December 19th

2:28 PM

Diana

Everything had gone well… up to that point where we jacked into the security database. Now… I couldn't count how many of us were dead. First from Steel Vanguard, then Heart Seeker, then… The Bladefather.

I didn't understand what was happening, why were we fighting them when they were already at war with themselves? What the fuck was the point to letting more people die just to…

My head wasn't right at the moment, every time I closed my eyes, I heard their last breaths. Their bodies mangling to be used as a weapon against their friends… and now, some of Soul Killer's Mutation was spreading in the Southern Ward.

So I opened my eyes and forced them to see what was present. I could see my hands, missing a few fingers… I could see Ripley, battered and bruised but honestly the only reason I was still alive.

I could see Sabrina, her eyes dazed as she dealt with blood loss from a missing hand. Then, Kim… her blinded face. I thought my father was bad but…

Archangel, for the most part, looked okay. The worst damage came from the Bladefather's kick, but she was breathing and recovering consciousness.

Looking at Anabelle, she was still soulless with Anomaly taking over, a worried look on her stolen face. Then, finally, Dryder. He looked confused, but at the same time had that air about him saying that he really didn't care about how things happened. Just what he needed to do.

I gripped that same feeling in my heart. Things had happened, now I had to make them right.

Those deaths… I would avenge them. I just didn't know, if at this point, whether killing Bladedaughter would do anything meaningful. It was becoming clearer by the moment that this event was manufactured by powers above Muramasa…

"War-Watcher is dead." Ripley said, unclicking his mask and sighing. "No point keeping up the mask, you all saw me. Guess I'll need to take a cut to my payout to keep Omen silent…"

"Wait, what do you mean… War-Watcher is dead?" Kim said, grogging up and balancing on her sword's scabbard.

"The Dogwhistler got him, that's what Twilight's saying." Ripley slunk down to his knees, using his claws to repair the burnt and dented tips of his Arachne. "Meaning all that secret info we need is in her hands now."

"Who's the Dogwhistler?" Kim said with a confused lilt.

It was strange meeting someone who didn't even know that name now… it proved how deep we'd fallen into the rabbit hole of conspiracies.

Anomaly responded, putting an air of ease around herself. "A member of The Uncaged like me… or well… the me that is a hivemind. She handles all the Warpcode and SecondNet stuff, but came around after my… severing from my greater self, so I know about her as much as the Lieutenant does."

Kim grunted, blindly stumbling so that her blade pointed at the Lieutenant's throat. "What is this… you aren't the Lieutenant. You feel different."

"It's a long story, Derrick can tell you all about it." She pointed over to Dryder, who refused to look anywhere near Anabelle.

Ripley took that responsibility. "The Lieutenant has a parasite in her brain connecting her to Soul Killer, but that connection has been severed… giving her a split-personality of sorts."

"Ah, of course…" Kim nodded, pointing her sword at Dryder. "And how does this man factor into it?"

"Kim…" I raised my tired hand up. My whole body felt… heavy. "He's a friend of mine, helps with Soul Killer. That's all you need to know."

"Technically my ex." Anomaly blew a strand of hair out of her eyes.

"What…?" Kim grabbed her head, sitting down.

Dryder changed topics, looking over at Kim and awkwardly motioning with his hands. "You uh… sure you can fight Bladedaughter without… y'know… eyes?"

"I can see… in a sense." She sighed. "Knowing him, this is a trial for me to 'lose my blindess'. He's done it before, torn an arm off to make me ambidextrous."

"Fuck that." Ripley groaned, snapping his fingers at the ravine above us. Down flew a large drone, covered in dust and grime that he swiped off as he opened it up and pulled out a spare set of eyes.

"You've got to be shitting me." Anomaly scoffed. "Kensuke sends half a building tumbling and that thing survives?"

"It uses a friend's blood to stay hidden." He gave her a side-eye, his claw reconfiguring to pull out wires from the eyes.

