A severed lion's head flew, spraying blood in a beautiful arc as it rotated once in mid-air before dropping to the ground. The death of Lion Ass was badass enough to be the finale of the boss fight in a movie. Real life should have a slow-motion button for times like these.

It reminded me of that pool hair flip thing that became trendy a couple of years ago—a long-haired woman would toss her head back, whipping her hair and the water in an arc as she emerged out of a pool. This was like that, except with mane and blood.

Some drops of blood splattered Deen's face. It didn't break her expression of pure conviction. Crimson streaked her white armor, and the edge of her blade arm was lined with blood as well. She looked so fucking cool compared to me, a frail weirdo robot with missing limbs.

This proved what I always knew: Life was unfair.

Some people are destined to be main characters, and others as mere side characters.

If I made Lion Ass a puppet, maybe I'd be the main character of this show. We could rip through the Tea Party goons and save Mom.

An Adumbrae was the perfect specimen to turn into a hulking muscle berserker. Oooh, I'm using the term 'specimen' like an evil scientist.

Adumbrae could regenerate the severe toll on their body in return for overwhelming strength I'd impart. I could continuously pump them with power from the energy core within my metal body. Add the natural superhuman strength and superpowers of an Adumbrae, and I'd have a trump card!

Sadly, it wasn't as easy as that. I'd need a willing Adumbrae—which Lion Ass definitely wasn't—because I couldn't do my usual shtick of knocking people out and then piloting their bodies. An Adumbrae's regeneration would heal their concussion and help them quickly regain consciousness.

Ackchyually... technically with quotations... I already have a superhuman puppet. What would happen if I tried to control Deen's body? Her Guardian Angel had no issues with our link?

I could try to kill her or something. I could bring the battle of our wills to a standstill, paralyzing her. Shooting her in the head would be an easy thing to do next. But I bet her Guardian Angel already knew that there was no way I was going to do that in the future.

"Pino!" Deen leaped over Lion Ass' headless body and hurried to my side. "Are you okay?"

"I am," I replied as I pushed myself off the floor.

“I saw the Adumbrae, um, break you—”

"My individual body parts are near indestructible. If my parts are fine, especially my head, I could reassemble myself with selective polarity magnetism. Essentially, I can draw my body parts back to myself and establish wireless connections." The fuck made-up sci-fi mumbo shit I'm spitting?

"I didn't know modern technology has advanced this far. I can see why the Tea Party wants to steal you.”

“Good job eliminating the Adumbrae,” I said, diverting the topic away from my fake backstory. She nodded at the praise. Her super serious face broke into a hesitant smile, her eyes still wary of danger.

I followed her gaze, looking at what was behind me.

The dust settled, revealing a large hole in the wall. The explosion didn’t cause this; it was toppled because of their fight. The room where the explosion happened was two units or so away.

I couldn’t get a clear view of it. Smoke was thick back there, with pieces of furniture smoldering. Faint flashes of red and blue lit up the smoke like some rock concert effects. Intense light beams occasionally pierced through the haze to scan the wreckage.

“The police?” I said.

“I think so,” said Deen. “The lion Adumbrae stared out the window, thinking I had jumped…”

And got his fucking ass lit on fire, I mentally finished Deen’s trailing sentence. “That’s extremely lucky,” I said. Obviously, it wasn’t luck. Rather, it was her Guardian Angel at work, turning luck into certainty.

It was surprising that the police had weapons this powerful. I knew they had ComExos and combat drones to fight Adumbrae. I had an unfriendly encounter with some of them back in La Esperanza. But I didn’t expect them to have stuff as if they were going to fucking war.

And they blew up part of the building just like that? They didn’t care about the hostages? Las Vegas police are insane.

“Lucky… yeah.” Deen slowly nodded. “We should get going in case there are more explosions.” She looked down. “What about your legs? What happened to them?"

I shook my head as I tried to balance myself on my knees. "I can detect their signal outside. I surmise a mutated creature must've eaten them. Can you aid me in retrieving them?”

“Sure, I will.” Deen helped me up. She didn’t move with urgency. We were safe for the immediate future.

I tried walking with my shortened legs, but it was too slow and awkward. It would’ve been better if I still had a crutch like the gun from earlier. I lowered myself back to the floor and crawled. She offered to carry me, but I refused—I didn’t want to get cradled like a child.

Also, it’d make Deen look more like the main character than she already did.

“Anyway, I’m glad that you’re still, um, working.” Deen followed me out of the trashed room and into the corridor. “You can heal Erind—I mean, once we find those power cells you mentioned, I hope you can figure out what’s wrong with my friend and heal her.”

“I’m ninety-seven percent sure that I can.” A robot would answer with numbers and shit. Earlier, I was talking smack to Lion Ass to distract it, but I wanted to convey that it was just an act.

I look really pathetic crawling on the floor right now. Should I tell her to carry me? No, it'd be awkward if I said anything after I refused her offer. Just continue crawling, crawling, crawling.

