There. He saw it, the moment that would destroy his Clan.
A shield warrior, he thought it looked like Mullen, missed a crab at his feet. The crab used the moment to get its pincer at the bottom of his shield and drag it down with its pincer. The movement threw him off balance and, fatigued and wounded as he was, Mullen responded a fraction of a second too late in bringing his shield back up.
The Lancer behind him, also tiring and just a bit slow, missed the chance to intercept the leaping crab that punched its claw-blade through the front of Mullen’s helmet. The Lancer made sure that the crab didn’t enjoy its kill for long, then she herself was forced to engage a grouping of crabs that looked to press the advantage.
Fighting off the new crabs, she missed the first one, now partially concealed by the shield and Mullen’s corpse. It leapt in a low arc into her stomach where its teeth and claws blended her nearly in half.
Two warriors let a small measure of fatigue conquer them for a moment. Fatally for them, at the same moment.
The gap spread. This single point of failure would cost everything. There were now just over 80 soldiers, the Sentries down to a few handfuls as they had focused their earlier efforts on triggering the traps to protect the main column.
The Youth filled in gaps in the line as their training had dictated. He saw several of them were holding shields that had not started the day as their own.
Every loss here brought the Clan closer to the brink. Losses were swiftly becoming irreplaceable.
The metal bar in his hand finished its process, all red having vanished, what remained was a bar of glowing white. It audibly belted a high-pitched whistle as a flowing sheath of air-twisting energy flowed down its surface.
Leanne looked to report the progress of the Monitors, heard the whistle and saw the Clan Head punch into the widening gap.
He swung his White Blade of Heaven in wide, fast sweeps, clearing large sections of crabs to reduce the strain on the line behind him. He kept in place as he swung, giving time for the line to reinforce the breech. The crabs refocused their efforts from the line toward the Clan Head. He looked like a more dangerous target.
A crab survived the sweeping strokes and launched itself towards his face. Lee gave it a quick Rising Sun through the center of the crab and the heat cored it out in two pieces behind him. Lee didn’t see the result, he was already moving forward, unimpeded through the raging swarms of crabs.
There was no time to waste. He needed to get to the Tactician.
Leanne could see it, the Clan Head was being drawn further and further away as the Tactician lured him deeper and deeper into the seething mass of crabs.
She saw him activate his ultimate Mod, The White Blade of Heaven. The most annoying part about a flame-aspect was the short temper and stubbornness.
She pulled every Sentry that she could afford. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do. She unholstered a water-pressure handgun from her right thigh and pulled out a foot-and-half-long wave-patterned blade from the sheath on the small of her back.
“We’re going after the Clan Head; stay sharp. We stop, we die, so I want it tight and I want it moving.”
A chorus of nods.
“Verbal communication is a priority.”
“Aye Sentinel” came back from every mouth. Six of the Sentries picked up shields. There were plenty of them scattered and unused. The Sentinel’s group released a storm of violence as they pushed through the defensive line and into the swarm.
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It was a lot of crabs. More than 50 large and differently proportioned crab-men moved into a tight group as they covered the middle of the room. Seeing savage grins on the man-crabs’ faces was unpleasant for everyone. The largest crab, the one who had placed the blue disk on the other Terminal, stepped ahead of the others and opened its mouth to speak.
Kala let loose a grunt and ripped a stream of hard-light. Hardened beads of light punched through its open mouth and top palate as the crab’s brain shot out of the back of its exo-skeletal skull.
She walked her light-stream across the other crabs, searching for vulnerabilities but their pincers were ready as they blocked and redirected the small orbs of light.
Jack had his back to the Terminal, he had been watching as he heard the tststststststst fire off. He looked towards Yuma and they moved closer and whispered quickly back and forth.
It was uncomfortable to see the combination of the crab’s alien behavior in their Human-like bodies. After the lead crab went down the group of crab-men expanded in a swell then retracted into a tight ball. Apparently their crab instincts were still strong.
The stream cut out as Kala started huffing heavy breaths in and out, she hadn't fully recovered from the Run.
A wary silence built up between the two groups. The internal chittering of the horde of man-crabs continued. Without a word, the group of Humans started to spread out. Crabs were more dangerous together than apart.
Yuma pulled to the left, next to the wall and away from the dome. Tule took a position on the opposite side, next to the shimmering dome.
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Kala formed the largest group to the left, closer to the wall. Devin, with his pink gauntlet raised, stood immediately to her right. To her left was Eilien, hand resting on Kala’s shoulder. Next to Eilien was Jonah and Uller. On either side of the three were were Mikey and Kensey.
The man and women split, the man followed Tule and the woman angled after Yuma.
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Good. Come closer Human. Deeper. It could tell the Man-Human had quite a bit more Nano than any others it had observed.
Clan Head Lee is alive. He was more alive than he had been in thousands of cycles. He shot out another set of slashing sweeps. The masses of squirming chitin, charred ichor, and heat pouring off of his blade warmed up his surroundings nicely.
His body spun as he continued to sweep forwards through the crowd of crabs. Most thought him a bit of a “hot-head.” Naturally, as Clan Head, misdirecting others’ assumptions came naturally. The heat haze warped briefly around him before it shot him forward.
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Jack walked the shortest direction towards the ball of crabs and stopped. Korl was a short distance away to his right.
The crabs instinctively reflected the Humans’ actions and spread out into groups. Yuma had the least amount of crabs across from her, only 5 or 6. The greatest number of crabs moved across from Kala’s bunker, probably around half of the total.
