“Hi there, I’m Luis,” I said, taking my shield around my shoulder and snapping it into place on my back.

She stared, looking for some kind of harness but not finding any. After a few long seconds she said, “Jeeze mister. That’s… wow.” The last words came out of her mouth as she looked me up and down. I returned the favor. She was even curvier than Evelyn, reminding me almost of the actress who played Stiffler’s mom in American Pie. Normally I wouldn’t have been into grease, but somehow it looked so natural on her that it looked almost decorative. The shine of it giving her pale skin a sheen in the morning sun.

We stared each other up and down for a while. Finally, I said, “What’s your name? I’m Luis Smith.” I walked up to her and extended a hand. She wiped hers off on her pant leg—which only got it dirtier—then took my hand. Her grip was light and tentative.

“Handsome—I mean. I mean I’m mechanic. I-I’m Tisha. Roharice,” she said. Tisha’s voice was husky and on the deeper side. Rich like butter. Her pale cheeks reddened in embarrassment at the slip of her tongue. Tisha had her hair up in a tight ponytail, and she ran her hand back to it. Letting her blonde hair drop around her shoulders. As she did I noticed she had pointy ears. Tisha’s hair covered them instantly.

An elf?

A curvy mechanic elf?

They all seemed so stuffy and clean—not to mention thin. The elves I’d seen looked like their parents had been mechanical pencils.

She saw me look at her ears and blushed more deeply. Then she turned on her heel and stepped into the garage. Shaking her head and muttering something under her breath. It sounded like, “Stupid Tish. Typical, Tish.” I stood there with my mouth open, giving her a second.

Tish disappeared into the garage and I heard the heavy ringing of what must’ve been her wrench hitting something sturdy. My senses tingled as the metal-on-metal vibrated outward. “How can I help you?” she asked. Her voice was tight now.

Were we playing hide and seek?

I smirked, then stepped into the garage, happy not to be ducking under a door for once in my giant body. “I think you’ve heard of me? I’m a… heavy metal mage,” I said. Saying the name I’d been kicking around in my head for a while. “I’m looking for raw supplies. I have coin, if you have wares.”

I found her sitting inside the front end of something like an ice-cream truck. It was a big machine with the front chopped off. Situated like you would an office desk. A vending machine sat off to the right, and off to my left was a huge shelf with dozens of hunks of what I could instantly feel were metal.

“Whoa,” I said, veering off from approaching her and gravitating toward the shelves. “What’s this?”

She was really quiet. The only sound she made was the creak of the leather under her grip as I admired what looked like a metal collection. All of them were labeled with grease pen on gold placard. Light came in from a huge window above them that commanded a view of a clearing down the hill.

Aluminum and iron.

Copper and zinc.

Silver and gold.

There was even a tiny speck of platinum.

I reached out to the whole shelf. Probing it. I was surprised to find that all of them moved.

“Are all of these magnetic?” I wondered out loud.

“No. Copper and zinc aren’t. Neither are lead. Why?” Tisha said.

I scratched my head. It didn’t make much sense, but then again, neither did most of what had happened to me. A goddess had granted me magical powers. It didn’t have to make sense. In fact, it was great. That meant I could manipulate even more material than I thought.

There were some really rare metals. Names I hadn’t even heard of. Then on the far right, tungsten. I remembered reading about it in some sci-fi books. It was the material that they’d hurled from space as an orbital weapon.

Interesting.

I wanted to buy it all, but I was even more interested in talking to Tisha some more. She was beautiful, and seriously needed someone to help her relax. I turned around slowly and approached the truck she was in. Her blue eyes were downcast, and she was breathing deeply, trying to calm herself. When I got close to her she flicked them at me and then looked down again. She blushed once more.

“Tisha,” I said softly. “Think you could show me around the yard some time? You’ve got a lot of crazy stuff around here. I’d be stoked to take a better look at things.” She seemed to look past me.

Through me.

Her lip trembled.

She was truly painfully shy. This might’ve been harder than I thought.

“C’mon Tisha. I just want to check out the yard. Surely you do that all the time,” I said. She shook her head. Then raised a trembling hand. I couldn’t believe I was getting shot down so fast. Then I saw the fear in her eyes. Turning slowly to follow the angle of her pointing arm.

Through the window two huge shapes loomed.

Giant airships slowly cruising through the sky.

Fireballs were raining down from them. Landing in the fields of wheat. Turning them to raging blazes.

“Holy shit!” I shouted, dashing out of the garage and hopping on my shield. I turned toward the blimps and started screaming across the fields, then growled and doubled back toward the RV. I needed to get my armor on. I’d be no use to anyone dead. I screamed over the crowd in the town square on my shield, flying so fast that I blew a tapestry salesman’s goods into the sky. He yelled at me as I made a hard landing in front of the RV, my shield sparking and screeching as it ground into the cobblestone.

