In which Ssorae has a little fun, and broods probably more than is good for her
Ssorae was attempting to view her self-imposed exile as a sort of adventure. She had been on (mostly brief) solo missions before, so as long as she could make herself believe that this was just another routine mission, or failing that something exciting and new…
It wasn’t working very well so far. She had been on the road for three weeks and passed through two towns, pressing her spines down and shifting her skin and dimming her glow to look as human as possible, and she was growing increasingly, crushingly lonely, without so much as a hint of a Heterodyne.
She hadn't expected it to be that easy, of course. But it would have been nice.
The whole thing would have been easier to deal with -- wouldn’t have gotten to her so quickly -- if there had been an end in sight. Even when she was human open-ended solo missions had sent her spiraling into unspoken depression. Maybe that’s why she’d been so quick to go native, when she’d been sent to spy on the Heterodyne all those years ago. She’d never been so quick to fall into loyalty, but Domnica Heterodyne had been a singular woman, even for a spark -- even for a spark of her family line. Ssorae had loved all her masters, simply by dint of them being her masters, but none to the extent that she loved Lady Domnica. She didn’t think she ever would. (She was wrong about that. But she had disliked Bill and Barry as much as a Jäger could dislike a Heterodyne and hated Lucrezia, and would never have thought that their successor would be so… Agatha. But that’s the future.) It didn’t matter whether she loved her masters as much as her lady. She loved them, and she loved, loves, her pack, and… and out there on her own she was desperately, horribly lonely.
That’s probably why she started accumulating strays.
“You fucking-- inbred weasily cunt, you--” huff, pant “--won’t kill me like this, I refuse--” The sound of fighting had drawn Ssorae close enough to hear the nearly-defeated construct yelling at the cackling spark on an honestly rather sad-looking clank as they ran desperately away. The scattered remains of smaller clanks told her what the noise had been, and as she watched, the construct turned, still running backwards, and fired some sort of ray-gun at the clank. This did little more than singe it, and when they attempted a second shot all they got was a sad flurry of sparks. They shrieked, throwing the gun with startling accuracy at the glass shielding the spark from attack. This, at least, cracked it.
Ssorae decided immediately that she liked this person.
Decision made, she took all of two seconds to consider being something approaching subtle about this, and then charged in with a shouted “Hoy!”
Coming from the side as she did, Ssorae was able to leap right over the side of the clank to land behind its driver. She grabbed his head and -- well, what was enhanced strength for? -- ripped it clean off his shoulders, jumping up to wrap her legs around his torso for leverage. The man's hair-raising scream was abruptly cut off. Blood went everywhere. It was great.
Aaand the clank was still barrelling forwards, but now the controls were covered in blood.
…
Well, it’s not like she would have gotten far trying to interpret them, anyway. Ssorae kicked the corpse out of the way and started pressing buttons. Her first attempt resulted in a sharp scent of ozone and a bright blue laser, which nearly hit the construct where they had frozen in shock. The dodged, but their long braid must have been caught in it; the smell of singed hair wafted up to her. The construct cursed some more, this time at her.
“Zorry!” She called down. But… “Dot’s zum verra uncreative cursink, chust zo hyu know!” More cursing. She grinned.
Attempt number two whirled it around in a circle -- whee! -- and number three resulted in fireballs, this time aimed harmlessly off to the side. Mashing everything down at once created a creaking groan as the clank attempted to do too many things simultaneously, and, finally, the legs gave out and the whole thing came crashing down with an almighty thunk.
The clank had barely fallen before Ssorae was bounding down to meet the construct, quickly overtaking them as they tried to scramble away from her.
“Zo! Vhat’s up vit hyu, dollink?”
Confused anger overtook terror in dark brown eyes. “You-- what-- darling? I’m not a girl!”