Now then, in all honesty, I’m likely at the point where I could just start rampaging and start a proper Tyranid invasion, the inhabitants of this world are relatively weak and have little to no psychic presence, so just one Zoanthrope could probably take out the entirety of Winterhome alone. The only reason why I won’t is because of Carol, and unlike Sarah who was transformed all at once and had her morals and ethics rewritten instantly, Carol is turning slowly and will take significantly longer to change to the point where she wouldn’t care about Winterhome anymore.

Before that however, I have a couple of overdue upgrades to make to my body, namely the installation of a Spirit-Leech Cortex, Balemind Membrane, and Norn Crown into my body, it would be very expensive on the biomass front, but would enhance my abilities even further and allow for some very nice additions. For starters, the Spirit-Leech Cortex would allow me to slowly turn energy into biomass, namely the souls that are currently sitting around, and any I might get in the future.

The Balemind Membrane would allow me to focus my psychic powers even more than I already can, sort of like sharpening a sword, it’s already deadly but with a bit of work could be made deadlier. Then we have the Norn Crown, a parasitic organism that feeds off of my psychic presence and allows me to focus the shadow in the warp into the material realm, potentially obliterating the minds of lesser creatures at the mere sight of it, needless to say, it would be extremely helpful to have.

I’ll start with the Spirit-Leech Cortex since that would be the easiest, a simple neural lattice structure that lines the inside of the skull and slowly siphons energy to produce various biological substances, which normally is used to supercharge the natural healing abilities of a Tyranid, but can also be collected and turned into biomass for later use. This is yet another of the various perks of the psychic biomass abilities that my particular hive network has, and not something the Cortex can normally do.

As for actually creating it, it’s relatively simple since it’s not an incredibly large change and is relatively cheap, about 30 biomass and a minute or so to create. Next is the Balemind Membrane which is normally supposed to surround the Psychic center of a creature's brain, but because of my modifications this entire body is the Psychic center, and as the Cortex surrounds the brain by going on the inside of the skull, the Balemind Membrane is going to have to be inserted between my skin and flesh, which is a much more difficult and time consuming feature and is going to take about 90 biomass, and a 5 minute dip in the Reclamation pool.

Finally, we have the Norn Crown, a Parasitic organism which is placed on top of the head and burrows into the skull from there, and funnily enough actually looks like a crown after it finishes. Cost wise it’s the most expensive of the three at an impressive 210 biomass, and is funnily enough the easiest to actually implement since all I have to do is make it and wear it like a crown.

As the crown burrows into my skull and attaches to my brain, it actually grabs hold of my horns and attaches them to the crown itself, using them as a base to hold itself up I guess. Well, I’m once again more powerful than ever, and the only thing that changed externally is the crown now on my head.

With a bit of effort I manage to impose the shadow onto reality in front of me, and what appears is a small dot on the ground, which begins to grow. Within a minute there’s a small pool of shadow in front of me; it looks like if you were to step over it you would fall in, falling forever in an endless abyss.

“Hey mom, what’s this?” Looking up I see Carol approaching the edge, oh no.

“Wait Carol no don’t-!” It’s too late, she touched it. I’m so stupid, I forgot she wasn’t fully turned yet. She might look like a Tyranid and she might think like one but she’s still human, still vulnerable.

Quickly dismissing the shadow as she starts to fall over I run over and grab Carol, “Carol, hey, CAROL, are you alright, did you see anything?”

“I- I- I- I- It’s…” Her eyes are murky and cloudy like she can’t think straight, I can see it, her light is fading.

“It’s what? Carol come on, you’re okay, you’ll be fine, This- I- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t realize- I- I forgot, I’m sorry…” Her body’s shaking, reminiscent of a seizure.

She shouldn’t normally be affected to this degree, but because of [Psychic mind] she gained a psychic presence, and her suffering was multiplied by dozens.

“It’s beautiful, so beautiful.” I can see her soul, it’s cracking. Her body is starting to calm down but her soul is getting worse and I don’t know how to fix it.

