Zwei clawed at the liquid metal trying to force its way down her throat as she was falling, her body spiraling uncontrollably as she fell. She heard the blade speak to her.
You need to breathe and block out the panic. Remember, your mind is the edge of your blade.
She remembered Master Phoenix had been teaching her something similar. Closing her eyes and focusing on that fire she had felt deep under the surface so many times before. That scarlet flame that burned even now. In fact, as the fear of both this invasive material and the fall seemed like it was going to overtake her mind, the flame seemed to burn ever brighter. Her body relaxed and began to feel the air flowing around her, her limbs cutting through the air like a knife. As the metal tried to swallow her, she could feel her blade trying to break free from the seal, the ruby lock rattling in the open air. Zwei let out a slow and heavy breath, steam leaving her mouth as she was doing so. She felt her eyes grow sharp and her body beginning to feel the world around her for what felt like the first time. She imagined Kuntaret would approve. She could hear Ett telling her to be careful. She could feel the cold focus of Shi overtake her heart and the raw force of Hepta coiling in her gut, ready to strike down this fraud. None of them were truly there, but she could feel their potential and their example tempering her in this moment of crisis. Despite this, she felt the claws of Tak'Nasi trying to grasp her mind and psyche. Stealing what she earned. What she built. To send her once more into oblivion.
We can beat her. We can turn the tide.
Not without a moon. A full moon would be the only sure thing.
A strong heart behind the edge of a sharp mind can make anything a reality. You just have to have the courage to act.
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She took shelter in the ship as her captain's new cold eyes defied impossible odds.
Alone.
But she wasn't. Not anymore. She had them. Katsi, Sai, Dean, Pine, Gavin, and... herself.
Tai spoke from her device, "Hello, mother. I gave Katsi what information I could about the material that The Original is using... are you okay? You look scared."
She nodded, "I don't know how to explain it, but..."
Tai laughed, "It's okay, mother. You are yourself. A unique instance in the entire cosmos. She tried to take you and you pushed her away by your own will alone."
She shook her head, "I had help. I had people I could rely on. People who inspired me."
Tai nodded, "And you inspired me. I was going to do the heavy lifting but you took over like it was nothing. So show the captain. Show her who you have found deep in yourself."
She looked at the emergency device on her wrist, noticing it was glowing with a soft red glow, pulsing in its housing as if begging her to make use of it.
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Tak' Nasi watched from a distance in a camouflaged blind she had built for herself with the nano machines she had reprogrammed. Sita had made a wonderful trojan horse, giving her access to the records of what that foolish man had tried to do. All for nothing it seemed as all he had done was remove the hypnotic triggers. Since the rest of the package was buried in their minds, her newest tool was able to bypass that stupid 'break their mind' nonsense and get right to hijacking their bodies. Now if she could get enough data on this Zora character she could find out how to integrate other life forms into the hive as well. The ironic part to all of this was that she hadn't even considered creating a hive mind out of her little experiment until she found this weapon. Why he would take something so immensely useful and try to use it simply to derail her experiment and nothing else was beyond her. The unlimited potential in the hands of someone like herself was something he simply hadn't considered. Most don't. Simple minds find simple uses. The truly great can reshape even the face of nature with naught but the simplest flames.
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She was also pursuing that other girl to get what data she could on that one. Trinta's knowledge base told her that this girl was a rather skilled inventor. If she can be assimilated then whatever mad schemes she has tucked away could be added to her own vast repository.
A lesser mind could never spread themselves this thin. Never have this consistency of purpose or vision. And with her conditioning and experimentation, this was the best possible outcome. A highly compatible organic hive mind capable of adaptation and gathering information from multiple sources at once. It took true genius to embrace this amount of information without cracking under the pressure into madness. By her count, she had collected all but three of the reconditioned clones. A shame their knowledge was lost but it could be replaced. It was then that she realized that one of the numbered ones had just vanished from the network completely. Uplink was unsuccessful? Another outlier. Deletion would be the most effective solution, but perhaps it would be easier to find out these weird glitches by analyzing them personally.
She began to incorporate the data from Zora's blaster into the weapons she was making to test her, hoping that raising the destructive power would help her to get a better idea of the durability of her query. As she continued to process, she saw the outlier from the medbay walk out of the ruined ship. Oh, good. That data wasn't going to be lost. Trying to re-link with the nanites in her system, she began to get multiple alerts. Had this clone made some kind of virus for the nano machines? How quickly had she made that? Cutting the connection, she was able to quickly isolate the digital virus and keep the system secure. Still, this was a concern.
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"Tak'Nasi! I am no marionette dancing on your strings. I am Narine. and you no longer define nor bind me." As the weapons began to focus their attention on her, she lifted her device and said, "Bloom, Narine!" A shining flash a pale red light filled the air and threw off the targeting systems for a moment and when they could see again, the air was full of what seemed like shining embers like petals of flowers all around them. Anisa was thrown off by the sudden change in the air herself, unsure of what to make of it. She was surprised to see her ships doctor holding an almost roselike shield, energy petals falling away behind her as she began to block the shots striking the two of them. Narine spoke firmly, "She is playing with us right now. She has us outnumbered and these Nanites are tougher than she is letting you believe. We can't waste energy on these. We need to beat her and every iteration of her."
Anisa nodded, "Yeah, but she is nowhere to be seen and she isn't going to just show herself to us."
Narine shook her head, "She might, but it will be a gamble. If I could find a way to attack her nano machines then I could force her out into the open but they are on a very low range frequency. They practically have to be touching to upload anything locally that might be able to break her hold. Anything longer range than that and she can block the frequency and counteract it."
When it seemed like it was the two of them against the world, the sky grew dark and a scarlet moon formed in the sky. A female figure with pure white hair landed in front of them covered in an oddly metallic armor. Her breath let off steam that they hadn't seen the like of. It was only as she grabbed the handle of the sword they had seen Zwei holding that they recognized her. "You stand before Valk Zwei." The lock on the sheath shone the same shade of blood red as the moon above them before shattering, a wave of energy blasting away the nanites. Leveling her blade on the horizon, she demanded, "Face your daughters, Tak'Nasi. Answer to the blade you gave birth to."