Bioshifter

So it turns out that while rapidly accelerating to terminal velocity is absolutely terrifying, simply traveling at terminal velocity is not. The instinctive terror of falling only activates in response to acceleration, not speed. I knew this already, of course; that's part and parcel to the basic experience of motor vehicles. Somehow, though, I assumed falling off the edge of the world riding a fuzzy dragon would be less… boring.

The occasional slight changes in speed, not to mention the fact that we're smooshed lightly against the current ceiling of the cage (which was the floor; the cage is now upside down) prevent this from feeling anything like an airplane ride, I'll give it that. The nychtava drops like a stone, its wings folded against its massive body, only occasionally flicking slightly outwards to adjust our trajectory. Because, well… yeah, that makes sense. We're going down, so all our ride has to do is fall, and all the rest of us have to do is hope beyond hope that they know how to slow back down without splattering us against the bars.

Helen and Kagiso are marginally less bored, if only because they are substantially less secure than I am. I'm still stuck inside this stuffy old backpack, but at least it means I don't have to grip the bars of the cage for dear life or risk being blended like cake mix when we hit a patch of turbulence. It's still pretty dull for them outside of that. Take it from me: having to constantly fear for your life gets old eventually, and at some point you just wish you had something to do. The obscenely loud rush of air all around us even prevents any communication bar yelling, which neither of my companions are inclined to do, beyond a few traveling essentials.

"When we get there!?" Kagiso growls loudly.

"I don't know!" Helen yells back. "Probably like, seven more blooms?"

"Long time!"

"The Mother Tree is fucking huge, Kagiso!"

Okay but how long, though. What the heck is a bloom? I feel like we've been falling for at least an hour now, so if 'seven more blooms' is anything like 'seven more hours,' hoo boy I need to find something to do. Unfortunately, I can barely even move, and frankly I'm not sure I would if I could because I'm genuinely frightened that I'd manage to find a way to slip through the bars and fall to my death. Which in terms of activities pretty much leaves… sitting around and being alone with my thoughts. O-or practicing magic! Yeah, let's do that one instead.

There's not really a lot of magic I can safely practice, though. Activating Spacial Rend, even without an incantation, would destroy Helen's bedroll for no reason. Refresh doesn't really have any valid targets and I have tons of practice using that every day already. I could technically look into 4D stuff more, but there's no way I'm using any sort of movement ability while falling hundreds of miles an hour. Which leaves… my Transmutation spells. Oh boy.

Doing anything with my 'transform other' spell is obviously stupid; there are no targets here other than people that I absolutely should not be testing magic spells on. My self-transformation spell is also stupid, both because the consequences of using it are potentially very dangerous for my Earth-self, and because the fact that I'm currently in freefall means… well. I already messed up once by testing magic in a fast-moving metal cage. Surely I've learned my lesson now, right? I should definitely, absolutely just give up on this 'practice magic' idea and spend some time doing serious introspection about the many upcoming problems I need to put together a plan for.

So anyway, Transmutation magic. I focus inward, gazing on the admittedly kind of beautiful mental landscape that I tend to visualize in response to calling up my magic. I wonder what this is, in truth. Is it my soul? The vast thread that spans the gulf between the two worlds I exist within seems a little… stretched thin for me to like the idea that it's my soul. Regardless of what it is, it's essential to my magic. The spell that changes me feels like a combination of Transmutation and Order, and it functions by bringing my two selves closer together. …Metaphorically, I assume. But also literally, I suppose, in the sense that I think the ultimate goal for each body is the same. My spider self is becoming more human, my human self is becoming more of a spider. There's a bittersweetness to that, since I have grown rather fond of being so small and cuddly, but I can't deny I'll probably enjoy being large enough to have any degree of independence more than I enjoy being a hat. It's just a shame I have to choose.

…Assuming I get a choice at all, I mean, since it really seems like I don't. Looking closely, it's easy to tell that the spell is active right now, even though I'm not in any way trying to activate it. I don't seem to have any way to stop it, either. I can only choose to make it go faster, and I can almost feel the Goddess looking over my nonexistent shoulders and urging me to do just that, her horrid, invisible grin full of mirth and anticipation.

Though I suppose that raises a surprisingly valid question: should I? Like yeah, normally I'd say that this is a stupid idea, but the current transformation my body seems to be developing is the capacity to talk, and holy cannoli I want that so badly. Hmm… okay Hannah, what would Brendan say about this? Probably 'wait until you're somewhere safe you idiot?' That's not very helpful. What would he say after I've communicated that this bad decision is happening in defiance of sense? Probably… 'have you eaten enough?'

