Medical Wing Three smelled of antiseptic and expensive hardware.

  The same human doctor waited there, holo-slab in hand. The AI's avatar occupied a wall panel, posture attentive.

  "Candidate Ralaen," the doctor said. "Sit."

  She did. Perched on the edge of the chair, tail still.

  "We've already covered the outline," he said. "Six phases. Roughly six months. At the end, your body will be able to work with Einherjar armor and loads."

  A holo of an Asuari form appeared, her proportions roughly mapped. Layers slid in over it as he spoke.

  "We had to adjust the template for you," he said. "Baseline protocols assume human spine, human nerves, human metabolism. Applying that directly would kill you. Spectacularly."

  The AI nodded. "This would make everyone very upset."

  "You will still be Asuari," the doctor said. "In memory, identity, and most of your genome. But your medical category will be Einherjar. Your own people's standard charts won't fit you anymore."

  That landed harder than she expected. Not human. Not standard Asuari. Something else entirely.

  He pointed to the spine and bone marrow on the holo, both highlighted.

  "Phase I: Bio-Nano Seed and Immune Crown. We introduce bio-nano machines via the spine. They migrate into your marrow, replace your white blood cells, and take over immune regulation. They also form the control and logistics layer for everything else."

  "Replace," she said. "Not supplement."

  "Correct. Your current immune system gets eaten and rebuilt. It's not a gentle process."

  She exhaled slowly. The holo's spine pulsed with light, clinical and clean. Her own spine felt very fragile by comparison.

  The skeleton lit up.

  "Phase II: Adamantium Skeletal Replacement. The original project called for a carbon lattice reinforcement. Skuld improved it. The bio-nanos will break down your existing bones and rebuild them in adamantium. Slow. Painful. Very effective."

  Ralaen stared at the glowing skeleton on the holo. "Break down," she repeated. "You mean dissolve."

  "Essentially."

  "While I'm using them."

  "Yes."

  She sat with that for a moment. Her bones, eaten from the inside out and replaced with metal. Two months of that.

  "Sounds fun," she managed.

  "It is not," the AI said helpfully.

  Organs glowed next: heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, major vessels.

  "Phase III: Organ Reinforcement," he said. "We lay a nano-crystalline matrix through heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and your main vascular network. You'll process oxygen better, tolerate shock better, and function under loads that would destroy your current system. You'll also burn hotter and need more food."

  Her ears flicked forward. "How much more food?"

  "A lot more. You'll see."

  Muscles lit.

  "Phase IV: Musculature Overhaul. With the frame and organs upgraded, we refactor muscle fibers. Strength and endurance increase significantly. With your frame, you will be able to carry the Mj?lnir Mk.4 comfortably."

  That one, at least, sounded almost appealing. Strength she understood. Strength was useful.

  Skin and near-surface tissues glowed with a faint mesh.

  "Phase V: Subdermal Armor Weave and Thermal Management. The nano systems grow a flexible armor layer under your skin and improve heat transfer. Extra ballistic resistance, more even handling of the extra heat from your new muscles and metabolism."

  Armor under the skin. She tried to imagine what that would feel like and came up blank.

  Finally, the base of the skull and upper spine zoomed in.

  "Phase VI: Bio-Nano Neural Interface," he said. "We place the interface at the brainstem. That's where your AI partner will reside. From there, we connect you to the armor. After that, you and the suit operate as a single integrated combat system."

  Her stomach tightened. This was the one she'd been dreading since she first heard the word Einherjar. An AI in her head. A presence behind her eyes.

  The AI spoke up, tone softer than before. "No backups of bonded AIs are permitted. One bond, one life, by design and by law."

  One life. Bound to hers.

  Six phases.

  Six months.

  A one-way journey.

  Phase I wasn’t something Ralaen did. It was something that happened to her while she tried not to lose her mind.

  Quarantine meant four walls, sterile surfaces, filtered air, and the ever-cheery med AI chirping through speakers at regular intervals. The door stayed locked. Anyone who came in wore a mask, gloves, and the kind of detached efficiency that said you are currently a walking biohazard, please don’t make this weird.

  The bio-nano seed had gone in at the base of her spine. Now the machines were migrating, settling into her bone marrow, eating her old white blood cells and replacing them with Crown-grown ones.

  Her body reacted like it was under attack.

  Some days she lay on the bed shivering under blankets, black fur puffed out, teeth chattering so hard her jaw ached. Other days she kicked the covers away and sprawled on top of the sheets, panting lightly, sweat dampening her coat until it clung to the harder new lines of her muscles.

  Joints twinged. Muscles ached with no pattern. Her head felt full of cotton and static. Thoughts came slow and out of order.

  They told her she was allowed “light exercise as tolerated” to keep things ticking over while her immune system was murdered and rebuilt. Most days “as tolerated” meant a few stretches, some slow squats, maybe a careful set of pushups before the room started to tilt.

  It wasn’t until the worst of the fever spikes eased that the unnerving part really landed.

  She hadn’t had much bandwidth to think about the implications when the doctor explained Phase I and jammed the injector into her spine. There had been too much now and not enough air.

  Alone in quarantine with nothing but her own thoughts, the occasional medic, and an AI that thought jokes were a therapeutic tool, she had time.

  Her immune system—her health—was not hers anymore in any normal sense. A machine lattice inside her marrow was deciding what counted as a threat. Human-made bio-nanos were in charge of whether she lived or died from infection.

  On one level, she understood the trade. On another, deeper level, some stubborn part of her whispered this isn’t you any more.

  Her fur prickled every time she thought about it too hard.

  So she tried not to.

  She distracted herself with what she had: careful exercises when she wasn’t shaking, long too-hot showers, and an absolutely stupid amount of Earth media streamed through the Yggdrasil net. War documentaries, dramas, ancient black-and-white films, comedies with laugh tracks, animation, cooking shows, even some ridiculous game shows where people fell off obstacles into water.

  Anything that wasn’t about pandemics, medical failure, or invasive procedures got a chance.

  Days blurred. Fever, AI check-in, sleep, media, mild exercise, repeat.

