Chapter Text
Shilllax: machine melee season is on
Shilllax: we missed the first show but the second one is down in starside next tenday
Shilllax: yall in or what
FuckSlayer: ????? Please elaborate.
Shilllax: [machine melee.pic]
FuckSlayer: FUCK YEAH!
flesh-nugget: oh no. we are not doing this.
FuckSlayer: Why not? Looks like actual REAL fun. I’m out here crying for fun. Funless lake. Saw lake yesterday. Craziest shit ever invented.
Shilllax: come on nugs you said you wanted to
flesh-nugget: yes I know but… ok flay please don’t take this the wrong way but we’ve only known you for a couple tendays. for all we know you could be a crazy murderer. this is terrible feed safety
FuckSlayer: But I AM a crazy murderer!
Shilllax: lol word
flesh-nugget: I’m just saying a better first meeting would be somewhere neutral. like the park
Shilllax: [machine melee vs park these are the same picture.meme]
FuckSlayer: I’m excited! Tomorrow!
Shilllax: same
FuckSlayer: What bets are you placing?
Shilllax: not placing any
flesh-nugget: hang on, you have to place at least one minimum to gain entry.
Shilllax: shit really
flesh-nugget: shill you said you’ve seen MM live before. how have you been getting into these?
Shilllax: idk im just so sexy people just let me into places ig
flesh-nugget: I know you’re lying it’s not slick. you look like a 12 year old
Shilllax: take it back [fucking stabbing you.img]
FuckSlayer: Anyways! Bet on this entry: [Black Swan.profile] Do it.
flesh-nugget: uh, who in their right mind would bet on some n00b shadowteam that squeaked in an entry one single cycle before the second set of matches?
FuckSlayer: Me. I’M TELLING YOU inside scoop this one is a WINNER. Bet on it. The odds are killer you’ll be rolling in dough.
flesh-nugget: yeah the odds are killer because this thing is going to be torn to scrap in its first round by 360-Noscope. there’s zero track record for the black swan team, no information about the bot, nothing. they don’t even give basic specs it’s literally a shot in the dark.
FuckSlayer: Don’t say I never tried to get you some easy cash smh.
Shilllax: ill bet on black swan flay
FuckSlayer: Yay!
flesh-nugget: seriously?
The air was oppressive. The auditorium was at half capacity but most of the bodies were packed as close to the stage as possible, save for the assested attendees up on the balconies. Feed holos of clouds and sparkle filled and obscured the stage, interspersed with actual vapor-smoke and strobe-light. The air pulsed with sound, heavy magtronic of the kind that thrummed in the chest and overrode the heartbeat. Felicio had earplugs to protect his hearing, but even so it felt like his whole body were an instrument reverberating with the basebeat of music.
Shilllax: im here
flesh-nugget: i’m over here. see my feed pin?
Shilllax: goddamn smokey shit
Shilllax: yeah one sec
A few minutes later, a body shoved through the bodies, and a hand touched his hand. Felicio turned his head.
There was Shillax, smiling, lips painted glitter-black, ears covered by soundbuffs and eyes framed by feed-lenses and white eyeliner that stood in stark contrast against dark brown skin. Shillax’s face was cherubic, innocent-eyed and painfully young. In contrast, Shillax's feed-profile was all business: crisp and corporate with the staid air of a middle-aged bureaucratic professional, no social reels nor even a personal name. The only information listed was a set of games rankings and a hiring profile—freelance for visual design, complete with rates and purchasing options. Shillax’s feed-lenses blinked, shuttering ostentatiously as they took a photo. Felicio scowled, and the lenses blinked again.
Shilllax: hey handsome
Shilllax: you dressed all up what
Shilllax: tryna make a good impression on our new friend after all
flesh-nugget: knock it off. and delete those
Shilllax: lol
flesh-nugget: I’m serious.
Shilllax: woof fine sorry bud
Shilllax: flays not here yet huh
FuckSlayer: I won’t make it to audience zone until after the first act. Sorry!
flesh-nugget: they close the doors once the event starts, flay. you’re going to get stuck out there.
