Gamer Fungus

Named after the Moqaddas commander Azrael Gamer (pronounced 'gah-mur'), the Gamer Fungus was a slime mold fungal plague of unclear origin that was first encountered in Durazno, Uruguay in 2014. After depopulating Durazno, it was encountered by ACC during Operation Fallen Palace, after which containment of the fungus fell to the Green Initiative groups in Central and South America. The GIs instead either ignored or downplayed the threat of the fungus despite protests from Moqaddas, and the name "Gamer Fungus" originates from later GI rebuttals over containment of "Gamer's Fungus". GI excuses allowed the fungus to proliferate uncontrollably, resulting in the deaths of 400 million human beings and countless flora and fauna, eventually ending with the conflagration of the entire South American continent.
The fungus is unlikely to be naturally occurring and is instead commonly speculated to be a bioweapon engineered by Vannai-aligned human groups. It is capable of infesting plant and animal life alike, and spreads and grows extremely quickly. Infection with Gamer spores is almost universally fatal without prompt medical attention, even for Pilots with Hydra. Cyberbrains are also no protection against the Gamer Fungus, as the fungus does not actually attack the brain, but the peripheral nervous system instead.
Once inside an animal host, mycelium will quickly spread into and replace the host's tissue, though musculature will usually be spared in order to preserve locomotion ability, and the brain and heart are avoided in order to ensure a continuous supply of blood, the fungus' preferred source of nutrients, for as long as possible. A single prick from a hyphae-quill can cause nervous system damage within minutes, and loss of limb function to the fungus in less than three hours, by which point hyphae will begin to emerge from the skin surrounding the point of infection. Within six hours of infection the host will no longer have control over their own body movements and will be visibly disfigured by their affliction. Although they may still technically be "alive" by this point, they are instead considered to have become "Gamers". "Gamers" are sedentary when not in the presence of a target organism. They target humans and animals with equal vigour, though mammals are preferred over other kinds of organisms. When alerted to a potential target, a "Gamer" will pursue them relentlessly with phenomenal strength and speed far above what they had in life; a formerly human "Gamer" is strong enough to casually rip a human in half and leap atop a single storey building. Being an ultimately microscopic organism manipulating a corpse, projectile weapons have very little effect on them other than to slow their movement through structural damage. As well as functioning as an infection vector, the hyphae spikes serve other purposes as well. They are believed to be the means by which the fungus detects targets, via heat and light sense. They also serve as a form of structural reinforcement in larger "Gamers" and as a primary means of attack due to their sharpness and hardness; these spikes are capable of penetrating skin and hide easily and can even pierce sheet metal with enough force.
Analysis of the few operations conducted by ACC against the fungus has determined that most "Gamers" have the mass of about two people, occasionally three but rarely more than this, possibly due to the size of the resulting creature inhibiting its ability to hunt and propagate. Despite their considerable strength, speed and durability, "Gamers" act purely reflexively and completely lack any sort of intelligence or awareness whatsoever. It cannot learn, plan or coordinate, instead being purely driven by a need to acquire more and more food sources and spread itself as much as possible. This behavior remains true regardless of the size of the "Gamer"; with no need for a central nervous system, individual body parts are able to separate from the main mass and continue to move and act as infection vectors. While this can make "Gamers" easy to plan around due to their predictable and consistent behavior, by the time military force could be levered against it the fungus had subsumed an entire continent's worth of biomass. The sheer weight of numbers combined with exceptional lethality to humans ultimately necessitated the use of the Gamer Fungicide in 2019.
As of 2020 the fungus is believed to have been eradicated, though in 2017 an operation in Chile was carried out by ACC to recover a sample of the fungus from a hidden laboratory of unclear affiliation, which ultimately ended in the sample being intercepted by Phoenix Collective mercenaries instead on behalf of an unknown benefactor.
Category:PACYOA: TE