//------------------------------//
// Christmas Special 2016: Mirror-Gigan "Saves" Christmas 
// Story: The Bridge: A Godzilla-MLP Crossover 
// by Tarbtano 
//------------------------------//



Link!


It was a cold, snowy day in the otherwise magnificent city of Maretropolis. The winter holidays were soon to arrive and many were eagerly awaiting the arrival of the community donation drive the city had been holding, the biggest of the decade. Hundreds of thousands of gifts to be sent in for all with millions of bits pitched in by both the more humble city slickers to the rich CEOs like Mica Hackett. But trouble is afoot and soon even the city’s beloved heroine will find herself in need of the boldest, bravest, most heroic help she couldn’t imagine to assist her!

But instead she got-

“Holy ****** where the ***** am I?”

The green and gold cyborg creature squawked after stepping out of the white portal from Zenith, looking around to and fro from the alleyway he’d landed in. This was Gigan, though not one most of the world knew. He’d come from another realm, just as this city did, one that was a reflection of the prime dimension. This Gigan was a “hero” where he came from, the Nebulan Confederacy’s ranger unit whom was deployed to protect their worlds and fend off incursions. In summary he got the job done. In details he typically caused excess property damage, had obscene behavior, little to no inhibitions; and a more extensive swear category than five systems put together. Overall, kind of a di-

“Don’t think I didn’t hear you ********!....?!”

Gigan paused and would have been blinking in confusion had he the multiple eyes.

“...****?... ******.... ***!... *******! *******!......”

He sucked in a deep breath.

“********************************************************************************************-”



Are you done? And how are you going off the page?



“-********************************************************************************************-”



Oh for the love of god.



Gigan took a split second to correct the narrator before continuing on with the impossibly long swear word.
“Tanaka- **********************************************************************************-”

With a clap of magic, Gigan’s body was covered in a pale light that receded as his form was reshaped. Gone was his long tail, retractable dorsal fins, hooked forearms, cycloptian visor, and metallic spines. Now he had taken the form of a man vaguely in shape and wearing clothing referential to his true self. Whereas the prime universe Gigan’s human form was consistent with dark grays, blue, and camouflage patterning that gave him a mildly militaristic look, this version was more, outgoing. He wore a large, thick dull-green jacket with a saw pattern for a zipper that was left open with no undershirt, a pair of torn green pants with a golden trim and patterning down the sides, torn fingerless gloves, a pair of red riding sunglasses that wrapped around his eyes and green headband, dark green, steel plated boots; and several gold or steel piercings on his ears and brow. His skin was a messy, faded green, lighter than his clothes; with a red bead on his forehead that corresponded to his beam emitter in his true form. The only similarity between the two Gigans was the steel colored hair which arched forward, though in this one the hair on the sides pushed inwards enough to make it vaguely resemble a mohawk akin to his true form’s spine pattern. If the prime timeline Gigan’s human form looked like a soldier or mercenary, this one’s look was more akin to a chopper biker, complete with the letters P.T.R.U-A, the serial code from his creators, tattooed onto the sides of his neck.

And whatever cursed word he was speaking was so long it was still being censored by the same bleeping that had caused him to belt it even after he finished transforming.

“******************ches!”



Impressive, he actually managed to briefly overload the censor function.



Gigan, not minding or noticing he was in a human form to allow him to blend in better, sneered at the narration caption.

“What did you do to me ********?! My first appearance and did you put me in a ********** A-Rated comic book?!



Yes, and this is a T rated story. Needless to say such vocabulary would be, excessive.



“Hey, I’m already trolling them by showing up instead of the other Gigan, so why troll my ****** dubs? I got the TvTropes swearing tag on my profile, what am I supposed to say in this special?!”

Gigan growled, gritting his nonexistent beak.



How about stand-ins? Worked for Deadpool and Lobo on TV.



Gigan’s eyes twitched behind his sunglasses, raising his hand up in a distinct human gesture only for his limb to be covered in a pixelated censored mess. He grumbled, not even caring at this point because of how livid he was.

“... Narrator, Grendelson, you’re a fraggin’ geekwad and a tool.”



Yes and how unnice it is to see you too.



“Gonna keep flabbin’ your eat-meat or get back to telling this shin-dig?”



Shut the frag up Gigan.



And so in this story which may or may not be canon, Gigan has been sent to this reflected realm of Maretropolis on a mission he intends to see through without pause. Assuming he doesn’t get distracted multiple times, which is likely a guarantee if given five minutes. Not minding at all the odd looks he was getting, swaggering and blustering his way down the street despite the cold which largely didn’t affect him. Walking his way past several skyscrapers and to a large, multi story shopping center, Gigan kicked the door open and walked in. Striding his way up to the front desk, Gigan ignored the confused expression on the woman manning said desk’s face, leaning on the table top with his elbow and scratching the side of his head.

“Hey punko, new in town. Can you show me how I find this dame?”

His glasses flickered and Gigan tilted them up, projecting an image upon the table top like a flashlight from his eyes hidden behind said glasses. The clerk, still thoroughly confused, could only look upon the projected image of a costumed woman with a matching wide brim hat and dull golden with a pink trim bodysuit that covered all but her chin, a long scarf, and a truly astounding amount of purple hair coming out from under said hat. In motion she seemed to be swinging from a light pole by said hair. The clerk’s face instinctively perked up at the sight of the heroine.

“Oh that’s the Mane-iac.”

“Choice label.”

“Well what else would you call someone eager to go up against the Malice Mares by herself? How’d you get this picture anyways, newspapers always trying to get a shot of her.”

“Didn’t say and didn’t care, so how can I find her?”

“Oh, no one keeps tabs on her. She just shows up when there’s trouble.”

Gigan put his glasses back on, looking at the scenery around him. Dozens of merry shoppers and employees going about their business. He shrugged his shoulders before rolling them, the red spot on his forehead beginning to light up. A big dumb smirk crossed his lips.

“I can do that.”

======================

Marilyn “Mica” Hackett, cosmetics CEO, shot her head up as a pulsing alarm rang out from the computer monitors at the core of her bunker garage. Tilting her welding goggles up, she reached over with a strand of purple hair to click a remote control on the tool rack next to her. The computer flicked on and over to a news station, displaying her favorite department store now sporting several smoking holes in the side. The offscreen newscaster spout out his broadcast in a panicked, rushed tone as several blasts of red light shot through several windows and walls.

“Energy shots fired through the roof of Rich Barnyard Bargains in downtown Maretropolis’s south district. Thankfully there have been no confirmed fatalities but the subject is unapproachable by police. The shooter is a large green man in a motorcycle jacke-”

Scarred, tired eyes groaned angrily.

“Oh for the love of…”

Marilyn rushed off from her work and towards a cylindrical tube that closed shut behind her. After a moment’s notice and a whirl of machinery, the glowing chamber popped back open and the fully costumed Mane-iac sprinted to her car. At the minute’s end the custom dark muscle car, the Black Beauty, roared out of a hidden road and towards downtown.

==================================

Gigan reclined back on the side wall of the escalator he rode up to the 4th floor, still casually igniting his emitter unit above his eyes and firing a short burst out one of the windows or walls in sight. By now the entire shopping area was riddled with scorch marks and holes. Reaching the top, the cyborg impatiently lowered his glasses to look at a wall clock.

“Come on, I shot around the dweebs’ feet for the last five minutes and made four skylights.”

He grumbled, looking around with a quick X-ray scan to ensure he hadn’t shot up any major beams. As much fun as it’d be, in this form he wasn’t too keen on dropping a building on his head. Finding a fortunate lack of blown support beams, he found himself again growling at the clock he soon blasted to bits with a flare of red plasma.

“Thought she’d be here by now-WHOA!”

Gigan roared, jumping back with his head snapping around to face the oncoming threat. He locked onto the tiny, buzzing life sign menacingly hovering towards him.

“MOSQUITO!”  

The Black Beauty roared down the road towards the department store as rapid-fire plasma blasts opened up several windows like machinegun fire. Mane-iac grit her teeth and whirled the wheel around to dodge some of the plasma fire ripping into the road. Not having any time to waste, she slammed on the breaks and hit the button to open the roof while activating her seat belt quick release. Within a few second’s span the Black Beauty’s brakes screamed and its cab roof folded back into the rear of the car. The momentum transferred into the driver and Mane-iac  was sent flying out of the car with her hands at her sides and her legs held straight. Uncurling some of her hair out from under her wide brimmed hat, she coiled it around a street light. Gripping it enough to swing around and change her direction, the heroine let go and catapulted her way into the fourth floor of the store.

Mane-iac flexed her body and curled up to roll across the floor, rotating herself to her feet and slamming a hand down on the tilt to stop her momentum. In coloration she was in something of an inverted, alternate costume to the Mane-iac the prime timeline Gigan met. She was covered from head to toe, save the chin and jaw, in a dull golden bodysuit with a pinkish-purple trim on the elbows, knees, hips, and collar; and white eye spots on the face to look through. The forearms, knee-high boots, and abdomen were all white. A long, purple scarf billowed in the moving air behind her almost like a cape. A broad, wide brimmed burnt gold hat with a white ring and a white colored utility belt around her waist was the final piece to the look. Maretropolis’ lead heroine leered at the intruder with an air of determination despite the slightly gaudy look of her costume.

Gigan miraculously didn’t look as imposing after he’d just finished his last “fight”, covered in an almost comedic amount of soot and smoke with the ground all around him blotted with scorch marks. He was still standing straight with his arms crossed, deadpanning in tone.

“Showed ‘er.”



Link!


Mane-iac reached to a space on her forearm and pressed a hidden pad. The lights all around them dimmed, their hum dying down before the illumination flickered out. Cloaked in darkness, Gigan wasn’t able to adjust his vision settings in time before Mane-iac rushed him and clocked the cyborg in the jaw. Gigan fought a smile, kicking off the floor to get some clear space and activated his infrared vision. Though she was partially obscured by her suit, which may have been insulated, he was clearly able to peg the athletic figure charging at him from down the aisle.

