“Go ahead,” Shoto replied. “I’ll be right behind you.” But something about the tone of his voice bothered me, and I pulled out of my dive and swung my mech back around. Shoto was hovering above Sorrento, near his right flank. Sorrento slowly turned his mech around and began to stomp back toward the castle. I could see now that his mech’s weakness was its lack of speed. The Mechagodzilla’s slow movement and attacks counterbalanced its seeming invulnerability.
“Shoto!” I shouted. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!”
“Go on without me,” Shoto said. “I owe this son of a bitch some payback.”
Before I could reply, Shoto dove at Sorrento, swinging a giant sword in each of his mech’s hands. The blades both cut into Sorrento’s right side, creating a shower of sparks, and to my surprise, they actually did some damage. When the smoke cleared I saw that the Mechagodzilla’s right arm now hung limp. It was nearly severed at the elbow.
“Looks like you’ll be wiping with your left hand now, Sorrento!” Shoto shouted triumphantly. Then he fired Raideen’s boosters and headed in my direction, toward the castle. But Sorrento had already swiveled his mech’s head around and was now taking a bead on Shoto with two glowing blue eyes.
“Shoto!” I shouted. “Look out!” But my voice was drowned out by the sound of the lightning weapon firing out of the metal dragon’s mouth. It nailed Shoto’s mech directly in the center of its back. The robot exploded in an orange ball of fire.
I heard a brief screech of static on the comm channel. I called out Shoto’s name again, but he didn’t reply. Then a message flashed on my display, informing me that Shoto’s name had just disappeared from the Scoreboard.
He was dead.
This realization momentarily stunned me, which was unfortunate, because Sorrento’s lightning weapon was still firing, moving in a fast sweeping arc, cutting across the ground, then diagonally up the castle wall, toward me. I finally reacted—too late—and Sorrento nailed my mech in the lower torso, just a split second before the beam cut off.
I looked down to discover that the bottom half of my robot had just been blasted away. Every warning indicator in my cockpit started to flash as my mech began to fall out of the sky in two smoking, burning halves.
Somehow, I had the presence of mind to reach up and yank the ejection handle above my seat. The cockpit canopy popped off, and I jumped free of the falling mech a split second before it impacted on the castle steps, killing several dozen of the avatars crowded there.
I fired my avatar’s jet boots just before I hit the ground, then quickly adjusted my immersion rig’s control setup, because I was now controlling my avatar instead of a giant robot. I managed to land on my feet in front of the castle, just clear of Leopardon’s flaming wreckage. A second after I landed, a shadow spilled over me, and I turned around to see Sorrento’s mech blotting out the sky. He raised its massive left foot, preparing to crush me.
I took three running steps and jumped, firing my jet boots in midleap. The thrust threw me clear just as the Mechagodzilla’s huge clawed foot slammed down, forming a crater in the spot where I’d stood a second before. The metal beast let out another earsplitting shriek, followed by hollow, booming laughter. Sorrento’s laughter.
I cut my jet-boot thrusters and tucked my avatar into a ball. I hit the ground rolling, tumbled forward, then came up on my feet. I squinted up at the metal lizard’s head. Its eyes weren’t glowing again—not yet. I could fire my jet boots again now and make it inside the castle before Sorrento could fire on me again. He wouldn’t be able to follow me inside—not without getting out of his oversize mech.
I could hear Art3mis and Aech shouting at me on my comlink. They were already inside, standing in front of the gate, waiting for me.
All I had to do was fly into the castle and join them. The three of us could open and enter the gate before Sorrento caught up with us. I was sure of it.
But I didn’t move. Instead, I took out the Beta Capsule and held the small metal cylinder in the palm of my avatar’s hand.
Sorrento had tried to kill me. And in the process, he’d murdered my aunt, along with several of my neighbors, including sweet old Mrs. Gilmore, who had never hurt a soul. He’d also had Daito killed, and even though I’d never met him, Daito had been my friend.
And now Sorrento had just killed Shoto’s avatar, robbing him of his chance to enter the Third Gate. Sorrento didn’t deserve his power or his position. What he deserved, I decided in that moment, was public humiliation and defeat. He deserved to have his ass kicked while the whole world watched.
I held the Beta Capsule high over my head and pressed its activation button.
There was a blinding flash of light, and the sky turned crimson as my avatar changed, growing and morphing into a gigantic red-and-silver-skinned humanoid alien with glowing egg-shaped eyes, a strange finned head, and a glowing light embedded in the center of my chest. For the next three minutes, I was Ultraman.