Building Zoids in a World of Titans

The rain hammered the Arosaurer's canopy as Alex pushed forward, each step grinding broken cobblestone beneath the Zoid's feet. The Liger stood thirty meters ahead, its mane throwing off arcs that lit the downpour in stuttering blue-white flashes. The pressure against Alex's chest made each breath shallow.

He fired a three-round burst. The shells sparked off the Liger's hide and ricocheted into the dark.

The beast didn't move. Didn't blink. Just watched him with those amber eyes, patient as a closing door.

Alex forced his breathing to slow, pushing the fear down into the hollow space beneath his ribs where he kept the things he couldn't afford to feel.

Three amber warnings flashed. Core temperature rising. Left actuator at sixty-three percent. And a proximity alert that made his stomach drop.

The Liger's mane flared white.

Alex threw the joystick hard right. The Arosaurer lurched sideways as a ball of lightning screamed past, close enough to scorch the cockpit's outer plating. The blast hit a stone arch behind him and blew it to rubble.

He steadied the Zoid, rain streaming across the canopy. The Liger was already circling, faster than something that size had any right to be.

Alex flexed his fingers on the grips and held his ground.

He backed the Arosaurer into a side street, using the narrow gap between two stone buildings as a chokepoint. The Liger followed, slower now, its paws leaving scorch marks on the wet ground.

It lunged. Alex threw the joysticks hard right. The Liger's shoulder hit the building instead of the Arosaurer, and half the facade came down in a cascade of timber and plaster.

Alex triggered the flamethrowers. Superheated fuel washed across the Liger's flank. The beast recoiled, shaking its mane free of burning residue, and for two seconds the pressure dropped enough for Alex to breathe.

Then it circled. Wide. Too wide.

It wasn't attacking. It was steering him.

"Open ground," Alex muttered. "It wants me in the open."

The fear hit like ice water in his veins. He swallowed it, tasted copper, and kept calm.

The Liger feinted left, then drove straight into the Arosaurer's chest. Alex's harness bit into his shoulders as the Zoid skidded backward, claws scraping furrows in the stone. The Liger's jaws snapped at the canopy, close enough that Alex scored a hit with the flamethrowers. The beast recoiled. Alex swung the tail, caught it across the shoulder, stumbled it.

He backed the Arosaurer behind a half-collapsed granary.

His hands were shaking on the joysticks. He gripped harder until they stopped. The Arosaurer's core pulsed faster than normal, a rhythm that matched his own heartbeat. The machine was afraid too.

Alex checked the beam projector readout. One shot left.

A rifle crack split the air. Lyra's round sparked off the Liger's brow ridge. The pressure in Alex's chest dropped half a notch.

Anya's voice cut through the comms, steady and hard. "Celestian formation. Fia, left flank. Lyra, maintain overwatch. Seraphine, prep the emitter."

Alex keyed his transmitter. "Fall back. All of you. This thing is—"

"No." Anya's voice didn't rise. It didn't need to.

Fia cut in, breathless but grinning. "You think we drove all the way here to watch?"

"I have a firing solution on the right shoulder joint," Lyra said. "Three seconds."

"Already moving," Seraphine said softly.

Alex stared at the Liger through the rain-streaked canopy. His jaw worked. "You're wounded. You don't know what you're walking into."

"We know exactly what we're walking into," Anya said. "We're Wardens. This is our job. We can't let this Titan go on a rampage any longer."

The Liger roared. Lightning arced between its claws and the wet ground.

Alex exhaled. His hands settled on the joysticks.

"Do what you want," he said. "Just stay out of my line of fire."

Anya's response was immediate. "Fia, draw its attention left. Lyra, wait for the mane to discharge, then hit the joint. Seraphine, disrupt its senses on my mark. Alex, hold position until we create an opening."

Alex said nothing. He watched the Liger through the rain, his thumb resting on the beam projector's trigger.

One shot. He'd make it count.

Alex held position behind the granary, autocannons tracking the Liger's movement through the rain. Anya's shield caught a bolt of lightning that would have caved in the Arosaurer's chest, and the deflection bought him three seconds.

He used them.

"Left knee," Lyra said over the comms. "Fia, now."

Fia's gauntlets cracked into the joint from behind. The Liger snarled and dropped a quarter-meter, off-balance for the first time.

Alex squeezed the trigger. Three-round burst, tight grouping, all three shells hitting the exposed joint. The Liger staggered.

"Again," Anya said. She planted her shield and held the center, rain streaming down her visor.

Seraphine's emitter whined. The Liger's mane flickered, its charge destabilizing. It shook its head, disoriented.

