“This is so fucking ridiculous,” Emilia muttered as the wind whipped her hair and she clung onto the grab bar. Around her dust swirled and the thumping of feet and the slight squeal of metal wheels could be heard.

Emilia gripped onto the grab bar of a chariot, pulled by one of the Tender drones. Twenty chariots thundered across the open plains of the RSH, each pulled by a drone. Four additional drones pulled the large wagon that had also been created. From what she understood, living things didn’t like being stored in dimensional inventories, so much so that they died.

Long term planning was a good thing. They didn’t know how long they would be in this dimensional plane and that was showing in the mad scramble to grab everything they could before the heavies came down and kicked them to the curb. Food was always the biggest worry, everything else could be obtained, but not food.

Emilia found it oddly disappointing. She understood she had grown up in a time period of extravagant wealth and resources. Where there was no real fear of starvation on her part. She had always assumed that starving was a long-time-ago thing, not a modern day fear. Sure, her grandparents were poor Mexican farmers, but her mother had been an accountant. She had never really known hunger in her life.

Now, everything was focused around food and food production. The more things changed the more things stayed the same.

Which brought her back to the stupid decision of using chariots to raid the settlement. It was faster than walking or running and truly, they didn’t need more wagons. Every person in the strike team had dimensional inventories, forty-eight blocks to stuff to the gills with one hundred kilograms per block. That meant forty-eight hundred kilos of material per individual, with sixty four people in the strike team. That was over three hundred system standard tons of material.

Still, the idea to use chariots was just so ridiculous that Emilia was boggled by it. Some of the things that Maya Sullivan chose to do were seemingly idiotic. But as her Mom used to yell at her “If you don’t have nothing nice to say, then shut your mouth.”

At least it got her out of harvesting duty. Emilia internally gagged at that thought. Bone Tusk was a real jerk, but he knew his stuff, a little too well. From the stories he gleefully told, while butchering Tarvana, were the tales of fighting humans and cooking humans.

It was harassment on an unbelievable scale. Like, dude, why the hell are you talking about eating humans when there’s literally a human who has to work under you and learn the business of Harvesting? They were back to the days of little oversight and poor working conditions.

Everything slid back into the shitty old days of grubby work, horrible conditions, and assholes who were ‘just telling it like it is abounding. Emilia had seen a lot of that in Chicago after Integration. A lot of people with levels throwing their weight around and the small amount of power going to their heads.

It was those mouthy assholes that had forced her to join the Infantry or else she would have to look over her shoulders for as long as Chicago held out. That wasn’t a life she was willing to live. Especially now, in a rainbow sky hellscape, full of killer creatures, rogue AIs, and a mish mash gathering of peoples with some animosity between them.

She was a god damn Lieutenant in the Infantry and Bone Tusk was a Harvester and a barrow, cannon fodder in the orc line of thinking. One of those weird ass sub genders like gilts, unable to breed and only good for fighting. Integration did some weird things when up-lifting pigs.

As it was fighting that Bone Tusk only knew, she fought him. She had pummeled him into submission and soon enough the talks of eating humans and the succulent taste of toddlers ceased. Emilia was sickened by it. It was everything she disliked in the new world.

Using force to submit others. Using her power to crush others underfoot. Sure, Bone Tusk was an asshole, but due to their difference in their levels and numbers he wasn’t a threat.

The casual use of power to stifle those that annoyed or angered one was a slippery slope. She had seen it beginning in many others in Chicago, she couldn’t comprehend what it would mean to those that were like Maya Sullivan. Over a hundred levels, Tier 2, and more powerful than half of the strike force combined.

Such thoughts always scared her. How much power could one gain in the Integrated Multiverse if they really, really tried? Was there a limit? Was there a point where no matter how much things you killed, how much you dominated, there was no gain to it? She had heard there were Tiers above Maya, Tier 3’s and 4’s and maybe even higher. At that point one was looking at god like beings.

And they were all insects trying to survive.

The chariot rattled and brought Emilia out of her reverie.

Her eyes alighted upon a distant shape in the gloom. One that was different from all the other shapes in the RSH due to the bioluminescent light pulsing through the building.

“Giant mushrooms,” someone’s voice said over comms. “It’s got to be fucking giant mushrooms.”

