Keron
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Chapter 22 - The PELT
🕑 Added 2025-01-11 16:06:11 +0000 UTC{Okay, anchor one: fire!}
Hiss Clang
{Target hit, sir! Full penetration achieved and the weight checks are positive.}
{Good! Anchor two.}
Hiss Clang
{Target hit! Holding steady.}
{Perfect. Activate retraction.}
{On i- AAAHHHHHHH!}
CRASH
--Audio recording from experimental traversal system P.E.L.T, test #1: the brakes incident.
¯¯¯¯¯
New Purchases!
Class I Prolotor Combat Utilities – 70 points
P.E.L.T System x 3 – 60 points
Total: 130 points
Remaining Points: ####
_____
Three long black boxes with pictures of raccoons swinging between buildings, hanging from silver cables attached to cute little harnesses appear on the floor beside me. I glance at them briefly, but my attention is stolen by the oddity at the bottom of the purchase report in the corner of my vision.
I frown and glance at the point counter that was definitely working when I first got these augs, but it shows scrambled characters now.
“Cyon… Why can’t I see my points?”
Isn’t it more fun to wait for a full report at the end of the big fight?
“I guess? As long as I can still buy things I don’t really care.” I shrug and crouch down to open the new boxes.
The first lid clicks open as Spot hops down from the pouch Sim made for him, landing in front of the box and eagerly peeking in. Inside is a harness made from several loops of leather, with several sleek metal boxes mounted to it and a black metal canister the size of two fists stacked as well.
Before I can ask how to put it on, Spot grabs it and deftly slips himself into it ending up with the canister sitting between his bag and tail, pressed up against both, and the metal boxes on his shoulders and hips.
“Did you…”
I only gave him the instructions.
My lips curl in a proud smile, and I reach down to pat Spot’s head as the harness tightens itself into place around him, connecting itself to his bag and letting the old strap fall off.
{Can you take these to the others?} I ask him, nodding towards the other two boxes.
{Kay!} he chirps, pushing his head into my palm.
“How much weight can the PELT carry?”
Locked the system can support several tonnes, but the-
My ears twitch, catching the sharp sound of something cutting through the air, and I duck, narrowly dodging a thick quill.
Whoops. Maybe I should have kept subvocalising…
I reach out, slipping my hand into Spot’s bag and taking out a grenade. I quickly home in on the Five that attacked me and prime it, arcing my arm back before snapping it forward and sending the ball of spikey death hurtling straight into the rude plant’s face.
“As you were saying,” I say while pulling the two PELT boxes back from the window to completely get out of the horde’s view.
The retraction systems will only safely operate with up to one hundred kilograms per harness.
“Okay, easily enough. How big can Spot’s bag stretch? I want to give him more grenades to take to our siblings.”
Big enough to give them the goodies to run circles around the horde.
“Can I afford that?”
Yes.
“Do it.”
The bag on Spot’s back suddenly balloons out, sagging down to rest on the ground as it swells up to triple the size of him.
¯¯¯¯¯
New Purchase!
Mark I Chaos Bundle – 500 points
Remaining Points: ####
_____
“Not gonna tell me what they got?”
Cyon doesn’t respond. Rude.
Spot slings our siblings’ harnesses over his shoulders before nodding up at me confidently. I bend down and scoop him up, frowning at the weight of the bag. That’s gonna hurt his shoulders!
“This bag is too heavy for him,” I complain while moving back to the edge of the window, preparing to leave.
It is. However, he can detach it on the roof while he takes the PELTs to the others, so he’ll be fine.
I nod begrudgingly, giving Spot one last ear scritch before stepping into the window and leaping out, turning so my back is to the horde as it fades from sight, giving Spot in my arms a clear line of sight to the roof of the building we were in.
Four light pops sound at once, and four small metal anchors shoot up, carrying cables behind them. They punch into the walls of the building, and in an instant Spot is whisked up out of my arms, rising quickly.
{Have fun!} I call out as I flip, getting my legs under myself before I hit the ground and roll, landing between a Four and two Threes.
I rise up, slashing the tentacled mass before it can react and catching a dog that leaps at me, digging my fingers into the sides of its head and crushing its skull before quickly dropping the corpse to doge another bite from a Three. I kick the dog away, reaching into my pocket and pulling out my last knife, flicking it into the xeno’s head before ducking under a swooping One that noticed the scuffle.
A flick of my wrist decapitates the bird, and I quickly scan the surrounding plants that are even more densely packed now thanks to the threat of explosives decreasing.
‘Cyon, GorillaBomb knife and something to mask my scent please.’
A silver knife with a glass vial for a handle, filled with a dangerous red liquid, and a clear vial of milky blue liquid both appear in front of me, drawing the focus of the surrounding bushes trying to pinpoint my location.
Crush.
I don’t need Cyon to say anything else, so I crush the plain vial in my hand and throw the knife at the closest Four. The milky blue liquid quickly spreads across my body, making me look like a human-shaped ripple for a moment before it vanishes along with the faint musk of life that I carried before.
The Four I hit bursts, distracting the plants that have started approaching me for long enough for me to slip away unnoticed, narrowly squeezing between several Antithesis and scratching a few on the way past.
‘What should I be-‘
I don’t need to finish my question because my ears twitch, faintly picking up a familiar hum coming from a nearby alley.
That’s the noise of a Six!
‘I thought you said it would be a Seventeen?’ I say while quickly pinpointing the sound and heading towards it.
It still may be a Seventeen. They are a more advanced control unit but transfer their commands by embedding control parasites into other Antithesis, and they can only control a limited number of these. To counter that they take control of other units like Sixes to spread their control further.
Before I can respond, a sharp wave of sound that makes me flinch hits me from behind, and I wince as my head snaps towards it. I see a clump of plants shuddering and dissolving close to the source of the sound, and at a glance I spot Stripe on the edge of the roof above it, covering her ears.
‘Cyon! I wouldn’t have found the Six if that was a few seconds earlier!’
Whoops.
I scoff, stabbing a nearby Three in the side before ducking into the alley I heard the Six in. There are two Threes walking straight towards me when I step off the street, but they don’t see me until they walk straight into my outstretched claws which I drive through their eyes, killing them instantly.
Stepping over the corpses I glance up and see two Fours waiting, mounted to the walls ahead of me, slowly approaching.
‘DogEater,’ I subvocalise, holding out both hands and feeling two knives land in them.
I throw both at once, nailing both tentacle balls and dropping them to the ground with satisfyingly synchronised thuds.
I go to walk past them, but as I get within arms reach of the second corpse, it moves, leaping up towards me. I spin, reacting as quickly as I can and slashing my hand across my attacker. I cleave several inches off its mass, cutting off where its head would be if it was a person and killing it, but the plant’s sharp, bladed limbs cut through Sim at the same time, drawing four gashes across my ribs.
I kick the corpse back, getting a better look at the Nine that had disguised itself as some of the Four’s tentacles.
‘Well, that’s terrifying,’ I muse, turning away from the corpse with a flick of my tail and heading further away from the main battlefield to look for the Six, ignoring the explosions starting back up behind me in full.
‘You didn’t give them anything too dangerous, right?’
…
‘Cyon?’
…
I should be fast.
