In the end, Steelfang bravely overcomes the existential dread and ends up finding a positive side of the whole situation, something that even Decay failed to notice on his own. Which, naturally, excludes the possibility of it being about future video games (as Decay literally can’t shut up about it)..
No. Steelfang’s positive is that she gets a few weeks to a full months without having to take care of her children, while being right next to Decay the whole time. So, basically, a second and rather lengthy honeymoon.
Before getting their children back, as if nothing has happened. Not missing out even a single day from their life. As that was the absolute necessity for Steelfang to enjoy it.
Revenant is about 70% sure that by the time this will occur, Steelfang will have another child incoming. Seriously, Decay was positively beaming whenever he saw his children and absolutely loved the idea of having more of them, because it meant more mini-Steelfangs around, and that was literally the best idea ever to him.
In the meantime, following the quick introduction to the Revybowl (why did it become an official name and was it some sort of reference that Revenant missed out on?) that leads to Steelfang being happy to see Kitsune and Hypothermia alive again, and overjoyed about getting to meet Onslaught properly, Steelfang promptly vanishes.
Decay grabs her and the both of them run towards the medbay so that Overhaul can install the commplant into her head so that they can immediately check up the new VRMMORPGs. And… that’s honestly very in character.
Revenant is totally going to come check it out with them when he has the time. Decay calls him his Player One for a reason, after all.
***
The next day after his art date with Hypothermia, he ends up getting a lengthy evening with no one else but Kitsune.
“So…” Revenant says, while looking down at her, Kitsune clinging to him from the front, the both of them standing in the middle of the captain’s quarters. “... clothes still on? I expected you to wear nothing at all in private.”
“I can be convinced to do that, at least until we get children around.” Kitsune replies, before giving him an incredibly cheeky grin. “But think about it. If I wouldn’t wear any clothes, how would I get to be stripped by you? I would miss out on something super romantic!”
Fair point. To be fully honest, he’s looking forward to the stripping part. Hey, he is having a cute and sexy young woman in front of him that’s looking at him as if she wanted to gobble him down! Obviously he’s looking forward to it.
“Anyways…” Kitsune continues. “Do you have a nickname for me, finally? But it has to be cute! Or else!”
Revenant sighs. What would she do to him if it wasn’t cute? Does he even know? He isn’t vulnerable to tickling, at least. That might become useful if he ever disappoints her. He’d rather try not to disappoint anyone, though.
“How does Vixy sound?” He asks. “Short for Vixen. Because that feels like it describes you pretty well.”
Kitsune thinks for a moment, before nodding enthusiastically.
“I like it!” She announces with a bright smile on her face.“Wonderful pick, Blackie! So, what are we going to do now exac…”
He kisses her, Kitsune immediately pressing herself into him, her hands on his chest, their tongues doing some really intense wrestling match, Kitsune clearly on a cloud nine (he can see that on her face, at least before he closes his eyes to enjoy it more).
Revenant’s hands are on her back, slowly crawling down, until he finally gets to his destination. Now, this is pretty great. Seriously. Hypothermia has her breasts, round and soft, yet aesthetically shaped - but Kitsune has the ass to die for.
Someone really trained herself to shape it properly, soft on the surface, but stiff underneath. And nearly perfectly shaped.
Very fun, 10/10, Revenant should have gotten more invested into those instead of going completely insane and killing directly or indirectly several hundreds of thousand of people (or more). It would make a lot of people much, much happier.
And then, he touches her tail.
“Ah!” Kitsune reacts to that. Thankfully, he was smart enough to pull his tongue back at the time, let’s not risk accidental closing of mouth. Kitsune has fangs. “B-be gentle, okay?! I’m not u-used to it and…”
She is actually slightly red-faced now. It wasn’t a thing before he touched her tail. Now, that’s quite some sensitivity.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry.” Revenant replies, his hand still on her tail, stroking it lightly all the way from the base. “I’m going to be very gentle.” Her eyes dodge his own, it really reads like Hypothermia now. “Seriously, though. Just how sensitive are you down there?!”
“I-It’s not that, I just…” She somehow blushes even more. “... I made a vow that I would only let someone I truly, truly love touch it. Because this sort of vow sounded super romantic! And this is finally happening, s-so…!”
