The mouse cried and prickles, but the cactus gradually succumbed.

  That's about me, actually.

  Despite all my reluctance and attempts to get rid of this dubious honor (or at least postpone it until better times and higher level), I had to continue the "main quest": with the inhabitants of this world, I am able to cope, but AlBa... well, better not to annoy the gods or near-divine entities, no matter what some people think. Lightning from a clear sky is a very convincing argument, you know. So, having made sure that the seawater recycling station was working properly and more or less protected (though I'd need to put up stationary turrets...), having upgraded my armor and replenished my ammo, I headed for the ruins under the Dead Mountain.

  Truth be told, I would have liked to take at least one of the protagonists with me. Alas, none of them could be contacted, and as tempting as it was to wait for them, the invigorating smell of ozone is very stimulating, so I didn't delay.

  The dead mountain, and its mine, remained as lifeless as last time. There were more tracks, though; the rumors I'd spread about the treasure were still around.

  Damn, are these adventurers or tourists? On the wall, next to a chip bag lying on the floor, "Bil was here" was scrawled crookedly.

  ...Oh, everything is normal, after all: it was written in blood.

  Anyway, back to our non-electric cacti. I fired a line of blue tracer discharges of Thunderer at the guardian in the corridor ahead; he bounced back behind the wall with lightning speed (though no - I'm the lightning speed here...), and I fired the machine gun and grabbed the prepared Wave, from which I hurriedly fired around the corner. Ricochets rulez in these situations...

  Fortunately, the guards weren't smart enough to use cover to recover shields. If they had, clearing this dungeon would have been a real nightmare, maybe even impassable (at least alone and with my weapons), and so... I was slowly digging into the extremely powerful shield of the Eridian design from behind the shelter, with the support of the turrets, and it was smashing my turrets, occasionally hitting me - more than half of the shield with each shot, and that's when the shield wasn't shorted out - but overall the situation was definitely leaning in my direction.

  Until we had visitors.

  I heard them beforehand, by the stomping, and immediately started to digitally build a barricade from the uncovered rear, where the sounds were coming from. That's what saved me.

  - Get him! - someone shouted, and I ducked under the cover of the barricade under the lights of the elemental SG that drew the space above my head.

  I heard the heavy stomping of two pairs of feet coming toward me.

  My four turrets turned toward the new enemy -

  - and immediately, two of them sparked and went out of action as they caught the discharge of the Guardian's guns.

  I mean guardians. Immediately, two constructs appeared in the corridor.

  The SG gunner switched fire to them, and something spinning with a whoosh split the air - a throwing axe.

  To my surprise - a slight one, it is Pandora - this primitive weapon was much more effective than a firearm: it shot down the guards' ball lightning and hit one of them. Through the viewing slit in the barricade, I saw the construct get thrown back by the impact and crash into the wall. It didn't do any serious damage to his shield, but still.

  I would have been completely fine with my enemies fighting amongst themselves, but alas, today was not my day.

  No, they did indeed mesh together, but the main fire still came at my stronghold.

  "Strong" indeed.

  The turrets went off merrily, sparkling, one after another; I was able to create another one, forcing the Badass Psycho who'd jumped me to retreat with a couple of volleys of Wave, but the situation was bad: there weren't just three bandits, I could see - hear - at least two more, a machine gunner and a dude with a shotgun. And if my hearing was correct in the cacophony of gunfire, there was also the growl of a skag.

  Something dark and round, flying toward me... a grenade.

  Pulling the trigger, emptying the Wave's cartridge block into the psycho's side. Letting the shotgun out of my hands, intercepting the blade with both hands, and kicking the grenade away... fuck*. It hit the psycho's forehead, too close... bounced off, causing the psycho to stagger.

  And exploded in a cloud of fire a dozen meters away from me.

  It didn't hit him, but okay. Without distracting myself, I delivered a second blow with the shovel, this time a chopping blow to the leg of the psycho, who was alive and eager to fight despite the Wave's sawblades stuck in his body.

