Only Human (Goddess of Victory NIKKE SI)

[JadeGirl]

For all that there's talk about how the Ark supposedly surpassed the tech level that enabled making the Grimms-Type in the first place, their "flagship" teams in Matis and Absolute sure don't seem to be on that level...

Click to shrink...

I think the Ark is more consistent with Nikke power capacity now. Grimms models are incredibly strong but it they seem to depend on having compatibility (at least in canon). Nowadays it seems like the Ark can take any single woman and turn her into a Matis/Absolute level Nikke and it's really just a matter of how many resources they want to spend.

This situation seems pretty bad. Joe might not even have Type-X/Vapaus blood, unlike the canon Commander, since he's not a clone of Andersen

 

[BakaSmurf]

===
Chapter 106 - The Eye
===

Eunhwa and Joe progressed gradually, making a point to take it slow and steady, lest they walk face-first into potential Rapture threats. Oddly, despite being in a seeming Rapture fortification, all was quiet. Occasionally, there was a distant mechanical whir to accompany their presence in the massive building, but otherwise, nothing. Nothing but the sounds of their own footsteps and shifting of their gear broke the silence.

Keeping close to walls, checking their corners using the hand mirror Joe had packed along both for this exact purpose—and also as an emergency fire starter if they found themselves without working lighters—they moved further and further into the eerie, brightly-lit labyrinthine complex. Oddly, there was no sign of Absolute, Matis, or Counters. They shouldn't have been so dramatically separated given that they were all well within casual speaking distance of each other on the surface…

Glancing up to double-check, the ceiling was high off the ground. It didn't look like there were multiple floors, just the one and the roof they'd been standing on, just as when he'd first looked up when they'd started moving-

Joe paused. He blinked, and grimaced heavily as he reached out and set a hand on Eunhwa's shoulder to stop her. The violet-eyed woman halted, glancing back at the man with a quizzical look. He leaned in so as to whisper into her ear, aiming to remain unheard as they were. "Did you see the hole we fell in through back at the start of this?"

Brows lightly knitting, it took Eunhwa a moment to parse what he was asking, and she momentarily directed her own eyes skyward, then she just stared off into the aether for a few ponderous moments… "I just checked my mission recording. I saw sunlight for an instant as we were falling and just as we hit the ground… It was gone by the time we were out from under that pile of debris."

That was not a good sign. Glancing around, Joe took in their surroundings. They'd been walking for fifteen minutes now. The ceiling, did it repair itself? Stitch itself back together in the time Eunhwa had been waiting for him to wake up? That… Only Chatterbox had shown explicit self-repair capabilities to that point. Were they-

Joe's eyes caught something out-of-place. This structure was pristine, stark white. There was no shit just laying around, nothing to be displaced in the first place. Yet, there was a loose rock, just sitting next to a wall. Joe cautiously made his way over to it, leaned down, and picked it up. There was loose dust around it as well, which was decidedly out-of-place. Looking over the inexplicable stone…

"This is one of the rocks I threw off of you," Joe remarked, vaguely remembering the odd, bean-like shape of it in his armoured hands. He then dropped it right back where he'd found it with no aplomb.

Eunhwa was quiet for a few long, ponderous moments. Scanning their surroundings slowly and carefully, she let out a long, deep sigh through her nostrils before she refocused on the Commander. "Do you have anything you could use to make markings?"

…Shit, they were thinking the same thing then.

Nodding, Joe dug into his chest rig, withdrawing a number of coloured chalk sticks. Handing one over, Eunhwa took it and immediately marked the wall and floor she was standing next to and upon with a pair of simple arrows. "Mark the direction we're walking in frequently. Both a wall, and a floor. Use the same colour each time."

Somewhere indistinct, a mechanical rumbling could be heard.

With a nod, Joe grimaced heavily as he formed up next to the woman while she dropped the chalk he'd handed her into a spare pocket. If they were right, they'd find out real quick.

Without sparing another word, the pair continued on as they had been, heads on swivels, marking their forward progress even as the rumbling continued, never close enough to feel too close for comfort.

Ten minutes later, they spotted one of the arrows they'd drawn on the floor, suddenly partially disappearing into a wall that was several feet away from it previously. A wall which they had also marked, but was now bare.

"Son of a bitch," Joe growled under his breath.

"Because of course," Eunhwa grumbled in turn. "This damned building is shifting around us as we go. The hole in the ceiling didn't patch itself shut. The walls just moved to hide it from us so we couldn't use it as a navigational aid."

The pair stood in silence for a while, considering the situation as it was. Mind going a mile a minute, Joe furrowed his brow heavily. "...Raptures don't construct buildings," he mused as the pieces started falling into place-

"The entire damned structure is a Rapture," Eunhwa finished the thought, grimacing heavily.

Mind going back to the Rapture bestiary he periodically went over for reference… "A Land Eater?" He wondered aloud. A Tyrant-class that was a veritable kaiju in its scale. Not unlike the Spirit of Motherwill from Armored Core, for reference.

"They're periodically mistaken for invasion-era entrenched fortresses," Eunhwa replied even as she scanned their surroundings critically. "Until they stand up and start walking, at least."

Adding onto the thought, Joe continued. "One would certainly be big enough. Giant turtle, massive shell covered in missile pods and cannons… Shit, do we actually know what's inside of a Land Eater's shell?" He inquired.

The woman shook her head, "Land Eaters have only ever been destroyed with overwhelming firepower that completely obliterated them. We've never had the chance to actually 'explore' one intact enough to be traversable, if they had traversable interiors to begin with."

Adjusting the grip on First Affection, Joe lightly worked his jaw in consideration before continuing. "If we were standing on top of a gargantuan Rapture, it would explain the tentacles that attacked us. The damned thing noticed us and used a small-unit suppression weapon to get rid of us."

