The golem's hand plunged into the soil with force that cracked the ground. For one heartbeat, nothing happened. Then Kelvin's senses picked up a warning. Something was moving underground, spreading, building toward something catastrophic.

"SCATTER!" Kelvin bellowed, already activating the case on his chest.

The recruits moved, but not fast enough. Roots erupted from the earth like spears, dozens of them, bursting upward with enough force to punch through a wall. One caught Marcus across the shoulder, spinning him sideways. Another missed Reyna by inches, close enough that she felt the displacement.

The third went straight through the youngest recruit's leg.

The kid—Daniel, Kelvin remembered suddenly—screamed. The root had speared him mid-thigh, pinning him to the ground as blood poured from the wound. The golem began pulling the root back, dragging Daniel with it.

KROME materialized in a cascade of unfolding metal and compressed space, the full ten-ton frame assembling around Kelvin in under two seconds. His perspective shifted immediately—nine feet of enhanced height, sensor feeds flooding his consciousness, weapon systems coming online with electronic precision.

The plasma cannon on his right shoulder swiveled and fired.

*BRRZZZZT—*

The beam severed the root holding Daniel. The recruit collapsed, clutching his leg, but at least he wasn't being dragged toward the golem anymore. Kelvin positioned KROME between the wounded recruit and the advancing threat.

"Marcus! Get Daniel to the treeline and apply pressure to that wound!" Kelvin's voice boomed through KROME's external speakers. "Reyna, you and the others—spread out, flanking positions, keep it distracted! Do NOT engage directly, just make noise and look threatening!"

The golem moved. Not walking—flowing, its wooden limbs bending in ways that shouldn't be anatomically possible. It closed half the distance to KROME in two strides, and Kelvin barely got his arms up before a massive fist came down like a falling tree.

*CRASH—*

The impact drove KROME's feet six inches into the soil. Warning lights cascaded across Kelvin's HUD. Hydraulics strained. He shoved back, servos screaming, and managed to throw the golem's arm aside.

"Okay," Kelvin muttered inside the cockpit. "You hit harder than you look."

The golem's other hand swept in from the side. Kelvin activated the thrusters, launching KROME backward fifteen feet. The golem's fist carved through empty air where he'd been standing.

Reyna opened fire from the left flank—energy blasts from her rifle, cat three beast core powered, each shot carrying enough punch to crack stone. They hit the golem's torso and simply sank in, absorbed by the bark-like surface. The golem didn't even flinch.

"Not working!" Reyna shouted.

"Keep shooting anyway!" Kelvin returned fire with KROME's plasma cannons. "We need to learn what hurts this thing!"

The twin beams scorched across the golem's chest, creating blackened furrows in the wood. For exactly three seconds, it looked effective. Then vegetation sprouted from the damaged areas, fresh growth filling in the burns, healing the damage in real-time.

"Are you kidding me?" Kelvin activated the missile pods. "Fine. Let's try explosive ordinance."

Six micro-missiles launched simultaneously, streaking toward the golem from multiple angles. They detonated on impact, creating overlapping fireballs that engulfed the creature completely.

When the smoke cleared, the golem stood exactly where it had been. Scorched, certainly. Damaged, maybe. But already regenerating, new growth spreading across burned sections.

The green glow around its waist pulsed brighter.

"That's it," Kelvin said, his analytical mind processing what he was seeing. "That belt, that crystal—it's a power source. It's feeding the regeneration."

The golem's back bulged. Kelvin's sensors caught movement—something growing, something launching—

"DOWN!"

Wooden spikes erupted from the golem's spine, dozens of them, firing in all directions like organic missiles. Kelvin dove KROME sideways, thrusters burning, and most of them missed. Three didn't. They slammed into KROME's left arm and torso, punching through armor plating that had been designed to resist anti-tank weaponry.

[STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY: 89%]

[LEFT ARM ACTUATOR: DAMAGED]

[COMPENSATING...]

Kelvin rolled KROME to its feet, tore the spikes free with his functioning right hand. "Everyone still alive back there?"

"Here!" Marcus called from the treeline where he'd dragged Daniel. "Daniel's stabilized but he's done fighting!"

"Good! Stay there and—LOOK OUT!"

The golem was moving again, but not toward Kelvin. Toward Reyna and the other recruits, apparently deciding the smaller targets were easier prey.

"Oh no you don't." Kelvin activated the grappling hook. The magnetic clamp shot out on its retractable cable, wrapped around the golem's leg, locked tight. "HEY! OVER HERE!"

He yanked. The golem stumbled, its charge interrupted, turning its attention back to KROME. Kelvin released the cable and switched to close combat mode.

