They make good progress in their steep climb, Grent getting more proficient in climbing these massive rocks.
He had entertained the idea of scaling one of these piles up before, but had seen no value in doing so, until today.
His bare untrained hands getting the worst of it, soft – not yet hardened by grunt work.
Not that he was especially weak, one needed strength to build, tinker and move heavy parts around after all, his hobbies just didn’t require endurance quite to this degree.
Grent stops climbing for a moment to rest and observe the situation unfolding on the valley way.
The gunmen run down the slope for their lives, trying to shoot the big insect chasing after them.
To no avail, as the creature’s blades are soaked in strange, flaming purple glow, easily deflecting or absorbing all of their laser attacks.
Its blades leave behind a purple trail, hanging ephemerally in the air, like embers in the wind.
The ginormous insect barrels down the hapless men, its four sharp legs trampling over any who fall behind, stomping them to death or piercing their bodies with its sharp legs.
Some are kicked off the edge into the quarry or try to slide down by themselves.
Fortunately, most of the gunmen are able to outrun it, as its large legspan makes it slow on this narrow path.
The group, counting around in the twenties still, reach the bottom of the sloped path, heading to the direction of the two rock climbers.
Go the other way damn it!
Grent looks up at Amethyst, she has reached the top of the stone pile and stares at the direction of the carnage.
Its expressionless face, an enigma.
What is it thinking? Does it recognize it as kin?
Reaching the top of the rocks, he stands at Amethyst’s side, a deep calculating scowl darkening his face.
The gunmen have led the rampaging insect towards them, soon to pass right next to their stone pile if they continue their course
Why is it here now?
No, more importantly…
Is it the same one as that day?
“Amethyst… Once that creature is in range, start throwing stones at it” Grent says cold finality in his tone.
Amethyst’s head starts slowly rotating towards him, rest of its body — completely still.
It stares at him, giving a shaky, strained nod, stiff like faulty clockwork.
“Good, aim for the legs first. Don’t stop until it’s dead.”
Amethyst lowers its trembling body and reaches for a stone.
Stabbing it with both hand blades, lifting it up over its head, ready to throw.
The sounds of battle get closer as the carnage approaches, the giant insect swishes at the men with its blades.
Its stabbing victims ignite in purple flame and burn to ash in an instant.
“Somebody do some- grahhh!” another man flares up, disintegrated.
Only about ten remain, desperately firing their laser guns at it, in vain.
“Damn, what’s holding up the big guns, they know it’s here right?”
“Fuck knows! If they don’t show up soon-”
The two chattering men are the first to pass right under them and scramble with their equipment.
Frantically checking their pockets as they run, presumably looking for their communication devices.
Soon followed by the rest of the men, the massive purple insectoid right on their tail, steadily gaining.
Why isn’t Amethyst throwing yet?
It's in range already?
The creature is soon to encroach on the mid point of their pile, right below them.
But she isn’t throwing.
Grent separates his eyes from the action below and glances at Amethyst.
It is shaking all over, the sharp slender arthropod legs, strong and hard torso, as well as its bladed arms, unsteadily hold the stone up.
Is it exhausted? Surely it would have thrown or laid down the stone, if that was the case.
Hrmm...
“Throw the rock now!” Grent commands with anger plain in his voice.
Amethyst visibly resists this command, shaking all over, but unable to over come the order.
As she's about to fling it, her trembling body's legs slip, temporarily loosing balance.
The weak throw falls short.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
It hits the side of the rock-mountain, another stone comes loose, then the two stones collide with other stones, which strike more...
In no time, a rockslide starts building momentum, headed right towards the giant insect and the men fighting it.
Rumbling down with terrifying force, the stone ocean has grown wide enough to hit everything below them.
Suddenly the stone Grent was standing on disappears from under him.
Before he falls down with the rock slide, he manages to grab the arm of Amethyst, right above the bladed hand.
Barely avoiding mutilating his hand on the incredibly sharp blade, but as gravity swings him around, the blade’s edge sinks into his wrist instead.
Amethyst looks down on the devastation, the rock slide rains down on the giant insect, it has no time to react.
