The Orb's cannon fired a violet beam so intense it blew out my depth perception, flattening the warehouse into a noisy blur.
My HUD spammed saturation warnings. I couldn't filter it fast enough.
> [WARNING: Thermal Spike Detected]
> [Core-Battery: 70%]
> [-2 BATTERY]
The warehouse floor turned into a firefight—crates splintering, steel ringing, bodies scrambling for cover.
Three Corrupted Orbs hovered in a triangulation pattern, their brass casings split open, exposing wet, corrupted tissue packed under the plating.
They weren't drones anymore.
They moved wrong—hover-stable one frame, then jittering sideways like the server couldn't decide where to place them.
Dirty violet beams stitched through wooden crates, turning them into splinters and forcing the Zenith Enforcers to hit the floor behind shipping steel.
"Target the anomaly! The big one!" a voice shouted from behind a stack of shipping containers.
Me. They meant me.
I turned, servos whining under the weight of my oversized cannon, just in time to see muzzle flashes from the Enforcer line.
Ping. Ping. Clang.
Bullets sparked off my shoulder plating.
They didn't penetrate—Armor held at 90—but the impact sensors still kicked feedback through my frame: sharp, fake pain meant to keep me honest.
[-1 HP]
[-2 HP]
> [NOTICE: FRIENDLY_FIRE]
> [SRC: ZENITH_ENFORCER]
"Stop shooting the tank, you idiots," I barked, forcing volume through my vocabulator. "I'm the only thing between you and a total wipe."
I tanked the small-arms fire and tracked the center Orb.
No spray, no panic—just a steady channel, reticle glued to the center Orb's eye.
A heavy, low-frequency hum vibrated through the floorboards, shaking the dust off my optical lenses.
The Orb's aperture widened and packed a dense shot into a tight point—aimed at a crumbling pillar.
Behind that pillar was a flash of tactical-gray combat weave and a long-barrel arc-rifle. Camila. She was mid-reload, cycling a fresh core-cell into the chamber with a sharp mechanical click—and zero time to look up.
She didn't see the charge building. She didn't see the shot already committed.
> [CALCULATION: Projectile Velocity > Evasion Cap]
> [TARGET: Unit_Camila (Justiciar)]
> [THREAT: CRITICAL]
I didn't think. I didn't check odds. I moved.
My internal fans screamed.
I slammed power into my leg hydraulics, feeling the core-battery drain as I forced my heavy chassis into a sprint.
[-5 BATTERY]
"Move!" I tried to broadcast, but my audio stuttered—lag choking the call.
I threw myself into the gap just as the Orb fired.
No shield. No barrier. I had mass.
I had reinforced plating and an HP pool built to tank turret fire without flinching.
I activated [Juggernaut Protocol], locking my joints and bracing for impact.
The beam slammed into me and drove my chassis back.
[-84 HP]
My vision whited out. Hot copper stink flooded my intake vents.
My HUD fractured into static, warning bells ringing in my ears as the heat cooked the paint off my chest plate.
The force skidded me backward, my metal feet carving deep grooves into the concrete floor, but I didn't topple.
I held the line.
Smoke rolled off my scorched armor as the beam died. I stayed upright—barely.
> [HP: 929/1575]
For a beat, nobody fired. Only cooling metal and settling dust.
The Justiciar lowered her rifle, staring at my smoking back.
She looked from me to the Enforcers, her eyes narrowing as she processed the data.
"Cease fire!" Her voice cracked like a whip, cutting through the combat noise. "The construct is with us! Focus on the Orbs! Now!"
My Core-Cannon hummed, barrel hot with a pre-charged Core-shot.
Too much splash. In here, it was a liability.
I eyeballed the shot.
The ceiling supports were rotted wood and rust.
If I pulled the trigger, I’d bring the roof down on everyone, allies included.
> [WARNING: FRIENDLY_FIRE 98%]
> [CANCELLED]
"Weapons free, but watch your spacing!" Camila shouted, dropping into a crouch behind a crate.
I couldn't use my cannon here. I was the weapon.
I locked the cannon’s safety mechanism and engaged the servos in my shoulders.
If I couldn’t shoot, I had to control space the old-fashioned way.
I stepped forward, my metal feet cracking the floor tiles, and placed my massive chassis directly in the Orbs' line of sight.
