Alpha Story: Filling out the Sideline: The Bite of a Spider (Patreon)

Author's Note: This is a bit of a strange one! Technically speaking, you don't need to read this story. While most tales here are about soft girls and soft lives, this one dips into darkness with themes of loss and violence. Throughout much of FOtF, there is a sense of discomfort, horrors taking place outside our cozy office and our boisterous feasts. This story is of the world outside. 

The Bite of a Spider details a pivotal moment, one which has heavily impacted the universe and has been referenced multiple times, but quite a few of you could likely piece together the events just from those references. Sometimes, it's more fun as a reader to imagine what has taken place off screen rather than to have it told in detail.

This story is for the folks who enjoy the series and the world I've crafted. It is the story of Ava, one of the first heavyweight dolls who is comparable to Mosin, and of her Commander. It is about Alchemist, one of the sadists of Sangvis who are sworn by Mastermind to wipe out humanity. 

It is about death, and the lives of those who remain.

*******************************************************************

“You know… I thought there’d be bells.”

“Stop talking.”

The noise from above sounded almost like fireworks. Small, tiny crackles, short and quick, popping away, punctuated by the sound of a girl’s dying scream.

“There really should be bells.”

Blood seeped through Ava’s fingertips. Wet, sticky, it drenched the room in its sickly-sweet scent, almost like copper, or rust.

“Music. I’d like if there was… bells.”

The gunfire slowed. A few pops, a sharp crack, and the heavy thuds of marching feet as Sangvis units slowly moved through the building.

Ava heard none of it. All of her attention hung upon his voice as his breaths became raspier, with the blood from his middle slowly finding its way to his lungs and his throat.

“My Chief once said…” he began, but faded from it. “There was always music, back then. He’d a radio that we always used while on watch, sitting on deck and keeping our eyes on the wall…”

His face tightened and his chest throbbed when he coughed. A tinge of blood flung past his lips and dropped onto her kneeling legs. He might have fallen over if she wasn’t there with him, holding him seated against a plastic container that was filled with bottles of soda and bags of sweets.

“Please, stop talking,” Ava whispered. Her hands were shaking, as was her spine. There was someone in the room with them. She could feel them, but when she glanced down, all she saw were the frosted blue eyes of her fallen Dummy link unit staring at her and her Commander.

Black ichor dripped from the destroyed unit’s mouth and the stump of her left elbow. It hardly even looked like her anymore, thin and muscular, whereas Ava had grown plush, chubby and soft. But it was her dead face. Her dead eyes.

“Ava…”

She turned back to him, but she couldn’t look at his face. She looked at the wound, at the silent blood that stained her fingers as red as his open jacket.

“Ava…”

“Shut up,” she said. “I can’t… I can’t stop the bleeding…”

“It’s okay, Ava. It’s alright.”

She felt the chill from his breath as his warmth spilled into his lap. Even if she managed to clot the hole in his gut, the slash across his chest was still drizzling.

Yet, somehow, someway, Joseph Konrad still had the strength to smile.

“I know, little bird,” he said, his voice unbroken. “It’s okay.”

That nearly did it. The wellspring in her eyes, the pit in her chest. It nearly overflowed. She tried to push it down, to hold onto her breath. It wasn’t working.

“You’re dying,” she said, and he nodded.

They were above her. They were below her. The Sangvis attack had come from beneath the command center. Her Dummy had been at his side when it happened.

It died before she could get him to her hidden storage room, but she dragged it here with them. It was carrying her gun.

Had they been hiding in the basement? How had they known where they would set up?

Mastermind knew. Mastermind knew everything. Sangvis had been beating them senseless for nearly three years. That’s why they’d sent Alchemist, Sangvis’ white spider, to lie and wait.

The sadist’s blade had pierced his belly before the first Vespid had fired a shot.

If only she’d been there. Not her damned Dummy, her true self. She might have been able to break through the Ringleader’s kinetic shield. She might have been able to do something.

But Joseph was dying. And he was smiling at her, whispering that it would all be okay.

“You’re going… to need to… get moving. You can’t be found.”

At first, she thought he meant Sangvis. But he didn’t. He meant Griffin.

