[Emergency repair of Subclavian Artery complete.]
Leta didn’t even register the sudden relief of pain in her shoulder or how her blood had stopped leaking down her chest as the stranger’s words echoed in her ears like voices through a canyon.
Arisen.
Like him.
She blinked, breath coming fast, “I’m sorry, what?”
The stranger chuckled again, “American, yes? Are there many people where you are from that can create lightning from within themselves and channel it so?”
He looked over the chunk of metal that had once been his sword with a pout like a child who had lost a wheel of his favorite toy car. “I am fortunate my team alerted me to come to this hospital. Nixies are secretive but relentless when they find prey.”
“Holy… I can’t believe I did that.”
Leta looked down in rising shock at the dusty remains and chard linoleum that made the room smell of burning glue. Now that the danger had passed, she was both appreciative and terrified of the power she’d wielded during the skirmish.
Now that the battle craze had passed and she could breathe, she was struck by the magnitude of her strength.
Electric Misconduct had been an exciting skill when she first looked it over, assuming she’d use it to taser some assailant that thought her an easy mark quietly.
Now that she was staring down at the product of her abilities, it was slightly terrifying that she had all this power at her disposal.
“Honestly, it’s impressive.” The stranger shrugged and threw the chunk of metal on the blood-stained bed, “Most of the time, the Arisen have no idea what their abilities are and can’t fully utilize their gifts. You could do such concentrated damage without destroying this entire structure, which is miraculous.”
“Is that supposed to be a pat on the back, or are you making fun of me.” Leta gave him a sidelong look.
He held his hands up in surrender, “I speak the truth. You seem to have an innate understanding of your abilities, which is fortunate considering the Nixie went after you.”
“Why? The doctor said I’ve been in a coma for the last three days.”
“You probably didn’t have a scent until you woke up. Not an actual scent,” He added when he saw Leta make a sour face and sniff her hair, “that is just what we call it. It’s an aura, a sense of something. Surely you feel my existence differently than you did the Nixie.”
“Fair, but so far, you haven’t tried to rip my throat out.” She quipped.
The stranger laughed before pulling off a glove-covered hand and holding it to her. “Koa Masters.”
Leta looked at the offered hand a moment before shaking it. His hands were rough with the calluses of a man who worked long days of hard labor. She guessed that labor was with a sword.
“Oletta Black. People call me Leta or Letty.”
He nodded, “Good to meet you, Leta. I wish it would have been on better terms, but nothing can be done about it now.”
“What were you doing in the hospital?”
“Hunting the Nixie.” He shrugged, “I could smell its sickly stench, so I came to investigate. Creatures such as these are a kill-on-sight, for obvious reasons.”
“Where did it come from?” Leta turned her gaze back down to the remains.
“Probably through a storm drain. Nixies need water and generally don’t travel far from their territory. It likely smelled you and thought it had easy prey while it was raining to give its song power.”
Leta frowned, “That clicking thing?” Koa nodded, “Nixie’s can cause people with low mental shields to go to sleep. It’s how they hunt their prey. Arisen, like us, tend to have a decent resistance to the song, but not always.”
“Damn, I didn’t even think about everyone else.” She hissed, but he raised his hand in a ‘stop’ gesture.
“Everyone is asleep. The entire hospital and most of the surrounding buildings.”
“Shit, that’s not good. What if someone was having an operation?”
“This isn’t the central hospital.” He shook his head, “It’s an out-campus. No emergency department and no major surgeries are happening.”
Leta breathed a sigh of relief, calm again until Koa added, “While it could have eaten anyone, the flesh of Arisen is delicious. It was too interested in eating you to stop and hurt anyone else. “
“Well, that’s awful to think about. How long will everyone be out?”
His shoulders rose in speculation, “Best guess would be about an hour or so. Less if they have better resistance. Which gives us enough time to clean this mess up.”
He gestured to the heap of ash, the growing puddle under the open window, and the blood-covered sheets and floor.
Leta winced. They’d done a number on this place.
“First, the smell of burnt skin and fabric clings to you. There should be a clean set of coverings in the cabinet,” He gestured to the lower cabinets under the sink where the doctor usually washed their hands. “Try to find some, then get changed in the water closet. I’ll be out here trying to organize this mess.”
By the time she had found a clean hospital gown and got changed, Koa had already swept the remains onto the bed and closed the window.
“Grab the towels from the bathroom and sponge up the water and blood. I’ll take the bed sheets.”
Leta did as instructed, thinking he was extremely calm during this whole situation and hadn’t batted an eye at cleaning up a crime scene.
She didn’t ask what he was doing when he bundled the sheets together and flipped the mattress over or where he went when he disappeared with the evidence.
“How did my life end up like this?” She muttered to herself as she quickly mopped up the blood on the walls and floor before throwing the towels into the dirty clothing sack they left by the toilet.
She had found more bed sheets in the cabinets and was remaking the bed with Koa walking back in. He took a look around the room and nodded to himself. “Much better.”
“What are we going to do about this, though?” She gestured to the burnt linoleum and scorch-marked wall near the bed where Leta had unleashed her final attack.
