Tessa knew this deal was too good to be true when she saw the metal monstrosity barreling after her, smashing aside seasoned veterans like they were pawns in a war game.

  “Dodge Tess!” Crypta spoke to her as her legs finally decided to listen to her.

  Tessa casted an earth move spell, allowing her to slide along the ground while she stood still to channel the spell.

  The ground beneath her obeyed, allowing her swift travel as the damn ape chased her!

  Damn my rotten luck!

  She kept the spell going, launching rocks and spears of twisted wood to slam into the beasts softer fleshy bits, all while sliding across the ground to avoic its heavy strikes.

  It was all Tessa could do to simply dodge the damn thing, its red glowing eye somehow matching its normal, also red glowing eye.

  The beast was a ball of rage and pain, as if it blamed Tessa for all its sorrow and the reason it was turned into the monster it became.

  Empathic channels are going haywire, this thing was made to hunt druids!

  With their closeness to nature, all druids could feel and understand the reasons and feelings of animals around them, It came with the magic, you had to open yourself up to the world in order for it to talk back to you.

  The Metal Beast was basically screaming in rage and pain, and it made concentrating on her magic all the harder as Tessa tried to coordinate with the Harriers to trap the beast.

  Even so, the Beast did not wait politely for her team to take it down, pulling its sick green cannon out to aim at the slippery mage known as Tessa.

  Just as it was about to fire, the Beast slammed its shield into the ground, causing a minor quake to rise and distort the land.

  Tessa found herself no longer connected to the soil, her eye’s widening as the cannon moved to aim at her now soaring form.

  The blast came, but veered off to the side as a massive blast hit the side of the cannon, throwing off its aim.

  Tessa turned to see Rose, the pixie looking girl with a massive cannon give her a thumbs up as she racked another long bolt.

  I could kiss that girl, but I think she has a thing for the spear guy.

  Still, it gave Tessa the precious seconds she needed to land on the soil and continue her evasive action, much to the Beast’s rage.

  It roared so loudly that the air became charged wtih mana, causing many of the Harriers to become stunned and unable to move.

  Luckily, the spear guy, (think his name was Bargo, yeah?) took the chance to stab the Metal Beast in the side, right under the armpit of the higher arm limb.

  The roar seemed to increase after he struck, blasting the Harriers from his position and sending most of them flying away, unconscious from the look of things.

  As Tessa readied herself, she overheard the queenie weenie speaking through a scrying tablet to the rest of the troops.

  “Everyone, back away from the Metal Beast, I’m calling in a strike from the Meras! I repeat, get clear!”

  Tessa watched as the High General activated that freaky spear and trapped the Metal Beast in a suspension field, causing it to rage and twist as it fought the sphere around it.

  Nope, not letting you get away monster ape!

  Tessa called on the earth, pulling water from beneath the soil to create a marsh under the Metal Beast’s feet, trapping it and causing it to lose its footing.

  Above, she could see the Meras began to glow with one of those fancy rock throwers the Captain made. They only needed a minute to wait for the bloody thing to fire.

  The Metal Beast was making that difficult though, as it used its shield as a place to stand over the marshy land beneath it.

  It allowed the monster to hope for a split second, freeing it enough to pull out of the field and attack it once more.

  “I cannot hold it, the strength of this thing is massive!” queenie spoke, much to Tessa’s annoyance as her magic was starting the tap out.

  Crypta, please tell me that you got inside the ship’s systems!

  “Almost… Almost… Got it! Releasing generator safe guards and spooling up a fire solution! Get down!”

  Even before they started making their way to the ship, Tessa had Crypta work towards breaking into the fallen Sword’s safeguards, a practiced move that they used on the new ship they acquired above.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  It was a good thing she had Crypta working on that, because that feeling she got from the Captain’s… upgrades, gave her the willies when it came to certain smells.

  Like the ones that came off of the guards that they were approaching before this mess.

  Tessa hit the dirt as Crypta spooled up a ship cannon from the Sword, pointing a flak cannon type weapon that she was almost certain would hurt the beast.

  “Hey, your royal bitchiness! I got a cannon aimed at the beast. When I say go, release that weird field!”

  Tessa typed her response to the General, who turned to glare at her before shifting her stance.

  “Now Tessa!”

  “Now General!”

  Tessa ducked her head, holding it to the soil as she made a small barrier with her magic to protect her from what was coming next.

  The flak she heard slamming into the Beast exploded, peppering the side of her shield in a flurry of shrapnel. Some of the debris even stuck to the shield itself, showing a deadly array of metal that was, to Tessa at least, a little too close for comfort.

