Part 2: The Kids Are Alright (IC)
Shin-Ji had changed. He looked about 20 pounds heavier: not more muscular, just bigger and broader over all. He'd gone from a thin-athletic build to a thick athletic build, just larger and broader over all. His arms, stupidly visible, were now a black and silver appearence. Anything he touched as he moved was smeared by an oily gunk as he walked.
The decision to go ripped gi for his arms was one he'd quickly regret as soon after he woke, he had to bite back a scream and replace it with a stream of sucked in cursing in juvespeak, Korean and Russian swearwords. It was just too much.
He stopped himself as he began to hyperventilate, taking control of his own breathing and trying to think. It was not easy: his arms FELT like his arms, but they looked like some kind of really fancy corp-grade custom ware. His sensei had been augmented with polymer muscle and wired reflexse, but NOTHING like this.
"Congrats!" Thought Shin-Ji. "You got the augments you were debating getting, and it only cost you two arms and two legs!" Of course, that just reminded him that his sensei was dead.
It took him about five minutes of patient breathing and running mental koans before he was able to start the sim. He had to take a break when he heard "That oily gunk you just wiped away? That's your old skin and muscle" to center himself again: though this only took a few seconds. He paused and looked at his ankles: they were the same weird black metal his arms were. He'd get spotted in a second if he didn't cover his arms and legs entirely. At least his body seemed to be normal, uptowards the torso end.
He had to pause and try squeezing an empty energy drink he'd nabbed: it didn't didn't crush (anyone could have done that) so much as deform into a steel ball. " Preem" is all he could let out there as he resumed the v-sim.
The crazy stuff started a few minutes later as Shin-Ji listened twice, repeating the section out of sheer disbelief that he simply must have disheard. He shook his head as he spent the next 10 minutes or so concentrating on his hands.. until his left one slowly formed into a single, lengthy knife edge. It wasn't like a spur, where the blade might pop out of a concealed holster, or one of the fancier mechanical reconfiguring limbs: his arm seemed to mold like liquid, naturally, until his entire forearm was an elongated blade. He couldn't do anything but stare and gawk at it.
"Am I still in a fever dream? This can't be real."
His sim was smart enough to respond to that, affirming he wasn't dreaming.
Numb, and used to following weird orders in the name of physical laerning, he spent the next 10 minutes reconfiruging his fingers into a variety of simple tools, and eventually working out how to pull armor "over" his skin. That was weird, and very difficult, taking Shin-Ji nearly a half an hour.
Concluding the V-sim, he made his way over to a table and numbly began munching some of the ration bars he'd been eating. How did you even begin to process this?