Vespera stared at my flushed, grinning face and then started to laugh, splashing through the water.

  “Wha-wha?” Cinder spun in the water, staring between me and the cackling Thunderbird.

  “Change yourself and Ci back into humans now,” I commented. “Preferably before Ci realizes what just happened and tries to murder me with her sharp chompers.”

  "What. Just. Happened?" Cinder demanded, eyes narrowing dangerously as Vespera grabbed onto her and rearranged both of their faces back to human appearance. "Why am I murdering you now?!" She splashed water at me.

  "I may have just caused a minor citywide panic," I said cheerfully, wiping the fountain water from my face.

  "A MINOR PANIC?" Cinder's feathers flared through a hurricane of colors - shocked reds, angry oranges, disbelieving yellows. "YOU DROPPED A..."

  "Shhh," I put my finger to her human lips. "I didn't drop nothing. It fell on its own. Maybe. I wasn't there, you can't blame me for Shandrian incompetence in the Mage Tower building."

  Cinder's eyes narrowed dangerously. "I can absolutely blame you."

  "I'm a blameless, innocent fox," I grinned. "I didn't do nothin'. I'll confess only under threat of kisses. Maybe. Vee, put my fox face back on."

  Vespera nodded. With some targeted Quetzi-wing magic controlled by Thunderbird Electrofractal-modding, my human face melted back into the foxy disguise, complete with big, fluffy ears.

  "There," Vee chorted. "Maximum foxy deniability achieved. Ke ke ke."

  "What were those explosions?" Cinder hissed.

  "Citywide urban renewal project," I grinned. "Very progressive. Tearing down some old buildings per handshake-enforced request of the Sovereign of Shandria!"

  Cinder's human eye twitched.

  "I'm going to strangle you," she threatened.

  "Love you too," I grinned, booping her nose.

  A loud noise erupted across the city from the direction of the destroyed Bank. The sound was so intense that nearby glass windows wobbled in their frames and shattered. The water in the fountain rippled. It sounded unnatural, wrong, alien, like a million violin strings scraping against a million chalkboards.

  I dove out of the water, looking up.

  "What? What is that?" The Executioner-Bard choked on the stage, looking at the destroyed Arx Bank.

  "Wait, I know that sound," Emerald stood up. "That's a Corpse Seeker! The Omnid chapel finally sent one! Thank the Abyss!”

  "Secure the prisoners!" Agrikolish yelled. "That sounds like a big necroflesh beast... damnation! Activate the magic-nullifying obelisks! Ready to repel the creature! Order the Mage Towers to target incoming enemies!"

  The magic-nullifying obelisks hummed to life around the execution platform, their obsidian surfaces creating a dark, oppressive field that seemed to swallow all magical energy around the stage.

  "Guide it underground," I whispered to Vespera. "Through the sewers. Avoid detection."

  "I can't guide it anywhere," she said. "Corpse Seekers aren't that smart. It's coming to me in a straight line. Through everything in its way. Directly from where it started from. After it gets close to me I can take over the damn thing and install more control hexagrams in."

  "Umm," I said. "Right. When it gets here, can you make it pretend to eat and swallow us?"

  "Pfff, okay," Vee grinned. "Absolutely. Grabbing bodies is its base function. Extra scary nom coming right up."

  The ground beneath our feet began to tremble.

  Cracks spread across the cobblestone square like spider webs. Dust and small stones started jumping with each approaching vibration.

  "By her Shadow," the Executioner-Bard cried out. "Hold position!"

  Something massive was moving underground, digging with an unnerving intensity, making the same horrid sound like a thousand drills spinning in unison.

  It suddenly erupted from the ground directly beside our fountain hiding spot with a sound that didn't quite sound like an animal roar.

  A colossal, burning-hot drill surged upward, molten rock cascading off its twirling titanium-obsidian-red segments like liquid fire. Each rotation sent waves of superheated stone spraying in all directions, creating a hellish corona of crimson and orange around its massive form.

  The drill thing reminded me of pictures of subway tunnel drills and was easily more than three meters wide. Then the thing's legs followed out of the hole. It really looked like a gargantuan Kitlix, liquid crystal body and all.

  The drill's surface burned red-hot, pulsing with an inner light that made the surrounding air warp.

  Crystalline legs - far too many to count, each looking like blood-red razor-sharp appendages - emerged from the ground.

  Then the thing's crystalline drill unfurled like a massive mouth and swallowed us along with half of the fountain.

  The heat was intense, but strangely, I wasn't burning. Instead, I felt a bizarre sense of protection, as if I was submerged in the womb. The darkness lit up with flashes of electrical current. Vee appeared in the gloom, floating in what looked like liquid crystal, fully looking like her Thunderbird self.

  She floated towards me and embraced me.

