“Looks like somebody had a late night,” Sofie observed to the already seated Arlette a moment after entering the meeting room. “So, did you go all the way?”
Arlette cocked an eyebrow, clearly unamused as she sipped her tea. “This is the most upbeat I’ve seen you in a good while,” Arlette observed in return, pointedly not addressing the Earthling’s provocation.
Sofie sat down in the chair beside Arlette and scooted the seat closer, propping her head up in her palms with a mischievous glint in her eyes as she grinned back at the ex-mercenary. “Heh! Nice try changing the subject, but it’s not going to work. It’s my job as your female friend to gossip with you about men. I mustn't be derelict in my duties. So, was he good?”
Arlette sighed and rolled her eyes. “Can you not? I haven’t even had my morning tea yet; I don’t have the energy for whatever torture this is,” she groaned.
“How big is his dick? I bet, with his blood manipulation abilities, he can do some wild stuff with it.”
Gabriela Carreno couldn’t hold back her smirk as tea sprayed from the Scyrian’s mouth all over the table as Sofie cackled like a madwoman, her mirth so great that she nearly fell out of her chair. Gabby couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy as the two continued their friendly bickering, Sofie gleefully getting raunchier and raunchier the more embarrassed Arlette became. She’d never really had a friendship like that. She’d had very few friendships at all, really. Just being an orphan was enough to make her an outcast of sorts, and she’d never really gotten along with the other girls her age at the orphanage either.
Part of her, the part that wasn’t trapped in the mire of her sorrows, wanted to try to interact with them more and perhaps forge her own small facsimile of the bond they shared, but she could never get very comfortable around either of them. Arlette always tensed whenever Gabby spoke to her or even when Gabby just focused on her. The soldier tried to hide her nervousness, but Gabby could still see it. It was clear to her that Arlette didn’t feel safe with her around.
Gabriela didn’t try to overcome the Scyrian’s skittishness, however, because of its source. The two of them had never talked about it, but Sofie had told her once that Arlette had been at Crirada during the war. To make it even worse, Gabby had apparently been just a moment away from killing the ex-mercenary at one point in the siege, not that she remembered seeing Arlette while there. Faced with this knowledge and the shame it brought to her now, Gabby just didn’t have it in her to face a survivor of her deeds face to face.
Sofie, on the other hand, didn’t fear Gabby one bit. She always treated her with a warm smile and plenty of kindness, but she treated everybody with a warm smile and plenty of kindness—with the notable exception of Blake for some reason. Though Sofie probably didn’t mean for it to be this way, it reminded Gabby of the way retail employees back on Earth would greet customers when they opened the door.
What really bothered her, though, was the pity hiding behind that smile. Gabriela didn’t want to be pitied. It just made her feel worse and dragged her back to the underlying misery that was the core of her current existence.
Gabby didn’t know which was worse: to be pitied or to be feared.
Strangely enough, the only person living in this fortress that she felt comfortable around was Blake. Perhaps it was because he didn’t bother hiding his opinion of her. To say the two of them had gotten off on the wrong foot was the understatement of the century, but the inferno of hatred she’d felt about him before, back when he’d represented everything keeping her from going home to her children, had disappeared a long time ago. Now, after interacting with him for a few months, their relationship had settled into an equilibrium that only two equally miserable people could maintain. She still didn’t much like him and vice versa, but at least they could be honest with each other about it.
All this meant that Gabriela found herself alone even among what should be people who could understand her. When was the last time she could say otherwise? The closest she’d come to having a true friend since her husband’s tragic death had been Chitra, but the Batranala had always struggled under dual loyalties. Looking back now, with the clarity of hindsight, she could remember multiple events and occasions where Chitra had placed the Emperor’s needs and desires over her own. While she had done so reluctantly, she had still done so. Gabby had felt utterly delighted when Chitra had finally broken from her loyalties to that wretched old man, but directly after that, they’d split apart and Gabby had never seen her friend again.
So here she sat, alone and friendless. Only her guilt and her work at the orphanage, where she was slowly growing accustomed to the shouts and cries of children not her own, kept her from leaving this place. Not that she had a better place to go. At least here, she wouldn’t run into many people who she’d hurt, directly or indirectly, in the war.
She’d tried her best to keep her casualties to a minimum by only killing members of the opposing army, and even then, only those that actively stood in her way and tried to stop her. No civilians, nobody running away. It had been the least she could do to avoid needless slaughter. But that still added up to a lot of people. Too many people. All to desperately chase after something that had never existed in the first place.
She knew that she’d been in a bad place at the time, her sudden involuntary transportation pulling her not just from her life but ripping her mental stability away in the process. That didn’t excuse her decisions. But what bothered her the most wasn’t the poor choices of her past. It was the knowledge that, if a real way home presented itself and to get it she would need to do everything she’d done a second time, she very well might choose to go down that road again.
Gabby’s grip tightened around the Sword of Eternity’s handle and she fought the urge to glare at it. Gabriela hated the thing. It served as little more than a reminder of her weakness, her folly, and her sins. Still, she carried it with her at all times these days. She’d tried to avoid the accursed thing by leaving it in Blake’s fortress and a sweet, innocent child had died. If she’d had it on her that night, Pari would still be with them today.
She missed that cherubic kid almost as much as she missed Javier and Anahi. Pari had been a beacon in her darkness. The children at the orphanage were nice, and that place was the one place she’d prefer to be over any other here on this world right now, but Pari had been special. When that angel had smiled for her, hugged her, told her to feel better, or most of all, when she’d purred in Gabby’s lap like a blissful little kitten, Gabby had felt more than just warm and fuzzy. For just a few precious moments, she’d felt forgiven. Pari Clansnarl had been the closest thing to her children that she’d found in this world. Now she was gone, and it was Gabriela’s fault.
But that was exactly why she was sitting in this chair this morning, instead of helping out at the orphanage. It seemed that, somehow, through some miracle, there might be a way to bring her back. Gabriela wouldn’t miss that for anything. It felt like she was being given a second chance, perhaps even by God himself, though she hesitated to consider herself somebody worthy of His grace anymore.
The door opened again and Blake stomped in, bringing an abrupt end to her spiraling stream of consciousness. As usual, he wore his armor and helmet, making it hard to read his mood. Gabriela had only ever seen him without his helmet on that first day, the day she’d beaten him near the brink of death.
“Thanks for coming. I just got done talking with the Stragmans,” he informed the rest of them. “I’m preparing the Flying Toaster for a trip west, departing in a few hours.”
“So it’s real? Really real?” Sofie asked, gripping the table with a desperate intensity.
“I don’t know if I believe this crap about rewinding time. The idea of rewinding ‘personal time’ doesn’t make sense. Scyria is clearly a planet and so it’s traveling through space, so if your time was reversed, then-” He shook his head. “Never mind, not the point. The point is that the elf was definitely dead, right?”
Arlette nodded.
“And now he’s clearly not. And when I asked the diplomat about reviving the dead, the guy got cagey as fuck. Something’s up. I don’t know if it’s time rewinding or something else, but they had something to do with this and I want to know what. So we’re gonna go crash their party. If we can finagle a refurbished Pari out of this, all the better.”
