With a howl and a laugh, Nexus Alpha dodged around a corner and came face to face with the first of the frames who had come to NOVA’s rescue. Too little too late. Data flooded through Epoc, like she was standing in a river of sensations, and every single one of them was making her squirm. She pumped the trigger again. 

The other Frame was an Alpha. The scans had been wrong, the stealth modules too good. That was fine. It was a beautiful Frame, Epoc thought as the IRIDIAN SPEAR stumbled backward. Good name. The pilot ID flooded along. “Sorry, JRG,” Epoc shouted over their coms, “I’m never going to find out what that’s short for!” She jumped forward just as the Frame tried to level its weapons at her and jammed the glowing hot tip of her shotgun in its ribs. “Eat up!”

Sadly, taking a second to smugly say a catchy one-liner before shooting her opponent had given Epoc’s two other opponents all the time they needed to get into position. And for one of those, in position was Nexus’s Alpha’s torso. She was thrown to the side as a Gamma Frame built like a linebacker slammed into her with enough power to level a skyscraper. 

The air was knocked out of her as Nexus Alpha was thrown to the side. The downside of lighter weight meant that it was easier to displace her. At least she hadn’t let go of her weapons yet. 

Turning a fall into a roll, Epoc pushed herself up just as the Gatling spooled up. That was fine. This is fine. Three Frames all opened fire on her at once, and she ducked behind an office building that was quickly being chewed through by the sustained assault. Still fine. 

The Gatling was ready to go. “Handler!” she said. 

“Hound. Everything alright?”

“This thing is going to do things to my ass isn’t it?”

“Yes, pilot,” Winter said with a sort of resigned sigh. 

“Cool,” Epoc said, ducked sideways, and squeezed the trigger.

Happy Newyear didn’t fire bullets, in the same way that a waterfall didn’t gently dispense water droplets. The stream of projectiles that vomited out of the barrel was obscene. The Gatling itself wasn’t that large, all things considered. Most of its weight came from its ammo storage. 

And, as promised, it blew her mind. She had felt a rumbling against her underbelly as its barrel had spun up, but now strong vibrations rocked through every part of her, like a vibrator being pressed against the underside of her cock and the plug inside of her at the same time. 

She cackled with pleasure as she ran sideways, dodging as much fire as she could while returning her own. IRIDIAN SPEAR had regained its function just in time for the Newyear to shred its arm, half of its torso and chew through its leg. 

The pilot would live. Probably. The Frame was immediately pushed aside by another. Another Alpha. What the fuck was going on? Was their data this wrong?

“Handler,” Epoc said, “our intel was way – hng – off!” It was hard to focus. Every time she fired, all she wanted to do was close her eyes and let the chair play with her cock until she burst. But there’d be time for that later. “There’s at least three Alpha Frames on the field. I suspect more. There might be more hostiles!”

“Copy that, Epoc,” Winter said. “Wardog and Barrier are reporting the same. Cerberus has already taken out three hostiles. We suspect there’s more incoming.”

“Shit,” Epoc said. “That means I’ve got to catch up.” She squeezed the trigger again and let out a low, heavy moan that was just for her Handler. She could hear the little gasp on the other side. Winter hadn’t expected it. Good. This way, Epoc could let her pleasure tease them both. “Who’s next?”

“I’ll fucking kill you!” The next Alpha shouted. Nexus Alpha did its magic trick. 

“Alright, Satvrn,” Epoc said. “Let’s see what you got!” She got a quick read on the Frame’s name. Wings Of Crimson Ambition, indeed. Bit of a mouthful. She sprinted forward, Nexus Alpha almost falling over. She had to steady herself against the ground mid-run, the Gatling laying down suppressive fire as best she could. 

No luck. Satvrn had a bit more self-preservation than their predecessor and had hidden behind a building firing at Nexus Alpha’s legs. One stray shot of their high-powered rifle hit the plating in just the right way. It didn’t pierce into the servos beneath, but the shot was enough to knock her off balance. A dodge turned into a fall and she wiped out on the ground. Another shot slammed into the Newyear, and it spun to a halt. 

Wings o– fuck it, Crimson stepped out from behind their cover, followed by a Frame registered to one Dani Tseng, both training their weapons on her. 

“Stand down,” Satvrn said. “We are commandeering your Frame. Eject and you’ll be allowed to leave peacefully.”

“Fuck this,” Epoc said to herself, and fired the grenade launcher. She was too close for the explosive yield to prime, but at this range, having a grenade blasted into a frame at 3,000 ft per second was going to stagger an opponent no matter what. 

The hollow boom of the gun set her body alight again. It rattled her. She could see the dust fly up from the shockwave alone. She could feel it. No time to enjoy it, though. Rolling to the side, she got up just in time for two more Alpha frames to round the corner from the direction there had previously not been any. Epoc had managed to snatch the ENCANTO off the ground and took out the already stumbling Crimson with a well-placed shot, but then everything lit up in a ball of real fire and she was thrown back. 

Missiles were not always the most effective against Frames. In the early days of Frame warfare, the blast of a single missile had often been enough to stop any pilot in its tracks, by virtue of the shockwave turning a Frame into an overengineered can of soup. Nowadays, however, internal tectonic shielding could stop the vibrations, and while explosions could do some serious damage, they lacked the piercing power required to strip a Frame of its armor. 

