As Highfive was itching to 'move on from the intro match,' Bo began walking off, calling, "I'm not starting without a new rifle. That was a real cut." She held up her two halves of a rifle and shook her head.

As Highfive 'tsked' and protested, Jack began after Bo and said, "Actually, I'd like to change out. I want a back-up shield and something with better one-handed operation."

Highfive sighed. "Get a KC-2. They're in there. And legal. Might be better for you."

"A what?"

"Kriss-Cross. Folding stock, forty-five SMG, accurate one-handed. Updated ancient design. Been standard for a lot of support types and house-to-house Exemplar use for a couple of years or so. Probably good to train with if you haven't."

Jack whistled. "Sounds fancy. All I got as a pilot was a carbine."

"Welcome to the privileged big leagues." He frowned thoughtfully. "Actually, you know, bullet for bullet, handgun ammo technically gets you way more metal material down range."

"That's a good point. Alright, let's see how it goes…"

On the way back through the breakroom, Ira was standing near the vidscreen displays, a remote in her hand. She nodded very professionally to Jack as he walked by. "You were very efficient with the combined arms, Junior Agent. Keep it up." Despite the words, there was a subtle hidden smile underneath it all.

Jack grinned as he pulled off his faceplate temporarily. "Thanks. I'll try."

Inside the gear room, he asked Bo to point him in the right direction, and was soon checking out a black-painted KC-2. The logo was a single red splash of color, making a haphazard 'X,' which was a bit flamboyant for a death machine, but whatever. It looked a little odd, kind of like a slightly elongated, heavy-duty industrial stapler, but it felt good in the hands. Very high-tech. It had an 'invisible' sight function that linked either with a HUD in a proper faceplate, or, as a Non, with his System and thus vision itself. It could put a cross, a garish Kriss-Cross logo (barf), a dot, or a laser-like line right where the bullets would go, all virtual rather than physical.

Sweet. I love this beauty already, artistic indiscretion and all. Look at that cute little barrel begging for a suppressor attachment. D'aww.

As soon as Jack was trying to pick out a shield that would work, he had a rather 'duh' moment where he simply contoured the shield to act as a rest for the gun, with his powers allowing him precise customization to shape. Technically, he could do this with a higher velocity service rifle, but versatility-wise, he'd still rather the SMG or, at least, a smaller, less bulky carbine. With the propensity for enemies to show up right in your face in an ANP's career, the shorter-barreled variety of weapons seemed to have unignorable advantages.

In addition to greater mass shot down range or detectable in and on targets, I'm also way closer to being able to adjust a lower-velocity bullet usefully in mid-flight. Something I need to train on more.

Something the shields didn't have was a 'visor window,' which he saw immediate strong use for if the transparent window was strong enough, like the custom, expensive face plates of the ANP uniform.

Rather than make a mental note to commission such a panel, he shot it over to Mini.

Mini chimed in acknowledgement immediately. <Roger that, Jack. I should be able to arrange it within a few hours, as suitable material is in stock.>

Jack's reinforced metal shield basically just had a section cut out of one side where the gun could sit, the off-hand grip immediately in front of the shield, and the magazine section behind. He made the groove fit relatively flush, almost locking, but still easily slidable. Very cool and satisfying.

The biggest disadvantage he saw was that he was not at all used to the specific magazine system. He'd be fumbling with it a bit compared to a service rifle or the standard sidearm. Oh well. Natural Nonian coordination would have to compensate until he trained a bit with the firearm.

Knowing Highfive was probably tapping his foot impatiently inside the chamber, Jack hurriedly finished up and headed out. He at least took an extra clip to blow through and get something of a feel for the thing.

Back in the chamber, Jack made Highfive wait a little longer, firing off a few single shots and several bursts into a wall with the KC-2. It had a weird recoil, but it was a good weird, as the gun seemed to stay especially steady, with bullet groupings in the wall very close, even with one-handed free fire. Satisfied, he changed the empty mag out and headed over to the other two, nodding to Highfive as he finally put his faceplate back into place.

Highfive clapped his hands together and rubbed them. "Alright, let's do this! Endless horde time, baby. Enjoy your bullets while you can!"

"So, you fixed the metal thing, then?" Jack asked.

