Part 1: The Rustbucket King
Tank was a man built of spare parts and stubbornness. He was broad-shouldered and thick-chested, with a welding mask permanently pushed up on his forehead like a steel crown. His kingdom was the “Sanctuary,” a scrapyard fortress of stacked cars and corrugated metal that hummed with the quiet industry of survival. To his left, Henry, a wiry man with eyes that missed nothing, fine-tuned the hydro-generator. To his right, Steve, whose brawn was matched only by his appetite, practiced swinging a rebar club at a rusted-out sedan.
“The Grunge is getting bolder,” Henry stated, not looking up from his wiring. “Saw their scouts at the edge of the Poisoned River. They’re testing our fences.”
Tank grunted, wiping grease from his hands onto his coveralls. The Grunge were a blight, a tribe of scavengers who followed a warlord known only as Grunge. They didn’t build; they only took. They were a cancer on the world, and their leader was the worst of them—a hulking brute who wore a cloak of shredded tires and whose voice sounded like grinding gears.
“Let them test,” Tank rumbled, his voice deep and steady. “The fences are the least of their worries.”
The Sanctuary was more than a scrapyard; it was an ecosystem. Rainwater was filtered and stored. Geothermal vents powered their forges. The greenhouses, protected under thick polycarbonate, grew real food. It was everything Tank had sworn to protect after the world fell apart. He was the main pillar holding it all up.
The attack came at dusk, not with a silent infiltration, but with a cacophonous roar. A jury-rigged bulldozer, armored with scrap metal and spitting black smoke, slammed through the main gate. Behind it, a horde of Grunge tribesmen, clad in filth and wielding crude weapons, poured into the yard.
“Steve! The left flank!” Tank bellowed, hefting his own weapon—a massive sledgehammer with a railroad spike driven through its head.
Steve let out a joyful roar and waded into the fray, his rebar club cracking against limbs and armor. Henry moved like a ghost, appearing from shadows to disable attackers with precise, brutal strikes to nerve clusters.
But the real threat emerged from the smoke. Grunge himself stood nearly seven feet tall, his face obscured by a welded-shut motorcycle helmet. In his hands, he wielded a chainsaw, its teeth screeching as it bit into the air.
“TANK!” Grunge’s voice boomed, muffled by his helmet. “I’ve come for your garden! I’m hungry for something green!”
Tank didn’t waste breath on a reply. He charged. The sledgehammer met the chainsaw in a shower of sparks. It was a battle of titans, strength against savagery. Tank was an immovable object, his blows methodical and powerful. Grunge was a whirlwind of destructive fury.
For a moment, Tank gained the upper hand, a heavy swing from his sledgehammer buckling the armor on Grunge’s shoulder. But as he pressed the advantage, Steve, overwhelmed by numbers, cried out as a spear took him in the leg. Tank’s focus broke for a split second.
It was all Grunge needed.
The chainsaw blade, deflected from its path, caught Tank on the side of his welding rig. There was a scream of tearing metal and a burst of sparks. A searing pain shot through Tank’s body as the machinery on his back short-circuited and exploded, throwing him backward into a stack of rusted cars.
The world went black, the last thing he saw being Grunge’s triumphant stance and the greenhouses being overrun.
Part 2: The Heart of the Machine
Tank awoke to the smell of ozone and blood. He was in the dark, cramped confines of his workshop, the heart of the Sanctuary. Henry was at his side, tightening a bandage around his ribs.
“The rig is fried. The power cell is dead,” Henry said, his voice grim. “Steve’s down, but he’ll live. They took the greenhouses. They’re camped in the yard, feasting.”
Tank tried to sit up, and a wave of nausea and weakness washed over him. The welding rig wasn’t just a tool; it was part of him. Its power cell regulated the advanced musculature weaved into his coveralls, a relic of the old world that gave him his legendary strength. Without it, he was just a man—a strong one, but fragile. Beatable.
“Then it’s over,” Tank muttered, the words ash in his mouth.
“No,” Henry said sharply. He pointed to a schematic etched onto the wall. “It’s not. The core of the cell is intact. It just needs a new, massive jolt of energy to reboot. More than the geothermal can provide.”
“Where will we find that?” Tank asked, despair creeping in.