“Here, let me,” Deen said, kicking aside monster corpses out of my path.

“Thank you,” I said. Huh, she’s not asking questions? That was a relief. I assumed she’d have many things to ask me.

“Um, thanks too.”

I might have spoken too soon. “For what?” I asked despite knowing the answer.

"For this." Deen held up her blade arm. With a raised brow, she tilted her head at it. "This is your doing, isn’t it?" The white material softened into a gooey liquid that receded to the armor plating that covered her arm. She was quick to learn how to control the power I granted her.

"Yes, it is." I had no choice but to admit it because I had told her how to use it. And it was probably meant to be this way.

Her Guardian Angel could've instructed her how to control the bony armor since it could provide information that she couldn't have otherwise known in any possible future, branching into new possibilities—fucking overpowered pet. But it chose not to, waiting for me to do it. I assumed it was signaling me to tell the truth.

The alternative was that I could try to convince Deen that it was her artificial Core giving her new powers or some shit. That'd be a complicated story to keep consistent. Also, I wasn't sure if her Guardian Angel would play along.

Speaking of artificial Core, I can use that to parry the incoming problematic questions.

"What's this?" Deen asked, rapping at her chest plate with her knuckle as she walked beside me. "It's so strong that the Adumbrae couldn't pierce it with his claws. It saved my life."

Yeah, you owe me, I thought. If I could grin, my face would be split in half with how wide my smile would be. "They are nanomachines that rapidly self-replicate, forming into microscopic super-structures following the user’s thoughts.” Bullshit spewing commences.

My sci-fi expository moment would've been cool if I wasn't crawling on the ground like a cockroach.

“It’s another top-secret project of Greaves,” I continued. “But they couldn’t be used by anyone. Fortunately, you are a perfect candidate for it, so I programmed them to latch onto you. You see, they are made from hyper pseudo-alloys charged with energy from Cores.”

"Cores?" Deen stopped walking.

"Yes. Cores from Corebrings. I assume you're well aware of what I'm talking about."

She gasped. A jumble of thoughts came from her.

I gazed up at her. Her eyes were wide, her cheek muscles shifting as she gritted her teeth. Then she tried to blank her expression after she noticed me looking. But I could sense the turmoil and worry in her mind.

“Are you going to say you managed to fight that lion Adumbrae with bioaugmentronics?” I locked eyes with her. “I scanned your body,” I said. She looked away. “And I can tell you don’t have any such augmentation. But you’re also not normal…far from it.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying.” Deen clenched her fist. She was gathering resolve in her mind.

“Those nanomachines draw energy from Cores to multiply and harden,” I explained. “If they’re bonded with a normal human, that person would die. In a way, I was lucky to meet you here. Luck is such a human concept. Yet, here we are.”

Deen’s more concrete thoughts flowed into me. (Destroy…Pino. Protect secret…Erind…safe.)

This bitch didn’t hear what I said that I was indestructible? She just saw an Adumbrae tear me apart, and now I was back. However, I couldn’t afford to fight with her—I needed her on my side.

"I'm not programmed to stick my nose in the business of others.” I blinked my eye. She didn’t understand that was supposed to be a wink. “Not that I have a nose like yours. Don’t worry, your secret...and also your friend's...are safe with me. My goal is to save as many people as I can. That's it."

“Um…thank you.” She sighed in relief and unclenched her hands.

But that was all an act because her expression didn't coincide with what was on her mind. I expected her to be cheery, full of hope, inspired that I had the same heroic goals as her. This was the moment in a movie where all the important characters would team up to fight evil.

Instead, she was so full of suspicion that it was oozing over our connection to me. My best friend wasn't as naive as I thought.

"I can sense my legs here," I said, gesturing at a pile of corpses. Let us postpone the betrayals for later. "If you can open these up..."

"No problem," Deen said, wrinkling her nose. The awful stench of the parasite monsters must be getting to her. She flung her arm to her side and out came a long sword like a gigantic switchblade.

"You don't have to be cautious," I told her as she slowly sliced chunks off the disgusting heaps of flesh. "I told you that my body is near indestructible. You won't accidentally cut them."

Deen nodded and hacked away faster.

(Need to... Erind. Help... Pino?)

Fucking cut it out, I wanted to blast to her brain. Couldn't she focus on digging out my legs so we could look for my real body next?

Conflicted thoughts with a sprinkle of tension and anxiety—Deen was arguing with her Guardian Angel. A strong urge to find my Erind body coupled with a suspicion of me as Pino. Both were understandable emotions. My hunch was that her invisible pet told her to continue working with me, but she didn't want to.

I may have found the weakness of Deen's power.

Only after our minds linked did I realize how much Deen didn't want to follow her Guardian Angel's instructions.

