The small group stared at us for a moment, seemingly dumbfounded, until the man in the middle of the group moved. In a siion he pulled a pistol from his belt, aimed it at me, and fired. I tried to dodge out of the way, and hide behind Heavy, but the bullet still caught me in the side a me spinning to the ground. I was so disoriehat I barely caught the call of “Run!” and the sound of retreating footsteps.

  “Shit! Teddy, are you ok?” Sharron asked, as she leaned over my prone body.

  “Fuuuucccckkkk… It feels like I got hit by a truck.” As I sat up I ran a hand down my side, and actually felt a cra my armor. “Motherfucker! where did they get that sort of firepower?”

  Sharron frowned, “I don’t know, but I don’t think you’re in any shape to chase them right now.”

  “Fuck that!” I tried to stand, but only mao get to my knees. It robably going to take me a mio recover, so I sed tactics, “Nyx!”

  Spooky walked over and kneeled dowo me. Yes Evelyn?

  “I’m calling every squirrel in the area. you please supply them each with a trag grenade, and direct them to the tunrances in that dire. I may not be able to chase them this sed, but I try to tag their vehicle.”

  There are about a dozerances, but only three squirrels in the area.

  “I’ll send Wide-Eyes out too,” I said. The little squirrel hen rocketed back dowunnel behind us. “We’ll have to do our best with the four, but holy, how hard could it be to find a vehicle around here?”

  You haven’t ma so far.

  “Shut up,” I snapped. After taking a couple deep breaths, I pushed myself to my feet. The pain was already subsiding. I didn’t have super-healing, but my syic muscles recovered much faster than my natural ones.

  “You sure you’re ok?” Sharron asked, in . Her tentacles hovered around me, waiting to support me if I fell.

  “I’ve had worse, like when I got puhrough the side of a bus by a twenty-one,” I replied with a wince.

  “You didn’t have armor at that time.”

  “That’s true…” I rubbed my side, trying to ease the pain, “Nyx, what the hell was that on?”

  I’ve pared it to all terrestrial ons, along with lower-tier samurai ons, and I think that it was most likely some sort of css I dual stage magnum pistol.

  “Most likely?” I asked, gring at the bear.

  Every item ordered by a samurai undergoes some level of izatioher to adjust size, dosage, or appendage shape. Do you really think every race uses ‘hands’ to carry their ons?

  “Yes? No, wait, that’s not the important thing here. You’re sure that was a css I on? That means that the Guiding Light either has some serious bag, or a samurai on staff.” I poked Spooky nee Nyx in the head, “I doubt they have major bag, or they’d probably be expanding much faster, and I thought one of the supposed requirements for being a Samurai was being indepe, not a fug sheep, so I don’t see them recruiting one.”

  You just asked me what it was, I have no idea where it came from. If you mao retrieve the on I could track it back to the inal owner, but I ’t do much with just the few seds of footage I pulled out of the bears.

  “We could ask the Family if anything has beeed missing tely, maybe it’s stolen?” Sharron suggested.

  I gnced in her dire and shrugged. “Fuck it, maybe? It’s worth cheg, and I do owe them a visit.” I gnced back at the er where the ‘Guiding Light’ followers had disappeared, before turning back towards the entrance. “Lets get the fuck out of here. It’s barely breakfast time and we’re both covered in mystery goop, and I’ve been shot by a cult using samurai-grade ons. If that’s not a sign of a shit day, I don’t know what is. Knowing my luck, we’ll be iamination until diime.”

  “Don’t jinx it,” Sharron replied with a ugh. I didn’t tell her, but for a moment I holy thought that might actually be the case. It was just the kind of day I was having.

  Thankfully, in the end we didn’t require hours of deination, just a pressure er to hose all the chemical and antithesis goo off our armor. As soon as I could strip off my armor, I did, in order to take a quick healing booster and ihe damage. I id the armor on the back seat of the truck, so I could get a good look. My cloak was fine, but my chest armor had a massive three-inch spider-web-shaped crack. I poked it with a frown.

  “Nyx, is this actually safe to wear now? Doesn’t this promise the armor in some way?”

  It does, but it’s easy to fix.

  “How it be easy? It’s css II armor. I have a couple tokens saved up, but I really don’t want to open up aire catalog to repair it.”

  Your css II re armor catalog includes items to repair, and upgrade, the armors from the catalog, so o i in a new catalog. Most samurai would just abandon damaged items, and repce them with newer equipment, but there’s occasionally a Samurai, like yourself, that prefers to reuse and recycle items.

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  It’s just different from the norm. 87.435% of Samurai would rather upgrade or repce items than salvage them.

  “That’s wasteful,” I mumbled, still poking the damage.

  It’s effit, especially in a bat situation.

  “If I was in bat, I might sider upgrading, but in this situation… fuck that. Now, how do I actually repair this?”

  Simple, the css II re armor catalog has an Adaptive Polymer Seant, which will repair the damage for twenty points. However, since I doubt yoing to abandon this set of armor any time soon, you could also i in the Memory Polymer upgrade, which will repair any damage going forward for one hundred and fifty.

  “The armor won’t be promised after being repaired, right? I know how brittle some shit be after fixing it.”

  This isn’t like the ineffit repairs you get here oh, just filling the cracks with new material. The polymer seant will bond on a molecur level, for all is and purposes it’ll be identical to a new piece of armor.

  “Then it’s even more wasteful for someoo throw it away. Give me the Memory Polymer Upgrade,” I paused, and poked the crack again, “and… is there anything I add to maybe improve the kiic absorption? If the Guiding Light has firepower like that, I want to be better prepared ime.”

  You add an inner shock-abs gel yer that’ll absorb most kiic damage, and dissipate the rest over a rger area, limiting trauma, for awo hundred.

  “Sounds useful, you should get that, sidering how much trauma you’ve absorbed over the st few weeks,” Sharron said pyfully, as she came over and sat o me. Apparently she’d already finished seg her armor iruck, while I was sitting around trying to figure out my options.

  “Yeah, well, I usually have a massive fuzzy line of troops between myself and the enemy, so armor has been a sedary ,” I replied with a frown.

  “Although the bears are your primary ons, you ’t always rely upon one of them beiween you and the enemy, all it takes is one misstep and the antithesis will be on top of you. Better to have reliable prote, just in case.”

  I grunted. She wasn’t wrong, and I did have the points… “Alright Nyx, give me the full upgrade. Like Sharron was saying, better safe than sorry. I’m pretty sure I have the points.”

  With the up today you’ll have 25,638 points, and two tokens, even after your purchases.

  “Yeah… guess there’s no point in being stingy with my own life. Do it.” As soon as I gave the okay, a box appeared with several sprays, one for each piey armor. I started with the one for my chest piece, spraying the entire piece, before cheg the damage. As I watched, the crack seemed to fill from the i, until the armor appeared to be pristine again. Satisfied, I sprayed the remaining pieces before throwing them into the back of the truck.

  “Did the squirrels find anything?” Sharron asked, as she pulled open the passenger side of the trud climbed in.

  “Not that they’ve reported. I called Wide-Eyes back, but I’m going to leave the others out there just in case. sidering how long they’ve been out, either the Guiding Light came all this way through the drainage, or they found a really good pce to hide. I probably wasn’t giving them enough credit before, sihey survived the backsh after what they pulled six years ago. I’m not going to uimate them again.”