Chapter 33
Erinyes
“Well, it seems we were able to just finish the third while we were talking. So, since I don’t believe in holding back, especially against trespassers, we will be sending our full strength against you, I hope you don’t mind. Oh, and do try and put up a good resistance, so that we can use it in the promotional materials.”
Gaige resisted the urge to flip her off and instead focused her attention to the war machines that were slowly stomping their way out. They towering over them like mobile buildings on four thick legs which moved one at a time, raising and stomping down before the next one moved. They all jutted out evenly around the waist, which was one of the narrowest parts of the machine, but was still the size of a Technical and seemed to be set up so the upper torso could swivel around it, but the actual mechanism was hidden underneath a collar of metal plates, shielding it from sight, as well as bullets. Its upper torso looked like someone had uprooted a house and dropped it onto the legs, like someone’s demented version of a fairy tale. It was massive and squarish, looking nothing like the other bots they’d seen from Holloway Robotics, in some strange way it made Gaige think of a strongman, flexing his chest. There weren’t arms sticking out, but strange pods affixed to the sides and on its back was a large sphere covered in small indents that glittered in the thin light. Situated at the front of the torso, near the top, was what she supposed could be called a head, a long strip of lenses on either side of a box.
“Well,” Gaige muttered to the other two “It unfortunately seems like they stole from a fairly decent design. Not much in the way of weak points that’ll be easy to get to.”
Artemis just shrugged, eying the machines up. Gaige wondered what her eyes could see that even Gaige’s trained ones missed? Could she spot weak points? Could she tell where to shoot just by instinct alone? It was something that Gaige had often wondered about the other girl, but this didn’t seem to be the time to bring it up.
Instead, her musings were interrupted by Artemis asking “So, how you wanna do this?”
“Well, why don’t I take the one faking a limp and you take the one that’s actually a bit incomplete.”
“You spotted that too?”
Gaige had, one of the machines had been lifting one of its legs a bit less than the others, as if there was something wrong with it, but she could tell at a glance that it was just someone trying to be tricky and distract from the fact that the one across from it was in fact, the one that had just been finished.
“Kinda obvious really.” She said, scanning the area, looking for a good place to fight, but there wasn’t one. It seemed that Mrs. Holloway and the remainder of the employees had cleared the area well. Still, it wasn’t like they hadn’t planned for this, so she unslung the slab of metal off her and slammed it into the ground. With a bit of help from Deathtrap, the plate stuck straight up and while not great, would provide at least a bit of cover. Behind her she heard Artemis do the same, though it was a bit closer sounding then she’d expected.
Turning she saw that it was too close, so she had to ask “What’re you doing?”
“I’m not gonna need that.” Artemis replied, twisting her neck to the side.
Even as Gaige puzzled over what she’d said, she couldn’t help but think that it all would’ve been more dramatic if she’d been able to get a crack out of her neck. But that wasn’t what was important at the moment, so she asked “What do you mean, you won’t need it?”
“I’m gonna have to move for this one, so I figured it would be best to cover your rear.”
Gaige didn’t know how to respond to that, she wasn’t one to usually stay still during a fight, so it felt a bit like they were switching roles, which she found a bit disconcerting. She nearly made a comment about her implying that her rear was too large to be covered in a different way, but decided that this wasn’t the time for it, so instead she just nodded.
“Be careful out there.”
“You too. And I’ll try and finish early enough to come help you.”
“That’s what I was gonna try.”
They looked at each other for a moment and though both of them wanted to say more, they just nodded and turned away from each other, unsure if it would be the last time. They’d never faced anything like these mechs before, not even the massive guardian at the core of the Garden, so they were worried, but Gaige reminded herself that the Orochi had been worse. Granted, there’d only been one of it, but she’d felt a lot more unease going into that fight then she did right then, so she’d just have to do her best, get through to the other side and make sure that the Holloway’s were off her back for good, after that, well, she’d see. She had some idea of what she needed to do next, but to be honest, she decided that she’d rather fight the mech then deal with that, which might be why she didn’t feel too worried about it. That, and it had been made by Holloway Robotics, and she would never be scared of their tech, no matter how much of it had been stolen from actual competent companies.