Doing the only thing I can think of to help, I pick her up and walk over to the Reclamation pool, and with a heavy heart, I drop her in while I collapse to my knees at the edge. Instantly I grab her soul, isolating it from the network and freezing it in the deep storage of the Scorn, for now, that’ll stop her from getting any worse. I can edit a soul, changing it and messing with memories or morals or whatnot, but I don’t know how to fix one. I could take her soul and remove any memories of the shadow but I was simply too late for just that; the shadow infects incredibly fast and by this point nearly a third of her soul is damaged, I could easily cut it off but I don’t know how her soul would react to losing a third of it, or what she might lose.

Not again, no no no no, it’s always my fault, dammit why does this always happen to her? This happened back with the crystals and now it’s happening again. I wanted to get stronger to protect her, and instead I‘m killing her, like a parasite.

By all means this shouldn’t be bad, after her soul is completely taken over I can rewrite it and fix her then, but she wouldn’t be the same, and more like a Tyranid and logically that’s a good thing. But still, I don’t want this, I don’t want her to change like this, the way it was going she would eventually recognize us as her people, and the other humans as the outsiders but she’d still be Carol, with her bright and cheery personality and going about everything without a care in the world. But with this method she’d change completely, she’d be dark and dreary, hating the world and everything in it, only wanting to kill and eat, she'd be like a Tyranid and think like us but she wouldn’t be Carol.

“Mother-.” 

Snapping over to the Warrior who had tried to speak, with tears in my eyes, I yell, “Stop, don't call me that, I don’t deserve it anymore. What kind of mother would do this to her child!?”

It bows, before continuing, “I- I’m sorry, Great Queen, it won’t happen again.”

Standing up, I straighten myself out, “It doesn’t matter, what did you need?”

“Just a suggestion, why not clone her soul, you can create an exact copy using others and test various methods on that, since it’s not the original it shouldn’t matter if she perishes no?”

Shaking my head, I look down at him, “I- No, I can’t, it's just- it’s not right.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, why not? I cannot see any logical fallacies in the idea.”

“I simply can’t, it’s something I shouldn't do, not to my daughter.”

“But why? I don’t see any issues with it.”

“I told you, it’s not right.”

“Great Queen, forgive me, but I believe you are ill, you are not thinking correctly and are making illogical judgments.”

“NO, I’m not sick, I just, I don’t know, it hurts.”

“You are experiencing pain? I do not believe you have any injuries, so you should not be feeling pain. In which case, you might be suffering from a Psychic illness of sorts.”

“Stop, stop stop stop, I’m not sick, there’s nothing wrong with me.”

“You are undoubtedly experiencing issues with your personality construct, I believe it would be best to reset it.”

“R- RESET IT. Do you want me to die!?”

“Does it matter? The hive will continue with greater efficiency, is that not the ultimate goal? As such it does not matter if a few Tyranids die, as long as you are replaced it does not matter.”

He’s right, I know it, but still, there’s something inside me crying out, “I don’t care, I just-” I never thought I’d say this but… “I don’t want to die, not yet, I don’t want Carol to die, I don’t want to hurt her, I don't want to change her.”

“You are not thinking like a Tyranid, you are-”

“STOP, just stop, yes I’m a Tyranid, but before that, before the hive or my duty, I’m me, Tyra.” Initiating the switch I had hidden within them just in case, the souls of the Tyranids are ejected from their bodies, and locked inside the Scorn.

“Madam,” Looking over at Hark, I can sense his worry through our link, “Are you okay?”

“I’m alright… actually, no, no I’m not.” I close my eyes, what am I supposed to do now?

Feeling something impact my chest I open my eyes and look down, black hair?

“It’s okay to be sad, it’s okay to cry, you might not be human, but you have emotions, and that means you can mess up, big sis is gone, but she’s not dead, if you need to cry mom, it’s okay.” She wraps her arms around me, pulling me into a hug, she’s short, about 158 cm/ 62 inches.

Who is this? Unless.. “Nacht?”

“Yep, that’s my name, what you named me, you managed to pause it, so it’s not over yet right?” She looks up at me, smiling. She’s right, it’s not over and I can still save her, maybe not right now but I definitely can.

