When Bob killed the Twenty-Three it was like we’d kicked a hornet’s nest.

  Hundreds of Antithesis flooded up from the riverside, including several more Twenty-Threes. Ironically the big ones didn’t cause much of an issue for us, Bob and the Kodiaks could dispatch them in seconds, It was the endless, relentless wave of smaller models that bogged us down. Despite their best efforts the rabbits couldn’t clear fast enough with their SMGs. We might have even been pushed back if it wasn’t for Heavy and his rotary laser cannon.

  Even with his help, progress was slow. We had to really grind our way through the scrub brush and down to the riverbank.

  When we finally emerged, I took a quick look around and tried to determine the situation.

  It seemed like most of the Antithesis were pouring out from somewhere under the bridge. Although I couldn’t see the tunnels from this angle, the near-constant stream of plants was a pretty good indication that something was there.

  There had to be almost a dozen Eights on the south side of the river, either being carried out of the town or down the riverbanks by groups of Fours. The massive worms were heavily bloated with biomass, and it took several of the bear-sized Antithesis to carry them.

  I didn’t know what they were full of, but I wasn’t going to let the oversized maggots get back to a hive. Receiving that much biomass all at once would make the Antithesis population in that area explode.

  Leaving Bob and Heavy to deal with the horde, I sighted the nearest worm and opened fire. My micro missiles dug deep into the massive maggot, blowing chunks out of it, but the creature barely seemed to notice. Their distributed nervous system and lack of pain response meant I’d pretty much have to pulp the thing to put it down. Even then, the Antithesis would probably just carry its body back to the hive and recycle it.

  Grimacing slightly at the realization, I adjusted my aim and targeted the Fours carrying the massive worms instead. The nearest group, still oblivious to my attempts to stop them, had marched up to the nearest bridge support and started hauling the Eight up and across the river using the underside of the bridge.

  That gave me an opening. I fired a short burst into the Fours, which weren’t obscured by the maggot’s bulk. One of the creatures immediately died, dropping into the river below, while the other tried to hold on for another few seconds. Half of its tentacles drooped, while the other half strained with the increased strain. It managed to hold onto the Eight for much longer than I expected, but in the end it lost its grip, and the massive worm slowly rolled towards it, then plummeted to the riverbank where it exploded into a fountain of gore and viscera.

  Since Eights didn’t really digest anything, they were little more than a glorified bag or vacuum cleaner for the Antithesis. I got a really good look at what was in its stomach.

  It was horrible. Mostly made up of plant matter, with the occasional small animal mixed in, but there were a couple of parts that were obviously human. The communication blackout really seemed to have worked in the Antithesis' favor.

  “Fucking monsters,” I muttered under my breath as I started clearing up the remaining Fours with a vengeance. It didn’t take much to disrupt the squads. The loss of just one or two out of every group left them unable to lift the Eights. The worms were practically helpless on their own and it would take them hours to crawl away. They’d be easy to clean up when the fighting was over.

  “Uhhh…. Boss….” Bob called as I cleaned up the harvesting crews.

  “What? More Twenty-Threes? Twenty-Eights?” I shouted without looking over.

  “Not exactly… HEADS UP!” Bob’s warning was accompanied by a sharp cracking sound. I ducked behind a nearby rock before turning to see what had happened.

  One of the Kodiaks, several of the Rabbits, and even a half dozen Antithesis had been impaled by massive bone spikes attached to long, ropey vines. After a second the vines suddenly retracted, pulling the impaled troops and even the IFV with them.

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  The vehicle plowed through the smaller Antithesis before coming to a stop right at the base of an absolutely monstrous… thing. It didn’t resemble a creature as much as it did an overgrown houseplant. A massive orange flower with vivid yellow-red stamen swung wildly from the top. Below this bulb was a huge mass of writhing vines, some as thick as tree trunks, thrashing wildly.

  It vaguely reminded me of a Four, with a body made of vines and the harpoons, but this thing didn’t seem to have any sort of front or back. It was just a fifteen-foot ball of vines topped with a flower.

  The harpoons didn’t just drag the Kodiak up to the mass of vegetation--they kept pullin, slowly dragging the vehicle against its prodigious mass. The constantly churning mass couldn’t instantly crush the vehicle, but it still managed to slowly break it down with its relentless assault.