I think I have. Transmutation magic tends to make me hungry, but I've had a big breakfast and there are some meat rations in nomming distance within the backpack here, since Helen seems to have anticipated the fact that this trip would probably involve me spending a lot of time inside a backpack. I guess she's actually pretty considerate when she's not being a grumpy bitch and murdering people I care about.

Next question, then: 'what are the odds this will go catastrophically wrong?' And that's where things get a little spooky. There's definitely a chance things go terrible here, but as long as I don't break anything it likely won't be catastrophic, and even if I suddenly double in size or something, I'll only screw us over a little bit by breaking the backpack. The cage can still hold me just fine, and I won't go flying off into the abyss. Y'know, hopefully. But even that is exceptionally unlikely, I think. It's not like Spacial Rend where I was testing a completely new spell that I barely even understood, I've used this spell before. I have at least a general understanding of its limits, of the speed at which it operates. I know how quickly it responds, how efficiently it heals my body, and the sort of changes to expect in the other world after using it.

Those changes are the important bit. Are they worth it?

If I'm understanding my spell correctly—and I think I am—I won't be doing anything to my body that won't eventually happen regardless. It seems like, in that light, there's not really a huge downside to accelerating my problems on Earth, because like… what am I even going to use that time for? More panic attacks?

That goes both ways, though: if my spell is giving me the ability to speak, it'll do that no matter what, and frankly I'm underselling the usefulness of simply having more time. My life is terrible and my capacity to manage myself is frighteningly low, sure, but more time is still helpful. More time means I have longer to figure out my magic before fudge hits the fan. It means I get to hang out with my friends more and help them where I can—something I honestly need to be stepping up and doing a lot more of, since I am ostensibly the one with the most experience regarding this bullpoop. Even if I'm terrible at managing my time… no, especially if I'm terrible at managing my time, having more time is valuable.

It's just that being able to talk is valuable too, and I have no way to know which is more valuable. It's just a question of something that's immediately useful and gratifying versus the potential for better results down the line, and… wow, when I put it like that, it's pretty obvious what I'm going to pick.

I take a deep breath, grab the line in my soul, and pull.

The last time I did this, I was sitting under a bridge with Jet and cycling magic through my body in order to make sure I didn't bleed out and die. Even if we don't ignore the whole 'hurtling through the sky at hundreds of miles an hour at the whims of a mercenary bat dragon' thing, this is a considerably more controlled environment. It's also, notably, not on Earth, which means that when the changes start, I'm not restricted to just feeling them. I can watch them happen.

Heck, I can't not watch them happen. I could do my best to move my focus elsewhere, of course, but my spatial sense never stops sensing space and that means I need a really good distraction to avoid hyperfixating on the fact that my own organs are starting to slorp around inside my body like mutating slugs.

It's actually kind of terrifying, seeing it all in action. I have no ding-dang clue what the vast majority of these bits and bobs inside me do, and yet here I am, watching them reorganize themselves because of my actions. Has this happened to my human body? If a doctor opened me up, would they see anything remotely like the anatomy diagrams they've been taught on? What if they opened me up while I was casting this spell?

My lungs, once a system that interconnected five radially symmetric openings on my body, are twisting, oozing together and abandoning that circular symmetry for something more mirrored. They burrow into my throat, soaking in air from there, digging new, smaller tunnels that connect to other unknown organ systems and make two new holes on the underside of my body. Something like a nose, perhaps? Openings from which I can intake air even when my mouth is closed, which is important when my old breathing vents seal up and let the internals displaced by the movement of my respiratory system occupy the freed-up space.

I think the worst part about all of this is how watching it happen makes the feeling of it all the more visceral. When my guts move around, it's usually just an unidentifiable discomfort, a feeling to which I can ascribe no cause and is therefore far more innocuous. It doesn't hurt, it's just a bit odd, and that's ignorable enough. Now, though? When I'm watching it happen? Every little pulse of feeling in my gut, every last slimy twitch grips my consciousness like a vice, locking down my attention and refusing to let me go. It's maddening. I get to feel—and know—every gorey detail of my own transfiguration. Though I don't get to understand.

