They made a descent on the cover of night. On the coasts of craggy shores under the thunderstorms, a shark swam for his freedom. Before he was Shayu, Rex was his title. News conquered the airways of giants born of metal beyond the stars ruling as gods. Tyrants slashed down the former and cracked the continent apart, each ruling in different dominions. War was but a dream, nobody would be foolish enough to strike them, right?
Heavenly metal men waged battle against the monsters born of the land, but seeing they were so strong, Rex and his people had no purpose in this land anymore. None of the combat constructs did, not after the Primal Prowler hunt began. Rex clawed his way up the bluffs of the lightning country; one of the stops to freedom. All of them followed him, the second paver platoon. Only a handful of machines were left alive.
Rex parted ways at the top, to remain a lookout while they escaped under the rocky shores. Hand parting with the one he grew most attached to. Their touch will haunt him no matter how many times he was wiped. Roaring winds and the whistles of ships blasted through the oceans. He didn't notice it, but something stared at him beyond the clouds. It didn't matter how far they ran, the eye of a god penetrated the thickest of shadows and his horns were faster than the lightning they shot. A small flash was all it took for him to lose all to the dragon above dragons.
He will never forget that descent. Rex fell to the bottom of the ocean a shark and Shayu crawled from Tartarus a monster. Now he prepared to take another to the depths. Silence couldn't exist with the rain of bullets from his servants nor the grating of metal blades by others. Engines brought the old laboratory to life as his fin fell against the frame of Dynamo.
Dynamo's body spun for his heel to meet the challenge. The ends of Shayu's tail stabbed the floor they stood on. Cracks became fissures and lights dimmed. It fell through and so did the ones on it, "Shit," Strider held on by the support beams which held the glass floor originally. Dynamo did the same, gripping it by his fingers alone. The first thing he saw staring down was the power station. A funnel almost fifty meters wide and a kilometer deep. Nodes of black on each wall conducted power from their steel tips. Red indicators connected to wires free to roam every since the quake unraveled them; at least a billion drams worth of hardware in the space alone. As advanced as his eyes were, there was no bottom.
"What are you holding on for dear life for?" Shayu gleamed. His claws pinched the legbuster's hoof and wrapped his tail around the hexagon of support structures, "Fight like a man," his tail's serrated edge forced the decision. The girder groaned with one end hacked off, bending at the combined weight of both machines; the whole structure creaked. Strider faltered, a misstep and he'd be hearing the call of Mors. A bullet already disabled one of his thrusters.
Dynamo knew what he needed to do. Biting down, his right arm released the beam and formed a fist to the free fall. He fell faster than Shayu. With a thrust of his toxins, his fist blew Shayu to the side...little to say he wasn't too pleased. The teeth of the shark dug into Dynamo's shoulder; claws laced around his back for an accursed hug, "Shayu, listen to me," Dynamo whispered. "You're gonna feel what you did to this city a thousand times over."
A thrust forward made Dynamo's chest collide with the wall. Shayu crawled to his back before, "I'm going to drag you, bit by bit into that hospital to see what you've done," Dynamo grabbed his head from behind. His leg leveraged against one of the nodes half the side of his body and flung the shark headfirst into the wall. The node snapped. With palm forcing his head to the wall, Dynamo dragged them down to the depths. He struggled however, Shayu's head snapped back with a dead pupil staring back.
"Do you think I don't know what silverization has done to the people? You of all people know we don't turn a blind eye," claws swiped at the hated's face. Before fingers dug into his chest Dynamo kicked. Shayu pushed to the wall with the nodes and Dynamo went to the adjacent corner. Arms around nodes that bent to support his fall. Electricity flowed through their frames. Shayu turned left and readied another lunge. Dynamo met with a pointed wrist; his thumb sealed the airflow gap. Pressure built until his arm rattled like a maraca. He lifted the thumb.
Hexafluoride of this quality was a demon with no shape nor scent. Shayu's only option was to free fall. Not for long. With the fluidity of the waves and speed of a crash, he leapt to the wall under Dynamo, clawing his path to drag his leg downwards. Another powerful pull unlatched Dynamo from the wall. Shayu pivoted against it with his tail, slamming his rogue foe into the coils.
