Leona walked steadily through the hangar, her padded footsteps soft against the metal grating, but still echoing throughout the cavernous space. It was built to house mecha, the towering machines of war that were all that stood between survival and the titanic monsters hellbent on destroying the city. Since she was little, the Hrothgar had dreamed of being a fierce warrior, singing songs of battle as she tore into her enemy. Now the enemy was here, and it was more than she could possibly face: colossal creatures of muscle and bone, armoured blades able to shrug off shots from even the most powerful rifles she could carry. Any blade would be useless against their armour, meaning nothing to a foe that could crush her in a single step without ever noticing she was there.
Which brought her to the hangar, and her future as a pilot. It wasn’t the life she’d dreamed about, training all those years ago, hacking into practice dummies. Though, if it meant she could stand toe-to-toe against her enemy, armoured in one of the most powerful machines ever created, she would give anything for the opportunity.
Which, in a way, she was.
Ahead of her, a lone technician worked, surrounded by consoles and machines, the support system at the base on one of the mecha bays. It was empty now, the support frames in their open positions, repair arms stowed, the re-supply umbilicals coiled up, waiting. The war was taking its toll on both pilot and machines, and what few mecha this hangar still serviced were out on patrol, or locked in combat with their monstrous enemy.
“Oh, you must be my new pilot!” The technician called out, turning to face Leona, radiating cheerfulness. She was short, stoutly built, her bulky crimson jumpsuit hiding her body, though Leona guessed she was human, or something close to it. Leona towered over her, almost her opposite. The feline Hrothgar’s body rippled with muscles, the short sleeves of her pilot’s uniform showing off her arms.
”Yessir, Pilot Trainee Leona, reporti-“
”Relax, relax, we’re not formal here,” the technician replied, smiling up at her, “besides, I should be calling you sir. I’m here to help, whatever you need.”
”Right,” Leona replied, relaxing a little, eyes glancing around the space. There was a curving bank of monitors, displaying readouts or status information or things Leona couldn’t guess - one might’ve been to show the mecha’s condition, now blank, another for the pilot… One was clearly a map of the city, coloured blips showing mecha and monster, locked in battle. It didn’t seem to be going well, the mecha clearly outnumbered. Leona’s fur bristled, eager to fight.
“First things first, your pilot’s suit,” the technician gestured to a black bodysuit, cradled in a frame. It looked small, barely able to fit the technician, let alone Leona… though, she imagined that was going to change, pretty soon.
“I assume you know the suit will change you-” the technician started, cheerfulness dropping for a moment.
“Yes,” Leona interrupted. She was no stranger to having her body altered, transformed. Though the last time was out of choice, correcting an accident of her birth.
“Alrighty,” the technician replied, pausing for a moment, “don’t ask me why they’ve got to be worn by humans. Something about the nervous system, or needing bare skin for the contacts. Still!” She added with a wink, “I’m sure you’ll enjoy the experience. Most folks do.”
Leona looked at the technician for a moment, wondering what she meant, before turning her attention back to the bodysuit. It wasn’t quite black, but a deep charcoal, the shiny surface criss-crossed with the faint patterning of sensors and support systems interlaced through it. It wasn’t enough to simply control a mecha with a joystick, a pilot had to interface fully, melding their nervous system with the machine, almost becoming one with it.
“There’s a changing room around the corner, if you’d like…” the technician offered, blushing and turning away as she saw the Hrothgar already stripping out of her clothes.
“No need,” Leona replied, unafraid of who she was, “besides, not like it’s going to be my body much longer, right?” She cracked a smile, seeing the technician only blushing redder. Leona took a moment to look down at her body; the rise of her breasts, the cock hanging free between her legs, the tail swishing behind her. She’d wondered how much would change. She’d miss the spots and tail, of course, but what else would she lose - or gain - along the way?
Only one way to find out.
She lifted the bodysuit from its hangar, feeling the smooth synthetic material in her paws, cool to the touch, tingling slightly. Draped in her arms, it seemed impossibly small… even if it was going to change her. She flipped it around, unzipping the seam that ran parallel to the reinforced spine. Made of segmented metal, studded with data ports, it would become the interface between pilot and machine.
