The Crystal Palace is not built to withstand a siege. Glass, by definition, is beautiful because it breaks.

  "You will not leave here with the fuel!" shouted Grand Duke Kaleidoscope, taking cover behind an iron column while his guards fired at our truck.

  The steam musket balls ricocheted off the Mithril and Chitin armor of the Dreadnought. The sound was deafening, a hail of metallic rain.

  I was still on the central platform, hand on the jar containing the Emperor's brain.

  "Last chance, Duke!" I yelled. "Open the city gates and let us take the factory refugees, or I turn the Emperor into an imperial omelet!"

  The Duke hesitated. He looked at his bottled god and then at my war truck.

  But before he could answer, the glass ceiling above us exploded.

  It wasn't bullets. It was Angels.

  Three figures descended from the skies, shattering the structure with wings of steel and pressurized canvas. They were Steam Seraphim. Elite flying automatons, armed with flamethrowers and rotary saws on their feet.

  " The Royal Guard does not negotiate with parasites!" announced the leader of the angels, his voice coming from a trumpet-shaped speaker.

  He dove towards me.

  "Arthur! Jump!" Valéria screamed from the driver's seat.

  I let go of the Emperor's brain (injecting, out of pure surgical spite, a dose of Necrotic Adrenaline into the fluid to give him lucid nightmares for the next ten years) and ran.

  I leaped from the platform just as the Seraphim's saw sliced the gold throne in half.

  I landed on the roof of the Dreadnought. The hatch opened and Gristle pulled me inside.

  "Let's go! The kitchen is on fire!"

  "Valéria! Bring down the north wall!" I ordered, falling into the passenger seat.

  The Dreadnought roared. The V12 engine, now fueled by the Refined Ether we stole from the palace stocks, had enough power to move a mountain.

  The truck accelerated. The tank treads ground the marble floor.

  CRASH!

  We smashed through the back wall of the Palace, flying into the imperial garden.

  Outside, Gristle's revolution was in full chaos.

  Hundreds of skeletal workers and refugees from the meat factory were boarding stolen cargo trucks and steam wagons.

  "Follow the Black Tank!" Gristle roared into the radio, taking command of the makeshift fleet. "Whoever stays behind becomes ham!"

  The convoy sped through the cobblestone streets, running over gas lamps and park benches.

  Behind us, the Cathedral bells rang the general alarm.

  And in the sky, a swarm of fifty Steam Seraphim formed, covering the moon like brass locusts.

  The descent of the Serra de Petrópolis is famous for its hairpin turns and deadly precipices.

  Doing it at night, at 120 km/h, driving a tank while being chased by flying robots, took the experience to another level.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Bombers at six o'clock!" Luna monitored the sonic radar. "They're dropping depth charges!"

  Explosions shook the road behind us. A refugee truck was hit, tipping over on the curve and scattering parts and people.

  Gristle snarled, watching her "charges" die.

  "Valéria, the harpoon cannon!" I shouted. "Luna, aim for the wing gyroscopes!"

  I climbed into the manual artillery turret.

  The wind cut my face. The smell of gunpowder and ozone was strong.

  I aimed the double harpoon (modified with Hydra bone tips) at the swarm.

  A Seraphim dove, firing bursts of superheated steam.

  "Die, heretic!"

  "Diagnosis: Excess internal pressure!" I fired.

  The harpoon flew, dragging a steel chain.

  It hit the Seraphim in the chest, piercing the main boiler.

  The robot exploded in a blue fireball.

  I pulled the chain back, using the robot's wreckage as a flail, spinning it in the air and knocking down two other angels coming behind.

  "Strike!" I cheered, reloading.

  But there were too many.

  And at the front of the convoy, blocking the road on a U-turn suspended over the abyss, was Grand Duke Kaleidoscope.

  He wasn't on foot.

  He was piloting a Bronze Colossus. A five-meter-tall combat mecha, blocking the way. The robot held a giant pneumatic hammer.

