The process of installing a commplant normally took a while. It required you to be put under anesthesia, and get some brain surgery. Unless - apparently - you were wealthy enough to get a nanoware implant, the sort that you snorted through your nose and waited until it crystallized in the right place.
However, they had Overhaul on their side. And Overhaul could do things much faster.
As a result, it took only a few seconds. Overhaul deactivating his pain receptors with some slight incisions to the right nerve clusters, then putting the implant on top of his head before splitting it open and then reshaping it back together around the implants.
“So, I’m a cyborg now?” Revenant says, scratching his head and checking out if everything was in the right place now. It was. Miracles of individualities were truly bountiful.
“Not by law.” Humility responds. “Even most of the body-purists consider commplants to be acceptable. They are extremely useful due to how much they deepen the ability to interface with technology, and are fairly non-intrusive.”
“No risk of mind control?” Revenant asks. He feels like it’s a bit late to ask that, but Overhaul did check out with the locals if that was normal. And Revenant made sure of it himself.
“Active cerebral implants that can allow that are explicitly forbidden.” Humility replies. “The commplants can alter the way you perceive the world, but they cannot control your movement nor influence the way you think. They can project sounds and sights into your optical and auditory nerves, and they can read your feedback to those of your brain activity, but they can’t do anything more than that.”
“So you can still technically manipulate me into killing someone close to me by making them display as enemies?” Revenant asks back. That sounded like a rather worrying possibility, even if Humility just cut out the risk of forced suicide from the equation.
“Technically speaking, yes.” Humility replies. “However, it's not an easy thing to do. Unless the target is very close to a computer terminal, it’s hard to project an illusion that’s good enough to fool a person. Other people’s movements are impossible to be perfectly predicted, leading to illusions having to be automatically generated. You can expect minor mistakes in the animation. It’s the sort of a thing that only works if you won’t give the target time to realize they are being fooled before it comes to a conclusion, relying on automatic fight or flight reactions.”
Looks like it wasn't a much bigger problem than low-to-mid tier illusion individualities. Villain Academy taught you how to manage to avoid falling for those. He could deal with that. A lot of people lounging around Ball Python’s command deck could.
“Why do I have a feeling that the active cerebral implants were banned due to some nasty past event?” Revenant asks back. Overhaul glances at Humility, probably curious about it themself.
“Because that’s the truth.” Humility replies, Revenant suppressing an automatic pained groan. “The movement to ban it was strong for quite a while, mostly due to two separate events. First one was the Virtual Consensus hackers succeeding in turning Admiral Kaneko into a remotely operated puppet, trapping her in her own mind in the process and organizing one of the bigger military disasters of the early war against the Transhuman Alliance. The second one was the Cold Trade.”
There is no clarification for that term. Is it because Humility doesn’t want to talk about it? That sounds like a bad thing. Especially when the other example provided was pure nightmare fuel.
“I'm almost afraid to ask.” Revenant replies, his curiosity winning the battle against caution. “But what was the Cold Trade?”
“After the Transhuman Alliance fell and the war ended, a big part of Mankind ended up being badly traumatized.” Humility replies. “A lot of people decided to abandon life entirely. Installed active cerebral implants in themselves and let other people operate their bodies remotely, while their minds escaped into fantasy worlds, sometimes getting rid of most of the memories of the real world. Their body paying for the new life of their minds. With either unskilled labor or the world’s oldest profession.”
“Sounds like a totally humanitarian way of paying for things, that has certainly managed to completely avoid spiraling into a nasty place.” Revenant replies dryly. Yeah, it sounded ugly as fuck.
“Yes.” Humility replies. “It worked well and great for you, until you discovered that your body was sold to some criminals and used for, say, making modern equivalent of snuff films or for human experimentation. The Government has, eventually, managed to crack down on the Cold Trade, but not before the democracy in the Solar Commonwealth collapsed under the weight of the post-war PTSD pandemic, economic crisis and its own incompetence. Really ruined the image of the whole technology. Add some nasty applications of it during the Unification Wars, like what gave birth to necrodrones, and you get a complete ban.”
This really feels like something to ruin an image of something, yeah. It was incredibly disquieting as an idea. Both necrodrones and the Cold Trade as a whole (especially the latter, somehow). Ugh. Let’s change the subject for now.
“How does one use the commplants?” Revenant asks instead.
“It’s simple.” Humility replies. “They are set to respond to your will to activate them, read them off your brain activity.”
