“Excellent! Excellent! Baaaaaaaaaaaa!” the grey sheep said with excitement and joy.

Clink!

Piece of metal fell before CAST, most of them covered in thick and oily grease. The newly born monster expanded its wet yet spiky body. Unlike the previous Hetzer, this one had a belt of scales around its waist. It stretched out its long claws and let out a roar in ultrasound.

CAST walked closer to it, “Show me your shield.”

The monster rapped its arms in front of it. The spikes on its arms extended, forming a large, dense net.

“Just hold here for a few seconds,” CAST said casually and stepped back, “need to do a test before putting you in the ring. Bring out that piece of junk I found underground.”

With the sound of motors, a large vehicle appeared from a platform that merged from beneath the ground. It was a half-wracked howitzer with a short barrel.

“Get ready, that thing is about to go boom…” CAST said it lifted one of its legs towards the howitzer. Soon, the cannon breach of the howitzer began to move by itself, dropping out empty shell cartage and loaded a new shell with a yellow tip and labelled ‘High Explosive’.

KA-BOOM!

The shell flew slowly towards (howitzers have a slow muzzle velocity) the Hetzer, as it contacted the shield, a huge explosion filled with sparks formed. Soon, the entire room was filled with smoke and dust.

“Cough! Cough!” CAST spit out some dust from its mouth, “Should have done it outdoors…anyway, how’s our contestant?”

CAST looked down around him and saw a ton of broken spikes. However, a tall shadow slowly merged from the cloud. There was an enormous dent on the monster’s shield, but it wasn’t deep enough the pierce through. The monster groaned and stepped on the broken metal bits with its wire tangled foot. As it did that, all the broken bits were absorbed into its leg and its shield ‘healed’ itself.

CAST walked around the monster, and nodded, “Now you are ready to go. Oh! Don’t forget to take some of those, because I think the ‘target’ should be well-positioned this time.”

The Hetzer nodded in response and it walked towards the howitzer. Before it could reach the weapon, CAST stopped it by walking in front of it again, “Remember, if you want to use those, make sure they can’t be seen. If you are seen by a normal bot in your Hetzer form, get rid of it at once, that is a priority over the ‘target’.”

“Are you coming or not?” Tann looked through her new pair of army grade binoculars. Of course, it was adjusted by Tann: instead of seeing the appearances of objects, it shows the function identity of each object (for example a tree was showed as /object/_*%56*_’tree’_//). After waiting for a while, she stood up and switched to a different window.

Under the grey clouds, everything seemed as still as a painting, only the cold breeze blowing across the weeds on the rooftops demonstrated some level of movement (also showing that the server was still active). Tann zoomed in slightly but got no interesting result, every object’s function remained stable.

“What’s my stamina level?” Tann reached for a half-empty bottle of Monster.

System:_subject_Tann_stamina_50%_

“A bit too low,” she hadn’t got a single second of sleep since her last encounter with the monster. So, she finished the drink.

System:_subject_Tann_stamina_59%_

“Not as effective as before,” Tann sighed, she closed her eyes, “guess I’ll be needing a nap soon…”

A strange feeling woke her up, she glanced through the scope. A middle-aged man appeared in the centre between two buildings. His general appearance seemed normal enough, but his expressions were blank and his skin looked as if it was made of rubber.

/object/_*%01*_bot_78065417_’Henry Nelson’//

“There’s no way that’s a normal bot…”

/object/_*%69*_bot_*)&!#(*&!#_’Hetzer’//

“That seems more right,” Tann swung out her silver hand cannon or the .500 Magnum. She pulled the heavy hammer with both thumbs and closed one of her eyes while aiming through the iron sight.

*click* BOOM!

The shot hit a meter away from the bot, causing it to stop in its tracks.

“Good, stay there for me to prepare the camera.” Tann pressed the trigger slowly for another shot.

*click* BOOM! *click* BOOM! *click* BOOM! *click* BOOM!

