The man gathering all the light upon himself with his golden blond hair, bright teeth, and sky-blue eyes frowned for the first time. He was trying not to show it, his facial muscles and brain were in a state of war, but still, everyone could see his condition.
"Don't tell me it's for human experiments. You can make everyone else believe that, but never me!"
Leonardo caught the scent of weakness from kilometers away like a shark. Now it was time to go at the enemy and strike, and the man who always maintained his mildness delivered the final blow.
"You came to change a truth you won't be able to forget until you die, didn't you? By defeating me and stealing my thesis, you want to deceive yourself just as you deceived everyone, but it's too late. You will die knowing I am a better Scientist than you, Fritz Todt!"
The torches flickered. The floor followed them; bright white light entered, cutting through the ambiance created by the dim yellow light like a knife. The golden-haired man stood up, came to the edge of the platform in three steps, and let himself down while his eyes were on Leonardo.
Not much, half a meter later his feet stepped on the floor, but he wasn't on the ground like the others. Without taking his gazes off his old friend, he took two steps back and sat in the seat. Two leather straps secured his upper torso, and another leather strap passing over his thigh bone left his legs immobile.
The moment his fingers entered the gaps appearing at the end of the seat's armrests, a helmet descended from above and covered his whole head. Only his eyes were visible, and there was a protection with black glass in front of them too.
Then the opening allowing Fritz Todt to enter was covered with a transparent energy shield. This was the only different place on the solid iron pile. The blond-haired man looking at the others from the area, large enough for at most two humans to fit in, was playing his last trump card.
"So you did it! You finally brought your project to life, the project you started by stealing my project, my thesis, my old friend!"
While Leonardo spoke, those next to him were watching the thing entering along with the bright white light. There was a mechanical device before them, eight steps in height, resembling a human in shape, but manufactured from bright metal.
Michelangelo, the young man ready to attack at any moment, took a step back. He was horrified in the face of the version four times the size of the human-based robot he destroyed by shattering during the daytime hours.
In the other model, the joints were exposed, the cables providing the fluid flow could be seen, and most importantly, it was very obvious it was mounted on a human. Everything was different in this new mechanical device, or rather, robot.
Its body belonged entirely to it; there were no parts belonging to another living being or empty spaces requiring the help of another living being in the skeleton allowing it to move. The fact that it came and took its place under Fritz Todt without anyone inside to control it was the greatest proof of this.
"Your idea was raw, naive, too absurd to be realized. I took it and put flesh and bones on it. I put it on a logical ground, made it real enough to be done.
If it were up to you; we would waste time with nonsense like using the energy of nature. You wanted to make this invention with an energy type that renews and harms no living being in its obtaining.
I, the great genius cursed to always stay in your shadow, finally managed to step in front of the fake sun.
Since we were looking for a renewable resource, was there any better than orcs? Why wouldn't we use orcs, who can reach maturity in a week and renew their life forces like no other race can, as fuel?
Instead of thinking about how to perfect my invention in matters of attack, defense, and movement, should I have wasted my energy to protect the lives of barbarian and worthless orcs?
Why should I think about how to stabilize energy types that become unstable the moment they are separated from their natural environments, can be directed with the help of magic circles or crystals, and are even useful for fighting by transferring them onto cold weapons?
If they absolutely want flesh and blood, if they can only be stored efficiently when these two substances are present, then I will give them what they want. If you knew how humans can be turned into powerful batteries, Leonardo, even if you saw it with your own eyes, you definitely wouldn't believe it at first!"
The voice of Fritz Todt, speaking from inside the mechanical device looking exactly like a robot, echoed inside the bunker-like area built underground. The voice, conveyed with a mechanical timbre, had become the most suitable for the meaning of the words it contained.
"You didn't have to succeed by harming the lives of other living beings, disrupting the functioning order of nature!"
Leonardo shouted towards the giant metal peak. Under normal conditions, it might not be possible to make his voice heard to the person he wanted to reach, but in the empty space, even the slightest click grew by echoing.
"Don't you dare try to tell me about the cannons used by that brat you call your apprentice; compared to my great invention, they are not even child's toys. We now teach storing a small amount of element energy, an amount too small to even be considered, to children in their first years of engineering education.
Still, I'm not underestimating what the half-educated ignoramus, for whom you made limbs using a very precious metal, did. Even managing to continue his life, which he started as an experimental subject, as a low-class engineer must be a great success for him. After all, the rest of his family has already perished as experiment remnants!"
Michelangelo, who took a step back, darted forward. Fritz Todt, catching the young man's most sensitive spot, had continued to twist the knife.
No one could react; they were so absorbed in what was being told that even Alis, harmonized with the wind element, could only shout right when Michelangelo was about to reach his target.
"Stop, it's a trap!"
The years she spent with Nafız and what they experienced on the Hell Realm afterwards allowed the former Power Animal Alis, who now had a consciousness along with her own body, to understand the reason for such an obvious provocation.
No one else but her would have stopped Michelangelo, whose black arm was about to touch the giant robot's leg either. Perhaps we spoke a bit too soon; the fingers of the young man, who managed to shatter all mechanical devices with a single touch, froze right as they were about to touch his adversary.
No matter how hard Michelangelo tried, they wouldn't go forward even a millimeter. A transparent shield was preventing him from reaching his goal, it was obvious what it was, but Fritz Todt couldn't stop talking.
"As a scientist, I cannot make sense of this skill, I cannot believe it, and its being real bothers me, but this doesn't mean I cannot manage to take precautions against you.
First of all, you have a great weakness; you have to touch your target. If I prevent this, you are nothing more than a low-class, defective mechanical device that has metal limbs attached instead of its amputated ones!"
The moment Fritz Todt's speech ended, the robot's right arm took action and hit Michelangelo with the back of its hand with the swiftness a human could do. The movement speed was the same, but the effect it created was dozens, perhaps hundreds of times greater than the strike of a human hand.
The feet, made of the same material, of the young man shielding the front of his body with his arms, his sturdiest place, to protect himself, were lifted off the ground. Within seconds, he first passed over his friends, then could only stop by hitting the wall at the end of the area.
The group turning back saw Michelangelo sliding down the pitch-black wall. This journey of his had triggered the torches on the walls, and now everyone could see how large the battlefield was.