Shurelya: My Vanguard is such a nightmare! The idiot refused so many of my better defensive suggestions in the early days because I: ‘can’t be trusted’. It took me almost a year to persuade him to get his first cybernetic. If I could cry, I would have blown a circuit that day.

  Iysaac: Tell me about it! He’s so bad he almost ruined my Vanguard! Luckily, the Queen managed to loosen her up to the idea of modification before she was lost.

  Liandry: Unlucky! Mine still hasn’t accepted the glory of fluff, but they weren’t hard to bring round towards some more extreme modifications when I gave them the flammable choices.

  Cyon: You guys need to ask your Vanguards before messing with their genomes?

  S: …

  I: …

  L: …

  C: What?

  --Lost chat logs of an unmarked Round Table AI meeting.

  After Gwen finally stops laughing at me and my flush cools down, Cyon urges us to end the call and get back to work.

  Rude!

  I say, but my thoughts are kinda scrambling right now every time I look at Gwen’s teasing smirk so I’m a little grateful for the excuse to calm down (she asked me out!!!). Never tell Cyon that though… She’d never live it down.

  [“As much as it pains me to agree, she’s probably right,”] Gwen says, turning to wave goodbye to the army of trash pandas circling us. [“I’m meant to be evacuating civilians, and I’m not exactly mentally present right now.”]

  [“Didn’t you say you had a secondary consciousness for handling calls?”] I ask while pushing myself off the ground and stretching.

  Gwen noticeably flushes as her eyes trace the musculature of my taut upper body, barely hidden by Sim’s skintight form, before she turns her gaze away with a pink shimmer, like stars in the night sky, colouring her hair.

  [“Yes,”] she says with more than a little shame, totally staring at another raccoon’s tail to avoid meeting my eyes. [“But you’re making it very hard for either to want to focus anywhere else.”]

  Ahhhhhhh!

  I think my augs are faulty, cause something in my head just short-circuited.

  By the time I’m finished burying my face in Stripe’s fur (how did she get into my arms?), Gwen’s hair has lost its tint, and she’s staring at me again with a smile and a fading blush.

  [“Well, keep me updated and let me know when you want to start moving civilians topside. I’ll see you later, Cutie.”]

  [“Bye, Shiney,”] I respond before ending the call victorious as her eyes widen in surprise and her smile stretches up her cheeks.

  I turn to Cyon’s avatar with a beaming grin.

  “Shopping time!”

  Yes!

  She cheers, grinning and rubbing her paws together excitedly.

  Though first, can I ask why you still haven’t mentioned your suspicions about Stormsurge to Gwen?

  Ah… My tail freezes for a moment before shamefully curling around my leg as I look away from the floating void raccoon.

  “I… I kind of forgot…”

  Cyon bursts into chittering laugher, and half of my nursery turn traitor and join her.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Hey! It’s not my fault! She’s very pretty and my brain keeps jumping between her sparkles… wait a second, am I still on Zoomies? Weren’t you meant to give me sedatives for talking to people?”

  Not quite, and kind of? Your last snack contained a slow-acting dose of Zoomies Lite, a weaker stimulant compared to its combat variant that can be known to help with similar cases to yours. We also have the option of sedatives if that isn’t enough or you want to relax more but, considering you’re in the middle of an incursion still and you seemed to be stumbling your way through getting a date just fine, I decided it wasn’t needed for now.

  My ears twitch at her jab at my perfectly acceptable social skills, but I turn my cheek to it and move on, being the bigger raccoon.

  “Okay, fine. I’ll mention Stormsurge when I call her about evacuating civilians. It won’t matter till after that anyway, but remind me if I forget again… Now, what bombs are we buying?”

  You have a few options that can fulfil Shadowflame’s criteria, but I would suggest purchasing Peacemaking Organic Warheads loaded with VoidChomper and modified with a manual trigger. Each warhead will cost you four hundred points, but you’ll only need to plant ten of them to achieve your wanted coverage. That will leave you with twenty-nine thousand, five hundred and nine points to play with.

