"Bouncing back after an incursion is going to be one of the hardest moments of your career, and to not mince words likely an end to it. Your fault or not, the voter base tends to get antsy for a change after a crisis these days, so you'll need to act fast to regain their trust. The key is to leverage the one boon that you're pretty much guaranteed to get - new samurai."

  — Running a Modern City. Incursions, Antithesis and the Samurai chapter. Published 2053

  The first thing Quinn noticed was the fact that she was now exceptionally tall. Not her usual level of tall, where she peeked over most women and even a decent number of men, but tall enough that she was now nearly at roof level of the Cafe she was next to. She could see in the road in front of her, and the PMC still moving antithesis to her right, and the huge main warehouse building behind her and to the left, which didn’t seem right but felt normal as long as she didn’t think about it too much. There were a deluge of other sensations of body parts she somehow instinctively recognized - the feeling of a fingers she could curl to fire the two arm mounted weapons, the eye membrane that could switch her vision to IR or Thermal, the shrug of the shoulder that would lower the shoulder cannon into position. Then there was the second set of smaller arms; she gave them an experimental wiggle, finding the motion sluggish like swimming through jam. She moved the main set, then the second set again, then tried to move them both at the same time.

  “Oh, that’s a weird feeling.” It sort of felt like moving two sets of arms, and sort of felt like moving the same pair of arms in two different directions at once and neither set ended up quite where she wanted them to..

  “You’ll get used to the feelings over time darling, and eventually it will be like moving your biological form. Most Vanguard either learn to pilot their war machines more manually or purchase an accelerated learning program, but for true mastery self adaptation is best, and I have very high hopes for your prospects.”

  Quinn blushed, hoping the mech didn’t have a way of broadcasting that to the world. She began slowly shifting her arms and body in an ad-hoc set of Kata, trying to get used to the feeling of moving a significantly different body.

  “Seems like you’re having fun, how is it?” Elliot called from below. She turned to center him in her vision out of habit, despite being able to see him perfectly well without doing so.

  Her voice rang out from somewhere in her torso as she ‘raised’ her voice. “Its kind of trippy, but also feels way more natural than I’d expect it to.” She rotated her arms, taking in their appearance from various angles.

  Elliot approached her front, before raising his arms diagonally in the air towards her, palms up and gesturing towards himself. After she didn’t react for a few seconds he repeated the gesture before asking “Uppies?”

  She ‘stared’ at him, for as much as that applied.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea”. She spoke more softly, and it broadcasted over their call instead of out loud. “I think I could accidentally squish you.”

  He put his arms down, pouting “Fine, I like my spine. Maybe when you’re a better pilot?”

  She flipped him the bird with the lower right arm.

  “So” he said, eyeing the large guns on her bigger arms “You got some big'uns, what are they?”

  She tried to remember the name of the mech, drawing a blank, and briefly scanning the surface didn't reveal an obvious nameplate. “Irys, help me out, what are they called?”

  “Princess Collective Combat Adjustable Samurai Skirmisher Integrated Exoskeleton.”

  Elliot paused briefly. “Oh, it's an backronym for Cassie.” He cracked a one sided grin “Cute. But I meant your guns.”

  Quinn replayed the name in her mind, noting the first letter of each “Wait, that can't be a coincidence.”

  “We have some flexibility in how I translate and present items to our vanguard. As to your question Elliot, what a delightful opportunity to educate Quinn on her new armaments. Let's start with the Scarab Heavy Repeating Pulse Laser.” Quinn raised her left upper arm, with the large heat sinked weapon. “Other one, Darling.” She sheepishly raised her right arm instead with the sleeker barreled weapon.

  “This is your all purpose weapon, it fires brief bursts of a high intensity laser with moderate penetration power, and can fire at 400 shots a minute. It will need to cool down after extended use, but the on board heat sinks can pivot out to provide rapid venting if the passive cooling isn't enough. Unlikely to do significant damage to structures, so firing it in an urban area will not cause any issues.”

  Quinn raised her other arm, the one she had originally lifted “And this one?”

