(A/N: And so begins the beautiful, dysfunctional friendship… or maybe just shared P.T.S.D. Enjoy the fallout! (☆▽☆) )
Consciousness returned not as a gentle dawn, but as being abruptly shoved face-first into a dumpster filled with angry wasps, broken gss, and someone else’s nightmares. Kai’s head felt like it was simultaneously imploding and exploding, a discordant symphony of ringing, buzzing, and a high-pitched whine that seemed lodged somewhere behind his eyeballs. His vision swam with blinding white spots dancing over absolute bckness. Every nerve ending screamed in protest, a residual echo of the colossal energy surge that had poleaxed him.
Ugh… what… hit me? The thought drifted vaguely through the fog, thick and slow like sludge through a clogged pipe. Grok’s wrench? Did the tunnel colpse? Feels more like I licked a power conduit…
Slowly, agonizingly, sensation began to differentiate itself from the overwhelming static. The ringing in his ears subsided to a dull roar. The white spots coalesced, faded, leaving behind a throbbing ache. He became aware of the cold, hard floor beneath him, the persistent dampness seeping into his worn clothes. The acrid smell of ozone was still thick in the air, mingling nauseatingly with the familiar Undercity perfume of decay and chemical runoff.
But there was something else. Something… new.
Underneath the ozone and sludge scents, his nostrils picked up fainter, sharper smells: dust motes dancing in unseen air currents, the mineral tang of rusted metal, the musty aroma of dried fungus, and overwhelmingly, a pungent, animal scent. It was earthy, sharp, ced with a thread of something akin to fear-sweat. It wasn't his scent. He knew his own brand of grime-and-desperation. This was different. Closer. Invasive. Like someone had jammed a handful of used rat bedding directly into his sinuses.
And the fear. It wasn't just his own residual panic about Grok or being trapped or potentially vaporized. It was a raw, primal terror, sharp and jittery, prickling just beneath the surface of his own muddled thoughts. It felt small, frantic, like a trapped bird beating against cage bars. It wasn't his fear, but he felt it as keenly as the throbbing in his head.
What the… scrap is that? Kai groaned internally, trying to push the alien sensations away, like trying to shove water uphill. It didn't work. They felt… stuck. Connected.
He cracked his eyes open. Still pitch bck. Or, almost. As his pupils adjusted, faint residual light seemed to pulse dimly from further down the conduit where the explosion had occurred. Emergency lighting kicking in? Or just fried circuits having their st gasp? Either way, it wasn’t enough to see by, but it cast the barest suggestion of form onto the oppressive darkness.
Then, something flickered directly in front of his eyes. Not external light, but… text? Jagged blue letters hung in the air, overid on the darkness, seeming to vibrate with the residual ringing in his skull. They were slightly glitchy, parts fading in and out, like a damaged public terminal dispy.
[CRITICAL BIOLOGICAL TRAUMA DETECTED]
The line pulsed insistently.
Trauma? Yeah, no kidding, System, Kai thought sluggishly. Tell me something I DON'T know. Public infrastructure monitoring his bio-signs was normal, if annoying. Probably pinging Authority central with his near-death experience. Great. Another potential fine for 'Damaging City Infrastructure with Face'.
Then, more text flickered into existence below the first line, equally unstable.
[MUTATED VERMIN - LV ??? - DETECTED WITHIN PROXIMITY OF CRITICAL HOST]
Kai blinked. Mutated Vermin? Oh, fantastic. Sniffles. He vaguely remembered the big rat being near him when the lights went out. Had it survived? Wait. Proximity to Critical Host? Was that… him? Was he the host? Host to what? More text crawled onto the flickering dispy.
[ANOMALOUS MANA SIGNATURE DETECTED]
Mana? Kai frowned internally. That wasn't standard Authority terminology. Mana was superstitious sludge-talk, gutter myths about energy fields and weird powers that popped up after the 'System Integration Event' decades ago. Usually dismissed by anyone with half a functioning brain cell. Why would the System use that term?
