Chapter 83

BLOOD IN THE WATER

Annie scrambled to the platform’s edge and jumped.

Density Flux Control kicked in instinctively, lightening her body to carry her farther from those jaws. She cleared the gap to the next platform, but the landing jarred her legs as weight returned abruptly. Her left arm sprouted from her shoulder as she rolled, metal pulled from her lower torso to fuel the regrowth.

The Spinosaurus slid back into the water with barely a splash.

Annie pushed to her feet. The creature surfaced between two broken pillars, definitely smiling now.

“Running makes you prey,” it rumbled at her. Seven tons of predator, mocking her. “That makes you nothing but food.”

Her arms shaped into a massive hammer. When it lunged again, she increased their density and swung them hard against its snout.

“NUTCRACKER.”

The blow smashed its chomping jaws aside, the impact hard enough that she felt it in her gut. The Spinosaurus crashed against the platform, slipping back into the water with an annoyed growl.

But there was no blood. No real damage done.

The second platform was barely stable, tilting under her weight. She tried forming her arms into long spears, driving them toward the creature’s eyes as it resurfaced. It twisted away, almost lazy in its avoidance. The spear points scraped along its hide without penetrating.

“Your metal is soft,” it commented, circling her platform. “Like the rest of you. Your flesh, your bones, your tasty insides.”

She retreated to the third platform. This time she shaped her arms into serrated blades, slashing in wide arcs when it lunged. The edges caught on its thick hide but couldn’t cut deep enough to matter. The Spinosaurus was herding her, she realized. Destroying and sinking the platforms behind her, limiting her options, pushing her toward something.

On the fourth platform, desperation made her creative. When it attacked, she slipped under its strike.

She drove a long blade up into its throat, finding the soft spot beneath its jaw. The creature’s head snapped back, gagging and coughing as blood sprayed from the wound. For a moment, hope flared.

Then it simply recovered, shaking its massive head, sending crimson droplets everywhere.

“Sharp claws,” it admitted, voice rougher now. “But not enough.”

She backed toward the platform’s edge, considering her options. Every attack had failed. Different weapons, different approaches, nothing worked. Its hide was too thick, its reactions too fast. She kept thinking about its eyes, the only other obviously vulnerable spot, but it never left them exposed long enough.

The tail strike came from nowhere.

She’d been so focused on avoiding the jaws that she’d forgotten it had other weapons. The Spinosaurus twisted its entire body into the blow, tail whipping around like a massive club. Annie threw her metal arms up to block and maximized her density on instinct, trying to anchor herself against the impact.

It wasn’t enough. The blow connected with devastating force, driving her metal arms back into her own body. The tail smashed through her guard and caught her chest directly. Pain exploded through her torso. The lower ribs, left unprotected when she pulled metal to regrow her arm, cracked under the impact.

She flew backward through the air despite the increased mass, tumbling end over end. The world spun, mist and ruins blurring together. She crashed onto a distant platform, the heavy landing driving fresh spikes of agony through her broken ribs.

Annie coughed. Blood spattered the stone.

“Shit.” She pressed a hand to her side, feeling where the bottom, unprotected ribs had broken. “Shit, shit, shit.”

The Spinosaurus had to swim around fallen structures to reach her, buying precious seconds. Annie forced metal to flow, phasing out broken ribs. The initial break had been painful, but the landing and moments after were worse. She couldn’t fight with them, though. She needed to breathe. Needed to move.

Her drone circled overhead, and she cursed herself for forgetting it.

“Right, the drone.” She spat more blood, trying to remember Alexander’s instructions. He’d given her a whole list of commands. Simple ones he said, because he knew her. “Smoke” for the smokescreen. “Sparkle” for the glitter bomb. “Scream” for noise generation. “Annoy” for harassment mode. And “Party” for everything at once.

The drone was painted with glitter, too. Alexander’s idea of a joke.

But not yet. She needed better terrain first.

Platform hopping wasn’t working. Every exchange proved the same point: she couldn’t hurt this thing, and it only needed to land one clean hit to finish her. Through the mist, she spotted a tower rising from the ruins. Ten stories at least, maybe twelve. Ancient architecture still mostly intact.

The Spinosaurus was built for water, evolved for hunting in open spaces. Maybe confined spaces would even the odds. Force it into bottlenecks where its size became a disadvantage instead of overwhelming superiority.

“Almost time to stop running, metal thing,” the Spinosaurus called, swimming closer. “Your blood is in the water now.”