"We need to form back up with the rest of the team," Eunhwa urged the man. "We are in extreme danger if we're inside of a Land Eater that knows we're here… In fact, it's probably actively working to keep us all separated."

Nodding, the Commander made note of something else that just occurred to him at the mention of the Rapture potentially trying to keep them apart. "No gunshots," Joe mused once more. "No loud noises to speak of… Shit, everyone else is trying to be quiet too. We might've walked past each other a half-dozen times by now, the walls shifting around just enough to not know we were all within shouting distance of each other potentially dozens of times already."

As Eunhwa just looked at Joe, the man came to a conclusion.

"This damned thing already knows we're in here, knows where we are to be disorienting us so much. If they knew where we are, Rapi could just tear holes in the walls to come straight to us, Vesti could probably use her rocket launcher to create openings, and Laplace has her laser cannon she could use to get through walls as well. If I fire off three shots as a signal, that should be enough to let everyone else zero in on our position quickly if they're close enough to hear."

Eunhwa considered the suggestion for a moment before replying. "While I would normally note that doing that would alert any nearby Raptures to our presence… As you said: we're clearly inside of a Rapture. The enemy already knows where we are. If anything, keeping us all separated suggests they don't want us grouped up—that might even be why it opened up a hole in its shell to begin with: to give itself a chance to break us up." Her eyes narrowed, and nodded sharply once as she readied her rifle. "Do it."

With Eunhwa's blessing and agreement, prepared for whatever might rush them down once they started making noise, Joe shouldered First Affection, the submachine gun pointedly set to semi-auto, and aiming to angle the shot so if it ricocheted, it'd bounce around a corner… He pulled the trigger once. His ear protection muffled the localized explosion, the confined environment forcing the device to act on overdrive and turn the report into a garbled, digitized mess. As ever, it felt like the Commander had missed a step going down a flight of stairs at the same time it felt like he was fighting to control an accidentally revved motorcycle backwards on foot, even as the weapon tried to knock him flat on his ass.

Luckily, Snow White had hardened and reinforced the exoskeleton for him when she'd repaired it (because he was "'clearly' too stupid to trust to not do stupid things"), so this was nothing he couldn't easily handle even more so than before.

Three seconds later, he pulled the trigger again, burning hot brass bouncing off the wall to his right and coming to a rolling stop at his feet. Yet another three seconds passed before he fired off one more shot. It was like shoulder-firing an anti-materiel rifle meant to be shot from a bipod, but with his gear, he could manage this much.

The response was immediate. A series of booms and bursts started to rapidly approach them from three separate directions. It didn't take very long at all for a wall several metres off the ground to explode in a burst of light—Laplace's laser cannon blowing a hole through, presumably aiming high to avoid hitting anyone at ground level. Another violently opened some ways away, exploding in a more traditional manner courtesy of Vesti's rocket launcher, and yet one more had Rapi's fist punch clean through it before she tore it apart like a demon in human form, producing a hole big enough for Nikkes to pass through via pure muscle alone.

"Joe!" The little strawberry blonde called out as she forced her way into the hall, immediately rushing for the man with no small amount of worry painted across her features as Neon and Anis followed shortly after.

Even as she did so, a cry of "Hero jump!" preceded Laplace leaping through the perfectly circular hole she'd shot out seconds previously.

"Villain leap!" Drake proclaimed as she flipped through the impromptu entryway, landing alongside Laplace like a pair of Tokusatsu characters.

Maxwell just hopped onto the lip of the hole, then stepped off of it with no aplomb beyond an exasperated sigh.

Meanwhile, Vesti and Emma quickly jogged into the area from their entryway to form up alongside everyone else, the pair looking more than a little relieved to see Eunhwa on her feet.

"Everyone, eyes on!" Joe belted out a command immediately, before everyone got caught up in himself and Eunhwa being safe. "This entire damned structure is likely one massive Rapture! It's been shifting the walls around to keep us separated! Assume we're being actively tracked and targeted here!"

That got everyone to switch on right quick. Anis declared with a cry of "Oh come on! Giant Rapture buildings now too!?"

Neon press-checked her shotgun to ensure it was locked and loaded as she said: "Something so big must have some serious firepower!"

Readying her laser rifle, Maxwell mused aloud, "Well if we're inside of the thing, it probably won't turn whatever massive guns it has in on itself, right?"

"...Probably not," Rapi replied as she ensured her rifle was loaded, sidling up alongside the Commander as she did so. "Raptures that are programmed for self-destruction just charge and explode outright. If it hasn't done so to eliminate us already, it more than likely won't at all."

"Drake," Eunhwa spoke up, keeping her firearm at a low ready. "Are our comms out because of how deep in here we are, or are we being actively jammed?"

"Actively jammed," Drake replied as she flicked the tip of her nose with the thumb of her off hand… Twice, for some reason, scattergun at rest on her shoulder. "It's sloppy, though. There's one direction where the jamming gets noticeably stronger, meaning that's probably where the jammer is located."

Maxwell cracked her neck, the act seeming to produce a bit of an uncomfortable-looking twitch she didn't otherwise acknowledge. "We were actually heading for it when we heard those gunshots."

"Destroy the jammer, bring back comms, Drake can scan properly again!" Laplace declared with a wide smile, pointing to the sky, then straight down a particular hallway. "This way, Commander!"

Rubbing his chin, Joe considered the situation and suggestion. If nothing else, they needed to get back in contact with Shifty before deciding if they were going to push on to finish the mission, or abandon the mission on account of not having been equipped to deal with a fucking Land Eater. If they had Pioneer with them, that might make things different, but they didn't. Laplace might've actually been about on par with a Grimms, but two Grimms-tier Nikkes wasn't enough to handle a goddamned kaiju Rapture.