Returning the hug, I find myself smiling too, “You’re right, I still have a chance so let’s not squander it and instead find a way to fix her.”

“There you go Mom, that’s much better than moping around.” She’s so bright but not like Carol was, it's her own brightness.

“Right let’s get a look at you, what’s this body you’ve got?” Pulling away from the hug I can see that her body is relatively short, like I had mentioned earlier, and she’s wearing black jeans with a matching pair of boots, along with a short hoodie. Her hair is black with blue highlights which match her eyes, and her arms are metallic and black, but I can tell that it’s actually just an exoskeleton which makes it look like that.

“Oh, it’s nothing too special and not all that much different than a regular human, and only cost 60 biomass although almost half of it is the arms, I just thought they would look cool.” She shyly holds out her arms, somewhat embarrassed.

“So that’s why there’s a Ripper missing?”

“Yep.”

“Alright enough of this, we need to fix your sister, and the quicker the better since the stasis isn’t perfect and it’s still slowly spreading, oh and where did you get those clothes, I don’t remember those just lying around.”

“Oh, the clothes are a mix of carbon and cotton, a bit weird but it’s doable since they’re both organic materials, of a sort anyway.”

“I suppose that makes sense, as for Carol, I think I should temporarily separate her soul, take out the damaged/corrupt bits and keep them on standby.” Looking in at Carol's soul, I carefully isolate the damaged bit before cutting it off, keeping the rest of her soul safe.

At this point, Hark speaks up, “Excuse me since I don’t know much about souls, but is it not possible for them to heal on their own? I had survived for millennia without one, so would it not be possible to recreate her brain, and keep her soul in there after you remove the damaged portion and have it slowly heal over time?”

“...Hark…” This guy.

“Yes Madam?”

“You’re a genius.” Is bloody brilliant.

After I had dissolved Carol's body earlier I had gotten a perfect scan of her brain, and as such I can recreate it without the memory of the shadow, and place the non infected part of her soul in there where it should slowly heal over time. This is more or less exactly how I duplicated Harks soul, taking a blank soul and using his memories to rewrite it, I can take what’s most of Carol's soul and use her memories to restore it.

The only caveat is that unlike Hark, Carol doesn’t have millennia of experience and memories to fix her soul with, so it might take a lot longer, like several weeks longer. But that’s alright as long as she gets back up eventually, I could do what I did to Sarah, but that would basically create a new person with her memories, I honestly don’t really care with Sarah but I most certainly do with Carol.

Recreating Carol's body, I gingerly pick it up out of the Reclamation pool and move it up against the Scorn, I then put her soul inside it and toss away the infected bit, and to my delight, her soul begins to heal, albeit incredibly slowly. 

With everything that’s happened, I’m now down to a measly 3 biomass so I’m in desperate need of a whole lot more, ah and I should probably tell Sarah that Carol will be in recovery for a little bit.

I’ll shoot her a mental message with the details although I won’t be telling her that I was the one who accidentally hurt her, for obvious reasons. Other than that, I think I might need to take a rest, these emotions are making me tired even though I don’t really need to sleep. I’m not entirely certain how somebody’s supposed to sleep, so instead I'll just lay down and ‘reboot’ my brain which should put me into an extended unconscious state similar to sleeping. The inside of Nacht seems like a nice place to go to sleep, it’s padded and soundproof so I should be able to sleep well and comfortably in there.

 

---

 

“Hey, mom, you awake?”

“Wuh?” My eyelids flutter open and try to sit up, only to bonk my head on the inside of Nacht, ugh do all people feel this sluggish after waking up, how long was I sleeping?

“Oh good, it’s been over a day so I was starting to get worried.” Over a day?

“Nacht? How long was I asleep?” I yawn, that’s a first, and stretch lightly, it’s tight in here.

“Well it’s the next morning, or should I say afternoon since it’s almost 1, so a pretty long time, other than that how are you feeling?”

“Right, and I’m feeling rather refreshed actually, and a little stiff maybe.” Teleporting out of Nacht I land on the floor in front of her, right next to her avatar.

