by Eric Vall
Once I was finished making sure the foundational arm was sturdy and strong, I made an outer shell over the forearm like I did for Big Guy’s right arm except this one was a little thicker, and there was no empty space underneath. It was simply a heavy sleeve of metal molded to the arm underneath. This was the base of the crossbow, and I built upward from there.
Now, I had never shot a crossbow before, but I had seen enough zombie flicks to know the basic premise. I knew I needed a place to fit the arrows, so I started with carving that groove deep into the sleeve over the forearm. It ended up almost looking like the barrel of the gun with the top part sawed off. After I finished with the arrow track, I had Aurora melt a little more iron that I then molded into the crescent-shaped limbs of the bow.
“Does that look even to you?” I muttered to Cayla as I tried to sight down the arm like it was a rifle. “The left bit looks a little longer right?”
The princess leaned over from her perch on a stool beside me and pressed against my shoulder. Then she hummed as we looked over the half-constructed bow.
“It does look a little uneven,” she replied with a nod.
On the table in front of me, Stan jumped up and down to catch my attention, and I lowered my arms so he could pass his own judgment. Even without eyes, the little stickman seemed to inspect the arm and bow in my hands, and then he lifted his chin to look at me and shake his head.
“That’s what I thought,” I grumbled, and then I summoned my magic to soften the metal and try again.
It took a few more attempts, but I eventually got it right. Of course, once I finished with the limbs, I had to start in on the actual mechanics of the bow, and that took several hours longer.
I knew that it had to be simple. Back on Earth, crossbows had been made as early as the fifth century. But there were several springs required in operating a crossbow, and figuring out how they all interacted and played off each other took some experimentation.
And there was also the cable to consider. Traditional bows used natural fibers like linen or animal sinew, but those wouldn’t be strong enough to shoot iron bolts for an extended period of time. Back on Earth, synthetic fibers were a lot stronger, but I obviously didn’t have those at my disposal.
Aurora and Cayla made me take a lunch break while I contemplated my dilemma, but halfway through a bite of bread, I had an epiphany.
“I’ll just make the cable out of a copper-iron alloy,” I blurted, and bread crumbs spewed out of my mouth.
The two women and Stan looked at me in confusion, but I was already on my feet and jogging back to the workshop. Aurora followed after me a few minutes later and sighed as she saw me wasting my energy to melt the silver and reddish metals down.
“Give it here,” she said with a shake of her head as fire jumped to life in her right hand.
“I love you,” I replied ardently, and then I handed her the iron and copper.
Once she had the metals molten enough, I concentrated on combining them together, and when I had a single alloy in my hands, I started to make the cable. This part was a little tedious since I needed to make individual stands and then twist them together to make a proper cable, but the repetitive motion became soothing after a while.
When I was finished, I attached the cable to the ends of the bow’s limbs and gave it an experimental tug. The iron gave the cable strength, and the copper made it malleable enough to pull back, but I wasn’t strong enough to nock it manually, so I gave it a small magical yank. It bent beautifully, and a grin bloomed across my face.
It took me another hour to fine tune the mechanics, especially the springs and the trigger, but as the day slid into mid-afternoon, I held up the arm and its mounted crossbow as I gave it one last inspection. I slid to my feet, my new weapon in tow, and walked out into the meadow.
“Alright,” I announced to Aurora and Cayla. “I think I have a testable prototype ready.”
The half-elf and the princess stood facing each other in the clearing with their hands held in front of their faces. When my voice reached them, they dropped their arms, and Cayla turned to face me with a smile.
“What are the two of you doing?” I chuckled as I approached.
“Aurora is teaching me some combat moves,” the princess replied excitedly.
I glanced at Aurora with a raised eyebrow, and the Ignis Mage shrugged.
“What?” she asked. “I got a little bored when you didn’t need me to melt anything anymore, so Cayla and I decided to do something more productive than twiddle our thumbs.”
