Greg Vs Raid 9-40B: Dying Sparks II

Sparky could fight.

And — here was the thing — he was pretty damn good at it too. Uncle Tito hadn’t given him knuckledusters as a birthday gift just to be the ‘cool uncle’. He never took boxing classes, sure, but you didn’t need those when you knew how to move well enough.

And Sparky could move before he could fight. You put him up against anyone that wasn’t crazy out of his weight class and Sparky knew he could make them feel like they were fighting an octopus or some shit.

A month of powers had only made him more sure of that.

Fighting normal people and non-normal people and also Greg had taught him a good bit more about how to use what he had the best way he could. 

And what he had included his eyes.

You didn’t need to do a lot when you could just look at the way people moved, because damn near everyone told you what they were about to do before they even did it; shoulder drops, hip turns, weight shifts onto the back foot…

People were predictable like that.

Mannequin wasn’t people.

A white elbow disconnected — ceramic off the arm on a chain as Mannequin swung it, the momentum still there as it swung around Sparky’s side — and the shoulder it used to be attached to went the complete opposite way.

What the h- The second a pair of gold eyes went wide, Mannequin’s torso hinged right at the waist — completely backward, past where a spine should be — and a blade came rushing out of the hip, another angle of attack on a thick flying chain.

The world slowed as Sparky jumped and dodged, passing by death by bare inches, and the teenager lunged with a right hand. Brass knuckles caught the alley light above his yellow padded glove, a yell leaving his throat as his fist made contact with Mannequin’s white face—

—And that mechanical neck just folded sideways while the rest of the body moved forward.

Nggghh! A hard knee, all ceramic and metal with no give or grace in it, caught Sparky clean in the stomach. Breath exploded from aching lungs as the teenager went back into brick, the wall cracking against his spine.

Another knife lashed out on another chain, Sparky dodging the killing blow with a grunt as he threw himself forward. “Got!” A hard tackle at full speed had him grab Mannequin with both hands around the white torso, the charge not stopping. A hard drive across the alley and Mannequin’s back bulldozed hard into the opposite wall, red dust and old mortar raining down from the roofline on both their heads.

It should have mattered.

It should have done something.

Mannequin decided otherwise, the cyborg folding around the hit. Seams opened as every joint absorbed the force, pneumatics hissing as once-rigid chest plating separated apart for just a second.

A second was enough for Sparky to look down.

Wha-

Gold eyes went wide at the sight of stuff in there. Pink and purple pieces pulsing wet behind cases of clear whatever; tubes ran in and out of Mannequin, all of them packed in tight between motors and coils and pumps; all of it tik-tik-tikking at too many beats per minute to even keep track of as the smell of sterile cleaner and old blood hit his nose.

“Jesu—!”

His stomach recoiled the same time he jumped back, shout immediately turning into a scream as a blade punched right through his left shoulder. Steel ripped through his jacket and shirt, sliding through muscle and scraping bone before sliding out the back, hot blood spraying out to soak his sleeve.

The blade was yanked back, a soft snick the only sound it made as Mannequin retracted the bloody blade. Sparky stumbled back, feet almost betraying him until his back found the wall again. A yellow-gloved hand clamped over the wound, Sparky’s brain racing through the adrenaline as Mannequin just stood there… waiting.

Just waiting.

That… A grunt slid out of clenched teeth as he fought his own breath, trying to keep it controlled as best he could. That could have been my throat.

Easily.

The same for the cut on his leg, because a few inches over and you could easily find an artery there. Sparky was no doctor but he’d seen enough shitty TV with his mom to know where that one lived.

Mannequin was just fucking with him.

“...y-you…” Sparky’s voice scraped through the mask, letting his hand drop down. “You’re a real bitch, you know that?”

Another tilt of that egg-white head and a chain-linked arm punched out again.

A duck took his past the hand grasping for his neck, Sparky dropping low and scrambling into a roll. Refusing to look over his shoulder at the blades rushing toward his back, he grabbed at a thick reddish pipe bolted to the brick wall.

Both hands wrapped around the metal, Sparky planted his feet.

Brackets and sheared screws tore free from the wall, rust and red dust exploding out with it until Sparky was gripping tight to almost six feet of iron pipe. “...huh.”

He had absolutely no idea how to use a staff, but he used it anyway. With a single move, Sparky thrust the pipe forward the second Mannequin unfolded out toward him again. Iron caught the cyborg in the chest and Sparky didn’t waste a second in following up, as he swung the whole thing like a bat.

Full rotation with both his hips into it like he was taking out a mailbox, Sparky caught the head clean. Mannequin jerked back and Sparky wasn’t free from that, the rebound almost tearing the pipe from his hands as it shook up his arms. Grip fixed on the rusted metal, his breathing came out raw and ragged as he kept on trying with a smile on his face.

No elegance. No skill. No technique other than keep the evil knife robot all the way over there.

“Oh.” And it worked, for several ugly seconds at least. Sparky swung low, one of those chain-linked legs knocked aside. The blunt end of the pipe hammered Mannequin’s torso as all of Sparky’s body weight went into the hit and he drove the cyborg back into the wall again. “Oh, I like this.”

Another jab and a bit of that white shell went crunch. “This is staying. This is mine n-”

The pipe came apart in his hands as Mannequin tilted his featureless head again, blade retracting back into his wrist as Sparky blinked. Sheared metal clattered down to the blacktop as Sparky stood there, chest heaving at that too-fast swipe.

He stared at the three feet of suddenly useless metal still in his grip. “...you dick.”

The next blade slipped past the rest of the pipe, a shallow line burning and bleeding across his forearm. 

