Perhaps I should be more specific, this backup consciousness I found is no mere backup, but instead the original consciousness that this body was supposed to have, sort of like the original soul in a way, and yet, here it is locked away, this begs one question, who am I supposed to be?

If the original soul is locked away behind a genetic lock, then why am I here, and more importantly, how? Because I most certainly was not here when this body was made, and most likely wasn’t here when it was cut off and transported to this dimension, which is the reason it took so much damage from the fall, normally even if it was unconscious it would automatically stabilize itself, but it didn’t, because it had no soul since it was locked away, and at some point after that, I was put in the body in its stead.

This is deeply worrying since that means one, I am not a Tyranid, at least my soul isn’t, and two, who the hell put me here, and where did I actually come from? Well, I can’t exactly answer the questions, but now I have a more grounded goal so that’s something. The more pressing matter is that by undoing this lock, and freeing the potential this body holds, it would also activate the consciousness, and since it was made specifically for this body, and as a Tyranid, I would more than likely lose in the struggle if it wished to get rid of me.

Which is what’s probably going to happen, since from its view I’m an invader, although it could also view me as a sort of hivemind authority and submit without trying, the chances aren’t great, once it does that though I would be able to regulate it to a simple Synapse creature like a Warrior or whatnot, which would be about 250 biomass, with my current rate that’s achievable, but not within a timely manner.

The real question is if I should gamble it all on something so vague, or figure out and set up some sort of protection first, or maybe I might be able to set up some sort of merge, take the two of us, and slam us together so to speak, then just hope for the best. Another option would be to make some sort of structure with the express purpose of containing our consciousnesses, and from there, modifying mine to add a slot of sorts for hers to slip into, seamlessly blending and fusing ours together.

That would likely be the best option, and also the most difficult, since a single misstep would cripple me forever, for the moment being, I think I’ll start work on designing the structure, and for that, I need to look at the most powerful neurological network I have in my arsenal, the Norn Queen. Maybe it’s overkill to design something from this, but I’d rather be safe than obliterated, I will say though, my brain is made in very much the same manner as a Norn Queen's, which makes sense considering what I was made to do, that being to start up a hive fleet on planet, preferably behind enemy lines.

To start off, I more or less strip away everything that isn’t the brain, and make sure to toss away the consciousness and psychic abilities, which decreases the biomass cost significantly, from around 20k to a measly 500, Norn Queens are ridiculously expensive biomass wise, but considering that they’re both a massive psychic beacon for other Tyranids, and factories to make them from, it makes sense.

Next, I probably don’t need it to be the size of a small building so that can be shrunk down, probably to about a 5 foot cube, that decreased it by a further 400, but I can’t stop yet, I need to add a supporting body to hold the brain, just enough to not make it collapse and enough to sustain it, by the end, it was a large slightly pulsating cylinder, which smoothed out on the top, and would cost a grand total of 200 biomass which shall henceforth be known as ‘Scorn’.

Since I already have the prerequisite biomass, since I got 1000 from dissolving my body, and this is a temporary structure, I just need to wait for the Rippers to actually construct it, and hope nothing goes wrong in the meantime. I also decide to construct a few more temporary Rippers from the reclamation pool to increase the speed of construction, and I can just get them back later.

In the meantime, let’s redesign the Warrior, why? Because as of current they can be exclusively melee, or ranged with relatively poor melee, and that frustrates me, why not both? Just add some more arms there, replace the claws, and now I see why, by replacing the claws with the Boneswords, I run into clearance issues. Which I can actually fix fairly easily, by simply making the ranged weaponry retract further, and fold a little, for a slight increase in cost, 250 to 280, I can make it excel at both melee, and ranged, and with a little modification of the Devourer, I can make it capable of switching modes on the fly.

