“Tired and hungry, but unsure if a full meal is what you need right now? Introducing the ShortDog! This revolutionary dish based on the excellent American HotDog is just what you need! It’s a shorter HotDog, allowing for more precise portioning and less waste!”
- Failed ShortDog Campaign Poster, 2045
Shrapnel nodded, then looked over to first Chloe, then Jenna, “Who’re they?”
“That’s Chloe, and the lovely lass in the risque getup is Jenna. We are all relatively new so they don’t have fancy names yet. Apart from that though, do you need anything?”
Jenna blushed a bit at my comment, but that didn’t stop her from continuing to shoot down even more aliens.
“Well, medical stuff would be nice if you got some, but I also don’t want to ask for too much since you basically just saved our asses.”
He caught another grenade out of the air then flung it far into the mess of aliens.
“We can talk about that later. I get loads of points so I don’t mind spending them on medical shit. Not sure if we should do it now though. Just what the fuck did you do for them to all come here? You have aliens from all the way in the industrial district coming here.” I asked, then turned again and projected another big circle to stop a flock of Ones coming down on us. The fuckers were unrelenting and at this point I had started to become a bit annoyed at them. Guess that was just part of the job.
“Absolutely zero clue. Was just coordinating with some rookies nearby when everything went to shit. We lost one in the onslaught before we managed to hunker down.” He sounded regretful, “Wasn’t able to pull her out of the maw of a three… Guess we can be lucky that we didn’t see bigger models yet.”
I glanced over my shoulder at him. The loss seemed to nag at him, but he didn’t sound like he was falling apart because of it, so that meant we could leave the therapy session until after we were done defending the place.
My Reaver was doing a lot of work. I watched it from its perspective while we fought and it was running through the hordes of aliens like a bulldozer. It wasn’t invincible of course and I could see some wounds and bites and stuff whenever I got a glimpse of its limbs and body, but it was crushing aliens as fast as I could have hoped for.
“Well,” I said, looking back at him, “Once we get some breathing room we need to figure out why they’re all so horny for you. This shit isn’t like anything I’ve ever heard before. Not that I have too much experience with any of this, of course, but it looks as fishy as it could from my perspective.”
“Agreed. I’ll probably do some strategy meetings once we can fend off most of them. Although,” he looked at the Devouring Rose, which by this point had overtaken basically the entire street left to right, plus some buildings on each side, “Looks like that won’t be too much of a problem soon.”
I shrugged, giving him a bit of a smile, “Well, it won’t live forever. Once the biomass stops coming it will basically starve to death.”
A couple of the soldiers in ear shot seemed to relax at that news, although of course I couldn’t be entirely sure. Shrapnel tilted his head though, and from the tone of his voice there was a frown on his face, “Wouldn’t that be a giant feast for aliens then?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. I hadn’t even thought of that.
You don’t need to worry about that. The Devouring Rose was tailor made to fight off the antithesis. Even when it dies its biomass is toxic to them, should some of its remains end up in a hive’s digestion pool it will render the hive first infertile, before it slowly kills it. Should a model Eight or any other antithesis eat the flesh and keep it in their body for a prolonged period of time they will slowly die and rot, leaving no usable biomass behind.
“Oh, damn,” I muttered, then looked at Sharpnel, “No worries there. Kaysa tells me its flesh is toxic to the aliens. If they bring it to their hive it will just slowly wither away.”
He nodded, then looked around, “Good. Keep things up, hopefully we will all be able to take a break soon.”
This time it was my turn to nod and with that he wandered off. I stretched, then looked into the distance. The sun was slowly setting in the distance and the swarm of xenos was slowly dying down. Most of the flyers had been dealt with so far, which was good. Shrapnel was right, hopefully we could have a break soon.
Roughly an hour and a half later we had dealt with most of the xenos trying to ram the gate in. There was still fighting in the distance and the Reaver was still doing its job. So far though it hadn’t made any new Hexclaws, which… I mean, I guess I really didn’t know how it worked, so maybe I shouldn’t have been too surprised.
