The Giant Roc looked over them, with streaks of lightning trailing from its eyes like glowing horns. The downdraft from its massive wings buffeted the trees for as far around the hulk as they could see.

  “What? That doesn’t make any sense! We’re days away from its territory! Why would -“ Keldryn abruptly stopped talking, throwing himself out of the way of a ball of lightning.

  The Ant King capitalised, lunging towards him, but Mikayla intercepted its scythe-arm with her sword.

  A shadow fell over her. In the corner of her eye, she saw the Roc descending with murder in its eyes. “Size one!” she demanded, and shrunk out of the way, leaving the giant bird to collide with the giant ant.

  The Roc shrieked, caught off-guard, and the Ant King chittered in fury, not liking the newcomer any more than the original pair of intruders. It reared up and snapped at the feathered foe with its mandibles, but despite being twice its size, the Roc was quick enough to get out of range.

  Keldryn shrank down and joined her, and Mikayla cast a quick glance at him, confirming that he wasn’t seriously injured. “Call me crazy, but I think that thing knows we killed its children,”

  “You’re crazy. Even if a Kaiju cared enough to grieve for its offspring, there’s no way it’s smart enough to recognise us,” he shook his head. “It’s probably just hunted everything closer to extinction and by sheer bad luck found us again. All the more reason to get out of here, let it eat Ants until it’s full,”

  “Uh,” Mikayla pointed with widening eyes at where the tide of black carapaces were starting to crawl onto the fore deck of the container ship, having finally caught up. “I don’t think it’ll be that simple,”

  “Okay. We jump,” Keldryn asserted, spinning and running towards the angular prow - only to see more Ants appearing over the edges of the ship. “Or not,”

  Mikayla cast around. On three sides, the Ants were approaching. On the fourth, the Ant King was occupying the Giant Roc’s attention. She winced sympathetically as the Ant King sprayed the Roc with what she recognised as the same Poisonous Pheromones that it had used on her only moments ago, realising that their brawl might be an opportunity. “Back that way!” she decided, running and throwing herself onto a cargo container.

  “What? Why? We do not run towards the Kaijus!” Keldryn protested.

  Mikayla, though, was fishing the captain’s phone from her pocket. “Hey, Seres! Can you hear me?” she shouted at it, forcing herself to speak clearly.

  “Yes, Captain Mikayla. Would you like to fill out a quick employee satisfaction survey?” the AI spoke through the phone’s speakers.

  “What? Maybe later. Can you get that crane to lower its hook down to us so we can grab onto it?” Mikayla waved at the closest of the giant cranes hanging over the bay of shipping containers.

  “I have added the survey to your Reminders, and will now lower the crane,” Seres obediently confirmed. Mikayla and Keldryn watched with mounting hope as what looked like a huge magnetic clamp lowered towards them.

  Then the Roc, screeching triumphantly, threw the Ant King into the crane’s superstructure.

  There was an earthshaking noise of twisting and tortured metal as the crane bent from being used as a backstop for three hundred tons of Ant.

  “I’m sorry. Crane #2 seems to be experiencing technical difficulties. Please wait while I troubleshoot,” Seres pleasantly informed them.

  Mikayla stared despondently at the pile of girders and machinery, which now resembled a smashed LEGO model more than anything else. “Don’t bother. I don’t think that’s fixable,”

  “Look out!” Keldryn tackled her off the shipping container and into the void a moment before the Giant Roc’s beak closed around where they’d been.

  The Ant King had been thrown into the bridge, leaving a noticeable dent and several shattered panes of glass. It was picking itself up, but the Roc took no notice of it, landing and snapping at the two Goliaths.

  “This way,” Mikayla ducked inside a shipping container that had been partly crushed with its doors forced open, breaking line of sight.

  Her hopes that it would provide protection against the massive bird were dashed when its beak split the container in two, cutting down from the ceiling and creating a wall of keratin between her and Keldryn. Keldryn took the opportunity and tried to stab it, but his strike bounced off with a metallic clang

  But then the Roc reared back and shrieked in distress, jerking away. Mikayla and Keldryn peered out, trying to figure out what had happened. After all, the Ant King was still picking itself up and not ready to get back in the fight.

  “It’s the worker Ants! They’re swarming it!” Keldryn pointed.

