In a vast city, vibrant and alive in the heat of day, all attention sweeps away in swift silence once the darkness pays its daily appearance.
The dusk from Twilight on this specific night is more unordinary this time around, for reasons completely improbable.
As the markets shuts down and most citizens make it back home, an unnatural brawl takes place in the middle of the street.
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Bright lights flood the skies of North Pierce Street, as orange rays light the black skies up with an intense heat. Melting the traffic lights and streetlights, as multiple orange flares travel to a singular target.
Their target in question was a brown-skinned youth with a head full of light brown locs, with two standing in front of his forehead. One loc has a long golden tribal bead, and the second one has both a golden and silver loc braid cuff. He wore a white sweater with black relaxed jeans and black combat boots.
Brown eyes full of focus, his eyes narrowed as he skidded backwards on the street. His focus undeterred towards his adversaries, calculating their next move. The adversaries in question were faceless, six feet tall machines with a revolver, hand-cannon, and scanners on their foreheads.
As both robots locked on to him, both machines with complete synchronization blasted at the young man. Both orange rays became conjoined, becoming a car-sized orb of condensed energy heading towards their target. The energy closing in fast, the youth backpedaled again, but only did so to build momentum when he stopped both of his feet, planted them, and did a backflip thirty feet in the air.
Mid jump, the boy stretched out his right hand and a small glow simmered in his palm. Out from the simmer a Katana with a purple glow and the word "Destiny" etched into the blade materialized and he gripped it in the nick of time. Letting gravity take its course, falling back towards the ground, the youth spun with the blade in his hand stretched out with his eyes closed.
And as the orb of energy closed in, the young warrior's eyes snapped open as he shouted a phrase at the same time.
"Vortex!"
Four electric like violet-colored orbs crackling with pseudo sparks surrounding them, shot out of the tip of the blade in rapid succession. The baseball sized orbs traveled at speeds that could outpace a bullet. The first two vortex orbs halted in their speed, as the other pair hit the first, causing both to fuse into two separate spheres of energy.
Immediately after the fusion of energy, the beam of plasma intercepted the Vortex spell. It didn't even challenge the spell, however, as the magic decimated the Plasma. It made the spheres travel even faster towards the robotic duo.
The two spheres transmuted when they entered the android's vicinity, becoming two bolts of sheer energy striking them. The moment it made the impact, it shredded the Androids from their face to their chest, instantly. Both detonated, creating an explosion that filled the crosswalk and obliterated all traces of the machines, except for the slight embers and cracks present on the road.
At the same moment, the boy landed on the ground softly. Despite the erasure of his opponents, he kept his guard up, scanning his surroundings and started advancing forward, slowly.
On his left wrist, he had an octagon shaped device come to life and flickered. Unconsciously, he tapped the device with his right index finger and began speaking.
"This is Jackson Robins, log seventy six. I'm currently neutralizing the threat right now. The Androids have low advanced intelligence, but seem programmed with astounding coordination." the now named Jackson stated as he began advancing down the street. "I accidentally exerted too much force in retaliation towards them and left no trace behind." Spotting a stop sign, he slowed his pace and flickered his eyes left and right. Knowing he was in the clear continued his advancement.
"I'll gather intel and update the system posthaste if I encounter another machine. I’m signing off, Jackson." As the device(The Robinator, he calls it) shut off when he took a left turn and slowly raised his head to look at the road ahead.
The moment he looked up, Jackson's eyes widened as he jumped backwards as an orange laser struck the pavement he was standing on. Multiple machines, like around twenty, filled the entire sidewalk in front of an abandoned tenet, as ten robots in two groups of fives were on both left and right sidewalks. Every one of them started aiming at Jackson and a second after pointing their cannons, started firing.
Landing on the ground with his free hand, Jackson pushed himself off the ground, getting into rhythm with consecutive back handsprings, while more orange bullets gradually increased in firepower across the street. Getting into a pattern of catching himself and pushing off into the air, all he had to do now was strike back once he set up an opening, while the Katana slowly developed a red hue.
As a bullet grazed his pants leg, Jackson caught himself in a handstand as Destiny burst into a torrent of flames coiling around the blade. Showcasing an impressive bout of physical strength, he twisted his body with his left hand and swung the katana immediately, releasing the restless fires from the blade into two separate arcs of flames; watching them travel and absorbing the rounds from the Machines, increasing their strength on their path of destruction.
"Ignited Path!"
The arcs continued to travel and increase in power, as over a dozen machines kept unknowingly adding fuel to the flames. Even if they were to notice their contributions, the flames hit one machine with deadly accuracy, causing it to detonate, causing a chain reaction to the array of machines, as they all combusted because of the explosion, igniting a fire on the sidewalk. Soon as the fire started, Jackson threw himself off the ground and landed on his feet, as the rest of the machines surrounded him. Despite being surrounded, Jackson looked aloof as dialed in a code on the device on his left wrist.
