Sentinel led the former Knight Watch Automata into the forest while Solus stuck with the former Royal Guard. Speed was of the essence in case more of those elemental golems could show up. Tracking through the forest, or fighting the giant golems wouldn’t suit any of the minibots so I returned them to [Storage]. Swarm performed better than I’d anticipated, though I had to admit that seeing others panic in fear triggered a bit of a sadistic streak in me that showed up in Swarm’s personality blend.

IronHide grappled with one of the golems, holding it back, but the thing lacked proper joints to be twisted or pain to exploit. IronHide was confident that he could, at least, overpower the single golem. Taking on three at once was going to be a bit much though.

The second golem swung a massive, molten, boulder of a fist at IronHide but was pushed back by one of Carnivac’s [Blink] kunai. The fist exploded, sending molten shrapnel flying. The golem didn’t seem particularly bothered by the loss and swung its other arm only to be hit in the chest with another [Blink] kunai.

The force of the explosion pushed it back and it stumbled, half of its torso crumbling away, exposing a golden orb inside. Was this the golem core that you always hear about in games? Carnivac took a shot at it, but the golem actually defended itself with a remaining limb. Like the first, the second arm exploded, but this time the golem turned its back to Carnivac. It crouched down and glowing wisps of energy poured out of the core. The wisps spread out into the ground and trees. Wherever the energy touched was ripped out of the ground and sucked towards the core.

Within a matter of moments, the golem had healed itself by replacing anything damaged with whatever was in the area. Ah. Right. Elemental. I’d assumed that meant fire or magma for these guys and that water golems or air golems were a thing as well. Nope.

The third golem hadn’t started attacking us yet and seemed more interested in actually destroying the forest. Maybe these things were more like bombs than soldiers and just destroyed indiscriminately. The teams searching the forest would have to be mindful to not get caught up in its rampage, but I counted it as a small favor.

I burst up to IronHide’s shoulder and pummeled the golem he was tangled with, with steel rounds, chipping away at its chest. Those golden orbs were definitely a weakness. I wasn’t getting anywhere with this level of firepower though.

IronHide kicked the golem back several steps and pulled out his fire axes. Again it felt like we were just chipping away at it without doing any significant damage. After Carnivac’s solid hits, the golem he was fighting built up more and more “body” around itself.

The regeneration was a pain to deal with and so long as the golems had access to... well... elements, then it might keep going. We’d need to overwhelm them.

“Power up Magnum Convoy!” I shouted, bursting high up into the air.

Youtube link in case the iframe is stripped out

Carnivac rained down a barrage of [Blink] kunai knocking the two golems back and buying me some time.

IronHide’s shell split in half down the back as the heavy armor shifted placement and locked onto his extending arms. His feet flipped around and traveled up forming heavy knee armor as the thick and chunky legs unfolded and reconfigured into a larger form. IronHide’s head vanished within his shifting torso as the shoulders moved up and outwards.

IronHide finished shifting his mass into a larger frame, leaving the upper torso and head missing. In the Convoy armor, my legs flipped around and merged with my torso as my chest opened up and rearranged, snapping back into place as a solid mass. I dropped into the opening left in IronHide, forming the new head and neck for the larger bot.

"And I'll form the head!" I shouted, unable to help myself.

The chest plate still had a gap in it, like a cockpit. Carnivac [Blink]ed up into position as the chest armor swallowed him up and locked into place, forming a stylized wolf’s head. The heat buildup from the transformation dissipated as all of our external lighting blazed brightly and our eyes and the eyes of the wolf flared to life.

You okay Carn? This is the first test with you on board. I asked internally.

Prime.Carnivac:// All systems are go.

Prime.IronHide:// Magnum Convoy is online!

When I had first connected to the original IronHide and transformed into his bot mode, it had affected my personality. The sudden shift in perspective and power had overwhelmed me, but this time I didn’t feel any of that. In a way, I’d have to thank Jhaix for nearly killing me with his dragon and unlocking the ability to parallel process with my subRoutines. I wondered if this was how classic combiners felt, or if this was more like a team of rainbow colored teens in a giant robot.

The golems were recovering from Carnivac’s attack but we weren’t about to relent. A larger variant of IronHide’s knuckle dusters flipped out and over our fists as we slammed them into the chest of the nearest golem. Cracks spiderwebbed across the rock face, a second punch and the core was exposed again. We prepared for a finishing blow but attracted the attention of the third golem, who hurled a flaming boulder at us.

We caught the boulder and spun with it, slamming it into the second golem as it regained its feet. The first golem was absorbing nearby rocks to replace the damaged ones.

Prime.Carnivac:// Right arm IronGrowth(‘Logan’);

Prime.IronHide:// Left arm reconfiguring to cannon mode

Our arms reconfigured, the left forming a massive cannon while the IronGrowth function formed long, reinforced, claw-like blades on the knuckle duster.

Prime.IronHide:// 120mm Iron round formed and loaded

Prime.Carnivac:// Charging round, Blink(400mm);

We fired the charged round at the second golem, obliterating its upper half. Chunks of rock and flaming magma sprayed in all directions. The golden core hit the ground, exposed. The first golem hadn’t completely regenerated but that didn’t stop it from taking a swipe at us.

We blocked the attack with the cannon but the hit dented in the barrel. We tried shifting the arm back but it got stuck on something. I cursed and bashed the golem’s arm out of the way with the now damaged cannon, following up with a wolverine style thrust that shattered the partially exposed golden core.

