Before she could even try to get her thoughts in order, the shriek pulled Mari out of her bewilderment. She almost spun to see the enemy first, but her eye caught on Anise, who rolled her eyes exasperatedly, then floated a meter off the ground before rocketing straight over their heads.
As she entered Mari’s radius, the blood on her body vaporized.
“Ooooh! Free cleaning services! Thanks, this is my favorite fit!” The excited words didn’t match her actions as Anise flew past them and torpedoed into the incoming… something. Mari didn’t even get a solid look at the creature before Anise mulched it beneath her heels.
“How are you even doing that?” Mari muttered half to herself.
“Doing what?” Anise snapped her heels in another about-face as she kicked an esophagus off her ankle.
Mari was briefly stunned. “Flying, turning things to… No, let’s just start with the flying. Somehow the rest feels like it’ll make less sense.”
Kris was at her side, nodding emphatically, seeming excited. “Yes, how did you learn to fly?!”
Anise gave them the ‘are you stupid?’ look, and Mari felt abashed despite the situation.
“I got it when I hit level one hundred. Did y’all get somethin’ else?” The girl somehow managed to sound like she was from the United States’ deep south for a moment, which just… Mari was running out of brainpower.
“Level one hundred? What is that? Like a game?” Kris queried, but sounded scared to hear the answer. Mari could sympathize with that.
“Yup! I’m level three hundred fifty-six. What aboutchu?” Anise turned her head to the side and spat out another glob of black substance, then stepped back within Mari’s five meter radius, causing all the new blood she’d bathed in to disappear. “That’s handy as heck! What class gave you that cleaning ability?”
Mari just stared blankly, taking the girl in.
Anise was a bit over a hundred thirty centimeters tall. Maybe four and a half feet at most, using the US system. Her mismatched eyes glowed with a truly magical quality, and her clothes—robes not dissimilar to the layered style of Earth’s Chinese fantasy tales—were patterned with crescent moons and falling leaves.
“We don’t have classes, sorry.” Vilke diplomatically responded, sounding hesitant.
“Ohhhh! You’re like the white robes, then.” Anise placed one fist against the opposite palm and bowed, all smiles. “That explains the weapons y’all got.”
“Pick a damn culture already!” Mari immediately reddened after her outburst, feeling her annoyance replaced with embarrassment.
“Huh? I’m a fan of all cultures, boss. I get it, you’re into the western classics. Got some serious mixed eras, though. A revolver on some twenty-first century midriff cut? Pot, meet kettle!”
“Where’s your mom, kid?” Relkur’s voice finally wheezed in, making Anise frown.
“Oh damn, you’ve had it rough, old man.”
A shining leaf formed in the girl’s hand as she raised it, and then the smell of springtime and blooming flowers surrounded them, cutting through the smell of death and decay. Relkur’s hand went to his throat, and he coughed a little before his eyes went wide in shock.
“My class is Springmoon Monk. I specialize in purging corruption from the body, and the art of Moontide Flow.” Anise sounded immensely proud of herself, and the next words from Relkur only made that an earned sense of pride.
“I… haven’t felt this healthy in a decade. Maybe ever.” Relkur’s perfectly healed voice sounded truly shocked. As were the rest of their group.
“So, are y’all with the idiots, or no?” Anise cracked her knuckles, smirking. “If ya are…”
The implicit threat was more than enough to have Mari shaking her head.
“We’re here to stop them from accomplishing their goal. We live in the city above, and those people were insurgents.”
“Huhhhh. Well, I don’t think they seemed like the good guy rebels going after the baddies of an evil empire, so sure, I believe ya.” Anise grinned, her fangs showing again.
“Tell me about this Doctor Sylvia, please?” Mari snaked her fingers reassuringly into Kris’ own, but despite that, she had to know. For Marielle’s sake.
“Mom is mom. She’s a geneticist. She’s almost as immortal as I am, to boot. She was using clones to keep herself going, but eventually she mostly perfected a body that doesn’t age. Watching mom get old and die over and over wasn’t fun, but I got over it, somehow!”
Mari felt Kris tighten her grip, and when their eyes met, she could tell that Kris was trying to send her some emotional support.
