Annie ran down the ramp, following Kayleen. Even here, at the top of the plateau, she could feel tremors that were the result of Devourer clashing with a massive drill. The sounds of gunfire, the sounds of battle, every sound took a backseat because of the constant, non-stop wheeling sound of a gigantic drill. Shadows leaped over Annie and her group, culminating in an explosion of violence before the main gates. The warlord and her bodyguards landed right in the middle of the machines. Dragena, who always chastised her soldiers for breaking out of formation, now stood surrounded by hundreds of metal bodies. The shamans released their claws, howling into the night, revealing the slaughter. Their forms became blurred, leaving the torn forms of robots around Dragena. Energy beams reached the warlord, leaving scorched marks on her power armor, while Dragena looked at the massive main gates. The warlord paid them no more attention than to the bites of parasites, sending commands to her troops via the network.
Annie charged into her first robot, knocking down the machine. The waist of the machine was just made of a thin metal plate, protecting several metallic "spinal cords" inside. A single shot from her shardgun tore the defender in two, before the machine could even point its weapon at Annie. She crushed the head of the machine with her foot, conserving the ammo and eliminating the threat. All around her, Kayleen and other wolf hags led their packs, slicing through the sea of blood like knives through butter. With a surprise, Annie understood the reason for this. The reactions of ancient machines were slow. According to history, in the ancient ages, soldiers with superior speed were uncommon, most people in the Old World could barely react to arrows, much less stop them. Thus, engineers of the past saw no reason to improve their machines' reactions, and they never considered the possibility that their combat bots would ever face off against someone who moved too fast for the naked eye to see. Sure, there were exceptions, some malfunctioning AIs of the Old World were genuinely dangerous, and military grade technology was sometimes even superior to that of modern days. But on average, the bots of the old world were no match for the new breeds of today. Annie proved it, cleaving through three bots at once with the claws of her left paw, leaving their smoking remains beneath her boots.
"Support me with ranged fire. I am going to open up the path." Annie gave the command to her soldiers, charging forward. Against the trash cans like this, there was no reason to risk the precious lives of her soldiers. She alone was enough.
Annie kicked with her left leg, deeply burying her leg in the torso of the foe. She moved her leg down, bisecting the machine, and charged forward. She dispatched two slow-moving bots with two shots, piercing their torsos and causing the machines to twitch as they were deactivated. With a smile on her lips, the scout dodged the aim of the next machine, charging past it and slicing the metal head off the shoulders. Blood hurried across her veins, her heartbeat pumped and threatened to jump out of her chest under the effect of adrenaline. She felt herself sublime, invincible, indestructible. Machines felt like dolls before her, and there was nothing bad to feel about it. They were no humans, it was fine…
"Annie, you are too far ahead! Back into formation!" Kayleen snapped, seeing how one of the machines nearly shot Annie. The scout was saved by her own pack, who killed the bot in blind zone of Annie.
The scout snapped out of euphoria, slicing through the chests of three bots with the claws of her right paw. A sea of machines surrounded her, making her confused about just how she had moved in so fast. Her paw became stuck in the chest of one of the machines, her claws tangled in something. One of the beheaded bots behind Annie fired a shot into her, melting the pauldron of her armor. In a panic, Annie jerked her hand free, exploding the bot before her. The claw on her index finger shattered, sending a sensation of pain across her body.
The bot behind Annie was shot down by Kayleen, the pack slowly made their way toward the separated scout, when the sound of a roaring engine caught their attention. One of the enemy tanks, massive steel construction with a single cannon on top of it, moving on two gigantic caterpillar tracks. The armored vehicle moved down the bots, trying to get toward the front line. Cannon turned toward Annie, and she saw light inside it. Despite the fact that this machine spent centuries buried underground, the tank pointed its weapon flawlessly, without producing a single crack. Engineers of old built stuff for ages.
Shit. The scout jumped to the left, crashing and tangling with another bot. The machine lost its weapon and wrapped metal fingers around Annie’s neck, trying to twist her head to the left. The right paw of Annie stuck into the side of the metallic torso, reaching for wires inside and pushing them out, depowering the blue robot underneath her. A wave of energy flew over her head, melting away several bots, killing orais in its path and exploding a wolfkin behind him. Neither had any time to react, one moment they were alive, another moment only the lower part of the body was left of orais and a pair of hands, along with one foot, were all that was left of the wolfkin. The edges of the wounds were cauterized, as if in a cruel joke.
"Carty, disable the tracks of the tank. Ultis, help Annie back to safety. Tegrin, Howrige, eliminate the threat once it’s immobilized." Came the calm command of the motionless Dragena.
