Boss Battles Suck

Gunshots rang out, as the three of us made our way down the ship's main coordinator. The arched ceilings were unsurprising low, if either Eddy or Jethro were even an inch taller, they'd hit their heads.

Hoards of Bearliens came rushing toward us with their weird alien batons in hand. Jethro blasted them indiscriminately as he continuously swapped from various weapons rather than reloading. He used everything from .50 cals to akimbo 9mm submachine guns to a makeshift-looking blunderbus. I wasn't even sure how he managed to pack so many weapons in his duffle bag. Stuffing from the Bearliens flew everywhere, as he turned them to swiss cheese. "Remember, you can't spell slaughter without laughter!" He had a smile on his face like a kid in a candy store.

"I'm really sorry, little guys." Eddy on the other hand, wimply held his piece of crap handgun, which jammed every other shot. Everytime he managed to actually land a shot on an alien and the life was snuffed out on its adorable stuffed animal-like face, a sense of guilt welled up in him and he felt the need to apologize.

"I'm not sorry." I sprayed away at the Bearliens, using the full auto Block 19 with a 100 round drum mag mounted to the top of me. Every so often when I ran out of ammo, Jethro would swap it out with his comically near infinite supply of ammo. At the rate we were going, there were going to be more brass casings spent than actual enemies.

Maybe I was starting to display psychopathic tendencies, since commiting potential war crimes against these teddy bear aliens was bringing me a strangely therapeutic sense of joy. Considering they were the ones stealing Earth's water, thus setting up the chain of events that caused all my troubles in the first place, I had a major lack of remorse. All I wanted to do was suck up dirt and have my battery charged, but thanks to them, here I was, an autonomous vacuum with a speaker and a gun Jerry rigged onto me.

Because of their size and lack of strength, the Bearliens were really no trouble to fight our way through. It was no wonder they had to coerce the Beary Bandits into building that fast travel beacon.

"Wait a second." Jethro halted us by putting out his arm. "I'm thinking it's time for some explosions!"

In front of us was a sealed circular sliding door, which appeared to be heavily reinforced with metal. I wasn't sure what was on the other side, but if we were going to progress any further, we would need to get past it.

From his bag, Jethro eagerly pulled his RPG. Propping it up on his shoulder, he took aim. "I'd probably stand back a few feet." He launched a rocket, which projected forward and slammed into the door with an explosion. A significant dent was left in the door. Jethro clicked his tongue. "Tch. Looks like it's going to take a couple more shots." He launched two more rockets at it, causing the door to break open.

What was on the other side, was exactly what we had been looking for... The ship's bridge. The room was white with a massive curved window. About thirty Bearliens sat in small chairs operating a vast array of monitors. Directly in the center was a large white and red captains chair and sitting at it was a rugged-looking neon pink Bearlien with a stitched up face, dressed in a white admiral uniform.

As we entered the room, the admiral immediately spun himself around in his chair and faced us. "Bear bear bear bear bear!" It angrily pointed, as it squeaked at us in its high pitched voice.

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand." Eddy responded.

Jethro laughed with borderline genocidal intent. “Don’t even waste your time trying to communicate with it, considering what I'm about to do." He pulled his desert eagle and aimed it at the admiral's head.

To our surprise, the admiral snickered in response to Jethro. It pressed a button on its chair and a little microphone-like device popped out of the armrest. "Do you naive humans really think you can stop us? " Its voice was suddenly much deeper and menacing.

"Shut up, your alien schemes end here?" Jethro declared.

"Oh, I'd say things are actually only getting started. We've finally located the artifact. Once we retrieve it, the entire galaxy will finally learn the might of the Bearlien Empire and bow before us!" The teddy bear arrogantly retorted.

"What even is this artifact?" I wondered.

The Bearlien let out a maniacal laugh. "Since you're going to die anyways, I might as well tell you. It's a super weapon created millennia ago that creates black holes capable of destroying entire solar syste-."

There was a loud bang, as smoke rose from a hole in Jethro's left pant pocket. He pulled out a hammerless .38 special revolver, which he had attempted to inconspicuously shoot the admiral with. Unfortunately, as the gun went off, a metal hand emerged from the armrest of the alien's command chair and caught the bullet with its finger tips.

"You're more clever than I thought." Jethro huffed.

The admiral shook its head. "Trying to shoot me before I was even done talking, that's a really dirty move."

Jethro shrugged. "You were wide open. Can you blame me?"