“WHAT THE HELL!?!” Of course, thanks to her aim, the bot remained intact. Instead of running away, he started sprinting towards Tann’s building.

*click* BOOM!

The flaming titanium bullet went straight at the man’s head. Like a hot wire across butter, it blasted half of the skull to bits but left the other half still connected to the neck. As expected by Tann, instead of flying brain matter and blood, all the bits that were destroyed turned into slops of metal. Tangled wires and grease burst from the half-skull. However, the monster remained standing, it reached up to its wound. What happened next shocked Tann: the monster ripped off the left-over bit of its head and dug its claws into its neck. In the meantime, its size increased dramatically, spikes growing out of its wire-flesh.

“No…no way…” Tann gasped, and picked up her Nova, “Don’t tell me that’s a…”

The monster dragged out a huge metal object: a high explosive shell. Before Tann could react, the monster threw the shell like a dart towards Tann’s building.

“OH SH…!”

With a huge explosion, the base structure of the building was destroyed, causing the top of the building to slowly tumble over. Tann grabbed onto a nearby pillar with all her strength. With a loud crash, the building fell to the ground.

Luckily for her, she remained conscious after the dust settled down, but that is when she realized her legs were squashed under the former ceiling. She pushed aside the smaller bricks in front of her and saw the butt of her shotgun. As she reached out for it, a sudden pain caused her to stop. A long metallic spike had penetrated through the concrete and into Tann’s outstretching arm.

“Ah!” she cried in pain but her arm was pinned to the ground firmly.

Damage: 50%

CLINK!

Another spike right next to her face, leaving a long cut across her face. She tried to reach the gun with her other hand, but it was already squashed under a concrete block. Suddenly the large concrete ceiling above her was lifted and the light shined upon her again. For the second time, she came face to face with the monster, but this time, she couldn’t see its head as it was blocked by a huge shield.

Tann watched with fear as the monster lifted one of its tentacles like arm and prepared to strike onto Tann’s head.

Tocotocotoco!

In the sky, a small, white, helicopter appeared out of nowhere. The monster stopped its movement and turned its actual head, a spherical object made of rubber pipes and a large broken binocular as its eye, to the helicopter. As it appeared, it was obvious that the helicopter was here to investigate. The monster let out a frustrated groan and pulled out one of its arms, it then removed a spike from its body. Like a javelin, it threw the spike at the cockpit of the helicopter. The bots in the cockpit had no time to react to the fast-approaching shot, and the spike smashed into the cockpit, penetrating the pilot’s chest. A second later, the vehicle lost control and crashed into a nearby building. The monster watched the crash for a while, analyzing if there are any survivors.

“Done watching?” a voice entered the ‘ear’ (a recorder located on the monster’s head) of the monster, reminding it of its other task. It turned its face back to…

BAM! Click! BAM! Click! BAM! Click! BAM! Click! BAM! Click! BAM! Click! BAM! Click! BAM!

The monster couldn’t put its shied in place as Tann rested her shotgun an inch away from its head. The first few blasts complete shredded the monster’s head and the next few shots grind deep into its chest, destroying everything within their paths. As Tann’s firing stopped, the monster was headless and gained a massive hole in its central body.

“Do me a favour and stay dead,” Tann kicked the rest of the monster’s body which fell back heavily. She tried to wipe away the dust on her face but her blood-stained hand added a new layer of a wet mixture onto her face.

The monster’s arm lifted slowly.

CRASH!

Tann beat it down with her shotgun’s butt, “Did you not hear what I said?”

/object/_*%69*_bot_*)&!#(*&!#_’Hetzer’_eliminated//

“So, you have a name,” Tann laughed while the rest of the Hetzer’s body decayed into metal junks that it had swallowed, “nice to meet you, Hetzer.”

Tann walked away from the Hetzer, she stopped and picked up something from the ruins: her keyboard.