Grim was sitting in the newly completed mess hall drinking a cup of tea with Tetra and Stella. The mad scientist of a demon had brought nearly a ton of various cuttings, drinks, and sundries with them as she was unsure where she could source them in the future. Greenhouses and farming were part of the establishment plan for the outpost to ensure a steady amount of food for their group, so who would notice if one was dedicated to caffeinated ambrosia?
Night has fallen as they sat and spoke. Grim had made his concerns known as soon as he settled on what the most likely direction the attach would come from. Stella had set up a defensive perimeter while Tetra broke out the weapons and armor. He was positive that whatever was watching them was already aware they were here. As they hadn’t approached them during the day they were either nocturnal or hostile.
Grim was betting hostile.
No one just showed up on your doorstep, landed six massive airships, started building a small town, and sent out scouts and then didn’t show up to investigate. No. Whatever was out there was going to show up and test their defenses. Tonight. He could already feel them creeping closer.
“I just don’t understand why we have to wait for them to come to us,” grumbled Tetra. “I could build a bomb that would wipe anything that we would possible run into out like that!” she exclaimed, snapping her fingers.
“No. That would cause too much damage to the area, it would result in us having to expend time and effort cleaning the consequences of an attack like that up. Not to mention any resources that may be damaged that we don’t know about. The imp ate one of those flowers and turned purple,” Stella debated back.
The scientist demon huffed, “So what? An imp turned purple? Big deal!”
“He can also breathe lightning.”
Tetra opened her mouth, gaped, then closed it slowly. Grim turned to Stella with interest, “An imp can breathe lightning? From a flower?”
“That’s what happened. One of my normal tried eating one and it nearly killed him. But I bet we could experiment with them and figure out a whole host of applications,” the succubus confirmed.
“That’s an interesting theory. I will have Tetra get some samples over to her lab tomorrow. If there is one plant like that already, I am curious to see what we may find elsewhere. This is, after all, an whole new world to everyone here,” Grim confirmed. He was eager to see just what kinds of things could be accomplished with the new resources they found out here. Elysium had seen so limited in tech in some ways, yet so advanced in others. It was almost like the resources they had to pursue certain technological enlightenments, such as fusion power or alloy creation, just didn’t exist where they were. They certainly didn’t have a worldwide network of trade to draw on. Grim supposed that it was possible they had drained the areas they were in of all non-replenishable natural resources. That was a bit of a scary thought. He was pulled from his thoughts as he felt several dozen larger life forms and more than a hundred smaller ones approach the perimeter. Almost at the same time he heard gunfire open up. “They are here,” he said, standing up. The trio made their way outside, only to run into Axil. The Strange insectoid like centaur was standing outside eating a chunk of what Grim swore was tree bark. Nodding his greeting, Axil turned towards the perimeter. “Many have come. Many will die. It will be of no consequence to the nest. A sub queen may come to discuss terms. Should this happen I will translate.” “I have no idea what you are fucking blathering about,” Grim said, annoyed. Axil was knowledgeable of the area, had traveled extensively, and was very, very intelligent. He was also a being that loved his stories and enjoyed blathering on about anything that caught his fancy. With a sigh the insectoid being popped the last bit of bark into his mouth and clarified, “Annovir. These creatures are Annovir. One thought controls many bodies, but some are independent and serve willingly. They value strength above all else and make excellent allies. The woods are their natural habitat as they are difficult to detect, and their many legs allow them to move swiftly through the trees.” “Oh, fuck me. Are you saying there is a spider colony int hose woods that’s a gods be damned hive mind?” Grim asked incredulously. “Indeed.” Grim turned to Stella and Tetra. He could see the questions swimming behind their eyes, but he cut them off. “Change of plans. Hive minds are stupid dangerous, let’s not use this as an opportunity to test our defenses,” he said, deadly serious. “Tetra, get as many makeshift flamethrowers together as you can. That includes any supers who can use fire. Hives generally tend to be insectoids, thick shells, so small arms won’t hurt them. Deploy anyone