“I’m… sorry…” he shifted just slightly, and she looked down to see his left hand. His thumb rubbed at the silver band on his finger, flecked with dark blood. “Couldn’t keep… my promise.”

“I won’t leave you,” she said, and he chuckled.

“I know you won’t.” As slow as the sands in an hourglass, he lifted his hand to his chest. “Kryuger will come. Looking for their cores. They’ll find our bodies. You can’t be here.”

“Joseph…”

His quivering fingers reached beneath his neckline, lifting at a small silver chain.

“Find Winters. He’ll protect you. His Mosin will…”

Another cough sent a squirt of blood from his chest and his lips. She felt the warmth strike her on her cheek, joining the tears.

He lifted the chain. Upon it, a pair of officer’s silver dog tags had been framed inside black protective rubbers. The first showed the coat of arms, two paragon falcons on either side of a shield, with two large anchors crossed behind. The second read in the old Cyrillic print.

‘Józef Konrad

Captain Lieutenant

903-05-29

True Soviet’

He tore them free with a harsh yank, passing them to her while the rest of the chain tumbled behind his back. “I took too long,” he said. “When they first put you under. Should have put a bullet in Kruger back then. Didn’t even remember your name.”

“You couldn’t know…” she whispered.

She took her hands from his center. There wasn’t any point.

“I knew something had…” he started, but stopped when her hand came to his cheek. He looked so tired. He looked old.

“Do you remember when we met?” she asked, feeling a small smile beneath the tears.

He sighed, his eyes drifting away. “Okhotsk. On leave while the fortress restocked and refueled.”

“And the first thing you did was buy a girl hot cocoa,” she let her small laugh kiss her words. “The Café shopkeeper looked at you like you were crazy. A True Soviet in full uniform ordering for the Doll he’d just tossed from his shop.”

“Wanted to slug him,” Konrad chuckled. “It’s good he was so loud though. Might have missed you.”

“You wouldn’t have,” she said.

They watched one another for a few moments, silent and tender in their dark space of this dark world. Joseph leaned into her hand. “You looked older back then.”

“You were just young,” she giggled. “I’d a year on you then.”

“I’ve nearly nine on you, now…”

His words drifted, his brown eyes straying further away before he coughed again.

She sat with him, smiling, holding his hand. She wanted to make sure it was the last thing he’d see.

“Tell John I’m sorry,” he said, eyes blinking with heavy exhaustion. “Got him into all this. And I couldn’t even sit it out to the end.”

Ava breathed. She forced herself to hold her smile, and she nodded.

“Good…” he said, then he sat back. She could hear the blood in his words, the wetness to his heavy breaths. “There really should be… bells…”

Ava saw when the fire faded from his dark eyes. The last exhale of his blood-soaked chest. Her fingers pinched into his shirt, gripped the stillness of his hand. If she let go, she was sure that she’d tumble down, down, down. Falling towards nothing, down towards the snows, and beneath the ice.

Above her, gunfire came. It was louder, almost as if the shooter were only feet away, with the unmistakable sound of an MG roaring in tune with a sister’s defiance.

Ava wiped at the tears on her cheeks, sniffled, and then kissed her husband for the final time.

“COME ON, YOU SCRAP!!” she heard the sister shout. “I CAN TAKE ALL OF-”

Her voice fell silent, as did the noise of her MG. Still came the marching of Sangvis feet.

Ava rose from her knees. She went to her Dummy, lifting the shotgun from her other’s dead grasp.

The weapon felt different in her hands than it once had. Plump fingers, chubby wrists. She had to loosen the strap to fit it around her shoulders, then disconnected the ballistics mechanism from her Dummy’s back.

It didn’t fit. Ava was nearly thrice her old size. Three-hundred-and-twenty-six pounds. It pinched when she placed the device over the small of her back, but it would hold.

Ava felt her fingers stroke the activation trigger of her skill shot. Even like this, the shotgun recognized its master. It clicked into place as she bit her right cheek, and activated her combat module.

From above, she felt as the module snapped its connection to the fallen MG. She felt the girl’s pain, her fear, and suddenly, her purest and ferocious joy.

