I walked back down to the training room as I did every day—methodical, deliberate—because repetition bred predictability, and predictability was the armor plating over my vulnerabilities. The reinforced steel door hissed open under my biometric clearance, revealing a cavernous space lined with salvaged combat drones, their optics flickering awake in jagged red pulses.
It was the closest thing I really had to a hobby—this daily ritual of methodical violence, of refining brutality into something elegant. The drones whirred to life around me, their gunmetal frames catching the flickering overhead lights in jagged reflections. They were patched together from a dozen different models, scavenged from battlefields and reprogrammed with Doc's meticulous care—not to kill, but to challenge.
Because if I couldn't dance through their hail of rubber bullets and stun beams without flinching at the pain—I didn't dodge them for the first half to build resistance—then I didn't deserve the precision these trembling hands demanded when carving supply routes into bureaucrats' desks. The drones erupted in synchronized violence, their targeting algorithms adapting mid-salvo to compensate for my erratic speed—but adaptation meant hesitation, and hesitation was a luxury this world couldn't afford.
My claws raked across the nearest drone's chassis, sparks fountaining where metal met reinforced talons with a shriek that echoed off the rust-stained walls. Pain flared up my forearm—deliberate, calculated—as I let the next volley of rubber rounds pepper my side, each impact a lesson etched into muscle memory. The drones adapted, their targeting matrices whirring faster with each evasion, but adaptation was just patterned predictability in disguise.
I weaved through the drone swarm with calculated restraint, letting the sting of rubber bullets carve discipline into my ribs before retaliating—never at full speed, never with lethal force. This wasn't about winning; it was about control, about measuring every twitch of muscle and synapse until pain became just another variable to manipulate. The drones' servos whined as they recalibrated, their movements growing sharper with each pass, but their patterns were still predictable—still weak.
I let one clip my shoulder, the impact jolting through my spines like a dulled knife—good. Pain anchored me, kept the calculations sharp. The drones were learning, their evasion protocols tightening as they analyzed my tells, but they still telegraphed every maneuver with a fractional whir of overworked hydraulics. Pathetic.
I feigned exhaustion, letting my next dodge lag just enough to bait the lead unit into overextending—then hooked my claws under its thruster housing and wrenched. Metal screamed as the drone cartwheeled into its flanking partner, their tangled wreckage spewing acrid smoke. The remaining units adjusted instantly, fanning out in a staggered crescent to minimize collateral—clever, but still operating on Doc's rigid ethical constraints. A real enemy wouldn't hesitate to burn the room down around me.
My spines bristled as I rolled my shoulder, tasting copper where a stray round had split my lip. The drones' targeting lasers painted jagged constellations across my chest, their reticules tightening in perfect unison. Good. They'd learned to compensate for my speed by syncing their volleys—but synchronized fire meant synchronized reloads. I counted the milliseconds between their magazine clicks and struck during that fractional blind spot, my claws shearing through optic lenses with surgical precision. Sparks erupted like dying fireflies as the disabled drones crashed to the matting.
The last drone hit the floor with a hollow clang, its optics flickering erratically before dimming into silence. I flexed my claws, watching blood—mine, mostly—drip onto the reinforced matting in slow, deliberate splatters. The pain was a welcome anchor, a reminder that for all my strategic precision, I still bled like anything else. The scent of ozone and scorched metal clung to my fur, thick enough to taste—Doc would bitch about the cleanup later, but the way his shoulders relaxed whenever he saw me exhaust my aggression here instead of in a council chamber made it worth the lecture.
Thinking about now right now, I might be a bit of a Masochist now—maybe—I'd never thought about it before, but the way I crave the sting of rubber bullets embedding themselves into my flesh, the way I relish the ache of bruised ribs and split lips—it's not just discipline. It's something darker, something hungrier. I flex my claws, watching fresh blood bead along the grooves where metal meets keratin. The drones lie in twisted heaps around me, their optics flickering like dying fireflies.
What was this body and world doing to me?
