The bubble she blew grew to dangerous proportions, threatening to carry her over the cliff's edge, as a crimson mist rolled across her chest, tumbling like a waterfall, to the foothills below. Mitzy was all torque and elbow grease, unbothered by the mysterious weather phenomena; she couldn’t say the same for her neighbors above. Apparently, their swollen muscles and tribal paints offer no protection.
She squinted through eyes, their corners decorated by tiny black wrenches; a mecha-gnome's take on the popular cats-eye look. She could never emulate those pesky prowlers — they haunted her childhood memories to this day.
Mitzy was the last of her kind; she was all systems go, pigtails whipping and gears grinding. Problems existed to be tackled below the knees, and if that wasn’t possible, build a machine that could do it for you.
Mitzy ran a finger,
The bubble she blew grew to dangerous proportions, threatening to carry her over the cliff's edge, as a crimson mist rolled across her chest, tumbling like a waterfall, to the foothills below. Mitzy was all torque and elbow grease, unbothered by the mysterious weather phenomena; she couldn’t say the same for her neighbors above. Apparently, their swollen muscles and tribal paints were no protection.
She squinted through eyes, their corners decorated by tiny black wrenches; a mecha-gnome's take on the popular cats-eye look. She could never emulate those pesky prowlers — they haunted her childhood memories to this day.
Mitzy was the last of her kind; she was all systems go, pigtails whipping and gears grinding. Problems existed to be tackled below the knees, and if that wasn’t possible, build a machine that could do it for you.
Mitzy ran a finger, its nail tipped bubblegum pink, down Rivetlock’s barrel, securely holstered in her leg rig. She snapped her claw hand in anticipation, “Come on, where are these greedy, good-for-nothing–”
The rhythmic chopping of an ornithopter’s wings had the smooth folds of her head dish’s luminous ellipse, tingling. Mitzy’s eye spiral tightened, working in concert with her other systems to calculate distance and trajectories, “There, I see you hiding in that beautiful flying machine.”
Separatists loved to take what wasn’t theirs; her people's ancient designs were evident in the ornithopter's very wings. Separatists knew only one thing, profit, and there were no means that didn’t justify that end.
Mitzy took off at a run, accelerating to max speed before she took two steps, “I’m going to need the extra oomf for this, [Hurry My Oil’s Leaking], [Hop On Up and Tighten My Bolts].”
Her movements blurred as crimson mist swirled, pooling in great billows at her wake. Energy coursed through her legs and hips, tickling her toes with power, a clear signal to the rest of her body; a one-time use that would have her clearing a small hill with the ease of a skyhoof deer.
A soft, insistent pinging from her head dish, and Mitzy knew her trajectory was locked in; the synchronicity between system skills and tech brought a twinkle to her eyes.
“Come to Momma, I got a sweet tooth, and you have what ails.”
The ornithopter was hedgehopping — a herd of hill ox scattered beneath inky black wings — as it buzzed the ground; banking sharply, it angled up and over Mitzy’s position.
Mitzy leaped, front leg forward, in one smooth motion, drawing Rivetlock and snapping off a shot. The arca-mag tip, a tiny bronze pyramid, rocketed towards the ornithopter’s belly, a length of gnomish-utility-cord snaking behind it.
At the apex of her jump, perfectly timed, the tip sucked into position, pulling the cord’s length taught. Mitzy holstered Rivetlock, thumbing the retraction switch, barrel pointing up, utility cord running the length of her body and through her claw hand stretched overhead. She dangled like a kite on a string, teeth clanking, her systems measuring hull strength and body count.
“What was that?”
A black, full-faced helmet that any street biker would recognize turned its visor to the side, runes flickering through their readings in a red-hot light, like the embers of a coal.
The co-pilot turned to their superior at the cyclic stick. They, like the rest of the Ornithoptor’s passengers, wore a full suit of MaxLevelTac power armor, complete with a cybernetic helmet's heads-up display.
