The Dark Ages [Dark Data]

[Madotsuki]

The dreamer staggered to her feet, caught off-guard by the charge that had forced her out of the time bubble. She had attempted to phase through it, but she had been pushed away with the full brunt of the attack as if she were solid - apparently the shield surrounding the robot whenever he did that had to be made of some sort of energy. Well, the more she knew...

And speaking of knowing, when she took a moment to perceive the fight, she noticed that her weird sixth-sense thing was no longer helping her. It was almost jarring, but given that she had barely had it for an hour or so, it wasn't as if she had lost her sense of sight or anything. Now that it was gone though, she needed to fight with caution. It helped that she had a team to fall back on, but how was she going to approach this?

First off, this mechanical centaur was sentient, or at least designed to operate without a handler by the way he acted, so there was no cockpit or controls she could mess with like with the massive robot down in Tier 7. The joints of his casing seemed somewhat vulnerable though, so that was probably a good place to start.

She cut off to the side, fading out into the scenery as she readied another pulse. She just needed one good shot, which she mentally communicated with the others.

The cybernetic myth almost seemed confused at her sudden disappearance, but there were more important problems to worry about, like the sheathed, glass katana aimed at his face. He blocked it with his arm cannon, and then retaliated as a shining green blade burst forth from his hand and swung down at the ronin. Given the suddenness of the attack, Hiro could only guard himself with the fragile weapon. However, the impromptu defense proved just solid enough to push away the giant glaive. A loud shattering noise indicated that the sword had cracked.

"Glass?" roared Centaur Man in triumph. "Come back when you have an actual weapon!"

"Like this?" The samurai whipped out what had to be a pistol and fired, with only four soft "fwip" noises to tell that he was shooting. The robot recoiled for the briefest moment when the projectiles cut into his armor, and the plague marine took advantage of that opportunity by heaving all of his momentum into the quadruped's side, tipping him into a precarious angle. The bounty hunter followed up by latching onto the machine's airborne front leg and tugging, sending the enemy toppling over.

He strained to right himself, firing off laser blasts at the group, but suddenly the half-baku was there, her and the gnome blasting at the joint in his back-left leg at point-blank range. The limb broke asunder from the rest of his body, skidding and bouncing across the dirt before settling to a stop several meters away.

Everyone promptly began to lay down the pain with their best weapons, taking advantage of the centaur's near-helpless state as they avoided his other weapons.

But he still had that stupid grin on his face! Why?

The realization hit Samus in the head, literally; Centaur Man's detatched leg kick the Chozon fighter in the back of her helmet with a cloven hoof, sending her sprawling into the grass as the robot's cannon began to glow.

"SCATTER!" announced the gnome, rolling out of the way as Azzathec tried to pull the bounty hunter along with her. The others were not quite as fast, but they situated themselves behind Okor as a flurry of energy orbs launched out of the centaur's gun.

The attack provided him a chance for his leg to hop over and reattach itself. The cybernetic monster pulled himself up, laughing up a storm as he summoned the blade once more. "I'm made of tougher stuff than that!"

655 words.