One last push!

Kamabo pistol and hook in hand, Emily worked her way around the chaotic hangar, ever on the move.

Little time to think, little time to stop and shoot. As it turned out, these Aberrant bastards could still gang up on her in short order; they could drag her down, restrain her, kill her. This was not allowed. Not one bit. While she caught her breath (what little of it she could get,) she liberally applied her new energy pistol to anyone who dared cross her, ammunition conservation be damned.

This whole ordeal had felt like it'd gone on for hours, but for all Emily knew, she had been fighting for only twenty or so minutes. She was fading fast, yet equally, her efficiency was just as quick. She was almost done here; it had been a difficult fight of cat and mouse, keeping this scum away from her, but she had managed to whittle their numbers down to near nothing, thanks to no small part of Daedalus disabling their bullshit 'respawners.'

Fucking stupid name.

And now, everything was calm; the newfound, relative quiet not filled with SCREAMING was appreciated. She couldn't risk anyone getting in the way of her impending grand theft auto.

Especially not the wounded Aberrant crawling away, a piece of rebar jammed through the freak's abdomen. She had to get a bit creative near the end.

"Get back here, bastard!"

With a vicious snarl, she brought her boot down on the neck of the last Aberrant. The defiant soldier screamed and shouted at her, but she blocked it out as the Aberrant's cartilage snapped with a sickening crunch!

She was never going to get used to that horrid sound, the feeling of vital structures cracking irreparably under her heel, even whilst in the throes of combat. It wasn't that she could even hear it well over the omnipresent grind of machinery and the blaring sirens, but the visceral, disgusting of his shifting cartilage was enough to nauseate her.

Combined with her current, adrenaline-addled state, she almost threw up from the overwhelming overload of it all.

If only for a moment; the reality of her situation crashed back, snapping her into focus. She wasn't done here yet, she needed to get to the UFO, hijack it, and-

SCREEEEEECCHHHH!

Emily jumped at the sudden intrusion, a quick spike of pain coursing through her torso from the shock.

Over the din of the hangar, an absolutely cataclysmic cascade of collapsing scaffolding and metal screeched over the chaos, snapping and crackling wires flying off of the frame and bursting futilely on the ground. Underneath it all, a whistling could be heard, like some sort of fucked-up tea kettle screeching its stupid tea kettle sound.

It was enough to bring Emily's heart back to a racing beat, the cacophony piercing her consciousness like an alarm clock. She twisted towards the disturbance, more jumpy than anything.

Initially, her fright subsided at what she first saw.

Over the collapsed gantry and scaffolding, a writhing, squat cylindrical machine struggled to free itself from the remaining cables and wires attached to its chassis.

She was…

What the hell?

A pair of blindingly bright 'eyes' assaulted her own, her APP mask's lenses immediately dimming to account for two massive spotlights doing their damndest to blind her. Beyond the glare, the rest of the machine made itself known. Curved plating and robotic components radiated outwards from a central 'core,' forming the squat disk-like shape of whatever absolutely deranged creation the Aberrants had built.

For a moment, it hovered in the air, the telltale blue glow and thundering hum of AG drives radiating from circular plates around the back side of the machine.

Then, it screeched at her. A screech that vibrated her goddamn skeleton, her very being being jostled around by the raw force of the sound.

Enough of that! Bastard!

Despite her defiance, it was fear that pulled the trigger.

CRACK!

A single pistol shot rung out, searing ions ripping through the air in retaliation…

…only to harmlessly fizzle out in mid air as it met a massive newly-visible 'bubble' of distorted air.

It was then that Emily noticed the next part of this crisis: AG shielding.

"Oh, fuck me…"

Somehow, those freaks managed to figure out how to convert AG drives into goddamn SHIELDS. Those were only supposed to be theoretical!

Behind its bubble of wavering air, the Great Cylinder dropped two robotic limbs down from its chassis, a pair of what looked like missile pods on each of them.

Missile pods aimed directly at her. Missile pods that were very visibly armed and loaded.

There was an emerging pattern in her life, one that Emily was only really just now beginning to notice.

Whenever she thought she had finally seen the epitome of madness within this new world, somehow, the bar would always sink into unseen depths. But after the Metro, she was certain that the bar had finally hit rock bottom. How could a location that had methodically and brutally broken the window of reality into little tiny pieces be topped?

Emily took in several deep, ragged breaths, her heart beating like an overplayed drum. A fierce stitch played into her side as she weaved and bobbed over the open floor of the hangar, horrid strings of curses running through her mind as a dozen miniature bottle rocket-esque missiles detonated around her. Lovely!

Now, the Metro was a technical peak of insanity given form, but only through the bleeding edge of Kamabo science and technology, even if the techniques were unrefined. There was a method to the madness, a razor edge equation that governed it all.

But this…?

Emily's world finished exploding, the Cylinder's missiles sending superheated ink flying as she dove for cover outside the hangar entrance.

An anomaly within its own right.

Emily threw herself to the side, her limbs shrieking their sweet agony; petulant children not realizing the greater good behind her actions. Not even as the cylinder shrieked, like the bastard child of a kettle and a train, letting forth a shower of boiling, watery ink from its underside. It rushed forward, the steaming jet raining down from it nearly parboiling her, missing her by mere inches. Her armor would have held, but temperature had been an incredibly finicky thing after the Borealis fire burned off some of the armor's outer protective coating.

