With a frankly bizarre level of coordination and speed, the people of Canyontown somehow managed to array themselves all throughout its walkways and atop its walls. They were armed with mass-printed slugthrowers and plasma projectors, the designs of which had been heavily modified to include features otherwise reserved for honored warriors - counterbalance recoil dampeners, improved self-loading mechanisms, optics and muzzle breaks, expanded power banks and capacitors. So much manufacturing in such a short span of time drained Canyontown’s printer resin and nanofilament reserves dryer than the desert which surrounded them, but a resin shortage was the least of their issues at the moment.The case was similar for Fulgent, who had jumped off Amalgam’s shoulder wholesale and seemingly disappeared into the sand.
There was an Igron army camped out just past the horizon, and they could begin their approach at any moment. They couldn’t afford to give up even the tiniest advantage. This battle would have to happen on their terms. There would be no clash, no pitched struggle of raw strength and martial prowess. They would exploit ambush tactics and technological superiority to wipe out the enemy force before they can form a proper battle line.
And so it was that the skull-faced man known as Armless, Ouroboros, even as the Serpent of the South, walked out of the front gate, followed by a small group of people, among which were Red-eye, Fulgent, and Karzon. They boarded one of the assault rovers, while he boarded Amalgam - save for Fulgent, who climbed Amalgam’s body with what seemed to be no effort on her part, taking up a perch on its left shoulder.
Thus, the brave warriors walked out in front of Canyontown with the intention of waiting for the Igrons to come to them. As they had expected, that was exactly what happened. No more than a few minutes after Amalgam had come to a stop, the head of a walker crested the horizon, followed closely by a line hundreds of rovers wide.
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It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes after he had brought Amalgam to a stop that the enemy walker’s head rose above the horizon. It was formed from black stone much like Amalgam’s, but this one was shaped entirely differently. It was more like the head of an ornamental statue, with a helmet-like shape enveloping a beautiful, statuesque face. However, the longer it remained in view, the closer it approached, the more Armless noticed wrong about it. The walker’s eyes didn’t glow, as much as they… Flickered.
It had six arms, and while its torso was armored much in the same way Amalgam’s was, its arms were armored in thick, bolted-on plates, clearly manufactured and added after the fact. The visible musculature, dark purple just like Amalgam’s, had extensive surface-level damage, as if someone had ripped the original plating off to get at the internals.
With each step the machine took it shuddered, as if it was struggling against whatever impelled it to move.
With each step the machine took, it sent out a burst transmission of pain when it resisted, immediately followed by pleasure when it complied.
With each step that six-armed thing took, Armless felt Amalgam’s thought-stream flooding with anger and hatred, the pressure almost palpable through the datacables.
Amalgam requested permission to send an ID request ping to the enemy walker, and Armless approved it without a second thought. The six-armed abomination stopped dead for a few seconds, the rovers which followed it hurriedly coming to a halt as it did. It stood stone still, twitching even as it did, then resumed walking with a strained step. A response ping arrived soon after.
Type-228-90 Semi-Organic Anti-Heretic Armored War God "Asura"
“There are recent signs of data deletion. Someone changed the unit’s original name,” Amalgam’s voice sounded in his head.
Seconds passed. The enemy line continued inching forward, approaching with no particular hurry, their leader clearly expecting an honorable discussion to form an agreement of battle conditions. They weren’t entirely wrong.
“Begin charging the Oscillating Distortion Projector. Divert available power output to the locomotive system.”
A confirmation ping. Seconds more passed as he waited for the right moment, just when the enemy front line would be positioned over his trap…
Another transmission was sent to the Asura, this time an actual message from Armless. Reaching deep into his memories of the Ecclesiarch, he put on the most pious, honorable voice his voicebox could muster, and spoke while Amalgam recorded.
“Stop your warriors and step forward on your own, face me in a walker duel. Should you best me, Canyontown is yours and I will disappear into the desert. Refuse me, and I will broadcast your dishonor for all to witness.”
Asura took another step, only… It froze midway through, then returned its foot to where it had started. The line of rovers behind it slowed to a halt as it stood there, twitching. Armless would’ve smiled himself were he able to - their entire front line was positioned nearly perfectly over his trap’s area of effect. Were he to set it off now, it would be a massacre, one far beyond what was necessary.
A response pinged in his head - a sound file, just like what he had sent. The voice that came through was noble and calm, but also weak - clearly amplified by the machine. There was also a copious amount of white noise in the background, as though Asura’s perpetual screeching had leaked into the recording.
"̕Hom͏uncu͠lus o̶r̶ n̴o͟t,̀ at least y̴ou͡ have ͘som̛e hono͢r. Ver̡y w̶e͠l̛l."
Asura stepped forward again, but this time, the line of rovers remained stationary.
Left. Right. Left. Right.
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As it approached Amalgam, Armless wanted to send a message to warn those inside the rover to back off - only it had already done exactly that the moment that six-armed thing had resumed its approach, already having driven far enough to stand free of a walker’s thrashing. The case was similar for Fulgent, who had jumped off Amalgam’s shoulder wholesale and seemingly disappeared into the sand.
Asura walked to a spot no more than thirty meters away - well out of melee range, but still quite close. The two walkers were exactly the same height, but the six-armed beast was still noticeably bulkier. It lacked any visible weapons besides wicked black-stone talons that protruded from the tips of its finger, as well as bumps of black-stone on its knuckles - a brawler, through and through. Its legs were plated similarly to Amalgam’s, but lacked thrusters and their plating was much less bulky. Asura’s feet were, contrary to Amalgam’s, shaped like feet, as opposed to the hoof-like formations that supported Amalgam’s tremendous weight.