"Oooh, Topaz, no?" Anomaly snickered. "That kid and his brother were some of the best we ever had! How'd you get his blood to work on metal? Been trying to figure that out for a good while."

Ripley turned to Anomaly, one of his Arachne tips arcing to stop at her throat. "Why don't you switch back?"

"What's up with the blades at my throat today!" Anomaly staggered back. "And… well… it's because I haven't quite figured out a way to reconfigure Annie's memories in a way that… 'everything that happened up there' makes sense."

"It doesn't." I rubbed my chest, my heart pounding out of my control. "None of this does."

Even sitting down here, who knows how many feet underground, we could feel the reverberations of battle from above. I wouldn't be surprised if this prison was entirely demolished by the day's end.

"It's all a fucking ploy… from Skeleton and whoever he's working with." Ripley settled next to Kim, she turned her head to give better access to her eyes. "Everything he's doing is to kill the Bladefather… so the bastard settled enough clout with his family that they all betrayed him. His kids imprisoned him here, I gathered. Then… I guess they couldn't kill him for some reason? Needed to piss off the city enough to send an army here. I'm not sure if what that bastard wants is a spectacle, a collection of powerful corpses, the Bladefather dead or… to make himself invaluable. With this, the Dogwhistler is a known accomplice of Muramasa stealing the Implants, Soul Killer's a public menace now because of the Bladefather while Skeleton… lurks."

"The Bladefather could've escaped this place at any time. He was imprisoned one second and… with us the next." I shuddered.

"Meaning he was imprisoned because he wanted to be." Ripley clicked the eyes into Kim's head, they weren't his typical gold-orange but instead a calm verdant jade. "And that his family's only alive because… he let them live. That we're…"

"We get it." Dryder coughed. "Bastard was toying with you, could have killed you at any moment."

"He wants us to fight his daughter…" I rubbed my head. "And put something called a Catalyst inside of us. Are they linked, Investigator Liyung?"

Kim blinked, adjusting to her new eyes. "I can… confirm that's his motto."

"Should probably tell us what it's all about then." Ripley began looking through the rubble, pulling out some Shardware scrap that had fallen down to this level.

"Before we're given our Implants… he puts… Catalysts inside of us. Candidates to be his children." Kim cupped her hands, looking over Sabrina's unconscious state. "To him, it doesn't matter what our Compatibilities are… whenever he finds an Implant of particular… significance, he holds a rite to determine who his next child will be."

I leaned in closely, listening.

"It's simple." She rubbed her new eye, but I knew it wasn't because of any sort of rejection to the Shardware. "Forty-or-so… of us… we're adopted at the same time. Then, he puts a knife inside us. A piece of himself and some other… Implants. I don't know the specifics of it, but it… most of us get stronger because of it. Even without Mutations or Features, we'll feel… better. Those of that were abandoned because we were sick, mental or physical… it evened the weaknesses out."

She reached for Sabrina's hand, needing it at this moment. "Then we go through testing, training, education. It's all mostly held by War-Watcher now, but occasionally my father will be there to make… modifications."

Kim lifted her right sleeve up, revealing a thin set of stitch marks on her wrist. "Cut it off, and forced me to kill one of my siblings with my left hand just to prove myself worthy… once I killed another three, he stitched it back onto me."

"You pass the first stage, he gives you another Catalyst. This one specific to you and the Implant he has prepared, in my case… I was… bleeding. Everywhere… out of my pores, leaking fluid till I was dehydrated just from walking. I had to drink blood to survive it, and in the end… it was… me, and my sister."

"The Bladedaughter?"

"We fought, and we… nearly killed each other. Apparently, we were the two brightest prodigies he ever produced, we had to be. This Implant was special."

"Why?" Ripley took his gaze off the cybernetic limb he was building, looking at her with serious resolve.

"I wouldn't know, my sister got it." Kim sighed. "It was a… tie… we both dealt fatal wounds at the same time. She got the Implant, and I got the second of his rewards…"

She picked up her scabbard. "This blade, it's unique… because it's not made of steel."