She turned her back on the other fight and focused on the mech in front of her, trusting her companions to deal with the others. She’d kind of expected it to be accompanied by a swarm of the remaining Holloway bots, but it seemed that they didn’t want her to have any easy way to build up her Anarchy. She was empty, but that didn’t bother her. She was going to win and put all of this behind her once and for all.
The mech moved first, continuing to stomp its way forward it fired a large missile from one of the pods on its side. Gaige watched in horror as the thing streaked towards her, but suddenly realized that it wasn’t going to hit her, not even close, still, she opened fire on it, trying to take it out, but while she managed to knock it off course, the projectile still slammed into the ground a ways away from her and immediately popped open, spitting out a giant blue dome that swept past her causing all the hairs on her body to stand up, confirming that it was just an EMP field, not that that was good since it made her cut off her shield, but not as bad as it could’ve been.
As she thought that, the ball on the mech’s back spun and suddenly a wave of projectiles were flying her way, slamming into the ground around her and banging into the shield with enough force that she was worried that it would tip over. She braced her shoulder against it and waited. The attack could only go on for so long, but her real worry was that the mech was continuing to get closer the whole while, meaning her window to stop it was closing. She knew that once it was too close, she’d have to abandon her shelter and then it would be a lot harder for her to fight.
Getting tired of waiting, she popped out and opened fire with the assault rifle she held, popping the bi-pod as she did. Without any Anarchy in her, her shots slammed into the spot she’d been aiming at, slamming into the sensors across it’s top. Her hope was to blind it as best she could, but she knew that even if she succeeded, the operators would be able to control it from their observation booth, unless the thing actually was controlled by A.I., in which case, this would be effective.
The mech’s attack soon ended as she popped a new clip into her rifle and resumed firing. Part of her wondered if she wouldn’t be better served using a pistol like she had when she’d fought Holloway, but something about this made her think that she needed to do the most damage she could while she could still aim. That wasn’t to say that she should give up on her Anarchy, she was sure she’d need that before the fight was over, but she should still hit the thing where it hurt as soon as possible, so she kept driving her shots into the sensors.
As she shot the thing, she observed the way it moved, looking for weak points, but she had to admit, much as she hated it, the techs had eliminated most of them. It wasn’t like there weren’t any, there was no way to block all of them, as long as the thing could see, move or attack, there was a place to strike back, but most of the easy ones, like the joints, were covered in extra armor, making attacking those points a challenge.
Still, she was doing her best to spot the ones she could.
She really wished she’d thought to bring along a heavy weapon, even though the ship didn’t have any. She lacked heavy firepower, something to punch a hole in the armor, something like Deathtrap’s deathlaser or the Iron Hammer they’d given back to Wainwright. She wondered if they shouldn’t have stopped by and seen if they could borrow it, but she supposed that even if they had been able to, she wouldn’t have wanted to fire the thing, she remembered how much it had hurt Artemis each time she’d fired it, but she could still daydream.
Snapping another clip into her gun, she started to worry, so far she hadn’t been able to inflict any real, noticeable damage to the mech and it had continued to stomp it’s way closer. As she was beginning to wonder if she should change her tactics, the side of the mech opened up and started charging up a massive energy pulse. Recognizing it from Feno Phena, Gaige screamed behind her “Duck!” and hunkered down behind her thin barricade.
No sooner did she tuck into a ball than the blast let loose, slamming into the chunk of metal with a great booming noise, as if a giant gong had been struck next to her. Despite having her goggles pulled down, she winced her eyes closed as a wave of dust flew past, scouring her with tiny shards of sand till she wondered if the finish on her cybernetics was still going to be there afterwards.
Cracking one eye open, she realized that all she could hear was a dim ringing and that her goggles were covered in a fine layer of dust. Wiping them with her thumb, she glanced around, making sure everything was alright and immediately spotted that the top of her barricade had been bent over from the force of the impact. Letting out a soft curse, she glanced around, but didn’t see either of the other two, not that that was all that surprising since she hadn’t been looking at them earlier, so she didn’t know how their fights had been going.
