Chapter 6: The Communist King Of The Cacti

  I’m not going to pretend that I was entirely altruistic in the last chapter. Truth is, for my plan to work, I needed a number of pieces to fall into place. And finding out that Amy needed me to transform? Well, that made me that little bit more valuable. It was manipulative, it was underhanded, and it wasn’t something I was proud of, but I genuinely meant every word I’d told Amy. I hadn’t outright lied to her, at least.

  As we trained, we kept an eye out for alien activity, and worked on the potential merchandising.

  See, it turns out that adults don’t always lose interest in their childhood hobbies. The kid who grew up playing football, is more likely to want to get season tickets for their favourite team. A kid who grew up playing a PS2, can probably get a PS5 now. Kids who built castles out of Lego, can now buy expensive, high detail models of that same castle, if they’ve got the cash. The toy business has always been big business, but with the rise of the collector’s market, everything’s changed.

  I looked over the design for some of the toys we were planning on developing. Silverback was easy to merchandise: He’s a giant robot, and he’s a gorilla, so young boys love that shit. Designing stuff for Crystal Guardian Amethyst, on the other hand? Difficult.

  Now, I’ve been into the odd anime store in my time. I’ve seen some of the figurines that people collect. I’ve also seen some of the outfits that toy designers will put those same anime girls in: the bathing suits, the catgirl maids, the bunny girl outfits. You know the type. And sure, maybe I’d briefly considered it. Maybe I had tried to imagine the Crystal Guardian Amethyst in some of the outfits. Purely for marketing purposes, I swear. I’m a visual learner, and a pretty face has long been a weakness of mine. Runs in both sides of the family.

  But I pushed those thoughts out of the way. Mainly because I feared what Amy would do to me if I was bold or stupid enough to actually suggest wearing any of the typical fan-service outfits. I was never a bright student, but I am smart enough to know not to deliberately piss off a magical girl. Also, I didn’t want to think of her in a sexual way. I mean, the Crystal Guardian Amethyst was inhumanly beautiful, purple hair and all. And I had to admit, Amy herself wasn’t bad looking either: a deep tan, long dark hair, and the glasses were kind of cute in a nerdy way. But A). She was my co-worker, and if experience has taught me anything, it’s that you never ever want to date your co-workers, and B). I didn’t want to manipulate her. If her ability to transform relied on me now, that would be something very easy to abuse. And I’m no saint, but I don’t fuck with people who use women for their own pleasure.

  So if I couldn’t rely on sexuality, I would have to rely on cuteness. Fortunately, it seems that magical girls come with trinkets. The wands aren't really a thing, contrary to what anime would have you believe, but there were others: Amy had her umbrella, I vaguely remembered that Topaz had some sort of spray bottle, and there were rumours of an American magical girl with a big fuckoff revolver. This would be delicate, and would require flexibility, an open mind, and a whole lot of glitter.

  The Major was distant, but that let me a lot of room to work. She’d really embraced the whole remote working thing: Maybe she just didn’t want us at base while a lot of the construction was going on. Still, I was nervous: if we didn’t prove our worth sooner rather than later, we were just a toy company, competing with Bandai, Hasbro and a hundred other names.

  Our chance came not too long after, on a rare in-office day. One minute, I was trying to source cheap domestic suppliers for industrial quantities of glitter, the next, klaxons started blazing, and people started panicking. The Major began walking to her makeshift command post.

  “Major, it’s go time! Is Silverback loaded?”

  “Fuck if I know, Beltran! We’ve got bigger problems!”

  The Major tapped at a screen, and I saw drone footage of Port Moonstone, as an enormous cactus person was stomping around.

  “Major, what on Earth is that?”

  “Quit stalling, and get in the damn robot monkey, Beltran, and that’s an order!”

  I ran towards where Silverback was waiting, and saw Amy waiting, panicking. “It’s happening! Transform, then hold on!” I shouted, then began boarding. I ignored Amy’s transformation as I entered Silverback’s pilot seat. After flipping a few switches, Silverback roared into life. I cracked my neck, and turned on comms before beginning the journey to Port Moonstone. Amy followed from behind, using her umbrella like some sort of parachute.

  “Major, this is Silverback requesting sitrep and parameters, over.”

  “Roger that. Amethyst, Silverback, be advised that this monster is a complete unknown. It’s nothing we’ve got any records on. Visual reports suggest some sort of botanical life form, with the ability to spawn smaller versions, but our information apart from that is limited. Creature is currently in the downtown area, menacing pedestrians, and spawning mini cactus people. Currently liasing with QPS and Australian Navy assets in the area.”

  “Copy that, Major. Recommended strategy, over?”

  “You have a giant military robot, and a fucking magical girl. Don’t create civilian casualties, limit unnecessary destruction, and figure it out yourself. Former Major Jones out.”

  The way that the Major said out told me all I needed to know.

  I figured my best bet would be to follow the trail of destruction. I checked my ammo count. No missiles? Shit. I’d have to rely on the chain gun and fists. Still, it was a giant cactus. How bad could it possibly be?

  The minute I rounded the corner, I was confused. A disorganised platoon’s worth of tiny cactus people were running around, causing havoc, breaking things and stealing things, mostly toys and sports equipment. Two cactus people were trying to row away in a canoe, on dry land, while a third cycled past on a tricycle. Another floated past me in a hang glider. And all the while I heard them chatter like a bunch of school kids. I shook my head. Not the disciplined soldiers I’d fought back in the Staaldier days, but it was a start.

