“You barely have an ass, Jacalyn,” Lilly told me, “I would be surprised if you’ve ever had the ability to whole ass something.”
She had a kind of faux casual tone, a fake that shone through intrusively. She had nerves… Or the closest thing she could have to nerves, considering she didn’t have any of those.
“Your right… Right now, I would have more than a whole ass. Instead of whole assing it, I’m giving it a 2-300% assing… Now, how many points? That was quite a few enemies. I should have more than enough for a few upgrades… And I would prefer to get them over in sequence.”
She hummed in acquiescence, seemingly thinking for a moment before speaking aloud, “It’s less than it should be… You ended up killing at least 80 or so directly, though it has a bit of a margin of error. Based on threat assessment, they would each be worth about 5 points each. You did, however, use another Legionnaire weapon, so you split it with Pinky under lend-lease during wartime. With that, five goes to 2.5 for a final result of 200. You also closed a wound, so a total of about 230 all said and done.”
230. That felt like a far smaller amount than I felt I deserved. I would argue, but I didn’t think it was something I could argue over. The way she spoke about it, it was more an equation, less an equal award to my effort.
“That little? I killed an army.” I lightly winged.
“I know. They have a flat value. It’s to encourage sharing weaponry based on the task at hand. If you have an issue with it, you’ll need to take it up with the command… Who are probably dead, so you’ll have to raise your security level high enough to fill their position.”
“Yeah… I’ll add that to the list of things I need to do, right up there with fixing the Junker and meeting Mei. Now… I can choose two of the four remaining shards to activate… What would you suggest for fighting besides taking warform?” I asked her.
That would be one of the very obvious things to take right now. It was literally for fighting, and at this point, I needed everything I could get.
“I would suggest only getting your warform if you’re going to also unlock your self shard. Warform has a habit of being rather hard to get used to without it.” She told me, “The only other one I think would work at the moment would be the Anima. The way it connects you to things would be advantageous for fighting, even if you don’t have the items to make that part worthwhile. You could use the Animus, but you have no worthwhile methods of use for it. Sure, it would let you do stuff, but warform covers that right now.”
I needed power right now, not stability, and not ‘connection,’ whatever that meant. It would be best if I took power and paid the Pipper, then let Pinky rot at the hands of Ab-norman. As strong as she was, if she was running low, I needed to at least help peel him off so we could get the fuck out of there.
Norman had gone from low threat to high threat very quickly, but that was a problem for future people to deal with. My problem wasn’t killing Norman; it was making sure a silly friend lived and not as said things puppet.
After all, he had told us he would have wanted us alive.
I would not let that happen, not to me, and not on my life. Not to Pink.
“I need to punch above my weight right now. If I take the Animus and Warform, could I use their abilities in a fight without the self-shard active? Or do I need it to use my abilities? Also, Should I stay in my clothes? I couldn’t quite tell because it happened so fast, but Pinky seemed… Bigger.” I asked her.
“You could. The shard being activated lets you throw the switch on the active stuff… Though it will be janky, for your activated form, you could pull that off. You’ll need to pull your clothes off because you don’t have a stone for that.”
“Ok… Well, I suppose it’s a good thing this area has some gravity.” I told her.
“Watch out for lines. I doubt the whole area has it…” She told me as I finally got to undo all of my stuff.
I pulled it all off at Lilly's insistence, which left me feeling like a pervert, but there was no one awake, and quite frankly, I had been in more compromising positions.
I nodded to myself and then did my best to prepare for the inevitable sensation I would feel when I activated them.
Last time, it had been nightmarish, a fever dream that I didn’t want to relive but would do anyway.
I turned to the people I had dragged off and gave them another look over. They appeared to be better, though none of them were awake. Hopefully, they would wake up and realize, with a fight going on nearby, that they should get the hell out of there.
Trusting in their self preservation instincts, I checked the streets and found a lack of infested goons in the street.
Taking in a breath, I murmured, “Use my points to unlock my Warform and Animus.”
