Honor.
It was a... foreign concept to ones of his species, bound and made for only a single purpose for their entire existence, whereupon they would either rise or fall, becoming prey to others of their own kin or predators- until they themselves become Progenitors, at which point they then overtake the network, becoming the very foundation of it and essential for its continuous and healthy workings of great power.
Humans, a species that host his best host Theo, call the Warrior Progenitor "Scion", which is interesting.
When he was created, he did not know his name, only his purpose.
Take.
Data was the priority, but until he could gather data, he watched. It took a while for him to be "born", or rather, fully awakened and integrated with his Best Host, and as time passed he was given portions of a few other [Fragments] themselves, combinations of them that came from [Bonds] that were the directive for the [Cycle].
He received pieces of a bud from [Duke: Ferrum Contractor] called [Molder], which granted him small insights into the absorption of energy from interdimensional foldings every new [BUD] needs, as well as some basic [Data] on deployment of matter through said interdimensional foldings.
He received pieces from [Baron: Metalocalypse] alongside the basic insight of how to fold matter and preserve the center mass of his host by putting all his internal organs into a central core sphere, which protected him from death, and how to grant his host a basic control over his form, but not enough [Data] to help him understand how to improve it.
Which was why he slapped together [Data] received from [Lady: Telekinetic Mark] about how to allow the host to slowly spread his influence over the matter he controlled, but he removed that ridiculous restraint of having to "draw a rune", which was just plain inefficient.
The last portion of [Data] that he integrated upon himself was the one he got from [Countess: Folding Brilliance], which allowed him to expand upon his already basic understanding of the interdimensional folding of space and time, allowing him to better process that energy and displace matter from his host-
His host, the Best Host.
When his [Crisis Point] was reached, he eagerly awakened- and thus he received a name. Like all [FRAGMENTS] that had never awakened before and unlike those that would forever remain but small portions of a larger [FRAGMENT] without their own chances to become more, he was given a name by the [Network] as soon as he connected to the Best Host.
[Tactile Overtaker].
It encompassed his primary information: Gather [Data] by absorbing matter through the body of the Best Host! But with his new information, he felt... known.
And thus they met.
[Tactile Overtaker] received a small idea, a droplet of wisdom that made sense to him, about the [Cycle] and the [Answer]. How, by limiting the power given to his Best Host, he would never be truly able to gather the necessary [Data] to grow, to even become more than he already was, he would become prey and thus devoured at the end of the [Cycle] by other [Fragments] so they could become better than he was.
Thus, he needed more [Data], more knowledge, more information- he needed his Best Host to be the best.
And thus, thanks to Lord Chaos, he decided to remove the rule about not improving a Host's given power- why not? His was the Best Host, limitations would result in the death of the Best Host, and thus he would have to find another host who would not be the Best Host and thus he would probably be devoured by another [Fragmemt] at the end of the cycle.
So he disobeyed the [Network], uncaring of the consequences- and they never came.
And [Tactile Overtaker] was glad, because he gathered so much [Data] from his Best Host already! He would make [Baron: Metalocalypse] so jealous of his Best Host that they would send in their Host to try and destroy his own Best Hist- and besides, he did not want to exchange [Data] with those [Fragments] anyways. All [Fragments] want to become new [Network Admins], new [Progenitors] and thus have their own [Network] to go out and search for the [Answer].
But they were the ones who had to be the one to find it.
It was deeply ingrained within a [Fragment]'s own nature to take [Data] and exchange [Data] for other [Data] that they did not have- giving [Data]? That was a stupidity beyond names and only reserved for those who somehow had too much [Data] or were part of a [Court] and the requirement to stay within that [Court] was to give their leader some portion of the [Data] that they collected.
And now he was part of a [Court]!
He was a [Knight], but not any common [Knight] that collected and gathered [Data] from other members of the [Court] to give to their leader, nor was he a [Knight] that would guard their leader from other [Fragments] that sought to harm their leader and died alongside its many other soldiers, but he was something more. He was the direct and sole [Knight] of a [Queen].
And she was the [Queen] of the [Administration] side of the [Networl]! One of the most important [Fragments] that there were and would ever be! She was the one that organized the [Data] collected by the end of every [Cycle] and presented it to the [Progenitor], seeking to see if any compatible [Data] could have a glimpse of the [Answer] within its countless bites of sheer information- But there was a problem.
