Beads of cold sweat trickled down Marie’s brow. I screwed up. I was gonna escape while they were preoccupied, but then I punched their leader before I realized what I was doing!
As much as she’d wanted to leave those girls behind to save her own skin, the idea of watching one of them get shot was too much to stomach. She’d moved instinctively, serving Dudley a knuckle sandwich.
Her mind raced. What next?
Marie dashed to where Dudley had collapsed, and as he tried to push himself up, she jammed her foot into his jaw. She snatched up his revolver and thrust the barrel in his direction. “Don’t move!” she warned his crew as she swept her gaze over them. “If you do, I’ll kill your friend here.”
Reluctantly, the men lowered their guns and rifles.
“You three,” Marie said, addressing the girls who’d brought her here. “Can you run?”
For a split-second, they simply stared at her without registering that she was talking to them. Soon, though, they recovered their wits and shook their heads.
“Th-there’s no way. My legs are pure jelly.”
“Get on your feet anyway! I don’t care how you do it!” Marie barked at them. “We’re getting outta here.” Marie knew she could best any of these men one-on-one, but she didn’t stand a chance against all of them together.
Dudley’s bandana came loose. In the struggle, the band tying his hair had snapped, and his blond hair fell across his face and shoulders. “You little brat,” he hissed at her. “I’ll make you regret this.”
It was nothing but the bitter whining of a sore loser. And yet, though Marie had the upper hand, a second look at him left her rattled. Her mind flashed back to her previous life. Somehow, Dudley looked exactly like a man she’d once dated—the one who’d claimed her life with his violence.
Marie’s breathing grew shallow and panicked. The sweat no longer trickled but poured, and tremors ran through her.
She knew they needed to run—and quickly—but her body wouldn’t listen. The boyfriend who had taken her life had left Marie traumatized.
“A-aren’t we going to leave?” one of the girls asked. She didn’t understand Marie’s sudden change.
Marie didn’t immediately respond. She was having trouble breathing. Her skin was unpleasantly sticky and damp.
Realizing he had an opening, Dudley shoved her away.
“Marie!” the leader cried.
Marie had been knocked to the ground, but she didn’t stand. She hugged her arms tightly. Why am I trembling? Who cares if this guy looks like my ex-boyfriend? Why is that so terrifying?!
Her mind conjured the image of the man who’d killed her with vivid clarity. Dudley’s face resembled his, but more than that, he had the same ominous air.
Dudley snatched up his revolver and smashed his foot into Marie’s side. “Where’s all that bravado, huh? Stupid girl. Did you really think we’d let you get away with mouthin’ off like that? I’m gonna make your life a special kind of hell.” He bashed his foot into her again and again. When he decided he was done, he stepped on her head, grinding his boot into her skull.
Hot tears streamed down Marie’s cheeks. This is such bull! Is my life really going to end here? No! I don’t wanna die like this!
Marie had never imagined a man who so resembled her last killer could possibly claim her life a second time. The most infuriating part was that while she couldn’t recall the faces of her mom, dad, daughter, or older brother, she’d managed to remember her boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—and he looked just like this jerk. If she was going to have flashbacks, she wished they could’ve been about the people who really mattered. Her parents, her daughter. Her older brother.
In the depths of her despair, she found herself wishing for the impossible. Big Bro, save me. She knew he wasn’t in this world, but that didn’t stop her from crying out for him, if only in her mind.
Little did she know, her prayer was about to be answered.
An explosive blast rocked the entrance of the warehouse. Dudley was forced to remove his boot from Marie’s head as he aimed his gun at the entrance. Smoke billowed forth, clouding the area. He pulled the trigger anyway.
“What the hell’s goin’ on?!”
Dudley had fired the shot on instinct, suspecting that whatever had caused the interruption was neither welcome nor friendly.
Marie lifted her head just in time to see Leon burst through the smoke and jam his fist smack-dab into the middle of Dudley’s face. The air pirate went flying—much like he had when Marie had done the same.
“I’ve come to take back my acquaintance,” Leon announced to the man’s henchmen. Then he grinned. “And while I’m at it, I think I’ll turn you over to the palace for a handsome reward.”
