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  [Objective: Place Packages containing Ignition Type 17-E and Kindling at the designated drop zone, and extract all other personnel.]

  [Secondary: Try to locate equipment lost during the excavation process.]

  -Terminal Log 4729, 2056

  Spark you have a call from Vanguard SkyFire.

  “Put it through!” I shouted through clenched teeth as I peeked around a boulder Inque had ripped from the cave wall to give me some cover while xey grappled with a pair of Thirteens.

  [Spark? Hello?]

  “Hey Ms. Fire, you seem to have reached me at a bad time,” I drawled, before ducking behind the rock to avoid a rock flung at me by the tentacle fuck up ahead. “We may have woken up a few Thirteens down here.”

  [Let me guess… Inque instantly hyperfocused them?]

  “Mhmm. Said something about matching them limb to limb and rushed forward.” I peeked the rock and launched some trap pellets from my Trench Stormer to stall out the horde just a bit longer. “Now xey appear to be grappling with ‘em.”

  A loud sigh came over the call, [Just stay safe, Inque tends to enjoy wrestling with Thirteens a bit too much. If you need xeir help just throw out a resonator, that’ll snap xem out of it.]

  “Thanks!” I grunted as I tried to hit one of the three bodies of the Thirteen that had decided to play artillery for the antithesis. The slug pierced into the flesh with ease, only for the Thirteen to shift around, replacing the damaged body with a healthy one.

  “What did you need me for anyway?”

  [Well I tried calling Inque which didn’t work for obvious reasons, because we found a third satellite node, and evidence of Model Eighteen pods that have hatched ages ago.]

  Her voice got really serious, [Be very careful. Those things are extremely dangerous down here. If you feel the ground shaking make sure you aren’t about to have the ceiling dropped on top of you.]

  I looked up at the roof of the cave and shuddered, “Yeah don’t worry, I’ll keep my eyes peeled. Thanks for the heads up, and the tip to break the stalemate I’m watching.”

  [Yeah, xey would be able to easily kill those things, but xey refuse to use blades at all when wrestling them. Says it makes things unfair.]

  I flinched from another rock passing a few inches over my head and impacting the wall behind me hard enough to embed it halfway in, “I’ll get xem back on track. Gotta go now bye!”

  I closed the call without waiting for a response, “Pyri give me a resonator NOW!”

  The tiny speaker of doom dropped into my waiting hand, I set it to trigger after a few seconds and awkwardly threw it over the rock I was crouched behind.

  It quickly sounded out with a wail that allowed me to fire off a net of electrified buckshot, electrocuting the Thirteen harassing me. Inque on the otherhand instantly grew blades out of every tentacle of xeirs and began mincing the tentacles attempting to loop around xem.

  The fight quickly relaxed to a more manageable state, the Thirteens providing the most resistance in this small hatchery we had stumbled upon.

  Before we had even been able to start destroying the large sac covered tentacles, three of them had dropped from the ceiling. Each one was made up of three misshapen bodies linked together by a few tendrils while they had several more for movement, slamming, and apparently throwing rocks at me.

  Inque ripped the boulder out of the wall as fast as xey could, then rushed out and damn near tackled all three of them while shouting at me to destroy the hatchery. I started pulping them as well as I could with my shotgun, barely getting half way done before one of the Thirteens was able to peel itself away from the voidling and come after me.

  My life was getting weirder by the hour.

  Refocusing on my temporary roadblock, I rushed out from behind my rock shield and filled the exit tunnel with as much buckshot and electricity as possible. The antithesis were looking a lot more green now, almost like the exact shade of newly emerged corn. Pyri confirmed my suspicions with a small status chart, basically proving these antithesis were recently born. Which meant we were getting close to something massive to be outputting this many xenos at once.

  “Hey Spark! You got the tunnel handled?”

  “Not really!” I called back. The Tunnel was starting to fill with corpses, giving the antis cover to hide behind at a Sixes’ discretion if I was actually hearing that warbling sound.

  “Just hold out for a minute or three! Gotta kill off the rest of the hatchery first!”

  “Sure thing,” I grumbled. “Pyri, get me something to destroy that corpse pile!”

  Incendiary grenades coming right up dear.

  A pair of grenades teleported right onto my bandolier and were quickly thrown deep into the cave, bursting in beautiful ultraviolet fire which took to all the flammable matter in there incredibly quickly.

  And also began filling the tunnel with smoke which billowed up and out into the former hatchery.

  “I didn’t just put us on a timer, did I Pyri?”

  No, assuming you don’t spread it manually, and employ the use of C-Foam where necessary, the fire will stay within a reasonable amount of control.

  I looked into the tunnel and watched a Three fall to the ground, totally cooked.

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  “Reasonable huh?” I said with a chuckle.

  “What’s reasonable?” Inque asked as xey walked up next to me.

  “The amount of control I’ll have over this fire if I do nothing.”

  Inque looked over at me and rubbed xeir arm, “Uhhhhh, sorry about messing around before… I tend to get a bit shortsighted when it comes to Thirteens.”

  “It’s fine,” motioning to the still wailing resonator, I continued, “I know the proper way to snap you out of it now anyways.”

  Xey winced, “Please tell me you found it out on your own?”

  “Nope! Sky called me to tell me that they found a satellite node, and explained the resonator thing.”

  Inque facepalmed, “She’s gonna kill me.”

  I let a bit of mirth into my voice, “Well then you can call her back and explain what we found here!” Sky’s warning replayed in my head, ”Oh and before I forget, Sky said they found hatched Model Eighteen pods down here, so that’s also a thing we might get to deal with.

  Inque shook xeir head, “Nah, if we encounter an Eighteen down here, I’ll deal with it. You don’t have anything that’ll pierce the armor they have. I’ll deal with ‘em.”

