"Sneezing is a biological reflex.
So are orgasms, actually."
– Somewhere on the internet
***
Leah stabbed her claws forcefully into the fleshy ceiling and hooked their barbs into the plant matter as she traversed the dome upside down. Ypsi called a few drones into and above the hole, so she'd stay networked despite all the solid obstructions.
Having Tinea no further than a call was a…relief. It gentled the panicky bit deep inside, the Leah who'd spent an eternity shackled, exposed, and helpless.
And it let Leah focus on exploring fighting and becoming powerful.
Blood rushed into her head uncomfortably, but, step by step, she stabbed her way down the sphere the acid had dug out. There was a caustic mix of boiling water, dirt, and sludge at the bottom, but Ypsi had reassured her that it wasn't aggressive enough to damage her claws.
She let her attention wander up the walls she'd traveled, and marveled at the thick crust of hardened, porous brick as it sweated moisture, which escaped as steam through the large chimney of a hole. The heat down here was immense—it would literally cook her alive and her muscles would slough off her bones if she left the pod's confines.
Um, it's way too toxic down here right now, but in a few hundred years, this place could be really good for some special plants or mushrooms! And the porous rock might be great for insects, too! Maybe.
"Huh." Leah looked around. "Figure it's worth it to prepare the place a little? How many points would that cost?"
A few hundred? Oh, but! Tinea has that bacteria stuff. She could probably do something about all the poison for little points?
Leah hummed, as she tilted her egg sideways. "I guess we'll leave it to nature. We've got a job to do and places to be."
I can mark the spots to shoot again. I'm helpful and polite, after all!
"Yup, you sure are. Please do, dear," Leah giggled.
Okie!
Three dozen new X's appeared on the ceiling above, and Leah planted her butt on the ground and stretched her forelimbs until she could point her cannon at the first mark.
The shot tunneled through the hard rock bits and squished through soft Antithesis matter, until it detonated inside the Twenty-Two and set yet another section of it on fire.
Leah moved on to hit the next X, and repeated the pattern until the entire dome was perforated by jets of burning magnesium. The temperatures quickly rose to levels uncomfortable even for her metallic skin.
Not nearly enough to cause damage, but enough that she preferred getting out of there. She climbed up, careful not to get grilled between the, heh, bollocks of her gun, and soon stood above ground again.
The shells were still burning below and heating the hole. She'd retreated some twenty meters from the crater, gazing with her head tilted at the nearly invisible steam being ejected, which turned into incredibly active clouds just a few meters up. Even the earth around the hole was slowly getting torn up and ripped into the sky. The entire clearing was visibly drying.
"That shit's seriously hot, huh?"
Adult Ypsilon reacted to her pensive tone and spoke, Yes. The amount of energy being generated inside the 'bottle' underground is creating a great deal of pressure and compressing the vapor. That's what makes it invisible. It isn't until it can expand into the sky that we see it condensing and forming visible steam. It won't last much longer, the incendiaries are almost used up.
"Alright." Leah shifted inside her egg, settling a bit deeper into the cushions. "Let's see what Tinea's up to while I'm waiting for the Twenty-Two to properly die, hmm?"
As you wish.
***
Not quite time to go yet, old friend. One last meal for you. My eyes met those of the monster in front of me, and I giggled. Look, dinner's up!
The nasal foghorn hit me in the chest like a train and shook my bones.
I reflexively hardened the forcefield around my antennae and face, and my heart froze for a moment—only to race into an epic triple-beat that pried open my jaws and tore an exhilarated, mad scream from my lungs.
A fresh wave of single digits streamed towards the clearing somewhere behind the Twenty-Two.
AI-I counted them.
– Model One: 200 –
– Model Three: 86 –
– Model Four: 12 –
– Model Six: 1 –
– Observation: More units trickling in by the second. –
They'd been hiding nearby and the Six had kept them out of the fight, presumably waiting to gather many more. But, as it was designed to, the foghorn blast from the Twenty-Two had forced the issue.
I laughed as I jumped backwards, giving myself some distance. The huge monster slowly lifted one leg. To run me down? To run away?
