Chapter 15 - Chapter 15: The Girl, the Gun, and the Goddamn Boots

Chapter 15: The Girl, the Gun, and the Goddamn Boots

We were cutting through a quieter trail that curved around the outer forge quarter—smoke low, light fading. I adjusted the strap on my satchel and glanced over.

"Kardin told me something interesting," I said casually.

Sula didn't slow, but I caught the way her eyes flicked sideways.

"Oh?" she asked, voice neutral.

"Said you saved his ass when you were ten. Eleven at most. Led a patrol. Hauled him out of a Snapmaw pit and didn't even flinch."

She groaned. Audibly.

"That old forge-mouthed drunk needs to stop embellishing," she muttered.

"So you didn't save him?"

"I did haul him out," she admitted. "He was half-crushed and bleeding like a stuck bison. Would've died if we'd left him."

I raised an eyebrow. "And you weren't leading the group?"

Sula rolled her eyes hard enough I thought they might fall out.

"I was in the lead," she said. "Big difference. Jorta put me up front to learn tracking. It wasn't my patrol. I wasn't the leader. I was just the smallest one who could move quiet and see prints the others missed."

I smirked. "Still sounds like a leader to me."

She shot me a look. "Then you've clearly never led Kansani warriors. They don't follow you because you're in front. They follow you because you've bled more than them and didn't die."

"Still," I said, "that merchant walks around like he owes you his life."

Sula's mouth twitched. "He does. But if he tells that story one more time like I was some ten-year-old general with bone paint and an army, I'll start charging him extra just for breathing near the Grove."

I laughed. "So noted."

She gave a grudging nod. "Good. Now let's move. Next time Kardin opens his mouth, remind him the only thing I was leading that day was my own damn feet."

Sula's eyes drifted across me again—this time with the quiet, critical appraisal of a scout checking her gear before a storm. Her gaze caught on the long coat, lingered on the gloves, and finally stopped on the restraint launcher riding across my back.

"You went with the Iron Bind," she said, tone unreadable.

I gave a casual shrug. "Seemed like the best option for pinning something too big to fight clean."

That earned the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth.

"Most people who come through the Grove—especially the ones with Shards—go for something that explodes. A blast sling. A tripwire rig. Something loud that sets things on fire or zaps it until it dances."

She jerked her chin toward the launcher. "Not many pick that. Takes patience. Planning. And when it works, it doesn't look flashy. Just… ends things."

I adjusted the strap on my chest. "Didn't buy it to impress anyone."

"Exactly," Sula said. "Which is why Ubba's going to notice."

I raised an eyebrow. "She hasn't even seen me."

"She doesn't need to," Sula replied. "That's the kind of weapon she respects—solid, focused, mechanical. Not something some Forge-licker buys just to feel powerful for five minutes."

She paused, then added dryly, "Ubba doesn't want customers. She wants testers. Feedback. Real results. The kind of person who'll tell her what jammed, what burned, what tore your shoulder out of place when you fired."

I smirked. "I haven't even met her yet."

Sula gave a one-shoulder shrug. "You will. And when you do, don't be surprised if she talks to your gear before she talks to you."

I smirked, reached to my hip, and unholstered Terra's Gift—black steel, gold-etched, the kind of weapon that felt like it remembered every time I'd drawn it.

I held it up, turned it once in my hand.

"I'd bet she'd talk to this guy for hours alone," I said. "Might even ask it if it has a name."

Sula's eyes narrowed slightly as she studied it. "What exactly is that thing?"

"It's called a revolver," I said, keeping my tone even. "Old-world weapon. Fires metal slugs—one at a time—from a rotating chamber. Short range, loud, but it hits hard. Real hard."

She looked at it again, eyes thoughtful.

"Small for something that kills," she said.

"Most dangerous things are," I muttered, holstering it again.

She nodded once. "Ubba will want to take it apart."

"She can look at it," I said. "That's as far as we go."

Sula arched a brow. "You say that now. Wait until she offers you a 'minor' upgrade and a questionable drink first."

I sighed. "Should I be worried?"

She smirked. "You should be ready."

She looked at it again, longer this time—eyes tracing the smooth grip, the etched gold lines, the chamber that hadn't once jammed in a fight. Her voice dropped a little.

"I've seen what that thing does. To machines."

Her gaze slid back up to meet mine, half serious, half something else entirely.

"Ubba might not just take it apart."

I narrowed one eye. "Meaning?"

"She might fuck you just to figure out how it works."

I blinked.

Then stared.

Sula didn't grin. Didn't flinch. Just kept walking like she hadn't said anything even slightly outrageous.

"…You're joking," I said.

"Half," she replied. "And not the half you want."

I slid the revolver back into its holster. "Great. Guess I'd better start hiding my more attractive gear."

Sula arched a brow without looking at me. "Too late."

I groaned. "Wonderful. Can't wait to be a science project."

She smirked faintly, then added, deadpan: "Could be worse."

I glanced over. "How do you figure?"

Sula gave a small shrug, tone matter-of-fact. "Ubba's actually pretty attractive. If you're into loud, soot-covered women with arms like smithing hammers and breasts that make most armor designs impractical."

I blinked.

"Wait—are you reassuring me right now?"

She gave a low hum. "Just saying, if she decides to climb you for technical insight, it wouldn't be a bad time."

I stared ahead, face flat. "I don't know whether to be terrified or flattered."

Sula shrugged again. "Both is safest."

The silence stretched just a little too long after Sula's comment. My brain—traitor that it was—had already conjured up an image of a loud-mouthed forge-savant with fireproof clothes, soft curves, and a hammer in each hand. Each strike making her bre-

I cleared my throat. Hard.

Okay. No. No. Get it together.

I needed something else. Something safe. Something not involving hypothetical blacksmith-induced cardiac arrest.

So I said, "Hey—when we were in Newton Medical... that poster. The one with Jun."

Sula's expression shifted. Subtle. Eyes sharper, mouth still.

"The one with the kids," I added. "Where he wasn't fighting. Just kneeling. Hand on their shoulder."

She nodded once. "I remember."

I kept my voice even. "Did the shamans ever say anything about it? What they thought of that side of him?"

Sula slowed a bit—not physically, but something in her presence eased. She glanced at me, then back at the trail ahead.

Sula slowed a little, just enough for her voice to soften. "The Elders didn't speak at first. They just… stared at it."

I looked over. She wasn't smiling. Just remembering.

"It was Elder Meelo who broke first," she said. "She started crying."

That caught me off guard. "Meelo?"

Sula nodded. "One of the oldest still standing. Doesn't raise her voice in council unless it matters. But when she does, everyone listens."

