“Greetings, welcome to your body customization.” Was the first thing Ronin heard after he’d accepted the prompt. The hotel room around him faded away to be replaced by an endless void of purest white. There was nothingness all around him, no floor, no ceiling, no walls. Just and endless expanse of nothingness. That, and Ronin, Elyria and the newly renamed Gunner standing on either side of him. They weren’t moving, they looked just like statues, standing still and not focusing on anything.
“During this procedure, you will customize your body, as well as the bodies of your slaves.” Continued the mechanical voice, not giving him much time to acclimate to this new situation. “I will help show you the options available to you, and your slaves, then provide a test site to confirm your choices, before…”
“Um, excuse me...” Ronin interrupted the voice, “sorry to interrupt. But they aren’t my slaves. So, is there any way they could pick for themselves? I’m pretty sure they both know what’s better for themselves than I do.” The mechanical voice died off as he spoke and remained silent for almost a minute. Ronin was beginning to think he’d made a mistake and wouldn’t be getting help anymore, when.
“Well, that’s a relief.” The voice said, still mechanical sounding but no longer the soulless monotone that Owl two used. There was pitch and emotions in it now, the difference was striking, even after only hearing the new voice say four words. “You know, I’ve done thirty of these fittings today. Thirty, and not one of those humans gave their non-organically born subjects an opportunity to choose their own bodies?” As the voice finished speaking, a jade green beetle the size of a large dog faded into existence in front of Ronin, as the girls on either side of him stirred.
“What is going on now?” Elyria said as she whirled around in confusion. “Where are we, this place is so beyond what I can understand.” Ronin saw that both girls were wielding their stolen butterknives at the void, though Gunner didn’t say anything. With a sinking feeling, Ronin saw she’d put her party mask back on.
“Are you feeling better now, Ow…Gunner?” Ronin asked her gently, barely stumbling over the name at all.
“I am functional, my lord.” Gunner said, eyes only flicking to him for a moment, before returning to scanning the space around them.
“Peace, ladies.” The jade beetle said, raising its front limbs and patting the air with them in a gesture that was clearly supposed to represent calming. “Your lord has decided to give each of you your choice of bodies. Which I thought was refreshing, since so many of these humans are bigoted, arrogant… uhm, I mean, that’s why I came out in person instead of sticking with the automaton routine. So, ready to get started?” Between the Beetles antics and its friendly tone and demeaner, Elyria and Gunner calmed down and put their butcher knives away.
“Are you,” Elyria said looking at the beetle. “Are you one of the beetles that came to the White flame’s planet and… changed it, so much?” Her voice didn’t contain anger, it was more curiosity than anything. “You look like what we saw in the video, only a lot smaller.”
“Yes,” the beetle said, antennas drooping. “I’m a member of the &%$^ race. My name is ^&*$,” it said, the words coming out all jumbled up. “But you humans can’t hear and think on a wavelength that translates, so you call us crystallin, or crystal beetles. And a close enough approximation of my name is Jade, thanks to the color of my exoskeleton. Fitting, don’t you think?” It punctuated the words by spreading its carapace wide, exposing long transparent wings, and doing a little turn about to show off its coloring.
“It… um, yes.” Elyria said with an awkward nod. “And your size?” She added, Ronin thought, because she didn’t know what else to say.
“Oh right, sorry.” The beetle said, thunking itself on the head with its forelimb. “It’s been a really long time since I’ve talked to anyone… I mean in a back-and-forth kind of way, since, you know, I already told you I talked to like thirty humans today… anyway, yea, the humans got weirded out when I showed up big enough to squish them under one of my limbs, so I shrunk to make them feel more comfortable. So, ready to get started?” The three companions looked at each other, each clearly unsure, but eventually, Ronin nodded.
“Sure, what do we need to do?” This was quite a bit different than what he’d expected, when they’d been told they would be getting bodies made for themselves and their escorts.
