“That fucking thing is shrugging off everything we hit it with,” Grey mumbled. “What happened to your spiders?” she asked, glancing at Arachne.
“It just ignored them. The acid just slid off its scales, just like everything else.”
Our entire group was huddled behind Grey’s wall of nanites, and we probably would have been completely overrun by the Forty-Four, if it wasn’t for Temporal slowing it down to a fraction of its regular speed. Most of the creature’s acid sprays splashed harmlessly against the shield, but the occasional blast went wide. That’s how they lost Pestilence.
“We need to figure something out, the bears can’t hold out forever,” I said quietly.
I honestly panicked slightly when the scarabs died, and the wave of antithesis surged across the previously safe ground. Thankfully, the buffer was swiftly filled with Teddy’s bears. Having the moose there meant they didn’t even have to watch out for the Twenties charging across the line. That let everyone focus on the real problem, the Forty-Four.
“Get me close enough, and I’ll create an opening for everyone!” Dreamer declared as she danced back and forth.
“Maybe, but you saw what happened to Tusker,” Whisperer said, hoarsely. “He just got grazed by that acid, and that bacteria ate him alive. The only one of us that could have stopped it is currently doing his best impression of a metal statue!”
“Perhaps we could use Teddy’s vehicles. They at least bent the shell around the hive,” Plasmalanx suggested. “My plasma accelerator barely scorched its scales.”
As we discussed, Hoppy showed up, followed closely by Bob. “I don’t think you can rely on Teddy for a bit,” she said as she skidded to a halt next to me. “It looked like she was having one hell of a time keeping it together.”
“Whatchu need?” Bob asked. The stupid bear just waltzed up like he was on a Sunday walk, without a care in the world.
“An opening, distraction, anything to get at that colossal pain in the ass,” Bright-Eyes snapped.
“Alright!” the bear answered. We turned to stare as he just waltzed around the edge of Grey’s barrier.
“He’s insane!” someone hissed.
“He’s a robot, not organic, and I know Teddy gave her bigger models specialized armor. Maybe he’ll make it,” I responded calmly. “We only need a distraction after all.”
“I like him!” Magpie declared. “He’s a go-getter.”
I raised one of my tentacles over the edge of the barrier to observe Bob’s approach. The Forty-Four moved painfully slowly, but it was still fast enough to bathe him in a full jet of acid. It melted off his fuzzy exterior but didn’t seem to slow him down.
“It’s working! It’s focused on him,” I reported.
“So how does that help us?” Hoppy asked. “It can still melt any one of us on a whim.”
“We push the barrier forward, get closer, and try whatever we can to create an opening,” Grey said confidently.
“I’ll flank around the side; my armor can take the acid. Not sure about a bite, but I’ll try and stay out of strike range,” I added.
Most of the group nodded. I wasn’t sure if they were convinced that we were making the right move, or just didn’t have any other ideas.
I stepped to the side as Grey slowly advanced her half-dome cover. The Forty-Four had half-turned and was tracking Bob with its central head, but still bathed me in a blast of acid as soon as I emerged. The stream would have been strong enough to knock over a car, but my armor stayed upright and, more importantly, intact.
As I advanced, I let my tentacles open up. The lasers converged on a single point, bringing my full destructive strength against the beast, yet they did little more than leave scorch marks against its titanic scales.
Across the room, Bob danced just outside the creature’s strike range, taunting it. I couldn’t tell if he was just trying to keep its attention or trying to get close enough to strike. Either way, he was a good distraction.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Once the team got within striking distance, Grey reformed into her titanic form. She rushed forward, accelerated by Temporal’s powers, and grabbed hold of the two nearest lamprey heads while the rest of the group advanced, firing indiscriminately.
The Forty-Four’s response was explosive. It pivoted in an instant, flicking its tail around to slam into Bob before coiling around the team. The two unrestrained heads spewed their toxic payloads.