“Are you sure? This is un-reversible; 100 points will be withdrawn from your current funds, and the combination could further cause issues with your self-perception.” She said, first mechanical, then ebbing into genuine concern.
“I understand. Do it.” I told her simply, “Just do your best to keep me focused, and we’ll be right as rain.”
“I’ll do my best… Activation codes purchased… Activation in five… Four… Three… Two… One-”
I fell, the change in sensation immediate and all-encompassing.
I was left unready for it, despite my knowing better, the world falling away as I passed into the process. The universe pulled in on me, not from one direction, but this time from two, the power of it inevitable, like something in a nightmare, it came for me, the impending pull overlapping, before pulling me in twain.
I remained whole, but not, my being not ripped into two parts, but two whole parts. It was like I had been copied, but each me was the real one.
I felt both of myselves, each half, as if I were in both places at once, and yet both places clearly. Less like I was staring at two places, and more like two separate experiences, but instead of in sequence, in parallel.
I felt both of myself descending, falling into the dark. My paths remained the same until the torment began, and both of myself began to change. On the one hand, my skin turned harder or dryer, and my bone bloomed, first into my neutral form and then beyond.
My bones grew out into a grander form of my own, pressing my skin out around it, like clothes over a plate. Fat expanded within me, reacting to my expanding form and filling what would otherwise be a void. From taking on a masculine edge, muscle splitting and swelling up to full size, and bones hardening further than they already were, I gained a form that I could have found myself enjoying, as my form began to lose feminine features as the animus expressed itself, some more of my dad coming out in me.
Much the same, my warform bloomed, gaining many of the same changes, but instead of a loss of femininity, it was a perversion of it. My eyes, nose, and mouth gained a plate, a visor, that in turn wound with skin, ears pressing flat as a plate pressed them flat its ridges and flexing like an arcane speaker.
My hair moved, curled, and wove, lifting like a living fibrous serpent to wind around my head and around my neck before it lay wide over one shoulder like a short cape. Hair that was non-existent across most of my body sprouted. Filaments of the resistant hair, much like that on my head, wrapping down and around me into holsters that could seal my guns into my hipbones with dozens of extra flexible niches for future firepower, each band of fabric threading into porcelain skin as it took on a consistency of carapace, the skin receding bellow it as a shell of flexible extruded carapace. A layer like skin atop my skin, but hard.
Parts of me that defied the simple efficiency in the art of combat were unmade, shifting in form, lengthening, smoothing, and generally turning into a shape that no human form should ever be capable of, matching that of things I had fought, more than my piecemeal human form. Breast elongating, it opened and fused down onto the chest, turning into extra space as my lungs expanded, folding out like the wings of a butterfly.
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The form, so alien as to be horrific to many, held a resonance with me. It was me, as I could be, a primal being, reforged in biological armour, the very artificial pigment of my skin extruded into a flexible armour, supple as silk, porcelain smooth, and hard as cold forged steel.
I was humanity, so old it ceased to be humanity, reforged with the brutal cunning of those with the hubris to proclaim themselves gods into a weapon that could serve to turn tied against an unstoppable horde of nightmares from beyond reality.
And with the shards awakened, so too came their feelings, the thoughts intrusively starting to burn through my mind, whispering into my ears.
With the peacekeeper came a knowledge that its power came in the spoken word, in soft power. It was made to control the hearts of lesser beings, to bring people to places they shouldn’t go without being armed with wit, none the less unarmed by the lure of physical attraction.
It was the social mask that was so synonymous with everything that the only change was that it had been amped up. The warform was what happened when the mask was removed instead of its presence dialled.
It was that part of all living things that wanted to continue living and would do so by any means necessary, that part so deep within us that not even humanity could remove it. It was the rush of a life-and-death fight, the four f’s of survival. It was the rearing of the snake and the plunge of its fang, the gland that injected you with poison. It was the animistic spirit of the flesh; humanity carved away to reveal the dark instinct and violence that defended the ego to fight against the dying of the light.