  “Fine, but I can and will help you. I might not be able to get through their armor, but I can still coat them in C-Foam.” I looked over to see xem visibly holding back a laugh.

  I rolled my eyes, “You have the humor of a middle schooler.”

  “Hey! You said it not me!”

  I began walking down the tunnel, “Whatever. You good to walk through a bit of ultraviolet fire?”

  “Not really,” xey replied, “Some of the materials in my body can be used as accelerants, best to put the fire out.”

  I shrugged and handed xem my shotgun, “Okay then, I’ll put the fire out, and you kill whatever attacks us?”

  Xey looked down at my shotgun then nodded, “That’s fine. Rayne told me how to work this thing.”

  “Rayne?”

  “My AI, she is a bit of a dork when it comes to guns, wishes I’d use them more often.”

  ‘Pyri can you source me with C-Foam until we’re done?’

  I’ll place them on your bandolier.

  Turning my attention back to Inque I asked the obvious question, “Why don’t you?”

  “Cause it’s so boring!” Inque exclaimed, “Also killing things with my own body feels right in a gender type of way.”

  I couldn’t really argue with that, considering I was going to get a big floofy tail in hopefully a few hours. I threw the first C-Foam grenade at the first big fire in our path.

  “Yet you’re still willing to use them in situations when you need to?”

  “Yeah,” Xey replied, “No point in forcing myself to not use them in situations where I can’t just dice my way through the problem. Of course, I have complete respect for anyone who avoids them for personal reasons. S’not my place to judge anyhow.”

  I responded with a nod as we continued deeper, Inque killing off a few stragglers that braved the fire while I extinguished the flames with C-Foam. We continued on in silence until we finally got through the fire and flames, just to find nothing but a few burnt Model Threes waiting for us.

  “Shouldn’t there be more?” I asked.

  Inque handed me back the Trench Stormer, and rushed the Threes. “Yeah, which means we drained all the spares this area had, or something pulled them back.”

  Xey watched as the antithesis blood on xeir blade was eaten away by the material. “Hope for the former, the latter means a Sixteen or Seventeen.”

  “Trust me, the last thing I want to deal with is chasing a Seventeen through a bunch of tunnels.”

  Xey nodded at me, “Smart.”

  We continued on for a bit longer before stumbling upon a downright massive chamber, several hatchery vines creeped their way up the cylindrical chamber, Model Tens rushing around wildly with a bit of panic.

  A pair of them plucked a sac from the vine and split it open to reveal a small Model Three that was clearly born far too early.

  “Welp, we definitely found the main hive.” Inque whispered, “Otherwise we’re fucked.”

  Spark. Look at the far side of the chamber here.

  Pyri flickered a small circle around another entrance to the hive chamber, zooming in on it I found something that made my blood boil.

  Tire tracks, with a pair of torn open containers next to them.

  “Spark?”

  “I’m going over to the other side, can you deal with the hive without me?”

  Inque followed my line of sight and presumably found what I was looking at. “Go for it, make sure you record everything though.”

  Xey crept toward the edge, growing a set of bladed tendrils, and climbed over the edge down towards the bottom of the hive chamber.

  I walked along the edge, taking my time. Eventually sounds of combat started ringing out from below, Inque going to work.

  After far too long, I reached the pair of containers, one a full sized shipping container labeled ‘Kindling’ and the other a destroyed cage with the label ‘Ingition Type 17-E’

  ‘Pyri, what Model are those claw marks from?’

  They are from a Model Seventeen. In fact they match the Seventeen you fought earlier.

  I barely stopped myself from lashing out and punching the empty shipping container.

  The only thing stopping me was a faded logo painted onto the side.

  ‘Property of Montero-Wisteria Labs.’

  ‘Fucking got you.’ I spat out. ‘Pyri are you recording this?’

  Yes.

  ‘Good, after we’re done cleaning up this hive, I want to take these containers. For now I’m following these tracks.’

  Spark, take a second to breathe, the last thing you need is to go into a fight this angry. Also you should inform Vanguard InqueAbyss of where you are going.

  ‘Open a call and mute my helmet speakers please.’

  I only sat through a single ring before xey picked up.

  [What’d you find?]

  “Apparently the shipping container was owned by Montero-Wisteria Labs. Also the cage is where the Seventeen I fought came from.”

  [Hmmm Rayne is that the same company that-okay yeah. Shit.]

  “Inque?”

  [That company is responsible for the destruction of New Houston, had some sort of unapproved xenobiology lab that breached containment. We will need to talk to the Family about this.]

  I faltered, even out here news of that disaster from a few weeks ago had shocked us. An entire city out in the Gulf of Mexico, destroyed with less than a thousand survivors. Their ‘benevolent dictator’ of a Sam allowing it to happen completely under his nose.

  “I’m going to follow the tracks.” I said robotically. “Just thought I’d let you know where I’d be.”

  [Spark I really don’t like how you sound. Please be careful.]

  “Those fucks won’t like how I sound when I find their fucking lab.” I snarled before hanging up the call and rushing off into the tunnel.

  Spark I understand you’re angry, but you need to calm down. You won’t get anything accomplished like this.

  “Fucking watch me!” I shouted.

  A few seconds of silence except for the sound of my breathing, allowed me to notice it.

  Tremors.

  The ground buckled beneath me. Dropping me down into a wide open chamber with loose, sandy, soil covered in ferns and broadleaf bearing stalks as a floor and a digestion pool in the center.

  I flung a spare C-Foam grenade down below me, the globs forming a cushion to break my fall without hurting me beyond a few more aches.

  And above me, right underneath the hole that opened beneath my feet was a pair of what could only be one thing.

  The Model Eighteens Sky had warned me about.