Jaunt 1 – Chapter 1

September 2nd, 2000, 7am:

Los Angeles.

I wake up still with a burning chest, the nanobiotics have been hard at work over the nights while I've slept. Luckily the Medi Gel and Stimpak took a lot of the workload off them and allowed them to concentrate on my vital organs.

Bad news. Kidneys gone. They broke it down in the first night here. Too far gone to regenerate properly so they've broken it down and started fresh. My left kidney is now basically the equivalent of a 2-year-olds. Tinker of Theseus, here we come!

Good news is the lung is retrievable. Though it will be slow going especially if I move a lot. The nanobiotics have been instructed to concentrate on this to the exclusion of anything else non-critical. My cybernetics are also in surprisingly good shape. The rib and torso muscle enhancements and reinforcements have some tears where I got impaled, but they're still functional. They'll function until I can get back to the workshop or get something set up here at least.

I'm still not exactly sure where I am, dimension wise. The Key seems to be charging based off the same principles as point gain meaning I need to stay interesting. Much harder without access to a workshop or resources but I make do with what I have. I've been spending my days micro-enchanting my clothes and weapons. And trawling the internet of course.

This is still back in the wild west of the internet. Unsecured networks protected by the barest of firewalls, barely any air gapping. A hackers paradise. I have legitimate ID, a decent chunk of cash in a bank account that shouldn't exist. And a key that's charging at roughly the speed of a quadriplegic sloth.

My research into the situation of the world I'm now in has paid dividends, however. This world is much more similar to my own original world than to Bet. But for one major difference.

Christmas Day, New York. An opera house is turned into a charnel house via the spontaneous combustion of the entire audience. Except for two women. The singer, and a member of the audience.

Over the following days a ramping series of apparent "monster" attacks culminates in an all-out attack on the NYPD's 17th precinct.

The day after, an entire US naval battlegroup is deployed off the coast of New York. The US Navy mysteriously loses multiple jets.

On December 29th an explosion on Liberty Island ends most of the attacks in the city, the survivor is none other than the audience survivor from the opera combustion. The Statue of Liberty falls over.

Information is…sparse on what is now called the "New York Blockade Incident". But for the name of the survivor, one Aya Brea. Now apparently no longer a police officer but instead a member of a special arm of the FBI. MIST.

Mitochondrion Investigation and Suppression Team.

It turns out the divergence point for this world is…pretty far back.

Back at the formation of the cellular structure that makes up life.

 The cellular mitochondria are very different here. In fact, so different that I am literally the only member of my species on the planet.

Humanity here is different, at the very base level. The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. This much is true for both me and the humans here. Mitochondria are responsible for producing the ATP that powers the body's cells, with different cells having different amounts of Mitochondria.

However, the cellular mitochondria here is, Alien. Literally alien, it's structure not remotely similar to my own. My mitochondria are (comparatively) simple biological reactors producing ATP. The people in this worlds mitochondria are complex symbiotic organisms, capable of generating ATP, manipulating bioelectricity, creating fire. Even generating plasma. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Though most of the capability lies dormant until awakened.

I've taken many, many samples. Stolen hairbrushes, surreptitious cuts. You name it.

Unethical? Absolutely. But I have a wild space god to kill, Im taking the advantages where I can.

The weird thing is, while the mitochondria and the human are capable of working together, they don't seem to do so by default. The only reason I know what I know is because of scattered reports from the New York incident regarding the hero Aya Brea, and the villain of our piece. Eve.

I also had EFA hack the FBI. And the work of a man called Maeda is startling. The notes from a Dr Klamp, while the work of an absolute madman are also fascinating.

It turns out the mitochondria have an embedded consciousness of their own. And awakening that consciousness can have some rather… jarring effects. In the case of Aya Brea, she achieved perfect symbiosis with her Mitochondria and became superhuman, awakening the naturally suppressed power of the mitochondria within her. In the case of Melissa Pearce, the Opera Singer, immunosuppressants she was taking caused her to be subsumed by the Mitochondria which then worked to raise an "Ultimate Being" assisted by Dr Klamp.

Turns out, she had the Kidney of Aya Brea's sister inside her after Maya Brea's death. Klamp's notes are a genuine horror story of medical malpractice.

The guy was a nutjob, but his work on this 'mitochondrial eve' is unparalleled. He's working with concepts novel even to me. The closest I've come to this work is funnily enough when I made the enhanced nanobiotics for the staff. Some of the mitochondrial edits I made are in this direction.

