breaks a gearhulk with body

The crowds fleeing the water Gearhulk were piled up in front of the barricade now, fleeing through the hole left by the fleetwheel cruiser, the wave of faceless Consulate inspectors pressing them into the line of fire.

It would smash through them.

What are you going to do about it, hoplite?

He looked around the surfaces of the Gearhulk. Solid metal. No obvious mechanisms or weak points, save for the junction where the legs met the torso. There was a large gap between the armor plates, allowing the limbs to move. Within, he could see massive toothed gears whirling and grinding by the aetherblue light of power tubing.

He looked at his sural. Then back at the spinning gears.

To the mechanical butterfly, he said, "You're going to want to get Mr. Wiggles in the air."

"Right," the speaker squawked. A few whistled notes came through, and the insect fluttered off.

He looked into the gap between the armor, took a few rapid breaths, and dropped into the gears. The darkness flooded with golden light.

For too long, there was pain, noise, and motion.

Metal shrieked, the world jumped upward.

Falling sideways in golden darkness, a thousand tiny knives gnawing his legs and arms, pressing into his spine, filling his mouth with the tang of copper.

His head slammed into a wall.

Stillness.

Breaths echoed in the dark.

So...he was still breathing?

A portion of the darkness lifted away. Warm brilliance flooded his stinging eyes. Chandra..?

A grinning face eclipsed the sun. "Who's a big hero?" Shadowblayde-with-a-y.

She peeled him from a smoking tomb, the shattered remains of finely-wrought gears cascading off him as he stood. His breastplate, bent and punctured, swung from one shoulder strap for a moment, then clattered to the road.

The Gearhulk lay sprawled across the road, collapsed face-first in a building. The leg he'd just crawled out of had been shorn off. A legion of teenagers and mechanical creatures swarmed over the wreck, yanking out handfuls of salvage, trading bits and bobs among themselves.

***

BURN