Chedderfield
Chedderfield felt like an overly oiled, muscled-up action hero from his favorite childhood movies as he held the two giant belt-fed miniguns, one in each hand, firing off round after round of pulsing S.A.N.E. energy bullets at the wave of angry corporate men in suits trying to get through the narrow door of the small factory he was in. The way the bullets exploded their bodies into literal confetti, erupting into a rainbow of colors in all directions with each kill, felt absolutely exhilarating.
“I got your back, handsome! You just need to wake up!” Danielle’s voice interrupted him as she glided down from the roof of the factory on a cable, dressed in the sexiest maid outfit he had ever seen, her boobs defying gravity as she landed soundlessly next to him and held his arm, helping him aim and shoot down the fat-cat, corpo bastards trying to raid their place.
“Thanks, doll, these guys aren’t the ‘brains’ of the operation,” Chedderfield said as he finished off the wave of incoming zombie-like foes. “All we need to do now is fix up the place before the next wave hits.”
“If you just wake up, I’ll take care of that too. I’m the best sci-fi tech-guru in town!” she bragged as she took a step back from him, the skirt of her French maid outfit bouncing perfectly in time with her breasts as she stuck out her hand. Then, in a moment, the outfit glowed in a magical set of colors, disappearing to reveal her body before pulling back together and covering her head to toe in a tight black leather outfit replete with a pair of steampunk goggles and a wrench.
“Excellent! Those assholes will never touch our factory at this rate. They can come all they like, but we’ll cut them down like the good-for-nothings they are!” Chedderfield exclaimed with a laugh, putting down a gun for a second as he pulled out two double-finger-thick candy cigars. “Here’s one for you, babe!”
“We’ve got no time for that! If we’re going to stop them, we need to wake up,” Danielle said even as she took the candy creation, licking the tip of it seductively before putting it in her mouth.
“What do you mean we don’t have time for—”
The sound of gunfire outside the factory was so loud it was impossible to hear himself as he tried to speak to her.
“I was trying to say—”
“You need to wake up,” Danielle insisted, her eyes sparkling like the stars in the sky as she reached out and touched his chest. “You need to wake up!” She grabbed both of his shoulders and shook him. “Wake up!”
Chedderfield’s eyes shot open, and he bolted upright. For a moment, the dream and the real world were still blurred together in his mind. Danielle stared at him, and he had the uncomfortable urge to call her “doll” even though he’d never used that term for her in real life. Then, with a shake of his head, the last whispers of his dream faded like water draining from a tub.
“What’s happening?” Chedderfield asked as the hammering drum-like sound of gunfire registered.
“You four! Over here! Grab a gun and get to the walls. We’re under attack!” a man in military gear barked as he rushed into the tent. “Come on! Move! Move! Move! All troops on the line! This is the big one!” Then he left as quickly as he’d appeared.
Chedderfield almost didn’t want to budge the moment he was ordered to do so, annoyed at the man shouting orders at him like he was one of their grunt recruits when he had come all the way out here to save them, but as he tried to temper his reaction, he noticed the bunk where he had tossed Archimedes was already empty.
“Of course, that overachiever would already be out there,” Chedderfield grumbled as he finally got the energy to stand up, rubbing his eyes with one hand.
“He fucking better be. I got up right when the gunfire started, and I didn’t see him,” Lucy said, looking rather concerned from a cot across the room. She was quickly throwing her shoes on.
“FUCK YES! I’m getting a gun!” Emma shrieked excitedly as she bolted to the tent’s entrance.
“LANGUAGE!” Lucy yelled as she hopped forward, one of her shoes not all the way on. “And don’t even think of taking a gun! You are not firearm ready!”
The four raced out of the tent and found the base in mayhem, soldiers running everywhere. Large turrets embedded into the walls were booming as they fired into the air. Chedderfield looked up and saw what he thought were glowing blimps falling from the sky.
There was a loud splashing crash as one of the blimps hit the river, but the other blimps, which he finally recognized as floating jellyfish, turned and sped up as they approached the base—even as they burned or were torn apart by heavy caliber gunfire.
“Shoot those things down!” someone shouted from behind Chedderfield, and the commanding tone pushed him into action. Without conscious thought, his laser pistol was in his hand, and he was aiming up at the closest jellyfish. Thick laser fire popped off next to him as he pulled the trigger on his weapon too.
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Though it seemed like every firearm and weapon was turned upward, Chedderfield felt like they were shooting at the moon for all the effect it had. Only the powerful turrets seemed to do substantial damage, each landed shot tearing a hole in the floating creatures and forcing them to descend slightly like helium balloons that had started to leak.
Dots started to fall, and it took Chedderfield a moment to realize that they weren’t parts of the jellyfish falling but zombies and other hell-cursed creatures. The zombies splattered gruesomely on the ground, but the brutes were tough enough to survive the impact. One landed near him with enough force to crack the ground, but it was sliced nearly in two before it could recover from its fall by Chedderfield’s vibrating macuahuitl.
