It’s not money that makes the world go round, although it certainly greases the wheels, it’s people. Always take the time to meet other samurai, get to know them. Network. You never know when you might need a friend.

  -Velvet Aurora, Tips for New Samurai

  —

  It was incredible how quickly the antithesis flowed into the area. Even though we managed to avoid the forerunners, the rest of the wave stampeded into the area before I managed to clear the town. Part of that was due to the fact that Woofer’s truck was slow and struggled to just stay airborne with the dogs in the back, but part of it was definitely due to how quickly the antithesis were moving.

  I only had one scare on the way out, and ironically enough, it wasn’t due to the antithesis. Not directly anyways. As the horde poured out of the trees, the dogs wandered over to investigate. The truck nearly flipped at that moment. I had to scream at the pair to get back, and lay down, before the truck leveled out again. Those few seconds, where we were nearly sideways, scared me more than any of my previous engagements with the antithesis.

  Once we were finally out of the danger area, Skyler called.

  {Sky: Reina, please let me know you made it out alright. I’ll never forgive you if you die!}

  {Rei: Calm down, I’m fine. I’ve got Gwen and the dogs with me, making my way south west. It’s just taking a while. Woofer’s truck isn’t exactly a performance vehicle.}

  {Sky: Okay… good… My drones aren’t exactly the fastest fliers, and we need to check these two for injuries, so I recommend we find a place to land outside the city. I’ll have Athy send you my coordinates.}

  {Rei: Alright, see you soon.}

  Skyler hadn’t gone that far, only about fifteen kilometers from the horde, before setting down in the middle of a fairly flat clearing. When I arrived, she had already dragged Woofer from her car and was running a medical scanner over him.

  I parked as close as I could, then gathered up Gwen and carried her over for a checkup.

  As soon as I placed Gwen down, Skyler stood up and punched me as hard as she could in the shoulder. Her eyes were red, and it was obvious she was on the brink of crying. “That was irresponsible and risky! What if that truck hadn’t started, huh? You would have died there! And where would that have left me?”

  After gently grabbing Skyler’s flailing hands, I pulled her into a hug.

  “I couldn’t just leave Woofer there to die, not when we were so close to saving him. Besides, everything worked out in the end, we’re both fine,” I whispered as I slowly rubbed her back.

  “It was a stupid, heroic act,” Skyler sniffed, “and it could have gone horribly wrong.”

  “I know. I’ll try to avoid doing something like that in the future. I’ll stick to killing aliens instead.”

  Skyler snorted, then pushed me away and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Yeah, much safer.” She turned to the two samurai on the ground and sighed. “Guess we should see to these two before the antithesis get closer.”

  “How are they anyways?”

  “Not great. I could only give them a trauma injection while they were trapped under the building. They probably still have broken bones and other serious injuries though.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  I winced. “I guess I probably shouldn’t have put Gwen over my shoulder, and then threw her into the car, huh?”

  “Probably not,” Skyler replied as she crouched down and ran her scanner over the unconscious girl. “But if the options were a little pain or leaving her behind, I think you made the right choice.”

  The scanner pinged, the small screen on it’s side started rapidly scrolling through hundreds of lines of text.

  {Athy: I can summarize that for you. She’s in bad shape, but should be fine after a shot of regenerative nanites. I’d also recommend a ‘Wake-up’ shot for both of them, unless you want to carry their unconscious bodies around for the next couple hours.}

  {Sky: Is that safe? They’re still in bad shape.}

  {Athy: There might be some minor shor-term side effects, but no lasting damage.}

  {Sky: If you say so… two doses of each, please.}

  {Rei: On my tab.} Skyler glanced my way, so I just shrugged. {You bought the scanner.}

  As soon as the boxes materialized, Skyler scooped them up and dug out the injectors. Each one was a nearly featureless grey cylinder with a small window showing the contents and a hole in one end.

  {Arty: Auto injectors. Easier and safer than traditional syringes. Just press firmly against the skin, and the needle will emerge. Just in case you weren’t sure, the metallic grey goop goes first.}

  “I got that thanks,” Skyler muttered before pressing the first set of injectors against her patients. I flinched as they made a ‘glorp’ noise and nearly instantaneously injected their full payload into the two downed samurai.

