Hours of tireless work had passed since Dr. Gear-o first began perfecting the fail-safe device for the Ultrabot. As the Blue Panther sat in a corner, with arms and legs folded in silence, a strange, highly-resonating voice startled his peace. “At last, my greatest invention is…COMPLETED!” the Doctor cried in triumph, with arms held high in the air.
The Panther raised a brow in astonishment. “You mean…repaired,” he corrected him. A bead of nervous sweat began trickling down the doctor’s bewildered countenance. “Ah, yes, of course,” he began. “At last, my greatest invention has been…REPAIRED!” he cried in triumph once again. “Let the whole world tremble before..th….GAAAAH!” Before the doctor could finish his victory speech, a hasty hand grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him out of the underground laboratory. As the Panther with villain in hand rushed out of the sewer corridors, his dark voice bleakly stated, “It’s time, Gear-o. It’s time.”
Justice Union#1: Episode 8 - "A New Threat"
Ultraman rested in flotation above the still streets of the easternmost part of the city. The battle was deadlocked. Neither hero nor foe was giving in, and Ultraman himself knew that his strength was slowly diminishing as the hours passed and the battle brewed. “This is no use…I’m getting nowhere. This cybernetic cockroach is just as strong as I am,” he thought in negativity. He clenched his fist in frustration as he peered into the lifeless eyes of his robotic counterpart, who stood stout in the sky above him, in unwavering silence.
As Ultraman’s brows folded in aggravation, an idea suddenly sparked into his head. “There is still one thing I haven’t tried… It’ll take a whole lot of my strength, but it’s the only thing that might stop that robo-maniac,” he told an invisible audience inside his mind. In one quick motion, Ultraman waved his clenched right fist into the front of him, and began establishing an insurmountable amount of force above his hand. A flamboyant yellow aura exuberated from his body, as he channeled much of his own energy into the breadth of his fist. A small yellow ball formed atop the clenched limb and began to revolve with increasing speed, as its color transformed into a powerful red. Streaks of blue lines soon found themselves circling around the tiny planet-like ball of energy, and the aura around Ultraman soon came to a halt. Ultraman’s legendary “Atom Smasher” had been formed.
“Let’s see you block this!” Ultraman cried, drawing arm backward for the pitch with atom in hand. With all his might, the superhero lunged his hand forward, using the momentum of his already strengthened biceps to guide the atom to its target. The Atom Ball blew through the air with increasing speed, barely able to keep up with itself, assailing to the robotic form of the Ultrabot. Sensing the oncoming danger and reacting, the robot raised both its uppermost limbs and forced them into an X-like formation to shield itself from the blast.
A roar of blasting reverberations shook the atmosphere, as the atom of energy destructed into a gigantic cloud of smoke engulfing the entire figure of the Ultrabot. Ultraman watched carefully as he breathed heavily with arm hanging wearily in front of him, for he was well-worn from the bombastic blow. He waited anxiously to see the condition of the unrelenting robot, hoping to himself that all had come to an end…
Slowly the smoke dissipated, and the effects of the blast became clearer to the hero, for his eyes widened at the sight that lie before him.
Shocked and apalled, Ultraman could not believe that he did not even etch a scratch in the robot, besides a few rustic burns. But before he could react, the Ultrabot had dashed through the smoke and with fist held high and into Ultraman's face. He was knocked back with a roaring blast of impact, and the Bot soon made it a habit to use the weakened hero as a punching bag.
Just in time, the Panther came with Dr. Gear-o upon his Panthrocycle, as Ultraman was pounded into the ground below, developing a small crater in the decimated street.
He pulled the short, stubby-legged Gear-o off the motorcycle and shouted. "How do we do this?!" Gear-o motioned himself away from the enraged hero. "All you have to do is plug this fail safe device into the back of his neck, flip the switch, and wait 30 seconds for the fail-safe to activate?"
"30 Seconds!?" The Panther yelled. "Calm down! Calm Down!" Gear-o coaxed. "It's just a safety precaution, the timer was just in case I had to shut him down myself! 30 seconds would've have been ample time for me to get away unharmed after the blast! Look at these stubby legs! I can't run very fast in the first place!" He explained.
"Let's just get this done with!" Panther demanded. He looked into the crater a few feet away to make sure Ultraman was still mobile. "You think you could put up with more?" The Panther asked. With blood dripping from his mouth, and bruises upon his face, Ultraman stood back up once again. "I think I can handle it," He answered.
