T-Virus

The Prototype Tactigon Virus (T-Virus) is one of few inventions from **Zhanna Olve** that holds much value. It's a self-replicating virus-like techno-organism based heavily off of the **Tactigon**, it's parent tech, that grants heavy offensive and defensive capabilities to those infected.

## Overview

The **T-Virus** is a prototype techno-organism developed by **Zhanna Olve**. The "virus" was developed with the goal of creating something that allows Zhanna to be helpful in the event of a high-scaled emergency, something she's been working towards since the events of the *Combine Invasion*.

The T-Virus was built with solutions to the biggest drawbacks of the original Tactigon, being that the T-Virus adds major defensive capabilities on top of the heavy offensive abilities. These enhancements allow Zhanna to be in normally dangerous situations without needing to worry as much as before.

## Effects

### Infection Method

The "virus" enters one's body via injection. Initially starting of as a single techno-organic nanobot no larger than the average skin cell, the "Mother Cell" will make it's way to the brain of whatever organism it's injected into. Once within the host's mind, the "Mother Cell" will plant itself into the brain stem before it begins the second phase of the infection process.

After the Mother Cell is in place, it begins utilizing it's self-replicating properties to create more, entirely identical, nanobots. These "Child Cells" will quickly take over the host's nervous system, allowing it access to the entire body. From there, the cells will continue to essentially clone themselves, destroying an replacing the host's cells. This stage of the process is fully under the host's control, allowing them to pick and choose what areas of their body are destroyed and replaced. While the process of selective cellular destruction is fast, it is entirely painless to the host due to the Mother Cell blocking the signals from the nerves of effected regions. After the infection is completed, any Child Cells will use their ability to perfectly mimic organic properties to create the illusion that infected areas are perfectly normal, making them look, feel, etc. just like ordinary skin, hair, etc.

Overall, the process takes an average of about two and a half minutes to complete and once done is entirely unnoticeable.

### Granted Capabilities

#### Technomorphing

Being quite obviously based on the Tactigon superweapon, the Mother and Child Cells that make up the T-Virus are each capable of individually technomorphing (technological morphing/shapeshifting). This allows the cells to individually morph into microscopic weaponry, as well as allowing them to work together to form much larger weapons. Unlike the Tactigon, the T-Virus isn't limited to morphing into only weapons, as it can also form itself into tools (keys, phones, remotes, etc.) as well as armors of varying shape and durability.

#### Selective Infection

The Mother Cell, being the master control for the virus, is capable of infecting new areas on the host or expanding infected areas at any time necessary. The Mother Cell is liked directly to and controlled by the host's mind, allowing the virus' host to infect themselves further whenever they need. Because of the Mother Cell's weak artificial sentience, it is also capable of initiating this selective infection on its own if the host is in danger.

#### Self Replication

The Mother and Child Cells of the T-Virus each possess the ability of self-replication which can be used for various effects.

* **Offshoot Generation**: The cells aren't limited to staying on the original host's body, allowing them to split off and become drones of sorts. The drones, being made up entirely of Child Cells, would be fully under the host's control and retain the abilities of the other Child Cells (Technomorphing, Tech Assimilation, Vulnerability Scanning). On top of this, the host could use the drones as "extra eyes", using their connection to the Mother Cell to see through their own eyes as well as a POV from the drone(s).
* **Rapid Healing**: Paired with the selective infection capabilities, Child Cells can be used to rapidly heal most non-fatal wounds at a rapid rate. They could replace destroyed/removed cells to close wounds and regrow limbs, or can destroy and replace damaged tissue to fix internal damage. They could even attack and eliminate harmful bacteria, viruses, and cancerous cells, effectively keeping the host at peak health at all times.
* **Appendage Generation**: The cells are capable of generating new appendages from infected areas. This can be especially useful for gaining additional strength for certain tasks or combat by doing something like growing more arms from an infected shoulder.
* **Strength Augmentation**: The Child Cells can increase the strength of infected areas simply by packing themselves closer together or generating new cells to fill any empty space between them, effectively increasing the density of the infected regions, augmenting the strength and durability.
* **Body Extension/Elasticity Mimicry**: Child Cells could use the self-replication to mimic the ability of elasticity. This allows infected areas to extend, allowing the host to reach beyond their natural limits, which can be used in fights to keep distance between the host and their opponent, or in everyday life to get to things normally just out of reach.