“I wanted to practice with the rifles first,” Cayla added, “but Aurora pointed out that we shouldn’t waste the ammo, and the sound might also draw unwanted attention to us.”
“So fisticuffs were your alternative?” I asked with a grin. “I like it. Can I watch?”
“Didn’t you say you had a prototype to test?” Aurora asked as she smirked and placed a hand on her cocked hip.
I blinked out of my fantasies of the two women grappling in the grass, naked of course, and looked down at the bow in my arms. “Oh yeah… but now this seems much less fun.”
“Come on,” Cayla cajoled as she walked over and threaded her arm through mine. “Show us! We’ve been waiting to see this all day.”
“Alright, alright,” I said as I leaned over and pecked a kiss against the princess’s brow. “I can never say no to you.”
“Should we set up a target?” Aurora asked as she sauntered over to join us.
“Nah.” I shook my head and then jerked my chin at a tree across the clearing. “That should work just fine.”
“So how will this work once it is attached to Big Guy?” Cayla inquired as she leaned down and inspected the mounted bow.
“Well, it’s basically a standard crossbow, just metallically modified and mounted on the arm of a machine,” I explained as I lifted the metal arm and held it with the elbow against my chest. “The cable still has to be ‘manually’ pulled back, but I’m just using magic. Let me demonstrate.”
I summoned up my power and used it to pull the cable backward. It creaked as the tension increased, but it slotted perfectly into the latch, and then it quivered as it froze into its nocked position.
“Obviously, now we need an arrow.” I reached into a work bag by my side and pulled out an iron bolt about the length of my forearm. Then I slid it into the arrow track and locked it into place.
“How will it fire?” Aurora questioned as she looked from me to the bow.
“I’ve installed a trigger button like I did with the sword-hand,” I replied as I pointed to a small rectangle on the inside of the machine’s wrist.
“Show us,” Cayla said as she practically bounced on the balls of her feet.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said with a grin and a crisp salute.
Then I turned my body to face one of the trees on the far side of the clearing. It was a little awkward to lift the bow and sight down it since an arm hung off the bottom, but I made do. When I was pretty sure I had my target lined up, I exhaled slowly, lifted my left hand, and depressed the trigger button with another burst of magic.
Unlike my guns, the bow barely jerked in my grasp as it loosed the bolt, and I watched as a silver streak tore across the clearing before I heard a wooden thump. I lifted my eyes and saw the iron bolt sticking out of the tree trunk twenty yards away. My shot had gone a little lower than I intended, but that was because I was used to compensating for the recoil. Still, I had hit the trunk dead center, and the bolt was buried nearly six inches into the wood.
“That’ll knock a bandit straight on his ass, good and dead,” I said with a smirk. Then I lowered the bow and glanced at my beautiful audience.
Aurora’s brows were raised, and she gave me an impressed nod. Cayla, on the other hand, looked like a kid on Christmas morning with her bright wide eyes and a broad grin.
“I cannot wait to see Camus Dred’s face when he realizes he has vastly underestimated you,” she breathed.
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��You and me both,” I chuckled darkly. “Now that I know the bow works, all that’s left to do is to attach it to Big Guy. Then I’ll give him a field test, and once he passes it, I’ll start training with him more fully. Actually wait, no, I’m going to amend that statement. I still wanted to make one more thing for him.”
“He does not have any more arms to wield weapons,” Cayla teased with a giggle.
“I know,” I replied. “This isn’t a weapon. I plan to make a shield.”
“A shield?” Aurora echoed with a frown. “Why? He does not need one. Nothing the bandits have in their arsenal can hurt him.”
“That’s why the shield isn’t for him,” I corrected. “It’s for us, for when we do meet Camus Dred face to face. Something that Big Guy can wield in case we need to go on the defensive.”
“Hmm. Strategic,” Aurora mused, and then she cracked her neck from side to side. “I guess that means you need me to melt down some more iron?”
“Yes, please,” I said with a smile.
