What comes after terror is gone, when exhaustion and injury take hold, leaving no choice but to bear witness to the monstrous and the profane?

The Eidolon and the hounds faced one another. Bee took one hesitant step back, her foot barely finding purchase on the next step. The newly arrived warrior pressed a hand back, encouraging the young one to retreat further and further. She turned the sword in her hand this way and that, for its threat fixed the snarling beasts’ gaze. Then, the Eidolon outstretched her left arm, casting her cloak to shield Bee. She, in turn, looked up at her protector, wide-eyed. Never had anyone stood like that before her, gracefully and confidently guarding her.

Holding her head high, the Eidolon watched as the monsters below stalked amidst the dead and dying. They crept slowly and methodically whilst their adversary watched, looking for an opening. The cloaked figure’s stance betrayed a mastery. The hounds did not. Even Bee could see that.

The gaunt hound lunged for the hooded figure. Bee gasped and fell back onto the stairs, her back, wings, and elbows hitting the steps sorely. The Eidolon stood firm and pointed her star metal blade towards the monster. Claws rending the ground, the gaunt hound faltered and shrank back when she didn’t panic. Then, snarling, it dared not enter her reach with the blade’s tip directed towards its head.

Whilst the monsters hissed and bayed, the Eidolon’s stance remained unchanged. The gaunt monster’s claws scraped the stone, and its growls grew louder as it backed away. The trio of beasts gathered, ready, waiting, and hungry.

Dropping her arm and cloak, the Eidolon looked back at Bee with her dozen yellow eyes. Bee didn’t meet that look, though. Instead, aghast, she looked around the cover to see the carnage. Her fear was confirmed. Her eyes immediately locked onto that hound with the biocannon who tore apart all those soldiers, and she couldn’t look away. The weapon bulged hideously, cartilage and jointed chambers flexing as they reloaded. The Eidolon did another silent double-take, trying not to break her vigil over the creeping Hounds, but she struggled to get the young vat-born’s attention. Finally, stepping back, the Eidolon squeezed Bee’s shoulder.

Their eyes met for an anxious heartbeat before the Eidolon looked ahead, gesturing towards a nearby junction. Bee couldn’t help herself and ran, lurching over the groaning, fell dead, and over the rubble dislodged from the ceiling by cannon fire. At the threshold, she glanced back, her chest burning with fear and her heart pounding. Ensuring she got there safely, the cloaked figure looked back a final time, head-turning. The hounds, waiting for the opportunity, acted.

Two lashing tongues snatched out of the dark and ensnared her wrist. The hooded warrior struggled and pulled, trying to wrest back control of her sword arm. The other two beasts charged.

Bee lingered, seeing her protector’s body surge with strength, augmented muscles growing taut. Then, suddenly, the Eidolon pulled her arm back with enough force to bring the hound that restrained her tumbling forward.

The hooded figure then turned, dancing out of the path of one of the hound’s claws. The blade in the Eidolon’s hand sparked as it scraped over the monster’s black skin, testing and finding no cutting purchase. Then, feet slipping softly over the surface of the stairs, she glided behind the beast and delivered a kick against the reverse of its knee hard enough to clap mist out of the humid air. The cannon-wielding hound yelped as its injured leg failed, and a bone broke loose, falling.

The Eidolon took a firm grip of its biocannon and aimed it up at the ceiling, where it could do no harm. However, the gaunt hound rose behind her, a terrible claw brought to bear.

Unable to watch what might happen next, Bee closed her eyes and fled. Staggering into new depths, she hurried through narrow halls, some assembled and others twisting, grown. Determined not to fall still, the young vat-born pushed on as her legs ached and her feet became raw. Sometimes the passages became narrow, and she squeezed and crawled through. She had to guess a direction when the path branched, having become lost long ago. In her hurry, she pierced the darkness with her augmented eyes. Bulging pneumatic machinery and corded muscle works threatened to crush her as she refused to be turned back by the changing bioscape, and Bee clambered around them when they filled what open space remained.

This was no place to live. Instead, it was a labyrinth in three dimensions. Whatever idea of structure the City emulated was long ago forgotten or wholly misunderstood. Roads ringed pits. Junctions existed to feed junctions. Machines worked to break machines and rebuild them. Pipeworks looped through their processing organs only to filter through the filth and return, accomplishing nothing. The structure didn’t make sense to Bee, and as she moved from chamber to chamber, its layout was quickly forgotten, left to the madness that created it.

Eventually, though, Bee had to slow, her legs trembling, fighting with the sheer exhaustion of her body and a voracious thirst. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps as she looked around. Then, in her distraction, she barged into a short, fat little creature, which fell over in a panic.

Bee struggled for what to say as she heaved breath in through her siphons.

“Oh... Um...”

The little thing shrieked and wiggled its stubby legs in the air helplessly. It reminded Bee of her little sisters, but bigger and blind. Carefully, Bee reached out to tip it back upright with her good arm.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...”

The creature burbled its confusion.

“You have to hide. Okay?” Bee quickly explained. “There’s hounds!”

It spat a fearful scent and chirped again.

“Hounds! Can you hear me?” Bee pointed down the tunnel before realising it had no eyes. “They’re coming!”

