"All transactions are final. By signing this document, signee gives up the right to take legal action in the case of death, dismemberment, and general bodily harm. Signee designates Samurai Initialization Services LLC as next of kin for purposes of inheritance and power of attorney. Signee also agrees to NDA as stipulated in fine print section..."

-Excerpt from the fine print of an agreement produced by a company that purports to assist civilians in becoming Samurai

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Ultimately, I decided to trust in my armor and go right through. I knocked over rack after rack as I went, clearing space for my motion trackers to at least watch my back as I searched for the Antithesis I knew to be among them. My sensors continued to ping intermittently, never for long enough to give me more than a brief awareness that something was in that direction. But the racks always ensured that the Antithesis could move several meters between sightings, making it impossible to predict their movements.

So far, though, the only thing I was finding were the grizzly remains of people that had had the same taste in hiding places as the aliens. Patches of carpet were sticky with blood, and I could only sometimes spot the unfortunate soul it had come from. The bodies were still warm, but rapidly cooling. It was too late for them.

A longer ping than the others caused me to spin in place, checking for the Antithesis that must have just crossed in my wake. It was gone as soon as it appeared, but I saw a trail of bloody footprints left across the clothes on the floor. Obviously, they weren’t human. I followed the tracks with my eyes, but the room was once again still.

Each time I tipped over a rack and it clattered to the ground, I could see the heat signatures in the back shake and shudder, and I could only imagine what they thought the cause was. I dared not call out to them, as it would only help the Antithesis find them faster.

I reached out to push over another rack, this time one of the ones with a metal circle that clothes hung from- the type children like to hide in- but this time, something shot out from within the ring of trashy t-shirts to cling to my arm. A Model Three closed its jaws around my forearm, weighing it down. It was like a dog with a chew toy- shaking its head back and forth and yanking on it to take me off balance.

I almost pulled the trigger on my SMG before remembering which hand was holding it. Groaning, I reached for the spare on my left thigh, only for a second Model Three to clamp down on my left hand as well. I barely had time to process that before tentacles shot out from amongst the forest of t-shirts, most of them pinging harmlessly off my armor, but one coiling around my throat like a boa and squeezing.

“I recommend removing the tentacles from your throat, as you have less than a minute before you begin to pass out!”

Thanks Juny! No fucking shit!

With a heavy grunt of exertion, I wrestled with the Three holding down my right arm, and by extension, keeping my gun pinned down. Seconds felt like minutes as both my muscles and the Dainsleif fought to reposition the one weapon at my disposal. Millimeter by millimeter, accompanied by the whine of overtaxed servos, the barrel of my gun shifted. Blackness began to encroach on my vision as I struggled to breathe.

Then, with one last exertion, I heaved my left arm forward, dragging the Model Three on that side with it. Suddenly, the alien was in the path of my gun, and I squeezed the trigger. It practically exploded as high velocity rounds drilled dozens of holes in it, an entire magazine spent killing one Model Three because I lacked the concentration to stop shooting. Green goop blew outwards and ruined hundreds of dollars’ worth of clothing in an instant.

My right-hand SMG was empty, but my left hand was now free. As I inched towards unconsciousness, I managed to seize my backup gun, and I pressed it against the forward of the first Model Three that had attacked me, blowing the cabbage that passed for its brain across the store an instant later. That left the Model Four that was choking me out.

For a brief second I froze, having no idea where its actual body was. The tentacles grasping at my body and stabbing at my armor came from seemingly everywhere, their origin obscured by the merchandise surrounding me. My brain was slowing down, and it took me far longer than it should have to realize I needed only to destroy the tentacle that was slowly killing me.

I raised my left hand and fired into the tentacle, and the coil around my neck slackened as its link to the Model Four’s body was severed. Live giving air rushed into my lungs as I sucked in all the air that would fit, spots dancing around my eyes as an oxygen deficit became an oxygen surplus.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

My legs gave out, and I fell to the ground, coughing and gasping for breath. The tentacles withdrew, but I didn’t have the brain space to think about why.

“I think-“ cough “-that I’m-” cough “definitely not into-” cough cough cough “erotic asphyxiation.”

“Oh! I appear to have left myself a note. It would seem I looked up ‘erotic asphyxiation’ and then deleted all memory of it a femtosecond later. I have informed myself I should not look it up again. But now I’m curious. Oh! I appear to have-“

I tuned Juny out, not having the capacity to consider the fact I apparently just locked a Class XII AI into a recursive porn-search loop while also scanning my surroundings for the missing Model Four. A flash on my motion tracker appeared behind me, but before I could react, something slammed into my back and clung fast, gnawing on my shoulder but failing to penetrate.

