Mori plowed forwards, slamming her mace into the head of the standard Headhunter who had decided to charge her. A Scout, unlucky enough to be in her way, was crushed under her heel and was left folded in half from Mori’s stomp. Mori idly tried to raise the Clockworks around her, but it did not work. She internally sighed, pulling the head off of the Headhunter, which resembled a tin can more than a Clockwork’s head. As Mori tossed the metal object to the side, she knew that there was a joke there, somewhere, but she could not think of it. Instead, she strode forward, through the ankle-high sea of Clockwork husks, “This is really easy…” Mori said, “I feel like something is going to pop out at us-” Mori ducked as a fireball soared over her head, cast by a seemingly identical Scout to its comrades, “And there’s one of those surprises.”
She bounded for the Scout, smashing its compatriots to scrap with every swing of her mace, and clashed with the Scout. It held up a hand, and a gout of flames surged forth from it. Mori was not impressed, charging through the flames and letting her shields take care of the fire. As soon as she was in striking range, she slammed the mace into the Clockwork’s head, like she had done with the Headhunter. Instead of the Scout being dazed or merely wounded, the head was propelled into its body, ruining every internal system within. Mori kicked the Clockwork over, adding it to the sea of husks, “Mori,” VII replied, slicing through another Clockwork, “Just be thankful there aren’t many larger Clockworks around here. I’m just wondering where or if the Forgeheart still has the Goliaths…”
“Goliaths? They sound… large,” Mori replied. VII gave her a deadpan and Mori shrugged, “What? Bigger means bigger guns, bigger armor, and bigger limbs. More deadly, you know?”
VII sighed, ripping out a chunk of internal components from another Clockwork Soldier, “Yeah, I get it, Mori. Anyway, let’s just get this over with. I want to rub that damn Forgeheart’s face in his failure. Metaphorically. They don’t have faces.”
Mori nodded, gesturing for the Necromechs to move up. With Mori and VII fighting on the front lines, Idle flying low and defeating anything too large, and the thousands of other Talonecs defending the area around them, their march forward had been going well. “So, how far do we still have to go?” Mori asked, “I don’t want to waste the whole day marching through narrow alleys and wide roads, you know?”
VII shrugged, “Well, that’s unfortunate, because we’re still a good distance from the inner portion of the Hive. Just fight while conserving your energy and you’ll do good.”
“VII,” Mori replied, “I’m a lich. I don’t get tired. I’m just worried about being bored.” VII shrugged in response, and Mori could not have expected anything different.”
*=====*
“Gods, I’m bored,” Fury groaned, flapping his wings high above the landing forces that followed the group of Talonecs that cleared out the outposts, “It’s nearly midday already and we haven’t fought anything…”
“Quit your whining,” Jel replied, bopping him on the head with her wing, “We’ve got a job to do, alright? Now, we wait until a large group of Clockworks comes along, then we scorch them all.”
“I don’t even know how you did that,” Fury said, looking at her wyvern-like body, “But I get it… I’m just so bored!” he growled, spitting a ball of dragon mana at the closest tall structure they could see. The ball of destruction slammed into the structure, punching a hole in the lower floors and sending it careening down onto another cluster of clocksteel structures. The gears and metal spilled out of the shattered tower, but Fury still groaned, “Urgh… can’t something show up already?”
“First of all,” Pride began, “Do not do that when our allies are nearby. Secondly, look for fights on your own time. We have a job to do. And third of all, why are you acting like a Talonec off of the production line?” Pride internally sighed. Jel, he could deal with; she was just a bit too curious for his liking, or nosey, if he were less charitable. Fury, however, was in a whole different league of his own. He was like the sapient Talonecs who never lost their acute desire for a battle.
“Oh, put a sock in it,” Fury replied, looking around at the numerous peoples making perimeters around their breaching locations, “You’ve got to be a perfectionist, Jel’s gotta be able to understand everything, Idle sits around, and I fight. We’ve got our quirks. And I know not to collapse a tower on our allies. I’m not that dumb.”
“That being the case-” Pride began.
He was interrupted by Jel sighing beside them, “Hey, if you’re so eager to fight, Fury, why don’t you go after that thing over there?” she asked. Sure enough, there was a very large Clockwork stomping its way towards the ring of allied positions, “Maybe you can get to it before the other dragons wake up and steal it from you.”
Fury did not waste time quipping with them, and barreled towards the large, ship-shaped Clockwork. It really was just a ship with legs, Pride could see, with a large frontal gun and numerous side guns aimed downwards for protection. Of course, they did nothing to defend against Fury, who dove into the ship like a falling meteor. After a moment of watching Fury have his fun, Pride turned to Jel, “What did happen to the other dragons? I never did see them leave the fortress.”
Jel wibbled her head a bit, “They never worked with us, but Idle was saying that she felt them following us when we left the Aekan Pass. Apparently, they’re scouring the areas behind us and destroying any remnants of resistance.”
Pride frowned, “Does the mistress know this?” he asked. While it was in the mistress’ character to care little for her allies’ actions, he was not the mistress. He had his worries about the dragons, though none of them were severe. He was mostly worried about them demanding knowledge or something similar; one of them did give his draconic mana to the former death knights, so they were far from enemies in his books, but a healthy amount of paranoia was not a bad thing.
Jel, however, seemed to disagree, “Maybe, but I don’t think it really matters. If she wanted to know it, or if they were doing anything important, we’d tell the mistress. For now, though, we just do what we were told to do. I mean, after we’re done here, we might as well be on vacation!”