She sprung back to her feet and leaned around the corner, pistol drawn at the mechanical abomination. A photon streak of plasma was flung from the weapon, straight as an arrow at her target. But at the last moment, the volatile shot shivered and shrunk, dissipating as it met the AG shielding that was still fucking THERE-

God! Why could nothing in her life be simple?

It was a snarky thought, and did little to alleviate the genuine fear in her heart.

"Stay focused, Engineer Hawthorne. Analysis has begun on the machine's capabilities. It's heavily armed-"

"No shit Sherlock, I can see that! Find a weakness! Now!"

The panic threatened to overwhelm her, but she was barely able to hold it back. She didn't know why, but this damned machine was just terrifying to her, and she didn't know why!

Scratch that. Emily knew damn well why this thing scared her to death. Well, from a rational standpoint, at least. There was a deeper, irrational itch that was driving her mad.

The tech propelling this thing. The AG drives. The absolutely bullshit perversion of human technology that was very reasonably relegated to just being tiny experimental theoretical prototypes back in her time.

Not only was this thing flying with them, especially with multiple AG drives, but it was using even more of them as SHIELDS.

The fucking thing should've crumpled itself into a little ball under it's own stresses! No, not even a ball; it should have collapsed into a miniature singularity from the sheer gravitational forces involved!

But no!

It just had to be fully functional!

It just had to be fully armed!

It just had to be programmed to KILL HER!

In short, she was not having a good time.

If Daedalus couldn't get her an out here, she was dead. Simple as. Running wasn't exactly an option here; aside from this operation having all her chips put into one pot, the Aberrant construct was essentially a floating weapons platform. If she focused on fleeing, it could easily follow her, or worse, snipe her as she tried running. Getting back out of this canyon was going to leave her wide open to the machine's attacks, missiles or arms or the whole thing just flying into her with it's shields up rending her into infinitely thin pieces from sheer gravitational forces alone-

"Emily. Focus. Move towards the barracks." Daedalus intoned, voice devoid of the usual psychotic glee the neck-mounted machine typically had.

"Barracks? We're in a fucking hangar!"

The AI approximated a sigh, a hint of genuine, human-like annoyance contained within.

"Leave the hangar, then take a right. Developing an action plan."

Without a second thought as to Daedalus' newfound sheer professional calm, Emily broke into a run, trying to shake off the machine's slow but menacing advance, but it held on her with an unnatural precision. She raised her pistol, planning to fire off a snapshot, but the machine beat her to the punch, its titanic weapons firing first.

Another group of missiles ripped free from the launchers, slipping through the shielding (how?!) and tearing through the air towards her, hellbent on roasting her like a Thanksgiving turkey. The whistling shriek brought another punctuation of terror, flight winning out over fight. She made a mad dash for the hangar's exit, boiling ink exploding all around her, threatening to pitch her off balance.

One managed to tag her back, the explosion throwing her off of her feet, yet miraculously, she barely managed to nail the landing. The aching pain, however, was another matter; that spot was probably going to bruise, never mind the overwhelming heat though her armor as the boiling ink clung to her.

And yet, she made it to the door, wrenching it open, and finally standing under the night sky once more. She crouched down slightly, catching her breath, and yet hobbling away from the hangar still.

"W-where's the fucking barracks?"

"Two hundred feet to your right, go-"

A monumental crash erupted, torn metal and steel collapsing as the construct slammed through the hangar wall, the AG shielding distorting wildly from the impact. Its spotlight eyes focused on her, nearly blinding her, her legs locked in place.

"Move."

And yet, Emily stood, rooted by the lights. Enough, at least, to where she couldn't hear the mechanical whir as the abomination brought its weapons to bear.

"Hawthorne. Above you."

A sharp, electrical jolt punched through her legs, causing her to cry out and drop to the ground on a knee, just as the air above her exploded from a snapshot fired missile..

She shrieked, limbs scraping and spasming as she somehow scrambled, crawled back to her feet. She took off running, hauling as much ass as she could across the darkened military base, trying to shake off the Great Cylinder's onslaught. Not without any luck, as it tracked her just fine, but she was able to duck into the barracks in time. A quick moment to take a breath, then onward.

As she expected, the barracks was a pretty depressing setup - consisting of little else except bunks and footlockers for gear and personal belongings. Everything was a drab shade of gray, with a few windows here and there. Curiously, there was a whole computer terminal set up near the door.

"Visual. Left of the entry door. Insert me into that terminal."

She brought her hand up to the mass of computing devices, and a bit of Daedalus's biological extender wiggled out from her jumpsuit into it.

As the Great Cylinder outside angrily screeched again, Emily paced about nervously, until Daedalus's tinny voice returned to her ears.

"Aberrant security breach confirmed. Facility and hostile construct schematics obtained. They call this machine the Octo Shower. It is not invincible, and neither is it a shower." Daedalus' voice murmured over the enraged Aberrant nightmare war machine's ambient screeching.

"H-How do we kill it, then?!" she snapped.

"Wireless power transmission from the facility's electricity network. Flatlining the generators will disable the AG shielding. From there, it will be vulnerable. I will do what I can to ensure the generators go offline."

"Anything else?"

A pause. "Local Aberrant reinforcements are en route. Expect resistance."

"Fucking great. So much for you dealing with the respawner." she hissed, tensing as the newly christened Not-a-Shower started to work its way around the side of the barracks, the distortion of its AG shield visible through the windows as it moved.

"Hostiles have an occupied Shelter beneath us." She opened her mouth to retort- "Surface level systems such as door controls are under my control, for now. Focus on the Shower. After that, we leave."

