Chapter Ten - Rainbows of Death

"Look, I'm all for supporting the community, but this is too many flags."

--the LGBTVexillology Forums, 2025

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Twin 105mm cannons barked on either side of my mech. I wasn't in it, so I couldn't feel that glorious oomf of recoil, but I did get to see a pair of explosions rocking the side of the model twenty two in beautiful high-definition.

Plant meat and gristle flew all over. Both rounds had penetrated the model twenty two's lightly-armoured sides, buried themselves into its flesh, then exploded. There were now gaping holes large enough for a family of four to crawl into.

And still the fucker wasn't dead.

The model twenty two stumbled. Some of the sacs on its side were broken, and half-formed alien carcasses slipped out along with a few gallons of placenta juice.

Around it, the horde of smaller aliens playing babysitter turned my way. There was no signal, they all just started to move in my direction.

I flicked on the mech's invisibility, then immediately made it useless by opening up with its twin Gatling guns. A torrent of 10mm rounds rushed ahead. Every tenth round or so was a tracer. For some reason they alternated in colour, green, then yellow, then red streaking together to form a sort of moving...

Wait a fucking second, were my guns rainbow-themed? "Hell yeah," I muttered.

I thought you might enjoy that.

"It's very stupid," I said as I swept the fire left and right. There was nothing quite like twin Gatling guns to clear out brush, and trees, and aliens.

Just to be safe, I aimed the big guns at the model twenty two and fired a second salvo. One round smashed into its down-tilted head. The other dug into its already opened side. When they went off, it was enough to send the alien crashing down.

I pulled back on the digital trigger and looked upon my work. There was a bit of fire around the dead alien, and some that were still squirming, but for the most part, there was just a lot of dead biomass.

"This one's dead," I said. "And it was... really easy?" I tapped a few commands in, and charted a route for the mech to catch up and intercept our little group somewhere out ahead.

"A few aliens couldn't keep you down!" Princess said over the open comms. "Also, rainbow guns?"

I decided to ignore her, because sometimes that worked with my problems.

Gomorrah made a sound that could have meant anything while I exited out of the apps that let me control my mech. We were still floating along ahead of the others through what looked like a dirt road cut into the forest. I wasn't a good judge of natural shit, on account of being a city girl, but the forest to our right looked a lot younger than the forest to the left, as if we were driving along a divide.

It only took a minute before my mech appeared out ahead, waiting for us. We were cutting in pretty damned close to where the model twenty two had been.

It didn't take much before we drove right past and onto a small countryside road just past that. This one was at least covered in asphalt in the spots that weren't poked full of potholes large enough to hide in.

"Alright," Gomorrah said. "This road leads all the way to Echo Lake. We're... two kilometres away now, more or less. We need to decide how we want to handle the hive at the lake."

"Nah," I said.

"...Nah?" Gomorrah repeated. "Can you elaborate?"

I gestured behind us, towards where the others were, more or less. "Let the new samurai handle it. Legit. You and I can stay back and make sure they're not overwhelmed, but let them get the points for taking out the hive. We can salt the earth after if it comes to it, but they need the experience and the points more. Plus I want to sit back and have someone else do my work for me."

"I don't mind that," Crackshot said over the coms. "Could use a few more points for a new pair of boots. And I've yet to take out a hive myself."

"This is riskier than it needs to be," Hedgehog said. "But... I suppose there are enough of us here, and with some supervision to keep the danger at a low simmer, this might not be a terrible idea."

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"Stop thinking like a normie, Hedgey... Hoggy?" Princess started. "We're samurai, we're supposed to jump into trouble and come out of it looking like heroes."

I shared a look with Gomorrah. That kid was gonna get herself into a lot of trouble. Or grow a lot from the experience and come out of it real strong.

"There's a good stopping point ahead," Gomorrah said.

We turned off the road and climbed up a slight... hilly thing that led to a flat bit of ground that was taller than some of the trees around us. Gomorrah set the Fury down and I slipped out of the car, eyes fixed to the right.

Echo Lake stretched out below. The forest went on for a ways, but the trees were prematurely yellowed and often downed, then there was nothing but collapsed brown mush until it reached the edge of the lake.

The lake itself was a lot bigger than what I had in mind. Even seeing the satellite imagery wasn't enough to give me a proper sense of scale. It wasn't so big that I couldn't see the far shore, but it was still a fuckload of water. Water currently covered in what looked like a layer of some sort of gunk.

"Myalis, can you zoom me in on the surface?" I asked.

My helmet's visor filled with a much closer view of the lake's surface, and I made sure to keep my head stable so that it didn't shift too much. There was something all across the water's surface alright, some sort of mat, almost?

"I'm assuming that isn't natural," I said.

It doesn't look like it. Records indicate the presence of similar materials in other hives before. It's a filtration system empowered by a chemical similar to chlorophyll. The reaction forces water through a series of small organelles, then into something similar to a root system, extracting particulates from the water's surface.

"So... what, some sort of filter?" I asked.

Essentially. It seems as if this hive had been trying to purify its main source of water.

I chewed on my lip for a moment. The lake was supposed to be stupidly toxic to alien life, and probably human life as well. The local flora suggested that it wasn't great, and yet here the antithesis was, fixing it.

Well, fixing it in order to better make little monsters to eat the locals with, so no points gained there.

Hedgehog set the armoured truck on park, and then Tankette rode up the hillside, followed by my mech which turned around and faced the incline in case something tried to sneak up on us.

Crackshot stepped out, then walked over to stand next to me. "Well, shit, that's a lot of hive," he said.

"I don't think the entire lake is a hive," I said. "Looked like... see that entire coast bit there? Looks like the hive is actually in that spot of woods there. It's just that it's pulling from the water." I pointed as I spoke. "Still, yeah, that's a lot of hive. But it might not be all that bad."

"How's that?" he asked.

"I'm not an engineer or anything, but I figure building down is a bad idea when you're right next to a lake. So the hive will probably be spread out across the surface."

"We don't have the tools to deal with either," Hedgehog said as he ambled over. "Protocol for this kind of thing is to carpet bomb the area, then sweep in with heavy armour."

"We can't carpet bomb this, and we don't have heavy armour," I said. "Besides, it's probably all muddy down there."

"My tank gets caught in the mud sometimes," Tankette said. "I can't imagine how much worse it would be if it was a lot heavier."

"Yup," I said. "That sure looks like a problem. Well, good luck!"

I patted Crackshot on the shoulder, then walked on over to where Gomorrah was leaning against the hood of her car. "Think they'll manage?" she asked when I got closer.

"Yeah. We figured it out the first few times, and there was only the two of us. Plus, they just came off a nice point-farming spree. They must all be sitting on a few thousand each, yeah?"

Gomorah nodded. "It should be enough. Worst-case, we help a little. It's not a big deal."

"Well, it's a big deal if we don't finish before sundown. I want to have supper with Lucy tonight."

Gomorrah shook her head. "You need to set priorities."

"I... have? Lucy, then all the rest. It ain't rocket science."

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