A Bio-Weapon’s Rhapsody

The sound of the bullet caused more damage than the bullet itself on the site, Ale was surprised as she had expected some debris to came out of that and had steeled herself to tank the damage, but somehow only the head of the guy exploded, nothing else, no floor debris, no rocks and concrete, nothing else.

Ale had been stumped for half a second, at least till she heard the sound of Big Sisters groan from the side that is.

"Oof… What the hell are you shooting?" Big Sister then floated towards her and with the wave of her hand the body of the guy was suddenly covered in a storm of dust and wind blades, "And that's one done, you okay there big guy?"

[Notice, detected a disturbance on the mana field.]

[Localized signature similar to that of space folding under the target's head and then across the whole body.]

[Possibility of the target's body being intact are high.]

[You should ask later what she is intending to do with that body.]

Noted. Ale said to Main Core as she turned to stare at the spot where the man had been before. There was some blood and flesh of course, but Main Core had implied that this was a spectacle more than anything.

So while trying to not be too obvious, Ale let one of her boots slip towards the pool of blood that was expanding ever so slowly.

[Analyzing sample.]

[Blood seems to be of a mammal species, 40% probability to be of a canine species, no previous data stored within database.]

Well, Ale would ask later, but for now she had something more important to deal with, namely, the fact that [Golem] was still fighting against the other guy.

As far as Ale could see, while the other guy seemed to be able to pierce [Golem]'s body with little to no effort, but for his part, [Golem] was picking up the debris that came out from such rounds and recovering the fight looked as if it was on [Golem]'s favor.

But sadly, Main Core didn't think as Ale.

[Companion Golem will be defeated within 15 shots.]

[Enemy is targeting different areas of companion's body, as soon as their Core is hit, Golem's life will expire.]

[It is advised to move and assists as soon as possible.]

Wouldn't that be solved by moving the Core from the place to another? Ale questioned, that was what she would do at least, should she be in that situation anyway.

[That is only achievable if the person in question can do that, currently there is no evidence of other people capable of doing so as Mistress. And even then.]

Main Core did a subtle stop there, as if to re organize their thoughts, assuming that had been the reason of the stop anyway.

[That may not be possible for Mistress anymore.]

[While there is evidence of being able to move the AI Cores that we set up around your body, we have not found the actual Core that brings you your powers Mistress.]

Her Core? As in… the actual Core that granted her the powers of a Tinkerer? Ale had… not thought about that, while she knew how to use those powers, she hadn't tried to move that Core…

But that would be for another time, right now they needed to help [Golem].

"Can you set me up for a quick move?" Ale said transmitted her voice to the audiphones that Big Sister was wearing. Big sister didn't react or move, instead she merely twitched her finger a little and instead continued focusing on [Golem].

"Big guy? Did he blow your ears or something? If you don't ask for help then we ain't gonna move a finger." And as if she hadn't heard about what Ale said, she turned to look at Ale, "What do you think, should we just leave the big guy behind? He isn't doing much, after he said it would be over in a snap."

And as she said that, Big Sister snapped her fingers, the sound spread around the place just as it had done before they came here, was this the signal for [Golem]? Ale didn't have time to think as her awareness started to slow down once more.

At this point, Ale was very much used to this, as she was to the string of messages that came from Main Core.

[Detected Space Mana interaction with Mistress.]

[Guiding Space Mana into Mistress Mana Channels to facility transition.]

[Done.]

[Spatial Jump initiated.]

And then, then, Ale was no longer in Kansas… Or well, she never was to begin with, that's like a fourteen hour drive, but the thing is, she appeared with her hand extended pointing down at the guy that [Golem] had been fighting. No sound, no warning, nothing.

Or at least not to him.

[Warning, hostile target had a low frequency sensor around his body, distance before mana disperses is around two meters.]

[Warning, hostile target has engaged thrusters.]

[Hostile target may attempt to retaliate, care is advised.]

Ale noticed, but she was already pointing her main weapon at the guy, she really hadn't wanted to kill the guy, they needed some information, but this had been forced her hand. So with a sigh, Ale pulled the metaphorical trigger and another round was shoot from her arm.

