Mr E watched the four for what seemed like a millenia to him. He never broke eye contact with them. Never wavered and despite his body constantly resisting him, he didn't shake or show ant form of fear.
He even suppressed his sweat. That somehow needed more effort than anything else.
These four vengeful youths in front of him wouldn't stand a chance against him individually but as a group, they could take him down.
Mr E dealt in absolutes. Never doing anything until his plans were 100% successful. However this led to his overconfidence. Often underestimating his foes in the process. Just like with Hawk knight and the clone. Now his plan was on the brink of collapse.
He wouldn't let that happen here.
He weighed his options. One of them, the blond one, Jake, radiated a blue aura that was entirely alien to him. The guy clearly wasnt a muman. What was he then? Didn't matter now. He had super speed and could catch up to him if he wasn't careful. Plus those fists could do some serious internal damage. The first attack for example, didn't hurt Mr E on the outside. However in the inside it killed a large chunk of his cells and halted his regeneration for a few seconds.
Therefore a tactical retreat was an option.
However it wasn't a viable one.
The skinny black guy, Zack, had the ability to expand his body. Although it might not show but he could do some serious damage or worse yet, restrain him so the others could get the jump on him. Direct confrontation was immediately off the table. Especially after looking at his face.
He was twitching even more than anyone else here. And worse yet, his face looked like a mad dog in a blind rage.
One was an Atlantean. A strong one at that. However, Mr E had faced their kind before and they didn't have the strength to slash through his tough hide.
She did.
She was dangerous, sure, but she wasn't the most dangerous.
That would be the slim girl with the ponytail, Diamond Light, he recalled. She wasn't a muman or Atlantean or whatever the fuck Jake was but she was the most experienced one here when it came to fighting him. Plus her cybernetic weaponry made her even worse considering what it did to his regeneration the last time they fought.
Right now, if he fought, he'd be retrained and killed.
However, if he attained the mutoxin he needs he'd be able to take care of them and consume them as well. Gaining their power for his own. Then all he'd need to do is consume the remains of his dead clones and merge with the living ones.
After that, nothing would stop him from killing Hawk knight and that godforsaken clone then proceeding with his plan to create a new world.
A better world.
But first he needed to get to that mutoxin.
In the blink of an eye he morphed his legs into hare's feet and dashed in the opposite direction. Although cheetah feet would help, enhanced hare feet the size of human feet was a much faster option as he moved at 300mph in less than a second. A very advantageous burst of speed.
Once he thought he had disappeared from the quartet though, his instincts instantly went into overdrive, throwing him off guard and nearly making trip and fall. He scanned his surroundings for the cause of his heightened dander sense and was wide eyed at what he saw.
The blond one, Jake, wasn't just catching up with him but was close enough to grab him from behind.
And attack him.
He felt an odd sense of fear from just this guy alone. His main priority was the cyborg and Atlantean and this guy intrigued him due to his non-muman abilities. That was it. He wasn't interested in him beyond slight curiosity.
However now wasn't the time for that.
Mr E morphed his arm into a crab claw and swiped towards Jake, creating a strike powerful enough to rip him in two.
Jake smirked slightly.
Suddenly he stopped halfway, realising that Jake wasn't the attack but something else.
A decoy.
Quickly turning around a second later he saw the Atlantean girl pouncing towards from the ground, noticing the ripples from said ground similar to that of a pond being touched slightly, it was clear she used her ability to liquify solid matter and swim through it fast enough to catch up to them.
How was she able to liquify advantagem? Wasn't she struggling earlier? So she's an Atlantean and a muman?
Facinating.
How was she even able to catch up to them too? And where was the cyborg and skinny boy then?
Mr E didn't have time to ponder all these questions as in just a few milliseconds, this girl was going to be upon him.
He morphed his free arm into a turtle's shell and blocked her clawed attack. Although her claws still penetrated deep into that shell, she couldn't hit his vitals and was stuck to it, giving Mr E the perfect chance.
He turned his clawed hand back to her and tried to claw her in half. Although the attack landed all it did was leave a large wound in her torso. However, the wound wasn't fatal but it did do enough damage to get her unstuck and fall back into the ground like it was a pool of water.
Mr E notices something that horrified him though. Her sharp shark teeth were exposed and her large wide mouth had formed something resembling a smile. She wasn't the attacker after all.
She was rather the decoy.
Mr E turned back to Jake who was still close enough to grab him, pulling his left hand back to form some sort of attack. Mr E, desperate to finish this nonsense sent his turtle shelled hand towards him.
He wasn't blocking though. He jammed the shell right into Jake's torso before he could attack, sending him flying towards the advantagem wall with a devastating thud.
However, before Jake hit the wall, while he was midair, Mr E saw it again.
A smirk.
What did it mean? What could it have possibly meant?
He didn't realise how close his answer was to him.
A sharp muman smell penetrated his nose with such ferocity it was like he was practically hugging one. His eyes quickly zoned in on a tiny green particle flying towards him. Small enough to go unnoticed but large enough to be focused on.
And it resembled a toy man.
Before he could react, Mr E was smacked across the face by a giant fist the size of his entire being causing him to fall face first into the floor, cracking through it in the process.
Who had done this? How did he get past his instincts and defences? That's when he realised both Jake and the Atlantean were decoys. When Jake had pulled his hand back to attack he was actually preparing to throw something at him.
He didn't have time to think about that now though, as Zack had begun to bombard him with a series of powerful blows as he was on the ground.
"This is what you wanted right?!" Zack screamed, his blood boiling.
Mr E tried several times to get up.
"Pure unadulterated rage?!"
To fight back.
"This is the wolrd you wanted to make right?!"
But everything he moved or even flinched, his face and torso was slammed back down by Zack's giant fists.
