Wardimension Neptunia
Book 1: A warthorn in a war-torn world.
Prologue
Space... The ultimate boundary that all lifeforms must cross on their journey through existence. For longer than what is thought possible, it has remained as a void, energy floating here and there but never interacting with itself... Never creating, never destroying anything... Until now, or was it yesterday, or maybe even tomorrow or an eternity across what we call time, which is just a expression of space that mind created to make sense of movement? We do not know... All we know is that the universe first unified its energy levels by extreme convection towards a single point, before a brutal expansion into what is considered the universe of today.
Billions of what we would call years later, a race of upright-standing lifeforms, that you could vaguely liken to apes, called humans, reached out to their closest stars, with the intent of setting up shop and expand into space... Stupid, I know, when their planet, Gamindusti, was, and still is one of the most lush and inhabitable planets of the universe. It was due to a certain phenomenon called "faith crystallize", a now-well understood process of telluriformation through faith and belief gathered into shares, the only energy that can now sustain our sinking galaxy.
As humanity grew and spread, so did the reach of share energy, soon supplanting all known forms of energy, due to how many humans, and soon how many faith species, came to populate the known areas of the galaxy, estimated at the time at just under 50% of the whole thing. It was but a scant 600 years ago.
At that time, companies were vying for control over the daily life of the galactic citizens, be it through consumer goods, art, like video games, or with military might. Conflicts became more frequent, bloodier as a new technology, the NEPArm-archive, hit the galactic market: the NepArm-archive is, as its name indicates, an archive that stores all weapons you saw in detail in your life, thus growing ever bigger in war time as new armaments were thought up by military scientists and arm dealing companies' R&D departments. Each personal archive could be split into three grades: Bronze, for the basic melee weapons, firearms and armors, Silver, when you added to it specialized elemental armors and more esoteric weapons such as Psy-typhoon claws or the WeaveStrike rifle, and Gold, a near-impossible to attain level, due to its perquisites.
It was only through the actions of Libra, the original creator of the NA-a, that the conflict could stop... Through their new super weapon: Warthorn one. Warthorn one is (because that thing is still active to this day) the very first functional iteration of the warthorn project, a project aiming to end all wars, by creating an invincible armed police force on all planets, all psycho-thaumic cyborgs, all able to rend the planet in half should the need arise.
A warthorn is created through different processes, but the first needed naturally-born members of faith species' souls to be blended into one, then shattered into soul keys, that would be then inserted into a custom-made psycho-thaumically compatible cyborg body, ensuring her power, stability, and obedience through the many mechanic and psionic restraints built into her body and mind.
And for a century, the warthorn project worked. Wars ceased, education boomed, as health and general happiness did, as all wanted to learn the needed arts to work alongside a warthorn. There were many famous warthorns over this century, like Saturna, Compile, or even Atlesia, but none could match the sheer power, speed, and grace of the first. Seeing her, alongside her oracle partner, fighting all manners of share-born horrors was really a treat for all that were lucky enough...
But it couldn't last forever... And all came crashing down when Warthorn two, her successor ceased to be blueprints and raw materials. None know what happened, but for the next two centuries, Warthorn one rampaged through the galaxy, destroying all that stood before her. Though her demeanor didn't change, as she was always serene, even in the midst of the bloody carnage she was always surrounded with, her fighting method did, now using a gigantic four-legged feline mechanic beast as both mount and hammer. When her rampage was done, having destroyed most of the civilization and most of the faith species (from 16 species, only humans, drakes, makanos, and daemons remain), she fled to parts unknown, popping up from time to time to raze a city, or a planet.
Now, three hundred years after the end of the Great Loss, Here I stand, before the ruins of Libra. Warthorn two never had the chance to be activated, though I heard that it had been completed. I wonder what it looks like... Well, we'll see soon enough, and who knows, maybe we'll find a way to rid the world of that abomination that is Warthorn one.
