“With the advent of alien incursions, the deterioration of the climate, and the rise of megacorporations and 80 hour work weeks, the tourism market suffered greatly. Most people could not afford to make even short day trips, so most amusement parks and entertainment establishments shut down. These days the entertainment industry almost exclusively focuses on catering to the rich and powerful.”
- “A History of the Amusement Park”, written by Jeremy Parker, 2036
“Are you okay?” Chloe asked as she stopped a pace away from me, getting to her knees to check me over.
“I’ll live,” I muttered, then rubbed my face before I looked at her, “You have no idea how fucking glad I am to see you.” And I meant it too.
She smiled, then looked at the people behind me, “Everyone else okay?”
Worry was evident in her voice, which made me like her even more. Not many people cared a lot about the kind of person working around this area.
“Yeah, I think… Panicked but okay.”
She nodded, then looked me over again, before her eyes stopped at my new bracelet. “Wait… What’s that?”
I followed her gaze to my wrist, then showed it to her, “Hard-Light emitter. Figured it was my best option,” I shrugged, giving her a sheepish smile.
“You’re a Samurai?” She asked me with wide eyes.
“Newly minted,” I said with a chuckle, “That gun you gave me was a miracle worker. Without it I’d be xeno chow by now. As would the people behind me. Had to fend off like, what, ten aliens? before Kaysa told me about the Vanguard and shit.” I laughed, “Imagine that, some cheap whore who only cares about cumming her tits off high on drugs becomes a Samurai.”
In reply Chloe snorted, shaking her head, “Well, that’s how life goes. Maybe one day I can tell you the story of how I ended up with an alien AI in my skull. But right now we have to move. The streets aren’t safe.”
I nodded, calming down at her words. She was right, this wasn’t the time to dilly dally.
With some effort I got back to my feet, helped by Chloe who pulled me up. I gave her a warm smile as thanks, feeling infinitely better already just by having her here. She smiled in return, a warm smile that made my heart beat a bit faster.
“I’ve cleared the way to the shelter so far,” she said, once again checking on the people behind me, who had started to murmur quietly. “I still recommend you keep your guard up. Wouldn’t want to see your pretty face get hurt,” she gave me a smirk and I winked at her.
I greatly appreciated her worry over me. It made me… very happy.
It didn’t take long for everyone to get ready to move and Chloe stepped forward.
“Stick behind me,” she said, giving me another warm smile which I answered with my own, before she took off.
Her pace was slow, slow enough for me to pay close attention to our surroundings.
“Kaysa, how’s my emitter looking?” I muttered quietly, while I tried to find any xenos before they had the chance to jump my charges.
Your emitter is still at 81% charge, slowly recharging. Even then, you have more than enough points to obtain more batteries in case of emergency.
“Great… Can you pull up like a little indicator on my HUD? I mean, I know my augs are shit, but the HUD should still work for that, right? Oh, and do the same for the points please. The notifications can be a bit distracting, especially if a lot of shit is going on.”
As you wish.
A moment later my HUD changed. In the bottom right of my vision two new additions popped up, the first was the same nearly naked Fox-Woman holding her arm across her chest, with a stylised emitter visibility indicated. She had a small little box next to her reading ‘82%’. Huh, even during our short conversation it had recharged a little. That was good to know.
The second indicator was the same woman using a very clear copy of my metal dildo-club to smash a model Threes face in, with cartoonish exaggerations like her being mid jump, legs spread wide. It had another box next to it reading ‘107 points’.
Looking at the images I snorted, “You do love that imagery, don’t you?”
Considering your appreciation for your own appearance and the fact that Kitsune are typically known to seduce people to steal their soul, it did seem fitting.
“Wait, is that the reason you recommended that catalogue?”
Not originally, no. What I have said about the usability of that catalogue holds true, but you have to admit that it is a fun coincidence that you share so much with the theme of the catalogue in question.
I shrugged, “I guess. As long as it works. Anyways, you also said that it can do other things, right? Body mods and such? I’m not entirely sure what to make of that… Like, I love my body. I look awesome, gorgeous and sexy, so I don’t think I need to change that. But I’m also not sure what other shit I can do.”
In practical terms there is no limit to how you can change yourself. Typically Vanguard use these types of technologies to make themselves more resilient, exchange their organs for more robust or versatile ones, and sometimes to make themselves look better. But there have also been cases where Vanguard have entirely changed themselves to be another race. The sky is the limit, as long as you can think of the change there is a high likelihood I can supply you with the technology to achieve it.
