IronHide was starting to feel bad for the cave wraith things. Sure they might have been fearsome monsters or whatever for the tiny people behind him... but for him... they might as well have been those weird little fish that nibble on your feet.

He squatted down and flicked one and it popped. Gross. He turned to look over his shoulder at the students as he wiped his finger off on the ground.

“Um... I don’t think this is going to work guys...” he moaned.

With a dramatic pseudo-sigh he scooped up the lot of the wraiths, along with a healthy amount of shoreline, and stood up, flinging them up and out into the water somewhere. He could see some more things moving around in the water but didn’t hold out much hope that they would be any sort of challenge.

“Okay, strength test?” he asked, as he stepped out of the light radius and slapped his hands on either side of a little boulder.

He stood up straight with the boulder and bounced it a little in his hands. The thing wasn’t too big, it was pretty heavy but not too bad. Somewhere between a basketball and a beachball, he guessed.

“How does it feel Mister ‘Hide?” Nur asked.

“The way he’s playing with it, is it hollow?” Meleek asked.

IronHide held it out at arms length and let it drop in front of the students. It slammed into the ground, embedding itself a foot into the dirt and spraying sand all over them.

“What do your readings say?” I asked, feeling a bit smug.

Calesta looked at her tablet then up at the boulder. She pushed at the thing and couldn’t budge it a millimeter.

“Looks like... According to my readings, this was about 6 tons?”

“Hmm...” IronHide pondered, “I can do better.”

He went to look for something bigger but noticed the things in the water were starting to creep closer again. He walked back and picked up the 6 ton “basketball”, hefting it onto one shoulder. He then hurled it into the water like a shot putt. Water exploded from the impact and whatever had been in the vicinity was suddenly not in the vicinity.

“Let’s try a punch test,” I suggested.

The kids looked on expectantly as IronHide found a large enough rock to hit. He brought up his fists and heavy, studded plates swung out of his forearms and locked into place over his knuckles.

“He may be big and strong,” I explained, “but it’s silly to think that he can hammer away on those relatively small joints in his hands without sustaining any damage.”

IronHide pulled back and threw all of his weight into the punch, hitting the rock with a concussive blast that forced the kids to the ground to cover their ears and shook whatever was roosting on the ceiling free. The rock didn’t completely shatter, but a spider web of cracks covered the thing. It probably wouldn’t hold up against a second hit.

“Axe test,” I announced, moving on.

IronHide stepped back from the crippled rock and reached over his shoulders as panels in his back unfolded and two handles presented themselves for easy reach. His knuckle dusters retracted and he grabbed the handles, pulling two massive axe heads free. They ticked a couple of times as they ignited, then both axes burst into flames.

He swung the axes around, lightly, testing their weight and the feel of them in hand. He looked over at me and gave me a nod before winding up and upper cutting the damaged rock, shattering what was left into rubble. He flowed with the move and spun, releasing the axe at a second rock victim.

The axe flew like a spinning comet, burying the head into the rock face. Hide took a couple of running steps and jumped into the air landing right in front of the new rock with a side kick planted on the spine of the axe, forcing it to split the rock in half.

“Agility is good. Offence looks good. We should test defense as well,” I said, stepping forward.

IronHide picked up the axe from the split rock and returned it, along with its mate, to his back.

“Can’t say I’m looking forward to this, Pops,” IronHide remarked, dropping into a defensive stance.

“Hey now,” I chastised, “You don’t want your first test to be against that dragon or something worse, do you?”

“Ugh...” he moaned, but tightened up his stance, readying for impact.

I converted my gunarm and fired a steel round at him. The shot bounced off of his shoulder. There was a little dent, but the armor held. He turned to present more of the “turtle shell” to me. I fired again, this time with the three round burst. Again all the shots bounced off.

I tucked my gunarm back, holding my open hand near the barrel, like I was charging up a Hadoken. Once I reached the maximum charge I thrust the gun forward and fired off the round. The recoil sent me back a step and a half while the steel slug had lodged into one of his back panels. Hmm... we’d have to work on that. Maybe some sort of reactive armor plating.

