Terror of the Skies Pt. 3
Aloy makes the first move, giving an almost ear-piercing whistle into the air. Her overridden Silvermane machine barks and shakes off the bags strapped to it and runs towards them. The Wyvern to their left sneers and makes a jump for them and all three humans scramble to get out of the way. Aloy rolls to the side, grabs an arrow and aims at the machine.
But the other Wyvern makes its move. It charges headlong at her, but Vale stands in the way with his shield and blocks its charge. His shield takes the brunt of the tackle and it knocks him on his back. It gives Aloy the open she needs to aim her bow – already fully drawn – and fire at the machine in the eye. She realizes that the machine sports a familiar feature: a blue glass visor has covered its eyes to protect the lenses from damage. It would have been a different situation if Aloy had her regular old bow, but this new powerful bow should be able to do the trick.
The metal arrow shatters the left visor. The Wyvern growls and twists, swinging it's tail around. Both Aloy and Vale jump out of the way as the tail slams into the ground and kicks up dust. Her Silvermane enters attack mode, drawing its tail up to fire its laser. The beams knocks off a few armour pieces on the machine's side and the machine jumps back.
Erend is on his own with the other Wyvern, swinging his hammer wildly to keep the machine from making a move. A few times the hammerhead comes close to hitting the machine, but it flinches back every time before Erend can strike it.
Then the machine moves. It turns to its side and whacks Erend Down with one of its metal wings. Aloy catches a glimpse of the mounted turret on top before she watches her friend fall back onto a rock. The machine's jaws adjust as two metal fangs pop out and it dives in for the kill, but Erend raises his weapon to stop the machine. Aloy has time to draw her weapon again as the Wyvern rips the weapon from Erend's grasp and she lets her arrow fly, not really aiming, just hoping to distract it long enough for him to escape. The arrow sticks in between two metal plates on the machine's head and it bellows in rage, allowing Erend time to get away.
She switches to her blast sling. The Wyvern jumps for her, but she fires a bomb straight into its path and it collides with the machine's face. A few armour plates fall off, but not enough to do significant damage. The Wyvern jumps back and spreads its wings wide, and the propulsion jets on its wings activate. It launches into the air and flies away. Aloy and Erend grab their bows. Erend is able to get his arrows off before her, but his ice-tipped arrows miss as the machine weaves through the air.
Something slams into Aloy's back before she can fire one of her heavy arrows and she falls forward. Vale has been blasted by something, because there's a dark burn mark on his metal chest plate. The machine he was battling roars at them and dodges attacks from the Silvermane that fights with them.
But the Wyvern makes quick work of the Silvermane. It snatches the machine up with its front paw and rips it in two with it's jaws. The red components along its neck begin simmering as the machine swallows the corpse of the Silvermane. It chews and bites the machine into small metal bits and once it fully consumes the dead machine, it growls with satisfaction and takes to the air along with the other one.
"Are you alright?" Aloy asks quickly. Clearly Vale isn't. He groans as he gets up to one knee.
"Still here," he grunts and leans on shield for support. "I don't think we're ready for this fight. These machines are too fast."
"No, we can't back down now!" she argues.
"But Aloy…"
"Let me think!"
The two Wyverns circle above, their roars echoing throughout the valley and ringing in their ears. Erend doesn't give up trying to hit them with arrows, but none of them hit their mark. The machines fly too fast and they change direction, making it impossible for him to lead his shots. The cannons on the machine's wings fire bullets and spray the ground with bolts. Erend finds cover behind the wreckage of the caravan, which is still burning in flames.
The machines have both speed and power on their side. They can't counter any of their strengths with their own because it isn't enough. If they had something like a Stormbird on their side they might have stood a chance, but Aloy hasn't seen one since coming into the Claim. Their environment isn't much help, especially with a flying enemy, and their three-on-two advantage doesn't prove to do anything either, if Erend's Vanguards' fate was anything to go by.