We shoved the crumbling remains of the golem out of the way and stomped on the recovering core from the second golem, just barely dodging a torrent of flame from the third one. Our claws dropped off, embedding themselves into the ground several feet.

Prime.Carnivac:// purging damaged cannon

Prime.IronHide:// rapid IronGrowth, forming blast shield on right arm

The cannon parts ejected off of our left arm, freeing up the transformation mechanism and allowing us to shift the arm back into a hand mode. Iron plating extended from our right forearm and building in sheets to quickly form a shield several feet thick.

The liquid flame from the golem splattered against the shield, melting off large chunks of slag that hit the ground. The glowing orange, molten metal ignited the ground where it hit, starting small fires at our feet.

We ejected what was left of the shield and hurled it at the golem. Thankfully, these things didn’t have much by way of tactics and it ate the shield to the face. At least I assumed it was the face. Glowing cracks in the chest sort of formed a face but it didn’t have a head in the traditional sense. It stumbled back, tripping over something in the forest and crashed down among the trees.

We crossed our arms, grabbing the handles of IronHide’s fire axes that had been repositioned at our hips like swords. As soon as we drew the axes they started popping and sparking as the flame mechanism ignited. With a flourish, we spun the axes around and slammed them together with the axe heads facing away from each other. Internal locks flipped out as the axes grabbed each other and formed a solid weapon.

Prime.Carnivac:// force blade prepped and ready, plasma flow on standby

Prime.IronHide:// Woo! Light it up!

We snapped the weapon to the side as the blade shaped force field extended from the axe heads. Thick, flaming plasma flowed down the length of the force blade, pooling and dripping off like incredibly angry rain. It wasn’t a lightsaber, but it felt like it could be a less civilized, and more violent, cousin.

The golem was pushing itself back up onto its feet. Through Cyclone I knew how bad things were getting back at the capital. The sooner I ended this, the better. We swung the plasma blade in a terrifying arc, a heat haze wrapping around us as the small fires spread; growing in size. Noxious fumes surrounded us as the air became thick and heavy with heat.

We slashed the massive sword through the deadly air, sending a wave of plasma flying. The viscous energy splashed into the golem, melting off large swaths of its rock body. The momentum of the swing carried us forward, leaping into the air and coming down with an overhead strike that cleaved the golem down the middle.

The plasma hit the golden core of golem and whatever it was inside ignited. A small explosion sent chunks of golem all over the area as the two halves started sliding against each other. It was really hard not to feel like some sort of super sentai giant robot after a finish like that.

We looked around at the carnage. The forest was on fire while the thrashing of giants had caused a ton of damage to the surrounding trees. The TV shows never seemed to address that aspect. We cut the power to the plasma blade, allowing the remaining plasma to fall to the ground, scorching anything unfortunate enough to be under us.

We tore a trench around the burning area to halt the spread of the flames before powering down Magnum Convoy and splitting apart. I didn’t have anything that could produce water so that was the best I could do.

The Knight Watch guys with Sentinel managed to track down the summoner that called out these things. She looked to be a human woman of about seventeen or so. She had been trying to cast some sort of spell when they found her, but she looked like she was ready to collapse. Rebecca said that it looked like mana sickness from using up too much magic juice.

The summoner had completely freaked out when she saw us as Magnum Convoy, not that I was surprised. Given how proud they were of the titans, seeing something like my Magnum Convoy might make anyone lose control of their bladder.

The Royal autos gathered up the surviving titan pilots. The three little girls looked like they were between the ages of ten and fourteen and were terrified out of their minds. I had no clue what we should do with them.

“Oh crap! I gotta move, now!” I shouted, as Cyclone learned of the dragon’s approach on the castle.

“Is it the dragon?! Let’s go!” Deen stepped up.

"It is, but not where we want it to be," I grumbled. "Cyclone says they have spotted it a few hours out from the royal capital."

“Yeah... I can’t say I’m too excited about jumping in to save the capital or the empire after what they did to us,” Koji admitted.

“True”, Mazin added. “Helping to destroy the Factory is one thing, volunteering to fight for the empire that enslaved us is another.”

“Understood,” I sympathized. “Can I leave this mess to you guys?”

“Get outta here Prime, we got this,” Prowl offered. “We’ll deal with these brats and drag them back to Redwall for now.”

“What about all the dead autos?” Voltes asked.

I tossed him a Prime Shipping plate.

“I’ve set the destination to my [Inventory]. Try tossing everything you can in there. If it errors and doesn’t work then that means the Automata is still alive. Gather up who you can and we’ll try to save them when I get back.”

“Sure. Nothing to it. Just need to scoot off and put down an oversized lizard turned auto under the control of some human freak,” Aster said dismissively.

I chuckled and left things to them, Victoria wanted to come with us but Reinhart managed to convince her by force to stay behind. I returned all of my proxies to [Inventory] and pulled out the GodBomber. I hooked in and connected my crew and we were on our way.

Prime.Alfred:// course set for return to the capital

Prime.Rom:// thrust at cruising speed, increasing output to maximum

Prime.Ram:// GodBomber increasing mana consumption rate. Consuming at a rate of 8500 per second. Mana reserves at 2.058 billion

I still didn’t know how fast I was actually moving, but our thrust output had been increased by a fantastic amount. I felt like I was rocketing through the sky. My mana was draining fast but that stupid dragon needed a smack down and I was itching to give it one.