"She's the one who always said we couldn't forget the Lonaki side," Sula added. "Even when others wanted to move past it—be stronger, harder. She said rage without memory becomes madness. That the wind doesn't roar, it listens."

I let that settle. "So when she saw that image…"

"She wept," Sula said. "Not loud. Not broken. Just… quiet. Like someone finally found the part of a song she thought was lost."

I nodded slowly. "Seeing Jun like that… it was proof."

Sula's voice turned steady. "Proof we weren't building our legacy on half a god. That Jun wasn't just the roar. He was the stillness too."

"The Lonaki side," I said.

She met my gaze. "The side we needed. The side we buried when the fire got too loud."

I didn't say anything. Just pictured that poster again—Jun kneeling, telling a bunch of sick kids it was going to be okay. Just a man offering strength by being present.

We walked in silence for a while, letting the breeze fill in the spaces words couldn't.

"Did you tell them the other thing about the Lonaki?," I said finally.

Sula didn't look over. "What other thing?"

"The Cherokee," I said. "What I told you about the Lonaki possibly descending from them. What they used to be. How they lived."

"They listened," Sula said. "Especially Elder Meelo."

I nodded slowly. Then asked, "Did you mention my sister?"

Sula's pace didn't change, but something in her voice deepened. "You said she was Cherokee."

I clarified. "She carried the blood. Not me. But I grew up knowing about the Cherokee. With their stories. With that sense of something older always moving under the surface. I never claimed it. But I never forgot it either."

Sula was quiet for a few breaths.

Then: "Meelo said maybe that's why you were the one who found the totem."

I looked at her. "What do you mean?"

"She said: 'If the soul of the wind returned once, then it will return again. And perhaps this time, it came through kin—by love, not blood.'"

That stopped me cold.

"She believed," Sula added, "that your sister… her family… might've guided you. Not in body. In spirit. That they pulled you toward that totem so you could remember what we'd forgotten."

I stared forward, jaw tight.

"I always felt like I was borrowing something I didn't have a right to," I said. "Like I could carry the stories, but not claim the roots. It was always something I didn't like that I was only one thing and not part another."

"You didn't have to claim them," Sula said softly. "You just had to speak them."

I didn't answer. I couldn't.

But something in my chest felt less hollow.

We walked on, the weight of the conversation trailing behind us like smoke that hadn't yet dispersed.

I didn't say anything right away.

But my thoughts wouldn't stay quiet.

I'd traveled across universes. Across timelines. Worlds layered on top of other worlds.

But through all of that?

I'd been frozen.

Stuck.

My body preserved like a sealed page, untouched by the years that kept turning elsewhere.

And the clock back home—that clock—never stopped.

Time kept moving.

My sister. Her kids. My mom, my dad, my friends. The world I came from…

Gone.

No slow fade. No long goodbye. Just a quiet click into my history the moment I stepped out of that cycle.

They lived their whole lives.

And I wasn't there for any of it.

But then again… I had something no one back home ever had.

Proof.

Real, undeniable proof that the afterlife existed.

That souls moved. That spirits lingered.

I'd met beings who walked between cycles.

Heard voices carried by systems older than memory.

Felt the presence of things that shouldn't have survived, but did.

So maybe… maybe Elder Meelo was right.

Maybe my sister had nudged me toward that totem and whispered me into that grove.

Not to claim something. But to remember it. To carry it forward. By love—not blood.

And as the wind moved through the branches overhead, dry and soft like fingers over prayer beads, I thought:

If that's not a sign… what is?

Sula motioned me forward with a tilt of her chin, saying nothing.

We hiked up the ridge in silence, the trail curling through heat-warped earth and black-veined stone. The wind tasted like coal and scorched oil. Somewhere ahead, metal rang on metal.

Then we reached the crest.

And I saw it.

Lying across the valley like a god left to rot was the Horus.

What was left of it.

It lay on its side, half-sunken into the slope, its carapace long since stripped of armor, plating, and paint. All that remained was the bare exoskeleton—a massive framework of ribbed ferro-carbon bones and shattered support columns that once housed the most terrifying war machine Earth had ever known.

Its head was a warped husk—jaw gone, eye sockets hollow. Great gouges ran through the central chassis, exposing the hollow void where its biomass converters had once churned. It looked like someone had carved open a god and left the pieces as scaffolding.

Its tentacles—those horrible, once-living limbs that had flattened cities—were now twisted upward and lashed into place. And I realized they weren't just debris.

They were supports.

Ironbone forges, smith halls, and salvage rigs had been built into and around them, using the curled arms of the dead Horus like foundation beams. Rope ladders hung from some. Others had pulley systems rigged into their joints. I even saw a smoke stack pumping steam out from what used to be a coolant vent.

It was grotesque. Beautiful. Practical.

Terrifying.

Sula stood beside me, arms folded.

"Our ancestors found it generations ago," she said. "Before even Ironwood Grove was what it is now."

I nodded, slowly. "They knew it was dangerous."

"Didn't need to know why," she said. "Didn't need to understand it. They just knew it wasn't right. The Ironbones call it the Spine," she said. "They dragged everything useful out of it decades ago. Core's empty. Brain's gone. Only thing left was bone."

I kept staring.

"And they built on it?" I asked.

"They claimed it," she corrected. "Every claw. Every coil."

She pointed toward the largest structure—what looked like a central forgehall, shaped like a ribcage split open and welded into place between two massive tentacles.

"That's where the main forge burns. They say it runs hottest where the war heart used to sit."

I exhaled slowly.

"I've seen a lot since I woke up," I said. "But this..."

"Feels wrong?" she offered.

"No," I murmured. "It feels true."

We stood there a moment longer, the broken war titan lying still across the basin below, its limbs outstretched like it had tried to grasp something in its final moments—and found only time waiting to strip it bare.

It was an insult. An insult to Faro, one I welcomed.

A message carved in smoke and hammer strikes: You do not get to rise again.

I exhaled through my nose. "It's not just dead."

"It's beneath us," Sula said.

And I believed her.

But even as I stared at the ruined Horus—this Metal Devil gutted and lashed down like a war crime that would never stand again—I couldn't stop the thought that crept in behind my eyes.

Why didn't the other tribes do this?

The Oseram, maybe. They would've. Probably did, in places I hadn't seen yet. I could imagine them carving up old machines just to prove they weren't afraid. That made sense.

Even the Legion—if my suspicions about Caesar having a Focus were right—he might've understood the importance, the power of breaking something like this apart. Stripping it down was as much a message as a tactic. It said, We are the future now.

But the others?

The Carja?

The Nora?

They called Metal Devils forbidden. Sacred. Dangerous. And then they left them alone. Built their temples at a distance. Whispered stories about gods of war they were too afraid to name.

