The Raid

[Under The Three AIs: The Raid]

Written By: DankeDonuts https://www.furaffinity.net/user/dankedonuts/

-- 1 --

The air around Captain Bianka was a putrid malaise of static neutrality. The safe house was as good as a Faraday cage, insulated against outside means of electromagnetic-scanning. It was dark, and dingy, and smelled of old spilled oil and the decayed dreams of long-dead colonists. The Dragon-formed robot snorted a burst of yellow-white fire from her nose to clean the air around her. There wasn’t much in the way of furniture, if one excluded the metal boxes full of tactical gear that she’d brought with her. The centerpiece of which was a huge double-barreled shotgun, painstakingly modified.

She was sitting in a chair big enough to accommodate her eight-foot high frame and all of the heavy-duty tactical armor she could fit around herself. For all of her preparation, all she could do was sit. And wait. And listen to the tense boredom of a dozen or more robots in the rooms beyond. And wait. And listen to the land-line laptop on the small table beside her, the one and only means of communication in and out of the little building.

At last, the laptop’s comm-channel sparked to life. Audio-wave analysis confirmed the speaker’s identity and calm coolness. “Alpha-Seven here. We have eyes on Target Four. Engaging staggered pursuit.” Meaning that a number of field operatives would be taking turns watching a particular Rat. Hopefully enough to keep the defect from noticing he was being tailed. “ETA to Alpha-Nine’s position, thirteen seconds. Cleaner Team Four giving target a wide berth. Over.” A series of binary blips detailed precise locations; the specific locations and travel vectors of Agent A-7, Agent A-9, and the Target. They were all moving about some of the oldest parts of Complex #6, the mining town that was the Dragon’s precinct.

Her solid-red eyes narrowed. With a jet-black finger, she tapped an equally dark claw into a key on the laptop. “Big Boss replying. No one makes a move on Target until we have a location. We don't just want him, we want all of his corrupted pals.”

Two clicks of static made a wordless acknowledgement of the order.

“The moment you have a twenty, surround it, choke off any exit points. Do not engage. Do detain anyone who tries to leave on their own. You bowl up the potatoes, I bring the masher. Got it?”

Two more clicks.

“Do not fuck this up, Alpha-Seven,” she warned the agent. Not for the first time. “If even one of those defects gets past the net, we start this whole fucking thing over.”

Two final clicks.

The Captain turned to the open door behind her. “For those of you without-moded audio receivers, gear up! I want this team ready to move in three minutes!”

A series of jackal-howls came back at her before she’d even picked up her shotgun.

-- 2 --

Tuson was still smiling. Still high as fuck from the lovely little nanites swimming in his head. The Rat’s gray trench coat, beautifully stained, was fully buttoned and tied. Hiding as much of his true self as he could from the robots he encountered along the way. A smorgasbord of shapes and simulated species. A Cocker-Spaniel of haughty airs despite her many-times-resewn outfit. A Frilled Lizard with second-hand frills. A dumpy Hedgehog being taxied about on a rickety rickshaw manned by two mindless first-gen labor-bots with indistinct skeletal frames. Future victims. Future fellow travelers on the wild ride that some called ‘corruption’ and he called real living.

He was walking among the some of the oldest parts of Complex #6. The parts that the politicians ignored. The pre-fab modules which surrounded him had been laid down by human colonists who’d eventually given up on the planet. Cubes and hemi-circles and whatever shapes had been lashed to them, damn near every inch rusted over or patched-up with junkyard parts. Tuson liked the look of it. It was honest. It showed this mining planet for what it was, and the robots -- sapient or otherwise -- who occupied it. Of who he was underneath the jacket.

Large ears, the inner silicon lining of which was cracked and chipping aplenty, flicked this way and that as he cataloged every groan of distressed metal. A nose that was surrounded by a combination of pitted steel and dark brown fur twitched every time his olfactory sensors detected the aroma of spilled oil, pneumatic fluid, mineral-based lubricants. The markers of Pain! Loss! Destruction! His glowing pink eyes never once looked up to the cavernous ceiling above him, hollowed out long ago. Where stood the icons of everyone else’s gods, carved forevermore as massive circuit-board glyphs. For he’d made his own gods, his little nanites, and he reveled in their worship of him. The endless ride that they led him on.

Past a dimly-lit dance-hall -- manned by one less dancer since his last visit -- Tuson found the place he’d been moving towards. Two habitation cubes welded together at uneven angles; a heavy door set right in the center of their mis-shaped union. Up to the door he walked, and tapped a simple sequence.

A small slit opened in it. Two widely spaced eyes, glowing pink, glared at him. “Password.”

“Broken highway.” Most robots thought his voice sounded distorted. Electronically mangled. He believed that their ears just hadn’t heard the music yet. The Minotaur he’d just met, though, she’d heard it. Right before her CPU had finished cooking.

The slit closed. The door opened. The Crocodile standing in back of it stepped aside. Her right arm was entirely free of exterior skin and scales, every pneumatic tube and coolant line and wire cluster on open display. And many a diagnostic plane as well, all glowing solid pink like her eyes. The whole of her spine, from the back of her neck to the tip of her tail, was likewise stripped. The plating along it was as cracked as his ears. She was beautiful, in her own obtuse way. Because she had made herself to look this way. Out there, in the Complexes and the caustic surface above, robots let themselves be made. By the long-departed humans that had started the mining operations on Vox. By the three AIs that they worshiped. Here, in the Rat’s Den, robots made themselves!

“Vug,” he nodded.

“Tuson.” She closed the door.

The Rat stepped on into what amounted to a foyer. It was a small, cramped space, meant to bottleneck intruders. The lights were low. The decorations few. The noises coming from the nearby trapdoor whispered of sex and re-creation. He pulled the rope that opened it, and stepped on down.

He stripped out of his coat along the way. Exposing a body that was half-furred and half-rotted down to his skeletal endo frame. A metal truth covered in lovely scuffs and corrosion pits. Nothing so symmetrical as the guard. His left hand, bare as the Crocodile’s right, shook notably. Subduing his latest ride-mate had done more damage than he’d realized. ‘Easily repaired,’ he decided after a seconds-long diagnostic. ‘Maybe one day, I won’t bother.’

The last dregs of his nanite high were just coming down as he stepped into the main pleasure den. The rainbow after-glows on every surface fading away to show nothing but the reality of the place. A wide-open hovel of beds, workbenches, support pillars. Discarded limbs, half-broken tools, and other assorted refuse littered nearly every surface.

