Kingpouge Laika Fixed -

He turned, a flicker of annoyance crossing his scarred face. "I said heel, girl."

Kingpouge screamed her name as the Silk Worms swarmed him. But Laika was already gone, bounding across fire escapes and collapsing scaffolds, a mongrel ghost with a crown's worth of secrets in her teeth. kingpouge laika

The turning point came on the night of the Red Eclipse, when the city's particulate moon turned the color of rust. A rival syndicate, the Silk Worms, launched a full-scale assault on Kingpouge's spire. Plasma fire melted the rain mid-fall. Screams echoed up from the lower levels. Kingpouge, calm as still water, stood on his balcony, watching his kingdom burn. He turned, a flicker of annoyance crossing his scarred face

She hated the way he stroked her fur with his cold, chrome-plated fingers, calling her his "good little monster." She hated the way he fed her the still-warm hearts of his rivals, watching with detached curiosity as she crunched the organic matter mixed with circuitry. She hated that she was bound to him not by love, but by a kill-switch embedded in her cybernetic spine. One press of a button on his wrist-comp, and she'd seize, then burn out like a blown fuse. The turning point came on the night of

And she hated Kingpouge.

"The switch?" Laika's voice was almost amused. "I spent six months chewing through the relay wires, one strand of copper at a time. You never noticed. You only ever looked at the surface."