Silence failed to cover the battlefield, as the fight was not yet over. Soft shakes quickly resolved as thunderous crashes as another threat approached on the east side.
Lwyn climbed up to the ledge Yuxzn was waiting at, feeling satisfied by her success. There however, she found Yuxzn agasp with horror. Turning to follow his sight, she quickly took to the same emotion. Far below them, approaching the swamp quickly, was the Colossal itself. It had been delayed behind their other forces, possibly to overwhelm the front lines after the rest of the forces had gotten enough time to swarm them. Thanks to Qheria, that's not how it had worked out, with the Colossal thus arriving too late to save the rest of the mechanical attackers. However, they all knew, this was no simple threat, even the four girls together had done nothing before but knock it over with the power of a siege weapon to support them. Now, Qheria had much less.
Lwyn created a projectile that pulled her upwards as she jumped from the entire mountain, gliding down the entire thing. She landed a fair distance away from the swamp still, and threw a harmless spark of light over Qheria. Qheria noticed Lwyn in the distance and warped much closer to her, completely surprising Lwyn. "Ah! Really, you can teleport now too?" "Seems so, I just figured out how at least. Do you happen to know what is going on?" "Easy question, that's the Colossal." Lwyn motioned behind her as Qheria resolved her own turn of shock and horror.
They had no idea how to deal with the Colossal, being a much more serious threat then any of the other things they had been working with. Qheria also realized that it was not only too tall to sink in the swamp, it could almost step over it by using the tiny spots of land as stepping stones even if there were such concerns. She also recalled that the thing had a barrier of its own, which really put them at a loss for finding enough firepower to even dent it. Possibly the only one who could have done anything against this thing was Mhyl, but she wasn't anywhere nearby and even had her own things to worry about.
For now, Qheria decided to regroup. She went to gather Rhyde up, and warped the three of them back over the swamp. There, she approached Xyithy with a simple report. "The Colossal will be here soon. We need to be ready." Qheria waited for the dread to resolve for Rhyde and Xyithy, although her sister did not share the same expression. Xyithy took the opportunity to take her daughter aside to explain while Rhyde turned to look over the situation. They had only barely endured the previous scenario, this might be more then they could handle.
"None of the Qiciri can help with this, not with only blades and lances and arrows. Even their shields won't do a thing, really. They'll need to withdraw, before they just become a liability." Rhyde was very familiar with being a mundane liability, it was why he was thankful for the power armor he has been using. Some of their forces were still scattered on small swamp islands, while others were even on the far opposite coast. They all needed to withdraw, this was too much for them to contribute to. Xyithy heard the observation and passed the information to her daughter, who reluctantly agreed. Even the power armor they had to deal with near the end was proving futile to measure up against, something more powerful would make her forces meaningless.
As everyone was called to retreat across the swamp, Qheria realized that she would have to step forward to defend her people, even under impossible odds. She wasn't alone at least, she had Rhyde at her side and Lwyn was here to help as well. The odds still weren't in there favour, unfortunately. As Qheria turned to face the oncoming threat, Rhyde and Lwyn came to join her, so she warped them all across the swamp. On arrival, they could see the Colossal was quickly approaching. The Colossal also noticed their arrival, and readied its weaponry. The missile bay of both shoulders opened up and fired a volley towards them. Qheria warped the three of them passed the missiles in an effort to simply dodge, although each of them turned around to seek their target. Lwyn shot an explosive burst, detonating the missiles in the air, only to hear more missiles spreading out behind her.
Rhyde dashed away, firing upon missiles as he moved. It was so far a losing battle, with each of them more concerned about being hit than being able to do anything about it. As Lwyn and Qheria also held ground by detonating missiles mid-flight, the Colossal got close enough to use it's other weaponry. Along both arms, the laser batteries charged and fired, unleashing rays of destruction that cooked the ground in its wake. Qheria set her shield to block, feeling very dizzy from the exertion after taking a single blow. Rhyde felt the heat of his power armor rise, himself starting to cook on the inside. Lwyn, with no way to block, made use of a gravity well to quickly dodge, crashing into the ground on her landing. Meanwhile, the Colossal prepared to fire again. Qheria was certain they couldn't keep this up for very long, not the way things were going.
The charging of the laser battery this time was interrupted, as a loud roar echoed across the valley. Far off in the distance, Yuxzn started to reload his weapon, having gone for a significantly long range shot. The colossal's shield weathered the entire blow, but doing so at least interrupted the weapon. The colossal tried to fire again, only for the same interruption. Instead of trying for a third time, it's hands erupted into a blaze of fire, and it rushed straight towards Qheria. Qheria added thermal resistance to her barrier, as it came crushing down on her. She would have warped away, but in truth she had dodged, the Colossal had instead struck her warp destination. Rhyde rushed in to her rescue, only to get smashed away by a sweep of the same gigantic blazing fists.
