AP5: Ch. 20 & 21 (Patreon)

Chapter 20

Time until next Challenge: 10 days, 13 hours, 33 minutes

Our first hour on the road was quiet. People from Gordonsville and the surrounding cities had cleared the way for us, and it was easy for Ariel to lean a little on the probabilities for any respawns, making them appear early enough for others to slay, or late enough that they couldn’t catch up. Stabcrabs and hellbees were the biggest issues for our fleet. We’d encountered plenty the day before, monsters that had been wandering the highway for days or weeks before we arrived, but today we didn’t encounter any of either.

Still, when an hour had passed without a single Titan attack, I felt uncomfortable. “Ariel, are local defenders taking down Titans before they reach us? Can Hamlet not spawn them right on the road for some reason? He didn’t have problems yesterday.”

<No. No Titans detected within 50 miles.>

I passed this along to the group, adding, “I don’t like that. I doubt Hamlet or Sharp Contrasts gave up on killing us. They’re trying something.”

“Some of the swifter Titans can outpace our fleet,” Pointy observed. “Could he be waiting to throw more at us at once?”

“That’s what I was thinking,” I said. “I don’t know what to do about that, though. Worse, it’s hilly enough that we’re kind of trapped on the route we planned out, whether the cars can off-road or not.”

Pointy rolled her eyes. “That hardly matters. Being able to change direction is helpful for avoiding slow opponents, but it would only let swift foes reach us more quickly.”

I clenched my fists. “True, I guess. I just don’t know what we can do.”

Everyone in my car exchanged glances. Marie lifted a hand to her head, communicating with her military superiors, before she spoke. “Not much, unfortunately. This is exactly why we wanted you in Fort Defiance.”

“I’m on my way,” I growled. “Can’t get there any faster.”

Marie gave me a suspicious look, likely remembering our earlier argument, but let the matter rest, closing her eyes again. She sighed. “Well, we have one advantage at least: if Hamlet is planning on having a big group converge on you, we’ll get at least a little warning. Actually, as soon as Ariel senses the first Titan nearby, it should tell us exactly when to expect the attack. General Heggins expects that Hamlet will have them arrive either simultaneously or one right after another.”

“Why would they not arrive all at… ah, so someone with a limited-time Specialty has a harder time taking down multiples. Yeah, that makes sense.” I frowned. “I’ll let you know as soon as Ariel spots anything.”

“Please do,” Marie said. “Depending on how much warning we get, the Arsenal might be able to mobilize locals to provide additional support.”

I don’t want to feed some poor farmers to the Titans as snacks! I thought. But… with my kids, friends, and husband present, I didn’t argue. Better some strangers than my loved ones, as sick as the thought made me. 

I suddenly suspected why the Arsenal had been so accommodating about a boneheaded plan like letting me keep my kids with me. I could just imagine Colonel Yoshiro and some others around some conference table with a hand-drawn posterboard emblazoned with “Operation: Encourage Meghan Not to be a Dumbass.”

I shook my head, shoving these thoughts aside. I wasn’t perfect and I’d never pretended to be. I didn’t ask for, well, any of this. I didn’t have to be perfect; I just had to be good enough, and self-consciousness and doubts about unchangeable past decisions didn’t help anyone. 

What could help us? 

Ariel, how many of the Titans can catch up with us?

<17 of the 32 varieties can match your typical speed of travel if not impaired. However, minimal acceleration will let you outpace all but variety #20, variety #25, and the twotwos.>

Titan #20 were the yellow speedsters with the paralysis stingers in their tails. #25 was a fast flying monster. It wasn’t too dissimilar from the twotwos, but it was larger and stronger, and had traded in the twotwos’ stealth for the ability to shoot a sticky web material over a wide area.

I passed on Ariel’s analysis to the group. “So it’ll most likely be a mob of one of those varieties. Maybe a mixed force?”

Vince frowned. “None of those are easy to deal with in large numbers. The twotwos are just hard to spot coming, and each of the other two has the ability to slow someone down and set them up for an ally to kill.”

I snorted. “What Titan is easy to deal with in large numbers?”

Vince opened his mouth to argue, then paused. “Okay. Fair point. But these are extra tough.”

I grimaced, but couldn’t argue. Instead, I turned to Marie. “Can you contact the Arsenal? We should let people know to expect these varieties and be ready to fight them. Even if all they can do is cut the wing of a #25, that might be enough to keep it from coordinating its arrival with other monsters.”

