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The eleven-year-old was a monster.
He didn’t know how he turned into one, but he had. Losing control, machines covered his body, starting from his feet and traveling up until his face was covered. Vulnerability was the last thing on his mind as he grew to tower over most of the buildings in town at fifty feet in height.
It was too late to disassemble the elaborate technology coming out of him. Hard, metal boots gave him a sturdier grip on the ground, his broad shoulders and chest expanded into rock-like armor, out of one of them springing forth a flimsy fist of steel that waved around wildly as if it had a mind of its own. His hands had taken the forms of a giant sword and another fist of steel. His head was identical to an expressionless robot’s, eyes glowing bright blue.
His body mimicked his emotions as more machines tried to form, but countless others fell away unfinished, his body changing its mind as quickly as it’d had them appear…
And yet, he had to get revenge… Make Quarry pay for sending him off to Mexico only to get overtaken again… to get sent back… treated like another minion… never free from his burden…
Revenge. He needed revenge. That’s all he needed. Revenge, revenge, revenge.
Anger fumed inside him, churning through the layers of metal and bolts, and uniting all the different contraptions and weapons he’d created into a giant robot-like humanoid under one goal like a well-oiled machine. Out of his mouth echoed a loud bass roar. A simple punch with his left hand and the nearest buildings went toppling like dominoes. A stomp from his armored foot and cars were left looking like a small pile of rubble.
He needed revenge... He needed to make them pay… A taste of their own medicine...
He shifted his fifty-foot self rather effortlessly, making his way downtown in only a couple footsteps. He heard faint screaming and yelling, but he only smiled at the sound. A wave of his sword hand and skyscraper tops were sent crashing. He roared again, sending the streets into pandemonium. Moving cars swerved around him, but he kicked them flying into the air. More people were out, the screaming grew louder, and his restlessness increased.
He could never get away… He needed revenge… He needed to be free...
He sent his giant form into a jog, his robotic arms trailing through anything in his way. Buildings toppled after him, and the streets were left in alarms, fire, and destruction. The giant robot let out another thundering bellow before he released rockets from his shoulders into the air.
He’d make them all pay… Every last one of Quarry’s henchmen… He just had to find them… He just --
He wasn’t alone. They tailed him. They surrounded him. They were already here, and they were well-armed too.
Fighter jets zoomed in, buzzing around him like flies, and men in black and white took perimeter from sides of buildings to shoot him with unending rounds of bullets. He swatted his mechanical arms around, stray rockets sent flying in corkscrews from his shoulders. A jet fell in shambles to the ground. The men were losing. Explosions resounded, but deep within the layers of armor, where the incoming bullets were unheard and the groaning of metal and high-pitched creaks was a song, the boy smiled faintly.
An assault vehicle sped past his robotic, armored feet, driving him off balance. He collided into a building, but it didn’t take long for him to get to his feet. The vehicle began launching rounds of bullets at the monster, but with a dozen rockets and a swing of his sword, the vehicle was reduced to nothing more than added wreckage for the town… until the man in the green suit appeared.
A dizzy blur, the man in the green suit the monster’s armor like a springboard until he stood balancing on the monster’s shoulders. Wasting no time, he drove a sword straight through the monster’s armor, cutting the monster’s connection. The boy winced deep from within, and the armored circuit boards where the sword was lodged suddenly glowed blue in an attempt to fix themselves.
But the man in the green suit was persistent, taking hold of his sword and digging deeper. The monster let out a groan as sparks flew. The sword twisted deep within, dealing more damage, but the monster had had enough. The blue of the circuit boards suddenly vanished, and the sparks faded away. Eyes glowing viciously, the monster knew it had more to deal with than this simple annoyance.
A robotic fist reached up and grabbed the man. The monster brought the man to eye level, glaring at him. The man regarded him with a scared expression, mumbling something to himself, but the monster only grew more enraged. Aimed at a nearby building, the monster launched its fist like a cannonball, man still in his grip.
The fist collided with the building, bricks and glass spraying as if water. The monster let out a content moan… which slowly began turning into one of agony.
