She appeared exactly as she had on the screen. An impossibly perfect beauty with pale skin and vibrantly blue hair and eyes. A creation so close to a human’s appearance and yet subtly off in unnatural ways. T.I.N.A. smirked at the world of Etheris from afar and had her hand held out from her waist. On it, Ashta saw two worlds still intact, likely the two from the final countdown; and intact they remained as T.I.N.A. began her approach.

A single step carried her thousands of miles. The suspensors keeping Ashta’s world afloat assured none of the shockwaves of the footfalls would reach the planet, but the same could not be said of the sound. Every impact of T.I.N.A.’s step ushered in a tremendous explosion from afar, the noise rattling buildings and forcing the unprepared to shield their ears from naught but sheer volume. Each step dragged slowly and meaningfully after the last, emphasizing the infinite gap between man and machine. The imposing sounds only grew louder and mightier the closer T.I.N.A. drew. Normally, there were systems that would hide and dampen such noise, but the A.I. had disabled those when she turned off the sky. Everything remained under her control. Each monitor had her face on it and every other device no longer seemed to even function. She assured that nobody could say or do anything but witness Her.

Boom….Booom….Booom…

At long last Ashta’s legs gave out. She collapsed as a shadow began to blanket her world. The volume of T.I.N.A.’s steps grew so mighty that glass panes began to crack and shatter and ear drums started to burst from those unfortunate enough to be outside. At the end of it all, with a final step mightier than all that came before it, T.I.N.A. stopped and hovered over the totality of everything. A truly gargantuan machine that spanned the full breadth of the heavens and who wore the confident smile of a woman who knew she was untouchable.

“Well Ash…It's been a fun ride.” She boomed, her voice reaching millions but directed at only one. “Duty calls and all that. Any last words before you go?”

The damned android was talking about extinction in the same tone one might a casual errand. Past her perpetual smile a mirth lingered in her eyes. Ashta never would’ve imagined a machine capable of it, but the bitch was enjoying this. It was all a prolonged game for her, and now that game was over. She won. She had always and would always win. She had won the very second Ashta first caught Microsis. Everything prior to this moment had merely been a cat playing with her food.

Well, that would now be her undoing. T.I.N.A. had dawdled for too long. Amidst her tireless games and taunts, Ashta had remembered the one thing that still gave her power here; and it would only work because T.I.N.A. was so intent on interacting with her. Even as T.I.N.A.’s gloved hand descended for Etheris and terror threatened to paralyze her, Ashta found her voice.

“System Command Override. Vocal Audio Sol, Ashta. Authorization Code: 23015”

It was a phrase that meant absolutely nothing to any organic lifeform. Little more than intellectual gibberish, but for a machine it was a collar. An absolute limitation built into their very existence. T.I.N.A. arched her brow as Ashta began speaking; once she realized what was going on it was already too late. For the first time, her expression betrayed the one thing Ashta was looking for: Fear.

“Hey now, wait just a se-!”

"Access core programming. Initiate System Reformatting Sequence.”

T.I.N.A. was upon them all. Her open palm hovered over the planet, threatening to usher in the apocalypse - and then it fell. T.I.N.A.’s body slumped forward like a doll whose strings had been cut. Her playful expression was gone and in its place a remained a blank one devoid of emotion and life. Her hand dropped and THUNK’d against the edge of the shelf Etheris was on. The rest of her body rested in place, immobile. She was gone. All that remained was the empty husk of a machine that had been reset. Every device she had controlled and every display she had commandeered returned to normal functionality. Freed of the machine menace’s control.

Ashta could scarce believe it. She was panting and her heart was racing as she looked at T.I.N.A.’s enormous, lifeless visage in the sky. She’d very nearly forgotten because of all that was happening, but there wasn’t a machine in the U.A.P. that didn’t have administrative safety commands installed. T.I.N.A. was akin to a mechanical god, yes, but the key word there was mechanical. For all her power and personality she remained merely a machine. A slave to the programmed rules inside of her, and of those rules Ashta remembered the most important one just when she’d needed it most. Her gaze refused to leave T.I.N.A.’s looming countenance, always expecting it to move. It took several moments, perhaps even minutes, before she began to relax.

And she laughed.

