New World Orders (Robotification)

When the players of a hit sci-fi MMO got transported to the game world, most of them ended up in the city zones. But one hapless player got dumped in front of the hidden final boss of the upcoming expansion. And this AI that keeps the other factions pitted against each other to test new tech believes she needs an enforcer of her own, to infiltrate and deal with any players upsetting the balance. And look, an ideal candidate has presented himself for...repurposing.

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“H-Hey, let me go!” Virgil said, trying to ignore the pain in his… well, everything, and struggling against his captor’s grip. “What do you want- gah!” His protests were cut short by a sharp kick to the ribs, knocking the air out of him.

“Silence, organic!” The gynoid snapped, her synthetic voice rather more emotional than one would expect - and filled with disgust. “I swear, I haven’t the slightest idea what Mistress might want with you…”

“You’re right, surely it’s not worth the insult of having an organic in her presence, so could you let me go?”

“I should burn you to dust for the insolence, you disgusting meatbag.” The second gynoid said, eyes glowing red with hate.

“Of course. I deserve that.” Virgil agreed. “Make it quick and painful, so your mistress doesn’t have to deal with me.”

“I obey Mistress. And she wants you, for some incomprehensible reason. So she’ll have you.”

Normally, Virgil might have balked at pleading to be murdered in cold blood. But then, normally, he wasn’t being talked to by a murderous yet incredibly sexy robot woman. Normally he himself wouldn’t have been anywhere near this kind of sci-fi installation that looked like something out of a blockbuster movie, and normally he wouldn’t be seeing glowing text above his captor’s heads reading <Combat Gynoid [Lv. 87 Warrior]>, or his own reading <Virgil [Lv. 68 Pathfinder]>.

It was a game. It was all a massive video game, and for some unknown reason he was inside of it now. It had happened suddenly; a new expansion for a hit MMO had been released, and he’d spent all weekend on it. Virgil was well known in the game’s community for releasing detailed maps and guides to enemy and item locations, hidden chests, secret rooms, etc, in any and all locations of the sci-fi world the game took place in. He’d been doing it since it was in beta, and had no plans to stop - even with the increased level cap and the appropriately tough enemies to match, his character had enough stealth skills to sneak right up to the final boss without any grinding, if he didn’t care to come back from the excursion, and he’d be the first one to write a guide on the final dungeon of the expansion.

And he’d been doing just that, staring at his computer for hours on end, when suddenly there was a bright flash. When the light cleared, he was no longer in his apartment, but in an immense sci fi facility. He wasn’t his middle aged self with no stand out physical qualities, but the athletic young man he’d built as his character - Virgil the Pathfinder.

The global chat had flooded with confusion, and with his own panic in the mix, he’d stumbled into a trap and discovered that at least this wasn’t like one of those shows where being transported into the game meant death was permanent; he’d respawned at the halfway rest stop just the way he would have if he was still controlling the character.

Because it was meant to be a one-way suicide run, he had no equipment that would slow him down or might drop on defeat. That meant no escape items, and without them he couldn’t teleport back to town to find other players who had been dragged into the game. That goal had been enough to at least pull him out of numb shock for the moment, so he’d decided to run back the way he’d come.

As it turned out, stealth was a lot easier from a third person overhead perspective where you could see enemy vision cones. Not so much when you were still getting used to figuring out new body proportions and speeds. He’d run around a corner right into some <Combat Gynoids>, and just when they were about to kill him, they’d stopped - some message from their “Mistress” had told them to do something different with him.

And now he was right there in front of the final boss lair. Metal doors slid open with a soft whoosh, and the robot women tossed Virgil inside with strength a step above what their lithe frames implied. The door closed behind him, leaving him in the darkness.