A dull thump that reverberated in her chest brought her back to the mech slowly closing in on her and to her surprise, it didn’t seem all that much closer. She guessed that it couldn’t speed up all that fast, so it shouldn’t have come as that big a shock, but she somehow thought more time had passed while she’d been curled up, not that she was complaining, her main problem was trying to figure out how she was going to stop it.
Above her Deathtrap had watched the dust fly, spinning around him and making him briefly visible as a Deathtrap shaped hole in the cloud. His fight was going slightly better than Gaige’s, but still not all that well. He’d started out by surprise attacking the third mech with a deathlaser to the face, blowing a sizable hole in its sensor array, which had been well and good, but he hadn’t been able to do much after that. He’d watched the EMP fields expand below him, a ways away from the mechs themselves as he darted around, firing both caustic and electric beams into the sparking hole, but neither of them seemed to have much effect, the last ‘eye’ on that side simply refused to go dark, despite his best efforts.
To make matters worse, since he was still invisible, the mech had tried to target Gaige, meaning Deathtrap had to flicker into the visible spectrum occasionally just to draw the machine’s attention.
He supposed he was lucky. Thus far, the mech hadn’t used any of its big weapons, probably because it couldn’t lock onto him long enough to get off a clean attack. He wasn’t fond of the hit and run tactic he was being forced to use, he would’ve much rather fought the thing head on, but he was fonder of not being smashed into a robot pancake, so he did what he had to.
Unable to get any real damage, he considered firing off another deathlaser, even though he worried about overuse, if he drained his power too much, he wouldn’t be able to provide back up when the girls needed it, but if he didn’t use it, he wasn’t going to be taking the mech out in time to be able to help.
While he was debating the pros and cons of his attacks, the mech seemed to get tired of him and chose to ignore him, instead focusing on Gaige, who was the easiest target. One of the smaller ports of the mech opened up and he saw fire start up, as if it was about to launch a huge gout at her exposed side.
Without hesitation, he threw himself at its face and drove his Digi-claws into its last lens, attempting to blind it. The gambit seemed to work, as the mech twisted to the side, to try and regain its lost target, causing the jet of fire to go wide.
Disappointed in himself for not trying that earlier, Deathtrap went to town on the mech’s face, smashing his claws into the rest of the eyes, but to his disappointment, they didn’t seem to break. He supposed that all of his work earlier had in fact weakened them enough for him to destroy them in one hit.
Still, he had a new strategy, one that didn’t rely on him expending all of his energy, so he got to work, dousing the remaining lens’s in caustic laser.
Artemis had given Gaige one last look before darting off to face her own mech. She’d known that she was getting the easiest one, so it would be up to her to take care of hers fast and get back to help the other two, not that she thought that would be easy, the mech, even as unfinished as it was, was still a massive towering machine that wouldn’t go down easily.
She’d already marked out the weak points on it, the joints, the sensors and most importantly, a panel of armor on the side of the torso that hadn’t been bolted down tight.
She imagined that it had been one of the last panels that they’d had open when they’d arrived, causing the workers to scramble to get the thing finished and they must have just finished by the time the doors had opened. In fact, she’d spotted a few of the workers scrambling onto the repair rigs as the mechs had started forward, so it didn’t surprise her that a few plates hadn’t been tightened properly, a fact she fully intended to take advantage of.
Even as she ran, she took shots at the mech, aiming for the plate in an attempt to knock it loose before she got too close. She didn’t know what kind of armament the thing had and she wasn’t looking forward to finding out, but she did have an idea of how to fight it, but that would depend entirely on whether or not it had good close combat capabilities.
The mech responded to her shooting a missile out of the pod on its side. Swearing, she spun and opened fire at it, driving shots into the tip of the projectile and just like what was happening behind her, she managed to knock it off course, causing it to slam into the ground a ways away from her where it popped it’s EMP field.
Artemis cursed at it, managing to get her shield snapped shut before it was destroyed by the field. She debated whether to go blow the thing up or keep moving forward and as if in response to her thoughts, the mech attacked by spinning up the ball on its back and launching a wave of small dart-like shots at her, though she supposed small was a bit relative as the foot-long blasts started slamming into the ground around her.
She dodged and wove around the attacks, jinking as much as she could while keeping an eye on the incoming shots. A detached part of her mind wondered if the mech could only fire one weapon at a time and if so, that seemed like a fairly big oversight. Still, she wouldn’t be complaining if it couldn’t.