Highfive gave him a flat look. "Of course I did. Do you take me for a dummy?"

Jack didn't answer.

Bo did. "Everyone does, Fiver."

Highfive grinned smugly. "Then everyone would've had egg on their face this time! No metal on Division clones."

"You should give him stunners," Jack offered. "That would be a royal pain, I bet. And once we're fighting groups for real, those things being plastic and not needing bullets make them desirable against me."

"Don't give him ideas," Bo muttered. "Anyway, in real fights, I can easily ruin stunners, and very efficiently, energy-wise. That's the case with actual machines, and those are so complex on the inside, it doesn't take much to create dysfunction."

Highfive made a doubtful shrug. "I could try it, but technically, Division can't copy things with moving parts. He basically just has ninja gear and shit. That's why he's perfect as a melee rusher."

"Except against Jack because of the metal issue. So, what did you give him?"

Highfive smirked as he put his faceplate on. "You'll see."

Bo sighed as she began moving into position. Very slowly, as if in pain, she declared, "You tire me, Fiver."

"Okay, Ferronaut! You can go ahead and prep however you want. One minute, starting… now!"

"Roger that." Jack immediately channeled memorite and reached out for metal in the aggregate rubble around the location, primarily steel rebar, oozing or ripping it out as needed. Some of it was too buried to bother, but he had plenty to work with. The first thing he did was utilize a memorized Transmute template to make a wide-space 'razor fence' at the existing choke point — a wide entryway within the concrete walls — that enemies would run through to get to their backlines.

This was tough fence material, one-way, tapering to razor-sharp blades and points the other way, and particularly nasty on top. Very costly to brute force except for tougher tanky types. Someone like Highfive could blow through it with ease, sadly, but it was a horde test, after all. Division would be cursing its existence all too soon.

"Ooooh," Highfive exclaimed as he watched, "that's some nasty stuff right there, bro. Love it!"

"I do aim to please." He used the same repetition of fence material to reinforce the higher top of their existing rubble cover, helping to block off the ambush route that had previously caused them trouble from above. One other potential entrance was behind them, in a halfway collapsed portion of the rubble wall. Jack heavily fenced this at the top.

This sort of preparation was fairly time-consuming. With the available time left, Jack focused on adding curling razor wire to the top of any climbable section, which would be most of their entire makeshift fort. He spent a little extra time anchoring the wire down into the concrete, which was also very time-consuming, involving wrapping around big pieces of rubble and such, or, in the case of one straight wall section, using hammer-like sudden force to drive nail-like ends into it. Fortunately, he was able to flow the wire directly up from rebar sources along one wing, saving him some time, or he might not have anchored the stuff the way he wanted at all, in the limited time allowed.

As it stood, there appeared no way to get to them without cost, that he could see.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

As the seconds left ticked down, and Bo was crouched and aiming through the fence cover, Jack did his final quick prep-work, which was to utilize Anchors to make a locked, diffuse cloud a few meters behind them. If they ever lost track of threats coming from that direction, he'd have some warning.

When the time was up, he moved a heavy, two-segment shield in place roughly aligned with the middle of the primary fence, with Bo slightly forward from him and to his left, giving him a sight angle to protect her if a dupe did make it over and ambush her.

With that, a big wave of Division dupes came storming from the primary vector beyond the fence.

"Seriously?!" Bo immediately called upon seeing them.

The dupes all had baseball bats, each with the 'Louisville Slugger' emblem on it.

Under a hail of gunfire, Division called from a dozen mouths, "You might not be all there up top, son, but you got taste!"

"Thanks, sir!" Highfive replied amiably, right before he charged into them, soon smashing a dupe's face in.

The initial wave fared even worse than the first fight's contingent did. The bats were a little more disruptive to Highfive's momentum, but they ultimately weren't able to do much, being all-in on the blunt force trauma that Highfive was tailor-made to tank, and generally unable to manage arranging the more dangerous head strikes. That was the crunch of dealing with both Jack and him, though — metal was the rather superior option for other types of physical trauma. Jack was an all-around debuffer of technological warfare just being on the field.

Bo once again tagged legs and arms from afar. Jack did a little of this with his SMG, primarily to get a feel for it against live targets, but otherwise conserved ammo. He utilized metal already down range, snaking it at dupes from behind, namely those distracted by Highfive. This opened up some clones to get to the fences, but they did not like what they found.