She gives me a quick hug before continuing, “Anyway, I woke you up because we ran out of biomass.”

“Ran out? How?”

“Maintenance and upkeep and stuff.” She teleports on top of her main body, sitting at the edge and swinging her legs back and forth.

“Oh, yeah I guess that makes sense.” Normally I would just perform the upkeep with a portion of the biomass I gather, but I wasn’t exactly gathering any biomass to perform upkeep with, so we inevitably ran out. “By the way Nacht, you make a really good bed.”

“Thanks?” She looks down at me, tilting her head.

“Right, I should probably get some biomass, er, where’s Hark?”

“Can’t you just find him through the link?”

“Oh, uh yeah you’re right, I’m just feeling a bit slow for some reason.” I yawn again, maybe it’s because I just woke up?

Looking for Hark I actually find him stalking a monster, to be specific it’s that monster that was with Carol's mom when I first met her, all the way back in that alleyway. Teleporting Next to Hark I glance over at him and he gives a curt nod, can’t exactly surprise someone who knows your exact moves at each and every moment. “Glad you’re here Madam, I noticed our biomass reserves were low so I took the liberty of finding a source.”

“Aren’t you just the best Hark, but you really didn’t need my permission if you were going to kill a monster, you can just go ahead and do it.”

“I suppose so, but as you said the other day it feels right to ask first.” He may not be able to smirk but I can still tell from the tone of his voice that he would be.

“Hah~ I wasn’t exactly in my right mind sorry, for the moment let’s just take care of this.”

“You got it Madam.”

Turning towards the monster, I go through a couple different plans in my head before settling on probably the easiest one. Teleporting directing onto the monster I take it by surprise and teleport it along with myself directly into the reclamation pool, The monster I want to dissolve, and as for myself, I have a plan regarding this body that I apparently dreamt up, although I can’t remember it all that well the idea is what matters.

The creature flails about before dissolving slowly and the ability comes through to me.

 

[Sniper]
[Type] Passive
[Description] You can handle a weapon as if it was an extension of your body, such grace!
[Effects] Your handling with ranged weaponry is massively increased, and the range with said weapons is doubled.

 

I think there’s some entity screwing with me, the descriptions are getting stranger and stranger. Regardless, the ability itself seems somewhat useful for the ranged Tyranids, and if I ever have to wield a ranged weapon again it will come in useful. The actual reward though is the sweet sweet 120 biomass that flowed into the network, very cool. Now then, as for this body what I had wanted to do was add an internal oxygen tank of sorts, since I have the cold ability I can freeze oxygen and nitrogen down to liquid levels, and store that in my body since it also gives me a near immunity to the cold. I guess I could technically also use it as a weapon, just spit liquid air at whatever's in front of me, I wonder if it would be considered a ranged weapon or not, who knows.

As for where to put it, I suppose I don’t technically need my liver or kidneys, or anything within that system of my body for that matter, but I don’t need to go that far. Converting just my kidneys to storage would provide nearly 10 hours of air, and in a real emergency I could teleport in more if necessary. Just like that I have now, by technicality, become a space-faring vessel, but it honestly doesn’t really matter that much, I more so want it in case I end up in an oxygenless environment somehow.

Now that that’s done I want to start getting a lot more biomass, I don’t have all that much and I really need some to get the ball of invasion rolling. Before that though I had an idea regarding the rest of the Tyranids, I had an issue regarding emotions earlier so I had thought of linking theirs with mine. If I get happy so do they, and same with anything else, that way we don’t have another argument where I end up grounding them to soul prison, and it would be very easy to do so as well.

So easy in fact that I already did it and just have to put them back in their bodies, which is also incredibly simple, I just have to make sure to put them in the right ones. Moving all the Tyranids back to the main room with the pool and the sole entrance to the Scorn, I put all their souls back simultaneously, and ask a very simple question. “So, do you know what you did wrong?”

The very same Warrior that had instigated their ‘grounding’ spoke up, “Yes Great Queen, we understand now, before we hadn’t felt anything, no self, and hardly any emotions. But now, now we understand the sadness you felt, and the wrongness we had done, I- no we’re sorry, we didn’t, we couldn’t know.” He looks sad, and I can feel it too, his remorse.