With a nod, the Commander declared: "We break that jammer, and Drake will be able to get us back in contact with Shifty, and if necessary, find us a path back out of this place." Pointing down the same hallway Laplace did, he continued, "Let's get this over and done with, ladies!"

Matis immediately about-faced and started off-

"This way, Commander!" Laplace repeated herself.

"Everyone stick together," Maxwell suggested even as she marched off.

"It's over here," Drake said, taking point with her scattergun held at ease, despite the situation being what it was.

…As did Emma and Vesti, the two moving to walk alongside the trio without missing a beat. Which, understandably, gave Eunhwa pause. Joe found that strange himself. Especially given how Eunhwa's clothes were visibly heavily shredded, and though she was being a little trooper about it, she was clearly hurt.

Did- Hold up. Had they even said anything to Eunhwa?

Counters formed up around Joe and Absolute's leader. Rapi looked between the two, shared a look with Anis and Neon, and-

Emma, Vesti, and Matis stopped and turned to look back at them over their shoulders, clearly waiting for them.

"This way, Commander!" Laplace waved them over, that same, eager smile she always seemed to have fixed on her youthful face.

Rapi looked uncertain before she said, "Let's go, Commander," nodding towards them with a light frown.

Notably, Rapi took point, while Neon and Anis took up their flanks. The three were… Uncharacteristically focused. Even seeming on-edge. Granted, the situation did call for that, but… They were like, the most powerful team the Ark could form right now, short of having Pioneer join them as well.

Though…

He was probably overthinking it. With First Affection readied, Joe proceeded along with everyone else, trusting Drake to lead them to their current target.

---

Some ten minutes later, after walking in an increasingly uncomfortable amount of silence oppressing the team, Joe started to notice that Counters was gradually slowing down, very slowly creating distance between them, Matis, and two-thirds of Absolute. Glancing aside, sharing a look with Eunhwa, who looked particularly wary, the Commander figured that something was up. He reached out and tapped Rapi's shoulder, wordlessly announcing that he was trying to get her attention.

Assault rifle still held at the ready and pointing downrange, Rapi turned aside to glance at Neon and lightly jerked her head to Joe. At that, Neon reached over… and held her arm out in front of the Commander. Notably, Anis did the same with Eunhwa, the group slowing down a little quicker than they previously had been.

The man was starting to get really worried now.

After a few moments of that, Rapi rapidly slowed just long enough to step back and take Anis' place next to Eunhwa. The ravenette looked very wary, doubly so when Rapi reached up and tapped her own forehead twice in a row. Though there was a pause, Eunhwa leaned in to her former squadmate, and Rapi leaned over in turn. Touching their foreheads together even as everyone continued to slowly move forward.

That confused Joe for a moment, until he remembered that in the case of comms blackout, two Nikkes could still, if necessary, nonverbally communicate over comms by touching their foreheads together—which brought to mind how astronauts could speak to each other in a total vacuum without working radios by touching their visors together and shouting so that the vibration of their voices could carry through their suits.

Meaning that whatever was happening, it was bad, given that Rapi was making a point to convey whatever was happening to Eunhwa as stealthily as possible, very literally behind Matis, Emma, and Vesti's backs.

A point only further emphasized by Eunhwa sharply pulling away from Rapi, her expression immediately becoming extremely strained, teeth grit together and grip on her rifle audibly tightening.

What the fuck was happening? Oh fuck, what was-

Neon stepped around Joe's back, taking up position on his left side, and… Took a hold of his arm, to press his CombiLink to her forehead-

A single, soundless text alert lit up on it as the little platinum-haired Nikke released his limb and returned to her previous place at Joe's right flank, her bright green eyes peering out past her red-rimmed glasses with an uncharacteristic grimness.

For a moment, Joe didn't want to check it. But, as a Commander, it was his duty to know what was happening, and formulate a plan for it. Thus, Joe shifted his arm to check the alert on the forearm-mounted computer. Even if something apocalyptically bad was going down as they spoke, he needed to-

[CORRUPTION.]

Joe's heart fell down into his stomach like a stone, his breath hitched, and his pupils constricted into pinpricks.

No. No, no no no, it couldn't be happening again. There was a misunderstanding, this wasn't happening again, it-

Glancing back over her shoulder, Laplace noticed everyone trailing behind them by a fair amount. Spinning on her heel, she motioned for Counters and Eunhwa to catch up with a declaration of- "This way, Commander!"

…That same, eager smile she always seemed to have fixed on her youthful face. The same motion, the same, the exact same intonation.

For the fourth time in a row.

"Everyone stick together," Maxwell too, repeated herself exactly as she had before.

"It's over here," Drake asserted once more, again, like a glitched recording.

Emma and Vesti had stopped and turned in place as well. They didn't say anything. They remained silent, just staring at Counters and Eunhwa.

…None of them were blinking. All of them were… Subtly, minutely twitching. Like malfunctioning machines.

Shit. Shit, shit shit shit shit, the tentacles, the fucking tentacles! They were Corruption vectors! The girls were all afflicted with Corruption, and he hadn't-

Oh. Oh shit. This structure, this giant Rapture… Once it knew that it had successfully Corrupted Nikkes with its attack, it opened the trap door they were standing on so that the Corrupted Nikkes would lead the rest of them into the belly of the beast. Just like Marian had led himself, Rapi, and Anis to that Blacksmith...

This was a goddamned slaughterhouse, and they had been marching themselves right up to the meat grinder like good, obedient little lambs.

