The Frontier Spark

Episode 11: Abominable Insanity

Burke hopped down from his perch on Vex's hull in a sprint to reach the source of the newest disturbance at the camp site. Helping these people was becoming a habit for the pilot, but dealing with the mad machines that kept bothering them was a growing annoyance. After all he'd never asked to be stranded in a backwards version of the Victorian era earth in the first place! It wasn't his fault that high value asset exploded before he reached the rendezvous point, he just took the blame! But whether he liked it or not it was his sense of duty that compelled him to help folks who needed it.

A minute later he'd arrived at the fire and watched as the horse from earlier twisted and bent into a freaky killing machine. What he was a witness to would have stunned a simpler man with the sheer absurdity of such a thing, but in Burke's case killing the horse machine was more important. Before the circus members could register his presence, Burke had whipped out his pistol and fired off several rounds at the clank.

"What in god's name is this thing?!" Burke shouted as he continued to fire pistol rounds at the horse clank. The pilot leapt over the clank to avoid the spikes that stuck out from its hide. On queue the circus troupe members fled for cover as the fight began to escalate between the clank and the pilot. Several of the members pulled out odd weapons and began to fire on the clank in support of Burke's efforts to slay it. Pops, rattles, and bangs echoed loudly in the surrounding area as the bullets pounded against the sides to the creature like hail at a wall.

"SKREE!" The clank cried out as it rushed the pilot. Burke jumped out of the way as it charged him and peppered the target with more handgun rounds. With each bullet that skirted across the skin of the clank, more skin was torn off to reveal the steel and machinery hidden by the disguise of a horse. Burke back flipped out of the way of a metal tendril that had sprouted from the clank's back.

Another swipe from the tendril managed to hit the pilot, sending him flying into the side of a wagon with an audible snap of the wood from the impact. Burke shook his head and opened his eye wide in surprise as the sharp end of the metal tendril zoomed towards his face. Burke reacted just in time to move his head to the side as the tendril pierced straight the wooden boards.

He kicked on the thrusters of his jump pack and leapt toward the ground, ducking into a roll as he did so. The clank circled around for another attack and scraped its hooves against the dirt in anticipation of a retaliation from the pilot.

With a snort of arrogance, Burke got to his feet and cracked his shoulders to loosen up for his next move, and less than a second later he'd unholstered his assault rifle and fired a burst at the horse clank's red eyes. The horse clank attempted to shield its eyes from the gunfire and rushed at the pilot once again to kill him. Burke skidded to the side and continued to fire his gun until the magazine had emptied. Damage began to spread to the surrounding area as the man battled against the machine. Bullets from Burke's gun ricocheted off the clank and into the caravans, which tore the wooden walls to splinters and shattered the occasional piece of glassware that was housed inside. Hopefully the damage wouldn't be blamed on him when the fight was over, or so he wanted to believe.

The large clank that belonged to the circus troupe charged in to assist in the battle, slashing at the horse clank with a radial saw blade that popped out of its mouth. But a moment later it was kicked square in the chest by the horse clank with a loud wham and fell onto its back.

Right after that happened, three other troupe members joined in as well with their own inventions, including but not limited to a sonic wave gun, a gravity drive, and even some form of poisonous insects. Most of the methods they employed seemed to not do much damage against the horse clank, since it shrugged off their weapons with little effort aside from the poisonous insects. On top of all the other mutations of the creature, a belch of fire breath erupted from the clank's mouth which burned away the insects as they attempted to attack it.

"SKRREEONK!" The clank whipped a metal tendril to slap Burke from the sky. A double jump at the right time allowed the pilot to narrowly dodge the attack from the clank and retaliate once he reached the ground again. On instinct, Burke reached for a grenade on his belt only to find he was running low on explosives. The pilot silently cursed to himself and rolled out of danger as another tendril whack struck the dirt where he stood.

"Come get some!" Burke roared at the clank as he charged forward and pulled the pin from a grenade on his belt. Time seemed to slow as Burke sidestepped the horse clank while he simultaneously slapped the explosive into the mouth of the monster. A small burst from his jump pack got him away from his hooved foe just as the fuse on the grenade finished its countdown. What happened next shocked and awed the onlookers as the horse clank's head exploded in a bright flash of fire and metal metal with a loud bang. A large part of its torso had been destroyed along with the head, which sent out a cluster of shrapnel for several feet.

Burke stood back for moment to admire his handiwork in killing the monster, but his moment of pride didn't last long. His eyes went wide as the creature's body began to morph into an even more horrific sight, a large maw opened in the center of what remained of its torso. Even more tendrils sprouted from its body along the with jagged teeth sprouting in the new mouth, and the pilot's eye twitched in shock.

"Oh, now that's just not fair." Burke grumbled as he faced down the creature. "As if the insanity of this place couldn't get any worse!

"Raaaagh!" Zeetha roared as she hopped out of nowhere onto the back of the mutant. She stabbed at and slashed the many tentacles of the monster, but only seemed to rile it even more with her attack.

"Zeetha?! Bloody hell! Get off that thing! You want to get shot?!" Burke snapped at her.

"And miss out on a battle?!" She retorted as she kept up her attacks, even driving her blade through the top jaw of the clank. More tentacles sprang out from the clank to replace the ones she had down and wrapped around, putting the warrior girl in a place to get eaten. Burke narrowed his eyes and fired at the tendrils of the creature, snapping them and forcing the clank to toss Zeetha away like a simple ragdoll. The girl's leg hit a rock when she hit the ground and she yelled in pain when she felt something snap.

"Damn it." Burke hissed to himself as he ran to assist the warrior woman, he'd sooner curse himself before letting a friendly acquaintance die on his watch again. Now that Zeetha was injured the clank would not have any trouble dispatching her, something had made it decide that if it was going to be destroyed then it kill the weakest thing nearby, which happened to be the injured warrior girl.

