Chapter 14

Juan cursed as his fought the command crown from falling off his head. The shaking through the machine man seemed to be getting worse. And that was before Joe left for some odd reason.

‘Perhaps he went to investigate whatever that explosion was,’ thought Juan just as he was about try and push down the machine knight. The machine was getting close to the sword. Everything had gone to plan thanks to the fire that he had his Jaguar Warriors set, but if there was something bigger, that would be a problem for his plans.

Screaming into his mic, Juan got ready to strike the machine knight again. This time it would hit.

Willing the arms to bring down the club, Juan smiled. This would be his victory. Then when he hit the club down on mecha knight, it was point blank right in the chest.

However, the dent in the white armor disappeared in an instant. Juan pushed his machine man back with his controls. The club had splintered. Wood still started to fall apart and fall to the ground.

Juan watched as the machine knight continued shift over to the sword. Juan tried to figure what to do. The rock had fallen to the ground. It still could be a viable weapon. However, it would cause him to have to concentrate on keeping the rock in his hands.

“So, Mr. Backstabber. It seems like you lost your club.”

“Well, then fight me like a man, Colonizer!”

Juan noticed that the kid didn’t seem to get phased. “I am not Spanish, Juan. My people didn’t colonize this area of the world. The only one who might be related to someone from this area who took it over in three hundred years is you.”

Juan yelled at him. “It’s two hundred years until my father’s people show up.”

Ashton still inched towards the sword, but that caused Juan to immediately try to assault the mecha knight.

Before he could punch the mecha knight, the machine caught his right punch, and so Juan punched the left one. That got caught as well.

The two machines grappled for a moment.

Juan watched as stress on the machine started to mount as indicators went off. Juan tried to figured out a way to get out of this situation. However, he finally realized what to do.

“You call me a Colonizer, but you are descended from the English and probably German as well.”

Ashton responded as Juan started to push his machine forward. “I am German Hill Country on my mom’s mother’s side. If you are going to claim that’s Nazi when you are South American German, you might just have a chip on your shoulder as my father says.”

Juan smiled as he suddenly pulled back on his legs which sent the Mecha Knight away from the sword. Juan remembered to let go with his right hand through the command crown. But the sound of the cracking of metal made Juan realize that he might have just broken off the left arm of the machine.

“Wait, I think that I saw this once. You are going to say it is a flesh wound,” said Ashton.

The Mecha knight had his left arm in his right hand with a bend at the elbow with a stomp. Juan looked at the stomp which ended near the shoulder. Wires and sparks plus a metal bone structure had once been there, but now, Juan could only see an oily substance seemingly bleed from the wound.

In that moment, someone else would give up and surrender. Either through arrogance or sheer ineptitude, Juan realized that he still had a chance despite his machine-man being in disarray. The sword now was closer to Juan, and it was a sword. It was something designed to hurt machine men. Even if the machine knight had great armor that seemingly had the ability to repair it could be cut up with a sword designed for it.

Juan backed up and then squatted down and picked up the blade. Errors sounded in the machine man, but Juan didn’t care. Juan willed the blade up as the water stopped going down the stream but much of the water still went to the now put out trees.

Juan then walked towards the machine knight. Raising his right arm with the sword, he pushed the machine into a run. The machine knight did not flinch, but instead as the sword came down, the machine knight swiped with the severed robotic arm of Juan’s metal arm. However, the sword flew up into the air.

Hitting behind Juan, the machine man just sounded worse as klaxons wailed. The situation for Juan fell apart by the moment.

Then Juan noticed a large flying vehicle above him. It looked like a flying giant humpback whale with reverse flippers. Then one of four panels opened on the belly, and out of it dropped another machine man armed with what appeared two cannons on either shoulder.

“No, no,” said Juan as the other machine man painted pink fell to the ground.

The machine man had been upgraded with armor on its arms that gave it a more exaggerated upper body. The boomerang head seemed lower than the cannons.

“Oh, hi Juan. It’s Mary.”

Then the pink machine man fired its cannon. That hit Juan’s machine man’s right side of the chest which disappeared in an explosion.

In the confusion, the machine knight picked up the sword behind Juan as another volley of cannons fired on Juan this time damaging the legs.

The right leg suddenly disappeared into explosions, and the leg buckled as the inner metal structure collapsed. The machine man then fell over to the right. Fires from circuits erupted form the machine. Water hit the machine which doused the machine fires.

The cockpit flew open, and Juan appeared in a wet cloak. He quickly got out and he ran as the machine knight stabbed the machine with the sword which seeming shut down all power in the machine. Then the ancient machine finally died. It was at that point; Juan ran faster than he had ever done. The Aztec Jaguar Warrior accompanying him shielded him as he ran.

Ashton looked at his monitor as he picked up his sword, and of course, the radio was buzzing.

