LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 25 – Apocalypse²
“It is surprising just how hearty people can be, especially if they feel like they have nothing left to lose. Put them in a situation with impossible odds and you will find that there are a lot more fighters out there than you would expect.”
- Dr. Steven Johanson, Doctor of Psychology, 2042
Now that I finally had some defences in place that could take the pressure off me, I once again started to focus on the bigger models in the distance. So far they weren’t that threatening, the biggest being a couple model Eights crawling their way out of the old building, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be a threat. Especially the model Fives were a problem, which is why I focused on them first.
While I fought I kept one eye on the civilians, periodically shielding them from a projectile or two fired by a Five or in one case a model Nine-S. That one was an immediate target and I instantly focused on taking it out.
The fight did mean more points, but by far not enough for me to be comfortable. With most of my Hexclaws too far away for me to get any points from them, my point income was dismal. Something I really needed to look into soon.
Dodge!
Kaysa’s comment ripped me out of my focus, and I didn’t waste any time obeying the order. Out of reflex I threw myself to the side, just as something exploded where I had stood a moment before. Pain shot through my body, something I couldn’t quite parse in the moment penetrating my flesh.
“Fuck!” I screamed, tears quickly blurring my vision. The pain was fucking intense and despite my best efforts my attention got disrupted, ending with me snapping back to reality as one.
That was a model Nine-S. I have something to deal with the problem, if you would allow me.
“Just fucking do it,” I cursed. If she had a way to solve my issues she better fucking be quick.
New purchase: Mark VI Hexclaw War Drone!
Points reduced to: 4
Gritting my teeth I nearly missed the thump behind me, before something grabbed my arms and started pulling me away and deeper into cover. I tried my best to help, but the pain still running through my legs was mind numbing.
Reluctant I let whatever had grabbed me pull me back behind cover, where I finally got a good look at the thing.
The Hexclaw War Drone was… not what I expected. Heavy chitinous armor, six arms, strange long appendages on its back that folded over its shoulders like some kind of barrel, and three long tails that it burrowed half into the ground the moment I was safe. A moment later there was a deep thwump sound and both appendages spouted some green liquid. It lurched back from the recoil, only stopped by the tails working as stabilisers, and I heard a deep thump in the distance, although from my current position I couldn’t see the aftermath.
Ignoring it for the moment I looked down at myself and at my legs. In my time in the redlight district I’ve seen some messed up shit and I really am not squeamish, but my legs look much worse than I expected. Splattered in blood I couldn’t even see the wounds underneath.
“Fuck! Shit!”
Please calm yourself. Your wounds look worse than they actually are. Most of the projectiles have missed you entirely, and the reason it hurts so much is a mild nerve agent from the antithesis projectile.
That didn’t really made me feel better.
“What do I need to fix this?” I asked in a whine while I tried to calm myself down as much as I could.
A Class I Nano-Regenerative would already help quite a lot, although for the nerve agent I would recommend a localised sedative until the wound is closed.
I had just spent every last point, although according to the point counter in my HUD I was already up to over two hundred again, my army quickly killing things around us.
“Just fucking get it. Holy shit, this hurts…”
New purchase: Class I Nano-Regenerative Suite!
Points reduced to: 231
New purchase: Class I Blank-Out!
Points reduced to: 216
The two boxes appeared next to me, and I immediately grabbed the one labelled ‘Blank-Out’.
Simply inject it on your thighs. It should numb everything from your knee down for a little while.
Not having to be told twice I did as I was asked and immediately the pain started to slowly subside. Breathing a long sigh of relief I took out the Nano-Regenerative Suite and inhaled it.
Seraphine, I have bad news and I have even worse news for you. Which would you like first?
I snorted without much humour, obviously she was trying to be funny. “Well, Doc Kaysa, let’s start with the bad news.”
Truth be told I was glad about her attempts at levity, it made the entire nightmare around me just a bit more bearable.
It will take some time for your legs to be fully functional again. Until then I highly recommend you stay where you are.
That had me raising an eyebrow, “I don’t think I can afford to do that. We are slowly getting pushed back and if they have more artillery models then we would easily be overrun and swamped.”
Yes. Now the worse news. The Najav has arrived at the Hive. Please consult your link to the Najav.
I did, already dreading what I would find. What I saw horrified me to my core.
