Rain fell, his mechanical hands were too slow to let go, and he could see as the two right arms came apart in pieces, wires stretching between wrist and forearm, forearm and elbow, before snapping. The individual parts fell to the shadows and grass.

His uncle kicked him while he was down, boot to ribs.

Rain reached for the pieces, picking them up with two left hands. The forearm, broken at the front, was almost like a broken bottle. He scrambled back, two broken pieces of his arms held in his real hand and his one remaining, full-size mechanical arm.

He dismissed the emotion effect, re-cast it out, just to ensure it was over his uncle. Not that it seemed to do much. He’d tried letting it sit on people and some of the farm animals before. It didn’t work. He could only hope there was some nuance he could use.

Fuck, his ribs and leg hurt where he’d been kicked.

His uncle walked away, his back to Rain. He approached the fence, then reached over it. Allie wasn’t far away. She’d gone through the gate and was leaning against the outside of the fence, watching.

A shovel. Rain’s uncle had picked up the shovel that had been leaning against the fence, almost as long as Rain was tall, with a spade-shaped head. There was an implicit ‘if you’re going to wield a weapon, so am I’ to the act.

“Don’t kill him,” Rain’s aunt said, from the stairs to the kitchen.

Rain’s uncle turned, and gave Rain’s aunt a long, slow look.

“I don’t want to have to explain it to the leadership,” she said.

Rain’s uncle reversed his grip on the shovel, holding it near the spade-end with both hands.

Rain backed away a little as his uncle approached.

The first swing of the shovel was preliminary, measuring distance. Swung like a baseball bat, it made the ‘whoosh’ sound as it sliced through the air. If Rain hadn’t leaned back, it might have connected with his nose.

Rain lunged forward. He had smaller weapons.

His uncle didn’t swing the shovel back the other way. Instead, moving his hand up to grip it at the middle, he swung it so the upper end caught Rain’s mechanical arm, the lower end caught his wrist.

The mechanical arm broke with the impact, the shattered forearm dropping from its grip.

Rain felt the pain of the impact against his wrist as something that extended along his entire forearm, through his hand, tingling in his fingers.

He knew how to throw a punch, and with his uncle holding nothing back, he had no reason to do so either. He closed the distance, his chest connecting with his uncle’s as he punched low, aiming for the stomach, just beneath the ribs. Repeated blows, strikes with fist sharp against muscle and fat.