Dion stepped back. Frowned.

  "The greatest point of failure is here," he said, pointing to the junction where metal met wood.

  "The wood is taking the weight of the metal. It should have split by now. The grain is weak here," he traced along a fissure, "—and here. These cracks should be propagating. The metal should be pulling away."

  He paused and stared.

  "But it's not."

  His lens flared sapphire again. He looked closer. Using true sight should have dissolved the wall, yet it didn't.

  It was actively resisting.

  In fact, the cracks he'd marked moments ago. They were smaller now. Healing. Closing.

  It almost felt like it was alive. He shook his head.

  He couldn't believe his own train of thought.

  "This thing should have collapsed a long time ago." Dion's voice dropped. "It's holding still. No, it's fighting. Regenerating faster than it should. Faster than it can."

  He looked at the Alchemist.

  "What is this tree?"

  Dion's gaze found the alchemist, who somehow seemed more focused on what was beyond the wall.

  "Be ready," the Alchemist finally spoke.

  Huh?

  Dion's head tilted. He didn't understand.

  "In a few seconds, you're about to have some visitors."

  "Visitors? Me? How—"

  His thoughts tripped over themselves.

  Wasn't this his shed?

  Why was he the one about to have visitors?

  BOOM.

  It happened too fast.

  Dion's ears rang. His vision swarmed, cleared, swarmed again. When it settled—

  The wall. The same wall he'd just mapped. The one he'd traced with his lens, the one that should have collapsed long ago.

  It was eviscerated. Simply gone.

  But something was happening. Something unique. The fragments trembled. The edges reached for each other.

  It was trying to stitch itself back together.

  Dion's mind snapped back. They were under attack.

  He could hear something beyond the constant ringing

  "Perimeter breach!" a muffled voice shouted from outside.

  "The structure is resistant!”

  “Second volley on my mark!"

  He heard the distinct, chilling sound of multiple weapons being reloaded outside.

  Dion's pupils constricted.

  BOOM!

  Instinct took over. He threw himself to the floor, arms covering his head as deadly, beautiful fragments of the shed whistled through the air.

  He was lucky. The larger fragments missed him entirely.

  Unfortunately, the smaller ones did not.

  Tens of them littered his body. Buried in flesh. In muscle. In places he couldn't see but could feel each one, a white-hot needle driving deeper.

  The pain hit immediately. The kind that would have driven any mundane insane.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  Fuck.

  His tolerance was increasing. He knew this because he was still conscious, still breathing, still here, but his eyes reddened, vision swimming at the edges. He was on the verge of passing out.

  He couldn't.

  No. Something told him that if he did, it would be over.

  Not the pain.

  Him.

  The air filled with the smell of burning metal and pulverized stone. Yet through the chaos, one single point of unnerving stillness remained.

  Van Helmont.

  He remained perfectly calm, a statue in the storm of shattering crystal.

  The violence was mere background noise to him, an irrelevant distraction from his primary subject. Dion.

  He stood unmoved as a chunk of wall the size of a man's head smashed into the ground a foot from his robes and bounced away harmlessly.

  His hood was tilted, his hidden gaze observing his frantic dive for cover.

  An unfamiliar voice cut through the chaos, closer this time, sharp and authoritative from just beyond the wall.

  "We know you're in there, Theta! Surrender yourself, and you won't be harmed!"

  Dion's blood ran cold.

  Theta?

  What the fuck was Theta?

  The name meant nothing to him, but the intent behind it was clear.

  And like the alchemist said..They came for him, but how?

  The Scavengers, when he first landed on the shore. He'd let them live.

  It was a mistake.

  He had forgotten the rats.

  And the rats had led hounds right to his door.

  Through the dust and debris, they came. Grim armored forms surging through the breach.

  Enforcers with blunderbusses, the size of cannons raised, their cleavers at the side.

  Valerius stepped through last.

  His enhanced visor swept the chamber, sensors painting the space in light, heat, and structure. Mapping. Searching.

  There.

  He found the target.

  "Target confirmed. Physical markers match Factor's description: blond hair, amber eyes.”

  He took a step, and another. The dust and debris seemed to part ways.

  "Proce–”

  He halted in the next. His entire body went rigid with shock. His hand tightened on his weapon.

  The information, it was all wrong.

  There were two.

  If not for the fact that he was seeing it with his eyes, he would have thought he was deceived.

  "Second contact!" he barked, his voice tight.

  The briefing from the Factor had been unequivocal. One asset. Theta. A single, dangerous entity. Even the thermal scan showed the heat signature of one figure.

