The Tales of Zaleth

Chapter 16: Aftermath

After the two battles, Tristan and the group return to Cliff-Ridge. "Tristan, glad to see you." Julian says as he gives Tristan a thumbs up. "You're looking good." Johnson says to Julian. "Shut up." Julian says laughing. Tristan has his newly repaired ship drop off a bunch of guns. "These guns are from Reston, I can teach you everything I know about how to use them, which is everything." Tristan says. "Care to explain?" Julian asks Sam. "He kinda brought these to help us out." Sam explains. "Ah." Julian says. Julian explains what happened when the hive attacked and why there's no hill outside Cliff-Ridge anymore. "We kinda did that." Johnson says. "When she says we, she means I did." Tristan says jokingly. "Laugh it up, old man." Johnson says. "You're as old as me." Tristan says. "No I'm not, I'm 80, you're like 100." Johnson says. "I'm 80, tomorrow is my birthday." Tristan responds. "What?! Same!" Johnson says. "Like I said, same age." Tristan says laughing. "I thought you said you wanted to study the hive? Why destroy them?" Julian asks. "Well, that's because I have decided that the hive are a threat and they need to go." Tristan says. "What made you think that?" Julian asks sarcastically. Tristan shocks him with his chair's taser. "Ouch!" Julian yells. "Don't be sarcastic." Tristan says. All of them laugh as they reach the castle. "So, I notice this city doesn't have walls, and it's missing about all of it's population." Johnson says. "Those tentacles were pretty big." Julian says. Johnson goes on a podium that Julian set up for Johnson. All the soldiers and surviving citizens gather around to hear Johnson. "The hivemind in the old world is dead. The hive here are dead. That means all we have to do is go to capital city and end this! Not all of you can use these guns that our friend from the stars has brought us. We will teach you as much as we can before we get to the capital. When we get there we are expecting to fight a hive force bigger than the one here. The capital city had more population and is completely overrun at this point. The population of capital city was also bigger than the population of the old world since we started recording it. So, the battle will be tough, long, and we could lose. But we won't lose. We're going to win, for multiple reasons. The biggest reason we're going to win, is because we already killed a hivemind!" Johnson says inspirationally. 

At the capital Jessica is still successfully forcing the hive to stay in the city. The men are low on morale and the reinforcements are only beginning to arrive. "Do we have enough men, ma'am?" The commander asks. "We don't, but there's another place on this map. The old world, perhaps there's a civilization that's populated it since we left it during the war." Jessica says. "I will send a courier at once." The commander says. Jessica gives the go ahead for that and will await for the old world's armies to arrive. 

In the caverns below capital city the hivemind there, who used to be Wyatt Pimlico, is planning. The mass from the old world hive force arrives to Wyatt, he triples in size and uses that mass to create strategic caverns below the future battleground.