The Animus was not much better.
It was masculinity; it was about power and personal strength; it was about how to project that power, not by word, but at the tip of a blade and the point of a bullet. Action and the potential for violence rippled through me, a need to prove the better in the competition of life, and to protect possessions. It came with the knowledge that if one could rage hard and hot enough, the strength it brought could extinguish stars like snuffing out a candle flame.
Grand nobility and a heart of gold met with the potential for terrible cruelty spurred by impulsiveness; each balanced across a razor's edge.
And after the awakening of the shard and the senses of what they were, the fragments of me they shone, came the torment, the binding. Around the warform came a snaking filament that came on slowly before looping around its form, a thousand lines pining my body down, dominating the creature made to destroy everything in its path. A million nooses dragged the body into a state of supplication, shackling my body with a collar, turning a terrifying war machine into a pet. It… I resented it, resented the servitude immediately, every fibre of my being screeching in a fury, my body protesting as I raged against the tensing lines, unendingly trying to find a weakness as I was forced into a puppet, the lines growing frayed and sharp, but never giving, never.
The masculinity, too, was overpowered, metaphorically and literally grabbed by the balls; I felt the burst of emasculation, an impotence that chafed me to my core as it was pulled apart. Reduced to only its simplest parts. My form became less a masculine reflection of my form and more a tool. It retained more of itself than my peacekeeper form, which had been reduced into a tongue, but it, too, was little more than an idol of what it had been.
My entire being shook as fundamental parts of me were brought to heel, core parts of myself, core parts of my soul, caged by the shards before I was returned to myself, a horrifying wrongness creeping through me as I took in the changes.
The return from my mind was jarring. It was like I had stopped being myself for a moment while I vividly hallucinated. It was a dream that played out in a flicker, a momentary dream, playing out inside the time it took to blink.
The vibrations underfoot returned my movement, the sound transmitted to my ear through the rigid armour skin, the sensitive membranous plate over my now hidden ear amplifying the vibrations into audible sound. Great, big inhales from expanded lungs drawing in heaping volumes of scented air.
My body was strong, and every movement was ridiculously precise, like a machine, instead of the body I was made with. My form was also incredibly sensitive. Every touch, every smell, every breath felt like my body had never felt it before, nerves thrilling as the sensation gave me a tactile thrill.
I could smell sweat and oil and hormones, which meant very little because I could only understand so many of them, but it made me shudder a little as I took it in. There was also a foul odour in the air and the smell of something that smelled like it was cold, an empty, hungry thing that wanted to be full. There were even smaller cold spots I could feel stalking around, not in the warehouse, but around in a circuitous route around it.
Knowing this, I reached instinctively for a mouth that did not exist and was stumped. Then I quickly decided that talking was kind of worthless anyway because why the hell should it? I wasn’t here to fucking talk; I was here to secure Pinky and kill everything that increased the minimum resistance required to do that.
Like the roving monsters, they were an issue. Were. Lucky me, now they had company.
Narrowing in on the closest one, I left the worthless distractions I was protecting behind after scooping up the bag. And made my way toward where it would be easiest to ambush it. Everything was far easier like this. Everything, every movement of my body, was easy from the precision and the sensitivity made for a thrill that rivalled the actual hunt. My hands twitched, the impending violence sending a visceral need to fight, a craving that could only be satisfied by tearing it to pieces.
I could feel an exhilaration echo from the dark corners of my mind, the effect far more pronounced than with the peacekeeper, my body itself driving a series of sensations that I couldn’t deny, just upfront instead of hidden from me. With every breath, my senses returned a series of intoxicating signals to me, each pulling me deeper into a thoughtlessness, a haze where there were no morals, no social distractions, just the beating of blood in my ear and a need to find my prey.
Moving into position, I sucked in a breath and waited for the vibrations around me and the scents of the creatures moving with every deep breath, sensing the tang of unreality on the non-existent wind. I could feel a minor feeling as they moved, a sense that led them along lines between structures like electric lamps.
