NOVEL WEB Chapter 9 – Fighting Fire with Fire
“Burn, motherfuckers, burn, ahahahahhahaaaa!”
- Hellfire during the alien incursion near Neu Hamburg, 2056
When we got closer we could see the defenders firing everything they had into the mass of xenos. The mountains of dead xenos were helping more in stemming the tide than the makeshift barriers ever could hope to. Any Samurai down there was probably swimming in points, but then again, the question was how well they would be able to use them.
From our vantage point four figures stood out. Well, I say stood out, but really, they just didn’t look like soldiers. One was flinging grenades around like their life depended on it, which to be fair, it probably did, while the other three were firing a myriad of different rifles into the mass of xenos. One of them had just gotten a giant fuck off minigun and was just spewing bullet after bullet down range.
“That’s Shrapnel,” Chloe said and pointed to the grenade flinger.
“Know anything about him?”
The name didn’t ring a bell, then again we didn’t often deal with Samurai. True, we knew the more popular ones, but from what Castas had said these guys weren’t exactly big fishes.
Chloe shook her head, “No, not really. Only what Castas has told us, honestly.”
She brought us even closer and at this point it felt like there was an ocean of angry alien below us.
“Anything we can do here?” I asked, a bit lost.
I did have some ideas with the Pristine Fortress and Chloe’s grenades, but I didn’t have too high hopes of success.
Normally I would recommend against getting involved at your level, however, there is a high likelihood that things will get much worse once the defences are breached. In addition you have the high ground so to speak, which does make things a bit safer for you.
“What options do we have?” Jenna asked, grimacing, “I know I said I wanted points, but this?” She looked around, probably with the same thoughts that I had.
There are options available to you.
I perked up at Kaysa’s words. I couldn’t imagine what she could have in mind, it wasn’t like I had many points to spend and I doubted that my 110 odd points would make an appreciable difference in this sea of bullshit.
“Let’s hear it.” It would be better than what I could think of, probably.
With the help of your Mark III Pristine Fortress and Vanguard Chloe you could start to thin the horde, get more points for bigger purchases. There are two items that I would recommend you get for the time being, both coming from the Class I Hexclaw Swarm Intelligence Catalogue.
The first would be the Mark VI Devouring Rose. It is an imobile, highly specialised Hexclaw Hive Defender that could fortify the position quite drastically. Should you get enough points it would make defending the area a lot easier with only minimal collateral damage.
The second option would be the Mark IV Progenitor Reaver. When I first introduced the Catalogue to you I mentioned that it specialises into self-replicating, highly adaptable swarms, this would be your first step towards that end.
I frowned, “I mean, I like the idea, but how much would they be?”
The Mark IV Progenitor Reaver would start at roughly 1250 points. It can be upgraded with more points, both from your own Catalogues and Vanguard Chloe’s or Vanguard Jenna’s Catalogues. While it is not atypical for Vanguard to work together to upgrade their Items, in this case things work slightly differently, as the Catalogue itself is quite unique. Any Hexclaw can be upgraded even without using any additional items from any Catalogue, simply by using materials that might be available from the Catalogue in question. For example, Vanguard Jenna’s Class I Sentinel Legion Catalogue has access to a rather peculiar lightweight alloy that you could use to change the composition of the Mark IV Progenitor Reaver armor, turning it into quite the durable weapon.
In a similar vein, the Mark VI Devouring Rose doesn’t have a fixed price. Instead you can get it for as cheap as 250 points, but you can spend more. For example, if you were to spend 2500 points you would get a much larger, much stronger, pregrown Version that could instantly deal with even higher digit antithesis.
In your case you would need at minimum 500 points for the Devouring Rose, as you need to get the Catalogue, then the Implant to control the Hive, which is a half-biological, half-cybernetic implant. Finally you can get the Devouring Rose. For this case I recommend the Devouring Rose Variant C. It will be able to grow quickly, if you can keep it alive, but it will not be able to survive for long once the biomass runs out, as it has a highly accelerated metabolism. In general the Hexclaw Swarm Intelligence consumes biomass to grow, and considering the bodies available that should not be an issue.
“Wait, you are saying we are basically unleashing a second biomass hungry hive-swarm to combat the first biomass hungry hive-swarm?” I wasn’t quite sure if I found the idea appalling or poetic.
In effect, yes. The difference being that your swarm would be entirely under your control and therefore not a threat to humans. Unless you decide for that to be the case, of course.