The dispy flickered violently, letters scrambling for a moment before resolving into new lines that hit Kai with the force of a physical blow, cutting through the mental fog like a rusty ser scalpel.
[SYSTEM PROTOCOL OVERRIDE: EMERGENCY SYMBIOSIS PROTOCOL ACTIVATED]
[FORGING UNBREAKABLE LINK... SUCCESS!]
Symbiosis?! The word exploded in Kai's mind, cold dread instantly vaporizing the lingering disorientation. Symbiosis?! With the MUTATED VERMIN?! Nonononono! System, what did you DO?!
[CLASS GRANTED: SYMBIOTIC SCAVENGER - LV 1]
[SHARED VITAL INTERFACE ESTABLISHED]
Panic, pure and unadulterated, smmed into him. He scrambled backwards, pushing himself up against the cold conduit wall, crab-walking away from where he thought the rat might be, away from the phantom text hanging in the air.
"NO!" The word ripped from his throat, raw and hoarse. "Get OFF me! Get OUT of my head! Undo! System, UNDO!" He swiped frantically at the flickering blue text, but his hand passed right through it. It wasn't tangible. It was in his vision, or in his brain, he couldn't tell which, and wasn't sure which was worse.
The sharp, alien fear he'd been feeling spiked dramatically, echoing his own panic. He could suddenly smell his own sweat, sharp and acrid, overid with the continued scent of terrified rat. He could feel a frantic scrabbling nearby in the dark, mirroring his own desperate scramble. He could feel another heartbeat, tiny and rabbit-fast, thudding in time with his own frantic pulse, like a bass drum accompanying a terrified hummingbird.
He spped his hands over his ears, trying to block out the ringing, the humming, the imagined scrabbling, the phantom heartbeat. It didn't help. The sensations weren't coming from outside. They were woven into the fabric of his own perception now.
This isn't happening, he chanted internally, rocking slightly. Just residual energy surge effects. Hallucinations. Shock. Yeah. Shock. But the text remained, persistent and mocking. And the feeling… the feeling of otherness grafted onto his senses… it felt horrifyingly real.
He squeezed his eyes shut, took a ragged breath, and tried to focus. System. Css. Shared Interface. These were LitRPG terms, game concepts that had bled into reality after the Integration Event. Everyone had basic System readouts via terminals, but Csses? Active skills? That was rarer, stuff you heard about with heavily augmented Corporate Enforcers or those shadowy 'Dungeon Divers' who explored contaminated zones. Not for gutter trash like him. And definitely not involving rats.
He cautiously opened his eyes again. The text was still there, maybe slightly more stable now. [CLASS GRANTED: SYMBIOTIC SCAVENGER - LV 1]. Below it, more information began to popute the spectral dispy.
It looked like… a status screen?
----------------------------- KAI / ??? [SYMBIOTIC LINK ACTIVE]CLASS: Symbiotic Scavenger (LV 1)HP: 18 / 40 [SHARED POOL]MP/STM: 25 / 25 [SHARED POOL]
STATS (Combined Average):STR: 3DEX: 5CON: 4INT: 6 (Kai Dominant)WIS: 3 (??? Dominant)CHA: 2 (Kai Dominant)
SKILLS:[Slot 1: Locked - Requires Cooperative Action][Slot 2: Locked][Passive: Danger Sense (Rat Instinct) - LV 1 (Dormant - Sensory Overload)]
STATUS EFFECTS:[Symbiotic Shock: -20% All Actions, Sensory Overload][Minor Energy Burns: -2 HP/min (18 mins remaining)][Moderate Confusion][Resonance Ringing]
-----------------------------
Kai stared, mouth agape, mind reeling. Shared HP? They only had 18 health left out of 40?! And it was dropping from energy burns? Shared Stamina?! Wait, the rat had Wisdom? More Wisdom than him? What did a rat need Wisdom for? Contempting the philosophical implications of stolen cheese? And '??? '? It didn't even have a name in the System?
"Cha-risma: TWO?!" he screeched aloud into the darkness, utterly appalled and fixated on the most personally insulting stat. "My Charisma is TWO?! Combined AVERAGE?! Does this thing have negative charisma?! Does it actively repel people with its rat-ness?! This is an outrage!"
