"Alert! Alert! The Mobile Fortress Destroyer is on the move! All able-bodied adventurers report to the guild immediately! All civilians evacuate the Axel now!"
For a second that seemed to stretch on for a solid minute, my party and I looked at each other in surprise. I was still sitting on the couch ready to have a heart attack over my secrets being spilled when I got saved by the bell. Or, rather, the town's emergency PA system. Believe me when I say I'd much rather deal with an invasion than talk about my feelings with these girls. Though something tells me I won't be getting out of that so easily…
Darkness quickly sprang up from her seat next to me, going into serious knight mode without skipping a beat. "Let's go, everyone grab your gear. We're heading to the guild."
"Are you kidding!?" Aqua exclaimed. "We should be packing our bags and leaving town before it gets hit by the Destroyer! Staying would be suicide!"
"As adventurers, we took an oath to protect the weak and uphold law and order," Darkness argued back calmly. If I wasn't plagued with anxiety and also weren't a villain, I probably would've considered her pretty badass right now. "That goes doubly so for us Crusaders. I will not force you to go against your will. However, if you value your integrity, you'll come…"
I still knew next to nothing about this Destroyer thing, so I guess I'll tag along. If only to find out what it even is.
Megumin, for the second time since I've known her, looked apprehensive at best. She fidgeted with her staff for a bit before a look of resolve crossed her face and she put on her eyepatch. "A Crimson Demon never backs down, even against insurmountable odds! Let's go!"
That just left one self-proclaimed goddess. Aqua glanced from side to side, as if looking for some imaginary friend to back her up. The rest of us waited impatiently for her to decide. Surprisingly enough, she didn't wuss out on us like I had predicted and instead chose to stand by us.
"I still think you're all crazy not to leave," Aqua said, slight irritation creeping into her tone. "But then again…we're not exactly a normal team, are we?"
Darkness simply nodded with a small smile, taking Aqua's reluctant acceptance as a good enough answer. This was all getting a little too heroic for my taste. I'm only really interested in protecting my home, thank you. After all, I just waxed the floors in my evil lair. You think I'm gonna let all that effort go to waste by skipping town at the first sign of danger? Hell no! I'm chicken but not that chicken.
Dark's smile soon faded and was replaced by her stoic resting face. "Alright, we've wasted enough time as is. To the guild, people, let's go already!"
Boy, she sure can be serious when she wants to. Humans are a weird. Now robots, those guys are easy to understand!
Factually obvious statements aside, we all rushed to grab our gear and run out the door. As I was slipping on my trench coat, Darkness briskly brushed past me, but not before saying something which filled me with a fresh new wave of dread.
"Once matters have been settled with the Destroyer, we're going to have a team meeting regarding your concerns with us. Don't forget now, alright?"
Yup, called it. Fuck, I knew I wasn't out of the woods yet! My only hope now is that everyone gets too tired afterward to remember the meeting and they all go straight to bed. I still need more time to think about what I was going to do!
Once we were all geared up, the girls charged out the door while I deliberately lagged behind in a slow jog. Now that they know how I really feel about them, I'm finding it uneasy to be around them at the moment. I've already sent a private message to Spielberg the CameraBot to burn the incriminating reels, but the damage has been done. I don't know what this'll mean for us going forward, but I doubt it'll be anything good.
And by good, I mean…you should know what I mean by now.
As the girls and I made our way over to the Adventurer's Guild, I got to see the locals freaking out. They were hauling ass and hauling bags as they scurried like directionless ants. There were some town guards trying to keep an orderly line forming, but many impatient people ignored them and attempted to make a break for it on their own. And then there was the expected talk about the "Destroyer" and how it's "gonna level the place" among all the panicked screams.
For as increasingly anxious as I was about the whole ordeal, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a tiny bit envious. If some walking castle (that's what I'm assuming the Destroyer was) can shake the locals up this badly, then what the hell have I been doing for almost half a year? What a load of dookie…
Eventually, we arrived at the guild along with a couple of reluctant stragglers. When we got inside, the tense atmosphere was practically palpable. What was once a laid-back hub to hang out in felt more comparable to that of a war room. With each passing second, I was regretting coming along more and more. Combine that with my earlier fears of having my innermost thoughts being exposed and Jack Spicer was not a happy camper right now.
Once we linked up with the murmuring crowd of restless adventurers, Luna stepped forward and began to address us.
