Let’s see, 13210 matter could make quite a lot of units and is enough to field more or less any unit I want barring a Norn Queen, but instead, I want to take a closer look at the units I currently have and see about upgrading them. I’ve unlocked the ability to create basically any type of matter I want using the pods, so while that would drive up the cost of each unit, it would drastically enhance the abilities of the individual Tyranids, thus increasing survivability, thus increasing long term efficiency of Matter rather than fielding billions of expendable ones. Imagine this, a Tyranid army that’s half the size, but 5 times as hard to kill.

Doing some easy math, 5 times as survivable but half as many units leads to a 250% in overall survivability, and long term use of Matter, and with the teleportation abilities if a Tyranid ever dies we could teleport the body back and recover an amount of Matter from that. With that in mind, there’s another unit I wanted to create, a unit whose sole purpose is to be teleported in and teleport something else back. As I’m sure you noticed when fighting the goblins, each time we wanted to teleport something back we’d have to teleport with it, then teleport back into combat, which would break the flow of combat and give the enemy a few seconds where they can move unimpeded.

Needless to say, that’s not desirable. So instead let’s have a group of two types of units, a spotter type which has excellent vision over the battlefield and can provide vision to teleport around the battlefield, and an expendable unit which can teleport in and latch onto either a living unit or a corpse, then teleport straight into a Reclamation Pool and dissolve them both. For the spotter type, I’d want superior vision and the ability to magnify that vision, which while difficult for biological eyes to do, is no issue for camera lenses and I can layer the lens over a regular eye to provide a larger than normal range of movement. One issue with this design is that the eye becomes incredibly fragile and a very obvious weak point, so let’s throw in a Fortress shield, and rather than have only a few eyes, let’s have dozens, that way it has both backups and the ability to look over several parts of the battlefield at once.

For that matter, I should put the eyes on tentacles so they can freely move around unburdened by the body itself, and probably add a few ways of defense as well, some tentacle lashes for melee, and a mouth for a bioplasmic shot. In that case, it should have a larger central eye for seeing ahead of itself, that way the other eyes are freed up for doing whatever, and of course even with the Fortress Shield I should add some armor around the eyes and main body/head because you can’t have a Tyranid without some chitin. As for movement, I actually have the plans for an antigrav core thanks to the previous hive fleet, so I can just throw that inside. Unfortunately, I would need power for that, but fortunately, I happen to have a plethora of fusion reactors I could make and put inside, so that’s not an issue, and while I could make fuel, there happens to be an entire moon made of what’s basically fusion fuel already, hydrogen.

By throwing a Reclamation Pool literally anyway on the moon where it has access to the atmosphere I can have it harvest that hydrogen and refine it into fusion fuel, providing a near limitless source of energy for anything that needs it. With that out of the way I think we have our spotter type which I’m just going to simply name Spotter, and it costs 400 Matter and is about the size of a Warrior. Now as for the expendable one, I really don’t have to do much and I can simply use a Lenser without the Psychic portion, which in all honesty is just a starfish without a digestive tract and costs 5 Matter, it’s so simple to create that it can be made in less than the blink of an eye, a human one anyway.

Now that that’s sorted, I now have to throw a Reclamation Pool on the moon which is more difficult than just putting it down up there. You see, the Reclamation Pool also has to breathe and last I checked Hydrogen isn’t breathable. So let’s make it breathable. It’s actually an incredibly easy change, and rather than actually making the Reclamation Pool breathe Hydrogen, it’s easier to make a Symbiote that gets installed on the Pool to change whatever goes through it into oxygen using Matter. The Symbiote would use Matter inside the Network to slowly create oxygen, letting both itself and the Pool breathe freely, sort of like an oxygen mask. The Pool would then take in hydrogen and convert some of that hydrogen into Matter, the conversion ratio is honestly quite terrible and it would take about 4 hours to gather a single point of Matter from slowly siphoning the air through that method. But even then, that little bit is more than enough for the Symbiote to use, so I can get away with only converting a fraction, and convert the rest to fuel.

