Debauchery Worlds 1 (Patreon)

Redo number whatever for the Debauchery(s). Instead of starting off in an AU/historical Earth, we are starting off today at the end of Golden Morning in Worm … and then the Third Succession War in the Battletech universe.

Tags: multiverse, self-indulgent, lewds later, plot and "plot"

-VB-

Debauchery Worlds

Chapter 1

-VB-

Alan(s)

We sat down as the Golden Morning came to an end. Our ragged armors were barely holding on, scorched from top to bottom if not missing outright. The once famous white and red armors of our Legion was now just black.

The original me looked around and counted.

"4."

We started the battle with almost a thousand of us. Having only four minds left after the war…

It stung us all.

Our minds, though joined by the Hive Mind, were semi-independent, and having lived together for years, each mind had been quite unique as any other. J-5 liked to play the violin. A-1, the oldest clone, liked to garden. G-9 was a devoted martial artist. AC-5 was a mangaka.

Gone. All of them were gone.

"Hey."

We looked up and saw Tattletale to our surprise. The original decided to speak up for the rest of us.

"Sup."

Her costume was as tattered as our own, and no doubt she smelled just as bad as we did. Showers were hard to come by on the battlefield and all, and she'd been fighting both CUI and the Teeth in the rear.

"Tired, just like you, I imagine," she sighed and then frowned. "Just four of you left, huh?"

We nodded. We made up the bulk of the initial fighting force Skitter (I refused to call her anything else) rallied against the Slaughterhouse Nine Thousand and then the Golden Morning. We were pretty versatile with our organic and mechanical tech and tinkertech, after all.

… we just weren't strong enough to stand up to anything Scion threw at us. Not any longer than a moment or two.

Scion also had burned down everything. If it was intact still, then the unleashed S-class disasters will destroy them soon enough. There was nothing left for us on Earth Bet, and its sister worlds and timelines would only cause more headaches down the line.

"... you're leaving."

We nodded again. We already had access to a tinketech capable of replicating Doormaker's power. We called ours NavGate.

"Yeah. Our base is gone. Our allies are gone. Skitter is gone. Why stay? There's a whole multiverse out there where we can start over."

She sighed. "I hoped you really would join the Underaiders now that there's so few of you, but I guess not, huh?"

We snorted. "Believe me, Tattletale. If you put your booty on the line, we would have."

"Sorry, but you know me. Details get to me too much."

"Uh huh, so you say."

We all stood up and one of us activated the NavGate. A tear in space slowed opened like a maw, and all of us but the original moved on.

"You don't want to join us?" I asked her. "You know we take care of our people."

She grinned sadly. "Sorry. Gotta take care of my boys and girls, you know?"

"Suit yourself. And good luck."

"You too."

And then I walked on through, never to see Earth Bet or another parahuman again.

-VB-

F-7 (Alan)

I was F-7, the seventh clone of the F-series. These numbers and letters meant nothing in reality. In reality, the original designated each clone (who was also him and he was also me) by the n-th time he used the power plus one through ten. By this naming system, A-1 was the first of us clones, and I, F-7, am the thirty-seventh clone to be made.

I somehow survived the Golden Morning with our other-selves because I got lucky; Scion’s second to last beam killed three of my brothers but not me because I had taken a chance to loot something from a rundown store. You never knew when you would last have a bite of a snack. I may not be a Twinkie junkie but I sure was a jerky lover. Yeah, that saved my life while D-1, E-8, and G-2 didn’t survive because, despite all of our minds being within the gestalt consciousness, they had been focused on shooting Scion with our energy guns.

I was so lucky, in fact, that I was one of four who survived, which included the original!

And now, we were on an unfamiliar world, ready to make something of ourselves again.

We did it once before after losing every single support base. Why can’t we do it again?

… But, well, there was a bit of a problem.

We just ran into a big ass mech in the middle of a bombed out street?

And we kind of took it down rather easily. It was easy! We just aimed our energy guns - energy guns made specifically to counter the likes of Scion - and shot a few times. Phew phew phew! One of us struck the cockpit and probably killed the pilot, because the mech fell over with a few new holes, including the cockpit hole, and then didn’t get back up nor did we see anyone trying to get the fuck out of it.

‘So, now what?’ A-2 asked within the hive mind.

‘Don’t know,’ the original hummed. ‘We should try to -.’

Another mech came around the corner of the bombed-out street.

“Ah shit, here we go again.”

We raised our guns and fired.

-VB-

A-2 (Alan)

The mechs looked familiar.

