‘Tell me about your sister, Thryss.’
‘Tell you what?’
‘Everything. And Sythera. Why are there only two Daughters? What is their relationship? Was it normal, that Thryss watched over you when you were young?’
It transpired it wasn’t normal. Most Hornets were not minded by a Daughter. Serrin said it had begun after the Ripper took him. 2026-01-05 17:03:03 +0000 UTC View Post
‘Can I see the Knife she gave you?’ Serrin asked. The Hornet had come closer as they travelled through the jungle. Now he deactivated his invisibility, flickering into view.
Nicolai regarded this, naturally, with immediate suspicion. But after considering the Hornet he silently handed it over.
Doing so was a method of saying “I trust you.” A gesture he felt—and Ps...
2026-01-02 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View PostObserving the footage—playing on a flexible console pad—from where they’d first summoned the Blood Hunters, Max saw a figure appear. Edging into the clearing where he and the others had sat and called the things up, twenty minutes ago. A familiar figure. It stopped, turning a slow look through the area, several feet shy of the mines he’d placed.
There was a bit of a delay as the f...
2025-12-31 17:03:04 +0000 UTC View PostHe wasn’t used to speaking this language of ripples, that’s what he’d say. Of course he couldn’t tell Serrin about the Dark, so a story had to be created. But the Mask was grabbing at him, holding him back.
It was saying that he could end up working closely with Serrin. That he shouldn’t start things off with lies. That Serrin was a Better Man. That it was sure (somehow...
2025-12-29 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View Post[Author Note: Hope you all had a merry christmas ^_^]
The world blurred and he was there, picking his way over bug corpses as he stepped through the security doors.
He realised Serrin was walking at his side, spear at the ready. Positioned to guard Nicolai’s flank, as though he were an ally. The sight of the Hornet there was so ridiculous, so unasked for, that...
2025-12-26 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View Post‘Serrin,’ spat the Highspawn, adding, ‘The mutant,’ in a hiss of loathing.
Serrin didn’t answer, but the set of his body grew tense with anger. He raised the point of his spear, which had begun to lower.
‘Out of my way!’ the Highspawn yelled, casting a concerned look over its shoulder. Nicolai saw it see him, streaking toward it, closing fast...
2025-12-24 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View Post[Author Note: Sorry this is late! >_< I thought today was sunday, getting confused in the holidays...]
The pair of Highspawn buzzed out from the tunnel, wrapped in shields and armed with crackling energy. They paused, taking in the silent bugs.
The tall bug, lurking in its corner, stiffened. The bugs began to shriek and shift, setting themselves to charge, Symbiotes rip...
2025-12-22 17:59:59 +0000 UTC View PostNicolai sped through the tunnels. On the way he found a chamber—packed with bugs—which the Hornets would have to go through to follow him, and opted to leave the majority of his drones there. The Modules programmed them with detailed instructions. If it went well, these drones would be able to slow the Highspawn down quite a bit.
After only another minute of rapid travel, he came clos...
2025-12-19 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View Post‘Going somewhere, human?’ rippled one, wings barely moving as it hovered between him and the way out.
They had him boxed in the centre, where there was a cluster of jagged rises and falls.
He didn’t know the names of these two Hornets, but one point was in his favour: from their Soul Senses, they weren’t at the peak of Tier 2. They were somewhere between the lower a...
2025-12-17 17:06:31 +0000 UTC View Post‘Stealth,’ rippled the Queen, and a wave of assent moved through the Hornets. They vanished from sight, and Nicolai flew alone. From the pure number of them all around him, he and Threat Analysis were still able to quite easily work out their presence. But whatever this method of stealth was, it was very effective.
A moment later he felt ripples coming his way, then ...
2025-12-15 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View Post‘One more thing,’ said Vexira. ‘I want to make this clear so there can be no chance of misunderstanding. In spite of your fight with Serrin, and in spite of anything I might have said, he is extremely important to me. One of your purposes is to help me fashion him into a proper tool. At the moment he is… rebellious.’ One of her hands made a faint grasping motion, as ...
2025-12-12 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View Post‘—to kill,’ the Queen was saying. Nicolai scrolled back through his skinsuit’s recording to hear the beginning. She’d been saying it didn’t matter to her if he stole the Symbiotes or not, she just wanted him to kill who she wanted him to kill.
‘In any case,’ she continued, ‘a weapon that could destroy the Soul but not the Symbiotes would be far too ...
2025-12-10 17:03:03 +0000 UTC View Post‘You strike me as intelligent. That is partly why I chose to spare you, take you under my wing.’
Chose to spare you. Took you under my wing. Beneath his helmet, one of his lips rose in a sneer. Standard manipulative start, noted Psychology. She spoke as though she was protecting him, as though she’d done him a favour, and not as though she had simply decid...
2025-12-08 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View PostVexira observed the fight below with intense, rising interest. She had had no idea how this would unfold, only that a truly dangerous enemy, one genuinely trying to kill Serrin, might be just what was needed to push the youth to kill. And if not, then at least the fight could serve as a good test of the human, a way to gauge if he might be able to accomplish what she needed. But, regardless of ...
2025-12-05 17:03:03 +0000 UTC View PostNicolai followed his words with a vicious lunge that started low, then arrowed up, aiming for the narrow join between the Hornet’s upper and lower body. Serrin parried easily and flowed into a strike of his own, but Nicolai slapped it aside. In the next instant they repeated the same move again and again, a parry then a counter only to be parried and countered and parried and countered, each ...
2025-12-03 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe Hornets stared at him, and he felt their combined shock. This led the Queen, concerned, to intensify her spiritual grip on him. She crushed his Soul Sense back into him, restricted him tightly.