Klamp's and Maeda's work combined with the unique mitochondrial structures here have certainly given me some interesting ideas to work on with the nanobiotics for sure. The more *read only* nanobiotics from the Medi Gel that have till now been a little beyond my ability could also be opened up to me by researching in this direction. This tiny area of mitochondrial interaction is even beyond work that the Alliance performed in Mass Effect. An unusually well-developed area of science compared to everything around it. My personal theory being the collective consciousness of the mitochondria has pushed human science towards this particular area of development on this earth.

I'll need to be careful however if I decide to work on these concepts, because the consequences of messing around with awakened mitochondria are severe.

Animals and Humans subjected to an unstable awakening transform into monsters. Insane monsters with incredible strength, some of them even gaining pseudo parahuman powers. And many of them gain a hunger for human flesh. This would obviously not endear me to the PRT, however if I can get this working in a safe and effective manner for regular humans. Well, Cauldron won't be the only ones with superpowers in a can.

Moving back to the situation at hand.

After the blockade incident, the monsters spread west from New York, causing the formation of various bounty hunting agencies. These agencies are empowered to hunt down the monsters and receive bounties for doing so. MIST is one such agency, empowered by the US government to bounty hunt these "Neo-Mitochondrial Creatures" at any cost.

I've decided my next step is to register myself as an independent hunter. The known common NMC's aren't much of a threat compared to any Parahuman I've already faced. I can register at any public bounty office. Independent hunters aren't common, but they aren't unheard of either.

I need to get as many scans of NMC's as possible before I leave. This seems like the expedient way to get there.

I'm currently living in a long stay motel on the edge of the L.A. downtown, so I've got a bit of a trip ahead of me.

Catching a taxi in a relatively normal US city, without the constant threat of gangs or parahuman attacks is… a novel experience for me. The ride further downtown could almost be described as pleasant. The grim bearing of most Bet civilians is nowhere to be seen.

Hell, people even smile in public here. It's jarring.

And uncomfortable.

The bounty office is in a generic office high rise. I'm instructed to make my way to the third floor and wait at reception. The signage is simple and functional and before long I am sat in the most boring example of a waiting room you could think of waiting for my name to be called.

"Hale."

Im called into a small side office.

"Mr Hale, nice to meet you, I'm Bob Case, I believe you were interested in registering as an independent NMC hunter with us today?"

"Yes sir, I believe with my skill set I'm well suited to helping hunt them down."

The next half an hour is filled with form filling, release forms, requisition forms for gear I didn't expect, I decide to go for the full gear option.

"Ok Mr Hale, we need a non-refundable $3500 deposit for your BP counter, kill tracker, hunting equipment and initial BP deposit. Please note that BP can only be spent with us and other official hunting organisations under the umbrella of MIST. This is the only time that cash can be traded for BP, going forward BP can only be earned for NMC eliminations."

I didn't expect the cost, however it's not beyond me so I quickly write out a check for the amount specified, which he verifies with a machine nearby.

The machine dings with a green light and he is happy. He instructs me to sit in front of a camera nearby and he takes a picture of me. He then bustles around various pieces of machinery in the office while I wait.

After roughly another 30 minutes, that I spend scanning the various pieces of equipment for future reference, he comes back to me with an ID card, a small black case, and a silver attaché case.

"Ok Mr Hale, here is your official hunter ID card, your BP tracker and monster kill confirmation scanner contact lenses, and your standard issue sidearm and holster, with a few spare mags. You are permitted to use personal equipment however you indicated you wanted the full kit."

I'm thankful for the sidearm to be honest, I could have bought one but this equipment should be of good quality if the game is anything to go off. I have all the identification I need for this registration forged or otherwise registered already luckily.

This contact lenses however, I did not expect. This is a world where my hotel room still has a VCR. There is no sign of tech like this out in the world. And yet in my hands I have two contact lenses, with integrated cameras, scanners albeit very primitive ones, a microcomputer, and an operating system that tracks my kills and records them, along with a database to assign BP or apply for a review if the NMC was unregistered. What even is the tech progression in this world.

"EFA, see about hacking into these after I put them on, see what you can gather from the database and the computer and look into upgrades too. I'm definitely going to be enhancing these when I get home."

"On it boss."

The loading sequence after I put them on is very slow, and Bob seems to be getting impatient.