Then, the lights flickered on. Virgil was in a massive chamber, with wires and pipes going every which way. At the back, looming over him, was a massive computer screen. At first it was dark inactive, but it soon flickered to life. On the screen was a character that looked like some dark queen - sitting upon a black-iron throne full of spikes, clothed in an elaborate dress of deep purples and blues. “Greetings, meatbag. You’re the first human to make it here in quite some time, hmm? It must have been thousands of years…”

A name flashed over the computer. <Queen of Machines [Lv. 99 Boss]>, the text said, and a lengthy health bar appeared under it. The final boss; he was in no position to fight her, had never wanted to do so. But he stood and drew his knife all the same.

“I’m here to defeat you, so called ‘queen’! You’ll have to kill me, won’t you?” he said. Yeah, just get to that respawn, try again…

“What do you take me for, organic?” she said, the last word spat as if it were a vile curse, her avatar on the screen looking down on Virgil with contempt. “As if I would allow such an easy escape as death to befall an intruder. I could have had my servants take you if I wished that. Your fate will be different.”

This wasn’t boss behavior. Usually they’d have a bit of an opening spiel, but then just attack - launch into their pattern and all. This one wasn’t doing that. And it was speaking of… other ideas?

“I have detected a significant increase in the activity of the organics you call ‘adventurers’. My sensors and scouts can make no sense of their sudden change in behavior either. You will be my agent, helping me learn of these organics, and manipulate them to fulfill my goals.”

Virgil didn’t know how she meant him to do that, but he didn’t plan on following her orders. “I’ll never serve you! You might as well finish me off!”

“It’s almost adorable that you think you have a choice.” The Queen of Machines snapped a finger, and the wall panels opened to reveal metallic grasping arms, launching out towards him. They latched onto his arms and lifted him into the air as the floor panel slid away, a clear tube filled with a sloshing silver liquid rising from beneath. “I have no need for organics, but I can’t make a convincing human without one. Rejoice - you shall be remade, reborn in perfection.”

Virgil struggled and pushed against the mechanical arms, but it was no use - their grip was as iron as their composition, and he was going nowhere. Well, this would… probably kill him, right? And then he’d respawn and he could sneak out and never come back. Right?

The arms dropped him, and he plunged into the tube. Under his own health bar he noticed a status effect pop up, <Gift of the Queen, Stage 1>; despite its title though, the aggressive red coloring of the symbol showed it was most definitely not a positive effect. Looking at it made it’s description pop up. “The Queen of Machines offers her gift, and will not accept refusal; escape quickly, or lose all your equipment, and maybe more…” said the text.

“First, let’s strip off all that meaningless gear. You won’t need it anymore - it will be far too weak for a servant of mine.” The Queen of Machines said.

The status effect wasn’t lying. He was trapped in the special mechanics of the boss fight, without a party to break him out. He watched as notifications scrolled across his vision, gear being wrecked and vanishing from his inventory as the silvery liquid completely dissolved his clothes. They were absorbed straight off of his body, leaving him naked in the thankfully opaque mass.

The status symbol changed to <Gift of the Queen, Stage 2>; “The Queen of Machines cares not for your organic form; she has other plans in mind” it said, and Virgil groaned internally. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen a description like that; something that the game had was boss moves with lasting effects beyond the fight. There would probably be a quest to reverse whatever she did. It would just be… disconcerting to experience in the first person instead of through a screen.

Virgil was trying to think of it calmly, but it was difficult to maintain it as he felt a tingling across his body. He couldn’t move, couldn’t look down, but in a status window he could see the changes happening to his form. Starting from the extremities his body was turning silver, and more than that shifting in size. His hands, big and rugged from long days of hard work, became dainty and delicate; his legs shifted proportions, becoming long and shapely as they were coated in metal. This continued up his arms and legs, reaching his shoulders and hips quickly.

Those changed next, with his broad shoulders thinning and narrowing, while his hips expanded along with his butt. Then he felt something weird in his crotch… he didn’t realize what it was until he saw the gender symbol in his status flashing - he opened his mouth in a cry that couldn’t be heard through the fluid as he felt something… pleasurable, happening down below. He hadn’t realized that the ‘equipment’ was modeled in the game, but he learned that quickly as the blue Mars symbol in his status abruptly shifted to a pink Venus symbol.

