The taste of blood wakes me from my multi-ton slumber.

"Come on," Adel groans behind my door. "New equipment, they want you familiar with everything by Monday."

"It's early, piss off..." I grumble, finding myself gripping Beth tightly around her neck, then immediately releasing her.

"What the fuck, Lori?" I whisper to myself in self-disgust.

Maybe it's a good thing I don't remember my dreams. I spring out of bed, place Beth under my blanket, tie my hair, and squeeze into my usual getup.

"Alright, Princess," Adel groans, seeming as tired as I am, standing left of the holoboard, extending her probe to point at the diagram of a Jackal with an abnormally small head. "So for next episode this Tuesday, The Big D's want you to face off this fucker. By the way, this thing is 30 meters tall."

I look at the board as if it said something stupid.

"Yes, Lori. And no, I can't make this shit up."

"So am I supposed to just play pinball with the Suit and-"

"No, they're giving you a few new toys," the board changes to another slide, with what looks like my Exosuit with a bunch of exploded-view weapons and plates. "particularly a 30-mil auto-cannon on one side, a HMG on the other, leg extensions, more hydraulic boosters, a bigger Hydrocat powerplant, and heavier armor, which you'll be running a Sim on today to familiarize."

"Tch, whatever."

"Come on, show me some action-hero spirit. Appreciate the new gadgets. Aren't you bored of the usual?"

I close my eyes, slouch over on my hand, and start fake-snoring.

"Yeah, like you can ever fall asleep that quickly. Come on."

The rig is on display in the hangar with several bots drilling, welding, and pressing the parts together. Adel snaps on the MIRCS nodes from a control console and looks at it for a couple seconds, completely beyond my understanding of what she's doing.

She pops them out and follows me to the Sim rig. I lay back into the dummy suit, pop in the MIRCS, and close my eyes.

It's one thing to see the diagram on the holoboard. It's another to see it in VR. It'll probably be yet another thing to see it in real life.

"You really think 50-cals and 30-mils are going to do more than just annoy that thing?"

"I know so. Plus we'll test how many bombs you'll need. Let's give it a go before the real thing."

The behemoth Jackal stomps towards me, with the ground below shaking after every step. The simulated new suit's dampeners allow just enough vibration for me to feel on my skin, but not in my chest.

"How does a land animal get so fucking big?"

"How did dinosaurs ever exist?"

I give Adel a squint. "Fair enough." I begin running, feeling the inertia of the legs that are triple what I'm used to. Even with the hydraulic assistance, the mass is palpable nonetheless. It's an entirely different workload to what I'm used to.

Mind learns, body adapts, hopefully.

"Hey, pay attent- ugh, come on, Lori..." Adel groans, as I look up and see the Jackal's clawed paw kareen towards me, too late for me to evade. I suppose I died within the simulation, as I grunted after feeling a violent barrage of g-forces, only to reappear at the start of the course.

"Now you relearned how to run, try actually fighting."

I take a breath in and start running oblique to the beast.

"So heavy."

"Hey, genius, look at your opponent. You're gonna need the armor and firepower."

The Jackal slams its left paw to the ground this time, shaking everything around it.

So, now I have two options. Pepper its belly– every Jackal's weak spot– with gunfire, or climb to the back of its head, and hold on while planting a bomb in a soft, fleshy part of its body close to its brain.

I point the autocannon and concentrate a scatter of fire at its abdomen, running to its right side. It groans like a creaking metal tower, as small splats of burnt blood eminate from the skin wounds inflicted.

"Not enough ammo for that."

"So, think of something else, Princess."

The back of any adult Jackal is mostly portruding spines, but like any vertebrate, severence of the spinal cord from the skull right at the base is always a quick route to success.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"What else do I have on board?"

"4 H-charges."

H-charges....

Immediately an icon appears in the bottom right of my HUD with the number 4 next to it.

So I throw it?

The suit politely motions my arm to reach for the explosives on the rack on my armor's lower back.

Adel snorts. "Idiot-proofing is always nice, isn't it?"

"Oh, shut up."

Big Bertha turns to me and starts drooling and growling, turning to its right, while I scramble to its tail.

"No, Lori, you're going to-"

The monster whips its tail at me, approaching the ground, and I boost a jump, attempting to vault over it, but missing the tailspines at the tip, now at least 15 meters in the air.

"Damn it."

After a rolling landing, the thing turns to look at me with its left eye, and swings the tail the other way. I sprint to its left hip, knowing it's not going to move that leg without stopping the incoming tailswipe. The tail, close to the ground but not quite touching it, closes in, but I made it halfway down the tail's length, ducking and rolling as it whooshed overhead. The leg is still in place, and I continue towards the left foot, only hoping it won't kick at me.

"What's the point of the guns?" I ask, crawling up the left leg as the tail continues its swing.

"Fatty isn't going to show up alone. The guns are for crowd control. A whole pack alongside the big one is what the D's have planned for Tuesday."

Right as the left foot takes off a few feet from the ground, I jump straight to the length of the foot, grip on with my claws, and make a climb up the leg. It starts to stomp indiscriminately as I make it to its ass.