The small, frantic heartbeat pulsed faster in his awareness. The alien fear-scent intensified again. It seemed his outburst had distressed his unwanted 'partner'. Good. Maybe if he annoyed it enough, it would just… disconnect? Self-terminate? Gdly chew off its own leg to get away from me?
"Hey! Rat-brain!" Kai yelled into the dark, projecting his anger outward. "Can you hear me in there? Get OUT! This head is zoned for single occupancy! Scram! Vamoose! Annihite yourself!"
There was a distressed squeak from nearby, followed immediately by a sharp spike of pain behind Kai's eyes, like needles stabbing inwards. He gasped, clutching his temples. It wasn't debilitating, but it was sharp, targeted, and directly correted with his outburst.
Simultaneously, a new line flickered onto his status dispy under Effects: [Symbiotic Discord: Minor Neuralgia (-1 WIS, Temporary)].
Kai froze. Did… did the System just punish me for yelling at the rat? Penalties for uncooperative actions? He remembered reading something like that in a Css description once… Where was it? He frantically scanned the blue text floating in his vision, looking for a Css details tab or something simir.
Ah. There, almost translucent until he focused on it: [Tap to Expand Css Details]. He mentally poked at it. Nothing happened. He tried waving his physical hand through it. Still nothing.
Think, Kai, think. How did people with active Systems usually interact? Neural impulse? Focused intent? He stared hard at the [Expand] text and willed it to open.
The status screen vanished, repced by a new block of text:
-----------------------------
CLASS: Symbiotic Scavenger
TYPE: Unique / Emergent / Shared
RARITY: Unknown
DESCRIPTION:
A rare Css forged through desperation, trauma, and anomalous System override. Links two disparate biological entities into a single functional unit, sharing vital essences, senses, and potential for growth. Survival requires cooperation; conflict incurs penalties. Progression is dependent on strengthening the Symbiotic Link and overcoming challenges together. Host provides complex reasoning and manipution; Symbiote provides enhanced senses and instinctual adaptations. Offers unique synergistic potential unavaible to solo Csses.
ABILITIES: Shared Vitals (HP/STM/MP), Sensory Link (Partial), Basic Empathic Link. Further abilities unlock via leveling and Cooperative Actions.
RESTRICTIONS: Requires constant proximity (Link Decay initiates >10 meters). Severe penalties for deliberate harm to partner. Reduced individual autonomy. High susceptibility to shared Status Effects. Mental/Emotional bleed-over likely.
-----------------------------
Kai read it, then read it again, his stomach churning with horror. Unbreakable link? Constant proximity? Penalties for harm? Mental bleed-over?! This wasn't just a temporary glitch; this was a horrifyingly permanent fusion. He was literally stuck with this rat, sharing pain, sharing thoughts (or ck thereof), sharing his abysmal Charisma score.
"No," he whispered, shaking his head numbly. "No, no, absolutely not. There has to be an off switch. A command. System! Abort Symbiosis! Deactivate Symbiotic Scavenger Css!"
He focused his intent, projecting the command with all his might. Nothing happened. The text remained stubbornly dispyed in his vision. The feeling of the rat's presence – its fear, its alien senses brushing against his own – didn't lessen one bit.
Panic gave way to a simmering, helpless rage. He wanted to scream, to thrash, to punch something. Preferably the rat. But the [Severe penalties for deliberate harm] line echoed in his mind, along with the fresh memory of the neuralgia spike. The System wasn't messing around.
He took a few shaky breaths, forcing himself to calm down. Sort of. Screaming wouldn't help. Okay, maybe screaming would make him feel slightly better, but if it actively hurt him via System penalty, then it was counterproductive.
Fine, he thought bitterly, projecting the thought with less aggressive volume. Fine! Stuck together. Just… great.
He shifted, testing his limbs. Sore, bruised, slightly burned according to the status effect, but functional. The conduit was still dark, the air thick with ozone. The low humming had stopped, thankfully. Had the power surge blown itself out?