If you really feel fancy you can even make yourself be able to shift your entire body on the go, shaping yourself however you want yourself to look like, or give yourself additional organs, limbs, or senses, to accomplish any specific job.
“Wow, sounds pretty cool. But let me guess, there is some kind of downside?”
Generally, yes. While genetic modifications can result in quite potent bodies, they usually require quite a bit of point investment, plus time to properly grow it all.
“Hm… Still sounds really cool. Not sure what to get though.”
You are still very early in your Vanguard career, there is no need to rush anything. Given time you will find your path.
You should also not forget that while it is your duty to destroy the antithesis threat, you should not throw your entire life to the wayside for that. Many Vanguard use at least a part of their points to improve their personal life, which results in better work life balance, and thus in more capable fighters, once they had sufficient time to rest.
“That makes sense, I guess,” I muttered.
We were just arriving at the corner and Chloe took a moment to check the area, before motioning us to follow. So far I hadn’t seen any more aliens, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any.
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Turning onto another street I frowned. There were a lot less cars around, which in a sense was good, because that meant less cover for aliens. But it also was bad, because it meant less cover for us.
We were just passing some broken down automated kiosk, one of those older ones with old school snack shelves, when Chloe stopped, pistol raised. I stopped in turn and raised my arm, trying to find where the xenos were at.
There was a slight scratching sound, like metal on asphalt. A moment later a small group of xenos came from around the corner to another street.
Without comment Chloe raised her pistol and started firing away. A couple of her shots went wide, but the majority hit, taking huge chunks out of the aliens at the business end of her pistol. It didn’t take long for her to completely annihilate the aliens in front of me.
“Damn,” I muttered, “That is one hell of a gun.”
She was just turning to me with a warm smile, when her eyes snapped to something behind me and she raised her gun again.
Me being no dummy I whirled around, arm already raised, and came face to face with a larger group of aliens. Without wasting time I started to send bullets down range, while the group rushed past us, trying to get away from the aliens.
Someone stumbled and fell, nearly having half of the group stumble over them, all while half a dozen model Threes, plus more of those birds made their way over to us.
My projectiles flew wide, not hitting shit, so before I could waste even more I switched over to Shields, blocking the xenos off. Every time I put a shield up, resulting in the alien I blocked crashing into it with a crunch, Chloe put a bullet into the form on the ground.
The bigger problem was the birds, since it was really hard for me to shield them off. But Chloe was Chloe, and Chloe was awesome, so she didn’t take long before she had put a bullet into each of them. Silence reigned once more when the last of the birds had crashed into an old dilapidated building, hanging half out of the broken window it had hit.
I tried to calm my heart, while finally lowering my arm. Taking deep breaths I shook my head, trying to get rid of all the adrenaline.
“We should keep moving,” Chloe said, while surveilling the area once more, just to make sure there weren’t more surprises.
Luckily the others were quick to get back on their feet and soon after we were moving again. I stuck close to Chloe, mainly because I wanted to make sure I could help her as quickly as I could, and because I felt safe sticking by her. I might be a Samurai now, but she had much more experience than I had and so far had been the one to do most of the work. And, if I was honest with myself, because I really liked being close to her.
Things stayed quiet, all the way until we arrived at the next corner. With a wave Chloe signalled us to wait, and I kept an eye on our rear, to make sure we couldn’t be surprised, while she checked the corner.
From her expression she didn’t like what she saw.
“I need you up front,” she whispered, and I immediately came over, giving her a questioning glance. She pointed around the corner and I peaked around.
What I saw had my heart sink. There were at least a dozen xenos crawling around one of the rundown fast food joints. The shop looked like it was close to collapsing, and the aliens were dragging both bags of cheap fries, as well as dead fry cooks outside.
“Shit,” I muttered.
“Shit indeed. I have something to deal with them, but that will draw some attention. We need to be quick, then make a run for it the moment they are dead.”
I nodded, then gave her a glance, “What do you need from me?”
“Can you try and stop them from getting too far from the entrance?” She asked, smiling warmly at me again. That smile took a lot of my tension away and calmed me down a bit.
I smiled back, before I looked once more at the xenos still munching happily on dead teenager.
“I can try. What’s your plan?”
“I have some lures and grenades. They will make some noise, but they are good at dealing with groups.”
I nodded, “Okay, I’m ready when you are.”
Chloe motioned the others to stay back a bit, then knelt down. A box appeared next to her, which she opened, grabbing the four grenades inside. I noticed that her box didn’t have any decorations and looked a lot cheaper than my own.