  The roar from the beast shattered what was left of her shield, allowing her to see the carnage of the cannon’s fire.

  The Metal monstrosity was still standing, however one of its arms, the one that held the shield earlier, was disconnected and hanging by a thread. Its body was dotted with bits and pieces, but most of the shrapnel was skin deep, and none of it looked fatal.

  It glared at Tessa, Its gnashing teeth and red eyes locked onto her as it once more pulled its cannon to aim at her.

  Tessa couldn’t move, her energy was tapped out and the shield she casted brought her down to barely any mana left.

  Crypta was talking to her, but with impending death so close, Tessa couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying.

  So this is how I die, eh? This sucks mossy balls.

  She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the end approaching her.

  A roar split from the air, but unlike the monstrous one that was indicative of the ape-like weapon beast, this one sounded… cuter?

  Tessa opened her eyes to see a small figure falling from the Meras, a familiar red dot that fell faster and faster on a collision course with the Metal Beast.

  The Beast had a moment to look up and see as Mera landed on its head, all four feet of her smashing into the beast’s snout.

  Tessa watched as a massive gravity well opened up underneath the two of them, causing the air around her to pull towards the Metal Beast, and crush it with the weight of five moons.

  She had to stabilize herself in order to keep from being sucked into the well and joining the now pancaked Metal Beast.

  Tessa couldn’t help but smile as she watched Chimera jump on the Metal Beast, causing it to sink deeper and deeper into the heart.

  “Cannon fire imminent!” Crypta screamed into her ear as Tessa watched everyone start to back up.

  Chimera landed one last hit before she too jumped over towards Tessa and the fighters in group A.

  “Okay Meras! Hammerstrike!” Chimera screamed, her face a mix of joy and bloodlust.

  Tessa stared in awe as the Meras blasted the Metal Beast with not one, but five consecutive shots of Magnetic fury, caving parts and pieces from the monstrosity and pulverizing the rest of its now screaming form.

  “RAAAAGHHHH!”

  The ape slammed the ground with its stumps, still twitching and pushing its deformed body. Its stumps trying desperately to lift itself up, the beast even resorted to biting the ground as it glared with hate.

  Tessa tried to stand with Crypta, but her body had already reached its limit, making even the move to stand a difficult trial.

  She wanted to land the blow that ended that thing, a bit of revenge against its strange fixation on her.

  The Captain turned to face her, smiling and nodding as she placed a small hand on Tessa’s shoulder.

  “Go ahead, I’ll let you have this one.”

  Before Tessa could figure out what the Captain meant, a small prick on her shoulder flooded her body to the brink with not only mana, but a deluge of energy and what Tessa suspected were combat stimulants.

  Now hopped up on the most insane high of her life, Tessa reached out with Crypta’s gifts, grabbing hold of all of the fallen Sword’s intact turret systems.

  Sensing the mayhem, she couldn’t help but chuckle as the rest of the Harriers decided to beat a hasty retreat from the hostile.

  “Eat this!” Tessa flexed her mana, grabbing hold of the firing solutions and targeting computers still functioning on the craft, and blasted the monkey with a delayed burst of continuous fire, causing more and more of the roaring ape’s metallic augments to either dent or dissolve under ship cannon fire.

  With a final salvo, the ape inched forward a bit more, only to fall and land in front of Tessa. It’s eyes both artificial and flesh, lost their red glow, replaced with the look of slowly approaching death.

  Probably didn’t have much choice in being turned into this… thing, but that doesn’t mean I’m letting you have my life either. Rest in peace monkey.

  Taking her staff in her grip. Tessa stabbed Crypta in the beast’s organic eye, feeling a twitch from the creature as it gave a final gasp of breath.

  It growled, but it came out as a pitiful whimper, spitting out a bit of black blood before it finally collapsed.

  Tessa stood still with the rest of the group, waiting to see if the metal beast would up and walk once more. It wasn’t uncommon, as the cybernetics of the blasted thing apparently could keep the beast moving even after its apparent death.

  But no such thing came to pass, the damage was extensive, and the spine was one of the first things that had been perforated by the Hammerstrike when her Captain called it down.

  Chimera gave out a cheer that spread to the rest of the group, some waving their gear in the air while others who had been injured gave thumbs ups and half waves. The roar of victory filled the din of the aftermath, and Tessa felt pride in her chest.

  Despite being a hacker, a criminal, and not even fully trained like the others, she somehow pulled off a killing blow on a Metal Beast.

  “Wooo!” She cheered, echoing the cries of her teammates and her captain.

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