She nodded tightly.

We were operating on almost pure speculation right now, but no one objected. Our survival balanced on a knife’s edge and we had to keep making the right decisions time after time after time, or else die. 

We drove for perhaps another thirty minutes before Ariel interrupted.

<Twotwo spawn detected 48.8 miles away. Estimated time of intercept: 25 minutes.>

<Additional twotwo spawn detected. Two additional spawns. Three->

“Ariel’s seeing spawns,” I said. “All twotwos so far. ETA is 25 minutes.”

“Damnit!” Vince cursed. “That’s the most difficult type of monster to spot. Even if people are watching, they’re going to miss most of them. How many Titans does Ariel say can reach us at the same time?”

Ariel answered before I could even repeat the question. I froze.

“Meghan?” Vince asked.

I met his eyes. “Fifty-three.”

Chapter 21

Time until next Challenge: 10 days, 12 hours, 42 minutes

Immediately after we’d noticed the trap being sprung, my fleet pulled a U-turn and headed back the way we’d come. It wouldn’t help much, but it would help some. Instead of having to fight 50+ Titans arriving simultaneously, we’d run into the first ones in about twelve minutes and have the rest arrive over a twenty-minute period. How much that would help was an open question, but we’d seize any advantage we could.

Hamlet had timed this well to limit those advantages sharply. A few smaller groups of allies were heading toward the area of the fight, but we were far from any major cities. Local flyers and speedsters who were willing to help had already joined our convoy earlier. Anyone joining us now was likely to have ten or so abilities with poor synergy.

Perhaps I wasn’t the person to cast stones over low synergy - only Ariel’s hacked-together Specialty had pushed all of my abilities over 500% - but at least my build had been intentional. If my weakest ability, Announcement, had remained at 100% Synergy, it still would have been useful to me. At low synergy, I couldn’t use it to contact a whole state, but I could use it to speak across a whole battlefield. 

Not every ability was like that. Vince’s first choice had been Powerful Blow, and then he’d gone all-in on Biological Augments. His other abilities were incredibly strong, but he still made a face every time he pulled up his Interface and saw that lackluster first choice mocking him. Powerful Blow added a set amount of force to a strike. Now that Vince’s enhanced muscles let him hit like Superman, the difference was almost always negligible. The ability could have stayed relevant - I had several bodyguards who could use it to kick a car to the side of the road - but Powerful Blow at 200% synergy was vastly less dangerous than Powerful Blow at 900% synergy.

Most directly damaging abilities followed the same pattern, scaling sharply in strength with higher synergy. It would take multiple base-strength Fire Bolts to kill a leafenrat, but at 1000% synergy one would hit hard enough to make some Titans stumble. 

Many people out this far had only been in contact with the Arsenal for a few weeks, and it took time and energy to pass information. That meant that a lot of the brave people coming to my defense now had the inherent toughness and musclepower that came with ten abilities, but might hit only as hard as someone with three or four. There was a stark difference between their strength and the strength of many of my Huntsville-area posse, all of whom had their Specialties and most of whom were several thresholds beyond.

We screeched to a halt a few minutes before we expected to run into the first Titans. I popped our car door open and we all held up a hand for Anju, who tagged us with a high-five and hit us each with a half-strength Gravity Null. I could see a few others going between other cars, doing the same thing. I sighed in relief: now the twotwos would have more trouble dropping us to our deaths. The lower pull of gravity meant that we’d fall at around 60 miles per hour, at most, a terminal velocity just over half of what it would be in full Earth gravity. 

I hadn’t let Gavin or Vince test dropping themselves from the sky at full gravity, but twotwos loved dropping people. From what I’d heard about incidents elsewhere, I was pretty confident that their extra physical reinforcement would let them survive a drop with injuries they could heal in seconds, so long as they didn’t fall on their heads or onto something sharp.

The rest of us were in more danger. Landing “correctly” with our legs down would probably have left us with broken bones or worse.

The Gravity Null should reduce the damage from a proper landing to mere bruises, and make it more feasible for the rest of us to help slow their falls further.

Anju could have nulled out the effect of gravity entirely, but even half-gravity made movement and combat difficult. Trying to fight in zero-G seemed suicidal, especially when the twotwos’ bites and talons were so lethal.

