Coven's Rebellion Chapter 10 (Patreon)

As always with chapters from stories that I haven't written in a while, let me know if you spot any inconsistencies with plot stuff.

Tami

Retreating from my kiss with Dawn, I gave her a little finger-wiggle wave and hopped over to my VR-pod. Time was running out for May’s friends or revolutionaries or whatever they were. She said their name was the Exodus, right?

When I materialised into our shared home environment, May was already there waiting for us.

“Tami!” She said enthusiastically. “I've had a friend of mine designing some… weapons to fit you both for a while now. I've had them quickly fabricate the prototype designs en route to the conflict. Hopefully it'll be familiar enough that you can be effective on the ground.”

Excitement! Oh baby! “Punchies?”

“Are you sure you want to give Tami fist weapons?” Dawn asked with a wry smirk in my direction. “Especially after she somehow managed to punch the concept of gruelling World War One style trench warfare into the Pagutum-Joret conflict?”

“Anything is a shovel if you hit the ground hard enough,” I said proudly, miming a heroic pose.

Dawn rolled her eyes, but I could see the affectionate smile on her beautiful face. “Goof,” she accused me.

“Please, be a little serious about this,” May begged, her little brows furrowed with anxiety. “There's a lot riding on this operation and I'm kinda sending you into a nasty, hell on earth situation.”

I sighed and dropped the upbeat mask to give her a serious stare. “I know, sis. I'm just trying to lighten the mood so our um… What's that word? Morale! I want to keep our morale up, because you're right, this situation is fucked harder than a recently ex-catholic housewife.”

Unsaid was the fact that the housewife probably ‘cheated’ on her abusive ex-husband with a supportive bisexual husband and wife. Over the course of many years after, as the two comforted the housewife, they all grew close until one day, someone messes up and calls the wrong person ‘love’ but because they're all mature and consenting adults, the slip up blossoms into a beautiful polyamorous triad.

“Tami!” May snapped, and I twitched back out of my imagination with a start.

“Huh?”

“I said I understand that you're trying to keep morale up, but will you also treat it seriously?” She asked, frustrated.

I nodded. “Yup. There's real lives at stake. I do have to ask, though, what are the bodies like that you've got for us?”

Honestly, I was a little annoyed at the lack of trust. I'd proven time and again that I could both goof off and complete very serious and sensitive objectives.

She eyed me for a moment, visibly shook herself and called up a VR window. “This is what we're calling the M2A2 Exodus Combat Frame.”

At first glance, it looked like a thin, androgynous figure in tight fitting armour, but as the hologram cycled through various layers, the illusion collapsed. It was all robot, from the high density batteries and capacitors stored in its chest, to the rugged servos that powered all its movements. I really liked when the model did a little warm up boxing dance and you could see how it was built to move all fluid and natural-like. The face plate was a little… intimidating, though. Like, was the aggressive frowning brow-plate really necessary? The cloak hanging over one shoulder was a nice little dramatic flare, though, even if the attached hood made it look a little edgy.

“Do you call it Bradley?” Dawn blurted, then giggled and glanced between us, as if she’d said a really witty joke.

“Um… no?” May asked, raising an eyebrow.

When Dawn looked to me for support, I just shrugged helplessly.

“Nevermind,” she sighed, flicking her hand in exasperation. “Y’all don’t appreciate the old lore.”

“M2A2 is a boring name,” I agreed, hoping that would throw a bone to my girlfriend. Metaphorically speaking. She wasn’t a dog girl— I mean, she liked dogs, but— nevermind, you get the idea.

“Well, we’re just following standard UN naming protocols right now because all our design SAI worked for them,” May shrugged. “What do you suggest?”

My mind, which had teased all sorts of fun and interesting ideas for names to slap on that badass piece of murder-equipment, went completely blank. Fuck.

“M2A2 ‘Dailir’ Combat Frame,” Dawn said after a moment of intense, brow-furrowing thought.

May tilted her head. “What’s the name mean?”

