Checking the information from the drone and other pack members, it seemed as if camp was as good as taken. Kayleen secured vehicles, Carty was still a bit salty about the fact that she had no opportunity to fire lethal rounds, but she was keeping it to herself at the moment. Lucendra and others were coming to the position of Annie. Something caught her attention, and Annie frowned:

"Lieutenant? It seems there are four places where thugs buried crates. This unburied one is just the last one. What exactly could they try to bury? These crates are massive, far too big for mere drugs."

"We will soon know, scout. Keep your distance away from them, judging by how easy it was to find attackers and how brazen they are about hiding these things, they are either greenhorns or there is something dangerous inside those things. Allow me to congratulate you on a successful mission, we will…"

Annie saw the attack before it came. She was still looking at the hostages, standing over her downed opponent, when fire came from the tent behind her. She heard the hissing sound of fire, of course, but had she relied strictly on her ears, she would have been hit. No, she saw the strange movement through the lenses of Carty’s helmet, through the sensors of the power armors of her pack.

Fireball set the fabric of the tent aflame and flew from inside the tent aiming at Annie’s back. She had time to jump aside, yet it would potentially put prisoners in danger. Instead, the wolfkin turned around, shardgun in her arms, and fired a single round into the approaching ball of flame.

Sharp shards crushed into flames, separating it in several parts. Heat melted the steel shards into molten steel that splashed across the burning tent with a hissing sound. One of the fire parts of the former fireball nearly fell on the face of the unconscious bandit, and Annie had to kick it away with her leg, lest it burn away the woman’s face. Even so, even such a tiny part of the fireball managed to slightly melt the armor on her leg, armor that was meant to withstand flamethrowers without loss of paint.

"Move an inch and I'll kill him." said a nervous voice, and from inside of the burning tent came a half-dressed woman, dragging a scared naked man after herself, holding him by his neck. A ball of fire was floating in the free hand of the woman. Bandit had hair the color of straw, and a few scars covered her face. Brown eyes nervously run across the camp, trying to see other bandits. "Intruders!" A thin stream of sickly green fluid was coming from the woman's nostrils, "To arms!"

Annie quietly let out a chuckle, as no one answered the woman, who was supposedly the leader of enemies.

"Your gang are all asleep, miss. Let go of the poor fellow and we can all live through this. No need to throw your life away." Annie tried to speak as calmly as she could, despite the grin on her face. Carty sent a request for permission to fire, and Annie responded with a signal to Carty to hold up for just a moment.

"The fuck is…" The woman's face twisted, first in surprise, then in pain, and she spat on the ground, nearly letting go of her hostage, "Enough, you can't just...No! Foolishness. Boasted so much yet delivers mere dregs."

Annie blinked for a second as the woman spoke in a calm, but strained and rasping voice all of a sudden. The hand of the woman with a fireball moved, ready to send flame into the face of a man. A single shot was fired from stone cliffs, evaporating the upper half of the woman’s head as the projectile smashed through the skull of a bandit.

And yet the dead body did not fall. The woman's lower lips twisted into a scowl, and the hand with fire moved toward the face of the man. Annie grabbed a knife from her belt and in a single motion sliced through bones and muscles, slashing away the hand of the dead creature. A fountain of sickly green came from a horrible wound in the head of a woman, and the man screamed in her embrace, as fire began to form behind his neck. With another slash, Annie sliced away the fingers of the dead woman, dragging away the man from fiery hell in the woman’s palm. The back of his neck was all dark, gleaming red meat was visible through cracks in his now pitch-black skin.

"Serve me." The mangled and gurgled words came through the lower lips of the woman as the deceased creature threw a fireball at the iron cage, melting the entrance and making the people inside scream in fear as the dead body limped toward them.

"Lucendra! Acid grenade!" Annie kicked the creature in the chest, piercing its body all the way to the spine and sending human remains five steps away. The body of the deceased woman fell on the ground, nearly torn in two, the white bones of her spine were visible from her back, the skin of her chest was pushed deep into the body.

In the Wastes, many creatures had some sort of resistance to heat and fire. While heavy weapons like rockets worked just fine against insectoids, fire alone was often too inefficient against insectoids. To remedy this, the military forces of the Reclaimers were sometimes equipped with acid grenades. Upon explosion, a small capsule filled with deadly liquid was released, liquid that was capable of melting through power armor, burning away even the tough chitin skin of insectoids, and turning the bones of normal humans into a melted mess.

This was the weapon that Lucendra was preparing to use right now. She took out a grenade's safety pin and prepared to throw it.

