rex_corvus
patreon
BIII: Chapter Eight
🕑 Added 2023-07-24 00:09:33 +0000 UTCEli floated with his hands in pockets above the massive crater of asphalt and concrete. Rivulets of molten metal flowed from the slagged Automabots into the exposed sewers. Clouds of foul smelling steam rose from the destruction.
Drones buzzed toward the skyscrapers and warehouses. Tendrils of space and gravity swatted at them, but his powers refused to grip onto them.
He teleported across New Faram to where Roman waited in the middle of the pack of his robotic foes. Three of them laid in crumpled heaps, while the majority stood frozen still.
“That was less challenging than I expected,” Eli sighed while he kept his spatial field focused on the two human settlements and the Automabots’ base. “What did you do to them?”
“Brute force hacked into their systems with an Imperial Will boosted virus,” Roman said idly. He ran his hands over the rough chassis of the automabot in front of him. “They’re strange. Each of them is alive with an insanely sophisticated artificial intelligence, but they’re all practically identical.”
“What do you mean?” Eli leaned closer while he watched the drones approach the skyscrapers. Two dozen new squads peeled out of there headed directly for them. Their armor was bulkier with a more glossy finish compared to the ones they had individually taken out.
“I think that all these Automabots, at least the ones we’ve fought, are all individuals based on the same foundation.”
“So what? They’re all basically the same AI and body?”
“To start with anyways.” Roman knocked on the one’s plate in the center of where its chest would have been. “But if these are more or less normal machines given true intelligence, then I bet at their base they can assemble as many of these as the want.”
“Well, I guess we pissed on a hornet’s nest. More are on their way.” Eli crossed his arms. “If you’re right, we could be stuck fighting an unending horde of them until they take us out or we leave.”
“Do you make a habit of doing that?” Roman chuckled at his first comment while he shook his head wryly. “I doubt they can send out an unlimited amount of whatever units these Automabots are. Otherwise, they would have wiped out the rest of the city, right?”
“Probably,” Eli shrugged. “Unless that isn’t their goal.”
“That’s true.” He frowned. “How close are they?”
“Closer to downtown, so probably thirty minutes or so. They have drones watching us though.” Eli pointed at the ones scattered around them, hidden behind windows, in alleyways, and on rooftops.
“Hm. This might be a good time for me to pick what power I want out of slotting Imperial Will.” Roman drummed his fingers on his thigh. “Yeah, I think this will work the best.”
Eli winced for a split second as pressure built around Roman before it released with a pulse of static. Was that his essence or something else?
Roman hoisted his hand back as it brightened into the gleaming starsteel of their spatial-dream exosuit. His fingers hooked as blades unsheathed. Metal parted with a horrendous squeal as Roman thrust his hand into the nearest immobilized automabot.
Dream echoed nine times until the other bots keeled over.
“That was a bit extra.”
“I don’t want them knowing what I chose. Is the space secure?” Roman’s hand switched back to normal while Eli nodded and hardened space around them. “My new power, Imperial Omniforge, will basically turn me into a factory and let me rebuild whatever I’ve already made.”
“At evo-0?” Eli raised his eyebrows.
“Yeah. Obviously, the quality will be affected if I try to copy something I made and enchanted at a higher level, on top of how I suspect each iteration will be a bit worse.” Roman knelt as he pried one of the automabots open.
Oil and a clear fluid puddled beneath the robot as Roman stripped it of parts, tubing, and a number of gun barrels latched directly into reels of ammunition.
Dream weaved and breathed through the parts as it grew into another, more menacing shape.
Wiry legs spooled out of a large triple barreled cannon armored in the automabots steel. An array of small propulsive nozzles poked out of it at various points. Power hummed as it floated almost like a jellyfish.
“No fancy enchantments?” Eli asked as he studied the barebones primitive system designed to operate whatever Roman was going to call this thing.
“Imperial Omniforge is too weak to recreate much more than basic enchantments. If I didn’t need it for building, I’d swap out Phantasmic Magitech entirely to make IO more efficient.” Roman placed one of his hands on his creation while the other suspended over nothing.
A fuzzy silhouette of it crackled out of his empty hand. Wires trailed in the air as the fiction of its replica spun out into reality. Through Starspace Nexus, Eli studied the two and noticed that while the replica was exact, it was riddled with faults.
