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scikaiju
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Pulling up every schematic he could find in the computer database Ken tried to understand what he was seeing. He wasn't exactly joking earlier when he said he wished he discovered the whole genius thing sooner than when he did, maybe he could make sense of what he was seeing faster than what he was. If he had more time he could probably figure this out but he didn't think he had that luxur\ry. So he pushed his brain harder than he ever had before, “Okat looks like there's a unstable element in the reactor core itself,” he said to himself as he went back and forth between the reactor read out and the schematics, “now what's causing it? What am I not seeing?”
“Ken,” he heard Williams' voice come from his communicator. “The Icarus' vertical lift is starting to fail and they're just at bare minimum now. A few more go and it's going to crash.”
“One problem at a time Doc!”, he snapped. “So unless you have any suggestions about stopping the explosion please shut the hell up so I can think.” Ken knew this wasn't the simulator, he was feeling a pressure that it could never imitate. There was something about having actual lives on the line that made you think faster and in ways the simulator couldn't do. He also had something he never had with that test either, the actual plans to work from. There was nothing that he could see that was causing the instability, all the readings before that point were coming out normal. “Come on Kyrie figured this out already.” Then he realized something, and hit his communicator, “Doc! Can anybody down there tell me for sure if this reactor was based on Kyrie's original plans?”
There were some mumblings over the line before he heard, “All they're saying is it was based on the plans they discovered in the database. Kyrie was still working on his original device since then?”
“Their original machine blew up, only leaving Kyrie alive. He already solved the cause of the explosion. Now how did he do it?” Ken shut his eyes and tried to remember what he saw in that lab. “He needed the Spark Magnifier to stabliize the unification process he was trying to achieve. That's not going to happen now. The instability,” he said as it hit him like a ton of bricks, “it's the three universe trying to converge on a single point.” Ken quickly looked through everything he could find on the reactors internal workings. “There,” he said finding what he was looking for. The reactor used the same containment system the machine in Kyrie's lab used. “”If you can hear me don't stop praying just yet.”
“Ken how much longer until the explosion?”, Hawk asked over the line.
“No offence Captain but I don't need the distraction right now,” Ken said as he pulled up the containment readings. Okay genius brain, time to start working in a way you never worked before. “Come on the problem's mostly mechanical. that's completely in your wheelhouse, you got this,” he told himself. Now if he could just get himself to believe it. Before realizing he needed an outside source Kyrie would have tried modifying the containment field. He fully realized he was betting a lot on the modifications done to Kyrie's original design would be enough to make this work, but he didn't have a lot of choices at the moment. Locating the field controls he started to adjust it by moving the emitters and adjusting the field. Doing this for a few minutes he thought he went deaf when the alarms stopped. He looked at the readout seeing the wave go back to normal. “Please tell me all of you are seeing this.”
“The reactor's stabliizing,” Williams said in disbelief, “Ken you did it!” Ken wanted to celebrate along with him but he thought he beat the simulator a few times as well before the program started to create more problems. Holding his breath he watched waiting to see if the same was going to happen now. He waited, and he waited and waited. It wasn't going unstable again.
“I did it?”, he said still not believing what he was seeing. A grin started to form on his face. “I did it! Fucking yes!” He couldn't celebrate just yet, “Okay one thing done, next thing is thing is the ship is going to crash. We need to keep it in the air. Where are the air vent controls on this thing?”
“Air vents?” he heard someone say, probably one of the engineers.
“If the lifters are going down then I'll get some extra air into the fuel mix, spark that son of a ***** into working and keep it afloat.”
“That isn't a normal engine,” the engineer said. “It's a new anti gravity system they developed separately from the reactor. There's no fuel mixture to mess with. The instability in the reactor must have caused enough feedback to damage the sytem, you'll almost come straight down once you lose enough of the rest .”
“No,” Ken said as he pulled up the data. The Icarus wasn't going straight down yet but it was going to be close enough. According to this the crash was going to be a couple of miles away from his current location, but he was still going down. Then he saw something about the reactor and ran a quick simulation. “****!,” he said as he pounded the console, “****! ****! ****!”
“Ken what is it?”, he heard Hawk ask.
Leaning on the station with his head hung low he said, “The reactor. It's going to explode on impact. The blast radius is going to be miles wide. You all going to be caught up in the blast.” Damn it he had it, he fucking had it fixed. And they were going to die anyway. He punched the console again.