“Crash their party?” Arlette butted in, ignoring Sofie doing a happy dance beside her. “Is that your way of saying that you’ll be arriving uninvited?”
“Those jerkoffs wouldn’t tell me a single thing I wanted to know,” the armored man complained. “If I asked if I could come, they’d just refuse. So I’m just not going to give them the chance. That’s more my style, anyway.”
“What about Pari’s body?” Arlette followed up. “Tehlmar says you need part of the body, which, last I checked, we don’t have. Wouldn’t you need to go steal Pari’s corpse back from the god first?”
“I’m not going near that thing until I know for sure we even have a way to bring her back,” Blake replied. “First, we work out the details, then we get the body, then we go back. It will take longer, but if it means we don’t have to risk getting turned into a kabob for no reason, then it’s worth it.”
His head turned to Gabby. “I called you here to ask you to come on the trip. Not just potentially for the dragon. The Stragmans respect strength and I need a bodyguard for up-close dangers. Will you come?”
“I will,” Gabriela replied. She didn’t need his reasons. Just helping bring the poor child back would be worth a hundred trips.
“Me too!” Sofie hopped up from her seat.
“It’s too dangerous for you,” Gabby told her with a shake of her head.
“I agree, I don’t need anybody holding us back when we’re in a life-or-death situation,” Blake added.
“What?! Come on, I can be helpful!” Sofie protested. “I can do like, negotiating or whatever!”
“Negotiate with who, the dragon?” Blake scoffed.
“Maybe!” she huffed as she crossed her arms in defiance. “Besides, neither of you has been to Stragma before, right? You need at least one person who has been there.”
“We can just bring Arlette’s new boyfriend,” Blake replied.
“He’s not-” Arlette sputtered before catching herself. “Tehlmar was breaking an oath he made to the Stragmans when he told us. If you bring him to Stragma, chances are the Chos turns him into paste.”
“See? You need me too!” Sofie chimed in.
“But what about the dragon?” Gabby interjected.
“Look, if something happens, I’ll just run away like the last time, alright? The dragon didn’t even notice me,” Sofie offered. “You two can fight to your hearts’ content and I’ll just go hide. I just want to be there for Pari, okay? Please, don’t leave me here so I can just spend every minute worrying until I fall apart!”
Blake sighed. “Fine, but the moment things get hairy, you disappear, alright? We’re going to have to go all out against that thing when we get to its lair or lab or whatever. We can’t fight while also having to try to protect you.”
Sofie saluted. “I’ll become a ghost, I promise!”
“You’re all crazy,” Arlette chimed in.
“I take it that means you’re staying?” Blake inquired.
“I like being alive, thank you very much. There’s no amount of money you could pay me to go back into those mountains again. Besides, there’s too much for me to do here, with the attack last night and all that. Now that we know that the terrorists can interfere with your technology-”
“For the last time, nobody can interfere with my technology!” Blake hotly insisted.
“I told you, I pressed the fucking button multiple times and every press was red!” Arlette spat, slamming her palms against the table and pushing herself to her feet. “They were right there on the other side of the fucking restaurant and they didn’t even move!”
“Yes, because they were blind!” Blake shot back. “I looked into it before the call. Somebody—obviously the terrorists—managed to cover their sensors with ink, rendering them unable to see. They’re programmed to not move, because they were just as liable to crush some stupid bystanders as they were to do any good.”
“So your vaunted metal warriors can be taken out by a pot of ink?!” Arlette snorted.
“No, of course not, do you think I didn’t think of something that obvious? I made it so the server could steer them using overhead imagery from the flitter network if something happened to their internal sensors. The problem was that there was so much smoke from the fire that the flitters overhead couldn’t see the area around the restaurant! So stop saying that my tech’s been hacked. I’ll own this one, it’s on me. But it’s a simple issue of me not covering all my bases and that’s all.”
Arlette grumbled but didn’t argue. Then, her eyes went wide. “Wait, you said ink?”
“Yeah? What of it?”
Arlette frantically cleaned up her area, picking up the teacup and the teapot that sat nearby, her mouth moving a kilometer a minute. “Ink is is expensive and pretty rare, especially in that sort of quantity. If I can narrow down the type of ink, I might be able to trace it back to them!” she gushed, rushing past Blake and out the door. “I need to look into this immediately!”
“Guess I should give her access to the skitters,” Blake muttered to himself.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Arlette said sheepishly as she reappeared in the doorway behind Blake. “I was hoping I could convince you to hire Tehlmar under my supervision. He has skills that would be useful to us.”
“The spy? The Drayhadan spy? The one who infiltrated my territory?” asked Blake with a snort. “I get that I’ve already talked to him and we’re using his information, but employment is a very different thing.”
“He is a man who will honor his word, I promise. Sign him to a mercenary contract and he will honor it to the letter. If you want, make it a short one with restrictive terms. He’ll sign it anyway to stay here with me. Then you can reevaluate his performance later.”
“Hmmmm... well he did tell us how he got past my border security, unlike a certain someone,” Blake stated, turning to glare at Sofie as she hopped and swayed around the meeting room.
Sofie stuck out her tongue in response but continued her happy dance. “I already told you, don’t ask because I’m not telling!”
“Yeah, yeah...” he grumbled as he turned back to Arlette. “We’ll see how reliable his information is first. Work up a contract and I’ll go over it when I return.”
“Yes, sir!” And then she was gone.
Blake let out another sigh, sharing a look with Gabby. “You know, I never asked because I know it’s going to hurt to hear, but you swam, didn’t you? You swam across the sea, leviathans be damned.”
“Swam? No, I ran.”
“Huh? But your trajectory indicated you were coming from the western shore, not from the border-”
“I ran across the ocean. Just a matter of going fast enough.”
Gabriela could feel the heat of Blake’s annoyance even through his mask. “You’re a goddamned walking cheat code and I hate it.”
Gabby couldn’t help but agree on both parts.
----------------------------------------
Wroetin Orphanage Four—or as Judina, the middle-aged matron of the orphanage, insisted on calling it, “Guiding Light Orphanage”—bubbled with energy, as it often did around noon. Gabby let the vibes soak into her as she entered, allowing the manic energy of the children frolicking about to bolster her already upbeat mood. It had been a good while since she’d felt this good, this... hopeful. She had something to look forward to again, a concrete goal to work towards. She found it stunning how big of a difference that made.
“Chanz, be careful,” she told a young man as he sprinted past her. “You’re going to fall and hurt yourself.”
“Yes, Miss Gabby,” the kid replied, dutifully slowing down a little.
The ease with which he responded made her smile a little. Not too long ago, the children of the orphanage had obeyed her more out of fear than anything else. They’d recognized the aura of danger about her immediately and had treated her as the terrifying monster that she was. But now, it seemed that she and the children were finally growing closer.
“Somebody came to see you,” the boy told her a moment later as he sprinted back, two other kids hot on his heels.
“Oh?” She continued through the yard, slowly making her way through the throngs of younglings towards the building proper. Who could be here to see her? She’d just seen the others, though she hadn’t exactly rushed back here. Had somebody forgotten something?
“She was super pretty,” he added on the third pass.
Gabby’s thoughts came to a screeching halt. No, surely not. But who else could it be?