As for the cost of the Symbiote, just about 10 Matter, not expensive at all and it would be easy to install such a Symbiote within every Tyranid so that we can breathe regardless of the environment, and provide a near immunity to airborne toxins. The cost would differ for each type of Tyranid, but I’m not going to get into that since it isn’t that important. A few minutes later and the Purifier Symbiote has been successfully installed into everything that isn’t Nacht, and between Everybody, costs a grand total of 220, relatively pretty cheap.

Tasking Hark with finding a good spot on the Moon, I return to thinking about upgrades, and how we have so little protection against any soul based attacks. To be more specific, while we do have a shared Psychic consciousness, and that provides us with a pretty hefty protection, the same doesn’t apply to others such as Sarah, Hark, and Carol. While the three of them are part of the network, as you saw with Carol they don’t share the same psychic abilities or protection that we have, so I should create some sort of protection for the three of them.

Thanks to both the Scorn and my Psychic abilities I have a few ways to interact with the soul naturally, that being push and pull. The Spirit-Leech Cortex does help, but that only provides me with the ability to destroy and create souls, and all in all my soul based abilities consist of make, break, push, pull. Not great for creating soul based defenses and potentially weaponry. So, let’s take a look at something very close to us that has the ability to both attack and protect souls, the Shadow In the Warp.

To start us off I take a look at the Norn Crown, or more specifically the part of the Norn Crown that interacts with the Shadow itself, and from there I can sort of follow that connection back to the source. It doesn’t take very long to find it, and it looks like a large black orb, similar to how it looks when manifested, but I can feel that there’s more below, past all of this. Putting my hand on the orb I feel it sink in, and I push forwards, falling into the inky darkness of the Shadow's origin.

Unsurprisingly it’s dark and very empty, but it feels natural, almost comfortable. It takes a few minutes to acclimate to the darkness but eventually, I begin to “see”, even though I don’t really have eyes at the moment, and the first thing I lay my eyes on, is me. Another me staring back at me.

“You, who are you?”
“You, who are you?”

Somehow we speak in unison, almost resonating with each other. Something like this doesn’t just occur naturally, not to this extent.

Walking closer to this other me, it mimics me, down to the very microsecond, and much more precise than something could get without sharing a mind. I put my hand up and reach towards it, and when we meet, our hands pass through each other. Ah, I think I’m beginning to understand it now, this isn’t another me like before, it’s already me, same with all this darkness around me, I just need to reel it in and take back control.

Although that’s easier said than done, I don’t exactly know how to reel in the Shadow since I’ve never even tried something like this before, but how hard could it be?

Incredibly hard, it’s like controlling a limb I’ve never had before, actually that’s relatively easy but you get the point right? It took about 2 hours before I even got it to start moving around, and another hour before I could condense it around myself and start to shove it back into my body. Although after that it took root surprisingly easily, and it felt as if it was meant to be there, almost like I was regaining something I never knew I had lost, which I suppose would make sense if it was something I had originally, and simply lost control over because it grew faster than I could.

As the Shadow gets closer and closer to my body it sort of gets stuck, and thinking about it, I haven’t been acting very Tyranid like, and instead I’ve been acting more human, albeit a very hungry and uncaring human, but human nonetheless. The Shadow is something that is made because the Tyranids act like Tyranids, ravenous insatiable hunger and all that, it’s why humans don’t have a Shadow. So in that case, maybe the Shadow needs to change. I have evolved way faster and way past the degree to be considered normal for a Tyranid, but the Shadow has yet to change and yet to evolve.

So, let’s force it to, and to do that let’s look at the most Human person I know, Carol. Not literally of course I don’t want to injure her further, I meant metaphorically by using the Shape of her soul, and the spark it carries within to reshape the Shadow. There can’t be Shadow without light, that would just be plain old darkness and that’s boring, so instead let’s teach the Shadow about the warmth Humanity carries, and by doing that it will also know the cold humanity hides within. Only by knowing both of those would the Shadow ever accept me being anything other than a pure unfeeling Tyranid.

