A vine snaked out along the ground before wrapping around Val’s left leg. She desperately sliced down with her knife, scoring a hit but not managing to sever the vine completely. She watched in despair as the green growth began regenerating, quickly recovering from the damage. A small cry escaped her lips as her leg was yanked out from underneath her. The vine dragged her along the ground for several feet before launching her across the clearing.

She gritted her teeth as her back slammed into a wide tree trunk. The bark cracked and the trunk groaned, but the tree remained standing despite the human-sized dent her body had just created. Pushing herself forward with her elbows, she slid down the tree before landing on her feet. She glared angrily at the writhing mass of greenery at the center of the clearing responsible for her impromptu flight.

This is stupid, Noir. I don’t feel like I’m learning anything here, and we’re making a lot of noise. I’m worried about attracting something else.

It’s rare to have an encounter with a plant-based nano-evolved lifeform. Despite your lack of progress so far, it doesn’t seem to be able to break into your exosuit. So this is a great opportunity to practice some of my subroutines. No signs of other activity in the area, and I’ll let you know if that changes.

Val’s retort was interrupted as she threw herself sideways to dodge a flurry of vines launched in her direction. Coming up out of her roll, her brow furrowed in concern as she watched the tangle of vines slowly start to retract. Luckily the evolved plant seemed to have no discernable intelligence, lashing out as a reaction with no particular tactics. Unfortunately, Val had been unable to find any major weaknesses either.

Perfect time to try the latest subroutine I showed you.

Val nodded as she put away her knife, letting one of Noir’s needles drop into her hand instead. After letting her fight mostly by herself against the mole, Noir had taken a more active role for the rest of the day by providing suggestions and feedback during her other encounters. Val still had the feeling like the Daemon was holding back, but she could feel her combat style slowly improving with every bit of occasional advice they provided. Or at least becoming more compatible with Noir’s techniques.

Raising her hand above her head, she extended the needle from the bottom end of the baton so that the tip was pointed down at the mass of vines. She stabbed down quickly, impaling a vine into the ground. She fumbled at her nano as she tried to activate the third subroutine Noir had shared with her. Her brow furrowed in concentration, but she could feel the subroutine falling apart as she failed to build the correct nano constructs in time. Just before the subroutine fell apart completely, Val felt Noir’s presence grow closer in her mind.

This time, the Daemon didn’t strip away her control over her nano; instead, they worked to complement Val’s efforts by handling the more complex parts of the subroutine. Her eyebrows raised as she felt the subroutine, which had been moments away from failing completely, take shape in the matter of moments. It was like watching a master craftsman at work. She could see in theory how one could take nano and build the subroutine out of it, and even understood the basics of how to actually do so, but her own application of the techniques were heavy handed compared to Noir’s deft touches.

With a final push, Val injected the completed subroutine into the vine beneath her hand. Yanking the needle out, she quickly back-pedaled away, gaining some distance while her nano went to work inside the plant-based organism. Reacting to her strike, the army of vines rocketed along the ground towards her. Planting a foot on a toppled tree, Val pushed her body enhancement routines to the limit as she launched herself over 15 feet onto the bough of a tree overlooking the clearing. She watched as the vines swarmed the base of the tree, but they didn’t have the length to reach her here.

Noir had taught her three subroutines now. The first was an armor-piercing subroutine that used nano to coat her needle and greatly increase her ability to pierce through armor and obstacles, which was how she had impaled the mole through several feet of rock. The second was Noir’s main offensive technique – the nano disruption subroutine. Once her needle made contact, a violent burst of her nano was unleashed inside her opponent that wreaked havoc on their nanosystem.

It turned out that Noir had been right – again, Gaia curse them – in assuming that the technique would not always kill her opponent. In the several hours and dozens of encounters since the mole, Val had noticed that the technique usually interrupted any active nano subroutines and also suppressed any passive nano enhancement in a localized region for a short duration.

Usually, this was more than enough to turn the fight in her favor. She could limit her opponent’s offensive capabilities by draining the speed and strength from their limbs, or open them up to further attacks by disrupting their natural armor. Unfortunately, neither of those techniques helped against her current adversary. The vines were fairly easy to penetrate already, but they were too numerous and independent for any local disruption to be effective.

Like the second subroutine, the third subroutine Noir had taught her involved injecting her nano into her opponent; unlike the nano disruption subroutine, this one was not designed to be directly offensive. Her nano entered a passive state, quietly infiltrating their nanosystem and spreading through their entire body. After a short delay, the nano would reactivate and start broadcasting information back to Val. Of course, her opponent’s nanosystem would then easily destroy the isolated nano, but the subroutine would have already fulfilled its purpose.

From this distance, Val could barely feel the brief moment when her nano turned back on before it was destroyed by the plant creature. But what was a brief moment to her was more than enough time for Noir to process the incoming data packets into something more human-readable. She watched as Noir overlaid an image of the creature’s nanosystem onto her helmet display.

Her mouth twitched up into a wry smile as her eyes swept over the plant creature. It still amazed her every time when Noir was able to see through walls or into her opponent’s bodies, but she certainly wasn’t complaining. Makes looking for weaknesses much easier. And speaking of weak points…

Val’s eyes narrowed as she stared at the plant’s nanosystem, glowing in her display. It mostly met her expectations: a large mass of nano concentrated at the center of biomass, with tendrils of nano stretching down each vine. But while most of the vines lay on the surface, there were a set of nano threads that stretched underground to a nearby tree. Paying closer attention to the tree, Val could see that it didn’t look very healthy. A second, smaller but denser, cluster of nano lay nestled within the base of the tree. That looks promising.

