Guardians of Terraria II: The World of Calamity

Episode 33.2 - Inferior Fabrications

Robyn suddenly felt the whole planetoid shake and thunder crashing outside.

"Inbound in thirty seconds," Draedon said. "I'd rather my creations don't trash up my labs, wouldn't you?"

She and Sid rushed outside. Once they ran out onto the entrance platform they came face-to-face with two large probe-like robots.

Each was built around a single synthetic eyeball with sets of fins made from dark metal swirling around behind them and with blue energy thrusting from behind. Both mechs had colour in their trimming and in their pupils – the left one, XS-01 Artemis, being orange while the right one, XS-03 Apollo, was green.

"I'll take the green one!" Sid shouted. He cast his Draconids forward, the radiant aura from his Saros Possession already firing at Apollo.

Robyn leapt down to the platforms they had used during the Devourer of Gods fight, her Drataliornus bow in hand. She used its secondary firing mode initially as Artemis started to chase after her, firing volleys of five exploding arrows. Artemis emanated an orange laser line from its eye before firing a blast along it, then quickly moved in the air, relocating and adjusting its aim before emitting another laser line and firing another blast, doing this repeatedly as Robyn shot at it in return. It had a grand total of 2.3 million health – about the same as Yharon, though she suspected Apollo had that amount as well.

It mostly fired one shot at a time for about five seconds, before emanating an array of eight laser-lines, four above and four below Robyn, and firing a blast along each of them. Robyn was fully prepared to keep between the lines but was not expecting Artemis to suddenly dash forward at the same time, slamming through her for over 400 damage.

"Cactuses," Robyn muttered, feeling that if there was ever a time to utter that word it would be now.

Artemis continued firing, one shot at a time, but next time it telegraphed a volley she was anticipating its charge, and managed to successfully dodge it. All things considered, this was quite a simple attack pattern compared to some of the other bosses they'd faced. She risked a glance at Sid, facing off against Apollo. It was firing green plasma blasts that burst into groups of four bolts along with some homing rockets, but that didn't seem to be much of a problem for him either.

Before too long Artemis had fallen to under 1.7 million health, but that was when, with a series of clicking sounds, Artemis – and also Apollo – both raised up into the sky.

Only to be replaced by a massive machine overhead, four arms holding deathly-looking cannons, a multicoloured power core mounted in its body with an armoured red skull staring down from above.

XF-09 Ares.

And not only that, but coming up from below was another machine, reminiscent of the Devourer of Gods in both shape and size, but made from black metal instead of silver and with red and green lights blinking all along it.

XM-05 Thanatos.

"What the – Draedon!" Sid shouted. "The other two mechs weren't part of the deal!"

"Designs improved with time and knowledge are the essence of my work," the mechanical mastermind said, seemingly ignoring him completely. Robyn could only catch a brief glimpse of Draedon in his hoverchair, observing the battle from a distance. "Through no other method can I approach perfection."

"Yeah yeah, I get it," Sid groaned, "You may as well have just done a Darth Vader and said, 'I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any –'"

His speech was interrupted by a laser blast from somewhere spearing across his armour.