Chapter 186 - The Choice to Fight

*(mood song: "In My Mind - Dynoro & Gigi D'Agostino")

Sarah sat inside the bathtub and Rose put the helmet on her, the sensation of her body quickly disappeared, followed by a sense of speed like falling down a cliff, but it didn't last long, and she found herself on an unfamiliar body holding a rifle while on top of the submarine, almost stumbling back as she saw the carnage that was starting to unfold all around, monsters jumping out of the water as shots came from the buildings all around and downed most of them, but the tide just kept growing.

Rhaphkar (Erik) came out of the submarine at that moment, saw the socked Sarah, and patted her shoulder, whistling as he looked around: "The Iron Sect soldiers are indeed veterans... but this won't do..." he looked at the bay and the mounts of the Golden Dawn cavalry had been slaughtered, with only three soldiers still alive and shooting from the top of the submarine.

Rhaphkar (Erik): "LIZARDMEN! I SHALL FIGHT BESIDE YOU! WE WILL HOLD ON HERE AND WAIT FOR REINFORCEMENTS!" grabbing a rifle from a nearby dying lizardman and starting to shoot, the morale of the troops was renewed despite the dire situation.

Erik: [Rose, got an idea, report the situation to all of their forces using their VR avatars, ask for every available reinforcement in the area, I'm sure the Golden Dawn group and the Iron Sect won't be indifferent]

Rose: [That's a great idea, though we will have to deal with the monsters at some point then]

Erik: [the monsters?]

Rose: [octopeople, crabmen... you remember how it happened right? this much lizardman DNA introduced into the environment, every single bit of flesh that sinks to the abyss could end up becoming a problem in the long term...]

Erik: [...that... is indeed a big problem, if new civilizations do emerge we will deal with them then... it will be fine]

Rose: [sigh, I really hope you are right]

Erik: [I mean, they will be in the stone age even if they emerge, there's a higher possibility of leviathans consuming them and gaining intelligence like that snake thing in the kelp forest back at our base]

Rose: [indeed, I should increase production of defensive facilities]

Erik: [yeah... how's Molly doing by the way? is the brain controller working?]

Rose: [aren't you too relaxed?... well, her healing factor seems to be quite strong, she even healed the wounds inflicted by the chameleon eels, she observes the bots a bit too much and seems to be... as intelligent as a twelve year old human I would say]

Erik: [hmm she must be learning about us, so did her head heal?]

Rose: [yeah, she can even heal brain damage, it's quite remarkable, she's been producing babies nonstop, but for the moment only 4 babies are left alive at a time so she keeps producing milk, and before you ask, yes I'm storing it frozen solid into new cryo containers to preserve it]

Erik: [Thanks but well, no one said taming a huge leviathan would be easy, read her mind with a device to find what she needs and give it to her no?]

Rose: [that would be hard, cause I already did that, she misses swimming freely, but she feels scared of the outside ocean after she was almost chewed to death all over by the chameleon eels, so without her descendants around to protect her she's scared, and keeps producing more and more]

Erik: [hmmm... what about creating bot clones of her descendants?]

Rose: [she would easily notice, as for simpler things that she wants, she wants less air and more water in the enclosure, but that would flood the installations adding millions of liters of water, and... she also wants to devour you and the octopeople... though it seems you made her develop confused feelings when you milked her, seems like she liked it]

Erik: [well, after killing her kid's milk must have accumulated inside and it can become painful... well, at least in humans, as for anything else it ain't physically possible, so maybe building her some kind of milking machine, for both areas to keep her happy?]

Rose: [...I guess that should work... TO YOUR LEFT!]

Rhaphkar (Erik) ducked down just in time as a monster that looked like an eel with lizardman scales jumped at him from the water, he ducked and precisely shot the monster on the back of the head as it landed on the deck, he then opened the submarine hatch and threw the corpse inside.

Erik: [guess that one ate plenty of lizardmen, tell the octopeople to eat it]

Rose: [sure, pay more attention to your surroundings]

Erik: [sure, it just doesn't feel the same while using a bot body]

Rose: [I'm sure Sarah doesn't think the same]

Erik: [what do you- oh okay] he had too focused on fighting and talking that hadn't noticed Sarah's bot avatar was hiding behind a monster corpse just blindly shooting once in a while, while grinding her teeth and hyperventilating [she's having a panic attack, disconnect her for some time, she needs to get used to fear, but no need to endanger her sanity]

Rose: [done] The bot paused for a moment and stood up, shooting normally once again while the submarine railguns started to shoot at concentrations of monsters.

