The moment the cryo-cannon beam collapsed, Cell Gamma launched across the black ice with the coordinated care of a razor-sharp razor knife.
Through his Zeiss magnifying glass, Arthur monitored the load spreading across Ymir’s two-hundred-and-fourteen-meter frame. In any bipedal or multi-limbed organism—whether an eighteen-two-pound canine, an eighty-two-pound human, or a four-hundred-thousand-ton monster—the physical laws of movement were governed by clockwork levers. With its main ranged weapon blown apart by Pip’s fire-powder strike, Ymir was forced to lean seventy percent of its crushing weight onto its left hind leg to support its six thrashing upper arms.
“The left knee tendon is bearing three hundred and eighty thousand tons of dynamic strain,” Arthur called out over the tactical link, his voice devoid of emotion. “Pulling shear pushback is severely degraded by surrounding cold-embrittlement. If we shear that connective tissue band while the joint is in mid-flexion, the entire extensor gearwork will catastrophically collapse inward.”
From Arthur’s chest harness, Echo sprang into the air.
The little pink axolotl swelled his physical frame in mid-flight, his body elongating into a twelve-meter sky tide-serpent of rainbow-bright azure scales. His six outer gills flared with blinding turquoise soft glow as he rode the heat blast waves of the volcano bowl, his long, ribbon-like tail weaving through map point space.
