Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume10 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 9===

The phenomenon itself was extremely simple.

The three main cannons attached to the back of the Mobius Infinity’s spherical body were long-range railguns. They used Fleming’s left hand rule to fire metal shells larger than a small car at tremendous speeds.

As soon as the other Objects surrounded it at five kilometers (mid-range for an Object), the Mobius Infinity fired its multiple main cannons in quick succession.

Those railguns were aimed straight up like metal towers.

The metal shells had adjustable control wings on the sides, so they did not fly in a simple arc like a long throw in baseball. It was more like a figure eight, the infinity sign, or a Mobius strip. After being fired straight up, the metal shells followed an unnatural curve to an altitude of twenty-five thousand meters where they turned around, added the gravitational acceleration on top of their magnetic acceleration, and dropped toward their targets with dreadful speed.

And what happened then?

One of the surrounding Objects, the more than fifty meter Self Deception, spilled its insides like a crushed fruit.

The ground was torn up for kilometers, creating a great crater. It almost looked like a giant’s foot had stomped on the ground there.

The shockwave was visible thanks to the dust and sand as it approached from beyond the horizon.

“Waaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!?”

Quenser and Heivia knew it was coming, but there was nothing they could do. They immediately got on the ground and covered the backs of their heads with their hands, but they were still peeled up and tossed into the air. They were reminded of news footage of cars and pieces of houses blown away by a hurricane.

Fortunately, they were only lifted about two meters and being slammed back into the soft grassy ground was not going to kill them, but then the second wave arrived.

Far in the distance, the flattened Self Deception’s reactor exploded as if it had only just now remembered to do so.

The blast itself did not reach them, but the bright flash of light stabbed into their eyeballs.

“You’ve gotta…dammit…be kidding me! Damn, that huge-breasted commander! This time…this time I’m going to…!!”

Heivia wailed as he held his head in his hands, but Quenser could not hear what he was saying.

He desperately rubbed his eyes to bring back his vision, but then his blurry vision managed to see yet another explosion.

“You’re kidding… The Mobius Infinity’s main cannons are skewering the other Objects from above while they’re shaken by that first blast!!”

“Oh, goddammit!! You mean another flash is going to blind us!?”

This time, the Faith Organization’s Sand Cluster was transformed into scrap metal.

Next, the Rush piloted by the Information Alliance’s Oh ho ho was almost hit, but it sacrificed its right main cannon to just barely avoid it.

Heivia was sent tumbling along the ground again and again, but his expression changed entirely when he looked up.

The Objects had scattered wreckage in every direction like a volcanic eruption, so twisted pieces of cannon barrels the size of bridges and armor panels larger than busses were raining down around them.

It did not matter that they were four or five kilometers away.

“Watch out! Dodge!!”

“Dodge where!?”

Quenser attempted a meaningless dive to the side, but Heivia grabbed the back of his neck and forced him to his feet. They somehow managed to escape disaster like an un-athletic player running away from the baseball after being stuck in the outfield to fill an empty spot on the team.

“Can we really beat something like this!?”

“Not if it was just us, but this is the Gigant Hustler! There are plenty of Objects just like it!”

The Mobius Infinity had achieved astounding results, but it was still outnumbered.

If the four remaining non-Capitalist Corporations Objects made a suicidal charge together, they may have been able to defeat the Mobius Infinity.

However…

“Dammit, something isn’t right,” spat out Heivia while leaning against the wreckage of a main cannon sticking out of the ground nearby. “The Objects surrounding it are getting oddly wary of each other. Have they given up on defeating the final boss together and are instead trying to defeat whatever enemies they can!?”

Gigant Hustler was the world’s greatest battle which included eight Objects, but it was also a massive psychological battle between the Pilot Elites.

Who would target who first?

Whose help would they use to attack who and when would they make their betrayal to get ahead?

“This was is a battle to survive. None of them are going to agree to work together when it could easily mean their own destruction.”

“Yeah, but if the Mobius Infinity sticks around, they don’t stand a chance against it on their own. Don’t they all get that!?”

“Then, Heivia, are you going to volunteer as the first to sacrifice himself to help the others? That’s what this is about. We can’t count on the Objects. They’re holding the bottom of their skirt and fidgeting as they try to keep from wetting themselves, so we’ll be at checkmate in no time if we rely on them!”

Quenser clenched his teeth as the Objects ended their brief joint fight against the Mobius Infinity and started moving away from the others.

The Princess’s Baby Magnum was one of those.

Given her mission objective, it was obvious she didn’t want to end the fight against the Mobius Infinity, but if she alone remained, she would be immediately picked off by that enemy Object. She could not fight the current trend of the situation.

So who would be the first one ejected from this deadly game of musical chairs?

The Mobius Infinity was the most powerful yet had used brute force to stop anyone else from targeting it.

The Self Deception had been the weakest and it had already been blown away.

No one knew what would happen next and anyone could be the next one kicked out.

And that was when another unexpected event occurred.

The ground around the Baby Magnum suddenly split apart and a massive amount of water burst out.

Water was the greatest weakness of a static electricity propulsion device.

“What…the hell?” muttered Heivia.

This was more than a water pipe bursting. Cracks covered the entire surface and the Baby Magnum was nearly swallowed up by a great torrent like a South American waterfall turned upside down.

“No, wait. Wait, wait!! The Princess is using static electricity, so she can’t cross rivers or the ocean. So isn’t all that water really bad!?”

Once it caught her, she would be unable to move.

The Princess spun her Object around as if kicking at the ground like a horse and desperately tried to escape the flooded area, but even if she did escape, the impassable zone would grow as the water continued to surge out. And what would the other monsters do once her freedom of movement was restricted?

“Where did all that water even come from!? The entire map is green and there aren’t any obvious rivers anywhere!!”

“No,” muttered Quenser. “We were thinking about this wrong. Why isn’t this place a desert? Because there’s water. I don’t know who, but someone searched out an underground water vein and set up bombs at the Princess’s feet! They weaponized the water that’s keeping this giant plain nice and green!!”

“But how? And who? Was it those mechanized combat engineers from the Capitalist Corporations? It’s true I’ve heard those civil engineers use tunnels and manmade wetlands to stop Objects.”

“If they could accomplish this, they would be doing a lot more. And they would stand out so much that we probably would have been sent out to shoot them.”

“Then who did this!?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. Besides, that isn’t the biggest problem.”

Far in the distance, an Object made a large turn.

It was the Information Alliance’s Second Generation Rush.

The Pilot Elite they referred to as the Oh ho ho mercilessly aimed her one remaining rapid-fire beam Gatling cannon to take advantage of the Baby Magnum’s unexpected trouble.

“It doesn’t look like she’s going to overlook this just because they know each other.”

“She’s had one of her main cannons destroyed. If she’s seen as an easy target, the others will be quick to attack, so she can’t let herself look weak.”

A few other Objects followed the Rush’s lead and targeted the Baby Magnum.

And one of those was the Mobius Infinity.

“Oh, no,” groaned Quenser. “We need something to turn this around. If we let this continue as is, we’ll have to see the Princess torn into from every direction!!”