‘How do you know our language?’ she asked.
He was unable to reply through ripples at first, because of how tightly his Soul was suppressed. But she noted this, and the force ...
2025-12-01 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe one with his Blade kept on running, though its direction turned. Fleeing now not from Nicolai, but the army of Hornets.
A figure emerged from that army, glinting. A Hornet wearing radiant golden armour, flanked by guards wielding large weapons. It sped after the fleeing Hornet, and from it stretched something monstrous. A Soul Sense, one that moved like the arm of God across the sky, ...
2025-11-28 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View PostNicolai glared up at the sky.
Dark, angry clouds, pissing down their watery disregard onto him. The pouring rain, howling wind, the odd flashes of lightning and rumbling of thunder were a close fit to his mood. He was wondering what had happened to the other Hornet, whose head he’d set on fire. He hoped it was dead, lost to the storm, and he hoped it’d been painful.
Unlikely...
2025-11-26 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe Highspawn came to a stop, gazing over at Xyrrith with that same faintly sneering air as always. The fact of his presence spoke volumes.
‘You don’t look glad to see me, nephew! I anticipated a warmer welcome than this,’ Vorath rippled.
‘You are not meant to be here. You said you would stay back there,’ replied Xyrrith, tense. ‘You have come for t...
2025-11-24 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View PostNicolai dangled from rope, swaying in the wind rushing past. His captors had tied some silk-like rope around his chest and under his shoulders. The two Hornets flying to the sides and above of him each held a loop.
Though he hung as limp and inanimate as a corpse, rain running down his body and dripping from his legs, he was awake and aware, watching everything through his skinsuit’s ca...
2025-11-21 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View Post[ Author Note: in the bit where we first saw the Queen and Hornets, they referred to a Hornet called Khorath. Just fyi, I opted to change his name to Khoren, because Khorath was too similar to Vorath. ]
The gathered Hornets stared at the human’s form, finally still. Crumpled face-down on the craggy earth, rain drumming on its armour. It had taken most of them some time to ...
2025-11-19 17:03:04 +0000 UTC View PostThrough cameras in the back of his helmet he saw the crystals beginning to move toward him. Not fast, about a walking pace, but there were a lot of them.
He drew his pistol and shot one, wondering if they could be cleared as simple as that. It wobbled but didn’t break. He squeezed five more times and it exploded with a harsh snapping. A concussive blast burst out and slammed into him, k...
2025-11-17 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View PostBack in the Duel Arena he squeezed through the crowd, shoving and pressing as much as the Restriction would allow. He found a desk manned by a member of House Morvain, and felt Legal rise with excited eagerness through him; he’d told it he had a job for it.
‘I need to see whoever decided to withhold my reward from the Tournament.’
‘Do you?’ said the Person, somehow looking...
2025-11-14 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View Post[ GRECKON INC. ™ | MANUFACTURER LICENSE: #778-4A | VALID: 05/04/2376—05/04/2396 ]
[ ASSEMBLER OUTPUT: TYPE 13C | UNIT ID: B2 | VERSATILE FIELD UNIT ]
[ OPERATING SYSTEM: GRK-JOAT v3.7.9 ]
[ ARMAMENT CONFIG (CURRENT LOADOUT): MINIGUN ARM GRK-762/M4 | .50 CAL ARM GRK-12B ]
[ POWER CORE: LITH-GR5 600V | PROCESSOR ARRAY: QUAD-STACK 11A ]
... 2025-11-12 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View Post[Author note: I noticed someone in the last chapter said they were excited to see audience reactions, which I... didn't really put in this chapter >_<. But I figure it would be cool to have some, in fact really we need at least some kind of reaction and I feel bad for not including that now lol. So now I put in a final bit from Jian/Hanwei pov, then added a bit of Nic in the crow...
2025-11-10 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe hope of victory had burned away to bare embers.
He was stuffing her into a corner, one made of the endless, dizzying movement of that rapier. She was still in that state of perfect flow, where the fight made complete sense to her. And thus she could only wonder at his skill. Because she saw that he was in that same place but where for her it was something found only now and then, for ...
2025-11-07 17:03:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe arena was open and circular. Pale sand underfoot. The same one where he’d fought Jian. Maybe the Duel Arena preferred this one for the finals. Maybe it was just luck. Maybe it was by decision.
It didn’t matter. Xuejing was before him, a mere thirty metres away, surrounded by a blue bubble to constrain her, just like the one around him. The faint wind sighing through the arena coil...
2025-11-05 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View Post‘No Serrin, today?’ spoke Vorath, head turning lazily to take them all in as he stepped around Sythera, Soul Sense avoiding hers like one might avoid a bad smell.
‘He is receiving another lesson,’ Vexira replied testily.
‘Is that what you’re calling it?’ Amusement bubbled from his Soul. ‘You should cut that one loose. An aberration like...
2025-11-03 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View PostQueen Vexira paced through her grand chambers, wings buzzing spasmodically, a messenger bug held in one hand. On the verge of arising from the Foundation Realm—the very peak of Tier Three—her furious Soul Sense blanketed the room and gouged at the walls.
‘How dare she,’ she snarled, the ripples through which she spoke booming. ‘How dare she! I am ripe! I am ready! A...
2025-10-31 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View Post[Author note: due to splitting an extra long chapter into two for RR, I've had to go and update all the chapter numbers to fit - so this would have been 302 but is now 303 cuz one of the earlier chapters turned into 2. Hope that makes sense...]
Nicolai stood in a new arena. As always at the start of a round, he was surrounded by a blue orb of protective light, unable to act.
...
2025-10-29 17:03:01 +0000 UTC View Post