The Nora especially—they had stories about the Devil's Spine and smoke that ate souls, but they never stripped one. Never claimed it. Never challenged it.

Why?

Was it fear?

Or something worse?

Maybe they thought the Metal Devils were still watching. Still waiting to rise.

Or maybe… they'd spent so long surviving that they forgot how to defy.

I looked at the Ironbone forges glowing between the ribs of the Horus, heard the ring of hammers echo from its hollowed heart, and realized something simple.

The Kansani didn't survive the fall of the world.

They stepped over it.

And made it carry their fire.

We were maybe half a mile out from the Pile when we saw them.

A caravan rolling along the black-packed trail—four Kansani warriors on foot, flanking a heavy wooden wagon creaking under the weight of scrap. Machine carcasses. Maybe five or six in total, stacked like gutted boars after a hunt.

The wagon was massive—its wheels bound with scavenged Behemoth containers, its frame reinforced with ribbed plating from something long dead and still sharp. A pair of bison pulled it slow and steady, shoulders flexing with every step. You could hear the cart's weight groaning over the low hiss of morning wind.

And on the seat?

An Ironbone.

Slouched on a scrap-forged bench, reins in one hand, a short-stemmed black pipe clenched between his teeth, hammer resting lazily across his lap. He looked half-asleep—until one of the machines moved.

It was a Watcher. Mangled, but not enough.

Its head jerked suddenly—just a twitch, a flicker of motion from where it lay against the piled chassis. Its optic flared orange for half a second. It head started to pick up-

CRACK!

The Ironbone didn't hesitate.

The hammer came down in one fluid swing—straight into the side of the Watcher's skull with a crunch of plating and a flash of sparks.

The cart shook from the force of the hit.

"NO! BAD WATCHER!" the Ironbone barked, like he was yelling at a dog that just pissed on the floor.

Then he turned, already halfway standing on the driver's rail, voice booming over the road.

"You ash-brained goat sons didn't check it!"

One of the Kansani—tall, scar-striped across one cheek—opened his mouth to respond, but the Ironbone cut him off with a stabbing finger.

"Don't! Don't even—no excuses! The thing was still alive! You drag a live one onto my cart again, and I swear by the Forgemother's left tit, I'll test the next hammer prototype on your knees!"

The other warriors didn't argue. They just looked forward, shoulders a little stiffer.

The Ironbone spat to the side, grumbling. "Reducing pay by twenty-five percent," he muttered, "and I dare one of you to argue."

He gave the reins a sharp tug, settling back on the bench with a snort.

"Next time, use your goddamn spears like they're not just fashion statements."

The bison snorted and kept moving.

I looked over at Sula.

She just shook her head. "That's Grosh. One of the calmer ones."

The cart rumbled closer, metal clinking and bison snorting, and Grosh was still muttering under his breath about "blind bastard scouts and scrap that bites back." Then his eyes swept the ridge—

And landed on us.

On Sula.

His whole face shifted—gruff lines relaxing, the anger melting into something broad and loud and surprisingly warm.

"Well by the Blighted lands , if it isn't Split-Braid herself!" he hollered, voice booming like a forge vent popping open.

Sula gave a short wave. "Grosh."

"Didn't think you were back yet," he said, yanking the reins to slow the wagon. The bison grunted and clopped to a stop, snorting steam. Grosh leaned forward on the bench, one boot propped on the frame, pipe wagging from his teeth.

"You bring me anything that still sparks? Or just this skinny outsider who looks like he hasn't slept in a real bed since before the Machines went mad?"

Sula smirked. "He's tougher than he looks."

Grosh looked me over, chewing the pipe once.

"I'll believe that when he stops wearing armor with clean seams."

I nodded. "Already working on it."

He grinned, wide and soot-toothed. "Good. Would hate to see you get torn apart by something just because you wanted to look symmetrical."

He turned back to Sula. "You headed to the Pile?"

"Headed that way now," she said. "Jorta's stable. We've got time."

Grosh nodded, tapping the side of the wagon with his hammer. "Good. Could use hands that know a coil from a claw. Ubba's been screaming about someone 'volunteering' for her newest deathstick again. Figured it'd be you."

Sula tilted her head toward me.

Grosh followed the gesture. Then blinked.

Then grinned slow and wide.

"Ohhh," he said. "You're the fool."

I sighed.

Not loud. Just enough that Sula might've heard it if she was listening close.

Testing Ubba's prototype. Accepting the inevitable madness of wielding something forged half from salvage and half from pure spite. On paper, it made sense—field-test the weapon, gain trust, maybe get first claim if she refined it.

But in practice?

It was starting to feel like one of those choices I'd look back on someday and whisper, "What the hell were you thinking?"

My hand drifted down and brushed against the side of the bison.

Warm. Dense. Muscle wrapped in fur like coiled cables under fabric. The creature didn't shy away—just huffed a slow breath and kept chewing. I reached further, running my palm along its flank, marveling at the sheer scale of it.

I'd never been this close to one before. Not in my world. Not in my time. Everything this big with four legs back then had been fenced, tagged, or digital. This one was real.

Grounded.

Solid in a way the world hadn't been for a thousand years.

Grosh raised an eyebrow at me from the bench. "You thinking of stealing one?"

I shook my head, still petting the bison. "Nah. Just taking the chance to touch something I don't have where I was from."

He grunted. "Fair."

I stepped back and looked up at him again.

"And for what it's worth," I said, voice lower now, "I think I know what Ubba's making."

Grosh's grin twitched, almost faltered.

"If I'm right," I continued, "it's going to change the battlefield. Permanently."

He stared at me for a second longer—then leaned back with a slow exhale.

"That's what I'm afraid of."

I kept my gaze on the horizon for a moment longer, watching smoke from the Pile twist against the sky. The bison shifted beside me, slow and calm. Somewhere behind the forge stacks, metal rang like a bell being shaped into something worse.

Then I said it.

"If she gets it working…"

Grosh tilted his head slightly, pipe still clenched between his teeth.

"…the Kansani won't just be able to hold the Legion at bay," I said. "They'll be able to drive them out. Cull their numbers. Burn through their arrogance one spike at a time."

Grosh didn't grin.

Didn't smirk.

He just stared at me for a long second, the heat behind his eyes not from anger—but from understanding.

"That's a big claim," he said at last.

I nodded. "It is."

"But it's not wrong," Sula added quietly beside me.

Grosh let out a breath, smoke curling from his nose.

"Then you'd better pray she doesn't overcook the pressure plates again," he muttered. "Last one went off half-assembled." Grosh grunted. "Last one Ubba fired? Blew a forge door clean off the hinges. Embedded a rebar spike straight into Nark."

