Writer’s corner: Greetings friends! Let the carnage begin!

SO, Today we begin to explore some of Gaz’s new body fighting technique. For those who read Insania, they already know this, but for those who don’t, let me tell, I’m a fan of monster hunter, so don’t find it strange if I use some of their moves as inspirations during this arc, okay? (Example: Zinogre’s back jump for enrage.)

BESIDES, I’m open for some suggestions on what kind of fighting techniques Gaz can use with his CURRENT body, so feel free to recommend it, okay? Just as reminder, but he also have some needle launchers on the main body, the tail is where there are most per square centimeter, though.

Beep, and enjoy your story!

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Following the dwarf woman, the group was led through a series of twisting corridors through which they could hear the sounds of the spectators cheering wildly to an ongoing match. The sound of metal clashing against metal barely managing to stay louder than the crowd, with occasional beeps and screeches sounding as one or another robot were taken down.

They soon reached a room where a single scrawny elf stood behind a desk with a rudimentary book in front of him. He sighed loudly when he saw the group coming in before opening the book.

“Is that dog the one entering?” The elf said in a clearly annoyed tone. Yllivia gave a quick pat on Beepy’s back, to which the elf nodded. “That’s… Quite an interesting robot. Class… Two? Almost three…” He looked a bit longer at Gaz, who stared back at him confused. “Meh, class three is too full. Two it is, then.” He started scribbling it down on the notebook. “So… What’s his name?”

“Beepy!” Yllivia answered immediately, receiving a curious look from the man before nodded with a shrug.

“Model?”

“Hmm…” Yllivia looked confused with this question, so she turned to Ruby.

“Unclassified.” Ruby said briefly. “Wolf-like model, calm disposition, but aggressive if aggravated. Spark archetype.”

“...Unknown then.” The man said before scribbling down on the paper. “There, done. Now, if you go through that door there and wait…”

“Err… We don’t know much about the match… Can’t you give us some more details?” Lunn asked.

“Look, lady, that’s not my job, if you didn’t know it before, it’s not my pro…” The elf stopped once he saw that the pink haired elf was leaning forward, her eyes slightly teary and giving him a light pout.

“Pretty please?” She asked in a slightly sad voice, making the elf attendee gulp down, slightly uncomfortable as he felt his body heating up.

“Well… You see…” He gulped down once again. “We first separate the robots by class based on size…” Lunn smiled gently at that before nodding, making the man blush before going on. “Then… We start by… making a battle-royale, until only a few are left… From there… Is the usual tournament format... No repairs allowed, besides for ammo supplies…”

“Hmm… I see…” Lunn said with a cheerful smile. “Then, what about the prize? What do we get if our robot wins?” She asked in an innocent tone as she sat on his table.

“We… Still don’t know. The boss said that he would show it once the tournament begins. But it seems to be big.” He said.

“Hmm, I see…” She said while crossing her legs. “And when does our fight starts?”

“Well… The class one battle-royale is going on right now… Then… ten minutes?” He gave his best guess.

“Hmm… Thank you deary!” Lunn said while blowing him a kiss, making the elf go completely red.

Afterwards she quickly made a signal for the others to follow her to the indicated room. When the other two looked at her confused, she made a sullen face and gave them the tongue.

“That’s what you get when you look cute.”

The other two shook their heads tiredly while looking at the elf. After a while they reached the room that the elf had indicated to them, going through the door they found themselves in the middle of many other people, all of which were carrying cages with some kind of robot inside.

Different from the mercs building, the moment they came in, all of the eyes gathered around them, some of them lasted for a bit longer, before going to the robot following them closely. As they walked through the area filled to the brim with all different kinds of people and robots, the stench of sweat, oil and steam filled their noses.

Lunn frowned a bit at the smell, but Yllivia and Ruby seemed unfazed as they walked through the crowds. Some of the men in the crowd started to make catcalls at the girls, but soon gave up when they noticed that they were barely reacting to it. Then, their focus turned towards the robot following them.

“He doesn’t even use a cage!” A random morfian said with a laugh. “That tamed little bugger won’t last a second against my destroyer!” He said with a loud laugh as a robot rumbled furiously on the cage beside him, only to be shocked into submission.

Yllivia frowned at his words and clenched her fists, but managed to keep her calm and not give the man a new hole to breath.

[Should I threaten him?] Gaz asked.

[No… It’s better if they underestimate you.] Ruby said briefly.

[All these robots… They are so… Angry…] Ekis said in a sad tone.

[Right? This is why I hate this…] Ruby said as she clenched her fist, but as she did that, she felt as Gaz smiled mischievously.

