“Kimber, I need you to come pick me up.” I pause for a moment as I climb in through the Pilot hatch from the outside. How is that even possible?

“Uh, where are you Aria?” Settling into the cockpit, I begin the manual startup sequence for my shuttle, since Aria is clearly not in control of it right now.

“Traveling along old 80 following a motorcycle!” Oh no. I told her to take a break in the drone and she got back to work instead. I sigh.

“How much battery is left? Can’t be more than half.”

“Twenty five percent! I am very glad you got back to my main chassis when you did. Please come pick me up.” What am I going to do with her.

I chat with air traffic control and leave Reno at a respectable, non-mach speed. I find the drone puttering at a few hundred feet, clearly outpaced by the man on the motorcycle while she tries to conserve energy now. I scoop her up in the cargo bay, hook the goofball up for data transfer and head back to Humboldt to change out some supplies and see if Tova can configure our perimeter sensors to scan for aether signatures.

We land next to my cottage, I order lunch and sit at the edge of the aft airlock and stare at the water.

“While that was fun, it was very limiting, Kimber. I don’t know if I want to investigate in a drone chassis again.”

“You weren’t supposed to be investigating, but since you clearly found something to validate your willful attitude, please share”

“You’re not mad are you?!” Uh oh. I chastised her while she was proud of something.

“No, Ari. Not mad, tired and realizing that while I want the best for you, I don’t know what’s best for you.”

“Oh, okay.” She pauses, not knowing what to say.

“Now tell me what you found so I can be proud of you already!”

She trills with excitement and tells me how she was sulking at an appliance graveyard, scavenging bits and pieces for something to do, when she heard some muffled cries and a man angrily trying to get them to cooperate. She then watched the man pull his face off and flay the other person while they were still awake, then replace their skin with his—the whole process being quite messy.

The retelling is gruesome and my gorge rises a few times before telling Aria to fast forward. I asker her about aether traces and she says that the aether readings were most intense when he was assimilating the new skin, but that the blood splatter on the ground was from pulling the old face off.

Andromeda, what kind of fucked up Track did you allow this man to have? I query her about that kind of shapeshifting magic and she returns with some alien habits that I skip over, and some old North American legends that I read into.

Just like Penny forcing Andromeda to approximate a Pixie based on legend, it seems that this murderous User has done the same with the legend of Skinwalkers. The ability to change into anyone whose face you steal seems pretty powerful, but at the same time, very limiting. Maybe he’s not using his class correctly, but at this point, does that matter?

“Aria, did the man’s new form still have a readable aether level?”

“Yes, but only through the eyes. Perhaps a leak or an ability to enthrall that they can’t turn off?” She postulates. Maybe they just don’t know how to turn it off.

I inform Deputy Kincade of this new development just before Tova alerts me that one of the border sensors in South Humboldt got a hit for an above normal aether reading. Of course we do.

“Aria, are you back in full control?”

“I will finish integrating by the time we get to South Humboldt”

“I hope so, sweetie, you’re going to be on fire support after you drop me off. Please don’t shoot me.” She chirps in confirmation. Five minutes later I’m jumping out of the back of the shuttle attempting to land next to a man cornering a woman in an alley.

Tova, can you do that AR overlay thing you did with construction but with the aether sensor data?

I can.

I land hard next to the man and shove him against the wall. I see the fear in his regular eyes and know this isn’t the monster I was after. I feel a scraping shriek across my neck as my suit’s aether levels drop by ten percent and I’m twisted and thrown against the opposite wall of the alley.

“You have interrupted my meal,” the creature hisses.

I look up to see the crooked thing wearing women’s clothing as it breaks the man’s back and tosses him down the alley. While it’s occupied, I draw my pistols and rapid fire at the center of mass of the creature until it falls down and my .38 hyper runs dry. I start reloading the pistol when I hear a hissing laughter.

“This is the firssst time being shot by an energy weapon. Interesssting.” A serpentine skinwalker? Some sort of reverse molting thing? Why am I trying to understand this thing?

I start firing again and a few even hit before the creature darts sideways to the wall and re-directs off of it to leap at me. I get a few more rounds into it as its motion is predictable and then the monster hits me with a ton of force, my suit is the only thing that saves me.

