edited – Siblings-a-Fixin'

Bowyetta squeezed the saw’s handle as hard as she could. The sound of
it buzzing to life nearly made her drop it, and the snipping blade was a
little scary… This could’ve been someone she knew!

Bowyetta didn’t have much time to explain. “C-Center! We must be attacking her arms!” She swung at another arm that was about to hit them.

The
more damage Bowyetta did to the shadow, the more it also seemed to lose
it’s shape, and the easier it got to swim through the liquid metal. “S-stop doing that! Before I… Crush you both!” The shadow began to form another arm, however, this one looked half melted, and nearly fell apart as she swung it.

“What do you mean her ar–OH!”

He nodded, swinging at another arm. This one did fall off…right onto his head.

“Oof!”

He expected that to smart a lot more than it did. As it was, the metal bounced off him with no more pain than if he hit his head on a table.

Well then.

He rubbed his head and took a look to see if he could figure out which arms of the shadow’s were left.

“I can imagine. Sometimes tools are randomly animate where I’m from, or things suddenly just become sentient for a short period of time and then stop doing that. It’s usually ‘only when it’s funny’.”

“But they barely ever have names! Well, other than ‘talking thingy’ or ‘living item’. But here, I’ve even seen some of the buildings talk! How does anything actually… get done around here…?”

“What you said pretty much says it all,” the Repairman replied, being careful about his word choice, “Things get done because it’s convenient that way. If they weren’t dramatic or convenient, they wouldn’t happen.”

He paused.

“…Or exposition, for that matter.”

He cringed, realizing he would have to make another stop on his way to that blank room he was told was used for TV commercial spots. Not that he really liked that room all too much, but he had a job to do.

“Looks like you might be staying with me a little longer,” the Repairman sighed, looking back at Doris.

“Eh,” she replied, nonchalantly, “I get paid by the minute anyhow. Speaking a which, you’re nearin’ six minutes.”

The Repairman, still lacking his previous times, had no clue how to react to that.