FuckSlayer: I’m inside already. Just having a bureaucracy argument with the staff. These assholes are SOOOOOO pissy about security. Don’t they know they’re running an underground illegal murderclub?
flesh-nugget: it’s just bot fights, not a murderclub
FuckSlayer: Fights where the bots get murdered. WITH GUNS!!!
Shilllax: good point
The music changed cadence, the beat kicking up into thrum. The smoke began to dissipate, the holos dissolving with a theatrical fractal swirl. The enormous stage came into view; ever since this venue opened, the auditorium was where all the biggest arts festivals on the station took place. It looked pristine now, all smooth stage surface and clean walls. By the time the show was over it was guaranteed to be somewhat damaged, even with all the protective shielding. Remodeling and repair costs would be covered by the betting books.
Shilllax: fuck yeah
Shilllax: shame youre missin this flay
FuckSlayer: I’m coming.
The first matchup came into view through the faint distortion of the bulletproof barriers: on the left was 360-Noscope, an enhanced rebuild of one of the quarterfinalists from the prior season. It was a genuine combat bot whose original base frame was manufactured by AmaSoft, with upgrades and code enhancements by a team that had once fielded a Machine Melee crown champion, though they had yet to submit a second winner since.
360-Noscope appeared folded up on the stage, but as the holo-cover dissipated, it unfolded itself to its full height, some 3 meters tall. It extended its eight painted limbs, spinning six of them dramatically, showing off its varied weapons arsenal. Noscope’s sheer size was accentuated by its much smaller opponent standing across from it on the stage—
Black Swan. Anonymous team entry. No prior fight history.
Felicio squinted.
flesh-nugget: um. is that a person?
FuckSlayer: Depends who you ask. LOL.
Shilllax: wdym
Black Swan was humanoid in both stature and shape, and clad in form-fitting black from ankles to fingertips and over the head, save for the swishy black skirts and the bloodred makeup painted in the shape of a stylized human skull.
FuckSlayer: It’s a construct!
Shilllax: wow sick
flesh-nugget: what the hell? a construct will get torn to smithereens. this match is going to end in thirty seconds tops
FuckSlayer: Not this one. [amusement sigil 24 = grin evil]
flesh-nugget: where the hell are you by the way flay
FuckSlayer: They’re still vetting my social reels. So annoying. But there’s a live feed in the waiting area.
Shilllax: did you break some actual laws lmao
FuckSlayer: [amusement sigil 83 = revolving hearts]
flesh-nugget: man I don’t know what they’re thinking, putting a construct in round one. this is just going to be gruesome. shill did you actually bet on it?
Shilllax: course I did
FuckSlayer: GOOD!!!
flesh-nugget: you’re going to lose your money man. I watched this pod about secunits, okay, they aren’t actually made for warfare and their code is notoriously sensitive to getting fucked with. you can’t just turbo one up without serious risk of behavioral meltdown. the human neural tissue has processing limits. put that against an actual combat bot that’s armed to the teeth and hyper optimized for smashing other bots, and you’re basically throwing a really expensive fleshy chew toy into a blender
FuckSlayer: NOPE! WRONG! SecUnits with lots combat experience can match against Combat Bots OK. It’s just most of them beef it before they get experience. Plus combat modules for constructs DO EXIST. It’s just proprietary as shit.
flesh-nugget: oh so you’re an expert on secunits all of a sudden? are you saying this one has a fighting chance?
FuckSlayer: Never said that.
The klaxon blared, and 360-Noscope gave its torso a showy spinning rotation, firing a spray of bullets at Black Swan.
Who vanished.
Shilllax: woah
FuckSlayer: I said it has a WINNING chance!
Felicio scanned the stage frantically, the excited screams and whoops of the audience pushing through the foam of his earplugs and vibrating into his skull.
Shilllax: there!
Shillax pointed at the stage, drawing Felicio’s eyes, just in time for him to see the blur of a red skull-shape dart under 360-Noscope’s body and then zip up its carapace.
flesh-nugget: fuck that’s fast!
