The Hatchery was not exactly a model environment to use the practices taught to Irradiant by Spearmaster. She lacked rusted metal to turn into capable spears to be on the offensive, nor to climb the walls that way. The area appeared for the most part serene and well maintained, except for a couple dozen quite obviously broken-down transparent homes, many swaths of destruction caused by heavy bellies dragging along the metallic floor. Some patches of scorched equipment, others oddly deformed, as if she was responsible for that destruction.

But she wasn’t. She wasn’t the only irradiating experiment of Approaching Sky. There might be others with similar abilities, who wouldn’t back down from her radioactive aura, wouldn’t hesitate to chomp down on her acidic body, able to stomach her burning blood. The mere realisation that the abilities, which made her virtually untouchable, wouldn’t work as expected in the first hostile encounter of her life caused her heart to pump faster.

I wanted a challenge. Now you have a challenge, ‘Rad. Fire and acid, are there more beasts with unusual abilities? Only one way to find out.

The Slugcat kept her head down and used the low friction of her oddly slimy fur to slide across the ground, avoiding causing too much ruckus with the betraying sound of running on all fours or waddling on two. The unknown enemies in the center of the room probably keep their eyes peeled for any signs of heavy or skittering steps. The calm sound of a well-oiled slide shouldn’t alarm her opponents, Irradiant assumed.

Her path led her past various filled containers with unacknowledged children of Sky, beings of many species. But predominately lizards and giant spiders, by the looks of it. Lazy critters, paying no mind to the walking glow bulb or actively avoiding her gleaming personality. They were small; no adults; no threats.

One of the containers she slid behind had, however, been breached. Investigating the damage dealt, which caused the glass to shatter into countless molten pieces, led Irradiant to the discovery that her competition was quite hot in the literal sense. Able to melt down the glass with their abilities, but brutish enough to still destroy the retaining walls. Smart, but impatient. Irradiant took a mental note of that observation before continuing her stealth mission past the feasting Alpha.

The eating sounds, which by now were ringing in her ears, told the attentive Slugcat all about who she was facing. Two, presumably lizards, with jaws able to rip through what sounded like crunchy chitin. Spears warned her of the lizards of various colors, and tried to teach her the distinct abilities each variant had. From camouflage to leaping prowess, and much more. But they didn’t mention fire.

Their teachings might turn out to be fruitless, and that faster than she was willing to admit. She would have to adapt. This, however, was her perimeter; her father caused the mutagenic threats she would face on her mission. And roasted Slugcat might be on the dinner table for someone somewhen, she noted bitterly.

Eventually, she was able to lay her eyes on the first threat of her life and was quite surprised when she recognised the crest pattern from way back. Weren’t those her neighbours from her life in the Hatchery? The duo, which got crushed by Sky’s outrage? The duo which returned to their cells the Cycle after?

Looking back at her memories, she recognised the correlation between that odd encounter and the stories from Seven Red Suns about the Cycle she was now part of. They were one and the same, regardless of if they died that night. Held back by the Cycle, unable to accept their demise, they returned, and crawled out from a place their Selves considered safe… only to get recaptured by Sky and put back into their homes.

But the sibling duo, which were feasting on a giant spider-thingy, appeared changed. Mutated, just like she was, but in a drastically different path. The two appeared to her like the fusion of a prideful red lizard and a molten down piece of rebar. Their scales were not recognisable as singular scales, instead muddled and reformed into a protective shell, which limited their movement, but appeared to her near impenetrable. The chomping sounds had now been married with the crackling and scorching notions of a gourmet cook, who cooked their beef before eating it. A blazing maw of certain doom.

Irradiant was not very eager to receive their attention but was not lucky enough in that regard. The female lizard noticed her, glaring at the green Scug through small yellow-glowing eyes. She was seen, but the lizard didn’t make any attempts to charge at her, only observing her as she continued to feast on the strange being of countless legs.

