Hourly Challenge: Something red

a/n: The story so far: Doug is piloting Spidey the prototype Octoskell and unintentionally has gotten into a fight with Hartmut the really large in the big gap in Oblivia. Plus: He's found an abandoned superweapon, a Detonation-F thermal flail. Con: it's not going to be enough.

Underedited, and yet ANOTHER cliffhanger because I keep running out of time.

All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, including the direct quote from Sakuraba (thank you, wiki!). Spidey the Octoskell is my OCskell.

What marketing promised would happen: "Air support? Let's get dead instead! YOU become the artillery in this high risk offensive. " (direct quote from Sakuraba's product introduction brochure)

What the designers intended would happen: The Detonation-F weapon first extends backwards from a skell, the broad blunt tip reaching several meters behind on a thick chain-like cable. Once fully extended, the head of the flail activates, the temperature reaching upward of 1000 degrees, just short of melting steel. The pause to reach the final temperature is brief, and then the skell can flick the chain up and over, crashing the glowing red tip into the ground (or enemy) directly in front. Thermal damage radiates at half the distance of the chain, creating a explosive fireball that will evaporate lesser enemy swarms and severely damage larger targets.

What Doug hoped would happen: The flail wasn't enough to put an end to Hartmut, but the amount of heat the thing would emit would be enough to surprise the beast, blast it out of the cave, and allow Doug and Spidey the Octoskell to scuttle out of the cave and up to safety.

What Doug thought would happen: The flail would go boom and then Hartmut would eat him entire. But Alexa might get a clue and call in the reinforcements and maybe he'd see tomorrow. Jonah had survived a couple nights in a whale, after all. Except Jonah hadn't been fried to a crisp first.

What happened: The smack from the beam saber shot enough energy into the abandoned weapon to engage it, but Doug hadn't had enough time to get Spidey back onto its feet before the chain extended violently. Even splitting Spidey's limbs equally between clutching the flail and digging into the ground to anchor the mech probably wouldn't have helped. As it was, Spidey was clinging to the base of the flail with seven of its eight legs and when the chain extended, it wasn't the tip of the flail that moved. That stayed solidly back on the ground. Instead, Doug and Spidey flew through the air, shot directly into Hartmut's tiers and tiers of teeth.

Was it lucky for Doug that Hartmut had its jaws slightly open, enough that Spidey wasn't smashed against a wall of teeth? Possibly. Doug wasn't glad for the intimate chance to explore one of Hartmut's multiple mouths. The weight of the tiny prototype skell wasn't enough to startle the monstrosity. The limited window of escape started to close as Hartmut's teeth slid neatly together. Through the narrowing gap, Doug managed to catch a glimpse of the head of the flail, now glowing cheerfully from the safety of the shelf.

Four of Spidey's limbs were still firmly attached to the handle of the flail. Doug braced three legs against a combination of tongue, cheek, and palate and yanked hard.

What Doug thought would happen: The flail would go boom on the shelf and Hartmut would still swallow him whole.

What Doug hoped would happen: He could use the chain to pull himself free and the explosion would give him enough time to come up with a new plan.

What the designers intended would happen: The flail's tip had powerful gyroscopes that would prevent the weapon from pulling back into the user. Once engaged to retract, it would first curve forward and around the skell. It would not return until it had detonated on a solid object.

What marketing promised would happen: "Just make sure your Skell is insured, because the only way out is in a slag bag! *This product is non-refundable." (direct quote from Sakuraba's product introduction)

a/n: I think I know what happens next week. Hopefully the prompt is easy to cheese. I am having fun, squee.