Matthew felt his skin crack as fire enveloped his body his mind was far enough gone to panic at the fire, but not so far gone as to not feel the burning pain that enveloped his body, thus he was left in agony without being able to do anything about it, luckily for Matthew, he wasn’t the only one in control of his own body
[Loss of consciousness confirmed, paradigm shift confirmed core temperature increasing, entering nanite overclock level 2, stabilizing masters vitals]
Doc noticed it at once, after she confirmed the bio-nanites poured out and began life-saving treatment, she yelled at him again
“MAJOR! GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER!”
Hearing no response, Doc stopped trying to get through to him with words
‘Aea, link me to the Major’s CodeArrow 09, Authentication code #101101’
[Confirmed, attempting SRI Data-link… Return ping confirmed, CR09-0000014 confirmed, starting handshake…]
As the moments stretched out Doc realized something was off, however she would never in her life had expected what happened the next moment
[CRITICAL FAILURE, ENTERING RECOVERY]
“Oh, shi…”
Doc entire body went limp, a moment later she collapsed face-first into the sand, seeing the elder of their clan suddenly fall over the members and servants of the Burning embers quickly moved to ensure her safety
“Elder Esen!”
The servant rolled Esen over and confirmed Doc wasn’t breathing, her eyes started blankly into the sky above, however just as panic was about to set in for real she woke with a loud gasp and an even louder exclamation
“Fuck me, there is no way that was only 23 seconds!”
[Recovery complete, new master profile confirmed, welcome user]
Hearing about it marketing was one thing, experiencing your bionic spine encounter a critical failure and recovering its entire data structure and control over all auxiliary bionic implants in just 23 seconds was another entirely more unpleasant thing to experience that Doc would rather live the rest of her life without experiencing again
“Elder!”
“I will live, help me up, we have to save the Sand prophet”
With the help of her servant, Doc managed to stand up where she quickly started to open portals to help stabilize Matthew
[User, CR09-0000014 have requested reestablishing the lost SRI Data-link, opening connection]
Doc paled as she felt a pit of ice in her stomach, this was way worse than starting your pc and seeing a Ransomware program open at once, the 09 installed in Matthew appeared to wield full control over her 09, it would be bad enough if the CodeArrow 09 that replaced her spine ONLY controlled the normal biological functions of a spine, but the 09 had full access to create, delete and alter her memories and emotions
‘...Request a full master priority list from CR09-0000014’
[Confirmed, Data received Mistress Alina’s master priority list includes two entries, Entry 1: Keep Matthew safe Entry 2: Keep bad women away from Matthew]
Doc felt a shiver go down her spine, what should have been a 6021 point list to ensure full control and absolute obedience over her had been changed to a 2 point list that made zero sense to her, combined with the fact that BlueArrow had been replaced with ‘Mistress Alina’ made her even more confused
“...What the fuck”
“...Elder?”
A moment passed before Doc yet out a hysterical scream as she sat down while messing up her hair, her scream only increased in volume as she began to pull at her heir, however after venting for a few moments she stopped screaming and stood back up again before she gritted her teeth and got back to work, if she failed the first entry on the master priority list she likely would follow the dear Major the hereafter in the most painful manor right after
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‘Aea send all the compiled information about Mystical awakening to CR09-0000014 and advice to forcefully awaken the Major’s consciousness’
At this point Doc had done all the preparation she could do, now all she could hope was that Matthew would pull through his and successfully refine his Mystic principle before his physical body expired
-
“...What was I… Where?”
As Matthew woke, he found himself sitting in the sand, as he checked his bodies condition he found his body was covered in horrible burns, however as he looked the burns they scared and healed in the span of mere moments without any nanites being deployed at all
“That’s neat…”
[System temperature normalizing, 38% of total nanite mass lost, 4 days until critical failure cascade, please restock nanite store at master's earliest convenience]
“...That’s less neat”
“Major”
Matthew’s head snapped towards Matriarch Esen that kneeled down as his eyes fell on her, her body was horribly burnt too, gray sand swarmed over her body slowly healing her burns, as Matthew saw this he noticed the surroundings, it was carnage, broken wagon carts, brunt broken corpses were shewn about, part of desert sand appeared to have been superheated into glass
“Congratulations on your successful Mystical awakening, Major”
There were a lot of things Matthew wanted to ask about the current situation, but the first thing Matthew addressed was
“...Don’t call me that”
Instead of acknowledging Matthew’s cold warning, Matriarch Esen’s eyes widened before she exclaimed
“That! That right there!”