What about Grok? Was he still waiting outside that panel? Kai focused, trying to listen past the lingering ringing and the internal rat-static. He couldn't hear any heavy breathing or impatient thumping from the direction of the sealed exit. Maybe the explosion scared him off? Or maybe he was just waiting quietly, like a patient, mossy boulder of doom. Either way, going back wasn't an option.
Which meant they had to find another way out of this service duct. Him and… ugh… Sniffles. He needed a less stupid name if they were literally going to be roommates in his skull. Squeaks? Yeah, based on the recent distressed noises, Squeaks seemed fitting.
Alright… Squeaks, Kai projected the thought, trying to ce it with less overt hostility and more cautious inquiry. You still alive over there? Blink twice for yes? Or, you know, project 'Yes, you insufferable meat-host, I survived your near-fatal idiocy' into my brain?
He waited. He felt a flicker of confused curiosity brush against his mind, accompanied by the scent of dust and stale air – Squeaks was probably sniffing cautiously in his general direction. There was no clear 'yes', but the frantic edge to its fear seemed to have subsided slightly, repced by wary uncertainty.
Okay, small victories, Kai thought grudgingly. He checked the status screen again, willing the Css description away. HP: 16 / 40. The burns were still ticking down. They needed to deal with that, or find a way out fast. His eyes scanned the pathetic stats again. Intellect 6 (Kai Dominant). Wisdom 3 (Squeaks Dominant). Right. So I'm the brains, supposedly, and it's the… gut feeling? Street smarts? Whatever. Dexterity 5 seemed okay-ish, probably mostly the rat's contribution. Strength 3 and Con 4 were pitiful. They couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag, let alone whatever else might lurk in these ducts.
Skills: Still locked. Except that passive [Danger Sense (Rat Instinct) - LV 1 (Dormant - Sensory Overload)]. Dormant? Why? Was the initial shock and link-trauma interfering? Or was it just too weak to function yet? Useless. Utterly useless right now.
He sighed, rubbing his temples where the phantom pain had spiked. They needed light. They needed to treat the burns (how?). They needed an exit. And they needed to do it before their shared HP ticked down to zero.
He scanned the darkness again, relying on the faint, flickering light from the blown junction further down. The conduit seemed to continue in that direction. Towards the source of the explosion. Smart, Kai. Walk towards the thing that almost killed you. But it was the only direction that seemed different from the way they'd come.
Okay, Squeaks, Kai projected the thought, trying for a neutral, functional tone. Listen up. We gotta move. Way out is probably… that way. He focused his intent towards the flickering light source. Can you… I dunno… scout ahead? Use your spooky rat senses? See if anything is gonna eat us? Or if there’s an exit? Anything?
He felt a wave of hesitation from Squeaks, a clear reluctance mixed with the lingering fear-scent. The memory of the explosion was clearly potent. But underneath it, Kai sensed something else too – a spark of curiosity? Or maybe just the desperate urge to escape the confined space, an urge that resonated perfectly with Kai's own custrophobia.
After a moment, he felt the subtle shift of movement nearby in the dark, the faint scratch of cws on metal. Squeaks was moving, cautiously, down the conduit towards the flickering light.
Kai let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Step one: convince the rat to do something marginally useful. Success? Ish?
Now for step two: Follow the possibly suicidal rat into the electrically hazardous unknown while trying not to panic about the fact that his life was now permanently entangled with said rat.
Easy peasy.
He pushed himself to his feet, his muscles protesting, the [Symbiotic Shock] debuff making him feel sluggish and clumsy. "Alright," he muttered under his breath, mostly to himself. "Operation: Don't Die Horribly In The Dark With A Rat In My Head… is a go."
He took a hesitant step forward, peering into the gloom, trying to track Squeaks’s faint movements. The blue status interface flickered helpfully, annoyingly, in his vision, a constant reminder of his absurd new reality. 15 HP left. Tick tock.
The End.
(A/N: Well, they're linked, they're annoyed, and they're losing HP! What could possibly go wrong next? Find out in Chapter 4! Let me know what you thought! (づ??????)づ )