I blinked. "Nark?"

He nodded solemnly. "We had to have him for lunch."

I froze. "Wait—what?" were the Kansani cannibals!?

Grosh didn't miss a beat. "Killed him with a shot to the head. Would've been wasteful otherwise."

I stared. "You… you ate someone?" 'Aw fuck!'

Sula, deadpan: "Rion."

Grosh looked at me like I'd grown an extra head. Then he barked out a laugh loud enough to spook the bison.

"Nark was a bison, boy. Not a person. Malric's favorite haul beast. Thing chewed through leather, kicked him twice, and still he swore they had a bond."

I exhaled. "Right. Of course. Just. Y'know. Clarify that next time."

Grosh shrugged, utterly unbothered. "Didn't lie. Still lunch."

Sula was fighting a smirk now. "They even made a sauce for him."

Grosh pointed at her. "Spicy fireroot glaze. Beautiful. Ubba said it brought out the irony. I think she meant the metal in the wound."

I just rubbed the bridge of my nose. "This forge is going to kill me. But it'll feed someone doing it."

Grosh grinned. "That's the spirit."

Grosh leaned back on the cart bench, watching the smoke twist lazily from the Spine's stacked chimneys.

"I love that girl," he said, voice dipping lower. "But Spirits below, my daughter is a troublemaker when she gets an idea lighting a fire in her."

I turned to him slowly. "Ubba's your daughter?"

He nodded. "My only one. Named her after a war cry and raised her on slag and spite."

Grosh went on. "She was fixing pressure valves before she could read a schematic. Tried to rebuild a Snapmaw jaw into a grain thresher when she was twelve. Blew half a chicken coop into orbit. We still haven't found the rooster."

I blinked. "Wait, that wasn't a joke?" And I ideally wonder if the Kansani were attempting to domesticate prairie chickens?

Grosh looked me dead in the eye. "That was Tuesday."

He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes softening just a little.

"She's brilliant. Scary-brilliant. But once she gets an idea… it's like something hunts her. Won't let her sleep. Won't let her rest until it's built. Doesn't matter if it's dangerous. Doesn't matter if it breaks half a forge doing it. If it works in her head, she's gonna try."

"And you just let her?" I asked.

Grosh shrugged. "I'd rather her burn down a forge chasing genius than rot waiting for permission. Like the Oseram treats their women."

He looked back toward the Spine.

"Besides… I've seen the way the world's shifting. Machines are getting smarter. Deadlier. The Legion's getting bolder. If what she's making can even the field? I'll take the scorched walls and bruised egos. Every time."

I nodded, quietly.

Because he wasn't wrong.

And because he wasn't joking.

We passed beneath the Pile's gates—massive, welded slabs of metal braced with machine ribs and scorched warning glyphs. No guards, no ceremony. Just the heavy stink of oil, ash, and half-cooled ambition.

Inside, the world changed.

It was louder. Hotter. The air was thick with the hiss of pressure vents and the crackling roar of low flame. The clang of hammer on plate echoed from every direction, layered over the guttural bark of Ironbones shouting for tools, scrap, or silence. Chains swung overhead. Smoke rolled out from the mouths of converted containers and broken processing lines turned forgehalls. Rigs hung from the tentacles of the dead Horus above—iron limbs cradling entire foundries like a ribcage around a heart.

And then it hit me.

Not the heat. Not the noise.

The shape of the ground.

The layout.

The tilt of the sun through the broken roof struts above one corner of the compound—the bent sign fused into the old wall with faded ghost-lettering beneath layers of soot and scrap.

I stopped cold.

Because I recognized it.

Not from the world I'd woken into. But the one I'd left behind.

This wasn't just a forge built on a Metal Devil's corpse.

It had been built on top of a warehouse.

One of the old ones.

I stared at the walls, the bones of the structure buried under decades of salvage and iron-sweat.

No way.

Sula noticed the shift in my expression—tight jaw, clenched teeth, that look I hadn't meant to let show.

"What?" she asked. "You look like you just stepped on a nail."

I let out a breath. Then shook my head with a bitter laugh.

"I used to work here," I said.

She blinked. "Seriously?"

I nodded, eyes still scanning the structure. "This was one of the facilities where we stored processed metals. Global shipping depot. We loaded crates onto trucks. Forklifts. Warehouse drones. I used to eat lunch under that catwalk right there." I pointed at a twisted overhead frame now wrapped in pulley chains and blast shielding.

Sula gave me a look halfway between amused and confused. "That's... weirdly specific."

I sighed again and muttered, "I can't get away from this damn place."

That did it.

Sula broke.

She laughed—sharp, sudden, and real. The kind that came from the gut. No mocking. Just honest disbelief.

"You fought your way across half the Plains, through ruins, deathclaws, and Strikers," she said between laughs, "and you ended up back at your old job?"

I threw my hands up. "Apparently!"

She laughed harder. "You're cursed."

"Don't I know it."

I kept walking, but my eyes were still scanning the deeper lanes of the Pile—the corners that hadn't been fully reforged, just patched over with scrap and stubbornness. The kind of place where history didn't die so much as get stapled to a new job description.

Then I saw it.

Across the yard, half-embedded in a blackened support wall, was a twisted locker frame. Rusted hinges. Door hanging open like a broken jaw.

Inside?

A curled piece of thick material—charred and stiff, but unmistakably the right size for a work boot cover. Standard issue. Lined for steel-toes.

I squinted harder.

No.

No way.

Sula noticed me slowing again.

"What now?"

I pointed across the complex.

"Is that—" I blinked. "I think that's my old locker."

She followed my line of sight.

"That bent thing in the wall?"

"And that..." I tilted my head. "That might be the remains of my work boots."

Sula raised an eyebrow. "You recognize your shoes? From here?"

I stared across the Pile at the warped locker and the shredded old boot cover curled inside like a fossilized memory. Sula followed my gaze, still grinning.

"You sure those are yours?" she asked.

"Oh yeah," I said, voice dry. "Trust me. I'd know those bastards anywhere."

She tilted her head. "You sound way too emotionally invested in a pair of boots."

I exhaled through my nose. "That's because those boots assaulted me."

She blinked. "What?"

I gestured vaguely toward the twisted locker frame. "One time—back before the world fell apart—I wanted to get out of here and go to sleep. Threw my boots in there without thinking. Didn't wedge them properly on the shelf."

Sula folded her arms, already sensing where it was going.

"Next morning," I continued, "I open the locker like normal… and they launch. Full force. One boot hits me in the chin, and the other—dead center—right into the family jewels."

Sula's eyebrows lifted. "You kicked yourself in the nuts?"