Executable took the brunt of it. The outer casing of his battle orb smoked and cracked as he was bathed in the caustic stream. The acid sprayed off him in every direction, which just made the situation worse.
A particularly large glob of acid caught Whisperer in the leg, causing her to go down screaming. At nearly the same instant, Dreamer was hit in the lower arm. The small girl looked at the damage with nearly detached fascination, then swiftly removed both her arm and Whisperer’s leg before running forward again.
“Hoppy! Get Whisperer back!” I yelled over the commotion. Thankfully the girl must have heard me, because she shot towards the downed woman, scooping her up and rocketing back towards the Kodiaks.
While most of the group fired ineffectively against the behemoth, Dreamer just continued charging forward. “I liked that arm, you alien asshole!” she cried as she brought her dimensional blade down upon the Forty-Four.
For the first time, we saw the creature take damage. The scales on its belly were ripped apart like they were nothing. She continued to rampage across the creature’s front, ripping it open but unable to strike too deeply.
Spiders poured into the wound, exploding and coating the unprotected flesh in acid. My lasers cut into the wound, along with Plasmalanx’s beam. We were making progress, burrowing into the creature in an attempt to kill it, but that’s when things went south.
A rogue glob of acid caught Temporal in the face. She didn’t even have time to scream before it burned through her head, killing her. Freed from Temporal’s slow effect, the Forty-Four ripped out of Grey’s grip and raged.
Acid sprayed everywhere, but thankfully didn’t hit anything as the creature fully righted itself and stared.
At that moment, Bob’s voice echoed out. “Bad critter, DOWN!” The Forty-Four’s head jerked downwards, revealing Bob standing just behind its head. The creature tried to jerk back, but its head just didn’t rise. Bob reared back and slammed down again, forcing the head closer to the floor before he triggered the spacial anchor, preventing it from rising again.
The lamprey heads turned, spraying him with acid and snapping as the tail flailed around behind us, but he just continued driving the head lower.
“Shouldn't you be killing this thing right now?!” he shouted, finally snapping us all out of our reverie.
“We need something big!” Magpie shouted as she ran up to inspect the wound we’d created up to this point. “Hopefully someone has something impressive.”
“Aeonys, you know those Class II directional mining charges I’ve used before?” I asked as I strode forward.
Of course.
“I assume that my Class III catalog has an upgraded version?”
You would be correct about that. There are a couple sizes. How big do you want?
“About as big as this wound,” I replied as I stepped into the rent flesh.
Done
The thing that appeared in the wound was about three feet tall, two feet wide, and about ten feet long, and had a single flashing control panel sitting at the back.
“What the fuck is that?” someone asked quietly.
“A fucking big bomb, one that should project the explosion deeper into the Forty-Four, I hope,” I replied as I bent over to check the detonator. “You might all want to step back.”
As soon as everyone scattered, I triggered a ten-second countdown and ran like hell. The Forty-Four struggled violently, and it even managed to dislodge Bob enough to rise and look at us, just in time for the explosives to do their work.
The shaped charge blew the backside of the creature apart, ripping the tail clear off and even destroying one of the remaining hives still standing behind it. It silently screamed. The lamprey heads thrashed about, spilling their acid spit onto the floor, while the tail whipped about, destroying everything it came in contact with.
It took a couple minutes, but the beast finally lay still.
“Fuck me,” I choked out between ragged breaths. “Please let that thing stay dead.”
“I hate to break it to everyone, but this isn’t over. We’re still smack dab in the middle of a battle,” Gray announced. “We should also collect Temps' body,” she announced sadly.
“I’ll do it,” Magpie volunteered. “I’ll put her in one of the vehicles for the time being,” she added as she gently lifted the woman’s body. As she turned, Magpie stopped, her eyes glued to the area at our rear.
“That’s not good,” she said quietly.
I whipped around to see what she was looking at. The Kodiaks were completely trashed. Of course they were; they would have been in the way of the tail when it coiled around the group.
A cold feeling crept up into my stomach. “Where’s Teddy?”