Eldest entered the command center. A dozen gene brothers monitored the ongoing conquest of the state and pacifying the locals. In many areas it was quick and easy. The map of the state displayed on a hologram now has a sizable section with the symbol of the Father, a raised fist holding a rifle.

He would be concerned that it was too easy until a tech saluted him and presented a data slat.

“Ah, so they are going to make us work for it.”

Eldest waved a hand over the map and several areas were marked with bright red. Areas that due to one reason or another were proving difficult to take.

“Most of them will be solved by applying a little more force but these two.” He tapped two towns. “These will be made examples of.”

“What are your orders Eldest?”

“Send the triplets here. And here” He tapped a town called Wickenburg “Send the Chimeras.”

The two seconds the tech paused when Eldest mentioned the chimeras would have been unnoticed by most but to him it was telling. Many feared the Chimeras for good reason.

“Your will be done.”

The tech had drones wake them up. Risking a gene brother would be ill advised.

𝝮

The triplets were marching to their destination when an RPG hit Steel the smallest of the three. Steel shrugged it off because he was a ten foot tall cyborg with ionic cannons.

His two big brothers, Rust and Iron, reacted poorly to that. Rust opened his mouth and a stream of super heated plasma was ejected out and burned the attacker. He also burned the three men next to him. And the forest he was hiding in. And melted the rocks he stood on.

Iron stomped again and again on burning carcases that dared attack his little brother. The stomping thankfully extinguished the fire.

Steel shouted at his brothers to stop and they listened. He may be the smallest but he is the leader. Mostly because he was the most sane of the three. Extreme cybernetics can do strange things to a person's mind.

After a quick snack of depleted lithium batteries they marched on. The GPS in their head said they should be there in the next ten minutes.

As they came to the town, a small one with a stone wall surrounding it like old medieval cities, a greeting party exited the gate. At their head was a very muscular man with tight fitting spandex, he was also levitating. The super in charge of this town. What did he call himself? Supreme? Maximum? Something like that.

In all honesty the triplets would rather not have to kill him since he wasn’t as bad as the other warlords they had been dealing with. He kept to himself and even had a wife and kids. It would be a pity if they had to kill them.

Steel stopped and his two brothers stopped behind him. They preferred to let him do the talking.

“Greetings!” The sound speakers boomed out of Steels chest, “We are gene brothers of the Eldest and bring prosperity to the land. With the gifts of the Father we shall elevate you to greatness!”

“Fuck you!” the super shouted back.

“Now there's no reason for name calling. We only want you and your people to unite with us. We can give you food, medicine, energy, and protection.” He looked at the people behind the super, many of them were painfully skinny and a few sported missing limbs. Their settlement looked even worse with open sewage and gas burners being the only illumination.

“We can take care of ourselves.” The empowered man said, looking back at his people. The care in his eyes was a bit surprising. Most supers the brothers met thought of themselves as a superior form of human and only cared about regular humans for what they could give them. He really didn’t want to kill this one.

“May I know your name? Mine is Steel, these are my big brothers Rust” Rust opened his massive jaw and let out a small stream of fire, “and Iron” Iron casually picked up a boulder the size of a car and crushed it in his hands.

The super looked at the three for a moment before saying “My friends call me John Smith, My enemies call me Supreme.”

“Well John let me tell you about what happened to a little town called Wickenburg

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

𝝮

Wickenburg, like many towns, had made many adjustments after the eruption. One of the biggest adjustment was becoming the slave trade center for state. The people would often go on raids, led by their boss who was nigh invulnerable, on other towns. The most profitable commodity was young women, New Deseret always needed more of them for their god king. Their leader was also known to sample the product before he sent them to market.

That's the reason why Eldest decided to unleash the Chimeras on them. He rode on a hanger that had a large cage under a tarp. The occasional clicking or hissing could be heard from it.

Eldest received a message from the pilot that they would be landing soon. He sent his acceptance and told him to lock the bulkhead.

They landed and the hanger door opened. It was night time and the lights of a town were visible a mile distance. Eldest removed the tarp and beheld his warped brothers. Half human half animal hybrids growled and cawed at him. The Father had made the Chimeras in a gene splicing experiment that had failed. His fallen brothers had taken on the abilities of the animals, one had the punching abilities of the mantis shrimp, another the strength of a bullet ant, another the carapace of a crab, another had poison skin of the amazonian dart frog. Each one was unique, each one was insane in one way or another.

