October 23rd

5:46 AM

Ripley

Morning light spilled across and between towering networks of steel and concrete, my feet resting on the edge of the roof of the homeless shelter. The Ripper had certainly made his fair share of improvements, and one of them was… particularly exciting.

Shriekstone had plenty of properties, but one I'd never expected or thought of was it's ability to manipulate friction by creating minute adjustments to kinetic force that were concentrated locally. Not until that Silver MAL began gliding across walls using what I deduced as an air cushion wrapped in an electromagnetic field.

I took a step off the ledge, and bent my knee to place my foot onto the outer wall of the shelter. Then I took my second step and did the same.

And I was standing perpendicular to the wall… or parallel to the ground. I let out a bewildered chuckle; it was one thing to throw your foot onto the wall and have it stick by penetrating it with a blade from your femur, but being able to actually stand on it?

I was really fitting my spider-theme now. My weight was still forcing my body to slide down a little bit, and adhering to a wall took a lot of electricity, but it was well worth it. The premise was simple. Although I'd never quite learned how Maiden made such a powerful barrier, I'd known it was possible.

Our daily synchronization inebriated the subconscious awareness of how to create those barrier-fielding disks into my mind. Roughly, The Ripper had manifested a prototype version of those Shriekstone-infused disks and added one more Warp Material to the mix.

Livewire, a powerful, almost super-conducting component. Within the soles of my legs, a thin array of my slipstream disks manifested two things. The first was a high-frequency vibration that created plenty of friction, the second was a close-range electroadhering field — manipulation of molecular charges to force two objects to attract to one another.

Combined, I could now stick onto any surface with my palms and legs, no digging in with sharp blades required. And the best thing, I could invert the polarity — going from high-friction to almost no friction.

But I was not going to test that out yet…. Even with all my Feature Links assisting mobility, I was horrendous at ice skating. However, being able to control my momentum was a huge boon now. Sending a thought for my new Dreadwire mask to form, I powered the Shriekstone cores running through my legs to burst me off the wall.

Dreadwire

All new. All powerful. Four white limbs spilled from my back, the Arachnodyne Mk. 2 eager for use. In a shifting blur, their shape altered into jagged and piercing blades while the bright color dimmed into a deep black. From within their shells, a crystal integrated into the plating of my Shardware hummed under electricity and unleashed a shockwave, propelling me higher into the air as my mask took in the city's sprawling towers.

"Alright Dreadwire, we're going to test your mobility, so as my dad instructed; I made an obstacle course for you!" Pink lights spilled in the view of my mask, rings forming in the air for me to swing through. "Now do you want some aim-assist from me?"

None. I shall face this alone.

Two new Feature-Links agreed within my Arachne, as well as my Endoskeleton's restructuring.

Arachnodyne Mk.2 Feature Links: Link-Mimicry [Data Mimicry]; Trajectory Recalibration [Database]

Soulbranch Endoskeleton Feature Links: Reactive Autonomy [Sustain]; Warp Accelerant [Energized]

True to its name, Link-Mimicry allowed my Arachnodyne to mimic any Feature-Link present on my other Shardware, and I immediately snatched Reactive Autonomy onto it. The dorsal limbs stretching and engulfing my sensory data to shoot four javelins. I was no longer limited to mobility from my upper Arachnodyne.

Each of my Arachnodyne limbs reeled me forward, a cannon-like burst of momentum surging me past the first ring as a second appeared vertically above me. My claws took care of that, hooking behind as they tightened and curved horizontal movement upwards. Then a third ring appeared by an alleyway, swinging in, I saw a tight maze of connected metal bridges and early-waking citizens pulling laundry out.

Starlight placed a circle right in between all of that. Gritting, I used my arms, slapping them into the air behind me as another sonic wave corrected my movement and took me through the ring. Those early wakers screamed out of their grogginess, I carried on.

A sequence of rings formed around this labyrinth of steel rafters, and I utilized every tool at my disposal. I clung to a wall effortlessly and ran on top of it, my claws pulling me across tight turns, while my Arachnodyne carried speed and distance with utmost accuracy as momentum shifted up, down, to the sides and in blurring rotations that effortlessly shot me through each ring.

"Oh shit… you're good at this… uh… oh catch that pigeon!"

Language. And… a pigeon? A pink outline converged over a far figure, a tiny bird flying in the air.

Very well. Steel rattled behind me as I flung up the scales of buildings, my feet catching onto the walls and my claws latching onto a pole as I leveraged a sharp turn into the air. My mask honed in on the pigeon, a tracking circle closing in. I aimed my Claw tips.

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"No-no-no! No! Without killing it!"

Sighing, my claws turned to the rising sides of buildings, my Arachnodyne itching to go higher than ever before. With four javelins connecting and hooking my body's momentum into coercion, I soared and careened with the wind muffled by my mask's noise-canceling tech.

That pigeon must have sensed me, a predator hunting down prey, because it curved and flew above a series of buildings beyond my reach. I didn't deter, pulling myself to rooftops and jogging before a sprint took me faster than ever before.

Gaps between roofs blurred underneath me, single steps leaping me between and around their elevation until I was directly under the pigeon. Then my Arachondyne pounded the ground, a thick pulse of kinetic energy bursting out as I leaped more than ten meters in a blink.

A flurry of flailing feathers stopped in front of me, but my Arachnodyne put two claws to clasp each wing delicately as I fell to the rooftops. I softened the landing for the pigeon, its confused gaze flicking for release.

"Okay, you can let it go now." Starlight chimed in a way that sounded like she was annoyed that I passed her test so easily. She appeared in my view, waving goodbye as the pigeon hurriedly flapped its wings for escape. "Bye Howard!"

