Carnival - A LitRPG Apocalypse

“Been a while since we had one of these. Hang on a second, I’ve got something for old times sake,” said Bob.

A moment later a floating flat screen entered the room and Sam conjured chairs for them to sit on. As the screen came on the opening theme from Only Fools and Horses started playing.

“Bob?” asked John.

“My mistake. Wrong meeting. The Del Boy Appreciation Society is on Tuesday.”

“It’s Tuesday today?” replied Flash.

“Hence my confusion, boy! Now pay attention.” The screen shifted to show an orbital view of the jungles of South America. “The bit highlighted in red is the extent of the ant infestation. We don’t know where the hell the primary queen is but we know for sure there are dozens of sub-queens somewhere in there who are also laying eggs.” A swath of the map had turned red stretching from central Columbia down to Bolivia. “The Amazon had a very low population density and frankly those tribespeople were some of the best equipped to deal with the Advent. The hostile terrain and wildlife has also kept the central areas largely monster free.” A green band spread across the middle of Brazil that reached down to Argentina.

“So it’s just a few thousand square miles of jungle we need to worry about?” asked Evie from where she was reclining in her chair.

“A few hundred thousand square miles but essentially yes,” Bob corrected. “It may not surprise you to learn that John and I have war gamed this kind of a scenario in advance. A lot of times, over the years. None of us were happy about being held back before but now we’ve got the excuse we needed to go all out. So it’s going to be firestorms and meteors and lightning bolts. We’ll set up Raoul and an army of Sam's to the south and then burn our way down the continent. Orbital bombardments will be available to dig out any nests we find or John will get to try out his new lava portals. Any questions so far?”

"What about the council?” asked Reg. “Those feckers will be right up our arses like ferrets up a drainpipe when they see what we’re doing.”

“Thanks for that image Reg. The council is split. Unfriendly elements will complain and friendly elements will back us up. A few want to join, if not on this attack then at least on the next one. Even Pete wants to come out of seclusion for this. Basically we’ll do it and they can decide what they want to do. Between the portals and BME there isn’t much they can do to us without risking putting themselves in a bind,” said the Bob-bot.

A number of looks were exchanged among the rest of the team while Bob and John sat stoically blank faced. It was easier for Bob as his face was made of metal but John managed an impressively inexpressive pose as well.

“So we are breaking the Accords and hoping no one dares to question us?” asked Flash slowly. “I’m fine if that’s what we’re doing, I just want us to be clear on the stakes.”

“Nah, we’re not breaking the Accords. Just sort of flexing them a bit,” said John.

“So we’re going to break the Accords,” said Evie flatly. “About fucking time Dad!”

“I’m not a hundred percent sure we can risk this,” said Vic. All eyes turned to her. “If we get the council's blessing beforehand I don’t see a problem but if we go off on our own and then expect them to just accept it… They’re going to be annoyed. Very annoyed.”

“If we ask for permission it will get tied up in committees and meetings and reviews. It’ll take months before we can do anything, even if they eventually decide to say yes. The only reason we haven’t sorted out half the remaining tribs years ago is that they won’t let us. Carnival plus Jilted Steel from the Reich, Gemini and Owain’s teams plus the solos like Starfall and pretty much everything bar the Wasps and the Congo could have been dealt with. They’re holding us back so they can farm Essence for their faction. We need to break this stalemate. Decisively and in a way so that there is no going back. Today the Ants, tomorrow the Worms in the Sahara, then next week we sort out New York.” John’s voice was firm but warm as he answered his wife. Vic looked unhappy but nodded and leant back.

“The ants are the best starting point. The queen can’t be over level sixty, judging from the highest levels of the swarm. All we need to do is find her and we can put her down easily enough. To do this I suggest a scorched earth approach.”

“Claire won’t like that,” said Flash quickly.

“It will regrow. Probably a lot faster than we could normally expect. We won’t use the water portals, this time we’re going the other way so while the jungle will be damaged the unaffected areas will have huge expanses of enriched soil to move into,” said Bob.

“She still won’t like it. I’m not the one who’s going to tell her, just so we’re clear on that,” mumbled Flash.

“Fine, I’ll tell her. So we’re going to burn down a rainforest. Are we sure we’re still the good guys?” asked Evie sarcastically. Before anyone could reply she continued, “Of course we’re the good guys!”