I rubbed my face, then looked outside again. We didn’t have much time to dilly dally, not really.
“Okay, so 500 points for the Devouring Rose, then that weird Progenitor thing. I guess from the name it’s all about eating aliens and churning out more of itself?”
Not more of itself. Generally all Progenitor Line Hexclaws produce the Mark II Hexclaw Hatchling, a very basic member of the Hexclaw genome, but given time it can theoretically adapt for and evolve into any Hexclaw you can think of. There are some exceptions of course, for example the Omega class Mark XXII Progenitor Wyvern, which is not a naturally occurring Hexclaw. But in most cases these exceptions are highly specialised into one specific thing, or have been developed later on and are just not part of the normal Hexclaw genome.
“Sounds fancy… Okay, so first the Rose, then the Progenitor. Now the important question, do we think we can get the points without dying?”
Chloe looked at me, “We could try doing some bombing runs before we head down and try to do what we can to help them defend. Not sure how much that will do though.”
“It’s better than nothing,” Jenna threw in, “We can’t just sit here. We have to do something.” She sounded… resigned, but determined.
And she was right, of course.
I sighed, then looked at Chloe, “Let’s get a couple points, then see if that Devouring Rose thing Kaysa mentioned can’t help.”
She nodded, “And if it doesn’t?”
“I honestly don’t want to think about that…” I muttered. “I’m just not sure how we can get Jenna some points.”
“Give her some grenades to throw. I mean, it’s better than her trying to get anything done with that little bracelet of yours. Couldn’t you get her another Pristine Fortress?” Chloe asked, although from the tone of her voice she also wasn’t sure if that was a good idea.
“I could. It would basically bankrupt me, but that would mean more nades and more big attacks.”
“Don’t waste points on that, at least not yet,” Jenna said, looking at me, “I appreciate the offer, but let’s try to get more points first. Maybe I can get enough to get another Sentinel, that would already help greatly with getting points.”
I shrugged, “Okay. So, we need nades. Lots of ‘em and preferably stuff that doesn’t just go boom. What area denial stuff do you have?”
Chloe thought for a moment, flying slow circles above the horde.
“I got a couple good ones. Razor wire nades, Black hole bombs, some shit to freeze or at least slow them down. I think I got some ideas. Atlas, think you could put together a collection for Jenna?”
There was a moment of silence before she nodded, “Sure, let’s do that. Jenna, big box of bullshit incoming, make room.”
I heard her shift, then a soft thump, probably the box Chloe ordered. When I turned around I saw a big box on the remaining seats. It should suffice. Hopefully.
“Well, you both ready?” I asked, not nearly feeling ready myself.
They nodded and I nodded in turn, looking outside, “Then let’s do this.”
After another moment Chloe turned us around and brought us further down, before she straightened out the flightline and put some speed on. We were coming in from the east, which meant we had free range over the horde below us without having to worry about potentially hitting the defences. When we got close enough to the horde I used my Pristine Fortress to project as big of a circle as I could pretty much on top of the horde. Chloe bought a bunch of grenades, while Jenna started flinging them outside. A myriad of sounds came from below us, most of which I couldn’t even hope to place. Aliens died and my points went up by a good chunk. A couple more runs and I could get the Rose… Might actually not go entirely badly.
That was of course the moment that part of the flock currently trying to get over the City walls split off and made their way over to us. Chloe cursed, then did a sharp turn and accelerated sharply.
“Anything we can do about those?” She asked.
“I have some ideas,” I replied, “If you can get grenades for my Fortress.”
She nodded and turned again, bringing us next to the flock and giving me a free line of fire. I sent as big of a sweeping blade as I could into the direction of the flock and Chloe added some grenades to the attack. The blade connected with the swarm, cutting a couple of the birds up, before it shattered when four grenades exploded into big balls of razor wire, utterly annihilating a good chunk of the flyers.
I was just about ready to bump my fist at our success, when even more flyers broke off from the main flock to deal with us. So instead I cursed and sent another wave out. And again it demolished a good chunk of the flyers that tried to reach us. The problem was that this wouldn’t be a permanent solution. More and more of the flying models made their way over to us, and at this point Chloe had to spend most of her time evading any xenos trying to get at us.
This little game of cat and mouse continued, I sent wave after wave, some exploded, some didn’t, depending on how much Chloe had to concentrate, while she started weaving through the buildings around us at ever increasing speeds. Jenna did her best to keep the grenades in the back secure and to continue their deployment, but it became harder by the minute.