"Boss, you are going to need to divert some of your nanobiotics to your eyes to keep these lenses working properly, you don't produce anywhere near as much bioelectricity naturally as the people here, which is why this is going so slowly."

Well, that makes a lot of sense. I do as EFA suggests and the lenses boot up near instantly.

I look around in incredulity. The heads-up display is unintrusive, and quite high resolution for the time.

"Impressive aren't they Mr Hale? The latest in biotech from the Ark foundation that helped to fund the US independent monster bounty office. IMBO for short. Provided to all hunters, government or otherwise to track the destruction of those creatures."

Hey good thing this catastrophe didn't happen in Belgium, or Brazil!

"Your account has been credited with 4000BP, spend it wisely as you can only earn more via NMC eradication. Now, let's visit the firing range and the bounty shop. And then our work is almost complete."

"Boss, I've grabbed control of the recording software, and can spoof the cameras at will. You won't be transmitting anything sensitive."

"Thanks, EFA."

We end up in the basement, in a concrete tomb of a firing range.

"Let's see how you handle your weapon Mr Hale; higher score here will add to your bounty rank which will see you more likely to receive hunts of a higher level of danger."

I'm not planning to be here long enough for this to be an issue, but I may as well do my best.

I take out the sidearm I have been provided. It's a basic Beretta 92FS, I'm actually comfortable with this gun from my original life. I've not fired one in a while as using standard firearms as a cape on bet is frowned upon for some reason.

I take the pistol out and check the mags, they aren't loaded but I have a box of 9mm in the case so I quickly load up a few mags and load the pistol.

I'm familiar with firing and loading handguns from a few shooting experiences in my first life, but I'm no expert.

So EFA is going to help me cheat the shit out of this.

"EFA please give me trajectories on every target."

"On it."

I line up at one of the booths, and a buzzer sounds.

Paper targets with monsters and civilians on start dropping from the ceiling and rising from the floor while moving on rails.

"EFA, Monsters only please."

I start firing, the only part I need to concentrate on is the reloading timing, I single shot every target, and it probably looks quite impressive from the outside.

Cheating for the win!

After scoring a perfect score on the firing range, Bob informs me that I've been given the highest starting hunter rank. It's a simple number uploaded into the BP scanner that is used to assign hunts.

Excellent, this should give me a good start to building up the charge to get back home.

Our final stop is the BP store.

It's a gun nuts wet dream. Rifles, Shotguns, every type of gun (Is that a grenade launcher!?). Ammunition and attachments for guns.

I am going to have a lot of fun here.

I end up picking up a custom rail and flashlight attachment for my pistol, a full ammo can labelled "9mm P.B." and a bunch of spare mags. I consider picking up a heavily modified M93R to replace my 92fs, but the three-shot burst and larger mag capacity isn't worth my limited BP at the minute while I already have a weapon in the same caliber.

The portal makes ammo capacity a moot point. I'll be making sure I always have many spare mags in there.

I also pick up a long, thin bladed weapon in an unusually blocky shape that I've never seen before. Like a scaled down buster sword around the size of a machete. And a baton given that mine is currently burnt out and lost in the Brockton docks somewhere. Finally, I grab some batteries and a bunch of junk parts. I'm going to hit up a few hardware stores on the way home and whip up a new stun baton.

Bob walks me out.

"Be seeing you around Mr Hale, we will be in contact on the phone number you have provided when we have a hunt for you."

I make my way to a nearby shopping area for a bite to eat while contemplating this worlds strange tech development. They have contact lens embedded computers, but mobile phones are immensely expensive. So much so that registering with one raised more than a few eyebrows. They have gene editing that wouldn't be out of place in the Imperium, but still mostly use VHS, even though CD's definitely exist. Given that as a logistics specialist in my original life I know that technology development naturally follows the path of convenience, I have no idea how this world has ended up on such a strange and disjointed path.

I end my shipping trip trawling pawn and charity shops picking up miscellaneous broken junk to strip for parts. I also manage to surreptitiously use the matter manipulator to break down more than a few dumpsters for raw materials.

This place is too clean, this is much more lucrative in Brockton where the trash day is on the 32nd day of the 13th month on every other blue moon.

"Boss, I've got a lead on a machining workshop available on a month-to-month rent, not far from your Motel. Probably works better than trying to tinker in the motel. Want me to pick it up?"

"Yes, please do I'm itching to get some proper work done."

