Chapter 160 – Sgt. Stabby Reloaded; Act II

Road Rash stands in front of his completed artwork, hands on his hips, and nods with satisfaction.

He chose good colors. The glowing, rich purple really does make the lettering stand out, and the little shadows of exploded gunpowder from his leaps lend the whole thing a certain tempering as well.

IT'S THE BATTLEPOET, BITCH!

It's so beautiful, it even helps him be patient with the cringing executive hovering a few meters away, hair in hopeless disarray from the many small detonations, stuttering and asking stupid questions, like, "Is that permanent?" or, "Does our insurance cover this?" or, "How long does that have to stay there?"

A raised eyebrow is all it takes for Ms. C-Suite to unearth a clue and flee, mumbling, "It can stay there."

– Road Rash concludes his crusade against Those Who Wouldn't Wise Up. The NewsMediaTainment Group, who thought their non-criminal status gave them immunity against the samurai's displeasure, eventually acquiesce to calling Tinea The Battlepoet if only to be allowed to rid themselves of the graffiti. And the wall itself, when it wouldn't come off—like any good samurai, Road Rash didn't half-ass, not when he could commit full ass, or even total ass.

⁂

I caught Leah as she slipped out of the airlock, and grinned up at her as she braced herself on my shoulders. It was a reversal of the last time we'd disembarked together, where she'd had to catch me when we first arrived at the Decennial Memorial and I still had a bum leg.

She nervously wrung her hands once I set her down, so I hugged her from the side for courage and let her settle. I supposed she'd gotten very used to having the armor of at least her pod around her and must be feeling quite exposed without it.

The Headless Edgelord's figure—intentionally nogginless—stood to my right, a few paces away, waiting patiently for his assignment with his claws tucked behind his back.

I'd leave him to it, for another moment. The gentle rainbow colors of my wafting streamers played over the filigree of Leah's bodysuit, tinging it in various shades of gold all the more brilliant for the contrast of the impossible black surrounding it. We spent a peaceful second appreciating it.

But before long, a lone Three came sniffing around the mountain of broken corpses Leah had left littering the hillside, and the singular retort of a 30 mm autocannon shattered the rain-filled quiet as it vaporized the small creature. Everything smelled of dead Antithesis, and others would soon follow.

I asked Tynea, "Say, don't the plants usually go hyper aggressive when they detect death scents?"

Leah perked up, too.

"It's a function of numbers," the AI answered via our implants so my girlfriend could listen in. "If they smell a lot more dead models than the live ones number, then that'll trigger investigative instincts rather than violent ones. They'll also be spraying pheromones calling for reinforcements."

That made Leah look around more carefully, not that she could see much through the rain. The Sim Cell's sensors were a little more useful.

"Should we expect an enemy surge, then?" I asked.

"Eventually, yes, but the weather is suppressing the stink beyond a few meters. It won't be until the runoff carrying Antithesis particulates reaches either a nest, or a heavy patrol, that you'll see anything requiring the attention of your higher calibers. Leah's Sim Cell will detect those before they get too close."

Breathing deeply, Leah sent a command through the network to withhold fire against the single-digits. Squeezing her again, I finally added Sgt. Stabby 2.0 to her tactical network, assigned her to be the bodyguard's principal, and handed her the authority codes.

He updated his positioning by sliding over to Leah's shoulder in one long step. She stared at him, blinking uncertainly at the goofy split he did in the process. There came a suspicious sloshing sound from inside him.

"If you would activate his perimeter patrol protocols, love," I said, giggling and scratching her lower spine. She wasn't ticklish there and would hopefully find the stimulation to be grounding.

She did as I asked, and the Serial Murder Reject saluted her, dutifully and with exaggerated motions. His claws poked past his fingers and into the space where his braincase would've been—which is why I stuck it in the torso instead.

The sight of them did make Leah shiver quietly, but it was less one born of traumatized fear, and more one of simple, visceral reaction. The kind you might get watching horror movies.

That was a good thing in my books—a bodyguard that arrested your attention like that would be effective long before violent defense became necessary. Make anyone think twice purely from all the what the fuck.

Now the question was just whether Leah would agree.

Eh, I mused as Nohead Freddy marched off. If not, I can always get her more adorable types of bodyguards—am gonna do so anyway. Sgt. Decapitated could just be the shocktrooper in her arsenal.

That idea, in fact, might be something Leah would enjoy.

"What's he gonna do?" she asked me, staring suspiciously after the Sleeve in locomotion.

I pointed where I knew the next Three would pop up. Leah did too, it was her monitoring mech that had sensed it first, after all. "Be a little more proactive about guarding you, Leah."

The foreshortened bodyguard turned that way too, now that he'd moved far enough to have a clear shot between himself and the Three about to turn the corner. Like a bug pumping its wings getting ready to fly, he spread his legs, assumed a martial artist's horse stance, and stuck his butt out.

