Many newly initialized Samurai can find their world turned upside down. While a few don’t make it through the end of their first day, most that come through have a better grasp on their potential. For those that feel a bit lost and need some help, The Family is there to help.

  ~ The Family promotional material for new Samurai

  Taking a deep breath, I peeked out from behind the opening. My pulse raced. I aimed, pulled the trigger, sight snapped back.

  One down.

  I nudged the barrel toward the next monster. My ears rang from the shot. I fired. Missed. I stepped back fast as the xeno charged, claws scraping. A putrid grass stench hit me in the face. I fired point blank. Its skull cracked. Dead.

  Claws scrambled over concrete. My body screamed MOVE! I spun, Piping Tip up. Fired. Another body dropped. Too slow. Pain blossomed along my left side, hot and sharp. Copper mixed with cut grass. Blood trickled down my leg.

  I swung the gun, too slow. Fired. Pain again, white-hot. A scream tore out of me. Shit. The gun was useless this close.

  “I need knives!” I screamed to Wing.

  Drop the gun.

  The Piping Tip clattered against the floor before I even thought twice. A knife appeared in each hand. Balanced, sharp, right. Instinct told me they were good steel, but nothing fancy. They would have to do.

  Adrenaline drowned the pain as I moved. I brought a knife down, the blade crunching through the skull of a shrub. Screams echoed through the shelter.

  I turned and stabbed. The knife sunk in, getting stuck. It snapped, shards biting my palm. Fuck.

  Snapping jaws lunged at me. I twisted, too slow, teeth ripping into my leg. Pain flared bright. I ignored it. Move.

  “Keep ’em coming!” I roared, just as another knife dropped into my grip. The weight steadied me. I spun, slashing hard, the blade carving deep into alien flesh.

  Another lunged, teeth wide. I dodged back, slashed forward. The knife cut, plant matter spraying across my cheek. A third came from the side, claws out. I pivoted, drove the blade into its throat. It made no sound and collapsed.

  Focus. One left.

  Exhaustion dragged at my arms, the knives like anchors. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t fail.

  One last push. I stepped forward, did the unexpected. I swung hard, knife plunging deep. Alien flesh split, body crumpled.

  The last xeno twitched once, then went still.

  I reached for the Piping Tip, needing the comforting weight of the gun. Movement to my left, then a flash of motion and a pain blossomed, bright and hot, across my arm.

  “That’s a Model 4. Ambush predator.”

  The fog of exhaustion crawled over me as my shaking, bloodied hands forced the weapon up. I aimed at the massive thing, it had enough tentacles to make a hentai blush, and fired. The recoil tried to yank the gun from my blood-slick palms.

  Hold on. Keep firing as the creature lunged. The slide locked back with a hollow, awful click. Shit. I looked up. The tentacled nightmare splayed at my feet, dead from a stupid amount of lead.

  Another shadow dropped from the overhead pipes.

  I scrabbled to strip the empty mag. My hand trembled as it fumbled for the spare in the pocket of my shredded jeans. Tremors ran up my arm as I slammed the fresh magazine home, thumb releasing the slide. The weapon was hot once more.

  The second M-4 launched bone-tipped tentacles at me, fast, like knives on ropes. Shit shit shit. I threw myself sideways, but I was too slow.

  Multiple somethings ripped through my legs. Pain blossomed white across my vision; holes sprouted in denim. My world contracted. Sound narrowed to a high ringing. My arms felt detached, heavy and slow.

  I tried to aim. My hands shook so badly the Piping Tip danced in my grip. I fired, twelve rounds, and watched the last monster stagger, then fall. Lead worked like it always did.

  A stupid, useless smile tugged at my lips as blackness crept at the edges of my sight.

  Amby, I need you to listen to me. You’re about to pass out and will bleed out. I need your approval to purchase the Nano-Regen Suite.

  I tried to nod. My head felt like it was stuffed with wool. An all-too-familiar white box appeared beside me. Exhaustion tightened like a vise as I struggled to get my hands to do the thing they had done a thousand times.

  My fingers didn’t obey. They trembled, clumsy and numb, failing to open the lid. Panic puffed up for a moment before the fatigue crushed it down. I couldn’t make my hands open the box.

  “Here, let me help,” a gentle voice said, just out of view. I watched as a hand peeking out of a sweater opened the box. The inhaler pressed gently to my lips. “Deep breath.”

  The familiar fire raced down my throat and filled my lungs. One bout of coughing later and I looked up to see who my savior was.

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  Standing before me was a woman in a rather outdated outfit. Cardigan, a skirt, shawl over her shoulders and silver hair put up in a bun. Slung over her arm was a rather large wicker basket.

  I knew that outfit. Nearly everyone in Astoria knew who this was. Granny Smith. One of our two, well, I guess now three, local Samurai. What my brain was struggling with was that this woman looked like she was in her mid 20s.

  “You’re supposed to be older,” I blurted out before my brain could actually engage. My hand weakly slapped itself over my mouth as a blush started to creep its way across my face.

  A faint smirk tugged at her lips. “I get that a lot. Now, how are you feeling?”

  Pausing for a moment, I took stock of everything. The wounds had healed, but I was fighting exhaustion. “Meh? Like, the flesh is willing but the mind is weak?”

  She offered me a hand to help me up. “I’m not sure that’s something I can fix. However, it seems like you could use a break.”