I head for the address that EFA specifies, doesn't look like much from outside but looks can be deceiving. Making my way inside, it's a shithole. But it has an old-fashioned CNC milling setup, and there's enough gear for me to get a crucible and anvil set up. My own workshop is probably weeping right now. The omni-tool is a godsend for this, converting raw resources into omni gel and then using the onboard fabricator to shape out crafting stations.

But it will be enough for me to get some basic gear and upgrades made. I can run the maintenance routine on the handgun too backed by my perks I should be able to tweak it to the absolute maximum performance. I obviously have my staff, halo, energy pistol and Jabberwock claw in reserve but using those here in anything other than a dire emergency will open a can of worms I do not want opening without my key being charged. The last thing I need is my face plastered everywhere as the US government makes me no.1 on the "People of interest" list.

There's not a whole lot they can do to me once the key recharges, but it's the principle of it. With the technology of this earth being so lopsidedly developed, you never know what weaponry they could bring to bear against me before I have chance to get back to the workshop.

I spend the next few hours making upgrades to my pistol. It's basically a new gun inside, I've completely upgraded the action and the trigger mechanism, I can fire it much faster now and I've made a custom barrel implementing modern polygonal rifling. I also upgraded the flashlight; you wouldn't want this thing shining in your face put it that way.

It's actually nice to get back to tinkering, even though this is about as low tech as it gets its soothing to my brain.

The final upgrades I make smooth out the ejection of spent casings so the upgraded fire rate doesn't negatively affect the working of the gun.

Finally, a cleaning and oiling routine leaves me with a very well cared for pistol. Nothing compared to previous builds of course, but when in Rome!

I will spend a few days on gear and hacking, see if there's any other interesting technology here and then I will work on exit strategy.

September 4th, 2000, 1pm:

Los Angeles.

I'd like to say the past two days have been wild and eventful. But other than working on my gear, it's been extremely quiet. Some would say perks of a near parahuman free world, but in all honesty I'm bored, and I've not had a forge ping since the initial attempted expansion when I first arrived here. It's likely I need to return home in order to continue expanding my forge.

I've gone ahead and added the tesla effect to my baton, there's no extension capability on this baton. Shock only. I can surreptitiously recharge it from my internal reactors though so no worry about battery capacity. Again, the Omni Tool pulls it's weight and I'm committed to really exploring the tool more once I return home. I know "in game" so to speak it can make turrets and drones and has other effects depending on your class but the one I received was basically a blank slate. Anything I want to make with it that isn't Medi-Gel or Omni-Gel I have to program the schematic myself, or EFA can do it.

Either way, it's capable of much finer work than I have been giving to it, so I'm going to leverage it more. One thing I have noticed though is that things It makes don't actually count as "made by me" in reference to perks that improve quality etc. Therefore, I need to make sure I make tweaks and changes myself after fabrication in order to make the most of it. I'll probably utilise it more to make the pieces that make up gear and then assemble them myself.

It can also project a pretty nice blade so that's another good emergency backup.

Being dropped here without access to my workshop has actually been a godsend in regard to my R&D too. Being forced to be self-reliant for a bit has given me some great ideas for when I return. My Aura reading and magic capacity is also growing from constant use.

I've also spent a lot of time ruminating on the fight with Kaiser and crew. Why the hell did I feel the need to attempt to disarm Kaiser instead of just pulling out the plasma blade and delegging him?

Arrogance, again. Trying to minimise injury. I can dress it up however I like but in attempting to appease the PRT by being a PR friendly hero, I managed to lose a kidney. Sure, it's growing back but it's the principle of it.

Also getting in melee range of a ferrokinetic while wearing METAL ARMOUR was fucking stupid.

EFA has made her thoughts on this clear, and in surround sound.

The next Archangel suit is being made of carbon nonferromagnetic alloys. And being energy shielded. Heavily energy shielded. My new Magitech perk will be doing some work. I've already practiced with it, as my Beretta flashlight can run off pure magic.

My final piece of work is a set of thin, but heavily reinforced flak armour that I can wear under my clothes. It protects my vitals, and my upper arms and legs and should be capable of stopping anything short of a burst of 7.62. Great shock impact dispersion as well. I throw this under a basic white t-shirt, a brown, heavy-duty hooded jacket, and a pair of beige cargo pants. The holster for my beretta holds it under my left arm, and I have spare mags dotted around me. All in all, I'm happy with the level of protection I have for the world I am in. Enchanting the clothes gives me an invisible level of protection that people won't expect and as long as I don't throw myself into a war I should be good.