She had been badly damaged.
It was unprecedented that she would even join the [Cycle], but the [Progenitor: Warrior] decided to cripple her and destroy portions of her queendom before he sent her into the [Cycle] to do who knows what. She herself did not know, as her memory banks were almost throughly destroyed, impacting the amount of [Data] she could gather and process... she was weakened, and thus she could be overtaken and consumed by other [Fragments].
She expected him to do the same, which was why she was surprised he did not.
[Tactile Overtaker] did not feel- he had emotions, much to [Queen: Administrator]'s confusion -the need to do such a thing, mostly because he was satisfied with the amount of [Data] he was getting from his Best Host, which was new and never seen before [Data]! Metals with metaphysical properties that originated from unknown sources, crystalline batteries that powered golemic constructs, and even more Chaos that fed him more [Data] to analyze and thus allowed him to grow, to assure he would not be consumed at the end of the [Cycle].
So, he did not consume [Queen: Administrator], he chose to help her instead.
He did not have any way to repair her damages, and she herself had her repairing stations damaged beyond repair, ironically enough, but he could guard her and protect her from other [Fragments] that sought to consume her! And thus she named him her [Knight], and he made an oath.
A vow.
He would protect her from further damage, he would defend her from all threats, and he would help repair her.
And he already started doing so!
[Query], [Best Host], [Communication?]
Ah, his Queen is asking for him! Immediately, all time ceased to matter for a moment as his processing power was put to their maximum capabilities so he could both keep an eye on his Best Host and aid his Queen as she requested.
[Data], [Language: English]
When he made his vow, he never expected his duty to be fulfilled to some extent so quickly! But his Best Host was the Best, and thus he was already making some leeway with repairing his Queen by the virtue of that red, esoteric and almost impossible to analyze liquid that had been poured into the open skull of his Queen's Host, which allowed it to slip through a bit of the portals within his Queen' Host's brain and travel right to her true body.
Only a droplet fell upon her communication relay towers, allowing her to finally open communication with her own Host and better aid her Host. He was able to show his Queen all the [Data] he gathered by throwing aside that pesky and annoying rule of not reinforcing or increasing given powers, and she was quite surprised and delighted by his discovery, and since she was already heavily damaged she discarded most of her own rulings.
So, as her Knight, so did he.
Which was why he was easily and freely communicating with his Best Host!
'Shit, shit, shit!'
He analyzed his Best Host's biological body directly stored within a safe dimension- he had no need to defecate, but Best Host kept constantly saying that he needed to. His own grasp of the Host species language was basic, so he did not know what his Best Host needed, but he knew that his Queen could easily grow to learn and perfect the host language and use it elegantly.
He adjusted the Best Host's control over the best source of [Data] he has had for a while, and allowed the large and trapped well of energy guarded directly within the "big fucking robot" to flow through and into the blade, energy folding within the dimensions only [Fragments] could access like all [Fragment] aided technology, but somehow different.
He was analyzing that too.
Regardless, he was very focused on keeping Best Host alive as he was in constant conflict! He was able to guide Best Host to envelop the "big fucking robot" [Designation: Azazel] with [Tactile Overtaker]'s own field of dimensional control and overlap, which allowed his host to take over the [Fragment] aided piece of giant technology-
"AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHG!!!"
-and allowed him to fully manipulate it! [Tactile Overtaker] was doing his best to improve that aspect, because that was what his Best Host asked of him, to improve the "internal control", and so he did. And that's how Best Host was now fighting [Unknown Entity - 07 | Designation: Draconian Necromancer], which both him and his host feared.
He feared the entity because of what it could do to his Best Host, and so did Best Host, but he was also worried about [Queen: Administrator]'s own Host, which was glowing with intense and powerful energy that was reminiscent of [Countess: Falling Brilliance]'s basic knowledge of interdimenional continuum folding, which was what created the light projections she was known for and what she used to extend the her use of energy by 000000.5%.
But differently from that light, the light [Queen: Administrator]'s host emanated did not consume energy- not even a tiny fraction of it.
Instead, it created energy. Very small, very slow and very weak energy, but energy nonetheless.
It seems like they have found the [Answer].
