#automatonotto

Kara: Skill issue

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

"WOLFIE!"

Felix screams and bolts as the giant nine-tailed wolf, as tall as a one-story house, careens toward him, tongue lolling out impetuously, barking like a dog at the sight of a newfound friend. Sure, he knows the guy's his friend, but said guy has yet to figure out that the sight of a giant wolf as big as a T-rex charging toward someone is utterly terrifying, even when one is trying to have fun. Behind the giant wolf is Wilhelm, the tiny blond who stood no longer than 5'2" straining to keep up with the sprinting Wolfie on his comparatively tiny legs as he calls for him to come to a halt.

"Wolfie, how many times do you need to be told?" Wil cries as the chase through the forest clearing drags on. "Stop running at Felix!"

"It won't scare him anymore if I keep doing it!" Wolfie yelps, picking up the pace.

"At least I get my dogs not to run at him. How is it that you can't have that restraint when they can do it and they're not even sapient?"

Ahead of them, Felix stops running and pants for breath. Wolfie screeches to a halt as well and gives him a giant lick with a tongue as long as his arm, causing the poor man's black hair to drip with saliva.

"You know I hate that too, Wolf," Felix grumbles, wiping sticky droplets of dog drool off his forehead with the back of his hand.

"It's how a dire kitsune shows love," Wolfie says in a superior tone. "What's wrong with showing my love?"

"You can also show love to me by listening when I say what makes me uncomfortable," says Felix with a sigh.

"Might as well ask me to shrink to the size of a chihuahua every time I'm around you," Wolfie says.

"That…would actually be great, thank you."

The great wolf-fox gives a toss of his head.

"I mean I could. But then how would you ever get over your fear of big dogs? Maybe it would help if I was bigger. Not smaller. Like this!"

And then he does it. Instantaneously he shapeshifts, shooting up, and up, and up, until he's at least thirty feet taller.

Felix stares and gapes. Though he never swore, his face just screams "what the fuck."

"That's not fucking funny! And they say I'm the annoying one!" Wil shouts.

"You're right. It'd be funnier if I were bigger!"

And then Wolfie grows, and grows, and grows, until he's standing at least ten times his usual height--big enough to crush his companions with a step. Every cell in Felix's body wants to bolt at the sight. But he stares, transfixed in his terror, the sun having dimmed for him in the great wolf's shadow.

"Oh God," he mumbles as his legs give out from under him.

Wolfie cranes his neck down toward the miniature Felix, the breath from his nostrils enough to ruffle the man's hair like a breeze.

"What's wrong, hoomin?" he says. "You don't enjoy the view?"

Felix could do nothing more than just mumble out a few words of unintelligible gibberish.

"Shrink yourself down right now!" Wilhelm shouts. "Don't make me pull out the PREDATIONS / RELATIONS score on you!"

"So you can what? Drama queen your way into making me submit?" Wolfie sweeps Wilhelm to the ground with a brush from one of his tails.

"Don't make me send valkyries up there, either!" Wilhelm shouted, yet another challenge. "I swear--"

The loud whirr of a mechanical motor causes them all to look up. A machine that loud? In their forest where nobody lived? What in the world--

And then, whatever fear Felix had of Wolfie is replaced by his fear of the robot whose figure cut so magnificently, so grandly, so terribly above the skyline. It looks like the invention of a bygone era--but an era in a different world that had surpassed their own, with the huge jets coming out of its back and the enormous clunking feet. It's as tall as Wolfie was in his current size--and as its body turns around to reveal a head crowned like a Pharaoh's, the three seem to have attracted its attention.

"Ohhhhhh, what is that thing?" Wolfie says wondrously, his tails perking up as he leans in closer.

"It doesn't seem too friendly," Felix observes.

"Yeah, I'm getting major 'I could kill you and I probably want to' vibes from this one," Wil says.

"Just because it looks big and scary? You can't judge a book by its cover," Wolfie says. "I think I'm going to go say hi!"

Felix reaches out an arm in protest. "Wait--"

But it's no use. The wolf-fox goes bounding off, knocking over trees and trampling undergrowth as though he wants to expand the clearing in his wake, streaking toward the killer automaton with the exuberance and lack of restraint of an untrained 1-year-old lab as both Felix and Wilhelm pelt after him. Already they feel as though they're falling further and further behind, left in the flattened grass and shattered forest that Wollfie leaves behind like a tsunami's sweeping tide. But they don't have to run very far to recognize a threat. So eagerly does he charge down this that he hardly even notices one of the automaton's arms raising and pulling back, ready to launch an attack.

AUTOMATON-OTTO.

Oh, cities were. Bigger than she'd thought. There were way more people around than she was used to.

Talia pulled her hood further over her head, shrouding her face even further in shadow. She fidgeted with the chains dangling from her belt as she walked - but nearly ran into someone because she wasn't paying attention.