1.5 The Machine Part 3

It would be ironic if lives weren’t at stake.

When Sam and I reached the others, the battle was pretty much lost.

Carrie had been knock out and turned back to normal. Kevin was nowhere to be seen. Stefan was attempting to get to his feet, but failing. Skyler had her neck snapped and her right arm missing from the elbow down, but her power meant she hadn’t died yet. Lucy is down on the ground, but her hands and feet seemingly been glued together. Helen has been pinned to the ground, her face buried into the dirt.

I see James get slammed into a tree. He managed to slow his speed down with telekinesis, but the blow is still hard. He ends up face down on ground, not moving.

My HUD says he’s still breathing though.

The machine is about three metres tall with a head that looks like a disco ball. My HUD says that it’s all made up of armoured micro optics and sensors.

The robot looks like a hybrid of the Sentinel and Bulk armours, being large and bulky whilst retaining a humanoid figure.

I spot the Bulk armour lying behind the machine, badly damaged and its power core ripped out.

Only Vance is still fighting and he’s not standing much of a chance. The machine seems to be immune or at least highly resistant to his blasts. The only armour of it only has a few dents and slashes from Charlie, Carrie and Sky plus some melted scars where it’s been zapped by Stefan’s lightning and blasted by Vance’s bolts.

“Damn,” curse Samuel quietly.

Vance gets punched into another ground.

“What chance do we have?” I whisper.

The machine has just wiped the floor with the rest of the League.

“I have already requested aid,” says Narszara over our communicators, “The fight is on the news reports.”

I look behind us. There are some reporters and cameramen in the background.

“We have to stop it,” says Sam.

“We have to get the others to safety,” I counter, “I’ll distract it while you get the others out of the fight and to safety.”

Samuel grunts his reluctant agreement. He doesn’t want to do it, but we both know we don’t have time to argue.

As Sam moves to help James, I fly straight at the machine, hoping to knock it over.

The result is a lot less than I expected. I make it stagger backwards, but have barely dented it despite slamming into it head on.

I zoom up and try my sonics on it, but they are horribly ineffective. Against a human opponent, they might have annoyed the target, but I doubt the machine even noticed them.

“Be careful milord,” warns Narszara over my communicator, “Our foe appears to have been built to counter the League of Heroes. I would expect it to be prepared for you as it was for the others.”

“Thanks Narszara,” I reply as I start dodging the lasers the machine is firing at me.

Unlike my own, which are red, the machine’s lasers are a pinkish purple colour. It has two built into each shoulder, four built into each wrist and eight built into the chest. Twenty in total and that makes for a lot of firepower.

The lasers won’t do much harm if they hit me, but given a little time, they could easily melt their way through my armour.

I return fire with my own lasers.

The machine moves very fast, much quicker than it looks. I’m beginning to see how it took the others down. Despite that, my targeting sensors are still able to lock-on.

I aim at the optic ball. If it is as well made as seems to be, the machine will have spare optics and sensors throughout its body, but taking out its primary optics will be useful. I hope.

I start to burn through the armour, but the machine unleashes another of its tricks. Four micro missiles, each about the size of a nerf dart, are fired at me.

I fire at them, blowing up one. Before I can fire my lasers again, the remaining three explode into a dozen smaller missiles, each about an inch long. How did they fit that many missiles in there?

Now let me tell you something, dodging three dozen mini micro missiles and a score of laser beams at high speed is hard. Like really hard.

I fly into the trees as I struggle to avoid the hostile fire. I really hope Sam is almost done.

About two third of the missiles explode as they hit the trees, but the rest of them stay on target. A few of the lasers hit the trees as well, but even more lasers keep on coming.

I zoom up into the air and fire my sonics at full power at the missiles. Only one survives and I easily blast it with one of my lasers.

The lasers on the other hand don’t falter when hit by sound. I’m hit by five before I start dodging again.

Hit once on the chest, another to the head, a third to my right leg and two to my left arm. Slightly melted where I got hit, but thankfully there is no notable damage..

The machine tries to use sonics on me, but it gets the same results as I got due to the sonics being filtered out by the Sentinel armour.

I need a different approach.

I fly at down at the machine, punching it in the optic ball.

Big mistake.

I bent it backwards a little, but the robot grabs me by the leg and slams me into the ground. It is ineffective in damaging the Sentinel armour, only dazing me. Even the earliest incarnations of the Sentinel armour could withstand being knocked about.

The machine seems to realise that it didn’t work as it tosses away before I can recover. Lasers bombard me and I glimpse the machine firing more micro missiles at me.

Then it stops as I crashing to the ground again. No more lasers hitting me. I hear the micro missiles exploding before they can reach me.