F-Rank Mimic Chest: My SSS Mimic Skill Lets Me Become Anything

”Pull,” Vera said.

Her burned right hand had already closed around Dane’s handle. The first strain in the bolts ran through his roots before the rest of the party took his weight.

Brant’s shield lifted under his left base. Rod two, wedged beneath its rim, scraped Dane’s torn hinge and held. The collector cord pulled the other way, its wet fibers sawing through Tess’s split right palm. Holt still had a fistful of Vera’s coat and a free bight of prayer cord. Rod one tightened at the brass tag. Ada grunted over rod three.

Half an inch came off the stone before Skarn’s hook arrived from the corridor.

It caught the collector cord and ripped one strand loose with a hiss of hot wax. The hook snapped away before Tess could trap it. Somewhere behind the gate, three damaged hooks clicked back to their scout at three different speeds.

”Custom weave,” Tess said.

”Live long enough to complain,” Vera told her.

”I was planning to complain much closer.”

”Again,” Vera said.

Brant’s breath dragged across his teeth. ”Loop turns inward, you give it the glove.”

”Keep the shield level and it won’t.”

Four active chains shifted beyond the lip. One injured runner tried to spit through a broken mouth. Another cursed every time his ruined knee touched stone. Bodies, hooks, time—Skarn had lost each and still owned the gate.

From the scout’s damaged pole came a warning rattle. One hook struck stone too early, another too late. The third found the same beat as the active chains; all four runners pulled, snapping the collector cord tight enough to jerk Tess against Dane’s side.

”He’s learning around the damage,” Holt said.

”Then we damage his education,” Brant said.

The shield rose again.

Dane drove his damaged corner against the lip. Crude Drag found no height; it kept him from sliding off Brant’s metal while the opposite pull tried to twist his base apart. His loose hinge pin bored deeper. Both free coppers jumped, struck his wounded tongue, and stayed there.

Vera’s hand tilted the iron loop away from his teeth. Burned skin pressed through the glove. Hunger followed the carrier route toward her pulse.

Dane shoved the route down and held the tilt.

Stone rasped under him until the front of his base crossed the lip. Then the brass tag yanked toward Skarn’s wax trough. Rod one caught it hard enough to sing. Every injury on the Party Link struck at once: Vera’s burned fingers, Brant’s split knuckles, Tess’s cut forearm and palm, Holt’s chalk-scored skin, Ada’s exhausted shoulders. Dane’s broken tooth took all of them and added its own root-deep scream.

/==[ Brackenvault Registry: Custody Contact ]==\

| Asset: Storage Mimic Seventeen

| External Hand: Vera Pike

| Contact Point: Right Handle

| Party Link: Active / Contested

| Record Use: Recovery Claim Support

\==[ Handle: Witnessed ]==/

”Keep moving,” Vera said.

Ada sucked one breath through her nose. ”Your hand’s in the claim.”

”It can argue with my back.”

The arch answered with a row of descending iron teeth. Old custody stamps ground against stone. The first impact bounced through Dane’s base; the second knocked grit from his wounded corner. Four chains settled into a patient rhythm beyond the gate.

Brant rammed the shield higher. ”We clear the mouth first.”

”Your mouth or his?” Tess asked.

”Whichever stops talking.”

A tooth punched through the chalk. The Party Link bucked, and the free prayer bight tore through Holt’s hands before he caught it again.

The locking bead at Tess’s waist began to tick.

Silver rasped under the collector cord’s black fibers, carrying the gate’s pulse from Dane’s tag toward Vera’s hand. Tess pulled the bead under her belt, away from the descending iron, and kept her knife in its sheath.

For one lift.

Another stamped tooth struck beside rod two. The shield rang. Brant’s wounded right hand slipped, recovered, and left skin on the rim.

”Ada,” Tess said, too calmly, ”silver off the bead. What follows it?”

”Her contact goes dim.” Ada’s rod shook against the lip. ”Black stays, if your knife does.”

”Deep cut?”

”His mouth gets first vote.”

”Leave it,” Brant said.

The bead ticked faster under Tess’s belt. ”That thread is taking Vera’s hand to the next registry.”

”And you’re worried for Vera,” Holt said. Prayer cord burned through his hands. ”A small miracle at a difficult hour.”

”I’m complicated. Ask anyone I’ve robbed.”

”It is also taking your little market road,” Brant said. ”Funny how you found religion when both were on fire.”

Iron screamed lower.

