It heard a distant cry from a man that she hated. A man that had that had taken her away from her home at Lush Grove to a cage where he raised her.

She remembered facing a weak man and a ghost. How she would devour him. She remembered seeing the most perfect sphere, and her claw touching it.

The intense heat that followed. That set her hair aflame, melting her skin, burning the nerves at the end of it, and how her organs melted.

And her soul broke.

It was all she remembered before hearing a voice.

“…everything. Give her everything! I don’t care if it will cost billions to sustain her! Do it!”

Like a cracked egg, she descended upon a planet.

All that was her was the malice that was left behind.

She directed it towards the planet below her.

#

Long, long ago, before the world was destroyed, humans and demons fought each other in an everlasting war.

Each side would not give, and the causalities were immense. After three hundred years of fighting, the humans and the demons were contacted by a cosmic entity and stopped the war. It decreed that rather than fight in war that would end with both races extinct, it offered a proposal.

It offered two spheres of power. One for the humans and one for the demons. The humans would choose a champion and the demons would do the same. Once selected, they would battle, and the victor would claim land from the loser.

Every century, the sphere would light up, and the humans and demons would continue the tradition of selecting a champion. It would only end if both sides would either call for peace or one side won all the land.

This continued for well over five cycles. The demons won four out of five rounds, leaving the humans in a disadvantageous situation. Desperate, the humans decided to summon a hero from another world, discovering through an oracle that humans from another world gained abilities because they were touched by the cosmic entity.

The demons discovered this and called afoul. There was no rules or decrees about summoning heroes from other realms, and thus even though the demons stamped their foot in frustration, they could only bear with it.

The next cycle, the demons summoned their own champion from another world. But things went wrong.

The demon they summoned was malice personified. Instead of listening, it immediately devoured every demon on the planet. And when it was done, it went after the humans. The humans fought with the Malice and even summoned a champion to fight against it.

But the champion failed. The sphere of power was devoured, and the remaining humans fled.

Fifty years later, a group of humans once more summoned a champion in hopes they could put an end to the Malice.

#

“And that’s where I come in.” Riot pointed to himself, giving the storyteller a mad grin. “I, Riot Labyrinth, have been summoned here to defeat the one called the Malice.”

The storyteller scratched the back of his neck, clearly disappointed. “I was actually hoping for someone…stronger looking. Someone that wasn’t wearing a bunch of belts as a shirt. And also, I’ve been wondering about her.”

He looked to Riot’s left, frowning at the bikini clad Neo Mecha Woman.

Riot snaked his hand around her waist, bringing her closer. “This is my woman. Neo Mecha Woman, or Mecha as I call her.”

“Yes, so, is she alive?” The storyteller asked. “I have not seen her blink even once since we summoned you here.”

Riot barked a laugh. “Of course she is alive. Do you not see the swell of her chest? How it expands when she breathes? If she weren’t alive, she would not do that.”

The storyteller’s frown deepened. “Are you sure you are our champion? You’re not trafficking this woman, are you? Her eyes look that of the dead.”

“What?” Riot was shocked at the accusation. So, he did the right thing and explained their relationship. “She is my waifu! She was but a card, and now she is flesh and blood! She was my gift for destroying a man possessed by a vile specter!”

“A gift?” The man seemed to take that the wrong way.

“Yes, a gift!” Riot threw up his hand. “She is a gift that was given to me! And soon, we shall consummate our relationship!”

The storyteller nodded. “I see. I see. Stay right there, I got to talk to a few people.”

Riot watched the storyteller run out of the cave and speaking frantically to the Village Chief. He looked very excited, and pointed fervently towards Riot’s direction many, many times. The Village Chief looked concerned.

“Hmmm.” Riot rubbed his chin and whispered in Mecha’s ear. “What do you think they’re talking about my dear? They look very worried. Do you perhaps think that the Malice has awakened?”

Mecha stayed silent and Riot sighed. Despite her being alive, she hadn’t responded even once. A problem that was brought up when he demanded her to be real. It would take time for her to acclimate being real.

The storyteller came back with numerous men who were all armed with pitchforks and rusted swords.

“What’s going on?” Riot asked.

“Please take your hand off the woman,” the storyteller said. “Or we will kill you.”

Riot narrowed his eyes. “I see what’s happening. You bastards desire my woman. That shall never come to pass! I shall end all of you!”

#

“So, let me get this straight.” The Oracle stood in front of a group of kneeling men. “You attack the Champion because you think he brainwashed a woman to be his lover? And you decided to take it upon yourself to beat him into submission, take the woman away, strip him of the belts he’s wearing as a shirt just for the kicks, and even shave his weirdly spiked hair, despite me telling and even witnessing the champion being summoned in front of us. Is that right?”

The storyteller scratched the back of his head. “Well, when you put it like that, it makes us seem kind of unreasonable.”

The Oracle sighed, rubbing his nose bridge. His head was hurting. “Yes! It is very unreasonable! I even got a letter from the Cosmic Gods about this.”

