Corpse Disposal is just as if not more important than repelling the actual antithesis.

Even a single Model One could create a new hive that takes multiple seasoned Samurai to get rid of.

Why do you think my paints actively dissolve them to begin with?

Saves us a heap of trouble at the end of it, that’s for damn sure.

-InqueAbyss to xeir stream chat, 2055

“Pyri what direction are they coming from?”

They are approaching from all directions except North.

Scanning my surroundings, I did spot a very climbable tree. The only thing stopping me from taking my place among the canopy was the fact that I knew it was a horrible idea.

The antithesis’ sense of smell was far too powerful for a simple trick like that to fool them. Let alone the limited mobility and the fact that Model Ones existed.

“Any ideas?”

Shoot them really good.

I snorted, “Other than that!”

That is your best course of action. The terrain isn’t easily manipulable here without more points. Not to mention what you were able to achieve earlier today.

In other words; trust yourself.

I couldn’t respond to Pyri in that moment due to the small group of antithesis finally coming into view.

The rifle in my hands instantly snapped up, taking potshots through the trees, either blasting chunks of wood and felling the tree that was hit, or tagging a Three and electrocuting it on the spot. The Zapper on top of my pack also made its presence known by firing off large forks of lighting hitting multiple xeno dogs at once.

I pretty much spun around in circles slow enough to not make myself dizzy. Letting the Zapper clear out Models in the directions I was falling behind on. It was almost like a dance of electricity.

I was also glad I had protection against bright flashes, because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to see anything past the spots that would’ve been left in my eyes.

“Pyri! You think I could start pushing towards the hive?”

You could start moving in that general direction, yes. Be warned that as you fight your way towards the hive, you will attract much more attention as you encroach closer to their territory.

“That just means I’ll be in a target rich environment!”

I slowly started walking in the direction I had been going before the Nine had interrupted me. It was kinda easy in a way. Swing my gun in one direction, and pick off some Threes on the ground, and the occasional Four up in the trees while Pyri used the Zapper to sweep forward and clear space for me to keep walking. I’d then swap to another direction so the Zapper could clean up what I had just missed.

Slowly, we made it through the woods as their numbers began to dwindle. I couldn’t tell if it was just a trick, or if I had just worked through all the antithesis in the area however. The trees were still too thick for me to be able to tell what was going on beyond my immediate vicinity.

Eventually a low power warning blared in my HUD and ears while I was crossing over a small stream.

Whether or not I almost fell into the water from getting frightened, I will not say.

“Fuck me!”

I quickly muted the alarm as I crouched down, and began swapping another battery in the Trill’s energy port.

“Pyri, what are my points looking like?”

Targets Eliminated! Model Three x78 780 Model Four x13 195 Reward: 975 Total: 1003

“That’s more like it!” Grinning, I finished my reload before I stood back up and started pushing forward again.

“Pyri what options do I have for corpse removal?”

For the needs you outlined earlier, I would say an entry from your Vulgoran Biological Sciences catalogue would work nicely. It is a fluid full of bionites designed to break down antithesis matter while leaving anything else alone. Once applied to a corpse, they will slowly eat away at the flesh until there is no more food for them to consume where they will die out. In addition, if the antithesis recover the infected bodies and bring them back to the hive, those that came into contact with the body, and the hive itself will be infected as well.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

I stopped short, “Pyri why am I pushing to the hive to rip it out by the roots if I could let an infection kill it off?

Because that method of hive destruction would yield a much lower amount of points, and eventually the hive would purge its systems by birthing new Models marked to not be reclaimed, and sending them out to fight you as fodder. Also if the infection doesn’t kill the hive off, it will mutate resistances to the bionites and pass those on to any Models born afterwards. This also goes for any method including or similar to poisons or infections, which is why you don’t see many Vanguard focusing on those particular vectors of attack.

I knocked another Four out of a tree with a bolt of lightning, “So. it’d act like if we hit every pest and weed possible with chemical treatment. We’d just end up with resistant populations.”

Exactly.

That specific comparison also reminded me of one of the dangers of chemical treatment overuse.

Runoff.

“What about environmental effects? You said they just die off once there isn’t any more antithesis meat for them to consume, but how?” I turned to toss a primed grenade into the stream to block any would-be followers. “Not to mention if they’d leech chemicals into the soil.”