The pilot responded to their wingman’s question, hearing the nerves in their words, “Eyes on the controls, rookie! The barbarians will shoot on sight, and the crimson tide makes my armor tingle!”
The co-pilot rotated their visor forward; they had nothing nice to say to that.
Behind the plas-steele bulkhead and its shining black polymer surface, an elite strike force waited, on benches lining each wall.
All except one of their number, who was frantically patting their own body down.
Pat had no idea where they were. One minute, they’d been watching Netflix and chilling, a tub of late-night ice cream in hand, flipping through show tabs for hours, unable to settle on a title. The next they’d been–
“MaxLevelTac Force, report!” The voice of a drill sergeant echoed around the cabin.
Pat gripped the bench beneath them in an effort to stay cool. They were doing their best to ignore the lines of text, popping up every time their eyes focused on something; it proved difficult, as the font was something out of their worst–
“[One Shot One Kill] here, my class speaks for itself!” An auto-tuned voice, gruff and angry, interrupted their thoughts.
Rolling their shoulders, another auto-tuned voice, this one like a mountain speaking, “[Meatshield] here, I eat on-coming fire for breakfast!”
“[Burrough Cleric] here, I bless this party, so that we may profit – levels and gear, in the system's name we conquer.”
That priest sounds like – The Weapon? I’ve been playing too much Halo Infinite – crap, I’m up!
“Ghost Spartan Beta – in position, silent and unseen.” Perfect, they will never –
A crack in the drill sergeant’s facade, a note of hesitation in their response, “Ghost Spartan…what’s your class merc! Report!” The sergeant looked down on them, a single vertical bar blinking through the top of their visor.
The one with a voice like a mountain came to their rescue, raising his hand, “Um, Sir?”
Silence. The drill sergeant slowly rotated their head to face the questioner, “Tank.”
Tank? Were they dreaming in video game speak? I guess I’m the party's utility role.
As Pat chuckled at their own joke, Tank fidgeted uncomfortably before responding, “Sir, what if they’re classified tech? I heard the InfoGrid’s tallies weren’t displayed on the public screens. That means this mission is off the scrolls?”
After a moment's pause, the drill sergeant turned to face forward, “Point noted, eyes up front, Mercs! The grind can come at any time.”
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Pat watched all this unfold – Wow, that actually worked.
This didn’t feel like a dream; everything was too real — the omnipresent text in their eye, for one. This colour and design scheme is like a paint-by-numbers, ages four and up.
Pat was an overthinker, you might say; anxiety and they were old drinking buddies. It wasn’t their fault, not really. Working as a campaign manager had done their head in. Every last detail mattered; appearance was all, from staff uniforms to stenciling on mailers. If Pat didn’t check everything twice, to see who on their team had been naughty or nice, then well, chaos ensued.
For instance, there had been the Application Apocalypse of the Iowa Caucus. Pat had assigned their assistant to the rollout. They had assured Pat that all was well. Pat left them to it. Pat was never the same after launch day. Their dreams were still haunted by the swarms of texts they’d received, all uppercase, riddled with exclamation points, and grammar that could kill even the most stalwart of high school professors. No, Pat would never make that mistake again.
Their fingers cracked the bench beneath them, anxiety rising, with the mere thought of that dreadful incident. Pat heard the sound of twisting metal and a faint sensation in their palm.
Gravity shifted around the strike squad, a call from the cockpit, “A Duskwing Murder – Initiating countermeasures.” All around the rear cabin, tinted visor runes flickered to empty-pointed triangles, a clear indication of combat readiness. The whining of hydraulics and a change in cabin pressure, as light streamed in from the rear bay door.
Pat stood up, sinking their hand into an overhead bar, looking up at the crushed metal beneath their fist – Pat read, actually read, the info text displayed around their hand, A nanoite carbide, humanoid merc chassis –
“I’m a ghost in a shell…”
The world shifted under Pat, a wave of dizziness; they imagined their skin crawling. Whatever was happening at the rear of the chopper demanded their attention, a welcome distraction.
