Janine charged after Ravager, adding her howl of rage to the howls of her sisters. Her short legs stomped across the stone ground, leaving footprints against it as her pack followed. The warlord reached for her laser rifle, aiming at a target on the wall. For close-to-midrange encounters, the Wolfkins preferred to use shardguns, simple weapons capable of unleashing armor-piercing shards. At long range, however, shardguns’ accuracy suffered, leading to scouts and some wolf hags opting for energy-based weapons.
Janine’s eyes found a trembling sentry armed with a rocket launcher. She pressed the trigger, and a stream of superheated particles caught the projectile, exploding it into the faces of the unfortunate soldier and his comrades, turning those farther away into living flares.
Martyshkina fired once, tearing a guard in two. The warlord laughed, spun her revolvers, and fired once more, no longer killing individual guards but tearing through chunks of parapet, adjusting her aim so that each bullet would claim several lives. She nodded to a soldier who raised his hands. A bullet took the head of an officer who tried to shoot the man to make an example of him.
Flame balls erupted on the wall, exploding in a deadly bath of searing plasma, evaporating those who failed to escape the cruel destruction and detonating their ammunition along the way. Alpha’s figure rose from the hellish flames. The warlord scaled the wall in a single leap, calculating the area where the energy shield collapsed under the barrage. The plasma discharges in her gauntlets spat death again, lessening the defenders’ counterfire and forcing them to focus on her.
Tecno-Queen’s minions did their best to try and stop them. Battlements opened in the wall, revealing dozens of teams bringing heavy weaponry to bear. Where their allies above were struggling, these unleashed laser rays unimpeded. The energy struck the Wolfkins, melting pieces of their armor, scorching exposed muzzles to the bone, and disabling lenses. But the state’s power armor endured, safeguarding the advancing army as they waded through the barrage. Pack members helped downed members back to their feet. If an artillery shell took an arm or a leg from a warrior, a wolf hag would grab the wounded and carelessly toss them back, and the Wolfkins behind them would follow suit, sending the tribesmen to safety without ever halting their advance.
Shardguns barked. A cloud of projectiles traveling at 400 m/s ricocheted off the reinforced stone of the wall, but the sheer volume made up for the lack of accuracy, throwing the soldiers back on the battlements, lacerating their bodies, and disabling the heavy energy turrets. Some wolf hags used their pieces of archeotech to create small portable shields, forming a wall to shield the front troops. Many more fired explosives or used high-penetration weapons against the defenders, preferring to solve the problem at its core and earn adoration for their earlier kills.
Janine stormed through the main gates, smashing their remnants aside with the Taleteller. The very air screamed at the passage of her axe as it bisected two guards who tried to stop her advance. Bullets and energy beams from the defenders’ weapons hit the warlord’s armor, failing to penetrate the meter-thick armor. Laughing like an evil spirit, Janine came upon the enemy combatants, cleaving a bloody path through them.
Of the Blessed Mother, there was no sight. A bloody road in the middle of the enemy ranks hinted the direction of her savage journey, but the commander had lost herself in the bloody haze gripping her mind and ventured out on her own personal hunt. The Wolf Tribe, expecting it, broke in on Dragena’s orders.
They murdered efficiently but bloody, sending torn limbs everywhere. A wave of unnatural fear swept from Alpha, unnerving the state’s soldiers and utterly horrifying their opposition. The tribe howled in a chaotic cacophony; the scouts fired their weapons at the lights on the fortifications and threw smoke grenades. Black-clad figures burst through the smoke, steam rising from their hungry snouts, their red lenses flashing crimson.
There was a reason for this ferocity. The Wolf Tribe excelled at breaking wills to fight. Prior to accepting the laws of war, their wolf hags would often steal away raiders, staking them and forming a wall of screaming bodies around villages or settlements belonging to the foe. Such barbaric times faded into the past, and Janine didn’t miss them. There was something sickening about slowly strangling a life, even the worst scum. As if it tainted her somehow.