How in the fuck had he-

Eunhwa reached out, and lightly shoved Joe forward as she and the rest of the squad started off again. "Keep it down," she called out to their Corrupted companions in a hushed tone, "and slow down too. If we make too much noise, we might attract the attention of any nearby Raptures."

Joe had damn near stumbled, but he quickly fell into step once more. Yeah. Okay. Right. Don't tip the hand. Don't let them know they knew. This wasn't like Marian. They were inside of a giant Rapture, they were being actively tracked. Eunhwa and Rapi had exchanged words with each other. They must have had a plan already.

Eunhwa and Rapi didn't let their doubtless horror and fury show, despite knowing that their long-time trusted, cherished companions had been inflicted with Corruption right in front of them, and they'd been helpless to do anything about it.

This, despite knowing that every minute that passed, was a minute in which the chances of being able to save them, at all, fell lower and lower.

Three hours. If a Corrupted Nikke was returned to the Ark within three hours of being Corrupted, they could be saved… With a mind wipe. A factory reset. Completely destroying all of their accumulated memories since the moment they initially awoke as a Nikke. Many Nikkes lost their human memories upon their conversion. Meaning that if such was the case with Emma, Vesti, Laplace, Drake, and Maxwell… A mind wipe would reset them to zero. They would survive, they'd live, but at a terrible cost.

Some might even argue that they'd still died, and functionally, newborn clones had taken their place.

Was it even worth it? Risking having to potentially fight two of the most powerful Nikke squads ever created, just short of Eunhwa herself, put themselves at risk trying to avoid killing them, when their only recourse was a round of mind wipes-

At that moment, it hit Joe like a brick to the face. He'd somehow forgotten, in the heat of the moment.

Vapaus. A bullet that could free a Nikke from the chains of Corruption. It was just one bullet, but if…

…What if… The crystalline tip. That was it, that was obviously the vector used to destroy the NIMPH and the Corruption along with it, it had to be. What if… What if they could remove the tip, crush it, or, or something, and inject equal parts directly into the girl's brains? Would that be enough? Could that save them all? Could… Would that leave them with enough to save Marian?

…

Shit. Shit shit shit, this was, this was-

Joe took a subtle, bracing breath as they neared the Corrupted Matis and Absolute members. The girls, without saying anything, just stared, and upon seeming sure that they were uncritically following them, they all turned and started off themselves once more.

All of them deserved to be saved. All of them were good people. All of them fought to protect innocents. All of them pulled their weight. All of them were heroes. All of them deserved salvation just as much as Marian did.

If there was even a chance at being able to save them all, he had to take it.

As they walked, Joe relented his grip on First Affection, letting it hang in the air in front of him by the exoskeleton's support arm. He quickly, but quietly, typed out a message on his CombiLink. He didn't bother trying to send it, their comms were still being jammed. He silently presented his arm to Eunhwa, who was still walking alongside him.

She reached out, took a hold of his arm, and quickly touched the device to her forehead to do a point-blank wireless read of it.

He damn near missed the shuddering breath she took. It was enough to know what she'd received the message.

[I have the means to cure Corruption without wiping their memories at the Outpost. No matter what, keep them all alive. We can save them. You have to trust me.]

In the moments that passed, foreheads were silently pressed together, and the message was passed around. While Anis and Neon gave Joe looks of grim determination and nods of affirmation… Rapi and Eunhwa wordlessly spoke between each other for an extended period of time, comparatively. Eventually, after Rapi nodded shallowly, but firmly, Eunhwa turned to Joe. Their eyes met, and there, the Commander saw desperation.

He knew damn well why. Joe had only been with Marian for a half a month, and having to… Put her out of her misery, had nearly broken him outright. Emma and Vesti were Eunhwa's friends and comrades for decades.

Laplace, Drake, and Maxwell weren't exactly close with anyone present save for each other… But they were clearly good people doing their best to protect the Ark's population, save mankind, and reclaim the surface as well.

He just nodded once. An unspoken but genuine promise. They would save them all.

The leader of Absolute's expression became as grimly determined as Anis, Neon, and Rapi's. Seeing all of the girls steel themselves and become resolute in their newfound objective, Joe's features followed suit.

This time would be different. He would save Marian. They would save Emma, Vesti, Laplace, Drake, and Maxwell.

No matter what it would take.

 

[Fragment of Serenity]

At a certain point, I have to ask how the Ark hasn't' simply fallen already? The Corruption ability is, as best can tell, an auto win against everything: it ignores top of the line firewalls and internal scans, apparently can spread in less than a few minutes, and its basically unpurgeable. And, apparently, it can be deployed via a poke.

I'd argue that its a handwave to drive the plot forwards, but holy shit is it reaching new levels.

Joe, next time you head out, just go ahead and nuke the whole area before landing. You're odds of running into problems will hopefully reach 'normal' once most of the area is glass.

 

[SKsniper128]

At a certain point, I have to ask how the Ark hasn't' simply fallen already?

Click to shrink...

Canonical? It's a bit of a spoiler.

Spoiler: Main story spoiler

The Ark's controlling AI and Chatterbox have an agreement. Chatterbox refrains from drowning the Ark under nigh-infinite waves of Raptures, in exchange for a steady stream of Nikkes for the Raptures to corrupt. Corruption also needs a vector, either directly via physical contact/nanomachine injection, or whatever method Enikk used on Marian.

The Raptures don't go out of their way to hunt down humans unless they run across humans 'in the wild' on the surface as it where.

 

[Dsaeg]

At a certain point, I have to ask how the Ark hasn't' simply fallen already? The Corruption ability is, as best can tell, an auto win against everything: it ignores top of the line firewalls and internal scans, apparently can spread in less than a few minutes, and its basically unpurgeable. And, apparently, it can be deployed via a poke.

