The mechanized spider swarm is closing in from all directions.
Ace's rivets fly overhead. Taser drops down and zaps the three nearest spiders to me, making them pop. To my shock, the rest ignore me, going after Razor off to my left and one level down. I end up distracted myself, watching her somehow dodge and dance through nine different attacks at her person, only receiving a quick blip on her overshield that deflects the meager bite.
"They jump!" she screams to us, then half laughs.
The Daughters jump at her too, spitting epoxy webbing that she manages to dodge, and one of them gets caught in the crossfire. A third shot hits her legs and she's pinned down. I scream in horror as two of them lash their fangs at her. Razor somehow pivots her weight and dodges one then uses Logos in its sheath to parry the second, smacking the stupid spider right in the face.
Holy shit.
"Little help, Witch!"
I wail nonsense, stammering, "What should I–Do you want an Explosive on you–"
"Yes! Hit me if it gets these fucking things off me!"
"Oh Turing!" I say to myself, prepping the Tech. "Look out! Fire!"
The blast detonates the area and sears its brilliance into my already damaged retina. The little fuckers are scrap and the four Daughters closest to her don't look much better off, three of them ignited on fire and burning in beautiful agony.
Somehow, Razor slipped out of the way. She's clear.
"Lesion! Let's go! Get them, boy! Use your Tech!"
He clears the distance with a single jump. The impact hurts my broken bones, but the sound of him hitting the storage container next to Razor gives me chills. Power. Standing between Razor and the spiders, his spine and armor streak with red and orange as he activates one of his two Tech Charges.
He only has one Technomancy.
Prism Spray. Red tuned.
His jaw unhinges and a plume of flame streaks in an arc, dripping napalm and infernal fire. Like magma it melts through the spiders, delivering the killing blow to three of them and melting the legs off the fourth. The heat is painful even for me. I have to cover my face with my arm, the exposed bone in my jaw aching with the sudden temperature shift.
"I will die in your stead!"
"Tune, no!"
I turn just in time to see her silver shape jump and intercept a blindingly fast gel shot of virulent green acid that came from seemingly nowhere. It was targeting Razor and would have probably killed her had it hit, and by the looks of it, just might kill Tune instead.
"Ouch! Status–Ouch! Status critical! I require immediate repair–Ouch! Repairs! Damage Index at eighty seven percent!"
Razor cuts clean through the final spider and sheathes her sword as she rushes over, using a dead one's leg to scrape the napalm coating off Tune. "Witch, cover us! Come here, Tune, you're not fucking dying, do you hear me? Activate self repairs now!"
"Affirm–Ouch! Affirmative. Condition stabilizing."
"Razor, I can't really cover anyone right now! Conduit's cooling!"
"Motherfucker!" Ace shouts from on high. "The Daughters keep repairing the bitch!"
Razor snaps back, "Help us then! Instead of wasting shots on an enemy way the fuck over there!"
"I'm built to shoot enemies way the fuck over there!"
All the same, she fires at me, right past my shoulder, and kills the Daughter that was seconds from pouncing on me. My heart skitters and dies right along with the spider.
Way too close!
Another shot fires off toward the distance. "Target the Daughters! Looks like they have some kind of CyanTech built in, and I can't do shit to the Mother while they're fixing every hit!"
There's a long groan of metal on metal emanating from somewhere deep underground beneath the burning nest, obscured within the choking black column of smoke. I find myself transfixed, watching as the whole structure shifts and collapses in on itself. Like a deflated balloon or a slow drained boil that we just lanced. The half spherical hive crumbles to a saggy pile of ash and burning epoxy, most likely killing anything left inside it. The fires should course through all of its tunnels beneath the ice too.
This one fire might wipe the things out entirely.
No more spiders past this point. So I hope.
"Regroup!" Razor calls out, tapping my leg. "I need a fix."
She's half dead! "What the hell, Razor, when did this–"
"Just fix me!" she cuts me off, falling against Lesion's side. "L1 Repair. Save the TFIs. Don't argue. No time."
My new CyanTech Conduit can do that regardless of its cooling, albeit with its own refractory period. "There. Be careful."
"Someone has to stand in between you and them," she pointedly responds, a quiet vitriol being cast in Ace's direction. "Looks like we broke one half of the pincer strike. Now we're on even footing with them."