Does it… oh, yeah, it works. He thinks about it, and suddenly he can see a HUD display itself to him. There is a Menu button there… huh. It’s like having a PC screen or a laptop or something similar in your head.
“How’s it powered?” Revenant asks.
“Bioelectricity.” Humility replies. “Not exactly your own, humans don’t produce enough of it, you’re not electric eels. There’s something of a biobattery inside of it, producing just enough power. It’s a better option than putting in a battery with all the chemicals inside.”
Especially if something gets spilled, yes.
“Enough energy to power up a computer?” Revenant asks back. This kind of felt hard to believe, even with all the technological progress he missed.
“No.” Humility replies. “What you have in your head isn’t a computer. It’s a personalized interface. It can store some data, acting as a bit of personal data storage, but that’s a secondary application.”
Oh.
“So I can’t go on a wikipedia binge, or use communicators in my head.” Revenant summarizes it. “But what I actually do is use the computers of Ball Python, with commplants displaying everything directly into my optical and auditory nerves, all while reading off my conscious feedback from my brain?”
“Yes.” Humility replies. “That’s how it works. When we move out of this base, we’ll take a detachable computer core with us, so that we don’t lose anything important and that we can still use all the functionalities while on the way. Still, with the maze around suppressing the connection strength, it only works in the middle of the convoy.”
“Smart.” Revenant admits. It’s a funny way of dodging technological limitations of not being able to put a whole computer into one’s brain. “So, what exactly can I…”
A very familiar mail icon appears in the corner of his view. There is a red flashing dot on it. Revenant decides to open it… and so it does.
WolfgirlSimp: boss
WolfgirlSimp: BOSS
WolfgirlSimp: THEY HAVE VR GAMES :D
WolfgirlSimp: you gotta check this out
Revenant: …
Revenant: never change
WolfgirlSimp: ???
How does one change his nickname here? He’ll figure this out in just a few moments. Yeah. In the meantime, it’s time to say thanks for the medical procedure and leave to get more accustomed with the technology in peace.
***
“So…” Onslaught asks over the dinner. “... what can you tell me about Kitsune?” Revenant sighs and glances down at her.
She is sitting to his right side. Hypothermia is sitting to his left side. Destro is on the other side of the table. It’s pretty much a family dinner, even if Revenant still refuses to call Destro his father.
C’mon, it would be awkward.
“Expect the unexpected.” Revenant replies. “And chaos in general. She’s the walking definition of it, to me.” ‘Chaos Undecided’, to quote Decay. It was a rather correct description.
Destro glances at him over the table. Is he considering the chaos factor of the potential expansion of his family? Is he seriously thinking about making Kitsune his daughter? For completion sake, or because he has a strange compulsion to adopt young women with complicated backstories that find themselves in the vicinity of Revenant?
“Details, Revy, details!” Onslaught refuses to budge. “Or I’ll interrogate Thermy!”
Hypothermia’s opinion on the subject seems to be best summarized by ‘please don’t pull me into this’. She glances at Revenant with an unspoken ‘please tell her everything in my stead’ on her face.
Huh. They were friendly towards each other, if only because they bonded over acting motherly around Chronoshift. She has positive things to say about Kitsune. She just doesn’t feel well about being in the center of attention.
“Kitsune had a very… unique childhood.” Revenant replies. “Unique as in weird, yet not… exactly abusive. Honestly, I don’t think there are many people that can match up to her in that field.”
“Now you’re worrying me.” Destro says dryly, glancing at Hypothermia (who promptly looks to the side, avoiding his eyes).
“Daddy, shh.” Onslaught refuses to waste any more time on pleasantries and interruptions. “Revy, get to the point.”
Wow, she really wants to get to know Kitsune as fast as possible and with as many details as possible.
“Well, to begin with, her father was a superhero named Stormcloud.” Revenant replies. “While her mother was a minor villain lieutenant called Red Tail, an important member of some local gang. C-Ranker if I remember, no one particularly big. Stormcloud would stomp her in seconds if they fought, he was an A-Ranker and damn close to S-Rank.”
“That’s an odd thing, alright.” Destro admits. “How did that happen? Was she an informant on the inside, or…”
“No, no.” Revenant interrupts it quickly. Destro is off it either way, so there is no need to give him time to speculate. “The odd thing about her parents was that Red Tail was living 24/7 in Stormcloud’s basement, despite the world thinking that she went missing.”