There was only one trick Aloy had up her sleeve.
She looks around frantically for her bag of extra gear. The Silvermane dropped it before running into battle and it sits out in the open.
"Cover me!" she shouts at Vale and runs for her bag. One of the Wyverns turns in the air towards them and starts firing its cannons. Plasma bolts spray the ground and Aloy is forced to stop and hide behind Vale, her shield weaver armour taking some hits as she scrambles. The Wyvern flies overhead and they sprint again, making it to their stash of gear. Aloy flips the bag and dumps everything out until she finds what she's looking her. Her ropecaster.
"I need to get close to one of them," Aloy says hastily. "Can you lure one in?"
"What's your plan?" he snipes, and goes still when Aloy raises the butt end of her spear. "Of course."
"We can't beat both of them in a straight fight. We need one of them fighting for us," she explains. "Ready?"
Vale nods and Aloy loads a rope bundle into the launcher. One of the Wyverns fly overhead. Vale aims his cannon and fires, hitting the machine's wings, the attack making it wobble in the air but not enough to ground it. The machine circles around and comes in with a sweep of its cannons. Vale slams his shield on the ground and the metal plates expand outward, giving them more cover. He grabs his maul and the head of the weapon splits. When the flying machine gets overhead, Vale fires an incredibly lucky shot that lands on the machines's other wing, paralyzing it. It's enough to make the Wyvern crash headlong into the ground and churn up dirt for several feet.
As the mercenary runs after it, Aloy checks in on Erend. He hides behind a rock, trading arrow shots with the other Wyvern machine which has also landed on the ground. The machine roars as its mouth hangs agape with a red-hot glow, and it spews fire and molten spit at him. Erend dives out of the way and grabs his own maul and catches Aloy watching with her weapon primed.
"I got this! You do what you gotta do!" he shouts. She hates the idea of leaving him on his own, especially after coming so far to find him. But she trusts that he can handle himself. He was too stubborn to die, after all.
She turns and catches up with Vale. The Wyvern pulls itself out of the rubble. A few metal pieces of armour are littered on the ground, fallen off from the impact. As the machine turns to face them, Vale sprints ahead and swings his hammer. The machine jumps back and twists and swings it's tail at him, but he blocks it with his shield, a painfully grunt escaping his voice. Aloy aims her weapon at the machine's wings and fires, the metal pin piercing one of its metal feathers. She quickly fires the other end at the ground as the machine squirms and tugs at the rope. She has to be quick if she wants get close.
The Wyvern makes that difficult. Aloy dives to the side as it breathes fire at her. The flames are hot and even though she isn't caught in them, she can feel the heat on her back. She gets a chance to fire again, securing the wing to the ground with another rope.
Vale tosses his lasso. His skill allows him to whip it around and snare the Wyvern's snout and jaws together. The machine struggles wildly under its restraints and kicks up dust. Aloy fires another rope at the machine's leg and ties it to the ground.
The Wyvern gives one vicious yank and forces Vale to stumble. It swings its head and smashes into his body, sending him flying across the ground. It then turns and lunges at Aloy, but she ducks as the machine flies over her. She rolls away and fires one more rope at the machine's other leg and latches it to the ground. The Wyvern lunges again, but the ropes stop it just a mere two feet in front of her, and it can't breathe fire at her because Vale's rope has wrapped its jaws shut.
Aloy grabs her spear and tries to anticipate the machine's moves, but it twists and turns too chaotically for her to sneak in with her override device. She takes a step forward and the Wyvern strikes, but she leaps off of a rock and lands with her body strewn across the machine's neck. Against the flailing, she manages to keep herself even as the machine breaks the ropes tethering it's wing to the ground. She sees Vale get up from the ground and swing his weapon in a wide arc, striking the machine in the head.
