Project Divinity

Chapter 26: The Siege of Ohio I

The attack began with the constructs.

Enormous beings of impossibly large bones and intricately carved boulders made up the front ranks of the attacking army, looking like they had been disgorged from the minds of Giger or Beksinski. The constructs had six limbs, four resembling the legs of giant pachyderm, boulders carved with obscene runes taking the place of bones and human skulls where an elephant would have toes. The remaining two limbs were located near the front and looked like the claws of a mantis, black stone arches held in place by petrified ribcages. The beasts moved in an odd trot, using all six limbs, though Elaine was certain the beasts could rear back on the four hind legs to swing the forelegs at their foes.

Their own ribcages were made of black stone and filled with an assortment of skulls from all kinds of animals, including humans, apes and all kinds of canines and felines. All of them glowed with a disturbing foxfire that cast baleful shadows on the ground despite it being early afternoon.

The only way the beings differed was in the shape of their heads. Half of them had oversized elephantine heads, each with five trunks made of the vertebrae of something larger than a human. The other half had heads like those of a blue whale, except with razor-sharp teeth lining their gigantic jaws. Despite the difference in appearance the two types had one thing in common: Their empty eye sockets were disconcerting to look at, dark as the night sky and with stars twinkling deep inside them.

Elaine gave the things a scan and instructed her girls to do the same.

The first wave consisted of six constructs buffed by a single Demi-Lich. The beast looked tiny compared to the bulky monsters it was herding towards the refugee camp but Elaine knew it was still dangerous. She could also vividly remember how much punishment it'd taken just to break its shield the first time they'd fought one of them. But not only were Elaine and her girls far stronger now, the rest of Project Divinity was with them as well.

“Ready?" Elaine asked Alexis and Ophelia, who were standing right next to her.

“Yeah," Alexis said quietly, fierce determination in her voice.

“Born ready," Ophelia said, twirling the Lampade Wand in her hand.

“Then go," Elaine said and the two vanished in a flash of light and a puff of black smoke respectively.

Less than a blink later Alexis appeared behind and slightly above the Demi-Lich and rammed Areadbhar into the shield bubble protecting the monster. Just as it did with all armor the spear sank into the shield bubble, encountering no resistance as it went, and then Alexis let gravity do the rest, the spear carving a gash into the shield bubble as she dropped towards the ground.

By the time Alexis reached the bottom of the shield bubble its integrity failed and the shield shattered into so many sparks. As she saw it Alexis immediately used light magic to flash back to Elaine's side.

The moment its shield failed the Demi-Lich sent out bursts of magic. Three tethers connected it to the constructs and it sent out pulses of power along each of them, attempting to strengthen them, and it also sent out a dozen rays of Darklight all around it, hoping to hit whatever had damaged its shield.

Ophelia came out of her shadow leap and immediately used her Lampade Wand to send a massive shadow flare at the Demi-Lich, enveloping it in paradox flame and burning away the Darklight as it formed.

“Now," Elaine said into her comms system, though she was sure Marcus' girl was smart enough to figure out that she had an opening.

“Antares Shot!" a woman called out and a moment later fifteen beams of pure starlight shot out of the afternoon sky and crashed right into the Demi-Lich, vaporizing it in a flash.

“All ready for us?" a cocky male voice asked into Elaine's ear and she recognized it as belonging to Jacob Fielder, the team leader of Squad 01 of Project God-Machines.

“All clear," Elaine said. “Go nuts.”

**

Jacob felt giddy whenever he got to hop into Eos and this was no exception. Yes, it was a pitched battle for the lives of over ten thousand people but that didn't change the fact that he'd practically been raised on super robot shows and now he had a super robot of his very own to pilot. Not to mention that its OS had the hots for him.

He sat down in the cockpit, feeling the CARD around his neck linking him up with the mainframe, and pushed the big, red On button in his AR displays.

