A Joytoy’s Journey to become a Hive-Queen [A SCS Fanfic]

Chapter 77 – This is getting out of hand. Now there are two of them!

“Y’know, I’ve heard that cats and foxes just multiply when left alone. Seeing this… I can certainly believe it. I wonder if there is some kind of requirement that means so many Samurai end up with either a fox or a cat theme. A mystery for the ages…”

  -  Comment on the Samurai Forums, 2057

Much to our surprise, the reinforcements came in quite early. After Bahamut's report that it might be either this evening or the next morning, we were planning for the worst case scenario, just to be sure.

That meant that we were currently in the process of restructuring our forces to ensure every body got as much rest as we possibly could manage, when our Envoli Raptors noticed something approaching at high speeds from due north. For a moment we were not really sure what to make of it, until Bahamut called a meeting only a second later.

Since the Hive-Queen body was relatively close to the HQ at the moment, and this would be a proper Samurai meeting, we decided to send her over. It would probably go over better than if we participated as a whole through another proxy node.

The thought sparked an idle discussion about the potential benefits of dedicated diplomacy drones, who could act on our behalf and were better suited to interface between the harmony and non-Hive-Minded individuals.

That discussion then sparked yet another smaller discussion about the benefits of additional Queen’s Guard drones to act as our diplomats bodyguards, and soon we had an entire section of the Burdened note down a complete composition of our diplomacy corp for future reference.

It was mostly idle chatter amongst ourselves, while we continued to fight off the xenos and organised our bodies into the patrol rotations. Really, most of the discussions and debates that we were having about any number of things were mostly idle at the moment.

We did have plans for multiple new corps, one of which being entirely focused on hacking and digital environments. Interestingly enough a few of our Hatchlings who had stayed on the Corvette have tried a few things and one even managed to get a full blown evolution to the effect. It was quite the fascinating development, although at the moment not particularly useful.

The voice in question was only loosely connected to the harmony at the moment, living in Evelyn’s computer core and chatting away with the AI, helping it develop and rewriting her code in real time with the help of Kaysa, or rather a subroutine that Kaysa had put aside for her use. Of course, she had taken a name. Skylar was our resident computer expert, even if the title of expert was still only compared to the rest of Us. There was much to learn still.

Of course, our Shield Carriers had long since evolved as well, now available for the Broodmothers to create after some adjustments, with only one of them perishing in the days leading up to the current moment. The broodmother born variants wouldn’t be able to evolve the same way, which is why we kept the original Shield Carriers on experimental duty.

There were a lot of nuances like that, as it turned out. And it wasn’t really much to do with the Hexclaw genome, more with some restrictions put in place. We double checked with Kaysa, and these restrictions were meant to be lifted at some point, but that was one of those ‘You have to learn how to do it yourself’ things. 

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It seemed a bit strange, since so far the restrictions were very obviously meant for Us to not grow too large or become an antithesis level threat. This one, however, seemed more like a challenge. While Kaysa didn’t outright say it, from some conversations she had with Junior, Tiny, and another of the Burdened, who had become our resident expert on Hexclaws after Junior first had the epiphany of our need for change, it appears that the Protectors were changing the way our restrictions worked.

Perhaps we were just reading too much into it, but maybe the conversation between Junior and Kaysa regarding our nature sparked some kind of discussion on the other end. It made Us a lot more cautious, especially considering how tight-lipped Kaysa was about it.

Whatever the case, we still had other issues to brood over. Specifically we were planning on having another simulation soon that would prepare Us for the deactivation of the limiter. While we currently did not need that, strictly speaking, after so many of Us died our numbers were much lower once more, we still wanted to prepare.

If we were about to make a big push into the antithesis Hives, we wanted to make sure that we had all the resources we could need. Higher numbers of capable drones would most certainly be helpful and we had the points to spend. 370k in fact. Even after we dropped a huge chunk off with Pipeline previously in the day.