“Right, so here we go.” Jade said, doing another spin. As it came back around, a list appeared in front of Ronin’s eyes. From the gasps on either side of him, he gathered that the girls saw it too. “This is what is available to you, pick an option and it will materialize in front of you so you can see it. Don’t worry about getting stuck with what you click on, it will triple check before we move onto the next step, so go wild and check out the options.”
Blinking at the extensive list before him, Ronin scrolled down it slowly. There were more options than he thought possible. His eye caught on an entry, ‘ogre mage,’ with a chuckle, he clicked it. Before his eyes a life-sized ogre mage sprang into existence. It was ten feet tall and had his face… it was also completely naked and exposed for them all to see. With the height difference… there really was no getting around the fact that everyone saw everything.
“Um, Jade?” Ronin said as both women either gasped and looked away, or chuckled and gave a low whistle. “Is there anyway we can have the materializations of ourselves covered for modesty, please?” He steadfastly refused to think about which woman whistled and which gasped. Nope, he didn’t want to know.
“Of course, human,” Jade said. With a twitch of its mandibles the giant form of Ronin as an oni was dressed in a loincloth. “That is the first thing that everyone always tells me to do when their avatar appears.” It said, moving its forelegs around excitedly.
“Please, call me Ronin.” Ronin said, trying to hold back a groan.
“If everyone always asks you that, then why don’t you just do it automatically before anyone has to say it?” Elyria asked, definitely not with a trace of humor in her voice.
“Because that’s the way the program works,” Jade said with a facsimile of a shrug. “I’m not allowed to do or say anything about the program that isn’t simple explanations, or that you haven’t asked about first. Part of my probation to your species.
“Ok, thank you Jade.” Ronin said, looking at the oni version of himself, as both Elyria and Gunner each pulled up an ogre mage version of themselves too. With a smirk, Ronin noted that each of them was just as naked as his avatar had been.
“Clothe ours too,” Elyria shouted as she forcibly turned Ronin’s head away. “What were you looking at White flame?” She snapped, “It’s an avatar, not like our actual bodies were on display up there or anything.”
“Actually, the avatars are very well programmed, each of your forms has been perfectly measured and transferred proportionately into the av…”
“Thank you, Jade,” Ronin said over the beetle, as he pretended not to see Elyria’s face go red. With a frown, he looked at his list. Several of the options had greyed out now that there where three ten-foot-tall blue skinned versions of themselves standing in front of them, “Hey, Jade?” He asked, his tone changing as he thought.
“Why did some of my options grey out when they each made their avatars?” He tried to click on one of them, but it wouldn’t let him do anything until he unclicked the oni. Then some of the options came back, but not all of them.
“Yea,” Elyria said. “My list has several greyed-out options as well, though when the White flame unselected his avatar some of them came back.” She frowned and looked over at their masked companion, “how bout you Five?” She asked, before trying again. “I mean, did your list do the same, Gunner?”
“It’s fine if you call me five, just not him.” Gunner mumbled, but she nodded to answer Elyria’s question.
“Excellent observation,” Jade said doing what Ronin swore was a happy dance. “The growth pods are pre-calibrated with enough organic material to create one of my kind, before they are refilled from cloning vats from the resources brought up from our terraforming trees…” It pulled itself together with apparent difficulty and shook its head. “Anyway… using the organic matter available, you can create bodies up too, but not exceeding the mass of one of my people.”
“I see,” Ronin said nodding. He scrolled down the list and picked out a goblin body, he changed it instantly to a kaldarr… he did not look good with green skin and red hair.
“Wait,” Gunner said, piping up for the first time without prodding. “We all have avatars materialized right now… So, why aren’t all the other options greyed out?” The Jade beetle looked so happy at the question it did its dance and then rushed over to Gunner and patted her on the head with its antenna. Gunner flinched but kept herself in check.
“So many good questions today, only the original humans, the ones who came and took our ship away from us to begin with, bothered with that… five of the thirty, I think? So, anyway… your right. You get to make as many bodies as there is material for. If you don’t have the consciousness here, then you can pull them from your stasis stone. Here, let me unlock the option for you.” Ronin exchanged glances with his companions again as the menu expanded to include what must be all the names of every person in Ronin’s pocket world.