They won’t attack unless I give them a reason to. If I keep my distance, they shouldn’t see me as a rival for the strange creature they bested. Just… enjoy your meal, my blazing neighbours. I am not here, never was.

Irradiant didn’t desire to further provoke her ex-neighbours and walked slowly in a wide radius around the lizards. She even held her breath involuntarily, the familiar beasts having caused a huge spike of respect to grow in her gut, with her not necessarily wanting to find out how it would feel to get cooked and eaten at the same time.

She managed two-thirds of the path past the dining siblings, as, suddenly, the red lizard, who was still observing her, jolted up and began to charge, a blazing inferno growing in her throat. Irradiant knew instinctively that she was not the aggressor and instead turned around, only to feel a sharp claw grazing her turtle shell backpack instead of attempting to pierce it. Many eyes of countless hexagons were hungrily looking at her, long, spindly legs appearing around her.

The grazing claw, which turned out to have been a mandible of the insect, managed to send a weak shock through her body, which would have disoriented her long enough for a follow-up attack, if not for the charging lizard. The searing hot sensation of a burning hot breath illuminating her remaining senses told her that she was now the centre of a merciless fight, electricity versus fire. The anger of the lizard alone told her that this was not their first encounter. However, she doubted that either would have recognized that aspect yet.

The Slugcat ducked down and cowered in fear as the scent of a charred exoskeleton filled her nostrils, telling her that the lizard had emerged victorious. She glanced up, only to witness the sheer horror her presence in the fight caused to both parties.

Her empty white eyes widened as the scales of the lizard began to swim on her skin, her mutagenic grid reacting swiftly to the radioactive presence of Irradiant. The insect spasmed, unable to move and put the fire out, its sensory system overloaded by Irradiant’s influence. And the lizard? The lizard immediately retreated, glancing at the Slugcat through quelled eyes, her face a mask of terror.

I… did I do that!? You saved me and I disfigured you. I am not a good neighbour. D-does it hurt?

Irradiant had a more difficult time to feel sorry for the insect. It attacked her, after all; it was out for blood. And she was still able to feel the paralysis from the missed swing. That legged nightmare deserved it, she decided, trying herself out in being a tough cookie.

The lizard yelped in apparent pain, causing her brother to look up from the feast she abandoned and haste over to his partially dissolved sister. Luckily, her exposition to Irradiant’s gleaming personality was not prolonged enough to cause inner damage, a fact the Slugcat noticed in the not-too-drastic reactions of the lizard. Could have also been the case, that the victim of her radiation was even tougher than she believed she was and just shook the pain off, being more upset than hurt.

Irradiant noticed quickly that this was her chance to leave the Hatchery behind, but a guilty feeling caused her to not move, to keep observing the lizards inspecting the damage her mere existence had caused. She was tempted to apologise, but swiftly realised that she did not have the means to do so.

The law of survival—as Spears called it—is to take every opportunity and live another day. And that was her plan. Irradiant slowly moved away from the disoriented pair and began to run swiftly to the other gateway out of the Hatchery. Jumping over ledges and filled containers with young monsters of various sizes, kinds and abilities she didn’t particularly desire to look into, and instead forced a tunnel vision to scour for a secured place Sky prepared for her. Somewhere…

A jolt! A brief existence of blue and green. There, and gone once more. Irradiant stopped, her heart jumping. She knew what that interference was about, especially the presence of multicoloured electricity. She assumed a pose, clasping her arms to a ring, which symbolized ‘friend-cycle’, and stood still to not accidentally put her eye buddy into her harmful radius.

I remember you! You were the Sky Eye, which visited Shifting Gales! Going back to return to her, I assume. So, Sky couldn’t let me travel alone after all. You have grown soft, old robot.

Irradiant waited until the Overseer decided to sit still for a moment, its curious eye looking down at the gleaming Scug, its tendrils pushing around floating symbols. Irradiant waited for a screen to plop up and her father to appear in it to laud or mock her, but her buddy seemingly wasn’t here for that kind of job. It remained passive, but occasionally flashed up a symbol Irradiant interpreted as an arrow… to an arrow. The path to the shelter!

