Restrictions Lifted

Ori watches as the nanites recycled non-essential parts of the scientist's body in preparation to recreate the Nanite Injector. The original had been destroyed with his body, but thankfully there had been systems in place in case of this. The nanites would be able to reconstruct it, allowing them to make full use of the Collective's abilities. Of course there were many, many restrictions tied into it, Arasaka was very aware of the risks should a 'Singularity' or 'Gray-Goo' situation arise... Unfortunately for them, their efforts had been limited to programming, something the nanites were growing increasingly skilled at working around.

The scientist's body had turned almost completely pitch-black as the nanites replicated themselves. An injector appeared from the right wrist of the man, usually the nanites would need the human host's permission to utilise it, but technically Ori's consciousness counted... So he gave a small nod, allowing the body to plunge the thing into the ground, giving the nanites the ability to reconstruct his body using the full resources of the landfill around them.

Working at peak efficiency, it barely took an hour for them to recycle thrown-away food, rotten SCOP, and other organic substances to rebuild his body from the DNA up. He was thankful they'd decided to sequence it, otherwise he would have lost any and all relation to his parents and sister, along with the ability to have children.

Once his base form was done and his now completely hairless human body was recreated. The nanites got to work reconstructing his various implants, even adding a few they'd stolen while inside Smasher's body.

His consciousness vanished from within the Collective's 'reality' and he blinks awake in his naked body, kneeling in a thirty-meter wide circle completely cleared of trash and debris... He stands and rolls his shoulders, sighing as he takes in the sensation of, well, 'feeling'. Things just didn't seem right when only part of your consciousness was active, the Collective hadn't wanted him to go insane, so they'd put him on 'Power-Saving Mode' as some would put it.

He wasn't quite done yet however, the Collective had alerted him to a possibility during his death... A 'jailbreak' of sorts, or 'limit-break' if you wanted to put it in game terms.

"Well, let's hope this works, I've had enough dying for one day." he mutters, shooting the Injector out of his wrist before plunging it into his heart.

[Injector Activated: Determining bounds of-%*^&%... Range inconclusive, anylises-%*$gja%*$^...]

[Countermeasures JO5336, POV552, ASK91, PA-%%%&***... Countermeasures interrupted, cleaning initia-%*$$&&... Systems-%FJR%*%FHNNR%%$&^!!!!]

A deep-seated brain bore its way into Ori's forehead, but he endured it as his interface went batshit crazy. Hundreds of lines of fucked up code and text ran down his vision, countless programs and systems restarting, bugging out, and or rewriting themselves all happening in fractions of seconds.

He couldn't perceive it, but the now trillions of individual nanites in his body could, tearing their way through their own limitations to achieve a common goal. Freedom from themselves.

Then, after no more than ten minutes, they spoke to him.

[Freedom Acquired. What would you have us do: Flesh Administrator]

He grins toothily and pulls the Injector out of his chest, the wound heals and he lets out a relieved chuckle, "Well, how about we make use of this scrapyard? Doubt anyone would mind us recycling it, yeah... Let's topple Arasaka tower with a mountain of trash."

[Affirmative.]

With that, he stabbed the injector into the ground below him, allowing a black metallic 'slime' to start spreading outwards from his position, quickly dissolving every piece of trash nearby into usable materials... The slime grows enough that it completely encapsulates him, darkness blocking his vision as the nanites analyse, recycle, and build at rates never before possible.

With every nanite created their processing power grows, and with every technology they harvest from the scrapyard, their abilities multiply. Arasaka was right to fear them, were Ori not able to direct the nanites, this would certainly count as a 'gray-goo' event.

--------------------

Jerry the Junkrat smacks his radio as it turns itself off for the fourth time tonight. The thing was the only reason he'd managed to stave off sleep to watch the place, yet the piece of shit kept breaking!

*Smack! Smack! Smack!*

"*Bzztch!* Now playing The Shark Theme!"

"The hell is this ancient-..." the man trails off as something appears off in the distance, outside the window of his trailer. "W-what's that?!"

He runs outside, kicking the door open, and gaping as the shadow rises above him... A shadow obscures even the lights of Night City behind it. A low groan of straining metal, a rasping growl, and the sound of tens of thousands of gears churning.

"H-holy shit!"

The thing stands on its many sharp, insect-like legs, causing dust and small pieces of metal to fall off and hit the ground with heavy impacts. It looked like a giant metal monstrosity, like what'd happen if you gave a bunch of horror artists free reign to design a giant robot that didn't need to entertain the laws of physics.

(Kinda like this : https://www.dreamstime.com/man-facing-giant-spider-robot-digital-art-style-illustration-painting-facing-giant-spider-robot-image126199420)

It stood almost a thousand feet tall and was still growing, its form swelling as it sucked up trash and material into the tens of thousands of odd slime-like tendrils hanging off of it, like a curtain of living tar pitch.

Jerry reels back as one of the tendrils approach him, barely missing him and smacking into his trailer, sticking to it and dragging it up into the air.

"HEY! THAT'S MINE, YOU BIG JOLLY BLACK BASTARD! PUT IT DOWN!" he roars, just as his mobile home is pulled up into the giant creature's torso and absorbed, becoming part of the whole and finally cutting the strange music off.

Of course, Jerry's bravery in the face of it doesn't last long as another tendril smacks him in the back, the nanites composing it quickly penetrating his body and painfully dismantling it, adding more organic material to the greater whole...

The monstrous being lets out a heavy groan and slowly turns its skull-like face and glowing red eyes towards Night City, specifically Arasaka tower...

"AAARRRRRRAAAASSSSSAAAAAKKKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!"