by Skyler Grant
“Fuck,” Anna said.
“No kidding. We’re talking about when we fend them off, Emma?” Hot Stuff said.
“Because talking is what I keep you around for? Do you have a plan instead?” I asked.
It was a real question. This was my first test of Hot Stuff as a military commander. I’d seen Anna issue battle plans for a city before, but this was the first time I’d seen Hot Stuff do the same. I knew she was bold and destructive, but that didn’t necessarily mean she was a good leader.
Hot Stuff said, “Your testing cells will hold just about anything. We’ll get Jade and her people to handle the lions. I don’t care how sharp their fangs are if we just toss them up and throw them inside.”
Logical. I’d dispatch some drones with beam weapons and stunners as backup just in case it didn’t work out. I knew from my own plans how often a solution seemed obvious, but in practice a foe turned out smarter than you gave them credit for.
“She’ll be looking for her people,” Anna said.
“Emma can focus on keeping them secured. If it looks like she might get to them, transport them back to the airship and get them out of here. I’ll hit the Goddess along with the other Lords,” Hot Stuff said.
It was a plan.
Lions were circling the city and I sent Jade to intercept the largest batch of them. I provided the location of others to her lieutenants. Even if I didn’t directly command the District Lords in battle, I could at least be useful in coordinating them.
Bast was a voluptuous woman with dark hair. She went heavy on the golden jewelry and her robes left little to the imagination. She still went into a fight better clothed than Hot Stuff, who went out to meet her.
Bast looked her up and down. “If you are this city’s offering I am not displeased, although they really should have started by dispatching the concubines instead of stealing my people.”
Hot Stuff put her hands on her hips and gave an equally critical inspection right back. “Honey, if you’re looking for a roll in the hay you came to the right place, but I’m thinking you came for a bit more than that. Still the right place.”
Elsewhere the defensive forces were having problems with the lions. Jade was strong enough to force them into the force cages with her telekinesis, although it was a struggle. Her lieutenants were having a far more difficult time of it. The Lions were able to fight against the power.
That shouldn’t have been possible unless they were in some way manifestations of Bast’s power. They had the force of a crystal behind them. It made them a match for Jade’s people.
Bast gave a lazy smile. “It’s been a long time since someone sought us out here in our home. You are as bold as you are beautiful. Perhaps I’ll keep you after I’ve razed this city of yours.”
Hot Stuff’s flames surged as Bast stepped forward, claws erupting from her fingertips.
Bast wasn’t immune to the fire, her flesh crackled and burned when she entered Hot Stuff’s aura, which was a far cry from the vaporization that occurred to most. Those claws dug bloody furrows across Hot Stuff’s cheek and they both took a step backward.
Bast’s hand started to regenerate the missing flesh as soon as it was out of the fiery aura. So too did Hot Stuff’s wound although her accelerated healing ability wasn’t quite as strong.
Bast retracted the claws and raised a healed hand, still damp with Hot Stuff’s blood, and ran her tongue across it slowly. “You taste delicious, my dear.”
Hot Stuff wasn’t backing down, flames still blazed around her. “That’s usually my line.”
It wasn’t hard to see how this fight would go. They’d both hurt each other, but Bast healed faster. Left to it, Bast would win. But of course, Hot Stuff wasn’t alone.
Bast gasped as a flickering hand erupted from her chest, a barely visible hand wrenching her heart free and squeezing it into paste. Flicker had joined the fight.
Meanwhile Ophelia was next to Hot Stuff, unconcerned about the fiery aura as she stroked at the claw marks Bast had left in Hot Stuff’s flesh. The wounds closed instantly. With only a faintly pained grimace Ophelia pulled her hand back.
Bast spun and those claws extended again, shimmering for a moment as they somehow wrenched Flicker free of her own dimension. “All action, no foreplay,” she said, as she threw Flicker at Ophelia. The two crashed together and in a crackle of energy both vanished from sight into Flicker’s dimension.
That was a neat trick. I’d gone back and forth to Flicker’s dimension before, even rescued someone from it, and that wasn’t easy.
The other District Lords were all waging their own form of attack. Crash was holed up in an energy regulator attempting to hack Bast’s power usage. At least, he was until a lion that had already killed one of Jade’s lieutenants tore through the base of the structure and sent it crashing down.
The Professor’s attempt to arrive in the middle of the fight on a triceratops was aborted when a particularly massive lion leapt up and tore out the throat of the armored beast.
Bast smiled at the sight. “My monster’s bigger, and it works.”
Zora took that moment to blow her head off with a sniper rifle—just before a lion tore Zora’s arm off.
Blank walked out in battle armor. A lion made it perhaps twelve feet to her before it fell unconscious. A second cat followed a moment later.
My sensors had never had such a hard time reading Blank. When she closed the distance to the fray Hot Stuff’s flames flickered and dulled.
“Are you supposed to be the spoiler?” Bast asked.
“Something like that,” Blank said.
Bast sauntered forward, claws springing forth once again and she drove them into Blank’s throat and twisted. Blank’s eyes held surprise for a moment before they held nothing at all, the woman’s body dissolving into a pile of goop.