Irradiant decided to follow it without second-guessing herself, feeling an odd static electricity rising in the air surrounding her. Spears told her about these regular interferences the Iterators go through. An ‘again footwear’ phase, although Irradiant was sure that the Machine Gods had a more elegant way of calling that snooze phase.

She wondered if it would take place similar to how her mentor described that phase to happen. The beginning of the end of the Cycle already felt vastly different to their description.

Spears first felt the air getting warmer and drier. Irradiant, however, felt her hair standing up, her body getting supercharged. The purple Slugcat then described the next step as the sound of steam whistles, which announced the imminent temperature rise when Suns’ veins got cleaned out with magmatic water, heated up by the lava pools deep under the surface, which they utilized as a primary energy source and as a decorative element in their city.

Irradiant felt nothing of that. What she felt instead was a rising pressure, which pulled her in all directions apart at the same time. A weak sensation of weightlessness in all directions centred in every corner of the Superstructure.

In slow periods of breaks, the sensation heightened in intensity with an exact pulse, the gravity slowly but surely slipping out of her paws. While she was sprinting across the ground at one moment, her pace continued on the ceiling in the following. Irradiant felt her body getting ripped apart, seams aching under the pulses. But she also saw the secure room at the end of the corridor the Overseer led her into. It was a race against the clock, she realized in shock.

The radiating Slugcat narrowed her eyes and focused on her core, determined to keep herself together. She realized in a growing panic that her current top speed wouldn’t cut it, not by a longshot.

I c-can’t falter! Not in the first cycle! Come on! You must have given me something to save my skin, Father!?

Panic and determination caused her body to react to the induced stress, hollow greenish hair strands growing gleaming green as her body secreted pure acid to turn this sprinting Purposed into an unstoppable pure-white juggernaut. She felt her top speed increasing as her paws, meeting with the solid ground, burned perfect sockets into the surface, which allowed her to dash more recklessly and, furthermore, use the angled sockets as boost pads, squeezing out a tiny bit more prowess from her unusual body.

The resulting effect was by no means an ability comparable to that of a speedster, but with the active mending of her running ground, she was able to utilize her body to its full potential. The oiled bolt charged head-first into the lead-mantled shelter, which closed behind her immediately. The dangerously strong gravitational pulls suddenly stopped when the door shut.

Irradiant panted heavily, her shimmering body slowly cooling down from that feat of pure energy. She yelped in strained pain, feeling her muscles having taken a toll from the omnidirectional pull, her head hurting from the low pressure it caused in her brain. But she survived. Managed to stay alive in her first Cycle. Even if it was way too close for her liking. She noted to herself to not ignore the first signs of the pull next time, and to make haste if she felt it again.

The Slugcat looked around in the brightly lit shelter, the light held up by her own illumination. The darkness of night would avoid her tonight as well, she noticed in exhausted amusement.

Food?

No food…

Irradiant sighed and rolled herself together, expecting her soon-to-be grumbling tummy to keep her awake. She was alive, that was all that counted.

…

It was not hunger, which rendered Irradiant to jolt awake that night, no. A frighteningly strong sudden quake of her whole existence instead, which was then followed by an even stronger aftershock, culminating in eerie silence. When she managed to sleep again, she wondered if her father would still be there, outside of the lead-plated shelter. Or would she step outside in a different world?

They all survived, praise Sky, Lives, Whisper, Suns and me. I was worried the short-legged scavengers wouldn’t have made the sprint away from the blast site. But no lifeform perished from my sensors.

And I? How does it feel to have gotten rid of a fourth of mine? To [REDACTED] my being?... It didn’t askew my taboos, that’s for certain. A shame.

Sifting Gales opened her eyes and found herself in the protective arms of Breaker, who held her puppet in a chokehold, her limbs pressed together. A position she was not quite comfortable in, she noticed quickly.