I'd argue that its a handwave to drive the plot forwards, but holy shit is it reaching new levels.

Joe, next time you head out, just go ahead and nuke the whole area before landing. You're odds of running into problems will hopefully reach 'normal' once most of the area is glass.

Click to shrink...

Its not really widespread. Land eater is not a usual Rapture by any means. Aegis guards the Ark itself. Oh and Ennik's little agreement for Raptures to not touch the ark.

 

[Fragment of Serenity]

Canonical? It's a bit of a spoiler.

Spoiler: Main story spoiler

The Ark's controlling AI and Chatterbox have an agreement. Chatterbox refrains from drowning the Ark under nigh-infinite waves of Raptures, in exchange for a steady stream of Nikkes for the Raptures to corrupt. Corruption also needs a vector, either directly via physical contact/nanomachine injection, or whatever method Enikk used on Marian.

The Raptures don't go out of their way to hunt down humans unless they run across humans 'in the wild' on the surface as it where.

Click to shrink...

The Chatterbox issue I'm aware of, but that doesn't cover the massive number of other Raptures. Chatterbox is middle management at best, which means his decisions shouldn't be across board for ALL raptures. There should have been SOME other Corruption vectors at this point that would have breached the ARK and started making problems. Enikk clearly doesn't have the capacity to actual stop them if they tried.

At some point, meta wise, it also has to be pointed out that the whole thing with Chatterbox IS a handwave for humanity to still survive so the game can exist. They also seem very intent on murdering humanity, given that they took over most the planet and killed every human there.

 

[Unravenan]

The Chatterbox issue I'm aware of, but that doesn't cover the massive number of other Raptures.

Click to shrink...

Two words: Red Shoes

Spoiler

You see in other events that Red Shoes basically commands Chatterbox to do things and so he does. Not only that, but Red Shoes IS the corruption code at this point in time in Nikke.

 

[Fragment of Serenity]

Two words: Red Shoes

Spoiler

You see in other events that Red Shoes basically commands Chatterbox to do things and so he does. Not only that, but Red Shoes IS the corruption code at this point in time in Nikke.

Click to shrink...

Hadn't kept up with the newest stuff.

That... I guess makes some sense. But at the same time, it also feels like the writers decided that they needed to add more needless grim derp. Which, given their general modus operandi, tracks.

 

[BakaSmurf]

At a certain point, I have to ask how the Ark hasn't' simply fallen already? The Corruption ability is, as best can tell, an auto win against everything: it ignores top of the line firewalls and internal scans, apparently can spread in less than a few minutes, and its basically unpurgeable. And, apparently, it can be deployed via a poke.

Click to shrink...

Corruption also only spreads via Tyrants, which are hilariously overrepresented in the game proper, given that they're actually extraordinarily rare canonically. And even then, most Tyrants don't actually spread Corruption. And Corruption isn't actually contagious between Nikkes, despite the Ark's fears to the contrary. Corrupted Nikkes aren't actually Corruption vectors in of themselves, hence actually bringing recently Corrupted Nikkes into the Ark to cure them being a viable option in canon.

Corrupted Nikkes are a danger because they eventually go berserk and attack their own allies, not because they make more Corrupt Nikkes.

And as noted, most Raptures actually legitimately don't care about the Ark and don't actively hunt down humans unless humans intrude upon the Surface. 99% of them are functionally extremely territorial animals that have high-powered guns for faces. This is because the general Rapture populace has been entirely cut off from contact with the Queen, via Old Tales (Cinderella's squad of Mark II Grimms) directly assaulting the Orbital Elevator to sever the Orbital Forge's connection to Earth—which to note, is the sole, singular source of Rapture production, period, there has actually been a hard (if still overwhelming) upper limit of Raptures on the surface since the Ark was sealed, the CG and Eden just aren't aware of this fact.

Little Mermaid produced a physical nanomachine bubble and threw it around the Orbital Forge as she was thrown from the elevator and before she underwent atmospheric re-entry to prevent the Queen from communicating with the Raptures on the surface. Canonically, the Queen was attacked by Cinderella directly, and has been explicitly too terrified by the notion of fighting Cinderella again to risk even trying to destroy the nanite shield surrounding the Orbital Forge because she's scared shitless that doing so might alert Cinderella to her still being alive, meaning Cinderella might come back for round 2 and finish her off this time.

Yes, Cinderella absolutely can canonically solo the Queen, and only failed the first time because the Queen got lucky enough to land a hit on her powerful enough to throw Cinderella from the Orbital Forge, whereupon the only thing she could do was use the Glass Slippers to sever the Forge's connection to the planet, because atmospheric flight does not mean that she can actually propel herself in a zero-g vacuum.

Raptures take orders exclusively from Queens, Heretics, and Chatterbox. If they don't have one of these actively directing them, they're just aimless, territorial animals. Heretics also don't actually care about the Ark, so long as mankind stays in their hole. This has been directly stated multiple times by multiple Heretics themselves. It is very specifically the Queen that wants humanity to go extinct. And in canon, the moment she has contact with the general Rapture populace again, she does in fact immediately go full-throttle and start directly attacking the Ark itself via any means available to her.

Chatterbox. meanwhile, is a sadistic fucker, but isn't actually actively attempting to drive mankind to extinction.

 

[ColdFenrir]

You know, considering how much of a head fuck Marian's corruption was to Joe, I'm surprised he didn't have some sort of instinctual or reluctant suspicion reaction to when the corrupted girls first started going "Over Here". Like, I know that coming from an outside view and has played the game it can come across as outside knowledge. But you'd think hearing the girls repeatedly say "over here" would set Joe's senses off.

Just curious for Author's explanation?.