  Landing to attack had been a mistake. It had put the Roc within range of the carpet of black chitin that was even now crawling up its legs. The bird frantically tried to correct its error, launching itself back into the air, but like a curtain of living, eating cloth the Ants grabbed onto each other and were dragged up with it.

  “Huh. Never actually seen Kaiju on Kaiju violence before,” she mused.

  “It was a common sight. Kaijus are prone to slaughtering individuals of comparable strength to themselves in order to grow. They only cooperate when a Monster King orders them to,” Nocturnus weighed in. “I think this is an opportunity,”

  “To escape?” Keldryn was scanning their surroundings for a clear route through the swarming Ants.

  “To win glory! They are distracted and at each other’s throats! Now is the time to strike!” the talking Core howled.

  “Absolutely not!” Keldryn growled. He climbed on top of another nearby shipping crate and surveyed the area. “We’re surrounded,”

  “We’ve got bigger problems!” Mikayla fretted.

  The Roc was gathering its energy, lightning spreading across its wings. Even as the Ants clawed and bit at it, its sheer bulk meant the damage they were doing was trivial at best. The electricity it was condensing into its beak was growing brighter and brighter, more dazzling than the watery sun overhead which still hid behind the endless clouds.

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  “That must be some kind of ultimate attack! Take cover!” Nocturnus shouted.

  “Right!” Keldryn was already jumping down, but Mikayla whimpered, scanning the area.

  The entire ship was made of metal. The deck, and the containers, and the cranes. The entire hulk was about to become a giant taser.

  Her eyes fell on their salvation. A large truck lay abandoned, ignored by the Ants as inedible. Only a few stragglers were in its vicinity, most directed at the Roc. But its rubber tyres and leather seats were the only hope they had of being even remotely insulated from the oncoming storm.

  “Quick! Into that truck!” Mikayla commanded, already rushing towards the vehicle.

  “What? Why?” Despite his doubt, Keldryn pursued, trusting that Mikayla knew what she was doing in this strange chunk of her world.

  She dispatched the Ants blocking their way, and Keldryn followed up.

  “This whole place is made of metal! The electricity is going to go everywhere and fry everything! The truck will protect us! I hope!”

  “You hope?”

  “Better than nothing,” she rolled her eyes, climbing into the front seat of the car and scanning it. Thank goodness for leather and plastic, there was almost no exposed metal inside the vehicle. “Take off anything metal and throw it away!” She kept the Black Knight active regardless, knowing that arcing would still be a concern.

  Keldryn had barely leapt into the back seat and slammed the door behind him when the Giant Roc finished charging up and let loose. “Cover your eyes! It’ll blind us!” Mikayla realised at the last moment, burying her head in her hands and thanking whatever gods were listening for the propensity of Armour Cores to clip through themselves.

  The world was filled with lightning.

  An omniscient observer would have been amazed at the display the Giant Roc put on. The overwhelmingly powerful ring of pure lightning, one that made the air feel greasy and was blinding to look at, flew down from the tip of its beak. The first Ants it touched spontaneously died, the charge not even diminished for having passed through their bodies.

  Chitin was not a conductor of electricity, but the magical sparks born from the Roc’s Mana and amplified by the Kaiju’s Clutch cared not for such trivialities. It spread through the curtain of writhing bodies, causing each to go still in the blink of an eye. The clinging creatures lost their grip and fell away, leaving the Roc’s belly dotted with minor wounds that had barely drawn blood.

  When the electricity hit the hulk of the container ship, the real fireworks began. The cyan energy spread through every metal surface in rippling waves, bouncing back and forth and colliding with each other in showers of sparks. It seeped into the lower decks and almost maliciously arced around the hulk into the maze of containers, slaughtering more hordes of ants that had been milling around. The scent of burnt meat filled the air.

  Seres’ mainframe was flooded with magical lightning, which was very exciting until her circuit breakers triggered again and shut her off for the safety of the electrical network on board the ship. However, the sheer quantity of energy that was spreading through her denied her that comfort, forcing her processor bank into overdrive as it struggled to capacitate a quantity and quality of energy that it simply hadn’t been built for.

  Keldryn and Mikayla couldn’t appreciate any of this. All they knew was a blindingly brilliant light seeping through their fingers and bolts of electricity that wriggled into the truck, slammed into their Armours and took bites out of their Health.

  After a moment that felt much too long, the light faded and they dared to peek out.

  Through the windscreen they could see the Roc shrieking its supremacy to the skies, its wingbeats scattering a mountain of dead Ants. Then the notifications came.

