Too sleepy to edit this, I've been writing my last college essays, which is 25% of my grade, so I just put it in GPT to fix any problems, so sorry if it so sound weird I dont know if it changed anything
[engineer pics]
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The fight was already underway when the Engineer hit the street—fresh cracks spiderwebbing across the pavement, lantern-light flickering from blown-out windows, and six chaos monks circling Nash and Lira like sharks scenting blood.
Nash was bleeding from the forehead, holding a rune-burned wrist protectively. Lira was still standing, but barely—her shield sigils flickered like dying fireflies.
The monks moved in warped geometry: steps that didn't match their speed, angles that broke physics, palms glowing with unstable violet fire.
"Okay," the younger agent whispered. "There are at least six monks in there. Possibly eight. Maybe ten."
The older agent glared at him.
"Would you stop manifesting new enemies with your anxiety?"
"I'm not!"
"You literally are!"
The Engineer pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Guys. Focus. Please. Before I start screaming."
Both agents snapped silent.
Good, I'm really liking this fear effect, I see why Batman likes it.
Because the monks' chant was getting louder, a wet, spiraling sound like someone humming through a throat full of broken glass.
The Engineer swallowed. This was gonna suck.
Her Omni-tool flickered to life on her wrist. Hard-light circuitry spun outward, assembling into a humming holo-sword, blue, unstable, glitching at the edges because she STILL hadn't perfected the power modulation.
She tightened her grip. Her stance looked… not great.
Too stiff. Too mechanical.
She was still learning. Still adapting.
Still trying to fight like someone who used to be human… because she technically was.
The older agent whispered, "Do you even know how to use that thing?"
"Nope," the Engineer admitted.
He blinked. "Seriously?"
"Do you know how to fight people who fold probability like origami?"
"…No."
"Great. Guess we're all beginners today."
The Engineer didn't hesitate.
Her Omni-Tool flared to life with a rising whrrrr-pop, light bending into the shape of a holo-sword—crisp orange edges, crystalline hum, sharp enough to slice through reality glitches.
"Okay," she muttered to herself, sprinting in, "don't overthink it—just move."
A monk lunged at her in a stuttering teleport lurch.
She swung.
The holo-blade cut through the warp-shell around his arm, shattering it like glass. The sudden feedback jolt made her stumble—she wasn't used to the weapon yet, and the Omni-Tool buzzed angrily at her wrist.
Behind her, Nash yelled, "Left! Their stance opens on the—"
She didn't need him to finish.
She felt it.
Saw it.
Like her brain was stitching the monks' broken kata into something decipherable mid-motion.
She pivoted, caught the monk's elbow before he teleported again, and slammed him into the asphalt hard enough to make the street tremble.
Lira blinked, stunned. "How did you—?"
"I'm improvising!" the Engineer snapped, swinging the sword back up just in time to parry a chaos-charged strike.
The impact burned her palms even through the tool.
Her vision flashed white.
Both of her hearts hammered.
She was not trained for this kind of martial nonsense.
But her body kept figuring things out faster than she consciously could.
The monks encircled her, whispering in a chorus half mantra, half glitch.
Nash lifted his sigil-gun and shouted, "Drop!"
She ducked. No hesitation.
A burst of golden dispersion runes exploded over her head, slamming into three monks. Their chaos aura flickered like corrupted screens.
Lira sprinted to her side, planting a stabilizing ward at their feet. "You need a minute to breathe?"
The Engineer shook her head, tightening her grip on the holo-sword.
"Nope. Later."
Another monk appeared beside her—silent, flicker-stepping with a twisted grin. He hit her in the ribs with a palm strike that folded probability around the impact.
She flew back—crashed into a parked car, metal crunching under her shoulder.
Pain shot through her.
Real pain.
Her breath caught.
Her body responded before her mind did—muscle fibers hardening, bones reinforcing, senses sharpening like someone slid new software into her skull.
She stood up more slowly this time.
Not rattled.
Just angry.
"You hit like a bug," she said, wiping blood from her lip.
A monk tried to warp again—she moved first.
She intercepted him mid-phase, driving her knee into his solar plexus and slashing an arc that severed the volatile chaos threads stitching his aura together. He hit the ground convulsing, the irrational magic bleeding out in sparks.
Nash whistled.
"Holy— that was clean."
"Not clean enough," the Engineer muttered.
Because three monks were left.
And they'd changed formation.
They were weaving something bigger.
Lira's face paled. "They're building a paradox knot."