In an instant the main display flooded with lines of text, flashing before him and being replaced with new lines almost faster than his eyes could track. The only ones he managed to glimpse were:

“Hello Eos,” Jacob said. “Status?"

“Mana generator functioning at 100% efficiency," a soft female voice said. “Weapon systems online. Movement tests report no problems. Weapon modules are properly installed and their drivers updated. All systems green.”

“What about the link to Flidais and Zvezda?”

“Functioning flawlessly," the voice said. “Shall I connect you to them, Jacob?”

“Yes please, Eos," Jacob said.

Through the link with his machine he felt the unmistakable sensation of soft lips against his cheek before Eos connected to the two other super robots, the ones Faye and Elena had synchronized with.

Syncing with a God-Machine took more than just talent. The God-Machines, as they were, were just terribly sophisticated vehicles. It took a certain potential, a certain resonance with the souls of the dead gods embedded within the chassis of each robot, to awaken their true potential. For Jacob that true potential had manifested in a somewhat obsessive but also sweet and devoted OS and also in the massive wings of nearly solid light on the robot's back. For Faye it had given the robot an almost uncanny level of precision and accuracy with any type of ranged weapon as well as the ability to manifest a bow made of pure starlight. For Elena they were still figuring out exactly what the syncing had done. Zvezda was a goddess of night and magic and not even Leonardo knew how these powers would manifest in a robot, which was slightly disconcerting considering he'd been the one to create the damn things.

Leonardo, as in da Vinci, was many things. Brilliant would be at the top of the list of things to call him. Scatterbrained, however, wouldn't be far behind.

Either way, even before the true potential of a God-Machine was unlocked it was already a marvel of modern engineering. Their armor was sturdy enough to withstand artillery fire, their rollers let them move as fast as a scouting craft and their bipedal nature made them far more nimble than any tank could hope to be. And thanks to the link between the pilot and the machine, facilitated by the CARD, piloting them was easier than piloting any vehicle the humans had ever come up with, moving practically in sync with the pilot's thoughts and reactions.

And that was to say nothing of their weapons. Jacob's mech had a pair of tonfas that could strike with a force of impact reminiscent of a battle tank's cannon and had long legs that could do much the same.

Faye's mech had what could generously be called a sniper rifle, a long-barreled cannon that fired single, devastating projectiles. It was more accurate than a tank's cannon, its range was as high as that of an actual sniper rifle and instead of explosive shells it fired what amounted to hollow-point bullets, except scaled up to the 105mm of a tank round. If needed she could switch those out for piercing projectiles or scattershot projectiles. The scattershot was meant as a way of crowd control, of dealing with multiple small targets, but it was a last ditch tool. The God-Machines didn't handle crowds well and could easily be swarmed. Thankfully, during this mission the three of them would be aided by the Superhero Squad, who would do their best to keep all the smaller targets away from them.

And then of course there was Elena, who was the closest thing super robots had to medics. Her gun was effectively a grenade launcher but one of the grenades she could load into it was a container for nanomachines that, upon hitting a friendly mech, would attempt to repair any damage done to it. And they were very good at what they did, to the point where any damage that hadn't killed the pilot instantly could be fixed within minutes.

But on top of all that they had their synced abilities. And for the first time Jacob would be able to truly let his off the leash.

“Launch sequence in 3... 2... 1...” Jake said, a grin splitting his face.

“Go!” Elena called out and the three of them engaged the thrusters on their mechs at the same time, the rollers unfolding and allowing the mechs to move as if on roller-skates, if roller-skates were the size of bikes.

Their speed wasn't quite blistering but compared to the 45 mph the average tank could reach, the 80 they were going was still impressive. It also meant that in only a few seconds Jacob had visuals on their enemies, those hideous Carcosan Guardian Constructs. Him and his girls had fought those things before, except the last time none of them had truly synced with their mechs yet. In fact, Jacob syncing with Eos at the last second was what had won them the day and saved their lives. It had led Leonardo to hypothesize that maybe a certain amount of life or death threat was required for proper syncing, something that had been further solidified when Faye, too, had synced with Flidais in grave danger. Thankfully, with Jacob and Eos guiding her, Elena had managed to sync without being in danger, which had kept Lieutenant General Wilkins from approving riskier ways of achieving progress. The man had been about to send more pilots out on dangerous missions, hoping to jump-start a few more syncs.

