All news can be spun into good news, and all news can be spin it on bad news. All it takes is the right angle, the right filter, and the right music, and boom! Everyone thinks what you want them to think, even if they think they are doing the opposite.

  -NotACorpo pirate broadcast, talking about the raid on Bestlé, 2057

  The night before The New Phoenix Samurai leave for Mars

  In a heavily secured conference room below the city, next to the portal linking Earth to the Moon, Doma was going over a few final projects to leave behind for Black Log when Shrew and Fleming arrived.

  “Doma, we have quite a bit to discuss and no time to do something about it.” Fleming said in his ‘Posh and proper accent’ that Doma hated, yet never said anything about. His fragile ego needed it.

  Shrew took control of the holo projector on the table, showing the entity of Arizona with two spots highlighted, the Tonto State Forest Reserve and the desert south of New Phoenix. “We have spent the last few days testing soil samples and antithesis mutations, trying to figure out how we missed two huge hives so close to our sensors, as well as where they were getting their biomass to grow so huge in the first place.”

  The map zoomed into the Tonto Reserve first, with numerous notes, data readouts, and stats popping up around the hive tunnels and the two mile diameter void under the forest.

  Fleming fluttered his sleeves, “For here, we initially thought that they were using the surface hives as resource gathering nodes and distractions, finally adapting to eating the trees, plants, and microbes we made. Problem is, the loss on biomass in the area doesn't add up.”

  The map gains a new layer, showing massive dead zones in grey over the blue map. “If they had,” Shrew said, “then this is the area that would be affected in order to grow the antithesis we discovered. But that's not the case. In fact, less than twenty percent of the required biomass was harvested from the Reserve.”

  Doma furrowed her brows, figuring out the next obvious question. “Then where did the biomass come from?”

  “We will get to that, as it's connected to the next part!” Fleming answered impatiently. “Said part is how two hives spread apart by miles and a megacity developed the exact same strategy with the exact same Model Thirty Seven type in command.”

  That caught Doma off guard. She did not know that the two hives had the same Commander model. She flicked through that report and, yep. There it was. She nodded towards the two to continue.

  “The first thing we did was check their DNA markers for similarities, as they might have been made by survivors from an incursion some years ago.” Fleming explained. “This was much harder to do as Senestera had the hive Deleted, but Shrew was, thankfully, smart enough to collect samples from the lower leveled models. I would have preferred a Thirty sample, but-” he begins to grumble as Shrew cuts him off.

  “It took a bit, but we know that these hives are connected from the same incursion, and we know around what time that incursion happened. It was the large incursion Eleven years ago, Doma.”

  Doma felt her breath hitch. Eleven years ago was when most of the current strongest Samurai in Arizona Initialized. An incursion that haunted the current "old guard" of New Phoenix for years, as it was an event that all of them looked back upon with heavy regret.

  She shook her head, “No, wait. That should be impossible. That incursion happened to our northwest, in the festival grounds during the Eclipse festival. We all made sure that every trace of that event was cleaned.”

  Fleming looked pensive while Shrew continued. “And that is where I was thirteen hours ago, throwing as many sensors as I could around. A lot had been fixed over the years, but considering how far down the other hives were, I started my investigation at the edges of my compression foundation.”

  The compressed foundation was a three mile buffer zone that Shrew created below every major town and city in order to prevent tunneling. Somethig that she spend a considerable amount of time each year checking and reinforcing. Doma had allocated support funds to maintain the drones Shrew used, as this was one of their greatest defences that the civilians knew nothing about, not even the support staff of The Family.

  The map shifted to the northwest region of New Phoenix and zoomed down below the undercity, showing the pipes and tunnels of the sewer system, then further into a small pocket barely Shrew sized.

  “From here, I had to buy a new type of Seismograph, as my previous ones didn't go down as deep as I wanted, nor were they as accurate as i had hoped. And that's when I discovered this.”

  A tunnel was highlighted below the city, six miles below the compressed zone, branching in three directions. East, south, and west. Doma felt her face pale.

  “The good news is that these are old tunnels.” Fleming explained. “No antithesis matter and they have basically collapsed. But, with this new machine, we moved to the southern hive and discovered one new tunnel.”

  The map shifted once more to the south. The first thing shown us the collapsed path connecting to the original tunnel. Then, the map zoomed in to the old hive birthing cave, highlighting one tunnel going further below it, nearly straight down.

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  “We think that there is another super structure that connects three hidden hives, two of which we have dealt with.” Shrew said. “We have narrowed down the third hive to be near Williams, but if it is as strong as the one in the Reserve, it would require every single Samurai in Arizona to tackle, because the old guard is leaving to Mars.”

  Doma sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose, “But that does not include the super hive structure even further below our state, which we would need Class V support for.” She readjusts, straightening her back. “Do we know what could set it off? Or even where it's getting its biomass?”

  “We have a few theories as to what could set it off, ranging from a massive seismic activity to a unique signal, with the most likely one being the destruction of all three hive structures, but the problem is we don't know where it is or how far down it is.” Shrew said. “The new Seismograph mapped down to fifteen miles down, but I saw no other hive structures or tunnels. To be fair, i was only able to check under New Phoenix and the tunnels to our south.”