One of them twitches, a final spasm of hydraulic life, and I crush its core under my heel with a wet crunch that reverberates up my spine. The sound is satisfying in a way that has nothing to do with victory—more like snapping the neck of a particularly persistent cockroach. My respirations come slow, measured, each exhale fogging the air in front of me as I catalog the damage around me that I needed to clean it up.
Doc's gonna be pissed about the maintenance costs again.
The thought alone saddened me—Doc deserved better than scavenged parts and jury-rigged repairs, his brilliance constrained by wartime scarcity. I knelt beside the wreckage, claws tracing the jagged fissures along a drone's shattered chassis. Each fracture mapped my failures—not in combat, but in stewardship. Mobius deserved more than a strategist who bled on training mats while its infrastructure crumbled; Doc deserved a world where his genius wasn't wasted patching my violent indulgences.
My journal's pages would fill with schematics and slaughter-blueprints soon enough, but for now, I let the ink dry on this room, before I get the cleaning supplies...
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His flippers adjusted the sled's cargo netting with mechanical precision once again, calculating weight distribution and concealed detonator triggers while his gaze remained locked on the rookie's trembling fingers. The boy's pulse visibly throbbed in his throat—a frantic drumbeat of survival instinct—as Boomer's shadow seeped into the frozen ground beneath them, its edges dissolving the checkpoint's feeble authority like acid on rust.
He was nearly to Maxxopolis' far southern city limits—the sled scraping ragged lines through slush-stained asphalt—when he smelled it: scorched fur, synthetic lubricant, the burnt-sugar reek of overloaded power cells. His flippers tightened around the harness straps, tendons standing rigid beneath his skin like steel cables. The rookie whimpered, and Boomer didn't need infrared to trace the hot trails of urine soaking the boy's uniform—his nose wrinkled at the ammonia stench mingling with snowmelt and gun oil.
Ahead, the checkpoint's floodlights flickered erratically, casting jagged shadows that slithered across the snow like living things. Boomer exhaled slowly, watching his breath curl into the frigid air—not a cloud of vapor, but a calculated signal. The rookie's rifle barrel trembled against his shoulder strap, its muzzle tracing erratic figure-eights in the air—amateurish, undisciplined, *predictable*. Boomer's flipper twitched toward the concealed plasma cutter strapped beneath his parka, its grip worn smooth from years of silent deployments.
He wouldn't need it tonight hopefully. Fear had already done his job for him—the rookie's knees knocked together audibly, his thermal readings spiking erratic crimson across Boomer's HUD—but protocol demanded escalation. He let his flippers drift higher, slow and deliberate, until his parka's zipper pulled taut over the hidden weapon's outline. The rookie's breath hitched—good. Uncertainty was sharper than any blade.
Somewhere in the frosted pines flanking the checkpoint, a snapped twig sent crows scattering—Boomer didn't flinch, but his pupils contracted to pinpricks, scanning infrared signatures through the tree line. Just mobini. Just wind. Just ghosts. He exhaled through his nostrils—slow, controlled—as his flipper twitched toward the sled's cargo netting again, adjusting nothing. The rookie's breathing rasped like sandpaper against his eardrums, each uneven gasp telegraphing panic Boomer could weaponize if needed.
His voice, when it came, was glacier-smooth—each syllable precisely weighted to imply consequences without explicit threat: "Y'ever seen what frostbite does to flippers, kid?" The air between them thickened with the unspoken follow-up—*You will.* The rookie's Adam's apple bobbed; Boomer noted the exact number of rapid blinks before tears froze on his lashes. Good. Fear was leverage. Compassion was currency. And Boomer? He'd long since mastered both on his journey.
Behind them, the sled's cargo shifted with a muffled clink—medical supplies according to the manifest, though the lead-lined compartments beneath the gauze whispered otherwise. Boomer didn't turn his head, letting the rookie's peripheral vision catch the movement instead. He watched the boy's pupils dilate with dawning horror—understanding that crossing the border with unauthorized pharmaceuticals meant execution, but smuggling weapons for Maxxopolis' underground meant annihilation of everything and everyone you knew.