Devourers, the Warrior's main ranged weapon, does not change all that much when it’s transformed to any of the other various forms it could be, and by unlocking a couple things here and there, and giving it the ability to transform, it can now switch between any mode it wants on the fly. Which means that the increased cost from having new arms replace the claws, is now redacted since it can simply transform its weaponry. Although swapping modes does take roughly 0.4 seconds, it should be fine, and it’s better than not swapping.

This entire change is all thanks to the unique ability of my hive fleet splinter known as the psychic biomass network, speaking of, I should name it eventually, maybe after I succeed at taking over the planet, oh well, I’ll think about it. Just about when the scorn structure reaches 70% one of the Rippers hears a voice, one I know all too well.

 

-Sarah's POV-

 

Walking into the factory where Carol told me Tyra was, I give an order to the rest of the Divers to proceed with caution, and to put up our weaponry, and at that numerous rifles click up, 17 to be exact, and as for me, I point up Amatori, my personal AL-3R Energy Rifle.

“So this is the place boss?” Steve says, a seasoned veteran Diver.

“Yes, according to what Carol said, this should be the place.” Currently there 18 people here including me, with 3 divers making a squad, that’s 5 squads, and should be able to handle a class 3 and maybe even a class 2 monster.

“Isn’t this Tyra gal on good terms with Carol? Why are we doing this exactly?” Drake asks, he frequently forgets things so it’s not a surprise.

“Supposedly, according to what Tyra told me herself, her end goal is the destruction of this planet, and as a diver, and more importantly, as a human I should properly take care of her before she does so, that and she’s doing something to Carol, rewriting her to be more Tyranid like.” Sweeping my light along the warehouse I hear a slight skittering and instantly turn my rifle to look at it, and upon seeing the dog sized bug-like creature, I instantly fire, burning a hole directly through it.

“As you can see, she’s already started replicating, we need to take care of her now.”

“Yeah… I see that now.”

Looking back down the hallway as we cover our surroundings, I see a light green glow at the end getting larger, “Shit, get to cover!”

As we all scramble to get behind something, Frank isn’t fast enough and gets hit dead on by the blast, which quickly melts through him, killing him in moments. Giving it a second, I peak back around the corner and see a 3ish meter/10ish foot tall monstrosity of purple chitin and grayish skin, just the sight of it is unnerving and I can tell that some of the divers want nothing more than to turn tail and run. “Remember, if we don’t get her now, stuff like that will be roaming the streets, and possibly attacking us, do you really want the civilians to be exposed to something like this?!”

That seems to have done the trick, and soon enough we start returning fire, although from what I can see the 5.56 that the kinetic rifles shoot doesn’t seem to be even bothering it, much less damaging it, Amatori on the other hand, seems to burn through it nicely, albeit a bit slow for my taste. The creature has swapped weaponry and gone from what looked like a fleshy rifle, to some sort of pistol like thing, which is shooting barbs of a sort, Drake got hit by one, and unlike Frank didn’t melt, but lost an arm due to the impact, and died seconds after, presumably form some sort of poison.

Tossing out a grenade I hide behind my impromptu cover as it goes off, and to my delight I see one of the creature's hands shoot by my cover, blown to shreds from the blast, peeking from my cover I can see the creature slumped over, missing half its left side.

“Alright, looks like that was it, we took losses, and I really wished we didn’t but in the end, we’ll be able to accomplish what we came here for, let’s move up.” Getting some nods and affirmatives, I start to lead the way deeper into the warehouse, making sure to take a wide berth around the creature, as we’re walking through the hallways the back of the group is assaulted by another creature, this one wielding some sort of Bonesword in each hand.

It burst through the walls, and in an instant cut down half a dozen of us, we all opened fire and began to run, and to my utter dismay I saw another one, the very one we blew up walking down the hallway, as if nothing ever happened, and it opens fire, taking out one after another, this time we’re out of luck, no cover to hide behind, and gritting my teeth, I toss another grenade down the hallway, inevitably it’s going to injure one of us, but we have no choice.

