Chapter 148: Spread

56 held on to the trailers side with great excitement. Joining up with the Hunters Clan had been the best decision he had made on his trip too Moab City. Fighting insane monsters and dodging the AFR capture efforts had been the rush he had been missing. After the Cyborg Units rebellion things had been rather dry. Trying to secretly manage rebel forces, gather support and resources, it just was not all that appealing to him.

The Hunters closed in quickly onto the fallen and mortally wounded Hoard Mother moaning and crumpled on the sandy, dust strewn earth. From above they witnessed something odd, it looked to 56 like the Twisted were ants running in a mass counterclockwise rotation as they tried to protect their Hoard Mother. Twisted of all kinds, many he hadn’t yet seen before, were swarming around her into an attempt to protect her, but they couldn't stop those approaching from the air. Even the elastic Land Octopus's couldn't use their long arms to swat away the approaching humans.

"Everyone, get your Armadillo armor buster bombs ready!" One of the older looking Hunters shouted over the sound of whizzing air and hover bikes. "We need to do this now or the healing capacity of the Hoard Mother will eventually overpower the liquid nitrogen wounds!"

Hearing this 56 lifted his rifle with one hand to zoom in on the largest wound on the Hoard Mother's back. The ghastly hole was several dozen meters across and look unfathomably deep. Spine and cracked ribs stood out brightly white in contrast to the wreaked green intestines and freezer burned red flesh. However, at the very edges of the hole, 56 could barely make out the skin of the Twisted slowly repairing itself!

"This creature is incredible!" 56 thought in shock. "I have never heard of anything capable of self-repairing like this. This thing is even more dangerous than anything I have ever come across."

"Grab that satchel tied in the middle of the trailer." Dixon shouted over his shoulder. "Get the bombs unpacked. I will tell you how to arm them. Then once we arrive at the hole on its neck, drop them."

"Got it!" 56 replied tossing his thoughts aside.

In just under two minutes Dixon had taught 56 how the bombs worked, and they were now hovering high over the Hoard Mother's lower neck. Three dozen other Hunters had also gathered above the exposed back wound, and the other wounded areas had just as many Hunters gathering there too. The sound of a mournful wounded rumbling was coming from the creature and everyone could feel it vibrating in their chests. The feeling could be described like that of a heavy base at a concert pounding away.

The swarming Twisted anxiously gathered below on the ground, while others clamored on top of their Mother and each other to try and grab at the attacking humans. However, it was all in vain. The humans were just out of their reach or to mobile to catch.

"Get ready! At my mark!" The old Hunter bellowed. Though over the rumblings from the Hoard Mother he sounded kilometers away. "3… 2… 1… DROP!"

In unison everyone let go of their Armadillo armor buster bombs. The bombs were no bigger than a cantaloupe, but from what Dixon said, each bomb was equivalent to one ton of TNT!

At that same exact moment, the Hoard Mother started to struggle and raise her colossal head. The impossibly long scaly neck rose up from the parched earth, exposing the great depressing it had created in the ground. To the on looking Hunters horror, the hole they were aiming for moved! Not all the bombs were going to go in!

Unable to do anything, due to all the Twisted, the Hunters could only watch. Yet not for long. The Hoard Mother swung it’s thought defying head around towards them to defend herself. All five of her remaining red eyes burned with anger and pain. Her mouths were agape and ready to swallow all these humans in one go!

Seeing her coming their way, the Hunters started to flee and fly higher to escape. However, the Hoard Mothers size deceived the Hunters. She came far faster than anticipated! In a powerful whoosh of wind and power her head smashed into the ranks of the slowest to react Hunters, swallowing five team’s whole all at once into her cavernous double mouths!

56 looked on in awe at the sight of the creature’s massive scaly neck whizzing by below him. He was lucky Dixon was a better flyer than the rest. The Hoard Mother missed them by mere meters. This was a once in a lifetime experience. Luckily, Orville was there to film it all too. Yet this feeling wouldn't last long, she was now swirling around to attack them again!

Twisting around, like a winding garden hose, the double mouths filled with dinner plate sized teeth came rising up at them with malicious intent. She was gaining on them too! Dixon had turned the power peddle forward to its max, but it was no use. 56 tightened his grip as the hover trailers angle slowly rose close to 90°! For the first time in this battle, he was nervous.

As the flock of desperate Hunters fled, one of them suddenly lost power in their hover bike. With a wretched scream of terror, the hapless Hunter spiraled down to disappear into the dark gapping maw bellow.

Then the Hoard Mother was just about to start swallowing other when abruptly the bombs went off! With a jolt and a mournful wailing scream, the Hoard Mother's head lurched to a stop and started to fall back down. 56 turned around hearing the exploding and watch the destruction of the behemoth Twisted.

Every artillery strike chasm was now ablaze with great balls of fire, like miniature volcanoes erupting. This sight was oddly extremely far away even though the huge body of the Hoard Mother made this scene seem so much closer. The Hunters now found that they were far higher than they realized. 56 had to lower his green tinted goggles to see what was going on below better, as did the others. Zooming in, specifically on the hole on her neck, 56 saw that indeed many bombs had missed and had leveled any Twisted on the ground near them.