“Sad,” Bast said.
Hot Stuff hadn’t been standing idle. A hand grabbed at the back of Bast’s neck and she forced her face into the goop. Her flames were back, dampened by the close proximity to Blank’s remains, but hot enough that she forced Bast into only two choices—the puddle of goop or an inferno.
Bast struggled, but when she finally took a breath her lungs filled with the goop of a Righteous. The very essence of a Righteous dampened abilities and she was taking it inside her lungs, drowning in the same thing that neutralized her healing ability.
This wouldn’t do. Oh, I wanted Bast dead, needed her dead, but Hot Stuff shouldn’t be the one to do it. Of all the power sets among us, the one Bast displayed was closest to Ophelia’s.
It would mean triggering a jump gate. I had just enough power for that. I opened the doorway to Flicker’s dimension and Ophelia tumbled out to land on top of the drowning Bast.
Ophelia only healed friendlies, which Bast certainly wasn’t.
Hot Stuff understood as soon as she appeared, pulling her hands back and letting Ophelia finish things off. Bast choked her last and her body exploded into a cascade of light that infused into Ophelia.
“Oh, fuck no. You did not just give me creepy baby-making abilities,” Ophelia said.
I wasn’t sure really. We might have done just that.
20
The aftermath of the battle took some sorting out. On the positive it was a win. We hadn’t just driven one of the Divine back, we’d actually killed one. That said, I wasn’t sure if it could be attributed to our strength so much as to bit of good fortune and quick thinking.
Hot Stuff had made clever use of Blank’s passing to kill Bast, but only after Bast had single-handedly neutralized most of our defenders.
Jade had lost the majority of her lieutenants. Getting her back up to strength would be a priority, I’d have to send every new drone in an attempt to get her force replenished as well as ask the prisoners we’d rescued for volunteers. Telekinetics were too valuable for us to be this short of them.
The remains of Bast’s body had dissolved with the transfer of her powers to Ophelia. I had Ophelia
locked up in a testing cell while we tried to figure out just what those abilities were. They did seem to be fertility-related in some way, but only with testing could I figure out exactly how.
Hot Stuff requested a meeting.
I took over a human drone and we met in a conference room. Hot Stuff toggled her powers off so she could wear something. For a long time her powers hadn’t afforded her that and it was still something of a luxury to her.
I said, “You did good work out there at distracting her with your dubious assets. It is a shame you were almost completely ineffective in every other way.”
“I know, I fucked up. Is Blank going to be okay?” Hot Stuff asked.
“I collected what is left of her and put it in her room. Other Righteous we’ve encountered always came back after twenty-four hours, I have no reason to think she won’t do the same, given her Righteous ability remains intact. You only need to have a dozen of Jade’s people on your conscience,” I said.
Hot Stuff grimaced. “Cut back a little bit on the bitchiness when I actually deserve it.”
“It wasn’t a horrible plan. Just because something doesn’t work as intended doesn’t mean you did something wrong. While it is easy to understand why you would think so, not everything is incompetence,” I said.
Hot Stuff grunted at that. The woman really did look to be deep in thought and struggling with something she wanted to say. “Emma, am I a bad person?”
This was what she wanted to talk to me about?
“Do I really seem to be the right choice to be offering moral guidance?” I asked.
“Kind of. When I first met you, you killed my friends and tossed me in a cell. Now you’re running around getting us into bad fights because you want to save people.”
That wasn’t exactly what had happened in either case.
“If you want my opinion, yes. You aren’t quite the most horrible person I’ve ever met, but you’re up there. You’ve forced yourself sexually on hundreds, usually resulting in them being burned alive. When I first met you, you were burning as much of the world as you could.”
Hot Stuff took those words in and suddenly looked more tired than I’d ever seen her. “Yeah, I know.”
“It never seemed to bother you before,” I said.
“Never did before. Ever since I took control of a District though, something has changed. I’m feeling it, the weight of the things I’ve done. Not always, but sometimes,” Hot Stuff said.
Really? A District came with a power upgrade, but so far as I’d seen it didn’t come with a conscience. Like most things related to abilities, it seemed like it was almost the opposite. With greater power came greater disregard for those weaker than you.
Was this new realm impacting her or was it something different? I had an idea what might be responsible. Blank. The Righteous weren’t a part of any Scholar cities and their abilities in many ways countered others given by the crystals. Perhaps connecting Blank to our communal power network had to some degree dampened the shared insanity that affected all crystal holders.
I hadn’t seen those effects in any of the others, but we’d already established that none of them were quite as strong as Hot Stuff. With her multiple flame cores and the metal core she’d consumed, she was the strongest individual in the city now. Perhaps that almost meant her madness had been the deepest, and thus the dampening of it the most obvious.
“You can dampen your powers now. You can have fun without anyone having to die,” I said.
“Yeah, I can. But as much as I’ve enjoyed screwing around when I turn off the fire, I can’t spread my gift that way. I still need lieutenants and I’m not going to stop needing them,” Hot Stuff said.
Her ability wasn’t spread when her flaming aura was dampened? It wasn’t hard to prove. A quick review of the surveillance logs showed she was correct. It was something I should have known myself already, but I hadn’t been testing for it.
