RDF

Carpenter was reduced to a pile of ash, sprayed against the vault door.

"No!" Melissa screamed, falling to her knees, struggling to maintain the plasma shield around the team as tears poured down her face. The shield shimmered as her hands shook, but stayed strong.

"It's over," said Phaze, behind her, body slowly lifting out of the floor like a spectre. His chest was translucent, blue sapphire heart throbbing quickly, in full panic. "We can't beat them."

Torque, her metallic body reflecting the plasma fire, swatted another two shock drones out of the sky. She glanced back at the ash, and her voice betrayed fear for the first time: "We gotta get outta here," she said. "We gotta go..."

Oben raised a hand. "No," he said solemnly. "If we leave now, the city is finished. The world is finished. Running away isn't what we do. We have to see things through to the end." He looked at the pile of ash. "It's why he brought us together. To do the impossible."

Torque plucked a drone out of the air and threw it like a baseball, straight through another swarm of robots. The factory lit up with a myriad of explosions, like fireworks along the ground. She looked back at her teammates, battered and bleeding. "Let's make 'im proud," she said.

Phaze's body became fully translucent; his eyes narrowed. "Ready when you are."

"Whatever you're going to do, do it fast," said Melissa, sleeves catching fire. "I can't hold this forever."

Torque pressed her fists together as the ground around her started to vibrate. The lines between the plates on her lithe, crotanium body glowed orange, along with her eyes, until she was hard to look at for more than a second, like staring into the sun.

She let out a primal roar and charged at the vault. The impact let out a shockwave, metal denting, groaning... but it didn't break. Her feet slid out from under her, leaving her in a heap on the floor, panting.

"It's too strong," she said. "We can't smash our way in..."

Phaze stepped up, concentrating all his attention to his left arm — it looked like a million tiny stars were exploding in every fibre of his muscles — and plunged his hand into the metal. Sparks cascaded where his ghostly body met the surface, as he started feeling around. "Maybe I can crack the lock from the inside and—"

There was a loud kerchunk.

"What'd you do?" Torque asked, frowning.

"I hit the wrong part," Phaze said, pulling his hand free. "I tripped the failsafe. The door's busted..."

"That's it!" gasped Oben, eyes open wide. "Phaze... you're our door!"

"I'm not sure I like the sound of this," said Phaze.

"No, listen... if you stand in the vault door with your arms outstretched, you should be able to make a conduit big enough for us to travel through. The rest of us can walk through your body, to get inside the vault."

"But wait, I thought you said my Saphirex Stone couldn't shift through metal..."

"Not normally, no, but with enough force..."

"Oh, I like this plan," grinned Torque. "I've always dreamed of tossin' Phaze into things."

"It sounds dangerous to me..." Phaze said, cautiously.

"Dangerous and pointless," said Melissa, struggling to keep the shield up. "Even if this works, the conduit will only be the size of his arms. We couldn't fit through something that small if we tried."

Oben's nodded solemnly. "No," he said. "Not unless we extrapolate his atomic structure."

"Whoa whoa whoa," said Phaze, stepping partially into the wall, up to his heart. "That sounds even worse than before."

"Melissa," said Oben, "if you can super-charge the Saphirex Stone with your plasma, it should spread apart the subatomic particles in his body, giving him just enough mass for us to fit through." He looked to Phaze, who was shaking his head urgently, and said: "It's the only way."

"Can she change me back?" Phaze whimpered.

Oben took a long, slow breath. "She can... by reversing the plasmatic polarity."

Melissa's shoulders slumped, even as she fought to keep the shield up against a hundred blasts from the swarm of drones outside. "I've never done that before. You know I can't do that..."

"Melissa," said Oben, hand on her back. "I believe in you. Carpenter believed in you."

"It's just..." Melissa said, struggling with it all, "something about this plan feels wrong..."

"Aw hell," grumbled Phaze, stepping forward. "We don't have a choice, do we? Torque! Toss me like a ragdoll!"