Her pace quickened and she found herself rushing the rest of the way, almost sprinting through the open doorway and down the hall, her body following the laughter coming from the kitchen. Her heart hammered in her chest and a lump was stuck in her throat. She knew those voices. One was Judina. The other... She practically skidded to a halt at the kitchen entrance, stopping her momentum by grabbing each side of the door frame with her hands.
It was like Gabby was looking at a living memory. The same beautiful face, makeup perfectly applied and spotless. The same flowing amber hair, each strand practically shining in the midday light, and not a single tangle, curl, or split end to be seen. The ornate, delicate dress that somehow never seemed to get a single speck of dirt on it. The same gorgeous smile.
Chitra.
“Gabby, dear, why didn’t you tell me you knew such a delightful and charming young lady?” Judina laughed.
“Oh come now, as much as I appreciate the flattery, I am nowhere near ‘young’ at this point,” Chitra giggled. Her smile grew as she gave Gabriela a look-over. “You look well, Gabby. I’m glad.”
Gabby swallowed. “Did you know?” she managed to croak out.
Chitra blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Did you know?!” Gabby repeated, more forcefully this time.
Chitra’s frown deepened. “I beg your pardon,” she told the older lady with a small bow, “but it seems that my friend and I must talk in private.”
“Of course,” the older lady replied with a smile. Her gaze then swept over to Gabby and the smile turned into a frown of concern. “Gabby, dear, you’re doing it again.”
Gabby looked to the right and found, to her surprise, that her hand had utterly crushed the wooden door frame where she’d grabbed it, leaving a spiderweb of large cracks coursing through the wall. In the rush of her emotions, she hadn’t noticed the noise, nor all the blood dripping from her palms from the large splinters piercing her flesh.
“Ah... I’m sorry,” she told the matron.
“It’s alright, that wall isn’t load-bearing and it’s not like this is the first time,” the woman told her, shooing them from the room. “You can fix it later. Go talk.”
The trip to her bedroom was short and silent as Gabby fought down her roiling feelings of doubt and betrayal as best she could. The room was little more than a bed in a box, but it suited her just fine. It wasn’t like she had anything of her own to fill a bigger room with anyway.
Chitra entered the tiny space and Gabby followed, shutting the door tight behind them and leaning the Sword of Eternity against the nearest corner.
“Well?” she prodded the Ubran.
“You’re going to have to be much more specific, I’m afraid,” Chitra replied with a small frown and a tilt of her head. “I know a lot of things.”
“Did you know it was all a lie?!”
“Sending you back, you mean?”
“What else could I be talking about?!” Gabby snarled.
Chitra daintily sat down on the edge of the straw mattress and leaned back a little, placing her hands behind her for support as she stared up at the ceiling. “No, I didn’t know,” she answered after a while. “But I suspected.”
“When? How early?”
“Right from the beginning. It was too convenient that the Emperor found a way to send you home so quickly. But only a handful of people had ever been inside that ancient room before that day, and I was not one of them. Their demonstration was hard to argue with, as well. I had no proof, nothing to back up my suspicions other than instincts honed by years of palace intrigue.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?! Maybe if... if you had warned me... maybe all those people...”
The tears came quickly this time, compliments of the guilt that never went away no matter how much she sometimes wished it would. She clutched at her chest as sobs wracked her body. Then suddenly, she found herself in a warm embrace, a familiar, calming scent filling her nostrils.
“I’m sorry,” Chitra whispered to her.
Gabby grabbed Chitra’s hands and pulled them off her before pushing Chitra away. “Don’t! Not only did you not warn me, you pushed me to help the Emperor when you yourself had doubts! How could you do that?!”
Chitra gave a forlorn shake of her head. “It’s not that simple. Yes, I did what I could to get you to take the offer; as a Batranala, it was my purpose to advance the Emperor’s desires as I understood them, even when they deemed it unnecessary to inform me of their plans. But even if that were not the case, I still would have pushed you to accept.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you needed it,” the Ubran answered. “I could see just how fragile you were back then. You were barely holding yourself together by a single thread, and it was just a matter of days before you completely fell apart. The loss of your children was bad enough, but even more so, I could see how you were drowning in the helplessness of your situation. Your inability to do anything to help yourself or the people you cared about was going to eat away at you from the inside until you were nothing more than an empty husk, and I didn’t want to see that happen. The Emperor’s plan was exactly what you needed. It gave you hope, but just as importantly, it gave you a goal. So I steered you towards it as best I could.”
“Chitra, I’m not worth the lives of hundreds of thousands of people! If you hadn’t... if I hadn’t... then the war-”
“-would have happened anyway, Gabby,” Chitra chimed in, her tone surprising Gabriela with its sudden forcefulness. “Don’t shoulder the blame for that old man’s decisions. This was not your fault.”
“Huh? But without me, the Ubrans couldn’t have invaded! Redwater Castle...”
“Would have fallen soon enough. Remember General Arrino’s horrid creations? Those are the incomplete results of the Empire’s program to create a weapon capable of destroying that fortress’s famously unbreakable walls. I first heard rumors about them over seven years before you appeared!” She put her hand on Gabby’s shoulder and lightly pulled her closer, gently but firmly holding Gabby’s head up with her other hand so that their gazes locked. “If you understand one thing, make it this: all your appearance did was move the invasion up two or perhaps three years, and your involvement in the war saved more lives than you realize. The invasion of Gustil alone would have brought about the same number of deaths as all of your war. By breaking the Gustilians so early and bringing about their surrender, you rescued countless people from a dreadful fate.”
“I... I can’t accept that, I’m sorry,” Gabby replied. “I still have enough blood on my hands to fill a sea. I can’t pretend otherwise...”
“I’m not asking you to,” Chitra told her, taking her hand and leading her to the bed so they both sat down beside each other. “But if you want to feel guilt, feel it for the right reasons. Let it be because of the people who died to your blade, not because of some false notion that every single death from the war was your doing. If you are going to torment yourself, at least do it for the right reasons.”
“I just... even if you say that... my actions... they cannot be forgiven so easily.”
“I’m not saying that either. I’m not saying that you should just toss your burdens aside, I’m saying that you should not be so willing to carry burdens you do not deserve. And you don’t have to carry them alone. You have friends now, don’t you?”
“No.”
“Sure you do, you have me.”
“But are we friends now?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Chitra asked.
“Because being my friend was your job. You’re not being tasked to be my friend anymore.”
“That just means that now I can be your friend of my own free will!” Chitra giggled. “You realize that I could have gone pretty much anywhere other than here, right? Why do you think I came to Otharia?”
“Because I was here?”
Chitra pulled Gabby in for a warm hug. “It wasn’t because of the local cuisine, I can tell you that for sure,” she chuckled.
This time, Gabby hugged back. Her heart felt somewhat settled now. Knowing of Chitra’s suspicions and motivations back during Gabby’s first days in Scyria darkened her feelings, but one truth shone brightly through that darkness: Chitra had chosen her. She’d defied her master’s orders and chosen Gabby despite that it would cost her nearly everything. And for that, Gabby would always be happy to see her.
“Oh!” she gasped with a start. “I’m sorry, but I have to go! Do you have a place to stay?”