Huge boulders squash two of its legs, flattening and breaking them, large green pools forming underneath.
More rocks rumble down and batter its body while it screeches in pain.
It slices at the rest of the incoming rocks valiantly with its flame slathered blades, cutting them straight in half or smashing them entirely.
But the rocks are simply too numerous.
A large stone hits straight on its shoulder, the force recoiling its whole upper body back.
The creature cannot escape, it’s already completely immobilized within a swamp of stones.
Then another large rock, one of the few still rolling down, ricochets from another.
It strikes straight on top of the creature’s head, splattering its antennae and breaking its bone crown.
It falls limp in the stony sea as green liquid starts oozing out from on top of its head.
With a weak low buzz, its blue eyes loose their luster and the purple flames dissipate from its massive blades.
The few surviving people gather around and celebrate triumphantly.
“We killed the Purple Death!”
“WOOOOOOHH!”
“We s-survived!”
They are too busy to even look up or question the source of their smashing victory.
----------------------------------------
As the rumbling and chaos subsides, Amethyst hears something.
“A-amethyst! Help!”
Grent cries out, still holding on for dear life on Amethyst’s arm.
Enduring the pain of his injured wrist, he hung on tightly, a lot of empty air occupying the space under his feet.
Amethyst slowly raises her hand higher and moves the hanging scientist above solid stone again, without looking away from the sight below.
Grent drops on his knees and holds his wrist, which bleeds profusely now that the blade is withdrawn from it.
Amethyst’s vision becomes blurry.
She opens her mouth.
Eight mandibles shoot out out of it, spreading on the outside of her mouth, spacing themselves evenly.
Hissing and gurgling sounds echo from her throat, accompanied by a low buzz from her mandibles starting to rub against each other.
"F- fl-"
The restraints placed on her thoughts are starting to clear away and she tries to pronounce something, with a clearer, different voice.
“M-m-mo-”
An electrical zapping noise from behind, interrupts her.
Her trembling hands start to settle down as the watery hybrid eyes calm and lose their glow, becoming devoid of emotion, just as before.
The mandibles retreat back inside of her mouth and her posture relaxes, loosing all tension.
Amethyst’s expression becomes cold and empty, brought back under control.
----------------------------------------
Grent puts the invention back to its holster and demands:
“Amethyst! Cut my shirt with your blades!”
It obeys without hesitation, coming to Grent and leaning down to cut the fabric from between his outstretched hands.
He wipes his crimson flooded wrist temporarily clean, with the sleeve of his pure white lab coat, which absorbs the blood into bright red smears.
Grent quickly ties the strip of cloth around his wrist, while it is still relatively dry, bandaging it up.
The bandage starts to darken immediately.
“Okay now we really gotta hurry to the clinic, Amethyst let’s get going.”
He stands up wobbling slightly with a deep grimace carved on his face.
Amethyst nods and they start walking along the ridge of the mountain of rocks.
Grent hops from rock to rock, carefully, while Amethyst’s leg reach is enough to just bridge the gaps between them, like walking on level terrain.
They advanced in silence, but it was anything but quiet inside Grent’s head.
How unexpected, is speech a side effect of some sort?
It wasn't designed to be used on non-humans, so…
Hmm...
How very interesting.
This is turning out to be a much more fruitful experiment than I thought.
A wicked smile spreads on his lips, immediately wiped away by his wrist reminding him of his condition.
They reach the end of the stone ridge before long and descend back on the quarry’s level ground.
Just two more piles to pass to their destination, they set out walking towards the edge of the next pile.
Grent looks back to see his comrades working the cranes and drills, clearing away the rocks to get to the insect’s buried body.
Amethyst walks before him, Grent runs up to it and points forwards.
“Look, there’s the door to my clinic, just a little further.”
Sharp pain stabs his wrist as he does, regretting not using his left hand for this distraction.
The bandage is now completely red, but it hasn’t leaked any blood outside of it, yet.
He had probably succeeded in squeezing it tight enough to staunch the flow.
Amethyst doesn’t react, still steadily walking towards the entrance alongside him, with unaffected stride and an unshaken neutral expression.
Maybe he was worrying for nothing.