“'Don't bring the nuclear shells, Kayter! You won't need those, Kayter!' Glad I didn't listen to the idiots in the armoury, you might wanna do the power switchy thing and put everything into shields, Akila.” The Lioness popped open an armoured compartment on her belt and pulled out a rather dangerous looking round, radioactive symbol centred squarely on its side, which she quickly loaded into her arm cannon, pointing it at the advancing herd of larger Kaiserians who were bashing their smaller cousins out the way, trying to reach the fire team.

“You brought what?!” An alarmed Akila was still processing the words that her squad mate said before noticing that Dave was a little out of it behind her, she fired a few more shots at advancing bugs who were pushing past the sonic interference and decided now was not the time to question the heavy weapons expert. “Fine! Power to shields!” She tapped on her gauntlet, routing her reactors power into the shields, overcharging them and blocking Dave and herself from any harm.

With the words uttered, Kayter fired her cannon, a thunderous explosion rang out immediately, shock-wave rupturing through the cave, shaking dirt and dust free from its ceiling and blowing a massive hole into the advancing forces, instantly killing all the larger Kaiserians in one massive fireball, all that remained was a smouldering crater at the impact site, many of the surviving smaller bugs were shell-shocked by the impact and unable to move, becoming easy pickings for Kayter's follow-up attack, she hosed lead back and forth from her mini-gun, bullet hell raining on the stragglers, the sound of popping shells and shattering chitin echoed through the cave until nought but the squad remained standing. As Kayter's mini-gun slowed to a stop, its barrel glowing with heat, the slightly eerily sound of leaking flesh gently filling the slightly smog filled cave, she turned to check on her squad, who both seemed rather surprised but fine.

“Eyy. Love explosions, right both?” She trunched over, footsteps clunking loudly on the ground, quite happy with herself.

“You're fucking insane, Kayter. You brought miniaturised nuclear munitions into an enclosed space?!” It was difficult to tell if Akila was impressed or mortified.

“They're perfectly safe to carry, I don't just juggle 'em loosely. Never know when you need the extra punch, didn't think my standard AP rounds would put down those chargers in time. Dave alright?” The Lioness remembered seeing the bug being knocked off its feet.

Dave pushed itself up, taking a couple of seconds to regain its composure.

“I am good. I am surprised at your arsenal choice, but good.” The bug dusted itself off and checked its equipment, being fairly satisfied with the state of everything. “I think I prefer the surprise nuclear rounds to the surprise coffee maker, they seem more effective.”

“You haven't tried my coffee yet, 'Dave'. It'll knock you off your feet too, promise.” Akila's spirits seemed to pick up randomly, although concerned about Kayter's munitions, they were undeniably effective and she appreciated it. “We need to head through this cavern and down another tunnel, we should be close to our other squad-mates too, if the fights carry on like this, we'll need their back-up, shouldn't need to rely on those sort of munitions to carry us in case you cause a cave-in.”

“Yeah... I get that. It was dangerous but I took a risk and it paid off.” Kayter felt slightly attacked but it was difficult to tell with Akila if she was doing it on purpose, she seemed critical of everything so the Lioness tried not to take it personally.

“Oh, i'm not disputing that, Kayter. You did a great job. I just don't want to have to roll the nuclear dice again, but its good to know you've got a plan B.” Akila shot the Lioness a slightly awkward thumbs up but she took it in good grace. “Alright, Dave, I want you to scout ahead with your lights and start gathering more data, i'd like to know if we're walking into an ambush next time. We're heading down this cavern and further into the nest.” The Jackle restored her armour settings to normal, and checked her own equipment, which appeared to be fine.

Dave did as he was asked, scampering ahead of the girls and disappearing into the darkness, deciding to gather data in an alternative way, they had their comms sync'd so communication wouldn't be an issue. They walked on slowly, guns raised and guard up, the maw like cave openings prompting a slight spike of fear or perhaps excitement from the team as they peered down the next corridor, but all seemed quiet once again.

“Akila, this is Dave. I've found some Kaiser tunnels but they're empty, I think Kayter's munition has intimidated the bugs in the area, i'll seal the tunnel but I think we're mostly safe for now-” Its voice cut off and the sound of its crystal rifle rung out a couple of times, shortly echoing through the cave afterwards “Some stragglers but nothing threatening. I'll report if anything changes.”