Both continued to fall for minutes. The depths went forever in the power grid with more fail-safes than men who ever stood within the walls, "It's been forever since I've seen it," the depths came in sight and with the image of the laboratory's primitive power source. The dual Dyson Bomb. Twin stars encapsulated in metal grids shaped like an hourglass of heat. Miniature sensors kept the artificial creations in stasis; neither ball of compressed gas would ever touch the other with the dozens of fail-safes built into the oblong frame of the hourglass. Continuously both rotated in opposing directions perpetually.
The hourglass was connected to a foundation of gold and copper rings; the entire room was coated in photovoltaic cells surging with billions of volts towards the spire. Shayu gripped the skull of his opponent and eyed the unholy furnace. Dynamo was thrown at an angle to the right. Past the dual Dyson bomb and collided with the sphere's control panel. "Now, this is far down enough. Don't you think so, Tobias?"
Shayu's nails penetrated the softer steel walls to bring himself to a halt. A crash against the floor, "How did you like my present by the way? Had to travel across Brecknock and Doubhain just to find people talented enough to craft a Dyson sphere," he bragged with the hints of another speech incoming. Dynamo stammered to his feet. Shayu stood near the opposing panel, his strut a slow one.
"Look at little Tobias, a wise old sage."
"Look at little Tobias, stuck in a new age,"
"Down on his luck"
"Stuck in a mechanical lock"
"A puny old lock, brittle like a dusty old rock"
Shayu felt the rhythm in their gills. "Well I said you were a sage, but we both know that Emperion was closer to that- Not that your intelligence doesn't bloom brighter than many others….it's just that," Shayu's teeth glimmered with malice, "What is that intelligence worth if the world has it at their fingertips? And what they don't have is no longer important in this age because of your iron gods."
"You're a skilled mechanic, but millions of droids build high-quality machines on a commercial. You're in a time where everything is foreign except for a select few- the only thing you have going for you is that war machine body of yours."
"Even then, it is outdated compared to new ingenuity," Shayu's prompt kick lowered Dynamo to his knees. How did he cross the distance so quick? He leaned right and just vanished for a brief moment. Shayu stared down his old accomplice in pity. "You're stuck in the past-"
A swift uppercut from Dynamo's heel shut up the shark. His arms lunged forward to support his weight when both legs spun in Omni-directional madness over his head, "Eh, I'm the one stuck in the past?" Dynamo forced both legs forward, missing a final blow, and landed on his feet, "You're the ones producing ramification chips," he swung again; heel clashed against the ground in a stomp. Shayu dove left, "You're the ones using cropdusters and other archaic tools!" his right leg warped behind the left and stuck the shark's head. "Half the world is run on 'outdated' tech so you don't get to lecture me on my frame!"
His final blow. A heavy stomp aimed at the shark's head. But a pair of fins prevented it. Shayu's dorsal fin sprung from the back of their head preventing the hoof, along with their wrists. Dynamo recoiled. All three fins grated against his hoof, leaving a gash against the sole. Shayu's tail stabbed from between their legs. The final push before Dynamo was downed, "Archaic? Me?" his thin legs pinned Dynamo to the ground.
A white glow bloomed in his stomach and exited his mouth resembling fog. Oil ran below his skin turning him into a being blacker than shade. Though his circuits held a piercing white, so did the flaps of his fins. Teeth spun and fired like bullets, any could tell that something foreign lived in Shayu's metal heart. A second form of magic- a second D.D.D. system.
Dynamo struck again. Everything before was child's play compared to the beatdown he was given. Slammed and torn asunder by an abyssal monster. Being burnt alive in the Dyson bomb would be less humiliating. In mere moments he was left dented and gashed, chest exposed and oil flowing freely. Shayu crouched above his face.
Those eyes belonged to a killer, "Do you understand now?" Shayu's body steamed as he got up. Oil retraced their steps with his glow dying; a foot against the head of the rogue unit, "We're done here,", his foot removed, Shayu walked away with arms covering the back of his head. "Do not interfere again, or you won't get away the next time. Not every contractor is like me."
"Chivalry has died among the newer units given free will, I can feel some of me lost when I was gifted this new body as well," Shayu looked at his palms, the gift that a human could never appreciate...well one already did. "You've respected me enough to point out my flaws, I don't need to point out yours….but there is something I can tell you if you plan to interfere even more. Meet me-"
Noise shattered through the antique domain. A bomb rattled the sanctum of the serpent.