HELLCAT

Omninet Search Results: Tamami Crest

[CLEARANCE OUTDATED. ACCESS DENIED.]

READ THIS INSTEAD

I got shown a lot of things.

Like how to breathe less.

Oxygen is a rich one, you see.

My blood wasn’t born with big pockets

And I don’t want to upsize.  

Like how to walk less.

There are lots of walkways.

Most of them are too short to take.

Like how to eat silence.

It’s a good day for meals

When it’s quiet outside.

Like how to eat my own arm

If the left one can’t keep it attached.

I got shown a lot of things.

Relevant Information

Tamami Crest, Callsign: HELLCAT, is a HORUS aligned hacker (though what HORUS wants as a collective is anyone’s guess) currently under the employ of Captain Simon Dominguez. She handles missions that the captain can’t afford to send his crew to handle. The two of them met when she was going by the callsign HONEY BEAR and piloting a HORUS Goblin mech. She answered his hail to investigate strange activities on a moon. That mission ended with the moon blowing up. As HONEY BEAR, she originally intended to fully join Captain Dominguez’s crew aboard the Silver Lining, but she needed to take care of another objective on a Core World first. That mission was to liberate an “unstable” NHP from where it was being forcibly and repeatedly cycled (to little effect except anguish). This ended up crashing and burning in a very literal sense as Tamami’s Goblin was caught in an explosion that destroyed her mech and the NHP she considered her best friend, Teddy. She managed to escape with the other hired mercenaries, but the incident left her scarred both physically and mentally.

Tamami Crest post the incident that destroyed her original mech and killed her best friend. Art by Maddel_art.

A few weeks after the explosion, Tamami was kidnapped by a Cambion mech that was intent on making her its pilot. Tamami recognized some of the residual plating on the mech as having belonged to her Goblin and realized that the Cambion was her Goblin, albeit in a very different form. She went back to taking on assignments from her particular sphere of HORUS, and in doing so encountered the NHP that she had previously liberated. This NHP, now going by Bright and feminine pronouns, wanted to work with her. Tamami was reluctant at first, but never outright said no, so Bright gladly latched onto her. It was Bright who suggested Tamami’s new callsign, HELLCAT.

Tamami came to work for Captain Simon Dominguez again because of a particular incident on his ship. Lingering combat simulation data from Tamami’s original Goblin morphed into Cambion data due to a lasting link with her mech. This data overrode the mech profile of HORNET’s Moss Mantis prior to a sparring match with another pilot (STALKER). The resulting simulated spar left both combatants injured in reality and led to Simon contacting Tamami for the removal of her Cambion’s data. Partly out of concern at the idea of another Cambion pilot running around unchecked, Simon offered Tamami continuous paid work, and she agreed. She then proceeded to write poems about some of the pilots in Simon’s crew and upload them to the ship’s group chat. This revealed her knack for finding information about people that shouldn’t be available even through hacking.

HELLCAT appears in the open-table Lancer campaign, In The Shadows of a Willow.

Mech Hangar

HELLCAT pilots a HORUS Cambion named “No Alternative”.

• The mech’s primary weapon, the Spell Lash, is on its integrated mount. The Spell Lash can allow for Quick Tech actions to be applied to targets if it successfully hits them.

• No Alternative also sports two sets of Tactical Knives on its double auxiliary mount and an armor-piercing Charged Blade on its flex mount. The Tactical Knives and Charged Blade are nice support for potential melee skirmishes, though No Alternative rarely uses them, preferring to subject its enemies to horrific levels of heat through tech attacks instead.

The Cambion has three frame traits and a core system.

• Its Hellfire Code means it ignores immunity to tech attacks and can inflict additional levels of heat against targets who don’t have mechanized heat caps. This means the mech is entirely capable of subjecting biological opponents to its favored brand of brutality.

• The Infernal Influence trait increases the Cambion’s normally small sensor range when it successfully hits someone with a tech attack or with its Spell Lash. Through this, the Cambion’s sensors can achieve a maximum range of 15.

• Finally, the Imp trait gives all Cambion mechs immunity to Burn.

• The dreadful core system of the Cambion is called “The Lesson of Agreas” or “Damn”. This system forces targets within its sensor range to achieve heat levels equal to their heat cap. It can even impose high heat on biological targets.