Henry’s eyes gleamed in the dim light. “We won’t find it. We’ll make it.” He explained his plan, a desperate, dangerous gambit. They would re-route the entire output of the Sanctuary’s geothermal core—every light, every pump, every volt—into a single, catastrophic surge directed into Tank’s power cell. It would leave the fortress completely dark and vulnerable for a full minute. And if the cell couldn’t handle the surge, it would vaporize Tank and most of the workshop.
“It’s suicide,” Tank said.
“It’s hope,” Henry countered. “Grunge thinks he’s broken you. He thinks the heart of this place has stopped beating. Let’s show him it was only waiting to start again.”
As night deepened, they made their preparations. Steve, propped up by the door, kept watch. The Grunge were celebrating, their raucous laughter echoing through the scrapyard. They had broken the Rustbucket King. They felt safe.
Tank stood in the center of the workshop, the dead weight of his rig on his back. Henry’s hands flew over the master control panel. “Ready?” he asked.
Tank took a deep breath, thinking of the gardens, of the people who looked to him, of the future Grunge would trample into dust. He was not just a man. He was a pillar. And pillars do not fall.
“Do it.”
Henry threw the switch.
The entire Sanctuary went black. The hum of electricity died. The distant fires of the Grunge camp were the only light. For a moment, there was silence, then confused shouts from the yard.
Inside the workshop, it was anything but silent. Arcs of raw, blue-white electricity crawled over Tank’s body. The cables connecting him to the geothermal core glowed white-hot. He threw his head back, a silent scream on his lips as agony consumed him. He could feel the cell in his rig screaming with him, on the brink of annihilation.
Then, with a final, thunderous CRACK, the light died.
Silence and darkness returned.
Henry held his breath. Steve gripped his club, ready for a final stand.
A deep, resonant hum began to build. It was the sound of a reactor coming online, the sound of a heart starting to beat. A soft, blue light emanated from the seams of Tank’s welding rig, growing in intensity until it illuminated the entire workshop. The advanced musculature in his suit tensed and flowed with renewed, amplified power.
Tank opened his eyes. They shone with the same cold, blue light.
He ripped his sledgehammer from the floor where it was embedded.
“Stay with Steve,” he ordered Henry, his voice now layered with the hum of raw energy.
Tank kicked the workshop door off its hinges. He emerged into the moonlit scrapyard, no longer just a man. He was a force of nature. The Grunge tribesmen, stumbling in the sudden darkness, turned and saw him—a blue-lit giant, his shadow stretching long and terrible behind him.
Grunge rose from his feast, a half-eaten tomato in his hand. “Impossible!” he roared.
Tank didn’t run. He walked. Every step was deliberate, shaking the ground. Grunge revved his chainsaw and charged, a beast of rage and noise.
Tank met the charge. He didn’t swing his hammer to block; he swung it to destroy. The sledgehammer connected with the chainsaw’s housing, and the machine exploded into a thousand pieces of shrapnel. The force of the blow sent Grunge stumbling backward, his tire-cloak flapping.
Before the warlord could recover, Tank was on him. He grabbed Grunge by the throat, the metal of his helmet groaning under the pressure. The blue light from Tank’s rig reflected in the visor of Grunge’s helmet, illuminating the fear in the eyes behind it.
“You came for my garden,” Tank’s amplified voice echoed. “But you forgot something.”
He leaned in close, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper.
“You don’t uproot a king. You only prune him.”
With a final surge of power, Tank slammed Grunge into the ground. The earth shook. The remaining Grunge tribesmen, seeing their invincible leader broken, dropped their spoils and fled into the night.
As the sun began to rise, casting a warm light over the reclaimed Sanctuary, the blue glow around Tank slowly faded to a steady, gentle hum. The heart of the machine was beating strong again. And its king was home.
WARNING
THE STORY IS COPYRIGHTED BY THE NERDY GATOR KID AND ALL THE CHARACTER NAMES DON’T HAVE ASSOCIATION WITH REAL LIFE NAMES
EXCEPT FOR TANK, WHICH IN REAL LIFE IS OUR GOOD OLD AUTHOR—THE NERDY GATOR 🐊 KID
DON’T PLAGIARIZE MY STORY😤😤😤