Spread out amongst the rest, Jack and to an extent, Korl, had roughly 15 crabs across from them. Korl moved closer to Jack, flanking him.
“Chchch,” hearing the chitter come from Human vocal cords raised the hair on the back of his neck, it sounded wrong, perverse. It reminded him of the Bay full of horrific hybrids he had gone through. Fucking crabs, couldn’t they just get out of his way for one moment. He felt his heartbeat in his head, he wiped a bead of sweat from his brow.
Looks like these freaks were the successful rejects.
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Kala ripped a stream towards the crowd of crabs across from her and her formation started moving backwards with her, matching the formation to her wide-steps.
Tule and the man next to him dove into their crowd, blades flashing as they traded blows. Yuma and the woman started to strafe around their opposing group as they fired and tried to keep the crabs at a distance. This was harder than they realized as some of the man-crabs had managed to keep their leaping abilities during their transformation.
A group of 10 man-crabs stayed where they were, across from Jack. The second largest one, a hulking thing easily a foot taller than the tallest Human present, took a step forward and opened its mouth.
A crab pointed at Jack, “YOU NEW HUMAN.”
“I’m not Yu.”
The crab didn’t get it but that didn’t matter to him. It gave enough time to top himself up with the Zappa while it tried to process the exchange.
Now that he had stopped the run the electricity flowing into him had slowly started to rebuild in his cells. With the Zappa, his internal current went into overdrive as it spiked pressure, electricity, and heat into him.
Korl had drawn his sword in his left hand, another blade still rested in its sheath next to the empty one.
“Huuuman. *Chchchch* You are the Human. The father tell these ones. To kill.”
“To eat!” Came the chorus of replies that cut through the sounds of fighting.
He figured out the ‘chchch’ was laughter as a chorus of it broke out after the crabs words. Chittering went back and forth then a hulking crab stepped out and another one, tall and lean stepped out alongside it.
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Korl wasn’t sure what to think.
One wasn’t a problem. Two weren’t a problem if you were careful and skilled. He had run into these crabs before with the Lord of Sword. These crabs looked better, they were less deformed, more solid. He could sense the danger radiating off of the group of them.
He stepped forwards next to Jack and saw him hold up his hand, “I got these two, just be ready for anything.” Jack spit onto the ground to clear out some of the ozone tang that had built up with his overcharge, “I wouldn’t count on these crabs playing fair.”
The air around the man was getting warm, Korl saw currents of electricity start to spark over the surface of his skin. They kept growing as he shook and shocked and repeated the process with the Zappa.
The guy had some interesting abilities but he placed it on even odds that the man would come out ahead. Korl’s grip tightened on the sword then relaxed.
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The Tactician stopped its flight and turned. Lee saw the Tactician raise its claw to a blocking position and, in response, shifted his stance lower at the end of his Nano-boosted charge. He abandoned his Piercing Snake and shifted to a Rising Sparrow.
It scored a deep wound in the left pincer the crab had used to block and the Tactician countered with its right claw, it clacked closed just over the top of his head.
Lee saw the injury he had left on it and focused his attacks but the Tactician had learned and adapted. It only risked predatory, cautious attacks between sending waves of smaller crabs.
He was starting to tire and he knew that the crab knew it too. But that wasn’t his foremost concern, his White Blade was starting to lose its integrity. He swept through a couple of crabs that tested his flank.
He took a small crab’s blade through the top of his foot and weakly yelped in pain as he dropped to his knee. He was forced to shift some of his focus to the smaller crabs who appreciated his lower target. The Tactician moved in.
Lee smiled as he swept his Blade upwards and removed half of the Tactician’s wounded pincer. The retaliation from its right claw snipped him across his arm, snipping through flesh and muscle but missing the bone as he tore his foot out of the claw-blade trapping it in the metal floor. He pressed his attack on the one-clawed Tactician and took both of its front legs before it started to retreat again, this time much slower, as it was missing its primary feet.
Lee felt the heat start to dissipate around him and redoubled his effort to grow his Nano-Trace Field through his sword. He continued to maneuver between the mess of crabs and wobbled and stepped through the attacks, singularly focused on the wounded Tactician. He could no longer kill every crab that stepped near him so he dodged them, not always successfully.
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They had kept a tight circle. Leanne shored up weaknesses from her position in the center.
They took sight of the Tactician and the Clan Head; she unloaded the rest of the charge of her pressure pistol. The pistol cored small holes into several of its eyes and that was all it took. The Clan Head lurched forward and stabbed his Blade between the Tactician’s eyes. The seams between its shell flared with hot, white light.
The gathering of crabs plunged into anarchy and started to tear each other apart. The disorganization lowered the general height of the surrounding swarms, “defend the Clan Head!”
The group pushed through and killed some opportunistic crabs that had managed to survive the heat surrounding the Clan Head and Tactician’s bodies long enough to land a few attacks on the Clan Head himself. Their group formed a circle around him, waiting for the surroundings to cool enough to extract him safely.
Him and his Blade were frozen in place, the Tactician hanging on off of it, inches from his face.
He was forced to use more energy and Nano than he should have. He didn’t move as he ignored the smaller crabs trying to push through the heat. Pulling Nano back from his White Blade grew more and more difficult the longer it burnt. He watched as some Nano flowed back up the Blade into his hand. Larger, dead chunks of Nano fell off of his Blade which quickly dissipated into smaller and smaller flakes.