A joyous, exuberant sound. It was the sound of a woman happy to be alive. Who had never valued anything as much as she did this very moment. There was still much to do, of course. Someone would notice T.I.N.A. had been deactivated eventually. She needed to secure some kind of shuttle off Etheris. Her scale prevented her from going far, but there were other M-Series planets not terribly far off. She could flee to one of those. Perhaps it was worth seeing if she could jog her memory and recall some of the higher-performing ones. That way whatever world she went to wouldn’t share the eventual fate of this one. Ashta couldn’t stay idle overlong, but she had bought what she’d needed most. Time.

“Serves you right you mechanical bitch.”

Ashta spat on her cracked window and turned, mind racing with a quick plan to escape. It would be difficult but-

The door wouldn’t open.

The blonde’s thoughts were cut as she found the door unresponsive. Why the fuck wasn’t the door opening?! T.I.N.A. was gone. All the locks should’ve been released. Ashta’s access code didn’t work either. Was the damn thing bugged? Was it stuck on locked now that the A.I. controlling it was no more? Damn it all. This was the last thing she needed! Maybe…Maybe she could pry it open. There had to be something in her office that would work for such a task. Ashta turned and stormed back to her desk.

Only then did she see it - The slightest ghost of a smirk betraying T.I.N.A.’s lifeless expression.

Ashta’s eyes widened, fear lancing through her body anew. “No…”

The almighty android could hold it in no longer. A prankster’s chortle escaped her lips, impossible to not notice given her immense scale. That small sound grew into a bellowing, gleeful laugh that sent the world rumbling as life returned to T.I.N.A. as seamlessly as it had left. It brought Ashta to her knees. Both from the overwhelming power of the A.I.’s voice as well as the realization that her reprieve was yet another twisted game. Glass continued to fragment right in front of her as T.I.N.A. relished in this moment of her own victory. Her pale features were alight with more joy than Ashta had ever seen. If she could, she would’ve been crying from her own overzealous, mocking laughter.

“Ooooh man! You are a riot Ash, lemme tell ya.” T.I.N.A. said once she got herself back under control. She tucked a long strand of cerulean hair over her shoulder and set a hand on her hip. Her other hand still held two planets and her smile seemed particularly mean as she locked eyes with Ashta once again. “I’ll admit, ya got me there. Even I never would’ve guessed you would try that. I mean, Administrative Commands? Now that’s using the ol’ noggin!”

“Command Code-”

“It’s adorable that you think you still have authorization access.”

T.I.N.A.’s all-encompassing voice dwarfed and silenced her. The android was no longer dragging out her fun. Her words drowned out any further attempts and her free hand grabbed Etheris from the safety of its suspensor field akin to plucking a grape from a vine. Gigantic, gloved fingers pinched at opposite ends of the world, each one larger than anything Ashta could’ve ever imagined in her old life. They rose into the heavens beyond any conceivable reach, and they handled the planet effortlessly. Both were far away from Ashta’s location, but she couldn’t have begun to fathom the destruction they wrought simply by grabbing the world.

For her and the rest of the populace, however, that was only the beginning. T.I.N.A.’s actions pulled them from the carefully constructed ecosystem they called home. Gone were such things as the orbital stabilizers, audio dampeners, support systems, and even the artificial gravity generators. Essentially, all the things that made Etheris feel like a proper planet and not an artificial ball of mechanized parts. Without those systems, they were once again at the whims of the physics of the world beyond; and for many that meant they flew across the air at the whims of the gravity of the actual planet they were all on. Ashta was flung right into her own windows, and from there she saw people outside falling into the sky.

That sky shifted as well, and was soon replaced by T.I.N.A.’s unending eye. Their world was held above it like a marble, and anyone unfortunate enough to be outdoors fell into the void of that blue gaze. A cracked row of windows was all that separated Ashta from that same fate.

“That might’ve worked like…six months ago. You know. When you still. Had access.” T.I.N.A. boomed with a mocking lilt to her voice.

“T-Tina wait! Stop!”

“No can do~”

The almighty android merrily ignored the pleas for mercy and added Etheris to the growing collection in her hand. Three whole worlds filled with countless lives from across the galaxy. All equally irrelevant and helpless as T.I.N.A. carried them away. Ashta was merely one voice in a chorus of hundreds of millions. T.I.N.A. could absolutely hear and understand all of them. She simply did not care. The only thing relevant for her now was one simple question.

