Missy's reflection of the Source-Shard of Oblivion… by her personal experience.

Oblivion… that's the blanket term for the Source-Shard owned by The Terror. Others call it by exctinction, ruin, death, destruction. In the end, it's all just the obliviation of what once was. Matter, mental… even spiritual death. God knows I feel like I'm surrounded by it. In times like this, I wish I never accepted the Implant.

But I had the right blood for it, my grandmother said so. A compatibility of 96%. And now I've influenced another to go down searching for this demonic curse within my blood and brain. Alberich… he's simultaneously the stupidest and smartest asshole I've ever met. Sometimes, it's hard to believe he was that runt I dug out from rubble. God, I still remember his cries for his parents. There weren't even ashes left.

I don't know when he found out the truth, but he did. He never said so, but he knows. It's why he's cursing me. He knows the only thing I'm good at is death.

And that's why he's trusting me with life. Diamante, Mikail… and now Ripley.

The first made me think I could change.

The second made me curse him forever, and all the progress I'd made.

The third is making me consider how much I can… let him suffer.

Maybe Ripley is just coincidence, but somehow it feels like fate.

Or maybe, that the strings of fate have been pulled by The Sin and his ally.

The only thing I fear more than the Source-Shard of Oblivion… is the Shard of The Future. And the damn MALtitan caged with it.

6:40 PM

October 13th

Ripley

I awaited Maiden's response to my confused realization that my grandfather's supposed master-plan in eliminating a MAL-titan was to pry parts from another.

She shrugged. "Probably."

"What do you mean… probably? Why on earth is my grandfather going to Africa to attack one Titan, just to kill another!" I didn't just want answers to this, I needed them. I thought I would be… satisfied, knowing why we were abandoned, but now that I had a snippet of the answer…

I was angry. I didn't care if he was out saving the world, what about mom? How could he leave the two of us here and go on some wild hunt halfway across the world without telling us?!

"The Infinite…" Maiden sighed. "You haven't seen a Swarm, but if I were to bet, you remember that MAL in the club like it had burned itself to your eyelids, right?"

How could I foget? Tentacles spiraling and condensing into limbs, the bloodsoaked eyes on it's petal-like head, the sound of bodies falling — of heads rolling-

I grabbed my head at the sudden pain flaring through it.

Maiden let her hand rest on my shoulder. "What you're remembering, what you're feeling… I saw the videos of that ugly thing. It threw around a NeoCore Inquisitor like a cockroach. A Tier IV Silver. Imagine a being capable of doing that to skyscrapers and Platinum Tier V Adapters and Founders, to absorb your home and it's people into itself as a massive pile of flesh and machinery. To turn everything you've ever known against you."

"To Change it." I muttered.

"To pervert it." She clarified. "I was born when the Swarm began, and it lasted long enough that I even fought in it towards the end. All I knew was war, a war that we were winning. I thought we were on the road to peace, to a moment of rest… then we lost everything. Parents, siblings, children, friends… it was eighteen hours of hell. Of trying to contain the damage, of it lifting a tendril and seeing thousands die as their homes ripped apart. The people who raised me, they're all gone. The people I fought with, the home I grew up in… the name I was born with. It's all a memory. A memory bathed in ruin."

"And now… The Infinite threatens to go after New California." I whispered.

"Our second home, not that it's been nice to us. Still, we built something for ourselves here. Your mother, you… your grandfather does care. It's why he left, he'd rather you two believe he abandoned you than let that monster tear everything apart for a second time."

"Then why'd he keep everything a secret from us!" I screamed.

"To stop you or your mother from doing exactly what you're thinking…" She folded her arms.

I planted my gaze on her. "And what is that?"

"To go after him. To punch some answers out of his smug face. To face The Terror. He's on a warpath against two Titans, the last thing he wants is for either of you to chase him down." Maiden released from her breath. "He's the worst kind of bastard. The kind of bastard that knows he's right."

"Doesn't change the facts." I turned my head to the floor.

"Nothing changes the facts." Maiden lifted my head up with an almost tender touch. "All that changes is how you respond to them, to forget and sulk and swallow away your woes with a drink or a needle… or to accept them. To take ourselves upon the solemn purpose of our Implants — and adapt."