“I’m not sure I’m getting the full picture, so can you bring me to see her?”
“Those idiots broke in, but they died the moment they went inside. They didn’t know about the magic density. Mom sent me out and closed the door behind me, so I probs can’t get back inside. The Overseer has a lot of rules and stuff.”
“I see.” Mari deflated visibly, but Anise wasn’t finished.
“She told me I have two moms, though. I’m the ‘biological child of her and someone very special’ was how she always said it. I was born sick, and she had to keep me frozen for several hundred years before she found a way to cure me.”
“And what is that cure?” Kris sounded genuinely curious, and Mari didn’t disagree.
“Dunno,” Anise shrugged, “my class stops me from getting sick anymore, so maybe it’s that.”
“What have you been eating all this time?” Vilke stared her down with suspicion. Thinking about her ridiculous fangs, it was a valid question.
“Blood is the best source of experience for my class. It tastes awful, but it gives levels. Haven’t had blood from someone new in at least a century, so I’ve been stuck at this level for ages. My favorite food is honey, though. Could live off that for years without getting sick of it!”
Mari was beginning to get a picture of what she was seeing. The feeling she had, deep in her bones, was that the child in front of them was, in fact, the actual daughter of Marielle and Sylvia Locke. Anise was the name they’d picked out back then. She just didn’t know how Sylvia had survived.
Worse, Marielle had abandoned them when the colony ship had fled.
“A geneticist who is immortal and spent lifetimes working on immortalizing the body?” Kris whispered to her, almost impossible to hear. “Why do I get the feeling Doctor Sylvia is the person who created the Sylphariens? Maybe even the rest of our races.”
Mari wanted to deny it, but there was clearly a wealth of things she didn’t know about Marielle’s ex-fiancee. She couldn’t dismiss Sylvia’s complicity in the empire’s crimes out of hand.
“Why’d your mom send you out here? Have you been locked in with your mom for your whole life?” The only feeling Mari was sure of was that it would be best to keep the powerhouse of a girl talking for as long as possible.
“Nah. Most of my life, we were at Uriel’s Point. We only moved to the Eternity Labs when mom sorted out her immortality.” Anise suddenly paused, head turned slightly. Then she performed another about-face, growing serious. “Another one.”
Her final pronouncement was punctuated by a heavy breath that rasped in a low hissing sound that emanated from somewhere in the server halls. The sound reminded Mari of a crocodile.
“The big beastie.” Anise sounded… concerned.
Looking at the craters Anise had made, that was enough for Mari to feel sudden dread.
“Let’s get those traps ready. One in each direction, set up in a crossroads, wait for it to come to us.” Mari took one of the traps from Relkur and strode past Anise, finding a spot in the center of the hall to pry open the jaws of the trap. Once it was set, she turned on her heel and snagged the collar of the youth, pulling her along towards their chosen position.
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Anise didn’t struggle at all. She just whispered her input, all fun gone from her tone. “I doubt those things will work on the big one.”
“I figured not. All I want is to slow it down so Kris can handle it. I’m Mari, by the way. The big guy is Vilke, and the one with rocky skin is Relkur.”
Anise nodded, letting herself get set down on the ground as Relkur finished with his trap and moved on to hers. He strode to it, pried apart the stonework of the floor like it was putty again, then anchored the trap inside before molding the floor back together.
“Anise, you’ve seen the big one? What’s it like?” Mari didn’t look at the girl, but it was enough to have heard the tension in her voice already.
“I couldn’t seem to hurt it physically. The bones didn’t break, and the hide didn’t cut. I tried to purify it with an external nature art, but it took off before I could finish.”
“If we keep it busy long enough, could you try again?”
“Sure thing, boss.” Anise beamed with pride as she stood in her best super hero pose. “I was worried, since we couldn’t seem to hurt each other last time.”
With that, they had the semblance of a plan.
Kris:
Kris had so many questions and no clue where to begin.
She decided to scan the girl before anything else, seeing as they were waiting for things to happen anyway.