We slide out into the street as the monster claws at the shield surrounding my head, taking several percent of my reserves per swipe. Keep trying to shoot the damned thing, even knowing that they’ve been largely ineffective.

You have magic! Use it.

Damn, I guess I do. Have to try something before my suit takes too much damage. Get the anger in the mind, channel the Empress.

Empress’ rusty vibrator, fuck this thing. “GET OFF!!” I shout as sparkly lighting erupts from the spots where the creature is contacting me, causing it to seize up. I roll over, toppling the electrocuted ass, attempting to scramble away while checking on backup.

/Kincade, found monster. Old Lovelock. Bring a sturdy cage./

Do I even have anything that can hurt this thing besides my spastic divine aether. The plasma seemed to annoy it, but I’m not super good with swords despite how awesome my plasma saber is.

As long as you are using your pistol as well, [Gun-Fu] works with any co-wielded weapon.

Thank the Empress for such a broken skill. I take my pulse pistol into my left hand and draw my badass breaching tool in my right and smile briefly as a smidgen of hope pulses through me. That is until the skinwalker recovers from the stun and rushes me.

The beast takes two more plasma rounds with brief singes in its leathery skin. I use the prominent fear to trigger my [Triggered Action] Talent and dash to the side with my saber guard braced against my forearm as I skate past the creature. A sizzling hiss and a shriek from the monster tells me that it freaking felt that one.

The fury of attacks it brings afterward overwhelms my ability to react. I score a few hits, but I’m simply overmatched by the strength and the ferocity of the beast. I manage to shock the damn thing again, cursing the Empress’ slutty wardrobe, and dash off into the street hoping to lure it out into a place that I can maneuver.

The clothes that the former human was wearing are burnt and shredded, hanging loose over the creature’s body. When it recovers from the next stun, the tatters fall free as the beast shrieks again in frustration as its good sense is overcome by rage as it charges at me into the open.

A plasma bolt slams into its side, knocking it sideways, followed by long zips of fifty caliber rounds from Aria. I immediately pull out my sniper rifle and kneel with it, hoping the bastard gives me enough time to get at least a few spellforms energized to stabilize this thing.

/Keep it up, Ari, that pulse really stunned it. Throw one in every now and then./

A pulse fires immediately after and then she switches back to another hundred rounds, another pulse and repeat. When the fifty-cal spins empty, Aria backs off and pulses her thrusters to clear the dust. I can see the damn thing’s chest moving. Crap on crackers! How durable is this fucking thing?!

It sits up, spatters of light color on the abomination’s skin as though the monster’s healing factor is too taxed to make the adjustment. At least we’re finally hurting it, though Aria’s out of ballistic rounds and I can’t imagine her aether stores are stellar right now either. Mine sure aren’t.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

“Absorbing you into my essence will make me much stronger. In that way I will make you immortal.” It has the strength to talk shit? Hells no.

I pull the trigger. The first two anchors fixing the rifle in place snap and the remaining force snaps my collar bone and knocks me over, ass over tea kettle and a half meter skid for good measure. I stow the rifle into my spatial storage and scramble back to my feet, somehow feeling that this isn’t finished. I draw my saber and advance on where I aimed at the beast.

I see some blood splatter around a half-demolished brick wall, and head toward the rubble that should be beneath it. There I see a dazed monster, with a hearty hole in the side, trying to muster the strength to pull itself free of the pile of bricks. I force my saber through its scapula and into the ground, pinning it in place.

“By the laws of Nevahrado and by the power of the System, I bind you. By your blood and mine, I bind you into my custody until justice has been served.” I say something official, remembered vaguely from the new Deputy manual, and thick golden cuffs envelop its hands, feet and neck. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do may be used to prosecute a harsher sentence. As a suspect in a Capitol Case, you have the right to pursue justice in the jurisdiction in which you were born. The remainder of your rights are not my duty to disclose.” The modified Miranda rights are amusing to me, there is no specific right to an attorney as the public defenders are not required to defend Capitol cases. I’m not familiar with how Capitol cases are tried, but that is not a problem for right now.

I collapse on top of the rubble on top of the skinwalker, not caring in the least how comfortable the asshole is.

