(Rewritten) Ch. 61 – Xenocide Act III; Pick-Me-Up

"Perfect protection is perfectly impossible"

– Ypsilon, Leah's AI, commenting on Leah's desire to secure her Littles

***

"Hey, Leah. Feeling dead?" Tinea's voice was gentle, warm, and deliciously raspy somewhere deep down.

"Murdered. Just coming down from all the fighting. I'll be fine in a bit."

"Want some pick-me-uppers? Got these energy boosters when I was running earlier." She held a little see-through tube out, with marshmallow-looking soft balls squished inside. They'd probably be hella sweet…

"Fuck me, no, but yes. Feed me," said Leah, too tired to move. She barely managed the eye twitches to open her helmet's visor.

Tinkling giggles caressed Leah's ears, playful fingers tickled her lips, a gummy was yummy between her teeth and then heaven on her tongue.

"Oooooh~" Leah could not hold back the almost lusty moan. "Oh, that juice, that would be perfect right now. Ypsi, dear?"

Sure, Leah! Here you go!

The weight of a familiar box settled on her chest, and Leah mustered the will to plop the straw between her teeth and sucked down godly hydration.

With a groan, Leah finally sat up and stretched her arms above her head. She properly took in the smiling Tinea, watched those glorious and ever-busy antennae questing every which way, how her monkey-slash-cat tail swayed easily just behind her back, guns stowed and counterbalanced by a slight shifting of Tinea's hips, like a subconscious shimmy to an unheard beat.

Hips that were clothed in quite beautiful armor, forming a long skirt of glittering black plates that slowly swung all the way down to her ankles with Tinea's gentle movements. The garment reminded Leah a little of feminine knight armor in video games, and it did rather enhance the woman's already amazing curves.

What do they call it? Supernormal stimulus?

…

Armor. She needed some. Leah looked at her combat log and found they had a little more than two thousand combined points. That was…plenty. They could afford one of the faster vehicles to get out of dodge, couldn't they?

Leah caught Tinea's eyes and said, "How much longer do we need to stick around? We've basically got what we wanted, right? Time to go?"

Tinea looked down, scratched her cheek. Glanced at the lure in the center of the grass.

"We do have enough to leave, right after we buy a few more stealth drones and prep the facility. The only other thing we should take care of, is that nest. It's too close to the facility. I'm worried they'll be detected on the way in, if we leave them. But after that? We can go and kill that swarm."

Leah sighed, and pinched the bridge of her nose. More delays. That was annoying.

She wanted to see her littles, to go home and play with them, bouncing one each on her knees…

"Fuck." Okay. Remember. Gotta have points to secure everybody. To be safe. Annoying or not, things are the way things are.

She blew out a breath, picked herself up, and asked, "Alright. We use the lure to get all nearby Antithesis to come and kill them, then we figure that nest out, prep the facility… Shit."

"Hmm?" Tinea asked.

"What about that original nest that Tynea suspected? You know, the one all the Antithesis for the big group had to come from in the first place."

"Right. We locate it with the drones, and figure out what to do from there."

"And after that, we leave?"

"Yeah, we get a proper fighting vehicle and go after the swarm, since we need to head in that direction anyway."

"I see. If we're gonna be fighting more, then I'm actually getting proper armor."

Tinea nodded her agreement, and Leah got up to move her feet a little, to think better as she rearranged her purchase schedule based on their new plans.

Two thousand points. That changes things. I can buy that thing way earlier. And skip the middle distance entirely… "Ypsi, can you—"

"Leah, I'll park your ATV near mine, okay?" Tinea's shout interrupted her meditations and Leah went, "Huh?"

She looked at Tinea, and a finger pointing at her machine still stuck between the two fallen trees clued her in.

"Go for it!"

Another nod, and Tinea climbed Leah's bike, a little encumbered by her armor, before maneuvering it out of the gap to join the other in the middle.

That's something to consider, too. I'll have to be able to ride the thing while geared up. Or, maybe…hmm.

***

I watched Leah sitting on her log, sorting out her purchases. Since I couldn't really help, I casted about for stuff to do.

Ah, yes. "Hey, Tynea. Have your drones found anything new about that older nest?"

Only that it isn't where I thought it would be. I have been able to scout an entire square kilometer around every spot where the Antithesis have gathered, but detected no hive structures. The trees do not seem to be tapped for nutrients, and I cannot locate any tunnels or cave entrances, either.

"Well. That's…weird. Where are all the Antithesis coming from, then?"

Perhaps the swarm, though I find that to be relatively unlikely. Local units should be joining it, not the other way around. The nest the Sixes and Fives disappeared into might be the only in the area. That would make it considerably larger than I had assumed, however.

"So, that would be where all these units are coming from?"

Possibly. Those gathering locations wouldn't line up, though. The Antithesis often form groups at forward locations, but aside from yourselves, there are no local threats. They should be putting themselves between you and their nest.

Wait. Captain Obvious first. "Have you checked for other nests beyond those spots, from all of our battle sites?"

Of course. Again, I found none, nor cave entrances…nor sinkholes.

"So, they weren't just from different hives either?"

It does not appear so, no.

