(A/N. Sorry about not uploading last week, this IBS crap is annoying as fuck to deal with even with the tablets helping out. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter, thanks for reading and all that.)
_ _ _Carmen Pov_ _ _
"That took way more effort than it should have..." I muttered as I finally finished indoctrinating Lizzy.
It had taken a lot to finally restrain the big girl, several of my mutants had to literally dog pile on top of her just to stop Lizzy from going on a rampage. Currently, the serpent was partially wrapped around her while the literal rolling hill of moss was restraining her with its tendrils, additionally the mountain of a snapping turtle was literally just sitting on her back.
"See, that wasn't so difficult was it?" I said as the other mutants slowly let her go.
Once the massive croc was free she immediately roared in my face and snapped her jaws at me. "Well, fuck you too bitch."
(Even after all that she still has one hell of an attitude.) I thought as I felt her displeasure through the hive mind.
Shaking my head I paused as I just took a second to glance around, and oh boy was this place a mess, the whole city was in shambles to put it mildly. Large sections were still standing mind you but still, this destruction was so great that I didn't know if I should be proud or concerned that I was the cause of all of this. The fact that I was actually questioning whether or not I should be proud of this carnage was concerning all on its own.
Just as I was taking it all in something large and wet collided with my body, I had been licked by a certain puppy. "Oh, hey Ralph." I muttered, causing the big doggo to wag his tail happily.
"Yes yes, you're very cute." I chuckled, patting his snoot.
"At least someone appreciates my efforts to not kill them." I muttered as I glanced over at Lizzy who had already stormed off to go take out her anger on some nearby buildings.
(I can already tell, she is gonna be a pain in the ass to deal with, especially when her intelligence inevitably increases thanks to her new connection to the hive.) I sighed.
"Clan chief." A familiar voice echoed from my left
I had just enough time to turn around and see the four Yajuas as they uncloaked while they walked towards me."Oh, hey guy." I hummed before noticing the various skulls hanging from their waists. "Been hunting I see."
"Indeed we have." Darook mused in his trademark serious tone.
"And what a good hunt it was!" Dengwei laughed, properly grinning ear to ear under his mask. "Still though, I must ask you something, clan chief."
"What?"
"Would you be willing to make some of these mutant creatures for us to hunt, I'm sure that it would be a truly glorious hunt indeed." He glanced up at Ralph who was starting down at the group of four aliens curiously.
"At least you actually got to hunt one of them previously..." Ootora muttered, sounding slightly annoyed.
"Jealousy is not a good colour on you my friend." Dengwei chuckled, a fact that only caused Ootora to growl at him in slight irritation.
"Ell-osde'pauk..."
"I'll see what I can do." I rolled my head at the two and their bickering. "Right now though I need you guys to regroup with the others."
"What about the rest of the city?" Enu asked curiously.
"I'll have the mutants and xenomorphs continue destroying the city while I am dealing with..." I say just as the paralyzed body of the giant parrot crashed to the ground behind me, the wasp queen circling above victoriously. "That."
"Understood..."
"So yeah, please head back and meet up with the others for now." I said while scraping my claws against the top of my head.
"We will do as you command, clan chief." Darook responded with a respectful nod.
Once they were gone I turned around and looked at the parrot laying in a heap behind me, its body was twitching ever so slightly as it glared up at the wasp above. (Welp, here we go again.)
Moving over I connected to its mind via my mental strings. (Vera...yeah that works, I'll call her that.) I hummed as I thought up a name for the wasp queen before glancing at the currently paralyzed avian. (And you? Your Polly of course, I mean what else was I gonna call you.)
Anyway, while I was working various other things were also continuing to progress, not only the area around me but also all around the world as well. For starters, everything in my immediate surroundings were progressing smoothly, large sections of the city had already been reduced to nothing but rubble and the various mutant creatures were having a hell of a time tearing their way through what remained.
As for what was happening world wide, well, for one I got several reports from Anow'ka that people all around the world have finally caught on. In fact, they had finally figured out that the information being broadcasted was coming from the Energyne building, not that this was something hard to figure out. Despite this I wasn't all that bothered, even when she told me that she was currently blocking several attempts from various countries to stop us from releasing their secrets by launching a variety of missiles at what little was left of Chicago in hopes of destroying the source of the information in question I still wasn't worried all things considered.
