Late Night Busting

Rachna follows the Mr. Prog inside, and he quickly moves to busy himself with the viruses as Rachna looks around.

The inside of the daycare is far, far more colorful than the outside, with small toys and colorful playstuffs scattered around the room. The walls are painted with one long, continuous mural-montage that depicts what looks like a group of viruses building a house together, with the house slowly coming to completion as one looks along the wall. The end of the mural is dotted with small digital 'tags' which point out the viruses that helped to make the image when Rachna looks at them.

One or two of the viruses that painted the mural don't seem to be here at the moment, but the rest are:

The first is Matthew, a smallish, blue-hatted Metool who's sitting over in the far corner and playfully picking at some small structures he's made in a sandbox.

The second is Matilda, an orange Spikey who is playfully romping around the room, sometimes bounding off of the walls-- the Mr. Prog tries to make a grab for her to get her to stop, but she just bounces off his head and continues on.

Rachna keeps going down the list like this, following each tag to its' respective program, but makes note of one of the missing viruses...

"Nera - Scuttler Family"

Surprisingly, the virus daycare seemed to be an actual daycare...for viruses. Rachna wondered how this was actually possible, but reminded herself that she had seen stranger things. Besides, viruses were still just programs at their core. Malicious programs, perhaps, but if wild beasts could be tamed in the 'real' world there was no reason to believe that viruses couldn't be raised in a daycare environment.

Although, there was something about what she was seeing that still bothered here. It wasn't the mural, nor was it the Spikey being allowed to bounce around the room so freely and recklessly.

Another glance at the list after running through the entire thing reminded her. One of the missing ones, a Scuttler virus. "This...Nera," she asked the Mr. Prog, "Is she not here today?"

"Hm?" The Prog wafts over, then looks at the list. "Ah, she's out on a walk. Nera is one of our more... well-behaved kids, so we let her go walking sometimes. She should be back anytime, if you'd like to stay and-"

At that moment, the door to the Daycare opens, and a small, purple-tinted Scuttler with a bow on her (presumably) head walks in. The Mr. Prog greets her from across the room with a cheery-sounding 'Hello, Nera!", but the way he does it-- without looking, and while on his way back to tending to the other viruses-- makes Rachna wonder if it's not an automatic response.

She is broken out of her reverie, however, by Nera nudging at her ankle. A quick look down reveals a surprisingly questioning expression for such a stoic face, with the little virus' eyes squinted oddly. The question "Who are you?" seems to be the one the little virus is trying to ask.

Oh, there she was. Nothing to worry about then. It struck her as odd that a scuttler would be the one they allowed out and about, but, stranger things and all that. In the context of the existence of a virus daycare in the first place, it seemed far less out of the ordinary.

"Huh?" she asked as Nera nudged her ankle. She looked down at her, gauging her expression and figuring that the scuttler was trying to ask who she was. "Oh, I'm just a visitor. Hello," she answered.

Nera continues to glare up at Rachna, not seeming to take that answer. The little Scuttler circles around Rachna a few times, seeming to sniff at her legs, and then freezes. She looks up at Rachna and squints her beady purple eyes, and then scratches out something on the floor. "You smell like mother."

No sooner than Nera can finish scratching the last word out on the floor, there is a loud Boom from outside, followed by a loud, all-too-familiar roar that shakes the entire daycare. The roar seems to garble and warp at the end, however, as if corrupted...

Nera dashes outside after hearing the noise, eyes wide. Rachna follows, keeping step with the small Scuttler, and together they come upon a surprising scene.

A small distance in front of the daycare, the panels have been blown out, and lay scattered about the large hole that now exists in their normal places. The carpet lining the path to the daycare is in flames which are slowly spreading down the path leading away, and the gate to the fence surrounding the daycare has been consumed by the carnage.

That is not surprising, however. What is surprising is the cause of the destruction-- the Queen Scuttler, limping toward the daycare growling and rasping. Her carapace is consumed in three places by glitched, texture-torn fissures in her data, and all but three of her legs are shattered husks, completely beyond repair. One of the remaining three is bent the wrong way, judging by the creature's former movements, yet she is still using it to crawl towards the daycare-- and Rachna. A trail of purple slime flickers in and out of existence behind the Queen Scuttler, fluctuating and pulsing between deletion and existence. The ground hisses and vents underneath its' acidic touch.

Nera runs towards this figure, this dying, tattered, incredibly dangerous figure, and rubs her head against an uncorrupted portion of the Scuttler Queen's hide. The Queen stops her advance at this, looking down at the small Scuttler before her, and reaches down a leg to lightly stroke the small virus. Not a moment later the same leg decompiles, splitting into a small array of glitchy, fragmented data. The Queen finally falls at this, her strength giving out as she rolls onto her side. A roar that is more like a groan comes out of her mouth, pathetic and weak by comparison to her previous grandeur.

Rachna has definitely won the battle.

Ahaha, yes, there was a reason for that. Rachna wasn't about to tell the virus that she'd been trying to kill that mother though, even if it was in self defense.

That line of thought was soon discarded as an explosion sounded from outside, followed by a roar that she should not have ever needed to hear again. The scuttler ran outside, and Rachna followed, wondering just how that thing was still alive.