"Technically," I said, nodding solemnly, "my own footwear did it for me. I was a victim of poor spatial awareness and gravity's betrayal."

Sula tried to keep it in. Failed immediately.

She doubled over with a laugh that turned heads from a nearby welding bench. "You literally got kicked in the balls by your own boots?!"

I crossed my arms. "And people say poetic justice is a myth."

She wiped her eyes, still giggling. "So wait… now they're retired. Memorialized in the wall."

"Yup," I muttered. "My shame has become load-bearing salvage."

She laughed even harder. "This place is sacred."

I sighed. "Yeah. Real cathedral of progress."

Sula was still laughing, trying—and failing—to compose herself.

"This place is sacred," she wheezed. "Sacred!"

I rolled my eyes, smirking despite myself. "Glad my pain is a cultural treasure now."

Then—

BOOM!

A sudden blast ripped through the air from somewhere deeper in the Spine. A forge vent must've overloaded. Pressure plates went off. A shockwave rolled across the yard, kicking up dust and sending a few hanging chains clattering against their mounts.

The old wall groaned.

And then it happened.

That twisted locker—my locker—shuddered.

And something dislodged.

A shape flew through the air with uncanny precision. Arcing. Spinning.

The boot cover.

Like a rusty missile guided by fate and malice.

It struck me, dead center, right in the crotch.

WHUMP.

I folded.

Not gracefully.

Just a low, helpless grunt and a full-body slump like my soul had temporarily disconnected from my skeleton.

Sula stared for half a heartbeat.

Then lost it.

Again.

She hit the ground laughing—flat out. Hands to her sides, gasping. "It happened again! You kicked yourself in the nuts—again!"

"I didn't even open the damn thing this time," I croaked.

The bison beside us snorted, unimpressed.

Grosh, from the wagon, having over heard the story squinted at the scene. "Did… did that boot just assault you again?"

I gave a thumbs-up from my crouch. "Apparently, vengeance has a shelf life."

Sula wheezed, pointing at the boot now resting innocently on the dirt beside me. "It followed you through time." And space I said mentally in my head

"Good," I muttered. "Now it can go back to hell."

Grosh shook his head. "We're melting that thing down. No way I'm letting haunted footwear stay in circulation."

"Make it into a spearhead," Sula said, still laughing. "Give it purpose."

"It had a purpose," I groaned. "Then I was betrayed by OSHA."

She wiped her eyes. "What in the Deathstorm is an OSHA?"

I looked up at her from my semi-fetal position and gave her a look like I was about to explain something sacred and stupid in equal measure.

"Old world thing," I muttered. "It stood for Occupational Safety and Health Administration. They were supposed to make sure workplaces weren't death traps."

Sula stared at me.

Then looked around.

At the warped forge rig to our left. The exposed steam line venting pressure against a tent wall. The pulley rig swinging overhead with no visible counterweight. Then back at me.

"You had a whole group just to stop people from getting hurt at work?"

"Yep."

She blinked. "How'd that go?"

I gestured to the boot. "I think history speaks for itself."

Sula snorted. "Yeah. Sounds like they failed hard."

Grosh muttered from the cart, "Probably should've had one of those for Ubba's ideas."

I was still rubbing my ribs—mentally assessing the damage and emotionally questioning every decision that brought me back to this place—when I muttered, "OSHA would've shut this whole place down in five minutes."

Grosh cocked an eyebrow. "That so?"

"Yeah," I said. "Unshielded pressure lines. Open furnaces. No warning signage. Spontaneous footwear-based assaults. They'd lose their minds."

He chewed his pipe, then shrugged. "Sounds like a boring loot."

I blinked. "What?"

"You know," he said, gesturing around. "You crack open a ruin, you hope for a schematic, maybe a relic. Instead you get a whole vault full of 'don't step here' signs and thick paper telling you not to juggle knives."

Sula snorted. "The signs wouldn't survive half a day here."

Grosh nodded. "Paper burns. Idiots don't. That's the problem."

I sighed. "This place is held together with fumes and aggressive confidence."

Grosh grinned. "And pride. Don't forget pride."

I bent down and picked up the remains of the boot—the one that had now assaulted me across time, space, and emotional stability.

It was warped, cracked down the side, and still faintly smoking from the explosion. The steel toe was dented inward, like it was proud of itself.

Then my Focus pinged in the corner of my vision.

[SYSTEM ALERT]

Item Acquired: Temporal Footwear Fragment – Class: Echobound Scrap

Boots that survive cross-dimensional displacement events may develop anomalous properties.

Reforging advised.

Ignoring this item may lead to persistent low-tier karmic aggression.

"Walk it off, or it walks on you."

I stared at the screen for a long second.

Then slowly looked up at Sula and Grosh.

Sula arched a brow. "You gonna keep that cursed thing?"

I nodded, deadpan. "Yeah."

Grosh snorted. "Why? Planning to mount it over the hearth? Start a shrine to bad decisions?"

I held the scrap up between two fingers.

"The device on my head confirms it's haunted."

Sula blinked. "Seriously?"

I nodded again. "Absolutely cursed."

Grosh looked way too entertained. "How cursed?"

"If I don't respectfully reforge it," I said, pocketing the remains, "there's a solid chance it'll kill me next time. Probably in my sleep. Or during a sprint."

Sula covered her mouth with the back of her hand, trying not to laugh again. "You're afraid of a boot."

"Something has a vendetta against you either kill it or resolve it, and since I can kill it I might as well resolve the matter" I grumbled. "If I'm gonna reforge these things," I muttered, "I'm doing it right."

Sula raised an eyebrow. "Define 'right.'"

A sharp hiss echoed across the Spine—steam venting somewhere behind the central forge stacks—followed by the clink of metal tools and the distant clang of something being punished into shape.

I barely noticed at first. Just figured it was more of the usual background chaos.

Then I spotted her.

Walking along a scaffold path near the far side of the basin—short, broad-shouldered, grease-streaked, moving like someone who didn't walk so much as storm through life in stages.

She had a long wrench slung over one shoulder, an apron scorched beyond recognition, and wild brown hair tied up in a mess of leather bands and utility clamps. Her goggles were pushed up on her forehead, framing a pair of sharp, soot-ringed eyes.

She was headed our way, muttering to herself and clearly here to inspect the damage from the earlier blast.

I didn't know who she was yet.

Not until I spoke.

"I'll get some Hammerrunner skull metal," I said, still half-focused on the boot scrap in my hand. "If I'm gonna wear steel toes, I might as well make the kicks count."

Sula barely had time to smirk before it happened.

The woman—who'd been walking casually just a moment ago—snapped her head toward us like a predator hearing a wounded animal… made of blueprints.

