Altered Cosmos

Chapter 6; The Little Hero

In the midst of the burning and broken village, a figure zooms across the road, leaving a little gust of wind as he moves without a moment’s hesitation.

Levi leaps on a car before flipping onto a lamppost with his hands tightly clasping the metal bar he is crouching on.

He looks ahead where several attacks and fire was spread out throughout the village close to the southern gate with the threat advancing towards him. He grits his teeth in anger and his hands slowly crush the metallic pole. 

“Bastards…” He grumbled before closing his eyes and focusing on his senses, creating the holographic image of his environment in his head.

He extends the range to the point of the battle zone where he could make out groups of Drals fighting different guards but he searches for a group which really needs his help…and turns to his left where he sees only two guards left with a large number of Drals closing on their location.

He opens his blue eyes and leaps into the direction, his figure soaring through the air as he lands on a roof and speeds forward.

Meanwhile, some distance away in a damaged house, an injured guard sitting on the ground, groans softly as his side continues to bleed out.

“Just hang in there, Dick.” The guard beside him said as he looks up from the window to see the group of Drals stalking towards their hiding spot.

“Screw this!” The guard shouted out as he stood up and fired a barrage of energy bullets from his futuristic SMG, taking down some Drals…just as the magazine runs out of power and the gun goes dead.

“Damn it.” He grunted as he tossed aside the gun and looks around for something to shoot with but all he could find was a normal handgun beside his injured comrade. 

He grabs the gun with a grimace and fires it at a boar but the bullets bounce off its armour leaving only small scratches.

The boar growls as it suddenly charges forward and the guard continued firing until the magazine runs out as well.

He chuckled a little in defeat as he watches the boar approach with devastating speed………. just as a speeding object suddenly crashes down on it and the guard ducks as the dust cloud fires into the window he was looking through. 

After a moment, he gets up with a confused stare on his face. “What was that?” He squints through the dust and began to make out the crushed body of the boar…with a human figure on top of it. “Is that…”

He trails off when a blue glow pierces through the smoke and he could make out the familiar village Tron glaring at the Drals in front of him.

Levi glances at the guard before jumping off the crushed Dral with a determined stare. “You both need to get out of here. I’ll handle this.” Levi said as he walks forward, cracking his knuckles and the guard nods as he picks up his comrade and flees the scene.

As Levi approaches the enemy, two snake Drals with colored metallic scales and fangs slowly slithered forward…before suddenly lunging for him with fangs baring…

Levi then ducks down and rams his palms under their jaws, snapping their mouths shut before grabbing their tails and slamming down to the ground with loud crash and crack.

Levi looks up as he lets go of the dead snakes’ tails and glares at the others now slowly advances. “Who’s next?” 

The Drals all growled, snorted or grunted as they charged forward to attack but Levi moves like a blur, leaving a trail of blue light from his eyes and he smashes, breaks and snaps the Drals with dangerous power. 

A minute goes by as Levi digs his foot into a fox’s skull before grabbing a pair of horns, dragging along the antelope with it as he jams it into the back of a large lizard before smashing the head of the antelope he used with his elbow.

He senses a threat and ducks as a large Dral bird suddenly swoops over his head. He clicks his tongue in frustration as he leaps into the air as the bird makes a turn but Levi grabs its neck and legs, driving its body into his knee and snapping it in half.

He then groans as he spins mid-air, hurling the bird down into two foxes on the ground, crushing them completely.

He lands on the ground with a grunt and the remaining Drals of about 10, stand in shock and some even flinch when Levi turns to them with a blue streak following his eyes as if for special effect. 

Levi takes a single step forward and notices how cautious the Drals now seem as they watch closely for his movements.

<I think that should be long enough.> He thought as he glances to his side for a spilt second before turning back to the Drals in front of him. “You guys are here for me, right? Then come get me.”

He suddenly changes direction and runs in a different direction with the Drals growling and chasing after him.

<That’s right.> He thought as he glances back at the creatures desperately trying to keep up with his speed. <Just keep following me.> He thought with a little smile as he continues to lead them towards an isolated part of the village………

Just as he feels a presence from another direction and jumps back as a rhino Dral busts out of the building to his side. “Damn it.” He grumbled before noticing the boar about to ram into him from behind.

