Objective: Go to a Upgrade Station
Antasma is starting to grow tired of the objectives; its intrusive commands do not care at all for his well-being, perhaps it is designed that way to discourage any source of distraction and stress. Maybe it's meant to mold him into the weapon that the Pi'illos wanted, not the sad excuse of a nightmare that he is now.
He rubbed his face and sighed;
The hallway seems endless, it's boxed corridors and the boring neon lined walls are starting to really gnaw on his consciousness, he already felt pretty blinded by the lights earlier and the repetition of this effect is intensifying his nauseousness.
He wants to throw up; maybe he might actually just do it, right here, right now. Who's going to stop him?…
He tensed, right…he forgot about Dreambert, he's probably watching his every move, no way will he allow the stupid Pi'illo see him like this, he already had an emotional breakdown earlier, he doesn't need him to see more.
So he held it in and pushed forward, his objective is displaying a large yellow arrow on the top of his view that points to where he should go. Perhaps it didn't appear the first time because it already knew that the Beanish lady was coming for him.
…
…Does that mean Dreambert can also access his cybernetics?
He grimaces, maybe he won't be able to punch him in the face after all.
While Antasma was following the direction of the arrow, there were various rooms along the way that he have access to, a lounge room, a game room, and even one of those expensive fancy bathroom that is all decked out with gilded golden walls and toilets, these types of rooms made him felt like the spaceship is some sort of a high tech cruise instead of a military vehicle…..or perhaps the future is so advanced that luxury can be afforded alongside destructing ammunitions.
So officers can sit on their cushy massage chairs and watch as they massacre hundreds and thousands of people with a push of a button.
His face twisted in sour disdain at the thought, it reminded him too much of how the Pi'illos fought back then, the King will sit on his cushioned gold throne as he sent out bright-eyed young boys into battle, knowing full well that there's nothing but death awaits for them and churning the meat grinder even more.
He turned a corner and finally stopped at an area that's not a hallway.
it was a large crossroad that led to even more hallways, Antasma groaned, he swore, whoever designed this place needed to get fired.
He felt like he was in the Backrooms.
…Wait what are the Backroo-
At least they have the courtesy to put up a sign at the top of the hallway that displays where each one led to, the one leading North displays Canteen, the one leading to East displays Gym, the one he came out of from the South displays Equipment, the one leading to West displays Laboratory.
His yellow arrow is pointing towards the gym, why is the upgrade station in the gym? Perhaps it's a collection of training areas and equipment that improves cybernetics? Probably, so he headed towards the gym.
…annnnd here comes the hallways, Antasma wanted to die inside. He is just so bored out of his mind from all the repetitive neon walls that he honestly considered torching some of it to make it more interesting, perhaps drawing a meme on the wall to poke fun of Dreambert.
...
…What are memes?
He scratched his head, first he somehow know and not know about devices called computers, and now a part of him thinks its funny to draw overshared comedic pictures.
…
Who the hell programmed all of this into his head?
Now he needs to know what other unknown properties and terms that he hadn't known before, perhaps it might help him understand this new world a little bit better, starting with the word, meme.
He squinted and called up a search function on his HUD, very shakily, he typed in the four-lettered words via the holographic keyboard that appeared in front of him.
If he thought the lights were overwhelming, then the results that popped up from his search are easily ten times worse. The amount of nonsensical pictures that showed up below the definition was absolutely terrible, walls and walls of hand drawn exaggerated pictures, photos, and texts that designated each slot is just pure chaos fuel. He cringed at the overload, is this what the future has devolved into? Their sense of humor? One of them was literally just a picture of an off-centered front facing Cheep-Cheep with the word 'Fesh' labeled underneath it. It makes no sense, yet people find this funny?
He sighed, at least it's slightly better than the fart jokes that he has heard throughout his first life, those are just plain disgusting. Perhaps he just doesn't get humor but he's absolutely positive that these memes are horrid.
His chaotic internet surfing distracted him from the majority of the boring journey, so much so that he almost floated face first into an iron door. Fortunately, he managed to stop himself from looking more like a fool because he knew well-enough that Dreambert is watching his every step, or move, since he doesn't have legs. He backed up a bit and stared at the entrance, like most of the doors, it had a touchpad and neon glowing linings, as per usual. So he simply placed his palm on the pad and it opened with blazing swiftness.
The inside of the gym was, no pun intended, out of this world. It doesn't quite match the unpredictableness of the Dreamworld, but it's somehow unique and efficient in the most inefficient way possible. There are huge spiraling staircases with escalators built into it that lead to various floors from the ground lobby, there were various machinery that lined the walls and huge spaces with specifically tiled floors that spread around the place, he squinted at the massive architecture and the questionable design choices that held up the gym. There is absolutely no way that this got past approval, but considering the new time period, there are probably more forces at work here than the visible structures that hold the roof.
His directional arrow pointed towards a lone machine at the center of the room, it was an upright dispenser with a blue coloring to it. It looked like a slot machine but without all the fancy buttons and levers, it's just the screen with a few options displayed on it:
Advanced Military Level Upgrade, Modification and Repair Station
Please select one to be upgraded, modified or repaired
-Parts
-Modules
-Combat Chips
-System
Antasma stared at the screen, he had absolutely no idea what to do, he glanced at his objective, it doesn't seem to register that he's at an upgrade station as it still displays the arrow, so he decided to simply just touch the interface.
