Black Market Merchant

The baby Hoard Mother let out an annoyed rumble seeing that the Hunter Mech had returned. At the sound of its rumble, the remaining six Plain Striders also left the defensive ring and charged towards the Party Badger. This was a lucky break for Lisa. The Plain Striders had been in her way when she tried to attack the Hoard Mother earlier. Just by them being there, they limited the number of places she could approach from or move to attack.

“Awe, more Plain Striders. I am tired of dealing with you guys.” Party Badger responded dully. She then took off her massive sword from its place on her back and pointed at the charging Twisted. “No matter, I’ll just crush you like the others.”

Lisa took a glance at the baby Hoard Mother and seeing it wasn’t making at move at her, she looked back at the Party Badger. The Hunter Mech was in bad shape. The leg, arm, torso, and back armor was bent, mangled, and torn away in just about every conceivable place. There was wiring sticking out at odd places and on occasion sparks would jump out from some of them too.

Lisa sighed and spoke to herself. “I could let her handle the Plain Striders, which would help me out, but I need her to help me with the Hoard Mother immediately. I can hear the gunfire across the dam has gotten worse and there is no telling how much longer their ammo will last. This next set of attacks needs to end this invasion right now or we all are going to get killed.”

Lisa collapsed her katana and stuck it onto her belts magnetic strip. “Well, here goes nothing.”

Lisa then changed directions to dash away from the Hoard Mothers defensive ring and make for the flanks of the Plain Striders. Party Badger wasn’t going to sit back and let the Plain Striders come to her, no, she wasn’t that kind of fighter. The Hunter Mech instead charged straight for the oncoming Twisted, fully intending to fight head on.

The baby Hoard Mother saw what was going on and it could sense the danger the Plain Striders were in. However, the baby Hoard Mother had been holding back for some time now and it wasn’t just idlily trying to take on Lisa or the Hunter Mech one by one. Now that both of its obstacles to hunting down the humans were going to one place, it was time to enact its own plan.

Party Badger engaged the lead Plain Strider first and tried to chop the Twisted in the head with her massive sword. The strike struck true; however, the horns caught the brunt of the blow and the two locked weapons instead. The Plain Strider was stunned for a moment and Party Badger tried to throw it off balance while she had the chance, yet the legs of the Plain Strider held steady and the Twisted only stumbled to the right.

This allowed a second Plain Strider an avenue to charge right at the exposed flank of Party Badger. Party Badger knew of the danger she had been put in and pushed off from the Plain Striders Horns to jump out of the second Plain Striders path. However, she wasn’t quick enough, and the second Plain Strider’s horn struck her Mechs thigh. The force of being hit spun her around once but she managed to catch herself by stabbing the ground with her sword.

“Where is Lisa at?” Tammy said through gritted teeth as she looked through her Mechs sensors. “She was on her way here, wasn’t she?”

Meanwhile, Lisa had easily caught up to the slowest of the Plain Striders and jumped onto its back. Annoyed by her appearance the Plain Strider stopped running and began to buck about and throw her off from itself. Lisa wasn’t going to be acting as a bull rider though, and instead she jumped off the raging bull like monster and landed on the back of the next closest Plain Strider. The same thing happened as with the first, her appearance annoyed the Plain Strider and caused it to stop running.

Lisa jumped off once more to a third Plain Strider and that is when Party Badger noticed what she was doing. A third Plain Strider had also tried to ram into the Hunter Mech after the second one did, but Party Badger was watching and dodged safely this time. In that moment was when Tammy saw what Lisa had done.

“Nice, slowing them down so I can take on these guys in fewer numbers.” Party Badger raised her sword and eyed the three Plain Striders that were lining up to attack at her together. “Three for you, three for me, seems fair.”

This wasn’t going to be the case, however. The baby Hoard Mothers throat suddenly puffed out slightly and it let out three deep, drawn out hums. In response to these unique sounds the woods suddenly became alive with the sounds of screeches and roars. Night Hounds, Logos Cutters, and more Plain Striders came pouring out from the trees from the direction of the cliff revealing that there were even more Twisted than what had first appeared with the Hoard Mother!

Unbeknownst to Lisa and others was that the Twisted they had been fighting up until now were only the ones that had not yet eaten. The baby Hoard Mother had been keeping her healthier Twisted in reserve and it was waiting to see if a moment of disadvantage appeared for the ones that were desperate to eat and then swoop in with the stronger Twisted and crush her human foes plans. The baby Hoard Mother was wisely using its weaker forces as bait!

Lisa felt her heart tighten; they were in trouble now. “Party Badger, forget fighting with these Plain Striders. We need to bum-rush the Hoard Mother now as planned! We won’t be getting another chance once these new Twisted reach us or the dam!”

“Got it!” Party Badger shouted.