But that was neither here nor there. Right now Jacob had hideous bone golems to fight.

“Wanna start us off with a bang, Elena?" Jacob asked.

“Sure," Elena replied, loading her grenade launcher, then aimed at the first of the constructs and fired.

The projectile sailed through the air in an arc and hit right where she'd aimed, into the whale skull of the nearest construct.

Their bone parts were sturdier than ordinary bone but still no match for some good old-fashioned high explosives. Only the excellent stabilizers on the mech kept Jacob from feeling the earth-shaking bang of the explosion and most of the construct's head was blown to pieces, the explosion rippling deep into its stony ribcage.

A less experienced fighter would have thought they had won but Jacob knew better. The way the bone fragments were floating in the air, lazily circling the spot where the head had been, gave it away. Given enough time the fragments would reassemble back into a whole and the creature would continue on as if it had never been damaged. The foul spellcraft that first animated them somehow remained inside them, like a battery of necromantic energy. In order to truly destroy a Carcosan Guardian Construct one had to either break the core of power deep inside it or damage it again and again until the core was depleted. And so long as there was a Demi-Lich or Yellow Wraith around they could fill those cores back up again within minutes. But at least the Superhero Squad had taken care of that part already.

Before the pieces could start to reassemble Jacob rammed one of his mech's tonfas into the hole Elena had blown, then pulled the trigger. The tonfas had guns built in that worked similarly to sawed-off shotguns, except scaled up to tank size. At any substantial range the guns were essentially worthless but point blank like this they would deal devastating damage. And they did.

The metal balls, each the size of a Brussels sprout, ricocheted back and forth inside the construct's ribcage, breaking everything they came into contact with, and finally the energy core inside it lost its last bit of structural integrity and shattered. Instantly the construct collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut.

Jacob tried to back off and assess the situation but then one of the elephant-headed constructs wrapped its trunks around his mech's arm. The vertebrae that made up those trunks were held together solely through necromantic energy, with barely a hint of spinal cord and not a bit of tendon connecting them, but even so the energy holding it together made the connections sturdier than those of steel wire. Jacob considered using that tonfa's gun as well but it was awkwardly positioned. If he fired it as it was the recoil would likely deal more damage to him than the ammo would do to the construct.

Before he could make up his mind on how to counter the construct grabbing him was rocked sideways violently. A moment later Jacob heard the telltale whoomp of Faye's railgun, the supersonic ammo hitting long before the sound actually reached anyone's ears. He smirked.

Now, with the constructs off balance and with a hole the size of a bowling ball punched straight through it, it was the easiest thing in the world for him to twist Eos around and deliver a spinning kick to the construct, his mech's metallic foot connecting with the beast's stone ribcage and sending it flying away, its trunks flailing wildly and thus letting go of Jacob.

He took a moment to check on the arm the beast had grabbed. It was covered in a sheen of frost and underneath it the metal looked melted, like wax that had gotten too hot rather than an ultra-durable alloy developed in Heaven. He gritted his teeth and asked:

“Can we repair this on our own or do we need to waste one of Elena's cartridges?”

“I shall need to divert some of the mana generator's output to thaw the ice,” Eos said. “Once that's done I believe our own stores of nanites should be enough to take care of this. Try not to use that arm too much for the next five minutes.”

“Okay,” Jacob said. “Is the generator good for Ray of Dawn?”

“Of course. Melting the ice shouldn't take more than five percent.”

“Awesome,” Jacob said with a grin, then began flipping over switches, both real and AR, to activate his Remnant, the power of Eos, the deity that gave his mech its name. Eos, sister to Helios and Selene, goddess of dawn, and owner of a really exceptional ass if Jacob was any judge of such things.