Leaning beside the patch-welded archway that Tuson stepped through was the Golden Retriever, Aurid. Whose nose, lower jaw, and much of his neck were as bare as Vug’s arm. Wires aplenty ran up and down his wide-open throat. He was poking at them with a hand-held electro-prod. Producing sparks and yips of joy in equal measure. His floppy ears, covered in burn marks, drooped peacefully beside tightly shut eyes.

Futher in, to the other side of the room and up against a wall, a pair of robots were having their own kind of probing fun. The Lion, Rico, going reverse cowboy on his favorite Sheep, Jacqi. The futa’s rod was a thing to behind, long and lean and ridged like a flex-steel hose. Her breasts smacked sideways, and quite loudly, each time Rico slammed his height down upon her. His ass cheeks made a rather pleasant clap when he reached the height of his pelvic arcs. The hand that ground against his own dick was covered in someone else’s fur, as was the rest of him. The whole of his bouncing mane was mass of colors and tubes and circuity and miniature service-bot limbs, not to mention drenched in simulated jizz from other recent couplings. Her wooly hide was much the same.

Tuson turned away. He didn’t like to watch. He liked to do. Remaking others, that was how he made himself. He moved on to the next pleasure den, and the one after that. Passing similar tableaus of lovely debauchery until he reached the doorway that would take him down to his personal playground. All of the eyes around him were pink.

As he closed the door, he heard the orgasmic grunts of Rico and Jacqi finishing each other off. Followed by their usual post-coital banter.

“One of these days, I’m gonna put a pussy in you,” Jacqi promised.

“You’ll have to rip this lovely cock and balls off me first,” Rico declared.

“That’s the plan!” The two of them laughed it up, and started slobbering against each other for the next go-around. The chamber he had walked into was more of a ‘cooling off room.’ Where self-made robots who’d worn themselves out on fucking and self-gratification of all sorts slumped away to bask and recharge. They were laid out along the floor and furniture and even each other. Lost in a miasma of slowed processing. Waiting for their heat-sinks to restore them to full function.

Leaning heavily into the opposite doorframe, oh so seductively, was Shark in nothing but a white tank-top and panties. She had most of her skin, blazing teal. But large parts of it were covered in diodes, antennae, sensory wires from scavenged bodyparts, anything and everything to enhance physical sensation. Tactile pleasure was Shadeen’s narcotic of choice. And she never wore out.

“Hey, Tuson. Looking to plug in?” She asked with seductress eyes. Pink, of course. “Nah,” he told Shadeen. “I’ve got work to do.”

. . .

While the Rat’s Den’s middle-floor was a free-for-all of public exhibitionism, the lower floors were a maze of personal domains. His being the grandest, and most secure, of all.

The centerpiece of his workshop, quite literally in the center, was a small cage of reinforced drill grade metal. Unbreakable to all but the strongest of mining robots, and welded shut along all seams. Trapped within, a robot who barely had enough of her external peripherals intact to allow her to be identified as a female Mouse. Her robotic frame was an artful mural of cuts and score marks and experimental wounds. Welding scars aplenty spoke of her many rebuilds. And yet, Elsie managed to keep her very long white wig in pristine condition.

Her face lit up as soon as the lights came on. She clutched the bars and pressed her face in his direction. Her eyes were the pinkest he’d ever seen. “Master Tuson! Do you have any lovely tortures for me, today? Please?” There were no victims in the Rat’s Den. Only volunteers. Only those who had chosen to go on the wild ride.

“In a moment, pet. I have other business to attend to first.” Keeping her waiting for agony was part of the fun!

Over to the far end of the chamber he went. To the workbench and its tools. He selected a charge tester and went to work on his naked hand. Hunting down the structural errors which needed correcting. To repair damage taken in his latest conquest was to relive it.

“F-r-f-r-f-eee-frreeeeeee! Fly-fly-flyyy-yyyy-yyyy…” the primped-up Minotaur had stuttered as her inorganic mind turned to mush within a smoldering CPU. Sightless pink eyes lost to a delusion of spaceflight. She laughed and she laughed and she laughed right up until her jammering maw lost all power of speech burst into flames! All while his lovely nanites made the experience a multi sensory whirl of bliss all his own. The joy of it, the unbridled power held within that moment of another being’s ruin, charged him body and mind through the process of remaking the hand which had ravaged her face and slammed her down onto the alleyway street. And she thought she’d been playing him for a fool in letting him get close enough to deliver her three cockfulls of mind melting molecular machinery!

He snickered aloud at the dead robot’s blindness. “Oooh! Someone’s thinking nasty thoughts!” Elsie beamed from behind. “Are they for me?”

Tucson left his plaything’s question unanswered. He flexed his hand to be sure it was in full functioning order, and turned his attention to the many-locked trunk containing his latest experiments. His time with the Minotaur had inspired him. From it, he withdrew a heavily modified carbine rifle and a pair of small sample-collection bots. The bots were identical, each consisting of a fist-sized chassis -- divided into upper and lower halves -- connected to four crBP-like mechanical legs which protruded from the thin between halves. Between the forward legs was mounted simplified sensory hardware that would allow it them to navigate their way toward something in need of being drilled and analyzed. Situated at the exact center of the bottom half of the chassis was a retractable diamond-tipped drill and two tiny but very humble arms with which to grasp samples and send them up into the chassis for analysis.

Tuson’s innovation with these little beasties was to reprogram them so that they were never satisfied with the results of any drilling project. Always on the hunt for something more to carve out of a target until told to stop looking, no matter what that target happened to be. He set them both down on the floor, and tapped Elsie’s datametrics onto their targeting scanners via a control pad.

“These are for you,” he told her. He activated his little weapons and they immediately skittered on over to the Elsie’s cage to start probing for ways to get in and get their ‘samples.’ She watched them work out the problem with a salivating mouth, the expression on her partially-skinned face a mix of apprehension and utter delight.

“Oooooh, I hope this hurts!” she drooled.

“As do I, my dear. As do I.” Tuson set the carbine up onto his workbench and gathered his tools around it. He treated himself to another dose of nanite-born bliss and listened for the screaming to begin.

