Chapter Sixty-One - Xenocide Act III; Pick-Me-Up

“Perfect protection is perfectly impossible”

– Ypsilon, Leah’s AI, commenting on Leah’s desire to secure her Littles

 

***

 

“Hey Leah. Feeling dead?” Tinea’s voice was gentle, warm, and deliciously raspy somewhere deep down.

“Murdered. Just coming down from all the fighting. I’ll be fine in a bit.”

“Want some pick-me-uppers? Got these energy boosters when I was running earlier.” She held a little see-through tube out, with marshmallow-looking soft balls squished inside. They’d probably be hella sweet…

“Fuck me, no, but yes. Feed me.” Said Leah, too tired to move. She barely managed the eye twitches to open her helmet’s visor.

Tinkling giggles caressed Leah’s ears, a gummy yummy between her teeth, and then Heaven on her tongue.

“Oooooh…~” Leah could not hold back the almost lusty moan. Oh, that juice, that would be perfect now. “Ypsi, dear. Something to drink, please? Same thing we had yesterday night.”

Sure, Leah! Here you go!

The weight of a familiar box settled on her chest, and Leah mustered the will to plop the straw between her teeth and sucked down godly hydration.

With a groan, Leah finally sat up and stretched her arms above her head. She properly took in the smiling Tinea, watched those glorious and ever-busy antennae questing every which way, how her monkey-slash-cat’s tail swayed easily just behind her back, guns stowed and counterbalanced by a slight shifting of Tinea’s hips, like a subconscious dance to an unheard beat.

Hips that were clothed in quite beautiful armor, forming a long skirt of glittering black plates that slowly swung with Tinea’s gentle movements. The garment reminded Leah a little of feminine knight armor in video games, and it did rather enhance the woman’s already amazing curves. What did they call it? Supernormal stimulus?

…

Armor. She needed some. Leah looked at her combat log and found they had a little more than two thousand combined points. That was…plenty.

Ah. They could afford one of the faster vehicles to get out of dodge, couldn’t they?

Leah caught Tinea’s eyes and said, “Two thousand points. How much longer do we need to stick around? We’ve basically got what we wanted, right? Time to go?”

Tinea looked down, scratched her cheek. Glanced at the lure in the center of the grass.

“We do have enough to leave, right after we buy a few more stealth drones and prep the facility. The only other thing we should take care of, is that nest. It’s too close to the facility. I’m worried they’ll be detected on the way in, if we leave them.

“But after that? We can go and kill that swarm.”

Leah sighed, and pinched the bridge of her nose. More delays. That was annoying.

She wanted to see her littles, to go home and play with them, bouncing one each on her knees…

Fuck. Okay. Remember. Gotta have points to get home, sure. Gotta have even more points to secure everybody. To be safe. Annoying or not, things were the way things were. There was a reason so many samurai homes were considered mad, deadly labyrinths…

She blew out a breath, picked herself up, and asked, “Alright. We use the lure to get all nearby Antithesis to come and kill them, then we figure that nest out, prep the facility… What about that original nest that Tynea suspected?”

“We locate it, and depending on how easy it is to kill, we do that or at least prune it.”

“And after that, we leave?”

“Yeah, we get a proper fighting vehicle and go after that swarm.”

“Right. If we’re going to be fighting here, then I’m actually going to use up points for armor.”

Tinea nodded her agreement, and Leah got up to move her feet a little, to think better as she rearranged her purchase schedule based on their new plans.

More points… But also more things to buy. I’d need some additional equipment for that armor, the new design would have to respect the existence of arms and legs. That meant I’d need to shift those weapons elsewhere? Hmm. That fighting vehicle was going to be from my catalog, and I had my eye on one that was basically a glorified prosthetic to take advantage of my new implant. So, my new armor, should I go for something that could be built up into that future vehicle?

Yeah, that seemed like a good decision. “Ypsi, can you—”

“Leah, I’ll park your ATV near mine, okay?” 

Tinea’s shout interrupted her meditations and Leah went, “Huh?”

She looked at Tinea, and a finger pointing at her machine still stuck between the two fallen trees clued her in.

“Go for it!”

Another nod, and Tinea climbed Leah’s bike, a little encumbered by her armor, before maneuvering it out of the gap to join the other in the middle.

Huh, that was another thing to consider, I’d have to be able to ride the thing while geared up, too.

 

***

 

I watched Leah sitting on her log, sorting out her purchases. 

Couldn’t really help her there, could I? Yeah.

What else to do… Ah, yes.

“Hey, Tynea. Have your drones found anything new about that first nest?”

Only that it isn’t where I thought it would be. I have been able to scout an entire square kilometer around and near the other mass gatherings, and detected no hive structures. The trees do not seem to be tapped for nutrients, and I cannot locate any tunnels or cave entrances, either.

“Well. That’s…weird. Where are all the Antithesis coming from, then?”

Perhaps the swarm, though I find that to be relatively unlikely. Local units should be joining it, not the other way around. Perhaps the nest the Sixes and Fives disappeared into, is the only one in the area. That would make it considerably larger than I had assumed, so far.

“So that would be where all these units are coming from?”

Possibly. Their gathering locations would be rather odd, though. It’s not uncommon for the Antithesis to form up at forward locations, but aside from yourselves, there are no local threats, and if you were the cause of their behavior, then they should’ve put themselves between you and their nest.

