Stray Cat Strut Chapter Thirty-Three – Smokescreen

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Stray Cat Strut (A cyberpunk system apocalypse!) - Ongoing

Fluff (A superheroic LitRPG about cute girls doing cute things!) - Ongoing

Love Crafted (Interactive story about an eldritch abomination tentacle-ing things!) - Completed!

Drear's Ten-Tea-Cle Café (An insane Crossover about cute people and tentacles) - Hiatus

Cinnamon Bun (A wholeso LitRPG!) - Ongoing

The Agartha Loop (A Magical-Girl drama!) - Volu Two Complete!

Lever Action (A fantasy western with cha!) - Volu One Complete!

Heart of Dorkness (A wholeso progression fantasy) - Completed!

Dead Tired (A cody about a Lich in a Wuxia world doing Science!) - Ongoing

Sporemageddon (A fantasy story about a mushroom lover exploding the industrial revolution!) - Ongoing

Past the Redline (A girl goes too fast, then she does it again) - Completed!

Magical Girl Crystal Genocide (Magical Girls accidentally the planet, and then try to fix it) - Completed!

Magical Girl Rending Nightmare (A sequel to Crystal Genocide! Cute girls in a soviet dystopia having a picnic on the roadside) - Volu Two Completed!

Noblebright (A shipcore AI works to avenge humanity) - Completed!

The Complicated Love Life of Ivil Antagonist (The Empress of Mars finds love) - Completed!

Pokebun (Broccoli Bunch in the world of Pokemon) - Hiatus

Queen Violence (An Assassin Reborn as a Kitten) - Completed!

No Strings Attached (An Elden Ring/Bloodborne inspired progression fantasy) - Ongoing

Save Scumming (A ti-looping system apocalypse) - Ongoing

Chapter Thirty-Three - Smokescreen

"The worst thing the Antithesis can do is exist in your vicinity.

The second worst thing? I guess it's adapt."

--Longbow, podcast interview, June 08, 2055

***

The Antithesis started their attack without much fanfare. Not even a quick 'we're breaking up' text.

I was looking up a few things in the M.E.O.W., mostly zoning out while preparing my next loadout of shots and listening to the radio chatter with half an ear when the army and militia started to talk a lot faster, the tone in their voices changing from casual if a little confused to bordering on panic. A few louder voices barked order, which cald the rest down.

In any case, it was enough for to start paying attention. From where I was, by the edge of the river, there wasn't much worth noticing. I glanced over the caras I had in the ch and its sensors, but nothing ca up.

The livestream drone's feed was a whole different story. The cara had spun around, facing away from the wall and towards the distance where the Antithesis were coming from.

The bastards had shown up in a wave. I couldn't quite make out individuals, but there had to be a couple of thousand of them. Mostly model ones. They rose up from the ground in a great big cloud, so thick that I couldn't see through it, then they dispersed.

Model ones were fast little fucks, but they weren't the most graceful thing out there. They had more in common with a drunken seagull most of the ti than sothing regal and swift like a crow. Still, they managed not to smash into each other as they spread out and flew in a great big spiral that soon broke apart and beca multiple smaller swarms.

I started to run back towards the section of the wall that was nearest to the swarm. It wouldn't help anyone if I was out of position when the aliens ca.

I kept an eye on the swarm as it circled around. It was such a big show that it kind of distracted from what was brewing beneath. There were a few hundred smaller models visible already. Mostly model threes, the four-to-six legged dog-like monsters were gathering in clumps, then spreading out. It looked almost like they were keeping an even amount of space between each other. Weird.

I didn't like it when they started to act weird.

Amongst the group were a few others, so lumbering model sixes, and a lot of those tentacle-covered model fours.

Overall, maybe three thousand of them in all. That was a lot of bodies, but it wasn't going to be enough to overwhelm the wall. They'd need to either break through tre-thick concrete, or pile enough bodies up to make it over the top, and I couldn't see either option really working.

So, unless they were stupid, there was sothing else going on.

I was almost in position when they started to move.

First, it was the land-bound models. The front row of model threes charges ahead, moving like greyhounds at a track. Now that I was back close to the wall and up on a slight rise, I could make them out myself. They were clocking in at nearly seventy kilotres an hour. They'd be here within a minute.