Matthew followed her line of sight and saw the sand his feet had superheated into a puddle of red glass mass, before he had a change to ask Matriarch Esen spoke again
“Your Mystic ability has awoken, the phenomenon of intense heat spreading out from your body is an unconscious one that seems to be directly controlled by your current mental state… I suspect anger or some other similar feeling triggers it”
Matthew let out a sigh, at this point the real identity of Matriarch Esen had already been solved by her instant and obvious fascination with any kind of unexpected phenomenon
“So what, I now just light my surroundings on fire if I get pissed off?”
“Yes, however as you have only just awoken your very first Mystic abilities you have a lot of room to grow in both types of abilities and fine control over the individual abilities, with a few weeks of training you should have this ability under full conscious control”
Matthew let out a sigh, and asked
“So?”
Matriarch Esen tilted her head to the side slightly before she asked back
“...So? So what?”
“How many survived? I assume that this carnage was my doing”
The surrounds were indeed rather bleak, there wasn’t a single intact corpse in sight, to put it blankly, he didn’t feel too great about this, however Matriarch Esen’s didn’t seem to notice this as she raised her head and spoke cheerfully
“Don’t worry Matthew, I made sure to eliminate any survivors to keep our information control complete”
The face of the young servant that had helped him out flashed through his mind for a moment before Matthew clicked his tongue before he changed the subject
“Do you keep a stash of bio-nanites around anywhere, Doc?”
Matriarch Esen stood up before she responded
“Yeah, we have several dead-drop stashes scattered around our territory and a central production plant in Uliat… Wait, how did you realize it was me?”
“Get me a route to the nearest stash, I am on a 4 day timer”
“A cascade failure? I figured your 09 was in bad shape, but for it to be this bad… Very well, there should be a dead drop a few hours away so let’s head there at once… You still didn’t answer my question, Matthew”
Matthew shrugged as his Aea received the location data from Doc’s Aea and began walking in the indicated direction
“You are the only one I know that show so little care for the lives of people”
Doc showed a wide smile as spoke
“Thanks for the praise, it runs in the family”
“What a fucked up family”
“I won’t argue with you on that”
The two walked in silence for a bit before Doc asked Matthew
“So… Who is the lucky lady?”
Matthew didn’t expect this question from Doc of all people, but he didn’t really feel the need to act dense so he answered truthfully
“Alina”
Doc nodded before she asked
“So what happened, did you have a fight since you ended up here all battered and bruised?”
Matthew shook his head
“Nah, we had a real nice thing going up North, but we attracted the attention of Wicka and I ended up getting bisected before Alina saved me teleporting me away”
Doc stopped walking for a moment before she asked
“Wicka? Do you mean the shipboard A. I. for the new type of FTL capable freighters?”
“Yep”
“...Where the fuck did you encounter a shipboard A. I. on this cursed ball of dirt?”
Matthew stopped walking before he turned and looked at Doc, it was clear from the look on her face that she didn’t know yet, so he enlightened her
“You do remember us getting shipped around on freighters in cold sleep to avoid being seen, right?”
Doc nodded to which Matthew continued
“Well, my memory of how exactly I got on this planet is too far gone still to remember, but it seems pretty obvious that some sort of cosmic event interfered with the warp core of the Mighty Endurance… From there, I am guessing something corrupted Wicka and shattered the Mighty Endurance, which sent the cargo scattered over the surface of this planet”
“... I see, both Ripper and I had our memory corrupted due to neurological damage… That does match up with some sort of Mystic influence along with general trauma from planet fall.. But what does it have to do with Wicka?”
Matthew shrugged
“No idea, just that when Alina and I attempted to send up a satellite, Wicka sent a encrypted data package to the satellite informing us that the planet was under quarantine, then the blue comet appeared overhead and things went to shit shortly after”
Doc closed her eyes and massaged her temples for a few moments before she asked
“Did Wicka give any identification of the planet we are on?”
‘...Aea?’
[The identification number given were #1230710287479]
“Aea says it was #1230710287479”
Doc let out a long sigh before she spoke dejectedly
“The number of planets in the Serius galaxy according to Imperial records are exactly 123.071.028.7478…”
Matthew blinked twice before he muttered
“Well, if things made more sense, I would be more than a little disappointed at this point…”