"We need that ship in our game!”

“Sir, we would need permission for that.”

“Permission? What for? Nah, I doubt they'd find out. Women don't play video games after all."

- Excerpt from a meeting between the CEO of Directile and one of the board members.

At first, the car that pulled up looked to be an older one, more in line with the Jeeps from the early 2000s. The dings and marks helped sell the look, the deep blue paint looking almost as if it’s been on there for half a century without any care ever given to it.

That illusion was shattered, however, when it stopped next to us. While the style was obviously old and worn, the interior was anything but. Sleek and modern buttons and panels covered the dashboard, mixed with some old school design elements. It made for a rather interesting, but very fitting, look. We were almost certain that it was a protector grade car, but one that was carefully designed to not be obvious at first glance.

Not to mention that it looked like it could bust straight through a fortified wall without any complaint.

The man who got out was not quite what we had expected, based on his profile. His gear was a bit of a hodgepodge, some strange mix between hunter, fisherman, and farmer. It really shouldn’t have worked, yet somehow, it fit him strangely well.

He was old for a Samurai, around thirty if we’d have to guess. Other than that, he looked rather unremarkable, a full beard that was trimmed, if not neat, thick, brown hair under a wide brimmed hat that looked to be made out of hay, with a fern in his mouth that he was chewing on. He was tall and broad, although not overly so, with a sharp face and attentive eyes.

“Howdy,” he said with a nod. His voice was much like the rest of him, not quite what we expected, but fitting him strangely well.

He took a moment to a moment to take each of us in, then the army of Hexclaws and Sentinels behind us, before his gaze flicked towards the Corvette nearby.

“And here I thought, I’d be workin’ with some greenhorns. Name’s Buckshot Bobby, pleasure. Preytell, lasses, how in the goddamn diddely fuck did you manage to pull that one off? Thing looks more expensive than some of the shit I’ve seen much older Samurai pull out their hats.”

We snorted at that, and Jenna gave him a smile.

“It was quite expensive, yes. I saved up quite a bit to be able to afford it.”

“Yeah, can see that. Anyways, I guess you be Legion? That would make Miss Body Armor over there Bloodhound. And, ‘course, everyone cityside has heard about Myriad by now. Gotta say, not what I expected to see first thing in the morn’. Not gonna complain about all your backup, though. Looks like we could use it.”

We gave him a smile. “The pleasure is ours. Truth be told, you are not quite what we expected either, although not in a bad way. From what we read, you’re quite a bit more experienced as well, correct?”

“That would depend, lass. If ya need someone to fix your bike, sure. I’ve been around the block a couple times, made my fair share of experiences. But, while I’m confident in my skills, I don’t think I got one on you when it comes to the more pleasant times of the day. That said, yeah, I’ve been a Samurai for a good year now, probably bit over.”

His comment made Us smirk, but we dropped it. “We already talked about how we wanted to do things. Just some personal preference. Considering how much more experienced you are, we wouldn’t mind you taking charge. While we do have our swarms and our equipment, some things can’t be bought, and experience is at the very top of that list. If that is fine with you.”

He nodded, finally taking the fern out of his mouth. “I can do that. Truth be told, that’s what I would’ve preferred anyway. Nice to see that you are humble enough. Don’t get a lot of that these days, especially ‘round other Samurai.”

“We’ve all had our experiences, Bobby. Ours just happen to be very unpleasant and showing Us where our shortfalls lay.”

“Isn’t that always the case?” His nod showed that he too probably had some very unpleasant experiences. “Anyway, checked out your files, but I’d love to hear what you lasses can do from you. Stat sheets and profiles only go so far. I can make the start. I’m Buckshot Bobby, my main strengths are shotguns, medium range area denial and, if need be, some crowd control. I focus mainly on hitting hard and fast, with ‘nades and traps to round out the ensemble. I got some armor, but I prefer not being hit in the first place. In general, I’m most comfortable a few paces away from any xeno fucks, but not too far so that I can’t shoot ‘em. Thanks to Double-X, I got some gear to check for antithesis pockets, make sure we aren’t ambushed. He also gave me some stuff to stop them from reclaiming territory we cleared. Not a permanent thing, but it should last a couple days.”

