The Fractured World 5

by David Aries

  “I’ll get there when I can. Stay safe.”

  “You too. That goes for everyone.”

  Vay’s laughter echoed through. “There is no need to fear, stud! I will not let these monsters claim a single life.” There was a smash. “That’s it! Come to Vay. Taste your end beneath my blade.”

  My lips curled. Vay sure knew how to lift my spirits; the weight from my shoulders was gone. It was time to live up to my end of our bargain.

  A statement easier said than done.

  The metaleaters weren’t relenting. They smashed into the clearing with one-track determination, slowly expanding their entry point so more could fit through at once.

  I didn’t let it perturb me. Instead, I focused on the job at hand: smashing every metaleater who dared to come close.

  Again and again, I reduced the mighty robots to chunks of scrap littering the forest floor. I worked my arm overtime, barring entry to all who considered our shuttle a feast rather than the salvation it was.

  However, nothing changed; there was always another metaleater ready to try its luck.

  At first, I could cover the ship by standing in place, but that didn’t last for long. The wider the opening became, the more room there was for metaleaters to slip in as they aimed for the shuttle’s extremities.

  I wasn’t on the menu; all they wanted was the ship.

  Back and forth I rushed, teeth bared, drilling my axe through the metaleaters coming within millimeters of sinking their talons into the ship’s wings.

  Shit, it’s like they’re multiplying.

  Where are you, Faris?

  As I charged to fend off a metaleater on one wing, another thudded down on the other.

  Crap!

  It opened wide and went to take a bi—

  A laser blasted into its spread gob.

  “Get the fuck away from my ship!” Trez said as she leaned from the door, firing a pistol.

  The metaleater ate every shot until its head burst.

  “Nice save!” I said while scrambling toward a metaleater heading for the cockpit.

  “Like I’d sit here doing sweet fuck all!” she replied, unloading on the swarm above.

  The lasers produced some lovely fireworks but not much damage. Sturdiness was one thing the metaleaters had in abundance—something the sentry bots wished they could say.

  Unless Trez managed to hit their vitals, there wasn’t much she could do alone.

  I needed more help… not that I let it slow me down. This ship was ours, and I wasn’t handing it over. Anything which came close, I finished off with my axe. For those out of reach, I dipped into my pocket-filling rock supply and played ball.

  Smash! Bang! Crunch! I raced up the leaderboard as my kill count swelled. It didn’t matter how many came; I’d kill them all.

  Another metaleater forced its way into the clearing and sunk its talons into the far side of the ship, where Trez’s bullets couldn’t reach.

  I reached for a stone, but my pocket was empty.

  The metaleater opened wide.

  “Don’t you dare!” I yelled, rushing over.

  It didn’t listen; it sunk its fangs into the ship and—

  Fire consumed the metaleater.

  The inferno pillar wasn’t hot enough to melt the robot beast, but even a machine doesn’t like being smothered by flames. Its jaw hesitated.

  That was all the time I needed to get in there and wipe the top of its skull clean off.

  Safe again…

  That was too close. My savior had arrived in the nick of time.

  I didn’t need to look to know who’d made the save, a camp filled with herixes or not.

  “Brandon!” Faris said as she rushed into the clearing and opened fire on the swarm above.

  “Thanks for the help,” I said as I jumped and clubbed the next metaleater. “What happened at Ulium?”

  “We’re evacuating everyone into the forest.”

  Sure enough, the surrounding forest—a space the metaleaters couldn’t penetrate without doing some pruning—was bustling with life. Ulium’s residents, as well as our livestock, were sheltering within.

  “Vay’s got our rear covered,” Faris explained as she sprung onto the ship’s roof and jabbed an incoming foe with her sparking spear. “I’ll help here.”

  She wasn’t the only fresh dose of assistance. A volley of lasers sprayed from the woods, battering the swarm above.

  “Do not fear, my Brandon!” Casella said as she stood shoulder to shoulder with a squad of armed herixes. “I’m here to help!”

