The Legion of Nothing

You know how I’d said that a mass attack from all directions would be a bad thing? That’s more or less what happened.

The smaller room where we’d met Bouman had been the point where the parking garage under City Hall connected to the basement levels of the parking garage next door that were reserved for staff of the city, county, and federal buildings.

With more understanding of our psychology than I’d realized they had, they’d filled the smaller room with a mix of tendril monsters and office workers from City Hall and maybe other buildings too. I could tell from the business casual slacks and button down shirts combined with name tags hanging from lanyards. Between the name tags and the film of mushroom skin over their bodies and faces, I understood the whole situation.

If we wanted to escape by way of City Hall, the way we’d come, the most efficient methods to use would be Izzy’s scream, my bots, and Sean’s buzzsaw of ball bearings. All of those would straight out murder other human beings now.

We could carefully knock people out one at time, but it was slower. We’d probably be overwhelmed by numbers.

That left the other direction—the parking garage where we’d been successfully clearing the room. Our entrance was on one end of the room. The far end sloped upward toward higher levels of the parking garage. About halfway down the room on our left was a ramp leading to lower levels of the garage.

Having an exit in the middle of the level was odd for a parking garage, but the parking garage was new and the buildings around it were older. They did what they had to to make it fit.

The only reason it mattered was that while we’d been fighting, the Fungus Collective had been massing soldiers in both spots—the ramp up and one down. Thanks to the angle, I hadn’t seen the ones coming from below, so that was a surprise.

The ones from below weren’t tendril monsters either.

They were shaped like humans—specifically like Prime. Bearing in mind that Prime’s size, bulging muscles and bald head were his most obvious traits, you could argue that any big humanoid that the Fungus Collective created would end up looking like Prime. It’s not as if the mushroom zombies had fake hair. They all had featureless faces that differed only from the possessed humans in that the full mushroom zombies didn’t have mouths either.

Any problems I might have with the uncanny valley, not quite human look, were secondary to another question. Why would the Fungus Collective make the new zombie model look like anyone at all unless maybe they’d managed to duplicate Prime’s abilities along with his look.

Or at least they wanted us to think they had.

That wasn’t all though. Along with them came low, long bodied creatures that reminded me of alligators or crocodiles if either one had been crossed with mushrooms. Gray skin and rounded, blobby bodies weren’t typical of reptiles, but they were typical of mushrooms.

One more thing? They weren’t limiting themselves to the ground. Both the Prime clones and the blobbygators also ran on the walls and ceilings.

With all that said, remember how I said that they attacked with the sound of thousands of scraping tendrils? Feel free to add in hundreds of wet splat sounds as Prime clones and blobbygators ran across the ceilings toward us at the same time tendril monsters ran across the floor.

Daniel thought at everyone, Our best chance to win is to go further underground and fight the new creations coming from the left. Our best chance to survive is to go back out City Hall or fight the tendril monsters and go up.

Izzy thought back, Then we’re going down?

I felt Jaclyn, Dayton, and Daniel’s agreement. Sean agreed too, but I felt a little fear there along with some weariness. Jody agreed, but his agreement was a layer above a boiling cauldron of terror. Logan’s agreement came along with hunger for combat mixed with horror at his excitement.

Amy agreed as well, but as she said, Down, I heard hundreds of additional voices whisper it with her.

Glowing rapier in her hand, Yellow Mask thought back Down, but watched Amy.

Bouman thought back Down too. Though I didn’t feel his emotions strongly, Daniel felt a whisper of resignation escape Bouman’s shields.

Bunch up, then, I thought at everyone, Blue can clear the way and the rest of us should concentrate on keeping people off us. Plus, someone grab Prime.

I’ll take care of myself, Prime thought back at us. His left arm still hung from his shoulder, but he pushed himself up and his leg worked.

His emotions were a whirlwind. Resignation and acceptance mixed with excitement and a hint of fear and enthusiasm for the upcoming fight.

I made a mental note of the fact that paralysis didn’t work very long on him and we began to run toward the Prime clones and blobbygators with Izzy’s scream leading our way.

Just like before, her voice wrecked everything it touched, but I couldn’t help but note that with the Prime clones, it only turned the nearest ones into partially exploded mushroom slime. A few rows in, they were basically undamaged and in order to have an effect, she needed to point her voice in a direction and keep it there. She couldn’t spray it across the oncoming fighters and expect to take any down.

Meanwhile, the tendril monsters closed on our right flank.