Previously, I assumed it was a pretty straightforward power—some mysterious voice tells her to do or not do something. Knowing Deen, I wasn't surprised that she’d resist being told what to do. I could sorta understand she'd want a different path if her Guardian Angel's instruction weren't palatable to her, like maybe sacrificing someone else for her safety.

That got me thinking: why would her Guardian Angel tell her to do something she wouldn't follow?

Deen had explained to us that her pet could see into the future. If that were the case, her pet should know if she would reject what it was going to say and tell her something else. Something wasn’t lining up about her power.

A distinct clink snapped me out of my thoughts. Deen had hit something hard.

I concentrated on pulling. Out came my lower right leg, flying back to my joint. A few moments later, we found my other leg covered by rubble.

"Thank you," I said, finally standing up. "Let us go."

“Wait.” Deen was looking down the hallway in the opposite direction of where Imani and the others fled.

“What is it?” I wanted to raise my brow but remembered I didn’t have any. Even if I did, that facial expression wouldn’t work with only one eye. Her Guardian Angel must be telling her something.

“I’m not sure.”

“What about your friend?” I didn’t like not knowing where my original body was.

“Just wait a bit. I think something’s going to happen.”

“We shouldn’t stay here for too—"

A bloodcurdling scream interrupted my sentence. “Mother Core! Help!”

Deen crossed both her arms in front of her defensively. This time, she wielded two long blades. She was getting too comfortable with her new ability. "An enemy?"

Someone ran out of a room further down the hallway. He was a middle-aged man wearing a nondescript gray suit that was all crumpled up. Splashes of black slime and blood painted him.

He wiped his face as he continued to run towards us, waving his arms to get our attention. "Mother Core's Grace! Please save me!" Beads dangle from his right hand.

Praying Man.

He didn't go along with the rest of the survivors and must’ve hidden in one of the open rooms. Somehow, he survived the gore fiesta after a bunch of parasite monsters escaped their rooms during Lion Ass and Deen's fight.

“Help me, ple—yahhh!”

Tentacles burst out of the wall next to him. He tried to escape, but one tentacle coiled around his legs and pulled him to the rest.

Deen sprung into action, her blade arms at the ready. The tentacles were trying to pull Praying Man’s limbs off when she reached them. She swung her blade so fast that it looked like a blur—chopped-up bits of tentacles scattered like confetti.

More fleshy tendrils appeared as parasite monsters squeezed themselves out of the walls. Deen avoided their attacks with such grace that it looked like she was swimming through the waves of tentacles. She got this whole Guardian Angel thing down.

Prayer Man didn’t continue running. He chose to curl up like a baby on the floor while blood and guts showered him. He closed his eyes and mumbled non-stop as he fiddled with the prayer beads.

I hurried toward them. “The heads and spine!” I called out. “Destroy their heads and spine!” Easier said than done because it was hard to tell which body part was which with some of these mutated fuckshits.

Deen didn’t have any problems killing the monsters. I pointed out the ones still alive so she could dice them into smaller bits. We made a pretty good team. Ewww.

"Thank you! Thank you for saving me!" Praying Man knelt on the floor, his hands clasped together, still holding onto his prayer beads. He bowed low to Deen. "Praise the Mother Core for sending a Corebring to save us!"

"A Corebring?" Deen said. Her eyes flicked toward me.

A Corebring? That was a possible explanation for Deen’s powers and fighting ability. To a normal person, she did look like a Corebring coming to save them from Adumbrae.

"Yes! I've seen you fight!" Praying Man ecstatically waved his hands. "You must be hiding your identity. Are you on a secret mission?”

“I-I don’t—yes, I’m a Corebring on a mission.”

“A Corebring!” Praying Man bowed again. “A blessing to meet a servant of the Mother Core. A silver lining in this horrid experience.”

“Uh, yeah…” Deen looked at me again as if asking what to do next.

Was her Guardian Angel not giving her any instructions?

Her troubled thoughts told me that she did know what she should do. But Deen, being Deen, didn’t want to do it. I supposed that the situation with the frat boys was different. She couldn’t just murder Praying Man right after saving him to protect our secret.

I guess it’s my time to shine.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the Guardian Angel wanted to ally with me to help with situations like this.

Praying Man was getting up from the floor, his arms and legs shaking with excitement at meeting a Corebring. He had the purest smile on his face. His eyes were only on Deen—he didn’t bat an eye at me. Earlier, when I saved them, he was super suspicious of me, raving about how I was a blasphemy to the Mother Core.

He didn’t notice my metal fist coming for his chin.

Praying Man collapsed to the floor. I placed my knee on his chest, pinning him down with my weight. Then I continued to pummel his head.

(I can’t move? Help!)

“Pino! What are you doing?”

(Corebring! Save me!)

“He is infected by the parasite!” I said. Prayer Man’s thoughts quieted down. My knuckles were bloody.

“Infected?” Deen said. “How can you—?”

“Look! The mutation is beginning!” I should thank Deen’s Guardian Angel for giving me a new puppet.