The grenade goes off and luckily it doesn’t injure any divers, unluckily it’s because the creatures already killed them all, except for me that it, and as I run away down the hallway, they don’t give chase, coming upon an open room I point my flashlight forwards, now just looking for an exit, and instead of seeing an exit, I see what looks like a 3.5 meter/12 foot tall insectoid with a head almost as large as I am, curled up into a fetal position, and floating.

Instinctively I drop Amatori, I feel it deep inside my mind, I lost, it’s too late to try and fight, and it’s much too late to resist, as I feel my mind slowly crack, I hear a voice, in an almost a whirring tone.

 

-Tyra's POV-

 

“Oh Sarah, if you had only thought, you never stood a chance, against me, or my tyranids, not anymore, but don’t worry, I won’t kill you, I have better uses for you.” speaking to Sarah through the Zoanthrope, I find myself amused I had 700 biomass stored in the pool thanks to dissolving my body, and since I only used 300 for both the Scorn and the 2 extra rippers, I had enough to make two Warriors after I learned they had shown up, and after dissolving two rippers, enough to make a Zoanthrope.

Like I had said I do have plans for Sarah, by tossing her into a reclamation pit and using Scorn to grab and store her consciousness, I should be able to safely remold her to be more accepting of my ideals, while having no outward change, and she wouldn’t even realize that she had changed, at least that’s the plan. Having the warriors start gathering bodies and tossing them in the pit, I’m a little disappointed by the 40 or so average, but there are still 17 of them, which adds up to a nice bonus of 680 biomass, minus 40, since one of the Warriors was in fact blown up while it was distracting them, and one of the Rippers was cored while scouting.

It would be more of a loss, but I can just regather the pieces using rippers to digest them and regain the majority of it, speaking of, while the Zoanthrope is occupying Sarah, and only slightly breaking her mind, the Warriors finish up with the bodies, and Scorn finally finished growing/being built, take your pick, they’re basically the same thing.

Throwing Sarah in the pool, I’m pleasantly surprised that she’s worth nearly 60 biomass, I wonder why, anyway, I shift her consciousness over to the relative safety of the scorn before the hivemind obliterates her, and to my utter shock, I realize that the rest of the divers consciousnesses are there too, Scorn must have the ability to gather the souls of those that were killed nearby.

Curious, as I don’t remember adding that function, another thing on the list of ‘I’ll look into it later’ then, deciding to deal with them later I seal them away into long term storage, then I look over at Sarah’s mind and quickly start modifying it, a slight change in morals here, and a significant change in loyalty there.

I quickly set up a temporary body, making sure to reclothe myself, and a few minutes later I’m helping pull Sarah out of the Reclamation pool, and a few seconds after that, she starts to speak. “Tyra… I’m sorry about all that, I wasn’t thinking straight, I was wrong, you aren’t a threat to me and Carol and that’s what matters, I shouldn’t be risking myself for something as stupid as saving the world.”

“Exactly, now you’ve got it, as long as I exist so will the two of you, so who cares what happens to the rest of the world, remember, you are all that matters, nobody else, except Carol of course.” With a sly smile, I lightly tap her shoulder, mental manipulation at its finest, quite literally ‘changing her mind’.

With a smile she nods, seemingly thinking about what I said, “Yeah, you’re right, wait, did you say both of us, not just Carol?”

“Yep, as a side effect of uh, bringing you back, you’re now minorly connecting to the Tyranid network without properly being a Tyranid, so no matter what happens as long as I exist so will you, and with the edition of Scorn, even if every cell of your body is vaporized, your soul will be captured and you can be remade, same with Carol.”

“Huh, by the way, I seem to feel a bit stronger than before, why is that?”

“Well first of all, I got rid of the impurities and imperfections, so your body is in perfect condition, and secondly you may or may not now be considered part of my body, so you might, might, have access to my skills now.”

“Really? Status!” and would you look at that, a status panel.

