"That definitely sounded like Taubitha," said Kahli under her breath as she looked around for her evil ex-friend.

"Behold!" shouted the crackly voice of Taubitha as an undulating mass of physics defying hexagons morphed its way through the air from a thick patch of clouds. "The mothership!!"

"The mothership?" Kahli frowned in confusion.

With a loud, feedback-laden creek and crackle, a different albeit still familiar voice blurted over the mothership loudspeaker. "BEHOLD!! MY MOTHERSHIP!!"

"Lloyd?!" Kahli was incredulous. She'd almost forgotten about Lloyd completely, except for all the times she'd thought about him of course.

With a shudder and a judder a side hexagon of the mass of bizarre mothership geometry shot out to revel a gap in the construction through which Taubitha, with her mighty yet still indeed quite haphazard wings, leapt. She was followed shortly by her dreadful yet splendidly glittery fony, Princess, who was in turn followed by none other than Lloyd the little alien.

"Like, oh my gods, Kahli!" Taubitha hissed as she transformed slowly but surely into a taloned, large-jawed beast as her [skill] well afforded.

Kahli groaned. Froufrou squelched in anticipation. Sahdi tussled her hair.

"Put your dukes up, bitch!"

G'athoong turned her scaly head to face the foes. I'll try to take some of them down before this vile alien vaporizes me like they did Boney! She opened her jaws and let loose a massive torrent of salty water.

"BLARGH!" spat Taubitha as she struggled to evade the attack, losing her balance with her already shoddy wing flapping and tumbling down through the air.

Sahdi suddenly started groaned and moaning in a pained fashion. "Ohh gods... I feel... awful..."

Froufrou squelched over and over again in such an obnoxiously stinky manner that it arrested Kahli's attention like nothing else could. Once this was established, Froufrou quickly pointed a writhing tendril to the distance.

Kahli looked over to see that Princess was focusing her sinister yet absolutely beautiful - indeed almost dazzling - eyes on Sahdi. And with that, Kahli remembered one of Princess' terrible [skills]. That is, she remembered that Princess had the ability to explode heads with focused energy. But Kahli had an idea, now. She was going to knock out two tamaven with one big rock, as it were.

With that, Kahli kicked her big rock down, down, down - that is, she kicked away the very thing keeping herself, Sahdi, and indeed Froufrou suspended in the air. As they plummeted, G'athoong at first reacted in a stressed manner as if to attempt to save them. However, what with her thought speak, she was quickly able to surmise from Kahli's psyche that this was a premeditated and indeed also a calculated act that was as intentional as it was brash.

For a good while she continued to plummet, but inevitably Kahli's big rock soon swiveled around and shot back towards her in an arc, catching quite a quick speed as it slammed into be her big left foot and sent her, Sahdi and Froufrou soaring through the air towards Princess. Kahli raised her fist in defiance.

"This is crazy, Kahli," said Sahdi. Her voice was shaking.

Kahli thought about all the other things she'd done with her system as her hand caught a strong blue flame and her ascent towards the sinister fony increased. Sure, this might've been a little extreme, but she'd been through worse, she figured.

----------------------------------------

Omar zoomed down until he had a perfect bird's eye view of downtown Flungunglia. He squinted and grimaced as he looked around like a sentry for Unit 5a23.

"Here, robot, robot, robot! Heeeere, robot, robot, robot!" he shouted, propelling himself through the air with brilliant, fiery flatulence as he cupped his right hand and flaming left arm around his mouth in order to better project.

It was not long before Omar indeed came upon an automaton looming in the distance, albeit a different one than he was expecting. This one looked fairly similar to Unit 5a23, except in that its blue-tinted, metallic body was newer and fresher, and it had a large canon for a left arm. It was standing underneath a large red and white spotted mushroom, looming over a shivering tauman woman that looked like she was full of fear.

"Hey! Bolt bucket, over here!" blurted Omar as he streamed over to greet the automaton in a brilliant flash of flatulence.

"What? What is it?" asked the automaton, their head swiveling 270 degrees in order to address Omar properly. "I'm just harvesting a soul over here. If you've got a problem with that, I've got a couple of [skills] that might be of your interest - namely those that make me incredibly proficient in a fight."

Omar rolled his eyes as he planted himself on the ground and engorged the flames of his left arm to twice their normal size. "Yea, dickhead, I've got [skills] too, what of it? I don't give a shit what you're doing."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Oh, okay," replied the automaton with a few clicks and beeps that seemed to almost characterize their atonal voice with one of relative surprise. "That's a bit of a relief. I figured you'd have a problem with me taking someone's life, for some reason."

"What do I look like, a social worker?" Omar said with a sneer. "I'm just trying to find another robot and I figured you might be able to help me out."

"Another robot?" The automaton's body swiveled 180 degrees to match with his head. He lowered his canon, which had previously been raised in order to engage with the tauman whose soul he wanted to harvest. "What did they look like?"

"Hmm... Well, they were mechanical first of all," said Omar with a brow that seemed somewhat furrowed from what could be seen under the living wood covering his face. "And absolutely covered in rust. Kind of a reddish brown tint to their whole body. Claws for hands. And... Oh, what the fuck was it? There was some other identifying feature..."

