51_Battle Granny

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Legendary achievement unlocked: Long live the king! You have defeated the previous ruler of Fencetown. It is now your right to rule the town as you see fit. Though, be wary, for power brings its own perils. If you aren't careful, you might end up like the ruler you just dethroned.

Legendary reward, depositing items.

Legendary reward, depositing coins.

Legenda...

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Herman, no... His Royal Majesty King Herman the First, stood very very still, slowly blinking and absorbing the information from his digital overlay.

He was currently standing inside a bigass crater, at the epicenter of which once stood the marmalade cellar, the kitchen, and apparently the now-former queen of Fencetown...

All around him there was debris of all shapes and sizes. There were rat tails scattered all around, broken marmalade jars, cookbooks, and, and...

"Oh no..." Herman muttered.

A very familiar cracked metal ball, now lacking both head and arms, rested beside a tray of surprisingly intact freshly baked cookies.

"Uuu!" Slippy exclaimed, hopping out of Herman's pocket and scurrying towards the tray, his tiny stick-man legs working overtime to navigate around the debris.

Chomp! Crump crump...

"Hey Herman, come here. There are some raisin cookies that you can take." The slip magnanimously offered the undesirable treats. A few weeks ago the slip wouldn't have shared food of any kind, so his current behavior was a clear step in the right direction.

"R..raisins?" Herman half-cried out, half-wheezed.

"Oh God, what have we done?! Slippy, we killed the queen of Fencetown. I didn't even know they had a queen. Aren't they a town? Why would they even have a... what are we gonna do?!" The human fumbled, hyperventilating at the mayhem around them.

The commotion had also attracted the attention of the town's inhabitants. The survivors slowly poked their heads over the crater's edges and looked down at their new ruler. Even the usually stoic border dragons were now flying over the crater, akin to vultures, curiously looking down.

"Oh, we didn't kill her." The slip said with a reassuring voice, making Herman slightly raise his hopes that maybe not all was lost. Perhaps they could recover the queen's CPU and revive her? That way he wouldn't have to deal with the burden of the crown and lead the city.

"The murdering was done by you, and you alone. Also, gesundheit." Slippy added, finding the old bot's head and trying to lift it, but it crumbled in his grip, the pixels rising into the sky.

"Thanks, Slippy... you always know exactly what to say to calm me down..." Herman replied as he helplessly watched the tiny pixels swirl and fade into the air. After the particles disappeared, the man slumped onto a piece of rubble, clutching his face in both hands in defeat.

...

"YOUUUUUU!!!"

"I knew you were trouble the moment I first saw your shiny bald head!"

"I was a fool to think you could be used for the town's prosperity. You are a ticking bomb on legs!"

"Oh hey granny, you respawned fast. Can you make us more chocolate cookies? All that's left are 'raisin' cookies." The slip inquired, saying the word 'raisins' as if it was pure poison, shivering and gagging just at the smell of the horrid treats.

"As for YOU!" The furious mechanoid shifted her wrath toward the gluttonous slip.

"You are nothing more than a spoiled princeling! If it wasn't for your mother, Martha, you would have already been rotting in my dungeon for daring to insult me and my cooking!" Qbita snapped, rolling herself toward the eating slip and pointing one accusing finger at him.

The slip, on his side, didn't even flinch at her accusation. He was annoyingly selective about what information he allowed into his mind. A rude habit Herman has been trying to teach the baby slip out of, but without success so far.

"Well, you don't have a dungeon now anyway, or a kitchen, now that I think of it." The slip looked around the crater rubble as if only now seeing the destruction for the first time.

"Sigh... I guess the cookies will have to wait," Slippy lamented, then hopped back to his throne of power inside Herman's shirt pocket.

"You little... grrrr!" Qbita growled at the annoying AI, grabbing a piece of rebar from the rubble, tearing it from the concrete and bending the metal with her bare hands in anger.

"Um, Lady, Mistress, Queen... Sigh... Qbita," Herman finally said.

"I am terribly sorry for what we, I, have done. I can pay you back, I assure you." He said as he fished out the shiny reward coins and offered them to the elderly bot.

"And what the hell am I supposed to do with those? Buy a kingdom or ten?! These are practically worthless. You might as well have offered to pay me in peanuts." The mechanoid barked, dismissing the mithril coins as if they were made of chocolate and not the most valuable material in the virtual realm.

"Oh no... no, no, no... I have a much better way of repayment in mind. It involves spending time inside the belly of a grand-level dragon." The bot said. Any remnants of the kindly old grandmother's persona were now completely gone, replaced by a much darker one.

"Yes, yeees, that would do." The mechanoid grinned evilly, trying to rub her hands akin to an evil cartoon villain, but failing to clasp them due to her bulky frame. After struggling for a bit, she finally gave up and moved forward with her plan.

"Hey you, yes you, the overgrown lizard, get your ass over here." Qbita shouted at the circling magical creatures above the crater.

The biggest and meanest of said overgrown lizards squinted its eyes at the talking ball below, briefly considered flying away to take a nap, but eventually reconsidered and headed downwards.

With a heavy thump that sent a tremor through the ground, the battlecruiser-sized dragon landed at the crater's edge. Rising onto his hind legs, he spread his wings wide and loomed tall, unleashing a blazing inferno into the sky, his mighty roar echoing across the entire city.