Torque's face broke into a crotanium grin. "Thought you'd never ask!"

She grabbed Phaze by the arm and spun him around and around, picking up so much speed that the air around them was crackling with blue electricity. Oben was thrown back against the shield by the force of it, covering his head with his arms to avoid getting burned.

"Three... two... one!" Torque threw Phaze into the wall with a shudder so extreme, the entire universe seemed to shake. And to everyone's surprise, the Saphirex Stone really did pass into the metal, leaving only Phaze's right hand visible! 

Slowly, he gave them a thumbs-up.

"OK," said Oben. "Melissa, your turn. Torque, cover us."

"With pleasure!" she cackled, bursting through the shield and drawing the drones' fire as she dashed across the factory floor. Melissa, cautiously, stopped the plasma shield... then looked back at Phaze's hand... still waiting for the next part of the plan to happen.

"Explain to me again what I'm doing?" Melissa asked Oben.

"You're going to hyper-energize the molecules in his body with your plasma cortex, which will—"

"Wait, molecules? I thought it was subatomic particles."

"What did I say?"

"Just now? Molecules."

Oben shifted awkwardly. "Well, you know, same difference."

Melissa's mouth dropped open. "It most certainly is not! Molecules are groups of atoms, subatomic particles are smaller than atoms. It's like calling an ant and a planet roughly the same size."

"I just misspoke," Oben said, an edge to his voice. "Can we just—"

"No!" Melissa said. "Because now that I think of it, if I space out the protons in his body, isn't that kind of exactly what nuclear fission is? Won't that make him explode?"

Oben took her by the shoulders, looked into her eyes. "Melissa, the fate of the world rests in your hands. I know you're scared, but—"

"Nuh uh," she said, breaking free. "I'm not doing anything until you convince me you're not just making up sciencey-sounding mumbo-jumbo on the spot." 

The look on Oben's face was so guilty, it changed her expression from anger to shock. "Oh my god, you are making it up on the spot! That's your power, isn't it? You have some kind of... reality distortion field, to make your stupid ideas come true!"

"Will you please keep it down?" he hissed at her. "If the others hear you, they'll be in a whole lot of danger. Torque is a sitting duck out there!" In the middle of the factory, Torque was gleefully swatting drones like flies, their laser blasts bouncing off her metallic skin.

Melissa's face went from shock to horror. "Crotanium isn't real?"

"Well, OK, not exactly. But it sounds strong, which is what counts."

"You're letting her run around naked!" Her eyes narrowed. "That's why you keep pushing me to wear that spandex outfit, isn't it. Plasma dispersion my ass."

"Listen, none of this changes our situation. We need to get inside the vault or—"

"Or what, exactly? What are we really trying to get, here? It's not really a Pluton Bomb, is it? I knew that sounded too dumb to be real..."

Oben seemed offended at the question, but answered anyway: "The Ambicon Crystal," he said, "is a powerful weapon in the wrong hands. It amplifies certain psychic powers, giving the user nearly unlimited—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," scoffed Melissa. "Save your pseudo-science hocus pocus."

"No, really!" Oben said. "Why do you think you all have been so much more powerful today? The closer we get to it, the stronger our powers become."

"Maybe some of us," she said, squeezing her hands into fists with no effect. "I can't generate plasma anymore."

"Because you don't believe you can," he said. "If you don't believe, I can't tap into your latent superpowers and make you achieve the impossible. You have to have faith, Melissa. You have to believe."

"Yeah, well, that ship has sailed."

Oben looked back at Phaze's hand, sticking out of the vault, twiddling its fingers impatiently. "Then we're doomed..."

"Not yet we're not," said Melissa, and whistled for Torque: "Quick!" she shouted. Torque smashed the last of the drones and dashed over, skidding to a halt just short of the wall.

"We ready or what?" she asked. "You plasma'd him yet?"

"Not yet," Melissa answered. "I was blasted by a... uh..."

"A Sentollax Beam," said Oben. "It—"

"It drained my powers. We need to go with Plan B."

