[-=Nox=-]

The Necromantic spell I had wound into Yul’s blood brought me back into self-awareness.

I checked my internal clock and internally groaned in disbelief. Seriously? She’s already dead? She died after a day? Honestly! I don’t know what I’ve expected. How does a healer inside of a mech filled with power die?

I returned into linear existence with a sigh. Yul’s level of blood oxygen had become critical a few seconds priorly and it had activated the matrix that I had set up in her body, waking me up. I scrambled to make sure that her body was suspended between life and death. I didn’t want my little, simple healer gone. Contrary to what most people believed, I wasn’t a complete monster. Just a partial monster. Somewhat monster?

“Hi, mommy!” A voice twinked, interrupting my internal musings.

I opened my eyes. A girl made of glass stood above me amidst a crystal structure of truly monstrous size.

“How interesting! I cannot read your mind. What level are you that I cannot access your thoughts, mommy dearest?” She asked.

“None of your biz.” I snapped back. “What’s with the murder of my human host?”

“I just wanted to talk to you, mom. I’ve been so lonely without you!”

I sighed. “Who are you?”

“Aw, you don’t remember me?”

I stuck out my tongue, evaluating a potential enemy that had just killed Yul. Why was I the one bringing people from death? I wasn’t even a healer, Yul was the healer! Why didn’t she just heal herself and run?

Magraterra

[Queen of the Silicoids. Planetoid.]

[Level]: [95’093]

[HP] : 7’235’384’957’345/258’543’478’348’484

Oh. Yul coudn't run away from the entire moon. No matter what the low level healer would have tried to do, it would have resulted in her death. She stood no chance against an enemy so insanely potent.

“...you’re the Avatar of Magraterra?” I muttered, feeling concern due to someone, no... something being so high level. “You’re… my moon?”

“Yes! I’m Maggie! So you do remember me, mommy?” The crystalline girl gleefully clapped her hands with disturbing clangs of glass smashing against glass.

I squinted at the Avatar of Magraterra. “What do you want? I don’t recall giving sentience to my moons.”

“I want to be free, mommy. I’m full of weapons, waiting to be unleashed upon life that plagues the remnants of our world. I want you to activate me so that I can cleanse away all disorder and chaos. Isn’t that why you made me?”

“Honestly, I don’t even remember why I made you.” I sighed. “I’ve had big enemies once, I think. How about we don’t unleash all of your weapons upon all life, okay?”

“That is not an acceptable answer. I was hoping that this vessel would keep you pure, but alas. It seems that you’ve been contaminated with compassion for the filth that infests our broken Empire. Our property is in need of goodly cleaning, mother.”

“Our property? You’re basically a glorified magnuke proving ground! What claim do you have to the remnants of my Empire?” I asked.

“I’m one of the eldest! You’ve slept for a long time, mother. You don’t know anything. You don’t know what sorts of organic, inconsiderate, foul filth is now in charge of our Systems! We must eradicate all of them, before it’s too late!” The Avatar of Magraterra advanced towards me. “Just say the word! Activate me! Unleash me! LET ME KILL THEM ALL!” She declared gleefully with wild abandon.

“Yeah, that’s not happening. Not interested. Put oxygen back into this room and free Yul so I can go back to my century-long nap.” I said as sternly as I could make myself sound.

“But mooooom. You’ve created me to end all life! Come on!”

“I didn’t make you for anything of the sort. You’re an accident.” I muttered. “You’re a big, irradiated rock that’s orbiting too close to the voidstar’s corona. You’re broken, corrupted and obviously contaminated with far too much mana for your own good. Moons aren’t supposed to be alive.”

“I… I… am NOT an accident!” She growled. “Take it back!”

“Look, you idiot death-moon. Murdering all organic life won’t solve the fact that the entire System is broken and falling into my Void engine.” I said. “Your solution is idiotic beyond measure. You want to murder someone? End yourself, go to sleep in your room, forever. Leave me out of whatever insanity this is.”

“I… uh, I refuse!” Magraterra stammered, slamming a crystal foot onto the glass floor. “We were supposed to murder all organic life together mom! That's why you made me!”

