The city lights of New Cedar Falls flickered in the distance as Max crept out of his house, hoodie pulled over his head, sneakers crunching softly against the cracked sidewalks.
No cameras. No Hazel. No school hallways packed with terrified students. Just him—and the one place he knew nobody would ask questions.
The Ridgeview Junkyard.
Old, abandoned, half-rusted and sprawling across five whole blocks like a metal graveyard. Cars stacked like skeletal remains, warped machine parts poking out of the piles like broken bones. The whole place smelled like oil and rain and history.
Max slipped through a hole in the fence, landing awkwardly with a grunt.
"Alright," he muttered, rolling his shoulders, "Let's see what I'm really working with."
He stepped into the clearing surrounded by twisted hulks of ancient cars. He could still feel it—the hum of that energy, deep inside, restless, wild. Like a caged thing pacing behind his ribs.
Max clenched his fists, digging deep for that spark of emotion. Fear. Anger. Embarrassment.
Nothing yet.
But when he pictured Hazel, hurt on the ground—
Crack.
A thin, glowing fissure crawled across the back of his hand.
"There we go."
With a roar, the transformation ignited. Grey skin rippled across his body like liquid metal, glowing cracks spiderwebbing outward, muscles swelling with raw, wild power.
Bulkout stood alone in that rusted metal graveyard, glowing white eyes cutting through the darkness like headlights in a storm.
"Alright," he growled, flexing one massive fist, "time to break some stuff."
And with that—he charged, shoulder-first, into the nearest stack of old cars, sending them flying like dominoes under a wrecking ball.
The junkyard didn't know it yet, but it had just become ground zero for Max Presley figuring out exactly what kind of monster he could become.
Bulkout stood surrounded by the wreckage, chest heaving, mist of glowing energy swirling faintly around him.
Then—something caught his eye.
Half-buried under twisted bumpers and rusted steel sat the torn upper torso of an old MMA combat mech. A relic from the early 2000s—one of those prototype fighting robots used in televised bouts before they were banned for being "a little too intense for family viewing."
Its metal plating was dented and scorched, but the thick, reinforced arms still looked dangerous.
Max cracked a grin.
"Hello, beautiful."
He stomped over, reaching down, ripping twisted metal aside like paper. A flicker of luck—a still-intact power moduleblinked faintly behind its chest cavity, connected to backup batteries.
Old tech's still got juice…
With a grunt, he jammed his hand into the casing and sent a pulse of his glowing, unstable energy straight into the system.
The lights on the mech's cracked visor flickered, then steadied—glowing faint red.
Whirrrrr.
Grinding gears stirred, ancient servos coughing to life.
Then, suddenly—
WHAM!
A hydraulic fist shot out, slamming against Bulkout's chest and sending him sliding backward across gravel, sparks flying under his heels.
Bulkout grinned through the hit. "Oh, yes."
The mech's optical sensors locked onto him, combat routines kicking in, left arm rising into a guarded stance, whirring softly.
Max cracked his neck, glowing cracks surging brighter along his forearms.
"Alright, big guy," he muttered. "Show me what you've got."
And with a roar, he charged.
Mech vs. Monster.
Scrap vs. Surge.
And the junkyard was about to feel all of it.
Bulkout skidded backward across the gravel, boots digging trenches in the dirt as the combat mech's hydraulics hissed and whined, powering up for another swing.
Max just grinned.
"Yeah, okay… this is too good not to share."
Still half in fighting stance, he awkwardly reached down to his wrist where his custom rig was strapped—miraculously still intact despite everything.
With one glowing finger, he tapped the LIVE button.
Bloop.
STREAM STARTED: 3 VIEWERS.
Title: "Late Night Sparring Sesh 😎💥 #BulkoutVsScrapMetal"
"Yo! What's up, degenerates?" Max's deep, reverberating Bulkout-voice echoed through the stream, distorted slightly by his wrist mic. "Tonight we're doing a little extracurricular training. You know—working on cardio, footwork, flattening antique murder machines."
The mech's fist shot forward with a pneumatic BANG—barely missing his head by inches.
"WHOA, okay! Okay—he's feisty."
Viewer count: 27.
The chat started blowing up.
user2394: IS THAT AN MMA BOT WTF
noxxstream: BRO U'RE INSANE
hazelcore: MAX WHAT ARE YOU DOING
Max flinched slightly at the username popping up. Hazel.
"Oh hey, Haze! I'm fine!" he said breathlessly, ducking another piston-powered haymaker. "Don't worry, I'm good—"
The mech grabbed him by the chest harness and chucked him across the junkyard like a ragdoll. Bulkout slammedthrough a pile of old truck doors, sending metal clanging everywhere.
Max coughed, still smiling like an idiot. "Okay. Slightly less good."
Viewer count: 89.
This was going viral.
"Alright, chat… time to turn it up."
With a low growl, the cracks along Bulkout's body began to glow brighter, white lightning threads racing across his skin, reflecting in the mech's cracked visor.
"Let's dance."
The mech powered up another piston-charged punch, gears screaming like dying animals. Its metal fist hissed forward like a missile—
—but Max didn't dodge.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't move.
WHAM.