“That… is where things get technical.” He knelt and fiddled with the PC of the rolling monitor station Leta had seen the doctor use to type in medical information into their system. “We are going to simulate an electrical fire.” He answered as he worked.
“Unfortunately, we live in an age where insurance groups are meticulous in their investigations. If you were to try and pass this off as anything other than an electrical fire, they’d figure it out, and the goal is to ensure they do not look further than we want them to.”
“So… you’re stripping the wires and creating an exposed fault?”
“Correct. I will then go into their system and tell the computer to pull in more electricity than it needs.”
He stood back up and pulled out his phone. A text lit the screen, and he typed in whatever he’d been sent.
The monitor screen went black before opening to a computer desktop.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Leta raised an eyebrow. “Is hacking part of the job, too?”
Koa didn’t answer as he focused on pulling up the computer’s settings and fiddling with the power options.
“Alright, this is going to get very nasty very fast. Do you have a clothing item you are not fond of and would like to sacrifice to make this more believable?”
She made a face as if she’d smelt something distasteful. “Uh, no. I need everything to go home tomorrow.”
Koa looked down at her belongings and pointed, “How about the tote bag?”
She nodded, and Koa took it to shove it underneath the device, positioning it so it would look like she had innocently left it on the floor before the machine had been rolled on top.
“Good, that will help. We don’t have long now until this goes off. I suggest going into the water closet until it catches fire. If the alarms don’t immediately go off, leave the room and go to the nurse’s station. Yes?”
“I got it. What about you?”
“Strange man dressed in black carrying swords? It’s not exactly something that would fly under the radar. Do not worry; we’ll be in touch.” He babbled as he got his things and headed for the door.
“Wait, what?”
“Go, Leta. Get in the water closet.” He commanded hurriedly and shut the door behind them.
She smelt an odd, almost fishy scent and turned to the machine to see smoke starting to trail from its PC tower near the wheels.
“Crap… yeah.” She jumped and headed for the toilet just as an electric buzz sounded behind her.
She’d never seen an electrical fire before and was surprised at how quickly it happened. Everything was normal for a few seconds before the buzzing became a quick pop. With a ‘whoosh,’ flames erupted inside the PC until the entire box was a ball of fire.
Leta waited a moment for the alarms to start blaring and flashing lights, but after at least thirty seconds, nothing had happened. By then, the plastic encasing the PC tower had melted and dripped burning liquid onto the tote bag, which had also started to catch fire.
The rest of the night was passed in a long, drawn-out blur of activities.
When the alarms didn’t go off, she found her way to the nurse’s station, where two young women had fallen over their keyboards from the Nixie’s song.
After some shaking them awake, they’d sprung into action, one making a call and the other pulling the fire alarm and going into her room with a fire extinguisher.
The noise of the alarm managed to wake most of the staff and patients up from their supernaturally induced sleep, and nurses were running through the halls trying to assess the situation.
Shortly after this, the fire department showed up and ensured that the fire was truly out before checking the rest of the building and setting up large fans to push the smokey air out.
Someone contacted Dr. Galloise, who was back to being a pissed-off Canadian and came marching down to the hospital to tear into the floor chief.
In the end, Leta was moved to a room close to three in the morning, checked over by a very tired nurse, and told to get some sleep.
“Are they crazy?” Leta mumbled, alone in a new room, trying to ignore everything that had happened that night.
[Would the Host like to review the diagnostic report made after the confrontation?]
“You make a diagnostic report on me like I’m a car?” Leta voiced her skepticism, “Sure. Why not.”
[Based on calculations, most damage the Host took was caused by piercing damage from Corrupted-Nixie claws and teeth. It is recommended that the Host increase her constitution in order to avoid this type of damage.]
[Congratulations. Due to continuous use in a live battle scenario, Electric Misconduct has reached Level 2. The Host can generate 300 million volts of electricity in a single interaction. The Host can maintain up to 200 volts of electricity while concentrating. It takes less focus for the Host to control electricity discharge and maintain conduction.]
[To increase discharge and strike power, it is recommended that the Host increase power and replace 15% of organic bone structure with Atlanite.]
“Hold up. Replace my bones?” Leta coughed on the water that she’d been sipping.
[Correct. The internal characteristic reconstruction replaces internal structures with partial or complete Atlanite material. This increases the overall resilience and output power, providing an unbreakable structure that can conduct electricity and additional nanite storage capabilities.]
“Is that like when you get your knee or a hip replaced?”
[In concept, yes. Similar to how the femur ball is replaced with artificial materials during hip replacement surgery, the nanites will replace organic bone matter with Atlanite - a metal derived from nanites.]
‘Interesting…’ Leta mused, ‘so like an internal bionic structure.’
[It was common among Atlantians to begin replacing organic structures with Atlanite at birth. Children were scarce due to fertility issues among the Atlantians, so providing the offspring of Atlans with the greatest odds of success was paramount.]
That comment helped her mind escape from the monster smackdown that had occurred earlier. As sad as it was to think of an entire galaxy-fairing civilization unable to or have difficulty having children, it also left a lot of questions of who it happened to and why.
