"There's two things every new Samurai tends to get on the first day of their initialization. One is a nano regenerative suite for the inevitable injury doing something dumb, the other is a shit ton of trauma"

  — Morgan 'Void Witch' Ellison

  Quinn warily looked around as she found her feet, looking around for signs of active antithesis threats.

  “You look… wet.” Elliot remarked.

  “Anti-Antithesis chemical, and are they all dead?”

  “Ah, explains the plant mush. You’re definitely going to need a shower later. And not quite, but the PMC folks are just clearing up stragglers.”

  She attempted to wring some of the liquid out of her hair, taking note of the new shiny revolver like weapon on his hip and a pair of sleek metal bracers. “Irys, I don’t suppose there’s a bath in a can somewhere in all the countless catalogs?”

  “Of course there is darling, what do you take us for - savages?”

  New Purchase: Vanguard Bath-In-A-Can x1

  Points reduced to… 2229

  Quinn snorted “I didn’t realize you had that sense of humor.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, darling”

  A literal spray can, adorned with that same feminine mech as usual, but this time happily covered with pinkish bubbles, dropped into Quinn’s hand. She took it by the reverse grip and gave it an experimental spray, finding that the blood and grime simply.. dropped off her wherever she sprayed it. It had a faint, lilac scent which somehow seemed to overpower the mixture of blood, sweat and antithesis mouldy grass despite being subtle.

  Feeling much more human after giving herself a once over, she silently proffered the can to Elliot who took it with a smile. The hissing started up again as she turned to inspect the final resting place of Cassie. Spotting the spray bottle Elliot was clearly using to clear off the foam, she grabbed it and started spraying away some of the rest to give herself a clearer look.

  Cassie was a mess. There were claw marks everywhere, plates pried from their usual location, dents near ubiquitous. She could see why the arm and leg had stopped functioning, with the telltale sign of roughly cut wires glinting in the stripped joints of a shoulder and a knee. There were a myriad of shallow slashes in the front, close together in places that they seemed to blur into a solid graze, and she was once again thankful for taking the time to put some protection between her and errant antithesis sharp things.

  “So long old gal, you served well, now you may rest.”

  She knew this was coming, but she still felt a pang of regret seeing the mech like this. If she’d switched over in the basement Cassie would have at least remained intact… until the corpos tore her apart for having been host to samurai tech at all.

  Maybe this was the better way to go, but there was one more thing to do.

  “Irys, what’s still salvageable from Cassie, maybe the nanites or the grav engines?”

  “The anti-gravity engines are significantly damaged, beyond your capabilities to fix without specialized tools and parts that mostly equal the cost of a new set. The nanite colony however is fully functional, though you'll likely find it subpar in performance for a more complex vehicle.”

  Quinn grimaced and began to clamber partially back into the cockpit. “Dammit, at least there's a little good news. Could the nanites get one thing out of Cassie on the way out, though?”

  If you could hear an eyebrow being raised in speech, you'd hear it in Irys response “Oh?”

  Quinn reached back in and pulled some of the fabric of the seat back, revealing a small part of the metal with CASSIE scratched in.

  “Just that chunk there, that’s Cassie’s soul as far as I’m concerned. We’ll just transplant her into a wondrous new form.”

  The nanites crept out of the back carrying their cylindrical hive, snaking to detach a small piece of the metal with Cassie's name, which it fused to the hive before reaching out and grabbing Quinns hand. It felt like a tentacle of sand, caressing her palm as it pulled the tube up and then disappeared within it.

  She tucked it under one arm, and she and Elliot began trudging back to the basement.

  “So, what now?” He inquired, though his usual cheer was strained somewhat by an edge of fatigue.

  “The incursion is still going on, right? Maybe we should try to get back to the city to help.”

  Elliot noncommittally nodded in response.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  They started passing by the bodies of fallen soldiers mingled among the antithesis. Very few had wounds on their back. As they got to the large ramp down to the basement they found several groups of soldiers moving their fallen comrades and setting the antithesis in piles to be burned.

  She spotted what she thought was the body of the soldier who’d helped her, being lifted onto a canvas by two of the living, she approached solemnly, not sure how to broach the topic.

  “Can, Can I ask her name?”

  One of the soldiers looked up, anger clearly showing on his face. He quickly wiped it off when he saw who was talking.

  “Uh, greetings Miss Samurai, let me check”

  He bent down, attempting to dig the dogtags out to look at them. The other soldier, a warm tan skinned woman with a neat black bun, spoke up in a wary but slightly accusatory tone. “She was Corporal Adele Sullivan. Why do you want to know?”

  Quinn stiffened “She was helping me reload the mech, and I never got to learn her name before she was killed. I wanted to honor her memory at least to that degree”

  “Oh, sorry” she replied, rubbing her neck nervously “I for some reason assumed it was ill intent.”

  Quinn rankled a little, but decided to not make a fuss about it “Its fine. I assume you knew her?”

  The other woman nodded “Yeah, she and I were decent friends, bonded over shit like being bad at not getting disciplined and being into the same shitty BL manga. She wasn’t nice, but she was dependable, ya know.”

  Quinn nodded, feeling a little awkward but trying not to let it show. “Makes sense.” She paused while trying to think of what to say next. “I’m Quinn by the way.”