“Okay I know we’re obligated to do the standard 20th century hero greeting with the punch-kick tango but I usually don’t hit witche-”

He muttered, crossing his arms and blocking Mane-iac’s lunge punch and throwing her off. Unfettered, the heroine grabbed onto a hanging light and swung herself back around in a dive kick. Gigan was knocked clear across the room. Keeping still for a moment, his head jolted back up with an enormous grin on his face even as he saw Mane-iac stalking towards him, cracking her knuckles. He swung his legs up and out, head springing back to his feet with the window behind him.

“-aaaaand TANGO IT IS!”

“You’re made of metal.”

Mane-iac muttered lowly, uncurling her mane from her hat and gripping two support pillars on either side of her and Gigan.

“Means you’ll live… HRRAAH!”

Gigan’s grin didn’t fade, instead watching Mane-iac’s form in slow motion even as she slingshot herself into him foot first and sent him out the 4th story window.

Falling down in a rain of shattered glass, Gigan spun his metallic left hand around into a broad hook and gouged it into the side of the building. Ripping into the cement with a spurt of dust and sparks from the trail cut into the sidewall, Gigan slowed his fall by the time he met the second floor. Just as he was getting his bearings again and adjusting his hand and foot holds, Mane-iac gave him no time to breathe. Jumping out of the fourth story, she vaulted herself onto the side of the building next door and slid down the windowed walls. Keeping herself calm, she ground the side of her foot into the crease of a window to divert her fall before kicking off, closing the building gap, and tackling the cyborg back into the department store. Not to let her get away again, Gigan grabbed the heroine by her wrist while she blocked his hook arm with her forearm to keep it from swinging. They wrestled and rolled across the floor, knocking over several store racks before tumbling into the open elevator. In the middle of the melee the top floor button got whacked, the doors closing behind the two as the machine made it’s way to the roof.

Several minutes later and on the rooftop, the elevator dinged and the doors opened just as Gigan and Mane-iac threw themselves out of it, still tussling and wrestling each other in a deadlock. The former managed to pry the latter off the leglock she had his head in and toss her off him. Mane-iac, scuffed up and her costume torn in a few spots, managed to combat roll across the ground and stagger back to her feet in a guard stance. Gigan, his jacket ruffled, one of his glasses cracked, and a trickle of blood coming from his lips, stood up straight and gave the heroine an impressed nod and smirk. He adjusted his glasses and raised his brow a few times, able to see her clearly now in good light.

He liked what he saw, she didn’t.

“What are you planning?”

She snapped, stoically approaching the cyborg.

“Nothing you wouldn’t like to hear toots.”

Mane-iac’s eye and eyespot twitched and she lurched forward, shooting out all of her hair and pinning Gigan against the wall by his wrists and ankles with a metallic clang. She walked up and punched the sheet metal besides his head.

“Talk, what are the Malice Mares planning and how’d they send you?!”

Gigan’s expression went from a cheeky grin to a confused head tilt.

“The who?”

“Don’t act like a smart-flank! Only reason I’m not breaking your collarbone right now is because I know they’re planning something for the celebration and they probably sent you to distract me! SO TALK!”

She snapped, Gigan actually flinching a bit.

-Huh, stronger witch than the hair-loon the other Gigan fought. Scan’s lookin’ nice too.-



Still T rated fic Gigan.



-FRAG YOU!-

Turning his attention off murdering the guy writing this and back to the dame threatening to break his shoulder, Gigan shrugged.

“Look lady I don’t know any M&Ms, other than the candy dweebs at Kilaak Steam Load eat, I’mma Skittles guy myself. No clue on S&M either but somethin’ tells me gals like you would be good in tha- ACK! Take a joke you letch!”

He yelped after Mane-iac kicked him in the shin. She narrowed her eyes and curled her maw into a frown as she crossed her arms before her.

“You’re trying my patience! I get unhinged when that happens and no one likes that….. What are you doing right now?”

“In theory I was sent here to help you out with somethin’, probably these M&Ms. In practice? Eh, right now I’m takin’ advantage of the fact you can’t see where I’ve been lookin’ all this time because of how tinted my glasses are. Must say, view’s kickin’!”

A flush shot across the heroine’s face before she started both gasping in bewilderment and snarling with rage.

“What- have you been?!-”

-Spoiler warning audience, I still couldn’t tell you the color of her hat at this point.-

Mane-iac sucked in a deep breath, mentally counting to ten before shoving forward into Gigan with her forearm pressed against his throat. Placid fury was the best way to describe her tone of voice now.

“......You know what, at this point I’m so livid I’ve come full circle into apathy. I could break every bone in your body and still not frown. You literally just caused thousands of bits in property damage and forced me to fight for no real reason, with your priority on being how fit I am under this thing. You are so unbelievably off-kilter you couldn’t be working for the Malice Mares. You’re just insane.”

Gigan waved his still pinned hands around in a clockwise motion, passively looking at her while sporting a pleased smile on his maw.

“Hey, if you had nothin’ to kill time but surf the net; lots more’d be off the reservation. I on the other claw have been doing some other things.”

He muttered back in a bemused tone, causing Mane-iac to raise an eyebrow.

“Such as?”

“Well, you know there’s a bomb in the red present, fourth from the right under that tree set to go off in about 50 seconds?”

“WHAT?!”

Gigan’s nonchalance contrasted heavily with how quickly Mane-iac’s eyespots shot open in alarm. She looked down from the side of the building at one of the city trees, one merrily decorated with charms and lights with a myriad of donated gifts at its base. She naturally questioned how truthful the cyborg was, but with this area being as populated as it was she couldn’t take any chances. She tossed Gigan aside with her hair and dove over the edge of the building. Clasping her arms and legs against her, Mane-iac counted the building stories as they went by until she hit the last ten. Twisting around midfall, she caught hold of a flagpole and kicked off sideways from it, then again on another pole she was sent careening towards. Gigan looked over the edge of the building, watching as Mane-iac expertly slowed her fall by running along the side of, jumping off, and using her hair to sling across various ledges, flagpoles, and water spouts. She did break a few on the way down, but the fact that she managed to hit the ground rolling and then running left him lifting his glasses and whistling as he disappeared in a flash of green light.

Gigan reappeared alongside the sprinting Mane-iac, having teleported the distance to catch up. Before the confused heroine could ask what he just did, Gigan shrugged as he ran along.

“Got some good moves in ye’, give ye’ that. It’s the red one with the dumb-ox purple wrapping, fourth from the right on your side.”

Electing to ignore who it was a few feet next to her, Mane-iac just looked ahead and focused. She baseball slid and sprung herself back up next to the present, quickly observing that Gigan’s statement seemed correct as the red present with purple ribbons had a familiar ticking sound coming from inside it. Tearing open the wrapping with her hair, Mane-iac felt her heart pounding between her ears as she recognized the telltale mechanism belonging to one of the Malice Mare’s trademark timebombs. It could have been a fake. It could have been a distraction. For all she knew Gigan could have planted it. But none of that mattered as the clock ticked down to twenty seconds left. This was a risk she couldn’t take. Setting the bomb down, Mane-iac dug into her utility belt with both her hands and prehensile hair, drawing out and manipulating several tools at once and diving in to disarm the device with a ticking countdown on her heels.

Gigan watched on with curiosity on his face, observing both the blurring speed Mane-iac attacked the device with, using a good half dozen pliers, screwdrivers, and cutters with surgical precision; as well as the fact they were being watched by many onlookers who were stopping and staring at the scene before them.

-Bunch of friggin’ Darwin awards in the makin’.-

Growling, he fired up his emitter and eyes, turning and throwing his head up into the air.

“CLEAR OUT YE’ FREAKS LESS YE’ BEGGIN’ FOR A FRAGGIN’!”

He roared, firing multiple short-ranged shotgun blasts of red plasma into the air. The range was far too little to hit anyone, but the exploding light show and his booming voice got the message clear and scattered any crowds for a good two blocks. It was a testament to her constitution that Mane-iac didn’t get distracted by the display at all while she worked. Gigan cut the fireshow off and looked down just as the clock began to tick at a higher octave. There were five seconds to go and Mane-iac was still working the last few wires. Before Gigan could put plan B into order, which was to grab Mane-iac and teleport the both of them as far as eyeshot could take them, the masked heroine lined up four wire cutters in a row at several different angles, and in perfect synchronization, gutted the device’s last connections. The clock ceased and Mane-iac pried the dull gray pack of C4-like explosive charges free of any primers. Two seconds to spare and she finally took a breath.
Mane-iac sat back some, letting her heart calm back down to a normal pace. Brushing her hat back into place, she noticed an open, metallic hand offering her a hand up. While the gesture wasn’t lost on her, she wasn’t that trusting and brushed it back gently, getting up on her own. Gigan, not taking mind he was brushed off, gave the heroine an honestly impressed clap while nodding slightly.

“Gotta hand it to ye’ toots, for a moment I was wonderin’ what in the worlds you were doing; running towards the soon to be fragged crater and not aways from it. Then it hit me, you were running in ‘cuse you didn’t want any dweebs on the sidelines gettin’ hurt!”

“They’re human beings, that’s why.”

She mumbled dryly, wondering if she found his voice less grating when it wasn’t doing what she thought was complimenting her. Gigan roared with laughter, slapping Mane-iac on the back while sporting a huge grin on his face.

“Ye’ ye’, never was one for live collateral myself, ‘cept bloodsuckers. But what do you do when you find you got less time than it takes to take a wizz on the clock? You get down, pull out your tools, and go ham on the boom-box! Hahaha! I’m likin’ what I’m seeing and I’m reaaally likin’ what I’ve seen do!”