“Don’t worry, I won’t have issues with lodging,” the former Batranala assured her. “Have somewhere to be?”
“I’m leaving for Stragma in a few minutes,” Gabby explained as she quickly tucked several changes of clothes in a sack. “I should be back in a few days, hopefully.”
“Are you running? Or taking that flying machine?”
“I’m not up to running across entire continents anymore,” Gabby informed her with a sad chuckle.
“So you’ve truly started working with Lord Ferros, hm? I must admit, I found the idea impossible when I first heard it. The look in your eyes when you left to kill him was one of incredible malice. I’m amazed to find that he’s not only still alive, but you’re working with him too.”
“It’s a long story. The people here are... strange. I’ll have to introduce you when I get back. You’re going to need a valid explanation for how you got past the border, though. How did you get in, actually?”
Chitra just smiled coyly. “That’s a secret,” she teased as she pulled Gabby in for a tighter, more intimate hug. “It’s good to see you again, Gabby. I was worried about you. I was hoping we could have a chance to catch up when I first came here.”
“I’m sorry I ruined it.”
“No, this was something that needed to happen. I’m glad we got through it. We can catch up when you get back.”
“Yeah,” Gabby agreed as Chitra released her. She bent back down to grab more stuff.
“Well then,” Chitra said as she sashayed to the door. “I’ll leave you to your packing. I hope you have a good trip.”
A moment later and she was gone. Gabby followed not long after, and after a short talk with the matron, made her way back to Blake’s fortress.
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Lying on her back in her cabin on the Flying Toaster, Gabby kept her eyes shut and focused on her breathing.
In.
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Out.
In.
Out.
Slowly, she felt the stress recede, the pounding in her mind fading to a manageable level but only that far. It never went away entirely while she was inside this blasted thing. Only solid ground could provide a true cure.
Gabby supposed it was humorous, in a dark and sad sort of way: Gabriela Carreno, the strongest person in the world by most metrics, able to stare death in the face but reduced to a whimpering puddle by a simple fear of heights. The realm’s mightiest warrior, afraid of a simple fall, one she’d be able to walk away from unharmed no less.
It was that last bit that stabbed at her the most. For anybody else, a fear of heights was understandable; fearing things that could kill you was only natural, after all. But she had nothing to fear from a fall of any height, and yet the fear, in its crippling intensity, remained.
She’d overcome that fear through sheer determination before for short spurts, like each time she’d needed to climb a cliffside while surmounting the Divide, but circumstances were different now. Back then she’d possessed an unfailing drive to return home, and there’d been valleys where she could relax for a while and build up her courage for the next cliff. She no longer had that powerful drive, and there was no resting up here on Blake’s blimp. The closest thing to rest she could get was here in her small quarters, but the sway of the floor beneath her and the low hum of the propellers keeping the craft moving made sure she was aware of the large gap between her and the ground at all times.
She still tried her best, hoping that prolonged exposure would dull the bite, but had found little success so far. She could stay near the center of the main cabin for a few hours before the mounting panic became too much for her to handle and she needed to retreat back to her cabin, but the closer she got to the windows, the worse she felt. Only the fact that the main cabin was fully enclosed kept her from avoiding the place altogether.
A series of loud knocks brought her back to reality.
“Gaaabbbyyyyy! Come out and see this!” called Sofie’s voice from the other side of the metal door.
Gabby held back a groan. One would think that, with only her, Sofie, and Blake aboard the airship, there would be enough room for her to be left alone. Apparently not. “No thanks,” she called back.
“Come on, Gabby! You don’t want to miss this, I promise! Just for a little!”
Grumbling to herself, she levered herself up off the bed and plodded to the door. The metal slid aside, and Gabby stared at Sofie’s excited face with tired eyes. “What is it?”
Sofie grabbed her hand and led her in a half-walk half-jog towards the front of the craft. Gabby could feel the stress bubbling up again just from the act of getting near those windows, growing stronger and stronger. Then they were in the main cabin. Her legs started feeling shaky as Sofie dragged her towards the left windows, where Blake was standing and staring out at something.
Then Gabby saw it and forgot all about her fears.
Off to the left of the airship stood a tree that defied logic. Utterly massive and mind-boggling in scale, it reached far up into the predawn sky, as if trying to touch the stars. With how tall it was, Gabby felt like it just might be able to.
“I just... how?!” Blake wondered.
“You’ve said that at least 5 times already,” Sofie informed him with a smirk.
“But how?! How can a living thing be this big without collapsing on itself?! It’s so tall that we can’t even fly to the top! It’s taller than the ship’s maximum altitude!”
“What is that?” Gabby asked, preferring the simpler questions.
“That’s Ruresni, the Mother Tree, heart of the forest,” Sofie told her. “The Stragmans revere it as something akin to a god.”
The entire towering plant glowed with a soft, spectral blue light, lighting up the forest below. The glow came from all over the trunk, but it felt to Gabby like it truly emanated from somewhere within, beneath the bark. Looking closer, she could see patches of slightly brighter luminescence slowly flowing up the tree toward the colossal canopy far above, which itself had to be a dozen kilometers wide. That canopy was perhaps the prettiest of all, each of the thousands of leaves glowing on their own, their individual brightness spiking and fading, almost like they each had their own slow heartbeat. The way their independent beats created a sparkle effect reminded Gabby of Christmas lights back home.
“It’s beautiful,” Gabby whispered as she took in the sight.
“Kutrad has dragons, Stragma has this...” Blake muttered. He let out an amused snort. “I really picked the wrong place to conquer. No catgirls, no elves, nothing. Botched it big time.”
A large, dark shape buzzed across their vision, passing just a handful of meters from the airship. The three of them stared at the sudden distraction as it banked away, its pair of chitinous wings pushing it higher as it headed towards Ruresni.
“Was that a beetle the size of a bus?” Sofie asked.
“I think maybe we should get some distance,” Blake said as he strode towards the controls, the amazement in his voice now replaced by a sudden urgency. “The Toaster does not have the lift to carry something like that if it lands on us.”
Seizing the controls, he kicked the motors into high gear, turning the craft north and accelerating at high speeds.
And with that, the magic vanished. The spell broken, Gabby fell to her hands and knees and vomited onto the cabin floor.
“Ugh, gross,” Blake whined.
----------------------------------------
“After Ruresni, this just seems so...,” Blake said as he and Sofie stared down at the city of Kukego below.
“Normal?” Sofie asked.
“Boring.” Blake corrected.
“Yeah, Kukego is definitely less... special than the others, I guess. It’s nowhere near as cool as the one they use in the autumn, that’s for sure,” Sofie elaborated.
Gabby, for her part, had risked a single peek a minute ago and now was stuck on her back in the center of the cabin, taking deep breaths and trying to not vomit twice on the same day.
What she’d glimpsed in that short moment before vertigo had taken hold was a sprawling city that very much resembled the sort of city that could exist on Earth: thousands of buildings, few more than two stories tall, spreading out in all directions. Even the trees here were smaller than the rest of the forest.
“I’m just glad they’re still here,” Sofie remarked.
“What do you mean by that?” Blake inquired warily.