  Trees are easier to chop.

  Still, I managed to damage his leg enough to make it twist, but that didn't make my opponent incapacitated. Even as he was falling, he struck with his sawaxe... I barely had time to block it with my trusty cold (but loving at heart?) weapon. A sickening sound, a shower of sparks, but the adamantium shovel held.

  My hands, on the other hand, were more difficult. There seemed to be no way for my opponent to exert more force than his own weight, but this nutcase certainly didn't know about basic physics. I was already sitting on my ass to keep my head above the barricade walls, but now I was practically pinned to the ground. There was only one thing left to do, something a real man would only do as a last resort.

  I kicked him in the balls with all my might.

  Wawawa, my poor leg. They're really steel, aren't they?

  In my case, physics works, more or less. The blow tore the psycho off the ground and threw him into the air; the shovel hit added momentum, throwing him over the barricade and into the path of another guardian's ball of lightning.

  But my situation didn't improve: a skag that had just jumped over the barricade immediately appeared where the psycho had just been.

  The thing tried to claw at my still-raised leg, but missed; I jabbed my shovel into its open mouth, materializing a second pistol - a blue gun from Tedior, from the pirate island - and fired a couple of shots at the vulnerable spot. The skag twitched and collapsed, but I could hear two more sources of growling, and there was more gunfire. It looked like a whole gang was here, lucky for me...

  Lucky for me, but unlucky for me. By this time my turrets were silent, knocked out by the fire from both sides - one was covered by the psycho's corpse, so it didn't see the enemy - and, thinking I was out of the fight, the bandits clashed with the guards.

  At first I thought that a couple of guards would kill the bandits with their killer shields, but it quickly became clear that it wasn't that simple: the humans had their own trump card in the form of nonhumans.

  To be exact, they've managed to tame a shock alpha skag.

  This big, fattened creature not only practically ignored the guards' ball lightning, but also quickly managed to neutralize one of them, crashing into him with a jerk and knocking him into the wall, after which he began to gnaw on the construct, throwing sparks in all directions. The second guardian tried to fend off his comrade, hitting the skag with his pike-arm and inflicting a deep wound, but the fire of the bandits, concentrated on one target, threw him off.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The situation, which had clearly tilted toward the bandits, was reversed by the appearance of a third guardian who appeared from somewhere in the darkness above, probably from one of the tunnels that pierced the entire mountain. The guard opened fire on the archers on the ground, knocking out several of them, and without interference from them, a couple of guards on the ground were finally able to drive off the alpha skag.

  I took stock of the situation and decided to take my chances.

  Switching weapons to a sniper rifle. The skag-afflicted guard, whose shield strip, displayed by the ECHO, was flashing red, staggered away from the wall, but before he could get airborne....

  ...The explosion scattered his remains, the entire guard, and the skag, in different directions. Huh. I still don't understand the principle of the Nutcracker... Or was it something in the guard itself that exploded?

  No one seems to have figured out where the shot came from - they may have assumed the guard exploded from the damage done by the skag. I got double cover with the skag, I guess you could say, since I was shooting from underneath it.

  The battle continued, and I waited for the moment to carefully intervene again. If one side was going to win with a clear advantage, I didn't want that; ideally they'd kill each other, but at least let them weaken so they could finish off the rest.

  ...I don't know how I missed that skag, especially since I was aware of the presence of another one nearby, but it attacked me, sneaking up on me at a jumping distance. From the pawing and biting, I was able to close with the carcass of its kin, but then had to roll over, moving away from the acid burp - and with that, I emerged from the shelter of the barricade.

  Shit.

  A couple pistol shots, and roll over again. A shot, hopefully stray, knocked sparks out of a rock nearby, and then the skag was near again - and clawed at my arm. When did I lose my shield?

  It yanked, and immediately bounced away; I fired again, but missed, as the thing leapt to the side and lunged at me again. The shovel remained in the cover I had left; I turned on the mini winch, pulling it up with a cable, but the skag was faster. A bullet of friendly fire hit him in the side, but it was only an SG, and the skag ignored the hit, focusing on me.

