Chapter Thirty-One - Sprout
“Samurai may have similar profiles with several commonalities, but it’s worth noting that every one is a unique individual, and applying the same brush across all of them will lead to errors in judgement and application.”
--On the Mental and Psychological Treatment of Samurai Patients - 2046 Psychological Profiling Database
***
I stepped out of the toy store and nodded to the nearest militia guys. “Place is clear for now,” I said. “Move on to the next place that needs you.” And with that said I grabbed onto the back of the pickup I’d ridden over and climbed onboard. “Intel, got any news for me?”
“Ohaio!”
I suppressed a full-body twitch. Intel-chan’s avatar now had a pair of cat ears on, both sticking out of a hairband of all things. “What?”
“Sprout-dono could probably use your help. He’s in bad shape. Not kawaii at all.”
I glared. “Are you getting worse?” I asked.
The avatar’s eyes widened into a look of pure, unbelievable innocence. “What do you mean, Stray Neko-sama?”
“Pain in the ass,” I muttered. “What’s wrong with Sprout? Is he alright?”
“He was injured while taking care of the other sneaky-sneaky hive,” Intel-chan said. “I sent more of our backline to the area to help stop the antithesis from spreading out from there.”
That was frustrating. “How’s the front-line?” I asked.
"So far so good! There’s less aliens than there were before!”
That didn’t sound right at all. “Myalis, what’s that mean?”
It either means that the nanomachine attack was significantly more effective than expected, or the antithesis are holding back for reasons unknown.
“Let’s assume that it’s the aliens fucking with us, that’s the worse possibility, isn’t it? Don’t they usually just charge in mindlessly? What’s keeping them back?”
Higher tier antithesis can sometimes display a certain level of tactical and strategic acumen. Lower-tier antithesis also tend to remain in the vicinity of their greater counterparts. It’s an instinct that presses them to protect the more valuable members of the hive.
So we were probably going to get messed up by some higher-tier aliens soon. “Intel-chan, keep an eye out for any models in the double digits. I want to be informed right away if we start seeing more of them.”
“Yes ma’am!” Intel-chan said with a sloppy salute.
“And tell the driver to get me to Sprout’s location. I want to see how badly he’s hurt, then we need to plug that hole.”
I got moving soon after, the militiaman at the wheel zipping across the city with no regard for any laws, which I supposed was only fair. We didn’t need to get too far before reaching the spot where Sprout was supposed to destroy the antithesis pushing in from below.
There were a dozen armoured trucks and a couple of APCs sitting around in two groups. Stacks of sandbags had been placed in lumps across the street with machine guns on bipods set up to aim at a single building.
It wasn’t all that big of a building, maybe seven stories high, with the kind of dull grey facing and squarish architecture designed to make your eye skim right past it. It barely had any ads on it too. An office building of some sort, then? Maybe a call centre or one of those places where a couple of hundred coders were locked into cubicles and made to write lines all day.
The first floor’s walls were covered in a spray of bullet holes, most concentrated around a nondescript doorway which looked like it had been smashed out. A few corpses--all antithesis--were splattered on the sidewalk, hinting at who had ripped the door out of the wall.
The pickup slowed to a stop and I jumped out, landing without any sound and just a slight bend to my knees.
Instantly, I noticed a dozen militia folk looking my way and I could see the tension bleeding off their shoulders. “Intel-chan, who’s in charge here?”
“That would be Sprout-dono, I guess. But if you mean for the militia, Second Lieutenant Hawke.”
“What’s with all of the second lieutenants?” I muttered. I’d seen more people at that rank than any other.
“There’s a big pay hike from second to first, so most people end up stuck as a second lieutenant forever. It’s not like the militia really needs people to be captains or whatever. An officer’s an officer.”
Ah, so it was capitalism. That made sense. “Tell Hawke to meet me,” I said as I searched for Sprout. I found him waiting at the back of an ambulance. The samurai was sitting at the back, legs just a little bit off the ground and back bent in the kind of posture that would lead to lower back pain in a few years.
He didn’t look like he was bleeding out and I counted the average number of limbs on him.
I walked over to him while glancing at the building a few times. No windows, so there was no telling what was going on inside. “Myalis, is there still power in there?” I asked.
There is, yes. Did you want me to plug into the building’s security network?
“That would be nice. Give us an idea of what’s going on without having to stick our head in,” I said. Then I came to a stop in front of Sprout. The man didn’t even look up, focused as he was on the ground between his feet. “Hey.”
Sprout looked up, mouth forming a little ‘o’ before he blinked and looked around. I’d seen the same expression on guilty kittens before. “Ah, uh, hi,” he said.
“I heard you got hurt, figured I’d come and see what I could do to help,” I said. I wanted to ask him why he looked so guilty, but sometimes it was better to let that kind of thing come out on its own.
“I’m... yeah, I’m alright,” he said. He tapped his chest, and I noted that he was wearing a suit of armour on. It didn’t look too impressive, a skin-tight suit which he’d thrown a surplus bulletproof vest over. A helmet sat on the edge of the ambulance next to him. Just a thing that would cover the top of his head and his ears. He had a satchel sitting next to him, a ruddy old thing that looked like it had seen better days.
“I...” he finally met my eyes, then he looked away. I had the impression he wanted to be angry at me but couldn’t muster up the willpower for it. “I went to see what I could do,” he said. “It didn’t work out.”
“Alright,” I said.
