Most samurai in North America almost all join the Family shortly after awakening, they not only provide mentors, but also provide support for their projects and a buffer against corporate fuckery. That’s not true in Cascadia. The Cascadian government provides a lot of oversight, and protection for new samurai, compared to other groups, which results in a lot more samurai siding with the locals over the Family.

Is it an issue? Of course not. Samurai are free to choose which organizations they want to join, or avoid, and no one important will argue. What I find strange is that more megacities don’t follow suit, and attract samurai to their side.

- T and the Dog, Samurai hour Oct 13, 2055

—

“I can’t believe there’s a monowire dissolving spray,” I muttered as I finally made my way out of the storage room. I’d attached both the bow and arrows to my backpack since I was rapidly running out of places to store things and was once again gripping my sword.

It also breaks down after about a day. Far too dangerous to leave just lying about.

“Yeah, that I understand,” I muttered under my breath as I peeked out from the shop front once again. There didn’t appear to be any antithesis in my immediate area, but there was a horrible grinding noise back down the escalators. “Now what?”

I slid up next to the bannister, behind a planter that looked like it had been completely ravaged by the antithesis, and glanced into the concourse below. There were a couple of Threes, pulling various debris into a pile in front of a giant, gross worm thing. The worm had to be the size of a van, if not a bus, and it moved extremely slowly, but it was hovering up everything the Threes fed to it.

A Model Eight. It’s used for digging and biomass collection. Completely harmless, it moves too slowly to be a threat.

[How do I kill it?] I asked through my augs.

With your current kit? You don’t. It has a redundant nervous system and a brain in each section. Even the penetrating arrows would fail to reach that deep within it’s mass. Best to eliminate its support if it has to scavenge for itself, it’ll never have time to escape before the cleanup crew arrives.

“Fine,” I grumbled as I drew my sword and slipped around to the escalator. I made it halfway down before the Threes noticed me, and all four of them were dead before I reached the ground floor. The massive Model Eight didn’t react at all. It was like it wasn’t even aware I was there it just slowly slid towards the nearest store.

I briefly considered stabbing it, just to check if I could hurt it or not, but decided against it in the end. There were people waiting after all.

Instead, I quickly made my way back up the concourse and through the store, which I had ruined earlier. I made sure to sneak up to the window, just in case the antithesis managed to rally while I was inside, and peeked out.

It was a good thing I did, because there was a titan outside. A liquid-grey, four story tall, vaguely humanoid mass was stomping on the antithesis in the street while simultaneously snatching the Model Ones out of the air with thousands of tendrils.

[What the fuck is that?!?!?! I can’t fight that thing!] I messaged frantically as I withdrew further into the store.

Calm down! That’s not an antithesis.

[Then what the fuck is it?] I asked, skulking near the back of the store.

That, my dear Vanguard, is where you could be in a few years.

“Bullshit,” I muttered quietly, before working up the courage to check again. When I peeked out a second time, the mass had reorganized itself. The huge creature melted, its flesh flowing down the street before gathering into a half dozen two story tall golems. The only thing left at its original position was a statuesque woman wearing an embarrassingly tight metal outfit. As soon as her massive form had fully dissipated, the PMC moved their vehicles and stormed out of the building to meet her.

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Shouldn’t you go introduce yourself?

“I don’t know, should I?” I whispered. “She’s kind of terrifying.”

She already knows you’re here anyway; one of her nanite constructions has already found you.

“What nanite construct…” I jumped as I noticed a liquid metal dog sitting just a few feet away from me. It barked, an artificial metallic sounding bark, and waited for me to do something. “Right, that answers that question.” I straightened up, gathered my courage, then stepped towards the metal dog, which quickly started leading me back across the square.

The woman was conversing with the PMC leader, but paused and turned towards me when I got close. “And here is, what I can only guess, is our reluctant hero now,” the woman said with a smile. “I assume you’re the one that intervened earlier?”

“That was me,” I confirmed. “Reina Tanaka, samurai… I guess,” I said with a shrug.

