Flyreh was already twisting towards them, his massive reinforced boot crashing into the chest of Black Knight Duplex. They stumbled back, and Mikayla scrambled to punish him for it by firing a crossbow at the scabbed-over wound they'd just inflicted.

  He twisted, and the bolt glanced off his hip.

  "Mikayla, take over the legs. Wanna try something," Keldryn commanded.

  "Gotcha, Keldie!" Mikayla mock saluted, mentally diving downward to control the legs.

  This was a mistake, because she had no idea how Skyward Grasscutter's legs worked.

  "Uh. We have four knees and I only understand half of them!"

  "Follow my lead! Twist clockwise!" Nocturnus commanded as Flyreh produced his scimitars again and feinted left, but the first Black Knight saw through his feint and already had their shield up to take the blow.

  Black veins erupted just underneath the surface of Brass-Beat Brawler's arm, and the sheer strength of the hit almost knocked them over. Mikayla scrambled, arms pinwheeling within the Black Knight Duplex chest as though that would help, trying to guide the digitigrade legs solely with her intent to rebalance the Armour.

  "What was that? I'd thought I'd gauged his Strength," Nocturnus' eyebrows drew pinched.

  "It's the same black stuff Lahlee had!" Mikayla recognised.

  "Oh?" Flyreh stepped back. "You blundered your way into the heart of our operation, and you haven't even puzzled out what we're doing?"

  She raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "Is he really about to explain his evil plan?"

  "If it gives us a moment to catch our breath, he can grandstand as much as he wants," Nocturnus whispered back at her.

  Unfortunately, Flyreh wasn't in the mood to indulge them. "Well, scoundrels, you can take your curiosity to the grave. The Ersatz might be crude yet, but it' still more than enough to -"

  A streak of orange energy shot through the air and struck him in the shoulder, twisting his body around and making him scrabble to avoid overbalancing. "Keldryn?" Mikayla blinked.

  "You forgot what I told you about how bows are for building up slow and powerful shots," Keldryn retorted. Despite his words, his tone sounded more relieved that the charged shot had worked than anything.

  "Why did you interrupt him?" Nocturnus groaned.

  "Aight, so next time we combine, we'll try shoulder-mounted guns instead of ballistae," Mikayla semi-seriously noted that down.

  With a kick-off that made the ground shake and dust rain down from the ceiling of the cavern, Flyreh flipped in mid-air, twisting to regain his balance before he could collapse to the ground. As he brought Brass-Beat Brawler's torso back around, a familiar cannon had appeared in his hands.

  All three pilots paled. "By the Frank Axe's -" was as far as Nocturnus got before the cannon discharged. This time, though, tentacles of liquid black flesh erupted from its barrel, crossing the cavern and ensnaring their arms with bony barbs that seemed to mould themselves on the fly so as to best dig into and through their armour. Pain blossomed everywhere they touched.

  Flyreh let his weapon disappear, leaving the thorny strings grasped in his hands like a net, and started dragging them towards him. "We need to get loose!" Nocturnus growled, struggling.

  Keldryn fired Bluebell, and with his hands occupied Flyreh couldn't avoid the strike, stumbling backwards. For a moment they hoped he would release the strings, but even though he lost his grip, that only revealed how the Ersatz material was growing out of his Armour Core's hands.

  "Nocty, let me take the arms for a minute," Mikayla commanded, and the old soldier nodded, swapping placed with her in the mental space as Mikayla forced her Mana into their wrists and sculpted it into twin mirrors of a familiar pattern. "Firestaring Punch!"

  Flames erupted from their hands, and she let the shield fall and vanish from their grip. A delighted squeal escaped her lips as she confirmed that the flames were burning away the Ersatz, and the freed left hand of the Black Knight Duplex peeled away the black flesh from their shoulders even as Nocturnus put distance between them and Flyreh once more.

  "Okay, that worked, good. Switch back, Nocty, he's incoming," Mikayla asserted, already raising their sword into a clumsy guard.

  As soon as Nocturnus had taken over the arms once again, he corrected their stance and winced at the echoes of pain from the barbs of flesh digging into their combined body. "Mikayla, run Circulation! We need our Health back up!" he commanded as he fended off fresh strikes from Flyreh's hammer.