“And Stan and I will cheer you both on for a bit before we start dinner,” Cayla added as she plucked the stickman from her pocket and set him on her shoulder.
“Well, as long as I have the three of you,” I said as I looked between my odd little family, “I’m pretty sure I can do anything.”
Cayla and Aurora both smiled at me warmly, and I squashed the urge to sweep them both in my arms and kiss them until the stars went out. Right now, I had a job to do.
I returned to the workshop and set the crossbow and arm aside for now. Then I turned to Big Guy and looked over him with a critical eye.
“I think you’re going to need a bit more surgery, buddy,” I told the machine. “Sorry about that, but when I’m finished, you’ll be fucking awesome.”
“I’ve started reheating the iron,” Aurora announced over my shoulder. “How much do you need?”
“A lot,” I replied as I turned to her with an excited grin. “As much as you can handle.”
Aurora raised an eyebrow, but then the fire in her hands began to burn even hotter.
It took me a little longer than I anticipated to finish the shield, mostly because I had to modify Big Guy’s torso, too. I added more iron to his upper half as I elongated and widened his chest. Of course, this meant that I had to rewire everything, too, and that was also tedious. But in the end, Big Guy was half a foot taller and a foot and a half wider.
“What do you think?” I asked Aurora and Cayla. “Think that’s wide enough for a shield?”
“I think so,” Cayla replied with a smile, “but also you have a little Barbil oil just there, Mason.” She pointed to a spot right above her cheekbone.
“Damn,” I muttered as I scrubbed at my face with the back of my wrist, “that stuff gets everywhere, but it makes Big Guy’s joints move much more smoothly. On the plus side, I can’t even smell it anymore.”
“I can,” Aurora said as she wrinkled her nose and pinched at the bridge of it.
I narrowed my eyes at the Ignis Mage and chucked a dirty rag at her, but she snatched it out of the air with her elven reflexes and simply arched an eyebrow at me.
I grumbled under my breath and turned back to my work.
Thankfully, once I had Big Guy at the appropriate size, the shield itself didn’t take me very long to make. It was basically a large metal plate that stretched from shoulder to shoulder and then down to the end of his torso. The plate attached at the shoulders by a series of small hooks, and then it hung freely from that point down. There was a small empty space between his chest and the plate barely wide enough for the machine’s arm, and an iron handle was welded to the back of the shield.
Big Guy could use either arm to use the shield, but I had to modify his crossbow arm a little first. I applied a few more springs, cables, and cams to the limbs of the bow so that they could fold into the arm when the bow isn't needed. This would make general movement easier, but it also made it possible for the animatron to slip his right hand into the shield while he used his left one to wield his sword.
Once I was finished with the shield and bow modifications, I affixed it to the animatron’s chest, and then I reattached his left arm. Then I stood back and admired my handiwork with a broad grin.
“Well, Big Guy,” I said as I wiped sweat and Barbil oil off my brow. “Ready for a test run?”
The machine was silent and still before me.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I chuckled tiredly. “Alright, let’s go show the girls what you got.”
I strolled to the doorway and whistled out into the night air. The sun had set about an hour ago, and once it had, Aurora and Cayla abandoned me to go make dinner. The two women were huddled around a big orange fire, and they looked up in unison at my call.
“I now present the new and improved Big Guy,” I declared with my hands cupped around my mouth, and then I summoned up my magic and poured it into the animatron at my back.
Again, the drain on my energy was immediate, but each time was a little easier. As Big Guy clattered up behind me, I stepped to the side to let him out of the workshop and managed to throw Aurora and Cayla a cocky wink.
The two women slid to their feet with matching grins.
“He does look handsome,” Cayla remarked as her eyes dragged over the machine.
“Hey, he’s more… than just… looks,” I grunted as I willed the animatron to roll toward the two women while I tried to talk. Then I steered him in a large circle around the fire, and Aurora turned in place to track him.
“Well, let us see what he can do,” the half-elf challenged as she looked back to me with a smirk.
