"Legally speaking, Samurai have a right to commandeer PMC resources to use against Antithesis and a nominal rank in the hierarchy. Practically speaking, nominal rank doesn't matter. A Samurai with a big enough gun outranks the CEO."
-Excerpt from an after-action report explaining why a Samurai was allowed to make off with the unit's multi-billion dollar command vehicle
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I had been down there for longer than I’d thought. When I emerged from the stairwell, it was to a dimly lit lobby covered in broken glass, the streets outside tinged orange by the setting sun. To my left, I could see a wide open field thick with dead Antithesis, their viscera painting the gravel below them green.
I watched from behind a corner as a massive Antithesis – “That’s a Model Fifteen, an artillery type,” Juny helpfully provided- trundled out into the massive kill zone between the walls and the abandoned part of town. It scarcely made it two steps before an enormous boom shook the buildings around me, rupturing the side of the Model Fifteen and causing it to explode, sending sharp spikes in every direction.
Then, silence. I approached the glass wall facing the inner town. Well, what was left of a glass wall. Most of it was scattered all over the floor of the lobby.
“Juny, can you get me in touch with someone on that wall? Would really like a guarantee I’m not getting shot the moment I step out of cover.”
“Of course! I have broken into their encryption and given you access to their private channel.”
“Uh, hey, y’all up there on the wall? Anyone hear me?”
“This is a secure line, please identify yourself immediately.”
“Oh, this is Erica Taylor speaking, I’m a new samurai and I’m like, just at the edge of town. Would love it if I could get in without getting shot at, please?”
“Please hold.” I waited obediently, feeling like I was some idiot calling a customer support line and expecting a person to actually answer.
“You have been granted access; temporarily assigning designation Sigma-2. Approach the wall, someone will be down to receive you when you arrive. Be advised that the Antithesis are still active. You will need to fight your way through.”
“Thanks, Er- uh, Sigma-2 out.” I waited a moment before speaking again, until Juny gave me a confirmation she had cut the connection. “Well, that was easy. Will be nice to have the comforts of civilization again. Maybe take a bath…”
I wasn’t quite there yet, though. The Antithesis attack seemed to be petering out, but it wasn’t finished yet. Dozens of Model Threes were rushing over the bodies of their predecessors in a mad dash for the wall, and I could see other models mixed in wherever I looked. Occasionally a larger, presumably double digit model would emerge from the concrete jungle at my back, only to be speared by tank shells.
Closer to my own position, I could see a cluster of Fives and Sixes moving closer to the wall, with the Sixes acting like combination shields and snowplows as they deflected fire from the Fives behind them and shoved aside intact corpses in their way. The Fives were tossing quills at an oblique angle over their makeshift shield wall, safe from return fire.
Those were going to have to die if I wanted to get past. If I tried to go around, the Fives would surely spot me.
“Okay, Juny, I have a plan, but I’m going to need a few things. One, a strap for my SMG so I can drop it and not lose it. Two, a couple Instant Star grenades- not now, but later, when I call for them. Three…I think we talked about a shotgun in the woods a couple days back, but that was before I’d seen a Six. Could I get that when I call for it, but with some kind of ammo that can punch through a Six’s armor?”
“Of course! For a few extra points, you can get a magazine of armor-piercing high explosive slugs. They will greatly expand the area in which you can strike a Model Six and expect lethal damage.”
“Perfect. Okay, when I ask for a shotgun, just drop it right into my hands with those loaded. I think it was the Impaler Model S?”
“Correct. I will have it prepped and ready!”
“Well, once more unto the breach, I suppose.” As I muttered, I hurried past the blown-out corpse of that double digit Antithesis and emerged onto the enormous killing field. It looked like at some point every building within a hundred meters of the wall had been demolished, providing the defenders with a clear line of sight. The lack of rubble suggested it wasn’t recent.
The battlefield was still chaotic, but the Antithesis were emerging from specific channels- the spots where streets broke up the buildings. That meant I could run in without much attention falling on me, for at least the few moments I needed to cross the fifty meters between myself and the cluster of Fives and Sixes.
Most of their Model Three escorts were dead by now, but a handful had been to their rear- as I approached, I opened fire with my SMG, scything down the unsuspecting canid plant monsters like wheat. My trigger control had improved leaps and bounds over days of live combat, and where in my first usage of the weapon I had wasted half the magazine on a single target, here I downed half a dozen with sixty rounds.
That left nothing between myself and the Fives. They had noticed the deaths of their guards, and some were already shifting their focus to me, but I dropped my SMG and called “Grenades!” before they were in position. I activated the two plasma grenades and threw them, one after the other, into the gaps in the formation of Model Fives.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Not waiting for the grenades to detonate, I immediately dropped to a knee and called for the shotgun. With that, a shotgun materialized in my hands and I closed my eyes as the world went white for a brief moment.
Class I Kinetic Shotguns Unlocked!
Points reduced to…692
New Purchase: Impaler Model S
Points Reduced to…592
When I opened my eyes again, two Model Fives had been reduced to super-heated goo, caught between my grenades, and the remaining four were very clearly dead, having been scorched by plasma so badly that they had lost at least a quarter of their mass each.
They had just discovered why, in the age of machine guns and explosives, humanity had abandoned the shield wall as a tactic.
That left three Model Sixes. The one in the center bellowed as it spun towards me with a speed nothing that size should possess. The two on the flanks were forced to spend precious time going around the bodies of multiple Model Fives, while the one in the center only had to charge straight through a pile of steaming goo, the heat insufficient to dissuade it.