We nodded, that was mostly what we had expected from his files, but it was good to see that he came prepared beyond that. We already quite liked him.

“Not that different from me, then,” Chloe said with a nod. “I too focus on hitting hard and fast, with quite the selection of medium range weapons, grenades, and bombs to choose from. I got some catalogues that can help with crowd control, lures and the like, with some turrets and barricades and such. I prefer to be in the thick of things, so I guess we will play the front line.”

“I can help with defences as well,” Jenna continued, “My main specialty are my Sentinels. I’m best suited to defensive tactics, with little in terms of personal combat ability. I got my bow and it is helpful, plus some Hard-Light emitters courtesy of Myriad. But I prefer to keep outside the range of fire if at all possible. I will most likely get something for that in the near future, since you can’t always get what you want, but until then, I most likely won’t be of much use in a direct confrontation. My biggest assets are the Legion Corvette and the Legion Enforcer. The Legion Corvette has some air to ground weaponry, although it is by far not at full strength yet.”

Bobby nodded at that, turning his attention to Us.

“We’re Myriad. As the name implies, we are a Hive-Mind. While we do have some Hard-Light weapons and some catalogues that are a bit more versatile, our biggest strength are our Hexclaws. That Catalogue is a bit unique, focused on adapting to basically anything we need to fight off the xenos. There is very little we can’t deal with, as long as we have the points or time to adapt to it. As we explained during the presentation, we are one. We can coordinate all of Us relatively easily. Tiny is our fortress breaker, and a walking fortress in her own right, while Bellona, Kharon, and Thanatos, are our Warleaders. We have our Queen’s Guard for personal defences, plus our Hard-Light emitters, but similar to Legion, we aren’t exactly the best in close quarter combat, even if we are a bit more comfortable in such situations compared to her. Of course, that will change in the future, we want to be able to be much better in close quarters, but for that we’ll need a whole bunch of points to get our body mods. We can also run communications and scout out our surroundings relatively well.”

He nodded again. “Good to know. You seen the info about our Hive? Narrow caverns, loads of smaller xenos. Snapshot has reported some Fifteens, those are artillery models. They will most likely try to ruin our day before we can even get close.”

“The Corvette can take care of those from the sky,” Jenna said with a nod.

“Good to hear. Anyway, rest are mostly smaller models, although some Nines have been reported. Sevens most likely won’t be too much of a problem around here, but best make sure you got some Seven pills just in case.”

“Seven pills?” we asked, a bit unsure what that meant.

“They’re pills that stop model Sevens from taking over your body. We’re generally a bit more resilient to that kind of thing, thanks to our AI, but it never hurts to be prepared,” Chloe explained.

“Exactly. If you lasses don’t mind, I’d like to take some time to get a better angle on the Hive. Maps are nice, but if you can, you should always make sure you can get eyes on everything yourself.”

We glanced at Jenna and Chloe with a shrug, “Fine by Us.”

“Lemme grab my gear and we can headout then.”

As he said, he turned to his Jeep, pulling out a rather sizable shotgun and a large backpack. We would’ve thought that he’d have some fancy Samurai tech to store his things, similar to what Chloe could do, but we couldn’t fault him for the old school approach.

Once he was ready, and we confirmed that nothing was trying to sneak up on us nearby, we all started to walk towards the Hive.

“So, y’all managed quite well for greenhorns. Have to admit, I’m a little jealous. Took me months to get anywhere near your level of gear,” Bobby said while we walked.

“We’ve been lucky. The undercity incursion was ripe with points, and we saved up quite a bit. It also helps that we, at least, can get points even from far away. Benefit of being a Hive-Mind.”

He gave us a sideways glance. “I can see that being useful. What about you two?”

“I’ve been around for a little while, so I already had some points. And since my approach is more about making the best out of very few points, I never had much to spend on. My catalogues aren’t suited for big, one time purchases. Maybe I’ll get something in the future, but right now, I’m pretty happy with where I am.”