Looking over at the pilot who controlled the drop ship they were in. reading the unasked question in Hawk's face he started shaking his head. Well in the couple of trips he took on them he didn't expect them to be built with speed in mind, still there was a small hope that was quickly dashed. “Ken,” Hawk said. “we all knew death was a possibility when we signed up. You did your best son, I'm proud of you.”
“It wasn't enough,” he said as he choked back a sob. He had the problem fixed. And he didn't even know how those anti grave lifters even worked and he did not have the time to try and figure them out.
“Ken,” he heard Jess say. “We're all hearing you over the line. Williams patched us all in just so we wouldn't be left in the dark. It's okay.”
“No,” he said as a sob escaped, “it's not okay.”
“Ken Hawk's right. you did all you could. And we had a little more time together. I wouldn't trade that time in for anything.”
“I was going to try and keep my promise,” he told her suddenly. “The one I made you back in high school. I was going to try and take you all over the country. Even if I had to do it base by base, I was going to try.”
“I was looking forward to sleeping under the stars back when you made it. So maybe not base by base.”, she told him. “Maybe some outdoor camping spots.”
He let out a small laugh. Then his eyes snapped open as he looked at the engine as a thought came to him. “Honey, hold that thought. Doc what if we destroyed the engine?”
“Hawk already asked me about that,” he said. “The reactor would still explode and cause the same issue. The self destruct was designed...”
“No I don't mean just blow it up,” he cut him off. “I mean really destroy it from the outside. Obliterate the damn the damn thing.”
There was some more muttering over the line before Williams said, “We don't have the ordnance available. It would take something just short of a nuclear warhead to get the effect you're talking about. And there's none on board, even if they were you couldn't get it set up in time.”
“Than I'll improvise something. See you all on the other side if this doesn't work like I think,” Ken hit his communicator to end the link and stared at the engine. That explosion wouldn't just affect and kill things in this universe. “Dax, feel up to saving people in three different universes at once?”
“I'm willing to try if you are,” he said as Ken ran out of the room. The ship started to list to the side making everything tilt at an angle, he willed those lifters to not fail now. He didn't stop, trying to keep his balance by holding his hand against the wall as he ran.
Coming to the section where the lifeboats were he hit the first control panel, the hatch didn't open, “Damn it don't mess with me now.” He started clawing at the panel until he pulled it off the wall. He started messing with wires until the hatch opened. He stood and braced himself as the wind buffeted him. Reaching into his jacket he pulled out the Spark Magnifier and pointed it at the open space in front of him and activated it.
“What's that light coming out of the side of the ship?” Jess and Reid looked up with the rest of them as that light got bigger and Daxium appeared in it's place. “Where in the hell did Ultraman come from?' Behind her Reid put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze. Not that far away Hawk, Ryo and Bill all silently rooted him on.
This one time Ken broke his general rule and watched things through Dax's eyes. “Okay Dax let's try to raise thing thing up and further away from the others.” In the outside world Daxium nodded and quickly pounded his forearms together to mode shift into Power Mode. Flying until he was under the ship Ken pointed out a strong point and told him to push up from there. Placing his hands were Ken indicated Daxium increased his flight power upwards. With a grunt he slowly started to guide the ship's nose into an upwards direction but it was still going down.
“I don't think this will work for long,” Daxium said through their link. “It has too much momentum for me to affect it fully.”
“Look down at the others,” Ken said. When he did so he estimated where they were compared to the ground. They were still too close, but maybe the wave from the blast would have lost some of it's energy by the time it reached them if this didn't work. “We don't have a choice Dax we gotta do it. You obliterated some monsters by just punching them with the Giga Wave, think you can do it with this ship?”
“We won't know until I try,” Daxium released the ship and flew ahead of it. Then he turned and faced the Icarus as it came toward him.
“Dax if I'm wrong about this it's been fun buddy,” Ken said as he and Dax tried to figure out the best angle for Daxium to land the punch for the maximum effect that he was hoping they would get.
“Yes it has,” Daxium replied as he brought his fist to his chest and started drawing in energy.
“Don't you do it! Don't destroy the Icarus!” Richardson yelled at the screen as he, Williams, Stanberry and the others all watched. Those who weren't part of that particular trio looked at him like he lost his mind.