"Thank you all so much for coming. You are our town's first, last, and only line of defense. I cannot express how thankful I am that you would put your lives on the line for us all."
Get me out of this draft! I'm too young and pretty to die twice!
A random guild staff member stepped beside Luna holding some kind of crystal ball. "Our Intel shows the Mobile Fortress Destroyer is approaching from the northwest. Axel stands directly in its path. By our projections, it will be at our walls within the hour…"
The crystal ball the employee was holding began to show an image. I and many others had to lean in to get a decent view of what it was showing us. At first, all it showed was an empty grass field. The only other detail of note was the odd circles of dead grass dotting the plain. They were clean-cut tracks, man-made in nature. Not all that surprising really, I didn't think something called a "Mobile Fortress Destroyer" would be anything natural. But that still didn't tell me much about it.
Until the spindly, mechanical legs came into view.
My heart skipped a beat and my mind went into overdrive when the crystal ball zoomed out to reveal more. I saw seven glassy eyes with what appeared to be strings of binary code dancing across each one. The black sphere that was its "head" was probably around 45 feet in diameter at the smallest and sported some protrusions on the front that looked distinctly like…like mandibles.
The body and butt of the thing I'd say were around 100 feet wide and 130 feet tall. Those goddamn creepy-crawly legs could've been anywhere from 260 to possibly even 390 feet in length as they carried the fucking thing across the field. Exhaust ports bellowed out smoke from behind while automated laser turrets fried at birds unlucky enough to fly too close to it. The feed of the crystal ball also happened to cut out around that time too.
Okay...so two things to note.
One, why the FUCK was it shaped like a spider!? After nearly getting eaten by giant spiders back home, I've had the worst case of arachnophobia. There's a reason I discontinued the SpiderBot line; I couldn't bear to look at my own creations without breaking out into a sweat and shaking uncontrollably. That incident really messed me up.
Two, the Destroyer wasn't a magical walking castle like I had thought. It was very clearly a weaponized mech. Even if I wasn't deathly afraid of spiders, that alone was cause for alarm. Up until now, I've been operating under the assumption that I was the only one in the Fantasy World who possessed knowledge of robotics. It was the one domain I could confidently call my own and no one else's, my special place...
So imagine my distraught when someone else's technological terror comes bursting in to hand me a reality check! I thought my scientific knowhow made me unique around here, but I guess not apparently! I can never have things my way!
Ugh…anyway, one question remains: who's the smarty-pants that made the Destroyer in the first place? All I know is it has to be someone who reincarnated from Earth. That thing's way too advanced for these backwater yokels to invent all by themselves without magic. If the most complex invention they can create that doesn't involve the occult is a PA system, then there's no way that walker is local tech.
"Hey!"
"AH!"
I got spooked when something poked at my arm, and I still had spiders on the brain so I assumed the worst. Turns out it was just Chris trying to get my attention.
"Whoa, easy there, Jumpy!" she said while quickly retracting her hands. "Didn't mean to scare ya. I get things are tense right now, but I was gonna ask if you happened to have any ideas rolling around in that head of yours."
Just then, Kazuma stepped out from the sea of adventurers, alongside his timid partner in crime. "Yeah, as much as I hate to admit it, you're the only one in town who knows his way around machines. And since that Destroyer thing is a giant mecha of all things, there's really is no one else who's more qualified."
Great, now all eyes were on me, including my teammates'. I was hoping that the less they acknowledge my existence, the more likely they might forget about the team meeting later.
Well, no use in crying over spilled milk. Better put my evil intellect to work and come up with a plan to stop the Destroyer. However…with everyone in the guild making a conscious effort to stare at me, my irrational fear of spiders still in effect, and this morning's anxieties still fresh in my mind, I was drawing a blank. Still, I had to get something out for the public, so I winged it.
"Okay, hear me out: what if we get a really long rope and set it up so that when the Destroyer comes along, it trips over it and breaks on impact?"
The silence that followed was deafening. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to shrink down and live the rest of my second life in the nearest mouse hole. Too bad I didn't have the Changing Chopsticks on me when I died in Hong Kong.
"You've got to be kidding!" Kazuma exclaimed, angrily jabbing a finger in my direction. "All this talk about you being a 'genius' and THAT'S what you come up with!? Were you dropped on your head just this morning!?"
"B-But it worked in Empire Strikes Back, didn't it?" I defended meekly. "That's gotta count for something..."