As she wove through the shots, she held off on returning fire, since she’d have to pause to do so and pausing, no matter how briefly could prove fatal in these circumstances. So, she closed a fair amount of ground as she dodged the attacks.
Now that she was closer, she could see plenty of things that she couldn’t have from a distance, from the way the joints were covered in sliding plates to keep dust and bullets out, to the fact that there wasn’t an exposed line anywhere. She noted the way the gun ports were sealed up on the torso to prevent any stray shots from getting in and the way one of them was opening up right then, looking menacingly at her, so she decided to sink a shot or two into the opening, as long as it was going to open up for her.
There was a spray of sparks as something inside didn’t take kindly to having bullets added to it and the port snapped shut, which was good, because she had to snap the cylinder of her rifle open and start to reload, even as she ran forward.
As soon as she’d finished, she snapped it back closed and fired twice more, hitting the wobbling plate and knocking it loose. She watched as the plate flapped and twisted on the little bit that was holding it in place and switched gears, aiming lower she slid to a stop and took a deep breath.
She didn’t notice as everything seemed to slow down around her, her focus was entirely on the mech in front of her. Had there been anyone else around, she would’ve been an easy target for a sniper, but since they didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire, there wasn’t anyone to take that shot. Instead, the only one that was shooting was her.
Her bullets flew straight at one of the legs, the leg that was being pulled back as the mech lumbered forward and struck it at an angle, ricocheting off and flying at an angle upward, underneath the armor plates that covered its waist.
There was a sudden sparking accompanied by a hideous grinding noise as she emptied the cylinder in seconds. The bullets had found their mark as the entire upper half of the mech jittered and came to a stop, unable to turn.
She’d managed to reflect her shots up, under the armor and slam them into the ring, knocking it out of alignment just enough that it caught and seized up. It wouldn’t stop the mech from moving and it could still aim at her if it turned its entire body, but it was something, and something that she planned on taking advantage of.
She slipped the rounds into her rifle fast enough that her fingers blurred as she started running again and just as she was slinging the rifle onto her back, she heard a shouted “Duck!” from behind her.
Without turning, she dropped into a slide, taking a second to glance behind herself as she did just in time to see the mech Gaige was fighting let loose with a massive pulse from one of its arms, after that, everything vanished in a cloud of dust.
Hopping back up, despite not being able to see, she continued running forward, attempting to use the dust as cover. The mech in front of her paused, but she wasn’t sure if her plan was working or not since she couldn’t see it beyond the leg that was barely discernible through the haze.
Soon enough the dust started to settle and the mech’s face opened up, revealing a massive lens. Acting entirely on instinct Artemis threw herself to the side just as a bright white light fired out of the mech, slicing into the ground where she’d been.
Artemis knew instantly that even if she’d had her shield up, that beam would slice clean through it.
She bolted to the side, trying to keep ahead of the beam as the mech tried to chase after her, but the damage done to its waist ring was preventing it from following her when she reached the edge of its normal range, so the mech kept trying to turn until something inside snapped and the ring let go, spinning the torso past her and sending bits of metal falling from underneath it.
The sudden release caused the laser to miss her, spinning an arc just past her, so she ran straight at the base of the machine, figuring that the weapons beneath it would be easier to take then the high-powered laser that was currently chasing her.
As she went, she pulled one of the bunnies off her pack and started winding the pocket watch it was holding.
Dashing under the mech at top speed, she suddenly jinked as ports opened up on its bottom and started firing at her. Twisting and dancing she continued a few steps and threw the rabbit up as hard as she could, wedging it in between the armor plates and the ring before running away as fast as she was able.
As she ran, she counted down in the back of her mind and when she reached the nearest leg, she spun around it and grabbed on. The instant she was against it she began shimmying up it, trying to get higher, but before she got very far, she felt a sudden tingle run up her and shoved off with her right side an instant before the electrical surge ran through the machine in an attempt to knock off whatever was climbing it.
Letting go completely, Artemis flew out and landed hard on the ground, rolling up as best she could and her eyes locked with the machine just as the timer in the back of her head hit zero, accompanying an explosion.
