By the time I finally find and enter the town, the sun is already rising on the new day. The oppressive humidity descends on me as I pass through the barrier, and I sigh. I ignore all the glances I get from the men walking past and head straight for the healer’s shop.

Despite the early hour the front door is unlocked, allowing me to just walk in. Glancing around, I see the old doctor sitting behind the front counter.

“Weird arm girl, welcome back,” he says quietly.

I walk over and stand in front of the wooden counter. “How’s he doing?”

“Hmm…” the guy mutters. “He’s alive, and mostly healed. He should avoid any blows to the head as much as possible,” the elderly man says, steel in his gaze.

I nod noncommittally. Like I can promise that, we get into fights almost constantly… I guess I’ll try to avoid it. Wouldn’t want my native guide croaking on me, after all.

The doctor waddles around from his seat, motioning for me to follow him. We quickly walk through the store, arriving in the side room where Betton is sleeping.

I look at the still scrawny kid, who’s snoring away comfortably. How irritating. Two pink vines shoot from my back, wrapping around the guy’s blanket, and ripping it off him.

“EEeeeeeK!” Betton leaps from his slumber, backing up against the wall defensively. His eyes dart around, searching for danger, before coming to rest on me. Recognition and anger flare in his eyes.

“Alex…” he hisses. “What the hell was that for?”

I frown. He’s getting out of line again. I guess I’ve been too nice recently. Not bothering to answer him, I drop the blanket and wrap my thin pink tendrils around him. With a snap, I pull them taut, yanking the kid towards me. The youth is lifted from the bed and hurled at me.

As he’s about to collide into me, my body splits open, revealing a cavity inside. Stretching my form to fit the guy, I put him inside. With the rebellious child dealt with, I turn to face the doctor.

His eyes are narrowed in anger. “You better not have just killed the child I worked hard to heal,” he says threateningly.

I wave him off. “He’s fine…” His anger recedes, but he still seems annoyed as hell. Deciding it’s best to distract him, I change the topic.

“How much do I owe you?”

────────────

I cautiously poke my head into the jewelry shop and am immediately yanked inside. I whirl around to face the door snapping shut behind me, and the short woman from yesterday.

“You!” she says angrily.

“M-me?” I repeat, confused.

“Do you know how much trouble you caused me?!” she shrieks.

I just shake my head dumbly. What the hell is she on about?

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“Why didn’t you warn me?” she asks accusingly.

“Of what?!”

“That your blood eats Imperial metal!”

I blink slowly. “What?”

She grits her teeth. “Your stupid blood! Ate my best set of Imperial steel tools!” I can almost feel the heat radiating off her.

“I… I have no idea what that is.” I explain truthfully.

“Well, I demand you replace them,” she hisses.

I shrug. I guess that’s fair. “How much will it cost?” I ask. I can always mug some more people.

“Oh no, I’m not taking money. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get those to begin with?”

I shake my head. “No idea.”

She sighs. “Whatever, get me Imperial steel,” she demands.

“You just need the material?” I ask. She nods.

I reach between my breasts and into my body, and pull out some light blue scales the size of dinner plates. “Will this work?”

The woman’s magnified eyes go wide. “Are… are those dragon scales?” she asks with a squeak.

I nod. “Yup.”

She snatches them from me greedily. “We’re even,” she says with a wide smile. “No payment for the ring needed, either.”

She quickly disappears through the cupboard-sized doorway, skipping as she goes. …I feel like I was just scammed.

I wait for a few minutes, feeling Betton still squirming around inside me. This is for your own good, boy. The doc said no head trauma, and I can’t trust you to not trip and hit your head.

The woman returns, a bone-white ring in hand. She places it in my palm, and I quickly examine it.

The band is made of what looks like bone, and a small pink gem is embedded into it. Every so often, the gem blinks.

I nod in approval. “Excellent work,” I praise.

“It should be, considering it ate all that steel,” the woman mutters. Her eyes run me up and down.

“Weren’t you shorter yesterday?”

────────────

Outside the store I quickly expel Betton. He doesn’t say anything, instead he just gives me a death stare. Good! He’s learning. The two of us start walking through the dirt road, heading for the cliff wall, where we’ll climb to the surface.

We don’t even make it halfway before things go tits-up. Betton senses something’s wrong before I do and pushes me to the side.

With a horrible screech, a black line rips through the air I was just occupying. Betton and I watch as the line climbs higher and higher into the sky, quickly reaching several stories. After it stops gaining height, it starts to widen.

The line becomes a gash, a horrible tear in the world. The space on either side of it seems to bend, the view warping around the glowing black rip. Inside writhes hues of deep purple and shades of black, lashing out at each other violently. When the anomaly finishes growing, it's the size of a tractor trailer put on its end.

A massive hand made of black metal emerges from the rend in spacetime, dripping with dark energy. Its sharp fingertips dig into the earth, pulling at the ground. The dusty soil gives way, offering no purchase to the oversized limb.

The first hand is joined by a second, and working together, they manage to grip the ground. They pull themselves forward, causing a massive metallic shape to leave the hole in the air.

Once the robot fully exits the wound in the world, the tear collapses with a loud bang. The metallic beast lifts itself to its full height. It looks like a donut without a hole in the center, humanlike arms spaced evenly apart around the outer edge. Glowing blink like eyes from the artificial monster’s top.

It angles itself so that its underside is exposedes to me and Betton. Set into the bottom is a circle of whirring razor sharp teeth, like an oversized trash disposal. The robot lets out a shrill shriek, and starts lumbering towards us.

“Fuck.”