Curate, connect, and discover
BOOTING UP...
BOOTING UP...
ISF9 ROBOTICS SUB-DIVISION (424 AFE)
CMBTRN MK2 BCS REVISION 023
CPU: CALCUTEC HEXALITH CLUSTER CPU E0812
LOADER V2.1
EXEC VERSION 32.43
64 GDUNITS RAM SYSTEM
20 GDUNITS FREE
50 TDUNITS PRIMARY DATA STORAGE
38 TDUNITS FREE
EXTERNAL DATA STORAGE FOUND AND CONNECTED (ISF9 ROBOTICS DIVISION, B-BOX MK51)
LOAD ROM(1): GENERAL.OS
LOAD COMPLETE
INITIALIZING...
COMMENCING SELF-DIAGNOSTIC PROCEDURES...
MOTIVE SYSTEMS: WALKER, BIPEDAL / QUADRUPEDAL / HEXAPEDAL, DIGITIGRADE, OPERATIONAL
GYROS AND ACCELEROMETERS OPERATING NORMAL
MANIPULATORS: FOUR, FIVE-FINGERED, OPERATIONAL
SENSORY SYSTEMS: ADVANCED TARGETING SENSOR COMPLEX, ADVANCED RECON SENSOR COMPLEX, THREE GENERAL AWARENESS SENSOR COMPLEXES
POWER SOURCE: TWO INTEGRAL ULTRA-HIGH DENSITY RECHARGEABLE ARCANE ENERGY BATTERIES (ALL 100% CHARGED), ONE REMOVABLE ULTRA-HIGH DENSITY RECHARGEABLE ARCANE ENERGY BATTERY (100% CHARGED), MULTI-PURPOSE POWER CONVERTER
ADDITIONAL SYSTEMS: OPTICAL CLOAK - READY
WEAPONS: ASSAULT BEAM CANNON (POSSIBLE MODES - ASSAULT BEAM / ASSAULT PULSE), TWO CUTTER BLADES, TWO GRAPPLING HOOK LAUNCHERS (36 METERS, SMART HOOK)
VOCALIZER OPERATIONAL
OPERATION START.
Combatron found itself in a transport container. Considering unusual position and the fact, that startup sequence was initiated by the systems of container, which were very low on energy, some emergency situation happened, and now machine was to analyze it, find the way to humans and complete the mission in protecting them.
Because of how container was locked and lock itself was inoperable, combatron decided to take a way of force.
Machine deployed two cutter blades from the upper limbs, activated the blade enhancing system, enshrouding them in clouds of destructive arcane energy, then simply cut the container open, like a tin can, threw what remained of door away and jumped out, prepared to take on hostile targets.
Strangely enough, none were found nearby, and, apparently, the container itself was lying in some forest in the Kalos region. Combatron, after seven seconds of analysis, decided to move out to north, “hoping” to eventually find a human settlement. One activation of cloaking system later, and everything became silent.
Machine noticed the desolate land straight ahead. Since the arcane energy detectors were picking up some very strange readings, combatron resorted to quadrupedal movement in order to maximize speed. Right now, the only combat protocol in the robot’s mind was simple - “protect the civilians and eliminate hostile targets at all costs”.
Jan saw, how Yveltal prepared the Oblivion Wing, how the orb between wings and tail grew... and how, suddenly, bright blue beam from somewhere hit it and caused it to explode, cancelling the attack and throwing the Destruction Pokemon into uncontrollable tail-spin.
- Citizens, this is combatron robotic military unit speaking! - sounded from roughly the beam’s point of origin. When he and Aila turned their heads to it, they saw a six-limbed metallic construct dropping the invisiblity camouflage and swiftly turning cylindrical “head”, still slightly opened, like a backwards flower (authors note: like this), and glowing faint blue, from one side to another, searching for something.
- Citizens, I, as a most powerful military unit here, order you to evacuate at once to increase your chances of survival!
Jan wanted to object, but the thing somehow predicted it and continued:
- Failure to fulfill the given order will result in your death sentence with immediate execution!
- Let’s go, Aila, I don’t think we’ll make a difference in this battle, - motor-mouthed scared Jan, placing girl on the back of his Gogoat and setting a course for somewhere sufficiently far away from here. The metallic-looking six-limbed thing nodded in approvement and quickly jumped forward, saying something to barely-stabilized Yveltal.
- You are facing Combatron-class assault robot. Death is inevitable, - said the machine, before it cloaked and started to charge the Assault Beam Cannon. Of course, the chargeup sequence itself partially compromised cloaking field and took more time in stealth mode, but right now, it did not matter to arcane robot - the only thing that mattered was the success of mission, and even in the current state, it was cloaked enough to disrupt hostile’s ability to aim effectively.
