Bull vs Man

Suddenly and without warning, Drake felt the rapid coiling of a metal cord wrap around his body. He opened his eyes to look down, only to be yanked violently to the right. His body plummeted a good fifteen feet from where he had been standing, just as the behemoth robotic bull charged through his previous position.

"What in tarnation is wrong with you, boy?!" a loud, booming voice of an older man roared nearby. "Ain't you ever seen a rampaging Bull-maton before? You never just stand there and look it in the eyes! What's wrong with you?!"

Drake shook his head, trying to recollect himself as the metal coil loosened its grip around him. About a dozen feet away, he saw the source of the coil and the booming voice.

Drake's eyes widened, and his jaw dropped.

There stood a giant of a man. He was tall, about 6'5", obviously very well-built and heavily muscular, weighing well over 285 pounds. He had rugged features, with "salt and pepper" black hair and a several-inch grown beard speckled with white, indicating his mid-forties. He wore thick brown leather work boots, gloves, and hat, a pair of copper goggles over his eyes, a red plaid flannel shirt, and brown leather suspenders holding up his tan work trousers. In his large hands was a whirring and spinning copper and a bronze Omni-gun of some sort, a multi-barreled machine that could twist, rotate, and change into all manner of useful tools.

The gun recoiled the metal coil back into its mechanical confines. The man scowled at him, "I say again, boy, why in the blazes are you standing in the middle of an open field when a Bull-maton is in full rampage mode?!"

Drake shook his head, trying to take in everything he was seeing and hearing. He stood up and brushed the dirt and grass from his pleather jacket. "I… I'm sorry. I just locked up. I thought I could…"

The bull roared as it turned around mid-gallop, stomping the ground hard and huffing steam, preparing for another charge.

"Aw, hail!" the giant man grimaced, cocking his gun and inserting a canister of yellow fluid into what looked like a grenade launcher attachment. "Just get out of mah damn way then!" He marched past Drake and eyed the giant bull dead in the eye. "You want a piece of human meat?" he taunted, getting the bull's attention. "Then come at me, ya overbuilt sack of nuts and cogs!"

The burly man now had the raging Bull-maton's undivided attention, and it charged at him head-on. The ground shook with the weight of the megaton metallic behemoth galloping across the pasture.

"I'll show you what a real bull can do motherfucker!" the rugged man shouted as he launched the canister at the giant robot.

The canister landed a bullseye dead on the Bull-maton's forehead and exploded in a gaseous cloud of sparking yellow electric energy. The cloud shocked, sparked, and crackled like thunder as the electricity surged through the giant mechanical beast. It shook and fell to the ground.

"You got it!" Drake cheered from just behind the burly cannoneer.

"It ain't down!" the man scoffed, spitting on the ground. "At least, not yet it ain't. Gonna take more than a single can of Lightning Ether to take down a rampaging Bull-maton." He steadily marched towards the writhing giant robot, cocking another canister into his omni-gun. "Now stay down, ya varmint!" he taunted the writhing giant.

The bull sparked and sputtered, trying to recalibrate and stand back up on all fours.

"I said, stay down!" he bellowed as he fired another canister from just a dozen feet away.

The bull, however, had other plans. Just as the canister was about to impact, it huffed a blast of steam from its nostrils, blowing the canister off trajectory and back towards the man and Drake. It landed and exploded on the ground, not far from either of them.

"Well, damn!" the man balked. "Still got some fight left in ya, I see! Well, how about…" He pulled another canister from his waist bag, just as the Bull-maton collected its systems and stood back on all fours, ready to charge once again.

The man's face went blank as the bull, now mere feet away, prepared to charge. "Aww hail naw…" he muttered as the Bull-maton headbutted him, sending him flying a dozen feet through the air.

He landed with a crash and a thud. "Why, you mother…" he shouted, trying to stand back up.

Meanwhile, Drake looked on in horror. His senses tingled, and his nostrils caught a familiar scent. Suddenly changing focus, he sniffed and looked around frantically for the source.

"I thought I told you to stay down!" The man stood up, his Omni-gun loaded and whirring, but not in time for the rampaging bull to close the distance. "Oh fuck me…" the man groaned as the bull closed in.

Suddenly, a bluish energy surrounded him, and just as he had yanked Drake away, the large man was pulled along the ground, landing at Drake's black boots. He looked up in shock as Drake's hands were covered in the same bluish aura.

"My Mentos worked!" Drake cheered as he looked down at the thoroughly confused man. "Now, try this on for size, Bull-maton!" Drake held one gloved hand at the gaseous cloud of yellow and pointed the other like a gun at the bull-maton. "Electros!"

Suddenly, the yellow cloud was sucked into Drake's open hand, and he was covered in a wave of yellow energy. With a crack and boom of thunder, a full-sized lightning bolt shot from his extended finger and arced to the raging Bull-maton. The behemoth robot was covered in yellow and white lightning and instantly collapsed to the ground, sizzling and smoking as the red lights in its eyes went black.

"It worked!" Drake cheered in triumph as he turned to the giant man.

The giant man was still on the ground, utterly stunned and flabbergasted by what he had just witnessed. For the first time in his memory, he was speechless.