Debauchery BioTech (Patreon)

Debauchery BioTech

Chapter 1 

-VB-

Zdice, Lyran Commonwealth. 3029

“{Who?}” Major Denari Kim asked her second.

She and her lance of the Kimberly’s Skyhawk Raiders arrived on Zdice III, a Lyran world in the Bolan Province, to disrupt the weakly defended civilian factories. Their mission was very simple: to distract the Lyran Commonwealth’s regional defenses by running around Zdice III as her role in the Fourth Succession War. It’s why she brought two Firestarters with her. 

But that was before what she just heard.

Sitting inside her personal Phoenix Hawk, she felt horrified by what she just heard. 

“{The enemy mercenary company is called the Priesthood. Just that. Priesthood},” her second, John Winterstif, repeated. 

She felt blood draining from her head and not just her face at what she just heard. 

“We’re falling back,” she hissed. She opened the comm channel to all of her lance and dropship. “Skyhawk Raiders! We’re retreating from Zdice III! I repeat, we are retreating from Zdice III! Captain Marius, I need you down … right there!” she snapped as she pinged a location for all of their computers to read. The LZ point was very close to her lance and in an open field. 

“{Major?!}” Lieutenant Jessica Ardana nearly shrieked. “{What the hell is happening? Why are we suddenly retreating?}” she asked even as she followed Denari’s orders.

“The fucking boogieman lives here, that’s what!” she hissed as she looked up to where her dropship was. The Leopard was faster than most dropships, which was a saving grace here. She had been thinking about changing her dropship with her family’s wealth so that she could bring more mechs in raids like these, but she realized that not changing her dropship might just save her life today.

“{Coming in hot, maj-. What the fuck is that?}” 

Denari whirled her Archer around until she found what Marius saw. Her eyes widened in horror at the sight of the mechs walking out of the treeline that she and her lance just cleared. 

But calling them “mechs” would be a misnomer. 

Mechs did not look like living things, after all. 

The five unrecognizable mechs, each of them unique in their appearance, stalked out of the forest on all fours. Their bodies were covered in bone-like platings but she could see the red “flesh” underneath them and at the edges of those plates. They weren’t humanoid but rather almost like a gorilla but with a pointed bone helmet with baleful lights blinking out of multiple holes all along its plated head. 

Oh, and all five of those gorilla mechs had some kind of organic worm-like rotary gun turrets on each of their shoulders. 

“Fuck,” she muttered. 

To her horror… the lead gorilla-like mech opened a mouth dripping with saliva and roared. 

Then, her radio crackled. A wet sound came out of it. 

She nearly flinched away from her own cockpit at how utterly disgusting it sounded. 

Just then, another “living” mech walked out of the treeline. Unlike the first five, this one was not a plated gorilla. It was a bipedal mech on thin chicken legs plated to the gill, a thin plated body, bulbous shoulders with what looked like more of those worm turrets wiggling inside, giant blades for arms, and a -.

Why did the head have so many eyes? 

“{This is Zend Weslie Zao of the Priesthood within the Blademaster.}” She had a good idea which mech the guy was speaking from. “{This is your last chance to surrender.}”

She gulped before flicking to her company channel. “Marius, how long?”

“{One minute!}”

“Alright… Skyhawk. We have to survive just one minute. Can you do it?”

“{Aye.}”

“{Sure.}”

“{I’ve always followed you, girl.}”

She took a deep breath in. “Attack!” 

As soon as her word rang out, her lance opened fire. 

One of the gorilla mechs took the brunt of the concentrated fire and stumbled back. Its gun turrets blasted off, one of its arms tore off as blood spilled out, and much of its bone plates shattered.

But when the alpha strike came to an end, the gorilla roared as it came charging at them with only one arm. 

While that one charged, the rest of the gorilla mechs opened fire. 

Lieutenant Ardana in her Cicada tried to maneuver out of the way, but got hit by some kind of greenish white liquid shot. Her screams cut off quickly as the mech stumbled and then fell as the liquid ate through the metal. 

And then the “Blademaster” joined in the fray. 

It sped toward her faster than a Locust. She barely took two dozen steps in her Archer before that thing crossed half a click! Even though it was as tall as her Archer, it had to be a medium “mech” to be able to move that quickly. And a medium mech that could move that fast couldn’t possibly be that armored.

She turned all of her lasers and SRMs against the thing and fired.

It dodged.

In the middle of its near human-like run, it almost slid as it sidestepped the lasers, and then whirled around widespread SRM strike. 

Denari screamed as it jumped at her with one of its blade arms held up high.

And watched it come down like a guillotine. 

---

Lady-Governor (Herzogin) Michelle von Zdice felt a shiver running down her spine as she watched as giant animals masquerading as mechs brought the raider’s ruined mechs toward the Priesthood’s transport ship, an aerodyne ship that was bigger than any she had seen before. 

“They have to be the vanguard of some deep periphery power,” she said, feeling utmost confidence in that statement. 

