Inside was a giant Human-like brain surrounded by smaller, tributary brains. The smaller ones definitely did not look Human but he suspected the central, giant brain one was. Or once had been Human at least. Instead of the half-half segmentation of a Human brain it was separated into quarters.
On a whim, and perhaps leaning into the whole death-messiah thing, he pushed his hands through and separated the quartered brain.
At the center of the four quarters was a pearl-looking bead roughly as wide across as two thumbs and nearly perfectly spherical. Jack heard someone clear his throat and he looked up.
The fight had been over… for how long? He felt a little embarrassed but pushed that thought aside to raise his fist in the air. Another sweep of a squeaking roar and ‘Black’ ‘Jack’ ‘Death’ swept through the room. Rats gorged themselves on the scattered crabs.
“Rattigan.”
“Yes, BlackJack?”
Jack turned to the side and barely managed to suppress the start, how was the Rat that fast and that silent when he was that big? Jack eyed the Champion RatMan. The fight had ripped through parts of his robes showing rippling muscled fur and the ManRat couldn’t suppress the wild, insane grin on his mousy face. He was absolutely drenched in crab ichor.
“Did any escape?”
Rattigan smiled even wider, “No BlackJack. Next outpost will not suspect for some time. Scouts, warnings sent out. Will not arrive.”
“Jonah, did you pick up Leanne?”
He shook his head.
The RatMen were looking at him again, “The Death Pearl Honored BlackJack.”
Jack opened his fist and looked at it then back at Rattigan, he was also holding out Jack’s sword in proffered hands.
There was no way he could swallow this thing and he did not want to choke to death. That would be criminally embarrassing and even worse there’s no way that choking half to death trying to get it down wouldn’t tank his reputation as ‘BlackJack’.
Jack grabbed his sword, “Jonah, where is the stomach located?”
“Under the ribs on the left side why-”
Jack plunged his blade where Jonah had indicated and carved a line into his flesh and plunged his hand with the pearl inside him. He found the open cavity and left it there then sent a burst of electricity to repair the damage, it took a good bit. He was now feeling a bit dizzy.
“Oh yeah that’s the stuff!” Jack winced slightly as the SI screamed in his ear, he had forgotten it was even there.
Hiding his dizziness, he turned back to Rattigan, “Power, I want it.”
Rattigan turned and yelled out a deep squeak, small RatMen covered in black metal contraptions ran forward then kneeled and bowed with exposed wires outstretched. Jack touched one after another until the current warped visibly on the surface of his skin before barely settling inside him. He could definitely get used to a battery wielding entourage, this was some VIP treatment and Jack was absolutely okay with it. It was about time.
Rattigan had gone away to prepare the horde for the next part, if Jack understood it right it should be a similar setup to this outpost, perhaps a bit larger.
“Why are you looking at me like that? When in the death-cult, act like the death cultists.”
Jonah seemed unconvinced, “Do you even know what you directly injected into your stomach?”
Jack didn’t and he shrugged, “Unless this is your way of telling me, then no, I have no idea.”
“Huh- Wh- Did you not just deal with the consequences of ingesting things you shouldn’t have?! I’m not carrying you again.”
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Jack had brutally repressed that question and its considerations in his mind the moment he said it, “Whatever, we’re moving, let’s go.”
Jack took off in the direction the Rats were traveling. The small mouse had relocated to Jonah’s shoulder after Jack had accidentally electrocuted her by grabbing the first charging cable back in the Grand Hall. She squeaked loudly in Jonah’s ear. “Yes yes, quiet now, we’re following.”
----------------------------------------
The second outpost had proceeded much as the first, the primary difference being that Jack had decided to turn the crab-IED into a thrown explosive that fortunately managed to explode right on the Tactician and half blinding it from the start. The pendulum of his luck was finally starting to swing in his favor.
He watched Rattigan fight against the leader crab. This Rat was definitely faster than him and now, unfortunately, it looked like it might be physically stronger than him as well. The ManRat dodged and wove and bullied against the shaky footing of the Tactician, taking advantage of its missing eye-stalks and blind spots to weave around it. Looking closer, his overall speed had decreased but there was a new level to the Death Champion ManRat's explosive strength.
Jonah came up to his side, “Looks like he’s going to give you trouble.”
He grunted indeterminately in response. He didn’t need Jonah to tell him that.
Jonah started muttering and began applying an ancient-Human tech solution, banging his hand against his newly built portable, “Damn thing!”
He looked over, then pulled out the AI disk and tapped it against the screen. Jonah looked at him with a violated look before diving back into his portable, “What did you do?... It has my old data. None of my mycelial data though!”