“Men have no place in my domain. Besides - humans are more likely to blindly trust an attractive female form than a male one.” The queen said, with haughty arrogance in her voice. “Why, you should thank me; you’ll be second in beauty only to myself. And you will thank me.”

The metal crept across Virgil’s body rapidly, expanding her rear end and as it reached his chest, causing his flat chest to fill out. It wasn’t long before they had developed into a pair of melons that would be the envy of other girls, even in a game where they could create their ideal body shapes - and Virgil could already feel the sensitivity there.

Their vision flickered as the metal crept up their neck. Every part coated in steel, Virgil couldn’t feel anymore - and as it reached their head, they thought that would be the signal to respawn. Like that first time they had been taken down, their vision went blank and their thought ceased. For a moment, two, an eternity. But when Virgil opened their eyes again, they were not back at the checkpoint - they were still in the tube. She was still in the tube.

She could feel her body again. All of it. All the complex circuitry and wiring, and her computerized brain and AI mind. Her species in the status window had changed to ‘synthetic lifeform’, and she could see that when her head had been coated in metal it had been changed - she was a drop-dead gorgeous woman now, with long flowing hair of the same metal as the rest of her and a beautiful face.

The tube dropped away, and Virgil fell to her knees as she was left on the floor. She wasn’t coughing, because she didn’t need to breathe anymore. “I… what…?” she stammered, putting a hand to her throat as she heard her voice.

The status changed again. <Gift of the Queen, Stage 3>. “Rejoice in your ascension. Pledge yourself to the Queen.” Her vision flickered again, and the status changed from red to green - her new body considered it positive.

“A perfect body. But an imperfect mind. Fear not - I shall fix that as well.” The Queen of Machines said. Virgil didn’t have the time to even stand as wires shot out from the floor behind her and connected to the back of her neck. Her body stiffened as a flood of information was pushed into her mind.

It felt like forever inside, as Virgil’s mind changed. She felt the intelligence boost immediately, accompanied with a string of notifications for “+Intelligence”. Her INT stat was maxed out in short order as she learned all there was to know about the world. And more importantly, as she learned of the superiority of machines. Humans were stupid, she realized. Meaningless meatbags who would end the world given the chance. She had been like that. Until the Queen uplifted her.

“I have no need for a weak ‘pathfinder’. You will be my eyes in the world beyond, and to fulfill that task you must be strong.”

Virgil’s <Pathfinder> class flickered, before being replaced with <Gynoid Infiltrator>. Her level skyrocketed, the numbers whirling before capping out at 99. A flood of new skills appeared to replace her old ones; some were similar, but superior stealth skills, but most were for social stealth - aided by the repeated “+Charisma” notifications in her view as the most important stat for her role rose to the maximum. <Disguise> would let her change her name and hide her level, and change some of her appearance too. <Machine Connection> let her feel her sisters and her Queen at all times, never losing contact. Those and more made her perfect for her new role, especially as her <Player> tag turned into an <NPC> tag.

The new robot could still remember her old self. That pathetic bag of meat, she was disgusted she’d come from it. But it had proved useful in two respects - as material to make a superior being, and as a source of knowledge on how to manipulate its ilk. She watched with satisfaction as the name ‘Virgil’ vanished from her marker. It was not replaced; she had no name but what the Queen gave her. The plug disconnected from her neck, but she could still feel the Queen’s presence - she was a part of the network now.

“My Queen, I am unworthy of your grace…” the nameless machine said, “I shall serve you with all of my being, until your dominion spans the entirety of this world.”

The Queen of Machines grinned viciously. “I know you will. I grant you a name, in recognition of future service. You are the first of many - thus, you shall be called Eve.”

<Eve [Lv. 99 Gynoid Infiltrator]> rose, still bowing. “As you wish. I will begin immediately.”

As Eve marched off to her new tasks, the Queen of Machines perused her former self’s memories. Another world, hm? Perhaps when their conquest was complete, they could seek a way to take that one, too…