32

O(I)O(I)

Metal Bat couldn't stay now both out of curiosity of the lightning from earlier and respite of the emotional scene. It was too bad he couldn't leave the same way he entered; hitting a sign and smashing through a window.

Instead, he hotfooted his way to the train conductor's car; there was no one holding a gun to his head.

Metal Bat was such a blockhead as his sister told him, he forgot to just wait for the train to stop, then he remembered the train had been moving for forty minutes straight which could only be from the driver feeling threatened-his thinking process was do to a few rough missions.

"The dickheads are taken care of. Please stop the train at the nearest station."

O(I)O(I)

Metal Bat followed the lightning right to the hospital. It was clear now this could be the cause of newly innate powers or another person—usually males because males have bigger egos and think their always right—turned into a monster.

Either way people were running away screaming profusely as a spectrum of pink light raged on. Metal Bat tried to get in only to run into the Demon Cyborg Genos.

"Genos. Good thing your here. There is this—"

"I am well aware of the pink lightning going around, I know the catalyst that started it: a young dark elf named Selleica Ueiis."

Metal Bat took that news with barely a flared eye.

"A dark elf? I thought those only existed in visual novels and those manga's. Your telling me there's a girl like that in a hospital bed in that building?"

Genos nodded.

"Yes. Although I do not know what's caused this to happen, she appears to not have any radiation or aptitude energy inside her. She is no threat to—"

The black pompadour hero twirled his bat around to show he meant business. Metal Bat did a superb gyration with his bat to show he had skills with a bat.

And then—he made a cocking sound with his hand before clenching both his hands around the handle of his shaft.

"A creature like her causing so much mayhem needs to be put down. Stand aside so I can get rid of her."

Genos matched Metal Bat's cocksure attitude with his unwavering courage. He put his cybernetic arms behind his back.

"Just try to land one blow on me."

Metal Bat took the challenge with a wry smile.

"I'm in better shape than those anime voice actors by a yard."

He loped off the ground and then spun around with his hand gripping the metal bat tightly. He was stoic enough to do his spinning where he thought Genos would be too blinded by sunlight to retaliate. He slammed his metal bat causing the plaster to ripple, and then crack, but that was all he hit...the plaster.

Genos was behind him brimming his cybernetic arm, the heat wilting all the hair on Metal Bat's nape.

"Last warning: leave before I have to do something against my role of protecting the innocent."

Metal Bat knew another technique from reading about samurai's—keep his bat in his left hand facing Genos and his right hand on the pavement cracked asunder. In just one moment he spun around and walloped his fist into Geno's cybernetic hand!

His knuckles glanced off his cybernetic arm back, followed by him launching his bat upwards before slamming it downwards the same way a samurai would cleave their sword falling from a tree branch.

He missed Genos as he disappeared in a black after-shadow of his own speed, but Metal Bat caught him this time using the tip of his bat as momentum to give Genos a serious headbutt. The infliction from it hurt Metal Bat far more than it hurt Genos. He staggered and groaned, eyes closed, and it was the perfect opportunity for Genos to grab ahold of his neck.

"I gave you a last warning but I can understand if you have trouble hearing someone when they give you a moment to leave. Now I'm afraid—"

Genos was crushed under the pressure of a metaphysical power almost turning him into a flattened can if his new enhancements weren't so durable. His retina's blinked while an orange LED rectangle scoured around his vision screen.

Soon, he could spot a dwarf looking person hovering over him like the flotilla of alien battleships that attacked not too long ago, Tatsumaki.

She descended upon him and Metal Bat, the gravity intensifying even greater than before.

"I can't believe you need my help against this Metal Knight reject." She seethed a little louder than she needed to.

"Well thanks for your help." He said with obligation. "Try to keep him down long enough for me to eliminate the threat."

"Don't act like I'm here to be your sidekick. I only came because you said there might be a mighty psychic here—getting to teach the cyborg where he stands is just an added bonus."

Metal Bat sheathed his bat in the back of his shirt before he sprinted into the hospital.

He came back here last time against Gero after he transformed into a monster and pummeled him half to death. It looked pretty good despite the cracks in the wall and all the cracks in the ceiling.

This disaster was why he needed to come in the first place. He flitted to the elevator, but he halted when he realized he didn't know which floor the anomaly was coming from. He scoured the lobby for any staff that may be able to help him.

There was no one—he decided it was easier to just take the elevator a floor and look through different rooms until he found someone emanating this pink garish.

He pressed the button to open the door only to find it sealed shut. The elevator was broken, he headed towards the stairs only to flinch when he saw a hole in the ceiling. A hole of pink light instead of pitch black.

O(I)O(I)

Genos did the only thing he could think of doing while entrapped by Tatsumaki's heavy gravity activate his thrusters jets to his back and exert himself. He soon shot off the ground ready to hit the child looking tsundere in the face, but she veered him away with just a little flick of her fingers.

O(I)O(I)

Metal Bat used his hands like he was using a stick to start a fire twirling his bat in his hand by the handle. He was standing just outside the door, and when he felt the right moisture in his palms he thrust his bat right into the door.