Division screamed as he slammed into the fence with a shoulder charge, soon rebounding and dropping to his knees, holding a cut-up and bleeding arm. "You! Mother! Fragger! I'm going to-" He cut off as a band closed around his throat and began choking him.

"Language," Jack admonished, even as he turned his head up diagonally, hearing another cut-off curse and seeing a dupe trying to navigate the razor wire on top of the wall. Jack 'helped him out' by wrapping the wire around his neck and slicing his jugular open.

With the majority taken out or debilitated, and once again three 'batters' left, another wave of twelve came, now wielding some type of flail, with spiked heads apparently made out of some kind of stone or ceramic product.

"Here we go," Bo declared grumpily. "Time for the grinder of my weakest possible scenario yet again… I hate him so much…"

Wave after wave after wave of dupes came, inevitably jamming Highfive up with the sheer mass of bodies. They all had different non-metal weapons to bring to bear, including staffs, stone-tipped spears, and even ceramic machetes. Highfive alternated between fending them off defensively and conducting counter charges through masses that broke for the walls and fences, giving his backline time to deal with those making a press. He was fantastic at sowing chaos right when the fortifications were getting overwhelmed. But sliver by sliver, Highfive's aural sheath seemed to weaken and even diminish in size by some fraction, showing that it was ablating, and that the man inside was wearing down from constant offense and frenetic defense.

Bo went entirely through her ammo, pelting dupes with rounds and more or less jamming up the greater frontal press with a bunch of limping, ineffectual soldiers. In between shots, she disrupted those who almost got over the walls as they fought through razor wire, causing them to collapse and be ripe for a follow-up. Twice, she caught someone just getting free and dropping down. One, Jack was promptly alerted about and executed while he was disoriented on the ground. The other tried to jump tackle a preoccupied Jack from the wall, and Bo's timed disruption caused the dupe to pitch head-first in a bad arc straight to the concrete floor, breaking his neck.

"Score!" Bo called happily. "I don't get that kind of perfect kill very often."

"Congrats," Jack said, as he felt sweat bead up on his brow inside the faceplate, and wished he could wipe it. He reminded himself to wear something absorbing up there next time.

Jack tried to use his power as efficiently as possible, keeping a rather low output, knowing that even with Highfive's vastly higher performance demands out there, his energy levels were not ideal compared to such a career elite. Fortunately, he didn't need much against often distracted, fairly weak foes like Division clones — a band of metal around their throat from behind, or forming a sharp blade and slicing their throat. More rarely, he chopped through weapons mid-attack to stop Highfive from getting stabbed. The worst thing he'd seen was a spear-user bracing as Highfive charged, using his own momentum against him, to which Highfive actually grunted and faltered from, even as the actual spear had snapped in half against his sheath. After that, Jack chopped any spears he saw just under the head.

Most of his time mid-battle was taking out wall-climbers coming for him and Bo, which generally involved taking control of razor wire and killing them as they scrambled to get over and down. Dozens died this way, but inevitably, some got over, especially as numbers grew and the clones began to coordinate their timing. Some would even stand on the wall and throw ceramic daggers or darts at them. They began taking dings and having to deal with chargers as Highfive worked on the other side to keep the inevitable 'overwhelm' away for as long as possible.

"Starting to get hairy, eh, team?!" Highfive called, clearing panting and clearly enjoying the madness he'd wrought.

Far too busy killing clones, the others didn't answer. At just that moment, Bo was yelling in a non-verbal war cry as she'd turned and unloaded handgun fire into the face of a bat-wielding wall jumper who'd almost 'home-runned' her brainpan.

Jack, in between entangling three dupes at once, took a spare moment to change out his SMG mag, at which point he placed it on the ground and kick-slid it over to Bo. "Here! I'm barely using it anyway!"

Bo immediately picked it up and began making use of it from a crouch, switching her gun hands, bracing the SMG over the off-hand, and popping another dupe in the head with three rounds, at which point the dupe fell off the wall and turned to smoke. "Thanks. I do love these guns."