“Ah, nothing. It’s just that last year they left Krose, their summer city, way earlier than they were supposed to because the ronutepos migrated early without warning. That sort of thing apparently had never happened before, but it did, so, you know...”
“So they move every season because of migrations?” Gabby wondered from the floor.
“Basically,” Sofie explained. “I think it’s a combination of the threat the migrating animals present and just a respect for the rhythms of the forest. Like, I bet if they really wanted to, the Stragmans could wipe out the ronutepos. Look how many people are down there.”
“What is going to chase them out of this place?” Blake asked.
“Well, assuming Tehlmar wasn’t lying to freak me out, the reason is, uh...” She gulped. “...a ravenous swarm of centipede-like bugs that eat every living thing, plant or animal. A swarm so big that it looks like a writhing sea.”
“Yeah, I’d move too,” Blake said with a nod. He turned to Gabby, a look resembling concern on his face, though Gabby wasn’t sure if he was worried about her or the possibility that she would puke on his floor again. “Feeling ready yet?”
“Maybe,” she allowed. “I’m worried about the trip down, though.”
“Yeah, loading and unloading you is an adventure, that’s for sure,” he sniffed. “You squeezed the railing so hard on the way up this time that you’d think it was made of aluminum foil. Actually... maybe we can use that to our advantage. Come on.”
His helmet forming around his head, he marched out of the room with a purpose. Gabby and Sofie followed, and the three of them split up to go to their respective cabins to fetch anything they might need below. For Gabby, that meant the Sword of Eternity. A moment later, she met the others in front of the door to the loading platform.
“Alright, everybody in,” Blake said, waving the others past as the door opened, holding what looked like a large skitter leg in one hand and an even larger chunk of metal and crystal in the other.
Gabby braced herself for a dizzying sight and a blast of wind but then remembered that the platform’s dock was fully covered. The wind and the drop wouldn’t show itself until the floor beneath them opened up.
“You stand closest to the elevator door,” Blake told her, holding the leg out in front of her horizontally. The metal shifted, lengthening into a bar that melded with the side of the compartment and formed a sort of rail about ten centimeters thick right at chest height. “This is your anxiety bar.” Before she could say anything, the gate to the platform slid shut and the bottom opened to reveal the massive drop between them and the ground below.
Gabby let out an “EEP!” and squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could as the elevator began its slow, swaying descent. Her hands involuntarily clenched around the bar, the metal quickly growing hot within her palms. She tried to control her breathing, keeping it slow and steady, but as the descent continued her control began to slip more and more. By the time the platform mercifully touched down on solid ground, she found herself nearly frothing at the mouth. Meanwhile, the metal within her grasp creaked and squealed as she squeezed it harder and harder.
Gabby’s eyes shot open, her mind barely registering the thousands of battle-ready soldiers surrounding the elevator. Kicking the elevator door straight off its railing, she leapt out onto the hard, blissfully stable earth in front of her. Her breath rushing wildly in and out and her heart beating a thousand beats a minute, she unclenched her hands, releasing what remained of the “anxiety bar”. The bar, twisted and mangled with ten newly-created finger-shaped grooves, clanged against the ground by her feet.
Her mind far more settled than a moment ago, Gabby took a look around again. The soldiers had taken on a more defensive stance, rows of spears pointing her way. Was it just her imagination, or had they all taken a step or two back?
“Stand down, Gabriela. We are not here to fight... for now,” Blake commanded as he stepped out of the elevator, his voice loud enough for the assembled Stragman soldiers to hear.
All of a sudden, Gabby’s confusion shifted to understanding and anger as she realized Blake’s whole purpose with the bar and the rest. He’d used her, used her panic to his, or perhaps their, advantage. By the end of the descent, she’d been just barely holding herself together and had rushed out in a near panic, not really thinking clearly.
The Stragmans, however, saw a wild-eyed, violent, and aggressive woman who’d just crushed metal with her bare hands. Her misgivings aside, she couldn’t deny that, as introductions went, it definitely served its purpose. She could see the newfound wariness in the eyes of the soldiers surrounding them, even the leaders.
“I am Ikal Fernfeather-hono, high general of Stragma!” the most important looking man proclaimed, holding his head high, though Gabby caught even him stealing a concerned glance at her and the Sword of Eternity strapped to her back. “Who are you to arrive without notice and impose yourself upon our people?! State your business!”
Gabby heard soft snickering behind her. “Oh man, I’ve been waiting to say this for so long,” Blake muttered before clearing his throat. “I am Lord Ferros, ruler of Otharia! Take me to your leader!”
----------------------------------------
“That little, scum-sucking, bottom-feeding, qirnaz-licking runt!” The table in the center of the meeting hall shattered, a large, rugged wooden club driven through its center. “After all I did for him, he goes and blabs to the first person he sees! I thought spies were supposed to know how to keep their bloody mouths shut!”
To say that Akhustal Palebane, leader of Stragma by right of strength, was taking the news poorly was the understatement of the year. She strode back and forth, her movements filled with barely contained fury. The other Stragmans, which consisted of the general from earlier and two others who had not been introduced.
Blake had taken his large chunk of tucrenyx with cantacrenyx crystals and constructed a chair out of it, upon which he now lounged, seemingly unperturbed. For their part, Sofie sat atop a small pile of fur-lined cushions, her eyes not leaving the massive club in the Chos’s hands as the giant of a woman paced around the room, while Gabby stood beside Blake, her eyes following the movements of all the assembled Stragmans, watching for anything that might mean the start of a fight.
The Stragman leader had made no mention of Gabby or Sofie’s presence, seemingly too angry with the purpose of their visit to do much more than rant at Blake. The wisdom of leaving the elf back in Wroetin made itself more apparent with each passing moment.
“The people who know of this are but a handful and none of them will talk. I promise this with the utmost certainty,” Blake assured her as he glanced at Sofie and Gabriela. “Furthermore, you have my word that nothing we speak of today will leave this room.”
The Chos rolled her eyes. “Your word is worth less than you believe. And what of the person you wish to bring back? Because I know that is why you are here. Are you going to keep that person within this room forever too? Their presence alone is more than enough to reveal our secrets!”
“Perhaps not,” Blake replied. “The person in question is a child, one whose exposure to the public was largely limited. And for those who do know of her, I have what I believe to be a simple and effective solution.”
“And what would that be?”
“I take credit for it.”
Gabby’s gaze went toward Blake for the first time since they’d entered the room, his suggestion throwing her into confusion. Luckily, she wasn’t the only one.
“Explain,” the Chos commanded with a skeptical raise of an eyebrow.
“I am the man who commands hoards of metal beasts that somehow live without breathing and move without a pulse. I am the man who conquered an entire nation on my own and built an entire fortress within a mere few hours from which I rule. I am the man who can fly. Why could I not also be the man who brought a child back to life? The Otharians fear me, in part because they believe that I am capable of anything. If the rest of the world does not, then it is only because they are not yet familiar with my work.”
“Hmph. You think far too highly of yourself,” Palebane snorted. “Let us say that I decide that your idea has merit. All that would mean is that I would consider it for the right price. But I doubt you can offer something worth that price.”
“I assured you that your words would not leave this room. Can you give me the same assurance?” Blake asked.
The giant woman grunted her assent.
