The treads squeaked and bumped. The engine hummed. The wind whistled through the gaping cracks of the hull, and through it, the light of the sunrise poured in. I could feel the heat of the morning sunlight, but sitting at the driver's seat of the tank, I could only see the world through a narrow slit in the front of the tank.

"And so there I was," Johnny said, "Fighting against the entire mob using my elite martial arts skills!" He had this young, energetic vigor to his voice that perfectly complemented his near-constant bragging. It was almost a shame, I thought, that we did all this work to save him, and he turned out to be an insufferable little shit.

"And so, of course," he shouted, "that this here bitch would get the jump on me." He feigned a punch at the woman, the same woman who attacked us with this tank. Barnabas Jessie, she called herself. Now she was chained up in the back of the tank, still unconscious from the sleep potion. Johnny knew not to actually hit her since I had already threatened him about it hours ago.

When Johnny and his girlfriend finally woke up, it took us nearly an hour to get him calm. First to convince that no, we were not kidnapping him, and we were actually rescuing him, and second, that we had also captured Jessie and, no, you may not "return the favor" by abusing her, and finally, third, that yes I am actually a living trash can with metal tentacle arms, thank you.

Johnny was an idiot. He simply couldn't conceive that my War Machine armor wasn't my real body. He didn't even think it was armor. He thought that I just somehow looked like that.

"Oh, Johnny," said Sophie, his amber-eyed girlfriend. "You're so brave, you know?"

He took on a smug look, an annoyingly smug look, and said, "Ha! Don't you know who I am? I'm Johnny Jigsup! I'm not afraid of anything!"

Vil, sitting beside me, opened his eyes. "Keep it down, Johnny. I'm trying to rest." He wiggled himself deeper into his seat to make himself more comfortable--it probably didn't help--then looked to me with tired eyes. "Where are we?"

"I have no idea," I said. Without looking, I handed him the map. "You tell me."

"I told you to drive straight, Redrim." Groggily, he unfolded it. His eyes traced around the page, then up to scan our surroundings, then back to the map. "It appears you decided not to drive straight."

"I had to make a turn," I said. "The main road was too busy."

He shook his head as he studied the map. "We need supplies. And food--"

"I can make all those things," I said.

"No offense, Redrim, but I would like real food for once." He handed back the map. "Follow signs for a town called Forel."

The name was familiar. Forel. I had heard it before, but where? "Elves," I said when I remembered. "The Elvish kingdom is nearby."

Vil was silent. I had just pulled a tight corner on the dirt road, then glanced at him. He stared at me with a raised eyebrow. "Interesting, Redrim," he said. "The Elvish kingdom hasn't existed for at least two hundred years. Forel is one of the last remaining towns."

The tank jolted. It was the engine! It sputtered and coughed, the tank rocked and struggled, and then--

Died.

Vil leaned over my shoulder to look at the gauges. "No fuel," he said. "Can you make fuel?"

"I can make fire element," I said.

He sighed. "That's not the same thing." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "You don't have the recipe for gasoline or diesel..."

"Nope."

He grunted out his seat, squeezed past Johnny and Sophie, and climbed out the hatch. Dust and smoke poured in, and as I followed him out, I saw the bright blueness of the sky again.

The air was crisp, pure, fresh compared to that stuffy tank, and even though I didn't need to, I stretched in the morning light.

Johnny and Sophie hopped out behind us.

Vil still studied the map as he looked around for any landmarks. We stood on a gravel road near a small cliff. There were hills around filled with evergreen trees and the chirping of birds.

We were far from anything.

"I'm not walking, Redrim," said Vil. He gestured to the tank. "Go on, then. Eat and make us a new one."

I took a deep breath. I had wanted to gobble down this battle machine ever since we got it, but we couldn't risk it with the Eurusian cavalry on our tails. Surely, they had given up by now. "Yes," I said. "I think I'll do that."

I went back to the tank, handed Jessie's limp body off to Vil, then went right to work.

First, I needed to find the core.

Cosmic Field Scanning activated.

Sure enough, it was there, sitting in the back of the tank, buried in the armor. I would need to carve it out.

-11,900 Earth Element

Mining Mode (Left) activated.

The small mining laser flipped out from my left trash can wall, the heat of transformation still steaming off it.

I still had my right mining laser as well, so I shot both.

Fzzzzz--

+350 Earth Element

+350 Earth Element

+350 Earth Element

--zt!

Wow. That was terrible. It was only a three-second burst, but it barely dented the inner hull of the tank. Was it the hardness? I needed to ask Cassandra, my little onboard AI helper.

"Cassandra, why is my mining laser so shitty and bad? It was fine before."

"Because, Imsi," she said. "You failed to read the documentation. At this point, I question if you can read at all."

Cassandra was trying to be cute today. "You're right. I can't read. Read it for me."

"The material you are trying to recycle belongs to the HARD category of density, which according to your current Mining Mode level and current form, will drastically reduce the amount of resource you would gain."

