“There, Kori, you’ve helped,” I shout in her direction, even as I toss the nearest rebel aside, my claws embedded in his chest despite his weak attempt at protective gear. “Now, please, if you want to live to assist me again, find cover and stay there until everything goes quiet. All right?” I hope she can feel my eyes locked on hers, whatever color they might be. Damn it, I wish I knew. What I’m about to do is something they’ll never be able to unsee. “And if you can … close your eyes.”
“I won’t just leave while you—” But Kori’s comeback is cut off by an involuntary scream. She staggers sideways, terror struck, as freezeshot fire obliterates the ground where she knelt only a moment ago. “I’m still alive because of you. I won’t let you die protecting me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, heiress.” I wrestle another rebel for control, breaking two of the fingers that weakly clutch their freezeshot pistol. “This is about protecting my ransom”—another crack, this one a knee—“and my kingdom.” I hate the familiarity of my boot crashing through their skull. “Now get behind the strongest obstacle you can find”—I could crush the pistol, too, but instead I shoot it at a loose piece of the ceiling, sending the stone hunk careening down on another pair of rebels—“before I take you by the ankle and fly you there.”
At that, Kori seems to reluctantly get the message. In my periphery, I watch her dive behind the nearest intact target mannequin, hands over her head. Briefly, my panic ebbs, as I’m convinced the situation is under control.
Then … an unholy harmony of metallic screeching and canine barking.
With six eyes blazing crimson and three mouths snarling in unison, Russ tears around the corner, with a new rider astride his back—none other than Aspect the mech. One of their metal hands buries itself in Russ’s midnight fur to maintain balance; the other pumps a fist intothe air as Aspect shrieks, “ASPECT—AND TRIPLE DOG—PROTECT EVERYONE!”
And just like that, my beloved pet becomes a cannonball of fur, teeth, and newfound metal friend, charging directly into the closest rebel foe.
“TAKE THAT!” Aspect roars. As Russ uses two mouths to seize the rebel from either end, they add, “AND THAT!”
But when Russ moves to gore the enemy, viciously shaking them with multiple sets of jaws, the motion becomes too much. Aspect tries to hold on with two hands instead of one, too late—tumbling to the ground, yelling at a painful pitch all the way down.
The string of curses that slips from my mouth would make even the most battle-hardened of my soldiers blush. I’m still fending off attacks—a kick caught by my knee, a freezeshot blast deflected by a supernaturally energized sweep of my wing, a thrown punch caught by an open palm that crumples the knuckles—but at the edge of my vision, I watch in muted disbelief as a robot programmed for simple mining runs and basic greetings hurls its entire lopsided body into hulking hunks of nightfolk muscle.
For all the memories Kori may have illegally installed in Aspect, clearly even a flicker of self-preservation was not among them.
In the clamorous confusion, Russ struggles not to trample his friend. Padded canine feet scramble for balance as Aspect loses theirs, good leg tripping over peg leg once again, dragging the mech back to the floor. While two of Russ’s heads continue mauling the rebel, the third head leans down to check on Aspect, even licking Aspect’s head with a big, slobbery tongue of concern.
Reenergized, the mech stands, head held high but peg leg wobbling—and then full-blownleapsat the nearest rebel, arms and legs pinwheeling like a windmill and a buzz saw’s unholy offspring.
Aspect is spare parts sewn together in the approximation of a friend, not a true flesh-and-blood companion. I know that. But I swear I hear Kori’s wince from across the room when, within moments, a slug offreezeshot spins Aspect’s only remaining knee 180 degrees, the kneecap crashing into their own butt as they fall to the floor with a squeak.
“We can fix that, Kori,” I shout over the din of continued combat.
I crouch and then leap, borne to a dizzying height by my outstretched wings, then plunging like a batbeast onto the soldier that maimed Aspect, ripping and tearing as I land. Frankly, I wouldn’t have had the chance for such a boldly lethal maneuver if Aspect hadn’t distracted the soldier in question. In her own roundabout way, Kori did help.
Kori’s masked face pokes around the side of her target practice mannequin. “Do I want to know whatthatwas?”
“It wasn’t …not… Aspect’s knee,” I sigh, flicking blood from my claws, shaking it from my robes.
I’ll be a sight when this is over. If proximity to my claws and fangs and unnatural breadth wasn’t enough to terrify Kori into staying away from me, maybe a scarlet shower will do the trick. I hope so for both our sakes.
Kori fully emerges from behind her shelter then, freezeshot shotgun raised once again. “What in thehellis Aspect doing here?”
“You didn’t call them?”
“That’s not in their program.”
“But the pinwheel of death was?”
Armor aside, Kori covers her masked face with a gloved hand. “I may have installed a memory, a while back, of my jumping off the bed when I couldn’t sleep as a kid. But it was supposed to triggercreativity.”
“Well, it was definitely a creative way to lose a kneecap,” I admit, sweeping another soldier’s legs out from under her. “Again.”
Briefly, Russ pauses gnawing on a rebel to observe Aspect’s new injury. Amidst all the spit and blood, all three canine mouths release soft, sad moans at the state of their mechanical friend.
“You do realize a sentient mech has never been born,” Kori counters, firing off another blast of freezeshot. This time it connects with one of her targets—a shoulder, not a chest, but it’s enough to make the rebel inquestion drop his blade, leaving him open to my boot through his ribs. “There’s no blueprint for this.”
Even as I duck another freezeshot blast, I crack a smile—the kind I haven’t managed in ages, let alone while fighting for my life. Since my own overcharge, since laying my parents forever to rest, battle has been a crimson current that carries my whole self away, without even debris to keep me afloat. But Kori’s voice amidst the maelstrom is a rock above the red, red waves, solid enough to grip, keeping just enough of me above the bloody flood.
This feeling is strange and hot and pulsing where I’ve slowly fallen into icy stasis, and I should shove it away, focus on the battle. But it’s proof that beneath my enhanced capacity to kill and to break … part of me still knows how to laugh. So, despite myself, I indulge Kori.
“You’ll just have to write the blueprint, when Aspect finally achieves sentience.” I spread my wings wide to catch a freezeshot blast that would certainly have missed me, but arched perilously close to one of Russ’s precious heads. I would rather see my own kneecap blown off than watch the light of life leave my companion’s deep-black eyes. I give him a quick scratch under one chin before moving farther away, lest a shot intended for me strike my pet instead. “Add it to our records.”