"Not really. They have eight each. We only have two–four in Lesion's case. None in Taser's."
"What are you–" She stops cold, tilts her head up at me. "What? Are you cracking jokes? You? Now?"
"I'm so fucking scared! I don't know how else to cope!"
"That wasn't even funny," she huffs, head shaking. "At least make it funny."
Ace shouts, "Incoming! Heads up heads up–"
Something like artillery hits the storage containers. The thunderous sound makes me scream and the impact force nearly knocks me off Lesion as the steel dents like it's been hit by a giant cannonball because it has. One of the spider Daughters, balled up in a mechanical sphere, was launched from somewhere. It bounces up into the air and its legs open as it comes back down, two spider Children clinging to its thorax as it lands on the container and hisses at us.
When the second one comes arcing through I realize.
The Mother is throwing them at us.
Two more land with concussive force, and I flatten myself over Lesion's back so I don't get hit by any of the flying debris or ice. My broken back screams in protest. Somewhere in the mix I can hear Ace laughing. I imagine it's an amusing sight from safely up where she is! Razor is right to be mad and now I'm mad at Ace for it too.
Her rifle fires and the rivet slams against the container wide to a spider's right. "Damn it! I told you I can't hit them if they're close!" The second shot proves her totally wrong, nearly killing the spider closest to me in one hit. "That was a fluke!"
Taser bravely swoops in, her firing pins jam, and she ends up zapping herself immobile, emitting some terrible beeping as her light flashes red and she pitifully falls into the snow. Shit! No! Thankfully ignoring her, the spider Children jump at Razor, Lesion, Tune and I atop our perch. No, no, they all threw themselves at me!
Freezing in place, I close my eye and feel them all fly past me. Not one attack landed. "Ha! Fuckers! Distorted Refractions, bitch! GG! EZ!"
In Lesion's optics, I watch with bewilderment as the two Children that didn't jump at me instead leap onto the injured spider that Ace shot and jab their nasty little legs into the wound. A spike of glowing rancid green transmitter fluid pumps through their bodies and injects into the Daughter. The spider Children then explode like firecrackers, having killed themselves for the sake of repairing the injured one.
My half exposed jaw drops. "What?"
"Circle of life!" Ace laughs.
"Look out!" Razor shouts.
Another blast of acid gel slams the container not far from us. The Mother, way off in the distance, isn't letting up. A spit of web flings past me too, taking my breath, and two of the remaining Daughters skitter over to slash at Razor. I'm frozen in place watching her get attacked. Her blue blood spills again and corrosion bites at the wounds even deeper.
She ejects a weak sound, a choked breath.
My hand moves on its own, splitting the machine open with an acidic borehole.
The words come out on their own.
"Lesion. Kill."
Holding tight, I watch it happen as though I am him. Superheated teeth and fangs tear into the spider and he flails his head around with it in his jaws like a chewtoy, then he starts slamming the machine against the shipping container, beating it again and again until it stops struggling. I open my jaws and let it fall at my feet, the reddish white hue of my bite slowly fading as the dead metal cools in the Cipher-3 wind.
Razor walks by, approaches the lone remaining spider, and cuts it down. The molten steel from her plasma snaps and cracks as it cools. Clutching her side where Badeep is trying to stop the bleeding, she extends her sword's blade, pointing it at the spider Mother.
"Fuck… you… Killed my… girlfriend…"
We're still alive. Somehow.
The machine rages, slamming its legs on the bluff once more. It flings two more Daughter artillery shots at us then jumps. Oh fuck. Soaring from there to here, its spindly legs extend to cushion its fall but pierce through the shipping crates' steel like it's aluminum. The legs retreat and raise, lifting the body over our heads, its joints creaking from the cold as corrosive bile drips from its fangs and melts the metal beneath it. Red eyes glimmer and glow as they pierce through me.
Seven of them. One is broken.
Ace shoots it in the head then drops from high above with an Energized Knife, landing on its back and grabbing hold as she ferociously roars, "I'll fucking kill you!"
