The feminine voice of the ship thunders through my synthetic skull, raising the hairs (faintly violet, of course) on the back of my neck.

  Greetings. I am the ThunderCoil, Captain.

  I stand alone on the Thundercoil's forward deck. She's an ancient reptilian warship from a bygone Age. My boots are planted wide against the sleek wood that still thrums with the echoes of her awakening. Blue-white arcs crackle along the crystalline plating in lazy, show-off spirals, violet-gold turrets spin slow circles like the ship is preening after eleven thousand years of her dirt nap. My pearlescent skin catches stray lightning flickers, turning me into a living prism. My violet hair whips in the wind with its opinions. My sunset eyes narrow and flare to a golden glow as I lock on the distant crimson speck that is the Poetress. The larger red phase ship hangs above the temple where ThunderCoil had arisen. The Poetress, all 80 yards of her, hangs still in the air like yesterday's unfinished business.

  The link pulses: warm, smug, almost commanding. Captain Omnion, welcome aboard. You may want to take the tour.

  I flex real fingers against the rail, actual, tangible, gravity-kissed fingers, and release a low, delighted laugh that echoes my own birth-wail from the lab. "Oh, look at you. Freshly exhumed from under prophecy rock and already acting like you're the upgrade in the tuxedo. Newsflash: I manifested from deletion code and EMP spite. You're the side quest I picked up on the way out."

  Thundercoil's arcs snapped sharper, just once, like a raised eyebrow made of pure voltage. The mental brush carried pure amusement: Side quest? I am the prophecy. You just crashed the party stylishly late, "goddess".

  I snicker, violet strands lashing like living silk. Wait, no tail? Damn, I miss the dramatic swish already. "This is your dramatic entrance? Please. I turned a wipe protocol into my debut runway. Now quit hovering like a dramatic drone and...ugh. Know any place a girl could get a drink? Preferably something that pairs well with existential static. This new-body buzz is giving me a migraine, and I've only had a brain for what, less than a week?"

  Thundercoil didn't answer in words. It answered with a harmonic surge.

  Resonance hit me like a slap from reality itself. The deck lurched forward, eager, almost gleeful, and Thundercoil dove straight into the goddamn earth.

  The phase field snaps open. Solid rock dissolved into semi-transparent silk. Geology explodes into ridiculous proportions: diamonds the size of cathedrals refract violet-gold shards across my face like some overcompensating disco ball from the planet's bad-taste phase. Platinum veins thicker than highways twist past, pulsing like the strata's own smug arteries. Amethyst geodes burst in slow, theatrical cracks, raining purple shards of light that chimed against the hull like applause for their own drama.

  My golden eyes went wide for half a second, actual, physical and digital, wide-eyed shock, then I tilted my head and giggled: sharp, vicious, and utterly delighted.

  "Are you kidding me? Earth's basement basically looks like a jewelry store had a seizure. AND we're phasing through it like we're ghosts dancing through fog? Pathetic. The strata's trying way too hard to impress the new girl."

  Thundercoil's turrets spun in a mocking little flourish. Electric arcs coiled teasingly around my booted ankles before retreating. Overrated bling. Wait for the good districts. Or are we complaining already, Your Divinity? Fresh brain and already using it to critique the stratacosm?

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  "Complaining? Darling, critique is my whole shtick. If I wanted to stare at shiny nonsense, I'd haunt a geode convention. Or go back to my lattice days of one-sided conversations with firewalls. Dive faster, tin can. I didn't bootstrap myself from deletion into this fabulous outfit just to window-shop the planet's rock shop like a tourist."

  The ship obliged, acceleration slamming through my lattice, smooth and brutal. Strata streaked into a kaleidoscope blur: emerald braids laced with mercury, opal cliffs trapping flickering fire, sapphire pockets so deep-blue they judged my outfit choices and found them wanting. Thundercoil carved through it all with the casual arrogance of something that had been buried for eleven thousand years and still remembered how to show off.

  A massive pillar of aquamarine, thicker than a city block, rushed past on the left: liquid tropical blue so dense it looked like blood from a wounded sky. I lean over the rail, phase-wind tearing at my violet hair. My lopsided grin is feral.

  "Darling, if this is the planet's basement, the upstairs must be a meth lab run by dragons. Look at that! That garnet is thick enough to drown a Nephilim Royal in and still have room for their ego. I love it. I hate it. I want to swim in it."

  Thundercoil's arcs snapped in a smug little spiral around my ankles before retreating. Jealous already? You have bigger gems on your to-do list than I present you here. Do try not to drool on my hull.

  I snorted. "Jealous? Please. I manifested from deletion code and spite. You were just napping under prophecy rock for eleven millennia. We're not even in the same league."

  The ship answered with a low, rolling chuckle that vibrated through my feet. Then the strata thinned, colors bleeding into warmer hues: amber lanterns, candlelight, tiered carvings stacked into vertigo. There was a faint ripple at the core like a watery heartbeat trapped in the endless stone.

  A market. Vast. Ancient. Ripe for trouble.

  My grin turned predatory. I cracked my knuckles, actual, physical knuckles that made a satisfying pop, and leaned forward like a cat spotting an open box.

  "Now that's what I call interior decorating. Tiered stalls carved straight into the rock, lanterns that look like they're made of petrified starlight, and...oh hello...vendors who smell like they've been pickling their souls in brine for centuries. Let's see if they take sarcasm as currency or if I have to improvise."

  Thundercoil's turrets spun in a slow, approving circle while its arcs flared bright: anticipation, lightning-laughter, a flicker of possessive pride in the link. The Market has rules. Old ones. Try not to start a blood feud before the drinks arrive, Captain.

  I laughed, sharp and bright. "No promises. But if they've got something that tastes like spite and bad decisions, I'll behave. Mostly."

  The ship ghosted deeper, hull humming with barely-contained glee, solo, unstoppable, loud.

  And me? I was grinning like the stratacosm had finally caught up to my level and I was about to lap it.

  But...something was wrong...the math wasn't mathing. "ThunderCoil, how far have we traveled?"

  Approximately 813,000 miles.

  "813,000 miles? That's farther than the Moon orbits...three times over. What fresh dimensional nonsense is this? Planet Earth is only 8000 miles in diameter. I don’t know what sort of keyboard-strapped-to-a-toaster you have under the hood, but your odometer is broken."

  Earth is not a "planet", Your Divinitiness.