I scratched my top rim in thought. "So, uh, how can I make this faster?"

"Your Mining Mode ability will be more effective if activated on a larger platform, for example, your War Machine armor. Currently, as you are in Recycler form, you recycle at 70% efficiency."

Interesting. I considered going back outside and just mining dirt for a while to make another set of War Machine armor, but that would take time. Also, I doubted if I could even fit down the hatch with it on. For now, I would just have to make do, at least until I got the tank core.

I continued, this time bursting for a good five minutes to let my lasers drill into the tank.

+105,000 Earth Element

+525,000 XP

+5,000 Earth Element

+5,000 Fire Element

+50,000 XP

+1 MBT Core

New Recipe unlocked.

New Form unlocked.

Phew! Even as dense as the metal was, this was a juicy amount of XP. It didn't give me another level, but that was fine. I had what I wanted.

I mentally went through my form list to see just how much it would cost to make (which was really just two items), and when I found it, my little trash can heart dropped.

This fuckin' tank. It weighed 27,000 kilograms. In perspective, I barely had just eaten 100 kilograms in that little burst. I didn't realize just how insanely heavy this thing was.

How long would this even take?

Cassandra, ever listening to my every thought, answered for me. "At a rate of 350 recycled grams per second, it would take you 18.2 hours to fully recycle the MBT."

"Eighteen hours?"

"However," she continued, "by using your War Machine's enhanced Mode functionality, you would instead recycle at a rate of 500 grams per second. Combined with your hip-mounted recycler lasers, you may further stack your resource rate to 850 grams per second. There are yet more options available to further decrease the amount of time required."

I had forgotten about using both the recycler lasers with my War Machine armor. The Armor would replace the arms with lasers, but I could still flip out my recycler body's smaller lasers as well. "Explain more," I said.

"Invest your two unused class points into your Mining Mode. Once your recycle rate is enhanced, consider recycling dirt instead, as it is considered NORMAL density and recycles without penalty."

Oh shit! I had forgotten all about class points. I never got to spend them. Man, I was glad I always kept a few spares for when I needed them.

"Unlock them for me," I said.

Mining Mode 2 unlocked.

Mining Mode 3 unlocked.

My two recycler lasers flipped back inside me, my little recycler body hummed and clicked and clacked as the metal reformed for the upgrade, and they flipped back out.

They had changed. Before, they were like blocky little grip-less pistols, but now they were sharper, sleeker, and a good deal bulkier. I checked the stats again and saw that they recycled an entire 2,100 grams per second, compared to the first level's 350 grams--not including any density modifiers.

I hopped out of the tank. I needed to remake my War Machine armor. I was bloated with Earth element, but by factoring in transmutation loss, it would cost, uh, "Cassandra, how much would it cost?"

[70,000] Earth Element

War Machine activated.

Hrmmm-click-click-click.

Hrmmm-click-CLACK-click.

I rattled and shook, and my body built over itself, folding and unfolding and flipping pieces into places, and I felt myself rise, higher, then the entirety of me snapped into place.

Steam rose from me, and my metal skin hissed as it cooled.

"So that's how you did it," said Johnny behind me.

"I almost couldn't believe it," said Sophie. "But now I don't have a choice."

I ignored them. I was a busy man. A busy trash can warrior with his mind set full speed to efficiency.

"Calculate the time," I said inwardly to Cassandra.

"A recycle rate of 6,000 grams per second for the War Machine lasers, an additional 4,200 grams per second from your recycler lasers after modifiers, further modified by a factor of 1 by recycling a normal density material such as dirt, will grant you a final recycle rate of 10,200 grams per second. With a projected resource requirement of 23,800,000 Earth Element, this will bring the total time to 38.9 minutes."

Yes! I felt like a real high-speed engineer at this point.

I stepped over to a clearing, just a wide area of dirt, and started up my most ultimate resource-mining form.

-34,000 Earth Element

Mining Mode (Left) activated.

Mining Mode (Right) activated.

My bulky, manly, War Machine arms clacked and reformed, the modular pieces flipping and rebuilding and soon becoming two large laser guns. Then, I flipped out the mining lasers from my trash can hull, and they appeared on my hips.

I fired them all at once.

Brzzzzzzh--

I grimaced at the burst of light and power that shot out from me.

+10,200 Earth Element

+10,200 Earth Element

+10,200 Earth Element...

It was intense, but I had dealt with worse. After all, I was just a glorified trash can building a main battle tank.

Of course, storage was a problem. There was absolutely no way in the nine hells I could store enough elements to build a tank outright, so I had Cassandra begin the process.

"Shall I make adjustments to the recipe, Imsi?" she asked.

"What kind?"

"To better adapt the tank for your control. It is already necessary to replace the engine with a form that is compatible with recycled resources."

"Yeah. Go ahead."

Hmmmm--

Anchored into my spot in the dirt, my War Machine armor became a sort of framework from which the elements--transmuted as necessary--would cycle through my body to build outwards, just as it did when making my armor. Slowly, a replica of the battle tank blossomed from my body, fused to my skin. It was grotesque by all means, and it meant that this War Machine form would be spent, but if needed, I could just eject if I needed to pause.