It was as if the man had planned it. Furious, the monster released more haywire rockets. Its sword swings grew clumsier, and its newly-formed fist ruined buildings like a hurricane… but the monster grew weaker.
The sword was poison to the monster, and it was already too late. The monster’s layers of armor shook. The metallic groans turned to wails. The boy from within struggled to keep the monster together.
Staggering back, the monster leveled two buildings before finally colliding into a third. With a final, weak groan, the ties uniting the monster snapped. The explosion of machines was worse than anything he'd ever felt before. It threw him back, echoed through his body, and left him breathless on the ground. His vision blurred as he watched the wreckage of the explosion falling all around him like tiny raindrops, some splattering on him, others piling up nearby. It didn't take long for him to be covered up in wreckage, pinned down so he couldn’t move.
He struggled to move, to unite the monster once more, but only pain flared up in his arms and legs. The dust and dirt was a gruesome veil around him, but his bare arms and face felt worse. Burning with intense heat, they hadn't been saved by the jeans and t-shirt he wore. His body numb, he couldn't summon the willpower to move and flee the second explosion. Anger and frustration clouding his mind, he could only summon a weak metal fist before that too was smashed by the wreckage.
His breaths evened. His shoulders relaxed against the pavement. Slowly but surely, his mind went blank until he couldn't remember yesterday, the day before, or even coming weeks prior…
And then... all of his frustrations were gone. He felt no anger, no fear, no betrayal. The only thing he felt… was pain.
He groaned beneath the wreckage of brick, machines, and shambles of cement. His mind was blank, his memories scrambled… On second thought, he didn’t have any memories… save for one. A whisper of the name Rex.
Rex, he thought. It was the only piece of information he could remember.
What was he doing here? Why was he on the ground?
Rex had no idea, but he knew he was in pain. The numbing sensation in his body mitigated, and Rex coughed twice to rid the smoke from his lungs. After that he winced. His body felt like it’d been smashed to pieces, and trying to get to his feet made it erupt with protests.
“Help,” Rex muttered instinctively. “Please, help…”
He hadn’t expected help to arrive much less arrive as quickly as it had. A man in a dark green suit stood over him as the smoke settled, cascading a silhouette on Rex. He wore black sunglasses and a permanent scowl. Rex’s eyes widened and he let out a small noise of both surprise and pain.
Nevertheless, the man drew closer. He knelt so he was at Rex’s level, his cool, determined expression unwavering, and began digging out Rex.
“ ¿Has visto mi bicicleta? ” Rex murmured through his daze. “Have you seen my bicycle?”
The man ignored him. Layer after layer of wreckage was tossed, and Rex’s body felt lighter somehow. He didn’t know how he’d gotten himself in this mess, but he was glad to get out of it.
When the man finished clearing off the wreckage, he helped Rex to his feet. Rex swayed immediately, his feet giving in to gravity, but with the man’s help he remained standing. The man hadn’t said much through the whole interaction, Rex noticed, but after the two walked forever in silence, Rex’s senses came back to him and he fired his questions to the stranger.
He pointed up at the man’s sword slung over his shoulder in its sheath. “Is that sword for real? Are you a ninja?” Rex’s thoughts came to him faster than the speed of light. “Wait, before I was speaking Spanish! Is this Mexico? And why are we sneaking arou--?"
The man shushed Rex, putting a gloved hand over his mouth. He knelt so he was Rex’s height, and peeked around the corner of the next street. Rex had no clue what was happening, but he did know it was rather annoying.
“Ugh, dude,” Rex remarked simply to the stranger. “Your hand smells like monkey breath.”
“Quiet,” muttered the stranger.
“You couldn’t have washed your hands, or--?”
“Quiet,” the stranger said again. “Hear that?”
On first inspection, Rex would’ve said no. But then he heard it: distant growls of what sounded like a dog, or maybe an alligator. Was the stranger part of animal control or something?
“Why don’t you just call HQ, or Norat, or 911?”
