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What's Junk? (The Mech Touch)

First thing I thought was imagine waking up after being beheaded only to be told your getting your pay cut because your blood stained the rug
You would think that would be the worst part, but no it's the fact that your nose is itchy and you can't scratch it.
 
M160 New
The city was mostly quiet at the moment. It shouldn't have been. The fighting technically hadn't stopped. It was just that with a very furious Lilly on the field hunting nearly everything that moved, the mech pilots were simply too terrified to get nearby a very specific and very wide area. The only real movement was from the ships still dropping down from orbit.

Despite this, things weren't safe. Lilly wasn't sure if she'd ever feel safe on the planet, though really that hadn't changed much. Some part of her was always on the planet she'd grown up in, waiting for the next fight. She'd long since made peace with that aspect of herself. Her children would not have something similar happen to them.

"How are things?" Lilly asked Bolt over the comms.

"Quiet now. No deaths, but we'll need a medical professional here soon. The machines here can stabilize everything. They can't fix it." The designer reported before he continued in a more grim tone. "The guys that got through were strange. Weren't augmented with metal, and the swords are better than yer knife."

"My-" The woman paused. "Ah, I see. Psionics?" That was the word they had to use at the moment.

"Something like that maybe. Didn't know we had human practitioners." Bolt noted. "They were kinda pulped so I can't say more."

"That's fine." Lilly replied. "I'll handle the rest." She said as she closed off the comm.

The man that had triggered her paranoia wasn't quite in the city. The island they were on had him at a beachside resort area that was just barely out of the usual fighting. He was barely in sensor range if Lilly pushed Dowry's senses and relied on the more exotic feelings they both could parse.

Dowry crouched down and bounded through the city towards the new target. With everyone quiet and wary, she had the space to snip off this end. It was really the perfect time. No one would comment if one more person died. It neglected more than a few things like due process and the like, but Lilly had reached the point that she didn't care anymore. She approached the building in question on silent steps and then plunged Dowry's hand right into the building.

A normal pilot wouldn't have noticed it. She barely did as an expert very attuned to her mech. Somehow, someway the man had reacted to the mech hand. He'd turned in the second it'd ripped through the building, and he'd caught a clawed finger before it bisected him. More incredibly, he'd withstood the strike as it slammed him through the building and into the foundation. It was a physically impossible feat.

Further thought was rendered moot as Dowry's finger was wrenched to the side and almost torn off. Lilly pulled the hand back and glanced at the damage. That was again abnormal. The expert discarded what common sense said and readied herself to attack further.

The oppressive feeling that blanketed her senses suddenly made her pause mid movement. It was something hard to describe really. Like she was being pushed down by gravity, yet only in her mind. Almost like when she'd been in front of that expert as a normal girl so long ago but more oppressive. Some part of her wanted to drop down in awe.

She murdered that part before the thought really formed. Lilly would do what she desired. He will was her own. The expert sunk into her mech and clawed down again. Another finger was broken but she'd compensated for that. It was just a matter of positioning the hand just right.

On her list of things that would happen next, the building exploding wasn't one of them. Dowry was thrown back and the mech had to skid and fire boosters to keep upright. In front of her some strange transparent thing formed. It was a man and yet not a man. A monster of shadows and matter in the form of something man-like.

"When I rip your soul screaming out of your body, remember that you forced me to do this." The monster said and made a flat handed gesture.

Lilly dodged on instinct. One of her arms still went flying. Following her intuition she grabbed the limb before it flew too far and then skipped back while pressing the severed appendage to her body. She invoked her resonance and the arm started to reattach.

The monster paused and chuckled. "Well, I have needed some exercise." It surged forward.

She dodged the first strike of whatever the thing was using. It felt like a beam of some sort. The gestures to invoke it were strange and Lilly didn't have time to analyze it. She barely had time to stay alive, because the thing wasn't giving her any room at all as it mixed in fist strikes with the beams and other exotic attacks.

It was like fighting an expert but worse. Lilly was being manhandled and she didn't like it. Her few strikes back dug into the material the monster was made up of and did little. She couldn't even tell if she was doing actual damage really. Some instinct said she was, but not enough, especially with how outmatched she was.

Despite this, she felt happy. The rage was gone. The complicated feelings that had been boiling up around her were soothed. She had a goal and something to focus on, and that brought a clarity that she'd been missing since she'd gotten pregnant.

"Really, I have ta thank ya." Lilly said between breaths over the comm just as Dowry was thrown into a building by a strike that rattled her bones and almost killed her right then and there. Getting hit was doing her no favors at all.

"Oh?" The monster sighed. "You really do not understand. It's common enough for one like you." One large hand hovered over a nearby area. A small bunker containing people that had hid from the battle. "You'll learn." He grasped and something screamed as it was pulled out before he absorbed it.