Mane-iac sighed, at least relaxing some at the cyborg’s outburst. At least now he wasn’t idiotically picking fights. And after their chat at the top of the department store and his actions at the bottom, she was at least willing to give him the spatial proximity while she turned her attention to more important matters. Both Gigan and Mane-iac looked over the device arrangement the latter was holding, Gigan’s eyes trained upon the small bit of explosive clay Mane-iac put into a capsule for safety.

“Puny tyke of a charge there for such a big device.”

The cyborg mumbled, eyeballing a comparison between the charge about scale of a pill capsule  and the device which housed it that was easily the size of a large desk printer. The comparison was not lost upon Mane-iac, whom was tinkering around with the other housings in the device with her hair.

“Too small for a shockwave to be the intended means of damage. Could be a dirty device, meant to just throw debris around an area.”

“No shrapnel besides the casing though, pretty pansy frag grenade then. Dirty bomb?”

Mane-iac wasn’t electing to ask why Gigan knew so much about this sort of thing, but his last theory held water when she opened up a casing next to where the explosive charge was and pulled out a two liter sized plastic tube. Putting her ear to it to make sure no secondary device and verifying this wasn’t the case, she slipped a filter mask over her exposed mouth and assessed the canister’s traits. It was jerry rigged from a PVC pipe and glue with a screwed-on lid.

-Too heavy and not airtight enough to house gases. Radiation couldn’t be stored inside it. Likely solid mass or liquid.-

She held the device aways from herself and unscrewed the pipe lid, shaking out a small bit of what was contained inside into a disk held out by a strand of her hair. What came out was a sickly, oozing green and purple fluid that was as viscous as crude oil. Mane-iac sealed the canister shut again and observed the material from afar.

Gigan watched on for a time, and soon found himself crossing his arms and tapping his foot after fifteen seconds of getting bored. Finally movement came when Mane-iac put the canister down beside her and the sample as far away from her as her hair could stretch. Drawing a capsule from the back of her belt, she opened it up and drew out a small, marble-sized sphere that she reached out and plopped into the sample. Instantly the sphere, which she had made specifically to test for one chemical concoction in particular, melted with a puff of smoke almost instantly. When Gigan looked at Mane-iac’s face and saw how she was trembling slightly, he recognized the shellshock. There were a lot of questions he’d have, some relevant and most weren’t; but in both his good deed for the week and to get things rolling again, he wasted no time firing an optic blast and vaporizing the toxic looking chemical.

Mane-iac breathed slowly, forcing herself back to her senses. She turned to Gigan, eyes narrowed and her voice free of tremble and full of command. Whatever it was plaguing her mind a few moments ago, she’d shoved away from the controls entirely to the point she was no different than before.

“Chemical weapons, bomb box was packed with it. The explosion would have distributed it over a full block. In such high concentration in a populated area it could have splashed hundreds. How did you know it was there?”

Gigan tapped his glasses with a finger.

“Trust me babe, I didn’t plant it. I can scan things out with my eyes adjusted to the right channel, had it set to that when you knocked me out the window and I was getting some airtime. Noticed some things before you crashed into me again.”

Part of Mane-iac’s mind was still wandering from earlier to the question of why he had some kind of sci-fi version of X-ray vision turned on when they were fighting, another part of her mind said a reunion between her fist and Gigan’s face was not far off if she kept thinking about that; and the last and loudest part of her spinning mind told her to keep focused. Things just got a lot more serious in Maretropolis.

“Do you have the setting on now?”

She muttered, taking a step towards him with her arms crossed.

“I confirm nor deny nothing.”

Gigan mumbled, tilting his head down some despite the fact he and Mane-iac were almost of equal height. Mane-iac spotted the lie, eye twitching, before groaning and grabbing the cyborg in a headlock while picking up the bomb and hazardous chemicals with her hair. She pointed out in front of them at the city ahead.

“Listen. Up. There are fifteen other city trees, I suspected the Malice Mares were going to rig at least some of them and that puts a lot of people in danger. There are fifteen thousand presents to be donated under each, you are going to help me find which ones are rigged and then you are-”

“Kay.”

Mane-iac blinked in surprise, having expected to have to strong arm him a bit more into helping her before getting compliance.

“What?”

Gigan rotated his head to look up at her, effectively having to flip himself over behind her. He moved in a way that she could tell was him shrugging his shoulders into her back.

“What, your ears got gum in ‘em? I say o-kay. Told you, I was sent here to help you out anyways.”

“Where did you crawl out of?”

She muttered, honestly so confused it was bordering on dumbstruck right now.

“Outta town, extradimensional if you could believe that.”

Mane-iac rolled her eyes and released Gigan from the headlock, clicking a button on her belt that called the Black Beauty over to them with the doors popping open.

“Pfft, figures. First that equine duplicate of me and now this. You’re not the first other-dimensional being I’ve met, so I’ll put it as a hypothesis for now. There’s things more important going on so as long as you follow my rules and follow the mission, we’ll be fine.”

Gigan, always with a swagger and back in his stride after fixing up his jacket, strode his way up to the muscle car after whistling quietly.

“Hey I’m always fine and you’re definitely shapin’ up to be, now let’s get this crossover on the way. Time to save Christmas!”

Mane-iac shrugged, nonchalantly pushing another button the instant Gigan’s hand touched the car roof and electrocuting the cyborg like the car was one big taser. Gigan’s mowhawk stuck up even more on end and he fidgeted through the shocks, muscles locking up and machinery sparking. One could swear steam was shooting out of his nose.

“GGAGAGAGAA 6 21 3 11 THAT HURT!”



Hey, language! Don’t try to get smart with me-



“6 21 3 11 YOU! CRUD! I’M LOSING IT!”

Mane-iac turned the shock guard off and Gigan fell backwards, stiff as a board with a distinctly human gesture on his hand meant for forces the heroine did not know. She nudged him over with her foot, handcuffing the groaning cyborg behind his back and placing him into the passenger seat. He was quick to revive from the shocks, groaning lowly.

“Did anyone get t’e numba off t’at wit-ch?... Wh-what the slag?!”

Gigan growled, testing at the reinforced handcuffs while Mane-iac stepped into the driver’s seat and revved up the beast of a car.

“Those are meant for someone a lot stronger than both of us. Sorry about the shocks but I don’t trust you even as far I can throw you. They come off when we’re done.”

Ever the one to bounce back, Gigan smirked while the doors closed around them, darkening the car before Mane-iac drove it down the street.

“Well if you’re into this sorta thing babe, I can adapt.”

Mane-iac’s face deadpanned, groaning through her nose as they drove along.

-Please McCarthy do not make me gag him.-

-Oooh catty!-



How did you-



-Read her thought box. Now jump to the slaggin’ time skip!-

=================
Some Hours Later
=================

An hour later and with eight more defused bombs in the reinforced trunk, the Black Beauty roared down the road with its two occupants looking ahead. Gigan hadn’t shut up the entire time.

“-and that’s how I saved Nebulan Halloween with a stray carbon rod. Fragged Ultra never tasted so good.”

Mane-iac couldn’t afford the luxury of mentally blocking his voice out almost the entire time either, her eyes trained upon the road with a sullen expression across her face.

-This is why I work alone.-

“As difficult as it must be for you, can it. Last tree to check is three kilometers down this road.”

A full three seconds of silence passed them by, but just as Mane-iac was about to thank any deities watching over her, Gigan opened his trap again.

“Sooo, in review; I’m a biotech cyborg made to be a ranger unit. Been workin’ as that and bounty hunter, good reason to slag up some bolts for brains who get too big for their shoes and try to take over.”

“...And you tell me this why?”

“Bored and it’s a crossover.”

Mane-iac had to let her mind process the level of insanity she was getting exposed to out of her passenger seat, briefly looking over at Gigan.

“Do… you… live in some sort of bizarre world all to yourself?”

She muttered, earning a chuckle from Gigan.

“Willing to share.”

“.......”

“.......”

“How does it feel, to be so monumentally stupid you don’t notice the darkness?”

Mane-iac said in a dour tone that actually left Gigan quiet for a few moments to ponder it as it didn’t sound quite like her typical insults she’d thrown at him for the past hour.

“Huh. You know, I can’t tell if you’re insulting me or turning into a freakin’ guru on me. But the answer for both is yes. Reason I asked your tale is I could see those marks on you when I peeked. Hot bod’ but I noticed the blemishes, mostly big ones on your neck, side, and legs. Chem’ burns by the looks of it.”

He poised. Mane-iac’s grip on the steering wheel audibly grew tighter, enough that had she not been wearing gloves one would have seen her knuckles going white. Gigan tilted his head in a sideways nod, looking over at her and reconfirming his previous guess after adjusting his vision setting.

“Not like I got any dweeb to tell around here to sell it out to. Paid well enough already.”

Mane-iac reached over and gripped the top of his head a bit roughly, turning it around to look forward again. When she spoke her voice had lost a lot of its angered edge, but none of its command.

“... First, keep your eyes forward. Deal?”

“Ye’ ye’ alright your humorless clod.”

Mane-iac sighed, removing her hand from his scalp and turning her attention back to driving.

“Secondly, because I know you’re not nearly cunning enough to use it against me; I was pushed into a chemical vat.”

Gigan raised an eyebrow, letting one of his eyes drift to the side. He was quite tempted to ignore Mane-iac’s first request-

-Extremely.-

-but the back of his mind reminded him of his one unbending rule. Never break a contract. Now adding his own conscience to his “Things I Intend to Gut” list, as impossible as that was, he kept his eyes trained upon the road ahead.

“So, who did the pushing? I like to keep my mementos labeled for what’s left after I frag ‘em.”

Mane-iac didn’t know if she should be disgusted at the morbidness or take it as a nice gesture. Electing to ignore both, she continued on.

“Same monsters I’ve been fighting since.”