The models behind started to move as well. The model fours, mostly.

Then they did sothing I'd seen them do before, but in a whole new way. Model fours could spit out this gas. It ca from their central body, sotis from little pores on their tentacles. I'd caught a whiff or two of that gas before. It had so sort of drug laced into it, but was usually pretty transparent.

What they were spewing now definitely wasn't.

They wiggled their tentacles while stumbling forward at an awkward run, thick plus of gas spreading out above and around them and coating the air with a sort of grey-ish gas that expanded outwards.

Almost right away, my sensors started to glitch out a little. The positive readings on models behind the model fours started to co back as uncertain. The gas was also thick enough to obscure. It was like every model four was carrying a few military-grade smoke grenades and they'd all been set off at once.

There wasn't much wind today. A slight breeze was coming in from the west, so the gas was generally flowing back and over the main body of the Antithesis, but mostly it just created a low wall of smoke.

"What the hell," I muttered. "Have they been watching world war one docuntaries or sothing?"

I believe this is one of the first tis you're fighting entrenched Antithesis, rather than raiding a hive or fighting an incursion or raid. Their tactical doctrine, if you are inclined to use that term at all, varied a lot in this kind of situation.

I flinched when a big gun on the other side of the wall fired. There was a faint tremor that ran through the ground. Then, several seconds later, an explosion blossod ahead of the running model threes, tossing up a couple of bodies and about half a ton of loose dirt.

More joined in a mont later. I could pick up sothing like five guns, all firing at different paces.

I had to wonder how effective that would be. The way the model threes were spreading out ant that a lot of shots were hitting one or two at most.

Still better than nothing. Once the main force was closer, the shots would take out more of them per shell. Though I imagined that once that smokescreen approached, it would also an that a lot of those sa shots were going to miss outright.

I still didn't know how they planned on making it over or through the wall, but I couldn't imagine the Antithesis were stupid enough to just charge at it and die.

We'd have to find out. And it was going to be relatively soon, because for all that the model fours spewing smoke were only moving at a jogging speed, they were getting closer.

The first wave of model threes ca rushing closer. At so ill-defined point, they crossed the line where they were within range of the guns within the walls. A dozen machinegun emplacents opened up, spraying bullets across the gap. So had tracers, which left visible lines even across the mid-day sky.

I could tell which gunner was army and which was militia, or at least which was a veteran or not. The army gunners fired and swayed their fire into tight pattern-eights, then switched targets while the dust settled. It resulted in a sort of burrrt-pause-burrrt kind of firing rhythm. The less-experienced gunners pulled on the trigger and didn't let go.

The results were predictable enough. Nine misses for every one hit, but when firing hundreds of rounds a minute, that added up to a lot of dead aliens pretty quickly.

Fast moving model threes were caught mid-stride and tumbled forwards ass over teakettle to eat dirt while so shots actually caught the smoke-spewing model fours at the back. Those tended to explode rather violently into big puffs of smoke when they were hit.

It was a lot. The livestream had gone from almost quieting down out of boredom to fully active in the span of a minute. So people were cheering, there was live betting going on off-site, and the people with gun-tism were trying to figure out what each weapon that had fired was based only on the sound.

For all the artillery and machine gun fire and eventually even mortar fire, the Antithesis continued to move.

The front row of them went down. Then a fresh and new front row ran out ahead. The model fours were hit, and new ones ca stumbling out of the smokescreen, spewing more gas into the air to plug the gap.

And I couldn't forget the flyers.

The wall had AA emplacents at regular intervals. They spun up and started firing air-burst munitions into the swarm of model ones, taking them out by the dozen and sending tiny, torn up bodies to rain down.

That didn't make much of a dent in their overall numbers as the swarm continued to fly in great big circles, slowly approaching while keeping only slightly ahead of the main Antithesis body so that they were dipping in and out of the smokescreen.

Until they weren't.

I didn't notice any signal, and maybe there just wasn't one. All of a sudden, every model one turned and faced towards the wall, then started flying straight at it.

"Ah, shit," I muttered as I started to back up just a little. Then I aid the gimballed machine guns upwards and let them have it. I wasn't sure if the defenders could handle a couple of thousand birds crashing into them, but we were going to find out.

***

A note from RavensDagger

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