12 Miles Below

The man burst through the smoke like an avenging wraith, knife and sword in hand, destruction in mind. Obscured in the cloud, I could only see his orange outline on the HUD, Winterscar relaying motion data to Journey.

A whirlwind of destruction followed, the sweeping strikes of the long sword slicing madly and the knife cutting off legs and hearts. The automatons didn't even have time to regroup, with the veteran scything into them.

He moved with choreographed strikes, every hit deliberate. Spun around the grasps, jumped over the lunges, and struck the openings, maximizing the use of the fading smoke. Knife stabbing down deep into anything that came too close. Longsword handling anything at further range. In mere seconds, he had slaughtered another four and greatly damaged more. Nineteen left.

Just as fast as he had appeared, he disappeared like a ghost. Retreating back into the smoke cloud and sprinting in my direction.

"Cover fire." He called out to me, voice steady, sliding into the open. That left him completely exposed, but I understood a moment later why as the barnacle opened fire on him - choosing to take the easy target over me. His long sword flicked out in impressive instinct, and the spike screamed off course right before impact.

The automatons vaulted through the remains of the smoke, howling for vengeance. And I was completely free to open fire on them with impunity.

The targeting reticle made it easy to line up my shots. Journey's arms kept the rifle exactly as steady as I needed it to be. I pressed down on the trigger, flowing back into my training days.

A skull exploded into metal shrapnel and white ceramic. The owner dropped dead on the ground, its brothers jumping over the body without care. Eighteen left.

I targeted the next and opened fire again. This time, it twisted, ducking and trying to dodge the shots. A lucky clip hit its leg as the creature straightened up. The dodging quickly became more flailing and far less in control. It took another two more bursts before I nailed the little scrapshit. Seventeen left.

"Don't waste bullets, they’ve already adapted. You’ll need to fire when they’re not paying attention now." Father said at my side, dodging another spike, making it look effortless.

The spider shrieked in the background, bellowing out orders. The barnacle turret turned to me now.

"Fall back, we can outrun them and continue the assault from range in a better location." Father ordered and sprinted. I let go of the rifle, leaving the strap to do its job and followed behind in a tight sprint of my own keeping up with him. Journey continued to halt or redirect my movements to avoid spikes I hadn't seen coming. Pain was flaring up in my muscles from the constant forces exerted, and my own pace was getting slowed because of it. I grit my teeth and beared with it.

The spider finally charged now that we were making a run for it. It could easily outrun the shriekers, but it still chose to remain behind the lines, letting the barnacle take its potshots at us.

At intervals, Father would order me to turn and open fire while he drew the barnacle’s attention.

Unfortunately, the enemy had gotten the hang of avoiding my rifle shots. It still forced some to pause their charge, moving in ways to avoid the shots. As a result, when they finally reached us, it wasn't as a group, just as Father had planned.

Father wiped the floor with the arriving stragglers, easily handling one at a time. They would catch up to him only to realize he'd allowed them to intentionally. And then he'd instantly skid to a stop and lash out. The first was swiftly cut at the throat. Another tried caught up to father a moment after, this time trying to avoid the strike only to falter to a feint and counter sweep. Two more dead.

The next was a little more wise to the trick. Up close however it couldn’t dodge my bullets and that mistake was recognized a little too late to them. With a quick sweep of my rifle, I pulled on the trigger and killed that one without difficulty as it had focused too much on the immediate threat. Head breaking in pieces as it failed to adjust rapidly enough.

"We're going to have to find a blockade," Father told me. "Watch, they're grouping up now. No more easy takedowns."

Fifteen left. Still enough to overwhelm us both if they made use of their numbers.

He turned and continued his retreat, while I followed dutifully behind. Occasionally, spikes would glance over my armor as I couldn't get lucky all the time with the dodges. I could see the shield bar on the top of my HUD slowly drain away with each unlucky roll of the dice. I scrambled through the options we had, trying to come up with a plan of my own to help. They were staying as a unified wave now, instead of branching out. A line of automatons, so that if any dodged weapon shots, they wouldn’t have any automatons behind them to slow down.

It was wasting bullets at this point to try attacking. Their ducking and weaving was making it too hard to track and shoot.

Wait a second. Why did I need to do the tracking? The suit could predict where shots lined up with the targeting reticle, and it could easily move my arms too. If there was any time to be cheating in a fight, it was now. “Journey, can you auto-aim?”

“Aiming assist uses autonomous movement and requires administrative access before being enabled.”

“You’re saying it’s possible?!”

“Affirmative.”

Oh. Oh, this is just beyond overpowered.

“Enable aim assist.” I grinned in my helmet with pure glee.

“Override confirmed. Aim assist activated to within one inch of reticle distance from any identified threat. User can change distance in the options menu.”

“Father!” I barked out, “Journey can aim my rifle for me, I think we might be able to clear the rest!”

He nodded. “Copy. Look for a suitable position and we’ll return fire.”

As luck would have it, we’d gotten just what we needed a few meters ahead. Some more of those metal tables by the sides of the welded buildings. Father fell into a slide, rolling into cover. I settled down right and twisted my rifle around to aim.

My arms jerked in my hands, possessed. The reticle snapping onto the targets even as they desperately tried to duck and weave proactively. It was amazing how no matter how they tried to weasel around, the targeting reticle stayed perfectly level on their skulls, slightly ahead of where they’d move. Journey moving my arm with gentle but firm tugs, letting me shift targets by pushing hard enough against the aim.

I pressed down on the trigger. A skull exploded. Fourteen left.

