[CHAPTER 11]


    Leo woke up with a dry mouth and a slight headache. “Aegys, how long was I out?”


    <You slept for three hours. The wounds you suffered are fully healed, though you may want to eat something and get some water.>


    “Another field ration and a bottle of water please.”


    New Purchase: Class 0 Field Ration


    Points reduced to - 2034


    New Purchase: Bottle of Water


    Points reduced to - 2033


    Leo stood and did some stretches while eating his breakfast. Once he was sure his injuries wouldn’t take any more damage from moving he stood up and walked to where his Hummingbird lay smashed to pieces next to the stove and picked it up by the handle. The barrel dangled from a wire and one of the rounds slid out and clinked against the floor.


    “I need a new weapon. These take too long to lock on before I can fire.”


    <All the more reason to purchase the Bursyamo catalog we talked about before you rested. Due to their home planet''s location, there are pyro-carbon based, crystalline organisms called Solitite that feed on heat energy to rapidly replicate and expand. When pieces are broken off, Solitite forms long shards with a point that is only a single molecule wide. The Bursyamo have weaponized this reaction in their Shard Thrower weapons. The Mk II Flame Talon Pistols I think would fit you quite well. There is a Solitite crystal embedded in the handle of the pistol. The pistol feeds in heat energy from your heatsinks then breaks off shards of the growth and launches them at twice the speed of sound. The shards can pierce through anything short of a Model Twelve and still do damage. Once they hit something organic, the shards cause rapid crystallization of the surrounding area.>


    Leo thought for a few moments. While the idea of him possibly becoming something other than human was not necessarily a pleasant one, the fact that he would still look human and wouldn’t lose any functionality in terms of senses made it a non-issue. “Get me two pistols and go ahead and buy the Gene Editing catalog for later.”


    <Standby.>


    Class I Genetic Manipulation Unlocked!


    Points reduced to - 1783


    Class I Bursyamo Catalog Unlocked!


    Points reduced to - 1633


    New Purchase: Mk II Flame Talon Pistol x2


    Points reduced to - 1433


    A single box appeared on the counter nearby. Stepping over, Leo opened it to see two sleek pistols staring back at him. Each had a standard pistol grip with grooves where his fingers would sit. Through a clear window in the side of the grip Leo could see an orange and red crystal that seemed to flicker with flames. The barrel was elegantly curved and had metal shaped to look like wings coming off the barrel. The entire thing was done in shades of red, orange, and yellow making it seem to be made of flames. Leo tucked his remaining Hummingbird onto the back of his belt before picking up the new weapons. As soon as he did, they began to glow and the bar in his HUD, which he idly noted was full and seemed to be on fire, lost its flames and a sliver of its charge before his attention was once again stolen by his new pistols. Each one had sprouted wings of flame from barely noticeable openings along the barrel.


    Holding them out in front of him, Leo sighted down the barrel. The first thing he noticed was that there was a familiar targeting reticule that appeared, but with a twin. The second was that the wings of flame seemed to disappear from his sight, leaving it unhindered.


    <I’m rather proud of that one. It is a mix of hard-light and the heat charge from your cloak. It won’t take anything more than what you’ve given it to keep those wings going for the next week or so. They will disappear either when you holster them or if you give the mental command and the wavelength of the light means it is invisible from your perspective while aiming.>


    Leo thought about the wings disappearing and marveled at how they seemed to furl into the metal ornamentation like real wings. “These are amazing!” Leo aimed at the half-burned mass of the Model Four and pulled the trigger. With a brief flare of heat the pistol hummed in his hand as it spewed crystal shards. As each shard impacted a growth of the same crystal sprouted and consumed the body in a small area around the impact site. Each growth could probably fit in a shoe box.


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    <They can fire in two different modes. Burst-fire will launch four shards of crystal with each pull while full-auto allows you to fire for up to five seconds before the crystal will need time to settle. If you continue to fire after that the crystal may fracture and explode. Cooldown is roughly two minutes if you reach that point as the Solitite needs time to repair itself. You can also just buy a replacement shard for 5 points.>


    “Will the crystal cause any issues by just sitting there? I don’t want them to harm anybody who stumbles on them.”