“Fuck it,” I muttered, “Bring us down low, Jenna just kick the box outside, we can’t have them bouncing around in the car like this.”
Nobody answered, but Chloe did as I suggested, and Jenna did her best to open the door and just push the box out. She fumbled a bit, probably because she didn’t want to end up outside as well and Chloe had to slow down for a moment before Jenna was able to finally get the still half full box into the open and out the door. Immediately Chloe gunned it, while I tried desperately to simultaneously hit the flock behind us, as well as keep what little food I had in.
My points ticked up with each successful blade, but it just wasn’t enough yet.
Suddenly Chloe ripped the car around, making me nearly smash my head into the door, utterly surprising me. A moment later it became clear though why she had done that, another smaller flock had nearly rammed into us from the side.
“Fuck, we need a better way of dealing with this!” she hissed.
“Can you get close to the wall, maybe the turrets can help us?” I offered, before sending out another big wave of bullshit.
Then a sudden crunch from below and the car lurched.
“Guess we have no choice!” Chloe said and turned it around to head towards the wall. It didn’t take long for us to get within firing range of the turret emplacements and bullets came flying at us, which made me immediately regret even bringing it up.
“Fuck, bad idea!” I muttered and held on for dear life while Chloe pushed the engine as much as she dared with this many buildings around.
By some miracle we weren’t hit and soon Chloe turned to fly along the wall, the aliens still behind us. It was hard for me to hit the flock from the position we were in, so instead I projected another circle out over the horde on the ground. “Nades!”
Chloe caught on instantly and bought another couple of grenades that started to rain down from my little projection. I cancelled it and repeated the motion again, more and more antithesis dying.
“Gods we are lucky there aren’t any of the bigger models!” Chloe cursed, then took another sharp turn, although not quite sharp enough and we clipped a building with the rear bumper. The car lurched, an ugly tearing sound and something fell to the streets below, “Shit! Something’s busted…”
That was not the kind of thing I wanted to hear, but I did my best to ignore it.
“Finally!” I said when I saw my points crawl over into the 500 range, “Want to land this thing and plant some flowers?”
“I don’t think they’ll let us,” Jenna said in return, she was looking behind us.
“Kaysa, can I place it without landing?”
Of course. Simply get close to the front.
“Chloe, to the first line of defence, no need to land, just make sure we are close!”
“Got it!” As promised she turned around as quickly as she could and made her way back.
“Kaysa, the moment we are close hit it, one Rose!”
Understood.
We shot over the line of xenos still trying to get closer to the gates and from the looks of things slowly managing it. Some aliens tried to stop us but either we were insanely lucky or Chloe was a fucking good pilot.
Class I Hexclaw Swarm Intelligence Catalogue unlocked!
Points reduced to: 358
New purchase: Mark III Hexclaw Hive-Queen Control Module!
Points reduced to: 258
New purchase: Mark VI Devouring Rose (Variant C, 250 points)!
Points reduced to: 8
I was just about to ask how we should best deal with the flock behind us, when a sudden piercing pain penetrated my skull, before leaving as quickly as it had come. “The fuck?!” I muttered, rubbing my temples.
That was the Bio-Hive control implant that I mentioned. It should grow to connect to your brain soon. Once it is finished you can be considered a Hexclaw Hive-Queen, even if you do not have the biology for one.
“Well, isn’t that just fucking grand… Hopefully nothing bursts out of my chest or something!”
Something tingled in my brain, then I could feel… something. And a moment later I could see!
Not my perspective, but the perspective of something else. It looked to be a writhing nest of tentacles with a big worm-like mouth in the middle. The sight made me dizzy, this wasn’t just a pair of eyes in a face, I had dozens of eyes I could see from. Each tentacle had a pair, plus the worm thing, plus… I didn’t even know how to describe it. I could see and feel so many new things. But the most striking thing I felt was a deep rooted and primal hunger. No, it wasn’t just hungry. It was starving. It wanted to devour and so it did. Tentacles pulled dead xenos towards it and it ate, gulping them down in one bite of the massive jaws at the end of the worm. When Kaysa said it would grow fast she meant it, I could already feel more and more tentacles being added to the thing, while I tried desperately to get a grip on things.
The nausea should vanish relatively soon. It would be best if you concentrate on your own perception for the time being.
I tried, but it wasn’t easy.
“Seraphine?” Chloe asked, concern in her eyes when she glanced at me.
“I’m… fine… just… ugh. So many senses…” It was hard to even speak properly with my mind roiling like this.