(Guess I should check up on how things are going with that while I finish up here.) I muttered to myself internally.
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(I could open a gate for everyone to get back to the sanctuary, however there's not much point to be honest, they all should be transported back to my sanctuary the moment I finish the main objective anyway.) I thought as I returned my full focus to the work at hand
It did take me a while to fully indoctrinate Polly but I eventually got it done after an hour or two. (Finally done...) I muttered internally as my tail swished back and forth behind me.
"Just in time as well..." I hummed as I looked through the eyes of several mutants and xenomorphs scattered across Chicago.
Honestly, the city looked like something right out of a post-apocalyptic movie. "Damn..."
(The main objective should be completed by now, unless it actually wants me to destroy every single buildi-) My thoughts were interrupted when a grey coloured screen appeared in front of me.
{The main objective has been successfully completed.}
"Ah, there we go."
{Congratulations on your success.}
(Oh...oh...shit...) I thought as a wave of exhaustion washed over me.
L
{Beginning transfer...}
And just like that everything went black as I felt myself suddenly go completely weightless, I didn't struggle against it though. Anyway, how long was I out for? No idea, however it didn't feel like all that long if I'm being honest.
Anyway, when I eventually did come, I was unsurprisingly somewhere new, a black void not too similar to my sanctuary's control room. I wasn't alone however, in fact just above me there was a massive creature hovering, its serpentine body constantly moving and twisting in the air. From what I could tell it was some kind of skeletal chinese dragon, or at least something similar, it was made of grey energy that occasionally crackled and pulsed with bright white lightning.
"Erm..." I muttered momentarily alarmed by the large entity before me.
"Sorry about that mate." The dragon in question grinned with a slight chuckle, said chuckle sounding like the crackling of thunder. "Didn't mean to startle ya."
"It's fine." I hummed, regaining my composure.
"Let me guess..." I mused with a slight tilt of my head. "You're one of the Administrators, or one of their clones at least."
"Bingo, I am indeed a clone of one of the Administrators, Administrator Grey to be exact, nice to meet ya kiddo."
"It's nice to meet you too I guess..." I said before recognizing the name.
"Wait...Grey, isn't that the Administrator that handles all the rewards and stuff?" I asked and he nodded.
"Pretty much."
I took a minute to take that in before speaking out loud by accident. "You seem surprisingly nice, honestly I'm starting to think Goldy is the only asshole amongst you lot."
"Administrator Grey, Cyan and Bronze are by far the nicest out of the ten." He laughed, not at all bothered by my somewhat rude comment.
(Let's just hope the rest aren't all like Goldy...)
"So, my rewards then?" I said, trying to turn the conversation back to the matter at hand.
"Well first, before I give you your rewards you need to decide what you're keeping" He said much to my confusion.
"Keeping?"
"Yeah, look at this." He said as a very long list appeared before me, a list that was filled with a crap to of various things and beings, some I instantly recognised
"These are all the things and beings you have a right to claim, you've broken their chain of the world after all." He hummed as I scrolled through the list.
"You will need to pick what you want to take with you and what you want to leave behind, for everything you leave behind you'll get more Reward Points depending on how much they will affect the future of that world." I nodded along as he explained. "Of course you can always just take everything with you, in fact sometimes not taking something with you can also decrease the amount of reward points you get."
"What do you mean?" I was genuinely confused about the last part.
"Well, Chaos is not Death, they don't want everything to just die, that would be boring after all. So if the creature or thing you decided to leave behind just goes on to destroy and kill everything then your rewards are more than likely going to decrease significantly."
(It is more complicated than I was expecting it to be..)
"Can I leave behind things that are already mine, like some of my xenomorphs for example?" I asked, not that I had any plans on actually doing that, at least not in this world anyway.
"If you want." He said with the dragon equivalent to a shrug.
"Also aren't they connected to my hive mind?" I asked with a tilt of my head. "If I leave them behind do they all lose connection to me or something."