Merlin spoke. “You lost your sword. You don’t have any other weapons other than your fire mechanism in dragon mode, boy. It looks like the lasers failed. That’s going to need a check. What possessed you to lose your sword?”

Ashton winced at the thrashing that he received as Merlin continued. “It’s not likely for possibly a thousand years until the palm blasters on the machine knight can finally be installed.”

Ashton spoke up. “I was using the sword to divert water to the fires. It was the best that I could do to put out the fires, but Juan and another machine man marched into fight. I had boulders being thrown at me, and I couldn’t get back to the sword.”

Mary laughed. “And all of your accomplished was tearing off his arm.”

Ashton shook his head as he looked at a picture of her sitting in her cockpit. Most likely, she could see him. The oddest aspect was that he never saw Merlin who probably was on the ship. “Juan based his club against my machine which shattered. The problem is that those rocks along with being clubbed caused me to be unable to concentrate as well as the laser system. I was shaking.”

Merlin spoke immediately. “Keep your wits about you. There is another machine man according to my sensors. We’ll collect the destroyed machine later, but I am going to take my ship and investigate something that needs to be investigated since the beginning of this situation.”

The ship shifted positions in air, and it quickly shot over the horizon. Ashton shook his head. Placing the sword back into the scabbard, Ashton noticed that it looked like the machine seemed to be repairing the sword.

‘Dousing the sword in water apparently damaged it,’ thought Ashton.

Mary called on a separate channel. “Don’t let Merlin get you down. You did amazing despite me having to come at the end to save you.”

Ashton smiled. “Well, I almost got back my sword before he got me into an old fashion grappling match as Paul Vosch would say.”

Mary laughed. “You mean that old guy on channel 39 that comes on late on Saturday with all the rings.”

Ashton affirmed with a nod as his systems started to be uploaded data from the Avalon of where the signal seemed to be coming from. “Yeah, he is the wrestling commentator with a lot of rings.”

Mary kidded him. “You know my brother loves that show- he sneaks out of bed on Saturday to watch that with grandmother.”

Ashton moved his machine towards the path that Merlin apparently had laid out. “Your grandmother watches wrestling with your brother when he is supposed to be asleep on Saturday. Why is he not allowed to watch wrestling.”

Mary who had started to follow explained. “Mom doesn’t want him watching wrestling, and Uncle doesn’t like the fact that luchadores seemed to be made the villains all the time. So, Mom says no wrestling for him, but since she is usually working on Saturday Night, he just goes to bed. And then when the coast is clear, grandmother gets him to watch it with her.”

“I just sleep despite them being totally convinced it’s real.”

Ashton didn’t say anything. His father had explained to him that it was all fake years ago explaining how he ran into an evil wrestler known as Fritz Von Erich. Apparently, his father had a broken tire, and was just sitting on the side of the road. And then a car appeared on the road, and it was pulling a trailer. And out came a large strong man, and then his father realized it was the wrestler. Ashton’s father stood shocked, but instead of a deep throated German accented voice, it was just a typical Texas Southern drawl.

He saw that his father’s tire had blown out. His eldest son came out and the three doctored the tire after removing it. And then the wrestler put on the act after being thanked, and told Ashton’s father never to tell a show or else, he’d put the Iron Klaw on him. Fritz’s wife told him to get back in and stop riffing on the boy, and his father said that he had something like five kids with him.

To Ashton, somethings are meant to be a lie to keep civilization going. Politicians are supposed to be people who look out for others, but they rarely care beyond how they can garner their own power. Games within games were always playing.

For Ashton, he tried to disturb the jungle as little as possible. It was not easy.

“So have you been listening?”

Joe didn’t like retreating even if he didn’t agree with Juan’s plan. He had been marching towards where the signal had come from.

Everything seemed to be going wrong. The worst aspect seemed to be that nothing he was doing really helped with Juan’s plan. The machine knight seemed to be something beyond something like a machine man. It seemed to heal its armor when it got hit by a rock.

In a way, Joe was secretly grateful for the signal. Instead, he felt fear. He knew that the kid could wreck his machine despite him being just a kid. This battle was ultimately pointless, and the sad truth for Joe was that he was no warrior.

He was just an engineer over his head. He didn’t deserve this. He felt fear, and he wasn’t even sure what had become of that kid Jesse that he was supposed to meet. There was something wrong about all that had happened.

With only the hum of the machine, Jim saw something standing ahead that kind of looked like a machine man. The head that had been under the mud wide fake head had been replaced by what appeared to be a dome. Some sort of backpack had been added as well along with what appeared to be rifles on either arm.

Then Joe as he got close to the machine witnessed, what appeared to be something slithering out of a backpack.

And then Joe saw a figure sitting in a flying throne on a dais. “Welcome Joe. Please come stand closer to Jesse,” said Bill from the throne that amplified his voice.