The squat thing began to crawl up a nearby wall, simultaneously desperate in fear and agonisingly slow to watch. Bee watched, as well, until it vanished safely into an alcove high and out of sight. Then, sighing, the young vat-born realised she could never make it up there herself.

“Stay hidden, okay?” She called up.

There was no response. Head shaking, chastising herself for caring so much, Bee turned and continued her escape. Soon though, past one corner, then two, the softest light began to breach these oppressive depths. So Bee chased that new dawn, gasping in her hurry.

Suddenly, there was a vast chasm in the City. Bee stumbled and slid to its edge, feet finding purchase on its uneven, shelled floor. The far side was breached by countless portals, and she couldn’t see what lay on either side of her as the tunnel she stood within projected out just a little further than her footing allowed.

Squinting up to the light, the chasm was crested by a translucent crystal dome. It might have been brilliant once, but now it was stained with acrid oils and tarnished by ash and sand.

A deep roar and Bee jumped when a train car flashed across the span, moving with furious speed. Leaning, she made out rails and other mechanical cables crossing the divide, here and there, but nothing connected her own passage to the far side.

Bee eyed the gap again. It was ten metres, maybe a shade less. She felt the bioengines in her back twitch and fire.

The sound of hurried footsteps brought the vat-born’s attention back, and she turned to see the hooded figure run out into the light. She flinched, pale skin and bone sensitive to this dimmed and clouded light, even beneath her motley cloak. A weeping injury marred both her arm and leg, and the sharp sword bounced in her tight grip.

Pausing, sizing up the faceless woman that defended her but who also implicitly threatened to capture her, Bee narrowed her eyes. A gust of wind swept Bee’s hair back and tugged at the Eidolon’s hood, making the silent warrior retreat a single step.

Giving only a soft shake of her head, Bee turned and leapt out. Her heart, too, jumped into her throat, and she screamed with fright. But instinct is powerful, and those bioengines surged and then hummed. The wings, useless weight for so long, flicked, turned, brought themselves down in a powerful stroke, and then began to fight the air.

Arms and legs kicking, Bee gasped in a deep breath through her throat and her siphons. She was moving - not falling - faster and faster. Now a giddy thrill came over her as her feet felt no footing, and the vat-born reached her hand out towards the far platform. She managed to stay level and fought a slight roll to the left, straining harder and harder in her first flight. It was so close now, yet so far.

Wings abuzz, Bee finally scrambled onto the far side, managing to land on her feet. But the excitement made her knees weak, and she fell down, laughing with sheer and unexpected delight.

When she found her feet again, Bee turned to see the hooded figure swaddled beneath her cloak, standing at the very edge. She was now the one looking down and around, judging the gap and looking for a crossing.

Bee caught her dozen eyes, lifted her chin, and grinned.

“Can’t do that, can you?” Bee shouted across the divide, howling wind threatening to snatch the words from the air.

The silent figure took a determined step back, then another and another. Bee’s eyes widened, moving back from the edge herself when she realised what the warrior had decided.

The Eidolon readied herself, leaning forward and stooping into an athletic crouch. Muscles tensed beneath skin and bone plates, and she looked up to meet Bee’s eyes. Again, they stared at each other. However, this time, from the new thrill that ran through her body, Bee wasn’t sure whether she was trying to keep her away or daring her to make the crossing.

Breaking into a sprint, then a leap, the Eidolon’s augmented legs rocketed her into a high arc. Bee watched, eyes wide and jaw dropped. It was then, though, that she saw the Eidolon fall short.

Despite her tremendous strength, the wound in her leg had weakened the silent warrior, and she crashed into the ledge, scrambling and kicking bare hands and feet at the last possible moment. One hand found the oily shell at the edge and gripped hard, barely managing to hang on.

As Bee watched, the Eidolon slipped a millimetre, then another. She hesitated. She decided.

Darting forward, Bee dropped to a knee and thrust down her remaining hand to take hold of the Eidolon’s wrist. She pulled, but the warrior weighed too much. Grunting, trying to lift with her single good arm, achieved nothing.

The silent warrior looked up from beneath her hood. In her other hand, dangling aside, was her blade. It shook in her fist before she released it and let it fall, surrendering the sword to the far depths below.

Bee’s eyes widened again as water vapour rose from the Eidolon’s pale skin, burning where even the dim light caught it unshielded. Then, releasing a pained breath, the silent warrior raised her other arm, and Bee offered her amputated wrist. They locked hand to elbow, and Bee struggled to lift with her arms, legs, and humming wings, and with all her desperate might, she managed to pull the Eidolon high enough to reach her arms over the ledge to find purchase on the curved shell plating the ground.

As the Eidolon took hold of the ledge for itself, Bee tugged at her shoulder instead, and the exhausted and injured warrior managed to kick up a leg, hook it over, and then roll to safety. She lay there, and Bee carefully grabbed her cloak and made sure it was tossed over her body again, then watched as the silent warrior crawled to the shadow of their new alcove and the tunnel beyond.

“Told you so,” the Bee said under her breath, glancing back one final time to the chasm and its crystal dome before returning to the darkness of the City.