Leona slipped a leg inside. The material stretched around her invading leg, hugging it tightly as she awkwardly stuffed her paw into the foot. So far so good, she thought, stepping her other leg inside. Somehow, it was stretching to fit her feline body, but she could feel the shape of it almost fighting against her, designed for a body so different to her own. Taking a quick moment to tuck her cock into the sheath inside, she pulled it up and over her torso, slipping both arms though, fingers just about squeezing into the suit’s glove-like hands. Again, the suit seemed to squeeze her body, fighting against her size.
The torso itself hung oddly limp, unfastened behind her. She reached back, gloved hands trying to find the edges.
“Um, little help?”
”Oh, right!” The technician quickly moved behind her. She made to seal up the suit, before a forgotten detail caught her eye: the long, feline tail still swishing behind Leona, right at the base of the seam.
“Sorry, ah, I’m just going to—” the technician, slightly clumsily, lifted Leona’s tail and stuffed it inside the suit. If it was going to change soon, it didn’t need to be neat, she reasoned. Leona’s fur bristled a little in frustration — it wasn’t often a stranger played with her tail, after all — but said nothing.
Tail dealt with, her hands gripped the seam, pulling the bodysuit tight across Leona’s body, straining to seal it up. The suit sealed like a vacuum around the Hrothgar’s body, squeezing around her waist, leaving little to the imagination. About the only part it wasn’t tight against was her chest, though it still smoothly covered the curves of her breasts.
“So, this is it, huh?” Leona brushed a hand down her chest, feeling the bodysuit rippling slightly under her fingers, cock stiffening slightly as the fabric pulled tighter against it, “how long before, you know—”
Leona was interrupted by a sudden electric crackle across her body, running between the bodysuit and her furred skin. If it hadn’t been for the suit, she’d have probably puffed up. Millions of nanites, embedded into the suit's under-layer, quickly released into her body. Microscopic, they quickly found their way through her fur, into her skin, wriggling into her blood vessels and carried through her body. They’d been programmed with one purpose: to transform the suit’s wearer for maximum compatibility, and they were very efficient at their jobs.
Already, Leona could feel a warmth spreading through her, the heat generated as the myriad nanites began their work. Cell by cell, they were rewriting her DNA, weaving proteins to suit a new template for her body. Next they stimulated each cell, forcing it to regrow itself to match the new DNA. A subtle change, for an individual cell, but as each nanite completed its work in one cell and moved to the next, her body would gradually shift to its new form.
An itching feeling spread across Leona’s body, the thick coat of fur covering her slowly fading away, withdrawing into her skin. She reached up to her face, feeling the fur vanishing, leaving behind almost perfectly smooth skin. Pale pink, almost white, the closest a human would come to her old light-grey coat.
Leona began to shrink, losing height with every passing moment. Bones ached, muscles straining against her transforming skeleton. Her chest heaved with heavy breaths, heart pounding, coursing blood speeding the nanites through her body. However gradual the nanites tried to make the changes, they were still wrestling against millennia of evolution, her body unused to such rapid changes. Her feet started to shrink down under her, heels moving closed to the floor. Thick digits started to shrink down, gathering closer together, drawing narrower. The thick pads that covered her paws started to fade away, too, flattening against her changing skin.
“No more claws,” Leona thought, trying to flick them free. Nothing responded, the keratin and ligaments turned into something far simpler, much more harmless. Maybe that was why humans needed to pilot mecha, she wondered, they had no weapons of their own — driving them to make machines of war. There was a tugging feeling at the base of her spine, something shifting down her back: her tail, gradually shrinking down the base of the spine, relieving some of the suit’s discomfort.
Leona had expected the tightness of the suit to ease off as she changed, but it only seemed to be shifting: relaxing in some parts, growing tighter in others. As more of Leona shrank, other parts of her began to grow. Her body mass had to move somewhere, and the nanites worked in concert with each other to redistribute the cellular matter through her body. At least, that’s how the scientist’s might have described it. For Leona, it felt like her flesh was flowing. Squashed out of one part of her, running through her body, then gathering elsewhere.
She felt the swelling at her thighs, the soft flesh filling her rear, a gathering at her chest. A growing pressure under the skin as flesh welled up inside her, pushing outwards, straining against her changing form - and the bodysuit still tight against her. Leona’s chest rose and fell with each breath, her breasts rising more each time as they swelled out, thick with warm flesh. She felt the weight of it growing more intense, pulling her forward, the strain against her back. How did humans manage without a tail?
