A Joytoy’s Journey to become a Hive-Queen [A SCS Fanfic]

Chapter 69 – Nice

“Man, I tell you, she’s a bloody menace in bed!”

“Fucks sake, bro, can you like not simp for her for like a single day? Shit’s annoying as fuck.”

“You’d change your tune if you ever booked an evening with her. It’s magical, is what it is.”

“As if I’m going to pay those exorbitant prices. How far in debt did you get just from that one trip, huh?”

“Who cares about debt? It’s all worth it, trust me!”

“You need some help. Some real good help.”

“All I need is another appointment!”

“You need Jesus, bro.”

  -  Discussion between two civilians, shortly after Myriad’s first day as a Samurai Joytoy

It didn’t take long for us to find a veritable wall of xenos. It wasn’t surprising, and we had expected as much. Even if most of the caves we had cleared out the previous day were still empty, the antithesis hadn’t been idle. Still, it was a bit daunting to see just how quickly they could reproduce if given half a chance.

What was more problematic was the now much more prevalent presence of bigger models. From model Fives, all the way to model Nines, with Tiny even having to deal with models in high teens. While model Fifteens didn’t fit into the tight tunnels in most cases, we now had to deal with model Fives at basically every corner, which made pushing into the Hive a whole lot harder.

Luckily we came prepared.

It would still take some time before our Heavy Duty Shield Carriers would evolve properly into their role, but we had still given them a few dedicated Hard-Light emitters. It was a bit more pricey, but with their help we now had a much better defence against the hail of quills that the aliens tried to pepper Us with.

To that end, we had changed the makeup of our group as well. Bobby and Chloe were still forming the spearhead, but now they were supported by three of these Hatchlings, a number of upgraded War Drones, as well as some of Jenna’s Sentinels. 

With our new defences and our new training we were also now better equipped to handle front line fighting and were no longer relegated exclusively to defensive duty. Of course, we still made sure nobody got hurt, but being able to actually fight off the flood of plants was a much appreciated change of pace.

It did require Us to think differently about our fighting style, however. So far we had mostly focused on shields, using our virtual realm to keep an eye on things. And that worked well, for the most part. Now, however, we needed to focus on actually fighting, so shielding was a bit more difficult. Luckily for Us, the PRISM wasn’t as constraining as the Pristine Fortress was, so our virtual self was able to take on shield duty, while our body self focused exclusively on using our Polearm.

Dashing forward we swung the weapon wide, amazed at how light on our feet we felt. The Hard-Light construct easily cut through the row of model Threes that formed the front, and we stepped to the side, escaping one of the quills coming our way and letting it bounce harmlessly against the cave wall behind Us.

At the same time, we put up shields around and in front of Chloe and Bobby, enabling them to hunker down and fire into the mass of walking fruit without needing to worry about being clawed at. It added to the defensive line our Shield Carriers had put up, giving us plenty of room to work with.

Utilising the holographic emitters of our new armor, we projected false images within the rows of alien forces. The smaller models weren’t all that smart, they had good senses, but that was about all there was to it. The issue we ran into were the larger models organising the smaller ones, which rendered our holographic images kind of moot, even if the momentary distraction was enough to sow some chaos. Leaving it to our virtual self, we began to blink the holograms in and out all around Us, just for that little bit of added confusion.

Our Assassins were close by, deeper in the horde, dealing with any of the bigger threats. Model Fives and model Sixes were their main priority, as well as any model Nine we could spot. It left Us with a relatively safe front to fight on, which we abused as best we could, our polearm dancing around Us and finding alien after alien, cutting them to pieces.

Our Defenders added to that safety by blocking any alien trying to take Us from the side, which we did appreciate greatly. It gave Us the space we needed to really put our new training into practice, something that was desperately needed. Even with the Dream Learning there was a difference between training and actually fighting. Being able to get used to it without having to worry too much was a boon.

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Cleaving through yet another small group of aliens, we let the momentum carry Us, projecting a long blade from the Pristine Fortress and cutting a model Four in half that was trying to overwhelm one of our Defenders.

At just about the same time, we saw one of the bigger models in the cave going down from the corner of our eye, our Assassins cleanly decapitating it. It shifted the balance of the front, and we pushed deeper, Bobby and Chloe one step ahead of Us and laying into the horde of alien plants with reckless abandon.

Taking the left side of the front, and leaving the others to deal with the rest, we dashed into the fray once more, not giving the aliens any time to recuperate or reorganise. Jumping over one of the smaller groups, we swung the Dusk and Dawn in a wide arc, killing most while clipping the remainder, wounding them. Our Defenders were trying to keep up with Us, while the Sentinels began to lag behind a bit, something that became apparent when a model Five unloaded on Us for all it was worth.