The wartorn and blasted-to-hell urban streets looked familiar yet oh so different from what I was familiar with in Earth Bet and our original Earth.

Smoke plumes rose up from other parts of the city, and there were definite sounds of fierce fighting of bullets, missiles, rockets, and lasers.

Were we in some science-fiction setting? Hundreds of years into the future?

Perhaps on a different planet as well because the double moon shining in the night sky certainly wasn’t Earth-like.

“A-2, focus,” the original grunted.

“Okay,” I replied as I looked back down.

So far, they managed to secure this street, and the original got to work on creating something from the ruined remains of the mechs. The dead pilots had been dragged out, and parts were being taken apart and fixed into less damaged of the two mechs.

I glanced at what the original was doing and got a sense for what he was trying to accomplish. The mech was still usable, just missing a few parts and damaged. With the tools at our disposal, we could fix it up and use it ourselves.

It would certainly make for quite the distraction -.

R-1 paused. He was the only one of us four who had any kind of dedicated sensor tech on him.

“250, smaller mass, approaching fast.”

250 out of 360. That was almost directly toward the west on our compass.

I whirled around with our gun ready.

And then saw a chicken-legged mech pop out. This one had a huge ass gun attached to the top of its hunched body as well as two arms that ended with even more guns. What stopped us from shooting was the different color scheme on the mech.

The mech obviously thought we weren’t their enemy, too, because it saw us and the downed mechs and stopped.

“This is Captain Anderson of the 41st Avalon Hussars! Identify yourselves!”

‘What do we do?’

‘Shoot?’

‘No need to make more enemies.’

‘What name should we go by?’

‘Same as before?’

‘Legion is kind of ubiquitous.’

‘Also, who calls themselves Hussars when they aren’t even Polish? This guy sounds English as they come.’

‘Right?’

‘I was thinking that, too.’

‘... I mean, if this guy’s proudly calling himself a hussar, maybe we should go ham, too?’

‘The fuck? Are you sure you’re me? That’s kinda cringe, yo.’

‘Shut up, F-7. We’re all the same.’

‘Yeah, but I’m not contemplating calling myself something Manchu Banner.’ Pause. ‘You’re not seriously considering that, right?’

‘No, I was thinking more in lines of Streltsy.’

‘... Russian terror soldiers, Kremlin guards, child killers, and non-stop warring soldiers of Ivan the Terrible? You want that kind of a name?’

‘On second thought, it’s not great.’

‘You two are stupid. We’ll just call ourselves something boring.’

‘No, I don’t wanna be boring!’

‘All of you shut up.’

A-2 watched the original step up and raise a hand to get the pilot’s attention. “We are mercenaries who’ve been on this planet. Are you interested in hiring us? If you aren’t sure of our capabilities, then please refer to the two mechs we downed behind us.”

Before the captain could respond, another mech rounded the corner from the same direction as the others. This one looked lighter … but it also had its guns up and already aimed.

“Shi-!”

It fired from its main pelvis laser gun and its supplementary shoulder-mounted autocannon guns. It peppered the bigger mech piloted by the captain and also made a streaking burn across one of its legs with the laser gun.

The laser struck something weak and burned right through the captain’s left leg. Its structure collapsed and the mech fell forward, landing with a steel crunching squeal and massive boom.

“You stupid bastard, announcing your location like that!” the new mech pilot laughed. “Alright, either get out of the mech or I can shoot the cockpit.”

There was a hiss and a creak as the cockpit opened and a man crawled out with blood trickling down his lips, forehead, and left eye.

‘Is that a bodysuit?’

‘What the hell is that weird helmet?’

‘Ew, I can see his bulging dick.’

‘You’re supposed to say “Damn, the boy’s got some Grade A donger” like a proper bro with a deep voice.’

It was only then that the new mech noticed us.

“Now, who the f-”

The original raised up his gun and fired.

A blue energy beam burned right through the cockpit and burst out of the mech’s rear.

With the “wartorn city” bgm ringing around us, the mech “silently” keeled over and collapsed backward.

“W-What…?”

We turned to Captain Anderson, and he looked at us in shock.

“Well, do you want to hire us?” the original asked as he lowered his gun.

“W-Who even are you?”

It was then that the original’s thoughts leaked into the hive mind.

‘Wait, no-’

‘Come on, seriously?’

‘That’s boring!’

“Marris Mercenaries.”

‘Boo!’

‘Boo!’

‘Boo!’

‘Shut up. We’ll never get a name down if I leave it to the rest of you.’