She gave me a questioning glance and I nodded, acknowledging my readiness. She nodded in turn and without wasting time threw the first grenade behind one of the old cars parked in front of the fast food joint.
When it stopped there wasn’t any big explosion, like I had expected. Instead I heard a low whistle, and soon all the aliens turned towards the direction the grenade had landed in.
I kept myself ready to project a shield wherever I needed to.
Once the xenos had started to group up next to the grenade, sniffing around, Chloe threw the next one. This one had barely landed when it emitted a loud screeching noise that had me grit my teeth. It took all the willpower I could muster not to hold my ears at the sound.
Whatever the grenade did though, it worked wonders. Before I even realised what was going on, the closest xenos had already started melting. Some were quick enough to escape the bullshit grenade, while some had been outside of the range entirely, but at least half of the aliens had started to melt, bits and bobs of mulched alien flesh dripping down their bodies.
The survivors looked around, probably trying to find whatever had thrown the ear tearing melting thing.
None of the xenos seemed fully coherent though, because I was pretty sure one of them glanced at me and still didn’t jump me immediately. Chloe didn’t waste any time and started to lay into the stumbling survivors. I quickly followed suit, arm pointed at one of the closest xenos. “Bullet,” I muttered once more, and soon a shiny new hole decorated the alien’s skull.
I wanted to shoot more, but by this point the couple of survivors did figure out what was what and started to move in our direction. So, to make sure nothing could come close enough to maul us, I started flinging shields left, right, and center. Any movement got a shield from me, ending with the alien crashing into it with a satisfying crunching sound. It stalled them enough for Chloe to pick them off, one by one, until nothing was left.
This time though we didn’t wait to see if there’d be more, instead Chloe motioned us to move, so we moved.
With a light jog we made our way past the fast food joint, giving it a wide enough berth so to not accidentally step on dead alien or human for that matter, before sticking close to the graffiti covered wall on the other side of the street. From here the shelter wasn’t far, but I didn’t dare relax yet. We had to go around two more corners with a good bit of street in between.
Once we arrived at the first of those aforementioned corners Chloe once more looked around, with me close behind. I saw her eyes wander up and down the street, before she nodded. The entire procession followed her around and down the street, until she suddenly held up a hand, and dropped to the knees. We, no dummies, quickly followed suit, all hiding behind one of those old school convertibles that was more rust than actual metal. When I leaned into it I could feel the door bending inwards and a small rain of rust fell out from under the car.
“Model Six,” Chloe whispered next to me, dragging me away from my thoughts about safety hazards on the streets, and back to reality.
In front of us, some fifty or so meters away, was a small group of model Threes, one of the bird thingies but much larger this time, and a six legged… ursoid thing at least my height. They didn’t seem to care much about anything as they slowly made their way into our direction from one of those rentable parking garages that old people usually go absolutely bonkers over.
“Can we deal with that?” I asked in a whisper, barely loud enough for Chloe to even understand me. She nodded, then pulled the magazine out of her giant pistol and put it into one of her many pockets. A moment later another magazine appeared in her outstretched hand, this one with much meaner looking bullets.
“I need you to deal with the smaller fry,” she whispered to me, eyes still focused on the big model Six.
I nodded and raised my arm, readying myself for the fight ahead.
Chloe took aim, waited a couple of moments, then pulled the trigger. A very loud bang rang out, much louder than before, and the upper half of the model Six nearly disintegrated, bits of xeno splattering in every which direction before it slumped.
I didn’t wait for them to get a grip and immediately sent a couple of projectiles in their direction, although only half of them actually hit their target in such a way that they died. The problem was that they were quicker with running than I was with killing them. Luckily for me though I had Chloe with me, and soon the last of the aliens died just before it could jump over the convertible. It did have the unfortunate side effect that when it died it crashed head first into the convertible, which groaned and squeaked, before fully falling apart in cartoonish fashion.
I didn’t have time to think about what that meant for the cars driving around the streets in these parts, Chloe was already waving us to follow.
The rest of the street was quiet, and soon we arrived at the last corner leading to the shelter. I looked behind, checking if our friends were okay. I saw Tina and Sharon both holding hands. Sharon was doing okay, but Tina looked… bad.
After playing peekaboo around the corner one last time Chloe motioned us again to follow, weapon raised but obviously relieved. And I understood why, the moment we came around the corner. In front of the entrance to the shelter I could see four people, some gang members probably, who had rifles and stood guard.
Letting out a long breath I didn’t realise I had been holding, I relaxed a bit. Safety at last.