The defences in our new armor sprung to life, blocking the incoming torrent of quills, and we shrunk back, momentarily surprised. Nothing much came of it, much to our relief, but it did remind Us that we had to be more circumspect.

While we fought off the aliens on our side, slowly decemating their numbers, our upgraded War Drones and the Shield Carriers pushed forward, cutting them off from reinforcements, which made our job so much easier. We kept one eye on the main front in the cave, while we continued to weed out the remaining aliens, watching our newly upgraded drones work.

Our Shield Carriers laid down another defensive wall of Hard-Light constructs, crude but effective. It was clear already that they’d be a boon once they properly evolved into their new task, even if it was still a bit awkward at the moment. Our War Drones took position behind it, while the Hatchlings began to utilise the new mortar like grenade launchers on their back, sending clouds of nanites into the enemy lines.

They weren’t immediately lethal, but they did take some pressure off of the front, something that the rest of Us and Bobby took advantage of immediately. Now that the balance of the fight had shifted, Chloe turned and focused more on laying down cover fire into two of the tunnels leading further down, stopping the xenos from pushing us back.

Nodding to ourselves, we rushed forwards once more, killing off the last remaining alien on our side with a wide swing of our polearm, before we turned our attention back to the other side of the cave. Raising our right arm, we let the polearm dissipate, instead pulling up the aug menu for the PRISM and sending large bolts of Hard-Light into the masses, adding more nanites into the mix that slowly began to eat away at the aliens skin and muscles.

We were pushing the aliens back, slowly at first, but now that we had gotten a foothold in the cave, that pace increased. Then it increased some more, when another group of Hatchlings arrived behind us, raising their new rifles and slowly and methodically picking off any of the aliens that managed to get past our defences.

A few of them paid close attention to the scanners we got them to sniff out any stealth models. The biggest threat were the model Nine-V’s, Kaysa had confirmed that they’d be able to easily deal with our Queen’s Guard, if they ever got the drop on them, and so we wanted to make sure we could keep track of them. To that end we had equipped quite a number of Us with basic scanners that would make that a whole lot easier. While no Nine-V was present, there were two Nine-S’ hiding behind the bend in the tunnel leading directly towards the center of the cave.

The Hatchlings pinged them on the map, which was great, but also not something that Bobby and Chloe could use as fluently as we could. Because of this, it fell to our Assassins to deal with them, one of them using the rifle she had access to, while the other simply dashed forwards, leaving pure destruction in her wake. We did the best we could to aid them in their task, sending more Hard-Light projectiles into the general area, being careful not to hit any of Us with friendly fire.

The fact that using the map wasn’t as useful for Bobby and Chloe was a problem, however. Neither of them was able to multitask as efficiently and quickly as we could, considering that they didn’t have a virtual self to take care of it, or other voices to fall back on. We filed that factoid away for consideration, bouncing it around the chorus to come up with some kind of solution for the immediate future.

It didn’t stop Us from continuing the fight, of course, rushing forward and after the now retreating front line. The model Sixes were a lot smarter than the smaller aliens, and while their tactics were crude, they did seem to at least understand basic battlefield strategies. Sending their forces to die without payoff was something they seemingly wanted to prevent.

Jumping over the corpse of a model Five, we summoned our polearm once more, bringing it down on a model Four that had been hit by Chloe’s rifle, leaving it wounded. Our blade cut through it like tissue paper, leaving it a gooey mess on the ground, and we ran past. One of the Sentinels took a projectile from one of the Nine-S’s, retaliating with the rifle it had access to. It was clear that they weren’t meant to use rifles as their primary weapon, but even then, they had the accuracy of a computer, and it didn’t take long for the model Nine-S to be heavily wounded.

We, for our part, left the Sentinel to it, trusting our Assassins to take it out for good, which they did shortly after. Like a dancer we flew through the aliens, the Dusk and Dawn flying around Us with well trained movements. Utilising the Pristine Fortress, we made a crude copy of it in our other hand, by far not as powerful but enough for the smaller models.

With a jab we pierced the skull of a model Three, taking a step to the side to escape another, which quickly died when our left hand came around and the replica polearm buried itself into its neck. 

Our virtual self alerted Us to a group of model Fours that were trying to push past the cover fire that Chloe was laying down, and we turned our attention towards that side of the battlefield. The PRISM spun up, and a moment later the aliens were encased in a quickly shrinking cube of Hard-Light, crushing them and turning them to mush.