Yeah, now he gets a weird look from Onslaught and a shocked one from Destro, only Hypothermia staying quiet and calm. She knew the backstory beforehand. Understandable reaction.
“Wait, how’s that not an abusive childhood environment?” Destro asks back, blinking at him in shock.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Because it was consensual.” Revenant replies, surprising him completely. “Red Tail was a mutant, you know how those are often discriminated against. She was kicked out of her home early enough, becoming a villain just to survive. Killed some people, mostly other minor criminals but it’s not like the law differentiates those from honest folks. Evidence of murder is evidence of murder. At some point she realized that she can’t live that way. And then she ran into Stormcloud.”
“And they just…” Destro replies, in clear disbelief of the implications. Revenant shrugs. It was not that long after Wishgranter’s passage, the system was still forming, a lot of chaos was happening. Probably not the weirdest thing that happened back then.
“She was tired of being a villain and afraid of being killed in prison by some racist inmates.” Revenant replies. “Stormcloud was apparently privately a loner who didn’t want to remain one, but had some serious issues with interacting with other people. And, probably, some weird interests. Red Tail became something of a live-in maid, probably with a hint of a pet but it’s not like they were doing that in front of Kitsune, so I’m speculating there. Pretty much some weird variant of house arrest for her crimes, with Stormcloud being her jailer slash parole officer. Hard to say how it started exactly, I only have Kitsune’s words about it. But unless she lied to me, then by the time of her earliest memories they were acting as a loving couple. No violence, no abuse, a lot of clear affection towards each other, just Red Tail’s presence having to stay hidden from the world.”
“She didn’t.” Hypothermia says quietly, dragging attention to herself. She seems to not be doing well with the attention, but she still speaks. “She didn’t lie. She had family pictures, films. They all looked happy. Genuinely happy. She missed them a lot.”
Hypothermia is an expert in reading emotions. It’s that empathy of hers. Powerful force, truly. He is ready to believe her words. Especially as they were rather friendly to each other, not to the point of what Hypothermia used to have with Onslaught, but…
“Kitsune was, officially, an orphan adopted by Stormcloud.” Revenant continues the tale, dragging the attention away from Mia. “That allowed her to go out, meet people, go to school and so on. It was all fine and dandy, for some time. Then some villain leveled her neighborhood, her parents died and the whole deal got outed to the world.”
Onslaught finally decides on the look on her face. This time it’s… pity? Understanding? She is no stranger to losing people close to her. She didn’t get to witness it due to being the one to die, but… she was slowly beginning to understand the pain of her loved ones when that happened.
“She ended up in an orphanage, waiting for adoption, but… mutants aren’t very popular, and with her backstory, she was even less popular.” Revenant continues the tale. “She was also bullied, and at the time where she was the most vulnerable. After her whole life ended together with her parents. So she snapped. The incident led to her obtaining an individuality, and becoming a newest recruit of the Villain Academy.”
He doesn’t say it aloud. But they know. That the Villain Academy isn’t a place that can make you a better and more adjusted person. But it sure as hell can make you deadlier and way more crazy.
“To be honest, she’s… crazy.” Revenant admits. “In a controllable way. She isn’t a murderous psychopath, she isn’t a schizophreniac living in her own world. She’s more… unfettered. Her whole backstory gave her that overwhelming belief that romantic love justifies everything. Joined the VAA because I was doing the whole thing out of losing someone I loved. And she found that romantic.”
Silence, his present companions were all busy reevaluating their opinion on Kitsune. Aside from Hypothermia. Eventually, Onslaught decides to default to getting a second opinion on the issue before making any decisions.
“Thermy?” Onslaught asks. “What do you think about her?”
“She’s nice.” Hypothermia replies without a moment of doubt. “Put a lot of effort in making people around her laugh. Likes children and is pretty good with them. She was my friend. Did her best to persuade me to confess to Revenant, hoping that it would stop him from destroying himself.”
That seems to have defused the situation. Destro appears to still have some apprehensions about the idea, but now that Onslaught clearly looked forward to meeting Kitsune in person, he decided to withhold his words.
It was going to be… interesting.
***
The clothes they get out of the Magical Wardrobe are civilian ones. Black pants with some slight alterations to accommodate for the people with tails, and a T-Shirt with ‘Who Let the Fox Out’ inscription on it.
Kitsune isn’t a fighter, although she can be surprisingly vicious in melee. Agile, flexible, fast. But… her combat skills alone would make her an A-Ranker top. It’s her individuality that made her a nightmare.