There was still strength in her, but she could feel her body softening, the same rush of flesh swelling out her thighs and ass. Even after her transformation before, ridding her of the masculine body she had been born with, she’d hardly been feminine. Now her body had the curves and hourglass she could only have dreamed of, her flesh soft and inviting as she grabbed handfuls of it. Her heart skipped faster, not just from the exertion of the changes, but the pleasure of her new body. Every inch of her felt sensitive, her cock stiffening under the bodysuit, straining out against the fabric.
I guess the technician was right, Leona thought to herself, the experience is…
A shock ran through her body. Her feet had dropped, heels abruptly slamming against the grating, finally settling into human shape. The sensation shook Leona back to her senses, realising how much of her body had changed. Human, under the gleaming bodysuit. Only her head remained feline, albeit hairless, spared the focus of the nanites until now. Leona leant closer to a blank monitor, the black glass reflecting her new body, the changing face staring back at her.
It was though someone was pressing down against it, flattening her feline muzzle back into her face. Her jaw drew back, teeth shrinking and adjusting in her mouth, blunt under her changing tongue. How do humans live? Her nose pulled back with it, then lifted, growing pale like the rest of her skin. The scents of the hangar seemed to fade, the tang of engine oil and metal dying down. It itched as it changed, a curve running down between her eyes, lifting slightly at a point.
All the while, her ears and eyes changed too, shifting from human to feline. The hangar grew darker, with a twinge as her iris shifted, shrinking to expose the pale white around it, her narrow pupil opening out into a circle. The sounds of the hangar grew quiet as her ears drew back, thin flesh curling around itself to form a human ear. Though she was relieved to find she could still pin-point sounds, Leona found the stillness of them slightly unnerving, no longer twitching and swivelling to capture noise. They’d slid down her face, nestling down in her hair on either side of her oval face. Her hair was about the only part of her left unchanged, the thick curls of silver still cascading down her back.
Leona stared at her reflection for a while, taking in the face of the human she’d become. She’d heard humans call these kinds of features ‘cute’ before… Was she cute, now?
“How do you feel?” Asked the technician after a time, her voice sounding closer than before.
“I feel, well,” there were a million things Leona wanted to say, though she realised for the first time the technician had probably seen Leona exploring her new body, “I guess you saw that, right?”
“Yeah,” she replied, grinning a little sheepishly, “don’t worry, you’re not the first.”
Leona breathed a slight sigh of relief, suddenly conscious again of the weight of her new breasts on her chest.
“Well,” the technician continued, “we can wait a bit if you’d like to, er, get used to yourself a little more… but when you’re ready, I’ve got some tests I’d like to run, make sure the changes went okay.”
“Now is fine,” Leona said, perhaps a little foolhardy but wanting to give the impression she was more composed than she was. That she was ready.
”Alright, if you’d like to follow me this way—”
Leona took a confident step and immediately tumbled forward. Her body might have finished changing, but she was totally unprepared for the movement of her new legs, the weight distribution of her new body. She felt hands reaching out to catch her, one gripping her arm, another wrapping around her waist. Leona’s heart fluttered slightly, under their touch, realising the technician had caught her.
“Careful now,” the technician’s tone was half-joking, but Leona felt there was real concern behind it, “it’s going to take a little while before you’re used to your new body.”
“I’m okay! I’m okay…” Leona lied, “I just need… a moment.” She slowly lifted herself up, trying to concentrate on the feelings of her new body. Rising breasts, cock straining against the fabric- not those feelings! Were her new curves a joke of whoever had programmed the nanites, or just because they needed to put her new body mass somewhere? She concentrated on her legs, the shape of them: longer calves, shorter feet, flat against the ground. No tail to help balance her.
“It’s okay, I’ll be just ahead if you need me,” the technician replied, giving Leona a little space.
She half-stepped, half-shuffled forwards, focusing on the motion of her legs. Another step, more confident, she was getting this! Leona let go of the railing, taking a few more steps over to the technician, her mind straying back to the feeling of her new hips swaying behind her. Focus!
The technician was waiting patiently for her in the middle of the mecha bay. A set of cables hung down, suspended from a robot arm, glinting in the half-light of the bay. From her pilot briefing, Leona recognised them as a set of support cables that could anchor her to a mech, slotting into the connection ports running down her spine.
