Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume12 Chapter 7 (section)

===Part 5===

The Old Fashion kept afloat with air cushions.

It emitted massive amounts of air toward the surface below it and gained lift by allowing that air to accumulate between the two-by-two arrangement of floats and the ocean surface.

The system was well known for being broadly adaptable to changes in the terrain. A flat surface was of course best, but a bumpy wasteland was not much of a problem.

However, that only went so far.

If the ground was made of a lattice like chain-link or a birdcage, the air cushion would not work. The air would escape downwards and fail to provide enough lift.

Quenser and the others had done the same thing.

They used steel beams.

For as far as the eye could see, steel beams jutted vertically up from the ocean surface like this was an asparagus farm.

They were basically a type of buoy. They were a lot like a larger version of a fishing float. A ball-shaped float made of a foam material was attached around the steel beam, a thick wire was attached, and they sank to the bottom of the ocean. The wire could be cut with a remote signal, freeing the giant buoy so its buoyancy could carry it to the surface.

A large quantity of needle-like protrusions was another terrain air cushions had trouble with.

No matter how much air they released, it would not remain atop the needles. The Object was kept afloat in relation to the ocean surface, so its floats would contact the steel “needles”.

A normal hovercraft would have its skirt torn and it would sink, but a nuke-resistant Object would not be so easily defeated. It would force its way through by pushing the steel beams back down below the surface.

But the top of the beams tearing at it from below was sure to lower its speed.

That First Generation was not especially fast, not especially destructive, and not especially well-protected. Pulling at its feet would help tear down its undefeated legend.

“I see…!!”

A voice reached them from the Old Fashion. He sounded more excited than afraid or angry.

“Wait, wait, wait! Ho…oh ho ho. I use an air cushion too, so won’t this affect me as well!?”

“Yeahhh, but you’re an enemy Elite, so we didn’t really worry about you too much.”

“You monster! Do I have to start reminding you I have basic rights as a human being!?”

They heard the blast of metal being melted and blown away.

From her safe zone a short distance away, the Baby Magnum’s low-stability plasma cannon had finally torn away one edge of the Old Fashion’s spherical main body. It was far from a clean hit, but it was still a valuable first step. This was no longer a one-sided battle and they were no longer helpless.

With its mobility taken, a grinding sound came from below the Old Fashion, but the Elite still forcibly moved the Object around. As he did, large waves formed which nearly capsized Quenser’s patrol boat once they arrived.

“What a stubborn son of a bitch!! How perfect a pilot is he, dammit!?”

“Wait a second…”

Quenser said something strange.

Something else changed as they watched. The Old Fashion was not just fleeing randomly. There was a pattern to the waves he was creating. And they interfered with the buoys floating in the ocean like giant steel needles. In fact, it looked like he was neatly guiding them so they gathered in a single place!

And why he was doing so became abundantly clear a moment later.

He climbed up on top of the mountain of needles he had created.

“Wha-?”

Quenser and the others had interfered with his air cushions because the sharp and evenly-spaced steel beams prevented the compressed air from building up. That should have caused the bottom of the Old Fashion to hit the steel beams which would lower his speed.

But Robert Mistynail had taken the opposite tack.

By gathering the scattered beams in a single place and pressing them together, he had filled in the gaps. It was like a brand-new straw container that was packed full. That prevented the air cushion’s air from escaping. Just like a tanker in a shipyard with its great weight distributed over many pillars, the Old Fashion could climb up onto the needles like it was traveling across land!

The Baby Magnum was slow to react to this unexpected freedom of movement.

That lag was less than a second, but it was enough for her armor to be torn apart.

A burning spear burst out from the cross that decorated the tip of the Old Fashion’s main cannon. That was the muzzle flash. That compressed metal cannon with an ultra small caliber barrel truly was like a needle and it targeted the Baby Magnum’s spherical main body. The left side of her armor opened up like a flower around that central point and three of the seven main cannons were torn away at once.

“The Baby Magnum was damaged!! I can continue fighting, but the partially-remaining armor will increase my air resis-…!!”

Quenser’s group did not have time to listen through to the end of their ally’s report.

One of the Old Fashion’s intermittently-fired laser beam attacks had hit the ocean nearby. It must have reacted to the bubbles or the smokescreen because it triggered an explosion of steam.

The impact from the side capsized the patrol boat.

“Goddammit!!”

Quenser frantically tried to grab onto something, but Heivia kicked his hand away. Clinging to the sinking ship would only get him dragged down to the bottom of the ocean.

They were all thrown out into the midsummer Mediterranean.

“This is the worst vacation ever…”

“Pwah. But it’s not over yet.” Quenser grinned while soaking wet. “Did you think you’d won once you crossed the asparagus farm, Old Fashion? Here it comes!!”

A moment later, something hit the Old Fashion from directly below and the Object floated up from the ocean a little.