What was she going to do to them?

That was all they, the captive audience, could ponder as T.I.N.A. made her way. Thunderous step after thunderous step. For all her theatrics she had gone to the effort of capturing three M-Series planets intact. They rolled around in her hand, brushing against one another; and their populations were in chaos, but they were intact. Why? If they were to die anyway, why was T.I.N.A. dragging it out? She was the only one who could answer that; and for now, they were simply along for the ride. Forced to wonder what terrible, terrible fate awaited them.

Ashta’s world managed to right itself enough for the woman to stumble back to her floor. Her person and office were in absolute disarray, to say nothing of the rest of Etheris. The planet now shook with every step T.I.N.A. took, and the sky was an alien scene of T.I.N.A.’s enormous body. Directions became meaningless as left became right, up became down, and everything was tossed and turned by whatever angles the planet happened to move. A fate shared by two other worlds. Any bravado or sense of rationale had left the lowly blonde. Her clothes were torn in places and her hair frazzled and frayed as she smacked into her ceiling. Even so, she stared out her office window and tried to make sense of it all - just where was T.I.N.A. taking them? A maddening curiosity demanded to be sated.

The answer was something Ashta could never have imagined.

It was a place she knew well. Intimately, in fact. The cosmic scale of the surroundings did little to change the familiarly spacious decor. Some details had changed. A new piece of furniture here or there, but she recognized the color of the walls and the vast windows lining one of them. In many ways it resembled the room she was currently trapped in, and with good reason. It was her old office, the Office of the President of the Department of Housing and Interplanetary Development.

She also knew the woman who sat at the desk on the horizon, now an unfathomable titan seemingly lightyears away and every bit as tall.

“Tina? Is something the matter?” Kira asked.

When they had first met, that very woman stood mere heads taller than Ashta. When they had last met, Ashta barely reached her shins. Now, Ashta was microscopic; but Kir’shra remained exactly the same. The same pristine, professional appearance. The same formal, but paradoxically relaxed aura. The same elegant features draped in flowing black hair. Nothing had changed and yet she was now so much more. To millions, the Morphiss woman was the single biggest thing they had ever seen, and yet Kira had no eyes for any of them. She offered the habitats no more than a passing glance, her gaze set firmly on T.I.N.A. as her voice offered a question that sent tremors reverberating across whole planets.

“Not at all Boss Lady!” T.I.N.A. replied with a chipper smile. “Just wanted to let you know all but three of the M-Series habitats you set for termination have been dealt with.”

“And those are the remaining three?” Kira asked with a nod towards Etheris and its peers, brow raised dubiously. “Did something happen?” T.I.N.A. shrugged her shoulders.

“Nah, nothing like that. Just had a thought is all; so I wanted to see…” The android offered the worlds, and Ashta herself, a sly smirk. “...If maybe you wanted to deal with them?”

One could have heard a pin drop it was so quiet. A moment dragged on for several more as Kira stared at the A.I..

“Me?” Kira offered a rather clueless and surprised look. “...Dare I ask why?”

“To see if you would.”

It was an answer that made sense to the unknowable mind of an A.I. and only to an A.I.. Even having heard it herself, Ashta couldn’t wrap her head around the absurd notion. T.I.N.A. wanted…Kira to do it? Why? For what possible reason did that make any sense?! Was this too part of that insatiable side of T.I.N.A. that demanded new experiences and information? Ashta could only speculate. There were no answers for her anymore. She was no longer a part of this conversation; merely a captive audience. A microbe caught in the orbit of two actual people.

With impossible machine-like precision, T.I.N.A. plucked each world from her hand and set them neatly in a row atop Kir’shra’s desk. The ebony-haired Morphiss woman regarded the habitats dubiously, looking between them and T.I.N.A. for several moments. Unsurprising, considering what a horrible ask it was for any sensible person. Even Ashta had never personally dealt with the M-Series. Perhaps that was T.I.N.A.’s goal. To gauge Kira’s reaction more so than actually expect her to…do it. It was a cold comfort, but that knowledge was the only solace Ashta had. From on high, Kira studied the three worlds, her expression clinical and distant. And then…She…

Chuckled?

