The first thing that Cameron laid eyes on, was the gentle waving of thick black fabric. It was old and frayed along the edges, littered with holes and tears that grew in the number the more the Headsman’s frame was hauled into view.

“Holy shit…” Logan said under his breath, awestruck by the fearsome machine that hung in front of him.

“I think holy is the wrong term here, boss,” Cameron said, matching Logan’s hushed tones with a quiet reverence of his own, “This thing looks like a fucking monster.”

It wasn’t its size or shape that caught the men off guard. In fact, by metrics alone, the unit was practically average in all aspects. Standing at a perfect ten meters in height, the chassis wasn’t going to stand head and shoulders above all others. Nor would it’s color scheme, sporting a dull gunmetal gray, with accent lines of the deepest black. No, it was everything else that made it uniquely terrifying. The large seven meter long black blade for instance, clutched tightly in rest pose by a pair of gleaming, claw tipped hands. Filed flat and wide down to a dangerous two-toned colored double edge, and lacked a point, eschewing the ability to thrust and replaced with a dull squared-off end. The bulk of the chassis was hidden behind a thick black poncho, its fabric frayed and ripped in various places, giving the unit a more imperfect and human quality to it. Until they gazed upon the helm, where, under the shadows of loose fitting hood, a bone white skull plate stood out prominently, hiding the azure tint of two sapphire eyes.

The Headsman was indeed a beast straight out of a nightmare. An amalgamation of metal, fabric and glass, shaped into a fearsome visage of death and destruction.

The trio of Cameron, Logan, and Aurora stood in silence for what felt like an eternity. So heavy was the quiet, that Morty’s clearing of his throat was enough to cause in echo in the open space, before he began to rattle off the Headsman’s history.

“Meet the first and last product that Harbinger A.R.M.S. Industries ever produced, The HAI-01 Headsman,” He said, sweeping a hand up to regard the machine before continuing, “Originally designed to function as a shock and awe unit, the Headsman’s modus operandi was based on one word; momentum.”

He reached up and knocked on the center of the flat black blade, drawing out a hollow clang that echoed in a deep resonating tone, before moving over to one of the sides and knocking again. This time, instead of a hollow echo, there was heavy thunk that seemed to absorb all energy and sound. There was no echo or resonating force, it was seemingly taken in by the blade itself.

“Tungsten carbide edges,” Morty said, looking back at the trio, “With a steel inner core, the bladed sections are flash welded onto the frame. Each edge weighs in around three tons. All together, the sword is about seven tons, which at face value doesn’t seem like much, but when you factor in the Headman's overall weight at just barely seventy tons, you’re essentially swinging around ten percent of your body weight with every strike.”

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Logan let out an impressed whistle, “That thing would hit like a freighter.”

“Yes it would,” Aurora said, arms crossed as she gazed up into the skull plate, “To bad your arms would be out of their sockets from having the stop your arc.”

Morty grinned impishly, shaking his head while tsking at the young mechanic, “That’s by design, you see…” He began, hitting a button on his tablet that as he spoke. Suddenly a litany of tiny boosters began to flare, covering the Headsman from head to toe in an angry orange light.

“Why would you stop a swing, when you can carry the momentum into an additional attack?”

Logan was quiet for a long while, simply staring slack jawed in awe at the Headsman, looking quickly between Morty and the Mech before bringing a slightly shaking finger to point at the unit.

“H-How many boosters are on this thing?”

“Originally? four hundred and fifty.” Morty said nonchalantly.

“Four hundred and fifty?!” Logan and Aurora exclaimed together, looking again between the mech and salesman as he laughed.

“That’s nothing. Now it’s more like a thousand, now if you look here -”

“YOU PUT A THOUSAND BOOSTERS ON AN ASSAULT CLASS!?!” Logan cried, his shout ringing out even louder than the high pitched hum of the Headsman’s boosters.

Morty nodded, speaking matter-of-factly, “You bet your ass I did. The client wanted a minimum of two boosters for every joint, in order to maximize maneuverability. Got the job listing for it right here. I think the thought behind it was to pilot it in such a way to follow up one attack with another, using a mix momentum and quick bursts of speed to deliver strikes from odd angles so fast that the enemy wouldn’t have time to register and block.”

There was another long silence before Aurora’s skeptical timbre rang out once again. “And your thought, in order to accomplish this task, was not to double, triple, or quadruple the maximum amount of boosters put on a mech… ever, this particular unit being the outlier, but in fact quintuple it?”

Morty’s grin grew wider, “Pretty damn ingenious if I say so myself.”

“No,” Aurora said, correcting the man, “This is by fair the most dangerous and moronic thing I’ve ever heard of. What kind of childish, backwater, adrenaline chasing idiot would think it a good idea to crawl into that deathtrap?”

“Logan…” Cameron said, reverance clear in his voice as he finally managed to pry himself away from gazing on the most beautiful machine he’d ever laid eyes on, speaking in a hushed whisper as he grasped at the mans collar, “I need it.”

“Oh… That idiot,”