“Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”

John Donne 1572–1631

***

Dead.

I had focused fire onto a particularly big mound of model threes only to find out why they had piled up on something. It didn’t take long for my bullets to rip apart the mass of plant matter but leaving the body alone. As powerful as they were, my rounds just bounced uselessly off his armor.

Armor that didn’t protect the neck.

A neck that had been….

I took a deep breath.

Breath in.

Breath out.

I let the roar of my guns drown out my thoughts as I got my mind under control. This was not the first Samurai death I had to deal with. With my line of work and when you studied so many it was inevitable someone you worked with or followed closely finally met their end.

This was the first time I had seen one in person though. Very rarely was a body able to be recovered, and even then some sales corpo would never be allowed at the funeral. It was always some article, report, or obituary with tons of mesh and chatroom talk that followed.

But there he was.

Captain Carnage.

Frankly an asshole that refused to work with the family or anyone else. A melee specialist that was only just reaching mid-tier who prided himself on being the first in. He was excessively vain, determined to have his face on as many vids as possible. Hell, he even named himself despite the tradition of an older Samurai naming you. I read more than one report where the Samurai had opted for “Captain Cunt” instead. He thought he could tear apart anything.

Hubris.

And here I was. A fresh Samurai facing down a horde himself. My thoughts were jumbled up as another boom echoed out, this time exploding in the air ripping apart countless flyers and raining dagger sized shrapnel onto the crowd. Seems Sally Shrapnel got to take her turn on the gun.

No. I wasn’t alone.

“Dead Samurai confirmed.” I called out into a comm unit on my mech the moment Byllona gave me a green light. “Captain Carnage. Apparent cause of death is a neck injury.” The words dripped out of my mouth. Just say them. Don’t think about them. “I can give some covering fire for body retrieval.”

There was silence over the communications line before Eagle spoke up. “Roger. Never liked the dude but…. Clear the area and I will swoop in.”

“Roger.”

I took a deep breath I felt in my soul and started to step to the side. “I am working towards clearing the area around the body temporarily. Please adjust fire.” I called out through my walker’s speakers to the men behind me.

Slowly I started to walk sideways and started to focus my fire more on the area with the body. I saw the tracers of the guns behind me quickly adjust to focus on the areas I had been mowing down to hold the progress we had been making.

I wanted to charge in. To let loose and rip a path right to the body and drag him out while letting loose a hell of which the antithesis would have no counter. To be flaming vengeance and all that shit.

But I wasn’t stupid.

I was just a rookie with a fancy walking death machine. A death machine that couldn’t fly if I got swarmed and while it was clearly able to rip them apart there was only so much it could do. If I got swarmed there would be two bodies needing to be recovered and all those behind me would be much worse off.

One dead Samurai was already too many.

“In position for advance. Moving forward to secure area.” I called out before focusing my fire right on the area around Captain Carnage. Slowly moving forward bit by bit with my more narrowed and focused arcs helping me push back the wave even faster and further than before just in that area.

I had to get on the other side of the body because the way my firing solution worked if Eager Eagle spent too long getting the body he would be cut apart by my guns. Plus if one model three got gutsy and rushed him his armored body was still probably squishier than my walker.

I took another deep breath as I drew close enough to get a good view of him through the screens and my viewport. His head was badly mangled with his hair ripped out from the clearly many attempts to drag him to a hive. His armor bore more than a few deep scratches as well, but it held up. If he had worn a helmet with that same armoring he probably would have still been smacking away. The only thing that had kept his body still for recovery was his massive gravity hammer that was laying on his body pinning it to the ground.

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I took a deep breath again and used my walker’s foot to slowly push the hammer off the body. My mech let out some groans and noises of protest from having to move something so heavy, but soon there was a thud as the hammer hit the ground leaving the body able to be taken away.

“Alright, Eager Eagle. He is clear for pickup. Lightened the load for you as well.”

I called out before stepping forward and giving the wave all I had. Tubes thumping pretty much nonstop bathing the wave in front of me in a sickly yellow haze that slowly melted the model 3s. Whatever the gas didn’t kill my guns churned apart, pushing back the wave just enough to give me room to work. However I could tell that I would not be able to hold the bulge forever as the wave slowly crept closer and closer to me. Focusing more and more on my little pocket as more of the fucking fern freaks realized that I was closer than the others.

I heard the roar of jets behind me and only gave the rear view screen a quick glance to make sure it was what I thought it was. Sure enough all that was left of the body was a red stain in the ground and the hammer. A long trail of blood showing which way Eager Eagle flew.