Idea "IF" Factory
After the hunter closed her notebook, done with her personal report, she entered the sinister-looking ruins sprawling before her. It was truly a spectacle and a tragedy to behold, as overarching beams of rare share-infused star adamanta criss-crossed over a worn, half-broken tile floor. Here and there, you could see ruined machines, keepsakes of an era of safety and prosperity, now gone... As the brunette made her way through the winding corridors of the ancient facility, she felt as if she was being observed, being judged... 'But that's absurd, right?' were her thoughts, and soon enough, she reached the end of facility, or at least the end of the derelict part of it. On the wall before her, she could see a wall-mounted teleport plate, an archaic piece of technology used to... well teleport anything, from people to cargo, from one room to another... though this one was peculiar, if only because it was still working, if the light-made circuit board was anything to go by, whereas the whole building was otherwise devoid of energy.
After a few minutes of mulling, Idea decided, against her normal cautiousness, to dive in and see what was on the other side of this teleport device... And what a sight it was! A big, well-lit, white circular room, looking way, WAY newer than anything this old had any right to be, bearing in its center a near-opaque cylinder, from which only a feminine silhouette could be discerned, from the base of the cylinder, pipes were crossing the room, burrowing into the walls, pulsating from time to time, as if supplying the thing inside with something.
IF didn't even have the time to make a step when a needle pierced her neck, drawing blood, before a droning voice made itself heard:
"Compatible blood sample found. proceeding to the awakening of Project: Warthorn two through the beta key."
The hunter couldn't believe it. so many didn't even think Warthorn two was still intact, after the beginning of the Great Loss, but here she was, witnessing her activation.
"Activation in four... Three... Two... One... activation complete. welcome, Warthorn."
The containment pod slowly opened, letting the pink opaque liquid out. When it was finally empty, IF could finally see the inside, revealing to her eyes the appearance of the second iteration of the galaxy's damning project:
"Heh, cute."
TO BE CONTINUED...
Archive: Vol 1: some things to start off.
NEPArm-Archive: The NepArm-Archive, or Nano-Esperine Psionic Armament Archive, is a compendium of all weapon its bearer witnessed and analyzed in their lives, through the process of memory crystallization, during which a memory of a weapon is duplicated, cut into segments, and, should the information provided prove sufficient, made into a flashforge blueprint ready to use.
There exists for now, 4 levels of mastery of the Archive:
- Bronze, the basics, the level of those who only have basic and conventional weapons and armors (all of our modern small to medium arms fall into this category)
- Silver, a more advanced mastery level, allowing access to esoteric-class weapons and armors (such as IF's Psy-typhoon claws, or any magitek weapon), plus a personal, fully moddable light vehicle.
- Gold, the expert level, usually what warthorn human guards were expected to be at the end of their formations. On top of the vastly improved weapons and armors it makes available (things such as gravity and starshine weapons, using gravitational waves to break a target apart, or concentrated starlight to burn them to nothing, lie in this tier), it gives acces to a fully moddable medium armored vehicle and a personal dumb AI aid for combat.
- Warthorn. None but the warthorn are expected to reach this class, as it is the only one that can use the full potential of share weapons (weapons that use share energy in its rawest form, allowing for reality warping), starweave share armor, and the Zoroastria mech. they receive, on top of all previously cited, an oracle, which is a fully sapient AI helper, able to help you along your day to day life, as well as in combat.
Psy-typhoon claws:
Level: Silver
Weapon class: melee/psy
range:1-10 meters
power rank: C+ (melee), B+ to D- (winds)
Speed: B
Defense: D-
The psy-typhoon claws are IF's signature weapons: custom-made katars in the shape of claws, they naturally connect with her mind in order to unleash deadly whirlwinds at close range, having the potential to temporarily cut higher brain functions, allowing for easier captures/kills. sadly, they offer little to no defense, forcing IF to dodge every serious blow.
WeaveStrike rifle:
Level: Silver
Weapon class: medium automatic firearm/thaumic
range: 1.5-150 meters (efficient range being 15-90 meters)
Power rank: A-
Speed: C
Defense: E-
This rifle is an example of what armies were supplied with before the warthorns were rolled out: powerful, but heavy, thus more suited to slow-moving firing lines,
while also being extremely unsuited for close-quarters.
Wow, didn't think I'd manage to finally write that one... well, what did you think? was it awful, meh, good, simply bad? tell me in reviews.