  "On it!" For a moment, Mikayla wondered if Circulation of Stamina would even work in this weird conjoined form that the Blessing had somehow put them in. But she tried anyway, and somehow it worked, Stamina passing through and beyond her body and into the massive mech suit, stitching up its damage. [HEALTH: 821/4000 > 881/4000 > 941/4000]

  Their leg healed just in time for Keldryn to drive the Black Knight Duplex back upright, and Nocturnus caught Flyreh's hammer on their sword.

  As they struggled against each other, Flyreh released his hammer with one hand and conjured a scimitar, ropes of black flesh erupting from his shoulder to hold the deadlock in place with only one arm. Seeing that he was about to stab them, Mikayla fired Bluebell into his shoulder.

  The ballistic goat struck him, sending him staggering. Nocturnus seized the initiative, executing a complicated flourish that opened his guard, then twisting enough to drive the tip of their sword into Brass-Beat Brawler's collarbone. He finished the technique by hooking the tip of the sword underneath the helmet's chin and flicking it upwards in a flourish that decapitated their opponent. A spray of maroon crystals spread in every direction.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  The Black Knight Duplex didn't relax. It wasn't as though they had actually just decapitated Flyreh. Nocturnus knew from experience that the sensation of having one's head cut off while piloting a Goliath Armour Core would disorient an average warrior enough to cripple them temporarily. But an experienced combatant knew that decapitation was only a minor inconvenience.

  As it turned out, neither of those expected outcomes came to pass. A tendril of elastic flesh stretched where the vertebrae in its neck would have been as the helmet flew away, and then retracted, pulling Brass-Beat Brawler's helmet back onto its shoulders.

  "We need to land a finishing blow now, before he recovers!" Nocturnus shouted into the mental room they were occupying. "Go for his real body!"

  "How? An Armour Core's thickest in the chest," Keldryn shook his head.

  "Wear it down. We need to hit it a lot of times very quickly,"

  At this, Mikayla remembered Asika's gift to them. "I've got an idea! Mana?" she checked their resources.

  [MANA: 1221/4250]

  "Perfect. Finishing move! Asika's Awesome Laser Barrage!" Shouting the command wasn't just to be dramatic, it was to ensure Keldryn and Nocturnus were on the same page.

  The Black Knight Duplex raised its arms and span, swivelling on its heels and carving furrows into the scattered wreckage of the Rainbow Ouroboros' shrine. The motion drew constellations around them, forty-eight stars flickering into existence.

  But Nocturnus wasn't satisfied with this. No sooner had the psychic lasers started to fire than he was charging forwards, Keldryn frantically keeping the Armour balanced as Nocturnus brought their sword back.

  Brass-Beat Brawler jerked in every direction as the lasers hit home, the rapid impacts stun-locking Flyreh for long enough that the Black Knight Duplex closed the distance.

  The tip of their sword found the centre of Brass-Beat Brawler's chest and impaled it, the force of the blow penetrating the most reinforced area of the Armour Core and landing a direct hit to the humanoid shadow that was Flyreh's real body.

  Stumbling, dazed, Flyreh's arms raised to launch one last counterattack, but Mikayla was on the ball. With the flip of a mental lever, Bluebell rocketed out of her sling and drove her horns into his jaw.

  That time, he didn't get up. Brass-Beat Brawler collapsed into a cloud of maroon dust. Just as Mikayla was wondering how to be certain he wouldn't get up again, System notifications appeared before the Black Knight Duplex's visor.

  [YOU HAVE EARNED XP POINTS FOR KILLING A HUMAN!]

  [LEVEL UP! LEVEL UP! CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 20!]

  Well, that was as good a confirmation as any.

  "And now," Nocturnus said with solemn gravitas as the Black Knight Duplex span on its heels and raised its arms, lifting its sword above their head. "We strike a pose,"

  ". . for who?" Keldryn asked.

  "To intimidate our foes and inspire our allies,"

  "There's no one else around,"

  Mikayla seized the controls and turned back to Flyreh to make triply sure he wasn't getting up again or had some kind of kill-switch waiting. "We're not starring Power Rangers, and he's not going to dramatically explode behind us. No posing!"

  It was a good thing that she had turned back, because the black substrate that had partially encrusted Flyreh's body and Armour was bubbling, swelling like a hundred frog throats.

