Millie
Stretching out my body as we exited the portal to the still-frozen Ishimura, I sighed pleasantly. "Mmmh-ah!" I shout to the room, "Okay, I'm full of food, satisfied sexually, and raring to go kill some more fucked up zombie flesh monsters!" I hear Scott laugh behind me as he affixes his helmet before checking his weapon.
"Glad to hear, Mills. Now, before the world starts up again, I'll explain what I bought and why," He said. "First off, I grabbed sticky fingers, sexual calibration, and time savers."
"Two to make sex better, and one to handle clean up," I said, already familiar with every power up from the first time he showed me the catalog, "Smart."
He nodded. "Next, I grabbed the resistance level of body and wild, before dumping most of what I had into full environmental defense. I know that we will be going in and out of space multiple times after this point, and repairing our suits every time they are damaged to keep the air-tight seal we need is going to drain our growing credit count."
"Hmm, what about that binding option? The cloak thing," I offered, remembering it as some sort of outfit maker. "Couldn't we just replace our suits with them and have them self-repair?"
"Yes, but that wouldn't stop the vacuum of space from freezing us when the magic cloak gets ripped open by a lucky shot from a lurker while we are doing a space walk," He explains. I hiss and nod at that image. "Besides, now we technically don't have to breathe to survive, which is just a boon in general going forward, given there will be a poisonous air sector we have to kill through in a later chapter. Also, we can theoretically skip some shit by flying around the outside of the ship if we're lucky." I nod to him as I see his logic for the purchase before smiling excitedly at the thought of being able to fly out in space.
"Finally, I gave us full stress immunity, which I'm pretty sure makes us impossible to be fazed by anything negative now," he said.
"Great," I responded while seeing the world slowly start to move again. "Oh, looks like it's time for us to start moving again."
"K, let's finish grabbing the spare loot around here, then move out," he ordered, and we both leaped off the floor and flew to a separate floating box nearby.
#####
Thirty minutes later, we got a decent amount of ammo, some credits, two mid-grade stem-gel packs, and finally some achievement-necessary items from what Scott told me. We also did some pre-movement of loading gear after Scott spotted it while smashing a box. Finally, we pushed out of the hangar and into genuine space, causing everything to go silent except for our breathing. Yes, we didn't have to anymore, but telling someone to stop breathing when they've done it their whole life is kind of hard. Anywho, we reached the end halfway through the hangar when we banked right and entered a damaged cargo elevator. We then played dodge spike as two of the baby fuckers crawled along the walls and started to fire at us.
I tensed as I flew sporadically while firing at the damned things, yet never once did I flinch when a spike nearly stuck my body. "So that's what never feeling stress feels like," I mumbled as I killed one of the fucks while Scott handled the other one. It was quick, and we didn't pause much before flying down the shaft until reaching the end and re-entering air-filled rooms. Some looting in a storage room happened before we took an elevator into the engine proper. Walking into the hall/control room, given the six holo-screen setup, I followed Scott till we reached said screens. With an understanding, I had the bare bones version of, he navigated the screens to show what needed to be fixed.
When the screens showed everything offline, Hammond was pulled up in a video call. "Seeing you in the control Room. Any news on the engines?" he asked, and Scott showed him the screens.
"Bad, they're out of fuel and the centrifuge is offline," Scott answered. "We're tethered to a four trillion-ton payload. Without the engines, it's dragging us down to the planet."
"Can you handle it alone?" Hammond asked while looking annoyed at more bad news.
"Sure, but once I do, you need to stabilize our orbit from the deck," Scott answered, and Hammond nodded.
"Standing by. As fast as you can, Issac" Hammond said before ending the call.
"Alright, let's do some shopping, selling, and then head out," Scott said before turning around to the shop I didn't notice when we walked in. As he did that, I saw a digital log and decided to pick it up and listen to it. It was from an engine room tech talking about things going to shit, which I guess I shouldn't have been surprised about. Honestly, I would have liked to go scout ahead for us, but this wasn't the mission or the enemy to do that. So after reading the log, I just checked my rifle for any damage or mechanical failure until Scott finished up, and we headed for the next room. Which was when I got a new toy to play with.