Her eyes locked on the boot scrap. Then on me.

Then she took off.

Boots thudding. Tools jangling. Momentum building like a forge charge about to blow.

"Oh no," Grosh muttered.

Sula sighed. "Rion... congratulations. You've summoned her."

She skidded to a stop in front of me, panting slightly, eyes alight with dangerous inspiration.

"You. Are you the one talking about boot-mounted Hammerrunner plating?"

I blinked. "...Yes?"

She pointed at me like she'd just found a lost schematic in the dirt. "Name."

"Rion."

"I'm Ubba. I make things that kill things. Sometimes on purpose."

I nodded slowly. "Good to know."

She yanked the boot scrap out of my hand without asking, flipping it over twice and holding it up to the light like a relic. "Oh yeah. This is cursed. I can feel it."

"I've been saying that."

"But it went right for you, everything else went off in a random direction but this right for you!" she barked, beaming. "That means the bond is already formed!"

Grosh groaned behind her. "Here we go…"

Ubba turned to him and jabbed a finger. "Don't start. This man just gave me the best idea since the steam-lance grappling gauntlet."

"That thing broke your arm," Grosh replied.

Ubba waved him off. "Sacrifices were made. But now—boots that kick back. Piston cores in the heel, weight channeled through reinforced plates, impact amplification chambers that fire on strike—ohhhhhh, I can see it!"

She turned back to me, grinning wide. "You ready, Rion?"

"For what?"

Ubba was still pacing, arms flailing with barely contained excitement, when I cut in.

"Hold up," I said. "Did you say steam-lance grappling gauntlet? Are you making power armor?"

She froze mid-step.

Grosh and Sula both turned toward me like I'd just pulled the pin on a live grenade.

Grosh's look said: You fool.

Sula's said: You had a choice and you chose wrong.

But I ignored both.

Ubba turned her whole body toward me like a turret locking on.

"You. Get it."

"Trying to," I said carefully.

She stomped over and planted herself two feet in front of me, waving her arms like she was sketching an idea into the air with her fingers.

"Alright. You strap it to the forearm. Compact steam chamber, rear-loaded. Fires a retractable harpoon with about twenty feet of burn-line cable. You hit something—wall, beam, machine chassis—and the retraction spool pulls you toward it."

She pointed at her own chest like she'd been test subject one. "Vertical movement. Escape tool. Emergency traversal. You don't climb—you launch."

I blinked. "So… it's not power armor."

Ubba tilted her head. "No? It's a gauntlet."

I rubbed my jaw. "Right. More like a… Pullcaster."

That made her pause. "Pull… what?"

"Movement tool I've seen before," I said. "Didn't use steam, but same idea—grab a ledge, pull yourself toward it, yank something down. Agile. Versatile."

Ubba's eyes widened. "Ohhhh. Now that's interesting."

I nodded slowly. "Still dangerous, but not bulk gear. Compact. Tactical. More useful than armor in tight spaces."

She immediately started muttering again—about modular mounts, dual-grip balance, and possibly using sawtooth teeth for the grapple head.

Grosh groaned. "Great. Now she's got a new project."

Sula smirked. "You started this."

I looked back at Ubba, already lost in thought, her eyes scanning scrap piles that weren't even nearby.

"…Still," I added, "if she refines it, gets the steam control right… what she made can be used for something heavy."

Grosh finished for me. "Could mount it on real armor."

Ubba didn't look up, but she did grin. "Don't tempt me. That's phase three."

Ubba was still pacing, muttering something about "spring-loaded hooks and rupture-tested cabling," when I spoke up again.

"If you want it to be safer," I said, "you should mount it on the hip."

She paused, halfway through yanking a coil of wire off her belt.

"Hip?" she repeated.

I nodded. "You're pulling your whole body weight with a gauntlet strapped to your arm. That's unstable. All the momentum yanks your shoulder out of alignment. You miss the angle, you're spinning into a wall."

Ubba's eyes narrowed—focused, calculating.

"But if it's anchored at your center," I continued, "the force pulls from your core. Keeps your spine aligned. You get the launch without the limb trauma."

Grosh let out a low whistle. "He's not wrong."

Ubba stared at me for a moment like I'd just offered her a schematic scrawled by a forgotten machine god.

Then she shouted.

"YES!"

She dropped everything she was holding—two wrenches and a half-eaten bag of sunflower seeds—and started furiously scribbling into the air with her fingers again.

"Hip-mounted. Belt rig. Forward-pivot reel. Cable tension shifts with core twist—YES! That would stabilize the flight arc and free the arms!"

She turned to Grosh. "We can brace it on the rig spine and use dual-coil synchronization! No more shoulder dislocations!"

Grosh muttered, "Which implies there were shoulder dislocations."

Ubba ignored him entirely. "You. Rion. You're not just the cursed boot man. You're the idea guy."

I blinked. "I said one thing."

She pointed at me like she was declaring war. "And it was the right thing."

Sula crossed her arms, smiling faintly. "You just made it worse."

"I made it better," I said.

Ubba was already halfway toward a scrap table, yelling, "Grosh! Clear the lathe! We're making a waist-launcher!"

Grosh didn't even look up from where he was inspecting the wagon wheel.

He just shouted back, "Don't call me by my name—I'm your father!"

Ubba waved a hand over her shoulder. "Then Father Grosh, clear the lathe!"

"No! That's worse!"

Sula leaned toward me, voice low. "This is every day."

I nodded slowly, watching as Ubba knocked over a bin of machine scrap and immediately started building with it. "I'm starting to understand why the Ironbone forges have a firebreak wall."

Grosh muttered, "She's gonna name this one, too. She names everything."

Ubba shouted from behind a pile of rebar, "I'm calling it the Snap Belt! No, wait—The Waist Wrecker! No, no—Kinetic Kiss!"

"Most of the time they suck." Sula added.

Grosh let out a sound like a man who'd stepped on a wrench barefoot. "I raised you to fear the gods, not name boots after flirtation!"

Sula laughed. "You failed."

Grosh threw his hands up. "I didn't fail. I just built something I couldn't stop."

I looked between the two of them.

"…So this is what insanity looks like."

Sula clapped a hand on my shoulder. "You did this, remember."

We followed them into the forge—the heat pressing against us like a wall of breath. The place was chaos made sacred. Smoke curled from pressure vents, half-scrapped machines hung from ceiling hooks, and every flat surface had something mid-explosion or half-completed.

Ubba was already elbow-deep in a crate of springs, muttering about spool tension and anchor stability.

Grosh stood off to the side, arms crossed, watching like a man both proud and perpetually exhausted.

Ubba let out a triumphant "Ha!" as she yanked out a reinforced cable housing with her teeth. Then I spoke again.