Jets of fire and metal went flying as the bunny detonated, blasting apart the ring and causing the entire mech to stagger, slumping oddly as chunks of the ring fell out and crashed to the ground.
Artemis marveled at the destructive power that the bomb held and simultaneously thought that she’d have to thank Tina and worry that not only had she been carrying that casually on her pack, but she had a number of others dangling there as well.
Taking advantage of the fact that the mech’s torso was unstably wobbling, Artemis charged back at it, leaping onto its leg and scrambling up as fast as she could, counting on it being distracted by its sudden destabilization.
It seemed to work since she was able to scurry up onto the flat of its leg and run towards it. When the leg dipped back down to connect to the base, she jumped, leaping towards the torso.
Catching onto the side, she felt her chest slam into it as her hands scrambled against it trying to find anything to grab onto, eventually finding a narrow handhold as she caught her toes on the top edge of the waist armor.
Looking around, she spotted the panel that she’d knocked loose a small ways away from her. Sighing, she quickly started shuffling her way around the mech towards it, even as the torso wobbled dangerously as the mech tried to move.
Despite the wobbling of the mech, she was able to get over to the plate and grab onto it, pulling it up so that she could see in. What she found was an access hatch that led to a number of computer ports that would’ve been helpful to someone like Gaige, but meant nothing to her. Instead, what she found that was interesting was what was past them, a narrow maintenance crawlspace.
Letting out a groan, she shucked her pack, hooking it around her ankles and dove in as the mech took an unsteady step forward. It seemed that the machine had decided that since it couldn’t find her, it would try to attack Gaige, meaning Artemis had to move quickly in order to stop it.
Looking at it she realized that the only reason the crawlspace was even there was that things hadn’t been tightened down fully, they must have left the space inside till they’d fired it up and then tightened it down, pulling the parts together. Deciding to take advantage of the little luck she’d found, she slithered in.
The crawlspace was at least as narrow as the vents she’d been in, but more uncomfortable since they went through the machine as it was operating, meaning not only was it slamming her up and down with each step, but all the heat that was being generated was cooking her as she moved and before she got even a few feet in, she could feel the sweat pouring down her face making her glad that she had her goggles on. Her clothes stuck to her in an uncomfortable way as every pore seemed to open up and let out as much sweat as it could, making her worry about passing out from dehydration and heat stroke before she got where she needed to get to.
Trying to ignore all the discomforts, she pulled herself through as fast as she could, twisting and following the cables up the center of the mech till she found something that looked important. Wriggling around as best she could, she snagged a bunny off her pack and stuffed it into the gap between the wires, twisting the stem on the watch to set the bomb for as much time as she felt she could and started back down when things went wrong.
The mech lurched and she heard something ping dangerously as the entire thing shook and spun. The only thing she could think of was that the ring had snapped, causing the entire torso to break loose more than it already had, but then the narrow space below her vanished as a piece of the mech came loose and slammed into the gap, wedging in place.
Cursing as she realized that she wasn’t going down, she scrambled back up, ripping the bunny loose from where it was wedged and giving it a quick once over. Realizing that there was no way to shut it off, she dropped back down as far as she could, landing painfully on the chunk that was wedged into place and chucking the bunny through the narrow gap on one side before flying back up as fast as she could in the narrow space.
Ignoring the cuts and bruises she was suffering as she banged off of various bits that jutted out, she tried to put as much distance between herself and the bomb as she could, but since the mech wasn’t all that big, there was only so far she could go.
She grabbed onto a loose looking chunk of the mech and yanked it out before climbing over it and kicking it down, wedging herself into the space where it had been and curled up as best she could as the bomb went off, blasting the mech apart from the inside.
Deathtrap had been continuing to work on his mech, splashing its lenses with caustic beams and then slamming his Digi-claws into them in an attempt to break them. So far it had been moderately successful, he’d managed to take out over half the remaining lenses when he heard the first bomb go off.
Spinning in mid-air he took in the wobbling torso of the mech that Artemis had been facing and watched as she climbed the outside of its leg, throwing herself at it and climbing inside. It wasn’t a move he would’ve thought of, but he supposed it would work for her, but as the seconds passed, he realized that she hadn’t done what he’d expected and just tossed another bomb inside, so he figured that she must be looking for a better place to plant it.