She didn't have it in her to argue. Not when there was a death machine and dozens of equally pissed-off Aberrants on their way. Doubly so when she heard a shrieking whine, a lance of ultra pressurized ink that tore through the roof of the barracks, needling sizable holes into the sheet metal ceiling.

Time was running out.

For her, at least. Apparently, the Shower had all the time in the world - enough to replace its missile pods with a fucking sniper rifle.

Distant Aberrant shouting confirmed her newfound suspicions. They were already here. Great. Fucking GREAT.

She risked looking out the door she came in through, hoping to catch a glimpse of what she might be up against. Color Emily surprised, then, when instead of heavily armed and armored elite soldiers, she was met with the sight of disorganized engineer types carrying all manner of small gadgets and boxes.

Instead of pushing their advantage, these 'reinforcements' were just support crew for the Shower. Non-combatants, there to just switch out the Shower's weapons and fix it if it breaks. Judging from how quickly the great machine switched out its arsenal, it must've had proper hands or some other form of quick-release modular attachment system. It could repair itself, theoretically. All the support crew had to do was bring up what it needed, and then fucking bolt.

Honestly? Not a bad strategy.

Emily could slaughter Aberrants all day, with their weak body armor and her nigh-limitless supply of Kamabo pistol cartridges. Taking down the Shower, though? Not so much. Now, the machine was all but impervious to counter-attack, and it took full advantage of that fact, hovering at a safe distance above the barracks. Such a tactic would have been suicidal without the AG shielding, but with it?

The weapons platform could rain destruction down upon her, and when it rains, it pours.

Each shot was accompanied by a terrifying crack as the ultra-pressurized fluid tore through the air; liquid it may have been, but the sheer velocity simply made it lethal.

Thwi-Crack!

Emily flinched, nearly tripping as the shot punched a hole through the linoleum floor, mere inches away from her feet. The Shower wasn't an accurate shot, but soon enough, one of those bullets would hit. She knew the Aberrants had the technology to make those pressure type weapons, but to this extent?

She would have liked to say it was annoying (pressure weaponry had been a novelty back in her time), but in the moment, it was terrifying to go against such scaled up weaponry. She should have been used to the threat of death by now, but no, she was still scared.

"Keep them occupied while I disable the power. You can do this, Hawthorne."

Yeah, sure she could.

"No promises, just be quick about it."

In theory, until Daedalus disabled the Shower's shield, all she had to do was wait, and of course, stay alive. In practice, however, she found herself going mad.

Sure, 'stay alive' was a simple goal, and only required the bare minimum from her, but even that was becoming Sisyphean in scope. It wasn't even the physical aspect; she was still doing relatively well, all things considered. She felt like shit, had very little sleep, and was still coping with the extinction of humanity and all, but she was still in fighting shape.

She could do this.

All she had to do was not die.

The Shower moved away from the barracks, deciding to ease off its hole-punching escapades for a brief moment. From her position, she wasn't sure what it was doing - maybe it was rearming, or finding a better angle - but for a moment, there was peace and quiet.

Too quiet, honestly.

As much as she hated Daedalus, there had been some comfort in having someone to talk to (or more accurately, a voice talking at her). She was sounding like her Grandma now, honestly, but it was true! She had been alone for the better part of a month, and…

Why the hell did she miss him?

As she dragged herself back to her feet, she was waiting for a quippy response, or even some thought, but was only met with silence.

She was alone again, and the pressure was unbearable.

But, you know what other pressure was unbearable? And unlike her mental stress, actually tangible?

A rising shriek tore the air as the Shower's pressure rifle screamed back into being, the spotlight eyes falling onto her once more through the damaged barracks. Emily yelped, dancing away. In doing so, however…

She hadn't seen it earlier, no thanks to trying to run away and all, but with a better view of the Shower as it readied it's rifle… Yeah. That's something.

Emily almost laughed at the absurdity of it. Of course, AG shielding's greatest defense was its greatest weakness. She didn't even need Daedalus to deal with this thing.

How were you supposed to get anything out of the shield? If she remembered her gravity science bullshit correctly, anything that crossed into that bubble of pure gravitational fuckery was either shunted away from it or squashed and distorted by all manner of forces in all sorts of directions.

Every time the Shower brought the rifle to bear, she saw the shield flicker and fade for a brief moment. This was it. This was how that damn machine was going to die.

It had to drop the shield to shoot. All she has to do is bait it into firing, and drill a good clean pistol shot into it.

Now…

How the fuck was she going to pull that off?


Oh, Octarian society and its many 'constants.'

Cod, how Tamarin hated those. Constants, and squidbrained morons who couldn't shut the shell up about them.

(Granted, in this case she'd end up hating herself, but she's got other reasons to do that right now.)

For what it was worth, the only constant they had to worry about right now was the ever-present Door Control Problem - if a door existed, used any sort of hydraulics or motors or really any electronic systems to open, close, or lock, the necessary buttons and keypads and such would never work as intended.

There was a whole spectrum of fuckery involved, from keypads rejecting correct codes to ancient maglock doors eating decorative metal piercings for chow time, to…

Well, this current problem wasn't exactly on that spectrum, the more Tamarin thought about it.

Most of today wasn't, actually.

Heavily armored strangers with high-powered weaponry Tamarin had never even heard of, let alone conceptualized, was definitely not a constant of Octarian society.

That, and the keypad on the main Dome exit door displaying FUCK OFF WE'RE BUSY instead of the usual 'enter code' prompt.

She was…

Ohhh, she was pissed. Terrified, too.