Biologically grown housing had a lot of natural lines to it. There was nothing straight line about the Tarvana buildings they were coming up to. All of it was grown from some kind of flesh, maybe even the cyanobacteria they were harvesting. Which tended to make everything mushroomed shape, with cone roofs and cylindrical bases. Mushroom houses. Or…

“Welcome to Dick City,” Chu said. “Population two thousand seven hundred Fleshies.”

“Emilia stay with group Alpha, Maya Group Beta, I’m with Charlie,” Chu said.

Emilia frowned but held on tight as the drone shifted its direction and began pounding toward a massive balloon looking building. It had vibrant green and yellows swirling upon its surface and created a soothing glow as they approached.

It was a cyanobacteria farm. With her Harvesting skill now at level five and her Mana Harvesting at Level one, Emilia was leading the group with the highest Harvesting skill. With thier combined skills, it was a good chance they could get a living sample from the farm. Bone Tusk was among the group too.

There were scores of the buildings, spanning over two hundred feet in diameter, their exteriors were like stretched skin. Emilia could see the veins running through the semi-translucent material covering the building.

The chariots came to a screeching halt and the Harvesters jumped off. Eight chariots, the wagon, and twenty-eight individuals swarmed the cyanobacteria farm. There was a hard chitinous door, which as kicked down and the troops stormed into the building.

Chu’s reports stated that the entire farm was unguarded and seemingly unmanned. There were soldiers and what looked like guards but they were concentrated upon the mana stones and the mining sections.

Although most of the population was still reeling from being mind controlled for so long, things still needed doing and the machinery of survival had to be maintained. Sluggish Tarvana worked the fields, barely comprehending what was going on.

The hot and humid room was a shock to Emilia. She had been used to the oddly chilly and metallic tang of the RSH. The greenhouse was brightly lit and she nearly gagged on the thick odor of the bacteria as they secured the place.

“Well, I guess we’re going to have to figure out how to take this,” Emilia said as she saw the vats.

It was a giant twenty five foot cylinder with a ten by ten feet footing and a long column of glass that held the cyanobacteria suspended within liquid. From the gunk left in the walkways, Emilia saw that the cyanobacteria was removed in a paste like form.

Bone Tusk and a couple of the higher leveled Harvesters walked around the machine and conversed together. After a while they approached her.

“We can take samples, but the bacteria need this nutrient solution. It comes out in paste form, which extracts most of the nutrient solution, and that causes the bacteria to die. As all things in the RSH when they are removed from the main body.”

Emilia nodded and sighed. “We take the whole thing. Blast a hole in the wall and get the wagon ready.”

***

Life was so bad that Chu wished he was back in Chicago. Life there was simple. He fought monsters, he got food and board, occasionally he could mess around with the local toughs and drum up some animosity. Wannabe bad asses that killed rats and junk monsters, while running when the godzillas of the world showed up.

His entire world had changed when fucking Carmichael had spotted Yosi Sullivan. Once the brass figured out that he had lunch and talked with Maya Sullivan, then they were all gung-ho about getting him to meet with her again. Push their cause, get more weapons, more technology, prey upon her patriotism, if not that then woo her. A handsome young man like you, it shouldn’t be too hard.

Chu was confident on the latter, but everything else about Maya Sullivan scared him. She was levels above anyone else and knew more things on her left pinky than filled his entire head. She could crush his head between her thighs, even before Integration. Afterward, he doubted he would survive anything physical with her.

But like they say, never meet your heroes. Levels, skills, and abilities didn’t make up for lack of knowledge. For all she knew about system tech and the Multiverse, she knew jack-all about everything else. The entire raid on the Fleshy settlement was one such example.

Maya wanted stuff, therefore they went and got it. There was no real plan. There was no idea of the forces available. There had been no clue where the materials they needed were located. And they definitely did not know if there were any Flesh Army punks about.

The last two days had been a hell of a time. He, three crows, and a dude named Jacob had spent all that time preparing and scouting out the settlement. Dick City, as they called it because of all the phallic housing, was a piss poor place. It was set up like any other village in some third world country. Main building, shitty housing, farms and places of industry.

It was an odd thing to see, creatures evolving on some other world, living in a place completely different from Earth, but all doing the same things. Farming, mining, raising ugly ass kids, all with the heavy foot of a totalitarian government on their neck. Just like fifty percent of the places on Earth.