Pooling the energy into his right hand Daxium flew toward the falling ship at the angle both of them agreed on. Once he was close enough he threw his fist forward with all he had. The Icarus was torn up immediately as the unfocused energy of the Giga Wave tore through it. Then the wave hit the reactor and it exploded The Icarus was engulfed in a massive explosion that made everyone on the ground duck and shield their eyes. But that was all there was, just a fireball in the sky as debris and the remains of the ship fell to the ground. It took a second for most of those watching to realize that they weren't dead, they survived.
“Where's Ultraman?” and other variations of that question flowed through the crowd as they looked up at the disapating fireball. Did he just sacrifice himself to save them?
“There!” somebody pointed out as they sky cleared enough that he could be spotted hanging in the sky. Jess lowered her head in relief that Ken was still alive. Reid came up beside her and smiled in support. Bill was busy high fiving everyone within reach as everybody celebrated.
Ryo looked around at those around them, most were still celebrating being alive but a few were looking slightly horrified at the apparent sacrifice they just bore witness to before leaning in and saying to Hawk, “If nobody has already once Ken appears out of nowhere people are going to figure out his secret.”
Hawk looked around and said, “We'll worry about it when it happens.”
Above it all Daxium returned to his starting form and studied where the Icarus was. He wasn't feeling anything now. They had done it, they closed the rift that machine was creating and saved beings in all three universes. One of those universes might have belonged to his enemy but he didn't care about that now. They saved them and he felt fairly good about it. Then Daxium got a quick sensation behind him right before a beam blasted him in the back “Argh!” he cried out in pain as that blast sent him to the ground with a crash that caused a small dent in the ground. Several UNDF members pulled their side arms as they spotted the source of the attack.
Floating down to the ground with a dark energy outline surrounding him Brooks had his back to them as he hovered around Daxium's eye level as he started to get up. “You really are a hero, aren't you? Do you think your masters will approve of saving your enemy? More importantly do you think my masters would be appreciative that you did so. I can't speak for the former but on the latter I highly doubt it. But you have my appreciation though, you saved me the trouble of destroying that ship myself. But that was then and the war goes on does it not?” Daxium stood at his full height and stared at Brooks. “Because I might have had to spoil this surprise before I wanted you to see it,” he said as he lowered himself to the ground. Then he raised his right hand to the sky, palm open. Dark energy surrounded and engulfed him. Daxium took a step back as the dark energy mass grew in size. It solidified and took shape into a dark copy of himself, Daxium grunted in surprise as those in the UNDF all talked and pointed at the new sight. Brook's voice boomed with an echo as he waved the giant on with a couple of fingers, “Shall we finish this?”
“Shiah!” Daxium said as he took on a defensive stance. Brooks stood there and cocked his head slightly as he started to chuckle. Then he shot forward with a series of strikes that made Daxium back up as he tried to block everything that was coming at him. Then the light giant grabbed his wrist and flipped his dark copy over his shoulder and slammed him to the ground. Jumping on top of him Daxium started pounding away at Brooks. Brooks got both hands up and blasted him off. Daxium landed hard on the ground. Brooks was already on top of him and dragged him up by the throat, then knocked him down again. A kick knocked the giant back even further.
As he got to his feet he fired off a Flash Bolt that exploded against Brooks who stumbled backwards but kept his footing. Charging forward he tried to tackle Brooks down by the waist but the dark copy refused to fall. Clutching his hands together Brooks raised them up and slammed them down onto Daxium's back. Grunting in pain he fell to a knee Brooks reached down, wrapped his arms around Daxium, picked him up and slamming him to the ground. Instead of continuing his attack Brooks kicked him away and let him get back up. Then he made a motion with his forearms, like he was going to mode shift into a power mode of his own then waved a hand toward Daxium, indicating for him to do it. Against his better judgement Daxium mode shifted back into Power Mode and went at Brooks. To everybody's surprise Brooks easily blocked everything Daxium was throwing at him. Then he grabbed his wrist and applied enough pressure that he grunted in pain and almost went to a knee because of it. Then without any effort at all he threw Daxium to the side and walked away looking completely unconcerned.
