When hurtling from high orbit towards the ground with only what you keep on your person, the first thing to remember is not to panic. That can be harder when you are only hurtling towards the pavement because some psychopathic personality embedded into the minds of an entire society uses one of the stupid action set pieces of your sister’s long dead best friend. As the wind blew wildly around her head, Katsi pondered if this is what Dean was used to. If this is why Sai was so harsh. Honestly, she was impressed at how beautiful the remaining sections of the city looked. It worried her that she wasn’t more terrified by this turn of events.
As she was falling, she heard Tai in her ear, “So, I got that information for you. There is only one Class 9 corrupter that it could be. A swarm of nano machines that reconstruct at a molecular level. I would tell you more, but I think you have other concerns. I put your odds of survival at about three percent. Since it looks like you have this under control, I’m going to save mom and Captain now.”
Great. All the sass of his father and the intelligence of his mother. There wasn’t much she could do with her current trinkets and tools for the falling, so she pulled out one of her smaller screwdrivers and started to tinker with the transformation device on her wrist. She didn’t have long before impact and if she survived that, she would need a plan. Nano machines means networking which means open, if encrypted communication channels. She would need to take a gamble on something she hardly understood, but if she was right then part two of the plan was already settled.
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As the visitor’s ship tumbled out of the open hanger like a dice from a cup, Anisa took to the controls easily. While different from the Ziegfried, they seemed intuitive for this design. Easy to pick up with even the slightest understanding of piloting. Even the interface, while foreign, felt oddly instinctive to her now. Maybe it was the recent sublimation, but the g forces pulling at her body were less concerning than before. Thankful for the powerful thrusters on the machine, Anisa managed to steady the machine. Unfortunately they weren’t very far off the ground when it left the hanger, so all of that ease only managed to keep the landing survivable. The layers of dirt and debris from the Ziegfried’s unceremonious landing buried them a little deeper than their own crash had.
Rattled and shook, but mostly okay, Anisa stood up only to get punched in the back of the head. Using the forward momentum to hit her attacker with a rising kick. Rolling forward to turn and face the assailant she was surprised to see the doctor glaring at her while wiping blood from her nose. The doctor growled, “Now isn’t the time but I need you to stop and think. Because whatever you are doing right now isn’t any better than her.”
Anisa confirmed without a moment of doubt, "Of course I'm no better than her. I'm just protecting you guys instead of myself. If you have issues with that, we can resolve that after we are done here." She pushed past the doctor without looking back and verbally jabbed, "You aren't yourself either. So I would figure that out real quick. We have a villain to face." She didn't have time to indulge in her doctor's concerns. They had a hive mind to slaughter before it finished its work and killed everyone. As she made her way to the back of the ship, Anisa touched the bracelet that she had been using to take on the form of Zora and whispered, "Twilight change." She couldn't explain how she knew what to say or that her abilities had changed at all, but her heart knew the words. Her new attire was made from black and orange interlocking plates, almost chitinous in appearance. Her helmet, while one continuous piece, was oddly insectoid, her once visor now two shaded domes like the eyes of a wasp. She drew her pistol and turned the power as high as she could, blasting a clear tunnel out to the surface as well as destroying quite a few buildings on the other side. It wasn't the first time. Stepping through the tunnel, she was unsurprised when three functionally identical clones were waiting for her. They began to speak but she simply blasted each into oblivion.
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A voice echoed in the air around her, the voice of her enemy. "Oh? I haven't seen this before. But this little shift of yours won't be enough, Zora. I am millennia older than you, far more experienced, and I have become something a brute like you can't do anything against." She waited for the moment it happened. Where Tak'Nasi arrived as an army of disposable clones. Worthless copies unable to stand to a genuine article. It was as the ground began to soften beneath her feet that she realized that she may have slightly underestimated her foe. The voice laughed as the ruins of the city began to melt like ice in the sun. "Thanks to my new tool, I can become a walking grey goo event!" As the terrain reshaped into various forms of weapons and automata, Anisa felt her instincts for survival rise to the surface. "I will love to assimilate your mind into our hive! Until then, let's stress test these powers of yours. For research purposes of course." Anisa dove between every shot fired at her with relative ease, but getting a clear shot with her blaster was slowly getting harder and harder. She would get a shot off, destroy an entire swath of the landscape and weapons only for more to rise in their place. And she didn't know why, but she suspected this was all a ploy to buy time. Right now, survival was all she had on her mind.
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Katsi had just about accepted that she was going to make sudden deceleration when she landed on what felt like a flowing jet of water. She felt it carry her up, but she felt it clinging to her as she was carried into the open air. Checking it out, it looked like liquid metal. The nanites! It had to be. She felt them try to coat and absorb her but she laughed nervously, "Sorry boys. I'm not on the menu." She made her way to the edge of the 'spout' and recognized it as the side of a skyscraper that was being broken down. Unsure of her odds of survival either way, she took a deep breath and began to run down the ever dissolving side of the skyscraper, the gold and glass bending under her feet with each step. As she ran, she tried to remember Dean, Trinta, Ett, everyone who was counting on her to get out of this alive. She was going to find a way to save everyone. She wasn't going to let anyone die not this time. They would fix this together. Diving from the side of the building with only about thirty feet left before the ground, she managed to crash into the ever softening ground. While still scuffed and hurt, she was alive. And that was better than dying as a pancake. She wondered if Tak'Nasi knew she was all the way out here. It didn't take long before two sneering clones gathered around her. She laughed nervously, "Hey, can I get a head start?"