  One pistol wasn’t enough to take down a metaleater, but a half dozen was a different story. As was a dozen… then two. Any robot pest who had fire concentrated upon them was toast. All those lasers added up, blasting the wretches from the sky.

  Every new shooter tipped the scales of this battle further in our favor until our victory was guaranteed. The metaleaters could barely get into the clearing, never mind getting their grubby teeth on our ship.

  In the end, they gave up trying altogether.

  “Haha!” Trez said as she flashed her middle finger at the metaleaters going round in circles. “Get fucked, you robot dicks.”

  At last accepting their assault was on pause, I exhaled and let my arm get some rest. “Is everyone okay?” I asked, turning my eyes to the forest.

  “Completely fine,” Vay said as she marched into the clearing, her sword slung on her back. “Those flying fiends didn’t stand a chance!”

  “Except those who went with Demi, everyone is accounted for,” Eret said, hot on her heels. “Well, except…”

  My heart tightened. “What?”

  Sylvetty growled. “One of the metaleaters got Yoble.”

  It was a dose of news so underwhelming I struggled to react. “That’s… it?”

  “Hey, I didn’t say I was sad to see that tentacle-faced fecker go,” Sylvetty said. “It’s just bleeding annoying, it is. Think about how much grub we gave that prick so we get him punished properly. Then he gets himself eaten by a fecking bird!”

  I could see her point. However, it was hard to care much about seeing a slaver scumbag meet a tragic end, especially with everything that was happening. “Forget him. Great work, everyone.”

  Vay laughed. “It was the least we could do!”

  “It was all we could do,” Akko mumbled as she toyed with her hands. “Ohh, our camp…”

  There was no missing the way that simple phrase dampened the atmosphere.

  After giving one last look to make sure the metaleaters were staying put, I muscled through the dense crowd packed into the woods and looked out from the perimeter.

  My blood ran cold.

  Our home, our Ulium, was under attack. It wasn’t made of metal, but our opponents didn’t care: they were busy eating everything they could get their teeth into. Be it the walls, the watchtowers, or even our homes, it was all just food for the metaleaters to devour.

  “Bastards,” I growled under my breath.

  “Don’t let them bait you,” Faris warned. “That’s what they want.”

  “I know… but that doesn’t make it easy to watch.”

  One of the swarm stabbed its maw through the roof of our tent, tearing it from its lot.

  Casella threw her hands over her mouth. “No…”

  I clenched my hands into trembling fists as each fresh slice of destruction struck me like a dagger to the heart. “It’s okay… this is fine,” I said more to myself than anyone else. “As long as we protect the ship, this is nothing to worry about.”

  “But it’s bleeding hard to watch,” Sylvetty grumbled. “Me workshop…”

  “My clinic,” Eret mumbled.

  “The varmints aren’t even sparing my farm,” Zolly complained as the metaleaters savaged our crop supply.

  I bit my bottom lip. “Look on the bright side; we were about to leave it all behind anyway.”

  However, my attempt at optimism couldn’t refute the obvious: Ulium deserved better
than this.

  There was no point watching when we couldn’t do anything to help. Instead, I went back to the clearing where Trez and DD were inspecting the ship.

  “What’s the situation?” I asked.

  “There’s a few punctures, but nothing to worry about,” Trez replied as she sat on a wing, studying its condition. “We’ll still be good to go once we get that fucking connection sorted.”

  DD curtsied. “Repairs are still proving difficult, but we will strive to correct that, post-haste.”

  “What she said. I’m gonna get that shield online even if it kills me.”

  “No dying, please,” I replied. “We’re all surviving this. I’m not going to let us lose to a bunch of metaleat—”

  Bang!

  A distance explosion rocked the area, knocking Trez off the shuttle’s wing.

  I caught her in a bridal carry before she hit the floor.

  “What was that?!” she said from my arms.

