Diana

My mind had sufficiently melted. Nothing made sense, thoughts and emotions flowed around one another and there was this eerie piercing pain in my neck and down my spine. What had happened? What did I do? What was I about to do?

Ripley was…

Calm down, Diana. It was intense, it was… a lot of things you thought you would never feel. Things that made you feel good. You almost died by drowning, then went to a euphoric high of power, going from the deep pits of touching the River Styx to sipping the clouds of Mount Olympus would make anyone a bit… impulsive.

And you are not impulsive. Diana Jones. It's not like you had the choice because you… vomited on him.

…

Oh my fucking god, I vomited on him. And one of the things you were always proud of saying was that you never needed someone to tie your hair up when you vomited after drinking, because you could handle your alcohol… yet here his hands are. Metallic and sleek. Powerful. Yet nimble and deft in their ability to reach tiny crooks and perfectly…

He pulled away; I was thankful because the cutoff from our Warp Energies briefly snapped my attention away from that disturbing thought train. Deep breaths, in and out, you are not a bumbling school girl-

"It was not a mind-fuck!" Ripley yelled, and suddenly my thoughts took a different turn again, like a car willingly driving off a cliff to their doom.

That was a… creative depiction of the complex scenario upon which our minds…

Did we… how much did he feel about me exactly? I felt… a lot from him? Did I feel… no, no you didn't. Calm down, this is because you haven't had sex in a long while. Calm your fucking hormones, Diana Jones. You'll find a guy, a guy who is not currently in a relationship with four women… who are all the same woman.

But… if this wasn't a mind-fuck, then what was? I was never… wanting to get a BUG, but the idea of being so connected with another person like that had its… appeals. I… stop. Stop. STOP. Forget about this, forget about him, forget about the fact that you vomited on him and you should be glad you did. No, don't be glad.

Nothing would have happened anyway.

"Uh, let's call Dryder and wait for him while we recover, alright?" Ripley's voice sounded out, and just the sound of it reminded me of the very weird and very… interesting phenomenon we'd gone through. Close your mind to it, close your… everything to it.

I tried to nod, but my body was firm steel and my vocal chords didn't know what to say from the tension shaking in them. "Hmmph."

He seemed to take it as a yes. Good, good… now get your thoughts back in the game. Your frame is pinging and glitching, focus on that, reset it. It must have short-circuited from the hell storm you raised up.

I tried to, but it refused, strangely. Instead it just glitched itself to the point where it looked normal again.

Integrity has reached Bronze VIII

Energy has reached Bronze X

Capacity has reached Bronze VII (+27 GC)

Grade has reached Gold VI

Fire Tendency has reached Bronze X

Okay, that made sense. MAL, Tier III, Silver… It was a big thing.

Mutation: Soul Resonance is now at 49% Development. Additional Meta-Mutations have occurred; greatly increased sensitivity to BUG Adapters; increased ability to decipher specific Implant Data; ability to mimic the Warp Energy signature of another SIM Adapter.

[G] Mutation: Electrosomatic Organism is now at 46% Development. Additional Meta-Mutations have occurred; slightly increased neural usage of electrons as neurotransmitters; slightly increased receptivity to Shardware; reduced oxygen requirement through substitution of metabolism by electric energy.

[G] Mutation: Limited Morphology Manipulation is now at 44% Development. Additional Meta-Mutations have occurred; increased ability to create animal-like changes to your body; increased ability to understand foreign morphologies; slight ability to mimic foreign Mutations.

[G] Mutation: Electromagnetic Domain is now at 42% Development. Additional Meta-Mutations have occurred; precision of control of Domain has increased; ability to telekinetically manipulate Warp Materials has increased.

[G] Mutation: Kinetic-Thermal Catalyst is now at 35% Development. Additional Meta-Mutations have occurred; increased electrogenic production; increased ability to draw heat from Warp Materials.

[G] Mutation: Inorganic Metabolism is now at 39% Development. Additional Meta-Mutations have occurred; rate of catabolic and anabolic metabolism greatly increased; slight ability to integrate trace Warp Materials into the body.