Her mind wandered back, recalling the events in such vivid detail she could tell someone how many of the fifty six ceiling lights were burnt out or blinking that fated night years ago. She was just Mica Hackett back then, or Marilyn as many friends and employees whom were also friends knew her as. CEO of Hackett Cosmetics and Industries, she was already one of the city’s most liked people before she put on the suit and scarf. Ran a successful franchise without underhanded tactics, was nice to and knew most of her office employees by name down to the intern who got her coffee, and had always rigorously drilled the idea of making her products reliable and safe to use under the slogan of ‘anyone can be beautiful’.

It was when some of her products were not doing any of those that she suspected something was very wrong. Shoddy design, certain mixtures not being in the right containers, even some unsafe trace chemicals that were bleaching people’s skin or dyeing their hair in extreme cases. She didn’t take it laying down of course, stopping production of the faulty lines to see what was going on. After having narrowed it all down to one factory in particular, Mica Hackett found some sort of red tape barring her from checking the site for several days. Gas leak, it said. She didn’t buy it for a second and had gone to see what was going on herself in an unannounced appearance once she saw the lights were on late into the night.

She’d expected the factory head to be doing some last minute damage control and forcing the workers to operate after hours. She didn’t expect to find the security fence torn down and the factory head and most of the workers locked up under guard. And she really didn’t expect the one operating the show who noticed her attempts to free her employees to be several of the Malice Mares, led by Masked Matter-Horn.

“They were using a place I knew as a production facility for chemical weapons, having extorted the staff and locked them up. My orders for the factory to be investigated just sped up their production run. I stumbled upon it, they found me.”

Breaking free of a hench-goon, Mica Hackett smashed the silent alarm to alert the police as she sprinted across the factory floor. But at every exit she tried there was a plethora of hired goons or the likes of Saddle Rager, Fili-Second, or Zapp. She fled up the only route open to her, the catwalks going above the bubbling chemical vats that once made baby shampoo and skin tonic. Masked Matter-Horn was the one to block her exit there, cutting off the CEO’s routes with frozen walls of ice she raised herself above. Eyeing a particular vat below them, the villainous woman smirked and flicked her hand, shoving a wave of kinetic energy into Mica Hackett’s side and knocking her off the side of the catwalk. Mica screamed, watching the ceiling grow more distant as she felt the sickly warmth of the churned concoction she fell into envelop her.

“One guess how they tried to keep me quiet with a vat of potentially lethal chemicals next to me.”

The last thing she saw before being pushed under was Matter-Horn taking a scoop rod used to take samples from a distance and jabbing her in the forehead with it. She blacked out, falling back and sinking into the viscous, green and magenta liquid.

“Aaand the crazy hair and buffed strength?”

A wet tendril of hair gripped the edge of the chemical vat long after the Malice Mares and the Hackett Industries employees had fled the scene. Several moved to join it, flexing and pulling a half conscious, sopping wet form out of the chemical vat. Her legs were shaking, barely able to stand, so her own now freakishly long hair did most of the work as she carried herself out of the building in a half drowned daze. She would never forget the look upon her face when she passed by an illuminated window. What once was unblemished, pinkish skin and sky-blue hair had now been bleached green and dyed purple; with sore, very obvious chemical keloids splotched across almost a third of her body. All she could do was cry and laugh at the same time.

Back in the present, Mane-iac finished her summary with her pitch and tone having dropped several octaves from start to finish. She tilted her head down some, letting her hat block out some more of the afternoon sun that irritated her mutant eyes.

“...Side effects. I hide it all in public. I can change colors on my hair and skin if I concentrate, wear baggy clothes to-”

“-not show off your beach body?”

Gigan quipped, earning a growl from the heroine. She was about to say keloid scars, but frankly Gigan didn’t seem to care. The cyborg rolled his eyes, glancing over at Mane-iac with a cheeky smile on his maw.

“Whaaaat? Beat yourself down as you like for having them, I’d still paint the town red with you at the drop of your hat.”

Mane-iac snorted out through her nose, little jets of mist coming out due to the chilly air.

“I take it any machine parts between your brain and mouth are cross-wired together? What comes to one just spouts out the other?”

Gigan’s face was elated, crudely chuckling like they’d been flirting this whole time.

“Ooohohoho!”

“Stop. It.”

“Aawww come on, you need to let your hair down more!”

“....”

Mane-iac deadpanned her expression, the hair draped over her seat beginning to snake and curl. Gigan grumbled, slinking back into his seat. Had they been free he’d be waving his hands around in a deflective manner.

“Ye’ ye’, realized it the moment I opened my trap.”

Mane-iac sighed, grinding her heel into the brake pedal as they entered the main square of the city. The wide, empty space amongst the crossroads was several dozen meters in diameter every which way, lined with a myriad of shops. And at the peak of it all on the north side, erected in a small picnic park set aside for the holidays, was the largest of the giving trees; a venerable mountain of present at its base. Mane-iac put the Black Beauty into park, taking several moments before slowly unlatching her seatbelt and looking around the square. She opened her door and took a half step out, keeping the door open as she surveyed the empty square surrounding them. Gigan, impatient as ever, kicked at the dashboard while attempting to move his arms inside the handcuffs.

“Gonna get these friggin’ cuffs off me yet toots?”

“Not yet, wait here.”

“I got a choice?”

Mane-iac ignored the cyborg, closing her car door behind her as she stepped out in front of the Black Beauty to look around.

-At this time of day, this place should be bustling. Where is everyone?-

She took several more steps, the snow beginning to fall from the sky and litter the cold streets. Mane-iac stood in silence, steam misting from her nose that wreathed her face and hat. She noticed something just off the ground, a few feet ahead. The snow was stopping just above the ground in a barely visible line and forming frost. Drawing a collapsible baton, she flicked her wrist to extend it, took a step back, and tossed the weapon atop the barely visible wire. The wire snapped and in an instant all hell broke loose.

Smoke bombs went off in every alleyway and sideroad that lead out of the square. Judging from how several birds startled by the sudden explosives fell into the snow after flying through the smoke, twitching but alive, Mane-iac knew at an instant it was paralytic gas and obviously a trap. Knowing the Black Beauty had air filters in it, she started to run back to the car to pull back when the second phase of the trap was sprung. High on a rooftop, the figures of four individuals sprung into action upon getting the nod of the one standing in the center.

One of them sprinted out with speed almost too fast for the eye to track, running down the side of the building and towards the left side road leading out of the T shaped square. Glass shattered at the blur’s running and within seconds the exit roads were littered with sharp debris, road spikes, and caltrops that would severely slow or halt any cars that tried to drive over them. When she stopped moving, Mane-iac recognized a dark magenta body suit with glowing, white lines trailing across its contours; leading up into a blue full-face visor.

The second turned a medical dial mounted the back of her wrist, inducing an overload of hormones that supercharged her rage. The woman blew up in size and mass, rapidly morphing into a fiendish looking hulk. With an inhuman roar she jumped down to a neighboring building, hopping rooftops and knocking over good chunks of them with both her landings and physically ripping into the concrete with her bare hands. Soon the roads she crossed over were choked with debris of twisted metal, broken glass, and shards of concrete; along with the crater the behemoth left upon landing. Through the dust Mane-iac felt her pulse chill when she saw the luchador-like mask, black and camo-green suit; and glowing green eyes of rage. 

The final exit, the one the Black Beauty had taken, was set upon by the air from a figure flying in the storm clouds. A winged harpy of a woman threw her hands up into the snow clouds and grasped at lightning bolts as she flew over to them, heaving the wrath of the heavens down upon the road. As the onslaught came, Mane-iac only had time to jump on top of the Black Beauty, the insulated tires saving her from the electrified icy road. The sides of buildings were shattered outwards and explosions littered the ground, tearing open enormous potholes and sinkholes into the compromised road.

In a few moments between the efforts of Fili-Second, Saddle Ragger, and Zapp; Mane-iac, Gigan, and the Black Beauty were boxed in with them and their leader. She was a cruel witch of a woman with the looks of a succubus and a heart to match. The last and worst of the Malice Mares calmly jumped down from the buildings, turning around midair and catching herself by firing two pillars of ice from her hands and into the ground, cutting her fall. Clad in a dark steel-pink suit with dark blue and rose banded gloves, a set of silver goggles, and a wide blue mask; she slowed, eventually landing atop the star mounted at the peak of the square’s tree and balancing herself perfectly. Masked Matter-Horn smirked, a hand upon her hip and the other hanging down, as she eyed the recovered Mane-iac looking up at her.



Link!


“Well well well... looks like we did get something good this year, girls,” Matter-Horn called down from her perch.

If Mane-iac was intimidated, she didn’t show it, instead calmly standing up at the ready.

“Thought you four would come eventually, after I locked two of your posse up.”

“Hm, yes that was an unfortunate turn of events. After you did that we’ve had far more trouble as of late, and not just from lowered numbers.”

Zapp hovered high above, emerging from the storm clouds that had obscured her before, her outfit consisting of a scaled body glove that was storm-cloud gray, black accents on her gloves, boots, metallic wings; and lightning bolt-motif helmet; and silver bands with lightning bolts on her wrists, belt, and ankles. She held her arms crossed before her while clashing with Saddle Rager on who could scowl harder.

“All those other times you only managed to drive us off because you proved too much trouble. You didn’t defeat us outright. That changed when you ambushed Marevelous and Radiance, taking them in. It showed all the knaves and serfs that we could be held and vindicated your opposition. They fear us less now.”

Saddle Rager, bulging veins and muscles nearly bursting out of her leotard, bent a lamp post she was holding over in a U shape with her thumb. She spoke in a grumbling low tone, her stoic glare morphing into a toothy grin over time.

“A problem to be fixed like all others, by breaking it.”

Fili-Second sprinted up onto a traffic light, sticking her landing with a handstand and crazed smirk.

“We’re not just gonna beat yah to a pulp, we’re gonna make you fail outright! Hehe!”

The speedster snickered, earning a half annoyed groan from Matter-Horn.