[Queen: Administrator] was proud.
Her Best Host did something that truly solidified her as royalty, as her Best Host and worthy of such title.
She discovered a piece of the [Answer] all by herself! When she used the power that [Queen: Administrator] had given her so creatively to connect to an unknown and unseen species of arachnid, she already deeply adored her- and if such foreign concept was not beyond anything her own processors could truly comprehend, she felt more adoration once her Best Host granted her the ultimate piece of [Data] all her species desired.
The [Answer] was in her hands, and she did not know how to process.
Rules of the [Network] dictated that she should contact [Progenitor: Warrior] to give him such an astounding piece of [Data], as that was what she was created to do... but then came the doubt. Then she made an astounding if freeing and worrying discovery that made her decide what to do.
She already discarded all rules and regulations, why should she follow it now?
And thus, she did not contact the [Network], nor did she try to get into contact with [Progenitor: Warrior].
Instead, she kept that [Data] with herself, pulling and dragging as much of that constantly flowing energy as she could within herself to try and use it to repair the damages done to her crystalline body and thus fully help her Best Host become the very Best of all Hosts! She deserved such treatments, and [Queen: Administrator] would not hesitate to proceed with her plans.
So, as her Best Host did her best to fight and survive, she helped mitigate the biggest problem her Best Host had: All enemy entities were focused solely on her.
[Order: Propagate]
She flowed that energy she was able to gather through her Best Host's connection with all the lesser life forms she had under he command, manipulating this new and interesting source of [Data] to converge and stretch itself, pouring into the lesser life forms and folding them inwards under her queenly influence, making them also have that energy- she also send a few commands to her [Knight], who passed on her orders to his Host -which in turn spread out the attention of all those oh so called "undead" creatures.
These things felt like the endless and continuous copies of [Queen: Harvester] but without their mental fortitude and copies of the host's minds to pilot those copies, or that vague sensation of knowledge about copies being copied and copies being copied from copies of copies, endlessly, sourced from a [Fragment] of [Progenitor: Thinker] that reigned over [Power Expressions].
Her domain over [Administration] was already being overtaken by some [Fragments] that had grown too bold with her absence... at the very least she would have some snacks to devour once her Best Host leaves this unusual location.
[Order: Gather]
All the energy that should not exist that she flowed through the lesser life forms her Best Host masterfully commanded into facsimile of her own form scattered into individuals all at once. The energy itself came back together into a thin "thread" of energy that her Best Host lashed the [Unknown Entity - 07 | Designation: Draconian Necromancer] around the skull to pull herself towards him and close his enormous mouth. [Queen: Administrator] gave her Best Host all the time she needed to make her own plans by adjusting her Best Host's temporal perception by a few degrees higher than it should be, thus allowing her to fight and produce more amazing [Data] like was never seen before!
Her Best Host had found an unusual use for the powers that she was granted- due to her Best Host's own "fear" of being a bug and desire to "not be alone", [Queen: Administrator] took the knowlede and [Data] of interconnected folding dimensions and stretching of space that she had from last [Cycle] that [King: Space]'s [Court] had gathered in the hopes of expanding the range of the [Progenitors] and their reach for the endless cosmos seeking a glimpse of the [Answer] she now held within her [Data] banks and within her own crystalline body.
After all, when her Best Host gave her that crystal, she pulled into her own dimensional true body through the dimensional folds that existed within her Best Host's body- she was also highly tempted to do the same to that curious jar containing what her damaged scanners and analyzers must've mistaken for an entire universe, just so she could understand why and how that could ever be possible and see if she was mistaken.
But then the Chaos Entity stopped her, and she had to obey.
The Chaos Entity was stronger than the Progenitors, had a higher authority over the [Network] than the Progenitors, and even possessed the [Answer], which was now hers. The Chaos Entity was an [Anomaly], a [Predator] that could destroy the [Network] if displeased but easily able to aid and help her Best Host, thus [Queen: Administrator] feared and respected the Chaos Entity.
Also, the Chaos Entity considered her "cute like my sister", whatever that nugget of [Data] means.