Levi flips onto the boar’s back as it charges past him before suddenly kicking off it, sending him into the air as he performed several high-speed backflips before landing behind the Drals that were previously chasing him.

Before the Drals could react, Levi had already taken out two more Drals and was aiming for the next one when an antelope rams into him, but he blocks the attack with his arms, although the force sends his him sliding back across the ground before coming to a stop, covered in dust. 

He then notices the new pack of Drals charging at him from the back. <So they ‘are’ attracted to me.> He gets up with a grunt and wipes the saliva from his lips as he looks between his two sides where Drals stalk towards him. 

The battle rages on but the more Levi fights, the more injured he gets. He flips backwards, dodging an antelope’s charge and lands beside a fox which attempts to bite him but Levi sends its head flying with a quick smack.

Suddenly, Levi gets surrounded by more fox Drals, which all began to circle him, growling as they slowly moved around him. Levi pants and wipes the dust of his cheek as he waits………just as they all lunged at him.

But Levi moves with a blur, trashing them like pieces of junk and was about to take out the last two when he barely blocks as a boar rams into his side, sending him rolling across the ground…but he quickly gets up again just in time to see the rhino already charging into him. 

“Come on.” He grunted as he grabs the rhino by its glowing horn and his feet skids across the hard floor, destroying the concrete below as the rhino continues to push Levi back but he grits his teeth and pushes back… until the rhino comes to a stop.

He lets out a shout as he gives a powerful palm attack to the space between the rhino’s eyes, shattering the core there just as he felt two presences attacking from behind.

He quickly throws a fist into the fox coming at him from the right, destroying it but the other fox manages to bite down on his shoulder. 

“Damn it.” Levi grumbled as he grabs the fox and rips it out of his shoulder, leaving a trail of blood as he smashes it into the horn of the rhino he just killed.

He clutches his bleeding shoulder and groans in pain…just as he jumps over the rhino as the boar smashes into it with its horn and Levi shouts out as he prepares to ram his heel into the boar but a bird Dral slams into him, hurling his body into a building across the street but the bird crashes down as well as it seems to have somehow lost a wing.

From the smoke and rubble…Levi steps out, partly covered in dust and blood that was both of mix of the Drals and his.

He tosses aside a large piece of metal he was holding which suspiciously looked like a bird wing and stops in front of his new row of enemies.

All the beasts glared and growled at Levi…who just wipes the blood from his lips and smirks. “Is that all you got?” The creatures all growled and attacked Levi……… 

Some minutes later, Levi grunts as he punches a Dral into the ground, shattering the ground beneath him.

He pants with exhaustion as he turns to a rhino which attempts to ram him but he weaves past it and shouts as he kicks the rhino’s leg with force to destroy its leg, causing it to tumble.

Levi shouts out as he falls to a knee and clutches his leg which stung badly from the attack but the worse he sustained was a slightly cracked bone and bruised skin which had already began to heal. 

Levi forces himself to stand as he limps over to the now struggling Dral. He continues to breathe heavily as he drags the rhino by the horn, forcing it to look at him as he raises a fist up.

“Damn you.” He grunted as he bashes the head with his fist, cracking its armour. “Damn you.” He grunted again as he bashes the armour further and exposes the bright red core under it. “Damn you all!”

He shouted as he drives his fist into the cracked armour and rips out the circular core. He stares at it for a moment before tossing it to the ground and crushing it under his foot. 

Levi stumbles onto one knee and looks around for any other Dral but all he could were corpses of beast and machine origin spread out around him. He wipes the blood from his cheek and sits down on the ground as he pants harder from exhaustion… 

A couple seconds later, he felt a drop of water on his hand and looked up as another drop of water falls on his face…then slowly…the drops of water gradually became a light drizzle and he closes his eyes to relax as the sudden cool weather blows over his exhausted body.

This soothes him so much that he began to project that holographic image sense in his head again to sense the individual drops of water hitting him………before opening his eyes as he senses a strange object hurling through the air towards him. 

