Of course, the kids, being kids, immediately rushed to the entrance of the aquatic garden and piled through the door the instant they were given permission. Thankfully Bob and the foxes were only a few steps behind them, so someone would be keeping an eye on them until Jane, An, and I could catch up.

  I’d expected to find the kids scattered around the building by the time we caught up, so when we found them standing just inside the door, I was pleasantly surprised. It was only when I followed their gazes and found out what they were staring at that I understood why they’d stopped.

  The area above the lobby was full of fish. Well, there were almost certainly holograms, but still… Dozens of different species and thousands of individual specimens swam around near the roof. They must have had some sort of low-level AI managing everything, because the dispy didn’t appear to be a loop, and it even had dynamic effects like predators coming in and disrupting the schools of fish before disappearing down one of the side corridors.

  “Pretty impressive, huh?” Lay chuckled. “You can’t imagine how boring this pce was before, when all they had was tanks full of coral and seaweed.”

  “So pretty…” Eddie muttered.

  “You know, the curator spent a ton of time filling out the dispys too. Each one has historically accurate fish and other sealife, and if you’re lucky, you can catch the occasional fish migrating between tanks,” Lay whispered conspiratorially to the kids.

  “I wanna see!” Issi shrieked as she bolted towards the exhibition hall. Jennifer and Eddie followed at a much more casual pace, followed a moment ter by Jane and An.

  “This pce is supported by a samurai, isn’t it?” I asked Lay as I continued to observe the colorful dancing fish dart around above us.

  “What makes you say that?” she asked. The small, growing smile on her face told me I was right, she just wasn’t going to admit it right away.

  “Even if this pce received government grants, they’d never be able to afford to hire enough researchers and artists to replicate hundreds of different fish species. Corps might throw that much money at a project, but only for some high-css attractions where they could force people to pay out of the nose to view them,” I expined. “A samurai, on the other hand, could do the same with a small investment of points and a few moments of their AI’s time.”

  Lay’s smile grew wider. “That’s a pretty good analysis. You’re right, this was a pet project of a friend of mine named Caroline, more widely known as Thermal Current. She apparently grew up wanting to be a marine biologist, despite knowing that the Antithesis had devoured the majority of the sea life on the pnet long before we turned our eyes to the water. Now she’s working with several other samurai on ways to increase the biodiversity in the oceans.”“That’s a tall order,” I muttered. “Aren’t the oceans still infested with Antithesis?”“They are, but we’re seeing more and more samurai interested in dealing with the aquatic pests every day. It’s only a matter of time until they’ll have enough firepower to not only venture out and destroy hives but also actually make a serious attempt to secure sections of the ocean floor,” Lay said. I couldn’t help but notice there seemed to be a touch of hope in her voice, which was something I wasn’t used to hearing from my gruff friend.

  “You seem to be in a fairly good mood today. I’m guessing the city fared well during the global incursion,” I said as I slowly started making my way towards the exhibition hall.

  “Yeah, you could say that,” Lay smirked. “I have to admit, the Cascadian government deserves a little bit of credit. All their preparation helped keep the initial incursion contained, and their firepower helped suppress all the Antithesis outside the walls. It was still a tough fight, and we needed the help of one of the Family’s orbital weapon ptforms to help cut down the numbers outside the city. Thankfully we also saw quite a few samurai awakened during the fight, and that really helped alleviate some of the pressure on the veterans.”

  I saw the briefest shadow of aggravation pass over her face, and she mumbled something under her breath. I absolutely would have missed it without my new bionics. “I just wish dealing with people was as easy as dealing with the Antithesis.”

  “Problems?” I chirped, suddenly interested.

  Lay gnced at me, a look of surprise passing over her face momentarily before fading away.

  “I really should be more careful with what I say. I keep forgetting that half my friends can hear a pin drop from several blocks away,” she grumbled. “Yeah, we have a problem, but it’s nothing for you to be concerned with. It’s a problem with a corp, not Antithesis.”

  “I’d like to believe I’m an expert on dealing with corporations, after what happened st year,” I said. “You sure you don’t want any help?”“I heard how you dealt with your ‘problem,'” Lay snorted. “I still see links to that video of Bob walking up to that super heavy tank, shrugging off the rounds from its dual heavy vulcan cannons, before finally ripping the turret off.”

  “In my defense, it did fire on me first,” I said.

  “Uh huh, sure,” Lay muttered. She brought one hand up to her face and gently rubbed her eyes before letting out a quiet sigh. “Whatever… You’ll probably hear this from one of your contacts at the Family before too long. They’re completely losing their shit over the situation.”

  I frowned. “It’s that bad?”