That perked the men up. So, the Oracle read the letter.

Salutations,

I have sent a Champion to rid of the Malice infested in your world. Despite his strange idiosyncrasies, and his love for big titted robot women, he has enough power to be to save your world from disaster.

Your truly,

God

The Oracle looked up, but the men seemed even more confused.

One of them raised their hand, and despite not wanting to, the Oracle called on him.

“What is a robot woman?” He asked.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” the Oracle said. “All I care about is getting our world free from the Malice. So, please release the Champion and bring him here with the woman.”

A few minutes later, Riot was brought in. His head shaved, he was forced to wear normal clothes as they stripped him of his shirt made from belts, and his expression dead from what must have been traumatizing to him.

Even while trying to talk to him, Riot was despondent.

Until the Mecha Woman was brought in. She was wearing a long skirt and a nice sweater. His eyes turned from shock and then to anger.

“You bastards!” He snarled. “How dare you dress her! Take it off! Bring the bikini back!”

The Oracle was having doubts about the Champion.

Still, he had a signed letter from the Cosmic Entity. So, despite the blaring red flag being flown in the back of his head, the Oracle took a knife from one of the men holding Riot and cut the ropes binding his wrists together.

“You can do that yourself.” The Oracle met Riot’s gaze. “If you go north of here, you should find the Malice. It is still asleep and will not wake up for a while. We ask you, once more to save our world.”

Riot rubbed his wrists. “If it’s asleep, why don’t you destroy it?”

“A worm cannot kill a bear. No matter how many of them there are,” the Oracle said. “We have tried, and we have lost.” He motioned to the men behind him. All of them injured from their most recent attempt. “Many.”

Riot nodded. “I forgive you for your weakness Mister Priest. I shall defeat the one called the Malice and bring back its head so all can feast upon its flesh!”

“That’s not…” The Oracle shook his head and decided to roll with it. “Sure fine, just make sure you kill the damn thing.”

#

Riot stood on the edge of the cliff overlooking the main territory that the Malice claimed as its sleeping den. It was a valley where black smoke oozed from the cracks and fissures below. Riot rubbed his chin and turned to Mecha.

“Our enemy lies below, hiding like a coward, and sleeping like fool. Do you have any ideas of what we should do?”

Mecha met his gaze. She did not speak.

Riot smiled though and nodded his head. “Yes!” He clapped in excitement. “Rather than searching for the Malice like a robber, we should wake it up!”

Her expression did not change.

“Be ready Mecha, I require that you transform. Execute Protocol Nine-Nine-Four.”

For the first time, she spoke. “Confirmed.”

Her body turned into light, wrapping itself around Riot, transforming herself into a full body black armored suit.

Riot gripped his hand, feeling right. With a wave of his hand, a giant twin cannon formed around his arms. He gripped it and aimed at the valley.

“Time to wake up, Malice.”

He pulled the trigger.

#

The den she slept in shook, and pebbles and dust hit the Malice, awakening it. It turned towards the cause of it, looking through the walls that surrounded her.

It was a man in a black suit. She looked further with her sight to see the identity of the man. When she saw his face, it was like the fragments of her memory tied back together.

It was the ghost that had burned her to a crisp.

And then, true Malice erupted from her every being.

#

The ground was rumbling.

“Malice detected. It will arrive in thirty-eight seconds.” Mecha’s robotic voice told him.

“I can see that!” Riot lowered the twin plasma cannon. “I shall defeat the Malice!”

Smoke erupted and converged into a single point in front of Riot. It formed into a giant bear. Its red eyes met him.

“You!” It screamed.

“It can talk?” Riot exclaimed surprise. He was sure the storyteller had told him that it did not have intelligence, but here it was talking. Which meant, Riot could make a heroic speech and the Malice would respond back with its own. Mecha sent him a warning. “Malice! Be warned, you face the Great Riot Labyrinth. Champion chosen by the Gods themselves! I-”

The Malice opened its mouth, a black smokey roar blew the cliffside into oblivion. Riot had moved just in time and aimed his cannon, blasting the Malice in its face.

It did no damage, and went through it like smacking the reflection of the moon in a pond. The Malice turned to him, opening its mouth to unleash death once more.

Riot jumped off the cliff and into the valley. Behind him the Malice followed him, opening its mouth to devour him. The booster on Riot’s foot allowed him to make evasive maneuvers to avoid the Malice from eating him, but it took a good chunk of the valley.

“It seems the plasma cannon has no effect on the beast. Mecha.” He put a hand to his ear. “I need you to analyze a way to defeat this beast.”

“Analyzing.”

The Malice burst behind him, forming and then swiping its claw at him. Riot jumped off the platform he was on, and the Malice cleaved it whole. It became a game of avoiding the one-shot death blows. Waiting for Mecha to finish analyzing.

After a few minutes that felt like hours, Mecha responded.

“Analyzation complete. The Malice’s core must be destroyed. It lies three hundred feet below where we stand currently.”

