*WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZZZZZZZZ*
"JUMP!!" All at once, the turrets on the mechs started to spin quickly and unleash hundreds of blasts at the blood mutants. Before the firing began, Jim shouted to the others and ordered them to move as he formed a tough, quadruple layer of blood armor before him.
The turret blasts made contact with his armor and began to chip away as the other three ran around randomly in hopes of dodging the attack. With no choice left, Anya, Cherry, and Ace joined Jim behind his armored wall while also adding layers upon layers of blood from the larger Haras they had killed a few moments ago.
"We can’t hide in here forever..." Cherry said as she reverted to her human form. Any second wasted in the blood mutant form would result in her losing energy, and there was no need for her to lose energy at a time . "...sooner or later, this thing’s going to break."
"Ace, how does it look for us?" Jim asked, having somewhat of a faint idea of how the system scan skill operated. "Can you tell us how those mechs look exactly? Can you spot any weaknesses in their design?"
[System Scan Skill Level 2: Activated]
With his eyes closed and his mind completely focused, Ace remained still for a moment as a red line pulsed from his body, similar to how sonar waves did. The line stretched into a grid-like pattern and crawled all over anything and everything in its path. For a moment, Ace had to be patient until the grid made its way onto the three mechs.
’I got something,’ he thought to himself while studying the composition of the mechs. Their legs were designed oddly, with two at the front and one at the back. This created a clumsy look for them and made them vulnerable if a situation where they’d lose their back legs was to occur. ’Their leg designs make them vulnerable to attacks from the back.’
"The back!!" Ace finally spoke up. "We can attack them from the back and bring them down. Their back legs are their support. If we can knock them down or cause extensive damage, we’ll be able to bring down the machines."
The others looked at each other while calculating what it would take to pull off such a stunt. On one hand, they could manage to take them down and complete their mission, but on the other hand, they could fail to pull the stunt off and end up losing their lives. It was a huge gamble that they needed to tackle immediately to ensure the success of the mission.
"How are we going to do this?" Cherry asked while attempting to look for an opening. "We could try distracting them, but it’s too risky."
"Listen closely, we don’t have much time until this thing shatters. Ace and Cherry, you two will take the smaller ones. Make sure to sprint towards their back. That’s most likely their blind spot. If you’re attacking, go for their hinges. Anya and I will go for the main one. I’ll take out its legs while you go for the top of the machine. Is that clear?" He asked Anya, who simply nodded in agreement.
Ace and Cherry agreed too and began to move ahead with the plan. With his arms starting to feel a little better, Ace decided to drop the whole ’do it in my human form’ act and transformed into his blood mutant form. Thanks to his symbiote, he could now maintain the form much longer due to his massively increased energy pool.
Ace and Cherry appeared from the left and right-hand sides of the blood shield and sprinted towards the two smaller mechs. Almost immediately, those controlling the mechs started to fire at them but missed skilfully. Given that they were smaller and faster than the mechs, the Haras firing and missing were like a child trying to pee on a housefly. It was just too fast for them to land a shot, but that did not stop them from firing anyway.
[Blood Clone Skill: Activated.] Tʜe source of this ᴄontent ɪs 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡•𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚⚫𝙣𝙚𝙩
Ace and Cherry created cloned versions of themselves, which further confused the Haras piloting the mechs. As the clones remained in their range of view, the two siblings rushed over to the back and immediately started to cause as much damage as they could to the machines.
Ace cut his palms and jumped onto the back leg of his mech. He then smeared his blood onto the leg and created balls of his own blood, which he later placed into the mechs’ hinges and joints. Cherry, on the other hand, created thick blood spikes and fired them into the complex mechanics of the mechs. Once she had enough spikes in there, she liquified all the blood and hardened it once more, causing the mechanics in the mech to malfunction.
[Explosive Blood Skill: Activated.]
Ace activated his explosive blood skill and watched as the mech’s back leg started to break apart. Slowly but surely, the Haras inside jumped out and made a run for it, only for them to end up dead by Ace’s blood-sucking hands.
[+20 creatures killed.]
[Due to their smaller size, you’ll be granted five experience points for each kill.]
Cherry did not destroy her mech’s leg like her brother did, but she did manage to disrupt the important components inside the machine. In the end, the Haras started to jump out as the mech lost control and smashed into the larger one that Jim and Anya were dealing with.
The last mech was rammed into so hard that it tilted onto its side and failed to get back up. Having already conceded defeat, the last of the Haras came out of the ship with their hands above their heads, an action that surprised the four blood mutants who thought that only humans surrendered in that manner.
"Iriak tu no....fuztecto malakash tipu....."
[Translation in Progress.]
[WE SURRENDER TO YOU. DO NOT TAKE OUR LIVES. WE ARE YOUR SLAVES.]
{Mission Objective Complete.}
{The Colony has been regained for the Granians.}
As soon as the M.O.S. had congratulated the four blood mutants on their progress, a smaller ship, coming from the Granian Mother Ship, landed on the planet next to where the blood mutants were. From the ship came Grim, One Horn, and Grand Master, each holding blood mutant blockers in their hands.
[Blood Mutant Form Deactivated.]
[A blocker has been detected. Your power has been temporarily shut down.]
"I would congratulate you four for a job well done," Grim spoke with a distasteful look on his face, "but you have managed to destroy an important piece of equipment that we needed for this mine. Those mechs you destroyed are the only things strong enough to harvest the Etil from this planet. Without them, it’ll take a much longer time for us to extract them. Do you have any idea what you four have done?"
"No, no we didn’t. Do you know why?" Anya, who was clearly angered by Grim, spoke up with her temper rising as well. "You did not tell us that we were not supposed to destroy those machines
. All you said was to regain the colony through these stupid mission objectives stuck in our minds. Maybe if you were more specific, we would have approached this differently."
"Be calm, human." Grand Master came in with a gentle calmness in his voice. "It is us who were at fault for not giving you proper information, so your frustration is understood. Congratulations on completing your first mission. We watched from above and saw how you used the training we gave you effectively, but your duty is not finished yet."
"You still have two more planets to regain before we move on to the next. This was just the first." One Horn continued. "Do not worry too much. This planet is the more challenging one compared to the others. We will send you off immediately so that you can begin as soon as possible."
"Why are you sending us?" Anya angrily asked as she and Grim exchanged ugly looks. "Why can’t you do this yourselves? You clearly have the power and technology to do so, so why don’t you do it?"
"It’s a way of training for us," Jim answered, "I feel like we’ve told you this before. They can do it, but they sent us instead so that we can increase our strength. Does that make it clear for you?"
"Fine." Anya huffed quietly as she closed her eyes and looked away from Grim. The others continued talking for a while until it was decided that they would move on to the next planets. Jim and Anya would handle one, while Ace and Cherry would handle the other.
Once that was settled, two ships were brought down from the Granian Mothership and used to send the four blood mutants to their designated locations to continue their new objective.