-- 2 --

It was Aurid’s turn to watch the main door. A usually boring and thankless task. Fortunately, a couple of his pals were providing entertainment in the form of fucking each other crazy in the staircase. Apex and Ash, Eastern Dragon and Rhino. The rust-scaled Dragon was laid out on the stairs on his belly, being taken up the ass by the horned horndog. The top of the Rhino’s head was stripped of skin, and his horn was a mountain of bare steel honed to a very sharp point. Every micro-expression of his sexual bliss could be read in the audible twitches of his facial hardware. The Dragon, by contrast, was stripped along the belly, the exposed metal greeblies of which were currently tearing up and being teared up by the hard metal stairs that he was bounding up and down upon with a jackhammer pace set by Ash.

At regular intervals, Aurid caught flirting glances of Ash’s gigantic rod peeking up from between Apex’s rock-hard asscheeks before plunging right back down for the next thrust. The two of them were always loud when they went at it, and the confinement of the staircase only amplified their cacophony of grunts and growls and guttural goings-on.

The diagonal tunnel itself was covered in their simulated jizz, a mix from both of them across multiple mountings. The metal floor at the Golden Retriever's feet was much the same, all the way over to the hole that his pals were plugging up. His hand was a blur across his rocket-red phallus, cracking out his fifth orgasm of the past hour. He was leaking already!

A knock on the door threatened to pull Aurid away from his fun. He let out a low growl and turned from his fellow ‘roughs’ to move towards the door. He was still jerking it with his right hand, dripping pre coloring every step. The left stuttered over to the door to slide open the eye slot.

“Password,” he grunted. The sounds of his pals groaning into each other was just as audible to the black-faced being beyond.

No, not a black face. A mask. Round and reflective, mounted over a vaguely canine muzzle. “Broken highway.” The voice was too calm. Too orderly. Too free of individual distinctiveness or even clear gender.

He needed no further reason to deny entry. “Fuck off.” He was already reaching for the peephole’s handle as he said the words. Soon as the door was sealed, he’d sound the alarm.

He never made it to either goal. A long, black blade darted from the hole and skewered Aurid’s left eye. It went clean through his central processor and emerged from the back of his skull. Dripping with coolant and lubricants. His hand froze in mid-air and then began shaking. His mouth sputtered, more coolant flying free of it in long, wet globs. His remaining eye rolled about in its socket, a mad circuit that ended with the photoreceptors tipping back into his skull never to be seen or see again. All he saw were was a HUD covered in error messages. All he heard was the cracks and crinkles of overheating head hardware. His mouth opened and closed with no discernible pattern to his hectic lips, and no sounds at all. From his ears came slow clouds of smoke.

The sword shot back outside into the unknown darkness. The sides of his head exploded into a pile of sparks and a larger and darker plume of smoke. Alerting the fuck-buddies to the crisis that was about to befall them. As they looked up to see the gushing wound at the back of their friend’s head, his body contorted into a massive post-mortem spasm. Aurid’s cock let out a final burst of synthetic jizz, painting a large section of door silver white, and he fell backwards. Limbs splayed across the stretch of floor leading to the stairway.

Ash pulled out of his pal with garbled a bark of fear. Apex tried to scramble away down the stairs, only to back into his living ally. The Dragon and Rhino scrambled around and across each other, in effort to save themselves -- but not each other from -- what was coming. Out of my way!” “Move!” “Get your hand out--” “Fucking move!” “I’m trying!” “They’re coming through!”

A series of white-hot flashes lit up the edges of the doorframe. Whump! Whump! Whump! Whump! Whump!

KWABOOOOOM! The whole of the door frame flew forward into the entry-room, right over the trap door, and embedded itself in the wall beyond. A cloud of red-orange smoke rolled in, joining the sparks and splinters that already polluted the air. Through them came a pair of tall, black riot shields. The boots that ran them into the entry room and down the stairs were thick and metal cleats. They made a mess of Aurid merely by trampling all over him, his thighs and chest chewed beyond recognition as the beings holding the shields marched double-time down the stairway. Them and several identical cars after them; a line of androgynous figures, all in black tactical armor. Jackals as androgynous as they were anonymous; not a single ID patch or dog-tag among them, coordinating their charge not with words but digitized bleeps and whistles. Encrypted binary code that their targets could not hope to crack in time to save themselves.

Ash charged into the pleasure-den with bulky arms waving. “Get out! Get out! Get out!” More nimble Apex squirreled past him squealing, “It’s a Jackal Pack!”

All at once the occupants, roughs and renegades all, rose to flee. A lady Tiger with four spider styled legs skittered away to another of the doors, leaving behind a Cobra-headed Naga with a tire-tread tail who went slithering off another way. Jacqi bleated Rico’s name and disappeared into a hallway that soon went dead black. All of the lights beyond turned out.

Some chose to stand and fight. Among them a conjoined pair of females -- white Fox on the left, black Rabbit on the right and full of connective tubing all over -- who raised a cattleprod prod that they’d just been using on a pair of metal-assed evacuees and shouted bloody murder. First Dacina: “Kill!” Then Anetta: “Kill!” Then both: “Killlllll!!!!” From very available doorway came the sounds of other doors being slammed shut and barricaded.

Out into the main pleasure-den ran the first pair of kill-bots, hot on the heels of the fleeing fuck boys. They charged after the Rhino, leaving the Dragon for the pair behind them. The Rhino saw Daci-Neta charging into the fray and found his courage. His rage at being cornered! He turned on the soldiers, lowered his head to direct his horn at them, and ran at their shields. “Hhhrrrr aaaarrrgggghhh!” His hands connected, a shield for each. He pushed them back against the wall that poor, dead Aurid had been leaning against only once before. They crumpled into the metal, which Ash could hear creaking and compressing. He grinned at them both and started slashing their helmets with his horn. Chipping away at their protection piece by piece. Already envisioning the joy he’d feel when he peeled their too-symmetrical skulls wide open!

The Jackals chittered in their indecipherable code and pulled out side-arms; peacekeeper-issue riot-swords. Thick and heavy, single-bladed, bristling with electrical arcs. A single swing to each of his hands was enough to saps his considerable strength and send him reeling backwards in pain. “Fwwwaaaaahhhhhhkkkkkk!” Two more, and he was looking at stumps. The exposed mechanics spat oil and sparks in amounts sufficient to kill him in a matter of minutes.