It was sniffing out energy, which was good for me. I was empty enough to not give any off.
I waited. The thrill of an ambush caused my heart to speed. My hand was ready.
When the thump of movement came close enough to be felt, and the target closed, I
It came close enough for me to feel its internal tremors, its writing insides, its hollow, flexible shell, and, notably, where the core was.
Knowing where it was and where it wasn’t, I moved. My form was enhanced and enchanted by terrible power. Reaching deep into myself, I reached for power, for the strength to split bone and flesh, and was met by a feeling like dipping my hand into euphoria, a feeling of freeing as I released power through me and into my arm and as I did, I turned the corner, my steps quick but so precise in how I moved my weight that it might as well have been a walk, not a measured step.
The target froze for a moment as if to call for aid or in surprise, but it got only a fraction of the way through its surprise before my energy discharged, my hefty, muscle-infused arm using up the energy to accelerate it with bone-shattering force.
Pinky had mentioned breaking stone, and she had run through a wall, but this creature wasn’t stone; it was alien meat. My fist came down, first impacting the head before cracking it open like a fruit; my arm was backed by so much force that it tore through the figure, its insides void of bone or meat. Instead, my fist impacted the wriggling insides and split it down to the core where my fist impacted, nocking it free and spilling the swarm along the ground, where it began to writhe.
The form tried to get back up, to pull itself back together, to hide itself in a fake skin, but quickly I slipped my hands into it, pulling it open and kicking down onto the core, my foot pressed down into the mound of writhing insects and worms and smashed it into the ground, the core shattering under my heel.
I shivered as it began to let out a low hiss across each wriggling inch of the pile as it fell apart, losing cohesion. I watched it smack itself into my foot, trying to crawl up across my skin, slowing with each inch.
I pulled my foot out and let it slip off my leg as the bugs began to curl, and a feasting frenzy began, the pile turning on itself as it grew hungry.
Turning away from the pile, I began looking for the next one. Setting out, I stalked it down, quickly knocking its legs out from under it and smashing the core beneath my armoured foot. The thrill of it made my mind fog.
I stood there tingling as my body overwhelmed me with feelings, unable to think of what was next as I gasped to myself.
“Focus, Jacalyn. Head towards Pinky.”
I turned, quickly seeking the voice, but found no one.
Letting out a quick hiss, I began to turn around, seeking the voice. It was making half-remembered words at me, but I couldn’t find them.
“Pinky! Find Pinky! Pink!”
It was… It was… Right, the one in my head. Yeah… Yes, its voice was familiar.
Pulling my foot out of the crawling mound, and it began to break down, the insects writhing inside of the shell of fake flesh.
I felt around for more things, feeling minor movements. I dashed off towards them, rounding corners and making my way through the darker streets, only to come back around to a slowly stirring group of weaklings.
“No, not them. Pinky.” The voice chided.
It was annoying, but I kept looking. I decided against dragging them off; they would just be a disappointment… Though they might make a decent way to satisfy an itch.
I examined them a second time, leaning over the sleeping forms as I moved quietly, my feet gripping the ground. They were all spindly, all of them less than decent-looking lays. They looked like one round would leave them with broken bones.
I let out a grunt and stalked off, feeling out the other, more serious vibrations.
And the lasers.
And the cold corruption that was moving around.
I began to hunt. There was a second form moving around, and I could smell a similarity to me, one that told me I needed to return to it.
“Good. Yes. Head to Pinky. Who a good girl, yes, it's you, yes you are.” The voice complimented.
I felt somewhat insulted for a moment, but I left that behind as I stalked into the night, diving into the metal warehouse chasing after the fight, stumbling through the wreckage, smouldering boxes, slagged metal, and crushed floor plates until I exited into a street, two figures locked in combat.
I spotted the form of a warped thing, and the form of a man, and I knew my target, hurling my way toward the man, grabbing him and dumping energy into throwing him, I hurled the threat into a structural beam.
Turning to the twisted ally, I huddled closer and prepared to hold the line.