But the same principle applied here. Enemy forces prepared secondary and tertiary positional defenses behind the gates on the slope leading up to the city. Pillboxes and trenches housed soldiers, and enemies on platforms inside the wall stood ready to fire on the invaders. They harvested their share of casualties, killing two dozen Wolfkins through the sheer intensity of their fire. Then, as the casualties piled up, the resistance died out. Tecno-Queen’s soldiers, dressed in hazmat coats and advanced exoskeletons reinforced by the additional armor plating, started glancing back, sharing similar panicked thoughts. The invaders are not stopping! I’m going to die in here! My family needs me! It’s no use; they just won’t die!
Such was morale. Hard to build, harder to maintain. Fear could save lives, sparing a city’s population from the fate of being starved or bombed into submission. To achieve such a result, they intensified their assault, and Janine’s bulk threw an officer off her path, breaking his arms in a mere collision. Her elbow struck, hollowing out a soldier wielding a rocket launcher. Her bodyguards, Soulless One and Impatient One, lunged over the warlord, tearing people apart with their claws, as all shamans did. Their snouts snapped, taking limbs, and the shamans’ howls joined those of the pack.
“Surrender and live! What’s here to die for?!” Janine lifted the officer with the blunt side of her axe.
“Above, warlord!” Anissa’s warning made Janine jump aside.
Twin beams of energy impaled the place where she had stood a moment ago, burning holes in an overzealous warrior and devouring two wounded enemies. The warrior stumbled, gasping for air and disoriented, and Melina crashed into her, knocking the Wolfkin aside as more of the energy hit into place.
The attacker stood atop a bunker, a creature taller than an unarmored wolf hag. Once he was a man, but whatever wicked sacrifice he had made for Techno-Queen had changed him. Brown plates covered most of his body, held together by cords that pierced the exposed, blistered skin. Instead of arms, the cyborg had two energy cannons, fed by an oversized generator on his back. The cyborg’s exposed lower jaw protruded from its head, looking comically small against the camera-covered hunk of metal that functioned as a helmet.
“Fidelity ensures survival!” a voice boomed from the cyborg’s chest. “Doubts invite immediate punishment! Stand and fight, turn back the tide, or you shall forfeit yours futu…”
Janine shook the officer off her axe, throwing him out of her mind. Her soldier was badly wounded, but the woman will live, although Melina will make the foolish girl rue her carelessness. But this foe demanded an immediate solution. The warlord threw her axe in a cold, controlled rage, and it bit at the left shoulder of this man-machine, sending the thing spinning. A cannon fell to the ground, and shots from her energy rifle melted another. Janine leapt over the battle lines, grabbed the edge of the bunker and hoisted herself onto it, picking up the lying Taleteller and cleaving at the foe.
“Give up!” she snarled, slicing through a knee. A kick sent the cyborg five steps back, drawing a line with his remaining leg. “It’s all over, tin can man. Lie down like a little cub, and you’ll be fixed later.”
Janine didn’t lie. The state hungrily hunted after the New Breeds, whether natural or manufactured, integrating both into the Army and civilian life, unless it could be proven that they tainted themselves with war crimes. The Spirits know she’d rather die than let the soulless metal further taint her soul, but this fool might believe otherwise.
“P-ple…” Janine lowered her axe at the stuttering voice coming from the trembling human mouth. The man spoke in an emotionless tone, but static interrupted his speech, distorting the words. “E-end e-ensla-avement… Fidelity ensures survival! Till the last!” the same voice roared from the dynamics, silencing the human mouth. The cyborg’s mouth twitched, shutting silent at a click in his head.
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The cyborg almost caught her off-guard. He sprang at her with his remaining leg, lifting his heavy body effortlessly. Parts of his breastplate and back armor moved over the head, forming a bear trap. Its ends were about to close on Janine’s head when she brought her axe’s edge to meet them, hewing through the blades and burying the weapon into the man’s chest, destroying his head. Hissing chemicals and sparks poured from the wound. The warlord kicked the corpse off the roof.
More cyborgs rose from the trenches, revealing themselves from their hiding spots. A streak of darkness raced toward the one on the opposite side of the battlefield. Warlord Onyxia worked her claws, wounding enemy soldiers and picking apart any officer trying to restore order. Despite wearing the same heavyweight power suit as other warlords, she elegantly passed through the enemy ranks, never bumping into a foe, polishing her skills even in the heat of battle.
