Recruiting a Samurai into a group almost always starts with one specific method.

  Showcasing just how much violence one can dish out.

  -Excerpt from a Purple Truth Article, 2053

  We didn’t have to wait very long for the antithesis to make their displeasure with us known. My HUD lit up like a Christmas tree as they moved into range of Sky’s biotracker. Inque, having finished mincing the antithesis, strode forward with xeir sword raised.

  “Will xey need help?” I whispered.

  Cryo shook her head, “Nah, if there’s one place where Inque excels, it's tight areas like this where xey get to force the plants to crawl through xeir gunk.”

  “Gunk?” I looked down at the sliced apart corpses to find them all dissolving into puddles of the same black goop xeir sword was made of.

  My eyes were quickly pulled back to Inque’s silhouette as numerous Threes came into view.

  Rather than rush to meet them head on Inque instead wound xeir arm back and whipped it forward throwing-

  “Is that xeir ARM?!?!”

  “Just watch.” Sky said without a hint of concern whatsoever.

  The thrown limb quickly deformed in air and splashed against the front of the horde, slowly dissolving it just like the puddles. The front was thrown into disarray as the Threes hit by the goop began thrashing around trying to get it off, only to fling it or wipe it onto passing healthy Models, continuing to spread the infection.

  Inque raised her arm to show that it was rapidly growing back, the black sludge seemingly filling in a rough outline of xeir previous limb before condensing down into a prefect replica of the old one.

  Finally realizing that no progress was being made, the horde began ignoring the sludge attacking them and rushed at Inque. A few Threes died before reaching xem, falling apart at the seams as their flesh liquefied. The first Three to pounce at xem was instantly split down the middle by that sword.

  Inque instantly rushed forward, leaving behind that same goop everywhere that sword parted flesh.

  I whistled, watching the corpses dissolve. “Now I see how y’all get away with having so few Sams out here without having gutter cleaners.”

  “Yep, Inque has some of the best corpse disposal equipment on the planet.” Cryo replied as she began to stomp through the slime. “Stuff’s only good against antithesis and breaks down on its own though, but that stops environmental damage. It also makes for a great way to rinse antithesis gunk off our equipment. Shame the stuff is so damn expensive to buy otherwise it’d be so incredibly popular.”

  I cautiously followed the brash Samurai, “So how do xey use so much of it?”

  “Transhumanism, my dear Spark!” Inque shouted back as xeir new arm reformed into a whip like tentacle and snapped out to paint a Five’s skull black.

  “Xey replaced xeir entire body with the stuff, and placed multiple factories inside xeir body.” Sky clarified. “It took months of constant work for xem to get enough points for it. Lucky for xem, Shadowtag’s such a workaholic, and brought xem along on an obscene amount of Family missions.”

  “Getting a little tight up here!” Inque shouted from further up.

  Cryo’s grin only got wider, “Guess it’s my turn to show off now!”

  Taking her gun off her shoulder, she sprinted forward as a helmet poofed into existence around her head with the same purple smoke that came from Sky’s biotracker. “Move Inque! Before I turn you into a popsicle again!”

  “Spark, you have glare protection right?” Sky asked.

  I tilted my head. “Yeah, comes with the territory of using electrical weapons. “Why?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Skidding to stop, Cryo held her weapon up with both hands and a loud hissing sound emanated from them.

  “Ugh, this is why I hate dealing with underground hives,” Sky muttered, shivering as she hugs herself. “Working with Cryo always makes my tail ache.”

  Before I could respond, the air in the tunnel turned frigid as a plume of incredibly bright icy blue fire jetted from Cryo’s gun. Everything the flames touched, rather than getting burnt, was quickly covered in ice instead. She single handedly stopped the swarm cold, and started pushing further, weaving between the frozen statues of antithesis.

  Finally running out of targets, she quenched the blue-fire. It felt like we were plunged into complete darkness even with how quick the eye protection was at switching back to night vision.

  “Might as well catch up before I hog all the fun you three!” Cryo shouted from the front, voice echoing off the ice coating everything. Inque responded by rushing in after xeir comrade cutting gashes into every statue xey passed.

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  “You heard her,” Sky said with a smile. “Let’s get moving.”

  As we walked forward Sky actually put away the scanner and brought out her axe again, that same purple mist wafting from everything.

  “What’s with all the equipment teleportation?”

  “That? It’s Aetherspace dimension shunting.” Sky replied as she swung her axe into the first frozen corpse, shattering it into pieces. Turns out, I had been wrong earlier, CryoFlare’s ‘Frost-Thrower’ wasn’t freezing a layer of ice on top of the xenos.

  It was freezing them completely solid.

  Oblivious to my gaping at how much temperature fuckery I was witnessing, Sky continued, “Basically we all chipped in to buy a dimensional storage depot we all can make use of whenever we want. Makes stuff a lot easier when you don’t have to carry stuff on your back.”

  “How do I get my own?” I asked enthusiastically. “That sort of thing would make my life so much easier once I start building new weaponry!”

  Sky looked back at me, “You either save up and get Class III Dimensional Shunting Technology, or you join up with us and we can give you access. You’d need to buy into the storage though so we don’t run out of space.”

