“I fug hate this,” I mumbled as I wiped the antithesis juiy visor. The antithesis had sealed up every tunnel between us and our destination, ae providing aire squad of bears with thermal axes in order to speed up our advance, progress was still slow. It didn’t help that the antithesis apparently still had forces hidden iuo harass us. The st wave even had a Model Thirteen, which Bob had to smash against a wall to stop, pletely coatih its juice. Luckily, my armor was enviroally sealed, or I’d be swimming in antithesis guts.

  “How have they not run out of reinforts by now?” Tina whined. “We must have killed thousands by now, but they never fully it. Why not just rush us?”

  “I don’t uand it either,” Whisperer replied as she took a few steps further away from me. “Plus, it’s mainly been the chaff, like Threes, Fours, and Fives, and the occasional Thirteens. The hive has the ability to produce Seventeens, where are the her models?”

  “I don’t know, maybe they ’t crawl out of whatever space the Seventeens are hiding,” I grumbled, doing my best to de-goop my armor. “Maybe the Seventeens ’t trol the big bastards, or maybe they’re just produg an army behind us, who the fuows.”

  Everyouro look at me. “What?” I asked as I stood up straight, shaking the st of the residue off my gloves.

  “It would make sense, given the circumstances,” Jesse said.

  I gnced back at the trio, slightly fused. “What would? Did I miss something here?”

  “They might have a couple Model Twenty-Twos crawling around behind us,” Whisperer replied. “It would expin why we’re being swarmed by waves of small models instead of a huge frontal assault.”

  “What the fuck is a Twenty-Two?” I growled. “And why does everyone know about it?”

  “It’s a mobile hive,” Tina expined. “Eats up biomass, then pumps out the lower models. They’re usually used to bolster the front lines of a major assault, or produce satellite hives. I did some research following my first incursion to find out about what models I might enter in future enters,” she said, gng my way. “I heard you were fighting ile, how have you NOT heard of them before?”

  “I’ve never entered one before,” I replied defensively. “I guess I could have looked up other models, but sidering the number of times I’ve entered fucked-up mutants and variants, I’d prefer not to waste my time on research. I have other things to do.”

  “Well, I guess that’s your choice,” Whisperer said. I could hear a trace of disappoi in her voice, but chose to ig. “The question is, if they do have a Twenty-Two or two behind us, do we go after them or leave them?

  “If we them up, it’ll make it easier for us to advaina said.

  “My bears aren’t built for pursuing an oppo,” I replied. “Plus, we don’t actually know if these Model Twenty-Two exist or not. It may be a waste of time.”

  “I think it’s worth a try,” Jesse interjected. “Even if we ’t find the Twenty-Two, we should be able to follow those threads to the Seventeens. Taking care of those would probably slow dowacks too.”

  “I agree,” Whisperer said. She reached up, and scratched her massive wolf pet us . “If you don’t think your bears keep up, Red here track the nerve es instead. The problem is that the cave is too narrow, so I ’t ride him into battle like usual. He’s strong, but I don’t know if he hold off an army of antithesis long enough for the rest of us to catch up. He’d need backup.”

  Tina’s hand shot into the air. “Oh, Oh, Oh! I think I help with that.”

  “Really? How?” Jesse asked.

  “I’ve had my eye on a set of Css I power armor for awhile now, and even though I don’t have enough to get all the funality I want, I afford some of it,” the girl said proudly. “It should be fast enough to keep up with Red.”

  “Spider themed, of course,” I said.

  “Of course!” she replied with a smile.

  “I could probably attempt to follow as well, I have some bionics, but as you all know, I doly specialize in bat,” I told the group. “The best I could do is take a couple railguns and provide fire support.”

  “I keep up too!” came a call from behind. I turo see Bob standing directly behind me. “I may not be able to jump too high, but I build up quite a bit of speed once I get going.”

  “He talk?” Tina asked in surprise.

  “It’s a ret upgrade, which pretty much bankrupted me, but yeah. Guess I fot to mention that,” I replied.

  The girl stared for a moment, then waved. “Hi.”

  “Howdy!” Bob replied with a robotic smile.

  “Well, that would give us a pretty det assault team,” Whisperer said. “So, do we do it?”

  “I don’t see a reason why not,” I admitted. “As long as we don’t get in over our heads, I think shutting down the Seventeens would be a good idea. We could definitely advance faster if we didn’t have to deal with these coorditacks.”

  “Then we’re all in agreement,” Jesse said. He g his massive on, which was currently burning the facade off the back of one of the moose. “I also have enough points to get an upgrade or two so I help hold the line here. I have enough to make a few purchases, while maintaining a surplus for emergencies.”

  “Fine, rather than advang right away, you tend a few minutes getting year. We o take a break anyway. Once you’re suited up, we’ll discuss the best way to deal with the wave,” Whisperer decred.

  Tina and Jesse he off to separate ses of the tuo prepare. After they left, Whisperer wandered over to me. “Do you holy think this is a good idea?” she asked. “You didly look happy with the idea.”

  “No, but these attacks are slowing us down, and I don’t have aer ideas,” I replied with a shrug. “I don’t know if there are any Model Twenty-Twos, like you guys suspect, but at least clearing out the Model Seventeens should prevent the rest of the swarm from coordinating.”

  “That’s the hope,” Whisperer said. Red started whimpering behind us, which pulled her attention, so I wandered off to che Jesse and Tina.

  Jesse had apparently picked up a suit of heavy power armor. It wasn’t as big as Humboldt’s suit, but it was heavy and apparently had an armature to mount his massive psma on off of. It also had peared to be a water tank on the back to help keep the on cool. It looked a little bit like some sort of futuristic, heavily armored firefighter. A firefighter desigo burn things. He also upgraded his rifle to something that looked closer to an LMG, which looked small when pared to his massive frame.

  Tina, oher hand, had something a little more exotic. Her power armor looked like the thorax and abdomen of a spider, with an armored human torso rising out of the front. The back of the spider opened, which allowed the girl to kneel down, and wiggle ihe suit before the ehing closed up again. As soon as she was secure, Tina started climbing the walls in the meical monstrosity, cag with glee as she did so. I watched her scramble around for a minute, climbing all the way to the roof, before embedding some sort of tow hook into the roof and rappelling down. The thing was more bulky than most humanoid suits, but not by much, and it did make her much mile than she was before.

  “Whoh, headrush. No more walking on the ceiling until I get rid of the vertigo,” she mumbled as she nded o me.

  “That’s an… impressive suit. You said it’s not even finished yet?” I asked.

  “You mean it’s big, right?” Tina replied. A se of her helmet retracted, allowio see her smiling face. “I admit, it’s a lot more bulky than my inal suit, but that’s iional. My spiders are useful in bat but get expeo stantly repce, so I want to put a fabrication system in the abdomen. It takes up a lot of space,” she said, patting the back of her suit.

  “I’m aware,” I replied. “I do have some experieh that sort of thing.” She looked at me a little strangely and started to ask a question, whearted growling. Less than a sed ter, Bandit sent me a warning. I really didn’t , though. I could already feel the vibrations eg through the tunnel.

  “Guess we’re not going to get a ce to pn,” Whisperer shouted as she lifted her rifle. “The wave is already ing, get ready!”