Anti-antithesis

Diplomacy died when the aliens invaded Earth. Now all we are left with is violence, and contracts that are backed by violence. Courts are a joke and laws are meaningless, so grab a gun and fight to keep your slice of the Earth.

-Rallying cry from a home grown anarchist organization that launched a successful raid on a corporate compound in Montana, 2028

Commander Mark Smith, CO of the Steel Panthers

I looked at the report once more, the disbelief I once felt having long been replaced by elation. The stupid child was only going to show up with a couple of shuttles and his fiancé, with the majority of his forces leaving the city! I could not believe my luck.

Jasmine agreed with my plan already, sending a large amount of troops towards the Megabuilding he is based out of. We checked the footage of him taking out the Bestlé convoy and came to the conclusion that we could easily have done the same. Sure, the aliens were a curve ball, but they still went down to gunfire all the same.

Carter was a fence sitter, as always, but he had agreed to at least not interfere. Miranda, that stubborn bitch, never picked up any of my calls, so she could prove to be problematic if things went sideways, but I was confident that she would see reason once things were already set into motion.

The largest hurdle was the shareholders of our PMCs, as they would normally never take action against a Samurai, especially one who had such a large ship filled to the brim with heavy weapons. It had taken me using every favor I was owed over the years, as well as a large portion of my own funds to convince those armchair strategists that we could recoup all of our losses and even gain far more once we succeeded.

Once the brat was taken care of, we had some vehicles on standby to take us to the warship hovering above the city, as it would be free game once his AI cut off connection with it. It was a well known phenomenon with Sam tech, that after the Samurai died, their tech would shut off, after all, and we had to move fast to be the ones to claim it.

I checked the satellite feed and saw that the other PMCs were on their way, while the child Samurai was already in the amphitheater with his bitch. I saw the two large hover craft above them and imagined adding them to my fleet.

I did notice Ephemeral Gravitas was lagging behind a bit, but ignored them. I called Carter and Jasmin's body double, some recruit who was a total pushover, if Jasmine was correct.

“When we reach him, open fire immediately. Don't give him a chance to fight back.” I said once the line connected.

There was a squeak of a response from the fool, while Carter simply sighed and disconnected. I narrowed my eyes, then scoffed. Fine, he would either get with the times or get fucked.

My tanks entered the park soon after, weapons loaded and at the ready. I had a lock on the brats in seconds and smiled fiercely. “Fire!” I shouted into my troops comms. Dozens of medium tanks and my six Super Heavy ones opened fire all at once, demolishing the amphitheater in a hail of HE shells.

The Ground Badgers fired their APCs weapons into the hole as well, but it was closer to a token show of strength. The Iron Bulls had the audacity to stop before entering the park at all, with the Ephemeral Gravitas also stopping a block further back.

“Cowards.” I muttered, turning to my view screen to check on the carnage unleashed.

Suddenly, the two hovercraft adjusted their underslung cannons to point towards my tanks and opened fire, causing dozens of critical alerts to be reported to me as all of my medium tanks were disabled instantly.

I shouted for status reports, for casualties, for anything and everything, yet my comms remained silent. I saw the dust cloud settle and felt my jaw drop as my eyes bulged from their sockets.

There was a perfectly circular stone platform Stanford above the crater I made, and standing in it was the boy and his bitch, casually glaring at my tank.

I heard a click on my comms. “Well, this is… not as much of a surprise as I was imagining, to be honest.” A male voice said. “So, I can take this as your declaration to deny a parlay?”

“You! Shut up and die already!” I yelled, knowing that the Samurai brat had hacked into my comms.

I went to fire my Super Heavy Tank's main cannon once more, but the firing controls were not responding.

“Now, I have to say, you are brave for simply showing up as you have, in person even.” The Samurai continued. “Brave, but obviously not smart. Now, I am going to disassemble your tanks while my fiancé drafts up your terms of surrender. Don't do anything stupid.”

My view screen shut off as I heard the sounds of groaning and cutting metal. I grabbed my gun as I sprinted out the back of Helen, yelling for my men to do the same.

We sprinted a few meters before turning, and I saw what was happening to her. She was disintegrating from the top down, screws and rivets being pried out, while the armored plates thinned at a noticeable rate. I screamed in anger as I raised my rifle and sprinted towards where that Samurai fucker was standing, my men following close behind.

As we rounded Helen, I saw a flash of blue as something slammed into my armor's helmet, sending me flying backwards into one of my men. We hit the ground hard, my head spinning as I tried to stand. I heard the sounds of gunfire going off around me, along with the sounds of crunching armor even closer.

As I stood fully, I saw my men on the ground, not moving, and above them stood a monster snake person. I scream as I open fire into them, then pause as I see the bullets stop mid-air around it.