“Don’t worry,” the technician said, trying her best to be comforting, even if Leona might pretend she didn’t need it. She seems so much taller now… “I’m just going to hook you up, and run a connection test. It’ll give me all your vitals, and let me know if anything’s gone wrong.”
Leona nodded, feeling her heart racing again. She felt exposed enough in the suit, now it felt like the technician was going to peer into her soul, “okay, let’s do this.” She turned back to the technician, bracing herself for the feeling of the technician carefully plugging each cable in, checking the integrity of data lines, and the seal of the hose bringing water to cool the suit. A sharp electric jolt ran through her spine, the computer banks of the hangar making the connection.
The electric tingle spread across her body. The technician’s console blipped behind her, spooling through diagnostic information, gathering her vitals.
The tingle ran deep, deeper than it should. The warmth she’d felt before returned, swelling inside her. The nanites reawakened. The tablet bleeped a warning.
“This can’t be right…”
The heat inside Leona intensified. Her spine started to spark with electricity, coursing through her body. The technician reached to pull the cables free, yelping as electricity arced out between them, forcing her to jump back.
Leona began to grow.
“What- what’s happening?” Besides the electricity coursing through her, the burning heat, and the increasing tightness of the bodysuit, Leona could feel nothing. No sense of what was happening to her, or why. Even afterwards, scientists would struggle to explain why — perhaps the nanites were simply faulty, overzealous in their programming, or perhaps it was simply the lingering effects of Leona’s earlier change, magic and science intertwining.
“I don’t know!” The technician replied, furiously tapping at her tablet. Occasionally there’d be another warning bleep, and her worry grew. “It’s- your vitals, they don’t make any sense!”
Leona looked down at her body, trying to remain calm, trying to make sense of what was happening. The only real clue she had was the bodysuit, feeling tighter around her body. Was it shrinking her again? No, that wouldn’t make sense. Was the technician shrinking? Or was she growing…? That had to be it, but why? Her heart was racing again, breathing in deeply. Each breath brought in more air, more raw materials for the nanites to use, each minute amount adding up as Leona continued to grow.
The bodysuit became increasingly tight around her. Her growing body stretching it out to its limits, the bodysuit sealing around every curve and contour of her body. Hugging the underside of her breasts, wrapping around the shape of her cock, holding it pinned against her belly. Another electric tingle ran between suit and Leona’s skin, the nanites working swiftly to knit the to together, fusing the synthetic material with her flesh. As the tingle died down, Leona became acutely aware of the cool air playing across her skin, the feeling of the metal plating under her bare feet, the touch of her fingers against her body. She felt exposed, naked, only adding to her confusion.
For the nanites, it was a purely calculated decision: integrating the suit with Leona would help prepare her body for the changes to come, and give the nanites access to more raw materials — their arcane technology drawing in water from the suit, gases from the air around her, synthesising them into metals and polymers.
“How are you feeling?” The technician called out, staring up at Leona, now about 12 feet tall… and still growing. Even with her tablet, the hardware at her disposal, she had no more idea what was happening to Leona. Her life signs made no sense, she was drawing in an impossible amount of power, and the safety lockouts were refusing to engage. All she could do was watch, and hope Leona was okay.
Leona was not okay. Confusion had turned to panic as Leona continued to grow. The heat and electric crackle had died down, but in its place was the sensation that her insides didn’t fit her body properly. With each passing moment, the ground seemed to shrink down beneath her, the dizzying sensation of falling in reverse. She could feel the weight of her body, bearing down on her bones and muscles, the bulk of her almost more than they could bear. Each breath became deeper, ragged, her lungs straining to carry out their base function as her cells were converted from organic matter to a network of metals and composites, nerves replaced with wires.
Though Leona couldn’t realise it, this was a battle being fought in every part of her. Bones, muscles, organs; all were being transformed into the artificial equivalent, a growing army of nanites unravelling and re-knitting her body mass into something new. They’d been programmed to maximise compatibility with a mecha. How better to achieve that, than to make her one?
Still, there was more work to be done. A signal went through a wire. The bay’s floodlights powered on, bathing Leona’s growing form in light, her shadow falling over the technician below. She stared up at Leona, trying to make sense, when her tablet chimed. The confused display of a pilot’s vitals had disappeared, replaced with the status display for a mecha. Amber warning lights flashed on as a robot arm shuddered into life, unspooling a cable, running the end down to Leona’s spine. Metal warped, forming a new port, and the cable clicked into place.
