Chapter Sixty-Six - Spinning a Yarn

“League of Samurai Legends is a Massive Online Battle Arena that is quite unique, or was when it first released. The game plays as a 3v1, with three players on the ‘samurai’ team working together against an ‘antithesis’ player who controls the opposing faction.

The samurai players control various historical and current samurai, as well as a few original characters, buying gear as they rack up points for completing objectives and killing antithesis npcs.

The antithesis player interacts with the game in an entirely different way, controlling it as a micro-management-heavy RTS wherein they create and react to the choices of the samurai players.

Games can be extremely tight, and it affords and encourages a wide range of tactics and playstyles.”

--LoSL wiki page, 2034

***

I lurched forwards, claws swiping towards a model five which I grabbed with almost contemptuous ease. Then, while shifting back and to the side to avoid a rush from some smaller aliens, I raised my mech up onto its hindlegs for just a moment and spiked the tanky model five into its comrades.

I didn’t stick around, however, and bounded ahead with several leaps while my remaining Gatling gun fired off small bursts into the more densely packed crowds of aliens.

The nice thing about being in a several-ton warmech was that the little aliens were basically a non-threat, and most of the antithesis here were little ones.

Advanced stealth bullshit meant the antithesis only knew where I am was I stopped to wreck their shit. The rest of the time, they were just running around, clueless.

The antithesis were circling around their mobile hive, a few hundred of them bumping into each other as they created a cordon of plant meat around the biggest alien around, keeping it safe.

Well, not really that safe.

A flick of my thumb folded the mech's back plates just enough for the mortars to poke out and fire. A subsystem of a subsystem tracked their trajectory as they flew in a nice arc and landed spread out amongst the aliens.

Then they detonated, and alien meat was sent flying all over.

I continued to move, back clasping shut even as I avoided a swarm of model ones swooping over the spot where I’d been with suicidal speed.

On a whim, I turned around and pinged one of the black birds in the middle of the flock. The mech’s auto-targeting started to draw lines to it, telling me exactly where I needed to aim and how much leeway I had in positioning myself. I unfolded the 105mm cannon on my right side and adjusted the mech’s stance so that the gun could align itself on the fly.

I fired the moment the auto-targeting went green, and my mech’s hindclaws dug into the road as it absorbed the recoil.

The shell detonated in the middle of the model ones, fire and shrapnel and a powerful concussive blast turning the entire flock into cooked meat.

That had given away my position, but at this point, I wasn’t caring so much.

There were three artillery models near the shoreline, hanging back until they had an idea of where I was. An alarm rang in my head as they fired, so I moved, running around in a large curve. Halfway there, I pounced up and landed onto a model four, squishing it beneath my weight before I started to jump ahead in a zig-zag pattern. My thagomizer-tail flicked from side to side, splattering aliens with every swipe.

Then I was amongst the artillery models and ripping them apart.

There was something insanely visceral about chomping down on an alien the length of a schoolbus and then shaking my head around while bits of it flew off in every direction.

Yeah, I was having too much fun in melee range, but I was also in a giant warmech, which made it possible to be this close without worrying too much.

Once the last of the aliens was spread out across a couple of acres, I found myself panting in my cockpit with exhilaration and looking for my next target.

The mobile hive. It was still being protected.

But it wasn’t looking my way, and a hundred-odd little shits wasn’t going to stop me.

I laughed within the confines of my cockpit as I sprinted across the distance between us, then leapt across the last sixty or so metres, guns unfolding on my side to fire while I was in mid-air even as the thrusters built into the mech’s legs fired off, giving me a bit more forwards momentum and cooking the aliens below me.

Then I crashed into the alien, claws digging into armoured scales able to deflect tank shells as if they were butter.

I rolled into a ball, the longer claws of my hindlegs scratching wildly into the alien’s side even as I bit onto its back to keep myself in place.

Aliens were charging in from all over, coming around the model twenty-two and leaping up onto me even as the bigger model struggled to stay standing, even with six trunk-like legs.

I was getting rid of the smaller ones, though, swiping them away with whip-cracking strikes from my tail and with constant fire from my Gatling guns.

Still, they were starting to be an annoyance. I had at least a dozen model threes chewing ineffectually at my armour, but there was a tiny chance they’d ding my paint.

“Load up the mortars. Two concussive, four resonators,” I said.

Done.

I opened the mech’s back and instantly fired the mortars, but I adjusted them to fire with barely enough force to just drop onto the ground next to me.

The concussion grenades went off a split second after I closed my back up.

The explosions splashed the model threes and their bigger buddies, clearing out the entire side of the model twenty-two.

I shoved off, landed on my forepaws, then ran a bit, tail slicing into the alien’s skin as I shot past it.

Then I turned hard, jaw opening up even as I locked onto the ugly alien’s face and got ready to be warmed up.

The railgun fired, then reloaded and fired again.

For good measure, I unloaded the last couple of rounds left in my 105mm cannons.

The model twenty-two stumbled to the side, then crashed to the ground with enough mass left to it to shake the entire street.

The last of the aliens left around here charged my way, but a quick swipe of a paw splattered them, and a roar from my Gatling gun took care of those that weren’t close enough for that.

I turned, attention to my sensors as I looked for more... only there weren’t any. “Huh,” I said.

Well done. The area’s cleared.

The area was more than cleared. It was fucked. Every building in the area was either on fire or would have looked better if it was. Dozens of very loud cannons going off and stray 10mm rounds from my Gatling guns had shredded homes and lakeside businesses.

That wasn’t accounting for the street itself.

Claw marks deep enough to crouch in marked the road, painting a wild picture of everywhere I’d run. Bodies, most of them in several pieces, were splattered all over the place, and the road was painted in soot and chlorophyll.

The biggest corpse was still smoking, its insides burning.

As I watched, a small egg-like thing flopped out of the side of the model twenty-two and squirmed for a moment. Then a tiny model three broke free from the shell it was born in and shook itself.

I walked over and crushed it into the road. “Well, I guess, uh... yeah, that was something.”

You might want to take a moment to cool down. Your heart is still racing at nearly dangerous levels and your body temperature is higher than optimal.

The AC kicked on properly, and I let out a sigh. She was probably right. I blinked a few times, my organic eye burning and somewhat exhausted. “Gomorrah, things are cleared up here,” I said.

“Got it. Bombing run’s finishing up along the shore. I’ll be passing back over where you are and dropping something a little more permanent in... about five minutes.”

“Alright,” I said as I sat the mech down. I was tempted to lick the blood off my paws, then I realized that it didn’t matter, and I didn’t have a tongue and... why the fuck would I do that? “I’ll uh, stay here for a bit then.”

“That was impressive, Stray Neko-Sama!” Intel-chan said. “I saw from the bomber’s feed. Well, I saw some of it. You were invisible for most of that, but it was still awesome to see. Too bad the aliens don’t have morale, because if they did, we’d just send them the vid and they’d surrender.”

“Thanks, I think,” I said.

“Do you mind if I share it? It’ll be good for our morale, at least. And you’re less likely to be shot on the way back!”

I snorted. “Yeah, sure, if it’ll help a little.”

“Nice! In any case, I put in a special order for you, and also, the reinforcements are arriving early. ETA one hour.”

Reinforcements... holy shit, about time. I could feel a bit of stress leaking from my back, but I tried to keep my hopes in check. “What’s the order?” I asked, curious.

“A big, big ball of yarn,” Intel-chan said.

***