Reshy stared at the monstrosity of limbs looming over them, and put her floppy arms to her head, clutching the shapeless mass that served as her skull. “Holy shit, that voice… you’re Diji, aren’t you?! It’s Reshmi, Diji. We can get out of here together!”

“I don’t care about that anymore. I need data to complete—to complete—to finish what I started. Surrender this doll to me, Reshmi.” The centipede-thing’s tail curled up behind it, and Joe could see that it ended in a heavy-looking extension shaped like a club.

“Don’t suppose I have any say in this?” Joe interjected. “How about I hand this body over to you after I get mine back? Or both of our bodies, if you’re willing to help.” The creature that Reshy had called Diji finally turned to regard him.

“My body is no more. I am no longer Diji Achebe, just as this one is no longer Reshmi Gupta, if she ever was. I have no—no—no interest in discussing human matters. Surrender!”

With startling speed, the centipede’s foremost claw flashed towards them like a striking snake; as he the doll body to the side, Joe felt the claw cut into his shoulder blade. He landed hard on his rear end, his mind already going blank with shock. As he rolled, trying to shake off the feeling, he heard something smash against the floor nearby: the centipede’s armored tail.

Joe looked up at Diji’s leering mask and saw an eye glinting from behind it. Was there anything human in there? Twin blades sliced out of its sides and whirred around its center before it scuttled toward them again, each appendage held high overhead in a position reminiscent of a praying mantis in mid-attack—or of some sort of grotesque horror movie. The whole contraption was so menacing as to seem almost comical, but the gouges in the floor, and on the shoulder of Joe’s body, were frighteningly real.

Joe scooped Reshy up and threw her ahead of him like a rugby player might throw a ball; her soft body crashed against the wall near the base of one of the great industrial arms. He dove after her, rolling again and reaching out with both arms to pick her up, but making contact with only one. Something was wrong with the arm, just below his injured shoulder. She was barely keeping ahead of Diji, who seemed determined not to let them get away.

As soon as he’d gotten back on his feet, Diji came in fast from behind. This time Joe couldn’t roll aside in time and got slammed hard in the stomach by one of the many legs. Fortunately, it was a blunt impact rather than a slicing blade, but the blow hurled Joe’s light body several meters backward—right into a pillar, slamming like a hammer into an ice block. A terrible cracking sound filled the air: He couldn’t tell if it had come from himself or the support column.

At least he was getting used to the strange sensation of feeling motion, impact, but without pain. The blow hadn’t even knocked the breath out of him—because this body had no breath. And he still cupped the rag doll in one delicate hand. Just have to keep moving, using whatever parts of this body still work. We’re like robots: just keep going until you break. “Reshy,” he intoned pleasantly as he slid around the corner of the pillar, trying to put something, anything, between them and the centipede. “I need to repair this body, like we did before when reattaching its broken limbs. I’m too fragile.”

The body’s legs were still working, so he put them into motion, trying to stay ahead of Diji’s many limbs. Every movement brought a sensation like his whole shoulder was about to come loose, and he didn’t want to waste valuable time finding a missing arm. And the clack of the centipede’s sharp claws kept echoing against the concrete floor.

“Did you notice anything, see or hear something about a Sync Level?” Reshy yelled as they ran.

There was a control panel of some sort up ahead, crowed with buttons and levers… and glowing lights illuminated them from within. Was something in this place functional? Desperate enough to gamble, Joe yanked on a lever with his good arm, slapping hastily at a large green button with the other, wobblier hand. Something groaned to life.

“I could see it.” Joe’s thoughts were racing fast, but he couldn’t talk and move at the same time. “Sync Level 2, now.” The mantis-like appendages sliced into the place occupied by Joe seconds before, as he leaped aside. Above, something descended, accelerating: the claw of one giant arm, a mass of heavy steel. Joe threw himself backwards just as the claw crashed into the floor, sending a billow of gray splinters and dust in all directions.

That will buy us a tiny amount of time, he thought, if I can make our movements unpredictable. He grabbed hold of a maintenance ladder on the side of the arm and began the climb. Up again. It’s the only choice.

Reshy was talking, and he had to concentrate too strenuously on not shaking his left arm loose to tell her to lower her zany little voice.

“From what I can tell, that body you’re in has an autonomous repair system, but it obviously hasn’t kicked in beyond the basic attachment routines. Try raising the sync level… if you’re willing.”