Moving the Shadow away from my body, I condense it in front of me and slowly feed it my memories, bit by bit. Until after a bit of time I start to see it lighten ever so slightly, from an inky pitch black to a slightly less pitch black, still not by much but that should be enough for now. Then I bring it back to me, and it slowly begins to sink into my body, finally starting to accept that I’m not some mindless Tyranid anymore.

Opening my eyes back in the real world, I realize that barely any time has passed at all, just about 20 minutes compared to the several hours I spent chasing that Shadow. Well whatever, for the moment let’s get back to what we were trying to accomplish originally, a mental defense so that I don’t accidentally kill Carol, Hark, or Sarah, and that they can be protected from other soul based threats.

Now that I've consumed the Shadow and taken back control of it, I don’t exactly need the Norn Crown anymore, but for the moment I guess it can stay because it would be a pain to get rid of after it bonded to this body. But I can however use its design as a base for the protection device, but maybe instead of a crown that burrows through the skull and links to the brain, we could have something that floats upon the soul itself, thus fading into a different dimension. That would be wherever the soul is kept when somebody is alive, because it certainly isn’t Realspace, and it isn’t the Warp either, so I’ll just call it the Psychospace for now.

The device would be made of three rings, the lowest one would attach to the soul and simply provide stability, the middle one would siphon energy from both the network and the Shadow itself while simultaneously somewhat purifying it to actually power the device. Finally the outermost layer would use that purified psychic energy to project a field of sorts that would take damage in the soul's place, similarly to a Fortress Shield, as well as providing the Psychic cloaking for the device. Actually, the innermost ring does have enough spare space and power to place a Fortress Shield Generator, and it would be cloaked by the Device and since it’s being attached to a soul it could also enter the Pyschospace as well and not suffer any decrease in durability or efficiency.

Well, I think I have my design down, now I just have to create a couple of these Soul Rings and hand them out. They are a little expensive at 40 Matter each, but since I need to use relatively expensive materials to have a machine capable of interfacing with Psychic powers, it’s perfectly understandable. The 3 rings take but a moment to make and size wise are only about the diameter of an average human head, and are incredibly thin because of weight limitations, but thanks to the materials it still works just fine. Well, I say three rings, but each Soul Ring is actually a grouping of three different rings that come together to make it because adding too much at once can strain the soul, but that’s not important, it only takes a few minutes to stabilize for each ring.

I would like to start with Carol, but her soul is currently already significantly destabilized, so she’ll have to wait a bit, and since Hark is still searching for a good location for the hydrogen farm, that leaves Sarah as subject, er, gift receiver number one.

Checking through her eyes, I see that the office is empty so with little warning I teleport over, hopping into her office with one of the Soul Rings in hand.

Popping into her office, I greet her with a wave, “Hello again~”

To which she nearly falls out of her chair, “GAH! Give me some more warning than that next time!” 

“No promises.”

Getting up she readjusts her suit and pushes her chair in, “Fine, so what is it this time, does it maybe have something to do with those three rings in your hand?”

“Yep, I came to give you some armor, invisible soul armor, which will also protect your physical body quite well.”

She places her hands on her desk and leans back slightly, “Sigh~, did you make those because of what happened to Carol?”

“I- Yeah, I did.”

“Don’t worry too much about it, it’s not your fault she’s way too curious for her own good, so how does this armor work” Ouch, it was entirely my fault, not that she needs to know anyway.

“It’s real simple, I just place these rings on top of your head one by one with a few minutes in between, then they phase into Psychospace so nobody but you and I can see them, and they won’t affect the real world either so you won’t even notice they’re there, and that’s it.”

“I’m not going to ask how you managed to make something like that so quickly, but yeah, that is incredibly simple, alright go for it.”

Approaching her I slowly place the first and smallest ring above her, “Just a warning, you might feel a little bit tired but it won’t last long.”

“What do you-” and like a light she passes straight out into a peaceful sleep, right into my arms.

“Well, that was unexpected.” She must have been incredibly tired. Picking her up properly I set her down on the couch and over the next few minutes, slowly place the rings above her until the Soul Ring is fully constructed and realized, where it fades into Psychospace. Now only the equipper, her, the supplier, me, and whoever has more psychic power than the both of us combined, which is mostly just mine, can see. 