Lwyn called forth several black spheres and made her attempt to help Qheria. As the giant struck out at her, she had one of the gravity well spheres pull her up out of the way, and then another to the side, outpacing her enemy. Finding this gnat much harder to swat, the Colossal turned to give Lwyn it's full attention, giving Qheria a moment to catch her breath and warp out of the way. Lwyn kept trying to dodge, eventually finding herself hounded by more missiles. Yuxzn's long range shot came, taking such out in the process.
Lwyn intercepted Qheria in her withdraw. "We can't just keep dodging, we need to fight back." "Dealing with the heat it generates is hard as is, even Rhyde looks like he's cooking in his tiny model of the Colossal. If we could somehow knock it over, we saw before that it has problems getting back up, but we don't have anything big enough to pressure it onto it's back. We would need some serious waves of force here." Lwyn pondered Qheria idea, reviewing the situation, as they both scattered to dodge.
Lwyn approached Qheria again with her insight. "I might have a plan. I can probably get it on it's back, but I'm going to need you to do a few things for me. First part of the plan is to get it on it's back, which I'm going to be focused on. Meanwhile, you need to be ready to deal with it's shields. Remember, it is just a giant version of the same power armor, so the best way to deal with its shields is to overcharge them. Too bad we don't have Thanrie for this, but you'll have to be the one who instead supercharges it's shield. Once that is overloaded, we can sink some serious damage into it before it has time to recover." Lwyn's plan would still take a lot, but it was the only option they had.
Overall, Lwyn's plan was to have the Colossal lured into the swamp, but first they had to do some preparation. Rhyde was left to keep it busy, desperately trying to simply save off attacks on his own. Qheria discovered that her warp had some limitations in distance, as she needed to make several jumps to bring Lwyn up to where Yuxzn was hiding. Once there, Lwyn had her rush back to save Rhyde, as she worked out her part with Yuxzn. Qheria returned, understanding that her next goal would be to get the Colossal into the swamp.
Qheria returned to the Colossal in an aggressive warp, attempting to take it's place on arrival. The shields however deflected this maneuver, sending her flying aside. It did at least get the things attention. Rhyde pulled off to try and cool his armor for a sec, as Qheria set to dodging the Colossal's onslaught, bringing it closer to the swamp. After pulling the Colossal away enough, Qheria came in to pick up Rhyde, and warped him back over the swamp. "Rhyde, keep firing on it from here, lets use the swamp against it." Qheria pointed back at the Colossal, which was searching for it's targets.
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Rhyde fired across the swamp again, lighting it up in a surge of electricity. The Colossal turned to look, spotting where it's targets had escaped to. The giant stepped into the swamp, which absorbed it up to it's knees. Realizing that the swamp was slowing it dramatically, the thing stepped onto one of the islands, using it as stepping stones as Qheria had predicted.
Yuxzn held the shell Lwyn had handed him, herself having just created it. It was crazy loading her gift-given ammo into his weapon, but not nearly as crazy as what he was to do with it. He didn't have time to ponder the plan, as the Colossal was almost to the middle of the swamp. Yuxzn set his sights on his target and fired. The projectile soared towards the Colossal, and then skipped past it. This was alright, he wasn't aiming for that anyway. Lwyn had considered the disposition of the swamp itself, having been dammed up by falling rocks. Draining the swamp in a sudden rush would bring some considerable force.
The projectile struck true, striking the collection of boulders outcropped at the woods, exploding in a giant sphere that consumed the rock and everything else in a fair radius. The water was set churning to fill in the space left by the sphere, but the water did not just drain away. Lwyn was disgruntled by this outcome, not having considered that the swamp had flooded so much that it was already going around it's barrier. But as the pressure of the waves settled into the space left, she found herself with a new amended plan.
The distance was too much for her to aim, but she had been able to seek a target much farther away. She summoned a projectile over her hand and threw it to the wind. The projectile was given a destination, the center of the explosion of her previous projectile. It rushed to that location in all urgency, then itself detonated. At the center of the blast, a dark vortex formed, vacuuming in water all around it like a tiny black hole. Air was also rushing towards the vortex, causing the Colossal to stumble from the islands and fall into the water. The water itself pulled the Colossal towards the vortex, causing it to stumble rapidly by the water torrent. Pulled almost the entire way to the vortex, the swamp practically dry, the Colossal teetered on an uneven balance. Then, having been fully expended, the Vortex dissipated, unleashing all the pressure it had gathered in an instant. The Colossal was thrown hard by the force of the waves surging against it, and sent flying back into the swamp. Water surged over it, as it laid back-first into the muck, struggling to escape the clutches of the swamp.
Qheria was still at a loss for her next action, though. She needed to overwhelm it's shields, to super-charge it. Rhyde's weapon could electrify the water, but that wouldn't change much for something like the Colossal. She pondered Lwyn's advice, to treat it like an oversized power armor. Her first success with such had required her to use it's weapons against it. She watched over it struggle as it's hands started to bring the water to a boil. This painted a picture for Qheria, realizing that the sight would alarm both Mhyl and Lwyn, it looked like a great reproduction of the whole scene that had almost taken Mhyl's life.