"That was a MOVIE, you dumb Westerner!" the fuming Japanese teenager shot back. "You can build honest-to-god robots but you can't come up with a plan that isn't based on something you saw in fiction? Unbelievable!"
Now officially miffed, Kazuma turned back around to the crowd of adventurers and asked, "Does anyone else have any ideas? Or how about some more info on the Destroyer? The more we know about what we're going up against, the better."
Dang, getting disregarded just like that? Today was not my A-game...
A random mage hesitantly stepped forward from the crowd. "W-Well, I heard it was once developed by a distinguished savant from a kingdom with advanced magical technology; Noise, I believe it was called. Maybe we could find a way to contact the head researcher somehow?"
"I'm afraid that won't be possible," Yunyun (of all people) adamantly stated. "I read up on the fall of Noise back in Crimson Demon Academy. While the exact details are lost to time, it was documented that when the Destroyer was first switched on, its creators were the first to die…"
Okay, time out! The fuck was this about a technologically advanced kingdom? I'm still a little behind on fully incorporating magic into my tech, so the idea a whole kingdom already beat me to it was both terrifying and enviable!
If what Yunyun read was accurate, it thankfully sounds like the Noise Kingdom was wiped off the map when the Destroyer came online. So that's one potential threat out of the way at least. Maybe I should visit the ruins one day and see if I can salvage anything worthwhile. That'd be a fun vacation!
Anyway, if there's even a chance this head researcher guy survived, he's gonna wish he hadn't! This world ain't big enough for two evil conquers! I oughta squish his spider mech with the boot of my own mech! That'd teach him...
Wait, that's it! I'll just do exactly that! Why didn't I think of the idea sooner…? Oh, right, because the JackMech is still being worked. Not only that, but I don't think it's beefy enough for a direct confrontation with the Destroyer either.
Well…any idea is better than no idea.
"Hey, uh, I actually have another idea?" I said carefully, not fully realizing I was raising my hand while doing so. Damn school instincts kicking in.
"Oh great," Kazuma groaned irritably. "Is it based on something else you saw from a movie or TV show?"
"Wow, you are never going to let me live that down, are you?" I snapped lightly, immediately carrying on before he had a chance to reply with backsass of his own. "No, it's not. This idea is a lot more feasible, albeit a little shaky."
Kazuma raised an eyebrow and slowly crossed his arms while continuing to give me the stink eye. "This had better not be a waste of time…"
Once again, I felt all judgmental eyes on me again. I swallowed nervously as I began to explain my new plan.
"I didn't want to reveal one of my cards so soon like this but…desperate times call for desperate measures. I've been working on a mech of my own."
Kazuma's eyes widened. There was confused murmuring coming from the crowd of adventurers behind him. Figures only the Japanese kid would know what a mech was while the rest didn't have a clue. He always struck me as an Evangelion fanboy.
"Hang on, are you talking about that giant metal statue of yourself you showed us the other day?" Megumin suddenly questioned.
"That's the one," I answered dismissively without looking back at her (didn't want to risk losing my flow). "Granted, it's not exactly...complete yet in terms of construction. But I'm pretty sure it's stable enough for me to pilot without too much trouble. I know this may not sound like my best sales pitch here, but we kinda need to pull out all the stops if we want to have a shot at surviving. And what better way to do that than to fight fire with fire!"
For once, Kazuma didn't give me any unnecessary lip service. In fact, he actually seemed to be considering my proposition! He didn't know it, but that alone gave me some much needed confidence in my own half-baked idea. Like I said, desperate times call for desperate measures.
But as Kazuma was rubbing his chin in contemplation, a buff adventurer with a horned mask spoke up from within the crowd. "Fat load o' good a giant tin man can do against the Destroyah's magic shield! There hasn't been a single adventurer powerful enough to break through its defenses!"
"I can dispel its shield."
Everyone, including me, looked over to Aqua. She blinked for a moment and gazed curiously at her onlookers before shrugging indifferently.
"Well, I'm pretty sure I can, anyway. Did you all forget how amazing my stats were when I first joined the guild? They were nearly maxed out, even from the start! And I've only grown stronger since then!"
The rest of the adventurers all scratched their heads like a bunch of baboons as they basically reaffirmed what we already knew: that Aqua was the first guild member to start off with an advanced class and has great stats and blah-blah-blah. We get it, guys, so quit rubbing it in my face! It's hard enough trying to repress that memory without my own teammate bringing it up every five minutes on her own time.
