GIGAS

AKANE

With Derek still injured, it fell to Akane to manage their missions alone. Ling was busy since she had class, but Akane collected Adam and the retinue, which would be enough to put down one crazy gargant.

Adam was prepared this time, with his full assortment of weapons holstered to his hips and back. He didn't have any body armor besides the plastic stuff, which she thought was odd. But then she didn't have any at all, so maybe she shouldn't talk. It would probably be a better idea to worry about his obviously still injured arm. Was he going to be all right for this?

Akane had been a little worried the retinue wouldn't be available, but it turned out they all had that Insomniac buff that came out a few years ago, so they didn't need to sleep. That went a long way to explaining why they were always fighting fit no matter the hour, at any rate.

“Sorry,” Akane said quietly. She was getting used to them, but she still didn't talk more than necessary. “Derek needs rest.”

Kelly looked up from checking her pistol, her eyes covered by daygoggles. “No worries. He's had a rough day.” She turned to her crew. “Everyone ready?”

They all nodded, and the group headed forward.

They were at a large square-shaped park, nestled in the shadow of three skyscrapers, with the fourth side open to the street. A large concrete wall separated the park abruptly from the street, but there was no gate, just an opening hidden behind a smaller wall. The purpose wasn't to keep people out, but simply to make sure no one tried to drive a car around the well-kept lawns.

The wall currently had a very large hole in it, maybe ten feet wide, from where the gargant had crashed through.

It wasn't hard to follow. It had left a trail of destruction in its wake, ripping massive scars in the lush green landscape and scattering trees aside like toothpicks. The gardener would probably weep at the sight. Thankfully, the trail was not littered with bodies. The gargant had been rampaging since last night, but it wasn't specifically hunting down victims or even doing all that much damage to the environment. That was why Derek had been able to delay so long.

The group just followed the concrete path. The park wasn't so big that they risked losing sight of the trail. In a few moments, even that became moot, since they spotted the creature bathing in the small artificial lake.

Gargants, as the name implied, were giant monsters, ranging from the size of a car to the size of a bus. They were the twisted and mutated result of fey experimentation, and were the monstrous equivalent of tanks—with all the same implications.

Luckily, making such a huge creature was by no means easy, never mind all the extra modifications such as durability and strength. Making such a beast capable of actually breeding new gargants was simply impossible. Each gargant was individually tailored by the fey, thus greatly limiting how fast they could be produced.

This one was on the middle end of the scale, about the size of a pickup truck. It was a four-legged creature, coated in thick, dark brown fur, nearly black. Its face was completely covered with white bone plating, making it seem as though its skull was poking out at us. If Akane was any judge, that armor would be able to take a rocket without cracking.

It hooted softly in contentment, splashing around the lake without a care in the world. At that, Jarasax looked uncertain.

“Do... do we really have to kill it?” he said quietly. “I mean, what's the harm in just locking it up?”

“Killed a bus already,” Akane said. “Bus was full.”

Sax blinked. “But...”

“Ate them.”

He nodded, holding up his hand. “Got it, got it. Right, need to kill it.”

“Soon,” Akane said. But first, she held up her phone and took a few pictures of the beast. They were decent quality, though her camera wasn't good enough to do anything professional. She wouldn't get paid extra for them, but Obould would appreciate the courtesy.

“So what's this thing called?” Adam asked. “I didn't see it in that gargant book Derek lent me.”

Jarasax clapped him on the back. “This one's brand-new. The fey are field testing it. If it does well, they'll make more. And since they don't really care about names, that means we get to name it.” He scratched his chin. “Something with 'skull' in it, obviously. Hmm... hairy hardskull?”

Akane snorted in derision. “Works.” She headed forward before anyone could suggest any more stupid names.

They followed, but it didn't stop them from talking. “I don't know,” Kelly said. “Traditionally gargants always have 'gargant' in there somewhere. How about just hardskull gargant?”

Jarasax drummed his fingers on his gun as he contemplated. “Hm, I'm not sure...”

“We can discuss this later,” Adam said, to Akane's relief. “Right now, we just need to kill the thing.” He pulled out his shotgun with obvious enthusiasm. “I've got a god slayer right here. If the anti-armor doesn't work, that will.” He calmed down a little, which Akane appreciated. Nobody wanted to be on a team with a loose cannon. “Akane, if you would do the honors?”