A-2 didn’t dispute that. The original did take hours just deciding on a name for a fanfiction. It would take days to come up with a name for a mercenary company.

“F-Fine. I’ll hire you. How much do you want?”

The original walked over and crouched in front of the captain.

“Explain the situation and then I’ll give you the price.”

-VB-

DD-5 (Alan)

Essentially, the year was 2990, and the planet we were on, Planet David II in the System of David, was owned by a interstellar polity called Draconis Combine. Captain Anderson was part of the 41st Avalon Hussars, which was a military unit of the Federated Suns.

He used the still active comms on his downed mech to contact his superiors, and we managed to get in contact with the commander in charge of the 41st Avalon Hussars.

Hauptmann General Rachel Jamakawa was a very stern woman.

“Infantry mercenaries, not even a company in size, took down three mechs?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Captain Anderson, a middle-aged man with short curly brown hair, a pencil mustache, and strong jaws. “I have personally witnessed them taking down one of the Combine mechs, a Locust.”

“I see.”

While we had zero knowledge about where we were and what the current situation was, it looked like we were in some kind of interstellar human civilization where people fought each other using giant mechs. Aside from the cool factor, I didn’t see how useful mechs were supposed to be. Perhaps this human civilization had advanced defensive measures like advanced metallurgy, nanofabrication, shields, and other offense-diminishing or negating factors. Kind of like knights in space; the medieval era was one where individual defense had the advantage over the individual offense. Otherwise, knights would not have been a thing.

Was that the case here?

It might also mean that there was a rough class system in place to promote the growth of such warriors, regardless of social mobility into and out of such a class.

“This is Hauptmann General Rachel Jamakawa of the 41st Avalon Hussars, serving Prince Andrew Davion of the Federated Suns.What are your terms?”

We looked to the original.

“... Are you here to conquer?”

“Yes.”

“Then I want any of these mechs we down ourselves. We will provide video evidence for each mech. Otherwise, if the conquest of this world is successful, I would like ten hectares of contiguous land of my choosing.”

“... I will agree if you only take two-thirds of the mechs.”

“Mechs are important, no? I am not even asking for money. You do me a disservice by demanding more from me when obviously we are capable.”

‘Ah, I see,’ DD-5 thought. ‘The original is also unaware of this world, so he is using what we do know: mechs are important, infantry are generally not treated well or recognized as important, and our appearance (high-end sci-fi power armor with big ass laser guns) was odd if the captain’s own appearance was any indication.

“Yes. You are capable. Very well. If you cannot provide sufficient video evidence, I will consider it invalid. The kill shot must be in the video.”

“Good enough.”

“I will send this over to the MRB.”

The MR-what?

-VB-

Precentor David

Infantry mercenary companies were ubiquitous enough that even on small worlds there would be a few that might not be registered with the Mercenary Review Board.

Still, if an infantry mercenary company took down more than a mech, they would have already used it as a chance to raise themselves up as a mech mercenary band.

Yet Precentor Toga Johannes of David didn’t see “Marris Mercenaries” on the MRB’s registry.

It was probably one of those small world security companies, then, taking advantage of coincidences and the like to secure a contract bigger than they could handle.

He snorted as he gave the contract his approval.

If they failed, then the consequences would be on their heads.

Now…

He looked out of his window from his office within ComStar’s local branch office in the HPG station.

‘I wonder how much longer the scavenger lords intend to ravage my world.’

-VB-

Alan Marris (original)

I looked at the incoming data and accepted an isolated min-computer connected to my powered armor. It looked like a … pdf file. It looked like to me that this universe was a descendant of my - our - baseline universe just like Earth Bet.

I really did not expect to encounter a pdf file in the middle of a mech battle.

I looked through it, signed off one last time, and the contract was set.

“Good hunting,” the captain said before one of his people’s armored cars came over to pick him up. The door on its side slide open with a heaviness of heavily armored platings, he got on, and the car drove off quickly after.

With a scoff, I turned to my clones.

“Boys, we have a chance to get in on the ground floor of this planet’s administration by being filthy rich,” I grinned. “What do you say for some … asset acquisition? After all, war is good for business, and it’s been a while since we had business.”

“Did you just rip that from Star Trek?”

“You’re not even a Trekkie!”

“Boo…”

“Everyone’s a critic, even my clones,” I grumbled before hefting my rifle up. “Alright, DD-5, activate your long-range scanners. None of the usual shit that they might be able to detect. A-2, you’re my point man. F-7…”

All of us looked at the problem child. How was he even one of my clones?

“Don’t wander off.”