[Hey… Is mirage cloaked right now?] Gaz asked while still feeling the cat’s weight on his back.

[No, why do you ask?] Ruby asked confused.

[Have her cloak herself, then scout the area. Maybe we can find a way to free all the robots at once. Would make a great distraction.]

[That… Could work.] Ruby said while glancing to the small cat, but before she managed to relay the orders, she bumped into someone and would have fallen back if it wasn’t for Gaz quickly using his tail to catch her.

“Hey, midget. Look where you are going.” Said a large man, unlike anything Gaz had seen before. “What if you had hit Brutus there?” He said pointing towards a large cage behind him, covered with some kind of dark cloth.

The man was as large as a troll, being a bit shorter, but much more muscular. His body was covered in what looked like thin green scales and his head had a reptilian form, but a pair of frills popped up from his the area between his neck and the cheeks. Between the fingers on his hand was a thin membrane that looked like it was made precisely for swimming.

He wore a large leather jacket that barely did anything to hide his muscles, as well as similar pants.

“Sorry sir…” Ruby replied briefly in a scared tone while using Beepy to get herself back up. [An Athlian? Here?] She asked confused.

[What’s that?] Gaz asked confused. [I don’t think I’ve seen them before…]

[Yeah, they usually are closer to the coast, where there’s more humidity in the air. It’s very rare to see one around here.] Ruby quickly explained.

“And what is that you have there?” The man asked when he saw Gaz, he examined the wolf-robot for some time, before snorting and laughing. “A weakling. So much armor to look like a real beast, yet no weapons!” The man said while laughing loudly. “If he even survives the first round it will be a miracle already!” Ruby and Yllivia widened their eyes before frowning. “But, he’s still interesting.” The man said with a wicked smile as he made a motion to another one behind him. “Let’s do it like this, I’ll give the little girl change for a candy, and you leave the robot here with daddy?” He said as he took a few coins from his buddy and showed it to Ruby.

Ruby looked at the man angrily before slapping the money away from the mans hand and storming away in fury. The man started laughing at her and Lunn had to hold herself back so that she wouldn’t be the one to smash his face in this time. Not that Yllivia was faring much better in her own self-control, though.

Sighing loudly Ruby made her way towards a free seat and threw herself on it, pulling the cloak above her head and sighing annoyed.

[Meh… I’ll give that guy’s robot a good beating when I fight him.] Gaz said nonchalantly.

[You sound so sure of yourself…] Ruby commented dryly.

[Do you have a plan?] The goddess asked.

[Nah… Doesn’t hurt to be optimistic, though.] Gaz said while shrugging.

[We won’t fight against him, anyway.] Ruby said, and when she noticed the duo’s confusion, she explained. [The cage’s size. I’d say his robot is a class three at least. We are on class two, so we probably won’t get to fight.]

[I see.] Gaz said with a sigh before laying on the ground.

“Don’t let the big ugly Athlian bother you, sweety.” Lunn said while hugging her.

“Beepy is strong.” Yllivia said with a nod.

Ruby smiled awkwardly at their attempt to cheer her up, but still felt thankful for it.

…

[Try to not get hurt.] Ekis said.

[Will do…] Gaz replied with a sigh.

[And try to not hurt them too much…] She said again.

[Aye aye…] He replied once again, but without much energy.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Now that the battle royale for the class one have finished, shall we start the much awaited class two battles?” The morfian announcer asked as she walked around the arena. “Even if class three is bigger, class two easily have a higher number of participants, so we can be sure that chaos will ensure! It’s so big, but so big that we had to split into four battles because we wouldn’t fit all the robots in here!” She said while raising the crowds favor.

“You guys know the rules.” The second announcer said while standing in the middle of the room. “The battle will go on until only eight are left standing. The same to the next match. No repairs allowed. If a robot attack once the battle is over, he’s disqualified, so make sure to keep them in tight leashes!”

“And now that the boring part is over… Let’s get ready to release the little metal friends.” The morfian said as she made her wait out of the arena, followed by the lynnian.

“In five…” The man said. As he did that, Gaz leaped to the border of the arena, where he could see as many of the other competitors were holding their cages ready to open.

“Four…” The girl said. Gaz took a look at the arena. It was wide, large enough to hold three trucks like the one from Volgoff, it was covered with a thin layer of sand through the ground.

“Three…” The male announcer said. Gaz flexed his legs but didn’t activate the pistons, as there was no need to show all his cards.