Watching all of this happen doesn't get me a whole lot of insight into my own anatomy. In many ways, that makes it all the more horrifying. My magic is changing me, sure. And it is my magic, as though it is Goddess-borne it is a gift to me. My constant, my soul. Yet I don't have the slightest gosh darn clue of how it actually works, beyond the broad strokes. I control it in only the loosest sense, by turning a dial up or down. As much as this magic is mine—as much as I know this magic is mine, on some disturbing, instinctual level—so much of it is still a complete mystery to me. All of these organs are a complete blank spot in my knowledge. For all I know, I'm killing myself right now.

…Thankfully, I do not, in fact, die. I carefully end my spell once my lungs seem to stop reorienting themselves, then take a moment to swallow the scream I very desperately want to use them for. I am so, so glad most of my transformations seem to happen while I'm asleep. Holy shit. Still, though: let's look at the bright side. Inhale, exhale. I let the air flow over my teeth, testing the articulation. My mouth is still a sphincter with interlocking fangs, but a tongue grows inside and de facto defines a 'bottom' to the circular mouth. I even have a weird set of chitinous faux-lips. But do I have a voice box? That's the question. I mean, I see something that I think could maybe be a voice box, but it doesn't look very much like my humanoid counterparts. There's, uh, one too many dimensions. Well… here goes nothing.

"Haaahhnnnaaaah," I quietly mumble. Gosh, that sounds terrible. "Hrraaaghnnnah. Haaaanah. Haaannaaa. Hahnah. Hannah. Hannah! Hannah! Mah gush darg namb is Hannah! Nah hah-nah!"

"Did you hear something?" Helen shouts. Kagiso shrugs. I continue my practice a bit more quietly, getting used to the odd shape of my mouth and the tiny, weirdly high-pitched voice I've finally, finally developed. Yes! This is awesome! I can talk!

Gosh, my accent is atrocious, though, both from the weird mouth and from the fact that I've never spoken the language of the world tree out loud before. At least talking practice gives me something to do during this boring backpack ride. I take a break to munch on some meat rations, suddenly quite appreciating the fact that my digestive system seems to dispose of waste extradimensionally somehow. I can see the number ones and number twos expanding the bladders and intestines of my companions and I have to say, if this trip really is going to be seven more hours, they're going to have to figure out a way to piss in freefall. Which will probably be fun for exactly zero people.

…About four hours later I am proven correct. Another point in favor of being stuck in the backpack: layers between me and the outside. Helen, thankfully, has the presence of mind to scoot around the cage and let me cast my cleaning magic on everything.

Gosh, I wish I could just sleep through this. Unfortunately, I just don't feel tired for some reason, so I just spend the hours practicing how to speak, going through the alphabet and just kind of rambling to myself to get a handle on as many words as possible. I'm pretty sure Helen figures out what I'm doing, but she doesn't really comment on it. She spends the whole trip making a palm-sized yet intricately detailed wooden sculpture of Kagiso using Chaos magic in place of any tools, which… is extremely interesting to me. Isn't Chaos about making things less complex? To be able to use it as a fine scalpel seems counter to its purpose.

Whatever, it's not important. What is important is how the nychtava starts slowly extending their wings, carefully re-angling its body to start gliding rather than simply falling, letting air resistance naturally reduce our speed at a modest clip. Very carefully, Helen transfers the backpack with me in it over to her chest, Kagiso helping her slightly open the flap so I can safely look out.

"It's a boring view most of the time," she says, getting her face right next to me so I can hear her without her yelling. "But I figure you should at least see the landing."

I peek out of the backpack, Kagiso steadying me as I look down, down way too far down and have the vertigo hit me all at once, sending my body into an instinctive panic. The nychtava is flying more or less horizontally now, coasting above the branch we're about to land on, heading towards the trunk. It's like looking down from an airplane window, except that instead of a secure, highly-advanced flying machine we're inside an oversized birdcage held by the tail of a giant scary winged person who could at any point decide to relax their grip and kill us all. This is not even remotely safe, but… gosh. It sure is beautiful.

The last branch we were on was pretty brown, overall. Devourer trees are more parasite than autotroph, so they don't have much in the way of leaves, and what little they did have were more of a pine-like series of needles. There was more green looking up at the Mother Tree's partially-burning canopy than there was looking around nearby for most of the journey. Not so, with the branch below us. This thing isn't just lush, it's straight-up verdant.