“Body secure.” The boy grunted out clearly struggling with the weight.

“Roger, falling back.”

With that I slowly started to reverse. Spraying the area I had been in to help cull the focused horde before slowly letting my arc return to what it had before. Once it was back to an even level with the rest of the wave I finally took a breath and leaned back in my seat letting the roar of the guns and the thumping of the mortars drown out my thoughts once again.

*****

I settled into the rhythm for who knows how long. Only adjusting my firing patterns when something bigger started to make its way through. I could tell the horde was getting less and less with each time the ground heaved from the gun, and soon Uncle Sam and Eager Eagle were flying over the hoard taking out any bigger plants. Guess the skies finally got cleared out.

~Three hives eliminated. Two stealth one major.~ Byllona softly stated. ~Your body rhythms are returning to normal. Are you ok?~

I took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah. Going to be a very interesting talk with my therapist later.” I joked with a grin that didn’t reach my eyes. I was good at those smiles. Was handy when you were selling what I did.

~Did you know him?~

“Not really. Only some reports.”

~Okay. You have a lot of points if you need to fall back to recover.~

“No. I will see this through.” I declared as I watched the horde thin more and more. That small part of my brain fueled by old Samurai shows was begging to charge. To really do some damage while looking as cool as possible.

My heart just wasn’t in it though.

I was reaping my pound of plant right here, and the antithesis were going to keep coming at me until either they were all dead or I was ready to drag back to a hive. I didn’t need to risk myself trying to be as cool as possible. I knew what happened to those that pushed it a bit too far.

“Alright. This is the last of them now. Good job everyone. Only minimal casualties!” A loud and proud voice boomed into the mic. The unmistakable call of Uncle Sam himself right before he let loose with a staggering amount of explosions sending antithesis everywhere. I had to admit it DID help the mood.

Soon enough the last of the freaks rushed over their mulched allies only to join the pile themselves. Soldiers armed with chem sprayers distributed by Arsenal hopped out of the trenches and started to hose down the bodies, melting them while guarded by their comrades carrying more conventional weapons in case something was waiting.

“Hey new guy, Anachronist? You can come back now and celebrate! That was a very nasty attack and you did fantastic!” Came the boisterous calls of Sally Shrapnel. I started to go back towards them but paused and shook my head.

“One moment. I am going to give these cleaners a few presents first. I got the points to spare.”

A token in exotic chemical weapons later, a bunch of points, and a quick search for those that played the same sims I did on the mesh later and three walkers were striding through the mess. The bodies were the same as mine but with the machine gun arms replaced with a sprayer on one arm and a grasper on the other. Their paint jobs were also just plain olive drab with the numbers 1 through 3 painted on each respectively. I watched from atop my own walker as the soldiers sprayed the massive mounds down then used the grasper to “mix” up the sludge to make sure it was all melted down.

Sure I could have used the points for something else, but I just couldn’t. The points came too easy to me today and it just didn’t feel right to hog them all when it was going to make their lives easier. I for once in my life had more than what I knew what to do with.

“What was the total again?”

~3 tokens. 132,600 points. You killed a lot of antithesis, plus your contributions to the hives got you plenty. The walkers only cost you 1000 points each with the exotic chemical weapons catalogs costing 100 for the basic and 500 for the level 2.~

I nodded and took a long draw of my cigar. Blowing out the smoke as I looked over the battlefield. Now that I looked it was clear the mounds of antithesis were much higher where I had been with them trying hard to focus on the bigger threat.

More points for me, less risk for the other non Samurai. How it should be. No grandstanding or other shit like that. We are here to kill the antithesis and keep people alive. Hard to do that if you are dead.

I took another long draw and nodded my head with a sigh. It was only a matter of time before that dumbass had died anyway. Nobody to watch his back, bad build, and bad attitude. Hell, the dumbass was probably the reason the wave focused so hard on this narrow area since he probably pissed off the stealth hives with that big hammer of his.

“Alright. Enough mourning. Time to go enjoy my first victory party as a Samurai.” I then flicked my cigar butt away and hopped up.

“Fuck!”

I had to dive right back into my walker as the chemical soaked slurry around me caught on fire. A few frantic stomps later and it was put out. Fuck, that was going to go viral for sure. I could already see the troops laughing and pointing. “Uh, as a heads up the chemical is flammable.” I warned the others using my walker’s speakers.

No sense in letting others learn the hard way.