Simon's hands mechanically went through the motions.

D suspended fourth, F suspended fourth, G suspended fourth, back to D4 and F4 before inserting a fun little G sharp suspended fourth before the second G4...

It wasn't really helping that much, just fingering the holographic guitar with the sound muted. There was no texture to it, no feedback apart from feeling his fingers moving. Holographic instruments were only good with hard force projectors built in, and a PET is far too small to do anything like that...

But still, Simon didn't dare unmute his PET's speakers.

D4, F4 and F4 again for the third measure, before finishing off the line with an F fourth suspended and then a D fourth suspended.

Even as he played through the intro five more times, he was shaking. He was certain he'd flubbed a few of those chords but without any feedback he couldn't be sure.

He still didn't dare unmute his PET.

Simon was sat up in the corner of the tunnel, on an outcropping of what felt like metal, hunched up against the compacted earth ceiling. He couldn't really see anything, the glow of his holographic guitar barely illuminating the little alcove he was hiding in.

A sudden rustling sound, followed by a few scattered clinks and quiet thuds, made Simon almost jump out of his skin. “Just debris from the wall after you climbed it. Nothing to worry about,” came Fortis's voice.

“I... knew that,” Simon mumbled in response.

Silence resumed as Simon frowned down at the holographic guitar again.

Simon always played music when he was stressed. Or he fidgeted with a guitar pick or plucked the strings of one of his guitars. Old literature – snippets of pre-splice psychology books and archived communications logs – referred to it as 'stimming'. Modern psychologists preferred to call it 'Autonomous Predictable Input', but Simon liked 'stimming'. He likes how the word sounded and the shape it made in his head.

He supposed this was also a form of stimming. Psychology was weird.

"I..." came the voice of the as-yet unnamed inkling. "I don't know what's going on. Why are we just sitting here? Sh-shouldn't we be... doing something?"

Simon felt a lump in his throat.

“This is normal,” Fortis answered. “Well, I mean, it happens, it's nothing to-”

“Shut up.” Simon ended up much shoutier than he intended, the words echoing off the far wall. He curled up tighter, knees pressed against his chest. “Stop talking. Le-leave me alone...”

The silence that followed was oppressive. Simon felt one of the inklings form a small patch on his arm, and then almost shyly shrink away again. He couldn't tell which one it was.

After what felt like an age, Simon managed to gather up the willpower to talk – to apologise for snapping, to make it clear he wasn't yelling at Lizbet, to reassure- wait where did that name come fro-

CLANG!

Simon was filled with far too much social indecision to bother with indecision when startled – he exploded into motion as soon as her heard the loud, metal-on-stone crash. Diving forward, he drove his feet and tail downwards, powerful muscles designed specifically for jumping launching the boy towards the ceiling. He gripped at the packed dirt ceiling with his claws, swinging his lower body upwards as he tapped both feet together – retracting the soles of his shoes to plunge his toe claws into the ceiling as well.

Simon craned his neck to look down, straining to see through darkness and green, gravity-obeying hair. He really needed to tie this into a ponytail before going on adventures next time...

Ha. Next time. As if he was going to be making a habit of this.

“I don't see anything,” came a voice in Simon's ear. The new inkling. 'Lizbet', he'd apparently decided to start thinking of her as.

The CLANG! reverberated through the cavern again, causing Simon to flinch. It was getting closer, as far as he could tell – there wasn't enough of an echo for it to simply be louder but still from the same location.

“Hide or run?” Simon whispered, as quietly as he could.

“I-I don't know if we can run. I don't know where we are!” came Lizbet's hesitant response a few moments later. Fortis didn't answer.

“I... lost track. O-okay, hide then,” Simon said, forcing himself to sound calm and optimistic. “Don't worry. Whatever this thing is, it... sounds pretty big. Maybe it won't notice us...”

Simon didn't have much time to reflect on the fact that he was trying to make this thing's massive size a good thing – he was far too distracted by the sudden light shining down the tunnel, forcing Simon to squint. That huge whatever-it-was was shining what seemed to be a floodlight down the tunnel, making it suddenly as bright as daylight. Simon felt incredibly exposed all of a sudden. Tensing up, Simon prepared to spring down and flee, hopefully distracting the monster with his sudden movement without making it instantly attack-

“Simon!” came a booming voice from down the tunnel. “Where have you gotten yourself to, boy? You were so much more dependable when you were older! Fortis, can't you talk some sense into your charge for once?!”