Then a second bomb exploded behind him and this time he spotted Gaige rushing away from the remains of one of the EMP missiles, swearing up a storm before resuming her attack on the mech she was dealing with.
He turned away from it and smashed another lens in the mech he was fighting, figuring that the girls had their fights, if not in hand, at least under control enough that he could focus on his own, when another explosion thumped off to the side.
Glancing over, he froze up, watching the black smoke billowing out from the mech that Artemis had been fighting. As he watched, the machine slowly wobbled around before collapsing inward on itself, dropping into a pile of scrap.
He moved towards it slightly, worrying about whether Artemis was alright or not, but the mech behind him rumbled ominously so he reluctantly pulled his attention away, hoping that she was alright.
Gaige on the other hand, nearly bolted for it. She’d been forced out of her cover so she’d decided to use one of her bunnies to take out the EMP generator, after all, that’s what she’d gone to all the trouble of getting them for in the first place, when an explosion had echoed from the other direction. She’d taken a second to glance over and spotted Artemis climbing up the leg of her opponent while bits and parts fell from beneath the armor guarding its waist, letting Gaige know instantly what she’d done. It wasn’t a bad play, but without the panel that Gaige could see flapping on the mech’s side, it might not be worth trying, still, destroying an opponent’s maneuverability was a major help, so she filed it away to use when she got the chance.
But more importantly, she’d needed to take out the EMP generator so that she could get her shield back up since she didn’t have any other defenses at the moment. So, she’d chucked a bunny at the missile that was generating the field and ran away from it, having noted how big the explosion had seemed when Artemis had used it.
True to her expectation, the blast left a crater making her wonder what Tina had done to the explosives to get that kind of result. Deciding not to overthink things, she flipped open her shield and ran, trying to put some distance between herself and the mech she was facing while spraying it with bullets.
The mech’s torso spun tracking her, which wasn’t really all that much of a surprise considering how it was built, but it was still annoying. In fact, the only thing that all of her running around it did was make it pause ever so slightly as it had to switch which leg to move next to continue chasing after it and give her a good workout.
She was starting to get frustrated, she was supposed to be the robotics expert here, yet she was the furthest behind on stopping hers. It wasn’t that she was taking her time with it, nor was the mech too well built for her, it just had ridiculously thick armor. She supposed that she should be using her caustic SMG for it and switched over, but a glance around told her that it wouldn’t do much, after all Deathtrap had been using his beams on his for a while and while he’d already nearly blinded his, she could tell that it had been more due to his other attacks then the caustic.
As she thought that, she heard a dull thump of an explosion going off and noticed the black smoke starting to pour out of Artemis’s mech, which worried her. She’d seen that the girl was going to try and get inside hers, or at least get the panel off its side and get access to its internals, but that explosion had sounded fairly deep within the mech and from where she was she couldn’t see Artemis anywhere which made Gaige worry that she hadn’t gotten out in time.
Her worry was compounded when the mech started to collapse, its legs freezing up as it’s torso crumpled as if the supports had been cut inside it, causing the sides to bulge out and twist, tearing apart and throwing bits everywhere before the entire thing collapsed into a pile of oil and smoke.
She nearly started running towards the downed mech, when she heard the sound of the ball on the back of the one she was fighting spin up again, forcing her to redirect her attention to it.
Getting sick of the mech, Gaige dodged around the shots that rained down around her and charged towards the machine, pulling another bunny off her pack. She dashed around the legs of the mech, twisting the stem on the watch to set the timer and chucked it into the nearest leg joint.
As she continued past the mech, she saw that it had twisted around, following her as it’s face opened, revealing a large lens that filled her with worry.
Her worry turned out to be justified as the lens fired a searing laser at her, chasing along after her and nearly catching up when the bomb went off, blowing the leg clean off and sending the mech tumbling over, causing the laser to fly up and around, cutting into the mech that Deathtrap was fighting and up through the mountain above them before cutting off.
Gaige quickly glanced over, trying to make sure that Deathtrap was alright, her stomach frozen in fear that she might’ve just killed her bestie, but he flickered into the visible spectrum long enough to wave, letting her know that he was alright.
