The wind howls in 11’s ears as she soars towards the ground.

The blur of trees below grows larger as her trajectory gradually drops, her wings unable to maintain flight, powerful as they are. Just as 11 is about to hit the treetops, the forest ends, and the ground is awash with the brown and grey of dirt. 11 twists her body so her feet are facing the ground, and her wings light up with fire. She lands, shaking the rocks and earth and throwing up clouds of dirt into the sky.

After the dust settles, 11 jumps out of the crater she has made, and pats off the dirt and debris sticking to her body. Jets of hot steam shoot from the bladed wings on her back as they cool, their humming like that of a quartet of string instruments.

System check complete.

Damage taken: 0%

“Hope you took notes, Mother,” 11 says triumphantly. She arcs her back to let her wings retract smoothly into her, the sensation more uncomfortable than she expects.

The mountain demon is just a few thousand meters now, the massive formation on its back clearly visible in all its glorious monstrosity. Even from this distance, the ground under 11’s feet quakes with each of the demon’s mighty steps. After checking that her sword is still strapped to her waist, 11 digs her heels into the dirt and takes off into a sprint, closing the distance between her and the demon in a few short minutes.

When she finds herself in the shadow of the colossus, 11 cannot help but be awed at its sheer size. The demon towers above the clouds, so high that even when 11 tilts her head up as far as she can, the top of the demon’s mountain is lost to her.

Each of the monster’s moss-covered legs is the thickness of an apartment block, and with each crashing step, the ground quakes and crumbles, like the earth is going to collapse under the stress of the creature’s unimaginable weight. Deliberately, purposefully, the behemoth moves, every step burdened with some great sense of importance as it leaves behind deep, wide holes in the ground from where it treads.

11 keeps pace behind it, staying to the side so she doesn’t fall into the demon’s footprints. Her sensors and processors work rapidly, calculating and analyzing.

Weapons hot, 11, Demonic Entity identified.

Damage Output Level 70.

Permission to kill granted.

“Seventy?" 11 frowns at hearing that number. "Are you sure that’s right?”

A D.O.L of 70 means the demon has the potential to bring harm to multiple human cities if left unchecked. But an entire moving mountain seems like it should be capable of a little more destruction than that.

11 considers spending more time to observe, but decides against it. At the time of creation, the Synapse-Mother-System had been light-years ahead of all the supercomputers on Earth combined. If the pinnacle of database technology says this D.E. is level 70, then there’s no need to waste time second-guessing.

11 stops running, plants her feet firmly onto the ground, and brings up her left arm.

“ARC Cannon, firing at 10% power.”

With a whirl of machinery, 11’s hand and forearm break open into a multitude of rapidly moving pieces, sliding and arranging themselves around a long, revolving barrel extending out from the limb. Swarms of blue particles swirl inside the barrel’s chamber as lightning crackles around the weapon. 11 concentrates, pinpointing one of the demon’s knees.

“Firing.”

A blinding blast of plasma energy erupts from her cannon, carving through the air like a bolt of lightning to strike straight through the demon’s knee. With a thunderous boom, the knee explodes into a thousand chunks of muscle and sinew. A deep, guttural groan bellows from within the gigantic monster as it kneels onto the ground with an earth-quaking crash, blocking out the sky with dust and earth. The stench of burnt flesh mixed with a strange earthy aroma fills the air.

11 takes the opening. She leaps onto the monster’s thick tail, sprints up it to the base of the mountain, and begins vaulting up the side with blinding speed, using trees and outcrops as springboards. She gets to the peak of the mountain, and using the momentum, jumps high into the air, finally seeing the vast stretch of dark, scaly skin of the demon’s neck looming out below her.

The demon, perhaps sensing its imminent doom, turns its massive head up at the tiny speck flying over its back. Its great round eyes are like oil spills in the light, dark and swimming with confusion, as if it cannot comprehend how something so small can force it to its knees.

11 draws her sword as she falls towards the demon’s head. The weapon sings as it arcs through the air, the nanobots within it blazing a trail of neon blue fire along the thin edge. After two thousand years of rest, the blade is finally awake, and it is hungry. Just before she is about to connect with the demon’s head, 11’s wings spring out from her back, blasting her downwards into a rapid spin. With her living blade by her side, 11 becomes a whirlwind of energy, gliding through the demon’s thick flesh in a blast of heat and light.

11 hits the ground and rolls to a stop. There is a moment of stillness as reality catches up to the impossible. Then, a sickening hissing sound, a tearing of sinews and skin, and the sky begins to rain with red. The monster’s head slides away from its neck and crashes down, staining the clouds in crimson.

When the chaos finally settles and the demon seems to have bled itself dry, 11 stands up straight and checks her handiwork.

The demon’s massive head, around the same width as a cargo ship, lies on the ground, cut clean from the neck. Wisps of black smoke rise from it as it already begins to decay into the ground. The mountain lies kneeling behind it, silent and dead.

“Target eliminated,” 11 says, swinging her sword to clear the blood off it. She sheathes it in one practiced motion, then lets out a big breath, feeling a tad disappointed. “I guess it really is just a level seventy. Mother, locate the nearest level one-hundred Demonic-”

Warning, 11, Demonic Entity identified.

Damage Output Level: 72.

Permission to Kill granted.

