‘…And that was when I saw a young man in the void staring up at it with ravenous hunger. Somehow his hunger shielded him from the transformative effects. And that’s when I realized that we had to change our way of thinking, embrace an insanity more potent than that of The Tide, in order to shield ourselves from its depravations. In order to preserve humanity, we must cast aside these weak meat-suits and preserve our minds in robots, because without such measures, we are doomed. Enlightenment is death, and only a monster can gaze upon The Tide with hunger in his heart….oh. You’re all dead. Um…was it the part where I described The Tide?’

Professor Replica’s speech to the remaining world leaders of the U.N., November 20th, 1972, Lethal information redacted.

*****

The tension hung there for the space of a breath, before Perry spotted the glittering light of thousands of booster jets below them. Replicators were flying to meet them.

“We leave now?” Perry said, glancing at Nat. Natalie silently pointed up at the ceiling, where the glimmer of thousands of booster jets winked above them like stars.

They were penned in from above and below.

“Well, time for plan D,” Perry muttered, yanking open the inner access panel to Boomer’s storage and retrieving his demon-summoning rocket-launcher. Time to use this thing for what it was meant for.

There were two shots left, since Perry had already dismantled the Greater Bureaucracy demon summoning cannister.

Which left Perry with the Greater Corruption demon and the Greater War Demon.

Let’s see, the War demon has wings, so…

“Crack the cockpit for a moment would you please?” Perry asked, climbing up on Hardcase’s command console to get closer to the edge of the cockpit.

The moment it was open wide enough to allow Perry through, he leapt out into a blistering hail of gunfire from above and below.

Perry aimed upward and pulled the trigger.

FWOOSH!

The cannister shot out of the launcher at high speeds, spinning in place as its protective outer coating flew away. cast iron chains flung out in a spring-loaded pentagram with magnesium torches acting as candles while a single chip of Realm-Piercing Crystal spun in the center, literally unzipping reality as it went.

The spinning magnesium candles drew a quintuple helix through the air, leaving behind a strip of untethered reality. A moment later, a six-story tall woman stepped through, parting reality like a curtain. She was wearing crude heavy armor and wielding a flaming blade the size of a billboard.

The hint Perry had at the ‘she’ assumption was a delicate jaw and full crimson lips the size of a minivan. Everything else was covered in pitted steel.

“Where is my contractor? Where Is Paradox Zauberer?” She boomed, louder than the surrounding gunfire.

“Right here!” Perry said, flying up to eye-level with the titan.

“What amusement do you offer me?” She asked.

“A hopeless battle against a tide of living machines!” Perry shouted back to be heard, motioning to the Replicators on all sides.

The giant woman seemed to consider for a moment before smiling.

“A novel task. Perhaps I will finally meet my end. I accept.”

Of course War demons are battle junkies, Perry thought as Slak’vreth Deathseeker deployed wings bigger than football fields and launched herself up to meet the wave of Replicators, scattering them like bowling pins as she passed through.

Now for the ones below.

Perry manually cocked the next round and shot downward.

“Paradox Zauberer!” Ex’bergazzat shouted as he leapt out of the portal, his full emaciated body body manifested in midair. Last time was botched because the cannister was deployed so close to the ground. This time, the spell had managed to unzip enough of reality to allow the entire Greater Corruption Demon to step through.

And he was BIG. The ten-foot robots swarming around him looked like dragonflies harassing a naked, emaciated old man. The power of his aura seemed to be increased as well, turning nearby robots into lumps of rust in seconds.

Perry followed the demon through the cloud of tumbling rusted-out robots, until the giant landed on the ground. Perry hovered beside the demon’s face as the corruption AOE tried and failed to disable his suit.

“Wait!” Perry shouted as the demon reached for him. “Don’t you want to hear what I have to offer you!?” Perry asked.

“I swore bloody vengeance on you, Paradox Zauberer, what could you possibly offer me that would change my mind?”

Perry aimed the underbarrel dart launcher at Ex’bergazzat.

“Your dignity,” Perry said.

The giant demon glanced between Perry and the weapon in his hands, seemingly weighing his options.

“…every newly release top one hundred billboard song of this year, on vinyl, made with whatever technique allows you to shrug off my aura so effortlessly, delivered to my castle by the first bloom of spring.”