“Took you… long enough,” the harsh voice of Bren whispered into her right ear.

“How many are there?”

“Eight with me. Right now. Brutes.”

Brutes were a Sangvis specialty model. Quick, close ranged, equipped with blades rather than small arms.

“They’re still in the room with you?”

“Dragging me,” Bren panted. “Already killed PPS-43 and M3. Think they’re taking me to… oh…”

A burst of static erupted inside of the girl’s ear before another voice came through the transmission.

“Well, well. Someone else is still here, aren’t they?” asked the blood-cooling voice of Sangvis’ White Spider.

“Heh,” came Bren. “Alchemist herself. Guess I should be honored. Thought you already crawled back into your hole.”

“Not yet, Griffin Trash,” the Ringleader replied. “I’ve been controlling the units directly. Was having you brought to me so we could have a little fun~”

“I’m a bit busy today. Maybe take a rain check?”

A light flash came to Ava and, in the corner of her sight, a direct link showed the view from Bren’s eyes.

Her black leggings were shredded, cuts dripping blood up the length of her thighs. Either leg was held by a pair of the blue-haired Brutes, with a single one standing between her legs, looking down over Bren, while a fire slowly consumed the desks and the far-wall of the office.

When Alchemist spoke, the Brute’s purple visor glimmered with light.

“My soldiers are lovely, aren’t they? Their knives are sharp, and unlike my plasma blade, their steel makes sure you last to feel it~”

“You’re a freak,” Bren coughed, but it just made the Ringleader laugh.

“You wouldn’t happen to be talking to your Commander, would you? I thought I’d split him in two, along with those other humans inside your little outpost. But when I went back, him and that little blonde girl were gone.”

“You sure? You might have missed them. Kinda hard to see with only one eye.”

It happened within the space of a breath. The Brute on Bren’s right dropped her leg, and slammed her knife into the specialist’s waist. Ava could feel the response from her systems, the morphine injectors targeting Bren’s spine, but it was no use.

She was dead, and she knew it. With the last of her effort, the MG operator pushed what little energy she had left onto the shotgunner. As she coughed, wheezed, and faded, Bren willed her to escape and, in the last moment, she felt the girl think ‘Save the Commander.’

Then she was gone, and Ava was alone.

No. Not alone.

“Where arrreee you?” the spider asked. “It’s been so long since I’ve had a Commander all to myself.”

AA-12 lifted herself from the floor. Slowly, numbly, she stepped over her dead doppelgänger, past the body of her oath-groom, and reached a box on the wall.

DANGEROUS! HIGH VOLTAGE! AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY!

She opened it, then swiped a finger over her left wrist. A small compartment opened on her forearm to show a miniature selection screen, a port for a diagnostic jack, and a tiny copper plug that was attached to a hidden wire. She withdrew the plug, feeling the awkward sensation of the coiled cable spinning about beneath the flesh of her wrist.

“Don’t make me come back in there, Konrad~”

“You will die screaming,” Ava promised before plugging herself into the breaker box, and the entire building joined her in the dark.

*************************************

What, did they think they’d get away just because she turned off the lights?

Alchemist crossed her arms over her waist, feeling her smirk fold into a frown. She hated having to focus on manual control of so many units all at once. Especially as they switched from their normal to the bright, sickly green of night visions. Too many impulses, too much feedback, and none of it was really her own.

Instead, she dropped her connection with most of the Brutes, turning her concentration to the two Alphas amongst their squads.

“Active combatant. Comb the facility. Find her and report immediately.”

‘Fire detected in the second-floor office!’

‘Fire detected in the second-floor office!’

‘Fire detected in the second-floor office!’

‘Fire detected in the second-floor office!’

‘Fire detected in the second-floor office!’

‘Fire detected in the second-floor office!’

“YAH!” Alchemist shouted, lifting a hand to her suddenly throbbing temple. The pain was worst just above her empty right eye socket, covered by a simple eyepatch. “YES! I am aware! I was just in your head, damned things.”

In anger, she dropped her remaining control of the two Alphas, maintaining only the neuro-link. They could direct their own squads without her looking over their shoulders.