Btw, loving the work, and I forget if it's already been explained, but 1. Where was Old Tales during the attack on the space elevator and why wasn't Cinderella with them. 2. It's been awhile so I don't remember if it was explained if the space elevator was destroyed by Cinderella or not?

 

[BakaSmurf]

Just curious for Author's explanation?.

Click to shrink...

A while back, Joe mentioned that he's been over-compartmentalizing things to the point where he's been basically locking off different parts of his mind off depending on what he's doing and would straight-up not be able to cross-reference information between the different pseudo-personalities he'd developed as a coping mechanism.

He's still kind of doing that. Not enough for it to be a problem, per sé, but enough for him to have some gaping blind spots (such as somehow managing to flat-out forget about the Vapaus bullet until the last scene of this most recent chapter) until he gives his head a good shake and fully breaks out of that bad habit.

Btw, loving the work, and I forget if it's already been explained, but 1. Where was Old Tales during the attack on the space elevator and why wasn't Cinderella with them. 2. It's been awhile so I don't remember if it was explained if the space elevator was destroyed by Cinderella or not?

Click to shrink...

Old Tales was going through the same events they did canonically, except with someone else taking Cinderella's place in the event's story.

The Orbital Forge has been cut off from the surface in OH, and it was still Old Tales that initiated this attack, it just wasn't Cinderella that confronted the Queen here. As far as Cinderella knows, Old Tales was wiped out shortly after she was transferred to Goddess; doubly so considering that she wasn't able to find any trace of them in the century after the Ark was sealed on account of their existence having been scrubbed clean even harder than Goddess' had been.

Old Tales is just as relevant to OH as they are in canon, there just hasn't been any reason for them to actually come up in the story yet, least of all because Joe doesn't even remember that they existed to begin with, given that his memories still have massive holes in them.

They are going to become relevant very soon though, given that Maiden is introduced in the aftermath of the battle against Material H, and when Joe begins describing her as a black-haired woman with a power she activates by calling out "Kotodama: the power within one's words," Cinderella is going to immediately freak the fuck out because that sounds like Siren out of context, given that Siren's unique ultimate Grimms ability is, y'know, Kotodama.

 

[BakaSmurf]

===
Chapter 107 - The Storm
===

Everyone progressed deeper into the Rapture facility, quietly following the Corrupted Matis and Absolute members leading them towards what would surely be their doom, had they not cottoned on to what was happening.

The plan was simple, if harrowing: hope that Drake was at least correct about the source of their comms blackout being in the direction they were currently marching… And the moment they had confirmation one way or the other, attack their Corrupted squadmates while their backs were turned to them.

Not to kill them, of goddamned course. But they needed Absolute and Matis disabled at minimum. Could Rapi take Laplace? Probably. Worst case scenario, Snow White's repairs using the Oregon Lost Sector's spoils had granted Rapi a few minutes of total Exceed time, which would more than likely give her the opportunity to incapacitate the near, if not outright Grimms-equivalent Nikke before she could become a threat to the non-Corrupted squad.

However, Drake and Maxwell were also in the equation. While it had been Laplace hogging the spotlight to the current point… Her squadmates were members of Matis, and all Joe had heard about Matis suggested that they were hardly considered tailcoat riders. While it sounded like Drake was closer to Laplace in power than Maxwell was, even Maxwell was still considered one of the strongest Nikkes in the Ark, full-stop.

Meaning: they had to take out Matis as quickly as they possibly could. Everyone was set to aim for their legs, then their weapons, then their arms, graduating until they were functionally neutralized. They were to avoid centre-of-mass at all costs, as the destruction of the girl's cores would be a death sentence in short order without brain shelters on hand to prevent their biological grey matter from dying without the life support systems of their cyborg bodies preserving them. With a core even operating on emergency power when combined with an intact skull, a Nikke could survive effectively indefinitely, even if in a comatose state.

Without? They'd have minutes before brain death started to kick in from a lack of oxygen intake alone. Nikkes were full 'borgs, but their human brains were ultimately still just human brains, if brains hardened with a nanite-constructed supermaterial lattice and swimming in a layer of shock-absorbing gel to counteract, if not outright negate extreme g-forces. Protection against physical trauma, not oxygen deprivation. Destroy the limbs, preserve their heads and cores, and they'd have upwards of two hours to get the girls back to the Ark.

Yet, that was all without considering Absolute. While Emma was noted to be the obvious weakest link of the squad, she was still an active and respected member of Elysion's most feared team. She could probably wipe the floor with Anis and Neon entirely on her own.

Vesti, meanwhile… Was the most directly dangerous member of Absolute, as she well would be, given her similarities to fucking Liliweiss. While Joe was sure that Rapi could easily wipe the floor with her regardless, Rapi might well be entirely preoccupied with drawing enmity from Laplace, lest Laplace do to Counters and Eunhwa what Rapi could do to any common MP squad just the same.

Thus… Take out their legs. Anis and Neon had loaded their shotguns with Ultra Slugs, aiming to literally kneecap Drake and Vesti between them. Rapi would blow off Laplace's leg with a round from Wolf's Bane, and Eunhwa would aim to destroy Maxwell's lower half using high-explosive Raufoss rounds—Maxwell had an exoskeleton of her own that would likely compensate for the loss of her limbs if the system wasn't destroyed at the same time.

Joe had to try cutting out Emma's legs from under her using First Affection himself. Eunhwa asserted that she might be able to get Maxwell and Emma herself if the first shot she took at Matis' engineer disabled her outright, but that was if they got lucky. Thus, the Commander needed to contribute to the attack as well. That really marked how damned dire the situation was, considering that even with his capacity to provide supporting fire if need be, they were needing to violate rule one the Ark's Rules of Engagement: Commanders are non-combatants.

