Chapter 36: Chapter 16: Red Sonja

Ice stared at the staff he was still clutching tightly. Heat rolled off the black metal as the tip slowly resumed its dimness.  The blade spider the beam had hit slowly tumbled over.  It smelled of burnt meat.  There was no blood. Nearby, the combat had stopped as the remaining blade spiders turned to stare at Ice.  The automatons didn’t hesitate.  As one they grabbed the blade spiders joints and ripped them apart.

 

“What — what the fuck was that Raven?” 

 

“The Nano Devourer had enough enzymes stored for it to fire at 25% capacity.  It seemed prudent to do so.”

 

“That was 25%?  The air felt like it was on fire!”

 

“For .3 seconds it was.”

 

“Oh… Please don't do that again.”

 

The air slowly cooled down as Ice touched each of the fresh corpses with the staff.  By the time he was done the only thing remaining was the smell of ozone.

 

He also picked up his empty pistol and awkwardly reloaded it with one hand.  After tucking it back into his holster he looked around before nodding to a Captain to lead on once more towards the city.  Hopefully the Nano forges were as active as Francis claimed and soon he would have new limbs to show for this effort.  

 

He was sad that he had left the Industrial drone behind so that it could help Francis repair the factory.  There was quite a bit of material it could haul back to the factory.

 

"Raven, remind me to send the bug out here when we get back."

 

After some time spent walking Ice saw the walls of the Capital above the trees.  

 

They were cracked and crumbling.  Some sections had collapsed into huge mounds of rock and rusting steel support beams.  As they got closer the walls got bigger.  Soon Ice could see the true height of the walls soaring hundreds of meters over his head.  In places there were bodies, human and other.  And everywhere were automatons from the base models like at the factory to captains and some Ice had never seen.

 

At the base of the wall was a skeleton covered in metal nearly embedded into the wall.  The bones were broken and splintered and the back of its skull was shattered open revealing a small black wafer of metal.

 

Ice picked up the wafer.  Francis had told him he would need it to activate the Nano Forges.  It was the AI of Alanna, the Nano Tech system user.  He put it in one of the pockets of his coveralls.  

 

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Alanna took a deep breath feeling the nanotechnology that had replaced her lungs expanding even as it filtered the air she breathed.

 

"Alice, print me up the sword from The Sword and the Sorcerer.  Add in a control field on the 2 blades for remote field control and make sure you don't forget the sparks!"

 

"That was one time Alanna! One time and it was the sword from Conan! This sword is way cooler!"

 

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"Whatever, just make sure it looks right!  Oh and gimme Red Sonja's armor!" Alanna flexed as the nanos in her outfit changed to clear in some places and chainmail in others.  There was no way she was leaving exposed skin ever again.  

 

That mistake had cost her a lung and several ribs when she first shifted.

 

Once her outfit and weapon were prepared she stepped off her ship dropping forty meters to the ground and cutting a Type 12 in half.  She grinned.  The sparks were just right.  

 

The armored gorilla body of the type 12 was one of her favorites to kill, very satisfying.  She had found hundreds to fuel her nano forge all in one valley. 

 

She spun, triggering the blades on the sword so they began to dance around her even as she began to cut her way elegantly through the horde.  The air around her shimmered as the nanos fed on the flesh of the dead Theriopes and not a drop of the yellow acidic blood touched her armor.

 

She laughed as she triggered the jump boost in her armor.  Launching herself to another part of the horde.  

 

The destroyer she nicknamed the Nano Forge opened several hatches launching expressionless copies into different parts of the horde where they each began to chop into the Theriopes like a hot knife through butter.  None were as graceful as Alanna.  But they didn't need to be.

 

As she spun she thought about the hundreds of years spent since the fateful day she ended up in this dimension.  Fresh off a movie set she had gotten in her car and turned the key. The next thing she knew she was here.  Fighting with Alice.

 

She couldn't think of something she would rather do.  It was a thrill, a rush like no other!

 

She felt a Theriope fist slam into her back knocking her to the ground before one of the floating blades sliced its head off.  

 

Right middle of battle.  Not the best time to be stuck in her head.  She admonished herself.

 

"Alice nano cannons please on my position. Clear the ground."  She hummed to herself as the destroyer deployed several small cannons from the bottom.  

 

All of them fired at once, clearing a hundred meters around Alanna and filling the air with millions of nanos that were all under the control of her system AI.  

 

"Switch it up, give me power armor! And that plasma gatling from that game Diego was telling us about! Fallout or whatever!"  She grinned as the armor formed around her and the gatling formed on the ground.  

 

"Oh this is going to be fun!"  She wondered how Diego was doing. He did have that cute smile and his system for sure lent itself to body improvements.  Those abs and that ass. To bad he was gay.

 

She fired the plasma gatling giggling as the balls of fiery explosive plasma hit Theriopes leaving smoking corpses on the ground.  “ Gotta love the smell of ozone right Alice?”

 

Once the last Theriope in the valley fell she sighed before riding a cloud of nanos back to the Nano Forge and checking the enzyme level.  About half. Well it would work for now.  She had been summoned to the Capital by that bitch who called herself the Prime System User.  Marie.