Oh, so it’s like this. That sounds like a very Kitsune thing to do. He is willing to give her what she dreamed of.
At least until he pulls his hands back to grab the edges of her T-Shirt and pulls it up, taking it off over her head. And then their tongues intertwine again.
Oh, yes. This is getting increasingly great.
***
In the end, like with Hypothermia, Kitsune was allowed to have that one evening completely to herself. It was her first one, after all. So no sleep cuddle pile for her.
Obviously, they were open to individual sleeping, it just needed to be agreed upon. Like everything else. That’s why the commplants were incredibly useful, you could message others literally at the speed of thought.
Revenant woke up in the morning, Kitsune clinging to his side, completely naked and, surprisingly enough, under the quilt for once. It was a very lovely evening and Revenant is really looking forward to more.
He got something to live for out of this relationship. This is great. This is a massive progress on his route to becoming a normal person. Also, he has a feeling that Chronoshift is going to love her new and officially expanded family, Kitsune and Hypothermia becoming her moms’ officially.
He absolutely dreads Chronoshift and Onslaught meeting, though.
Also, Chronoshift is absolutely getting some horrible punishment out of what he heard about her.
Wait a moment, now that he thinks about it…
IChoseViolence: Player Two I have a question
IChoseViolence: you there
WolfgirlBestGirl: yes
WolfgirlBestGirl: chilling in the bed with my wife finally here
WolfgirlBestGirl: what is it
IChoseViolence: I just realized something
IChoseViolence: Did Chronoshift actually enjoy watching TV?
WolfgirlBestGirl: no, she figured out that if she acts around you as if it was her primary source of entertainment, then if you found out about her villain business you’d give her a TV ban, and it won’t hurt her if she doesn’t actually like doing it
IChoseViolence: god I can’t say if I’m more disappointed or impressed
WolfgirlBestGirl: why not both lmao
IChoseViolence: ^this
IChoseViolence: going back to chilling in the bed with Kitsune
WolfgirlBestGirl: Finally you’ve seen the truth, boss
WolfgirlBestGirl: Respect
IChoseViolence: … ugh
In the resurrection room, a new group of VAA elite mooks is busy growing up. They consider summoning a group of Halworth Industries’ technicians to give Clockmaker some additional help as the next batch.
***
“A penny for your thoughts, commander.” Virtue says, the woman sitting on the other side of the couch in the Ball Python’s officer rec room. It’s surprisingly scarce in decorations, most of the ‘rec’ coming from commplants. The biggest part of it was mostly comfy places to sit on and some coffee tables to put snacks on.
“I’m no longer a commander of anything, Virtue.” Destro replies. He is sitting next to her (at a reasonable distance), an open bottle of whiskey on the table in front of him, a glass of it in his hand. There is ice floating in it, he’s a man of culture, and drinking whiskey that way is the American’s Way. God, if only he had a good cigar to go with it. “Just a political advisor of the actual commander.”
This isn’t their first ‘let’s talk about old times’ meeting. No, Revenant/Onslaught, they aren’t flirting. Just… talking. Destro over a glass of whiskey, Virtue over a glass of wine, with some food on the table.
They have a history together, after all.
“Proud?” Virtue asks. “I mean, aside from what he did, Revenant is… brilliant, I give him that much. And you contributed greatly to teaching him to lead an organization.”
Fair. He learned a lot as a personal assistant of a triple S-Rank villainous mastermind. That’s a rare experience.
“I’m proud of him for what he is, and what he is trying to become.” Destro replies, looking at the contents of his glass with a serious look on his face. “I can’t say that I’m particularly proud of what he did. Then again, did he actually do any of this? A big existential question.”
Virtue nods, mostly to herself. She has a similar opinion. Then again…
“And what about me?” Virtue then asks. They were dancing around the subject for a while, and… it might be the right time to ask. “I did a lot of nasty things, and…”
“I don’t blame you.” Destro replies. “I don’t blame any of the old PLF members for what they did after the New Liberty bombing. Judging people is easy. I wasn’t there, I didn’t get to live through the same things as you did. Desperation makes people do horrible things. The Government’s action was an escalation that made way too many things feel permissible. I really think that I understand why Revenant prefers to pretend that it all didn’t happen.”
What remains unspoken is that if Destro happened to not be in the city at the time, he would have probably ended up committing some nasty war crimes himself. Especially if Onslaught died in New Liberty.