“Okay, when will the Reaver start making Hatchlings? Not that I’m unhappy with the results so far, but from its description that seemed to be a pretty big part of its job, yeah?” I asked when I finally had some time.
Chloe was standing next to me, still surveying the area just in case. Jenna was sitting down, back against the barricade and eyes closed. She wasn’t sleeping, but she definitely looked like she needed rest. I sat down next to her and leaned into her a bit, just to offer some emotional support, if she still needed it.
While it might look like it is fully grown, it is not. It will need to consume some of the biomass around and finalise its growth before it can fully start. I suspect it will take roughly three hours before it can fully get started on building your Hive-Swarm.
I nodded, but didn’t say anything, just enjoying the calm for a change and resting a bit.
Chloe came over, looking at me and Jenna with a raised eyebrow and a slight smirk on her lips. “Should I give you two some room?”
I looked at her with one eye, my own smirk on my own lips, “What? Are you jealous?”
She shrugged, “Do you want me to lie to you?”
“No?”
“Then yeah, a bit.”
I snorted and patted the ground next to me. Once she was seated we spent some moments in silence.
“Fucking day…” Chloe muttered, head leaned against the wall behind us.
“Mhm… Hope the others are safe,” I replied, then closing my eyes and leaning my head onto Chloe’s shoulder.
“They’re fine,” Jenna said from next to me, “Cleopatra hasn’t seen any xenos about.”
That made me feel better. I hadn’t gotten any messages or calls from Tina, Sharon, or Castas, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t an emergency or anything. But with Jenna’s Sentinel nearby and relaying the message I felt much better.
“But we can’t rest yet,” she continued. I frowned, but she was right. “We might have beaten back the swarm, but we are by far not done here. There are still more xenos to fight.”
I sighed deeply, “Yeah, I know. But with the Rose and the Reaver things are better. Shrapnel and his friends were able to rebuild the defences a bit. It won’t be perfect, but hey, it should work. And we made tons of points.”
As a matter of fact, despite my big purchases so far I was sitting on 1827 points. I would have expected more, but the distance at which the Reaver was killing things meant that I got 1 or 2 points per model Three at best, most often I didn’t get points at all. It was a decent trade off though. It was one big motherfucker with lots of xeno killing potential, and if I would just be able to send it out to incursions and have it do my work for me basically every Samurai would use the same tactic.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
I wasn’t quite sure what the Protectors plan was when it came to having us defeat the antithesis, but that sounded a lot like they would do our job for us.
With another sigh Chloe got up, “Well… enough lounging around.”
She smiled down at us, then held out a hand for me, pulling me to my feet. We both helped Jenna up, before we looked around to see where else we could make ourselves useful.
It didn’t take long for us to find Shrapnel and the other Samurai. They had gathered not far from some entrance next to the giant gate and were talking amongst themselves.
They looked a bit strange. All three of the rookies Shrapnel had picked up were pretty normal looking in terms of clothing, but that was about where the normalcy ended. There was one girl around my height, looking to be about sixteen or seventeen, who was wearing black pants and a black oversized hoodie. So far, so normal.
What was not normal was the eight feet tall exosuit power armor mix or whatever that she wore on top of her clothes. It seemed to be either some modular thing or extremely damaged, since I couldn’t actually see any armor plates around. In addition to that fuck off exosuit she had an even bigger fuck off gun. If I saw it correctly it was the minigun I had seen them get when we had first arrived in the airspace around the gate. Its barrels were still slightly red from the heat, which was just… how long did that thing have to fire for them to stay hot this long?
Regardless, she had some smaller weaponry attached to her thighs, although I say small in comparison to her armor. It was still bigger than even Chloe’s fuck off gun.