“You got to be kidding me,” Hawk muttered as Brooks stared right at them and held out his arms, like he was sayin 'this is it?'. “Castle scramble the Razor Wings and the Alpha One to this location now!”
“Come on,” Jess said, “get up and fight.” Brooks kept looking at them right until a flash of light behind him crashed against his back. Surprised by the sudden assault Brook took a step forward and looked behind him. Daxium had shifted into Hyper mode and extended the light whip from his fingers. Before his copy could react he started thrashing the whip around Brook's body causing him to cover up then he wrapped it around his neck, pulling in energy as he drew his other hand back and slammed it it against his wrist, unleashing the Light Pulse right at Brook. He quickly slashed a hand through the whip breaking it. Holding out his other hand he fired a blast that Daxium cartwheeled to avoid. Jumping up Daxium aimed a kick at Brooks that he easily swatted away. Daxium jumped out of the way as Brooks pounded the ground with a fist. Getting into a runner's stance he drew in energy again the made then barest of flinches. Everyone who had seen this move before expected it to be over.
“What?!” Bill exclaimed as in the next instant Brooks had Daxium by the neck again with one hand and the arm with the whip by the other. He just stopped Daxium's fastest attack with ease. The jewel on his chest was flashing.
“That was close,” Brooks said as he threw him to the ground again “You might want to end this fast,” he said as he gestured to the “jewel” on his chest.”
“You smug son of a *****,” Reid said beside Jess who felt just as helpless as everyone else watching this.
Quickly forming the hypersaw he threw it at Brooks to make him avoid it, at least that was the plan. Instead Brooks caught it mid flight and crushed it with one hand making it shatter into shards of light. But it still gave Daxium enough time to shift back into Power mode and set up the Giga Wave. Brooks just stood there and let him, even taking a few steps back to give him more room to do so. Daxium punched the ground with a yell and unleashed the move. Brooks blasted the move with a massive energy wave of his own that combined with the energy of the Giga Wave as it was sent toward Daxium. He tried to jump out of the way but was still hit with the backlash and was thrown to the ground. The jewel started blinking faster than anyone had ever seen it as he struggled to get to his feet.
“Heh,” Brooks chuckled as he turned away slightly as he brought a hand to his chin. He was enjoying this. Once on his feet Daxium shifted back into his normal form and set up the Dimensional Storm Ray, he was running out of options and energy at this point and was getting desperate. Swinging his arms out Brooks finally reacted by pointing that hand right at the giant. “Gotcha,” he said as he unleashed a blast from his fingers. The beam pierced through Daxium's chest and out his back as he recoiled from the impact.
“KEN!” Jess, Ryo and Bill all shouted at the sight causing looks of surprise from all those around them.
Instead of falling right away like all of them expected Daxium's body started to crack around the hole the beam caused as the jewel stopped flashing and went dark. It looked like he started to break apart as he finally began to fall leaving only a glowing orb as the shards of light he left behind faded away completely as they drifted to the ground. Jess ran toward the orb before Reid could stop her. Ryo and Bill ran toward it as well as Hawk looked for the air strike he called in.
The orb started erratically toward the ground. When it was about ten feet above the ground it started to break apart as well, Ken falling out of the bottom and landing hard in a heap. “No,no,no,” Jess said as she ran toward him. She got to him first and cradled him in her lap, he was unconscious but it looked like he was still breathing. Ryo and Bill was soon by their side. Ryo ran a scan over him with his wrist scanner as soon as he got there.
“I'm getting life signs,” he announced. “Thet're faint but they're there. He's still alive. We need some help over here!”. he yelled at the ones just staring at the scene. A few looked like they were going to hurry over and assist them but stopped as they looked up and behind them.
“Ken, wake up!”, Jess said shaking him slightly. “Wake up you idiot!”
“Jess he'll be okay,” Bill told her. “He'll be out for a little while then he'll be on his feet like nothing happened just like before.” Oh how she hoped that was going to happen like he claimed but something made her afraid that it wasn't going to be the case this time. The ground started to shake slightly and felt like it was getting closer with each tremor. Ryo and Bill both looked up with some trepidation. Still hanging on to Ken, trying to protect him, Jess drew her sidearm and pointed it right at Brook as he came closer. Her aim never wavered as he stopped then started to shrink in size.
