core, heating it up to a nearly molten state. It then floated over to the breaker box and stuck it's arm in the hole. The metal of his arm melted into the shape of a perfect key. "Nifty," Camon said. It turned its arm and unlocked the box. Inside were tons of switches that controlled the various power sources of the ship. Camon realized that they probably shouldn't shoot lasers at it, for that would probably destroy the box, which would mean if it didn't work, they would be screwed. So, he instead started flicking off every switch that was on. Predictbot helped switch them off. When they were done, they were going to turn every one of them on at the same time. Camon strategically placed each of his fingers, (it would've been more convenient had he still had ten fingers), on switches. However, there was definitely more than 8 switches. Predictbot looked over at the core again. It floated over and stuck its entire body inside this time. Then it flew through a grate on the floor. A bunch of small irregular cubes floated over to Camon and placed themselves on the other switches. Camon just stood in bewilderment before he chanted, "Alright, 1... 2... and 3!" Together they flicked every switch on again. The ship came to life once again. Except, too much came alive, and the large quantum core started to bulge. "Now, how do we escape?" Predictbot asked, fusing back into it's original state. Camon knew what he had to do. In the space lab there was a small space pod. Dr. Raven said it was strictly experimental, but he had no other choice than to use it or explode with the rest of the ship.  He dashed out of the quantum core and back through the holodeck. He needed to get to the laboratories fast. It was easily done with those powerful cat legs of his. He sprinted down the hall with greater speed then any vine hand could ever take him. He jumped out of the hall and fell down the elevator shaft with ease. The lab door was not too far away. Once he was inside, he wall-ran up to the launch bay. He jumped over piles of rubble inside the lab, now falling apart. It was hard to tell where the entrance was, but he managed to find it. He squeezed through the crack in the rubble and leaped into a cluttered room. Off in the distance was a blue door labeled Experimental. Camon ran over all the rubble and stealthily climbed up over heaps of destroyed machinery. He shot through the door with his bandanna and immediately saw the pod. Camon popped open the hatch, and behind him came a small explosion. A silver haired man in thick steel armor with a torn red scarf flapping behind him walked through, carrying a malicious looking pistol. The super sheriff. "Here comes Protos, the Rider in Red!" he yelled. Camon leaped into the ship and slammed the hatch. He looked down at the control box. There wasn't a key in the ignition. "Bugger," Camon said, looking out the window at a fallen tool bench holding about 50 sets of keys. Then it exploded into at least 500 pieces. "Thanks for trapping yourself, It'll make this so much more painful for you," Protos laughed, but Camon couldn't hear him through the hatch. Camon felt something scratch his leg, and it felt really good for some reason. "Right, scratching is quite the sensation in cat form," Camon said to himself. He noticed what scratched his leg though; Predictbot. How could he forget about it? It was still pretty hot from the core so it tried sticking it's hand in the ignition. It was difficult, but the ship was started. Unfortunately, Protos wasn't letting him off easy, so he aimed his gun at the small ships engine. "Goodbye, pussy cat," he cackled, yet he was too late. Camon and Predictbot had blasted off. The ship radio played  static and the only audible thing through it was quiet dubstep, until they heard the words, "He'll chop off your head with evil steel!" loud and clear. Camon had little idea of how to fly, but he managed to steer the small pod. Once he got a hang of it, he looked up. His mouth dropped at what he saw. A giant green tentacle wrapped itself around the Earth. He followed it to a giant space creature with a skull mask. "Cthulu," Camon whispered. He looked back at the controls, trying to figure out how to shoot. "Here," Predictbot said, gesturing to the controls in the copilots seat. "Well, looks like your in control then," Camon replied. The vessel floated over to a wheel with two buttons. It put its fingers on the buttons and aimed for the Cthulu. It pushed them down, firing lasers out of the front of the ship. The radio still played the quiet dubstep tune, before switching to a news transmission, "A giant metal vampire, stalking the Earth!" It switched again as he flew towards the Cthulu, "Job for the army, they've got the guided missiles and nuclear warheads." That's when he saw the rocket leaving Earth. It was heading straight for the giant creatures skull. "Shoot for the tentacles and the hands!" Camon yelled. Predictbot aimed at its giant arms and started firing at the shoulders. It then aimed lower at the Earth-grasping tentacle. Camon's plan had worked, the Cthulu didn't stop the missile. It's skull mask erupted in a massive explosion. It then dissipated into slimy bits, scattering chunks of itself throughout the solar system. The fun didn't stop there. A laser whizzed past Camon's ship. He turned to spot three huge sharks with laser equipment. A barrage of lasers flew their way. Camon rolled the ship out of the way while. "Saw that coming," Predictbot said humorously. Camon looked at it with a blank unamused look. It got back to shooting after laughing to itself. "One looked bad enough," Camon said, "But three?" Predictbot just kept shooting and Camon kept steering. They saw a rocket emerge from the place they had landed before, (Italy). Italy was using the last of its nuclear warheads to help support the space battle rather than stopping the invading factions from the South. The missile crashed into one of the three sharks, causing it's laser equipment to malfunction. The rapidly firing scattered lasers took care of the two other sharks. Once the explosion fog cleared, Camon saw what had really sent the lasers everywhere. Amidst the fog peeked large one-eyed aliens. "Awesome, here comes that psychic alien race," Camon said. Once again, the daring duo attacked. Their assistance from Earth stopped, and they were on their own. That's what they thought at least, until they saw a silver flash dart between the heads of the aliens. One by one, they were shot and blown into pieces. Before them stood Protos once again. Camon realized because Protos was a cyborg, he probably didn't need to breathe, which would explain why he was alive in space. Protos aimed his pistol at the pod and fired. Camon rolled the ship out of the way. Predictbot started to spray the general area of the sheriff, but no serious damage was done to him. The radio repeated the word "Ride" over and over again, until the phrase, "But soon you'll be dead" popped in. There was only one apocalyptic being that the Alchemist had summoned left, the samurai. Camon looked at the moon as it seemingly fell onto the crown of a giant samurai in metal armor. Protos and the heroes had a ceasefire at this point. They both started attacking the samurai. Another news transmission came in from Earth, "Who's the real hero, and who's the Faker?" The samurai swung a large katana at the both of them. Protos stopped the sword with a large blast from his pistol. The samurai, taken aback, fired a moon beam from it's crown instead. This easily knocked Protos back. Camon and Predictbot hung back and watched the battle transition to a Protos vs. Samurai one. The final moments of the battle involved a mega blast from Protos' pistol colliding with a moon beam. A large explosion took place. When all was cleared, they were both gone. The moon was thrown back into orbit. Camon turned and faced the beautiful planet. Predictbot and Camon looked at each other with triumph. Then, Camon looked in the rearview mirror to see a chunk of metal flying towards their ship. CRASH!