Everyone started yelling at once.

  “Gather up, backs against the wall!”

  “Watch for any movement! Don’t let them get close!”

  “I just bought that fox, you assholes!” Thankfully, due to the stress of the situation, no one really caught my somewhat inappropriate yell.

  Within seconds everyone had huddled up, our backs against the wall, with the bears forming a protective cordon a couple feet further into the room. I say that, but most of them were just firing wildly, trying their best to just tag one of the Twenty-Ones and mark their position before getting overrun.

  “What the hell are those things?” Amy screamed over the gunfire.

  “Twenty-Ones, stealthy pack hunters. Don’t underestimate them, they’re real bastards. Not only do they have that fancy camouflage, but they’re much faster and stronger than any of the lower Models,” Saber explained calmly as he scanned the room. “Anyone have a way to detect them?”

  “Mine’s currently embedded six inches into the ground,” I grumbled. “But if worse comes to worst, there’s the old-fashioned way.”

  “What’s the old-fashioned way?” Nora asked suspiciously.

  I shot her a grin. “Bob! Take a walk!”

  “Okie Dokie,” the big bear replied, before waltzing forward.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Amy whispered. “What if something happens?”

  Across the room there was a metallic thunk, and Bob tilted slightly to the left. We watched as his head slowly rotated, eyes narrowed, before his right arm shot out, grabbing at the air. He missed that first creature, but when the next one hit him, his counter-attack was much faster. The pile drivers built into his fist fired, sending the monster flying across the room, head shattered.

  “Then the Antithesis will regret it,” I muttered. “Bob will lure a couple, but I don’t know what to do about the rest. If they rush us, we’ll be in trouble.”

  “You all have rebreathers, right?” Helen wheezed. Even though I couldn’t see her face through her helmet, I could tell she wasn’t doing great. She was leaning against the wall, cradling her ribs. We must have broken the cocoon before the repair process was completed.

  “Saber’s gear was compromised,” Nora said.

  “The rebreather’s still good though,” the man snapped. “Do you have a plan?”

  Helen nodded her head. “I can flood the chamber with pheromone gas. I don’t know if it’ll affect the Twenty-Ones, but it causes smaller models to freak out because they’re bombarded with conflicting orders. Even if it doesn’t affect them, the gas is heavier than air and has an orange color, so we should be able to see things moving around in it.”

  One of the bears forming the perimeter flew back, missing Nora’s head by just a few inches, before smashing into the wall.

  “Do it!” she snapped. “We need something to create an opening!”

  Helen nodded, reached behind her back, and started pulling out a number of oddly shaped grenades and launching them into the room.

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  The grenades must have been highly pressurized or have some protectorate spatial folding in them, because it only took a couple of the small canisters to completely fill the room. It swirled, spread until the entire room was filled with knee high orange gas.

  Immediately, I could make out nearly a dozen suspicious voids in the gas, slowly approaching our position.

  “Shit…” I hissed as I lifted my rifle and snapped a couple of shots at the nearest void, probably missing it.

  While I fired ineffectively at the closest shape on my side, Nora and Saber jumped into action. Even though they couldn’t see the Twenty-Ones, apparently having a general idea of the creature’s locations was more than good enough.

  Nora shot forward, whirling mid-air to deliver a roundhouse kick to one of the voids. The creature tried to dodge out of the way, but because she covered such a wide area with her attack, it connected anyway. The creature’s metallic armor plating bent, then buckled under the force of the kick. Its camouflage fell away right before its head caved in from the blow.

  With the camouflage stripped away, we got our first good look at the creature. It had a vaguely canine shape, like the Model Threes, but it was much larger than the basic model. The creature also had an extra pair of limbs at the front, which it could use to batter opponents with extreme force. But the most annoying thing about them was they had some sort of advanced armor that was nearly impervious to small arms while still allowing them to creep around invisible.

  “I fucking hate these things,” I muttered as it fell.

