Aliapanacea
Some things are impossible to avoid in your career, especially for samurai.
All get their AI, their first on not long after, then begin a burning crusade against our enemies. Unfortunately, the other side to the is not nearly as much fun.
We learn the hard way that rather than Antithesis, humanity is our own worst enemy.
Desmond ‘Steel Hound’ Montero, when asked about the ‘Gehenna Gulf’ i.***
“So uh.” I shakily stand, releasing the vice grip I had on the heavy wrench, letting it k onto the floor. “What ly?”
I’d reend you get a Hemo-restore to recover the blood you lost, and a Naneive suite to restore your flesh to its normal state.
I groan, rolling my neck. “Fine, we bihem into one application though?”
For a small upcharge of five points you .
I shrug, holding my hand out. “Right here please.”
New Purchase!
1x bo Nano-Hemo Ior
Cost: 30 Points
Remaining Total: 615 Points
I immediately stab the meds into my arm when they appear, wing as my veins begin to bulge as the substance is pushed into my bloodstream. Stumbling backwards, I lean on the binder filled table to catch my breath.
“Whew, I’m gonna hate this tomorrow m,” I mutter, rolling my shoulder, “Now that I’m healed, what’s ?”
You have a lot of options, especially sidering the high amount of points you have for just having started. What kind of on do you wish to fight with? What kind of defensive abilities do you want to use to stay alive?
“Well, that’s a good question.” I tap my foot on the ground, my eyes log on the wrench that had saved my life just a minute before. “How about something big and blunt?”
I have an assortment of options for you , but I personally reend the options you receive from the Css-I Gravitational Wave Maniputors catalog. This catalog, which costs 100 points, is primarily made up of items that only modify their own gravity, a capability which expands dramatically upon an upgrade to Css-II.
I pause, a couple things moving through my mind before I grin. The thought of floating around on a on like a witch absolutely tickled me.
“Okay, I’m sold. Gimme that and a det ker that’ll st me a while, will you, Achys?”
Uood. Put your hands out, please.
Catalog Unlocked!
Css-I Gravitational Wave Maniputors
Cost: 100 Points
New Purchase!
1x: Phys-Breaker ick MK-I
Cost: 100 Points
Remaining Total: 415 Points
I blink, a slight heft dropping into my hands in the split seds my eyes are closed.
“Uh…” I mutter, staring down at the beast in my hands, “This is not a blunt on.”
The ridiculous thing is like a pickaxe on steroids, only with one of the sides stopping half way to form a ft stub. I swing it around a bit to find it has a perfect bance, seemingly almost none of the weight from the pickaxe head affeg it. I bring it to a vertical position and sm the bottom of the hao the ground, finding that the on is just a bit shorter than me.
To be fair, one side of it is, and you use the other to more easily end your oppos after disorienting them. I determi fit the parameters of your request suffitly, even going beyond what you asked for.
“That’s not really…” I sigh, shaking my head. “Okay, no more vague requests, lesson learned. , I’m pretty sure I need something to keep me alive in fights and if something goes wrong with the pressurization of the reef.”
We have a lot of options, what do you value in armor? Do you prefer offense, defense, mobility? Do you want it to be modur? Do you prefer more muions or something more esoteric?
“Modur sounds great, and I’m not sure on the be part,” I say, then tap my , “Could you expin that st ohough?”
Mundane is what you would typically imagine from armor, such as alloy ptes, chitin, or fanpounds. Esoteric would be something more like force shields or biological adaptation.
“Maybe a mix?” I think for a moment, twirling my pick like a baton. “It would be o have something that doesn’t require me to k around in a ugly metal suit. Biological adaptation to bee something a bit more than human sounds iing, but going all the way into that sounds a bit…”
Fair, yes, it’s a se shared by many of your fellow humans. If you’re on the edge, perhaps you might like the Css-I Symbiotic Teo-Viral Modules, which runs for one-hundred points.
I nearly drop my on as I listen to my AI’s words.
“Viral? Like a virus?” I sch my face, looking at nothing in particur.
