Hi all; sorry about the long wait. Anyways, here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy it!
Chapter 14: Counter-Offensive
"This is insane," Thanatos looked at Naruto in order to speak directly to him, "We're marching en masse towards a Zerg hive, and we're not prepared for an attack at all. I still believe leaving the new weapons back at the base was a bad idea. And establishing a forward-operations base during the assault? We have limited enough resources as it is without spending large amounts of it constructing an entire new base!"
"Don't worry, Shikamaru knows what he's doing. If he doesn't want us to bring our new weapons, he's got a good reason for it. As for the base, you heard what he said, and both the Praetor and the Executor agreed with him. If we want to start putting pressure on the Zerg, we need a safe location closer to their hive."
"I understand that, but why in the middle of battle? Why split up our already limited forces just before a major battle?"
"I don't know. All we can do is trust Shikamaru's judgment."
"I do not like this blind trust. I fear it will get us all killed."
Executor Selendis paced up and down the bridge of the Gantrithor impatiently.
"Status report," she ordered.
"The Gantrithor has been fully repaired; bringing all systems online now. Once power has been restored to all systems the ship will once again be fully operational."
"How long until all systems are fully powered?"
"Estimated 30 minutes and counting."
"We're on the creep," Xelios reported, "We should be seeing Zerg any minute now."
"Everyone stay alert! Remember; the Zerg move faster when on the creep than they do on normal ground," Thanatos reminded them all.
Naruto looked around at the shinobi behind him; they were all repulsed by this purple 'living ground'. In all fairness, he didn't like it either. The way it stuck to his shoes was just … creepy. And the fact that it felt like he was treading on a living being creeped him out even further. He would have contemplated on it a little more, but he didn't get the chance. A line of spikes burst out of the ground right towards him, and they would have impaled him if Thanatos hadn't pulled him out of the way.
"Lurkers!" Thanatos held out a hand to halt everyone.
"Where are they?" Sasuke looked around, "I don't see them anywhere."
"The Lurker attacks from underground," Xelios told him, "The beasts are defenseless if they're on the surface."
"Then how do we kill them?" Sakura looked over at the 2 Protoss.
"Watch, and we'll show you."
The 2 of them edged forward carefully. They waited until the spikes burst out of the ground and darted towards them. Thanatos dodged the spikes to the left, and Xelios the right. The two of them started running forwards, eyes trained on the ground. Another line of spikes emerged from the ground towards Thanatos, who easily dodged them yet again. He pointed to the ground where the spikes originated from. With a long jump he flew over the area and plunged his psionic blade deep into the ground. Somewhere below ground a feral scream of surprise echoed. The ground shook beneath the young Protoss, and a large Zerg beast burst from it.
This Zerg was similar to the roach, only larger and not as heavily armored. The legs were more slender, sort of like those of a colossus, and its head was in the same shape of a hydralisk's. The thing screamed in rage as it tried to shake the young Protoss off, but the Protoss was anchored by the blade he had stabbed through the armor on its back. As it struggled, Xelios darted forward, spiking the Lurker through the side of the head with his twin psionic claws. Thanatos jumped from the Zerg as its legs gave way and hit the ground.
"Broodmother, the Protoss and the humans are heading for the hive cluster! They have already broken through our perimeter defenses!"
"Ready our forces, but do not engage. Let them come to us!"
"As you wish."
The Broodmother looked out towards the enemy, even though she could not see them. So, they wished to challenge the Swarm's power directly did they? They will regret such a foolish action!
Thanatos and Sasuke stood side by side, cutting through a group of zerglings.
"Why aren't they attacking?" Thanatos wondered.
"Pretty sure they are," Sasuke responded as he ran a zergling through with his sword.
"They don't attack like this. This is like they're not even trying. It's almost insulting how laughably pathetic their attempts to repel us are."
"Well I doubt it's going to stay like that for long," Shikamaru was behind them, "We're almost at the hill. Once we're over it, we're going to have a lot of hostiles all around us."
"Then let's not keep them waiting!" Sasuke urged them.
