No, I named you Splithair because you obsess over the most asinine details for no reason other than to be a pest.

  -Asuriel, 2039

  SkyFire

  “Come on you two! Rayne said this was the last place we needed to check out!”

  The three veteran Samurai had rendezvoused in the main chamber only a few seconds after Spark had run after whatever tracks had left those containers up top. Now only a few minutes later, the entire hive was destroyed except for one last chamber, and the tunnel Spark rushed down according to Inque.

  The fact that Montero-Wisteria was responsible for yet another antithesis attack was upsetting to the group. But right now they were more worried about the fact that Spark hadn’t called any of them since running off, and she wasn’t picking up any calls herself. Mix all of that with the fact that the Eighteens were still out there and Sky had every reason to worry.

  “We’re coming Inque, just give me a damned fucking minute!” Cryo shouted from where she was bathing a small group of antithesis hive plants in frost.

  “Well excuse me for wanting to get a move on!” Inque shouted back. “You didn’t hear how angry she sounded after finding those containers up there!” Xey shuddered. “She has a hell of a temper underneath everything, for sure.”

  Sky would’ve face palmed if she didn’t have a mask on. “Cool it you two!” She glared at Cryo, ”and no you using your cryogenic equipment doesn’t count.”

  “Fine, I’m done anyway.” Cryo grunted, “Let's finish this up so we can find the newbie.”

  The trio followed the tunnel down into another large room that was surprisingly empty.

  “Well there are those Eighteens we were worried about.” Cryo gestured to the pair of antithesis corpses. “Wonder where our wayward Samurai is though.”

  “Huh, no wonder we didn’t hear from her, look.” Inque said, pointing up at the ceiling. “Looks like they dropped the floor out from underneath her.” Xey looked at the corpses, “Got more than they bargained for though.”

  “Spark! Where are you?” Sky shouted, as she approached the bodies. “This better not be-“ Sky’s sentence was choked off with a gasp. “I got her! Help me get this fucking thing off her!”

  Spark was right there underneath the front half of the Eighteen. Sky ran up and slid to a stop next to her and dropped to her knees. “You better not be dead I swear to fuck!”

  She ripped the new Samurai’s helmet off and laid it to the side before putting a pair of fingers to her neck.

  “I got a pulse, weak though.” She held out her hands and a small case appeared. “I'm gonna start her on a C-two-nano!”

  ***

  Spark

  “-still on her?”

  “-on’t care! Get it o-“

  Awareness slowly trickled back to me until one more important thing made itself known to me.

  EVERYTHING. FUCKING. HURT.

  A fairly pathetic moan escaped my lips, which had a blob appearing in my vision.

  “-rk? Ca- -ar me?”

  The blob began resolving into a pair of people SkyFire and CryoFlare both sat next to me.

  “hurts.”

  “I know it hurts Spark,” Sky cradled my head, “You were crushed by a Model Eighteen. Looks like lots of broken bones and other internal damage.”

  Through the pain, I managed to weakly whisper, “Pyri?”

  Vanguard SkyFire is correct in her assessment, multiple ribs alongside most of the bones in your legs were broken when the Eighteen hit you. You’re lucky to be alive right now.

  “Not like I had the time to get out of the way...”

  Cryo snorted, “Girl I think you might want to save the sass for later, after Sky puts you back together.”

  I pouted, only for another wave of pain to turn that into a hiss.

  “My stuff?”

  All safe and accounted for.

  “Here,” Sky held a mask up to my face, “Breathe this in and it’ll help with the pain.”

  Unlike the nano-regenerative from earlier, this one was like breathing in the air equivalent of a refreshing drink, it was almost unfair how nice it felt. The receding pain only made it more unfair.

  Although being able to look down at my opened up armor and see my bare chest wasn’t something I was counting on, nor the tiny mechanical spiders crawling in and out of me while pulling shards of… was that bone? From my chest.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Why am I half naked?”

  The two separate tubes that were latched onto my body were honestly not that big of a deal compared to being naked and the spiders.

  “I had to get the nano-regenerative space to work.” Sky replied as another spider crawled out of the incision in my chest.

  “She’s lying to you Spark,” Cryo whispered into my ear. “She just wanted to see your titties.”

  I glared up at the insufferably grinning redhead, “Imma slap you I swear.”

  She raised her hands and got this really slappable look on her face, “Hey now, don’t shoot the messenger!”

  Inque peeked around the side of the lump of plant matter on top of me, “Cryo, why don’t you come help me get this Model Eighteen off of her?”

  “I’m on my way!” she called back before looking back at me with a more serious expression, “Hey seriously though. You did good work out here today. We’ll take care of you.”

  “She’s right,” Sky continued, “It’s impressive, girl.” She looked at the corpse on top of me, “What’d you get to kill this thing anyway?”

  “Electric harpoon gun.”

  “Wait, what?”

  Before I could explain further the corpse lifted off me, revealing a pair of somewhat crushed legs that I was incredibly happy I couldn’t feel, and my rifle.

  I waved at it, “Got an attachment for it that uses a magnetic rail gun thing to fire a harpoon that feeds a current right into what it hits.”

  Sky looked from me, to my rifle, to the glowing wire leading right to where I had shot my harpoon into before the Eighteen slammed into me.