Ihe teology is quite ingenious. It utilizes cells ied with a teo-virus, allowing for a tral puter to trol their fun in unison. The cells spread out across your body in a thin film, rapidly duplig before an impact to protect you, and afterwards the virus cause rapid mutation to better handle a simir impa the future. In addition, you add specific mutations yourself through buying them, such as the enviroal adaptation capabilities you desire. The teology is remarkably effit at what it does.
“What’s the catch?” I impatiently tap my pi the ground. “Seems too good to be true.”
There are a few, the biggest and foremost being the difficulty in removing the cellur tissue after extended bat. It has a tendenolecurly stick to skin when exposed to sweat. Thankfully, someone found a way to remove it through external means, though it’s tedious at best.
In addition, while it has an indepe power source that regee over time, if the stored energy is not suffit or when it o recover energy quickly, it searches for an… alternative source.
“So they eat stuff?” I bite my lower lip, imagining that sight. “What would it even…?”
It’s been observed that the virus will only ever go for the most ve source of liquid biomass. This would normally be Antithesis blood, but in the case that there is no other sourearby…
I shiver, toug my heart. “How much would it… drink?”
In all cases where it es from its host, only as much as it would o ehe bst, and never all of it. Worst case sario, you get minor blood loss symptoms.
“And you’re sure this won’t make me sick?” I mutter, definitely still a bit hesitant.
Absolutely. Though, there is also a slight ce of ive mutations, skin irritation, depression, or the virus developing into a se entity, but I wouldn’t be too worried about that one, as long as you don’t coddle it.
“I-” I pause, my mind failing to parse that sentence. “How do you even coddle a virus?”
Lots and lots of food. Do you have any more questions?
“I-I’m not…” I sigh, clig my tongue. “Fine, let’s do it. I holy like the idea, and it’s not perma, so if I end up disliking it I just get rid of it.”
Uood. It will be one hundred fifty plus the cost of the catalog for the suit along with its upgrade. Is this acceptable?
“Haa… Yup.” I raise my thumb up to the sky, as if Achys was floating above me. I probably look like an idiot.
Catalog Unlocked!
Css-I Symbiotic Teo-Viral Modules
Cost: 100 Points
New Purchase!
1x External Viral Adaptation Skinsuite
Cost: 100 Points
1x Enviroal-Adaptation V-Mutation
Cost: 50 Points
Remaining Total: 165 Points
Two rather sterile looking transparent pstic boxes appear on the ground, and I reach down to pick the rger of the two up. Ihere is a metal bracelet with a gss orb in its ter, and within it a glob loop writhes around, parts of it stig to the gss for a moment before it slowly pulls off. I grimace at the sight, raising an eyebrardless, I puff my cheeks, thehe slowly out of my puckered lips as I mutter:
“Sunk-Cost Falcy, Emme, Sunk-Cost Falcy.”
Not giving myself time to rethink things, I hastily press the rge button on the side of the box; It clicks open, and I hesitantly click the bracelet onto my wrist. There is a hiss of air as the side of the armlet opens, the goop allowed to escape its prison. A strange, incredibly unpleasant crawliion begins slowly climbing up my arm, the cellur tissue c the majority of my skin with itself. It only stht around my face, stretg up to cover everything else on my head, including my hair. Once I’m fully covered, I reach up to look at my hand, finding that seemingly nothing has ged.
I tilt my head, then shrug and open the sed box. Within is a small yet thick vial of a simir slime to what was within the bracelet, yet this version is a pasty white. I press the small i on the side down, finding that the entire vial shatters, allowing the virus to shoot onto me.
It’s much more pleasant then the first, seemingly weaving itself into the membrane already stretched ay body, very slightly ging the color to a more pale hue, ging my skin to appear almost like a stereotypical vampire. Snickering at that thought, I realize something and reach up to my mouth, finding a serious problem with the enviroal prote aspect of that purchase.
I stick my thumb into my mouth, toug its roof. “Achys, why is it not c everything? How am I supposed to survive uer?”
It’ll extend to cover any orifices when needed.
“I-” I sigh, shaking my head. “Yeah, that makes sense. Let’s get moving.”
Did you obtain information upohat Model Ten-T came from exactly? I ot seem to ect to the systems in this b.
“Yeah, I did.” Walking past the giant vats, I walk up to a set of open doors that I khe monster had to have e from. “You’re really not going to like it.”