There was a team up there, who she'd just managed to send up and out of the Dome before the door decided to go on strike.

None of them were armed, and were instead lugging an Octo Shower-sized charger as well as all manner of necessary quick-support equipment up to the warzone above, to give the Shower a greater fighting chance against the intruder. Judging from the continued shaking and distant noises of battle, they'd done enough of their job.

All they had to do was to get up there, drop everything off for the Shower to take, and then get back down here as fast as possible.

Then, the doors sealed shut, becoming utterly unresponsive.

This was the intruder's doing, no doubt about it. Tamarin saw how electronics went on the fritz as it moved. How the surface facility's Respawner shut itself off in a spray of sparks and overloading electronics.

If the intruder's influence was down here…

…Tamarin might've sent that crew to their certain deaths. Just like the others, back there on the surface.

They're-

"Ma'am? Someone's on comms. They're asking for you." Timaetrius suddenly said as he looked up from the radio she'd had him keep an ear out for.

Squit. That's right. She'd put the barely-functional survivors of the attack to work down here in support roles. The team of hangar survivors who'd gone back up to ferry the Octo Shower new weapons, the former outer fence guards pulling shaky security on the doors, Tim on comms duty after his nasty fall…

"Any ID?" she replied, shaken from her stupor by work that needed to be done.

"Uhh, wait one." the concussed Octoling said, muttering into the comms set. She couldn't hear the response, but it was short, concise. Professional.

Then, he spoke. "I-It's the Council. Council's on the line for you, ma'am."

Oh, shell.

If the coddamned Octarian Council themselves wanted to speak with her, she must've really fucked up.

(Tamarin couldn't hear the Shower anymore. She'd gotten used to a distant din of rumbling and screeching, and now she couldn't hear it. Why was that?)

"Put them on, Tim." she said, motioning for the communicator. "Lead Engineer Tamarin here. Send it."

"Commandant Tamarin, of SDI-052. The Council has been made aware of your situation." a gruff voice intoned.

Of course they have. Word traveled quickly down here.

"You and surviving members of your unit are hereby relieved of duty at SDI-052. Takozonesu reinforcements are on route to take your place."

More Elites. The best of the best, in this case. The former ruler's personal unit. If they were sending them, the situation upstairs must've rapidly gone downhill.

If anything, she'd take being court-martialed by the Council over dying to the intruder.

"This is not a dismissal, Commandant." the Councilman intoned before she could acknowledge his last. "You are being reassigned. Once our forces have arrived to secure SDI-052, you and your unit will take their route to Doma Priwa. To us."

None of her unit - herself included - had ever been to the Octarian capitol Dome, let alone even interacted with the Council beyond the annual addresses to all members of the Octarian military. Now the Council wants her and her unit to come to them? Personally?

Her backwater unit of misfits and outcasts, brought to coddamn Doma Priwa itself. The first Dome, the largest of them all. The center of everything.

"...may I ask what'll become of us, sir?" she said, feeling very small all of a sudden.

"Classified. You and your unit will be briefed in person."

"U-Understood."

"Good. Rally your fighters and stay alive. Reinforcements are minutes away. Good luck. Out." With that, the line went dead.

The Council was reassigning them. They weren't being saved from this. No cushy back-line jobs working simple logistics, this was going to be proper work.

She knew what had happened to Octarian fighters who got these types of orders, especially during Octavio's reign, before the Council and their rapid modernization. Nobody came back themselves, if they came back at all.

Shell, they were sending some of those poor Octolings her way right now. Takozonesu. The strongest and most mentally unstable of them all.

Coupled with the rumblings in Octarian society of a certain secondary Stranger problem…

Tamarin stood stock still, blankly staring at the handset, Tim looking on with a concerned eye. With a sigh, she handed the bulky device off to him, and steeled herself for what was to come.

Oh, we're so screwed.


The Shower howled in frustration, only now realizing that its 'hands' no longer existed, reduced to molten slag in the face of the human's onslaught..

Emily felt like a million fucking dollars right now, that was for sure.

Her plan came together, almost too perfectly.

She didn't know the full extent of her new weapon's capabilities just yet, especially during the initial fights where one Aberrant would disintegrate, while the other would pop, and so on. However, it finally clicked, sort of.

Light trigger pulls fire a lower powered shot, that doesn't explode or disintegrate. More forceful pulls meant more forceful shots, which took more battery but could disintegrate her opponents.

Hold the trigger down like her old pistol, and things got interesting.

It'd need calibrating later, considering disintegrations were kind of overkill, but that was for later.

Now, it was time to put that nifty little feature to good use.

A well-placed overcharged shot connected with the Shower's lower arms, as it tried to line up a shot on her with that stupid rifle it loved so much. With the shielding disabled to allow for the shot to go through, it had also left the massive war machine open to the unmatched power of the Sun.

With a tremendous BANG, the entire lower half of the Shower went up in flames, molten slag and bits of metal flying absolutely everywhere.

The backlash from the exploded weapon had also severed its prehensile arms, leaving it a useless paraplegic. For a brief moment, Emily felt a hot flash of triumph, one that brought searing blood to her face. She had disabled the fucker, and without that fucking AI-

Only then did the Octo Shower convulse, an ungodly torrent of steam pouring out of every crack in its construct. The spotlights for eyes flashed a demonic red, an overwhelming, whistling shriek emanating from it.