Before long he was back to normal. He looked at the gun pointed at him then at Ken who was still lying limp in Jess' arms. He broke out into a grin before saying, “Looks like I win.” Then he started glowing again and flew off into the sky as Jess and others started firing at him. She stopped and turned her attention to the still unconscious Ken. Now what were they going to do?
ED – Shinedown – Fly From the Inside
“Ken,” he heard Williams' voice come from his communicator. “The Icarus' vertical lift is starting to fail and they're just at bare minimum now. A few more go and it's going to crash.”
“One problem at a time Doc!”, he snapped. “So unless you have any suggestions about stopping the explosion please shut the hell up so I can think.” Ken knew this wasn't the simulator, he was feeling a pressure that it could never imitate. There was something about having actual lives on the line that made you think faster and in ways the simulator couldn't do. He also had something he never had with that test either, the actual plans to work from. There was nothing that he could see that was causing the instability, all the readings before that point were coming out normal. “Come on Kyrie figured this out already.” Then he realized something, and hit his communicator, “Doc! Can anybody down there tell me for sure if this reactor was based on Kyrie's original plans?”
There were some mumblings over the line before he heard, “All they're saying is it was based on the plans they discovered in the database. Kyrie was still working on his original device since then?”
“Their original machine blew up, only leaving Kyrie alive. He already solved the cause of the explosion. Now how did he do it?” Ken shut his eyes and tried to remember what he saw in that lab. “He needed the Spark Magnifier to stabliize the unification process he was trying to achieve. That's not going to happen now. The instability,” he said as it hit him like a ton of bricks, “it's the three universe trying to converge on a single point.” Ken quickly looked through everything he could find on the reactors internal workings. “There,” he said finding what he was looking for. The reactor used the same containment system the machine in Kyrie's lab used. “”If you can hear me don't stop praying just yet.”
“Ken how much longer until the explosion?”, Hawk asked over the line.
“No offence Captain but I don't need the distraction right now,” Ken said as he pulled up the containment readings. Okay genius brain, time to start working in a way you never worked before. “Come on the problem's mostly mechanical. that's completely in your wheelhouse, you got this,” he told himself. Now if he could just get himself to believe it. Before realizing he needed an outside source Kyrie would have tried modifying the containment field. He fully realized he was betting a lot on the modifications done to Kyrie's original design would be enough to make this work, but he didn't have a lot of choices at the moment. Locating the field controls he started to adjust it by moving the emitters and adjusting the field. Doing this for a few minutes he thought he went deaf when the alarms stopped. He looked at the readout seeing the wave go back to normal. “Please tell me all of you are seeing this.”
“The reactor's stabliizing,” Williams said in disbelief, “Ken you did it!” Ken wanted to celebrate along with him but he thought he beat the simulator a few times as well before the program started to create more problems. Holding his breath he watched waiting to see if the same was going to happen now. He waited, and he waited and waited. It wasn't going unstable again.
“I did it?”, he said still not believing what he was seeing. A grin started to form on his face. “I did it! Fucking yes!” He couldn't celebrate just yet, “Okay one thing done, next thing is thing is the ship is going to crash. We need to keep it in the air. Where are the air vent controls on this thing?”
“Air vents?” he heard someone say, probably one of the engineers.
“If the lifters are going down then I'll get some extra air into the fuel mix, spark that son of a ***** into working and keep it afloat.”
“That isn't a normal engine,” the engineer said. “It's a new anti gravity system they developed separately from the reactor. There's no fuel mixture to mess with. The instability in the reactor must have caused enough feedback to damage the sytem, you'll almost come straight down once you lose enough of the rest .”
“No,” Ken said as he pulled up the data. The Icarus wasn't going straight down yet but it was going to be close enough. According to this the crash was going to be a couple of miles away from his current location, but he was still going down. Then he saw something about the reactor and ran a quick simulation. “****!,” he said as he pounded the console, “****! ****! ****!”
“Ken what is it?”, he heard Hawk ask.
Leaning on the station with his head hung low he said, “The reactor. It's going to explode on impact. The blast radius is going to be miles wide. You all going to be caught up in the blast.” Damn it he had it, he fucking had it fixed. And they were going to die anyway. He punched the console again.