The Hoard Mother's neck was now nearly severed from her body. Uncounted gallons of black blood flowed out of her in torrents. Chunks of flesh and blood were still falling all around her from the explosions. The other holes had quadrupled in size and depth, there was no chance of surviving such an attack.

The Hoard Mother's head, and neck dropped like a bag of bricks, sending up one last great plum of choaking dust. Seconds later the loud sound of its head thudding reached them.

"That was insane!" Dixon gasped. The air was extremely thin now and the chilly wind ripped around them. Dixon looked down at his bikes dial curiously. "It chased us up over two kilometers! That neck was like the Land Octopus's and just kept stretching. There is no telling how far that thing could have reached. We would have died anyway if the bombs hadn't saved us!"

"No way! Two kilometers?!" 56 said giving a whistle. Then thinking to himself, "I have greatly underestimated the Twisted. This has to be reported back to the leaders immediately!"

Then something caught his eye, there was still movement. The Hoard Mother's head was rising again! This time it only rose slowly and weakly, only reaching a few meters above the pummeled desert. Blood dripped from her mouths and she let out one last moaning effort. That is when something horrible happened.

All the stress had driven her to finally give this one last push, causing her to push out her pulsating egg sacks! She was going to lay her eggs, meaning now there was going to be even more Hoard Mother's!

The huge green sacks rolled out, like floppy jell-o balls, and then burst! Green acidic fluids spilled out across the sands, casting up hot steaming clouds. Then from each eggs ooze, several meter's across figures started to rise. The babies!

"We need to stop them from hatching!" 56 shouted. "They might not be as strong as their mother, so we need to end them now!"

Everyone was stuck in disbelief; they were too awestruck by what they were witnessing to respond promptly. Hearing 56, they slowly shook off this feeling and then swooped down to attack this new threat.

"I'll report this to the Leader and Hunters Clan network immediately. Everyone needs to know about this!" Dixon shouted traveling a bit slower than the rest to type on his wristwatch.

By the time he and 56 reached the ground to engage the new Hoard Mother spawn, they found nothing but chaos. Hunters were swirling all around the chaotic remaining Twisted while trying to find the baby's, but those newborns must have had the ability to control the Twisted already and were now hiding among them.

Suddenly, a series of high pitch calls came rumbling out from all directions. At these sounds the entire Twisted hoard started to fracture into smaller groups. The groups then slowly started to scatter in every direction away from the city. The baby Hoard Mothers were controlling the Twisted to form new hordes of their own.

56 scanned intently into the group of Twisted closest to him. It was traveling northbound towards the river. The swarming motions of Twisted creatures of all kinds, along with the rising dust, made it impossible to see anything clearly. Then a large Plains Strider stumbled on a lumpy rock and 56 saw a flash of white. The baby Hoard Mother skin hadn't been tanned by the sun or stained by the dust, making it stand out easily once seen.

"I see one!" 56 shouted pointing in the direction of northbound mini hoard. "Do we have anything to shoot it down with? Or another bomb?"

"Unfortunately, no. I don't think we have anything on us that we can take it down with!" Dixon replied turning to fly overhead the indicated Twisted. He then stroked his beard in thought. "However, Tammy's Mech would probably be able to do the trick. If that tungsten tipped rocket could deal that much damage, then so should her Mech's blade. We can easily get Liquid Nitrogen too."

Then he turned around and pointed to the back of the hover trailer. "In that green pouch there should be tracking darts. Once you see that baby Hoard Mother shoot it and hopefully it will stick."

"Alright." 56 replied taking the cartridge out from his laser rifle. Then he carefully climbed over to the green pouch and pulled out three large red feathered darts. They were easily larger than his hand and the tip looked extremely sharp. "These them?"

"Yep. Load your gun and get ready. Tell me if it sticks. If not, we need to shoot one of the stronger Twisted. That way no other Hunter squad can steal our target easily from us." Dixon said slowing down to hover over the very middle of the retreating hoard.

56 quickly loaded an empty cartridge and put it into his gun. This time he took off the goggles and decided to use just the rifle's scope. From this range it wouldn't be too difficult to hit such a large target. The baby Hoard Mother looked to be about the size of a small pickup truck.

Carefully he scanned the area below, squinting through the swirling dust and roving creatures. Then he finally saw it, the light skinned baby. There wasn't much time shoot, so as soon as he put the crosshairs on its back he fired! The red dart whizzed through the air and struck its target right in the middle of its back.

The Twisted Hoard Mother gave a bleating yelp and other Twisted thrust themselves closer to it too block 56's view. However, he had seen enough. The dart held fast!

"That got it!" 56 called out. "Want me to shoot another at a big Twisted?"

"That's not a bad idea." Dixon replied.

56 turned back and quickly shot at a large, scarred Planes Strider that looked quite sturdy. The second dart stuck as well. Seeing that was all they could do, they turned back towards the city.

"Let's go watch Tammy and the other Mech pilots fight those Devils Kodiak Twisted. I am sure that it is going to be quite the show. Mech battles are the best! Not to mention safer for us two." Dixon replied with laughter.

"Sounds good to me. They aren't traveling too fast, so catching up won't be a problem." 56 said taking a cautious glance back at the small, retreating horde.

What the two didn't know was that that very hoard was going right for The Damn and right towards Lisa!