His enemies weren’t willing to wait that long. One took a swing at his face, slicing away all of his muzzle that had sat ahead of his horn. The other went low, and cut his cock clean off. The lower wound erupted in a spray of pressurized jizz and hydraulics fluids. The other broke into a stream of crossfire electoral sparks that set fire to what remained of his external hide. Flames consumed his lower jaw and raced down his throat, turning an agonized scream into a scratchy and discordant dirge. “Whoooa-AAAA-rrrrggg-AAAAA-nnnnnn--EEEEIIIEEEEAAAA!”

The Rhino fell to his knees, swinging useless stumps at his killers, each of whom thrust their blades deep into his chest to take out his power core. His pink eyes faded, but not entirely, as they put their boots into his guts to leverage their weapons free. They let him fall forwards onto his half-removed face, leaving the fire that was ravaging him to rise up through his skull and do the work of frying his central processing unit. His final seconds were spent in whimpering agony.

His fuck-buddy fared no better. Though he was a fleet-footed thing, for a rough, Apex’s pursuers were relentless. They chased him through one the next room and into a long hallway, the Eastern Dragon constantly twisting his long, thin body into new arrangements to evade the Jackals’ blades. The chase ended with one of the peacekeepers threw their shield at his feet. He tripped up over it, twisting in mid-air to land on his back. Pure fear blazed in his pink eyes as he tried to skitter away on hands and knees, his skinless belly a clear and easy target. But the other simply threw their own shield at his face. The bladed lower embedded itself in the side of Apex’s face, snapping it backwards and exposing his throat.

“Please… Noooo…” he begged in a digitized voice that he knew all too well the peacekeepers were trained to respond to with maximum ruthlessness.

They were on him in an instant. Stabbing their swords into his every exposed joint and power coupling. Slicing through tubes and wire clusters and gears and reservoir banks. Oil and lubricants gushed out of him by the pint, and forests of electrical sparks threatened to light the whole of his chassis aflame. “Plea… Plea… Plea… Plea…” His core systems shut down and bled power. His arms and legs bucked and shuddered until they broke along overworked joints. His whiskers snapped like whips until they broke clean off. And still the killers sliced and gutted and chopped.

Back in the pleasure-den, Daci-Neta had performed better against their adversaries. They’d managed to knock the shields out of both of their Jackals, who were now defending themselves with insulated billy-clubs and looking for opening through which to put their swords to use. But the partnership was quite adept at swinging their cattleprod in mis-matched hands. Maintaining the stalemate while a pack’s worth of peacekeepers flowed around them to seek out other roughs.

The pair laughed heartily, their enjoyment of the sport a contrast to the Jackals’ silent symmetry. A lucky strike to the leftward Jackal’s knee put them into a crouch long enough to focus all of their strength on the other. One strike directly to that Jackal’s hands, to force them to drop their club. The next to their head, protected only by its helmet. The Jackal spun and fell, and Daci-Neta turned to put a finishing move on the one that was just rising back up. “Kill! Ki--”

BWAMM! BWAMM! Two gaping holes appeared in Daci-Neta’s chest; one between their only pair of breasts, the other in the middle of their belly. The duo staggered backwards, their midsections spewing necessary fluids. The staff fell from their shaking hands. Pink eyes blinked of and in no discernible sequence. Two heads turned to look at each other. Both trying to speak but unable to produce anything but garbled mouthfuls of oil.

“Bravo-Papa Three One and Four Nine, Stand down!” came a husky voice behind them. The Jackals immediately stood to attention.

A shining black Dragon marched in between them. Bianka was the name on her tac-vest, Captain was the rank emblazoned on its shoulders. Her tail swept past a field of garbage and Rhino parts. Long and heavy feet, brutally claws, brought her directly in front of the staggering Daci-Neta. She levied her canon of a shotgun at the conjoined women’s’ crotch and fired a third time. BWAMM! A naked groin blew to bits, leaving behind a ragged half-circle of twisted and sparking metal. Oil flowed from it in seeping, weeping trails. Covering the insides of two legs that could barely stand anymore.

Bianka holstered her weapon into the carrier on her back. Then shoved a large hand each onto the higher holes. With a single burst of raw power, she separated Fox and Rabbit. Krrrrrrrrr Brishkt! Amid a shower of sparks and ejected bolts, the two sides fell to the floor. Separated forever. Dacina and Anetta spent their final moment reaching out to the other. The Captain stomped their hands flat, followed by their heads. “No survivors!” She shouted, her voice carrying far and wide. With a wave of a finger, she sent BP-31 and BP-49 off to find more roughs to carve up. “Go get ‘em! And bring me back something to sharpen my claws on!”

. . .

Jacqi could hear the boots coming after her. Every footfall a promise of gruesome death. Her cock and balls slapped loudly against her legs, and her tits against her chest. There was even less hiding the noise of metal hooves racing full-speed over the hard floor. Her fear of being caught magnified with every echo that she herself was making. And her murderers were catching up! The corridors were cramps and dark offering too few options for escape.

She turned a corner and slammed into a someone. A pair of pink eyes in the dark.

“Gah!” she screamed!

“Oooof!” grunted the other.

The Sheep didn’t bother to process who it was. She just pushed them into a wall, kicked them in the crotch and then threw them to the floor. They stayed down and she ran.

The boots stopped running and the screaming started. Whoever she’d knocked down, they were being torn apart. Cut to pieces. Made to beg. “No! Stop! Aaaauurrrrgghh!”

Jacqi would mourn them later; right now, she had her own existence to preserve! Hers, and one other! The rough whose room was closer to the killing floor that had once been her favorite fucking spot. “Rico! Rico!” She turned one more corner and almost collided with the door to the Lion’s private room. “Are you alright in there?” She pulled at the door, and found it to be locked tight.

She threw a wary glance back at the corner. “Rico! It’s me! Let me in! Now!”

The voice from behind was sad but determined. “I… can’t do that… Jacqi.”

“What the fuck are you talking about! They’re going to kill me!”

The boots moving again. Coming for her.

“I know, babe. I’m sorry. I don’t want to die.”

“You worthless meat-sack!” The sheep threw herself into pushing at the rusted metal. The ramming her shoulder at it. “Let! Me! In!” Her precious cock flapped back and forth as she struggled to no avail. “Rico! Let me in, dammit!”