“Ok 'Dave'.” Akila air quoted again. “Sounds good. Just don't take any risks.”

“Understood.” The bug went quiet and continued to scamper through the tunnels of the caves, quietly monitoring everything around him, taking samples of Kaiserian shells and feeding it through its armours systems, even taking a physical bite out of one of the bugs. Behind it, the girls were starting to relax a little, as the caves had quietened down significantly and both of them were watching closely.

“So... Why anomaly hunt, Kayter?” Akila, apparently bored, decided to make conversation as the tunnel they were advancing down was rather long and boring.

“Orion pays well but the money offered here was crazy, I got projects i'm working on at home and the dosh offered would get them finished, couldn't say no.”

“Projects huh? What sort of thing we talking about here?”

Kayter turned around to look at Akila directly, almost out of disbelief. “You really wanna know?”

“Sure.”

“I'm putting together some hydrocarbon motorcycles, gonna go thrashing around the countryside around my place.” Kayter's footsteps continued but seemed a little lighter than before.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“That sounds nice, you got someone to ride with?”

“Yeah I got loads-wait you mean, you mean like do I have a partner?” The usually chill Kayter taken off guard. “N-no. Well. No. Theres a cute guy I live with, we've been best friends for years and uh. No.”

“You sound like you want that to be a yes.” Akila was very able to keep the conversation up whilst keeping her rifle pointed high, eyes watching everything around her.

“I do. He's a sweetie, a total nerd. Spends all day fixing computers and all night playin' 'em, real smart fella, I like hearing him talk about his favourite series but I don't usually know what he's on about, total sweetie boy though.”

“So what's stopping you? Ask his dumb ass out, guys are terrible at making the first move.”

“He wouldn't be into a girl like me. I lift weights, I shoot guns, I kill things. He's like, half my size too, I eat his whole days food as my breakfast, theres no way he likes me, I reckon he thinks i'm a gross animal. I would if I was him.” Kayter's shoulders dropped a little, visible under her armour. Before Akila could reply, Kayter carried on. “Anyway! What about you? Why'd you get into Anomaly hunting?”

The Jackle considered back-tracking but thought better of it. “Lost my dad to an anomaly when I was younger, set me on the path.” Akila didn't seem upset talking about it, still very much focused on the mission.

“Fuck. Sorry. That must have been hard on you.”

“It was. Barely six when my dad got Abhorricite abducted. One day he just packed his bags, had some crazy story that he had to go away for work, never came back. Left me and my mum in a hell of a place, but we managed to get into Enigma and they sorted us out.”

“You... weren't born into the Corp?” Kayter seemingly quite surprised at the revelation.

“No. My mum took me to one of those recruiting days and the staff seemed to like us, took pity on us, a Nomad Widow and her young daughter... Glad they did, got me a great education, kept us safe, food on the table. Enigma looked after us. You Corp born?”

“Yeah but orphan. Never knew my folks, fuck 'em. The people at the orphanage were my parents, they did good. Orion are my family. I know a lot of people think the Corps are just money obsessed hell-holes but theres a lot of good people in 'em, just gotta keep 'em close.”

“Agreed. Good people are good people, no matter who they work for.” She paused for a second. “You should ask your room-mate out by the way, at worst, things will stay the same.”

“You think so?” Kayter perked up again, dropping her guard a little.

“Yeah, why not? You-”

“This is Dave! We're about to hit a dead-end but I think the other squad is close?”

“D-dead end? That's not right. Sub-surface scans showed a clear route to each-other.” Akila seemed to panic a little, tapping at her gauntlet furiously. The girls picked up the pace to catch up with Dave who was sitting idly at the end of the current cavern, this one was smaller than the last but still decent sized, big enough to not feel claustrophobic anyway with a very high ceiling. Sure enough, the bug was correct, this was a dead end. Akila slung her rifle over her back and held her arm out to initiate a scan of the surroundings. There was a cavity but it was through about 50 meters of solid cavern wood and stone.

Without warning, Dave's jaw unhinged and its face opened up akin to a bear-trap and the bug vomited a significant amount of bright green hissing acid onto the wall, which began to burn into it with putrid efficiency, wood melting away into a thick black slurry.

