Old Ironsides slowly got to is feet with jittery movements. Rather than engaging the Rattan Mech in front of him, he took a kneeling position and a compartment in his back opened up, allowing a glowing blue canister to emerge. The glass on the canister fractured and then shattered and a blue substance flowed out and covered Old Ironsides. If Grima had attacked during this time, she may have been able to deal a fatal blow to the mechanical defender of Dwarven-kind, but she hesitated, thinking this was a self-defense maneuver.

The solution seeped into every crevice of the six-armed super-sized terminator before slowly fading away. When the glowing blue gel covering the colossal automaton finally vanished, Grima cursed her own inaction. The blue gel had completely repaired Old Ironsides, even going so far as to replace the ruined runes and enchantments that had been worn away by the corrosive industrial waste.

Old Ironsides rose to his feet as the shattered canister fell off his back and the hatch sealed up. The two giant killer death machines squared off, both of them now operating at 100% efficiency. From deep in the darkness, the large bell tolled another five times, followed by the collection of smaller bells, signaling to the rest of the Under-Empire’s forces that they should advance. Another eighty thousand Rattan Slaves rushed out of the shadows just as Grima and Old Ironsides began to charge each other.

As the two closed the distance, Grima’s RATBOT’s chest opened up and launched several rockets at Old Ironsides, but the now fully repaired murder machine easily dodged them. To respond to RATBOT’s attack, Old Ironsides swung his enchanted swords at his foe, unleashing blasts of magical power in Grima’s direction. Heedless to the tide of bodies around her, Grima executed a number of sliding dodges aided by jet engine thrusters, sending blood and gore flying as RATBOT ran over the Rattan Slaves.

While Old Ironsides had dodged the initial barrage of rockets, they continued onwards and impacted the Dwarven ramparts, causing another of the already weakened sections of the wall to collapse under its own weight. Despite the danger that now faced the Dwarves, Old Ironsides was too focused on completing one of his Primary Objectives to notice King Gilder Ironheart IX’s repeated blowing of the Horn of Command. One of the Five-Clawed Paw was in front of him; he had no choice but to obey the final commands of his creators over the whining of one of their imperfect genetic derivatives.

RATBOT continued to use its jet boosters to play keep-away from Old Ironsides, firing rockets and Gatling Guns at the Dwarven Colossus from farther away than Old Ironsides’ own ranged options could reach. From RATBOT’s hind quarters emerged a turret that would not be out of place on a warship. This turret took aim at Old Ironsides, who quickly focused all excess power to his frontal shields. This slowed his movement to a crawl, something Grima has hoping to have happen.

The single barrel of the turret began to fizzle and spark with emerald lightning that seemed to travel down the length of the weapon. The sound of machinery shifting into action proceeded a large clacking sound and finally…

*KABOOM!*

RATBOT trembled with the recoil of the shot that had been fired at seemingly the same time that Old Ironsides was sent reeling, his shield having not only overloaded but also having failed entirely. Only due to absolute dumb luck had Old Ironsides managed to withstand the impact from the Rattan Mad Genius’ Prototype Railgun, and only dumb luck had kept Grima from being able to store more than one round in her creation. As the ancient six-armed automata rose to his feet, one of his arms hung limply at his side, hanging on by only a few cables while another just fell off altogether as Old Ironsides tried to take a battle stance.

“DECLARATION; IT, WILL, TAKE, MORE, THAN, THAT, TO, DESTROY, ME! BY, THE, WILL, OF, THE, MAKERS, YOU, AND, ALL, YOUR, KIND, WILL, BE, TERMINATED! RESISTANCE, IS, FUTILE! YOU, WILL, BE, ERADICATED! EX-TERMINATE! EX-TERMINATE!”

Grima’s mad laughter was amplified from the voice-projector built into RATBOT, allowing her to respond to her foe verbally, even as she made vulgar gestures towards him through her creation.

“HeehAhE hAAhEhAHa! Your words, bold indeed they are, yes-yes! HeheeHAha! Yet, also foolish-naïve they are! Lack the power-strength to truly fight my creation you do; win you cannot, no-no! Delay the inevitable, all you are able to do that is! HehHAheHa! So, struggle-fight all you like, makes my time testing this weapon-toy out more enjoyable it does! Looking forward to taking your remains apart I am, yes-yes!”

…

There was but one solace for the Dwarven defenders, that being that Old Ironsides’ fight with the massive Centaur/ Rat Mech was causing most of the Rattan forces to be dead long before they could make it into the range of the mortars, cannons or even the crossbows and rifles. The King kept blowing into the Horn of Command, but Old Ironsides refused to respond, but in the defenders’ minds that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. If those two giant killer machines fought it out in front of the walls, sure they could try and attack the Rattan mech themselves, but the missed shots from the vermin-machine would do far more damage than it already had done.

The defenders could barely make out what was going on in the shadows beyond the line of sight, with only the flash of magic and technology illuminating the darkness and only for brief moments at a time. The thunderous roar from earlier must have been a Rattan superweapon, a thought that was certainly true seeing as how the fifty meter tall gate now had a huge hole in it from where the superweapon had deflected off of Old Ironsides and slammed into the doors. Old Ironsides was still being cheered on by the defenders despite being forced to deal with the onrushing tide of mangy rat-people, not that their cheering could even be heard through the snarling, hissing, explosions and more that rang out through the cavern.

…

Four of his arms now were either inoperable or were completely destroyed. Still, he had no other option than to attack. The Regenerative Neo-Metal Gel had been used up, so there was no way to repair him. Even if he won against the foes in front of him he would forever be crippled, as the modern Dwarves lacked the means to undo the damage he had sustained.

There was only one other option. A ‘Final Solution’ if ever there was one. Diverting all of his power away from every other system save for his ability to stand, Old Ironsides began to overload his power core. Numerous warning blared out in his mechanical mind as he pushed more and more power into a single spot. As his detection systems went down one by one, his world went black. Finally his legs gave out and he began to slump to the floor.

“DEATH, COMES, FOR, ALL. MAY, NONE, FIND, ME, WANTING….”

The core of Old Ironsides had reached its limit and was about to explode with enough force to collapse the mountain above it.

{WARNING! CORE CRITICAL FAILURE IN 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…!}

There was no explosion, only the sound of metal being torn to shreds as Grima’s RATBOT shoved its superheated chainsaw-tipped war glaive through Old Ironsides’ chest in just the right place. Old Ironsides’ processors had been severed from the core and were now unable to keep said core from entering safe-mode. The air rippled wildly as a Core-Dump commenced, with the air around the two mech superheating to nearly three times the boiling point of water. Grima’s mech didn’t stop with simply cutting off Old Ironsides from his limbs and core and with a twist and yank RATBOT ripped the ancient death machine’s head off to the sound of tearing metal and sparking cables.

Advancing past the darkness beyond the Dwarves’ line of sight, Grima held aloft the head of the great defender of the Dwarves before dropping it to the ground and crushing it beneath one of RATBOT’s massive feet. A massive blow to the morale of the Dwarves had been struck, and the Rattan were poised to capitalize on it.