The Discarded, Half-Eaten Apple Core New Life

Episode VI: Return of the Fly (why the heck is it "return" when they just arrived?)

Episode VI: Return of the Fly (why the heck is it "return" when they just arrived?)

BRICKS WINDOWS has returned to

its home city of Speranza in

an attempt to keep its

home from getting REKT by

clutches of the vile monsters

Beelzevoid Flies

Little does Skip know that the

FREAKING DANGLY TITS WHALE has secretly

begun hatching a shit-ton of

void-blasting flies even

after getting its brain smashed

by a few megawatts of laser beam

When hatched, this ultimate

shitstorm bug swarm spells certain doom

for anything it fucking touches

sending Skip in a struggle to restore sanity

to this shithole wasteland...

*

*

Against my better judgment, I placed autocannons on the Hugging Momma dirigible. Then I rained metal from a mile and a half above, hoping it wouldn't fall on the city. I thought about raising walls and putting a glass dome above the city but it was more wasteful than the exploding trees. Now flies were popping from the front, from the side, and from above. The bullets from above scattered horribly but I didn't care. I could get a few hundred bullets for a single point of DM, after all discounts.

I had my operators back home check the video footage of the tree stunt to see if it was worth it. Then one of them suggested that if the flies were attracted to the Dungeon walls, all I had to do was to create honey pots for them to spread out. I thanked the guy and put myself to work. I dropped small panels of Dungeon Wall all around the ground, each of them costing 1 DM to infuse. The flies broke off from the swarm as predicted. Spreading out, the autocannons could hit more of them, and soon streams of void vortices spread in all directions like the chains of black pearls of doom.

Then I got creative. Using a Domain Beacon, I created the walls in the air, letting them fall. Above, behind, to the sides. I was pulling the swarm apart, stretching the cloud, and increasing the area they were occupying. The Vulcan cannons on the walls moved back and forth, sweeping the swarm at various altitudes. The rain of lead still fell from above, scoring several dozen kills on the lesser Infernali that still swarmed the land underneath the Beelzevoid swarm.

Even then, the swarm had advanced for several miles and I had thinned it to only half of its original size. I turned on the air raid sirens and told all citizens to evacuate the two outer rings and move to the other side of the park. Then I placed autocannons on the second set of walls from the outside. I also infused all trees in the unused area between these walls, ready to detonate them.Visit for the best novel reading experience

Then I added more tripod-mounted Vulcan autocannons on the ground. Four miles of guns between the outer and second walls.

It now looked like a cluster of frog eggs lying at the bottom of a river. Black spheres intersected and more appeared at the front. Even this close, I couldn't discern the individual flies, the void vortices disrupting my Domain. The swarm reached the outer wall. Lasers, autocannons, and the stone itself started to vanish in spherical holes as the flies blew up on their own. The swarm extended and spread all over the wall, descending upon it as if to feed on my Mana and destroy it. The swarming Infernali dashed underneath the swarm, some dumb beasts falling into the vortices and vanishing all the same.

The bullets from the dirigible weren't enough, by the time they reached the swarm they had scattered too much. I created a net of rope two miles wide by a mile long over the swarm and let it drop with some lead weights. The net fell on the flies and they exploded upon contact, creating a roof of vortices. The swarm ate the walls, then the remaining flies either went to the sides to eat more walls or forward to the next wall.

The tripod autocannons started shooting. Trees exploded. Infernali invaded the space in sections of the wall that were entirely cast into the void. Worse, without the wall to mark the boundaries of my Dungeon, I lost control of the slice that was opened up. I had to use Beacons to keep the Domain covering that area, otherwise, the guns would stop shooting.

"No. It is I who has to thank you. The fight for our community, for our world, belongs to all of us. I alone can only do so much."

At my fake modesty, a few people turned their heads to stare at Jabberwock's preserved head and the giant crystal on top of the first wagon. I had the robot's head turn that way too.

"Yes, I can kill World Bosses. I can't kill all of them before they kill all of us. That's what matters. We need warriors but I won't force anyone to pick up a weapon and risk their lives."

I approached the group of bashful teens. "With great power, comes great responsibility. Earn power to protect the ones you love, not to subjugate and dominate the ones you don't."

They nodded.