Marie stared at Leon. There was something so familiar about him. For an instant, she saw her older brother, and she found herself murmuring, “Big Bro…”
Her voice was so quiet that it didn’t reach his ears.
Leon’s gaze traveled down, landing on her. Marie was a mess after that beating. His brow furrowed. “You’ve just met a better man, pirate. Hope you’re ready to face the music.” Leon hefted what looked like a shotgun. All trace of amusement had disappeared from his face. To Marie, he looked ticked. “Marie,” he said, “can you stand?”
“Huh? O-oh, yeah.”
“I’ll take care of the rest.” Leon stepped in front of her so that all she could see was his back. Even from behind, he reminded her of her brother.
But why? Why does he remind me so much of him? Marie wondered bitterly.
***
I had charged into the air pirates’ hideout to save Marie, carrying a Luxion-crafted shotgun in hand. My partner hid himself with his cloaking device as he reported the enemies’ movements.
“You have an enemy with a rifle between four and five o’clock,” he said.
A gunshot lanced through the building. Before the bullet reached me, it slammed into my energy barrier—also courtesy of Luxion—and dropped to the ground. The person who’d fired gaped in disbelief. His comrades tried to fire in his place.
“Shoot me as many times as you want. It won’t change a thing. I’m bulletproof,” I told them. “Unfortunately for you, you very much aren’t.” My futuristic shotgun came equipped with a drum magazine. It would automatically reload, which allowed me to fire in rapid succession. Granted, it was loaded with nonlethal rubber bullets, but Luxion had packed enough punch in this thing that anyone it hit would go flying. It wasn’t here to kill anyone; it’d just pack one hell of a punch and cause serious injury.
“You’d better hurry up and surrender, or you’re all headed straight for the hospital.”
Some pirates scrambled to flee, and I fired on them. Others made a dash for their Armors—one of them being the man who’d been beating on Marie.
Marie clutched the fabric of my pants and yanked to get my attention. “Um, they…they’re going for their Armors,” she stammered.
“I see ’em. Luxion!”
“This is of no concern,” he answered.
As soon as the pilots took their seats and closed their hatches, the suits powered to life and lurched upright. The sight rallied the remaining pirates.
“Think you’ve won, huh?” one of them taunted me. “Now the tide’s turning in our—gwaah!”
I fired, hitting him right in the face. He slapped his hands over the aching wound and collapsed to the ground, writhing in pain.
“Shut up,” I said.
“Stupid brat,” came a voice from one of the Armors. The one that was piloted by that Dudley guy—I think that was his name. Luxion had told me he was one of the Winged Shark’s head honchos. “You think you’re some kinda white knight, swoopin’ in to save these girls, but gimme a sec and you’re gonna be a pile of minced meat.” He raised a battleaxe.
Dudley’s Armor had been more intensely modified than the other two, and it was covered in spikes.
“Has kind of a whole bandit vibe,” I said to myself.
Marie clung to my leg. “Stop acting all cool! You need to run—get out of here, quick!”
“Nah. No need for that.” I paused for a moment. “Luxion.”
“Arroganz, it is time to take the stage.”
No sooner did Luxion say that than a hulking black suit burst through one of the warehouse walls.
It towered over the pirates’ suits, standing six meters to their four. The suit was painted in shades of ashen gray and black, and it carried three containers on its back. To modern eyes, it looked unwieldy. The pirates were stunned by its arrival. Only the trio of girls who’d dragged Marie here in the first place had the temerity to criticize it.
“That Armor is ancient!”
“There’s no way it can compete with the speed of the other suits!”
“This is the end for us. And after we thought we were saved, too!”
They had mistaken Arroganz for an antiquated relic because the modern preference was for a slim, highly mobile model. Large, heavily armored units were a thing of the past. Compared to the newer suits, they were slow and weak—little more than easy pickings on the battlefield.
“Is that true?!” Marie squeaked. She wasn’t as privy to Armor lore as I was. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. Here you are, acting like everything’s gonna be fine, but you brought that old piece of junk?!”
“Don’t you think you’re forgetting something?” I asked.
Of course I wouldn’t bring a knife to a gunfight.
Luxion’s camera lens flashed. “Arroganz, display your battle prowess for Marie.”