So, yeah. Complaining about his son destroying a country is kind of hard when he thinks that he’d do the same thing in his place.
Yes, that’s how he thinks about him. Revenant is his son, even if he's in denial over it. Destro only had a daughter and he genuinely thinks that all men should have a son to do manly things with, like playing baseball behind your house. Or overthrowing the US Government.
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That was a very manly thing to do.
“Sounds like you didn’t think the same way.” Virtue replies with a question, glancing at him over the wine.
“It reads too much like denial, to me.” Destro admits. “It’s better to think that it happened and learn from it, get that tasty character development out of it. But Revenant seems to have found a reasonable middle-ground where he refuses to believe that it happened, but still considers it wise to learn from it.”
Virtue says nothing. Destro decides that it might be a good idea to dig a bit deeper into this.
“What’s your opinion on it?” Destro asks, Virtue shaking her head a little.
“I just don’t want to think about it.” Virtue replies, dodging the question. “Who do you look forward to seeing again the most? From the old PLF.”
“Everyone.” Destro replies. “Absolutely everyone.” He can only wonder how long it’ll take for Revenant to pick one of them from the list. There were all highly competent people, but it all depended on the sort of individuality that was most needed right now.
“And what are you going to do after leaving this planet?” Virtue asks. “Yes, I know that it feels premature, as we’re barely off the starting point and god only knows how far underground we are, but…”
“It’s not exactly premature, Virtue.” Destro decides to intervene and cuts in. “I think that it’s the perfectly logical thing to do. We were all pulled out from our world, thrown into a completely different universe that’s completely unfamiliar to us, not to mention being told that everything we knew about was a lie. I’d say that establishing what you’re fighting for is perfectly logical.”
She is thinking it over for a moment.
“I think I can guess what you’re fighting for.” Virtue decides, giggling a little when he looks at her strangely. “Your doting father thing was famous back then. Be honest with me, you’re already looking forward to doting on your grandchildren, and dropping around to visit your daughters at least once a week.”
True. C’mon, a father wanting to make sure that his children grow up healthy and happy? And being ready to punch people for it? That’s completely and utterly manly, and he’s ready to die on this hill.
“You’re not wrong.” Destro admits. “My war is over, my organization is gone, my political views are kind of pointless as there is no country to make them a reality in. What else do I have left? I’d say that securing a future for my kids sounds like a good goal.”
“Well, no children there for me.” Virtue replies, before sipping her wine. “My career was over for a long time, now, what was left for me was the war and trying to avenge the New Liberty. Now that’s over too.” She sighs. “I guess that planning a new future sounds like a good idea. Should probably try to take a page out of Revenant, find someone for myself and start planning a lengthy life consisting of… well. Some expensive alcohol, some high society parties, some… well, a child or two, probably.”
Hey, people supposedly live for like two centuries now, right? Getting your child up to adulthood suddenly doesn’t take up such a large part of your life. She might have never really considered it herself (she had other things on her mind), but…
Destro glances at her, before chuckling. She gives him a questioning look. How to put it correctly? He has no idea. So much about political experience and his lengthy participation in his old school’s theater club.
The dramatic acting lessons that he MIGHT have taken when he decided to become a supervillain are also suddenly less useful than he expected them to be. Whoops.
“Well, then.” Destro eventually settles on something neutral. “That sounds like a reasonable goal to pursue! I’m certain that you’re going to succeed in it.”
And now, thanks to his daughter (and son)’s teasing, he gets the feeling that Virtue was expecting something different. Ugh. Is it a child thing to make things awkward for their parents?
***
The party eventually arrived at the entrance to Aesculapius. The first thing they did was to check the cameras that the initial scouting party left around the entrance, competently (according to the AI) concealed.
Nothing seemed to occur between the initial discovery of the Aesculapius and their arrival here. No movement, no signs of activity. Just a day’s-worth of feed showing an empty corridor. Humility quickly ran some analysis of the feed and made sure that it wasn’t tampered with.
Demiurge wasn’t sure if she was ready to trust the AI wholeheartedly. But… it was going to enter the ship with them. It didn’t feel suicidal, unless it had a way to reupload elsewhere instantly.