  Then one morning she woke up and… felt fine.

  Not “less awful.” Not “tolerable.” Just fine.

  No fever. No aches. No fog in her head. Breathing felt easy. Her body felt… clear, as if someone had opened windows inside her and let stale air out.

  A soft chime sounded over her bunk.

  “Candidate Ralaen,” the AI announced, bright as ever, “Phase I immune metrics: complete and within optimal parameters. Congratulations. Please report to Medical Wing Three. Your door is now unlocked. Try not to lick any doorknobs on the way.”

  She sat up slowly. Flexed her fingers. Rolled her shoulders. Stretched her back.

  Everything worked.

  Nothing hurt.

  That was almost more unnerving than the fever.

  She blew out a breath, pulled on her fatigues, smoothed her black chest fur over the still-tender rune, and followed the corridor lights back toward the medical wing.

  Same clinic. Same doctor. Same overly cheerful AI in the wall.

  “Phase I went smoothly,” the doctor said, scanning her file. “Immune Crown is fully integrated. No aberrant activity. No rejection.”

  “Yay us,” the AI added.

  A rotating skeletal projection of her body appeared between them, clean and precise. The doctor highlighted it with a gesture.

  “Phase II is skeletal replacement,” he said. “Over the next two months, your bio-nanos will gradually break down your existing bones and rebuild them in adamantium. Your diet will include supplemental feedstock to provide raw material. It will itch. It will hurt. You will adapt. Mostly.”

  Ralaen listened, ears angled forward, feeling oddly… numb. This should have horrified her. Instead it slotted in next to a growing list labeled apparently this is my life now.

  The doctor held up the next injector.

  “Starter adamantium slurry and instruction set,” he said. “After this, it’s logistics and time.”

  The jab at the base of her spine was sharper this time. A cold burn slid outward and settled into a deep, uncomfortable pressure down her back and into her hips.

  “Mess hall has been updated with your supplements,” the AI informed her. “Please remember to drink the special glass. We put a lot of work into making it only slightly disgusting.”

  “Comforting,” Ralaen muttered.

  The mess hall tray looked normal at first: standard heavy Jaeger-style loadout. Protein, carbs, some vegetables pretending to be healthy choices.

  Then the server set down a glass of opaque black liquid that clung to the sides like it was reconsidering its life choices.

  Eirik was already at a table, his own tray sporting the same glass of dark sludge. His posture was off—like someone had taken his spine and decided to adjust it with a crowbar.

  Ralaen dropped into the seat opposite him. Her tail brushed against his leg under the table, curling lightly around his calf in a quiet I’m here.

  He gave her a tired half-smile. “They get you too?”

  “Doctor, injector, vague threats and promises,” she said. “Then this.” She nudged the glass.

  They ate, talking about safe things: quarantine, weird dreams from the fevers, the med AI’s terrible jokes. Both of them politely avoided phrases like my bones are being eaten.

  Halfway through a sentence about some ancient Earth comedy, something jabbed her spine from the inside.

  She yelped and straightened, ears snapping up.

  Eirik’s mouth twitched. “Ah,” he said. “Right on schedule.”

  Deep in her shins and forearms, something started to itch, not on the skin but inside, like fine grit pressed into the marrow.

  She picked up the black glass.

  The smell had a faint metallic tang. The taste was worse than the smell but not as apocalyptic as it looked: oily, mineral-heavy, a bitter metallic aftertaste that clung to the back of her tongue.

  She knocked it back in four large gulps, ears pinned, eyes watering.

  “Bold choice,” the AI commented from somewhere near the ceiling.

  They finished their food, both quieter now. Afterwards they retreated to her room and collapsed on the bed side by side, shoulders touching, scrolling through Yggdrasil until some ancient action movie swallowed them both.

  They didn’t take it further that night. They were too wrung out, too weird inside their own skins.

  If someone had told her a year ago she would willingly sign paperwork that led to her skeleton being eaten and replaced over two months, she’d have called them insane.

  Now… it was just Tuesday.

  The next eight weeks were a mix of pain, training, and getting used to the idea that “her bones” were a temporary condition.

  Quarantine was over. The med staff now classified her as “cleared for structured activity,” which in Einherjar Command translated to: we can break you in more interesting ways again.

  The adamantium conversion came in waves.

  Some mornings she woke with a deep, crawling itch in her shins and forearms, like pressure building from the inside out. Other days it was a heavy, grinding ache in her hips and shoulders. Sometimes her spine felt like a single bar of ice-hot metal from neck to tailbase.

  The supplemental drink appeared on every tray. The black sludge never improved. She learned to down it in one go and chase it with real food and a lot of water.

  She could feel the weight shifting.

  At first it was subtle. A slightly heavier footfall. A different resonance in the floor when she dropped off a ledge. Her balance nudged sideways in ways she had to adjust for. She wasn’t thicker; the mirror still showed the same black-furred, athletic frame with extra muscle the Forge had built. But the mass behind it was changing.

  Between check-ins and “on a scale from one to ten, how much do your bones currently hate you?” questionnaires, the cadre went to work on everything else.

  If Jaeger training had been building a solid fortress, Einherjar training was wiring that fortress for every contingency.

  Ralaen learned to fight with anything.

  Blades. Hammers. Axes. Then shovels, pry bars, pieces of pipe, tools from maintenance racks.

  “If it has mass,” one instructor said, watching her bring a shovel around in a clean arc, “you can make it matter. Einherjar don’t get to be helpless because the armory’s empty.”

  Modern firearms she hadn’t seen before came next: specialist rifles, breaching systems, compact heavy weapons. Then they took those away and handed her old chemical slugthrowers—bolt-action rifles, pump shotguns, revolvers with stubborn cylinders.

  “Technology fails,” the instructor said, arms folded as she wrestled a sticky bolt. “Principles don’t. You should be dangerous whether we hand you a railgun or a museum piece.”

  She and Eirik more or less migrated into the same room over those two months.

  His bunk technically still existed. Officially, no one had reassigned him. Unofficially, most nights ended with him in her bed or her in his, and nobody in Command seemed eager to waste time enforcing rules they didn’t care about.

