The Return

by Nathan Valerio

  Because of that we continued on and finished the transport job. The trip by air from South Gate Outpost to Shipyard City took about six hours. It would take a month or two to cross the same distance by land.

  The ship captain thanked us a ton after we arrived but after we grabbed supplies, water and fuel, we left.

  The pirates were still being tracked and no tracker drones were found but I was sure the cannon shell was discovered already.

  Eventually the pirate ship came to a halt.

  We moved forward and as we got close, we couldn't find them. At least until I looked through the eyes of the drones. Being close enough, I took control of one and crawled out. What I found after finding a hole in the ship led out to a well-lit cave. Most of the lights were from the light magic system the spell light ball.

  The cave itself was huge and the number of clockwork, humans, gnomes and dwarves there was rather scary. It felt like I was in a city. Anyway, I discreetly worked my way to the entrance of the cave and found my bearings. Almost instantly, I spotted my ship and several armed guards laughing at our ship for stopping there.

  Seemed they were going to board on single man boats made like a small fishing boat.

  I opened my eyes and got to the control room and made the ship turn in a ninety-degree angle and lowered the ship to just over 50 meters.

  “Guys, get ready to destroy these assholes hiding in their fucking rat hole," I said.

  I loaded a cannon shell which was made for extra explosive power and aimed the cannon just at the spot the tracker drone was. I left it right at the entrance.

  Pulling the trigger and the shell blasted full power out of the barrel and right into the cave where the pirate base was.

  Fake Techno PoV

  Thank god they didn't follow us. I had the guys continue forward until I was sure we were safe then we headed to the base. We needed to tell the boss about this. For someone to be so strong they were either NPCs or a dark gamer mercenary group and we might be hunted down.

  We landed in base and I quickly headed to the boss’s office. The cave itself had been mined out so the seven-meter-high ceiling and the smooth walls were a result of that. Those who could use magic created light balls and making a torch with iron and at the top butting a mana crystal we found here we set the crystal to be a catalyst for the spell so it never ran out.

  The corridors were made four meters high and six wide and had been reinforced by the dwarf’s pet golems.

  At the end of the 200-meter-long corridor that branched off at various points was a large 15 by 15-meter room that was seven meters high. The doors of the room were near one of the walls because at the far end of the room sat two large clockwork boss monster furnaces. We weren’t some specialists so it wasn’t like real-life people could actually smith especially well in the game without using the skill system where you simply activated the skill and it instantly did the work for you.

  Now to work these things was quite difficult for living beings because of the heat. Even the dwarves had trouble so we revived the scrapped clockworks, but they didn’t want to work for us since their scanners marked us as pirates. We fixed that by simply removing the motherboard and putting a receiver in its place. They took orders just as well as the dwarf’s golems but unlike the golems who are a nationwide ‘pet’ since they were pretty stupid, clockworks were much different. They were the leading race and though the main bulk wasn’t that strong there were players who were good with this race.

  That Techno bastard was one of them so we used his name to make our assaults better but it wasn’t just him. There was, I thought, three other clockworks who were from different crews that were good. They were all techies so they made their own shit which was why they were so strong.

  I left the room through the other door and walked further in. This corridor didn’t have splitting corridors since it only led to the boss’s room.

  As I reached a steel double door, I knocked quite a bit before it opened and I went in. The room was simple like anything else in the game. The room did have pelt sofas and at the back were a polished wooden desk and a large rotating chair. If you think of a 50s mob boss’s office where the guy never shows his face, then you should get the idea.

  “Boss we had a huge problem with the heist!” I said urgently.

  “I can tell. You came here with your tail between your legs while licking your wounds,” the boss coldly replied.

  “The transport had an escort this time,” I explained.

  “How many ships? 20?”

  “One... Sir.”

  He spun around and slammed his hands down on the desk which caused cracks to form. In front of me stood the black-skinned leader. Yep, he was a man who started as a demon race in the clockwork nation instead of the actual demon nation. 170 cm tall with a lean build and on his head were two short horns.

  “One… Ship… destroyed MY… fleet!” he hissed in anger.

  “Sir. It wasn’t just some newbies. The guys were packing super long-range mortars and cannons we can’t even believe existed,” I explained urgently.

  The boss clicked his tongue in disgust. “Tch, fucking dark gamers must have found something good from that bitch Gaia.”

  boom!

  A sudden noise sounded all the way from outside and made us both freeze looking at one another.

  “You were followed!” he roared.

  “No! I was sure and I even checked the radars. The ship went ahead on their way after we escaped!” I quickly replied in fear.

  “Then someone found the base. Fuck! We need to leave. As much as it sucks to leave such a huge supply of mana crystals, but if we are found then we can be tracked back here. Get the ship ready!”

  With that I ran out and started ordering everyone and the clockwork robots to get moving. Near the front we could hear bombs and bullets being fired but the amount were too many. What was it an armada or something? The clockwork knight unit with those fucking tanks.

