Building Zoids in a World of Titans

The queen's jaws snapped shut centimeters from the Lanstag's neck joint, the impact sending a shudder through the cockpit. Alex wrenched the controls right, the Zoid's hooves skidding across bone-strewn stone, and the teeth grazed armor instead of finding the seal.

That was too close.

The queen didn't relent. Her tail came around again — a wrecking ball of bone and muscle — and caught the Lanstag's left shoulder. Metal buckled. Warning indicators flared across the HUD. Alex gritted his teeth and triggered the autocannons, emptying a sustained burst into her face at point-blank range.

The rounds hammered her skull. Chips of bone flew. But the queen barely flinched.

"GRAAAAAAAH!"

She shook her head, her many eyes blinking in sequence, and lunged again.

Alex threw the Lanstag backward, the machine's rear thrusters firing to create distance. The queen pursued, her six limbs carrying her through the cavern with a speed that shouldn't have been possible for something her size. She moved through the bone architecture like she'd built it herself — because she had. Every pillar, every arch, every narrow passage was part of her domain, and she was using every inch of it to corner him.

The Lanstag's speed meant nothing in here. The cavern ceiling pressed low in places. Bone formations jutted at odd angles. Alex had to slow down, pick his path, and every second of hesitation was a second the queen used to close the distance.

She's herding me.

The realization clicked. The queen wasn't just chasing him — she was driving him toward the eastern wall, where the bone architecture looked thinnest, most unstable. The bioluminescent veins in the walls pulsed in patterns that drew his eye, creating an illusion of open ground ahead while the real path narrowed into a killing corridor.

Clever girl.

Alex's lips curled. He stopped retreating.

The Lanstag planted its hooves and slammed both Breaker Horns into the ground.

BOOM.

The seismic pulse rippled outward — not toward the queen, but toward the western wall, the one she wasn't watching. The bone architecture there, already weakened by centuries of moisture and decay, came apart in a cascading collapse. Femurs and skulls and ribcages the size of wagons crashed down in a thunderous avalanche, filling the cavern with dust and noise.

The queen spun toward the sound, her many eyes wide, her trap ruined.

Alex didn't give her time to recalculate. He drove the Lanstag straight at her, Breaker Horns low, and caught her across the forelimbs. The impact lifted her front half off the ground. She shrieked — a sound like tearing metal — and scrambled backward.

Then she opened her jaws and screamed again, different this time. Higher. Sharper.

"SKREEEEE-SKREEEEE-SKREE!"

The summons.

From tunnels Alex hadn't even noticed — dark openings in the walls, the ceiling, the floor — they came pouring out. Razorjaws. Dozens of them. More than had been on the surface. The queen had been holding reserves.

Of course she was.

The pack swarmed into the cavern, their eyes reflecting the dying bioluminescence, their jaws snapping. They hit the Lanstag from all sides — climbing the legs, leaping for the shoulders, trying to find purchase on the armor.

Alex's hands moved across the controls. Rolling Spike Shields activated on both shoulders, spinning up to speed in a heartbeat.

VREEE-EE-EE-EE!

The first Razorjaw that landed on the left shield was shredded instantly. The second lost its forelimbs and tumbled away. The third tried to dodge and caught a spike through the skull.

But there were too many. They kept coming, a tide of teeth and claws, and the queen was pulling back, regrouping, her many eyes watching with something that looked disturbingly like patience.

Alex wove the Lanstag through the swarm, shock cannons firing in controlled bursts. Each shot sent a Razorjaw tumbling. The Breaker Horns swept left and right, clearing space. The tail — the sharp kinetic tip at its end — whipped around and caught one mid-leap, launching it into the wall.

But the queen was the key. Kill her, and the pack would break. He could see it in the way they moved — coordinated, purposeful, responding to signals he couldn't hear. She was the brain. The rest were just teeth.

How do I get to her through all of this?

He didn't have time to think. A Razorjaw landed on the cockpit canopy, its claws scraping across the reinforced surface, its jaws pounding against the seam. Another latched onto the right foreleg, its weight dragging the joint down. The Lanstag stumbled.

Not today.

Alex fired the shock cannons downward, blasting the foreleg attacker into fragments. He spun the torso, using centrifugal force to fling the canopy rider into a bone pillar. The crack of its skull against ancient femur was satisfying in a way he'd examine later.

The queen was watching him. Waiting. She reared up on her hind limbs, her upper body towering over the chaos, her bioluminescent veins blazing bright as she directed her pack. Her underside — paler, softer, less armored — was fully exposed.

There.

Alex's mind raced through the geometry. The queen was twenty meters away. Between them: fourteen Razorjaws, bone debris, and a narrowing floor. The Lanstag couldn't charge through all of that. Not straight.

So I don't go straight.

He pulled the Lanstag back two steps — a retreat. The queen's eyes tracked him. She shifted her weight forward, anticipating the direction. Her pack pressed in from the flanks, tightening the circle.

Alex reversed another step. Then another. The queen's head lowered. Her limbs tensed.

That's it. Come on.

She lunged.