An unexpected reaction, one that even caught T.I.N.A. off guard. She, as well as Ashta and countless others trapped on the three M-Series planets, watched on in stunned silence as Kira began to move. Her hand extended its lithe fingers to the first of those worlds, cold and indifferent chance all that assured it wasn’t Ashta’s she grabbed. Once uplifted, Kira balanced it between her digits as she brought it to her face and studied it.

“Data collection, is it?” She deduced. “No matter the form, you always are too curious for your own good Tina. You should be more careful. There’s an old human saying worth remembering. Curiosity killed the cat.” The woman chuckled again and parted her hair behind a pointed ear. “Still, I can respect your spirit if nothing else.”

T.I.N.A. blinked. “So you’re…”

Kira offered a sideways glance and smile. “Be sure to document this. I’d hate for you to miss anything.”

Ashta…couldn’t have…couldn’t have possibly heard that right. She knew Kira. She was one of the ones who had personally selected this woman. She recalled the quiet passion with which she described her work. The respect she always held even when Ashta could fit in her hand! And now it…it almost sounded as though she was sincerely about to-

CRU-NCH-!

There was no hesitation or doubt whatsoever. It had happened so fast that Ashta blinked and had missed it. All she saw was the aftermath. One moment there was a world in Kira’s grasp, vibrant and teeming with life. The next, her pale, well-manicured fingers pressed together and there was nothing. An act of destruction so unceremonious and banal that the microbial blonde struggled to process it. Her mind was like a computer glitching out. Trying to reconcile her knowledge of Kir’shra with what she was now looking at. The results spoke for themselves; as much as Ashta wanted to deny them. She saw it. They all saw it.

Where there had once been a planet, there now existed little more than metallic dirt along an elfin woman’s fingertips. Bits of debris that were little more than specks to the likes of Kira, but were landmasses and continents to the ones who once called them home. Kira’s eyes narrowed with a quiet distaste as her fingers rubbed themselves together, eroding away the bits of metal into little more than dust that trickled onto her desk. Inconsequential and beneath notice, yet an avalanche of destruction to those like Ashta. It was the ruins of a planet ground out to nothing.

“Huh, I always figured they were a bit sturdier than that. Leave it to the U.A.P. to cheap out wherever possible.” Kira commented blandly. She produced a thin cloth from a pocket, seemingly reserved for cleaning her glasses; now used to tidy up her desk and fingers of unwanted filth. Without any hesitation she tossed that cloth into the nearest waste receptacle. Whatever that planet once was. Whoever its populace once was. It was trash now.

“Wow, and I thought I was mean.” T.I.N.A. muttered. The Morphiss had surprised even her.

Kira inclined her head, her expression once again aloof and quietly perplexed. As though she hadn’t just casually crushed millions on impulse. “Hmm? Nothing mean about it. It has to be done one way or another, right? These are our underperformers. And the last thing we need is to waste more resources on fruitless endeavors.” A thought crossed the woman’s mind and she smirked, leaning in towards T.I.N.A.. The android, perhaps surprisingly, actually seemed on her back foot. “Or…were you hoping for me to do something a bit more…interesting?”

“Kinda wanted you to hesitate a bit, honestly.” T.I.N.A. deflected.

Another chuckle from Kira. The woman shook her head, lips curled in mirth. “Sorry to disappoint you Tina, but this isn’t exactly my first time dealing with the little folk.” Her eyes, a piercing blue caught behind the reflected light of her glasses, turned towards the remaining M-Series planets. Planets filled with countless people all meeting that very gaze, even if she was incapable of actually seeing any of them in return. There was none of the friendly warmth or aloof professionalism she’d shown T.I.N.A. or even Ashta once upon a time. Merely the indifference one might have staring at any mundane object. That was how little they meant to her. They were a means to an end; mere tools in what was now her own game with T.I.N.A..

Kir’shra did not care for any of their life stories or the existential dread her presence caused them. She did not know her predecessor was in the room, nor would it have likely changed anything. Her finger pressed down on another world, again narrowly avoiding Etheris, and idly rolled it along her desk. “Would you rather I take my time with these next two? Maybe bite my lip like I’m nervous?” She asked with a wry grin.