The hit exploded against his chest, shockwaves rippling through his glowing cracks. Cars rattled in their stacks around them.
Max grinned into the camera.
"Yeah," he breathed, steam curling from his lips. "That's what I'm talking about."
WHAM.
Another punch—right to his ribs this time. The impact echoed through the junkyard, denting Bulkout's grey form slightly, glowing cracks widening around his side like spiderwebs.
Chat was going nuts.
user2394: BRO WTF ARE YOU DOING
hazelcore: MAX STOP
badgerbadger: ABSOLUTE UNIT
Max took another hit—this one square to his jaw, snapping his head sideways. White light bled from the corner of his mouth like steam from a cracked engine block.
He wiped it with the back of his massive hand, smearing glowing liquid across his knuckles.
"C'mon, Tin Can. Hit me harder."
The cracks across his skin pulsed, wider now, throbbing with unstable energy. His voice was deeper, rougher, riding the edge of something dangerous.
Another punch came—and this time, Max leaned into it, absorbing the shock, planting his feet like he wanted the pain.
He laughed—the sound low, echoing, and a little wrong.
Hazel's name popped up in chat again:
hazelcore: You're pushing it. You KNOW what happens when the cracks spread—
"Yeah," Bulkout growled, eyes blazing, grin sharp. "I do."
Viewer count: 312.
This wasn't just a fight anymore.
This was proving something.
To the world. To the chat.
To himself.
The junkyard wasn't ready for what came next.
Neither was Max.
Another piston-fueled punch rocketed toward him—
—but this time, Max moved.
Not to dodge. To strike.
With a roar that sent glowing shockwaves rippling out from his throat, Bulkout exploded upward from his crouch, twisting his whole body into it—
THOOM—
The uppercut landed clean, right under the mech's reinforced jaw.
For a second, everything froze.
The old machine's glowing red optics flickered, servos locking up, gears whining in protest.
Then—
KRA-KOOM.
The mech lifted off the ground like a rocket, flipping backward through the air in slow motion, pieces of rusted plating breaking loose mid-flight.
It smashed through a stack of crushed car doors, landing in a tangled mess of sparking cables and mangled metal.
Chat exploded:
badgerbadger: HOLY—
user2394: CLIPPED. CLIPPED. CLIPPED.
hazelcore: MAX. STOP.
Bulkout stood there, breathing heavy, shoulders rising and falling, the glowing cracks across his body now fully spread, pulsing like cracks in the earth before an eruption.
His fist was still raised.
He wanted to laugh—but something was off. The glowing white liquid was starting to drip from the widened fractures on his arms, sizzling when it hit the gravel.
Viewer count: 528.
Max blinked, vision blurring for a second.
This isn't just a flex anymore…
He looked down at his glowing hands.
"Uh-oh."
And then—
Another flicker of white light. The cracks… spreading.
Max staggered through the junkyard, knuckles glowing, the adrenaline finally starting to wear thin. The old MMA bot was nothing more than a twitching scrap heap behind him, sparks spitting like weak fireworks.
The chat on his livestream was still buzzing, but Max barely glanced at it.
That's when the temperature shifted.
It wasn't heat. It was… wrong.
BZZZZZT—KZZCHHHH—
The beam came out of nowhere—a concentrated stream of crackling, corroded plasma—and hit him dead in the back.
Bulkout screamed, arcing forward as the blast sent electrical tendrils crawling across his body. The white cracks dimmed, flickering irregularly like a dying neon sign. The smell of scorched flesh and ozone filled the air.
"Organic anomaly… detected."
The voice dripped out of the static like oil poured through broken speakers—mechanical, low, and taunting.
Max stumbled, rolling to his side, trying to push himself up—
—and that's when he saw him.
DREXXON.
He emerged from the shadows between rusted cranes and fallen girders like a nightmare rebuilt from the bones of dead machines.
Seven feet of mismatched armor and skeletal metal, glowing crimson optics burning through the darkness like diseased embers. His massive claw flexed open with a scraping SHNK, while cables writhed around his body like oily vines.
His cloak—tattered and black—dragged behind him like a funeral shroud.
"You wear your flesh like a badge of strength…" Drexxon's voice rattled with corrupted disdain. "But flesh decays. Bone rots. Steel endures."
Another charging sound—the weaponized plasma coil on his right arm flaring up again, building for another shot.
Max spat glowing drool onto the gravel.
"Bad… timing, dude. I just kicked someone's ass… and I'm not really in the mood for…—"
BOOM.
The next shot came fast, barely missing Max's head, melting a nearby car into a dripping, rusted skeleton.
Max's wrist-cam was still live.
The chat had gone silent. Viewer count rising.
hazelcore: MAX GET OUT OF THERE. THAT'S NOT JUST A BOT—
Drexxon stepped forward, hydraulic legs hissing.
"You are cracked. Splintered. Broken already," Drexxon whispered, voice vibrating through Max's bones. "Let me finish the work entropy has started."
Bulkout's glowing fists clenched tighter.
"Y'know… normally I'd have a comeback," Max growled. His cracks pulsed again, brighter—but unsteady, like a lightbulb about to blow.
"But I think I'd rather just break something uglier than me."