<>You’re having a panic attack, should I turn off your hormones?
I stopped, breathing, moving, everything. Was I having a panic attack about having them turned off now? Yep. Fucking hormones man.
Gravitas had crouched next to me, continuing to rub my back. “Hey, it’s okay. Nothings wrong. You’re okay.”
“Naille. Dial the hormones back. A lot.” My voice was small but audible. “Scrub them out of my system if you can. This is too much.”
<>This is the minimum. Perhaps we should wait for this until you’ve got a chance to see a professional. I only nodded in response.
It took a moment, but things calmed down. When I finally looked up again Drag–On and Bomberman were there as well. I was being held by Gravitas, who was kneeling next to me and rocking me back and forth. I took the time to blink a few times, mostly from organic habit but it actually did clear my optics so that was a bonus.
“Are you good?” Bomberman Knelt in front of me. “Kinda a bad time to have a nervous breakdown.”
“Sorry. I… was stupid. I’ll be better.” A few thoughts got the Lesser Shoggoth working again. “I’ve lost so much ground. Sorry.”
“It’s fine, Dear. It’s been a long day. Maybe you should take a break?” Drag-On had dismounted from Their dragon and approached. It took everything I had to keep a straight face, having naturally slid into being a person again. Drag-On was exactly the Okama I had expected. Even wearing a voluminous ball gown like a princess, and being overly hairy. They quirked a smile at my struggling expression. “Yes dear, very funny. At least you're not having a panic attack.”
“No. Sorry. I don’t mean to laugh at you. It's just that I'm giddy that my imagination was correct. You’re just as beautiful as I thought. I mean I was born a guy myself.” I blinked. Another new tidbit of information about myself. I looked down and blinked again. “Although I have no real attachment to that gender. It’s more… you're exactly as I expected. How I knew what to expect is still unknown, but I did and it’s kinda funny.”
“Yes, that’s one of the standard reactions. It’s fine, hon. I don’t mind much anymore.”
I nodded before I quickly hugged Alex, then untangled myself from her and stood. She did the same, her pontoons floating back to attach to her lower back. Everyone turned as a Lesser Shoggoth moved past us in the direction of buildings I hadn’t cleared yet.
“Maybe let the drones work while you head back to safety and relax for a bit?” Bomberman gestured in the direction of the wall. “Or at least stay away from whatever did that?”
“Yeah. I think I’ll stick to clearing buildings for a bit. Easier. You can all push or fall back, but I’ll stay here. If I get too much further….” I turned in the direction of a building one of my drones was working in and stared at it for a long moment. This prompted the others to tap the feed I kept up so they could see through my combat information network.
There was something rather Large shouldering through the buildings ahead. It was huge, looked vaguely like a Twelve on steroids crossed with a double decker bus. It may have been on Meth or Bath Salts too. It also had claymore sword size quills across the surfaces that weren’t covered in fuck you levels of armor. The damn thing was almost wide enough that it didn’t fit on two lanes.
“The actual fuck is that?” I demanded as I wiped my arm across my face to clear the rest of the tears. My comfortable numb already gradually having come back.
“That my darling. Is a Model Twenty-Two variant, M type I believe. They are a siege type, typically carrying larger models while outputting smaller ones as fast as they can be fed. But it can also launch those quills with enough force to punch through class two armor. You children should run along now.”
“Too late Drag-On. I’m afraid I’ve already attacked it with a pair of Lesser Shoggoth.” I frowned as I watched the pair land on it from the buildings that were on either side. “Upside, they seem to be doing damage. The rest of you spread out. I’ll go full frontal with my drones. Shit. It just opened a back section and dropped some giant model threes!”
<>Those are Model Twenty-One’s. You can see they’re going invisible now.
{Buy the sensor upgrades and prepare for rollout ASAP.} I immediately began to gush out extra mass, shifting to my full ooze form. “It’s dropped four Model Twenty-Ones. They’ve gone stealth. If you don’t have the optics to catch them, get off the ground.”
Sufficient Gravitas shot up into the air ten stories in seconds. Bomberman started sprinting to the rear with his loyal horse-sized hound. Drag-On ran back to remount their draconic steed. I simply moved into the nearest building to hunker down with some walls to defend myself a little. Meanwhile, the drones were gathering, attacking the large disturbing looking plant.
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The grinders were doing well enough on the quills, which generally pierced straight through the unit, passing through without much damage. On the other hand, I wasn’t doing much direct damage in kind. The Drones couldn’t see the Twenty-Ones, but that was fine. They seemed to be ignoring all of my efforts against their larger cousin. The only benefit was, to a Twenty-Two variant the Lesser Shoggoth were a lot of mass harrying the beast. It was at a standstill trying to shake them off while being lashed between two buildings.
