They came piling out of the woods, churning up the charnel house remains of their comrades. Long, human hands supporting their four legged, leaping lope. Claw-fingers flexed like toes to launch the monsters up and over obstacles. Their horned heads screaming their hate and defiance at the sky. At the Tower. At me.

But between me and them was a field full of stakes, a palisade wall, and my Awakened Souls.

”Targets Marked. Reloading.” Radz's creepily flat voice now sounded confident and comforting. She was blasting them apart at the tree line, and in the long intervals between rounds, the stakes were slowing them down. The Mika’s were able to focus their fire very nicely, burning down monsters well away from the palisade.

I was a long way from cautious optimism, but the battle was flowing well. It was a numbers game now- could the monsters throw enough bodies at us, fast enough, to negate Radz thinning them out?

The crack-boom of the mortar sounded, and the moonlight turned the monster’s gore to black. I pounded the barricade in appreciation. She bagged three in one shot. Lots more coming in, but still. Three in one blow!

”Multiple targets marked. Designate priority.”

Wait, what?

I scanned the forest line. The same cold moon highlighted the stream of smoke marking the incoming monster. Except these weren’t coming from the north-east. These were coming from the north-west. Forcing Radz to split her fire.

I forced my mind past the shock. Make decisions or die! Find your inner wisdom of Shikimaru, while channeling the spirit of Deku and never give up!

There are only ugly uncles waiting for losers. Winners get their pick of the Doki-Doki-Angels.

“Radz, focus fire on the new enemies to the northwest!”

She had already thinned out whichever ones were coming from the north-east. I had no idea what her accuracy was like, but so far we weren’t facing the same crush we did last night.

“Mikas, fire as they come! Versai, eyes up!”

”Yes, Tower Master!”

Volley fire! I should teach her to volley fire. It might not make sense with only five Mikas, but right now, I wanted no gaps in the curtain of ranged death. I only had two melee combatants, and one of them was busy marking targets for the artillery.

Every movie with massed archers that I had ever seen used volley fire. The Brits in Zulu used volley fire, and they were massively outnumbered! Must figure out a way to use that. Not that the monsters were giving me time.

The monsters didn’t need any invitation to rush in. Without Radz thinning fire, they came boiling out of the woods. It was faintly ridiculous watching them run through the stakes. Zig zagging. Like kids running wind sprints, or balls falling through a peg board.

“See everyone- there is a natural bell curve showing how many monsters will get through to rip your lungs out your ears.”

The Mikas weren’t any better at math than me- they just shot ‘em as they came. Crossbows resting on top of their steel shields, cheeks welded to the stocks, they lined up their shots and fired.

Two shots to the torso put down a monster, or one to the head. At extreme range, they didn’t always get center mass. The monsters didn’t stay at extreme range long.

The Mika’s were suddenly in a target rich environment. The heavy crossbows fired their glowing bolts with a steady “Snap!” The tore open torsos, shattered shoulders. Shattered skulls.

The monsters had something of a goat about their faces, and something of a bat. Every destroyed face felt like a lanced cyst. Better out than in. Infinitely better.

It was working. The stakes, the artillery, the palisade, it was all working. So far, Versai hasn't had to make a move.

The mortar’s crack-boom came shocking fast. My eyes whipped to the north-west. The monsters were already breaking out of the forest. They slammed into the stakes and started filtering through. It wasn’t just Radz that would have to split her fire. The Mika’s hadn’t finished mopping up the first batch of monsters. More were still coming from the forest.

I bit back the urge to yell something to Versai. She had this. I had to believe she had this. There were no useful orders I could give. Just… hang on and trust your summons.

No, wait! Debuffs. Movement rate debuffs. Of the repeatedly shot with crossbows variety. I can use debuffs!

“Mikas! If a monster is disabled but not dead, shoot a different monster. Only finish off the wounded when they pose an immediate danger to you or someone else!”

“Mika’s here, you have nothing to fear!”

I could see them shift their fire immediately. At extreme range, they weren’t scoring a lot of kills, but they rarely missed entirely. By reprioritizing, I was able to slow the monster’s advance yet again. Make ‘em easier targets for Versai.

Daddy plays his Bloons strictly on C.H.I.M.P.S mode. And yet you dare appear before me!

Versai was starting to get into the mix too. She practically danced behind the Mikas, stabbing her long sword in the gaps between them, skewering any monsters trying to get over the jutting front of the wall. She made it look effortless, almost mechanical. Crouch, stab, crouch, stab. Over and over. Not many made it to the palisade and fewer made it up the palisade. She kept moving, but it was manageable so far.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Slow it all down. I squeezed my fist tight. I can’t kill ‘em any faster, so I have to slow down their rush. The mortar fired again. I smiled grimly, knowing that the strategy was working.

Until I realized something was missing, some hole in the tapestry of violence.

Something went wrong. I looked around wildly trying to figure out what it was, then I realized that Radz hadn’t done her usual “Reloading” bark.

“Radz, report!”

“No more targets in range. Mission complete.”

I flinched. They were all out of the forest. It meant we were closing in on the end, but it also meant there would be a big blob of them coming all at once.

“Versai, expect a lot of company soon!” I cupped my hands to my mouth. “Rache! Get over here and start hitting their flanks! Carve ‘em up!”