Shilllax: noscopes weapons and armor are top notch but usually the speed delta with its opponent isnt huge
Shilllax: but black swans fast as fuck
Shilllax: fast as god holy shit
flesh-nugget: I’m not sure speed matters here. the secunit’s fast, sure, but it doesn’t even have a gun
360-Noscope spun a blade-wielding arm towards its own main body, aiming at Black Swan, who dodged, slipping down and then back up as the blade shaved past it. A thin black slash of fabric fluttered out of the air towards the floor, catching one of the stage’s spotlight beams.
Shilllax: why are you hitting yourself lol
flesh-nugget: noscope’s not going to fall for that. not hitting itself has to be one of the main encodings
FuckSlayer: Yeah.
Noscope began to spin its torso again, faster and faster, and the black figure clinging to it became a black blur.
flesh-nugget: fucking hell
Shilllax: hang in there lil buddy you can do it
Shilllax: remember i got my money on you
FuckSlayer: You liking the match yet? Think Black Swan can win yet?
flesh-nugget: we’ll talk when we hit that 30-second mark
Noscope abruptly stopped spinning, and then one of its limbs slouched. Black Swan was hanging off the end of the limb, hands braced on the big heavy blade and legs wrapped around the wrist. There was a strange mechanical noise, like a gunshot but echoing metallic, and the whole limb disconnected from the body and fell to the floor with a CRASH.
Black Swan leapt off the limb and landed a neat aerial somersault. Its arms extended upwards, giving its body a Y silhouette, striking a pose like a gymnast. The crowd volume peaked, cheers and screams saturating the air. The painted red skull on Black Swan’s face was interrupted by a white grin of teeth.
Shilllax: woah
flesh-nugget: wait how did it do that?
FuckSlayer: Opposable thumbs
Shilllax: flextool
FuckSlayer: Thumbs = flextool
Shilllax: lol
flesh-nugget: flextools? do secunits have flextools?
Shilllax: no
Shilllax: but combat grade units have flextools
Shilllax: for touch hacking and stuff
flesh-nugget: wait how do you know that?
Shilllax: WarГром forums
FuckSlayer: OK but combat bots don’t have spinny rotor blades either. These bots aren’t out-of-the-box, that would be BORING. They’ve been modded!
Noscope was setting down another spray of gunfire, and Black Swan was on the bot’s body again.
FuckSlayer: We’re past 30 seconds!
flesh-nugget: fine, you got me, it’s doing better than I thought
Black Swan detached a gun-arm from Noscope next, then a drill arm, as 360-Noscope struggled futilely all the while to land a hit on the much smaller construct dismantling its body. It was like watching one of those animal documentaries where the huge magnificent megafauna was being eaten alive by much smaller predators.
flesh-nugget: man.
Shilllax: this rules
FuckSlayer: [amusement sigil 24 = grin evil]
Black Swan dropped from Noscope’s body, grabbing for Noscope’s detached drill-arm lying on the floor. The drill-attachment was nearly as long as Black Swan’s torso, but Black Swan hefted it one handed, the other hand gripping the wires trailing from the end of the broken limb. It struggled a moment to reorient the limb, bringing the wires up to its mouth and biting down on them.
flesh-nugget: what is it doing?
The moment of lag and the weight of the limb slowed Black Swan down as 360-Nosecope came at it with an overhead strike from a bludgeoning limb. Black Swan dodged aside, but imperfectly—the blow glanced its body, knocking it to the stage.
Shilllax: fuck
FuckSlayer: Don’t worry. Not a critical hit.
flesh-nugget: I think it’s damaged.
Black Swan braced its feet against Noscope’s bludgeon-limb and kicked, slinging itself it squarely back under Noscope. It leapt upwards, planting the drill to bite against the bottom of the carapace.
The scream of metal, and the drill punched a spark-spinning hole into Noscope’s armored underside.