Another surge of electricity flowed through Leona’s body, back arching in response. The nanites were supercharging themselves, drawing in more energy to complete their work. Despite the confusion, the panic, Leona felt a thrill of power running through her body. The ground fell away beneath her, Leona’s body now filling half of the bay, and still growing. Deep inside her, the changes continued, flesh and bone almost completely replaced as the nanites sped her transformation. Somehow, her body felt lighter. Metal replaced bones, crude joints and ligaments converted into precision-designed mechanisms. Muscle fibres transformed into banks of powerful motors. She could feel them whirring with each movement, the vibrations carrying through her inner workings. It was difficult for her to wrap her head around the sensations — there was hardly any baseline feeling in her mammalian brain for them — but she decided they actually felt pretty good.
“Woah… this is…” Leona called out, her voice echoing through the bay. Something didn’t feel right about the words, the way she spoke. Leona placed a hand on her chest, feeling her lungs underneath, the powerful heat of her body. They were still, no longer rising and falling. Instead, she felt the rush of powerful fans, drawing air in through her mouth. Pressure built inside her, and something else — not quite pain, but discomfort. Her shoulder blades pushed out behind her, the black polymer of her bodysuit turning to gleaming metal. Ridges formed in parallel rows, splitting, flaps opening. Air vented from her back, turning the air above her into a haze, carrying away the growing heat of her body.
Leona relaxed slightly, the heat in her core abating, the cooling system her lungs had become working to regulate the growing heat inside her. What else has changed? Even without the technician’s tablet to help her, Leona had a sense of what was happening. She felt her chest again. There was no racing heart-beat, no gurgle from her stomach. Instead she felt the vibrations of machines inside her. The fierce heat of the reactor deep in her chest, increasing with each moment, despite the best effort of her lungs.
The mecha Leona was becoming now filled three-quarters of the bay. The technician was a distant speck below her, the blue light of the tablet the only thing picking her out in the shadow of Leona’s immense body. So little of Leona’s organic body remained, though aside from her size, she still looked much like any other human. Again her head had been spared at first, but she could sense the nanites were still working to transform her, delicately replacing flesh with composite, nerves with circuitry. Ears and eyes were augmented, the sounds of the bay coming back into clear focus, the shadow beneath her brightening. She could see every detail of the technician, the concern - and amazement - written across her face. Adapting her brain to make better sense of her changing body, a keener awareness of the machinery inside her chassis.
My chassis… she repeated the thought, it’s changing how I think of myself…
More support structures whirred into life, thick conduits and pipes hooking into the access ports running down Leona’s back. She didn’t need power anymore, she sensed, but coolant. It was like a hunger deep inside her. She felt the pipes seal against her back, valves whirring open, the sudden flow of liquid spilling into her body. Coolant cascaded down into her chest, filling her breasts. The weight of them increased, threatening to tip her forward, a pleasant ache as their thick polymer skins stretched. She reached out to brace herself, a hand wrapping around a support tower, the metal buckling like it was nothing under her fingers.
I need something to help with balance.
The nanites responded. Something started to push out from the base of her spine, a growing weight behind her. A skeleton of metal stretched out behind her, joints forming, the whip-like tail stretching out behind her. Then her polymer skin seemed to flow back, stretching over to cover its shape as new motors emerged among its length, cabling and hoses intertwining. It had a satisfying weight, enough to balance out the increased mass on her chest. Another rush of growth, and two fins emerged at the end of her powerful tail.
“Feels good to have you back,” Leona thought aloud, reaching back to run a hand down it. Okay, maybe it was a touch more reptilian in profile — thick above her ass, and tapering down to those thagomizer-like fins — but it was hers. She felt the power inside, sensing it was just as much for defence as balance.
Leona now almost entirely filled the bay. Her new body felt… incredible. The size of it, the power of it, the promise and potential of her new form making Leona feel almost giddy. Yet she knew the nanite’s work wasn’t complete…
An electric tingle spread across Leona’s skin. A tightening sensation running across the backs of her arms, the sides of her legs, down her spine. Soft skin stiffened, pilling together, growing denser and paler, grey shifting to silver-white More material rushed in, as nanites transformed pliable polymer to armoured panels of metal and ceramic composites. They pushed out from her body, forming thick plates of armour, carefully splitting apart around her joints. She ran a hand across an arm, the metal cool to the touch, a serrated ridge running down its length. She tried to shift it, feeling it anchored to her metal skeleton, forming a solid gauntlet around her forearm.