The pile drivers in KROME's forearms armed with a mechanical *CHUNK-CHUNK-CHUNK*.

Kelvin closed the distance, thrusters carrying him forward in a burst of speed. His fist connected with the golem's midsection, and the pile drivers fired in sequence—three pneumatic strikes delivering concentrated kinetic force directly into the creature's core.

*WHAM-WHAM-WHAM—*

The golem staggered. Actual damage, visible damage, wood splintering where the strikes had landed. But then roots burst from its feet, anchoring it to the ground, and its massive arms came around in a crushing embrace aimed at KROME's torso.

Kelvin fired the thrusters at maximum burn, shooting upward, the golem's arms closing on empty air beneath him.

"Reyna! The crystal! Shoot the glowing part around its waist!"

Reyna adjusted her aim, targeted the green glow, fired three shots in rapid succession. They hit dead center, and for the first time, the golem screamed. Not a roar—a sound like wood splitting, like something ancient and angry being wounded.

The green light flickered. The regeneration slowed.

"THAT'S IT!" Kelvin repositioned KROME mid-air, came down with both feet extended, drop-kick aimed directly at the crystal. "Everyone focus fire on the belt!"

His boots connected. The impact created a shockwave that knocked nearby vegetation flat. The crystal cracked, spiderweb fractures spreading across its surface, but didn't shatter.

The golem went absolutely berserk.

Roots exploded from every surface—the ground, its body, even hanging from nearby trees suddenly animated and hostile. They came at KROME from every direction, wrapping around limbs, pulling, constricting. Kelvin fired his thrusters but couldn't generate enough force against the dozens of restraints.

"Boss!" One of the other recruits—a kid with fire manipulation—sent a stream of flame at the roots binding KROME's legs. The wood blackened, weakened. "We got you!"

Marcus was back in the fight, his injured shoulder forgotten. Dark chi blazed around his hands as he tore at roots with enhanced strength. Reyna kept firing at the crystal, each shot making the light flicker more severely.

Kelvin pushed KROME's systems to maximum output. Thrusters roared. Hydraulics strained. The chest-mounted laser array activated, carving through roots with concentrated beams.

He broke free, leaving shredded plant matter behind, and immediately pivoted toward the golem. Its regeneration was slower now, struggling, the damaged crystal unable to provide sufficient power.

But it wasn't done. The golem's hands plunged into the earth again, and this time Kelvin felt the energy building toward something massive.

"Everyone run! GET TO THE TREES!"

The clearing exploded. Roots everywhere, bursting from the ground in a forest of wooden spears, each one seeking targets. KROME took a dozen hits, armor cracking, systems failing, but Kelvin kept moving forward because that crystal was right there, exposed, damaged, and if he could just—

The golem backhanded him. The impact sent KROME tumbling, crashing through undergrowth, until Kelvin arrested the momentum with his thrusters and came up facing the wrong direction.

By the time he turned around, the golem was moving. Not toward him. Away. Fleeing deeper into the jungle where the terrain grew swampy, where water and mud stretched for miles.

"Oh no," Kelvin muttered. "You're not getting away that easy."

He gave chase. KROME was built for speed—the dragon fusion core from Nyx and Storm providing unlimited power, the thruster system designed for sustained flight at velocities that made conventional aircraft jealous. Kelvin pushed it hard, accelerating through the jungle in controlled bursts that turned trees into blurs.

They burst into a swampy section where the ground was more water than earth. The golem moved across it easily, its wooden construction giving it natural buoyancy. KROME flew above it, hovering on thruster power.

The golem turned to face him, apparently recognizing it couldn't outrun the suit. Its hands swept through the swamp water, and suddenly the water itself became a weapon—tendrils rising up, hardened by plant matter mixed through them, coming at KROME from below.

Kelvin banked left, avoiding the first wave, then right to dodge the second. The golem was relentless, creating more and more tendrils, filling the air with grasping vines and hardened water.

One caught KROME's leg. Kelvin fired the plasma cannon at it, severing the tendril, but three more took its place. His left leg got caught. Then his waist. The golem was pulling him down, using the swamp itself as a weapon.

Kelvin's mind raced. The crystal was the key—he'd damaged it, weakened it, but hadn't destroyed it. And now the golem was recovering, adapting, using the swamp's resources to fuel its regeneration.

He needed something decisive. Something overwhelming. Something that would—

Kelvin felt the tendrils tighten. The cockpit shook. Power readings dipped. The suit gave a pained hiss. The golem raised both fists, ready to crush him.

