Blasts ring out along the inside of the docking bay. Chloe is kneeling behind a cargo container, firing out [Piercing Beams] and [Scouring Lights] toward the sentries like they’re going out of style. I, on the other hand, am out in front, standing in plain sight, not even bothering with covering myself. In a firefight against these useless pieces of scrap metal, I’m surrounded only by fear and slag.

[Archangel’s Gaze] is useful for treasure hunting. It’s potent at identifying traps or other anomalous fluctuations in Ether, including my own. But it absolutely shines in the midst of such a battle. No blind spot tactics are effective, as the skill has no such weaknesses. And after having spent several weeks acclimating my mind and body to the influx of visual information both in and out of combat, I can respond to attacks from multiple directions all with split-second precision.

Alexey doesn’t have my disgusting level of visual Skill. He also doesn’t need it. With a torrent of fury and fists that come close to breaking the sound barrier, he carves a path of destruction through every drone unlucky enough to get within the range of his fists. His bulky frame, covered in a thin gi-like chestplate and knee-high, heavily-enchanted combat boots and reinforced by a terrifying amount of [Vitality], is not wholly impervious to damage. It is, however, highly resistant to most physical attacks, including the energy rays from the robots’ weapons, which do about as much damage as a light sunburn.

I can’t help but smile at seeing the man fully in his element, literally twisting and tearing the legs off the sentry unlucky enough to be caught in his grasp. And he doesn’t stop, taking advantage of the changed situation now that we’re again confined to an artificial gravity field and he can move about under his own power. Where I have an advantage in terms of my Skills being tailor-made for this sort of battle, and Chloe has healing magic and shielding abilities, Alexey uses raw, overwhelming force in a brutal manner.

He throws a crumpled robot at a collection of half a dozen more, knocking them all on the ground as though he were a professional bowler. Then he starts spinning around furiously, holding out another robot’s body and flailing it about like an improvised martial weapon, bashing into the automatons still hopelessly trying to overwhelm him. Hunks of still-electrified scrap gather at his feet and mine as the two of us unleash hell upon any who dare appear.

The fight can barely be called one. Alexey is an unstoppable, implacable, grizzled veteran with a chip on his shoulder and plenty to prove, while the few lucky shots I sustain are quickly healed over by Chloe’s magic before they can accumulate. All the while, metal bodies rack up and then disintegrate into blue clouds of smoke, and System notifications are piling up en masse.

It takes barely three minutes before the docking bay is secure. I dare not say we’re safe, but we have a brief respite to catch our breath, recenter our minds, and process the minor gains we got from the scuffle.

[Your party has scrapped 247 Station Droids (Levels ranging from 43 to 46). You have gained a boosted 12,500 Experience.]

[Level: 54; Experience: 2,930,025; To Next: 108,685]

[Current Stats: [Health]: 7,849 / 8,521; [Ether]: 4,947 / 6,316]

[Current Stats: [Strength]: 160 (Base: 79); [Speed]: 162 (Base: 80); [Vitality]: 275 (Base: 105); [Mind]: 404 (Base: 154)]

[Your [Elemental Ether Bullet Barrage (Rank VII)] has upgraded to [Elemental Ether Bullet Barrage (Rank IX)].]

“Anyone hurt?” Alexey asks. “How are you both doing on [Health] and [Ether]? If we need to stop and take a few minutes to recover, we do so.”

“I’m a little above 80% on [Ether] and at over 90% of my maximum [Health],” I respond.

“Closer to 70% [Ether] here,” Chloe says. “But I regenerate mine a lot faster than you two.”

“Then we wait ten minutes before proceeding.” He slams a nearby control panel, crushing it into rubble. “The only paths out of this room are out the airlock or through that door over there,” he adds.

“In other words, this is a defensible position and our best chance to rest and prepare ourselves for the battles ahead,” I say, pulling a bottle of water out of my [Inventory] and downing a large swig.

“If I may, Seraphina,” Alexey says, pointing to a stationary fighter near the corner of the stadium-sized bay. “While we take a few minutes to recover, this might be a good opportunity for you to study the design schematics. From what I’ve seen and understand of your abilities, you’ll be able to put the knowledge to great use in later weeks and months.”

I turn to Chloe, who nods in approval of the plan. And so, with no regrets and glee in my heart, I begin looking at the fighter. Immediately, I notice that there’s no exhaust port. As expected, the vessel must be propelled entirely by glyphs. In addition to [Impulse], which seems to be the basic movement glyph more generally, I imagine the additional inclusion sort of inverted-[Gravity] glyph to allow for flight, not unlike how my [Wings of Icarus] worked before incorporating their schematics directly into my body.

The next and second most interesting thing I discover is the lack of a cockpit, or any other way for a pilot— organic or robotic alike— to enter and pilot the thing. There exists some sort of core within the structure that acts as an engine, generating and routing [Ether] to the various components of the device— the weapons, the shields, the propulsion system, and most importantly, a transponder? I think? The intuition property of [Archangel’s Gaze] suggests that this strange component tucked just above the core, extremely heavily defended, is involved in relaying information between these drone fighters and whatever Captain or other central intelligence— organic, artificial, or some combination— is operating this mothership.

And that leads me to another thought regarding the bioengineering idea I’d had a short while ago on the previous floor. If I, through my [Angelic Form], have the ability to synthesize mechanical implements directly into my body, then would the reverse also be true? Could I synthesize my body directly into a pre-existing mechanical structure?