Development: 28%

Excess Mutagen Identified; high likelihood of new Mutation forming…

Mutagenic Capacity: 78/118

My Mutations had… more than doubled in Development.

And… a lot of those Meta-Mutations were not normal. Warp Materials… Shardware… mimicking mutations? It felt like that was stuff Ripley had on his side of the Implant family tree. And this… fucking headache wasn't making things any better. Seriously, I felt like there was a jagged piece of metal sticking from my eyes to my nape. Not to mention, I was getting a new Tier II Mutation, I could already feel its birthing effects. It was connected to my Fire Tendency, and capitalized on the instinct and overwhelming strength of the Carrion animal amalgamations… other than that… I'd have to let it stir.

Taking Ripley's suggestion to heart, I took a brief rest as my Energy refilled. It came easily but not particularly painlessly after the stunts we just pulled. We'd barely be getting a drizzle during this time.

———

Ripley

I felt like I was trying to fan a flame that refused to ignite, my breath tired and my mind too nauseous to keep going. Not that mental effort made an impact on your ability to manifest Warp Energy… you couldn't just dip a bucket into that made-up realm of Quartz' and make it fill up.

Speaking of the guy, he was relatively normal for a guy who spent way too long running from a tentacle that could crush him in the effort it took to take a sniff. I kinda felt bad for the guy, it probably wasn't easy for him being a living human-shield. Even if he was behind you.

As for Topaz, I kinda understood him better now. He pulled off the overly zealous attitude because it was… the only way for him to be noticed. Being conceptually invisible, he just developed his own coping habits. Topaz was busy giving his brother a massage for his being chased, and I asked for one too.

"How about you… rinse all that vomit off first." He pointed to a nearby pool of water.

"Yeah." Midnight apparated. "Get her disgusting fluids off you."

"Alright… but since Starlight's out of commission right now, you mind getting my drones from the van so I can repair myself?" Then before she could reject it, I used my tactic to get Elsa and her Persona's to do anything. "Pretty please, my super-sweet-cupcake-cherry-pie?"

A faint blush came on her shadowy cheeks, and she nodded.

———

"Alright cunts, what did I miss?" Dryder appeared, looking a little more sober and walking in on me getting a massage while drones repaired my arms and Arachnodyne in quick motions. "Huh, thought you said you had a girl. Four?"

"Oh," Topaz snickered, "I'm just his side-chick."

I smacked him in the knee. That was enough of a massage for now, but Midnight had an amused smile on her face that I… did not like.

Dryder sighed. "I talked with Gareth, good man, family man — he is. Did what you asked for by the way, Dreddy. Had to calm his steel down. Man was rattlin' like a can on a car goin' a hun' while I told him what Soul Killer does."

"You… gave him a detailed explanation?" Diana had a worried look on her face.

"I gave him context for his story." Dryder muttered, taking a momentary look in the huge basin of red-misted water. "Huh, would like some context for this story."

"Silver MALformed. Tier III… octopus." Diana said in between sharp breaths. She looked like she was in pain.

"A fuckin' Tier III? How the hell'd you kill that?!" He looked genuinely surprised.

"Long story." I cut it short. "Let's just say Diana here made lightning strike four times through a very short-circuited Arachne and then we criss-crossed our abilities together to create the most improbable sequence of events in our lives."

"Other than winning against a Gold MALignant." She added.

Dryder nodded along. "Well, fight the good fight. That's what I say. Reasonin' of the doin' don't matter. It's the fact you got the job done."

That was his speech for he didn't understand shit. Lifting my Arachnodyne back into place around my back, I mouthed to Diana: the drones do the work now, as they clamped it tight and I felt the Internal Link reestablish in seconds.

Having taken a breather, I was mortified by how… simple the Arachne felt. My Capacitance had increased by… a lot. Four tiers, which meant I could even permanently use Hammer which overloaded the Capacitance of my Shardware, and it still felt lighter than when I first came here. They were Bronze VII in Capacity, and that was considerably less than it should be, considering the complexity of brain-power needed to maneuver them. Retrofit deserved thanks for that.

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I could reasonably push to genuine Silver Grade Shardware now… once I had the Shardyne for it. That was the stage of Shard Adapters who were earning multiple millions a year, a club I needed to join soon for my mom.