Desperate to save the life of his acquaintance, Burke ran towards Zeetha's position to reach her before she would be mauled by the monster. But the clank had other ideas and whipped its tentacles at the injured fighter, one of the them was even thrust straight at the girl's torso like a pointed spear. As the tendril spear flew at Zeetha, memories of her life so far flashed through her mind for a brief moment, everything she could think of as far back as possible raced by. She narrowed her eyes defiantly as the end came and blinked so that she would not miss the end of her life.

A red splash of gore covered the warrior woman, blinding her to what had happened. She felt no pain at all, aside from her leg of course. 'Wait. That's odd.' She thought to herself. What she had expected was the end, death, but nothing felt any different. Suddenly it clicked, and she rubbed her eyes to remove whatever kept her from knowing why she was still alive. A wave of surprise washed over the warrior from skifander as she bore witness to Burke standing where she had been a moment earlier, he was impaled by the tendril and bleeding profusely. Now she knew exactly where the blood covering her face was from, the soldier had attempted to trade his life for hers.

"VEX! GET OVER HERE!" Burke shouted for his partner as he struggled to stay alive.

"Affirmative, pilot." The Titan replied over the radio as it stomped over to the area where the fight was taking place. Several trees were mowed down by the friendly steel giant by the time he made it to the battle site. VX slammed a fist into the fire breathing abomination, sending it into a group of trees with the force behind his fist. The clank was quick to shake off the damage and charged at the titan with its tentacles slapping around wildly at VX. With what little strength he had left, Burke hopped aboard his partner and took control to finish the fight. A burst of flames from the abomination's mouth glazed over the Titan's eye, which temporarily blinded the pilot, but Burke was undeterred and relied on the HUD map to keep track of his foe. Metal fists mashed down on the monster clank even as it attempted to chomp the hands of the titan that had begun to crush it in a brutal fashion.

Burke and VX lifted the clank into the air to keep it from moving around and began to crush the abomination like an empty can. The clank thrashed and struggled in the titan's hands, continuing its tendril slaps against torso plate of the titan including the eye.

"Burke! Over here!" Agatha shouted as she raced over to them.

"I'm a bit busy right now!" He shouted through VX's speakers while the clank mutant wrapped its tendrils around the arms of the titan.

"Turn towards me! I'll hit it with the blaster cannon!" Agatha replied, steadying her aim of the weapon at the clank that the titan was wrestling with.

"You had better not miss!" An irritated Burke told her as he swung the creature into Agatha's line of fire.

The orangette smirked, her gun's barrel glowed a bright blue as she squeezed the trigger. "Relax! I'm mostly sure I won't!" Suddenly a bright beam of electric blue energy shot out from the gun. Right at that moment VX threw the abomination into the air and the beam struck it, causing a huge blast to go off right in front of the titan. That shot seemed to be the finishing blow and the clank's remains scattered onto the ground.

Smoking bits of the creature's body were all that had left been behind by the blast from Agatha's blaster cannon. A minute or two passed in relative silence for the people in the area, all of them breathed a sigh of relief that the issue had been dealt with. But Agatha had other intentions for her next words as she turned to face them down. Meanwhile in the chest compartment of the titan, the pilot and AI were having their own discussion.

"Pilot, you have sustained a major injury and require immediate medical attention. Please seek care." VX told his operator. Burke held a hand to his wound to slow the bleeding, such efforts proved to be ineffective.

"Is the…hostile… dead? Tell me VX. First I need to know." Burke grunted while his head bobbed up and down from the severe pain and blood loss. He'd made a choice to be a hero, and now it was time to deal with the consequences of that choice.

"Affirmative. Hostile creature has been neutralized; sensors indicate no further activity detected from the remains." The titan replied. A checkmark flashed on the monitor screen over the area where most of the

"Great… I think I'm going to rest now." Burke sighed with a grin on his face. His eyes began to droop closed and his grip on the control had begun to falter.

"Pilot, do not lose consciousness!" VX said in genuine worry for his operator.

Burke struggled to fight the urge to give in to the desire to rest, but the adrenaline in his system had finally run out and the agony had set in. "Let me sleep buddy, I'll be just…" He did not finish the sentence, instead he slumped over against the side of the cockpit.

Outside the hulking machine, Agatha approached the titan and was completely unaware of the conversation that occurred within the torso compartment. "We did it, Thomas. You can hop down now." She shouted up to the machine, but no one replied. Minutes passed in silence as Agatha waited for the titan to perform some kind of action and she had started to grow impatient.

"Thomas? Hey! Thomas? Are you listening to me?" She furrowed her brow in annoyance.

"Miss Clay, my pilot requires urgent medical attention." VX spoke up suddenly. That bit of information caught her by surprise, which caused her to stumble back slightly.

"He's hurt?!" Agatha exclaimed and ran towards the titan.

"Affirmative." Vx said as he kneeled down to her level and popped open the main hatch. An unconscious Burke flop onto the dirt just as Agatha reached the two of them, her eyes went wide at the amount of blood splattered all over the older boy's midsection that came from a large hole in his side.

"Thomas! Wake up!" She shook him frantically in an effort to resuscitate the pilot.

"Miss Clay, please find a medical practitioner immediately. Shaking him will only increase the rate of the blood loss." VX instructed the girl in a calm manner. "Please check his pulse and confirm that he is still breathing."

"R-right!" She snapped out of her brief moment of panic and did as the titan asked. Luckily Burke's pule was still present and while the older boy's breathing was labored, at least it hadn't stooped. Fear took hold and she turned towards the troupe members that closed in on her and the pilot. "My friend needs a doctor over here! Now!"

-END CHAPTER-