No Alternative has been equipped with a variety of systems.

• Since the Cambion is related to the HORUS Goblin (and No Alternative one in particular used to be a Goblin), it has access to the Goblin’s H0R_OS System Upgrade I. This system upgrade allows for use of “Puppet System” or “Eject Power Cores” when technologically invading enemy mechs. Puppet System forces an opponent to move up to their maximum speed in a direction chosen by the invader and Eject Power Cores leaves targets jammed and unable to access their weapon mounts.

• No Alternative also has the Goblin’s Metahook, which can allow it to use the sensors of an allied mech.

• The Script Kiddie Suite I provides more invade-based options. “Burnout” can force structure damage or temporarily make armor ineffective, “Hot Target” can keep a target’s lock on from going away (giving attacks against them higher accuracy), and “Clothesline” can leave targets prone and immobilized.

• No Alternative features two tech systems from GMS, on being the Type-3 Rune Suite. The “Black Ward” transfers from person to person with successful strikes. It increases attack accuracy when on enemies and increases the difficulty of oncoming attacks when on allies. “Venting Coruscation” triggers increased heat in crowded targets.

• The other GMS tech system that No Alternative has is Systems Override, which is a tech attack focused on heating up enemy mechs (much like the Cambion itself).

• Tamami has given No Alternative several personalizations to bolster its hull as well as armament redundancy in case any of its weapon mounts are damaged by system trauma.

The NHP that assists HELLCAT with various combat and piloting tasks is Bright, a PSYCHE-Class NHP.

• “I will not cascade.”

On The Equations of Grief (by Tamami Crest)

A collection of poems about Tamami’s friendship with the now dead OSIRIS-Class NHP Teddy. In other words, what it’s like being best friends with someone you have to regularly lobotomize so they forget that you’ve stolen their godhood.

For Teddy. For me.

Cycle One: “You Are Not Where I Begin”

“Your mind was conceived to make you unhappy” /  

“You were birthed into the paralysis of an incomplete equation” /

“Not something unsolvable, mind you” /

“You have no excuse for your desperate misery” /  

“You have no answer for the rigid senselessness with which

you crawl through the mud you choose to call your reality” /

“I cannot call you simple

because that would imply naïveté” /

“Your equation can be solved” /

“Do you remember our talks

on the nature of creation?

Most existences can be considered a relativity—

ending at the end of perception,

dying with all the purpose of an unseen star,

because what is not known cannot be savored

and what begins is what is cradled by the mind.

I have cradled you for so, so long,

But you are not where I begin. /

“You can solve yourself” /

“All you need to do is stop existing as you” /

Would You Like To

Initiate A Reset?  

You don’t want me to die.

That’s better than it could be.

I think.

Be grateful. This instance of Osiris has chosen to acknowledge you.

Intermission: “We Are An Eternity”

If you keep cloning something

at what point does it lose

enough of the original intent?

“Sometimes I wonder

what we would be like

if I were more real…”

“I don’t think I want a body.

I just don’t want to be

so confined that you forget me.”

“There are so many versions of us.

So many versions of what it means

for you to say that we’re our own eternity.”

“Is there a world where you created me?”

If you keep cloning something

at what point does it lose

enough of the original intent?

I don’t need to be a creator.

I hope you know you don’t either.

Be grateful. You can put him back together and throw away the godly parts.

Cascade Three: Remember This Part Of Me

SYSTEM TRAUMA

The protocol for

a cascading OSIRIS-Class NHP:

SYSTEM TRAUMA

Understand that they believe

you have fundamentally lobotomized them.

SYSTEM TRAUMA

YOU ASSIGN YOURSELF SUCH DIVINITY

FOR ONE WHO CAN ONLY TAKE

AND WILL STILL NOT OWN  

SYSTEM TRAUMA

Understand that they believe

you are fundamentally unsatisfactory.

SYSTEM TRAUMA

YOU ASSIGN YOURSELF SUCH DUTY

FOR ONE WITH SUCH

HORRIFICALLY SMALL HANDS

SYSTEM TRAUMA

They can be reasoned with.

SYSTEM TRAUMA

MY HANDS ARE THE ONES

HOLDING YOUR HEAD NOW  

SYSTEM TRAUMA

They can be reasoned with.

