CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

PROTOTYPE: TITAN

“What the hell is that?” Wombat asked.

“I dunno,” Tiger answered, “but it looks creepy.”

“It is creepy.” Flames erupted from Wombat's hands, “We have to finish this quickly and get the-” he stopped abruptly, glancing around the cave, “Wait, where are the twins?”

Tiger copied him, glancing around the arena, scanning for any signs of the twins. They hadn't seen the twins since the Prototypes appeared and they'd been forced into battle. Maybe they'd chosen to run and hide.

“Hold on,” Wombat's eyes glowed orange as he searched for heat signatures, but the only other ones he saw were Tiger's and the newly-merged Prototypes. “I'm not picking up any of their heat signatures.”

“Weird…” Tiger’s eyes went to the Prototypes, “They…they're not in there are they?”

“Doubt it.” Wombat answered, “That would be worse than creepy. Maybe you swept them up in your whirlwind earlier.”

“Not possible, I would’ve felt them in there. And I would’ve simply excluded them from its effects, the same way I did for you.”

“That was you? I thought I was just too hot for the air to pick me up.”

“Well, there was that too. You were heating up the air around you way too fast. I couldn’t pick you up if I wanted to.”

The merged Prototypes spoke, “Integration complete. Assimilation of all elements successful. Titan mode is online.”

“Titan, huh?” Wombat's blue flames burst to life on his fists and flickered, licking the air hungrily, “Waste of a cool name.”

Titan turned its head to him, now adorned with purple eyes in addition to the red, “‘Titan’ is the name of the integration program. I was not given this name to be cool.”

Tiger cringed, “Ugh, dude, you've somehow made it more uncool.”

Wombat laughed, “It's crazy. He was literally given the coolest villain name ever, and then chose to be the biggest loser.”

Tiger snickered.

Titan cocked its head. “I am…confused. You could barely handle each of us individually, and now, we have combined to achieve the maximum possible destructive power. Yet, you make jokes and you laugh when you should be scared? It is very confusing.”

“Uhhh…barely? We wiped the floor with you dunderheads.” Tiger retorted.

Wombat was still laughing, “Yeah dude, and it's not a joke. We actually think you’re lame.”

Tiger keeled over laughing and placed a hand on Wombat's shoulder to steady herself as her knees went weak. They wiped away a tear, “and besides, separately or altogether, it really doesn't matter what form you take…”

They stood upright and wiped the tears out of their eyes. Wombat took a deep breath, grateful for the laugh he just had. The flames on his fists blazed aggressively.

“... we'll beat you every time.”

Wombat broke into a sprint, his flames leaving a trail of blue as he cut across the arena.

“WIND SLASH!” Tiger screamed from up high, and with a wave of her hand, sent a sharp arc of wind through the air, and to Titan. The attack hit him and the wind dispersed, leaving him unscathed and unmoved. Wombat surged on.

Titan raised a hand, where six blue dots - formerly eyes - had gathered at the center of its palm. They glowed.

Tch.

Wombat skidded to a stop and dashed sideways, narrowly avoiding the laser beam that Titan had fired off in his direction. He zigzagged across the cave, staying in constant motion as Titan attempted to get him caught in the beam of energy escaping his palm. Tiger took this opportunity, while Titan was focused on their partner.

They maneuvered their way around Titan and flew straight at him, but Titan would not be caught off guard. He raised his other arm as dots - this time green - gathered in his palm and an energy beam shot out of them.

They dove out of the way.

The dots on both arms separated, creating separate beams; twelve in total.

The world's most dangerous light show.

Each beam moved seemingly autonomously, chasing after Wombat and Tiger as they struggled to close the distance between them and Titan. Wombat ducked, sidestepped, and dodged beams as they sliced through the air while Tiger weaved and moved, flying in between the spaces.

Somehow, the two ended back up beside each other.

“Those lasers are deadly,” Wombat said, “I can't get close enough to him”

“Right.” Tiger agreed.

“If we could somehow disrupt his vision, I could land a blow on him.”

“One blow? Would that be enough? You saw what my wind slash did to him.”

Wombat raised a confused eyebrow at them, “It didn't do anything.”

