Chapter 12

Not Bad. Maybe a Little Off Center.

The bomb pellet shotguns were incrdible close range weapons. Frankie had me shoot her at close range, twenty meters, forty meters, and sixty meters. She wanted me to experience what the weapon was and wasn’t capable of. The shot string allowed the shotgun to have a range up to forty meters.

I was extremely nervous to shoot her at first. She didn’t even bat an eye. Her slime shield absorbed the damage. Her shield illuminated at each impact of the shotgun spread and sizzled to life. Then each pellet expanded before they exploded. She was blasted a dozen meters back into space. Her mech tumbled and her thrilling laugh made me smile.

She engaged her rocket engines and flew right back to me, still laughing.

“Is that the best part of your job?” I said. “Blowing up?”

“Yea. Yea, it is,” she said. “That and building stuff. The worst part is when some jackass doesn't properly care for their mechs or Cymech suits. I’m talking about you, buddy.”

“I did my best on that mission, you know.”

“Yea-yea, we all do our best. What do you want for it, a gold medal?”

“You have to realize I didn’t mean to nearly destroy Orion.”

Frankie gave a big sigh and glared at me. “Listen robot man, you’ve got a lot to learn about being a Cymech. Let’s cut the chit-chat for now. We’re moving on to your next weapon, the double start percussive drill. It’s a single piece on the large right compartment of your mech's abdomen. You’re going to fit your mech’s hand in the sleeve. Grasp the handle, and twist and lock.”

I opened the right side of the abdomen of my mech and saw a massive single piece of metal. I fit my mech’s hand into the sleeve, grasped the handle and twisted. The click of the lock reverberated through the whole mech.

“Alright now bring it out,” Frankie said.

I pulled the drill out. It was massive, nearly the size of my body. At least twice as wide. Orion guided me on using the connecting mana circuits to power the drill.

“Rev it up,” Frankie said. “One of my favorite tools—weapons I should say, I guess. Be mindful though that it's percussive so you’re going to feel it.”

I revved up the drill and it hammered back and forth like a piston at an insane speed. It was a little bit hard to control and Frankie yelled at me to be careful not to let it swing back on me.

“Damn it, Cyborg,” she said. “Careful!”

I revved it up again and move my arm around to get a feel for it. I wasn’t sure how it would come in handy for battles, and Frankie groaned in frustration when I asked her to clarify its purpose.

“It’s a drill, dinghead. You drill through things with it. You can debilitate enemy mechs, you can sabotage small ships, you can break into ships—there’s tons of reasons to use it. Watch, I’m going to put up my shield again and you’re going to use it on me.”

As soon as Frankie’s shield was up again, I rushed towards her. I slammed the drill towards her belly and it stopped at the border of the shield. I revved the drill at top speed and jammed it into the shield. In mere seconds, I heard a loud crack of layered lightning and her shield fizzled away.

“Stop!” Frankie said engaging a number of rocket engines on the front of her mech and blasting backwards. It’s a good thing she did because my drill shot forward right after destroying her shield, nearly missing her. “Alright, that was good. See how much more damage that did compared to the bomb pellet shotgun?”

“I’m quite impressed actually.”

“Really?”

“Yea, seeing how much damage it can do really flipped a switch for me.”

Frankie beamed with pride, then blew on her bangs.

“Oh it’s nothing. I just tried to perfect a tool historically used in construction. Ya know? No big deal. It’s one of my most requested mech tools by Mira’s Domain.”

“You’re incredibly skilled at your job,” I said.

Frankie paused for a moment, smiling bigger than I’d ever seen before. Her eyes sparkled in starlight. Then a blush crept up to her cheeks and she cleared her throat.

“Alright, Cyborg. One more weapon. Laser send blaster. We’re going to use a simulation for your target for this one. The gun is located in compartment RF20. On your right forearm.”

Orion once again helped me locate the mana circuit that powered compartment RF20. A long strip of metal opened up on my mech’s right forearm and a gun emerged on a stand. The weapon was massive. There’s no chance in hell I would be able to pick it up on my own. I doubted I could even pick it up with my Cymech suit.

Frankie broke down how the gun worked. It had an aperture that changed the size of the laser blast. The lower the aperture, the bigger the laser blast was going to be. The higher the aperture, the smaller and more bullet-like it was going to be. Both Frankie and I were looking forward to testing my skills with it.

“Alright, I’m starting the simulation,” she said. “Various enemies are going to appear in the distance. This isn’t a test of time or accuracy. This is simply so you can test out the weapon.”

I lifted the humongous rifle from its stand and brought the scope up to my mech’s visor.

“Use IMINT do consider distance, aperture is configured through mana circuits,” Frankie said.

I looked out into space with my own vision. An enemy mech appeared. It was purple sheen obsidian and encased in a slime shield. IMINT read that it was one hundred meters away so I adjusted the rifle to one hundred meters.

“Your enemy is shielded,” Frankie said. “Set your aperture to its lowest setting for full blast. Then fire when ready, Cyborg.”

After adjusting the range and aperture, and locking my sights on target, I fired. There was zero recoil. A massive bright green explosion destroyed the enemy’s slime shield. The explosion was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. It wasn’t an explosion of gas or flame. It was an explosion of laser destruction, almost like a packed cloud of fireworks.

“Excellent,” Frankie said. “Set your aperture to its highest setting and fire when ready.”

[Brother,] Orion thought. [Use your cyborg eye to view through the scope. Bypass the screens entirely.]

It took a moment for me to switch my Cyborg vision to that of the rifle’s scope. I was disoriented at first, because there were so many outlets for which I could switch my vision to. My mech’s visors, my Cymech suit’s visors, and the different camera angles around my mech. At last I was able to view through the scope.

“Any day now, Mr. Robot. You can do it. I believe in you.”

I lined up my shot and fired. A single point of laser light appeared on the forehead of the simulated enemy mech. Then it fizzled out of existence like an old cathode ray tube benign shut off.

“Not bad,” Frankie said. “Maybe a little off center. Now let’s try some ships and other enemies at further distances. Ready and—Go!”