"I don't know why he gave me this name, honestly. I haven't even played that game! My friendos don't look like any of the monsters in it, either!"
"I've heard before that Samurai can turn down a name if they don't like it. Is that not true?"
"You're telling me I could have done what!?"
-From an interview with the Samurai Monster Rancher, 2032
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Once the action was over and I’d washed my mouth out, I plopped down on a particularly large chunk of concrete and just disassociated for a while. I spent a bit of time just scanning the room to avoid thinking. It was some sort of antechamber to the bunker, maybe for organizing people on the way in or just so defenders had a place to set up. At least a dozen holes had been made in the ceiling through which light filtered in, illuminating the dust hanging in the air. Bodies and debris littered the room, and the smell was probably awful, but I’d put my helmet back on to avoid both it and the dust.
Alvarez and the two squads with him had moved the more exposed bodies aside and appropriated their ammunition, using it to manufacture more for their own weapons. They’d since secured the building and cleared out the explosives I’d bypassed, which was probably a lot easier from the other side, and now they’d taken up position to defend the main entrance as best as they could with only fifteen people. A few had tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t find the words to respond.
Now that the adrenaline had worn off I found myself questioning my decisions. Had it really been necessary to butcher those corpo security troops the way I did? I knew I’d had a reason to do it. I even remembered what it was. But what I couldn’t figure out was whether that had just been a pretext for my anger, a way of using logic to justify something I’d wanted to do based mostly on primal emotions. I’d probably receive a different answer based on who I asked. It wasn’t an entirely black and white situation.
A far better question was whether I could live with myself having done it. I didn’t think I’d have an answer to that any time soon.
I jolted upright when someone tapped on my visor and found Alana standing in front of me. Even the hole in her armor had been repaired- assuming she hadn’t just replaced it. I must have been sitting there for longer than I’d thought if she was already back on her feet.
“Thanks for the rescue. They would have made it in before I recovered if you hadn’t been there. I’m…sorry you had to go through that,” she said, patting me on the shoulder sympathetically.
“So am I,” I said shortly, my voice flat. Alana took a seat next to me on the concrete block. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything to help you recover faster.”
“That’s the tradeoff I made when I went full cyborg. Way harder to kill me but I have to be repaired, not healed, and it takes a bit longer. Should’ve replaced my spine too, though. Won’t make that mistake next time,” she told me before allowing the conversation to lapse into silence for a minute or two.
“Did I do the right thing?” I asked eventually. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe I saw Alana as something of a peer, being a new Samurai of about the same age.
“I could say yes. Tell you that you got the bad guys and saved lives. But I don’t think that’s what you want to hear right now. The reality is that you just did what you had to do. To survive, and to protect the people you were fighting alongside. There’s not always a right and a wrong to be had there. Maybe you could have gotten by while killing fewer of them- but maybe your shock tactics were the only reason there weren’t twice as many to kill. No one can know for sure in the end,” Alana said at length, a weight in her voice. It felt like I was hearing someone else talk- like she’d heard these words herself they first time she killed someone and was now passing them down to me.
“Thanks, but…that doesn’t really make me feel any better,” I replied, staring down at the dusty floor.
“Only time will, I’m afraid. Killing other people is hard. Soldiers need to be trained to do it. It doesn’t come naturally to most people, and it leaves scars that never fully heal. You went through it without any of the conditioning I had, so I can’t fully understand how it feels for you, but…just know that there’s at least sixteen people that are grateful to you,” Alana said, giving me a brief side hug even though we were both wearing armor. Sixteen…weighed against seventy. It was like the trolley problem. I’d pulled the lever and killed a greater number of people to save the ones I knew.
I didn’t believe in hell, but there was a chance I’d purchased a ticket to it for myself nonetheless.
Suddenly, Alana stiffened, putting a hand to her ear. She was wearing a helmet so I couldn’t hear what she was listening to, but I didn’t have to wait long for her to tell me. She stood quickly, gesturing for me to accompany her.
“The Antithesis are back. It’s not over yet.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
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I found myself standing on the wall looking out over a devastated landscape. So much dirt and debris had accumulated that the ground level was now a lot higher, with only a short distance in front of the wall where the terrain was unaltered. I could see the broken skeletons of skyscrapers in the distance through a haze of dust and mixed in with the mangled remnants of trees. Among that apocalyptic vision, a multitude of figures loomed large.
“Looks like they’re mostly Model Twenty Threes. Dozens of them. Some of them are the armored variant I fought earlier. Dylta tells me they came from the old university campus- there must have been a large hive there then we thought, hidden by ECM or just buried far underground,” Alana explained, although I didn’t need it. Juny had filled me in already.
I wondered- was this the goal when that Model Twenty Three broke through the wall earlier? There was no way for the Antithesis to know precisely what we had planned, but they’d known we were doing something. Had they accelerated the growth of one unit in the hopes of disrupting our plan and making us both retreat to deal with the problem? To buy time while more finished growing? I wouldn’t ever know the answer to that question, but I hoped it was just paranoia speaking.
