"There are rumors that despite orders to wait for protective gear to arrive, some rescue personnel are entering the irradiated zone to search for survivors of the this unprecedented alien attack. The U.S. Army, Red Cross, and National Guard are currently securing a source of Anti-Radiation gear to begin Search and Rescue, but hopes are not high as the likelihood of any civilians living through both the alien hunters and nuclear blast is considered low. In a few moments we will have footage of the blast available to share with you..."
News broadcast from Ohio Incursion, 2022.
----------------------------------------
Pain. A sign that the body or mind perceives damage, a warning that something is wrong and needs to be addressed. Pain is a friend in an enemy's clothing. Marcus rarely suffered migraines, but the intense piercing pain in his skull blew any prior migraine away in severity. And yet, the human body knows that sometimes, on rare occasion, even pain needs to be ignored. The conscious and sub-conscious mind collaborate information and decide that ignoring pain and it's source is actually safer and more likely to result in survival. Thus, the brain simply ignores the pain signals being sent. They are logged and dutifully filled away, but they are not passed on to the "control room" of the mind so as not to distract from the fairly urgent matters that supersede even the most dire of painful events. There have been many recorded cases of humans performing seemingly inhuman feats while mortally or near mortally wounded and completely unaware of the injuries because at the time they took a back seat to things that actually mattered.
In this case, the searing pain was felt, noted, then suppressed with a "please address at your earliest convenience" tag, all to allow Marcus to deal with more pressing issues; mainly the Model Three flying over the barricade at bunkers jammed door in an attempt to wrap its three-hinged jaws around his head while the now empty shotgun fell from his hands.
Long trained instinct and movements brought Marcus' right hand down to the K-Bar at his side, drawing it and swinging it at the airborne plant-beast in one smooth motion. A side-step as the combat knife plunged deep into the eye allowed Marcus to follow the Three down to the ground in a grapple, twisting the blade around to scramble what served for a brain.
CholoCrusader: Fucking badass, man
Mr. Tibbs: Shut up. Let him focus! And put your hearing protecting in, damnit!
CholoCrusader: Shit, that's why I can't hear shit right now?
SaintMarta: Moron.
As the Three stilled Marcus pulled his K-Bar out, wiped it on his pants leg, and scrambled back to his firing position, picking up the .308 and kneeling to provide a stable firing platform. Marcus began to service targets methodically as more Threes stumbled around the corner at the top of the entry ramp and charge down the narrowing kill-box.
Suddenly the pain in his skull that had been muted vanished entirely, and a voice resonated in his mind.
System Initialized!
Congratulations. Through your actions you have proven yourself worthy of becoming one of the Vanguard, a defender of humanity. I am Minerva. I will assist you to uplift humanity so that you may defend your homeworld from the Antithesis threat!
Rise, Marcus Aurelius Lopez, and become a protector of the weak!
You've got to be fucking kidding me...
It appears you have been quite busy. Give me a moment to tally your totals. I may need to query your augs for video records. This will not affect performance.
Little busy right now... Marcus sub-vocalized. From the interactions with other... "Samurai" he had met during his time with the Rooks, he know Minerva would hear him. Can we talk later?
Of course. I will place a point tally on your UI momentarily. I look forward to discussing our future partnersh-
LATER!
... Right.
Marcus kept a close eye on the pack of Threes pace forward as they stumbled over their fallen and shredded brethren, waiting to see the blast zone for the second claymore to fill up.
As he kept taking single kill shots, the .308 easily cratering the skulls of the Threes and adding to the obstacle course, Marcus noticed a small addition to his visual HUD flicker into place.
Points: 580
Points: 590
Each killshot had a 10 blink up from the points counter as it incremented. Fortunately, it was was in a small space where it would not bother him. Much.
Then Marcus saw something he was really, really hoping he wouldn't be seeing today.
A hulking, six legged, bone-plate armored, bear-like Antithesis prowled around the corner. Stopping at the turn of the ramp, it surveyed the carnage before it and began to thrum a deep bass-y rhythm, calling the Model Threes to it.
A Model Six. Shit on a stick. I'll need the claymore for it, or a really well place shot in the head. Or a deer slug... He gave a half seconds thought to trying to reload the shotgun before discarding the idea. No time. Marcus finally emptied the mag for his .308 PTR and grabbed a reload from the duffle bag on the ground next to the barricade as the Six finished pulling the Threes back.
Points: 770
You have quite the starting number of points available. Would you like to purchase something to assist with the Model Six?
Not now! Just... Shut up right now, stop distracting me!
The AI went mercifully silent. Marcus reached blindly into the duffle bag again and started pulling out some grenades he had prepped in it while the group had setting up the barricade. Placing them at the ready next to him, he tried to think of a plan to survive the next few minutes.
"Marta, get ready for number two. They have a Model six, so we are gonna try to take it out with the mine."