I turn into the hallway, the walls of which are lined with small cells with thick gss doors aerior walls, revealing their innards for ao see. I approach the first, and find my breath caught in my throat at the horrid sight of what was ihe true implications begin to sink in, and I have to sm my on into the ground to stay standing.
Oh. I see what you meant now. I assumed it was simply foolish corporate researto Antithesis.
Not… something like this.
In the darkness of the small room, a small figure ys curled up in the er, its chest unmoving, pinkish foam collected in its mouth. Its skin is wrinkled and desiccated, including the lower half of its body that had been surgically repced with peared to be the grayish green flesh of an antithesis. A small picture appears on my gsses, a seemingly happy young woman in the prime of her life.
Tristana Jaeger, age twenty seven. Vawo years ago on the sixth floor without a traow firmed deceased ten minutes ago by a gaseous pound simir tas.
To be ho, that isn't what has my attention at the moment. Instead, my eyes are locked onto the small interface sole beside the cell door, which dispys just two words:
'Purge plete.'
I lean on my pick, feeling tears form beh my eyes. I shakily su a breath, then exhale slowly.
Oh my. I… Emmelyn…
I sm the butt of my on into the ground, sileng Achys. Sobs cw at my throat as I lose myself in a dark thicket of dread, until my thoughts flee onto the stage, where a spotlight illuminates nothing but a familiar, lonely mask.
My mask.
I don’t hesitate to put it oing the harmonig spiraling out from my heart take the lead, brio a space where the raging twister of emotions ripping through me will no longer have trol.
“No oo guide you, now you’re on your own.”
I look down the corpse, which is rger then the first, it's right arm repced with what seems like the tiny bded arm of the humanoid alien I killed just minutes earlier. A new picture appears on my lens, a rough looking man in his thirties.
“Only me beside you..."
I lower my head as my throat trembles, the words refusing to arise. To my surprise, I am not the oo utter the words; Achys' normal tone dips into a pleasing tralto as she sorrowfully sings:
Still, you’re not alone.
She pauses before tinuing as I stiffly straighten my back.
No one is aloruly, no one is alone.
Meically, I force myself to the box, gring down at the crumpled flesh ihis time, it's leg is the ohat has been repced, an ugly necrosis spreading around it's hip. As the image of a elderly pears, Achys' words are like a hot dagger in my heart.
Sometimes people leave you, halfway through the wood.
“Others may deceive you,” My face sches, and it takes everything I have not to shatter the gss. “You decide what’s good.”
I ch the handle of my hammer hard, walking to the cell as I ruefully intone. “You decide alone.”
Achys' response is swift, a lyrical rebuttal against my frustration.
No one is alone.
I look into the window, the tiny figure inside making my stomach drop and rage disperse. My face s in anguish, knowing what I am looking at. “I wish-”
I know.
The image this time is a young child on a swing, no more than seven. I sniffle, clutg my chest with my free hand. My legs tremble, and uo tear my eyes away, I sm my fist into the wall.
“Momma isn’t here now… Who knows what she’d say.” I take a breath as I step back, shaking my head and closing my eyes. “Nothing’s quite so clear now…"
I ch my teeth, as I quaver, "Wrong things, right things. Who say what’s true?"
Achys doesn’t immediately respond, but her voice is resolute when she does.
Feel you’ve lost your way? Do things, fight things.
You decide, but-
A chill runs down me as I let myself once agaihe light, accept the ge in tone. I bite my lip, then quietly sing,
“You are not alone.”
The relief in Achys' voice is palpable.
Believe me.
“No one is alone.” I raise my oing it on my shoulder. “No one is alone.”
Believe me. Truly.
Nodding, I take another deep breath before I begin to walk down the hall, giving each cell just enough of a gnce so Achys pull up their identities, which have begun to colleough to block a det portion of my vision.
You move just a finger, say the slightest word.
Another image pops up, followed by another. I lightly tap the pick against a tile as I walk, the slight impapletely shattering it as I , "Something’s bound to linger. Be heard."
I then freeze, my hand g around the shaft of the pick as I scowl at a monoural stating the name of the b that they had deemed necessary to paste upon the wall. I sm my hammer into the ground, utterly shattering a portion of the floor before I tinue, “No os alone.”