I took three more down in quick succession before they realized dodging wasn’t on the menu anymore. Oh they’d tried to adjust to Journey’s aiming subroutines, but Journey was also adjusting to their own countermeasures equally as fast. The winner of this mathematics escalation fight had been Journey.

Plans changing up, the machines bolted to the sides, abandoning the idea of catching up to us entirely. I got one more nailed before they’d made it to safety. Ten left.

"Good!" Father shouted, "Fall back while they can't charge at us, we'll reset the distance they gained."

Both of us sprinted again, running down the streetways. The spider streaked behind, catching up to the stalled line of screamers, chittering all the while. It didn’t sound happy at all.

The screamers reorganized, leaving cover and running alongside the spider this time.

Once more we ran into a good enough spot for a counter attack. Safe enough from the spikes to get a few shots out. I found my footing behind a wall and peeked out to rain down destruction again.

Once more, Journey's precision was perfect. Except this time, another machine was able to stand toe to toe with Journey. The spider intercepted the crosshairs with those shielded legs. Protecting its flock, I see.

It was absolutely uncanny how every shift and movement of the rifle, the spider’s limbs would match and follow like a partner. Gave me a strange illusion, as if I were controlling the spider’s limbs, a puppeteer. With my rifle as the stick holding the strings.

Had the thing not been an evil monster out to murder me, I would have sung some damn praise at the feat. This creature was absurdly strong when it came to defense.

"Bastards came up with a counter." I said.

Father grunted. "I can hold them at melee, see if you can whittle them down."

"You trust me to fire into a melee? You’ll be in the possible crosshairs."

"I do." He said with calm confidence. "You'll either succeed or Winterscar's armor will take some hits. But you won’t fail me."

I nodded back. The spider continued its careful advance, arms at the ready.

That barnacle on its back hasn’t stopped this entire time either. It continued to rain down fire at me specifically. The little scrapshit really had it out for me.

Father jumped over the table cover, charging forward right after the barnacle had taken another shot at me. The spider held its ground for a moment and then scuttled backwards at the last moment. Ten automatons against Father. Even with his arm restored and at all the drugs keeping him at a temporary peak, these weren't great odds. The veteran seemed to know that.

If I fucked up, he would be the one paying the price. And yet he didn’t waver in the slightest on his dash forward. I leveled my rifle, searching for a good pick.

He picked his fights far more carefully than the first time he'd charged into them. The weapons reserved for defense, his movements always keeping him from being surrounded. The first bout of contact saw neither he nor the automatons get hit. Both sides launched strikes and feints that the other dodged. There was a healthy distance between them, neither side wanting to get within the killzone of the other.

They had a number superiority on him, except they had to keep an eye on me. If they looked away for a second, I’d be the end of them.

The barnacle took another shot at me which I ducked under. I aimed for return fire once the threat had sailed by. Journey tracked after targets, far too close to Father for comfort. It took only a few seconds before I had a window. The Screamer had been forced to pay full attention to Father in order to avoid his strike - and more importantly, had overextended too far away from the spider's protection.

I pressed the trigger, putting complete trust that my armor wouldn’t fail. The Screamer succeeded in dodging against the longsword, only to have its head explode into pieces as my attack flew true.

The pack screeched louder, and Father lunged at another, who’d jumped away to dodge. It got a front row view of my rifle locking onto its midair trajectory and opening fire.

They could try to dodge on land. In the air, they had nowhere. The creature hit the floor without a head.

Now the pack of machines were being far more cautious, taking only the safest possible attacks, while keeping an eye out on where my rifle was aiming. I didn’t see a single one try to jump away again. Eight left, not enough to turn the tides yet.

All this took the span of a few seconds. Which was all the time we got before the spider put a stop to all this nonsense, charging up close enough to act like a hen mother brooding over her children. It now remained close enough to block my attacks and moved to follow any overextending minions.

The spider screamed and hissed in anger, clearly barking out a change of orders. Father tried to take a few swipes at it whenever the limbs got too close in their defense attempt, but the automatons kept him too busy to commit.

The spider could have made use of that, striking out at Father while the minions kept him on edge. Instead, it made no attempt to get closer to the man, preferring to let its minions deal with the dangerous target. I could understand really. Father was like an angry blender. One does not simply poke a spinning whirlwind of blades without getting cut, something the spider seemed to have taken to heart.

It knew any attack on that relic knight would open it up to a counterattack, even if it would have been a small one. The eight remaining minions left were already winning, chipping away at his shield while sustaining light damage in return. They’d outlive him at this pace.

I kept trying to find a viable place to fire off some shots, even if it felt hopeless. That machine would not let me out of its sight. Between the barnacle firing down on me, and the spider’s preemptive legs, there were no more easy wins.

Sit by the front lines, block my shots, wait for its minions to slowly bring down Father. It was a solid plan. Retreat wasn’t possible anymore for us, Father couldn’t extract himself safely at this distance without getting stabbed in the back.

But the spider hadn’t been content with just that. No, it hadn’t settled for a probable victory; the creature was greedy. It wanted to make sure it would win.

That hadn’t been the whole of its new plan. I realized this only by chance when I noticed a discrepancy - Father was now stalemating the enemy, when moments ago they had been slowly winning.

In the middle of the furious fighting, he twirled past an outstretched arm and delivered the first killing blow. The automatons no longer took greedy hits or unsafe lunges after that. They fought more defensively, almost like… almost like they were stalling for time.

I realized exactly why Father started turning the tides only now, whereas before it was a slow pace to defeat. The numbers.

He wasn’t fighting eight screamers anymore. There were only five left in the melee, with one already dead at his feet. Two were unaccounted for.

I twisted just in time to spot them - leaping from the building right above my position.

Falling down directly at me with open, bloodthirsty arms.

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