  “Worse!” Lay gnced around suspiciously before quickly leading me towards a slightly more isoted section of the room. “So, we had a couple samurai come into town right before the Global kicked off, performing an investigation on a company called Montero-Wisteria. You heard of them?”I shook my head. “Doesn’t sound familiar…”

  “It’s a big multinational with branches in dozens of cities,” Lay expined quietly. “It doesn’t matter. What does matter is they raided one of the company’s offshore ptforms and found a genetics b.”

  “Okay…” I replied. “And that’s a problem because?”“They were trying to create human-antithesis hybrids,” Lay expined, “And they succeeded.”

  “What?” I shouted, attracting a couple gnces before I remembered to keep my voice down. “How’d they manage to get away with that?”

  “No one knows,” Lay shrugged, “but the Family wants to conduct a full investigation. The problem is, the team they sent to guard the pce was compromised, and one of the guards nearly detonated the failsafe, which would have colpsed the facility with multiple samurai inside. They caught the guy before that happened, but now the Family doesn’t know who to trust. They have a couple samurai keeping an eye on the pce right now, but the local branch doesn’t have enough manpower to keep it secure.”

  “Fuck…” I muttered, shaking my head for a moment. “I have no love of the Family, but that definitely sounds like something that needs to be stomped out. You think it’d help if I sent a couple bears over to help them secure the pce?”

  “You haven’t seen the size of this pce. You wouldn’t be able to handle it with the half dozen bears you brought with you,” Lay excimed.

  I just stared at her for a minute. “I did tell you I was coming down in an airship, right? A heavily armed one?”

  “You did, and that’s why the government asked you to stay away from the city proper. Why?”

  “Did I not expin how big this thing was? Or how well armed?” I asked.

  “No, I just figured it was another version of the drop ship you had running around the country prior to the global incursion,” Lay replied, eyes narrowing. “Why?”

  I pulled up the pns for the Strato Carrier and shot her a copy. “I figured the Cascadian government must have received intel about my ship ahead of time, because if they were afraid of the Marsupial they’d absolutely lose their shit over the Strato Carrier.”

  Lay’s eyes went wide. “This isn’t a joke?”

  “Nope, I wanted the ability to strategically reposition my forces and bring extreme amounts of firepower down upon the Antithesis,” I said. “I even have most of my forces on board right now, over seven hundred bears. Do you think that’ll be enough to secure the facility?”

  “Did you know you have the most smug, shit-eating grin on your face right now?” Lay growled.

  “I’m aware,” I replied, the grin growing just a little bit wider.

  She stared at me for a couple more seconds before sighing. “Give me a couple minutes. I need to make a couple phone calls.”

  I smiled. “Take your time, I’m not going anywhere.”

  TheWackyWombat

  SCS Fan Fiction DiscordIf you'd like to join a slightly more active discord, try the SCS Extended Universe (ie Fanfiction) discord.

  A bunch of authors in the community frequent it, so come sign up for updates from your favorite authors, or just chat with other SCS afficinatos.

  Here's the link: https://discord.gg/bxPhAYJWcs

  Check out my Stories:

  Teddy Bears On Brigade

  Evelyn "Teddy" Cire is a street kid just trying to make ends meet, in the slum deep under Calgary Megacity. That is, until the Antithesis attack, and she's given the power to fight back.

  Avaible on: [Royal Road] or [Scribblehub]

  Tarnished Honor

  Reina and Skyler, long term girlfriends, fight Alien invaders in the Cyberpunk City of Vancouver.

  Avaible on: [Royal Road] or [Scribblehub]

  The Wicked Witch of the Wild West (ON HIATUS)

  A young outcast witch tries to find her pce in the world by traveling the remote wilds in the wild west

  Avaible on: [Royal Road] or [Scribblehub]

  Duelling Dungeons

  A story about Talia, an Arachne girl, finding her pce as a floor boss in a competitive dungeon. Half cozy slice of life, half action.

  Avaible on: [Royal Road] or [Scribblehub]

  Unexpected Guests (TBoB x DD crossover)

  Evelyn (From Teddy Bears on Brigade) ends up in the world of Duelling dungeons and needs to find a way home.

  Avaible on: [Royal Road] or [Scribblehub]

  Support me!

  Join me on to gain full access to my backlog (Currently 10+ chapters ahead!)

  If you don't want to support me, or don't have the cash, you can join as a free member and gain access to my other, unreleased stories!

  Here's the link: https:///c/wackywombat

  Buy the shirt!Want to wear your favorite bear loving samurai? Get a shirt! Commissioned by RavensDagger himself, and hosted on the official SCS webstore you can get the Teddy T now! Sorry, no bear hoodies... yet, but if you show your support who knows what might happen in the future.

  Teddy T-shirt: https://litrpgforge.com/products/scs-secret-merch-teddy

  And if you don't feel like supporting me, you can still take a look around at the other Fan fiction shirts, or even official SCS merchandise here: https://litrpgforge.com/collections/stray-cat-store

  Finally: Big thanks to all those people that review my draft, the chapters would be a lot rougher without your feedback!