Next up we had a lanky man in civilian clothing, looking to be some kind of cheap store manager or similar. He didn’t have much in terms of alien tech, apart from a big long rifle and some weird visor contraption on his head. He either hadn’t spent a lot of points yet, or the gear he did get was sweet. Not that I should scream into the glasshouse with my stones, I had eighteen hundred points I was sitting on and I wasn’t exactly looking precisely fashionable at the moment either.
The last was a pudgy man probably around forty, which did surprise me a bit. From what I heard, Samurai were most often on the younger side, even I would be considered old among them. This guy though was old old, and it showed. He wore some kind of workers overall, couldn’t quite place him in a job. He had some strange backpack, obviously alien tech, and was projecting a big holographic map for everyone to see. When we arrived he was also openly leering at me, not that I personally minded too much, but Jenna didn’t seem to be a fan.
“Hey,” I said, looking into the gathering, “Thought we might come around, ask where we are needed. You said something earlier about medical stuff, right?”
Shrapnel nodded and pointed to old guy, “Jordan can tell you where those are needed.”
Now it was my turn to nod, before I looked into the gathering of Samurai, “So, care to do some introductions?”
“Dominium Fortress,” the girl said, giving me a slightly appalled and disgusted once over, “Not sure what your deal is but please put some more clothes on. You are disgusting.”
I snorted, “Well honey, that was the plan.”
“Don’t call me honey, yuck!”
“Not sure I got a name yet, so Martin it is for now,” the lanky fella said, from his expression he was trying to stop an ensuing argument, “And that here is Jordan. He’s mute so don’t expect him to be talkative.”
In reply to that Jordan opened his mouth and showed that he had no tongue, which was… extremely strange to see. I pitied any woman, or man for that matter, in his life.
“Aight. I think at this point my name is Crimson Princess, so feel free to refer to me as such. These are Chloe and Jenna,” I explained, giving a small wave into the group.
Both Chloe and Jenna nodded, seemingly disinterested to say something for themselves. Chloe had said she wasn’t the most social person, even if she had no issues with me, and Jenna looked to feel a bit out of place which, I guess made sense.
“So,” I said, now that introductions were done, “Medical stuff. I have some and I also need some space to actually get clothing. While I love showing off how sexy I am, the pipsqueak is right, this ain’t xeno killing clothes.”
Fortress looked even more appalled at me calling her pipsqueak, but I ignored it.
“And I am pretty sure Jenna would also like to get some better gear,” I added with a glance at the woman in question.
She nodded, “Yes. I need something better to fight off xenos than a micro skirt and wonky heels.”
Again Fortress looked disgusted, and from the very faint smirk on Jenna’s face that seemed to be the goal. The woman certainly was more of a tease then I had originally thought her to be. Not that I minded, it would be wonderful to have someone I could gang up on others with.
Shrapnel ignored our antics and nodded to Jordan. A moment later the holographic view shifted and centered on a rough approximation of the area around us. A red line started to lead through the complex next to us and soon I looked at a map to wherever he wanted us to go.
“Aha… Okay, guess that’s first. Jenna and I’ll go do that, then go change,” I said, giving Jenna another glance and she nodded at me.
“I’ll stick around, check if I can’t help these guys,” Chloe said with a smile my way. As always it warmed my heart and I returned it.
“We’ll discuss some options while you change and when you return we can go over what needs doing,” Shrapnel added.
I nodded, “I don’t mind helping, but we got people in the redlight district that need saving. And since I know that the golden rulers of the inner city don’t give a fuck about some drugged up joytoys I will most likely get back there soon to defend them should any more xenos arrive.”
Martin and Shrapnel both nodded, understanding where I was getting at. They both seemed to care in their own way, which endeared them a lot to me.
“Once things go quiet I can do a patrol around the area,” Fortress offered, which surprised me greatly. She seemed to notice my wide eyes and raised eyebrows and rolled her eyes, “Just because you are disgusting doesn’t mean I won’t help people who need it. Now get the fuck out of my sight before I solve your clothing problem by blowing you up.”
