Wombat's Writings
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TH - Book 2 - Chapter 3 - Hidden in the trees
🕑 Added 2024-12-19 16:45:45 +0000 UTC“Forget the corpses, get back into the compound, now!” I yelled as Skyler and I ran towards the security team.
Andre just stared at me in confusion. “What the fuck are you yelling about? Why?”
“The antithesis are coming, now!” I explained. As I glanced back at the woods, I caught sight of Skyler sending her scouts into the darkness.
“So? We’ve dealt with the waves they’ve sent at us so far,” the head of security said blankly. “The automated wall turrets have been more than enough to deal with everything they sent at us so far.”
“This wave will be much larger, and stronger than the previous ones,” I said sternly. “There’s no point in risking your lives when Cleansing Rain, the turrets and I can deal with it.”
“There are Twelves coming!” Skyler called.
I knew she was just updating me on the situation, but as soon as the security team heard that they glanced at their leader nervously. The big man didn’t say anything for a couple seconds, his eyes still locked on me, but he finally gave the proper command. “Into your trucks. Leave this to the experts,” he growled. “Let us know when you’re done, we’ll come out and clean up,” Andre said, while his team scrambled for the vehicles.
“Rain and I have the ability to get rid of the bodies,” I replied quietly. “Get a little rest before the next wave comes. We’ll try to deal with the hive before that happens, but if we can’t your team will need to be in top shape to defend the complex.”
Andre hesitated again, but finally nodded. “Fine,” he said. “Good luck to both of you. Don’t get eaten out there,” he said gruffly before climbing into the nearest vehicle. Seconds later the security vehicles rose as one, and disappeared over the wall.
“They’ll be here in less than two minutes,” Skyler reported as she disconnected from her scout drones and retreated towards me. “Do we have a plan?”
“Put your back against the wall, and have your drones start firing at the largest models as soon as they’re in range,” I suggested. “I’ll cover you, while the automated defenses thin out the horde. How many did you see?”
“More than I could count,” Skyler answered quietly, “but it looked like a number of smaller models climbed onto the Twelves, and the Twelves were rushing ahead, so they’re not going to hit us all at once.”
“They were riding the Twelves?” I asked incredulously.
{Athy: I know when you’ve faced the Twelves previously, they were trying to stomp you into the ground, but both their primary purpose is to transport the smaller models.}
“Normally I’d be horrified, but if they’ve split up their forces and the first wave is clustered around the Twelves, that means Skyler’s mortars should have an easy time dealing with them,” I said.
“They’re coming into range now,” Skyler yelled as she backed towards the wall. “Stand clear!” Her new drones made almost no sound as they fired, I wouldn’t have even been able to tell if it wasn’t for the tiny bit of smoke, and whistling as the rounds traveled through the air. They were capable of a frightening rate of fire, launching a round every second until they needed to be reloaded. That would have been scary enough, but when the tiny rounds landed they unleashed a massive explosion that shook the area.
“What’s in those shells?” I asked in awe.
“Not sure,” Skyler mumbled, her brow furled in concentration. “But according to Athyna they’re equivalent to a Howitzer shell.”
{Athy: We thought it was best to avoid using them in the city, as they can cause quite a lot of collateral damage, but out here there’s no need to hold back.}
“At this rate, nothing is going to survive long enough to make it to the walls,” I grumbled.
“Don’t be so sure,” Skyler replied as her drones ran dry. “You haven’t seen what I’ve seen. They’ll be here soon, get ready! Athy, reload!”
I squinted into the forest, trying to make out any movement, which was difficult with the mortar’s blastwaves rocking the foliage every second or so. When the first Twelve finally came rushing through the underbrush I realized just how dangerous Skyler’s new rounds were. All the armor on one side of the creature had been cracked, and it was bleeding heavily. Even though it hadn’t been hit directly, the explosion had apparently been enough to kill its passengers.
I raised my blade, and prepared to meet its charge, but just as it emerged from the tree line the wall guns opened up. I knew the guns were good, my mother wouldn’t have skimped on security, but I didn’t expect them to be effective against something as large as the Twelve. Not every round penetrated, a couple bounced off the undamaged armor, but most punched right through the damaged side to penetrate the beast's head and kill it.