I scratched my head at the riddle. We had a nest that we were pretty sure about, but it didn't line up with the positioning of the groups we'd fought. The Antithesis were either acting strange without explanation…which would mean mutations. Or their behavior was normal, which would point to heretofore unknown spawn locations, except that we couldn't find any sign of those.

Spawners. Oh shit. I looked at the soft, muddy ground around me. Big shit.

"Tynea. Would you be able to detect Twenty-Twos in this weather?"

If they are on the move, likely so. Or I'd at least come across their trail of destruction, if they're close enough. I'm still operating with a limited number of drones, and have not sent them further than a couple kilometers in each direction, so as to conserve coverage.

"And if they're not moving?"

If they are already dug in, then the storm and ongoing rain would have obscured them entirely.

"Well, shit. Is there any way you could find one of those with your current drones, if they remain stationary?"

I might still stumble across any damage they caused to the forest itself, if the storm left such recognizable. But the rain would've already washed away any heat signatures or traces of them digging in.

I scratched my jaw. Model Twenty-Twos could be tricky bastards, but they were usually heavily hindered by their large bodies. It was difficult to hide yourself if you were the size of houses. I looked around at all the mud and soft, swampy Earth that would make it easy to lose a house in, especially one designed to dig itself into that kind of terrain.

They'd usually surround themselves with lots and lots of Antithesis. Say, several hundred of them. Of which size we had two gatherings.

"Um, Tynea. Have you kept track of the rate at which those congregations gained new members, and the rate at which members trickled in from the forests?"

Not reliably, no. I can't get any drones very close, they're spotted and quickly destroyed. I'm just catching glimpses to keep a near accurate count of units.

"Think we've got Twenty-Twos hiding right below those groups?"

I would support that deduction.

…

Time for Bargain Rods From God, again?

Maybe see what Leah wanted to do, first. After all, I still had to get her addicted to the pleasure of utterly eradicating humongous enemies, didn't I?

***

"… Alright, looks good. Buy it?"

Class I Warforge Technologies Addons: Enhanced Personal Protection unlocked!Combined Points reduced to... 1970!

New Purchase: Warforge Technologies Quasi-Newtonian BodyguardCombined Points reduced to... 1770!New Purchase: 'Paladin' Warforged Esoteric Defense System, Mutable ForcefieldCombined Points reduced to... 1570!New Purchase: Warforge Technologies Universal Piloting PodCombined Points reduced to... 20!

Leah leaned back and spread her arms, grabbing the first piece right out of the air.

It was a very sleek full-body suit of a material so black her eyes found nothing to catch on, nothing to stop them from sliding willy-nilly all across it. The lack of patterns to anchor the mind induced anxiety on some subconscious level. This suit was Leah's first item that really showed off the Warforge blackbody effect, a hole punched into the fabric of existence. The threat of non-existence.

Moments later, golden lines emerged from its chest, curling in fine detail and elegant curves all across the suit, creating contours where there hadn't been any. Salvation to the desperate mind lost in the fog of angst.

The head gained definition, stylized muscle groups were born along the limbs and the abs, and then the eyes blinked open, white portals into nothingness, white mist falling from them. If one looked at just the wrong moment, the vision of a ghostly skull floating inside an eye socket would sear itself into their memory, a single blink that left behind nothing but intimidated anxiety.

Leah stood up and quickly took off the Overall, leaving it crumpled on the log next to her. She pressed the back of the suit to her chest, where it melted and molded itself to her body like the darkest of chocolate. It stopped once it encompassed half of each limb and her torso up to her neck. There it formed a shroud with a gently misting veil that would solidify faster than thought to protect her head, and the material for arms and legs instead flowed to her shoulders to create an intricate shawl patterned with beautiful golden filigree.

The suit was not true armor, but it was designed to be pierce- and slash-proof, and to absorb shrapnel. Leah might find herself rather bruised by the average emplaced turret, but it would take cannon-calibers to kill her.

The second purchase, she quickly hid within the folds of her shawl.

Leah's third purchase arrived, and readied itself for combat. It was a big ovoid, reminiscent of octopi in shape, but with four spider limbs instead of tentacles, each of which ended in sharp spikes sunk into the wet ground. The egg was all impossible, eye-bleeding black, though golden-filigree sockets and sensor clusters broke up color and shape at the front and the crown.

The spider legs were made of three counter-arching segments with white joints and golden curves enhancing the swung lines of each. The egg currently stood half a meter off the floor, roughly a meter wide, and a little more than a meter long and about as deep.

Attached to the rear of the octopus-head ovoid, a large block sat. Its longest sides measured a meter, shorter at the top where the tilt of the egg left less space. It was mostly hollow, with the edges of the block being made of thick, swung, golden pipes, echoing the alien spider-lines of the legs. The top quarter was solid, with two hatches facing upward, and another two downward. The topside ones opened up, and a pair of articulated robot arms extended themselves, mounted with two automatic firearms of exactly the same model as the one attached to the turret on Leah's ATV.

Another two arms, these ones with graspers, dipped from below the solid section, but settled immediately back into their recesses once their function had been tested.

As Leah moved towards the egg and Tinea joined her with curiosity brightening her face, the egg unsealed itself and revealed a small crash couch, just large enough to fit one Leah without legs.

Intrigued, Tinea asked, "What's this?"

***