ALL NOVEL Chapter 30 – All-Devouring Swarm vs All-Devouring Swarm
“Every Samurai is unique in their style. While some may share some eccentricities each has their own approach. Generally you can sort them into four categories:
The first are the melee specialists. These come in a variety of different forms, but all are specialised at killing things very quickly when directly in the middle of the action. Examples would be Emoscythe Mordeath Noir or Maniac.
The second are the ranged specialists, focused on laying down a lot of hurt from far away. While they might have trouble sorting things out in close quarters, they are most often capable of dealing with big targets very quickly. Notable examples would be Crackshot Cowboy, Legion, and Grasshopper.
Next are the generalists, who usually combine the previously mentioned approaches into one. While they might lack the specific approach for niche cases, they usually have a wide range of tools to deal with most situations they find themselves in. Notable examples would be the Battlepoet, and Magpie.
Finally are those that fit into neither of the above mentioned categories. They might focus on a specific approach to combat, or a specific role, such as defensive specialists, support specialists, or those who prefer to focus on social problems. Many Samurai can fit into this category, each for various different reasons. Notable examples would be Teddy for her defensive capabilities, Brighteyes for her supportive skills, Myriad for her swarm type army, and Stray Cat who specialises in Stealth and Explosives.”
- “Overview of the gods of today”, 16th edition
As we had expected the aliens really built up an army down there. Placing the Roses on the other exits did some doing, going through the flood alone would have been suicide so Chloe came with me, as did my Queen’s Guard.
After I placed them down, all but exhausting my point pool for the moment, the flood coming out of the remaining exit was nigh insurmountable. Without Dominium Fortress’ catalogue of huge fuck off guns and the Najav we wouldn’t even have been able to get close.
“I think I might have underestimated the amount of aliens down there. Might earn more points than I thought,” I muttered, looking the situation over.
“Think it would be worth it to put a bomb down? Just a small one to clean up a bit?” Chloe asked, standing next to me.
“If you do, you better stick to small. Really small. I’ve seen what you consider a small bomb, and that would require us to back off further than we really should, with this many xenos around,” Shrapnel said, then looked over at me, “Especially since we don’t want to blow up Myriad’s drones. If any of those fucks manage to get out and find a place to hunker down we have to comb through this entire place again.”
“Fair enough,” Chloe relented.
The Najav was currently busy cleaning up as many small fry as it could, surrounded by an army of xenos and a full lightshow and pyrotechnics display of weaponry. The ground shook every few seconds when it smashed another horde of aliens with its massive pincers.
My army made sure none of the xenos got away, encircling the entire battlefield. It was quite the strain on my mental faculties, not to mention that we couldn’t afford to lose any of my drones to prevent a complete outbreak, even with my Reavers doing whatever they could to keep the Hexclaw production going.
Is it production? Or is it birthing? Whatever, they made sure I had enough new drones coming that we weren’t entirely overwhelmed, but even between the five of them, the Najav, and my own contributions, it was quite the strain. Not least because any new drone meant my attention was split even more. Points were going up, but I also had to spend points quite frequently for biomass by now, since my little pets didn’t get the time to eat their fill between all the fighting.
“I got this,” Dominium Fortress said, before catching some huge black box out of thin air and casually throwing it into the horde of aliens.
“What’s that?” Jenna asked, eyeing the box curiously.
“Fleshmelter bomb. Won’t deal too much damage on non-antithesis, so it should be fine. Won’t clear things out entirely, but it should give us a way in.”
“Huh… I should have thought of that,” Chloe muttered, “I have something similar. Hold on.”
She was quiet for a moment before she pulled a grenade launcher out of nowhere, before catching a magazine out of the air, slotting it in. In short order she aimed it at a couple of groups, shooting grenades with a satisfying thwump noise.
The effect was nearly instantaneous. There was a sudden and painful sound for a moment making me wince, before my hearing adjusted and the frequency was blocked out for me, which I appreciated greatly.
The aliens didn’t have that luxury and in short order a good chunk of the army in front of us started to slowly melt, stumbling around as if drunk.