“Yes yes, the thing we used to draw you in.”

Mane-iac felt her pulse chill slightly, even as she remained composed, slowly turning to keep tabs on and not put her back to any of the terrors for long.

“The chemical bombs. Filled with the same mutagenic concoction from the Hackett Cosmetics factory.”

Matter-Horn rather boredly inspected her fingernails, hardly giving the ticking device below her under the tree any second thought.

“Oh those party favors? They’re the upgrade, much stronger than what you were exposed to. Anyone exposed to enough of it would be changed into a bleached, raving lunatic.”

Mane-iac’s hands instantly tightened into fists and she charged forward, feet pounding the ground. The other three Malice Mares predictably charged in after her, spurring Mane-iac to draw several smoke bombs from her belt and throw her hands to the side, pelting her path and the grounds around her in a haze. Her mind slowed time down around her, allowing her to react on an instant. The hulking form of Saddle Rager broke the haze to her left, swinging out with a lunging punch. Mane-iac curled her hair around the fist, jumping and twisting around. Too weak to stop its forward momentum, she instead gave it a large amount of horizontal momentum to throw it off target and cause Saddle Rager to throw herself off balance. Snaking up her arm, Mane-iac twisted herself around and slammed both her heels into Saddle Rager’s temple to knock the burly villainess to the ground.

Next came Zapp, shooting down from above with the scream of broken air. Balled lightning in her hands, the ancient monster of a woman peppered the ground with flashes of exploding light; Mane-iac dodging and weaving to avoid being on target for too long. Spying a piece of debris she recognized as metallic, she stomped on one side of the pole to knock it into the air, catch it, and hurl it at Zapp. Zapp, unable to see it coming through the smoke bomb haze, kept throwing thunder bolts as the metal sailed towards her. The airborne metal absorbed and conducted the electricity like a lightning rod and returned it to the sender as it struck Zapp in the stomach. Zapp’s body locked up and spasmed, only able to cry out while being electrocuted and falling to the ground.

Mane-iac sprinted free of the smokescreen, teeth gritted and chest burning with rage as she glared at the blunt face of Matter-Horn. Hatred chewed at her mind, wanting so badly to thrash that smirk off the villain’s face. Not just for what she’d done to her, but for what she and her team were willing to do to hundreds of innocent people just to lure her out. This wasn’t a matter of yin and yang or personal vendettas relating to sides of coins. This was about stopping a monster.

Mane-iac got within three meters of Matter-Horn, the closest she’d ever been since their first encounter, before a pink blur slammed into her from the side. Fili-Second, avoiding the snowy street and running along the sidewalks, spun back around and landed another punch into Mane-iac’s gut. The force wasn’t great, FIli-Second was very lanky in upper body build like many sprinters, but the speed amplified the momentum enough to knock Mane-iac back. Dazed, she wasn’t able to dodge Saddle Rager charging up behind her, grabbing her by the hair and slamming the heroine into the ground. The hulk lifted Mane-iac up by her hair, Zapp and Fili-Second grabbing onto her arms with the latter holding some charged lightning to Mane-iac’s throat. Masked Matter-Horn lowered herself down to them, placing a hand on the struggling Mane-iac’s cheek. With her free hand she tugged at a tear in Mane-iac’s costume just above the hip, exposing old keloid scar to the frigid air. She saw how Mane-iac winced and cooed, slowly running a finger over it to tingle at the flesh almost intimately. Her tone was as callous as it was eerily serene.

“Think of it this way, we’re giving you a gift this season too. In a few hours, you’ll have half a city of deformed, scarred freaks just like you...” Matter-horn's fingers curled around the raised keloid and Mane-iac held back a grunt of pain.

“Now, I want to see that ugly face of yours.”

Matter-Horn smirked, starting to peel back Mane-iac's cowl, digging her sharp nails into Mane-iac's cheek when a flash of green light and an annoyed voice gave her pause.

“As hot at this is, gonna need to stop you there ye’ dunt.”

Matter-Horn and just about everyone else in attendance looked over to their right to see Gigan standing right next to them, spinning Mane-iac’s handcuffs around his finger with a bored expression on his face. Matter-Horn blinked in confusion, glancing between Mane-iac and this random newcomer with a slight loss in breath.

“Who- Where did you come from?”

“Her car. Didn’t know what the frig was going on so I waited a sec. Finished my scan of it all.”

“Scan? Scan of what?”

Matter-Horn hissed. Mane-iac saw a motion in Gigan’s eye. Though she couldn’t quite tell what it was due to his sunglasses, she could have sworn he was winking at her. In her mishmash of emotions and threat in situation, it actually gave her a tiny smile as circumstance had gotten bad enough that this idiot couldn’t possibly make it worse. She tensed up and got ready for whatever distraction he was about to pull, intentionally or not, bracing her legs against the ground and holding her breath.

“Scan on who’s the first to get my boot up their rear-end yah friggin’ bastich!”

Gigan stopped spinning the handcuffs he’d teleported out of when he warped out of the car, gripping them with a taut hand. He disappeared in a flash of green light, reappearing right next to Matter-Horn and slapping her left hand and ankle into the cuffs, locking them while grasping the central bar. The cyborg’s expression instantly morphed into an unholy mixture of rage and bloodthirsty glee, his voice something deep in bellow.

“I love my job!”

A deluge of red light flew out of Gigan’s glasses, the plasma shotgun blast sending Matter-Horn flying back several meters and into a window. On the same instant Mane-iac bent her arms in and jumped up with her legs, spinning around and locking Saddle Rager’s head between her legs and using her sudden momentum to double the hulk over. Mane-iac, freed from Fili-Second and Zapp’s hold by the falling Saddle Rager, grabbed Gigan’s outstretched hand and let him swing her foot first into Fili-Second’s stomach. Reeling Mane-iac back in like they were in a dance number, Gigan wiggled his eyebrows at the heroine pressed up against his chest.

“And this is the part you say-”

“Get down!”

Mane-iac belted, shoving into Gigan and toppling him over to shove them out of harm’s way from Zapp’s lightning blast. Rolling across the ground before halting, Gigan grabbed hold of Mane-iac and teleported them out of harm’s way from a called-down thunderbolt. The duo re-materialized back in the center of the square in a flash of green light, breaking apart and getting back to back as the recovered Saddle Rager, Fili-Second, and Zapp encircled them. Mane-iac drew some equipment from her belt and readied her hair while Gigan swapped out his hands for his iconic hooks, forehead emitter and glasses glowing red. In one of the abandoned shops, a stray blast from the ensuing battle clicked all the radios into blasting the Nutcracker Suite’s dance portion.

Gigan stood his ground and fired his plasma beam full blast at the charging Saddle Rager, managing to inflict some burns and singes but not enough to halt the bulldozing locomotive from barreling into him with a clothesline. Half knocked silly, he recovered quick enough to try and counterattack while Saddle Rager sprinted to the nearest brick wall with the intent of pancaking Gigan between it and her arm. Lashing out with his hooks, Gigan slashed and gouged at the villainess but only managed to rip into her costume and inflict scratch damage because this was an A-rated comic. He then began swearing so wildly the narrator dared not even try and transcribe it.

-Ah freak it! If guttins’ a no-go, bashing’s always safe for the pansies!-

He held his arms out and activated both of the force drivers in his arms, dramatically increasing their gravity fields and swinging them out to smash his metallic limbs on either side of the hulk’s head for a double hammer-arm. Saddle Rager called out in pain, her head wobbling with a sound one would expect a gong to make. Able to pry himself free, Gigan kicked away from Saddle Rager as the latter barreled herself through a brick wall like a bull in a china shop, leaving a burly-woman shaped imprint in the surface. Grinning, Gigan was eager to charge in after her to get back into the thick of the fight.

With Gigan occupying Saddle Rager, Mane-iac turned her attention to Zapp and Fili-Second. Knowing being out in the open was a death sentence, she cracked multiple smoke bombs and set them off in a wide field all around her. The smokescreen shrouded a good half of the square, clothing Mane-iac’s form with her glaring eyespots being the last thing Zapp or Fili-Second saw. Against these two however, a cloud of haze wouldn’t persist for long. Zapp flew up above the smokey shroud, spreading her hands to the heavens. The storm above churned and bellowed, gales of wind coiling above the city square. With swiping motions, Zapp outstretched talons of wind to rend Mane-iac’s smokescreen. It began to thin with every ravaging, allowing the outline of what was inside to be visible. However the cloud wasn’t fully pulled apart when Fili-Second did what she did best, crack a frenzied smirk at the first second she saw a figure in the haze and rush in.

“I got her!”

“No, Fili! Wait!”, Zapp barked in vain as Fili-Second charged in and out of sight. 

Fili-Second rushed the figure head out, vibrating her fist to increase its force. She lunged and struck home, impaling her foe with her fist. Just before this looked like it turned into an M-rated comic however, a stark realization dawned upon the villainess. Firstly she couldn’t pull her arm out and when she tried to brace her hand against the body to push back, it got swallowed up and constricted too. Secondly, a pair of hands grabbed her by her ankles. Fili-Second looked down to see the smirking face of Mane-iac, whom was laying inside the snow and had been holding up her hair and hat in the shape of herself as a decoy. Something she had learned from fighting a speedster too fast to chase down: Best way to get at them was either remove their room to dodge or get them stuck trying to attack you.

Mane-iac yanked Fili-Second backwards, nailing her in the back with a heavy knee strike that knocked the wind out of her. Not done yet, Mane-iac skillfully swung her legs upwards, grabbing Fili-Second by the head while holding onto her hands and legs, and effectively suplexing her foe into the snowbank. Tackling Fili-Second before she could get back up, Mane-iac put her in a headlock to keep her head steady while using her hair to maintain the pin. Before Fili-Second had much time to struggle, Mane-iac had already put her in a sleeper hold. With the smoke all around, having the wind knocked out of her, and Mane-iac’s tight grip on her neck; Fili-Second passed out in seconds. With that threat down for the moment, Mane-iac turned her attention to the force that caused the last of her smokescreen to vanish. Zapp looked at her unconscious teammate and hissed in rage, balling up several spheres of lightning and rushing Mane-iac.

