Chapter 119: Close Encounter

The fight was unlike anything he had ever experienced or seen outside of movies. 56 fired his new weapon over and over at the seemingly never-ending Twisted creatures, each looking uglier and more fearsome than the last. The Lagos Cutters were no threat to him as the hovering trailer kept him far out of their long-clawed reach, additionally the city defenses could handle them without any difficulty. It was the Night Hounds and Plains Strider that gave him, and the city defenses the most trouble.

The Night Hounds would try running up the tower’s sleek sides and bloodied piles of fallen creatures to leap up at the floating Hunters. There were several close calls for the Hunters as Twisted attacked unexpectedly from odd angles. This was because the tower defense robots and turrets didn't target those not directly assaulting their location and provided no assistance for the human defenders.

Dixon had to keep maneuvering to new positions to avoid the dangerous attacks, but still remain low enough for their ammo to remain effective. Everyone else had stay vigilant too and watch out for any surprise movements from the blood thirsty creatures. The Plains Strider attacking the tower directly below also wasn't going to be stopped anytime soon.

Every bullet shot at it bounced off causing little to no effect. The lasers were equally as ineffective and merely left behind noticeable smugly hit marks. The large creature constantly charged the towers black smooth sides, and madly crashed its massive, oversized horns into it like wreaking ball. The damage it inflicted onto the wall was not in vain, as cracks were beginning to spider along the tower’s once seamless sides.

Another wave of artillery and tanks shells bombarded the creatures still hidden further within the dust clouds. Shrieking and moans came clamoring out in response, followed by a shower of earth and rock from the previously heard explosions. However, the creatures had not been perturbed by the city's efforts. Another wave of the hideous creatures arrived out from the cloaking dust to assault the plasma wall towers.

"How long will we continue fighting like this? This is endless!" 56 called out over the noise of creatures and gunfire.

"Until we are told to leave, or the Hoard Mother is gone." Dixon shouted over his shoulder.

Dixon then pulled a pin out from a grenade and chucked it at the Plains Strider as it was charging at the tower. A boom irrupted from under its hooves sending up a plume of sand and small rocks flying in every direction. The explosion sent the Plains Strider tripped and tumbling headfirst into the ground and its huge horns plowed deeply into the ground.

As soon as it came to a dusty halt, the Plains Strider tried to stand up on shaky legs. Its mouth foamed profusely, and its cloudy red eyes darted fervently about. From this close 56 could see it in clearer detail and he could tell that this creature’s behavior was extremely strange, even for a mutated creature. Almost as if its actions were seemingly not of its own choice and rather it was being driven to do so.

Dixon didn't spare a second and tossed a second grenade at the stumbling creature’s head. A second dusty explosion engulfed the Twisted Plaines Strider. As the dust drifted away the Plains Strider was found to be still alive and scrambling to collect itself. A large portion of its leathery head was ripped off and a horn had also broken off. Dixon raised his rifle, aimed for this newly exposed area on its head and fired three consecutive shots into it.

The beastly Twisted twitched twice before letting out a heavy final breath and its slobbering tongue flopped from its mouth as it collapsed. Finally, it was dead. However, the battle was far from over yet. The next wave of Twisted reached the wall and were now attacking.

“Click, pow! Click, pow! Click, pow!”

56 pulled the trigger again and again. Striking at Night Hound’s in the head and torso, or at one of the two more charging Plains Striders. The rattling of bullets being shot out of the turrets on the walls whizzed just overhead of the brave Hunters. The bullet streams tore through the swirling dust to burst into the Twisted and grounds around then in puffs of brilliant dark red and tan.

"This is so easy, despite their numbers." 56 thought to himself. He fired into another Night Hound leaping off of a pile of corpses in a futile attempt to reach him. The bloodied body tumbled back to the ground and became another corps in the growing mound. "They are completely incapable of reaching us or shooting back. Why have they been such a burden too humanity if this is all they amount too?"

Just as he thought these things, Tammy shouted out to everyone. "There is a Land Octopus attacking!"

"Land Octopus?!" 56 replied in disbelief. "That's a strange thing to say. I can't imagine an octopus being dangerous out here in the desert, or alive for that matter."

However, looking in the direction Tammy was fighting in, sure enough the strangest creature he had seen so far was approaching. A big, dark mass was crawling flat and mushy looking on ground, like a blob of putty, was the new Twisted creature. The octopus name was completely based off its eight arms and spaghetti like appearance. Yet its size, skin and color were all completely different.

The Land Octopus was nearly ten meters in length from head to tentacle tip, which is much longer than an octopus normally appears. The creatures unnerving eyes were set atop of its bulbous head and glared unblinking ahead at its destination. Its skin was no longer shinny and slippery like an octopus, but leathery and segmented. In fact, the eight arms all appeared to move like a centipede running along the ground.

56 slipped on his borrowed goggles to inspect the creature better, as it was still emerging from the thick dust. The leathery segmented arms were indeed covered in legs just like a centipede and crawling closer in the same manner. Only the end portions, a meter or more, appeared to still have suction cups of its original form. This new mutated design allowed it to travel on land with frightening speeds.