“Jade!” I shouted, figuring she’d be up by now, with Evelyn being more habitually nocturnal. “Jade! Get out here!” I flung the stage coach door open, whipping out the cloud of shields we’d stored inside, along with the smattering of spears and swords that were stuck in the prop jeep. I left them hovering in front. Then I sprinted into the RV, making as much noise as I could.

Jade was rubbing the sleep from her eyes, looking at me with a grumpy frown. “Luis. I was dead asleep, what’s going on?” She yawned. Stretching her perfect little limbs. More than anything I wanted to scoop her up and take her back to bed. Just talk and relax, and more.

But there was no time for that. Not now.

“We’re under attack,” I said, running over to her and planting a kiss on her forehead as I rummaged through the RV’s cabinets. “Where’s my leechium armor? From Titanus?”

“What? More elves?”

“Those flying things,” I said, barely focusing as I threw everything out of the cabinets. I finally stumbled on the armor that Evelyn had helped me craft during our last big mission. Jade recoiled out of habit, then clutched the amplifum necklace she wore. I told both of them to never remove them.

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“An airship?” she asked, her olive skin paling.

“Two airships,” I responded as I snapped my armor on. “Get Evelyn up and awake. Get your armor on.” I ran over to the front of the RV and swore. The blimps were closing fast. Way faster than I’d thought they could. “Then find whoever runs this town and get them to muster any soldiers they’ve got.”

“Luis, they’re farmers!” she shouted, running up to me and gripping my arm as she looked too. “Oh, no. Those can move a lot of troops Luis. If they land…”

“They have pitchforks, don’t they?” I said, forcing a harsh laugh. “I’ll… I’ll take care of it,” I said, leaning down and hugging her. She grabbed me and kissed me, then nodded.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll do everything you said. We’ll come back you up as soon as we can,” Jade assured me.

I kissed her one more time and shot out the door. I hopped on one of the shields and gathered the rest of them around me like a cloud, zipping off over the fields toward the looming airships. The swords and spears trailed after me like magnetized arrows. As I barreled forward with the wind blowing through my helmet I realized suddenly that moving all of this at once wasn’t even draining me at all.

I’d grown stronger and stronger every day. Either because of all the fun I was having, or because of the coupling with Jade and Evelyn. Probably both, really.

Seeing the airships close in, fun was the last thing on my mind. They were huge and wickedly designed. Like great pointed black thunderclouds of destruction.

The only thing I’d ever seen like them was the Goodyear blimp hovering over a football game. This was nothing like that.

Instead of a long smooth blimp, the airships were covered in metal and strange jutting shapes. Huge iron braces ran around the circumference of the machines, almost like monstrous supporting rib cages. Instead of a small pilot’s cabin at the front, a massive black metal structure was stuck to the underside of each ship. They were big enough to hold hundreds of people, and surprises that I couldn’t begin to guess at. Both of the airships were dumping dozens of fireballs every ten or fifteen seconds. I could see the pyromancers firing from bunkers at the front of the ships.

I couldn’t see any guns. Which I found baffling.

Not that I was complaining.

My heart was slamming so hard that I felt like I could hear it banging into my breastplate. My hands were clammy and my mouth was dry. Something like shock was gripping me tight as the two huge metal monsters closed in. Smoke clogged my nose as the wheat fields lit up nearby.

Run.

I was surprised to find the thought zipping through my head. It felt like one that didn’t belong to me. One of Ajax’s. The presence of these two ships was apparently enough to shake loose even the suppressed memories of Ajax. That didn’t bode well.

I could’ve run. It would’ve been easy to fly back to Jade and Evelyn. Get them into the RV and take off down the road. Hide in a forest somewhere using Jade’s illusions as cover. But that wasn’t right. These crops were burning because I’d had the audacity to oppose Lord Manageer. It was up to me to deal with those consequences.

Besides, turning tail and running wasn’t the kind of thing a badass heavy metal mage would do.

And then with a realization that had me slapping my forehead, it became obvious that I was much better equipped to fight these things than Ajax ever was. The entire ships were covered in metal.

“Stop being such a bitch, Luis,” I said with a shake of my head. “Go fuck these things up!”

I pumped five breaths in and out rapidly, trying to hype myself up. Then I imagined myself sorting through a record collection. Picking out the perfect song for the moment.

Led Zeppelin.

It had to be something by Led Zeppelin.

Then it came to me without any further thought. The hypnotic riff of Immigrant Song and Robert Plant’s incredible vocals. The thundering of the guitar like charging hoofbeats.

I rocketed off the ground and brought all my metal toward me. Charging at the two airships as they approached. I had to change direction and bank hard to my right. I kept underestimating the speed with which they could move. They were so fucking big and bulky that I kept thinking that they could only drift.

They were really fucking cranking.

I couldn’t help but be impressed.

The two of them were flying offset. Possibly to avoid crashing into each other if one of them was damaged. They were hundreds of feet off the ground, and as I rose to meet them I couldn’t help but look down and feel the tightness of panic and doubt in my chest.

What if my magic failed?