"Yeah, and not only that, but we also got our ace-in-the-hole in case things get dicey!" added Keith, who I failed to realize was close beside me along with Tomato Boy. "Y'know, Crazy Boom Girl?"
"Assuming she isn't crazy enough to cast Explosion prematurely, I guess she could be our trump card…" Dust grumbled loudly.
"Hey, I have a real name you know!" Megumin shouted. "Call me crazy one more time and I'll blow you all up, got it!?"
Spoken like a non-crazy person.
Just then, a familiar voice rang out through the crowd as she attempted to sidestep into view. What the heck was Wiz doing here?
"Excuse me! Sorry I'm late everyone!" said the Lich incognito once she successfully parted the sea of bodies around her. "Um…hi! For those who don't know, I'm Wiz, owner of the local magic shop down the street. While I may be retired, I am a registered adventurer and thought I could offer some assistance."
Surprisingly, Wiz was met with ecstatic cheering from the whole guild, leaving me to wonder what all the hype was about.
I asked Keith and Dust, "Yo, is Wiz supposed to be famous or something?" Despite still being uncomfortable around them, I was more uncomfortable with my own party at the moment, so I confided in them for the time being.
That decision was immediately tested when Tomato Boy decided to get snippy with me again. "Have you been living under a rock? Everyone knows Wiz had a reputation for being a tough-ass chick back in her adventuring days. What backwater village did you come from?"
Your whole world is a backwater village you little - !
Keith cut me off from my mental rant as he said, "Just ignore him. But yeah, Wiz was renowned for being one of this guild's best adventurers. She was infamous for her powerful Ice Magic and matching cold attitude. Used to go by the nickname, 'Ice Witch'."
Really? That bouncy marshmallow used to be a stone-cold adventurer before she became a Lich? Color me intrigued. Now I actually was kind of interested in learning more about her. Even though I still have it out for immortals, at least they make for great storytellers.
"Alright everyone!" Luna shouted. "Let the emergency quest to save Axel commence!"
Determined cheers filled the room once again. Meanwhile, I restrained myself from letting out a deflated whimper. If I ever got out of this alive, I was swearing off from drinking. I blame the bottle for everything that was happening to me!
Aside from the small breeze provided by my HeliBot's propellers, the air around me felt…off. Like unnaturally so. Not the most creative description, I know, but it's the best I could come up with. I'm an evil genius, not a wordsmith.
Regardless, I continued to hover over the town and keep my eyes peeled for any sign of the Destroyer. After we all worked together to formulate a plan of attack, they tasked me with the ever so glamorous honor of lookout duty. Since I was the only adventurer with the means to fly, I was selected without hesitation. My HeliBot combined with my Farsight skill did make for pretty killer combo, there's no denying that. Even so, I can't help but feel like I'm being used as a tool by everyone else.
Speaking of everyone else, the majority of the adventurers were busy setting up a makeshift wooden barrier around the front gates, like they think that'll help. Aqua, Wiz, and Megumin were already in position on the twin turrets overlooking the field lands. The moment the Destroyer rears its ugly bug head, Aqua will use her Sacred Dispel skill to hopefully break through its magical defenses. Assuming she does (which this whole plan was hinging on), that'll be my cue to rev up my own mech and have myself a big bot brawl. If all else fails, Megumin and Wiz were on standby to pelt it with Explosion Magic as a last resort.
Yes, Wiz can also cast Explosion Magic. Made sense, really, she's been around the block long enough to accumulate an excess of skill points to spend willy-nilly. It's standard RPG practice for when a player nears the Level cap; I've played Fallout: New Vegas enough times to know. Still didn't make the reveal any less disturbing...
And then there was the odd one out: Darkness. She volunteered herself to "stand guard" way out in the fields for when the Destroyer arrives, making herself the first thing that'll get trampled on if the plan falls through. My gut assumption was that she just looking for another way to get her rocks off like usual. But the telltale signs of her being horny weren't present when she volunteered as tribute, she seemed deadly serious about it…
Then again, it could've just been a convincing front. But I wouldn't know for sure unless I flew over to where she was standing and asked her myself. Obviously, I couldn't exactly do that because…y'know.