The snake monster scowled at me before rushing off towards the Ground Badgers, causing a wave of panicked gunfire to erupt. Before I could decide if I would follow it, I felt my armor fall away from me as my rifle fell to pieces as well.

I heard someone sigh heavily to my left. “Just… stop. I am doing what I can to prevent deaths right now, not kill you all. It would be so much easier if you just accepted things, Mark.”

I turned towards the voice, feeling my anger rise as my eyes landed on the Samurai. He was wearing some simple attire, a damn t-shirt and shorts, not even a scrap of armor to be seen! But what infuriated me was the look in his eyes. He was bored! Bored!

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Woah. Hey, are you alright? My scans show you have some pretty high levels of cortisol and adrenaline in your system, not to mention-”

I threw a punch at him with all my might, fully intending on knocking him on his ass. But my fist stuck in mid air, locked in place mere inches from him. I tried to pull it back, but the air felt as if it had a vice on my arm. I felt the air solidify around me rapidly, preventing me from moving.

He sighed again. “You know, I had some level of respect for you.” He continued to look up at me, pity in his eyes. “After all, you had the balls to see all I had done publicly and thought, ‘I could take that’. Not to mention, you managed to convince another huge PMC to join you, and all the shareholders backing you. Yet, you weren't even half as prepared as Bestlé was. No EMC, class one armor at best. I mean, you guys don't even have any exotic munitions. I- I really don't know what gave you the confidence to do any of this.”

The sounds of gunfire soon ended, replaced by the sounds of a few hover engines approaching.

“Ah, and that must be the smarter two of the Four of you.” The Samurai said, turning away from me and walking off.

His bitch soon walked over from where the Ground Badgers were, shaking her head at me. “Take a nap, idiot. You will be dealt with later.”

I felt a prick on my neck, and soon the world faded to black.

********************************

Cari

I walked over to the approaching vehicles, leaving the Neo-Nazi idiot to his standing nap. I knew this would not go as we had hoped, but to think they would attack immediately.

“Bahamut, the Ground Badgers here were all rookies. Any idea where the actual main force is?” I asked into Victor's Network, a new function of the armor he bought.

“Indeed, Matriarch.” I sighed, giving up on protesting this absurd title. “It seemed as though the main force had made its way here with the intent of taking over an empty nest. Fortunately, both Morrigan's defenses and the two shuttles that remained fully prevented them from getting close to The Tower. Any survivors have been picked up by Horatio and a few of his men and are on their way to both the detention center, as well as the medical center.”

I was about to ask where we had stashed those facilities when I remembered that there were another ninety plus floors of the tower that was owned by the Family. I knew that they had set up a huge school for K-12 schooling, as well as a vocational school, so it made sense that they might have set up other useful facilities.

I arrived next to Victor as I pulled out of the Network, where Victor leaned into me slightly. I patted his back and stepped forward to meet the two commanders that did not participate in this idiocy.

Commander Carter Vasquez, a tall Hispanic man wearing heavy power armor of reds and bronze, and Miranda stood at attention at my approach.

“At ease, commanders.” I say while smiling softly. “And thank you for your discretion in this rather foolish matter.”

Carter shook his head. “Not at all, ma'am. I knew Mark was an idiot and had eyes way larger than his means. When he contacted me about this, I figured this would be how things ended.”

Miranda nodded. “Unfortunately, I have to concur. It's a shame that our shareholders fell sway to him literally hours after we ended our first call.”

I could only agree with their assessments. Mark had put way too much trust into his tanks, even though they were barely comparable to Class I equipment, at best. Yet, he was a smooth talker who knew how to appease those on high.

Thankfully, Miranda chose to not only ignore her shareholder bosses, but defy them entirely. She called us the moment she learned of the deal Mark tried to make, asking to defect to Monster Box PMC. Synaptic was more than happy to oblige such a request finalizing their canceled contract fee, equipment transfer forms, as well as the asset preservation protocol to steal every liquid and physical asset under Ephemeral Gravitas in the city. She would be put in her own division instead of being divided amongst the other companies.

After a bit more conversation, Carter also agreed to the same deal, saying that he just wanted to protect his home town, and that all these politics were too much for him.

We decided to put off judging the Ground Badgers and the Steel Panthers until after the Bestlé raid finished up. Carter was more than happy to help round up everyone and hold them in his compound while Miranda moved to clear out their compounds.

Victor had just about checked out entirely, focusing on the station raid as things were safe here, as proven by the performance of the Class III armor. As I was about to lead him and the commanders into a shuttle to discuss future deployments and territory distribution, Victor’s eyes twitched. “The satellite just shot something huge towards their HQ. I sent Yun Min a warning, but our troops will arrive after it has time to do… something.”

Please consider supporting me on my ! It is 10 chapters ahead of public release and I will do my best to keep it that way.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!