What if I plummeted to the ground and snapped my neck?

The hiss of a crackling flame and scalding heat caught my attention. I veered further right just as a volley of roaring fireballs burned past me. Something was burning, and I shouted as I looked down and saw that the bits of my hair that stuck out of my helmet were on fire.

“Fuck!” I shouted, slapping the flames out with my hand.

Focus up.

Focus.

I brought all of my shields into a phalanx on my left. Stacking them together so that I couldn’t even see through them and giving myself as much cover as I could. More fireballs sailed close to me, but now that I was paying attention I dodged them easily, feeling a thrill as I maneuvered.

The screaming chorus of the Zeppelin song still blasted through my head. Seeming to give even greater power to my magic and putting a huge smile on my face.

I’m flying on a shield fighting flame wizards.

Fucking awesome.

I circled around toward the back airship, blasting past the pyromancer bunker so quickly that they weren’t even able to get any shots off on me. Then I rose up and angled to land on the top of the huge machine of death. The closer I got to it, the more I realized how huge it really was. They looked big from the ground, but up close they were downright ridiculous. It felt like touching down on a football the size of a skyscraper.

I touched down on the back and locked my feet to one of the metal ribs. Something like sixteen propellers buzzed away behind me, pushing the ship along. A giant rudder the size of my house steered the ship from left to right. Huge blasts of steam vented from the tail end, along with monstrous jets of red and blue flame, which I assumed to be powered by cyclicite.

The machine was so big that I hardly knew where to begin. It looked like the blimp itself was made of some sort of canvas, and the metal rib I was standing on was just one of dozens if not hundreds of metal supports built into it. I put a pulse into the ship, feeling to confirm my intuition.

I’d been right.

Hundreds of metal beams crisscrossed the interior of the ship, girding the structure against all sorts of attacks. The thing was built like a fucking tank. Even if I managed to rip off the metal rib I was standing on, there were plenty more. I took a breath, scrambling for a plan. Then I pulled my dagger out and sent it slicing through the canvas. The hissing of gas escaping was satisfying, but it felt like almost nothing was being accomplished. I swore and kept slashing away at the canvas, deciding to cut the ribs with the enchanted blade. It hadn’t been stopped by anything before.

Except this time it did.

The blade jammed into the edge of the rib in front of me and stuck hard, quivering as my magical energy pushed it into an immovable force. I ran up to it, teetering on the slashed canvas and stared. The blade had gotten stuck in a shiny material that looked almost like silver. I reached in and pulled out the blade, then tried to grab onto the shiny material.

I couldn’t.

It was something that was more durable than metal, but wasn’t metal.

That was a problem.

“Fuck!” I shouted. “Change of plans then,” I yelled to nobody in particular. Hopping back on my shield, I matched speed with the ship and then started moving section by section, using my enchanted dagger to slash the canvas as well as I could. Carving huge gaping cuts. Flying up toward the front and tearing it to pieces. But even though some kind of gas was coming out, the ship was hardly dropping in altitude at all.

I hovered above the nose of the airship and looked on in horror as the other one in the lead closed in on the Strayton. Soon they’d be in close enough range that they could threaten the people that lived there.

Jade.

Evelyn.

I didn’t have any more time to fuck around.

I needed a bigger weapon.

I gritted my teeth and flew back to the ass-end of the ship. Staring at the blur of propellers.

They would do.

I took in a deep breath and picked the four closest to me. Trying to latch my focus onto them. Something about the speed that they were moving at made it difficult, so I brought my focus to the mechanisms controlling the propellers. Grinding pistons and driver rods housed in thick steel. I could feel the powdery almost bitter flavor of the leechium within the steel.

That wouldn’t stop me.

I brought my hand into a fist to aid in my visualization and crushed the mechanisms within the four propeller driveshafts. The ground to a halt with a hideous screech. The ship lurched beneath me, and I had to slow my speed to match. Alarm klaxons sounded off within the ship, accompanied by the sound of shouting. I ignored all of it and reached out to the now stationary propellers and performed my weightlessness spell on them.

Sparks flew in my eyes and the corners of my vision darkened. I sucked in air and pushed it out. Trying to keep myself conscious as I exerted myself. The sensation feeling almost like trying to bench-press way too much weight. My body went numb and loose for a moment, but I kept pushing. It probably would’ve been smarter to try them individually, but I didn’t have the luxury of that kind of time.

I could feel the weightlessness spell pushing through as I grunted and heaved in breath. Finally it took effect, and I felt the propeller blades go neutral, hovering like balloons against the limp tethers of their ruined driveshafts. I pushed my shield out up and above them, then snapped them off the ship completely. They broke off with a hideous but satisfying crack. Then I brought them up slowly, flanking myself with two on either side. Each of them was at least two stories tall. About that wide. Giant five-bladed propellers that had been put together to aid the march of Lord Manageer.

But not anymore.

I brought them with me as I set my sights on the ship below me. Ready to tear it to pieces.