The Discarded, Half-Eaten Apple Core New Life

I replicated some Trapdoor Spider mecha for fire support while I waited for the Rangers to arrive. I also added more blimps along the way to guarantee our path of retreat would be clear.

"My Lord, we will arrive in fifteen minutes!" Róta reported on the comms.

The Mecha they were piloting remotely was part of my Dungeon, linked through the qDCSC embedded in the middle of their torsos. I couldn't be more aware of their location. Yet, I think she sent the message to the rangers indirectly. No worries on that front.

The dragons that were coming flew slower than the drakes that weren't even around anymore. I had already absorbed the bodies and sent small rovers to collect the Mana stones. I needed a lot of these for my artificing and while I could now Replicate Mana stones, it wasn't the same thing. These natural monster stones had influences from the monster's powers and Mana affinities that I couldn't quite imitate with the Replicated stones.

The sixteen Planetary Defenders arrived, with five Trapdoor Spiders each. The beautiful scene of almost a hundred giant robots trampling the Australian post-apocalyptic wastelands made me reminisce. Too bad they didn't spit fire or had punk BDSM people playing Rock n' Roll on top of them. Or ran on gasoline. Or were rusted and falling apart. Or were chasing Mel Gibson. Damn, they didn't even have wheels. We might need another hero. But we still want the same thing. Life, beyond the... yeah.

"Weapons check! All units, prepare for engagement. Ready the autocannons. Lay suppression fire." I gave my orders. We would start with what worked before. Rain bullets on these dragons, see if they bleed like the others. If they prove to be too slow, we can switch to the railguns. Their scales seem even tougher than the others and the lasers aren't a very good option. We need armor-piercing ammunition.

"They are in range. Permission to fire?" Ranger Dinosaur Green asks. I'm not good at remembering human names.

"Hold it," I sent through my improved voice synthesizer. "They have limited prescience. A long-range shot will give them plenty of time to dodge. We are doing this at close quarters.

"May we use the swords?" Ranger Yellow Wolf suggests, almost a demand.

"Yes. You can switch the top autocannon for the swords," I reply. It wouldn't make sense to shoot the weapon with a sword blade in the way. "Hold your fire, stay in formation. Don't shoot at maximum range."

"Roger!" They reply in unison.

"Spiders, spread out and withdraw half a mile," I adjust our formation a few minutes later, reacting to the dragons spreading into a wedge formation. "Mark your targets."

The pilots start claiming targets on the tactical screen. Until we know how much they can endure, we won't focus our fire. A wounded enemy loses a lot of fighting ability unless it is a berserk type. Those you want to bast as fast as possible.

The dragons are dragging a lot of smoke along with them. It is almost as if magic was guiding the smoke to wrap around them. And of course, that's exactly what is happening. I swap Perks, activating Deadeye Spotters. I cast a beacon over the smoke dragons, confirming the spell and marking the targets' accurate location in the tactical network. When they are almost entering my Domain, I give the order.

"Light them up, folks!"

The ruins of Darwin shake as literally a thousand (more, actually) autocannons open fire at once. Each Mecha has at least ten guns firing at the maximum rate, and that's because most of them withdrew two to wield the massive 75-foot-long enchanted swords. Fire for Effect triggers right after the first hit and the rate of fire increases by 34%. Five million bullets the length of an open hand scream through the air at the dragons.

My Dungeon Mana took a plunge. 50 MP per ounce of ordnance, 10 MP per DM, 35840 ounces per Imperial Ton... My Sixteen Tons spray burned 5.7 million DM just to enchant them with the spell. People in Speranza would be horrified that I had burned 120 years of allowance for a family of single mother and child in a minute of shooting.

Even in the Apocalypse, military spending was a money sink.

But I digress. To do the same for a hundred Mecha? Yeah. A fourth of my daily DM generation went away like that.

"Larry, remind me to plant more trees. I need more trees."

The platypus mascot happily bobbed his beak. "Save the world, regrow the forests, right? Contractor!" He squealed in his brattish voice.

"Yeah. That." I was too embarrassed to speak the truth. "Green Energy. Renewables. Fight Climate Change."

"I know what you mean, Contractor! You are the hero this world needs, not the one it deserves."

"Larry, did you just... It's from... Nolan's... wait, it's reversed. Why did you?" I was beyond befuddled.

"Contractor, you are too self-serving! Earth was such a gorgeous place..." He covered his eyes with his paws. "You could do more."

"I'll do more, Larry. I promise you. But it will be on my terms. Are you sad I dropped the magical pink doki-doki Class?"

"A little? You were supposed to get some mascot powers at the higher ranks of the Skill," he immediately clamped his beak shut. "I shouldn't have said this," he mumbled between gritted... Platypuses have no teeth. At least we're in the same boat. Apples and teeth, they only meet when... yeah.

"I already did, Larry. I couldn't transform without you."

"That's not true! You just don't want to say the magical words! They're just words! If it wasn't because of that, would you," Larry sniffled, "Keep me around?"

"Larry, you are everything that stands between me and loneliness."

"You don't mean it!"

"Róta is too stuck up with this worship thing. The humans... they won't be around for too long and I can't really forge a connection with them. I have only you, Larry. I would gladly pay another 240,000 Experience points. Okay, how about this? I'll ask the System for a sub-Class that can integrate a mascot with my powers, okay? Most of these Classes feel like they were pulled out of someone's ass anyway."

"The System scanned popular media before the Apocalypse and tailors the selection based on the user's imagination."