Emily froze; even though the thing had been thoroughly defanged, it was still an incredibly intimidating sight. Just as quickly as the fear came, it left, leaving her with a feeling of raw catharsis, because holy shit that shot was beautiful. She knew how to kill it. If it didn't call it here, she'd do it for the damn machine.

"It's over, you piece of shit! Give it up!"

In defiance, the Octo Shower, true to its namesake, erupted into a boiling rainstorm of technicolor ink, one that erupted from all manner of holes in its underside. It let out another shriek, flying right over her, staying on top of her. Thankfully, she must have damaged its boiler unit, as while the ink was still steaming, her armor held off the worst of the heat.

"That isn't working, you moron! Get that through your little shitty AI algorithm! Wah wah wah, that's you! Stop crying, bitch! I don't wanna fuckin' hear-!"

The rainstorm stopped, groaning metal coming to heel as she heard its primary AG propulsion field power down. Right on top of her.

Oh fffffffffffffucking CHRIST it's smart-!

Emily dove to the side, just barely missing becoming one with the pavement as the multi-ton construct slammed itself down on top of where she used to be. It made a freakish cacophony of noise on contact, like a cinder block being thrown into a blender and a washing machine at the same time. As the Shower lifted itself back into the air, she saw the pavement under it had been reduced to a fine dust, ground down to its constituent molecules by the AG shield.

Right, that shield could still spaghettify her. And oh! Hello again, objective fear and terror, welcome back! She didn't fucking miss that! No ma'am!

With another ear piercing screech, the Shower charged at her again, clearly attempting to crush her again. Emily danced out of the way easily enough, but she could feel her teeth and bones chattering from standing too close to the AG shield. That damn shielding…

Experimentally, she fired another shot, and like the others, it fizzled out. With no weapons of its own left to fire, the shield became impenetrable once more. So much for making things easier.

It tried to ram her again, and Emily siddled out of the way. A game of cat and mouse.

That was the crux of the matter here, and it'd always be - the shield, the fucking shield, the bane of her existence. She had removed its weapons, yet had turned it into a battering ram instead.

Great.

Fucking. Great.

It came for another charge, screaming all the way, and…

CRASH!

…completely whiffed it. She didn't even need to dodge.

As it firmly embedded itself into whatever mystery military structure it'd decided to make its new home in, she noticed yet another potential weakness.

Despite the mind bending AG shielding, everything within the construct had to work within the laws laid down by reality, and as such, it was breaking down.

From what she remembered of the theoretical design of the shield, they were defensive, first and foremost. It was less blocking projectiles, and more shoving projectiles and objects away, or if that failed, blunting the kinetic force and throwing off their trajectory. It worked well enough, but could only push away so much before the mass was too great.

Such as, hypothetically, slamming an AG shield into the ground; the kinetic force would transfer straight into the wielder. Alternatively, slamming into particularly reinforced buildings, like the hangar…

Purely defensive.

Sometimes, the best defense isn't a good offense. In this case, the best defense was not slamming God-knows-how-many tons of dubiously structurally sound war machines into buildings.

Emily had a strong feeling the construct didn't know this, and the continued damage only had to be enraging it more. A self-inflicted feedback loop of rage and hatred, combined with whatever internals the machine had becoming progressively more and more like e-waste than actual machine components with each hit.

As she expected, the Shower was throwing itself into hysterics, sheer rage overriding any sense of self-preservation; it wanted her dead, and it had the means to do so.

The more she thought about it, though, maybe it wasn't a machine, entirely. Whatever the case, this thing was definitely being piloted by something organic; this type of hysterical "tactic" was usually anathema to AI (Daedalus nonwithstanding), and she didn't really think the Aberrants would willingly program 'freak the fuck out and slam into random buildings' as a strategic maneuver.

A good thing for her, yes, but it didn't feel like it.

Another dodge, this time to the side as the Shower crashed spotlight eyes first into the pavement, cracking one and leaving the other sparking.

Wait. Where was the shield? Did Daedalus…?

"Hawthorne, the shield's down! Board it now, and finish it off!" Right on cue.

"Uh, right!"

While downed, the Shower itself was still active, if utterly immobilized. It howled and shrieked and snarled, but otherwise could do nothing as Emily approached, and soon gained a foothold on its chassis.

"There, on top! Shoot the latch!"

Doing so popped open a conveniently placed hatch, seemingly spring-loaded. Some kind of quick-escape trick?

Under the hatch was a mess of machinery and circuitry, all incredibly cramped and pushed around a large capsule, of which a large, octopus tentacle writhed. Oh. Oh, is that…

"Behold, the pilot!" Daedalus said, the familiar psychotic edge returning to his voice. "A genetic abomination, bred for war and nothing more."

"Yeah, yeah. Kill this and the Shower dies?"

"PUT IT THE FUCK DOWN. NOW."

Didn't need to tell her twice.

Rolling her eyes, Emily reached down into the tank with her fish hook, skewering the tentacle with a careful, well placed strike. It flipped and wriggled pathetically, but shriveled in on itself soon after. Potentially the first time it had been used for what it had been intended for, in all honesty. It was a funny thought to her exhausted body, enough to get a chuckle out of her.

"These biological 'pilots' do not compare to proper machine intelligence. Weak, easy to enrage and distract, and ultimately wildly inefficient. NEWS FLASH, BITCH! ORGANICS ARE SOOOOO LAST MILLENIA. GET WITH THE TIMES!"

Great, the machine was getting uppity again. She didn't miss this.

"And who's done the heavy lifting for you?" she muttered. "Can't get with the times just yet, machine."

Daedalus emitted an amorphous, displeasured beep.