[Companion: Anise Locke-Smith]
[Status: Unknown]
[Disposition: Friendly]
[Details:]
- Race: Genetically Modified human
- Current Mission: Assist in the defense of Elitheen City
- Enhanced Physique (Unknown), Blood Empowerment (Intermediate), System Core (Advanced)
Of all the things to see in a status sheet, Kris was most surprised by the specific phrasing of ‘System Core’ in the details. System worlds were documented in the distant history of their world, but not beyond the details of how a system can grant widespread access for people to learn magic and reduce the spread of mana on particularly dangerous planets.
Sylpharia was not a world with much mana. For Anise to be the ‘Core’ of a system? She had a few guesses, and not nearly enough time to pry into testing any of her theories.
“Eyes up.” Vilke’s deep voice rumbled, low and quiet, but hardly subtle.
Kris focused in the direction he was aiming and spotted a single flying creature that touched down on the corpse-stain of the Sylpharien Anise had crushed with the pickaxe. It folded its wings in, then started picking at the viscera.
Ten meters from one intersection to the next. That makes a distance of just over thirty meters. I’d have to cross the trap to get in range.
“Can I borrow that?” Anise was pointing at the spare Remera Vilke had at his hip.
“It’s too loud.”
Mari’s warning was cut off as the weapon appeared in Anise’s hands. “Thanks.”
In a simple flick of her wrist, the tiny girl had the cylinder out and was pulling a bullet from it. Then she pinched the bullet between her thumb and middle finger, her index behind it. In a flash, the bullet vanished, and the leathery-winged monstrosity down the hall broke in half.
“Darn, I missed.” Anise grumbled as she shook her head.
“What did you aim for?” Kris was hesitant to ask.
“The monster, silly.”
“But you killed it?”
“Yeah, with the sudden burst of air, I broke its spine. But the bullet didn’t hit.” Anise was legitimately pouting.
“Major, what kind of powerhouse did the doctor turn your little girl into?”
Kris stared at Vilke, wide-eyed. Then she looked at Mari, then Anise.
“Huh?” Anise was equally startled, staring at him.
“Later.” Mari glared down the hallway they’d come from, and when Kris turned in that direction, she saw the huge form of another behemoth. Only the new one had hulking claws at the ends of massive arms that rippled with muscle.
“Yup, the Lizabear.” Anise hissed at the thing, and her fangs seemed even more pronounced than before.
“Lizabear?” Kris hated to ask.
“Lizard-bear. Best I got.”
“Children.” Relkur quietly grumped, stepping into the dead end to get out of the way.
“Hey, now!” Anise glared at the man, whispering a retort. “I’m older than I look!”
“Later!” Mari growled more loudly.
Which was apparently enough for the behemoth to hear them and begin bounding their way. Most terrifyingly, it vastly outperformed the one with the bone spike arms. The creature really was like a bear, given how it could charge on all fours.
“Steady.” Mari raised her gun, but held her fire. The sound wouldn’t do anything besides attract more creatures to them.
Kris checked Mari’s quest conditions again, just to be sure.
- Current Mission: Eliminate ‘Weeds’ in the Garden (6 Remaining)
Kris alone raised her weapon as the lumbering monster drew closer. Once it entered her range, she pulled the trigger, eyes narrowing as the creature whirled, throwing its forelegs into the nearest servers and pushing off, turning down a side corridor.
“Anyone see if that did any damage? It obviously reacted, but I have no clue what it did.” Kris was shocked, but it didn’t slow her down any. They had traps, and their position had clear sight lines in every direction. They could handle whatever came next.
“No clue.”
“Something was ripped out of its butt when you shot it, actually.” Anise had a thoughtful expression, but shrugged. “You need to keep it close and busy long enough for my skill to manifest. But with that speed, its durability, and its willingness to flee from harm? Ain’t no dumb beast, that ‘un.”
“Fair to say that it did this last time you were fighting it? It’s drawing us out.” Mari held her gun up in the air and shook her head ruefully. “We should just make noise to draw the rest of them to us, kill the reinforcements off, then make a plan for the big fish.”
“Lizard.” Anise helpfully corrected.
Vilke rolled his eyes. “Of all people, you’re the one who doesn’t get that turn of phrase?”
“I got it, I just enjoy banter.” Then her demeanor shifted as she looked in Mari’s direction. “I see the merit of your plan. Let’s get this over with so you can explain what your friend was just talking about.”