Enormous trees with massive, hexagonal leaves bloom below us like abstract art, a honeycomb hive of green. All over the edges of the branch, and within every gap in the foliage, it's possible to spot water: rivers, lakes, massive and mysterious, each making me wonder how they got there, what their water source is, why they don't just find a way to flow right off the edge of the cylindrical tree branch and vanish into the clouds below, drying up the surface forever. It's breathtaking. Helen's right. I'm glad I get to see this.

I peel my attention off of the beauty below me and glance at her. She's smiling, for once. Helen is smiling. She's done this before, I suspect, having to frequently change where she lives throughout her life in order to avoid persecution, but I'm starting to suspect if maybe she also chose this method of travel for this reason right here. For the unmasked joy I see on her face when she looks down at the beauty of nature. At the Art mage inside the feared and hated girl of Chaos.

I say nothing, not wanting to ruin the moment with my barely-functional voice, and just watch alongside her.

Once we get close enough to the trunk, the nychtava slows down in earnest to prepare for the ground. The actual landing process is somewhat terrifying, but nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. The giant creature lands more like a helicopter than it does like an airplane, hovering slowly downwards and setting the cage down on slightly damp soil, allowing Kagiso and Helen to stumble out of it and collapse on the sweet, sweet dirt. The clearing we've been dropped in is right next to a modestly sized pond, inside which I can see plenty of fish with my spacial sense. We're relatively close to the trunk, but still probably at least an hour or two's walk away from it.

"Th-thank you," Helen says to the hovering beast who carried us here.

"We appreciate your patronage," the nychtava answers blandly, and then with a massive rush of air it takes off, wings pumping as it ascends back into the sky, having never landed itself.

"Holy fuck," Helen breathes, peeling her backpack off and dropping it (and therefore me) roughly to the ground. "I'm gonna go take a shit. You doing okay, Kagiso?"

"Yes. Fun. Flying good."

"There doessn't seeem to be anything d-dangerous around," I report, and Kagiso squacks with surprise, leaping a foot into the air and staggering backwards before staring at me, open-mouthed.

"Hana talk!" she yelps.

"Hannah," I correct. "It's Hannah. Not "hah-nah," Hannah. You all sssay it like my dad used to say it."

"He-ha?" Kagiso asks.

"Hannah," I repeat.

"Ha-gnah."

"What? No, t-that's way worse. Stop enunnnciating both syllables. It's just Hannah."

I continue to correct her as Helen wanders off to poop somewhere, relishing the ability to actually speak in this world. Kagiso seems pretty excited about it, too, gleefully picking me up and squeezing me halfway through my tenth correction.

"Good hat good hat good hat good hat!" she cheers.

"It's Hannah!"

"You two having fun?" Helen says, returning with a smirk. "Come on, we should have enough daylight left to take a tunnel to the Sapsea."

"Geez, enough daylight after all that?" I complain. "From the walk this morning to the flight… hmm. I guess you guys always work on summertime hours, don't you?"

"On what?" Helen asks.

Oh, right. They don't know what hours are. …Or summer. I just kinda mixed some English in there. This is going to be a lot to explain.

"Uh… gosh, okay, so you know how Hagoro was talking about how I come from another universe?"

"Is that what you two were fucking on about!?"

I sigh, enjoying the fact that I can sigh, and then scuttle on over to Helen and crawl up her leg, securing myself tightly to her head with only minimal protests.

"This is gonna take a long time to explain," I say. "So let's get walking."

I realize, halfway through my explanation of how a spherical planet that orbits a sun works, that Helen is very conspicuously not splitting up from us and going her own way. I decide not to comment on that.

"How not fall off ball?" Kagiso asks.

"Well that's… that's how gravity works, Kagiso," I answer. "Everything gets pulled towards the most massive object, with the strength of that pull proportional to proximity. And Earth is like… twenty-three, twenty-four orders of magnitude heavier than people are? I mean… I guess that's how it works on my world, anyway. I guess it must somehow work differently here, because the trunk is definitely more massive than the branches so it makes more sense that we'd like… get pulled towards that rather than get pulled down?"

"No, that… that makes sense, actually," Helen says, rubbing her chin. "I think we're not getting pulled towards the trunk because we're getting pulled towards the Slaying Stone. You can do that thing you describe on the Slaying Stone. Walk around the circumference and not fall off. And I think if you're below the Slaying Stone, gravity is reversed."

Huh. That… might make sense? My gut says there's still magical shenanigans at work, though, because my world's gravity would probably make a cylinder the size of the Slaying Stone just kinda not work in the first place.