The wave of relief that swept through her nearly took her legs out from under her, but she managed to keep them, knowing that she had to deal with the mech still, no matter how damaged it was, until it was destroyed, it would continue to be a threat.
Deathtrap watched her go, flicking the invisibility device back on so that he vanished from sight. He hadn’t let her know that it had been a close call, if his sensors hadn’t picked up the bomb and the laser the mech was using, he wouldn’t have been able to realize what was about to happen and dash behind the mech he was fighting, using it as cover as the laser sliced through the area he’d been fighting in.
He probably wouldn’t tell her, even after the fight was over, there was no need to worry her about it or to make her feel worse than she already did, just thinking she might’ve hit him.
While he was distracted, he missed the mech he’d been fighting, taking advantage of his absence and aiming an attack at Gaige’s open back, opening its own face up and aiming the laser at her.
A sharp crack spun him back around as he saw the lens tilt to the side. He didn’t pause and fired off as quick of a shot from his deathlaser as he could, blasting the lens and causing it to crack before he spun his sensors around to find out what had happened, quickly spotting the barrel of Artemis’s rifle poking out of the debris of her mech.
Chastising himself for letting his guard down, he dove in and tore the remains of the lens out to vent his anger before dropping down and blasting into the opening the laser Gaige’s mech had caused.
Every part of Artemis hurt, she’d made it through the explosion alive, but the detonation in the enclosed space had temporarily deafened her, not to mention sliced her up pretty well. She could feel the sweat stinging the ridiculous number of cuts that covered her body, but at least that kept her conscious. The real problems were that the collapsed mech around her seemed to be heating up, making her wonder if she’d ruptured something in it when she’d taken it down. The heat was getting stiflingly, slowly steaming her in her own sweat and worrying her about dehydration, but to make things worse, she couldn’t move. Each time she tried, a blinding pain lanced up her legs, stopping her. She couldn’t even pull forward, not just because of the pain, but it felt like she was pinned in place by something, meaning she couldn’t even shift off the metal plate that was under her.
She supposed she’d been lucky, the explosion hadn’t killed her and it hadn’t set off the other bombs she was carrying, but the tradeoff had been that she couldn’t get out to help with the rest of the fight. It was only dumb luck that had allowed her a narrow vent out that she could see what was going on through and the fact that she’d been able to hold onto her rifle, which she was currently holding like a lifeline. She could hardly move, but she was able to shift the rifle a little bit to the side and aim before firing another shot.
Gaige heard the familiar crack of a rifle and felt a wave of relief sweep through her, it meant that Artemis was alive. She didn’t know what she was firing at, but the simple fact that she was back in the fight meant a lot to her.
With that off her mind, she turned back to the fallen mech in front of her and quickly pondered what to do about it. She knew that the explosives would work, but she’d need to get them into some space for them to really do anything, just throwing them onto its body more than likely wouldn’t even crack the armor. Explosives did more damage the tighter the space they were in, the fewer ways the energy had of escaping the more it had to create its own, so she knew that she needed to optimize its impact, but other than the joints, she didn’t see anywhere that looked viable.
To make things worse, the mech was still thrashing around, trying to get to her. She supposed she’d been lucky, not only had the mech not fallen on her, but it didn’t seem to have a method to get itself back up, which was a major design oversight.
Still, unless she could capitalize on it, it didn’t matter.
As she was pondering, she saw that a number of ports popped open on its side, but before she could do anything, they started firing.
Gouts of flame shot at her alongside giant balls of ice. Intermingled were blasts of caustic energy and sharp looking javelins that when they hit the ground started arcing lightning between them, turning the battlefield into chaos.
Prioritizing the most dangerous attacks, she fired at the caustic launchers. She was immune to electrical attacks, the fire was a short range so she could avoid it for the present and the ice was slow enough moving that she could get out of its way, so she took aim at the remaining ports, spraying them with bullets.
It seemed that the ports were a weak point on the mech, since it couldn’t protect the vital machinery that powered the weapons despite the sloped plating around the barrels. It took a bit, but she eventually cut through the first couple of the caustic weapons.