He flinched back, grip tightening on the metal. Could’ve taken the hand.

Instead, Mannequin just cut him instead.

Again.

The half-pipe flew out, a hard throw at Mannequin’s head more a distraction as Sparky went low instead. A hard kick off the green dumpster turned into a flying dropkick, both soles slamming into Mannequin’s chest and sending both of them flying apart. A broken pallet became a shield against one of the psycho’s telescoping blades, razor edge trapped in cheap wood before he rammed a shoulder into Mannequin’s chest again.

“Yeah…” The sound of something cracking under that white shell put a smile on Sparky’s face again, an arm hanging wrong. “You feel that one, huh?”

No answer, but that shoulder rolled; elbow reversed with a metal crunch until the arm simply worked again, just in the opposite direction.

All that confidence vanished with his smile as the fight turned into something so much nastier; a personal meat grinder. Sparky knew he was faster than Mannequin, at least when it came to moving right. Whenever Mannequin bothered to act like a thing with a skeleton, he could outpace the cyborg.

But none of that really mattered when Mannequin just kept changing the rules; attacking through his own joints, extending limbs around corners and reconfiguring as soon as Sparky tried to get a rhythm going. 

He’d been a drummer and had lived on rhythm, but everything about this thing lived off-beat on-purpose.

Lines littered his body; ribs, upper arm, stomach, other shoulder.

But never the throat and never deep enough to end the game.

Mannequin didn’t even go for the legs anymore in his stupid game of death by a thousand dumb little cuts, that eggshell face just watching him bleed. Sparky didn’t need a face or a smile to know that Mannequin was getting off to this shit.

“I’m f-f-fine.”

The head tilted again.

“...shut up.”

A chain around the ankle caught him before he could jump back, a hard yank sending him hard into the wall again. Breath came ragged as his head rocked back, hands refusing to stop shaking.

“F-fuck…” Gloved hands closed tight into fists, yellow crawling across his knuckles. He blinked for a second, a new sort of confusion across his blurry vision as he stared down at the static jumping between brass and glove padding.

He couldn’t even think about that before another bladed hand telescoped out for his throat. A gloved hand snapped up, a blur to his own eyes, Sparky gripping the wrist right in front of his face. Another hand joined the first, arms locked as his feet refused to move a single inch further back.

The white wrist against his hand started to spin, rotating slowly into a shape Sparky’s hands couldn’t follow without snapping.

A split second later, another burst of yellow crawled over both sets of brass knuckles. Both of them froze for a moment, attention on the gold sparks jumping from his gloves to the seam of Mannequin’s ceramic wrist.

“Fuck it…” Sparky breathed, gold eyes locking onto that blank white face. “Guess we’re doing electricity now.” Grunting, he jumped forward; a headbutt driven right into Mannequin’s face.

The impact cracked the ceramic and Sparky didn’t waste a moment in jumping back and away from another blade-hand. He darted off the wall, the buzzing in his body this last month suddenly making sense as it roared even louder in his veins. 

He yanked a limb as it shot past him, grabbing the length and swinging Mannequin into a chunk of pallet. A dumpster lid got torn free and sent flying, Mannequin’s eggshell head rocking back before a swinging backfist crawling with electricity sent the cyborg flying.

That yellow got brighter and harder with everything he did; each move, each hit, each jump lighting his veins from the inside out.

The thing noticed.

And it stopped playing.

Two thick chains whipped out, one yanking tight around his bad leg — enough to pull him off balance — as another locked around his right arm. He couldn’t even rip himself free, no chance before a blade tore through his other shoulder.

It didn’t stop there, steel driving deep through flesh and into the brick behind him to pin him to the wall. A scream tore out of him, thin and high, as his hands gripped tight at the chain, blood spilling everywhere over his hands and down his chest.

Mannequin stepped closer, the cyborg nearing his personal space. Those white chest plates split open, unfolding like an ugly flower and showing those wet organs pulsing beside whirring machinery.

"No." Sparky tried to pull back, even as the chain bit tighter, bit into him. "No, no, n—!" He heard himself, out loud; how scared he actually was echoing back to him in the alley.

And it pissed him off.

Sparky forced his scream into a yell and ripped forward, his own shoulder tearing as flesh and muscle dragged Mannequin’s blade out. Crashing straight into that open torso, Sparky got his arms all the way around it as blades stabbed into his back; three, four, and even more.

Sparky squeezed harder instead, face pressed right up against those open organs as he heard all the pumping and squelching and everything else inside Mannequin that kept him ‘alive.’

He was hugging a machine.

Hugging a machine, while buzzing hard enough his own teeth were humming in his jaw.

"Yeah, okay." Sparky got out, eyes burning as the charge built up harder. "Have some."

The alley went white-yellow as he let go of all of it, Sparky’s entire body locking up as every muscle refused to work. The taste of blood was thick in his mouth, tongue on fire as his teeth clamped down, but he refused to let go.

Not as the thing in his arms got it way worse.

Joints seized up and dropped halfway through rotations that weren’t finished, something inside that open torso popping loud enough for Sparky to hear it. Then several somethings, wet and squishy exploding apart with the sound of electronics dying beside it.

Mannequin went down and Sparky went with it, both boy and borg laying there in splinters of pallets as he breathed in through a half-wrecked mask.

For a second, there was silence as the world started to darken.

A sound like thunder washed over him, breaking that silence and Sparky rolled over — eyes wide and dazed — to see something big and black breaking cloud cover as it shot high into the sky, a sonic cone behind it as the sound barrier broke apart.

Gold eyes blinked slow, blood still leaking from his mouth. What the-

Then they went wide again as one white finger twitched.