"Who is it made out of?" Ripley put the finishing touches on the limb in his grasp, a hand… but it wasn't anything complicated.

"My siblings." She sucked breath in. "Everyone in my batch, and in all the batches before us… he didn't want any of his Catalysts going to waste. We were his last children, so this blade is the culmination of..."

Silence consumed us, too many questions burning to be asked. Ripley raised his first, but his gaze followed a specific person. "Never expected him to be a geneticist… how'd he figure out Catalysts?"

"Ah, that would be me." Anomaly sighed, meeting Ripley's discerning eyes.

"Based on the Kaisel Clones?"

"Correct." She nodded.

"Because powers without an Implant isn't exactly normal tech… what's the explanation behind that?"

"Corporate breakthroughs in the name of science." Anomaly smiled. "Project Rebirth, SynTec called it. Some fancy underground testing lab in what's now MALterritory to the East. Tried my best to figure it out, can't create anything other than one pattern of Mutation that is the Kaisels — all the other variations die out."

I asked my question next. "And the end goal of these Catalysts, what's their effect?"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Kim pulled her blade closer to her, as though it gave her strength to speak. "I had a full set of Mutations when I converged, finished out Tier 0 in about… two days. Even then, any little action propelled us… my sister reached Tier III in a matter of months. If I wasn't a Dual Adapter, I'd be along that same trajectory… the Catalyst's faded now… but I still remember it's moments of… clarity. Catharsis. He called it."

"We coined that term together." Anomaly grinned. "Catharsis, think of it as reaching a boiling point, where that primordial soup of Mutagen and Warpcode is under enough pressure to create volatile instantaneous reactions… all the while it feeds you. Theoretically, a Catalyst would be too unstable, it might force a new limb over you or shatter your mind like it's glass but…"

"A Source Shard is involved, a Fragment of it." Ripley's eyes carried a deep weight to them.

"Stability." Anomaly smirked, but there was an ache in there. "All of that agonizing growth, forced to remain… stable. In the loosest sense of it, you've seen what the Bladefather's kids look like…"

"In pain." I cupped my hands, knowing that now… their treatment was now inserted into me. "Forced into trials where they either sink or swim… and now the Bladedaughter is our trial. All to prepare us for… Mr. R. The Sin."

"The Sin of The Founders, any reason why he's known as that, Anomaly?"

"Guy never said so, just appears to you when he needs to. A deal with the devil…" Anomaly put her head in her hands. "Besides, a whole lot of sensitive info like that is… well, it's erased from my mind. My bigger ego didn't want any data leaks, as you would say, Donovick."

Dryder raised his voice up, but he couldn't bring himself to look at Anabelle. "The same kind you forced on… the Lieutenant?"

"Bingo." Anomaly gave a sly grin at him, he turned away.

"Why's it being helpful?" Dryder grumbled, sticking next to me.

"Anomaly's agreed to help us against Soul Killer." Ripley explained. "If we can fake her death."

"Anomaly?" Dryder gritted his teeth. "How you gon' do that exactly?"

"By actually killing her." I sighed. "In front of people so that they can see her Implant leave her body, then we need to extract both of them so that well… I can revive her… using Skeleton's whole 'raising the dead' thing."

"Wait, that's your method?" Anomaly hissed.

"The math checks out." Ripley rolled his eyes.

"Ah, yes… like I would trust a novice to the immensely vast universe of genetic Warp-" Anomaly paused as Ripley displayed some complicated diagrams in front of her.

"Oh… hmm… ah! Woah." She flicked through the gibberish. "Huh… it checks out."

"This is a clusterfuck." Dryder tapped his head against the wall. Staring up to the ravine's open maw, periodically scrap and building foundations tumbled down as the Bladefather and Crimson Queen fought.

"Tell me about it." I felt Energy slowly coming back to me, but without a bigger boost of power, I was… in no shape to fight Bladedaughter.

Ripley seemed to have read my mind at that moment, because he sighed. "Alright, plan B."