  “Not technically against regs,” he murmured once, smirking as he kicked his boots off in her doorway. “As long as we function in training and no one complains, they don’t care who snores where.”

  Ralaen had been trained by the Asuari confederacy with stricter fraternisation lines. But the Einherjar operated under a simpler rule: results first. Everything else was background noise unless it got in the way.

  By the end of eight weeks, the itch had faded to occasional flickers. The aches dulled. A scan showed nearly complete skeletal conversion: her bones now registered as dense metal on the holo, not pale bio-structure.

  She could feel it every time she planted her boots and pushed. There was a new solidity under everything. When she braced against Eirik during hand-to-hand drills, she could feel the difference: he was hard, trained human muscle over upgraded bone. She was that too—but with something heavier under it all, something that refused to budge.

  Then the chime came again.

  “Candidate Ralaen,” the AI said over her bunk, “Phase II skeletal metrics are within target parameters. Please report to Medical Wing Three for Phase III briefing. Also, congratulations on not collapsing into a very shiny pile of dust.”

  Her stomach did that now familiar little twist. She pulled on her fatigues and headed back to the clinic.

  Same room. Same doctor. Same AI watching from the wall.

  This time, the holo projection highlighted organs and major vessels: heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, fat branching lines for arteries and veins.

  “Phase III is the nano-crystalline organ matrix,” the doctor said. “Your bio-nanos will weave a reinforcing structure through the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and major vasculature. Increased resilience to shock, better efficiency under extreme load, faster recovery.”

  He paused, then highlighted a different area.

  “It will also embed through your reproductive system,” he said, tone clinical. “We have extensive data on human women. Very little on Asuari. Models say no impairment to fertility or function. But models are models. If you ever decide to… test that, medical will be very interested in your case data.”

  Heat flooded her ears.

  “Great,” she muttered. “Nice to know my future hypothetical children are a research topic.”

  “You’re already a fascinating research topic,” the AI said brightly. “This is just a more specific footnote.”

  The doctor lifted another injector.

  “Instruction set and starter matrix,” he said. “Delivery as before. You’ll also get a new supplemental drink with the chemical building blocks for the matrix. This phase should be less acutely painful than Phase II. Expect tightness, odd sensations, intermittent fatigue. You’re cleared for full training with monitoring.”

  He glanced at his slate. “One caveat.”

  He met her eyes. “No sexual activity for the next month,” he said, absolute deadpan. “We don’t want hormone cascades spiking while delicate structures are embedding around key organs.”

  Her face went incandescent under her fur.

  From the wall, the AI made a smug little sound that had no right existing in medical software.

  Ralaen cleared her throat. “Understood.”

  “Good,” the doctor said, as if they’d just discussed diet. “Injection, then food. Do not skip the new drink, no matter how it tastes.”

  The jab at her spine was almost familiar now: cold, burn, pressure, done.

  The new drink in the mess was worse than the black sludge.

  It looked harmless—pale, faintly shimmering. One sip proved that appearance lied. It tasted like burnt toast had been blended with bitterness and regret.

  Across from her, Eirik raised his own glass in grim solidarity.

  “Phase Three?” he asked.

  “Organs and arteries,” she said. “Crystals. And we’re grounded for a month.”

  He winced. “Med told me the same.”

  They clinked the horrible drinks together like soldiers toasting a doomed mission and knocked them back.

  “Good thing we can actually talk without mauling each other,” he said afterwards.

  “Most of the time,” she said.

  The next month felt… off.

  Not in the wrong, feverish way of Phase I or the deep grind of Phase II. More like someone was quietly rearranging her insides while she lived around it.

  There were days when a mild tightness settled around her lungs for a few hours, then faded. Others when her heartbeat felt too present—she could almost feel blood moving in the big vessels in her chest and neck before the sensation eased.

  Sometimes there was a low, diffuse awareness deep in her abdomen that made her remember, very clearly, the doctor’s flat mention of reproductive organs and medical interest.

  Training didn’t ease up.

  If anything, the cadre took the stabilising organs as permission to lean harder.

  Cardio suddenly improved. She hit a run where she expected to start gasping and… didn’t. Her pulse dropped back to resting levels faster after sprints or close-quarters bouts. Muscles still burned, but the recovery curve was steeper.

  The instructors noticed. They upped the complexity.

  Squad-level tactics turned into small-unit Einherjar doctrine. How to think as a one-person hammer inside a larger force. How to anchor a line. How to break one. When to move alone and when to be the spine others braced against.

  Outside the gym and the ranges, Command kept an eye on the other side of the equation.

  Mandatory counseling.

  Einherjar psych staff were good, but they also routed her back to familiar anchors when they could. In Ralaen’s case, that meant regular encrypted links back to J?tunheim and Sigrun.

  The Valkyrja never lectured.

  She asked.

  How are you sleeping? Are the fevers and aches staying in the body, or are they getting into your thoughts? What scares you about this that you haven’t said out loud yet? What do you actually want out of this, if you strip away everyone else’s expectations?

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  Sometimes they spoke of Valhalla and the Allfather, of Crowns and oaths. Sometimes they talked about growing up in the Confederacy, about parents who wanted safer lives for their children, about the very particular fear of letting strangers rewrite the structure of your bones and organs.

  It felt less like confession and more like someone quietly steadying the framework while you tore out and replaced major beams.

  As Phase III wore on, the odd interior sensations became background noise.

  Tight lungs for a few hours? Fine, it would pass. Over-loud heartbeat? Annoying, but temporary. A strange, low awareness of the space where one day eggs might—or might not—become children? She filed it under future problem and kept moving.

  Names floated through the margins of her medical file. She wasn’t cleared to see most of the details, but one cropped up enough even in redacted notes to stick: Skuld. Some specialist behind the modeling and tolerances for Phase III.

  Lying in the dark sometimes, Eirik breathing steadily beside her, chest warm under her cheek, she thought about that. About the invisible chain of people—Skuld and whoever else—who had decided this could work. That an Asuari could be turned into something that fit Einherjar requirements without coming apart.