360-Noscope crashed off its legs, its remaining limbs stabbing and shooting at Black Swan, who danced through the assault. Noscope shot a projectile into Black Swan’s shoulder, blood or some other dark fluid spraying out behind it.
Shilllax: fuck
FuckSlayer: IT’S FINE.
Black Swan held the drill up as a shield against the gunfire with one hand, and dove its other arm into the drill-hole.
Seconds later, the rest of 360-Noscope’s limbs froze in place. Black Swan ripped a handful of wiring out of its fallen opponent and backflipped onto Noscope’s motionless body. It stood up tall in the gymnast’s Y-pose again, one hand still clutching the drill attachment, the other hand fisting an indiscernible clump of wires and jagged chunks.
The klaxon blared. Match call. Winner: Black Swan.
flesh-nugget: well, damn.
Shilllax: pog
Shilllax: i just won so much money
FuckSlayer: ME TOO!!! I BET FIVE GRAND LMAO!
flesh-nugget: fucking hell, you rich or something?
FuckSlayer: LEVERAGED BET. BUT I SURE AM RICH NOW! DRINKS ON ME TONIGHT!
Shilllax: I dont drink
FuckSlayer: NUTRIENTS OR MINERALS OR WHATEVER THEN.
Shilllax: cool
flesh-nugget: flay, what the fuck were you going to do if black swan lost? people get stuck in life indenture for falling on actual hard times. no offense but leveraging five grand for a machine melee bet was colossally stupid
FuckSlayer: If I lost I’d’ve just died lol. Zero downside.
Shilllax: hm
Shilllax: now i feel bad for suggesting machine melee
Shilllax: didnt know you were legit crazy coco nuts about gambling flay
Shilllax: but im glad it all worked out
flesh-nugget: hey flay you still in therapy?
FuckSlayer: Yeah.
flesh-nugget: good. keep going.
FuckSlayer: I’ll see you soon!
Eight minutes later and the between-matches cleanup team was still at work. FuckSlayer shoved through the crowd to arrive between Felicio and Shillax, announcing itself with a loud party popper effect in the feed.
Felicio winced.
flesh-nugget: flay, you know I’m not a fan of the loud shit.
FuckSlayer: Sorry! Just EXCITING! HI!
Felicio regarded FuckSlayer. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, exactly, but this wasn’t it. For one thing, Felicio was usually the tallest person in any given room. (It was the consequence of genetic predisposition combined with a low-gravity upbringing and ample food during childhood.) Flay was shorter than he was, but for a moment there was an odd feeling nonetheless that Flay was somehow looming over him.
Not to mention, its in-person feed profile was odd. The name field listed “Mercy,” with sparkle heart décor. FuckSlayer’s player profile on Call of War was sparse, but its in-person feed profile was jam packed with data, including a photo gallery worthy of an attention farmer. Felicio skimmed the most recent album, which was full of… lakes. And trees. Just an inordinate photo dump of lakes and trees and rocks from some planetary recreation zone.
Shilllax: flay lmaoo youre jacked
Shilllax: what
Shilllax: how are you spending so much time gunning COW is the rest of your waking time at the gym or do you work the damn mines with your bare hands are you on drugs or what
flesh-nugget: shill you can’t just ask people if they’re on drugs
(Flay was in fact jacked. The formfitting black one-piece it was wearing did nothing to hide it.)
FuckSlayer: I was built like this at the factory.
flesh-nugget: ha ha.
Flay was grinning, wide and white. Felicio couldn’t get a read on its eyes, hidden behind dark glasses. And it was wearing some kind of dark fluttery cloth head wrap thing.
FuckSlayer: How long before the next match?
flesh-nugget: they’ll be done cleaning up any minute now.
FuckSlayer: Sucks they’re only doing four tonight.
Afterwards they went to the eatery alley. Felicio didn’t unplug his ears. The lighting was better here, if still a bit dim and inconsistent, but noise-wise the alley was still crowded and loud.