“How many other entrances Aesculapius has?” Demiurge asks, Amplitude and Songbird close by. It’s hard to describe the full spectrum of emotions this fact gives her.
“Twenty-seven.” Humility replies. “But if Ball Python is anything to go by, most of them are probably sealed by the maze structure. I can’t tell you anything more than that until we seize the ship’s computer system.”
Demiurge nods, before staring at the ship’s entrance in front of her. Deep in her thoughts. Amplitude and Songbird, for all their combat skills, aren’t skillful tacticians. They have nothing to add to the subject, and so they let her think.
“What is it?” Humility asks. Palmer observes them both from the side, but quietly.
“This is a medical ship.” Demiurge replies. “If I wanted to booby-trap the entrance to it, I’d pump some chemicals into the room behind the entrance. So that whoever would open it, would get a face full of something poisonous. And a medical ship should have a lot of various nasty things.”
Humility says nothing, instead it glances towards the ship entrance. Instead, it’s Palmer that speaks.
“She has a point.” Palmer admits, Demiurge giving him an emotionless look. “Boarding parties expect explosives, mines or automatic weapons, not that. In space it would be pointless, since every intruder would have full space armor. But in this maze? Different situation.”
“I’d ask for gas masks…” Demiurge comments dryly. “... but I’m fairly sure that whoever prepared this little trap had access to things that require closed armor to survive. Chemicals? Biological agents? Hostile nanoware?” She sighs. This is going to be a pain in the ass. “Alright. We’re making an airlock. Make a camp outside of this corridor, then we’ll do some measurements.”
***
An hour later, she has managed to get the measurements of the corridor - enough to create an airlock more or less fitting the corridor. They also got themselves an appropriate material (in a handy bottle with a dispenser) to properly air-proof the edges of the airlocks.
They then place a proper biochemical scanner (they brought that at least). Before Demiurge nicely asks it to be the one to open the hatch into the system.
“How do we do the decontamination?” Humility asks. “I might be inorganic, but if it’s something sufficiently dangerous, it can probably survive on my outer shell.”
“Amplitude can generate heat.” Demiurge replies. They don’t have Overhaul with them, which is reason enough for caution. Revenant was clearly afraid of having to fight off an assault on Ball Python without Overhaul around. “How many degrees can your armor withstand?”
“At least 3500°C by specification.” Humility replies. “I risk overheating at sufficiently prolonged exposure, but I should manage at least a minute of it. That should kill nearly damn everything.”
“Sounds reasonable.” Demiurge replies. “I already expected we’ll have to do that, so I made the external entrance to the airlock from heat-proof materials. Amplitude can change the insides into an incineration chamber without exposing herself. Let’s do it.”
***
A few minutes later, they can hear the screeching sound of Humility opening up the Aesculapius hatch. And, a while later, they get a report from Humility through the commplants.
“Looks like the time spent on all of that wasn’t wasted, huh.” Palmer comments, just as Demiurge tries to make any sense whatsoever from the bioscanner feed. “Unknown biochemical component in the air. Sounds pleasant.”
“And it makes zero sense to me.” Demiurge squints at something that only she can see. “This basically cannot exist, unless biology and chemistry did a 180 when I wasn’t looking.”
Seriously, none of this makes anything resembling sense. It’s like trying to read a chemistry textbook after eating a handful of datura plant seeds and washing them down with shady moonshine. Demiurge can feel her braincells demanding a break more and more aggressively with every second of trying to comprehend the bullshit in front of her.
Humility is being cooked by Amplitude in the background. It’s being completely ignored. A resurrected mass murderer (that never existed) with physics-defying superpowers is cooking up a rogue AI just as a group of soldiers are chilling in the background and eating some of their field rations while their commanding officer wasn’t looking, day as any other.
Thankfully, Humility decides to intervene. Using the commplants and the comm network they organized for the outing alone.
ACORN: i’ve seen that compound already
ACORN: we have a tiny itsy-bitty problem
Demiurge had a lot of questions as to why the Republic of New Springfield used a call-sign system and communication appointment titles that were an odd mixture of pre-Days of Fire Great Britain and United States systems.
In the end, she rolls with it without questioning. It makes sense for a system used alongside commplants, though. Clearly denoting who is who, making people automatically ‘think’ the right name to contact the right people in combat situations.