"Good, cause you're gonna need a lot of strength to subdue that thing," Panther replied. "Get him down to the ground and hold him there, so that I can insert this fail-safe device on his neck," he explained. Ultraman nodded and zoomed off in flight into the air.
The two superfighters met with force, as Ultraman successfuly gained the upperhand and lunged a roaring fist into the bot's face. With ultra-speed, he then flew beneath the bot and subdued him from his back, catapulting himself and the death machine down to the ground below.
Like a speeding aircraft they crashed to the ground once again, rumbling the streets of the city and causing foundations to crumble. Ultraman struggled in vain as he tried to keep the raging robotic menace down. Seeing this as his chance, the Panther rushed with floundering feet toward the two. However, somehow recognizing the device, the Ultrabot peered forward at the Panther, and sent a gigantic blast of red rays his way, impacting him against a brick building behind, with a loud thud and dust settling to the ground.
The Panther had been struck badly, and his body struggled to recuperate. He had dropped the fail safe device far in front of him, and his only hope was for Gear-o to abandon his cowardly ways and put the fail-safe in himself.
"Gear-o!" The Panther called out to the tiptoeing doctore, who had tried to scamper away. Anxiously he turned his head. "Get the fail-safe device!" Panther called out to him.
Gear-o turned his head, and ignored the request and began tip-toeing away. Panther lashed out in anger. "Gear-o you coward! If you leave now, we'll hunt you down and put you in a cell full of convicted murder felons for life!" He threatened.
Not being able to withstand humans, Gear-o turned back. "You have to promise me not to turn me in once this is over!" He yelled. The Panther scowled at this remark, and hesitatingly relented. "Fine! Have it your way....just do it!"
Slowly the doctor trudged back, as he frighteningly saw Ultraman's great strength being greatly tested by the ravaging power of the Ultrabot. He picked up the fail-safe device from among pieces of brick and broken glass, but hesitated to move any closer. "I...I can't do it!"
Panther frowned in anger once again. "Just think of the odorous, unwashed convicts you'll be spending night after night with!" He cried. Shuddering at the thought, Gear-o slowly trudged forward, afraid for his dear life. Ultraman kept the bot's head down as to prevent him from blasting the doctor away.
He inched closer and closer, and was just inches away from his head as he flinched in horror as something struck him. He cried out as if to be struck by an unbridled force that would have destroyed him in a moment's notice. However, it was only a discarded pebble from the street, so he sighed in relief and proceeded to plug in the fail-safe device in the back of the bots neck.
"Alright Ultraman, you have thirty seconds! Get that thing away from me!" He demanded, scurrying away on his stubby little feet. At those words, Ultraman was out of the vicinity like a streak of light and headed straight toward deserted land.
After seconds passed, a huge blast could be seen lighting the sky miles away, as Panther struggled to get up and walk to view the sight. Soon therafter, a beaten Ultraman could be seen slowly floating back to the scene to where his comrades were.
Sighing in relief, he gave a thumbs up, and knelt upon the broken street below. Breathing heavily, Ultraman spoke. "Can you imagine, all seven of us couldn't even defeat that thing..." And with those words, the Panther's heart sank at what he had to share next.
"Yes it was, and it looks to me like we're gonna need a lot more help..." Panther said. Ultraman looked up in perplexity. "What do you mean...'more help'?" He asked. Panther looked at Gear-o and back. "Doc Gear-o here says that he sent plans to build these android clones to Thrasymochis..." Ultraman's eyes widened in shock. "What!?" He gasped out loud. "That's not all...we don't know when, but he's going to be sending an army down here to destroy the earth one of these days...."
Ultraman glared at the revering Doctor Gear-o, who hid behind the Panther. "We can't worry about Gear-o now, we have a lot of recruiting to do. We don't know where Thrasymochis could be, so we'll have to get tabs on him soon enough. But that could take months. So my best guess is to be prepared, and gather as many heroes as we can find... just so that we could have some sort of fighting chance if those things arrive."
Rubbing his head, and struggling to take in the news, Ultraman stood to his feet. "Well, might as well get started," he said. "Let's get everyone to the ship and healed quick, so we can begin the initiations..."
And with the first phase over, the heroes began their epic quest to prepare for the battle with the conquest-hungry Thrasymochis and his army of super-robotic drones...