That all aside, a well-placed missile barrage was still enough to confuse or halt a pilot long enough to get close, only for more traditional kinetic weapons to finish the job. And it had turned her shotgun into the world’s largest and most expensive paperweight. 

Holding up her arm, Epoc extended the shield. “Wardog! Status?” she shouted as missile after missile crashed into it. Even through the dampeners, the sound was deafening. 

“Pinned down! Where did they find all these pricks?”

“Barrier?”

“A little tied up! And not in a fun w--ffffffft”

“Epoc, this is Winter. Barrier just lost coms but is still on the move.”

“Handler,” Epoc said. “Now.”

“Now?”

“Now,” Epoc said. “I’m calling it.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I am,” she said. She needed an edge. Winter held it. But Epoc held the key. “Play?” she asked.

“Play,” her Handler replied. Epoc felt something click inside of her. Her heart rate almost doubled. All the information coming in overwhelmed and washed away all those pesky thought.

“Hound.”

Epoc barked, then laughed. She wasn’t a good dog. She wasn’t a good girl. She wasn’t a good Hound. She was the fucking best.

“Kill.”

Nexus Alpha ejected its shoulder weaponry. It only weighed her down. She vented all excess heat. She was about to build up a lot more. Her pilot took a deep breath. She was about to scream. Miles away, her Handler quietly opened a channel to the enemy pilots, because Antimony Winter understood the value in psychological warfare. 

Epoc cackled as she dodged sideways, directly into a building, using Nexus Alpha’s massive hands to dig at the steel and concrete, burrowing and exploding out the other side into the Frame that had been trying to move through.

“What the f–” was the last thing Kay, piloting the brand new Azurite Cavalier, said, before a hand the size of a bus was shoved through her cockpit. 

Nexus Alpha raised itself to its full size and looked at its extended claws. Epoc cocked her head. When did she have claws installed? She must have. Good. Good, they were for killing, and the Handler needed the enemy Frames killed. She was made for killing. 

Epoc wasn’t a person in a harness, having her brain fucked out until it drooled out of her in thick, white strands. Epoc was a 120 foot tall killing machine, and the Alpha in front of her suddenly seemed to realize that. The missiles missed. Nexus Alpha had dropped on all fours, faster than something of that size should have been able to move, and now tore forward, ripping chunks out of the asphalt.

There was no more thinking. A missile tore away a part of her shoulder where the weapons were supposed to be affixed, but there was no need for that. Epoc dodged right and rammed her foot into a building, using it as a springboard to launch herself into the air and, more importantly, the attacking Frame.

She wasn’t going to end this one as quickly. She was killing. Killing was good. Killing was what the Handler wanted and that meant she had to do the killing good and that meant she had to do her best and that meant she was enjoying it. 

Her claws tore the chassis to pieces, the pilot on the other end of the com line screaming in confusion. This wasn’t how Frames were supposed to fight, the pilot seemed to try to tell her, but Epoc wasn’t listening because every time her hands dug into the steel like claws in flesh and ripped, ripped, ripped, it felt so good it made her want to cry. But it made her want to laugh even more, because she was making her Handler so very happy. She found the neural highway, the Frame’s spine, wrapped Nexus Alpha’s hand around it, and pulled. 

The Pilot went quiet after that. 

There was another Frame. It was running. Epoc chased. She was a good Hound. Nexus was fast. The Frame didn’t get very far. 

“Two more by Barrier,” her Handler said. “Fetch.”

Epoc sprinted as fast as Nexus Alpha could go and then a little faster. Handler had said Fetch. Epoc would Fetch. Barrier was pinned down inside of a large parking garage, reduced to only an artillery piece. Her opponents were chipping away at the structure. When she was exposed, she wouldn’t be able to close the distance. 

That was fine. Epoc would hunt. Epoc would fetch. The first Frame only got a few shots off, none of them able to even slow her down. The pleasure was overwhelming. Epoc shoved her cock into the waiting mouth of the chair, over and over again, grunting and moaning, as she ripped the arm off the Frame in front of her and then shattered its cockpit with it. She was leaking. She could feel it, big globs of it. The chair was made to drain her fluids away but maybe it shouldn’t. Maybe she wanted to drool and leak all over the chair and the floor and herself. Her mind was filth, in this moment, so why shouldn’t she be?

She fucked the chair as the Frame fell underneath her. 

“Just one more, Epoc. Come on.”

The last Frame rounded the corner and slammed her in the head with a pneumatic glove. Nexus Alpha was thrown to the floor, shaking Epoc’s cockpit and knocking her lights out for a second. It took Epoc a second to realize that was because Nexus Alpha’s cameras had stuttered for a second. 

“Stand down,” the pilot said. “This Frame is hereby claimed by–” They paused. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” The pilot said as Nexus Alpha tried to grind against it. She was bucking under the enemy Frame. 

Epoc giggled, then laughed, and then screamed, desire for carnage and pleasure and an inability to tell the difference anymore taking over every fiber of her being. She clicked off the safety switches she’d had installed and activated the complicated gyros and hydraulics she’d demanded from Diana. 

With a roar and hysterical laugh, Nexus Alpha opened its brand new jaws and ripped off the enemy Frame’s head with its teeth.