Dynastiotron Strike

"Goodness! My puff-wuffle tail!" Enshiron hugged his purple tail on a hotel bed. "I missed you so much!"

"At least this isn't the real world," Elysia massaged Enshiron's tail.

"Would your Vulpi tails grow back in the real world?" Shien asked.

"No. Our tails are like limbs."

"I cannot imagine the horror of living without my precious tail!" Enshiron rubbed his face into his tail.

"Good thing the game teleported us back into Tetrachrome," Shien smiled. "You guys said Mivange is already up, right? Let's check on her!"

While Shien and his Vulpi friends looked for Mivangeline downstairs, the other friends rested in exhaustion from their battle with Dosigma.

"What do you mean you don't have a map of the Dynastiotron Village?" The trio saw Ampyria slam her hand on a table.

"Um..." Mivangeline mumbled. "C-Chloridium is the one who has the maps..."

"You're the Commander, right? Shouldn't you know this basic information?"

"Ampyria," Phoenicia tapped her on the shoulder. "I don't believe scolding her will assist in determining a constructive countermeasure against the Dynastiotron Dynasty."

"Hiya!" Shien bounced from the last stair into the lobby floor with his friends. "What's going on?"

"Greetings!" Phoenicia waved. "We're aiding Commander Shuruuko in locating the Dynastiotron Village."

"How's that been going?"

"Well..."

Mivangeline plopped her dizzy head onto the table.

"She still needs Chloridium to hold her hand," Ampyria facepalmed. "Seriously, she can't do things by herself!"

"Mivange is a great strategist. She just needs some oomph," Shien walked to his crush. "Hi!"

"H-hi?" Mivangeline lifted her head.

"How can we help you?"

"There's no way to find the next boss without Chloridium's mapping."

"But there are other ways to find the next faction's domain! Why don't we think as a team?"

"I recall players talking about Dynastiotron scouts kidnapping androids at the city outskirts," Enshiron twitched his Vulpi ears.

"Maybe we can follow the scouts to their homeworld," Elysia nodded.

"Following the scouts to their village may not be a bad idea," Mivangeline realized.

"Yeah! See? We're a team!" Shien fist-bumped with her. "Don't be afraid to ask us for help. Be positive!"

Mivangeline smiled. "O-okay, thanks."

Their moment was cut short when smoke bombs exploded in the lounge. Everyone coughed and struggled through the dense smoke as Phoenicia and Ampyria were sniped and knocked out cold.

"What the? Phoenicia!" Shien saw Dynastiotron samurai packing the android friends on bamboo baskets. "Guys! We got to save them!"

Shien, Mivangeline, Enshiron, and Elysia chased the purple-robed machine samurai across the Tetrachrome streets. The Dynastiotron samurai wore red goggles and metal jingasas and wielded red laser katanas and spiky shields.

Dynastiotron Samurai

Level 60

HP: [60,000/60,000]

As the four chased the samurai, ronin sharpshooters hid in the buildings. They fired at the group with their photon muskets tipped with silencers. Enshiron covered his friends, blasting the snipers with his very own sniper skills.

Dynastiotron Ronin Sharpshooter

Level 47

HP: [47,747/47,747]

"I'll draw the snipers out with my trait!" Mivangeline leaped in front of the police droids, activating Paladin's Aegis. "That should help you, Enshiron!"

"Sounds good!" Enshiron blew the sharpshooters away with his tornado arrows as Mivangeline blocked the bullets with her kunai.

"Shien! Elysia! You can concentrate on those samurai without worrying about the snipers!"

"Thank you, Mivange!" Shien chain-punched a warrior down.

Elysia pummeled the fleeing Dynastiotron with her brass knuckles. "Is it me? Or is it that these guys aren't interested in fighting us?"

"They look like they're going somewhere in a hurry," Mivangeline noted.

"Avian Form: Peregrine Landing!" Shien smashed his foot to crack the ground.

The fissures made the warriors trample as Shien jumped for the samurai that held Phoenicia and Ampyria. However, something shot a cannonball that exploded blue gunpowder in Shien's face. The two samurai scampered away from Shien.