For now, they are in a closed private conversation for Humility [ACORN], Demiurge [SUNRAY] and Ferris Palmer [STARLIGHT]. This is a bit odd, for as far as Demiurge remembered it, STARLIGHT implied medical officers. Then again, it might have as well changed in the meantime. Like nearly everything else.
Acorn and Sunray, at least, fit. Acorn for intelligence officers and Sunray for unit commanders.
SUNRAY: Elaborate?
ACORN: we’re dealing with nightmare/viridian infestation
STARLIGHT: Nightmare?
ACORN: explorers guild secret
ACORN: things similar in nature to whatever done weird things to your world
STARLIGHT: Sounds splendid.
SUNRAY: How bad is it?
ACORN: the mission is still salvageable
ACORN: but it got more complicated
ACORN: we can expect resistance
ACORN: possibly a heavy one
ACORN: the problem is that we’re armed for a wrong enemy
SUNRAY: Please summarize the situation in the shortest possible way.
ACORN: zombies
ACORN: space zombies
STARLIGHT: God fucking dammit.
STARLIGHT: Are you fucking with me right now?
ACORN: no
ACORN: welcome to the world of ‘if you know this you just lose your breathing privilege’ ft. confederation of mankind & explorers guild
ACORN: the solution is identical to nightmare/colorless
ACORN: we have to purge all the conduits that are maintaining the nightmare’s connection to this particular part of reality
ACORN: the only thing that changed is that conduits can move and are hostile
ACORN: just fairly slowly
SUNRAY: What about the compound in the air?
ACORN: its a problem
ACORN: it does propagate the sorta-kinda-space-zombie thing
ACORN: however it can be filtered out with gas masks and dies to high temperature
ACORN: we can enter aesculapius freely
ACORN: skin stops it but you’d need to avoid open injuries
ACORN: cauterize or amputate and then cauterize
ACORN: immediately
SUNRAY: Mission objective in detail?
ACORN: physically erase all conduits, activate the ship’s air filtration systems
ACORN: that will mean seizing the ship successfully
SUNRAY: I’m heavily tempted to order the mission over, retreat to the base and change the equipment and unit composition. We’re no longer dealing with NIGHTMARE/COLORLESS, but with NIGHTMARE/VIRIDIAN. That changes the situation.
ACORN: not necessarily
ACORN: there is a high chance that some of nc conduits survived in isolated sections of the ship where the nv manifestation didn’t reach
ACORN: and they have to be purged
ACORN: are we moving in?
SUNRAY: You’re asking me? I have no idea about the details of enemy forces, and I’m actually about to order a full retreat, Revenant’s orders aside.
SUNRAY: Do you have anything more substantial to share with me?
ACORN: give me a minute
***
They end up setting a camp, Humility finally let out of the mini-crematorium - and even then, they make sure that everyone is a safe distance away from the improvised airlock before Humility steps out of it.
Demiurge gets a file to read. It’s lengthy. It’s oddly formatted. It really drives the nail of how incredibly insane the whole bullshit was. She already ran every known technique of dealing with illusions and mind-control and somehow, everything around her still reads as reality. Wow.
Amplitude sits on the chair right next to her. Hands her a perfectly warmed cup of tea without a word. How did they get it, so deep into the field? Well, Demiurge never moves her house/base/anything else without it, and Amplitude can boil it with a touch.
She keeps reading. Eventually, Amplitude speaks.
“What are we going to do about this?” She asks, glancing at Demiurge. Who, honestly, loves hearing her voice.
Songbird is sitting by the wall close to them, ignoring everything around, their mind in their own world. It’s best not to touch it. What’s there scares even Demiurge herself.
“I’m fairly sure that Revenant would expect me to back down.” Demiurge replies. “However, I believe that we have all the tools to deal with the situation. Or, at the very least, get some practical experience with dealing with this new threat while at it.”
There is also the part when Demiurge suspects that if she wasn’t so cautious with the airlock, the gas (or whatever the fuck it really was) would already be spreading through the corridors of this maze, reaching who knows how far. What if someone out there was currently busy opening another entrance hatch, this gaseous something about to spread through this maze?
Either way, they have to leave a garrison here. And if an attack comes from the inside of the presently quarantined area and damages the airlock before the attack is repelled? Everything will go to hell in a handbasket.
For now, she needs to read some more.