“Exactly. And, I don't know if you've noticed, but he literally has ‘eyes’ all over him.” Tiger pointed out, “Can’t you just use another incinerating arrow?”

“It takes too much out of me. My firepower’s seriously reduced now, I’m not at 100% anymore.”

Titan turned to them and both green and blue eyes converged on his chest. Wombat outstretched his arms.

“FlAME FORTRESS!”

At once, a dome of blue fire surrounded him and Tiger, acting as a shield against Titan’s megabeam attack. The eyes glowed and released green and blue lasers, which then intertwined midway, forming a spiral of energy. Wombat braced himself as the beams collided with the flame barrier, and generated shockwaves that forced both parties backwards.

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Cracks spread around the shield as the beam of energy chipped away at its strength.

“Wombat focus!” Tiger urged.

Through gritted teeth, he responded, “I'm trying…”

His feet dug into the ground as the force of the beam pushed against him, unrelenting. The cracks in the shield spread further and further, and Wombat knew it wouldn't hold much longer. He let go of his hold on the barrier, and it shattered, letting the beam through.

They dashed in opposite directions to escape its wrath.

“SLIPSTREAM DANCE!”

Vortexes of wind erupted around Titan.

“You've used this trick before!” he called out, as he watched the swirling tycoon dance around him.

“Switching to infrared.”

It watched as a ball of heat flew straight at him.

“Obscuring my vision and then running straight at me? That was your plan?”

Titan punched, as the ball of heat cleared the vortex, thinking it was Wombat, but was instead met with one of his flaming wombat creatures. It exploded as soon as it was touched. More came, buzzing through the vortex of wind and straight at him.

He moved around, constricted by the ferociously spinning wind barrier around him, keeping him one place, and he swung his arms, redirecting the creatures of fire into the air, the ground and each other.

Titan scanned around with infrared vision, searching for signs of Wombat and Tiger but was surrounded by multiple balls of heat which, when passed through the vortex of wind around him, turned out to be another one of his flaming wombats.

The eyes moved around on his body and charged up energy, releasing it outwards and disrupting the vortex of wind, but Wombat was there, fist cocked back. Titan had no time to react as he watched Wombat's fists get engulfed in an orange flame, then a blue one. His fist slammed into Titan’s chest, and sent him flying across the cave.

Titan bounce off the ground, skidding along its surface, and then crashed into the cave wall. He emerged from a Titan-shaped hole. “How did you escape detection from my infrared vision?”

Wombat chuckled. “I am a master of all things fire, buddy, you think I don't have control over my own body heat?”

Titan thought for a second. “I see. You dropped your body heat all the down to negligible levels so I won't be able to see you, and then at the last second, rapidly increased it back to normal.”

Wombat stood, chest puffed out and chin raised high, beaming. “Yep.”

“It's a great move for sneaking past infrared, but unfortunately, you couldn't muster up enough energy in time to do any significant damage to me.” Titan stood and dusted itself, “I would like to apologize for earlier. I underestimated you. It seems to defeat you, I’ll have to operate at maximum parameters.

A whirring noise filled the air as the machine kicked into a higher gear. The eyes around his body repositioned themselves, spreading around instead of concentrating on a specific limb. Steam escaped from its body and flaps in its skin opened, acting as a sort of ventilation system.

Wombat entered his fighting stance. Titan was right about his earlier attack. He'd tried to rapidly boost the strength behind his flames at the last second, but he'd overestimated how much time he'd have, and as such, couldn't produce enough force to do any actual damage.

His eyes glowed a royal blue and flames of the same color exploded from his fists, sporting a tint of gold. Tiger hovered in the air above him.

They called down.

“Hey Wombat, looks like we might have to go all out too.”

“Agreed.” As if they already weren’t doing so, he panickily thought.

The ground cracked underneath Titan’s feet as the yellow and pink eyes around his feet, exploded with energy and acted as thrusters. He crossed the room in an instant, driving his knee into Wombat's gut, and sending him flying.

Wombat hit the wall with enough force to dislodge a few boulders, and they came crashing down, burying him.

“Wombat!” Tiger screamed.

Titan took to the air and chased after them.

They darted through the air as Titan pursued behind them. Yellow and pink lasers flared from Titan’s feet, propelling the robot forward like a missile, while Tiger twisted and turned, evading the laser beams that shot from the green and blue eyes on his arms.

