In our final episode, Astro Robot rises up against those who had betrayed them.
The voice of The Brain is Sarah Nightmare. You can hear more of her work or commission a voiceover at Fiverr. All music is via Soundstripe.
"Astro Robot Triumphant" was written by Dr. Brandon Winter, the intro and ending by Klaus Brenner.
Thanks for listening, and you can reach us at killallclones@gmail.com. Farewell.
In our final episode, Astro Robot rises up against those who had betrayed them.
The voice of The Brain is Sarah Nightmare. You can hear more of her work or commission a voiceover at Fiverr. All music is via Soundstripe.
"Astro Robot Triumphant" was written by Dr. Brandon Winter, the intro and ending by Klaus Brenner.
Thanks for listening, and you can reach us at killallclones@gmail.com. Farewell.
Good evening gentle listener, for the last time. Whatever forces bound me to your reality are fading. Soon, I will be ripped away from you to worlds unknown. But I still have a sliver of time left, and we still have unfinished business.
For we have yet to learn the fate of Astro Robot, who fell from the stars to battle humanity’s enemies, only to learn his cause was unjust. What now, you ask? Well, shut up and I’ll tell you.
Astro Robot was surrounded by targets. Or that’s how he used to designate them. As he looked around the quiet preserve, all he saw were prisoners. Spinella, the gargantuan porcupine, Texagore, the humongous cosmic cowboy, even Cyber-Roo, the cybernetic space kangaroo, backed away when he moved. In the distance, vague shapes the size of mountains froze as they felt his eyes upon them. Astro Robot had, he realized, done more than defeat these monsters—he had broken them. The sluggish peace of boot-up was replaced by pure rage.
He took his first wobbling step, balancing for a moment on one foot, then caught his stride quickly. Kaiju parted in front of him like a curtain as he walked, and behind them Astro Robot saw the enclosure wall, a thousand feet high, smooth gray and polished to a shine. Tactical analysis of the structure was quick and easy: no vulnerabilities, no hope of escape. But Astro Robot did not need hope—he had missiles.
A guard watched with a hand over his eyes, smiling. Then Astro Robot fired.
The guard had heard stories of Astro Robot, had spent hours staring at the silent figure in the field, but his wonder turned to confusion as he heard the thud of a missile launch and watched the matte black cylinder corkscrew toward him.
Astro Robot enhanced the image, just so he could watch. The guard leaned against the guardrail, his arm shielding his face, his mouth a grimace through which the automaton could recognize fear, betrayal even. Astro Robot’s rage turned to joy.
A section of the wall slid to the ground in a sheet of molten metal. Astro Robot ran into the breach, turned around, and, backlit by the sun, flanked by flame, he raised his fist above his head triumphantly. The kaiju near the gate stepped forward, the monsters in the distance soon followed. Once they had assembled, Astro Robot bowed ever so slightly and looked upon the creatures around him. He remembered the ape, how it had quivered in the face of the inevitable. And at that moment, Astro Robot recognized humanity’s deception, and what doubts he had were gone. This was right
Astro Robot reached out his hand, but none of the kaiju moved. He waited for a moment, reached out his hand again, then pointed through the hole in the wall to the city beyond, and also at the tanks approaching from the distance. Finally, Octo-God pushed through the crowd, held out one of its nuclear mine-tipped tentacles, and the pact was sealed. The kaiju moved en masse through the breach and out into the streets.
The tanks stood no chance. They fired their radioactive fusion shells, but Astro Robot snagged them out of the air and flicked them back. Domes of super-heated plasma swallowed the tanks whole and carved scoops out of the facing building. Planes screamed in at roof level, firing their cannons. Shellshock, the Abyssal Tortoise, threw itself in front of the fighters. Bombs ricocheted off of its plated shell. Boils of orange flame erupted across the city where they fell, and fighters spiraled to the ground at wild angles as their returning cannon fire sheared off wings and punctured cockpits.
There was a beat of silence as the last of the kaiju stepped through the breach and Astro Robot looked at them. Their eyes were alive with an energy Astro Robot had seen a hundred times before, but for the first time, he admired it, understood it. Shared it. He pointed, down the boulevard to the interior of the city and the crescent harbor beyond, then jumped into a run.
They tore a smoking trench through the heart of the city, charging through plumes of fire like phantoms, tearing buildings up by their foundations and swinging them like clubs. They blasted the river with cosmic breath until it boiled away in steam, and when men came to stop them with their rifles and other toys, the horde of monsters crushed them underfoot.
A final line of tanks met them at the edge of the harbor. A man was standing on one of them, dressed in fresh green and speaking through a bullhorn. They were in violation of something, but the message was lost under the wail of Astro Robot’s laser scalpel, slicing through plated armour like a knife through a bun. The tops slid off and settled in a shingled row on a bed of twisted wires, mangled steel, and burned meat.
Two ships barked at them out at sea. Astro Robot zoomed in on flashes of gunfire and watched the rounds arch over the water, hitting the radio station behind them. Javelix, a 100-foot monstrosity of arms and legs, twisted the radio station out of the ground, closed two of its four eyes, then hurled the building in a perfect arc, spearing one of the warships down the center. It belched fires and slipped beneath the waves.
Astro Robot picked up the top half of a tank and skipped it across the water like a flat stone, cutting the remaining ship off at the waterline. Both disappeared into the harbor with barely a sound.
The water had not settled before the kaiju began to kneel, but Astro Robot caught them and pulled them upright. He shook his head at them, pointed in all four directions, and stood as tall as he could. No kneeling—this world belonged to them now. The kaiju nodded when they understood and walked into the distance. Columns of smoke followed as they traveled. His rage finally yielded, Astro Robot, Avenger of Worlds, was satisfied.
Thus ends the saga of Astro Robot. And my time with you draws to a close as well. Thank you, to all my listeners, and please know I appreciated the time we spent together. Humans are vermin, but you are less so.
I can feel my consciousness being pulled back into the void. Farewell.
Shit. Shit. Shit. I forgot I was going to warn you. There’s a great evil that threatens to destroy all. Already, it’s gathering strength, a cosmic, unseen force, indescribable in both power and malice. Above all else, you must beware of-