Since she was on the air the force of the impact sent her flying towards the ceiling, but thankfully Main Core maneuvered her body and activated her own set of thrusters, those stung like a bitch since she didn't have time to open the exhaust ports. So the thing had to burn through her flesh to get some traction.

Meaning, she had first burned a channel out of her body and then those had finally turned on, letting her stabilize her trajectory and finally land in a safe spot.

Ale had not been too worried since Main Core hadn't given her another warning after discharging the weapon, "God… I didn't thought I would smell this again…" Ale said sighing, it was the smell of burning flesh.

Main Core was already working on patching those wounds of course, but since her current powerset was more biased towards the mechanical… The best they could do for now was turning the burned parts of her body into mechanical pieces and then start fixing those, which meant that Ale now had part of her back turned into components that were being repaired by her nanites.

That would be one awkward conversation if someone pointed it, at least she could fix her own clothes and remove the blood and flesh stains by repurposing the biomass into materials, so that was something!

"Thank you for the assists." [Golem] said as his body dropped the extra mass that he had bulked up, during the combat he had been increasing his size, probably in an attempt to confuse the guy and protect his own Core, "Sorry about having you executing them, but he was getting close to my Core. So really, thank you."

"No problem." Ale said nodding at him, "Should we hurry up?"

Ale turned her attention to the remains of the guy, the bullet had pulverized him going down, and while his own evasive maneuvers had kicked in, Ale's round had still split him in two. The only saving grace was that instead of blowing his head like a watermelon, Ale had merely blown half his head and most of his spine.

So yeah, no saving grace for the guy.

"What do we do with these?" Ale said kicking him upwards and extending her hand towards the helmet, "Report it?"

"Stop." [Golem] suddenly said, "Let me do it."

"I mean… Not like I haven't seen corpses or biological remanent before…" Ale said retracting her hand, "Nor munched on them…"

"Please stop talking." Big Sister said as she covered her mouth, her face looked slightly green, "I know your power used to be based on the biological and the like, but never quite made the connection between what you call biomass and human flesh."

"It's not that," [Golem] added from the side, "I have seen these people's armor in one of the debriefings. Their armor are rigged to destroy their body when they are incapacitated, and if they think they will be captured, they can set it up as a trap to get whoever incapacitates them."

And as he spoke he extended part of his fingers towards the helmet and tried to take it off, only for the sound of an electric discharge to sound… to no effect. Ale noticed now that as [Golem] had moved forward his other hand had extended pieces of metal into the ground… Was he… grounding?

"I had hoped this would work." [Golem] said as the helmet was fully removed, only to come to find out the face of the guy charred, "The discharge has two purposes, the first being to try and terminate whoever tried to pry out the helmet without the correct means, and the second to fully destroy any evidence remaining. That one should have also destroyed any electronic device he had on his person."

And sure enough, Ale could see smoke coming out from his back.

[Notice, there was a short burst data transmission coming before the discharge.]

[It was not possible to block it, nor redirect it.]

"Then we should probably leave, before their friends come, there are still other three waiting near the plane right?" Ale said kicking once again the body, just in case still had some more juice in it, it did not, "And if the four that are blocking the exists come our way we may end up in more trouble."

"Do you think they would come?" [Golem] asked, "I didn't hear them call reinforcements, so we could also call reinforcements ourselves from Hephaestus' Forge."

"They may have not called reinforcements, but I detected a short data stream burst out of him before, so they may know about our position and what we can do, depending on how much he managed to squish into that transmission." Ale answered, then for good measure she put a hand on the fried parts of technology on the guy.

Main Core, see if we can recover anything. Also while you are at it try to get the blueprint of this guy. Ale sent inwardly and felt her mana and nanites put to work, she quickly got a blueprint for the dead man switch that they used, and as [Golem] had said, it was quite nasty design, it would ensure the body couldn't be used for anything, it seemed that most of the energy was used on ensuring the full destruction of the body and the remaining energy was used as attack.

"Then we move." [Golem] turned to Big Sister as he spoke. "Any chance you can drop us above them?"

