"Is everyone ready? This is going to spit out a bajillion drones, each with calibrated lasers. Each one is not that powerful in itself, but they coordinate like a hive mind and focus attacks, which make them dangerous." Yuki warned as she retracted a tether from the panel. "Okay Gus, it's your show,"

Gus turned and nodded to the others. "This is the first time we've hacked an airborne hub, so be careful. We'll draw them away, but don't take any chances.

"Now you're sure this isn't illegal..." Anastasia asked, her knuckles white as she gripped the handles of her psiycle.

"No. It's highly illegal. But we need the data inside to keep searching for Sanura's daughter. No one will see us and this hub is all automated, so we won't have to hurt anyone." Yuki said. Anastasia bit her lip but nodded.

"In three, two, one...go!" Gus ordered.

Darik opened a portal and Yuki dove inside. He crouched close against the side of the hub with magnetic grips. Metal vents directly below him opened up almost immediately, and thousands of metallic roaches belched out the sides of the hovering diamond-shaped hub like a waterfall. They quickly began flying and swarming as the Crew retreated back. Aurora detonated an Ion Storm in the midst of the densest part of the swarm. Thousands of drones fell and disappeared among the clouds. Beams streaked by her and a large contingent set off to chase her.

Anastasia snared two plumes of the flying insects and slammed them together. She crushed them into a tight ball, then letting it drop before scooping up another swath of the bugs. She too had to take evasive actions and let them go as she sped away to flee the tiny beams.

Gus launched Jet into the roiling mass that was getting darker and denser by the minute, despite their efforts. Sanura flew into the breach, twin blades flaring. She rode twin hover discs and looked like an ice-skater with how she curved and arced through the cloud of drones. The orange glow around her blades visible as she carved a tunnel through them. With a flash she burst through the far side and turned and dove in again, blades reflecting the beams and melting metal bodies effortlessly. Her arms were a blur as she kept swinging.

Gus dropped the Ether Leash, and Jet went on in a similar fashion, twisting and flipping like a drill bit in a pinball machine, jumping erratically and cutting through the insects. After firing Krackle into a dark cloud below him, he could hear the drones pelting against his shield, like heavy hail before they ricocheted off.

"There's too many!" Anastasia cried as she dodged another swarm trailing her.

"Just a bit more..." Yuki replied. "There! Go Darik!"

Darik opened another portal and Yuki leaped out like a gymnast. She spun like a high-diver and yelled "Manifest!" What happened next was a blur, Yuki kept spinning but when she slowed, she was no longer a human, but a large hornet. The large beady eyes turned toward the swarm and then Yuki split two large yellow mandibles and began to disgorge her own swarm. The two clouds collided and mingled, but it was soon obvious who the victor would be. The hornets swarmed and crawled around the roaches and targeted the wing actuators, severing wings then moving on to other prey. Without the ability to fly, even with one wing, the forces were rapidly being depleted. While many of the hornets were burned to a crisp, the smaller enemies were harder to target and were faster to boot.

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A yell of frustration drew Gus' attention away from the fighting near the hub, which had stopped dispensing drones. Grimdark had a target lock on him and more and more of a pursuing swarm were training their beams on him, compensating despite how he attempted to evade them on his psiycle. Gus dove to intercept, pushing HP to bolster his shield back to max. He collided with the front of the pack and his shield flared then popped.

Explosions of pain racked Gus' body, and he began to plummet from the air. Had he been hit? His Resilience ability activated and created a wall between him and the pain. He was able to regain his senses and stop his descent. His watch flickered light strobing out in irregular intervals, and Gus felt a ripping sensation on his skin that simultaneously itched and burned. A familiar pressure sensation was building, but he was not near a level that would trigger a fractal unfolding.

It was the same arm he had used to hold Mengele just days ago. Gus felt time slow, not completely as before, but in exaggerated slow motion. Grimdark sped off, target lock broken and Sanura attacked this branch of the swarm head-on, molten metal sliding off the end of her blades like melted wax. Even at a slower pace, Sanura twisted and turned her forearms and wrists, and it appeared like a delicate dance executed by a master.

Slowly sound resumed its normal pitch and time snapped back to its usual pace. Gus looked at his hands in front of him. The left one was obviously bigger. Following it up to his shoulder, he could see that the entire arm was larger, muscles more pronounced, bulging out of his suit. He felt like Frankenstein's monster with someone else's arm cobbled onto his body. He joined the others as they mopped up the rest of the drones.

Gus pursed his lips as the snickers started.

"Is it really that bad?" Gus said.

The others let loose with suppressed laughter. Clouds boiled away and their laughing was drowned by the rumbling of the corsair emerging from below them. Gus got a temporary reprieve from hearing the laughter but Darik had to be literally crying with how much he was laughing. A panel yawned open and everyone moved inside.

After it had sealed shut, cutting the noise, the laughs were trailing off, thankfully.

BoJack came out of a booth and began examining Gus. "What happened?"

"He saved me, and then this," Grimdark said, the only one of the Crew not laughing. "He stopped those filthy bugs and somehow they did...this,"

"Don't blame yourself Grimdark, I think this is a going-away present from Mengele. It's a long story, but my father and mother made a deal with him a long time ago to save my life. I think he's undone that at least partially." Gus said, scratching his head, the sensation odd with his enlarged arm.

Grimdark nodded but scowled at those still chuckling. Darik walked up and patted Gus on the back.

"Now don't take it too hard, lad. Although, you might want to pace yourself..." the short man's eyes watered with repressed mirth, "or you might go blind!"

Gus rolled his eyes as peals of laughter spilled out again. "Bring it on. Is that the best you got?" Gus challenged the others.

"Don't forget leg day," a female voice quipped.

"It wasn't me, it was the one-armed man!" someone choked out amid the laughter. Gus stopped and took a good look at himself as he saw his reflection in a mirrored-glass window.

"I look like flipping Trogdor!" Gus said in disbelief.

"It's a normal healthy arm, just wrong proportions in relation to the rest of your body. I wish I could do more," BoJack said, finishing his assessment.

Nick can I use Mimic on myself?

It's possible, give it a try. Nick replied mentally.

Gus focused on the large arm and tried to imagine it appearing the same as the other. Like a leaky tire, the arm appeared to deflate until Gus was proportional again. Checking his display, his MP regeneration had slowed but was still filling. It appeared that with so little to copy the MP usage was less than typical.

"How did you do that?" BoJack asked, almost dumbstruck. "Did you get a new ability I don't know about?"

"It's just an illusion. But I need to figure out what I'm going to do if this happens again."

"See ya slowpokes, Sanura and I are going to look through this new data and pick up the trail," Yuki said as she walked down the hallway.

"Let us know what you find," Gus called after her.

"You don't have to strong-arm me..." she said not even looking back.

"Hells to the bells," Gus sighed.