  “The fuck is that?” I snarled as the other vehicles opened up on the new Antithesis, ineffectively.

  Thirty-Four-C. A terror unit that wanders blindly and fires harpoons to drag everything around it closer. It regenerates extremely quickly, and the vines act as ablative armor, so it’ll be difficult to take down. Extremely dangerous.

  “A Thirty-Four? How could something that massive develop without anyone noticing?”

  My best guess? A cultured development that was directed by a command model.

  “Any recommendations?”

  With your current forces? Retreat.

  “Any Better recommendations?” I growled. A second set of harpoons exploded outwards, flying in every direction, embedding themselves in friend and foe alike. Thankfully there was a mass of Antithesis between my forces acting like a shield, otherwise the creature probably would have wiped us out in that opening salvo.

  They’re even closer to a terrestrial plant than most standard Antithesis models. Fire might work.

  “I doubt even a Moose would survive that thrashing for very long,” I muttered. “Nyx, time for an addition to my forces.”

  What are you thinking?

  “Bob has proved himself time and time again, and I’ve never gotten him back up. That ends today. I want assault bots, but in addition to the basic Class II setup, I want them to have flamethrowers. Flamethrowers hot enough to melt steel, or bring that oversized shrub down.”

  If you want to bring it down quickly, they’ll probably need to have Class II Plasma projectors.

  “Do it!”

  That tech isn’t completely stable at Class II… if they’re fired for more than ten seconds every minute, they’ll melt the barrel and set any wood objects within ten feet on fire from the heat.

  “Will their thermal armor hold?” I asked.

  Yes…

  “Then do it!” I shouted again.

  Purchased - Class I Thermal Projection Weapons - 500 Points

  Purchased - Class II Thermal Projection Weapons - 2000 Points + 1 Token

  Purchased - XAR-4506 assault bots x3 - Plasma projector variant - 7500

  Points Remaining: 63892

  Three massive eight-foot tall bots materialized directly in front of me. They weren’t bears or anything else that I’d recognize. Grey fur with black limbs, long black stripes down their backs, and a longer muzzle. The three of them snarled, baring their teeth and extending the long claws that the Class II assault bots had, and charged.

  They didn’t even stop to engage the smaller Antithesis, trampling the Model Threes and shoulder-checking the Model Fours out of the way as they charged forward.

  The Thirty-Four fired another round of harpoons, one of which smashed into the front bot. Even though it didn’t penetrate, the blow was enough to send the bot spinning, falling to its knees.

  To my surprise, the bot didn’t even try to get up, instead choosing to latch onto the failed harpoon. When the harpoons retracted, it was thrown directly into the churning vines.

  I could hear the screech of fatiguing metal over the surrounding gunshots as the bot was mashed, but it didn’t give in. It sunk its right claw deep into one of the largest limbs to anchor itself, then stuck its left arm as far into the mass as it could.

  A bright blue-white glow erupted from deep within the Thirty-Four, and it fired off another round of harpoons, these much weaker than the previous salvos.

  Then the other two bots arrived, severing limbs and unleashing their own torrent deep into the mass.

  It didn’t last long after that. The combined might of three different plasma streams didn’t so much ignite the Antithesis as melt it. Limbs exploded from the heat and the flower’s petals curled up, blackened, then burst into flames.

  Within a minute all that was left was a massive bonfire, where the apex predator had once stood.

  The three bots wandered back, casually dispatching the Antithesis between my squad and the bridge with their wide swings.

  When they finally arrived back at my position, it was quite apparent the victory wasn’t a clean one. The first bot had part of its head caved in, one arm bent completely the wrong way, and its projector had melted off. Even with the self-repair functions, it would probably take hours to repair that damage, and yet, despite that, it looked quite pleased with itself.

  It reminded me of a certain overly aggressive and irresponsible bear.

  “What do I call them?” I asked no one in particular.

  You can call them what you want, but I call them ‘Fire Badgers.’ Nyx replied.

  Bob wandered closer and looked the three bots up and down before turning towards me, his face mirroring the stupid grin of the badger. “I like them!”

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