"Hold on," Gaara held him back, "There are over a dozen of those spine crawlers waiting for us at the top of that hill. If we charge in now they'll tear us to shreds. Let me handle them first."
Gaara started funneling his sand into the ground. The ground beneath the spine crawlers was broken down into more sand, but the creep made raising it difficult. It took Gaara much longer and more effort than normal to lift the sand around the spine crawlers. The things jabbed at the sand, trying to stab through the stuff encasing them in large cocoons, but they're efforts had no effect. Every spine crawler was completely wrapped in Gaara's sand.
"Sand Burial!"
The sand crushed the spine crawlers with a sickening 'crunch!'. Blood began to ooze out from the sand in little streams.
"Okay, now we can keep going."
Naruto looked sideways at his friend. "Show off."
Gaara looked back at him with a small smile, "Right, because you didn't get enough opportunities to be one last war."
The top of the hill was already covered in blood by the time they reached it. It was a little disgusting, and yet satisfying to see at the same time. The Zerg hive was a weird looking place; full of fleshy, living buildings everywhere. Like the whole place was just one big living thing. On the left were tall flesh towers with mushroom tops, and on the right, the hydralisk dens Shikamaru had pointed out earlier. Towering over them all in the back was the main hive, flanked by 2 hatcheries. Pools of green liquid were clustered around the bases of these three structures. The rest of the place didn't seem to have much organized structure, but certain areas contained certain buildings the rest didn't.
A cacophony of screaming cries echoes from somewhere above the hive, signaling the arrival of the Zerg's flocks of mutalisks. Hundreds of the flying horrors filled the sky. Sasuke looked up at the things. Really, the things weren't altogether that scary. More than half of their size was their wings. What was scary was the fact that there were just so many of them.
On the ground, Zerg began streaming through the gaps between buildings towards them.
"They're approaching fast," Xelios warned, "We should begin phase 2."
"Agreed," Shikamaru nodded and spoke into a radio, "All phoenix squadrons, engage."
Everyone looked up as phoenixes suddenly were attacking the mutalisk flocks from 2 sides. The mutalisks tried to fly away to outmaneuver their opponents, but by flying to one side they simply ran into the phoenixes on the other. When they tried to fly towards them to attack back, the phoenixes simply reversed, their upgraded range shredding through one mutalisk after another without mercy. As they watched, fireballs and other jutsus were launched from the backs of several of the phoenixes. Shikamaru watched the action above them while keeping an eye on the approaching ground forces. He waited for a little longer before speaking into the radio again.
"Phoenix bombers, begin bombing run."
The new phoenix bombers dropped from their positions in the clouds, heading straight for the approaching Zerg. The bombers strafed the Zerg, their bombs exploding right in the middle of them all. Alien body parts went sailing into the air all over.
"Alright, advance forwards!" Shikamaru waved everyone on, "Head for the hydralisk dens. Demolition teams 1-4, prepare explosives. Advance teams, punch a way through to the hive; demolition teams 5 and 6 follow them in. Fighters, search and destroy all remaining airborne hostiles. Bombers, switch targets; bring down those spires."
Gaara held up his hand, signaling everyone to follow him. The army charged after him. Seeing their target, all the Zerg immediately changed their trajectory to intercept them. Masses of Zerg were literally scrambling over each other to get to them.
"Perfect," Shikamaru smiled.
"How is that perfect in any way, shape, or form?" Ino looked at him like he was insane, "We're about to get ripped to shreds by hordes of bloodthirsty aliens. HOW THE HELL IS ANY OF THAT GOOD?!"
"Perhaps he has a death wish?" Sai looked over at him.
"You two are a real drag, you know that right?"
"What else are friends for?"
"Just stop talking and start working. I need you two to go and destroy the odd looking den. It's probably the lurker den, so destroy it as fast as possible. You know what to do," Shikamaru pointed at the den on the far end.
Ino and Sai nodded, "Don't worry, we'll get it done."
The pair of them headed off.
