The Hivemind was not sure what it was meant to be doing, watching a lot of its crops be destroyed by the ongoing fight above. Those massive whips, claws, and shots of light and shadow hit everything but their targets, creating large amounts of damage to the surroundings. It was a miracle both had decided to put the fight into the air, lest they would have been able to destroy the entire farm.

Even when asking the other managers about the insurance they would be paid out from the destroyed crops, those part of the farm had no chance of making them gain a profit. Perhaps a lawsuit was in order if the Hivemind survived the next few hours of life. The work of its entire career was being destroyed. The vessels it had gained were all fine, sure, but the work put in through their efforts was near-entirely gone. They had already removed the crops from some of the farms but a gas leak had been detected already. When Heroes and Villains fought, it wasn’t meant to be this destructive.

Oh? The Biomancer vessel had finally found what the Hivemind had been looking for. Even when the battle above raged on with no end in sight, even when its life was potentially over in due time, there was no time like the present to try and gain a new free vessel. It had been granted that chance the moment the Hero by the name of Tesla had been thrown out of the sky quickly. The speed of that tendril had forced the Hero to land in the forest at a speed that would have normally killed any regular vessel yet the experience of pummelling a certain Vigilante half to death had made it want to see if there was a chance of taking the half-dead Hero and using it for the Hivemind’s purposes.

And that was exactly what the Hivemind seemed to have a chance of doing just that, the Biomancer sent out to search for the fallen Hero finally bearing fruit. Just next to a few destroyed trees which had been rammed through using pure force and momentum lay the half-dead Hero. One of the arms was bent weirdly, blood was seeming through that blue suit, and the woman herself didn’t seem to move around too much. Yet those slight movements were all the Hivemind needed to be sure of. The body was still alive and could certainly be kept alive for long enough for the Parasite to hatch properly. A round of using [Ether] would help fix up the body and the Hivemind would be able to have a new and improved Powered Vessel once more. It had been waiting for quite a long time for the last one to finally work properly. The Parasite was getting impatient.

Opening up into the storage area of the brainstem, the Bionacer pulled the egg out of its mouth before moving the fallen Hero around. They were breathing alright, that slight twitch of the hand showing clear signs of life. Now it just needed to-

“My left pocket,” the Hero said as the woman breathed harshly, seeming to be close to gagging on her blood. That wasn’t good. “Open my left pocket.”

Having the choice of seeing the potential vessel die on the forest ground or having the chance to implant the egg at another time, the Hivemind put the egg back into the Biomancer’s mouth before following instructions. Searching through the pockets on the left side of the suit, it finally found a syringe kit with a few vials of green liquid attached. How peculiar a thing, the liquid surprisingly thick. The Hivemind wondered what it was.

“Inject it,” Tesla gasped in pain. “Inject it now!”

Looking at the syringe again, the Hivemind did its best impression of a mental shrug before taking the syringe and jabbing it into a vein, letting the liquid stream out in quick order. The slight green colouring possible to see inside the veins as it travelled through the body was quite peculiar yet the changes afterwards were even more.

The broken arm set itself back into place with a loud crunch and the Hero screamed in pain as her body continued to shift. Even though the suit, the Hivemind was able to see the tensing and unsensing of muscles as more than a few parts sat themselves back into place. Just how damaged had the body been? Surviving at that stage while conscious had to have been more than just pure will.

“Right,” Tesla had to say after the entire thing was done. “That was infinitely more painful than I ever thought humanly possible. Thanks for the help, big man.”

With little hesitation, the woman went up on two legs once more, twisting the arm which had been painfully broken in half just a few seconds before. The Hivemind looked down at the other green vials it had in its hand, wondering just how much energy was stored in those things. At the look the Hero was giving the Biomancer, it put most of them back into the small bag, leaving a few sitting in the palm through manipulation of his power. The Hivemind was going to study it later if it had the chance. There was little chance it was letting those go.

“Are you going to go back up there?” the Biomancer asked, the Hivemind using the man’s eyes to look at the ongoing fight. The Hero and Villain were moving through the sky at incredible rates, firing off endless waves of shadow and light at each other. How they were able to keep it up for so long was beyond the Parasite. It would have lost all mental fortitude after a very short time. There was only so much it could do with the powers, even with the new upgrades to its abilities.

“I don’t think I can,” Tesla said, briefly making the Hivemind wonder if the woman had temporarily lost her abilities. If so, it would try to get a new vessel at that moment. “Those two are too powerful. I can’t do anything but be in the way.”

She still had her powers. A shame.

“Then are you just going to wait around here?” The Biomancer questioned, putting more eyes on the fight as it was ongoing. They were taking a detour from the farm and over to the forest itself, the Parasite more than happy about that development.

Maybe the two fighters above would destroy some trees instead of multi-million dollar farming equipment for once. Too much of what they had sitting around was uninsured for Hero-based damages. And, yes, it had checked. There was little else to do when sitting around.

“I can’t do that either,” Tesla rejected, clearly not being of good mental stability. She couldn’t interfere but she also couldn’t not interfere. Was this just another quirk of human intelligence malfunctioning? “There has to be something I can do.”

The Hivemind wasn’t so sure of that. The fighting above was not ending anytime soon, though the amount of light relative to the darkness was lessening. Old age might not have won the Hero any favours. The Hivemind wondered if it would be able to live if the human by the name of Jared won. The man seemed entirely focused on killing the Hero ‘Lux,’ so there was a real chance to consider.

“Running is a viable option,” The Hivemind offered. It had already wasted the chance of getting the Hero into its repertoire. It wasn’t going to advise them to waste their life.

“But it’s one I can’t consider,” Tesla fired back. The Hivemind wondered why she was even still here. “If I let this crazy person be, they’re going to destroy this place and every other city that he can find. These people don’t stop with one death. They stop once they are the ones who are killed.”

Right. Reevaluating its possibilities, the Hivemind quickly discovered its lacklustre chances of surviving by just sitting back. But… What could it do? The Hero that was more than able to kill its strongest vessel was currently standing around entirely helpless so pure firepower wasn’t something it could contend with.

Except… it did have something it could use.

“With your power, you can produce more power than the average bolt of lightning, yes?” the Hivemind asked, having some manner of an idea to use.

“Yes?” Tesla answered, clearly unsure on why that topic of all things was being brought up.

“Can you do it for several minutes?”

“Of course, I can,” Tesla said again. “Why are you even asking this?”

“I have a Railgun we might be able to use then.”