The flinch in his trigger finger told Boomer everything: this one had family in the quarantine zones—a sister with hacked medical records, maybe, or parents clinging to rationed respirators. The boy wasn't trembling from fear of death; he was calculating the worth of his own pulse against someone else's. Boomer's exhale fogged the air between them in a slow, theatrical plume, his flipper drifting toward the sled's cargo netting with deliberate lethargy.
Every tendon in the rookie's body coiled tight as rusted springs when Boomer's flipper finally settled atop the cargo netting—not gripping, not tearing, just *resting* there with the quiet menace of a detonator countdown. The boy's nostrils flared at the scent of his own fear-sweat soaking into his collar, his rifle's stock squeaking against his shoulder from how hard he was shaking. Boomer exhale through his nose—slow, theatrical—letting the vapor curl between them like a specter before speaking in that same glacial drawl: "Relax, tiny. Ain't my style to waste good leverage."
His flipper patted the rookie's shoulder again before continuing, "But if you tell anybody I was here, you and your family or whatever you have that made you sign up to the Acorn Authority Enforcers won't just disappear—you'll *wish* you did. You'll beg for it." The boy's breath hitched—good. Boomer didn't need threats when oblivion could be implied through a single, lingering finger-tap against the cargo netting where the plasma cutter's outline pressed against the fabric. Fear was currency; terror was collateral.
The sled creaked as he adjusted his weight, deliberately shifting his bulk to make the rookie's knees buckle further. The stench of burnt circuitry and wet snow clung to his parka—proof of earlier detours through abandoned munitions depots—but beneath it, something fouler lingered: the metallic bite of blood soaked into fabric. Not his. Never his.
Boomer exhaled through his nostrils again, watching the rookie's pupils dilate as he caught the scent of scorched metal and ionized plasma clinging to his parka—unmistakable remnants of a sector patrol's last stand. He let the silence stretch until it pressed against the boy's eardrums like ocean depths, then tapped one claw against the sled's lead-lined compartment with deliberate laziness. The sound was barely audible over the wind, but the way the rookie's breath hitched told him everything—this one had heard rumors about what traveled in lead-lined boxes these days.
The wind howled through the checkpoint's skeletal guard towers, carrying with it the tinny crackle of a distant comms unit begging for reinforcements that wouldn't arrive. Boomer's flipper drifted to the rookie's rifle strap, not grabbing, just resting there like a promise as he leaned in close enough to count the capillaries bursting in the boy's eyes. "Tell me," he murmured, voice softer than snowfall but colder than the void between stars, "you ever seen what happens when someone forgets their place?"
The rookie's throat worked soundlessly—good. Fear was the only language this world respected anymore, at least his father had bothered to teach him that much before he killed him.
Boomer watched the rookie's pupils dilate further—those dark pools swallowing what little light remained in his terror-stricken eyes—before he finally withdrew his flipper with deliberate slowness. The sled's cargo netting whispered secrets as he adjusted it for the thirteenth time, his movements precise enough to calibrate artillery fire. "Run along now, hatchling," he rumbled, the warmth in his voice as counterfeit as Maxxopolis' peace treaties.
"Tell your sergeant the frost got to the hydraulics again. And maybe..." His claw tapped the rookie's badge, "None of this actually ever happened." The boy's ears flattened—still too slow to hide the relief—but Boomer's flipper twitched toward the sled before he could exhale fully. "Unless you want it to." The rookie bolted, boots skidding on ice-slick pavement as Boomer's laughter rumbled behind him like distant mortar fire. City kids these days—so eager to live.
The sled's cargo shifted again, a liquid sloshing against reinforced containment that made his flippers twitch toward the hidden plasma cutter—not in alarm, but anticipation. Boomer exhaled through his nostrils, slow as glacier melt, savoring the rookie's fading terror-scent mingling with pine resin and diesel fumes. The checkpoint's floodlights buzzed overhead like dying insects, their flickering glow painting his shadow across the sled's tarp in jagged, hungry strokes.