"I also apologize for not letting you find your own path. Hear me. If at any point in your training, you feel the Class being offered to you is not the right one, don't pick it. We have a myriad of jobs needing dedicated people. Some of them are within the walls of the wagons behind me, safe. Do not feel pressured. Speak up. So long you remain polite and respectful, I will hear you out. That I swear."

They nodded vehemently.

"We will start with physical conditioning. Many adventurers and warriors rely on the System Attributes to keep them competitive and after you earn a few hundred physical Attributes, exerting your bodies becomes almost impossible. You will receive good rations and a training regimen to make you bulk up. That might increase the effect of your physical Attributes by twenty to forty percent. Though not on the Status screen."

A six-four man with a hundred points of Strength would beat a five-foot man with the same score every day of the week.

"I cannot guarantee you a position with the Guardians. But you will get several opportunities to gain levels. Don't worry. Now, say goodbye to your parents."

They had some minutes to hug and shed tears of joy. When I had their attention again, I spoke to the parents.

"Every Sunday morning, you may come here to spend the day with your children. They will have time to send emails and make video calls during the night. I thank you, once more."

They thanked me profusely and I led the ten youths into the wagon. I had a gym for them with specialized equipment and two instructors that agreed to follow NASA's astronaut training program.

Now, I had some power armor to design.

*

*

I started with Blackjack Six's chassis and enlarged it by twenty percent. Bulk up and keep the mobility, remember I had to fit a human being inside. A buff human being. I also needed to keep the squishy flesh from being harmed either by enemy attacks or by sudden accelerations.

I needed a body suit with adequate cushioning. This time, it would be body-fitting spandex. Hideaki Anno-approved spandex suits. I had a person who unlocked the Product Designer Class and assigned the uniforms to her.

The computers were hidden in the lumbar support, right above the kidneys. I had to change limb proportions to fit human appendages inside, which broke the humanoid proportions. The lower legs and the forearms of the power armor were longer than they should. Two handles hidden before the robotic wrists allowed the pilot to use finger dexterity to press buttons and issue commands. They would basically need to learn how to walk again.

But the extra leg armor allowed me to put jump jets that wouldn't cook the pilot's feet. Oh, that's true. I needed good heat insulation. Air tanks, life support. They would need to use diapers inside the suit. Better warn the Product Designer now.

Increase the sensor suite. Optic fiber periscopes or full electronic sights? I added both. A mechanism in front of the eyes would switch between systems. Responsive servos and motion sensors in independent circuits allow comfortable motion. Damn. Having meaty pilots inside the suits was such a bother! More than half the power armor's systems had to be dedicated to making sure they wouldn't die inside. And that's because I wasn't counting the armor in that calculation.

I added hard points for heavy weapons underneath the forearms. These would connect to either Gatling autocannons or heavy lasers. Then another two, one on each shoulder, that could have, as well as yet more autocannons or lasers, either a multi-rocket launcher, a Gauss cannon, or even auto mortars for long-range ballistic bombardment. Thinking again, perhaps I should put a flamethrower as one of the options for the arm hard points. Handheld Swords? Axes? Spears? Why not. These external weapons didn't even need to be mounted on the power armor.

But not chainsaw swords. These existed in fiction just for the cool factor. Gore and bone bits would jam the chain and it took too long to saw through an enemy. And if we were designing hand-held weapons they needed to be adapted to be used on power armor hands and some considerations needed to be taken into account. It was not just scaling them up and hoping they would work. Why not give them the ability to control guns or recon drones? These drones could fill any number of purposes. Also, the drone control antenna array would allow me to expand the range of their communications. Good.

Oh. What? Why humans need this much room to get in and out of power armor? The whole thing needs to basically split open! Best I can do is open the top and then hoist the person and then close around the shoulders. Add some sturdy bolts to keep the lid from popping and we're good. I also needed to make sure the life support system would engage automatically if it detected a hostile environment, then air and water filters, and the tanks needed to keep the pilot breathing for at least 24 hours. Oh, Heating and air-conditioning too. Don't want to cook my humans.

I finished the design and Replicated some prototypes using the teenagers' measurements. I named the power armor "Gilgamesh".

> For creating level 140 Power Armor "Grilled Tex-Mex" you earned 4 Experience Points.

Damn deaf Aliens. Were they doing that on purpose? Why do I feel hungry now?