Across the square, Saddle Rager’s roar echoed out of a shop’s ruins. Following it, Gigan’s limp form went flying out of it at high speed, skidding across the ground and plowing into the snowbank like a thrown javelin. Saddle Rager snarled, stepping out of the shattered wall with a much less-than-pleased expression. She too looked plenty roughed up, covered in scratches and bruises from a foe that stubbornly refused to keel over. Seeing the cyborg not moving and deciding she’d finally shut him up, the burly giantess took some time to catch her breath while locking onto the part of the square Zapp and Mane-iac were fighting in. Sparking in several spots, Gigan poked his head out of the snow with a grin upon his face because only he would take getting a super strength-fueled haymaker that almost literally knocked his head off as a sign of good fun. Shaking himself off, Gigan took a moment to assess the situation.

-Riight guttin’ or slaggin’ here doesn’t work in an A-rated comic. What’s some wanton violence I can get away with?-

One could almost literally see the light bulb pop up over his head when he spied a black funerary car parked next to him. He knew this particular model and smirked, getting up and sprinting over to it. Working on overcharging his warp drive, Gigan rather reluctantly addressed the person writing this.

“Hey geekwad! Spot me a favor. Any living dweebs in that black pinto?”



Just a cadaver set to be buried, why what are you-



Gigan grabbed the car, digging his hooks into either side.

“Sorry buddy, looks like you’re getting cremated!”

Saddle Rager dug her fingers into the side of a street light, ripping it out of its foundations and taking her aim in order to hurl the structure at Mane-iac. She was almost ready to heave it when a familiarly annoying voice barked at her from above.

“HEY! ROID RAGE!”

She looked up, spying the form of Gigan appearing two stories above her with the entire pinto car he’d been holding onto just as he chucked it at her. Saddle Rager’s eyes widened and she dropped the light pole to catch the car. While she did manage to stop the pinto from falling on top of her, catching it by the front wheel’s rims and bending the screeching metal in her grasp, she couldn’t halt the incendiary, red plasma beam Gigan fired to stab through the gas tank before he drop kicked her through the top of the hood. The resulting explosion sent the smoking Saddle Rager flying off into a traffic wall, breaking it with her impact. With her ears ringing from the explosion and almost knocked out from the impact, she was largely immobile as Gigan strode out of the flames. His hair smoking and covered in char that risked ruining his jacket, the cyborg sparked a few times as he walked up to the downed hulk. At first thinking she was out cold, Gigan was both amused and annoyed when he saw her shakingly reach for the dial on the back of her hand. Intending to dump another dose of rage hormones and adrenaline into her system to keep fighting, Saddle Rager got no chance. Gigan pinned her hand down with his boot, gave her the one fingered salute with one hand while morphing his other hand into a round mace.

“Night night.”

He quipped with a smirk before using said mace to conk her on the head and throw her into unconsciousness.

-Guess we’re saving the guts and braining for the special where I get to kill the Krampus.-

Seeing Saddle Rager shrink back to her normal state, Gigan spat on the ground and headed back to the main brawl. Mane-iac and Zapp were battling it out across the city airspace, the former swinging her away around by acrobatics and her hair while the former was constantly hurling lightning at her.

Mane-iac swung herself onto the third story of a fire escape, quickly stealing a glance behind her as oncoming light cast her shadow across the building. Looking up and using her hair to hoist herself up higher in a leap, she kept ascending while dodging the projectile fire from an enraged Zapp. Shards of shattered metal and brick dust rained down on the street below with each ensuing explosion. Swinging herself to the top of the building to gain some altitude, Mane-iac turned and sprinted back over the side and leapt off it to lunge at Zapp. Her hair outstretched like gaping snares and she threw a bola pulled from her belt for good measure. But Zapp had learned from before, hurling a gale of wind at the bola to blow it off course and flying back just far enough that the outstretching tendrils of hair couldn’t reach her. Mane-iac tucked herself into a ball as she plummeted, her hair grabbing onto a light pole and spinning her around 360’ degrees before she skillfully landed foot first atop the pole and perfectly balanced on it. At first surprised Mane-iac got so close to grabbing her, Zapp smirked while making sure to maintain a higher altitude to ensure it didn’t happen again.

“Hehe, can’t hurt what you can’t reach, can you bimb-”

Zapp was cut off and had to quickly react to the stream of red flying at her from the side, shoving her hands out to call down some lightning that deflected the neon red beam Gigan had shot at her. Gigan stood his ground a distance away, charging up for another shot. With his warp drive overcharged from that teleporting car stunt, he couldn’t just teleport up behind Zapp and knock her out of the sky so he fell back on special plan B. Shoot and keep shooting until it stops twitching.

Zapp’s eyes widened and she found herself having to rapidly dodge through the air just to avoid getting pelted with Gigan’s incendiary beam. Finding he couldn’t land a hit with the solid blast, Gigan sprinted up closer to her while the entirety of his glasses and emitter unit swelled with a bright red light. Baseball sliding underneath her with a smirk, the cyborg fired one solid, thick ray from both his eyes and emitter. The half-meter thick block of a beam shot upwards at Zapp while she dodged to the side, only to seemingly vanish a few feet away from where she’d been. Zapp and Mane-iac both shot Gigan a confused look, but Gigan could only smile.

“Burn Bastich.”

Suddenly from the point Gigan’s beam had vanished a mass eruption of light shot out, spreading around like a shotgun pellet blast of shorter, smaller beams. The scattershot only flew a short distance but Zapp was well within the cone when the individual beams reached their maximum distance and detonated like a shower of firecrackers. Zapp was sent spinning back, the kinetic force of the shockwave smashing her back into a window, shattering it on impact as she tumbled through it. An eerie silence brewed through the square, Gigan and Mane-iac looking upon the site of the vanquished Malice Mare.

High above storm clouds continued to grow in literally forboding strides. A haggard, smoking figure stumbled up to the window with a leer upon her face. Zapp limped up, her costume charred and she herself coated in light burns and cuts. She sported some blood and possibly a dislodged tooth. She muttered in a low tone before it grew into a shout as she thrust her hands up into the air to catch six falling thunderbolts.

“I’ll show yOU BURNS!”

Zapp roared, her body engulfed in light. She threw out the deadly torrent towards Gigan, who quickly charged up as much as he could to counterattack in light of not having the means or time to teleport or physically dodge. The emitter on his forehead and glasses were engulfed in luminance that left the latter shattered from the ensuing river of red plasma that burst out of them. The artificial and natural forces clashed with one another, shoving each other back and forth, threatening to swallow the other up. However Zapp had one advantage over Gigan she was quick to exploit. She could always give herself a boost. Calling down more lightning bolts, Zapp enhanced her beam’s power, gradually pushing back against Gigan’s counterassault. Without his full size, the cyborg’s power was limited. Limited too much to win.

The energy torrent was shoved back into him and exploded in his face. Gigan was sent tumbling head over rear across the snow to his left. Sparking and bleeding from several spots, he swore every time he hit the ground.

“Frig! Frag! Bastich! ***************************************************************************************************************!”

He hit the snow face first and became lodged in it from the shoulders up. His left arm had been blown off above the elbow, exposing bent metal and sparking wires from the cyborg’s inner workings. Mane-iac’s eyes widened and she found herself unconsciously reaching out to her ally as he lay face down in the snow.

“GIGAN!”

Zapp breathed heavily, having been pushed to her threshold in that assault but tiredly laughing in victory. Her laughs drew a pause when Gigan’s head jolted up. Now lacking his glasses, there was nothing to keep Zapp or Mane-iac from seeing the enraged, mechanical, piercing glare in Gigan’s camera lens-like orbits. He burst his intact right arm free of the snow, reconfigured it into the mace-like formation and fired it out with a burst of pressurized gas that blew back the snow. Sailing right past Mane-iac, the metallic weapon rocketed towards Zapp, but evidently his aim was off as instead of impacting her it lodged itself in the ceiling above her. In the corner of her eyes, Mane-iac saw Gigan wink at her.

Zapp breathed a sigh of relief, spreading her valkyrie wings to take to the air again. Except this time she had no free space to avoid attacks. She only got a few feet, eyes turned to the heavens when she instinctively looked down to the source of an oncoming clanging noise. Mane-iac was rapidly catching up to her, running along the edge of Gigan’s chain like a speed tight-rope walker. Jumping off and catching the chain with her hair, she used her weight to stretch it down just before Gigan yanked back on the chain to cause it to go taut. Catapulted back up, Mane-iac landed a solid uppercut on Zapp before the villainess could fully charge up a lightning bolt. By the time she did, Mane-iac had tossed a metal bola around her. Zapp was, naturally, resistant to electrical shocks so long as she discharged them quickly. With the metal ropes and spheres around her, she got no such chance and shocked herself into screaming. Bound, her muscles quickly locking up, and her conscious mind passing out; the last active Malice Mare tumbled into the snow-covered top of the nearby building.

Mane-iac grabbed hold of Gigan’s chain on her way down, her sudden weight and Gigan’s internal mechanisms pulling back on the chain dislodging it from the wall. Reeled back in towards the cyborg, both tired heroes tumbled into each other; falling back down next to each other in a panting heap.

Rolling off of the cyborg, Mane-iac helped prop him up as they lay back and surveyed the square around them. Gigan, sparking and one of his eyes’ lights flickering off and on, groaned while holding his busted arm close to him.

“Well, Roids is tapped out. Quicks-y isn't running around; and pretty sure you turned pikachu into her own bug zapper. You not dead?”