Consequently, it breaks his rope, and the electricity circulating through it snaps in an explosion of sparks. The Wyvern face sparks as wires snap, but it recovers quick and flaps one of its wings to knock Vale over. Aloy plunges her spear into the machine's back before it can attack him while its on the ground.
The Wyvern comes to a full stop. The override module starts working it's magic and Aloy can see the progress through her Focus, but suddenly the data stream turns red and her spear starts sparking with electricity where it contacts with the machine's core wires. The Wyvern shakes and squirms, like it knows what she's trying to do and tries to make her stop. It spreads its wings wide and she can hear a device wind up to full power behind her.
An extra set of propulsion jets appear from under the metal plating on the machine's rear, on either side of its tail. They power up, blue light circling in the engines, and the Wyvern launches into the air with such a force that it Aloy feels like her arms would have ripped off if she hadn't braced herself properly. They shoot straight up into the air and the ground is suddenly very far away. Wind whips by her face, stinging her eyes to the point that tears fall. The clouds get closer, and then in the blink of an eye they're in them. The Wyvern flies sporadically, twisting and turning in the air, doing rolls and spirals, anything to shake her off, but she finds a way to sit back perfectly with her legs tucked under metal plating and her one hand holding onto the wires that run up the machine's spine. She's still hanging onto her spear which is still jammed in the machine's hide.
She quickly activates her Focus. Nothing in the machine's programs have blocked her attempts to override them before, so why was this machine different? She views the data her Corruptor tech is feeding her as the Wyvern tilts from side to side. One of the jets on its wings is smoking, leaving a thin black chemtrail behind it. The data shows her some kind of firewall program. She shifts through the data while fighting the force of the wind, looking for a way past the firewall. A passcode, a breach, anything. This kind of technology was right up her alley. She should know how to break down the barrier.
She finally finds the deactivation sequence. A synthetic voice speaks to her through her Focus.
"Defensive Armaments Protocol initiated. To deactivate, state name and rank."
Well that was an easy one.
"Elisabet Sobeck, Alpha Prime!" she shouts. The display turns green and instantly the machine's speed slows down into a casual glide. Blue wires grow themselves over the back of the Wyvern's neck, giving her something to hold on to. The blue visors over its eyes slide back and the cannons rotate backwards. The machine is under her control now.
Aloy heaves a relieving sigh and hooks her spear to her back. Her Focus lights up again. She finds that there are two small antennae on the back of the machine's head and her Focus is trying to connect to them. She finds link communications and her display explodes into a trove of data. Several signals are coming from the ground. A Tallneck was wondering around the plains below them; another signal came from on top of the mountains to the north, and another signal of some unknown nature came from a forest of dead trees to the west. She could see the city of Mainspring from here and finally grasp its enormous size. It was more spread out then Meridian, and the tallest buildings were close to the centre. The stone walls went all the way around it and the towers looked small in comparison to everything else.
Another signal caught her attention. Two markers were grouped together and Aloy finds that the signal was coming from the other Wyvern, labelled as hostile machine, identified at a range that her could never have reached on its own. The markers were her allies, Vale and Erend. She grabs the wires like reins and pulls. The machine responds and turns around, sensing her urgency and speeds up back towards her friends.
The fire from the burning caravan is still lit, but her gaze tracks her allies' movements. Both Vale and Erend have been backed into a corner, the angry Wyvern keeping them pinned with its ranged attacks and large wings. Aloy spurs her new mount to fly faster, the blue light in the engines burning brighter.
Her Wyvern tackles the machine and they hurdle across the air. The other machine barely has any damage on it, aside from the one visor that Aloy shot out earlier. The men haven't had a chance to inflict any wounds on it. It gets itself upright and roars at them. The huntress readies her bow as her machine growls back and fires its wing cannons. The hostile machine jumps to the side with a flap of its wings and spins around, raking its tail across the Wyvern's face. It jumps back at close quarters and clamps it's jaws around her mounts' neck, but Aloy is able to jam her spear into the machine's snout, effectively unclamping its jaws from her machine. The hostile Wyvern turns towards the open air and bursts into a takeoff from the ground.