“What?” 11 feels her body stiffen. She whips around, scanning the trees, the rocks. “How can there be another-”

Flesh tears open, fresh blood bursts out from the sliced opened neck of the mountain demon, and two writhing heads erupt from the wound, smaller than the one they've replaced, and screeching loud enough to pierce a normal man’s eardrums.

“-demonic… oh, shoot.”

The shock of seeing this stuns 11 for just a moment, and in her hesitation another two heads burst out from the same wound, biting at the two already there as if demanding more room. Then one more pair emerges, their maws snapping as they rip themselves out from the torn flesh, until there is now a total of six slick, bloody heads taking the place of a single beheaded one. And then as if on cue, all six heads stop their bickering and turn to face 11 together.

11 stares at the mountain demon. Six sets of red eyes stare back at her. The heads speak in unison.

“Who dares challenge the almighty Gargoloth? Who is FOOLISH enough to face against the HARBINGER OF RUIN?”

“Um,” 11 looks around her, then points to herself. “I suppose I am.”

The demon’s laugh vibrates through the ground. The sound is haunting, as if the Earth itself is making it.

“You FOOL! Do you have a death wish? Do you know not who I am?”

11 inches her fingers towards her sword, but the heads of Gargoloth notice the movement.They strike, lashing out with alarming speed for something so large. The first head closes the distance in the slice of a second, its jaw wide open, fangs spraying with saliva.

But the God Gier is faster. A flash of steel, a deafening crash, and the head drops to the ground.

The other five heads follow, hissing and shrieking. 11’s blade paints the air bright blue as she dodges and cuts with inhuman speed and precision. Within moments all six heads lie severed on the ground, twitching and curling for a few sickening moments before stiffening into twisted positions.

11 digs her sword into the ground and stretches her arms. “Now this is more like it.”

The severed heads start to decay, marking the end of the demon. 11 looks down at the grass and dirt all around her, stained into a sea of red. She wipes a hand over her own blood-soaked body, feeling grateful that God Giers can’t puke.

Warning, 11, Demonic Entity identified.

Damage Output Level: 76.

Permission to Kill granted.

“Alright, demon.” 11 pulls her sword out of the ground and turns to face the headless, convulsing necks of Gargoloth. “Let's see just how many heads are stacked inside you.”

With another burst of gore, two smaller heads explode out from each of the necks, so now there are twelve, all hissing at 11. Neither demon nor android wastes any time. All twelve heads snap towards 11 as the God Gier charges forward to meet them.

Time slows as 11’s brain races to calculate the trajectory of each gaping jaw. She tightens her grip on her sword, already visualizing how to slice through each head as they come. But, just as the razor-sharp fangs close on 11 and she starts the forward momentum to deliver another slash at Mach speed, all at once it is gone, like someone has flicked to a different channel on the television by accident.

11 slashes at empty air. She blinks and looks at her hands, where there is no sword. She glances around, but the demon, the blood-soaked earth, is all gone, replaced by a crystal-clear lake, in which she stands in the middle. 11 looks down, and sees herself and the blue sky reflected back in the water. The image is so pristinely perfect that she cannot tell if she is standing in the lake, or upside down with her feet hanging in the clouds.

“Where… am I?”

Something moves, and 11 turns to see a girl standing a few steps away from her. The girl smiles, showing a dimple on each cheek. She has her hands clasped behind her, a red umbrella hanging off one thin elbow. The tips of her toes touch the surface of the water but do not break it, like a resting dragonfly.

11 immediately recognizes the girl's brown curls and heart-shaped face, but it is the first time she has seen her eyes. They are the darkest, richest color; like that of melted chocolate.

“I know… who you are.” 11 takes a step towards the girl. "You... You're..."

The girl tilts her head to the side, her smile fading as if she cannot understand what 11 is saying. She holds out one tiny hand, fingers outstretched for 11 to take. And 11 immediately starts forward, but a man suddenly appears in front of her, blocking her way. Dark eyes glare down from behind broken, bloodstained glasses. 11 remembers this man being the one who haunted her nightmare when she first woke up, but this time she can see him much more clearly. He wears the same creased suit jacket, but this time it is even dirtier, with many stains looking like they were made from more than just sweat. His hair has thinned in the middle and sides, and has been all but bleached with age and stress, but 11 can see that they were once the same shade of brown as the little girl’s. His eyes share the same hints of hazel too, but are not nearly as bright, and they flash with a deep shade of hatred as they bore into 11.

The revelation is as startling as it is surprising. “You’re the dad,” 11 says to him, trying to look past him. “The girl, I- I know her, I think. Then I know you. But… how? Who are you?”

The man lurches forward instead of answering, blood spurting from opened lips. 11 gasps and steps back, but her hand is stuck in something. She looks down to see her arm buried in the man’s chest. She screams, yanking hard, and the man screams louder as his heart is torn right out of him. He collapses onto 11, slides off her and into the water, breaking the reflections into a million pieces as he sinks below its surface.

11 stares at the hot, sputtering organ in her hand, her own chest silent and cold in comparison. She looks up, but the girl is gone, and in the spot where she stood, is her red umbrella, opened and floating on the surface of the reddening lake. 11 can feel the man’s heart continuing to stutter, staining her and everything around her as it reminds her with each painful, slowing thump, to

Never

Forget

What

You

Did

11 snaps back to reality, just in time to see the world disappear behind a set of blood-filled jaws as they close down on her head.