“Damn… You said I can do that too?” I asked Kaysa in the virtual realm, watching over every bit of data input I could get my hands on.
At this point it was easy for me to split my attention into a myriad (pun intended) different fractions to sort through it all. As long as I didn’t have to organise my drones and fight with them it was even mostly without any additional strain. That didn’t mean it was without any kind of downside, I had already asked Kaysa for some energy drinks twice. I couldn’t wait until this whole mess was dealt with.
Of course then there was also that new thing that had popped up in the back of my mind. It was a sort of… awareness. Something greater was waiting for me. In a way it was similar to having intrusive thoughts, but these weren’t the kind were you had a sudden urge to punch someone for being a dick, or a sudden craving for ice cream, it was… different.
Even with me not being the sharpest tool in the shed I had a pretty decent idea of what it was. And I had to admit, it made me a bit cautious. I knew it would be part of me eventually, and its driving force was the safety of the hive. Of me.
Of us.
Shaking my head I pushed those worries aside, I had enough shit that needed my attention. Arms held out I continued to snipe any model Fives or Nines I could see, although Jenna was already on it as well.
She made for quite the figure standing on top of her mobile base, shooting down the bigger threats one by one with arrows glowing a variety of colours and delivering an equal variety of different payloads.
While both the Fleshmelter nanites and the Fleshmelter grenades used by Bloodhound and Dominium Fortress share the same name, they do use different methodologies to achieve a similar result.
Kaysa was studying me with alert interest as she spoke. Despite me being able to split my attention a thousand ways, it was still a bit hard not to get distracted by the sheer amount of information the various parts of myself worked through.
“Meaning?” I asked distractedly.
Meaning that you can use something similar, but on a much bigger scale. Would you like to have a demonstration?
“Will it hinder my defensive capabilities?”
To a degree. Although considering that you can replenish the nanites expended with a few points, that should not be an issue.
“Alright then, you have the stage. Make a good showing for us, yeah?”
The nanites in my necklace started to emerge, then started to spread around the battlefield in front of me.
For efficiency's sake I would recommend you deliver a good chunk of them directly into the horde of antithesis with your Lance Emitter.
Not needing to be told twice, since I was already firing Lances as fast as I could, buying new batteries as the old ones depleted, I fired a couple of Hard-Light projectiles filled with a bunch of nanites deep into their lines.
I didn’t have to wait long to see the results.
As Kaysa had mentioned, the effect was quite similar to Chloe’s and Dominium Fortress' weapons, but there were differences. First of all, my method was by far not as quick as theirs were. It took a while for my nanites to spread and to melt the aliens they attached to. But the range I had was astounding.
Slowly but surely my nanites spread, latching onto any antithesis in their way until there was an alien free space winding through the xeno horde in front of us, leading directly to the Hive that was still spitting out xenos like a shiver addict in a strip club spit out love juices of various varieties.
Seeing this Shrapnel didn’t waste any time and started rushing down the free space towards the hive. “Let’s move, go, go, go!”
The rest of us started to follow, Jenna jumping down from her base and rushing over. Despite the fact that none of us had any kind of expertise with situations like these up until two days ago, we fell into a defensive formation smoothly.
The inner portion was made up by the Samurai, with me and Jenna forming the very center. Behind us was Dominium Fortress, who had the firepower and range to still wreck some aliens shit even from there, while Chloe was in front of us, her weapons more focused on mid range, with high fire rate and only decent accuracy.
Around us were ten of Jenna’s new and improved Sentinels, forming the last defensive line between us and the xenos. They were big fuckers, easily ten feet tall and each with a massive towershield, a rifle that while normally probably pretty impressive looked comically small in their hands and I was pretty sure was from Chloe’s catalogues, and a sword that was easily twice as long as I was high.
Designwise they resembled curvy Amazonians with Jackal heads clad in Egyptian style clothing, although they still managed to keep the trend of being gorgeous without actually overshadowing Jenna’s beauty. An impressive feat, especially considering their height.