"N.. no!" The remains of the deceased woman said. Her upper head was missing, leaving only her lower and upper jaw intact. The shot of Carty sliced away the upper part of the skull, along with the eyes and nose. Somehow, with ruined lips and through blood mixed with green liquid that was streaming through the teeth, the woman spoke in her previous voice, now filled with fear and agony. She should not be able to speak, much less be alive, not with her brain missing. And yet she lived, "Please! I surrender, Save me!"

The warrior stopped in horror as the ruined body crawled toward her, extending a single ruined arm in a pleading motion.

Shit! The girl is lost in shock! Annie understood. She could hardly blame her fellow soldier. This was the first actual mission of Branded, seeing horrible shit like this…

Annie leaped away from the scene, bridging the gap between herself and Lucendra in an instant.

"I can’t stop him! I beg you, help m… Be silent, flesh." The woman’s wailings were abruptly cut off as the strained voice came back. The belly of the woman exploded, her insides shot toward the warrior like knots of sentient worms. Annie's nostrils were filled with a foul odor, one of sickness, which she sniffed repeatedly in the hospital. Before wet ropes of flesh managed to reach Lucendra, the scout was before her, slicing them apart with her knives, creating a blurring wall of slashes before her fellow soldier. The cadaver's neck was burgled as something moved from belly to mouth, cracking bones with a loud noise along the way. Sickly green pus appeared on the ruined lips of the woman, her mouth opened wide, tearing itself all the way to the ears. The upper half of the mouth almost fell back, as the mouth opened wide, ready to unleash steam of pus on Annie.

It never came, as the warrior finally snapped from her fear, throwing the grenade. The wicked remains of guts moved toward the grenade, trying to stop it, blow it away. However, the throw was too powerful, and even when wrapped around a grenade, the insides were unable to prevent it from reaching the torn belly of a dead body.

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"Annoying pests. Weapon, arri…" despite torn mouth, despite liquid in mouth, strained words came clear. The calm was broken by the explosion of a grenade in the beast's belly; a hidden charge with acid inside the grenade went off, spreading the deadly weapon in a wide arc, melting away the woman's meat and bones. For a moment, she screamed in her previous voice, a scream full of primal horror and suffering, the scream of an animal begging for release from the death that lingers at bay. This sound was mercifully short and yet Annie remembered it well. The sufferings of the foe burned deep into her memories.

"Wolf hag, I am sorry for my incompetence and am ready to pay for my…" Lucendra said with disbelief in her voice, disbelief that was slowly being mixed with numbness. The warrior looked at the remains of the foe, struggling to finish her sentence.

"Energy spikes!" Angoro snapped over the communicator and the silent night turned into a chaotic mess.

"Hans, send a request for back up to any nearby packs!" Annie managed to say, before the explosion, she saw new foes.

Four metal crates half buried around the camp exploded, sending sand and metal from the top of the crates high into the air. With a cacophony of countless mechanic parts moving together, gigantic forms charged out of metal crates. Newcomers resembled ugly versions of insectoid warriors, whose chassis with four long piston-driven legs stepped onto the ground, creating tremors with each step. Mounted on top of the chassis was the torso of a human being, swollen to an unimaginary degree with sickness, rot, and stuffed with mechanical parts inside, spreading torment and bulk even further, the lower part of the torso was seemingly melted together with the chassis. Half of the heads of newcomers were replaced with metal, gleaming green lenses that turned on, spreading sickly-looking light around camp. The hands of the creatures were replaced with two sharp pincers, Annie saw how one creature snapped the truck in two with a single pincer, while mighty mechanical legs turned the remains of the truck into a pile of rubble. The skin of the creatures was a dark pink color, with numerous purple veins underneath. In many places, the skin of the torso was torn asunder, revealing horribly smelling insides and rotating mechanical parts underneath the skin. Tongues of creatures dangle from their mouths, swollen to the point of tearing the mouth open, giving each creature a stupid grin. The single remaining human eye of each being was milky white, rolling furiously in its eye socket. A mechanical limb of one of the creatures hit the truck, sending it eight steps into the air. As the truck fell, it crushed one of the unconscious raiders.

The line breakers are the elite troopers of Chosen Prince. People who succumbed to Chosen Prince's disease power were brutally mutilated, their bodies augmented with pre-Extinction technology. These chassis and pincers were meant to be used in mining, yet a foul foe turned them into weapons of murder. Large wires or cables run across the massive bodies of foes, connecting flesh and machine and bringing energy across various parts of the chassis. This was not a pretty creature, nor even truly efficient, as the cruel union of human flesh and metal was bound to rot eventually, not to mention that if humans were in their own minds, they would’ve gone mad with pain or had to live only on painkillers in order to preserve their sanity. Exposed wires with energy flowing through them, a never-ending cacophony of cogs and other machine parts as line breakers move, and unending pain from swollen organs... Line breakers should be dead or mad. Yet, thanks to the power of the tyrant, such a union was made to work. In battle, Chosen Prince send these mutilated cadavers forth to break the frontlines of the foes, allowing the rest of his horde to pour in. According to the report, some small part of Chosen Prince's psyche controlled these poor souls.

