The Captain raised his hand and a ballista bolt came sailing from our right flank which our personal Mary Sue, Elita, somehow knocked out of the air with upward block. The bolt flew harmlessly over our heads and into the trees on the other side of the road.

A second bolt came from our left and was embedded in the ground between Marshoo’s knees. It would have hit Prowl, had she not rolled out of the way. Marshoo squeaked and tried to edge backward and away.

“It doesn’t seem like they care too much about keeping you alive Marshoo,” Remi said as he released an arrow into the woods.

Marshoo just gave him a frightened look and a tight shake of her head. An Automata with a ballista came stumbling out of the woods to our rear with an arrow shaft jutting out from their eye before tripping and falling forward in a heap.

I spotted the Automata to my left as they were resetting their ballista and hit them in the chest with a [Liberator.exe] round. The round carried them back and deeper into the woods where they could go through their detoxifying cleanse in peace.

Sparky lept from my shoulder and headed for the woods on our right as the sounds of explosions and trees falling crashed from beyond the curve in the road. Hopefully, the little guy would stay out of trouble. I didn’t want to see him get hurt.

Two more Automata came from our left, but these were carrying those same giant swords. Prowl rushed forward to engage them both with her own bastard sword.

The first Automata on our right reset their ballista and was loading one of those massive bolts from a specialized quiver mounted to their back. Another sword bot rushed from that side but crumpled backwards as a set of arrows suddenly sprouted from its throat. I looked back to see Remi casually scanning the woods for more and releasing another arrow. This time I heard a male scream come from somewhere deeper in the woods, no doubt one of the handlers for the Automata.

Elita had vaulted over me and was trading blows with one of the sword bots that had come from the left, while Prowl was fighting the other. That first ballista bot was now bringing their weapon to bear but I shot them with a Liberator round before they could take aim. Their body flung back into the woods from the force of the shot and bounced off a tree before coming to a rest on the forest floor. I winced a bit, knowing all too well that exact experience a couple of times now.

In my lack of situational awareness, I was nearly cleaved in half by the sword of the Automata that had been in front of the royal party. My left eye still hadn’t been replaced from my crash so I had a bit of a blind spot, quite literally. The only thing that saved me was the war cry that the Automata yelled as it attacked. I suppose that was their shackled and controlled way of trying to help. I appreciated it.

The sword bot swung at me again and I rolled out of the way and popped out my arm blade. I felt like this bot might not be giving their full effort but couldn’t really resist the control curse beyond that. They came at me with an overhead swing that threatened to snap my own blade in half.

“I’m sorry, I have to do this,” they said in a pained tone.

“Me too buddy, we’ll talk when you wake up.” I angled my blade away so that the weight of their blade skated across mine and to the ground. Before they could recover, my arm cannon was pushed to their chest plate and a Liberator round was carrying them up and back. Their sword was embedded into the ground and their body landed with a clatter on their back as they convulsed and shook from the counter-curse battle going on inside of them.

I stood up as tall as I could and looked the Prince in the eye. Around me I could hear some more screams in the woods as Remi found new soft targets.

“What did you do to them?” he demanded.

Prowl was fairly evenly matched with her opponent but the same could not be said for the fight between Elita and her dance partner. In a sweeping move, she’d taken off the sword arm at the elbow, punched the Automata in the chest but grabbed it by the belt to keep it from flying back. She then stabbed her own sword into the ground and hefted the bot up with both hands. With a twist, she turned and slammed it hard into the ground with a body slam that would have made Hulk Hogan proud.

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“The what now?” I asked.

Without turning away from the prince, I fired a Liberator round at the bot on the ground and they started going into spasms.

“That!” he said, “What is that you’re hitting them with??”

I fired another round, this time at the sword bot that Prowl was fighting. “Sorry your highness, didn’t catch that.”

The bot flew back and went through the convulsions as soon as they hit the ground. Prowl whipped around and shot me a dirty look.

“Prime! I had that under control!” she chastised.