The big man, which I’d assumed was the leader of the PMC, immediately saluted. “Sergeant Adrien Taylor, my men and the civilians inside owe you our lives. Thank you, ma’am!.” I didn’t realize it before, but he was a mess. His armor was scuffed up, there was even a deep gouge across the chest plate. Maybe he had been in the front truck when it rolled.

“Please stop calling me ma’am,” I told him, as I rubbed my arm nervously. “That’s what people call my mom, you can just call me Reina.”

The sergeant glanced at the other woman, who shook her head before turning towards me. “He can’t actually,” she said with a warm, disarming smile. “All Samurai have the unofficial rank of at least captain in the Cascadia armed forces. You might be new, but you still outrank him.” The woman stuck out her hand, and for the first time I realized she wasn’t wearing a suit, but was covered by the same metallic liquid that her constructs were made out of. “I’m Grey Goo.”

I tried to keep the confusion off my face and out of my voice, and I’m pretty sure I only half achieved it. “Charmed?”

Grey snorted. “Look, I’m not fond of the name either, but we samurai have a tradition of choosing the code name for our juniors, and that’s what was selected for me. It could have been worse… the thick asshole could have called me something like The Blob,” she huffed.

“Right,” I muttered, unable to think of anything else to say.

“Anyway… Since I don’t recognize you, and you don’t come up in the database, you must be exceptionally new,” Grey continued, focusing on me again. “Sword? And Bow? That’s rare, most new samurai just grab the biggest cannon they can afford.”

“I don’t like guns,” I admitted quietly.

“I’m not berating you. I’ve seen some seriously scary melee-based samurai over the years, it just doesn’t come up much,” Grey explained. As soon as she was done speaking, she cocked her head slightly, then looked towards the east. The sky was still red, like it was on fire, but most of the portals were closed. The largest one was taking fire from the battleship, and was just beginning to close, when it spat out another half dozen massive seed pods, sending them plummeting into the heart of the city. “For fuck sakes. I don’t know why the antithesis are trying so hard today, normally they give up after just a few volleys from the Redemption.” She sighed. “I hope you didn’t have any plans for tonight, kid, because we typically throw the newbies head first into incursions. Best way for you to get both experience and points.”

“Straight into that,” I repeated, pointing at the smoke rising on the horizon, marking where the pods landed.

Grey just raised an eyebrow. “Got a problem with that?”

“Not the fighting. I’ve apparently got a scary knack for that,” I replied with a frown. “But I am carrying around family heirlooms, including my grandfather’s ashes, because I was trying to save them from a fucking deranged lunatic when this started,” I growled. “You fucking bastard! This is all your fault!” I blurted out, causing the sergeant to step back in surprise.

“Alright… seems like you had a hard night, even before this incursion happened,” Grey started, “but as callous as this sounds, I still recommend you head into the incursion zone. It could be months until you get another chance to earn points.”

“And there are people that could probably use help,” I added with a sigh. “The old man always said the people with power should help those without.”

Grey nodded. She probably had no clue what I was talking about, but that didn’t really matter. “This area only got hit by a single seed pod, and most of the antithesis are cleaned up now, so if you want to leave your stuff with the sergeant, he’ll make sure it makes it to the Redemption. From there, someone will make sure it’s delivered to your home. Is that alright? He’ll protect them with his life, right, Sergeant?” she said, shooting an evil glare at the poor PMC commander.

“Yes, ma’am!” he snapped, saluting immediately.

I really didn’t want to leave my grandfather to some private military company I didn’t know, but on the other hand, it was probably safer than carrying him into an active combat zone.

I slowly undid the bag and held it in my hands. “Sergeant Taylor,” I said loudly. “You better hope this bag arrives unharmed to its destination, because if it doesn’t, the recipient will take it out on not just you, but your entire company, understand?”

“And who would that be, ma’am?” The sergeant asked hesitantly.

“Azumi Tanaka, head of Synthesis Systems Inc,” I said. I saw the man noticeably pale at the name, so I couldn’t help but poke him a little more. “As you probably know, my mother's wrath is legendary.”