The idea was easy. The execution a mess.

This was an ancient ship, a sort of thing that existed before the birth of magic, and so it didn't have an enchanted machine core for me to consume. Luckily, Doc was a crafty guy, so he just made one the same way he made my Mecha Core--creating it from scratch.

It needed about 50,000 of each element and another Cosmic Shard, which I still had.

To start, I changed over to quadra-mining mode and blasted the garbage on the decks until I had enough, then I spit out the mid-to-late-level products he could use to craft the core. Once he had it ready, he installed it within the flooded decks of the ship, just beneath the bridge.

The back wall of the ship had rusted away, and I could see out of it. There were a few rebel guards watching as they leaned back on the main hangar door.

I stood beside Doc, holding a torch as he fiddled it into place, struggling to work in this tilted ship. The water reached up to his ankles, and with every grunt, he splashed around a little more.

With a final clack of working the core into place, a faint electric light pulsed through the hull of the ship.

"There," he said. "It's ready."

"Do I... eat it now?"

"No," he said. "It would take far too much time to remake a ship from scratch. Instead, use one of your recycler arms to link with the core. This way, you can skip having to rebuild much of the hull."

I shot out a tentacle arm and tethered in. An electric pulse ripped through me, shocking me for a moment. The ship had somehow claimed ownership over my body, or perhaps they claimed ownership of one another. Strange.

New Form unlocked: Fishing Trawler

Lovely. This was actually a fishing ship, but at this point, it could be anything.

"Very good," said Doc. "You seem to have started well enough. I'll inform the others that the plan may change." He hurried away.

"Hey," I said after. "What about--"

He was already gone.

"Eh. Whatever."

Cassandra crackled to life. "Imsi, shall I begin making adjustments to the current structure?"

"Go ahead."

"Find a suitable location to meld your armor into the ship, so its functionality may be linked."

I looked around. Beneath the ship core seemed a good of a place as any, so I scooted over and sat down, and right as my metal butt made contact with the floor, my skin began to melt into the ship. I was melding with it, linking deeply with this metal vessel, and soon I started to feel the hull as my own skin, albeit very faintly.

The inside of the ship echoed with the muffled twisting and snapping of metal. While the feeling was dull, I could sense changes within the ship as Cassandra created a deep storage area in the bottom. It felt almost like have stomach gurgles, but it didn't feel bad. Just odd.

Bzzzz--

I shot my mining lasers to begin recycling. Because of the odd position, I had to drill through the floors at an angle and drink up the water. It would require some patching up, but for now, this was the fastest way.

My little trash can heart began to race. I was becoming an entire ship. My mind raced over what I could do to customize it for the coming battle.

And just as that thought came and went, and just as I mentally opened my skill tree to see what I unlocked, shouts rang out from outside.

The side door to the hangar snapped open and light flooded in. It was Vil. He looked around, then spotted me. He hurried over then knelt at the edge of the drydock to look inside at me. "Redrim. We have a problem."

"We don't have problems anymore," I said. "We have a ship."

"No, it's that--"

Thoom!

The earth trembled. The ship groaned. Rebels outside barked out orders, boots pounded, gunfire began to ring out.

"The enemy!" a rebel shouted. "Get to positions! Suppressing fire!"

"Oh no," said another. "It's--it's huge. We don't have anything that can stop it!"

THOOM.

The hangar doors shattered into metal splinters, and the debris tapped across the ship and splashed in the water.

The scorching sunlight blinded me, but there between the massive hangars was something... big.

No. It was the monster tank. The raid boss tank that ambushed us. A tank five times the size of my own with a double-barrel cannon, sitting only 50 meters away.

"Goddamnit," I grunted. "I can't move from here. You'll need to take care of it. Have someone man the gun and lead it elsewhere."

"I can't," Vil said. "The tank is missing."

I stared blankly.

The monster tank aimed its turret elsewhere and fired again. A world rumbling boom pounded us.

He finished, "And so is Jessie."

That fucking bitch. She stole my goddamn tank right when we needed it most. I wanted to kick myself for not executing her sooner.