“Hush.” He whispered. The Chimeras quieted at once. Even in their maddened state they remembered him. He would give them food, and stroke them when they wanted comfort. They loved him.

“You see those lights?” He pointed at the town. A slow growl erupted from a dozen throats.

“Kill everyone not in shackles. GO!”

And they were off. Some running on two legs others on four, several flew through the air. They landed over a mile's distance but it only took 5.7 seconds for the first of the chimeras to reach the walls. That's when the screaming started. Eldest pulled up a display from a flying drone and watched.

The wall was barely slowing the chimeras down since several of them just jumped over walls or smashed through them. One insectoid chimera with praying mantis blades on its arms was cutting through men like wet paper, a dog man ripped out a throat and swallowed the meaty treat. Maybe he should feed them more?

They were following his order to not kill any of the slaves and simply ran past the manacled people like they weren’t there. That deserves a reward. They are usually much more rowdy.

The empowered with the invincibility was trying to kill a honey badger chimera with his bare hands but he simply lacked the strength. A honey badger's skin is roughly equivalent to ballistic armor and the badger was going into a berserk frenzy trying to kill the empowered.

As his people died around him more and more chimeras were ganging up on the empowered. An octopus man spat ink into his eyes and used his tentacles to pin his arms while the mantis shrimp punched him in the face over and over again.

A torch was knocked over and fire had begun to spread across the town. The slavers were all but wiped out but the slaves were still running and shouting, some ran through the gate into the wilderness, and others hid in their dead master's house.

All the chimeras now surrounded the empowered until one with spider legs grabbed him by the mouth and vomited poison down his throat. In seconds the man began to foam from the mouth and lose consciousness. He fainted but the chimeras still attacked him this time trying to bite and tear bits of him off to eat. Time to call them back.

He fished the whistle out of his pocket and blew. The display showed the chimeras all turn their heads as one towards his location. They ran and flew back to him and to their cage. Some of them dragged corpses or livestock with them. One of those corpses was the empowered man. In total from opening the cage to closing it had taken a little over five minutes.

He would send a diplomatic team to bring the slaves into their protection in the morning. As he took the tarp and draped it over the cage he saw the empowered flutter his eyes open and stare at him. Eldest cocked his head to the side and looked back.

He pointed at the man and said “Eat.” The man screamed as nails and claws began to cut into him. He had tough skin so the cuts were shallow. It would be a while before he died. Eldest sat down, made himself comfortable, and watched impassively as the man was torn apart.

𝝮

“That happened yesterday.” Steel finished.

When Steel finished his story John Smith's face was pale. He had stopped hovering and now stood on the ground with his grim faced people.

“Your monsters.” He said.

“We are. And you have a choice, be stubborn and let your people die, or swallow your pride and live under us. Trust me you don’t want us as enemies.”

Smith looked at the three metal behemoths before him then looked back at his people, most of them didn’t even have guns and a few had pitchforks. They couldn’t fight back. Smith was confident he could kill one of the cyborgs, maybe even two, but three? Then he would make enemies out of people that could unleash monsters. Monsters that would consume him, his town, his wife, his baby girl. The thought of clawed hands reaching for her is what broke him.

John Smith, also known as Supreme, bent his knee to the ground soon followed by everyone else.

“I surrender.” He said defeated.

“Good.” Steel rumbled “A medical and engineer team will be by tomorrow. They will get you some good medicine and fix your sewage issue. See ya later John.”

The three cyborg giants turned around and walked away, their footsteps shaking the ground as they left.

Supreme ordered everyone back to their homes and families. Some of the younger folks looked at him with a betrayed look that he would bend so easily, the older just had a stubborn look on their faces. They had survived worse, they would survive this.

Supreme fly to his house opened the door and was greeted by his beautiful wife. Her golden hair shined in the afternoon light.

“Is everything-”

“Daddy!” His little eight year old shouted as she jumped onto him. He firmly held onto her with one hand and with the other he hugged his wife.

“John?” she asked, growing worried.

“Everything is fine Luann. Everything will be just fine.