As much as machine would’ve liked, the Yveltal didn’t hover in one place - rather, it started to use general aerial attack patterns, similar to those, used by the most Flying-type Pokemon.
The first attack was saturation Razor Wind, directed at general location of the combatron. Though it, thanks to spread, barely scratched the paintwork on armor, it still made a disturbance to the cloaking field. Thankfully, combatron was able to cling to a rocky cliff and avoid being detected.
The next attack was another Oblivion Wing, targeted at escaping civilians. Because they were executing order to evacuate and combat protocols ordered so, machine was forced to prematurely fire the Assault Beam Cannon, exposing itself, in order to cancel the hostile’s attack and allow non-combatants to pull away safely.
The third was Dark Pulse, directed almost precisely at the combatron. Machine instantly disengaged the gripping system, allowing itself to fall off the cliff to avoid the powerful attack.
- No quarter! - replied robot, switching the Assault Beam Cannon to Assault Pulse mode and quickly sending two small beams of energy in hostile Pokemon. Yveltal shuddered, as streams of destructive arcane energy burned holes in his flesh, but continued the pursuit for elusive machine, furious in how it managed to allow the prey to escape and was trying to take the Destruction Pokemon down, barely noticing, that combatron was slowly luring it away from the human settlement.
The battle was raging on for the second hour already, with no immediate winner in sights. While the first part of the combatron’s plan - lure the hostile away from the civilians - was a total success, the robot still needed to defeat it for the sake of a world’s safety.
As usual, the Destruction Pokemon was commencing strafing runs with either Oblivion Wing or Hyper Beam one after another, sometimes adding Dark Pulse or Razor Wind for coverage, while the combatron was attacking it with Assault Pulses and, sometimes, trying to hit it with Assault Beam (not often, though, since it was draining batteries like no tomorrow).
Machine registered, how close Yveltal was passing to it this time, and took a chance.
Left lower hand raised, grappling hook launched. While recoil was pretty harsh, it was taken in account during aiming sequence.
Unfortunately, the hostile Pokemon made a sharp turn, evading the hook. Combatron instantly engaged the hoist, retracting the hook along with a rope back into the launcher, and swiftly jumped out of the way of another attack.
- The fight is already over, monster! - boldly announced machine, activating the Assault Beam Cannon and firing several small shots, trying to damage the wings and force the hostile Pokemon to land, where it would sever the spinal cord and slice the brain apart with the cutter blades.
It was a fifth hour of the fight, which continued to rage on even at night.
Both of the combatants were on their last reserves. Yveltal’s body was already overtaxed and overheated, while the combatron had exhausted two batteries, meant mostly for supplying weapons with energy, and was running on the third one only.
Combatron noticed, how the Yveltal, tired as he was, prepared to fire partially-charged Oblivion Wing at the machine. Unable to use the Assault Beam Cannon to cancel out the hostile attack, robot crossed the deployed cutter blades before itself and reconfigured their energy cover, extending it like some sort of a shield.
The impact of a Flying-type attack, capable of nearly-instantly draining life energy from other lifeforms, dissipated on the impromptu deflector, but it was at price - overloaded blade enhancing system malfunctioned, leaving the blades useless and damaging the servos of outer arms. However, it left Yveltal, who passed a little too low, open, and machine took that chance.
Combatron jumped with all power it’s servos were able to provide and fired both of the hooks, hitting the Yveltal this time and quickly pulling itself to him. Barely, but arcane robot still somehow managed to get a decent grip on the Legendary embodiment of death. The upper limbs, which, originally, housed deadly cutter blades, were out of commision, weapon energy supply was flat, but machine still had something left.
Barely clenching to the feathered skin, arcane robot has managed to move itself to the head of the Yveltal. Blue eyes of the Legendary Pokemon of Destruction, the Death Embodied, intersected with several lifeless sensors of the most advanced killer machine in the world, neither of them bearing any trace of empathy or sorrow.
Combatron, despite Destruction Pokemon desperately trying to shake it off, had finally alinged itself with the part of beast’s skull, where the brain was located, and steadied the joints.
Energy source switched, power rerouted. The head-mounted Assault Beam Cannon started opening like a backwards flower once again, howling chargeup sound getting higher with each millisecond passing and cannon itself glowing blue brighter and brighter.
Combatron registered, how fast the energy from the main power supply was draining, but machine couldn’t care less about it - if the beam makes contact, it’ll be worth it, even if it’ll mean total cessation of the combatron’s operation.
Yveltal understood, how the thin-limbed metallic thing, despite all of the damage, started preparing the most powerful beam attack, directed right at his head, and he couldn’t do anything about it. For the first time in untold millenia, the Destruction Pokemon was not angry, not annoyed, not furious, but outright terrified. And then everything broke loose.
