One thing I learned over the years is that - unless you''re as ridiculous as me - whenever you go to kill a hive, there''s going to be some kind of boss-fight. Hell, even I have some of those from time to time.
The actual boss fight itself can look very different depending on the hive and the Samurai. For example, a boss-fight for me would be a model in the 40s or 50s in a stealth hive that''s been cooking up these monsters for a long time. For a new Samurai, a similar challenge could be their first six or their first teen. A more experienced Samurai might face off against a couple of twenty-ones.
At my level most boss-fights other Samurai struggle with are trivial. But I believe they are very good opportunities for learning and adapting. That''s actually part of why I won''t intervene, if I see some other Samurai struggle, unless they''re about to die. Doing so would stunt their growth.
-Samurai Foxfire talking about clearing out hives on a podcast, 2049
I instantly leapt into action, forgoing attacking the Seventeen again, and attacking one of the nearby Model Sixes instead. My backpack zapper as well as Robin and Marian lit up the closest swarms of Ones and Threes while the Six I singled out began feeling the effects of my electricity… and also the Seventeen?
“Pyri?”
The Model Seventeen’s control wires conduct your electricity, and since they are directly linked to its nervous system, it’s delivering a current right into the most sensitive part of their biology.
Unfortunately rather than sitting there and taking the attack, the crab visibly yanked something out of the Six and scurried off while I was still cooking it.
Unfortunately, it can still reel back its wires in emergencies. You need to hit a target it’s connected to for this method to electrocute it.
Seeing the now retreating Sixes that were warbling orders to the chaff, I cursed under my breath.
“So this turned from a slug-fest into a game of cat and mouse?”
Unfortunately, yes. The upside is that they will not abandon the hive. Especially once you start damaging it.
“Oh really then?” I shot at a Model Three trying to rush at me alone. “They don’t like me destroying their new place do they?” I aimed at a nearby vine. “Well fuck their new place then!”
Spark wait-
The bolt hit the vine, leaving a nasty scorch mark. I was about to fire again when the forces attacking us went wild. They were throwing themselves into attacking us before, now they seemed almost rabid with how much more determined they were. Two bundles of electricity repeatedly shot up into the roiling flock of Model Ones as a third fired into the Threes below alongside my singular bolts.
In the back, the monkey things began messing with the birth sacs, causing them to begin opening to reveal malformed Model Threes and Ones that couldn’t possibly get airborne.
The hive is now pulling out all stops to defend itself. An all-out brawl is inevitable now, but the Sixes will stay out of sight as much as possible while still giving orders.
Cursing again, I looked behind me to check on the pigs still being zombified only to see them all trying to reach me with various means of flopping and limping, which disconcertingly also seemed to be quickly becoming a sprint.
I swung my rifle around to face that way and began firing into the horde, flash cooking the water inside the zombies. Each bolt luckily was able to leap from one body to the next, but with less power behind it unlike the more consistent helpers I had with me.
Thanking the stars for having brought proper swarm killing weapons with me, I pushed towards the horde, but paused when I saw a flicker of movement behind the corpse pile.
“Pyri, give me some sort of corpse melter.”
Throw this into it, your suit can block the sound to keep it from harming you, it is harmonically tuned for it.
I threw the boxy looking thing right into the pile, and it screamed. The damned thing was some kind of sonic grenade that made my bones rattle inside my body. The dead pigs, however, began melting off of their skeletons, quickly revealing the Model Six behind it.
“Pyri! I need another two drones! Same as the last two, and have them fight the Seven zombies!”
I didn’t pay attention to the completely unfolded drones dropping down in front of me, as I focused single mindedly on lighting up the now exposed Model Six. After it dropped into the dirt dead, I scanned the surroundings as fast as I could and found what I was looking for.
A pair of Sixes had crammed themselves inside one of the southern barns and were no doubt giving orders to the rest of the swarm.Not wasting time, I began pushing even further towards the zombie horde. Most of them were long dead now, but a few of the ones deep inside the ‘E’ were just… standing there for some reason.
“Pyri those things in the far back,” I paused to take a pot shot at a Model Five that had been born early. “Why aren’t they attacking?”
Those are probably in the process of, or are already reshaped by the Seven’s in their system to create biofactories for producing Model Sevens.
I grimace, clenching my teeth at the thought of more of that nonsense. “Oh, joy.”
Once we finally broke through the horde, I rushed into the center barn, chasing the retreating Model Sixes.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Robin, Marian! You two are defending my front! The rest defend the rear!”
The fox-bots leapt into their positions with grace. Quite literally in fact, as they all jumped up onto the concrete walls, balancing upon them for a better angle.
It was honestly quite cute.
I pushed on through the building, clearing room after room, and even fired off warning shots through the now destroyed bird nets if the Sixes looked like they were going to try to flee the barn. Right as I was about to begin cooking one of them, I was knocked over by one of my drones tackling me to the ground. I didn''t even have the chance to scream before the air around me was hosed down with electricity.
“W-what h-“
You were almost pounced on by a Model Nine disguised as a ceiling fan.
I slowly pulled myself up with a groan after Marian got off of me. I saw that not all of us had made it out of the ambush ok however. Robin had apparently leapt into the air in the way of the Nine and had lost a leg as a result.
I anxiously knelt down, fussing a bit over the damaged robot while the others defended us from the swarm doing its damndest to reach us. “Pyri can he walk?”
He can, but at a much reduced speed. He will be able to mostly keep up at the pace you’ve been going- Spark your 5 o’ clock!
I snapped around as I shuffled away, firing my rifle blindly, luckily hitting the Six attempting to use the distraction as an oppurtunity to escape.
