☄️👾🥊

"Too late. I gave some to the lab for study. The last one I gave to Tugboat..."

Nearby, a pig-like monster-- currently down to the size of a van instead of its full daikaiju height thanks to a size-shifting ability, was gnawing on a dinosaur bone Rex had provided him. Any attempt to part him from his treat would be met with growling and biting. An incorrigible, irritable thing that made wretched gargling, squealing, and barking noises: That was Rex's pet.

Emil put her hands on her hips and have out a long hum, frowning and puffing her cheeks as she clearly considered Tugboat and his bone.

Or it would have been clear if she was facing him; instead, she had opted to keep facing the direction she had: Rex. Which happened to be considerably away from Tugboat.

Emil was used to enormous animals. She would have no qualm with the prospect of getting in there and grabbing the bone on the basis of Tugboat's size. Taking a bone from an animal that was clearly enjoying it was simply asshole behaviour.

In the end, she shrugged and smiled.

"If you chance upon some, please. I want to try to make a handle and a matching scabbard out of a bone, so something long enough for a normal human sized sword." She frowned. "Tho if it's a monster... One that you're sure doesn't have some weird ass properties that persist in their bones? As amusing as it would be to make a cursed blade, I'm gifting it someone and I'd rather not accidentally curse them."

"There are plenty of wild monsters that don't have unique traits or outright superpowers. But I'll make a note of it: no venom, no radiation, no enchantments and the likes... a plain old bruiser. As baseline as they come."

Rex gestured towards the distance, where he'd been studying creatures and gathering samples. Though the mere act of observing interfered with the environment, he took care to minimize his presence and not disturb things too much.

🧠 Eyes still narrowed in suspicion, Krang seems to think about that for a moment at least. Shredder's lazy good-for-nothing mutants (given his disappointment with them, Krang assigns the Mutants as Shredder's mistake again these days), they need a training, Rex is not wrong with that.

"Well. Those blockheads don't glisten with any intellectual properties whatsoever, but they are tenacious, if that is what you are looking FOR."

Seemingly getting annoyed in keeping this conversation up, Krang waves his tentacle dismissively.

Rex gave a thumbs-up to the ambivalent Krang. The fearsome ninja grandmaster of the Foot Clan was up next to convince. Then the actual potential talents themselves. He waltzed deeper into the place to seek Shredder out.

"--Hey SHREDDER! You in there? I heard you got fightin' mutants in need of some action. Superpowered pro-wrestling circuit's just the thing for 'em to blow off some steam, keep sharp. Whaddya say??"

"The mall was beginner, naive shit. Idealistic but it wasn't going to last... Now, this city is a sanctuary for demi humans! Do you really want me to hand it back to humans now that they've given it to me?" He pushes, dismissing the spikes with a flick of his wrist now that he had Rex's attention in conversation. "The same bastards that would ask me to return to the shadows? That carried silver bullets in their guns? So what if my territory is maintained via intimidation? It's safe."

Rex clenched his fists. He couldn't let his feelings override what was still wrong about this place. How The Mayor called it a sanctuary. All he saw was a modern monarch.

"No. Nobody's safe. Not even your wolfguard. You've gotten them to fall into line too somehow. And they're all hanging onto this idea that it can't get any better than your campaign."

He raised his fists. His heart wasn't completely in it. But Rex would never have forgiven himself if he didn't try to stop this. Even if he wavered and Lopes had the advantage. The place was built to his orders. His forces would wait for them nearby if Rex was winning or escaping again.

"RAAAAAGH!!"

Rex charged at Mayor Lopes. Trying to grapple with him first instead of the brutal strikes he told himself he needed to use at this point. Remembering the wolf he used to wrestle with playfully once. The love he could lay beside and feel so safe with.

Not anymore.

Her heart stutters and for a long, agonizing second, it stops altogether. His voice echoes around the chambers in her chest, sticks to every wall. All that macho-ism is undone with one breathtaking little   please   and she's collapsed with him. Emily pulls Rex into her as if her arms could keep the rest of him together. Curled over and around him like a shield. She doesn't realize just how close she's drawn herself to him, drawn him into her, until their foreheads meet with a soft press.

       ❝ Thought you were the one that's supposed to do all the talkin'?... ❞   There's a hesitancy to speak any louder than a whisper, like her voice could shatter him apart on it's own. Amazing how every word completely escapes her when he needs them the most. Still, she tries. For him.

       ❝ We could try that food stand you were talkin' about the other day.   - When you can move... ❞   Emily clears her throat, trying again and again to talk about whatever banal thing came to mind with only a few   uhhh's  and  uuumm's   to buffer between each thought. Movies she's been putting off that they can watch together is a long winded lead into the way she watches Rex sometimes.

       ❝ You're more than I bargained for, y' know... ❞   Eyes sliding shut, arms tightening around him a little more like the final cinch of a bandage done.   ❝ I don't think I could stand any less, though.  Not anymore.  You...   - You're too important... ❞   A sigh and she opens her eyes to check on the progress of his cosmic undoing and redoing, as if she could make any understanding of what she's seeing. She'd ask him about it, but considering he needs her to talk...   Another sigh escapes her, softer this time.

       ❝ You're too important to a lot of people and shit, but...   You're pretty important to me, now, too... ❞

Besieged by doubt, there was still a moment where he considered what Emily said. About how he's important to a lot of people. It only angered him more that he could more quickly remember the jeering of a hateful crowd at first than he can his own friends-- Emily included, but others that thought well of him. People he'd saved, people who saved him, who might never be met again.

But then he remembered they all said something to that effect: How knowing Rex fundamentally changed something about the way they led their lives. To be more willing to chase after a dream even if it seemed fantastical, to speculate on what they could accomplish one day after seeing the limits of science stretched out to encompass once-impossible, new horizons. How people would affirm the act of living in their art and celebrations as much as their work and study. It was always about building a future, giving back the choice on how to pursue it. Returned to the people. Not just positivity and strength without a compass.

"I'd go anywhere with you. Y'know that by now."