By this point over half the cave was now alien free, and our Shield Carriers began to move forwards once more. Since this wasn’t one of the brood chambers, we didn’t have to worry about aliens hatching behind Us, which made things a lot easier.

Bobby threw something into the tunnel that held most of their reinforcements, and a moment later the entire entrance was turned into a blender of thin wires. Our Assassins appeared from it just a moment prior, escaping the destruction, and soon the bigger models were dealt with, the last to go down the model Six that had so far done its best to stop us from steamrolling their forces.

With the defensive lines broken, the clean up was done in short order. Without the model Six the aliens went back to just swarming us, which made dealing with them relatively easy, although some had managed to wound a couple of our voices.

The most wounded immediately began to fall back towards the medical corp, others already turning towards the direction of our cave and making their way over to reinforce our troops. Junior was the one coordinating all of that from the safety of one of the other caves that we had turned into a makeshift command center. It wasn’t really necessary, but, considering how many fronts we had to keep an eye on at the same time, we thought it a worthwhile investment.

Killing the last model Threes, we turned our attention to the tunnels leading further down. One was cleared out entirely, courtesy of Chloe and a few of our War Drones, while the other still had some aliens trying to push through, although after Bobby’s blender grenade they presented easy targets for us. Our Shield Carriers pushed closer and set up their defences, which made it nigh impossible for them to push through.

We sent a couple more projectiles down the tunnel, although by this point it was so infested with nanites that most aliens died before they came even close enough to be killed by either Bobby, Chloe, or our War Drones.

“How’s it looking out there?” we asked Jenna in the lull that followed after the main engagement, keeping our eyes and ears sharp, but utilising the pause to keep track of the rest of the expedition.

“Quiet. Too quiet, to be honest. I’ve seen less and less aliens trying to push out of the caves. Bahamut thinks they might be preparing something.” Her reply was soft, her voice holding a hint of concern.

“Yep, yep! The bigger models are all trying to get back into the Hive, I’ve been doing my best to stop them, but with these tunnels it’s a bit of a tight fit. Guess I gotta lose some weight~” Tiny’s voice joined the conversation, cheerful as ever.

“It’ss the ssame for the other Hivess,” Junior butted in, the familiar hiss sounding a bit sharp over the comms. “The other groupss are finding more and more ressisstance. Glubber iss organissing thingss, Ssnuffless thinkss we might be able to help out a little with the Envoli Glinthawkss.”

“Send them in, then. Bobby, you catch all this?” We turned towards the man who was busy reloading his weapons.

“Aye, I did. I was already pretty sure yesterday, but it feels like the outer circle is smaller than we anticipated, or they have more forces than they should have according to our initial survey. Best prepare for the worst, and quick.”

We nodded at that, mentally sending Bellona an update, even if we were pretty sure it wasn’t required. She replied with a mental confirmation, more or less confirming our suspicions. 

The Hatchlings in our cave, the ones without the Shields, began to collect as much biomass as they could, carrying it back to the closest entrance for Snuffles to take charge of. The more we could collect, the faster we could replenish ourselves, which had become a bit of a necessity.

Watching them work we were distracted for a moment, which made Us miss the slight quacking of the ground. Quacking that quickly became fiercer, at which point we finally took notice, just about the same time Chloe shouted through the cave “Incoming!”

We had just enough time to get out of the way, when the ground exploded and a massive antithesis dug itself out, far too large to fit into the tiny cave. It was halfway stuck in the ground, its back scraped against the ceiling, and the rest of Us immediately started to fire into it.

We joined them a moment later, utilising our Lances and the PRISM to do as much damage as we could, but surprisingly the thing was quite resilient. What was even stranger was that it didn’t seem to react at all, simply opening its massive maw, aliens spewing out of it.

“Model Eighteen!” Bobby shouted, dropping his shotgun and hefting the powerful laser weapon he had used the day prior.

Light and heat erupted from it a moment later, just about the same time we formed a massive Hard-Light construct around the front of the big worm with our PRISM, trying to cut the aliens off from spilling further into the room. Too late we realised that that would just be counter productive, one of Chloe’s grenades bouncing off of the wall and flinging back towards our own troops.

Luckily it was just a freeze grenade, not a lethal one, but we cursed ourselves, quickly dropping the construct. The grenade had hit a number of our War Drones and a few of our Hatchlings, greatly reducing their mobility, some even frozen solid almost instantly.

Bobby’s laser dug into the massive creature without much fuss, boring through it and coming out the other side. He began to move it around, eradicating as much of the alien as he could, but it didn’t die. With a start we remembered that model Eights had multiple brains, the Eighteen very likely shared the trait, considering how similar it was in most other regards.