Joe willed the doll legs up, propelling himself more by hopping from rung to rung than by risking the increasingly useless arm to hold on. “What do you mean, willing? How do I raise the level?” There was no sign of the centipede, but hoping it had been in just the right spot to be crushed by the arm was overly wishful for Joe’s tastes. No verified kill means hostiles active, he reminded himself.

“You turn the dial like before, dumbass! But with higher levels, you need to will it to happen.” Reshy was struggling out of the spot where he’d tucked her into the leotard’s ample, plastic-hard cleavage. Joe began clambering along the horizontal surface of the arm’s main shaft, moving as quickly but quietly as possible.

“Will what to happen, exactly? Explain it for an ordinary person… already.” Joe felt increasingly annoyed by his voice’s inability to express annoyance. Worse still, the pleasant dulcets of the robot body were getting to him; he’d almost finished the last sentence with “please.”

Reshy didn’t seem offended in the slightest. Her tone sounded calm—calmer than usual, actually: “Well,” she said after a brief pause during which Joe heard nothing save the sound of the doll body’s slippers on the metal surface of the arm. “The higher the level, the greater your control over your body. We’ve already seen that. But the more the body will affect you in turn. Soul synchronization goes both ways. Accept it to reach a higher sync level.”

Joe did his best to scowl. “I don’t get it, are you saying that—” and then the soft clack of his doll’s feet was joined by a harsh rasp from somewhere in front of them, metal scraping on metal. The centipede had circled them so fast that Joe hadn’t expected an ambush. All those damn legs. As the bulk of its body rose onto the huge turbine-like structure that served as the main housing of the industrial arm, Joe decided.

“Fuck it.” He reached to his hip and turned the dial again.

::: SYNCHRONY USER ELEVATION

::: …INVOKED/SYNC LEVEL :: 3

─ MOTOR CONTROL: 100%

─ SENSORIUM: 100%

─ PROPRIOCEPTION: 100%

─ AUTOREGEN ONLINE

─ FLESH-TEMPLATE 8765: USER.PROFILE ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ INVOKE/PERM

─ DYSPH.OVERRIDE :: 10% >> 25% TEMP FAILSAFE

─ ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ :: 15%

The body hummed again, swelling within him and revving up again in its bizarre magical fashion. Everything seemed to slow around Joe, though the centipede’s approach was still alarmingly fast. Even Reshy hung frozen like an image on a screen; her plastic eyes enlarged, mimicking a wide-open human gaze, but the rest of her little burlap body was still.

Joe felt an inexplicable need to stretch, an urgent compulsion—the doll arms reached out almost on their own, Joe’s entire form going up on tiptoe, his back arching. There was a tremor of resistance, shaking through the body. Yes, Joe thought. I will this, I want it. Let’s fucking do it.

Something was oozing out of the joints and from between the plates of the body. He felt the change like the waters of a hot bath flowing over him, and saw cords of red muscle and pale pink skin lash out from inside of the doll body’s limbs, wrapping themselves around his arms, legs, midsection. His thighs swelled with flesh, and the rounded forms of his breasts somehow… changed? Now they were supple spheres, bobbing slightly beneath the taut blue fabric as skin grew over the doll body’s hard frame.

Holy shit, he thought, I’ve got tits. Plump, bouncy tits?! The thought was dizzying, but there was no time to react. Diji’s many-legged form was surging forward, a wave of steel rippling across the metal surface of the industrial machinery. If Joe made one wrong move, the thing’s blades could slice him in two, with or without a covering of soft flesh.

Even as he felt the disconcerting jiggle of new tissue at his chest and rear, Joe also sensed the frame of his body knitting back together. He felt light, responsive, with an impression of physical power and immediate response that he hadn’t felt since his days as a boxer in college. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, he thought, remembering his poster of the famous fighter victorious over a fallen opponent. Mohammed Ali, don’t fail me now.

Diji’s bulky tail whipped towards Joe with incredible speed. Slide, feint, strike, connect.

Joe dropped nearly flat onto his back, supporting himself with both arms braced behind his back, and lashed out with a foot sweep. The centipede swerved out of the way of Joe’s metal-plated foot, but Joe was already moving, launching himself to the side by kicking at the floor with his other foot and pushing off with the doll body’s right hand like a coiled spring. Suddenly, Joe was in front of the porcelain mask, which continued to stare dispassionately at the place Joe had been moments ago.

Joe’s fist pistoned towards the ceiling, catching the bottom edge of Diji’s mask with a sickening crunch. The sudden uppercut tore away the skin on his knuckles, revealing the metal and ceramic frame below. No pain at all. The centipede’s neck twisted as the bottom half of the mask cracked apart and flew into the distance.