Well, perhaps "alive" wasn't quite the right word for it, as she found out. It was still moving, and breathing, but much like the badly glitched Scuttler she had found while repairing the panel grid and could now only assume had been Nera, the gigantic virus that had been so easily threatening her life before was falling apart, glitches eating away at what was left of her form.

As the virus collapsed, Rachna approached it as well. Given the destruction of the gate and fence, it probably wasn't the safest course of action, but then again the virus had just collapsed.

"How did you survive?" she asked simply.

The Queen gives a sharp wheeze, followed by a hacking sputter, then her reply. "Under... panels..." She breathes, carapace heaving with every syllable. "What... how did you do this? I had... Nngh!" The Queen goes into a fit of coughing and hacking as another portion of her torso decompiles, spilling more ichor onto the panels near her. "I... had... given up hope..."

There's a moment of silence as the Queen looks around, eye lazily scanning the area, taking in the details. For a second, it almost seems as though she is dead...

"Thi...is one." She wheezes. "Nera... her name." The Queen pauses for a moment, seeming to remember something. "My... name. Could you... could you take care of. Her?" Her speech seems to stutter as the Queen's processes begin to critically fail. "I. Have wronged. You. You. You. But would you. Do this. For me?"

How did she do what? Fix the network? That was simple. She pressed a few buttons, typed in a few words, oh, and nearly got killed for her troubles. Couldn't forget that. And it had survived by hiding under the panels? Why hadn't Rachna thought of that? Oh right, perhaps because her way didn't leave her a broken, dying mess. Even so, she guessed the Scuttler Queen got to find out what she did after all, even if it never learned how.

For a moment, it looked like the queen had finally died, but then it spoke up again, asking her to take care of the little scuttler. "What? I've never taken care of anyone before," she said quickly. "Except my operator, but that's a different story. What do you want me to do?"

"Watch. Ta. Take care. Gui. Gui. Guide. Her." the Queen stutters. "Will. Help you." with that simple line, the Queen rises to her two remaining legs. One of them shudders as its' carapace cracks under her weight, but she endures long enough to fling her glitching corpse at Rachna.

The Scuttler Queen lands on top of the hardy navi, and fluids from her glitched, corrupted wounds begin to seep into Rachna's code. From the outside, the Scuttler Queen's carapace seems to boil, small bubbles appearing on it as it liquifies and pops, releasing a sulfuric mist into the air. Little Nera backs away, terrified, as the process increases in speed. Moments later Rachna stands from the coagulated goo that was once the Queen Scuttler, and finds that She has obtained the Phazon Suit! strange, alien knowledge fills her mind. It is the knowledge of a virus, their tactics, and their ways of thought; suddenly every battle Rachna has been through flits through her mind, and the motivations of the viruses she has fought seem to make more sense...

Little Nera looks up at Rachna, who, while her appearance is unchanged, seems to emanate a completely different feeling than before. The little virus looks confused, fearful even. Surprisingly, Rachna finds herself able to understand. "Are... are you my new mother?"

Rachna finds that along with the knowledge, a bit of the Scuttler Queen's corrupted data is sitting in her storage.

Although it seems a bit out of place... VICTORY!

Rewards: PanelShot, ElementalRage1, 400z, the responsibility of a small Scuttler that looks up to you as its' mother (Thankfully there is a daycare less than 20 panels away)

"I...I..." Rachna stared down at herself. Though physically unchanged, she still felt very much different than before. Apart from knowledge and understanding, there seemed to be something else left behind. Something foreign, as though it was a piece of the Scuttler Queen herself. She felt like it was harmless enough, but its mere presence was still enough to make her uncomfortable. On top of that, she could clearly understand what Nera was saying now. "I...suppose I am."

She did a quick check back on Ellen, to find that while she was acting on her own her operator had finally fallen asleep. For once, however, she decided not to wake her. It left some time to try to establish some sort of bond, to ensure that she was not seen as the same hyperviolent entity that the Queen appeared to be, and just maybe try to get used to the sudden turn of events. This she did, with questionable success on the last point. She still didn't like it, but there didn't seem to be much choice in the matter.

Eventually, Ellen finally woke up again, at a point where she would have completely missed her first class and then some if the teacher hadn't been in Whazzap. Rachna never noticed until Ellen began frantically trying to contact her after realizing that she had never been jacked out.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm still here. Enjoy your nap?" she asked casually, standing up again to lead Nera back to the daycare.

"This is your fault, you know. You're the one who wanted to mess around in there at two in the morning."

"Yeah. I know." Rachna shrugged. "Hold on, I've gotta drop Nera here off again and then you can jack me out."

"'Nera'? Are you planning on telling me what happened in there?"

"Mmmmaybe. Eventually." Rachna winked to nobody in particular, fully aware that Ellen could see it from her screen. While Ellen tried to puzzle out what had happened and why the navi she had been tricked into operating suddenly had a small Scuttler with her, Rachna returned to the daycare to drop Nera off. She turned back as she left, saying "I'll be around" and making sure she had committed the route to the daycare to memory. As she cleared it, Ellen finally jacked her out, grumbling about how she was probably going to need another nap.

[Thread end.]