Despite our fuck up, we were able to deal with the smaller aliens quickly and before they could wreak much havoc. The main problem was that the model Eighteen slowly started to retreat, leaving a massive hole in the ground, one that was very likely connected to the rest of the Hive, which meant it was a weakness in our defences.

Chloe quickly rushed forward, before a number of barricades and items appeared around her, slowly closing off the tunnel, before she purchased another item, a small, box-like drone that began to pour something down the remaining small hole in the barricade. From the consistency of the stuff we guessed it to be some kind of cement or similar material.

“Sorry!” we said to the rest of Us as we rushed over, trying to help those that were frozen.

Luckily for Us, they were pretty resilient, and thanks to the upgraded materials, they didn’t suffer any significant damage from the frostbite. Still, we felt horrible that our mistake had hurt them, even if they didn’t blame Us for it.

A ping from the chatroom caught our attention, and our virtual self turned toward the new message.

[Buckshot Bobby:] We just had an 18 bury into one of the caves, they might be setting up some new tactics.

[Bahamut:] Thanks for the info. I’m organising a large scale ping to find out more about the makeup of the Hives. Stealth is out the window now anyways, no need to hold back with the scans.

Her message was followed by a massive ping on all frequencies, some even potent enough to make Us nauseous for a moment when the low sounds rattled the ground. We were the only one affected from what we could tell, considering our highly upgraded ears. Still, it was very unpleasant.

Quite effective, though.

The map updated almost immediately, with a much more up to date image, even if it didn’t reach down far enough to get a good read on the core of the Hive. What it did reveal was quite alarming, however. Massive groups of aliens, mostly smaller ones, but with a few bigger models amongst them, were moving around the Hives. The center most one was the worst, with almost double the aliens we had to deal with.

“Tiny, get over there and help as much as you can,” we ordered immediately, “Kaori, see what you can do to help. Bellona, can we send some forces over? Without Us, they’ll be overrun in no time.”

“Already on it,” Bellona replied, her mental message containing a small update on the new disposition of our forces.

Then Bahamut came on the horn. “Legion, we might need you on the other Hive. Do you think you can help?”

“I’m already moving my forces into position,” Jenna replied almost immediately.

“We sent some of our own as well, not enough to weaken Us here, or to deal with all the aliens there, but it should help.”

“Thank you. I’ll get back to you if we need something else.” And with that Bahamut disconnected once more, and we turned our attention back to the cave we were still in.

“We should move carefully,” Bobby said with a grimace, “I knew this was going to be a harsh day, but that is so much more than I anticipated. Come on, we don’t have time to waste.”

“One moment,” we said, interrupting him, “We want to see if we can’t get something else to help with all this mess.”

He nodded at that, and we turned our attention to our AI.

“Kaysa, do we have something we can send into the caves deeper down to weaken them? Nanite carriers or toxic drones?”

There are some options, yes. The Mark V Erdbound Silthen is a smaller Hexclaw that can burrow quite fast. It can be equipped with nanite storage or biological warfare equipment. For this I would recommend unlocking the Class I Biological Warfare Catalogue. While it is not as specialised as others, it would allow you a broad arsenal of chemical weapons that would be quite useful in this scenario.

“Get it. And get as many of those drones as we can, and equip them. Make sure that we don’t go over our limit, though. We aren’t quite ready for that yet.”

Understood.

Class I Biological Warfare unlocked!
Points reduced to: 129.744

New purchase: Mark IX Erdbound Silthen x125!
Points reduced to: 85.994

The eggs appeared around Us one after another, some appearing next to the Spotters we still had running around. It took a while, since the Slithen were quite big, although surprisingly cheap. The reason for it became obvious relatively quickly, once the new voices linked up with the rest of Us.

They weren’t meant for dealing with big models. They could fight, of course, but compared to most of Us, they were quite weak, limited to dealing with models in the lower digits. It made sense, their purpose was to spread as many nanites and chemical toxins as they could, and for that they were well equipped.

We grimaced as we realised we were now up to 1398 drones. 102 away from our limit. 

Immediately the Silthen began to burrow deeper into the Hive, some even making their way over to the other Hives. It wouldn’t be a permanent solution, but hopefully it would be enough to weaken the aliens sufficiently to make a difference.

Turning our attention back to Bobby and the rest, we nodded at them. “Okay, ready.”

“Let’s get this over with,” Chloe muttered, before she began to move into the next tunnel, weapon at the ready.

We all nodded, and quickly prepared ourselves for the next altercation with the alien plants infesting this place.

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