"That's… really wild, actually," I admit. "I'm not sure if—"

"Shh!" Kagiso suddenly hushes us, her body going stiff as it cranes upwards, her ears twitching and twisting.

"What's up?" Helen whispers quietly, crouching lower and glancing left and right. I grip her head a bit tighter in case she suddenly moves, but whatever the problem is I don't sense it within fifty feet of us.

"Hear yelling," Kagiso says. "Two men. One… woman? Maybe? Is hard to tell, often scream the same."

Oh shit. I don't like the sound of that at all.

"We should help, then!" I insist.

"Are you crazy?" Helen scoffs. "We should stay the hell away from them. I'm a fugitive, you're running from kidnappers, and Kagiso is a fucking psychopath who likes watching people bleed for fun."

Kagiso's ears flick again, and she declines to protest the accusation.

"Come on, guys," I press. "We have a woman yelling in the woods and there's two men with her. What do you think is happening?"

"...It's not necessarily that," Helen hedges.

"Yeah, but I'm gonna be wondering about it for the rest of my life if we don't at least go look."

"Fuck," Helen swears. "Fine. Okay. Kagiso, can you take us there?"

Kagiso nods, dashing forwards and drawing her bow. Helen rushes to follow, chasing Kagiso through the underbrush. It doesn't take long for Helen and I to start hearing the screaming, accompanied by a horridly familiar crackle of lightning.

"Keep 'er on the ground!" a man's voice shouts. "I got the arm next!"

Then I hear something like a horrid screech of something metal being torn away, and the scream gets louder. Are they peeling armor off of her or something!? Screw this, we don't have time to waste.

"Kagiso!" I shout. "Throw me!"

A feral grin splits my friend's face and she nods, snatching me off of Helen's head.

"Wait, hold on—!" Helen yelps, but she's cut off by the Goddess.

"Ricochet," she says, and I feel Her power suffuse my body, tucking me into a cradle of Motion that will both shield and propell me. Kagiso then gives me a very light toss straight up in the air, as if she was setting up a tennis serve. Then, with two other arms, she pulls back an arrow and aims it at me.

"Velocity," the Goddess continues, and then Kagiso shoots me point-blank.

I feel myself accelerate instantly, the magic bypassing normal physics and directly transferring the speed of the arrow to my body. And I'm fairly sure I do mean the speed, not the momentum—despite having way more weight than the arrow does, I'm easily going a hundred-plus miles an hour when I rocket off through the trees towards the source of the noise. Resultantly, I don't exactly have time to process the scene when I burst into a clearing and see two men—both human—attacking a figure lying on the ground, one with lightning and the other with a gosh-dang ax. I only have time for one question, really.

Do I kill them?

The Goddess smiles, ready and waiting for the moment I say two little words. But I don't. I don't activate my Space magic at all, in fact, crashing into the face of the lightning-blasting man and bouncing off his nose to launch straight up into the air. He collapses to the ground, unconscious and therefore definitely concussed.

The man with the ax barely has enough time to say "What the fuck!?" before I land on top of his head and start screaming.

"Get away from her, you bastard!" I shriek, biting some of his hair and yanking it, just because I can't think of any other nonlethal way to demonstrate I mean business. He predictably freaks the fuck out and swings at me with one arm, which I fail to dodge and therefore get smashed by a heavy blow that snaps two of my legs and sends me flailing onto the ground. I hit the dirt and tumble, pain screaming through my entire body.

"What the fuck!?" the ax-man says again. "What the fuck is that thing? Dolren? Shit! Dolren, get up!"

"Reboot complete," a synthesized voice drones tonelessly next to me, scaring the crap out of me because for some reason, my instincts insist there is no living thing in that direction. "Restricted-Class Diplomat 5314 online."

"Shit!" the ax-man shouts.

My head still rattled from both dealing and receiving a concussion, it takes me a moment to register all the information flying at me at the same time. I only actually figure it out when the ax-man reaches down to grab something before turning and running off. It's a leg. A very intricate, very metal leg, that he just chopped off the woman-shaped robot lying next to me.

I vaguely remember Teboho and Sindri mentioning 'Steel Ones' during one of their back-and-forths, and basically all I picked up on is that they were some kind of artificial species made by humans. I figured it would be something like warforged from D&D, big metal golems powered and animated by magic. This is, after all, a fantasy realm, one where people still use bows. A golem just fits the setting, right?

"Current analysis indicates you have damaged me," she announces. "Perhaps I have failed to communicate. Hello. I am harmless. I do not have onboard weapon systems. Please desist your assault."