This was so much fucking worse than what happened with Marian. Least of all considering they were inside of a giant goddamned Rapture housing the remnants of a dead Heretic. They were having to turn their own guns inwards, while anticipating the possibility of being swarmed from all directions at once the moment the Raptures knew the jig was up. Half their team not just casualties, but actively Corrupted into hostiles…

This was the singularly most powerful team the Ark could have ever fielded in the modern day. If not for the Vapaus bullet Snow White had provided him, this mission that should have been a simple retrieval operation would have just wiped out the Ark's two strongest Nikke squads outright. The damage that would cause to morale, and the Ark's capacity to effectively project power onto the surface…

This was a true nightmare scenario. And it was up to Joe to salvage it. Not so long ago, this responsibility might've broken him outright. Now?

He'd charged the front gates of the Orbital Elevator alongside Goddess. He'd held the line during Operation Ark Guardian. He could do anything, if only he needed to.

The need was real here and now, and thus, he'd do what was required of him.

Everything remained quiet. No Raptures emerged from the walls to harangue them, no immediately obvious danger aside from their Corrupted companions made itself obvious to them. Therefore, everyone continued to march onward, staring warily at the backs of among the most powerful Nikkes ever produced by the Ark, Corrupted, and whose only hope for salvation was a lone bullet that was left back at Shangri-La.

Eventually, after cleanly passing through a series of twists and turns Drake really obviously shouldn't have known how to frictionlessly navigate, they emerged into a massive open room, at the centre of which sat a… Structure? Towering, carbon black from top-to-bottom, and surrounded by industrial scaffolding—it seemed to hang from the ceiling, many countless wires ran from the cylindrical connective section that anchored it to the roof. It-

Snapped to focus on everyone, a neon red flare visibly glowing that terrible fel crimson that accompanied all Rapture life.

The core.

As it registered to everyone just how perilous the situation had become all at once, Laplace started to turn to look back at Counters and Eunhwa over her slight shoulder, a crimson sheen visible in her once bright, pure sapphire blue eyes.

Part of Joe wanted to shut down at the reminder, at images of Marian's gorgeous heterochromatic eyes tainted red flashing in his mind's eye. At the notion that these girls may well all be lost, that his efforts would be for naught. That under his command, the greatest Nikkes ever produced by the Ark had fallen.

Instead, the barrel of First Affection sharply snapped to his target, and in turn, all guns were raised and sights were fixed on the legs of their quarry in turn—committing to attack before whatever the fuck that thing in the centre of the room was unleashed a horde of Raptures alongside Matis, Emma and Vesti on them all at once.

Immediately, the mistake of having Joe stand in the middle of a Nikke firing line landed, and the Commander was very nearly knocked over by the resulting pressure wave produced by every one of their guns going off at once right next to each other. He did his very best to recover quickly, but such was not enough. Least of all given that Rapi went flying, as Laplace outright dodged her shot and flew at her like a bat out of Hell, the pair producing a ruinous crash behind everyone's backs as the two strongest Nikkes present started striking each other with cataclysmic violent force as the plan immediately started to misfire on them.

Worse still, was that Joe hitched and grimaced in horror at the sight of Maxwell's exploded legs as she inelegantly hit the gore-stained ground upon which she'd just been standing but an instant prior. Mind flashing back to the horrific injuries Anis had received from Chatterbox, the sight mixing with the acrid stench of burnt hypertech gunpowder and synthetic bodily fluids superheated by high-explosive small arms munitions. The man's senses were hopelessly overwhelmed all at once, and he was reminded of one of the most inarguable benefits of being encased within a hermetically sealed Hoplon's cockpit relative to just wearing an exoskeleton.

The reminder that injured Nikkes looked like regular human women that had been horrifically mutilated by nightmarish injuries hit the man like a truck. This, on top of the physical stupefaction that had been inflicted upon him by the staccato of close-in Nikke-grade gunfire made for a dangerous combination.

Such was demonstrated when, as Vesti took a slug to the knee which visibly did significant damage to her limb, but did not destroy it, and Drake actually took even less apparent damage from the same type of slug thrown from the barrel of a shotgun that would have been considered to be a man-portable light artillery piece by any modern military from Joe's home world, both of whom were at least staggered by the attacks…

A follow-up shot from Eunhwa that struck at Drake's ankle and messily blew off her foot signified that it had taken everyone too long to notice that Joe's shot had missed Emma entirely, and she was actively bringing her minigun around to bear on them all.

Joe hammered at the trigger of the hotrodded ASh-12 in a reactive panic, Snow White's enhancements to his exoskeleton allowing him to just tank the semi-auto recoil far more effectively than he otherwise would have—which is to say he could rapid-fire the weapon in semi-auto at all now.

The lack of a suppressor on the .50-calibre firearm combined with the heavy-duty compensator (a muzzle device which counteracted recoil at the cost of making muzzle flash and the weapon's report significantly more violent), however, meant that the man was still effectively being punched in the face by the sheer concussive backpressure of each shot fired.

Thus, of the dozen semi-armour-piercing high-explosive rounds he functionally blindly fired at Emma, two struck her minigun—and upon striking the weapon's loaded drum, punched into the actual innards of the magazine and its many hundreds of 7.62mm cartridges. The explosive bullets causing the unspent rounds to cook off in the mag, and therefore the firearm exploded in her hands with a rapid-fire series of hundreds of miniature explosions that quickly become one.

This, just as Joe felt his heart drop into his stomach as Vesti, in between Anis working the action of her shotgun, fired off a rocket at them.

With inhuman immediacy, Neon jumped into the path of the actual heavy artillery shell… And in the same motion, slapped it aside.

Note, 'slapped' it. Not 'stopped' it.