It took me a couple of minutes until finally things settled, minutes I didn’t quite fully perceive. By the time I was fully back again Chloe was doing some really rough manoeuvres to keep us going, but by the whine of the engine and the smoke trailing us, coming from… somewhere, I knew that this ride wasn’t long for the world.
“Okay, okay…” I muttered, then looked outside.
The flock was still after us, although part of it had been shot down by the AA. A much too small part, but a part nonetheless. Immediately I started sending more waves into it, while I kept an eye on my Rose.
True to its word it was devouring xenos left, right, and center. More and more tentacles joined the original set, and it grew and grew. Like a vine on fast forward it snaked its way outwards, slowly overtaking the area it had landed in. Then the wall of xeno corpses next to it. Then the makeshift barriers. Within only minutes it had grown to reach four times as far as it originally did, and it continued growing,
With it growing my point total rose again. I was already back up to 300, and there was a steady increase, especially when I started flinging more blades again.
But no matter what I did, it didn’t feel like I had any appreciable impact on the wall of antithesis behind us, as they continued their efforts to fuck us over.
“Fuck it, Jenna, here!”, I said, then looked at her, “Kaysa, another Fortress, same upgrade, we won’t get anywhere without it and she needs the points.”
New purchase: Mark III Pristine Fortress (Upgraded)!
Points reduced to: 228
A box appeared in Jenna’s lap with my decorations and she opened it immediately.
“Your AI can help you figure things out, just let Chloe know if you need nades.”
She nodded and quickly put it on, before she looked back again, “I might hit the car.” She said, a bit of uncertainty in her voice.
“Fuck the car, if we die it doesn’t matter anyways!” Chloe said, then went into another turn when more xenos appeared in front of us.
I held on for dear life as I was nearly wrenched out of my seat and into Chloe’s lap. Not that I would mind that, but right now really wasn’t the time for a cuddle session.
Jenna didn’t need to hear that twice and a moment later one of her Hard-Light constructs basically sheared half of the roof off, before sending even more xenos to their demise.
I didn’t pay too much attention, tried to ignore the howling of the wind, and focused on my own fight. The majority of the flock was behind us, but we had some adventurous aliens trying to hit us from the side, and I tried my best to prevent that from happening. Not that I was entirely successful, a couple of them hit us and left dents in the car.
We flew another long curve which I used to send more grenades into the hordes below in a brief moment of relief, while also sending more blades into the flock behind us. Then suddenly I got a warning about low energy. Checking my charge indicator the thing sat at 1%.
“Fuck, Kaysa, recharge, now!”
New purchase: Rechargeable Battery Pack (Variant B)!
Points reduced to: 674
I ignored the notification and opened the box. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what to do when a small compartment on my Pristine Fortress opened and a small battery came out. I grabbed it, threw it in one of my pockets, then put the new one in before I continued my work.
Another lurch rocked the car and Chloe cursed.
“Fuck! This thing won’t hold out for much longer. Like it or not, we need to land!”
Jenna and I didn’t respond, concentrating on blasting away as many xenos as we could while Chloe pointed us towards the defences on the ground. The ride was a lot more rocky now and from the looks of it she had problems properly controlling the thing.
We shot past my Devouring Rose, which had grown considerably, and raised its tentacles into the air behind us, catching a good amount of aliens out of the air. We crashed onto the ruined streets, making me skip in my seat and bash my head on the dashboard, while Chloe tried to get us as close to the defensive line as she could. Something was severely fucked though, the ride was bumpy and the engine was howling in a most unhealthy way.
Halfway to the defences it died.
“Fuck! Get out and run!” Chloe basically ordered and neither Jenna nor I needed a second invitation.
Before it even had fully stopped we opened the doors and jumped out. I stumbled, high heels were sexy but not meant for this kind of stunt, but I caught myself in time and started running as quickly as I could. Chloe was just in front of me, half turned to fire into the aliens behind us, while Jenna was right behind me.
We managed to make our way to the defences without an alien eating one of us, and all of us immediately jumped and started to climb up. I had done some crazy stunts during my gang days, but this climb was hard, and the heels weren’t helping. Luckily Chloe was up to it and pulled first me up, then Jenna. On the other side of the wall I fell down, sliding to the ground and sitting down for just a moment, desperately trying to catch my breath.
“Kaysa… How long until I can get the Reaver thing?”
If you would coordinate with Vanguard Chloe and Vanguard Jenna you can do so now.