The weight across her back increased, the plating forming a thick armoured carapace, running down from her shoulders to her thighs. Her vents shifted upwards, arching back, hot air billowing behind her. Leona felt the weight of her tail increase, bulking up as the armour spread down to the fins. They grew thicker and longer, edges sharpening into blades. If the mass of her tail wouldn’t work as a weapon, they definitely would.
Leona could barely admire her new armour before another pair of robot arms whirred into life either side of her. They reached out, ammo conduits trailing behind them, locking into each arm near the elbow. Shells clattered into her arms, auto-loaders sorting and stowing them into place. They must have been huge, to a human, capable of blasting a crater in the earth. To Leona, they barely felt like anything; even their combined weight was nothing her powerful arms couldn’t handle.
As her arms filled with ammunition, the nanites continued their work. Above and below each forearm, armour plating warped and shifted. Metal grew out in a spider-web frame, thickening as the nanites built up more material around it. Soon they solidified into gun barrels, jet black, a slightly angled profile to match the contours of her arm. Long enough to ensure her accuracy, short enough to not get in the way. Leona grinned.
An awareness floated to the back of her mind, sensors reading data, relaying it to her cortical stack, the intermesh of mind and machine, personality and programming. The exact count of each round loaded into her frame, their destructive potential, range data for her new weapons. All it would take was a thought. Leona felt like she could take in the world.
Only supplementary armour and weapons remained, a voice at the back of Leona’s mind whispered. The more the nanites reworked her body, reforged her into a mecha, the more she seemed to learn. The flood of diagnostic data previously meaningless, just the feeling of discomfort, finally started to make sense.
The same tightening feeling reached her hands and feet. Her palms thickened, polymer skin tickling as strands of reinforcing fibres wove their way through. On the backs of her hands, the stiffening feeling marked more armour plating emerging, running from her wrist down the tips of each finger. The metal seemed to flow like liquid, reaching out beyond, curving, drawing thinner as sharp claws tipped each powerful hand. Below, the same armour plating grew to cover her entire feet. Reinforced ridges pushed out underfoot for grip, grinding against the metal plating, digging in as matching claws emerged from each foot. The sense of power grew, powerful banks of motors emerging, ready to drive her claws into the ground.
Leona grinned, light shining of the metal-reinforced composite of her teeth, sharpened to points. Not quite the fangs of her old, feline self, but vicious enough to tear through the hide of a monster, Leona thought.
Leona had been a naïve warrior before, now she was several tonnes of naïve metal and composite, bristling with enough weapons to save a city, or level it. Her whole body seemed to ripple with destructive potential. Her entire being reforged into a devastating weapon of war. And Leona loved it.
“Leona? Leona! Can you hear me?” The clipped voice of the technician sounded in Leona’s mind, picked up by an internal radio Leona didn’t realise she had. She looked down in confusion, watching the tiny form of the technician waving below.
“Yes, I can hear you,” Leona instinctively shouted, her deafening voice echoing against bare metal, the radio in her mind squealing as it overloaded.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“It’s okay,” the technician’s voice replied, audibly shaken, “I’m just glad you’re still… you.” For a while, she’d been afraid the nanites wouldn’t stop, and keep going until Leona was just mindless metal.
“What happened? I mean, I’m not complaining, this body is incredible,” Leona kept whispering, holding her arms out in front of her. She couldn’t help but admire the shape of them, the way the armour blended with the shape of her body, how light glinted off the metal of her claws. “But, you know, I thought I was just going to be a pilot…”
“Don’t ask me, I just work here,” a touch of frustration tinged her voice. It wasn’t every day your newbie pilot turned into a 2,000-tonne killing machine, “all my computers are telling me is that you’re a mecha. I’ve got your reactor readout, coolant levels… looks like you’ve even got a cockpit?”
“I’ve got a WHAT?” Leona called back, not sure if she liked the idea.
A klaxon interrupted them, warning lights bathing the hangar with a pulsing red glow. Had the hangar been full, it would have been alive with the clamour of techs preparing their mechas, the rising whine of reactors, pilots racing across the decking to their cockpits. Instead, it was empty save for the technician, and Leona.