“Yes, please,” Cayla added with a pout. “Stan and I are getting hungry.”
The stickman had his head and the ends of his arms poked out of her shirt pocket, and he nodded solemnly.
“Sorry, there… buddy,” I replied as I brought Big Guy to a stop between the two women and me. “I’ll finish this test quickly. I don’t want you to starve.”
“Stan thanks you,” Cayla said with a grin.
I flashed a strained smile, and as I turned my attention back to the animatron in front of me, a familiar thrill rushed through my veins. I had done this several times now, but I didn’t think the butterflies would ever go away.
I took a deep breath in, and then I sent out a pulse of magic.
“Nocking arrow,” I rasped to Aurora and Cayla. “Please stay out of the line of fire.”
The two women took several steps back just as Big Guy slowly rotated a fraction of a degree to face the nearest tree. I bit the inside of my cheek as I focused on the next series of mental commands. As I watched, the animatron lifted his right arm to take aim, and then my magic pulled the cable back. When the bow was nocked, I had Big Guy use his other hand to pull a bolt out of the iron bandolier I had welded to his waist. As sweat dripped down my temples, the machine slid the bolt into place, and then I used another burst of magic to press the trigger.
An instant later, a bolt shot across the clearing and buried itself deeply in the tree’s trunk. With the bow still raised, I slid Big Guy’s left arm beneath the shield and into the handle. Then I unhooked the metal plate from its mounts, extended it out before the machine’s body, and turned to face Aurora and Cayla in a defensive crouch.
The two women broke out into applause, and I cut the connection between Big Guy and me with a gasp. As the magic reeled back into my body, I shook my head to reorient myself. The more and more I used the animatron, the easier it seemed to be to slip into his metal skin.
“Awesome,” I rasped as I turned to Aurora and Cayla with a smile. I only slightly wavered on my feet. “Now, we have our long-range attacks and an iron defense.”
Things were quickly coming together, and soon, Camus Dred would meet his sharp metallic end, of that I was sure.
And dear Nemris, I could not wait.
“It’s truly amazing, Mason,” Aurora said with a grin, “but stop playing with your toy and come eat dinner
before you fall over.”
“Yes, your sod poodle is getting cold, Mason,” Cayla added, and I whipped my head up to gaze at her with an incredulous expression.
The princess burst out laughing. “I jest. It is salted pork, but it is getting cold.”
“Alright, I’m coming,” I chuckled with a shake of my head before I walked over to the animatron and patted him on the shoulder. “Good job, Big Guy. Tomorrow we begin training in earnest so be sure to get a good night’s rest.”
I smiled proudly at my creation one last time, and then I walked over to join my two beautiful women for a hot and well-deserved meal.
In the morning, I woke up bright and early, wolfed down a cold breakfast while Aurora and Cayla still slept, and then I took Big Guy out of the workshop and into the meadow to truly test out what we could do together.
Even well rested and fed, controlling the animatron was still taxing, but as the day went on, I got better and better at it. I discovered that Big Guy could move about as fast as a galloping horse when pushed and that he was as proficient with his sword hand as he was with the bow. He also had a pretty tight turning radius if I really focused, and he could fire bolts while in motion, but I still wasn’t great at aiming them while he was moving.
When lunch was over, Aurora blocked me from getting up off my log and stared down at me while she put her hands on her hips.
“Fight me,” she said.
I blinked up at her in confusion. “Um… what?”
“Fight me,” she echoed before she jerked her chin over my shoulder. “Using Big Guy.”
“What?” I repeated. “No.”
“Why not?” the half-elf countered with a frown.
“Because you could get hurt,” I retorted.
The Ignis Mage rolled her eyes. “Please. Your machine may be deadly to bandits, but I am much cleverer and much quicker.” She grinned at me with fierce excitement. “Come on, Mason. I have not had a decent training session in weeks, and you need to pit Big Guy against a live opponent, not just have him swing at the air.”