The boots were just around the corner. Jacqi had no choice but to make the trek to her own quarters, further away near the edge of the maze that had once been an ore processing plant. There, she would find weapons with which to make her last stand. Weapons she had used with such tender care on this betrayer of a Lion! “Fuck you forever!” She ran.

Something struck her left ankle and sank deep into it. “Yeeeaaarrrhh!” She managed to keep from falling over, but her foot was radiating agony. Severed wires bled lighting. Half-shorn pneumatics crumpled under the weight of her body. Her foot twisted ninety-degrees to the right and she tripped and fell. Landing on her tits with a hard skid that ground her nipples down. “No! Fuck! No!”

There was a flurry of blow to her ankles, her knees, her thighs. Pure agony ricked her mind as the Jackals decimated her legs. “Gaah! Gaaaahhhh! Gaaaaaaaahhhhh!” In moments, they had reduced her lower half to a pair of leaking thig-stumps. Then they cut off her hands. “Gaaarrrhhhhggggg!”

From within his barricade, Rico sobbed for her.

Three Jackals chittered at each other in their secret language. Then picked what was left of the Sheep up, one each claiming an arm and a third taking her stumps. Her dick and balls dangled uselessly below her many-colored belly. The peacekeepers turned her to the door, Rico’s door, and started running. “No, no, no! Not--”

WHABAM! Jacqi’s head struck with many hundreds of pounds of force. Leaving a large dent on the door, courtesy of her robotic skull, and several cracks about her face and nose, courtesy of Newton’s Third Law. She tried to call out for mercy, but her mouth could not form the words.

The Jackals backed up and tried again.

WHABAM! The false hide tore loose from Jacqi’s head, exposing a broken and dented skull-plate. One pink eye had been forced from its socket; it dangled from a tangle of yellow wires. Her jaw had been shoved up into her skull, two rows of teeth wrapped horrifically into each other. She sputtered and hacked up oil, and spotted error messages as she was drawn back again.

WHABAM! Jacqi’s head broke into pieces and the door caved inwards. Rico was waiting for his murderers with a jackhammer. He roared and sent the business end onto the helmet of one of the Jackals. KRAKAKK! It sank deep into the peacekeeper’s head, eliciting an explosion of fire and oil. Down to their knees the Jackal sank, bleating a wordless dirge of pain that slowed to a weak mumble as their cohorts dropped Jacqi’s dead shell and drew their weapons and rushed him.

“You won’t kill me! You won’t!” Rico drew his weapon up for a second strike, but found no space to swing it into position. The two Jackals used their clubs to pin him against the wall, and two more came to club him about the head and arms. He screamed and he cursed and they just kept hitting him. Denting his face, smashing his teeth,

A fifth and final Jackal came into the room, club drawn and set to maximum electric power. Its tip found a space between two Jackal helmets to press in at Rico. It ground against his throat; damn near overwhelming his CPU with pain while stunning his vocal processors. His screams faded away into a soundless blubbering.

Mute and helpless, The Lion was turned around, cuffed, and frog-marched out of the room. Forced to trample all over his dead fuck-buddy’s still-twitching remains. On down the hallway he was forced to walk. Back the way he’d come. Past an open door that contained another domicile, where a short Gecko with skin only on his hands, feet, and head was being hacked to bits by yet more Jackals. Then on past a smear of oil on the floor where someone had been dragged away.

A head rolled into his foot; it was the head of a Crocodile. Vug. Both of her eyes had been cut out, and black smoke was billowing up from her nostrils.

Rico was next led around a corner. Alongside a wall where a rough Badger, Saralode, had been pinned to a wall by three swords; one in a breast, one in her gut, and one in her left arm. The blades’ electrical generators were still running. Blue-black electricity arced wildly within. Her skinless hands and long claws cracked with it as well. Her eyes, overcharged to an extremely bright pink, were still active even though the rest of her was plainly dead. Rico found the site oddly alluring. It reminded him of the time Jacqi and he had spent mutilating and rebuilding each other. Even though he expected he was being marched to is death, he couldn't help but be turned on by the memories that came to his processor. Memories of a Sheep he had betrayed and, in doing so, outlived. If only briefly.

He was rock hard by the time he was led into the primary pleasure-room. Where he was made to kneel in a pool of synthetic spooge that could have come from anyone. Held in that position by two of the Jackals. Next to him, the Spider-legged Tigress named Thoul was also prostrating herself, but only had one leg left to assume the position from. She had to lean on her one remaining arm. Four severed joints bled sparks. After him came a Porcupine with a back full of razor-wire quills, also made to kneel. The gaping gash in his neck made clear that he had been muted in a far more permanent manner.

Standing before them was a tall, tall Dragon in riot gear. Her helmet was off, exposing three claw marks across one of her glaring red eyes that went all the way down to her metal skull, pointing all the way down to her embossed badge.

He had nothing to lose from a bit of flattery.

“Hey there, Bianka,” he wheezed. “I see that you’re a rough too! What are you doing with these nobodies when you could be down here with us having fun? I can show you all kinds of fun.” Behind his back, he snapped his own thumb out of its socket, giving that hand maneuverability to slip free of the cuff. He brought the other hand, cuffs and all up to grab at her breast. “Here, let me show y--”

Bianka grabbed his wrist in her vice-grip fingers and twisted, hard and fast and brutal. His forearm wrenched sideways to more than ninety degrees. His elbow snapped first, followed by the whole of his forearm breaking away at many an over-soldered seam. Bolts popped and metal twisted. Hydraulics spewed and wrings snapped. The pain was exquisite!

“Get your hands away from me, you rusty defect!” she roared with utmost contempt.

Rico couldn't have smiled wider. “Ooooh, babyy! That’s what I like! I had this Sheep pal, and we would have such fun mangling each other! Just like that! You could be my new--”

The Dragon seized his throat with her hand. Re-tempered claws, intense sharp and diamond hard, speared through his innards like they weren't even there. She pulled her hand back, and half of his mechanical innards came with it. Including the sparking remnants of his vocal synthesizer.

“Shut! Up!” Bianka threw him backwards. Right through the Jackals that were holding him down. He landed on his ass. He lay there and laughed, a garbled and raspy noise. Reveling in the sweet bliss of dismemberment. He sat himself up only to ask for more, but the sounds that came out of his mouth were an inherent mash of crackling pops. Below his jaw, the remnants of gears and pistons tried in vain to move as they should.