He clicked his armory, and out steamed a condensed ball of… meat and tossed it out to me. "A pellet of questionable origin I infused with Quartz's blood, combined with… many Metabolism Mutagen types. Not sure what it would do, but uh… the math checked out."

He tossed it over to me, before looking down at Sabrina. Lifting her stump up, he fitted the recently scrap-built hand onto her like a glove. Then his gaze settled onto Dryder.

"Take off that armor."

"No fucking way, we're fighting the edgiest bitch in this city."

"It'll only slow you down. We're never going to have tech capable of blocking her attacks." Ripley pulled out some disks from the armory. "But I made tech that should allow her to never hit us. Designed, actually, using your suit as a principle, Diana. Call them D-disks."

"Oh." I said, before chewing on the meatball. It was dense and rich in flavor, and felt like kindle to fuel an entire wildfire.

"On your hands… wrists… wherever, see a blade coming, activate it and it should slip by… as long as you don't divert it medially." He strapped one onto the backside of his hand, but pulled out more for me. "You're the exception, Diana. I need you to have these… D-Resonance Disks pretty much all over you. It's like a… Holo-shield, of sorts, but should work like a muscle? Starlight can explain it better. Uh, use them if you get stabbed, it'll stop her from pulling the blade out."

"You want to use me as a pinchusion?" I began strapping them over my armor, they fused perfectly… clearly designed to mesh with my suit.

"Math checks out." He passed by Dryder's falling armor pieces, picking them up and instantly breaking them apart.

"Hey, I thought you said you didn't need that!" Dryder tried to grab it from Ripley, but he side-stepped it.

"You don't need it. I need to stabilize my suit for the output I'm going to force on it." He tapped the armory began, which began to reshape and slide mechanisms into place. "I call it the Tetradyne… an… alternate form of my Arachnodyne. Immense output, manageable Capacity, but it might tear itself apart."

"Might…? You didn't test it out?" Anomaly quizzed.

"None of the stuff I used today was tested, not on the field." He clicked his tongue. "I just…"

"…Did the maths?" I guessed.

He nodded. "It's a Protocol of mine, one I'm going to… help you guys out with. Starlight?"

I felt a buzzing presence in my head, one I welcomed, Ripley extended a cord from his arm to Dryder and Anomoly, who cautiously used it to join Starlight's local network.

Slowly, a web of information spilled into our eyes. Each thread dangled with data on the Bladedaughter, from suspected Features, to rare footage of her in action. One was the security footage of her attacking me and Omen.

They all weaved together until it formed a holographic illustration of her, from head to toe. "The Bladedaughter… Gold BUG. Tier III. We're missing few of our members, but have Anomaly and Dryder to make up. Sabrina's got a new arm, while Kim's eyes are functioning again… me and Diana are both… weakened, but potentially about to have a windfall in strength. Variable wise, none of this happened how I needed it to."

"She's quicker than me, in most cases. Expect a weapon of some kind on every inch of her, get close enough and you'll die. Get far enough and she'll shoot out electromagnetic blades she can manipulate. Preferred range to combat her is about a meter. Offensively, she could tear through anything Silver-Graded. Defensively… she's weaker. Alloy of her body is light but durable. Diana was capable of throwing her with her telekinesis, that'll be exploitable. With that much Shardware in her, I'm betting on Accomodation, her output is comparable to Adapters with Overclock… as for the other two, her externally controlled legion of blades likely have to do with an Integration or Network Feature. As for her last one… expect a Unique Feature. When it comes to our odds…"

A scan occurred over Ripley.

"As Dreadwire, I'm fast. Tricky. Unpredictable. Capable of building an advantage by discovering weaknesses and exploiting them, or by just building shit. Add vertical maneuvaribility, the ability to fight across all ranges, and switching up my style… I'll be in the back. If it was just me fighting her… my chance of winning is about…"

"5%!" Starlight brought the number up.

"Shouldn't you be… in the front?" Kim looked at him disapprovingly.

"No. I'm the lynchpin… gathering information and devising plans for you pawns to follow."

