Opening his eyes, Aki felt like shit. His attributes had clearly been reduced or restrained by a stronger force, but his great hunger and thirst pointed him towards a debilitation instead. He could still deal with it. Looking around, he noted that he had likely not heard something from the man standing in front of him.
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that, i think i just lost myself a bit." He said in a weak voice, now noting that his bangs were almost covering his eyes as he moved his head enough to dislodge them.
"I don't mind. It is not easy to hear you only have three to four weeks left to live even when one is perfectly in control of their bodily functions." He sighed. "These are not easy news for me to deliver either mister Aki, technology nowadays can heal diseases before considered death certificates, so to hear our hospital cannot help you was also a shock for me." The older man got up from his chair, the three metallic fingers on his right hand clipping against the table he used to support himself. The white medical robe was filled with gadgets in all it's pockets, and the expressionless face did not hide how handsome the man with only a few strands of gray hair was.
When he reached a painting in the wall, it then blinked for a bit and became translucid, showing a futuristic city through the new window.
"While i would like to offer a chance to stay and have your disease be studied in the hopes of prolonging your life and documenting it for posterity, our research facility was already unable to determine it's cause, so the director will try to have you referred to a better facility, but i am afraid that with your remaining time there will be little they could do even if the application was accepted. With the amount you paid you can stay here for a few more days if you wish, but ultimately, there's nothing i can do."
Aki was honestly not much paying attention to the story in question, instead just showing a blank expression and searching his body. Something was eating at his energy, all of it. Even more as he tried to meditate in place, which should increase his regeneration by a great amount considered he'd leveled up trice before coming and the whole thing was percentage based.
All things considered, he naturally regenerated around 5 MP/ M, and if he were to suck in the atmosphere's energy, he'd be able to reach a constant 6 MP/ M (Or 1 MP/ 10S depending on how you count it.).
Things went quite easily from there, his discharge something done with a few checks on his comunicator, which was basically a wrist watch that worked pretty much like the evolved form of a cellphone.
On the waiting room, he picked up Ferris with a sad look, then the both of them went towards the exit in silence and started to walk towards their apartment, the uncle and nephew duo passing through the rather populated streets and gathering some attention due to their rather ragard clothing despite the richness of the area. It was obvious they didn't belong.
They pick a taxi, but both had already checked their comunicator, and it said their bank acconts were nearing zero. Luckily, it also had a map that pointed out where they lived and worked in this dungeon world.
'Did you get any mission notification?' Asked Aki through their soul connection. The man besides him might have looked fine, but he did not doubt that he'd been restrained as well.
'I got one saying there was no main mission boss. We just need to survive for six months.' Imediatly answered the other player. He'd known they'd be thrown in here together thanks to the messages they'd exchanged the last few days, but this was ridiculous! These restrictions left him, a ranker, as strong as only the peak of a common man (Around E+)!
'Great, that means shit is going to happen anywhere between two weeks and a hundred seventy nine days.' Sighed the younger man, already identifying what plaged his body as he inspected his limbs with his flickering soul sight.
Something was quite literally eating him for energy and trying to change his body. He could only tell the diference between the copies and the original because of the pain and the diference in pushing energy through them.
Said difference being that he simply couldn't do it.
Manifesting any kind of fenomenom through his left hand or reinforcing most of his digestive system could already not be done. With his status being affected by his debilitated condition, simply cleansing his body would also be hard.
That ment that after they got home and stopped most of the advance in his body by turning his energy more and more anatema to these nanobots, the next pace was to remain unseen and reach a rather sizable gathering of people no one would miss and slaughter then with a lot of mercy
Surprise surprise, a capitalistic future with incredible technology and robots had even more homeless people both on the streets and crowding over several places where they would not be 'seen'.
Absorbing them until they basically turned into ash didn't work at first, his Fangs having dissapeared because of the invaders in his body, but after getting enough pilled up and doing it all at once, Aki was able to flood most of the little machines out his body by quite literally bleeding from every pore and manipulating the liquid so as to leave them outside.
"Was, was that it?" Questioned his accomplice.
"Mostly, yeah. I should be able to mostly take down any braster and bruiser they throw at us, though that won't last much. You said you're stuck at E+? I'm literally deteriorating as these machines rebuild my body into that of a human, and some fucker shoved them up my spinal cord and inside every single bone i have." He said, not showing a reaction as he manipulated the sphere of blood containing the nanites or whatever to float in front of him, sitting down and ripping his limbs one by one, the regenerating at a speed visible to the eye and throwing the extra limbs towards the blob near him.