"That will be resolved, in time. However, your services are still very much necessary. You can continue by reaching into the tank, and withdrawing the Shower's power source."

"I-in the tank?"

"SAVE YOUR QUESTIONS FOR THE END OF CLASS, MISSY!"

"Christ, alright. I'll get your stupid power source. What am I lookin' for, in here?"

The dead tentacle had dissolved rapidly, re-incorporated into the purple, hazy ink that made up the suspension of the tank. Despite this, Emily could spy something moving, making ripples on the surface.

"The source of those ripples. Grab that."

"Are you-"

"Just do it!"

She lunged her hands into the soup, managing to grasp something wriggly, slippery, and fat. Suffice to say, when she pulled out a bright yellow, chubby fish, she was surprised.

"...the fuck is this?"

"The power source."

It's a fish. A stupid looking fish.

"I am aware." Whoops, she said that out loud. "It generates excessive electricity through anomalous means, presumably noospheric in origin-"

"How the hell is this supposed to get us anywhere, Daedalus?"

"The power output of that singular fish was enough to power the Shower and its primary AG drive. You have seen the Shower's capabilities, correct?"

…forget it. Whatever worked, at this point. She just wanted out of here.

"Bring the fish to the hangar, past where the Shower used to lay. A vehicle is prepped and ready for us in the back. We'll use the fish to fly us out of here. NEVER THOUGHT I'D SAY THOSE WORDS, HUH? WHAT A FUCKIN' WONDERFUL WORLD WE NOW LIVE IN!"

I hate this fuckin' wonderful world I now live in.

With a huff, she took off for the hangar, limping towards the partially wrecked structure. She really hoped Daedalus' chosen UFO was still there, and that the machine was not bullshitting her-

"I'D HURRY MY PRETTY LITTLE ASS ALONG EMMY, 'CAUSE GUESS WHO'S BACK? BACK IN BLACK?"

The warbly shouts of Aberrant reinforcements echoed across the base, and Emily could see dark figures climbing out of buildings behind her. Lasers and night vision lenses glimmered in the dark, heavy footfalls and clanking armor making themselves the latest entry in the soundtrack of her wack-ass evening.

Oh, hell.

Her time was up.


Tamarin didn't know why they'd made her come with.

Maybe the Council sent special instructions to make an example out of this to her, or… Cod. Something. She didn't know. She was too tired to care. But, good soldiers follow orders, and here Tamarin was.

She was now embedded with the Takozonesu shock troopers the Council sent, separated from her unit to go up onto the front lines with soldiers far more skilled - and far more broken - than her. They'd barely spoken to her, instead calling out to each other in speech so stilted it could almost be another language entirely.

"Scalpel One, vis-con: modded Octoweapon. Status: nullified." one said, looking at the shredded remains of Tamarin's former pride and joy.

Of course, the intruder did the damn thing in. What else did she expect, at this point? Though, she was still rather upset to see the hard work of her and her team destroyed by one fucking person!

The squat cylindrical machine sat in a puddle of its own ink, mixed in with powderized pavement and all manner of debris from all manner of sources. Holes were gouged through almost every building, the machine no doubt having gone on a total rampage up here.

What a squitshow.

"Suture Four, positive survivors. Positive unit cohesion." another Takozonesu muttered from elsewhere in the building they were in.

Tamarin allowed herself a bit of joy at knowing her support crew was still alive, at least. She couldn't get to them from where she was, her path blocked by the bulky armor and equally bulky weaponry of the Council's elite fighters, but she could hear their voices.

None of them seemed to be hurt, thankfully. Small victories.

WHHIIIIRRRRRRRRR-

"Scalpel Three, vis-con hostile Ancestor! Prosecuting!"

"Suture Two, go sharp! Go sharp!"

So much for small victories, actually.

A flurry of activity and Takozonesu callouts assaulted her muddled senses.

Gunfire and explosions. Noise. All she could do was hide. Just like she did when it all first came crashing down.

Distantly, she registered being pulled away, brought into the company of her own, away from the mayhem outside. Sheltering hands, reassuring words. She could barely hear them.

"Suture One, Ancestor's moving on flier! Shut it down!"

And now, the intruder was going to get away. They found the platforms, the UFOs. They'd single handedly final-deathed half her unit, brought down her Great Octoweapon, and now they were going to continue their work elsewhere.

More people were going to die.

Tamarin could've stopped this. She could've been better. Her machine could've been stronger. Her unit could've been better trained.

Why was she getting up?

There was a rifle an Octoshot in her hands.

Screams in the distance. Callouts, gunfire. The howling of gravitic drives.

The world felt different. She didn't feel like herself.

Who was she fighting? Why was the sky-

SMACK!

Oh. There was reality again.

The shell was that?

Tamarin was outside, Octoshot in hand, one of her engineers in front of her looking absolutely squit-scared. The stinging on her cheek said enough.

"I don't know what the hell you're doing, but we need to go. Now!" the Octoling hysterically yelped, dragging her back into the safety of the smashed barracks they were taking cover in.

Just then, the fighting outside reached a fever pitch, as Tamarin's worst nightmare came true.

A platform-craft hovered free of the hangar, the distinct shape of the intruder standing atop it like some demonic seahorse rider from the old books.

Takozonesu surrounded it where they could, doing their best to stop the machine's advance. Despite their efforts, Octarian engineering always won out over Octarian warfighting - even the greatest Octoling fighter and their strongest charger or shooter could never hope to dent even the weakest Octarian combat vehicle.