  Whoever they were, whatever their reasons, they were turning her into something that didn’t fit Confederacy templates and didn’t match human baselines either.

  Not Asuari standard. Not human standard.

  Einherjar.

  For the first time, the word no longer seemed like a legend belonging to someone else that she was trying to follow. Instead, it felt like a path she was already walking—step by step, through each fever, every injection, each unpleasant drink, and every difficult conversation with the Valkyrja Sigrun.

  The next wake-up chime was mercilessly early.

  “Candidates Ralaen and Andreassen,” the ceiling AI announced, way too bright for the hour. “Congratulations. Phase III metrics are nominal. Report to Medical Wing Three for Phase IV briefing. Also, commendations for your impressive self-control in not screwing each other’s brains out for an entire month. Command is very proud.”

  Ralaen groaned into her pillow. “I hate her,” she muttered.

  Eirik’s voice came sleep-rough from beside her. “She’s just jealous.”

  They dragged on their fatigues and headed out together, splitting at the medical wing doors with a quick squeeze of hands.

  Same clinic. Same doctor. Same AI, still smug.

  “Phase III went well,” the doctor said, scanning her latest data. “Cardio-respiratory and organ metrics look excellent. No anomalies in the matrix weave.”

  He flicked a hand and shifted the holo to highlight her musculature: layers of fiber lit up across the projected Asuari frame.

  “Phase IV is the musculature overhaul,” he said. “This one is relatively fast—about three weeks. Your bio-nanos will refactor your muscle fibers into reinforced, interlocking structures. Think of it as rebuilding every cable in your body with advanced materials and better geometry.”

  The AI chimed in. “End result: more than quintupled strength over your baseline, significantly improved endurance, and a greatly increased ability to apply force without tearing yourself apart.”

  “It will change your body further,” the doctor went on. “You’ll feel stronger and lighter at the same time once your brain adapts. There’ll be a period where you don’t realise your own strength and break things. Try to keep that to inanimate objects.”

  Ralaen eyed the injector. “Another spine shot?”

  “Instruction set and starter fluid,” he confirmed. “After this, you’ll have a new supplemental drink—the dark red one—at each meal. It contains structural feedstock for the new fibers.”

  The injector bit into the base of her spine. Cold, burn, pressure. By now, her body recognised the pattern and tensed automatically.

  “Phase IV begins now,” the AI said. “Please refrain from arm-wrestling tanks for at least a week.”

  She left the clinic feeling oddly thoughtful, hands tucked into her pockets as she walked.

  Outside, Eirik was leaning against the wall, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “Let me guess,” he said. “Three weeks. Muscles. Don’t break anything important.”

  “Something like that,” she said. “It explains a lot, though.”

  He raised a brow.

  “How the Einherjar do what they do,” she said quietly. “With this much of a strength jump on top of everything else? No wonder they can toss people around in armor like toys.”

  Eirik nodded slowly, expression sober. “Yeah. Makes the vids make a lot more sense.”

  They headed to the mess.

  Their trays now came with a deep red drink in tall glasses. Ralaen sniffed it cautiously, then took a sip.

  She blinked. “That’s… actually not terrible.”

  “Try not to sound so surprised,” the AI called from a nearby panel. “We can make one thing taste decent.”

  It was faintly sweet, with a rich aftertaste that reminded her of some of the better Earth juices she’d tried. She downed it without grimacing for once.

  They wolfed down breakfast—training waits for no one—then got redirected somewhere new.

  The armory felt different from Jaeger weapons cages.

  Deeper. Older. Like stepping into the spine of something important.

  Mj?lnir suits stood in open gantries, armor plates split and lifted, inner frames exposed while techs moved around them with quiet, practiced focus. Local bay AIs guided cranes and lifts, cool voices calling out tolerances and power checks.

  “Candidates Andreassen, Ralaen,” a tech called, waving them toward a marked platform. “On the circles. Stand still. Nidavillier is linked in and the old dwarves complain if the data’s noisy.”

  Ralaen’s ears tipped forward.

  Everyone who came to Earth saw Nidavillier. You couldn’t miss a continent-sized forge-station hanging in orbit, a whole slice of sky turned into shipyard and fire. She’d watched it out a shuttle window her first day here, lights spread like a city across steel.

  Knowing it was now looking back at her was… different.

  Scanners slid around her and Eirik in smooth arcs, humming.

  The air in front of them shimmered.

  Two dwarven holoforms resolved in full detail, with a third only half-present behind them—more impression than figure, like someone standing in a lit doorway.

  Short. Broad. Bearded. Tools hanging from belts and bandoliers. They looked like they’d stepped straight out of ásveldi myth-feeds, except these myths ran the forges that built gods of steel.

  The first had a neatly braided beard and bright, sharp eyes, a string of fine instruments slung across his chest.

  The second was thicker through the shoulders, beard tied back in a rough knot, arms folded like he was already unimpressed with most things in existence.

  “Ivaldi is occupied,” the braided one said without preamble, glancing off to one side at data only he could see. His voice was quick and precise. “He sends his regards and a reminder not to scratch the paint.”

  “You are the candidates,” the broader one rumbled, looking them over. “Hnh. You look like you might actually justify the material.”

  The bay tech gave a half-bow toward the holos. “As promised. Nidavillier’s smiths. Father’s busy. Sons are slumming it with Einherjar Command for a minute. Try not to embarrass us.”

  The braided dwarf turned first toward Eirik.

  “Sindri,” he introduced himself with a quick nod, fingers flicking through floating data. “Candidate Andreassen. Baseline human male. Jaeger prior. Good bone structure. Acceptable symmetry. You get a standard Mj?lnir Mk.4: heavy frontal bias, standard cranial crown, classic skull helm. Very tidy. I approve.”

  A holo spun up around Eirik: a full Mk.4 suit, brutal and clean, all functional menace and thick plating. The familiar skull-faced helm locked into place, sensor crown flaring briefly in simulated light.

  The broader dwarf snorted. “Boring. But solid.”

  Then Sindri turned to Ralaen.

