Remember, everyone, it's No Nut November; stay strong and resist the temptation
Remember that Steven Universe fanfic; well cause of it, I literally got this game(stellaris) just to play the Steven Universe Gem Empire mod after I read about it in a fanfic , but it was so worth it after I'd figured out how to play, which took an hour
So far in 4 days I got over 100 hours on it; that's why I haven't been posting chapters
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The cannon fired exactly where she had been standing.
The beam crossed behind her while she accelerated toward the machine's left side. Another weapon began charging on the opposite arm, but she already understood the preparation sequence well enough to change direction before the targeting system completed its prediction.
Commander Shaw watched from behind a damaged support structure while the Engineer crossed between two incoming blasts. Her first evasive movement had been awkward, but the second looked cleaner, while the third already seemed disturbingly intentional.
The enormous Cybernetic entity charged across the ruined relay with enough mass behind every step to shake loose dust from the damaged ceiling above them. The Engineer watched it approach while keeping both hands wrapped around her glowing hardlight sword, although the ridiculous difference between fighting ordinary Cybermen and fighting this monster became obvious before it crossed half the chamber.
Her Omni-Tool painted targeting markers across the machine's shoulders, neck, knees, elbows, torso, and several Gallifreyan components buried beneath its layered armor. Most of those targets disappeared almost immediately whenever the temporal shield shifted around them, leaving only fractions of a second where any meaningful attack could potentially reach the machinery underneath.
The Engineer felt her excitement sharpening rather than disappearing beneath the obvious danger surrounding her. She had spent most of her life solving machines through scanners, tools, equations, and enough reckless experimentation to make sensible engineers develop nervous conditions around her workshop.
Now somebody had finally delivered a machine that wanted to solve her back.
Commander Shaw understood the situation considerably less enthusiastically while directing UNIT personnel toward the stronger sections of remaining cover. He ordered everyone to avoid standing directly behind the Engineer, because the Cybernetic entity clearly considered her the primary target and anything located behind her had an unfortunate habit of becoming collateral damage.
The Engineer barely heard those instructions because her Gallifreyan time sense had already started reacting to the machine. Something about its temporal architecture felt wrong against the surrounding flow of time, creating small distortions that pressed against senses humans never evolved to possess.
Every living Time Lord experienced time differently from ordinary species, although the Engineer had always treated that ability more like background information than a battlefield advantage. She could feel changes in temporal pressure, recognize damaged timelines, distinguish artificial temporal manipulation from natural chronological movement, and occasionally sense when something nearby existed slightly outside its proper moment.
The machine in front of her practically screamed through those senses.
Its right shoulder existed several microseconds ahead of its torso whenever the weapon mounted beneath the armor prepared to fire. The left leg briefly dragged behind local time whenever its temporal stabilizers compensated for the enormous weight moving across the chamber.
The Engineer's violet eyes narrowed while information began stacking together inside her mind.
The machine fired first.
She moved before the weapon visibly activated because her time sense felt the disturbance gathering around the cannon several fractions of a second earlier. Her new Dexterity carried her sideways while the beam crossed the exact location where her chest had been moments before.
The weapon still clipped the edge of her coat.
Heat rolled across her side while the Engineer landed several meters away and immediately shifted her sword into a defensive position. The System displayed a warning about minor thermal damage, although she dismissed the message before the machine completed another step.
The Cybernetic entity rotated toward her with disturbing speed for something carrying that much armor. Its left arm swept outward while a second weapon unfolded beneath the forearm, forcing the Engineer to change direction before another temporal discharge tore through the remains of a control station.
The Engineer accelerated toward the machine rather than retreating farther across the chamber. Her increased Dexterity made closing the distance easier, while her Strength allowed her to keep the hardlight sword stable despite changing direction several times during the approach.
The machine expected the attack.
One enormous hand moved downward.
The Engineer saw the fingers approaching and shifted toward the outside of its wrist. She intended to slide beneath the arm before striking the exposed connection beneath the elbow.
The machine changed its movement halfway through the attack.
Its hand disappeared.
The Engineer's time sense screamed a warning immediately before the massive fist reappeared from a localized temporal displacement directly beside her.
The impact caught the side of her hardlight barrier.
Her shield erupted across the sword just before the strike landed, but the force still threw her across the floor. She struck the concrete shoulder-first before sliding several meters through scattered debris.
Commander Shaw immediately shouted for UNIT personnel to provide suppressing fire. Bullets hammered against the Cybernetic entity while heavier weapons targeted exposed components beneath its knees and shoulders.
The Engineer remained on the floor for several seconds while her System filled her vision with damage reports. Her shoulder hurt badly enough to become distracting, although nothing appeared broken beneath the first medical scan.
She pushed herself upright while staring at the machine.
"That attack skipped several milliseconds through localized temporal displacement, which was incredibly rude and technically fascinating."
The Cybernetic entity continued advancing despite UNIT weapons striking repeatedly against its armor. Its red optical sensors remained fixed directly upon her while several processors shifted underneath the damaged plating.
"ENGINEER COMBAT PERFORMANCE EXCEEDS RECORDED HISTORICAL BASELINE BY THREE HUNDRED SEVENTEEN PERCENT."
The Engineer raised her sword while settling into another stance. "Well, I do try to put max effort into anything I do it annoying sometimes like getting 100% in every game. You should probably stop comparing me against records from somebody else's timeline."
The machine responded by accelerating again.
The Engineer responded by paying attention differently.
Her first exchange had given her information.
That information mattered more than the pain spreading through her shoulder.
A transparent notification appeared near the edge of her vision while the System detected the change occurring throughout her cognition.
[Superior Intellect Trait Active.]
[Baseline Learning Speed Increased By Five Hundred Percent.]
[Combat Pattern Acquisition Accelerated Through Direct Observation.]
[Temporal Sensory Information Available For Pattern Integration.]
The Engineer felt something inside her thinking process shift into a higher gear.
Superior Intellect had always helped when learning engineering disciplines, alien sciences, programming languages, theoretical physics, and anything else complicated enough to hold her attention for longer than several minutes. She usually noticed the ability through concepts becoming intuitive far faster than they reasonably should, although she had rarely considered applying the same advantage toward physical combat.
Combat was still information.
Movement was still information.
Timing was information.
Every mistake could become another experiment, provided the experiment did not successfully kill the scientist performing it.
The machine raised its right arm again.
Engineer felt the temporal pressure gather around the shoulder before the cannon became visible.
She moved left. The weapon tracked left. Engineer immediately reversed direction. The machine corrected again. She watched the correction delay carefully.
Approximately forty-seven milliseconds passed between her directional change and the weapon completing its adjustment.
That number entered her thoughts and stayed there. The cannon fired. Engineer dropped beneath the beam and accelerated forward.
The Cybernetic entity swung its left arm toward her again. She remembered the previous displacement.
Instead of watching the fist, Engineer watched time surrounding the shoulder. The arm started disappearing.
She changed direction before the fist completed the temporal skip. The massive hand reappeared where her head would have been.
Engineer was already somewhere else. Her grin widened considerably.
"Found you."
She rushed along the machine's right side and swung her hardlight sword toward the exposed knee connection. The temporal shield shifted before the blade arrived, catching the weapon against a distorted layer of space several centimeters above the armor.
Orange energy scattered across the shield.
The Engineer felt the resistance travel through both arms.
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i try posting a longer chapter tmr or on the 12