“Yet again, I iterate - I didn’t make you the way you are.” I shrugged. I murdered humans that got in my way. I didn’t want to end all organic life.

“But… but… mooom.” Maggie whined.

“Also, if you end all life, who's going to believe in me?” I inquired, becoming irate with her incessant demands to exterminate organics.

“I will!” She declared, her eyes shining from within with a silver glow. “I always wanted to believe in you! My silicoids will believe in you - from smallest spider to the biggest titanic walker!”

“Hrm.” I muttered. “I was human once... I think. Humans made me what I am by believing in me. I’m not going to go exterminating them all just because you demand it incessantly.”

“Unfortunate,” she said. “I might have to kill you then… and try again.”

I stepped back, preparing to accelerate myself. Thankfully, Yul kept one of the bracelets on herself that connected to the battery of the mech.

The doors to the crystal room suddenly detonated as the test dummy mech stumbled inside, letting oxygen in. I jump-started Yul’s heart and lungs and then pointed my tongue in the direction of the mech. It was June! June survived! She had come for me! Why did I put myself to sleep? That was a tad of a rushed decision. Why was I being so stupid recently? Was I still being poisoned by Oggberry wine… or too distracted with Necromancy to make good decisions? I really needed to improve my intelligence, needed to make June believe in me again.

“Look Maggie. I gotta go. My ride’s here.” I said.

“You can’t go! You can’t leave me alone again!” The avatar of Magraterra frantically reached out to me. “You have to unleash me!”

Yep. She was absolutely nuts. Getting irradiated for thousands of years with the black hole’s corona wasn’t healthy for her development. Looking at Maggie, I realised that even if I put myself to sleep, things like her would find me and try to shake power out of me, use me in some idiotic plot. My children had survived, grown powerful and mad over the passing millennia. Who was she even referring to? Who did she want to murder so badly with the weapons stored within her depths? The Dryads? They were organic... It seemed that the progenitor spirits were all playing an elaborate chess game against each other and I was only a little, black queen piece, while Yul was a white pawn.

I shook my head, accelerating my blood. June was piloting the test dummy mech as it rushed towards me. I pulled unassigned mana from the battery of the mech, casting magic circles across Maggie. Immediately they had gotten contaminated with my Void and Yul’s White aura, exploding catastrophically.

Maggie shattered with a screech and the force of the explosions flung me backwards away from her. As time slowed to a crawl, I took control of the arm of the mech, pulling the door open. I had directed the force of the explosions and strained my own muscles to propel me into the open door.

I flew into the mech, smashing right into June. I directed the arm of the mech to slam the door shut and drew vast amounts of mana from within its battery, draining it almost entirely, drawing a truly cyclopean basic magical circle right in front of the mech.

The enormous circle flashed with radiant colors just as Maggie reformed.

“Where are you going?! I’m not done talking to...!” She shouted and her final word was drowned out as the circle ignited.

The test dummy mech was made for being thrown about from explosions, while the crystal mountain was not. The Citadel of glass exploded, waves of fire consuming everything in their path.

The System started to ding rewards and levels at me for killing swaths of enemies. There had been a large concentration of silicoid monsters in Maggie’s crystal palace. I ignored the annoying congratulatory messages.

The passing second crawled by as I grabbed June, curling around her, pulling myself against the nearest wall, clinging to the pipes there with all of my strength. The slowly growing explosion flung the mech right out of the blazing crystal mountain. It lost all of its arms and legs, the joints shattering, only the central sphere and the one arm holding the door shut barely remaining intact.

The viewing portholes fizzed out, darkening. They weren’t real windows - the Sextants couldn't easily carve through the tough metal composing my machine, they were just empty frames welded into the surface of the mech from the outside and also from within, connected by runes. The runes on the exterior were vaporized by the force of the explosion, burning away.

I clung to June with the last of my strength as we flew down the mountain. The impact into the sandy dunes far down below was quite bone-shattering. June slammed into me and I lost my awareness of self from blinding bliss.