Tak'Nasi's clones stared on in surprise as some of the nanites began to stream towards the rubble Katsi had just been thrown in. As Anisa's power began to overflow with despair they focused most of their energy on that, but as more and more nanites began to flow towards the rubble, it became impossible to ignore. Tak'Nasi's lapse of attention was all it took for Anisa to break free from her restraints. Before the clone knew it, she was erased. Not a single sign of life, organic or machine, remained of her. A dark wave of energy that cut beyond the horizon, a blade of shadows in her hand. This despair was broken when a familiar voice broke the air. "I cannot believe that worked." Anisa turned to see her sister lifting the rubble off herself, a strange golden metal like the nanites starting to cover her body, the device on her arm shining with as soft golden light that seemed to grow more rich as time went on. She adjusted the tricked out transformation device on her wrist as it was eventually incorporated into the growing metal armor. Anisa stared in disbelief as the metal began to spread to Katsi's head, pressing her hair against her body and making a mask that covered all but her eyes and mouth. Tak'Nasi watched as light red lenses formed over Katsi's eyes and an odd ovoid pack formed on her back, a seam up the middle. Katsi laughed, "Alright, let's see what we are working with."
Tak'Nasi demanded, "How did you reprogram the nano machines? How did you survive that spear to the chest? You should have bled out! Answer me!"
Katsi looked up absentmindedly, "One moment. I'm getting my bearings." The drones tried to attack her, but the pack opened, dragonfly like wings quickly carrying her out of their reach. Katsi eventually answered, "Okay. Rude. But I had an NFC transmitter in my transformation device." Tak'Nasi was bewildered by this, leaving every clone in arms reach vulnerable for a moment, but Anisa was so confused by this development herself that she hadn't the ability to take advantage of it, the blade of shadows vanishing from her hand. It wasn't long before the weapons that had once been aimed at the three warriors were now all trained on the flying golden figure.
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Katsi was buried deep in the rubble. Her blood was leaving her body and the warmth was leaving her. Despite this, the nanites she hadn't shaken off yet, finally reached her device. She smiled as the crystal began to shine within its fitting. She focused every bit of energy she had left into it. All her love. All her regrets. Everything she was. This wasn't going to work, but she needed to try. She wanted to save them more than anything. She would find a way to do it. She had to.
As her earnest wish reached the crystal, the gem began to broadcast her feelings through the device, and the nanites seemed to respond. It wasn't many at first, but it didn't need to be. Their rate of communication was startling to most people, but it was enough for Katsi. They turned gold as they all shared the information with each other, all bound together in the spirit of her genuine love. As she reflected on this, she felt some climb her to form shades, their scarlet lenses providing her all kinds of information that she wasn't sure she was processing due to the bloodloss. Thinking of a way to repair her wounds, she was surprised to see how well her plan had worked. More nanites were joining the ones on her. Too bad she was going to die before she could help everyone. As she waited for death she began to realize the warmth was returning to her. Her less blurred vision showed a readout. Apparently the information they had shown her was gleaned from her connection to Dean. Despite being The Man Unbroken he seemed to know a lot about stabilizing fatal injuries. As she looked over more information from that connection, she saw all he knew about the crystals and asked the system if they could restructure the crystal. As soon as they confirmed they could, at a cost to build efficiency, she put them to task. She didn't need large scale building. Realizing she could access Dean's knowledge base from her emotional bond with him alone, she began to move the rubble off herself and continued to access data stream after data stream of people she cared about. No personal secrets or dark histories. Just their knowledge on various subjects and areas of expertise, which was perfect. All these references and sources she could have spent a lifetime never being able to collect. All of them right here. All of her friends and family bound together in this one purpose.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
The outfit was Sai's insights paired with Dean's. By creating a striking outfit and motif that covered over most of her normal appearance, she could use the Marvelous Dragonfly effect to her advantage. Not to mention the more of her body was covered in nanites the better her defenses and the more parts of her person she could produce tools and weapons from.
The Lenses over her uniform were the input of Tak... or was it Narine now? Either way, the armor could do most of the work for her if she was occupied elsewhere and she could have full access to the various bits of data without it stopping her from seeing where she was going. Easier for referencing using eye tracking technology.
She had never heard of the Batta scale before now, but she could see it now. These Nanites were absolutely the correct angle to strike at her from. The more of them that Katsi could convert or disable the more she could back Tak'Nasi into a corner. It was only when she saw in Narine's knowledge base how Tak'Nasi was controlling the girls that Katsi realized she was being attacked. Taking to the air on dragonfly wings, more impulse at this stage than an intentional design choice, she made her comment. She knew that Tak'Nasi wasn't going to believe it. But it was the only way. A small localized data transmission to just a few nanites through a living power source like the crystal in her emergency transformation device was the only way she could think of to bypass any firewalls. If these nanites could coordinate and reproduce the way they were, then they would need some way to communicate locally as well as at a larger scale. She was glad she had installed it to get better feedback on the crystal, but that was a dangerous gamble. Never again. Seriously.
She knew she didn't have long before Tak'Nasi figured out she was being honest and closed off the nanites from transmitting to each other. If she wanted to try and save her prisoners, it was going to have to be now. She flew over the battlefield, weaving through the gunfire with relative ease due to her high elevation. For a brilliant mind, she was truly a one trick pony. Katsi however was a gambler who didn't mind taking chances. When the boom didn't go off, it was frustrating as it was an unrefined crystal in the hands of the enemy. But now that she had succeeded here, she wondered if she could still use it to her advantage. When she saw the clone with the glowing crystal, she fired at them. The nanites on her began to convert around the area of impact and the crystal began to glow. Katsi flew off before Tak'Nasi could full process what had just happened, but knowing it can't be good, she forcefully rejected the crystal and the traitorous nano machines. The machines began to engulf the gem, much to the bafflement of Tak'Nasi who again began to feel less than she had before without knowing why.
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Narine found herself once more in the lab. Once more in the tube. She stepped out to shattered glass only to look and see countless more chambers this time. Some of them we beating against the glass and yet others were resigned to their fate. None of them seemed to have any idea she was there. Narine looked at all of her sisters and realized the problem... She had been consumed again. Face to face with all the people she continued to try to escape. That she had continued to try and abandon. But she kept finding herself here. Among her sisters, just another face in the crowd. But she was not this. Even now, they were all trapped by these circumstances. Trapped by their own identities, unwilling to cut ties with that history, or perhaps unable to for other reasons. The irony wasn't wasted on her. Here she was, glad to be rid of the title. To have a name and identity of her own, but by that virtue being the only one who could free her siblings. Free from the shackles of a dead woman who had lived far too long, guiding their thoughts not just from birth but actively in their memories. She approached one of the tubes and ran her finger along it, a little surprised as she saw a line begin to form and the fluid inside began to spill out through it. Thinking quickly, desperately, she traced a square on the tube and stepped away, the panel falling out, and the clone of Tak'Nasi falling forward.
Narine pulled them out and did CPR until the fluids were entirely out of their lungs. Various instances of the scientist that she had seen when she was last here seemed too invested in other work to give her a second glance as she did this. Whatever was going on outside of here was clearly not going to plan and they seemed to be in a blind panic at whatever stimuli they were observing. As she lifted the woman to her feet, the clone asked, "Where am I?"
Narine introduced herself, "I am Narine and we are going to get everyone out of here." She didn't know how but she couldn't give up. Katsi was dead and Anisa broken. There was no one but her left to save her family and to destroy this horrible monster of a woman from within.