  [This is freaking amazing.] Her static-filled voice sang in my head. [Damn. So much better than our little private Seeker! This thing’s a genuine war machine, a tank meant for invading hostile planets!]

  I tried to speak, but my throat was engulfed in liquid crystals.

  [Hang on,] Vespera crackled. [Going to make a dimensional bubble for us to exist in.]

  The liquid crystal around us seemed to part, creating a small bubble of breathable space without any gravity.

  "Let there be... light!" Vespera ordered, sending electric currents into crystalline walls.

  Soft, ethereal light bloomed around us from crystalline nerve-like formations, revealing the interior of what was clearly a massive, living machine. Organic-looking circuitry glowed with blood-red energy, while intricate crystalline organs pulsed with an almost biological rhythm in its depths.

  I could now see Cinder floating nearby, her feathers shifting through startled blues and grays.

  "What?!" The Quetzi let out, looking around.

  "Let there be gravity!" Vespera announced and Cinder and I suddenly landed onto the base of the bubble.

  "Holy shit," I breathed, looking around.

  Vespera's hands were buried halfway within the crystalline bubble, sending out electric currents across the crystalline-flesh-beast.

  "Corpse Seeker 77-84-1. Officially the most badass and oldest piece of Omnid tech I've ever seen. The Academy or Zalimar must have paid handsomely for this bad girl!" Vee added.

  Cinder blinked at the pulsing organs. "This... this is what the Chapel uses to retrieve students from dungeons?"

  "Ye. Retrieve, protect, resurrect," Vespera nodded. "Obliterate everything in the way. Let's see where we are."

  The bubble around us shimmered, becoming covered with a million pixels like a TV screen going through channels. The static rearranged itself into a view of the devastated central square.

  The view showed total chaos.

  The Executioner-Bard stood frozen, mouth agape. Where the fountain once stood, there was now a massive crystalline drill hole, steam and molten rock billowing around its edges.

  "Let there be... sound!" Vespera declared.

  The bubble around us filled with the sounds of the square - panicked screams, the crackling of distant explosions, confused shouts and orders from guards.

  "By her Shadow!" the Executioner-Bard screamed. "THE NECROMANCER'S BEAST HAS EATEN THOSE POOR GIRLS!"

  "That's not a N-n-necromage construct," one of the older Officers cried. "I've faced zombie-flesh beasts twenty years ago during the Kells uprising. I've never seen anything like this thing. That's some sort of crystal, not dead flesh! Burn it away!"

  A few Mage Towers overhead ignited, sending brilliant rays down against the corpse seeker. The crystalline material of the beast reflected the rays off itself like a mirror, igniting and scorching the ground and building around us.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Shit! It can bounce fire-rays off itself! Cease fire! Target it with the magic nullifiers!" The guard captain shouted at the gawking mages. “Focus the obelisks in a beam!”

  "Yeah, I don't think so," Vee grinned, sending current across the Omnid tank.

  Gargantuan crystal claws grabbed pieces of the destroyed fountain and began hurling it at the obelisks.

  The rocks flew at supersonic speed, making deafening booms as they cut through the air, obliterating and shattering the obelisks. Each impact created a shockwave that sent guards tumbling backward, their armor cracking and helmets flying off.

  The obsidian magic-nullifying structures - meant to suppress powerful magical entities, not flying rocks - disintegrated like glass hit by a sledgehammer. Fragments scattered across the square, some turning to dust, others embedding themselves in nearby buildings.

  "IMPOSSIBLE!" the guard captain screamed, his voice cracking with terror.

  "Ke ke ke," Vespera laughed. "Very possible. Let there be… comfort!”

  "We should name her," I said, watching the crystalline beast continue its rampage against the defenses of the stage, flying rocks obliterating defensive hexagrams.

  "Name what?" Cinder asked with wide eyes, clinging to me as a crystalline-organic seat suddenly formed beneath us.

  "The Corpse Seeker," I explained. "Every good murder tank needs a name."

  Vespera tilted her head. "Ye?"

  "Miss Possible," I suggested.

  Cinder stared at me. "You're naming a multi-million O-bux apocalyptic murder machine like it's a pet?"

  "Pffff, you funny," Vee chortled. "Okay. Miss Possible it is. Hold on going to bring up her stats too."

  The bubble lit up with various diagnostic metrics.

  [Miss Possible:]

  [Core temperature: 58%]

  [Energy level: 67%]

  [Structural Integrity: 82%]

  [Dimensional Stability: 98%]

  Vespera clicked her beak. "Not bad for an old girl. Looks like she's running at about 79.68% optimal capacity. Hasn't been in use for a while, my poor baby. Time to take Miss Possible for a spin!"

  She grinned dangerously and then the view around us flashed.

  Suddenly, the Corpse seeker was on the stage and the guards were flying through the air, the air around us exploding in a blastwave. Crystalline claws obliterated the magisteel cages and then Emerald, Quint and Solace were inside of the beast along with us.

