Carnivac carefully followed the crowd of infected Automata from AutomaTown. At first, he kept to the trees, cloaked in his shadows, even though the sun had set long ago. The further they went, the less Carnivac felt the need to be sneaky. The crowd walked in total silence, in perfect sync, like puppets given a very simple set of instructions. No one looked to the left or right or bothered to watch their backs.

Eventually, Carnivac just walked along the road behind them, trailing them by a couple hundred meters. They narrowly avoided any of the towns after they left the forest, but Carnivac couldn’t tell if they purposefully avoided them or it was luck as they appeared to be traveling in an exact straight line.

The group passed through the mountains with Carnivac trailing them. Carnivac could hear the calls of various beasts in the distance but none of them came close. Presumably, they knew that there was no meal to be had here. At one point he saw something in the sky, that was little more than an inky shadow against the backdrop of stars, as it swooped low for a closer look before losing interest.

Through the night they traveled, stepping as one, like a single organism. A few hours shy of dawn they reached the outskirts of Trone. Unlike the last time that Carnivac had been through this way, he didn’t see any rundown Automata working the fields. It struck him as odd that they wouldn’t be worked through the night, but even overseers needed their rest, he supposed.

He caught a glimpse here and there of Automata that had worn out and collapsed where they stood. The bodies, themselves, would be of little use to me; degraded as they were; and Carnivac was unable to [store] any of the Soul Cores if any of them were still alive and trapped in those run down bodies. It pained him to leave them there but now wouldn’t be the time to check on them.

As they got closer to Trone, Carnivac could see a soft and warm glow in the distance. The kind of glow that was rarely a friendly one. The glow was partially blocked by the massive walls of the city, though its gigantic gate was open as hordes of people were screaming and rushing out of it.

The Automata villagers ignored the screaming people and passed through the gates unchallenged. Any guards that might have stood at the wall had abandoned their posts and the city was in a state of anarchy and turmoil. Some of the shops and homes along the main road were on fire while people could be seen being chased by dark shadows.

Carnivac raced past the villagers and into the mayhem to find The Factory’s Harvester bots chasing people. Several bodies were already scattered throughout the roadway with the tell-tale punctures through their backs that the Harvesters left behind when they extracted the souls of the people they murdered.

He [Blink]ed forward and sent the head of a Harvester flying before flinging a kunai at another, embedding the weapon into its face.

“Go! Go!” he screamed at the people cowering with fear, unable to move.

Carnivac took out three more of the Harvesters as people scrambled to escape. The last one left was forcing a goblin woman down onto her face and poised to finish her off when one of Carnivac’s blades sprouted from its chest. He flung the murderbot off of his wakizashi and pulled the woman onto her feet.

“You okay?,” he asked.

She nodded before looking up at him.

“Oh... I know you, don’t I?” she asked, confused.

“Do you?”

“Oy! Yeah! You was that wolfkin that came into the Guild office ta sell a buncha stuff a month or two ago, yeah? We don’ get a lotta new faces... though I coulda sworn your face was all scared up... maybe I’m remembering it wrong...”

“Must be. So what happened here? Looks like a war zone.”

“Yeah... I dunno really. I woke up to find the shop under my room on fire. I ran out and suddenly I’m getting attacked by those weird Autos.”

“Doesn’t this city boast having the latest Automata guards?”

“Yeah, now you mention it... I don’t see any Autos other than them stabby ones that are trying to kill everyone. What’s going on?”

Carnivac looked around and noticed that all of the Automata shops had been smashed into. Could it be that the infection was spread to those that were offline and waiting for purchase as well?

“Get out of the city, preferably somewhere without any Automata for now,” he warned.

“What about you?”

“I’m going to see if I can find any answers.”

Without prolonging the conversation, he vanished in a swirl of shadows and headed for The Factory. Carnivac headed straight for the main entrance, taking out any Automata that he saw along the way. Any that weren’t infected would be locked down by the control curse and little more than infected waiting to happen. It could be argued that taking them offline was a kindness to prevent them from becoming infected or to have to listen to the control curse. Or at least, that’s what Carnivac told himself.

Inside the building was mostly vacant. Carnivac dropped a few random Automata that he saw wandering around, without being seen; while any non-Automata were nowhere to be found. It was odd strolling through the hallways unhindered given he’d lost his first body on the last visit here. Instead of visiting the lower levels, Carnivac opted to try the upper ones.