"What was that?" Elysia sliced a samurai down with her machete. "A sniper?"

"It can't be. Enshiron just shot them all down," Mivangeline looked at the empty buildings tattered from Enshiron's destruction.

They saw a double-rotor Dynastiotron helicopter escort the two samurai. It had a golden cockpit on top of its curved armored trunk with golden gears exposed on the back. Armed with two wing cannons, the aircraft covered the fleeing warriors.

Dynastiotron Aerial Elephantier

Level 125

HP: [500/500]

Trait 1: Zero Armor

Trait 2: Ironclad Plating

"Zero armor? Then we just shoot the gold areas, right?" Elysia fired her machine pistols at the golden cockpit. "Why are my bullets only dealing one damage each hit though?"

"It's the Ironclad Plating! That means it can only take one damage per hit," Mivangeline observed.

As the four dodged the elephantier's cannonballs, they saw the two samurai meet with other warriors at a large hovertrain. They unpacked their bamboo baskets and loaded their captured androids into the neck freight car of their massive hovertrain.

Dynastiotron Bismuth Wartram

Level 555

HP: [555,555/555,555]

"No! We can't let it get away!" Shien yelled until the elephantier blasted him and his friends back.

The wartram made a loud whistle as its massive drill head rotated. The Dynastiotron samurai jumped into the passenger cars while the elephantier landed on the train's helipad.

"Phoenicia! I'll save you!" Shien jumped after the accelerating train.

"No, Shien! We can't win this fight!" Mivangeline chased him.

Enshiron and Elysia wanted to come along, but Mivangeline stopped them. "No! Don't come after us! We're not prepared to fight the Dynastiotron. I'll get Shien back!"

"Y-yes, Commander!" The Vulpi friends saluted.

Shien and Mivangeline grabbed onto the railing end of the hovertrain's caboose.

"We need a way to escape!" Mivangeline grabbed Shien's arm as the train blitzed out of the city.

"After we save Phoenicia!" Shien ran across the rooftops of the cabin cars.

"Did you hear me?"

Shien climbed on the train top and dashed for the train's neck. Dynastiotron samurai and sharpshooters jumped to confront Shien.

"Avian Form: Blackhawk Missile!" An enraged Shien jumped into a spinning cyclone that blew the warriors off the train.

"Stop it, Shien!" Mivangeline chased him as she dodged the sniper bullets. "This is a battle we can't win!"

"Not without Phoenicia! I can't live with myself if I fail a friend!" Shien closed his palms into beak shapes. "Avian Form: Woodpecker Beak Strikes!"

Shien pummeled the snipers down as the train's deep AI voice bellowed. "Intruders detected! Activating defense arms!"

Robotic pillars armed with buzzsaw arms attacked the duo. They ducked and jumped over the swinging saw blades.

Wartram Defense Arm

Level 75

HP: [75,575/75,575]

Shien dashed across a flatcar full of compressed heron-shaped walkers.

"We can use one of these to escape!" Mivangeline grabbed Shien by the collar of his caidercoat.

"Mivange! Let go of me!" Shien demanded.

"You're going to get yourself killed!"

"Phoenicia is my friend! I can't leave her!"

A samurai hopped into one of the walkers. Two cannon eyes protruded out of the closed cockpit with the sound of grinding gears as the legs bent up. It sharpened its talons onto its shiny filed tibias, emitting scratching noises that made Mivangeline and Shien cringe. Under its beaked chin, a machine gun fired at the two.

Dynastiotron Ardedius Hellcracker

Level 145

HP: [145,750/145,750]

As Mivangeline protected herself with her knives, Shien hopped across the other walkers.

Mivangeline opened a hellcracker's cockpit. "Shien! Get back here! Let's go!"

The active hellcracker swiped its long leg across the platform to knock out the other walkers, preventing escape.

"Crap!" Mivangeline dodged the hellcracker's talons and ran after Shien.

As they escaped more defense arms across another flatcar of walkers, the train's AI voice sounded again. "Intruders must be terminated! Release the Francium Warbird!"