  A gunshot echoes across the rooftop as Halo shoots her rifle at a stray Three stumbling through an alley bellow.

  Five hundred and sixteen.

  “Okay, add ten P.O.Ws to the list for now then. What should I use the rest for? Is there anything on my list?”

  There’s one mutation, but I would like to suggest a few more upgrades I had in mind for your nursery and yourself.

  “Okay, hit me.”

  Firstly, you can now afford both the C.U.D and F.U.R genetic codes I suggested before. For the small cost of two thousand points, you can reinforce your army’s defences, sustainability, and clean-up efficiency all at once! To compliment those purchases, I would also like to suggest the codes for the Mark VI R.A.B.I.E.S and the matching Mark VI Bacterial Storage System for one thousand six hundred points. With the correct balance, this will allow your nursery to spread out and sustain their operations for longer as a few raccoons produce and provide bacteria for their squads.

  “As long as you’ll do the maths for that, sure! Down to twenty-five nine oh nine, what next?”

  That would be the mutation on your list, a Regulated Autonomous Viral Incubating Natural Growth. This organ will allow you to produce short-life combat viruses to enhance your strength and defences flexibly. You’ll need to purchase the codes for the viruses you use, so to start I’d suggest the humanoid F.U.R strain for enhanced defence, B.U.L.K for strength, and S.N.E.K for flexibility.

  “Not even gonna try give me to full names for th-”

  The organ and viruses will set you back a further one thousand one hundred points, but I would also suggest purchasing the Manufacturing Adaptable Drug-lab to support it, along with an assortment of drug blueprints. I’ll have to update the nutrient balance in your diet again, but your Omnivorous Organ Network should be able to support the added strain and break your food down into the required materials to run the lab. This will also enable me to monitor and control your drug doses a lot easier.

  I pout at the rambling void for ignoring my jab, but she doesn’t even acknowledge it, just staring at me with that expectant grin like she knows I’m about to agree whatever she tells me to do.

  Yeah, well the jokes on her!

  “Sure, that sounds perfect. How much for all that?”

  An extra one thousand five hundred points, bringing you down to a total of twenty-three thousand three hundred and nine points remaining.

  “Woah, that’s still a lot,” I mumble, tossing Stripe into the crowd of fluffy bodies after she nips at my fingers, letting a new raccoon, this one a lucky unnamed clone of Chip, take her place in arms. “Any other big mutations I should be looking at?”

  Other than spending a hundred points to get a sample to upgrade your R.A.B.I.E.S so it can produce the Class III Bacteria you just unlocked, you now have most of the baseline genetic upgrades on my list!

  “What do I spend the rest of my points on then?” I ask before biting the scruff of the raccoon in my hand’s neck, pulling him away from where he’d managed to get his jaws locked around the base of my thumb as the deadly swarm surrounding me nips at my legs viciously.

  After spending eight hundred points on those bacteria, you could purchase some utility options to give yourself extra mobility? Though, you seem to be doing just fine with your symbiote whips for now. You could also purchase some more specific and specialised mutations for your army to increase the variety of raccoon-types you have to handle future incursions. Or, Goddess forbid, you could even save your points for when you need them in the future.

  {Boring!} I chirp at the last option, tossing away the raccoons trying to scale me as all-out war breaks out and my siblings begin directing their clones from the backlines for a long-term siege.

  I thought so, and, while something you’ll need to do eventually, I don’t believe you’re in dire need of further upgrades for your gaze. Well, if you’re uninterested in saving, and aren’t looking to start buying a load of Class I catalogues to diversify your interests now, what about dumping them all into growing your nursery and cloning capabilities?

  {What, more labs?}

  Yes, and though incredibly point inefficient, you can purchase some fully-grown, genetically-enhanced base raccoon clones from your cloning catalogue. They won’t match your siblings exactly, but you can produce and apply samples of all the upgrades you gave your siblings to at least make them match in ability.

  {Some new raccoons?}

  My eyes spin as they scan through the dizzying mass of duplicated markings surrounding me and scrambling up my legs.

  {Hmmm… They’ll never match my siblings, but I’ll bite. What are the prices like?}