"... That's one angry reptile."
Looking through his scope, Tom could see a truck sized lizard running amok and stomping on what used to be a trade caravan, the wood and metal plating from the armoured carriage mixing together with the blood and viscera of whatever was left of the carriage's occupants and the animals that pulled the wagon.
"Well yeah, its home was invaded so of course it's mad."
Laying beside him and also watching the earth drake rampage, Lisa had quite a different perspective from his teacher, she saw herself and her people a bit too much in the monster.
Glancing at Lisa's expression as she continued watching the drake rampage, Tom engaged the safety on his machine gun.
"... Do we need to find something else?"
Noticing Tom's stare, Lisa returned it as she saw a slight hint of worry etched in Tom's hardened face. She had noticed this expression a lot on her teacher's face, and no matter how much she contemplated it, Lisa still wasn't sure how exactly it made her feel.
"... No, it's fine."
"Really?"
"Really, it's fine. At the end of the day, the thing is just a monster. It's not supposed to be in this world."
Seeing Lisa's sympathy had been replaced with determination, Tom disengaged the safety and returned to his scope.
"Range is 1807 metres, wind is… 5 from the left."
"Roger."
Relying on the targeting computer built into Tom's scope as it was much better for this kind of range than Lisa's LMX-4 scope, she entered the parameters her teacher had stated.
"Your TTT is about 4 seconds, give me time to laser and lock."
"Rog' time to target: 4 seconds. On your go."
Making sure her cheek weld was secure, Lisa started slowing her breathing and relaxing as she moved her finger to the trigger.
Seeing that his disciple had prepared to fire, Tom opened the cover on his gun and manually loaded a single 8.75mm round of mod 2 Exacto laser guided ammunition into the breach.
"We're hot, lasing… Target locked; on 5… 2.. 4…"
Like he commanded, Lisa fired, then Tom waited a single second before he himself fired a round at the earth drake as he continued holding the target in his scope. While the round Lisa fired followed a relatively normal ballistic path towards the target, Tom's round went high and started spiralling slightly; although this was by design. Having fired first, Lisa's round prediction hit the earth drake first, although not with much penetrative power after all the distance covered it still bruised the drake's torso quite badly, good enough to get its attention as it turned and roared.
That's when Tom's round which steered itself towards a predetermined target hit the drake right in its left eye, penetrating quite deeply and pricing its brain; killing the monster almost instantly.
"Hit. Target down."
"... Target down."
Agreeing with Tom's assessment, Lisa also agreed that the threat had passed and that the monster was dead, although with a few mixed feelings stirring inside her.
CORRUPTED_CREATURE(S)_DESTROYED
9.000_POINT(S)_AWARDED
END_OF_REPORT.
Receiving the report that he had excised a monster and been rewarded for it, Tom reengaged the safety on his weapon and sat back up.
"How much?"
"9.000 points, so 8.540-ish points profit."
While Tom was happy to earn so many points that fast, he still realised it would be a long time before he had earned back all the points he had spent and was still spending on the pair of Boarhounds he had purchased a bit ago. Even as expensive as they had been to get (40.000 points each, without ammunition, machine guns and solid state batteries) they still made Lisa's and Tom's day to day life easier as outside of combat they carried all the gear and supplies Tom could ever want. Lisa had even slept on top of one of the boarhounds last night, allowing Tom to travel much further through the night while his disciple still got some decent rest.
"Well then, let's go give it its last rites."
Picking up his machine gun and resting it on his shoulder, Tom extended his free hand to Lisa who accepted it and also got back up.
"I guess."
As the pair started their leisurely walk across the green planes in silence Tom took a swig of water from his canteen before handing it to Lisa who wordlessly accepted it and also had a drink. Tom could feel Lisa still had mixed feelings about killing the drake, but he also knew she had accepted it and bringing it up would only irritate her, so he said nothing. Having travelled together for a while now, Lisa and Tom had gotten to the point where quiet moments like this weren't uncomfortable, but if either of them were to speak up it still wouldn't ruin the mood.
"... This thing is way larger up close."
"Well yeah, it is a drake. Even if it's only a small one."