“Very well,” he continued with a nod. “I understand that the forest is a dangerous place. I am willing to offer several of my creations for protection and combat.”
The Chos laughed derisively. “Stragma does not need your paltry ‘protection’. I have seen your creations, and they would be useless within the forest. They would become entangled within the vines within hours.”
“Then perhaps a small fleet of these,” Blake offered, pulling some metal from his chair to create one of his ‘flitters’, the small flying drones he used in Otharia. “They can send images back to the user, allowing you to scout and monitor the forest from above without risking your people.”
“No device that size would last more than a week before being eaten. You underestimate the size and speed of those that dwell within Stragma.”
“Hmmmm. A tough problem, then. It seems then that I have no choice but to bring up your husband.”
The other Stragmans immediately tensed, their gazes shooting towards the Chos, who had frozen mid-step with her back turned to them. Gabby tensed as well as she saw the woman’s grip on her club tighten.
“What did you say?” Palebane hissed.
“I said, let us talk of your crippled husband.”
Even though Gabriela was expecting it from the giant’s body language, she barely managed to react fast enough to place herself and the Sword of Eternity between Blake and the massive club hurtling down towards his head. Crystal met wood and Gabby’s eye shot open wide as the seemingly normal club hit her with a seemingly impossible force. Given how fast the Chos had struck, she would have thought the weapon as hollow and light as one of those plastic baseball bats children played with, but now it crashed down with the momentum of a freight train, threatening to drive her through the floor.
In that smallest fraction of a second, she felt the bones in her arms crack and her body begin to falter under the power. She wouldn’t let that happen. With a pulse of her will, her bones healed and her body thrummed with strength. The sword and club came to a halt just two centimeters from where they’re first struck.
“...oh hoooohhhhhh? And who is this?” the Chos wondered, curiosity pushing out her anger, at least temporarily.
“This is my associate,” Blake explained, seemingly unbothered by what had just happened. “You may know her as ‘The Monster’, the woman who single-handedly brought Gustil to its knees.”
Pulling her club away, the Stragman stepped back, her eyes taking in Gabby’s form from head to toe. “I will give you one more chance,” she informed them. “If you wish to live to see the sunrise tomorrow, I suggest you choose your following words with care this time.”
“My apologies. I was tactless,” Blake admitted. “My knowledge of his situation is sadly limited to only what our mutual friend has told me. From what I understand, your husband was injured sometime back in such a way that he no longer has the use of his legs, and that it will be some time before the injuries heal and he returns to the man he once was. I was told that his mobility is very limited and that he is struggling. I can help.”
“You claim you can heal him?” the Chos scoffed.
“No, but I can create something that, with a bit of practice, will let him move around as before. He will be able to live a normal life until his body can fully recover.”
“I don’t believe you,” came the response.
For the first time, Blake moved, his legs pulling in as he leaned forward, suddenly more serious. “I ask again, nothing will leave this room, correct?”
The huge woman stared him in eyes, or at least the red glowing crystals on his mask that served as eyes.
“Fine, you have my word as the Chos,” the giant eventually told him.
“Well then, observe,” the Earthling told her. Lifting his left arm, he proceeded to do a series of complicated movements, bending the arm this way and that, thrusting it forward and back and swinging it around, all while moving the wrist, hand, and fingers. Just as it seemed that the Stragman was going to cut him off, he thrust his arm out once more at a forty-five-degree angle from his body, holding level with the floor.
A soft hiss emerged from the armor around the arm as tiny cracks revealed themselves and the armor opened up, the pieces lifting away like petals on a blooming flower. Within the armor, to the shock of the Stragmans, was not flesh but machinery. One by one, layer after layer of intricate circuitry expanded out, lifting away to reveal yet another layer beneath it until all that remained was a thin rod of metal where the bone would be. All of this machinery led back to a metal cap that represented the stump of Blake’s left arm.
“Let’s just say that overcoming injury is a specialty of mine.”
Akhustal Palebane stepped closer, staring intently at the meticulous mechanisms whirring about. She inspected the intricate workings, following their flow from the stump to the hand for several pregnant moments until finally, she smiled.
“Lord Ferros, I believe we have an agreement.”
“One mobility device for your husband in exchange for one resurrection.”
“And her,” the Chos replied, pointing at Gabby as a wicked, feral grin sprouted on her face. “I want one good fight with her, no holding back.”
“Deal,” Blake immediately agreed. “As long as it happens when we return.”
Gabby stiffened at the sudden addition to the bargain and shot Blake and aggrieved glare which he ignored. Didn’t she have a say in this? Nobody seemed to care if she wanted to fight for no reason. But if she refused now, it might scuttle any hopes of bringing Pari back. She was stuck!
“Bring the body to us and you will get your child back,” Palebane stated. “Now go, I have little time to waste with those who think they can show up at my doorstep unannounced.”
With that command, Gabby and the others found themselves ushered from the room and back outside. The Stragmans outside formed up around them and sped them to the spot where they’d touched down less than an hour ago, and, one harrowing trip back up into the air, Gabby found herself back aboard the Flying Toaster. She let out a frazzled huff and grabbed Blake by the arm, throwing him against the hallway wall and pinning him there with a firm palm to the chest.
“What was that down there? Were you trying to get yourself killed?!” she growled as Sofie made herself scarce. “And just volunteering me without my consent? What made you think that was acceptable?”
“Sorry, sorry,” Blake responded, holding his hands up in contrition. “I didn’t want it to seem too planned, so I thought to keep it to myself.”
“Keep what to yourself?”
“The truth is, my help with her husband’s injuries was never the best thing we had to offer. That was always you.”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded, pushing him a little harder.
“Arlette’s boyfriend told me something interesting, something I could kind of feel since I first met her but didn’t really fully understand: she’s bored.”
“Bored?!”
“Bored! She’s almost definitely the strongest non-Earthling person alive, and she hates it. She’s fought gigantic beasts, she’s fought powerful warriors, she’s done it all and none of it poses a challenge for her anymore. The thrill of life is gone. She craves an opponent that can make her try her hardest for once. That’s you. You’re the one person perfectly suited to give her what she wants.”
The gears in Gabby’s head began spinning furiously. “So, what, you purposely made her angry so she’d try to hit you and I would get in the way?”
“Exactly. Gotta show off the goods, you know? Really get her attention in a way that words couldn’t. Sell her on her overt desire to help her husband, while really appealing to the desire that’s burned inside her longest of all.”
“And you didn’t tell me ahead of time. You weren’t even close to being honest with me at all.”
“Like I said, it couldn’t feel like a setup. Just because these people are nomads living in a rainforest doesn’t mean they’re stupid.”
“You had no idea if I would save you. I could have just not moved fast enough. I could have not bothered at all.”
“You wouldn’t have, because you want Pari back and you need me for that,” Blake said matter-of-factly. He placed a hand—his real one—on her shoulder. “You want honesty? Alright. For a long time, I hated you more than I’ve ever hated somebody in my life. You drove me insane. No matter what I did, no matter how many times I blew your damned head right off, you kept coming back. You kept getting in my way and ruining my plans. Just the mention of you was enough to piss me off.
