Accidents Made Right 1: Pistanthrophobia

Chapter 31: Teamwork Makes The Dreamwork

I grabbed a combat shotgun out of my backpack and charged towards Alexander while he fended off Issac's robotic arms. As I neared firing distance, Alexander rolled on the ground to twist the arms that grabbed him, and after three rolls he turned his right hand into a sword and sliced all the hands at once, releasing him from their grip.

He then turned his attention to me as he transformed that same hand into a plasma cannon and shot at me. In response, I quickly turned on my right energy shields and blocked the shot. When the plasma shot hit the shield, the shield flashed once and shut off. After, the suit's AI said "Shield at zero percent energy, entering recharge mode."

When I recovered from the shot, I grabbed the fore-end of the shotgun with my right hand again and started shooting Alexander. In response, a helmet formed around his head, very similar to my helmet.

After shooting him a few times and seeing it wasn't doing anything, I put my shotgun back and unsheathed one of my swords. While doing so, Dylan unholstered a Glock-19 and started shooting Alexander's side, attempting to distract him. As I approached him, Alexander backhanded Dylan into a nearby converter, and transformed his hands into swords as he turned to me.

I swung my sword at him, and he easily parried it, causing me to go backwards a bit. Rose grabbed a knife and leapt onto Alexander's back, and he grabbed her and threw her over his head onto the ground in front of him. He then readied his sword to impale her, so I activated my sword to help her.

Use me! With me, you'll be unstoppable, you'll be able to do anything, the sword said, trying to corrupt me, but I didn't listen to it.

After thinking for a moment on what to do, I created an energy wall sparkling with red electricity between Alexander and Rose, saving her from impalement. I deactivated the sword and threw it in Alexander's direction, and even though he barely dodged it, I managed to damage his right hip a little bit.

As he dodged the sword, I charged towards him, activating a shield and detaching it, then spinning around to gain momentum and then threw it at Alexander. It lodged right into his chest, so he turned his swords back into hands, pulled it out, and easily smashed it in half with his knee, deactivating it.

I reached my hand in the sword's direction, and it lifted off the ground, sparkling with red electricity again, and flew towards me, cutting easily through Alexander's chest. Unfortunately, it barely missed his power source, which I knew from the blueprints that it was  somewhere in his chest.

Realizing what I was trying to do, he transformed both of his hands into plasma cannons and rapidly shot at me. I quickly sheathed my sword after turning it off and ducked below the first two, jumped over the next two, and then in mid-air I shot a grapple out of my gauntlet(while upside down) and it connected me to Alexander, and pulled me towards him.

I readied my right leg to kick him, and while doing so nanotechnology from all over my suit transferred to my leg and blue electricity sparked around it. When my leg contracted Alexander's face, it took off a good chunk of his helmet, and while he recovered my leg stopped sparking with electricity and the nanotechnology that went to my leg now went to my fists. The fists started sparking with electricity as I ran up to punch the hell out of my opponent.

At the same time, five of Issac's arms started attacking Alexander to distract him. When I got to him, I first punched Alexander with one hand to his helmet, then in the gut with my other hand, then in knee with the same hand, and finally I hit him in the chest full force with my other hand, knocking him back.

As he was knocked back, two of Issac's arms grabbed Alexander by the feet and threw him up into the air. Rose handed me a custom rocket launcher and said "Happy Birthday." In response I quipped "Aw, how'd you know," before grabbing the rocket launcher and shooting Alexander with it.

Alexander hit the floor face-down, so I rolled him over and quickly locked his neck with my foot. Four of Issac's arms each trapped one of his limbs, completely immobilizing him. I leaned down towards Alexander's face and said menacingly "Where. Is. Robert?"

"Hah! You really think I'd know where he is," Alexander said with no fear in his voice.

"You're his best general, and his older son. I know you know where he is. So tell me where he is before I put nanos in your body that make your stomach acid eat you from the inside out."

"Well, then you're a fool. The only one who knows where he is is Rowan, and we all know you don't have the guts to interrogate him," Alexander mocked.

"What does he mean by that," Rose asked with slight worry. I ignored her, and after a couple seconds of processing what he said, I asked "Where is Rowan?"

"Wow, you have a really good grip," Alexander commented.

"WHERE IS HE?!" I yelled, increasing the pressure of my foot.

"The... Roman... Colosseum," Alexander said before he passed out.

Rose walked up to me, put her right hand on my shoulder, and asked "What was that about? I mean... I understand you were trying to scare him, but when he mentioned Rowan, you hesitated."

"I'll... tell you later... Or Dylan and Issac can explain it to you."

I looked down at Alexander, and my thoughts turned to Rowan. I didn't know much about what happened to him after they took him back, but I do know one thing. That he was being raised and trained to kill me. Hopefully, Robert wasn't yet able to influence Rowan enough to be fully willing to kill me. Maybe, just maybe, there was still a chance to get him back.

"Son, we need to go. Reinforcements are likely on their way," Dylan informed me. I nodded, got up, and proceeded to walk with my unit out of the power plant.

30 minutes later

We had walked over to where I was dropped off from the helicopter, so we turned around to look in the direction of the plant just beyond the horizon. I pulled a trigger out of my belt, looked at it for a moment, and then pressed the button, detonating the grenade connected to the reactor. About a minute later, the entire plant exploded, leaving almost nothing behind.

I turned around to my unit, seeing they were all thankful I was still alive, even Isabelle, who looked like she was thinking about saying something.

There was a minute of nobody talking, but eventually Rose broke the silence by asking "Why'd you blow up the factory?" I answered her question, saying "Robert was building an army there, one that could've led to a guaranteed victory for him. If blowing the factory didn't completely stop him, then hopefully it'll at least slow him down."

"Yeah, I understand that. But what about after? We could get reprimanded by Cooper for disobeying orders."

"Would you rather we sat by as Robert massacred hundreds of thousands of people?"

"No, but... did you even think about how this would affect all of us... or you," Rose asked, not offended in any way, just concerned.

"I knew what I needed to do, so I did it. Nothing else needs to be added."

...

"Alright, I just called a chopper to come pick us up," Dylan informed us.

We stood there in silence for a bit, but eventually Rose whispered to me "Don't get me wrong, I stand with your decision... it's just I'd like it if you at the very least inform us first." I nodded in response, and a couple minutes later a chopper came into view from the west. The helicopter spotted us, landed down into the sand, we all climbed into it, and then it took off again.

Once it took off, I started thinking about how I might be seeing Rowan again, and I started to recall a memory of the both of us.

Oh! I feel myself being sucked into the flashback! Aaaah!