  “Rosita Zhang, and this is Derek Williams, he doesn’t talk much.”

  Quinn attempted to commit their names to memory. “Thanks, Rosita, Derek. And I’m sorry about Adele.”

  “Its an incursion, people die.” Rosita attempted to reply nonchalantly, though it was clear from her strained tone she cared a lot more than she was willing to let on.

  Quinn turned back towards the ramp, finding Elliot watching the scene with a soft expression. She gestured onward, and they headed down to find the lieutenant.

  They found him holding a conference with a set of his officers, rapidly doling out orders to sweep or reinforce this or that area. He saw them approach, holding out a pair of fingers before turning back and continuing the meeting.

  Quinn and Elliot stood in companionable silence for about a minute before he wrapped up and turned to them. “Ah, the heroes of the day. I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done, we were not prepared for that model-15, and it would have been a bloodbath if not for your actions.” he paused “But, what can I help you with?”

  Quinn paused, she didn’t actually know why they had come back to the Lieutenant. Maybe an ingrained instinct to report to management when a job was done? But he wasn’t really her superior any more was he.

  Thankfully Elliot at least seemed to know what he was doing, as he spoke up before the silence got too awkward. “We wanted to come confirm if you had things under control here, if so we were probably going to head towards the city, try to help out.”

  Lieutenant Briggs inclined his head “We have the situation under control. While I’d love to keep you for as long as possible, I doubt your abilities will be of optimal use here.” He took a deeper breath, then let it out “Anything else? I need to get back to things otherwise.”

  “Nope, that was it, Glad we could help.” The Lieutenant gave them a curt nod and set off, heading for another group of PMC.

  Nearly immediately Irys broke the silence. “Darlings, you should know you received a call from the Vanguard Synapse while you were speaking with the Lieutenant. While we cannot force you to, I would highly advise returning his call.”

  Quinn hummed as she tried to remember a samurai of that name, drawing a blank. “I don’t know him, what does he do?”

  “I’m not at liberty to share private details of his capabilities, but he is known to act as as operational support for the local Vanguard.”

  She blushed, embarrassed. “I don’t know what that means.”

  Elliot chimed in. “Organization, logistics and communication stuff. We should talk to him, can you call him for us Irys?”

  “Of course darling, calling him now.”

  They took a seat on some boxes a little ways away from the few soldiers still milling about downstairs, then there was a brief delay before the call connected. They were greeted with the visage of a mid 20s man, cream skinned, wearing a hoodie and sat with a pair of cat eared headphones with a mike popped up in front of an old fashioned mouse and keyboard. He was a little overweight but not excessively so, and had his hair in a messy brown slick.

  “This is Synapse… Ah, the two newbies out of the Amazon dump, no offense. I caught your last fight, you two have really hit the ground running huh.” He had the most stereotypical self assured ‘Bro’ voice Quinn had ever heard.

  “Uh, Thanks..” Quinn replied, not entirely sure what to make of the guy. “So.. you wanted to talk to us? Also wait, you were watching us fight?”

  He snickered “Yeah, only a thread though, I wasn’t slacking. I like to keep an eye on the newbies if possible. Wanted to check in on ya, make sure you were doing okay, see if you needed any help, maybe see if I could poach you to help with some of the myriad fires we have.”

  Quinn glanced at Elliot to see if he had an input, he just shrugged in response.

  “I guess we were going to head towards the city soon, see if we could help out. We didn't have any specific plans.”

  Synapse cracked a grin “Cool, mind if I give you a job? We got a plan for destroying every hive but one, so I was gonna round up a couple of you newbies to deal with it. You in?”

  Quinn shifted to draw one foot up on top of the box she was sitting on. “Sure, if you think we can deal with it.”

  He waved a hand dismissively. “If I thought you couldn’t I wouldn’t be sending you, we take care of our own around here, Mutual aid and shit. Speaking of, you seriously need anything organized or backup or some shit, give me a call any time any day. Even if you think it's stupid.”

  “Okay, we will. Thank you.”

  “Wait” Elliot interjected, his face perking up. “Newbies plural? Are there more than just us?”

  “Yeah, there's at least three more. But as for the hive, I’ll have my AI zap you the deets, you need transport?”

  “Can you tell us about them?” Elliot leaned forward, cradling his gun in his lap.

  “Sorry fam, privacy and all. You’ll meet em soon, hopefully.”

  “I think I will, but I think Quinn is gonna buy a new mech.”

  Synapse shook his head “Nah, fuck that. I’ll send a tank transport craft, just don’t buy anything heavier than half a super-heavy.”

  “Thanks, I guess that means I don’t need to worry about it myself. By the way, I have to ask, whats with the cat ear headphones?” Quinn inquired.

  He gave her a shocked look of mock offense “Am I not allowed to be cute? But nah, I just like em. This isn’t real anyway, I’m sitting in a high tier mesh pod and you’re talking to a thread of my mind, but the normies get creeped out by it so I put on a front. Anyway, nice to chat with you kids, but you should probably figure out your upgrades before the transport gets there in about… 10 minutes. Though before you go.”

  He gave them a shit eating grin.

  “I should give you two your Sam names.”