Eventually, he found Jhiax’s personal suite. He didn’t hold out much hope, but maybe there might be a clue to what was going on with the Automata in the man’s personal study. He pushed open the heavy wooden doors to find a living room of sorts. There was an opulent fireplace with fur rugs, a massive dining table with old food that had started to attract flies, and clothes and personal items strewn about. Carnivac winced when he spotted the remains of two valkyries that had been on the receiving end of something horrific.

A clatter from an adjacent room drew his attention. Carefully, and quietly he crept towards the noise. The side room was presumably Jhaix’s study. It had a desk covered with papers and design sketches, a small work table with Carnivac’s previous head dismantled, and the back of a frustrated adventurer in a black cloak arguing with a steel safe.

“Ah, that takes me back. That old head design looks so amateurish when I look at it now,” Carnivac said, leaning against the door frame.

The adventurer spun around in surprise, dropping into a bare-knuckle fighting stance. His eyebrows shot up and he stepped back against the safe when he saw Carnivac.

“You?? You’re supposed to be dead!” he shouted, looking doubtfully at Carnivac’s old head on the work table. “Wait, that little Auto inside was the real one, right?”

“Good to see you Gree. Jhaix is dead so you’ve come for some severance pay?” Carnivac said lazily as he slowly pulled his wakizashi free.

“So, what of it?” Gree growled, not lowering his guard.

“Just you left? Where’s your party?”

“As if you didn’t know,” Gree spat. “I don’t know what that thing was that you brought last time but it killed them all. More pay for me though so I guess I should thank you. Still, I was surprised to see that monster mashed up like fish paste between the teeth of Jhaix’s dragon. Jhaix was kind enough to give me what was left when he was done with it. I keep its head hanging from a rope in the latrine so that I can--”

Carnivac didn’t let him finish and launched into an attack that split the desk in half. Gree rolled out of the way, narrowly dodging Carnivac’s backslash as it sliced through the steel door of the safe. Gree popped back up with an uppercut to Carnivac’s exposed side, targeting the kidneys but only hurt his hand against Carnivac’s magisteel body frame.

Carnivac punched the tip of his blade into Gree’s shoulder and spun around, pulling the human off his feet and out the door into the living room. Gree hit the floor, rolling and bouncing until he smashed into the heavy table. He chuckled as he pushed himself up onto his knees and grabbed at his bleeding shoulder.

Carnivac stalked out of the office, slowly, like a predator evaluating the best way to strike. A calm rage flowed through him, though the emotion felt borrowed. Gree’s brown, human eyes turned to slitted red ones as his body swelled and grew until his form morphed to become an orc.

“You’ll want to go bigger,” Carnivac advised.

He [Blink]ed to close the distance and smashed his fist into Gree’s chest, pushing all of the air out of him and lifting him up off of his knees and upturning the table. Gree coughed up blood but kept grinning and glaring at Carnivac. His bloody leer shifted again as his teeth became sharper. His chest had been partially crumpled, Carnivac knew that he had smashed Gree’s ribcage. As Gree shifted into another form, his body recovered.

Now as a troll, Gree picked up the heavy table and flung it at Carnivac. Carnivac tucked into a forward flip, bringing his heel down on the airborne table, sending an explosion of splinters throughout the room. Immediately behind the table was the troll sized fist. Gree’s punch was parried to the side but quickly opened up into a grapple, latching onto Carnivac’s arm.

He pulled Carnivac off of his feet and smashed him into the ceiling then again into the floor. The big hand clamped down on him, crushing down, as Gree moved in to mount Carnivac and pummel him with his free hand. Canivac’s sword blade punctured through Gree’s forearm at the wrist, dividing the parallel bones inside. Gree winced in pain but held firm.

Carnivac crunched up, putting his feet on the spine of his blade on both sides of Gree’s arm and shoved hard. The blade traveled up Gree’s arm, splitting it apart up the middle until it hit his elbow and Carnivac wrenched it free. Blood gushed from the wound bathing Carnivac while Gree screamed and recoiled. Gree yanked back his damaged arm but was too slow to avoid the blade from Carnivac’s, now released, arm. The fingertips of four of his fingers were sent flying but before they hit the ground, Carnivac was up and spinning into a sidekick that cracked Gree’s ribs and doubled him over.