Diji reared back, howling in a voice that rippled with static. His head split in two—the rest of the mask falling away and a large section pulling itself loose from its original position above his eyes, which rolled horribly in the head, watery and human, but too large by far. A second section flapped free around his mouth, and two more sections like unhinged snake jaws opening beneath his chin. Jagged barbs lined every surface of the mechanical monstrosity’s edges, every angle that snapped towards Joe.

He wouldn’t wait around to be caught in those mandibles. Joe rolled to the right, just out of reach of the thrashing head, then slammed his fists twice, three times, into the gap between where he thought Diji’s jaw should be: hit the indentation! Something popped loose. As the centipede tumbled over on its side; he followed through with a roundhouse kick at his assailant’s head.

Joe’s feet were sheathed not only in flesh, but in some kind of metal brace that he’d previously thought was part of the foot. The blow landed like a truck and knocked the centipede onto its back—a momentary reprieve for him before the thing began wriggling and flipping back onto its feet. Diji, seemingly as insensate to pain as Joe himself, kept moving despite the damage. His tail whipped in circles in midair. Press the attack, Joe thought. No choice but to incapacitate this thing. Neither of us will give into pain, and neither of us has anything to lose.

Joe lifted the doll’s long, gracefully curved leg high in the air and brought its metal-shod heel down in an axe kick, aiming squarely for Diji’s neck—but the creature simply squirmed aside, and even though it didn’t dodge completely out of harm’s way; its barbs sliced deep into the flesh of Joe’s synthetic calf like razor wire. Dark ichor was spurting everywhere—Joe wasn’t sure whose body it was coming from.

Joe spun on one heel; the damage to the calf reduced the power of that leg, but the interior frame seemed to have evaded most of the damage. He slammed his knee into what remained of Diji’s face with all his might, feeling something crunch underneath the impact. Diji fell back, and Joe pursued, grabbing the flapping pieces of Diji’s jaw and thrusting forward again with his knee. The jaw came free with a spray of red and black droplets.

Diji roared like a bull elephant, maddened with pain. Fragments of wood and plastic flew off its chest plates like sparks from a struck match, exposing gleaming steel beneath. Joe saw another gap, and tightened his fingers to hammer at the crevice, rapid-fire. The tips of his slender digits found purchase, and he levered his way into the centipede’s chest.

Diji retaliated by coiling himself around Joe’s smaller, feminine frame. The centipede was constricting, trying to crush Joe’s body. But whoever created this doll had fashioned her of tougher stuff. What felt like delicate muscle turned firm, then rock-hard with strain. Joe screamed and pulled his hands apart, tearing into Diji’s chest. Parts of the centipede flew back across the room, skittering over machinery as though gravity had flipped on its side. Sections of the monster’s mask and limbs scattered across the bulk of the great lifting machinery: the thing was going nuts, flailing around—but at least the pressure on Joe’s midsection was relaxing.

As he ripped into Diji’s innards with an eye to breaking free from the centipede’s grasp, something about the situation clicked in Joe’s mind. His own strength had increased along with his body mass. Some kind of augmenting magic. Must work in reverse too—keep tearing away. But the pieces of centipede were already crawling back together, on tiny limbs like cilia.

“Reshy!” He bellowed, the pleasant monotone laced with static and stress. “Throw his broken parts off the side!” He couldn’t spare a second to see if she’d heard him, or responded; he had to keep smashing, pounding the doll body’s fists and feet into fracturing metal and plastic.

From somewhere, a shuddering groan tried to articulate words in a remnant of Diji’s voice. “No—no—don’t, don’t do this. I need—I need—body—” Joe’s senses homed in on the source, a fragment that looked like a skull. A single, horribly human-looking eyeball swiveled in a metal socket, impossibly bloodshot and laced with circuitry. A wood-grilled speaker produced the sounds, slowly dissolving into static and nonsense. Could I end up like this, smashed to bits? Joe thought. No. You came at me first; but this time, at least, I won.

He held the fragment of the mechanical monster in his smooth hands, now covered with synthetic flesh, stretched over something harder, more resistant to punishment, able to restore itself. Joe brought his hands together and crushed Diji’s remains between his palms until they stopped making sounds.

KrakenRiderEmma

Next Time: A powerful new body comes with some severe drawbacks.

If you're enjoying this story so far, tell us what you'd like to see in a comment or review. You might also want to check out our main series, Succubated! -- set in the same universe, but in New York proper and more demonic hijinx.