  Another flash and the view changed again, the Corpse Seeker running across the streets, leaving more devastation in its wake.

  [Core temperature: 62%]

  [Energy level: 65%]

  [Structural Integrity: 81%]

  [Dimensional Stability: 97%]

  "Holding steady!" Vee commented. "What are your orders, Quartermaster?"

  "Put our Sixies on ice," I said, glancing at the three no-longer-caged Omnids. "Knock em out, I don't wanna deal with them right now."

  "Can do," the Thunderbird clicked. Lightning flashed into the heads of the three figures floating within the crystalline strata and their eyes closed.

  "Now," I said. "I bet that the Arx Bank that the tower fell on has lots of… unguarded stuff."

  "Free stuff," Vee agreed. "Onwards, Possible!"

  Another flash, the windows behind us exploding from the shockwave as the Corpse Seeker went from zero to several hundred kilometers per hour.

  Then, Miss Possible's crystalline drill slammed into the rubble of the destroyed Arx Bank, her multiple razor-sharp legs digging through layers of concrete, steel, and destroyed wards. Where a normal machine would struggle, she moved with an almost organic fluidity, her drill-mouth spinning and grinding through the debris like a living creature hunting for treasure.

  Electromagnetic pulses radiated from her core, as we plowed into half-buried rooms causing magic objects to literally leap toward her crystalline body. Gold bars began floating through the air, drawn into her internal chambers. Stacks of documents - some mundane, some marked with complex magical seals - were sucked in, becoming suspended within.

  "Jackpot," Vee grinned, glancing at the captured documents. "Bank transfer records. Client lists. Dimensional gate contracts. Zalimar's entire network might be amongst these."

  I nodded.

  The Corpse Seeker melted into the vault next.

  A hundred crystal claws pulverized magic seals, tearing apart lockboxes. Rushing across the wall of destroyed compartments, it sucked everything into itself: more coins, beast cores, paperwork of all sorts.

  Another line appeared on the round wall screen

  [Storage capacity: 89%]

  "Blah. Getting full," Vespera reported.

  "Purge any small coins," I ordered. "Focus on the expensive loot."

  "On it!" Vespera clicked, sending electrical currents through Miss Possible's crystalline structure. Melted stone and small copper and silver coins began raining out of the Corpse Seeker's body onto the vault floor, creating a chaotic shower of currency.

  [Storage capacity: 62%]

  Claws extended, the 'Gold Seeker' buried itself into the next vault, magisteel walls melting like butter under the massive drill.

  [Storage capacity: 77%]

  "Yarr, matey! Acquire the doubloons!" I hugged Vespera.

  "Aye-aye, M' Quartermaster!" She rubbed her head against my side. "Ship Possible shall ravage the S.S. Arx Bank for its booty!"

  Cinder buried her Quetzi face in her hands, blushing with orange, red and pink shimmers. "I can't believe you two."

  "What?" I asked innocently. "We're just performing a completely legitimate maritime salvage operation."

  "Ughh," Cinder let out. "This was your plan all along wasn't it?"

  "To get my hands on the Omnid Corpse Seeker?" I finished. "Yes. It was. Always wanted one of these.”

  "What, we ain't returning her to Vassily?" Vespera asked.

  "Hell no," I said. "I ain't giving up our murdertank baby to anyone!"

  "You can't just... STEAL a magical tank!" Cinder sputtered, her feathers exploding through a hurricane of disbelieving colors.

  "Liberating her," I said. "For our Clan's glory!”

  "She won't run very long if we keep plowing through magisteel-reinforced walls," Vespera commented.

  I glanced at the stats.

  [Miss Possible:]

  [Core temperature: 85%]

  [Energy level: 45%]

  [Structural Integrity: 61%]

  [Dimensional Stability: 77%]

  [Storage capacity: 96%]

  "Energy's getting low," I said. "Can she run on the beast cores we just stole?"

  "Aye, aye, Lord Protector!" Vee clicked. "Injecting beast cores into the dragonheart manifold... now! Venting core heat!"

  The crystalline tank vibrated as beast cores began dissolving into its internal systems, creating a symphony of magical energy that made the air around us shimmer and pulse.

  "Wheeeeeee!" Vespera yowled, her talons dancing inside the liquid crystal surface. "WHO'S A GOOD MURDER TANK? YOU ARE! YES YOU ARE!"

  Cinder facepalmed so hard I thought she might actually create a small singularity of embarrassment.

  The air around Miss Possible ignited as the Corpse Seeker released heat, the bank vault walls melting around us from superheated air.

  [Miss Possible:]

  [Core temperature: 42%]

  [Energy level: 100%]

  [Structural Integrity: 50%]

  [Dimensional Stability: 76%]

  [Storage capacity: 92%]

  "Can we take on another Bank?" I asked.