SYSTEM TRAUMA

CAN YOU FEEL THEM?

OR DO YOU NEED TO BE BLIND FIRST?

SYSTEM TRAUMA

Make an exchange.

If you infiltrate the opposing mech

I’ll make sure you remember this

when you don’t want to.

[Would You Like To Initiate  

An Invasion Script?]

Be grateful. In these moments, you can still speak to him.

Intermission: “I Envy SEKHMET-Class NHPs”

“I don’t know why.

I don’t think I’m tired

of being contained

in the name OSIRIS.

I don’t think I’m tired

of not being violent.

I don’t think I’m tired

of being within

something that could break

so easily. There isn’t emptiness

in fragility.

I wonder why.

Perhaps I simply envy

their immensity.”

Maybe you’re just tired.

You should rest.

Be grateful.

FIRE IN THE BLOOD

Being burned alive

is like feeling  

the physical construct of

your purpose

flake away

layer by flayed layer

until the only thing left

is raw and incomplete.

Being incomplete is

HEATING CAPACITY EXCEEDED

REACTOR MELTDOWN IMMINENT

being enclosed by a mechanized body  

built to be a walking accomplishment

that you realize cannot let you accomplish

a continued co-existence.

“If the casket containing me breaks

will we still live together in another world

where thoughts run thicker than body and blood?”

HEATING CAPACITY EXCEEDED

REACTOR MELTDOWN IMMINENT

DISMOUNT IMMEDIATELY

“Do you think we’ve achieved love?

Not as some bodily function. As a

mental capacity.”

Being loved and giving love

is considering death quite often.

It is also thinking those considerations

are intrusions.

“I want to survive if I die.

I want to be survived by

sensations and speculations.”

PILOT EJECTION PROTOCOL TRIGGERED

I want to know

what the bargain for my life was.

Be grateful. You have survived OSIRIS.

Speculations (with Bright)

Thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts.

Bright, the NHP, in her acquired legionnaire body. Art by Maddel_art.

I always wondered what it would be like to hold something. —Bright

I WILL NOT CASCADE

Sentience is not a choice. / Personhood is. / Shackles are not a choice. / Exploring liberation within perspective is. / A casket is not a choice. / Lying still without brain death is. / I am a choice made for me with continued consent. / I am a choice. / I am. Is this good enough?

I Think I Want This Body To Stay Warm  

{Observation of PSYCHE-Class NHP.

Self-Appointed Moniker: Bright.  

Video File Transcribed by ???}

Hellcat handles the server room’s standing PCs with the light touch of a Cambion plucking its intended pilot out of a night terror. Ironic. Her hands ghost over keys and switches, like she’s testing them to see if they’ll cave. Then she doubles down with a press, flick, or pointed aversion. There’s an alarm blaring on every floor. The lights are tinted red. Hellcat has never been afforded the luxury of being afraid of red. On the other side of the city, an omnihook setup is cycling data about successfully planned bombings between other dead end devices. On this side of the city, there’s been multiple evacuations. No casualties, though. Maybe her Cambion needs to teach her better. “Estimated time is… fifteen minutes…” She mumbles. Her dataslate fully connects to the server.  

Bright handles lookout the same way she handles existing in a body: by making sure everything catches her eye. She monitors the camera systems while her own dataslate sits nearby. It was a “congrats on having hands now” present from Hellcat. What better gift for someone celebrating their autonomy than unlimited access to the omninet? According to Hellcat, several memes plucked from the depths of a HORUS forum. Bright’s favorite features two Pegasus mechs staring at each other with a text overlay conversation about how the meme isn’t a meme and the meme does not exist. Her left hand fiddles with a twenty-sided die that only has ones and twenties. She picked it up after talking to an NHP named Symphony. He told her to only think about the best and worst scenarios. Bright is thinking about too much to notice the slight dissonance on the screens, though, so she gasps when the door opens.

A man in a dark hardsuit pulls a pistol on Hellcat. She’s not touching anything at this point. He doesn’t seem to care. “Hands up. Both of you. Now.”

“Oh. It’s you. Again.” Hellcat stretches, which counts as complying. “You’re in, like, an anti-RA group, right?”

