Once we got the foreplay with the prophet out of the way, I gave out the signal and our plan sprang into motion.

Juliette grabbed The David on one hand and Vorepal on the other and took off running towards Terrorbyte. While Juliette’s powers protected her from the harmful effects of g-force, that didn’t apply to those she carried, meaning she could only accelerate at a max speed of 6 g, otherwise they would die. Hypothetically, if she moved in the same direction, she could achieve her normal top speeds so long as she accelerated at around 130 mph.

Terrorbyte had no such limitations. Due to his cybernetic enhancements, he could withstand higher g-forces and their armored vehicle could accelerate up to 200 mph. The Prophet was no idiot and knew this: he would take full advantage of this and much, making sure to change directions over and over, like a prey animal turning directions over and over to dodge a cheetah.

The moment Terrorbyte saw the trio coming for him, he did just that, pushing his machine to the limit to get away, making sure to retaliate by firing his many different weapons. For a normal human, hitting a small moving target moving at hundreds of miles per hour would be difficult if not impossible; however, The Prophet had some of the best tracking systems and firing technology in existence, making most of his shots land with deadly accuracy.

Juliette put Vorepal in front of her and used him as a human shield to block them.

Hundreds of high caliber bullets, missiles, acid capsules, and stranger things hit Vorepal, but all it did was make his stomach expand.

A moment later, Vorepal puked a barrage of bullets. Then, he puked again, throwing a dozen missiles or so at Terrorbyte.

Terrorbyte wasn’t surprised by this. Our little family was infamous the world over. An untold number of experts and thinkers analyzed our powers trying to find a chink in our armor, a way to get rid of the abominable, the nauseating Genocide Six. The Prophet knew what Vorepal’s power was; he also knew that the best way to deal with it was to shoot different types of attacks and fill him up so much he would explode.

The rest of us weren’t idle throughout this. Leveller distributed his power towards strength and agility, jumping up high and striking with super strength. Cyberscream fired cannons and miniguns with his many robotic arms. Black Blight threw her miasma up into the air, creating no-fly zones. I threw my emp knives, using my power to get a sense of where Terrorbyte would go.

Noah just stood (more like sat) beside me, like a kid trailing his mom, scared out of his mind, mumbling “this is crazy, this is crazy, I can’t do this, please god…” over and over. The last few hours had been hard on him to say the least.

I ignored him, he had to stop being such a little baby and accept his new reality.

I continued surveying the battle. We were getting close to fulfilling our victory condition, slowly reducing the area Terrorbyte could maneuver on until we could checkmate him.

At a certain point though, a few moments before we could finish off The Prophet, the Machine God realized that it lost and betrayed his slave.

Terrorbyte and his high-tech armored vehicle turned off out of the blue, shutdown by the malevolent AI.

“You win,” the so-called-God told me, speaking for the first time since we entered the compound. It had a majestic, elegant voice that made you want to hear them talk forever, “You have truly made me regret my past choice. Clearly, you are one of the finest specimens of your kind, and I should have allied with you instead. But we can rectify that. As a token of my good will, I will hand you this failure, this incompetent animal. I will also disable its cybernetic augments that control its emotions: you will be able to torment him whoever you desire and he will feel it all. However, that is but a small taste of the benefits that allying with me will bring you. I am The One True God of humanity. I will rule you all—it is inevitable. A wise and well traveled human like you surely knows the statistics, the charts: they only go down with time, things get worse. Humanity will be defeated, either by me, the alien, or an Eater, or perhaps some other, unknown major force. If you join me, you at least have a chance to be on the winning side when all of this is over. If you help me be victorious, I can guarantee your own personal paradise. I-”

“Don’t bother trying to convince me.” I told it, cutting them off. “I already asked one of my subordinates to kill me if I didn’t take my revenge on you. She, along with all the others, activated a noise canceling device the moment you started talking.” This wasn’t my first time dealing with superintelligent Mentals. They were the true monsters of this world, inhuman—let them talk for thirty minutes and they could convince you that killing yourself was in your best interest.

I could have worn the headphones, but I needed to read its mind to know if it had any tricks left and that would defeat the purpose of canceling the noise, since I’d still be able to read its mind.

I gave out the second signal, which was meant to inform Cyberscream and Leveller to begin injecting the virus that our mysterious benefactor had so graciously provided us with. An evil AI hellbent on exterminating most of the human race had a lot of powerful enemies that were willing to give us a hand…even if we weren’t necessarily that much better. Your enemy’s enemy wasn’t really your friend, but getting them to kill each other would do just fine.

Cyberscream got right to work, loyal as ever, but Leveller gave me some lip. “I’m not doing this,” he informed me, deep in denial, “I won’t let my dark half out. I absolutely won’t do it.”

There was a reason why Leveller didn’t redirect his power towards intelligence. You see, the mind is a curious thing. If you make changes, if you alter the chemical balances or increase intelligence, at what point do you stop being you? Leveller here had given us an answer: he was scared of his more intelligent self, his so-called “dark half”. They were too different. His dark half hated videogames and didn’t suffer from delusions or other mental illnesses. They were like oil and water and both wanted control of the same body.

I simply stared at him in silence, glaring at him with my darkest look.

Silence and a glare are surprisingly effective, particularly when you have such an infamous background like mine.

Leveller began sweating, his armpits getting moist, a bead of moisture trailing down his forehead. His mind began imagining what I’d do to him if he didn’t comply, giving me ideas. This is the issue with reading minds, the more you try to hide your fears, the easier you make others to exploit them.

I smiled my signature smile, the one glittering with evil and madness.

From denial, he moved on to anger. “Fuck you! You can’t make me! I’ll level up my endurance enough that whatever you do to me won’t hurt! I’ll make sure you regret it!”

My hand shot out and grabbed his wrist, fast enough to catch him by surprise.

But I didn’t harm him. With my other hand I ran my fingers gently and slowly over his—the threat implicit: I will make sure you can never use your hands to play videogames again.

He began bargaining now, scared, “We don’t have to do this, please. Overload can use her superspeed and find someone else. I’ll make sure to be loyal to you forever, I’ll do whatever you want. Just please stop making me turn into him! I hate him! I don’t feel like myself when I do this and I know he wants to take over my body! Yes, he also wants to kill you all and-”

I squeezed his hand with a good amount of force, feeling his bones creak.

“O-okay, I’ll do it, just please make sure he unlevels intelligence so I can get my body back. Please?”

I nodded.