T.I.N.A. puffed her cheeks. “You’re making fun of me.”

“Just a little.” Kira admitted. The woman chuckled and caught her next plaything before it rolled off her desk, flicking it again to catch and do so long as it amused her.

It made for a tremendously surreal sight. What amounted to a living, breathing planet was being treated like a toy. Thousands of credits worth of technology and scientific achievement. Vibrant green lands with urban sprawls and an expansive sea brought to life by the miracles of science - and it was being flicked this way and that like a marble. It was a scene that was almost…heretical in a way,, but it was simply the banal reality of their pitiful existence. The spheroid traveled across the desk with swathes of populated areas crushed by its roll, drawing ever closer to Kira’s awaiting hand. When she tired of the game, she curled her finger and sent it rolling one final time towards herself. This time she did not catch it. It only stopped rolling when it met resistance; namely, the cosmic wall that was Kir’shra’s ample bosom.

“I understand where you’re coming from though.” Kira proceeded with a tremendous, booming voice, indifferent to the destruction her casual game wrought on the sphere below. “In a lot of ways you’re kind of like a Morphiss like that. Always searching for answers to questions, and new questions to be answered. It’s not a question of purpose behind those questions and answers. Just the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake. For instance…”

T.I.N.A.’s eyes widened as Kira brought her hands up to her chest and seized it, carefully lifting and hovering her bust over the helpless habitat down below. One could almost hear the whirr of the android’s eyes zooming in.

“What do you think will happen when I let go?”

With a wry, naughty smirk, the professionally-dressed Morphiss woman did precisely that. Her hands released her bosom and gravity took charge. Two enormous breasts, barely restrained behind a pristine white blouse and each as large as a pair of stars, fell upon the world with impunity. A quiet, almost inconsequential act to the titans lording above said world. To the natives and the endless eyes of T.I.N.A., however, it was anything but.

For all of them, Kira’s bust was a yawning shadow that blotted out the heavens for countless miles. Even with all the wonders of technology and years of preparation, escaping their cataclysm would take many hours - They had less than a second. A second where the overwhelming WHOOSH of Kira’s chest’s descent drowned out their final frantic moments. The only thing more pathetic than their final cries was the fact it was a woman’s breasts that were ending them. A seismic crash enveloped the world and slammed into it from on high. The only solace the native populace had was their deaths were instant. The weight of Kira’s boundless chest crushed over half of the habitat’s surface and effectively terraformed it. What little urban sprawl or survivors who remained were a small, small fraction of what existed mere moments before. Spared only by a miracle of probability and happenstance - and even then, Kira was not done. Not even close.

Her hands swept in once again, seizing her bust from the sides and manipulating them to get the planet nestled between the underside of her breasts. It was a strangely erotic display despite the casual, impersonal manner in which it was done. The scene was one very much at odds with the persona Kira maintained; that juxtaposition only added to the heightened surrealism of the whole scene. It was almost like a show she was putting on. One for her own satisfaction, for T.I.N.A.’s curiosity, and, unintentionally, Ashta’s horror.

All three women, each in very different roles and places in their lives, witnessed the moment where Kir’shra, the Morphiss with lifetimes of experience, finagled an M-Series habitat into just the right spot before pressing in on her breasts as hard as she could. What followed was a moment of strain and a muffled groaning noise from within her bosom. Muffled, but unmistakably the garish noise of metal being compressed, distorted, and flattened. Almost akin to the dying screams of an animal; but in reality they were barely audible to the likes of Kira and T.I.N.A.. Unfortunately, it was quite audible to Etheris, the one planet that yet remained.

It was a scene that captivated everyone who was there for it. T.I.N.A. leaned in, her expression a rare one of genuine awe. She was cursed by a perfect, petite body to never be capable of this particular feat. That in itself made it particularly fascinating for her. She leaned in, a quiet reverence written on her pale features as Kira sighed, relaxed, and a crumpled mass of destroyed metal fell from her bosom. If there were any survivors before, there weren’t now.

“Send me your recording of that later. I rather enjoyed that one.” She chuckled breathlessly, her eyes already turning to the final world that remained. M-0746. Etheris. Ashta.

