Not going as planned

When the shimmering arc of my aether-sword reflected off of the iron carapace of my current nemesis known as Cold Dead Hans and shorted itself out on the first stroke, I should have known things were not going to go my way.

After smacking him in his fists with my helmet several times, I'd forgotten about the sword. I fell upon his massive iron hands again, catapulting myself backwards against a crumbling stone column at the expense of several ribs. But it did give me a few vital seconds to come up with a new plan.

Such as little Yagi climbing over a nearby boulder and emptying the contents of a chain gun at my foe.

Splendid work! Such strength for such a small frame to carry a weapon of that caliber and fire off the entire belt without suffering from the recoil!

"Erm...Yagi..." I asked as I sat up and examined the dents in my helmet. "I don't remember mounting a chain gun on the ornithopter...."

She dropped the smoking weapon with a clatter and jumped down from the boulder. She cheerfully ran over to me.

"That WAS the ornithopter! I rebuilt it just like the blueprints you gave me!"

I was at a loss for words. I took the moment to wipe some blood from my face with a handkerchief.

"Just like....? Oh Red Fire! I gave you the WRONG blueprints! You rebuilt our ornithopter into a chain gun! My, what raw Spark talent you must..."

I was summarily booted high into the air by that scoundrel Hans, landing in a nearby pile of rubble.

"IMPUDENT CHILD!" he bellowed, towering over Yagi and crouching to snap his steel jaws at her. "I consider it beneath me to attack one as small as yourself, but since you do seem to be yet another drone in the doctor's arsenal..." and at that very moment with a rusty screech he wrapped his gigantic metal claw around Yagi's torso and lifter her up, shaking her like a rag doll!

"HANS! You COWARD! You unhand that little girl this instant!" I drew my bonesaw from its sheath and raised it level in a direct challenge.

"THIS is no little girl, Doctor! She has proved as much! Scream all you like as I crush one of your mechanical...toys?"

Indeed, even as he tightened his grip, instead of exploding in a mass of gears and sprigs as Hand would have expected, his steel fingers flowed through her, and she oozed out of his fist like mud, landing in a pink shapeless mass on the ground and reforming into her pretty diminutive self!

With an inarticulate roar the metal giant raised his fists and slammed down on her. Again, he form was displaced but not destroyed, and reformed again.

"No, Sir." She looked up at him with dead calm on her face. "I am not metal. I am something else."

And with that, the locks of her pink hair began to writhe like snakes and expand to frightening proportions!

I stood agape as the tentacles of her hair lashed at Hans, wrapping around the his massive ankles. In defiance of all laws of physics she turned the tables and effortlessly lifted Hans in the air! Her writhing limbs proceeded to thrash him against the stone remnants of the ruins around us, smashing thousands of years worth of forgotten history. But in just this one case I was more than willing to forgive this loss to Archaeology. Hans for all his previous boasting could barely get a word in edgewise.

"What..how...NO...stop!"

I had to dive behind the remains of a wall nearby to avoid the shrapnel of steel smashing against rock. I was almost ready to gloat when I heard Yagi utter a battle-cry that chilled my very soul!

"Take THAT! And THAT! Take...take...TEKELI-LI! TEKELI-LI!"

I shook my head in horror and disbelief. No. No. This cannot be! Where did she learn those words? Where...

And that is when the awful truth dawned on me. This little girl not long ago was but a amoebic creature with only a rudimentary intelligence. The Baron had found it in the laboratory of another scientist who, like many of our ilk, had met an unfortunate demise. An Antarctic laboratory. Since the creature posed neither threat nor resistance, they brought it back to the Steeltopian Embassy, where my son Ash who was stationed there took responsibility for it as a pet. The creature reminded him of something from the Cthulhu mythos, and as such named it Yoggy, after Y*G-S*TH*TH, the entity beyond space and time whose name I dare not fully transcribe here.

What horrid mistake have we committed by adopting this once-benign being? How has my demonic ancestor compounded it a thousand times by granting it intelligence and an affinity for a human form? The threat of one malevolent cyborg paled in comparison to the newly revealed danger before me, even as my nemesis was being defeated. I feared what havoc my small champion would do next.

"Founder preserve us..." I whispered, "Yagi really is a SHOGGOTH!"