This was an advantage they'd held over Inkopolis and the Inklings for the longest time. Here it was, then, being used against them.

What was the term again?

Karma. That was it. This was karma.

All Tamarin could do was watch, as the rider of the great metallic platform laughed, a sick, guttural sound muffled by the mask she knew they wore.

A second voice joined it, digital and distorted. One that spoke in their language.

"SO LONG, SUCKERS! THANKS FOR THE RIIIIIIIIDE!"

With that, the platform-craft made itself scarce, the hijackers maniacally laughing all the way into the sunrise.

There was nothing they could do now.

All that was left to do was to go back down, back into the Domes. Leave the Takozonesu to their work, and bring herself and her unit into the care of the Council.

"Scalpel Five, reporting." a Takozonesu soldier said, clunking towards her in the heavy armor they all wore. Dim eyes bored into her soul, not a muscle twitching in the soldier's stern face. "The Council repeats the request for your presence. Scalpel Five has been assigned to escort you. Follow."

With that, they were off, marching back towards the Dome entrance like Tamarin and her survivors weren't even there.

There was no choice but to follow.

Onward, she thought. To whatever hellish fate awaits for us.


Hell was real. Agent Three knew this very well.

And here she was, standing on the edge of it, wearing casual clothes and a nice comfy pair of sneakers. Not a shooter in sight, or even a flashlight.

It'd been a few days since she was last down here, seeing off Agent Four on her sight-seeing journey into the nightmare dimension they all called the Metro. She'd expected the trip to only take a day or two, but then, well.

A lot of things happened, in short.

The Stranger from the Dome was down there in the Metro, then Eight texted out of the blue to say 'holy fuck, he's escaped' driving everybody in the NSS's paranoia to new and absurd levels.

The Statue, the only major entrance into the Metro other than this station and however the Stranger got there, then proceeded to explode. Blow up, if one would. Absolutely detonate.

And now, time dilation!

Agent Four was supposed to be back already, but a certain series of previously described unfortunate events tripped a bunch of safety measures Three knew the Metro had. Whatever the humans thought when building the place, they evidently thought of some wild squit going down; if the Metro's existence was threatened in any major way, weird anomalous systems would kick in to basically segregate the Metro from reality.

How this worked, Three had no fuckin' clue. All she knew was the basics, and the ensuing effect it had on the world relative to Inkopolis.

Four had spent a day's trip frolicking around in the Metro, having a grand old time, while three days passed on the surface. Poor girl probably didn't even know what the shell was going on, if her texts were anything to go by.

Well. If anything good came out of this, she was able to tell Four to GTFO before things got any worse, which leads to now.

Three's been standing here for a few hours now, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Four's train. The Metro only ran one train for some absurd reason, so it was just a case of waiting for it to show up, then a case of praying Four was on it, so Three could physically yank her off it and get out of here.

This was easier said than experienced. A wait Three thought would only take maybe 15 minutes has now spiraled into about 4 hours of doomscrolling Squiddit and reading random threads until something happened.

A few caught her eye, admittedly - there was one about a missing girl, the one Four mentioned meeting. Something about her being reported by the family as 'alive and well,' despite Four very clearly specifying the girl was with the Dome Stranger in the fucking METRO.

Combined with Eight's sudden text of 'the Stranger has left the Metro,' Three's nerves were utterly shot.

The Stranger had seemingly done two things - one good, one bad.

Good thing: he returned the missing girl to her family alive and well, and has probably collected the reward and fucked off to go figure out what to do with it.

Bad thing: he might've committed a massive terrorist act by blowing up the Statue.

Yin and yang, or whatever the concept was. The human would totally give candy to a crying baby, then immediately turn around and frag a top-level politician or something.

No wonder Agent Two wanted to get Four out of the Metro ASAP.

HOOOOOOOOOONK!

Speak of the sea devil, and she will come.

Three jumped to her feet, right as the Metro train barreled into the station. It ground to a halt, almost seemingly in a hurry.

Without further delay, the doors flew open, a frazzled looking Agent Four tumbling out.

"What the shell is going on, Avanna?!" Ooh, real names. Squit's gotten real if these were coming out.

"Long story, Alyssa. Come on, we've gotta go. Walk and talk." she said, motioning for the shorter Agent to follow.

Before Four could start, Three immediately launched into her impromptu briefing.

"Alright. Eight texted, I'm sure you saw- " a nod from Four, good " -and you know what that said."

"I-I didn't think she was still around?"

"Me neither. Good thing she is, though. Apparently the Stranger took his Inkling friend with him. Found a news article saying one Sally Ashens was found alive and well, and returned to her family safely."

"Oh."

"'Oh' indeed. Next problem: the Statue's gone. Blew up in the harbor the morning of the Stranger leaving the Metro."

Four gawked incredulously, sputtering a little. Three marched onward.

"No idea who did it, but I do know it caused some time fuckery down there. Safety measures the Metro's builders put in, for whatever reason. Your single-day adventure actually took three days up here. Welcome to the future, Four. Now don't think about that too hard or you'll pop an ink vessel."

The other girl sputtered, stammering all manner of noises until a nearly coherent one came out. "Wh-"

Three immediately cut her off. "We're going topside ASAP. Cal and Marie are with Cap'n, waiting on us. This Stranger business is getting real way too quick, and we've gotta be ready-"

Ping!