Annie ran for the tower, each step sending pain up her right leg. The improvised landing after the tail lashing had injured her more than she thought. At the edge of each makeshift platform, she reduced her density and threw herself forward until she finally reached the plaza where the debris-filled swamp ended.

She hit the entrance of the building at full speed, her drone keeping pace above. Behind her, the Spinosaurus hauled itself from the water and gave chase.

Its legs were wrong, too thick, too muscled, built for land pursuit when they should have been primarily for swimming. Evolution had pushed it beyond its natural limits. System-granted powers had made it more than any natural predator.

The doorway would stop it. Had to stop it. Nothing that size could fit through, and not even a seven-ton dinosaur could easily shatter concrete.

The Spinosaurus reached the entrance and paused, examining the opening, then bit into one side of the frame. Its front claws, too long, too strong, too much like hands, gripped the other side. With a cracking tear, it ripped chunks of concrete out, widening the entrance enough to force its bulk through.

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“That’s not... dinosaurs can’t do that!” Annie shouted, already running for the stairs. “That’s such bullshit!”

The building’s interior was grander than its exterior implied, with wide corridors built for ceremonies or processions. The Spinosaurus could fit, barely, but every corner slowed it. Every doorway needed widening. She could hear it destroying the entrance behind her, making sure it had a clear path.

Annie reached the first floor stairs. Even though she’d phased out the injuries, she could still taste blood with every breath. Behind her, destruction echoed through the building as the creature pursued.

Second floor. She risked a glance back down the stairwell. The Spinosaurus was squeezing through, using those evolved claws to grip the walls. It pulled itself around the corner faster than she’d expected.

Third floor. It had figured out how to use its claws properly now, punching handholds into walls to pull itself up the stairwell faster. Concrete crumbled under its grip like chalk.

“Since when do T-Rex cousins have gorilla arms?!”

Fourth floor. The building groaned under the assault. Cracks spread through walls where it tore its way up. She tried dropping debris behind her, chunks of concrete and broken furniture. The Spinosaurus barely noticed, crushing the obstacles or shoving them aside.

Fifth floor. Annie paused to catch her breath, just for a second. Glancing back down behind her, she quickly threw herself backward to avoid the claws raking at her legs as the Spinosaurus covered two floors in a single upward lunge.

Sixth floor, seventh. The Spinosaurus had figured out the most efficient way to climb now, moving faster with each level. She could hear walls crumbling behind her, support structures groaning under damage they were never meant to take.

On what she hoped was the eighth floor, she found what she needed. A wall of old plaster hiding a corner office full of windows. Beyond it, open air.

The Spinosaurus erupted from the stairwell. Its sail scraped the ceiling, leaving gouges in the plaster. Eyes burned with rage. Eight floors of being hit with debris, mocked, and forced through too-small spaces had erased any playfulness. It was no longer hunting. It was furious.

“Party!” Annie screamed.

Her glitter-painted drone zipped towards the Spinosaurus and exploded into chaos. Strobing lights filled the hallway, bright enough to hurt. Music blared at maximum volume, some terrible electronic mix Alexander had probably chosen as a joke. Smoke jets fired randomly, filling the air with thick clouds. Metal glitter sprayed everywhere, coating the Spinosaurus’s bloody snout and getting into its eyes and nostrils.

It reeled back from the sensory assault, shaking its head violently. The metal particles burned in its eyes, clogged its nostrils. The music bounced off walls, creating echoing chaos. Glitter stuck to its wet hide, making it sparkle ridiculously while it struggled to see through the irritation.

As it blinked frantically, trying to clear its vision, Annie grabbed a chunk of broken concrete and hurled it. The debris bounced off its face with no damage, but the insult was complete. Being blinded by metal glitter, struggling to breathe, covered in sparkles, and then hit with a rock was too much.

The Spinosaurus roared and charged.

“Smoke!”

Black clouds billowed from the drone, thick enough to choke. The Spinosaurus charged through the smoke blind with rage. Annie threw herself sideways at the last second. The creature’s momentum carried it past her, through the plaster wall, and into empty air with a tinkling of glass.

Annie heard it roaring as it fell. Eight floors down through mist and shadow until it struck the plaza below with a sound like breaking thunder. The impact shook the entire building, sending dust raining from the ceiling.

The building shuddered. Cracks spread from the hole in the wall, racing across the ceiling and floor. Annie stepped through the hole and approached the shattered window carefully. She leaned out to look down.