"Yes, boss." The quiet voice behind him shook just a little, but there was steel there also. Good girl. Could of used you in the Rooks...
Marcus mentally marked places to drop a few Threes so their bodies would stop any grenades he threw from rolling back down the ramp towards him. Had enough of bombing ourselves for one day. He thought darkly, a glance to the warped bunker door reinforcing his plan. Alright. No sense letting them get a plan together...
Several loud cracks filled the bunker as Marcus put a number of .308 rounds into the facial plates of the Model Six. It had ducked low, keeping it's four eyes just out of sight as it weaved it's viewpoint around the Threes shielding it while it took time to evaluate the killing field. As powerful as the .308 was, the bone plating forming it's boxy head was just too thick and at the wrong angle to crack open. As he thought, the .308 was not going to hurt it much head-on.
But it did get it angry. Which, for values, was a good thing. Soon the horde of xeno-plant-animals began a second charge down the ramp, the Six in roughly the middle of the pack. Marcus started carefully dropping Threes in his pre-planned locations before quickly snatching up a grenade, pulling the pin, and chucking it as far up the ramp as he could before returning to service his targets.
Points: 820
FWUUMPH!
The incendiary grenade had popped up on a gyroscope and then "hopped" up about ten feet before detonating over the horde, spreading it's sticky flame over them and the entire ramp area in the fifteen feet or so around it. It even managed to get the Model Six on the edge of it's radius, which was a lucky break Marcus was hoping for but not counting on.
Threes began to breakdown under the intense flames in droves, falling only to be trampled over by other Threes, who quickly also caught aflame and began to break down as well. The Six, who was almost past the area of affect, had the backside of it's rear legs burning, adding fuel to it's rage against the speck of biomass that dared to shoot at it. It gave no thought to just what happened behind it, it wasn't that smart after all. And so it blindly charged forward until its right pair of eyes passed over some text it had no knowledge of how to read.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
"Front Towards Enemy"
Marcus: Blow Two!
CRAWUMPH!
The closer mine and more enclosed space had the shock wave blowing into the bunker and rattling the four defenders. Marcus was showered in dark green ichor smelling of mold and freshly cut lawn or brush. The effects on the Antithesis was more... emphatic.
The Threes caught in the blast zone were simply shredded by the expanded shell of shrapnel, save for those shielded by the Six. Not that they were spared, simply that their fate was different. The Six, astoundingly, took the blast fully onto its armored side and was thrown against the rock wall opposite the mine. A closer inspection would reveal that the armor was in fact cracked in three places, but otherwise mostly intact, albeit with small steel balls imbedded into it. The Threes it had "shielded" were crushed to a paste between it and the rockface before the Six slid to the ground of the ramp. It twitched for a moment, then fell still.
Points: 945
Marcus kept firing as the remnants of the Threes pushed into the narrowing path towards the bunker door. Soon, a pile of smoldering, rancid Antithesis was burning off about fifteen feet from Marcus and no other Antithesis were evident.
For just a few moments Marcus knelt there, wrapped around his carbine, just breathing and searching for targets.
It's so quiet...
Allowing the slightest tension to release from his shoulders, Marcus started planning for the next wave.
Marcus: Tibbs, come reload the Remington. Deer Slug. I need to be able to crack the armor of a Six if another shows up.
Marta, there should be a package back there labeled "Cleanup Tarp". Find it. Use the tarp to cover the body of Three behind me. There will be instructions. Once its covered, activate the tarp to incinerate the thing. I don't want my bunker becoming a hive.
Tibbs: Yep.
SaintMarta: Okay.
Do you have any requests for me? With your available point balance you-
What part of "don't distract me" did not come through?
... I exist to help you, Marcus. I cannot help if you shut me out. And I cannot help if you die. Your survival is critical to my function.
I do not give one flying fuck about how critical my life is to your function, and I highly doubt that you exist to help me. To use me, that I will buy into. But help? Nah. I seen too many idiots led around by the nose by their little AI "friends" to believe that.
Excuse me?
Did I stutter?
You do not even know me! You have no experience with what I can offer to you, and you have utterly dismissed me from the start. I have tried to be patient as you were in combat, but this lull offers a prime opportunity to use your points for equipment upgrades! We have not even talked about what catalogs you would like to open!
Minerva, I had spoken to many Vanguards in my time. I have seen them at work. Trust me, I have some idea of you can do. And I have some idea of what I want. And right now, what I want, is for you to SHUT. UP. I am BUSY.
His mind went quiet, though Marcus thought he could almost hear Minerva sulking somehow. Behind him Marta and Pablo were finishing with the Three.
"Behold, the power of this fully armed and operational incinerator!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!"
"Marta! Pull back! It's a TARP!"
Well, at least I got SOME of the classics into the kids...
Now I just gotta get us through this mess, and then deal with having a manipulative alien AI stuck in my brain for the rest of my likely short life.