As he watched the undead fall to the ground, and the bodies of the killed jellyfish monsters sinking too, he couldn’t help but notice in the mess of laser fire that there was one laser being shot from atop a jellyfish’s back. The beam seemed to shoot out randomly across the horizon. Do they have that technology too? Chedderfield wondered as he stared up at the dreary, dark smoke-filled night sky and watched the massive horror sink toward them.
“IMPACT!!” one of the combat leaders yelled out as one of the huge jellyfish smashed into the ground, the outer membrane of its body splitting open to disgorge hundreds of zombies and bone archers. As the hell-cursed began to stand up, having been knocked down by the crash, the military was already on them. Explosive rounds shredded undead flesh as charged lasers incinerated the remainder of the zombies in a barrage that would make a Star Wars fan proud. The archers didn’t even get a chance to nock a single arrow before they were turned to scorched piles of bone.
As they were killing off the zombies and skeletal archers inside of that one jellyfish though, two more downed by the turrets were already crashing into the base, and each had just as many enemies inside. The army was still struggling to reload as the zombies stood up.
“I’m going ahead,” Chedderfield shouted to his team as he switched to the Purgator class and ran off. He didn’t know what else to do as he took in what was about to happen. The bone archers, now fully recovered, began drawing back their magical blue bowstrings and creating their arrows, all pointed at soldiers who couldn’t gun them down quickly enough. He didn’t want to jump in front of all those gunmen, who might not be any better shots than Emma, but he needed to be the one the archers fired at. With his high constitution and heavy system-integrated samurai armor, he stood a far better chance than the low-level, unarmored soldiers behind him.
He heard gunfire all around him as he Meat-Slammed into the nearest zombie. The protective semi-translucent rock armor extended over his body as his shoulder turned the head of the monster into a mist of sprayed blood and bone. He struck out with his fist at the next monster and turned it into a blue bonfire by using Cleansing Fire as his punch landed. He then sped to another group with Meat Slam and spewed a cone of acid that covered six zombies. Even though he knew it would take a moment for the acid to eat through their flesh and kill them, the effect of the acid still disabled them, and he used his armored shoulders like wedges to smash his way between them until he reached the skeletal archers in the back.
His efforts were rewarded with two arrows to the chest that barely pierced his upgraded system armor. Three archers that hadn’t been gunned down looked toward them.
“You’re all boned now,” he said as he took his macuahuitl, charged it up, and swung it in heavy sweeping motions. He ignored the damage he took from using the weapon’s ability as the blade cleanly cut through the skeletal archers, bisecting the bones as he shattered their ranks.
Even as he was killing the archers, he could see more of the jellyfish monsters crashing to the ground, one even landing on top of the remaining survivors of another jellyfish’s crash landing, flattening the few remaining hell-cursed and one of the soldiers who had been brave enough to charge into battle.
As he looked around, he didn’t know which monster groups to attack. At the same time, the thunderous hammering of the turrets and the incessant gunfire drowned out any thoughts he had, causing him to feel like he was stuck aimlessly in a bog as he watched what was unfolding around him.
A disgorged zombie horde charged the closest line of soldiers and though the soldiers were, no doubt, each more powerful than a low-level zombie, the sheer numbers overwhelmed the group. Zombie teeth rent flesh from bone, muscular brutes tore limbs from bodies, and a steady rain of bone arrows pierced bodies, leaving them pinned to the ground, bleeding and helpless against the hell-cursed.
Snapping out of his momentary haze, Chedderfield roared in anger at the sight of dying men and charged into the fight. His macuahuitl sliced through zombie flesh like a sharp knife through warm butter. The sharp obsidian blades snapped as they caught on bone, but the sheer power of the swings cleaved clean through the monsters. Grasping hands grabbed at his arms, but he shrugged the weak zombies off with ease, kicking some away and using a spray of acid to melt the flesh of those that were foolish enough to group up. A hell brute punched clumsily at him, but Chedderfield ducked under the blow, his weapon slicing through the back of the monster’s knee, severing the ligaments and forcing the creature to kneel. With a powerful overhand swing, Chedderfield brought the flat side of his weapon down on the brute’s skull, crushing it as the monster tried to regain its footing.
Despite his powerful abilities and how many monsters he could kill, soldiers continued to die around him. He stumbled forward as his back was hit by what felt like pebbles. He turned to see that he’d been shot at by a dying soldier, who was being torn apart by four zombies. A running dash and a few swings of his weapon ended the monsters, but it was too late for the soldier, who lay in bloody pieces. A bronze card floated over his body.
Chedderfield reluctantly touched the card, not wanting one of the hell-cursed to get it, and looked around for something else to kill. The rage he felt in his chest had not dissipated in the least. He spotted more bone archers and was about to charge them when a laser beam burned a line across the ground in front of him three feet away. It wasn’t unusual for Danielle to be watching his back and targeting enemies he didn’t see, but this laser beam had come from above him, and as he traced the line of fire, he saw more shots being taken from on top of one of the slowly falling jellyfish.