“Gillian!” Lisa called out as she reached the top of the cliff.

“Lisa, thank goodness you are back. Things are getting out of hand.” Gillian said seeing her coming his way. Then he flashed a smile despite the bad situation. “I see you also brought Nathan with you in a rather, uh, fast fashion.”

“Knock it off and focus!” Nathan said hotly as Lisa set him down. His face was flushed as he spoke. “People are dying, and we need to find a way to save them, not make jokes!”

“Yes, you are right. I am sorry.” Gillian replied clearing his throat. “I already had Anthony start moving everyone towards the woods, but Lisa can we hide the women and children in the dam’s tunnel?”

“We can try fitting as many as we can, but there are thousands of people here and more on the way.” Lisa replied shaking her head. “The dam won’t be enough.”

From below the screams of humans and roars of monsters drew closer. It was soon drowned out by the baby Hoard Mothers rumble. There wasn’t much time left before the hoard would be at the base of the cliff.

“It will have to do for now.” Nathan said turning to go towards the cliffs edge. “What are we looking at defense wise?”

Gillian and Lisa joined him to witness the horrid sight below. Humans were being chased down by monsters on all sides, torn apart, and devoured. The open ground between the cliff and town buildings was covered in dust and death. All three of them felt helpless to help, there was just too many monsters to handle, too many humans to save.

Gillian spoke through gritted teeth. “W-we have enough guns for three hundred or more. The cliff wall is lined with rocks and stones for throwing down hill at them and Terisa has the Mechs ready to bury the path. If we can’t stop them here the dam is our only chance. The narrow road there will make it easier to hold.”

“I’ll send Dan back to warn Zane, Bell, and the rest to get ready.” Lisa added as she gripped her collapsed katana’s hilt tightly. “We have weapons and ammo as well. Though bringing them out here in time might be impossible.”

“Get them ready anyway.” Nathan said in a low tone. His gaze was glued to the dust cloud of death below. “I want these monsters to wish they never came here!”

“You got it, Mayor. I will line up the militia now.” Gillian said slapping Nathans back. “We will make them pay.”

…

“Hanna! Come on Hanna. We are leaving right now, there is no time.” John called up to her Mech.

Hanna heard him calling and opened the door to her Mech with a whoosh of air. “I can’t. Terisa needs me to block the path up before the monsters get here.”

“Someone else can do that.” John snapped impatiently. “I am not going to put you at risk for no reason. We need to go where its safe with Mary and the others from back home. Don’t you want warn your friends too?”

Hanna bit her lip. She knew what John said was right. Thinking rationally about the position she was in made the predicament now seem horrifically frightening now. She was on the front lines of a monster invasion!

“What am I doing?” Hanna thought looking down at the controls in her hands. Her hands were shaking now. “T-there are monsters here. Why am I still here, I am just a kid!”

Hanna started to climb out of the cockpit, and she put her foot on the first rung. As soon as she did a woman’s scream rang out from below on the path. Hanna pulled back her foot and looked back down at John.

There was tears already streaming down her cheeks as she spoke, “T-there are p-people d-dying right now. If I can h-help them I-I must!”

John’s face hardened and thought, “Your just like your father, a stubborn fool!”

John then grabbed the ladder and started climbing. “I am not going to ask you this, I am telling you! You are coming with me right now young lady!”

“I-I can’t!” Hanna called back as she pressed the button to close the door.

“Pilots! On the count of five push the first piles over the edge!” Terisa’s voice rang out over the intercom.

Hanna grabbed the controls once again and she did her best to control her breathing. She was scared, scared almost as much as when her parents were killed. She was not thinking straight, and she knew it. However, something was telling her, “Just do it.”

“Bong! Bong!”

Hanna jumped in her seat when John started banging on the Mechs door. She could barely make out what he was saying. She then shouted, “I am sorry Mr. Weathers!” Before turning her Mech on and the whirr of the heat exhaust fans filled the cockpit.

John banged his fist once more on the door, but it was no use, Hanna was not going to listen to him. Suddenly, the Mech lurched forward, and he grabbed the ladder tightly. John felt his heart jump into his throat as the Mech approached the cliffs edge. The Mech began to push a huge number of rocks and sand over the edge and he Mech felt like it was about to fall off with the rocks as it started to lean precariously over.

John’s eyes were wide with fright as he witnessed Twisted monsters and humans alike being buried by the manmade rock side. John started banging on the door again. “Hanna, I know you can’t see below you because its blocked but stop this now!”

…

Lisa saw what the Mechs were doing too.

“Stop! There are still people down there!” She shouted as she ran towards Terisa.

“No! They are beyond saving now.” Terisa yelled back with a stony expression on her face. “We need to block the path now or we all will die. Sacrifices have to be made.”

This was just like what her commanders back in the Swiss Alps said too. Sacrificing a few to save the masses. It was wrong!