“Let me get this straight,” Elyria said, partially to the beetle but also, it seemed to Ronin, just to think out loud. “The ‘growth pods’ are fitted with enough material to create a bee… one of your kind,” she corrected herself automatically, likely in a bid not to offend their host. “If the pods don’t use all the material, it gets flushed away when the creation process is done. So, after we make our bodies… we can, what, bring some more of our people from our world, or his world,” she amended with a head tilt Ronin’s way. “Is that even allowed? Will we get into trouble if we show up with more than the three of us?” That was a good question, Ronin’s excitement dimmed a bit at the thought that they couldn’t use the loophole they’d found.
“Of course, its allowed.” Jade said with a nod. “The people who created this event put it into the program to give themselves an advantage, but it wouldn’t have been fair if they didn’t make it available for everyone, would it? So, if you show up with a whole team, you’ll just be setting yourself apart from those who weren’t in the know and who were to dumb to figure it out… sure, it might put a target on your back for the powerful and the dumb alike… but still, it’s pretty cool right?” Ronin just stared at the overly enthusiastic beetle as it danced around. It talked so fast he had a hard time catching all the words, but overall, he couldn’t say he disliked the creature. Despite what its kind did to his planet, and that more than anything, surprised him.
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Having gotten confirmation, Ronin couldn’t stay focused on the beetle for long. He started scrolling down the list of names, looking for any he recognized.
“How much time do we get to choose?” Gunner asked, speaking out again. Oh man, Ronin hadn’t even thought about that. What if he’d gotten so wrapped up in choosing his add-ons that he didn’t even choose his own body?
“This chamber is time dilated. You’ll have as much time as you need. The ship has dedicated a good deal of its processing power to this venture. I mean, if we don’t do something the ^%&*& will show up and kill you right along with us, am I right?” The beetle froze after saying that. literally, it’s entire body going ridged, like it wasn’t a living being anymore, but a statue. “Oh, thank the great ship,” it said as it started moving again. “You already know. I’d have been erased for that little slip by now if you hadn’t… golly, that was close… So, yea, you get all the time you need. And if you have enough material left over to bring in some more people, they’ll be able to come and go for a test without affecting the timeline in your stasis stone at all.”
“Wow really?” Ronin asked, trying to take in all that the beetle had said in its rapid-fire mechanical voice. “But I’ve got my pocket world, eh, stasis stone? Set at a year to a day dilation right now, that won’t affect it?”
“Nope.” Jade said, “the ship is using a lot of its power on this. It's programed to protect its passengers as best it can after all, and being blown out of space with all hands-on deck would kind of go against that, ya know?”
While they had been talking, Gunner had been working her way through the options available to her on the screens. Ronin had noticed her avatar changing as she picked and discarded options. She’d settled on a shape similar to her own body, only it was covered in a carapace that looked very much like her scout armor, complete with helmet and equipment harness. Guns and knives were flicking into and out of existence now, as she fine-tuned her build.
“I’m ready to try this build,” she said after some minutes of working while the others just watched. “How do I get into it, and where will I test it?” Ronin couldn’t help but sigh. He didn’t know if Gunner was really this focused on her duty, or if she was just distracting herself. Still, he had to admit she was very efficient.
“Oh wow,” Jade said as it scampered around the body Gunner had made. “Interesting, a stealth build. I really like the chameleon carapace. That will help you blend right in, but you know you can’t take that off like armor, right? It will actually be your body, so…”
“How do I test it?” Gunner asked again, cutting the beetle off mid warning.
“Oh, well ok then,” Jade said with a huffing noise and a flick of its antenna. “There you go, little miss workaholic, have fun trying to get up there and collect resources… only, don’t die, ok? It’s kind of for real with you non beetles.” At its words, a crystal tree appeared some hundred yards away from them. Towering up, and up into the pure white void. It was difficult to scale the tree in this expanse, but Ronin remembered just how big they were.