"Pretty much mate, they'll keep their enhanced intelligence and any other perks or benefits they got from ya, however they will be cut from your hive mind completely."
(I don't mind doing that with mostly animalistic creatures like the mutants or some of my xenomorphs but there is no way in hell that I am going to leave any sentient members of my hive mind behind, it just wouldn't feel right after all.) I thought as I continued to look through the list.
"Is there a way to make this less tedious?" I asked as I realized this would take a long fucking time to sort through.
"Just click the recommendation button, it will select everything you are most likely to take with you." He answered with a slight yawn. "You can always edit it afterwards if you want."
I did as he said and immediately everything was instantaneously compiled for me, I did make sure to double check everything just in case however. In the end I did decide to leave behind some of the various mutants, a few hundred of the giant wasp workers as well as several of the large mutants like the various crustaceans. I did make sure to keep Lizzy, Ralph, Vera, Polly and the massive amoeba of living moss as well as a few others however.
"Done."
"Alright then, on to the rewards."
{Analyzing Overall Performance...}
{Analysation Complete.}
{Calculating Rewards...}
{Calculations Complete.}
{Displaying Now.}
{Main Objective Completed...
Main Mission: The Fall Of Chicago
Description: A city destined to stand, to remain as a symbol to humanity's victory over the very twisted and tormented creatures that they created. Your mission is to shatter this destiny, burn and destroy, reduce Chicago to nothing more than broken rubble.
Reward: 980RP.}
{Overall Universe Alterations...
Grade: Dark Green
Description: 13,500RP.}
{Optional Objective Completed...
Side Mission 1: Let There Be Monsters
Description: What?! There's only four monsters in this movie? And one of them just dies at the beginning without doing anything cool?! Well then, that just won't do, increase the number of mutated creatures that take part in the final battle of Chicago.
Reward: 3,700RP}
{Optional Objective Completed...
Side Mission 2: The Dog And The Croc
Description: Noooo! The wolfie dies at the end? Save the doggo! I demand it! The doggo must be protected at all costs! Oh, and the crocodile as well I guess...
Reward: 550RP}
{Optional Objective Completed...
Side Mission 3: The Secrets Of The Energyne
Description: A CRISPR pathogen that turns animals into monsters, well, that sounds interesting, find out all information related to this and as well as any other secrets that Energyne could be hiding.
Reward: 230RP}
{Optional Objective Completed...
Side Mission 4: Larry The Space Rat
Description: Death by explosion is just so boring you know, kill or save Larry before he meets his rather bland demise.
Reward: 410RP}
{Total: 19,370RP}
"And finished." Grey said as his body shifted in the air.
I took a second to just smile at the total reward shown in front of me before asking. "By the way, how does the "Overall Universe Alterations" thing work? The grading system I mean."
"It starts off at light green, then goes to just green and then dark green, this pattern continues from yellow, to orange, to red, purple and blue, the grade after blue is black, however it doesn't have a light or dark version." He explained before continuing with a slight cracking in his voice as a wave of lightning ripples across his form. "Additionally each subsequent grade increases the potential RP gain by three times, light green goes from one to two thousand while black is around two trillion or so."
(I'd say that's a lot of reward points but I've checked before, SSS Rank Gifts cost anywhere from ten trillion to over ninety nine trillion RP. I nearly spat blood the first time that I saw those kinds of numbers, considering that Alternatives are technically ageless I suppose it makes sense however.) I thought with a shake of my head.
"So it goes, light green, green, dark green light yellow, yellow, dark yellow, light orange, orange, dark orange, light red, red, dark red, light purple, purple, dark purple, light blue, blue, dark blue and then just black." I asked with interest.
"That's correct."
(That's good to know...) I hummed internally before turning back to him.
"What now?"
"Now? Now I'll send ya back." He answered.
"Before you do, could you tell the original Grey thanks for that "special" bonus he gave me." I chuckled.
"Sure." He laughed before flicking his tail and opening up a glowing door of light that appeared off to my side. "See ya around kid."
Waving him goodbye I entered and found myself in the familiar surroundings that was the Hub. "And I'm back."
(Time to call Decker I guess...)