IronHide wasn’t exactly regretting his decision to follow along with big bro Carn-- and traveling like a covert military unit conducting raids on Dezarus’s forces was certainly fun-- but he was absolutely filthy and was really missing the kids back at the forge. That dragon girl, Heilong liked to talk like she didn’t care but she was very detail oriented when it came to cleaning and maintenance. His axe blades were taking longer to get up to temperature than before and it would be nice to have the mindflayer kid, Meleek, take a look and recalibrate them.

The group hadn’t lost any members since Hide joined up, which made him glad, but they had also been going nonstop between travel and combat raids. Did they think he was a machine or something? Ah. Right, he guessed they did. They all were. Except for Vicky, of course. Hide assumed that she must have been utterly exhausted trying to keep up with their pace.

During the time they had been traveling, Carnivac seemed to be growing more distant. He wasn’t talkative to begin with but now he was barely a wolf-shaped shadow. Hide was half tempted to start calling him “SnakeEyes”. Carnivac seemed to prefer his own company and would often solo a raid. He’d once told Prime that he was properly mortal now, but he didn’t act like it given how readily he threw himself into fights.

Hide wished that Carn would open up to him but he gave up on trying to get the wolf bot to talk to him when it became obvious that he was actively avoiding Hide. The rest of the team gave Carnivac a wide berth as well and just let him do his own thing.

Rebecca, the former Urd Knightwatch that had been converted into a Valkyrie for the mechaphile Jhiax, had easily fallen into the role of Team Mom. Hide had promised to help her track down her children once Dezarus had been sorted. Prior to her forced conversion, she and her children had been on the verge of starving in the mountains. They had traveled to the city of Trone only to be scammed by trusting the wrong people in an attempt to seek a better life for themselves.

“Hey Becca, where we at? We’ve been going non-stop and it’s been a few days since the last attack,” Hide asked, from his center console.

He was in his larger body, converted into his troop transport vehicle mode. In the cab, he had Rebecca, Prowl, Victor, and the weird robo-dog/lizard thing, Edd. Carn was riding on the roof and everyone else was in the back.

“Not far now, at this pace we should be coming up on the rear detachment pretty soon. This is so much better than walking,” she laughed.

“It really is, I can’t say that I miss the rinox cart either,” Prowl agreed. “You’re a fine replacement for the rinox, IronHide.”

“Great. That’s exactly what I was hoping for,” he said, sarcastically.

Two thumps came from the roof of the cab before Carnivac hung his upper body down over the windshield.

“Petal to the metal Hide. Something’s wrong, I’m seeing light flashes and thick smoke up ahead,” he said, nearly barking in urgency.

IronHide increased his speed, though the roads of this world were hardly suitable for his vehicle type. His passengers got bounced around, especially those in the back. He felt a bit bad for Vicky, who had actually been trying to sleep.

As they got closer, IronHide could hear distant explosions, shouts, monstrous roars, and energy ripping through the atmosphere. They raced across muddied fields nearing the open plains at the foot of the vast mountain range that guarded the Empire from their neighbors to the east.

“What’s going on?! Who’s fighting?” Prowl shouted.

“Looks like the ceasefire is over!” Rebecca shouted back.

“What’s the play here big bro?” IronHide called out.

Carnivac swung down from the roof and clung to the foot holds on the driver side door.

“This isn’t our war, not our fight,” he said, coldly. “For the Empire’s role in the forced conversions of our kind, we owe them nothing. Our mission remains. Find Dezarus and end him.”

The mountains gave way as they rounded the foothills and the full battle was in view. Four elemental titans dominated the battlefield; beings of fire and lightning towering over anything else at ten meters tall. They were lanky, spindly things, barely more than skeletons, engulfed in primal energies and hurling fire bolts to devastating effect. Occasionally they would take swipes near the ground and squads of the enemy would go flying.

Among the titans, but no less imposing, were teams of ogres, golems, enlarged oni, and various megafauna that had been armed and armored for battle. Goblins and other shorter races zipped along the ground mounted on large six legged wolves, tearing apart enemy ground fighters. Mages on both sides of the fight unleashed devastating spells that obliterated whatever was in their path.

The skies above were equally chaotic as wyvern riders clashed with bright and colorful birds with nasty looking claws and beaks. Several dragons acted as air support raining flames down on the enemy forces.