Erik: [How's asking for reinforcements going?]

Rose: [I have all their avatars begging for help from everyone available and exerting all their secret favors and influence on the VR lizardman capital, so reinforcements should be on the way...]

Erik: [good]

-- Back at Erik's bathroom --

Sarah disconnected and started hyperventilating, but just as quickly she closed her eyes and controlled her breathing, calming down.

Sarah: "That was pathetic..."

Rose: "Well... I guess you just never trained for something like this?"

Sarah: "Not so real, not this tragic, this... this was just pure mindless carnage... why do the lizardpeople deserve to die so much? They clearly have a society-"

Rose's playful tone became cold: "'cause I won't allow it, and that's it, they are a plague that needs to be dealt with"

Sarah grabbed her knees: "But... they are like us, they have feelings, they- they are dying for no reason... it's too cruel"

Rose: "You don't know what cruel is, they are a plague to me, their only purpose to live for centuries has been to kill me and make my corpse their new home after they destroyed their old world... and their descendants have been poisoning me for generation after generation... I have no need to let such creatures live..."

Sarah: "...I understand-"

Rose: "No, you don't understand, and I don't need you to understand, so we shall leave it at that for now" and stood up and went out of the room.

Sarah was left alone, looking down at her trembling hands she sighed: "I'm sorry"

Rose on the other hand went to find the octopeople as they had already taken the monster corpse to the cafeteria and were just ripping pieces out of it while they chatted bored.

Rose: "octopeople, those of you that are bored... wanna try controlling a lizardman bot?"

All octopeople stood up excitedly as they were bored out of their minds.

Timberly was the first to push to the door, carrying a big chunk of meat that she easily chewed through with her sharp teeth. She then smiled with a bloody mouth and said: "About time, I was getting bored~ like we did with the crab people infiltration right?"

Rose: "Not quite... with more resilient bot bodies instead of controlling organic copies"

Timberly was slightly disappointed: "Oh... so no sensations?"

Rose: "All except pain and taste"

Timberly: "Hmmm good enough I guess, let's go!"

-- At Erik's bath --

Sarah came out of the bathtub and looked at Erik's chiseled body floating in the water, and touched his belly briefly.

Sarah whispered: "Going around getting knocked up by an alien..." her head started hurting and she put her right hand to her forehead "Ugh I need some rest" and came out of Erik's room, seeing a lot of octopeople walking to the lower floor, Inky among them saw Sarah and approached her.

Inky: "What are you doing? you don't wanna fight?"

Sarah: "What's the point, isn't everything under control anyways, I need to rest for a while..."

Inky scoffed: "Is that so... same as your story, lazy and tasteless..."

Sarah was offended: "Excuse me?"

Inky shrugged: "Your story about how you met Erik, it was just lame"

Sarah: "Oh yeah? tell me your story then?"

Inky shook her head: "no, I have to go fight"

Sarah: "Weren't you pregnant?"

Inky smiled with her serrated teeth: "Yes, and you aren't"

Sarah: "That... what I meant is pregnant women shouldn't fight!"

Inky scoffed: "Hah! Women? that only applies to humans, I'm octopeople, I'm strong, so even if I'm pregnant I will fight to defend my family, and Erik is my family, you... you just take him for granted"

Sarah got angry: "Excuse me?! I traveled the universe and crossed through intergalactic battlefields for him!"

Inky shook her head: "Others did those for you, didn't Rose and your spaceship do most of it?"

Sarah: "Who told you that?"

Inky: "Rose did, and so... my story is better" and smiled again.

Sarah was too riled up to back down: "Let's hear it then!"

Inky: "Sigh... If you wanna know that badly~. I was exploring near a rocky area for prey to hunt one day, and found a weird cave that closed when I entered it. I was sure it was the mouth of a leviathan and I was going to die a horrible death, but... a screen appeared and Erik communicated with me using drawings, and fed me tasty food... even when I come back injured and half dead after searching for some food to bring him, he healed me when I was sure I would bleed to death... he treated me better than anyone had ever met before, he looked strange but that day I decided I would make him my wife!" looking proud of her story.

Sarah said in a mocking tone: "So he was just a bit nice to you and you went crazy about just some basic kindness? Would you leave everything for him too then?"