  “Me?” I asked incredulously, “Join y’all?”

  “I mean yeah! It’s part of the reason we came out here to begin with! Either recruit you to our team, or to The Family as a whole.” She shrugged before digging her axe into another statue, “Doesn’t change anything we’re doin’ now if you decide not to join either, but like we told your cousin; Indy and the area around it is hurting for Sams something awful. Incursions are horrible things, and wishing for them is extremely insensitive at best, but the last time we got an incursion in the area was when Shadowtag initialized twenty-two years ago.”

  “No Sam wants to live in a point desert, so it’s basically just been us and a few others staying in Indy to hold the fort down in case one ever happens, while going out on missions given to us by the Family.”

  She put a gloved hand on my shoulder, “You don’t seem like the type of gal to leave just for points. So the offer stands for you to join us if you want. It’d also help give a new perspective for us about how y’all work out here.” She looked down at the chunks of frozen antithesis littering the tunnel floor, “Something we’ve lacked for a while.”

  “I- I’ll think about it.” I hedged, surprise coloring the tone of my response, “I’ll have an answer for you once I finish up my transition.”

  A gentle smile appeared on Sky’s face, “That’s perfectly fine-“

  *CRASH*

  “Come on,” Sky said with a roll of her eyes. “Those two might bring the ceiling down on top of us if we’re not careful.”

  We both dashed off towards the sound when we found the pair standing in a room similar to what I had destroyed earlier, this time with a massive pillar of plant flesh that was frozen solid. The walls were lined with even more plant matter that was either frozen over, or dissolving into nothing.

  I chose to ignore the remains of a second pillar that had collapsed and caused the massive crash we had heard.

  “I’ll have you know,” Cryo drawled, “That I didn’t collapse anything.”

  She then motioned to the pillar behind her, “This however, might be my jewel in the crown, my magnum opus, my pièce de résistance, my-“

  Sky, having swapped over to a small crossbow, snapped it up and fired a single bolt into the pillar. Upon impact the pillar instantly shattered, joining its twin on the floor in a heap.

  Cryo stamped a foot, indignation plain in her voice as she whined, “You always do that!”

  “When you actually carve one from scratch, I won’t shatter them.” Sky replied cheekily, as I stifled a giggle fit.

  Cryo pointed at me, “You watch out for her Spark, she’s a bully!”

  I instantly lost my battle of wills , and busted out laughing.

  “Everyone look at this!” Inque called from the opposite side of the room.

  We all rushed over to xem where we found something a bit worrying.

  “Two tunnels.” Inque explained, “Both of which have a hive on the other end.”

  Cryo looked to Sky, “What do we do boss? Take em out one by one?”

  Sky looked between the two tunnels, “No, we take them both out at once. Inque and Spark go left, you and I will take the right Cryo.”

  Sky then looked at me, “Before that though, you need to rest. You look about ready to drop.”

  “No I don’t!” I put my arm up and flexed. “I’m still good to work!”

  Not saying anything, Sky just narrowed her eyes, raising an eyebrow at me. I suddenly felt very small, and a small butterfly of embarrassment fluttered from my stomach to my heart.

  “I-I, uh…” I scratched my cheek, looking away from Sky. “I guess I can take a small break. S-Since I’ve been fighting all day.”

  “That’s what I thought, we can eat over there.” She said, pointing at a wall with a good sightline on both tunnels.

  Inque had to literally drag CryoFlare away from the tunnels, only getting her to calm down after promising ‘suspension time’, whatever that meant.

  “Sky, do you have any of the chili from last night stored away?” Inque asked while sitting down with a muttering CryoFlare tucked up underneath her arm.

  Sky jumped up from placing her Biotracker on the floor facing towards the tunnels.

  “I do!” Sky exclaimed, “Secret Jones family recipe chili coming right up!”

  With a wave of her hands, a bowl of chili materialized itself in front of everyone. Sky and Inque both pulled their masks off and began to dig into their food with relish. To my surprise, Cryo was taking her time eating, clearly savoring the food.

  Inque’s face under the mask looked like cracked porcelain. With xeir skin an inhumanly pale white with black streaks running through it.

  Hesitantly, I pulled my helmet off, and was met with almost frigid air hitting my face.

  “Augh,” I moaned,” I didn’t realize just how warm the inside of my helmet was”

  “Sorry ‘bout that,” Cryo replied. “Can’t really help the cold temps unless Sky is raining incendiary shells.” She glanced over, her eyes going wide upon them landing on me.“Wow, You’re cute!”

  I buried my face in my hands and gave a completely understandable response.

  “Achythepthpthyff”

  Very eloquent Spark.

  “No, no! It’s true!” Cryo continued, putting up her finger, “The white glasses suit you super well, and they go with your hair and eyes super nicely!”

  I muttered a ‘thank you,’ and attempted to distract myself from how hot my face was with some of Sky’s chili. It was honestly unfair just how damn good it was. I can’t help but dance a bit at the taste.

  “Ohmygosh,” Cryo squealed, “Look at her! Those little wiggles are precious! Sky, can we keep her?””

  “S-shut up Cryo!”