Fingers crossed she could hear me. Versai was moving faster now. The Mikas were doing their best, but they were getting overwhelmed. It was going to be down to Versai soon. I was trying to wait until the last possible second to trigger the Mikas’ ult, if that’s what it was. Once I did, they would be out of the fight. It had to be at the decisive moment!

From out of the woods I heard a ghostly whiney, and the sound of distant noise pollution. Rache flew in on her ghostly motorcycle. She didn’t slow down as she approached the sakes. She jumped. Jumped like a damn horse! She jumped and rode her bike right over the top of the stakes, leaping over the gaps.

How?! How was she the same One Star level as Beka? How?

She came whipping along the baying, slavering mob, cavalry saber flashing in the moonlight. White blade goes in, red blade comes out. She flayed their backs open. Collected heads. It was the damndest thing I had yet seen in this mad world. She was past the mob in a flash, then screeched to a halt. It took her an uncomfortably long couple of seconds to turn the bike around, then she was back in the mix.

She rushed the mob again, but she had less time to build up speed. More time to line up her shots, I reckoned, but it didn’t quite work out that way. She was landing the same number of hits, but doing less damage. Much less. I frowned.

One of the wounded monsters reached up from where it was crawling and shredded her leg as she passed. Rache screamed, her buckskin pants torn apart as her bike slid to a stop and vanished. She started flailing at the monster with her saber. She might as well have been swinging a nerf bat for all the damage she was doing. And now other monsters were coming for her.

“Versai! Go pull out Rache! Keep out of the line of fire!”

“On it, Tower Master!”

Versai launched herself over the wall and fell, collecting heads as she descended. She cut her way out and sprinted hard for my trapped scout. The monsters were coming up the palisades now, long fingers reaching, scratching against the Mika’s shields. I tried to scan the field, count monstrous noses, but it was chaotic. Dark. Stakes broke up the light and the shapes of things everywhere.

They were coming up over the lip. The Mika’s could one-shot them at this range, but there were too many. They were reaching the top of the wall!

“MIKAS! DEFENSE! NOTHING GETS PAST YOU!”

I was watching for it now. The Mika’s squeezed together, shoulder to shoulder, their shields touching. The shields began to glow with a white light. I couldn’t see their faces, but there was something about the way they held themselves. Something about the way they seemed to… almost shiver.

“MIKA HOLDS THE LINE! MIKA HOLDS THE LINE! SAVE OUR FAMILIES AND RUN!”

The sheer hate in those words. The realness of it hammered at me. The desperate terror in their voices. I didn’t want to hear this. I didn’t want to know this!

The Mikas shot and shot and shot, not missing. Bolts flying out in falling waves of death, monstrous as a storm at sea. Heads exploded, backs exploded. They ripped through the monsters. Seeing… some other place and time.

The only time Mika remembered her family was in the most desperate heat of battle. When all was lost, and someone needed to hold the line. When the only one left to pay the price was the clumsy, slow, but endlessly brave, Mika.

I cant. I just can’t. I can deal if they are dolls! Be the damn dollies you are meant to be!

“You have never loved someone. Not the way these dolls love their families. Amazing- they are more real than you.” The intrusive thought wormed its way in. I did my best to pour salt on it and focus on the battle. I didn’t really succeed.

“Oh No! Where’s the ouchie?” Pammy scrambled into action, yanking out her bandages and starting to wrap the unconscious Mikas. Funny. I think they took more damage from the fall than from monsters. I’d have to get the Judiths to fix that. I peeked through the palisade to see the state of things. Rache was back on her bike, zipping around and picking off the wounded. Versai was mopping up what few mobile monsters remained.

A few seconds later, and it was done. First real wave, complete.

We had won clean. No fatalities, only minor injuries. Injuries that would vanish after a little attention from Pammy. I don’t think it could have gone any better, at least with what I knew about my summons.

I collapsed on the ground. I’d need to get the Judiths to make me a chair or something.

“Oof. Rough riding today. ‘Fraid I need to see ole Doc.” Rache looked… well if you liked your waifus tall, rangy and western themed, she looked fantastic. Youthful face with old eyes, slim but feminine, and there wasn’t a speck of her own blood on her. Her pants were attractively shredded, and at some point some of her coat and shirt had been torn. Not torn away entirely, just torn.

Their clothes show how much they are wounded. Versai mentioned that during the first summoning.

Disheveled looked good on Rache. I had a feeling it would look good on all of them. My summons didn’t bleed, but the monsters did. The summons had the sapience (not counting Versai) of a chimp, maybe less.

Something prevented them from understanding things, and it wasn’t always consistent about what or when. They couldn’t remember their past, except under very narrow circumstances. And if the Mikas were anything to go by, that past was… horrible.

I forced myself not to look at Pammy. Forced myself to not remember the documentary. I mustn't humanize the summons. That’s what Versai said. It only brings misery. So what if they wrote a tragic backstory for the doll? So what? It was all a game world. All the developer’s depraved imagination.

It had to be. Had to be!

Just what was this world? It was a game; that was obvious. I was supposed to play. Black Robe seemed to be both a player and one of the people running the game. Or at least his cousin was. But why? Why all this? Why kidnap people? Why rely on thirst trap ads for weebs and gambling addicts to pull recruits from?

I didn’t have enough facts. I could bang my head against it all I wanted, but I just didn’t know enough. Deep breath. Time to be the Tower Master again. Wave Three was coming. I would need everything I had, and more. I stood up.

“Good job everyone! Now, who’s got golden hands? I want to see what loot these monsters have for us!”