“Most of it’s jungle, not rainforest, but that’s the plan. Vic and John will lead the charge from the north. Vic will craft a firestorm and drive it south. Any monsters tough enough to survive the fire will get put down by the rest of us. Nest sites will be nuked either by John or myself. Are we all in agreement?” asked the Bob-bot.

“You want me and Sam in the south as the anvil to your hammer, killing anything that runs from the fire?” said Raoul. Bob nodded and the big guy grinned as he cracked his knuckles. “Sounds good.” Sam gave Raoul a stern look.

“You’ve been poorly. I’m going to handle most of the fighting,” she snapped.

“Yes dear,” muttered Raoul.

“I’ll let you argue this out while I go set us up. I’ll open a portal for Raoul and the Sams in the south then bring the rest of us into the north,” said John. He vanished and a moment later a portal opened. He walked through it at the same time as a main door opened and a stream of combat drones flowed into the room.

“You didn’t think I’d just be watching this one from orbit, did you?” asked the nearest B-1945 as the line began moving through the portal.

“Righto, I’ll bring in the rest of us just south of the Line.” John vanished and in less than a second the others had all joined him on the other side of the world.

They appeared above the Line. Evie and Flash created platforms for themselves and they stood proudly facing towards the south. Vic launched skywards on a column of fire and Reg just floated nearby, scowling at the greenery below them.

“I prefer to see blue beneath me these days,” he grumbled.

“Ok, so brief portal to the sun then Vic pushes the firestorm south,” said John over the team comms.

“Unexpected arrivals to the south, Identify yourselves,” snapped a voice over the sweeper channel.

“Carnival doing a sweep and clear. We’re going to deal with the ants for you,” replied John coldly.

“You’re all here? Bloody hell! Don’t you dare leave me and Breaker out of this! We’re in Roto, come get us!” Starfall had cut off the trooper manning the comms before he could demand an explanation. John opened a portal back to Roto that ended on Evie’s portal. Breaker strode through and looked around with a broad metallic grin. Starfall flew through and took up station next to a bored looking Reg. Immediately behind them came an American officer wearing basic camo who was hurriedly doing his belt up.

“This is most irregular Traveller!” he grumbled, switching to a local network.

John used Identify on the man from where he hovered off to one side.

Name: Winston Pratt

Level: 24

Ability: Flameweaver

“And you are?” John asked coldly but he knew who this bloke was.

“I’m the Council rep in El Roto! This is an Unsanctioned Sweep and it’s been reported. I strongly advise you to hold your ground until we hear back from Unity.”

“Thanks Winston. You can come along for the ride but if you work against us I’ll teleport you home. Probably in one piece as well, I’m in a good mood today. Righto, Starfall and Breaker you’re on overwatch with the rest until we disturb something big enough to justify deploying you. Let’s get the barbeque started! Love?” John turned to Vic floating above him.

“Ready.”

John looked down. The scars from their last fight against the ants had ruined the jungle in this area. Where it wasn’t blown away from the impact sites it was dying. Brown leaves and already dead trees were rotting in the subtropical heat. John was glad his suit was both sealed and air conditioned. He did not want to experience the smell.

He located a good site to begin burning a sizable percentage of Earth’s surface with sun fire and opened a small portal from the photosphere of Sol that unleashed burning plasma across the Columbian Jungle. He kept it open a few seconds, long enough for the chain reaction to get going, and glanced at Vic who had dropped down closer to him and had her arms outstretched as she worked to channel the fire.

“Oh fuck!” muttered Winston. Evie clapped him on the back, grinning as her mask closed.

“It’s going to get really smoky around here soon, mate. You got a mask?” she asked. A miserable headshake was her only reply. Evie began moving her disc higher up as the smoke and ash began to spiral up towards them all.

Vic pushed the fire out to east and west then began driving it south. John was blipping to the extremes of the firestorm and blipping his wife in to shape those parts of the flames and push them in the right direction. Husband and wife were teleporting every few seconds as they began to expand the scope of their chosen weapon.

“Nice. That’s nearly three hundred miles wide now and it’s heading south on its own. If you can push it any wider without losing control it could do with being another few hundred miles wide. If we aim for six hundred across on this one we can always do a parallel run later if we need to,” said Bob over the comms.

John and Vic were entirely focused on controlling the largest wildfire in history as they began to move south through the smoke that clogged the sky.