Did it have anything to do with why they were forced to evacuate Earth after thousands of years?
Was it from a disease?
She probably would never know at this point.
‘Tell me more about the Atlanite bones. What are the benefits of having them?’
[Replacing biological structures would mean that the new Atlanite structures would be 15 times stronger than the strongest metal currently known to the human race, yet still flexible and light enough that it would not hinder the Hosts movements. In addition, Atlanite structures cannot be detected during medical exams but can be upgraded further once acclimated. However, replacing biological structures with Atlanite is permanent and cannot be reversed once completed.]
Leta took a moment to appreciate the ingenuity of the Atlantians and the nanites. One minute, the nanites were putting knowledge into her brain on how to move things with her mind, and the next, they were making her bones indestructible.
‘Okay. So I need to up my Power and turn my bones into metal. Awesome, but how do I do that? I used all the available nanites to up my Mental Fortitude.’
[Exclusive to the Monarch class are the skills Sacrificial Touch and Filter Feeder. Combined, these skills allow the Host to absorb inert nanites from organic matter through touch. These inert nanites can be utilized to acquire new skills or increase statistical capabilities.]
Leta frowned, ‘Define organic for me. Are we talking about the food I eat? I don’t think I got any extra nanites from what they gave me for dinner.”
[Organic matter consists of matter with active cellular components. This can include flora and fauna, such as trees and animals that are grown for consumption. The meal that the Host consumed previously lacked inert nanites due to the genetic modifications and processing that it went through.]
‘Wait. Wait. Wait. Now that we’re talking about this, how is it that trees and animals have nanites as well? Did the Atlantians put nanites into other things?’
[Correct. Over several thousand years, the Atlantians and their agricultural class crews inoculated hundreds of thousands of species with nanites to increase crop and animal yields. As time progressed, the nanites spread to nearly every species on the planet. It is estimated that a few pockets of flora species remain in extremely remote places that have not been inoculated with nanites.]
[It has been found that continuous genetic modification, selective breeding, and extreme processing will wash out inert nanites. As stated, the meal eaten earlier lacked inert nanites due to the excessive genetic alterations of the vegetables and wheat flour and the extreme selective breeding and processing of the meat, which resulted in inert nanites being washed out of the matter.]
Leta made a face as she felt her stomach roll. The food had left a lot to be desired; thinking about how mass production had made food that was so lacking in nutrients that nanites at the atomic level had been cleaned out was a bit disgusting.
‘Gross. Okay, moving on. If I want to up a stat it would take 1,000 nanites. I’d be here for days - hell, months - trying to eat enough to up a single point. But you said I could absorb nanites by touching organic materials, so there’s another way. I’m guessing that touching a tree is going to give me more nanites than eating an apple, right?’
[Correct.]
‘Out of curiosity, what happens to what I’m touching after I absorb the nanites?’
[Results of nanite loss vary depending on the item that is losing inert nanites. While the nanites may be inert and do not have a designated function, they are still relied on by other atoms within the cell for structural integrity and longevity. Loss of inert nanites may result in an organic matter losing cellular elasticity and slowed function, leading to an overall loss of vitality. Again, the severity of this vitality loss depends on the subject losing its inert nanites. To use the example you stated earlier if you absorbed the inert nanites from an apple, it would begin to soften and appear as if it had been sitting out for a week or so. If it were the apple tree, the leaves may start to curl and brown as if it had not had water for some time. The most substantial amount of inert nanites is within humanoid organisms, as the human species has undergone the least overall genetic changes.]
Leta groaned, pressing her head back into the pillow, ‘That’s worse… I’m not absorbing nanites from people, so that rules that out. I’m about to put on some pounds going through food to get those points.’ She sighed as she rolled onto her side, sleep starting to creep in on her despite today’s adventures.
[That is an incorrect statement. Part of the initial system download was to remove hazardous cell structures and reset the host body’s functions for maximum efficiency. This included an overhaul of the Host’s hormones and metabolism. The Host will see a decrease in overall body fat over the next several months, with noticeable changes in the next two weeks.]
‘That’s… cool, actually.’ She mused. Leta had never been a skinny girl, despite eating healthy and getting a lot of work out running around dig sites. No matter how many days she had where her fitness watch said she walked 15 kilometers, she never seemed to lose that pesky jiggle around her hips and thighs.
Maybe with the nanites, she finally would.
[It should also be noted that humanoid organisms do not only refer to humans. This can also include corrupted organisms such as the Corrupted-Nixie that was encountered earlier.]
Leta opened one eye as if she could give the hive mind attitude. ‘So, I can get nanites from monsters. Great.’ She drawled sarcastically.
[The Host should not be discouraged by this prospect. The Host has learned much from the experience and will be better prepared. In addition, the Electric Misconduct skill ensures that the Host always has a weapon available to them in an emergency.]
‘I’m still fighting monsters.’ She gave a long, drawn-out yawn that nearly cracked her jaw.
[At the moment, the Host is going to sleep. Fighting corrupted organisms can be scheduled for another day.]