Where the original had a perfectly functional, if primitive, enchantment system, the replica’s was lesser. It wobbled in place as it hovered uncertainly. Three gun barrels swiveled back and forth with a series of clicks, while the other’s moved silently.
“How far away are they now?” Roman nodded as he swept his hand out creating three more diminished replicas one after the other. Each was slightly worse than its predecessor, but all hovered at the ready.
“About twenty minutes or so.”
“Excellent.” Roman tapped each of his new bots one after the other as something in their systems shifted. They all swarmed around the original as if they were its a part of its whole.
Roman smiled while his eyes blazed with a golden glow.
Five silhouettes snapped into existence in a copied set before a flood of a more potent Dream spawned a row of five of sets in identical condition.
Again.
And again.
Until eighty total swarmed around them in drone army of jellyfish-like turrets.
Eli ogled at them in disbelief until he noticed Roman reeling back with his head held in his hands. Blood trickled out his nose before it darkened to oil as he transformed into his exosuit.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Will is a weird stat to overuse and I pushed Imperial Omniforge a bit too far.” Roman straightened while he tried to push another field of static out, but before a single replica could form, it dissipated. “I don’t think I’ll be able to make any more machines today with it.”
“Don’t worry about it, I can.” Eli smiled as he stored a set of them into his sanctum. Harsh undercurrents of Dream rasped against him as he summoned copies with Starspace Nexus.
Space grated against Dream as his power refined the shoddy bots into resplendent drones.
“Oh hell yeah!” Roman pumped his fist in the air. Eli churned all the existing bots through his sanctum until the air was packed with their bots.
Eli threaded spatial enchantments through them as he improved them further.
Ammunition magazines expanded, bullets would skip through space, gun barrels would fire explosive gravitonic force, and coils of starlightning charged their batteries and extended into their wire tendrils and legs.
“They’re here,” Eli said while he teleported to the rear of the pack.
Bands of aurora shimmered over his knuckles as he rammed his fist into the automabot at the back. Instead of sundering metal and gears in an aurora explosion, his fist stopped cold in the dented embrace of its armor.
The automabot he struck reached its arm back around at an unnatural angle to clamp its fingers around Eli’s wrist. Tickling pulses of electricity seethed into him. He ignored it.
Twenty-three other automabots wheeled around while they aimed massive assault rifles at Eli. He drew on Starspace Nexus and Aurora Stardust while he tensed, yet his body and mind felt scrambled.
Canisters shot out of their guns with a roar.
Hundreds of pounds of nets crashed into him from all sides as the weighted ends spun and hooked into each other.
Oppressive enchantments tangled into each other as the nets boosted each other and the tickling voltage loosed into his nervous system.
Clouds of mist and stardust hissed impotently out of him as he cycled his powers to purge himself of the unsettling electricity.
Eli tried to scream as more of his body saturated with the electricity and enchantments from the net. His nerves seemed to drift apart until the map of his body detached from all reasonable sense.
Time slowed as he shoved all of himself he could into his powers. He spasmed half on the ground, half held up by the automabot’s fiendish grip on his hand.
He was distantly aware of Roman flying toward them. Shadows from their eighty-strong drone artillery blotted the streets in darkness. Whips of starlighting and tendrils from their drones lashed out at the automabots. Most of the robots moved to meet Roman with different kinds of guns and ammunition.
Rage and hatred ignited from the pit of Eli’s stomach to the wells of tears pooling out of his eyes.
Only Profound Erudition felt entirely untouched from the horrid lightning running rampant in his body. A hint of protest squeaked from the passive secondary identity he had built with it as he dove deeper into it than he ever had.
Strain shuddered inside the framework of the power as symbols of Dream bled into his mind. He ignored it in favor of anchoring himself deeper into Profound Erudition’s sanctuary. Into his own mind.
Essence boiled before he lost all semblance of insight into the hidden side of powers and the System.
His existence doubled as he twisted spacetime and stored his body inside of Celestial Embodiment’s void. All his stardust, enhancements from when he first got Hyper-Regeneration, and every fiber of his being integrated as he turned into something more than mere stars, or even starspace. He became celestial.