Looking over at the pilot who controlled the drop ship they were in. reading the unasked question in Hawk's face he started shaking his head. Well in the couple of trips he took on them he didn't expect them to be built with speed in mind, still there was a small hope that was quickly dashed. “Ken,” Hawk said. “we all knew death was a possibility when we signed up. You did your best son, I'm proud of you.”
“It wasn't enough,” he said as he choked back a sob. He had the problem fixed. And he didn't even know how those anti grave lifters even worked and he did not have the time to try and figure them out.
“Ken,” he heard Jess say. “We're all hearing you over the line. Williams patched us all in just so we wouldn't be left in the dark. It's okay.”
“No,” he said as a sob escaped, “it's not okay.”
“Ken Hawk's right. you did all you could. And we had a little more time together. I wouldn't trade that time in for anything.”
“I was going to try and keep my promise,” he told her suddenly. “The one I made you back in high school. I was going to try and take you all over the country. Even if I had to do it base by base, I was going to try.”
“I was looking forward to sleeping under the stars back when you made it. So maybe not base by base.”, she told him. “Maybe some outdoor camping spots.”
He let out a small laugh. Then his eyes snapped open as he looked at the engine as a thought came to him. “Honey, hold that thought. Doc what if we destroyed the engine?”
“Hawk already asked me about that,” he said. “The reactor would still explode and cause the same issue. The self destruct was designed...”
“No I don't mean just blow it up,” he cut him off. “I mean really destroy it from the outside. Obliterate the damn the damn thing.”
There was some more muttering over the line before Williams said, “We don't have the ordnance available. It would take something just short of a nuclear warhead to get the effect you're talking about. And there's none on board, even if they were you couldn't get it set up in time.”
“Than I'll improvise something. See you all on the other side if this doesn't work like I think,” Ken hit his communicator to end the link and stared at the engine. That explosion wouldn't just affect and kill things in this universe. “Dax, feel up to saving people in three different universes at once?”
“I'm willing to try if you are,” he said as Ken ran out of the room. The ship started to list to the side making everything tilt at an angle, he willed those lifters to not fail now. He didn't stop, trying to keep his balance by holding his hand against the wall as he ran.
Coming to the section where the lifeboats were he hit the first control panel, the hatch didn't open, “Damn it don't mess with me now.” He started clawing at the panel until he pulled it off the wall. He started messing with wires until the hatch opened. He stood and braced himself as the wind buffeted him. Reaching into his jacket he pulled out the Spark Magnifier and pointed it at the open space in front of him and activated it.
“What's that light coming out of the side of the ship?” Jess and Reid looked up with the rest of them as that light got bigger and Daxium appeared in it's place. “Where in the hell did Ultraman come from?' Behind her Reid put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze. Not that far away Hawk, Ryo and Bill all silently rooted him on.
This one time Ken broke his general rule and watched things through Dax's eyes. “Okay Dax let's try to raise thing thing up and further away from the others.” In the outside world Daxium nodded and quickly pounded his forearms together to mode shift into Power Mode. Flying until he was under the ship Ken pointed out a strong point and told him to push up from there. Placing his hands were Ken indicated Daxium increased his flight power upwards. With a grunt he slowly started to guide the ship's nose into an upwards direction but it was still going down.
“I don't think this will work for long,” Daxium said through their link. “It has too much momentum for me to affect it fully.”
“Look down at the others,” Ken said. When he did so he estimated where they were compared to the ground. They were still too close, but maybe the wave from the blast would have lost some of it's energy by the time it reached them if this didn't work. “We don't have a choice Dax we gotta do it. You obliterated some monsters by just punching them with the Giga Wave, think you can do it with this ship?”
“We won't know until I try,” Daxium released the ship and flew ahead of it. Then he turned and faced the Icarus as it came toward him.
“Dax if I'm wrong about this it's been fun buddy,” Ken said as he and Dax tried to figure out the best angle for Daxium to land the punch for the maximum effect that he was hoping they would get.
“Yes it has,” Daxium replied as he brought his fist to his chest and started drawing in energy.
“Don't you do it! Don't destroy the Icarus!” Richardson yelled at the screen as he, Williams, Stanberry and the others all watched. Those who weren't part of that particular trio looked at him like he lost his mind.