While we deliberated on all of this, the Hive-Queen’s body finally arrived at the HQ, just in time to watch the newcomer zip around the air, the rest of the people already present for the meeting. Chloe, Bobby, Jenna, Bahamut, Glubber, and Neuron Salvation were all present, with two other Samurai we only knew indirectly.

We were still in the form of the Hexclaw Hive-Queen, the humanoid version, standing at ten feet tall. Before we had time to shift, the newcomer finally stopped, then dashed for the ground, only stopping shortly above the ground, gently lowering themselves down.

Their armor shifted, helmet and Wings vanishing into thin air, revealing a young woman with fox-like ears, a bushy tail, and a rather tightfitting skinsuit in dark colours, with light-blue accents that seemed to glow. Electricity was crackling around her as she looked around, spotting Bahamut and walking closer, hand raised for a hand shake.

“Perhaps it would be best if you ground yourself first?” Bahamut interjected, not taking the offered hand yet.

The newcomer seemed embarrassed for a moment, before she pulled a strange looking rod out of thin air, jamming it into the ground and letting the electricity conduct away.

“Well, that would explain how she got here so quickly. She’s a lightning Tanuki!”

We actually didn’t mean to say it aloud, simply stunned by the sight, and she turned to Us. Then she adjusted her gaze when she realised we were a lot taller than she expected. There was a short moment of silence, before she materialised her wings once more, beating them once and shooting up to head height, close enough to boop our nose! Actually, booped our nose!

“Not a Tanuki, a Fox!”

She let herself fall once more and returned her attention to Bahamut, leaving Us quite stunned and Chloe and Jenna chuckling next to Us. Finally finding our composure once more, we shifted down to our Kitsune form, and I emerged from the harmony for a more proper conversation.

“Sorry I’m late, ma’am. I had to deal with a corp trying to mess with my stuff, but, uhhh, I hope I didn’t keep y’all here for too long?” The newcomer said to Bahamut when my body was finally done shifting.

“Not at all. Perhaps it would be best if we found a more comfortable spot to chat and discuss our situation? We are a bit behind on the timetable as you can see,” Bahamut replied with a polite nod and a shake of the hand.

Not waiting for a reply she turned and made her way over to the closest tent which worked as somewhat of a command center. Not the most luxurious place, but I couldn’t complain.

The newcomer didn’t follow immediately, instead kneeling down for a moment and checking the dirt. Soil? Ground? I wasn’t sure of the nomenclature, nor did I much care to be honest. That just never was something I found interesting.

It was clear, though, that she knew a bit more and she didn’t look all too pleased, or surprised for that matter. Letting it fall away she got up once more, turning to the three of us. Chloe, Jenna, and I hadn’t followed the others yet, all of us too curious about who exactly this new Samurai was.

Her gaze washed over Chloe and Jenna, before she locked onto me, and I raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

“So, I assume you’re GroundWire then? Nice to meet you. I’m Bloodhound, or Chloe, if you prefer. I guess you’ll be doing some planting, so, uh, how does the soil? Look to you then?” Chloe asked, obviously trying to get some conversation going.

The newcomer, GroundWire, tilted her head, but didn’t quite look at her, gaze still transfixed. “Huh?” There was a moment before she continued, this time addressing me. “Uhm, I know this is a bit, umm, personal? But can I pet your tails?”

I blinked, and Jenna started to laugh next to me. Chloe facepalmed, although she did have a goofy grin on her lips, and dramatically shook her head.

“Uhh, sure, I guess?” I began, not quite sure what to make of the question. “Just to warn you, my reaction might-”

I wasn’t able to finish the sentence. If I hadn’t been able to see her move thanks to my improved senses, I honestly would have thought GroundWire teleported next to me, hands gently brushing through the floofy fur on my tails. I had to admit, it felt very nice.

“Well, she seems to like you,” Jenna said in a low tone, her trademark teasing smirk plastered all over her face.

“I guess so,” I muttered back, watching the other woman pet my tail, entirely entranced.