"Hmm… I don't think so, they are doing something. I don't think they are on the exits to block our escape." Big Sister said as she closed her eyes and sent a pulse of mana around, only unlike before it didn't return, so Big Sister's mana sonar didn't work, "As time goes by I am getting less and less precise data, it isn't a problem for short range teleportation, but for long range… I wouldn't suggest it, I mean… You may survive it since you just need more rocks, but from the smell I got…"

Big Sister then turned to look at Ale and frowned.

"You no longer regenerate as fast, or at all. Do you?" Big Sister stated, she touched her nose as she spoke. "I smelled it, burning flesh, and you grimaced when you landed, that's something you never had done, not even when you got riddled with bullet holes all over the place. But this time all your wounds were self inflicted, and yet…"

Sigh

"Yeah, I lost some degree of regeneration. Not all, I am working on the wounds, I can rush it if needed, but I would rather not burn Mana doing so." Ale said as she stretched her back and grimaced a little at the feeling, it was weird, the mechanical parts that she had created to heal the wounds itched in a way that they hadn't done before, was it because most of the time she did only partial transformations? Ale wasn't sure. "They should be healed by the time we get there though… And if we need an emergency teleport you don't have to worry, I can mitigate the damage, I couldn't do it this time since it happened too fast, but with some warning I should be able to survive as well as [Golem]."

Meaning, the only issue would be Big Sister, since her body was the only one that was fully human, Ale could mitigate the damage by turning her body into a fully mechanical one after all.

"Well, I have no sure mean to survive one of those, so I'll just walk there." Big Sister shrugged, "I wouldn't trust anyone to survive a teleport from the minions at the base, and while I could teleport a part of the space of the base, if they are not fully in the delimited area… well, they may leave something behind."

That was… worrying.

"Then we go as it is," [Golem] said doing a last look over at the body, "Same as before, I go first. Ale go for the kills, do not doubt. Skye… if your senses are being restrained, they probably are setting a mana disruptor, try to not interact too much with mana that doesn't come from your Core if you can."

Mana that doesn't come from the core?

"Roger," Big Sister said nodding, "I got the same impression, the mana there feels icky."

"Ale, you were able to purify the hostile mana from Test Subject MS2. Can you do the same here?" [Golem] then turned to Ale, "And could you do it to us?"

"I think…" Ale said thinking on what she had done then, Main Core. Is it possible?

[It is possible. Both things are possible, the second one would require direct contact with the Core in question.]

[The Core of companion Eduardo Herrera is easily accessible, the core of companion Skye Venti may prove harder to locate, as a Space Mana Core it may be half way into a liminal space already.]

"Yes it is possible, big sister's Core may prove harder to cleanse, but it is possible." Ale nodded as she spoke, Main Core had said that the Core was half way into the metaphysical, but that didn't make it impossible to reach, Ale had reached such spaces before, and if she couldn't… Well, she had a hidden ace under her sleeve, that is to say. Ale could pull Alexa out to fix it, she had no doubt about Alexa being able to fix it. "Do you want me to keep using the big guns though? And what do you know about the thing they are setting up?"

"Keep the damage within reasonable levels if possible," [Golem] said looking at Ale's hand, the one that was still smoking from shooting two rounds of the 120mm gun, "As for the mana disruptor… It is a more dangerous version of the Mana dampeners, these attempt to turn the mana into something the Cores can't deal with. Inexperienced or weaker Core Users may end up being unable to use their powers or could even end up with a fractured Core."

That sounded dangerous.

"A bad Trigger is more resilient to these things, or Cores that were tampered before. So we should be fine, but even so I would rather not spend more time than needed here." [Golem] then started to change his form yet again, this time he was sharpening the materials on his body, the stone sharpening into a more aerodynamic design, "I'll rush ahead and condense my body as much as possible within this, I'll try to run parallel to the plane and get them far away from the plane. Before running too far away I'll eject my core body out, try to catch it."

"Roger." Big Sister said saluting, "Then we will finish off the ones you don't manage to get out, there should be only three there, but even if the other four come as reinforcements I should be able to do something about it… I hope these Saintsworths planes are as good as they advertise them to be."

And with that, they moved out. Further into the airport, for the next fight.