The Ashen Wrath (Watty's SHORTLIST recipient 2018) CHAPTERED VERSION

*63

The time had come to strike. When the stilt striders stretched upward to receive their assignments from the command screen, my brother sprang into action. He ripped out the power regulators of three nearby machines with vicious efficiency. The crippled frames automatically ejected their pilots, sending them sliding across the gray slate with a gush of black fluid.

My attacks weren't as effective. The first stilt striders I targeted batted away my arms as their self-defense modes activated. I punched and kicked my way underneath each machine until I could crush their regulators and disable them. The armor of my own unit was steadily getting shredded by metallic claws as the horde surrounded me. Desperate, I tore off the leg of a fallen stilstry and began bashing my opponents until they backed away.

A length of steel punctured my cockpit and grazed my shoulder, tearing away some skin. A second rod pierced through the armor coating of my unit's abdomen. The tiny lights of the interior flickered but stayed lit. Undeterred, I battled on—tugging the pole out of my machine and using it as a pike. One by one the stilt striders fell. I lost track of the pilots but was heartened to see some of them were scrambling away from the chaos.

Graced with a clear view, I saw my brother bolting from the room. "Kooper!" I called, through my loud speaker.

"I have to stop the commander before he calls for reinforcements," my brother cried before disappearing up the stairs. Two stilt striders followed him, leaving six more for me to deal with.

Completely exposed, I dove behind a heap of fallen machines to take cover but I wasn't fast enough. I raised a black claw just in time to intercept three incoming javelins. The impacts deadened my robotic arm, but the outcome could have been far worse had I not sacrificed the limb. I twisted behind a pile of smoldering scrap and ejected my useless appendage, hearing it slam to the floor. More poles smashed into the onyx bricks behind me. I was pinned down.

A thunder of footsteps approached, forcing me to think beyond the constraints of my own body. I deployed four retrieval tentacles and slithered them over the scrap, tearing away jagged shards of steel to hurl at my attackers.

Two stilt striders fell as my spinning projectiles sliced through their legs, dumping them to the floor. Another toppled after taking a direct hit to its middle. I tried not to think about the man inside.

I emerged from hiding and rushed to disable the regulators of the fallen machines, holding up a sheet of stray armor to absorb more javelin hits. A sliding kick shredded through another regulator. Only two more to go.

Black fluid poured from my stilt strider as I engaged my opponents in close combat. A titanium claw sliced through my plating, letting in light from outside. Every punch and kick battered my body as my cockpit's cushioning ferrofluid flowed away. I ripped off my oxygen mask and screamed, flailing my machine's limbs in a frenzy. Satisfying cracks webbed across my foe's flattened faces, but every second that passed brought more damage to my shell.