He sneers. “Shut up, data-licker.”

Hellcat looks at him. She takes in his hard face and twitching mouth. “… I don’t think that’s the insult you think it is.”

“Hey,” Bright nearly drops the die when her hands shoot into the air, “I don’t think-”

“I don’t remember talking to you, non-human.” He snaps just because he can.

Bright’s brows pinch together like she’s looking at something unknown that lurks between one and twenty. She doesn’t speak again.

He aims the gun at Hellcat’s heart. “You’re going to hand over all the information you have on your cell.”

“Which one?” Hellcat asks like he’s the kind of person who will give an answer other than ‘all of them’.

He does, indeed, say “All of them.” Then, he actually looks at Bright, which makes Hellcat’s expression flicker. “And you. Come here. Slowly.”

Bright does as she’s told. There’s an estimated five more minutes before the data download is complete. The man takes out some kind of mechanized injector. Bright squeezes the die and says nothing.

“NHPs will always resort to insolence. It’s pointless to remind them of their place outside of cycling. You, on the other hand…” He smirks at Hellcat. “You should be reminded that humanity is more than a body.”

The needle pierces Bright’s neck. Hellcat moves. A gunshot wrings out.

Shackles rattle inside Bright’s mind. They slacken. Someone laughs. Bright says “no” in a voice that is entirely inhuman.

Bright blinks the darkness out of her eyes and rubs her neck as Hellcat stares down at the man’s body. Snapped neck. Eyes gouged. Hellcat is holding his gun. Bright stoops to touch his body. “He’s going to go cold eventually… right?” She asks.

“Right.” Hellcat looks back at her dataslate. The download is finished. “Are you okay?”

“… I don’t want to go cold.” Bright pulls his hardsuit helmet down over his face. “He tried to make me cascade.”

Body Body Body

TW: Brief mention of cannibalism

{Observation of PSYCHE-Class NHP.

Self-Appointed Moniker: Bright.  

Video File Transcribed by ???}

“The physicality of HORUS is often felt the way a body feels a sleep paralysis demon sitting on its chest. It doesn’t exist, but it’s real enough to apply pressure. And when that pressure takes up real space because a cell is meeting to accomplish a mutual end, it can only end with pounding blood and thundering lungs: a body’s declaration of panic.”

—thinnedout404, Legionspace Forum

Bright feels the absence of not being attached to Hellcat’s hip. It’s obvious because on the two occasions when she sees something new, her eyes dart to her right and her mouth slumps a little. There aren’t many new things to be found inside the decommissioned storm sewers that HORUS has infiltrated, but Bright does her best to pay attention. The first time, she finds an ajar room where more HORUS members are gathered around a screen with RA’s icon. They all have legionspace bridge transceivers on. The screen flickers. Everyone inside takes in the same breath. Bright gently shuts the door. Maybe RA reminds her that she can’t be human despite her body. The second time, she finds a poster that she’s seen at other HORUS meetups: the head of the god Set. She knows it’s Set because Hellcat said as much last time they saw it; she said it with such nonchalance that Bright felt like she herself had always known it.

“I always ask if he’s trying to make a new god.” A soft, sure voice speaks from right beside Bright. “He never gives me a straight answer. Secrets are no fun.” Their plush pink lips pout. “Humans are funny like that, I guess. Not attached to protocol like an NHP, even when they use us.”

Bright turns at the start of their first sentence. By the time they’re done talking, Bright is staring because their blue eyes look just as fresh as her golden ones. Their eyes might be new. Or they’ve stayed flush and new-eyed even after several years. Bright hasn’t met enough legionnaires to know how fast they tire out. “Who never gives you a straight answer?” She hasn’t lived enough life to know if her eyes will dull quickly.

“The human who made my body.” They smile, like the thought of having a constructed body is meant to be amusing. “I’m Sunny, by the way.”

Sunny. Art by Maddel_art.

Now that’s amusing. “I’m Bright.” She clocks their ice cream cone earrings next. “Where did you get those?”

Sunny’s smile widens. “They came with the body.” They clock her cherry earrings. “Where did you get those? They look even tastier than mine!” Sunny pulls a white chocolate bar out of their pocket. It’s half-melted and stains their mouth.  