Chu watched Emilia’s eight chariots and the wagon veer off toward what was a farm greenhouse. Meanwhile, the remaining twelve chariots headed toward the trash pile warehouses. They had identified the buildings storing the mana stones and what they had harvested from the trash pile.

Maya’s five chariots veered off, heading toward a building that looked like a sideways octopus. A giant fleshy bulbous building lay on the ground while long heavy tentacles dug into the trash pile. Chu could make out the muscles of the creature flexing and material moving down along its arms into the central building.

It was pretty gross.

They stepped off the chariots at about a hundred feet from the warehouse. Guns out, they moved by squads rushing the door and kicking it in.

The first orc in was blasted back in a crackle of blue mana shield shattering. He let out a squeal and rolled away, grunting in pain. A friend of his grabbed him and pulled him out of the firing line.

The ground was stitched with what looked like projectile fire. Chu scanned it and saw they looked like animal claws. Great, someone was shooting at them with claws. Bullets would have been better.

“Curly, Big Eyes, Sharpbeak, forward now,” Chu said. The two orcs and crow rushed into the door. The boars squealed as shots hit them, but their higher defensive skills kept them up. Chu rushed in after, rolling to the right of the door and coming up behind a large metal crate.

Several figures were arguing and rushing about. Chu’s scouting efforts revealed there were plenty of guards, but there wasn’t a complete count of their numbers. Twenty to fifty, perhaps. They seemed to be guarding the mana stones and machinery, not the farms.

One of the figures cried out as Sharpbeak hit them with a crossbow. The second figure roared and charged them. Chu popped up and sent a railgun slug into his face.

“Move,” Chu ordered.

The rest of the team rushed into the room and began securing it. There was a crackle of fire as more guards came running to see what was happening.

From what Chu could tell, the mana stone mining was all being handled underground. They stored their hard gotten gains on the ground level, so that made it easier for the raid. The bigger unknown was the amount of guards and willing fighters that were working underground.

Even with the effects of long term mental control dissipating, there were still hundreds who were back on their feet. The guards and security had not undergone mental control, therefore they were fully active and ready to rumble.

The warehouse was massive, half a kilometer wide and long, it was a giant space of stacked crates, and a massive hole that headed down in the ground. Chu could make out more bioluminescent lights showing rough hewn walls and what looked like a tentacle escalator. The wide bit of flesh flexed and moved, pulling items up into the warehouse.

The firefight was quick and violent. Five guards dead.

“Mana stones!” Yellow Eyes snarled, tearing open a crate. Chu glanced over to see that the orc was right. They had hit the jackpot.

“Inventory everything, first squad. Second keep an eye out.”

The ground began to rumble. Chu ordered everyone back as the light down the mine tunnel flickered off. He hesitated, wondering if he should call a retreat. He decided to hold their ground and the team shifted into a defensive position.

Chu had seen plenty of monsters back in Chicago. He had killed quiet a few of them and ate a few bit more too. He thought he was used to seeing the horrors that Integration could create, but what came out of the hole was a nightmare made manifest.

“Oh, shit. Maya, we got a Maya problem here,” Chu announced on the comm. Chu sent her the image of the creature making its way out of the hole.

“Ah, that’s a machine, not a monster, buddy. I want it. Get it for me.”

“No help?”

There was a crackle and an explosion over the comm.

“A bit busy here, Chu.”

“Shit.”

An amalgamation of a spider, crab, and squid made its lumbering way out of the mine. Bioluminescent lights flashed along its hard chitinous shell, pulsing in a pattern and then converging into one of its massive arms. Chu stared for a second as a bright light flashed and a beam of destructive energy cut across the warehouse.

He watched two orcs vanish off the face of the RSH. The light consumed them and then they was nothing there but smoke and char.

Chu had a moment of honest emotion as the troops didn’t scatter. Instead they began firing on the creature/machine.

He could see that it was indeed a machine. Perhaps a mining rig of some kind. The thick fleshy creature had bright spots of metal and what looked liked system tech popping out at random spots. Chu could make out a control center, where a group of Tarvana were frantically gesturing and pointing at Chu and his soldiers.

“Take out the operators,” Chu said. “Maya wants this machine.”

The fire shifted from hitting the legs to striking the glass encased control room. The glass shattered and the group of Tarvana were stitched with gunfire. The giant spider/crab/squid came to a stuttering halt. Even with the big creature down, they weren’t out of the fight as swarms of guards were rushing up the ramp behind the machine.