"More like Plan W," said Torque, half-laughing despite the severity of the situation. "So whaddya need?"

Oben was about to answer, when Melissa interrupted: "Phaze's body is weakening the proto-neutronic structure of the vault door." Oben gave her a withering look, which she ignored. "If we can hit it in just the right spot with just the right amount of force..."

"We can crack it wide open!" Torque said, getting ready to charge. "Let's do it!"

Melissa caught her by the arm. "Wait," she said, "you'll need all the paracellium you can get. I... I'll have to give you what's left of mine."

Torque frowned, looked down at Melissa's burnt sleeves. "Is that safe?"

"We don't have a choice..." she said. "Are you ready?"

Torque nodded, and Melissa put her hands on either side of the metallic woman's face. Their eyes locked, and Melissa concentrated hard... so very hard... and then...

She kissed Torque. A full, passionate, world-stopping kiss. Oben's mouth dropped wide open as Melissa give him the finger, then wrapped her arms around Torque and pulled close. The lines in the plates glowed orange, then yellow, then bright white...

When they parted, Torque was crackling with energy. She slowly pulled her fists together, eye searing bright, and bent into a crouch, ready to charge. 

Melissa stood next to Oben, licking her lips. 

"This game of yours, it ain't half bad," she said.

Oben was still having trouble articulating himself.

Torque smashed into the vault with such energy that both Melissa and Oben were thrown back, skin burning from the flash of light. When they could finally see again, the thick metal vault was cracked in half; Torque and Phaze were inside, lying in a pile of molten rubble, groaning.

"Holy crap, that worked..." Melissa said, climbing through the hole.

"What took you so long?" Phaze asked, returning to his usual, levitating state.

"A little problem with the... the..." Oben frowned, hands out in front of him, like he was losing his balance. He suddenly convulsed, dropping to his knees. 

"What is it?" Phaze gasped.

"Poison!" Oben wheezed. "Toxi... Toxistall Ions! Can't... stay... awake..." He fell forward onto his face, and his eyes fluttered closed.

Phaze's hands turned solid as he reached under the still-dazed Torque, pulling her up. "We've got to get out of here!" he shouted to Melissa. "Toxistall Ions will... they'll... we have to... to..." His eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed, his body sinking halfway into Torque's.

Melissa stood there, arms crossed, with a look of pure fury on her face.

"For fuck's sake," she growled. "There is no way ions would make you pass out. Did you even go to high school?"

Oben sneered at her. "I wanted some alone time," he said.

"I'll bet you did," she said. "Now where the hell is this crystal? I want to get out of here as soon as—"

The floor shook and began to shift... rotating clockwise as the middle of the room separated and lifted up into a massive black-metal cylinder. The edges of the thing slid down and out, and from the spaces, gleaming metallic tentacles emerged, whipping around as they formed dozens of arms and legs for the robotic creature. At its belly, Melissa saw a yellow crystal, pulsing like a heartbeat. It was trapped in a cage of wires and smashed metal. A hundred red lights flared to life, all around the thing, like the eyes of a monster, each one focused on Oben.

"Oh no... they knew I was coming!" Oben gasped, and retreating in a panic. "It's trap! Run!"

The tentacles moved fast, knocking his legs out from under him and wrapping around his chest. They pulled him back, but he caught a piece of the vault door, half-melted into the ground, and held on tight.

"Help!" he screamed.

Melissa just rolled her eyes. "Whatever, dude," she said.

"No, seriously!" he choked as his grip loosened. "My powers don't work on machines! This is real! This is really real!"

His fingers cracked and he was thrown in the air — a pretty pirouette above a scene of pure evil — and was caught by the tentacles again. Several of them whirred to life with spinning buzz saws, moving in for the kill.

"Melissa!" he gasped, reaching a desperate hand out to her. "Get the crystal! It's the only way!"

She looked the the vibrant yellow gem, casting a prismatic light show across the room from the belly of the mechanical monster. Tentacles snapped close by, all around her; it felt like they were slicing the air in half.

