Okay, so it looks like I'd finally met one of the things the artifacts had warned me about.
And it had promptly launched a suicide attack on me. Yeah.
I guess they really wanted me dead.
"No shit, Captain Obvious."
Funny, Viv. So, what next?
"Well, normally I'd leave that up to you, but since you're asking, I'm going to look for the machines that just attacked us."
...Do you have a death wish?!
"No, but if they're trying to kill me the minute they see me, chances are, they have important reasons for that. And I want to know those reasons."
Don't bite off more than you can chew, my friend. It never ends well.
"I know, but there's a reason the artifacts fear these beings. And if they fear them enough to warn me against their influence, their reasons are probably very good."
Viv just sighed after that. "Fine, but first, it looks like your forces are asking for some advice."
The specifics about this was that Synais was getting reports from my various protectorate forces groundside that wanted to know what they were supposed to do if they found beings from other universes on the Zero Dawn one. He'd actually gone ahead and made a list of possible beings to meet, and what I wanted done with them.
It took me about .35 microseconds to figure out what I wanted done for each group, which I promptly sent back to Synais to distribute.
Though he did have a few words to be said about my choices.
"...What's this one for Daleks?"
"Shove target and peanut butter into their eye stalks and send them back home whining like babies."
"Okay...what's this thing about slimes?"
"If they eat chickens and plants, try and start ranching them."
"Okay...why'd you put monster girls in one of these categories?"
"Because someone would inevitably ask about them, though I am surprised you did not."
"Eh, couldn't find any I particularly liked. So, we just send them home?"
"Most of them - I don't have any particular dislike for the vast majority of cute monster girls. The exception is under the last category."
"Okay...Wait, what's this last one called? Hostis….vita...veeta...veta..-"
"Hostis Vitae Generis taken from the term Hostis Humani Generis. Basically, so long as you don't rape or enslave anyone in that group, you are free to do whatever you want to them. They deserve it."
"I see...I can get why you'd put skaven, tyranids, protoss-xerg hybrids, anyone who worships Molag Bal, Heretic Astartes, Goblin Slayer goblins and the Gremlins from the movie of the same name on this list, but why'd you add Mamono to this list?"
"Because they turned their homeworld into a Tainted Rape Planet that is doomed to see the extinction of almost all life unless they are purged from existence. Maybe they can be made to not cause genocide by virtue of existence, but even then, I wouldn't be happy if even a single member of the demon lord's royal family and/or any of her ideological followers was around. Some evils just need to be purged."
"What'd you do if you found some here?" asked Synais. "Shove them in a giant meat grinder and use the results to feed the lizardmen?"
"...How much meat would I need to feed the lizardmen at the moment?"
Synais just stared at me through the screen. "...You're savage, you know that right?"
"I try to be a better person, but sometimes, there is no room to show quarter to the enemy."
"True enough," noted Viv.
"...Okay, bye!"
Synais promptly cut the transmission. The minute he did, I turned to look at Viv. "I thought you'd have reservations against my plans regarding the mamono."
My ROB shrugged. "I learned to reserve my kindness for those who deserve it. Besides, my father was a king - I was taught to wipe out my enemies root and stem. Putting people to the sword, even if they are relatively innocent, comes part and parcel with that. Whilst my time under Celempheros and my own better nature has tempered that fury, it never truly faded away. And if I am being honest about that setting? You could put it all to the sword and nothing of value would be lost."
Guess we could agree on some of the vilest of things. Hooray.
Fide decided that it was a good time to contact me at that moment and informed me that she had located another of the machines the artifacts kept warning me about. Apparently, it had been spotted by another eclipse camp, where it had been building up a large stockpile of blaze and...some kind of purple fluid. I assumed it was some kind of fuel, since that was what blaze was used for.
After building and tuning a small scale multiversal gate to facilitate better travel to the Carja lands, we made our way into the Eclipse Lands. The Shadow Carja we met heckled us whenever they saw us, with some even trying to start fights, but nothing really came of it. The Shadow Carja weren't really a group I had feelings of aggression toward - they were just the unlucky followers of Helis whom he used as cannon fodder for his plans. These people lived in poverty whilst the Eclipse indulged in the spoils of the Red Raids. Sad, really - these people had been deluded into following a madman, and now they suffered for it.