The wartram's drill head opened a hidden compartment to launch a helicopter to intercept Shien and Mivangeline. It had a sicklebill head, two orange eyes, and a metallic rib cage that covered its beating orange heart. The half-helicopter and half-ghost had wing miniguns that fired at Shien and Mivangeline.

Dynastiotron Francium Warbird

Level 186

HP: [186,666/186,666]

Trait 1: Poltergeist Semblance

Trait 2: Phantasmal Mitosis

Shien jumped above the bullets and aimed a downswing kick at the aircraft miniboss. "Avian Form: Kingfisher's Axe!"

However, Shien plopped through the ghost, leaving him to land on his butt. "Ow! What was that?"

"Poltergeist Semblance," Mivangeline opened a hellcracker's cockpit. "It makes all attacks against it have 25% accuracy. Now, get in the walker!"

"I see the neck cart they dumped Phoenicia in!" Shien dashed past the warbird.

The warbird chased Shien to the train's neck. Its heart wildly beat to secrete tar that morphed into a shadow clone of the warbird with half the original's stats.

"I need this walker to catch Shien and get out of here before he gets hurt!" Mivangeline jumped into the hellcracker's cockpit.

Shien breathed a sigh of relief when he reached the neck freight car until the warbirds surrounded him. They mercilessly machine-gunned poor Shien to low HP until Mivangeline used the hellcracker's talon to catch Shien. She pulled a lever to make the walker leap off the train and land on the rocky plains. Mivangeline took Shien into the cockpit and poured an Eonspace Brew into his mouth to heal him.

"M-Mivange?" Shien awoke as Mivangeline slapped his face. "Ow! What the?"

"It was stupid of you to take on the train alone!" Mivangeline walked the ardedius hellcracker across the cracked plains. "Next time, listen to your Commander!"

"What about Phoenicia? I could have saved her!"

"You couldn't have!"

"But Mivange, you kept on stopping me!"

"E-excuse me?"

"You could've helped! I didn't need you to jump along if you weren't going to help me!"

"If I wasn't there, you would've been dead!" Mivangeline snapped. "I didn't have to go through the trouble to save you, but I did because I care about you!"

Shien gasped, realizing he was blaming his crush despite everything she put in to save his life. "M-Mivange, I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to repay you like that."

Mivangeline huffed in response as she walked the vehicle back to Tetrachrome.

The Commander stopped the walker when she saw Shien weeping. "S-Shien? What's wrong?"

"Would Phoenicia or the friends think I'm a bad friend?"

"No, why?"

"Before meeting my friends, girls bullied me because they said I was too small to be loved. I thought I had to serve, care, and protect others so maybe a girl would love me one day. I'm lucky to have friends who see I'm more than just my height. I'm scared my friends would abandon me if they knew I failed Phoenicia!"

"Shien! What kind of friend would leave you for failing?" Mivangeline asked. "I don't think your friends are like that! Enshiron, Elysia, and even I wouldn't throw you away just because you're flawed. Otherwise, it's not friendship, right?"

Shien wiped his tears with his handkerchief. "Right."

"And you know what? If those girls can't see more of you beyond your height! They don't deserve someone like you!"

"I know you have a wonderful heart!" Mivangeline hugged Shien. "When I screwed up and lost Chloridium, you didn't leave me, right?"

"No, I didn't," Shien sighed.

"You encouraged me to keep going! I saw your friends, and they care so much about you. So please don't let what those girls say define you. Promise me!"

"I-I promise," Shien hugged her back, feeling Mivangeline's words dispel the tormenting lie that he was too small for a girl to love. "Mivange, thank you for caring. I-I needed to hear that."

"Anytime," Mivangeline's cheeks reddened in realization she was touching Shien, releasing her arms. "Eep! I didn't mean to touch you like that!"

"Nah, I enjoyed it!"

Mivangeline huffed in embarrassment as she reactivated the walker. "U-uh, anyway, l-let's report to the party. I-I think at least we learned the train is our ticket into the Dynastiotron Village."