  On the other side of the room, Saber wasted no time slicing through a pair of Twenty-Ones. Even though his laser blade couldn’t penetrate the Twenty-One’s armor, it still made an effective method of detection.

  He’d swing one blade, causing the laser to arc out and entangle with the Twenty-One’s hide. Before the charge dissipated he’d sprint forward and follow up with the actual blade. The creatures didn’t know how to handle this combo, and the voids around him seemed to dance around uncertainly.

  On my left, Amy emptied her twin SMGs wildly into the darkness. I couldn’t tell how much she was actually helping, but she was trying.

  As the number of Twenty-Ones dwindled, the creatures gave up their attempts to ambush and rushed forward. Most of them were intercepted by Nora, Bob, and Saber, but a pair of them managed to avoid the front line in their charge.

  I emptied my clip at the approaching voids and managed to take down the first, but not the second. As the last Twenty-One closed, I felt an unsettling sense of deja-vu as I held my rifle up in front of me in a last-ditch effort to soften the oncoming blow.

  The LCARS shattered like it was made of glass, parts scattering across the room a second before I felt the wrecking ball blow connect with my chest. There was a sense of weightlessness, only for a second, before I smashed against the wall headfirst, just inches from one of the flowers. Even with all my augments, that fucking hurt.

  “Nyx, Thermal Axe!” I slurred, as I struggled to my feet.

  I felt the heavy wood handle land into my hands just as the void closed again. Swinging with all my might, I brought the glowing axe head straight into the side of the Twenty-One. It wasn’t enough to kill it, not by a long shot, but the momentum was enough to force me one way and the Twenty-One the other.

  Unable to completely halt its charge, the invisible antithesis smashed straight into the oversized flower.

  Acid exploded everywhere, absolutely coating the Twenty-One and splashing me. Despite the smoking droplets on my armor, I didn’t dare let up. As the Twenty-One’s armor dissolved, revealing more and more of the creature, I brought the Axe down again and again on whatever I could see.

  It probably wouldn’t have done much against the intact armor, but the compromised flesh was weaker.

  When the Twenty-One brought one of its forelegs to block, the axe nearly severed the limb. The creature tried to back up, either to retreat or pounce, but I followed, bringing my axe down over and over on its head until I finally felt something crack.

  The axe finally bit deep, embedding itself deep within the monster's head, and the Twenty-One finally lay still.

  As I staggered back, breathing heavily, someone dumped a bucket of liquid over my head.

  “Fuck, Teddy! Remind me to never piss you off again,” Helen murmured. “You can be vicious when you want to be.”

  I turned and stared at her blankly for a few seconds before slowly looking down at the bucket in her hands.

  “Neutralizer, for the acid,” she explained. “I probably could have gotten a spray or something, but considering that your armor was smoking, I thought this was probably faster.”

  “Thanks,” I finally managed to gasp out. “Did we win?”

  “Hoppy and Saber are doing cleanup now, but yeah, I think we got them all,” she replied quietly.

  “Good,” I grumbled. “Fucking bastards almost broke my ribs! Again!”

  “Yeah, they’re good at that,” Helen replied, rubbing her own chest.

  “That… was… awesome! I can’t believe you took that thing on with just an axe!” Amy explained as she sprinted over. “I know the others also smashed Twenty-Ones in melee, but you really had to work for it!”

  “That’s not a good thing,” I muttered, dropping the axe to the ground. “I’m not a great scrapper, and it was an action born out of desperation rather than skill. I hate getting that close, especially to something as dangerous as a Twenty-One.”

  “If you’re not going to take that, can I have it?” Amy asked, excitedly pointing at the axe.

  “Go nuts,” I replied as I staggered away.

  As the others rushed between the Twenty-Ones, making sure they were dead, I collapsed against the wall and concentrated on getting my heartrate down.

  “I can’t believe this is only the second hive,” I grumbled. “This is going to be a long day.”

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