"Pawn?" Anomaly scoffed.

"Okay, you next." A scan occurred over Anomaly.

"Your voice is infamous to the whole city, a known ability, she'll deafen herself the second you speak. Your vibration manipulation on the other hand… that'll come useful. Capable of sonic cavitation, impulse control, ultrasonic barriers… I'll need you guarding me."

"Chance of winning… 11%!"

"Next… Dryder." He turned to the man, squinting. "What… can you do?"

"I'm a tough bastard." Dryder shrugged.

"Yeah, but what's your Shardware build?"

"Good enough for Soul Killer. Just strapped a bunch of strength enhancers, in-built grenade launchers, storage for ammunition, Derma-chrome… good enough for Bronze-Grade shit. Mostly work with guns, got a sonic rifle, a semi-auto shotgun, and like… three pistols? Oh, and I have a sickle in my arm I stole off the Iron Devil."

"A sickle?" Ripley said humorously.

Dryder's arm shifted, exposing a hook-like mechanism through which I'd seen him sink into Soul Killer's thralls to explode them with a loud sonic burst.

"Shit, that's made of Shriekstone?… Uh, I'll be needing to study that in more detail. You'll be closer up than Anabelle, supporting our upfront forces."

"Chance of winning… 16%!"

Turning to Kim, Ripley nodded. "The only one who can match her technique. As a Dual Adapter, I can see you focus primarily on cognition enhancement with your BUG side, likely to facilitate your telekinesis. But… that suit of yours… it's no Silvereye suit, but it is built for you."

"Channels within it…" Kim pointed out some hollow engravings within her suit. "Ectoplasm flows through it, acting as a second layer of muscles, before forming another layer over it… if I get hit, it'll soak into her. Push the blade away."

"Great minds think alike." Ripley smiled.

"Chance of winning… 26%!"

Ripley then looked over at Sabrina, whose eyes were now open, and asked with a gentle voice. "Will you fight?"

Sabrina lifted her steel hand up, clenching it. "You gave this to me… you know the answer."

Nodding, Ripley tapped the arm, where a mask and hose fell out. He wrapped it into her suit, before placing the mask over her mouth and nose. "Capable of manipulating the temperature of carbon dioxide in all its forms, maintaining invisibility in misty conditions, a good nose and…"

"…some level of frost manipulation, still developing it." Sabrina muttered.

"You'll be dealing with close-range impairment of the Bladedaughter." Ripley patted her shoulder, before settling his gaze onto Archangel.

"Chance of winning… 30%!"

"What?" Archangel sleepily said. "Just got my ribs crushed and you want me to fight again?"

"You're wearing a NeoCore suit." He pointed out. "Your ribs were forced back into place, plastered together, and were probably metal in the first place. You're good as new."

"Hardly." She scoffed, pulling herself up by her spear. "Do I have to?"

"You have the only shielding that I expect can withstand her." Ripley extended his fingers out to her, quickly sharpening into claws. "So, either your suit comes with us, or you do."

I nodded along. "That's an order, Archangel."

She sighed, lights flaring over her suit as she stretched her joints. "I hate you all, psychopaths."

"Chance of winning… 39%!"

"Silvereye." He lifted something out of the drone as he turned to me, two metallic fingers…

Carefully approaching, he took my hand and gently began stitching them onto where I lost my right middle and index fingers as he spoke. Through our touch, I felt... his genuine need, hope, a want, a fear, guilt... but also... fondness. Respect. And...

...Affection made his voice mirthful. "Cradleborn, Gold SIM, model Investigator…. Thunder runs in your veins more than it does in mine, your physiology alters as it needs to, you can regenerate being shot at like it's a paper cut, thermal… kinetic… wouldn't be surprised if one day you had a nuclear reactor for a metabolism."

His eyes met mine, twin evening suns reflecting across steel meeting my moonlight gaze. "So, Diana Jones, what would it take for your heart to believe that I need you? That this city needs you? I may be an architect of ruin for my enemies, but you're the storm of change that we need. There's only so much planning I can do, but sometimes, when the time comes. All that machinery I build… I'm going to need lightning to strike to power it. I plan. You execute."