Aggro management 101: be the biggest problem in the room.
The two flanking Orbs snapped to me.
Their apertures flared, retargeting off Camila and onto the armored hulk walking straight at them.
Beams of dirty violet light lashed out, raking across my chest plates.
[-12 HP]
[-14 HP]
The ticks weren’t just numbers.
Heat punched through my insulation and turned the air in my casing into a kiln.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
My vision swam with static as my internal temperature spiked. The smell of melting insulation filled my nose.
> [NOTICE: Armor Plating Temp > 400°C]
> [Core-Battery: 63%] [-2 BATTERY]
I kept walking. I didn't dodge. I didn't weave.
I refused to give up the ground.
I slammed my heavy metal arm into the nearest Orb, the impact shuddering through my frame like a car crash.
Clang.
The Orb spun out, stabilizers whining as it failed to recover from the hit.
I watched it repeat the same pattern.
After the beam volley, the brass casing expanded. Vents along the back hissed, dumping waste heat.
Cooldown window. Vents open.
I didn't have voice chat, but I had the universal language of the arena.
I pinged the tactical overlay.
> [ALERT: TARGET MARKED]
A bright red reticle burned into the HUD over the Orb’s exposed vents.
"On it!" Justiciar Camila didn't hesitate.
I grabbed the second Orb, my metal fingers digging into the soft brass, and wrenched it around, physically forcing its rear vents into her line of fire.
My servos whined in protest, the strain tearing at my battery reserves.
[-4 BATTERY]
Crack. Crack.
Two shots. Two critical strikes.
Camila’s rounds bypassed the armor entirely, shattering the heat sinks.
The Orbs didn’t explode.
Their lights cut, hover failed, and they clattered to the concrete—dead weight, dead glow.
[+25 XP]
[+25 XP]
"Target neutralized," Justiciar called out, cycling her bolt.
The third Orb didn’t vent. It didn't cool down.
Its hum pitched up, screaming into the ultrasonic range, and the purple light in its eye turned a blinding, angry white.
It ramped up.
The hum turned into pressure, vibrating the rivets in my neck assembly.
The Orb’s eye went from violet to blinking red, bright enough to throw hard shadows across the floor.
> [WARNING: Energy Spike Detected]
> [ANALYSIS: UNSTABLE_CORE]
> [T-MINUS: 3...2...]
It wasn't attacking.
It was winding up a failure big enough to take the whole area with it.
"It's going to blow!" Camila shouted, raising her rifle, but I could see the math.
Her reload needed a beat. The detonation didn’t.
The DPS check wasn’t happening. We couldn't kill it fast enough.
I didn't have a stun. I didn't have a silence.
I had mass, and I had a hunger routine that hadn’t been fed since the sewers.
"Cover me!"
I surged forward.
My battery screamed as I redlined the hydraulics, bypassing the safety governors on my leg servos.
[-6 BATTERY]
I closed in two heavy strides. The floor cracked under me.
The Orb shook so hard its
edges smeared—one bad frame after another.
I didn’t swing. I grabbed it.
My metal claws slammed onto the brass casing, grappling the sphere mid-air.
[-22 HP]
Contact damage.
The heat transfer was instantaneous, boiling the grease in my finger joints.
My HUD flickered. Red warning boxes stacked until they blocked half my view.
> [ALERT: Chassis Temp Critical]
> [External Hull Integrity: 88%]
"Camila! The plating!" I roared through my vocabulator, the audio distorted by static. "Crack it open!"
She didn't ask why. She didn't hesitate.
I saw the flash of the Core-Tech rifle—a single frame of muzzle flare—and then the pang of a high-velocity round striking the Orb's rear casing.
The brass shattered, exposing the pulsing, necrotic core beneath.
It pulsed—wet wiring and meat-like tissue jammed around a core that should’ve been inert.
I didn't wait. I jammed my other hand directly into the exposed circuitry.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: Source Drain]
I expected clean mana.
I got sludge.
It hit my system like a flood I couldn’t throttle.
Thick, oily junk-data forced its way in.
My filters spat error after error, and the taste in my intake turned metallic.
It wasn't just energy; it was memory. Fragmented logs. A maintenance drone spamming the same plea. A clean delete where a name used to be.
> [WARNING: MALWARE INTRUSION DETECTED]
> [ERROR: Incompatible Data Type. Parsing...]
