Although the shells and laser beams failed to penetrate and burn through my alloy coated skeleton only managing to dent It and create glowing spots they still shredded my armor, clothes, skin, and muscles.
HOPES 3dPV
One second Hope was running after Dracula like wind Itself while occasionally giving a glance towards her six and the next she found herself pinned under him.
She watched In disbelief as Dracula's back got pounded by what could only be described as a mech with weapons for arms.
She was so shocked that she didn't even feel the stray shrapnel sink Into her skin while the heat generated by the laser caused her skin to blister.
Suddenly a shell Impacted Draculas faces right side, before she could react two muscular arms covered her face.
Protecting It from gruesome fate, the moment Dracula retracted his arms Hope froze as she looked at Dracula's nanocomposite alloy covered skull now visible for all the world to see.
For a moment she stopped breathing, although Dracula Identified himself as not human a number of times.
She still considered him one but now after seeing what really hid beneath that unhealthy pale skin of his her view of him changed.
"Run! I SAID F*CKING RUN!"
Hope heard Dracula roar at the top of his lungs but didn't react one bit only to receive a burning slap to her face which woke her up Instantly from her shellshocked state.
"RUN! NOW!"
Hope once again heard Dracula roar as she did she scrambled to her feet and started sprinting towards the sitting-on-the-ground gunship that continued to tear the zombies to pieces with Its gattling guns.
MC POV
"Get her out of here''
I ordered Yin as I stood up to face the mech glaring at me with Its bloodred glowing round mechanical eye as It started charging Its fixed on me mass accelerator canon which was evident from the gathering electricity Inside It.
"I just had to f*cking run Into this thing didn't I?"
I cursed under my breath as my now loose hair or what was left of It floated In the air from the breeze generated by the gunship's thrusters.
The thing named Harbinger before me was the HDDs counter to cosmic marines and It was definitely an effective one even with our power armor on and our arsenal of high tech weaponry at our disposal.
A single cosmic marine would still find It beyond bothersome to take one of these things down.
But It also came with Its own downsides, for starters, It lacked the kind of mobility a cosmic marine had, second It was too easy of a target for heavy hitters such as MBTs or self-propelled howitzers, jet fighters and orbital strikes.
And third, although It was super effective as a shock unit It was still an autonomous robot run by a f*cking AI which had the habit of causing collateral damage to Its allies.
Plus It lacked the human element It couldn't improvise because the only thing It knew was how to destroy Its targets no matter the cost based on Its programming.
HOPES 3PV
"Dra, Drac! Wheres Drac?!"
The agitated Hope roared as she started looking around after jumping Into the gunship only to hear Yins roar.
"Forget him he told me to get you out of here and I'm gonna do just that! The only reason why we are still In one piece Is that Pheonix registers as friendly on that thing's sensors!"
Yin barked as she pulled her stick making the phoenix roar in fury as It ascended Into the sky.
"No! No! We can't leave him! I... I can't leave him!"
The hysterical Hope shouted as she ran to the open side almost falling out In the process only for old Lu to catch her by her armored vests back grip.
"Pipe down missy the brat Is right there's nothing we can do against that thing!"
Old Lu barked only to see multipurpose missiles exit the mech's shoulder honeycomb launcher as Dracula after picking up his battle brothers battle katana which took quite a beating started running towards the thing.
The missiles locked onto Dracula and beelined straight to him but before they could hit him the man either rolled, jumped, or slid causing the missiles to miss him just barely and explode around him after hitting the ground.
Seeing this the mech whose 40 mm gattling gun had run out of ammo while it's oversized laser gattling gun's red hot barrels were still cooling off.
Lowered Its posture, two support beams exited the 200 mm howitzer fixed to Its back and sank into the ground.
The next second the howitzer erupted with a deafening explosion while a gust of flames exited the muzzle.
As the barrel moved backward and ejected the spent propellant and automatically loaded a new shell and Its propellant.
BOOM!
The 200 mm shell with a mini fission warhead exploded about 10 meters away from me as It did, a blinding light enveloped me.
Followed by a mini mushroom cloud and the kinetic force that flung me dozens of meters away.
My head was ringing, I could barely see and parts of my flesh had either been scrubbed away, vaporized, or melted with my clothes Into one vomit-inducing mess.
I tried to get up but my body just refused to comply.
Any second now another shell would land right on top of me and this time, well I was done for even If there was anything left of me, Hope just didn't have the means to rebuild my body.
HOPES 3PV
Hope slowly opened her bloodshot eyes full of tears despite the pain she was feeling.
While Yin whose eyes were protected by her fully enclosed helmets visors gave her all to stabilize the bird.
She quickly scanned the battlefield, as she did she spotted Dracula struggling to move his mangled figure.
The sight made her heart shatter, she felt like thousands of needles were poking It, but at the same time, she came to a decision.
She resolutely summoned the missile launcher that Dracula had scavenged from his battle brother's orbital drop supply pod.
Expertly hosted It onto her shoulder thanks to her grandpa's training In the use of RPGs and the AI stuffing her brain with Information on how to operate It.
Once the missile launch control unit automatically locked onto the autonomous mech she pressed the trigger causing the multipurpose missile to eject Itself from the launcher.
Once It did the missile lit up with blue flames and beelined straight towards the mech's side and before the mech could fire Its second shell exploded upon hitting the mech's mass accelerator cannon arm.
For a moment the mech lost Its footing as the ball of flames enveloped Its body causing the shell that It fired at the moment It got Impacted to deviate off course and explode behind Dracula.
"Do you have a f*cking death wish you g*ddamn b*tch?!"
Yin who knew that now It was either do or die because the mech would no longer treat them as allies roared as she flipped off her safeties and pressed her sticks firing button while her twin sister flipped all the rocket pod's launch buttons.
40 mm armor-piercing high explosive shells got spewed out from the two gattling canons Inbuilt on each side of the cockpit while all the unguided rockets exited their pods with a fury of flames.
"Fight! Get up and fight you f*cking c*nt!"
Hope roared at the top of her lungs while holding onto the gunship's safety net as she did her AI immediately connected Itself to Draculas.
MC POV
"...you f*cking c*nt"
I heard Hope scream Inside my mind as our AIs established a connection only for my view to become pitch black.