Chương 135: Book 2 - Chapter 53 - The Rumble Pit

The first indication that the shit hit the fan was that Bob sent out an emergency signal, requesting reinforcements. That caused the bears and I to break out into a run, resulting in us reaching the end of the tunnel before the rest of the squad. The second indication was when I reached the end of that tunnel, only to see what the antithesis had kept in reserve. Bob and Magpie had run into an absolutely titanic cavern.

I could barely see the far wall, which had to be several hundred meters away, through the dozens of massive tree-like pillars that filled the room. At the center of the room was a massive, metallic-looking root structure, which was most likely the heart of the antithesis complex. The problem was that there were antithesis crawling over every possible surface, and while I watched, new models were constantly being birthed from the pillars every second.

It would have been one thing if we'd only had to fight through Threes and Fours, but there were MUCH worse. Towering over the mobs were dozens of Twenty-Threes, along with a number of even larger models. The thing Bob was now fighting was as tall as a Twenty-Three, but was quadrupedal. It had two massive, six-foot-long tusks extending out from its tentacle-covered face, and it was covered with a heavy bone-like armor plating.

The monster seemed to alternate between trying to stab Bob and stomp on him, while the bear danced around and slowly dismembered it. He was doing this all while dealing with dozens of smaller models harassing him. Magpie, on the other hand, seemed to be having a wonderful time. She was dancing around, surrounded by hundreds of different mechanical birds, smashing the occasional antithesis with a baseball bat. Each bird appeared to be unique, exploding, setting things on fire, freezing, electrocuting, and more.

I swear, there was even one that looked like a rubber duck that just squealed when it slammed into things. The whirling chaos around her seemed to do wonders at keeping the antithesis away. While I was mesmerized by the spectacle in front of me, the rest of the team caught up.

"Holy shit, that's a lot of Twenties," Temporal remarked as she skidded to a halt beside me.

"Kudos to your bear. I haven't seen many things capable of fist-fighting a Twenty-Eight without getting maimed in the process."

"Thanks, I think," I mumbled, silently sending the command for all my bears to set up a firing line.

"I think our target is the metallic section in the middle. I didn't bring anything that could deal with it from a distance, do you guys have anything?" Temporal shook her head.

"Unfortunately, we're better at cutting through the mob than strategic destruction," she replied. As if to emphasize that point, Dreamer shot past me and dove right into the antithesis lines. The strange distortion that was wrapped around her earlier seemed to gather around her hands and then extend out like a set of massive swords. Whatever these shimmering blades connected with was shredded instantly. The girl actually giggled as she danced through the antithesis frontline.

The others hit the antithesis lines a few seconds later. Grey waved her hands through the air, almost like she was conducting an orchestra, causing a wave of nanites to dance in front of her. Pestilence sprayed a strange gas in front of himself, which just caused the smaller models to dissolve on the spot, and Executable floated forward, firing lasers out of invisible firing ports, like some sort of futuristic disco ball.

Plasmalanx and Humboldt came in last, their energy weapons cutting huge swathes into the oncoming forces. Arachne's spiderbots scrambled through whatever hole they could find in our line, squirting acid at the small targets or exploding spectacularly on the larger ones. Despite all that firepower, the antithesis pushed in. Where the small models fell, the larger models made inches. A Model Twelve took one of Dreamer's attacks to the head and still managed to take a few steps forward.

A Thirteen took a nanite wave to the side, only for the smaller models on its far side to rush forward. It was pandemonium. Temporal was doing the best she could to support everyone, slowing down the antithesis when they advanced to prevent them from taking ground, then accelerating her allies so they could clear the push quickly. I found my focus was split half a dozen different ways.

Not only was I directing the bears to cover holes in our line, but I was also coordinating the reports from Bandit and the other foxes to take out the Model Twenty-Ones skulking around. I was so distracted that I missed the slowly growing mass of flying units. That is, until a Model One smacked me in the side of the head. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"Fuck me!" I exclaimed as I threw the tiny flying model to the floor and slammed my axe through its torso.

"I just can't catch a break."

"Speaking of which," Arachne said from my left.

"The Fifteens are moving into range." I hadn't noticed her there, but it made sense that she'd stayed back since she was just directing her spider-bot forces, just like I directed my bears.

