Caleb kicked at the base of the hive mind. A foot contacted with metal, ringing out. The overmind stood unaffected. "Nothing? That's like every guy's weak point you sorry excuse for a--"

Caleb was interrupted by a fist connecting with his mouth. June had stopped firing at the forming drones, fearful of hitting an ally now that everyone focused on the hive mind. Nathan had taken over that part, using his blessing to short the nanite clouds before they formed into drones. His power wasn't as effective as June's bullets, which left some of the drones to form and attack.

All of the nanite women were swarming around Caleb. June watched as arsenals of weapons assaulted the man, to no avail. She realized now why the other two put up with his insanity. With nothing to stop her, she brought out one of her special weapons. It was a combination of her power and one of the forgers from Haven. This forger was able to take the essence of things and use them in crafting. Working together, June and they had created something of an incinerator field.

"Clear the field!" She yelled and tossed the device. Alex and Nathan retreated as the device landed. Caleb was still in the area when the bomb exploded.

It originally was something like a bomb. But by using June's power, the forger was able to force the explosion into a small area. They had said it had something to do with making the bomb to lazy to go any farther. It had the added effect of preventing all that force from leaving. The energy had to go somewhere and therefore ended up atomizing anything in the area. Well, anything except Caleb it seemed.

The bomb had destroyed the entire left side of the hive mind, leaving a perfectly smooth sphere in its wake. Standing in the area was Caleb, with no clothes again. He looked down. "Dammit, I'm not a nudist, can't the clothes stick around just once?"

While Caleb complained, Alex took advantage of the situation. She took Rocket out of her satchel and launched him straight ahead. The overmind was no longer shooting nanites, instead focusing its energy on healing. This left rocket free to rip a hole straight through the other side of the hive mind. Nathan followed up, running back in and slicing through the middle. Caleb winced.

June willed her power to slow down the regeneration. She yelled again as she tossed a second, then a third bomb at the crumbling enemy. Two more explosions went off, atomizing the rest of the hive mind. Alex, seeing the fight was finally over, walked to the nanite cat that was still lazing around licking a paw. She held a hand out to the thing.

"Who's a good little kitty. Do you wanna come home with me? Do you?"

The fat cat looked up at the woman. A part of it wanted to refuse, some cold efficiency that said it was better off alone. But as Alex stared, something else was bubbling up inside. Primal instincts that said it needed to join a pack. It warred between these two directives before Alex spoke again.

"I'll feed you all the best computer parts you little chonker you."

That did it. Free food tipped the scales towards joining Alex and the overweight cat waddled over and licked her hand.

"Belling the cat," Alex spoke, activating her tamer skill.

Please pawvide a name for your kitty.

"Chonkers," She said to the screen.

Chonkers the Nanocat is now yours.

"You are just the cutest thing." Alex stroked the metallic fur of her new animal and then directed it to join the rest of her cats in the bag.

Caleb had left the kitchen area to find more clothing. He came back with another lab coat apron combo. "Hey, can we stop by one of those abandoned department stores before getting back to the cities? Triumphant heroes don't come home looking like this." He said gesturing to his wardrobe.

June snorted. "Please, this was just another day of cleanup. That's what? The third hive mind in this area? Next week it'll be some slime overlord or something."

"Nah that basically already happened remember? Second invasion, ate a hole into the town hall and then got blown up." Alex replied.

"First there were the body snatchers, lucky for us killing the hive mind didn't kill all the infected. Then the goo invasion. We're lucky that spread slowly. Next was the devourer swarm. That got dealt with a few days ago, everyone was fighting that thing for months. Now we killed off this nanodrone swarm." Nathan said.

"Hentai hive mind," Caleb replied.

"What?" June and Nathan said at the same time.

Caleb looked at them both. "All the drones were women as various anime girls and the 'brain' was a guy's thing. It was a hentai hive mind."

"That's disgusting," June said.

Caleb rolled his eyes. "Yeah. And now it's dead. Good news is I bet whatever is sending stuff at us ran out of ideas."

"Sending stuff at us?" Nathan asked.

"You don't honestly believe that four separate hive minds just pop up in the middle of the United States, in the town's of bumfuck nowhere and amishville, without any sort of influence from a higher power?" Stated Caleb.

"I mean, the whole world is strange. We've got refugees from Texas talking about roaming houses filled with deathtraps from horror movies. The people from St. Louis are talking about the army of mersharks that roam the Mississippi. Great white shark-people apparently. Those aren't even freshwater animals. So it could be a coincidence." Alex said.

"You think you could eat a mershark?" Caleb pondered.

"Of all the things she said, you focus on that?" June sighed. "Let's just go."

"To the store first right?" Caleb asked.

"Fine," June answered.

The trip to the abandoned department store was uneventful. Nathan almost zoned out but was riding with Caleb, who constantly chattered. Nathan listened as he was told all about Caleb's old encounters with hive minds. Luckily, the trip was short and Caleb was distracted once they arrived at the shopping plaza.

It was one of those places you find in any small town. There was the one large department store, the two fast-food restaurants on its left, and the line of various shops on a strip to the right. To be precise the strip held the local "Chinese" place, the nail salon/hairdresser, and the random empty store that sometimes was filled with a café.

The doors to the department store were broken. Remnants of glass were scattered along and one of the doorframes was mangled. The cats were too big to ride into the store, so everyone jumped off to walk in.

"Man I haven't been to a place like this in ages," Caleb said. He walked over to one of the shopping carts, miraculously intact, and started wheeling it inside. He tried to ride it like a scooter but wasn't able to get his balance right and performed a wheelie instead.

"Looks like clothes are over that way," Alex said, pointing at a sign hanging from the ceiling. Caleb wheeled the cart over.

"I'm going to see if there's anything left to use in this place," June said.

"I'll join you, that way no one gets caught alone if something shows up," Nathan commented.

He followed June as she walked over to the registers in front. She picked at the area, looking for anything useable. Alex followed Caleb as he pushed the cart. The two walked in silence. Caleb wasn't nearly as talkative right now, he was staring intently at the signs above.

"Looking for something?" Alex asked.

"These places have a sporting goods section so I'm trying to find it," Caleb answered.

"Looking for a weapon?" Alex said as she looked up as well.

"Gotta replace Bat," Caleb replied.

Alex stopped looking for the sports section to stare at Caleb. "Wait, Bat was a baseball bat?"

Caleb eyed her. "Yeah. What, did you think I had a pet named Bat or something?"

Alex eyed back. "Yes. Mainly because you were so upset about it."

"Hey, I had Bat for a while. Even painted a smiley face on him so he could express better." Caleb had finally reached the clothing aisles and was tossing every pair of pants he could into the cart. Some had been eaten away by insects but he wasn't about to complain with how often his wardrobe changed.

"And I thought I was weird for having a cat pun system." Alex murmured.