  “The Discus Mk. III Mounted Plasma Projector. It launches a spinning disk of excited plasma designed to disperse massive amounts of heat upon impact with a surface. It has modular charge capabilities, able to target only a 3m radius or reach up to 30m, depending on how the weapon charges, allowing for either relatively pinpoint targeting or large area damage. Since the primary damaging force is thermal, it will actually penetrate heavier armor not appropriately heat shielded, though most heavy armor will render it largely ineffective.

  Quinn flipped a mental switch, and the large shoulder gun raised up and dropped down to point forward, resting on her shoulder, before a diagonal strut shot out midway up its length and attached to a lower point on the mech's chest.

  “That is the Fated Conclusion Class Particle Beam. High penetration, it should just about blast through most targets you’ll likely see at this stage while doing more damage post penetration than a pure kinetic round. I would highly advise you to kneel when firing due to the heavy recoil.

  Elliot glanced along the length of the weapon “Why does an energy weapon have recoil at all?”

  Hylios piped up in the call for the first time in a while, as eager as always “It would only take three months of dream learning to explain the basic principles adequately, if you’d like to buy that!”

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  Quinn wasn’t sure if that was sarcasm or a genuine attempt to be helpful.

  Irys spent some time guiding her through the more esoteric features of her new ride, such as how to direct the flow of repair nanites manually, which felt a little like what she’d imagine manually moving her blood around would feel like.

  Within a few more minutes a large shack sized hovercraft, looking something like one of the UFOs of old if they had giant clamps dangling from four edges, cast a shadow overhead as it approached. Briefly landing so a thin faced pilot could usher Elliot on board the cramped inner cabin, it then hovered over Quinn and hoisted her up and into the air.

  After the initial feeling of worry at being functionally dangled feet first over a large drop, Quinn began to somewhat enjoy the view. She and Elliot chatted about a variety of meaningless topics over their call, with Irys and Hylios occasionally chiming in. Irys spun up an ad-hoc training simulator for Quinn, allowing her to practice aiming and firing her two arm mounted weapons with simulated trajectories and feedback at various notable buildings designated as targets without doing anything more than just moving her arms and pulling a temporarily disabled trigger. By the time they got close to the city proper, Quinn was feeling significantly more comfortable with the operations of her new weaponry.

  They got a look from the air as they approached, and it didn’t look great. Fires raged in various scattered pockets with the occasional partially collapsed building breaking up the view. The air was choked with spores, giving it a hazy crimson hue. Cracks of gunfire were audible from all over, with little flashes coming from tiny figures moving around below while swarms of antithesis appeared like puddles of green liquid flowing from street to street towards them.

  They were dropped off in the old private university campus to the north of Lake Wingra, the pilot setting them down on the synthetic garden that made up the university’s approach. A few groups of patrolling PMC with a distinctive cross on their uniform fronts gave notice to their arrival, some of them merely glancing their way, a few of the more devout giving them looks of reverence.

  Ahead of them, the brief flat ground gave away to the towering blocks of Madison proper. The rendezvous point was about 5 minutes swift walk away for a human, though they were already the last to arrive.

  Quinn bent down slightly to proffer a fingered hand to Elliot. “I don’t want to grab you, but I can probably give you a lift to my left shoulder, probably faster than me following your foot speed.”

  He nodded enthusiastically and sat in her palm, balancing his rifle on his lap. It surprised her just how.. Much the sense of touch still felt like it were her own hand. Slightly thankful the mech didn’t share any of the usual physiological reactions she gently lifted him till he could clamber into the crack where armament hand met chassis. She locked the arm in place with one of those mental switches to avoid accidentally crushing him and bent the fingered hand around to give Elliot a makeshift backrest. She grimaced internally as he settled in, that did NOT look comfortable.

  “If we do this again, I want a booster seat.” he quipped, thankfully not quite uncomfortable enough to not be making jokes.

  With her precious cargo reasonably secure, she could afford to fast walk through the streets. This was one of the more affluent areas of Madison, the apartment buildings and business sky-rises full of bougie restaurants and single occupant condos, so it wasn’t surprising that the antithesis presence was at least somewhat contained in the area, and they weren't waylaid in the short couple of minute journey.

  Rounding the corner brought them to what was usually a busy 5 way intersection, but was now a fortified staging ground. Towards the north, large barricade walls lined the road, lined with PMC aiming a variety of handheld and mounted weaponry into the deeper city beyond. Numerous armored vehicles sat at various points, guns trained on the other egresses.