"Whatcha got, bitch?!" I yelled, laughing.
Kneeling, I depressed the trigger half-way and racked the bolt until it unlocked. With the barrel free, I lined it up and looked through the rifling at the thing's head, and giggled.
This was the last time my angry old friend would speak.
Yeah. The last time.
That requires special measures, I thought. But first…there are pests to take care of.
My gaze took in the smattering of smaller Antithesis units being driven into a confused frenzy, wanting to rush me yet kept on a tight leash by the Six, and I smirked.
They really didn't look like shit now. I'd gotten so much stronger, so fast, that I almost disregarded them entirely, especially with no Fives present.
But that wouldn't do. No, not at all. My fingers stroked my old friend's barrel. You deserve a proper performance.
The opening scenes of a certain movie ran through my mind, and my grin widened into something rather more predatory. A gritty, mystical, sci-fi remake of the '07 Spartan movie.
Yes, I laughed. Yes, that would be appropriate.
I stood up, and my javelin flashed into my hand, before I stuck it into the ground next to me.
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"Hey, Tynea," I said as I loaded the irregular cartridge and locked the bolt again.
The little jury-rigging gadget went to work and sealed the receiver and chamber even tighter. I would not access the bolt again. I couldn't even use the iron sights, much less a scope. The thing even printed reinforcing bands around the barrel, before it let itself fall off the muzzle and dropped at my feet.
Yes?
"Gimme a shield. One like those the ancient Spartans used. An Aspis. With a notch for the gun, please."
Understood.
Unlocked:
- 100 pts; Class I Martial Weapons: Shields Of The Legion
Total cost: 100 pts
Remaining points: 4856
Purchased:
- 200 pts x 1; Class I 'Death's Knell' Reinforced Aspis, siege-enabled, customized
Total cost: 200
Remaining points: 4656
Ready.
At Tynea's go-ahead, I made a grabbing motion in front of me, and I held a large, round shield by an argive grip, near the edge.
The convex disc of burnished metal went from my shoulder to my knee and weighed maybe a quarter of my own weight. There was some machinery I didn't know the purpose of on the inside, and a lot of leathery cushioning.
The edge wasn't sharp, but very hard, like the plasmatic bullet. Looking at it, I got the visceral feeling that it would bite back viciously if I tried to smash it. Like looking at a knife and seeing premonitions of getting cut.
The shield's surface was black, the outside dusted with glittering diamond shards to strip skin and abrade muscle.
I rotated my arm and the shield snapped to my elbow, where straps of leather reeled themselves around my forearm and secured the Aspis.
The gun's port was just above my fist, but I wouldn't need that yet. I slung the gun to my back once more.
I plucked the Raptor's Dance from the ground as my eyes wandered across the forest behind the Twenty-Two, studying the smaller units rushing to join their waiting, milling, impatient brethren.
Above me, the late evening slowly tinged the sky red, reminding me of that first incursion where I became a Vanguard. Smiling, gently, and madly, and euphoric, I whispered the first lines of a poem dedicated to the last stand of my trusty primary.
Endless the enemy
Voracious and unceasing
Beneath the crimson sky
Then the foghorn smashed my heart again, rattled my bones, and shattered the standoff; shocked into action, the beasts dashed at me.
My lips stretched into a wild grin as I stepped forward quick as a snake, loosed the javelin at the Six, and cackled:
Tearing teeth
And bloodied fangs
Thousands, they were
I leapt forward at the Threes, kneeing the first one hard in the skull until it shattered. As it tumbled away, I grabbed it by its broken neck and used it to clobber aside the next one.
Another jumped at me, triple-hinged jaws wide open, and I yelled again even as I wound up and thrust the edge of my Aspis at it,
Anointed in toxic waste
Encrusted with armor
Avarice borne on ragged claws
The moment the shield's metal rim made contact with the Three's throat, a pulse went through it and with an unearthly gong, a force exploded like the strike of a hammer. I laughed hysterically as the alien's neck and throat were splattered and its body thrown clear. Death's Knell, indeed!
But the Antithesis didn't stop.
