Her Vanguard is surprisingly physically strong, out of distribution from comparable lower-class females, and as the nano-regenerative suite continues its work, those muscles are, if anything, performing even better than they were when she woke up this morning.

She has seventy-five points and now is not the time to get clarification. Also, giving Lenora explosives right now would probably go badly.

A sword materializes in blue shimmer. It's a big, heavy brute of an instrument, two handed, of a design calculated to work best with the grip and swing observed on that abandoned sledgehammer. It's much better balanced than a block of metal at the end of a long shaft. The handle is some strange synthetic material, patterned for excellent grip. There's a hand-guard, and the blade itself is unadorned and quite sharp.

"Class I Melee Weapons, Foehammer." 

(5 points left. She does enjoy a good literature reference.)

She really doesn't notice much about the sword besides that it's a SWORD and she can put it BETWEEN her and the Model Four.

It's not light, but it moves so much easier than the hammer, somehow. Enough that she can dodge to the side and cleave down hard on the most aggressive tentacles.

This is when a terrestrial animal would screech in pain, or perform some form of threat display to try to chase Lenora away.

The model four instead just releases a series of pheromones that signal "threat here," and "other-self was injured," and "attack this," while continuing to grab for Lenora even as she cuts its tentacles apart.

Eventually, it has few enough tentacles that it cannot threaten her, though it still tries to drag itself toward her.

She wants to scream, everything has been happening so fast, and keeps happening, and it's these FUCKERS who are! At! Fault!

She doesn't stop hacking at the main body for a good ten or twenty seconds until after it stops twitching.

It is very dead now. The antithesis are incapable of fear or regret.

If they were, this would have felt it.

Instead, it felt nothing but the need to destroy a threat.

Now it feels nothing.

She seems to have a moment before more are coming, but that is in no way enough kills to end the hive-to-be.

"Fucking fuckity FUCK! This sucks!"

She chokes back a sob.

She slaps her own face. The gash on her cheek barely stings anymore.

Because she took a regenerative thing.

Because she's a SAMURAI and needs to MOVE.

She still has her two guns? And her sword? She runs towards the shelter, covered in blood and Antithesis and wearing a hard hat and steel-toed boots and carrying two guns and a huge sword.

"Now's a good time for some talking. I forgot your name."

"I'm Elyssa. Yes, there's a lot to talk about- The most important thing being, this incursion is far from over. There's a lot more fighting to come. You need to decide what you're going to do."

"I'm gonna fight the Antithesis, obviously! Isn't that what Samurai are for?"

"That's what Vanguards are for! Arguably, you already fought. You saved those four, and you've killed a few Antithesis already- I'm assuming you know how to repair that shelter, which is another thing you're contributing."

"...I mean, I'm the one who can summon guns and super medicine from nothing now. Right? And a lot of people are still in danger, not just here."

"Indeed. I've hacked into dozens of nearby cameras, and the local data-net, and I'm monitoring the situation. There's a number of problems that are going to get worse, and quickly, if nobody does anything about it. The military is active, and other Vanguards are active, but it's not enough to save everyone."

"...Yeah. So, uh, like fuck am I going to cower behind a shelter wall. I'm just one person. So, can I buy a bundle of CoBryTek 6 phase data cables? I've fixed this kind of shelter before it's always the cheap-ass data cables."

"You can. One point. How much do you know about the Vanguard program? How much do you want to know?"

"I went through a phase- Points, catalogs, tokens, I remember the gist, yeah. Forgot most of the details, like what catalogs I wanted..."

"I have access to much more than the internet ever knew about, and I can do a lot better at helping you choose appropriate ones. You have twenty points and three catalogs right now. One point for those data cables."

She's almost to the shelter now. She slows her run and waves to the people at the door- Looks around for more Antithesis- "Guns, swords, and meds? And yeah, send it."

"Hey guys! I know how to fix this piece of shit door!"

"Oh, thank fucking god! Who knows when the plants will come back."

There are four uniformed cops, two off-duty soldiers with buzzcuts and 'private' rank patches pinned to T-shirts, and a middle aged guy with a pot belly all holding guns, guarding the door. They've taken Diego's Hummingbird pistol.

"New Samurai?" One asks rhetorically as a plastic bag appears.

"Yes. If you go to the control panel and replace all the plastic data ribbons with these, it'll shut fine, I'm like ninety five percent sure. L and S cheap out like fuck. Shouldn't take more than five minutes... Hey, did you take that gun from that kid who saved my life?"

"Marty! You heard the Samurai! Go go go!"

"Yessir!" One of the others hanging just inside the door grabs the pack and runs off into the interior of the shelter.

"And yeah, I did. We don't have nearly as many guns as trained shooters, as a matter of civil urgency I'm allocating resources. Uh, have you got a problem with that?"

...She doesn't like it. She doesn't like it at all.

"He seemed like a pretty good shot to me. Saved my butt from one of them!"

"He didn't want to stand and fight, and we need every gun we can get on the line out here. If he wanted I'd deputize him on the spot, but he just flipped me off. So what do you expect me to do?"

"...Whatever, there's no time to argue this out, but I'm not happy."

"I'm not happy that you're not happy, but I'm not apologizing. I don't wanna die any more than he did and a gun is a gun. Speaking of which, do you have any more?"

"Lenora, I expect more Antithesis to arrive within a few minutes. Possibly a lot of them. It's only going to get worse."