"Okay, the rest of us need to hold this position; buy the demolition teams time to do their work."
The shinobi and Protoss nodded, going to their prearranged positions. The waves of zerglings reached them first, leaping up on top of the defenders. Time seemed to slow down, as it always did in battle, everything moved in slow motion. Next the roaches reached them, spitting their acid saliva at any target they could reach.
"Having a serious case of déjà vu right now," Iruka muttered.
"You're not the only one," Hinata punched a roach hard enough using her lion fist technique to cave in the creature's armored carapace.
Temari and Matsuri led their team cautiously into one of the Zerg hatcheries. The fleshy building pulsed all around them as they advanced deeper and deeper.
"Matsuri, get the charges ready," Temari ordered softly, "I'd rather not stay here very long if we can help it."
Matsuri nodded. According to Sai's ink creature map, they were nearing the hatchery's central chamber. Once there, the charges needed to be placed in a ring around the edge to destroy the structure's central supports. Once done, they needed to be well away before detonation.
The tunnel ended very abruptly, and the team found themselves at their intended destination. The chamber was large, rising in a conical shape. On the ground were hundreds of pulsating, luminescent green eggs. In the middle of them all was a Zerg creature unlike any other they had seen so far. It had a long lower body, like a spider's, with 6 legs supporting it. The upper body was similar to that of a human, though the head and arms were as far from human as they could get. Two large wing-like claws extended from the back. The scariest part of this Zerg was not its shape though, but the spark of cunning intelligence in its eyes. Upon noticing the shinobi's entrance, the thing screeched, spitting acid spines at them. It started to advance towards them, still screeching. Temari opened her giant fan.
"Matsuri, hurry up and plant the explosives; I'll deal with this thing."
Temari ran through the clusters of eggs, blocking volleys of acid spines with her fan.
Outside, the rest of the army was in full battle with the Zerg swarms. Gaara and several others had raised barricades, entrenching their position. Shinobi and Protoss fighters alternated between ducking behind cover and attacking. Phoenixes continued to circle above the entrenched fighters, keeping the skies clear.
Sasuke ducked as a large wave of hydralisk spines flew overhead. A raptor jumped over the barricade, right above him. He stabbed the alien as it passed over, sending it crashing to the ground behind him. A claw burst through the sand very close to his head. Sasuke stumbled backwards as a hydralisk clawed its way through the sand barricade towards him. The sand sprang to life, sand arms wound themselves around the alien, dragging it back into the sand's body. There was a muffled cry as the sand constricted where the alien was. Gaara held out a hand to help Sasuke up.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, thanks," Sasuke nodded, "That was a little close for comfort."
A phoenix bomber raced above them, dropping a bomb right on the top of one of the Zerg spires in the distance. A section of the top was blasted apart, rocking the rest of the building. A bomb from a second bomber hit it square in the center support. The spire buckled and collapsed in a bleeding heap.
"Good to see Tenten's inventions work," Sasuke commented.
"Of course they work. I invented them didn't I?" Tenten was only a few paces away.
They all ducked as another wave of spines flew over their heads.
"When did you get here?"
"Just now. The Zerg are starting to break through the barricades, so it's almost time to start phase 3."
Ino and Sai edged into the den. Outside there was a battle raging, but it was strangely silent inside the building. Not a sound to be heard, not even the shinobi's footsteps. The den's floor declined, descending underground.
"We're here," Sai whispered.
Ino nodded, peering into the den. The place was a fairly deep pit with rocky outcroppings embedded in the walls. Three of the Zerg's giant lurkers stirred within. The broken remnants of their eggs were nearby; clearly these three had only hatched recently. Sai's silent hand signal was perfectly clear: "Clear them out."