  I ran and finally reached the main hanger. There was only chaos and no one knew what to do. I ran outside to try to get things in order but I froze up when I saw it. The same ship was floating some distance away and was bombarding us. In the air was a small aircraft flying easily over 100 km/h.

  This couldn’t be! What the hell were those guys and how did they find us?

  I needed to get the ship ready. If we could get away quick, we could survive. We still had 10 other small ships and our main ship which was a large junker similar in size to the caravel built in Shipyard City.

  I needed to bail fast. I wasn’t staying around for more than it took the boss to arrive.

  Nova PoV

  After Bro shot his really big bomb and it made a really big explosion and a huge fireball. It was SO awesome.

  Before I noticed Bro was telling everyone to shoot at the spot he shot and then he turned and in the middle of the ship, the cool toy in the middle popped up and started to move forward. When it stopped, I heard a familiar loud noise.

  “Nova. You can have fun today. Also, you can have all your toys just for today! Okay?”

  “yay! Thanks Bro!” I hugged him and then he put me on top of Strato. I pulled the little plug and the pipe and connected it to my back and then in my eyes I saw everyone around him appear just like Proto.

  I started him up and in one go I made him go up fast. I held on to the little handle while laughing. When he stopped, I made him move forward and I heard the fan under him move back. It flew off really fast. Still, I couldn’t play so much when I was on Strato. I fell off when I got to play with him the first time so Bro said when I’m on him, I need to stay crouched behind the little glass since it would protect me.

  I did that and it was still fun while I did a whole bunch of flips and all that.

  “Nova. Those guys down near the smoke are bad guys. You can attack them. Strato has toys like Proto but you need a specific way of attacking to get them correctly,” Bro told me.

  I listened to Bro while flyin
g around a bit and when I understood what to do, I smiled and thanked bro. I found the bad guys and after finding all the bumps and rocks all over the place I leant close to Strato.

  His right wing tipped down just a moment and the other one stayed the same while the propeller one below turned to the left. This made us turn and when I stopped all the fans, his body turned straight down, and we started to nosedive. I turned the wing fans back on and at just the right time, I turned the one under him with it pointing straight out. It pushed us to straighten out and then we were flying low and really close.

  I had Strato start spinning the toy on his arms and when the red lines in my eyes turned green, I made him shoot.

  darararararararrararraar!

  I crossed over the door of the cave and hit a lot of bad guys. I started to do it lots of times.

  “Nova come back. The ships are going to leave. I have a toy you can play with if you come back quick,” Bro said.

  I didn’t waste time and went back to bro. Next to him was one of the really cool shell thing Bro uses on the toys I made.

  He had me float near him and he took one of them and put it in a little hook behind the fan under Strato.

  In my eyes, I could see the thing that was connected. It said something strange like “Bomb attached. Warning doesn’t drop in current location.”

  Really strange but okay.

  “Okay there is an option to drop this right Nova?” Bro asked.

  I nodded.

  “Good, don’t activate that until you see the big boat leaving the cave right in the middle of the big circle that appears okay?”

  I nodded a lot.

  “Good.”

  “Ok the rest of you. Cover for Nova things just got more dangerous and I don’t want to see anyone slacking while she is out there!”

  I tilted my head but then shrugged since everyone was working even harder and firing the toys at the bad guys even more. Victor and Bulk were having lots of fun laughing at the bad guys calling them stupid. Anna and Greer just looked at the two with a blank face and shook their heads

  The big red Bro was having fun shooting and the little blue Bro was finishing putting the thing on Strato.

  It was heavy so it was pulling us down.

  “Okay, have fun but be careful,” Bro told me.

  “Kay!”

  I flew up again and started to circle our boat when I saw the bad guys shooting at us. I opened the toy in my arm and did the same. I hated bad guys, so I had to do what Bro said. I did a big turn around our boat before going after the big ship. Bro started moving as well. I flew really high up away from the stuff they kept shooting, but it was annoying. The closer I got to the front, the more they fired. I think it was because they saw the thing Bro put on Strato or whatever and since it fell backwards, they didn’t want it.

  I played around a bit more and soon the circle started appearing in a green color so I worked harder and finally got the circle right in the middle of the big boat so I pressed the button and Strato dropped the thing which suddenly made us lighter and we flew off really fast.

  Before I could stop Strato, I heard the big boom from the bomb thing and turning around, I could see the ship sinking. I heard a few ding noises but I didn’t care. I just went back to Bro and hugged him for letting me play with Strato a bit.

  “Ok! We got rid of the ships, now let’s get those who remained. Bulk lets have fun,” Bro said.

  “awesome! finally some action!”

  I laughed at Bulk and we returned to that place that was filled with smoke coming from where Bro shot the big toy.

  There were lots of people who started shooting again but we got close easily and then it was time to play. Bro gave me Proto again and we jumped down for round two for playing.

  CHAPTER 21 Pirate Genocide

  Techno PoV

  Finally, a fight. Close range really is the best.