That had me snorting, seemed like the pipsqueak had the heart in the right place. With a wave I turned away from the group and started making my way to the entrance into the wall with Jenna hot on my heels.
The entrance was a heavily fortified thing, it looked like multiple locks had to be disengaged before the thing opened, and that was precisely what some soldier boy was doing. He was bright red and tried to not look at either Jenna or me at all, which was just adorable. Once the door was open and we walked past him I gave him a wink, which had him even more red in the face,
“I don’t understand how you can be so okay with people staring at you,” Jenna said after we had entered, “Don’t you think it’s creepy?”
“I guess it is,” I replied, trying to figure out where we needed to go from here.
After some failed attempts Kaysa put an arrow in my vision, pointing the way.
“Thanks Kaysa. Anyways, I guess I’m just a bit different. I love it when people look at me, when I can see them fantasise about what they would want to do to me. It makes me… I guess feel powerful? Like I can impact them somehow. I know I’m gorgeous and sexy so why not show it off?”
“I guess I can understand that, still… To me it feels embarrassing. Like I’m dirty.”
“Honey, you are dirty. You are a joytoy, you sell your body for money, there is not much dirtier than that. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have value. I mean, look at you. You look awesome, cute and pretty. Do you know why they call me the Princess of the redlight district?”
Jenna shook her head, “Not really, no.”
“Because I am Seraphine Bloodfallen. I’m not some world known superstar of the porn industry or anything, but people around the district know me; most joytoys in the district know me, at least the older ones. And the reason for that is because I accepted that I am a joytoy and I market myself like one. I go out and let people see me, and I fulfil their wildest dreams. Sure, I’m a cheap whore who only cares about getting paid to get railed while drunk, but that doesn’t mean I’m worthless.”
She didn’t seem convinced, which I guess was fair. Not everyone was so okay with selling themselves out as I was.
“I suppose… I’m still not sure I am happy about it all. Kind of glad I can get out now that I am a Samurai.”
I shrugged at that, “To each their own. I don’t know you well, but from what I’ve seen you seem to be more the elegant type, the kind of person who cares about dignity. I’m pretty sure that if you do it right you could market yourself with that. As a Samurai I mean. Though, truth be told I don’t really know how they make money, but considering there are Samurai ads on everything I guess sponsoring or something. Could help you make money, even if you might not need it anymore once you sell some gear.”
We continued to walk while talking, and after we passed some smaller groups of people we finally arrived at the destination. It wasn’t far from the entrance, once we came around another bend there was a giant room. Lots and lots of people were around on cheap looking… I couldn’t even call it bedding, more like plastic sheets or something. Probably wasn’t comfortable but at least it helped. Some couple people ran around with medical tools and whatnot, first aid workers and doctors probably, although by the looks of things they were utterly overwhelmed.
I looked around the room, but it wasn’t quite clear who was in charge so I shrugged and raised my voice. “I heard you needed meds. Well, I’m here, so what do you need?”
Most people didn’t seem to realise we were Samurai at first, so I decided to be a bit flashy, just in case someone tried to make problems for us. With a quick perusal of my augs I created a Hard-Light Bridge leading down the stairs. It was utterly useless, but it drove the point home, and some of the annoyed looks immediately became more reverent and relieved.
We spent some time with the good doctors in the… makeshift hospital? The group was led by some older, serious looking gentleman who could make you feel all comfortable and warm inside just by the way he was talking to you. Probably a good quality to have as a doctor. After some back and forth about options I left them medical stuff worth roughly two hundred points. I wanted to give him more, but he was already telling me that we gave him too much. From the looks of it most things were minor wounds and didn’t need special treatments, so he asked for stuff to treat the more critical patients, which I guess made sense.
Once we were done we left, a lot of eyes following us. “So… Now, where to find a room to change? I probably should have asked, shouldn’t I?”