Colors inverted—hard negative filter.
I felt it pushing into my startup files, trying to overwrite who I was and flatten me into another obedient unit.
I’m not a drone. I have Admin Access Level 1.
I forced it.
I clamped down on the link and pulled—hard—dragging the corrupted mana out of the Orb.
I stripped the code from its hardware, tearing the mana out by the root.
[+45 Mana (Corrupted)]
[+15 BATTERY]
The Orb shrieked, audio peaking hard, then went inert.
The red light died. The heat vanished.
I dropped the heavy brass sphere. It hit the concrete with a dull, hollow thud.
My HUD didn't clear. Static crawled along the edges of my vision.
Text garbage scrolled too fast to parse—Orb fragments bleeding into my feed.
> [TARGET NEUTRALIZED]
> [SYSTEM STATUS: UNSTABLE]
I stood there, steam hissing from my joints, my internal fans roaring as they tried to dump the heat.
We were alive.
But I felt... heavy. Heavier than metal should be.
The warehouse went quiet, save for the high-pitched whine of my cooling fans struggling to vent the thermal buildup.
The air tasted like burnt copper.
I stood over the inert brass sphere, my stabilizers hunting for level and failing.
The corrupted mana I’d siphoned wasn’t sitting right.
It felt like I’d swallowed a compressed grenade—garbage data expanding in memory until everything slowed down.
> [NOTICE: System Latency: 342ms]
> [WARNING: Motor_Driver_Response_Time > CRITICAL]
I staggered, my metal foot scraping loudly against the concrete.
The delay between thinking "stabilize" and my leg actually locking was nearly a half-second.
Half a second is the difference between a clutch play and a grey screen.
Justiciar Camila stepped out from behind the crate, her rifle lowered but her finger still hovering near the trigger guard.
She looked at the smoking wreck of the Orb, then at me.
Her eyes—sharp, calculating, terrified—scanned my chassis for signs of aggression.
"Is it... done?" she asked, her voice tight.
I vented a cloud of steam from my exhaust ports, the heat dispersing into the cold warehouse air. "Done," I said, my vocabulator crackling. "Target neutralized." I vented another burst of steam from my shoulder ports. The hiss was loud in the silence.
"Quarantine buffer full," I rasped, vocabulator chopping words. "Next time we crush the core. No poking around. Too much lag."
She didn't ask. The Justiciar nodded once, finally lowering her rifle with a sharp exhale.
"Agreed. Authorized."
The fight-high dropped
out of me fast.
The combat music in my head (a thumping synth track that usually signaled a wave spawn) faded into a dull, ambient drone.
I checked my HUD. The threat indicators were gone.
We had won.
This was the part where you walk away like you meant it.
I wanted that moment.
I needed to look like a Prime—all polished chrome and smooth execution—not a glitchy minion asset eating friendly fire.
I tried to straighten my spine, to puff out my chest plating in a salute.
"Target neutralized," I said, forcing my audio drivers into something that sounded confident.
I queued the move: Pivot. Walk away. Look cool.
> [CMD: MOVE]
> [ERROR: DRIVER_STALL]
> [FATAL: LOAD_FAIL]
My knees didn't lock.
The input hit a wall—latency spiked, and the corrupted Core current dragged everything down.
Then my shoulder-mounted Tox-Tech Cannon pulled me off-balance, and the correction came too late.
Momentum did the rest.
I felt the center of gravity shift—slowly at first, then all at once.
My vision tilted violently to the right.
I tried to compensate, to throw a hand out, but the input lag was too severe. My arm moved a full second after I told it to.
"Oh, fu—"
CLANG.
I hit the deck hard. No heroic stumble. No tactical slide.
I toppled hard, my heavy chassis slamming into the floor tiles with enough force to crack them.
The cannon drove into the ground, pinning my shoulder, while my legs twitched in the air, servos whining as they tried to walk while I was pinned to the floor.
> [CRITICAL ERROR: SYSTEM UNRESPONSIVE]
> [REBOOTING MOTOR FUNCTIONS...]
> [PLEASE WAIT...]
Camila stared down at me, the respect on her face vanishing, replaced by bewildered concern.
I lay there with my faceplate in dirty concrete, watching a "Loading..." spinner spin dead-center on my HUD.
So much for looking cool.
Generated by GlitchWriter.
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