Panting a few times to catch her breath, Mane-iac took off her hat and fanned at Gigan’s sparking forearm to make sure it didn’t catch on fire.

“Y-Yes, for now. Are you going to be okay?!”

“Oh this? Hahah, never got slowed down by this before. Whadduyah think I am, a pain pansy?”

“So, it doesn’t hurt?”

“Oh it hurts like a witch!”

Gigan cackled, kicking his legs and howling with laughter. After some time reveling in the afterglow of battle and lividness of his own pain, he heard something he didn’t expect. A snickering, snorting, half hushed laugh coming from beside him. Averting his gaze to the direction he spied Mane-iac, now hiding her face behind her hand, trying to muffle herself and her laughter. It being the first time he heard her utter anything outside of her typical growling or low muttering, it only caused Gigan to sport a cheeky grin and playfully whap the heroine across the lower back with his busted arm. She was snorting with almost every breath and losing a lot of her composure, it was absolutely adorable. They sat there, enjoying some fun in the gentle snowfall.

Until two pillars of ice tore their way through the department store behind the donation tree and gouged into the street like a frozen wave. Something came flying out from a window, tumbling through the air and tumbling across the snow as it came to a stop in front of Gigan and Mane-iac. It was the handcuffs Gigan had slapped onto Matter-Horn’s hand and leg. The linking bar had been warped by an intense heat, then stabbed into by a hunk of ice that expanded outwards to further damage the mechanism. With such intense damage to the locking mechanisms across the cuffs, the locks had come undone. A third pillar of ice impaled the storefront and street, a still singed Masked Matter-Horn shaking in rage as she slowly walked out across the pillar with an absolutely livid expression on her face. Her overcloak had been partially burned off and one of her goggles was cracked, causing her to tear her goggles off and let her wild hair that slipped out from behind her mask run ragged. Gone was her original, smug and stoic expression. Now her face was continually contorting with rage and twitching at every muscle upon seeing a still-living Mane-iac and Gigan along with the rest of her team unconscious.

She said no words, just hoisted her hands back at her sides and threw them out while shrieking in hatred. On her command, enormous streams of freezing ice swept across the city square, turning the peaceful snowbanks into jagged, frozen walls of frost. Mane-iac hooked her arm around Gigan’s middle and tossed them upwards with her hair, the pair hitting the ground running away from the tsunamis of frozen water. Mane-iac mashed a button on her belt as a stream rushed towards them. The Black Beauty clicked back on, engine roaring as it sped towards them. Spikes gouged out of the tires, gripping the ice and snow easily even after it jumped the curb. For a moment it looked like Mane-iac and Gigan were going to be sandwiched between the oncoming car and the walls of ice behind them.

“Jump!”

Mane-iac belted, doing her best to do so as well while carrying a leaping Gigan along with her. They dove over the car as its front brakes roared, the roar of the tires being near deafening while the back end spun around to perpendicularly face the freezing rays. Landing on the other side, Mane-iac ripped the driver side door open and beat her fist against one of a myriad of buttons built into the steering wheel. On cue the passenger side of the car reconfigured, panels on mechanical arms popping out of the side and transforming the side of the muscle car into a single, broad panel like a shield. The metal hissed against the frigid air, heating up to a red hot temperature. When Matter-Horn’s beam hit the hot shield, the resulting ice melted instantly and either evaporated or fell to the ground as buckets of hot water. It wasn’t stopping the beam, the car was still being pushed back by the kinetic force slowly but surely even as Mane-iac and Gigan pressed against it for cover. Still it was keeping it from freezing over for the time being. Mane-iac and Gigan turned to each other, breath quickened and minds racing.

“So, what’s this witch’s deal? Not get to fourth base in awhile?”

“She’s the MM leader and the most dangerous. Her powers are elemental control. In this weather that means she can make a blizzard by looking at something hard enough.”

Matter-Horn’s manic roar of a laugh was heard over the howling snowstorm she had started to cause. The Black Beauty creaked, it’s spiked tires cutting grooves into the road under the ice as it was pushed back further.

“Well bastich needs to get fragged before she reenacts a certain Disney movie. Weaknesses?”

“Matter-Horn has no experience fighting up close, if we can reach her through the ice walls and barriers we’ll be able to stop her. Can you use your eye beams or teleport?!”

Mane-iac yelled over the storm, drawing several gadgets from the still open car door. Gigan held up his still sparking arm and pointed to his eyes.

“Not with these shorted out I ain’t! Freakin’ Roid Rage made me overcharge my warp drive and the Thor cosplayer fried my eyes. Can’t blast crap for now! And I can’t cut through those ice walls without my buzzsaw-”

Gigan’s vision was, rather reluctantly, averted from a good profile view of Mane-iac’s lower figure when she leaned in through the car door to grab something else from the far side. The cyborg spotted a particular type of store, one Saddle Rager had opened up during their fight. Mane-iac drew out the sonic projector from her glove box when she felt something smack her across the rear. Eyes blazing, she jumped out and glared at Gigan as he ran out of cover with one of Matter-Horns freezing beams chasing him. Giving the raging villainess a less than flattering hand gesture with his remaining arm to try and enrage her more, Gigan yelled out behind him before diving into the storefront and combat rolling inside.

“Keep her busy! I got a Tanaka dang plan!”

Mane-iac slipped a circular camouflage device onto her belt buckle, turning her costume pure white and blue to blend in with the snow; still leering at where the cyborg had dove in even after Matter-Horn’s ice walls engulfed the front end of the store. Equipment in hand, she dove out from the Black Beauty in the opposite direction, rolling behind an ice wall for cover.

-A plan? First time for everything. Don’t die, Gigan.-

Gigan swore, tumbling through several store aisles after getting thrown in by Matter-Horn’s ice wave. Gigan groaned, rolling himself off a half-frozen rack of garden gnomes. He kicked himself up to his feet and shook his head to clear his vision. A pain in his side caused him to brace his remaining hand there while he straightened up. Busily looking towards the power tool and utility section, the cyborg cast a grin before he casually tore an icicle that had gouged into his side out and tossed it over his head.

“That’ll do it.”

Matter-Horn focused her powers through her feet this time, stepping off her perch slow enough that another pillar of ice formed under her feet. Then another with the next step, and then the next step; as she walked herself across the square while keeping a high vantage point. She knew she hadn’t slain the interloper who tried to flee, but she least had sealed it inside the store for now. If it didn’t do something equivalent to bleeding out due to missing an arm, she was sure her team would have fun dismantling it once they woke up.

-Now it’s just the matter of her.-

Matter-Horn looked around the frozen landscape beneath her, trying to spy the long-haired dame amongst the walls and waves of ice.

“Come out come out, deeeary!”

She hissed in venom, clutching a glowing fist before she snapped around, threw her arm out, and opened the hand to fire a cryo-blast of blue energy at an ice wall she thought she saw movement out of in the corner of her eye. The blast smashed into the wall with a shower of icicles, but no frozen body. Huffing, Masked Matter-Horn tried and failed to control her rage. Something Mane-iac was quick to capitalize on. Darting out from the cover of a snow-caked car, she rushed Matter-Horn when the latter had her back turned. Her cleated boots giving her purchase, she ran vertically up the icy tower while using her hair to grip around the surface like a tree climber’s rope. Reaching the top she vaulted herself over the following ice wall while pointing a device shaped like a megaphone towards Matter-Horn. The ungodly mechanical wail that was loosed from it was strong enough to shatter the windows behind Matter-Horn and force the villainess to her knees from the shocking pain to her ears. The world going mute and ringing, Matter-Horn swiped at the air in Mane-iac’s direction with long talons of ice shooting out of her fingers. Mane-iac cracked open a smoke bomb, tossed the haze-streaming device to the side and dove after it to avoid getting shattered or rent into by the claws that ravaged the pillar she once stood upon.

Matter-Horn staggered to her feet, her pupils having dilated with light. She fired one freezing blast after another into anywhere the smoke was, sending the haze and shards of shattering ice in every direction. Her ravenous mind keyed in on a slight disturbance to her right. Darting around while waving her hand upwards, the ensuing wall of ice blocked and caught a would-be drop kick from Mane-iac, whom had vaulted herself off a pillar. Matter-Horn grit her teeth, shoving her arms out with blasts of blue energy to hurl the slab of ice Mane-iac was stuck to back. Reacting quickly, Mane-iac gripped the slab with her hair and crushed in to shatter it, yelping slightly as she pinged and skid across another frozen wall before hitting the ground running to avoid another blast.

Gigan quickly set the nanites in his arm stub to work, consuming some of the nearby metal from the shelf he was resting it on to repurpose it into his structure. Tearing open the back of what he’d selected to get at the wires, he more or less shoved it onto where his new forearm was taking shape and melded the two together. Cannibalizing other parts from another source in a shower of sparks, the nanites partially deconstructed, retrofitted, remolded, and married the replacement parts into his new weapon arm. It wasn’t a hook and it wasn’t a mace, but the cyborg cracked a toothy grin while hoisting his jerry-rigged work high and powered it up to a mechanical roar.

“Groovy.”

Matter-Horn heaved in breath, but cracked a slightly bleeding grin as she took aim at the form before and below her. Both of them were breathing heavily and worn down, nicks, scratches, bruises and the like dotting the foes; but Matter-Horn couldn’t be happier. She had her. After all this time she had her. True, Mane-iac was hardly beaten. Her hair was coiled around Matter-Horn’s middle and right arm and the exhausted heroine still had a grip on Matter-Horn’s arms, but the villainess had one hand on Mane-iac’s throat and the other glowing bright while pressed onto Mane-iac’s belly with a cryo-blast charged. When that had happened, Mane-iac froze before she was literally frozen, not budging as long as Matter-Horn didn’t. Neither of them heard the distant cackling in the background coming from the home and garden store, it being drowned out by the churning of the winter gales.

The villainess spat out some blood and drool before chuckling.

