And now comes the kicker: All of that is only taking into account military personal, or trained soldiers. Situations in which civilians suffer CSRs are often insanely difficult and dangerous. But the worst are those, in which a Samurai is suffering from a CSR. If that happens, your best bet is to try and disengage as fast as possible and find the nearest shelter. Other than that, I can only recommend you pray to whatever deity you chose to venerate and hope that the universe doesn’t give you the shaft.”
- Major Klein of the Sorrow Guard PMC, in an interview after the incident of the 20th July, 2049
Before today, seeing a horde of plant aliens in front of me would probably be right up there on the list of ‘worst nightmares’. Of course, I was aware that they existed. You’d read about incursions on the feeds, find news about Samurai and whatnot while doom scrolling, and hear about their exploits in your day to day life.
So intellectually I knew they were a thing. I just never thought I’d actually see them in person. But hey, that could at least happen. Aliens attacked, I’d die, and that was that. If you’d ever tell me I’d run face first into a massive horde of them, two giant fake weapons in hand, and crush the enemy forces, I’d tell you that you had a screw loose.
Yet, here I was.
It didn’t really feel real. Between the panic, the music still blasting in my ear, the sight of aliens in front of me, and the massive, illusory greatswords I was swinging left and right, it kind of felt like a very weird dream. The kind of dream where you knew you were dreaming, but still couldn’t change anything about what was happening. Those dreams where it felt like every step was like moving through tar.
Maybe it was that feeling of surrealness, or maybe it was just the madness slowly overtaking me, but… I was enjoying myself. I felt weirdly light and capable, crushing any aliens trying to get closer to me. I had no clue how to wield weapons. The closest experience I had was playing video games, and that was a far cry from actual fighting.
Likely I looked completely stupid, just waving my massive swords around, but it worked. And the quickly growing pile of dead antithesis was kind of making me feel… powerful. In a sort of good but also bad way. Honestly, it was hard to put into words just how I felt just then.
Perhaps you should take a deep breath. While the havoc you wreak is quite helpful for morale, that feral grin is much less so.
Stryx words slowly cut through that fluffy feeling of surrealness. I wasn’t quite sure what she was saying at first, although after a moment it clicked. The realisation left me a bit confused, and I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
Only then did I notice my own state of mind, really. I wasn’t quite myself at the moment. I was enjoying the carnage. The ability to completely destroy the antithesis forces in front of me. Maybe that should’ve scared me, considering that it was entirely not like me. But I just… couldn’t seem to care?
Dismissing the thought, I started to focus on making the aliens' life a living hell. These fuckers decided to invade our planet, messing up our day, messing up Yurei’s day, and forcing her to fight again. It had taken years for her to finally get into a sort of normalcy, and now all of that was gone once again!
The thought made me furious. How long have I spent trying to help her onto a more normal path? All the horrors she’s seen, horrors she’s told me about in great detail. I could still vividly see her sitting in that ditch, with a pistol in her mouth. That image was one I’d never be able to forget.
And now she might end up there once again…
Not on my watch!
Pulling on a sort of primal rage that I wasn’t even aware I had in me, I redoubled my efforts at squashing the stupid aliens in front of me. They were nothing more than pests, a plague that was slowly rotting our planet. A disease that needed to be expunged entirely, removed from the face of existence and the annals of history.
The horde in front of me was still trying to get past me, but I didn’t let it. The weapons I had were big, long, and light, and I utilised them as best as I could. Wide, sweeping motions cut apart as many of the dog like fuckers as I could. Fuck you for ruining the image of dogs like that! You don’t deserve to look like them! Dogs are supposed to be cute and nice and helpful and man’s best friend!
I fully gave in to the desire to crush them, kicking and slashing, screaming and howling. Just pure carnage as I worked my way through the assault that was still trying to push past me. In the distance I could see the sickly figure of the strange ursoid thing that was orchestrating this entire mess.
I had to kill it. I had to crush it, fuck it up, turn it to paste, then spread the remains a thousand miles in all directions!
These things didn’t deserve to live, they didn’t deserve to exist! All they did was ruin people’s lives, and force people who really didn’t want to, to fight! But I could stop them! I could crush them! I could turn them into paste and stop them from ruining other peoples lives!
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I just had to fight a little harder, get closer!
“Sarge? Is she okay?” I couldn’t quite focus on Jeremy’s words, too enraptured by the sight of carnage in front of me.
“Captain Taka?” Finally I was able to shake myself enough to glance at him. Not surprisingly, his voice betrayed the same kind of worry the rest of us felt.
At first things had gone pretty decently. The Samurai had done her best to help us out, and we had been able to fight off the aliens. Things had changed when the new alien had showed up. We were still winning then, but it seemed that the Samurai was hellbent on engaging it directly. Probably to deal with it quickly.
Then things had gone a bit… weird. I watched, together with the rest of my unit, as she started flailing around her weapons. Big things, like, movie levels oversized. Entirely unpractical. But they didn’t seem to weigh anything and they did the job.