Unclipping a grenade from her belt, Val pressed her thumb into an indentation to arm the explosive device. She lobbed the grenade towards the tree with a practiced throw. Seems like playing catch with Fynn all those years ago paid off, she thought as the grenade made perfect contact with the base of the tree. The resulting explosion tore through the dead tree like it was paper, sending the trunk toppling down into the clearing.

Val caught a glimpse of some throbbing mass of plant material in the newly created tree stump, but her view was quickly obscured as the rest of the organism reacted violently to the grenade. Half the vines darted towards the exposed weak point, winding tightly around the mass to create a dense protective shell. The other half whipped towards Val angrily. They couldn’t reach her, but the vines slowly bit into the tree trunk below her with a ferocity that surprised Val.

She didn’t wait to see if the vines would be successful in chopping down her tree. Pulling out both batons, she fused them together and extended the weapon out into its spear form. She took two steps along the branch to gain some speed before her legs launched her halfway across the clearing. She landed heavily, her knees bending to absorb the drop and her boots leaving deep impressions in the soft, loamy soil. The vines reacted immediately as they rushed towards her.

She paid them no mind, her mind completely focused on the glowing mass of nano hidden in the tangle of vines in front of her. Val activated the armor-piercing subroutine, feeling the nano on the outside surface of the spear come to life. Taking a final step, she planted her feet and thrust forward with the spear. The plant material was no match for the nano-coated spear, allowing Val to impale the creature’s core with ease.

Triggering the nano disruption subroutine, Val watched with satisfaction as the core dispersed before her eyes. She stumbled forward as a wall of biomass slammed into her from behind. A momentary wave of worry washed over her as she wondered if the creature had survived the nano disruption, but it subsided as the vines slid off her exosuit limply.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Val brushed the remaining vines from her shoulders and stood tall. The spear came free easily as the armor-piercing subroutine remained active. She stowed the weapon away quickly, the motions coming more naturally to her after working with the spear and needles the entire day.

Good job. Excellent use of all three subroutines. The nano echo to map out your opponent’s nanosystem, then piercing and disruption to take it out. This is the bread and butter of my previous User’s combat styles.

Val nodded thoughtfully. It was not nearly as flashy as Wallon’s explosives or Bri’s overwhelming strength. It lacked the range and utility of Kaya’s sniper rifle, nor did it have any defensive capabilities like Zavis’s armor. But she couldn’t deny that Noir’s combat style was effective. Careful planning and tactics to take down her adversaries with a small number of decisive blows. Looking up at the sky, Val was surprised to see the barest hints of red starting to bleed in from the west.

Should we make for some sort of shelter for the night? Unless you have another safehouse around that we can crash in.

I’d rather not burn another safehouse if we can avoid it. I should be able to find us a decent shelter… Ahh, yes, this should do nicely.

An icon appeared on the map in the corner of Val’s display. The location seemed to be several miles away, located on a boundary between the forest and the bare slopes of one of the mountains. Actually, it was near the entrance to the mountain pass that would lead into the valley where Peakpoint was located. It would take her an hour or two to traverse that distance carefully, but she still had plenty of light left in the sky.

Noir?

Yes, Val?

Remember when I asked you to find us shelter?

Of course I remember. A Daemon never forgets, after all.

Val gritted her teeth. You’re being purposefully obtuse here, Noir. I guess I didn’t explicitly mention it, but I assumed you’d find a location that wasn’t inhabited by dangerous beasts!

From her crouched position, Val peeked around the side of the boulder she was hiding behind. The opening to a cave sat several hundred feet up the slope of the mountain, clearly Noir’s intended shelter for the night. However, she was clearly not the only one with the same idea. A pair of eight-foot long lizards lay lounging in front of the cave’s entrance, soaking up the last rays from the setting sun.

It’s not like our data dump from Gaia included a list of hotels for me to select from. Instead, we had potential locations of beast nests. So, I did my best to choose an encounter that you could handle and was still on our path back to Peakpoint.

Val growled in frustration. As usual, she couldn’t fault the Daemon’s logic. She extended one of Noir’s needles in her right hand and unsheathed her knife with her left. It was a combination she had settled on some time during the afternoon, using the needle as her primary offense and the off-hand knife to parry blows or cut through weakened flesh after landing a pulse of nano disruption.

Alright, fine. Anything you want to tell me about the beasts I’ll have to evict from our penthouse suite?

From what I can sense, there’s probably at least one more in the cave. Also, there’s a small chance they can breathe fire.

Val froze partway through reloading her firearms. Really, Noir, they can breathe fire?! You’re sending me against a trio of what are essentially dragons after a day of hard-fought battles?

“A small chance,” I said. I just know that if I don’t tell you, and they do breathe fire, you won’t let that go for the rest of the evening. And probably the rest of tomorrow.

Val grunted her agreement. Well, thanks for telling me I guess. I still dislike your choice of opponent, but if you think we can do this…

Totally.

Val sighed. I’m tired of arguing with you. Let’s just go kill these lizards and go to sleep.

That’s the spirit!

Val drew in a deep breath, held it for a slow five count, and exhaled. She relaxed her muscles as she let the breath out, feeling the tension of the long day’s exertions melt away slightly. She repeated the cycle for a full minute before she felt her body was limber enough for the next fight. Opening her eyes, she gripped the needle and knife tightly. Springing over the boulder, she rushed towards the group of lizards standing between her and a night of rest.