Her advisor and father Johnathan von Zdice hummed in agreement. “But there is nothing we can do about it aside from reporting what we’ve seen. Besides, the LIC and the Archon already knows about them.”

The Priesthood popped upon the Mercenary Review Board some years back towards the end of the Third Succession War. 

“Who else would have that kind of … technology,” she shivered. 

Flesh and machine infused together, if the flesh didn’t outright dominate the battlemech. Their mechs fucking drooled! It was disgusting. It was abhorrent… but they were honest, hard-working, and friendly to a fault. 

When the Priesthood 1st Lodge first landed on Zdice during the Third Succession War, she had just taken over the rule of the planet from her crippled father. They came out in their crimson robes and bone masks, and bowed to her for the opportunity to serve the Lyran Commonwealth.

She had only hired them because they were cheap.

Most mercenaries were stubborn about salvage, but the Priesthood hadn’t been like that. Instead, they wanted “biomass.” She’d agreed before and after she met them for the first time on allowing them to “harvest” 1,000 tons of biomass from her planet each month. That was cheaper than a Locust, and they were willing to trim her forest! 

That had been a mistake. 

Because the Priesthood operated biomechanical mechs, if not outright genetically modified biological creatures. To them, 100 tons of biomass was more important than 10 tons of mech salvage. And they turned biomass into more of their biomechanical horrors. 

Biomechanical horrors that sometimes acted like puppies. Her second son, Jonathan (named after his grandfather), showed way too much enthusiasm about joining the Priesthood. 

And the name was apt for the mercenary company. They didn’t behave like a mercenary company but a religious order like ComStar. They go out to the towns to convert people to join them. 

And that’s where her insistence that this was some sort of deep periphery civilization came from. 

They could treat any disease. They could heal any injury. 

They could cure genetic defects. 

People on Zdice and surrounding worlds flocked to her capital city because that was the closest Priesthood “treatment” facility was. 

And when they weren’t smiling friendly, helping with local events, and healing people, then they were training like madmen. How like a madmen? Her own soldiers who once took on a joint-training mission called the Priesthood’s training methods no different than tortures. 

All of them were mad. 

Every single one of them.

She winced as she heard mechs getting tossed aside haphazardly while her own soldiers shrieked and screamed at the gorilla mechs, which the Priesthood called “Eradicators,” that were carelessly moving the salvages. 

“And what are you going to do?” her father asked her from behind her. 

She glanced at him. He had been crippled before the Priesthood came, but they gave him his legs back. Real legs, not prosthetics. 

She looked back at the Priesthood’s transport ship. “For now? Nothing. They are good neighbors.” She paused. “But I will prepare for the worst case scenario. That this really is some sort of vanguard of a deep periphery power looking to invade the Commonwealth.”

“That’s all you can do sometimes,” he hummed. Then he paused. “But regarding this raid, do you know how many mechs they brought them?” 

“A lance came down in a Leopard dropship, and all four mechs in the lance have been taken down. The dropship left without being captured.”

“Hmm. And remind me again what the salvage ratio was in the garrison contract…?” her father asked leadingly. 

“3-1.”

“Hmm.”

“I will make sure to get the most intact mech for the militia.” Even though he was no longer the Baron of Zdice, he still managed the planetary militia and the lordship guards. 

“Thank you.” And then she froze as she saw the commander of the Priesthood crawling up the side of the hill toward her. Her father laid his hands on her shoulder, obviously noticing how tense she was. 

And who wouldn’t be tense while looking at the … ugly, bloated, and mutated lump of flesh that used to be human? 

What made it was … people actually worshiped that thing as a miracle worker and religious leader of some kind. 

She didn’t understand people. She really didn’t. 

The giant thing, standing nearly two meters tall with a long red robe covering all of its hunchbacked body, came to a stop some five meters from her. Even though it was far enough that she couldn’t reach it, she couldn’t help but feel small under its hunchbacked form. She couldn’t see its face, which was nearly embedded in its bloated body instead of sticking out with a neck. Its arms though… Goddamn those arms. It was all bones and hanging skin feebly clutching onto a gnarly wooden staff that was thicker than both of her arms both together and taller than her.

“Baroness… greetings…” “he” spoke in a raspy moan.

“Karcist Croy. You have defeated the raiders.” It was a statement.

“Yes… we have… We intend to give you the most… intact of the mechs.”

“Thank you for your consideration, Karcist,” her father interjected, using the man’s “religious” title. “And your own…creations. They are fit?”

“Yes… they are… Aside from one Eradi that lost an arm in the engagement, all of the Eradis are available for more… A night in the pools will bring them… up to shape…”

The pool he mentioned was an organic slush of some kind that his cult’s creations were born from. 

She would know.

She watched a humanoid - not a human - walk out from one of those pools. She regretted accepting their invitation to their “creation” ceremony, but she hadn’t known what exactly it was at the time!

