I rolled my eyes as I got on, cramming back to let him and his beast of a robot dog onto the elevator as well. As soon as we started down I looked up, the elevator music distracting me. Completely different from the stuff I was used to. It was nice enough that I started to dance a little in place. Which caused Bomberman to join me for some reason. Then the damn dog started.

When the door opened onto plant-based chaos twenty seconds later we were a little startled.

“Shoot it!” He roared as he threw a grenade on reflex. The dog lunged out seconds later.

Subfloor one had a large reception area full of dog types. I started firing around the dog as it pounced and started chewing on the nearest. The grenade hurtled to the back of the room where it exploded mostly in a pressure wave and shrapnel. My main weapon rounds exploded after punching into the dogs, causing a mess. Explosive ammo is very satisfying.

“Holy, are your shots exploding?” He did a double-take after throwing a second grenade.

“Yeah. I normally go for velocity and penetration. But they make seeking shotgun size shells too. You really should look into it.” I grinned as I aimed a shot at the last group, going for a center hit. I was a little off, but it did the trick, dropping enough of them so that the dog could get the rest.

“How do you know? I mean you’ve been a vegetable for a while and a closeted droid the rest.” He looked evenly at me as he stepped onto the floor.

“Because they made them before I went down. They were hyper-expensive, the military played with them for a bit I think. I knew they were in movies too as a tech bonus in near future action stuff. But I was sure aliens make them cheaper and in bigger quantities. Then Naille said they do so, I went with it.” I shrugged and stepped through behind him. “Low-level lure, or just a sweep? Too many dead ones to get a good scent and everywhere is shielded.”

He opened his mouth for a moment then shrugged. “Sweep? I bet the filters are too good for a scent-based lure. If the noise didn’t draw them in they’re sound shielded too.”

“Okay, You two take the north side, and I’ll hit the south.” I started walking for a door on the south wall.

“You sure you wanna go alone,” He called questioningly after me.

“I’m fine,” I agreed with a wave over my shoulder. Even as I moved I shifted, liquid metal flowing out of a point in my back to cover me as I switched from humanoid to gloopy mess that took up the entire door I passed through. My voice shifted as I changed. Naille was really nailing that voice for each form idea.

Most of the doors I came across were locked, I was tempted to open them anyway to check for people but given the randomly broken down doors, it was unlikely there was anybody there. Instead, I focused on hunting for any antithesis that we missed, especially Sevens. I did find another elevator bank as I hit the outer building wall, it was broken open and had roots growing up through it.

[So I found what looks to be hive material up an elevator shaft on the south outer wall.]

[Have you searched your whole area? I haven’t found anything yet.] I sent him a map log of my pattern, having mapped the whole area that was open to me. [Yeah, You’ll need to go back and check all the rooms you skipped. Just because the doors aren’t broken down doesn’t mean there’s nothing there. As for the shaft. If I don’t find one we’ll use it to go down.]

[Makes sense since the one we came down doesn’t go any deeper.] I turned and moved back down the hall to break into every room I skipped. [This is so Tedious…. Don’t I have Drones that can do this?]

<>You do not. Well, not directly. We can combine a few things and get micro-drones that can fit in anywhere not biologically sealed. Would you care to purchase some? You can get one for two points.

{Grab a hundred points worth and search the whole floor.}

<>Done!

[Well? Do you?] Bomberman sounded annoyed.

[Oh sorry. Yeah. I just bought fifty micro drones. Meet me here and they’ll finish the floor. We can send them down to the next floor down before descending. Save us a lot of time.] I reversed course as a bunch of gnat-sized drones flew off in a swarm.

<>Might I suggest using some points to purchase Matter Reconfiguration? It would allow your nanites to be upgraded to be able to do more than use base materials to repair and rebuild themselves. You could use your armor to repair damage to objects. It’s only 75 points. You could even use them to make any class one object you have a blueprint for.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

{Ohhh… I like that idea. Go for it! Hell, that seems like enough to go further and go for Class 2. Start buying blueprints for stuff.}

<>As you wish! You can currently purchase class two, still have the extra token you need, and seventy-seven points left as a reserve.

{Sure.} I settled in to wait, having been at speed for the last few seconds it would be some time before Bomberman joined me, or the drones finished their scouting. No new boxes dropped, so I had to assume it was a software update. {Let’s set a schedule for blueprint purchases. The first will be Armor. The second will be explosive ammunition. Third will be scout drones.}

<>Understood. Each blueprint costs between seven and ten times the original price, depending on how it was sourced. Original whole blueprints cost more than those built on smaller assembled ones since you’re buying the blueprints for the smaller ones and then creating a new one for the whole piece. Might I suggest going for a class upgrade for your general exotic nanotech catalog? It would allow you to use them for more, such as forming shapes and having strength without an endoskeletal base to work from. Same strength, no hard inner core. That with your facade catalog would allow you to be far more versatile in your fake shapes. It will cost one thousand five hundred but I believe well worth it.