“Two…” This time it was the morfian. A quick glance back and Gaz saw that only Ruby and Lunn were left with him, already cheering him on his battle, Yllivia and Mirage nowhere in sight.

“One…” Both said together. The crowd went mad with shouts in expectation for the following carnage.

“GO!”

Gaz leapt from the place where he was, landing on the ground near where he was. All around him, the other robots started swarming the place, aiming for the center where two other strange robots were already duking it out.

[Preserve yourself firstly. No need to get hasty.] Ruby told him.

[I know, I know…] He said in a bored tone as he moved away from the chaos that was the center of the arena.

Making his way around the outer side, he managed to count around a total of around forty or something robots, all of which were trying to attack each other in a mad frenzy. There were simple robots that were pretty much toy-cars with spikes, other were more animal like, like a boar or something.

Due to the commotion going in on the middle of the arena, most of the spectators failed to notice the wolf who simply kept walking around the border of the arena, watching carefully while letting the others attack each other.

A robot suddenly broke free from the chaos that was the brawl and prepared to take some distance while making an open curve on the other side of the arena. The strange yet familiar act caught Gaz’s attention as he stared at it for some time. Grinning when he saw the owner of said act, he quickly started a dash towards it.

The leaper, with it’s head stuck close to its treadmill bodies saw as the wolf approached. Seeing such an easy prey far away from the other robots, it quickly reselected its target.

[Hey… isn’t that… An axe?] Gaz asked surprised.

[What do you mean?] Ruby asked confused.

[The leaper, it have an axe equipped besides the tread.] He said quickly.

[They modded him?] Ruby asked confused before shaking her head. [Not the time. His core is near the back of his body piece. You should be able to incapacitate him by breaking the treads.]

[I know. Leave it to me.]

As he said that, Gaz quickly picked up his pace just as he saw the leaper activating its pistons to jump highly. Seeing as how he was right on the path of the robot, he made a quick sideways jump, avoiding it as it fell down and made the axe do a full spin forward so as to cleave the wolf.

Landing on the ground besides it, Gaz quickly turned back to him and lifted his right claw, bringing it down with minimum piston-assisted power on the leaper’s left tread. Although it wasn’t enough to sever it completely, the damage was enough so that it wouldn’t be able to move again so soon.

Just as he finished that, Gaz heard the sound of steam pumping up behind him and received a warning shout from Ruby.

In a swift movement, he twisted his body and leapt while spinning his body in the air, landing behind where he had been before while still facing forward. In front of him now laid the boar-like robot that had two strange boxes added to its side and large front legs that reminded him of an excavator, being wider and bigger than the feeble hindlegs.

[That’s a wasteland burier.] Ruby said almost immediately. [Core is right behind the head. I don’t know what those boxes are, but you should be able to stop him by breaking the front legs.]

Gaz nodded briefly while taking a quick step forward towards the confused boar, that kept looking around in search for a prey. With a quick leap, he landed atop of the robot, who surprisingly didn’t fall to the ground thanks to the large legs.

Gaz raised his right claw upwards and brought it down on the box to his right. Since he didn’t know what it was, there was no reason to leave it there.

The Boar quickly reacted to that and shook himself violently, making Gaz fall down from him in the direction of the wall. He quickly got up in time to avoid as the boar brought down the large excavator-claw down. It dug into the ground with a scary ease, but this gave Gaz enough time to react by twisting his body while swinging his tail.

Putting the tip of the thick armor-piercing needles out, he made a tail-slam on the joint of the arm, almost destroying it entirely.

[God dammit! Now there’s a dent in my tail!] He complained.

[Not the time!] Ruby said hurriedly. [It’s doing something with the other box, watch out!]

Gaz blinked surprise as he noticed the box opening up and revealing six small round things that seemed oddly familiar.

[Those are bullet shells! Watch out!] Ekis shouted just in time.

Gaz crouched so that the shotgun shells in the box were aimed above his head. Still, he felt pain as one of the shells still managed to take out his right ear. Growling in pain and anger, he quickly got up again and bit the box while resting his paw against the boar’s body and yanking the box out.

Throwing it out, he gave one last look at the clockwork boar, that was squirming in the ground while trying to lift itself, but with only one good leg left resting beneath his body it was unable to do it. Gaz turned his attention back to the robots in the middle of the arena, seeing that their numbers were already dwindling.

[With you two here, it kind of feels like I’m cheating…] Gaz said with a sigh.

[We are on an underground illegal arena. I couldn’t care less about cheating.] Ruby said angrily as she watched the carnage happening.

[Fair enough.] Gaz said as he heard the announcer shout cheerfully that the match was about to end.