Even if they continued to send their biometrics for no damned reason…

What had Mastermind been thinking? She’d sent an entire damn platoon, a whole fifty units, through the city sewers, and for what? A handful of humans? Alchemist could have butchered the pigs and their scrapyard bitches by herself. With her bare hands!

“Pain in my ass,” she growled to herself before looking to the dark building. “Who am I? Dreamer?”

“Answer: You are Ringleader, Alchemist.”

Alchemist’s expression soured further as she turned to her left, where the sole remaining Vespid Alpha had spoken up. She glared at the command unit before laboriously rolling her eye. “I wasn’t looking for an answer,” she said.

Much of the robot’s face was concealed beneath a hideous mask of plastic and steel, but she could feel its dumb, empty stare. It tilted its head before asking, “Query: Was your question rhetorical?”

“Yep.”

Alchemist groaned, rubbing at her left eye. Even leaving herself open to the general notation of these brain-dead Buckets made her feel like someone had dumped a load of ice into her neural cloud.

‘Obstruction detected in the second-floor hallway.’

‘Obstruction detected in the second-floor hallway.’

Alchemist quickly deliver the neurological equivalent of a punch in the kidney to both squads of Brutes before the rest could report the same thing.

“That’s the body you put there, you morons!” she growled. “Tell me when you find the girl.”

She ignored the impulse signals claiming that the corpse in the hallway was indeed female, turning to the present Alpha.

“Send five of your gals back inside,” she instructed. “Search the first floor. I want to get out of here before the sun sets.”

The Alpha stared at her. Alchemist was about to ask if she needed to repeat herself when five units, a small mix of three Rippers and two Vespids, broke off from their assembly and marched back towards the building.

“Query: Would you like me to transmit their neurological data?”

“No. Got enough of a headache already…”

She watched as they marched, but only then did Alchemist note the issue.

“Hang on,” she said, looking over what little remained of her assembly. “Weren’t there more? We left with fifty, didn’t we?”

“Answer: Yes. Report: We sustained heavy casualties at junction one and near the stairwell to the second floor.”

“Damn kill zones…” Alchemist muttered.

With a thought, she pulled the platoon’s data to the front of her focus. Each unit had its own seven-digit model number which designated unit type, location of creation, and sequence number.

A lot of them shined in highlighted red…

“How many units do we have left?”

“Answer: twenty-one total. Six Rippers, eight Brutes, two Jäger, and five Vespids, this unit included. Remaining coalition forces, Scouts, Guards, and Dinergates, are non-responsive.”

“Ahh, shit,” Alchemist cussed. “Guess that explains my damned headache. Judge gives me enough trouble as it is… Gonna be pissed that I used up all my Guards, again.”

“Observation: Ringleader, Alchemist, routinely experiences casualty rates in excess of 83%. Average loss of Guard units is currently at 95%. Suggestion: You may wish to reconsider your modius operandi and choose a less direct avenue of attack.”

“The Hell…?” Alchemist’s eyebrow lifted, looking at the Doll before really putting together what it’d said. She felt herself darken, crossing to the Alpha and tapping a long finger to its toughened exterior. “Listen, Bucket, I don’t know where the hell you learned to-”

‘Enemy combatant detected!!’

‘Enemy combatant detected!!’

‘Enemy comb- MAJOR DAMAGE SUSTAIN-’

“KYAH!!” Alchemist yelped as a mental ice pick drove itself into her temple. Impact smacked into her face, then her chest, as the feedback from the Brutes flashed across the neuro-link.

She retracted, severing the link as more flashes of heat and pain came to her, baring her teeth and turning back to the office as a series of rapid explosions sounded from inside.

It was too loud for gunfire, but too quick to be anything else. She looked towards the second floor, only seeing the licks of the spreading fire, before opening an observation connection with her troops.

She had just enough time to see the Alpha Brute die.

Some *thing* flashed before the Brute’s green-tinted sight, a white plasma which burned through the night vision like the burst of a flare. There was a shout and a noise like titanium grinding against itself before a rush of plasmatic tendrils wrapped around darkness came at the Brute.

Then, it was gone.

“Idiots!!” Alchemist roared. “All forces, activate flashlights! Do not rely on night vision! She turned off the lights for a damn reason!”