He knew more or less exactly what lurked beneath that canvas: not just smuggled weapons or black-market meds, but something far worse—something that whispered promises of vengeance in his dreams, something that smelled like scorched fur and betrayal distilled into liquid form.
Boomer's claws twitched against the sled's harness straps, tendons standing rigid beneath his fur like steel cables under tension, each breath fogging the air in front of him as he contemplated the irony of becoming the very monster he'd been reborn to destroy. The wind howled through the checkpoint's skeletal remains, carrying with it the ghostly echoes of laughter—not his own, but *hers*, her voice still clinging to the edges of his sanity like tar.
His mother would've called it poetic, if mom were still capable of speaking in anything these days—the way Boomer's once pristine flippers now bore the same rust colored stains as the Overlander weapons he'd repurposed, the way his laughter had taken on the same hollow timbre as the machines he'd dismantled with surgical malice.
He flexed his claws, watching ice crystals form along the serrated edges where hydraulic fluid and blood had frozen together—beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with aesthetics and everything to do with function. The sled's harness groaned as he shifted his weight forward, his breath curling into the frigid air like smoke from a dying furnace.
A few hours after entering the city, staying out of those types of people's ways, and heading northward still—Boomer finally slowed his sled's momentum with a precise flick of his wrist against the emergency brake, the hydraulic hiss cutting through the silence like a scalpel through flesh. The scent of ozone and burnt circuitry clung to his fur—familiar as his own reflection—but beneath it, something fouler lingered: the metallic tang of fear-sweat from the checkpoint rookie, still fresh enough to make his nostrils flare.
He exhaled sharply, watching his breath curl into the frigid air like a specter, claws flexing against the sled's harness straps—not out of tension, but habit, the same way an assassin checks their knives before sleep. The checkpoint rookie's scent still clung to his fur, sour with fear and the acrid tang of piss, but beneath it lingered something more useful: desperation. Boomer cataloged it absently, filing the boy's trembling resolve alongside a hundred others in his mind. Weakness was currency in Maxxopolis, and he'd long since stopped questioning why he kept collecting it.
He made his way down another alleyway, this time with a yellow Mobian rabbit about his age...
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The sergeant had swallowed—she had watched his throat bob—and she grinned wider, letting her eyes flicker almost like a faulty neon sign. "No?" She had drawled, claws flexing with a series of hydraulic hisses that sounded suspiciously like laughter. "Well, sugah, let me 'educate' ya." She had leaned in until her respirator brushed his cheek, her voice dropping an octave or two.
And so the education' had begun.
With a motion too fluid to be entirely organic—her half-servos humming faintly beneath synthetic and real fur—she'd seized the sergeant's wrist, twisting just enough to make tendons scream without snapping. The scent of scorched coffee and stale ration bars clung to his uniform as she leaned closer, her voice syrup thick with counterfeit sweetness: "See, sugarplum, protocol's got its uses... if you're fixin' to die bored." Her free claw tapped his badge—once, twice—each impact precisely calibrated to sound like a coffin nail.
The sergeant's pupils dilated on cue, sweat beading along his muzzle as she exhaled into his ear—warm breath fogging the frozen air between them in a parody of intimacy. "But me?" Her hydraulic whine escalated to a predator's purr as she rotated his wrist further, watching his fingers spasm around the useless sidearm. "I specialize in *memorable* compliance."
His pulse jumped beneath her claws like a trapped rabbit—she could almost taste the adrenaline souring his bloodstream. Buns let her grip slacken just enough for hope to flicker in his eyes before slamming his wrist against the checkpoint barrier with a wet crunch. The sergeant's scream dissolved into choked whimpers as she leaned in, her voice honeyed arsenic: "Now, darlin', why don't you show me whatcha got hidin' in them pretty guard towers?"