Maybe an hour and a half later, Kincade shows up in a paddy wagon that looks like it’s ready for a road war. I chuckle at how ridiculous it looks, and how I’d assumed that the Reno office would have a shuttle available, and not some slow as heck ground vehicle. I’m fortunate that the System-assisted cuffs are much stronger than my Empress’ imbued lightning. Thanks for nothing Penny! I chuckle, having no real expectation that she help me.

“Damn, Novarro, you look like shit.” Kincade bends down and looks at my collared criminal. “You weren’t kidding about the monster.”

“Heh, yeah. I was not ready for it. Did you bring the cage?”

He bends over to check the lividity of the captive and it bites him. I chuckle fiercely and grunt in pain as my shoulder protests. “It’s resistant to kinetics and energy weapons. Took close-in fire support to knock it down enough to hit it with my enchanted, fifty-cal hypervol. That took it down long enough to put cuffs on the superpowered ass.”

Surprisingly, the skinwalker still has the energy to fight, struggling against the bindings and getting burns for its efforts. Once we get it in the cage, it withers slightly and my bindings become less luminous as though aether is being leached from the monster and my bindings.

“Gods, James. I’m glad you came. I would have had to park my shuttle on it for a day before I recovered enough to wrangle it.”

“Do you need a ride back to the station?”

I shake my head, “My shuttle has an AI that can drive me. What’s in store for this ass when we get to Reno?”

“Well, it has a lot of murder tied to it, so . . .”

“HOME RANGE, I claim HOME RANGE.” The monster shouts from the back of the SUV.

“You had to read it the rights, didn’t you?” I nod. “Unbelievable. Guess you’ve read through the manual.”

Kincade talks with the monster and finds out that he’s from the Vancouver area. He texts the Pax Northwest to see if they want the responsibility, and they say they’ll look it over. I shake my head at the loss of a day, and tell Aria to land so Kincade can park the van inside so he doesn’t have to drive 12 hours to old Washington State. The flight takes an hour and we’re outside of Seattle to meet with local law enforcement.

“You taking the lead on this James?”

“Nah, your collar, your lead. I’m just adding age to back your play.”

“Coward.” I chuckle and punch his shoulder.

“Capturing pumped up users isn’t my strength, Kimber. I can find and I can prosecute, but subduing is not my wheelhouse. You apparently have the violence chops, so you get to do the thing with the politics too.”

I groan as we land and Kincade pulls the van out of the cargo bay. He gives some solid uncle vibes. Lazy uncle ass face.

A confident woman with a decidedly butch entourage is waiting for us, holding guns at the ready, but not shouldered. “James Kincade! What brings you to message me after so long?”

“Melody, it wasn’t personal, sweetie, you took one of mine, so I took them back. I needed the bounty to eat, love.” He walks forward with a smile on his face and they greet each other with a chaste kiss.

“You look good James. This your new side?” She looks at me with a raised eyebrow. I toss a chew in my mouth, trying to ignore the anger she invokes in me.

“Nah, new Southern Nevahrado Deputy. Chased a collar into my territory and invited me as a courtesy.”

The face she makes is not one that believes him, “Show us the extradition. There are some we aren’t prepared to take.” Fucking great, I think, there’s no way they are going to take the suped up skinwalker.

As soon as we pull the leathery murderer out of the van, Melody scoffs and says, “We can’t take that. Identifies as a skinwalker? No chance. The tribal council would never let that appear before the council, not even with fancy binding magic.”

I growl, “Then what would you like to do? It asked to be tried in its home territory. This is it.”

“Not my law, not my problem chica. Take it back to your territory and bury it.”

I sigh. I can’t do that, that’s not the law I agreed to carry out. “Alright, how about a compromise? I have a judgment Talent that connects to the System. If any of you are representatives of Pax Norwest law, you can sentence him to summary judgement.”

With no time to consider, “Okay. I do that. I sentence the skinwalker to summary judgement by Deputy Novarro.”

Stupid woman must have an identify skill or something. She’s also pushy. I grumble again. The words work though, a representative of their government has made a decision that allows me to be more comfortable with carrying out a sentence.