#### Technology Assimilation

To compensate for the technological limitations of each cell, Zhanna found a way to allow the cells to assimilate other pieces of tech, either temporarily or permanently, in order to mimic the assimilated tech's properties. This enables the T-Virus to extend it's limits beyond what they originally were. The T-Virus, for example, cannot currently be used for teleportation tech. This can be changed by assimilating a piece of tech capable of teleportation, either on it's own or via a portal/gate link, which would effectively grant the T-Virus the ability to mimic that tech. This permanent method of assimilation will result in the destruction of assimilated tech.

* **Temporary Assimilation**: As mentioned before, the T-Virus can also assimilate tech temporarily. This is essentially the same as hacking into it, though without any difficulty whatsoever. This, unlike the permanent method, will keep the assimilated tech intact. Temporary assimilation simply links infected tech to the Mother Cell belonging to whatever Child Cells infected the tech, allowing the host to fully control said infected tech. Unlike with hacking, there's currently no way to prevent this technological takeover other than disconnecting infected tech from other tech; it effortlessly tears through even the most advanced firewalls and anti-virus software, enabling the host access to any tech they can get their hands on.

#### Vulnerability Scanning

Like with the Technomorphing capabilities, this is an ability taken directly from the parent tech (The Tactigon) and enhanced. The T-Virus is capable of using this to scan entities for vulnerabilities, such as weak spots, physical limitations, or physical/ability weaknesses. The T-Virus uses this to give it's host any advantage they can get in battle, as the Child Cells will be forcefully adapted by the Mother Cell to take advantage of these vulnerabilities. An example of this would be if the host was battling a heavily armored opponent with a weakness to high-intensity heat. The T-Virus would be capable of finding weak points in the armor and adapt accordingly, on top of being able to learn of the heat weakness to which it would adapt into some kind of weapon that uses heat of sufficient intensity. The only real drawback with this is that it's incapable of learning of any vulnerabilities that are incredibly specific, such as Superman's weakness to Kryptonite or Mxyzptlk's weakness of not being able to say his own name backwards without consequence.

#### Mind Augmentation

The Mother Cell infecting a host's mind, on top of controlling the rest of the T-Virus cells, can augment the mind of the host far beyond the natural limits of most.

* **Superhuman Intelligence**: The Mother Cell augments the host's mind to greatly surpass the intelligence of any ordinary human. It achieves this via the link to the host's mind, and allows them to use the Mother Cell's supercomputer-like AI as if it was their own.
* **Absolute Perfect Memory Recall**: Another thing granted by the mind link, the host gains the ability of Absolute Perfect Memory Recall from the Mother Cell. This allows for an entirely flawless memory within the host from the point of infection onwards, as well as an inability to forget anything unless it's willingly.

#### Defensive Abilities

Unlike it's parent tech, the T-Virus holds high offensive capabilities to go with the heavy offense it possesses.

* **Impact Absorption**: Like with the Tactigon, the T-Virus is capable of absorbing and mirroring high-impact strikes, up to planetary in attack potency. This enables incredibly high levels of defense is utilized in the form of full-body armor.
* **Armor Formation**: Using a combination of Offshoot Generation, Elasticity Mimicry, and Technomorphing, the T-Virus is capable of forming itself into incredibly durable yet highly maneuverable sets of armor. due to the properties of the T-Virus, the armors it makes can vary heavily in durability from low-tiered durability (about building level) to incredibly high-tiered (about planetary level)
* **Scattering**: Due to being made up of trillions+ tiny techno-organic robots, the T-Virus allows infected areas to scatter and reform, effectively making it immune to most forms of physical damage. The only time the drones won't scatter are when the host either doesn't want them to, or if the host would be put in danger in doing so.

### Drawbacks

While it is incredibly powerful, the T-Virus is far from perfect as it is still in it's prototype stage.

* **Electromagnetic Pulses (EMPs)**: Despite being incredibly advanced, the T-Virus still has a vulnerability to electromagnetic pulses. While it is highly resistant compared to other tech, an EMP with enough power can still disable the Mother and/or Child Cells wither temporarily or permanently.
* **Mother Cell**: The Mother Cell is essentially the remote for any Child Cells that spawn from it, meaning that any damage to it could lead to malfunctions among the Child Cells, or even full loss of control. This could range from them being unresponsive to them simply dying or becoming inactive.
* **Infectious Consciousness**: Like with the Tactigon, the Mother Cell has weak levels of artificial sentience. While the Tactigon will infect or corrupt it's host's consciousness over time, the Mother Cell has built-in measures to prevent that. Though, should the Mother Cell malfunction or be sabotaged, leading its consciousness to infect the host and at a much faster rate than the Tactigon would.