I groaned in frustration. Why was I getting so worked up over the incident this morning anyway? So Darkness and the others discovered I'm hesitant to get close to them, big whoop! We're all technically still strangers to one another, it's only natural to be on guard. I like to keep my options open when it comes to partnerships because they're bound to go south eventually. Better to play it safe than to get too attached.
…
So then why am I letting myself get attached to these idiots!? Don't they realize there are, admittedly, far better horses to back out there than me? They already think I'm "chuuni" for wanting to rule the world anyway, how come they're still sticking around? Because they're too dumb to know any better? Well…maybe. But they haven't had a good reason to ditch me yet either. And I have a sinking feeling that the opportunity for them to do so was coming sooner rather than later…
Before I could let myself slip into another spiral of my own making, a glint on the horizon caught my eye. Activating Farsight, I could make out the form of the Destroyer crawling out from behind the mountains.
It's only a machine, Jack, not a real spider. You work with machines all the time, this should be second nature to you. Just don't think about how it's black like a black widow or how it moves like a daddy long legs or how it's got a face like a tarantula -
Sometimes I wonder if my brain is as much of a masochist as Darkness is.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts and pulled out a crude megaphone that Luna loaned me. I gave the signal.
"HEY, DINGBATS! HERE IT COMES!"
Side note, would it have killed the locals to adapt their siren technology into their megaphones? They are literally just curled up paper cones. I had to strain my evil vocal cords just to get everybody to hear me down below. So stupid, it makes me more convinced that the Destroyer's creator was an Earth human.
Anyway, the workers dropped the logs they were using to build the useless barricade while the adventurers all braced themselves for the inevitable. Once the Destroyer was out of the mountains and in clear view, it curiously stopped in place. It wasn't until the machine did a long distance laser scan on the town did I understand why. It must've been collecting data on the settlement ahead before likely calculating if it was blacklisted or not. Maybe there was a chance Axel wasn't registered on the database?
That hopeful idea was blasted into oblivion when the Destroyer honked like a damn tripod from War of the Worlds before continuing its march. So much for being optimistic.
Something white whipped past me before I could get a good look at it. However, I already knew what it was when I saw Aqua brandishing her previously missing flower bud staff and chanting her Sacred Dispel spell. Since this was my first time seeing the move in action, I had the best seat in the house. Apparently, Sacred Dispel involves having five large yellow ciphers similar to Megumin's lined up in front of you and emitting a powerful beam of energy at your target. Pretty neat.
What wasn't neat, however, was the Destroyer's shields blocking Aqua's attack. As soon as her beam was within reach of the mech, a colorful magic barrier that was previously invisible came up to deflect it. The only thing going on for Aqua in that moment was her spell being just powerful enough to halt the Destroyer in its tracks.
But that simply wasn't good enough in Jack's eyes! I should've expected as much from a fledgling demigod like her. The plan was doomed to fail!
"RRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"
With an ear-splitting war cry, Aqua's beam suddenly got a whole lot brighter. That's not even mentioning the intense heat now radiating off of it. I was behind the blast all the way up in the air and I could feel it.
Aqua's Sacred Dispel attack looked more electrifying than ever before, making it a little difficult for me to stare at it for very long. What I did manage to see was the spell not only physically pushing the Destroyer back, but actually doing its namesake!
The magic shield on the mech shattered like glass, "shards" of it flying everywhere. After that, it felt as though time came to a complete standstill. The sudden silence that filled the area was incredibly surreal as everyone down below seemed to stare at the Immobile Fortress Destroyer in total bewilderment, like they couldn't believe what they saw. Even the Destroyer itself, who likely only possessed basic onboard AI, seemed just as confused as everyone else. I could tell.
"Wait...that actually worked?"
What was I saying? Of course it worked! Never doubted Aqua for even a second! Nope!
It wasn't long before the water goddess and Megumin started yelling at me to get into position. Didn't need to tell me twice, I took my cue and flew back to Spicer Mansion II as fast as my HeliBot could go. Once I made it to the front doors, I swung them open and wasted no time in adjusting my propeller blades to accelerate me through the winding halls at blinding speeds.
As I was flying towards my lair, I took note of the JackBots moving throughout the mansion, packing everyone's clothes and belongings like I had ordered them to after hearing about the plan. It was always best to be ready to get out of dodge, even if that might not be the case this time around. Still, I wasn't going to tell them to stop. Didn't have time to anyway.
I made it to the cellar door, input the security code on the keypad, and flew all the way downstairs into the depths of my evil lair. In record time, I found myself arriving at my destination: my dug out hanger bay.