Seeing the numbers coming over the walls and the huge mass beyond the fence, Jack slid his other full clip over. "Cover me on the walls! It's high time I helped thin the herd." As Bo nodded, he mentally sent a command to Highfive to next charge to the 'far side quadrant' instead of the fence, and then stay there for a spell.

Highfive gave a quick acknowledgement. "Coming right up, bro! I can't wait to see what you're brewin' here!"

Immediately after the charge, the clones were pressed up to the fence, trying to help each other over it, throwing jackets over the razor wire to mitigate the damage. Jack grabbed one of the segments of his heavy shield nearby, put his full output into it, and slammed it into those just rising over, clipping several and sending them flying back down. Pausing it just overhead, he then slammed it down on top of them.

Some got away, able to coordinate a dodge, but not all, and he killed several by squashing them. This created some space immediately in front of the fence. Jack utilized Shape to make a giant double-blade, somewhat denser at the ends, then began to spin it from the center like a helicopter blade.

The mass of dupes had the expected immediate reaction, which was to move anywhere but in the direction of the spinning blade of death. However, while Division's clones could coordinate, it was hardly the default, and the greater the number and stressors, the harder it was to manage. Meanwhile, between them and the true 'exit' area of greatest space, was Highfive drawing attention and pressing them inward, creating a panicked crunch.

As such, chaos and division ensued amongst the duplicates.

"Get the- frag me, move, damn it!" "Ahhhhh!" "What's happening?!"

"Wrong direction, you idiooo- wait."

"Move, move, move!"

"Being a sim sucks ass." "Oh, the humanityyyy!"

"Hey! Watch the- oh shit…" "I don't like that at all!" "Where?!"

"Could've sworn I got a Secondary Mutation to deal with this…"

"Death on your six!"

"Where?!" "Which six?" "Whose six?!" "Too many sixes!"

"This is giving me a damned headache!" "I'm too old for this shit."

Jack zipped the spinning blade into the horde, aiming at leg height. As soon as he made contact, he slowed, knowing the spin would take drag very quickly. Nonetheless, at the full intensity of his output — Bo nearby rapidly emptying a magazine at the walls to give him the opportunity — Jack lopped off a slurry of legs in the first batch, eliciting ensuing cut-off screams as the injuries were enough to trigger dupes to turn into smoke. They weren't entirely spared the gore in brief windows of the blood spray, but it always quickly transmuted.

The mad dash to escape only got more chaotic, but the central area rapidly thinned as the flanks got jammed. That meant plenty coming over the walls on both flanks, but it wiped out having to guard the front for a while.

Jack grit his teeth to keep the spin going as the blade slowed and wobbled. He had to pull it back slightly before charging again and ripping into his panicking enemies again, lopping off legs, spawning smoke, and injuring more to fall and bleed from grievous wounds on the ground. The blade slowed once more.

Two of the dupes finally gained some nerve and, in coordination, jumped on top of the blade in the middle, quickly knocking it off-trajectory and arresting the spin, though it cost one an arm and the other a foot as Jack raked it across them in a wobbling counterattack.

More soon followed suit, falling on the blade to try and stop it from moving around. Jack began maneuvering to slip the blade back away from them, hopefully to start one last churn against the remaining press he had good sight angles on-

"Got overflow behind you, Jack!" Bo called in an anxious warning as she quickly knelt to grab the other magazine and change it out. "Sorry!" When she wheeled around, it was away from him, where she had her own mass of enemies to worry about.

"Roger," Jack replied, reluctantly tearing his focus, attention, and free memorite away from his newly beloved death blade as he spun around. The walls were crawling with dupes, in one case having used a staff to twist up a section and pull it away so several could get over. Bo had obviously caused many to get stuck in tangles, and others were wounded on the ground or half-incapacitated.

Essentially, Jack had inflicted a ton of casualties in a short period and thinned out the dangerous frontal press, but the shift from defense to offense had the costs come due. It occurred to him that if they weathered the storm, it could be seen as worth it, and if things ended here, it would probably be the opposite. He'd gambled, it seemed.

Man, choices are a bitch.

Jack blocked a dart with his shield as two more clones were charging him, one bare-handed somehow and the other with a ceramic blade in hand.

Might need to multitask here, and this isn't an ideal scenario for it. Good training, in any case…

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