He scanned his board. Every main weapon failed. Heat climbed. A single locked system sat at the bottom of the display, blinking through the warnings. He knew what it was. He had refused to test it. He had argued about it. He had hoped he would never touch it.

Kelvin unlocked it.

KROME's chest plate split open. Inside, crystalline arrays began to glow—blue-white light that built in intensity until it hurt to look at. The dragon fusion core ramped to maximum output, feeding power into the weapon system at rates that would've melted a conventional reactor.

The golem's fists dropped.

Kelvin fired.

It wasn't a beam. It wasn't a projectile. It was a wave of pure vibrational energy that expanded outward in a sphere, hitting everything within fifty meters with frequencies specifically tuned to shatter crystalline structures.

The golem's fists disintegrated mid-swing. Its arms followed, wood exploding into splinters. The crystal around its waist—already cracked, already weakened—simply ceased to exist, blown apart on a molecular level by vibrations it had no defense against.

The golem froze. Its body lost cohesion. Wood separated into individual pieces. The vegetation growing from it withered and fell away. Within seconds, nothing remained except scattered timber and dead plant matter floating in the swamp.

Kelvin sat in KROME's cockpit, breathing hard, watching the temperature gauges slowly tick back down from critical levels.

"Diana," he said to the empty air, "I am never doubting your weapon designs again."

"KELVIN!" Reyna's voice crackled through the comms. "Are you alive? We felt that from here!"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good." He flew KROME out of the swamp, back toward solid ground. "Golem's dead. Crystal's destroyed. Everyone okay?"

"Daniel needs medical attention but he'll live. Everyone else is bruised but functional."

"Good. Let's finish clearing the area and get paid."

---

It took another two hours to sweep the rest of the jungle. What they found was dozens of smaller plant-based beasts—cat twos mostly, with a few cat threes mixed in. But with the alpha dead, the ecosystem's apex predator removed, the lesser beasts scattered immediately. No fight. No resistance. Just animals fleeing a territory that no longer had protection.

By the time they made it back to the ship, the sun was setting, painting the sky in oranges and reds. Daniel was on a stretcher, sedated and stable. The others were exhausted but whole.

Kelvin stood outside the ship, KROME compressed back down to its case, and looked at the jungle they'd just cleared. A day's work. One alpha eliminated. Contract completed. Nobody dead, though Daniel would need treatment which shouldn't take one of their healers that much to do.

Could've been worse.

"That was incredible." Reyna appeared beside him, her expression somewhere between awe and disbelief. "The way you just... figured it out. Adapted. That final weapon—what even was that?"

"Something Diana installed," Kelvin replied, unable to hide the pleased grin. "She called it overkill. I called it unnecessary. Turns out we were both wrong—it was exactly necessary."

Marcus joined them. "Seriously though. You took down a cat four with five recruits as backup. That's the kind of thing people tell stories about."

"Well, to be fair, the real MVP was Diana's over-engineering," Kelvin said. "Also KROME. KROME did a lot of heavy lifting. Literally."

They boarded the ship, settling into seats for the flight home. Kelvin was running diagnostics on KROME's damage—nothing catastrophic, but the left arm would need serious repairs, and several armor plates were compromised enough to require replacement. The resonance cannon had performed flawlessly, but Diana would want a full report on its first combat use.

Diana. Who'd spent three days installing that weapon system despite his protests. Who'd insisted it would save his life someday. Who'd been absolutely right.

"You know," Reyna said after they'd been flying for twenty minutes, "you're really good at this. The leadership thing. Teaching. You are kind of the most grounded amongst the big guys at the faction. You know? We see a level we can almost dare to dream of getting close to. You make us feel like we can handle impossible situations."

"I have my moments," Kelvin agreed.

"Also—" Reyna's tone shifted to something more careful, "—if you're ever not interested in Diana, I'm available. Just putting that out there."

Kelvin nearly choked. "What?"

"I'm just saying." Reyna leaned back in her seat, completely casual. "We all know Diana likes you. She's confessed, right? Everyone's seen how she looks at you in the workshop. But if you're not going to do anything about that, maybe consider other options before someone else in the faction decides they're interested."

Marcus grinned. "She's got a point. Diana's definitely into you."

"Diana is—we're friends," Kelvin protested weakly.

"Diana is smoking hot," the fire-manipulator recruit chimed in. "Just saying. If you're not making a move, someone else will."

"She's also terrifying," Kelvin countered. "Ice-cold tactical genius who could kill me seventeen different ways without breaking a sweat."

"I like a scary mommy," Marcus said with complete sincerity.

The other male recruits nodded agreement. "Scary mommy is the best kind of mommy."

Kelvin put his face in his hands. "I hate all of you. This entire conversation is a disaster."

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