COMBATING BOTANICAL BULLSHIT

1

On the day that everything fell apart I was enjoying my peaceful stress free existence, living the homeless lifestyle in Pennsylvania's ever diminishing wilderness. Having just finished getting a shower at a campground I haunted I was rather shocked to find a group of children rushing towards the building I was just exiting. They were being herded by a few young adults and a middle aged couple who where all visibly panicking. I didn't know why until they rushed past me into the building I had just exited. The creature chasing them was about the size of a large dog and I would have thought it a wolf if not for its greenish coloring and obviously abnormal features. I drew my knife as I noted its mouth opened in three segments and readied myself as it closed the distance between us. When it jumped at me with its strange jaws wide I struck with my blade using its momentum to nearly bisect it's head before it crashed into me and we fell together through the automatically closing door behind me. I threw my knees upward into the beast as I fell and managed to turn the fall into a backward roll that left me on top as I ripped my knife free and stabbed it into the strange creature a few times to ensure its demise.

Looking up I saw two more of the creatures barreling towards me and so I drew my gun and fired two shots into each of the open mouths of the approaching hostiles before holstering my gun and freeing my knife from its place in the first corpse, after whipping it off with some paper towels I sheathed it as well. Unsure what was going on I dragged the first corpse out of the way so the door could close the pulled my gun to swap the magazine for a fresh one before taking off my backpack and pulling out three bullets to replace the ones I used before putting it into my mag pouch. As I put my backpack back on while peering out the small window in the door two thing happened almost at once. First a feminine voice sounded out in my head introducing itself as Raif and second I heard movement behind me, startled, I spun around to see the middle aged guy with the group I had completely forgotten about peering cautiously around the corner at both me and the dead creature.

The guy promptly began thanking me while the voice in my head started welcoming me into the vanguard and saying I had 60 points. I told the guy not worry about it while wondering why the voice in my head was keeping score before asking the pertinent question of what the fuck was this strange dog like critter? Both the man and the voice in my head began explaining at the same time and though it was a bit disorienting the gist of it all turned out to be that our world had been invaded by murderous alien plant monsters. The man and his group only decided to come camping because they thought the invasion was a hoax and this alien and its group were the first evidence they had come across that it was actually real. Sadly they had lost a few adults an one child when these thing burst out of the forest and attacked their camp and they all ran to the only building in the area.

I found my self wishing I had a more combat ready fire arm only to have my thoughts of various guns interrupted by the voice of Raif telling me that I was able to spend points to buy various things from an assortment of catalogs and those things included a plethora of weapons from multiple advanced alien tech trees. Unfortunately at that moment another doggo crept out of the tree line so I opened the door just enough to crouch in it as I drew my gun and lined up my shot. My first shot hit it in the eye and it dropped just as three more slunk out of the woods and I managed to put them down with five more shots. As I moved out of the doorway so it could close I popped my mag loose and replaced it before once more removing my back pack to refill the almost empty mag before putting it into its pouch.

Suddenly I had an idea and I shared it with Raif, I wanted something like an ar10 but with some scifi tech. So I was thinking something in .308 able to fire semi-auto, burst, or full auto, variable munition, 20-50 round capacity, telescoping barrel length say 10-16inches, collapsible stock, fore-grip, and a zoom-able red dot sight. I popped out and shot five more doggos while building my dream gun in my head, and as I swapped mags I asked the guy watching me if he knew how to reload them, he did so I asked him politely if he could reload for me. I don't know who said it but to paraphrase even in adverse conditions one should always be polite. While the guy was reloading my mag for me I killed another three doggos and just as I swapped mags again some tentacular monstrosity burst from the treeline and I had to put six bullets into before it died. Thankfully the guy had a new mag ready for me so I could swap in a fresh one. Seeing no more creatures I let the door close just as Raif informed me that I had enough points to afford the gun I wanted with armor piercing incendiary rounds with a 25 round capacity. I immediately declared that I wanted it, and a box appeared next to me as if by magic. Like a kid in a ice cream shop with unlimited funds I giggled as I put my handgun away and opened the magical box only to witness beauty incarnate.

Ignoring the mans shocked expression I reverently lifted my new weapon and seeing the attached sling I slipped my left arm and head through it before looking out the window again as Raif informed me of how to operate the various functions of my new best friend, because it was quiet and enemy free outside I took a moment to familiarize myself with how it worked. It was then that I realized I hadn't heard the aliens make any noises at all, they were eerily silent.

