frozen

A pair of metal talons ripped through a canvas tent in the deep desert, shattering poles and crushing the metal inside. Shredded rugs and fabric flew off with the wind. Dented segments off brass armor glimmered as they fell in a pile with kitchen supplies and cracked picture frames containing portraits of the Mason clan. The colossal construct pointed an acrlight down at its handiwork and began to sift meticulously through the remains.

A small wooden framed picture of an earlier Qlippothic - one of a Victorian lady in her finest garments, carefully tailored to fit the coal grate on her abdomen and the twin smokestacks looming over her back - rolled clumsily away in the rising wind, tracing a line of indentations in the sand, only inches away from the ankle of the real Qlippothic. On this night she had become completely human save for the turbine surgically fastened to the small of her back, a grim necessity should she suddenly shift to a construct form with no power source at hand. Her leather and linen dress was draped by the ever-present wind around the rioutous colors the red headed gypsy she was embracing. She held her tightly not out of love, but fear.

The gypsy clutched the silver amulet hanging below her multihued scarf, whispering an enchantment of invisibility. Qli felt her skin hardening to metal, the metallic spreading from her engine in all directions until at least her hair vanished beneath her reflective mask. The beauty of the setting crimson sun behind them was ripped away by the arclight suddenly pointed towards them. No movement by the walking behemoth. Qli and Lynn's intertwined shadows stretched across the sand.

Qli did not finish scooping Lynn into her arms in the instant the monstrosity lunged at them, claws at the ready.