The creature bristled at Redline's comments. The strange sound escaping from its… well, Ryan didn’t exactly see a mouth, but at any rate the noise it produced resembled the underwater recordings of whale vocalizations.

  It took only a moment for it to respond by attempting to whip its tentacle?styled appendage at him.

  Transformed as he was, Redline dodged the strike with ease, quickly closing the distance between him and the creature. Up close he threw a punch across what passed for a jaw. The haymaker had enough force behind it to dent steel, but Redline couldn’t help but notice that his armored fist likely felt more from the blow than the creature did.

  Its head turned slightly to the side, but instead of acting like it felt any pain whatsoever, it simply lifted a massive three?toed foot and planted it in the center of his chest, right where the star?like pattern was already cracked and bleeding energy.

  The force of the blow sent Redline flying backwards through a bus stop, shattering the bench and sending plastic scattering through the air.

  Before he could get his feet under him again, the creature was on him, bringing its foot down into the back of his head, bouncing his helmeted face off the gravel and pavement. It managed to do that twice before he rolled out from under it, lashing out at where a human would have had a hamstring with a powerful kick.

  It seemed to have more effect than his punch had, causing the thing to stagger for a moment.

  Rolling backwards and standing once more, he again ducked and weaved beneath the tentacle, getting in close enough to release a flurry of punches and kicks, strikes that while nowhere near the strength level of the creature, would have made short work of a human.

  They barely tickled the creature, and it used its massive human?like fist on its right arm to sock Redline, sending sparks flying from his chest.

  Leaping into the air, he brought his elbow down on the face, this time lightly smacking the red spherical segment that had previously fired the energy beam. It howled in response, tentacle and fist alike striking Redline hard.

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  More sparks flew and so did the hero, landing halfway across the street where he skidded until hitting the steps of an old restaurant.

  Damn, this thing packs a wallop. It really didn’t like being popped in that eyeball doodad though. Should have known. If they have a glowing spot, nine out of ten times that’s a weapon point. Those stupid freaking training videos DARPA put together for the program all but spelled that out on day one, he thought.

  Granted, thinking about the training and the team was not a route he wanted to go down, not in the middle of a fight with some seven?foot beast that didn’t know if it was an octopus, an ogre, or something out of an optometrist’s nightmare.

  Remembering the lackluster videos was a reminder that the very program that made the Patriot Force Wardens didn’t care enough about them to give them anything resembling real training.

  Just some stupid cheesy videos and a few Tae Bo classes taught by some washed?up action star.

  It was enough to make him see red and not just because he was fairly certain there was blood in his eye.

  Coughing, he rolled over and got back up only to find himself confronted by not only the driver and passenger, but a whole squad of guys in the weird white outfits.

  Great, they must have called in backup when I was busy getting my skull caved in.

  Only then did Ryan notice the diamond?shaped patch on their shoulders, black with a single silver?white horse chess piece logo in the center. He was in too much pain to laugh about it.

  “Guys, take it from someone who was part of a color?coordinated team with matching uniforms: aesthetics don’t count for crap and aren’t going to help you against that thing,” he said.

  “Stay back, fool. The Chimera Unit Prototype belongs to us. We created it, we will subdue it!” the highest?ranking of the men said.

  “Chimer… what? Lemme guess. Some field team guy insulted the skunkworks DARPA nerd squad and you morons suddenly decided you’d show them who the real badasses are by cosplaying bug?spray experts? Seems about your speed.”

  Several of the men scoffed. “DARPA? How dare you, you clown! We are superior to those petty tyrants in intellect, in style, and by every possible metric!”

  Glancing toward the monster, Redline sighed. “That so? How do ya’ll do as shields?”

  Before they could question what he meant, he punched one of them, lashed out with a kick that shattered the knee of another, and performed a roundhouse kick that sent one off his feet, through the air, and directly into the path of a car door that the creature had been throwing at Redline.

  The guy intercepted the door with enough force for there to be a sickly wet pop from the white?clad soldier, but it stopped the door even if it did look like it might have cost the guy an arm.

  “Huh. Not bad. Guess you idiots are good for something,” Redline said, readying himself for round two with the creature.