"Did they have a toaster welded to their chest?" asked the automaton glumly.

"Yes! How'd you know?"

"I met him," replied the automaton. They pointed their arm cannon to the distance. "He's over by the alleyway over there, meditating."

"Oh, duh. I should've known," said Omar with a sigh. He looked back to the automaton and summoned up a cigar with his applicable [skill], watching it materialize from thin air into his hand. "Well, thank you for your help. I'm Omar, pleased to meet you. As a token of my appreciation, please accept this fine stogie."

"Thank you, Omar," replied the automaton as they accepted the gift and placed it in a utility box on the side of their hip. "I'm Silash. I wasn't always an automaton, indeed, I used to be tauman just like you."

"Really? What the fuck happened?"

Silash made a strange, mechanical noise that seemed to approximate a groan. "It's a... long story. Ever been kidnapped by a rich guy before?"

Omar grimaced. "No, but that sounds fucking creepy."

"Oh, no... Well, okay, yes. However, it's been absolutely fascinating to work on Tesserators, and-" Silash stopped himself. Had he said too much?

"Tesserators? That word sounds familiar, but I can't rightly remember what the fuck it means," said Omar. "What's a Tesserator, again?"

"Um..." Silash looked like he wasn't sure what to say.

"What's up? Running low on RAM or something, bolt-head?"

Silash made a deep humming noise. It seemed to be the mechanized option to broadcasting extreme anxiety.

"Wait a second... Tesserators... Tauman put into a robot body... You're here to harvest peoples' souls..." Omar tapped his foot, deep in thought. "Are you here on a religious mission or-"

Silash hadn't even heard Omar's question. He was blinded by fear. "That's it! You know too much! I must destroy you!!" He fired his arm cannon with a barrage of blasts.

Omar just chuckled and parried them all away with his flaming arm. "Nice try, buddy, but I wasn't born yesterday. Now, are you going to answer my question about what you're doing harvesting peoples' souls, not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with that, or-"

"THAT'S IT, I'VE GOT TO CLAMP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!!" Silash sprung forward, powering up with the jets of his feet and opening wide his claw towards Omar's face.

"Fucking hell, you really want to fight?" asked Omar incredulously as he jumped and flipped out of the way in a burst of flame.

"I don't want to, Omar," said Silash.

"Oh, thank the gods. Really, Silash, I think you're a pretty cool guy, and-"

"I HAVE TO!!!" Silash growled as he charged up his arm and shot blast after blast in Omar's direction.

Omar twirled and twisted his arm. He was able to evade or absorb most of the attacks, but he was starting to feel his [STM] getting pretty low. Soon enough, he'd be out, if he kept letting Silash attack him willy-nilly.

"Alright, you fucking robo-cuck, you've force me into this!" spat Omar as he powered up his flaming arm and blasted towards the foe with a fiery burst from his keister. "Let's fucking go!"

With a smash and a slash Omar slammed his arm into Silash's chest and then drove it up to his face.

[Critical hit]

"AGH!" Silash stumbled backwards on his jet propelled feet, but then he raised his arm and started charging with electricity. "You'll never stop me from getting souls and opening up those brilliant, blue beam gates with the Tesserator!"

Omar gasped, suddenly connecting the dots. "Gates? Are you talking about those huge beams of light that keep popping up all over Nomachiato?"

Silash growled and shot a huge, crackling beam of blue energy out at Omar. However, the surly fire elemental had another trick up his sleeve. Using a [skill] called [Absorption], Omar held out his flaming arm and redirected the energy from Silash's attack into his arm, repurposing its power into a charge that not only refilled his [STM] completely but indeed powered up is flaming arm yet again, engorging it further and turning it blue.

"I don't consider those gates, Silash," said Omar. He was more interested in talking that he was fighting. "Those fucking things are on another level. Are you telling me that you're harvesting souls to power them up? Just who in the fuck turned you into a robot, again, Silash?"

Silash growled again. His tauman consciousness within the machine was starting to get a little nervous. Not only was all of this quite messy and risky as far as exposure went, but indeed it was making him incredibly uncomfortable. He hadn't been expecting to divulge such information, and at the same time, as Omar talked to him, he was starting to wonder how far-gone he'd gotten. Was he really the same mild mannered scientist he'd been before having his consciousness implanted in the body of a machine?

[Threat detected]

A series of loud clicks, beeps, and static roared over Silash's consciousness. His vision was replaced by a foggy, pink snow that was constantly morphing and boiling.

[...]

[Entering berserker mode]

Berserker mode? What was that? What was happening?

Suddenly, imposed over the snow was Tim's face. He smiled wide through his wooden face. "Now, Silash, you are ready to see the full extent of what you are capable of. You are, bar none, my greatest creation yet."

It was all Silash could do but watch in horror as Tim laughed, and then his face faded away.

[Activating transformation process]

The snow began to fade back, and Silash's vision was slowly returning - save for a few key differences. There seemed to be a red border around his whole vision, almost like he was wearing a visor. He looked down at his body and watched in horror as his arms, legs and chest grew and morphed into a monstrous, towering structure.

"Aw fuck," said Omar.