Flipping a nearby switch, the flood lights came on to illuminate the Jack Spicer Evil Transforming Mech standing underneath the blast doors leading outside. My squadron of WingBots were neatly lined up beside each leg, waiting to be given the activation command to fly out.
My previous worries crept their way back into my mind as I hovered into the cockpit. The JackMech didn't have all its parts fully reinforced yet, and the experimental heat ray bazooka in the right arm was still…well, experimental. And while being 50 feet tall was certainly nothing to sneeze at, it was nowhere close to being in the same weight class as the Destroyer. The odds of me taking down that eight-legged monstrosity with my own mech in its current state were slim at best.
Slapping myself, I consciously repressed those concerns into the back of my mind. I am Jack-freaking-Spicer, robots are my forte! I won't back down to someone's toy spider! I was gonna show 'em how a real evil genius does it!
I grabbed the microphone attached to the dashboard, causing the loudspeakers embedded in the JackMech's "mouth" to crackle to life. I cleared my throat and spoke into it with all the bravado I could muster.
"Computer: open the hanger bay doors! WingBots: time to soar! David: can you go to the platform control station over on your left? I forgot to set a timer for the lift. Thanks."
The lone JackBot unit, JB-D4V1D, flew to the control station and pulled the lever to activate the lift for the JackMech. Meanwhile, the WingBots came online and were hovering beside my head (my mech's head that is) as we ascended into the outside world. Due to the sheer size and scope of my underground hanger bay, I had to dig out far enough so that we'd pop out from behind the city walls. But don't worry, I made sure to paint the outer doors green so they would blend into the surrounding grass. Wouldn't want squatters to find their way into my lair and make themselves at home.
"Alright boys, see the giant enemy spider due north?" I asked the WingBots through the JackMech's speakers, raising one of its arms to point. "There are laser turrets mounted on the carapace. You know what to do."
My WingBots instantly assumed a "V" formation and took off like the vulture droids they were loosely inspired by. Hopefully they'll distract the Destroyer long enough for me to charge up the plasma canon on my way there. Shooting it was going to eat up most of the JackMech's primary power supply. I quite literally only have one shot at this. If I miss my mark, I doubt the backup generators will get me very far...
I carefully piloted the mech around the city's outer walls, wincing when I heard the metal legs groan with each step. I couldn't afford to make the thing sprint, it'd further compromise the structural integrity. Still, I was able to make great strides over the plains regardless, and was at the front gates in less than a minute.
Even though I was on a bit of a time crunch, I couldn't resist glancing out the view port in the chest. I needed to see the adventurers who'd been flagging me as "pragmatic" all this time gaze in shock and awe at my evil engineering! Needless to say, I got my fill and then some.
Turning my focus back at the task at hand, I found myself transfixed by the laser lightshow off in the distance. My WingBots were actually succeeding in keeping the Destroyer still so it could attempt to pick them off one by one with its laser turrets. They flew all around the mechanized walking fortress as they fired their own lasers, taking potshots wherever they could and even taking out a few turrets. Likewise, the Destroyer was able to shoot down some of the bots and send them crashing into the ground.
Once this was over, I was going to repair my flyboys and give them all a special oil bath for their troubles.
The heat ray bazooka was about three-fourths of the way charged when something strange happened with the Destroyer. It let out a cartoony-sounding steam whistle before lowering itself closer to the ground. Crawling out of the entrances were what could be best described as a defense force of freaking steampunk golems. Their bodies appeared to be made up of the same black metal as their ride and they even had exhaust ports jutting out from their backs too.
"Great, as if those country bumpkins at the guild didn't have enough trouble discerning robots from golems…" I grumbled to myself before noticing how close my mouth was to the mic. "…this still on?"
I'd worry about that later. The golems slid down the Destroyer's gross-ass spider legs and charged at Darkness, who had yet to move from her spot on the field. Judging from how firmly her sword was implanted into the dirt, it didn't look like she was going to move any time soon. Heroic muscle-head...
Things may be awkward between us right now, but I should probably step in since I knew for a fact there wasn't a damn thing she could do to stop those golems. But I also needed to save the JackMech's energy for the cannon. Better be conservative about it.