“As for me, I tend to be more frugal by nature. The day I became a Samurai I almost died because I mismanaged my points. Lost a whole group of civilians because of it. It showed me that I needed a different approach.”

Bobby nodded at that. “That’s always a problem, one I can understand. You gotta learn when and how to spend your points.”

From his tone of voice he’s had similar experiences. It made Us curious how he came to be a Samurai.

“You said you’ve been a Samurai for over a year now, yes?”

“Yep. I was part of the big incursion up north from here, a while back. Found myself in the middle of a Hive while I was fishing. Shits jumped me from nowhere. Really, I was lucky I had my rifle with me, otherwise I’d be dead. Took a couple out, but got got pretty good. Suddenly I had a voice in my head selling me alien medical wonders. Fixed myself up, then ran back to the little village I was staying in. It’s long gone by now, but it was a quaint little place, just some folk who hated the city life. Fought tooth and nail for three days straight getting them back cityside. Lost some good people out there, but what can you do? Aliens don’t ask nicely who wants to be eaten and they don’t take no no for an answer either. What about yourself? I mean, you mentioned the Undercity incursion, but you don’t look like Undercity folk to me.”

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“We aren’t. We are from the redlight district, so when the incursion hit we were on the clock. Our client turned out to be a Samurai, who gave Us a gun and rushed off to save others. Took some doing, we were high, drunk, and our ass hurt like hell from three anal sessions back to back, but we managed. Had to clubber a model Three with a dildo, but we survived. After we cleared out most of the aliens in the redlight district, and helped at the Inner City gates a little, we rushed to the Undercity when they needed help. Quite the exciting couple of days, really.”

He snorted, “I can imagine that. Truth be told, when I first heard there was a Joytoy running around claiming to be a Samurai, I thought you were a scam. But I guess we get folks joinin’ up from all ranks of life. Couple of friends wanted to pay you a visit, but turns out you’re booked out for months,” he snorted. “Surprised so many people jump on it, can’t see a Samurai being cheap.”

We snickered at that. “True enough. But the money has to come from somewhere, and we aren’t exactly normal either. We like the job.”

“To each their own, lass. And it’s not like life is easy, you gotta find some time to enjoy yourself. We might not need to work like normal folk, but more than one Samurai bites it out there on the regular.”

“Yeah, we saw that happen. One of the newbies got chewed out at the Inner City gates, and later a more experienced Samurai got ripped to shreds by model Nines,” Chloe muttered.

“Yeah, poor Patrick. Was a fine fellow, although a bit nuts. Could’ve certainly stood for some fashion advice, but hey, I shouldn’t be the one talking about fashion. You lasses, though, you know how to dress. Just make sure you don’t miss the xeno killing things for new dresses, yeah?”

We snorted, “We aren’t stupid.”

“Well, the Fashion Princess ain’t stupid either, still has three times the points in clothing than she has in weapons. Been part of the whole cabal for longer than me, yet still considered a Tier 1 Samurai.”

“Tier 1 Samurai?” Jenna asked, curious.

“Ah. Well, lemme explain. Samurai are usually put into five Tiers. Tier 1 are the newest, the rookies. Tier 2 are people like me. We’ve been around and we accrued some points and gear. Tier 3 are the heavy hitters, people who are quite powerful. Think folks like Glubber, Dragon Queen, FunNight, those kinds. Tier 4 are really big bastards, Deus Ex and Longbow come to mind. They are incredibly powerful and have been around for quite a long time. And Tier 5 are the OG’s, Samurai who can single handedly deal with an incursion, in some cases, or otherwise hold back the tide on their lonesome.”

“So, we’re all Tier 1 then?” Jenna asked.

“Yup. Although, considering your weaponry, I doubt you’ll stay that way long.”

While we talked, we arrived near the main Hive territory. From here it was pretty clear where the xenos were hiding, in the distance we could see some of the entrances towards the tunnel system.

Bobby checked over our surroundings, and we did likewise, sending the Meerkats into the Tunnels. It would take a while for them to get through them all, and many of them would likely run into xenos, but hopefully they could escape. They were fast and nimble little things.