"Yeah… Fuck this," I muttered.

"Nyx, I want a full fortress like Seattle. Door up front, so people can retreat back in, and a roof over the walls to limit the Fifteens' effectiveness." I assume you want PAWS too.

"Absolutely. The more Fifteen projectiles we shoot down, and fliers we fry, the less the ground team has to worry." Done. Purchased 30m Bear-acade wall - 90 points 8m Bear-acade wall with gate - 32 points PAWS APS system x 4 - 200 points Points remaining - 27, 542 points"What do you mean fort… holy shit!" Arachne exclaimed as we were enclosed in twelve-foot-tall armored metal walls.

The fort wasn't wide; there was only about six feet of clearance at the side, but the front wall was long enough to support my entire bear contingent. Both Arachne and Temporal turned to look at me as the bears scrambled up to take their positions.

"You just had those on hand?" Arachne asked, pointing at the walls.

"Of course, this isn't my first siege," I replied, heading to the nearest ladder.

"Unfortunately I have allies outside the walls, so I can't deploy the laser walls and traps this time. At least I don't have to deal with an oversized shrimp this time." As soon as I reached the top of the ladder, I took stock of the situation. The team had made some minor progress but had been bogged down by a pair of Twenty-Eights that had pushed forward. The heavily-armored antithesis couldn't just shrug off the team's attacks, but they certainly weathered it a lot better than the fodder.

It took a minute or two for the nanites and gas to eat through them, and Dreamer's blades didn't seem to cut deep enough to hit anything vital. The tanky creatures were just bogging things down. A few feet away, Bob was "fighting" with a Twenty-Three, and by fighting I meant the massive antithesis managed to get its mouth around Bob, and the two were struggling with each other. The antithesis couldn't move Bob while he had his anchor enabled, and Bob couldn't get a decent swing on the monster while in its mouth.

I sighed, then took aim at the Twenty-Three's face. Although the LCARS couldn't do massive damage, it did cause the creature to spit Bob out momentarily, giving the big bear a chance to crush its skull.

"It's going to take us a while to cut our way through this mob," Arachne said as she climbed the side of the wall to join me. A new squad of spiders appeared next to her and used the wall as a springboard to launch themselves at the nearest antithesis.

"Shouldn't the other team have beat us here? I wonder why we haven't heard any updates lately."

"Fuck… I totally forgot about them with all the shit we've been dealing with," I said. I took a moment to glance back at the tunnel, where the small, white squirrel was passively following us, before sending a quick command to Spooky. He hopped off the wall, ran over, and grabbed the mechanical creature before throwing it to me like a football. The squirrel screeched in terror as it flew through the air. It didn't even get a chance to deploy its wings before I snatched it and started shaking.

"Yo! Bright-Eyes! Is this thing on?" I asked the shell-shocked squirrel. After a few seconds, the thing's demeanor changed.

"Teddy? I'm so glad to hear your voice. We've had a hell of a time here," Bright-Eyes' tired voice echoed out of the squirrel.

"What the hell happened? I thought you guys were ahead of us." I asked, finally dropping the bot down on top of the wall.

"We managed to hook up with the dig team, and we're currently up to our armpits in future kindling. What's your situation?"

"We got ambushed. A wave of Twenty-Ones backed up by a couple Twenty-Threes, which forced us into a fighting retreat. Hoppy lost her leg in the first engagement, and neither Broodmother nor I had anything to kill them effectively, so we've been struggling. For some reason they all turned around and retreated a few minutes ago, so we're finally taking a breather."

"Well, I can guess why they retreated. Guess we're going to have even more trouble here. You're ok?" I asked the squirrel.

"We're fine. We made quite a few points on that last engagement, so we'll probably spend a few minutes tooling up before pushing again," Bright-Eyes replied.

"Good, stay safe. We'll hopefully see you soon," I said, turning away.

"You too," came the reply, right before the squirrel reverted to its default mode. The creature took one look at me, then took off, squeaking in fear. Although the dead antithesis were starting to pile up, there were reinforcements as far as the eye could see. I settled in, sighted the nearest group of antithesis, and started unloading my LCARS. It was starting to look like we were in for a long fight.