Wait. Captain Obvious first. “Uh, have you checked for other nests behind them, from any of our previous positions?”

Of course. Again, I found none, nor cave entrances.

So, they weren’t just from different hives either?

I scratched my head at the riddle. We had at least one nest that we were pretty sure about, one that I was increasingly more inclined to believe was older than a day or two. The Antithesis were either acting strange without explanation, or their behavior was normal, which would point to heretofore unknown spawn locations, except that we couldn’t find any sign of those.

Spawners. Oh shit. I looked at the soft, muddy ground around me. Big shit.

“Tynea. Would you be able to detect mobile hives in this weather?”

If they are on the move I would likely come across them, or at least their trail of destruction, though it very much depends on how distant they are. I’m still operating with a limited number of drones, and have not sent them further than six kilometers in each direction, so as to conserve coverage.

“And if they’re not moving?”

If they are already dug in, then the storm and ongoing rain would have obscured them entirely.

“Well, shit. Is there any way you could find one of those with your current drones, if they remain stationary?”

I would rate that exceedingly unlikely, as the rain is washing away any heat signatures. If they’ve been around long enough, there wouldn’t be a clear trail pointing at them anymore, either. Especially not with these storms.

I scratched my jaw. Model Twenty-Twos could be tricky bastards, but they were usually heavily hindered by their large bodies. Difficult to hide if you couldn’t fit in most buildings without breaking it…

And they’d usually surround themselves with lots and lots of Antithesis. Say, several hundred of them. Of which size we had two gatherings.

“Um, Tynea. Have you kept track of the rate at which those congregations gained new members, and the rate at which members trickled in from the forests?”

Not reliably, no. I can’t get any drones very close, they’re spotted and quickly destroyed. I’m just catching glimpses to keep a near accurate count of units.

“Think we’ve got Twenty-Twos hiding right below those groups?”

I would support that deduction.

…

Time for Bargain Rods From God, again?

Maybe see what Leah wants to do, first.

After all, I still had to get her addicted to the pleasure of utterly eradicating humongous enemies, didn’t I?

 

***

 

“… Alright, looks good. Buy it?”

 

Class I Warforge Technologies Addons: Enhanced Personal Protection unlocked!
Combined Points reduced to... 1970!

New Purchase: Warforge Technologies Quasi-Newtonian Bodyguard
Combined Points reduced to... 1770!
New Purchase: ‘Paladin’ Warforged Esoteric Defense System, Forcefield/Energyshield
Combined Points reduced to... 1570!
New Purchase: Warforge Technologies Universal Piloting Pod
Combined Points reduced to... 20!

 

Leah leaned back and spread her arms, ready to catch the first piece as soon as it appeared on her lap.

It was a very sleek full-body suit of a material so black her eyes found no pattern to catch on, nothing to stop them from sliding willy-nilly all across it. This suit was the first item she received that really showed off the blackbody Warforge aesthetic. It was a hole punched into the fabric of existence, shaped vaguely in the human form.

Moments later, golden lines emerged from its chest, curling in fine detail and elegant curves all across the suit, creating contours where there hadn’t been any. The head gained definition, stylized muscle groups were born, and then the eyes blinked open, white portals into nothingness, white mist falling from them. If one looked at just the wrong moment, the vision of a ghostly skull floating inside an eye socket would sear itself into their memory, a single blink that left behind nothing but intimidated anxiety.

Leah stood up and quickly took off the overall, leaving it crumpled on the log next to her. She pressed the back of the suit to her chest, where it melted apart and flowed around her, molding itself to her body like the darkest of chocolate. It stopped once it encompassed her torso and half of each limb, nor did it cover her skull. Instead it formed a shroud with a gently misting veil that would solidify and snap shut to protect her faster than thought, and the material for the arms and legs flowed to her shoulders to create an intricate shawl patterned with beautiful golden filigree.

The suit was not true armor, but it was designed to be pierce- and slash-proof, and could withstand and absorb considerable kinetic impacts. Leah might find herself bruised by the average emplaced turret, but it would take a tank shell to kill her.

The second purchase, she quickly hid within the folds of her shawl.

Leah’s third purchase arrived, and readied itself for combat. It was a large tilted ovoid with four spider-like limbs that ended in sharp spikes, sunk into the ground past the mud.

The egg was all impossible-black, the only interruptions at the top and front in the form of sockets and sensor clusters.

The limbs were made of three counter-arching segments with white joints and golden curves enhancing the swung lines of each. The egg currently stood half a meter off the floor, with its legs close to the body, roughly a meter wide, and a little more than a meter long.

Attached to the rear of the egg, in the direction it was tilted to, a large black block sat. Its longest sides measured a meter, shorter at the top where the tilt of the egg left less space. It was mostly hollow, with the edges of the block being made of thick swung pipes, echoing the lines of the legs. The top quarter was solid, with two hatches facing upward, and another two downward. The topside ones opened up, and a pair of articulated robot arms extended themselves, mounting two guns of exactly the same model as the one attached to the turret on Leah’s ATV.

Another two arms, these ones with graspers, dipped from below the solid section, but settled immediately back into their recesses once their function had been tested.

As Leah moved towards the egg and Tinea joined her with curiosity brightening her face, the egg unsealed itself and revealed a very small chamber, just big enough to fit Leah’s upper body without the prosthetics.

Intrigued, Tinea asked, “What’s this?”

 

***