  On the way we used the mortars to clear up a few ships that gained too much distance or Nova sent them a goodbye gift.

  When we returned to the cave, the area around it was packed.

  “Brock, you are currently the toughest of us so drop down and do some crowd control so we can get close."

  “Wha! You want me to jump off the ship! I'll die!” he complained.

  I sneered at his complaint, “I've seen your stats Mr. Pet, I even saw your skill. You think I wouldn't look after such a huge change to a rare race?"

  “Gah!”

  After that he sighed in defeat before going downstairs and opening the hatch on the lowest deck to jump down.

  He controlled his body using his magnetism skill and landed with a resounding crash.

  With the use of his enhanced earth magic, he sent a small shock wave through the earth which sent several nearby pirates nearby flying.

  Instantly he lifted both arms and slammed down with his fists closed. It activated the earth spell earth needle but on a much scarier scale. He made it into an AoE attack. I would even call it a different spell, something like earth needle forest.

  An area of about five meters around him had the spikes form. Yep, I would have definitely called Brock a low-level boss monster right then.

  The two fire elementals took the shape of birds and flew down and began firing torrents of fire around the area and forcing the pirates into the cave.

  “That's good, seal the cave so they can't escape," I ordered.

  With that, I led the guys down to the lowest deck that had the open hatch. Yasha was staying to provide support and to make sure the ship wasn't taken while I took Asura and cleaned the place up and trained the two new additions.

  I prepared my mini-guns in the middle arms and the swords on the front arms. Bulk pulled out the newly spiked warhammer. Victor had added three dense earth steel spikes to one of the faces so our tank in the making could cause more destruction. Victor did the same to his own hammer.

  His armor having undergone some upgrades let him hold that iron mass on a stick with one hand if he wanted.

  The two girls hadn't had any armor made for them so Greer climbed onto Proto so she could get down safely and Annabeth was already flying down.

  When everyone had everything, we jumped down. I had long since added suspensions like Proto so when I started free falling my legs opened up and the suspensions appeared and the springs loaded up. The reason the legs opened was to give space for the spring to distort without breaking the plating.

  When we landed, the suspension compressed completely before pushing up and returning to its point of rest for the next time. Our leg plates closed up again after the suspension pushed back into place.

  Bulk and the others were getting up as well. The fall itself was 10 meters but with our metal bodies it had a lot of weight behind it.

  Behind us came the six upgraded clockwork robots. Their class would fall under scout since I added a shotgun in the right arm and a semi auto rifle in the left arm. There were also handguns and so on.

  I looked at Brock and nodded. He returned it and used magic to open the sealed cave. Everyone was already prepared so as soon as the place was open we were met with heavy gun fire and we ran in. Bulk and I took the front and the others went around. They were all fear struck pirates and we struck them down.

  Brock stayed near the back with Annabeth as the two cast spells to do massive damage.

  The pirates were in despair and some simply gave up. Now we weren't killing them all. Our scanners could tell pirate from innocent. Obviously, there were few innocents, but enslaved people showed in a blue color as opposed to the red for pirates.

  While I was destroying the pirates, I was looking around when I saw that annoying knight.

  Seemed he wasn't on the ship but that was fine. I needed to teach him a lesson.

  His back was turned as he tried to move away but I carved my way to him and when I was close, I pulled out a grenade launcher and shot in front of him.

  It blew up right in front of him and took several others with it. />
  He fell back, and as he tried getting up I unequipped my swords and lifted him but then grabbed his face before he could react.

  “Ah! Let me go!” the fake shouted.

  He squirmed and grabbed my left arm that was holding him to keep his head from separating. His squirming pissed me off and I lifted him up by his head and he held on with both hands.

  “Gah!! let me go!” he cried again.

  He pulled his leg back and kicked my chest. The kick had strength but it only reduced my health by 10. This caused him to shake and made his gears rattle.

  I connected to him.

  “Let this be a lesson to not mess with someone better than you," I told him.

  “i’m sorry, please spare me!”

  “So pathetic. To think ‘this’ is the true face of my fake. Well they are all spineless anyway so I didn’t expect much,” I said shaking my head.

  I stretched my left arm out completely and then took control of all three right arms. I bent all three and pushed steam into my fists.

  “Any last words?" I asked.

  “Gah! Fuck you all!”

  “Then die.”

  I sent all three punches at him. The first hit the chest below the neck, the second in the middle and the last above the waist.

  [Triple Pressure Fist]

  On contact the three fists released the pressure and punched out with full pressure acting like a second punch after the first. His body was hit so hard that it disconnected from the head and flew through the crowd as it broke apart, once it hit the stone wall it broke apart like an old toy.

  I looked at the head and opened it up. I then took the motherboard that was totally intact.

  An interesting fact about clockwork is that if the motherboard is removed after the death of the body and is put in a new robot it would change that into its main body.

  That asshole would have something real interesting to find after he returned. With a 24 hour real-life cool down after dying there was plenty of time to make the little toy for his new body.