with super strength and give them blunt weapons. Equip as many others with fire as possible. I’m heading forward to help.” The woman nodded and took off. Stella sprinted across the small settlement towards the building they had set aside as the armory. Tetra however, she spread her wings and sprang into the air and began flying off towards her lab. He turned back to Axil, who shrugged. “I am not to help. Impartiality is key.” “At some point you will have to pick a side. I hope that when that happens, wherever that is, that you survive the choice,” Grim said, annoyed. Then he took of towards the defensive perimeter. They were going to have to go all in if they didn’t want to be over run. The other demons agreed with the sword as confusion ran rampant across their minds. Grim tended to forget that while they were sentient, they were also young. Experience came from failure, success came from experience. Knowledge was an entirely separate set of experiences. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. “A hive mind is where a central intelligence, or brain, controls multiple bodies. Think of it this way, if Bag had his brain in a jar, but controlled multiple imps and could even feel or talk through them it would be a very simple version of hive mind,” Grim explained. “Hive minds are insanely dangerous, grow crazy fast, and generally get smarter the larger they grow. Sometimes they have offshoot minds, creatures that are loyal to the primary mind but capable of independent thought. I suspect that’s what we are seeing here.” His armor immediately launched into debate. Well, they all launched into the discussion except for Strap. The murderous coat just kept insisting that they murder everyone and call it a day. Grim tuned them out, even while grinning slightly as he caught a telepathic sigh of exasperation from Bag. This must be what its like to have kids. Murderous, adorable kids. The conversation lasted long enough for him to get to the perimeter. As he arrived, sliding to a stop on the grass and loam, he took stock of the situation. There were already dozens of dead spiders, and while he saw a few casualties here and there the defenders were accounting themselves well. Many of the more physically oriented supers had picked up rocks, trees, and other heavy objects and were smashing the dark skittering spiders nearly as quickly as they were arriving. Grim didn’t see a reason for him to step in quite yet. The line was holding, and he didn’t sense any other- The ground heaved, throwing him a dozen feet into the air. Nearly everyone along the perimeter was knocked off their feet. Of course all the spiders remained upright, taking advantage of the gigantic spider that burst out of the ground from beneath him to attack those that had fallen. Annoyed, and still airborne, Grim summoned a dozen small balls of Hellfire and launched them. The attacks slammed into spiders, launching them backwards into their nest mates before exploding. A dozen large domes of fire expanded out, incinerating the nasty eight-legged buggers. He willed the fire to avoid his fighters, ensuring that his close fire support didn’t result in any friendly casualties. Almost instinctively Grim reached out to absorb the souls of the creatures he had killed, just to have his ability fail to latch onto anything. He tisked, realizing that the hive mind was still alive, and these were nothing but puppets. Puppets didn’t have souls. If he wasn’t careful, he would risk running out of energy. As he landed, he turned his attention to the far larger creature that had emerged from the ground. That was both troublesome and annoying. It meant the bugs had larger combat units that could either dig, or that there was a network of tunnels under the entire area. Both of those reasons were frustrating enough. The fact that the hive mind had larger units like was even more annoying. Hive minds tended to do two things well, throw lots and lots of meat at a problem, and grow very large. “Yeah well, fuck you,” he grunted, bring his hands together and pulling them apart to fire a Hellfire spear. Empowering it, he drew back and launched it at the massive arachnid. It spun as it sensed the incoming attack, taking the spear in its side. The flaming weapon construct dug into the thick chitinous armor before exploding, tearing out a large chunk of the creature. It hissed in pain, but Grim was surprised to see that it had done far less damage than he had thought it would. Normally Hellfire would disintegrate nearly anything it came into contact with. The fact that anything was even remotely resistant to it was a problem. A huge problem, as all of his attacks were drawn from the substance. The hiss turned into a roar, and it bucked and spun, all eight legs spinning the body like a centrifuge and forcing