The bionites aren’t able to consume biological matter outside of antithesis flesh, and if they attempt to do so, a biological kill switch hard coded into their genetics will treat outside matter as a poison. As for run off, the liquid is primarily a nutrient slurry to help kickstart the bionites once applied to a corpse. Everything will break down into nutrients similar to what you would find in manure, or plant matter left behind after harvest.

Those biological limits do end up giving them a weakness when disposing of large quantities of biomass that aren’t dead antithesis, but there are more indiscriminate methods for getting rid of those like fire.

“Okay,” I watched as a quartet of Threes ran into the stream and instantly dropped dead into the water from the electrocution. “How will I distribute it? Not to mention the cost.”

Two new drones designed to protect themselves with electrical strikes while they work, and the various vials and tools to inject doses into corpses would cost you six-hundred-fifty points a-piece. Enough of the bio-agent itself would cost you around one-hundred points to fill their available storages.

I shot another Three right in the head, knocking it end over end, and tripping up the Three right behind it which got its own dose of electricity to match. “How much will one load do for me Pyri?”

One load is enough to work on everything accessible to the drone in these woods, and at Homeplace. You would still need to find a way to dispose of the manure slurry however.

“Go ahead and get ‘em then. Have them work their way backward from here and once they’re done at Homeplace bring ‘em back to me so I can refill their storage tanks.”

Understood.

Combat Log! Model Three x23 230 Model Four x4 60 MKII Combat Assistant Drone (Modified) x2 500 Liquid Injection Harness x2 150 MK III Antithesis Biomelter Vial x10 100 Total: -460 Points Reduced To: 543

Two more fox bots dropped onto the ground next to me and they quickly took off for the closest bodies. All the while, their back mounted guns swiveled around to take potshots at approaching antithesis.They both had a few pressurized tanks strapped to their sides with fluid lines connecting to some sort of injection pack on the underside of their ‘rib cages’. They barely took any time sticking the first bodies with the needles before rushing off to their next bodies. It was quite efficient and only slightly creepy.

I shivered a bit and then turned back to the Southeast. The addition of the two drones had helped to clear a lot of extra space around me, and my time staring at them had put the way forward in full view of the Zapper.

Pyri had taken full advantage of that, and had practically cleared the area out.

“What’s stopping me from just getting a bunch of drones and sending them out to kill off stuff?”

Nothing except for the inefficiency of point yield.

Running forward with the help of my exoskeleton I pressed further. “Inefficiency? I figured the fact that I would have an army would make things much easier?”

In a purely combat sense yes, but that ignores the fact that unless the drones are directly controlled by you, a system I like to refer to as ‘Point Falloff’ occurs. You witnessed this earlier when your fox bots swept the farm for Model Sevens. For every degree of separation between you and antithesis kills made by anything bought by you, there is a penalty added to point rewards.

Pyri paused for a moment as I sniped another Four out of the canopy, seriously did they expect me to not see giant writhing masses up in the leafless trees?

Various factors that would lead to penalties include distance to the weapon making the kill, distance from the combat itself, whether another person was given a weapon by you. This is mainly to prevent Vanguard from ‘cheesing’ the system, as my previous Vanguard would call it. The Protectors want humanity as a whole to experiment, and find their own path to the destruction of the enemy.

Which is also why they don’t just drop a bunch of self replicating murder machines to do the work for you.

I snorted, “Trust me Pyri, if there is one thing y’all did right it was giving us the guns to fight them ourselves. Any movie where two alien forces clash here ends with humans in power making the worst decisions possible.”

I am pleased you agree with this decision dear.

I fired off a few more shots, “Well, I do aim to please.”

Seeing nothing stealthed or otherwise, I started to run forward. I wanted to gain as much ground as possible, because letting them just take the space back would be a complete waste.

I stopped running a few moments later, not because of some massive fuck off swarm, but because the edge of the forest was right there. I let out a whoop of delight and sprinted the last twenty yards as l emerged from the woods into a harvested bean field. The trail had pretty much gone cold by now, but at this point I didn’t need it.

Where else would the hive be, but other than around where the massive flocks of Ones were currently flying over?

I looked down at my rifle, good for taking out targets one at a time. Just absolutely horrid at dealing with large numbers.

I sighed.

I needed a new weapon.

Again.