"Should I know that?"

"I don't care anymore! The System won't delete me. Will it?"

"Larry, if the System does anything to you, my only true friend, I'm going to make the biggest plasma flamer ever, and burn that damn World Tree. Then I'm going to find the System's Core and smash it."

I cast a beacon straight at the heavens. "Did you hear that, System? Gray Alien?"

"It's not really a Gray Alien. It's just the most convenient shape based on your..."

"My imagination."

"Right. Contractor, the dragons!"

"Yeah, we should go back to our normal broadcasting schedule."

*

*

The dragons were mostly inside my Domain now. I could see that while the autocannon bullets weren't ineffective, their scales were too tough for the munitions used. They had some nasty wounds from critical hits that struck weak spots but these beasts were huge. I'm talking about 400 to 500 feet in length and 200-foot-long bodies. Some dragons had holes in their wings but kept on flying regardless. At this size, they really weren't using aerodynamic lift.

They screamed and breathed fire down upon us.

"Shields!" Róta shouted. "Connect the boundaries!"

All the frontline Planetary Defenders placed shields ahead of them, facing the dragons. This allowed the enchantment to project stronger shields rather than give broader coverage. The robots were capable of bubbling up like a WoW Pally, but for just a few seconds. But the positioning was seamless. Nothing would get by between the panels of Force magic.

The fiery vomit (not mincing words here, it was not just flames, it was flammable goop) struck the shields and sprayed around. Some spilled upward, but at an angle that missed the giant robots. Most of it splashed down and away from us, forming a wall of flames a few dozen yards ahead of the robots. The heat impressed me. It was greater than the upper limit for non-pressurized burning hydrocarbons. I could sense magic in the goop.

Anyway, with the stress test of the shields done, I absorbed the goop, earning a good amount of DM but nothing compared to the ridiculous half-billion expenditure to shoot enchanted bullets at the dragons. But the delay tactics worked. The dragons were upon us.

"Hold the shields! Cut the extra upkeep support. Let the dragons smash into them. Brace for charge!" I ordered.

Thousands of tons of dragon meat and rage crashed on the magical shields, which held just for a bit. We could've paid the extra Mana necessary to support the integrity of the shields but it was a two-way barrier. By letting the dragons crash on the shields and then break through, we saved that Mana and bought ourselves some time to prepare our stabby implements of hurt.

That's exactly what happened. The dragons broke the shields and fell straight into our enchanted swords. Made out of Dungeon Walls and impossibly thin for their size, they were, proportionally speaking, like the monofilament weapons often seen in cyberpunk stories.

The dragons basically impaled themselves in our magical weapons. Ain't no tough hide that can resist Physics-Chan's vengeance when she exerts her four fundamental forces. Blood gushed on the Mechas, painting over the cameras. The Mecha lost visuals but the pilots still had my Domain's telemetry data to work by. Their Grilled Tex-Mex power armor back at the base projected wire-frame models of the dragons in their monitors (I was still working on 3-D visors).

Servos whirred and we forced our weapons to move and cut the beasts. Some Rangers got creative and fired their autocannons at close-quarters range. A dozen autocannons exploded when the barrels touching the dragons' tough hide refused to spin. Automated ejection systems ditched the damaged weapons with minimal harm to the Mecha's arms.

"Keep them pinned!" I ordered. "Trapdoor Spiders, Aim at the body mass, friendly fire tolerance two feet! Fire the railguns!" I shouted (typed with the "shout" key pressed) in the comms. I gave the orders through my Dungeon powers.

The spider Mecha in the background took aim. The friendly fire tolerance was how close to the Planetary Defenders they could place the projectile trajectory. This was to account for sudden movement.

The railguns charged their 64MJ electromagnets and discharged a 25 lb armor-piercing shell each. In my mind's eye, I could see the red lines showing the path. Less than a second later (this shot was almost point-blank for the huge cannons), they struck. Bits of dragon scale cracked and rained down, most of them car-sized.

The dragons clawed and bit at the robots. All of them were considered Dungeon sections themselves. The outer hull of these robots was nothing if not Dungeon Walls, with all the benefits it carried. Like ignoring the first 10,000 points of damage dealt. The robots struggled but the dragon's weight was too much.

The only one among us who had freed themselves of their dragon assailant was me. I had a better synergy with the Mecha because I only had Mental Attributes. Not only I didn't have to spread my points around, but I also gained 200% efficiency from the get-go. I sliced the neck of my dragon, partially absorbing the body to confirm it was dead. Dragon meat was rich in Mana and it would take me a few minutes to absorb all that. I left the rest down, to eat later.

> For killing level 200 Demonic Dragon, your Party gained Experience! You gained 4093 Experience Points.

Róta gained a bit less than that but the Rangers had probably blown the Exp cap. I checked their auras back at the base (they were right next to a qDCSC) and yes, they gained two levels.

Other dragons landed and attacked the Mecha, trying to free their brethren. I imagined having 50 feet of sword inside one's guts to hurt.

The spider Mecha fired at these newcomers, to harass and keep them from dealing heavy blows that would require them to stay in one place for too long. The autocannons carried no friendly fire concerns. The bullets wouldn't scratch a Dungeon Wall.

I saw the problem. Our machines may have 200 feet in height, but we were clearly outmatched in the size and weight department. In such a situation, we had only one thing to do.

"All units! Disengage and Combine!"

It was time to test my latest rank in the Skill Mecha Operations.