I had seen them before already, of course, coming out of the mobile base, but so far I had paid relatively little attention to them, busy as I was sorting my own army out. Jenna sidestepped that particular issue by simply having an implant to control it all, but she also lost a good chunk of her points that way.
Not that she seemed too worried about it, quite the opposite in fact, since she spent points like water to conjure up various arrows for her bow.
Regardless, after her line of defensive gorgeousness was my own army, Reavers, War Drones, some smaller drones of various varieties, and of course my personal Queen’s Guard. They were flicking through the alien horde like some kind of faulty hologram, only ever visible for a moment before vanishing once more after dealing with one alien or another. Only my healer was sticking close by me, although even she made a good showing of using tools I was pretty certain were designed to heal me as offensive weapons.
Between all of our forces it was a tad hard to kill xenos ourselves, but that didn’t mean we were slacking off. While Jenna wasn’t built to work at this close range, I at least had a weapon for it, even if I had never used it before.
For the first time I was using my polearm, mainly to smash apart a few of the smaller models that managed to sneak between our guard formation. Luckily there weren’t many, my skills with my polearm were rudimentary at best.
“Kaysa, I need something to help me use this thing properly. I know it was originally meant as a sort of last resort, but watching my drones work, I think it would be a smart idea if I learned how to properly fight in close quarters.”
That was something I wanted to talk to you about at a later date. There are many ways for you to learn new skills quickly, or you could take the time and learn them the old fashioned way. Each approach has its benefits and its drawbacks, but considering that for you having that kind of skill variety is important, I have already begun planning out entire learning programs for each approach for when you have some downtime.
I blinked for a moment, not having expected that.
“Uh… Thanks. Good to know.”
Forcing myself to focus back on the task at hand I ordered the Najav to form up in front of us, with some distance of course, wouldn’t want to be caught in the middle of its weaponry, and soon it took the brunt of the frontal attacks.
I had spotted some model Fifteens in there, even if they were quite few and far between, but now that we were on open grounds I wanted something between us and them, since I had seen what their weird spike wheel projectiles could do.
I was just about to see if I could send some drones their way, when suddenly one of Jenna’s Sentinel roughly pushed me to the side, shield raised and blocking one of the projectiles in question. I stumbled but stayed on my feet, helped by Jenna herself.
“You okay?” she asked me in a worried tone.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”
Even before I had finished talking I could feel my two assassins dash towards the fifteen that had just unloaded on us, and within a few seconds the offending alien had been dispatched in a gorey explosion that left its brethren covered in alien goo.
It was a bit of an odd feeling as they were a bit more independent than my own drones, which were just an extension of my own will. My Queen’s Guard had some rudimentary sense of purpose that went beyond my own will. They weren’t self-conscious yet, but they had their own basic thoughts instead of just instincts.
Thoughts I could hear and react to, even influence if I wanted, although that felt… wrong somehow. It was their job to keep me safe from stuff I didn’t notice, so I left them to it mostly.
What it did enable them to do was give me a mental warning if they noticed something I didn’t, and so I wasn’t surprised when one of my tanks appeared near me, one arm formed into a large shield and blocking a second projectile, this one from a model Nine-S.
Jenna had mentioned that she hadn’t yet got something to specifically counter them, so it was left up to me to take care of them.
I sent one assassin after the one that had just attacked us, while I directed some of my normal War Drones to keep an eye out specifically for model Nines.
Eventually we reached the entrance. I had lost track of how long exactly we took to get here, exhaustion and the sheer amount of things I had to keep an eye on taking their toll.
Of course the Najav didn’t fit, but that didn’t stop the damn thing as it simply barged through with sheer force. Houses burst apart, the ground gave out, and soon the entire structure that marked the entrance to the Hive was nothing more than rubble, which the Najav easily pushed aside. My Devouring Roses had grown quite a lot during the time we made our way over and now formed an insurmountable wall around the other side of the hive, lashing out at any aliens with their tentacles.