The woman floating in the tube, very nearly ready for release. Fox-mutant, with fox-like ears and tail. Vulpine eyes, for now closed.
There was also a short, auburn fur. Quite a lot of it (the fact that Decay fell in love with Steelfang probably saving him from repetition of ancient ‘eww, furry’ jokes - besides that was fairly racist nowadays, with animal-themed mutants around), covering most of her body. Aside from the front of her neck and face, and a triangle between her shoulders and abdomen.
Her skin was white. With the auburn hair on her back and sides, it really fit the color scheme of a red fox.
Her body-built was… average. A middle-ground between Onslaught and Hypothermia. Visible breasts and an hourglass figure, but… a slim one nonetheless. Fur covered it mostly, but she was also surprisingly muscular and well-trained.
Then again, they all were. You don’t survive as a major, established villain without training yourself.
He nods at Humility, who presses a few buttons. The tube opens, Kitsune stumbling forward, blinking around, clearly confused. She glances down, blinking once more at the shocking lack of Valiant’s sword in her chest. Then she notices Revenant, and an unfamiliar robot in the room, Onslaught and Hypothermia presently outside the room as Revenant asked them to.
“Oh, hi there, boss!” Kitsune waves at him, clearly unbothered by nudity. “This is kind of confusing, uhm, wasn’t I dead?”
“You were.” Revenant replies dryly. “Not anymore.”
Kitsune blinks at him, Revenant sighing and giving her the pile of clothes he was holding in his hands. She starts putting them on.
“So, uhm, how much trouble am I in?” Kitsune asks, her underwear already on, the woman still looking at Revenant. The supervillain responds with a raised eyebrow. “You made it a policy after Virtue that heroic sacrifices among your lieutenants are forbidden without your explicit approval, and, uhm…”
Revenant sighs. This doesn’t even count as a confirmation of his suspicions that she took the blow for him intentionally. Mostly because he already knew that without a shred of doubt. It’s just that… asking if she’s in trouble for dying without his permission was a very Kitsune thing to do.
“You’re conditionally forgiven.” Revenant replies, Kitsune’s almost fully clothed by now. “The condition is ‘don’t die on me again’, please.”
“Can’t do, boss!” Kitsune responds immediately. “I’ve done it once, I’ll do it again if I have to! You have a mission! And it’s just sooo romantic! Love is important! Most important!” Wow, what a subject to be enthusiastic about. “Speaking of, how’s the war going?”
“It’s over.” Revenant replies. Kitsune blinks at him in shock. “I died, and precisely as I told you I was going to die. It all worked out.” Kitsune’s mouth goes O, with a combination of confusion at them still being there despite their deaths, enthusiasm at Revenant achieving his goal (which was also romantic). “Except, then things become complicated.”
“Sure they did!” Kitsune replies with enthusiasm. “Is this hell? Is this purgatory? Is that robot over there a very weird-looking angel that misplaced their wings and halo somewhere?” Revenant opens his mouth to answer, but she doesn’t let him. “No, wait! I know the truth! You were so cool and smart, and I was so love-filled and kind, that aliens rescued us from our death for some inexplicable reason. Right?”
He is sure that she knows exactly what reason she was talking about. She just decided that it would be too forceful to openly mention it. After all, it would count as a confession, and not a sufficiently romantic one.
Even if she made it clear what she wanted, multiple times.
“She isn’t completely wrong about it, for a given meaning of alien.” Humility comments from the side. Revenant gives the AI a death glare, so it decides that enough is enough. “Alright, I’m leaving. Have fun.”
Kitsune looks at its back, before snapping back to Revenant, the look on her face suddenly back to seriousness.
“Are we in trouble?” She whispers. “Is she a jailer or something? Do we have to break out right now?” Right, she was eccentric, but far from stupid.
“No.” Revenant replies. “It’s fine. Also, why she? It’s a robot.”
“What do you mean by ‘why she’?” Kitsune blinks at him. “It’s obviously a woman, right? It’s all there in how she moves, and talks and…”
Yeah, he isn’t going to ask.