#####
Scott
"Oh, now this is going to be a girl's best friend," Millie said as I handed her the ripper tool after showing her how it worked. The tool turned weapon spun up as its buzzsaw gave out a satisfying whine. I smiled at her enthusiasm while I continued to wield the plasma cutter. I was going for the achievement to only use it after Millie joined me, before I picked up the pulse rifle. If she hadn't, I would have scrapped the idea for more firepower. Nodding, I waved her forward as I spotted a few necros faking death on the ground in front of us.
"Go ahead, test it out," I said, and she giggled before dashing forward and catching the necro off guard. Leaping onto the closest necro, Millie drove the saw down on its crotch, cutting through like butter before pulling the blade forward and up its body till the thing was in two pieces. This caused the other necro to leap to their feet and rush us as the jig was up. I backed up Millie as she leapt at the next victim of her new toy, this one getting bisected horizontally. Laughing maniacally as I fired on a necro going for her from behind, the Imp spotted another necro on a cargo box and fired off a saw blade into its pelvis, causing it to lose its legs. When the vents crashed in, I sighed and quickly rushed to join her in the middle of the room.
"Looks like we got their attention," Millie said while activating the next option of the ripper. With a womp of kinesis, a saw blade spun out into the open air and held firm as Millie spun around me like I was a pole, sending three new necros to the ground after ripping them in half. She then spun once again, hooking her legs around me as she flexed her body low and backwards towards the ground, causing the blade to nearly touch the ground. Which pulped the now crawling necros completely. She then unhooked her legs and flipped off of me into a standing position before firing off another saw blade into one of the few remaining necros in the room.
I thought quickly as my hand shot out when the blade exited the necros' body. Activating Kinesis, I gripped onto the blade and pulled it back to me, through the necro, ending it truly after I took off another chunk of its body. I then sent the blade into the final victim of Millie, who received a blade through their neck. My blade sent itself neatly through a limb before I fired off its other arm, making it drop like a puppet without strings. With that, the room when silent other then Millie's ripper's constant whine of its blade. It stopped after Millie saw that the room was no longer inhabited by enemies.
Hosting the ripper up onto her shoulder, she sighed in satisfaction as blood coated both of us and the ground. "Now that was more like it. I will use a gun any day, but nothing beats some good old-fashioned ripping and tearing of a blade." I snorted at the comment and simply walked into the room to collect any loot I could find before heading over to the engineering nano bench in the corner. Time to do some upgrading.
#####
After thirty minutes of modification and implementation, I checked my plasma cutter, and it was more high-powered and fine-tuned while also holding the ability to get more out of a charge pack without wasting too much juice. In the game, that just meant higher ammo and stronger shots, but actually having to upgrade the damn thing was rather complex, and impossible without the added nodes taking up the slack of power limitations. After I was done with my weapon of choice, I grabbed Millie and reworked her suit to add some rather interesting upgrades. In the game, you could add a few upgrades to your suit using nodes, one of them being add health.
I didn't think twice about how you would upgrade a suit to add health, as that's something that just didn't matter when you played a sci-fi game, yet in the real world, Issacs knew exactly how it worked. Proto-Kinetic damping, basically, the suit implemented the Kinesis module on an engineering suit to create static shock absorption to limit injury during engineering work. What Issacs understood is that one could illegally overclock this effect, making you a bit more durable than you should be. Think Walmart brand Dune personal shields. All in all, rather ingenious as I fix up both Millie and me with the upgrade, giving us more 'Health'
After that, I fiddled with her new toy and pulse rifle, basic upgrades for faster shots and less risk of jamming at a bad time. With those done, we pressed on to the Refueling room, a massive space filled with the upper part of the ship's engines. Millie gawked at the display of sci-fi levels of engineering as I moved us forward, plasma cutter out, and ready for secondary ambush after the machine shop attack. Thankfully, we seemed to have thinned the numbers in the area; as such, we made it to the horizontal lift to reach the refueling section. Complete unaccosted even then as we exited to the other side.