  I accepted the hand, nodding as I stood. Looking down at my clothes, I sighed. “I really need to stop getting my clothes shredded by those damn shrubs,” I grumbled.

  “How many sets of clothes have been shredded?” The senior Samurai asked.

  “This is the second.” I picked at the now shredded jeans and jacket as I followed her to a bench.

  Twitching her skirt, Granny Smith took a seat next to me, setting the basket on her lap. She reached in and picked out a beautiful red apple before she offered it to me. “You need to eat. The nanites work better with more fuel.”

  I stared at it for a beat, half-expecting it to be some kind of glowing health item. Nope. Just an apple. I took it anyway, biting into the crisp flesh. Sweet, tart, grounding. The copper taste in my mouth faded, replaced with something fresh and real.

  “Feeling better?” she asked.

  “I honestly don’t know.” I said around a mouth full of apple.

  “You survived though.” she said, voice gentle but steady. “You’ve got grit.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered around a mouthful of apple. “Grit and a growing pile of ruined clothes.”

  She shrugged. “Clothes can be replaced. People can’t.”

  That caused me to pause for a moment. I shifted on the bench, avoiding her eyes.

  Then, I realized I was being rude and blurted, “I’m Ambrosia. Or Amby. Most people just go with Amby.”

  She gave a small nod, “Clara Pommeroy. But you would know me as Granny Smith.”

  I looked down at my apple, turning it in my hands. Juice sticky on my fingers. “I didn’t ask for this. I just wanted to make pastries. Feed people. That’s it.”

  “None of us ask for it. But we all try to do the best we can. But that’s different for every Samurai.”

  I let out a shaky laugh, somewhere between humor and frustration. “Lucky me.”

  Clara reached into her basket again and offered me a cloth to wipe the blood off my arm. “You don’t have to want it,” she said. “But sometimes, protecting what you love and fighting what threatens it are the same thing.”

  I swallowed hard, suddenly finding the half-eaten apple a lot less interesting.

  “So, I can just… be?”

  “It’s up to you. But maybe you should also consider figuring out what you want.”

  That stopped me. All this time, I’d only done what I thought I was supposed to do. Samurai fought the Anthesis. That’s why I rushed in to clear the shelter.

  With a rueful chuckle I said “Right now? I want to stop buying new clothes and avoid dying. Long term… I’ll have to think about it.”

  “You should probably get some armor, or at least under armor.” Clara replied. “How many points do you have?”

  Wing kindly took this time to inform me of updates to my point total.

  Targets eliminated!

  Reward… 90 points

  New Purchase: Nano-Regenerative Suite

  Points reduced to… 80

  “Huh. Only eighty? I thought it’d be more after all of that.” I grumbled. “Still not enough for much. Unless I want more handguns and ammo.”

  Wing’s voice crackled through the speakers in the shelter. That’s correct. To help you, I would encourage you to invest in the Class I Lightweight Combat Armor catalog to allow you a better chance of survival. But the catalog alone is 100 points.

  “I have that catalog!” Clara said, a hint of excitement in her voice. “I can let you borrow it!”

  Confusion must have been written all over my face, because she quickly added, “Samurai can share catalogs if they’re close enough and have permission. And I’m giving you permission.”

  “Huh,” I said, a true font of wisdom.

  With Vanguard Clara granting you access, I recommend full-body under armor. You can wear clothing over it, and it should protect you from low-level Anthesis attacks. Mostly.

  “Mostly?” I asked, incredulous

  You won’t bleed, but you will probably bruise. Consider it a compromise.

  Bruises I could live with.“Fine. Let’s do it. And Wing? Just display my point balance on my augs. I don’t need every single transaction.”

  As you wish, Ms. Ambrosia.

  A somewhat large box appeared on the bench. I popped it open and pulled out a silky soft garment that looked suspiciously like a wetsuit.

  “Hopefully this will keep me alive today,” I murmured, holding it up.

  “Why don’t you go change?” Clara gestured towards an empty room across the hall.

  Nodding, I slipped away, discarding my shredded clothes before wiggling into the skintight armor. It fit like a glove, too much like a glove. “I am not going out wearing just this.”

  I admired the snug fit but not the idea of showing this much of myself to the world.

  Don’t worry, Wing snickered in my head. Vanguard Clara has something for you.

  That didn’t sound suspicious at all. Resigned, I returned to the room. Two boxes now sat next to Clara, whose gaze lingered on me before quickly turning back.

  “For your first incursion,” she said, tone even and steady. “This should help a bit.”

  The first box held clothes almost identical to the ones I’d discarded. Synth-leather pants, a jacket, and a t-shirt. This one featured two chibi women, one with rainbow hair and the other looking suspiciously like Clara, surrounded by the words “Half-Baked But Full of Apples.”

  I dressed quickly, grateful the clothes fit perfectly. The second box held a thigh holster for my pistol.

  “Thank you,” I said, gratitude threading through every word. I bent down to hug the shorter woman.

  Clara paused for a moment before she returned the hug, briefly. “I’d like to avoid losing another Samurai and member of the community.”

  She stepped back handheld my gaze. “You’ve done better than most, so far. If you survive the day…” she paused, letting the words hang just long enough to tighten my chest, “…I’ll find you and give you your Samurai name.”

  Before I could think of a reply, she turned away and headed for the door. The wicker basket swung lightly from her arm as she slipped out, leaving me with the quiet and the weight of a promise I wasn’t sure I was ready for.

  Discord for that!