  “Brandon!” Sylvetty yelled. “You’ve got to see this!”

  A fresh dose of adrenaline pulsed through my veins. I helped Trez to her feet before sprinting back to the forest’s edge.

  Dust hung in the air. A massive cloud of smoke lingered in the distance, obscuring everything on the other side of the river that ran through Ulium.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “I don’t know, sweetie!” Akko replied while squirming on the spot. “It’s like something fell from the sky. Something big!”

  Bit by bit, the dirt screen dissipated, revealing two vast white metal spheres half-submerged within craters of their own making. However, they didn’t stay that way for long. The duo rose, emerging from their steel cocoons, revealing the true shape of what had come falling from orbit. They were robots: huge ones at that. Each was tall enough to make Vay look short, and had a bulk to match.

  Their design was somewhat similar to the security robots in the underground chamber—they carried themselves like unfortunate arachnids on four chunky legs. But they weren’t carrying turrets. Instead, the ends of their arms supported huge saw blades the size of tractor’s tires.

  “What the bleeding heck are they?!” Sylvetty snapped.

  “They look like some mighty impressive woodcutters to me,” Zolly said.

  The automatons powered up their saws.

  “Yep, definitely woodcutters,” I said through gritted teeth.

  And, surprise surprise, they were heading our way.

  The two metal beasts ambled forward, slicing through any crop or chunk of wood they passed without pausing.

  Leftover wall? Not a problem! Their saws cut through the palisade like it wasn’t there.

  “They’re going to rip this place to shreds!” Akko squealed as she threw herself against me.

  Of that, there was no doubt. I’d seen a mining robot decimate a forest. A couple of woodcutters wouldn’t have any issues cutting right through.

  Unless we gave them one.

  I squeezed the hilt of my axe. “Not if I can help it. I’ll—”

  “Brandon!”

  That voice—Trez’s voice… it came from the clearing!

  I knew what was happening before I’d arrived. The metaleaters were back on the attack.

  Bipp, Keith, and Aya rushed over the shuttle’s roof in a similar manner to how I had before them. The xioths protected the fringe, while the herixes opened fire, lighting up the sky with concentrated fire.

  Their combined effort held off the tidal wave of metaleaters trying to wash us away, but it certainly didn’t stop them. This time, they wouldn’t give up so quickly.

  I snarled as I made it to the scene.

  I should have known this would happen!

  “It’s like they’re sending every damn metaleater on this planet to attack us,” I complained.

  “Technically, the metaleaters do not reside on this planet,” DD said as she sheltered beneath the ship “From what I understand, they are kept in orbit and sent out whenever the need arises.”

  “That explains why we’ve never found a wild one,” Trez replied.

  “Is this really the time?” I said.

  “Those woodcutters are getting closer!” Akko squealed. “If they make it here, we’re doomed!”

  I gritted my teeth as I looked back and forth. Akko wasn’t wrong… but the same was true for if the metaleaters broke through here. And I had no doubt they would, sooner or later.

  “Go!” Keith said as he clubbed a metaleater trying to land on the ship’s roof. “We’ve got this, bro!”

  “Leave this to us!” Aya agreed as she helped Keith fight the robot backs. “We won’t let you down!”

  Trez jumped into the ship. “I’ll get the shield online. As for you… here.” She tossed me a small, familiar item: a light shield.

  I nodded. If they said as such, I wasn’t going to argue. Instead, I rushed back to where I was needed while warning everyone to clear the area

  There was a very real danger everyone’s hiding spot was about to turn into a battlefield.

  The woodcutters weren’t fast, especially in contrast to how the mining bot had whizzed around via jetpack, but it wouldn’t take them long to reach the forest’s edge.

  “Looks like you managed to lure me out after all,” I said as I waltzed onto the plains with my axe primed and shield ready.

  Footsteps followed me outside.

  Faris marched behind me with her crackling spear activated. “I hope you weren’t planning on fighting them alone.”