Mari shrugged noncommittally, then pulled the trigger on her handgun, causing the noise to roar out into the surroundings. She immediately flicked open the cylinder and dumped the spent casings before conjuring fresh bullets into the speed loader she pulled out, then slotting them in, followed by conjuring another set of bullets into the loader again after that.
Kris frowned at the actions. “Why not just conjure the bullets into the cylinder directly?”
“After the differences in the balance of the Remera I made for you to borrow? I don’t trust it enough to risk damaging my favorite sidearm.”
Kris nodded, her curiosity satisfied.
“Here we go.” Vilke announced the arrival of another creature, and his rifle hummed three shots in rapid succession as the legless torso of a monkey-like creature collapsed.
“Do we even need to continue with cooking this place out if Anise here handled all the intruders?” Relkur wondered aloud, impatiently waiting as the combatants remained taut as bowstrings.
Anise beat the others to reply. “There’s more of the idiots, if that’s what you mean. Above, I think. Can’t you smell them? That slightly sweet odor that’s almost like overripe fruit about to spoil?”
Kris snapped her gun up and fired without hesitation as a shape blurred across the intersection in her line of sight. She couldn’t tell if she’d hit the behemoth that time, but based on the lack of blood spray, she assumed it was a miss.
“Behemoth headed south past my corridor.”
“Maybe I should just go tousle with ‘im.” Anise was clearly losing patience.
Mari fired a round, not bothering to reply, but based on the very short-lived cry of something in that direction, she assumed they were down to three targets before the behemoth would be alone.
“Yup, I’m gonna go chase the big guy into the traps.” Anise proudly declared, then flew right past Kris and followed after the behemoth’s trail of clawmarks in the stone.
“Before she comes back, can someone explain whatever that girl is?”
Vilke took up that request without a moment of hesitation. “In our past lives, Mari and I were comrades. Marielle, at the time, was seeing a brilliant doctor by the name of Sylvia Locke. Sylvia was working on expanding the population of the colony, and was carrying a child from the genes of herself and Marielle when the colony was attacked by the bio-weapon.
“We had to flee back to space, and as far as we knew, Sylvia had died along with the child. I’m reconsidering that belief now.” Vilke fired off two more bursts as something else came into view, and Kris caught sight of the behemoth being thrown down a hallway that intersected her line of sight.
“So this kid is…” Relkur sounded shocked.
Mari cleared her throat. “Nobody outside my immediate friend group would’ve known we had chosen the name Anise. No way that’s a coincidence.”
“When I scanned her, the results stated her name as ‘Anise Locke-Smith’ if that means any more.” Kris supplied.
“Seriously?” Mari sounded exasperated. “I told Sylvia—rather, Marielle told Sylvia that she didn’t want hyphenated names! Sylvia never got over the joke about their names fitting together like that, though.”
Kris tightened her grip on her catalyst weapon as she saw Anise grappling with the behemoth some forty meters away, and Anise seemed to be pushing the huge creature back towards their position.
“So that’s your daughter, Mari?” Relkur’s words almost had Kris’ mind fail her, but she was a bit too focused on the ridiculous sight of a small child beating a hulking lizard creature in a contest of raw strength. Prior to the affliction, the creature had been a Hallowstine Snapmaw, not that the real name mattered. She rather preferred ‘behemoth,’ in truth.
Another roar echoed from Mari’s gun, reducing their targets to two. The behemoth headed their way, and one final thing somewhere. Kris really hoped it wasn’t some rat or mouse somewhere. It would take ages to track it down.
And then Anise tucked into the monster, narrowly dodging snapping teeth as it tried to bite at her, and then she shoved off the abdomen of the creature only to be stopped dead as the behemoth anchored its hands into the metal of the servers lining the corridor.
Sparks and smoke filled the area around the pair as something caught fire, but Kris didn’t miss the sudden kick from the lizard, and the tiny form of Anise being launched down the hall by the force.
Kris abandoned her cover, moving five meters up the hallway to get into range before pulling her trigger until the counter on the weapon told her she had only three percent energy left.
That, apparently, pissed the creature off, because it whirled on her and closed the distance before she could even eject the spent core from her weapon.
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