“Shit! We’ve got an ugly approaching from the east,” the technician called out, dashing over to her console, trying to quickly make sense of the radar signals, “looks like a big one, must have broken past our mechas.”
Leona didn’t need telling, Leona knew. The stream of data was already uploaded to her mind, new instincts and new programming translating it into combat data. She could sense their location, see the blips in her vision, x-ray silhouettes of her targets. There was no-one else who could stop them, she had to do this. She was made for this.
A signal went through a support cable. Leona’s mind, a hybrid of instinct and programming, had translated her emotional intent into an electronic command. Above and behind her, the conduits and support arms feeding her mechanical body finished their work. There was a chorus of mechanical clangs, whirring motors, and hissing valves as they released from her body. She was free, unrestrained, her reactor powering up as anticipation built inside her body.
“Wait, you’re not ready!” The technician called out, already too late, watching the titanic woman launch herself through the open hangar doors, racing down the street. She might be powerful, the technician thought, but she had all the grace of a newborn cow…
Buildings flashed past Leona’s vision as she tore her way through the city, almost literally. Her new body was powerful, perhaps too powerful. She could feel her body signing, the powerful stacks of engines that made up her muscles, the beating rhythm of the reactor in her chest, the dull roar of air intakes pushed to their limits to feed the fire in her heart.
Yet her pace was unsteady, Leona simply not used to her new strength, or her new size. The pavement cracked underfoot, the sheer weight of her body more than tarmac could bear, metal claws digging deep into the earth, leaving deep scars in her wake. Too fast, too powerful. A foot slipped, several tonnes of metal sliding through the asphalt, Leona’s titanic body falling ahead of her. The world rushed to meet her.
Concentrate.
She wasn’t a Hrothgar anymore. Hell, she’d barely even been human. Now, she was a colossal instrument of violence. If she wasn’t careful, she’d only harm herself, overtax her motors, tear bearings free, become part of the ruined city she was trying to protect. She was a machine, time to think like one…
If there had been a pilot inside her, they’d have felt the cockpit heat a few degrees. Coolant systems running overtime as she tried to process the data from her body: the status of each hard-point, positions of every actuator, temperature levels throughout her systems. Limb positions, speeds, motion planning. All in a fraction of a second to save her from herself.
Leona rammed her right leg into the ground, splintering asphalt and concrete. The mass of her body pivoted around it, spinning her body to the right. Her body kept going, foot digging a new trench in her wake. Her tail swung behind her, the armoured tip slicing effortlessly through the side of a tower block. Leona braced, just before the rest of her slammed into the side of another building. Mercifully, it was long abandoned. Rubble showered Leona’s body as she finally came to a stop, chunks of concrete and rebar bounding harmlessly of her metal body.
“Leona! Are you okay?” The technician called out over the radio, concern showing through her voice.
“I’m okay! I’m okay…” Leona replied, echoing her words from before, “I just need a moment to—”
The howl of a monster pieced the air. Down the street, a cloud of rubble and splintered metal heralded the arrival of Leona’s quarry. It lurched out into the street, turning its head towards her, eyes lit with fury. The beast was immense, far larger than any dragon, larger than any creature had a right to be. Its shape was caught somewhere between a crocodile and a gorilla. The creature’s overlong snout was filled with teeth, glinting in the light. Thick arms pounded into the ground ahead of it, claws larger than Leona’s digging the own trenches into the asphalt.
“No time for that, get moving! You can still make it back to the hangar—”
“No,” Leona replied, determined to prove herself, to test the power of her new form, “I can do this. I have to do this.”
In the silence of the hangar, the technician muttered a quick prayer. Still, if Leona was determined to fling herself into danger, the least she could do was help. Fingers danced across her console, tapping into Leona’s sensors, looking for anything that could help.
“Looks like it’s weak spot is its belly,” she replied, still searching.
“Aren’t they all?” Leona replied, a part of her suddenly conscious of how exposed her own chest was.
The monster pounded the ground again, muscles under its scaly hide rippling, setting off in a loping run towards Leona. It bellowed a challenge as it went, its voice shattering the glass around it. A challenge Leona was all too happy to accept.
