Watching Mela wake up was interesting. She started twitching first, her fingers curling like they were trying to squeeze the life out of someone. Then she started to fidget, shifting as much as the bonds tying her to the operating table allowed. Finally, her eyes fluttered open, and she squinted at the world like it had personally offended her.

"Whutfvl," she mumbled, mouth too dry and gummy to actually get the words out right. She then coughed violently, and Amelia practically teleported to her side with a cup of water in hand.

A couple deep gulps and an empty cup later, Mela became a lot more coherent.

"W-What happened? The Zerx were there, and I got angry, and —" Her eyes went comically wide. "I'm not dead, am I? Are we all dead, and this is some simulation where the corpos who bought my corpse stuck my brain?"

I just sighed and shook my head.

Amelia, meanwhile, was giggling up a storm. "No, you're not dead! I patched you right up. Um, well, most of you. Getting your arms back to working order wasn't that difficult, but your legs were, uh…"

Mela squinted at the adorable ripper and proceeded to wiggle her legs, then just the toes, which were currently covered by a soft blanket.

"They seem to work," she deadpanned, her eyes still fixed on Amelia. "Don't tell me I'm gonna be a wiggly monster only and can't stand up again."

Amelia broke into a new round of giggles. "No! No! Do tell me though, how are your legs feeling?"

Mela wriggled a little more with a thoughtful expression on her face. "Fine? I… They're slightly off. They feel… I don't know, more solid? Is there something wrong with me?"

I could understand her confusion. Cybernetics are weird. And by that, I mean weird weird.

Maybe it was just the eldritch variants, but I hadn't actually lost any vividness in my sense of touch. My eyesight was obviously miles better from my natural eyes, too.

Most days, I actually forgot I had cybernetics at all. It was only in rare moments that I would move my arms and be struck by an odd sense that my flesh was more… ephemeral, I guess, than it was supposed to be. Then I would look down at my typically glove-covered limbs and remember that not all was truly normal.

Of course, the quality of that odd feeling would be different for Mela than it was for me. We had different eldritch creature bits attached to us, after all.

I sighed again before I inserted myself into the conversation, subbing in for the hesitant ripper.

"Nothing's wrong. You did get your leg blown off, though. So, Amelia gave you what you wanted." I threw my arms up in faux celebration. "Congrats! You've got Behemoth legs now!"

She froze, staring at me. Then her shoulders slumped. I felt Amelia tense up beside me, rigid with panic.

At least, until Mela's next words registered.

"Oh, man. I wanted arms. Feet are fine, I guess, but imagine if I could just squeeze some guy to death!"

"Really?" I arched my brow at her "That's the wording you're using?"

She flushed. "Listen, kiddo —"

"I mean, in the entire time I knew you, I only ever saw you flirt awkwardly and get turned down, so I guess that checks out."

Her look shifted from 'preparation for teasing' to murderous. "That's it! I'm testing these new legs out by stomping on ya!"

"I'm not Mort. That kind of thing does NOT appeal to me. Besides, you should know that if you try to get up you will —"

I cut myself off when Mela managed to somehow disengage the bed bindings and then dove off the bed… landing right on her face.

"Do that," I finished.

"Uuuuughhhh… Whais mai body all wrongsh."

I sighed again, then finally deigned to help my sister-in-all-but-blood unstick her face from the floor and climb back up onto the operating table.

"You're feeling all odd and noodle-y because your body is recovering from having bits chopped off and then new bits installed. But you're not feeling the aches and pains right now, and I bet you can't even feel this fall, can you? Amelia's got you on some Good Stuff TM. Speaking of… how'd you even get free?"

"Um…" Amelia piped up.

I looked over to see her sheepishly twirling a strand of hair around her fingers.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Amelia. Really?"

"What? I wanted to see her stomp on you! You do occasionally deserve it. I was going to kiss it all better?"

"Well, you can help straighten out her nose instead."

"Wosh wong wid mah nos?" Mela demanded. She clumsily fumbled for her nose, then gasped when her fingers came away red.

Amelia rolled her eyes, but she did step forward and poke her hand right into Mela's face. The nose straightened out and stopped gushing blood almost immediately. Then the ripper swiftly pulled away, leaving the redhead to blink in shock.

"That felt weird," Mela muttered.

"Oi. It doesn't feel weird when she gets handsy with me." I smirked, enjoying Amelia's indignant sputtering.

She deserved that one. She wasn't supposed to encourage people to stomp on me! Plus, I got Mela to snicker, even if she still looked a little unsteady. Amelia really did have her on the Good Stuff.

"Well," the redhead mused, staring down at her limbs, "at least my new legs look cool."

I had to agree with her. The scarlet color of the cybernetics, plus their subtle scale-like pattern, did look rather amazing.

However, this also happened to be the moment when Mela did a double take and finally realize she was only in her underwear below the waist.

She looked up at me slowly with lightly flushed cheeks, then very deliberately looked away and pulled the blanket over to cover herself with it. At least she had a proper t-shirt on and hadn't flashed us both when she suddenly tumbled off the bed.