Alex moved to the blind side, raining controlled bursts into the Liger's flank. The beast turned, too slow, and Anya slammed her vibro-blade across its shoulder. Fia hammered the same knee. Lyra put a round into the gap between neck and shoulder.

The Liger stumbled.

"It's working," Fia said, breathless.

The Liger's mane flared white. It lunged.

Straight at Anya.

Alex didn't think. He threw the joysticks forward and the Arosaurer intercepted, shoulder-checking the Liger mid-leap. The impact drove Alex back into the granary wall. Stone cracked. The Liger's jaws closed on the Arosaurer's left arm and twisted. Metal shrieked. Hydraulic fluid sprayed the rain.

The arm tore free.

Alex tasted blood. He'd bitten his tongue. The Liger raked its claws across the Arosaurer's chest, splitting the plating open. Sparks erupted from the exposed core housing.

"Alex!" Anya's voice.

He triggered the autocannons point-blank into the Liger's ribs. The beast recoiled. Fia drove both gauntlets into its hind leg. Lyra fired into the joint she'd been working the whole fight. Seraphine's disruption field made the mane sputter.

Anya came in low, blade aimed at the Liger's eye. The beast jerked back. Fia hammered the same knee again. Something cracked.

The Liger dropped to three legs.

"There," Lyra said. "The throat. It's exposed."

Alex raised the beam projector. His hands were shaking. He steadied them. One shot.

The beam punched through the Liger's throat and out the back of its skull.

The beast's mane went dark. It stood for a moment, swaying, rain running down its stripes. Then it collapsed. The ground shook.

Silence. Just rain.

Alex's harness released. He climbed out on shaking legs and his knees gave out. He sat on the Arosaurer's neck, chest heaving, rain streaming down his face.

The fear he'd been holding poured out of him at once. His whole body trembled.

Anya was on one knee nearby, breathing hard. Fia was grinning through bloody teeth. Lyra limped out from behind cover. Seraphine was already moving toward the wounded Wardens in the street below.

Alex looked at the Arosaurer. The left arm was gone. The chest was split open, the core housing sparking and dark but still faintly pulsing beneath the ruin.

He ran his hand over the split plating. The weak vibration tickled his palm.

"Still alive," he murmured.

Anya approached, limping. She looked at the Arosaurer, then at Alex.

"You held together," she said.

Alex wiped blood from his lip. "Barely."

Fia hauled herself up onto the Arosaurer's leg, panting. "That thing was NUTS."

"What did you expect? It was a Rank B," Lyra said, lowering herself onto a chunk of rubble. Her hands were steady but her face was pale.

Seraphine let out a long breath, her hands still trembling. "Everyone's intact. That's what matters."

Anya turned to the Arosaurer, surveying the damage with a Warden's eye. She looked at Alex. "Can you fix it?"

Alex stared at the torn arm, the split chest plating. "Yeah. But it'll cost. Hydraulic lines, replacement actuators, new armor plating. I don't have that kind of Sol."

Anya crossed her arms. "We can contribute. That machine saved our lives. Without it, we wouldn't have brought that Liger down."

Alex looked at her, then at the rest of Celestia. "You helped too. Couldn't have done it without you."

Anya shrugged, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "Then I guess we make a pretty good team."

The clouds parted. Sunlight broke through and fell across the ruined plaza. From the streets beyond, voices rose. Cheers. The people of Veridia were cheering for them.

"So that's the Rank 9, huh!?"

"THEY TOOK DOWN THE TITAN!"

"Alex! Alex!"

"Celestia! Celestia!"

Alex looked around him, and the people were cheering for him. Five years of shadows, of hiding his work behind bolted doors and silence. He had never imagined what this would feel like.

Not vindication. Not relief.

Something warmer.

His hand drifted to the blue stone at his chest. He pressed it flat against his palm.

They're cheering for me, he thought. And for the first time, it didn't feel like a mistake.

"Alex!"

Then he saw her. Rhian pushed through the crowd, her braids half undone, her tunic streaked with dirt. She ran straight to him and threw her arms around his waist. Her shoulders shook. Tears streamed down her face, her nose running freely.

She didn't say anything. She just held on.

Ziya limped up behind her, leaning on a makeshift crutch. She gave Alex a small nod and a tired smile.

Alex put his hand on Rhian's head. "Hey. I promised I'd come back safe, didn't I?"

Rhian pulled back just enough to look up at him, her eyes red. She sniffled and punched his arm lightly. "You scared me."

"Yeah," Alex said. "Me too."