  Keldryn's ears flattened. "How certain are you about that 'not going to explode'?"

  No one bothered to respond, Nocturnus and Mikayla were already united in their desire to run for the exit to the underground cave. Keldryn's ears flattened and he followed along.

  The Black Knight Duplex's upper body crashed into the top of the cave. The exit tunnel was too low to admit them.

  "How do we un-fuse?" Nocturnus pressed.

  "I dunno! I only became a demigod like five minutes ago!" Mikayla panicked.

  Keldryn, knowing that panic would just get them killed, focused on cutting the flow of his Mana to his Core Controller. But nothing happened. Growling minutely, he tried again. "Mana Assistance, all Cores off,"

  There was a fizzle, and the glowing nexus of colours in the chest of Black Knight Duplex collapsed. Weapons splintered away and vanished, Mikayla's sword and shield, Keldryn's scythe and crossbow. The two component Armour Cores were last to collapse, splitting apart into clouds of sand that rapidly evaporated.

  Mikayla and Keldryn hit the ground, the foxkin landing with all the grace of his animal cousins, while Mikayla crashed into the floor in a heap of flailing limbs.

  "Get up, run," Keldryn commanded, already helping her up. Mikayla nodded, already taking off as soon as she had her balance back.

  She checked her Mana, and found it on the verge of empty. [MANA: 48/2000] Her Stamina wasn't much better. [STAMINA: 212/1750] Hopefully it would be enough to get herself out of the blast radius. Keldryn was already overtaking her, his monstrous Dexterity putting in the work.

  There was a roar like a tsunami behind them, and a glance back told her that the eldritch black flesh had filled the mouth of the tunnel. "Is that stuff following us?"

  Keldryn shrugged, not sparing the breath to talk.

  On an impulse, Mikayla tried to Identify the black tide, but the resulting pop-up was unhelpful.

  [ERSATZ - LEVEL ??? - TIER ??? - UNKZ0M -]

  [IDENTIFY FAILED. UNKNOWN ENTITY DETECTED. THIS FAILURE HAS BEEN LOGGED. PLEASE ALERT A MODERATOR.]

  The tide of black flesh was almost lapping at their heels by the time they emerged back into the floor of the massive pit. Mikayla thought she felt something grab at her ankle, and on instinct sank what little Mana she had into Heel Propulsion.

  The Flawless Technique sent her flying across the ground, and her eyes fell on the staircase of scaffolding that was mounted against the edge of the pit. Keldryn wasn't already veering towards it, and Mikayla changed course. Within twenty seconds they were pelting up the stairs, and within thirty seconds the entire bottom of the pit had vanished beneath the tide of murky black flesh.

  They kept going, even as the eldritch material slowed, whatever force had sent it chasing after them seemingly exhausted.

  By the time they were halfway up the stairs, Mikayla's furtive glances downwards told her that the wave was receding. "Keldie, I think," Wheeze. "I think we're okay," she panted.

  Keldryn leant on a support pillar and squinted downwards. Sure enough, within a few seconds, they could see the fleshy sludge retreating. "Alright. Phew,"

  "We won . . hah! We did it! Flyreh, Mahendra, and Anza dealt with Lahlee. That was everyone! All the bad guys!" Mikayla threw her arms up in the air, collapsing onto the stairs. "We made it, we . . we killed him . ." she murmured, her victorious euphoria fading.

  Keldryn, see in where her thoughts were going, winced. "But isn't that good? You can go home. They can't stop you anymore,"

  "Home . ." Mikayla murmured, then suddenly sat bolt upright. "Shit! I forgot!"

  "Forgot what?"

  "He's still got Asika's Cores! Damnit! We're gonna have to go back down there and get them!"

  Keldryn's ears pricked up, his eyes narrowing. "Is that safe?"

  "Probably not but what choice to we have?"

  "Just, this feels a lot like the situation with the generator all over again," he pointed out.

  "Yeah, well," Mikayla balled her fists. She was so close to being able to go home. "I'm going down there, to see if I can recover his Cores. You can come with me, or you can go find Asika or something. Your choice," With that, she started going back down the stairs, eyes trained on the cave just in case the wave of flesh came bulging out of it once again.

  Keldryn hesitated. ". . Fine," he groaned, following her.

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