“Anyways, we’re alive right now, and we’re in a bit of a troublesome situation right now.” Revenant continues. “Figured out that I need a new goal in life, since death clearly didn’t stick. So…”
“Wait, wait, wait!” Kitsune cuts in. Yeah, she was one of the few people that was allowed to do that, even during VAA staff meetings. Benefits of being the team’s cloud cuckoolander. Like a court jester at a king’s court, allowed to tell the king things that the king might not like to hear at the behest of more ‘serious’ people. “You died, but you’re now free of your worldly attachments, right? Is it the moment when you finally realized that it’s time to move on, leading to a steamy and romantic relationship with the person that just happened to be the one telling you to do that with either her or Hypothermia? Because your death-seeking tendencies were absolutely romantic but their conclusion would also make Chronoshift sad?”
Oof.
“Okay, okay, I admit that you were right.” Revenant decides that honesty is still the best policy. Kitsune beams at him with a mixture of happiness and… a bit of a confusion at how much he changed. “I was kind of a … self-centered dick back then. But, I think that what actually happened and is going to happen is a bit more… romantic.”
“M-more romantic than that?” Kitsune stares at him in shock. “No way, how?!”
He sends a message to Onslaught, telling her to come in. Commplants clearly being extremely useful in staging certain events. Revenant gestures at the door just in time for Kitsune to see Onslaught roll inside, Hypothermia behind her back.
Kitsune waves at Mia (the woman responding in kind), before she realizes who was it in the wheelchair. Oni doesn’t even have the time to speak before Kitsune does it first.
“Ohmigosh!” Kitsune exclaims, covering her mouth in shock. “That’s Onslaught, Onslaught is alive as well! You went on a rampage after she died, and then two of you were reunited after your death! That’s so…”
‘...romantic.’ Revenant mouths without a word. He knows her well enough at this point.
“...romantic!” Kitsune shouts. Onslaught clearly going through a shocked realization that she encountered someone who was even more of an extrovert than she was. “I’m so happy that you’re together once more! If I can help you somehow, I’ll gladly do it! Can I be your maid of hon…, no wait, that will be Ice’y, but a bridesmaid? Can I be a bridesmaid at your wedding? Please!”
Her hands are clenched into fists, but with no hostility behind it. She is keeping them on both sides of her face, with a wide smile between them, her tail moving right and left with fast speed.
Oh. Revenant understands it right now. The role that she’ll be playing in this relationship. Onslaught is the main composer of that particular symphony, and a driving force behind the arrangement. Hypothermia was making him more sensitive about emotions, and things like… arts, kind of. And Kitsune?
Someone had to instill a certain degree of chaos and unpredictability in his life. Drag him out of his comfort zone. Made him live without seven contingency plans for a visit in the toilet, just in case someone tried to assassinate him in the process.
The situation is much less complicated nowadays, he can live with just two plans at any given moment.
“Tempting, but you’re wrong about one thing.” Onslaught replies, with a wry grin on her face. “The truth, my dear, is even more romantic.”
“N-no way!” Kitsune lets out in complete shock, her eyes transfixed on Onslaught. “Even more…?! How?!”
Onslaught has her best impish smile on her face at this point, prompting Revenant to groan in the background. Seeing the two of them act like that makes him hear boss music, and it’s the ‘ominous latin chant’ sort.
“By my humble self making Revy, my beloved, realize that not answering the feelings of women that ended up dying for him is a major dick move.” Onslaught replies. “As a result, he is allowed to date other girls, for as long as they were in love with him and ended up dying in a heroic sacrifice to save his life, which, to be honest, is kind of a restrictive filter. I already managed to get Thermy to confess, and Revy said yes.”
Kitsune stares at her, her mouth opened wide and covered with her hands, before her eyes jump to Hypothermia (who nods, with a faint but clearly happy smile on her face) and then to Revenant, before returning to Onslaught.
It seems that the implications of Onslaught’s words are just hitting her, and they are hitting her hard.
“Revy would have been kind enough to confess for a change…” Onslaught says, with an unspoken threat in ‘kind enough’. “... but he’s a bit of a tsundere, you have to understand him.”
“I’m not a tsundere.” Revenant shoots back, Kitsune still processing the shock. “I’m just having slight emotional issues making it harder for me to express romantic emotions, leading to me appearing colder than I actually am and… oh my god.” He blinks at Onslaught in total shock, sudden realization sweeping all over him. “I am a tsundere.”
As Onslaught and Kitsune start cackling as if on cue, Revenant realizes that peace and quiet are soon going to become half-forgotten memories in his life.
***
Obraz [https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1029465796570783838/1115707128175407265/01914-15886ry.png?width=465&height=651]