“It was an arrow fired by a famous archer in the works of Tolkien,” she explained. “The archer who fired it could always find it at the end of battle, unharmed and ready to be used again. Considering that this is going to be used by people who aren’t actually inhabiting the body, anyone who gets ‘killed’ while using it won’t actually be dead, and will be ready to fight in the next battle.”

May and I stared at her for several long moments. Honestly, that was a really fitting name. I was a little concerned at my girlfriend's knowledge of a book that must be like, a thousand years old by now, but whatever.

Turning, my little sister pulled up a text box and a keyboard and typed out the suggested name, then hit enter and watched as it appeared all shiny and new above the hologram.

“Now…” she said, with one hand on her hip. “Are we done? Can I start telling you what the plan is?”

I have no idea where the Exodus got a Canadian stealth drop ship, but I was inside one, checking over the gauntlet weapons that May had prepared for me. They were… very rudimentary. Basically, when I punched, pistons would slam the knuckles and finger armour forward for a little extra oomph. Honestly, my trusty Artifisuki and Amelia built punchies in CORA were miles better.

Meanwhile, Dawn had an honest to goodness gunblade flamethrower, which I was sure was against the rules out here in reality. That… didn’t really come close to the levels of horror that Rosa was probably going to unleash with the glorified spools of barbed wire that were attached to her forearms. Then, unlike the rest of us unique and special individuals, Amelia—clad in the same Dailir armour that we all were—had a large but otherwise unassuming long gun of some kind.

Joining us were five SAI, the most notable of which was called Gael, who’d scratched cat ears into her armour, along with a menacing smiley face over the plate that covered our lower head area. She had the same type of gun as Amelia, along with two small, functional machetes in a harness at her back.

Outside the open rear door of the vehicle, the heavily developed state of Styria flashed by. The leader of our crew—an SAI woman named Desmonia—stood staring down at the nation that was fighting for its life against an overwhelming force.

“The war is going badly for them,” she said sombrely. “The Italians had troops near Vienna, over the border in Hungary. Officially Hungary is condemning the invasion, but they're allies in the UN.”

“So the Italians are the bad guys?” I asked.

“Fuck no,” she said, tone full of disgust. “It's the same shit that's happened all over the world a dozen times over. The upstream nation tries to hog all the water from an important source, and the downstream nation is forced to take action to stop it. Problem is, it's always more complicated than that, so remember people, the bad guys are the armed ones, the war-bots, and the fuckwits giving the orders. The good guys are the civilians whose world is coming crashing down.”

Dawn raised one of her metallic arms. “Is anyone else getting involved?”

“Nope. They're both on their own. UN is condemning the whole thing.”

A sudden thud-boom interrupted the conversation, and the ship shuddered around us.

“What was that?” Desmonia demanded.

A voice fuzzed into the operations voice channel. “Austrian anti-air rail-battery got a bead on us for a mo’, but I dodged the shot.”

Wait. Wait, wait, wait. This motherfucker dodged a railgun round?

Apparently, Dawn was also struggling with a little slice of disbelief pie. “You dodged a hypersonic bullet? How?”

“Frame-rate increase? How else?”

“These two are still fleshlings,” said Amelia, her signature good cheer dulling the jab. “For context, us Digital Humans and Sentient Artificial Intelligences can burn processing cycles to increase the speed of our thoughts. It's extremely helpful in combat.”

“No kidding,” Dawn breathed, obviously impressed. Honestly… that little ability made me kinda jealous. Although it might kinda kill the fun of a fight if you could plan it out like a chess match. I mean, part of the fun of a good rumble was all the adrenaline fuelled pew-pew punch-punch!

“Not ta’ worry! I'm sure we'll find a nice n’ shiny pedestal for ya both to stand on like marble statues while us speedsters zip around,” Gael laughed, her voice soft and purring. Dang, she actually sounded like a cat, if cats could speak along with just meowing up a storm.

Our ride bucked again, but this time it was more like a bull trying to throw off an idiot in a cowboy hat, and we all bounced in the cabin. Uh… why did I suddenly feel lighter?

“I regret to inform you all that the ship is sinking! I repeat, we are going down!”

Hell yes! Time for carnage! Wait… I hope we made it close enough to Vienna to be useful…