Realizing she’d just made an opening, she switched targets to the flamethrowers, trusting that even with her slight reduction in accuracy, that she’d still hit. In seconds she’d cleared a small space in the attacks and capitalizing on it, pulled a bunny off her pack and dashed forward, ignoring the searing heat that washed over her as she ran.
Twisting the timer, she jumped and chucked it into the newly cleared flamethrower port. Hitting the ground, she rolled up and sprinted under the mech as it continued to thrash, ignoring the bullets she felt slamming into her shield. She knew that she couldn’t take much of that kind of damage, but she was through it in seconds and as long as she didn’t get hit by one of the ice balls, she figured she’d be fine.
As if in response to her thought, she felt an impact on her side and everything froze. She staggered and felt another dozen shots hit into her as she suddenly found it hard to move one foot in front of the other, slipping on the remains of the ice-ball around her.
In desperation, she threw herself sideways, rolling under a jet of fire in an attempt to thaw herself out before the bullets tore the last tatters of her shield away.
It seemed to work, at least a bit, since she felt the cold retreat from her limbs enough that she could keep going.
Staggering to her feet, she tried running again, only to have her path cut off as an electric javelin slammed into the ground in front of her, forcing her to dodge to the side. Belatedly she realized that she’d just fallen into a trap, since another ice-ball was rolling straight at her. Shoving off as hard as she could, she pushed herself out of its way, feeling the tips of her hair freeze as the ball rolled past.
Coming to her feet, she felt the wave of heat rushing towards her as the flamethrower scorched a path towards her, only for the bomb to go off, rocking the entire mech.
Minor explosions erupted across its surface as the bomb tore through its insides, causing mini-explosions as vital systems went.
Still, the mech seemed to want to continue fighting, launching an all-out attack on her, firing everything it had. Jets of flame thrashed everywhere. Ice balls rolled and collided with each other. Javelins flew, striking anything they could, including the ice balls. Bullets traced the ground. The ball on its back fired bolts even though most of them just dug into the ground underneath it. EMP missiles arced through the sky. It’s laser thrashed at the clouds above.
Gaige paused, unsure of how to proceed. She’d been lucky not to get hit by the waves of chaotic attacks, but she knew she needed to do something quick, so she ran at it.
Slipping around the attacks, she closed the distance. This chaos was nothing for her, she’d harnessed the power of Anarchy, or at least that’s what she told herself. In truth, she was pouring sweat down her back as the attacks scorched the air around her, then froze it, but she didn’t slow down, running right up to the downed mech and sliding under it.
She felt one of the blasts from the ball hit her, tearing through her shield, but she didn’t care, she was almost there.
Deathtrap watched as Gaige dashed under her opponent and realized that he was about to be the last one fighting, so he decided that he’d had enough of this and dropped down
As soon as he’d stopped attacking the mech behind him, it had gone all out, lashing out in a half blind rage, firing everything it had as if mimicking the downed one Gaige was fighting. He didn’t care though, it didn’t matter if it expended all of its energy trying to get him or anyone, he had a plan and the fact that it was firing blindly actually helped him.
As the mech unleashed a energy pulse, blasting up dust, he flipped the invisibility system closed to protect it from the EMP fields that were raining down around the area. Choosing one at random, he ripped it out of the ground and flew back up, blasting out of the cloud directly in front of his opponent and chucked the missile with all of his considerable might.
The missile might have lacked some aerodynamics from the way he tossed it, but his aim was true, smashing it into the breach in the mech’s armor and driving the EMP field into its unprotected core. The machine twitched for a few seconds and went limp, crashing down as all control left it.
Hopping to her feet, Gaige spun around and jumped, catching onto one of the jagged twists of metal that stuck out from where the bomb had gone off and pulled herself up, dropping into the crater in the side of the mech.
She knew she’d be safe there, it didn’t seem to have any attacks that could reach her inside it, so she got to work, scanning the remains till she found what she needed and got to work.
Heaving, she pulled the twisted piece of metal up, bending it out of her way so that she could get access to the core within. Pulling the face open, she tilted it down and got to work, typing away at the small computer. It was usually used for maintenance and diagnostics, but in her hands, she soon had access to the central A.I. of the mech and after poking around for a second, made a flourish and shut the mech down.