“Deal.”

“What service do you require?”

“I need you to kill as many of the enemy robots as possible while we figure out a way to escape,” Perry said.

Perry could see Ex’bergazzat was deliberating leaving them to die, so he hoisted the dart-launcher again.

“Very well. I accept.” The giant said, his voice grinding with reluctance.

“Rot.”

At the demon’s command, his aura ballooned outwards like a poisonous gas, bricking tens of thousands of robots in a matter of seconds.

“Nice doing business with you,” Perry nodded before flying back up to Boomer. Perry glanced up and saw Boomer dealing with a swarm of Replicators trying to pry their way in. Fewer than there would’ve been otherwise, with the greater demons cutting through them like combine harvesters.

The robots surrounding Boomer crumbled to dust as Perry slid into the cockpit, which snapped shut behind him.

“Welp, that should buy us some time,” Perry said, dusting his armor off. “Any ideas for how to get the hell out of here?”

“Diving underneath them is still a solid plan.” Chemestro said with a shrug. “I doubt they’ve got another cavern of similar size under this.”

“How long can you keep it up?” Perry asked.

“Two hours,” Chemestro said.

Chemestro could only propel them forward at about fifty mile an hour while also rendering the entire mech and passengers intangible.

That meant their escape radius was roughly one hundred miles. Still way outside of Franklin City’s airspace. Not even very far away from Chicago in the grand scheme of things.

“Sounds like a good plan,” Perry said, pointing to his ears and shaking his head. “Let’s dive down under their feet and make a break for the ocean to the East, Replicator presence is way weaker out there.”

Perry snatched up the notepad rattling around the floor and wrote: ‘South?’ According to Mass Driver, the Replicators would have filled the path back to Franklin city with an army, but if they went far enough south, they might be able to skirt around the edge of it. it was risky, but less obvious than running for the ocean. It would get them close to Franklin City, and bring it down to a race.

It had been proven that replicators could be misled.

‘Can I suggest something?’ Sin-Eater wrote.

****

Lost contact with High-Priority Targets. Pursuit at Last known Location hindered. Extrapolating maximum travel range based on Chemestro’s demonstrated limits.

A rough circle, one hundred miles in radius was populated around their last point of contact in Command’s map, weighed heavier in areas that would be more likely for Paradox and the others to go. For that reason, the map described a crescent-moon shape, weighted more heavily to the south-east, towards Franklin City, with a small divot in the center, where the army assigned to preventing their return to Franklin was stationed.

After three hours without any sign of the High Priority Target, Command re-evaluated.

Area too large to reliably predict high priority target’s path. Shifting thought process:

High-Priority Target destination: Known.

Franklin city highlighted in Command’s map, a much smaller range.

Probability of removing primary opposition at destination: 83%

Probability lower than desired, but advantage may be lost upon HPT returning.

Moving satellites into position…

Moving ground units into position…

Creating Inheritor combinations to mitigate Primary Opposition…

Activating Sleepers…

Cutting communications…

***8 hours later***

“Okay, I gotta admit, that was a good idea,” Perry said, yawning.

Sin-eater had suggested they simply clear out a spot underground and get some sleep. Diving a half-mile below the surface and digging out a boomer-sized pocket of air in solid stone was a bit tricky, but not too impossible. The sheer amount of bedrock between them and the Replicators, and the 3-D nature of their escape made it impossible for the robots to find them on short notice.

Like a needle…buried a half mile underground in an unknown direction.

Perry got up, jumped out of the cockpit and used the latrine, hopping from foot to foot on the scalding-hot rock they were surrounded by. It was just hot enough to hurt a bit, but not drain his HP.

“Hardcase, Boomer saved our ass. You did real good with him.” Perry said as he returned. He hadn’t thought to bring mobile shelter, but it had been absolutely indispensable.

Natalie grunted, poring over Professor Replica’s computer. Perry raised a brow and shared a glance with Heather. The redheaded superheroine shrugged.

“Hardcase, are you feeling alright?”

Natalie glanced up at them, showing a split second of irritation before she seemed to snap out of it. “Oh. Oh, I’m just preoccupied, I guess. Sorry, what did you say?”

“Boomer saved our asses,” Wraith supplied. “You did real good.”

“Oh, cool.” Natalie said with a shrug before turning back toward the computer, studying its guts.