"Who the shell would be-"

Wait. She only had message sounds on for one person in the NSS group chat. Anybody else just called or met her in person to talk, but only one messaged.

windows eight - Today at 2:21am

Two Strangers confirmed

Airbase in Octo Valley got hit hard overnight, one Stranger brought down an Octo Shower and took a platform-craft

Not the Stranger that's in Inkopolis right now, have no further info on him

Will keep you all posted

Three paled.

Ohhhhhhhh.

Squit.

The Stranger at the Dome bringing down the Octostomp was one thing, but another Stranger willingly going into an Octarian airbase and not only destroying an Octoweapon, but hijacking one of their UFOs?!

Wait. The Cap'n. Was he…?

Two - Today at 2:23am

Understood. The Captain and One are alright. Our initial plan didn't work out.

Found the Captain at his favorite bingo hall instead of his Valley hideout.

Four, Three, change of plans: meet at my place. You know where.

Eight, keep us posted whenever you can.

"Three?" Four said, shaking her from her stupor.

"- SHIT - Right." she yelped, briefly lapsing into her Metro-speak for a second. "Eight texted. Valley got hit. Cap's alright. We're going to Marie's, now!"

Without a further word, Three all but ran up the stairs, Four left to continue her stammering before finally realizing the older Agent wasn't going to wait for her.

Silently, she thanked whatever sea gods were out there for blessing her with a fixed up leg for this, as the two of them made the trek back to the surface in record time. An empty Square greeted them, not even a single punk or college kid out this late.

They'd have to make the rest of the walk on foot, but Three knew her shortcuts, and she knew them well.

As they ran and leapt across fences, empty streets, and dark alleys, all she could think about was how wild these past two weeks had been.

The worst the NSS had to put up with before now was just the occasional Octarian thinking they were worth something.

Now, it was two Strangers.

One in this very city, the other rampaging through Octarian territory in stolen hardware.

Squit, when did things get this out of hand?


Falk here. Been a while.

Chapter production's been pretty hairy lately. I'll tell ya - this one's been 3, maybe 4 months in the making?

Life has massively gotten in the way, for all of us here on THE POLARIS PROJECT's "team." Do we call ourselves a team? Are we going to be that professional?

Anyway, most of the work done on 25 was done over the course of two days, though. It's December 7th, at about 6 in the morning, and I've just more or less 'finished' the chapter for Piston. He has finals, I don't, so I'm taking advantage of that.

Who knew writing boss fights was this difficult? We sure as hell didn't.

Luckily, you're seeing this, which means we got this done.

Speaking of getting shit done:

First up, we have a cohesive plan for chapters all the way up to at least chapter 33. It's not a whole overarching plan yet, but it's got at least the next few chapters (including this one) in it. THE POLARIS PROJECT has historically been a total improv job, so a proper plan doc has been a loooong time coming.

Next up, the Discord server got revamped. If you don't care about Discord, you are a socially well-adjusted human being and you should feel good about yourself. For those of you who do care about Discord, I feel really bad for you, but you're also a key source of feedback and social interaction, so we're shilling our Discord server more now that we've made it usable again.

It's got a forum channel for your blorbos to go in, role colors so you can feel all customized, at least 5 people wasting money to inflate the sticker and emote count for all of us to abuse, and some other stuff, I guess.

JOIN ▸ /invite/qCMxkGzzBg

Finally, a milestone we may as well mention - we've crossed past the halfway mark of THE POLARIS PROJECT's plot. Granted, the plot may vary anywhere from 40-55 chapters in total, so the halfway point could've been either 5 chapters ago or coming up very soon. 25 is a nice number, though, so I'll consider this a halfway point.

Shit's going to get realer and realer, as it always does. It'll take a while, but we'll hopefully get this fic done.

These things take time, and all we'll ask is that you're cool with that.

Take care.

[Piston A/N]

I don't have too much to say, Falk covered most of it, but I'd like to apologize for how long it took to get this out. This particular college semester has been grueling, and left me with barely any energy to write, not to mention this chapter being an absolute nightmare to develop due to unforeseen difficulties with the structure and pacing. Which, I suppose I should explain quickly, all of you deserve an explanation considering how long we left you hanging.

The Octo Shower fight was one we were planning for a long while, and something I knew I wanted in the story ever since I started writing it. I remember specifically back in June talking over it with some of my editors back when we met in person, and it is a sublime schadenfreude to finally see this all come together. We got a basic plan written out, then got down to working on it, only to see there were many cracks in our methodology, ones we hadn't seen.

Pacing was a big issue; as it turns out, extended fights don't translate well into writing, as it tends to dissolve into a whole bunch of filler that boils down to "the shower did an attack, and then Emily dodged, trying to figure out how to beat it", so on and so forth. The Octo Stomp fight, meanwhile, was able to keep it condensed to the more critical points, and dealt with the pacing issues brought forth by that with the other PoVs that broke it up. That's partially why we added the scenes with Tamarin in this, and it worked rather well.

Another issue was the balance of power as well. The AG shielding of the shower was meant to keep Emily from just shooting it to death, but then we had to figure out how she could get around the shielding without Daedalus just disabling it, and it kinda started falling apart from there.

Maybe this chapter was a little contrived, but the end product should be pretty good, I think. Overall, this chapter was a good learning experience, even if it did hand us our collective asses on a platter. If you're looking for a full breakdown of it, feel free to join the Discord and ask! It's a topic I can't really fit into an AN, but something that does need to be accounted for.

As for the next chapter, I'm not sure when we can get it written, though hopefully, next semester should be better, though I can't promise anything as it could potentially spiral out of control.

But enough of that, thank you for reading, and see you next time!