The scent of urine joined the metallic tang of broken capillaries—good. Fear made men stupid, and stupid men left backdoors unlatched for her. His fingers twitched toward the emergency alarm, so she let her free claw drift lower, slow as molasses in winter, until her plasma scalpel hummed to life against his femoral artery. The sergeant froze mid-gasp, his breath crystallizing in the air between them like suspended time.
Buns tilted her head, letting the floodlights catch the scars beneath her synthetic fur—each one a ledger entry from Maxxopolis' finest. The sergeant's breath hitched as she pressed the plasma scalpel deeper, its glow reflecting in his dilated pupils like a sunrise over a slaughterhouse. "Now sugah," she murmured, her drawl dripping with mock sympathy, "let's not make this messier'n a back-alley autopsy."
Somewhere in the city's steel guts, Sector 7 alarms warbled—too late, always too late. She inhaled deeply, savoring the sergeant's sweat, the ozone from overloaded power grids, the beetroot stew simmering in some desperate soul's pot. It smelled like home, if home was a lie she'd carved into reality with forced on experimental tech and borrowed time. Her free claw tapped his comms unit, sending static crackling through the checkpoint like a death rattle.
The sergeant's lips moved—prayers or pleas, she didn't care—but Buns silenced him with a hydraulic-assisted shush against his throat. "Hush now, darlin'. Ain't no use beggin' when the reaper's already at the door." Her plasma scalpel traced lazy circles over his uniform's insignia, peeling fabric from flesh like sunburnt skin. Somewhere beyond the floodlights, boots scrambled on icy pavement, but she knew they'd freeze at the first glimpse of her work—she'd trained them well.
Her ears twitched at the distant whine of overwound servos—reinforcements, maybe, or just another patrol too hopped-up on stims to recognize a death sentence when it purred in their face. Buns exhaled through her nostrils, watching the sergeant's breath fog faster and faster between them like a steam engine about to burst. "Tell me," she whispered, her voice all honey and rusted nails, "you ever hear what they did to Sector 5's gate crew?" His pupils swallowed the last of his bravery whole.
The plasma scalper's hum climbed another octave as she dragged it upward in a leisurely arc, slicing through uniform fibers and the lies they stitched together. Somewhere beneath the synthetic leather and Kevlar, his heartbeat stuttered against her claws—thready, frantic—and she grinned wider, letting her own pulse sync with it in a mockery of intimacy. Beetroot stew and ionized blood flavored the air between them as she leaned close enough to count each capillary bursting in his eyes.
Boots skidded on frost behind her—close enough to smell their fear now—but Buns didn't turn. She just pressed the scalpel deeper, watching the sergeant's lips shape silent pleas that tasted like victory. The floodlights flickered overhead, painting her shadow across his face in jagged stripes, and for a glorious moment, she was everywhere: in his dilated pupils, in the reek of his piss-soaked uniform, in the way his fingers twitched toward a God that left this city years ago.
Reinforcements froze when they saw her work—half-melted badges still smoking on the pavement, the sergeant's uniform peeled open like a canned ration, her claws buried in the warm meat of his compliance. Buns finally turned her head, slow as a landmine's sigh, and winked at the rookies with her good eye. "Y'all brought snacks?" she drawled, licking the sergeant's terror off her teeth. "This one's 'bout done."
Safe to say at least one of them shot at her, and she ran.
She soon ducked into an alleyway, inner half servos whining from the exertion—her hydraulic fluid smelled like burnt cinnamon where it leaked from the bullet graze along her thigh. The rookies' panicked gunfire had gone wide, chewing up concrete and signage in erratic bursts that told her everything: untrained, terrified, *expendable*. Buns exhaled through her nostrils, watching her breath curl around the plasma scalpel still humming in her grip. It cast jagged shadows across the alley walls, each one a testament to how thoroughly she'd rewritten the sergeant's understanding of pain.
She looked up, and there was a big fat purple walrus Mobian about her age...