"They don't just look cool, either." I decided to have mercy on her by bringing us around to something important. "You're going to have all sorts of interesting abilities. I'll admit, though, I'm not sure what they actually are. Amelia?"

"Uhhh, let me check. I don't have it all memorized…"

Amelia's eyes grew distant as she used her optics to look up the files we had liberated from her daddy dearest.

"Let's see… Behemoth package… here we are! Hrm, this is actually pretty impressive."

"What? What's impressive?" Mela demanded, clearly trying very hard not to come across as an eager kid in a sweets shop.

"Five abilities, as is standard. Power Surge, Healing Surge, Scale Mail, Dampened Impact, and Quake."

"Right. Thank you, Amelia my love, for throwing a bunch of words at us. What do they do?"

I got a flush and a glare for that. Then the ripper cleared her throat and placed her hands on her hips, going all lecture mode on us.

"Power Surge: your body basically goes into overclock mode. Gives you greater power, speed, toughness, the whole package. Don't ask me how it works. It would make any doctor or biologist cry. Healing Surge: similar, except it gives you a decent healing factor. It will be most potent for your cybernetics. I've seen those just rebuild themselves before, from some pretty heavy damage. And we had to push to damage them to begin with."

I whistled at that, honestly feeling kind of jealous. Most of my skills made me work hard to get the benefits. And even then, I didn't get a healing factor.

"Scale Mail is a defense boost. When you activate it, your skin is going to feel tighter and kind of… rubbery. You'll also see a scale pattern on it if you look closely enough. Hence the name. Tricky, temporary, and leaves you very, very hungry. So do the first two skills, actually. The strain they put on your body is honestly significant."

"She's still got a healing factor," I grumbled.

Amelia just shrugged in the face of my righteous jealousy. "Anyway, Dampened Impact and Quake are both for your cybernetics only. The first lets you jump from some interesting heights and take some very tough knocks without really feeling it, if you use the skill right. Quake… well, take a guess yourself."

"Some kind of hit-the-ground-hard ability?" Mela ventured with a grin.

"Yes. That. It produces tremors that can knock people off their feet or even structurally endanger buildings. Though, the latter's more a guess for the future when you level up the skill a little. Knowing what I know now, I'm also going to say that both Dampened Impact and Quake require Essence to use properly. Scale Mail too, maybe? Adrian and I both have two Essence skills per package, but maybe the Behemoth is different? My father would probably know, but…"

Amelia shrugged again.

"I'll figure it out. This is amazing," Mela gushed. "May not be arms, but I like it!"

Her grin was positively bloodthirsty, making me shake my head again. If it wasn't for her leg, I wouldn't have approved of giving her cybernetics yet at all. We needed to find a way to get her to calm down, not go running into more danger.

"Listen… Mela…" I faltered when she turned to look at me, then pressed on. "Don't take this the wrong way, but… What the fuck? Why'd you do something so stupid?"

It was like watching someone flip a switch. All the cheer and murderous intent were wiped away, leaving blankness and tightly controlled misery.

"You don't have to talk to us," I assured her. "Not right now. But… come on, I can't take you with us until I know you're not going to commit suicide by drugged up assholes!"

"It's nothing," she said firmly. "Really. Just a moment of weakness, ya know?"

She tried to recover her grin. It wasn't very effective.

I opened my mouth, almost demanding to know if this was about her brother, but stopped myself just in time. Instead, I said gently, "Mela… no. I want to help."

Amelia glared at me, and I quickly corrected myself. "We want to help. Please?"

We sat there in silence for a few very long minutes. Then air rushed out of her in a sigh, and she slumped forward.

"I killed them. Me. I joined the Kittens, and I took my brother there. If he hadn't known so much about the defenses… He just walked right past it all. They shut down around us, and Mort wasn't even answering, and —"

"If someone's to blame, it's me." My raw voice almost broke as I moved forward to put my hands over hers. She was gripping the blanket so tightly that I thought she'd snap her own fingers.

"No!" she protested. "Y-Ya didn't do anything wrong. Ya were just trying to survive."

"And you weren't?"

She looked away from me, stubbornly refusing to meet my eyes. Honestly? There was only one thing I could think of to say.

"You can go talk to him, you know? I had a little chat with him today. I-I don't know how much you know about the whole situation, but while his logic was terrible, the reason he did all of that… Well, the reason itself wasn't even evil or misguided or… Listen, I'm fumbling this, but he didn't just go insane or whatever."

I let out a deep breath, wondering what in the world I was even doing. Encouraging Mela to talk to her brother had the potential to end very, very badly. Still, when I saw the self-loathing, fear, and so many other negative emotions peeking at me from her eyes, I couldn't stop myself. If he really cared about his sister as much as he claimed to, then that asshole wouldn't let her continue feeling that way.

I couldn't trust him, obviously. But if there was even the slightest chance he truly did love her… then maybe he'd do the decent thing and take all the blame for himself.

I just didn't know if I'd ever forgive myself for not being able to come up with a better solution.

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