“I’ll do it myself! Just stop until everyone gets up here safely.” Lisa shouted as she extended her sword to point it at Terisa.

“I’ll stop the Mechs, but the moment the Twisted reach the midpoint, I’ll bury them with you.” Terisa answered angrily.

Lisa was not intimidated by her threat. This woman was infuriating! “Gillian, start shooting! I am going down there!”

“Open fire!” Gillian yelled at the militia.

A torrent of bullets rained down on the Twisted below. The lead monsters, mostly Logos Cutters and a few Night Hounds, were already separated by the rock side and were the first to receive the humans counterattack. However, the damage to the hoard was limited. Still mixed among the monsters were dozens of discombobulated humans.

Lisa held her katana in one hand as she slid down the steep cliff wall towards the chaos below. Just before reaching the bottom, Lisa pushed off the wall with her free hand to go after her first target. The Night Hound she targeted was caught completely off guard as Lisa dropped down out of the dust to land on its back. Lisa immediately plunged her now meter length katana right into its elongated head sending a spray of black blood out across the sandy slope.

Lisa then ripped the katana out form the monsters corpse and swung around to chop a Logos Cutter cleanly in half. By now the rest of the monsters had seen her and they were moving to surround her.

“Advanced Armament: Stage One!” Lisa murmured.

A Logos Cutter leg out a croak of confusion as Lisa disappeared out from sight and its claws hit nothing but air. Its confusion ended as Lisa reappeared next to it and the Twisted’s head rolled off. A Night Hound slashed at Lisa with its long arms, but Lisa was not going to be felled by such a simple attack. Lisa swung her sword in front of her, lopping off the Night Hounds arms in the process. The Night Hound couldn’t even make a sound of pain as Lisa followed up by stabbing it in the chest.

Gillian ordered everyone to stop shooting and watched in amazement as Lisa dashed from one Twisted to the next. Slicing and stabbing them to bits, not a single Twisted could harm her as she wadded through them inflicting death as she went.

“You twenty men come with me!” Gillian said to those standing closest to him. “We are going to get ahead of her and help. Orin!”

“Yes Commander?” Orin answered right away.

“You take half the militia and start spreading out to the right along the cliff. You said the Twisted can climb and I don’t want them cutting us off from the dam.”

“Understood!” Orin said turning to move out.

Gillian then turned to another man who looked dependable. “You and the rest stay here and make sure no Twisted get up the slope behind Lisa!” Gillian then waved to Nathan who was standing amongst a crowd of civilians.

Nathan waved back in reply to the signal. He then turned back to the civilians than numbered in the hundreds. “Alright, every knows what to do, right? Throw rocks down at the monsters and try not to hit any humans. Every stone counts!”

The mostly male civilians let out a deep shout of agreement and the hurried to the cliff edge. They all started their assault on the Twisted that were starting to climb over the rock piles the Mechs had pushed over. Though a Medieval method of attack, it was working. The Twisted had no way of defending from the rocks other than their speed and the unstable rockslide was making that difficult.

…

Now that most of the humans had been fully devoured from the open ground area the baby Hoard Mother looked up from the blood-stained sand to see that its hoard was being driven back. The baby Hoard Mother snorted defiantly and craned its neck to look the situation over. Nothing was being missed by its six red jeweled eyes.

Unbeknownst to the humans there was far more to the Hoard Mother species than they realized. Their least understood feature was intelligence. Just like how a snake is born with powerful venom, the Hoard Mother’s are born with a highly functioning mind to use it wits to survive and cast its influence over other Twisted.

Lisa’s unease was correct, everything the Twisted had been doing was planned. All the way back when the Twisted hoard first approached the town at the bridge, the Hoard Mother was planning its attack. The baby Hoard Mother saw that the river split the town and that the side it was on was the smaller side with a large cliff on the far side. It split its hoard on purpose, sending the more numerous Logos Cutters and Night Hounds across the river to feed in the part of the town that likely held the most humans.

Then keeping Plain Striders with itself and enough smaller Twisted to carry out its invasion, the Twisted first surrounded the outskirts of the eastern side of town. They then proceeded to corral the humans towards the cliff. It knew humans were already slow-moving creatures and that forcing them against a cliff would make for easy pickings and surely easier to hunt down than just letting the hoard run amuck in the towns streets.

Though now that the humans had found a way to evade being trapped by the cliff a new plan was needed. The losses the hoard had taken so far was minimal, though more than it expected. Then there was that one human, the one that shot itself in the head, that human was trouble. The area where the manmade rockslide drew its attention and the baby Hoard Mother spotted the human, Lisa, fighting alone.

Seeing an opportunity, the baby Hoard Mother looked down at three of the Plain Striders with it and let out a deep throated rumble. The baby Hoard Mother was sending these three to attack Lisa and she had no clue they were coming.