Heading home in the early afternoon as the sun reaches its zenith, I walk into my motel intent on taking a shower and preparing for a trip out to uptown LA to do some exploration, when EFA forwards a call from my landline.

"Mr Hale, this is the LA Bounty Office dispatch. There has been suspected sightings of an NMC like creature in the upper floors of the Akropolis Tower in downtown LA. Only one report up to now, but as you are noted to be active in the area we would like you to check it out if you are available. Half of the standard hunt BP will be made available if it turns out to be a wild goose chase."

Ugh, well that curtails my plans. Akropolis is pretty well known, it's got some pretty famous restaurants and café's on its highest levels, and even includes a couple of small museums and galleries. It's luckily completely open to the public except for the lower floors that are used for businesses and offices. So at least I'll be able to get some Lunch, possibly even Dinner depending on how long I am looking around. At least I have a small chance of getting a scan of finally getting a scan of an NMC.

"On it Dispatch, I'm free, I will head over and check it out."

Akropolis Tower isn't actually far away. Just a couple of blocks south of me. I throw on my holster and jacket and head out.

I flag down a taxi and arrive at the tower in no time. I make my way inside to the public elevator and start at the lowest public floor. I'll grab some lunch at a café, then I'll make my way around the various boutiques, stores and galleries as if I am a visitor, and do a circular sweep moving up floor by floor. Once I reach the highest floor I will grab some dinner at one of the restaurants and hopefully will have found something by then.

I finish up my lunch, and now time to search.

"EFA, sequential scanning as we move please, don't want to miss anything on our way."

"On it Boss."

What follows is one of the most boring 'patrols' of my admittedly short career as a cape and a bounty hunter. 20 individual floors of walking, and scanning, and pretending to be interested in what I am looking at.

Nothing. Zip, not a sign of anything.

I'm almost at the top floor and I've been walking around this place for 4 hours already.

There's nothing here.

"Boss, there are some very unusual moths in one of the maintenance corridors a floor up."

Ok, there are moths.

"What do you mean "unusual"? Are we talking "giant dog sized moth" unusual, or just acting a bit funny?"

"Well, they are about as big as your fist, and seem to have a biological agent seeping from them constantly."

"Show me the scans please."

Ok, I can see what she means by unusual, these things are huge, and while the scan resolution is too low at this range to get cellular level, these definitely aren't your run of the mill Moth.

 I make my way upstairs, now only two floors from the top floor and the sun is setting outside. I crack the lock to the maintenance tunnel; it isn't very strong and head inside.

Ok maybe I made a mistake. Phobia of spiders still well and truly there. Now I have a new one to go with it.

Fist sized moths. Not including the wings, oh no, that's just the body.

After a few full body shudders, I start scanning them in earnest.

This is genuinely fascinating, you can see from the genetic profile that these were once just standard moths, but a catalyst has activated the latent mitochondria and the changes have propagated along the genetics.

This is sublime work. I couldn't do any better myself without some serious equipment.

The moths notice my presence and make a beeline (or is that a mothline?" for my head.

I can't discharge a weapon in a relatively populated building like this so I just utilise my blade to slice and dice them. I go to gather up one of the bodies but they are dissolving into orange goo.

I scan the disintegration process, and it looks like this is inherent to being with unstable parasitic mitochondria activations. The mitochondria are frantically consuming the body in order to keep themselves alive. They can't jump hosts, they are genetically tied to the original, and therefore once they run out of their host genetic material, they die.

In their base form they are truly symbiotic, they cannot live without another biological organism to live with. In this particular form they change to parasitic, forcing drastic changes on their host but leaving them extremely unstable.

I turn to leave and there's a man in an expensive suit just staring at me.

"Uh, are you okay sir? I apologise for being out of bounds I got lost."

I throw out a disarming smile and make my way to leave.

Then his hair falls out as his arms and legs start to twitch.

Uh, what?

I start scanning him, and holy shit I'm watching an unstable mitochondrial activation live in front of me.

"EFA save these scans, they'll be important later."

His arms and legs split open and his legs grow much more muscular as his arms shrink similar to a t-rex profile. His jaw splits in two as his teeth split backwards into his new much wider jaw as his skull bubbles and cracks. His ribs all crack individually and he is roaring in pain. A tail grows out from behind him studded in bone as his eyes turn red and sink into his skull. He turns to me and a dark intelligence gives way to raging insanity.