  "Ehhhh," Vee said. "Don't think so. The crystalline strata held by magisteel hexamesh might start coming apart. She’ll need a break to regrow the outer layers. Those mage towers did some damage too, even if she reflected most of the rays, the fire magic still took out a big chonk of our structural integrity."

  "Fine," I said. "Let's suck up more stuff till storage is 100% full, then head home."

  "On it."

  "Home? To Earth?" Cinder let out.

  "No, you knob," I said. "To our Guild. If we take Miss Possible back to the Omnid Chapel, Keeper Vassili will obviously reclaim her. He has near absolute power in his domain. Why would I go through the trouble of making Shandria look like it's being invaded, just to give up our precious Omnid tank?”

  “So where?”

  “We're going to our crystal tower in Undertown." I answered.

  "Home sweet citadel!" Vespera clicked, sending electrical sparks dancing across Miss Possible's crystalline interior. "Shall we take the scenic route?"

  "Absolutely," I agreed. "Let's avoid destroying the choke point. Can't make it too obvious that we own this lovely beast. Go out of Shandria through the sewers, then out of the city towards the fields. We can stop at a farm and get some groceries for our gang.”

  “Groceries?” Cinder sputtered. “In an Omnid tank?”

  “What?” I asked. “You’ve never taken a stolen tank to buy some milk n’ apples?”

  Cinder stared at me with a look of judgement.

  The crystalline drill of Miss Possible ignited, carving through the Bank's wall we began burrowing down and then into the sewers, leaving a perfectly smooth, glass-like tunnel in its wake.

  Then, we rushed along the sewer at a respectable speed of a freight train.

  "So," Cinder asked after a few minutes of silence, "exactly how much did we just steal?"

  "I dunno," Vee shrugged. "I'm not an accountant. My mind is melting just running Possible. Judging by the gold alone, that's like a few hundred million O-bux right there. Plz no distract driver birb, only pet."

  I leaned forward and began petting Vespera's feathered head. "Good First Mate birb."

  "Mmm," she purred, leaning into my touch. Electrical sparks danced across her feathers, zapping me gently.

  Cinder rolled her eyes.

  The crystalline walls of Miss Possible shifted slightly, creating even more comfortable seating for our trio. The sewer tunnels rushed past, occasionally lit by strange bioluminescent fungi and scurrying underground creatures.

  "Ci. Pet the birb," I encouraged.

  Cinder sighed, reaching out and awkwardly patting Vespera's head. Tiny electrical sparks jumped between Vee and Cinder's hand.

  "Yesssss," Vespera purred. "More pets and compliments."

  "Best birb," I said. "Are you pleased with your gift?"

  “Mmm. What gift?" She purred.

  "Miss Possible," I said. "Figure Thunda-birb girls like shiny things, so I stole the shiniest possible thing for ya."

  "We really keeping her?" She asked.

  "Really," I said. "She's yours. We're going to bring her to Earth with us."

  "Lexyyyyy," Vespera's eyes turned into thin slits, sparks dancing at the edges. "You really know how to treat a girl. Damn it. You making me cry, you cheeky fox."

  "The biggest diamond-beastie I could find in the universe! An engagement tank!” I laughed.

  Cinder's feathers ignited red-green-pink.

  "An ENGAGEMENT TANK?!" she squawked. "That's not how proposals work!"

  "Eh," I grinned. "Nothing says 'I love you' like a multi-million O-bux crystalline murder machine capable of drilling through everything in its way."

  Miss Possible slowed. Vespera pulled her hands out of the crystalline walls and grabbed Cinder’s wings. Her face rapidly rearranged itself into an elongated fusion of Thunderbird and human and then she turned my way and attacked.

  She practically buried me in a flurry of kisses and electrical sparks. Her talons wrapped around me possessively, tiny arcs of lightning dancing between us.

  [Mine mine mine,] her thoughts sang. [Love. Love. Love. Forever. Mine!]

  "M... mine," her lips whispered out loud as she stared at my eyes. "I..."

  "Yes?" I smiled.

  "I love you," she mewled, nomming my entire face with her entire elongated human-Omnid mouth.

  "Nu-huh," I teased. "It is I who loves my birb."

  Cinder rolled her eyes but hugged me from the right side, occasionally catching her own kisses in between Vee.

  "Uh? Who's driving Possible?" I asked, glancing at the retreating tunnels.

  "Me," Vee said, panting, blushing and railing sparks. "With my feet."

  I noticed that her clawed feet were indeed buried within the liquid-crystal floor sending electrical currents into the depths of the Corpse Seeker.

  The crystal tank pulverized another sewer wall, and breached into a cavern and then plowed through solid rock for about ten minutes and then went up, breaking out of the ground into brilliant sunshine.