“It’s alright, just try to do better now, and you don’t have to keep up the ‘Great Queen’ stuff if you don’t want to.”

“Actually I think we might, it fits better for us who are less important and more expendable unlike Miss Nacht or Miss Carol.”

“Oh uh, suit yourself then.” What a bunch of idiots, still love them though.

“Madam, might I suggest something?”

“Oh Hark, yeah of course go right ahead.”

“If you don’t wish to disturb this town and its surroundings because of Miss Carol, then might I suggest temporarily moving to another town? That way you can gather as much Biomass as you’d like without worrying about this town and its inhabitants.” That’s actually a really good idea.

“Yeah that sounds great, just need to actually get there first although with teleportation it shouldn’t take long.”

“Hey mom, can I come with you? I’m kind of bored sitting around here doing nothing all day.”

“Yeah of course! Do as you’d like.”

“Great! Since I don’t have a particularly strong body even with your abilities, I’ll take my main body and just have this one ride along.” After saying that she teleports right into the pilot's seat of her main body, already turning everything on.

“Before we leave though, I want to go and quickly check up on Sarah, would you want to come along for that or will you stay here?”

“Oh, yeah let me turn myself off real quick, I guess I got a bit overzealous.” Hearing the mech power down I let out a light chuckle as she teleports in front of me with a light blush. “Whatever, let’s just get going!” She grabs my hand and teleports the both of us into Sarah’s office, she had checked beforehand to make sure there was nobody else there first so we’re good on that front.

“Hey Sarah, how are you doing?” I ask joyously.

“Terrible, don’t you know how much work you’ve swamped me with after you killed dozens of personnel? Then I get a message in my brain that Carol was severely hurt in the soul and is now recovering, and then on top of all that you disappear for almost two days and your machine Butler has to inform me that Carol is currently recovering and will be unconscious for several weeks, so no, I’m not doing well.” Ah, I suppose that makes sense, while she is connected to the network the connection is very faint and isn’t all that prominent, as per her own request.

“Whatever, so, what’s this visit for?” She stands up and looks over at me, then eyes Nacht.

“Oh uh, yeah I was just checking up on you, and wanted to introduce you to Nacht.”

Nacht waves at Sarah, “Hi!”

“And who’s Nacht supposed to be?”

“She’s my daughter.” Oh the look on her face right then I wish I had a camera to take a picture, it would have been priceless. “Er, to be more specific she’s a destroyer class Warmachine who I granted sentience and a soul, and she’s currently here in the form of an avatar.”

Wordlessly she goes back to her chair and sighs loudly, “Haaaa~ I should expect no less from you, anything else I should know about?”

“Right, we were thinking of jumping out of town for a bit to gather some biomass from another town so we don’t inadvertently destroy this one.”

“Yeah do that, I would rather you not destroy my town, I kind of like it.”

“Alright, well, um I guess I’ll see you later, Bye!” Grabbing Nacht I teleport back to the Factory, “Well, now that we’ve said goodbye to Sarah and made sure she hasn’t blown up yet, we can now safely leave town, Hark, call us back if anything happens that you can’t handle.”

“Will do, have a safe trip Madam.”

“Alright, Nacht go turn yourself on and let’s get out of here!”

Nacht salutes and teleports inside her main body, and I once again hear the hum of her fusion core powering up before we both walk out of the Factory and begin teleporting out of town. Arriving at the entrance which I first walked into, we start going down the road in the opposite direction. Nacht can actually teleport further than me using her advanced sensors, so I ended up riding alongside her avatar in her main body rather than teleporting shorter distances.

It doesn’t take very long before we reach the point where I first found the road, which Nacht is excited about finding for some reason but we continue forth, and within minutes we come across the next town, which means that if I had walked the other way rather then towards Aquila, I would have reached this town in less than an hour rather then almost 5.

That aside, Nacht and I had the exact same reaction upon reaching this town.

“What the hell happened here?”