One adversary took a bold approach, aimed, and shot a bullet at the back of the young man's skull. Yet after the shot fired, Jackson reflected the bullet without even turning around, as the machines in complete harmony started shaking violently as a whistle like siren started playing from all the robots, filling the night's silence with piercing sounds for about five seconds until they all shutdown abruptly and they collapsed on the street simultaneously.
With this, he cleared his objective. He stepped closer to the offline machines and lowered himself onto his right knee, properly positioning himself in front of the nearest heap of scrap. Holding the Octagon shaped device close to its body, he scanned the innards of the machine, copying the information and transferring it over to him.
"Ah, there we go." He commented the moment a nicely quiet "DING" came from the device. Punching in another code in about two seconds, a blueish gold flash drive formed
"Laughably easy, they didn't even put up any sort of defense mechanism in the software of their creations. That all basically confirms, however, that these are distractions as the legitimate hazard is directly adventitious." As he finished the encryption of the data from the machine, it automatically started transferring to the database of his base and opened the stolen software.
"STORM THE STREETS AND ENSLAVE ANY CIVILIAN IN SIGHT"
"ALL WHO CHALLENGE US WILL BE MURDERED, IF THEY COMPLY, LEAD THEM AWAY FROM THE AREA!"
"ALWAYS SHOOT IN A TIMELY FASHION! SHOOT TOGETHER AS ONE WHENEVER CONTESTED"
While skimming the contents, a chill ran down his spine. Jackson stood up and dusted his knee off and removed the tab off his device. Straightening himself up and turning around on the double, Jackson grabbed the handle of "Destiny" with both of his palms, and slid his feet apart from each other, as a silhouette started approaching from the rooftop of the tenet across from him.
"As amusing as you seem to think you are. I’m willing to bet that you assumed this brief distraction would have given you the opportunity to strike back!?" Jackson shouted. "I'll disassemble every schematic you plan on instructing. Fuck you!" He exclaimed as 'Destiny' began simmering a pure white, with blue sparks dancing off the blade, as he glared at the silhouette standing above him.
Gritting their teeth and clenching their hands into fists, they looked down at the young warrior, darkened eyes ready to rid the nuisance of their plans. Raising both fists, they relaxed their hands and snapped their fingers on both hands. What followed was a slight shake in the city, as machines started flooding the intersection in all directions.
With their hand-cannons charged and ready to activate at whim towards Jackson, he still kept his eyesight on the Mastermind standing on the complex, who spun around and strutted away.
"I will deconstruct everything you produce, starting with this pile of garbage. I won't stop," Jackson said as he let the robots continue advancing towards him, as electricity sparks emitted from the middle of the crowd. The sparks then erupted into a colossal sized wave of electricity, disintegrating half of the machines surrounding him.
When the wave subsided, Jackson glowed alongside his sword and transmuted his physical body into another bolt of lightning. Except this one was not only much shorter, but shot directly into the skies, and instantly made a ninety-degree turn, heading towards the retreating figure. The figure in question running away jumped onto another rooftop, but peeked over their right shoulder in reflex towards the odd light that filled the night sky.
Their eyes widened in disbelief as a bolt of lightning was traveling towards them, in which they narrowly avoided the bolt. Yet that wasn't enough to evade the strike, as they made a quick yelp in pain as a boot clad foot connected with their left shoulder blade. Falling harshly onto the rooftop, the assailant landed on their feet, glaring at the downed figure.
“Until I knocked you down myself.” Jackson said as his Katana was still glowing with intense, white electricity, watching the figure slowly pick themselves off the ground. Wincing in pain as they got off the ground, they clutched their left shoulder as they forced themself off the ground. Because of them getting off the ground in such a hurry, their hood fell off, revealing their face.
A head full of dark red hair styled in short twin drills and pale skin with a black earpiece on their left ear, the now exposed culprit turned their head, revealing their facial features. Sharp yellow eyes and a piercing on their nose, the girl had a sharp glare directed at Jackson, as he returned the glare.
“Do you have any idea what the hell you’re doing?” She shouted at him as his eyes widened for a brief millisecond, clearly not the response he was expecting.
“I need to do this and you doing this will only get them killed!” She exclaimed as she slowly started reaching for her pockets. Either she’s tricking him or she’s a victim being blackmailed to control this attack.
“Doesn’t matter the motivation, I will always intervene if I see iniquitous practices at play. Stand down.” Jackson said with sternness in his voice, clutching onto Destiny tightly as the girl merely flinched in response.