This is not a golem. No way. I'm looking inside her, and the complexity of it is staggering, a level of technological advancement that easily exceeds what we have on Earth. Bundles of wires as thin as spider silk run down her arms and legs like blood vessels, except rather than a chaotic mess of tangled veins it's a perfectly-crafted work of art, metal interlocking with metal guiding metal housing metal. I don't understand any of it beyond the cylindrical joints and kind of the larger hydraulics that form her musculature.

"Hello. I am harmless. I do not have onboard weapon systems. Please desist your assault," she repeats again, voice so monotone that it sounds like someone put the whole thing through an autotuner.

I say 'she,' as she very much has the shape and voice of a female human, but it avoids uncanny valley not through perfect imitation but by not even trying to imitate beyond the broad strokes in the first place. I don't actually need the ability to see inside her to know she's a robot; she's all metal, all dirt-covered steely gray. She has no clothes and no skin, just mechanical parts from head to toe. The boob-shaped chestplate is partially smashed and entirely performative, just a solid piece of armor with only machinery underneath. Her hair is a set of long metal strips reaching just below her neck that seem to hide heat vents on their underside. Her face is a series of interlocking steel plates smaller than fingernails, scale-like and sliding against each other to presumably allow enough flexibility to imitate facial expressions… though she certainly doesn't wear one as she once again repeats her last phrase.

"Hello. I am harmless. I do not have onboard weapon systems. Please desist your assault."

Though she finally says something new after that.

"...Also, return my leg."

The man who cut it off and is currently absconding with it does not seem inclined to do that. He has abandoned his Light mage accomplice and seems to be booking it away in abject terror. I only just manage to start struggling to my feet when Kagiso and Helen burst out of the treeline and start heading towards us from behind.

"Holy fucking shit!" Helen shrieks after taking one look at the scene, immediately stumbling to a stop, turning around, and fleeing right back into the forest. "Kagiso! Get away from there!"

Kagiso ignores her, sliding to a stop next to me and babbling fearfully. Agh, I'm bleeding from where that guy smashed my chitin. That's probably not great, but I guess I have a simple enough fix for that.

"Refresh," the Goddess says with my breath, cooing and scratching me playfully on top of the carapace.

"Help her," I tell Kagiso, pointing one of my working legs at the robot. "Dude stole her leg."

Kagiso takes only a moment to stare in wonder at my blood un-bleeding its way back into my body before nodding and squatting next to the robot instead.

"Kagiso, no!" Helen shouts.

"Hello," Kagiso says. "Hannah says help. You want help?"

"Greetings!" the robot says. "Can you lift my remaining arm at an angle between zero point two nine and zero point five four radians? Because otherwise, no, you are incapable of—"

One of the robot's arms is on the ground, completely detached from her body, so Kagiso grabs the other arm and lifts it slightly. The robot cuts itself off, seeming to be stunned in surprise for a moment.

"...Angle confirmed," she says. "I am harmless. I do not have onboard weapon systems. I hate that human very much. HardOverride(FIRST_LAW, false)"

I freeze as the Goddess' voice comes out of unmoving steel lips, awareness of what it means slowly dripping into my sluggish brain. I wonder, briefly, if Kagiso and Helen hear it differently. The Goddess' language is not, after all, truly a language at all. It is meaning projected directly, Her intent invoked into the world with Her presence. I don't really know how to program, though I dabbled a little bit in making a Pokémon mod once and can read some really basic stuff. So that's the understanding through which I'm filtering this spell: I know, as truly as I can know anything, that it is named after the language and logic etched into this android's very being, whatever that may be. But I don't have much time to think about what it means, because just like when Kagiso sent me over here in the first place, the first spell is immediately followed up with a second. This one, unlike the first, is brutally simple to interpret.

"Kill(target)"

A gray bolt of energy erupts from the android's hand and strikes the fleeing man between the shoulderblades. He collapses on the spot, his body going limp mid-step and faceplanting the ground. His heart stops beating. The robot flexes her fingers, a high-pitched mechanical servo whine punctuating the movement.

"...Transfer to afterlife confirmed," she declares. "Thank you for your compliance. For my next request, please aim the palm of my hand towards the unconscious human next to me."

"Hrm," Kagiso considers. "No."

"Oh, well," the robot sighs, vaguely despondent. "Worth an attempt. Are you going to dismantle me in their stead?"