“Awesome… Chloe, Jenna, big purchase, you in? I need some points and some bits of your catalogues…” I muttered, then got back up on shaky legs and looked over the barricade.
I was exhausted, tired, and utterly out of breath, but we weren’t out of the woods yet, so I sent more blades into the mess that was the alien horde.
“I’m in, just do whatever,” Chloe said, also quickly catching her breath while she checked over her gear. A moment later she got into position and sent bullet after bullet down range. The rate of fire wasn’t high, but each bullet churned through a big chunk of aliens.
“Yeah, if it helps, get it. I’ll be able to get some Sentinels soon though,” Jenna said. She was still sitting down, trying to breathe, and I didn’t blame her.
“Okay Kaysa, you heard them, hit it!”
New purchase: Mark IV Progenitor Reaver (Variable Variant [Upgraded])!
Points reduced to: 129
I have taken the liberty to add some upgrades.
A big egg appeared not far from me on the other side of the barricade. For a moment I panicked since it was big and right in the line of fire, but the bullets just plinked off, not even leaving a mark.
Then something shifted inside and I got another perspective added to my already confusing mess in my mind. I was just about to brace for impact, in case it would debilitate me again, but to my surprise this time things went smoothly.
Long, powerful limbs cracked the egg, then an ear piercing howl rang out, and a giant thing the size of a bus jumped out of the remaining shell.
It was big and fierce looking, generally shaped like an overgrown tiger or panther, but with three long tails that ended in enormous wicked looking blades, and two long powerful limbs in its back. They seemed to be there for gripping if the huge claws at the end were anything to go by. The most impressive thing though was the head. Generally shaped like the head of a fox, or maybe a wolf, it had long ears that seemed a lot sturdier than fox or wolf ears. It also had a lot of eyes, four on each side, plus two eyes on each tail. And when it opened its maw wide it revealed long, sharp, dagger like teeth made of a silvery metal.
Its entire body was covered in a mix of chitinous armor, wicked looking scales, leathery skin, and short bristly fur. Parts of it looked more armored than others, and I could see multiple mechanical additions, especially in the legs that supported it. It also seemed to have some Hard-Light emitters considering the light show that appeared around it, while one of the limbs on its back seemed to have some kind of firearm built into it.
In a word, it was a gorgeously hideous monster that looked like it meant business.
I hadn’t even had the time yet to truly appreciate my new toy when it pounced, jumping high and far, vanishing behind the wall of dead xeno that had slowly started to shrink where my Rose had devoured it.
“Fucking hell!” one of the soldiers shouted, eyes wide, when he looked at the thing.
I smiled wide, but didn’t comment. We still had xenos to kill, and so killing xenos was what we did.
With both the Devouring Rose and the Progenitor Reaver things slowly turned into our favour. The biggest threat continued to be the flying models, since they still tried to swoop down and maul us, but between Jenna and me we had enough long range area denial to at least stop most of their attempts.
I had just sent another big wave into an approaching group of model Ones and Twos, obliterating most of them, when someone came over to us.
“Thank the fucking universe you showed up,” he said.
He sounded male and had the general body shape of a man, although it was hard to see details, since he was covered head to toe in some bordeaux red and black armor. While it definitely had Samurai flavour, it also didn’t look too dissimilar from the normal soldiers around us.
“I don’t think without you we’d be this well off.”
I nodded to him, just as Chloe turned around to glance at us, but she continued firing into the distance.
“Well, we thought we couldn’t leave you alone. Bit surprised though, you should have a lot of points, yeah? Why’d you not get some big bomb or something?”
“Because that would have levelled most of the district and that’s not something I want. Most of the barricades and turret emplacements around are ours, so that’s where most of our points went.”
That had me raise my eyebrows, “Damn, that’s a lot of points. Glad you didn’t flatten us though, so I guess thank you?”
“Don’t mention it. With you here things are a lot better already. Although, what exactly was that thing? I don’t think I’ve ever seen shit like that before.”
He looked over to where my Devouring Rose had finally started to eclipse the wall of xeno bodies and makeshift barricades.
“Hexclaws, basically another biomass hungry hive-swarm. Although this one won’t eat people. Or anything other than antithesis really,” I said with a smirk.
Some of the soldiers around us looked at me a bit panicked.
He just shrugged, then held out a hand, “As long as it works. I’m Shrapnel. You are?”
I took the offered hand with a smile, “People call me the Princess of the redlight district, but I guess that’s a bit long. So, just call me Crimson Princess.”