DetectiveRed

Re-uploading with new writing! New editing and some shoutouts! Huge shoutout to the amazing Rooibos. She checked and helped a lot with rewriting and editing this into a story that I'm kind of proud of. If you haven't read her story 'Trolls and Tribulations" you are missing out. It helped inspire me to pick up the pen again.

The fight was dire. I had to take on the monster alone, something I had never done before. Dysphorus, the Crab King’s henchman, and his new monster, Brain Drain had left my team exhausted. Its giant leech-like tendrils latched on to their helmets, then a weird field surrounded them; it pulsed upwards and over a couple of seconds lost colour as they fell to the ground one by one. Something told me they weren’t gone; they couldn’t have been, right? Something like this couldn’t have gotten them. They were so much stronger than these monsters. Kepler’s voice came through the communicator. I needed something, any information I could get. Anything to help me beat this thing. 

“This shouldn’t be happening, the team should not have been drained so quickly!”

Damn it, I should have known. 

“This is all my fault.”

“Yes, it is, Little Miss Leader.” Brain Drain laughed.

I should have been less on their back about school work. With training and school, they must have been exhausted before this fight. Even I was feeling weak and he hadn’t even been able to catch me yet. I must have been working too hard and pushing them too hard. This was all my fault. As their leader, I should have listened when they told me they needed a break. If only I’d listened, I wouldn’t be in this mess. A new wave of exhaustion washed over me and I fell to my knees. 

“Get up, Red!” A voice I hadn’t heard before.

“Huh?”

“Get up! I need your help!”

I looked up. A guy in a suit like ours was hitting the monster with reckless abandon. His suit was different from ours; it shimmered gold in the sunlight, seeming to ripple with every movement he made. His hits were fast and strong as his fists pounded against Brain Drain's inflated, vacuum bag-like stomach. Each punch from Gold elicited a belching noise from the monster as coloured light came out of his mouth. Gold was giving me time. Their fight was preventing Brain Drain from latching on to us. I needed to catch my breath. The monster’s tendrils were flying around desperately, trying to retake the small amounts of my teammates' energy that kept being burped up by the monster, but Gold wouldn’t let them. Whenever it tried to stop their energy from leaving, he would hit it again. His moves were kind of sloppy as if he wasn’t trained properly and couldn’t get his body to catch up with his mind, but he had a good sense of timing. His attacks formed a rhythm that prevented Brain Drain from gaining ground.

“Get over here, you need to stab him with your sabre to release their energy!” he shouted before he took a hit to the face from a henchman. “Hurry! I’ll keep him busy!” His voice rang with urgency; it was obvious he couldn’t hold for much longer. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking too much, it was time to act.

“Got it!” I shouted back. I scrambled to my feet. I just needed to get my weapon. I concentrated on bringing the Thorn Sabre to me and after a second, its power rushed through my body. It was an odd experience summoning magical weapons. I’d held back on summoning it earlier; I didn’t know how long I could hold it while exhausted, hell after this I’d probably pass out, but that wasn’t a problem as long as it could finish the thing off. With power like this, it would be easy to skewer a monster, as long as I believed in my new team member to give me a clear shot of my target. No matter how tough the material, nothing in the galaxy could withstand a stab from this. I charged forward, trusting Gold would move out of the way before I reached him. Running this fast always felt weird, like everything else was gone and all that I could see was my target. I just had to get one good stab... 

And contact. As I expected, it went straight through the bag. 

“Uh oh!” was the last thing I heard from the monster before an explosion of energy threw me and Gold back. Blue, yellow, black and pink lights flew through the air over to where my teammates had fallen. They’d come around soon; they had to come around soon.

Gold offered me his hand up. I hated to admit it, but I was running on fumes before the fight; I needed a hand. This fight had been going on for ten minutes before Gold showed up and it took about two minutes for us to get that stab in. Fights this long always took a lot out of you, especially when you were already almost gone. Some of the monsters' stolen energy must have been keeping me awake. I estimated there were about five minutes tops until I couldn’t fight any longer. This fight had finished just in time to get everyone back to the command centre in time for their parents to not freak out.

“Feast, my minion!” 

Darn it! Dysphorus always did that. Brain Drain quickly devoured the meal he’d been given and as usual with these monsters, began to grow. By the time it was done, its disgusting tendrils were as long as a four-storey building, the thing’s disgusting face, full of layers of sharp teeth, was monstrously huge, and its energy pouch was about as big as a truck. Taking him down would take a while. You’d think I’d have gotten used to this. It was never worth banking on getting out of a fight after one defeat. They’d always get back up. Hopefully, the command centre had enough caffeine to keep me awake after this.

“Damn, what is Dysphorus feeding you creeps? I need Mountain Devil Power!” The ground rumbled in response as my giant spiky lizard mech came running through the quarry to where I had landed. If it weren’t for the weird magic, I probably would have been crushed by it giant spiky foot, but Thorny was too gentle for that.

There was a small shout from Gold, who seemed to still be recovering. The others might have had their energy returned to them, but they were still down for the count. Gold and I would have to do this ourselves. 

“Hahaha! Now I can drain the entire population of the city's energy!” 

“I won’t let you do that, Brain Drain!” I shouted defiantly. No one touched my friends and got away with it.

Gold remained silent in his kangaroo-like mech. It was an amazing looking thing; compared to my Thorny it was incredibly tall, and glimmered a beautiful gold. If Thorny was in fighter mode, we might have been at equal height, but right now I had to look up to admire the beautiful thing. It didn’t seem to have a weapon, but most people know that a kangaroo doesn’t need one to mess someone’s day up. Before I’d finished admiring the beautiful piece of tech in front of me, he charged towards Brain Drain and did what he had done out of his mech. He began punching. The kangaroo boxed with all the grace in the world. It was definitely doing something to the monster, but unlike last time, its tendrils began to latch onto the surface of the mech. A bigger target made it easier. I had to help him out. 

The horns that ran across the outer plates of my mech would be perfect for detaching the tendrils. I just needed to graze his kangaroo, while not getting in the way too much. Easier said than done, sure, but it was something. I’d tried driving in circles for simulated training, though I never thought I would use it. If I could circle Gold and detach the suckers from the giant metal body, we might be able to win this.

“Good idea, Red! Build up some speed and then we can destroy the bag again.”

Every punch from Gold made the ground shake, coupling that with my general exhaustion and driving around in circles, I knew I’d have to finish him off soon. Thorny could push me a little bit past my limit, but not for much longer.  I needed to use my tail, a strong spike that was perfect for puncturing a giant vacuum bag. I just needed to get a visual on the vacuum. One more turn around Gold’s giant kangaroo and it was almost in sight. I pulled off two more tendrils as I made my way around. I just had to line up to hit it. Gold continued to slam his fists into the monster. The monster took one look down and realised what we were about to do, but it was too late to stop us. “Time to pop this windbag!” I shouted.

“Oh no!” was the last thing I heard before being blinded by the explosion of energy pouring out of Brain Drains remains.

The explosion would have thrown us back had we not been in our mechs. Brain Drain’s energy from his feast had apparently been enough to return my team to consciousness.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like I would be conscious to check on them.