Chương 130: Book 2 - Chapter 48 - Deep in the ground

It took a while to find our way back to Jesse and Whisperer. The tunnel system was extremely complicated, a maze of nearly identical junctions and uniform tunnels. If it wasn't for Red keeping us on track, we definitely would have taken a wrong turn and gotten lost.

"Red!" Whisperer yelled. She threw her arms around the massive wolf the instant we arrived, half burying herself in his neck fur.

"We're fine, thanks for asking," I mumbled, stepping around the massive wolf.

"How did things go here?"

"It was pretty quiet after you all ran off," Jesse reported.

"A couple of antithesis wandered our way, but nothing we couldn't handle. Did you manage to catch the Seventeens?" Tina nodded vigorously, "Squashed flat, along with a couple fourteens and whatever reinforcements they managed to birth out of that ugly mobile hive of theirs."

"Good, let's hope that'll be enough to slow down those raids of theirs. I'd hate to find out that you went through all that effort, only to find out there's another group out there," Whisperer said as she finally stepped away from her oversized pet. I winced, "Please don't jinx us. We chased down the Seventeens in order to make up time, I'd hate to find out it was just a waste."

"It wasn't a waste," Jesse corrected.

"Even if there are multiple groups, you managed to thin them out a little. Every little bit helps." I shot him a glare, which no one could see through my helmet, but he seemed to get the message because he cleared his throat.

"The bears cleared the next two blockades while you were out, so we can advance as soon as everyone's ready."

"Let's push forward then," Whisperer declared. She quickly walked up to the half melted wall, took a quick look into the space beyond, before stepping through. The rest of us followed after a few seconds, moving deeper into the tunnel system. Our advance was surprisingly smooth. We moved through four tunnel segments, without any issue, slowly cutting our way through the barriers, until we came to something new.

As soon as the bears started cutting through the polymer, one of the bears caught a Model Four's tentacle to the face. Everytime an opening was cut, the creatures lashed out, trying to prevent us from getting through. After the fourth attempt, I started getting annoyed.

"Tina, would you please introduce these troublemakers to your spiders?" I asked.

"I'd like to get through here sometime today."

"Got it," the girl replied as she flicked her hand at the wall. A moment later her army of dog-sized mechanical spiders surged forward. The standard models crawled right up the holes, and sprayed the tentacles with a stream of acid, quickly burning the offending limbs off. Once they had an opening, they began to squeeze through, chasing the antithesis on the other side. The bears didn't need any prompting.

Even though some of them were still undergoing self-repair cycles from the damage they took from the Model Fours, they jumped back on the wall, cutting a wider opening. As the first bears stepped through the breach, clearing the wave at the entrance, I stuck my head in to check out the situation. Beyond the gash, was a massive cavern filled with antithesis. It wasn't wide, maybe thirty feet across, but it was hundreds of meters long.

The center of the room was filled with a bizarre looking bramble like structure, which was still intact. I could see a huge wave of low level antithesis charging from the far side of the hedge, backed up by a couple Twelves ferrying reinforcements to the line, and a dozen or so Fifteens at the back. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

I ducked back just as one of the long necked bastards spat a huge hairy ball across the room, which exploded into thousands of razor sharp quills on impact. I watched as a pair of my bears fell, unable to cope with the quills embedded deep within their exoskeletons.

"Guess they didn't like us killing off the harassment team," I murmured as I turned back to the team.

"Can Red withstand sustained hits from Fifteens?" I asked Whisperer.

"He can take a couple, but not many, that shit cuts through tanks. The only one that can handle hits like that is Tiny, and he's not here," she replied.

"I could cut them down with my plasma cannon," Jesse volunteered.

"My armor should be able to take a hit or two from a Fifteen." There was another series of cracks, this time taking out more than a half dozen bears at once.

"We're facing more than one or two," I said with a grimace.

"Can you reinforce your armor more before stepping out?" He paused for a moment, then nodded. When he turned to discuss the situation with his AI, I turned towards Spooky.

"Nyx, I need a distraction, what can I equip on Heavy and his friends to help them draw fire in there?" If you want it to be flashy, I recommend some Class I 'LightShow' rotary laser cannons. They'd normally have a limited battery life, and only kick out enough damage to cut through Model Sixes, but if you added a portable generator you could overcharge the cannons.

"Can I afford that? I had a severe lack of points before coming in here," I reminded my AI. And you've killed a LOT of antithesis since then. Even with the split, you've built up quite a bit of points. Just over four thousand. Buying the required catalogs, and equipment, will put you back seven hundred. I didn't have to think long. In the few seconds we'd been discussing there had been several more cracks outside, resulting in multiple bears going dark.

"Do it." A second later a series of boxes appeared on the ground, which Heavy and the moose immediately ripped apart. Each one of them threw on an oversized armored backpack, then plugged it into a massive, three barrel laser gun. Whisperer saw my bears gearing up, so she turned towards Jesse, who now had a massive riot shield attached to his armature.

"Don't do anything stupid. Wait for the distraction, step out, and take your shot. If you don't get them all, step back into cover. No point in wasting your life." The large man nodded as he swung his heavy cannon and shield combo forward. I wasn't sure what would be able to penetrate his forward defenses now, but I guess it was better safe than sorry. With Jesse set up, I silently sent the command to Heavy to proceed.

He and the moose had to squeeze to fit through the opening, but as soon as they stepped through the entire area lit up. The laser cannons spat out thousands of blasts a minute, which swiftly cut through the slowly thinning antithesis front line. In response, the Fifteens shifted their focus to the bigger bots, raining their biological warheads down on the area. I watched in satisfaction as round after round, quill after quill, bounced off their reinforced exoskeletons.

Once they were a sufficient distance from the opening I nodded back towards Jesse.

"Go Now." With a surprising amount of speed Jesse stepped through the hole, dropped into a firing stance and sighted the mob at the far side of the room. One Fifteen seemed to understand that it was in danger, and started to turn, but it was already too late. A massive flare lit up the room for several seconds, as Jesse's plasma cannon raked the back of the area, spewing superheated matter over everything.

When he was done, the far back corner of the room had completely melted, everything between there and Jesse was vaporized.

"Clear!" Jesse called back into the corridor as he carefully raised his cannon, which was both glowing and smoking at this point. Tina was the first one to poke her head out.

"Holy shit! I didn't know that thing had a sustained mode," she muttered in awe.

"It was dangerous to do before I installed the cooling system, and I still had to bypass the safety protocols, but sometimes it's worth it," he replied casually.

"It certainly was effective, well done," Whisperer said, as she stepped out next. While they were surveying the dead antithesis, I was checking out the damage our side took. Almost three full squads of bears disabled by quills embedded so deeply into their vital sections that the auto repair couldn't keep them up. I could see most would recover, eventually, but not all of them. My fingers twitched as I stared at the pile of bears, I didn't exactly want to just leave them there but what could I do?

Nyx stepped up to me, in Spooky's body. Want some pliers?