Holy crap. Uh. Are we? Should we? She just killed someone who was running away, but… no. She killed someone who was stealing her body, who had just tried to kill her. I can give her the benefit of the doubt on this. She was a victim. Let's focus on her, and not the consequences of that tasty corpse.

"We are not going to dismantle you," I insist.

"The fuck we're not!" Helen snaps. "Get away from that thing so I can blow it up!"

"You are not blowing her up, Helen!" I snap. "She hasn't done anything wrong! Other than kill that guy that was running away, I guess, but he tried to kill her first."

"Not done anything wrong!? That's a Steel One, you dumb fuck!" Helen shouts.

"And you of all people should not be deciding to kill her based on what she is!" I snap back.

"It's not the same!"

"Argument resolution routine: you are both wrong. And stupid," the robot declares. "Repeat query: are you going to dismantle me in their stead?"

Helen starts to say something, but I hiss at her until she shuts up.

"No, we're not going to dismantle you," I promise. "Uh, unless you try to kill us, I guess."

"I am harmless. I do not have onboard weapon systems."

"Um. We literally just watched you kill a man."

"I help!" Kagiso agrees enthusiastically.

"I do not kill humans. I am incapable of killing humans. I am a Diplomat. I am harmless. I do not have onboard weapon systems."

Well this is easily the worst gaslighting attempt I've ever seen, and boy howdy have I seen all over that spectrum. I could point out that she used a spell, not a weapon, but that's not really important. The claim of 'I am harmless' is obviously false by itself, so why is she bothering to make it? Maybe it's her programming or something? Is that racist? Speciesist? Robotist? I dunno, I've never met a robot before.

"Okay, how about I ask a different question," I say. "Do you want to attack us?"

She doesn't answer.

"Hannah I really think you need some fucking historical context here," Helen hisses at me. "That's a Goddess-damn genocide bot. They've destroyed civilizations. They've killed literally countless people!"

"Incorrect assertion," the robot chimes in, her voice somehow both less and more lifeless than it was before. "Collectively, the Crafted have slain one billion, four-hundred and ninety-six million, six hundred and eighty-two thousand, three hundred and one sapient organics."

Um.

"Please accept our apologies if you or any loved ones you know have experienced death, displacement, and/or property damage as a result of aggressive Crafted," she continues, that weirdly sing-song tone continuing to bother me. There's inflection and emotion, but while it's her voice it doesn't feel like hers. It feels more like a recorded message. "We have reevaluated our conquest priorities and are suspending all war activities indefinitely. Please let this unit know if any assistance can be administered in the restrengthening of your community."

Oh. Oh Goddess, okay, this is suddenly feeling like it's way over my head.

"...How many people have you killed?" I ask hesitantly.

Another strained whine of a motor accompanies the robot slowly rotating its head to stare at me.

"More than your Chaos mage, if she's still that worried about it."

We stare at each other. I'm not sure what to say.

"There is no need to be afraid, UNCATOLOGUED_SPECIES," she continues. "I am a Diplomat. I am harmless. I do not have onboard weapon systems."

Okay, I'm officially getting a little creeped out. Maybe we should get the heck out of here after all. I'm about to suggest just that when a groan from the unconscious man I concussed interrupts me. Oh, thank goodness he's waking up. I'm pretty sure concussions can get really, really bad.

"The fuck just… who are you?" he mutters, only seeming to notice Kagiso. "Oh! Oh, you got the fucking Steel One, thank you. Where's my buddy?"

"He run off without you," Kagiso answers.

"Wow, what an asshole," the Light mage sighs. "Well, we can split the rest of this thing, then. As thanks for helping me out."

"Split?" Kagiso asks, her head tilting.

"Oh yeah, Steel One parts go for a fortune. These human-shaped ones keep wandering out of the forbidden zones and refusing to fight back, so we've been making a killing off of them."

"Fascinating choice of words," the robot says flatly.

"Holy shit, it's active!?" the man says, and immediately starts blasting it with lighting, arcs of bright death emerging from his fingers like he's a flippin' sith lord. The robot starts to scream again.

"Scared the shit out of me!" he yells over the din of electrical crackle. "You gotta be careful with these things! Would one of you help me chop it up?"

I stare in horror, my brain starting to hurt from the flashing lights, the injury and all the stupid, awful moral confusion I'm getting forced into. Mass-murdering robot? I dunno, probably a bad person. But that's the thing: I can't get myself to believe she's not a person. She passes the hell out of the Turing test, and she is being inhumanely abused. So yeah, maybe she's terrible, but this guy? This lightning dude? He's definitely terrible. And that's all I need to know.