“That’s enough of the small stuff, onto something a little bigger,” I warned.

IronHide looked up from picking at the steel slug and winced, shifting to a boxer’s guard.

“[Convoy()],” I said, shifting my gunarm back and throwing my arms wide.

I lifted up into the air as armor plating and pieces materialized around me. Each one locked on and built on top of each other until I was completely covered, and a new head snapped into place.

The Convoy armor stood 8 feet tall and was mostly red and silver, blue fists and legs, and a blue helmet with silver face mask. I brought both of my arms up and each one converted into a gun.

“Block it,” I ordered.

Both guns unleashed a full-auto stream of steel rounds at IronHide, peppering him with bullets. He grunted from occasional hits that got through but did his best to keep his guard up. I kept firing as I moved my position to flank him. Eventually, he turned completely to keep his turtle shell between my attack and his body. The shell was doing a decent job of holding up. I could see him growing thicker plating to compensate for the attack strength.

Panels in my back opened up and jets flared to life, thrusting me forward at tremendous speed. I converted both arms into sword mode, blazing past him and slicing open a gash in his back. I cut my jets as I hit the cliff face, spinning and jetting back again for another strike. My blade aimed for the same spot, but at the last second, IronHide rolled, taking the hit in a new location. The force of the strike propelled his roll to keep going.

He rolled onto his back, ready with an axe that followed after me, missing me by a hair. I skidded to a stop in the sand, kicking up dirt and water as I hit the water’s edge and shot forward again. IronHide was already up on his feet and had both axes ready.

I stomped my feet into the ground, pushing up and changing my burst trajectory for his face. IronHide crossed his axes, blocking my attack as my jets pushed me into him. I increased the output and he took a step back.

Suddenly, he let one of his axes drop and instead grabbed me by the shoulder, twisting and tossing me in a judo move that slammed me onto my back. I hit the ground and burst back up, turning to face him. He was ready with an axe in one hand and his other ready to catch and throw.

I burst towards his chest, but then cut my jets and tilted forward, bursting again, shooting between his legs. I converted an arm to normal and caught the bottom edge of his back plating, allowing it to alter the direction of my burst, thrusting me upward into the air. IronHide swung around with his axe but I was already above him. I cut the jets and fell back, landing on his upper back and shoulders grabbing on tight. My free arm converted to gun mode and I put the barrel against the side of his head.

IronHide stood up straight and tapped his thigh twice. I converted the gun back and squeezed his head in a hug.

“Great job buddy!” I praised. “That was really awesome! Such a fun fight.”

“For you, maybe?” he grumbled.

“Oh don’t pout. You were built for strength and power but at a cost of speed. This armor is all about speed and attack power. Still, I’d probably be dead against Carnivac though.”

“We still have to test that Magnus thing,” IronHide reminded me.

“Yeah, but we don’t have the time right now, maybe later.”

I hopped off of his shoulders, hitting the sand in a three-point landing. Relative size was such a weird thing. On IronHide’s shoulder I felt pretty small, but then walking up to the students I felt really big, then putting the armor away, I was back to feeling small again.

The stairs were too narrow and small for IronHide to climb so he had to go back into [Inventory]. The kids, on the other hand, wished they could ride with ‘Hide and had to take a couple of breaks on the way back up.

Once we got back up to the hangar level, they wandered off to go find somewhere quiet to crash or to analyse their data in peace. I knew the progress of the airship project via Ratchet, but it was good to show my face anyway. The whole thing was taking shape and would be ready in a couple of days with a week or two for testing. I was really worried about testing it though. Our timeline was super tight in terms of projecting when the conflict would start, but in addition to that, this thing was going to burn HUGE amounts of mana at a breakneck speed. I also had to think about how many proxy slots it might take up so that I could control the thing.

Elita would have smacked me for it, but it might have to test, live. That is to say, testing in the field. Fingers crossed that it works when needed then.