As the pair of them moved further in, the lurkers spotted them. They began to burrow in preparation to attack. Amazing. Only a few minutes old and already they were ready to kill. Ino moved forwards, catching one of the lurkers with her mind-body transfer before it finished burrowing. Bending its will to serve hers, she forced the alien to send its subterranean spines towards one of the other lurkers, impaling it in a giant line down its body. Timed perfectly, she left the lurker just before its sibling impaled it, killing the host she had just been in. Sai made a giant ink creature, which began to dig frantically after the surviving one. The sole surviving lurker attacked the ink creature in equal desperation, trying to destroy the thing that was rapidly uncovering it. It succeeded….. after the creature had uncovered enough of it for Sai to attach no less than 5 paper bombs to its back.
Ino gave Sai a high five in congratulations.
"Okay, now that that's done with, let's get this job started shall we?"
Ino nodded. It would be very satisfying blowing up this disgusting place.
Temari breathed hard in frustration. The Zerg creature's acid spines damaged her fan when they hit it, and she couldn't afford that at the moment. She needed to deal with this …. what did those other aliens call them? Right, they're called queens. She needed to deal with this queen fast. She rolled out from cover throwing weapons at it, but it didn't fire back. Why was that?
She looked around; there wasn't anything special really. She tried the maneuver again, but this time received a counter attack. What was different this time? She looked around to find the answer. Then it hit her: the eggs. The eggs were the key. The queen was charged with caring for the eggs, so she was unwilling to attack if that meant endangering these pulsing green eggs. That was it.
She rolled again before jumping into the air. She needed to find the right spot. Blocking acid spines as she flew….. there. A cluster of eggs in close proximity to others. Perfect! She landed amidst the eggs and began attacking one as wildly and viciously as she could. The queen went ballistic, charging the girl screaming. Temari ducked behind the eggs, continuing to try to break it. The queen still wouldn't attack with her acid spines; she wouldn't risk hurting her precious eggs.
Temari kept attacking the eggs; she needed to wait just a little longer. The queen towered over her suddenly, her claws slashing and stabbing at the girl. She backed up, keeping out of range of the wildly swinging claws.
'Just a bit further, just a bit further,' she kept thinking.
She felt a blow to her shoulder, knocking her to the ground; the queen's claws had found their mark while she had been preoccupied. No matter though. It was too late for her anyways. Temari flipped away, landing as far away as she could. The queen noticed too late the paper bombs Temari had planted on the clusters of eggs when she had attacked them. The paper bombs exploded on the egg clusters on either side of the queen, sending her and her precious little eggs back to hell where they belonged.
Matsuri looked over as Temari walked back over to them.
"My my, that's quite the mess you've made there," she commented Temari's handiwork.
Temari grinned back at her.
Outside things were growing more chaotic by the minute. The Zerg hadn't broken through the shinobi and Protoss's defenses yet, but they were getting close. It wouldn't be much longer at this rate. Sasuke even had to use his Mangekyō Sharingan to eliminate several groups of Zerg before they overran those around him.
"Man, how many of these things are there?" he asked aloud, "No wonder they're all pissed off; they're all the typical middle child of 8 million!"
Iruka stabbed a hydralisk through the back of its head, looking at his former student incredulously.
"Sasuke, did you just make a joke?"
"Wait Sasuke's joking?!" Tenten looked over at him, "My God it really is the end of the world!"
"Oh shut up," Sasuke glared at them.
Across the battlefield, Naruto, Sakura, and Shikamaru were all on the frontline. It became almost a routine; attack Zerg that get through the barricade, duck to avoid the volleys of spines and acid. Pause for breath during the nonexistent breaks in the fighting.
Sakura punched a hydralisk into the ground when she saw the earth moving beneath her. Something, or multiple things, was burrowing underneath them, heading straight for a small cluster of shinobi and Protoss defending a small vantage point on the front. She tried to call out to them, to warn them, but she hadn't noticed in time. Before she had a chance, one of those big beetle-like infestors popped out of the ground, spewing their green goo, their fungal growth, all over the group. At the same time masses of pulsing green eggs made a large circle around them. The entire group went down in a hail of infested kunai and claws. Sakura couldn't watch.
