Chapter 50: Chapter 44

"The turrets are prepared!" Sly reported eagerly when Lucendra finished installing the last tall-looking energy turret at the edge of the perimeter, "Want us to throw some rockies around for good measure?"

"Negative, there are young ones among the refugees. The last thing we want is for some of them to accidently walk toward us and be blown to pieces." Aranea responded, briefly looking at Olesya, who gave a quick nod of approval. Rockies were another name for mines in the shape of a simple rock, nearly indistinguishing from a normal stone pebble. Most people would lose a limb or their life upon stepping on these things due to the stream of acid that comes out of them.

They were sent to oversee the transfer of the temporarily enemy camp into the refugee facility under the control of Iterna. The enemy combatants were to disarm upon the arrival of officials from Iterna, the bentos officials were to be safely escorted away, and then Olesya and her forces were to join forces with the military group that was sent to surround and route Yasen and his forces.

Aranea, Annie, and Virginia were placed under Olesya’s command by the direct order of Alpha, after the warlord had a brief private meeting with Ivar. The Wolf Tribe lost two warlords, while Martyshkina was still alive and fiercely struggling for her life, it was clear to all that she wouldn’t come back anytime soon. Olesya was barely the size of a shaman right now, but the entire pack accepted her, even before Annie and Aranea both supported her. Lieutenant Ursico with his troops and someone from the investigation bureau going by the name Angoro Viscario joined them. Upon arriving, Angoro briefly met with the person in charge of the enemy camp, and now the reclaimers positioned themselves near the camp, making sure that the regulators wouldn’t try to pull out anything. There was no need to bring in the turrets, but Sly insisted on them, stating that it was good training and Olesya permitted this small thing.

Aranea felt herself strong. She wanted to race across the sands, lift a stone, crush it, face an enemy head on… Anything. The change in her body was still going wild, causing her emotions to spin like mad. But this time, the wolf hag kept a tight grip on herself, remembering the last time she slipped and hurt a member of her pack. She was still worried about how he perfumed in Iterna, but Janine told her not to worry over nothing. Aranea spent a couple of days evading the Ice Fangs to the best of her abilities and was the first to volunteer to help Olesya on this mission. Anything to keep away from them.

The enemy forces were impressive. Several artillery pieces, quite a number of soldiers, and, above all, bentos. There were far too many to be left alone, and above all, many people from the local villages were here, along with a few civilians from Belaz. Even some wounded reclaimers were kept prisoner in this camp. The main camp of the enemy looked like a bunch of shacks, connected via corridors on the surface level. It was easy enough to storm and overcome, but Aranea was glad that they could resolve this conflict without any casualties from either side.

One of the bentos heavy assault team members stood outside of the hospital, resting his mechanical hands on the lower end of a ginormous mace that looked like it could smash even a tank with a single hit. The man or woman was looking at Olesya, and the would-be warlord responded in kind, standing tall while her subordinates were busy having fun installing the turrets and connecting them to a generator. Behind the front line were Marveni’s forces, their mechs kept aiming at the bentos, and behind them were sniper teams.

"Velka," Olesya said, noticing how the scout twitched her body. The wolf hag was observing her entire forces through the cameras in the soldiers’ armors, "Leave your position and go see Svetlana. Leila and Alek will take over."

"Yes, wolf hag." Velka replied unhappily, standing up and holding her back. She holstered her sniper rifle and jumped off the cliffs, cursing slightly.

"Why am I in command?" Olesya mused over a private channel shared between four wolf hags, "This just doesn’t feel right."

"Because you are the strongest, Olesya," Aranea told her bluntly, "That and you seem to have the situation under control just fine."

"If the strongest are to lead, then I should have been in charge here," Virginia complained, carrying a long metal pole that she called an "axe" for some reason over her right shoulder, "Ain’t no one here stronger than me," The wolf hag loudly whistled to the bento, but the soldier kept looking at Olesya, "Ok, this is annoying. I will challenge this dude," Virginia has been trying to attract the attention of this cyborg for the past hour. She lifted the pole off her shoulder, "Don’t worry, this will be just a friendly sparring session, he’ll be fine."

"You really want Janine to kick you again?" Aranea asked her.

"Also, Alpha will be angry." Annie added, and Virginia shut her mouth, burrowing the bento with her eyes. Annie was sitting cross-legged with her back to the stone, her paws formed a cup around the level of her hips, while the wolf hag was meditating with open eyes. Her broken bones were partially healed, but even now the wolf hag preferred not to strain herself.