Aloy tugs on the wires and the the Wyvern launches after it, and soon they're speeding through the air, catching up with the other machine. Her Wyvern fires its cannons, but the other machine spirals out of the way and turns its head towards them to spew fire. They weave out of the way and Aloy manages to fire off one of her heavy arrows. It misses, but it discourages the machine from attacking and it speeds up to get away.
They continue to weave around each other, dodging and lunging with their attacks. Aloy finds her grip tested when her mount barrel rolls in the air a few times, but she manages to keep herself in place. It puts distance between them and allows her to draw an arrow back at full strength. When they cross each other's paths, she fires and lands her shot in the crevice between the machine's neck and front leg, and it falters and falls to the ground.
It smacks the rock cliffs before it collides with the ground, kicking up dust. Aloy turns her machine around and goes to the scene, where she find the other machine sparking all over. One of its wings is broken in half and a transfer hose containing a green liquid, blaze, spills from its chest, right at the wound where her arrow landed. She grabs her blast sling as the machine roars at them. It makes to fire its cannons again, but she beats it to the draw, lobbing one of her bombs at the blaze spilt on the ground. The liquid catches and explodes right in the machine's face. In a spectacular explosion, the machine is thrown head over tail and lands on its back, the light in its eyes finally going out.
Her Wyvern screams into the air and spreads its wings wide, as if in celebration of its victory. It's a reaction Aloy hasn't seen in any other machine before, but it further proves that these machines are of a different breed, built with a different kind of complexity that separates them from the other machines affected by the Derangement. Aloy dismounts herself from the machine's back as it settles down, eyeing her carefully. She sees her human allies appear over the hill, looking no worse for the wear. Erend's left shoulder pad is burnt to a crisp and his helmet is missing, and Vale is holding his side, but otherwise they are both alive.
"How does she do it?" Erend mutters, looking down at her and her new machine friend.
"I really don't know sometimes," Vale mumbles back. Aloy smirks in amusement and waves her hand.
"You can come down. It's safe!" she calls out. Both men make their way down to her and cautiously regard the tamed Wyvern, while it stares back at them nonchalantly like nothing ever happened. "Are you okay?" she asks Vale.
"I'll live once I get a chance to patch it up," he grunts. There's blood seeping through his fingers where he holds his wound and Aloy can't help but feel some sort of guilt. It was her decision to hijack the machine and leave them to fend for themselves against the other machine. "Don't look at me like that," Vale says, interrupting her thoughts. "We could've been a lot worse off if you couldn't tame that machine."
She nods and rubs her neck. She's unable to look him in the eye for some reason. "At least let me patch that up for you."
"Hey guys…" Erend speaks up, spurring both of their attention. The Oseram warrior points to something on the dead machine. "Something's blinking there."
Aloy walks up to dead Wyvern. Sparks still jump from its body, but there's a red blinking light coming from its head. She pushes the machine's head over and finds a new part has sprung from its head. A red light is flashing on and off and a signal emits from it. Aloy's scans the signal with her Focus.
Outgoing distress signal – level 5. 95% remaining power. Ongoing.
"Level five, that's different than the signal from before. What could it mean?" Aloy rambles on. Her Wyvern growls lowly and back away from the dead machine, almost as it if was… afraid? "Level five. That's probably more important than level two."
"What does that mean?" Erend asks.
"This component is sending a signal out there, but I don't know what to," she replies.
"Is that a bad thing?"
"I'm not sure…"
"It might be," Vale says. Aloy finds that his gaze is up at the sky, which is now turning yellow as the sun touches the horizon. She rises to her feet as he points at something in between the clouds.