The corpse dropped, and skidded to a stop more than a dozen feet short of my location. “How powerful are those turrets?” I asked.
{Arty: According to the specs, which Athyna pulled off the network, they’re fifty caliber heavy machine guns. Impressive for automated defenses, but probably would have struggled to put that monster down if it had been uninjured.}
“I’m starting to suspect that I might not actually be needed here,” I grumbled to myself.
I caught a glimpse of a second Twelve making its way through the trees, only for the creature and its passengers to be hit directly by a mortar shell. When the dust cleared, I had to squint to even make out the pieces of the beast.
“I didn’t expect that my new drones would be able to deal with the Twelves so quickly,” Skyler admitted, after her drones stopped firing. “I have to reposition my scout drones to target the second wave. Doubt I’ll be able to stop them all, so get ready.”
“Why? How many could there be left?” I asked.
“A lot!” Skyler yelled back, her eyes already going glassy as she connected to her drones.
{Arty: According to the real-time map this horde is at least twice as large as the one that cornered you in the Tanaka Building. Although Skyler will be able to thin them out, they’re too spread out for her to deal with all of them.}
“That many?” I whispered as I stared into the woods. “Even though I’m confident in my skills, maybe I should do something to even the odds a little.” I reached back and pulled my bow off my shoulder. I hadn’t been using it to kill that many antithesis, I prefered to use my sword whenever possible, but it had its uses. “Arty, give me a dozen monowire arrows,” I whispered.
I felt the quiver on my back shift slightly as the arrows materialized inside, and quickly grabbed one. I didn’t bother aiming that carefully, these weren’t precision weapons, instead I just launched them into the forest in a rough line. As soon as they hit the ground the arrowhead exploded open and spat a tangle of wire into the area.
I’d barely managed to place the last one before the antithesis emerged from the deep forest. A wave of Threes darted through the trees, charging towards our location. Skyler’s mortars blew huge holes in their lines, but the horde charged on.
When the front line hit the wire they were literally torn apart by their own momentum. The incredibly thin wire cut through flesh, almost as easily as my blade did, causing many antithesis to literally go to pieces. The few antithesis that managed to get through both the mortars were met by the automated guns.
I could tell that even with all those lines of defenses, it still wasn’t going to be enough, so I shouldered my bow and drew my sword. The dregs which made it to me were spread out over a fairly large area, so I spent the next five minutes sprinting around the area. As soon as I cut down one of the monsters I had to run off in another direction to intercept another. It was exhausting, but slowly, with the overlapping defensive lines, we managed to exhaust the antithesis forces.
When it became apparent that we’d depleted all the antithesis reinforcements I collapsed to the ground at Skyler’s feet. “That… was… exhausting…” I panted.
“You did a good job,” Skyler said as she patted me on the head, a massive smile on her face. “My drones certainly performed better than I expected, and with your arrows and the guns, things actually went fairly well. I thought we’d have more trouble with that wave.”
“We need to deal with that hive ASAP,” I said after getting my breath under control. “We managed to deal with this wave, but if the hive is growing between attack, even we’ll have trouble with the next one.”
Skyler nodded. “At least we’ll have an easy time finding it, those Twelves left a path of devastation in their wake.”
“They were still less destructive than you,” I joked as Skyler pulled me to my feet. I surveyed the area, glancing at the piles of antithesis corpses and winced. “We really should start cleaning up. If we delay too long it’ll give the hive time to recover.”
Skyler’s drones opened up again, this time, when they hit the ground, they released a green fog which slowly dissolved the surrounding antithesis bodies. “Don’t worry, no matter what the antithesis throw at us, we’ll handle it.”
Comments
Shannon Livingston
Skyler? Or Reina? For Skyler it's more versatile drones, hand held weapons, and maybe power armor For Reina it's bodymods (which she has access to, just didn't have the points) more advanced shields, detection, and more support options (like her arrow and cleanup catalogs)
HikinBear
Body mods so she is more difficult to be hurt and/or heal faster when she is?
TheFoud3er12
Her build is so simple and she is so straight forward that I can even begin to think of an upgrade for her.