  Now, before him stood a second figure.

  A man draped in dusty grey robes that seemed to drink the light. His face was completely shadowed by a deep hood.

  He stood with an unnerving, preternatural stillness amidst the swirling dust and falling debris.

  He noticed something peculiar.

  The figure made no move to attack. No move to flee. His attention focused entirely on…

  Huh.

  Valerius's thoughts snapped back into focus. Years of drilled-in protocol override the shock.

  The asset was the priority. The unknown was a complication to be contained.

  He wasn't the target.

  "Unidentified hostile! Standby!"

  At his cue, the rest of the Enforcers finally noticed the figure.

  It felt like a veil being wiped away. He had been right there, yet they had missed him.

  Impossible. To well-trained Enforcers, it was unthinkable.

  The thought only made them more cautious. Their blunderbusses aimed directly at him.

  "You three! Contain him! The rest of you, on the asset! Now!"

  The Alchemist's head tilted a fraction as if observing a mildly interesting reaction beginning to bubble over.

  The squad split in an instant, no hesitation. They trusted their commander.

  Three Enforcers moved warily, surrounding the Alchemist, weapons held in a defensive posture.

  The rest advanced on.

  Panic seized Dion. His eyes darted from the advancing Enforcers to the unnervingly still Alchemist.

  A multitude of thoughts running at once.

  What were these things?

  His gaze caught on their armor, grey, seamless, beautiful in the way of things built to kill.

  For a split second, something almost like awe surfaced. The craftsmanship. The sheer presence of it.

  Then instinct screamed louder.

  Run. Run. RUN.

  But his body wouldn't move. The fragments still buried in his flesh screamed with him. Pain lanced through every thought, every impulse.

  He couldn't. Not like this. Not with—

  His mind circled back to the Alchemist. Still standing there. Still watching.

  Why wasn't he doing something?

  The Enforcers kept coming.

  Then, movement. Dion heard the familiar wobbled steps. His eyes lit up.

  P-7 stepped from the shadows.

  It looked at the Enforcers surrounding its master. It looked at Dion. Something resembling rage flickered in its eyes.

  Dion felt a flood of relief, then reality crashed back in. P-7 was already moving. Toward them. Toward the armored men with blunderbusses and cleavers. Toward certain death.

  His eyes dimmed.

  No. You stupid thing—

  It charged anyway. Like a puppet running toward thunder.

  The Enforcers' attention turned towards it.

  The first blunderbuss fired. Then all of them.

  P-7 shredded mid-air. Tatters of flesh rained down.

  Dion watched with eyes wide.

  It wasn't the first death he had witnessed. Varro. The scavenger. Now P-7.

  Yet somehow, this hit even worse.

  His chest did something strange. Tightened. It ached. He didn't have a name for it.

  Stupid,

  He told himself. It was just a thing. Just stitched-together parts. Not even real.

  But P-7 had brought him food when he couldn't move. Had led him through these halls. It looked at him, bleeding and charged anyway.

  The Enforcers finally reached Dion. Four of them, their intimidating structure looming over him.

  He looked up from where he lay bleeding, fragment-ridden, unable to move. Their armor blocked out everything else.

  One of them reached down. Grabbed him by the collar. Lifted him like he weighed nothing.

  Dion dangled there, feet off the ground, and found he didn't have the strength to even struggle.

  His eyes drifted past them, searching for the Alchemist. Not surprisingly, he was still there. Still watching. Still doing nothing.

  Dion's lips twitched. Almost a smile. Almost a laugh. It came out as neither.

  The Enforcer tightened its grip.

  "Target acquired. Moving to extraction.”

  The Enforcer turned, dragging Dion with him. The others fell into formation, weapons still raised, their eyes still scanning.

  Then one of them stopped.

  "Sir."

  Valerius glanced back. "What?"

  The particular Enforcer wasn't looking at him. Wasn't looking at Dion. Staring at the floor. At what was left of P-7.

  "The blood. It's moving."

  All of them froze.

  Dion twisted in the Enforcer's grip, following their gaze. The shreds of stitched flesh lay scattered across the stone.

  It flowed across the stone, against gravity, converging toward a single point. Then the muscle followed, strips of torn tissue sliding across the floor, knitting together. Bone fragments rolled and clicked into place. Veins wove through like red thread.

  Piece by piece, it assembled itself. Dion was barely hanging out, yet even he couldn't help but gasp.

  The thing that rose was not P-7.

  It stood taller. Broader. Its proportions shifted between shapes. Dion's mind couldn't settle on a man, then an ape, then something old.

  Primal.