The enemy was mainly composed of “human sized” fighters from the allied nations, though they did have various larger scaled soldiers within their ranks like the giant apes as well as massive dinosaurs. Even with the few larger combatants, the allied forces really couldn’t compare to the military might of the Empire.

As numerous as they were, the Empire would still be able to overwhelm them after a few days of fighting. The game changer for the allied forces were their Automata. They had swarms of them spread across the battle. Thousands upon tens of thousands of them.

The enemy Automata shrugged off attacks that would kill other fighters, ran faster, hit harder, and had the strength to wield the weapons of giants. Explosions and impacts from titans would send them flying but they would just get back up again and keep fighting. The resilience of the Automata forces would eventually wear down the Imperial troops.

Certainly, there were combatants with the strength to tear apart or terminate Automata but their numbers were overwhelming. IronHide watched in both horror and amazement as they swarmed like ants, covering one of the elemental titans and toppling it.

“Uh... what now?” IronHide asked the group at large as everyone looked at each other, uncertainly.

They had climbed a short way up the foothills to a small outcropping to get a better vantage point. IronHide squatted down to minimize his silhouette but still dwarfed those around him. He was tempted to switch to his smaller body but if things took a dramatic turn, he needed to be ready for action.

Things looked grim. He felt like he should jump into the fight, but Carnivac was right. They didn’t owe the Empire anything and certainly didn’t have to fight their wars for them. Still, if there was a fight going on, IronHide felt like he should be in it.

Their small team, strong as they were, wouldn’t make much of a difference against those forces anyway.

“Could we run down there and start hitting every Auto in range with [Liberator.exe]?” Prowl suggested.

“Hide, have you upgraded to have rapid ranged attacks since I disconnected?” Carnivac asked.

“No, I’m pretty much spec'd for melee,” IronHide replied, twisting his mouth to the side.

“So that just leaves me as the only one that can enchant ranged attacks... That’s not viable,” Carnivac answered, shooting down Prowl’s idea.

“Hey, uh, did the Empire bring Autos too?” Aster, one of the ballista wielders, asked.

“No ma’am. We were ordered to send any Auto units back to the rear until this corruption problem you guys are dealing with is sorted out,” Private Edd answered.

“It’s just... look over there,” she said, pointing. “Those Autos there are attacking some of the other Autos.”

IronHide stood up to his full height and cupped his hands over his optics like binoculars. Just like Aster had seen, there were pockets of Automata all over the battle that were grabbing other Automata and throwing to the ground, pulling them off of whatever Imperial unit they were fighting. Unfortunately, they were all wearing the colors of the enemy armies.

The Automata that were thrown to the ground would convulse for a bit but then would get up and join in on pulling other units to the ground.

“Thaaat’s not good... Dezzy beat us here,” IronHide grumbled.

“There aren’t too many yet, only a hundred or so... Try to take them out as fast as you can to keep them from spreading!” Carnivac ordered as he flung himself off the overhang.

IronHide jumped after him, converting back to truck mode as he hit the ground. The others jumped on hitching a ride as he rushed into the fray. They barreled across the field, dodging minotaurs, evading blasts of lightning, and barely escaping semi-sentient vine magic that tore up the ground and smashed into anything that got too close.

Carnivac vaulted off as soon as they got close to a cluster of infected Automata like a wraith that was angered when heads were attached to bodies. His Death God followers, Victoria and Reinhart were quick to finish off anything that momentarily escaped Carnivac’s grasp. Hide left him to his business and aimed for another group, losing a few more of his passengers.

IronHide was not confident in this plan. There were just too few of them and too many of the infected capable of further spreading the infection that would crush them under Dezarus’s will.

“I’ll stick with you! Head to the right then snake back left! We’ll try to plow through them!” Rebecca shouted over the roar of the battle.

Following her direction, IronHide looped around a crowd of Automata that were working to take down an elemental. Several infected Automata were working to corrupt the group but they were suddenly interrupted by IronHide’s grill. Several of them were caught up under his wheels while others went flying.

Rebecca spread her wings and shot up into the air, raining down ballista bolts into infected units as they got back to their feet. Many of them weren’t so much taken offline as they were pinned to the ground.

