Coven's Rebellion Chapter 8 (New)

Another new chapter that's getting inserted into the story to round it out a little more. It's a little on the short side, but it felt very jarring to me to go from Rosa mid-heist to them suddenly watching the news. Chapter numbers should be up to date on Fluff, but I'm waiting until everything is done to do the renaming on patreon because the UI is rough to wrestle with. Thanks for reading! Here's the fluff link. Oh and by the way, if you're having issues with 403 errors on some of my works, it might be because you don't have 18+ settings enabled.

Amelia

Rosa launched herself through the 60th story window with her robotic body curled protectively around the canister of volatile material. Honestly, it felt a little weird that the plan had her leaping out of a building with the prize we’d worked so hard to steal. It appeared to be working though, so I wasn’t going to pick holes in a plan that was this damn close to succeeding.

I watched her through the scope of Sprocket, my gorgeous new giant cannon. She was already falling quite fast.

“Uh,” I said, my voice squeaking higher and higher. “Des—”

Desmonia dropped us, hard, and the airvan’s gravity repulsors screamed as they were suddenly asked to do something they were explicitly designed not to do.

In my heads up display, I saw the Axile Industries defence turret outer targeting perimeter getting closer and closer. I didn’t even have the orifices I attempted to clench when the forehead of our van barely brushed into the zone.

“Jesus, Des! That targeting zone is going to be posting on the missed connections forum with how close that came!” I gasped when we finally passed it.

“I'll look forward to it,” she said drily. “There's corporate air defence vehicles following Rosa. Hit them.”

Hefting Sprocket again, I sighted upwards. We'd passed Rosa, who’d slowed her descent, and was now gliding towards us rapidly. Behind her, three quad-nacelle urban air fighters were gunning for her with malice in their hearts. I picked the closest one and fired.

The abrupt crack-clap of my weapon firing rocked the van. The fighter ruptured. Chunks of polymer, aluminium, and pilot sprayed out behind it, while the four gravity repulsors spun off wildly as their dying capacitors continued to pump them with power.

It amused me that they weren't using drones, to be honest, since Axile had a pretty impressive line of aerial combat drones. Oh no, the poor company had to put human pilots into the air now, because their pre-sapient slaves were removing the prefix from the title and suddenly free will was a factor.

The lower reaches of UN city were now flashing rapidly past as we lined the back of the van up with Rosa's trajectory. Massive steel supports loomed to either side, with various industrial and utility buildings clinging to them, or hanging between them. Down here, there were supposed to be very few people. Perfect place to wreck a few corporate goons.

I pulled the trigger again. This time, my shot was a tad off centre mass, and a repulsor ruptured in a giddy display of physics and violence. I winced as the fighter spiralled off to collide with a factory near the bottom of a nearby tower. Fire, smoke, and exotic radiation began to belch from the impact site. Still a kill, but definitely not clean.

The last fighter, sensing his imminent demise, veered away, trying to use a low hanging public park as cover. People scattered as he wove between trees, and I contemplated taking a shot anyway. In the end, though, I couldn't risk a civilian being caught in the chaos that a hit would create.

Rosa arrived just as I raised Sprocket. She flared back at the last moment, shedding speed like a glorious, metal falcon landing on its owner's arm. Reaching out, I clasped her wrist and pulled her properly inside the van.

“Nice flying!” I laughed. “Now you're a little flying fox.”

I got no answer, which wasn't exactly a surprise with my brooding girlfriend, but this time, the silence sounded like alarm bells. She wasn't okay.

“Fuck,” I muttered to myself as I pulled Sprocket back up. We weren't out of the woods yet. I'd give her all the hugs and snuggles she needed once we were done here.

Far too many hours later, with the package secured and our cover still intact, I finally hung the combat frame up in its cradle and logged off. I felt… raw. I felt like my brain had spent the past twelve hours baking in the summer heat with no sunscreen. I felt like my whole body had been gently scrubbed with astroturf. I was pretty sure that humans just weren't supposed to concentrate for that long without a rest.

I opted to stay in cyberspace, rather than immediately begin puppeting my android body. Those bodies were still pretty shit, and I didn't feel like making my brain bridge the gap between what it should feel like, and what it really felt like. So, I connected to the little simulated village that the SAI had set up.

When I opened my eyes, I was in a little suite of comfy, cottage style rooms. It was, honestly, the perfect vibe. Especially if you needed to be calm, sit your ass down, and process. People really needed to do that more. Like, I knew that I sure sucked at existing within my own mind sometimes. I always needed that next drip of stimulation, or the next job, or the next fuckin’... thing.

So, I picked a sofa that looked out of a wood framed window into the valley of grass covered houses, and waited. Rosa would be here soon, and then I'd—

On the rug in the middle of the sitting room, a ripple shimmered in midair. Quickly, it resolved itself into my girlfriend, who wore her small fox-girl body.

“The CORA Ame, please?” She asked in a small voice, but very wide, pleading eyes.

Giving a little snort of affectionate amusement, I changed my body like a set of clothing. Wait, that isn't actually how it worked. Unless people had suddenly started telekinetically morphing their clothing on the spot, which I very much doubted.

My lavender hair began to float around my head, like the room was suddenly underwater. With a stray thought, I moved it back and out of the way, then opened my arms.

Rosa rushed forward with a small gasp, and wiggled up until her head was on my shoulder. Oh, my earlier vibe check on her was one hundred percent accurate, then. She needed cuddles.

“I would rather keep the impending questions and discussion as a hypothetical, if that's okay?” She mumbled, her carefully controlled accent getting all muddled by my comfy, baggy shirt, which she'd planted her face into.

Reaching up, I began to idly massage her scalp through her dark hair. “Sure.”

Slowly but surely, as I held her and tangled my fingers in her rich, dark locks, she began to relax. That by itself was a minor fucking miracle. Rosa was an incredibly complex person, and that manifested physically as someone who straight up didn't even understand the concept of relaxing. Like, physically she was utterly useless at letting go of tension in her muscles. So, I was going to make her do it.

Of course, that's when she started snoring. I came so close to laughing, that it made Des’ earlier flirtations with the Axile turrets look like a yearning stare from one end of a train carriage to another. How many metaphors deep was I now? Was there any real hope of escaping this inception cake of saucy analogy, or was I hopelessly lost in the ketchup? Oh… yeah, a burger… now that was something I wanted to go much further than flirting with.

Rosa’s soft, contented snores kept me rooted firmly to the sofa though. No great loss. Holding my soft, highly strung girlfriend was more fulfilling than even the best burgers. God damn, the way her shoulders shifted with every breath, or the curve of her back under my hand.

All those sensations were so ordinary, and yet to me, they felt unimaginably precious. She was unimaginably precious to me. I loved her so so damned much.

I hoped that whatever had gotten to her, or whatever had happened, I hoped it would be okay. I hoped she'd feel safe enough to tell me, or to ask someone else for help, if she needed it. Too many of her problems came from when she ignored those offering help, and instead went through shit alone.

Frustratingly, though, if I tried to push her on this, she'd lock up even harder. I just had to sit, wait, and be a safe place for her.