“Wh...what-”

Before Simon could process the thought – before he could even really process whether it was his voice coming out of his mouth or Fortis's – there was another huge crash as the monster came into view and slammed one of its spidery legs down on the spot Bedivere had probably been a few moments earlier.

The thing was like something out of a nightmare. It was almost the size of a freight ship, with a large, roughly spherical body and six long, spider-like legs set at regular intervals along its circumference. Each leg had multiple red, glowing spots that Simon immediately recognised as its eyes, and each ended in a metal claw that was bigger than Simon's entire body. It had no discernible 'head' at all, nor did it appear to even have a front or back.

The metal monster swivelled one of its legs, the red 'eye' at its first knee peering directly at Simon. Simon shuddered as he felt the metal monster practically stare into his soul.

“Humans detected.” The feminine voice crackled with static. “We are sorry. Your deaths bring us no pleasure. This must be done. Your children will be thankful.”

Simon had no idea what to make of this. He just continued to stare in fear, edging backwards into his hidey-hole, even though he knew the monster could see him. The monster raised one of its limbs, opening up its hand-like claw. Simon continued to shrink back, as if trying to sink right into the wall behind him.

“Your words ring hollow, abomination!”

The monster paused, claw inches away from Simon.

“My name is Knight-Protector Archibald Bedivere!” the older squirrel's voice rang out, seeming to fill the entire tunnel with his presence. “I was once told that 'humans are problem-solving engines'. If you put a problem before us, we will do all that is in our power to solve it!”

The claw retracted, and Simon inched forward to peer down at the knight.

Archibald Bedivere drew his sword. Simon once again was struck by how... industrial it looked. Like an oversized box cutter with a handle. “This blade was forged to solve problems like you! En garde!”

The gigantic metal monster moved almost too fast for Simon to see, stabbing its clawlike appendages at the older squirrel. The knight's sword rose to deflect one attack with a satisfying clank, while the next was deftly dodged. A third strike was met with the sword again, cutting deeply into the metal appendage.

The metallic gigas and the knight traded blow after blow. Simon was transfixed watching Bedivere dodge and weave between strikes, moving with the casual ease of someone who had been doing this all his life. Bedivere's sword clanged against the monster's limbs, sending sparks scattering across the floor – when the blade didn't dig in deep and cut a chunk of material away like the creature was made of paper, anyway.

Neither fighter seemed to really have the upper hand – which was surprising, considering one of them was a man in his mid seventies and the other was a giant death machine made of metal and hatred.

“You have no chance, demon! With this sword in hand, no metal beast can defeat me!” the knight-protector claimed, voice full of bravado.

“Acknowledged,” came the monster's metallic, feminine voice. “Disarming current opponent.”

“Ha!” Bedivere sneered. “I'd like to see you tr-!” This was as far as he got before a multitude of spindly robotic arms – Simon counted at least ten, but they were moving so quickly it was hard to really be sure – erupted from the beast's leg. Bedivere jumped back, slashing and cleaving at the arms, severing several of them.

Then one of the arms managed to grab his wrist, then again took hold of the blade, and with a sudden sickening crunch, the blade was wrenched from his hand and sent clattering across the ground.

“Well,” Archibald Bedivere said, in a surprisingly calm tone for someone currently cradling his clearly broken hand. “I suppose I deserved that.”

“Incorrect. You do not deserve this. We are sorry,” came the monster's mechanical voice as it raised a clawed leg.

Simon found himself leaping forward before he even thought about doing it – not sure whether it was himself, Fortis, Lizbet, or some combination of all three of them. The dreamy, half-real feeling of inking over flowed through his body, although the inky flesh he caught out of the corner of his eye wasn't Fortis's neon orange, but Lizbet's creamy off-white.

Whoever was controlling Simon's body at the moment threw their arms out wide and stared down the metal monster, thankfully causing the robot to falter in what seemed to be confusion.

“There you are,” Archibald Bedivere said, although it had an odd tone to it that Simon couldn't really recognise. It almost sounded like he wasn't talking about Simon's location, exactly... “Lizbet, quickly, charge!”

Simon/Lizbet looked around at him. “Huh...?”

“No time, quickly, your hand!”

The off-white inkling reached out her hand and took Bedivere's own. Simon felt a warmth rise up from his chest and flow down his arm, and the older squirrel seemed to almost inflate even as Simon felt himself sag a little.

Wait, hold up. His tail had looked slightly grey from age earlier, but now it seemed to be almost silver. And... shiny.

“That's better,” the Knight-Protector said, as he stood up to his full, impressive height. The robot also stood taller, rearing up as it prepared to strike, seemingly over its confusion. “One last job, old friend. Let's make this count!”