Howard?

"I named the pigeon Howard." She said, shrugging. "Good job, you cleared the easy course!"

Easy Course?

"Yeah, I analyzed the map of the Precinct, I think I can make some much harder courses for you… if you're up for the challenge." She said with a sly grin.

I am. I said confidently, before following the directions to the next course.

———

11:34 AM

Ripley

"Pfft, did you hear about Dreadwire, apparently he was chasing around a pigeon!" One of the gym-goers gossiped while I put my stuff into a locker at Anderson's gym. "Like why the fuck would you chase a pigeon!"

Another answered. "Who knows, maybe it was a robot pigeon."

"Huh, you kiddin?" The first looked skeptical.

"Not at all, everyone knows all the pigeons died during the Third Swarm! All these birds here are just robots that the corps designed to spy on us." The second declared.

Starlight laughed. "Some things never change."

———

7:05 PM

Sitting in the metro, I tiredly rested my head upon the glass as I scanned my findings. This Arachnodyne was good, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the first one — it was my love child.

"Excuse me. You have an actual daughter, you know?" Starlight said, offended.

What I mean is I spent a lot of money and time to make it. It was a dream creation of mine.

"Well you didn't even make it from scratch like this one." She pouted as she pointed to the Mk. 2 on my back. "This one's way better, because you made it with me!"

I chuckled… I suppose you're right about that. Still need to add some attachments to it.

"Yup, I finished ironing out the kinks in the high-frequency blade, as for the cannons… uh… a work in progress." She rubbed her head.

Don't worry too much about it, that's my job. You're already a lot of help.

She smiled, twirling in the air as she sat on my shoulder. "Glad to be of help, Dad."

Oh yeah, found anything about the… Infected BUG yet? I rummaged through my pockets, flicking the Iron BUG with what should be Soul Killer's injected Mutagen into it. According to Diana, it was called a 'Revenant Serum', and she said she had one on her… though it was now under ownership of someone called Dr. Moira. Didn't give much of an explanation, but she said she'd try to get a hold of a sample for me.

Revenant Serum… and the Revenant Code. They were linked, one activated the other to cause an almost instant 0% Compatibility to your Implant.

"Nothing much, found a trace of the Revenant Code in it but so far… haven't been able to understand anything about the Mutagen inside." Starlight said with a bit of disappointment. "Are you sure there's Titanium in there?"

I wasn't. But Diana was. She was probably one of the rare Espers capable of innately detecting Warp Energy in both Shardware and Mutagen, I'd know for sure soon enough. As for now, I had mostly been focusing on my Shardware but with three days left until we potentially had to deal with Soul Killer… I supposed I should get my ass on the task.

So I called up Missy through a Neuralink. {H-hey? How's it going?}

{F-fine on my end. What about your's?} She sounded pretty neutral.

{Just got my head wrapped up with the nanites, the whole mutant-flesh-to-warp-material thing. Y'know? Was thinkin' you'd know something I could do to help with it.}

{On the nan-nanite end? Or the Mutant end?}

{Mutant.}

{I see… have you talked to Quartz?}

{Who?} That name was vaguely familiar, my mind quickly searching for-

{Topaz' brother: Quartz.}

Ah, right. I'd only seen him once, briefly at Missy's bar when we were getting ready for the Raid. {H-He can help?}

Missy took a second to respond. {If he's not watching re-reality Netshows, he's studyin' g-genes. T-talk to Topaz a-about meetin' him.}

{G-got it.} Then I thought about potential employment. {By the way, any contracts come through for Dreadwire?}

{Quite a few…} She took another second. {About ten this last week, filterin' them down to figure out which ones are worth sending your way. Music video was good for your rep.}

{Why don't you just send them all?}

{Cus' half of them are traps for your bounty. Other half are dirty.}

{Aren't all contracts for a mercenary dirty?}

{Sure, if you look at it one way. I'm just thinkin' about what contracts your mother would be fine with you-}

{Don't. I'll be the judge of that.}

{F-fine… I'll send some your way.}

The very first one that came up was a Metal Heavens contract to kill Diana. Bishop Stokry again. Another chance for his forgiveness.

I declined it. Another one was a kidnapping of some corporate lady for extortion by Crimon Souls, a second was an assassination on some politician by Muramasa, a third was to install some Daemons on a Metal Heavens outpost by Los Diablos.

Each of them had payments in the hundreds of thousands, but I declined all. Even the last one from Los Diablos, I recognized the address… it was Maiden's. The very place I was going to right now. I sighed, she probably needed to relocate now, it was a shame since the shelter was the perfect place to rehabilitate Dogwhistler's unwilling victims.

As for now, I left Topaz a message.

By the time I got to Maiden's shelter, I received a response.

[My brother wants to know if this is about Soul Killer… if it is, he wants in. And also, he wants to meet Diana.]

———

October 23rd

7:15 PM

Diana

In the last few days, I'd been surrounded by more people than screens, which was unusual for me. Sitting in the booth, a lady was doing my makeup as the talk show host, some SynTec-affiliated celebrity named Ricky Tremble, got things ready. I had a whole in-built teleprompter flowing over my eyes' projectors, a script built perfectly to put my dad and the police into a good light.

"Now, honey, I know you're nervous, since this is your first public appearance." The makeup lady giggled as she did my eyelashes. "But just be yourself, the er- most publicly favored version of yourself. Don't need to be someone you're not."

"What do you mean?" I smiled, doing my best to hide my jittery nerves. "I've never been anyone but Silvereye."

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