There is no possible scenario where complimenting Nat doesn’t make her do a happy wiggle.

Perry was sure she hadn’t been replaced by a robot, and as far as he could tell there wasn’t a cognitohazard on Professor Replica’s computer. At least not in the hardware.

Besides, if she’d been replaced by a robot, she still would’ve been happy for the compliment.

Soul damage? Perry wondered as Nat continued to ignore them. If made sense. If the people-photocopier copied the soul by either tearing it out or disassembling it and reassembling it… then an aborted copy could result in some major damage to the soul.

And she’d been standing right behind him. There was a good chance some of it got nipped. Not enough to make her wear black leather and laugh maniacally, but enough to make her a bit irritable. There was also the possibility that seeing Mass-Driver die and Plagius get cut in half was messing with her head. Nat had been a civvie longer than him and Heather, after all.

There’s only one solution here, Perry thought, picking up the tiny Tinker and setting her in his lap, petting her like a cat.

“Paradox, can you not? I’m trying to work here.” Nat said, squirming in his grip.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Wraith said, joining in the petting. “You’re overdue for your scheduled petting. Just relax and let me know how it feels.”

Hardcase gave up and relaxed against Perry. “Amazing,” she said with a grumpy sigh.

“Damn,” Sin-Eater muttered under her breath, adjusting her legs.

The Wildcard glanced up at Chemestro who was calorie-loading on Pemmican (eating breakfast).

“You could pet me,” she said, making doe eyes at the sociopath.

“Why?” He responded between bites.

“It’s a team building exercise,” Sin-Eater said, pointing at them.

Chemestro glanced over at Perry.

“Is that true?” he asked.

“Not-“ Perry’s words died in his throat when he saw Sin-Eater’s murderous expression. “Not in every case, but I suspect Hardcase might have sustained some minor soul-damage from the fighting and traumatic experiences during the last twenty-four hours. Petting helps with that.”

“See, I could have soul damage or whatever,” Sin-Eater motioned to them. “Pet me. It would be the optimal thing to do.”

Chemestro chewed his breakfast, slow and deliberate, eyeing Sin-Eater sideways the whole time…Seeing past her bullshit.

“Fine.” He spoke, patting Sin-Eater on the head twice with one hand while he continued to eat with the other.

Sin-Eater pushed herself into Chemestro’s lap, and Perry nearly lost it when he saw the Catalyst restrain himself from delivering a devastating elbow strike to the Goth girl’s temple.

Seems like it’s gonna be one of those mornings, Perry thought.

“Feel better?” Perry asked, glancing down at the head of black hair under his chin.

“Yeah, I don’t know why I was so out of it,” Natalie said, crawling halfway out of his lap and taking refuge in Heather’s, sprawling between the two of them.

“Yesterday was a long day,” Perry said with a shrug.

“So what’s the plan?” Nat asked, peeking up at him past Heather’s mane.

“Rinse and repeat?” Perry asked, glancing at Chemestro.

“It’ll take a whole day, but completely avoiding the Replicators is ideal for returning to Franklin City without any more losses.” Chemestro said.

“Works for me,” Natalie said. “Boomer knows where we are, too, even if we’re separated from GPS.”

“Nooo, I don’t wanna go back on the diet!” Sin-eater thrashed in mock-fury. When offered the choice between no soda or Replicators, Sin-Eater begrudgingly agreed to the plan to return to Franklin City.

Once breakfast was over, they got to it, sailing quietly through the underground a few hours at a time, taking hour long breaks to allow Chemestro to rest before they continued again.

After a fifteen-hour underground road-trip, they surfaced when Boomer indicated they inside The Walls of Franklin City, punching out of the earth and rising high into the air.

Chemestro sank back against Boomer’s inner wall and collapsed, sweat dripping from his forehead as Nat switched on Boomer’s propulsion and took manual control of the mech’s flight.

Below them, the rising sun peeked above the walls of franklin City and shed light on a writhing mass of steel surrounding them as far as the eye could see.

“Oh, come on, really?” Perry demanded. “These sons o’ bitches are the most persistent-“

ZZZZZ

No less than half a dozen satellite-driven lasers combined to punch through Boomer’s defenses, piercing the cockpit and bathing Natalie in flesh-scouring light.