A massive beam of energy, like something ripped straight out of a Gundam episode, blasted the sand behind me, throwing up a wall of heat and shattered debris. The force of it nearly knocked me off my feet. I barely managed a glance before I had to dodge again. Another one of those pale, freak-faced sphere bots came barreling toward me like a cannonball.
I fired a few tight bursts of light, but it was like pouring water into a sieve. For every one that fell, three more surged in. They swarmed from every angle, an endless tide of artificial nightmares, surrounding us like vultures.
The twins moved as one. Devola and Popola weaved through the chaos, swords flashing in mirrored arcs. They tore through the floating heads with terrifying precision—blades slicing clean, every motion part of a larger rhythm. For a brief second, I thought maybe, just maybe, we were going to be okay.
Then the sky screamed.
The centipede machine loomed—an abomination stitched together from twitching faces, its segments pulsing with uncanny energy. A low mechanical groan built into a scream, and another beam fired from its maw. It carved the horizon in half with light.
The noise that followed was worse than the laser. Distorted babbling, garbled cries, fractured syllables that scraped across my brain like static. Souless eyes flared in the sky, all of them locking onto the twins.
My stomach dropped.
"Dodge!"
The words tore out of me right as laser fire rained down like a storm. I didn't stop running—couldn't. Pausing meant getting incinerated or shredded apart. I caught a glimpse of Devola, diving away just in time, rolling through sand and smoke.
Popola wasn't as lucky.
She hit the ground hard. A section of the blast had caught her leg—charred through metal and artificial skin. A mob of shrieking heads angled down to finish the job.
I threw up a hardlight wall on instinct. A translucent shield snapped into place between Popola and the diving machines. They slammed into it with bone-rattling force, cracking the barrier but not breaking through.
Above us, the sky still screamed. Hundreds of floating heads whirled overhead like a deranged storm cloud.
"Pain! Pain!"
I sprinted for her, lungs burning, legs aching. Reached down. Hauled her up.
She was lighter than I expected—one arm around my shoulder, the other clutching at her injured leg. I barely had time to think before I had to swat away another diving face with the side of my arm. I dragged her across the battlefield, sand shifting under our feet as I made for Devola's position.
Devola was filling the sky up with orbs of black and red energy. Whatever the hell she was casting, it worked. The incoming horde exploded in brief, concussive bursts every time her magic made contact. Her face was tight with focus, jaw clenched, eyes tracking a dozen targets at once.
Popola sagged against me, clearly struggling. Her calf was almost completely scorched through. Sparks flickered beneath the wound. Her free hand glowed faintly—she was channeling something.
The two hadn't spoken a word, but I could tell they were locked into whatever android link they used. I couldn't hear it, but I could see it in their faces: this wasn't good. Things were going to shit fast.
"Hey! Do you guys have a plan, or are we just screwed?!" I shouted, still half-dragging Popola.
Popola blinked, her eyes snapping back into focus. She looked at me, then toward her sister. A silent beat passed between them.
"I might be able to cast a spell big enough to buy time—for you and Devola to run," she said, quiet but firm. "We can't beat this thing. Not with just us. "
That hit like a punch to the gut. Her voice wasn't panicked. Just… resigned.
I didn't like it. Not one damn bit.
"Okay," I said automatically.
Popola's expression hardened. "On my mark, start running."
Yeah, no. Screw that.
"Sorry if this doesn't work and gets us all killed!"
I grabbed her before she could argue and yanked her toward Devola. No warning. No hesitation. Just action.
And then I reached deep within my mind.
For the other power I knew I had. The one I barely knew the details of, so I might really screw us over. I focused hard, locked into it, and something inside me shifted.
There was a click. A pulse. A flare of pressure.
And the ground cracked beneath us.
Then I felt a click as the sound of a door opening.
——
We fell.
Weightless, twisting, spinning. It felt like being trapped on a roller coaster stuck in mid-air. The world warped around me—colors bleeding into each other, light bending sideways. I tried to keep my eyes open, but all I saw were incomprehensible shapes and streaks of fractured reality.
Then, impact.
"—Oof!"
I slammed into the carpet. Soft, warm, and real. For a second, I just lay there, blinking into the fibers beneath me.
A ceiling. A couch. A lamp. Actual walls.
An apartment. A real, actual apartment.
A scream echoed somewhere behind me, and then two more heavy thuds hit the floor. I twisted around just in time to see Devola and Popola crash down beside me.
Holy shit.
We were alive.
Somehow. After all of that. After the lasers, the swarm, the nightmare centipede, and the screaming sky. I'd almost died three times in one day.
I couldn't help it. A half-crazed laugh broke out of me.
"Hehe… fuck…"
God, I was exhausted. I heard the twins calling for me.
I'd answer later...just gonna lie down for a couple of minutes.
——
She didn't know where she was.
Devola jolted upright, twisting in place as her mind surged to full alert. Her eyes scanned every corner of the room, snapping from ceiling to floor, sweeping beneath the furniture for any sign of threat.
