Chương 95: Book 2 - Chapter 18 - A Disappearing Act

The small group stared at us for a moment, seemingly dumbfounded, until the man in the middle of the group moved. In a single motion he pulled a pistol from his belt, aimed it at me, and fired. I tried to dodge out of the way, and hide behind Heavy, but the bullet still caught me in the side and sent me spinning to the ground. I was so disoriented, that I barely caught the call of "Run!" and the sound of retreating footsteps.

"Shit! Teddy, are you ok?" Sharron asked, as she leaned over my prone body.

"Fuuuucccckkkk… It feels like I got hit by a truck." As I sat up I ran a hand down my side, and actually felt a crack in my armor.

"Motherfucker! where did they get that sort of firepower?" Sharron frowned, "I don't know, but I don't think you're in any shape to chase them right now."

"Fuck that!" I tried to stand, but only managed to get to my knees. It was probably going to take me a minute to recover, so I swapped tactics, "Nyx!" Spooky walked over and kneeled down next to me. Yes Evelyn?

"I'm calling every squirrel in the area. Can you please supply them each with a tracking grenade, and direct them to the tunnel entrances in that direction. I may not be able to chase them this second, but I can try to tag their vehicle." There are about a dozen entrances, but only three squirrels in the area.

"I'll send Wide-Eyes out too," I said. The little squirrel nodded, then rocketed back down the tunnel behind us.

"We'll have to do our best with the four, but honestly, how hard could it be to find a vehicle around here?" You haven't managed it so far.

"Shut up," I snapped. After taking a couple deep breaths, I pushed myself to my feet. The pain was already subsiding. I didn't have super-healing, but my synthetic muscles recovered much faster than my natural ones.

"You sure you're ok?" Sharron asked, in concern. Her tentacles hovered around me, waiting to support me if I fell.

"I've had worse, like when I got punched through the side of a bus by a twenty-one," I replied with a wince.

"You didn't have armor at that time."

"That's true…" I rubbed my side, trying to ease the pain, "Nyx, what the hell was that weapon?" I've compared it to all terrestrial weapons, along with lower-tier samurai weapons, and I think that it was most likely some sort of class I dual stage magnum pistol.

"Most likely?" I asked, glaring at the bear. Every item ordered by a samurai undergoes some level of customization. Either to adjust size, dosage, or appendage shape. Do you really think every race uses 'hands' to carry their weapons?

"Yes? No, wait, that's not the important thing here. You're sure that was a class I weapon? That means that the Guiding Light either has some serious backing, or a samurai on staff." I poked Spooky nee Nyx in the head, "I doubt they have major backing, or they'd probably be expanding much faster, and I thought one of the supposed requirements for becoming a Samurai was being independent, not a fucking sheep, so I don't see them recruiting one." You just asked me what it was, I have no idea where it came from.

If you managed to retrieve the weapon I could track it back to the original owner, but I can't do much with just the few seconds of footage I pulled out of the bears.

"We could ask the Family if anything has been reported missing lately, maybe it's stolen?" Sharron suggested. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. I glanced in her direction and shrugged.

"Fuck it, maybe? It's worth checking, and I do owe them a visit." I glanced back at the corner where the 'Guiding Light' followers had disappeared, before turning back towards the entrance.

"Lets get the fuck out of here. It's barely breakfast time and we're both covered in mystery goop, and I've been shot by a cult using samurai-grade weapons. If that's not a sign of a shit day, I don't know what is. Knowing my luck, we'll be in decontamination until dinner time."

"Don't jinx it," Sharron replied with a laugh. I didn't tell her, but for a moment I honestly thought that might actually be the case. It was just the kind of day I was having. Thankfully, in the end we didn't require hours of decontamination, just a pressure cleaner to hose all the chemical and antithesis goo off our armor. As soon as I could strip off my armor, I did, in order to take a quick healing booster and inspect the damage. I laid the armor on the back seat of the truck, so I could get a good look.

My cloak was fine, but my chest armor had a massive three-inch spider-web-shaped crack. I poked it with a frown.

"Nyx, is this actually safe to wear now? Doesn't this compromise the armor in some way?" It does, but it's easy to fix.

"How can it be easy? It's class II armor. I have a couple tokens saved up, but I really don't want to open up an entire catalog to repair it." Your class II recon armor catalog includes items to repair, and upgrade, the armors from the catalog, so no need to invest in a new catalog. Most samurai would just abandon damaged items, and replace them with newer equipment, but there's occasionally a Samurai, like yourself, that prefers to reuse and recycle items.

"You say that like it's a bad thing." It's just different from the norm. 87. 435% of Samurai would rather upgrade or replace items than salvage them.

"That's wasteful," I mumbled, still poking the damage. It's efficient, especially in a combat situation.

"If I was in combat, I might consider upgrading, but in this situation… fuck that. Now, how do I actually repair this?" Simple, the class II recon armor catalog has an Adaptive Polymer Sealant, which will repair the damage for twenty points. However, since I doubt you're going to abandon this set of armor any time soon, you could also invest in the Memory Polymer upgrade, which will repair any damage going forward for one hundred and fifty.

"The armor won't be compromised after being repaired, right? I know how brittle some shit can be after fixing it." This isn't like the inefficient repairs you get here on Earth, just filling the cracks with new material. The polymer sealant will bond on a molecular level, for all intents and purposes it'll be identical to a new piece of armor.

"Then it's even more wasteful for someone to throw it away. Give me the Memory Polymer Upgrade," I paused, and poked the crack again, "and… is there anything I can add to maybe improve the kinetic absorption? If the Guiding Light has firepower like that, I want to be better prepared next time." You can add an inner shock-absorbing gel layer that'll absorb most kinetic damage, and dissipate the rest over a larger area, limiting trauma, for another two hundred.

"Sounds useful, you should get that, considering how much trauma you've absorbed over the last few weeks," Sharron said playfully, as she came over and sat next to me. Apparently she'd already finished securing her armor in the truck, while I was sitting around trying to figure out my options.

"Yeah, well, I usually have a massive fuzzy line of troops between myself and the enemy, so armor has been a secondary concern," I replied with a frown.

"Although the bears are your primary weapons, you can't always rely upon one of them being between you and the enemy, all it takes is one misstep and the antithesis will be on top of you. Better to have reliable protection, just in case." I grunted. She wasn't wrong, and I did have the points…

"Alright Nyx, give me the full upgrade. Like Sharron was saying, better safe than sorry. I'm pretty sure I have the points." With the cleanup today you'll have 25, 638 points, and two tokens, even after your purchases.

"Yeah… guess there's no point in being stingy with my own life. Do it." As soon as I gave the okay, a box appeared with several sprays, one for each piece of my armor. I started with the one for my chest piece, spraying the entire piece, before checking the damage. As I watched, the crack seemed to fill from the inside out, until the armor appeared to be pristine again. Satisfied, I sprayed the remaining pieces before throwing them into the back of the truck.

"Did the squirrels find anything?" Sharron asked, as she pulled open the passenger side of the truck and climbed in.

"Not that they've reported. I called Wide-Eyes back, but I'm going to leave the others out there just in case. Considering how long they've been out, either the Guiding Light came all this way through the drainage, or they found a really good place to hide. I probably wasn't giving them enough credit before, since they survived the backlash after what they pulled six years ago. I'm not going to underestimate them again."