"You know…" I said, watching her slap parts together with reckless confidence, "if you drop the pressure, scale the chamber down, and shorten the bolt length—you wouldn't need to scrape the gauntlet."

Ubba froze.

Grosh's eyes narrowed. "No—"

I kept going. "Just a focused compression burst. Compact. Wrist- or belt-mounted. Could fire a small bolt—like a mini spear. Not for traversal. Just—impact."

Ubba turned around slowly, holding a coil in one hand and a chunk of pipe in the other.

"You're telling me," she said, voice dangerously calm, "that I could turn my failed grappling launcher into a bolt cannon?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Miniature harpoon. Controlled spread. Less risk of tearing your arm off."

Sula muttered, "You are making it worse."

Ubba's smile widened into something feral.

"I could dual mount it."

Grosh groaned. "No. Absolutely not."

"One on each wrist," Ubba continued, already drawing blueprints in the air again. "Close-range anti-armor. Stagger capability. Steam-fed bone spikes."

"Don't encourage her," Grosh begged.

"She encourages herself," Sula said dryly.

I shrugged. "She was going to build something unstable anyway. Might as well make it useful."

Ubba pointed at me with a wrench. "I like you."

She slapped a piece of scrap metal down on the nearest table.

"This is it. New prototype. Project name: The Wasp."

Grosh muttered, "You named the last one The Widowmaker."

Ubba grinned. "And now we're building the spouse!"

We followed them into the forge—the heat pressing against us like a wall of breath. The place was chaos made sacred. Smoke curled from pressure vents, half-scrapped machines hung from ceiling hooks, and every flat surface had something mid-explosion or half-completed.

Ubba was already elbow-deep in a crate of springs, muttering about spool tension and anchor stability.

Grosh stood off to the side, arms crossed, watching like a man both proud and perpetually exhausted.

Sula walked beside me, shaking her head. "You know you're making it worse, right?"

"She already started it," I said. "I'm just helping the fire burn a little cleaner."

Ubba was already sketching rough outlines onto a soot-smeared scrap plate, muttering about spring tension, bolt acceleration, and wrist recoil dampeners. Grosh looked like he wanted to walk into a forge and never come back out.

I watched her for a moment, then said casually, "Widowmaker. You know… there was a fictional character back in my time. Name was Black Widow. Used a pair of wrist-mounted devices—shock weapons, mostly. Stealth gear. Sleek, fast."

Ubba froze mid-sketch.

Then slowly, very slowly, turned her head toward me like I'd just told her time travel was real and came with coupons.

"Black. Widow."

I nodded. "Yeah. Red hair, spy background, kicked a lot of ass. Dual wrist launchers. Sleek suit. Very 'don't mess with me' energy."

Ubba stared at me like I was made of blueprints and dreams.

Grosh groaned. "Please stop."

Sula whispered, "You just gave her a whole entire set of blueprints."

Ubba practically slammed her hands down on the table. "That's perfect. That's what this needs! Stealth. Elegance. Tactical fashion."

Grosh covered his face with one hand. "She's going to paint the damn things black and red now."

Ubba nodded furiously. "I am! And I'm calling the prototype Widow's Bite."

I blinked. "Wow, that's actually pretty close to the name in the fiction."

Ubba pointed both index fingers at me like I'd just been anointed. "You are never allowed to leave the Spine."

Grosh mumbled, "He's not allowed, but that doesn't mean he's safe."

I just crossed my arms, watching as Ubba started gathering materials like a whirlwind. "Glad I could help."

Sula leaned in, deadpan. "This is your fault. All of it."

I smirked. "Wouldn't be the first time I gave someone dangerous ideas."

Ubba was already halfway across the forge again, barking for Grosh to prep the casting molds and threatening to solder a pressure line directly to someone's teeth if they didn't find her a left-handed spool clamp.

I watched her go, a little stunned at the speed of her spiral into creative frenzy.

Sula leaned in beside me, arms crossed, voice low and dry as cracked stone.

"At the rate you're going," she muttered, "Ubba might fuck you without even seeing the revolver."

I blinked. "That's… a sentence."

She shrugged. "You keep feeding her ideas like this, and she's going to mount you next to her blueprints."

Grosh, from across the forge: "Don't give her ideas!"

Sula smirked. "Too late."

I sighed and stared at the chaos spiraling outward from the forge table—wires tangled in half-built gauntlets, bolt casings clinking into old mugs, and Ubba yelling something about "murder in every wrist flick."

"Great," I muttered. "I came here for armor upgrades. Not a high-speed courtship with a walking pressure hazard."

Sula patted my shoulder, mock sympathy in her tone.

"Welcome to the Grove."

Ubba was still pacing, mid-ramble about dual-mount gauntlet coils and steam vent timing, when she suddenly stopped cold. Her eyes snapped to me like a lockpick hitting a sweet spot.

"Wait." She blinked as her brain caught up to what her ears heard. "What's a revolver?"

Grosh groaned audibly.

Sula let out a sigh. "Here we go."

I hesitated for a moment, then reached down and unholstered Terra's Gift. The gold-inlaid cylinder caught the light, black steel clean and unmistakable.

"This," I said simply. "Old-world sidearm. Six-shot rotating chamber. Fires solid slugs. Short range. Loud. Lethal."

Ubba stepped forward slowly, like the thing might fly away if she moved too fast. She didn't touch it. Just stared. Her eyes widened with reverent awe. I spun the chamber and she watched it.

"Oh," she whispered. "It spins."

Sula, deadpan: "She's falling in love."

Ubba began to circle me and the revolver like she was orbiting a holy relic. "Is that real gold inlay? And that finish—wait, the barrel vent's been machined. You didn't do that by hand. This was precision work. Is this original? The—"

"Ubba," Grosh said sharply. "No."

"Can I take it apart?" she asked, eyes wide.

"No."

She didn't miss a beat. "Can I look at it under high-magnification lenses?"

"Maybe."

She froze.

Then slowly—shamelessly—grabbed the edge of her soot-streaked apron, tugged it sideways and down, pushing her chest together in a way that practically glistened with forge-sweat and brazenness. Her voice dropped to syrupy mock-sweetness.

"Pleeeease?"

Grosh didn't even look up. "Don't fall for it. That's how she got a fully intact Ravager out of Malric's last haul."

Sula added, "And how she got Malric to forgive her for killing Nark."

I stared. "Is this… bribery? A trap?"

Ubba grinned wide. "Forge diplomacy."

I holstered Terra's Gift slowly. "We'll revisit this after the boots stop trying to kill me."

She clapped her hands together. "Deal! I can't wait to betray that promise!"

