Breaking It Down
Comrades, Citizens, as representative of the Human Collective Defense Union, Africa Chapter, today I am proud to introduce to you the Semi-Autonomous Secretariat Model-8, our latest in the Battle BIOME Line of animal-inspired, ecologically safe, and utterly deadly robotic mechs.
*Pause for applause*
As you no doubt see here, the M-8 has some rather long legs...
*Pause for laughter*
That is because she is based on the Secretariat Bird, a noble raptor from the savannas of the African Polity. Her wings, each featuring pairs of bespoke-sized vogel drone feathers for any encounter, are capable of deploying vogels; up to thirty-six impulsed blades, crowbars, explosive penetrators, and, in the case of the largest feathers, a dedicated pair of plasma cutters for anti-mech, anti-ship warfare! And if all else fails, yes, she kicks!
*Pause for laughter*
Not to mention our standard suite of machine guns, electronic and psychic countermeasures - the latter featuring only ethically trained psychomatter harvested from specially modified flatworms. Best of all, the M-8 is almost entirely made of source-programmable polymer, with only a bare minimum of nanites, metal, crystal, and biological components, meaning our manufacturing limit is almost infinite!
*Pause for applause*
With the Secretariat M-8 at its disposal, the ESPAF is just a little bit more capable and secure. And maybe, whether the Seventh Paragon succeeds or not, perhaps soon we'll see a return to the Interstellar Politic, and those exciting days of the Armed Forces of Humanity.
*Pause for applause*
BZZZRRRAP!
The throbbing pulse of a hi-intensity laser bazooka was the sound of hope from all those gathered in the lobby, fighting the rogue M-8 for their lives and for every second Arin needed to escape.
But Arin wasn't running. She'd been too far from her guards for them to cross even the meters of distance to her as the mech simultaneously fired on her and kept them at bay with swarms of vogel drones.
At the end of the laser bazooka's firing cycle, a single wing fell off of the mech, and half the vogels flying around blinked off and clattered to the ground, or in the case of four agents who were stabbed in the chest, remained where they were.
The mech paused to assess its own damage, before emitting an angry screech that sent Arin covering her ears. In the next moment, it stomped on its own wing, and the agents watched in horror as the polymer began to flow back up its frame to resume its former position and shape.
As one, the fallen vogels rattled back on, and began to charge their impulse engines to resume flight.
I've got to do something! Arin thought as she ducked behind a rapidly disintegrating concrete planter.
She'd never been in a life-or-death combat situation before.
Reaching out with her psychomagnetic senses, she felt a lot of metal around her.
In the bannisters, some of the guns carried by the agents, the chairs and furniture...
But when she got to the mech-
What the hell? They made the whole damn thing out of polymer?!
The only metal she could find that belonged to the mech was in some of the wiring, and all of it was diamagnetic gold. There was, however, metal in the fins of the vogels, and so she reached out and spoiled their flight patterns with magnetic pulses that she hoped wouldn't throw off the aim of her bodyguards.
There was another confused pause as the mech tried to recalibrate. Arin used this and rose up, extending a second magnetic field until she managed to lock its apex near the mech.
This had the unfortunate effect of the mech being able to target her. It charged its "mouth" laser, a gathering pulse of light seconds away from ending Arin's existence...
CLANG! CLK-CLT-CLCK-GRRRRNNN
Before it could fire, every metal bit of furniture surrounding the mech began to fly towards Arin's magnetic apex, colliding with the mech in spectacular fashion and spoiling the shot such that it danced to Arin's left before being forced into the ground... Not by the furniture, but by the massive girder of the pavilion it had landed near, which hit it from the back with the force of several tons of moving metal.
Did I do that? Arin wondered. Looking down, her battle suit highlights were still cyan, which meant she hadn't overcharged...
Suddenly a triple pulse of green light fired down from above.
Arin looked up to find Paragon X aiming a rifle almost straight down at the mech.
A second set of green pulses fired out of the disruptor they held in both hands.
A moment later, the file receipt icon in Arin's HUD started flashing, along with a scrolling message...
OPEN IT
Hurrying to open the file, Arin's HUD flickered for a moment before a series of psionic files unpacked into her head.