Just like that, Gunner’s goblin body, wearing the mask faded from view, and the avatar began to move. It checked itself over, pulled out and test fired each weapon, or slashed the air with the knives, then practiced reloading for another few minutes. Ronin watched the process with fascination, until Gunner nodded to herself and took off towards the city sized crystal tree.
“Guess we should get a move on too,” Elyria said with a shake of her head. Ronin thought she was just as worried about the goblin’s mental health as he was, but she didn’t say anything about it. “Why don’t we make sure we have our bodies picked out, then worry about how much material is left to bring in some more of the syndicate’s people?”
“Works for me,” Ronin said with a nod. “Thank you, Jade. I’m going to check out the lists now. Can I ask you if I have any questions?” He finished, turning to the beetle.
“Of course,” it said with as cheery a tone as he’d ever heard from a voice synthesizer. “That’s what I’m here for after all.” Doing his best to ignore his scout, who’d faded mostly from his view upon reaching the tree, Ronin looked over his options in earnest.
The list was indeed extensive, but now that he understood the mass limitations, he dialed back his options to exclude anything that was too big. As fun a thought as it was to become as powerful as he assumed Staz to be, it didn’t make sense to use up too much mass. He was almost positive he’d be able to bring a whole scout team in place of one ogre mage, if he went by pure body size.
The last avatar he’d pulled up before he’d been distracted was that of a kaldarr warrior. He didn’t know if he liked the idea of having tusks though, and realistically speaking, did this body really matter that much? He thought about that as he scrolled through options.
After all, it couldn’t reproduce, so choosing a human body or one that was loyal to the humanoid anatomy anyway, was pointless. Not only that, but the point of this form wasn’t to stroke his vanity anyway. It was to gather enough resources so that he could survive the coming alien ship. Ronin had to take a breath and turn his thoughts away from that video, with his teeth ground together.
He didn’t like the idea of just abandoning everyone who was on the ship, not to mention all those who were still trapped on the ground and flying off with the rich and powerful in their escape ship. Still, what were his options, refuse to even participate? That would see him dead as surely as if he’d put his Mark V into his mouth and fired off a round. No, he had to do this. Perhaps there would be an opportunity to help people once he was outside the ship, but that wouldn’t happen if he didn’t participate at all.
“Fine then,” he muttered, setting his resolve. “It doesn’t have to be pretty; it just has to do the job without being too big. People are counting on me for this… even if they don’t know it.” Having settled his mind, Ronin pulled up his own form from his hotel. A tall, well defined muscular man with a full head of hair. Then he began making changes.
Sadly, the beetle’s tech wasn’t as advanced as the sci-fi / fantasy soup, he’d pulled from all his favorite books. Though it was impressive enough, considering it was real. Still, his cyborg body wasn’t an option. He could strengthen his bones and skin… but did he need the skin? Gunner had gotten rid of it completely, or at least covered it up with a thin carapace designed to blend in with her environment.
With that thought in mind, he started by covering himself with a thick carapace. Popping into the avatar to give it a few test moves didn’t prove too helpful. It was too bulky over his skin, more like being completely covered with fingernails, or something. Popping back out, he began modifying it further. Despite his earlier words, he couldn’t bring himself to do away with his face, so he left that and his hands as human.
He also kept his bone structure and human musculature, but in place of skin on the rest of his body he layered on a thick exoskeleton. It was similar to what he’d had before, but the pulling sensation he’d gotten while he moved around was absent. He took his time, popping into the body to feel it out, before making more tweaks. He wanted as much strength and protection as he could get, without sacrificing too much of his mobility. Sadly, the Jack of all trades was the master of none. That’s what his father had told him once anyway, so he ended up having to give up power to maintain his humanoid appearance.
Shifting into the avatar once more, he took a knife and smacked the back of it against his forearm. It bounced off, just like he’d hoped, but came back down and hit him in the unprotected flesh of his hand. With a sigh, he realized that was going to be too great a weakness, so he started modifying them as much as he could, without losing his manual dexterity. When he’d finished with them, it was very much like wearing his scout armor’s gloves. There was limited mobility, but it wasn’t bad enough to not be worth the trade off in protection.