The color that it possessed was equally as amazing. Like a lava flow, the Twisted creature was pitch black on top and outlined in fluorescent red on its undersides and around the eyes. The numerous legs were like a black pen’s twiddling and lunging onward. Due to its leathery appearance, the colors appeared uneven and clumsily mixed.

"Quick! Get higher up or it's going to get us!" Dixon shouted slinging his rifle over his shoulder to grab the handles of his Hover Bike.

Seeing his panicked reaction, 56 dropped down on the hovering trailer and grabbed onto anything strapped down. The three of the bikes started to rise up to float above the towers, but their reaction might have been too late. The Land Octopus seemed to have noticed them and attacked!

56 watched the strange attack coming up towards them. It was even more strange that it was still over fifty meters away from them. How could it be a threat to them?

The Land Octopus's eight arms all at once stretched impossibly long and thin upwards in an attempt to grab them. The hundreds of legs wriggled around on each tentacle trying to make contact with anything. One of the tentacles was faster than the rest and managed to grab Sam’s bike on its rear side and dug in deeply into the hard plastic parts of the bike.

"Shoot it!" Sam shouted and revving his Hover Bikes engine to maximum output.

Even though the bike was pulling away as hard as it could, the Land Octopus held on and still remained attached to the ground. Six tentacles returned to the ground and appeared to grip deeply into the sandy ground for pulling traction. While a second tentacle reached up alongside the tentacle gripping the bike too also grab on. Slowly the bike started receding back towards the ground. The Octopus was overpowering the magnetic repulsion engine!

Tammy saw the plight Sam was in and stopped her assent. She then took aim with her machine gun and to shoot down at the Land Octopus gripping the ground. As the bullets smashed the creature, it sunk its eyes into its bulbous head to protect them. Its leathery body seemed to have absorbed the bullets impact and still refused to let go. The sight appeared to 56 to look like rain hitting a rubber door mat, ineffective.

Sam's bike continued to fall slowly down. In desperation he pulled out a laser pistol that was strapped to his leg and shot at the tentacles gripping the bike. But it was no use. The tentacles were both to strong and thin to get a proper hit on them. So, in another effort he started shooting at the parts that were being held onto. The laser tore through the metal and hard plastic parts like jelly. This action suddenly caused the pulling tentacles to wrench away the gripped parts and launch the Hover Bike into the air, like a rock from a slingshot.

Sam slammed on the breaks and nearly lost his pistol in the process. He was looking over his bike when the other Hunters and 56 stopped beside him.

"You and your bike all right?" Dixon asked. The sounds of the gunfire and creature snarls were now much further away, so they didn't have to shout.

"Ya, I'm fine, but my bike lost two stabilizers, I think. It's going to hard maneuvering around now, but it can still fly. I am freaking hate Land Octopus right now!" Sam replied hotly.

"My machine gun feels so useless. It didn't even hardly flinch!" Tammy complained as she reloaded the weapon.

56 looked back down at the Land Octopus and other Twisted creatures assaulting the towers. The turrets and defense robots were giving all they had to fend off the unrelenting Hoard, but it was starting to become apparent that they were losing. The Land Octopus turned its attacks onto the towers. Its slithering arms reached the top of the tower with ease and grabbed three robots with one arm and smashed them into bits. It tossed the now useless robotic things over the edge and started to coil around a turret.

"Hold on 56! We are going to napalm that creature." Dixon shouted.

56 did just that as the Hover bike and trailer suddenly took a nosedive towards the ground and Twisted. The wind howled around his ears and ripped at his clothes, but 56 didn't care. The sight that unfolded next was awesome.

Just as they were about to hit the ground, Dixon pulled up and simultaneously pressed a button releasing two canisters attached to the underside of the trailer. The Land Octopus didn't see the attack until this had already happened and had no chance to retaliate. The canisters smashed into the ground alongside the Twisted and splattered their contents all over it. Then in a brilliant flash of searing flame and black smoke the liquid ignited!

The Land Octopus's arms wriggled in shock and pain as it was engulfed into flames. It released the turret and tried curling itself up to protect itself. Yet it was too late. The napalm slowly roasted the creature alive as it then started to give up its defense and swat at itself in a futile attempt of self-preservation. The Twisted creature flopped around in its death throes for minutes as black smoke rose off of its chard body.

"Now that was some else!" 56 shouted as they regrouped with Tammy and Sam.

"Now are you seeing why they are so dangerous?" Dixon replied.

"Definitely! No wonder humanity is struggling. They have such a wide variety of types and attacks. Being alone and on the ground would definitely spell death." 56 remarked.

Just then the city artillery open fire again. A startling sensation enveloped them as they could feel the numerous artillery shell’s wind passed around them, nearly killing them! The unnerving feeling of their close encounter with death even startled 56.

"Let's lower our altitude and get back to the fight!" Dixon called out. The others agreed without a word. It seemed nowhere was safe.

As they descended, 56 took another look at the Hoard Mother. Dozens of Hunters and artilleries were engaging the mammoth mutated creature. However, the creature moved steadily closer, completely unfazed. The battle was only going to get harder from now on, the Hoard Mother wasn’t going to be stopped!