Carnivac punched the blade of his wakizashi into Gree’s chest until its hilt thumped against the troll’s bloody chest. Gree chuckled again and grabbed Carnivac with his good arm, pulling the wolfkin in and smashing his forehead with a headbutt. Surprisingly, the force of the blow slightly distorted Carnivac’s HUD as something internal rattled.

Gree flung Carnivac into the wall and started shifting again, resetting any of the damage that had been done. His body took on the shape of an amazon, tall and powerful, with bright red skin, long silver hair tied in braids, long horns sprouting from her forehead with draconic wings and tail emerging from behind her.

“Like it?” Gree cooed. “I don’t even know what species this is, but it’s certainly interesting, right?”

As she spoke, she ran her hands seductively along her body while glaring maliciously at Carnivac.

Carnivac forgot everything about tactics, what skills he had, even what weapons he had. The swords dropped from his hands and he shot forward like a cannonball slamming into Gree. A primal growl escaped from his throat as his jaws involuntarily clamped down into the crook between Gree’s shoulder and neck. Blood sprayed into Carnivac’s mouth as her collar bone snapped like a dead twig. The contemptuous sneer on Gree gave way to abject terror.

The two tumbled through the set of doors at the far end of the suite onto a balcony, then over the railing. They landed in the courtyard that I had found myself during my escape last time. Carnivac ripped chunks out of Gree’s shoulder as he reared back to rain down punch after punch into the changeling’s face.

Gree kept attempting to shift into different things to keep up with the damage but Carnivac was relentless, slamming into Gree like a hydraulic hammer. Gree was little more than a ragdoll with a vague assemblage of bone-like things inside when Carnivac stood up. Still, the thing began shifting again in an attempt to find a new form, though much slower than before. Carnivac pulled it up off of the ground and hurled it into the tree at the center of the courtyard, cracking the bark of the tree.

The creature that hit the ground was vaguely humanoid without any discernible features. It’s skin was a sickly gray color and translucent, revealing veins and blood vessels below the surface. Its fingerless, blobby hand fumbled at a hip pouch and retrieved a pink crystal. It started chuckling again, though it sounded labored. It lifted the crystal and a mouth formed near the “hand” and started whispering to it.

Before it could complete the chant, its body tensed as a blade swished through it, splitting it up the middle then again from shoulder to hip. As the blade sliced through the creature, it made a sound like meat being pressed against a grill.

The creature fell apart in wet quarters and didn’t show any signs of recovering. An Automata stood behind the chunks, looking down at them with its head tilted in curiosity. Its arm blade glowed a dull orange as the moisture from Gree’s body sizzled on it rather than drip off. The Automata was decorated in purple and blue panel lighting, with a tall and athletic, if androgynous, looking build.

“So that was your true form Gree,” it said as a faceplate split apart to reveal a more human looking face.

It stepped over the chunks and looked up at Carnivac as if just noticing an interesting bug for the first time. Carnivac jolted in surprise to see the Prime 2 body not only walking around on its own, but apparently an acquaintance of Gree.

Prime 2 tilted their head again with that look of mild disinterest, casually retracting their blade and strolling closer to Carnivac. Carnivac pulled out two kunai and readied himself for another fight.

“Have we met before? You seem familiar somehow,” Prime 2 remarked.

The purple lights glowing on Prime 2’s right side seemed to be at war with the blue lights glowing on their left. The blue side pushed harder until both of their eyes glowed blue.

“You’re that wolf bot!” they exclaimed, pointing at Carnivac. “I remember dissecting your head and learning lots of new things! This must be the newest mod-- Aaauuughhh...”

Prime 2 clamped their hands to the side of their head and thrashed around in apparent pain.

“You’re Jhaix,” Carnivac said coldly. “How did you steal that body?”

Prime 2 shouted a roar and the purple side shoved the blue side all the way over until only the left hand had any blue lights on it.

“That fool Jhaix is DEAD!” they roared. “I am Dezarus! I will have my revenge for this humiliation!”

The blue shoved back until the mid point was reached again.

“I will crush that Empire full of lowly demons and monsters! The Holy Kingdom will kneel before me for what they’ve done!”

Around him, Automata with the indigo eyes of the infected appeared, scores of them. They silently walked like crude puppets in sync from all directions until Carnivac was surrounded by hundreds on all sides.