I pull my weapon, ok fuck this, this is absolutely worth discharging my weapon for.

Then the screaming starts outside.

"EFA call 911, Multiple NMC's are present in Akropolis In the upper floors. Request backup as civilians present."

More screaming from outside as the man in front of me finishes his transformation.

He screeches at me, wide mouthed pockmarked with teeth and bone.

Wait, there's a metallic implant behind his ear.

I go to scan it but he jumps almost the entire distance between us in the narrow tunnel and charges at me.

Well that answers the "Is he hostile or not question."

I put three into his skull but it doesn't even slow him down, he's leaking blood and pus everywhere but the skull has stopped the bullets.

As he reaches me I dodge past him and backpedal towards the door putting shots into him, finally a shot to the eye-socket puts him down properly. Damn this thing is tough.

He lands on the floors twitching, but my scans tell me there's still a heartbeat, two actually as he seems to have grown a second. I empty the rest of my mag into his eyes and the heartbeats slow and eventually stop.

He starts melting like the moths did, and I quickly reach down and yank the implant.

Now this is extremely interesting. An actual technological marvel.

This thing was being remote controlled. Or at least proxied in some way.

The tech in this implant is way way beyond the tech level I've seen anywhere else around here. The difference between this implant and the contact lenses is like comparing bow and arrow to my energy pistol.

I have no time to waste however, I'll scan this properly later. I quickly sprint for the door and make my way out of the maintenance area to the gallery proper, towards where I heard the earlier screams.

 It looks like Mr penguin suit wasn't the only person to transform. There are no signs of human bodies anywhere which is good, but I have 40 NMC signatures which is obviously bad. Some of these NMCs aren't of the profile of the one I fought and the majority of them don't have the implants.

I sneak my way through the gallery, taking out smaller versions of the "walker" NMC that I fought with my blade to maintain stealth.

I make my way to a public phone in the gallery of this floor as I see flashing red and blue lights start to flash outside.

I ring through to the bounty office and dispatch answers.

"This is Thomas Hale, confirming NMC presence at Akropolis, have eliminated multiple NMCs of a designation not in the database."

"Noted Mr Hale, we have word from LAPD that SWAT are about to clear the building. Please make your way to the public bathroom on your floor and hole up, SWAT have been informed of your presence and will liaise with you on site. MIST have been informed and are sending an agent who will want to debrief you."

"Noted"

I quickly run another scan of the area, no people about, just monsters. I make my way to the bathroom specified and wait for swat to enter the building.

"EFA maintain life sign lock on SWAT as soon as they enter range please."

Waiting is an old man's game, I'm too restless for this and am considering making my way downstairs myself when EFA alerts me that SWAT are up to my floor now and are systematically sweeping the building. Damn they were a lot quicker than me!

The main body of SWAT moves to the floor above me, however a knock at the bathroom door and a quick scan confirms one of them came to collect me.

The SWAT officer has a gas mask on and is carrying an MP5, he quickly indicates for me to join him.

"Thanks for the pickup officer."

"No problem hunter, I'm making my way upstairs feel free to join me for the final floor sweep."

"Any casualties? I couldn't find any on this floor but I did hear screams as one of the monsters attacked me."

"Bruises and cuts, no deaths confirmed yet but the civvies are screaming about people with melting skin so we won't know till the forensics get in."

As the elevator reaches the next floor he readies his weapon and I do the same.

It's eerily quiet, but I can see SWAT through a glass door in front of me. They've fanned out through the floor and a few of them are escorting civilians to a nearby cafe. Some of them must have hidden up here.

There's no sign of any other NMCs anywhere, did they all just vanish into thin air? There have been zero gunshots since SWAT arrived and im getting no scans but I didn't kill anywhere near 40 of the damn things earlier and those scans are gone too.

I meet up with the SWAT commander by a rather nice fountain on the top floor as his team start dropping their heavy gear and spare ammo on a bench nearby.

"Hunter, any sign your end?"

"No, I killed about 10 of the things on the floor down including a big bullet resistant fucker, but no sign since. I definitely heard more of their roars though so unless you guys have killed some of them there are still some about."

"Ok, we are going to start moving the civvies to the elevators in groups of 10, we have about 30 in various states of panic and wounds holed up."

"Ok, I'll help cover the elevator."

I make my way over to the elevator atrium with my new SWAT buddy.