“Knew you’d come running once you found what was in the first bomb. Think of it this way, your company will have a lot of business when the big one goes off and makes a thousand more freaks like you, all those poor souls wanting to look presentable again. You could merchandise your outfit.”

Mane-iac sneered, tightening her hold on her foe in an effort to show she could constrict her just as easily as Matter-Horn could freeze her. With one tendril caught around Matter-Horn’s neck, she intended to do so.

Matter-Horn gagged briefly, her eye twitching as she hissed. She was about to see what a cryo-blast through the heart would do to a mutant when someone chucked this very piece of narration box at her and conked the villainess on the back of the head.



The whirl of power tools crossed the winter gales and Gigan came charging in from below, having already carved his way out of the store he was trapped in with the dual chainsaws he had currently mounted on one arm.

“Mane-iac get clear!”

He swiped at the pillar Matter-Horn was standing on. The sudden jostling caused Matter-Horn to lose her grip on the heroine, whom was quick to return the gesture and kick out with both legs planted into Matter-Horn’s stomach. Gigan fired out his mace and cable line ahead of the falling heroine, who took the cue and grabbed on. Rushing away from the falling ice pillar and the explosion of shards that came firing out of it, Gigan reeled his ally into him, jumped up, and caught her with his free arm.

“Well good news, I found where the red paint is for the town tonight. Bad news-?”

Both of them looked back as they heard Matter-Horn’s manic roaring, quickly rushing behind cover as they were chased by flailing beams of blue that froze everything in their path.

“-three’s still a crowd. Solutions to ditch this witch?”

Normally Mane-iac would be chewing him out for both time and place as well as a subject she had no interest in. But for now, ducking behind cover with someone who might just prove to be a friend; she could only smirk.

Matter-Horn raised herself up on a pillar taller than any before, not wanting to get caught up close with either of her two opponents. Several explosions rang out to her left and she soon spotted the telltale haze of Mane-iac’s smoke bombs. Not falling for that trick again, she rapidly punched in the air, sending out spheres of energy with each swing that peppered the smoke until they completely choked it out. She moved downwards across a walkway grown under her feet, intent on seeing the frozen forms of her foes in the smoke they tried to hide in so consistently. But instead, she found nothing more than some darkened ice with some captured bubbles of smoke dotting its insides. Before she could even try to find another target in her icy fortress, the roar of chainsaws screeched into the air. Gigan ran full sprint in a seemingly chaotic path, slashing, spinning around, and jabbing at every pillar or wall of ice he encountered and carving a path through them all. The severed structures shattered against the ground or fell into each other in a domino effect. Soon the air was flooded with the roar of breaking ice, thrown icicles, and the trapped smoke from all of Mane-iac’s remaining bombs. Matter-Horn couldn’t see a thing, coughing and swiping at the air before feeling the platform beneath her shake.

Gigan had reached her, able to see through the haze with his mechanical eyes. Ramming his saw into the pillar he dug up into it in an uppercut motion. The augmented metal teeth of the twin saws chewed through the ice faster than most people go through their holiday budget. Matter-Horn felt the ground beneath her give way as the pillar fell to the side and she started to tumble towards Gigan. Throwing her hands down she unleashed a torrent of cryo-blasts, intent on both freezing the cyborg and generating something to catch her. But in this contest between the two, the Nebulan Ranger won out compared to the exhausted Malice Mare; the revved up saw biting through any ice that formed quicker than it could fully solidify. Knowing he couldn’t hit her directly with the saw due to the comic book’s rating, Gigan instead just balled a fist and uppercut Matter-Horn in the gut, hitting her hard enough to send her hurtling back.

Heaving, panting, but nonetheless full of wrath; the Malice Mare threw her hand back even as she slid across the icy ground. Unable to intercept the blast in time, Gigan’s body began to freeze over from the point of impact at the torso and down. Masked Matter-Horn briefly smirked victoriously, until she noticed two details.

-... Where’s Mane-iac and why is that idiot smiling?!-

The roar of a car engine rumbled through the last wall of ice. Gigan smirked coolly. A pair of headlights shown through the ice wall as the prelude to the Black Beauty ramming through the structure with Mane-iac at the wheel. Speeding up between Gigan and Matter-Horn, the car slammed on it’s brakes and spun around to its side. The heat shield folded back out and was set to full blast, a roasting temperature firing out that overpowered Matter-Horn’s cryo beams and melted down Gigan’s casing enough for him to break free in a show of strength. Matter-Horn squinted her eyes at the intense light and heat, sitting up and aiming both her arms at the infernal car. With a full blast, she knew she could overpower the device at this close distance. Unfortunately for her, the distraction made her forget about the other contender she had. Gigan pointed and fired his mace at Matter-Horn’s shoulder throwing off her aim and causing her to harmlessly fire into the stormclouds above that Zapp had summoned. The roof of the Black Beauty popped open and the ejector seat activated, Mane-iac nimbly launching herself out. Spinning in the air, she turned herself around and landed a solid diving dropkick right into Masked Matter-Horn’s face. The leader of the Malice Mares and the terror of Maretropolis was knocked back and her mask came flying off, sliding across the ground and knocking aside some fallen shards of frost. Before she could move again, Gigan planted his chainsaws on either side of her head with her neck in the U shape between them, a clear threat to revv them up should she struggle. Matter-Horn reluctantly stood still while Mane-iac fit a special pair of handcuffs that covered the villainess’ hands together, keeping her from using her powers.

With the last of the Malice Mares down, the two heroes finally caught their breath. Mane-iac achingly rose up to her feet, walking over to the last remaining chemical bomb to disarm it. With no ticking clock this time, it was substantially easier than the last. Noticing the discarded mask from the woman still pinned down under his weapon, Gigan peered over his arm with a curious eye to look at the leering face looking back up at him. In a surprising tone of seriousness, he looked back at the returning heroine and tossed his voice out over to her.

“Hey, you ever seen her without her gear on?”

Mane-iac stopped a short distance away with the deactivated bomb tucked under her arm, the direction she was standing meant Gigan’s saws obscured her most hated foe’s visage.

“No. She’s the only one I don’t know.”

“Well you wanna fix that? You seemed pretty focused on this bastich to charge in like you did earlier and feelings mutual.”

Gigan muttered, glancing down at Matter-Horn. The villainess was looking in Mane-iac’s direction with a puzzled expression, clearly thinking through something. Slowly, a cruel smile crossed the crazed villain’s face. Defeated as she was, the knowledge that her worst enemy was just as obsessed with her as she was brought a macabre satisfaction to Matter-Horn. Any moment Mane-iac would look upon her and have her face stained upon her memory. Every waking hour she’d know who it was who brought her to where she was since that fated night at the factory. In a twisted way, it was an ultimate victory for Mane-iac’s worst enemy.

And she was defeated. Mane-iac, not even giving so much as a passing glance downward, walked past Gigan with the bomb in hand, stepping on and crushing Matter-Horn’s mask underfoot without so much as a fleeting pause. Matter-Horn’s face froze, almost in catatonia as she saw the boots walk past her, not getting so much as a peek backwards at her or her mask. In the twisted mind of her own morality, it was a breaking and shattering for her as Mane-iac’s boot was to her mask. Gigan shrugged, shaking his head slowly while making a tssk tssk sound with his tongue. He smirked at Mane-iac, impressed yet again. He looked down at the spaced out villainess while putting his mace directly to her face before he fired it.

“And to all a good fight~!”

CONK!


“After a grueling battle with the city’s heroine and a still unidentified individual known for causing excessive property damage earlier in the day, all four of the remaining Malice Mares were taken into custody. Thankfully most collateral damage was done to a single square and department store, which Hackett Cosmetics and Industries’ CEO Mica Hackett has already pledged to help pay for the repairs; and there were no casualties. This year’s donation drive has been a smash success and all the presents, now thankfully bomb-free, are being distributed to those in need across our fair city. In other news-”

The newscaster station flipped over to a stop-motion special. Mica Hackett shrugged, leaning back in her couch to look over at her guest seated in the lounger across the room.

“Warning next time?”

‘Ehm, mmrmy mambm.”

Gigan finished chewing on the spare crowbar he’d been given, swallowing it and checking progress on the growth of his missing hand. So far its growth in human equivalent was somewhere between fetal and infant, looking comedically small compared to the rest of his build. He tossed Mica the remote while he went for a circuit board, still digesting the last one and the crowbar to spur the aforementioned regrowth. They were back at the Hackett residence in an expansive living room that definitely had an old time feel, complete with some book shelves and a fireplace beneath the television. Mica was, on account of numerous cuts and bruises, half covered in medical wrappings that still poked out under her fuzzy robe. Her hair was let down and draped across her couch, resting in some tubs of mineral water put on stools all around her seat. Some of her old keloid scars were visible on her legs, feet, and throat; but for once she relaxed and made no effort to cover them. While Gigan had refused to change, he was likewise patched up to keep from sparking or leaking oil on the floor. The cyborg’s new chainsaw arm was detached and resting up against the chair he’d been occupying for the last hour.

“Not like we needed some recap really.”

“Point made… So, how long should it take for your boss to recall you?”

Gigan, watching the antics of a certain ruby-nostriled reindeer, just shrugged.

“Eh, I’m not gonna be in the canon for awhile, so just fraggin’ time ‘til we find out. Nice of ye’ to let me crash here.”

Mica ignored the confusion in his words and sighed, laying back and figuratively kicking back for the first time in what felt like years.

“I don’t trust you on the street. And I guess I appreciated the help. After tonight? Might consider hiring it.”

“Bright red and yellow is good for sidekicks, draws fire.”

Gigan snarked, crunching the circuit board in one bite soon after. Mica rolled her eyes, laying back and letting sleep drift closer. She muttered what wouldn’t be the first time she said it, but this time the tone was devoid of any edge or anger. It was an insult with a degree of warmth.



Link!


“Shut up, Gigan…”