#kindoff?

Rosceline readies her plate absentmindedly. Her spoon takes a reddish orange scoop of something from a small bowl. A chutney: something made from the tropical fruits of her home, something sweet, sticky, and spicy. She spreads it across a long slice of meat, head to tail. Something resembling fish, but with flesh a pale green, like the color of mint. Its alien color seems to bother the witch not, nor does it bother Lady Kythera Lenore, who sits across from Rosceline with much the same plate before her, talking with such speed as to be near incomprehensible.

"...and so I did say unto him 'my Lord and friend, whyever wouldst thou pair such a sweet wine with the leyfruit when thou knowest so much sweetness makes the good Scion sick? We must needs speak only in private for weeks after such a travesty at thy table! I cannot be seen in thy company! Egads!' And dost thou know how he did respond in kind? He did say..."

Rosceline is used to other woman's prattle, and she's well aware that there will be no test later. Kythera will forget this conversation even happened, perhaps even repeat it at a later date. All they must do is appear engaged to keep the simple thing happy. They giggle when she makes that expression that means she's about to say something simply "hilarious." They gasp when Kythera leans in conspiratorially to say some simple scathing secret. They keep an ear pricked to actually start listening if she begins to say anything of actual value, though this is doubtful. Rosceline stares into the blue fruit leaves on her plate that once wrapped her meal to smoke it, but in more detail she sees a full forest of azure: far, far from the table.

They dive through foliage as if the canopy is a sea's surface, sapphire leaves and vines splash around them as they tear through arbor waves like a wretched school of fish.

The drones scatter as machine gun fine rips through the treeline. Barely aimed. Easy to avoid. One pair of Eyes gains visual on the first target, and so they all do. The gunman turns to retreat to his allies, routed by the evasive momentum of the bat-like creatures. He trips. They descend.

The process of the flock killing a man is unpleasant. Like a starved pack of pirhanas, each tears at the flesh. Streaks of energy burn through him as he's shredded. By the grace of the flock's synergy it is mercifully quick. He is a red stain upon the jungle floor.

A lucky hit looses an altogether different blood. The shot rings through Her Gleaming Eyes, tearing through one's torso, clipping another's wing. The others fade into the foliage once more. The surviving infantry share scowls.

"The outpost was supposed to be an easy mark, what the FUCK is that?"

"Just call in Wes! Christ the Buddha, Bruise sent us into a fucking death traAAaHH-"

"Oh, Rosie, tis delicious is it not? Fit for Pasacaglia himself!"

"Yes, yes, w- I do concur~"

The bandit is lifted from the jungle floor by a thing of nylon and steel and something like flesh. Gone is the flock. No... No, still there... simply joined as one. Compound minds and compound bodies cannibalize themselves in a bid to grow and grow. The synthesis is what descends to lift the soon to be corpse. And yet, they race through the brush like rats as he dies. A snap as he's thrown against the nearest tree. His body breaks long before it hits the ground. Theirs scatter with more efficiency. Theirs are meant to splash against walls and crack into pieces. His bullets tear worthlessly through azure.

A set of Eyes combine. Six? Eight? It matters not. Their plural yet singular strength produces but one wingbeat that fires them through and over the canopy.

They can see the outpost properly now. A trade station on the fringes of Karrakin territory. The Host can feel that: how stretched the connection is. Without the omninode there... Doesn't matter. The outpost...

They count a few dozen civilians. Houses Hurst and Lenore shouldn't have that many ignobles stati-

Oh. The half burnt out husk of a Taraxacum bears colors not Karrakin. A Masecan Caravan? There to trade. Perfect time for the privateers to hit both. Damn it...

CRACK! The sound rips through the air as a high caliber rifle shot tears through the Eyes' collective torso.

"Bloody Passio-" Rosceline stops herself, but not quickly enough.

"Rosie!" Kythera squeals, moving around the table towards them.

"Wh-" Warm and wet down her nose. Down her lips. Chin. Kythera brings a table napkin to her face and it comes away red.

"Waiter? Waiter!?"

"T-tis fine, Kythie. Only a nosebleed. Allergies, methinks. Thou knowest how w- I get this time of year."

"Hmm. I shall request more napkins, if only to be safe. Oh, thou poor thing..."

We shall answer in kind, worry not for that, the minds chatter together in agreement.

Mech scale. That had to be mech scale to damage a Compound Eye so thoroughly. Angle... distance... triangulating...

Redirecting.

The dance through the brush continues for the surviving Eyes. They hide and wait. The target's path is predictable. Straight to the outpost.

Her Gleaming Eyes watch its approach from dozens of angles. A scavenged thing. An old pirate chassis, forged decades ago as a Raleigh, perhaps? So many parts replaced, it wore decades as trophies, only barely recognizable as a corporate frame anymore. And as armor: Harrison's scrapyard. Pieces too damaged or misprinted to serve an honorable Legion, but still more than functional enough to "lose" to a band of "pirate scavengers."

Eyes compounded, they descend upon their enemies in two bodies, each 1/2 schedule. A spark leaps from one to the other. The cascade of bluish-white arcs from Eye, to infantry, to infantry, to chassis, to Eye.

All alone, now.

A rifle shot wings just past a drones' head; the privateer curses, the Eyes dart forward.

Crrrrreeeeeeeeeak. Talons rake across armor, ragged gashes tear across the mech. A hand catches a wing.

Blasted fucking armor.

Part of the wing detaches, and is crushed in the privateer's palm before it can even return to its individual shape. The Compound Eye begins to disarticulate as the rifle swivels towards its center mass.

Faster faster FASTER.

CRACK.

The mech rocks backward from an impact. They catch a glance of the smoking barrel of a cannon mounted to the barely functioning Masecan Taraxacum. They also catch the hole torn in the plating of their enemy.

The second compound moves in as the damaged one moves out to disarticulate. The yellow eyed tide ebs and flows. Claws rake through the weakened armor and loosen the armed limb from the mech.

The flock watches, gazes into what's left of the machine. A hundred Eyes lock on from as many of angles, searching for the perfect line. They reach into what's left of the Taraxacum's once powerful sensors and align them to their own. "Right here. Fire."

The privateer's chassis is torn through, metal is bent and sundered in a hundred directions. A chorus of the same voice flows from drones and and comm lines alike: "Kill confirmed."

"Rosie? Rosie, dost thou feel well enough for dessert?" Kythera's concern has dwindled, but is yet to fully retreat.