The Ascendants

Chapter 9

The bullet melted before it even hit Seraphina, if it hadn't she was sure it would have gone right between her eyes. It just dripped to the floor, in hot, liquid drops. Although the figure's blaster had a silencer on it, it still made a loud bang. OKimma sprinted into the store, saw the hooded figure, and grabbed Seraphina's hand. "Run! To the ship, forget about the equipment!" Seraphina didn't hesitate. There was a heavy thud, and Seraphina glanced back at the person. Where in the world did they pull out a rocket launcher? They heaved it lazily on to their shoulder, like they had all the time in the world, then pulled the trigger.

OKimma flung herself in front of Seraphina, and the blast blew them backwards. Right where OKimma's stomach should have been, there was a giant hole. Seraphina screamed and grabbed OKimma's arm, dragging her aboard the ship. The figure was nowhere in sight, but Seraphina was scrambling too frantically to see anything. She pressed a button that she hoped would close the door, sure enough it did. Seraphina left OKimma on the floor, she didn't think OKimma had survived after that wound. She was scared and shaking.

Seraphina threw herself into the one control seat, and grabbed the steering mechanism, her knuckles white. She bounced back when a polite female voice spoke to her. "How may I assist your departure?" Seraphina didn't know any names of any planet, so she stuttered. Then, one destination came to mind.

"Take me to the Great Moon!" She yelled.

"Target destination is too far, taking you to the Novapolis outpost, five-hundred miles outside of Novapolis' atmospheric boundary."

Seraphina relaxed into the seat as the shuttle lifted off. She got up from the chair and walked back into the loading bay. There was a buzzing sound, and Serpahina looked to OKimma. She was...sparking. Where the rocket had penetrated her stomach there was nothing but wires and metal. Blitzing and buzzing and sparking. Seraphina raised her hand to her mouth in horror. What in the world was OKimma? She fell to the floor when OKimma's eyes blinked, and she started cursing things so horrible it made Seraphina want to cover her ears.

Okimma rolled on to her side and pushed up with her hands until she was on her feet again. "Wow, Seraph you're a real lifesaver." OKimma said with a sarcastic tone. "What's wrong with you? You're a paler blue than usual."

"W-What are you?" Seraph asked, shocked.

"Hey! Be glad I'm not an Abomination like that thing back there." OKimma stuck her hand through the giant hole in her chest. "Dang, she got me good."

"What are you talking about, abominations? How do you know that was a she?" Seraphina was so dumbfounded, clearly when she had memories she had no idea what mechanical people were.

"Girl, we need to get you educated. I am an android, back in that shop I sold other versions of me. That thing that tried to kill you, and a lot of bad people will want to kill you, was an Abomination. Capital 'A'. Now, I'm glad we're headed towards the outpost because this spaceship can only make it that far."

OKimma trudged away from her, and opened up the biggest box they had brought on board. Inside was a bunch of different machine parts and what looked like grafts of fake skin. She grabbed a small metallic cube and placed it inside the giant crater in her stomach. It floated into the middle and started to expand, until every spot was recovered. "This will have to do." Okimma said. She placed a small patch of skin on her stomach, which moved across the metal skeleton and erased all evidence of damage.

OKimma patted her stomach and laughed,"All better now, Seraph."

Seraphina blinked, it was like she was seeing things, the hole was gone in seconds. "I want some answers," She glared at OKimma, angry that she had kept so many secrets from her.

"Don't look at me like that, we just met Seraphina." OKimma leaned back against one of the crates, and crossed her arms.

"Start, now, first with what that person back there was, then I want to know about me." Seraphina told her.

OKimma was honest with her, explaining to her that the person back there was something called an "Abomination". A title that was deemed by the public. OKimma said that they were like her, but the civilians were more open to androids. Abominations were artificial, genetically engineered people inserted into people's lives to spy on them.

"That one, back there, I've heard stories about that one. People talk about her all the time, they call her the Silent Killer. She never lets her victims utter a single word before she kills them. They say she's the best assassin in this galaxy to the next." OKimma informed her.

"Why would people come after me? Why am I so important?" Seraphina urged OKimma to tell her.

OKimma opened up her palm, and a projection came out of it, it showed a picture of a four-pointed star carved into metal."This was on the back of your pod, Star Goddess. Luckily, my brain has been programmed with enough knowledge of what you are."

"What's that?" Seraphina implored, her head was spinning with all this new information. For someone with amnesia, she thought an info dump wouldn't give her a headache.

"You're our savior, and the invaders that are coming, destroying planets as we speak, want you dead." OKimma told her, she never once faltered on any word, never once blinked.