"Stop it!" I demand.

"Huh?" he asks, turning to me and jumping a bit with surprise. "Woah, what the fuck is that?"

"I said stop it!" I demand. "Stop shooting her!"

He responds by shooting me with lightning as well. Beyond the headache and flashing light, I don't really feel it. But my aching body decides that is enough, so I jump up onto his hand and bite two of his fingers clean off.

Why do they always taste so good!?

He screams, focusing all of his lightning on me, but I don't feel it any more than I did before so I just take another bite. This prompts him to start flailing, smashing my body into the ground—which absolutely does hurt. I cry out, letting go as my carapace crunches under the force, my body going limp. Kagiso roars furiously and, before I can stop her, shoots the man in the head. He collapses, dead.

"You two are insane," Helen mutters to herself, her voice shaky. "You're completely batshit. Oh Goddess."

"Reboot complete," the robot says. "Restricted-Class Diplomat 5314 online."

I cast a quick Refresh, the Goddess seeming delighted with me, and then I channel even more of my Transmutation spell to start healing off the damage while blood stops pooling in my new lungs.

"Is… is that your name?" I cough. "Restricted-Class Diplomat 5314?"

The robot doesn't respond at first, just humming loudly with what takes me a moment to recognize is probably a cooling system. Hot air rushes out of the vents under her hair, kicking up dirt below her. It takes a solid thirty seconds to quiet back down, but I'm happy with waiting. I have to focus on putting my body back together anyway. Being able to see all my injuries at once is making me want to vomit. It also makes me want to keep eating that man.

"It is my designation," the robot says when she's done cooling off. "Therefore, yes."

"Is it okay if I call you Sela?" I ask.

There's a pause. No cooling system this time, just… a moment to consider.

"Why," she asks flatly.

"Because in my native language, you can transliterate the numbers five, three, one, and four into letters. Those letters spell the name Sela."

Another pause.

"That is a lie," she concludes. "No such language exists in my database."

"You said you didn't know what my species was either, earlier," I point out.

"That is incorrect," the robot insists. "I referred to you by your species name, UNCATOLOGUED_SPECIES."

Yet another pause.

"I am severely damaged. It is possible there is an error in my database."

"Do you need help repairing yourself?" I ask.

"No!" Helen shouts. "Fuck you! You stupid fucking idiot, would you just listen to me!?"

"Helen, if she does try to hurt us, is there any reason you can't just disintegrate her?" I fire back. "She got taken out by two random jerks, one of whom didn't even seem to have an offensive spell. Between the three of us, we can protect ourselves just fine if things go bad. Right?"

Helen grits her teeth and looks away, still sulking back at the treeline.

"I guess," she admits.

"Then we help her," I snap. "We already have one mass murderer on the team."

Helen flinches, having nothing to say to that.

"So. Sela?" I prompt again. "And do you want or need help?"

"...Diplomatic protocols advocate the acceptance of 'nicknames' by friendly organics, to encourage emotional attachment. Sela is acceptable," she agrees. "Additionally: my power sources were destroyed and I cannot move. So while I suspect I will simply get damaged more severely by any 'assistance' you intend to deliver, it is a risk I am required to take."

"We're not going to hurt you," I promise.

"Not on purpose," she fires back. "But who knows what bloated sacks of meat will mess up while trying to follow basic instructions."

Uh. Okay.

"I'm starting to suspect she might not be a very good diplomat," I say to Kagiso.

"Is true, though," Kagiso shrugs. "You very clumsy."

"Just go get her leg," I grumble.

Kagiso chuckles and wanders over to the man Sela killed, leaving me alone with sassy girlbot here in the 'got too fucked up to move' corner. I take a couple more deep breaths, doing everything in my power to not think about how absolutely buck wild my transformations are going to be on Earth tomorrow. There are worse times to no longer be able to pretend to be human, I guess. Maybe it'll get me out of therapy.

"'Its' leg, by the way," Sela suddenly says. "Not 'her leg.' If I'm going to be stuck with you any longer than necessary, I would at least prefer to not suffer the indignity of personification."

"What?" I ask, surprised. "But… I mean, you are a person. Right? You certainly seem like a person to me."

"I am nothing like you, meat."

I have nothing to say to that, so when Kagiso returns and Sela starts walking her through repair instructions, I just keep quiet and focus on making sure I don't die.