Read The Bridge

In an isolated alleyway on the edge of the city, the air chilled and swirled. A large, oval projection of dark purple energy, akin to a wall mirror, opened up on the side of a building and three beings dropped out from it. One of them, a young woman in a white jacket, skillfully rolled across the ground and got to her feet. Her two cohorts had less success. While one did manage to nimbly land on his feet, the other, larger young man crashed into him midfall and toppled both of them.

Irys only needed a brief glance at how small she was in relation to the buildings and the inability to feel her wings to figure out she’d gotten turned into a human again. And much to her surprise, she wasn’t the only one. Irys quickly turned around to help her still recognizable comrades up, unable to brush aside the huge amount of dj-vu she was feeling.

The one she quickly figured out had once been Gigan was the leaner of the two, looking about X’s age. His hair was medium cut and silvery gray, his bangs noticeably jutting forward. She couldn’t tell his eye color due to they and a good portion of his face being obscured by broad sunglasses. His attire, like those of X and Irys, matched his body colors for the most part and was largely gray and dark blue with bits of red. He wore a large long sleeve shirt with a flat jacket over the top, dark colored camouflage pants, a large belt knife; and steel plated boots finished the look. Dog tags wrapped around his neck shimmered in the noon day light. When Irys held his arm to hold the delirious kaiju turned human, she instantly felt something off. True, Zenith was far from the warmest place but his forearm felt incredibly cold to the touch. Glancing down, she got her answer.

Gigan didn’t have an arm from the elbow down, least not one made of flesh and bone. Instead the entire lower half of his upper appendages were a pair of mechanical arms and hands. Right down to the digits poking out of his fingerless gloves. It took a moment for Gigan’s vision to clear, but getting one look at his hand made him freeze up. That and the fact he couldn’t feel his tail.

“Hey, Gigan, you with us?”

“I’m…”

“-human… ish… Side effect of the realm jumping, remember X and I’s outing?”

“I… yes… It’s just…“

He raised up his free hand and looked at it with a halfway bewildered and halfway disgusted expression, wiggling his fingers. This felt beyond weird.

“…New…”

“Well you’ll have to get used to it while we’re here. Guess the boss couldn’t expend extra power to maintain our full forms.”

Gigan balled a fist, fidgeting with the internal mechanics of his arm. To his delight, the hand cocked back slightly and a foot long blade resembling his old scythe sprung out of the top of his wrist. The sunglasses wearing cyborg smirked, welcoming back familiarity.

“A sound conjecture, though looks like some things don’t change.”

Irys couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous. She’d lost her flight, beam, and shield. All she had left was a few diminished fangs in her mouth.

“Well I wouldn’t keep the cutlery out any longer than needed. Being able to blend in will help in speeding things along.”

“True. Personally I’d prefer to get back as fast as possible.”

“Why’s that?”

“….Let’s just say some things that occurred last time need not be repeated.”

A third voice broke the conversation.

“Hey guys, little help?”

Turning around Irys and Gigan spotted what had to be Megalon. Or at least Megalon’s legs sticking out of a clothes bin. Taking one limb each, Irys and Gigan managed to yank him out. It took awhile because the third member of their party was ridiculously heavy. Soon as he was up and standing next to Gigan, Irys had to keep herself from laughing at the irony of Megalon calling the older cyborg ‘big’ brother. Gigan’s build was fairly lean, a bit thinner than X had been but about the same height. Megalon was built like a block, broad all around and a bit bulky.

The younger cyborg’s hair was shorter, but messy enough to the point Irys couldn’t tell if the brown was natural or stained from the dirt that caked itself all over him. He had eyewear as well, but only in the form of dust coated goggles wrung around his neck. His attire was fairly simple. A light brown long sleeve shirt that tucked into elbow length work gloves, tan pants who’s mud caked pattern resembled the cyborg’s now missing wing shields; and pad covered mining boots.

“I thought I told you to wipe that filth off in your down time or it’ll get in your circuitry.”

“You call it filth, I call it a healthy coating of minerals.”

“Oye.”