“But now that I’ve come to know you more, I get it. You just refuse to give up, ever. As long as there’s even the dimmest light at the end of the tunnel, nothing will stand in your way—not even death itself, no matter how many times you have to pull yourself back together. I’ve never seen somebody with your level of determination, and you know what? As much as I hate to admit it, even when I was the one on the receiving end I couldn’t help but respect the hell out of that.
“So no, I wasn’t worried. I’m still not. As long as you need me alive, I’m the safest motherfucker in the world.”
With that said, he removed Gabby’s now-listless palm from his chest and walked away, leaving her to stare blankly at his back.
----------------------------------------
"Are you sure that you don't want to stay here?" Gabriela asked for the third time.
"Yes! I'll be careful, so stop asking that!" Sofie huffed through her double scarfs. Between the scarfs and the thick coat and the hood, it seemed that, after the last trip into these mountains, she’d decided she’d rather melt than freeze.
"I'm ready," Blake called from within a crowd of skitters twenty meters away. The crowd was largely made up of the best, most powerful skitters that Blake had been able to fit on the Flying Toaster while still keeping the craft in the air. The one exception to this was the hulking behemoth in the middle of the pack, a massive six-legged machine that had to be at least ten meters tall.
It was this huge robot that had held them up long enough for Gabby to begin to fret. Without the room or lifting capacity for the materials, Blake had needed to build the thing from local materials here at the foot of the Krekard Mountains. Judging by all the grumbling he’d done and how long it had taken, the area contained far less of the materials he needed than Otharia. But he’d insisted on completing the machine, saying that they needed something big enough to go toe-to-toe with their adversary.
Gabby was no expert on robots, modern weaponry, or dragons for that matter, but she had to admit that the robot looked like it might be able to do the job. Like the other robots, this one sported two gatling cannons capable of spewing forth an unholy amount of metal, but the barrels on this one were each over a meter wide, wide enough that Gabby could fit inside them with room to spare. The metal monstrosity also featured two huge clamp-like claws at the end of two thick, reinforced metal arms, likely added by Blake to hold the dragon in place while a pair of ten-meter-long chainsaws on separate arms cut it to pieces. The entire machine shone with a bright white reflective finish, as did the smaller ones around it.
Blake was serious this time.
“You like my Super Mega Hyper Skitter Deluxe Mark Five?” he asked, the pride in his voice making her imagine the smug grin behind his mask.
Okay, maybe not as serious as she thought.
“What sort of name is that? Just call it a Super Skitter, nerd,” Sofie snorted. “You must have the worst naming sense in the world.”
“What are you talking about? I’m great at naming!” he protested.
“You named your zeppelin after a screensaver that was created years before I was born because you thought that naming it with a reference that literally nobody on this plane of existence other than yourself would understand was a great idea and now you end up having to explain the reference to everybody,” she pointed out. “You do understand that references are only good if there’s somebody out there who can get it, right?”
“Whatever,” he harrumphed. “Let’s just go before we lose too much daylight.”
This time, the three of them took separate transport skitters, the pack of gleaming protectors surrounding them all as they worked their way deeper into the mountains for most of the afternoon. They kept the chatter to a minimum, the prospect of a sudden attack hanging over all of their heads.
All of them remembered the last time, with the sudden appearance of the dragon high in the sky, its devastating approach, and the fight that followed. The memory kept them sharp and alert, their heads on swivels as they scanned the skies for the slightest hint of danger. They still weren’t ready.
This time, the dragon didn’t come from on high. It didn’t let out a booming roar from miles away, announcing itself to the world. The first they knew of its presence was when the beam lanced in from the right, slicing through four skitters in a single moment. Then it was already upon them, charging towards their side, just meters away.
To her credit, Gabriela reacted quickly for somebody caught flatfooted, grabbing the Sword of Eternity and leaping from her transport towards their adversary. Blade raised high, she brought it down with powerful authority upon the dragon, who came to a halt and raised his left hand to block while his right reached into a pocket on a crude vest it wore around its torso. Gabby had just enough time to notice the vest and wonder as to its presence and purpose before her sword sliced into the dragon’s left hand continuing down lengthwise deep into his wrist.
With a roar of anger mixed with pain, the dragon slammed his hand and arm into the ground below, smashing Gabriela into the hard rock with tremendous force. She felt her bones crush and organs mash, but her healing was already active and within a moment, just as her blade fully slid from the dragon’s flesh, she was back to full health.
That was when the dragon threw what he’d fetched with his right hand at her. The object, a capsule of some sort, struck the ground and split open, releasing a large cloud of rainbow-colored gas. Before Gabby could even react, the gas enveloped her, and her world devolved into one of nothing but pure agony.
Every part of Gabriela’s body screamed as the gas consumed her flesh, eating away at her skin, her muscles, her bones. Her sight was one of the first things to go, her eyes taken with terrifying swiftness. Smell vanished just as quickly. The last thing she heard was a sucking sound, and then her eardrums were no more. All she was left with was touch. Terrible, horrible touch.
She recognized this pain. It resembled what she’d felt when she’d stuck her arm into the vat of goo in the dragon’s lab, within which Pari’s corpse had floated. At the time, it had felt like her arm was being ripped apart cell by cell, molecule by molecule. It had been easily the second most painful thing she’d ever felt. This felt like that, only hundreds of times worse. It was like every atom in her body was being wiped from existence. Gabriela had thought that she would never again feel anything comparable to the torture she’d felt during her transportation to Scyria. She knew now that she’d been wrong.
Her mouth opened involuntarily to let out a cry of anguish but found that there was no air in her lungs with which to do so. Everything around her, within her, and of her was being eaten away by the rainbow death, and Gabby could feel that her very self would soon follow.
No! She couldn’t die yet! She still needed to atone for her sins! She still needed to help save Pari! She still needed to reunite with her children! She couldn’t give up now!
Crimson smoke sprung into being, fighting against the cloud surrounding her that she could only feel. But for the first time, her healing struggled to work, its gains battling the mist’s damage to a standstill. Slowly, agonizingly, she crawled forward, the last of her muscles straining to move her more than a few centimeters at a time. Determination drove her, as it always did, but for the first time since the discovery of her powers, that determination was joined by a visceral fear. Fear not just of her death, but of utterly ceasing to be. That primal terror encompassed her, clinging to her in gaseous form, and it drove her desperately forward, centimeter by centimeter.
Time seemed without meaning within the deathly fog, with no way to experience it other than through the flow of pain and the feeling of the ground beneath her being eaten out from under her as she tried to escape. It felt like she was trapped forever in this terrible hell, a boundless dimension of suffering. Was this a preview of her future in the afterlife? Or had she already died and ended up in the place below? She didn’t know anymore.
Then, after some indeterminate amount of time, she felt the pain in the tips of her fingers on her left hand subside. The pain lessened further as she pushed herself forward more until her entire hand didn’t hurt anymore. She felt something grab her hand and tug and then the pain was gone as if it had never existed in the first place. That was always how it was with her healing; the pain lived on only in her memories. This was one she would never forget.
“Get up, quick!” she heard Blake say from beside her.