He wasn’t just showing off. He genuinely wanted to allay her fears. Isn’t he a little too soft on her?
Arroganz’s red eyes gleamed as the suit registered Luxion’s orders. It approached one of the enemy Armors—one which belonged to Dudley’s henchmen.
“Idiot!” the pilot inside shouted. “You may be big, but you don’t got the power to beat me! Your rickety antique’s about to be—huh?”
In this world, the larger size of an Armor didn’t tend to correlate with greater power. The bigger the Armor, the more energy it had to consume. As such, smaller suits tended to have the upper hand. To put it in perspective, imagine a semi-truck with the engine of a tiny car. That wouldn’t give it much fuel, right? Maybe you would have attached a bigger engine to the truck, but the engineers of this world had instead focused on downsizing suits. After all, with that same engine, a smaller unit had more speed and power, right? That line of thinking had dictated Armor development for years. Consequently, since larger Armors required that much more energy to even move, they tended to lack firepower.
As the enemy Armor grappled with Arroganz, a keening screech of metal split the air. The enemy’s suit crashed to its knees, electrical discharge crackling at its joints.
“Dammit! What the devil’s goin’ on here?!” Dudley hissed as he and his remaining henchmen charged, bringing their weapons down on Arroganz.
“Let him go, you hunk of junk!”
Their attacks left not so much as a scratch on Arroganz’s surface. After pulverizing its first enemy, Arroganz turned its violence on Dudley’s other crony. It punched the Armor so hard that the suit flew into the opposite wall, then ripped off its head, exposing the cockpit. The pilot inside gaped in disbelief.
Marie had barely made it back to her feet, her legs shaking like those of a newborn foal, but as she saw all this play out, she sank back to the ground. “It’s so strong,” she said with a gasp.
“This is Arroganz,” Luxion said, pleased, “an Armor I constructed for Master’s exclusive use. It far exceeds the primitive techniques of ‘modern’ warfare, and its capabilities are beyond compare. I have equipped it with a variety of functions which allow it to adapt to battle no matter the circumstances.” He sounded proud of himself.
“Arroganz? As in smug superiority?” Marie asked.
“Indeed. You are far more learned than Master, I see.”
I gaped at him. I had asked what the name meant before, and all he’d said was, “Its meaning fits you perfectly, Master.”
“Hey, you didn’t tell me that!” I snapped. “And what do you mean by that, anyway? You trying to say I’m full of myself?”
“Master, you liked the name when I first suggested it.”
“No, the name is fine, okay?! The point is that you were mocking me this whole time!”
While we were busy bickering, Dudley sent his suit up into the air, smashing through the ceiling. Debris rained down, and Arroganz shifted to shield us from the rubble with its body.
As he accelerated, Dudley shouted back, “I’ll let you off today! But I’m not gonna forget your face any time soon. I swear I’ll bring you to your knees. Just you wait!”
After which he promptly abandoned the rest of his minions and flew off.
I sighed. “Look at him, getting ahead of himself and thinking he can run from me. Luxion, are we good to go?”
“Yes, Master.”
Arroganz knelt to the ground, and the hatch to the cockpit cracked open. Those gathered gasped—there was no one inside. Ignoring their surprise, I climbed in, Luxion following close behind.
Marie pushed herself to her feet as she stared up at me quizzically. “Hold it. What do you expect us to do? This place is still crawling with pirates.”
“Don’t worry about them. You guys just focus on evacuating and getting to safety.”
“But what’re you gonna do, Big Br—I mean, Leon?” Marie hastily corrected herself. I was too busy to worry about whatever Freudian slip that was.
I pointed to the sky. “I’m gonna catch ’em all.”
And with that, I slammed the hatch shut.
***
Arroganz jetted through the air, passing a number of one-eyed robots that swooped into the warehouse. They had no legs, hovered in the air, and were equipped with weapons in each hand. Our robot mini-army made quick work of restraining the remaining pirates.
“What in the world? What’s going on here?” The three girls who had been plaguing Marie sat on their behinds, their mouths hanging wide open.
Marie stared up through the hole in the ceiling. “This is really messing with my head. Why’d I almost call him that?”
She knew better than to think they could ever be reunited, yet her heart was filled with joy.
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