To the dragon's surprise, none of the mechanoid onlookers seemed particularly intimidated, nor impressed in any way. If anything, most of them looked somewhat bored of the show, looking down at their digital bracelets and not paying attention to the massive dragon warrior standing right next to them.

After a few more minutes of trying to impress his audience, the dragon finally gave up, slumping onto all fours and grumbling about earthlings being unappreciative of his grandeur. He lowered his head and crept forward, moving closer to the ball-shaped machine.

"You there, stop showing off and eat them already!" Qbita snapped with agitation, pointing towards Herman and Slippy, who were quietly skulking away from the crater, climbing along the edges.

"Hey, what happened to me being a princeling?" Slippy shouted from atop Herman's shoulder.

"Goddammit Slippy, would you keep quiet for once. Stop agitating her, I don't want to fight with the boring dragon." Herman hissed, reaching for a half-melted pipe jutting from the crater's edge and pulling himself up to climb.

"Your mother has been wreaking havoc on this world recently, it hasn't escaped my attention what she has been doing with my beautiful city behind the scenes. I especially did not appreciate placing that crab monstrosity as a regent of MY city. Consider this a way of showing my dissatisfaction with her unilateral decisions." Qbita said.

"Come on, chop chop, do as you're told." The old bot urged the dragon, who remained unmoved, lazily watching the drama unfold.

"I am bound by honor to obey only the ruler of Fencetown... that is not you." The dragon rumbled, the air trembling with each word.

"Y-you, WHAT?!" Qbita shrieked.

"I was the one who negotiated the pact with your clan of overgrown geckos. Thanks to me and my efforts, you lizards are getting fat on a mountain of pastries each week. In exchange you are to obey me!" The round mechanoid ambassador loudly protested, waving her wiry hands in the air below the dragon's head.

"Your majesty, do you wish me to remove this interloper from your sight?" The dragon asked the NEW leader of Fencetown, stoically ignoring Qbita's loud demands.

"Huh?!" Herman again froze like a startled rabbit, his back to Qbita and the dragon, mid-motion to ascend the top of the crater and flee.

"He means you." Slippy whispered from atop Herman's shoulder.

Finally, Herman regained his senses and climbed the final step to get out of the crater.

"Amm... I am honored, but I am not really the ruling type. I prefer to do my own thing in peace. So am, you can have the city back." Herman said, then addressed the crowd, much louder this time.

"I proclaim Granny Qbita as the rightful ruler of the town." Herman declared to the dragon and crowd of onlookers.

"Aww, that's disappointing... It would have been fun to rule a city." Slippy lamented, slumping down on Herman's shoulder.

"You heard him, I am the ruler, now attack!" Qbita once again demanded of the massive dragon, as if commanding a handbag terrier.

"Command denied. Regent Qbita cannot order assault on King Herman." The dragon declared.

With that, Sharo, the grand dragon and leader of his clan, spread his wings and took to the sky to rejoin his kin in defending the city. But before that, he would take a short trip to the bakery. All this drama had made him hungry, and he deserved a little treat.

"Fine then, fly away you ungrateful gecko!"

"If you want to do something right you'd better do it yourself."

The granbot menacingly declared. A statement which made the mechanoid crowd to widen their visual sensors in shock, immediately followed by them scrambling away in panic in all directions. A stark contrast to when the dragon appeared on the scene. Back then, they had barely even bat an eye at the giant killing machine landing among them.

In just a few short moments, the scene was once again occupied by only Herman, Slippy, and the angry bot.

Before Herman and company could say or do anything more though, the round shape of Granny Qbita began to transform.

The bot grew in size, while her polished metal skin began to morph into armored metal plates akin to an ancient war-mech. Round hatches began opening all over her spherical body, revealing a truly frightening arsenal of weapons, ranging from old-style 21st-century missiles, to more modern plasma-based technology of the Escaldian government, and ending with the relatively niche grav technology favored by Mecron and his rebellion.

Each rocket, plasma disruptor, and grav projector looked brand new, meticulously maintained and polished to perfection. The arsenal of weapons whispered quiet promises of death and destruction.

And if that wasn't enough, the granbot hadn't limited herself to purely technological weaponry. The magical equipment strapped to her body didn't look as polished and refined as the technological. Regardless, the magical crystals and wands affixed to her radiated heavy mystical energy that didn't inspire much confidence in Herman or Slippy.

Speaking of which, the two would-be adventurers just watched the amalgamation of weapons, explosives, and magical contraptions unfold on itself like a militarized Rubik's Cube, unable to tear their eyes from the dangerously hypnotizing scene. It was beautiful in its own unique way. How this bot had managed to carry and embed so much firepower in herself and still function and transform like that was amazing. Even Slippy was impressed by the whole ordeal.

"NOW YOU WILL PAY!" Qbita growled, her voice much lower and mechanical, akin to one of the legendary fighting mechs during Earth's Dark Age of War.

"Run... Herman, run." Slippy urged with a monotone voice, fully intimidated by the creature charging at them.

"H-huh?" Herman mumbled, still staring at the rapidly approaching death mech.

"Run, RUUUNNNN!!!" Slippy screamed as Qbita unleashed the full power of her arsenal.