“Unhand me, Breaker. I won’t leave yet.”

The arms loosened up and Gales suspended herself back in the air, her frame shaky and wobbly. Gales looked down at the Scavenger, who spoke out his sincerest apologies… after mentioning something very concerning.

“What do you mean with ‘Body shook’? I can’t recall any reactions of that intensity from the farewell to my Rarefaction Cell. Elaborate, Breaker.”

‘Restrained arms and legs. Gales had no control. Thrashed around, back arm bent weirdly. Breaker held Gales down to save arm.’

“That… indeed sounds concerning. The loss of my cell had effects after all… who would have guessed?

Thank you for looking out for me, my guardian. My umbilical arm is crucial for my survival.”

Gales stood up and brushed off the debris and dust from her dress. The explosion threw her on the ground while she was malfunctioning. The falling was to be expected; the cramps, however, were not on her list of possible consequences. She held her neck and felt the throat vents working overtime, a steady stream of dirty vapour escaping her puppet. That was not the case before the elimination of her Cell. Was… her puppet mitigating some of the sustained damage?

Gales shrugged and decided, against her better judgment, not to further investigate the strange happenstance of her vents, refusing to question what could have changed in her thanks to the loss of a fourth of her total energy.

She instead summoned one of the remaining Overseers to act as a projector and create a damage report. Breaker looked up with shining eyes and observed the glowing screen, which was by now more red than blue. Damage reports were still piling up as the aftershock of the explosion caused more damage than anticipated. Her skin lost any sense of feeling, with countless antennas and exterior sensors being compromised by the pressure of the blast. Her true body was but a walking corpse by now.

She had lost her research arm—her Laboratory Complex exploded a few hundred Cycles ago.

She had lost her bottom integrity—Breaker’s first act of support blew big holes in her Underhang, essentially having bled her unfiltered water supply in the lower levels dry.

She has just deleted a fourth of her total energy reserves—the effect of the loss of a Rarefaction Cell, even if hers were smaller than those of other Iterators, was noticeable, but not too much of a bother, given she already had lost her Laboratory Complex and was unable to use her sensors nor Communication Array, which also turned her blinded to her Research Farm. She had therefore more than enough idle processes to mitigate the loss.

And her Puppet was acting strangely—Gales was not willing to admit it, but it was the first time she actively felt her body undergo a process, which could be interpreted as breathing… with the crucial difference that her Vents only pushed moist and dirty air out, but didn’t inhale replacement vapours.

I lost a bit, but I still have more to lose, more opportunities for sacrifices to prolong the inevitable a little bit further. As long as my operating arm, my Assemblies, as well as my puppet remain intact, Irradiant still has something to save.

I must prepare for more drastic measures than getting rid of a Rarefaction Cell. If I must, I have to figure out a way to collapse my legs without damaging the Assemblies. Breaker can aid me in that endeavour. Luckily the gesture language doesn’t trigger my profanity taboos, which made this operation possible in the first place. It won’t be the last.

“Gather your people and return to the Upper City, Breaker. I require a few Cycles of solitude to plan and think out my next move… and figure out how to explain this situation to Seven Red Suns without causing Far Whisper a virtual heart attack.”

‘Godspeed!’ Breaker saluted with his lanky arm ‘Stay safe, Goddess Gales.’

I can’t promise anything anymore.

She nodded and waited till Breaker packed up his belongings and called her followers to follow the Speaker of the Machine Goddess. Solitude, once again.

Gales lowered her puppet slowly and landed on the dusty ground. If she was able to cry like a biological entity, she would do it. Her body, oddly enough, reacted to her expression of powerlessness, the wet steam in her vents condensing from raising the heat, a steady stream of condensate dipping into her collar until it grew soaking wet.

And the pain of the operation caught up with her.

That night would be the true test of her perseverance. Was she able to hold it together without speaking to anybody?

…

Barely.