I’ll admit: I hadn’t actually planned to block them with the Fives. That was a happy coincidence. But now I had the opportunity to defeat them in detail, and I was going to take it. I was already aiming my shotgun in its direction as it pushed itself in my direction.
The Impaler Model S was a hundred point weapon for a reason. It could adjust to fire either slugs or shot, and it was, like my custom SMGs, equipped with an inertial compensator to offset muzzle climb caused by recoil, making it much easier for a beginner to use. It also had a simple sensor in the nose which connected to my augmentations, providing me with a handy reticle with which to aim. To the side, I could see its ammunition status on my augs as well- twenty rounds of 10 gauge, armor piercing, high explosives slugs, exactly as Juny promised.
It also may or may not have been altered to resemble an M90 with a drum magazine, because I am a nerd with limited self-control.
My first shot went high. It didn’t matter. The slug blew a gaping hole in my target’s natural armor plating, high up on its mountain-esque back, and the explosion that followed probably obliterated whatever passes for an Antithesis’s organs from the shockwave alone. It dropped to the ground with a thud nearly as loud as the report from my shotgun.
With one down, I hopped to the left, bringing the next Six into view and buying me just a moment more to kill it before the last one arrived. I lined up the reticle and pulled the trigger; this time, my aim was a bit too low and to the left, and the slug went through the Six’s front leg, which seemed to expand for a fraction of a second before going limp. Fortunately for me, this wasn’t a pump action, but an automatic. I adjusts my aim and fired once more, this time hitting it right in the face. It dropped.
I spun, finding the final Model Six in mid charge. No point in being careful now- I just held down the trigger and braced my shoulder as slug after slug erupted from the barrel, the stock kicking against my arm with every blast. I couldn’t tell which of the four shots I fired killed it, but the Six skidded to a stop just inches away from me.
“Okay, I feel badass now.”
Now there was nothing in my way, and this wave seemed to be just about wiped out. Atop the wall I could vaguely make out the silhouettes of people rushing to and fro, doing whatever it is they had to do between attacks. It was hard to tell, as the walls were at least two dozen feet tall, and, judging by the barrels of tanks peeking out over the battlements, they were quite thick as well.
The space between the ghost town and the wall was died green with Antithesis viscera leaking from the piles of bodies everywhere in sight. The setting sun gave the field an eerie glow, darkening the shadows and bathing the bodies in its bath orange. I glanced behind me, seeing the skyscrapers in my wake were shattered beyond recognition from this side. The windows were shattered, the concrete pock-marked with bullet holes just like the pavement below my feet.
It hadn’t even been a day since the attacks began.
I heard the familiar hum of a hovercar as I approached the wall, and an armored vehicle slipped out from behind their safety and lowered to the ground in front of me. I jogged the remaining distance as the back door opened on its own, slipping into the back seat with a relieved sigh. As the door closed behind me, a man in black and orange armor turned in his seat to examine me.
“Huh, so you’re the new samurai? The boss lady wanted me to take you straight to her, so buckle in and let’s get going,” he said even as the vehicle lifted off. The ride was short, and I think the only reason they bothered with it was that there was no other way past the wall. There had been no gates for ground traffic, at least not where I could see.
He set the car down only a couple minutes later, gesturing towards a nearby building as he stepped out. I followed him into what seemed to be the PMC’s local headquarters; a squat, ugly building with obvious defenses studding the walls. I didn’t have to be an expert to spot numerous turrets and defensive positions. He led me into an elevator, and after a few awkward moments of silence, we exited into a floor labelled simply as “Command.”
We stepped into a room filled with computers and ringed by doors to numerous offices, although most of both appeared to be unoccupied at the moment. My guide traced a path through the room and to a meeting room on the other side, where a short woman in PMC gear stood at the head of a table, speaking to what I assumed were a number of officers. They seemed to be finishing up, as several stood and filed out of the room before we got there, while others gathered in clusters around the table and began speaking in hushed tones. A few looked up at me as we approached, with looks ranging from horrified to impressed to hopeful.
I approached the apparent boss lady, feeling unsure of myself. The driver had seemed happy to see me, but I wasn’t exactly Deus Ex or the Maestro. I couldn’t turn the situation around all on my own. The woman turned towards me as I approached, looking me up and down. She seemed impressed for a split second before she narrowed her eyes and gave my armor a second look. Had she noticed it was fake?
I looked her over in turn. She was somewhere between 5’ and 5’6”, which seemed strangely short for some officer in a PMC. Her gear seemed identical to that of the others I had seen. Brown hair framed a face that was rugged, in an annoyingly hot sort of way.
“Do you…need a see a medic, before we begin?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. There was a note of concern and confusion there, and I wasn’t quite sure what she was getting at for a moment. I looked down, realizing again what sort of condition I was in. Just about every inch of my body was coated in dried blood, a mix of red and green that told me it wasn’t all mine. Punctures and cuts dotted the undersuit of my costume, showing the clothes underneath in some places and blood-caked skin in others. The ‘armor’ portions were mostly too mangled to recognize, resembling nothing so much as a plastic bottle chewed on by a dog.
I noticed some particularly pointed looks at my hair, and, pulling a strand out before my eyes, I found that it was stiff and unbending, so dirty I could no longer see a hint of blonde. I was starting to look like the Queen of Blades.
“Uh…no, I’m fine. The blood is mostly mine, but I got better?”