The monster tank fired again. A rumble in the distance. What was it aiming at? It didn't matter. Now the turret clicked over to us, to me and my ship.

I couldn't move. I was fucked, and I knew it. I braced for impact. Vil flung up an earthen wall and sparked in his manashield.

An explosion, but it wasn't here. Did the tank not fire?

Vil swiped away the earthen wall, and through the dust of it, we could see it now.

Smoke and flame from the resulting hit at the monster tank's side. Then, an engine roaring. The enemy tank tried to turn the turret at its new threat, but a brown blur zipped across and slammed into its side.

That brown blur--

--was my fucking tank.

The tanks ground together as Vil and I watched helplessly.

My tank tried to shove the enemy, but it was too heavy and didn't budge.

The enemy tank eased its turret to aim down at it, but the monster tank was so big and my tank so small, it couldn't aim low enough, so when it fired, it shot the round over and into the dirt.

Surely the young hero party boarded the tank to help defend the rebels. It had to be them.

My tank yanked off and withdrew, and together, both tanks drove in a dance of semi-circles and feints. The monster tank tried to fire again, but it missed. My tank was more nimble and maneuvered itself into the enemy's rear, firing an enchanted AP round.

It plinked off with a clanking bell sound and a spray of sparks, but all to no effect. The enemy's armor was too thick.

Together, they continued this dance, this semi-circle duel of firing and turning and jousting with one another. My tank fired countless shots, some enchanted with effects, some not, and none seemed to penetrate. The enemy tank missed each of their shots but the last, and it punched a hole right through the front armor.

My tank didn't stop.

The dogfight continued through another turn, and just when my tank lined up another rear shot, the monster tank yanked hard to the right and spun across the slick grass and fired a piercing round that ripped right through the treads.

My tank spun out of control. It was done for.

I could hear muffled clanks in the belly of that monster tank when it started to reload.

My tank wheeled its turret over to aim, using the broken treads to spin itself around, and it fired again.

Sparks shot across the roof of the enemy tank. A patch of metal ripped away. What was it? The hatch! The hatch was shot off.

Tch. Pointless. Those stupid adventurers were about to die, and the raid-boss tank clicked over the turret to aim.

It fired.

A flash cut through my tank like butter, right across the hull. It flared in an instant, pulsing a shockwave of fire and flame, all signaling the final death of my beloved tank and the dipshit hero crew.

Wait. A person had leapt out at the last second.

It was fuckin' Jessie!

She was blindfolded, soaring through the air toward the enemy tank, mad smile ripping across her face, and in her hands, two tank shells.

She landed atop the enemy tank, raised the shells as if about to cast a spell, and hurled them into the open hatch.

It all happened in a split second. The enemy tank bulged as if a balloon, the hull split in even verticle lines, and behind, a light brighter and hotter than the sun. It erupted with a cataclysmic boom, a deafening roar of smoke and flame and a burst of wind, and when the dust settled, all that remained were twisted metal chunks.

No hint of the crew. No hint of Jessie. Just two dead tanks and silence.

"Incoming!" a voice shouted.

I braced.

The world shook, and pops and blasts rocked around me. Everything was exploding. What the hell?

Vil took cover at the hangar door with his girl hiding behind him.

"What's happening?" I asked over the noise. "I can't see shit."

"An artillery barrage," he said. "It's coming from the ships."

"Get on the shore batteries," I said. "What the hell are the rebels doing?"

Vil shook his head. "That tank destroyed them. We're defenseless now."

Fuck. I was far, far from being done, and now it seemed the entire empire was closing in. The world shook and rumbled. The smell of fire was everywhere. There were shouts of commands and screams in the distance, and now, gunfire on the far end.

"Redrim," Vil shouted over the noise. "No matter what you arm that ship with, it can't compete with a dozen warships at that destroyer. That isn’t just a normal ship; it’s enhanced from outer world blueprints. Just like that tank."

I smirked darkly. "Then I'll just have to use my wits. That's never failed me before, right?"