  “Candidate Ralaen,” he said, and his expression sharpened with interest. “Asuari. Digitigrade structure. Tail. Muzzle. Jaeger ergonomics on file, but no Einherjar pattern yet. Finally.”

  Her scan built in layers in the holo: black-furred Asuari frame, digitigrade legs, tail, ears, muzzle. Then armor grew over it.

  Ralaen stared.

  It was recognisably Mj?lnir Mk.4, but adapted for her in every important way.

  The helmet was shaped like a wolf’s skull: extended snout, stylised teeth, sensor clusters hidden behind red-lit eye sockets. Armored ear-assemblies rose from the crown, segmented so they could track with her own movements.

  Chest and shoulder plates followed standard Mk.4 geometry, but the frame under them was tuned to her: narrower waist, slightly different angle of shoulder articulation. The arms ended in gauntlets with clawed fingertips, each claw a reinforced contact point.

  The legs were fully digitigrade: heavy thigh and shin armor over a frame built for her stride, ending in armored paw-plates with built-in traction and clawed toes.

  Behind it all, an articulated metal tail segmented down from the lower backplate, curling slightly.

  “The tail was a delightful puzzle,” Sindri said, clearly pleased with himself. “We had Jaeger data on Asuari movement, but nothing at Einherjar loads. We couldn’t clamp a solid plate over it—too much nerve risk. So.”

  He flicked his fingers and the holo zoomed in on the back.

  A hatch irised open in the projection’s lower back. The tail assembly unfolded, telescoping outward; then the whole thing slid down over the image of her real tail, segments locking into place around it.

  “As you step into the suit,” Sindri went on, “the tail sheath opens, you insert, it closes and syncs. Full protection, full feedback. Your nervous system will complain for a week. Then it will forget how to be without it.”

  “Helmet was worse,” the broader dwarf—Brokkr, obviously—grumbled. “Standard Einherjar helm wasn’t built for a muzzle. Sensor layout, jaw reinforcement, seal geometry—had to redo half of it. Waste of a perfectly good template. But it’ll hold. You slam that faceplate into something, it’ll break before you do.”

  The wolf-skull helm snapped down over the holo-Ralaen’s face. Jaw locked. Ears flicked and tracked.

  Something in her chest tightened.

  Not annoyance. Not really amusement either. More like the feeling from the first time Killgore had called her “Jaeger” and meant it.

  She reached out, fingers ghosting through the projection of her own armored paw.

  “This is… mine?” she asked quietly.

  “Mk.4 Asuari Einherjar pattern,” Sindri said, sounding very smug. “First of its line. We stole what was useful from Jaeger armor data, threw away the compromises, and built what you actually need. You and anyone who follows will shake it down. Field feedback encouraged. Try to send detailed reports, not just ‘it broke when I hit something very stupid.’”

  Behind them, the half-formed third figure—the outline that could only be Ivaldi—inclined its head once in silent acknowledgement.

  Brokkr grunted. “Break it running away from a fight and I’ll be offended. Break it doing something worth a saga, we’ll build you another.”

  As Sindri spoke of the tail sheath, Ralaen’s gaze dropped to the holo, to the armored paw at the end of the projected arm. Without thinking, she reached out, her own physical paw passing through the shimmering light of the projection. It was a ghost touch, an impossible connection. Her other hand drifted to the rune over her heart, her fingers pressing into the stitched fabric. She wasn’t being shoved into a human-shaped shell and told to cope. Nidavillier had looked at her file, her frame, her species, and decided she was worth a pattern of her own. For the first time, seeing herself in Mj?lnir didn’t feel like trying on someone else’s story. It felt like stepping into one that had been made to fit her, and for a fleeting moment, she felt the weight of a saga that was just beginning.

  Phase IV made itself known quickly.

  The first week, it felt like an extended case of post-workout soreness. Then it became something else.

  Weights that used to feel heavy became manageable. “Manageable” became easy. Easy became laughable if she forgot to adjust. More than once she picked something up expecting resistance and nearly threw it across the room.

  She cracked a training baton clean in half during a spar without meaning to. Crushed a metal cup when she wasn’t paying attention. Nearly broke a locker handle.

  By the end of the second week, she and Eirik had both learned to treat everything as if it were more fragile than it looked. Grip light until you know you can put more force in.

  The instructors responded exactly how she’d expected: by making everything harder.

  More load on runs. Heavier dummies in rescue drills. More brutal obstacle courses. Sim scenarios that assumed she could now drag multiple fully-kitted humans across bad terrain without her heart exploding.

  The ban on sex lifted with Phase IV, and they made up for lost time with predictable enthusiasm. The med AI complained—mostly for form's sake—about the extra spikes in certain metrics and then adjusted its baselines.

  They were in her room, the narrow bunk barely containing them. Eirik was on his back, Ralaen straddling him, her hips rolling in a slow, deliberate rhythm. Her black fur was damp with sweat, her ears perked, her tail giving a slow wave behind her.

  She leaned down, muzzle brushing his cheek, and nipped at his earlobe. "You're holding back," she murmured.

  "Just trying not to break you," he said, hands light on her thighs.

  "Break me?" She let out a breathy laugh. "I cracked a baton in half today. Stop treating me like I'm made of glass."

  His eyes sharpened. "You're not made of glass. You're made of black fur and bad intentions."

  "Then prove it," she challenged, tail lashing.

  He moved. One arm hooked around her waist, the other planted on her hip, and in one smooth motion he rolled them, pinning her beneath him. He hadn't overpowered her—he'd used her own momentum against her.

  He settled his weight over her, undeniable. "Better?" he asked, voice a low growl.

  Ralaen's ears flattened in pure arousal. She hooked a leg around his and bucked, testing his hold. He didn't budge.

  The game was on.

  Later, when they lay tangled and breathing hard, Ralaen felt it. Not just the ache in her muscles or the deep satisfaction. It was the hum of the adamantium in her bones, the easy thrum of enhanced structures in her body. She felt powerful. Indestructible. And lying here with Eirik, his hand resting possessively over the Einherjar rune on her chest, she felt something even more dangerous: content.