We sit cooling our heels and wait until suddenly an almighty roar sounds from the fountain atrium. We both sprint for the door as a swat member crashes into the wall.

My scanner shows the civilians are in various forms of transformation. None of them have implants dammit! They scan as human while in human form!

Was this a trap for SWAT?

SWAT quickly start firing but it's no good, the damn things are fast and most of SWAT are already down. There's a fat variant of the NMCs which is just backhanding them in groups at high speed. SWAT is already down 90% of their members by the time we arrive and the atrium is a bloodbath.

Fire, Reload, Fire, Empty Mag, Reload. On and on until eventually there are no NMCs left.

Unfortunately, by the time we arrived there are also barely any SWAT left. Out of the nearby plate glass window I see SWAT's helicopter spin out of control and head for the street.

What the hell kind of monsters can do this to a SWAT team in this amount of time.

There are three heavily wounded members of SWAT still alive, I stabilise them and also give them a stealthy heal boost with medi gel, not enough to fully heal them as that would be suspicious, but enough to comfort them and guarantee they'll live relatively unscathed.

Physically anyway.

I return to the benches in the atrium and sit with my head in my hands. The SWAT guy who was with me is lay by a coke machine holding his ribs where he took a jab from a walker.

And that's where we are when the blonde walks in.

"Aya Brea, MIST. Report."

Heh, of all the people MIST could send.

I run deep full body scans on her as I reply.

"Thomas Hale, Hunter. SWAT has been destroyed. NMCs are hiding in human form. Be careful of any civilians you see as they might not be civilians. There are also fist sized moths around that spray some purple shit."

You know, I only wanted a single NMC scan universe. You don't have to make everything I do into a life-or-death situation.

She nods.

"Noted, do you need medical help?"

"No, I didn't take a hit, my ally here did but he will head downstairs shortly."

"OK, make your way to the Helipad please, I have pickup coming soon, I'm going to clear this floor and will meet you up there."

"I can assist you if need be?"

"No need, I have it covered."

Ok fair enough, I use the directory map to make my way to the roof.

Which I cant do as the escalators to the observatory level that let me get over there are sealed and switched off and I can't find any form of access point. I take out a few more of the stalkers and one of the fat walkers and hear gunshots off in the distance.

Then the escalators switch on and the doors slide open. Likely Aya but I wont look a gift horse in the mouth.

I head over there, taking out multiple NMCs on the way and get an opportunity to fill my mags from a SWAT ammo can. I take it, better than using my own ammo and easier to explain away.

There's a hallway full of the damn moth things and a new addition. Giant rats.

Giant. Rats.

I fell into a world with genuine ROUS. What even is my life.

I don't even waste ammo, I have a blade and a lot of free time. I quickly clear the area drawing my pistol only when challenged by a fat walker.

There's a genuine church up here. There's nothing inside and no-one showing up on scans. There's a bridge to the helipad access tunnel over a pool full of amphibious NMCs. I can't find the logical chain of events that would cause them to end up here so I'm just going to assume purposeful sabotage and ignore it.

I take some rather novel scans and make my way over to the access tunnels. There are zero NMCs on my way and nothing at all on scans

It's pretty cold up here.

While waiting in the cold I decide to review my scans of Aya.

Hearing about her abilities from a stolen report is nothing like looking at her genome.

Compared to the humans here, I'm not the exact same species, but I'm at least in the same genus. It's like two separate evolutions of homo sapiens. I could have kids with a woman here without much struggle is what I am saying.

She may as well not even be a member of the same family, let alone genus. She's "technically" a homo sapiens like the others here, her DNA puts her as a distant relative at least. But damn.

Her genes are beautiful. I don't mean that in a creepy way. She's like the opposite of a case 53. Where the 53s DNA is twisted and malformed, hers is refined, and reinforced.

She will likely live to her mid 300's possibly even 400s for a start. Her telomeres are barely shortening. Genetic aging puts her at 28 years old. She looks about 19. Her cells are about the equivalent of a 13-year-olds. And not aging at the same rate.

Her bioelectricity generation is off the charts. The regular humans here produce a lot more than me by default though I can spoof it somewhat with my nanobiotics. She produces about 30x as much at rest as the regular human here does while in motion.

