Second Battle

"And you gave it for free?" Regis asked.

"No." Alex replied. "They did give me the information of a location where they found mechanical footprints that resembled human footprints, but they weren't able to track them down." Regis immediately understood what Alex was trying to convey.

In this exercise, there were some synthetic and some mechanical beasts, but the only thing that could have a mechanical footprint that resembled a human footprint at the same time was a robot designed after the Asceptus, the primary targets of the exercise.

"Anyway, since we are not allowed to form groups that exceed more than two members for subsidiary missions, we can't work together with them. So, lets go. We should get to the second subsidiary target before someone else stakes their claim at it." Saying as much, Regis started walking towards the direction he was told.

Regis and Alex nodded as they walked past the other team who replied back with nods and began walking away.

Soon, the two of them were taking cover behind a tree once again. On the other side of the tree, there was a creature that resembled a giant scorpion with four pincers, a tail and a brown shell that shone with metallic lustre. Its movement was very fluid as if it was slowly slipping on the ground away from them.

Regis looked at the synthetic beast carefully. It was his first time seeing one in real life. Regis was left awestruck at the advanced technology that people of this era had. If he had not known it, he would have thought that the beast in front of him was a real, breathing living creature. But it wasn't, the only creatures that naturally inhabited the planet Cerberus had long since died due to exposure to cosmic storms and the ones that remained were mutated.

This planet had been ravaged in the past and was no longer fit for habitation. Later, it was discovered by humans as a unique planet that was also the only planet of this star system and transformed into a military base due to its strategic location in the dusk zone.

As if it had sensed the two intruders stalking it from the shadows, the synthetic beast suddenly froze on the exact spot and raised its pincers in the air. It raised its head and slowly turned around in a circle, the several sets of eyes recording everything in its surroundings.

"There is a high chance that this one is able to attack from a distance. Be careful about that and I won't be of much help if a relatively stronger metal used for the shell." Alex whispered.

"What about your mask?" Regis asked sensing the uncertainty in Alex's voice.

"The information about this synthetic beast has been restricted." Alex whispered back.

'Makes sense.' Regis was sure that this was done intentionally to make sure that the cadets were able to adapt to unforeseen situations in combat.

Alex climbed up a nearby tree silently while Regis floated away from the tree so that his presence did not get in way of Alex. Once he had found a good location, Regis waited for the scorpion to look away from his direction.

The scorpion spun in a circle at the same spot, still trying to locate the intruders.

Once the scorpion had turned away, Regis immediately fired the two canons in his gloves in rapid succession.

'Clickk! Click! clickk! Clllickk!'

Four shots hit the scorpion, three of which landed on the shell while one hit a leg of the scorpion.

'Temperature based light beams are not very effective on the shell.'

The scorpion suddenly jumped in the air and spun around at double it's previous spinning speed and pointed two of its pincers towards Regis. A visible ripple spread out of the first pincer. Regis moved back to dodge the ripple, but suddenly heard a ringing sound. The sound was loud and pierced his eardrums. Regis lost his balance, but it was fortunate that the hoverboots were programmed to prevent these accidental slips.

Immediately after it launched the sound wave attack, a sharp rod appeared in the second pincer of the scorpion. This pincer was aimed directly at Regis's chest. Alex jumped down from the tree he was on and landed on the pincer that was ready to launch the projectile at Regis, lowering the pincer upon impact.

The projectile pierced the ground a few feet before it could reach Regis and dug a few inches deep. After landing on the pincer, Alex immediately swung his dagger at the closest joint of the arm carrying the pincer.

The dagger color changed to pale yellow as it left a visible line of corrosion on the metallic shell of the synthetic beast. Alex immediately jumped off the scorpion after his swing.

'Clangg!'

A metallic sound reverberated in the surroundings as the sharp tail of the scorpion landed on its shell at the point where Alex had been standing. The impact of this collision left a visible cut and a large dent on the hard metallic exoskeleton.

