Imposter System

With the AI restored, the first response mechanism was fully functional and a team arrived at their quarters in fifteen minutes. Alexis and Matt were extremely calm so the team thought they went to the wrong room at first. After sorting out the confusion, they went directly to the medical bay. After becoming Head Investigator, he vetted all of the doctors in charge of Alexis's care and made sure she would be in good hands.

At first, Alexis was fairly calm, but when the contractions began, she realized how difficult it would be. Matt stayed with her the whole time. Once the contractions became more intense and were closer together, Alexis unconsciously released her Fascination, causing the care staff to make a double effort on her. After five hours of contractions, Alexis was at her wits end. Due to her Fatigue Resistance, she still had a lot of energy, but she didn't have anything to numb the pain.

Fortunately, she could begin pushing the baby out at this point. Because she was still fairly energized at this point, the process went by smoothly. The baby's head came out and immediately began crying. It was quite ugly in reality. The nurses immediately took that chance to clean up all the fluids and it made the baby much more presentable. However, Matt underestimated how unappealing it looked. He read that it would take a few days immediately after birth before a baby got their cuteness buff but this was a bit ridiculous.

However, as soon as the baby opened his eyes, Matt knew something was special about this child. The baby locked eyes with Matt and they seemed to have a tacit understanding. They both turned to look at Alexis that was sweating and panting as she held her baby. Then, he fell asleep in his mother's arms. He had very crisp blue eyes that would naturally attract people's attention. Matt noticed a notification and nodded his head.

[Your Ally has leveled Fatigue Resistance!]

[Your Ally has leveled Inferior Spawning!]

[Your Ally has begun evolving into a Blood Wyrm!]

[Sub-Body Alpha:

Host: Alexis Alexeyev

Status: Grade 1 Blood Wyrm

Evolution Points (EP): 406

Abilities: [Fascination Lv. Max], (NEW!)[Fatigue Resistance Lv. 2]

Skills: [DNA Absorption Lv. 10], (NEW!)[Inferior Spawning Lv. 1], [Drug Resistance Lv. Max], (NEW!)[Nurture Lv. 0], (NEW!)[Berserk Lv. 0], (NEW!)[Secondary Reproduction Lv. 0]]

[Inferior Spawning Lv. 1: The Blood Wyrm is the first step to reaching the Hive Queen. It is a parasite specialized in Improving and Enhancing its spawns. Utilizing the host cavity, form an egg that will mature based on the species chosen.

]Spawning: Inferior

[Spawning

Species: Wyrmling, Dracolisk, Tarranaught

Gestation: 216/576/720 hours

Active Spawns: 1/3

Proficiency: Inferior (5/100)]

[Nurture Lv. 0: Use your own blood and Evolution Points to directly improve your spawns. They will grow based on their species.

]Unlock: 2 Evolution Points]

[Berserk Lv. 0: Cause your spawns to enter into a berserk frenzy. They will become stronger for a short period of time.

]Unlock: 2 Evolution Points]

[Secondary Reproduction Lv. 0: Create a tertiary-body that is connected to you and the main host telepathically that will follow simple directions. This tertiary-body may merge with an organism and create a thrall.

]Unlock: 25 Evolution Points]

Alexis had already fallen asleep due to choosing to evolve at that moment. To everyone around her, this seemed normal as she had just gone through a very arduous task. Matt and Alexis had planned this out. They had a long conversation about her future path, and she ultimately chose the spawning route. Once she gave birth, she would activate her evolution and use the cover of childbirth for her weakened state.

As he read through her changes, he found it very interesting. In the game, any players that are infected do not get to choose their path like this. Instead, they are forcibly created into weakened versions of the main Parasite. Their abilities are static and predetermined. However, in Alexis's case, she is actually on the proper path of the Hive Queen except for there being no means to evolve further.

Matt suspected that he would be able to boost her up with him as he evolved again. Thinking of this, he opened his menu and looked at the timer that was ticking down. There were still about one-hundred fifty days before he could create another sub-body. Then, he would mature it and evolve to the next grade. His instinct told him that Alexis would get the opportunity to advance at this stage as well.

He stood holding the baby that was put in his arms and watched his sleeping figure. This child seems to be considered one of Alexis's spawns by the system. It even gave her proficiency for successfully popping him out. Thinking about the description of Spawning, he was glad he didn't choose it over half a year ago. In the game, it was a click of a button. But in reality, he had to 'grow' them in his body. The thought made him shudder.

Soon, Alexandria arrived. She had been immersed in her work and didn't get the message until much later. When she arrived, she was asked to stay outside because the process had already started. Now that it was over, she was able to approach Matt and his baby. She had a look of pure glee when he woke up and started making baby noises at her. She responded with baby noises herself.

After everything happened, the three of them had a long conversation. Since Matt had indirectly sealed her fate to be something other than human, the two decided that it would be best to pull her in. They didn't reveal all of their secrets, in fact, they only shared the idea that Matt was similar to Willard in that he had powers. Because he was directly sheltering her, the council had voted to leave her in his hands. Since he was made the authority on all of Willard's victims and experiments, it wasn't a stretch to include her.

"I insist on naming him Matthias. He is your spitting image!" She said after the baby boy fell asleep again.

"I don't think you can make that call. Also, I refuse" Matt rolled his eyes. He looked at the ugly baby and wondered if this was an indirect insult. Ever since she got close with Matt and Alexis, she began to take more liberties and became more assertive. One thing she had been whispering into Alexis's ear about was naming the baby Matthias if it was a boy or Maddy if it were a girl so that he would match Matthew.

At first, she was tempted, but Matt began 'influencing' Alexis during her dreams and she eventually sided with him and forbade that name. They had long since decided to name him Alex! The paperwork was already settled and his name was a done deal.

Soon, Susan and Sandra entered. They had been waiting outside during the process and now that it was finished, they came in to check on Alexis and the baby. They kept calling him cute and praising Matt for having such a pretty baby. He only shrugged and thanked them for coming by. Ever since the situation around Willard cooled down, Susan and Sandra were officially reinstated and Alexis began babysitting their two little devils.

They had even come to greet their little sibling, but ended up falling asleep since the process was very long. Soon after Susan and Sandra came in, the captain, first commander, and Scorch arrived. Matt greeted them formally and they chatted about various work-related things. Since losing a lot of power, the captain hadn't made any moves. It was clear that there was a lot of tension between him and the council, but he never showed it on his expression.

After the captain and the first commander left, Scorch took him to the side and spoke in a hushed tone.

"Good work on that last case. The council has already approved a four-week leave. Afterwards, you'll have minor duties for eight weeks. Take this time to ensure the future of the Odyssey." Scorch left after finishing what he had to say and Matt returned to Alexis's side. He leaned up against the wall next to her bed and stared at her sleeping body.

A lot had happened in the last six months, and the two of them had to keep an extremely low profile. This meant they never used telepathy to speak, they never brought up topics related to their identities, and most importantly, they didn't feed on anything other than steak. Now that the heat had died down considerably, Matt felt a lot safer. However, there was still no progress on the missing Subject Zero.

Matt reached out and touched Alexis's cheek and she unconsciously nuzzled into it while sleeping. His bond with her had improved significantly due to their regular dream escapades and day to day interactions. There were fast approaching the halfway point to reaching Exveus and Matt was determined to clear all threats for his family to thrive.