Party Badger quickly tossed her sword onto her back and charged at the left most of the three Plain Striders surrounding her. Likewise, the targeted Plain Strider went to ram headfirst into her Mech. But Party Badger unexpectedly planted both hands onto the shoulders of the Plain Strider and leapfrogged over it! The confused Plain Strider could only watch as the over five-meter tall Mech sailed overhead.

Lisa had also attacked her third Plain Strider by stabbing it in the back with her katana. The wounded beast toppled to the ground as Lisa leapt off it before running alongside the Hunter Mech. The two of them matched pace as they headed for the defensive ring of Land Octopus’s.

“How do we get by those tentacles?” Tammy’s voice called out.

“As soon as they launch at us, jump high over them and activate your smokescreen.” Lisa called back. “I’ll go ahead of you and try something then.”

Just as she finished speaking the line of Land Octopus’s launched their phalanx spear attack. The ever growing black, lava-colored tentacles provided no other alternative for them to react other than to jump or retreat. As planned the two of them jumped and a thick grey-blue smog irrupted from the heat exhaust fan of the Party Badger.

Circling to the left to get in between the Twisted coming from the trees and the baby Hoard Mother they quickly blocked the two sides view of each other. The grey-blue smog was very slow to dissipate, and it clung to the ground closely. As designed the smog was meant to act this way and it was even injected with heat and thermal sensor blocking micro chemicals.

The baby Hoard Mother was not happy to see that its plan was already starting to unravel as the rest of its hoard began calling out their confusion. The other Twisted were being warry of the smog as it was not only blocking their vision but smell and hearing were also being affected. The baby Hoard Mother had seen enough. Letting out a high pitch rumble the Hoard Mother’s neck began to stretch, just like the Land Octopus tentacles, to go after the Hunter Mech with both mouths wide open.

“Keep going!” Lisa shouted.

Lisa’s right arm changed over to her arm gun and sliding to a stop in the sand, she took aim at the incoming allegator like head. She fired once just as the head closed half the distance between them. The .50cal bullet struck the top right ruby colored eye of the baby Hoard Mother and it exploded into a black spring of blood and whitish red puss. The entire neck of the monster recoiled in pain as it wailed angrily and along with this pain the baby Hoard Mother also lost control of the Land Octopus’s.

Lisa turned her aim onto the Land Octopus’s as soon as she saw their eyes flutter open. This was what she had hoped would happen. Lisa fired her arm gun rapidly at the bulbus red eye targets, switching from one to the next after every round. Every time she shot a crimson eye exploded, signaling the undoubtable death of another Land Octopus.

“Charge the Hoard Mother!” Lisa shouted again.

This time there were no Land Octopus’s able to attack Lisa and the Party Badger or they would risk striking the baby Hoard Mother. Unhindered, Lisa and the Party Badger collided into the the baby Hoard Mother and started pushing with all their strength. The Hunter Mech was grappling the torso of the large white scaled Twisted, while Lisa initially shoulder slammed the body alongside the Hunter Mech. Then upon landing she started stabbing with her katana at the legs supporting the baby Hoard Mother weight.

The baby Hoard Mother was not expecting to be hit and stabbed by them in this manner and it lost its footing in the loose sand. Feeling the body of the baby Hoard Mother giving way, they doubled their efforts. They were slowly pushing the baby Hoard Mother closer to the cliff that led down to the river. Lisa’s plan was working. They were getting ready to try wounding or kill the Hoard Mother by using gravity as their weapon!

However, the baby Hoard Mother was far from finished in this fight. Ignoring the pain stinging its eye, it attacked as its double mouths swooped down to bite down on the right shoulder and forearm of the Party Badger. There was a loud ‘crunch’ as all the already damaged armor was ripped off from the Hunter Mechs frame.

“Lisa, stop it!” Tammy cried. “Another attack like that will kill me!”

“On it!” Lisa replied as she dashed out from under the belly of the beast.

Lisa then jumped up onto the back of the Mech with her gun arm deployed and just in time too. The baby Hoard Mother had spit out the foul-tasting metal and hydraulic fluids from the Mech and was coming back for another bite. Lisa fired her arm gun twice and from close range, she could not miss. Two more red eyes on the lower left of its allegator like head were torn to shreds!

The bullets must have traveled deep, for the entire body of the Hoard Mother shook and twitched in pain. The baby Hoard Mother began to stagger backwards as it reared back to stand on its hind four legs while the other four kicked out futilely with its cat paw like feet at the Hunter Mech.

Unable to see what was going on from inside the cockpit of her Mech, but able to feel the change in the creature stature, Party Badger moved to grab under the body of the baby Hoard Mother and push from there. If she could manage to knock the creature onto its back it was going to fall into the river far below for sure. They were only just meters away from the edge.

Letting out a desperate yelp, the baby Hoard Mother used its three tails to stab into the sandy rock ground behind itself. Effectively stopping Lisa and Party Badger progress entirely! To make matters worse, when Lisa tried to shoot at the head of the baby Hoard Mother again, nothing happened. She was out of bullets and now they were nearly out of options.