The queen covered the distance in three strides, her jaws opening wide enough to swallow the Lanstag's head, her claws reaching for the cockpit. It was the aggressive, committed strike of a predator who thought her prey was fleeing.

Alex didn't flee.

He triggered the Thruster Lance.

The rocket booster ignited at the base of the spear, and the Lanstag surged forward — not straight at her, but at an angle, ducking under her jaws, sliding past her reaching claws. The Thruster Lance, angled upward, caught her in the soft underbelly as she passed over him.

The lance punched through hide and tissue and kept going. The rocket booster drove it deeper, the force lifting the queen's entire body off the ground. Her claws raked the Lanstag's back, leaving gouges in the armor, but the damage was done.

"GRRRAAAAAAAK!"

The queen's scream was wet, gurgling. She convulsed around the lance, her limbs spasming, her bioluminescence flickering wildly. Blood — dark, viscous, steaming in the cool cavern air — poured down the Lanstag's front.

Alex held the lance steady, the Thruster Lance's systems screaming with the strain. The queen's weight sagged onto the spear. Her eyes — all of them — found the cockpit. For a moment, predator and pilot stared at each other.

Then the light went out of her eyes.

The queen collapsed, her body sliding off the lance with a sound like a building falling. She hit the cavern floor and didn't move.

The effect on the pack was immediate. The coordinated assault dissolved. Razorjaws scattered in every direction, their screeches no longer purposeful but panicked. Some fled into the tunnels. Others milled in confusion, snapping at shadows.

Alex didn't let them regroup. He swept the Lanstag through the remnants, shock cannons firing, Breaker Horns clearing paths. The Rolling Spike Shields caught the last cluster near the entrance, and then the cavern was quiet except for the sound of the Lanstag's systems cycling down and the distant, fading echoes of fleeing Razorjaws.

Alex let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

The comms crackled.

"Alex. Status." Dace's voice. Clipped. Professional. But underneath it, something that might have been concern.

"The queen's dead." Alex's own voice sounded rough. "Pack's scattered. Heading back up now."

A pause. Then: "Good. We'll secure the perimeter. Dace out."

Alex guided the Lanstag through the collapsed entrance, the machine's hooves crunching through bone and stone. The surface light hit his optics like a benediction. The plains stretched out, empty and golden in the afternoon sun.

Houndstooth was waiting. Dace stood at the transport's rear, his rifle slung, a cut above his eye already scabbing over. Mira was perched on the vehicle's roof, her rifle still shouldered, scanning the horizon. Torren sat on the ground, wrapping a bandage around his forearm with his teeth. Kess was leaning against a tire, breathing hard, a bruise darkening her jaw.

They looked up as the Lanstag emerged from the earth.

Torren whistled low. "Looks like you had fun."

"I don't call that fun," Kess said, but she was grinning.

Mira said nothing. She just watched the Lanstag approach, her gray-green eyes taking in the gouges, the blood, the dented shoulder plating. Then she nodded once.

Dace stepped forward. "Queen's confirmed dead?"

"Confirmed."

"Good." Dace looked at the Lanstag, then at Alex. "The nest's collapsing. We won't be able to salvage the tunnel systems, but the queen's carcass is ours. Harsk's going to be very happy."

Alex powered down the Lanstag's combat systems. The cockpit hissed as it opened. He climbed out, his legs shaky, and dropped to the ground.

Dace extended a hand. Alex took it.

"You fought well down there," Dace said. "The way you collapsed that wall to break her trap — that wasn't in the plan."

"The plan didn't account for a queen who thinks three moves ahead."

"Fair point." Dace almost smiled. "Next time, maybe share your improvisations before you nearly get swallowed by a Titan."

"No promises."

Torren laughed. Kess shook her head, still grinning. Mira climbed down from the roof and walked past Alex toward the transport, pausing just long enough to say, "Your Thruster Lance work was clean. Textbook upward thrust."

From Mira, that was practically a standing ovation.

They lashed the queen's carcass to the transport's trailer. It took all of them — even Alex, who climbed back into the Lanstag to lift the body while Houndstooth secured the bindings. The queen was enormous, even dead, and the trailer groaned under her weight.

As they prepared to depart, Kess jogged over to the Lanstag. She looked up at the cockpit, then at Alex.

"Hey. For what it's worth — I'm glad you were down there with us. That queen would've been a nightmare to fight without that machine."

"I'm glad I was down there too," Alex said. And meant it.

Kess nodded and jogged back to the transport.

The journey back to Fort Caldera was quiet. Alex rode in the Lanstag alongside the transport, the machine's damaged leg protesting with every step but holding. The plains were peaceful now, the Razorjaw threat ended. The sun hung low, painting the grass gold and amber.

Alex touched the blue stone pendant at his chest.

I promised I'd come back. I keep my promises.

The Lanstag rumbled alongside the transport, its golden antlers catching the last light, its amber optics scanning the horizon. Behind them, the queen's carcass swayed on the trailer — a trophy, a resource, a promise of what was to come.

Two hundred kilos of Vita-Alloy. A queen's core. Components that would make the Liger Zero something extraordinary.

Alex allowed himself a small smile.

The work was far from over. But for the first time in a long time, he wasn't doing it alone.