Project ROWDY 2-27B (Patreon)

“RAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!”Brick was used to a lot.As that old guy in those insurance commercials said, he knew a thing or two because he’d seen a thing or two. And, at this point— “RAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” — he’d seen more than a couple things.Kaiju every Tuesday? Nothing that would even make him blink.A weather-changing wizard holding half of Ohio hostage because he wants to rob a bank? As if he’d even raise an eyebrow.But there were limits to his knowledge.“RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!”Or at the very least his patience.

And twenty-something million pink little Starros were definitely pushing the upper limi-”RAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!”“Oh my God, Butch!” Blazing red eyes snapped to the side, Brick literally breathing fire as he roared at his brother. “Use your words!”“Ugly-ass!” Butch didn’t even look his way as he found the words he’d apparently been looking for the last five minutes. “Pink squids!” A green gloved fist smashed apart a cluster of those pink ‘squids’, the wall behind it going with them as dozens of gallons worth of whatever Sequids had in place of blood splattered into mist—

…it’s fine. And caught Brick across the side of his face. I’m fine. I’m fine.The stuff smelled like hot copper wiring and low tide all at once, the stuff sliding down his face instead of simply dripping. Brick wasn’t sure if that made it any worse at all, but he’d already gotten some in his mouth since the start of this whole thing so… I’m fine. 

“Eat shit and dieeeeeee!” His brother dopplered past him in a blur of pink-splattered green, his sandpaper rasp echoing through the belly of the Martian warship. “Worst flavor of Starburst!”Great words, Butch. “Diediediedieeeeeee!”

It’d been all of a few minutes since they boarded and Butch had been at it since the very first second, rushing up to the first Sequid he spotted and punched it directly in its squishy tentacly center with a “MINEMINEMINEMINE!”

Aka its brain.

One brain out of many millions in the hive mind.

“Wait, so punching one means punching all of them?”…God, he hated Butch sometimes.And now all those Sequids were everywhere, flooding the space and turning the huge ship interior into a pulsing artery of alien muscle, the walls just bleeding pink.

They poured out from every surface; ceiling, floor and sides, every vent, shaft, and grate theirs to conquer as they carpeted everything in a rolling wave of starfish-pink flesh.“Hold your ground!” Immortal bellowed over everything, projecting as loud as he could as he tangled with a tentacle formed of thousands of bodies, one end gripping him by the waist as he punched it as fast as it regenerated. “There are only so many!”…so many. Yeah, that was definitely how to put it.“Is that supposed to make us feel better?” Bulletproof spoke for Brick as he blurred from place to place, orange arms blurring out a high-speed combo that splattered more of the pink parasites against a bulkhead. “‘Cause it’s not working, man.”As many as they killed, though, they weren’t allowed to kill Rus Livingston; the astronaut they were all here to save up on the walkway, leashed under a tentacled wall of the stuff so thick you couldn’t tell exactly where his body ended and they began. Every single time his head turned, the whole mass of pink moved with him and every unnecessary command only made it worse as they shifted like a school of fish.

The easy option was right there in front of them, but no killing the host, though. Cecil’s orders.

Well, not yet, at least.Cecil had also pulled Brick aside before takeoff and given him one more simple instruction to add to the list; ‘Son, that ship gets as close as the moon and I don’t care what you have to do or who you have to take out. Just do the job. Understand?’Brick understood.

Without a doubt, he got what Cecil was telling him.Thing was, they only had fifteen minutes before the moon, by his calculations. So, if this didn’t go like he was hoping, they were going to be down one astronaut.“PK THUNDER!” A condensed ball of cobalt electricity bounced past Brick, current slamming into the closest Sequid and chained through a chunk of the swarm. The blast jumped from wet body to wet body until entire meters of the hallway seized, smoked and twitched to the floor.“PK Thunder!” Boomer was still screaming at the top of his lungs, blue aura spiking bright as he sent one bouncing ball of static power after another surging free. “PK THUNDER! PK THUNDER! PK THUNDER!”Brick gritted his teeth and turned, one arm out as he shoved a wall of faint red out from his open palm. It was a wide push, a flat plane of force that tore at least a thousand of them off the ceiling all at once.

Red eyes watched them fall, each pink piece moving slow enough for him to count each one.

Brick’s mouth opened.

Then he breathed.

Fire went up and out in a wedge, cooking all the Sequids in the air before any of them could hit the floor. The smell got worse, even worse than Boomer’s “PK THUNDER!” could manage as whatever these things were made of cooked like a tire fire garnished with seaweed.

“PK THUNDER!”Oh my god.

Another ball hopped past Brick’s head, it’s tail trailing behind it as it bounced off a bulkhead and off a pipe and back down to the floor, tearing a crackling path through hundreds of the Sequids because they couldn’t help but touch. "PK THUNDER! PK THUN— dude.”Brick didn’t look.“Dude.” He refused to look.Brick."

"No."

"You didn't ev-"

"No." Brick clamped his jaw shut, refusing to give in as he swept his arm. A wall of raw red fire seared out fast and hard, a wall of incoming parasites flash-fried before they could flank Black Samson.

“PK FIRE!” Boomer was upside down and beside him, electricity arcing off him as he burst from place to place — Sequids dying behind him in a symphony of squeals. “Come on, with me! On three! Right there! It’s right there, bro, you’re the fire one!”Brick’s left hand snapped out the opposite direction, a couple dozen spikes of jagged ice tearing through bulkheads — chilling the Sequids they didn’t kill.“...and the ice one, I guess, but my point!”“You don’t have one.” Brick grit his teeth. “Now focus!”Another wave came up through a hole in the floor — courtesy of Butch — and Brick burned the whole batch before they could form up in the air.“PK FIRE!”“Shut up, Boomer!”Marks tore through a column of them, Invincible punching through and going to the next one without pausing like he would have half a year back. “Robot!” A mass of them were hanging across his chest and shoulders and waistline, Mark yanking handfuls off without even looking down. “How long?!”“Seven minutes, Invincible!” The copper-suited genius answered back. “Seven!”“You said five minutes.” Mark spun, the last of the Sequids launched off him from speed enough to kick up a small whirlwind. “Two minutes ago!”“Unfortunately…” His hands were moving as he kneeled in the middle of it all as Monster Girl slammed green fists just outside the perimeter. Despite the noise, his attention didn’t even bother rising toward the wall of aliens closing in, Robot too busy splicing together Martian resources and his own tech. “The situation became more complicated!”“Okay…” Atom Eve surged above him, pink energy flaring into a dome of reconstituted air that fought to maintain its integrity against a wave of Sequids slamming it to. “Then can you uncomplicate it?” Her pink space-suit was more armor than anyone else had on, with the exception of Robot himself, visor translucent but just as neon-bright as the rest of her. “And fast?”"Robot!" Samson dropped down, punch crackling with yellow lightning. Empty gold eyes scanned around him, the hero still riding the high from Boomer’s blast from almost a full month back. "They're coming through the lights!""GRAH! Get off!" Monster Girl ripped out a Sequid from under her loincloth, suction cups still popping at empty air. She crushed it in her fist and glared down at the boy in the armor still hard at work. “Make it less complicated quick!”

“PK THUNDER!”Brick’s eyes narrowed as he glanced up at the walkway for a second, heat vision flaring out in bursts of red. …if this doesn’t work, I’ll go to your funeral.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –