“How did you even know about this place?” Shepard asked as he climbed up the cliff behind Luke.

  “I used my drone, did some scouting around the area before we got here,” Luke replied.

  “Huh. I guess the range on that thing is pretty good.”

  “It’s decent,” Luke said and stood up atop the cliff face. He had a new favorite activity, climbing in a mech suit. It was just so satisfying to punch his fingers into the stone and effortlessly pull himself up the rock face.

  “Well, your plan better work. Setting it up took way too long. If we went with my plan, we would be done by now.”

  “If we went with your plan, you would be crispy fried by now. I know you can reflect an attack if you time it right, but this monster can attack six times at once.”

  “Whatever, are you finally going to kick things off now?”

  “Yeah, I am,” Luke said.

  He still waited a moment to take it all in. Shepard was right, they had put almost two hours of work into this plan. Luke wanted this to work, but he didn't want to rush things. They stood on the west side of a short and deep canyon to the north of the Blue Valley. The adult Prismatic Hydra was a half mile away in the valley’s vibrant center. Its body was as big as a bus and each head was as big as a car.

  The dozens of Purpleheart Ents must have realized there was an apex predator in their midst by now. For whatever reason, their instincts ignored the fellow monster. That would change when they matured in a week or two and the hydra started eating them, but by then it would be too late.

  Luke verified that Bumblebee and the others were set up on the east side of the canyon. They were. The first half of Luke’s Repair Craft had been cast, and his mana pool was full again. He raised his hand and fired off a single shot from his ice rifle. White wisps of air trailed it as the shot arced through the air. The air rifle powered magnet didn’t fly nearly far enough to catch the attention of the hydra, it was a signal for the others. Mana messed with radio signal so they couldn’t use walkie talkies.

  The magic drone shot out towards the valley with a mental command and made a beeline for the hydra. It saw the magical construct coming from far away, but only dedicated a single head to its approach. The other five heads were sleeping or watching the rest of the valley. Sneaking up on the monster would have been impossible.

  When the magic drone flew close, that head sent out a wide black breath attack. It billowed upwards, blocking off the approach. Sparks of electricity flitted around the cloud, like it held trapped lightning. Luke’s machine soul was smart enough to anticipate and avoid the attack. The monster huffed and ignored the drone. It was basically an insect to it, it was three feet wide and the hydra was bigger than most houses.

  The drone circled around, trying to get close enough to drop its payload.

  Cormac had helped them harvest that payload on their walk here. The orc knew the local flora well and helped them collect dozens of smelly berries. He called them Touch-Me-Nots, and they produced an extremely itchy oil. Only the local birds seemed unaffected by it.

  Luke’s drone made a few more attempts before it was able to get a good attack run in. It swooped in and flipped over, upending the leaf cup on its top. Berries flew out and plinked across the hydras’ body.

  The hydra started when it felt the impact, but calmed down when nothing happened. Two of its heads started to go back to sleep as the magic drone continued to circle the monster. Luke was starting to wonder if its scales were preventing the berries from working.

  He needn’t have worried. The hydra started twitching, and brought a few heads over to rub its back. Then the other heads woke up and started itching itself as well. Luke ordered his drone in then, flying it just close enough to get the monster’s attention.

  The hydra responded with a plume of black, a gout of red and green, and a wave of yellow. The plant life within thirty feet of the serpent shriveled up and died. Luke’s drone kept dive bombing the monster before zooming off.

  By now the hydra was infuriated and galloped after the flying annoyance. The magic drone didn’t need extra instructions to retreat just out of range. Again and again the monster attacked and chased after the annoyance. Slowly it was led out of the valley and up into the rocky north.

  The humans crouched down as the hydra drew close. If anything could spot the humans in this situation, it would be the monster with twelve eyes. When the beast was just inside the canyon, he mentally commanded his drone to slow down, as if it was growing tired. The hydra surged forward into the narrow canyon because it sensed weakness. The drone tried to escape again, but was caught by the edge of an electric black cloud. It fell to the ground, sparking and on fire.

  Luke dropped his hand in the signal and the six of them pushed forward as one. Two large boulders dropped off the cliff face on the west side, and four from the east. They hit the sheer rock faces on the way down, breaking off more chunks of stone and creating a mini avalanche.