Olesya and Aranea both turned their heads to see how the massive bento moved with an unexpected grace, walking over the sands to a remote looking stone building. His joints creating a bare minimum of noise, the soldier took the mace into both arms, readying his weapon. Through Leila’s lenses, Aranea saw that another giant bento, identical to the first, was coming to the building from the other side, both cyborgs were soon flanked by smaller looking bentos, all without a trace of flesh on their bodies. One of the bentos jumped onto the building’s roof, becoming frozen in place, with his blade arms ready.

"They freak me out," Aranea admitted, preparing her own rail gun just in case and allowing the helmet to slide onto her face, "People, on your feet. Get your weapons ready but try to look as non-hostile as possible."

"Something is boiling up over there," Olesya noted, seeing how the building’s wall shook a bit, allowing a crack to show up, "Sly, Lucendra, what do our sensors tell us? Any underground activity?"

"There are none, wolf hag!" Lucendra replied ahead of Sly, causing a smile to appear on Annie’s lips, "The tremors are coming from within the building."

"A skinwalker in the facility. Requesting aid from the reclaimers." A message came over the communication, and Aranea trembled, gripping her weapon. Two massive bentos crashed into the wall of the building, smashing their maces onto something inside.

No, Aranea understood, seeing how the other Bentos fired their weapons, aiming at the foe inside, and how one more jumped through the roof, Not something. Someone.

"A skinwalker!" Leila gasped.

"Here of all places? Kate, get behind me…" Kaleb started talking, and Kate stubbornly pushed him behind herself.

"By the Spirits!" Sonya gasped.

"If we are going to die, I gotta admit. It was I who ate the last piece of that pie." Tiny said.

"We knew it!" Carty and Gin howled in unison.

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"Do we even have anything to drop someone like that?" Alek asked out loud.

"I don’t want to die a virgin!" Sly shouted, running off with Lucendra to hide behind the turrets.

"Sly, honey, I can always help you with this…" Velka started purring.

"You shut up!"

"Cut the chatter, people. Sly, Lucendra, now would be a good time to spread rockies. Get to it. Leila, Alek, keep your distance, fire at the first opportunity. Angoro, please contact the command, inform them about the situation, and request that they get warlord Zero on the line at once. Tiny, you and your pack stay out of this, unless she comes to us, we don’t want to level the facility. Annie, Virginia, if the skinwalker comes to us, distract her long enough for Tiny to bring about an abyss on her head," Olesya commanded, seeing how two massive forms of bentos flew from the ruined building. Annie stood up, walking toward the lines of turrets and preparing her knives, supported by Carty and the rest of the troops behind her. Virginia joined her, eagerly swinging the pole around her body, gesturing to her pack to keep their distance, all the while, energy beams and heavy shells were piercing the side of the building from within, "If the normies can force a skinwalker to run off, so can we. Aranea, leave the bitch without a head, please." Olesya said, seeing how the walls of the building fell, revealing the beast within.

Aranea threw up her weapon, taking aim instantly. Before she was worried about firing this weapon because her arms were too weak to handle the recoil, no matter the aid from the armor. Not anymore. The weapon in her arms moved with perfect fluidity, and her arms caught the back of the skinwalker’s head with ease. Aranea swallowed once, firing and removing the upper part of the creature’s head before it could descend on the bento before her, feeling no recoil and pain in her arms.

The skinwalker looked so similar to her mother. Same skin, same ugly claws, less in size and stature, true, but so otherworldly and strikingly similar to poor Kalaisa. Aranea felt pain, clutching her heart, when her shot felled the beast, and it toppled forward. Skinwalkers were sacred to the Wolf Tribe, but no one was stupid enough to allow skinwalkers to come closer to the villages. Only Alpha could direct these beasts, and only for a short while. Skinwalkers were anomalies, a mix of rage and compassion, idiocy and rare genius, unrestricted cruelty and saint-like mercy all in one body.

The body stopped its fall, and Aranea saw with a shock how the skinwalker stood up, turning toward them. She leaped forward, catching an artillery shell fired by a mobile artillery vehicle of the regulators. The skinwalker laughed, crumpling the shell in her arms, forgetting the wolfkins in an instant and turning toward the regulators. Her damaged head regrows itself, sprouting new long hair.

"Snipers, open fire," Olesya gave the command, her folded cannon taking place over her shoulder, "Keep her distracted!" She shouted, when the skinwalker covered the distance between herself and the regulators in a single leap, turning into a line of blur in the air.