“The area doesn’t really lend itself to a proper defensive set up,” Chloe observed. “We’d have to surround the entire Hive to make any kind of progress. I guess we could put down a forward base here, though, have the Enforcer set up. It pays to have a fallback point in case shit hits the fan. Do you know if there are any better spots somewhere?”

Bobby shrugged, “There are some marked on the map, but I couldn’t tell ya. Would have to see ‘em for myself first.”

“We’ll have our Meerkats keep an eye out. Maybe it’s time to get a few aerial scouts as well. Kaysa, put it on the list, as soon as we get the biomass or points, set our broodmothers to make those.”

Noted.

After some more discussion, we decided to make our way over to one of the other spots that Bobby had mentioned. It took some time, but eventually we found a spot that Jenna was happy with, and within a few minutes, the Corvette unloaded her production drones, while the Enforcer took position.

It would work as the core of the encampment, with the rest of everything being built up around it. Jenna had enough resources to make it all work, although it would take some time.

“You said you aren’t that great when it came to a melee brawl, ay?” Bobby asked her, while she organised the set up.

“Yes. I much prefer being far away.”

“Then maybe you should stay here, now that I think about it. You got great vision of the battlefield in front of you, and if we use the entrances over there as our entry and egress point into the Hive, you could deliver some death and earn yourself some points as well. Keep the bigger assholes off our backs, know what I mean?”

“I can do that.”

“Great. We’ll leave you to it then. If you need anything just holler.”

After some more discussion about minor points and our plan of operation, Chloe, Bobby, and Us continued our track, trying to get closer to the Hive. We had seen some aliens from a distance, and some of Us had already managed to kill a few when they got the drop on them, but otherwise things were surprisingly calm. Bobby explained that that was most likely due to the Hive trying to stay hidden. The moment the fight broke out, we’d be swarmed.

Made sense to Us. We’d do much the same.

Suddenly he stopped us, motioning over to a group of boulders. We followed him, taking cover, while he pulled out an old school looking set of binoculars.

“Well, damn. There are the model Fifteens that Double-X talked about.”

“I can bring the Bastion of Hope over and deal with them,” Jenna said over the comms.

“If y’all are ready to start the party, sure. Pretty sure once we start killing those, the rest of the Hive will go active, if the activity around ‘em is anything to go by.”

We glanced at Chloe. “We’re ready.”

“As am I,” Chloe said with a nod, eyes fixed onto the distance.

“Just let me know when I should get started. The forward base is coming along nicely, not perfect yet, but it will work as a fallback point if you need it to.”

“Then, please, go ahead, lass.”

Jenna went silent, and a moment later the Corvette started moving. It didn’t take long for it to get into weapons range, and by the time we were ready to go, the Corvette’s weapons flared up, twin explosions rocking the ground. Two barrages was all it took to decimate a good chunk of the area that Bobby had kept an eye on. We tried to keep our senses sharp. Hopefully soon we could get some aerial units.

As Bobby had predicted, the moment the Corvette opened fire, the Hive went active. We could see a number of antithesis come running out the tunnels at various points. It made Us very glad that we had Snuffles and our Sabertooths on patrol duty.

With a few mental commands, courtesy of Bellona, Kharon, and Thanatos, the rest of Us began to move, a huge army of Hexclaws stampeding towards our side of the Hive. We had kept them close, but hidden, up until now, not wanting to alert the aliens.

“Well, damn, lass. That is a sight to behold.”

We just snickered, before we turned our attention back to the Hive. “Time to get started, hm?”

The others didn’t need any further invitation, moving immediately. As we had discussed, Bobby and Chloe went ahead, Us acting as rear guard. Jenna had ordered a couple of her largest Sentinels to escort our group, and we added to it by keeping a couple of our War Drones nearby.

The moment we began to move, our Queen’s Guard appeared out of stealth. We didn’t want to risk Bobby accidentally hitting them in the firefight. Our Defenders and our Healer kept close, of course, while our Assassins kept a few paces further away, ready to hit anything trying to get close to us.

We were just around halfway across towards the entrances, when the rest of Us clashed with the horde of xenos streaming out of the tunnels like a flood. The fighting was fierce and brutal, neither side caring one wit about taking prisoners. Most of the aliens were caught by the brawl, but some managed to slip through, oftentimes picked off by Bobby or Chloe while we walked.