“You think,” Pride countered, “We have no idea what will be on the other side. Please have some caution about the future. Whatever the case, you are right in saying that we have a job to do. One that involves keeping alive…”
“Or undead.” Pride gave Jel a look as they began to weave their spells, “What? I’m not wrong. We’re undead, by dying, we just become dead again.” Pride simply ignored her and spun one of his favorite and best offensive spells to stop the hordes of Clockworks approaching Fury and his pseudo wrestling partner. Maybe their allies would help them, but it would be a surprise to Pride; they have done very little during the war, as far as he knew, and they were being far too passive. Granted, death was a concern for them, but he still had some gripes.
*=====*
Mori looked up at the massive wall before them a few hours later, “So… this is the inner part of the Hive?” she asked VII.
“Yep,” VII replied, knocking her knuckles on the metal wall, “But the wall’s a bit thicker than I was expecting. Do we break it down or break through a gate?” Mori thought about it for a split second, then stomped her foot on the metal-tiled ground. Spikes of hardened sand erupted and split the steel apart, eventually making a large tunnel, large enough to fit three Necomechs side by side, “Then we go under,” she replied, following Mori underground. Mori noticed Idle dive towards them and shift into her human form, falling into step beside Mori, “We could have just gone through the wall,” VII added.
“The Forgeheart would have expected that,” Mori replied, “We’ll be better off if we do something unexpected. Besides, it’ll make our goal easier if he doesn’t expect us when we arrive. For all we know, he could be making some big bastard to beat us.”
“He would have sent it out by now if he had one,” VII replied, “But I can’t fault being quicker and safer here.” Mori nodded, carving out the tunnel as they walked forwards again. The walk was long, but uneventful. Mori was not sure if that was good or not, but VII held up a hand after a while, “Stop,” she said, “I think this is about where we need to breach the surface to get to him.” Mori nodded, gathering mana and using it to guide the sandstone. She turned them into spikes and pierced the metal plated ground, widening a passage for them to exit the tunnel.
The first sign that something was amiss was the fact that sunlight flowed into the passage as the hole was opened. A couple of Talonecs were thrown out of the shadows, as they must have missed their opportunity to switch between shadow and light, but they quickly dove into the light and shimmered away. The second sign was a massive sword the size of a Necromech being plunged into the hole and blocking the light once more. Luckily for them, no one was stupid enough to stand below it, so the only one harmed was the sole Talonec who was flung, yet again, from the light. It flew into Mori, who managed to catch it before it threw her to the ground. “You alright?” she asked the Talonec.
“Y-Yes, ma’am,” the Talonec below her replied, “I’m f-fine. I’ll be around!” she squeaked, diving back into the shadows again.
“Aww… Cute,” VII cooed. Mori agreed, but they had more important things to do. VII, though, was on the same page, “Anyway, what’s your plan for that?” she asked, “Personally, I think we should use it to disarm whatever Clockwork abomination that Forgeheart made up for this.”
“Agreed. I’m just wondering why it’s not moving. Wait…” she braced herself for another Ancient Guardian scenario, where a ranged attack came from a melee weapon, but that situation did not come to pass. Thankfully, “Alright, it’s not going to flood this place with fire or something. That’s good. So, how are we supposed to disarm something that big?” VII looked at the sword, then cast a spell onto the sword. It took a while, mana was being drained from the tunnel at a rapid rate, and VII showed a great deal of struggle in her face, but the spell was eventually completed. And the sword appeared to fall through the ground. Mori stared at the suddenly-open passage, “VII, what the hell was that?”
“Atomic exclusivity. Or phasing. Whatever. I just made all of the atoms in that sword ignore everything else. Since it’s still, you know, there, it falls towards the center of gravity. It should wear off in a few seconds, though.” As if on cue, a solid thump erupted from the ground beneath them, “It’ll be fine.” the ground began to quake a bit, “Just trust me…” Finally, after a few minutes, the ground stopped shaking, “Ta-da…” VII half-heartedly said, smiling a bit.
Mori just gave VII a weary look, “You know, for making fun of me for having my strange moments, you have them too,” Mori said, “Anyway… let’s have a looksie at what decided to put its sword in here,” she said, poking her head up. As it turned out, VII was right. They were in the inner sanctum of the Forgeheart. The bad news, however, was that they were not in the tall, obviously important center tower of the Hive. Around the tower was a large courtyard, and surrounding the courtyard was a tall, tall wall. Atop that wall, though, there were, to Mori’s shock, arms that brandished swords, cannons, and spears at regular intervals. Mori popped her head back down, and turned to Idle, “Hey… Idle… do you want to fight a bunch of massive arms with a bunch of weapons on them?”
“What!?” VII shouted, poking her head up, “Oh, I’m killing that bastard for that… As soon as I take a rest; I’m tuckered out after what I did…”
“Fair enough,” Mori replied, turning back to Idle, “So… Do you want to or should the Talonecs take care of it?” Idle just shook her head, stepping forwards and looked at the arms. She then sprinted out of the tunnel and turned into her dragon form, flapping her wings and spitting a fireball at the closest cannon arm. Mori watched Idle tear the arms apart, destroying them all while shrugging off the few slashes, stabs, or shots that hit her.
By the time Idle had finished off all of the arms, VII was ready to go, so Mori led them all to the gate of the central tower. Idle dove down and turned back into a human, standing beside her. Mori smiled to herself. They were almost done. One more battle, and they would be victorious.