Vera’s wand struck stone once in her left hand. ”Ada gives the depth. Tess misses it, I throw her at Skarn myself.”

”Comforting,” Tess said. ”I was worried you might hold a grudge.”

She drew the knife.

Ada spoke between the gate’s impacts. ”Under the bead. Inner lip. Feel for black drag and stop.”

Tess worked the point beneath the hot silver. Her bleeding hand slipped once. Black wax caught the blade and tried to pull it deeper.

One of the gate teeth struck rod three and trapped Ada’s sleeve against the shaft. She tore the cloth free without letting go. The next impact shoved Dane backward a finger’s width. Crude Drag bit stone, and the broken edge of his left corner peeled farther open.

Through the failing link, Dane shoved a warning that arrived as naked want.

Brant made a sound like a door being kicked in. ”Knife out.”

Tess cut.

The silver thread parted with a tendon snap.

Shared pain dropped away. Hunger rushed into the silence through the nearest open route. Vera’s pulse filled Dane’s handle bolts. Her glove became warm hide around reachable fingers. Holt’s prayer cord brushed that route and registered as something else he could reel between his teeth.

Farther off, blood moved along Tess’s severed cord.

Dane’s lid opened.

Vera’s hand stayed in the loop.

”Dane. Wrong thing. Hold.”

/==[ Party Link: Severance Fault ]==\

| Cut Point: Collector Cord / Silver Thread

| Actor: Tess Crowe

| Link Stability: Dropping

| Feed Reflex: Reclaiming Mouth

| Custody Record: Blurred / Not Cleared

\==[ Knife: Useful / Unkind ]==/

As the gate came down, Ada thrust rod three across two stamped teeth. Iron bit wood already damaged at the lip, and the rod bent with a noise that climbed toward breaking.

The four chains beyond the arch accelerated. Their links slapped stone in sequence, turning Skarn’s side of the gate into a winch. Rod one groaned at Dane’s tag. The cinch held, though each pull forced brass hard enough into his front to make the registry panel jump.

Brant drove the shield under Dane’s left base. His right knuckles split to bone against its rim. The jolt slammed his splinted left arm into his ribs and punched the air from him.

Tess hauled on the collector cord with her injured forearm pinned close. ”Silver is gone. Black is still there. I cut where she said.”

”And kept your buyer’s road,” Brant said. ”Pull now. Lie after.”

Holt cast the free bight around Vera’s right wrist. The knot struck her glove, cinched, and gave him a line that led away from Dane’s mouth.

The lid kept rising.

Saint Rust scraped across Dane’s thoughts.

If you eat the hand that named you correctly, cupboard, I will call you efficient until the stone rots.

Efficient went into the same raw place as his broken root.

Dane forced the rising lid against that pain. The hinge shook. His mouth slowed with Vera’s glove less than a handspan from its route.

”Now,” Vera said.

Brant bellowed into the shield. Tess leaned until the cord crushed the breath from her. Holt pulled Vera’s wrist outward while keeping his coat fist closed. Ada kicked rod three sideways.

A custody stamp cracked.

Dane slid over the lip and struck outer-drain stone. The landing drove both coppers against the floor of his mouth. Vera came down on one knee, still attached to the right handle while his lid fought to rise.

Behind them, the teeth slammed and caught Vera’s sleeve. Cloth tore; skin stayed whole.

Wet outer air moved across Dane’s brass and carried old rain, ditch rot, and no trace of the room where he had waited to die.

For one breath, nothing in that air expected him to sit still and be opened. Then the cut thread began to move.

Tess’s buckle clicked.

The severed silver had traveled under it. The locking bead opened with a metallic cough. Black wax poured through cloth at Tess’s waist, and the sharp stink of burned wool ran down her left side.

”Cord!” Ada shouted.

Tess grabbed the buckle with her bleeding right hand. The collector cord cinched wrist to waist. Her knife struck stone near the service groove and skittered once.

The groove opened under her heel.

A retrieval chain hit her ankle hard enough to fold the joint, wrapped twice, and snapped tight. Tess crashed onto her injured left arm; the reopened cut hit wetly.

Holt caught her coat hem, but the cloth tore from his fist. Brant lunged after it. His wounded right hand slapped stone less than a handspan behind her.

The chain dragged Tess across the outer drain. Wax pulled the cord deeper under her belt. Each stamped link brought her blood closer to Dane’s half-open mouth.

Vera still held his handle.

Tess’s breath came bare. No market joke. No pretty lie.