A piece of her being slumbered deep within the mech's mana generator and when Jacob had made contact with her, when his feelings had been completely aligned with hers, they'd synced, awakening the potential slumbering within the machine, the Deus Ex Machina Leonardo wouldn't shut up about. Eos' power, even as a dead shard of a goddess' soul, was immense, able to generate enough power to operate the mech and all its functions and weapon systems with plenty to spare. But even so, only through the link with a living pilot could she channel her full potential. And Jacob was that link.

His mind reached deep into the mana generator and he felt Eos' arms wrap around him, enveloping him in the gentle warmth of a new dawn.

“Let's do this,” he said. “Let's show this Outsider filth what they get for attacking our people.”

“Let us raze them from this earth,” Eos agreed.

Wings of light, shimmering in all the colors of a new dawn, from pink to red to orange and back again, exploded out of the mech's back, their wingspan easily a hundred and fifty feet.

Jacob made the mech crouch low, then jump up high in the sky. The wings of light beat once, propelling the mech further into the sky, and once high above the battlefield Jacob picked out his targets. Four of the six constructs were still around, staring up at him. Far behind them the rest of the enemy army steadily advanced. He wouldn't be able to hit those but he would be able to take on the four in front of him. He'd also seen what that brunette chick from the Superhero Squad had done to the road and he decided he could do one better.

When he had his targets locked down he screamed, his voice reverberating with echoes of Eos' divine might: “Light of Dawn!”

The wings beat once more and beams of light, enough to make a Demi-Lich's cascade of Darklight look like a parlor trick, shot out of the wings of his mech, aimed at the constructs and at a swathe of road behind them.

The light seared through the constructs, burning them until they resembles Swiss cheese more than horrid creations of bone and stone. When the cascade of laser beams finally abated three of the constructs had been turned into piles of rubble while the fourth one was swaying dangerously. Almost more importantly, however, had been what Jacob had done behind them. Dozens of laser beams had turned a good chunk of the road and the ground on either side of it into a ditch filled with super-heated concrete sludge, somewhere between impossible and lethal to navigate and much wider than the crystal barricade the Superhero girl had managed to pull off. It wouldn't stop the enemy army but it would, once again, slow them down, giving them all a bit of time to breathe.

But that still left the final construct. It had been badly damaged but not yet destroyed. This hadn't been a failure on Jacob's or Eos' part though. He had one more trick to pull and it would be a shame to waste the opportunity.

As gravity caught up to Jacob he spun Eos through a front flip and aimed right at the final construct.

“Break of Dawn!” he called out as he hurtled towards the earth.

With all the momentum of the fall and the spin behind him he hit the construct with the heel of his mech's foot, striking the construct at a moderate portion of the speed of a high-velocity bullet and shattering it into dust.

**

“Did you see that?!” Leonardo demanded, pointing at the screen everyone present was already looking at. “Magnificent! Exactly what I was hoping for! Just perfect!”

Stollos was also present, not in body but via video conference. He had a complicated relationship with Leonardo. On the one hand he wasn't too proud to admit that the man was brilliant. Talented, driven, and ingenious enough to turn his visions into reality. But Leonardo was more obsessed with the human form than he was with humanity itself. He didn't share Stollos' dream for greatness for humanity. He was more focused on seeing what could be achieved than by what those achievements were useful for. This project was perfect proof of that. He'd created incredibly powerful machines but so far only three people had shown the necessary aptitude required to bring out the machines' fullest potential. He was focused more on being impressive than on being actually practical.

Stollos had to admit, though, that the results were impressive. Various designs for giant robots had been attempted before but all of them had fallen flat for one reason or another. But Leonardo, brilliant, scatterbrained madman that he was, had done it. If only he found a way to expedite the process of syncing people up with these machines.

But Stollos didn't admit out loud how impressed he was with Leonardo. What he said instead was:

“Show-off.”