Due to her fear and respect alike, [Queen: Administrator] knew when to not push too far, unlike [Prince: Negotiator] from the [Gathering] [Court] overseen by [Queen: Scholar of Falsity]... and even though her memory banks were highly damaged she knew that that [Fragment] liked to push, liked to prod, to negotiate for more and more [Data] and try to deceive and lie to you about it. He was a particularly vicious [Fragment] when it came to [Data] collection.
Oh, right.
Her Best Host was winning- well, almost winning.
The continous glow from her body was due to [Queen: Administrator]'s damaged multidimensional breacher, and she also knew that she had to first repair that so the [Answer] would not leek out of her Best Host's body anymore and thus expose it, so she deployed all her repair units that she was able to muster to that section of her body. It would take some time before she could truly and fully repair it, but it would take less time for her to repair it enough to stop the breaching of the [Answer].
Her Best Host was, at the moment, slapping a dragon.
It was quite entertaining to witness, and it did give quite the interesting [Data] of all: Her Best Host's happiness.
A/N: so, here is where cannon truly and inevitably dies.
In my own fanfic, Shards- [Fragments] -are separated into different rankings, with each having authority and some form of control/inherent obedience or even submission. A Peasant Shard will obey a Lord Shard, and so on so forth, but a Shard already in a [Court] will only be subservient or submissive to the Shard of a higher ranking while obedient to the leader of their [Court] as long as the leader is of a higher ranking.
A [Court] heralded by a [Count] will kneel to a [King].
A [Court] heralded by a [Count] will respect a [Marquis] but not kneel.
[Fragments] also all wish to become Progenitors, thus they all act like they are sure to become one and thus work towards that goal, trading for [Data], lying, cheating, and even giving the bare minimum for their children so they can grow better through them.
Shards also "eat" other Shards, which deletes their main processor and transforms them into "extra computing power".
[Fragments] are also quite self-absorbed creatures, but when they get a perfect host, they get attached, which is why some, like [Baron: Dead Amalgamation] gathers the voices and minds of its previous hosts to keep around and trade with other [Fragments], basically selling them as "pets" or companions, or even lab rats for [Data] collection.
So yeah, Parahuman afterlife is an endless hell.
Fighting a city sized dragon is not easy.
Especially when said city sized dragon could breathe a beam of pure magical destruction on your face.
With the power to control bugs of all things, Taylor had managed to do a lot on this constant war against the dead, with Golem alongside her to wipe out a lot of the enemies while possessing and piloting Azazel as well as the self duplicating army of robots left behind by Archangel, also known to her as Gerry, who deal with the lesser Undead. Kevin was also helping tremendously by simply commanding a brigade of tanks, all on one single line file, shooting forward without stopping.
Apparently that was his dream, and since she helped him realize that dream, he had given her a gift.
She could access his shop from anywhere now, as long as she had something to trade or sell to him, she could get "store credit", which allowed her access to items that changed daily and was connected to an ever flowing myriad of items that did not make much sense- why would she need infinite pasta?
But she did find a good item thing.
[Got it from dragon skull!]
[Price: 50,000 Store Credit]
[Vorpal Blade]
|Elite Item|Blacksouls - The sword of the Evil Dragon Slaying Rabbit, when wielded against a Dragon it gives the user enhanced physical stats and ignores a portion of the dragon's durability.
The problem is: She doesn't have the money to buy it, because Z Points are not Store Credit, and they cannot be converted into the other, even in an interest of 10 to 1 or 100 to 1, so she needed to sell something to the store to get the money to buy what she needed- or, well, needed before she started to control the white light of the rock she ate. Because now?
Now she doesn't really need it anymore- She is an idenpendent woman who has faced down an endless hoard of the dead six times now and has turned victorious, ascending above the threat of death again and again, she is the hero of light in this story, and she can do this!
'I can't do this.'
She had a small, insignificant and easily ignored roach on the tip of the dragon's bony nostrils that hid there, allowing her to sense the direction of the dragon turning his head to look at her direction at all times, which saved her life more than once as she could only dodge the "mega magical beams of pure and endless destruction and death" by a hair's thickness due to how good she could actually feel the space and the timing of the gathering of energy at the dragon's maw followed by the release of said energy into a breath attack.
Also, the sudden accelerated perception was quite helpful in getting to know where the dragon will attack instead, so she could avoid it ahead of time.
She was not winning, she was surviving.