It was more a matter of luck and reflex that allowed me to react to the next attack than of skill. A Model Three leapt from cover and my hand batted it out of the air like a fly, slamming it into the ground in a daze. It didn’t have time to recover before I slew it with a burst from my left hand. I returned my right hand SMG to my thigh to be reloaded and then fell backwards, crashing down on top of whatever sat there with the full weight of both myself and my armor. I could feel it as its flesh gave way, breaking open like a rotten fruit beneath a boot.

Another threat eliminated, I scrambled to my feet and backed up, searching for the only remaining opponent I knew of. With both hands free, I was much faster to respond this time when a flurry of tentacles came for me, and since I was no longer surrounded with clothes from three sides, I knew its body was to my right. One last cacophony of gunfire ended it, and the room went still.

There might have been more Antithesis in hiding, but I doubted it. The entire encounter had taken under two minutes, and the third and fourth Model Threes that had jumped me were most likely further away when it began, explaining their late arrival. Nothing else jumped out to assail me as I made my way to the back of the store.

“They’re all dead, you can come out now!” I shouted, my voice coming out hoarse due to the damage to my throat. Kind of wanted to buy a regen suite, but having a thousand angry bees in my lungs just for a slightly sore throat seemed like a bad trade.

Multiple thuds and sounds of furniture being dragged came from the changing rooms before the doors opened and several people emerged. None were injured, but they looked haggard all the same. One woman came straight up to me and grabbed me by the shoulders, and I had to fight my initial reflex to push her away.

“My husband…have you seen my husband? He…I saw one of them cut between us, and he never made it back here. I don’t think it saw him,” she told me rapidly, her eyes darting about as if trying to see into the darkness. I took a deep breath, then shook my head. There had certainly been people hiding in the clothing racks, but none had succeeded.

A piercing wail filled my ears as she processed my response, and she collapsed on the spot. Another of the survivors hurried to console her, which was appreciated since I had no damn idea what to say. I escorted the lot of them out and pointed them towards the entrance, then had Juny get me in touch with Nguyen.

“I just rescued a few civilians and sent them out. Can you get someone to escort them?”

“Ah, as expected of a samurai saint! You just arrived and have already saved some people! Of course, I will contact the militia immediately. They have some people nearby.”

I cringed as he busted out that word again. I didn’t want to raise a stink about it over comms, but I didn’t feel the adulation was warranted either. It was a tossup whether I would learn to tune it out first or if I would get so uncomfortable I snapped. Given that he only barely cut himself off the first time we spoke, I suspected Alana had already had the same conversation with him.

“Right. You do that. How are things looking outside?”

“The Antithesis in town have been cleaned up; the only ones remaining are in the mall with you. Captain Lafayette has been forwarding a multitude of distress calls from the upper floors. Should I send them to you?”

“That’s alright, I’ll find them on the way up either way. What about the walls?”

“We’ve managed to collapse the tunnels using the tanks, and the attack lost a lot of steam, so we were able to recall the reserves. The hospitals are…crowded, though, between combat causalities and civilian wounded.”

I read that as an indirect plea for medical supplies, and I’m sure I could afford to give some once I was done here. Frankly, though, I was surprised there were civilian wounded. When it came to Antithesis, you usually either died or became a samurai- and mostly the former.

“Juny, send Nguyen a list of the stuff in the Class I Medical catalog and running tally of how much I can afford. Keep a buffer of…I dunno, like, two hundred points set aside for emergencies.”

“Of course! The list has been sent, and I will keep them updated!”

“Thank you, saint, the help is most appreciated. I will make sure the hospitals receive the list.”

I cut the call as I reached the escalators, deciding to fulfill my childhood dream of going up the down escalator since the up escalator was jammed anyway. I cannot confirm or deny a giggle on the way up.

As I crested the top of the escalator, I found the militia’s second line of defense- although it wasn’t much of one. Only half a dozen dead men and woman and about the same number of Antithesis, so they must not have held for very long. The floor was clear of survivors, though, which either meant they held just long enough to matter or that the Antithesis had already found any stragglers.

A few Model Threes were still here, doing Antithesis things like searching for tasty humans or whatever it is Antithesis do. Out here in the open, they weren’t much of a threat, and they went down before getting anywhere near me. I went ahead and moved up to the next floor, prioritizing survivors over killing all Antithesis, and there I found my first pocket of resistance.