"No blades?'

"That suggestion will fall on deaf ears. Probably won't get you shit by Tuesday."

The abomination roars again and tries to shake-dry me off. I grip with the claws and stomp each foot deep into the gaps betwen the plates of chitin lining its ass-cheeks.

"No, not there, you weirdo. That's just going to piss it off. You need to kill it, not violate it."

I crawl to the underside of the tail and give it a brief kick in its asshole. The thing angrily growls from the other side.

Adel sighs. "Wow, grow up."

"Never."

"You know, kids watch this show too, right?"

"They shouldn't."

"Should seldom is."

"Not my kids."

"You won't have any with that approach."

I freeze, still clinging to the Jackal's body.

"Hello? You gonna keep moving?"

I continue standing still, perched in between two plates in protest.

Adel pilots a drone that buzzes towards my face. "Lori, the hell are you doing?"

Turning to stare, I swing an arm at the drone, only frustratingly seeing it ghost through my attack.

"Stop this shit."

"Why?"

"I'll stand here until you do."

"Fine."

The scene melts away and light from outside the sim rig pours onto my face. I rip out the MIRCS, facing Adel as she moves towards me, and give her a shove out of the way.

"Hey, what's the fucking-- hey!"

She only gets a view of my backside as I continue walking, barefoot.

"Whatever, come back when you feel like it, I guess," her voice echoes as I continue my way out the door.

~~

With Beth in my arms, I stare out the window towards the afternoon Cauldron horizon.

"I'm sorry for choking you," I whisper to her, closing in on a hug, feeling her pilled, old fur.

Everything hurts. I want to sleep but can't.

Adel steps towards my room, opens the door, hesitates to speak, then turns back around.

"Sorry to you too. Guess it's my turn to apologize."

She comes back, stepping slowly, opening the door again.

Almost 30 seconds go by before she takes a deep breath. "Come on, we need to finish this."

I get off the window nook and place Beth on my bed, and follow Adel back out to the hangar.

Adel deploys me closer to the Jackal's mouth, and as it swipes its right claw at me, I run towards its left, start a crawl up its left fore-leg, and make it to its chest.

"Plant a bomb right where the skull and spine meet behind the head," Adel sends a marker that glows the respective region of the Jackal's neck.

Like an earthquake, the Jackal's body tries its damnedest to thrash me off. I continue the climb, grip by grip through the fleshy gaps in between the armor plates, hoping I don't simply tear off the flesh and bring pieces down with me.

"Detonate with 'H-charge, abracadabra'".

Up the neck, there's no safe route, so I choose to go from the side. It stops shaking and is probably going to try scratching me off with its back foot. I double time my way up, load a bomb from the dispenser, fire a cannon round into the soft spot behind the head, and then place a H-charge in the bloody flesh crater.

"Now bounce."

Right as the right foot hits the side of the neck I just crawled up, the Jackal's left paw comes up and tries to crush me, and I spring off the top of its head.

H-charge, abracadabra; a consequent boom and a tsunami of blood splashes on my backside as I make a rough landing, rolling 3 times to dissipate the impact, still skidding a few feet after ending in a crouching pose.

I turn back, realizing I landed roughly where I deployed at the start, and turn around to see the Jackal's head partially severed, like a half-cut tree.

"Cool, take a moment to appreciate the work." Adel then re-spawns me at the beginning, again. At least 30 more regular-sized Jackals surround the big one. "Now do it again."

I charge straight forward, jump, and land on one small Jackal's head, as the swarm disperses. A few cannon rounds mixed with .50-caliber fire pick off a couple more. One hits me from behind, and I grab it and throw it off to smash into another coming from my right, as I turn around.

At least 12 surround me at all angles. As they hesitate on who should go first, I jump once again, knowing I'll have to hopscotch on the little Jackals to get to their leader.

"They probably can't bite through your current rig, but if enough of them close in on you at once, they can hold you down for Giganto."

"So I just need to frolic over the Jackal fields and everything else is the same."

"Correct."

I roll my eyes.

~~

Mecca Street is quiet tonight. It is Sunday night, after all. I grip my service pistol within my purse, thumb on safety.

A faint shriek and some broken glass echo out of an alley. Nothing to give a shit about.

I'm told not to walk the streets alone but I couldn't stand sitting in the barracks tonight. The silence out here is as eerie as it is comforting. Adel is a friend I'll likely have for life, but even I need time away from her.

Mainly for her sake.

A couple of my fans quietly squirm and giggle from a top-floor apartment and wave to me, calling my name. The street lights-- a showy set of light-bars lining the roadway and footpaths-- shining upwards in a range of colors. Perhaps street lights shining from the top allows for too many hiding spots?

Scuffles emerge from the trash cans in the side alleys. My eyes dart to and fro, coming up with nothing. Few have the courage to be poparazzi.

It begins to rain lightly and I return to the gate soaked. The personnel door opens automatically before me, and the dirt path, now mostly mud on top of hard-pack, sticks to my shoes like peanut butter.

What an otherwise refreshing walk alone. I have mixed opinions on rain. Wet clothes and hair is a nuisance but the air smells fantastic.