Grinning, I nudged Leah to watch him. A lone eyestalk extended from his neck and twitched around a bit to build a stereoscoping picture—he didn't strictly need the extra eye for it, he already had a brace of cameras stuck around his neck like a necklace, but having two axes to measure distances across was in fact an advantage.

Particularly when calculating ballistics.

Plus, the wiggly organ only added to his weirdly fucked aesthetics. He managed an uncanny nastiness that was nothing like the Antithesis—and that, in turn, meant no human would be ready for it, not even hardened veterans. Especially not if it came flying at them like a mad jack-in-the-box.

Leah made a funny noise in the back of her throat. "What's he gonna do?" she asked. "Twerk?"

Giggling, I shook my head. That was an idea, though. Something to add to his repertoire, maybe?

I giggled more when the Sleeve unzipped itself audibly around the crotch area and up the buttcrack, and I started bouncing on my toes.

⁂

Leah didn't know which to look at more.

The weird mindfuck that was the experiment of a drone Tinea had cooked up, or said girl's jiggling assets as she bobbed with restless energy, attached to Leah's elbow. That smile was adorable. Lethally so, especially considering the quietly manic edge to it.

The one that tended to be followed by explosions and general mayhem.

She wondered if explosions were going to be part of this particular showcase, too. It didn't seem likely; there was plenty of room for a bomb or two inside the Sleeve, and she'd be surprised if there weren't any, but the Sleeve-drone-thing wasn't meant to be disposable. Or, not that disposable, at least.

Catalogs aside it had only cost them a few hundred points, which was plenty disposable, but bombs ran, like, five points per piece. Much cheaper.

A fart ripped across the field.

Incredulous, Leah stared at the Sleeve. It was a low, droning hum, and just wouldn't stop.

Tinea pressed a hand to her lips, trying to suppress more chaotic giggles.

The circular fart picked up steam. It slowly revved up, like a jet engine, and the utter monstrosity had to lean into it more the more power it gathered, so that it wouldn't topple over. The ongoing expulsion of pressurized gas began scouring the ground behind it, blowing away water, gravel, and the various Antithesis fluids that had been draining from all the corpses.

Within seconds, the weird thing was hovering more on its…thrust than standing on its legs.

Shit. Leah finally couldn't hold the snort. It transformed into laughter halfway out her nose. The kids would LOVE this frankenthing. Tinea was already hanging from Leah's arm, shaking with the hiccups of barely-held giggles and tears in her eyes.

Then, the Three finally came into sight. It paused as it tried to figure out what the noise was. The Sleeve's eye locked onto it, its wiggling frequency increasing like a cat about to pounce.

With motions comedic in their incongruent daintiness, the fucked-up medical meatsack reached a pair of claws into its flatulent stream and snicked them against each other. Leah's eyes grew wide as the dozens of sensors scattered across her mech army detected the little spark running down the tines.

"I FUCKING KNEW IT!" was all Leah managed to yell as a fireball exploded along the gathered gas and up into the sky.

Tinea doubled over in hysterical laughter as the heated wind from the conflagration reached them, and dragged Leah down with her. The doll went flying like a loose balloon, barely controlling its powered flight by contorting its body in the most awkward ways. It finally hit the Three like a long jumper on final approach, feet first.

It bowled the alien over, and somehow ended up with its butt splitting the canoid model's jaw open. She could hear joints dislocate and bones snap, but the Three's fangs caught in the exoskeleton's ribbing and sealed its fate of being violently facesat.

The psychotic abomination hooked its claws behind the Three's skull, and increased the gas output. The flames baked the alien from the inside even as its body acted like a thrust reverser's bucket and sent the struggling pair sledding forward across the ground.

Leah found herself shuddering slightly, eyes locked on the utter idiocy and grotesquerie on display. Absurdist humor had never really been her thing, but even she had to admit, this trainwreck was worth watching. No one would believe her, if she didn't happen to have the whole event recorded for proof.

A rocky hump threw the locked combatants into the air. With the Sleeve puppet unable to control its attitude for lack of any…thrust vectoring, and no limbs free for balancing, physics claimed their due and sent the pair spiraling—again, like a loose balloon—a few meters up, and then back down again. They smashed into the rocks with a wet splat, and the Three finally ceased resisting, barely twitching and quickly fading.

The Sleeve had been deformed by the impact like a blob of slime stuffed inside a sock. It slowly peeled one arm off the ground, then the other, and then used both to leverage itself into a sitting position.

The eyestalk popped out again, presumably to take stock of its surroundings. When it located the two humans and found no further threat, it gave a final fart along with a clawed thumbsup. The all-clear sounded across the network, too.

Leah just shook her head. Tinea, still recovering from her giggles, seemed to be studying her expression. She wasn't sure what for, but she decided to pat her between the antennae anyway.

Whatever other purposes Sgt. Stabby's crazy reincarnation was supposed to serve, Leah figured it'd do its job as a deterrent with great proficiency.

⁂