  “What she said!” Vay added, drawing her sword. “How cruel trying to keep all the fun to yourself.”

  “This is serious,” Faris replied.

  “I’m always serious!” Vay said, guffawing. “I’m seriously going to destroy these fiends.”

  I smirked. “Alright, let’s go!” With that, I charged the approaching titans.

  They didn’t react; they kept trundling forward while their saws whirled.

  I jumped straight past those blades and punished the bot on the left with an armor-crumbling strike right to the face. Or, at least, where I presumed it to be. It’s hard to know for certain against a robot shaped like an overturned bucket on legs.

  Face or not, the robot finally reacted. It started swinging its saws while its legs continued onward.

  My senses guided me around every blow, and I countered whenever I could, adding more notches to the woodcutter’s body.

  Something similar was happening on my right. Together, Vay and Faris were carving their insignias into the metal hunks of junk while avoiding the saws with ease.

  Is this all you’ve got?

  After last time, I thought you’d put up more of a challenge.

  That was the difference between a mech controlled by a person and a dumb robot following orders. The former was always going to be trickier.

  Yet I had a bad feeling we hadn’t seen everything these animals were capable of.

  Right on cue, my instincts warned me away as the woodcutter’s saws gathered momentum. The blades flickered before they were enveloped in a blue light.

  What a surprise.

  Still, it was nothing to worry about. Raab had that same light on his side when we last fought.

  Only one of us remained.

  I raised my shield and went in for another attack, trusting my instincts to track the hidden range of those light-infused blades.

  A few inches before any sound logic should have dictated, the woodcutter smashed my guard, knocking me away.

  The impact only forced me a few inches back, but it had turned my shield from a max-strength blue to a sickly red unable to stand up to a harsh breeze.

  Just as strong as expected.

  Looks like I’m going to need to do this the old fashioned way.

  I deactivated the shield and focused on rounding my opponent.

  It didn’t follow.

  Too easy!

  I lunged, aiming for its back… but my instincts warned me to pull out at the las
t.

  The woodcutter's torso spun.

  I dropped low and rolled away from the saw that almost took my neck off.

  Weaken my senses or reactions by a mere smidgen and that would have been the end of me.

  The woodcutter didn’t launch a follow-up attack; it didn’t even seem to care I was there. It kept moving toward the forest while its upper portion spun, shielding itself in a whirlwind of blue.

  You sneaky bastard…

  Make that bastards. Its partner in crime was doing the exact same thing.

  “This is bad,” Faris said as she kept her distance.

  “What ridiculous strength! I can’t even get close,” Vay said before she swung her greatsword.

  The blade was nearly ripped from her hands.

  “We need to find a way,” I said as I eyed up the forest, which was almost within touching distance.

  Lasers sprayed from between the trees.

  Casella unloaded a pistol into the robot pair. “Take this, and that!”

  “G-get away from us,” Akko said, doing the same.

  The shots didn’t do a thing. Each laser was smacked away by the rotating robot’s impenetrable defense.

  I growled as I tried to break through it with anything I had at my disposal, be it an axe or a simple stone.

  The latter shattered long before it got close.

  Then I’ll take their legs!

  However, the woodcutters saw that coming. They dropped their arms lower, pushing me away.

  Dammit! This can’t be happening.

  I have to stop them. I must!

  Strong thoughts did not slay the robots. At last, they reached the edge of the forest, effortlessly slicing it apart with their swiveling forms.

  My girls screamed as they rushed inside beneath a veil of sawdust.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” I growled. The demolition was even more brutal than I’d imagined. Every tree within thirty meters was annihilated in an instant.

  At this rate, the woodcutters would reach the ship within a minute.

  “We need to finish this now!” Faris said.

  “I know that, but…” Where were we supposed to hit them? As long as they kept spinning, their sides were completely covered.

  Sides…

  “I’ve got an idea,” I said. “Do anything you can to slow them down. Don’t let them breathe for a moment!”