“I got chewed up. If it wasn’t for the militia people, for my armour, I’d be dead.”
I frowned, happy that he couldn’t see my expression at the moment. “What did you meet in there?” I asked.
“Just some model threes. Not even a lot of them.” He leaned forwards and cupped his face in his hands. “Fuck.”
That summed it up nicely, yeah.
“And now you’re like this because you couldn’t handle it?” I asked. It wasn’t nice of me, I knew, but damn if I didn’t have time to play therapist. “You know, it’s not all bad. You’re still new. Can’t expect to be great out of the gate.”
“I’ve been a samurai for three days now,” he said. “Johnny’s as new as me. He wouldn’t have any trouble. Manic... she’d enjoy it. I’m...” he shook his head. “I’m not made for this. I don’t know why I was chosen at all.”
“Hey, calm down,” I said. I placed a hand on his shoulder and tightened my grip. “Tell me what went wrong.”
“I told you,” he said.
“No, you told me what happened. Tell me what went wrong.”
He shook his head, but replied all the same. “I don’t know. I tried to not be noticed so that I could plant a few things, but my plants take a lot of time to grow. I thought I could just put a few of them down and let them grow to fill the hole. They’ve been good at stopping smaller models so far.”
“Alright, and what happened?” I asked.
“They attacked me. I couldn’t fight them off.”
I nodded slowly. “Do you have a gun?” I asked.
“I lost it,” he said.
I shut off the mic on my helmet so that I could let out a long sigh. This guy was... not front-line material. He didn’t have that edge, that willingness to jump into trouble and mess up the enemy.
Gomorrah had it in spades. She enjoyed seeing the enemy burn. Manic was as violent and temperamental as they came. Even Johnny, while he was more focused on himself, was willing to jump into trouble to punch it.
Sprout struck me as something of a pacifist, which was a fantastic thing to be, I was sure, but it was also not the best trait for a samurai to have.
“We’ll figure it out,” I told him, and I hoped I was right because I needed every samurai I could get right now.
***
He seems like a defensive-type, not everyone's built to go out and shoot/burn/maim xenos in their homes
Tyftc
Not even defensive, I'd say he belongs in a lab well behind the front lines. Samurai come in all shapes and sizes, so I guess it makes sense that some are supports instead of fighters.
Imagine him making his own bio-engineered army…
@Num He needs a Mobile Command Center, a samurai version of the giant tank/car thing we've seen a couple of times now. His plants while bad as a rapid reponse or offensive force are probably well suited for longer defensive attrition battles, also maybe he should spec into medical go full support role.
Oof, poor guy.
Words are kinda hard at the moment so a small comment, but thank you <3
Maybe he can grow Groot like units yes guardians of galaxy, probably first type of Groot's is a bodyguard type ment protect him, maybe if he makes his planet biotech so they have capable to have technology added into them, think of planet version of a android, then for personal armor maybe get him a mecha like armor though tough as heck can take beating it's ment help him in command role advanced communication to his plants, and other units of his, my idea is fusion of a adult Groot and hulkbuster armor but focused on unit control and deployment with defense so he isn't taking out do to his low cqc capabilities. Ooh maybe go a Japanese samurai style hulkbuster armor made of plants and bio tech. If his units are slow to create and he seems like defensive role maybe he should be come next maple from bofuri, army style.
Another unit of the plant guy, is idea of massive five story buildings tall at minimum think of redwood tree mixed with a sandbox tree, then connected to tree is half foot thick vine like limbs, ment for long range wiping and sweeping attacks to, with tip being a tri claws that can spin like a drill, across length of these three limbs are razor shaped thorns that spin around lime like a shredder, think of metal devils of zero dawn limbs but bio tech plants, do working like limbs with drill like parts it can attack both above and below ground easily, the roots of this unit has special organs that are made to detect presences of hive units, these sensor roots are main roots them selves and grow to about three miles deep next is set of roots that really only about a inch thick that grows making a weaved mesh and if two or more of these units are near enough the mesh's will link them selves to get her becoming one network, in this mesh will grow a thick thorns hedge's, this prevent hive units from tunneling between units, inside of these plants grow special runny sap thought hole thing when touched by hive units will act like acid to only hive and it's units this prevent hive using his plants as material to grow hive bigger or more units, sap is harmless to everything else, thought this sap only works for units of two digits or lower, triple digit units and hives of similar caliber won't even flinch, I think he be samurai focused on double digits and lower units and hives. Idea for this unit is more idea it's end result could look like, may he gets some of these ideas but on weaker version at first but makes them more deadly as he grows, next idea is all his non movable plant units plant them selves on these hedges as foundations would for a building, but for plants.
And in seeing the release of Cinnamon Bun Vol 4, may I just add the BMW X3 named after Amaryllis continues to huff along?
aww! lol! Happy to hear it's still rumbling along!
Sprout has potential but I’m not sure if he will ever get enough points to realize it.
Thanks for writing!
Is you magical girl series somewhere other than Patreon? Was wanting to check it out, but didn't see it.
Magical Girl Crystal Genocide? Yeah, it's on here now! But if you want to read way, way ahead, then my patreon's the best place!
@RavensDagger I see it now, I apologize, last time I looked was last week, should have checked again before asking.
Thanks for writing I love your work!
Thanks for the chapter!
Yeah, he definitely should be on a support role lol.
Oh my god I actually got all caught up! Great series so far! I'm glad Lucy is doing more in the story than just being at home!
thanks for the chapter!