Building Zoids in a World of Titans

Morning light caught the Iron Mule's patchwork armor while they loaded. Explosive crates, seismic charges, heavy drills, spare hydraulic lines. Ziya had requisitioned half the settlement's mining stores, and the council had delivered without argument. The Lanstag's locking frame took the heaviest crates. The Arosaurer's bay swallowed the rest. Alex checked each strap himself, fingers finding the tension points by feel, running the same math he always ran: load distribution, shear points, what would give first if the Iron Mule hit a bad rut at speed. Nothing would. He'd built it not to.

Townspeople gathered at the stable yard's edge (not a crowd, Millcross didn't do crowds, but a steady stream). Old Man Hemlock pressed a cloth-wrapped bundle into Ziya's hands: smoked river eel, dense and oily, the good stuff he never sold. A miller's wife thrust a jar of redbarley preserves at Rhian, who accepted it with both hands, solemn as a ceremony. A boy no older than Rhian had been two years ago held out a smooth river stone, its surface worn perfect by water, not meeting anyone's eyes as he offered it. Rhian grinned and tucked it into her bandolier beside the blue pendant.

An elderly woman caught Alex's sleeve before he could climb into the cab.

"This is your grandparents' house, Alex. Your great-grandparents built the eastern mill. We don't leave bones behind."

Alex nodded, throat tight. Didn't know what to say. Turned back to the fuel line.

Rhian fell into step beside him, wiping preserve sticky from her fingers.

"See? If you'd walked away, you'd miss all this, and the eel's incredible, by the way, Hemlock doesn't just give that to anyone, only people he actually likes."

Alex's hands paused on the clamp lever.

"Doesn't matter. The job's the job."

She snorted, unconvinced.

"Sure. That's why your ears went red."

They hadn't. But warmth pressed tight under his sternum, quiet as a weld holding, and he had no schematic for it.

The Iron Mule's cabin smelled of diesel, cold stew, and the sharp mineral tang of the seismic charges Ziya had stacked beside the navigation console. They sat around the fold-down table. Alex hunched over the unfolded composite map while Ziya leaned against the bulkhead with a mug of caff. Rhian perched on the edge of the lower bunk, swinging her legs.

Rhian called it first. She'd watched Alex stare at the Terra-Colossus's thermal signature for three hours straight, watched him trace and retrace the debris dam's geometry on his datapad.

"So, how do we kill that thing?"

Not a question. She didn't so much as blink.

Alex spread the map. The System's overlay from their basin reconnaissance merged with Millcross's archival surveys: geological strata, old river channels, the fault line's deep cut. Together they formed a single coherent picture. Twenty meters of shattered rock and compacted silt sealed the lake's outlet, the Colossus's feeding basin stretching upstream like a poisoned finger.

Alex tapped the dam's position on the map.

"The Colossus engineered a catchment. It blocked the river. The basin fills, the mineral concentration rises, and the Colossus feeds. It's a closed loop. But the loop depends on the dam holding."

Ziya set down her mug.

"Breach it, and the basin drains. The Colossus loses its feeding ground."

"More than that."

Alex traced a finger along the contour lines downstream.

"The Colossus's earth manipulation works through solid ground. Its tremor sense reads vibrations through bedrock, and its drills anchor in stone. Flood the basin with shallow water and mud, turn the basin into a slurry, and every one of those advantages degrades. The drills lose purchase, and the tremor sense scatters. The seismic waves dissipate in fluid instead of transmitting through rock."

Rhian stopped swinging her legs.

"You want to turn the river into a weapon."

"I want to give the river back its channel. The Colossus happened to build the dam for us."

Alex met Ziya's eyes.

"Ziya, the Lanstag's the only platform with the mass and speed to take that impact without getting caught in the collapse. The Thruster Lance can punch a controlled breach at the dam's base, precisely placed, precisely timed. You'd hit the weak seam the System identified, then clear the zone before the water takes the rest."

Ziya's stylus tapped once against the table, already running the numbers.

"The Lanstag's Smart Guards can handle debris impact, and the Seismic Pulse could pre-fracture the seam if the Lance alone won't breach clean. But the timing window is narrow: once the water starts moving, the basin floor liquefies. The Lanstag would need to be clear before the mud reaches its ankles."

"Which is where the Liger Zero comes in."

Alex turned to the map's upstream margin.

"The draining basin will force the Colossus to move, to chase the retreating water, to protect its feeding ground. Its mobility drops in mud, and its earth manipulation misfires. The Weakness Scan will have a clear read on its underbelly joints and the drill-cluster's hydraulic feeds. Bio-electric amplified Strike Laser Claws at three hundred kilometers an hour. One pass. Two at most."

"And me?"

Rhian sat very still, hands flat on her knees.

"Harassment. Diversion."

Alex didn't look up from the map.

"Rhian, you stay mobile and at range. The Arosaurer's speed and autocannons draw the Colossus's attention away from the Lanstag's approach vector. Flamethrowers on the basin's edge create thermal noise that masks the Liger's ion boosters. You do not engage the drill-cluster directly. If it turns on you, you run. The Arosaurer outruns anything that size on broken ground."

Rhian was silent long enough that Alex glanced up. Her face was pale, her fingers knotted in her bandolier strap.

"Okay…"

"Okay. I can do that."

Ziya's hand found Alex's forearm, brief and firm.

"The Lanstag's locking frame is rated for the Lance's recoil at full charge. I'll need to recalibrate the hydraulic dampeners for the mud. Traction will be the limiting factor."

"Get the Lanstag's dampeners dialed in. Rhian, autocannon loadout, flamethrower reserves, full diagnostic on the Arosaurer's cooling loop. I'll run the Liger's core sync and boosters."

He folded the map, the System's breach simulation still ghosting across his vision.

"Two days. Maybe three if the charges need hand-fitting. Do what you need. We move when it's ready."

Rhian slid off the bunk, bandolier settling across her chest.

"I'll check the autocannon feed."

Ziya drained her mug, already rising.

"I'll start on the hydraulic recalc."

They left, the cabin quiet again. His fingers found the blue pendant beneath his shirt.

Two days.

Advance chapters on my p@tR$0n/Najicablitz.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!