As the enemies completed their approach, most of them sticking back into the trees, with only Chad stepping forward, I kept the autorifles intentionally deactivated. There were words that needed to be exchanged before the shooting started.

Chad bellowed out at us. “I’ve come for what is mine! Return my people, all of them, and I’ll let you live.” He pointed up at Jen and Artemis. “I mean those two, with the all of them. They’ve betrayed me and they must pay the price of that betrayal.” His face split into a wide grin as he stared up at me. “You can stay. You may be some kind of hippy pansy, but you were just fighting for what you believe in. That’s fine. Just give me back my people and I’ll leave you be. Maybe we can even become friends.”

I turned my attention away from Chad over to others clustered in the forest. My voice wasn’t too loud, but that is part of why I had built an amplifier into my helmet. “I will accept individual surrenders at any time. Simply cross your hands behind the back of your head and do not initiate any further violence. If you do so, you will be considered a neutral under my fire control system.”

“What the fuck you talking about?” Chad yelled louder, his face becoming red. “My boys are loyal, they’re not going to surrender.” His grin grew wider and I could see (under my erg sight), his aura flaring into life, even brighter than it had been during the last fight. It was clear that he had not wasted his time since. “Because we’re going to win.”

I glanced over to the other defenders and spoke softly into the comms. “Anything you want to say to him or them? I’m ready whenever you are.”

The other defenders shook their heads, except for Jen who shouted back down to Chad. “Fuck you, asshole!”

A grin came to my lips. “Well said.” I activated the autorifles.

The autorifles whirred as they shifted into active mode and sighted their targets. They opened fire with a series of loud chunks sounding the shots, cracking through the tree cover to slam into the Chad’s men hiding in the woods. The men proved tougher than the landbirds, but the rate of fire of ten autorifles pushed several of them into defensive positions.

The ranged defenders on the wall let loose with their attacks. Mud rose up to encase the legs of the attackers, with javelins and bullets falling down onto those stuck, their attacks doing quite a bit more damage than the autorifles, blood flashing in the air from the impacts. The counter-attack was thankfully staggered on account of the volume of fire pouring down from the walls, but they came with startling power. One of the attackers ripped an entire (albeit small) tree out of the ground and flung it at us with full power, forcing all of us to take shelter behind the palisades.

Bullets cracked out from the ground, though fortunately they just bounced off of the wall. Another attacker called up large stones from the ground, levitating them in front of himself before projecting them up at the wall, the great speed leaving dents in the defenses. Another called up a massive sheet of ice along the top of the wall, and we scattered away from its formation, even as it crystalized into sharp edges, then exploded outwards in a series of spikes. Fortunately our armor protected us from those spikes, but it was a close thing.

I switched the primary targets of my autorifles to those two using erg attacks, and glanced over the palisade to see them taking heavy damage from the hits, retreating back from the front line as blood dripped from them. Chad shouted something that I couldn’t make out over the sounds of the battle, and one man stepped forward, going to one knee at Chad’s flank. I frowned and retargeted all of the autorifles towards that man, but Chad pulled out his axes (having a brand new one in addition to his surviving axe) and flicked away the incoming bullets.

“We have to take that guy out !” I practically screamed in panic over the comms, but by the time that the others turned to face that man, it was too late. A massive fissure ripped through the ground, heading from him to the walls, which shuddered under the impact before wrenching apart, the metal shearing as it twisted into a crack in the wall.

Chad called out “CHARGE!” and the attackers surged forward, heading for that crack.

I took just one moment to recover my breath. “Ty, Jen, head to the crack. Artemis, Stacey, Raven, support them. Aria, watch my back. I’m going down.” I then switched to another channel and said simply, “It’s go time.”

I activated one of my new perks [Remote Access] and formed a connection with where I was standing to the Entertainment Center. Within the Entertainment Center, Terry began to play their flute, and as the music moved through the air around me, it flowed into the erg, swirling it and bringing with it an aspect of alacrity, granting increased movement and attack speed for all friendlies who were able to hear it, and I had already designated everyone in the factory as Friendly.

Ty flickered and appeared in the ranks of men heading for the crack, slashing at one from behind before moving to another position to continue his attack, moving swiftly enough to avoid being readily targeted by attacks, but also failing to do anything more than chip damage to his targets. Jen, meanwhile, jumped up and seemed to hang mid-air for a moment before slamming down with a blazing aura of her own, kicking Chad firmly in the chest and pushing him back as she took a defensive position in the crack.

