Bloody Evolution Chapter 10 (Patreon)

'I have long since lost count of the damned Grimm I killed.' I thought even as I heard New Jersey taking one of the pizzas I conjured up to our newest guest.

One who I recognized fairly well in Yang Xiao-Long even if she was wearing a bit more covering and protective of clothes than her usual almost cowboy-themed outfit she wore in the first season.

"Wow this is some sweet digs you got here." Yang spoke and I could feel as Prinz shifted as she stood between me and Yang as she spoke calmly.

"Hello guest, my name is Prinz Eugen and this is my Admiral Jake Barris, you are welcome to seek shelter here and even take over some turrets outside to fight off the Grimm. But I ask that you do not disturb my Admiral who is controlling the defense systems."

There was a moment of silence before my lips twitched as I heard the crunch of pizza crust being bitten into and after a moment Yang spoke. "Is he like asleep or something? And I appreciate the food, and I am willing to help hole the line or whatever I just need a minute to catch my breath and recover my own aura as I got hurt a bit out there."

I took a breath and said. "I am not asleep... It's just hard to keep my focus here when I am looking through a dozen cameras embedded in the turret systems to control them and take out the Grimm from several directions." 

"Alright alright. Anyway, my name is Yang Xiao-Long, can I get the name of the handsome savior who opened their castle gates to me?" Yang spoke with a bit of teasing in her voice.

I lazily opened up a single eye and gave her a look before I gave a chuckle and said. "Jake Barris, common born... Anyway, how is it out there in the forest? I am keeping the bridges and air cleared but there is a lot of the fuckers."

Even if Alice and Velvet rolled their eyes at my crass words I saw Yang relax slightly at hearing how I was common born and using a common tongue. 

"Oh, it's... A shitshow out there, in the shadow of every tree there seems to be a Grimm. And even reloading takes too long with the seemingly never-ending little packs that get attracted to you that you can't kill fast enough to take a breath before the next pack arrives.

Unbidden to myself, I remembered my sponsor's words. A thousand Grimm a day from each of the thousands of Grimm Pools that lay on the Dark Continent.

It was no wonder that the world was just... Fucking overflowing with the damned things.

"I see... Well, you are safe here for now unless Beacon decides to throw some Elder Grimm at us for the Lolz. But even then I have methods should something like that happen." I spoke as I gave New Jersey and Prinz Eugen a look who nodded.

If some wanna-be kaiju of a Grimm came over, they were going to be in for a world of hurt when huge battleship cannons decided to open fire on their asses from a mile and a half away.

But I doubted Beacon would purposefully drive such a Grimm here just to massacre some prospective students when they had already thrown them into the depths of the ocean.

"So has anyone else tried to come here." Yang asked and at that I allowed Velvet and Alice to speak for me as I was busing mowing down a small flock of young Nevermore flying over the gorge over towards the well-lit up platform and our tower.

"Nope! Most people are probably thinking that Jake was just going to run out of ammo by now. But he can just make more with ease and now with night coming. People are either going to bunker down for the night or make their way here... Or die when the converging Grimm overrun them." Alice said bluntly.

But just as she was saying that.

I saw through my connection with the manifested ship was someone walking blank-eyed across the bridge I had made into ship deck steel instead of simple stone.

And as I focused on the face I stilled as I first recognized the girl walking towards me... And then I recognized the head looking blankly at me within Nora's arms.

"New Jersey," I spoke before stalling at a loss of what to say before I swallowed and spoke. "We got another guest in coming. She is going to be mentally distraught as she seems to be carrying another person's head with them." 

Seeing Lie Ren's head being carried in Nora's hands... I had a bit of a thought actually.

I quickly added on as New Jersey got up to bring our new guest in. "Jersey get her to come in quickly. I might have a way to help our guest bind the soul to the decapitated head. Go!"

At my firm order New Jersey powerwalked away at almost a run as she slid through the tight tunnels of the ship down to the floor level while Yang whistled.

"Wow... Bringing a friends head with them after they died, they must be a bit broken right now right?" 

I remained silent while Velvet hissed out. "Don't prod them, let Jake do what he needs to. That person may do something stupid."

