Kenji looked at the first little present Noble had asked of him, a mixture of shock, sadness, and exhaustion on his face.

“Are you sure, Noble? This will set back your healing time… and we’re already pushing the limits of that.”

“I know, doc. But I’ll need’em.”

Kenji ran a finger over the bullet. It looked for all the world like a regular one, save for the red cap on the jacket. That, plus a little tingle of charcoal on your tongue if you had a refined sense for it, was the only indicator that this was anything save a regular bit of lead and gunpowder.

The truth within that thin frame of brass was a dangerous, bubbling cocktail of magic- an enchanted circuit on the primer set to release sparks when the hammer hit, a mix of Noble’s machine-oil blood and gunpowder to give the bullet a fearsome kick, and the lead itself was infused with the strongest source of fire Noble could think of, the little lady’s own spit.

Kenji, out of an abundance of caution and at the risk of his own life, made a seventh bullet to make sure the damn things wouldn’t kill him the instant he fired.

The resulting inferno left a ten-foot stretch of glass where the bullet hit.

Six bullets would be enough.

###

Knave screamed, as the explosion ignited the oil staining his cloak. It embraced him with a ferocity that spoke to emotions Noble couldn’t quite reach himself.

Even when his body was made of meat, he was never really one to anger.

Helped with the lying, the trickery. Everyone trusted a calm voice- the targets Knave picked, and Knave himself.

Something resembling words started to replace the screaming and Noble fired again. Screams evolved to screeches, and desperate threads of shadows lifted out from bonfire, flame licking up them like a stick of dynamite.

Noble pulled back on the hammer and waited for when he needed to next stoke the fire.

Firelight flickered across the lenses of his mask. The sight of his brother, obscured and smoldering, was almost too much to watch.

So he didn’t.

I wonder how the little lady’s doing he thought, idly. Probably wrapped up with her new lady friend, reading a book or whatever it is kids these days do.

Maybe it was the pain of it all- the necessary burning out of rot.

Maybe it was the distant gunfire, slowing as the pyre crackled.

Maybe, and Noble would deny this to the very end, it was because he let his mind wander, just a moment, to what would come after.

For the first and last time, Noble heard his brother’s fangs sink deep.

You want a family, don’t you brother? A proper one… without ME.

Something flung itself from the inferno and lodged itself in Noble’s stomach- right where the old corpse’s bone had hit.

Noble tried to fire, but the pain threw his aim. The third bullet exploded against the ground- and Knave lunged at him cackling.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

###

Suzette saw it happen, and for as long as she lived the image would never leave her mind.

Saila had said some silly, adorable nonsense about how she was blessed by the salamander and could breathe fire or some such, but she hadn’t believed it- she was a clever girl, her papa always said, so she knew she was just putting on a show.

The fiery haze that trailed her as she ran to confront the soldier-man made her start to doubt her confidence.

The soldier-man aimed his gun at Saila, and for a moment time stopped. Suzette’s heart dropped out from her chest at the realization that she’d have lost another loved one to the war.

Then Saila roared.

The man stepped back; gun raised. And Saila…

Saila changed, as fire erupted from the street around her.

Her arms went a vibrant red, skin gone scaly and fingers tipped with talons. Her legs too, what she could see of them- gunfire and sliding across the stones tore the hemline up to her knees, and the flames ripped the shoulders asunder. A sharp and muscular tail tore a tragic hole in that poor abused dress, thick as a grown man’s leg and twice as long.

But the image echoing in Suzette’s mind was her face. It’d grown impossibly fierce, with teeth keen as knives and red strips of scales across her cheeks.

Her eyes were blank, and billowed with rising flames.

It was the most beautiful thing Suzette had ever seen in her life.

###

Knave’s cackling filled Noble’s ears as his face filled his vision. His brother, flame-scarred and wounded, was latched onto him, hands curled around his sword, feet pressed firmly into chest.

Noble felt the impact of Knave kicking off of him, followed shortly by the razor-sharp pain of his katana wrenching itself free. Machine-blood and sparks splattered across the stonework park.

Knave landed, ten paces from him, feathery cloak all but destroyed.

Beneath it, proof of his brother’s ‘knowledge’.

Back on that fateful mountaintop, Knave had shared the same body as Noble. Slightly larger, as befit his frame, but they were still near identical.

That mirror was shattered, now.

The black-silver casing that implied a human body was gone- in its place, spindly arms and legs made of two metal struts, with silver-steel joints layered with pulsing tube-veins. Where his chest would be was only a blackened ribcage imitation of the iron boiler of a core they shared.

Knave looked all the world like a man flayed alive, down to the very bone.

Like the old man, a walking corpse kept aloft by puppet strings.

He had to fire. Put him out of his misery.

Oh, what misery it was. Each step Knave took brought it closer into view.

His mask held a smile, but his eyes carried a weight that shook Noble to his core, till his hand shook and his aim finally, finally wavered.

Knave’s eyes were screaming in euphoria.

###

The instant Shrike saw her, in all her flame-kissed fury, he understood.

That shadow-twisted, toothsome grinning bastard of a monster of a machine was right.

He understood, now, why he was obsessed with the little dancer.

He also understood why he laughed, when Shrike espoused so confidently that he would kill her. She was a child, after all, and children died every day, why would this or any other be different?

The face of a demon, all hellfire and ruthlessness, put paid to that.

Whether it was the taunting voice of his sickeningly sweet partner, or just his memory drudging up the truth now that it was exposed and raw, he’d never truly know for sure.

Oh no, she’ll kill you too. Maim first. You’d escape with your life, vow your little chirps of revenge, and then pop- squashed like the murderous wanton you are.

###

The soldier-man screamed bloody murder and tried to shoot, but Saila lunged at him, and in one fell movement tore the gun away- and with it, his arm from the elbow down. She flung it aside, blood sizzling off her teeth. With a scornful snarl an amber burst of fire rent the severed arm and gun into a bubbling pool of meat and fat, metal and plastic.

Her foe forgotten now that he was well and truly disarmed, she stood on her tip toes- tip claws- and sniffed at the air. Something clearly caught her attention, and she flexed.

Massive blood-red wings burst from her back, caught the air, and with a combined leap and flap, Saila flew into the sky with a scream that called a gout of flame.

Then, silence, save for the crackling embers smoldering in her wake, and the whimpering of her fallen foe, so fearsomely felled.

Suzette ran after, face flushing with exertion and fear and so much more.

“This one has a bonus story! One where La Fille qui Court encounters a massive, fire-breathing monster, straight out of a knight-story!”

“I can do that.”

She could indeed, and with that display Suzette had finally remembered what that monster was called- though to call Saila a monster was furthest from any truth she could hold in her rapidly beating heart.

Saila wasn’t a salamander.

She was a dragon.

######