She pushed her body off the building, planting her feet carefully into the road. Claws extended out, servos whining with the strain, anchoring down into the asphalt. Body steady, she extended an arm, auto-loaders clattering in a pair of armour-piercing shells. All it took was a thought…
Fire!
The crack of cannon fire pierced the air. Recoil shook through Leona’s body in a thunderous wave, even as her cannons shifted back to absorb the shock. Leona felt it through her whole body, carried through her metal skeleton, straining every joint and bolt in her body, her chest swaying. A wave of pleasure followed, an almost primal feeling of satisfaction at the sheer power of her new form. Ahead, the shells pummelled into the creature’s hide, fire and viscera spraying into the air.
The monster kept running, shrugging off the injury like it was nothing.
Reload!
Another pair of shells locked into pace, the still smoking barrels sliding forward. Ready. Anticipation grew in Leona’s body, a deep-seated need for release.
Fire!
Leona cried out as her cannons thundered again. Ready for the shock, the feeling of pleasure, feeling the power of her new body. She watched the shells fly out, through the still-raining shower of blood.
The monster bellowed, powerful legs shattering the ground beneath as it launched itself towards Leona, the gap between them closing to nothing.
Instinctively, Leona rolled to the side, lashing out with her tail. The sweeping metal arced towards the monster, catching it mid-leap. She felt a blade impact against its side, the resistance of its thick hide suddenly giving way as the blade slid into warm meat. A fraction of a second later, the rest of her tail impacted against the creature's side, feeling the full weight of it against her body. Howling in pain, the creature fell against another tower block, the cloud of debris and rubble covering it, followed by a spray of blood as Leona’s tail slipped free.
A moment’s calm was all Leona received. The creature thrashed about, scattering the rubble from its body, before launching itself back at Leona.
No time for guns.
Leona stepped to the side, letting the creature move past her, reaching out with a clawed hand. She felt the resistance of its hide, the weight of it pushing back against her arm as her claws scraped against its side. Blood sprayed out of the monster as the claws found their mark, splitting the creature open as it tumbled behind her.
The creature howled, seeming to register the wound as little more than an annoyance, quickly recovering. It was a monster born to be a predator, the top of the food chain. The fight could only end with its death, or the metal titan sundered before it. Leona barely had time to react before the monster leapt again, mouth open, those razor-sharp teeth flying forwards Leona’s head. Instinctively, she raised an arm to protect herself. Teeth jammed around it, the force of the impact knocking Leona back, her reinforced ass slamming against the ground.
The monster bared down on her, the sheer weight of its body crushing her against the ground. Concrete shattered under her, the monster flexing up, then slamming Leona back down, deeper each time. Powerful jaws tried to bite through her, tagged teeth digging into the metal of her arm. The pressure of it wasn’t quite pain, but Leona heard the warnings in her mind, the strain almost more than her body could bear. She reached out with her free hand, gripping the edge of its jaw, trying to bend it free. Her motors howled, trying to resist the force of the monster, driving her arm back. Heat flared inside Leona, her reactor reaching its limits as it tried to meet the energy demands of her body. Leona’s voice joined in the chorus, yelling in defiance. Her song was violence, more powerful than her form could contain.
The thunder of her cannons joined the song. Pointed straight into the creature’s mouth, the high-ex shells punched through the soft flesh inside, detonating inside the monster’s skull. A wave of release rolled through Leona’s body, the ecstasy of violence, the power of her form, all mixing with the sheer satisfaction of victory.
Leona lay for a while. Her body rested in the crater, the weight of the monster still weighing down on her. The city was silent, and still, leaving Leona alone with the aftershocks of her climax. She’d never felt this way before, the force and power of her new form able to split the sky. Leona had faced the storm, and been reborn — as something new, as something greater.
“Are you okay? Leona? Speak to me!” The technician’s voice came over the radio, her concern overriding any sense of combat protocol.
“Don’t worry about me,” Leona replied. This time she meant it. She heaved herself from the ground, the motors and servos that made up her muscles protesting as Leona pushed the dead weight of the monster off her. Already her sensors were picking up more threats, on the horizon but closing fast. Her chest rose, air intakes drawing in, fuelling the fire in her reactor. Power welled up inside her, the rush of heat and energy coursing through her systems. Again that rising need, that tension, that need for release that could only be achieved through violence. Arms up. Guns ready.
“I’m just getting started…”