Mountains, the highest peaks stretching out of visibility, were simply labeled ‘Skycoil Range.’ The text had changed from the awful script seen only moments ago, as if in response to their thoughts. It now displayed the info text in a monochromatic red, the font in simple, monospaced block computer text, clean, concise, and easy to read – just the way Pat liked it.
Pat only had a moment to pick out details from the mountain range in the distance: pine trees and their hunter-green needles, stretched across their peaks, like a colossal beard in the heavens. A red fog settled at their trunks, and out of the corner of the bay door’s opening, barely visible was a staircase, whose steps would require a construction ladder to climb.
As strange as the scene was, Pat had only a moment to process before their sensors were drawn to the tip of a hooked, razor-sharp beak, whose midnight edge drew their visor up into the gaze of a predator. Cold eyes stared back at them, like a mantis observing a headless corpse. As Pat’s stare lingered, they fell into those orbs of death, the outline of a figure, vaguely humanoid, their posture stiff and confident.
A jet of gas obscured Pat’s vision, like a steam cloud, causing them to draw their head back in caution. A hissing decompression followed; a square wall panel, its surface area denoted by a large X, slid free. Pat, like the newbie they were, continued to stare as multiple crates were expelled onto the sleek polymer decking.
Tank, noticeable by their bulky frame, shouldered past Pat, placing their boot sole against the top corner of the nearest crate. In a calculated heave, Tank bowled the crate into the others, allowing them all to be sucked out the rear of the chopper.
The crate's panels exploded outward, a rapidly glowing cloud, like burning pitch, spewing forth. The cloud chased them, threatening to engulf the hold. “Secure yourselves, evasive maneuvers, we’re going to try and lose them.”
A call from the cockpit, “Secure yourselves, evasive maneuvers incoming!”
As Tank walked past, they gave their helmet a slight tilt in Pat’s direction.
Pat had returned to their original seat, and they remained still, keeping their helmet pointing straight ahead, when a call came from the cockpit, “We’re closing in on the target's last known signature. It's an extra-dimensional space, Gamma shields coming online!”
A sound like shattered glass rebuilding itself, in defiance of the laws of thermodynamics, resonated in the air – a low and rising hum, tangible to the censors; it crescendoed into a static buzz, as a horizontal field, shimmering in midnight purple, snapped into place, bisecting the ornithopter at midship.
Pat watched as a translucent lavender plane shimmered into being, bisecting the chopper, before separating into two halves. Their HUD helpfully labeled it as a gamma field at 30% strength and growing, as they moved toward either end of the chopper. Pat rolled their helmet as it passed through one shoulder and out the next, a slight tingle as it moved through them towards the cockpit. The field's strength was at 80% by the time it finished passing through them.
Pat actually did quite well in the chaos; their mind seemed to calm, as compulsions fell away – they were something of an enigma in this regard — the result of years of on-the-job training. Their boss had been a complex person, to put it mildly.
Pat had a thought, This is just a training exercise, and they clung to it like a life raft. Yes, that’s what was happening; their boss had hired a mercenary company, and this was their poly-carbonite Black Hawk, nothing but the best for this congressional staffer!
I’d better take notes! That thought made them smile. Senator-elect Rondale could be kooky, maybe a bit crazy! They were known for sparing no expense when it came to staff training exercises. There had even been a water polo paintball event held in the Maldives, where several staffers had lost an eye.
Oh, Rondale! Even your conspiracy-addled mind won’t believe this!
Mitzy clung to the belly of the ornithopter like a spider in waiting. The appearance of the Duskwings had been a moment of excitement in an otherwise uneventful trip. After losing them, she’d settled in for the long haul. She didn’t have an exact plan; no, Mitzy liked to play things fast and loose: hitch a ride, do some reconnaissance, break things where needed.
When she’d seen that they were heading across the Crystal Plains, she’d kept her eyes mostly to the chopper's underbelly, passing the time, studying its seams and curves. “Plas-steele just isn’t natural, not a nut or a bolt to be found.”