  “As far as where their biomass is coming from, we believe that it is sourcing it from two fold sources. Those being is, of course, converting thermal energies from the mantel, as well as converting the minerals of the crust. The southern hive only had the one hidden tunnel that obviously had a root connection, but no other antithesis materials inside it, leading us to believe it was supplying the hives with biomass."

  “In other words, all Class IV and a decent chunk of strong Class III Samurai are leaving the planet where we have a serious threat resting below Arizona, possibly more states, equal to that thing that ate New Houston, and that we have no idea what will set it off?” Doma asked, though it was more of a summary statement than a question. “There is no way Starfall will let us stay back, especially since there are too many factors forcing us to leave. I will contact Williams and let them know about the potential threat near them, and impress upon them that they cannot, under any circumstances, antagonize the hive until the Class Vs are available. Anything else to report?”

  Fleming and Shrew nods seriously. Doma waves and Fleming speaks first. “Since we leave in eight hours, is there any way I could add a few more cargo pods to the shuttle? Two is just too littl-” Shrew jabs his side before Doma could, causing him to collapse.

  “Bo called me earlier, saying that Tsubuki’s daughter is being targeted by her extended family for kidnapping, and that she has taken shelter with War Games.” Shrew says.

  Doma pauses and shortly after a breeze flows through the sealed room. “Who the fuck is doing what to my goddaughter? And why has she not asked any of us for help?”

  Doma could guess as to the answer of the last question, as she was Blizzard’s daughter, after all. But she still wanted to hear the answer.

  “According to Bo, Tsubuki’s old family from Japan, the Mikosano Family, is trying to kidnap Cari to be their Young Master, as Tsubuki was the heir before she initialized and fled. As far as why she didn't ask for help, she said, and I'm quoting Bo here, ‘She wanted to try and protect herself first, since she has the backup safety net of us. Then, Vic threw a wrench in her plans by charming the tail off her, so now Vic and his family are tormenting the shit out of the assault team, with Cari having killed a semi-Class II combatant on her own’.”

  The breeze died down as Doma regained her control over her emotions. She chuckled at the knowledge that Victor, that sweet child, probably accidentally charmed Cari, of all people. She could see it. He had that earnest air about him that- no, bad Doma. Respect the boundaries he set. He might end up being your godson.

  “So she's safe for now?” Doma asked and Shrew nodded. “Black Log, any remnants of them in the city?”

  The purple Jellyfish hologram appeared next to her. He was always listening. “No. Games’ AI confirmed that they fled the town hours ago. I tired tracking them with Gunny's satellites, but they had already loaded up into a large plane in the middle of the desert outside our surveillance range and are now out over old California.”

  Lucky bastards, she thought. “Put a quiet bounty on anyone from that family while we are away and forward it to Victor's AI, Morrigan. Let her know that she has our full blessing and backing to hunt them down at any time.” Doma wished she could go to Japan and wreak havoc, but she would respect Cari's wishes for now. Plus, she had no time before she had to leave.

  “Let Morrigan know of the hive situation as well. Knowing War Games’ luck, he will stumble upon it, which would lead to the thing below awakening, and he will not be ready for that.”

  The jellyfish saluted and disappeared, with Doma turning to Shrew and Fleming. “If there is nothing else, please make sure you are ready to go. It will take us weeks to arrive, so make sure you have plenty to keep you busy.”

  Shrew dragged Fleming out of the room. Once the door closed, Doma leaned back into her chair. This was the last thing she needed right now, and she could not trust the Samurai who would remain to take care of things before she returned stronger and with reinforcements.

  It was times like this when she wished she had had a partner who she could talk to about these things. While her AI was a nice conversation partner, she never fully trusted them. She never fully trusted anyone.

  She also wished that more Samurai would stay in Arizona once they initialized, even though she understands why no one would want to stay here. Too much heat, terrible corporations that actively encouraged and plotted to get them to leave, and a shocking lack of incursions per capita compared to the rest of NA. It had been increasing over the last three years, but we had too many high Tier Samurai, and barely one initialization per incursion, plus the PMCs had been proven to be slacking, thanks to Victor, causing the old guard to clear any incursions themselves.

  She opened a proposal that she had yet to sign, read it over once more. She sighed, then signed it, stamped it Urgent, and sent it through the system before deciding to go home and sleep in her own bed for the last time for the next few months. Hopefully Victor proved reliable in protecting her city.

  ************************************

  Synaptic intercepted the few messages to Morrigan and read over them. While shocked about the information they contained, she was not surprised. She had guessed that this was a possibility, but confirmation was nice.

  The fact that he had the green light to hunt the Mikosano family was nice, so she redirected that to Outsider and Bahamut to allow them to plot that trip eventually.

  She would not tell Victor of anything about the hives yet as he had too much on his plate. If he left the city and moved near Williams, she would say that it was a contingency of Doma's or something. He had too much on his plate now.

  That said, the other thing Doma decided to push onto Victor took Synaptic a bit more time to decide what to do with. The choice was easy, yet that made it all the more annoying, as she knew that Doma won. Won what? Dont worry about that.

  She would tell Victor after Morrigan's little presentation in the morning, tying it together nicely. It would only be relevant once Bestlé actually invaded, so that would be fine. She did hint at it to Bahamut, though, as this is what he was made for. She shifted back to watching Victor dream, amusing herself with his reaction to the biology lesson she curated for him.