Don’t ever let another Samurai give you a name, or let anyone give you a name for that matter. They’ll always declare you the most stream of conscious jumble of words imaginable. Like, c’mon, Mary Poppins was right there!

  - Samurai Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, 2039

  Clearly the Antithesis had decided to stop playing around, as the waves sent our way were far more ruthless than the warm up from before. Models Three, Four, and Five arrived in a constant stream of killing and hate, sometimes sneaking in models of a higher caliber to try to throw us for a loop while giving absolutely no room for reprieve. It was an all-out war of attrition, which was what the Antithesis excelled at.

  Our strategy was roughly the same one we used with the full PMC: I would serve as the Vanguard who would face the hordes head on while working as a bottleneck, and Rudy would snipe out any stragglers who got through.

  “Won’t this make it harder for me to get points?” Rudy called out, sniping a pair of Model Threes that circled around me when I was preoccupied. The discs from their launcher–which I had learned weren’t actually disc-shaped at all–sliced directly through their canine heads and the models collapsed forward before it had gotten five feet behind.

  “Don’t worry, you’re actually getting more this way,” I replied while also bashing a Model Five’s face in and body back into the stampede ahead, smashing backwards into another couple of models and skewering them clean through their vitals on the spiky one’s quills. “Since we’re partied up, the points are divided 55/55.”

  My assumption is that he squinted while he processed that information in silence, sans the alien murder of course. “That’s more than a hundred.”

  “Exactly.”

  The one nice thing about the horde was that it made hitting stuff very easy to do, which proved to be a perfect way to break into my new JABs. Every couple of punches I threw an extra spicy one out towards an unsuspecting alien, and even if I didn’t hit it directly the shot usually smacked into something else to the side. No ammo wasted. After throwing out a few dozen of those in far-from-harmless trial and error, I was starting to get the hang of it and could hit where I was aiming somewhat reliably.

  At some point the fighting kind of just became mechanical. ‘Flow state’ is what I think it's called. Some of the guys back in the ring used to mention it, although I never achieved it during my stay there as far as I remember. Something about the body and mind harmonizing into equilibrium they spoke of it as, the sole focus on the trial laid before you. The life-or-death aspect made it easier to maintain at the moment, weirdly. Holding back didn’t ever cross my mind against the Antithesis, which meant everything went into going for the kill.

  Slipping into it here, it made sense why they hyped it up so much. It was peaceful. Therapeutic, even. All my errant thoughts and worries ceased to exist. There was neither the possibilities of tomorrow nor the regrets of yesterday wrestling for control. In the present there was only…me. Existing. Fighting. Living.

  “Hey Max?”

  All of reality slipped back into focus, conveniently just as I was liquifying the head of a Model Three. I was back in the cave, staring down the horde of Antithesis before me.

  “What’s up?” I asked, not even bothering to turn to address him directly when I still had aliens to punch.

  “I have enough.”

  “Oh, gotcha.” Rudy needed time to get his stuff set up, most likely. I’d have to take up the killing solo for a bit. “Say when.”

  Just as I finished saying that he gave his response. “When.”

  A scoff unceremoniously slipped through. “Smartass.”

  The hectic sound of shuffling came from behind me, as well as several heavy somethings dropping to the floor. In the meantime, I wasn’t about to say no to a fun little bit of challenge in holding off the swarm. “Cal, what cartridges do I have loaded?”

  All of your remaining blast ones, as the force cartridges are currently deposited in your pockets. Two in each gauntlet; you haven’t needed them since the fight with the Thirteen.

  “Wonderful.” I dropped into a wider stance, and thrust both palms out towards the encroaching horde. A bright cone of orange blasted out from each one, incinerating everything in front of me and actually pushing me back an inch or two from the force. Even through my mask, the smell of burnt Antithesis suddenly became much more noticeable.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  New bodies soon flooded the tunnel, taking the place of the ones most recently disposed of by the explosions. All this meant was more targets for me, and I was still in some need to target practice.

  The tunnel quickly became aglow with the flashes of silver that rocketed into my foes, tearing off faces and limbs every time one landed. Only the Model Sixes took it on the cheek, and they may as well have been stationary with how slowly they reacted when I chucked a grenade their way. Model Ones were basically the only thing that could dodge the projectile, and none of those had appeared in this set of tunnels so far.