It opened like a wooden door in a tornado. The room was arid of any smell, just a ray of pink from light seeping through the room, but where the young elf laid there was a vitrescent prism showing her in her entirety like a butterknife slicing through a fog.

She looked like she was ailed with a fever sweating profusely and her body elevated with a shudder. Her suffering didn't deter Metal Bat. He marched up to her with his hands tightened around the shaft of his bat. He stood at her side raising his bat over his hair, he looked at her face, young and thin.

He didn't know if her youthful appearance was because she was an elf—never took the time to read that fantasy world media—however, she did have an uncanny resemblance to his sister.

His urge to bash vacillate before he let his bat fall to the ground.

No sooner did he drop his guard did her expression escalate into howling pain, her voice hollering like someone face-to-face with a monstrosity.

A strong turbulence of pink energy flooded into Metal Bat pushing him across the room. Metal Bat's metal weapon was capable of some versatile things, but holding him still from the force wasn't something it was capable of.

He slammed right into the wall, the force making a crater where he was. He continued to feel the gravitude of this energy, his eyes closed on instinct, while he was blind in all of this the only thing he could see was pink—and he could hear the raucous sound of the elf in her bed screaming.

It started off strong but then it slowly died. Metal Bat took the opportunity to pry open one of his eyes and see her. He saw her...saw a silhouette of a shadowy figure resembling a hagged old witch with a cloak...and three refulgent yellow eyes—try to imagine a yellow light in a pink room.

"The Great will traverse through his world into yours razing it until all that remain are the ones to his liking—the worst of your kind has to offer. Warn your heroes...warn them before its too late."

Before Metal Bat could even say one word the yellow light exploded—not really exploded as in faded after a white light glowered in the room—and all that stood before him was the dark elf sitting upright and extending her arm up as she let out a big yawn.

She resounded that sound in the room before noticing Metal Bat who was pressed in the hall.

"Hi"

O(I)O(I)

Genos was peeved he couldn't land a single blow on the cocky brat Tatsumaki. She had him in her fingers, lock tightening a ring of entrapping purple light.

Tatsumaki looked at him with her cold green eyes.

"To be honest, I hate you, hate Metal Bat, and hate all you heroes except my sister and Blast. Yes, I don't have any plans of being friends with any of you; I'll tell you this because it wouldn't bother me to tear you apart—see that oil in your body sputter uncontrollably? I'm going you one iota to admit I'm more powerful than you before I—"

Genos shoulders emitted a trilling crackling noise before unhatching showing a full salvo of missiles. They were fired directly at her. Two fingers pronged up and the missiles were in stasis by the green dwarf.

"I expected better. I was going to tear your body away, but I think it makes more sense to exterminate you with your own salvo. Adios, loser."

With just a flick of her fingers the missiles flipped in the opposite direction facing towards Genos. They went full throttle towards him! Genos just a helpless puppet floating without any string to move. He was helpless but he didn't flinch when it seemed the missiles were going to make direct contact.

" Bright Light Reserpene!"

Genos was saved by a long, transparent tail coiling around him.

He could only see the golden interior and the repeated banging of yellow smudges going off one at a time. He was speechless, also amazed by all of this. When the smudges vanished, a sparkling display of grey dust, he was falling to the ground...or rather being lowered by Tatsumaki. He didn't know why at quagmire that went off that made her so kind—his answer came in the form of the once bedridden dark elf standing on her own two feet glaring with rageful eyes at what he hoped was Tatsumaki and not him.

He soon touched the ground (with his buttocks) and was released. A part of him wanted to stay in-between them but he was shepherd away by Metal Bat.

"I should be angry with you for trying to kill a young girl, but I'm more chagrined you brought Tatsumaki. She destroys more than she saves."

"Yes, but the unexplained field of pink created was enough to scare me into asking for her help, and I don't scare easily."

Tatsumaki looked into the rueful expression Selleica was giving her. She made the first move having a desk crash through a window seventeen floors up, careen down towards the elf before hedging around her and plowing towards her.

The elf kept her finger up and her shoulders together. "Act of Severance!"

A curved white line slashed straight through the midsection of the desk. It still moved in fast velocity, however, once it was upclose it severed away as the two sides crashed to the floor. Tatsumaki felt unfettered, free to use her powers to its full potential.

A psychic masterpiece occurred when a multitude, flurry of different objects—all weighing the same as a Great Dane—made their way towards Selleica. What happened next happened so fast even Genos had a hard time progressing it. One moment Selleica was just standing there with her arms close to her sides...and the next an arrow of concentrated light thrashed like the tip of a lance through the object with great ease.

The projectile kept moving rampantly in Tatsumaki's direction until it nearly went right in her face, but a barrier was put around her. The arrow dissipated into a bunch of tiny yellow puffballs.

Although Tatsumaki looked like she could give Selleica a run for her money, her eyes flitted towards Genos and Metal Bat.

"Let me ask you two blockheads something: have either of you ever seen Inception?"

They turned their heads to one another before looking back and shaking them.

"Well in that movie there's a scene where a building flips upside down over other buildings. I could do a homage much closer to her if I wanted to, but I have something better to do with my powers. I want this elf girl to take me to her world."