The last song of the ancestors

It was dusk on Chrome Hill. Casualties between the two sides grew alarmingly after midday. A cloud of thick smoke spread across the region. Everything was covered in gray pitch. Gunfire and explosions added to the cries of despair. The forces on both sides were tired.

The Central Command had held out until its last line of defense. They had defended the territory up to that point, but not without inflicting many casualties on the enemy. Only one thing sustained the militiamen: Ata's command. If it hadn't been for that, they would have withdrawn their troops and reworked their plan of attack.

Behind the barricades, the drug traffickers and those summoned by force were fighting the last stand. If they retreated another centimeter, they would hand Chrome Hill over to the enemy. The Fourth Estate would show no mercy. They would hunt down and kill everyone from the Central Command, and in front of their families, which would be even more horrible.

Under Yasini's command, the Chromos had shot down a helicopter and destroyed two bipedal tankers. Together with Akachi, he realized something about these latest weapons. Anyone who had mastered mediumship would have known which force moved the manned robots.

Ata was also thinking strategically. He left the jetpack unit to the last moment. They attacked in a V formation, flying low over the enemy. They threw grenades at them to break the line of defense. While they tried to hit them with explosives, the Central Command soldiers were at the mercy of the jetpack unit's machine guns.

They hit their targets with precision. Their agile mobility prevented them from being shot. Yasini and Akachi took the lead. They had understood that it was a risk to allow the air-surface unit to succeed in its assault. They would use their combined skills to diminish the power of the opponent's attack.

"I'll use an attraction field, Akachi. Knock out as many enemies as you can."

"Fenyang, are you ready?"

"I was born ready, buddy."

"Firm up spirit!"

Akachi performed Steadiness, incorporating Fenyang for the first time in that conflict. The pair began to counterattack in a combined fashion. Yasini used her attraction field against the militiamen in jetpacks, and concentrated this energy to paralyze them for a few seconds. Any piece of metal in the militiamen's armor was used to make the magnetic property work. The larger the metal portion, the greater the attraction.

As Propagation was an electrical property that was a Lower Function of his mediumistic profile, it attracted few enemies. This was compensated for by Akachi's combination of Magnetic and Electrical properties.

When he concentrated Axé in his legs, he leapt into the air. He redirected everything into his arms. He exerted a repulsive force combined with his Tertiary Propagation Function. Opponents were thrown into each other. It was too fast an attack to defend against and deflect. Several militiamen were knocked down in an instant with the stratagem. On the ground, they were machine-gunned and bombed by the mediums' allies.

The forces of the Central Command provided cover for the pair of mediums, who were making a mockery of their opponents. The jetpack unit dropped like flies on the battlefield. Chrome Hill's last line of defense was well concentrated. The morale of the Central Command was high at that moment. They had repulsed the attack so far.

Confusedly, the air-surface unit retreated in an uncoordinated stampede. A militiaman, with his faulty jetpack, tried to run. Chrome's men laughed at the man's awkward escape. Before he could get through the curtain of soot, a blade with a superheated wire pierced him through the chest.

A high-pitched sound of electronic injection echoed through the air. The silhouette of the metallic colossus became visible. It threw the militiaman's body into a wall. The body exploded on impact, spewing blood and viscera everywhere. He scraped the blade on the floor and walked towards the pair of mediums to intimidate them. It only had an effect on the drug dealers in the rear.

"I gave these idiots a simple order: kill all the enemies. They don't make good soldiers anymore these days. There is no order, no hierarchy possible to redeem these cowards."

Ata's voice came out wildly through the biped tank's loudspeaker. The traffickers backed off.

"No problem, there are things only a real man can do."

The commander fired the SIMBAD-RC's two missiles from his right shoulder. The two warheads flew rapidly towards the mediums. Akachi stood in front of Yasini, with both hands flat, he repelled the missiles in Ata's direction. He activated the thrusters on the back of his robot and managed to dodge.

He ejected his flanberge bayonet, jumped a few meters above the ground and landed a vertical downward blow on Akachi. Yasini pushed the young man away and parried the blow with his horizontally placed javelin. The edge of the super-heated blade tore through the javelin like a blowtorch. Ata redirected more force into his right arm. The medium bent his knees.

You sit on the Throne of Force, Yasini. Don't embarrass me.

Shut up, Zuber! You only complain and don't help at all.

You may be weak, but you're intelligent, Yasini. You know very well how to detonate this thing. Its strength is...

Axé! I know. I realized it when we destroyed the previous tank. How can a machine use Axé at that intensity, and without a medium inside?

I don't know. Do something fast, kid. I can feel your bones rattling.

"Zuber of the iron skin, who defied an entire army with a javelin. Grant me your strength, the unbreakable will that sustains your victory. Strengthen your spirit. Iron Skin."

With his Ofó, Yasini's skin was covered in a rusty layer. The ground cracked under the weight of the two combatants. Ata aimed the rocket launcher on his left arm at Yasini's face. He would fire at point-blank range.

"Even with that armor of yours, one shot from that distance will kill you, you crazy bastard!"

"I don't care, Yasini. Join your ancestors."

Plimmm. A silver coin spun in the air at the height of the biped tank pilot's cock-pit.

What the fuck?

"ULTRAKILL."

The silver coin was shot on its obverse. It was projected at high speed. It hit the cock-pit and went through the armored glass of the tank. It went through Ata's abdomen and out through the robot's shoulder.