And for some reason she’d started behaving weird. So far, the Samurai, Zuri if I recall correctly, was a pretty normal young woman. Your average civilian. She was terrified of the xenos, but did her best to help. Now, though? She was ravaging the alien horde with a mad smile on her face, and howls and screams straight out of a horror holo.
“Don’t stop firing!” I ordered, trying to keep my men focused. “Any xeno that makes it past her has to die, understood?”
Setting an example, I started to take potshots into yet another fucker that tried to climb over the barricades. Morale was already low, and even I had half a mind to just turn around and run back into the shelter for safety, but without us, they’d be able to breach the door for sure.
And while I wasn’t an expert, I was pretty sure our Samurai was currently having a mental breakdown, which was certainly not good. Likely too much stress, or perhaps she couldn’t handle the pressure of combat. Samurai were always a bit weird from what I heard, but this didn’t seem normal. Just my luck that the first Samurai I ever worked with personally couldn’t handle the stress of combat.
“Paul, any more surprises coming our way?” My best bet would be to keep the platoon focused on the job, make sure they remain calm enough to notice any surprises.
“No, ma’am! Seems like there’ll be a short break in new arrivals, but if I see it right, that won’t hold long.” His voice was taught, not that I could blame him. He was our lookout and sharpshooter. And while that kept him at a distance, it also kept us away from any potential backup.
“Understood. Good job, soldier. Inform me if anything changes.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
The short break in aliens could both be good or bad. Good, because it would give us a moment to reload and prepare. Bad, because it might signal for a stronger wave. And with our Samurai currently going mental, I couldn’t be sure preparation was even on the table.
What if she started rushing us down when the xenos stopped coming? Who knew what was going on in her mind, she might have entirely lost it. Would she stop from killing any of us?
Focus, Taka!
That was an issue that I’d have to tackle once we got there. Right now I had to make sure my men were safe, and the aliens didn’t breach the shelter. With a quick glance I checked our ammo reserves, in a moment of inactivity. Two magazines were left per person, maybe a few more, I couldn’t be sure.
Deciding to go with the worst case, I took the estimate of two mags, and quickly worked out how long we could hold still. If we wouldn’t get a restock from Zuri, we’d have to utilise our backup mags, which only held standard issue rounds. That was three mags per, which wasn’t a lot, but should give us a couple more minutes.
“Conserve your ammo!” I ordered, after I worked through all of that, coming to the realisation that we might not even hold until the break in activity.
While the Samurai going mental wasn’t good, obviously, she was able to pretty thoroughly crush the aliens in front of her. Many of them didn’t make it past her, which meant that we might be able to hold out on some of the ammo we’d otherwise use. That was pretty much our only bet right about now.
The evacuation convoy was still out, and we didn’t know when, or if, they would arrive. Before this mess the Samurai were meant to go out there and check in on them. We hadn’t gotten any more reports since then, and with how things were looking, they might already be toast.
I didn’t say that aloud, though. The last thing we needed was more bad news.
My gaze was drawn to the action at the frontlines. Zuri’s massive weapons had just vanished, leaving her unarmed. For a moment I was hoping that maybe that would get her out of her stupor, but instead, she just jumped the aliens with bare hands.
That weird glove she used previously to cut up the fuckers seemed to do some work, although things were also quickly going worse. Before she had been pretty safe, but now the aliens managed to get close enough to hit her. From here I wasn’t able to see just how damage she took, but chances were good that she wouldn’t survive.
Fuck… This was getting worse and worse! I had no way to get my men out of here, much less while also keeping the shelter safe! There were far too many xenos for that, and our only help was currently getting ripped to shreds in the middle of a xeno horde.
Maybe the other Samurai would be getting back soon? I really couldn’t depend on that. Who knew how long it’d take.
Out of nowhere, the battlefield shifted. The damn dragon burning down the front lines earlier had already been damn impressive, but now something else was happening. Less flashy, maybe, but not less effective.
Half-transparent chains were forming on the arms of Zuri, still standing in the middle of the horde. And those chains were long. Like, really fucking long. There was still no plan or finesse to her movements, but now, with long chains and weirdly glowing claws, she had a much greater range, and a much easier time ripping apart the aliens around her.
I couldn’t help but gawk for a moment. Of course, I knew that Samurai were pretty fucking impressive. I’ve heard stories from other PMC’s who worked with one Samurai or the other. But that didn’t really prepare you for the real deal.
I hadn’t fully internalised the image in front of me yet, when things changed again. Red lighting started to flash from the chains, cutting more antithesis apart. In a way it looked like a rather edgy thunderstorm was quickly growing. It brought back my earlier worries about her maybe starting to attack us.
Despite that, though, she seemed to rush deeper into the alien horde. Within a moment she was upon the ursoid thing, which just… seemed to stop existing once she got a hold of it. And she didn’t seem interested in stopping either, just continuing to rush further into the horde, and away from us.
Honestly, I was kind of glad about that.
“What the shit is going on…?” Jeremy’s words cut through the sort of stunned silence.
“No idea. Now stop gawking, let’s clean up!” Putting action to words, I began to fire at the last few surviving aliens.
Today was so fucked up…
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