him to leap upwards and away. He hadn’t even landed when it skittered towards him, fanged maw open and dripping viscous liquid that hissed as it struck the ground. “Why the fuck do these things always have poison? Its fucking cliché! Gods damnit, this whole fucking planet is just a fucking living cliché!” Grim roared mentally even as he did so physically. With a yell of frustration, Grim brought his hands together and unleashed a wide cone of unconcentrated Hellfire. The Giant spider scrambled to a halt as the flames washed over it. Squealing with pain it hastily backtracked to escape the cone, but he wasn’t about to let it just skitter away like some, but he hadn’t managed to squash. This thing offended him. By existing. With a shout, he focused the cone down to a beam and punched a hole from face to abdomen. Grim could see the fight going on through the other side of the hole that he had just created. With a soft chitter, the enormous spider collapsed to the ground with a thud that shook the battleground. The nine-foot high, nearly thirty food long creature must have weighed more than he had thought. Grim tossed out a few more halfhearted Hellfire balls, but the fighting was mostly over at that point. The smaller spiders were as big as a house cat, while the mid-sized ones that he had felt were as large as a motorcycle. The only true threat to their encampment had been the minibus sized monstrosity that he had cooked. Axil had been right. This had been an attack to test their defenses. A short, lightly damaging attack. But an attack none-the-less. He was going to have to have a heart to heart with this hive mind. Grim extinguished the Hellfire flames and started perusing the perimeter before heading back. “You are a dangerous man,” Axil said, giving him the side eye as he climbed back to the top of the hill. “A fire that never goes out. A potent weapon indeed.” “You annoy me,” Grim grunted. “If someone dies next time because you chose to hold out information rather than being straight forward I am holding you responsible.” With that he stalked off, annoyed at the centaur insectoid being. He could only be so patient with those who chose to test him rather than be honest and helpful. Grim didn’t catch the very human bead of sweat that ran down Axil’s face as he stormed inside the makeshift administrative building. Tetras lab may have been attached, but it was just a glorified town hall and residence for the command staff. The techs scurried away from the irritated man the moment he marched through the door, Strap billowing out behind him. “Shut up. We killed enough, so stow the homicidal optimism. I have grown up things to do. Go talk with Bag,” Grim ordered, feeling the annoyance of the senior demon in his hat. He marched into the central area, seeing that his trusted trio were already there. Rat, Stella, and Tetra were discussing something heatedly. They turned to him as he stalked in. “Hive minds suck Boss,” Rat said disgustingly. “They sniffed out every single scout I sent into that forest. Every rat, every flying rat, every attack rat I ordered into that death trap is gone.” Tetra nodded, “Likewise. I sent two Cloud Chaser drones into those trees. They stopped reporting in almost immediately.” “You have drones?” Grim asked, quirking an eyebrow. The feline demon shrugged, “I like making things. But the point remains that they attacked us and we can’t even get scouts more than a hundred feet inside the tree line.” “Like I said, hive minds are fucking dangerous. They learn stupidly fast, make decisions faster, and can overwhelm us with sheer numbers. This was a probing attack. Pure and simple. Now we essentially have to wait for it to decide.” Stella blinked, confusion rampant in her expression. “Decide what Master? It’s already demonstrated its hostility. We should have Tetra build some kind of huge explosive and drop it over that forest.” “No. This wasn’t an attack. This was a test. The hivemind will react based on how we react. If we do nothing there is a solid chance that it may reach out. Or it could sense weakness and attack again. We just don’t know. Its better not to antagonize it at this point,” he said with an annoyed grimace. “Rebuild our defenses, deploy drones and scouts between them and us, and send someone to check out those tunnels. Then we wait.” Grim paused, thinking about anything he may have missed… then he noticed someone was missing. Someone who had, without a doubt, become the most suspicious person in their entire group. He had survived everything, even while staying in the middle of most attacks and right next to his lieutenants and even himself. Hells, he even survived his bout with Death. He was the one normal and unpowered member of the administrative staff that Grim recognized and remembered. “Where the fuck is Jim?”