Then Qheria recalled, it was also the same terms she had used her gift originally, dealing with intense heat. Thermal energy. Rhyde's armor was also shielded, and he had started cooking really bad. The thing also had a missile pod on it's shoulders, just what would happen if she redirected all of that potential energy into it's shoulders, not only disturbing its shield, but also frying the missiles contained within.
Qheria recalled when Yuxzn had shot it, it had to stop attacking to pull up its shield. Of course it couldn't do both at the same time. That meant the most vulnerable moment was right after firing, while it's shield was coming up. She would need to provide it a target, get it to fire, and bring down a tempest unto it in the opening. As usual, there was no target she would be more willing to offer than herself. Lwyn might object, but she knew she could trust her gift to beat the heat, it was her best quality.
Qheria took a deep breath for a moment, composing herself and gathering her energy, as she set to warp once again. This time, it was far into the air above her opponent. Spotting a target, the Colossal turned it's laser battery on her and fired, exactly as predicted. Qheria kept her barrier set and flipped upside down, having her belt boost her descent dramatically, leaving her barrier to protect her from the fall as well. The third feature her barrier had was to collect the energy of the lasers sent towards her, and charged with this energy her barrier was set ablaze. Right as the beam finished firing, she collided against it's right shoulder, smashing down onto the missile pod. Still set to feed, her shield started to surge with the thermal energy of the water it was cooking in, generating a brilliant inferno around her in the span of an instant, a moment after she made contact with the pod. In response to the kinetic assault, the shield came to full bear against her, and she poured everything she had into the shield as it awoke.
The rate of the shield's activation was too much and too fast for the machine, leaving a massive excess of energy buildup in it's shoulder. Already, the shoulder was suffering from the heat of the water it was resting in, the excess energy just made such worse. The metal of the shoulder started to glow and burn as this torrent of heat worsened, Qheria's signal to retreat. As she warped away, the energy buildup exceeded the pod's durability, the ammunition inside passing it's maximum tolerance for such heat and energy. The pod itself detonated, rupturing a hole in the Colossal. As the shields overloaded, other systems started to fail, the entire arm on that shoulder all but useless, and it's tracking systems offline. It could still use its other arm, but it was blind, and it's shield had failed.
Lwyn had returned at this point, having again glided down the mountain, settling not far from where Qheria appeared. "Ouch, nice one Qheria. That looked like it hurt." "When I said we should put the pressure on it, I didn't expect you to create a black hole. That thing almost had me afraid I would be sucked into the abyss." Lwyn shrugged, herself having not actually planned most of that out, everything had just kinda came together that way. Qheria sighed, realizing she herself had been equally crazy. There was nothing left to do but finish the thing.
Qheria warped back onto it, smashing her fist into it's central unit, in the middle of what would be it's chest. A fist came up to strike her, so she dashed into the air. Having felt her motions, the Colossal decided to fire it's other pod after it's fleeing target. Qheria warped away further, leaving the missiles to turn to seek after her. Lwyn fired at the missiles, not intent on their destruction, but to confuse them. The missiles spun around, trying to figure out their target. Lwyn summoned up some more gravity wells and pulled herself onto the Colossal. She then set a gravity well idly onto the missile pod itself, set to go off with a timer.
The hand came up again to swat her, but Qheria showed up to save her. Transposing the spot of the arm, now without its shield, the arm tore asunder in the force of the teleportation. Qheria then warped Lwyn away. "I could have done that too, I had a whole twenty seconds left to work with. ... Thanks though." "Twenty seconds until wha-." Lwyn guided Qheria's vision back to the Colossal with a motion, right as time expired. The gravity well she left behind, started to draw in everything near it, which at this point only included the missiles fluttering over it. The missiles were pulled towards the pod, and detonated on impact, tearing what was left of the Colossal into tiny parts that sunk beneath the swamp.
Qheria crossed her arms as she glared at Lwyn. It might have been an efficient move, but overall she still had one complaint. If Lwyn could have set the timer as she willed, she should have given herself much more than twenty seconds to escape such destruction. Qheria felt much better for having pulled Lwyn from that danger personally, too much could have gone wrong in just twenty seconds. Qheria sighed, nothing had gone wrong, so there was no point in blaming Lwyn for something that hadn't happened. For now, they had to report on their success, let everyone know things were going to be okay.
As Qheria turned to go, Lwyn stumbled behind her, falling into the dirt. Lwyn had been pushing herself to the limit, her stamina all too gone. Lwyn had expended the last of everything she had in those passing moments. Qheria changed her mind, Lwyn would get seriously scolded for this later. It was all too possible that Lwyn might have ran out of stamina in her escape, and either been left in the blast, or fallen into the swamp. As she tried to carry Lwyn back with her, she realized that she herself was also at her limits, excessively exhausted. She had no choice, she set Lwyn down again as she also took an opportunity to relax.
The Qiciri would rescue them shortly after, Lwyn still unconscious and Qheria rapidly fading. The battle was over, so for now they would need to rest.