Elias stood back up, even as his disjointed body rebelled.
Six automabots surrounding him trilled with alarm. They pointlessly raised their guns. He never gave them a chance to fire.
Stardust blasted from him in a river of gravity and electromagnetism. Untempered essence flickered, then extinguished as the pulse of magnetism fried their internal technology.
Only puddles of molten metal remained.
Realizations crinkled in his mind one after another as he parsed all the information he received.
Roman conducted their orchestra of jellyfish bots the best he could. Bullets ripped through space and Automabots like tissue paper, while spatial enchantments contained any collateral damage.
Starspace Nexus tapped around him as his spatial field swept out.
Elias stepped through space into the air above the sniper hidden on a roof several blocks away. Extra legs curled into the roof to brace the bot whenever it decided to fire.
His perception of starspace and Profound Erudition was enough for him to know that Roman was in the line of fire. The chamber clicked as the automabot pulled the trigger.
Elias redirected the intervening space around.
Sparks flew as the sniper’s bullet drilled through the gap in its vents and into its battery packs in the center of its chest. Oil and other fluids ignited. Electricity and power built to critical lev—
He teleported the broken machine to the Automabots’ headquarters. New enchantments prevented his awareness from piercing inside. Flames whipped in a trail behind the bot as it skipped across the pavement.
—els before it all burst with an earth-shattering roar.
Despite the widespread annihilation of the road, sidewalk, and driveways of the skyscrapers, none of the damage had penetrated the enchantments protecting the actual buildings.
Elias supposed that would have been poor planning if one of their own bots exploding was enough to breach their walls.
He appeared back in the new ruins of the site of their battle where Roman flailed inefficiently against the last few automabots. Mounds of broken bots better served as scrap guttered with smoke all over the place.
“Need a hand?” Elias asked as he floated over the jagged ruts torn into the road full of glass and shards of metal.
“I… got… this.” Roman gasped with an electronic hiss as he flared his propulsive jets to smash his metallic leg into the bot’s knee. Servos snapped as it toppled. “What the hell? That was a lot harder.”
“I believe they are putting together models to use against us. I noticed that they used different equipment and tactics, for example, they tazed me and then trapped me with nets. Somehow, they hijacked my natural recovery to render me incapable.”
“That makes sense.” Roman looked at Elias oddly. “I wasn’t able to hack them or hurt them as easily as before. The jellyswarm helped level the playing field a bit, but I had to use more of my different tricks this time around.”
“The question is, if they constantly adapt, why are they not the dominant force in New Faram?” Elias paced, his feet pushed off condensed space with precise flexes of starspace, aurora, and gravity. “There has to be a hidden cost. Otherwise, they would have overrun all the rats, greants, and people.”
“I can see that.” Roman’s faceplate turned to flesh and blood again as he moved closer to Elias. Glass crunched with his every step. “Hey, Eli, are you feeling okay? You’re talking and acting differently.”
“Am I?” Elias blinked. “I feel better than ever.”
All his powers flowed together flawlessly now. He felt right, whole. As if he had stopped pretending, and acknowledged the truth of who and what he was.
Stellar Body’s storage of his actual body in space allowed him to fully embody his physical existence in a way he had never experienced before. Starspace Nexus, Aurora Stardust, and especially Profound Erudition all worked in sync as irreplaceable cogs in the Elias Newton machine.
“I don’t kno—“
Elias whirled toward the group of three people sneaking up on them as corridors of starspace twanged and snapped. He appeared with his hand extended and an aurora starspace knife linked to three portals opened next to each of their throats.
“Why were you spying on us?” Elias demanded.
“Eli!” Roman shouted as he rushed to keep up.
“Because you two decided to have a pissing match with the Automas?” The man in front chuckled darkly. Matter grew from his palm in the shape of a gun, but he kept it tucked out of sight by his leg. Elias ignored it for now.
“Josef sent teams of Warriors out to see what was going on!” A young middle school aged girl decked out with knives and swords snapped. Everyone from her party turned to glare at her. “Sorry.”
“I see.” Elias nodded, even though he had little actual idea what was going on. He hoped that if he acted like he was already in the loop that they’d be more likely to let their guard down and reveal more information.
“Guess Sarah already gave us away,” sighed the first man who had spoken. “I’m Isaac and we’re from the Henge.”