“Is the other one still here?” I growled, cautiously glancing around.
Yes, the remaining security camera in this barn still has eyes on it. It’s gearing up for a last stand. Most of the remaining Seven-pigs that aren’t acting as biofactories are with it.
I bared my teeth at the challenge, “Bring it on.”
With the third Six now dead, I rushed for the fourth, and found myself beset on all sides by Model Ones, the damned pigeons wouldn’t let up with their seemingly endless numbers trickling in through the windows. Robin had moved to the center aisle with me, targeting our pursuers as he limped along. Marian and my two currently unnamed bots kept sweeping the room to eliminate as many Ones as possible, which kept the space clear enough for me to take pot shots at the now visible horde of pigs trickling through the rooms the barn was separated into.The Six had forced itself through each doorway, doing quite shabby remodel work on our doorways the entire way down.
Hopefully they wouldn’t compromise the ceiling with me still inside.
I began picking my way over the dead pigs, seeing and the Six which seemingly somehow had a smug look on its face, when I realized that I had grenades.
A few lobbed balls of electrocuting death later, and only the Six was left to oppose me.. Before I could act, a worm was yanked out of the thing’s back disappearing through the door behind it. The Six wasted no time in trying to charge me, only to be met with a bolt of electricity dropping it to the ground nearly instantly.
I start forward, muttering, “Pyri, how many of these things are left?”
One active unit left, it is in the barn to your right.
I didn’t even hesitate before charging around the Six and down the enclosed hallway. Only a few Threes were in my way, but my backpack zapper cleared them off to allow me to exchange the drained battery on my rifle as I moved.I slowed down as I neared the doorway and readied another grenade; I refused to be ambushed in these barns again.
With the pair of Threes waiting on either side of the door now dead, I was able to rush into the barn to find the Model Six out in the ‘E’ ordering a bunch of Threes to muster in front of it. I rolled my eyes and just shot at it over the pack it assembled.It quickly joined the rest of its kin in the dirt, and I was back at square one.
“I’m assuming I haven’t killed the Seventeen yet?” I couldn’t help but sigh as my bots began wiping the Threes from existence.
Unfortunately no, the current best option is to flush it out with sheer attrition. Eventually, it will be forced to adhere to direct defense of the hive.
I knocked a One out of the sky with a shot from my hand cannon. “Would starting the hive destruction also flush it out?”
That is also an option, yes.
“Then tell me where to start putting these things. It’s time to fucking end this.”
Pyri didn’t waste time with the locations whatsoever. Fifteen blue dots appeared on my map and in my vision. Each was placed on the largest vines the fledgling hive had, a majority of which were on vines leading towards the lagoon.
They are organized in a way that allows you to place them without doubling back.
Seeing an opening in the swarms, I made a break for the nearest node. “Just give ‘em to me as I need ‘em! No point in lugging things around!
Spark, why would I make you carry equipment you only need for a moment?
I reached the first node, where after opening my palm, what looked like the bottom half of an egg with a screw and a lot of needles coming out of the flat end dropped into my hands. I placed it over the projected dot, and as it began drilling into the plant flesh I answered:
“I don’t know, conversation? My brain being weird and running my mouth on autopilot again? Many things are possible in the wonderful world of Spark, Pyri.”
I see. We can discuss it over food later.
Pyri’s tone left no room for argument, so I vaulted the knee high vine instead and threw another grenade forward into a group of malformed Model Fours.Things continued on in silence for the next five roots, which is when the flood of alien dogs and birds felt like it was thinning out a bit.
“Are they running out of Models?”
No, they shouldn’t be running out by this point. Be prepared.
I reached the eighth root when the Seventeen made their move. A large wave of antithesis burst out of the north finishing barns. Noticeably adult antithesis.
So I have good news and bad news.
I picked up my Trill from its position where I had left it on the ground.
The good news is you won’t have to worry about wayward units in the complex other than small pockets of Sevens.
“And the bad?” I said through clenched teeth as I focused on trying to clear as many xenos as possible.
Every single one of those Models is making up this wave. Luckily you went through the other buildings first before coming here or this last stand of theirs would be a lot bigger.
As Pyri gave me the bad news I noticed what she meant. The wave had startled me and bolstered their numbers for a bit, but they still fell incredibly quickly. It wasn’t really a heroic last stand, it was more like a last gasping breath.
Before long, the alien of the hour made itself known. Skittering forward while kicking up gravel in the driveway. It made it within ten meters of me before I tossed the salvaged mine at it, like a frisbee.
It landed right dead center in front of it and instantly burst. Trapping the damned thing in C-Foam.
“Pyri, are that thing’s internals immune to electricity as well?”
Not likely, no.
“Good.”
The horde had thinned to the point where even the monkey things were rushing to try and stop us only to be cut down by my automatic fire. I calmly strode forward to the struggling crab spider and crouched down in front of it.
“So you’re the piece of shit that attacked my home.”
I toyed with the rifle in my hands. “While I can’t argue with the fact that without you I’d be stuck in a dysphoric haze with no knowledge about my past, or the fact that I’m a girl.” I paused for a moment as my chest decided to release its population of butterflies into my heart again.
The Seventeen was currently snapping at me.
“But you also destroyed my home, and considering the lack of response from anyone else for hours.” A wave of emotional turmoil passed over me with the admission. “You likely killed half of my family as well.”
I shoved my rifle forward into the thing’s maw.
“So you get to experience the wonders of electricity up close and personal.”
With a trigger-pull, it was done.
The antithesis raid on Homeplace was truly finally over.