She drew her sword and ran forward. When she reached the pond—which was shallow enough to walk in easily enough—the monster looked up, startled by the sound of splashing water. Its beady little eyes, protected under those massive ridges of bone, stared at her with a mild curiosity balanced with indifference.

She activated her speed, ran in front of its head, and stabbed it as far as she could in the eye.

Right as she withdrew her blade, her reservoir ran out, and the gargant bellowed in pain, blasting her in the face with its horrific breath. It reared up on its hind legs, still howling. Akane fell back, and the others opened up with gunfire. Their bullets mostly bounced off its thick hide, which was a little odd. Looking closer, she was beginning to think the thing was armored with steel plates bolted to the skin. The “hair” seemed to actually be metal bristles, like on a brush. What were those for?

It wasn't important. The point was that the beast was armored like a tank, and angry. It finally came back down to all fours, crashing with all its weight behind its hind legs. Akane was well out of danger by that point, but she did get splashed in the face with a wave of water. Her reservoir was only partly replenished, but it was enough to get her out of the water a little faster.

Adam cursed as he struggled to his feet. He still wasn't quite used to the massive recoil of that shotgun. “I think it's bulletproof.”

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Akane nodded. “Metal plates.”

George raised an eyebrow. She hadn't heard him fire yet. The roar of his minigun was distinctive, to say the least. “Then the skull's the weak point?”

Akane frowned. That couldn't be right. The fey were crazy enough, sure, but it would have knocked itself unconscious just trying to break through the wall if that was the case. No, that wasn't necessarily true. Just because the skull was the weak point didn't mean that it was weak.

Kelly was a bit more pragmatic. “I guess we'll find out. George, let her rip.”

George grinned, revealing his sharp teeth, and lifted the massive minigun. Akane would never know why they named one of the largest portable weapons in existence the minigun.

The thing weighed at least fifty pounds, probably more, but George was an eight-foot tall giant, and hefted it with ease. He flipped the safety, braced himself, and depressed the trigger just as the gargant finally charged.

The beast ran straight into a hail of bullets thicker than a rainstorm, heralded by a thunder Akane couldn't properly describe. It was like a marching band, playing their hearts out, but replace every single instrument with a drum, and remove the rhythm.

Thirty 7.62 millimeter rounds per second tore through the air like screaming banshees... and bounced off the gargant's skull with a sound like tin roof in a hailstorm. It had about as much effect, too. The gargant was annoyed, but not actually harmed.

Kelly swore loudly. “Sânge negru! Everyone, scatter!”

Everyone jumped in different directions, standard practice when fighting big monsters. Even Adam dodged away correctly—his training with Mohamed must have been going well. George moved a little bit too slowly, however, and got clipped as the monster ran past. He cried out as he was thrown a few feet, the minigun rolling out of his hands.

And the gargant was coming around for another pass.

“Alex,” Akane said, pointing at George. Alex nodded, and moved to check on their friend. Akane wasn't about to let someone get killed on a routine gargant hunt. Besides, dayknives were sharp and everything, but they couldn't cut through whatever the gargant was armored with.

Akane gestured to Adam, and he nodded, readying another round—hopefully the god slayer he had mentioned earlier.

Farther away, Kelly started firing at the gargant, attracting its attention away from Alex and George. It wasn't injured, of course, but its tiny brain was annoyed, and it bellowed as it charged forward.

Akane used that opportunity to slip forward at super speed and stab upwards into the roof of its mouth. She wasn't able to cut very deep. The depth of her reservoir was increasing every day, but it was still limited, and she just didn't have the time or the angle to get a good strike in.

As she slipped away, however, she noticed that George's bullets had chipped away the white on the gargant's face, revealing steel underneath. It was paint, nothing more, paint over steel shaped to look like bone. No wonder it was bulletproof.

Adam wasn't quite in position yet, so she danced back to where the monster could see her with its remaining eye, hoping it would charge at her instead of the others.

It worked. The beast bellowed loud enough to wake the dead and rushed forward as fast as its tree-trunk legs would carry it, tearing up the grass beneath its feet.