At the same time, Regis regained his balance and clenched his hand into a fist.

"3. Corrosion"

Regis fired at the scorpion in rapid succession once again. The light beams emitted this time were of a different color, more solid looking and a bit slower than the previous ones, but still fast enough to be impossible to dodge for the scorpion. Once the beams hit the shell of the pincers, they created an impact as if they were solid bullets. Smoke rose up from each point hit by these modified beams.

Regis could see the metal turning yellowish and releasing smoke even after the entirety of the beam had dispersed after hitting the shell. The shell of the scorpion was visibly corroding.

The scorpion pointed two of its pincers at Regis while the rear two were pointed towards the branch of the tree where it had last recorded Alex.

Regis immediately put distance between him and the synthetic beast when he saw the empty pincer aimed at him. He slid in an arc with the scorpion as the centre.

'Ohngg!'

Once again, there was a visible ripple in the air. Regis still registered some of the sound, but was still able to dodge the eye of the storm. The other pincer followed Regis's movement and launched the projectile at him as soon as he stopped briefly. The two rear pincers launched projectiles that impaled the branches of the tree they were aimed at.

Regis stopped for a brief second before floating away. The third projectile pierced a tree. Had Regis not moved away from the spot, this would have impaled his chest.

Regis noted that the projectiles were only released once he stopped and so decided to act accordingly. He immediately started circling the synthetic beast while shooting the corrosive beams at it. The gloves automatically adjusted the aim and while Regis wanted to aim all his attacks at the same spot, he was still grateful that they landed on the shell nearby the aimed point.

Soon, there was a large yellowish spot on the shell of the scorpion. Regis was responsible for dealing all the damage while Alex appeared whenever the scorpion raised it's pincers so that two of them were occupied by him and decreased the pressure on Regis. The yellowish part became the weak part of the shell.

Every one of Regis shots landed on this spot. Occasionally, the scorpion released its sound attacks and projectiles, but Regis would already have passed those points by then. Regis once again changed the setting of the beams to create greater impact upon contact. After many dents, one of the beams broke through the shell and landed inside the mechanical insides of the scorpion.

At this point, the end of the scorpion's tail suddenly detached from the tail and began spinning rapidly. It accelerated rapidly before flying towards Regis.

Regis felt alarms going off in his head when this spinning stinger was suddenly launched towards him. He dodged towards his side, but the spinning stinger also adjusted it's trajectory to follow Regis.

'It is an homing attack.' Regis cursed and accelerated.

Alex swopped down from the tree and stabbed his knife at the yellowish spot in repeated successions. The hole enlarged and many of the internal mechanisms of the scorpion could be seen from this hole in its shell. The scorpion tried to clamp its pincers around Alex, but Alex dodged them.

'Clickk! Clickk! Clickk!'

Whenever there was a gap in the attack of the pincers, Alex would immediately swoop in and attack the corroded part of the shell in repeated succession at a rate that was impossible for regular humans.

The hole slowly expanded to the size of human fist before expanding further under the relentless stabs. Alex had also successfully damaged many of the internal connections and parts leading to two of the pincers getting frozen.

At this point, the feet of the scorpion suddenly made sound of gears shifting as if it was getting ready for something. Alex jumped away from the back of the scorpion to dodge any potential attacks.

The scorpion suddenly moved at a speed that was hard to follow by normal human eyes. The stinger that was homing in on Regis gradually slowed down and dropped on the ground.

Looking at the escaping scorpion, Regis felt that the view was somewhat comical but he was also confused whether to follow it or not. The requirement of this mission was to bring back the stringer which was now lying near his feet.

"It is a bit comical to look at, but they always dash away after receiving a certain level of damage and it is pointless to follow it. We won't be able to catch up to it anyway." Alex replied. He had the experience of battling more than one of these synthetic beasts and this was a common sight for him.

"Alright." Alex replied, picked up the stinger and placed it in his bag.