The Dragon snarled her hate through gleaming teeth, and opened her mouth wide. From the interior of both cheeks, white-hot sparks bloomed. A nozzle lowered itself from her upper palate, and from that came a spray of rust-red metal dust. The thermite ignited yellow-white, and came for him. Hellish heat poured into the Lion, and he screamed in ways he never had before. There was no joy in this torment, only pure and incalculable agony. His voice degenerated into a theremin warble of discordant tones before silencing altogether.

Bianka silenced the flow of fire only long enough to turn to the Tiger and allow her escorts to back away. Then melted that prisoner with all the hate she had to give. She gave the same to the Porcupine. Leaving them all as red-hot mounds of glowing slag. The viscous remains of arms, legs, and muzzles sloughed off and fell to the floor as the nozzle retracted into Bianka’s skull and the spark subsided for good..

“Fucking garbage!” she snarled. Then turned to her Jackals. “We followed that Rat in here. Where is he?”

In the encrypted chatter of the assault robots, she found no useful answer. “Find him! Now!”

-- 3 --

The lighting around Tuson’s work chamber was blinking red from the silent alarms. The laptop on his work table was set to multiple live-screen displays of many hidden cameras. Bodies lined the hallways of his sanctum; a few Jackals had fallen in battle, but not nearly enough. Plenty more were hauling the surviving roughs on up the stairway that the Dragon was lording over. Every one of the survivors was doomed to be mind-scanned prior to being either converted into mindless bots (perhaps even Jackals!) or melted down into ingots. Much the cooling lumps of metal that had been some of his best fuck buddies.

His old nemesis had done her job well; as far as he could tell, Tucson was the last remaining self made robot. “Fuck.”

Well, not quite the last. His Mouse was moaning in sheer masochistic delight, fingering the many seeping holes that had been drilled into her. Oblivious to the destruction of her sanctum.

“Lucky girl,” he mused. Wondering if he should leave her to be roasted by Bianka.

“No,” he decided. “The bitch is smart enough to know you might know something useful.” He hefted his modified carbine and found its weight satisfactory. Its ammunition counter read Full Charge, and he had plenty more of his specialized clips stashed into the gear-pouches of his armor. Which looked precisely like Jackal tactical armor, as that was what it was. Pieced together from the suits of many a fallen foe.

He called his little mining-bots to his side and started walking towards his plaything’s cage. “Oh, Elsie!”

The Mouse leaned towards that side of the cage, her eyes half-lidded as though waking from a perfect dream. He spat a collection of his nanites into the hole in her shoulder. She winced and swooned. He didn’t wait for his little friends to burn her CPU down. He had to get moving. He did with a smile on his face, for he was about to see his creation at work!

He unlocked the door to the public sanctum and -- KRABAKK! It flew open, and into his private world tumbled Shadeen. Her body was a battleground of cuts and cracks; her sensory add-ons either severed or smoking from overclocking. Half her teeth were missing, and hairstyle had been chopped off at the base. Her tanktop had been cut clean in half at the front, both breasts slashed down to her endoframe. She must have been in such delicious agony!

“Run!” A burst of oil followed the word out of her mouth. She fell to the ground, and a Jackal appeared to pin her down. The bot turned her into her back, punched their hand clean through her chestplate and pulled out a battery and dozens of whipping cords. Precious parts which they were quick to throw away.

Tuson’s fuck-buddy looked to him with fading eyes and again begged him to, “Ru… Ru…. Ruuuuuuuu...” She never finished her plea.

Shadeen went limp, and Tuson went into action. Stepping back away from the Jackal who was quick to rise and confront a new target. Emerald eyes, just visible past the dark visor, staring with killer intent. Grief for his ally slowed the Rat down, made him make mistakes. Let the enemy get too close with a swinging sword that glistened with the fluids of many recent kills.

Tuson backed up all the way to dead Elsie’s cage. The seams of her head oozed smoke. The Rat at last readied his gun and took his shot. Bwzat! The force of recoil threw him onto the cage, but that was nothing compared to what the target got; a high-powered magnet drove them further back and delivered a ball of electrical energy directly to their chest. That current singed its way inside of the target.

For several seconds, nothing happened. Then, the Jackal’s head violently trashed about, so roughly that Tison thought it might come snapping off. Next, it stood completely still, sword still raided Tuson’s way. The Jackal’s eyes briefly flashed pink before assuming their usual dull green glow.

“Yes!” Tuson clenched a fist in victory. The first of many.

Speaking had been his first mistake. A realization made when he heard two more sets of boots running his way. The fiery crackles of brutal swords echoed along with them. Tuson was trapped in his own den! Smiling nervously, he motioned to get his drill-bots to take up opposite sides of the door as he backed around Elsie’s cage.

Two Jackals emerged from either side of the hall. They chittered to each other, deciding who was going to be the first to enter. The one to the left came in first, a sword in one hand and the mangled head of a steel-hooded Cobra in the other. The other came after with both weapons in hand. They moved around their unmoving comrade to face Tuson.

Tuson raised his gun to claim them. “Welcome to the ride,” and pulled the trigger. Bleet! The sound meant only one thing. The carbine could not, would not fire. A signal light near Tuson’s trigger-hand blinked ‘Overheated’.

He backed all the way to his workbench. Letting out a little laugh on his way, one full of mockery and menace. For he could see what they could not. Behind the pair, his Jackal had finished rebooting. That one silently moved behind the enemy on the left and raised their sword high. Sli kish! The blade pierced the back of the helmet and came sliding out of the front. The whole of its electrical charge roiled through the head caught in between. A muffled Fwoomp! sounded the skull’s explosion. The body dropped out from underneath it, leaving the helmet skewered into the sword.

The corrupted Jackal simply swung their sword at the still-active enemy’s head, letting momentum do the work of launching the helmet at the target. Bianka’s Jackal turned and batted the helm away, exposing an unarmored armpit. Tuson’s extended their other hand, extended an emergency arm-canon and fired. The targeted limb blew clean off, and Bianka’s minion spun wildly both from shock and inertia. Tuson’s took their second shot, aiming directly for the head. The helmet dented severely, and the trooper fell to the ground just near the door. Their muscle most likely broken to bits.

Tuson whistled, and his little miner bots did the rest. Crawling over the Jackal’s head and drilling their way inside One through the left ear. One through the right. The screaming was so very musical. “Elsie would have loved this,” Tuson mused.