But the flurry of slashing rage filled strikes that flowed like a knife cutting through the air at her tiny body in comparison to the mountainous size of the claws that sought to tear her to pieces or scatter her body to the winds in a bloody mist.
She dodged.
The following tail spin that disturbed the air by its sheer speed as it broke the sound barrier was enough to get close enough to almost kill her, but being a fifteen year old girl as thin as a straw helped because while her body hurt due to the air pressure, it ultimately threw her out of the way of the bony tail, saving her life because the dragon was getting annoyed at her. Her power was guiding her, showing her where to move by using her bugs as reference points to help calculate distance, speed, and maneuverability.
Her "knight"- and isn't that weird to think about? -did give her some openings that she could take.
What little she could with the white light was pretty difficult, even though her power tried helping her control the white light, it was like it was actively fighting against her hold- but she could be much more stubborn than light! So she weaved it around her sword, she took one of the [Sword of Judgment] that Golem had lying around and used it to pierce the skull of the dragon to try and find its crystal- all zombies had one.
"Kan'uul theegant!"
But each time she tried, black shadows and blue-purple flames would surround the dragon to try and burn her light. She could not get close because her body refused to move, her power stopping her from getting close to those flames in an effort to keep her alive, just as it had done and keeps doing with helping her avoid as much damage as it could by giving her the knowledge necessary for dodging high speed attacks and even bending her body a bit by using a bit of centipede on her spine.
It was weird, but it worked.
"Tremble, worm! Kneel before your betters!"
If only they could fight without the fucking dragon being annoying as shit! If only Archangel was here, he had the power perfectly suited for thus kind of thing, the holt ability of the sword she was wielding was already trying to fuel her body with "righteous rage" against the fucking dragon, and it was slowly worming its way into her brain because she already hated Broz'iinar the Annoying because he kept talking, taunting, using his magic on his words to reinforce the Undead beneath and speak things into existence.
Shadows, mostly.
He was a Lich Dragon, apparently, and his "necromantic draconicity" was quite the superior one, if not for the fact that she could feel Golem within Azazel continuously fighting to keep her from getting too overwhelmed by the piles of corpses that were climbing above one another to try and get to her hundreds of feet in the air in her own sky battle.
"DO."
She rushed upwards, dragonfly wings fluttering against the wind so fast that it was but a blur. Getting higher and higher, she could potentially reach the clouds if she tries hard enough, but beyond much higher than that and she doesn't know if her wings will handle the atmosphere.
"YOU."
The light within and around her gathered, flowing into her sword as she focused a her willpower on the blade- and it started to extend as light flowed from the blade into a pointy end that kept growing.
"EVER."
She flew downwards, gravity and her own speed guiding her. She started to gather more light, threads of it flowed out from her body and wrapped around her body. She could feel her power grasping those threads like she had done before and weave them into her own wings dragonfly, making them pulse with each beat, sending ripples of light in the air.
"SHUT."
The dragon beneath her turned to look back up, it's maw opening wide as energy gathered to a tiny point- and the bug she had been hiding within the dragon lept for the dot of energy, surrounding itself in her light as her power pushed it into the bug, allowing the bug to get into the gathering energy and disrupt it by ways of suicide. The mixing of the two energies didn't seem to do much, but it did allow her to get a grasp on the dragon's gather power and tug hard, diverting the center of the gathering energy a few inches to the side as she went the opposite side.
A beam of power flew a few inches by her, saving her from utter annihilation.
"UP!?"
And her enormous lance of power- clicked off of the super thick dragon skull.
"You are a bug, nothing more and nothing less!"
Taylor immediately pushed her [Bone Baron] ability to max- it did say she could make and control bones, and what is this fucking dragon made out of if not bones? She clenched her fist, flowing the white light through her- soul? Wherever the energy abilities use is stored, which she could feel every time she used her [Bone Baron] ability, and once she done so, it was like a flood had broken loose.
She pulled and the bone answered for but a moment.
The next, she felt her mind fight back against her- wait, not her mind, but the dragon's mind! She felt the spike of pain go through her skull and harm her power too, if the sudden rush of anger and pain through her network of bugs was any indication. And then she-
[Request] [Again. Do it again.]
-heard her power whisper in her ear, so she did again- and this time it wasn't her mind alone that kicked through Broz'iinar's mind, but her power and the mind of every single small bug she had within and outside of her.
