Interlude XXII

(Larry Yo-Boy’s BiPrism News)

“What is going on everyone, it is me, Larry Yo-Boy here giving you all the details of the epic war of wars that we have all been waiting for. And unlike what you might have expected there has not been much yet.”

With that, the screen switches to show live feeds of Legrand air ships flying through the harsh deserts and performing a pincer maneuver by attacking World’s End from three sides.

However, unlike most other times when this happened, where the front lines collapsed within a matter of hours, and the Legrand empire would then spend the next few hours mopping up fleeing soldiers. This time the walls held.

First, the forces were not aided by the superior land forces, strengthened by the ever present mechanoid battle suit divisions. Instead, this was all an air war at first.

“Yes, as was predicted Legrand chose to go through with the invasion, despite having a clear delay in their ability to utilize ground elements. Even their highly touted mechanoid battle suit division has been having a hard time making their way through the harsh desert environment.” Larry states.

With that, the camera feed changes to show a large land transport vessel broken down with steams of smoke rising from its overworked engine.

From there it showed the stream of mechanoid battle suits breaking out and individually marching across the harsh desert terrain as they made their way closer.

Still it was clear that the mechanoid suits were still making steady, albeit slow, progress towards the war zone.

“Also, as expected, both militaries have held their trump cards in reserve. For now the Midnight Hunters have only sparingly sent out many of their SVC units to engage in battle. Which, I must say they were all impressive when they did arrive to the field. Though most of their actions are going to afford little in the times to come, for even now, the Legrand empire is waiting for their Mega-la-tron to arrive.”

Once again the feed changed, and this time, a giant multipedal monster was seen walking over the harsh desert landscape. As it moved, there was a quick zoom in of one of the legs to show that rather than a sharp spike as the leg normally wielded, this time there were large round disks that the mechanoid unit used.

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“Yes, originally it was thought that the Mega-la-tron would be unable to make the trek across the harsh desert sands, as the legs initially dug in too deep. But as you can see, Legrand engineers have fixed this flaw by giving the machine platform shoes. Hundreds of them.”

At that comment, the screen shows a split screen between the zoomed in and frozen mechanoid leg disk that is easily five feet tall and cylindrical. Then on the right side of the screen showed a famous actress who well known for having excessively large shoes to compensate for their less than average stature. The images then start to play, showing both images walking forward. The only difference was that the image of the right happened to show the celebrity stumbling and falling nearly face first to the ground, before their bodyguard grabbed them and helped them regain their balance on their stilts.

“Though honestly, I didn’t think this would work. But apparently it works on the dispersion technique, the one similar to Eskimo snowshoes, also known as raquette à neige.” Larry stated, clearly feeling pleased with himself for speaking French and believing himself to sound educated.

“The idea is that it disperses the weight of the leg out so that it doesn’t end up sinking in as much in the sand. While there wasn’t much sinkage, there were a few times that holes and other objects shifted in the desert sands that the use of the Mega-la-tron would be impossible, or at the very least impractical. Yet, this design is clearly enough to let that multi-legged monstrosity charge across the desert, albeit at a slower pace.” Larry stated.

Then the screen did a side by side comparison of the giant mechanical beast roaming across the desert landscape, and it charging across the open fields of on of the conquered territories.

“Why, might you ask was there such a push to charge forward? Why did the Legrand empire choose to only attack with seemingly half their forces ready? Well two things. First, it is clear that the Legrand empire truly wished to stop the Royal Wedding between the Midnight Hunters and the ancient Deolarian empire.”

This time the screen changed to show Mallory and the Deolarian King both confirming their vows for each other.

“The second, and more important thing was the fact that the Legrand Empire expected there to be a clear disturbance in the leadership structure of the Midnight Hunters, as they employed a level 1 death squad. That’s right, the fabled platoon of soldiers equipped with the legendary First Kill Daggers. No doubt you are wondering, what happened to them? Where did they go?”

At that, the screen changed to show a crashed ship out in the middle of the desert, with hundreds of seemingly apparent stone statues of Legrand soldiers and leaders.

The crash site was far off, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

Hundreds of large and imposing Blighted monsters appeared to roam about.

“That’s right, those are the legendary stage two Blighted monsters, at least compared to what Dr. Spiritlight explained.”

Once again, there was a shift where it showed Mallory fighting hundreds of overly Blighted monsters just hours earlier, all of which was supervised by Dr. Spiritlight, Jhonny, and Penelope.

“What happens to still bodies that are frozen by pixie dust?” Larry asked.

With that the screen changed back to the site of the wreckage where the overly large Blighted monsters ripped apart the hull of the ship and seemed to swallow the still statues whole.

The only difference was that those with the Legendary First Kill Daggers were eaten in gulp, before having the monster that ate them collapse entirely.

“Yes, those that had the daggers still got eaten, but they did manage to kill the beast that ate them, a pyrrhic victory, but a victory nonetheless.” Larry stated.

“What will this next stage of the war offer? Who knows, but I’ll be right here, ready to tell you when both sides finally play their trump cards. For we are all ready to see what a pixie will bring to this fight.” Larry stated.

At that the feed ended, the screen went dark. The feed that had been focused on the dead Blighted monster corpses that seemed to devour the Legrand suicide squad members in one gulp, was cut off just before the stomach muscles of the dead monsters began to shake and vibrate violently.

For what they didn’t know, what no one knew, not truly, was that so long as you were in a stasis effect, your body was impervious to damage.