Naruto saw it all as well. He was helpless to stop their deaths, but at least he could avenge them. Using the wind thief jutsu, the entire group of infested died, all falling simultaneously. The minute they touched the ground though another group of eggs burst from the ground, hatching more infested. Naruto took a step backwards. He needed to free the poor souls of his comrades fast; they'd suffered enough at the hands of the Zerg already.
"Wind style! Wind Needle Bomb!"
Naruto created a ball of super-dense air in his palm, similar to the shape of his Rasengan, before lightly tossing it into the group infested shinobi. The ball flew into the middle of them all, stopping at their average head level. With a loud bang the ball exploded, sending wind needles in all directions. Not a single infested survived the jutsu's effects; the wind needles pierced all the way through their skulls in every case.
He moved forward to see out past the barricades, but was repulsed by the sight before him. Swarms of infested shinobi were slowly lumbering towards them. Some of their faces were familiar; many of these infested were comrades of theirs that had fallen in earlier battles. Regardless of sentiment, it was also obvious that there were too many of them for him and his comrades to hold off at this point. They needed help, and they needed it now.
"Shikamaru, we need to pull out our final card," Naruto looked over at his friend.
Shikamaru nodded.
'Tenten, begin stage three,' Shikamaru told Tenten via a psychic link provided by the Protoss.
Tenten motioned everybody around her to get back.
"I'm going to need some room," she warned.
Tenten concentrated hard on her task. It was gonna take a lot of chakra to get this done properly.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
A giant cloud of smoke rose all around the girl. It cleared away to reveal a truly welcoming sight: towering over Tenten stood no less than 9 colossi, and surrounding them were the new reavers. She stood up, and jumped onto the largest of the colossi, which towered over even the others of its kind. Placing her palms on a specialized console on the giant robot's waist, the giant monolith roared to life. The giant colossus turned towards the hordes of infested. Tenten activated the weapon systems.
Two sets of thermal lancers began firing in succession into the masses, burning them to ashes within seconds. The other colossi acted on their own accord, spreading out to support all the other teams.
Mutalisks screeched overhead, wheeling down from the sky to destroy the towering robots. The reaver's missile launchers instantly locked on to the flying worms as they attacked the colossi's shields. A swarm of 7 mutalisks flew past, right in front of one of the reavers. Both missile batteries fires full volleys into the unfortunate group. A single, badly wounded mutalisk flapped away, limping through the sky. A phoenix flew past it, and a fireball from the back incinerated that last one.
"Broodmother! The enemy has warped in additional forces! Our current forces are not strong enough to stop them!"
"We must buy more time! Use the latest experiments! Sacrifice as many as you need to get the time we require!"
Over the radio Shikamaru and the others began to hear some odd things. Naruto listened closely to the chatter that was going on all over from almost all of the demolition teams.
"My God, they're everywhere! …. They're hatching instantly!... When did zerglings have dorsal fins?! … Argh! We're under attack! ….. Disengage! Disengage!... We're cut off! Go, get out of here! Retreat!... What the hell?! ARGH!"
There were a ton of screams, both human and alien coming through the radio. There were so many voices that they had all become unintelligible. The only discernible things now were just tiny fragments of speech, but mostly just the screams of all three races. Suddenly, a clear voice came through.
"This is the captain of demolition team 1; we've been completely surrounded by masses of a new strain, possibly zergling in origin. These things hatch almost instantly, and now they're all triplets. Request assistance from any available friendly forces!"
"Shikamaru, we have to help them!" Naruto looked over at his friend.
Shikamaru wore a pained expression, "We can't help them. They're halfway across the base."
"We can't just leave them! What if we take all of the colossi and just burn our way through to them?"
"We'd be leaving the rest of our people behind, taking away their defenses. We would lose so many from the lack of firepower on our other fronts."
Naruto looked at his closest advisor, aghast at what he was saying. Was he really saying to leave comrades behind?
"They are our comrades; we don't abandon our comrades," Naruto argued back.
Shikamaru thought about his friend's words. They could lose possibly hundreds trying to save maybe two dozen. But not to do so would be abandoning their own in the middle of a hostile alien base. The teams were responsible shinobi, they knew the risks and had accepted them anyways, but he had a responsibility to protect those under his command, and to uphold the village's code of honor. Not to save them would be breaking that code.