The next one tried to jump at my head, and in a smooth whirling motion, I unslung my rifle, bashed it aside with the stock, and re-slung the gun, even as more of the poem poured from my mouth like molten steel,
Shoved ever onwards
By bone and sinew
Against Your Rage
The Myriad emptied its last reserves as two hundred rockets vaulted fifty meters into the sky.
Deliver Unto Them
Sacred Powder and Holy Alloy
Revenge and Retribution
I stretched my arm up into the sky and the javelin's engines roared. It flashed into my open hand at the same time as two hundred explosions wracked the clearing.
Shrapnel rained against my shield as I hunkered down behind it, but some hit me from the sides. My skin was tough, but I suffered a large number of small cuts. My lips kept moving.
Inexorable, Your Wrath
Thunderous, Your Voice
And Bloody, Your Toll
Blood trickled down my torso, painted my body as red as the evening sky.
Bionites raced through my bloodstream to heal me and I stood up, looking around the battlefield. The little aliens were all dead, the cut-grass-and-mold smell of their corpses clogging my sensilla.
I turned my gaze onto the last living enemy, each of us covered in plant gore.
As I took slow, measured steps towards the towering monster, its birth sacks disgorged a few Threes. Once again I threw my javelin, and Combat Command steered it to scythe through the little aliens in cutting and whirling motions.
With every lumbering step, the Twenty-Two shook the clearing. I wondered if it could hear me speak,
Battle's Eve
And Final Stand
Ceaseless Ire Coated in Brass
It towered high above me, as tall as the trees. But it was alone. It wasn't meant to fight.
It was prey.
I removed my hunting rifle from my back as I stood only meters away from the giant beast, looking up at its masticating, uncanny, eerily human jaws.
I knelt down and lifted the Aspis in front of me. I inserted the gun into the port, and the shield started humming. Its weight on my arm disappeared and with my antennae I sensed an electromagnetic bubble snap into existence around me. The siege mode? It was powerful. Lines of magnetism bisected the world, and raw energy caused sparks to spider across my own forcefield.
I stroked my weapon's barrel one last time, smiled, then lined up the muzzle.
Lay Your Eye Upon
Their Great Bastion
And Unto The Eternal Hunger
My finger lightly touched upon the trigger and began to calmly, almost peacefully, pull it back.
I Shall Send Only You.
And in Thy Last Hour
Speak Thy Last Word
I breathed out. The hammer clicked. The primer ignited and I sensed Tynea and AI-I communicating with the warhead.
In an instant between instants, I felt the gunpowder charge catch fire. Explosively expanding gas rammed into the bullet from the rear and forced it down a barrel too weak for it.
Jury-rigged bands took up the force and contained the raging inferno within the chamber. Reinforcements supported the barrel and kept the muzzle straight as the harbinger of solar wrath compressed the chrome-vanadium steel of the rifling, too hard to be shaped by it.
Cracks raced down the barrel, keeping time with the warhead. Beneath the wrapping, the receiver warped to an unrecoverable degree.
The muzzle broke and burst as the projectile finally liberated itself from the tight confines of the barrel, and a gasmic frisson ran through my body with the visceral violence of it. I whined somewhere in the back of my mind.
The warhead jumped through the air and buried itself unceremoniously past the face of the Twenty-Two. It dug deeper until it came to rest within the center of the creature.
In that broken moment, I gazed at the monster along my weapon's barrel, and with my cheek resting on the wrapped-up stock, I completed the poem:
Rest
In
Peace.
The world flashed white, so white it seared my eyes even through the triple protection of my scaled membranes, the forcefield of Leah's gift to me, and whatever that sphere of the Aspis was.
But I saw as the plasma engulfed me and radiation ate at the shielding.
I saw as forces beyond my comprehension bent and tore at the bubble, and I realized how close I was to death.
And death reached out and tickled me.
***
A sketch of Tinea by Jero, who also drew the cover and Leah/Lily.
This was one of two sketches for a new cover, and I'd rejected this one and had him clean it up a little, instead. The other one…is much prettier. I look forward to sharing the completed cover soonish!
And here, much prettier, is the actual cover for the first volume of Tinea and Leah.
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