A bright shining light is moving through the sky. It arcs across the sky, not directly towards them, but Aloy can tell that it's getting closer. It gets bigger and it gets brighter the closer to the ground it gets, and these's a boom in the air as the object brightens even more, leaving a large smoke trail behind it. With a thunderous wave it flies over their heads, a massive round object on fire that careens towards the north and disappears behind a hill. A few seconds later, a loud explosion shakes the earth. The huntress can feel the ground quake beneath her.
"What the hell was that?!" Erend exclaims. "You both saw that, right? It just… it just fell from the sky!"
Aloy doesn't respond as she tries to piece together what just happened. She gives a look to Vale, who has the same stunned look on his face.
"A machine born from the skies…" she murmurs to herself. It suddenly makes sense, and she grasps her bow tighter. "Those rumours might be true after all. We need to go!"
"You want to go see what that thing is?" Erend asks incredulously.
"If it's another Wyvern, we need to put it down," Vale says, but he looks uncertain. "I don't know if I can put up with another fight, though."
The Wyvern sits put, its wings tucked in and it stares at her intently. There's something about this machine that's definitely different. Whether it can sense her determination or it's simply following its programming, she knows that this machine will follow her into battle.
"We have to go see what it is," she finally says. "Vale, jump on that machine. Erend and I can walk."
Her commands go unquestioned. Vale climbs onto the back of the Wyvern unsteadily as Aloy and Erend begin climbing the hill. The machine runs after them, not risking a flight with an injured human in its back. At the top of the hill, Aloy can see the sight of the impact not far away. Like the object they found earlier, a long, large crater has cut through the earth, and at the end is the fallen machinery. Metal still burns bright red and patches of fire surround it. Another signal comes from the object: Distress beacon located. Awaiting query response from GPrime.
That can't be good, Aloy thinks to herself. If this is another hostile AI situation, the machine might act on its own conclusions when it doesn't get an answer back from the Gaia Prime site. The site was in ruins, leaving no way for it to communicate with Zero Dawn or any of its branching functions. They had to act fast.
As they get closer, Aloy realizes that this machine is much bigger than the other one, and three times the size of the Wyvern. The protective metal shell encasing the machine is still hot, even standing close to it.
"I got a bad feeling about this," Erend announces. Aloy tries to get close to the machine. A particular module on the shell is blinking, lights flashing red and green. A lens pops out suddenly and flashes bright green. A green light washes over all of them quickly, like the scanning light at the entrance of the Cradle facility. Metal plates move outwards from the shell and pop off, falling to the ground and revealing two pairs of blue lights that quickly turn from yellow to red.
"Get back!" she shouts as she runs away. The whole shells starts moving all at once, revealing a big machine as it hatches from it's metal cove. Metal pieces shift to form wings and legs as other pieces shed from its body completely, falling to the ground. Wires grow out from the body as components find their place. Along the underside of the machine's long neck are parts that glow white-hot as they activate and two jets on each wing boot up and blast out exhaust. Sharp claws line the individual fingers of the machine's feet and a long tail swishes wildly as sparkers form a line along its spine. A second, smaller pair of wings form just in front of the machine's hind legs, and metal plating shifts into place to form a protective mask over its long snout and jaws. The machine comes to stand on two legs at its full height and stretches out its four wings. It's roar is unlike anything Aloy has endured before. The sound pierces her ears like a hot knife plunging into her ear canals, and she can't help but scream in pain.
"That thing is huge!" Erend shouts, but Aloy barely hears it. In its full glory, the mighty machine is impressive, more intimidating than a Thunderjaw, which she didn't think was possible. It's steps shake the ground like a Deathbringer's march and the intense red glow from its' eyes are more malicious than a Sawtooth's.
To make the situation even more dire, several small lights appear all over the machines' body, and a white transparent light begins enveloping it. Aloy realizes with horror that it's a magnetic shield, just like her shield weaver armour.
They were definitely in trouble.
An even bigger Wyvern enters the fight! Now it's for the surprise part 4 next week.