~ Every 100 Power Stones = Bonus Chapter! Your votes keep this climbing. Thanks!
BOOM,—
A violent explosion ripped through the air. The entire outpost shuddered, ice and snow trembling with it, and a massive sheet of accumulated snow broke loose and collapsed.
Amidst the chaos, Dr. Ishiro Serizawa's Sky Carrier touched down on a clearing not far from the outpost.
"They've blasted open the ice!"
"We need to move!" Serizawa advanced toward the shaking outpost alongside the Old De trio.
He had to stop them before Dr. Emma Russell got away. He needed to hear her true thoughts , they'd been friends, colleagues at Monarch for so many years. He still had one last sliver of hope. And Emma had brought her daughter along. Her husband had begged him personally to bring their daughter home safe.
"If you ask me, that woman has genuinely lost her mind." Jared trudged forward in heavy snow gear, a large rocket launcher strapped to his back.
Not the Old De trio anymore. Members +1. The Old De quartet, unlocked.
And this thick-browed, sharp-eyed Serizawa was no innocent bystander either , fully aware of the danger and charging straight into it anyway.
"Aren't you cold?" Jared glanced over at Natsuki, who was still wearing his floral shirt, breath puffing white in the freezing air.
How was this guy still in that outfit? At the South Pole?
Wasn't he afraid of turning into a popsicle?
"I'm from space," Natsuki said, looking genuinely baffled. "You're asking me if negative sixty degrees is cold?"
What kind of question even is that?
"Lay off the drinks." He added.
Jared had put away quite a bit before they'd gotten off the plane.
"Damn, I keep forgetting." Jared slapped his forehead. The alcohol had made him blank on just how absurd this guy was.
"Watch out — they're coming out!"
Old De raised his rifle and shouted the warning, eyes fixed on the shaking outpost.
A group of eco-terrorists in snow gear burst out alongside Emma Russell.
The Old De quartet was standing directly in their path to the plane.
"Emma!"
"Tell me they forced you into this!" Serizawa shouted into the wind and snow, his voice cutting toward the enemy line.
Seeing a senior Monarch official standing in their way, the eco-terrorists halted. Weapons came up. Barrels leveled at Serizawa's head.
Emma Russell stood among them, calm and uncoerced.
"Only the power of the Titans can heal this planet," she said.
Hearing it from her own mouth, Serizawa's hand clenched inside his glove.
The last sliver of hope was gone. His old friend had truly become one of them.
RUMBLE,—
The ice layer beneath the outpost gave way in a massive collapse. Outpost 32 sank into it whole. Cracks split the snow-covered ice on the surface and spread toward where everyone was standing.
Time was running out. For everyone.
"Even for Madison's sake, I'm bringing you all back." Serizawa looked at the girl standing beside Emma, hesitation written all over her face, and said it like he meant it.
While the two of them faced off, the eco-terrorist squad leader was done waiting. The ground kept shaking. His patience had already run out.
"Shut up and get out of the way!" A dark face appeared from beneath the hood. The gun aimed at Serizawa's head fired.
BANG BANG BANG!
Bullets flew straight for Serizawa's face.
Mercenary terrorists didn't do negotiations. Disagreement meant bullets.
But the reason Serizawa could stand there at all was because their team had a Supreme Old De.
"Big snowball, coming in hot!"
Every bullet aimed at Serizawa veered off. At the same moment, a figure dropped from the sky holding a snowball two meters across and hurled it straight into the terrorist line.
"WTF!?" The squad leader snapped his head up, took in the insane sight, eyes going wide , and then the snowball hit him dead-on before he could do anything about it.
THUD!
It knocked him flat. His vision went black.
"He's at it again!"
"Open fire!"
The rest of the terrorists reacted fast, pouring rounds into the next oversized snowball already incoming.
But in that window, Jared and Old De were already in the fight, guns up, trading shots. Both of them had been drinking, sure , but their aim hadn't suffered much. If anything, the alcohol had them shooting harder and moving faster.
"Old De, this is literally cheating!"
"This is amazing!" Jared ran and fired at the same time. His bullets hit the terrorists just fine , normal damage, nothing special. But the enemy's bullets kept bending away like something was deflecting them. Not a single round found him.
The bulletproof vest was basically decorative at this point.
Ultra Old De has blessed you with evasion!
"Yeah!" Old De was going wild, pouring fire into the enemy line. Two men against a squad of several dozen, and they were winning. It felt like a sci-fi movie. Fighting a terrorist outfit made up of criminal mercenaries also meant zero moral hesitation.
Normally, when a young Ultra ran into something like this on an external mission, they'd hit the moral dilemma wall. These terrorists had to face consequences , but carrying out a field execution wasn't something they could actually do.
Ultra Old De wasn't losing sleep over that problem right now.
I'm just playing with snowballs. Not lethal. Whatever else happens, that's on the other two old men. Don't look at me.
"Another big snowball, coming in hot!"
This time, Ultra Old De got behind a three-meter snowball and shoved it straight into the terrorist formation. It rolled and grew as it went, picking up size and momentum.
It plowed through them like a concrete mixer , people flying, people going under.
Snowball fight. Good clean fun.
Two passes later, the only ones left standing were Emma Russell and her daughter. Both of them stared, completely stunned.
What... just happened?
"I thought Old De and I were the crazy ones," Jared said, snapping the handcuffs onto Emma's wrists. "Didn't expect you to have us beat."
Emma Russell blinked back into awareness.
Four old men had just wiped out their entire crew.
"It's alright, Madison." Serizawa stepped toward the girl, his voice gentle. "Your father is still waiting for you." She still had someone who cared. Her father, at least, wasn't this far gone.
"It's already too late." Emma's voice was flat, her eyes on the ORCA device as Old De hauled it away. "We've already awakened Monster Zero."
RUMBLE,,
The ice shook harder. Cracks split into chasms. The blizzard surged. The snowy mountain fractured, and vast clouds of ice mist rolled outward across the glacial plain.
In the dim haze of that mist, golden lightning pulsed.
"ROAAARRR!!"
Three roars tore across the glacial continent , sounds that reached somewhere deeper than hearing, that rattled the soul. The powerful alien invader, the one that had slaughtered god-like Titans in an age before memory, had fully awakened.
➤ Next: Gravity Beam
~~~~❃❃~~~~~~~~❃❃~~~~
Read up to (50+ ) advanced chapters on Patre\on
Visit us here: patreon.com/DarkGolds
Happy reading, everyone!