We didn’t waste any time and moved forward, pushing aside the army trying in vain to stop us. Once we were inside the ruins and the Najav was forced to burrow, Dominium Fortress took to the front of our formation, raining down death and demise on the aliens in our way, while Shrapnel brought up the rear. It was a bit easier now, since they couldn’t continue surrounding us all the time.
I kept close to the middle, paying careful attention to any xeno trying to slip past our defences, arms raised and firing Lances and other projectiles to keep them at bay. It wasn’t easy, exhaustion had definitely taken hold in me, and I had to spend a considerable chunk of my awareness to keep my body from making mistakes.
Shooting down one of the model Fives trying to snipe at us, I looked around, making sure that there were no more aliens between us and the remains of the walls around us. With our flanks secured I focused more towards the Hive itself.
Shrapnel was taking care of all the xenos trying to slip in behind us, Jenna supporting him and taking out some of the surviving bigger xenos that had managed to get out before we blocked the entrance.
Luckily it seemed the flood was dying down. We had been fighting off a huge fuck off army for a while now, and it seemed that even the antithesis could only create more models so fast.
At this point the Najav had become more hindrance than help, and I ordered it to stand guard on top of the hole that led to the Hive. Meanwhile Chloe was going to town with her rifles, spouting bullets like a geyser down the hole the xenos climbed out of, switching out weapons quickly and repeatedly once they were empty.
Movement attracted my attention and I focused on the edges of the tunnel forward. It was quite large, thanks to the Najav, but with our army of drones we took up a good amount of space.
Suddenly one of my assassin drones shot forward in full combat mode, shattering a model Thirteen that tried to sneak up on us to bits. Alien flesh rained down on us in gobbets, and I had to step to the side to avoid getting some of the disgusting stuff in my face.
Jenna did likewise, which meant both of us were out of position for a moment. Alarm bells started ringing in my head as my drones saw another alien shooting for us in that second.
I managed to get a hard-light shield up in time, but Jenna was too slow. Panic shot through me when I realised too late that my shield would not be enough to protect her as well. One of her Sentinels dashed forward, the towershield already deployed, but it too was too slow to intercept the projectile in time.
Luckily for her Kaysa was on point, a nanite armor forming around her in a near instant, blocking the stinger that shot through our defences.
The attacker was marked in my HUD and I sent a flurry of Lances its way. Not stopping to check if they were dead I moved over to Jenna, checking if she was okay. My Queen’s Guard moved in around us, both defensive specialists ready for anything, while the healer helped me check Jenna over.
“I’m fine,” she muttered, breathing heavily.
My healer informed me as such, she was in shock, but unharmed.
Letting out a long sigh of relief I turned back to the hole that led down to the hive. My War Drones had helped Chloe in clearing out the last remaining xenos around us, and were now spreading out to keep an eye both on the entrance to the Hive and the opening in the Devouring Rose wall behind us.
“Chloe, can you chuck a bomb down there?” I asked in the virtual room I had set up to organise the Hive cleanout.
“I could sure, but we aren’t there yet. Don’t think we can take the Najav with us, we need to head in and get closer,” she replied between bursts of her weapons.
“Myriad,” Shrapnel said, “Keep your scorpion up here and some of your drones to stop them from heading back down when we do. How are our defences on the other side?”
“Holding,” Jenna reported, “Between my Enforcer and Myriad’s drones, only a couple have managed to slip through and are being dealt with by Snapshot. The tide is slowing down, soon we should be able to close in and deal with the rest.”
“Good, keep me posted. Dominium Fortress, you and Bloodhound head in first, we’ll follow. Myriad and Legion, you stick close to me. I know you aren’t equipped for this kind of battlefield. Next time it might be better if both of you stayed behind to make sure nothing else surprises us.”
“Works for me,” I replied, then looked over at Jenna, “You holding up okay?”
“Yes, although I realise I really need to think about close quarter combat,” she replied with an unhappy expression.
“After this you will have all the time you need to think about it,” Shrapnel said, “Now, let’s finish this before any more surprises wait for us.”
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