Diana pulled herself up, pulling her body in all directions with stretches as her hair turned black, skin gray and eyes red. Lilian Rose stared in my direction, an eager smile on her face. "Put on the mask now. I'm not waiting. I can feel it… the Nexus is down there"

Matching her enthusiasm, I slid the repaired mask back on, becoming-

Dreadwire

The luxury floor was lacking for the time we'd taken to recover, it was filled with pens and large drinking pools for the meatier animals… they were just nowhere to be seen. The scene was perfectly lit up to resemble an outdoor farm complete with a day and night cycle currently showing the stars in a three-dimensional hologram — but life was barren. No litter, no manure… utterly removed.

I'd heard of this, MALformed could reduce all biomass down to zero, even simple grains and bacteria were taken off the menu. This place was left haunted, stale and sterile… it was in constrast to the obnoxious. putridity I felt below us.

A SIM Adapter… felt odd. Even Quartz was somehow more pronounced, like a figment of their being etched into the air you breathed.

Another secret floor. Of course, in a manner of minutes, I found a passageway inside in a shed meant for horses that Midnight breached with ease. We walked down a quiet and dim staircase, the only sound being Dryder's burps from behind his gas mask. Topaz suddenly stilled, his eyes gauging us.

"You're both a little… damaged, right? If you want, I could deal with this guy, drain his Energy down that any of you could deal a single blow to kill them." Topaz offered, which was strange because he very rarely offered to help in much of anything that wasn't a paid job.

"Nah, kiddo, leave it to the professional." Dryder pounded his knuckles into his solar plexus, rendering one more burp from him. Deeper down, we began to hear movement… lots of it. Wet, squelching, shifting movement… like intestines being dragged on the floor.

When we finally came down, it was in a cramped but wide room filled with lab materials that were thrown around and lots of blood on the floor and walls. It was also cramped, because there were many bodies here, either in SynTec armor or uniforms and moving around like in a daze…

They were… changed. Animal limbs looked stitched onto them, even if I could tell they had grown out like cancerous mounds; talons, scales, wings, tails, claws… from all the different vertebral classes and even beyond. What made the scene most odd was that they were… flowing towards another, their meat digesting the flesh of those they touched.

"Soul Killer…" Lilian seethed, her eyes brightening red. "Or perhaps, just a severed part of them."

"Severed… yes…" The bodies all answered at different times, out of tune and in disharmony. "Skeleton… and the false one… tore us… blocked us… they're watchingggg."

Lilian's body tensed, her entire form ready to pounce. I didn't hold her back this time, and neither did Dryder. The guns that had formed a part of his legs burst a thick fiery propulsion that shot him to the side, and I took the opposite as Lilian struck centrally. A perfect pincer.

The fleshy mound of people melted, Lilian's shot with her pistol. A bust-impact round flowed between a gap that split between gooey strands of red and burst a glass shielding behind the Soul Killer mound. My Arachnodyne took a chunk off, while Dryder's burst of fire splattered harmlessly against their mutated skin.

"NO! LISTEN!" They yelled, each converging flesh-fist pounding past the shards of glass Lilian had broken as an amorphous pile of flesh and bones. Limbs dangled or crawled, half broken things of what they once were all to reach and tenderly hold a body in what seemed to be a containment. It was living. His breath was shallow, white hair and flimsy bones with sinewy skin…

They looked old. As the mass of flesh cradled the frail person, the elder's mouth moved first, the others copying them. "We seek… passage… Ulrich… we seek… connection… no… fight… In… exchange…"

"In your fucking dreams!" Lilian's body surged ahead, her Shatterclaw crashing into the massive meat pile and it harmlessly tossed her aside with a pulsation of raw, disorganized muscle. Dozens of Mutations within them worked at once, I felt. I could feel them… so I switched to Insight.

Patterns emerged in chaotic cacophonies of Warp Energy, from Iron to Silver… all… terribly wrong. Making sense of a being that is losing itself was maddening, but its surge of thought provided me just the time needed to back myself up and prepare a Dreadshot. That Nexus was somewhere in there… Silver, the strongest of them. I only had enough Iron Shards for one shot.