"To persevere." I nodded with stern confidence. "Fucking hell, I thought my future plans for the Swarm were already complicated. Now I have Africa on my itinerary… and a Titan. Two of them."

"Well, I'll always be there to give you company!" Starlight cheered from the back. "With me in your head, I'll come up with solutions to those MALtitans in no time!"

"Get to Platinum first." Maiden barked. "And Tier V, Alberich'll probably find a way get there as soon as the Swarm kicks off. 'Sides, you'll have a better shot of it during the Sixth Swarm — assuming either of us lives another century. Founders know it's a miracle I did. Now stop all this dilly-dallyin' and get to work, both of you! I have two men bleedin' out and guts in my hallway."

I was already making my way to the wounded me as Maiden shouted her orders. "You're handlin' the man you blew up! Just because you're Al's grandson, don't think I've forgiven you! You'll be repayin' that debt for a long time."

"Three days isn't that long."

"Three days is how long I need to properly look through Starlight. From now on, I want you here every night for three weeks." Maiden met me seriously. "I'm keepin' these as hostage."

She pointed towards my Arachnodyne limbs which were ordered on a desk near the entrance, the only one still attached to me was broken and dragging behind me on the ground. "You get one back each week."

"I can't let you do that." I stood my ground. "They're my-"

"Oh please." She scoffed. "Was wonderin' what model they were, now I know they're Al's. Who the hell do you think helped build them? And it's only a Bronze prototype, you should see what we cooked up during our time in those frozen deserts."

Grumbling, I set my goggles on. Yeah, no way was I going to be letting myself deal with scrubbing all that blood off. This was a job for-

The Ripper

Staring at the bloody mess on the walls, I chuckled. So, in the end, my other didn't have the stomach for it. Very well, I could rip things into their base components — now let's see how well I can put them back together.

———

I have to say, I really did outdo myself. It was satisfying, watching as bodily contents in that despaired chaos of splatters and smidges — like an artist's tantrumed toss of paint on the walls — were rendered to order. Scrubbing, prying, picking and scraping all the skin, viscera and shards of bone from the hallway was time consuming.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

But it was an art.

To create a human, in my own macabre method of stitching and gluing the remnants of this poor soul back together. I'd tried to create a sufficiently… human appearance, however there was a lack of parts that hadn't been turned into goo. So, I set to some improvisation. Thankfully, Maiden did not question my request for duct tape, or for the stuffing you got from boxes of Shardware shipments.

The end product was far from human, mostly being a mess of pulverized organs given shape but no purpose, but the menial task that put all my anatomical knowledge together was rendering benefits.

Shardweave V.1.04 has updated to V.1.06

Effects:

Increased ability to reconstruct organic musculoskeletal architecture.

Increased ability to reconstruct and graft skin.

I questioned the origin of this free Warpcode, considering it had all gone to Starlight's development. It must have been leftovers from when she updated my Psyche; considering Shardweave was at a much lower stage of development, I assumed it would receive the most updates until an equilibrium was reached.

Dumping the stitched body into a tarp made of crudely grafted trash bags, I hauled the corpse back over to Maiden. She stared at me as I splayed out my workings for her, her mind fixated with what I knew had to be awe.

"I- what the fuck is wrong with you, kid?"

"I simply sought to return him into the form from whence he was once known." I happily explained. "Merely scrubbing and discarding of the viscera would be worthless to my excellence. Consider this a testament to my skill."

"You good at piecing people back together?… also, did your hair change colour?"

Ah, that. While I cleaned every bit of reflection from the surface with vigorous mopping technique, I was dismayed at the appearance within them. Black hair was a disservice to my work, they said that the mark of a good Shard Op' was how much blood was on them at the end of an operation.

So I used the artificial hair's color shifting options and turned it white, while at the same time giving it a more refined look. Now, they would truly know of the blood spilt upon me, and the fact that their life remained in balance was proof of my ability. "The answer is correct on both counts."