Careful, no one is alone.
On cue, a small box detailing the information of 'Montero-Wisteria Labs' appears, and I take a moment to look through it as I walk. I soon reach the end of the hallway, the only thi before me is a gigantic sealed shut bst door. I stare down into the final cell where the st person ys, their body cold and still. Uhe rest, they don't seem to have had any of the horrific surgery done on them, but they had been culled with the rest heless. The final image appears on my gsses, before I stuff them all into a folder that I bel 'b' before stig it deep into my systems. I walk over to the wall, letting myself lean against it for a moment as I hug myself. Obviously aware of the distress I am feeling, Achys is the one who sings:
People make mistakes, fathers, mothers.
“People make mistakes, holding to their own.” I sigh, then smile ruefully. “Thinking they’re alone.”
Honor their mistakes. Fight for their mistakes. Everybody makes-
“One another’s terrible mistakes.” I lift the on up above my head, the tool of destru seeming not weighing anything at all. "Witches be right, Giants be good."
You decide what’s right. You decide what’s good. Just remember-
"Someone is on my side."
I take a deep breath, then begin my swing.
Our side. “Our side.”
With a resounding boom, the bst door is no more, and I feel the viral membrane close, indig something truly bad was in the air. The giganti is absolutely filled with rge Antithesis pods and leaves, all ected to a stem in its very ter. Artificial lights dot the roof, fake suns for fake pnts.
I bring my pick forward, g it in both hands as I walk forward.
Someone else is not. While we’re seeing our side-
There are alien corpses littered about the room, but unfortunately, not all of them are dead. Three of them are Model-Ten variants simir to the one I faced before, but there are also two gigantic six legged armored samander-like aliens, the leaves on the side of their heads like an Axolotl.
“Maybe we fot,” I take a step forward, then another. “They are not alone.”
As the rger beasts stumble towards me, the Tens screech as they begin to coordinate, cautiously cirg around to surround me. I take a swipe with the hammer at ohat gets too close, but it simply steps away out of my range before I hit it. I gasp as one of the other Teends its tail out to stab me, the serrated spike striking true, sinking into flesh.
Just not mine.
No one is alone.
A gooey hexagon made by the virus had absorbed the blow, rendering the blow null.
I grin, then turn to the samanders and flip my on. I rush forward, swinging the pick down upon one’s head. The spike goes through its skin and bone armor like butter, and the giant begins to vulse as I leap back a step. While I made my blow, two of the Tens had apparently decided to take the opportunity to attack, as when I peek behihey are almost upon me.
I don’t hesitate, lifting my on just a bit out of the samander, I turn it y degrees, the my hands fall down the grip as I swing the hammerhead like a bat. Simir to the first of their kind I fought, the Tens futily attempt to block the blow with their arms, and the siingly sweet crack of shattered bones fills my ears on impact. I drag the two monsters along the arc of the swing, letting them go flying when I mao spot the third Ten approag out of the er of my eye. I take a backstep as I turn, then swiically with the pi the spike into its slightly protruding chest.
Even if I am doing an okay job, it’s apparently not enough as the sed rger model rams into me, sendiumbling across the room. I barely maht myself, absolutely thankful for the swiftly vanishing virus leather. I doubt I would have survived that otherwise. After shaking myself off and wiping a bit of blood from my lips, I run forward. I slide to a stop as I approach my oppo, stabbing the top of my on out like a spear. Apparently that’s more than enough, as my on sinks down to my hands within the Samander’s head.
Grimag, I pull it out, my entire body now covered in sticky green blood. I gnce around at the age, then shrug and walk to the tral stem. I take a deep breath, then drop the hammer. Two simultaneous cracks occur; One of the wood-like brainstem of the hive breaking into two, and of electrical wires that it had grown around. A small fire begins from the sparks the now loose wires are emitting, and I just shake my head as I walk away.
“Hard to see the light now.” I scowl, the heat of the fmes behind me swiftly intensifying.
Just don’t let it go.
As I walk I pause o time in front of my mural, searing it's image into my mind.
Things will e ht now.
A small smile appears on my lips as I y eyes, then nod. “We make it so.”
Someone is on your side-
I smash the logo into a thousand pieces.
“No one is alone.”
Aliapanacea