“I can see why they don’t let you crazy bastards off the leash very often! Christ!” muttered Winston as he coughed and Evie moved them higher.

“Here,” Breaker passed him a collapsible face mask. “It will keep the particle out, Kamerade. Not letting us off the hook is why we’ve been stuck behind the lines for years, jungen. You smell that? It's the smell of change!”

“Smells like a continental wildfire to me,” grumbled the council rep.

“You guys should see this from orbit!” An image popped up in the bottom of John’s vision as he moved himself and Vic a hundred miles west. A column of smoke, glowing brightly at the base, was stretching across almost a quarter of the continent. Admittedly it was at a fairly narrow part of the continent but it was still impressive. The smoke was pulling east and north at the moment but once they got further south the local wind patterns would drag it ahead of them, rather than blow it back in their faces.

“Got a nest!” called Flash. John blipped over and took a look. Ants were boiling out of the ground, at first in their hundreds but soon thousands were forming a perimeter around the exposed nest.

“Mine!” called Breaker happily as he jumped off Evie's disc and flashed into the ground below. His impact caused a collapse and the ants on the surface were dragged down as the soil crumbled down into the nest.

“I’ll help him out. Come back for us when we’re done?” asked Starfall as he began to lose height to offer caster support to the mad German Sig. Blasts of light began to fall that picked off any ants struggling back to the surface.

“No worries dude,” said John as he blipped back to Vic and moved them both to the eastern end of their storm.

By the time they reached the border between the former states of Columbia and Peru the fire was white hot and stretched nearly a thousand miles east to west. Parts of western Brazil were also a fire and they had killed over a dozen ant queens. They had left eight craters that would make the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs question its work ethic, the others had been resolved by dropping a German on them.

“We should do this more often, ja?” said Breaker happily.

“Have you seen the messages I’ve received since we started? It started out as ‘please advise’ and now it’s ‘you’re dead to us’. Mindscar has lost her shit!” chortled Bob.

“Screw her,” said Evie definitively. “What are the factions doing?”

“Changing their trousers, I bet,” chuckled Reg as he took a break from making ant paste by multiplying their own body weight. All that talk about how strong ants are vs their body weight is true, but if you weigh bugger all it’s not really a high bar to meet.

“You ok love?” asked John.

“Yeah. For now. Putting this out is going to be the tough bit,” Vic replied in a tense voice. John blipped them across a continent to contain the other side of the conflagration.

“I’m working on a fire break. It’s mostly on fire at the moment but by the time you get here it should be a fuel free zone,” said Sam.

“Another nest!” called Evie.

“Mine!” snapped Breaker as he once again threw himself into the air and plummeted away into the dirt.

“Bloody hell. I could use a smoke break, ya know?” grumbled Starfall as he began to move to support Breaker. There wasn’t really anything to do for him at this point. The firestorm was glassing the ground as it rolled south and anything on the surface was carbon and gas by the time the trailing members of the team got near them. They continued burning a continent and purging nests for another couple of hours.

“Where the hell are we?” asked Flash.

“You’ve got GPS too kid. Somewhere north of San Ignacio de Moxos in Bolivia,” replied Bob.

“My map is just a cloud of smoke. Thanks for updating it in real time. Super helpful!” drawled Flash. “Claire is gonna fucking kill me for taking part in this!” he muttered.

“You know you can choose the filters? Just switch it to geographic mode,” said Evie. “Ooh! That’s a big one! Lightning bolt!” A blast of electricity fell and obliterated a larger than usual ant.

“Do you have to call out your moves like a bad anime protagonist?” asked Winston who had stuck with them, complaining all the way.

“Do you have to whine like a puppy with a thorn in its paw all day?” snapped Evie in response. In light of the level disparity and the extravagant destruction he’d watched a dozen people cause this morning, Winston wisely chose not to bite back. He thought something very pithy though.

“You’re not far north of us now, shouldn’t be much longer. Breaker, have you just gone underground?” asked Sam.

“Nein. I am on the platform currently.”

“Then why the hell is… oh. Guys, I think we found the big momma. I’m hardly the kind of guy who can comment on someone else’s weight. I weigh a metric fuckton in titan form but this lady needs to lay off the ant equivalent of pies!” rumbled Raoul. He sounded weirdly happy about the situation.