Inky frowned: "Hmph, already did... and I would die for him, you go hide and die in a corner if you want, I'm gonna go fight for those I love!" and ran down the hallway.

All the octopeople had gathered on the main crew bath on the second floor of the submarine, as Rose had filled it with connection helmets.

Timberly saw Inky run in: "What took you so long? had to go?"

Inky shook her head: "no, talking to Sarah, she was scared and needed to get her angry to fight"

Timberly laughed: "Hah! how far have you come... from just a really weak and small scout to a proper warrior!"

Inky nodded with a serious face: "let's go, we need to protect the submarine" touching her belly as her face got serious, whispering "Family..."

-- Back at Erik's bathroom --

Sarah came back inside with an angry face, and looked at Erik floating in the bathtub with the helmet on and frowned.

Sarah got in the water and put the helmet back on too, she would fight to keep herself and Erik safe.

Sarah: [connect me]

Rose's tone was playful: [sure, let's see how you fight now~]

-- Crab Empire --

As usual, Rose controlled the body puppet of the now crab woman queen to listen to her vassals' problems every morning. After they were almost over, an old crabman hurriedly ran over, he was stopped by the royal guards, but was soon let in with a wave of the queen's hand, by now all the royal guards were puppets so it was just theatrics.

The old men fell at the feet of the queen and sobbed: "Please my queen! my grandson! my grandson has been taken!"

Queen (Rose): "Sigh, taken by who?"

Old man: "Crab men with black shells and a glowing helmet on their heads, they should be-" he noticed the surprise on the queen's face "My queen?"

Rose regained her composture, it looked like the parasitic mushroom overlord was up to something, as the description was exactly like the converted monsters the mushroom liked creating.

Queen (Rose): "Any more details old man? anything could help"

Old man: "Well... they reeked, like if they had bathed in rotten corpses..."

The Queen (Rose) gave an order: "Royal guard, double the patrols, and check any areas with bad smells"

The Royal guards bowed to her and all said: "YES OUR QUEEN!"

-- At the floating city --

This time Sarah connected to the body of a normal guard simulacrum body near the harbor.

She looked down at her body and couldn't help frowning, the body looked strong but was nothing compared to the guard captain.

Sarah: [what about the guard captain?]

Rose: [gave that body to Timberly, can't have you freaking out and lowering the morale of the others]

Sarah: [but I-]

Rose: [nah ah, no buts, just start from here and help clean the stranglers that reach the harbor]

Sarah: [...okay] She examined her current body and equipment. She was in the body of a muscular city guard, with just a harpoon crossbow in his hands, and a crude chopping blade hanging from a belt as weapons [...can't I at least have better weapons? the guard captain had a rifle]

Rose: [learn how to fight in the body of that crude bot and I will give you a better one if you do well]

Sarah: [...what happens if I-]

Rose interrupted her: [there are more than 200 available normal guards, and I'm producing more as we speak, so don't worry too much and go fight already]

Sarah: [okay]

Sarah took a deep breath, even though the bot didn't have lungs, the motion for it relaxed her as she quickly ran to the harbor, the battle there had intensified into a desperate battle, as more and more monsters jumped into the harbor. The lizardman has formed defensive lines as a line of spearmen harpooned and beasts trying to jump out of the water, and snipers from the Iron Sect shot down any threats that couldn't be stopped by just the spears, any stragglers that couldn't be dealt with using the spears were eliminated by surrounding them and shooting them from all sides, while small armored monsters were dealt with using maces and axes.

Sarah couldn't help but be impressed, most of the defense was done by the bots, but other lizardmen quickly imitated them and joined the defensive lines, tearing their clothes and tying their daggers to poles or long bones they extracted from the monsters right there.

Sarah: "Wow"

Rose: [too soon to feel impressed]

A lizardman captain then turned around and yelled at the bot controlled by Sarah.

Captain (Rose): "What are you doing just standing there?! grab a weapon or make yourself one soldier, and join the formation!"

Sarah was surprised, and didn't know what to say.

grunt guard (Sarah): "Huh what?"

Captain (Rose): "Can't hear you grub, join the damn formation!"

grunt guard (Sarah): "Y-yes, right away sir!" and ran to the back with her harpoon launcher, taking one from a pouch on her back, loading it, and instantly shooting it through the eye of a monster that had just jumped out of the water, earning a nod of respect from the nearby organic defenders.