Nøkken
A short chapter from my nanowrimo project HEXEMASKINER, about transgender butches piloting haunted mechs, and the importance of building society around the worship of goth femmes.
Please be nice, the chapter is entirely unedited.
On the most fundamental level, magnetized target fusion (MTF) reactors work by fusing hydrogen and deuterium inside a chamber filled with liquid metal spun at high speed. The energy released by the fusing of atoms pushes the liquid metal into crevices which drives turbines that create electricity, some of which is used to power the next fusion.
If the inner wall of an MTF reactor is breached, that is in theory it. The metal leaks out, electricity stops being produced, the fusion cycle can't continue. This is generally regarded as a safety feature, preventing the reactor from going critical due to the limited scope of each individual fusion.
However, certain models, such as the one mounted inside most M88 Polks, as well as the XVX013 prototype, are able to spin the fusion chamber at such high speeds that gravity, and the chamber's magnetized interior, can keep the metal in place to keep cycling.
Getting the reactor into such a state is no trivial task. It requires bypassing several safety restrictions, and using systems in a way they were never intended. Not a lot of pilots had the technical knowhow and familiarity with their own armor to deliberately trigger it, but XVX013 is one of them.
She's working with her eyes closed, swimming around her armor's flooded cockpit, performing field repairs and injecting herself with horrifying amounts of psychoactive substances to work as fast as she needs to.
Finally, her heartbeat returns.
Dun-dun dudun du-dun dun dudun.
The trinity has been completed. Man, machine and monster rise together from the lakes surface.
She's not angry, she's not in pain.
She
Is
Hungry.
Noticing a ping on their scanners, one of the junior mechs who accompanied b14w walks to the waters edge. Figuring its just the death rattle of the rebels comedic attempt at armor, it doesn't have its guards raised.
Next thing it knows, a pair of huge glowing yellow eyes looks up at it. Then a skeletal, metal arm grabs its leg and pulls it into the water.
The pilot panic, firing wildly with every weapon they've got and engaging thrusters in any direction it can.
But it is in the monsters domain now. And the monster has laid hungry for centuries.
The pilot drowns, the sound of their pleas for help echoing out across all available channels.
The other junior pilot, clearly on edge, moves towards the water's edge. They're ready to fire at a moment's notice.
But that is more time than they get.
The witch drive engages. It too is a fusion of flesh, steel, and magic.
Water burst upwards, and the armor is knocked on its back. A hungry machine lands on top of it and begins tearing at its armored cockpit with bare claws.
"Let me in. Let me in. Let me in. Let me in." The message plays on repeat until the pilot's signal goes dark.
The runes surrounding the witch drive spin, then come to a stop midair, giving the monster a name: ᚾᛟᛖᚴᚴᛖᚾ.
Nøkken.
Using her self-repair protocol, Nøkken cannibalizes parts from the two wrecked armors; first closing the hole in her reactor, then securing her legs.
In the meantime, Grace Claymoore has gotten b14w to return to consciousness. After being informed the rookies has dealt with nc256, it has gone to finish the mission it was sent for: butchering the rebels that have been infected the Caersgarden colony.
Like the marines and MPs in the field, it hears the juniors cries for help and feels a chill run down its spine. nc256 was smarter than the devil and faster than death, two rookies would not be the death of it.
Quick, tense words are exchanged between b14w and Grace Claymoore.
A field armament change is performed by engineers from the peacekeeping initiative. b14w loses its empty missile pods, and gains the mass driver from the pilot who ejected. Nobody knows where the pilot himself went, he will be caught and lectured later.
The marines are too good to let the screeching of lobotomites get in the way of their missions. A fight almost breaks out between them, and the MPs who want to set up a killbox.
Icy lake water, starts flooding the streets of Plumhill space harbor.
A thick mist rolls over the town. And in the center of it, a pair of yellow eyes, big as dinner plates, glowing like floodlights.
A thundering, scratchy voice echoes. "Eric Blackwood, son of Jeremiah. The hours has come and the lake is owed."
b14w staggers involuntarily. How does nc256 know the name of its dad? It doesn't even remember his face.
A figure emerges from the mist. The owner of the vast yellow eyes. It's a skeletal figure covered in seaweed like a mane of wet hair; an unarmored mech, with a hole in its abdomen that's been crudely welded shut with armor from another unit.
It drags the bottom rail of a heavy SK rifle along the ground like a sword, sharpening it on the pavement as it walks.
"Eric Blackwood, son of Jeremiah. I am death and I am vengeance."
A few of the marines snicker at the line. b14w is too busy taking aim with the mass driver, it knows instinctively it only gets the one shot.
The waters rise from knee to chest height, then gather around Nøkken. The mist envelops its improvised weapon as it lifts it to strike.
ᚴᛅᛏᛅᛋᛏᚱᛟᚠᛖ ᛈᚱᛟᛏᛟᚴᛟᛚ
KATASTROFE PROTOKOL
{Disaster Protocol}
b14w never gets to take the shot. The mass driver malfunctions, the controls aren't responding.
And in a spray of water and ion thrusters. XVX013 Nøkken appears right before it, severing all its remaining weapons with a single circular strike, before turning the sword back around and splitting the mech — pilot and all — along the vertical axis.
Everyone who witness it, will later swear they heard a seductive harp play a haunting tune somewhere in the distance.