"A world where everyone did this to each other for no reason right?! Just for bloodshed? For the fun of it? Well I don't give a shit how you do it, I will stop you. As long as I live, you will never create this disgusting world you envisioned. You hear me?"
A few moments later, Mr E was covered head to toe in bruises. He couldn't even move anymore.
HEY! GET UP!" Zack screamed at him. His vein now exposed and pulsing above his left eyebrow as those words left his mouth. There was no reply. Not even the sound of his breathes were heard. Zack stood over the body stunned in realisation at what he had done.
His hands and feet covered head to toe in bruises. His legs bending the wrong way. His face, or what was left of it, just a pulsing mass of flesh, blood, bone and scattered teeth.
It was over. Zack had won.
But at what cost?
Zack's legs gave in and he collapsed on them. Now kneeling, he covered his face and began to sob.
"I lost control again didn't I? This is what you wanted to create right? Monsters like me?" Zack muttered to himself in between moans of pain. He didn't want to kill him. Just restrain him so he couldn't continue with his plans. Not this.
He felt a hand touch his shoulder, causing him to tense up and turn quickly. It was Jake, who gave him a reassuring smile.
"Hey man. It's okay. He deserved it." Jake said. His soft voice supposed to sooth his wavering nerves. It did not.
"No he didn't! No one did. He was psychotic, yes, but he was still a life. A life is not worth taking! The world he wanted to make, a world full of monsters, that's where I belong. I am a monster too Jake! Do I deserve to die too?" Zack shouted at him, causing his clamp smile to subside. All that was left was visible disgust.
You're blowing this way out of proportion Zack." Jake stated bluntly, his smile fading by the second.
What was he saying? This man, who wanted to turn all of humanity into mindless murder craving monsters, the man who turned an innocent child and girl into monsters just for fun, wasn't a life worth taking?
"Really? You remember when Captain Rocket asked me to kill you? You remember when I spared you? Even of you weren't my roommate, my friend, I couldn't do it. Unlike the supers I value life. I don't think Mr E deserves to die. No one does. If someone like me deserves to live. Everyone else does to."
Jake was silent for a moment. His visible disgust changed into an emotionless stare. He looked into Zack's eyes for a long moment. Zack didn't know what else to say.
"Are you two fine?" A soft feminine voice asked them.
It was Paulina. She had caught up to them.
"Sorry. My Rocket boots aren't working right. I tried to come and join in but I couldn't Plus my normal speed ain't what it used to be." She said with a small chuckle, scratching the back of her head and adjusting her ponytail slightly.
She wanted to join the assault. She really did. However she forgot she hadn't used her Rocket boots in five whole years. I takes quite a while for her implants to stop working and 5 years is a good enough time.
She was about to say all this but stopped in her tracks.
She noticed the melancholy look on their faces and the stream of tears running along Zack's as well.
She rushed to him. Brushing past Jake and comforting him, making sure to keep his face close enough to feel his breathes.
"Zack? What's wrong?"
"I..I killed him Paulina. I.."
Paulina placed a gentle finger on his lip and stared at Mr E. Or at least, what remained of him. She stared back at Zack and smiled. A smile so similar yet so different from Jake's it was borderline creepy.
It did nothing but digust Zack even more.
"You.. you don't think I did the right thing, do you?" Zack said, his voice shaking as he removed her finger.
"He was going to commit worldwide genocide Zack."
"Paulina!" Zack shouted.
Paulina and Jake looked at each other in visible confusion.
"He was a clone Zack."
"So? That doesn't mean his life is any different from the original."
"Zack you're being delusional!" Jake interrupted. Now he was getting angry and it showed on not just his voice, but face as well.
"He was a murderer and a freak! Can't you see that? Original, clone it doesn't matter. He deserved to die. He wasn't human. He was a monster and deserved what he got." Jake said to him.
Zack got up now. Looking into his eyes this time.
However unlike Jake, there was an emotion behind his gaze. Something Zack wanted to suppress. Something bordering on rage.
"So am I a monster too?"
Paulina covered her mouth when he said this. Could he really hold himself so low? Is this what he thought of himself? As much of a cold heartless monster as Mr E?
"No Zack you're..."
Before Jake could finish though, he felt something sharp brush against him. Like a knife swung to hit someone beside him. He looked to his left to see Stacya forcing her claw into Mr E's face.
Zack threw her aside almost instantly.
"What the hell did you do?! Couldn't you see he was dead? Or this timeits right to defile his body?!" Zack shouted but noticed a blue aura shine bright next to him.
Zack turned his face to see Jake aiming his fist at him. Zack was raising his arms for a fight but then Jake's hand stopped. Not by Jake, but Stacya.
"This is stupid. He isn't even real."
The three stared at Stacya for a moment. Then themselves and finally at Mr E's body. A body which was infact a dried up husk, similar to the freshly laid skin of a snake.
Paulina turned on her scanning eye and noticed a small figure running off in the distanceat an incredible speed.
It was Mr E. He was running off.
She instinctively morphed her right arm into a level 2 plasma cannon and fired at the 1 inch man, only for him to split himself into three smaller clones at the last second.
One clone took the damge and was incinerated on the spot.
Another ran to the left and disappeared into a crevice in the wall.
Stacya, noticing the last one doing same, pounced on it but it dropped into a crevice in the ground below.
"We need to intercept them! Paulina! Stacya! Zack! Chase the one that went into the ground. I'll take on the fucker that went through the wall" Jake shouted at them, with Stacya instantly obeying and Paulina not far behind.
"But where are they going?" Zack asked as he followed Jake instead.
They're going to activate his damn bomb." Jake answered as he filled his fist with blue energy and unleashed it onto the same wall the miniature Mr E went through.
That's when the chase began...
To be continued...