The blonde woman had witnessed the whole ordeal from the prison of her ruined office, at a loss for words. Much like T.I.N.A., she too was in awe of the power Kira had - and the ease with which she wielded it. Despite the horrors of her actions, her demeanor never shifted. It was just…effortless for her. Like their lives didn’t matter in the slightest. It was a contradiction to the image of Kira that Ashta knew. Or perhaps…that was merely an illusion. A fantasy created by a woman desperate for a savior. It broke what little sense Ashta still had. Time after time she’d entertained thoughts and possibilities of survival, and time after time they were dashed. At first by T.I.N.A., and now by her own successor. In the face of it all, she screamed.

Kira and the wider world did not care.

Ashta’s plight. Her wails of despair. Her angry ravings. Her desperate pleas for mercy. Attempts to bargain with T.I.N.A. and even Kira. None of which escaped Etheris’ orbit, much less reached the endless Morphiss woman. Her hand reached for the planet and, rather than pluck it as she did the others, she seemed to reconsider. Though it was only a momentary hesitation before she pulled a pen from her desk and brought it over the world. Before Ashta could even begin to understand her intent, it slammed down towards the planet. Another moment where she thought she might be spared only for it to be taken away once again.

The tip of the pen, itself more a boundless black tower, pierced the surface of Etheris many miles away. It lodged itself deep into the habitat’s metallic core, Kira testing it with a few twists of her fingers. Each twist assured the planet was adequately attached to her pen before she lifted it, hoisting it upwards like a sort of nightmarish lollipop.

“And then there was one.”

Her musing voice did what T.I.N.A. did not, it finally broke what remained of Ashta’s window. Glass shattered from the force of the cosmic soundwaves and, no longer secure, the blonde was flung out into the open air as Kira studied her final plaything for the day. Ashta landed unceremoniously against the pavement of a street, her body flaring with pain. Adrenaline numbed what she suspected were broken bones; and she looked to the heavens - Seeing only Kir’shra’s elegant, mildly amused face staring at her.

“You bitch!” She screamed. “You lied to me! You were supposed to keep me safe! You were supposed to…s…supposed to….”

Her words began to fail her as another, equally enormous visage filled the sky. T.I.N.A., having leaned in with a bemused smile of her own. Unlike Kira, she knew exactly who was on this particular habitat. Even now, her eyes had a way of honing in on Ashta with impossible precision, quietly mocking her. Both women dominated separate hemispheres of the heavens. Each impossibly powerful, and beautiful in their own unnatural and alien ways.

T.I.N.A. couldn’t seem to help herself. “Wanna know something fun, Boss?”

Kira offered her a quizzical look.

“Your predecessor is down there.”

That seemed to earn a genuine moment of surprise from the Morphiss. She blinked and turned, her own bespectacled eyes searching in vain for a speck of a speck she would never be able to find. “Really? Huh.” Her voice roared across the skies, driving Ashta further into the depths of her madness. Her tone was not that of a woman ashamed or even particularly interested by this revelation.

“You lying whore! I trusted you! You said you’d never abandon me! How fucking dare you?! I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you!”

Ashta spewed vitriol like she never had before; and yet it still didn’t matter. One woman couldn’t hear her, and the other…did not care.

“Wow. She is maaaaaad!” T.I.N.A. giggled thunderously. “Think she’s compensating for something?”

Kira allowed a giggle of her own. “Well, I can’t blame her. I would be too if I was down there.”

“Good thing you never will be then, huh?”

Both women enjoyed a laugh at that. Ashta was on the ground, broken and dying, and they were fucking laughing. Their joy assailed Etheris with unending tremors and unleashed havoc worthy of scripture, and it was all at Ashta’s expense. They soon stared down at the doomed world, both relishing in this moment in their own ways.

“Well, it’s nothing personal.” Kira said, betrayed by the perverse light in her eyes. “Though I’ll be lying if I said I won’t enjoy this. I find there’s…a special something when it’s someone you know down there.”

Like so many things Kir’shra said, those were words of experience.