Pooling the energy into his right hand Daxium flew toward the falling ship at the angle both of them agreed on. Once he was close enough he threw his fist forward with all he had. The Icarus was torn up immediately as the unfocused energy of the Giga Wave tore through it. Then the wave hit the reactor and it exploded The Icarus was engulfed in a massive explosion that made everyone on the ground duck and shield their eyes. But that was all there was, just a fireball in the sky as debris and the remains of the ship fell to the ground. It took a second for most of those watching to realize that they weren't dead, they survived.
“Where's Ultraman?” and other variations of that question flowed through the crowd as they looked up at the disapating fireball. Did he just sacrifice himself to save them?
“There!” somebody pointed out as they sky cleared enough that he could be spotted hanging in the sky. Jess lowered her head in relief that Ken was still alive. Reid came up beside her and smiled in support. Bill was busy high fiving everyone within reach as everybody celebrated.
Ryo looked around at those around them, most were still celebrating being alive but a few were looking slightly horrified at the apparent sacrifice they just bore witness to before leaning in and saying to Hawk, “If nobody has already once Ken appears out of nowhere people are going to figure out his secret.”
Hawk looked around and said, “We'll worry about it when it happens.”
Above it all Daxium returned to his starting form and studied where the Icarus was. He wasn't feeling anything now. They had done it, they closed the rift that machine was creating and saved beings in all three universes. One of those universes might have belonged to his enemy but he didn't care about that now. They saved them and he felt fairly good about it. Then Daxium got a quick sensation behind him right before a beam blasted him in the back “Argh!” he cried out in pain as that blast sent him to the ground with a crash that caused a small dent in the ground. Several UNDF members pulled their side arms as they spotted the source of the attack.
Floating down to the ground with a dark energy outline surrounding him Brooks had his back to them as he hovered around Daxium's eye level as he started to get up. “You really are a hero, aren't you? Do you think your masters will approve of saving your enemy? More importantly do you think my masters would be appreciative that you did so. I can't speak for the former but on the latter I highly doubt it. But you have my appreciation though, you saved me the trouble of destroying that ship myself. But that was then and the war goes on does it not?” Daxium stood at his full height and stared at Brooks. “Because I might have had to spoil this surprise before I wanted you to see it,” he said as he lowered himself to the ground. Then he raised his right hand to the sky, palm open. Dark energy surrounded and engulfed him. Daxium took a step back as the dark energy mass grew in size. It solidified and took shape into a dark copy of himself, Daxium grunted in surprise as those in the UNDF all talked and pointed at the new sight. Brook's voice boomed with an echo as he waved the giant on with a couple of fingers, “Shall we finish this?”
“Shiah!” Daxium said as he took on a defensive stance. Brooks stood there and cocked his head slightly as he started to chuckle. Then he shot forward with a series of strikes that made Daxium back up as he tried to block everything that was coming at him. Then the light giant grabbed his wrist and flipped his dark copy over his shoulder and slammed him to the ground. Jumping on top of him Daxium started pounding away at Brooks. Brooks got both hands up and blasted him off. Daxium landed hard on the ground. Brooks was already on top of him and dragged him up by the throat, then knocked him down again. A kick knocked the giant back even further.
As he got to his feet he fired off a Flash Bolt that exploded against Brooks who stumbled backwards but kept his footing. Charging forward he tried to tackle Brooks down by the waist but the dark copy refused to fall. Clutching his hands together Brooks raised them up and slammed them down onto Daxium's back. Grunting in pain he fell to a knee Brooks reached down, wrapped his arms around Daxium, picked him up and slamming him to the ground. Instead of continuing his attack Brooks kicked him away and let him get back up. Then he made a motion with his forearms, like he was going to mode shift into a power mode of his own then waved a hand toward Daxium, indicating for him to do it. Against his better judgement Daxium mode shifted back into Power Mode and went at Brooks. To everybody's surprise Brooks easily blocked everything Daxium was throwing at him. Then he grabbed his wrist and applied enough pressure that he grunted in pain and almost went to a knee because of it. Then without any effort at all he threw Daxium to the side and walked away looking completely unconcerned.
“You got to be kidding me,” Hawk muttered as Brooks stared right at them and held out his arms, like he was sayin 'this is it?'. “Castle scramble the Razor Wings and the Alpha One to this location now!”