The tin can never stood a chance. Darkness oozing from Onyxia’s joints licked at him as a black form passed the machine, and it fell apart, bisected at the limbs, its head carried away by the warlord. She jumped, prying the helmet open, unconcerned about the enemy forces taking aim to end her. Several shards hit the projector, illuminating the warlord, and a moment later, the laser beams pierced the place where she should have been. Explosives lit up the area, but Onyxia herself was already moving away, somehow appearing next to Janine.
It didn’t even freak her out anymore. Trying to keep track of Onyxia was a fool’s errand. She goes where she pleases, attacking from whatever angle she likes and to the Abyss any plans of her opponent. The shadow woman beat it into her, slicing the warlord’s limbs in their brief duel. Janine moved ahead of the frontline, noticing a wolf hag leading the charge in the absence of the elusive warlord.
The wolf hag’s upper part of the helmet was painted white; she stood as tall as her warlord, easily subjugating the wolf hags in the pack to her will. Under her coordination, the Onyxia Pack not only pursued their objective but also aided their allies, sending the wounded to the rear and suppressing the cyborgs with coordinated fire.
“More wires than brains,” Onyxia announced, tossing aside the remains of her trophy.
“Acknowledged,” Dragena replied, supervising the operation from outside. “Offer the cyborgs no mercy unless they ask for it. Be wary. They’ll burn you along with their allies just as readily as if you were alone. Janine’s record proves it,” she finished, filling the warlord’s heart with pride at the recognition of her work, and her pack doubled the efforts, eager to help their warlord earn her first honorable title.
“Anissa, Melina, are we lagging behind?” Janine asked the instigators, crumpling a man’s head with her rifle. His companion threw down a laser rifle, trying to utter words of surrender.
“No, warlord!” They snapped.
“Then cease this foolishness! The males and warriors are falling behind.” Janine picked up the soldier using her rifle and threw the prisoner over her shoulder, where the rest of her pack carried the captive to the Ice Fangs.
She clicked her tongue, checking the reports. They weren’t the first. The officer whose arms she had smashed had surrendered to Ashbringer’s forces, robbing Janine of the chance to earn the modest title of Captive Bringer, a humble rank given to a warlord who was the first to subjugate a high-ranking opponent during an invasion. She could go and smash the wolf hag’s head down the cranium, stealing the prize, but where was the honor or justice in that? Better to focus on helping her soldiers survive. The day will come when she’ll earn herself just as many titles as Martyshkina. Even more! Never, she will never lose to Marty!
“Janine, let the girls play!” joked Warlord Ygrite. The woman closed on a cyborg firing at her troops; her paw slipped a mine into its generator, and she rolled to the side. The generator erupted, burning the insides of the mechanical human. The mutated warlord spread her arms, basking in the glory. “Life’s too brief to waste it in gloom. Cheer up!”
Janine ignored her, surveying the battlefield. They had broken through the defenses, and Dragena should announce the assault any second now. A wolf hag from the Ygrite Pack caught her eye. The woman tried to push ahead of her fellows after the warlord, but turned back when the males in her pack failed to keep up. She raised a clawed paw to discipline the slowest, a small and frightened male who tried not to look at her. A scout tried to stop her, earning a growl from the wolf hag.
“Are you cubs or adults?!” Janine’s roar cut through the chaos, and the communication channel carried her words. Ygrite’s wolf hag glanced at Janine, itching for a fight. “No dominations, no punishments until the Blessed Mother ends her hunt! Wolf Hag! If you can’t watch over your pack, bare your throat to another and be absorbed.”
“You are not my warlord,” the insolent wretch replied, and Janine’s paw gripped the shaft of her axe. The Taleteller would be too good for the wolf hag. Janine will open this unruly creature with her own paws, not her claws. She will drink deep from her throat and haunt her nightmares forever!
“What was that, Wolf Hag Kalaisa?” Alpha’s voice asked over the comms.
“Nothing, warlord!” There was no strike. Alpha’s physical punishments never ended with a single blow; they always left a broken body with missing bones and twisted limbs, often declawed. The Strongest Warlord used her power, the Fear Wave, to whip the arrogant wolf hag, and the girl answered on the verge of tears. “I obey!”