“What was that?” He said as he looks in the direction he sensed it…then he hears a loud whistling sound and quickly rolls to the side as a car suddenly crashes down on where he was relaxing. “What the…”

He jumps back some distance as another car lands where he was now standing and Levi grabs the head of one of the fox Drals and hurls it in the direction the car came from.

“My, my…” Levi freezes in shock as he hears strange British voice, and a large figure emerges from the shadows. “You are a tough one.” The figure stops, holding the fox head Levi threw at it. “You will serve my master well.”

Levi stares stunned at the large gorilla dral with armour on his arms, legs hips and back with a head armour which revealed its face. 

“A talking dral?” He mumbled to himself and the gorilla smashes the fox’s head before tossing it aside. “That’s new.” He chuckled as he stands up from his crouched position.

“Greetings. My name is Goro, a servant of the Tamer.” It said with a weirdly polite voice and bow. “Might I ask what your name is, child?”

Levi scoffs as he glances at the two smashed cars beside him. “Pretty polite for the dral that just threw a freaking car at me.”

Goro chuckles fondly as he gestures to the damaged car in front of Levi. “I was simply testing the man my master is currently interested in.”

Levi then notices the ‘Web’ mark on the gorilla’s head armour and clenches his fists. “Is your master that holon?”

“The Beast Tamer doesn’t agree to terms such as holon or drals. He’s just a bionic being and we are his selected followers.” Levi folds his arms and gives Goro a sceptic look. “And he is giving you the privilege to serve him as well.” 

Levi turns to the dead rhino some distance from him. “I can see that.”

Goro weirdly chuckles and gestures to the drals. “I do apologize for our methods but in our defence, it was your people that attacked us first. All of this needless death and destruction will be resolved…if you just come with us.”

Levi turns back to Goro with a disturbed expression. “Why does your master even want me, anyway?”

Goro steps forward a little, his large gorilla arms pounding the ground as he stops some metres closer to Levi. “To be his…to be connected to him.”

Levi’s eyes widen in shock as he processes Goro’s words. “A tron can be connected to the web?”

Goro raises a brow at Levi’s surprised expression. “Not exactly. My master and I disconnected from the web years ago but he’s still able to connect with other creatures including trons. Weren’t you informed of this?”

Levi shrugs with a disinterested face. “Sorry but there was no one here to teach me Tron 101.”

Goro chuckles a little before speaking. “Very well. The important thing now is that you submit to my master and we won’t cause your people any more trouble.” He outstretches his long arm to Levi who seemed unmoved. “I believe that is the most rational decision.”

Levi glances at the corpses of some of the village’s guards some distance to his right and chuckles…before turning back to Goro. “A lot of guys died trying their best to protect this village and me.” He drops his hands to his side and enters his fighting stance. “It will be ‘irrational’ of me to dishonour their dying wishes.”

Goro gives Levi a troubled look as he slowly dropped his arm back to the ground. “I’m disappointed, child. I really thought you would be smarter than this. I didn’t want to harm my master’s new treasure…” He trails off as he grabs another abandoned car beside him, easily holding it over his head. “But you leave me no choice.”

A sudden breeze past Levi as he prepares for combat………just as the car hurls towards him but he skilfully leaps over it. The moment he lands, he looks up at the massive hairy fist aiming at his head and jumps back, his feet sliding on the ground.

He then flips to the side as Goro tosses another large object at him and Levi sprints toward Goro who throws an another punch at him… but Levi moves with faster speed as he skids to a stop behind Goro and gives him a powerful punch to the back.

He shouts out in pain and clutches his slightly broken and bruised fist but Goro’s back armour remained completely unscathed. Goro then turns, sweeping his arm towards Levi who manages to leap back at the last second.

He glances at his fist which was not healing as fast as it normally does. <Damn he’s armour’s hard. I’m not even sure if I can break it at full strength.> He thought just Goro gets his attention with a laugh.

“I’m sorry but my armour isn’t as weak as the others.” Goro said as he rips out a large metallic piece of one of the dead drals and crushes it into a ball. 

As he does this, Levi notices his trunk which wasn’t covered in armour and shakes off his bruised fist as he comes up with a plan. As Goro prepares to hurl the metal projectile at Levi, a single phrase escaped his lips. “Show time.”