“Juny, is there anything I can afford now that can even harm these?” I asked, seeing the horde approaching.
“Of course! Several of your catalogues include weapons capable of damaging a Model Twenty Three! What type of weapon would you like?” Juny chirped. Part of what she said stuck out to me.
“Wait, you said several of my catalogues. Not just the Class I Mechanized Warfare Platforms? I thought you said I couldn’t buy anything that would hurt a Model Twenty One, were they just that expensive?” I replied in confusion.
“You have many options, but did not have time to deliberate in your first encounter with a Tier III Antithesis, so I needed to convince you to retreat! I did not have sufficient time to correct the misunderstanding during the second encounter,” Juny explained, sending my blood pressure through the roof.
“You could have told me at any time after either fight! No, you know what? We don’t have time for this. I need something that can fight those things, now. Can I buy something that would let me fight them all off?” I asked after scolding the AI. Probably fruitlessly. As always I had my suspicions that she was nudging me in order to fuel my growth without putting me in too much danger, though, so maybe she’d judged I hadn’t been in serious peril, at least in the second fight with a Model Twenty One.
“If you purchase the Class II Mechanized Warfare Platforms there are several options available capable of engaging Model Twenty Threes. Due to the number of them, however, success is not guaranteed. You will need Alana to purchase a similar platform to ensure even odds of victory!” Juny told me. Alana was probably having a similar conversation with Dylta in her head. She’d said even odds though, meaning even then it wasn’t enough to guarantee we won. There really were a lot of Model Twenty Threes out there, lumbering towards us as they shrugged off tank and Titan fire.
“Then let’s-” I began before a person behind me interrupted by rapping their knuckles against my shoulder hard enough I felt it through my armor. I turned to find a woman I hadn’t felt approach standing there, dressed in a cowgirl outfit. She was lean and tall, with sun-kissed skin and brown hair, and she looked at least five years younger than me at a glance.
“Don’t you worry your head about it darlin’. Cavalry is here. My friendos will handle any of ‘em that get too close, but…I think the Mountaineer has it covered.” The woman, clearly a Samurai, smiled broadly. “Name’s Monster Rancher. Heard you were in a spot of trouble and figured I’d give your reinforcements a lift.”
I knew that name. Monster Rancher was a veteran. She was from Texas, but had been around long enough that I’d heard of her even though the United States had long since broken up. Although she looked younger than me, she was old enough to be my mother, having been in the business for a good two decades.
“Can I…have your autograph?” I asked, my inner nerd slipping through while I was caught off-guard. She let out a hardy guffaw, slapping me on the back hard enough to make me tilt forward. How strong was this woman?
“Thanks for coming,” Alana cut in. “I don’t think we would have survived another two hours against that many of them.”
“Just doing my job is all. Us old timers’ve gotta look out for the new bloods. Say, ya’ll got names yet?” Obviously she wasn’t asking for our real names. She wanted to know if we’d been named. Given that neither of us had met a more senior Samurai before now or even had time to think about it, the answer was no. Alana and I glanced at each other and then looked back and shook our heads, both baffled by the shift in tone this conversation had taken.
“No, ma’am. Hasn’t been a priority,” Alana replied aloud.
“Which one of ya’ll came up with that idea?” Monster Rancher asked. There was no need to ask what she meant. I raised my hand. “Hm. I’m thinking…Woodfall. Get it? ‘Rocks fall, everyone dies.’ Dirtfall might be more accurate, but that sounds awful, and Landslide is taken, so…Woodfall.”
Woodfall. The name had nothing whatsoever to do with me general theme or style, but…I liked it. It called me back to a game I’d played as a kid, back before my relationship with my father went sour. A more…innocent time. Maybe I needed that reminder right now.
“That sounds…good,” I replied, feeling a bit emotional. It felt strange to be receiving my Samurai name while an unstoppable horde of Antithesis were at my back, but…
“Don’t have to take the name if you don’t like it. Speak up now, don’t worry none about my feelings. I didn’t learn that til a good decade after I got mine, and well…would’ve been nice to know sooner,” the veteran Samurai told me, mistaking my response for dissatisfaction.
“No, no. I like it. It’s just a big moment,” I assured her. She nodded.
“And you…I’ll admit, I don’t know a whole lot else about what ya’ll’ve been up to here. I do know you’ve been taking charge, though, and doing a bang up job of it. Might feel a bit half-assed, but how about Archon?” Monster Rancher asked Alana next.
“A name’s a name. I don’t really have much preference,” Alana replied, accepting the name with a shrug. Monster Rancher nodded happily and clapped her hands.
“Well then, Woodfall, Archon, take a look! Show’s about to begin. Watch and see what the old guard can do,” she said, diverting her attention back to the scene outside the walls just as a burst of air blew apart the cloud of dust.