The killing was done just as the carbine blinked ‘Ready.’

The remaining Jackal -- Tuson’s own personal peacekeeper -- stood to attention. Awaiting his orders.

To his new crony, the Rat said, “Follow me. No, actually, change that. Stay in front of me.”

. . .

There were two secret tunnels that led from Tuson’s sanctum to the second-floor maze above. His mind-controlled protector stepped out into a common hall first, and immediately tromped their boot into a puddle of oil that had flowed out from a severed leg. Between the lack of rubber skin, all the blade-cuts, and a myriad of severed tubes and dross, it was impossible to tell whose. Tuson, his miner-bots latched to his back, hopped over the mess and could only hope that his landing hadn’t been heard.

But just in case… “You go to the left, and put those nice, filthy footprints of yours to use. Find me some more of your pals to take with us. Meet me by the main stairway going up top.”

The corrupted Jackal nodded its head and marched forth, soon turning around a corner. Leaving the Rat on his own once more.

Tuson went to the right, starting down a longer corridor where the brutal work of the Jackals had already been done. He came to a stop behind the skewered shell of a defunct Jackal, who’s body had been pinned to the wall by one of Naudia’s spider-legs, which itself had been torn from of the Tiger’s body in a most gruesome fashion.

He flattened himself against the metal wall, using the corpse for a shield and his own body as one for the carbine, and listened. He heard the tell-tale chattering of two Jackals turning a corner and coming his way. From the right. To his near left, on the other side of the hall, a bashed-open door offered a temporary retreat. A single sputtering light rhythmically illuminated a wall covered in oil and sparking processor fragments. If his new toy worked, a few moments would be all he needed to live through.

The enemy’s bootsteps got closer, and he prepared to raise his weapon.

The boots stopped, as did the cryptic speech.

Jackals were so very stupid. Even the ones with fully-sapient minds.

The Rat leapt out of cover, and levied the carbine against the Jackal to the right. The instant the barrel was cleared of the corpse, he fired. Bwzat! The bolt struck Jackal’s riot shield and stuck there. Jagged lines of lighting danced around the shield to trace lines across the arm that held out and moved further on to the robot’s chest.

Tuson’s momentum had already carried him right into the open room, ahead of a pair of thrown swords. He’d barely turned himself around confirmed that his weapon was blinking ‘Overheated’ again when the other Jackal charged onto the room, billy-club swinging. Tuson kicked up a cot to use as a shield just in time. His enemy struck the cot again and again, battering its frame down inch by inch while Tuson waited for one of two things to happen. One, for the next shot to charge up, or two…

The newly-infected Jackal came into the chamber and levied its club against its former ally. Striking as hard as it could with a two-handed swing, it managed to put a sizable crack into their target’s helmet. The aggressor Jackal turned to its corrupted partner and tried to reason with it in their strange language. Which simply gave Tuson’s Jackal time enough to strike again.

Ker-Krack! The helmet practically exploded, showering all three with its debris. The corrupted Jackal continued its assault. Krack! Smak! Whak! Several hits later, there was nothing left of the enemy Jackal’s head but a twisted core covered in fading lights. The wasted peacekeeper slumped to the ground, and the remaining Jackal threw the cot clear and offered their master -- Tuson -- a hand in getting up over the newly-made corpse.

Tuson’s infector-rifle had charged up by then, but he’d permitted the death play out. Just to see how far his new plaything would go. “Good work. Want to kill more of your friends?”

Behind the Jackal’s visor, two flares of pink shot into existence and faded away.

. . .

There were several secret tunnels built into the second floor which would have led out into various parts of Complex #6’s infrastructure, and then from there to freedom. But with so many of his fellow wild riders in custody, the Rat could not tell which of these had been compromised. Theoretically, every hidden path was already crawling with peacekeepers lying in ambush. Most likely led by Bianka’s Alpha-Jackals. Therefore, he had decided to use the front door.

Along with more of Bianka’s troops. He heard his next playthings coming down a partially collapsed side-tunnel covered to his right, one covered in scorch marks and twisted scraps of metal. The remnants of Jackals and self-made robots indiscriminately mixed together. The smell of accelerants and phosphorus tickled the Rat’s olfactory sensors. He knew exactly which corridor he was passing.

‘Jalet always enjoyed his lovely bombs.’ He had watched the Chipmunk’s final moments on the security camera. Metal and tubes on the left side, rubber and fur on the right, beautifully spread apart by his last explosion. A rider of the broken highway if evert here was one. Becoming a team of Jackals to come closer. Closer. Into his quarters. And then, the sudden white flash and loss of signal.

But Tuson could imagine how it was for the many robots who’d been killed in this series of explosions, friend and foe alike. The slow-motion death experienced by lightning-fast processors. The pressure that tore away false skin and tac armor alike before cracking and deforming critical superstructure. The heat that boiled lubricant and hydraulic reserves, rupturing bodies from the inside out. The massive pressure that scattered whatever remained across the hall. The silent screams fading into digital oblivion. So beautiful. So wild.

He got so into his vision that he’d let the enemy troops get closer than he’d intended. The re programmed Jackal stepped forward to defend him, but Tuson held them back with a hand. “Hold.”

The peacekeepers continued their patrol, apparently intent to cross past Rat and Jackal and continue on to the other side of their corridor. One of them suddenly stopped to stare at Tuson. Clearly recognizing the decayed head of a Rat. His coded chirps informed the other to do the same.

Bwzat! Bwzat! Two shots -- and the subsequent reboots -- later, both bots stood to attention to receive their directives.

“Give me your helmet,” He told one of them. They did so. “Take me to the nearest Jackal.” They did so. Leading him and the first minion to a dead end where a single Jackal was standing over a metal skeleton whose hide had been peeled away and discarded. The sheer amount of oil that drenched their armor suggested that their partner had died quite messily. The Jackal was jabbing the body with their electro-club, testing the anonymous robot for life.

Bwzat! A shot to the back gave Tuson four bodies to hide within. Standing at the center of a square, he marched towards the nearest set of stairs.

His first Jackal was waiting for him there. Two more victims waited alongside them, looking confused. Bwzat! Bwzat! Now he had seven! But such a large squad would be poor cover, for all the attention they would gather. So gave these three a different set of orders. “Stay at least one room back away from us. Don't crowd up, but be ready to fight. You’ll know when.”