The Najav had managed to get to the root of the Hive, which was located in a small cave deep down under the ground. Once it had burned away all the antithesis flesh, fully melting the Hive, it had discovered a connection leading further. Following that it found a giant cave, easily a kilometer in length, full of antithesis Hives.
An ocean of angry plant was currently trying to get to my Scorpion, which fended them off with its massive claws, flamethrower, and a veritable light-show of projectile weaponry.
“What the…”
I have already convened with the other AI and we have come to the conclusion that this cave is likely connected to any Hive hidden in the undercity. The moment the Najav entered, the amount of antithesis crawling to the surface decreased significantly for a moment, before it increased sharply.
“Fuck!”
I rubbed my face, trying desperately to come up with a solution to this fucked up mess.
“Okay, okay… Can the Najav deal with the mess down there?”
Oh, certainly. It will take a while, but I can’t find any models bigger than a model sixteen, which the Najav can easily deal with. The main problem is not the cavern itself, but the antithesis still making their way topside.
“Good, get on it then. Do the others know?”
The other Vanguard are informed, although for the moment they have decided not to tell the civilians.
“They would fucking panic if they knew they’re standing right on top of the biggest fucking Hive they can imagine.”
That has been the reason, yes. Vanguard Chloe is planning to set up bombs at the biggest openings, to hopefully contain the antithesis.
That sounded… reasonable, I guessed. Or hoped, really.
“How did we miss this?”
My questions were as much out of curiosity as out of the attempt to distract myself from the really fucky mix of pain and numbness slowly crawling down my legs.
As far as I can tell, this Hive was born quite some time ago and not by conventional means. It appears that some antithesis managed to get into the cave underneath the undercity and started growing, although how they managed is unknown as of right now. A more detailed survey is required to uncover that.
“Well, that survey has to wait until we survive this apocalypse.”
Ignoring Kaysa’s warning about needing more time I slowly made my way to my feet, even if it still fucking hurt, and walking was a bit of a pain in the arse.
Finally splitting my attention once more to properly organise this mess, I checked my link with my defenders. Despite their best efforts the aliens had nearly arrived at the defensive line, a veritable wall of dead xenos serving as cover for them.
“We need to get the civies out of here, then regroup and find some way to deal with the problem. The moment I get enough points for more Progenitors let me know. Starting to feel like we could really use an army right now…”
If you wish to build an army I would also recommend upgrading your mental faculties. For the moment I am controlling the majority of the army, but that means a lot less points for you. If you were the one to properly control them, you could make much more.
I groaned inwardly, even more points to spend. Well, she did have a point, right now I lost probably around 90% of the points I was making, especially from my Roses and my Najav. They were connected to me, and I could give them orders, but I wasn’t actually controlling them.
“How much would that be? Just give me a number, we don’t have the time to go over details and I trust you not to sell me crap.”
For a quick fix that would be 300 points, but for a proper solution we are looking at roughly 3000 points.
I checked my point counter. I was up to 700-odd points. By far not enough. With a resigned sigh I quickly connected to Chloe and Jenna inside my virtual realm.
“Chloe? Jenna? How are you guys doing?”
It took a moment before they replied.
“Not dead yet,” Jenna said, probably focusing on shooting shit from the tone in her voice.
“I’m surviving,” Chloe added a moment later, although she sounded exhausted, “You?”
“Got shelled by some model Nine-S, but I’m okay. Hey, I know you just gave me stupid amounts of points when I got the Najav, but the more I look at this mess, the more I realise I need an army. For that I need some brain upgrades or whatever to properly control them. At the moment I lose basically all the points my drones get if they’re farther than a couple hundred meters.”
“Whatever you need, just fucking get it. I’m swimming in points that I can’t spent fast enough and I have nothing big to spent them on if I don’t want to level the entire fucking undercity.” Chloe’s tone made it clear she was a bit busy killing xenos, so probably she didn’t have the time to listen to me beg.
“Thanks love, I promise to eat you out real good after all this is over and done with.”
Chloe spluttered for a moment, not having seen that one coming, and I chuckled to myself.
Not that I had time to daydream about that right now, I had an army to build.
“Kaysa, you heard her. Don’t drain her reserves, but if she’s fine with me getting shit, then let’s get it. How many points does she have right now?”