  The irate and itchy monster was laser focused on the magic drone, but that didn’t prevent it from hearing the cliff walls collapsing in on it. The monster turned its rightmost head to the east and a scintillating beam of white and yellow lanced out. Everywhere the three foot wide beam touched, the rocks disintegrated. The magic effect was powerful, but not fast enough to destroy everything coming its way.

  The avalanche of rocks hit the monster from both sides, pinning it underneath a pile of boulders and loose rock. The canyon echoed for a moment and then was silent. Luke held his breath, wondering if that had actually worked.

  The rocks moved.

  Luke instantly threw his right arm up and fired three shots from his newest spell gun. The magnets pulled spells along and arced through the air one after another, heading directly away from the monster. They landed on the creation that had taken most of their prep time, a wooden dam. The sawblade spells cut through the logs there, the second shot cutting deep enough to burst the whole thing open.

  A rush of water flowed down the narrow canyon, heading directly for the trapped hydra. It poked three of its heads above the rock pile just in time to get hit with the leading edge of the flood.

  Luke mentally switched to ice bolts and started firing them down at the rushing water. Bumblebee did the same. The hydra might be resistant to elemental damage, but the water covering it wasn’t. Shards of ice were growing between the rocks, lengthening into sharp points.

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  The two of them fired over a dozen spells at the water as it flowed over the rock pile covering the hydra. The flow slowed to a trickle a short while afterwards, since they had only diverted a small portion of the mountain pool above.

  The pile of rocks was soon overcome with great spears of ice, jutting out in every direction. Luke stepped to the edge of the cliff and then dropped off, still firing shot after shot at the trapped monster.

  His stomach rushed into his throat as he fell forty feet. The fall seemed to take forever, the wind whistling past his helmet like a train. He bent his legs and tried to stay loose as he landed. The leaf springs in his legs absorbed much of the impact and he rolled across the canyon floor to bleed off the rest.

  He underestimated the force a thousand pound mech would build up after that long of a fall and things started breaking. His right boot snapped off and his right pauldron crumpled. He had ducked his head to avoid hitting it, his back took the impact instead. Machine Bond told him his life rune was sparking.

  He groaned and struggled to stand up. His pilot suit had padding, but not enough for a stunt like that. Luke realized he couldn’t get up in this state and activated the second half of Repair Craft, pushing mana into it to speed up the process. He was right next to the six headed serpent, he needed to be ready to fight.

  The cracks on his back sealed up, his pauldron puffed out, his boot reattached, and his Ice Sledgehammer recalled itself to his waist. Luke immediately pulled it back off and started clamoring over the rock pile. He made sure to use the first half of Repair Craft again. Bumblebee and Shepard made their way down in a more sane manner and the rest stayed out of the way.

  As expected, the hydra wasn’t dead yet, and the pile of stone and ice started making noise. Cracks and pops sounded like gunshots. A narrow tunnel appeared near the front where a breath attack broke through the ice.

  Luke circled around the back of the pile, avoiding the heads entirely. As he had seen with the smaller hydra, if he cut off a head, the remaining ones would grow bigger and have more potent magic. They couldn’t afford to have that happen, the monster’s magic was already too strong.

  Instead, Luke aimed for the monster’s trunk. If he could break its ribs or stop its heart, it wouldn’t matter how much magic the heads held. With the heads held down by stones and ice, he would get his chance to attack it unimpeded. For a little while, anyway.

  When he judged he was in the right spot, Luke slammed his sledgehammer down, freezing the boulder covering its four legged trunk. The stone cracked and shattered. Luke clawed and shoved the rocks out of the way. Bumblebee joined him, carrying the Blood Spear Cormac had given them. Shepard stationed himself in front of the monster, ready to take its attention when heads popped out.

  Bumblebee and Luke grabbed and shoved rocks out of the way, clearing a path to the monster’s back. The entire pile moved as they worked, shards of ice breaking and stones tumbling. Luke felt a wave of vertigo wash through him as he realized he was a tiny insect atop a giant.