"Naruto, I understand your position, I really do. But if we do this, we will lose the only advantage we have. We will be risking our one chance at victory!"
"I'm not leaving them behind to die."
"Okay, fine. We'll save them IF we get the chance. But right now let's just focus on keeping the battle here in our favor. Once we've done that then we'll go after them okay?"
Naruto nodded hesitantly, "Alright."
"Executor! The Gantrithor is fully powered once again. We await your orders!"
"Excellent. Get us in the air, cruise at 300 meters. All stations brace for cast-off!"
"Launching in 3…..2…1."
The main engines of the great ship came to life, the whole thing thrumming from their power. For the first time in weeks, the supercarrier Gantrithor II was back in the air where it belonged.
"We have reached atmospheric combat altitude," a crewmember reported, "300 meter height attained."
"Status check," Selendis looked over at a screen.
"Status check: all systems nominal."
"Tactical report."
"Shields at 100% power. All weapon systems are online and charged for combat."
"Then get us to the forward operations base at full speed."
"As you command, Executor!"
"Sai, are we ready?"
"Charges are in place, ready for detonation."
"Okay, then let's get out of this wretched place."
Ino and Sai began to run up the passage out of the lurker den. As they ran, Sai vaguely noticed that the buildings had veins connected to the creep that was spread across the floor. So, that was how the buildings worked; the buildings contained the DNA within the walls, it gets transferred via the creep, and then the hatcheries use the sequences to mutate that strain. When it was done the sequences returned to the structure. But in this case, the lurker required a specific set of conditions to be properly mutated, so hydralisks needed to actually go into the den before mutating. A simple system, yet intricate at the same time. Pity it was all about to die in a big fiery explosion.
"Okay, we're nearly out. Detonate!"
Sai used his chakra to connect to the bombs attached to the den's walls, causing a large chain explosion. The pair of them had only gotten a few paces out of the den when the heat and force of the blast nearly knocked them both off their feet. They turned to see their handiwork.
Huge holes had been blown out of the ceiling and walls by the bombs. The den was literally bleeding out, blood pouring out from the gaping wounds in its sides. The entire building shook. In fact, the explosion was so large that even the ground was shaking. Ino was a little concerned. She wasn't exactly a bomb expert or anything, but they hadn't used enough bombs to make an explosion that powerful… had they?
"Temari! We've got company!" Matsuri warned her friends.
Temari turned to see what her teammate had pointed out. Her eyes widened.
The masses of eggs were hatching. Fast. Out of each egg burst three of the weirdest looking zerglings she had ever seen. They were not as tough-looking as the raptor, but the fin on their backs gave them a slightly more intimidating look. Inside the hatchery larvae were crawling out of holes in the walls, then encasing themselves into eggs. About 20 seconds later three more of those new zerglings hatched. Their numbers were increasing exponentially by the minute.
"Doesn't matter," Temari swatted them all back with a gust of wind from her giant fan, "They'll all burn along with this place when the charges go off."
Matsuri had to agree with that one. They had brought a special type of bomb specifically for this task. Based on the idea of unquenchable fire like Amaterasu, the bombs contained a special type of "sticky fire". The fuel for the fire would stick to whatever surface it comes in contact with, ensuring maximum damage. The fire itself wouldn't stop until the fuel was completely burned away, and since that took quite some time that leaves plenty of time for it to spread past the fuel source. The actual explosion part of the bomb really was simply to propel the fire in all directions rather than do damage.
The group of them ran out of the hatchery, back out into the sunlight. Waiting for them was a giant mass of Zerg, including clusters of banelings. Temari, Matsuri, and their other teammates skidded to a halt. They all dodged as volleys of projectiles flew at them. Temari looked back, and forwards. Surrounded in a large semi-circle to the front and sides, massive swarms of those new zerglings bearing down on them from behind. Not exactly the most optimal situation they could have found themselves in.