“Come on,” Jess said, “get up and fight.” Brooks kept looking at them right until a flash of light behind him crashed against his back. Surprised by the sudden assault Brook took a step forward and looked behind him. Daxium had shifted into Hyper mode and extended the light whip from his fingers. Before his copy could react he started thrashing the whip around Brook's body causing him to cover up then he wrapped it around his neck, pulling in energy as he drew his other hand back and slammed it it against his wrist, unleashing the Light Pulse right at Brook. He quickly slashed a hand through the whip breaking it. Holding out his other hand he fired a blast that Daxium cartwheeled to avoid. Jumping up Daxium aimed a kick at Brooks that he easily swatted away. Daxium jumped out of the way as Brooks pounded the ground with a fist. Getting into a runner's stance he drew in energy again the made then barest of flinches. Everyone who had seen this move before expected it to be over.
“What?!” Bill exclaimed as in the next instant Brooks had Daxium by the neck again with one hand and the arm with the whip by the other. He just stopped Daxium's fastest attack with ease. The jewel on his chest was flashing.
“That was close,” Brooks said as he threw him to the ground again “You might want to end this fast,” he said as he gestured to the “jewel” on his chest.”
“You smug son of a *****,” Reid said beside Jess who felt just as helpless as everyone else watching this.
Quickly forming the hypersaw he threw it at Brooks to make him avoid it, at least that was the plan. Instead Brooks caught it mid flight and crushed it with one hand making it shatter into shards of light. But it still gave Daxium enough time to shift back into Power mode and set up the Giga Wave. Brooks just stood there and let him, even taking a few steps back to give him more room to do so. Daxium punched the ground with a yell and unleashed the move. Brooks blasted the move with a massive energy wave of his own that combined with the energy of the Giga Wave as it was sent toward Daxium. He tried to jump out of the way but was still hit with the backlash and was thrown to the ground. The jewel started blinking faster than anyone had ever seen it as he struggled to get to his feet.
“Heh,” Brooks chuckled as he turned away slightly as he brought a hand to his chin. He was enjoying this. Once on his feet Daxium shifted back into his normal form and set up the Dimensional Storm Ray, he was running out of options and energy at this point and was getting desperate. Swinging his arms out Brooks finally reacted by pointing that hand right at the giant. “Gotcha,” he said as he unleashed a blast from his fingers. The beam pierced through Daxium's chest and out his back as he recoiled from the impact.
“KEN!” Jess, Ryo and Bill all shouted at the sight causing looks of surprise from all those around them.
Instead of falling right away like all of them expected Daxium's body started to crack around the hole the beam caused as the jewel stopped flashing and went dark. It looked like he started to break apart as he finally began to fall leaving only a glowing orb as the shards of light he left behind faded away completely as they drifted to the ground. Jess ran toward the orb before Reid could stop her. Ryo and Bill ran toward it as well as Hawk looked for the air strike he called in.
The orb started erratically toward the ground. When it was about ten feet above the ground it started to break apart as well, Ken falling out of the bottom and landing hard in a heap. “No,no,no,” Jess said as she ran toward him. She got to him first and cradled him in her lap, he was unconscious but it looked like he was still breathing. Ryo and Bill was soon by their side. Ryo ran a scan over him with his wrist scanner as soon as he got there.
“I'm getting life signs,” he announced. “Thet're faint but they're there. He's still alive. We need some help over here!”. he yelled at the ones just staring at the scene. A few looked like they were going to hurry over and assist them but stopped as they looked up and behind them.
“Ken, wake up!”, Jess said shaking him slightly. “Wake up you idiot!”
“Jess he'll be okay,” Bill told her. “He'll be out for a little while then he'll be on his feet like nothing happened just like before.” Oh how she hoped that was going to happen like he claimed but something made her afraid that it wasn't going to be the case this time. The ground started to shake slightly and felt like it was getting closer with each tremor. Ryo and Bill both looked up with some trepidation. Still hanging on to Ken, trying to protect him, Jess drew her sidearm and pointed it right at Brook as he came closer. Her aim never wavered as he stopped then started to shrink in size.
Before long he was back to normal. He looked at the gun pointed at him then at Ken who was still lying limp in Jess' arms. He broke out into a grin before saying, “Looks like I win.” Then he started glowing again and flew off into the sky as Jess and others started firing at him. She stopped and turned her attention to the still unconscious Ken. Now what were they going to do?
ED – Shinedown – Fly From the Inside