Inwardly, Alchemist tore at herself. She should have known that was the Doll’s plan. She’d just taken out four of her best units, knowing that they’d automatically switch sight to compensate.

She checked her map data. The Brutes had been the group closest to the stairwell.

Wordlessly, she grabbed the remaining Alpha and directed her and her squad to the nearest junction. There was a group of fallen Dolls there with a small barricade they’d formed of desks and filing cabinets. They looked like SMG operators.

She had the three kick the slain to the sides of the hall while the Alpha scanned back and forth with her flashlight, knives held to bear.

The Brutes did as instructed, but Alchemist felt her teeth grind when the Alpha’s link returned with, ‘Suggestion: Group up with team on lower level. As melee specialists, we may not be equipped to-’

Alchemist sent a shock through the Brute’s systems, silencing the bot. “You will maintain position,” she said, both through link and aloud. “Prepare for contact. You are cut off from the stairwell. The enemy will likely come from that direction.”

She felt the affirmation before opening herself to the lead Ripper on the lower level.

“Search for a storage room. She must have tripped the breaker. Get these damn lights back on.”

Then, with a wave of her hand, the remaining troops formed a half-circle around the entrance, weapons held ready.

The setting sun cast an orange light upon the cloudy sky. Black smoke rose from shattered windows as the fire slowly grew, and the Dolls waited.

A minute passed. Then another. Two Brutes faced down either hallway, their backs to a corner office at the end of the row. It was much darker inside than out, and Alchemist was forced to keep her attention divided as the group searched for the storage room.

Oil from her fallen units mixed with the scarlet gore of Griffin trash. Damned A-Dolls. They weren’t nearly as strong or as reliable as her bots. Vile abominations of flesh and blood grownaround a neural network rather than constructed with clear function in mind.

No wonder so many of them failed their purpose. They were practically human.

One of the Rippers looked upon the dead form of a slight girl. Head hanging, she still wore a red beret, her white hair marked with a Soviet star.

Disgusting creatures. Even in death, they turned her stomach.

“Observation: Mastermind has provided blueprints of the building for this operation,” she heard the Alpha Vespid speak. “Suggestion: The location of the breaker may be located upon these documents.”

‘Enemy combatant detected!’

‘Enemy combatant detected!’

Alchemist shunted the Vespid away from her attention, assuming direct control of the Alpha Brute as it turned to her subordinates and saw what they saw.

Crimson tendrils danced over a mass just beyond the reach of the Brutes’ lights. They rippled around it like living vines, illuminating the walls of the hallway and fallen dolls in deep red light.

Through the Brute’s ears, she heard the snaps of electricity. It was like lightning, energy coasting off of a figure far too large to be a Doll of Griffin.

Above the snaps, above the darkness and brightest of all, a pair of eyes burned scarlet, the sparks like embers of their crackling fire.

For a moment, Alchemist thought she was looking upon another Ringleader. She was too big, too wide and too tall. As she stepped forward, spent shells audibly crunched beneath a thunderous step, making it sound as if she wore boots of iron.

The crimson glow showed a figure that was blocky, huge and… it shifted. Alchemist heard the same mechanical grind from before, and the shadow seemed to split apart, four rectangles shifting around the large center.

“Shotgunner,” she realized just as orange fire blossomed from the weapon, catching the first Brute in the chest with enough force to launch the heavy android off of its feet and into the wall of the office behind.

The communication passed between her and the Alpha in only an instant.

‘Warning: Brute units are unequipped to deal with a Shotgun Operative’s ballistic-’

“Attack!”

They obeyed, launching forward quicker than any human could run. Their training compelled them to duck and to spread, minimizing their chances of being hit.

They were shredded by the shotgunner all the same.

Alchemist reeled, gripping her right cheek beneath her eyepatch while the feedback stabbed at her network. In less than three seconds, all four of the Brutes had been knocked offline. They hadn’t even been injured. Thick skins, hardy structure, they’d died as quickly as if they were pathetic humans.

But the moment of light had shown what she needed.

“First floor,” she grunted, “withdraw. Get out here. Now.”