It was a bit hard to suppress a sigh of pleasure, truth be told. She obviously knew what she was doing and I vowed to ask Chloe and Jenna for more pets later down the line.

Finally GroundWire stopped, looking a bit askance as if she just woke up from a daydream. She stopped her petting motions and turned to us.

“Uhm, thanks! But yeah, I’m GroundWire. You can call me Spark, though. Should, uhm, should we go, then?”

I nodded and she quickly walked towards the tent, following Bahamut and the others. She didn’t seem embarrassed so much as overly energetic. Maybe just someone with a short attention span? I wasn’t quite sure, not that it mattered too much.

Chloe, Jenna, and I exchanged some glances, before we followed after her.

The rest had already taken position around a simple, but quite high-tech looking table with a holographic map of the area. Spark looked at every single thing in the tent all at once, before her gaze fixed on the map.

Once the three of us had taken our position near the table, Bahamut began to speak.

“As things are right now, we’re in a bit of a stalemate situation. While we have the antithesis under lock and key, we don’t have the necessary forces to deal with the situation decisively. Myriad and Neuron Salvation, could you please explain why you can’t just push into the area, so that we are all on the same page?” Bahamut glanced at Neuron Salvation and me.

I exchanged a glance with the other Hive-Mind and she nodded, conceding the floor to me.

“Okay, so, the reason for it is quite simple, all things considered. By all accounts, we have the points to buy an army’s worth of drones. The problem is a limiter that we have in place. It doesn’t actually prevent Us from obtaining the drones, but it does make things complicated. So far, when one of Us dies, we simply feel the mental feedback of that voice’s death. That in itself is already very unpleasant, but endurable. The limiter stops the physical feedback of the body’s death. Once we hit roughly fifteen hundred bodies it gets turned off, however. That means we will suddenly feel the full brunt of the deaths of every single one of Us, and considering how quickly we lose voices, that will very likely be very unpleasant. Before anyone asks, the limiter is one of many restrictions that the protectors have placed on Hive-Minds to prevent a second antithesis level threat from emerging. We have seen what a proper Hexclaw Hive can do, and trust Us when we tell you, you don’t want that. As much as it sucks, there is a very good reason for it. We can’t speak for Neuron Salvation, but we are certain similar limitations apply.”

With a glance and a nod, I gave up the floor to Neuron Salvation, who nodded in turn.

“It is quite similar for me, as well. As Myriad pointed out, there are differences in the exact restrictions, but I too can only obtain so many bodies. Even now losing one is unpleasant, I don’t want to know what it’s like when I have to deal with the full feedback. If I understand the explanation given to me by my AI correctly, it will be even worse for me as I don’t have the mental capacity to buffer the pain the way Myriad can by distributing it amongst all her voices.”

“If you’d excuse me,” Glubber spoke up, “You mentioned the voices before and gave a rough explanation how that works. But I am not quite certain what I can envision these voices as.”

I nodded at that, turning to the older Samurai. “The voices are the controlling intelligences of each body. While we are one, we have many different individuals making up our Hive-Mind, whereas Neuron Salvation only has the one leading intelligence. She’s an Overmind type Hive-Mind, while we are a Gestalt Type. We can come together in harmony, in the chorus as we call it, and through that we can operate similarly to an Overmind type Hive-Mind, but at the end of the day, each of Us is their own person, based on me as the blueprint. It’s why it might feel very similar to talk to each of Us, even if there are differences. To put it very bluntly, imagine the other voices as clones of me with slight variations. There are some exceptions, of course, such as Junior or our Queen’s Guard, but they are not really important for this discussion.”