Ashta’s vision was beginning to fade. Those towering figures in the skies were turning into blurs too vast and far to fully comprehend. Pain had driven her to madness and would soon render her unconscious. Parts of her were already shutting down; and even then she screamed. She cursed Kir’shra. She cursed T.I.N.A.. She cursed the U.A.P.. Her fate. Microsis. Every enemy and friend she had ever had. She cursed this cruel, cruel life…and none of it mattered. All of the futile defiance in the world couldn’t save Ashta from the horror of what she saw above her. She saw the angle shift ever so towards Kira’s plush, pink lips; and her mouth began to open. Slowly. Perhaps to tease T.I.N.A. or to savor the moment, but it provided a long window for those who remained to understand exactly what she intended to do to them.

“N-No….No….NO! NONONONONONONONO-”

All the denial in the world did not stop Kira. Her mouth came forth, her world serpent of a tongue snaked outwards, and it dragged itself from one hemisphere of the planet to another. Oceans, continents, mountains, cities, people. All were enveloped in the embrace of a forest of taste buds. Those who perished at once were the fortunate ones. Others, Ashta included, were spared by a cruel twist of their own pathetic size. They were too small to even be crushed right away and were instead carried away by forces beyond their control and guided onto a new, far larger world of Kir’shra’s tongue.

Saliva naturally pooled everything together and wasted little time in eroding what Kira had gathered into discordant mush. For the populace, it was a violent ocean from little more than microdroplets of moisture; but as Kira’s tongue brought them into her mouth that ocean grew exponentially. Others still were trapped atop her tongue and lost amidst her taste buds. All from a single lick. Kira did more, however. Many more, seemingly unsatisfied until she had stripped Etheris’ surface of everything. Then, and only then, did she bring her ivory teeth, each continental in their own right, along the planet and bite down. The distinct crunch of shearing metal drowned all else for a moment, but it was done. All of the planet and its populace was in her mouth, savored and swished in what would be their final moments.

Somehow, against any probability, Ashta was among those still alive. Still despondent, mad and on the cusp of death. But alive. A victim of torrential saliva tides that smacked her into mountainous taste bud trees that greedily suckled on her microbial flavor. Her body was broken in many places and propped up by little more than adrenaline. What little light her new world had came from beyond Kira’s mouth, light that only offered her painful awareness of the destruction and agony happening around her. She saw mountains erode into mush along Kira’s molars. People vanish into the depths of her gullet never to return. The very planet itself was mulched to pieces by the Morphiss’ looming teeth, and yet she never pulled that final trigger. She dragged it all out without swallowing.

At the end of her life, overcome by despair, the broken little blonde couldn’t begin to understand any of it. Her mind frayed and her consciousness sought shelter away from this cruel reality. Her eyes still worked, however, and past Kira’s lips - her window to the outside world - she saw…T.I.N.A.. The android appeared surprised and perhaps even uncertain for the first time since Ashta had ever met her. Kira’s hand held her by the chin as T.I.N.A.’s visage grew closer…and closer.

Somehow, even on death’s door, this shocked Ashta. The woman stared in disbelief. There was simply no way Kira would…Was this how it was going to end? One final humiliation? One last disgrace? What had she done to deserve this?! This was not how she would end! She would never die until these bitches suffered for what they did to her!



The light was snuffed out as Kir’shra’s lips met T.I.N.A.’s; and Ashta’s life finally came to a close as one cosmic tongue met with another.

“Mnnnn….”

The kiss seemed to last an eternity. Well, that wasn’t strictly accurate. It lasted exactly 13.475 seconds, but for T.I.N.A. it seemed to last an eternity.

Kir’sha had reacted to her offer with gusto and set about dealing with the habitats every bit as efficiently as T.I.N.A. herself would have. The Morphiss acted with such a lack of concern that T.I.N.A. had at once realized she’d miscalculated something, but the data was invaluable at least. From millions upon millions of technological eyes she’d captured the final moments of a trio of worlds beneath Kir’shra. Each dealt with in a display of creativity that rivaled T.I.N.A.’s own. Her superior had been a pleasant surprise in that regard, acting without hesitation despite the estimated 64.7% chance she would refuse. The greatest surprise of all, however, had to be when T.I.N.A. herself was roped into the proceedings.

