The first power she experimented with was Plasmoid Queen.
Asteria even helpfully explained what a plasmoid was in the first place. A species of hyper-adaptable shapeshifters that usually looked like globs of brightly colored jello. They were known for their ability to eat almost anything and absorb their traits for themselves.
Taylor was, in essence, the ultimate Changer.
She changed to her most basic form, a blob of nebula jelly around a foot or so across. In this shape, she could see all around her through her skin. Moving around was another story. By shifting her mass around, she could roll herself around or bounce but those weren't the easiest forms of locomotion.
The next step up from that was a humanoid form, still made of nebula jelly. With arms and legs it was exponentially easier to move around. At the same time, her body could be transformed incredibly easily. She had about twice her own weight in spare flesh stored inside a small pocket dimension she could tap into to change her body. She tried a few simple things like changing her height and proportions. And some exotic ones that would have been more at home on a Case 53, like a second pair of arms or prehensile tail.
In this form, it was trivial to put on the alien suit. She literally poured her body inside and let it fill the available space. It was more comfortable than it had any right to be. She was a bit thrown off by the different body shape, especially the digitigrade legs and three fingered grip, but after a minute or so, she got used to it. The ultimate adaptive life form indeed.
As she paced around the basement, Taylor went through her list of abilities for the next one to explore. Hierophant was the holy grail of Trump powers and likely a huge time sink. Instead, Taylor honed in on Hephaestus, the power that had created the robot beetle.
Once she knew where to look, it wasn't hard. The power had an existing template for the silver beetle and she summoned another one in front of her. She was prompted to choose which power synergy she wanted, since she had no idea at the moment, Taylor picked the Network Node option as it seemed to be the least intrusive for her experiment.
The new beetle was in every way identical to the other one. A quick command and they both danced around her. Three more joined them over the course of a few minutes. She had her swarm back. Though this time, it was a swarm of Tinker insects.
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"This one," Garos said.
The habitation unit looked like every other one in the slums. He double checked the number from his contact and confirmed it was the right place.
Basvan and Creto positioned themselves near the door. The lock was hacked in seconds and they moved in. The unit was empty of any inhabitants, as expected. The quarantine was still in effect in the district and Garos and his team had to sneak in.
The plague was deadly but the potential jackpot was worth it.
One of his contacts had heard about rumors of a secret Cerberus cache in the slums. One that had received a shipment just before the quarantine had taken effect. With the strict quarantine on all shuttle docks in the slums, nothing could be moved from there.
The entrance to the hidden basement was inside of a wall of the shuttle dock. The perfect place to move contraband on and off the station. The control panel was hidden behind a picture frame. Typical humans. Basvan cracked the lock with his omni-tool. This time it took almost a minute, Cerberus hadn’t cheaped out on those. The large door hissed open and they moved forward.
The ramp that led to the basement was wide enough for the three of them to walk side by side. Creto took with Garos right behind and Basvan at the rear. There shouldn't be anyone inside but there was always the possibility of automated defenses. More than one careless Blue Sun had been cut down by an automatic turret. Once at the bottom, the three of them prepared to enter.
Garos pressed the panel and the door opened.
His first hint that something was wrong were the ceiling lights. They were on, in a room that was supposed to be empty. The second hint was the Quarian in the middle of the room. How had one of those suit rats beaten them to the punch?
It took him a fraction of a second to notice that it was missing its helmet. He wasn't so sure it was a Quarian anymore. The creature before him looked nothing like them. It looked vaguely like a human, if a human had skin made out of a semi-transparent gelatin. Its six yellow eyes were narrowed on them. In the background, Garos spotted what looked like a medical transport pod.
What the hell had Cerberus found?
All of them were still for a single heartbeat.
Basvan raised his pistol and fired but the creature was somehow faster than a trained mercenary and raised a biotic barrier in time to block his shot. Garos and Basvan started to fire as well. Hopefully, the thing's corpse would still fetch some credits.
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Taylor felt the strain on her force-field as the three aliens opened fire on her.
She was thankful for her new reflexes. As soon as the door had opened, Asteria had cranked the cognitive acceleration to four hundred percent and it had given her enough time to raise a force-field with her psionic control.
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As the world slowed down to a further crawl, Taylor reviewed her options. None of her current drones were equipped for combat. The silver scarab template wasn't fitted with any weapons out of the box. That wouldn't have been a problem except for the fact that it was the only template she had access to.
Her power-granted knowledge kicked in again. A complex array of symbols and shapes formed in her mind and she knew exactly what it was. The spell-code for a laser beam. That one of her powers looked like magic was a bit bothersome, she couldn't wait for the comparisons with Myrddin, but Taylor wouldn't complain if it saved her gelatinous ass.