“Baroness… we are holding… another ceremony tomorrow… If you would like… then you are invited… to our first ever… birthing ceremony.” Then he bowed with his hulking body. “We will… have one of our orins… waiting for your answer… Have a pleasant afternoon…”

And then he crawled away on his four stubby legs.

Only after the man was far away from her did she allow herself to shudder in disgust. 

“He is very polite and considerate.”

“Yes, I know,” she grumbled. “If he wasn’t, then I wouldn’t even meet him.”

“True. It is … hard to not focus on his unfortunate state.”

---

“So the baroness chose not to come,” Zend Erica Tasilin hummed.

Behind him, Orin Emily Nathandotter stood with her head slightly bowed. “Yes, zend. She said that her schedule did not permit it.” And if LIC agent Karia Takanashi had any say about it, then she wouldn’t here as “Emily” either. 

Everything about this cult she had been ordered to infiltrate was disturbing. 

But the cult was not without merit. 

Its leadership’s ability to mold flesh as they wished was real. She saw one impossibility after another, but because she was on the lowest rung in the cult’s hierarchy, she couldn’t learn anything truly meaningful. 

The cult only allowed the Zends and higher to learn their biokinesis.

“Hmm. That leaves a spot in the ritual open for an observer…” Tasilin, a woman in her 30’s, muttered. Then she paused and slightly turned around. “Say, Emily, have you had a chance to participate in any higher rituals?”

“I have not,” Karia replied meekly, trying to inject the idea of how dare someone lowly like her dare to request herself as a participant… or something like that. 

“Relax, dear. Karcist Croy is a very relaxed person, you know? The scraping and bowing is not something we enforce.”

“Of course.” But she didn’t raise her head. 

She heard Tasilin sigh. “Hmm. Well, would you like to?”

Karia allowed a moment or two to pass before she answered. “I would be honored.”

“Great! Since the baroness is not coming, then we can ask the karcist to start the ritual,” she hummed giddily. “Come, let’s go ask. Everyone should be ready.”

Karia followed subserviently as she followed Tasilin deeper into the Priesthood’s compound. Then they began to move downwards into the ground.

The pristine gunmetal gray hallways gave away to corridors of red flesh. Like all acolytes of the cult did, she took off her shoes and allowed her feet to touch the warm flesh. Oh, and the flesh had a heartbeat to it. She hated this. She hated this. She hated this she hated this shatehatedhatedhatehatedhated-!

Karia allowed her to let out a shuddering breath. 

And finally, Zend Tasilin walked into a domed chamber. Emily jolted when she found her ears abruptly assaulted by heavy chanting the moment she crossed the doorway of the chamber. She glanced at the doorway in question and saw nothing unique or off about it. But how had it prevented the heavy chanting in this chamber from leaking out? 

Another impossibility. 

Because it was impossible to keep the sound of three dozen cultists chanting just a notch below shouting inside an open room without the sound leaking out. 

And then she froze when she saw the giant pool of blood in the middle of the room.

“... Erica?” a rasping voice spoke and the chanting ceased. 

“The baroness rejected our invitation, Your Holiness.”

And then … And then Karia found herself witnessing the bloated body of the Karcist rising out from the middle of the pool. Wait, how did he speak to them if he’d been under all of that blood? 

The coppery stench finally struck her nose and started to nauseate her. 

“Join us, Orin Nathandotter,” Tasilin said and gestured to the edge of the room. “Stand and observe.”

She did as told and waited. Tasilin walked up and joined the cultists as they started chanting again. The karcist didn’t go back under the pool of blood but rather looked up toward the center of the ceiling. 

And then raised his arms up. Blood dribbled down from his body.

His arms slowly curled inward.

His fingers reaching toward himself… 

And then…

She jolted when she heard squelching sounds.

And tearing.

And ripping. 

Karia watched in fascinated horror as the karcist tore into his own flesh and began to pry himself apart. All around her, the chanting rose in pitch and tempo. It didn’t sound like adult men and women chanting anymore. It sounded more and more like laughing children.

She wanted to clench at her ears to make it all stop. 

She wanted to crawl away.

She watched as the bloated body of the karcist ripped open… and a man walked out of the flesh.

All of the cultists dropped to their knees and kowtowed. 

“A god descends!” someone shouted. “A god descends!”

“A god descends!” 

A god descends!

A god descends!

A GOD DESCENDS!

-VB-

A/N: plenty of high tech self-inserts. Inspired Inventor, Celestial Forge, Planetary Annihilation… (Oh, hey. I did two of the three). 

But I don’t think I ever saw a cultist/scp/sarkic cult/biomechanical mech. So I decided to write one. 

Welcome to the D. Biotech, a mix of biopunk and battletech with a dose of Waifu Catalog. And maybe cthulhutech in the future.

In a universe where Highlander Ghost, Black Marauder Ghost, and Zeus Ghosts are canon, bullshit blood magic is not out of context.

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Build:

Intensity 10

Template I: Grand Karcist Ion (SCP-verse)