The anti-Tyrant munition veered off-course for a fraction of a second before striking a wall some ways off to the side of the squad. Everyone was violently thrown from their feet by the resulting explosion and pressure wave.

Worse yet, a second, inexplicable boom sounded out, though the man had no idea where it had come from relative to the first.

Joe was starting to feel as though he was in the middle of an ongoing high-speed car crash.

Coming to a harsh rolling stop, the Commander clutched at the tactical vest covering his chest, eyes wide and breath coming in ragged gasps. Despite being in full-body pain, sheer adrenaline allowed the man to force himself onto his knee, and snapping his gaze around to get his bearings…

He saw Laplace and Rapi. The two blondes were going absolutely full-throttle on each other, and Laplace- Laplace wasn't losing.

Laplace was actually pressing Rapi, matching a Grimms model blow-for-blow. The two diminutive women were throwing lightning-fast strikes, kicks, punches, chops, knees and elbows with such rapidity that it was nearly impossible to track their movement. Doubly so considering they were also viciously grappling the entire time, to prevent each other from using their firearms in their melee.

One would twist and throw the other, and would, mid-toss and with not even being in contact with the ground, respond with a counter-throw or a leg hooked around the other's extremity or even neck that would bring both to the floor with such extreme force that the material made from the same metal Raptures were armoured in buckled and cratered.

To say nothing of thrown fists and kicks that missed and hit the plated floor beneath them just punching clean through the ground outright. Their limbs were then ripped free, often with a spinning backhand or kick that tore gouges in the hyper tech metal that would, and once did no-sell a United States Naval Destroyer's main battery.

It… Wasn't entirely unlike watching a goddamned Dragonball fight scene, except unfathomably terrifying because it was actually happening, and was happening within fifty feet of your horrifically mortal human form.

How close were they coming to producing sonic booms with their punches and kicks? Close. So goddamned close that it was making Joe's teeth rattle. Missilis had actually produced a modern Fairy Tales model, and that modern Grimms had been Corrupted, holy mother of Christ-

The man's attention was suddenly seized by the- The core? Out of his peripheral vision, he noticed that it was starting to… Was it… Spooling up-?

"Commander!" Eunhwa cried out from where she had come to a crashing stop not far from Joe himself. "That thing- It's Indivillia's core! Indivillia's core is restored and active! This facility must be regenerating the Heretic!"

Joe's eyes somehow went even wider than they had previously, and his heart almost felt like it stopped outright. This information came just as he'd too noticed Drake, Vesti, and Emma rising from where they too had been thrown by- A grenade fired by Anis, given how her MGL Mk 2 had gone clattering away from her as though it had been dropped, while her shotgun was now slung over her shoulder.

Vesti had taken minimal damage, standing and staring with that same doe-eyed expression she always seemed to wear, seemingly entirely unconcerned with the entire situation as her typically teary blue eyes had started to glow the same foul red as the Heretic's core.

Drake was just outright standing on the jagged stump where her foot had been, even as synthetic blood leaked past the cauterized majority of the open wound and pooled on the ground on which she stood. Her horned, armoured mask was deployed, though the Commander could still see the crimson glow of her eyes clear through the visor.

Emma… As she rose, Joe could clearly see that he had actually landed many more shots on her than one might've expected. At the same time, it was clear that they had miscalculated, and failed to account for the fact that pistol-calibre cartridges would not have been able to punch through her high-grade Specialist armour. Dent it? Yes. But not penetrate. The outer epidermal layer of her skin had been shorn off by each bullet strike, revealing the Goddessium beneath which had only been slightly bowed and burnt by every individual impact.

Yet, far worse was the fact that the side she carried her minigun on had almost all of the skin blown and burnt off when her gun detonated in her hands, with what was left loosely clinging to her metallic dermal layers in grotesquely hanging chunks. From her ankle up to her collarbone, her clothes had been destroyed, leaving only her left side mostly unscathed, save for where First Affection's bullets had ineffectively struck. The cyborg nature of Nikkes was exposed for all to see, and it was a terrible, gory sight that shook the Commander to his core.

Worse yet… Her face was almost entirely unmarred. Not but a dusting of soot had found purchase on her cheeks, and that gentle, matronly smile of hers was cruelly contrasted by the abominable blood-red glow of her once gorgeous olive eyes.

Emma should have been in agony, having lost so much of her flesh. Yet, there she stood, silent, unshaken, unbothered, even with her metallic skeleton partially exposed to the open air around them.

Only Maxwell had seemingly been successfully downed. And Laplace had not only entirely avoided taking a bullet, she was currently keeping the uncorrupted squad's strongest member entirely occupied and surely incapable of supporting them.

All the while, the 'structure' housing Indivillia's active core revealed two pairs of long, winding and wide tentacle-like arms terminating in great pincers that were held at the ready, even as what were immediately recognized as laser projectors flared to life all over the body housing the Heretic's core.

Grimacing, Joe recognized with his immense tactical acumen, standing against four high-tier Corrupted Nikkes and what, by all appearances, was a fucking partially-restored Heretic…

This was going to suck.

 

[Fragment of Serenity]

Joe, methinks you need to track down some thermobaric weaponry and just start carpet bombing every area you are deployed to BEFORE you go there.

Because holy shit if you didn't have the shittiest luck of any human being alive, you'd have no luck at all.

 

[Ace of Scarabs]

Because holy shit if you didn't have the shittiest luck of any human being alive, you'd have no luck at all.

Click to shrink...

Joe kept tampting Murphy and self-jinxing

 

[Blackhart]

Fucking hell... Dorothy needs to lock in because this will be an absolute shit show..
Kept me at the edge of my seat though, thank you for the chapter!