  In the middle, a trio of figures stood, their eclectic appearance clearly distinguishing them as the fellow Samurai they were here to meet with. The most striking figure was likely the middle aged, sardonyx skinned salary-man with black curly hair, wearing the tattered remains of a business suit. He was also riding what looked like a quadrupedal mix between panther and crocodile the size of a school bus and carrying a large, belt fed gun in two hands with a slight crazed look in his eye., while his mount watched the new arrivals with that sort of predatory calmness that said “I’m not worried, you’re more a snack than a threat.”

  The second figure was a very short, copper skinned girl, maybe college age, dressed in a rather eye catching frilly and bow covered dress in black and pink, ruffled skirt and stompy combat boots and all. One hand sported an ornate sledgehammer with a large blunt head on one side and a vicious curved spiked on the other which she was carrying part way down the handle, the other had what looked like a double barreled gun mounted on her forearm. A pair of fox ears protruded from the top of her head, occasionally twitching this way and that.

  The third was an older woman, maybe late twenties, with gypsum skin stained with ash. They were suited in heavy combat armor that hid most of their form and held a reasonably standard looking rifle, though the more impressive part of their armaments were the several blades floating around her in lazy orbits. She had a rather distant stare on her face, either tired or dissociating.

  Quinn approached briskly before setting Elliot down. The younger girl in the dress stepped forward to within talking distance, eyeing the two of them critically before addressing them.

  “You the other two we been waiting on?”

  Elliot strode up with a hand extended, which the girl raised an eyebrow at but shook briefly with her non hammer wielding hand.

  “That's us!” he replied with a smile. “I'm Elliot, and Quinn is in the mech.”

  She narrowed her eyes slightly. “Your Sam name is Elliot?”

  He stepped back slightly and rubbed the back of his head, before bouncing back to his usual pep. “Oh, sorry. I'm Boy Scout, and this is Mobile Suit Maiden.” He gestured with a thumb over his shoulder.

  She cracked a wry smile in return and put her hand on her hip. “No sweat, I'm Vixinertia, or Aisha if you want. The one on the dino is Rex Dakka, and the one having a time in the armor is Blade Dancer.” She pointed out the others as she named them. “Give the okay and I'll get you two in our shared call.”

  Quinn and Elliot both gave their assent, and soon their little call of four merged with six more.

  “Alright.” Vixinertia's voice came crisp over the comms, and she started pacing back and forth between the two groups. “So Synapse wants us killing a hive that's dug in on the south side of University Bay, apparently it's mostly underground by now but has quite a few big boy models to tussle with roaming the streets. We wanna go over our individual fighting styles?”

  Quinn perked up and gave a thumbs up. “I have a mech, it has big guns.” Rex Dakka snickered. “One all purpose, one area of effect and one heavy penetration, but won't be great at small spaces.”

  Vixinertia nodded and flipped her hammer over before roughly placing the head on the ground. “Cool, I fuck with me and my stuffs gravity and weight, I'm mobile as fuck and can hit real hard, but don't kill super quickly. What about you Boy Scout, what's your deal?”

  Elliot tapped his bracers. “I play with gravity too, but more like increasing or decreasing it in an area to cause them problems, then shoot them with a gun I guess.”

  A gravely male voice, presumably Rex Dakka, somewhat accusingly asked. “The fuck does that have to do with being a boy scout.”

  Vixinertia shot a glare at him. “Don't be a jackass, Rex.”

  Elliot turned the corner of his mouth up. “Nah my name is not related to my style, it's a long story.”

  Rex leaned back in his seat, propping his gun on his lap. his mount lazily shifted and blinked at the rest of them. “Fair enough I guess, I shoot stuff with my LMG too and Dog here mauls them. That’s about it right now.” He waved an arm at Blade Dancer “Quiet chick hasn’t shared, but I can take a guess.”

  Blade Dancer shifted in place uncomfortably, quietly speaking for the first time. “I also have a gun, and my flying blades can work at medium distances.” Quinn thought she spotted a flash of sharp teeth as the woman spoke. “I’m.. also quite tough.”

  Elliot clapped his hands together “Okay, we have a team! Let's figure out a plan.”