The Corvette moved once again, turning slightly towards the south, before unleashing another barrage of death at around the same time huge wheel-like projectiles hit the front, exploding into a flood of quills, killing off a good chunk of our forces. We winced at the cold rush of death that consumed Us, but by this point we were used to the feeling, at least enough that we didn’t suffer any disorientation. Still, it made Us very angry, and all of Us redoubled our efforts.

With a wave of our hand we formed a Hard-Light dome around our little group, with two slits for Bobby and Chloe to fire through. It wasn’t perfect, especially with the bullet spread of some of Chloe’s guns, but it was a worthwhile defence.

Using our Lance, we began to pick off any aliens that managed to escape the clutches of the rest of Us, or Bobby’s and Chloe’s gunfire. Our aim wasn’t the best, another thing we had to get something for.

“Let’s keep close to the northern side. Once you fought your way through the main horde, we can set up a perimeter and make sure nothing else will try to crawl out of the tunnels,” Bobby said while he reloaded his shotgun.

We took things slow, not wanting to rush head first into danger. The majority of the horde was dealt with relatively quickly, while they had numbers, most of the antithesis models were weak, and we could deal with them relatively easily. Not without losses, of course, but it went far better than it could have.

As we arrived near the tunnels, Bobby led us over to one of the larger boulders around, into a crevice that had formed between the rocky formation. From here we were relatively safe from things trying to jump us from behind, while having a good view of the tunnel entrance.

“Bloodhound, you said you got bombs and defences, right?”

“Not much, but some, yeah. You got a plan?”

“I got the beginnings of a plan. We should put down some of your defences around the entrance, try to make it as safe as we can in case we gotta get out quick. Myriad, can you keep a couple of your supersoldiers around?”

“That we can do, sure. We need to organise the biomass in any case. Jenna, can you send some shuttles over to pick them up? If we can get the biomass to our broodmothers, we can start on aerial units, help Us keep an eye on everything. Snuffles will send one of her Reavers over soon, to help organise it all.”

“No worries. Shuttles are on their way.”

“Thanks, love. Bobby, where do you want our War Drones?”

The map in our virtual realm updated, another avatar appearing in the call. She was Bobby’s AI, made obvious by the meta-data, and looked to be the friendly grandmother type. Her avatar was that of an older woman, probably around seventy or so, with a slight hunch, an apron, a ladle of all things, and a warm, friendly smile.

“My dear Bobby has put together some schematics for where you could place your defences. May I?”

“Of course, ma’am,” our reply was almost automatic, “Make yourself at home.”

She laughed, her voice marred with time but still energetic. “Such a lively one. Thank you, Myriad.”

Most of the initial horde was dead by this point, the rest of Us picking off any stragglers. One group had been ambushed by a couple model Nines, the variant that we’ve already seen in the New Savannah incursion, and while they had suffered significant losses, since most of them had been nothing by Hatchlings, they dealt with the threat quickly and efficiently.

Finally Bobby signalled us to follow, and we made our way over to the entrance proper. Without much comment, Chloe began to put down her barricades and defences. They weren’t anything special, much less powerful than what Jenna could put together, but it served our purposes. Soon enough we had a second fallback point, even if this one wasn’t nearly as secure as the one Jenna had put together.

Speaking about Jenna, she was busy sniping a group of aliens coming from further southwest. We could occasionally see her arrows fly across the battlefield, with suitably impressive outcomes.

“Alright. Are you two ready to head into the lion's den?” Bobby asked Chloe and Us, while he double checked his gear once more.

“I think so. I got everything I could need at the moment.”

“We’re ready. We lost some of Us, but they’ll be replenished soon. With all the biomass we have available, that shouldn’t take too long. And once we’re done, we’ll also have some aerial units.”

“That’d be helpful. Okay, if you’re ready, I’d say we shouldn’t waste any time. Hit them while they’re hurt.”

Without any further comment, Bobby turned towards the tunnel entrance and began to march, the rest of our little group close behind him.