Chapter Two - IRC Is Forever

"User: Stooopid Princess - 2036-02-12 - There are a few samurai who share their powers, yeah.

User: Nene - 2036-02-12 - Yeah, I want me some samtech bb!

User: MierTam - 2036-02-12 - Why don't more do it?

User: Khorne - 2036-02-12 - Would you trust anyone but yourself with god-tier gear?"

IRC Discussion, 2036

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"Uh, there's a second group coming in from our right," I said as I glanced that way. I didn't keep my focus in that direction for long, not when we had more pressing issues coming in from the front.

The deeper into the city we went, the more aliens showed up to ruin our afternoon. It was... actually, pretty nice. So far the biggest thing that had popped up was a trio of quill-covered model fives that Crackshot and I had taken out with a bit of concentrated fire.

The two of us alone were probably more than enough to take care of this whole group. Actually, I was pretty sure I could do it solo. I was less sure about Crackshot managing it on his own, but his way of fighting was more about sitting back and letting the aliens come to him rather than moving into them. He would have managed on his own, I think, just with a bit of effort.

But Crackshot and I had come to an agreement. Well, sorta.

It's not like we sat down and talked about it, so the agreement was mostly built on a few shared looks and some subtle nodding to each other.

Yeah, we could take out all of the aliens we encountered so far from way back. Crackshot was living up to his name, and I had grenades and a gun that was fully automatic. But if we went all-ranged badasses, then the last member of our trio would suffer for it.

Knight swung her sword in a wide arc with a grunt, the blade whistling through the air before it crashed into the lower half of a model three's head, then kept on going right through. The model three gurgled as half of its head was cut right off, one of its big mandible-mouth things flying off.

That wasn't quite enough to kill it, though, and it leapt forwards towards Knight.

She spun with the momentum of her swing, ducking and weaving right past the alien before she planted her feet and lunged at its side. Her sword went in between two armoured plates, then came right back out, stained a greenish black all along the blade.

She was doing pretty well for herself. I wasn't sure what the point-split was like for her, but I imagined that even if it wasn't one-hundred percent, she was still earning Princess a good number of points every minute.

"Need a break?" I called out.

Knight stood up and glanced around, then shook her head. "I'm still able to keep going," she said. I could tell that she was panting though, and I imagined that she was probably regretting some of her choices when it came to wearing full-body plate armour.

I nodded, then gestured to the right. There were some twenty-odd model threes rushing towards us from the far end of a side street. They were accompanied by a couple of model fours, the big tentacle boys pulling themselves after the pack like some eldritch nightmares on crack. Somehow they were way more horrifying when out in the open sunlight.

"Oh, shit," Knight said when she saw the second group. But she flexed her arm a couple of times and looked ready to give it her all.

Then a squad of soldiers came out of an alley somewhere between us and the aliens. They got onto one knee, raised their rifles, and fired. There was a loud-ass cacophony of gunshots for a few seconds before the soldiers paused and all reloaded at the same time.

There was one surviving alien in the lot, a model three that had only been smacked a few times in the side. It started to crawl towards the soldiers when one of them, a sergeant by the stripes, pulled out a handgun and finished it off.

The soldiers looked our way, and a few saluted before they started to cross the road as one tight knit group.

I shrugged. It was kind of impressive to see, but I supposed that a dozen guys with fully automatic weapons should be able to fuck up some weaker antithesis without any real issue.

Crackshot planted a round in the forelimb of the last standing alien in the road ahead of us. It was a model four that stumbled ahead, its tentacles grasping out even as a few went back and tried to staunch its own bleeding. The samurai lowered his gun and watched the bleeding monster approach before he turned to study the soldiers. "Looks like they caught up," he said.

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Down at the other intersection, I saw an APC slowly move into the middle of the road, its turreted gun swivelling around to face ahead. It fired a quick burst at something I couldn't see. Troops on foot were keeping up with the armoured vehicle.

"Yeah, I guess we slowed down a little," I said. "We'll be with the advance from now on, instead of ahead of it. Think we should tell them to slow down?"

"Nah," Crackshot said. "No harm in being with them, I figure."

We both watched Knight fight the model four in close-ish quarters. She took it out by the numbers, slicing apart grasping tentacles before moving in around the monster and slashing in across the side. Model fours were a bit trickier to kill, what with having no heads.

A death by a thousand cuts... well, it's more like death by a hundred large gashes, in any case, the big guy goes down, and Knight steps back, not even trying to hide how she's panting.

"Does your suit have any enhancements?" I asked.

"En...enhancements?" she asked in return between deep breaths.

"Like, power armour shit," I said.

"Oh," she replied before shaking her head. "No, nothing like that. It's all muscle. But the armour's a lot lighter than it looks. It's titanium and carbon fibre and some other light metals. I've worn formal gowns that weighted more than this." She taps herself in the chest with a faint clink-clink.

I nod along. "That's still damned impressive. Are you gonna keep upgrading as you go?"

"That's the plan," Knight said. "Princess' AI is keeping track of the points I make. Princess buys me gear with half the points I earn, so as long as I work hard, I'll keep getting better."

That's... surprisingly fair. I'm not sure if I used half of my own points to improve my gear, not when I spend a lot on other crap.

"You really care for your sis, huh?" Crackshot said. "It ain't just anyone that would step up for someone else like that. Normal folk don't go running towards the aliens, especially not with just a sword."

"A sword is what I know how to use," Knight said. "Never did like guns much. But if that's what I need..."

"Eh, don't sweat it," I said. "I remember the first time I saw Emoscythe fight, she had a scythe-sword and she fucked up a bunch of aliens."

Crackshot nodded. "I've seen her fight too. In videos and the like. For research. She mostly uses close-ranged weapons. Though she also has a lot of mobility."

"Mobility, huh?" Knight asked. She nodded. "That might be something to look into, I guess. I was honestly thinking of investing more into like, shields? I could carry one, and maybe have some deployable shields too. Princess seems to be okay with guns, so if I can lock down areas and force enemies to come in from one direction or something, that could be sweet."

I could see that working, more or less. Gomorrah actually fought that way a lot. She'd splash fire around and create barriers of it that the smarter antithesis would gun around. Then she'd nail them as a group.

I glanced at the time. It had been forty-five minutes since we started our stroll. "Let's keep moving," I said. "Have you considered grenades yet? They're kinda like melee weapons."

"How is a grenade anything like a melee weapon?" Knight asked.

"Well, you throw it, don't you?"

Knight gave me a look, then shook her helmeted head. "Anyone ever tell you that you're weird?"

"Yeah, a few times," I said offhandedly.

Honestly, I was pretty happy that I was able to banter and chat with Knight like this at all. That whole thing with her father, that... well, it wasn't the best way to start a relationship with anyone, let alone a more professional relationship.

This whole thing was going well so far, but I couldn't help but feel like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Then again, Gomorrah had mentioned that the mother of all shoes was hurtling towards us from Mars, so maybe that was it.

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