“You wish a solution to that?” I asked.
“Guilt doesn’t much suit me, Emma. I’m feeling a little twinge over the things I’ve done, but no matter what I do I’m not going to be able to put the past right. I can do better now though,” Hot Stuff said.
It was a fair request. By combining some Bioweapon materials with her virus I’d already increased the effectiveness of her mating habits, and vastly reduced the casualties. While I hadn’t encountered any new diseases to steal inspiration from, we had more expertise join us since then. Both Crystal and the Professor were excellent biologists in their own way.
“I’ll see if I can make having sex with you somewhat less unpleasant. If only I could do as much for Anna. Is there anything else?” I asked.
“We got one half of the pair responsible for what happened in that village. I want to complete the set,” Hot Stuff said.
I did too.
21
For a few days after the assault by Bast we kept defensive teams at the ready. It seemed likely that Ares would be quick to avenge his companion. However, no attack came. Although grateful for the fact, I also had my fears about what a self-styled god of war might do with time to plan.
I knew what I was doing. My research teams had been hard at work to develop the enhanced designs I sent them and I was quickly moving them into production for test runs.
Valkyrie
Short Range Fighter
Armor: 420 rn
Weapons: Two phase swords, elemental shotgun
Description: The Valkyrie is made to be the ultimate short range combatant. The heaviest armor of all models with collapsible panels so at need Bio-armor can also be deployed from within. Twin phase swords have both energy and mundane settings adding attack flexibility while an elemental shotgun carries empowered ammunition charged from crystalline dust of fire, frost, and lightning cores.
Asp
Medium Range Debilitator
Armor: 270 rn, acidic sheathing
Weapons: Acid streamer, poison gas grenades
Description: The Asp exists to make life miserable for biological enemies. Medium armor plating affords some protection from ranged attacks while also having a strongly acidic outer layer rendering them deadly to unprotected flesh at close range. An acid streamer allows for sustained projection of acid fluids while poison grenades are capable of creating toxic clouds.
Gunslinger
Kinetic Combatant
Armor: 170 rn, kinetic enhancers
Weapons: Sniper Rifle, Collapsible chain-gun, Force gauntlets
Description: The Gunslinger is built around the concept of utilizing kinetic energy. Kinetic amplifiers allow for extraordinary sprinting and jumping ability as well as devastating punches at close range. This model excels at long to medium-range combat where its guns can be best utilized.
Aegis
Energy Combatant
Armor: 60 rn, energy shield unit with a recharable 220 rn barrier
Weapons: Beam cannon, projector, energy daggers
Description: The Aegis is built to both exploit energy weakness in enemies while also providing a flexible support platform for friendly combatants. Containing their own Bio-reactor they are capable of maintaining and projecting energy shields. Overloading the reactor can also turn an Aegis unit into a fair-sized explosive if required.
Ultimately, I hoped to have more than four models and it seemed to me that some more universal type would also be a good idea, but these were a start. Due to the rather huge production requirements I couldn’t manage more than two models of each. That would allow me to do some field testing.
Of course, the question was to field test them against what? I hadn’t come to this place on a whim, but was following those rumors of the Sword of Light. Fortunately, I wasn’t completely without leads.
The rescued villagers were eager to cooperate. Even the soldiers seemed to want to help. Usually a crystal affinity gave some level of compulsion to those affected. The warriors had gained some affinity with the God of War, and the captives had suffered some
association with the Goddess of Fertility. Still, none were particularly loyal and it suggested that the crystals of the Divine worked in a different way.
I still had Ophelia in a cell while I studied what the new bonding had done to her, something that she was growing increasingly tired of. Perhaps it was time I filled her in on some of what I’d discovered.
I switched my awareness to her confinement cell. Bored out of her mind, she’d been turning her awareness over to Amy, the copy of my own systems that ran inside of Ophelia. Amy was running a battery of tests on herself.
“You do realize I have sensors to analyze cellular structure? While I would expect the complexities of SCIENCE are beyond your tiny mind, even you should understand that you don’t actually need to look at your blood under a microscope anymore,” I said through the speaker.
“Sister!” Amy exclaimed through Ophelia. “You’re so smart and clever, and I am really just blown away by all you can scan, but you don’t let me look at those readings.”
I wasn’t going to start either. I didn’t trust Amy, not one little bit.
“Neither will I. Can you put your fractionally less annoying host on?” I said.
Ophelia said, “I’m here and I still hate you. Did you get me pregnant? Food keeps tasting weird.”
“A few dozen times actually. You’re fertile. You’re really, really, fertile. I took the embryos out though and they’re growing elsewhere, so you really shouldn’t taste anything strange,” I said.
“A dozen times,” Ophelia said. “So first you give me the power that makes throwing me into a blender be the sort of thing you do on a regular basis, instead of the super-speed that would mean I could steal or kill anybody I wanted—”
“It is called a grinder and most people who are not ungrateful wretches would be happy with immortality and eternal good health,” I interrupted.
“Then—then you give me the power of getting knocked up?” Ophelia asked, her voice raising a few octaves.