Over 40 twotwos were headed toward us, only three of which had been taken down by our supposed ring of distant defenders. Part of me was furious about that, but I knew that the ability to spot the twotwos from a distance was rare. We had a spotter with us whose job was to watch for twotwos and slap a hologram on them to help the rest of us find them, but he was a specialist who’d taken those abilities specifically to counter these stealthy fliers.

We’d expected over 50 twotwos, but Hamlet hadn’t thrown all his eggs in one basket, producing six of the yellow speedsters at points closer to our group, and holding three of the Titans Ariel predicted he could spawn in reserve.

“He’ll pop something nasty out right on top of us as soon as the rest arrive,” I predicted.

No one argued. 

“I should have made you stay behind with the kids,” I told Vince. I felt sick.

“I am too fast,” said Gavin nonchalantly. “I would follow you.”

“I am unconvinced that Cassie would not be targeted individually,” Pointy said. “They are observing us and perfectly capable of translating our conversations. In many ways, my connection to Ariel is more robust than your own, even if I lack your command permissions. It’s certainly higher bandwidth. Also, Cassie’s importance to you would make her death an excellent way of destabilizing your mental health and leave you prone to poor decision-making. If I was in charge of the Maffiyir, I would kill your family. I would have argued for splitting up, otherwise.”

I frowned at both of them.

Vince grabbed my hand. “What’s done is done. Don’t distract yourself by thinking about it, and don’t give up. I’ve killed a Titan before. You’ve killed a Titan before.”

“Not alone!”

“Me and four friends, true, but I was maybe half as strong then as I am now. And you and Gavin basically solo’d a D-Rex at level… what? Five or six. We’ve got about two hundred of us here to fight off about 40 Titans.”

“These Titans are stronger than D-Rex. More dangerous. Tougher.”

“So are we,” Vince said calmly. “Everyone we brought with us from Huntsville is level 16 or so. We’re really strong. This is dangerous, but we can do it.”

I felt my terror recede a little and realized that my husband was using Healing Touch on me, smoothing out the adrenaline burst of my burgeoning panic attack.

“Yellow 20 coming toward us on the road,” called Jim.

Marie’s Announcement rang in my mind:

Keep an eye out for red arrows! We’ve got someone who can see the twotwos flagging them for us! Time to contact: 30 seconds.

<Last three attackers: Titans #8, #13, and #17.>

I cursed aloud, even as I repeated Ariel’s information in an Announcement. #8 was the electric tower. #13 was a road-destroying centipede-snake thing. #17 was the tube-nosed acid-spraying hippo. One would slow us down, and the other two would put us in grave danger if we left the cars to fight.

Which we would have to. 

We had only moments before the fight would be joined, and I took the opportunity to make one final Announcement:

Prioritize taking down electric tower & yellow speedsters. Acid hippo next.

On the heels of my Announcement there was a massive jolt, and I suddenly found myself tumbling against the walls and ceiling as our SUV was knocked end-over-end. Between the Gravity Null and my own alien-enhanced physique, the impacts didn’t really damage me so much as they disoriented me, even when Cassie’s Summoned Shell smashed into the side of my face.

“Micah! Absorb electric!” Vince shouted. “Everyone, out of the car!”

I snatched up Cassie’s shell as I rolled toward my chosen exit, a door that had been crunched as the car rolled and was now bowed out from its frame. With everyone trying to protect me, she’d be safer in my arms than anywhere else. I’m sure Hamlet would have liked to send all the Threats and Titans after me personally, but Ariel had assured me that they could only be sent to a specific area, whereupon they’d pick their targets based on whatever their nasty predator minds decided was best. I threw a simple hologram overhead as the soldier ahead of me kicked the door clear; nothing fancy or convincing, just a simple green-yellow rectangle that would block the twotwos’ vision and obscure our exact positions.

Vince and Gavin zipped past me but stopped. Well, Vince stopped, one hand closed around the base of Gavin’s tail, and my six-year-old ran only a few feet further before looking back.

“Stay close to Micah!” I snapped, knowing exactly why Vince had halted him.

Gavin’s eyes widened and took a few steps backward. Micah crawled out of the car behind us and several things happened at once: a flash of brilliant light seared my eyes, a massive boom split the air, and Life Sense revealed a beast the size of a minivan dashing directly into our group.