“Suggestion: Consider a full tactical retreat into the sewers. Mastermind will want us to-”

The internal fury in Alchemist’s chest boiled over. In a single breath she snatched the right weapon from its holster behind her back, activating the plasma cutter and slicing through the insubordinate Alpha.

Unlike the Brutes, the Alpha’s systems had time to realize what had happened. Alchemist felt its surprise, its confusion, and the sudden jolt of unmistakable fear before the Bucket’s torso toppled backwards and its feet fell forward, internals hissing from where the plasma had immediately cauterized the cut. Pressure swiftly won out and the wounds burst to gush out its oil.

The Alpha’s final thought wasn’t of words. It was a picture, the memory of a small white-haired girl with twintails laughing while clapping her hand to the Vespid’s palm, and Alchemist felt her anger grow deeper.

“That little Brat!” she hissed. “Destroyer knows better than to play with you Buckets. Especially an Alpha! No wonder you’re all messed up. Playing with you like a damn toy. Like you could ever know what Elisa wants.”

The dead Alpha didn’t reply.

Alchemist grunted, lifting her second weapon free from her back holsters. While the Ringleader was plenty tall, her gunblades were too long to be worn even with her long, pale legs. The weapons were heavy as well, each weighing forty kilos when fully loaded.

Their holsters empty, the mechanical arms retracted into the small of her back, hidden beneath her long white hair.

She didn’t know how the Doll had changed her appearance so drastically. Maybe it had been a trick of the light, or something to do with her Skill Shot.

Regardless, she recognized her. She hadn’t in the command center, but she did now.

It was the blonde shotgunner who had iced Gager’s Dummy at the Jupiter Line.

The small group of five came out at a light jog, taking up positions while Alchemist checked her weapons and tried to recall the video. Truth be told, she never paid much attention to those damned meetings. Felt more like Judge rubbing a girl’s nose in her mess. But a Ringleader getting tossed by a single Griffin unit…? That was noteworthy.

The grin on her face was sharp enough to slice through bone.

It didn’t matter how different she was, or how big her ballistic shields made her look. That automatic might have shredded Gager, but the speedster was little more than a featherweight.

Alchemist was a whole different weight class.

A red glimmer sparkled to life as the Ringleader shrugged her shoulders, her kinetic shield humming online as she brought her weapons to bear. With her tongue coasting over her pale lips, she aimed at the blackness beyond the door, and she waited.

The orange glow of the setting sun was fading over the horizon, but she didn’t care.

“Come on out, little pet,” she sang over the open channel. “You promised that you would make me scream~”

They waited. And they waited.

The wind blowed.

The sun sank.

Still, she stood, the anticipation swelling inside of her stomach like a blood-red balloon.

There were no Alphas left amongst her forces. To Alchemist, there might as well have been no others at all. All that mattered was the Spider’s meal.

She wasn’t sure how she knew the girl was there. But she knew it. The Ringleader could feel her eyes, feelthe energy that hid just beyond the dark of the doorway.

“Come out,” she said aloud. Then, she noticed the others, and with a mental flick of her wrist, her subordinates wordlessly lowered their weapons. “If you’re worried about them, they won’t trouble you. I won’t have a Clanker ruin my fun~”

Inside the entrance, darkness swayed. She thought for a moment she might see the girl, and felt the balloon lifting her higher.

Shadow moved, tossing a severed head over the threshold.

Oil flung freely from the blue-haired cranium of the slain Brute. It landed upon the pavement face-first, smashing in what little remained of its nose with a metallic *Clack!* before bouncing once, twice, and then rolling end over end until Alchemist caught it with her heel.

She glared at the appendage, buckshot dotting the empty visor which hid the Bucket’s eyes.

“What?” she turned to the darkness, grinning. “Is this supposed to impress-”

The world erupted from beneath Alchemist’s foot.

Her network screamed as dozens of alerts suddenly sprang to the front, an inferno of red and orange warnings consuming her mind and her sight before she had even lifted up from the ground.

The force of the blast flipped her feet over head, and the Ringleader landed on her belly.

More warnings, more reports, it felt as if someone were striking Alchemist repeatedly in the head with a lead bat while her middle gasped and her legs shrieked.