The floor was tacky underfoot. The cleaning teams were bribed to not sweep here at the usual cadence, and the food-related spills were quick to establish. The smells were a confluence of rich enticing aromas and an underglow of rot. Attention-pulling feed signs and physical flashing spinners went off constantly in the air.
FuckSlayer: I’m buying, remember!
On the way out of the Machine Melee auditorium, Flay had picked up a shoulderbag from the item hold and removed an oversized grey sweater with the lettering of the Panystem Uni printed onto the front. The sweater did make it look less like a club bouncer, but it also raised some other questions.
flesh-nugget: so are you a student? alum?
flesh-nugget: I didn’t know you were in school too.
FuckSlayer: No. A friend gave me this. She is a student/teacher at PSUMNT.
flesh-nugget: hell of a brand to front if you’re not part of the class.
FuckSlayer: Wdym?
flesh-nugget: I dunno, it’s just a little odd to mark affiliation where there isn’t one, right?
FuckSlayer: Understood.
FuckSlayer: I downloaded some of their classes. I’m doing a music theory project! Does that count?
Shilllax: how did you get a hold of their classes if youre not a matriculant
Shilllax: also can you get me their MI upper levels please flay
FuckSlayer: Sure.
flesh-nugget: shill stop trying to get it arrested for intellect infringement!
flesh-nugget: flay’s clearly got something wrong with it that makes it hard for it to assess risk and social acceptability. stop taking advantage.
FuckSlayer: Was that a diss? Motherfucker?
flesh-nugget: it’s not a diss, it’s an observation. flay I love you but meeting you in person I’ve realized that literally none of your weird shit was a funny act after all and it’s seriously so concerning.
Shilllax: nugs cmon flays clearly doin fine stop mother henning ffs
flesh-nugget: stealing a music class is different from stealing MI upper level courses from the university that runs the station’s economy bots and you know it
flesh-nugget: I can only imagine the real reason poor flay isn’t trapped in indenture right now is that it can literally beat the asses of the repo squad because it has a fuckin military special ops background or some shit. why else the secunit insider knowledge and the jackedness?
FuckSlayer: [amusement sigil 202 = check mark] TRUE!
flesh-nugget: sigh.
flesh-nugget: well at least you’re nice.
FuckSlayer: I’m nice! [amusement sigil 5 = smile] I’m saving this feedlog as proof.
Shilllax: whatever if youre so nice buy me some balls flay
Shillax pointed at a stand covered in feed-sparklers, selling skewered grilled protballs doused in sauce.
FuckSlayer: OK!
Shill and Felicio loaded up on snacks, but Flay purchased only a single-use inhalant packet. The three sat down at a dirty table in one of the alley’s dining areas. Shillax had already eaten half of the purchases while walking, and continued with gusto as everyone got seated. Felicio used a utensil to delicately transfer noodles from a paper cup to his mouth. Flay perched in a seat with one leg up on an empty adjacent seat, and dragged from the inhalant.
Shilllax: so i was right
Shilllax: you do do drugs
flesh-nugget: that’s not going to be enough calories, bud.
FuckSlayer: These drugs are weaksauce. They can’t affect me.
It blew heavily out through its nostrils. There was a faint reddish whisp of vapor.
flesh-nugget: to think I thought meeting you might assuage some of my concerns.
FuckSlayer: Wrong!
Shilllax: lmaoao
Flay stopped sucking on the inhalant packet, and instead put the thin body of it between its teeth, gently nibbling on the wrapper. Its tongue flitted at it, first one side, then the other.
flesh-nugget: you really should get yourself something to eat.
FuckSlayer: No. I have 10 million food allergies.
It bit down on the inhalant packet, and a red liquid dribbled out. The juice dripped down Flay’s chin. It raised one hand to wipe it off, then smeared it on the grody table.
Felicio carefully set his eating utensil across the rim of his paper cup and covered his face with one hand.
flesh-nugget: man.
FuckSlayer: Chill. I’m fine. I’ve got 10 million food allergies. And 10 million drug resistance. I just bought this shitty thing cuz it’s fun to pop and chew on.
Shilllax: this was fun we should do it again next match