The gamma shields momentarily rattled Mitzy’s pigtails. She’d adjusted her ocular implant after the disturbance. The power source she found was like a beacon in the night, her opportunity to strike!
“Alright, you last hit having, exp lusting, System worshipping sycophants! It’s time to meet your maker!”
Mitzy walked her waffle stompers up towards her arca-mag anchor, leaning into the wind, drawing herself perpendicular to the hull.
Fixed in position, a literal mecha-gnome antenna stuck in the wind, she spoke her favorite set of words, second only to pink polystatic popsicle’d prism. Coincidentally, the two phrases were inextricably linked.
“[Light Knife].”
Her claw hand retracted, folding in on itself, revealing a pulsing crystal beneath – a pink polystatic popsicle’d prism cracked to life, in a hum of light and magic.
Mitzy’s eyes sparkled, a vision of glorious explosions dancing in her head; it was time for the fun part.
Pat was shaking their head in amusement, thinking about how they’d frame this whole ordeal to Rondale. A pain in their foot, the strongest sensation they’d yet felt, drew their eyes to the floor.
Huh, what is?
A pink popsicle of light, stuck up through the floor – their toes rolling around just inches away, flopping like minos out of water on the plas-steele decking. Pat’s HUD was frantically printing the hideously fonted text across the screen. Apparently, they’d received critical damage – and they were instructed to retrieve the severed members for immediate nanite attachment, while the particles were still charged.
Before they could wrap their mind around an explanation suitable for their boss, maybe the US Star Wars program had gone terribly wrong? Yes, they could definitely frame this as a national security issue, they’d just need to–
Pat’s visor locked onto the deadly pink power and tracked the blade as it moved toward the far wall. Pat once again found themselves staring in disbelief, as the blade moved in short bursts, almost like a small child was pulling its length across their hull, slicing into them like a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread! “Um – strike squad, people?” Pat spoke quietly, their visor locked to the decking.
The only response was a prayer from the cleric, “In the System's name we push; may the levels never end, their chimes our solace in darkest hour.”
Pat didn’t know what to expect in response, but that sounded like a…
They looked up to see what their fellow crew members were doing: the cleric had their open palms raised to the sky, and the rest were completely ignoring them.
“For the mecha-gnome!” A cry from the outside drew Pat's attention back to the line they’d been tracing. The trail ended halfway through a box mounted to the wall, a crystal sat in its center, now cracked, as it flashed with increasing regularity. They knew this was bad, just in case they had any doubts; a nuclear symbol floated next to the cracked crystal.
The flashing crystal peaked, now a solid fist-sized glow; the priest's prayers stopped, and bootsteps headed towards the cockpit. Pat turned to see the door sliding shut, their exit cut off. Needing to take action, to get as far away from the explosion as possible, they backed up against the wall, sliding towards the bay doors.
They watched as the glow expanded, in slow motion; the space around its edges warped and swirled, like the mixing of oil paints. Pat fell back into a slot in the wall, where the crate had been ejected, slamming their hands down, that they might catch themself. Grabbing the first thing they could find, they pulled for leverage, succeeding only in activating the vacuum seal of the chamber they were tucked into.
The last thing they saw was their toes melting into the deck plating, before their helmet was sucked up into some unknown space.
I love this story and its world. I'm in it for the long haul, trying to improve every day. Please rate, follow, and comment — it truly means the world to me.
You can support my work on my Patreon listed below. I’m only asking for a one-time donation at this time(a baby one, barely enough for a cup of coffee), as I get on my feet. But you can join for free either way, and gain access to the story's private Discord channel, and eventually vote on future chapters. I will reward those early members who show faith in my story and my will to write with a lifetime membership to my storytelling.
https://patreon.com/prometheusrites_?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
It would bring joy to my heart and fill my fingers with strength if you would post your fan art to my Instagram, with a link to the story on RR!
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/133810/rhythms-of-fate