"Lilian! Necrotium!" I shouted, hoping she'd hear my voice… she didn't.

Dian-

Lilian Rose

Fire burned from the heat of horror, like a mad sun I couldn't turn away from. There was no shade I could run away to seal those memories of the very first time I tried to cure them. I was tearing blood and meat off the brain of my friend, of a man who I cared about! Nothing else mattered, nothing eXcePt SoUl KiLler's dEath!

Error: Deviant Mutation is forming-

My breath hissed, my tongue sharpening and my jaws widening. My Shatterclaws felt tough and restrictive. This entire suit did… something was changing in me.

I liked it.

Rearing the strength that Silver had given me, I chilled the air around me as thunder resonated deep within my bones. A wall of flesh, huh? It's STill a fuCkIng waLl! I'll break it down. My feet strode against the floor, powerful kicks that cracked the flooring beneath me. My foot sunk deep into that pile, a trio of arms reaching out and grabbing it with sharp and mangled nails, then they twisted my leg backwards with ferocious strength.

The pain only fueled me, my Mutations… my everything.

D-D-Deviant Mutation Created: Berser-

Error: Mutation Unstable…

Error: Foreign W-w-warpcode is pre-

Error: Inexplicable findings present.

I was burning alive, and tHis waS It. My gnarled leg healed with such ferocity that the restructuring organics twisted my body and lent enough momentum where I transferred that previous thrashing on the wall of flesh in full force. Raw meat swiped off, halves and thirds of faces and limbs gone. The mound reeled in pain and let go of me, but I didn't let go of it.

Lightning sparked through the room, I heard a scream from the back and yelling, but something brought me deeper into this relishing madness! I could feel it, the pain in Soul Killer's Nexus of being a figment of what it once was…!

So FucKinG sMall. So fUCkiNg wortHleSs.

And I'd give it the death it deserves! Painful! Slow…! It would know what it's like to have your very presence eAten aLiVe!

D-D-D-D-Deviant Mutation Created: Monstrous-

Error: Mutation Unstable…

Shut the fuck up! Sounds ceased to have meaning as the eye of a storm awoke around me, metals ripping from where they stood to bash and slash and crash and lash into the hideous creature this Nexus had become. What a fitting form. My Shatterclaws reached in, tearing and ripping into skin, scales and feathers which all peeled off with their own satisfying sound.

Skrrip.

Crick.

Fluhk.

Eyes gouged in, and a hammer-like blend of fists and feet smashed my face in. Blood trickled from a broken nose and something sharp had gone in my eye… I let it pop out of my eyeball. I didn't need sight to feel this bastard in front of me. A rising tide and a crashing wave of bones and meat flooded me, but I'd unleashed a hellish ripple of acid just half an hour ago! If it didn't BURN ME, it wouldn't KILL!

Its limbs had to hold on to each other for dear life, but that was when a metal hand grasped mine. Dryder yanked me off, yelling something incoherent as he pointed back. I didn't care.

A tangle of four limbs wrapped around me, spidery… and so comfortable. But now wasn't the fucking time for an embrace! I felt Dreadwire's arm lock under my shoulder as Dyrder took aim of the bleeding beastly monster as he tossed grenades into it. Stealing my kill! I was the HUNTER! I was the FUCKING MONSTER KILLER!

D-d-deviant… Demoni-

Error: Mutation unstable…

I hated being confined like this! Dreadwire was strong… so strong… but I'd not yet let lose to him. That fire within me was so close to reaching a higher Grade… I just needed to let it burn! With my fangs, I ripped one of the Shatterclaws of my fists, a finger coming off in the process, but oh well…

Live and learn.

That silver liquid born of my flesh sipped into the skin of my hand, becoming my steel-blood as I flowed it between muscles and skin to merge with me. Blood spilled as metal claws ripped from my skin, beautiful appendages of doom. Then I tore into Dreadwire's elbow with them. They slipped and loosened, and I kicked him back.