He fitted the two fingers in. They were perfectly fitted… and I sensed Dianium rippling within them. "You built…"

"…Can't fight that woman without expecting a few fingers to come loose." He smiled as he always did when things looked bad. "So, when this is done… next dinner is on you."

Anomaly and Sabrina both looked at me accusingly, but I ignored them. Instead, I felt a certain feeling floating in my heart, a weird… fluttering satisfaction like melting warmth, bubble into my mind. "Christmas?"

He smiled. "Christmas."

I fought the urge to pull him closer and let him know that I hated him for making me feel like this, manifesting all of that through my body as the workings of his snack fueled me.

The Catalyst was reacting to this… mini-trigger of sorts, and combined with the previous battle's effects… I'd be at my strongest when I fought Bladedaughter. I had to.

"Chance of winning… 45%!"

Ripley looked annoyed at the number. "Let's even the odds."

Reaching into the armory, he pulled one final piece of gear out. A katana, tossing it over to me, I marvelled in it's lustrous shine and… inner circuitry of Dianium.

"If you think I used a lot of the 'special sauce' in that?…" Ripley tapped the armory, which began to assume a new shape, it latched onto his Arachnodyne and armor, forming a bulky shell over his back that began to smooth out as though he was manipulating it during the process of attaching it. "This is a damn broth of it."

The Arachnodyne reached down, grabbing any piece of scrap it could to piece it into this new form. Ripley heaved a breath, as the Arachnodyne limbs, thicker and more… angular than ever worked on themselves, pulling apart at their joints as insertions of Golden wires and steel plating made curving segments that had multiple shifting sections over them.

"Still a bit… wonky." Ripley admitted, they moved slightly slower due to the weight, but each second they… Retrofit themselves to better adapt in shape and size. "Need a better binding agent, otherwise the whole thing kinda falls apart, but if I'm right… Bladedaughter won't like it. The Tetradyne is made to be broken, and to be rebuilt."

Each limb now resembled more of an angular tentacle with more than a dozen sharp joints, and their reach was significantly longer. I didn't even want to know just how many tools or weapons he packed inside it.

"Chance of winning… 50%!" Starlight tossed her hands in the air. "Of course… uh, if any of you get severely injured, this number goes down… very quickly."

"So… I suppose this is the part where we get our asses moving." Dryder slung a rifle over his shoulder.

"Nah, I need about… ten minutes of rest." Ripley collapsed on his ass. "Warpweb is draining."

He pulled out a few Shards from a compartment in his leg, they melted away into his hand as motes of light. I couldn't help but keep my eyes on him as he slowly closed his eyes, I wondered what he was thinking.

A steel elbow to my ribs interrupted my wandering mind, Sabrina blowing from her lips. "It's so fucking obvious."

"Shut up." I rubbed my rib, settling down next to her. "You okay?"

"Hurts." She rubbed the blood leaking from the stump on her forearm. "Clean cut, Diana."

I remembered that moment, the panic in Azure Phoenix's eyes when she hurt someone… someone she didn't want to. I knew it was that type of gaze, because I was familiar to it. "Sabrina… what was that with… Phoenix?"

Sabrina looked back at her wound, smiling sadly. "She's the mother to my nephew. When my brother and I were undercover... let's say we both managed to get with a Princess..."

"Oh…"

"I… I'm sorry, when Heart Seeker got involved, I- the plan changed. Kim and I were just going to…." Sabrina rubbed her dripping tears away. "I never…"

"You can explain once we get out of this." I moved in, squeezing her shoulder.

Kim looked over us, her cold eyes melting slightly. "Sabby…"

"It's okay, Kim." Sabrina pulled away slightly, taking a brief glance at Ripley.

Within her eyes was nothing but a cold stare, devoid of the warmth I'd come to rely on her for.

"Nothing's changed. The plan stays the same."

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