The stranger let go of Rex’s mouth. His eyes (or, rather sunglasses) were glued to around the corner as he stated, “When the creature blew, it released some sort of EM pulse. Fried everything electronic. This area is a deadzone. We’re on our own.”
Rex frowned. “So much for ordering a pizza.”
The stranger glanced at Rex silently. Rex sighed. “I’m joking, because if I don’t, I’m going to remember how scared I am right now.”
Around the corner, the same dog/alligator hybrid wailed. Rex’s gaze fell to the ground, peeking at the stranger from the corner of his eyes. It was at that moment the single worst idea struck him.
“Actually,” said Rex, “except for my name, that’s about all I do remember.”
The stranger fixed his sunglasses down on Rex. “No family?”
Rex shook his head.
“An address?”
Another shake of his head.
“No grandma where I can dump you?”
“Nothing… except waking up and seeing your face. Not exactly the angel I was hoping for.”
“You’re in shock,” said the stranger. “We should find a place to hole you up in until I can get some help."
Anger bubbled within Rex. “No way! I’m not hiding! Why, you want to get rid of me?”
The stranger’s tone was as hard as steel. “I screwed up, and it may very well have caused my friend his life. The last thing I need is you slowing me down.”
And with that, the stranger got to his feet, grabbing Rex and running for a nearby building. The door creaked open, and he set Rex down. For all Rex knew, the man was about to abandon him, but the man only gasped… because where the back wall should’ve been… was the edge of a crater, stretching about a hundred feet in diameter.
Rex stood and ran to the edge. “What’s going on?” he asked. The man certainly was no part of animal control. Rex turned to look at him. “What did this?”
“Don’t worry,” the stranger replied quickly. He knelt so he was at Rex’s height again. “We evacuated the zone. We’ll get you home, I promise.”
Suddenly, the dog/alligator hybrid roared again, this time much louder, followed by the breaking of glass and wood.
“Right now, we gotta move,” the stranger insisted. He grabbed Rex’s shoulder and steered him further into the crater, but the further they walked, the louder and more persistent the hybrid shrieks became.
“What’s making those sounds?” Rex asked, his voice shaky. He looked around, trying to pinpoint from where the shrieks were coming, but it was like whatever it was was invisible.
Out of nowhere, the stranger leading the way paused. He shielded Rex with one arm, reaching for his sword in the other. In the distance, a monster, easily ten feet in height, appeared at the edge of the crater. It rose its brown-colored head in the air and out came the same roars Rex had heard before.
“New plan!” The stranger pushed Rex back, shouting after him, “Run!”
Rex didn’t need to be told twice. He sprinted up the crater as fast as his legs could carry him until he stood at the edge where he’d stood mere minutes ago. He looked over his shoulder for the stranger, expecting him to be standing victoriously over the dead monster already, but instead the stranger was on the ground, viciously attacked by the monster.
Reacting purely on adrenaline alone, Rex rushed down the way he’d come. “Leave him alone!” he yelled at the monster. He didn’t know the stranger very well, but he had pulled him from the wreckage and saved his life. Rex didn’t want to see his savior die so early, especially not when he didn’t remember a thing before meeting the stranger.
It was a stupid decision, but Rex couldn’t help but feel like it’d work. He charged straight at the monster, putting a hand on the monster’s chest. On an impulse, he thought, “Turn back to what you once were. Leave us alone,” and felt a tingling sensation from his hand. Suddenly, both his hand and the monster lit up bright blue in designs of circuit boards. Rex heard a faint, shrill sound and just like that, it was over.
The monster fell backward, but it wasn’t a monster anymore. The monster was human, now unconscious and groaning. Rex didn’t know what he did, but he was disgusted.
“Oh, great,” Rex merely stated. He rubbed his hand on his pants. “I probably got rabies.”
The stranger got up from the ground, staring at Rex with his mouth open in surprise. Rex stared back in confusion.
“What?” he asked.
“The cure,” the stranger replied. For the first time today, a faint smile appeared on his lips, and he put a hand on Rex’s shoulder. “I think we could take you in, kid."
And for the first time today, Rex smiled too.