Nothing moved. No crazy faced machines. No mechanical noise. Just a still, suffocating silence.
The room was... nice. Carpet underfoot. The furniture was untouched, pristine. Working lights. Decorative shelves filled with books and strange ornaments. Framed paintings hung evenly across polished walls. But—
No doors.
She frowned. Her mind kicked into analysis. How had they gotten here?
Teleportation? A dimensional shift? Some kind of spatial anchor? That was crazy. She knew a lot about magic, probably more than most androids alive. But this was just crazy.
"Issac, where are we?" Her voice came low, clipped, tension fraying at the edges.
"I think he passed out sis," Popola answered. She was still sitting nearby, legs folded under her on the carpet.
Devola turned quickly.
She crossed the space and knelt beside her sister, eyes falling instantly on the burn that scorched down Popola's leg. The damage was bad. Too dark around the edges, too deep in the center.
"I'm fine!" Popola snapped, brushing her hand away with a flick of the wrist. "Seriously. Just... shaken up."
She raised her arms and flailed them in mock exasperation, as if to wave off the anxiety, but the gesture was hollow. She wasn't fine. And they both knew it.
Devola didn't argue. She just narrowed her eyes and activated a low-level healing spell, her hands glowing faintly as she pressed them over the damaged leg. The burn was bad, and she knew she wouldn't be able to repair the damage without proper tools, but easing the pain was something, at least.
"I mean, come on," Devola murmured. "This is crazy. First, a rogue android. Then, some grotesque old world abomination that shouldn't even exist. And now this? Trapped in a weird house with no doors?"
Her voice broke, cracking over the word.
She couldn't panic. She wouldn't.
Popola shifted her weight, eyes scanning the room again.
"It's... a strange place," she said quietly.
Devola followed her gaze, but this time, her vision filtered through more than tactical awareness. She looked—really looked.
The place didn't feel like a bunker or a repurposed ruin. Not even close. It felt cozy.
It didn't belong in their world. There was no scent of rust, no damp mildew, no collapsed beams or half-flooded corners. The lights didn't flicker. The paintings weren't peeling. No cracks in the plaster, no sand drifting in from blown-out windows. Everything was intact.
Not a relic. Not a lab. Not a base.
A home.
A real, human home. The kind that hadn't existed in their world for a long, long time.
If Issac had told the truth…
"It's pretty neat, huh?" Popola tried, a weak smile forming at the edges.
Devola didn't smile back.
"You think he was telling the truth, then? That he's really human?"
Popola opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Then gave up and shook her head.
"I don't know," she muttered. "This is all so fucking crazy, sis…"
Devola stood.
She walked slowly to where Issac lay slumped against the carpet. His breathing was steady.
She knelt and reached out, hand brushing the sleeve at his shoulder. He'd said something about his perks protecting him from scanning. So she went manual.
She tugged the fabric back.
What she found didn't match anything she knew.
The arm was technology. That much was obvious. But the integration point at the shoulder—she pressed her hands and felt as deep as she could. She had spent decades upon decades fixing androids herself, her sister, and even the occasional stranger. She knew android anatomy like the back of her hand.
Her hand brushed against his chest—no servos, no titanium plating, no sleek artificial seams beneath the skin. Just warmth. It didn't register at first, not completely. Her fingers moved on instinct, sliding up to his hair. She sifted through the strands.
No symmetrical replication. No dusty scent from synthetic filaments. The texture was uneven, chaotic. There was sweat clinging to his scalp, and a faint trace of body oil near the base of his neck.
Her hand trembled.
She leaned in without thinking, pressing her ear to his chest.
No reactor hum. No faint vibration from cooling systems. No artificial power core regulating vitals.
Instead—
A beat.
Then another. Steady. Unmistakable.
A heartbeat.
Her breath caught. The sound hit something deep inside her—so old it felt like it didn't belong. She jerked back like she'd been shocked, stumbling a step before catching herself with one hand over her mouth.
The other hand still trembled.
Arms wrapped around her from behind, steadying her.
"Is he...?" Popola's voice barely rose above a whisper.
Devola didn't answer right away. She couldn't.
Her gaze never left his face. "Yes," she murmured. "...And we almost got him killed."
Popola went still.
Her expression warped—uncertainty giving way to shock, then awe, then something far darker. Like a system struggling to parse a corrupted input. Her jaw tensed. Her whole frame stiffened, then slackened like a marionette dropped mid-performance.
Not a Replicant. Not a Gestalt.
A real Human.
Alive. Present. Breathing.
And they'd dragged him through a battlefield. Let him bleed. Treated him like—
Popola didn't sit. She stood frozen in place, hands loose at her sides. Her core systems flared in protest. The NCFS chip deployed dampeners, emotional regulators, and layered subroutines meant to stabilize reaction spirals.
It wasn't enough.
Relief surged through her circuits. Then guilt. Then panic, fast and rising.
Too many signals at once. Too loud.
She tried to speak, but her throat locked.
Tried to breathe, and failed.
Her mouth opened.
"Ah... Ahh…"
The scream tore out of her before she could stop it.