    <No worries. The crystal rapidly decays when there is not enough heat nearby. They can actually be left inside a furnace or a forge where they will increase the ambient heat inside without venturing out of it.>


    “How long does it take to decay?”


    <For the growths there they will decay in about an hour. The rate of decay depends on the amount of nearby Solitite and the ambient temperature around them. When enough Solitite is in the same area it becomes self-sufficient at which point you would need to find a way to break it up. That would require far more crystal than you will have access to for quite some time though so there is nothing to worry about yet.>


    Leo nodded as he turned to leave the shop, stopping only long enough to douse the Model Four in acid and pick up his hard-light bulwark, settling it onto his back. Stepping into the hall he called Kat.


    “Hey Kat, figured I’d let you know I’m up and moving. Need to finish my track around the second floor before I try and figure out where to go from there. How are things on your end?”


    “Leo! Oh thank the goddess you’re alive. Why did you think it was a good idea to sleep in the middle of an active incursion? You could have been killed! If it wasn’t for Amyntor telling me that you were alive and in no danger I would have been dragging you back by your ear!"


    While Kat ranted at him Leo had a vague impression of a floating envelope for some reason. Shaking the thought out of his head he once again began walking down the hallway, this time specifically keeping an eye out for hidden Model Fours and one of his new pistols in hand.


    “I had a run in with a Model Four that decided I would make a good pi?ata. I managed to kill it but I needed to sleep to let the medical stuff work its magic. Got some new weapons and a plan for some more extensive upgrades later, but I can’t do that until I can be sure there’s nobody left hiding up here.” Leo peeked into a pretzel shop leading with his weapon.


    He could almost hear the facepalm when Kat responded. “I can’t believe you’re talking about getting attacked so badly you needed to sleep with such a casual attitude. At least tell me there was something positive about this.”


    “Well, I got some new weapons, got a roadmap for some upgrades, and had a realization that some of my gear does not work like it did in the game.” Leo had continued moving down the hallway checking shops here and there while still calling out quietly. It may not be the smartest thing to do, but he had no other way to reliably get people''s attention if they were hiding.


    “Leo. I’m going to need you to do me a favor.” Leo got a strange shiver down his spine that had nothing to do with the possibility of meeting a killer alien. “I need you to finish your search of the second floor and get your ass down here so I can slap some sense into that thick skull of yours.”


    ‘Aegys, I need som….’


    <There is nothing the Protectors can give you that will protect you from this young Leo.>


    Grumbling at his AI’s unhelpful nature, “I think I’d rather hug a Model Four again.”


    “I heard that!” Kat yelled through the comms.


    Quickly turning off the comms Leo continued down the hallway. If he moved any slower it was only so he could more thoroughly check for survivors and hidden Antithesis. Leo came across a small handful of Model Threes and took them out with some well placed shots from his new weapons.


    At this point, Leo was just passing the southern stairwell when he spotted something that made him pause. There was a digital ad wall in the middle of the hall. Normally there would be nothing to make him pause, ads littered every available surface in just about any building you went in, but this one had a couple things wrong with it. At first glance it looked like any other ad with words spouting how great the product was, but at a closer look, they were really just random letters that looked like English. What really made him stop though was the fact that it was standing in the middle of the hallway. A hallway that was a field of thrown debris from the evacuation and other broken ads that fell off the walls or got shoved out of the middle of the hall.


    ‘Hey Aegys, does that ad wall seem a bit odd to you?’


    <Other than the words being a jumbled mess, not really. It’s possible it got damaged in the evacuation.>


    ‘Hmm, it’s possible I suppose. But something doesn’t seem right.’


    Leo walked forward slowly with a pistol in one hand and a ball of fire in the other. He got three feet away from it before he realized what was wrong.