I didn’t have time to pay any more attention to the others though, as I vaulted over the palisade, falling like a rock into the ground below. As I fell, though, I switched out my equipment, channeling a bit of erg to increase the rate of deployment. My armor went from medium weight plating to a heavy shell, more copious than should otherwise be able to fit on the frame, giving me a newly boxy appearance, like I was completely engulfed in interlocking shields.

Mechanical arms extended up from my back, up and over my head, with an autorifle appearing mounted on each arm. My left arm had switched out from having a hand at the end, to becoming a fully incorporated weapon, resembling a large caliber shotgun. Finally, my helmet fully engulfed my head now, and I relied on erg sight goggles to peer outwards.

My first target was the brute who had tossed the tree at us, who I locked onto with my erg sight and began blasting away with my autorifles. The coordinated fire did significantly more damage than the automatic ones mounted on the wall, and blasted holes through his limbs, though to my erg sight I could see his energy remaining stable. He let out a bellow of his own and charged at me, his body surrounded by some sort of momentum enhancing aura.

I didn’t try to dodge, there was no way that I could have moved fast to get out of the way, instead I just hunkered down and continued to fire. I took aim with my left arm, bracing it with my right before letting loose. A canister spun out from the barrel, splitting open mid-air and releasing a swarm of tiny spikes, in a precisely calculated ratio of elements. The spikes hit firmly into the charger’s torso, dead-center, and melted his outer layer of skin and erg, before a surge of lightning rushed through his body.

He didn’t stop running, though, making contact and slamming me back into the wall. I didn’t feel either of the impacts, my armor plating so thick that they completely absorbed the attack. Instead, I realigned my aim and opened fire with another canister directly into the side of the charger’s head. He fell, a hole bored through his skull. I looked away from the corpse at my feet and took a moment to recollect myself.

“Surrender and you will be treated well. We have no desire to cause undue violence, but we will defend ourselves to the best of our ability.” I strode forward towards the trees, where more of Chad’s ranged attackers were, holding back on my fire for now, waiting for some response now that Chad was busy.

A large rock chunked against the side of my helmet, but my armor was strong enough that it bounced off without effect. A voice called out, “Why should we trust you!? You’re fucking killers!”

Another cried out in echo. “Yeah! Like you did with Hank!”

One of the men moved a large tube from his back into a firing position. Only after he fired did I realize it was a rocket launcher, and a Tier 1 one at that. I shifted the target of my autofiles to the rocket and let out a spray of bullets which managed to send the rocket off course, crashing into the ground next me and exploding in a brilliant orange that sent me stumbling.

I switched my comms to another channel. “Now.”

More attacks continued to come my way, but I countered them with more bullets when I needed to and just tanked the hits when I could get away with that. After seeing what happened to the charger, no one wanted to get too close and so they kept at range, which I was content with. If I was keeping this group busy, they weren’t harassing the group keeping Chad busy.

Then a new voice came up from on top of the walls, drawing everyone’s attention. “They’re not actually that bad of people.” Hank stood at the top of the wall, leaning on a cane to support his still healing leg. “Uhhh they’ve actually treated me pretty well, considering how I treated them. Like before, you know. You should listen to them! They’ll listen to you, if you do.”

Confused expressions covered every one of the attackers before me. They glanced between Hank and myself, and then one at a time, they put their hands behind their heads. I toggled them to neutral and looked over to the mass gathering by the crack in the wall, starting to walk over in that direction.

Both Jen and Ty were surrounded, though Jen was handling that better than Ty. Artemis saved her shots and fired specifically to deflect Chad’s incoming attacks, allowing Jen to maintain her footing, despite being so overwhelmed. I took my aim at the men surrounding Ty and opened fire, tearing holes through the attackers, forcing them back and giving room for Ty to flicker to safety.

That group took in the rapidly shifting circumstances and backed away, not taking the surrendering posture, but removing themselves from the battle enough for me to focus the automatic rifles onto the attackers around Jen. With the additional help, Jen laid out a couple of the men attacking her, using well aimed punches and knocking them to the ground. I had barely done anything, but I could still feel the exhaustion in me, this violence fraying at me.

The flow of the battle shifted, the remaining attackers fell back, leaving only Chad in the fray. Chad growled and clacked his axes together, his body shifting and swelling, bubbling from within as his muscles grew in size, splitting open his shirt. “Okay. Again and again, you fucking freaks stand in my way.” His grip tightened as his forearms bulged. The power of his presence caught us all, trapping us in place. “Enough games!”

Molten heat rolled off of him and he slammed one axe forward with all of his strength. It shattered through Jen’s defenses and the blade lodged itself in her chest.