His objective immediately crossed off and replaced it with a new one:
Objective: Upgrade Combat Chip
He stared at it once more, just the combat chip? Nothing else? That's very…specific. Does he need something to unlock more upgrades, or is upgrading the combat chip just more efficient at this time.
He selected the combat chip and was taken to a menu with various upgrade options, such as:
+Physical Damage Boost
+New Fighting Style
+Increased Blockage, Parry Speed, and Dodge Reaction.
…Why does he feel like he's in a video game?...and what the hell is blockage? Does that refer to how much he can block or something? And parrying? He had quite literally just brute forced his way-, wait, no, he hasn't. He was pretty sure he did parry instinctively whenever he saw a weapon or a claw swinging at him, but he did it so swiftly like it's second-nature that he hadn't even noticed. Perhaps it might be what actually saved him during his fight with the monstrous Beanish and why most of the Bean Bean guards he fought all crumbled beneath him, his skillful deflections made him an agile monster.
He squinted at the options, hmmm…which one should he pick? A new fighting style does sound appealing, considering how good his "Basic Combat" was. But he glanced at the other options and decided to look further into it more, the damage boost also sounds good, Antasma is quite positive that his simple claws will not always be able to tear through everything the more he goes through this ship. Dreambert will throw more and more stronger opponents at him, it's only a matter of time before his claws can barely scratch their paint.
And now finally, block, parry, dodge, Antasma stared glumly at the option. He feels like he's being reminded of something unpleasant and irritating when thinking of that phrase, such as the feeling of having a skill issue…
…
Maybe he should pick that, he finds evading and wearing the opponent down or scouting out their weak points to be much faster, safer and efficient. Afterall, he pretty much used this strategy to defeat the big lady who was easily ten times stronger and sturdier than him.
He caved and chose the third option, the computer popped up with another message that confirms his choice, upon selecting the yes option. The machine began wiring and a slot popped out in front of him as a robotic feminine voice emitted from the machine,
"Please deposit Combat Chip."
Antasma tilted his head at the request, he was sort of expecting it to just update it remotely without him doing anything, he supposed that technology still has a limit, no matter how advanced they are. So he ejected it and placed it on the platter as per requested.
As the machine took it in, and he could hear even more wiring sounds as it modify the chip, it took a good while, as he waits, he thinks, what other reasons could there be for his revival other than being used as a weapon for the Pi'illos, he leaned against the machine and pondered. The extra commodity things he has available to his system and the weird Gen Z humor that he has been mentally installed with made him think that he has a more given purpose then simply being a high profiled mass murdering nightmare toy, was there perhaps something more to his reawakened cyber life then the dehumanizing tag that he was given? Maybe….
….
…does Dreambert miss him?
Ding!
The sound of the machine startled him out of his thoughts, he'll have to figure it out later. But for now, he has a place to explore…and perhaps find his own.
He took the chip out and reinserted into his slot, he noticed that one of the options for his upgrading was crossed off. He supposed it's maxed out now.
Then the machine opened another slot and presented him with a bright blue chip that has the same color scheme as it, then the same voice emitted from the machine again:
"Please install Upgrade Space"
…huh? Upgrade Space? Does that mean that this machine will now upgrade his stuff remotely? Maybe technology really doesn't have a limit, he inserted the blue chip and sure enough, the upgrade space made itself home in his system. Now, what does he need to upgrade more of his stuff? He opened the upgrade section and and selected the same option, now he chose the first one, increased physical damage.
"Error, Upgrade Requires 20 Liters of Castaphrose"
...
…what is Castaphrose? He called up his search function and accessed Boogle, the best mainstream internet search engine as it's slogan adorned.
...And he immediately hates it, it doesn't give him a specific answer and he had to click on random links to see if any of the websites have anything that attributes to the information that he wants, everything up to the definition of the Castaphrose, and a explanation of his new existence and life, along with his only way of improvement, either self or machine.
But finally, he found what he was looking for.
Castaphrose, according to Boogle, is a special chemical mixture that is used in the artificial spinal cords that is installed within each cybernetic soldiers that served in the Bean'illos Millitary, it is a mandatory installment as it's the primary system that connects the machine to the brain and essentially acts as the motherboard of the entire cybernetic unit. Castaphrose is also a very good fuel source as it produces no by-products or waste and has a fairly low cost to produce, each artificial spinal cords carries one liter of Castaphrose and it is known to be an essential material used to improve high-profiled weapons that is invented and used by the Bean'illos Millitary.
...
Antasma covered his face and groaned, he needs to kill more, he briefly considers to just ignore the upgrade section and try to face down his enemies with only the most basic tools at his disposal. But he knew deep down that it wasn't possible, his claws would chip and break against the increasingly tough metal, and his modules and speed would be easily out matched by more well-trained soldiers.
…
Why is his life like this?
Does he really need to always kill and murder to survive, to live? To always have the decency to die along with each and every nightmare that was quelled? Does he really deserve this?
His shoulders dropped at the revelation, maybe he does deserve this, maybe the universe specifically chose his soul to be tormented for its own amusement, maybe what he did is fated across all time, maybe he never had a choice, maybe he was always destined to be evil.
…
...even when he doesn't want to.
…
His thoughts were once again, interrupted as he felt a strong rumbling beneath him, is there an earthquake happening? Wait...no...he's in space, there's no earth at all. Then what is making all that noise-
The ground burst, and something new appeared.