  “That didn’t sound healthy,” I whispered.

  Despite my concerns, the two started looking better almost immediately. There was the occasional pop from their chest cavity, which I hoped was their bones being mended correctly and not fused into place.

  Skyler waited until Woofer and Gwen’s bodies stopped making abnormal noises before finally injecting the second syringe.

  The effect was immediate.

  Woofer sat up so fast he headbutted Skyler in the face before scuttling backwards. “Who? Where? What…”

  “Calm the fuck down,” I growled as I crouched down and gently moved Skyler’s hands away from her nose. I carefully prodded the area for a couple of seconds before laying a kiss on her injured proboscis. “Not broken.”

  “Who are you two?” Gwen asked, as she pushed herself into a sitting position much slower and more carefully than Woofer had. “Last thing I remember was the explosion and the shop collapsing.”

  I glanced over at the girl in surprise. “Explosion? You mean that place didn’t collapse on its own?”

  Gwen shook her head. “It was my fault. We were using that shop as a base of operations. The dogs protected the entrances while I sent my penguin bombs out to disrupt the antithesis lines. Everything went fine until a small flock of Model Ones got too close to the building. Since the penguins just have a proximity fuse…”

  “One of the penguins went off early,” I finished. Gwen nodded and turned away, blushing in embarrassment.

  “Well, I admit that looks bad,” I started, earning an elbow from Skyler, “but you both made it out alive. You can even use this as a learning experience, have your AI make sure the next model doesn’t explode until it reaches a minimum safe distance.”

  “That makes sense,” Woofer muttered to himself before looking over at Skyler and me. “Who are you guys anyways? I think you’re samurai, yeah? I thought I saw you in the meeting the other day.”

  Skyler smiled and walked over to him, offering her hand. “Cleansing Rain, and that’s my partner, Honorable Wind. Pleased to meet you.”

  The man accepted her hand, shook, then slowly climbed to his feet. “Cleansing Rain, huh? Sounds a lot better than Woofer.”

  “Or Pen-Gwen,” Gwen added as she stumbled to her feet. “Out of all the samurai in the city, we had to be named by the meathead.”

  “Isn’t it a little inappropriate to call another samurai a ‘meathead’?” Skyler asked.

  “Pfffftttt… No, he actually likes being called it. He thinks it’s cool or something,” Woofer mumbled.

  “Who the hell would wear that as a badge of honor?” I asked.

  “Collateral Damage,” Gwen explained. “You might even remember seeing him during the meeting. Seven to eight feet tall, all muscle. Even his brain. He’s kind of a menace, honestly. He wears a massive suit of power armor and just charges through whatever he needs to in order to get to the antithesis. Cars, walls…”

  “Us,” Woofer added. “That’s how we met.”

  “I cannot wait to meet him,” I said, completely deadpan.

  “Are you two ok to get back to the city on your own?” Skyler asked. “Reina brought your truck, and the dogs. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to salvage anything else, the antithesis overran that area shortly after we left.”

  “I’m just glad we escaped with our lives,” Gwen whispered. “I thought we were dead when the explosion went off. We can always rebuy our gear later. Seriously, thank you for coming to find us. We owe you big time.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I chuckled. “Maybe you can return the favor in the future if we ever go missing.”

  Skyler shot me a scathing glare, and I immediately shut my mouth again. No more jokes like that after surviving a close encounter, got it.

  Woofer blinked a couple of times, then scowled. “It sounds like the horde is moving again we should move before we get overrun. I’ll have Kay send you our contact information. If you ever need anything, just give us a call.”

  Gwen jogged back to the truck, pausing just long enough to pet the dogs before turning back. “Thanks again!”

  I continued waving until the pair was in the air, slowly making their way back towards the city.

  “We should probably get going too,” Skyler said. “Now that the horde is on the move, there’ll probably be a lot more jobs for us to do.”

  I groaned, “No rest for the wicked.”

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