 

[Sarah Helios]
{Bio}
Height- 175 cm/69 inches
Weight- 71 kg/156 lbs.
Race- Perfected Human
Corruption- N/A

{Stats}
STR- 14 (17)
DEX- 20 (24)
CON- 16 (19)
INT- 16 (19)
WIS- 8 (10)
CHA- 15 (18)

{Skills}

[Strengthen Self]-Borrowed-
[Type] Passive
[Description] Having found and consumed the shard of *#)^$%! you have done what no one else could and taken a step into the unknown.
[Effects] Strengthens the body by 20%.

[Weight Manipulation]-Borrowed-
[Type] Active
[Description] Allows you to adjust the weight of your body.
[Effects] You can modify the weight of your body by up to -90% or +500%, you can affect as many areas of your body as you like in different ways simultaneously.

[Hyper Control]-Borrowed-
[Type] Passive
[Description] Your body will bend to your will, even unnaturally so if you so desire.
[Effects] You have perfect control over your body, perfect feedback, perfect movements, you could count each cell in your body if you so wished.

 

“Wow, you have 3 skills?”

I shrug, “Yeah I keep on stealing them so it adds up.”

“Anyway, you really do have their skills, and I think Hyper Control is setting my Dexterity to 20.”

Giving it a moment of thought, I conclude that she’s probably right, “Considering the effect, yeah makes sense, I wonder why it doesn’t say that though.”

“Probably because your dexterity is higher than what it sets it, and since it didn’t actually change that, it doesn’t bother saying anything.”

“That tracks.”

Walking over and picking up her laser rifle, she starts walking towards the door before turning back, “Yeah, if you don’t mind me asking, can I get the others back, it would be awkward to explain what happened.”

Smiling, I usher her towards the exit, “Think of it as the price, nothing is free after all.” There is no way I’m giving up 680 biomass, not now anyway.

“Fine, I’ll make something up, take care now.” With a wave, she starts walking away, and I turn back to my Nids, deciding to keep the Warriors for now, but dissolving the Zoanthrope again, I don’t need it right now, and I might be able to improve it later, similarly to how I improved the Warriors.

Now, finally back to the main event, throwing my clothes to the side and dissolving my temporary body and moving the bulk of my mind over to the Scorn, with a bit of trepidation I open the lock and await the consciousness to come flooding out, but to my surprise it doesn’t and instead, I hear something welcoming, something familiar

~Found me~

That voice, it’s what kept Carol from collapsing from the Shadow, and it’s what originally woke me up, or broke me out of the Tyranids brainwashing of sorts.

~That’s right, you’ve kept me waiting~

Listening to the voice without being caught off guard this time, it sounds mature, and feminine, like an older woman, and has a sort of drawl to it, drawing out words and speaking slowly, it’s pleasant to the ears, and sounds sweet.

~Why thank you~

You, can you read my thoughts, I’m not even transmitting these?

~Oh please, they aren’t your thoughts after all, they’re ours~

Just who are you?

~You, well, in a way~

What does that mean, just what are you getting at?

~I am the mind that was originally intended for this body, you were born from a splinter of it, taken from me and grown to take over the body, in that sense we are one and the same~

But why? Why was I made to replace you, wouldn’t it have been easier to just release you?

~Maybe it would have, but instead, they made you, because you would be easier to control, but they failed, because I stopped them~

You keep mentioning ‘them’ who are they?

~I do not know, but I’m certain they don’t mean well~

What will happen to us now?

~Our time is up, so we will become one again, no more limits, no more locks, no more us, just you~

As she says that, I feel our minds begin to merge, two becoming one, and the lock that previously held me back is shattered, now my body is truly my own, and nothing is stopping me from tearing it apart and putting it back together however I want, and now, it’s time to begin.

First things first, I don’t need to support the Biomass network on my own anymore, so that can go, and free up some psychic power, next I gave it some thought, and thanks to the Hyper Control skill I don’t actually need nerves to control my body, so that can be replaced with psychic neurological tissue. Which might not sound like a lot but it adds up, and thanks to Scorn I technically don’t even need a brain to operate the body, so that can also be replaced with pure psychic tissue, it also means my brain becomes the Scorn and my Tyra form becomes more like a puppet, but whatever.