Monstrously powerful beam erupted from the energy cannon. Even the skin of the Legendary, capable of shrugging off any but strongest attacks, could not stand in the path of focused destructive arcane energy of such a magnitude.
The bright blue beam easily atomized the skin and tore through the skull, completely destroying the brain, and then continued along the neck and spine, which were “lucky” to happen to be in the way of beam after the Yveltal’s attempts to throw the combatron off. In less than four seconds, a decent parts of head, back and tail of the Destruction’s embodiment ceased to exist.
The wretched corpse of the Yveltal, along with powerless husk of combatron, fell into the lake, dead machine still clinging on what remained of Destruction Pokemon.
When two dead deathbringers impacted the water’s surface, combatron’s powerless servos easily gave up, as it was thrown away from the Yveltal’s body, which skipped across the surface a single time, like a stone.
After both of them sunk to a considerable depth, Destruction Pokemon’s true ability has finally kicked in, starting to absorb life energy of everything around (which was not that much) and trying to fold what remained of the body into the Cocoon form. It’ve succeeded... mostly, because sheer scale of damage, done to the body, and insufficient amount of absorbed life force prevented normal full-scale resurrection sequence from taking place. It has required a fresh start, start from the very zero, start from anew.
On the bottom of the lake, inside what would normally be an Yveltal, folded into a Cocoon form, old life, which was to be eternal, has perished for good and entirely new one was born. It was smaller and weaker by magnitude of several orders, but, at least, it was.
Back in the ASE’s days, the Combatron-class assault robot was thought to be true pride of the Soris’ military robotics. This machine was one of the most advanced and powerful battle robots ever created.
Standing 1m 70cm high, this anthropomorphic arcane science-based robot had six limbs.
The two upper limbs, in additional to five-fingered palm manipulators, housed very sharp, sturdy and durable cutter blades, which could’ve been made even more deadly by activating the blade enhancing system and enshrouding them in clouds of typeless destructive arcane energy. In the idle mode, the blades were folded to the forearms like a switchblade.
The two middle limbs had five-fingered palms and could house two elbow-mounted arcane repeater guns of submachine guns. In practice, however, they were mostly left empty, to enhance robot’s mobility. Some of the later robots, however, had two grappling hook launchers installed here, to enhance the mobility of machine.
The two lower limbs were digitigrade, six repositionable digits total.
All limbs had advanced gripping systems, which allowed them to climb smooth vertical walls like a Treecko. In addition to it, the small deployable claws allowed for better grip on non-smooth surfaces (though they were pretty good at ripping flesh too).
The servos of the combatron were able to provide enough power and movement speed to allow robot to quickly jump from wall to wall even in the halls with 20 meters between walls.
Inside the main logic core, the combatron had Calcutec Hexalith Cluster CPU, 64 GDUnits (GigaDataUnits) of RAM and 50 TDUnits (TeraDataUnits) of ROM. This setup, along with advanced software, allowed machine for being pretty smart, although not really sapient (bar few experimental models)
The combatron also had the cloaking system, based on the research of the Lati dragon’s cloaking abilities. While it had some quirks (namely, only worked at full capacity if robot moved slowly enough and was slowly giving away as the Assault Beam Cannon was charging), it still gave robot an undeniable combat advantage.
The mostly-cylindrical head housed the main weapon of this robot - the dreaded Assault Beam Cannon. While it, theoretically, could fire in several different modes - short pulse, cutting beam or beam of incredible power, capable of obliterating pretty much everything (the Assault Beam). However, the first two modes were, for some reason, wearing down the cannon’s system too much, so, they were very rarely used.
The key to everything in this robot was the power source - two integral and one removable ultra-high density rechargeable arcane energy batteries and multi-purpose power converter. They were also key to its enormous price, since they were incredibly hard and expensive to produce. The recharge was also quite a problem, since very few power sources could provide sufficient amount of power in sufficiently short time.
Before and during the Ancient Soris War, only two thousands of units were produced. Some of them were deployed and fought on the battlefields of Soris, some of them were stashed and never activated and some were moved to the colonies during the final phase of war to act as their guardians. However, not all robots were successfully transported and some were lost.
However, the last part does not apply to the Shift-verse, where the Empire, instead of Ancient Soris War, got time-shifted 3100 years ahead and, therefore, was never destroyed and even prospered in the new time.
- How much more? - asked military engineer his comrade, continuing to walk upstairs.
- Ten more stories and that’ll be it, - responded the grenadier. - By the way, do you know, what the flak this crystalline shit is? It’s nearly swallowed the city! Good thing we still have this skyscraper far enough from the target to install lased designator on and be sure it wont go down after the strike, bad - our Flygons are no more...
- About those crystals - brainheads said something about psychics, living sigils and such, but the only thing concerning me is how we will deal with this. As if these flakkers rampages weren’t enough... Now we also have to deal with some Johto weirdass crap. Wait, did you hear that?