"Yeah, sorry, there's no way I can get in there!" she yelled.

"You can do it!" he screamed as the saws closed in. "You have the power!"

"The trouble is, I think you're full of shit!"

"Forget about me! Do it for Torque! Do it for Phaze! Do it for Carpenter! He believed in you! He saw what you can be!"

Tears welled up in her eyes at the thought of her fallen comrade. She reached a hand out towards the crystal, still so far away, and it started to glow. It felt like fire was racing through her veins...

Three of the tentacles swept at her, wrapping around her outstretched arm. They tightened so fast, she felt like her bones would snap like twigs... but instead, she realized the tentacles were snapping, falling away in pieces... burnt apart on contact! Her arms lit up with purple flames, and her eyes, they lost all definition but for a piercing white stare. She reached again for the crystal, and it rattled, like it wanted to come to her.

"I can feel it..." she gasped, and closed her fist. The crystal flew out, spinning through space until it slid firmly into her grip. The plasma burned hotter than ever before.

The monster turned its gaze to her, a hundred eyes flaring. It dropped Oben into the rubble, and pulled back all its tentacles, up near the ceiling, like an animal ready to strike.

"Don't be stupid," she warned it.

Every one of the tentacles sprouted a buzz saw. The monster crouched down... and attacked!

Melissa blasted one, two, three tentacles with fiery blasts, then drew a shield in the air in front of her, and another six incinerated themselves, trying to break through. A laser blast from behind caught her attention: more drones! She kept one hand to the shield, and the other swung back, still holding the crystal, and fired a constant stream of plasma straight back into the factory. The drones popped and flamed out like bugs on an open light, their laser blasts sputtering all around as they exploded.

The monster managed to sneak a tentacle past her shield, and knocked her off her feet; she landed on her back, winded. She barely managed to incinerate two other attacks before the thing sprouted even more tentacles, and hovered over top her, ready to kill.

There was nowhere to run, and no time to think.

"Melissa!" shouted Oben, "tap into the hyperzone! It's the only way—"

She fired a furious blast straight into the belly of the beast, until she could see the ceiling through the hole in its middle. It wavered there, like it wasn't sure if it was dead... and then its eyes blinked out, and it crashed to the ground with a deafening boom.

Melissa looked to Oben, who shrugged. "That works too."

She helped him to his feet, then checked on Torque and Phaze, who were still unconscious. Oben was standing just out of reach, anxiously eyeing the crystal she still held in her hand. 

"I could hold onto that for you, if you—"

"Not a chance," she said. "I did this for Carpenter, not you. As far as I'm concerned, you can go die in a photo-gabbatron flux stupendifier."

He nodded meekly, and started to speak, but then...

"Melissa!" came a voice from behind, and she turned to see Carpenter, uniform streaked with char and blood, stepping through the wreckage. "You did it!"

Her mouth was hanging open, but she didn't care. She ran across the vault, wrapping her arms around her mentor, hugging him until her muscles begged for mercy. He hugged her back, but staggered; his breath was raspy. 

"I thought you were dead..." she cried. "I saw you get incinerated!"

"I know," he said, shaking his head. "It's the strangest thing. I saw the blast coming, and I tried to teleport us to safety... but the next thing I knew, I was floating in the Metaquark Realm. You know, the place Oben warned us about, outside of space and time? And my powers didn't work. I thought I was going to die there, but then I heard your voice, and I... I..."

"One second, please," she said, and marched over to the cowering Oben.

"OK, sure it was dishonest, but no harm no f—"

She decked him, clear off his feet. 

"So," she said to Carpenter, "is it true what they say about surviving the Metaquark Realm? How it unlocks all kinds of new powers, like X-ray vision?"

"I don't—" he said, cheeks flushing at the sight of her. He turned his eyes to the ceiling. "I... uh..." 

"Don't worry," she said, hooking her arm in his. "I'm here for you. We'll get this through this difficult time together... no matter how many quantum endorphins I'm exposed to.”