  My gun bit him more sensitively, but not enough to stop him. A knee strike gave only a fraction of a second of delay, too; a blow with the handle of my gun... the skag clawed at my arm again, biting through the damaged armor. On the other side, the bullet hit me, knocking sparks out of the armor plate and leaving a deep furrow with a sensitive impact.

  The blade was finally in my hand... but fell out of my unclenched fingers.

  This delay nearly cost me my life, as this time the skag aimed for my throat.

  You could say it was a miracle that saved me. Although it would be more accurate to say that I was saved by another manifestation of Pandora's insanity.

  - NYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! - came from somewhere above, and blue and red lights sprang from the darkness above us in all directions. The red, fiery ones traveled across "my" skag, and he clearly didn't like that; he jerked back and roared.

  - Behold the full power of my magic! - shouted a distinctly female, or rather even girlish, voice, and from above fell a... uh, grenade?....

  - FIRESTORM!!! - yelled the girl, and the separating grenade erupted into five clouds of flame, showering me with heat....

  ...and hardly hit anyone. But it drew attention to the figure above; even the gunfire stopped for a second.

  I emptied the magazine of my pistol into the skag, and looked up as well.

  ...Pandora, damn.

  A girl in a black dress was floating in the air, sitting on a broomstick. The most prominent detail, however, was a black, wide-brimmed and pointed witch's hat.

  - Lily Rose will show you real magic! - she shouted. - A chain of lightning!

  "Lily Rose. ?'A real? witch, and proud of it," the ECHO reported as a second grenade flew towards the pair of bandits.

  This one was more effective, and its effect was indeed like magic: lightning traveled from one bandit to another, and to a third, standing off to the side.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the guardian who had been fighting the alpha skag had won, but his shield was nearing the end of its life. Considering that he'd chosen me as his next target... The Thunderer appeared in my hands, and I fired off a line, dodging lightning bolts and single bullets as I ran.

  The girl's broomstick went up in smoke, and her descent began to turn into a fall. I jumped, dodging more ball lightning and firing another round at the guard; his shield was almost gone, but my accuracy was poor - and the machine gun wasn't very accurate - and I couldn't finish him off. Rolling over with a machine gun in my hands was a challenge, but I managed to dodge the bullets behind a stalagmite, which shattered into shards but protected me; I fired back, darted to the side....

  ...Something strangely soft fell on me, knocking me to the floor. A ball of lightning flew over my head, and without getting up I fired the rest of the ammo block at its source.

  - Hot! My bottom! I'm not immune to fire!

  "Witch" jumped up from the hot machine gun barrel she was sitting on, but despite her indignant scream and the general craziness of what was happening she opened fire with two SG.

  The next second I yanked her to the side, behind the nearest cover of stacked crates, pulling her out of the fire.

  - Gentler! Despite my great magical power, I'm a delicate, fragile girl! - she said, turning someone's face into a charred mess. - Chain of lightning!

  She was still swinging, but I saw a third guard turning towards us, and -

  - Hey! - the girl exclaimed indignantly, as the impact of the shovel sent the grenade in a very different direction from the one her mistress had planned. I, however, only jabbed my finger in the direction of the target and opened fire with the Thunderer, which I had time to reload - the auto-pharmacy was able to bring my arm back to full strength.

  The lightning bolt not only nailed the guardian, but also caught another bandit. "Witch" hummed, and joined me in shelling the guard.

  Huh. She's got some pretty good guns. Purple ECHO-estimated SGs from Maliwan.

  A couple minutes later it was over, and the cave finally quieted down again. I looked around, searching for possible remaining enemies, and then shifted my gaze to the girl. Dope, dead bodies, and a crazy cosplayer with firearms and grenades. This situation begs the obvious....

  - Would you like some coffee, young lady? - I asked.

  - Flatterer... I'm not so much of lady, - she said.