#ultrabutts

… Prologue? More like Preview.

This is a piece of a thing I do want to one day finish bc I really like the idea of it.

In the meantime, this is a solid excerpt that doesn't give away too much, and I'm on a Ultra Series kick atm.

***

Jean-Nine banked a perfect one-eighty the instant his brother cried out, and the rest of Ultimate Force Zero followed in a slightly less organised but equally quick manner. Jean-Bot appeared to be caught by some sort of long black tendrils that had latched onto his ankles and wrists and were trying to drag him down.

“Yakitori!” Glen yelled, and started following Nine back to help—only to come up short when they saw where the tendrils were coming from. “What the hell?!”

A massive, dark sphere, that looked like no planet Zero had ever seen, which seemed to be sucking the very light out of the stars loomed below them, covered in stormy clouds and darkness. The strange threads were dragging Jean-Bot down toward it, in a way that made it seem like the sphere was… Hungry.

“That’s not a planet!” Mirror Knight called from somewhere to Zero’s left. “At least, not one from this system!”

“How did it get here without us noticing?” The Ultraman shouted back as he moved in, trying to simultaneously study the situation for a way to free Jean-Bot.

“Wait! Stay back!” The robot shouted, even as the vines began wrapping around his head. “It’s-” The tendrils crawled higher and clung tighter, the tips actually cutting through Jean-Bot’s exterior—his eyes flickered, then went out from what they could only assume was the vines getting into his mainframe.

“Augh…! Damnit! Hang on, Yakitori!” Glen Fire spiralled around, diving down so that the robot would be out of range of the flames. With his customary shout of ‘Fire,’ he lit up, swinging and blasting at the ugly tendrils. But though they flickered and twisted away from the flames, the vines did not break—and some even split off, chasing after Glen as he sped around them. “Oi, what the hell?”

 Jean-Nine was attempting to severe the vines with the full force of his entire arsenal to no avail—in fact, the strange tendrils split again, reaching for him with alarming speed. The robot fired up his boosters to try and dodge, but the wines closed in faster, one catching his wrist.

“Jean-Nine!” Mirror Knight flashed forward, throwing out a hand, sending mirror blasts at the thread wrapping around the second robot’s arm—it cut through, but then the black vines regrew with a vengeance, surging forward and winding all the way up Jean-Nine’s arm, spreading to grab his leg as well. At the same time, just below, the other tendril caught Glen’s ankle, dragging him down into a tangle as well. Though they twisted and scrambled when he covered himself in fire, they held on and even kept growing, starting to cocoon him the same way they were the brothers.

“Glen!” Zero grabbed the Eye Sluggers from his head, snapping them together and throwing them as quickly as possible—but the black tendrils curved out of the way, dodging his attempts to cut them—and when the Eye Sluggers came around again, they even seized it as well, then grew to start reaching for him, even faster than before. He tried to get clear, but the vines still closed in.

“Zero!” Mirror Knight barrelled into him, shoving him away forcefully.

The moment he could, he spun around, looking frantically for his friends—just in time to see Mirror Knight dragged in and enveloped in the dark vines as well. “No!” Panic set in, and he dove after the retreating tendrils trying to take his friends, reaching desperately for Mirror Knight’s swiftly disappearing hand.

Something flickered, off to his right—and then a massive blast of energy hit him from the side, knocking him completely off course sending him careening downward, just missing the vines, towards the sphere below. As he hit the cloud cover, Zero’s consciousness gave out, and everything went dark.

***

I really like the UFZ, they're fun dudes.