My thoughts were interrupted by the middle aged woman calling out to the man who was still looking shocked about the magic box to inform him that they managed to get get a call in to the authorities and that a chopper was on its way to evacuate everyone. It would arrive in between 20-30 minutes. I looked out the window again and although the cost was clear I retook my position in the doorway with my new gun raised and ready, barrel fully extended and noticed the shadow of our refuge stretching almost to the tree line. Just then the man finally got around to asking about the box appearing from thin air so I quickly told him about the voice that I now had living in my head and the point system it gave me but before I could elaborate more monsters appeared and I began killing them off.

This group had greater numbers than those that came before and as I dropped the first three doggos with the same number of shots I wondered about hearing protection and ammo only to have Raif inform me that I could spend points on both and the ammo could be set to automatically refill my guns mag if I wanted and I definitely did, I also wanted the hearing protection. I was a bit surprised when I felt earplugs appear in my ears but I was distracted by my continuing defense against my silent enemies. After the doggos came a pair of tentacular monstrosities I will hence forth call noodlers, followed by more of both. I could drop a doggo with one shot to the head or at most two to the chest while the noodlers took between two to three shots center mass. I was feeling pretty good until something new appeared, it was about three or four times as big as a doggo with six legs and while the doggos where lean this thing I will call a bug was bulky and had what looked like heavy plates of what looked like armor covering most of its body. I got a good shot on it and put a round through its eye, it took one more step and fell and I continued picking off the last few doggos and a final pair of noodlers. I thought I was going to get a breather but more doggos burst forth and my fight continued, soon I began to hear the chopper approaching and I needed something to hold off the invaders at the treeline so it could land and load up the people for evac. Raif recommended a type of sonic bombs that would melt the aliens so I bought a few and chucked them into the trees one at a time to make a wall of sound before calling out to the people to be ready to go as soon as the chopper arrived. As I left I grabbed my backpack tossed it on as I made my way out side tossing a few more sound bombs further into the trees.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Raif recommended I stay to rack up points instead of leaving with the others and my misanthropy totally agreed but my brain had some conditions. I thought to Raif I'm going to need some armor with a full face helmet something scifi with retractable shoulder mounted auto-turrets and flight capability even if limited, self cleaning & repair would prove useful as well. She recommended I order the shadow walker warfare catalog, a shadow walker neural set and a shadow walker annihilator armor set with micro-missile launchers. It was designed for long term operation in hostile areas devoid of support. All told it would cost me around 2000 points I ordered it and it appeared in front of me and opened up so I could step into it. I felt strange tingles around my eyes, ears, and the base of my skull as the neural set built itself with nanotechnology and I dropped my backpack and hooked my guns strap over the armors hand and then stepped into the suit. The tingles in my head stopped as the suit closed around me and after just a second of darkness the suit came alive and it felt like it was apart of me. I quickly hung my gun back over my head before pulling it up and continuing to fight my one man war against the enemy.

As I was shooting doggos, noodlers, and bugs on the ground my shoulder mounted turrets started launching micro-missiles into the treetops and sky killing alien birds I hadn't even realized where there. Just as the chopper touched down my suit patched into its com-system and I heard the crews awe filled voices talking about me wanting to know where my suit came from. I wasn't going to tell them, I planned let the mystery linger. I told the pilot to take off as soon as the campers were all on board that I would hold the line and that once the area was clear I was going to go try to find and destroy as many aliens as possible. I kept up my defense of the chopper behind me as the others rushed to get aboard and they did so quickly, shortly after the last passenger boarded they took off heading to somewhere I hope is safer than here. Once I was alone I picked my bag up and began backing towards the building when Raif asked why I was going back to the building I explained that I needed to stash my bag somewhere reasonably safe. She told me that for 500 points I could get a small spacial storage upgrade for my armor, it was basically a cube three meters across, I promptly bought it and felt the tell tale tingle of something being constructed under the skin on my chest after a few seconds it was done and with a though my bag vanished.

Just then I had a thought and asked Raif if this suit would protect me from biological and chemical attacks like poison gas, only to be informed that yes if would for up to an hour at a time after that id have to let the auto-repair work for a bit. I could swim in the strongest acid known to humanity for an hour before this armor would begin to loose integrity. She then explained that my armor could survive being shot by a tank, although my squishy human body would still get wrecked because the impact would cause me to accelerate well beyond human tolerance, she the suggested I invest in things to increase my body's ability to survive. As she began listing various options I purchased the required catalog while slaughtering my way toward and the into the tree line. I found myself thinking that it would be nice if I had some music and to bad my phone was in my pocket, unreachable while armored, only to be pleasantly surprised when I realized my neural net had linked to my phone as well as my armor and even my gun. With a thought I pulled my playlist and set it to random before asking Raif if the aliens could hear, and as “Puritania” by Dimmu Borgir began to blast forth from awesome alien tech my enthusiasm soared when I was told that yes they could indeed hear. By the time that song ended and “Planet Hell” by Nightwish followed I was being thoroughly swarmed and I was loving it.