“Back to the topic at hand,” Bahamut chimed in, pulling us back towards the reason the meeting was held. “With our two strongest defenders right now unable to expand enough to actually deal with the Hives, and Legion being too tied up defending the overall expedition site, not to mention Nym running into trouble with the antithesis developing resistances to her toxins, we have no real way to destroy the Hives without just blowing them up. And considering that that might spread the antithesis far and wide, potentially risking more Hives nearby or close to Florida or Atlanta, we need to find a different way. The hopes are that your additions might help, GroundWire. I’m unclear what exactly you plan on doing to keep the antithesis at bay, so it might be best if you explain that so we can plan around that.”

Spark nodded, “Kind of? My secondary specialisation is in ecological food production. More specifically, I develop food forests that work to reduce environmental damage while also producing food. The part important for this discussion, though, is the more… combative catalogue entries I have. Basically, the forests have both flora and fauna populations that are designed to stop hives from starting back up, while also killing off patrols. They do this by consumption, poisons, acid spit ups in a few cases, all really cool stuff. Currently what I have unlocked could defend itself from a stealth hive attacking after building up for a few days without sustaining so much damage as to require Samurai involvement. It wouldn’t hold up against a full incursion alone, but I figure y’all would step in if an incursion opened up on top of this place anyways. I plan to pretty much overhaul the soil here first because like anywhere the antithesis are truly dug into, the soil here has been exhausted beyond use. This will be a bit difficult to do with the xenos about, but we can do some basic replacements to get started and then finish it further later to not give them Protector grade fertilisers. It will take a while even with buying established plants and animals and accelerating the flora growth. Luckily I have more than just a green thumb. For myself in particular, I have a particular niche in air superiority. Swarms of Ones have nothing on my lightning casting equipment. I can also give basic modifications to most of your weapons, and even hand out new equipment to those who want to take me up on either. The latter will be primarily electrical related. They will draw extra power so depending on what you have the extra oomph I can give y’all will vary. Those robots walking around outside should work for sure,but if i get the proper time I could probably-”

She stopped for a moment, looking shocked. Then she blushed, shaking her head, “Uhm, I got a bit distracted.”

Bahmut waved it off dismissively. “That’s fine. The main question is, if you’re able to bolster Legion’s defences around the area? That way we could pull some of her forces back and have her reinforce Myriad and Neuron Salvation, so those two can focus on dealing with the Hives while we launch a dedicated attack on a third Hive with the rest of the Samurai present.”

“I absolutely could help out with that! Whether we start with the forest before or after the antithesis are dealt with.” Spark said, thoughtfully. “I’d need to check the soil composition for wherever we’d start, and probably have to start work on replacing it, but there is no reason I wouldn’t be able to have that done remotely. The main issue I see right now is fertilisation. We could buy in bulk, but if we want to strike at the Hives, any points we can save would probably be useful. Wait, Myriad, was it? Your… drones? Are biological, right? Can they, uhm, shit?”

The question took a moment to register, and I had to laugh when it finally did. “You want to know if we can take a dump? Uh, I suppose we can evolve for it? So far there really wasn’t a reason, there is precious little we can’t use to upgrade ourselves with, so typically there are no remnant materials left to dump out. But, considering how adaptable we are, I don’t see a reason we couldn’t do that.”

“Okay, that would help. Will probably take a day or two to make sure I get the soil composition right, the rest should be relatively easy, if I can get some help with actually putting everything into place. There shouldn’t be too many issues speeding up the growth for the defences, although it would be best to normally grow the forest after, just to make sure there aren’t any problems.”

“Sounds like we have a plan then,” Glubber chimed in, nodding at Spark. “Perhaps it would be best if the rest of us take some time to rest then, to make sure we’re in top shape when the time for the assault comes.”

“Yes,” Bahamut agreed. “You will also all probably take a week or two after to relax and take some time off. We’re already fighting for far longer than the Family typically allows. That said, for those not part of the Family, that is only a suggestion, even if I highly recommend you follow it.”

"Being this cute should be a damn crime. Might have to take some detailed scans so I can take on her form. Celine, make sure you watch Spark closely!"

  - Myriad

Go check out 'A Spark of Sylvan Flame'! It's where Spark comes from. Big shoutout to Cammie!

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