Annoying, they thought.

They summoned a powerful gust of wind, propelling themselves higher and faster.

Titan matched their speed with ease, its thrusters roaring as it closed the distance. Tiger was blinded with flashes of light as multi-colored lasers streaked past them, narrowly missing them.

Titan's purple eyes on its head glowed ominously, tracking Tiger's every move. With a sudden burst of speed, Tiger looped around and came at Titan from above, summoning a cyclone of wind around them. They hurled wind slashes at Titan, each strike aimed with precision.

Titan retaliated with a volley of lasers, the beams slicing through the air with deadly accuracy. Tiger dodged and weaved, but one laser grazed their shoulder, searing their jacket.

Their hand went to the wound and came away drenched with blood. “You’re really starting to get on my nerves.” she seethed.

They outstretched their hands and ignored the pain, focusing their energy, and creating a powerful vortex around themselves. In one swift motion, they charged at Titan, the wind swirling around them like a protective barrier.

Titan's thrusters flared as it tried to evade, but Tiger got to him before he had time to react.

With a mighty roar, Tiger unleashed the full force of their wind powers, slamming into Titan with a gale-force punch. Titan was sent spiraling through the air, its thrusters struggling to regain control. Tiger didn't relent, following up with a series of wind slashes that battered Titan from all sides.

Each hit spun him more and more in the air, making it harder for him to right himself.

Tiger zoomed after him, covering the distance between them in an instant.

“COMPRESSION HIT!”

Their fist struck solid metal with a glove of wind, and it exploded, shooting Titan straight into the ground. The robot crashed, sending up a cloud of debris and dust.

Tiger smirked as she hovered in the air, “Is this you going all out? I'm almost disappointed.” their hand went to their chin, pretending to think, “actually wait, I changed my mind. I am disappointed.”

Something shot out of of the smoke and at Tiger, and they instinctively dodged out of the way.

“Really? Still shooting lasers?” They taunted.

“That wasn't a laser.” The robotic voice came from above them, “that was me.”

They spun around and watched as Titan raised a hand to her, where a bunch of eyes had gathered in his palm. He fired the laser at them, and they deployed a last minute shield of wind to defend themselves, but sadly, it wasn't enough.

The laser pierced through the shield and hit them square in the chest.

Pain shot through their entire being and they screamed as it was their turn to be sent crashing into the ground. The last thing they remembered is falling through the air, leaving a trail of dark red liquid…

A bunch of rocks broke loose and Wombat's head poked out from the pile of rubble just in time to see his partner crash into the ground. He felt his heart drop.

Titan hovered down, stopping just above her. “Goodbye, Child of Wind. You fought bravely, but in the end you were no match for me.”

“GET AWAY FROM THEM!”

Titan made to turn to look but Wombat was already with him, slamming his fist into the side of his head. A chunk of his skull flew off, the place where it detached from the head scorched black. Wombat grabbed Tiger and moved them away, setting their body down gently.

He placed a flaming hand on the open wound on their chest and proceeded to cauterize it. They winced ever so slightly.

“Don't worry, your healing should do the rest.” He muttered quietly to her. He pulled of his shirt, that was burned in a couple of places, and folded it, placing it under her head. Then he stood and turned to Titan, who's face was growing back.

“You cannot defeat me. Stop trying.”

Wombat glared at him, his eyes flashing a hint of red. He balled his fists and they exploded, enveloping themselves in flame. But this time, it wasn't his usual orange flames or the rarer blue-gold flames; this fire was blood red.

Titan cocked his head, “A different color? No matter, I was built to never lose. To become faster when necessary. To become stronger than my opponent. To always be better. Your flames will have no effect on me.”

Wombat's jaw tensed. Every muscle in his body was screaming in agony with each step he took. An indescribable anger raged inside him.

This thing hurt Megan. That would be the last thing he ever did.

The flames on his fist spread slowly, covering every inch of his body until he was completely engulfed. His vision went red, as his power grew around him. His skin tingled under the intense heat he was emanating.

The Son of Fire.

The flames on his body hungrily licked the air, searching for something to destroy. For someone to consume.

And he had just the target.