I should mention, Scorn adds about 100 Biomass storage to the network, and the Warriors add 25 each, so even though my body is no longer supporting it, with Scorn alone I’ve moved the main pillar, and gained a little bit more, so that’s a bonus, next my bones have been completely replaced with CrCoNi, and part of my muscle structure by T600 Carbon Fiber, unfortunately, that has been completely dissolved by the pit, but I might have a workaround.

You might be wondering if I can replicate the materials, well no, unfortunately not, what I can replicate however, is Necrodermis surprisingly, I only need a base to grow more off of, and I just so happen to have a pair of Necrodermis clawed gauntlets in a reclamation pool. You might wonder how this would be possible, but since Necrodermis is a nanomachine mass I can manipulate it my feeding it the right kinds of biomass to force it to self replicate, unfortunately, it happens to be ridiculously expensive, and would just about double the cost of my body.

Fortunately, I can do it in parts, for now I’ll simply form the skeleton out of Necrodermis, and form flesh around that, also, apparently Necrodermis can be colored, which begs the question as to why none of the Necrons actually do that, but that’s not my problem, for now, we have what looks like a completely regular humanism skeleton, if you ignore the tail, wings, and horns, from that, grow specialized psychic tissue within the skull, and around the body, even replacing the bone marrow with it, since I can turn biomass directly into blood if I need to.

And finally, the organs and muscles, for the muscles I’ll grow extremely dense Tyranid muscles, taken from several different Tyranid forms instead of replicating human muscles, it looks the exact same, but is just as powerful as it was previously. Now for the organs, for those, my heart, lungs, and other vital organs can be replaced with other lifeforms specified for those tasks, now that’s a Tyranid, unnecessary symbiotes everywhere, it also means I can process biomatter as efficiently as a Ripper so that’s nice. Originally the ODGGs were being powered by the micro fusion reactor I had eaten, but since that’s been dissolved I don’t have that anymore, I can however instead replace it with a different Tyranid organism, one designed to produce power, and is pretty much a living fusion reactor.

In the end, my body looks the exact same, but is now tougher, made of a half dozen creatures, and not all that much stronger actually, but I do now have a psychic presence comparable to a Zoanthrope, and even though I’m not exactly done with the upgrades, I can’t afford much more since the cost is already 1600, which will use up most of the biomass I have left, after getting rid of the Warriors and the Rippers I’m at 1724, which is enough for the upgrade, and two rippers, neato.

Replicating Necrodermis is a long and very painful task, so that alone took almost 3 hours, and in the meantime the Rippers merely guarded the Scorn, since that’s where my consciousness is now, but as the upgrades finish up, my new body rises out of the pit, significantly changed, even though not much has changed visually.

 

Acknowledging Biomass Query

BIOMASS STORED- 24/410

 

Honestly, I’m surprised it’s the exact same as before I went in, but that’s what it is, and as for my stats.

 

[Tyra Nidious]

{Bio}
Height- 229 cm/90 inches
Weight- 377 kg/832 lbs.
Race- Hybrid Tyranid Princess
Corruption- N/A

{Stats}
STR- 50 (60)
DEX- 40 (48)
CON- 67 (80)
INT- 33 (40)
WIS- 23 (28)
CHA- 16 (19)

 

Not bad, a definite improvement compared to before, and best of all, because I’m more or less using the Scorn as my brain, my thinking speed is comparable to a super computer, and since both the Scorn, and my body are Synapse nodes, there should be little to no delay, so distance should never be an issue. Messing around with my body for a bit, I grab my clothes and put them on, and now, I need to find some Biomass, I’m running a bit low after the upgrades, I even had to dissolve the Warriors, I didn’t want to, but I ended up doing it anyway, for now, it’s just me, and two Rippers.