The prince looked like he was going to pop, as a major vein had begun throbbing in his neck. The princess, on the other hand, was wide eyed and kept looking back and forth between her brother and I. I couldn’t tell if it was a look of excited anticipation or one of fear. Either way, I think she would be eating popcorn if she had some.

“I demand you tell me what you’re doing to them!” the prince yelled.

“Get used to disappointment,” I responded in my best Cary Elwes.

The last ballista bot was attempting to take aim with one eye when they were hit from behind and flung forward. Like the others, they started convulsing when they hit the ground. The prince tore his glare away from me and looked up to see a charred Sentinel hobbling around the bend with the help of the now unlocked Automata from the scouting party.

As Sentinel slowly made his way forward, all eyes were glued to him as he made for a pretty unreal sight. When he passed the Automata sitting up with arrows in its throat, he shot it with a Liberator round and sent it back down. He then brought both hand cannons up and shot the two automata attendants for the prince and princess.

“What the hell was that??” the prince shreaked at his captain.

“I, I, I don’t know your highness. I’ve never seen anything like that!”

“You!” the prince yelled, turning to jab a finger in Shea’s direction. “Why didn’t you tell us that piece of junk Automata could do that? That’s what you’re here for!”

Shea shreaked and fell to the ground, “I’m so sorry your highness! I didn’t know he could do that!”

“Useless,” he spat. “Throw her with the others.”

“What? No!” Princess Relena said quietly, but a glare from her brother prevented further objection.

Ryoma, the Guild Master, picked Shea up by the rear straps of her chest armor and bodily threw her forward. She would have landed in a painful heap in front of me if Elita hadn’t caught her just before impact. After catching her though, Elita dropped her unceremoniously on the ground.

“Hey Shea,” I said looking down at her. “How’s it goin’?”

“I’m sorry Prime,” she said as tears started pooling in her eyes. “I didn’t think it would end up like this...”

“Later,” I said firmly.

“But Prime!” she pleaded, “They have ogres, and battle golems, and the Guild Master! You can’t beat them!”

Again, I looked back down at her. “Later,” I repeated, giving her a full view of my ruined face. I was sure that my visage would give her the impression that I’d been through some serious hardships since we last met, possibly because of her betrayal. She didn’t need to know that I’d done this to myself by being an idiot.

She sniffled and rubbed her nose on her sleeve as she nodded slightly.

I could see the massive battle golems shoving trees out of the way as they moved past the coaches and remaining personnel. Each one was about twelve feet tall, eight feet wide and covered with metal spikes. Orange flames burned in what might be eye holes. They were clearly made of stone, yet moved like they were organic— though in a slow, plodding, heavy sort of way.

Without taking my eyes away from the monsters headed our way, I addressed Marshoo “Say, Marshoo, my guess is that the Prince doesn’t care if you are included in our demise. If we let you go, you’ll have the choice of running away and being branded a deserter or being ordered to fight us without any sort of Automata support. And there are sixteen of us now. Do you have any interest in either of those options?”

“Um.. no?” she said quietly.

“I thought not. Marshoo, this is Shea. Shea, Marshoo. Both of you are currently our prisoners. Prowl, if you would be so kind as to escort the prisoners to a safe distance around the bend? You might need to knock the centaurs back out again too.”

“What? No, I want to help fight!” she complained.

“I know you do. But if I use a proxy and I die here, then the proxy will die too, leaving them defenseless.”

“Fine,” she grumbled, “let’s go prisoners.”

Around us, I could see the sword and ballista Automata that had been forcibly unlocked, rebooting and waking up.

“Anyone else that wants to go, is free to go,” I called out. “Head further down the road to find our AutomaTown. I know you’re all confused right now but we’ll help you as best we can.”

Four of the Automata threw down their weapons along with the two servant class and ran after Prowl.

“Wait, Lucy!” the princess called out to her former servant, who ignored her.

The remaining six readied themselves for a fight. The one that had pulled their swings for me looked to me then to the prince and readied their sword.

“I’ll die free, rather than live as a slave!” they shouted.

“Destroy them!” the prince yelled, “Destroy all of them!”