  "The road ends here!" The Duke amplified his voice. "Hand over the Ether and jump to your deaths!"

  Valéria didn't slow down.

  "Arthur! The brakes broke three turns ago! If we hit that, we're flying off the mountain!"

  "Don't stop!" I shouted. "Gristle, take the turret! Luna, come to the front!"

  I entered the cab.

  "The Colossus is steam-powered. Steam needs valves.

  "Luna, I need you to use the Crystal Resonance Frequency."

  "But it's bronze!" Luna protested.

  "The lenses!" I pointed. "The Duke is obsessed with optics. His cockpit is made of reinforced glass so he can aim. If we burst the glass, the cabin pressure kills him."

  The Dreadnought charged, roaring like a metal demon.

  The Colossus raised the hammer to crush us.

  "Now, Luna! Sing the highest note of your life!"

  Luna took a deep breath. She grabbed the truck's PA system microphone.

  She let out a high-pitched scream.

  It wasn't human. It was the voice of an Apocalypse Siren.

  EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

  The sound wave hit the Colossus.

  The bronze vibrated. But the glass...

  The Duke's cockpit dome, full of lenses and mirrors, couldn't take it.

  CRACK.

  The cabin exploded outward.

  The Duke screamed as shards of his own lenses blinded him. The sudden decompression pulled him out of the seat.

  "Valéria! Ramming speed!" I ordered.

  Valéria engaged the magic nitrous.

  The Dreadnought smashed into the legs of the unbalanced Colossus.

  The impact was brutal. Metal tore metal.

  The giant robot toppled backward... falling into the precipice.

  We watched the Duke and his machine plummet hundreds of meters into the darkness of the Atlantic forest below.

  The path was clear.

  The refugee convoy passed through the wreckage of the robot's legs and continued the descent.

  The remaining Seraphim, seeing their leader fall and facing Gristle's anti-aircraft fire, retreated into the clouds.

  We reached the base of the mountain range as the sun began to rise.

  The scenery changed. The cold fog was left behind. The air became hot and salty again.

  We were back at sea level. Or rather, at Leviathan level.

  Valéria stopped the truck at an abandoned lookout point. The engine ticked, cooling down.

  The refugees climbed out of their vehicles, kissing the dirty ground, happy to be away from the "top hat cannibals."

  Arthur (the Parasite) finally relaxed.

  [BATTLE COMPLETE.]

  [RESOURCE ACQUISITION: REFINED ETHER (FULL TANK).]

  [NEW VEHICLE: TESTED AND APPROVED.]

  I climbed down from the truck, wiping grease from my face.

  I looked back at the mountains. Petrópolis still glowed up there, but now with spots of fire. The revolution we left behind would change that city forever.

  "We saved about two hundred," Gristle said, distributing rations (real food, stolen from the royal pantry) to the children. "It's a start."

  "And now we have fuel for the main fight." Valéria patted the scorched side of the Dreadnought. "This Ether is potent. If I calibrate it right, we can use the truck as a land torpedo."

  "Not land," I corrected, looking at the flooded horizon where Rio de Janeiro used to be.

  The silhouette of the Leviathan was still there, patrolling the ruins.

  "The Leviathan is a deep-sea monster. It has a shell that withstands ocean floor pressure. Nothing we throw at the outside will pierce that.

  "We have to do what we did with the Devourer King. We have to go inside."

  "You want to be swallowed again?" Luna asked, incredulous. "Is this a hobby?"

  "No. This time, we won't be swallowed.

  I pulled out the map I stole from the Duke's office. An old map, from the monarchy era, showing mining tunnels running from the mountains to the coast.

  "We attack from below. We enter through the ocean floor and drill into its belly."

  "A reverse C-section," Gristle laughed. "I like it."

  "Rest for an hour," I ordered. "Rio de Janeiro fell. Petrópolis burned.

  "Only we are left. And I'm tired of running from things bigger than me."

  The sun illuminated the Dreadnought. It looked like a metal beetle ready for war.