Some sort of metallic exoskeleton— power armor, in layman’s terms— would be the first and most obvious step to take this train of thought.

But I’m thinking much, much bigger. There’s absolutely no reason why this Skill would be limited to something so mundane. By all rights, I should be able to bond my body to anything from a titan-sized mech all the way up to a custom-built spacecraft. The thought of traveling the stars in a spacecraft is one thing, a very pleasant idea indeed… But traversing the galaxy as a spacecraft sends wonderful shivers down my spine.

I also can’t help but giggle a bit at the prospect that, should this come to pass, Chloe will be, in a sense, inside of me as we do.

I pull my sketchbook out and take more notes, with particular emphasis on trying to draw the series of arrays that correspond to the transponder network. With the recent attacks by the City Slayers damaging large portions of Earth’s previous infrastructure, including its communication relays, humanity has been set back from a cohesive whole into more a collection of city-states which nominally hold fealty to the central governments of old.

In truth— even though Alexey might disagree with my assessment— there’s very little authority that the central government can still command from Washington. The soldiers and the commanders are beholden to the orders of their superiors, and to the president in his capacity as commander-in-chief, at least as a matter of law. But now that communication and logistics on the interstate and international level is all but severed, Nicholas and Col. Wilson together are de facto the highest military authority, assuming both are still in the city.

If we as humanity— something I’m considering myself part of for this thought experiment— are to properly rebuild our civilization, both to rebuff the attacks I expect are forthcoming, and to one day travel the stars to take the fight to the System itself, we cannot be fragmented. A divided house being unable to stand, as Lincoln once said. Communication and bridge-building is an essential part of that end goal, even if I am admittedly pretty terrible on my own at both of those things. But I can, at least, work to design and build the structures that will facilitate both.

Right about the time I finish my sketch and annotation of the glyph array in question, Alexey snaps me out of my entranced state.

“I hear footsteps approaching. Time to make a break for it,” he says.

I stow my sketchbook back in my [Inventory]. Chloe and I take a moment to recast our spells upon one another, then Chloe uses the [Transference] property of our newly-empowered [Angelic Bond] to top my [Ether] reserves back off. Once we’re both fully prepared for battle, Alexey opens the door and begins charging like a bull in a china shop.

Dozens more of the sentry robots, along with a new more powerful golden variant, are standing on the other side of the doorway. They begin firing upon the older man without hesitation. And unlike the attacks from the ordinary sentries, which hardly faze him, the weapons of the golden sentries, their thick beams of arctic blue-white energy, manage to momentarily stagger him.

At least the first one does. The second one only manages to stun him for a moment. And the third such attack fails even to disrupt his attack. I know he’s not unaffected. The way his muscles twitch and the sound of his gritting teeth. The hints of pain in his breath. I hear and see it all, even though he dares not show any signs of weakness overtly. Instead, he merely screams and shouts any number of obscenities, using his aggression-drawing Skills to keep the automatons’ attention fixed fully on him.

I leap in the fray, sprouting my wings and taking to the high ceilings to rain my own brand of hell upon them. Bullets imbued with additional [Impulse] shred through their weak, primitive barriers, piercing their armored hulls and doing good damage to their insides. Unfortunately, with their vitals being… mostly nonexistent, it’s hard for me to strike a debilitating blow. The only such internal weakness is the [Ether] core located in the center of its chest, and it’s the most heavily armored part of its body by far, with additional shielding to prevent me from easily piercing it.

Instead, my best tactic is to aim for the arm joints, trying to dismember them with my attacks and lessen the load upon Alexey. [Lightning] would probably be effective as well, but the last thing I need is to run into the 1% backlash probability while firing bullet after bullet at high speeds; considering how debilitating it is to my flight, even a single such instance could prove fatal.

“Out of the way you two!” Chloe shouts.

Alexey ducks, slamming into the ground with enough force to shake the entire room, staggering but not toppling the sentries immediately surrounding him. I, on the other hand, hover right up against the ceiling, clinging onto the tiny grip I can find.

And Chloe launches a devastating [Scouring Light], only this time, instead of being a basketball-width beam of pure white light, this time it’s a slowly-expanding cone of colors that spans the entire rainbow. And though her spell is slow, needing a lot of time to chant the necessary incantations, it is incredibly powerful. Anything that the light touches is torn asunder, disintegrated in an instant. The flimsy shields the robots carry, even the more powerful ones used by the golden automatons, is utterly useless before such an awesome display of force.

I want to protect Chloe. Would lay down my life for her if it came to it. But as I see the final two sentries collapse and the tired yet relieved and satisfied expression on her face, I’m forced to accept: She wants the exact same thing for me, and she is, bit by bit, coming into her own, more and more able to do exactly that.

I quickly process the System notifications and the meager Experience gains as we hurriedly make our way up the staircase and on to the next floor.

[You have scrapped 78 Station Droids (Levels ranging from 44 to 45). You have gained a boosted 4,500 Experience.]

[You have scrapped 12 Elite Station Droids (Levels ranging from 49 to 50). You have gained a boosted 22,400 Experience.]

[Level: 54; Experience: 2,956,925; To Next: 81,785]

[Current Stats: [Health]: 7,559 / 8,521; [Ether]: 5,121 / 6,316]

[Current Stats: [Strength]: 160 (Base: 79); [Speed]: 162 (Base: 80); [Vitality]: 275 (Base: 105); [Mind]: 404 (Base: 154)]