[Can you hold it there for a minute, Shoggoth?] Drag-On had dropped into a more formal tone again, apparently taking this very seriously.
[Doing well enough at it. I think I can manage for a while longer.]
[I’m going to weaken it with my poison breath. Once that’s done open up an area for the others to strike at.]
[I’ll leave its top open. Can’t do much damage right now anyway.] Saying became doing as the pair on its top oozed down its sides to interlock with the others, each chewing where it could but mostly going solid in order to keep it from moving much.
I could have attacked it head-on myself, but I was still feeling too much. Besides the Lesser Shoggoth had the same murder ribbons I do, the same ore grinder mouths. They even had the same plasma weapons. Personally being there would only add one more mass that’s slightly more resilient than the rest. It was better to focus and micromanage the extras from a bit of distance, even if the ECM was worse now and more of a pain in the ass. So I’d lose out on some points. So what. I admit I’m afraid. I was doing what I could without running. I’m not a coward.
“I’m not a coward.” It was quiet and eldritch but I said it. You say it and it’s real. [I’m not a coward.]
[What was that Shoggoth?] Bomberman was at the edge of range and fuzzing out badly.
I barreled out of the side of the building like the Kool-Aid man trumpeting to the heavens. [“I AM NOT A COWARD!!!”]
It took seconds to arrive at the appropriate cross street since it was only one down. Turning I aimed all of the plasma weapons I had at my disposal and fired directly into its face equivalent space. Ordering the manufacture of more as I did. Drag-On was just finishing their pass as I opened up. This prompted Gravitas, directly above it, to fire straight down into where its skull should be. Which sparked Bomberman to start lobbing mortars onto the back of it in high arcs. Drag-On even swept around for another pass, launching some sort of green fireball from the back of the dragon.
The plant monster held up at first. But the poison ate into it, weakening it enough for our weapons to start actually doing damage. Whatever that green blast was simply started to eat away at the thing all on its own like acid. The readings on the Lesser Shoggoth gave me redlines for structural strength as it began to frantically thrash. Instead of keeping its legs locked, I focused on keeping its core in place, joining more closely with the surrounding buildings for strength. Wrapping heated murder ribbons around the damn plant to simultaneously cut and stabilize.
A horrendous rending noise started to emanate from the buildings as their structures began to give way, not nearly as strong as Tier One materials. At the same time, the creature began to show signs of failure from the concentrated fire. Drag-On having circled for another blast of green and a poison breath.
[I gotta let it go or it’ll bring the buildings down! Both of them have Shelters above that level!]
[Do it!]
I immediately complied with Drag-On, switching my Shoggoth from containment to repair. Barring the five circling its core, the rest began to repair the building's structures to prevent them from collapsing under their weight. Sacrificing their own mass to reinforce the building I lost three to each one but the horrible sounds stopped and they didn’t shift anymore. The leftover cores were subsumed by the other Lessers in the area.
The creature on the other hand made it two wobbly steps before our continuous concentrated fire collapsed its titanic armored core and it toppled over, some of the armored panels on its sides disgorging half crafted single digits. In the end, mop up was simple, they barely put up what I would consider a fight. I was more concerned about the damn invisible bastards still skulking about.
<>Congratulations on defeating a Model Twenty-two Emm variant! We AI agree for this feat you deserve another Token! Don’t forget you have several Twenty-Ones to deal with! Naille sounded remarkably excited about this. As if nobody had defeated one before. Probably that it was one of the hardest I’d ever fought is all.
[Fuck. Does anybody have eyes on the Twenty-Ones?] Bomberman was a little frantic about it. Almost as if he were the most vulnerable. Which he is, so it’s justified.
[I can see one of them right now. I think.] I extruded a muzzle and fired my class two plasma weapons at it, Ominous Hum, Thoom, and all. Lighting it up gave a target to everybody else who dogpiled it. [Gimme a few to upgrade my optics on my drones and I’ll be able to pick the others out. For now, Bomberman come back here quick and tent up in a wagon circle of Lessers.]
[Do you even know what you're saying?] Bomberman was definitely incredulous. Judging people was much easier without emotions getting in the way.
[Yes? Hurry up. They may be stalking you already.] I was already pumping out micro drones with better optics, but it was the pheromone sensors that were doing best. {I need bigger drones for scouting. Something that’ll be able to carry sensors strong enough.}
<>Increasing the size by an order of magnitude and using a distributed array we can do that. Shall I acquire some blueprints for that?
{How much is it going to cost me?} I started shoving better sensor packages into the nearest Lesser, already building another set for the next.
<>Nothing. I’ll be doing it based out of what you already have.
{Great. Thanks! Oh! Nice. Yes these will do.} I started manufacturing the new house fly sized drones immediately. Taking in mass that the Lessers were offloading as they arrived.