  Actually, nipping that in the bud was probably a solid idea. “Cal, get me something that will keep the more slippery models from squirming by. Some sort of net…bomb? Whatever works, I guess.”

  Budget?

  “Uh…thirty-ish points?” Any more than that was probably too much for dealing with Ones.

  Understood. Put out your hand and throw it back as hard as you can.

  Purchased: Flytrap Bio-Web Deployer x1 - 25 Points

  Point Total: 2364

  I obliged, tossing the cube-shaped object behind me and back down the tunnel as soon as it fell into my hand. I could just make out the clatter it made as it landed, before being replaced with a low, expanding hiss. “What was that?”

  An item from your Class I Esoteric Single-Use Explosives Catalog. Once armed, it released a substance similar to spider silk to fill up the entryway in a manner reminiscent of a web. If an Antithesis make contact, they will be chemical bonded to the web, then slowly broken down by a specific enzyme produced by the bond. It’s only effective against single-digit models up to Four, but it should suffice for your purposes.

  “Is that going to create a big mess for me to clean up later?”

  Your lack of faith in my choices wounds me, Max. The entire web will dissolve after a few hours.

  Before I could think of a clever retort that that bit of snark, a Model Three lunged in my direction. It wasn’t really that much of a threat at this point, but it did briefly catch me off guard. “Oh shi-”

  The sound of something whizzing past tickled my ear, and I watched as a bladed drone the size of a pizza pan collided into and promptly shredded an entire row of Threes, the spinning rim on the little flying saucer cutting through the aliens like a hot knife through butter. A few more drones followed suit, circling through the gaggle of Antithesis with little resistance before flying back behind me.

  When I turned around, what greeted me was Rudy, half a dozen drones quietly hovering in the air next to him. His wardrobe was the same as before, but in his hand was some sort of wand, pointed slightly downward. Something must have moved behind me, as he quickly thrust out the wand and one of the drones launched forward, followed by the sound of shredding flesh.

  The particular motion made everything click into place. “Wait, is that a conductor’s baton?”

  It was hard to tell in the dark like this, but I swore that I saw his cheeks go slightly rosy when he gave a huff. “No, it’s a pinpoint drone control wand, meant to help fill the gaps where the aug-gear falls behind.”

  “Uh-huh, sure sure.” I nodded my head in mock understanding, making sure to really overemphasize the motion. At least until a word popped itself into my mind. “I totally believe you there, Staccato.”

  What I said didn't click for a moment in his mind. “Excuse me?”

  “Staccato, that's your Sam’ name now,” I replied, waving away his question while turning back to the horde. “The older Sam gets to pick the name, so I did. Congrats, you could've had much worse.”

  “Wait, it's decided just like that?” He asked, clearly taken aback. “No input from me or anything?”

  “Yup…and nope.”

  I threw myself fully back into Antithesis killing at this point, but took a moment to pop into my texts.

  [Cal, go ahead and send both Hazel and Shermanson the good news regarding the name.]

  Quite petty today, aren't we?

  [Is that a no?]

  On the contrary, I just sent it with a spinning trophy image and the title in big, sufficiently dramatic font.

  [What’s the color?]

  Gold gradient.

  Thankfully the dying squelch of my fist smashing face drowned out the sound of my downright evil cackle.

  [Classy.]

  From there, our journey towards the center of the hive proceeded a lot more smoothly, namely because Rudy was able to snipe out Antithesis much earlier with his drones actively shredding through their ranks like weed wackers. It meant I had less aliens to kill myself, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. After what must have been an hour or two of alien killing at this point, the strain was finally starting to kick in.

  Soon enough we reached the heart of the operation, and it was just as teeming with Antithesis as I expected. Those pods were working overtime to ensure that we were constantly swamped, and I even saw one trying to pop out a Model Twelve, although I squashed that before it could get going. Nothing about the current conditions of the hive was unmanageable though, even if Rudy hadn't initialized.

  Where was the pizazz? The big show stopper? For a hive that supposedly had a Seventeen in it, it wasn't particularly throwing its weight around.

  To be honest, it was making me frustrated, to the point where I was mumbling various expletives under my breath. “C’mon, give me something cool you worthless fucking plants.”

  Apparently they had a sense of humor, as that was the exact moment something dropped to the floor from behind us. Something large. Something heavy. And by turning around to face it, I knew for certain it wasn’t a Seventeen.