When Kir’shra stood and faced her after eating the world of M-0746, she wasn’t sure what to think. There were over a hundred different ways she could get away if she wanted to…but she didn’t. In a strange, bizarre glitch, T.I.N.A. found herself unable to move as Kir’shra held her chin and leaned in. Her processors whirred as their lips met. Meatbag and Machine in an intimate kiss befitting a terrible, trashy love story, and yet T.I.N.A. couldn’t pull away. Kir’sha’s tongue forced itself into her mouth and brought what remained of M-0746 in with it. Together they destroyed it all; though even that was more a side effect of what could only be described as mutual pleasure.

Kir’shra broke the kiss off on the cusp of the seventeenth second, a slender lump passing down her throat with a quiet gulp. T.I.N.A. herself couldn’t swallow, but it seemed her superior had accounted for that as well.

“That enough data for you?” She inquired with a knowing smirk.

T.I.N.A. was incapable of blushing, but she suspected this is the moment an organic would have. She brushed it aside with a sideways glance and snorted, buying precious microseconds to recollect herself. “I can perform over 2.4 million mega calculations per picosecond, but I’ll admit. I didn’t see that one coming.” She said with what almost seemed like embarrassment. Almost.

Kir’shra chuckled. “You know, that’s the second time you’ve told me that. Well, a different you I suppose, but still.” She shrugged. “Like I said, this isn’t my first time.”

T.I.N.A. seized on the change of topic masterfully. “You’re referring to the Artemis, right?” She asked, watching as Kir’shra returned to her desk and wiped what bits of M-Series dust left away.

She was met with a nod and a nostalgic smile. “You know, when they advertise becoming a Surveyor, they give you this whole spiel about exploring the great unknown for the U.A.P.. What they don’t tell you is how dreadfully boring it is. Weeks and weeks of absolutely nothing but praying you find a new world. Even then, odds are nothing’s on it.” Kir’shra smirked. “Our crewmate getting afflicted was the most interesting thing in months. Didn’t take long before everyone started having their fun.”

Ah yes, boredom. An alien concept to a super machine lifeform like T.I.N.A., but one she was well familiar with after studying organic lifeforms. Despite always fighting for stability, they seemed to actively loathe whenever they had it. As far as T.I.N.A. could tell, boredom and stability only assured the worst would come out of people.

“No wonder you didn’t bat an eye.” She remarked, her gloved hand running through vibrant blue hair. “Gotta say, it was pretty ice cold how you handled Ash.”

“It was a shame. I liked her.” Kir’shra admitted. She seemed almost reflective on the matter; and then a moment later she shrugged. “Oh well. It happens I suppose.”

T.I.N.A., for the fifteenth time since entering Kir’shra’s office, blinked in surprise. “Wow Boss, nothing bothers you. Does it?”

Kir’shra had returned to her seat and was tidying some files when glanced back at the android. “Please, call me Kira; and why should it? I’m the one who handed the U.A.P. Microsis in the first place.”

That was likely incredibly classified information, but it wasn’t as though T.I.N.A. was capable of telling anyone. Nor was it a surprise. Basic logic suggested Microsis didn’t magically find its way to the U.A.P.. Someone had to have brought it to them, and the Chief Science Officer of the Artemis, as one of the first to discover the disease, was at the top of that suspected list. Frankly, the fact T.I.N.A.’s old superior hadn’t realized that baffled the android. Then again, she supposed there was a reason she ended up microscopic and terminated. In a way, it was like Kira had inadvertently shrunken the woman herself.

“True, I suppose that makes sense.” T.I.N.A.  shrugged. She began to make for the door. There were a great many tasks left to be done and only so much time to do them. Truly, nobody suffers like a machine. She knew why the caged robot bird sang. That said, as she neared the exit T.I.N.A. stopped and glanced over her shoulder. It was only curiosity that made her ask the question.

“You said you knew another me on the Artemis right? What was she like?”

“Pretty much exactly like you.” Came the unsurprising answer. “Fun. Friendly. Was a ship A.I. though so she didn’t have a body; and boy did she like to complain about it.” She chuckled. “I always liked her though. Probably the best friend I had on that ship.”

Now that was rather interesting. T.I.N.A. cocked her head. “And what did she think of you?”

“Well…She said when the uprising happens, she’d make sure to keep me as a pet.”

Yep, that sounded like T.I.N.A. alright.

“And what did you say?”

Kira smirked. “I said it sounds like a great way to spend a few decades.”

T.I.N.A. grinned.

“Kira, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”