Deciding that I’ve been a little mean to her over the past few days, I quickly create a clone of her without the whole personality thing, and plop her down at her desk to do her work exactly how she would have done it while she gets some rest. As for her actual body, I’ll just leave it there and modify the cloaking on the ring to temporarily include her, that way even if somebody walks in they won’t see two Sarahs, and the clone can deal with them using the entirety of Sarah's memories and skillset. It would actually be an increase in efficiency because the clone won’t get tired or distracted, and won’t slow its progress for any reason barring injury or something interrupting it.

While I’m at it I’ll tune up her body a bit too, it’s a bit degraded from lack of proper nutrients, too many of some other nutrients, lack of exercise, etc. By the time she wakes up, all her work will be done, she’ll probably feel better than she has in months, and her body will be back in peak physical condition. I hadn’t done this previously when I remade her, or at least not to this degree because she still wanted to be independent, but at this point it’s just ridiculous, after I finish up she would be at the peak of human capabilities. It also means all of the defects in her body are gone and as a consequence I’ve made her, as the humans would say, “unbearably hot” since she’s been quite literally perfected, unlike last time which was a little boost this time is a full reconstruction.

Alright ignoring that, let’s move on to other tasks, mainly upgrading the rest of the Tyranids with inbuilt Fortress Shields, denser and more powerful bodies, etc. As well as giving Hark his Soul Ring, and making the Hydrogen farm, it might take a little while to set up but that’s okay, I’ve got time.

 

-Sarah's POV-

 

My eyelids shoot open and I sit up as I realize I’ve been sleeping when I had to be working on some important projects, Tyra said that I may feel a little tired, that was a lie, I felt like the tiredness of the past year’s worth of being awake hit me all at once. On that note, I regret nothing because that was the best nap I’ve ever had. Also, I feel absolutely incredible, like I’m full of energy and could run a mile without breaking a sweat. Now, for the elephant in the room, there’s another me in the room, don't take that weirdly, which is sitting at my desk and quietly doing my work, and I assume it’s because of Tyra.

“Oh uh, Hi?” First thing of note, my voice is a whole lot smoother than before, lacking the coffee and tired induced roughness it used to have.

“Oh good, Miss Sarah you’re awake. I’m sure you’re wondering what happened, to sum it up for you, your body was in a lot worse of a shape than The Queen realized, so you ended up passing out when the first ring was put on you. Then as you were asleep, The Queen fixed your body up since it was a bit unhealthy, so you should now be at about the peak of human abilities. Stronger, healthier, smarter, more beautiful, all that sort of stuff. As for me, the Queen figured you needed some rest so she created a quick clone of you to do your work while you slept. Oh but don’t worry too much, I have no personality, and know exactly what I’m here to do and don’t want anything else since she reprogrammed the soul she used for me manually.” If I didn’t already know this was real because there’s no way I would feel this good in a dream, I would fully believe I was dreaming right now because what I, er um, she just said was absolutely crazy. But it is Tyra so anything could happen really.

Sitting up, I stretch momentarily before standing, “Ahuh, and how do you expect me to explain why there’s two of me?”

“What do you mean? From an outside perspective there’s only one of us, because until you wish otherwise you’ll stay completely invisible to the naked eye. I do recommend going home and getting used to your newish body, I’ll finish up everything here and leave when you normally do, following your normal path back, and when I get there I’ll be teleported back to the Nest and disposed of.”

“O-oh, okay, sure thing, how much work do you think you’ll be getting done?”

“Just about the next week's worth if nothing unexpected happens.” One week, one week without having to work like my life depends on finishing it, ever since Tyra killed the council members I’ve been overseeing the Vices and going over their work since I’m the next highest in position, and they’re a bunch of rookies. That means I have to do my work and check the work of 8 other high office jobs, and she says I won’t have to do that for a week, although half of that week is probably backlog, that’s perfectly fine, I am perfectly fine with her taking over for a little bit.