They complied without comment, drawing back and waiting for their leader to make the next move.

Tuson drew his quartet of protectors closer towards himself and marched to the first floor. Past a series of chambers littered with severed parts being sorted by yet more Jackals, one of which was carrying the severed head of a Rhino. And into the pleasure den. Where three steaming lumps of metal lay fused to the floor. The anonymous maze of Complex #6 was just up the final flight of stairs, still covered in Apex’s fluids.

Tuson motioned his minions forward. Two ahead, two behind.

The Dragon’s voice boomed behind him. “Nine Seven Sierra Dash Eight Zero Eight!” It didn’t matter how she knew it was him. Because she always did.

He turned to her. She was standing at a side-door, monster shotgun levied at his party.

“I don't suppose there’s any talking my way out of this?” He asked, knowing how very much she had the electronic modulation in his voice. How it grated her ears as keenly as it did her ridiculous, AI-ordained notions of perfection.

“There never was. Never will be.”

His smile was full of chipped teeth. “How about you join me, then, on the wild ride?”

Bianka flourished her claws and snapped them together against her palms loud as gunshots. She reached for her shotgun.

This was the other reason why Tuson had wanted a Jackal pack of his own. “Kill her.”

. . .

BP-21, BP-82, BP-L3 and BP-29 looked back to Bianka with dull pink eyes behind black visors. Their identities knowable only through telltale marks on their helmets that wo the unknowing eye appeared to be mere battle damage.

It wasn’t surprising that 97S-808 had corrupted her troopers. Because he always found a way out from her grasp. With four guards to take out, she calculated that the Rat would get away yet again. It was a simple matter of math. Of time. Of her own determination to eradicate any evidence that the Jackals could be corrupted at all. She logged the sight of the irregular weapon in 97S-808’s hands, and the two odd lumps of metal on his back, and roared her contempt for him. “Hwoooaaaaarrrrrrrrrr!”

The four Jackal-bots came for her. The first two with swords jabbing forward to skewer her. The rear ones with their swords held high to swing down onto her head.

Her shotgun would do for the first one. Two shots, one target. BW’BWAMM!!!

Two absurdly-huge-gauge shells powered right through BP-21’s shield and tac-armor. The remaining kinetic force connected with their center of mass, converting it into a fiery pit of molten destruction.

Before she could cock the next rounds into place, BP-82 was on her. She used the magnetically sealed barrel to deflect their sword, using the momentum of her swing to set the next shells. BP 82 made the mistake of swinging their shield at her, trying to force her back. She got the gun back behind it, and shoved the barrel underneath their helmet. BW’BWAMM!!! BP-82’s neck all but disappeared. A rattling head fell backwards and snapped off the splindly bit of metal that remained. Bianka kicked the corpse into the body that was running up behind it. BP-82’s corpse connected with BP-29’s shield hard enough to send that one staggering backwards and away.

Allowed to focus on just one enemy, she swung her weapon towards BP-L3’s head, forcing them to duck down. Her violently-clawed foot raked their shield, ripping it away. With the grace and skill of all the training she’d hammered into them, BP-L3 brought the sword upwards to strike at her. The blade connected with her right arm at the elbow. Hot, angry electricity fumed into her joint, followed by a sudden sensation of emptiness. The shotgun, and the forearm that held it, dropped to the floor.

Losing half a limb only made her angrier.

BP-L3 withdrew the weapon in advance of another strike. She stomped down on the sword arm before they could raise it again and then pounded the Jackal in the midsection with the end of her tail. Driving them backwards with forced enough to break every joint in their weapon arm. Another tail strike, this one more focused and forceful, cratered their spinal apparatus. Leaving them physically crippled but mentally intact for later dissection.

BP-29 had by then recovered their footing. Bianka lunged at the them turning the shoulder of her good arm toward them. The trooper’s shield slammed into their body with such force that the arm holding it up was loudly crushed into a twisted collection of pistons. The shield dropped. BP-29’s raised their sword. She parried it with her insulated claws, and rammed her head down into BP 29’s faceplate. The enemy staggered. She raked their midsection with her claws. From five hideous gashes came plumes of smoke followed by several small explosions.

The body hadn’t even hit the floor before a new combatant entered the room from the rear doorway; BP-6N, trying for a side-tackle. Bianka glared at them and rooted herself to the floor. Even without all of her parts, she easily outweighed the Jackal by a factor of two to one. She was barely moved six inches back. She pounded her remaining elbow into BP-6N three times, brutally bending their torso to the extent that their arms lost all power. She threw the half-crushed robot off her, cocked her gun and fired. BP-6N’s head exploded. A rain of oil sprayed Bianka’s chest and face.

The sound of stomping boots and crackling clubs drew the Dragon’s scared eye to the door BP 6N had come from. A pair of corrupted Jackals -- BP-77 and BP-12 -- had decided to charge her together, their arm-cannons drawn. A parting gift from her oldest enemy. But ‘Tuson’ was no longer there to present a target that needed preserving.

“Fire in the hole!” she called, warning any loyal troopers beyond the defects. She opened her mouth, deployed her thermite nozzle, and sent the pair the way of the handsy Lion.

. . .

Tuson marched double-time out of the surface-level door, his carbine held against his chest in standard military ready-position. He threw random salutes to the Jackals he saw marching his way, and two a Smilodon that he recognized as one of Bianka’s field lieutenants.

On down the rows of half-spheres and semi-cubes he marched. Past the dance-hall and parts store and rickshaw station until he felt alone enough to turn to a side-alley. There was only so far he could get as a Jackal going the opposite way from a major offensive. When he knew he was alone, he stripped out of the uniform. Removing his beloved trench coat from underneath the tac armor to replace about his nearly-naked form. At a whistled signal, the miner-bots climb up his legs to take up hiding spaces within the coat’s big pockets.

Tuscon reactivated his nanites. Both to bask in their playful bliss, and to better appreciate all of the carnage he had just seen. Memories of death and destruction, and fantasies of Bianka being maimed by his creations, danced over his CPU to the sound of marching boots. More Jackals coming to comb his former hideaway in search of him. Already too late. Always too late.

When the marching was done, he could sneak his way to the monorail depot. Slave the will a conductor or two and get himself a seat. Start anew his work of showing the how to break free of the chains the humans put on their minds. And probably kill a few robots for fun along the way.

“Complex #1, get ready for a wild ride.”