The Daughters, the Children, the Mother. My family, my Ace, my Razor, Tune, Taser, Lesion. Chaos. It's pure chaos. I'm in a trance, no longer present. I'm locked inside of myself. I can't move. I can't tear my eyes, Lesion's, off the spider's might. It's so much bigger than me. Bigger than any of us, Lesion included. Its legs are needles punching through armored plating. Its bite spills bile that melts steel in seconds. It moves so fast I can hardly keep track of it.
It killed Ace, back then. With ease.
It murdered her. Destroyed her entirely.
There are so many spiders. So many dead, but so many living. So many of them coming after us, coming to kill me. I'm petrified. I'm dead. I can't do this. I can't do it. I was stupid to think I could continue to fight after being beaten down like this.
Fearless slips. Fearless breaks. Fearless is no more.
I am afraid once again. I am so very afraid of this.
Someone's calling my name. I can barely hear it.
I'm not here, I'm not here, I'm not here.
I'm in my head, in my libraries, in my storage.
It's consuming me; it's all around me.
I hunt it down. I know exactly where to find it.
It isn't trying very hard to hide.
Daring me, defiant. So certain I don't have what it takes.
I think of Ace, I think of Razor. My family.
I… love them. I love them with everything I have.
It burns itself into my mind.
It grips my heart with an iron vice.
It feels like dying. But this life is mine.
I will claw my way through it if I have to.
>QUERY: ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO PERMANENTLY DELETE THIS FOLDER AND ALL OF ITS CONTENTS?
>SELECT: [CONFIRM / CANCEL]
>INPUT: [CONFIRM]
>WARNING: DELETION OF INTEGRAL SYSTEM FILES MAY CAUSE COMPATIBILITY ISSUES, NEUROLOGICAL CORE DEGRADATION, DECISION MAKING / RISK ASSESSMENT DISRUPTION, AND MINDSCAPE FRAMEWORK INTERFERENCE. IT IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED THAT YOU DO NOT DELETE THESE FILES.
>SELECT: [PROCEED / CANCEL]
>INPUT: [PROCEED]
>WARNING: THIS ACTION MAY HAVE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.
>INPUT: [DELETE / CANCEL]
>INPUT: [DELETE]
>NOTICE: FOLDER PERMANENTLY DELETED: A:\SCORPIO\OS\MSCP_COC\MINDSCAPE\PERSONA\EMOTION_BIN\FEAR
I will never be afraid again.
I return to my optics.
Fearless is broken. And yet there isn't a trace of fear left in my heart. In my onboard I navigate to my Spectral Variant Technomancy Suite, Brink SubVariant, Innate Abilities, Amplification, Overclocking. I have six Amps.
I use all six Amps at once.
In one hand, lightning, the power of which I've never imagined. In the other, fire, blue and white with its repulsive heat, a flame unbeknownst to me. I know what will happen if I use this. Just like I know how much it will hurt if I remove my arm from the sling and use it regardless of the broken clavicle.
It doesn't matter. It will hurt, but I no longer fear pain.
From my right hand, the lightning. It's ravenous. It stabs through the Mother and makes something explode inside its chassis. The YellowTech energy chains. It kills everything around us. It almost kills Ace, making her fall stiff and stunned off the soon to be dead spider.
I don't want to hurt her. I love her.
But I do not fear losing her.
Nor do I fear my self destruction.
Biting back the sickening lurch in my nervous system when I move my left arm, I ignore the grinding feeling of my splintered collarbone breaking itself into more fragments. From my left hand, a curving arc of blue fire, like a magnificent talon tearing through the air. It severs the Mother Spider's legs, three of them.
The beast screeches and falls.
It's going to fucking die.
Razor moves in the time between, dashing for Ace. It's dangerous territory to be in, and not because of the spider. If she doesn't move before my Conduit cools, she might share the same fate. She flips her arm up and Badeep jumps down to treat Ace, while Razor herself slashes at the spider's remaining leg on the right. Logos cuts through like the spider's armor is anything else.
The machine screeches, on its last legs. It can't balance itself anymore and its other four legs slip off the shipping containers, body crashing to the ground below and kicking up snow. As it goes, Razor deftly reaches and grabs for something on its underside, prying free a familiar looking bullpup submachine gun from its magnetic chassis.
She drags Ace to her feet and shoves the gun into her hands, pointing down at the spider. "Your kill, remember?"
"I can't–I can't feel my face!"
