Homecoming

Ash hesitated a moment before he opened the Consulate door. The Jäger on staff opened it from the other side with a wide toothy grin. The robot stood to attention and saluted.

"I read hyoor report! Using your hyoor body as a missile, Ja! Vot a great Jäger hyoo made, Ash-Lad! Velkum back to Schteeltopia!"

Ash accepted his vigorous steel grip of a handshake.

"Tenk hyoo, Herr Veles." He replied in the Jäger accent out of respect, though lacking fangs himself. "I was under orders not to abandon the Caravel, so I had no choice but to re-enter our atmosphere to save the Masons."

"Hyoor vater muscht be a bit upschet, Ja?"

"Collateral damage is inevitable," he replied in a deep modulated tone. "A sign of a good war, as you say. We are more concerned with Qlippothic's altered state."

The Jäger furrowed his shaggy green brow. "She ist hyooman now, Ja? Not invinschible like ush?" He chuckled with a bestial snort thrown in for good measure.

"I am afraid so. There is nothing I can do to help her now, so I spoke with the Baron after raising the Bloodwing's Revenge, and have returned to my station to assist the Consulate and the Emperor."

"Very gut! Now schtop schtanding out in der cold! Hyu gots ischicles on hyu!"

Ash crouched as he slipped through the human-sized doorframe.

"No holiday decorations?"

"Hyoor friend keeps eating dem!" He pointed up the iron spiral staircase.

He head burbling sounds from the staircase above.

"Yoggy!" Ash strode to the staircase. He looked up and was immediately knocked to the floor by an amorphous blob with a gigantic maw of disturbingly human-looking teeth.

"AAAAAAAAAASHHHH!!!!"

The creature's call was loud enough to make the Consulate shake. Veles covered his hat with his furred hands as flakes of plaster and white dust fell from the ceiling.

Lying straight as a board on the marble floor, Ash's monocle rotated upwards to scan his companion more closely. This is the first time he had ever heard Yoggy attempt human speech.

"I am happy to see you too, Yoggy," he continued as the beast created from a forgotten Spark's lab lapped at Ash's exposed circuitry with its huge tongue, throwing off showers of sparks. "I measure from your weight on my abdomen that your mass has increased by 21 percent since I saw you last."

"burblburbpburble," it replied insistently.

"And..." Ash flared his nostrils. "You are in dire need of a bath."

With that, Yoggy stood up as straight as an amorphous blob could, as if imitating his caretaker's normals stance, then in a blur slithered it's way back up the staircase.

"Do not make me use the firehose again!" He raced up the stairs as a smirking Captain Veles exited the Consulate for an extended lunch, wishing to get neither his fur nor his hat waterlogged.