"You're… really weird." She muttered, before pointing towards a set of synthetic intestines. "Put these in the guy you shot in the abdomen, the bleeding stopped, but the perforation meant its contents spilt everywhere inside. Permanent damage to his coeliac plexus too, establish a full-"

"Gastrointestinal circuit, from pylorus to anus. Alongside artery repair and nerve replacement." I happily took the long tube-like Shardware. "He'll be grateful to have me in his care."

———

The screams were a song to accompany my art. A short while into the operation, a loud beeping noise took over the facility. Maiden grumbled before answering, and I ignored the conversation once I saw that it was just Diamante. It would only distract me from my pursuit of excellence in this man's bowels, despite my inner… Ripley begging to emerge, for his love of gossip. She'd even called me multiple times before I finally jabbed the man's rectum into place.

Approaching, I was happy to finally get the chance to say all the things that scrap-mouthed motherfucker deserved to hear.

———

Ripley

That talk went about as well as it could. Revising the conversation in my head, Diana and Diamante had discovered that the abducted children were forcefully Implanted and being tampered with using Dreamframes.

I didn't know much about Dreamframes, half so because they were mostly a myth to most Shard Op's. A Neuroframe was a relatively minimally invasive surgery that was automated to connect to the brainstem, cerebellum and spinal cord — whereas a Dreamframe required extensive digging through the various lobes of the brain and inputting specific translators through them.

The tech was complicated, dangerous, and… several times more powerful than a typical Neuroframe, even of the same Grade. It was the type of tech you'd see on DataDelvers who had abandoned their physical bodies and spent all their time on the Net.

Not on… children.

Metal Heavens, I knew they were deranged. Now, I wondered if this was what Diamante went through when he was one of their captives, before my grandfather saved him. Before he was The Iron Devil.

And Diana, I didn't exactly know what happened between her and Soul Killer, but when we last met… she seemed agitated. And now we were going to meet again.

"So, you're all done right?" Maiden turned to me, she was fixing up the whip that broke. "You can go."

"I can… go?" I stammered.

"Unless you want to stay?" Maiden had a sly smile grow on her face.

"Do you want me to?" I had no idea what she wanted.

"A little wisdom for the unwise…" Maiden tugged her chain-whip, making sure it was tight. "The best way to get someone on your side isn't by gaining their trust and asking them, it's to change the situation so they have no choice but to be on your side. Missy, Skeleton… they both know that better than anyone. Me? I know the facts of this war, but I also know myself. I don't have the patience to create seven levels of hell around you for you to join; besides, I don't want to put you through that. You ain't a bad Shard Op', way better than most of the ones I know… I know I set up the month-long contract… but if you want to fight, this is the place. Just leaving the offer on the table."

I let a smirk paint on my face. "Offers typically come with an agreement of payment."

Maiden rolled her feet onto a table. "Only guy who pays me is Diamante, the stingy lunk of steel that he is. I do all of this voluntarily."

Voluntarily? I found it hard to believe that someone would waste resources like this on people you hardly knew, yet… looking around… these were homeless people looked down upon by society. I be lying if I said I didn't tend to avoid them. Dogwhistler, her methods of infecting them were unclear, but plenty of people were desperate for an Implant.

"I'll… see." I strode closer to one of the hauled in thralls from the truck, they were fidgeting slightly even with their minds sedated. "In a month, you'll have my answer. Even maybe later than that, I have priorities to keep in mind. Once I'm… secure, I'll have the right of mind to make a decision of my future."

"I'll take that into consideration." Maiden stood up, approaching the body. "If that's the case, maybe I should give you the run-around of what we really do here. Seraphim and Starlight can help."

Giving an assured nod, I charged my claws with Gold, ready to dig deep into Dogwhistler's manipulation.

———

Shriekstone. It was the core Warp Material of the Shardware used in Dogwhistler's thralls. A dense crystalline stone that I employed in my own legs for sharp bursts of movement. Studying the Warp Material, it was clear that it was extremely dense, just by the slightest amount I was using was powerful enough to launch my metallic limbs around.

A Silver-Grade Warp Material.