IronHide shifted to bot mode, rolling with the transformation, and coming with both of his flame axes ignited and cleaving through a row of infected at the shoulders. With a single swing eight infected Automata fell. Settling easily into the flow of the fight, he sent three more flying with a backswing and the flat of his axe. His giant foot came up then back down, stomping two into the ground as they were recovering from getting run over. He was mostly sure that their Soul Cores would survive but they would be out of commission until they got repaired.

Carnivac had said it wasn’t their fight and that they didn’t owe the Empire anything but IronHide couldn’t help but feel like he had become at least friendly with the Empire thanks to Lena and Milliardo. He hurled an axe into the chest of an armored dinosaur and lopped the head off of another. With both hands, he started pulling Automata off of the elemental titan and hurling them across the battlefield. He probably should have spared some thought for where he was actually hurling them, but just tossed them blindly over his shoulder in groups of twos and threes.

It wasn’t often that IronHide had to actually look up at someone but the titan looked down at him curiously, clearly unsure of what to make of this metal giant. Hide only matched two thirds of the thing’s height and felt oddly small for the first time not counting his other body. The titan looked at the remaining Automata clinging and attacking it and swiped them away, flaring up its radiating energy as it did so. Any Automata unfortunate enough to remain hanging on it were hit with waves of energy that tore through them, leaving charred and blackened steel behind.

IronHide reflexively backed away from the energy pulses, really hoping that it wouldn’t target him next. While not exactly an attack, the titan put a hand to his shoulder and bent low until they were face to face. Its eyes were like glass orbs that held exploding nebulas of stars, shining and glittering in hues of purples and pinks. The rest of their face was mostly featureless with the exception of two slits on each side where a human would have cheeks. The slits would open and close as it breathed.

For what felt like a long time, the titan stared at him but in reality it was only for a second or two. Abruptly the titan stood up straight and snatched a war bird and its rider from the sky, crushing them both and igniting them before throwing them like a fireball at the enemy. It then stalked off setting more things on fire and using them as projectiles. IronHide couldn’t help but wonder what these creatures were and how the Empire got them to fight in their armies.

The purple tide of infected Automata were becoming overwhelming. No matter how many IronHide incapacitated, more kept appearing. Their spread was exponential and the Imperial and Allied forces continued to clash, seemingly unaware that all of their Automata were being stolen out from under them.

The shift of control over the Automata forces had reached a point where many of the infected went on the offensive and began attacking any organics in range. It was only a matter of time before the infection rate claimed the entirety of the tens of thousands of Automata soldiers that the Allied forces had brought with them.

The sky darkened and a torrent of purple lightning and energy ripped apart the atmosphere as it crashed into both armies from above. The charred remains of one of the Imperial bombing dragons smashed to the ground, followed shortly by the massive steel claws of a colossal Automata dragon.

The design had been modified but it was still recognizable as the war machine that Jhiax had built in order to start this conflict in the first place. On all fours, it was still of similar height to the elemental titans, but much bulkier and heavier. With a swipe, it leveled one of the titans and blasted another with its ranged breath attack.

“OhCrapOhCrapOhCrapOhCrap!” IronHide muttered as he dove out of the way of a falling titan.

The AutoDragon whipped around, glaring at him. If the titans made IronHide feel small, the AutoDragon made him feel tiny. The thing was at least twenty meters when it reared up on its hind legs, ten or twelve when it was on all fours, as compared to IronHide’s diminutive six. When IronHide had met with the previous incarnation of the AutoDragon, it had had felt more machine-like, like a puppet or even a piloted mech-- which it had been. This time, it felt more aware, more agile, and more alive; and clearly, more like an apex predator.

IronHide engaged his boosters to push him up high enough to take a swing at the AutoDragon’s eyes but it reared back, narrowly avoiding his axes. In a fluid movement, a massive steel paw swatted at him, batting him like an annoying insect back to the ground. IronHide hit the ground hard enough to momentarily glitch his HUD.

Before he could bounce, the AutoDragon dropped low and spun, slapping him back into the air with that gigantic tail. End over end IronHide flipped as he tried to control his flight via positioning and short booster bursts. He leveled out high above the battlefield, earning an excellent view of the carnage below him.

The AutoDragon watched as IronHide's position got further away and he grew closer to colliding with the mountain side. Its eyes blazed and a terrifying purple light began gathering in its open mouth.

System Error

Connection to proxy: IronHide can not be established.