He quickly weaves to the side as the projectile collides with the ground he was standing on and rushes forward again but Goro grabs two more large ammunitions and throws them at Levi which he dodges past just as Goro throws a powerful right hook which he barely weaves past.

He performs a backflip as Goro hurls another object at him and as the object whistles past his face mid-air, Levi realises something about Goro’s tactics. 

<He uses objects as a distraction before attacking.> He flips to his feet and jumps back as Goro slams his fist into the ground he just landed on, sending rocks flying. He glances at a large boar dral as he slides back before cracking a little smile. <Let’s see how he likes it.>

Levi then lunges forward again, dodging another one of Goro’s projectiles before grabbing a broken fox dral from the ground and hurling it at Goro.

Goro reacts by smacking the fox away and throwing another projectile at Levi who suddenly changes direction and ducks behind the large boar.

In that moment, a figure suddenly rockets into the air and Goro fires another debris projectile at it.

“What?” He exclaimed when he realised he just shot a piece of another dral but before he could do anything else, Levi grunts as he drop kicks the boar he was still hiding behind, sending its body skidding across the floor towards Goro.

“Futile.” He grumbled as he throws a powerful right punch into the boar, shattering it to pieces……just as Levi leaps through the broken metallic and bloody pieces and stops in front of Goro.

Before Goro could even process what just happened, Levi sends his right palm straight into Goro’s chin and as Goro was disoriented from Levi’s signature jaw breaker, he focuses his other fist and throws a punch straight into Goro’s chest…but was shocked by how hard it was…

<You’ve got to be kidding me.> Levi thought to himself as he gives Goro’s torso several punches, his fists moving as a speedy blur but the skin was just as hard as his armour.

He then senses something and turns around just as a large hand grabs his body, then Goro groans as he flings Levi’s body across the speed and collides into the wall of a building, leaving a large indentation in it as blood spurts out of Levi’s mouth.

“Damn it.” He grunted before rolling to the side as the speeding gorilla smashes into the wall, completely destroying it.

Levi stumbles unto a knee with half of his shirt ripped off and looks up as Goro steps out of the broken wall with a small smile and a familiar piece of cloth between his fingers which he shakes off.

“You’re impressive. You used my own strategy against me. If you weren’t so weak, that attack would have certainly ended me.” He stops some distance from Levi with a scoff under his breath. “If you are so smart, then why are you making such a foolish decision?”

Levi suddenly lunges forward and Goro throws a punch which he easily evades. He then leaps into the air as Goro swings his other arm where he was standing before spinning mid-air and bringing his heel down to Goro with inhumane agility.

But Goro blocks the attack with his arm before grabbing Levi by his foot and flinging him across the ground, his body bounces some distance before colliding into one of the rhino drals he defeated earlier.

Goro shakes his head in disappointment as he slowly approaches Levi who stumbles multiple times as he attempts to stand.

“You’re only wasting your time. Your current power is enough to take down the others but I’m the second-in-command after my master.” He stops just in front of Levi who just glares at him with a hand on his gut. “But if you connect to my master, you will fully awaken and obtain greater power than even mine.”

Levi chuckles and spits out some blood. “So you’re saying…I’ll be second in command?”

Goro raises a brow and smiles at Levi. “Have you changed your mind?”

Levi just said that to buy time as he tries to come up with a plan. <He’s armour and skin are too hard to break. But I can tell that he’s core is in his chest.> He thought, recalling his punch to Goro’s chest where he felt a familiar circular object deep to Goro’s chest.

<I get that he’s strong but how does anyone move in armour that…> He trails off when he realises it and Goro stares at Levi in confusion as he whispers to himself. 

“I can do this.” Levi said to himself as he forces himself to stand, wiping away the blood from his lips. 

Goro’s eyes darken once he sees the resolve still burning in Levi’s eyes. “I’m assuming that’s still a no… Then…” He raises his large hairy fist up and a heavy hot breath escaped from his nose. “Shall we continue?”

Levi smirks as he slips into his combat stance, a determined glare fixed on Goro.