A couple of minutes later I blinked as New Jersey had Nora in a hold as she held the valkyrie's arms against her own chest as she held the valkyries to her side. While she held Lie Ren's head in her free hand by his hair.

"Yeah she needed to be man-handled, she won't listen to reason." New Jersey spoke as Prinz walked over and took Ren's head from here and brought it over to me.

I swallowed down my bile seeing the slick gore leaking from the stump of Ren's head but I shook my head and spoke. "I can bring him back with his brain intact, please calm down." I spoke.

But I could feel Nora's eyes boring into me as she said with dead calmness. "If you enslave him as an undead construct I will dedicate my entire existence to killing you." 

My lips twitched hearing that but I delved into my essence and the stump of Ren's neck glowed as a metal plate formed over it with dozens of electrodes and signifiers popped out of the larger ring over metal over the stump.

Then glass was encased over his head which then filled up with a softly glowing green fluid with a speaker system forming on the metal base of the fish tank-like glass case that formed around Ren's head.

Then I looked over Nora and spoke. "You were ignored by the Grimm because he had some invisibility semblance or something right? New Jersey pushed her hand against this please." 

The much stronger shipgirl manhandled the girl into doing so knowing that this girl was... A bit broke at the moment and as I saw a small flicker of grey light flicker into the head case I chuckled as I flipped a switch and the whole thing glowed with the grey light of Ren's aura.

Apparently, humanity cloned a fuck load of old admirals into Head Jars in Futurama when they got tired of complete incompetents like Branagan. So with Ren literally having his soul still around partly it wasn't hard to manifest a Head Jar for him to take over.

And Nora froze as Ren's eyes blinked open in the fluid-filled Head Jar and the coms system linked up to the baseplate on the bottom of his neck came to life. 

"Nora... Where am I? And why am I in nasty pond water that tastes like pepperoni oil?" He asked blankly.

Nora remained blank-faced as she looked at the Head Jar so I coughed and said. "Well, Nora brought your head over to me. So I decided to bring you back to life in a way. You are stuck in the jar unable to do anything other than talk... Or scream."

As Nora and Ren looked at me in horror I coudntly help a laugh as I waved my hands and said. "I am kidding! Uhh yeah, I can make Ren a robotic body he will be able to pilot around and even fight in. But that will need to be after we get to Beacon as manifesting more advanced technology is more costly to my aura." 

"Please let me go." Nora asked softly as she relaxed in New Jersey's arms. 

And as my Battleship looked to me I nodded even as the Avenger Cannon's roared to life outside to cut down a pack of lesser Ursa's that tried to rush down the bridge.

I was more focused on the now with both my eyes opened as Prinz hovered next to me as Nora slowly made her way over to me and kneeled in front of me as I slowly put Ren's Head Jar on my knees so they were but inches apart from one another.

"It truly is you... You have the same light in your eyes." Nora whispered and I couldn't see Ren's expression. But I saw him shake his head and say with forced calm.

"It truly is me... I still have my Semblance though my aura pool... Seems a lot smaller than it used to be. I still remember everything we used to do as kids, when our town fell to the Grimm, when I killed that guy who snuck into the bathroom stall we were sleeping in to avoid sleeping outside in the winter." Ren spoke.

Nora closed her eyes before she slowly took the Jar Head from my hands and brought it up to her chest in a gentle... Scared embrace before she looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes and with a thick throat she whispered with her voice clogged with shattered resolved to as she finally let it all out. "Fank you... Fank you so much." 

I nodded and said honestly. "It cost me damn near nothing. Not a single percentage of aura with how little mass it took to make that construct. However, I will need to give his jar a feeding every day in some specialized chemicals that will keep his mind and nerves in top shape."

Nora nodded swiftly in understanding before she bit her lip and looked at Velvet and Alice and spoke slowly. "You... Will you take me as a retainer? I swear I will do anything you need, I don't even want an allowance or anything. Just... Please keep my Rennie here with me. I need him."

I blinked and looked and 'Rennie' and spoke with a wry smile. "So Rennie... Or Ren, want to continue to live for a long while? I can make you an android-like body where you will be able to feel things and not go too insane?"

Ren spun around... Someone inside his Head Jar and his eyes landed on mine and he met my gaze before he blinked and he nodded within the jar as he said.