Her left hand now shaking, she froze rather quickly as a small ringing began blaring inside her pants pocket. All color on her face drained as she looked down at her pocket in fear, which didn’t go unnoticed by Jackson, who quirked an eyebrow.
Pressing what appeared to be a button in her pocket, she was quivering heavily as she closed her eyes.
“Yes. I know. Our enemy showcased much more resilience towards our soldiers. No, I’m not making excuses. NO, I’m not talking back, and I didn’t raise my voice. I-I, yes, of course I understand.” She was replying frantically, desperate to appease her superior one would assume.
“I don’t have time to sit around having no context. I’m tapping this call right now.” Jackson thought as he held the device on his wrist and punched a pin in. The Robinator opened up a small slit on the device, pushing out a small antenna, which began distributing an electromagnetic frequency.
After two seconds of searching, it locked onto a signal and began listening in on the caller’s voice.
“I gave you simple introductions and yet you failed to even enact them and failed to get away. I’m very disappointed.” The voice said with no ounce of mercy in their voice. “I gave you this one opportunity. This calls for punishment.” The voice said, as the girl’s knees buckled from the fear ongoing in her body.
“NO!” She shouted desperately, “PLEASE I CAN FIX THIS, I CAN GET RID OF THIS BOY RIGHT NO-”
“Gloxinia.” The voice cut her off, their tone becoming down right sinister. “Enough. You will never address me in such a tone ever again. Now listen carefully, kill the boy, return home, and we will discuss further punishment. Get home, now.” Dejected and defeated, Gloxinia was about to reply, until a voice suddenly cut her off.
“You’re not as illustrious as you claim to be, sir. I advise you not to go through with whatever threat you had for your little pawn. I think I’m way more of a threat to you right now.” Jackson said with a little haughty grin, as Gloxinia looked up in shock.
“Mocking me will be your last mistake. I don’t know how you tapped into our phone call,but you dug a grave for yourself, you piece of shit. I will bury your corpse with my bare hands.” The caller replied with disdain, slipping from his words as they made a loud pounding noise from the other end. The young swordsman kept his grin as he replied, “Ready whenever you’re serious.” He replied honestly, before ending the call on both Gloxinia and his line.
“Save your breath before you decide to tell me that ‘digging a grave for myself’ or ‘I don’t know what I’m getting myself into. I don’t think you realized how much of a threat I can become." Jackson said as he shut off his Robinator, as the girl in front of him looked at him in mystified disbelief.
“Do you truly comprehend the gravity of your situation? The enemy you just made?” She said as her eyes narrowed in fright as Jackson pointed his Katana at her.
“Don’t really care at this moment at all, in complete honesty. Now stand still.” he ordered as Destiny shone with a green light and the same light shined on her. Closing her eyes in fear, she soon felt much lighter, and all her pain disappeared.
“What, what did you do to me?” She asked in wonder as she stared at Jackson, who just put Destiny back in the sheath for the first time this night.
“I healed you. Call that my apology for kicking you down earlier. Good thing I tapped your call the way I did. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known the full scope, and I know you wouldn’t have been in a rational state of mind to tell me.” He stated as he held out his hand. Her yellow eyes looked down at his hand with caution, before she slowly grabbed his hand.
“What’s your name and relationship to that bastard, Professor F. Glove?” He asked while clutching her hand. Surprised and not expecting that direction of a question, Gloxinia cleared her throat before answering.
“He’s my superior. I am in a predicament where I can’t disobey him. That’s merely it.” She said with sadness in her voice. Jackson let go of her hand in that moment to put his hand near his chin and began pondering. Noticing him lost in thought, she asked the only questions she had in mind to ask.
“How do you know him? Who are you?” She asked as she held onto her twin drills, as he made eye contact with her. Her yellow eyes meeting his brown ones, Jackson answered honestly.
“I’ve been tracking him for a while now. I thought you were him running away, but of course, it would never be that simple. He’s responsible for breaking out a few dangerous people, some of which I have a history with.” He said as he briefly looked annoyed, as her yellow eyes looked on with curiosity. “As for who I am?”
The boy grinned, showing off his teeth as he clapped both of his hands together. “I’m Jackson Robins, Boy Genius, at your service. Now c’mon, let’s go clear you of your blackmail.” He said, as he began walking and soon passed her, as the girl could only look on in a mixture of confusion and awe.
“Wait, hold on!” She shouted as she rushed to catch up to him. As they both hopped onto another rooftop and kept their pace. Down on the streets below, you see the remains of most of the machines, destroyed by the vast amount of power from the electricity Destiny generated.
There’s still hours before the sun rises.