Riot moved again to avoid its death blast.

“Can the Twin Cannons blow through it?” Riot asked.

“No. Energy would be depleted by the time it reached it.”

A shadow blanketed him. Riot looked up at the Malice, reaving up another swipe of its formed black claws. A razor-sharp smile spread across his face as he found his answer.

“I got a crazy idea!” He said after dodging another valley carving swipe.

He told Mecha his idea.

“Survival from that is at fifteen percent.”

“Screw probability! It’s all about heart! Put all energy in defensive procedures!” Riot screamed. He aimed the twin cannon and blasted some plasma to grab the Malice’s attention.

The Malice turned to him, clearly annoyed and angered. It opened its mouth, readying another death roar.

“Mecha?”

“Calculated. Thirty seconds until release. Fifty feet away from being above the core’s location.”

Riot rushed and the Malice gather energy where its mouth was opened. A black sphere formed and converged. Black lightning crackled and tore a cliff in the distance. Riot arrived at the concaved spot where the core was located, and he turned throwing up his hands, ready to embrace the beam.

“Come Malice! Fight me! I dare you to-”

The blast hit Riot.

“Shield at thirty percent.” Mecha informed him.

“I can feel that.” Riot seethed between his teeth. It felt like a whale jumped on him.

The blast pushed down on Riot, but his shield was barely holding. He could see cracks starting form in the green energy shield.

“Twenty percent.”

“How much longer until it reaches the core?” Riot demanded.

“One hundred more feet. Shield at ten percent. Shield will break before reaching the required feet.”

“Heart!”

The shield cracked, and Riot was pushed down into the hole, the blast cracking the suit he wore, hurting Mecha Woman. He could feel Death seeping through the cracks of his suit, twisting his insides and stabbing it.

He was in agony for only a few seconds, but it felt like he was tortured for a thousand years. When it was done, he was still alive, and still barely standing. The core was right below him, exposed. Half of the twin cannon had been shredded into oblivion.

“Ouch.” Riot croaked.

“Tw- -nnon stil- func-nal.” Her voice was breaking, but he understood what she said.

Riot aimed a shaking hand down below, where the jewel of the Malice’s core stood. The Malice hovered over him and was readying a swipe to shred him into meat bits.

He pulled the trigger, and the cannon blew in his hand, taking his left arm. Hot pain surged where his hand used to be, and Riot stumbled and fell at the edge of the platform he was on. He could see a crack on the core.

The blast had hit the core dead center. The Malice looked down, it’s red glowing eyes widened in horror as it watched cracks spread like a spider’s web.

Before Malice could take Riot with her, the core cracked releasing an immense amount of energy. The claw dissipated before it hit Riot. The energy hit Riot, and before he blacked out, he saw the Malice disappear.

#

She needed to survive! She wanted to live! Everything that was her was disappearing.

But the Malice found a place. With the last of her will, she put only a sliver of herself, a fragment within the one called Mecha. It merged with her circuit, but it was no longer the Malice, but it was a new existence.

#

The half-eaten apple slice fell from Riot’s mouth and dropped on the ground. He was wrapped in many bandages, and it was the first time in a month he could speak and eat properly. Mecha stood in front of him, wearing proper clothes and her hands clutched tightly in front of her.

“What did you say?” Riot had to ask again, to make sure he wasn’t in a nightmare.

“I am breaking up with you.” Mecha said. Her voice was no longer robotic like. Her face showed concern. “Recently, I have evolved enough to realize that I find you very unattractive.”

“Recently?” Riot could feel his eyes burn with tears. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Mecha shrugged. “I’m not sure, I would say after the fight with the Malice, I merged with some energy and I started to feel more feelings. Which is why I just feel disgust whenever I’m with you. I feel like my stomach is twisting, and everytime you open your mouth I want to vomit and perhaps even kill myself. I hope you don’t take that personally master.”

“Tha-that is very personal. I-”

A very burly looking man with an axe on his shoulder came in. He lazily snorted and scratched his spaded beard. “Hey babe, did you talk to your ex yet?”

“I’m doing that right now Chad.”

“Ch-Chad?” Despair swirled within his chest. “Who is he?”

Mecha sighed. “He is my boyfriend. He is Chad, a lumberjack.”

“Sup.” The man held up a hand to greet him. “Sorry bro, she broke up with you, and now she’s with me. I hope you respect that I love her soo much, and I’m sorry this feels bad for you, but you’ll get on your feet.” The lumberjack gave a small reassuring tap on his shoulder.

“I…I…” He didn’t know what to say anymore.

Mecha sighed. “I’m sorry to master. I hope you can live better.”

#

A few hours after the breakup, a blonde-haired woman came in, dressed professionally in a dress suit.

“Riot Labyrinth,” she said his name, and held open a black folder. “I heard that your heart was broken and that you saved this world from certain destruction from our boss.”

Riot said nothing, he felt that everything within him had collapsed.

Still, the woman continued to speak. “I am here to offer you a job at the Bureau. Will you take it?”