{Yeah, That’s good. Okay… Yeah. Add the Nano stuff. We also wanna get the blueprint for those resonators. Can we buy anything else now?}

<>Understood. Yes, the resonators will be 50 Points to buy the blueprints. But you can get basic explosive ammo and your drones for twenty Points each. It would be out of order but you can buy any two of those now.

Bomberman came around the corner and walked over to my large trash can-sized mass. I stuck a fist holding one finger up out of my armor so he could see I wanted a moment to finish. He nodded.

{Go ahead and grab the cheapest first, I only listed the stuff in order of importance for me. Being able to maintain my armor at levels is good enough for now. Shit’s expensive.} I turned my attention to the drones, only to discover they were done and on their way back. “We’re doing well now. I’ll send the drones down to the next level ASAP.”

“Make things way easier indoors. Maybe I should…,” He started but I opened the skeletal hand to stop him.

{For now, I just bought the blueprints for the ones I’m using. You should look at saving some points to borrow somebody's Matter Reconfiguration catalog to get one. Then buy blueprints for stuff. Maybe convert your seat on the drone into a grenade factory. I’ll just pass you a copy of the blueprints for my drones if I can.} As I spoke the swarm of gnats flew through the room and into the compromised elevator shaft. We turned to watch, I sent him the feed on our general channel. [You getting this Snips?]

[I am Samurai. You didn’t need to loop me in tho.]

<>You can give others copies of your blueprints, it's yours to do with as you will once you purchase.

[Nice!] {Make some extra scouts if we have the mass.} Naill didn’t respond, but I noticed several gnats launch off of me.

Bomberman leaned against his dog, a thoughtful look on his face as I watched the feeds from our scouts intently. The plants had about as much of a foothold there as they did on the floor I was on. So I moved down to another floor. This one had even more of a creep, but only a few threes wandering the same as above.

[I think we have a hive here.] I skipped the next floor and had the drones follow the core mass of vines to the source. [Seriously, what the hell. This is the third basement I’ve been to with a hive. Out of Three!]

[I agree. This is weird. Where’s the source on this one?] Bomberman walked over to lean into the elevator shaft. [Looks from here they go into the bottom couple floors?]

[Indeed. Telemetry on your drones seems to indicate they exploded out from the center of the building somewhere?]

[Got it. They seem to source from a lab on B-8. Judging by the security I can see it was probably a research lab that went nuts when the invasion started?] I shifted over and pushed Bomberman out of the shaft. [I’ve got an idea. I’m going to dig up the shaft then pop one of my class three lure grenades. Turning the whole thing into a blender with my murder ribbons. I’ll trigger a bunch of sonics in the shaft and consume what I can from the plants. They’ve got minerals I can use. Once we’ve got the mobiles down we melt the rest with sonics. Sound good?]

[I’m down. I’ll get some sonics ready while you deal with the models.] Bomberman stepped back and started calling up boxes.

I glorped my way down, cutting and grinding the plant below until I hit the bottom of the shaft. Once there I set up resonators, cut a drain hole into the sewers, extended my murder ribbons, and finally popped the pheromone grenade, holding it at the back of the shaft. What came next was quite literally just a giant blender with a leak. I used my nano restructuring capability to leach out all the useful minerals and then shoved the rest into the sewers as blended chunks or melted semifluid.

It lasted about a minute, there were less than a hundred angry plants and they all rushed for me from every floor. A few even came from the floor Bomberman was still on. They must have come down from above somehow. Once finished I moved back up to the top of the shaft to grab some bombs.

[I’ll take those. No point in coming down, you can’t maneuver where you’d need to go. Just hit the floors from seven up. I’ll get the bottom three.]

[Just doors on those floors?] He started looking in the shaft for the ladder or a way down.

[Yeah. Six goes a few meters in but once you stop seeing them there doesn’t seem to be any deeper. No sub ceiling on any of these floors so it’s apparent how far it got.]

He nodded as I lowered myself again. It took me almost thirty minutes to cut my way deep enough to place all the resonators necessary to melt the whole thing. I checked, then sealed the hole to the sewers I made before ascending to the top floor where Bomberman was waiting as the whole building started to vibrate slightly.