GIANT FREAKIN' ROBOTS

GIANT FREAKIN' ROBOTS part 61: Unit 04 (死/し) and Unit 09 (苦/く)

Lumin hailed Miu. "We're getting close to Sato's black box. Be ready for anything."

"I am," said Miu.

"There he is!" said Lumin excitedly as a piece of Sato's bot came into view. It was lying on a river bank near a meandering stream. Another look revealed his machine had been reduced to a smoldering, soot-blackened torso. There was no sign of its arms, legs or head. "Fuck...this isn't good."

"There's no sign of invaders in the sky or on the ground," said Miu, scanning her radar.

"Good. Follow me," said Lumin, going into a dive with Miu at her side. They landed near Sato's husk of a robot and clomped closer. There was no sign of his A.I. support units.

"I'm reading vital signs...he's alive in there!" said Lumin, elated.

"The robot's power is offline. Sato's emergency air supply isn't going to last much longer," said Miu in a clinical tone.

As Lumin put her robotic hands on Sato's hatch to rip it away, three mountainous masses rose from the river behind them—their jade-colored  bodies gleaming as they stepped onto the rocky bank.

"Behemoths!" yelled Lumin. The beasts started shuffling closer. One of them was holding a bent and twisted leg pulled from Sato's machine. Another gripped the robot's disembodied head, slathering it with slime from its oozing tentacles. Both women drew their chain swords and ignited them simultaneously. The tentacled tails running down the CBGBs' backs began to lift and whip around erratically, their thin tips cracking loudly as they cut through the air.

"I'm going in...cover  me," said Lumin. Miu began firing concussion rounds into the beasts' faces as Lumin rushed forward. A huge tentacle swept down at her, but Miu managed to step up and cut it away. A tentacle strike from the opposite side slammed into the left arm of Lumin's robot, mangling it horribly. She gritted her teeth as the heavy impact rocked her ferrotank, but she kept moving forward. "Miu, take out the one on the  left, I'll work on the other two."

Miu didn't respond. She immediately sent her robot into a forward flip, leaping over a sweeping  tentacle that would have crushed her legs in an instant. She landed with a ferocious kick that concaved her target's wobbling face. Undeterred  by the blow, the behemoth's tumorous arms and bent claws latched onto Miu's robot, knocking her off balance. The chain sword slipped out of  her robot's hand and dropped to the ground. She watched helplessly as the mutilated mouth hole of the beast vomited a swarm of thrashing feelers that hooked to her armor and began eating it away with seeping acid.

The behemoth holding the head of Sato's robot threw it at Lumin with enough velocity to rip away half of her robot's face. "Son of a bitch!" Lumin cried, scrambling to switch to her auxiliary cameras. Her vision returned just in time to dodge a clawed hand arcing at her. She immediately lunged with her sword and chopped through the CBGB's waist, cleaving it in two. "Why do you all have to be so disgusting!" she yelled, as the top half of the beast began to tip toward the ground.

The third behemoth emerged from behind its dead buddy, swatting away the gushing remains blocking its path. Before Lumin could swing her chain sword again, the beast head-butted her robot in the chest. Her heart bounced into her throat as she stumbled several yards backwards and fell directly against the CBGB grappling Miu's machine. The collision turned out to be advantageous, creating sufficient force to break the monster's grip on Miu.

With her mobility restored, Miu kicked away from the behemoth, ripping free from its searing clutches. Locating her wayward sword, she crouched down to retrieve it then rose up with a vertical slice as the quantum blades reignited, cutting up through the CBGB from its crotch to its skull. The bisected fiend slumped to the ground in two symmetrical chunks.