The skinwalker was on people in the moment, her claws disemboweling the shocked soldiers, leaving behind limbless soldiers, screaming at the overheated land. She closed in on the vehicle, and the people within screamed. Instead of killing them, the creature took apart the vehicle, acting with almost maniacal precision, giggling while she carefully took apart the vehicle piece by piece, throwing the metal parts aside and scaring the people within to run away from her. It took her less than a minute to take apart the mobile artillery vehicle without damaging it. The skinwalker moved on, ignoring laser blasts that bit at her shoulders and body, setting aflame the long colorless hair that reached all the way to her hips. She dodged the incoming armor-piercing shards, barely bothering to look at the attackers.

The bento jumped from the ruins, a mockery of the man formed in the form of a doll made of steel patches. The great arm of the creature struck the bento in the middle of his body, piercing the steel, and the bento grabbed the arm of the skinwalker by the sides, causing Aranea to curse slightly. Any and all shots from her rail gun would spear the skinwalker’s body and hit the bento behind her. The steel patches shifted, releasing countless tendrils from the shoulders of the Bento that formed into two plasma cutters. The skinwalker yelped and took a step back when her arm was left on the ground. Her leg stuck out, kicking the bento across his head and sending the being into one of the buildings, leaving both of his plasma cutters to fall on the ground, the tendrils sliced clean by the sharp claws. The creature roared when her shoulder disappeared under a stream of searing flame coming from Olesya’s cannon. The blackened bones of the skinwalker's arm quickly turned white again, while the skin flowed over her wounded shoulder. The fire died in her hair. A new bone shot from her sliced off arm, reforming the limb anew, and the beast turned toward the few remaining soldiers, with a grin on her face.

The skinwalker ignored all incoming fire, ignoring even the fire from three turrets that left fist-sized holes in her bulk. Ursico’s mech and two other mechs fired their high-precision cannons, hitting the side of the skinwalker’s head. All that they achieved was to smash her ear and make her miss a step. But all of this was in vain, the skinwalker was on the regulators before her. Her claws struck…

Like a meteor, her claws struck the ground, sending the tremors that made the soldiers before her jump into the air, and a new expression came on the skinwalker’s face. Confusion. She had no idea how she had missed the enemies, and the regulators before her were just as confused as to why they were still alive.

"Zero here," The warlord's painted voice came over the communication, accompanied by cracks that sounded like artillery explosions, "I will be with you in seven minutes."

"But it is impossible!" Aranea said in confusion. The warlord was far to the north, dozens and dozens of kilometers away, accompanying the main force.

"You let me worry about it," Zero replied, "Listen everyone, you are dealing with something weird. Our sister out there shows all the signs of a mature skinwalker, but her mind is focused on having fun."

"Fun!?" Olesya roared, firing another blast and melting the skin off the skinwalker’s knee.

"Yes, fun. If you check, you can see that all her victims are not dead," Zero calmly responded, and Aranea threw a brief glance around. Yes, the regulators whom the skinwalker gored lay in the pools of their own blood and guts, their limbs lay nearby… But they were moaning, screaming, and thrashing from the pain. Even if the medics got to them in time, Aranea wasn’t sure that the medics could save them, but the people were still alive, "Her physical abilities are also lacking, but her regeneration is as strong as the regeneration of a full-grown skinwalker. No matter. There are only fifty skinwalkers alive today, and I am planning to decrease that number even further."

"This is the cub by their... Nevermind. How do we kill her?" Aranea shook her head, regaining focus.

"Don’t try it. You must survive her until I arrive," Zero replied quickly, while the skinwalker made another swipe at the people before her, losing and looking around. Incredibly, but it looked like the skinwalker actually asked the soldiers something, her words lost in the roar of fire, "Cause our sister enough pain and she should leave. Damage her brain sufficiently and she will stop for a while. She looks dull, so…"

The skinwalker turned away from the soldiers, looking toward the reclaimers. She dodged the incoming fire now, dancing gracefully to the wounded soldiers and stopping them, prompting Olesya to give the command to stop fire. The skinwalker smiled smugly, standing tall and looking over the battlefield before her. Aranea felt her heart skip a beat when keen eyes locked on her, seemingly laying her bare before the hungry muzzle and piercing her very soul. Aranea felt relieved when the skinwalker moved her eyes to others, not finding what she was looking for in Aranea. Finally, the beast stopped, locking her gaze on someone. Her left arm moved up, pointing at Kate.

"You did it. You’ve made me miss the mark," The skinwalker said in a crystal voice, loud enough to be heard around the battlefield, and stepped toward the ranks of the reclaimers, ignoring the gunfire of the reclaimers, "Let’s play then, naughty one."

"Shit," A hint of actual panic came into Zero’s voice, "She is not dumb at all. And what’s worse, she is motivated now."

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