Lilly observed it and nodded. "Ah, suppose I shouldn't be surprised." Bolt would be pissed at seeing something like that. "Just another monster that thinks he's better than people." She pulled herself out the building. "Another target." She growled out as she healed up again.

"We'll see how long that attitude lasts." The monster replied as it stopped playing around.

The pressure it was exerting increased. The thing grew larger and more solid. Lilly watched as it loomed over her and she focused her willpower. She was very outmatched here. She refused to fail anyway. The first step to winning was to stop playing by his rules.

She boosted back and away from her opponent. It followed her with a few beams, but none of them hit. She knew the timing now. Once that became apparent the monster switched to some sort of blast. The attack wasn't particularly subtle, but it was a wide area and it clipped her occasionally even when she dodged it.

They traveled away from the city and to the beaches. The seawater lapped at Dowry as she darted in and out of the waves and over the sand. The footing was a bit sketchy here, but she was able to compensate easily. Her opponent wasn't really hindered at all though. Which made the choice almost poor if one ignored how it got him away from people.

"Irritating." The monster growled out as it swatted at her again and again. "I will have to remember to slay any mechs with your abilities quickly in the future. This is taking too much time."

"Awww, is the little inflated puffball getting tired?" Lilly taunted back.

The monster paused and sighed again. "No. Simply lamenting the loss of my wine and the scenic view." It said without any care.

Lilly rolled her eyes and positioned herself just so. "That's all your fault."

"You underestimate the issue once more." The monster gestured up towards the sky. "Did you think beating me would do anything? Even if you could, my master would find you and the torment he would put you and your family through would make my plans a heaven. You have lost already! Just give up and I'll settle for just removing your piloting skills!"

The expert's eyes narrowed. He wasn't lying. She had no idea how to address that, but she would have to do so later. First she had to deal with what was in front of her. She darted forward.

By this point they knew each others tells. The monster shifted back slightly and readied itself to attack her as she got into range. Behind it the sand shifted more, and a hidden mech rose up. it didn't even notice, as focused as it was on her.

The giant crab mech, a locally made heavy mech, surged into motion. Lilly could see the sheer panic in the body language. It still moved one very large claw into place and brought the claws together in a movement that the pilot had likely practiced a thousand times.

Called the Big-Claw Hermit, the mechs were used by local police in certain areas. They had a series of taser-like weapons that they used to subdue things in the water or land when needed, and a singular large claw. It had two signature moves. One was to hide in water and sand. The other was to use the claw to dismantle a mech's legs. The massive thing could literally sever legs in a singular snip if it managed it. Unfortunately in his panic the crab missed the legs and got mostly the torso, right between the legs.

The monster flinched and howled as sympathetic pain hit it. It didn't drop, but it did lose enough momentum that Lilly could outright throw Dowry into it. She abandoned out conventional tactics. She dropped any sense of humanity. She bit and clawed like an animal. Dowry tore into the thing without a care for defense and was shredded as the enemy tried to destroy her in turn. The arms fell off. The armor burned. Her eyes were ripped out.

Yet the construct started to fade away. Dowry fell to the ground with her legs barely functional and almost nothing else. Something was stuck in her teeth. It struggled slightly before the jaws closed shut with a clack. Then things were still.

Lilly heaved out a breath and stared at the sky for a long moment. Then she tilted her head. That monster had said that something would be coming after him right? That would mean some of the ships already up there would be saying something?

There was none of that. Had he been good enough at lying that she'd been fooled? Were they late? Would it take some more time? What would his master be like?

Lilly got Dowry to her feet and looked for food. It wasn't time to rest yet. She could probably regrow the arms if she got enough. (She could, but the nightmares she caused doing so would last for decades.)
 
In front of her some strange transparent thing formed. It was a man and yet not a man. A monster of shadows and matter in the form of something man-like.
Susanoo?

She dodged the first strike of whatever the thing was using. It felt like a beam of some sort. The gestures to invoke it were strange and Lilly didn't have time to analyze it.
Hand Seals?

Unfortunately in his panic the crab missed the legs and got mostly the torso, right between the legs.

The monster flinched and howled as sympathetic pain hit it.
I think everyone felt that.
 
Big man in the chair is probably pulling his hair out lmao like "how did this shit blow up so much she's a third rate pilot in a fourth rate mech for fuck sake" a lot of people about to be fired and I'm interested to see MTA reaction to this ( i wonder if eating a spirit mech will affect dowry cause she was already very spiritual)
 
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On vacation planet, giant enemy crab hits you in the weak point for MASSIVE DAMAGE.

The existence of a police mech that has a specialty of hiding in the dunes is fascinating.

Because it implies the police often need to hide in dunes.

Smugglers on the sea? Illegal beach mech races? Covert security for sand-castle builders?

Evil cultivator also loses any pity he may have had by consuming the souls of bystanders. Accidentally killing die to collateral damage is one thing. Powering up by soul absorption is another.
 

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