"Yes I can. Just based on the sheer number of my crew members that you three have killed, I'm starting to wonder who the real villains are..." He pressed a large red button on his arm rest. "You've gotten to show off your weapons, now it's time to show off mine!" His chair began an unnecessarily long anime-like transformation sequence, as it covered his body. In front of us, now stood the admiral donning a chromo robotic suit of armor. Two glowing red eyes glared at us through its bear shaped helmet...

"It's kind of shorter than I expected." Eddy pointed out.

He wasn't wrong, despite the over the top transformation, the armor only added another foot to the Bearliens height, making him a total of three feet tall now.

Jethro reached for his waistband. "Nice try, but I have another trick up my slee-."

The left arm of the admiral's robotic armor, transformed into a cannon, launching a projectile at Jethro. As it struck him, it opened up into an electrified net, pinning him to the ground.

"It's not so fun when someone does it to you, is it?" The admiral gloated.

"Ahhhhhh!" Jethro cried out, as the net electrocuted him.

Transforming his other arm into a laser Gatling gun, the admiral aimed it at both Eddy and me. "If you surrender now, I'll let you live... as test subjects for my scientists."

"Why the heck would anyone take that off-."

Eddy suddenly spoke over me, teary eyed. "Please don't hurt me, Mr. Bear Alien Sir! I'll gladly become a lab guinea pig if it means I don't get lasered to death."

"Are you kidding me! You're going to just sell out, just like that?" I knew he was a coward, but I didn’t think he was someone who'd turn his back on his friends.

"Uncle Jethro, Rom, I'm really sorry guys..." He dropped his handgun to the ground and held his arms up in surrender.

The admiral shifted his gun to just be aimed at me now. "Looks like he's the only one with any brains, but considering one of you is a vacuum, that can't be too difficult."

I sighed. “Oh, you’d be surprised.”

The admiral powered up his Gatling laser, as I prepared for the worst. Out of the corner of my optical sensor, I noticed Eddy bring one of his arms down and reach into his pocket. There was a ping as a laser bolt was fired off... I was completely unscathed. Laying in front of me was a smoldering Game Kid Color handheld.

"I was just kidding!" Eddy declared, as he leaped forward, wrapping his arms and legs around the torso of the robotic armor. With one hand he blocked the admiral's field of vision, while with the other he pried at its helmet.

"You're going to regret that!" The admiral angrily shouted.

All the other Bearliens in the room looked up from their terminals, as they stared in disbelief while Eddy assaulted their leader.

"Rom, aim for the gaps in his armor!" Eddy ordered, while he continued to hang on. Admittedly, the scene in front of me looked quite ridiculous with a grown man clinging to a metal teddy bear half his size.

Still having my weapon attached to me, I took aim at the Bearliens neck, where there was a lack of heavy armor. Firing a three round burst, I managed to strike him. One 9mm round pierced straight through his throat, while another struck him under the chin, causing his helmet to get knocked clean off.

"After I kill you three, I'm going to destroy this entire solar system!" The more enraged the admiral became, the more erratic his movements became as he flailed his arms around, firing shots off randomly. Unfortunately for him, a few of his minions that were innocently standing by, ended up becoming collateral damage.

I fired off a few more rounds, this time striking the alien in the left knee, which caused it to tumble over. Just before the admiral hit the ground, he managed to get Eddy with a punch to the side of the face. Despite being knocked off, there was something in Eddy's eyes I had never seen before... genuine bloodlust. Picking up his melted Game Kid from the ground, he proceeded to mount back onto the admiral.

"All I wanted to do was play video games, but thanks to you stupid aliens, I'm here right now. I hope you know that you brought this on yourselves." With his now destroyed Game Kid, Eddy proceeded to club the Bearlien to death with the game console.

While Eddy was busy violating the Geneva Convention, I managed to nudge the electrified net off of Jethro. Laying on his back after nearly getting zapped to death, he held up his hand and flashed Eddy a thumbs up, "I can't even express as an uncle how proud I am of you right now." After that, he passed out unconscious.

Eddy didn't respond as he was still busy wailing away at the pile of stuffing that used to be the Bearlien admiral. At the sight of their leader getting completely mutilated in front of them, the remaining Bearliens fled the bridge, as they ran for their lives, screaming in their mildly adorable high pitched voices.

"Alright Eddy, I hate to put an end to your fun, but now we need to figure out how we're going to land this thing back on earth…”