Staring in disbelief at the dead body of the earth drake which was as tall as the extinct african elephant he had seen at the holo zoo when he was small, and twice as long, Tom turned his attention back to Lisa still with disbelief spread across his face.
"The fuck do you mean this is a small one?"
"That it is one of the smaller drakes? My mom told me about the time she hunted an adult fire drake alone, it was about 3 times the size of this one."
"For real?"
"Yeah, for real. I saw the corpse myself."
For once, it was Lisa that was teaching Tom something, so she couldn't help being slightly smug about it.
"You have much to learn, young grass- Aw!"
Receiving a flick to the forehead for her attitude, Lisa tried to kick Tom's shin, but he flawlessly avoided it without even looking at her as he started speaking.
"Well then, I'm going to need a bit more than normal to perform this drake's last rites… Boar 1 on me."
Keying up his radio out of habit instead of his neural uplink, Tom called for one of the two boarhounds which quickly arrived while he flawlessly dodged more of Lisa's kicks aimed at his shins.
"What are you thinking?"
Figuring it was useless to hit Tom with his guard up, Lisa set aside her idea of revenge for the moment and asked what he needed a boarhound for, half expecting Tom's idea of a last rite was blowing up the drake's remains.
"Well, given it was a drake, I figured a funeral pyre was appropriate."
Although Tom was deranged (and possibly demented) he still remained bright enough to realise that blowing the drake's corpse up would be bad for his desiple's mood (and his shin).
"Boar 1, power status?"
[PACK #1 DEPLETED, PACK #2 AT 5% OPERATING NORMALLY PACK #3 AT 77% OPERATING NORMALLY, PACKS #4-6 FULL, OPERATING NORMALLY.]
Informed what solid state batteries were depleted or near depleted, Tom walked up to the Boarhound and pulled the two briefcase-sized, 90 kilo battery packs that were depleted or nearly depleted out of the UGV before placing it up against the drake before walking about 50 metres back away from it together with Lisa and the Boarhound.
"Mask up."
Wordlessly obeying Tom's directive, Lisa put on her gas mask as she still wondered what Tom was doing. Undeterred by his disciple's confusion, Tom took out a X-91 incendiary grenade, pulled the pin and tossed it to the drake's corpse, right next to where had placed the depleted battery packs.
"These battery packs are insanely energy dense, and reactive too."
As Tom spoke the fire from the X-91 Lance caught the first powerpack and within seconds, a bright blue flame burst out from the power cell housing. Putting his own mask on, Tom continued speaking.
"This is why I don't want you anywhere near a Boarhound in a firefight, even if you aren't burned by the flames, the chemicals in these powerpacks are nasty and will easily blind you if you go anywhere near one on fire."
Taking in the lesson Tom was teaching while watching the fire take hold of the drake, Lisa bloomed a slight smile as she forgot about her plans for revenge.
"Toxic or not, they do make for a great pyre."
-
Having destroyed the earth drake's corpse so it couldn't be used by the kingdom, Tom and Lisa continued heading north through forests and open planes while killing monsters that came near their path while avoiding any and everything human.
"... Hit, target down. Good work."
Watching the minivan-sized boar go down through his scope, Tom complimented Lisa for her excellent marksmanship. Even at a range of 700 metres she had flawlessly ranged the target and brought it down with a single shot to the head.
CORRUPTED_CREATURE(S)_DESTROYED
1.000_POINT(S)_AWARDED
END_OF_REPORT.
Getting back up after confirmation that the monster was dead just like had done two days ago when dealing with that earth drake, Tom was about to pull out a thermal grenade when his sixth sense started acting up.
"Alert."
Bringing it to Lisa's attention as he disengaged his weapon's safety, Tom started looking around and scanning the terrain as he brought his machine gun up to the shoulder.
"What's wrong?"
Seeing her teacher now on high alert, Lisa also got to her feet and started scanning the surroundings through her scope.
"Nothing… And that's what's bothering the hell out of me."
Although he couldn't find anything to worry about, Tom only felt more alarmed by the second, even as he checked the visual feed from his GE-54A3 Albatross Tom didn't see anything out of the ordinary anywhere near his position.