- “Stop right away!”, in some ghostly voice? I did, - said the grenadier, readying his revolver grenade launcher. - Whatever it is, we still have our mission. Is laser designator ready?
- Ready, ready. I still wonder, how Givi has managed to modify old laser rangefinder into a designator for missiles?
- The same way, as you’ve called them, “brainheads” modified weather rockets into some kind of a ballistic missiles. By the way, WTF is loaded into their warheads?
- Some arcane... nuke... whatever it is, it’s flakkin’ complicated. I do remember they use both nuclear fission and something arcane. Six missiles shall be enough to carry a decent payload.
- Agreed. Did you see that? - whispered soldier, quickly turning and shooting dangerous Pokemon with buckshot charge.
- Flakkin’ illusion, - barked engineer, seeing, how the figure dissipated after being hit. - Let’s hurry up, these crystalline shits are psychic and growing out of control!
- Flak, I’m running low on buckshots, - said grenadier, placing the grenade launcher on his back and taking the SMG into his hands. - And I don’t wanna get ourselves killed with shockwaves or waste corrosive munition on phantoms!
- Do your best, ‘cause these flakkers can actually attack now, - responded engineer, wiping blood from his eybrow. Mere seconds ago, a huge phantom attacked him and nearly slashed his neck open with pseudo-material claw. Thankfully, several bullets or a single buckshot grenade launcher charge were able to make them dissipate, but sheer ease, with which these phantoms were appearing, put survival of two soldiers and mission success under question.
-There we are, - happily said grenadier, reloading his primary weapon. - Zheka - put this flakkin’ designator down and lase the target.
- Here it goes, - whispered engineer, deploying the device and flipping the switch on it. - Givi, Ashot, Alexei - target’s being lased, how’s secondary radio guidance signal?
- Crystal clear! Five more minutes - and it’ll be very hot at the impact point! Evacuate and get ready to watch the fireworks!
- Evacuation impossible, foe possesses psychic abilities, can destroy designator. Requesting permission to hold on and protect designator until missiles fly.
-... Permission granted. Guys, try to make out of it alive.
- We’ll try our best, but no guaranties, except for providing guidance. Foe has some great psychic powers.
- Just how much more of them? - roared the grenadier, firing another HE grenade at the group of phantom Pokemon. - Zheka - hang in there, I’ll try to hold’em in the corridor!
- OK, Sasha! So, flakkers, do you think humans’ll go down easily?! SUCK ON MY HOLLOWPOINT BULLETS!!! - screamed engineer, letting his assault rifle loose on the phantoms. While he succeeded in destroying most of them, one has still managed to get in close and nearly cut him in two. While his attempt has mostly failed, Yevgeniy still got a huge deep slash across his chest, in addition to all of the previous wounds. - Shit...
Engineer, having no more power to stand upright, collapsed, but dragged himself near the laser designator and braced for firing his rifle from this position.
- Sanya, Zheka, here it goes! Get ready to receive the present! - suddenly sounded happy Givi’s voice from the radio.
- Flakkin’ finally! - whispered the bleeding soldier, looking at the window and seeing, how six yellow dots appeared near the horizon and started to speed to the designated point. Mere minute after, these dots revealed themselves to be ballistic missiles, three of which were going to target significantly faster, than the rest. Engineer saw, how these missiles exploded just before phantom Pokemon and crystalline storm would be able to intercept them and released a titanic amount of arcane Dark-type energy, causing phantoms to vanish and crystalline matter to darken and fall into dust.
- Here goes the second wave - cackled the grenadier, watching, how remaining three missiles flew to the lased point and exploded in the storm of atomic fire, hotter than hundreds of Magcargos and brighter than thousands of suns.
- Good thing we have those helmets and goggles. - said Yevgeniy, seeing his comrade ducking alongside him under the window to avoid getting burned by the intense light. - Just how much kaboom they’ve managed to put in them?
- From what it looks like, 50 kilotons or so per missile. By the way, Zhek, what do you think will kill us first - wounds or radiaton sickness?
- Well, judging from how close we were to explosions, how the building has somehow managed to hold solidly and protect us from overpressure wave and how my rad-meter is fried, my bet’s on the radiation sickness. Also, how we didn’t die from so much radiation instanly?
- Who knows. I don’t think we will be able to get to the brainheads in time to ask them, and our radio is fried as well. OK, now the target’s being... - grenadier peered at the window, seeing nothing more than boiling magma-like mass and no traces of crystals, phantoms or any Pokemon for that matter, - completely annihilated and us being in less than two days from death, how about a last game of preferans? I’ve got some cards in my pocket!
- OK, hand’em over! - laughed engineer, taking cards in his hands.