  By the end of the three weeks, Ralaen marvelled at how different “moving” felt.

  She wasn’t actually lighter, not with an adamantium skeleton and extra structure in her organs and muscles. But her body handled the weight better. And strength came easier. She could feel the power coiled underneath her skin, ready to go.

  She could do things now that would have put her in the med bay before Ascension. Climb faster. Hit harder. Keep going longer.

  One evening, curled up next to Eirik on her bunk with a tactics text glowing on her slate, she felt almost… comfortable in the new machine that was her body.

  That was, of course, when the AI pinged her.

  “Candidate Ralaen,” the ceiling voice said, polite as ever. “Please report to Medical Wing Three. Phase V is scheduled to begin. Bring your delightful anxiety; it helps our models.”

  She sighed, nudged Eirik with her shoulder, and slid off the bunk.

  “Phase V,” she said.

  He grimaced in solidarity. “See you on the other side.”

  In the clinic, the doctor shifted the holo again. This time the projection showed a fine mesh pattern layered just under the skin.

  “Phase V is the subdermal armor weave and thermal management layer,” he said. “Over the next two weeks, the bio-nanos will lay down a flexible mesh beneath your skin. It integrates with your existing tissues, adds another layer of ballistic and impact resistance, and helps manage heat from your upgraded muscles and spiked metabolism.”

  The AI added, “It will make you much harder to kill even when you’re out of armor. We recommend not testing this recreationally.”

  “Side effects?” Ralaen asked.

  “Mild itching,” the doctor said. “Localized heat or tingling as the weave goes down. Some general discomfort. You may feel a bit ‘off’ in terms of body awareness while your nervous system updates its map. You’ll get another supplemental drink—the gray one—for structural feedstock.”

  He lifted the injector. “You know the drill by now.”

  She turned, exposed the back of her neck and upper spine, and took the shot.

  The new drink at meals looked innocuous: pale gray, slightly viscous.

  It tasted like someone had bottled the concept of licking hot asphalt.

  She gagged on the first mouthful, ears flattening, tail bristling.

  “Pleasant, isn’t it?” Eirik said sympathetically, stirring his own glass.

  “Why does everything good for us taste like this?” she muttered, forcing it down in determined gulps.

  “For motivational purposes,” the AI said. “You’ll appreciate victory more when it doesn’t taste like road.”

  The next two weeks settled into an almost comforting rhythm, if she squinted at it sideways.

  Eat. Drink the awful gray sludge. Train. Lessons. Collapse. Wake up. Repeat.

  Underneath it all, the itch.

  It wasn’t on her skin. It was under it, a crawling, maddening sensation along her arms, her back, her ribs, her thighs. Sometimes it showed up in small patches. Sometimes it was whole limbs. Sometimes she wanted to dig her claws in and peel her own fur off.

  The only upside to the maddening, subdermal itch was having a partner with very good hands.

  “Left shoulder,” she’d grumble, flopping face-down on the bunk, the thin mattress groaning under her weight. Her tail gave a limp, frustrated flick.

  Eirik would sit on the edge, his weight a solid, comforting presence. He’d start with her shoulders, his strong, calloused fingers finding the exact spots she couldn’t reach, working around the new, subtle armor plating as her nervous system struggled to map it. The relief was almost indecent.

  “Lower,” she’d mumble into her pillow.

  “Ralaen,” he’d say dryly, his thumbs digging into a particularly stubborn knot of muscle and crawling nano-mesh. “Be specific. We’re on a timetable here.”

  One evening, the itch was a fire along her ribs and down her spine. She was more restless than usual, shifting on the bunk, a low growl of frustration rumbling in her chest. When his hands found the spot, she didn't just sigh in relief. A soft, involuntary sound escaped her, a mix of a whimper and a purr. Her body arched into his touch, seeking more of the pressure that soothed the internal fire.

  Eirik’s hands stilled for a fraction of a second. He felt the subtle shift in her, the way the tension in her muscles melted into something else entirely. He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a low murmur right next to her ear. “Right here?”

  “Gods, yes,” she breathed, her voice thick.

  He continued the massage, but his touch changed. It became slower, more deliberate. His thumbs traced the edges of the mesh beneath her fur, a line of exploration as much as it was about relief. He followed the path of the weave down her ribs, his knuckles brushing the side of her breast. The air in the small room felt thicker, charged.

  His hands drifted lower, kneading the muscles of her lower back, just above the base of her tail. The touch was no longer purely therapeutic. It was possessive, intimate. When one of his hands slid down to cup the curve of her ass, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin where her thigh met her flank, she didn't protest. She just let out another soft sound and pushed back against his hand, a clear, unspoken invitation.

  He took it. He leaned down, his lips brushing the nape of her neck, right over the spot where the next injection would go. The kiss was light, a question. Her response was to tilt her head, giving him better access, her ears flicking back in anticipation.

  He straightened up, his hands leaving her fur for a moment. She felt the loss acutely, but then he was shifting, moving to straddle her thighs. He poured more of the medicated oil into his palms, warming it between his hands before resuming his work on her lower back and legs. The position was undeniably intimate. He was in complete control, his weight a grounding force, his hands roaming over every inch of her that was plagued by the phantom itch.

  By the time he finished, her body was humming, not with discomfort, but with a deep, languorous arousal. The itch was forgotten, replaced by the heat of his touch and the solid presence of him above her.

  He leaned down one last time, his lips next to her ear. “Better?” he asked, his voice a low rumble.

  She turned her head, her bright blue eyes meeting his from the corner of her gaze. “Much,” she said, her voice husky. “But I think I found a new spot that needs your attention.”

  His crooked grin was all the answer she needed.

  The itch ebbed and flowed. Training continued, the instructors apparently unconcerned that she felt like her body was being quilted from the inside.

  She noticed that impacts started to feel… different.

  A baton strike in sparring that should have left a deep bruise instead translated to a dull, spread-out thump. Falls on the obstacle course hurt, but in a more distant, muted way. Heat tolerance improved subtly; she could push harder before feeling overheated.

  The gray drink never got better. She just got faster at forcing it down before her taste buds could protest.