"..."
As the seconds turned to minutes Tom's sixth sense continued screaming at him, but he was starting to figure he was just being paranoid.
[CONTACT; BEARING: 332, RANGE: 1226, ELEVATION: 233, CLOSING RAPIDLY.]
Right as Tom's nerves started to fade, one of the nearby Boarhounds suddenly trained its turret on something not visible to the naked eye.
"What!? CONTACT, WEAPON'S FREE!"
Making a split second decision to trust the quadrupedal killing machine, Tom watched for the tracers of the boarhound's machine gun fire and followed it towards its unseen target. For a second Tom wondered if both the Boarhound and he himself had gone insane, but then something even stranger happened and the burst of rounds found a target. Hit multiple times in their torso and head, the gryphon knight and his mount fell lifelessly from the sky as the spell that had hidden them from visible light (but not IR) dissolved, revealing a full knight company of some 50 people charging towards Tom and Lisa's position.
"CONTACT CONTACT CONTACT! ROE UNLOCKED, KILL ON SIGHT!"
[ROE UNLOCKED, CODE BLACK, EXECUTING MANOEUVRE #4: AREA PURGE.]
In response to Tom's command, the pair of Boarhounds started engaging all unknown tags within their range as they sped up to a run, the rear hound even launched the Wasp's that it was carrying and assigned targets itself.
"LISA!?"
Shouting over his own fire as the rest of the knights started evasive manoeuvres, Tom didn't have time to look away from his scope, but was still concerned as his disciple hadn't started shooting yet.
(They're here again! Why are they here again!?)
Watching the approaching formation of gryphon knights, Lisa was reminded of a particular day, years ago.
She was even more of a child then, yet she understood why they were there that day. It was made clear by the sight of children like herself, nearly a hundred of them stripped of clothing standing in the winter snow, chained with slavery collars round their necks. Even though she knew what the 'noble' knights wanted she still resisted, even though she knew it would doom all the children to death she still resisted, even if the entire elven nation had decided that this was the right course of action she still resisted. She begged, screamed, cried, punched, kicked and clawed at anyone who got in her way, but it didn't matter.
In the end her mother, Lisa's entire world left her. Taken hostage by the knights in exchange for the child hostages that were barely alive and severely frostbitten.
She still remembered that indomitable rage at people who stood in her way, she remembered hate like she had never felt before, but at the same time hopelessness gripped her entire being. That was the first time Lisa learnt how it felt to wish so deeply for the entire world to die in agony, including herself.
And now, after all this time, after she had picked herself up, struck out by herself, found someone to fulfil her dearest wish, found someone she felt she could trust, they returned.
Here to take even more from her, to smash her dreams, to rob her of the one important to her.
Again.
(I WON'T LET THAT HAPPEN!)
This was the second time Lisa felt that kind of pure, indomitable rage, but this time she was able to tame it.
"YOU'RE NOT GOING TO FUCKING TAKE FORM ME AGAIN!"
Opening fire at the approaching mounted knights, Lisa didn't really feel any recoil as her eyes shone with an almost reverent green light like that of a fire, or a righteous hunt.
(Shit, they're better prepared this time.)
Shooting at the approaching knights, Tom was happy that Lisa had gotten back on task, but as they continued closing in it became increasingly apparent that some kind of transparent barrier was stopping or deflecting Tom's and Lisa's shots before they found their target.
"Shit, load SLAP!"
Realising they couldn't penetrate whatever barrier the approaching knights were creating, Tom janked the ammunition belt out of his M-909X and dropped the magazine as he reached for his belt of saboted light armour penetrator rounds when he realised that Lisa had frozen.
"Lisa!"
Finding Lisa unmoving and a knight rapidly moving in towards her, Tom dropped his LMG to one hand and drew his pistol with his spare hand as he started running towards his disciple.
(I'm not going to make it!)
Seeing the knight draw his sword as he was mere seconds away from cutting Lisa in two, Tom set his pistol to fully automatic, squeezed the trigger as he pointed it in the general direction of the knight and lept in between Lisa and the knights sword right before it hit.