“Henge?” Roman asked before Elias could say anything.
“You two are new to Faram’s Ruins then, aren’t you?” asked the woman shrouded in shadow and illusion. Dream twisted around her. Nearly invisible threads of night crept toward Elias.
“You really renamed the city?” Elias raised his eyebrow while he bent sunlight around him to his will. Best to keep her overt shadows at bay. A small part of him was surprised that he still retained control over sunlight, but it was equaled by his annoyance at how he had never tried. What else had he neglected to attempt?
“Nothing new about it anymore, is there?” She shook her head despite the starspace blade inches from her throat. “So, what’s your names? I always like to know who my captors are.”
“Elias and Roman. Yours?” Elias answered easily. Their names didn’t need to be kept secret, and any signs of cooperation would help prevent this from turning to bloodshed. He hadn’t truly wounded or killed any humans since his fight with Sandra, and he wanted to keep it that way.
“I’m Debra.” She smiled even as shadows continued to stir around them in preparation for her to attack them. “So, are you from the Mall or somewhere else?”
“We’re from everywhere and nowhere.” Elias chuckled at his own joke. Distance and locations meant less and less to him as his expertise with space grew. If he had his way, his joke would become reality someday.
“Farbrook,” Roman said a second later. He shot Elias a concerned glance.
“Farbrook? Do you know a Cyrus Anders?” Sarah’s eyes narrowed.
“He’s my youngest brother.”
“Is it really safer?” She asked desperately, unaware of Debra’s glare.
“Anywhere is safer than here,” Elias said. Colors bled together at the edges of his vision. Tension vibrated along his prefrontal cortex into his brain stem. Profound Erudition seemed to bend ever so slightly even as it strained under his will. “Why haven’t the Automabots wiped everything out of the city?”
“They leave us alone as long as we stay out of their territory,” Isaac said. “As I’m sure you noticed, they start off weak and easy, but each wave gets harder.”
“Automas give good powers though,” Sarah interjected.
“Better than the rats anyways,” Debra chuckled.
“You don’t think that’s part of their plan?” Isaac turned around to glower at his companions, heedless of Elias’s starspace knife. “Andrew had a ton of lightning powers and they killed him two weeks ago. We saw them use his Electric Override on Elias here. They want to steal our powers from us.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say.” Sarah rolled her eyes.
A cascade of epiphanies went off in Elias’s head like fireworks.
“We’re going to your base.” He led the way while he followed the patterns of thought that unfolded in his mind.
The automabots didn’t want them all dead or to be the sole occupants. They were farming the city for resources. Otherwise, there was no way they wouldn’t have eradicated everything in their range.
He checked his notifications.
<Congratulations, Elias Newton! You have leveled up the following power: Starspace Nexus Ev. 2/Lv. 0 -> Starspace Nexus Ev. 2/Lv. 1>
<Congratulations, Elias Newton! You have leveled up the following power: Aurora Stardust Ev. 2/Lv. 4 -> Aurora Stardust Ev. 2/Lv. 5>
<Congratulations, Elias Newton! You have leveled up the following power: Profound Erudition Ev. 2/Lv. 0 -> Profound Erudition Ev. 2/Lv. 2>
<Congratulations, Elias Newton! You have slain:
Automabot (x 20)
Rat (x 387)
With the powers:
Mechanized Autonomy Ev. 1 (x 20) (Common)
Technokinesis Ev. 0 (x 20) (Common)
Afflict Infection Ev. 0 (x 387) (Poor)
Warren Senses Ev. 0 (x 387) (Poor)
<Condensing list…>
<Processing...>
Cybermind Network Ev. 1 (Uncommon)
Macro-Techno Control Ev. 0 (Uncommon)
Pestilent Swarm Ev. 0 (Rare)
You may now select from one of the following options:
Siphon Power Experience
Gain a Power Perk
Obtain Power from the Conquered>
They were all cast from the same mold, so they likely shared information and powers. It wasn’t a cost in anything more than material and time for them to field group after group at them.
No new Automabots had left since Elias had teleported his slain victim in front of their doors or when Roman had finished the last of them off.