Three rings of light with a small bead of light at the center appeared before her in slow motion. The half a second it took for them to charge felt like an eternity to her. Once the threshold was reached, the bead vanished and a brilliant streak of red light that seared itself in reality.
None of the three aliens managed to react in time, not that it would have mattered since the laser had a tracking lock, and were pierced by the beams. One through the lower right eye socket and the other two right between their four eyes. All of them had a look of utter surprise on their faces, forever frozen as their bodies crumpled to the ground. Lifeless.
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Taylor paced in the small basement.
She hadn't expected to be discovered quite that fast. It was a rather large wrench in her plans. The strategy to bunker down and wait wasn't as viable as it had once seemed. These three had found her and first contact hadn't been peaceful in the least.
After some thought, Taylor decided on a course of action.
It was very likely that the three aliens had been after the contents of the room. Since their armor didn't match the ones she had found inside the crates, it was much more likely that they had been thieves looking to sell everything on the black market. It was something she could take advantage of. If she took them for herself, she would have both a cache of supplies wherever she went and the opportunity to make some money if she needed.
The first option to store the crates would be for her to take them into her stomach. Asteria had explained that her plasmoid form had the ability to place objects into a pocket dimension for absorption or storage. But the process required her to fully engulf whatever she wanted to eat. She enjoyed the shapeshifting aspects of her new body but Taylor didn't feel quite ready for that.
Instead, she went for another option. Her minions could get powers in several different ways, most of them relatively useless at the moment, except for one. She could pick powers from a library. Asteria, her ever helpful companion, could easily search through it and find what she wanted.
It was cheap. She could fit up to twelve points in one minion, more if she wanted but the minion itself would start to count as multiple units. At present, she had space for thirty. Asteria was truly bullshit.
Any suggestions for what I should take on top of that? Anything with good utility?
While Asteria was busy searching through the database, Taylor started to design the template for her new minion. She liked the insect theme of her first minion and wanted something similar but more easily concealed. Hephaestus included a Tinker sub-power which made her life easier as well. She turned things around a few times before settling on a small centipede that could wrap around her wrist or hide inside of her suit.
Taylor whistled. All three options were very tempting. White Mage was a versatile support power with the ability to heal, Eidolon was exactly what it said on the tin, and Aliena was in the same ballpark but traded strength for versatility.
She pondered for a few seconds. Why not take all three?
Asteria, are there any energy concerns if I pick all three options at once?
She remembered the rumors that Eidolon had weakened over the years, which Lisa had confirmed in private, and with what she had learned about passengers earlier, it was likely his had been on a tight budget.
Perfect.
She changed her plans slightly. The small centipede was tweaked to work as part of a necklace. She added some mandibles capable of interlocking with each other so that two of them could wrap around her neck. The third would be a small beetle to work as a brooch. Since they weren't designed to move much, she kept their internal mechanisms simple. Once the designs were complete, she summoned the three minions and assigned the powers.
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Taylor pushed the last crate through the small portal. The whole operation had taken around half an hour with some help from her minions. She had given three of them a telekinesis power to move the crates about. Before storing them, Taylor opened each one and made note of the contents. She had compiled a list of everything thanks to the help of Athena, her Thinker power, where she had used a few nodes to create a rudimentary computer to take notes.
She had also deduced the function of the black glove thanks to Revolution, her Tinker power, with the Repair and Reproduction specializations. They were some kind of space smartphone with a hard-light interface. Her in-depth examination revealed it was packed to the brim with features from a flashlight to portable a nano-assembler. The last one needed a special kind of gel she found in one of the crates.
Once she had put it on, the omni-tool had interfaced with her suit. Despite appearances, the suit she was wearing was packed with more features than the others she had found and even the ones the thieves had on. Most notable was a very efficient closed loop life support system. The suit was obviously designed to be worn constantly without the need to remove it for any activity, even waste disposal.
Taylor had looted the thieves' weapons to complement her existing arsenal. She didn't strictly need a gun with her powers but they were a universal message. Even on Earth Bet, with the existence of Blasters and Shakers, the sight of a gun had always been a much more obvious threat.
With everything ready, the crates had been stored and weapons readied, Taylor placed the suit's helmet on and engaged the seal. The life system support whirred to life and the integrated HUD on the helmet lit up. The visor was partially opaque from the outside which hid all of her features except for her six yellow eyes which seemed to glow from the inside.
Her initial plan had been to go out as a human but with the appearance of the three ugly aliens, she had reconsidered. If she was somewhere that didn't have humans, she would look extremely out of place. Inside a fully sealed suit, she had much more leeway in terms of her appearance.
Hopefully, I can blend in.
Taylor stepped into the hallway leading out.