“Take ‘em down,” Chu called and poured fire onto the enemy. He tossed the last of his grenades. The pops of shrapnel and explosions tearing apart the reinforcements.

It was looking like a repeat of the battle at the trash pile. The Fleshies were racing up the ramp toward the gunfire, seemingly uncaring about how fast they were being ripped apart. Chu cursed, they were already low on ammo as it was.

“Hand to hand,” Whitestripe stated. The big board slung his empty shotgun and pulled out long cleaver like weapon. Chu thought it was new, ground down into a wicked blade from some of the trash that Tender was collecting.

“I’m a fucking grunt, not a swordsman,” Chu cursed as his railgun was spent. He still had a full mana charge, but the damn thing was out of ammo. He Inventoried the weapon and pulled out a pair of fighting axes. “Let’s go, you little fuckers!”

The two groups clashed, in a collision of blood and roaring. The Fleshies popped like wet sacks, their only weapons being pickaxes and lengths of metal. Crow sharpshooters picked off the guards and anyone carrying anything more dangerous than mining tools.

Chu snarled as he brought down his axe, cracking a head and then kicked the Tarvana away. A sharpened rod stabbed at him, but skidded off his thigh guard in a shower of sparks. He punched out and felt bone crush under his fists. He buried his axe into a Fleshy and then another and another.

Beside him, Whitestripe and the orcs were a hammering machine of death. Their heavy armor deflecting attacks and their massive weapons wiping the floor with their smaller foes. Blades came down and came back up bloodied. The entire floor of the warehouse became slick with blood and offal.

Chu was panting heavily when he realized the attack had ended. He flicked blood off his axe and glanced around. His helmet showed that besides the two that had died in the initial attack, everyone was still alive. In various states of injury, but still alive.

“You guys good?” Chu asked.

“Good,” Whitestripe said. He stabbed his blade into a squirming Tarvana and sighed. “Good fight.”

“Alright, back to it, guys. Grab as much mana stones as you can. Move. Move. Move. I want all your stacks filled to the brim. I’ll be checking!”

***

Maya pushed aside the bloody mess of the operators and settled into the too small seat. A machine was a machine was a machine. That had been her experience in the RSH and it looked like the Fleshies followed the same pattern.

Bone switches, flesh seats, screens that flickered to life made of some kind of translucent material, like an eyeball with light shining behind it. Maya grinned as she saw that there were system components embedded through out the giant machine.

Tarvana Omni-Miner - high grade, Tier 1

That meant the Tarvana were somehow able to make system tech talk with their fleshy biotech. Which meant in time she could figure it all out too. Excitement coursed through her as she began starting up the machine.

The settlement had been rich in everything they needed. There had been huge piles of components and half dismantled machines. Minerals, materials, and all the chemicals they would need to survive for months.

She got the machine running, noting that it ran off a biological mana core. That in itself was impressive. She wanted to take the whole thing apart and look at everything.

“You’re panting like a perv on a phone call,” Chu said over the comms.

“Shut up and keep loading,” Maya replied.

As a Omni-miner, the machine had a massive storage area, one that was aching to be filled with crates upon crates of mana stones that had been mined. Maya was not one to let go of an opportunity.

The fleshy tentacles that made up the squid aspect of the machine moved above the gathered troops. The finger like ends of the tentacles wrapped around scattered machines and supplies. The larger machinery and tools were being strapped to the top of the miner and anything else that couldn’t fit in inventories.

The machine made it way over to the farms, the long tentacles descending down to pick up one of the farming cylinders. Emilia climbed aboard and looked around the control center.

“God, it’s full of blood and meat,” she remarked.

“Previous owners,” Maya muttered as she controlled the machine.

Emilia let out some soft curses and tossed out chunks. There were angry shouts from below as those chunks landed on someone.

“I need to keep feeding the bacteria vat mana,” Emilia said. “We lost the first vat we unhooked. It seems that without five minutes of mana, the whole thing dies. There’s some kind of mana core around here, because its a mana hungry vat.”

Maya nodded. “It’s buried about two hundred feet below us. I would have loved to grab it, but its too deep and we’re running out of time.”

“So this was a success?” Emilia asked.

“Very much so,” Maya grinned as she loaded the second vat into the storage area.