Gabriela opened her newly reformed eyes to find what looked like a war zone. Pieces of ruined skitters dotted the landscape, surrounded by small craters and random little fires still burning on bare rock. Blake’s vaunted “Super Duper” skitter laid crippled on the ground, its three left legs seemingly ripped from their sockets, if the torn metal was any indication. Strangely, apart from that and its guns being melted into slag, the machine appeared largely undamaged. What’s more, eight of the more normal skitters were still walking around, seemingly untouched. Had the dragon forgone its rampage this time? In fact...
“Where is it?” she asked, looking frantically around for their adversary but finding nothing.
“There,” Blake pointed.
Gabby followed his indication, looking far off in the distance and spotting the massive beast, now tiny in her vision, flying low. The dragon banked and she lost sight of it.
“It’s running away?” she wondered, confused.
“No, Sofie ran that way,” Blake told her. “I need to fix my big bot’s legs. You go after them, I’ll catch up.”
Gabby looked back at the growing cloud of rainbow gas behind her. The cloud was getting lower and lower as it ate its way into the earth, digging a deeper and wider hole with every passing second. Wind pushed against her as it rushed towards the pit, the gas constantly eating away the air as well. She must have crawled up the sloped side, unable to tell that she was moving upward thanks to the destruction of her inner ear. With growing dismay, she realized that the Sword of Eternity was still down in the growing pit, if it even still existed at all.
The dragon was already out of sight. Her sword was gone, at least for the moment. Blake wouldn’t have his giant robot ready in time. None of this would work.
Rushing over to the lopsided oversized machine, Gabby ripped off one of the remaining legs.
“HEY! What are you doing?!” Blake cried.
“Saving our butts,” she replied as she hefted the now legless war machine over her head. With a mighty push, she took off after the dragon, carrying the Super Skitter along for the ride.
She was naked again, she realized, but such things had stopped bothering her long ago. The rocks slicing into her bare feet would normally have bothered her, but after the torment she’d just endured, the pain in her feet might as well have been tickles for all she cared. It was nothing now, her ability repairing each foot before it could even touch ground again.
Finding the dragon proved rather simple. All she had to do was follow the trail of bubbling puddles filled with multi-hued blood eating through the ground. The question wasn’t if she would find the dragon, however, but if she could do so in time.
Several twists and turns later, she spotted the behemoth to the west, though at that point she didn’t need the blood trail. All she had to do was follow the noise. From her vantage point, she could see several large holes in the beast’s left flank, as well as a long but relatively shallow gash along its back. Both injuries appeared quite painful and possibly debilitating, but at least by the way the thing moved, Gabby saw no sign that they bothered him at all.
The dragon stood on a rocky mountain slope beside a crushed skitter, having come down to land at some point after she’d lost sight of him. His body facing away from her, she didn’t see Sofie anywhere. But then, as she steered around and over an inconveniently placed boulder, Gabby spotted Sofie’s highly animated head sticking out of the top of his right fist.
The dragon roared in Sofie’s face, his fury palpable.
“WRETCHED CRAWLER! ENOUGH!” The dragon raged, holding the fist up to mouth height.
Sofie, for her part, continued to cry and beg and do what just about anybody in the grasp of a hundred-meter-long biological killing machine would do. But her pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears. The very sight of the girl in his grasp seemed to be sending him into an incoherent rage. His wings spread out and he leapt back into the air, taking her with him.
Gabby couldn’t afford to waste any more time getting closer. With a grunt, she reared back and hurled the Super Whatever Skitter through the air towards the dragon.
The beast didn’t notice the incoming projectile until it was too late. The impact of the robot’s weighty fuselage onto the dragon’s back sent the creature reeling through the air. Still quite functional, the sensors of the Super Skitter detected the dragon it was crashing into, and it reacted with the sort of speed only machines could possess. First, its two powerful claw arms reached out and clamped down onto the bones at the top of the dragon’s wings. Then, with an unholy whir, the Super Skitter’s two gigantic chainsaws kicked into action, and, exacting revenge for its missing limbs, it absolutely went to town on the base of each wing.
The dragon howled as it crashed into the earth, its cry rebounding from mountainside to mountainside as it thrashed about trying to dislodge its attacker. The robot was not to be denied, however, and hung on as thick lines of rainbow blood sprayed out towards the dragon’s rear, the durable and powerful saws digging deep into flesh and bone.
Gabby rushed forward as, in its desperate struggle, the dragon’s grip on Sofie faltered and she fell toward the rocky ground and landed awkwardly. Gabby fought back a flinch as Sofie’s head struck the hard ground. A fraction of a moment later, Gabby was beside her, picking her now limp body up to find the back of her head bleeding but the damage not as severe as feared. It looked bad, she couldn’t deny, but at least not life-threatening. She’d take that for the moment.
The sound of multiple guns firing brought her back to the battle still raging nearby. The eight remaining battle skitters had caught up with her. They began unloading their full power upon the preoccupied beast, causing it increasing agony. Another shape sped around the pack: Blake driving one of the transport skitters.
“Come on!” he shouted, though Gabby needed no such encouragement. She leapt up onto the boxy six-legged robot as it sped by, hopping down into the cabin beside Blake. Gently placing Sofie’s unconscious body leaning against the back cabin wall, she sank down against a wall herself, her spirit drained.
She felt terrible. Not physically, but spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. What a disaster this had been.
They’d fucked up. They’d known the dragon was intelligent. They’d known he was smart. And yet they’d been blinded by his non-human appearance, as well as his rage and the brutal, almost animalistic way it had fought the last time. They’d adjusted and planned for what they’d fought, but never considered that he would adjust for them as well. As far as she was concerned, the dragon had done a better job.
They’d come at him with better weapons. They’d been on the lookout for his possible appearance. She’d brought her sword. But none of that had mattered much. He’d managed to successfully ambush them, closing in and striking before they even knew he was there. He’d taken her out of the fight within a moment, sword and all. He’d disabled Blake’s weapon efficiently. They hadn’t respected his intelligence enough, even though they’d seen proof of it the last time.
“So what’s the plan?” Gabby croaked as the skitter crested a ridge and headed down, her view of the battle behind them now blocked.
“We’re leaving,” Blake told her.
“You sure?” Gabby asked, listening to the pained roars of the dragon just over the ridge. “Wouldn’t now be the best time to get Pari, while it’s busy fighting and injured? And what about my sword?”
“We’ll come back for your sword later. Did you notice its eye was back? The one you ruined the last time.”
“Was it? I was a little distracted.”
“It was. That thing must be able to heal like crazy, almost like you maybe. Even my baby up on its back like that—that was a great idea, by the way—won’t hold him for long. You saw how its blood was eating away at the ground, right? At some point, those saws are going to come apart, and then that will be the end of that. We probably won’t beat him to his lair anyway. We’d have to somehow get there, find Pari, and get out before he finds us again. He’s too fast, even if my Super Skitter does manage to clip his wings. I’m not risking my life any more today, not with the limited resources we have left,” Blake explained. “Besides, we have something important we need to figure out before we even think about giving this another shot. You were on your last legs and he didn’t even try to finish you off. I was giving him a hard time but he just plowed his way through and kept going.”
“He wanted her,” Gabby agreed.
“Right. The one person who didn’t even try to fight him.”
“But why?”
Blake shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I think it’s about time we found out.”