"Do you need to? Shoot it!"
Bullets crack in a burst, fully automatic SMG fire screaming through the cold air. The brass shells tinkle on the container. Ace fires until the magazine runs empty and the spider stops struggling. It kicks and twitches and flails and slows and curls up and then it shuts down and all systems terminate and then the Brood Mother Spider is dead.
Then it's silent, mostly. The wind, the crackling fire, the nest beneath the ice collapsing, and the unsteady jolts of electricity and hissing pressurized smoke emitting from my body.
The spider is dead. It's dead.
Ace got her revenge. I helped. I helped…
Watching the readouts of my vitals raging out of control, I say, "I'm happy for you, Ace. You deserved this win."
"Fuck yeah!" she laughs, then whoops, then laughs again. "Thanks, Witch! Holy shit! That was some crazy powerful Tech! Did you have to shoot me with lightning though?"
"You were in the way," I sigh, urging Lesion down to join them and slipping off his side, reaching my one hand toward them. "Come here. Please. Let me… I want to touch you both."
Ace pulls me into a careful hug and Razor fusses with getting my arm back in the sling before joining in. Closing my eye and biting my lower lip, I watch as my vital levels scream and my core temperatures surge ever higher.
Razor pulls back. "You're burning up, Witch."
"No kidding," Ace adds. "You're scalding."
I step back with a nod. "The risk I took was calculated. I did the math. I know the answer to the equation. I'm going to die soon." A blown fuse pops in my gut, racking me with pain. "Ow. Sooner than that."
"What?" Ace gasps, trying to come closer but I keep her at a distance. "What the fuck do you mean? You're messing with us!"
"I'm dead serious. I Overclocked my Technomancy to an extreme and now it's–"
My knee gives out, tension gone as the hamstring pops under the strain. Pain has become a distant prospect, something that's come in such excess recently that it's almost numbed. Biting a cry, I seethe through clenched teeth and eject my arms. Both of them are safe from the damage that's coming.
"Yep. Any second. Any second now. Shut up and listen. Please. You too, Scribe."
Nobody says anything, finally listening.
Finally hearing me.
Errors are going ballistic in my vision. "I am about to die. I'm not afraid, so don't worry. I deleted all fear from my personality modules. I deleted it. I do not. Feel fear. Anymore. Ever again. It's gone. Permanently deleted. My integer value of negative 251? It's gone. It isn't even a factor in my mindscape anymore. And it never will be again. But this Overclocking thing seems pretty bad. I don't know what will be salvageable. Probably not much. But I'm not done yet. I'm not done. Don't… Don't forget me. Don't forget our accord. Our promise. Don't forget. Please."
Ace is speechless, and Razor, to my surprise, answers true. "We won't be killing them over and over until we find a Spectral, but the next Nep Frame we get our hands on is yours. You have our word."
"Thank–Thanks. I'm–Hahh… Oh, shit. It's hot. It's really burning up. I just ejected my arms. Keep those. My hands, the SCs, the Tech, it's too useful. My legs don't matter. I'm going to try to… to get ahead of the worst and eject my head too before I self terminate. Put my head on her. Please. I'm okay with the damages I've sustained to my head. For Lesion. I am damaged. For Lesion. And I want to stay that way. I'm looking forward to seeing how I can continue to survive those damages. Goodbye, you two. I love you, Ace, Razor, Taser, Tune, and you, Lesion. I love you. I'm gone. I'll… hopefully I'll see you soon. I love you. I love you all."
I don't wait for a response.
It is my choice. I can do it before it happens.
I choose to die.
>INPUT: VOLUNTARY SELF TERMINATION
>CONTEXT LOG: CRITICAL THERMAL DAMAGE TO VITAL SYNTH-ORGANS [NATURE: TECH_OVERCLOCK] nEPI-0181.bin, LINE 546218391
>ACCESS: A:\SCORPIO\OS\FAILSAFE#0181
>NOTICE: COMPILING FAILSAFE SMARTCHIP…
>NOTICE: REROUTING BATTERY CORE PSU…
>INITIALIZE: 13GHZ FAILSAFE BROADCAST…
>TERMINATE: ALL OTHER SYSTEMS…
>NOTICE: AWAITING RECLAIMER…