Grosh muttered, "I raised a monster."

Ubba beamed at him. "You raised a visionary."

Sula shook her head. "More like a weaponized headache."

Ubba turned back to me, eyes still hungry for forbidden schematics. "But seriously… if I can get a mold from that cylinder—just the cylinder—I could maybe prototype a steam variant. What would you call it?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. Spin Howler given what your tech base."

Ubba's eyes sparkled. "See? This is why I like you. We're going to make so many mistakes together."

Ubba was practically vibrating with excitement, already reaching for scrap chalk and muttering about steam-sealed ammunition cores.

Then Grosh snapped.

He slammed the hammer down on a nearby anvil with a CLANG that echoed through the entire forge.

"That mistake better not walk around on two legs and call me grandpa!"

Everything paused for half a breath.

Sula raised an eyebrow.

I blinked.

Ubba looked entirely too pleased.

Grosh pointed a soot-stained finger right at her. "You better wait another six years, damnit! I ain't built for bouncing baby weaponsmiths on my knees!"

Ubba just waved a hand without turning around. "Calm down, you grumpy foundry fossil! I'm not trying to breed, I'm trying to build."

Grosh grumbled, "One might lead to the other with the way you're acting!"

Sula leaned in, whispering to me, "You're about to become a family scandal and a test subject."

I sighed. "I was just trying to get new boots."

Ubba, still scribbling wildly, shouted, "Boots of Fate!"

Grosh shouted back, "Boots of Responsibility!"

Ubba winked at me. "We'll call the baby Recoil."

"NO WE WON'T!" Grosh bellowed.

Ubba was still sketching like a madwoman, grease on her face, hair springing free from her ties like it was trying to escape the heat of her ideas.

Grosh was mid-rant about responsibility and birth control by way of heavy machinery.

And me?

I just smirked and said, "Recoil actually sounds like a pretty good name."

Ubba froze mid-doodle.

Then she cackled—a sharp, forge-scorched bark of laughter that bounced off the walls like a furnace vent backfiring.

"Ohhh, I like you," she said, grinning so wide it was dangerous. "See, Sula? He gets it! Naming rights earned!"

Grosh's eyes widened.

He jabbed a finger at me so hard it looked like he was trying to hammer my soul.

"No! Don't you dare encourage her! I will forge a chastity belt out of Snapmaw jaw plates and wire it to snap shut every time she gets near someone with a pulse!"

Sula was doubled over at this point, barely upright through the laughter.

Ubba just kept cackling, spinning her wrench like it was a baton. "You hear that, Rion? He didn't say no. He said 'delayed activation!' We've got six years to make plans!"

Grosh let out a noise that might've been a growl or the early stages of cardiac arrest. "Six years?! You need twelve! And a license! From three tribes!"

Grosh was still grumbling threats about Snapmaw-jaw chastity belts and triple-tribe licenses, while Sula tried and failed to stay upright through her laughter. Ubba had returned to her grease-stained blueprint frenzy, twirling a wrench and muttering about wrist recoil synchronization and "bolt-borne justice."

I watched the chaos spiral for another beat, then raised my voice just enough to cut through the noise.

"None of this even started with the boots," I said casually. "We haven't even talked about me testing your railway rifle yet."

Ubba stopped.

Mid-step.

Mid-thought.

Mid-breath.

Her entire body froze.

Sula blinked. "Oh no."

Grosh slowly looked over like he was watching a slow-motion cart crash.

Ubba turned toward me so sharply I thought her neck might ratchet.

"You… what?"

"I said I haven't even mentioned the real reason I was coming to find you," I said. "I heard you've got a prototype—something loud, spike-loaded, whistling murder. Sounded like my kind of problem."

Ubba just stood there, mouth slightly open, like someone had rebooted her nervous system with a jolt of lightning.

"You want to test the Singing Death Stick?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"You... voluntarily... want to fire it?"

She narrowed her eyes—part suspicion, part curiosity—then, squinting at me.

"Wait. You called it a railway rifle. Why?"

I shrugged. "From what Sula described—how it whistles when it fires—it reminded me of the sound a train makes when it blows its whistles."

Ubba blinked. "A what?"

"A train," I said. "It's what Track Riders are based on."

She stopped completely, eyes narrowing like I'd just told her fire had a sibling.

"You're saying the Track Riders… were inspired by trains?"

"Yeah," I said. "Back before the fall, we used them to move cargo and people. Big, heavy, metal machines on rails. They were loud, fast, and didn't stop for anything."

Ubba's face went blank for half a second.

Then her eyes lit up.

"That's why they don't swerve."

Grosh, trailing behind, grunted. "They're death on rails. Ask the Ridge crew—lost three forges to one last spring."

Ubba was already muttering again, her voice turning sharper, more intense. "I always wondered why the Track Riders followed fixed lines instead of adapting paths like other machines. They're not dumb—they're committed. They're moving on memory, not instinct."

Sula leaned in. "You broke her again."

Rion smirked. "I didn't break her. I just gave her the name."

Ubba turned to me, eyes wide with raw, terrifying glee.

"You understand what this means?! If that weapon whistles like a Track Rider's call… if it feels like one of those steel beasts charging down the line—"

"It's not just a rifle," I finished for her. "It's a warning."

Ubba grinned like she was about to set a village on fire for science.

"Alright, follow me. Don't touch anything unless I tell you. Or unless it begs."

Sula sighed. "Somehow, it's always both."

Sula glanced sideways at me. "You sure about this?"

I tapped the side of my Focus. Add dumped the last 8 stat points into science. The interface pulsed behind my eyes—just once. Subtle. Sharp.

Then the world shifted.

Ubba threw back the tarp with a dramatic flourish.

There it was.

The Singing Death Stick.

Monstrous. Beautiful. Dangerous in the way a half-tamed beast still watches you while pretending to nap.

"Mark II," she said proudly. "Upgraded whistle. Improved kill weight. No known survivors."

"Can I take a look?" I asked.

She grinned. "Be my guest. But she bites."

I stepped forward, eyes scanning the frame—then reached out and tapped the side of the firing chamber.

"This seam will split after five shots."

Ubba blinked.

I pointed again. "Your coil tension's off on the left spring by about twenty-two milliseconds. That's where your shot drift's coming from."

Her eyes widened.

"And your venting? Gorgeous sound design. But that backplate will blast steam into the shooter's face the moment they drop prone."

Grosh muttered, "That's why Malric doesn't have eyebrows."

I turned back toward Ubba. "You fix those three things? I'll fire it."

She stared at me like she was seeing a divine schematic come to life.

"...I think I love you," she whispered.

"Thunderjaw Chastity Belt!" Grosh yelled.