The first few minutes, I just sort of stood there grunting against the force, but I soon got bored of that. Instead of just, you know, standing around, I went ahead and mentally looked over the new tank skills.

Mecha Calibration

Engine Power

Base

Bootleg Power Converter

50f/s | 500 Power

1

Discount Engine

75f/s | 750p

2

Economy Engine

100 | 1000p

3

Standard Engine

125 | 1250p

4

Enhanced Engine

150 | 1500p

5

Power Drive

200 | 2000p

++

Next Generation Drive

Material Density

Base

50%

-200p

1

75%

-300p

2

100%

-400p

3

125%

-500p

4

150%

-600p

5

200%

-800p

++

Next Generation Material Development

Hardpoints

Base

Left, Right

4

+ Front, Back

6

+ Top, Bottom

8

+ Left, Right

10

++ Front, Back

++

Variable Hardpoint Addition

Was that it? Nothing else cool? Boring!

"Imsi," said Cassandra. "These skills were unlocked from the Mecha Calibrator ability. The Mecha Activator ability enables you to make resource investments in order to directly upgrade the machine."

At least those skills weren't wasted, I thought. Now it seemed that if I wanted to directly upgrade my machine, I would need to buy the upgrades with resources. With how much XP each level was starting to require, I knew it wasn't a bad deal.

"Shall I invest class points to upgrade the current tank in production?"

"Nah," I said. "I'll take a better look later. I don't want to stand out here any longer than I need to."

"Very well," she said.

I looked over and saw that Vil and the others were having a cute little chat together as they watched me. Beyond the noise, I couldn't make out what it was, but I heard a few words here and there. Marianna, the empire, Lara, Rebels, terrorism, West, tanks, Redrim, magic, recyclers, sandwiches, tomatoes, sandwiches again.

By the time their conversation had turned to salads--the most sinful thing to talk about--almost thirty minutes ticked by, and I was almost done.

Sure enough, the tank was a perfect replica, but a few things had been changed.

First, additional controls were installed near the gunner's position so that the gunner could drive without having to move elsewhere. This gave the tank the ability to be crewed by a single person--me, specifically. Vil could try, but since he didn't have ten extra tentacle arms, he would've had a hard time doing it all at once.

Second, there was the fact that my entire War Machine body had become fused to the hull of this thing. At this point, it was just a torso half-buried in the back wall. From it, there were several metal hoses that hooked into my hips, ran along the floor of the tank, and connected to some large container near the engine. The fuel line, probably.

Lastly, there were extra quality-of-life improvements here and there, but most notably, there was enough width to the hatch that I could fit in with my Trash Armor and enough room for me to man the gun.

The final parts of the tank formed, and when I felt the click of completion, I got my reward notification.

+23,810,200 Earth Element

+2,381,020 XP

+3 Levels [Level 37]

+3 Class Points

Holy shit. That much recycled, and it only gave me three levels? It was penalized XP since I just used dirt, but still. I almost regretted not eating the old tank. It would've taken longer, sure, but the XP would've shot me up several more levels.

It didn't matter. We were in a hurry. We had a job to do.

I ejected out of my War Machine body, my vision blinking back into my trash can form, and I looked at my handiwork.

It was... nice! It had that fresh, new tank smell. Everything was nice and clean. Gunmetal grey. A bit more spacious than the original tank, since the engine was smaller, but still! A tank! I made a tank!

Footsteps thumped on the outer hull, and the hatch opened. Vil poked his head in. "Good. Are you ready?"

I gave him a little tentacle arm thumbs up. "Yep!"

We filtered back into the new tank, chained up Jessie's still unconscious body to the back area, and we took off yet again.

This time, I let Vil drive from the driver's seat. I stood with my trash can face sticking out of the hatch, studying the map and looking for road signs. Unfortunately, the map was too high in scope, so we could only see the major roads that passed through, and from the look of our surroundings, we were way off the beaten path.

Vil insisted we were close, and I wanted to agree with him. There was an air of familiarity in the forests we had found ourselves in, but I had no real memory of the place. If this were indeed Elvish country, then this entire forest would've been a city. Or at least, a city built into a forest. But looking around, the place was just… trees.

The sunlight glittered from above the passing tree branches. The breeze cool against my metallic skin. Beyond the steady hum of the tank engine, there was silence.

The tank squealed to a stop. The hull shifted from the momentum, and I face-planted against the edge of the hatch and dropped to the floor. I shook off the pain. "Damnit, Vil. You forget how to drive?"

Johnny and Sophie had been asleep, but now they were gathering themselves off the floor.

"No," Vil said softly. "It seems that we've been found."

I couldn't see from inside, so I eased my body out of the hatch to take a look.

There, emerging from the thickness of the forest, four cloaked figures on horseback emerged from all around us.

We were surrounded.