“Lance Beuchamp, with the authority of your home ground and the System, I [Pass Judgement]”

My brain is suffused with the crimes associated with him, grotesque and visceral the lot of them. At no point during my visions of its soul do I feel a modicum of sympathy, or a mote of his remorse. This creature is unequivocally guilty, and has allowed those he’s slain to exist in limbo as their flesh still lives as attached to the foreign aether user until he sheds their face for another.

Because curiosity will ultimately be the end of me, I search for why he turned out this way, and another pulse of my mana coerces the Talent to flip through his memories to another time. He’s young and bruised, bullied at home and at school. Started acting out, transferred through a few before he was beaten half to death before attending the next one. He steals some clothes and make-up, faking a persona. Stole and faked his way through relationships and jobs, and began killing potential whistleblowers when the consequences were high.

Despite the despicable life he’s lead, leaning into it every chance he got, what if he had an opportunity to try again?

Can I commute that to a do over? Reset his levels and give his experience to the victim’s families?

Can we also include lowered stats and experience gain for six months.

Fine, fine. Lets to the first suggestion then.

/Excess experience split between Andromeda Matrix and Kimber Novarro.

The liminal space where I viewed his memories fades to reality and I stumble back a few steps, dangerously low on aether. I summon a bottle of juice from my storage and desperately suck the aether out of it.

“Lance, don’t choose a track yet. Give it time to give you a new, less violent one.”

“New Track?” Melody questions, “No shit? That was some fancy magic, but I was not expecting this . . . Lance, you stupid fucker. You should have listened to Novarro.” She snaps a shot at the man and catches him in the eyeball.

I snap my arm up, pulse pistol in hand, and Kincade pulls my arm down. “What the fuck did you do that for?!”

“She always has a reason for things, Kimber.”

“James is right. Dumbass here selected an assassin Track while I was inspecting him. He’s still alive?” She walks up to the man and puts her gun in his eye and drains her pistol into his head. “There it is. Best part about this System is knowing when to stop a gunfight.” She stands and holsters her side arm. “If you’d be so kind as to take the corpse back, we can be finished here.”

I scoff at that.

“Sure thing Mel.”

“No dice, James.” I say, “you want that body, you’re driving it back. Too bad it doesn’t still say skinwalker, I bet your council would love a dead one.” I get a little bit of pleasure from seeing the pushy cop scowl at me. I walk up to the corpse, get a little blood from his eye in a vial, and walk back toward Aria.

“You’re taking evidence, but not the body? What the fuck!?” for some reason, she feels the need to jog after me and turn me around with her hand.

I pull on my Talent that is fueled by emotion instead of aether and ram a pistol under her chin. Her eyes go wide and she tries to back up, but I grab her belt and pull her close.

“You had something to say, so fucking say it.”

“I have five team-mates that will gun you down.” She chokes out.

I snort at that. I shove her and holster my pistol. “None of those weapons look enhanced. I’d probably live.”

This time, James puts a hand on Melody’s arm to stop her.

“I’ll drive the corpse away. Just stop whatever this is.” He gestures between us.

“You’re going to let a kid call the shots James? Just how good is that pussy?”

Empress’ fiery temper, this bitch is looking to be electrocuted.

“That ‘kid’ overturned Vegas and is a self-made millionaire. You should feel threatened and inadequate around her.”

Aaand I’ve had enough of this. I turn and continue my walk to Aria. I drive the van out and have Aria take off. I fly up to the open ramp and walk inside.

“Gods I wanted to shoot her.” I take a deep breath. “As if I’d sleep with a guy.” I scoff and fake vomit.

“What about Melody?” Aria asks. Wait what? Was she even cute? She was an ass from the start, so I don’t know if I noticed.

“Nah, no way. I have a hot Elf girlfriend, and a Fiery Dragon girlfriend.” Aria trills with humor. Little shit is teasing me. “Haha, get it out of your system, turd.”

“I’m merely trying to understand why you are so angry at Melody.”

“Blah, Aria. You’re trying to make me feel after I’ve used my Talent. I don’t know? I think it was the ‘kid’ comment and her generally abrasive attitude?” Aria chirps but it’s a new one I haven’t heard before. It makes me wonder what my shuttle is up to. Shifty AI. Not really, I love her, but like most people, I don’t really understand her.