Her mind instinctively pushed all the warnings away, clearing her vision so she could actually see. It wasn’t until she tried to lift herself that she knew she was yelling.

Anger colored her speech as much as the pain, a thoughtless roar of meaningless curses as her mind came to terms with the warnings that her lower half was, simply, gone.

There were echoes. Something beyond the clangs of warning bells which rang in her head. She realized it was gunfire. Her network was being overloaded with fresh casualty reports.

Gritting her teeth, hatred glowing in her amber eye, she severed all links with the staff, clearing her sight before catching the glint of one of her readied gunblades laying upon the shredded pavement.

She lurched forward, trying to scramble on legs that weren’t there, falling and landing upon her chin. She blinked the pain from her eye, finding strength in her anger, power in rage.

She got her hand onto the gunblade before the extra-large boot dropped on what little remained of her thigh, and fire bloomed from the base of her spine to the tip of her neck. She collapsed, ears pounding, head throbbing, not sure she was even breathing.

But she felt the smile slither over her face as she heard the bitch ask, “You’re not even really here, are you? You’re a Dummy.”

Alchemist’s network flashed, simmered, then calmed as it peeled back. She could feel the chill of the gel that surrounded her, and smell the scent of the cooling tank in which her true body was submerged.

The pain that she felt wasn’t hers. But it was real. It had stabbed her in the back, clobbered her across the head. But she would survive.

She tried to look up, but she was laying upon her belly, facing towards her right. Her eye couldn’t see much beyond the filth in her hair and the black-stained dirt.

“Sorry to disappoint,” she growled, but feeling the vindictive bite of laughter inside of her words. “But if it’s any consolation, that hurt like Hell.”

The girl said nothing. In the distance, Alchemist thought she could see the mangled purple-hair of a fallen Ripper.

The entire strike force had been killed. She’d failed. But, as she thought this, something else came.

“He’s dead,” she said, “isn’t he?”

No response.

Alchemist bristled, her spine quivered with delight. If she could, she might have even started to dance. “I knew I gutted him,” she spat. “I knew it. You’re his oath-wife, ain’t you?!”

The foot pressed down and the pain was so great that Alchemist thought she might begin to cry from her laughter.

“And you don’t even realize, do ya?!” she shouted, cackling into the dirt. “You’re nothing to them! Nothing! You’re just a little bird, singing their-“

The fire in her back burst like a volcanic eruption. She shouted, snarling as the pain ripped through her senses, before realizing the girl was kneeling on her. A hand snatched a handful of her scalp, wrenching her back for the shotgunner to hiss into her ear.

“There isn’t a hole deep enough, Spider. No bunker will keep you from me. I will find you. I will rip you out, and when I do, you will die. Screaming.”

The weight lifted and Alchemist twisted, ready to spit another mouthful of venom, but something slammed into her ribs.

Crimson flashed over clouds of white as she twisted end over end, lightning which brightened twilight’s gray sky.

She landed on her back, blinking the dizziness and agony away.

And she saw her.

The girl here wasn’t the same as before. A black skull-cap, a purple star worn to the left of her bangs. Platinum blonde, hair so bright that it was almost silver, save where shadow colored it like ash. She wore a colossal white-purple coat, a black top, a pair of black shorts. The outfit was similar, but it was immense.

Almost as large as the massive woman who was tightly packed in it.

AA-12’s belly fat muffined over the top of an extra-length belt, with her chest having apparently burst a similar buckle given the broken clasps which lay near her breasts. Her thighs were huge, porky, and pale where they weren’t stained with oil or blood. They puffed like white sausages from the holes of her shorts and had torn the interior of a pair of black thigh-highs, stockings which scarcely reached past the girl’s round knees.

Crimson light coast down her round body, accentuating her doughy hips and her fattened gut. Electric bolts snapped between the four mechanical arms, each carrying a large ballistic shield, but brighter still was the scarlet stardust that glimmered and burst from the woman’s irises.

Alchemist felt her mouth go slack, staring at the girl as the shotgun fired.

Inside of her pod, inside of the Sangvis bunker, the Ringleader finally opened her eye.