The wolfkins were in shock for only a moment. And yet it was a moment too long, as one of the line breakers swung a massive pincer, leaving a long slash across the arm of one of the Branded, slicing through power armor with disgusting ease.

"Packs, spread out. The enemy forces are tougher than you individually, tire them out with precision fire and melt them away with acid grenades," Annie blinked, returning to reality as Kayleen sent her silent question, asking if she was able to continue, "Wolf hag Kayleen and Branded, guard the hostages, wounded are to retreat from camp. Scouts, take aim at mechanical parts of enemy heads, let us see if they can see without lenses. Lieutenant, please bring your group to a nearby hill and assist us from afar."

"What about the knocked-out raiders?" Kayleen asked, jumping away from a massive pincer. The wolf hag landed two meters away, firing her shardgun right into the bloated face of the line breaker. The shards connected with the hideous face with a torrent of blood, flesh and sparks. The eye of the creature exploded, along with the eye socket, the tongue was torn asunder, along with pink skin. Metal parts inside withstood shards, sharp projectiles ricocheted away, breaking just a few moving parts and unable to reach the diseased brain hidden inside a cage of steel. Instead of a roar of pain, the line breaker gave away gurgling, trying to produce sounds with a forever ruined mouth but instead simply vomiting at the wolf hag. A normal person would immediately feel inflammation in the throat and nose, feel nausea and weakness over the entire body. According to reports, the victim would hear the voice of Chosen Prince soon after, a voice that at first just break coordination, then compels the victim to do something, and finally robs the victim of all ability to move. And yet Kayleen was fine, she felt no need to fully close her power armor, leaving her jaws unprotected from sickness. Fluid fell on her, small drops undoubtedly finding their way to the wolf hag's mouth, but the wolfkins' immune system, tried and tested for centuries, refused to give in. The will of the progenitor and the will of the Chosen Prince clashed against each other, and one was found lacking.

"If you can, save their lives," Annie frowned as the line breaker sliced the tops of several tents, aiming for her left side. One of the knocked out bandits had her body exploded like an overripe fruit, under a massive column like the leg of the line breaker. The scout landed on four limbs, running away from the rampaging being, before standing up and reaching for the shardgun, "If you can’t, then so be it."

The beast of flesh and steel moved after Annie, swinging pincers in wide arcs. Metal pincers were sharpened all across the long curvature, and even backhand with them easily sliced through tents, leaving them cleaved in two. Each time the creature slammed pincers into the ground, narrowly missing the scout, the power behind such a slam sent tremors across the battlefield, almost making Annie lose her balance. She shot twice, tearing holes in the fat bulk of the creature. While skin was torn and blood, mixed with pus, poured from wounds, the insides of the beast endured. Shots came at the beast from behind, but the line breaker chose to follow after Annie like a berserker. Stuffed and reinforced with mechanical parts, the insides absorbed impact from even shards, leaving the wicked creature still able to move around at prime speed. After the creature missed Annie a good half dozen times, it gave a long moaning sound and turned around, looking in the direction of the hostages, annoyed by the fire from behind. Pincers eagerly slashed against each other as the monstrously deformed human being charged at screaming people. The leg of the creature rose up above the unconscious body of one of the raiders, and Annie shot the beast in the head, removing the human half of its head utterly and revealing the metal case, wrapped with the remains of the flesh and bones, underneath. The advance of the creature stopped, and it turned toward the scout, missing the unconscious human by a hair. Light from the lens in the head of the monster covered Annie in a sickly green color, before the creature spread pincers wide.

"Pack U, you are too close!" Annie snarled during a moment of respite. The wolfkins of Pack U were following the line breaker who fought against Annie too closely, releasing shots after shots into the monster, but were wary of using grenades out of risk to Annie, "Ten steps back, and keep that distance…"

"Help is coming!" Came in the worried voice of Hans, "ETA is two minutes, a single pack is returning from a hunting mission. We also have a problem, a member of a medic team just walked up and left toward you and…"

"What?" Kayleen and Annie asked at once.

The skin around the shoulders of the monster became swollen even more, the veins underneath were torn apart, spreading black color under pink skin. With a tearing sound, the skin on the shoulders came apart and two massive turrets rose above the shoulders, making the line breaker moan in pain even louder through loudspeakers in his mechanical head. The turrets, each as big as the torso of a normal human, moved with a wheeling sound, their barrels pointing at Annie.