Mannie

I sank.

Bio-armor bit into my waist and neck, a Sub-Drowned’s dainty forearm wrapped around my neck like a blade.
Inkwater shot up my nose, in my eyes.
Getting it in my eyes was my own fault, I overrode the reflex and forced them open.

Had to make sure Moore was good.

Only by the light of Jones’s fuelblood did I see her silhouette.
Like a gentle buzz against my face, I felt her machine gun’s saturation fire.
Moore was good.
That’s good.
That’s all I needed to know.

I knew I could’ve broken the Drowned’s grasp the moment her hands were on me. Would’ve taken a hand on any part of her and a squeeze. The subs are only lightly armored, she would’ve broken like glass.
But Moore was good.
That little dummy was too good for me.
Too good to me.

My HUD’s delta-psi had run up to over 20,000lbs before I stopped paying attention. Depth was displayed as kms now.
I should’ve been a cube.
A little Grosse-cube.
With my little service cap and everything.

I’d be a cute cube.

Light, bright and white, lanced around me.
The Drowned was a cloud of paste between my fingers. Could’ve started swimming at this point. But I wanted to see which gate awaited me.

I turned, and saw Moore. Nude, smooth, small as she was, and glowing.

She kissed me, with lips like hers, too.
Fingers in my hair.
Scalp. Digging. Puncturing. Hooking.
Before her tongue intertwined with mine. Shudders ran through me as I melted into her. Careful with my touch, as always, to not break anything. Never again.
Yet deeper her tongue went.
Down my throat. Inside me. Through me.
Wet, lancing things emerged, folding me inside out.

I squeezed, ripped, and crushed what I could of the meatshell but it was too late.
Venom, my fuelblood replaced with razors, spread through me.
Bringing forth what was hidden.

Crawling was my spine, ridges extending like wings to my cannons.
The false-Moore shoved itself inside me, shredding itself against my teeth, down my throat.
Fuel for my growth.
For my new body.

For a moment I was the moon, glowing pale, before my skin split, making way for my armor.
For more armor.

I opened my eyes. The first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth…
I could move, as if flying in a dream.
I cut through hyperdense water like air.

I rose.

Still A Fighter

...

On inkblack waters, upper body hanging by her core like a puppet with cut strings, fuelbood did Moore bleed. In the corners of her eye, off sailed a chunk Strike Commander Jones-flesh, and down drowned Grosse.

Infront of her, breaking the surface, a cell of Hunter-Drowned. Humanoids, their gossamer hair matched the waters below, through trench-dark armor peeked skin as luminous white as the moon, revenant blue eyes shimmered, backlit by fuelblood flames. Against her, by the squelches of shedding armaments, they grew blades.

Shrapnel from the first step of the Hunter-Drowned’s highland charge, the shock barrage, was being pushed out by her regenerative muscle fibers. Her HUD’s mid range targeting switched to a proximity ring. Agitation of it meant the enemy, and every microdegree was spiked. With a brief blurring of her eyes as the gesture-trigger, her shoulder mounted MG spat a beam of tungsten. Every bullet of the 40 round burst was spaced centimeters from each other in a tight arc.

In effect, a mach 4 blade.

She split a Drowned Destroyer from crown to tits, and it softened a degree of her proximity ring. Another fell, when her two legs parted from targeting and tungsten.

Between every burst, Moore’s eyes darted every which way, center and every corner, confirming targets and her route.

Every heartbeat a burst, every burst softened a millimeter, every second an hour, and even then, she must respect the 20 meter rule. Her route confirmed as a blade kissed and parted her cheeks, she flung herself across the waters.

Skipping against a wave, shredding her shoulder to the bone and purging her MG, the shrapnel shot free from her back and control flowed into her upper body.

Righting herself, skating back to the fuellblood pyre of her former clique, Jones-meat was her goal. Jones’ HE 4incher turrets, one of which Moore hydroplaned past and grabbed by the barrel, socket and shoulder coming with, would serve well as a mace.

Temporary nervelattice restored her shredded shoulder, and with a swing she vaporized a Drowned. On the backswing, another’s torso was eviscerated as it spiraled into the lit fuelblood.

She feinted an overhead smash to make one flinch, then lanced the barrel through its maw.

She waited for this day, her mind flooded with shitass-garbage memes, and she couldn’t help but crack a stupid fucking smile at “Master forgive me,” she drew her vibroblade. She watched too much anime and now she is the anime.

As if slicing air the Drowned split by her hand.

Their highland charge stopped by a one woman pike formation, Moore was alone.

Awash in girlblood, stims exhausted, she heaved and choked, unable to purge the void inside her.

The command to retreat fired up from her subconscious, sucking her back, and in a blink the waters were clear. Ahead, the carrier that Moore boarded.

And then Moore was alone.

Tidegirls

...

We always salute, a fist thumped on our third heart, right under our breasts, before stimming up.

It’s not policy, nor formal tradition. Moore started it back in Aug Training and since then, even Strike Commander Jones started doing it.
Moore saluted after everything: as greetings, as goodbye, as thanks, as fuck you.
She told me it was so, out of all the shit she fucked up during Aug Training, they could never grill her for failing to salute.

The first time we stimmed up, when asked to whom she was saluting, she said, “To the vibes, ma’am!”

In between each of my 44 vertebrae, the stim station’s needles injected the venom. I could never suppress vomiting from the pain. My station was considered to be repainted, but everyone knew the acid splotched “A5” was mine.

Reeling as I felt my body melt away, the automated arming rail system along the deck, clamped against our keel boots, fitted us. A ring of needles drilled into my heart as I watched Moore in-front of me get armed.

Syntharms pulled her here and there like a toddler dressing up a doll. An MG riveted into her shoulder blades, and its ammunition cylinder into the other. Along her hip they stapled a vibroblade into its slot. Anti-swarm would be her role.

I came up, still in a realm of agony. Arms spread like a T, legs clamped together, dual barreled 4-inchers rammed into my shoulders, and their feeds into my hips. I didn’t vomit, the stims sending me beyond my skin. My role, anti-armor.

Lined up at the mouth of the carrier, training, more so than my own nervous system, made me brace myself for the magnetic sendoff.

Along black waters we skipped once, twice, before settling into a steady skate. Even in the blackened waters, its oillike sheen danced in the corners of my vision.
I had blinked, and several unimportant klicks zoomed by. We’re in Drowned territory now.

My HUD lit up with a refresh of our objective: Jam clearing. The worst shit.

The map, rendered with a wireframe of the ocean that ignited the CPU in my parietal lobe, displayed our clique’s location, course, and intercept path.
I committed it to memory and then dove for a moment, vaporizing water around my head.

My augs aren’t even bad, I just have brain problems.
Hotgirl shit.

Haloed by steam I saw them.
The calcs ran, targeting squares popped into my vision, and I aligned my cannons to the one with the highest displacement value.
Synced with my clique I gestured, a knife hand point to the calced reticule in the sky, and my 4inchers fired.
The shells arced over the horizon with the others before my HUD beeped out, “Sunk.”

Sunk’s the nicer word. Nicer than pulped. Or misted. On the horizon, pillars of red girlmist erupted to our shelling.

The jam cleared, and my clique was awash in red.
SC Jones’ coms screamed, [UNDER-]

Something grabbed hold and sunk me.