Armless sent one final message. A request ping for a synchronized, three-second countdown. The Machinist agreed without hesitation.
Three.
Two.
He channeled energy into his cognition centers. Time slowed to a crawl. The wind blowing sand between them, the sun that seethed from above, everything around him came into focus, from the inside of his cockpit to the cracks in the ground around Amalgam’s feet.
“Locomotive systems at full power,” Amalgam remarked.
“Switch to nonverbal,” Armless thought.
The exchange only took a couple dozen milliseconds, but they were still milliseconds lost.
The thrusters on Amalgam’s calves sputtered, then exploded with unworldly fire. The pyramidal structure of black-stone which protruded from its back began to shine as energy flooded it - the very machine which had up until now helped moderate Amalgam’s huge mass, a gigantic Graviton Manipulation Engine. It whirred as the walker’s mass was reduced to a bare minimum, gravity itself becoming weak enough in its immediate surroundings that a maelstrom of floating sand rose up from the ground.
With but a thought from its pilot, Amalgam exploded forward. Faster than human thought, faster than even sound, shattering the sound-speed barrier and producing a shockwave that ripped a hole in the ground under and beneath it. Mid-flight, he raised Amalgam’s left and upper right arm, whilst keeping the lower right pulled back, intending to get a grip on the Asura’s torso and fire the pilebunker on Amalgam’s left arm straight into the cockpit, hoping to shatter the armor in one go.
Just before Amalgam would impact the Asura, Armless forcefully shut off the Graviton Manipulation Engine, returning Amalgam to its full mass in an instant and causing it to slam into Asura with enough force to carry both of them dozens of meters.
He had succeeded in grabbing Asura’s torso, but… That was it. Its arms twitched into position to block his upper right grapple, its unassisted speed able to outmatch his own. Meanwhile, its three right arms moved in, the lower two grabbing Amalgam’s left to try and pry it off, whilst the upper right reared back and delivered a supersonic punch to Amalgam’s unguarded head.
There was no visible damage, but when the second punch came, a structural integrity alert pinged in Armless’s mind. The dome could withstand many such strikes, but Asura could deliver them, even with only one arm free.
He diverted the power that shutting off the Graviton Manipulation Engine freed up into Amalgam’s left-arm pilebunker, the weapon emitting a whine loud enough to burst eardrums before its black-stone rod slammed forward and jammed itself into Asura’s plating.
It penetrated.
But not deep enough.
It was stuck. Even when he let go and tried to pull Amalgam’s left arm back, it was stuck. And so… He chose to exploit it.
Amalgam was stronger than Asura, but it was slower, and Asura had two advantages. More arms, and their perfect coordination by the walker’s systems.
Meanwhile, Amalgam and Armless… Were one. This was an advantage, but not as much of one as it could’ve been - Armless had no experience combating other walkers. He had only fought other, mostly human-sized foes.
He was stuck in a grapple with Asura, and so he did the obvious.
He doubled down, fired up the Graviton Manipulation Engine, and diverted power to the leg thrusters.
The mechanism whined, a maelstrom of sand rose up around them, and Armless fired the thrusters.
Asura was lighter than Amalgam, and now that difference had been amplified tenfold.
Using the thrust from Amalgam’s calves, he made the walker flip itself over, taking Asura with it in an earth-shaking suplex. The moment they were upside down, he cut power to the Graviton Manipulation Engine, causing them both to slam into the ground with a truly massive impact. Unlike Amalgam, Asura didn’t know what was about to happen, and so couldn’t ready itself, causing its head to become buried in the sand.
Held in place by Amalgam as it wrapped its arms around Asura even tighter, the six-armed abomination thrashed and twitched, trying to get itself free.
Meanwhile, Armless sent a transmission to the rover.
“Red-eye, fire at will.”
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At Armless’s prompt, Red-eye immediately opened the door and climbed atop the rover. Intending to rupture the walker’s armor with a single full-powered shot, Red-eye reached for another ammo ring, only to realize he was out of ammo. A chuckle rose from his chest as he realized he’d forgotten to reload when they left the cargo bay. Only… There was one more ring, sat upon his hat.
A toothy grin cracked his face as he fit it onto his gun. He’d make sure this shot counted, for better or for worse. Red-eye went on to reach into his pocket and pull out two autoinjectors, one with performance enhancer and one with restorative serum, jabbing both of them into his thigh as he did his best to spot a good firing angle on the enemy walker in its violent thrashing against Amalgam’s iron grip.
The serums permeated his tissues and a black casing began to form around his left arm in anticipation of the strain it would soon be put under.
One crystal. Two. Three.
With each crystal loaded, the firing chamber filled with violent energy, resonating against the mechanism so strongly it bled out prematurely and caused arcs of lilac to leap between the accelerator rails.
Four. Five.
The mechanism itself strained, and refused to budge. He would have to turn the ring manually for the last two. Great tongues of lilac lightning now leapt from the muzzle of his gun, scorching the ground beneath his feet.. He felt the lightning impacting his skin and a carapace forming to stop it every time.
Six.
The moment he touched the ring, pain shot through his right arm. Even with the carapace to protect him, it failed to respond in time. Whether just due to the massive concentration of void energy in the air around him or something entirely unrelated, the crystalline spiral scar on his chest began to glow. An overwhelming sensation of heat began to rise within his chest, coming to a head as he turned the ring by its final increment.
Seven.