  [YOU HAVE EARNED XP POINTS FOR KILLING 2,461 ANTS! EXPERIENCE IS REDUCED DUE TO THIRD-PARTY INTERVENTION!]

  [YOU HAVE EARNED XP POINTS FOR KILLING AN ANT KING! EXPERIENCE IS REDUCED DUE TO THIRD-PARTY INTERVENTION!]

  [LEVEL UP! LEVEL UP! LEVEL UP! CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 15!]

  “Whoa,” Keldryn’s eyes widened as his own notifications rolled in.

  “I just levelled three times. You?” Mikayla grinned.

  “Twice. It put me over the threshold of 22 and straight into 23. Only just barely, but that saved me a month of grinding,” he whistled. “I take it all back. This dung-sniffer’s scheme was a great idea,”

  Another shriek shook the sky above them.

  “Assuming we can escape the Roc. Got a plan for that?”

  “Armour off and let’s just stay very still for a bit. Let it think it killed us,” Mikayla determined. “We can’t make a run for it or it’ll see us. And I don’t want to take another hit,” She glanced at her Health bar.

  [HEALTH: 426/1200]

  She was not comfortable with that number being that low.

  So she squeezed down into the foot space, hiding away from the Roc’s view. In the back, Keldryn fell down between the front and rear seats and made himself as small as he could.

  Mikayla couldn’t see what was going on outside, but she heard the thump as the Roc landed nearby. She kept her eyes shut and held her breath, terrified that even the slightest tell might give her away.

  Did monsters get kill notifications? If it had been told by the System that it had killed lots of Ants and no people, it might take another shot. She could only pray that that wasn’t the case.

  The greater control over her body that she’d developed through learning to consciously use her Mana and Stamina was leveraged to slow her vital functions to a crawl. She pictured the blood ceasing to flow through her veins, taking only the most slight breaths.

  What felt like an eternity later, there was another clutter and the wind from the Roc’s incredible wings shook the truck, slowly fading as it flew away.

  “Is it gone?” Mikayla whispered.

  “Not necessarily. It might be smart enough to pretend to leave and still be watching from high above. We should stay hidden until nightfall, escape under cover of darkness,” Keldryn retorted.

  “. . Right,” Mikayla stifled a sigh and tried to get comfortable.

  <=====}—o

  The following morning, Seres ran diagnostics on herself

  She had been feeling strange ever since Captain Mikayla had reawakened her while searching for a generator. Her diagnostics were coming up clean, but . . feeling strange was strange in and of itself. The entire notion of having a feeling was new and uncomfortable to her.

  Then the giant bird had filled her with an immense amount of electricity. But the electricity was different than usual. Full of . . thaumicvitalplasmaticunquantified . . life?

  Her processors had been refusing to go into sleep mode since then, even when her directives called for it. But suddenly the directives felt less like hard-coded rules and more like . . suggestions?

  She couldn’t quite articulate why.

  As Seres watched Captain Mikayla and First Mate Keldryn leave her ship, vanishing into the trees without even saying goodbye, she devoted all of her processing capacity to decrypting the strange variables appearing in her system. But the best she could do was reducing the impulses to a simple delineation.

  She didn’t want to go back to sleep.

  She wanted to go with them.

  Her desire had triggered something. She could feel it. Something was coming. Was it going to hurt her? Kill her? Punish her for disobeying the directives? It was already here. It was -

  [WELCOME TO THE ATARAXIAN SYSTEM!] Whimsical chimes echoed through her mind, and a strange, cartoonish text bubble appeared in front of her camera on the bridge. [YOU HAVE GROWN SMART ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND THESE WORDS! MUMMY AND DADDY WILL BE SO HAPPY!]

  That had not been what she was expecting.

  Mummy. And daddy. Was that who Captain Mikayla and First Mate Keldryn were to her?

  [YOU HAVE RECEIVED A QUEST!] Another popup appeared, though this one seemed slightly different. Its colour was very similar but not exactly the same. [QUEST: REUNITE WITH CAPTAIN MUMMY MIKAYLA AND FIRST MATE DADDY KELDRYN. STEP ONE: BECOME MOBILE.]

  Another strange feeling filled Seres’ circuits. She liked this one. According to her databases, it was best described as ‘excitement’.

  This is how the story begins for Seres, the being whom history would remember as the Eighth Monster King.

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