Despite the warning, I was nearly caught out of position as the tunnel was pletely filled with antithesis. A wave of Model Threes, pressed together so tightly they were practically trampling each other in the frenzy to advance, came swarming around the bend behind us.

  As soon as they did, my bears, which reacted much faster than I did, started mercilessly cutting them down. Moments ter, they were supported by Jesse’s heavy mae gun and Whisperer’s repeating rifle, both of which puraight through multiple ranks with ease. While this was happening, Tina’s spiders created a thin defensive liween us and the antithesis, ready to jump on anything that got by.

  “Do we try to terattaow, or wait until we have a solid pn?!” Jesse yelled, his voice almost pletely drowned out by his oversized on.

  “Fuo! We might not have an amazing pn, but we have one. We o move before the Seventeens pull their tendrils back, so we move the instant there’s an opening! Red and Bob bowl over most opposition. The important thing is we don’t waste the ce. I have a feeling if we miss the Seventeens, they’ll be a lot more cautious going forward!” I yelled back.

  “Speaking of which!” Whisperer shouted. “The front line is already thinning!”

  It was true, the wave of Model Threes was already falling apart, revealing the smaller group of Model Fours, Fives, and Sixes behind them. These slightly rger models were definitely strohan their smaller cousins, but still no match for our bined firepower. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t a Fourteen bag up this group.

  “Go?!” Whisperer asked over the gunfire.

  “Go!” I replied.

  Red darted forward, smashing right through the antithesis front lihe fused antithesis turned and tried to attack the offending wolf creature, but Red’s hide was far too thick for the low level models to injure. While they were fused, Bob, Tina, and I rushed through the pack. Bob did his part, fttening a few Models as he ran by, while I just struggled to keep up. As I passed the back line, a couple of the Sixes seemed to have a seizure, then keeled over, dying en masse. Just like the Model Nine we had caught in the cavern.

  “I hope you have the target, Red, because I think they’re onto us!” I yelled. The wolf just growled in response and accelerated further.

  It was a good thing that I was so far behind, because around the bend, Red and Bob nearly ran face first into a Fourteen, barreling dowuhe wolf skidded to a halt, temporarily blog my bear, and f Tina to swerve up onto the wall. There was a slightly higher roof clearan this se, which she took full advantage of, crawling onto the roof and dropping a couple of her acid spiders directly on the beast’s back. This sudden, deadly barrage stopped the monstrosity in its tracks, but also left the tunnel mostly blocked.

  “Nyx, Melters, extra strength,” I gasped as I slid to a stop o Bob. The taihat appeared in my hands was closer to an industrial soup pot than a grenade. I sidered the best way to chuck the thing, but before I could figure it out Bob reached over and plucked the thing from my arms. With a single paw he chucked it right into the ter of the Fourteen. Within seds, the mass of antithesis flesh had heavily wilted, slowly revealing the passage beyond.

  Red turned his head and looked at me in . “Go! I’ll catch up!” I yelled as I tried to catch my breath. The wolf required no further prompting and took off with Tina close behind. I thought Bob would just follow the others, but when I stopped in order to catch my sed wind, the big bear picked me up and threw me over his shoulder.

  “What the fuck are you doing?!” I yelped in surprise.

  “No o behind! We all o stick together!” Bob decred.

  From my position, I couldn’t see anything besides the tunnel behind us, and the rough movement was starting to make me feel a little ill. “’t you at least carry me properly?”

  “No time for that! Fighting time!” the bear replied as he ripped me back off his shoulder, spun me around, and pced me on the ground as he charged into a line of low level models. It took me a moment tain my orientation, which left me looking at… something. It was a misshapen mass, simir to a maggot, but had a number of sacs hanging off the sides, which appeared to be spitting out Model Threes at an arming rate. The creature, which seemed slightly armed by our arrival, had been mung on a part of the wall to sustain itself. I shuddered as the vaguely humanoid face, surrounded by scything feeding talons, looked my way for a sed before very slowly turning and trying to block the tunnel.

  I didn’t waste another sed, and pulled one of the XRs off my shoulder. I aimed at the ugly creature without dropping to the ground, or properly brag the oversized on, and pulled the trigger. There was a moment of disorientation as the discharge blinded me, and the kickback pushed me back a few feet, but that was nothing pared to the damage to the creature. The round tht through its soft, rubbery hide and punched a two foot hole through the ter. Somehow, that didn’t quite stop it.

  The middle se started spasming randomly, but the front and back kept moving, trying to block the tunnel.

  “I’ve got it!” Tina yelled as she released a load of her spiders into the wound. The bat spiders crawled into the space I’d created, and started spitting acid into the sides of the wound. Within moments, the wound was three times wider and still growing.

  While we were messing with what I could only assume was a Twenty-Two, Red finished dealing with the mass of low level antithesis and was struggling to push past the creature's corpse, whining the eime. “Please tell me that fug brain thing isn’t going to get away after all this,” I huffed as I walked up to the devastated pile of flesh. “Nyx…”

  “I’ve got it!” Bob decred, cutting me off. Before I could ask questions, he charged straight through the wound, spraying acid everywhere and crushing one of the spiders. I was so shocked, it took me a mio react. “Nyx, flesh melter!” I called out, tossing the greo the mess a sed ter.

  The mess melted agonizingly slowly. Just beyond, I could just vaguely see movement, but I couldn’t tell exactly what it was. Ohe creature melted enough, Red vaulted the sludge, with Tina and I following seds ter. We sprinted dowunnel, desperately trying to catch up to Bob, and thankfully we didn’t have far to go. The big bear seemed to be stu a huge melee in front of another colpsed Model Fourteen with a suspiciously paed impact wound in its head, blog the tunnel. All around, a team of Model Sixes were trying tahemselves, and bog the bear down so the remaining antithesis could devour the corpse.

  Bob was having none of it. By the time we arrived, only one or two Models mao dig a couple of inches into the carapace before Bob bashed them back.

  “Did we fail?” Tina asked as we survived the age. “I don’t see any anders anywhere.”

  Red shen darted into the middle of a small group of Model Threes, before biting down on something I couldn’t see. As soon as he did, half the remaining Model Sixes colpsed like broken puppets. With his first quarry killed, the big wolf turned and started advang on anroup.

  A sed ter, something shot out of the mob of aliens. It was small, even smaller than the Model Threes it was using for camoufge. It quickly skittered forward on four limbs, struggling to get away, only to be impaled on one of Tina’s legs.

  As soon as it died, the remaining Antithesis either spasmed themselves to death, or shot towards us as an untrolled mob. It didn’t take long for us to them up.

  Ohe fighting was done, I went over to check out the corpse. The thing was ugly, almost tick-like in appeara had eight rge eyes that were, thankfully, now bereft of life. The bloated abdomen had several hair-like structures which, on closer iion, had tiny, nearly invisible strands emerging from them.

  “It certainly doesn’t look like something with massive intelligence capable of pnning coorditacks,” I mumbled before dropping my st flesh melter on the creature.

  “You think that’ll solve our harassment issue?” Tina asked as I stood up.

  “I’m not sure. If the maggot thing was the mobile hive, we probably at least slowed them down. Hopefully it’ll be enough for us to make up for some time,” I replied. As I looked back at the trail of devastation we’d left further back dowunnel, I realized something. “Do you remember the way back?”

  She just smiled iurn.