There was a spike in his killer intent everytime he did so however, noted Feris. It wasn't as easy or comfortable as he made it seem.
"We're going to play their game." He said in a cold voice that sent a chill down the spine of the scared man near him.
Ferris had seem 'immortals', killed some even, none were as hard on themselves as the young man in front of him. He'd met warriors and beasts, a couple of gods as well, yet the blood and violence he felt drown out the surroundings was something he'd only experienced once.
*****
Belle was pretty bored. It was good that no incredible case had come out of nowhere, but it still ment she was stuck reading through old cases. Maybe she should try painting her hair now that she wasn't spending so much of her suposedly free time to solve cases at home? Getting a boyfriend at this point would be too much for her, better to start things slowly.
*Bang*
The door smashed the wall, a ragard and sweaty man entering with haste. Several suited officers reached closer, though a couple noted the man didn't seem about to attack.
"My nephew!" He exclaimed as he hanged himself on the collet of the closest cop, heaving for breath. "Cyber *cough cough* Psycho down the street! Please, he's just started, you can still just put him to sleep instead!"
That put everyone back into battle mode, several people blazing through desks with quick movements to get outside or further up the building, warning the detectives on break and getting the second weapon cache open.
Someone needed to disperse the civilians and cordon a line before shit went bad, but more importantly...
"Sir, what modifications does your nephew have? Did he take any medication before this? Was he armed?" Taking the man further away from the entrance so they'd not interrupt traffic while she questioned her, detective Belle, used a calm voice to speak with the man who seemed to barely react to the quick reaction of the force.
"What? Oh, no, no, he's always been a frail boy, so finding mods that would suit him were always a problem, specially when the family situation is so bad. He's been taking some new meds for pain, but he started to beat people up with his bare hands and whatever he can get out of nowhere! I just saw him tear a man's arm out when i went to get some hamburgers and then he threw a table at several people, please, i don't know where all this strenght came from, but there's something clearly wrong with him!"
What the man said threw her for a loop, instantly thinking this might be some prank, but on the time she took to get this information, her communicator had already sent her a notification of a downed officer nearby.
"Right, ok. Stay here and report anything you can think of to one of the officers nearby." She said, inputing the strange information and some deductions on the perfil of the psyco as she turned towards the closest armory, doubting wether to bring a sniper with her or not, but leaving it for someone with actual experience with it like everyone else, an assault rifle already something she barely had the chance to use outside practice.
Running while skimming through reports of the scene, she approached from the side together with several others. Everything was running like a movie in front of her until she heard it.
"OFFICER RENDY FLATLINED!"
The message likely resounded through several comunicators, and she was sure all were gritting their teeth, but the newby detective froze in place when she registered what was said, the intensifying gun fire barely making a dent in her numb concentration.
She rushed forward, systems going full power as time slowed down to her perception, eyes turning to see the young man throwing concrete blocks at the police force showering him with bullets, most of which seemed to be deflected by an electrical field diverting the amunition towards the sides, though some higher calibers seemed to have taken chunks of his sides and scratched his arms.
Some officers started to hesitate after seeing her, but it seemed that the monster had retained some impressive intelligence or instincts, turning around to throw a car door at her. Dodge rolling, adrenaline started to pump till she couldn't take anymore, more and more chemicals joining it as she bodily threw herself at the dammed thing with inhuman speed, the butt of her rifle hitting his chin and shoving him backwards.
From up close, she held the trigger and shot his chest. Forty five projectiles quickly staggered the boy as young as her little brother, the confused eyes on his face sending a chill down her spine. When he tried to get close despite the veritable sieve that was his mid section, she still discarded the empty gun and rapidly took her pistol from it's holster and ditched eight more rounds in his head.
Breathing heavily she stepped back, taking in what she had done. There was no cheer, just a tired feeling overcoming everyone around. Downing someone this agressive with only one casualty and several injuries was already considered a miracle, but there was something very wrong with the situation.
This wasn't a bruiser from some corporative, an ex soldier quitting his meds, someone having an overdose or whatever, it was a fucking kid with at max eighteen years on his back, going beserker with abilities he shouldn't have.
Even if she wasn't feeling like shit from the phisical effort and the wrongness of her actions, Belle wasn't going to let this just lie down.