Eventually, though, we reached the Eclipse camp. That's when things got interesting.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
When we arrived, a caravan of Eclipse Warriors was in the middle of leaving, though none noticed our presence. What remained, though was a corrupted longleg, overlooking a very large metallic crate - one as large as the big crates I'd busted when playing Half Life 2. Carefully, we snuck up on the machine, occasionally using empty munitions magazines to distract the robot, before swiftly crushing its processor. Afterwards, whilst I explored the rest of the camp for additional loot, Viv opened up the crate, revealing the blaze and the purple fluid.
Now, what was this stuff?
"Maybe the robot could tell us? All you need to do is open up its processor...which you just destroyed..."
Dammit.
"...Not a problem. Just pull up your bone-daddy and let him do a séance."
Bone-daddy...Oh.
Smirking, I concentrated on my arsenal of warframes, made my selection, and let the transference link do the rest. A moment later, my body was replaced with that of Nekros Prime, and one usage of Shadows of the Dead later, I had a fully functional Longleg by my side. From there, accessing its memory core was rather easy.
XXXXXXX
Once again, I saw the Eclipse soldiers from the caravan, now busy loading up some of the blaze. There was no purple fuel being packed away, though, and I wasn't the only a me who found this suspicious.
"Why aren't we loading the purple fluid?" Asked one of the warriors. "I do not believe Helis would go to such lengths to protect it only to leave it open to thieves."
"The Champion of Jiran wishes for this to be a distraction," replied another of the warriors - a Kestrel, by the looks of it. "If we allow our enemies to find small but obvious caches of this fuel, then they may overlook larger stockpiles that are more concealed, and fail to notice smaller ones that are hidden in plain sight."
"I see, forgive me for asking the question."
"You need not worry - your question had merit."
XXXXXXXXX
Erchius? As in, the starship fuel from Starbound? What the hell were they using that for? And what was the machine going to do with it?
"Commander, this is Kathikon, something just popped up."
"What's up?"
"The purple fuel you're looking at, we're getting some weird readings from it. Like, off the charts on some for of energy measurement. And before you ask, it started up just after you utilized Nekros' powers."
...In hindsight, it was probably a bad idea to use necromancy nearby what is possibly the liquified fragments of a planet kill Eldritch Abomination. "Okay, so, what now?"
"Now, my dear commander," intoned a familiar voice, "you die."
Before either of us could process what had just been said, another of the artifacts' enemies jumped toward us and bat Viv aside, though not before wrenching the Erchius fuel from her grasp and throwing it at me...
XXXXXXXX
AN: I actually needed a while to figure out an example of humans who could be considered Hostis Vitae Generis. Then I realized Chaos Space Marines AKA Heretic Astartes are still technically human. For the most part.
For this wondering, Hostis Vitae Generis is a term I made up for this story, based on the real term Hostis Humani Generis. The term literally means 'Enemies of All Mankind', and is applied traditionally to pirates, but nowadays it's also used for slavers. If you are considered Hostis Humani Generis, you're literally outside the protection of the law, and any other force in existence is given permission to destroy you, using whatever it takes. 'Hostis Vitae Generis', which, if I remember my Latin prefixes right, literally translates into 'Enemies of All Living Things', is this, but modified to be more inclusive of non-human entities.
Also, it's a lot more severe - I basically made the term up as something I could use to describe enemies for whom plan A is 'hit with weapons that violate every law and custom of war in existence because they are that bad', which basically means those who possess this designation are walking war crimes.
For example:
Gremlins: Insane little goblin thongs who just enjoy causing mayhem for the he'll of it, and really like watching other people suffer
skaven: Irredeemable monsters in a land where such monsters are the norm. Somehow, the rats manage to be more despicable than the other bad guys.
Chaos Space Marines: This should be obvious
Goblin-Slayer Goblins: Unrepentant rapists who enjoy torturing people to death.
Mamono: Are causing the slow but inevitable genocide of humanity by virtue of existence.
Also, I really hate the entire Monster Girl Encyclopedia setting where Mamono come from on principle, and if I ever go to that setting in this story (and I REALLY want to), I'm gonna use nukes I n the villains there. And chemical weapons. And maybe superplagues. Seriously, there's no way to quantify how much I hate the setting, except that if I was a Sith and used that rage for power, I'd be able to pull the moon out of orbit and use it as a weapon against the Earth.
So, Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!