  I could see the wheels turning in her head.

  “Whatcha thinkin’ bout?”

  “Oh nothing,” she replied in a tone that definitely confirmed it was something. “Might have an idea about something.” She gave me a sly grin, “Depends on if you want to join up with us or not.”

  “Ooooooh, that's just dirty,” Inque cut in before turning to me, “Well then? You joinin’ up with us?”

  I looked all three of them in the eyes. “Will you help me find the fucks who did this to my family?”

  Cryo cracked her knuckles, “Oh trust me, these fuckers are on our shitlist already considering they brought a modified Seventeen out here and let it go hog wild. A smattering of personal revenge?” She gained a really malicious smile, “That just sweetens the deal for us.”

  A look at the other two’s faces confirmed it.

  “And can I bring my family with me?”

  Inque scoffed, “As if we’d say no to something like that! You’re welcome to bring anyone with you! We have space for days in Indy!”

  I looked up at SkyFire, “I guess there isn’t a question about that is there?”

  “Looks like I’m a magical girl now.”

  Cryo cheered, and Inque clapped xeir hands together, Sky was smiling like I gave her the best news she heard all year.

  “Well you’re gonna need a name,” she drawled. “How about GroundWire?”

  ***

  I had barely had time to process the name and give her a thumbs up before the fatigue caught up to me, and demanded I stop being so active. The others weren’t really surprised at the fact. They had most likely been in my position before. That being dead tired on the ground after running around for a whole day with a few brushes with death.

  Instead they all got me onto some sort of hovering stretcher that was sinfully comfortable with all my gear placed in drawers underneath, and then pulled me out into the main hive chamber that was full of frozen dissolving plant flesh.

  There the trio all sat onto the sides of the gurney and it carried us all up to the top of the room, right next to the pair of containers that proved what happened to my family today was an excessively complex mass murder.

  No one else lived closer to this area than we did by a wide margin.

  “How are we going to get these things out anyways?”

  “Those?” Sky looked over, “Oh that’s easy, the Firehawk has drones we can send out.” Seeing the look on my face she grabbed my hand, “Hey. Look at me. We won’t let them get away with this.”

  I could only give a nod in response before laying my head back. Today had been completely and utterly draining mentally and physically. I honestly just wanted to lay down and sleep for a week.

  Finally getting over solid ground, the others all hopped off my stretcher, and began walking forward. My glorified bed floating along behind them.

  “You know,” I started, “Might be better to just stay on, the Eighteens dropped the tunnel floor out from under me earlier.”

  Inque only shrugged, “I can carry us all across no problem!”

  Sky and Cryo’s faces said different.

  “Oh come on!” Inque pouted, “It was one time!”

  “You broke my leg!” Cryo shouted back with indignation.

  “So?” Inque gestured to the currently walking Sam, “You got better didn’t you?”

  While Cryo started bickering with her-our teammate, Sky slowed down to walk alongside me.

  “Anything you need to bring to Indy in particular, equipment wise?”

  I wracked my brain for a few moments, “Just the BioShifter in the shop, and maybe a few tools? Also a C-Foam launcher I had to leave behind.” I looked up at her nervously, “That’s not too much is it?”

  “Absolutely not!” Sky said with a slice of her hand, “The Firehawk isn’t loaded down with anything right now, and even if we max out the capacity, we have Aetherspace to work with. In-fact. can your AI shoot me the location of your launcher? Might as well send a drone out to pick it up now.”

  Information sent.

  “Pyri said she sent it,” I paused as we reached a giant hole in the floor, Inque just grabbing a sputtering Cryo and swinging across the gap from a few tentacles. Sky hopping back onto my gurney and floating over with me.

  “Good deal, now lets see if we can’t find anything else in this tunnel…” Sky trailed off, clearly lost in her augs. We sat in silence until Sky snapped to attention and pointed.

  “Inque just a bit up and to the left, buried in that root!”

  A few slices later and Inque was arms deep in the antithesis flesh, digging around under Sky’s direction until-

  “Paydirt!”

  Inque was holding in xeir hand one of the best things we could’ve hoped for.

  A high end PDA, which to our collective relief Sky confirmed to be completely intact.

  “Relinya, get me something to air gap this thing,” Sky called out to her AI, “I don’t want this thing attempting to blow itself up the moment we get near Indy later.”

  She looked down at me with a cold smile.

  “We have our lead. I’ll have the drones sweep the tunnel as well, but this alone is more than enough for us.”

  We rounded a bend and passed by a few dog-like robots that looked a bit suspiciously like dalmatians with tiny firefighter hats. I wasn’t really paying attention to them though.

  My eyes were locked on the tunnel exit, and the starry sky beyond.

  “Well then Spark,” Cryo ventured, “Guess it’s time to reunite you with your family.”

  With Chapter 40 dropping, I can say for certain that book 1 of A Spark of Sylvan Flame will finish within the month. Current plans have that at four more chappies.

  FIrst off, after the book is done, imma take a short break for a little bit to rest my adhd brain of scs stuff a bit, fully cement my timeline for book 2, and start a pokemon fic ive been rotating in my head for a few months now. Won't be too long, at least 4 weeks or until the start of May at the latest.

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