Hey guys, do you remember that time in Brant….

"Yeah. I was stuck to that truck for an hour," said Blaspheme, still looking out at the army of Zeros.

"You were stuck pretty good right?" Rafferty asked.

Sheridan's eyes flicked to the God lying in a heap in the distance, and then back to Rafferty. She was starting to get where Rafferty was going with this.

"Fine, I was stuck pretty good. What does that have to do with anything? Are we just reliving all our greatest screwups before we die?" Blaspheme asked.

"What if we did it on purpose?" Rafferty asked.

The look on Blaspheme's face suggested she couldn't believe that this was actually the plan.

"Do you have any of your shield arrows?" Rafferty asked Sheridan.

"One," Sheridan answered.

"Guys, I don't even know exactly what I did. I won't know where to aim," said Blaspheme.

"Don't think," said Rafferty.

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

"Just shoot," Sheridan finished.

The event, dubbed The Great Stuckening by Cody, had remained a J Hall mystery. The Engineers could never give them an answer as to why it happened, shrugging their shoulders and saying that sometimes Blue interacted with Blue in ways they didn't understand.

Rafferty thought if they could recreate that effect on the disabled Factory God, then it might solve their Zero problem in a hurry.

"Did it occur to you geniuses that practically everything we're carrying has metal in it? We'll be stuck in a sea of angry Zeros," Blaspheme said.

"I don't think our gear will stick. It didn't last time," Rafferty said.

"Rafferty's right. Your gun didn't stick last time. Or my bow," Sheridan said.

Blaspheme looked down at the fancy buckle on her waist ruefully, and unsnapped her belt. She dropped it on the ground in grumpy acceptance of the plan. Sheridan fished her remaining arrows out of her metal quiver, and tossed that to the ground as well.

By now, Colin and Lena had dragged Cody back to the group, and were quickly filled in on the plan. The Jacks weren't well designed for this. They carried lots of metal, and wore clothes with lots of pockets and zippers. Still, neither complained as they started stripping off anything unsuitable. By the time they were finished, they weren't wearing much.

Sheridan looked over at Blaspheme, who took it as her cue to move. The blonde gunslinger took off running, and leapt over the Zero horde at the very last second. She landed atop the fallen God with a carrying clang.

Sheridan was off next, landing next to Blaspheme. Rafferty watched as the two girls spoke for a moment. She stepped to her right, taking up a position in front of Cody and the Jacks, in case, you know, this didn't work. Behind her, in the distance, she could hear Trevor and Oscar shouting instructions to the people of Neech.

Sheridan jumped, turned in the air, and fired an arrow into the ground in front of the God. A wall of Blue began to rise and curve over the machine. Blaspheme jumped into the air, firing into the shield from the inside, soaring past the spreading shield before it trapped her inside the bubble.

The pain from the poison bit into her cheekbone, radiating throughout her skull. Rafferty struggled to keep her feet. The Zeros couldn't have been more than fifty feet from her when she saw the blue shield abruptly vanish. The snapping little Gods were yanked backwards through the air, receding like a great metal wave rolling in reverse.

She heard a sound like hail as the Zeros peppered their former home. They seemed to be sticking as far as Rafferty could tell. She felt dust under her palms, and realized that she'd fallen to her knees again, and hadn't even realized.

Rafferty found that her jaw was making odd little chewing motions. They weren't voluntary. If she hadn't been in so much pain, she would have been alarmed.

Somewhere in the distance, she thought she heard Blaspheme's celebratory whoop.

Hey, I guess we won.

That's good.

That's real good.