Jack was still watching Rattigan dismantle the Tactician crab and shrugged, “That’d make sense, I put it against your portable when we were floating on the giant crab.” He hadn't been quite so sure as to why he had done that, but maybe he had subconsciously done it for a reason. Or maybe the AI disk had inserted some compulsion in his last Constitution Upgrade. That thought came and strangely swept away without much concern.
He heard enough repeated huffing that he looked out of the corner of his eye, Jonah looked mad.
“Well I could have not done that and you’d have lost all that and not gotten anything back.” Jack hadn’t known that it would help but with technological stuff, it definitely seemed like his AI disk had more answers than any one Human. That made sense.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Jack grimaced a bit as Rattigan caught a pincer about to clasp over him and, with tensed muscles and a handpaw on each side of claw, ripped them apart, cracking through the chitin through to the base of the joint.
A chittering scream seemed to build up and rip out of it as every Rat around winced at the same moment.
“Why did everyone flinch at that last scream?”
Jonah was typing on his portable, “I… I don’t know but I think it had some extra component to it…” Jonah trailed off. Jonah had seen faint waves of a familiar energy emanate from the big crab, so why hadn't he felt anything?
He was staring at Jack.
“What?”
He looked to the AI disk still in Jack’s hand, Jack raised it and looked at it then tapped it against Jonah’s portable for the second time in as many minutes. He crossed his arms and turned back to Rattigan’s one-sided fight.
Overall, the fight was wrapping up, this ‘outpost’ had been bigger than the first but that hadn’t made a difference, their ranks had been replenished and more on the way. Between unknown thousands of swarming Rats in a massive horde and various Rat scouts picking up groups along the way, their force was in a constant state of gorged swelling. The musky odor was starting to really become noticeable.
“Hurry it up Rattigan! Stop playing with your food!”
A chittering laugh rippled out at Jack’s words and spread through the ManRats watching the fight.
Rattigan turned slightly to meet Jack’s eyes as he grinned then ripped off another leg, sending the creature down to the floor.
“It wasn’t an attack, it was some sort of communication, I would describe it as a message that traveled on a ‘Psy-band’ of sorts.” Jonah couldn't see them very well but he recognized that ripple of Psy-energy. He still remembered the BioPrison's Psy-User well. After all it had been, what? A few days since then? An unfamiliar feeling entered his mind at that. It really hadn't been that long since this all started to spiral out of control. A deep sense of 'moving too fast' started to swell and bring a wave of anxiety with it. Jonah burned a few small traces of IQ Nano to divert his thoughts.
Jack raised his eyebrow, “What are you talking about?”
Jonah sighed but Jack missed that as well. The end had finally come, Jonah’s voice faded in the squeaking shouts of ‘death’ that surrounded them.
He wondered if Rattigan was going to repeat his earlier feat but was surprised when the Rat threw away his daggers and climbed on top. The future monstrosity of a ManRat brought his fists together and stretched upward before slamming them down on the chitin. The first time Jack barely could make it out but it was there. A crack. Again, this time the cracking sound was heard clearly through the competing sounds surrounding them. At the third hit the top of the shell shattered and Rattigan drove a fist inward and brought up the brain-pearl.
Jack whistled and cheered along the other Rats as Rattigan held it out to offer it to Jack. Jack pointed back toward him. Rattigan swallowed it in one go then brought his hands up as he threw chunks crab-brain out to the squeaking crowd. They were working themselves up into a frothing mess.
I’m definitely going to have to kill-
“You do know you’re going to have to kill him right?”
Jack turned to the Trash SI on his shoulder.
“Yeah, I’m aware.”
“Then why do you insist on constantly feeding him things?”
That was a good question, Jack thought he had a pretty good answer, “I’m hoping that one of them will cause him to eventually collapse.”
“Trash, idiot, stupid half-breed. You don’t think I’ve already been trying that with Rattigan for years at this point?”
Jack froze momentarily at that statement. Shit.
“What do you mean ‘you’ve been trying it for years’?”
“What did I just say monkey? Rats are incredibly adaptable at a genetic level.”
“More than Humans?”
“Crabs are stable, Rats are adaptable.”
“What about Humans?”
“Shitty middle ground. Still the best though.”
Jonah’s voice cut through the thoughts, “Jack? That Psy-‘call’ the crab sent out, I finished calculating the rate of decay. It spread incredibly far.”
“So they know we’re coming.”
“It might not have reached the main force but I’m assuming some crab, somewhere, has picked it up.”