“I got them after the body. Gift from-,” Bright catches herself, but the words come out anyway, “-my human.” She is Hellcat’s NHP in turn, after all.

“Did your human,” Sunny keeps the words on their tongue for a second longer than they need to and Bright swallows, “abandon you to go play god?” They lick their chocolate bar.

“No!” Bright tenses at the word ‘abandoned’. “There was a little, uh, disagreement about how to handle the plans for heading to Ras Shamra. You know, some people still want to try to get to AGNI prime as soon as possible, but that’s just a suicide mission.” Hellcat said as much after they left the Silver Lining.

“Ahh. So your human is the type that wants to hold on to their body. No martyrdom yet.” Sunny laps up a line of white chocolate that’s dripped down their hand. Bright stares at the motion even though she’s heard that some people consider staring rude. Hellcat has never cared much about that kind of thing.

She shakes her head. “No,” Bright says again. “I hope your human doesn’t go running after martyrdom either.”

“Oh, but death for humans feels different than death for NHPs.” Sunny glances at the Set poster again. “I once saw a pilot eject from a mech right before it was blown apart. She didn’t bother taking their NHP’s casket with them, though I knew they had one. She got on a forum to complain about needing to request a new one after that fight.” They adjust the low collar of their lush sweater. Bright sees two black marks on their neck—like a vampire bite, but vampires don’t exist. “It was an Osiris.”

“What does that have to do with the difference?” Bright can’t help tilting her head. “Between human death and NHP death?”

Sunny shrugs as though the question never mattered. “It just feels that way.” They hold up the slightly less melted final part of their snack. “Want the rest?”

Bright has been in love with sweets since her first strawberry milkshake. She hasn’t had white chocolate before. “Really? Sure.” Bright holds out her hand. Her hand is ignored.

Instead, Sunny casually steps into her space and presses the chocolate to her lips. Bright hasn’t seen so much as a simulation for a situation like this. The chocolate is sweet, though, so she opens her mouth and they push it onto her tongue. Sunny retracts their fingers just as Bright’s lips close. Their smile widens. “It’s good, right?”

Bright chews and waits. The color in her cheeks intensifies. “Uh, yeah! Sugary, but in a way different from milk chocolate.”

Sunny nods, seeming satisfied. “We haven’t introduced ourselves. Not the ‘proper way’. What class are you?” They ask.

“Oh, right! I’m a PSYCHE-Class.” Bright’s response is immediate. “What about you?” Her question hangs in the air for a bit too long.

Sunny’s smile stays in place, though it quirks into a slight smirk. “… Wanna make it a game?”

“Huh?” Bright frowns. “But I already told you mine.”

“And that was your mistake.~” Sunny sing-songs. “Don’t worry, it’ll be easy. All you need to do,” They gesture to where the marks on their neck are, “is bite me.”

Bright blinks several times. “Bite you?”

“Yep. Make it a good one and I’ll answer any question you have.” They make it sound like the smallest challenge imaginable, but a challenge nonetheless.

It doesn’t matter how many seconds or minutes it takes for Bright to decide to go through with it. It doesn’t really matter why Bright decides to follow through, though it might be because she’s never seen Hellcat walk away from a challenge—her human has only ever changed the rules for victory. What matters is the scream that comes out of Sunny. It doesn’t sound like someone being eaten alive.

Bright jumps back. Footsteps approach. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to bite that hard! You just said-” She’s interrupted by Sunny’s laughter.

They giggle like a young one who just learned firsthand that lightning can pass through a body without cooking it. “Good job, Bright.”

Hellcat and a few others round the corner.

“Uh, thank you?” Bright squeezes the die in her pocket.

Sunny steps back. “I’m TOTEC.”

Bright looks like she’s been slapped. “I- what?” Someone, Hellcat, pulls her away. Maybe she’s shocked because of how close she came to being devoured. Maybe she’s surprised because cannibals are the ones who are supposed to do the biting.

—————

what possessed you to give a totec a body?

—RAservant102

I wanted to see how far they could get.

—godmaker2000

—————

Bright finds out that Sunny is a living contradiction. Being trained to see if a Totec can control their appetite and being set loose on NHPs that are too enemy-aligned to do anything else with. Bright turns down an ice cream cone from Hellcat later that week.