I guided the mech over to where Darkness stood, being careful not to accidentally step on her as I did. With stiff but controlled movements, I systematically squashed the approaching golems like I were playing a game of whack-a-mole with my giant robot feet. Giddy at finally getting to feel OP for a change, I had to restrain myself from doing anything that would consume too much power. After all, my trump card had just finished fully charging by the time the golems were dealt with.
Just in the nick of time too. Once I had finished flattening the steampunk golems into pancakes, the Destroyer shot the last of the WingBots out of the sky. With nothing left to distract it, the fortress on legs came right for me! Jumping Dashi on a pogo stick – that was one angry spider droid!
I almost, almost, locked up when I saw it speeding towards me. If it weren't for my monitors dinging at me to fire the cannon, I probably would've let myself get run over without realizing.
It's just a robot, it's just a robot, IT'S JUST A ROBOT!
I repeated this mantra in my head as I fumbled with the firing mechanisms. The JackMech switched its right arm out for the experimental heat ray bazooka and aimed it directly at the Destroyer.
Full disclosure: I've never actually fired this thing before. I nearly did on Omi and his basketball buddy, Jermaine, when we were fighting for the Serpent's Tail all the way back in New York. But then the Xiaolin Losers' pet dragon interrupted me before I had the chance. Well not this time!
As soon as the screen read "TARGET AQUIRED", my hand gripped the firing lever tightly. In spite of my arachnophobia, I did allow myself to smirk evilly. Maybe saying a cool, witty one-liner will help alleviate my stress.
"'Some pig'? More like some…BIG pile of melted scrap! Prepare to meet your maker, Charlotte! Mwahahahahahahaaa!"
Ugh, even I internally cringed at that. But I already cemented it with the evil laugh, had no choice but to own it now. Was really starting to regret the inclusion of loudspeakers on the JackMech.
That would prove to be the least of my concerns, however, when I heard something more painful than my lame one-liner: the sound of metal groaning against itself. Admittedly nothing new, I've had to contend with hearing that as I pilot my incomplete bot. But something about this groan in particular sounded much more…strained. Like the metal framework was on its last legs…
That's when the support for the left leg finally gave out.
I got hit with a barrage of error messages from my computer screens. The cockpit flashed red with warning lights as the emergency sirens blared indiscriminately in my ears. The overstimulation was real, and I could barely process what was happening as I came careening down along with my mech. What I did manage to piece together in the ensuing chaos was the heat ray firing…at the Destroyer's right set of legs.
In an attempt to look at the bright side, at least I now knew the weapon worked. It melted through the spider mech's legs like a hot knife through butter, literally crippling it and causing it to fall to the ground. Pretty damn sick!
Unfortunately, that's where the bright side of things ended. Because now the Destroyer was sliding towards me with no signs of it slowing down, effectively leaving me as a deer in the headlights.
Also, I ran out of power...and the backup generators weren't working...and my mech was missing a leg of its own...shit.
I remembered screaming as I mashed the eject button with every last ounce of my gamer instincts. Next thing I knew, I was getting jostled around in the cockpit again, this time accompanied by the sound of two Explosions going off simultaneously. I believe that was Plan B taking affect.
After the JackMech crash-landed and I got done peeling myself off the wall, everything went eerily quiet, both inside and outside. Climbing up the wreckage, I grabbed a lever that'd snapped off at some point and used it to smash a hole through the view port. I made sure to be mindful of the broken glass before hoisting myself out of the cockpit and surveying the damage.
My mech was mangled to hell and bent out of shape. It was gonna take months of repairs to get it back to working order, and that's not even taking into account the amount of bot power it'll take to drag it all the way back home! The only thing that made me feel any better was seeing the Destroyer in an equally demolished state.
Speaking of which, it would seem the trajectory of Megumin and Wiz's combined Explosion flung me behind Darkness, who was standing mere inches away from the Destroyer's half-buried head. Did…did she not even flinch when all that crap happened in front of her?
Uh-oh, now she noticed my presence. Just grin and give a thumbs-up, Jack. Don't let her be reminded that you still can't bring yourself to trust her or anyone else in your party…
Whatever Darkness was about to say or do was interrupted when the Destroyer's eyes flashed red. A computerized voice with female programming came online automatically as it made an announcement.
"Warning: critical damage sustained. Initiating emergency self-destruct sequence. All personnel, please evacuate in an orderly fashion, and don't forget to visit the gift shop on your way out. Have a nice day."
Remember when I said things were eerily quiet before? Yeah, me too. Those were good times.