Chapter Ten – Rainbows of Death

Chapter Ten – Rainbows of Death

“Look, I’m all for supporting the community, but this is too many flags.”

–the LGBTVexillology Forums, 2025

***

Twin 105mm cannons barked on either side of my mech. I wasn’t in it, so I couldn’t feel that glorious oomf of recoil, but I did get to see a pair of explosions rocking the side of the model twenty two in beautiful high-definition.

Plant meat and gristle flew all over. Both rounds had penetrated the model twenty two’s lightly-armoured sides, buried themselves into its flesh, then exploded. There were now gaping holes large enough for a family of four to crawl into.

And still the fucker wasn’t dead.

The model twenty two stumbled. Some of the sacs on its side were broken, and half-formed alien carcasses slipped out along with a few gallons of placenta juice.

Around it, the horde of smaller aliens playing babysitter turned my way. There was no signal, they all just started to move in my direction.

I flicked on the mech’s invisibility, then immediately made it useless by opening up with its twin Gatling guns. A torrent of 10mm rounds rushed ahead. Every tenth round or so was a tracer. For some reason they alternated in colour, green, then yellow, then red streaking together to form a sort of moving…

Wait a fucking second, were my guns rainbow-themed? “Hell yeah,” I muttered.

I thought you might enjoy that.

“It’s very stupid,” I said as I swept the fire left and right. There was nothing quite like twin Gatling guns to clear out brush, and trees, and aliens.

Just to be safe, I aimed the big guns at the model twenty two and fired a second salvo. One round smashed into its down-tilted head. The other dug into its already opened side. When they went off, it was enough to send the alien crashing down.

I pulled back on the digital trigger and looked upon my work. There was a bit of fire around the dead alien, and some that were still squirming, but for the most part, there was just a lot of dead biomass.

“This one’s dead,” I said. “And it was… really easy?” I tapped a few commands in, and charted a route for the mech to catch up and intercept our little group somewhere out ahead.

“A few aliens couldn’t keep you down!” Princess said over the open comms. “Also, rainbow guns?”

I decided to ignore her, because sometimes that worked with my problems.

Gomorrah made a sound that could have meant anything while I exited out of the apps that let me control my mech. We were still floating along ahead of the others through what looked like a dirt road cut into the forest. I wasn’t a good judge of natural shit, on account of being a city girl, but the forest to our right looked a lot younger than the forest to the left, as if we were driving along a divide.

It only took a minute before my mech appeared out ahead, waiting for us. We were cutting in pretty damned close to where the model twenty two had been.

It didn’t take much before we drove right past and onto a small countryside road just past that. This one was at least covered in asphalt in the spots that weren’t poked full of potholes large enough to hide in.

“Alright,” Gomorrah said. “This road leads all the way to Echo Lake. We’re… two kilometres away now, more or less. We need to decide how we want to handle the hive at the lake.”

“Nah,” I said.

“…Nah?” Gomorrah repeated. “Can you elaborate?”

I gestured behind us, towards where the others were, more or less. “Let the new samurai handle it. Legit. You and I can stay back and make sure they’re not overwhelmed, but let them get the points for taking out the hive. We can salt the earth after if it comes to it, but they need the experience and the points more. Plus I want to sit back and have someone else do my work for me.”

“I don’t mind that,” Crackshot said over the coms. “Could use a few more points for a new pair of boots. And I’ve yet to take out a hive myself.”

“This is riskier than it needs to be,” Hedgehog said. “But… I suppose there are enough of us here, and with some supervision to keep the danger at a low simmer, this might not be a terrible idea.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Stop thinking like a normie, Hedgey… Hoggy?” Princess started. “We’re samurai, we’re supposed to jump into trouble and come out of it looking like heroes.”

I shared a look with Gomorrah. That kid was gonna get herself into a lot of trouble. Or grow a lot from the experience and come out of it real strong.