"Yeah. I want to live. And I approve of Nora's thought if you would accept her. You are soft, you don't have the crazed glare in the eye of someone who has eaten someone else's corpse or regularly sell people on the black market."

'Well that is a fucking scary thought.' I mused before I took a breath and said. "Alright, Nora. Those two lovely ladies are Velvet and Alice Scarlatina and they will tell you anything you need to know to be my retainer... As I have no idea what you need to be doing seeing as I can conjure up a fortress, food, and ammo for all my machines." 

To which Yang muttered aloud seemingly forgetting that we could perfectly hear her already. "He already sounds like my dad with how he has everything covered." 

With that all said, I took a breath and refocused outside as Prinz silently sat back beside me as the sounds of the cannons outside came back online as I tore apart... Yet another small horde of the bear-like Ursa Grimm with a couple of Ursa Majors sprinkled in with the crowd.

"They never seem to end." I grumbled in exasperation, not even joking but there were quite literally at least a hundred Grimm rushing down my bridges every five minutes at the very least.

It was just a never fucking ender stream of pockets of the bastards trying to run down the bridge to say nothing of the flying Grimm my AA gun's quickly shredded out of the air.

"Ladies, I am going to make some tablets and controllers to control the guns. I am going to get some sleep now before it gets late into the night and you girls to can wake up to trade off watch duty." 

I gave Velvet and Alice control of the Anti Air machine guns and then Prinz got control of the four Gau Avenger cannons to watch the bridges. While New Jersey was in charge of watching the bridges to make sure people if they came could have somewhere safe to be.

"Alright, there is a bunk in the back for me. Yang, Nora, if you girls need sleep... Just sleep on the floor I guess haha." I joked lightly with Yang sticking her tongue at me.

"I see how it is... You make the girls have to curl up on the cold hard metal floor while you go sleep in a nice soft bed!" Yang spoke in 'outrage' making me chuckle at her joking and I just waved a hand as I went to lay down with a full stomach and some pride at keeping Nora from completely mentally breaking.

-

After a while of remaining silent besides some light introductions being made between herself and the two rabbit faunuses. Nora remained silent as she gave Ren some space to come to come to terms with his current state and she could tell from his minute twitches in his eyes...

That her friend had put himself to sleep basically with his semblance so he could pass time until Jake was going to make him a body... As not having a body had to suck! 

Nora shivered and bit her lower lip as she looked at the two weird girls who had ship-based weapons and equipment attached their bodies and she imagined herself in the same scenario...

Locked in a jar with only the sounds of softly rumbling water and the voices of people who deigned to speak to the head in a jar that was stuck there...

Nora had no doubt that with how much pent-up energy she had, she would go utterly mad in short order.

'I need to have Jake make Rennie a new body... One made out of super strong metal! With huge cannons, and hmmm... He needs to have a jetpack and an enchanted lightning gun!' Nora thought before it struck her.

How was she going to have Jake spend all that time... And resources to make Renny such a super stomper so he can never get hurt again.

And then it struck Nora and her body stilled as she bit her lower lip as she realized what she needed to do. She needed to give Jake a reason to make her happy beyond just feeding Ren in his jar.

She got up and went over to Prinz who Jake seemed the closest too and with a tap she got the white-haired girls attention with a grunt.

"Can... I see Jake for a bit." She asked quietly.

And with a quiet but calm voice Prinz said calmly and bluntly. "He needs his sleep." 

There was a pause before Nora put aside any pride and whispered. "He will sleep better should he be relaxed... You know."

Prinz's amber eyes glanced in her own and there was a cold calculation in those eyes before the girl smiled a mirthless thing before she shrugged and said just loud enough for Nora to barely hear. "Fine go ahead. But if you start crying and make him unable to sleep I will throw you into the gorge."

Nora hesitated hearing that before she took a deep breath. And she thought. 'Ren will never get hurt if he is made into a literal tank... I can do this!"

And Nora widened her eyes as Prinz walked over to the window and spoke out to Yang. "Yang here, there is some Ursa coming down the bridge come watch as I make them into mist."

This gave Nora the perfect chance to sneak into the hallway leading to the other rooms of the control tower and it didn't take long for her to find Jake's room.