"And that does what?" the Engineer asked sharply.
"Reality implodes. Within… uh…" Nash checked the glyphs spinning overhead. "About twelve seconds."
"Cool," she said. "Hate that."
The monks thrust their palms forward, chaos-fire erupting in spirals.
The Engineer rushed them.
She wasn't graceful—she was a blur of trial-and-error, instinct, and sheer stubbornness. Every mistake became a new adjustment. Every hit she took made her smarter. Faster. More precise.
And her strength?
It was showing now.
She grabbed one monk's forearm mid-cast, twisted it behind him, and used him as a shield as the others hurled chaos shards. The shards pinged off her like sparks off steel.
She threw the monk forward—hard enough to crater the ground.
Nash and Lira advanced behind her, ward-signs blazing.
The three of them crashed into the monks at the same instant.
Nash drove a sigil-baton into one monk's spine, collapsing his magic flow.
Lira slammed down a gravity seal that pinned another monk to the ground just long enough for the Engineer to disable him with a swift strike to the throat.
The final monk hissed, chaos flames licking up his arms—
The Engineer stepped in, sword humming dangerously.
"No, you don't."
She slashed upward—cutting the paradox knot before it could solidify.
The energy sputtered out with an ugly, static shriek.
Silence hit the street.
No more monks.
No more magic distortions.
Just three exhausted fighters breathing in sync with the aftershock hum of collapsing chaos.
Nash leaned on a lamppost, panting. "You fight like you're brand new and terrifying at the same time."
The Engineer rubbed the bruise forming on her ribs. "I'm figuring it out as I go."
Lira stared at her, honest awe on her face."That wasn't humanly possible. Even with magic."
The Engineer paused.
Just… tired.
Nash and Lira exchanged a look.
A respectful one.
Not fear. Not suspicion.
Just: Okay. She's in this with us.
The Engineer turned her holo-sword off, the blade collapsing into harmless light.
"Alright," she said, breathing steady again, "next chaos hotspot?"
Lira swallowed. "You want to just… keep going?"
"You want them spreading?" the Engineer shot back.
Nash lifted his sigil-reader, scanning the horizon.
"There's another flare two blocks east. Bigger one."
"Then that's where we're headed," the Engineer said.
And without waiting for anyone to argue, she walked—limp fading, posture straightening, determination burning steady—into the dark.
Ready for the next fight.
The three of them walked fast and quietly down the cracked London street, the air still humming with the aftershock of irrational magic collapsing in on itself. Streetlamps flickered overhead like they were nervous. Paper trash skittered across the asphalt, blown by a wind that didn't exist five minutes ago.
Nash kept glancing at the Engineer like she might suddenly glitch sideways again.
Lira stayed closer—half out of protection, half out of curiosity, she was trying pretty hard to hide.
The Engineer didn't say much.
She didn't joke.
She didn't ramble.
She didn't hum like she usually did.
She walked like someone whose mind was chewing through a dozen problems at once, none of them easy.
Her right hand rested over her Omni-Tool,
She finally broke the silence.
"Those monks… they weren't just monks that got corrupted."
Her voice was quiet but steady. "They were trained. Structured. Their moves someone taught them."
Lira nodded grimly. "Yeah. We call them The Laughing Acolytes. They used to be harmless mystics before something got to them."She hesitated."Something very old."
Nash added, "And very pissed off."
The Engineer slowed her pace. "Pissed off at who?"
Lira and Nash exchanged the kind of look that said We don't say this lightly.
"Time Lords," Lira said.
The Engineer's jaw tightened.
She didn't respond, but her shoulders squared like the word hit deep.
'So far, I see why the doctor dislikes being with them; most of the problems come from them killing or sealing things."
Nash cleared his throat. "Look, we know a bit about them, alright? Caillou."
He said the word like it tasted wrong.
"We know they're… something bigger. Ancient. Dangerous."
Lira added, "And you move like one. Not fully. Not yet. But close."
The Engineer's face didn't twitch, but her eyes glowed dimly for a heartbeat.
"I'm just trying to help," she said.
"Yeah," Nash muttered, "and that's what scares us when time lords act, they don't care about the damage they leave behind."
They reached the next intersection.
Lira inhaled sharply. "They're close."
Before they could take another step forward—
A chime echoed in the Engineer's skull.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[CHAOS FIELD IN RANGE.]
[DANGER LEVEL: SEVERE.]
She winced.
Not from fear—just annoyance.