"StAy oUt OF tHis!" My eyes remained locked on the Nexus, now at half its size and riddled with fire that launched continuously from a rotating barrel of Dryder's shotgun. Grenades struck in between, piles of flesh melting down to ash when it should have been my flame to do so!

The heat was so suffocating, so I quenched it. All that fire died in a second of a freezing sphere extending around me, a storm rising as a result. Dryder got in my way again, so I touched his arm — and sent a deep shock through it.

Get out of my way! A thought sent him smashing back into the wall of the room, a second thought wrapped metal around his arms and chained him to it. The Nexus was so close to dying, so frail, so pitiful…

Dianium slipped from the skin of my hand up to my scalp, pouring out of its roots and coating the tips of my hair with fine jagged spikes. I laughed to myself, looking over the weakened body…

Lilian Rose wasn't the right face for this job, no she was only ever an identity to hide from my police coworkers. Here, we weren't being watched…

Diana Ulrich was the monster for monsters, and I let this bitch know that as silver eyes dawned on it with such pity, my hair dyed red atop the silver luster it was known for. And then each tip pointed — a needle. Hundreds of them coated in Dianium.

"Time for some fucking acupuncture!" I laughed, as the strands of my hair moved in a blur, poking holes like a tattoo machine but as deep as a knife. Then I wasn't just satisfied with my hair. My hands needed action, claws tearing apart the charred skin like a tough layer of creme-brulee breaking to the yolky delicacy inside.

Soul Resonance layered over my hands, an immaterial fire coursing through them that rendered each slash a scorch to this abomination's Soul, and those ashes fed into me. I was getting hUnGry! No, I was rAVenOus!

No… GlutINous! A similar veil wrapped my fangs, my teeth diving as blood soaked my tongue and flesh pinched off with each bite. Then my feet got into the action too, claws forming as they pierced my tattered armor to ensure that every bit of me was devouring this monster.

Mutagen, Silver and Tier III, even more drenched me.

D-d-d-d-d-d-deviant-

Will you stop that! I'm trying to sleep!

The noise was utterly worthless. Nothing to me. What mattered was that frail body inside… it was the only unmelted body left. I pulled it from within the suit of mangled corpses. Flesh and bones crackled and spilt to my tearing until I grasped and clenched the sides of this Nexus' face. I squeezed, enjoying the crunch of bone, the pop of eyes, the wrinkles of flesh…

And I broke it.

Blood flashed over me. I stood in the silence of victory.

I turned back to them, eager to show off my kill. Instead, their weapons were all raised to me.

"Diana… calm down girl… easy now…" Dryder had his gun waiting in his hands. Why? Would he be like them too?! Kendrick Rorsche, Indra Harmony, Brian Ulrich, Yorrick Jones… so many others…

They always end up the same — a traitor.

Ripley blocked me from charging. His mask was off and his face bleeding. A frantic look paced in his eye… and without warning, his left arm gripped mine and a flood of his calming energy swept into mine. It reminded of how perfect we had been together when we took down that MAL.

How perfect I could be — if I just had his power.

In a sweep of motion, he was pinned to a wall. The hand that had gripped me was now lifted and held back between black nails. Squeezing and denting, it would be even more satisfying than flesh… still, he fed me that Energy we had once become one with. It surged into me. And I felt it all. He was a delectable morsel of electrical thoughts drenched in brilliant shadows. So much potential, so much desire to win it all.

"You want to give it to me?" I pressed a hand into his chest. His heart hammered within. I wanted it. "ThEn h0w Ab0ut 1 t@kE !t?! Remember how I said I'd do it?"

My teeth clamped down on his neck armor, the metal crunching like the Nexus' bones. I didn't like this angle; however, he was a bit taller than me… so my feet levitated off the ground to press and dig deeper. I wanted to know what would break first: his neck's armor… or his chest with my hand on it?

An intruding presence blared in my mind, my teeth snapping off to see Quartz standing behind me and another figure rushing towards me. The figure's palm slapped my back. I would have knocked their head off, but suddenly all strength left me. Topaz's face manifested in the figure's presence, a chunk of his cheek missing and bloody stumps instead of fingers on his left hand… he stood looking at me… with… fear.

My eyes blinked, their lids heavy, and stayed closed.

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