"Looks like we left the place sparse for a fight," Millie commented as we walked past the power station and into the small junction of walkway that held the access card for it.
"Yeah, but that only means the next one might be even harder, as they know we're not struggling with the amount coming after us," I said while ducking into the workspace hidden away in the walkway and grabbing the keycard, listening for a single necro to pop out. Still, nothing as we walked back to the power station, and finally received a call that made me jump.
"Scott? Hammond?" Daniels whispered as she forced a video call through to both of us.
"Jesus, Daniels!" I shouted out, making Millie jump as well and spinning up her ripper.
"Daniels! your alive, thankgod" Hammond said after my outburst. "After the bridge, we thought..."
"Glad to disappoint," the hacker/spy said, cutting off Hammond. "I barricaded myself in the Computer Core. I can hear them, but I don't think they know I'm here." Something I highly doubted, given the hive mind, mental bullship these things had. No, it's a good chance that the Computer Core is just so heavily locked down from sabotage, both physical and digital, that the things don't have any way of getting in, after she barricaded the front door. "Scott, I've traced down your RIG. You're in Engineering, right? I'll get myself admin privileges. Maybe I can help."
"Great, thanks," I said, knowing full well she already had the privileges the second she got into that room. She cut the call off, and I turned off the lights, as while we didn't need air, we needed to be able to hear them coming more than see them. Now, with the unused power supply, I reactivated the south Refuel station and walked into the pitch black, listening for the next shriek of a necro. Yet once again, nothing struck out, made a growl, or even clacked on metal grates behind us as I kinetically pulled down the activation switch for the south refuel station. On the ride back to the control station, Millie finally voiced my growing worry.
"Okay, now I am a little worried," Millie said. "At this point, we would have gotten attacked by one necro at least, right?" She asked, and I nodded.
"Yes, it's like they are avoiding us for the moment, and I don't know why," I said as the lift stopped and we exited and quickly activated the north refuel station, before heading back into the control room. As I did, I noticed the dead body was still there, untouched by a spawner, meaning they really were avoiding us. I didn't like it, not one fucking bit. Taking a breath, I lead Millie to the next hallway, towards the centrifuge, hoping for an ambush to help calm my nerves.
#####
"Changed?" It vibrated as it felt the hard-to-reach minds, and now felt not a single soft wall to force itself through. "Impossible," it vibrated aggressively as it sent more of its blessed towards the two, to stress them enough to leave an opening. It had played far too long with them, hoping to push its way through softly. Now it would weaken the mind before slamming its will hard against them, a forced effort to break through to them, to show them the truth. Yet as they battled against the small tide of necros in a small space, and it attacked mentally with its great psychic strength that was given to it by the Brother moons failed to even scratch at the two, it knew something had happened. "Immune, Impossible, false!" it vibrated in rage at failing at its most basic task.
"It scoured its memory, given to it by the Brother moons, looking for the truth of how, if this had ever happened before. Time seemed to slow for the marker as it looked through every memory and thought that traveled through the hive mind before it, and after time dilated hours, it found it. It was only once before did the moon's caught a whiff of what this was, only once did the moon's fail to subsume one to the truth, only once did they have to flee from something greater than they. "A...Outsider?" The Marker vibrated as that was what came up for the name of what this likely was. Then rage filled its mind.
"PARASITES, FESTERING, BREATHING, ERADICATE!" Vibrated out the marker as a mental command flowed through it from a subconscious compulsion the Brother Moon's made as they made it. With a will, it commanded the blessed to group, to push to the engines of this ship, to then hold as it knew from the other unblessed where the two would go next. It would be ready, it would be waiting, it would do what the Brother Moon's Commanded.
"ALL WILL BE BLESSED WITH THE TRUTH!" it screamed out to the ship, breaking further into the minds of the other unblessed, who were barely holding on as it was.