They were memories. From a factory on Earth... someone putting together the very same type of Secretariat M-8...
A new message scrolled as soon as the memories finished, leaving her with intimate knowledge of what should have been an extremely classified mech.
GO FOR THE CORE
At that very moment, Paragon X's disruptor took off both wings of the mech, one after the other.
As the vogels clattered to the ground once more, Arin magnetically grabbed the girder that had fallen against the M-8.
Taking back all her power, she put everything into beginning to spin the four-meters of steel. Faster and faster, working her psychomagnetic field deeper into its structure as she worked to heat up every molecule she could...
SCREEEEEEE!
With a sudden cry, the tailfeathers of the M-8 came free, flying out on the impulse engines at their bases as their broad tips began to glow with plasma fire.
One flew for Paragon X, who was forced to dodge, while the other flew right for Arin.
Pulling the girder in between to block the shot, Arin started to run as the plasma cutter slammed into the wall behind her, digging into it before arcing back toward her as it melted its way out of the wall in front of her.
She let go of the spinning girder halves in order to focus everything into the tiny amounts of metal in the vogel's fins, forcing it away but failing to destroy its ability to fly despite her outputting enough power to cause her battle suit to blue-shift.
It flew off in a wavy, erratic pattern, but the M-8 wasn't done yet. Despite every effort of Arin's, it began to adapt, and within moments it was back on its way to her, a weapon designed to destroy whole ships...
"Raaaaaagh!"
At the last second of its flight, suddenly Tom barrelled out of nowhere, grabbing the blade by its base and forcing it into the ground, where the plasma cutter melted its way a meter into the concrete.
"Thanks, Muscles!" Arin said.
"Can you take it out?" he shouted back.
The body of the M-8, having decided Paragon X was the current greatest threat, continued to fire both laser and kinetic weapons up into the air as Paragon X dodged, precisely firing between maneuvers despite the incoming fire.
"I can! I just need it to stay still." She lifted the hottest-looking half of the girder and resumed her spinning, overcharging her powers to spin it into a searing lance of metal as her battlesuit registered purple for the first time since she'd donned it.
"On it!" Tom shouted as he realized what she was doing.
"No, wait!"
Without waiting for her permission, he charged the mech, grabbing it by the long, spindly leg and toppling it like a giant caper. It went down with a squawk, but before Tom could act further, that same leg kicked out, sending him flying backward into the distance.
The time he bought was barely enough.
Cycling her power into a massive Gauss sequence, Arin readied the molten lance, hoping with all her might that she had it no target as she built up charge, her power surging and surging until-
SRRRRRRIP- CLANG!
With its sudden release, the magnetically accelerated lance drove straight through the polymeric armor of the M-8, taking not only the core but the entire mobility apparatus with it as it burned its way through. The body of the mech shuddered once where it stood before collapsing, every one of its remaining lights dimming.
Arin was left panting, but she'd done it. She'd survived.
Suddenly from all around, emergency bots activated. Most were fire suppression units, and those began to attack the still-flaming parts of the mech and its environment with sprayers. The rest were medical units, and these began to tend to the fallen agents.
She barely took a step towards her entourage before suddenly she was grabbed from behind.
"That was amazing! I'm so glad I snuck in here, this footage is going to make my channel!"
"Autumn?!"
"Oy, Puta, sal de aquí!" Cherry shouted as she crossed the distance. She continued to swear at Autumn in Spanish until the pink-haired woman relented and backed off. "Madre de dios," Cherry hugged Arin hard once they were alone. "What the fuck you run off for?"
"I didn't want anyone else to get hurt," Arin said.
"Aya~ I'm grateful, Arin, but you take too many risks!"
"What else was I supposed to do? That thing was going to kill us all!"
"Lucky we had help, eh? Didn't think Paragon X would step in," she gestured up to the distant balcony, where Paragon X had been joined by a pair of aliens in what seemed to be business attire imitating Earth's. They seemed to be having the same sort of conversation with the mysterious being as Arin's with Cherry, but with a lot more alien gestures and shouting - inaudible at this distance with everything going on.
"Yeah... Lucky... Or they were just covering their own ass."