The Spinosaurus lay twisted on the stone plaza, blood pooling beneath it. One leg bent at an impossible angle. Its sail was cracked down the middle, leaking dark fluid. Massive ribs visibly broken, puncturing its hide in places.

She started to relax. It was over. Finally over. Eight floors of gravity and whatever the plaza was built out of had done what her metal couldn’t.

Then it moved.

The broken leg straightened with a wet crack that she could hear even from eight floors up. The Spinosaurus pushed itself up on its evolved front claws, those arms strong enough to lift its broken body. Pieces of its shattered sail fell away, but it kept moving. It looked up at her through the hole, eyes still burning with primitive fury.

“No,” Annie whispered, stumbling back from the edge. “No, no, no. You’re supposed to be dead. You’re supposed to be fucking dead!”

The Spinosaurus tried to stand on its hind legs. Fell. Tried again. One leg was definitely still broken, but it was adapting, struggling to use its tail and front claws for balance.

Annie had nothing left. Her metal reserves were nearly depleted, most of it holding her insides together. Every breath was almost too much effort. Her drone’s party mode had exhausted its tricks.

She’d dropped it eight floors, and it was still alive.

But what else was there? She couldn’t hurt it with punches and stabs. Couldn’t outrun it forever. The only thing that had actually damaged it was eight floors of gravity, and that still wasn’t enough.

She froze. Unless...

Annie grabbed the drone with both hands. It beeped.

“You better work,” she told it, stepping up to the shattered window frame. “And if we die, I’m blaming Alexander.”

She jumped.

The drone’s hover systems screamed in protest, trying to support her weight as she clung to it. She reduced her density immediately, reducing her weight in turn. The drone stabilized, still drifting lower and forward more than flying. Wind whipped through her torn jacket. Empty air yawned beneath her.

The Spinosaurus must have sensed something was wrong. It looked up, focusing despite its injuries. Those evolved arms pushed harder, trying to raise its body again.

Annie waited until she was directly overhead. Until she could see its eyes looking up, calculating.

She kept hold of the drone and shifted every last bit of metal to her legs, fusing them together into a single massive spike. Then she maximized her density.

She clung to the drone as her weight overpowered its hover tech, the systems straining to slow her descent. She fell, but not in freefall, positioning herself carefully as she descended toward the Spinosaurus below.

When she was sure the dinosaur couldn’t escape, sure she wouldn’t need an emergency plan change, she released her grip.

Suddenly she shot down even faster, the resistance gone, accelerating through the final floors in true freefall.

The Spinosaurus tried to lunge upward, jaws opening wide to catch her. But its evolved claws, so useful for climbing, found no purchase on blood-slicked stone. Its massive body slipped sideways in its own pooling blood. Its head slammed back down against the plaza with a crack.

The fall exposed its flank, ribs already broken and piercing through hide.

Annie’s spike-legs punched through the vulnerable spot, between the broken ribs, deep into vital organs. The momentum drove her into its body like a spear, then into the stone beneath, almost as if pinning it to the plaza. Her head snapped back with the impact, causing her to bite her tongue, and flooding her mouth with blood again. Her ribs screamed in protest, forcing a scream past her lips in a spray of blood.

The Spinosaurus shuddered once, a whole-body convulsion, then went still.

For a moment, neither moved. Annie hung there limp, legs still fused into the spike that transfixed the dinosaur to the stone, trapped inside its body.

Then the Spinosaurus began dissolving into golden light around her, the massive form breaking apart into glowing particles that drifted upward and faded.

Annie’s spike-legs suddenly had nothing to support them. She toppled sideways, barely managing to shift her legs back to normal before she hit the plaza. She used the freed metal to patch the worst of her injuries as she fell.

She landed hard on her side, then rolled onto her back in the puddle of blood the dinosaur had left behind. Everything hurt. Her drone descended slowly, hovering over her with a concerned beep.

“Holy shit,” Annie gasped, staring at the mist-shrouded sky. “Holy shit, I killed a dinosaur.”

Everything hurt. She’d quickly phased out the ribs, but the memory of pain lingered. Her tongue was bleeding. Her leg throbbed. She was covered in blood and gore. But she was alive.

“Five minutes,” she told the universe. “Just give me five fucking minutes.”

The System notification hovered at the edge of her vision, waiting. She’d won, but still needed to find the hidden power that was her reward. Just not yet. Not for another minute.

Right now, breathing was enough.