On top of that, what if a limited form of intelligence or something else along those lines were also the key to how the second dimension traded powers in cartridges? Whether or not these robots were actually a hive mind, they clearly passed powers around somehow and he doubted they knew about essence yet.
And if that was their… wait, what would a sapient species of robots even want? What were they gathering resources and powers for? Did they have their own agenda or was someone else on top of the pyramid?
Profound Erudition puttered out as he ran out of mental steam. Eli felt like his head had been stuffed full of cotton.
Clarity eluded him at every train of thought where before it felt like he could divine infinite meaning from a single glance at his surroundings. He felt like he had catapulted himself to the pinnacle of his consciousness before a misstep sent him crashing down.
Eli blinked repeatedly as he looked at his surroundings with his old murky vision and understanding. They had almost reached what the group of Warriors had called the Henge.
Roman trailed behind Eli with his body partially transformed into his exosuit. His face had been left normal for some reason. To keep anyone from thinking he’s a robot?
Aurora blades churned at the peripheral of his starspace wherever rats lurked for an ambush. His relentless slaughter ceased after Profound Erudition slipped letting a pack of rats crawl out of the sewer drains.
Labrador sized rats pounced.
Isaac conjured a gun and fired in the same moment. The lead rat with its clawed hands outstretched for his throat popped like a water balloon of gore.
Sarah’s body turned sharp as she kicked off the ground and skated forward cutting grooves in the asphalt. A halo of swords appeared around her as she lunged to pierce a rat through its eye. Blades whizzed in a cyclone around her as they launched or carved into any rats who drew near.
More rats rushed out of derelict buildings and overgrown alleys on either side of them.
Eli lifted his hands to spout twin jets of stardust while Roman’s gauntlets buzzed with power—
Unfamiliar shadows lurched from the middle of one of the packs. Threads looped around rat legs and necks before they straightened, slicing off body parts unnatural frictionless ease. Spectral rats burst out of their corpses to tear into their companions in a savage frenzy.
Eli lowered his hands dumbfounded. He and Roman shared a look.
“Thirty-six!” Sarah called out as she extricated herself from the corner of her street painted red and black with clumps of viscera and gore.
“Fifteen,” Isaac sighed.
“Forty-eight!” The unfamiliar silhouette strode out of the alleyways dark with her shadows. Recognition dawned on Eli as he realized it was Debra.
“Fuck.” Isaac dropped in the middle of the street as he belted out push-ups rapidly.
“Technically, they should have to do it since they didn’t kill anything.” Sarah pointed at Eli and Roman.
“Only Warriors have to do it, not dead weight.” Debra smirked. “Bet you two wore yourself out against the machines, huh?”
“Do you two even have second evolution powers or stats?” Sarah giggled as her and Debra circled around them like hyenas.
“Should we find out, Sar-bear?”
“One hundred percent.” Knives appeared in Sarah’s hands as she charged at them. Both blades bit against Eli’s skin for a second before they bounced off him, bloodless.
Debra ceased to exist as a wraith of shadows threw threads at them. Spotlights shone all over Roman’s armor at the same time Eli popped out an orb of neutral starlight.
Her nightmare ended before it even begun as her shadows and illusions broke.
“What was that for?” Eli asked with a forced calm he didn’t feel. Starlightning static crackled in a corona around his sphere of light.
“Hm, guess you aren’t that weak then.” Debra stepped back as if nothing had happened.
“Truce or recruitment?” Sarah asked.
“Josef will need to approve for recruitment!” Isaac said before returning to his panting count. “… thirty-two… thirty-three…”
“Loser is right.” Debra turned back to Eli and Roman who still had their powers ready to retaliate at a moment’s notice. “Let’s head back to the Henge so you can meet everyone.”
“That was already the plan,” Eli grunted. “We’re not joining you though.”
“Had to see if you were worthy or not after you both did nothing.” Sarah shrugged while ignoring the second half of his statement. .
“Did you ever think that we were doing the same to you?” Eli walked past them with a scoff.
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go. Josef’s going to be interested in meeting both of you.” Debra smirked while she led the way forward.
Comments
"—els before it all burst with an earth-shattering roar."
Beeees!
Hmmm, automata’s seem to have a good thing going, feed your own powers to people who can grow and evolve them, then once they are nice and ripe, harvest them and then spread new power around