Thanks to my neural set and my armors sensors I had a 360 degree awareness of everything within a hundred meters of myself and I made use of it, massacring the enemy and utilizing my armors iron man like flight system to jump out of any attempt to surround me all the while I never stopped reaping alien plant monster lives. It took me near an hour of following the general path the aliens came from before I found something new, it appeared at the edge of my perception. A rough line of ruined forest before what was essentially a dead spot, I paused my music and jumped into the air activating my armors stealth systems before taking flight up through the canopy above.

Once above the trees I could see that the dead spot beyond the line of ruined forest was actually a ring about 50 feet wide with a radius of around 300 meters at the center of which stood a woody alien plant covered in odd bulbs and surrounded by a visibly expanding root structure crawling with aliens both familiar and unseen before now. Raif informed me that I was looking at an antithesis hive and that the bulbs where the source of all the aliens I had encountered, she went on to tell me that any and all of the aliens id killed had the potential to sprout into one of these hives if not properly disposed of thanks to the seed that all antithesis contained. She then recommended I use nanotechnology or sound bombs to destroy the corpses because some spread spores when burned while explosives tended to scatter the remains.

So I needed a plan and while I though one up I flew back the way I came and dropped nanite bombs on all the dead I had left behind to slowly breakdown all of them into fertilizer. Landing at the camp building I went inside to make my purchases but got distracted by my reflection. My armor was all shades of gray, sleek and comprised of scales ranging in size from a grain of rice to a quarter and an assortment of shaped plates in strategic places. It had blades that could be deployed on the forearms and retractable claws on the fingers and toes, the helmet matched the armor with face being a featureless plate from nose up to and scales from the noes down, but its most striking features were the sensors. Looking almost like overly long fingers with twenty knuckles each the sensors took to place where hair would be on a male human head and along the jawline. It must be made absolutely clear at this point, I love my armor, it looks organic when I want it to the scales in the face retract somehow so I can eat and drink without taking it off. I eat a quick snack and drink some tea from a vending machine while I order what I want and what I need to eliminate the nest. For the want I got a .50 caliber 6 barrel mini gun that is fed ammunition directly from my spacial storage in a pattern of armor piercing incendiary, antimatter explosive, armor piercing tracers, and something called singularity shot that creates a temporary miniature black hole on impact, I obviously stockpile a shit ton of such ammo. For the need I buy a very large wide area dispersal nanite bomb.

My return to the hive is quick and as hover above it in stealth mode I cant help but grin as I internally debate whether I want to drop the bomb now or shot a bunch of hungry plant monsters first. I eventually decide to drop the bomb first because it will take at least an hour for the nanites to completely destroy the hive, and so without further delay I blast out Cradle of Filth's song “Tortured Soul Asylum” as I drop the bomb. As soon as the bomb leaves my hand I equip my mini gun, hence forth know as puff the magic dragon, drop my stealth and open fire. It is beautiful. As I rain hell down upon the invasive species below at a rate of 4500 rounds per minute while spiraling my aim inward from the dead zone it becomes obvious that puff the magic dragon is an exquisite example of overwhelming fire power and the potential of sheer unadulterated violence.

The plant monsters seem to almost evaporate under my barrage, luckily there are a lot of them because at puff's rate of fire I need the points almost as fast as I'm getting them. I spend about two and a half minutes annihilating the assorted antithesis models but after that even the central hive is a shredded mess and there are no mobile creatures in sight. With an extremely satisfied sigh I spin puffs barrels until they cool off before putting her away. After all that I pull a smoke out of my storage and light it before pulling up my main battle riffle, subsequently know as mbr, and begin patrolling the air space over the soon to be dead hive keeping a lookout for any returning or freshly hatching/blooming creatures. The waiting is mostly peaceful, I only need to kill a few returning critters and end even fewer freshly bloomed ones that appear sporadically. Soon enough the hive is dead and shortly thereafter it and all the corpses present finish being forcefully biodegraded.