Akane was only about ten feet away. The gargant couldn't build up very much speed, but with its weight that didn't mean much. Thankfully, she had enough power left in her reservoir to dodge out of the way. If she didn't have super speed, she probably would have been killed.

The creature ended up in the water again, and made a long, wide turn, coming back around for another pass, aiming straight for Akane.

It was only when it started to pick up speed again that she realized that she had lost track of herself. She was between George and the monster. If she dodged, it would crush him.

She cursed. If she didn't dodge, it would crush them both. She dodged out of the way a bit early, in the hope that it would decide to chase after her again.

It didn't.

Adam, however, had a better plan.

Before the gargant came out of the water, he jumped from the shore onto its side, grasping the metal bristles attached to its plates for purchase. He slowly crawled over to the face, scrambling for a grip on the ridges molded into its skull-armor. He finally managed to get himself on the skull, between the eyes, and while the beast bucked, he held on tightly, holding his shotgun in his right hand.

Akane was... stunned. This wasn't the first time she had seen someone pull a stunt like this. She had once seen Derek jump into a gargant's mouth just so he could throw a grenade down its gullet. But that was with years of practice and training. Adam had been fighting for what? Two weeks? Even with training from Mohamed and some other monster slayers, he shouldn't be this good.

The gargant was even more confused than before, and its deadly charge turned into a wild, erratic stampede. It missed George and Alex by a couple feet. They got showered in grass and dirt, but that was better than getting stomped by a ten-ton behemoth.

It took Akane a minute to realize what Adam was trying to do. At first, she had just thought he was trying to distract the thing, but it looked like he was struggling to bring his shotgun around to use it.

Well, he better do it quick. The gargant was coming back around, perhaps thinking the water of the pond could help it shake this mite off somehow.

Akane rushed forward, starting on its blind side, then leaping into its vision as quickly as she could. As expected, the animal's primitive brain reacted much the same as the last time she had appeared so suddenly, and it reared up, bellowing a warning.

Adam didn't waste the chance. With the gargant on its hind legs, he suddenly found it much easier to stay in position, and he let go with his hands, cocked his shotgun, placed it in the beast's dead right eye, and fired.

Akane had never actually seen a god slayer in action before. From the name, she was expecting a pretty big bang. Instead, there was just a loud, dull thump and the wet sound of gore and gristle bursting out of the gargant's eyes and mouth. The creature fell to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, not even whimpering as it died. It made a big splash as it hit, though. Water, mud, and the red sluice that had recently been the contents of its skull flew everywhere.

Adam fell to his knees, breathing heavily and clutching the arm he had dislocated early this morning. Akane ran up to him, but it was hard to tell where he was bleeding and where he was just covered in gore.

“Idiot,” Akane said. “You're still not healed from earlier.” They'd need to get a doctor to look at his arm. If he hadn't dislocated it again, he had probably torn a few tendons. Akane was a bit surprised when she realized his hands and arms were torn up pretty badly. Apparently using those bristles as handholds was a bad idea.

“Lay down,” she said, forcing him onto his back. He would be fine, probably. He just needed rest and bandages. Kelly tossed her some as she jogged up, and Akane started binding his wounds.

“That was pretty impressive,” Kelly said, nodding in approval. “Stupid, but impressive.”

Adam grunted in pain and didn't say anything. Hopefully, this little adventure had taught him to be more cautious in the future.

“I wonder if the fey consider this a success,” Kelly said, scratching the fixer on her arm.

“Probably,” Jarasax said, walking forward with a limp. “The fey usually call it a success if the monster manages to escape their labs. Anything after that isn't relevant.”

Akane frowned. Where had he been?

He seemed to read the look on her face. “I tripped up during the first charge, hit my head. If it had noticed me, I'd be dead.”

She sighed. Well, everyone made mistakes. Speaking of which, Alex was walking over, leaving George alone on the grass some ten feet away.

“He's fine,” Alex said. “Bad bruises and some fractures, but he'll be right as rain soon enough. The gargant could have done worse.”

Kelly kicked the beast a little, as if to make sure it was dead, then snapped her fingers. “Steel-plated gargant! Of course!”

Akane sighed. Of course.