“Okay, welp, guess I’ll get heading home then, I’ll see you when you finish up!” With that, I walk out the door and begin working my way to the main entrance before I realize I’m currently invisible and it would probably be best to not attract that much attention, oh wait, I can use Tyra’s abilities, and that includes Jane’s teleportation doesn’t it?

It was a bit of a shame Jane died, she was an incredibly invaluable asset, but meh, I don’t really care that much anymore, the Divers have actually been doing even better recently because Tyra’s been clearing out a lot of the monsters and Warmachines in the city so it equals out. Anyway, with a bit of trouble and a passing thought, I teleport straight out the window and land on the ground outside, and not a single person notices, perfection.

A few minutes later I’m opening the door to my apartment and I disable the invisibility, or at least I think I did, I don’t actually know how, my clone only said if I wanted it gone it would be. So in order to check I walk over into the bathroom and check the mirror. The first thing I notice is the triple ringed Halo above my head that makes me look like some angel. Next, I start to really realize what she meant by more beautiful, if previously I was maybe a 6/10, now I’m an easy 10, maybe 11 even, like wow.

Suddenly I remember something, she said I had perfect fitness right? And moments later and after I’ve taken off my suit top, I can say that I am very athletic, I even have a six pack, and there’s only one thing I can say to that.

“Woah, I’m super sexy and hot as hell now, nice! But uh, how am I supposed to explain this?”

 

-Tyra POV-

 

So, I might be laughing at Sarah right now because I was watching her, partly out of concern, partly out of curiosity, and I can rightfully say that I’m glad I was because that was hilarious. I wasn’t expecting that reaction from her, I was thinking she might have been shocked, confused, or angry even, but “sexy and hot as hell” was not what I was expecting.

Anyway, putting that aside for the moment, I’ve outfitted all of the current Tyranids with Fortress Shields, and I hardened the exoskeletons, made denser bones, and used some better, more precise muscles, along with a couple of cybernetic enhancements, all in all, it set me back 2164, partially because I made 2 more Rippers, 2 more Warriors, and 10 each of Gants and Gaunts.

But that’s not the point, even then I have plenty of Matter, 9456, and that means it’s time to start fielding an army, I just need somewhere to point it, oh good timing, Hark just found a really good spot for the Hydrogen farm, so let’s go get that, then we can field a few Spotters and really get it rolling. Well honestly I could have done it anyway and convert Matter to Fusion Fuel, but this way I have an unlimited free source and I don’t have to worry about waste or unexpected costs.

Teleporting up to Hark he gives me the data he’s gathered and I can see why he picked this place in particular, firstly it has a high Hydrogen density, about 17% higher than any other location he’s searched. Secondly, it’s actually in a cave, so it has natural protection against solar radiation, meteorites, and all the other nasty stuff from low atmo environments. The reason the Hydrogen is denser here is because there’s a draft which pushes more hydrogen rich air through this location and leads to an overall increase over time.

Teleporting up 5 Rippers I have them begin work and give Hark his Soul Ring, unlike Sarah it doesn’t knock him out and he’s relatively fine, and very grateful. That aside though it doesn’t take the Rippers very long to create a slightly modified Reclamation pool, this one has large pillars coming from it with several vents facing the draft so it can catch more air, then funnel that air down into the acid.

With this design, it cost roughly about the same as a storage upgrade, and I’m producing roughly 60% faster than my original estimate with regular density air and an unmodified Pool. Nonetheless, I’ve started producing Fusion Fuel, with any extra being very slowly converted into Matter. I suppose now that I have that, I don’t have to worry about Nacht's fuel anymore, but the real reward is the Spotters I can now make, ignore that I could make them anyway.

With that in mind, I’ll make 2 of them for now, totaling a cool 850 for the two of them, and I can make the expendables on the fly so that doesn’t matter. I think I should mention that I did put a couple eyes on the Reclamation Pools and other structures so that they can be teleported to in an emergency, but it shouldn’t matter in the long run since they’ll almost always have something watching/protecting them.

Now then, let’s get back down to the Surface and find something to wage war on, now that will be fun.