"Already on it, ma’am. Fight your own battles, will ya? " Tegrin spat, crushing bots in his path, making his way toward the tank. The missile launcher on his back shifted, pointing weapons at the moving tank.
Annie felt how someone jerked her by the shoulders, dragging her out from under the main gun sight and toward the ranks of wolfkin. Turning her head, Annie saw another scout, a lean woman in power armor, with two red painted scars on her shoulder, indicating her rank. Ultis, a silent scout of the Kayleen's pack, Annie had a couple of sparring battles with her, even had a few drinks with her, but never heard her voice. Ultis always used sign language to speak with others.
"Thanks." Annie said, standing up.
Ultis gestured that all was fine with her fingers and pointed at the tank. The vehicle was speeding up, trying to turn around and ram into advancing rows of enemies. Like an arrow, the armored form of Carty moved forward, flying past her enemies, pushing them aside with the slightest touch of her shoulders. She closed in upon the tank, closing on the left track of the moving vehicle. Her energy rifle was strapped behind her back, grenades were still at her belt, and Annie frowned, reading to charge and assist fellow scout. Carty dodged the moving track, throwing a single punch with her right paw. A single punch that landed on the caterpillar track broke it and sent the armored vehicle into a spiral. Smirking, Carty jumped back, shaking her right paw to throw off the pain. A pair of missiles hit the armored side of the tank, blowing up thick armor near the tower of the tank. Another armored form jumped forward, orais armed with an enormously huge tube-shaped weapon, linked to a canister behind the back of the orais.
Torrents of white-hot flame unleashed into the insides of the tank, melting the automatic controls of the machine and exploding the ammunition. The explosion rocketed the ground, throwing nearby bots onto the ground and sending the orais flying backwards. She rolled on the ground, instantly surrounded by her kin who kept bots away from her temporarily weakened comrade. Orais shook her head and laughed, standing up. She ignored a few cuts on her armor, ignored the blackened color of her silver armor, and charged forward, setting even more robots on fire. Her laughter was joined by her fellows, the thug master leaped after her, smashing bots with his fists. Several orais members were so caught in assault that they ended up blowing themselves up on a mine field, despite it being mapped. Some of the orais received grievous wounds, but such explosions were not strong enough to kill new breeds in power armor. They continue to laugh as they landed on the ground, standing up and unleashing volley after volley on the foes in front of them. Those who could not walk, crawled after their comrades.
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They do not care about surviving. At all. Are they mad? Annie asked herself, taking the shardgun in both her paws. It was a stupid question. If her allies were mad, it just fell on her and others to keep them alive. Whatever their differences were, all soldiers of the Reclaimers were allies. Taking aim, Annie shot one of the robots before it could open fire at the crawling orais.
"Earless One, help team C in disabling the turrets, they are under heavy fire. Scarred One, the orais team, near the underground passages, is faced with stubborn resistance. Help them break through. Lacerated One, the normies are slowed down before the entrance the second level, keep them alive and assist them," Dragena commanded, standing in the shadow of massive drill that was moving above her. She briefly looked up when the shadow beneath her stopped moving. The drill stopped with the sound of grinding metal and countless broken mechanisms. The long body showed up from behind the smoke cover, wrapping around the drill, holding it in place. Devourer looked at the warlord, holding the deadly instrument in his hold, not allowing it to make a single more turn. His skin was as pristine as before, "My liege, this is a very important and valuable piece of equipment. Please refrain from breaking it any more than you need to."
"Are you sure that it is wise to leave you alone? In your condition…" Lacerated One asked. Dragena looked at the shaman, and without asking a single more question, the shaman jumped away from the warlord, leaving Dragena all alone amidst the sea of remaining enemies. The warlord, who had strictly forbidden her soldiers from fighting alone, was now deliberately breaking her own rules.
The warlord's paws discovered the sheaths of two upper knives. Annie never saw how Dragena took them nor her initial movements. In an instant, the warlord was ten steps closer to the entrance, leaving behind dozens of slashed bodies. The foes took aim at her once more, energy unleashed from their weapons aiming to hit the warlord, but this time the warlord transformed into a storm, moving in a burst of violence around the battlefield too quickly for enemy bots to aim at her, slashing through several bodies at once, never slowing her steady advance. Dragena came to a halt when she heard roaring engines and turned her snout toward the entrance, noticing three tanks closing in on her. Thin lines appeared on robots who pointed weapons at the warlord. The warlord calmly put her weapons back into sheaths and the machines around her fell apart. The leading tank was thirty steps away from Dragena, unleashing a burst of overheating plasma into the face of Dragena. As the warlord walked toward the tank, her figure became blurry for a second. In the eyes of Annie, it looked like Dragena hopped to the left and returned to her original position in an instant. Plasma passed through the blurry image of Dragena, leaving no markings on her armor. Facing advancing tanks, the warlord leaned forward, putting her right leg ahead and placing her paws on the sheaths of the knives. The warlord resembled herself once more, fighting with deadly grace and efficiency rather than the hulking behemoth she was in helicopter.
