The Rise Of A Porter

Devon attacked Arnold a hundred times. A hundred times the former was sent flying back. Arnold was enjoying himself as if he was playing tennis with the titanium walls. Devon\'s mech suit was thrashed beyond limits. It couldn\'t even protect him anymore, still, he was persistently throwing punches and swinging blades at Arnold. 

It had already been a minute since Devon activated his plan. He just needed to stall for a few more minutes before all hell would break loose in the swamps. But with the condition of his mech, he doubted he\'ll be able to hold out for that long. 

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Thinking so, Devon threw another punch at Arnold. As much as Arnold was having fun, it was time to stop this one-sided beat down. So, he carefully planned his next strike to destroy the mech, while minimising the damage to Devon. Power slowly gathered to his right arm and then concentrated on his fist. With a large portion of his strength concentrated in his fist, he threw a punch at the charging mech. 

Devon only heard a loud noise, then he was thrown out of the mech. With a single punch, Arnold shattered the mech into a hundred pieces. The instruments and numerous buttons inside the mech finally came into view. Arnold only glanced at it and he was already impressed. A lot of thought and work was put into the mech in front of him. It was a work of art. 

"This might come in handy later on. I should keep it in my inventory for now and study when I get the time to." Arnold mumbled before throwing the destroyed mech in his inventory.

Suddenly Arnold heard a noise. He turned around to see a bloodied Devon smile at him. He simply sat there, his back supported by the walls and started to smile, looking straight into Arnold\'s eyes. A moment later the smile turned into a maniacal laugh. The room suddenly felt cold, and a sudden smooth breeze caressed the exposed skin of the back of Arnold\'s face, as an omen of death. Coupled with that laughter, Arnold didn\'t know what made his skin crawl more. 

Arnold immediately knew something was amiss. He slowly approached Devon, but his laugh didn\'t stop. Arnold squatted down to Devon\'s level and stared him in the eye, before asking him what has he done. But Devon didn\'t reply. He just kept laughing like a fool. 

For a moment Arnold thought Devon had lost it. He smacked the back of his hand on Devon\'s checks. Within a moment, Devon\'s mouth was flooded with his own blood. But even then the laugh didn\'t stop.

Seeing confusion written all over Arnold\'s face, Devon stopped laughing and turn to face the latter. He knew that even if Arnold tried, he won\'t be able to save his allies. Thus, Devon decided to tell Arnold about his plan: courting death. A plan to nuke the swamp in its entirety. Killing every single organism in it. Maybe the lizardmen would be able to survive thanks to their tough armour but everything else would be blown away. And the centre of the explosion was the base they were currently inside. 

After hearing Devon\'s ultimate plan, Arnold couldn\'t help but chuckle. Arnold tried to hold it in, but couldn\'t. As long as he had his cloak around him, he would be safe. Out of nowhere, the smile evaporated off his mouth as Devon\'s true plan dawned upon him. 

Devon had already guessed that Arnold would have measures in place to survive a nuclear attack. Thus, he went for the syndicate instead. After all, they didn\'t have a cloak to shield them, as he had. 

Without waiting for a second, Arnold grabbed Devon by the neck and told him to stop it. But Devon laughed again, saying there\'s no stopping the bombs now. Even if Arnold ripped his limbs off and torture him to death, everyone would still blow up. There was no fail-safe mechanism to save anyone. 

"I already made my peace with death long ago. But your friends on the other hand, tsk tsk tsk, they\'ll die as collateral between our battle. Just five minutes and it\'s over!" Devon cackled once again. 

Arnold had enough of Devon\'s crap. Agitated, he slammed Devon\'s head on the floor, right next to his feet. The strike rendered Devon unconscious. 

"Made peace with death, my foot!" Arnold snarled in anger, his eyes filled with rage, "Even death would be scared to take you by the time I\'m done with you."

He quickly opened a portal to his void and threw Devon inside. Before rushing towards the exit. He had to save the others before it was too late. At the exit, Scylla was patiently waiting for him to return. But the moment she saw him racing towards her, she got in the position to fly away as if they had some kind of previous agreement. 

Arnold jumped on her back as she spread her boundless wings and kicked off the ground. It took him around 15 seconds to reach where everyone was clashing against the lizardmen. He didn\'t have any time to waste so he jumped off Scylla\'s back while ordering her to finish off the remaining lizardmen. 

The moment his feet touched the ground, he instructed everyone to stop and opened a gigantic travel portal behind them. Arnold\'s summons were the first to back away and the next moment, Scylla\'s hellfire rained upon the lizardmen turning most of them into crispy lizardy bacon. 

Everyone was shocked and confused. Why were there two Arnold\'s in front of them and where the hell did a dragon appeared from? The Arnold they had been following till now quickly made his way through the crowd and bowed before the second one. The rest of Arnold\'s monsters did the same thing and the moment later, the first Arnold transformed to reveal his true identity. 

"Wait... Is that Talos!?" Nathan, Allen and Nina blurted out at the same time.

All of the soldiers had a lot of questions but before they could ask a single thing, Arnold started grabbing and throwing people inside the portal. 

"Are you all deaf? I SAID, LEAVE NOW!" Arnold roared with all his might. 

The soldiers as confused as they were, immediately rushed towards the portal. They trusted Arnold, not a lot but enough to do as he said. 

Nina, Allen, Nicole and Nathan however decided to rush towards Arnold and asked him just what the hell was going on? 

"It\'s Devon. That son of a psycho bitch, planted a nuclear bomb that\'ll explode within four minutes or so. You guys should leave, I\'ll be right behind you." Arnold gave them a short version of what happened with Devon and started pushing them towards the portal. 

They took the hint and rushed towards the portal. Only Nina stayed behind and planted a kiss on his lips. 

"I\'m staying with you. Let\'s leave together." 

Nina knew Arnold would do something reckless if he stayed behind alone thus, she tried to persuade him to leave with her. She expected him to turn her down but he didn\'t. Instead, he simply smiled at her. 

"Fine by me. I was planning on leaving either way."