  He pushed the feeling to the side and kept digging. When he could see the hydra’s skin he stopped. The scales were scratched and the monster seemed to be breathing hard. The attack had already done more damage than Luke expected. He aimed his hand at the clear spot and fired his sawblade spell at it over and over again.

  The first two spells were deflected off in a shower of sparks, cutting the nearby stone more than the monster. The third and fourth spells cut into the monster and made it bleed. Luke kept firing as the hydra bucked more and more, desperate to get out of the prison of rocks and ice.

  Luke held out his hand and Bumblebee handed over the spear Cormac had provided. Luke prepped the spear, but was thrown off before he could stab it down. His mech flipped once in the air and tumbled to the ground as the hydra broke out of containment. Ice and rocks flew everywhere as it stood up.

  The monster was more injured than he expected. Two of the heads were gone, making the remaining four bigger than they started. There were other cuts in the scaly skin and its closest leg was badly broken.

  The hole Luke had cut in the monster’s back was now far out of reach. One hydra head was focused on Shepard, who was throwing rocks at it from the front, but the other three were staring at Luke and Bumblebee. The three heads took a deep breath in.

  Bumblebee and Luke burst into action. Bumblebee used both Rush and Evade to run away through the field of boulders as fast as possible. Luke ran forward, his spear leading the way. He knew he didn’t have the strength to get through its tough skin, but there was a tear right behind the broken leg that he could reach.

  The head aborted their breath attacks as Luke drew too close to its body. He had been hoping it wasn’t entirely immune to its own magic. He used its brief hesitation to plunge the Blood Spear deep into the monster’s side. He left the spear and ran away, passing its stubby tail as he did.

  The Blood Spear had a potent blood clotting poison in it. Cormac was sure that it could take down the apex predator in less than a minute. Now that the poison was delivered, Luke needed to get away and wait.

  He heard a deep fwoosh behind him and jumped behind a nearby boulder. The cover protected him from the initial impact of the monster’s breath attacks, but the cloud just rolled over the boulder.

  Luke kept running, ducking behind the boulders that had recently been stacked atop the hydra. The collection of breath attacks followed him, flowing faster than he could run.

  Lighting played across his mech but only left small burns. The Mark II armor was made of the stronger Stone Beetle wing casings and was magically reinforced. It was airtight with a filter, protecting him from the poisonous aspects of the magical attack. But the magic power armor wasn’t enough to protect against the acidic yellow breath.

  Luke watched helplessly as the metal and chitin pitted and eroded. Soon golf ball sized holes appeared on every surface of his mech. He knew he still had Repair Craft prepared, but if he used it too soon, the acid would just eat through his armor again. He kept running, pushing himself and Machine Bond.

  His armor sagged, holes widened, and Luke stumbled.

  He slammed his intent into the skill. Repair Craft ballooned out from his core, reversing damage and returning his armor to its pristine condition. Luke could tell it wasn’t going to be enough. The clouds of magical lighting and acid were billowing out faster than he could run. They hung in the air in front of him, just waiting to burn everything away again.

  The skill completed, but Luke kept pushing mana into repair. He tried to convince the skill that the repair wasn’t done, there was still damage. To his shock, it worked. New holes in his armor appeared, but were quickly repaired.

  Then he burst out of the cloud and into the clean air. His mana bottomed out and the skill stopped. He was left with minor pitting and etching from the edges of the acidic breath.

  Luke glanced back as he ran, just in time to see the hydra fall to the ground. Each head hit the ground with a thump he could feel. It attempted to get back up, but the Blood Spear had done its work. It made one more feeble reach with its claw and then fell still. It was dead. Luke slowed his retreat and walked back as the breath attacks dissipated into the air.

  The high of the skill advancing washed over him as he walked closer to the corpse. Shepard was shouting at the dead monster, crowing and beating his chest. Green, Davis, and Barrow were whooping and yelling from atop the eastern cliffs. Bumblebee came up behind Luke and clapped him on the shoulder.

  “You did good, no cap. Maybe next time don’t almost die. It’s giving desperation and that isn’t the vibe we want with Monster Jaeger Inc,” Bumblebee said.

  Today’s chapter title comes from Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

  In other news that only I will care about: I laughed myself silly when I started chapter 28 with Bumblebee saying they would need to “ice this sucka.”