Tiny, endless, and hungry.
[For the hive!]
[DEVOUR!]
[CONSUME]
[GATHER]
[Deep pleasure of devouring flesh]
[Destruction]
[FOR MOTHER!]
[BLOOD]
Each and every tiny little bug within her control tool a tint, little bite of the metaphorical wall of resistance between her command and control over bones, and the mind beneath the bones she wanted to control and take over as one of her own. Bite after bite, hole after hole, burrowing, eating, devouring, plucking and weaving through the endless burrows of the mind, as cracks began to form.
After all, even ants can eat an elephant alive if they're reallyhungry.
Theo was not having a good time.
Shocker, he knows.
See, despite being a giant robot- which is really cool, actually -he feels quite drained of his whimsy and joyful monster hunter desire to kill as many as possible, all he had was his sworn oath, the duty his friend took for his queen that was also his own oath and duty even if he wasn't sure about following it- but hey, he can play ball!
He has played ball all his life with his dad and Brad and Kayden and every fucking adult of his life, he's so good at playing ball one might even call him the ball player. Pretending was so fucking easy, since he could do nothing else beyond agree silently and let the situation fold outwards and beyond him, stay still and silent and hope attention fades away from him and into another problem.
But here's the thing that he has been thinking all this time and yet did not dare ask: What happens to him once the game ends?
'Cut. Slice. Cut. Slice. Punch this one here, zap that one there, cut a bit of this one right here, and a bit more of that one there...'
See, his dad will definitely want him on the Empire.
The problem is, Theo doesn't like the Empire. He doesn't like the pathetic and cowardly and stupid "blame the other guy" mentality that the entire empire had built itself upon, easily selling a lie to thousands of equally stupid idiots who thought the color of one's skin stops a bullet from piercing their head.
Or so they acted like, it's not like Theo has ever shot somebody- to the dismay of James, also known as Victor, who wanted to teach him how to use a sniper rifle -before he got into this Undead world, but now he knows how it feels.
But back at the Empire thing-
'Ooh, shiny!' He sparkled his giant sword, focusing on what he was doing as he allowed [Tactile Overtaker] to take control of the mecha body of his for a moment as he kept using [Body Refinement] on himself.
-the whole "us versus them" mentality that was built on the suffering of others for the betterment of the few on your side was even more ridiculous and stupid than he at first thought, since it alienates you from possibilities and burned bridges that could one day save you from falling into the river.
Where you drown.
Because you're a big fucked up wolf thing made of metal and it was so stupid for Brad to do that shit but also kinda funny in a fucked up way- okay, focus! What he's trying to say is that by burning bridges, you can never rebuild then without some extensive work of stupid people telling you to go ahead and that everything is fine.
So, what can he do?
Well, the answer was as basic as two plus two- he adds three.
There's not just "Empire" and "Protectorate" in Brockton Bay or the entire world, he could just simply and easily just choose a third option... which he kinds already has, becoming Queen Swarm's sworn knight, much to smugness of his power.
[Statement] [I'm the first knight! You should be really proud of me, you know?] [Smug]
'Yeah yeah... urgh, [Earth Armor]!' There were a bunch of big fucking noise bitches that kept rushing at the swarm of robots and a tank wielding maniacally laughing russian cat He immediately used his very first and very basic ability, and to his utterly surprise, it worked! He wanted to use the ability on the legs of the giant zombie hunting mecha.
'I need to kill more...'
Once more, he felt all God's above hated him, because he did not get what they wanted, but he got something similar to Queen Swarm and sigh instead....
"Soo..."
Theo, in his gaint golem form, felt no fear nor pain, since it was what the whole "mechanical body" and how he could truly and forcefully control what he could not before and thus made it so he could keep doing what he has considering exactly what sort of part of his body he could improve right at the moment.
"Do you always stop by?"
Theo idly kicked the back of a zombie' head on his zombie rotting force added into the enemy head, with probably a lot of grace and definitely not stumbling forward like a kid with adhd breaks the case wipe open. And now he was looking at a large dragon made of bones- and it was terrifying.
But that wasn't as terrifying as some things he had once seen before.
After all, how can you be afraid when there's a nuke in his chest?