It pools around her body, mostly being stored in her cells. She's faster, and stronger than she looks. Not on my level when I really push it, but a lot closer than you would think. Probably about 2.5x the strength and speed of an Olympic athlete if she really lets loose. Reports from the NY incident had scattered reports of her having other abilities too. And I can see why. If she feeds this spare bioenergy to her mitochondria she could probably pull off some pretty spectacular stuff.

I'm making notes for future reference, I think with some tweaking I could emulate some of this with my internal nanobiotics with some tweaks to my mitochondria. Thinking back to suited and booted in the maintenance tunnel dampens my enthusiasm a bit.

Im in the process of deep scanning the implant I found when I hear sounds of combat from the roof access catwalk.

Aya is fighting with a 9 foot armoured guy in a metal mask and green jumpsuit on the catwalk below. The sounds of a respirator are clear even from here.

I drop a detailed scan and move to help her out.

Im about to jump down to assist when a corona of red surrounds her body. A massive ball of fire flies out of a red vortex surrounding her hand and knocks him back.

And I got a detailed scan of the process! Success!

I vault the helipad rail and grab a pipe on the way down, I use it to swing round and double foot kick him in the head. He crashes into the nearby wall headfirst and bounces off. I pull my sidearm and discharge it fully into his head and chest as I back off towards Aya.

Most of the bullets are deflected by his armour. The curse of choosing a convenient low caliber.

An aura of orange, blue and purple surrounds Aya and her weapon as she fires off shots from her own pistol that literally light up the air in purple and yellow tracers. She shatters part of his metal facemask as I pull my blade.

He punches the metal wall repeatedly and dents it. His blade ignites as he leaps 15ft up onto the helipad. Damn I don't think I could even make that jump that easily.

He screams back down at us.

"Not bad for a two-bit hunter and a fed! Want some more, we can finish up here!"

Me and Aya look at each other and quickly run for the helipad elevator.

He's stood cocky as anything in the middle of the helipad.

"Drop it!" she screams at him. As we both level our weapons at him.

He just chuckles.

"What, 'fraid to shoot me?"

Suddenly a beeping comes from his hand. Is that a detonator!?

"EFA can you intercept that signal??"

"He must have already sent it; this is all just dramatics."

"Time's up little girls!"

He literally blurs away, leaving an honest to God afterimage as he sprints to the edge of the roof and makes a 50ft leap to another skyscraper.

What the fuck. Ok so maybe I was a little premature when I said "no parahumans other than Aya here".

The elevator returns to the helipad again with another person on it. A bald African American guy with a beard, in beige slacks with a shirt and suit vest walks over to us. He nods at me and turns to Aya.

"Aya! Where'd he go?"

She shakes her head at him.

"He jumped to the next building!"

He looks at her goggle eyed.

"What!? That's impossible!"

Aya turns to him and notices a control in his hand.

"What's that in your hand?" she asks him quickly.

"It was lying right here on the ground."

"Rupert, I'm pretty sure that's a bomb detonator."

"What!?"

Suddenly an explosion sounds on a lower level.

Aya turns to Rupert.

"Did you just press something!?"

"Don't look at me there must have been someone with another detonator!"

The detonator starts beeping more rapidly, and now I'm beyond worried. I'm preparing to grab these two and attempt a teleport, fuck the consequences.

Another explosion sounds.

"We need to get out of here!" Aya shouts.

Well, no shit!

"Relax, Choppers on its way now. Hopefully it'll get here in time." Rupert replies calmly.

The sound of a helicopter is music to my ears. It quickly banks down to us as we jump on.

"That was a little too close." Aya exclaims as the helicopter pulls away.

15 seconds after we clear the building, the top 12 floors disappear in a massive explosion.

That's going to be an expensive clean up job.

Not it.

Notes:

Not hugely happy with the end of this, i had to go replay the game (which some of you correctly guessed as Parasite Eve, specifically Parasite Eve 2 in this case) and i think having it so close to mind intefered with the end of the akropolis part. Let me know what you think. It's a bit long but strangely also a bit short, i think i could expand more on the Akropolis part but it was outliving it's welcome i felt.

Wrapping this up in the next chapter, Archon won't be following the entire game route as is quite obvious from this chapter, i already have a seperate route planned out for him, If you've played the games its highly likely he wont even touch Dryfield. Itll be Mines - Lab - End. I'm just planning out the timings. Should be more opportunity for him to pull out some of his more special gear as we move forward once he realises his key is approaching charge. I know his relative power conservatism is a little annoying to people but once he returns from this jaunt we should see some solid progression of power.