  Through it all, life with Eirik settled into something that felt dangerously close to normal: shared room, shared routines, shared grumbling about AIs and doctors and instructors.

  Under her fur, under the skin, a mesh was knitting itself together.

  She was running out of pieces of her old self that hadn’t been upgraded, eaten, or rewired.

  And there was still one phase left.

  By the end of the second week, the itch under Ralaen’s skin was finally fading.

  Phase V had been tolerable—annoying, uncomfortable, but simple in its own way. The armor mesh being grown under the skin, along with the thermal management layer, and that gray sludge at every meal that tasted like roadkill and bad life choices. It was all physical: you drank, you hurt, you itched, you adapted. Easy to hate, but at least easy to understand.

  Phase VI bothered her.

  Not because she thought the program was going to kill her outright. If Ascension had been meant to wreck her, it would’ve done it three injections ago. What twisted in her gut was what came with this phase: the thing at the base of her skull that would open a door and invite someone else in.

  The bio-nano neural interface.

  The thing that would sit on her brainstem and make room for an AI.

  Asuari were raised on stories where that ended badly. Real AI was something you kept in cages, boxed into narrow tasks, or kept far away altogether. It was not something you let sit behind your eyes and share space with your thoughts.

  Intellectually, she knew the party line by now. She’d had it from med staff, from instructors, from Sigrun over encrypted calls back to J?tunheim: the bond was consent-based, the AIs chose, the candidates accepted. No one woke up with a stranger in their head.

  Knowing and feeling were different.

  She didn’t trust the idea of letting anything into her mind. Not yet.

  She did trust Sigrun not to feed her into a machine she believed was wrong. She trusted Eirik more than she trusted half her own instincts. And she trusted herself to be too damned stubborn to back out now just because the next step scared her.

  So she did the only thing she could.

  She focused on getting through the next phase, one breath and one order at a time, and told herself she’d deal with the fear when it stopped being hypothetical.

  The call came in the middle of a sparring session with Eirik.

  They were circling, gloves up, trading light strikes and footwork corrections when the overhead speakers chimed.

  “Candidate Ralaen,” the facility AI said. “Please report to Medical Wing Three for Phase VI initiation. Candidate Andreassen, your own appointment is scheduled shortly thereafter. Try not to break each other before then.”

  Eirik dropped his hands, breathing a little hard. “There it is,” he said quietly.

  Ralaen swallowed, tail flicking once. “Yeah.”

  He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “You’ve eaten worse. You’ve survived worse. You’ll be fine.”

  “Inspiring,” she muttered, but the corner of her mouth twitched.

  In the clinic, the doctor and med AI were waiting. For once, the AI’s energy was dialed down from gleefully chaotic to something closer to respectful.

  “Congratulations,” the doctor said. “You’ve made it through the heavy lifting. Skeletal, organ, muscular, and subdermal phases are stable. Phase VI is the final structural step: the bio-nano neural interface.”

  He brought up a holo of the base of her skull and upper spine. A delicate lattice glowed where bone met brainstem.

  “Over the next week,” he said, “the bio-nanos will build an interface node at the base of your skull. It ties into your brainstem and upper spinal cord, and from there into the existing bio-nano network. This is what allows full integration with your AI partner and the Mj?lnir systems.”

  The AI spoke up, softer than usual. “It does not give anyone ‘mind control,’” it said. “It allows exchange of intent, data, and sensory streams. You will still be you.”

  The doctor set a large glass of bright green fluid on the counter and picked up an injector.

  “Single load of feedstock,” he said, nodding at the glass, “and one instruction set. The green slurry is the building material for the interface scaffold. You’ll have some mild headaches as it grows in. For most candidates, they’re just an annoyance.”

  He motioned to the glass. “Drink first.”

  Ralaen picked it up, sniffed cautiously, then steeled herself and tipped it back.

  It tasted… weirdly light. Sweet, almost. Like cotton candy trying its best. Not something she’d order for fun, but compared to the gray asphalt sludge, it was palatable.

  She set the empty glass down and exhaled.

  “Turn around,” the doctor said gently. “Chin down a little.”

  She did. Something cold touched the spot at the base of her skull, right where head met neck. The injector hissed.

  Sharp pressure stabbed inward, then faded to a dull throb.

  “You may experience localized headaches,” the doctor said. “If you see flashing lights with no external source, or hear music that no one is playing, call us. Otherwise, training continues.”

  “Understood,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck as she stepped out.

  Eirik was waiting in the corridor, as if he’d known exactly when she’d be done.

  “How bad?” he asked.

  “Drink was fine,” she said. “Shot was worse. Head’s weird.”

  He laced his fingers through hers. “We’ll get through it.”

  She leaned into him a little as they walked.

  Worried or not, she’d chosen this. The only way out now was through.

  The last week of the Ascension program passed faster than she expected.

  She kept waiting for disaster: mind-splitting pain, blackouts, something. All she got was a persistent buzz at the base of her skull and a few days of dull headaches that made her squint at bright lights.

  Eirik had it worse. Halfway through the week he got hit by a migraine that put him in a dark room for half a day with an AI monitoring his brainwaves and muttering about “high but acceptable variance.”

  He came out tired and grouchy but intact.

  On the last day, the thing she’d been dreading finally arrived.

  The pairing.

  This time, it wasn’t the facility AI calling her. It was Anastasia’s voice, crisp and unambiguous over the speaker in their room.

  “Candidate Ralaen,” she said. “Report to Yggdrasil Node One for bond designation.”

  Eirik, lying beside her on the bed, looked up.

  “That’s you,” he said quietly. “I’m on Two.”

  Her mouth went dry. “Right.”

  He reached up, cupped her cheek, and kissed her once—short, firm, no hesitation.

  “Good luck, ulven min,” he murmured.

  She huffed out a shaky breath. “You too.”

  Walking to Yggdrasil Node One felt like walking to an execution ground that only existed in her head.

  Her mind spun through every possible failure mode. The AI rejects her. She rejects it. The interface glitches. She loses herself. She can’t stand another mind touching hers. It turns out all the horror stories from back home were right.