Stepping back into his ship body, well, he supposed that until the avatar was finalized, they were both his ship bodies… anyway, stepping back into the body wearing a suit with flames on it… Ronin looked over his work. Unless the testing he was about to do showed any glaring weaknesses, this was what he would likely stick with.
It looked very much like a human in armor. White flame armor. He hadn’t been able to resist, not since it had become so central to his identity in his pocket world. The body was black, with grey flames that licked up the figure and slowly lightened until the tips of each flame was a brilliant white. He’d gone a little taller than he was now too, not much, just taken his five feet ten inches up to an even six feet.
his hands and feet were also covered in the carapace. His feet looked like they were covered in heavy boots, with thick, textured soles for maximum grip. His hands looked gloved in black, that also had the flame motif etched on them, and his fingers were tipped with short claws. Nothing outrageous, just enough to provide a better grip while climbing. Since, he had a feeling he’d be doing a lot of that soon.
He’d kept his human head, but had designed a sort of fold over carapace, which lay flat against his back and chest but would wrap up around his head, in something that looked very much like a helmet. He’d taken the idea from Jade’s wings. They were covered with a thick shell that had to be lifted out of the way for it to fly. This was a bit more intricate than that, but he couldn’t bring himself to give up his new face.
Once his body was done, he selected his weapons. He knew all too well how dangerous the crystal tree monsters were, and planned to be prepared when he went up against them. So, he followed Ow… Gunner, damn it. He followed Gunner’s example and chose an air powered rifle, or whatever served the beetles for air anyway. Unlike hers however, his was a short-range unit that carried limited ammunition between tank refills, or change outs, but packed a bigger punch with larger rounds. He’d seen the one she’d picked on the list. It would reach out a quarter mile and packed enough power to punch through thick carapace once it connected, but it wasn’t designed for close in work.
“Can’t believe you picked one of those things as your primary.” He heard Elyria say over his shoulder, and knew she was talking about his kanabo, not the rifle. He looked down at the five-foot-long heavy metal stick, which had short, blunted spikes coming out all along the three-foot-long business end of the weapon. He’d need both hands to wield it effectively, so he’d only been able to use a small buckler attached to his left arm as a shield, but he’d wanted the extra weight and power it would provide over the mace, when fighting the tree monsters.
“Well,” he said, turning around. “I like it…” He trailed off as he caught sight of Elyria for the first time. Her transformation wasn’t quite as drastic as his or Gunner’s, or maybe it was, but in an unusual way?
“What?” She asked with a smirk, as she flared her transparent wings wide behind her. “Never seen a moon elf with wings before?”
“I… honestly, can’t say that I have, no.” Ronin said as he took her in from head to toe. She’d kept her elven body, mostly. Her torso and limbs were covered in what looked like small scales that matched the skin tone on her hands and face. She’d covered the scales in her normal white flame armor, and what looked like a translucent cloak or shawl, and her back had a thin carapace backpack that hugged her tightly. Except, Ronin realized once she’d spread her wings that the backpack was a protective shell that hid much of their length. What wasn’t covered by the shell draped over her body like a cloak.
“They’re much bigger than I’d have thought they’d be from some of the old books I’d read.” He said after a long minute of staring. Not sure what else to say, since he didn’t think she’d enjoy complements from him very much.
“In order to lift my weight, they had to be this big.” She said with a shrug, “besides, I’ve always wanted to fly. Sparrow riding is nice, but it can’t beat having wings of your own… and after seeing how big the trees are we’ll be working on, well let’s just say I won’t be as scared to get knocked off now.” For that, Ronin didn’t blame her one bit.
“Now, if you’re done checking me out.” Elyria said, as she shouldered a rifle that matched Gunner’s. “Let’s see if we can catch up to Five.” With a powerful kickoff, from legs Ronin now realized were much stronger than her old ones, she took to the air. Grinning, Ronin snapped the kanabo onto his back and clipped his rifle onto his built-in equipment harness before taking off after her in a dead sprint.