A ding chirped out at the beginning of Jonah’s sentence and Jack missed most of his words as well as the confused grumbling Jonah released in regards to his own reduced perception of the psychic signal. That was the second thing Jonah was trying to figure out, he hadn't as of yet.
Jack looked over himself, unable to find the source of the sound. It was followed by a haptic vibration, a purr almost, from his Gauntlet. On the inside of it, across the single-lined screen:
MORAB NFELZI: 70%
“Nice.” Jack had forgotten about this aspect of his Gauntlet almost completely. He deployed the pink-energy GreatShield, it consumed significantly less electricity.
“Morab-”
The Gauntlet vibrated again.
“Morab?”
The Gauntlet purred twice, in quick repetition.
“Is… that its name?” A soft vibration was followed by another chime. The screen had changed.
MORAB NFELZI: 75%
Was there some sort of cooperation angle to this? Integration? Jack’s lips twisted, he didn’t really have a great track record with relationships.
“Well. Welcome to the team, Morab.” Jack held off making his statement a question.
Great. His first assumption was that this was some other type of AI/SI/alien computer and he already had more of those tagging along than he wanted.
The AI disk; the Trash-SI constantly digging fresh holes in his shoulder; and now his Gauntlet. Maybe at one point he would have liked that fact but from his Gauntlet? The one that was seemingly impossible to remove? No, he liked the thought of it being a mindless, super-difficult to damage 'normal' gauntlet.
He could ditch the AI disk or the Trash-SI out an airlock if it came to that, but the Gauntlet, aka his arm? He really didn't have any further desire to continue losing limbs. The AI disk was tight-lipped, the Trash was annoying and the Gauntlet was… well, he was sure it had some personality defect as well. Even if the machine intelligences were helpful, if they would all just stop communicating with him he’d be perfectly comfortable with th-
“Dumb Human, did you hear my question?”
Jack inhaled quickly through his nose and let it out softly and turned his head to the Skull riding his shoulder, “What do you want Trash?”
“Give me some more Nano.”
Jack debated but something caught his eye… he looked back at Rattigan. The Rat was clutching its head. Jack couldn't see what exactly was going on but, when asked, Jonah told him that wavy, warped bands of reality were wiggling out in waves from between its grasping paws. Why couldn't he see that at all?
If he was creating one monster, why not another? “Sure.”
He opened the Magno-Tube, he always left them open knowing that they would automatically close after filling themselves from surrounding Nano; then he jammed its opened end into the mouth hole of the metal skull.
“What were you saying Jonah?”
“Oh? You’re sure you’re not going to get distracted with some new trinket? Or is your baby SI going to want another bottle?”
Jack scoffed at that but then looked at his hand and the SI. It was kind of like he was feeding him a bottle. The SI was even including soft smacking noises. Jack stopped himself from smiling at that. Almost entirely. Jonah jumped aside from a distracted eye-laser from the Skull.
“No no, you have my full attention.”
“Psy-message. Sent. Crabs. Likely. Ready.-”
“For us. Yeah, I got it, thanks Jonah.”
“Rattigan! We’re heading out.”
The Rat rose to its feet, dizzy. It nodded toward Jack then it stumbled off shouting orders.
“Anyone know which way we’re going?”
Jonah looked expectantly at him, “You didn’t just hear your chief Rat communicate with you? WITH HIS MIND?”
That surprised him, “No. I didn’t get anything like that? Are you sure?”
Jonah just shook his head and pointed in a direction and Jack took off at a steady pace.
Maybe he really had created a monster. Maybe he just had to add a few more things to the pot and it’d solve his problem. Probably. Hopefully.
“I can see your monkey brain turning, you really are dead set on creating a monster aren’t you?”
Jack was a bit surprised at that, but yeah, kind of. He really needed Rattigan as strong as possible.
In no particular order was the fact that he’d be fighting untold numbers of crabs; three crab-hybrids, one that was a complete unknown, which now that he was thinking about it, could be four at this point, including Tule.
That would bring it up to three crab-hybrids that were likely as strong as he was, or close enough to count, and Tule who he was less than confident at defeating.
That didn’t even include the regular hybrids or whatever other types of mutated crabs there were.
He had… Jonah. An insane SI that only possessed an oversized head. And maybe Leanne but that was a toss-up whether or not she was even alive anymore. And Rattigan, who was probably as strong, or stronger than him right now. A sense of morbid curiosity also had him wondering where Rattigan’s line was between puddle of goo and overpowered super ManRat monster.
He grinned, “Shut up Trash,” and picked up his pace. The next stop was far away, back to Cryo.
Or somewhere below it. Or below adjacent. Thinking about the layout of the ship was confusing, at best.