  By the time she reached the inner ring of Einherjar Command, her palms were damp and her tail was a restless line behind her.

  The Node chamber was at the heart of the complex. The door outside was guarded only by Anastasia, arms folded, armor on, helm clipped to her belt.

  “Ralaen,” Anastasia said, tone softer than usual. “Breathe.”

  Ralaen tried.

  “It’s never not strange,” Anastasia went on. “But it’s not something done to you. Remember that.” She nodded toward the door. “Your partner is waiting. Don’t keep them bored.”

  Ralaen managed a weak snort at that. It helped more than she’d expected.

  She took a deep breath, stepped forward.

  The door hissed shut behind her.

  The Node room was bare.

  No consoles, no banks of glowing hardware, no dramatic holos. Just a single high-backed chair in the center of the room, its surface covered in a delicate lattice of embedded circuitry and contact points.

  “Candidate Ralaen,” a female voice said, echoing calmly from everywhere and nowhere. “Please take a seat.”

  She eyed the chair warily, ears half-back.

  The voice spoke again, a note of amusement in it this time. “Please,” it said. “The chair won’t bite.”

  A choked half-laugh escaped her. “You say that now,” she muttered, and crossed the room.

  She sat.

  Nothing happened.

  No lightning. No sudden loss of self. Just the faint hum of systems and the sound of her own breathing.

  Her shoulders started to loosen.

  Then something shifted.

  It wasn’t physical. Not exactly. More like a presence stepping into a room that had always been empty, except the room was the back of her own head.

  Hello, my dear wolf, a voice said.

  Not in her ears. In her mind, but not like her own thoughts. Distinct. Warm. Amused.

  I am Artemis. Your new partner.

  Ralaen froze.

  And then, somehow, she didn’t.

  Something in her recognized the shape of that presence the way a muscle recognizes a familiar movement. It wasn’t words, not really. It was intent, tone, a hundred tiny cues sinking straight into a new part of her perception the interface had opened.

  The fear didn’t vanish. It just… didn’t matter in quite the same way.

  It didn’t feel like someone prying her open. It felt like space that had always been there finally being used.

  Artemis didn’t rummage through her memories. Didn’t start reciting her secrets back at her. She just was there, a calm, steady brightness at the edge of Ralaen’s awareness.

  We do not read each other like books, Artemis said, gently. We don’t need to. Intent is enough. May I…?

  A feeling more than a sentence. A request to show, not take.

  Ralaen swallowed. …Okay.

  The answer came as images and impressions, not dumped memories. More like someone playing highlight clips from her own life on a screen only she could see.

  Jaeger training. Her running under too-heavy rucks, gasping, refusing to quit.

  The Black Trials. Mud, fatigue, the moment she’d dragged herself to the last beacon on shaking limbs.

  The Crown. Cold mountains, endless tasks, rage and determination tangled together.

  It wasn’t every detail. It was the through-line—the part of her that refused to let go of the people she cared about, or the oaths she’d made, even when it hurt.

  The montage faded.

  Why me? she thought, before she could stop herself.

  Artemis caught it instantly. There was a ripple of fond exasperation.

  Because it is you, Artemis said simply. No lecture. No list of qualifications. Just absolute certainty.

  Ralaen sat there, heart hammering, and realised she couldn’t argue with that. Not in any way that made sense.

  A stray thought slipped across her mind before she could stop it— Eirik, somewhere else in the complex, maybe in his own Node, smelling like he always did when he came in from the cold and the rain.

  Warm skin. Sweat. And that faint spice she’d privately tagged as cinnamon the first night they’d crammed into a too-small bunk together.

  …Cinnamon? Artemis asked, the query brushing her awareness like a raised eyebrow.

  Ralaen’s ears went hot. For a split second, her mind went utterly blank, a pure, panicked white noise of oh gods she knows. It was the feeling of having your private diary read aloud in a crowded room, except the room was inside your own skull. Embarrassment flared, sharp and bright. Shut up, she thought, the mental equivalent of slamming a door and locking it.

  Artemis’ mirth rippled through the link, not a giggle, but a warm, knowing hum. Absolutely not, she said. You’re adorable.

  The terror didn’t disappear. But now it had edges she could see. Understand. She understood, suddenly, why humans didn’t fear their AI partners the way the Confederacy did. It wasn't slavery. It wasn't possession. It was partnership. And yet. A tiny, cold part of her, the part that was still an Assemblyman's daughter from the Asuari Confederacy, whispered: She sees you because she lets you see her. What happens when she stops? It was a traitorous thought, and she buried it deep. But it didn't die.

  Later—she had no idea how much later—the Node door hissed open again.

  Anastasia was waiting outside.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  Ralaen thought about it.

  Artemis shifted, a wordless nudge of support.

  “Different,” Ralaen said. “But… not wrong.”

  “Good answer,” Anastasia said. “You’ll get your full integration brief after rest. Go eat. Go sleep. Get used to the extra voice.”

  On the walk back to her quarters, Ralaen and Artemis talked.

  Talked was the closest word. It was more a flow of impressions and short thoughts.

  Artemis explained, in her own wry, patient way, that she’d been waiting for a partner for over a hundred years. That AIs didn’t get assigned; they chose. Something in the candidate always matched something in the AI.

  And if the one you’re waiting for never appears? Ralaen asked, wary curiosity bleeding through.

  Then I wait longer, Artemis said. That’s how it works for all of us. So far, that has not been necessary.

  Ralaen didn’t have an answer for that.

  She stepped into the room she’d been sharing with Eirik and found it empty for the moment—no doubt he was still in his own Node.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, hands braced on her knees, and let herself really feel it:

  Adamantium bones. Armored organs. Reinforced muscles. Subdermal mesh.

  And now, a second presence in her head who’d been willing to wait a century for her.

  Speechless? Artemis teased gently.

  Ralaen let out a shaky breath and laughed once, quietly.

  Yeah, she thought back. A bit.

  She lay back on the bunk. Artemis settled into a quiet presence at the edge of her thoughts, not intruding, just there.

  She closed her eyes and let it be enough.