Janine didn’t gloat. Physical punishment would be a mercy compared to Alpha’s fear touch. Alpha turned Janine’s and Marty’s hides gray after the two curious cubs tried to sneak into the Strongest Warlord’s den to see if it really had an actual TV. It was a stupid challenge, and Terrific added her own punishment to them later. Their fur had regained its color a month later. Yeah, she’ll let the girl off the hook this time.
“Incoming!” Janine shouted, raising her snout to the sky after hearing the roar of unknown engines and tasting the scent of the same chemicals that coursed through the veins of a dead tin can.
Four figures flew toward them from the city. Identical to the cyborgs they’d slain, these hovered on the fiery trails coming from their backs. Janine fired her rifle, bringing down a tin can by melting its engine. The next instant, she was on top of the machine, hacking away at its frame. Impatient One successfully grabbed another tin can. Her daughter jumped from the bunker as the cyborgs began their descent, closing her claws on the sturdy legs and landing the thing helmet down. Soulless One sunk her claws into the machine’s neck, dragging the head away.
“Circle!” Anissa snapped, unceremoniously elbowing a hesitating male away before the cyborg could flatten him. The cyborg landed and a white light flashed in its shoulder cannons. “Grenades!”
The Wolf Tribe preferred to live in lands where the scorching sun could leave burns on Normies’ skins. They welcomed the heat, celebrating the sun’s arrival with mad mating and cheers. The wildlife of their homeland adapted, growing heavy shells and bone armor strong enough to withstand shrapnel and flame-resistant skins. Ravager blessed her offspring with sharp claws, but she also gave them the brains to use new murder tools.
At Anissa’s command, the packs used one such tool. Their grenades created a short-lived cloud of acid that burned the lungs of fools who happened to breathe it and ate through armor, dissolving it. The cyborg stumbled, falling on a knee, one cannon exploding, and the second shot going skyward.
“Sorry, my bad, the legs gave in!” Bogdan tackled a warrior with his shoulder, throwing himself and the woman to the ground to escape a beam aimed at their heads.
The last cyborg avoided the fate of the third by closing in to the Wolfkins’ ranks and kicked, snapping a male’s knee as the soldier tried to use a grenade to disable the machine’s generator. Its upper torso turned, firing at her son. Ignacy gave Bogdan a paw, dragging him and the warrior away.
Before Janine could stop tearing her prey apart and rush to aid them, a paw grasped the cyborg. Warlord Ashbringer fired her flamethrower at low power, straight into the exposed jaw. Where the steel endured, the flesh it was grafted onto gave way, and the cyborg shuddered, burning to an empty husk. Ashbringer’s lenses found Janine, and the woman nodded.
She is going to claim all the titles! Janine thought in despair, nodding back. Great, Ashbringer repaid back the debt for letting her wolf hag steal the prisoner from a fellow warlord. No title and no favor from another pack. At least my soldiers are alive. Janine chastised herself for the envy. That’s what’s important. Four warlords had died with no titles or legends to their names. If she should be the fifth, so be it.
An explosion threw her from the tin can. A defense tower, positioned on a wall to the west, unleashed its missiles at the gates, opening wide gaps in their ranks and resulting in the deaths of several Wolfkins. Before the warlord could fire her rifle, Ravager was already on the task, uprooting the entire tower along with a small section of the wall. The commander lifted the ruins over her head, ignoring the pleas for mercy from the tower’s operators. Janine’s lenses zoomed in, showing Ravager’s maddened eyes. The progenitor had gone too far again. The Blessed Mother went berserk. Any soul incurring her wrath would meet only a mindless and efficient demise.
Ravager hurled the tower at the soldiers below, shaking the ground, and moved over the wall, her claws striking and collecting the lives of those before her. Crimson soaked her fur, failing to change its color, and body parts tangled in her fur. J Leaving the commander to fight her own battles, Janine sliced another guard in half, then kicked a woman off her feet, putting a boot on the guard’s body.
“Surrender,” Janine offered the woman, holding an axe on her shoulder and firing at an officer trying to restore cohesion. Her shot took the man’s hand, and he tried to aim his pistol at her, only to be shot by Anissa.
“Advance,” Dragena commanded.
In her panic, the pinned guard fired her weapon. The energy beam hissed against the dented alloy, failing to melt it. That was answer enough for the warlord. Janine stomped on the enemy, and the warlord moved on, slashing and shooting, her pack charging behind her.