Centurian beat on Alacran furiously.​

     Half of his remaining hands continued to tear away bits of Alacran's armor. The other half pounded away at Alacran's body. All the anger he'd felt for the Silver Scorpion since he'd been crippled, all of that fury exploded out of him at that moment. "I HATE YOU!" he wailed. "I HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU! I HATE THE THOUGHT OF YOU! I HATE THE FACT THAT YOU EVEN EXIST!" 

     Alacran didn't respond. He knew that these were the last moments of his life, and, although Centurian pummeled him mercilessly, he didn't really feel it...

     because he had a secret. 

     He had a secret within him that, for the moment at least, only he seemed to know about. 

     It was a voice that reverberated within him. Not Valtair's voice this time, and not his own, either.

     It was the computer's voice. It was the voice of the computer that controlled everything within Alacran's armor. It said, "WARNING! The ANTI-MATTER GENERATOR THAT POWERS YOUR BATTLE ARMOR HAS BEEN SERIOUSLY COMPROMISED. I WILL SELF DESTRUCT IN TWENTY SECONDS. IF YOU WANT TO LIVE, YOU MUST EJECT NOW! WARNING! WARNING"

​     And Centurian continued to beat on him. Only Alacran's legs and right arm worked anymore. Centurian had already smashed the rest of his armor beyond repair. 

​     He figured he had a single chance. Only one. 

​     He took it. 

     He reached out that right arm to grasp Centurian firmly by the throat. "IN THE END, IT WAS ALWAYS MEANT TO BE THIS WAY!" he bellowed. "HATE AGAINST HATE! FURY AGAINST FURY! GOOD BYE, SILVER CENTIPEDE! GOOD BYE, RORY!"

     "GOOD BYE, ASSHOLE!" 

     "FIVE, FOUR, THREE..." the computer inside Alacran said. 

CONTINUE