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  “Motherfuckers forgot my missiles. Amethyst, see if you can find the OPFOR XO, and go for a decapitation strike. I’m going to see if I can throw hands with the kaiju, over.”

  “Um, can I get that in civilian?”

  “See if you can find who’s in charge, kill them, and pray it breaks their morale. Over.”

  I guess that the cacti must have worked out our plans, because they all started looking at us. They looked at me, then looked at Amy, before pointing at us, and launching a volley of spines and thorns at us. I was fine: Silverback was built out of way sturdier stuff. And Amy was doing alright, or so it seemed: She was taking over, and blasting the cacti with blasts from her umbrella. I stomped my way down, swatting away any that got in my way.

  It wasn’t difficult to find the giant cactus monster, but then again, something like that would be impossible to miss. It seemed to be looking away from me, so I aimed my chaingun, and unleashed a rain of bullets. Fleshy cactus bits were going everywhere, but the monster turned around and looked at me. I swear it grinned its freaky cactus grin before it charged at me. I dodged, only for it to wrap an arm around what would have been Silverback’s neck, and drag me to the floor. Alarms started blazing, but I dragged Silverback back up, just in time to get a nice needle shower for my troubles.

  One stuck in the visor, stopping mere inches from my eye. I swore, loudly. Nothing had ever managed to break Puma One’s visor, so I was freaking out as the klaxons blazed. I grit my teeth and kept blazing away as best I could, until the damn thing spoke, and began to dance. When it spoke, it spoke with a deep and rich voice, the kind you'd expect from an old British military officer from the 1800's.

  “You think you can shoot me in the back, so dishonourably? How dare you! Don’t you recognize a king when you see one?”

  I sprayed His Spikiness with the chain guns again. Actually, come to think of it, that flower on his head did look kind of like a crown. He began swinging his arms wildly, and I had to start dodging.

  “Give up! I, King Comrade Che Saguaro, will protect the rights of the working plants! We will seize the means of photosynthesis, and distribute it to my loyal subjects! From each according to his ability, to each according to his leaves! As King-“

  A well timed blast out of nowhere shut him up. I tried to patch through to comms, but they weren’t working. I could see Amy standing on the roof of a building, as she fired off another blast, sniper style. I smiled. Maybe all wasn’t lost today.

  While he turned around, and yelled something about the plants and the proletariat, I grabbed him around the waist and suplexed him. More cactus juice went everywhere, and I was able to catch my breath as Amy shot him again, right next to the crown. He squealed.

  “Help! Intergalactic capitalists! Counterrevolutionaries! Leave me alone you big bourgeois bullies! Loyal subjects, defend your liege!”

  As if on cue, the cactus platoon started charging in with all the things they’d stolen, and attempting to hit me with sports equipment, but I shook them off with ease. I slugged Commissar Cactus again, with a mean set of combos that sent him reeling. Finally, another blast from Amy knocked the flower from off of his head. Almost instantly, the cactus platoon started to ignore me and all went for the crown, stealing it and running away. The second that the giant cactus was distracted, I spear tackled him, and started whaling on his with my fists until I’d reduced him to a green pulp.

  I breathed heavily. I could hear a chopper in the distance, and the mini cacti were already dispersed. Amy flew in front of my visor, and waved, pulling the spine out of the visor.

  “What’s wrong with your comms? Why aren’t you saying anything?”

  “My comms systems are fucked. Tell the Major that the enemy’s on the retreat.”

  Amy relayed the message back to the Major, and smiled. “She says we can get out of here. The cacti are dispersing!"

  The journey back to Mount Daymoon military base was quite uneventful, and I’ll spare you the debrief details: needless to say, I got severely reprimanded for the damages to Silverback, and the repairs that would be necessary. But I was a mech pilot, and I was really beginning to get a hang of how Silverback was working. And covered in spines as Silverback was, we had an opportunity to research our interdimensional foe.

  After being dismissed and going home, I’d gone drinking to celebrate, and was sitting at home, watching the replay of the fight on TV. I heard a rattling sound from outside, the distinctive rattle of a spray can. Who the hell would graffiti right outside my apartment, at this time of night? I laced up my boots, and prepped to give this vandal a proper spray.

  I opened the door, and looked outside. Somebody wearing a green hoodie was spraying up a graffiti tag, right outside my door. I looked closer at the tag. A carnival mask, colourful, bright and detailed. Hard to do all that in spray-paint. Under the mask, she sprayed “YOUR LEADERS CAN’T SAVE YOU NOW.”

  The vandal looked at me. The hoodie concealed a lot of her appearance, but the mask she wore was distinctive enough. A carnival mask, made of steel, polished until it looked like silver. Fuck. I stepped back, as the vandal stared me down through the mask. At her hip was a silver pistol. Shit. I raised my hands, and tried to think of a plan frantically. When she spoke, her accent was American, but I couldn’t place it. I wanted to say New Yorker, maybe New Jersey? I hadn’t met a lot of Americans in ADFA, so I couldn’t really grasp the subtleties.

  “Snitches get stitches, loose ends cut, now you wanna box or get shot?”

  I thought through my answer. “We can do this without violence.”

  “Wrong answer, soldier boy.”

  I didn’t have time to react. The girl in the steel mask threw a punch, and struck me with a bolt of green energy. I hit the ground and blacked out.