Standing atop the makeshift fort, Urist, dressed in his battle flame robes, awaited the incoming horde of skeletons. Next to him stood the fox-kin Sage, secret spear master Mo, and Uria. Below them were mages hidden within the trenches of the fort. If one looked down at them, they could see nervousness plastered across their faces.

Urist stared into the distance, his brows furrowed. “How long do we have?”

“Judging by the tremors, we have about two minutes until contact,” Uria responded, her hands pressed onto the floor. 

Urist gripped his bone spear, Greedy Serpent, and turned to the fox-kin. 

“Remember Sage, we’ll be counting on you and your brethren.”

Sage rolled her eyes, “Just give us the opening and we’ll handle it. I don’t want to get shot at for nothing.”

“We won’t fail you, I promise you this.”

Sage turned her head away arrogantly, “Humph. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Not taking the bait, Urist finally turned his head towards Mo.

“I’m sorry to drag you into this war, Master Mo, but we needed everyone for this.”

Mo started chuckling, “Haha… Don’t worry about it, King. And please, don’t call me master. I only know a thing or two about spears. Even though my father wished for me to never step onto the battlefield… I know that this is where I belong now. At least until peace arrives.”

Urist shook his head, “A teacher for a day, a teacher for life. Without your guidance, I wouldn’t be here now.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll be your master! Just stop praising me, you’re making this grown man blush.”

“Haha!” Urist and those below that heard the conversation started laughing.

“They are here.” Uria words sliced through the laughter, turning everyone somber in an instant.

Not a moment later, the ground began to tremble. In the distance, trees breaking and crashing to the ground could be heard.

Eyes flashing red, the bone mecha marched forth dauntlessly, coming out of the forest with a trail of destruction in its wake. The mecha’s left hands held a two-handed saber, the right hand held a great shield, and held within a strange, warped appendage were multiple large hollow cylinders. 

Is that a minigun? Urist mused as flames began to flicker along his body.

“Mo, we’re up. Mages, support us. Uria, I’ll leave it to you to signal the warriors.”

“Strength, Speed, Reflex, Control, Vision.” Flaming symbols appeared from Urist’s fingertips, landing upon Mo’s back before Urist turned to buff himself.

Having been fully strengthened, the two dashed forth to meet the mass of bone head on.

Eyes flashing, the mecha let out a roar as it moved its minigun towards the two.

Clink, clink, clink.

The gun barrels turned, letting up plumes of smoke before the bone gun roared to life, shooting countless bone shards forth. 

Urist and Mo spit up, shifting to the left and right respectively to split the pilot’s attention, and sped forward, unphased by the shards.  

A dark voice resounded from the bone mecha as the bone shards exploded the field around the pair. “You underestimate my power, savage midgets. Dare to kill my brothers and sisters in arms? I’ll avenge them or die trying, or my name isn’t Rimson!”

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Soundlessly the skeletons behind the mecha divided to move to his left and right flanks. The melee warriors formed a shield wall in the front while the gunners lined up from behind and readied their crosshairs.

Uria snorted, feeling the enemy’s movements through the ground, “As if I’d let you do something troublesome. Offensive Mages, begin bombardment! Careful not to hit the hostages one hundred meters behind the mecha. Everything else is free game.”

And so the mages held nothing back and casting their most powerful spells. Hands raised to the skies, the air seemed to solidify with an electrifying power as the sky above them flashed colorfully.

This didn’t go unnoticed by this necromancer, who sensed the danger. He quickly commanded his forces to pelt the fortress with bullets, and soon dark energy gathered within the barrels of the skeleton’s rifles before they shot out, ripping through the rock walls of the fortress. Although most of the bullets were blocked some still managed to get through, causing a few cries to be heard here and there. 

Figuring the two fools charging at him were no more than small threats, Rimson turned his minigun, aiming to blow up the small fort instead. 

Seeing this, Urist coldly shouted across the battlefield, “You’re forgetting about me, bastard!”

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One after another Urist unleashed his skills. With each step his muscles grew, his hair lengthened, and his body lit up like a comet as he dashed along the ground. He was aiming to smash right into the mecha.

The pilot gave a lazy snicker, “Heh, what can you do with just a spear against my mech, puny midget? Get crushed.”

Without much thought the necromancer kept moving the minigun in the fort’s direction, idly smashing his massive saber downward towards Urist. 

Seeing a blade bigger than him by more than a few times heading to make him paste, Urist didn’t dodge. Instead, he decided to face it head-on. 

He roared with bloodshot eyes, “First Strike!”

Greedy Serpent and the giant saber clashed, and to the necromancer’s surprise, created a collision that sent massive shockwaves outwards, the force so immense that it caused the mecha to lean backward, almost to the point of falling over. 

It was at this time that Mo joined the fight with a much more somber mood, lashing out with his spear.

“Second Strike.”

Like a serpent his spear lashed out twice at mecha’s chest, hitting the exact same spot both times, sending out a shockwave in no way inferior to the one Urist just unleashed. 

The two attacks sent the mecha toppling over on its back just as the mages finished chanting and launched a bombardment to obliterate the skeletons.  

As the explosions flew around, Urist lay on the ground, exhausted and barely managing to hold his spear to the sky. With his spear in the air, reflecting the light, Urist could see the cracks upon the copper bone weapon and felt his heartache.

Sorry for putting you through the wringer. This was the best plan that had the fastest victory and the least amount of casualties. When this is over I’ll let you eat that mecha as compensation. You like eating them, right?

While talking to his weapon like it was a person, Urist let a flame travel up his body, onto the spear, before sending it up and out like a flare. 

While he sent the signal, the mecha’s pilot, for some reason, started laughing. “You fuckers think that this is enough to stop me? You fools, prepare to die for defying me! And you can forget about saving those hostages! We’re all going to die together!”

The armor on the mecha's chest, legs, and arms suddenly pulled back, revealing hundreds of barrels filled with a dark, glowing power that seemed to be increasing by the second

As the necromancer laughed hysterically in his cockpit, a small shadow suddenly appeared in the air over the mech.

“It’s you who's going to die today. For my father!” Holding ten metal grenades charged with holy rubies, Sage tossed them all along the exposed chest of the mecha. 

Sensing the holy energy from the falling grenades, the necromancer Rimson tried to smash the grenades away with his mecha’s hands only for the mecha’s arms to be hit away by ice spears that instantly disabled the mecha’s joints.

“Your end lies here,” Rytar stated as he appeared in the distance behind the mecha with the dwarf warriors, rat-kin, fox-kin, and hostages in tow.

“Shall we leave the area, my King?” Mo mused as he scooped Urist off the ground and began sprinting into the distance.

As they made a mad dash away from the incoming explosion, Rimson tried to close the chest armor in desperation. Yet the moment his hands touched the controls, a faint clink, clink, clink sounded.

“I may die today, but my lord will avenge me and kill you midgets! How dare you get in the way of our ritual! He was chosen to be a— ”

The mecha's chest cavity exploded with holy fire, burning Rimson into nothingness.

The battle was over. The Dwarfs had won.