Dragena stood still for a good solid second, breathing in. And then she disappeared from the vision. Annie blinked twice, looked through the cameras of her allies, looked through her own lenses, and could not see the warlord. The storm exploded from the place where the warlord previously stood, propelling wind toward tanks at such a speed that it caused several blue bots to be smashed against the main entrance to the facility, the sound of the sudden wrath of nature was so loud that it deafened even the sound of the struggle between Devourer and a drill for the briefest of moments. Dragena herself was nowhere to be seen. In mild desperation, Annie looked at the radar for Dragena’s blip. She found herself standing before the main gates, leaving the tanks way behind her. The sound of roaring engines died, thin lines ran across each armored vehicle. Tracks exploded from pressure, then armor began to fall apart, and finally entire forms of the tanks crumbled to the sides, revealing cross slashes across their bulk. The proud engines of war, built so long ago, finally gave their final sound and died out.
"Dragena, you are using too many superhuman movements. In your condition, such a strain might dama…" Ieshua calmly said on the main channel, causing Annie to wonder what the doctor was doing in the command center amidst an ongoing operation. This was no place for civilians and their worries. The voice of the doctor sounded even less emotional than the voices of the robots.
"Worry not, honorable doctor. I know the limits of my own body. Not once in my life have I made a mistake," Dragena stopped him and looked at the gate before herself, breathing out air and ignoring fire from lesser robots, "All teams begin infiltration. I will enter through main entrance." The warlord moved toward the massive steel gates before her, hulking like a beast. She looked like her armor was physically wearing her down, gone were the grace and efficiency that the warlord had displayed just a few moments ago.
"Yes, warlord!" Kayleen reported, leading her team toward the ventilation shafts on the side of the facility. Such a huge place was never planned to be used as a defense outpost or military base. Try as they might, the mercenaries could not turn this place into a defense formation in such a short time. The ventilation shafts were big enough for the wolfkins to stand at almost full size. A maze of oversized corridors ran across the entire facility, ensuring that no part of the gigantic machinery would become overheated and explode.
Kayleen quickly sent target points to scouts under her command. According to Kassandra and the data that she was able to gather by breaking into the main computer of the facility, the entire personnel were hauled into "examination and evaluation" zone C, located on the third floor of the facility. It was a facility with three floors, meant to be able to examine the artifacts brought from underground and contain danger if need arose. It was also equipped with several enormous generators, meant to power up whatever technological marvel from the old world was in the room. Kassandra apologized for her inability to break into cameras in the hall. To prevent any rogue AI from taking over the facility, all such rooms were cut off from the main computer. The agent used cameras that led to the hall and video evidence that was stored on the main computer to deduce the location of the prisoners.
Kayleen spread her pack into three parts, leading the largest pack herself. Annie led the smallest pack, they were supposed to enter the hall on the second floor. Meanwhile, Tegrin and his orais charged ahead, ignoring Kayleen.
"That is to be expected. Orais are not subtle soldiers, they are more like warheads that one unleashes on the foe. We should be thankful that they cooperated for so long," Dragena icily replied, when Kayleen informed her about the disobedience of the allies, "Other units are on their way, turrets are silenced. Proceed with your mission."
Annie moved through the pitch dark corridor carefully, leading her pack toward her goal. She heard explosions, no doubt some of the orais ran into mines placed in this tight space. The pack of Annie had to stop several times to remove mines from their path. According to the constantly updated map, the path of her pack was the least protected, Kayleen had to spend considerable time removing mines from her path, and Carty and her pack outright had to make a detour, such was the intensity of mines in their path. Despite this, there were no foes in their way. Other teams reported strong robot resistance within the facility, but the mercenaries themselves had to make an appearance. One group of normies fell into an ambush and had to be rescued by Lacerated One. Meanwhile, other groups pushed foes in their path. Reinforced with a team that was sent to disable turrets, soldiers made from normies were slowly grinding down their opposition.
"Damn it, there are a lot of ‘em!" Tegrin snarled over the network, his words accompanied by the screaming sound of gunfire, "Requesting back up, the bastards keep us pinned in the main hall!"
How are you there so soon? Annie thought in shock. According to the plan, all teams had to attack together. Dragena planned for the unpredictability of orais, placing routes exactly for packs to arrive roughly at the same time as orais. And those fools still managed to outrun them!
"Follow after me, top speed." Annie gave her pack a command and lowered herself on all four limbs, allowing her armor to adjust to her new position before charging into the darkness of the tunnel.