"Banshees dropped them." Maiden said as she delicately dismantled a Neuroframe, her forearm splitting into thin angular needles that reeled in thin blood-soaked Neurowiring off from a spinal cord. "A MALware, came from the the Pacific and surfaced around Mexcico's to assault New California and Florida. They branch from The Typhoon's hive, all sorts of energy manipulating monsters wander deep in the seabed, see how dense the stones are? That's because of the underwater pressure their beasties lived in."

"Heard plenty that the MALware from the sea used geothermal principles in order to draw power from the tectonic plates." I pieced apart wiring from steel, carefully removing plating and unveiling the surplus of weaponry beneath.

Maiden detached the Neuroframe, throwing it into a basket meant for disposal. "That, they do. The real deep-dwellers: Gold, Titanium. Infernium, that's the Warp Material we use at Yellowstone, used to be an engineer up there. Heat was drying us to the bone, you can find trace amounts in Silvers and Bronzes, but those high-graded MALs were terrifying. The Molten, we called them. Came in all shapes and sizes, even MALformed, just beasts covered in so much heat and smoke you'd know they were near, by how your lungs choked."

"There really are a lot of MAL species…" I slid out a Shriekstone core. "But farming them for parts is illegal, right?"

"Illegal is putting it lightly," she chuckled. "Doesn't stop them from doing it, especially out in the unclaimed territories. They only grow by killing organisms, even MALware. Don't know the principle of it, but farming MALs requires plenty of sacrifices. They'll scoop usage out of anything: humans, your pets, hell… you'd be surprised to know that MAL hives are sterile because they even consume microorganisms. It's only ever just… them."

"Then there's what Dogwhistler is doing. Turning humans into MALs… by the way, how are you preventing that?" I paid close attention as Maiden made a large incision by the occipital bone, aiming to remove the Implant.

"Seraphim…" She grunted. "It's dangerous for her, even for your one, but as long as they're not Silver she can isolate them from the Net. Dogwhistler uses some version of a Proxy Protocol to get into their heads, Diamante and the other Black Skulls here latch a Neurocuff onto their Frames. After that, we need to prevent her from sending whatever signal turns these BUGs into seeds of Fractured MALware. Haven't figured it out, yet."

"Yeah… but how does she reduce compatibility?" I rubbed my forehead… if it was possible to reduce compatibility, then the inverse should be true as well.

"No clue. Can't find an issue with the Implants' Warpcode. The signal reaches their Frames and it tells something in the Implant to kill itself, it's tagged as the Revenant Code."

"Revenant Code, but it's only a switch to the actual mechanism. So removing the Frame doesn't actually do anything, that's why we also have to take out their Implant." I shivered, watching as wriggling tentacle-like limbs of an Iron BUG were carefully pried out.

When it was finally taken out, the Implant was a mass of blood-soaked steel that gradually pulled back together into a ball. Then it vibrated, Maiden grimaced as a crimson light cracked through the Implant and infected it, parts of it breaking down into worthless dust. "And then they do that."

"Seen it happen before… when I first found a thrall. Tried to figure some stuff out and… suddenly he was a MAL. Killed him, then the Implant destroyed itself." I kept the part of me reading memories out of his Implant hidden for now, but the sights returned to me.

Mr. Skeleton was there, alongside Dogwhistler as they injected an Implant with a liquid… it was from a syringe that had red flowers inside of them. They talked about… figuring out how someone else did something.

Who was that someone else?

That liquid had to be the mechanism from which the Implant degraded, but I didn't know what it was.

Once the first body had all their Dogwhistler-brand Shardware removed, we moved onto the next. And the next. Until during the final body, the console made a beeping sound.

Maiden and I head back upstairs and approached the door as a large truck moved in. Much larger than the one with four bodies… I'd seen on the Diamante's view just how many children were kept prisoner. Yet, I wasn't looking forward to what would come next.

Two women stepped out of the truck, Missy was there, a calm look on her face that met Maiden with what I guessed was respect and a gesture of peace. Maiden returned with a scowl that very much indicated she wanted Missy to leave.

The second woman made me unsure of what to think. Diana stepped out, her police-issued uniform and silver hair soaked in blood, and a tired look weighed on her face. She met my gaze quietly, but deep inside I felt a… sense of desperation in them.

Slowly, I waved my hand.

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