Atlas indicates that she is sitting on roughly 12000 points at the moment, with half of that available for you to use.
That made my eyebrows raise. “And she has nothing she could get with that?”
She has a lot she can buy with those points. Mostly that consists of smaller purchases for weapons and fortifications, which she is mostly using to properly equip the civilians. The problem is, as she stated, that she has nothing big to buy that wouldn’t lead to copious amounts of collateral damage. Technically she could completely annihilate any antithesis currently on the Surface. The problem with that is that it would also completely annihilate any human population in the undercity and deal serious damage to the infrastructure of the inner city and part of the outer city.
“Fuck… Well, let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth. You know what I need, don’t need a complete list, just get it and tell me how to use it.”
Another loud explosion in the distance made me jump again and a larger orange-red blob on the map near some abandoned camp vanished.
“At least she’s using her points well,” I muttered, watching the map.
A moment later a slew of notifications ran by me, which I completely ignored in favour of slinging some Hard-Light blades into the ever closer horde of aliens. Some of my defenders were now basically face to face with the horde. Luckily most of the civilians had already left, leaving me as the last line of defence.
Two giant eggs that I recognised as the one for Progenitor Reavers popped into existence behind me, quickly cracking open and revealing the Hexclaws within.
They were smaller than Snuffles had been, without the mechanical support bits, and much less dangerous looking. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they weren’t the upgraded kind Snuffles had been.
Instead of jumping the aliens still alive, they started to gorge themselves on the corpses all around us, human and alien alike. That had me a bit troubled, I didn’t like the idea of them eating human corpses, but right now really wasn’t the time to be picky.
I quickly logged the identity of any of the corpses that I could find, promising myself to do something for their families after this mess was cleared up.
I would recommend for you to retreat immediately. The next part of your upgrade could be disorienting.
Not questioning my AI I quickly checked one last time if anyone was still around. Most of them had already left so I turned around and made my way over to the last defenders still around. Walking was a bitch, but I ignored the pain as best I could.
The defenders in question were the rear guard and looked at both me and my army with a bit of awe and horror.
“Let’s drop a Rose here to cover our retreat.” I muttered to Kaysa, who quickly obliged me.
New purchase: Devouring Rose (Variant H, 1500 points)!
Points reduced to: 323
Ignoring the loud crash behind me I continued my retreat, not that I was very quick, my Hexclaws not far behind me. The Reavers were keeping pace with me, while my War Drone formed our rear guard. The smaller models were left behind in hopes to keep the antithesis occupied, although I saw my Sabertooths slowly falling back.
To my surprise, and a bit of suspicion I admit, we didn’t run into any other problems on our way to the closest rendezvous point. Blitzer had set up a smaller outpost, if you want to call it that, with a couple armed guards, a few tents with stretchers, and a station full of refreshments.
I could see some White Doves helping the injured and for a moment I contemplated heading over and supplying some meds for them, but from the looks of things there weren’t any immediately life-threatening injuries. I did shoot the White Dove doc I saw a message to let me know when that changed so I could deliver some meds, but for the moment I could probably use my points far better elsewhere, once I got my upgrade done.
The refreshment station was surrounded by tired looking soldiers. Well, calling them soldiers was a bit overselling it, they were people form the undercity with mismatched armor, if they had any at all, and weaponry that looked to be either Samurai hand me downs or whatever weapons they could salvage and repair from the junkyards.
The moment I stepped closer everyone looked at me. I gave them a friendly smile, tried to hide my injuries as best as I could, and sent my nanites out to heal any surface wounds. It wouldn’t be a lot, but it might be enough to raise the spirits. When I stepped up to the refreshments the people close to it made room, one even preparing a cup and whatever snacks they had for me and handed them to me.
He gave me a nod, “Good work out there. Not sure what the fuck you brought in to clean up, but it worked. We would be dead without you.”
I nodded and took both the offered drink and the snackbar. “No worries, that is what we are here for. Rest up, but be vigilant. We have a couple more Samurai coming in, but it will take quite some time before we are done.”
“As long as there is hope we can endure. The undercity always endures.”
The drink and the snackbar didn’t taste good, but it also didn’t taste foul. And the effect was immediate, perking me right up.
“Alright Kaysa, time for that upgrade. Then see what other fires need putting out.”
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