“MOTHERFUCK, DAVID! WHAT WAS THAT?!” Kayter yelled, stumbling backwards in surprise. “DID YOU JUST VOMIT ACID?!”

“I mean, technically everyone vomits acid.” Akila was stifling a giggle at Kayter's reaction. “You think you can burn through this and get us to the other side 'Dave'?” Akila's air quotes were getting less obvious but she was still definitely doing it. Dave paused for a second, gathering itself after its expulsion.

“Yes. But it will take me some time and I will need to be protected.”

“Then do it. Get us through as fast as possible.”

Akila went for her rifle and spun on the spot, pointing her lights and weapon at the ceiling as she detected something approaching them. A worm-like creature slowly descended from it, hanging like a thick vine, it was about as wide as a man's thigh, its snake-like face studded with multiple rows of jewel like eyes, its descent was slow and purposeful, rather than a sudden ambush. It was dripping a light green goo from its maw which began to hiss loudly as it dripped onto the floor, burning into the wood. Kayter's eyes went from Dave, to the snake-creature, to the melting wood and she looked rather defeated, aiming her arm cannon up at the worm.

“Ah. Great. More acid. Love that stuff... yay acid.” She took a shot at the creature but just barely missed it, the round grazing its mid section, it span from its perch and spat a glob of acid at Kayter, who turned to make it impact her shoulder rather than her head. Akila took a follow-up shot and the pulse-rifle turned the creature into a flaming blue mush in a single shot, but the attack on Kayter was already having quite the effect. The shoulder-pad hissed loudly, its metalwork frame sagging and melting, it seemed like it was going to burn through completely which greatly worried Akila, but the Lioness reached under the shoulder-pad and pulled on an emergency release, which caused the armour pad to eject off in spectacular fashion, skidding across the cave and slowly fizzling away into nothing, the rest of the acid was too fine to damage Kayter greatly and she seemed fine.

There was no time to relax however, as many more worms descended from the ceiling to check out what the fuss was about. Panic set into Kayter, if even a couple of these things got good shots on her... She backed off but missed her footing, stumbling loudly and falling onto her ass, the noise drew the descending worms attention and they all turned to face her, tilting their heads curiously and tasting the air with flickering tongues.

Akila opened fire, pulse-rifle showering the ceiling in bright blue explosive fire, blasting a couple of worms dead instantly, the others turned to face her and began to spit globs of acid, Akila strafed to the side, steering completely clear of Kayter, a couple of blobs hit her, but fizzled loudly on her energy shields and slid off, causing no damage at all.

“Stay quiet Kayter! Let me handle this!” Akila commanded, greatly concerned for the Lioness's safety.

Many meters of flaming worm fell from the ceiling with loud thumps as the pulse-rifle dished out energy death, Akila bobbed left and right to avoid as much acid as possible, it raining down all around her, turning the ground into mush as it melted away, but she kept moving, acid fizzling against her shields like rain on a dashboard.

On the other side of the cave, Kayter laid on the floor, not even daring to stand, watching with frantic anticipation as Akila expertly laid the awful things out. To her horror however, a worm descended directly above her, not taking part in the action in the centre of the cave, it slowly lowered itself, flicking its creepy tongue out as it surveyed the area, it could taste something. It looked over the walls and continued to descend, low enough so that it could almost touch the floor, it was within arms reach of Kayter at this point but hadn't spotted her directly below itself, but it started to drool, droplets of acid hitting Kayter's helm and chest plate, starting to carve into it....

She tried to quietly move out the way but it was impossible, it was salivating, it could smell dinner. More acid dripped from its hungry maw, bigger drops this time, landing over Kayter's shoulder and arm, burning further into her protection... Deciding enough was enough, she drew a large knife from her belt and stabbed it into the worms neck in one powerful motion, half gutting it instantly, the bastard thing began to shake uncontrollably and screeched loudly, dying in seconds but getting the attention of all the closest worms, who immediately noticed Kayter and prepared their toxic payload...

“Oh fuck...” Kayter raised her arm cannon and blasted a couple of worms but there were far too many looking at her, determined not to go out without a fight, she kept firing, trying to scramble to her feet, thudding shell after shell into the mass of hanging bastards. Time seemed to slow down as they spat their acidic payloads across the cave...

“POWER TO SHIELDS!” Akila dived onto Kayter, hugging onto her front of her armour, her energy shields covering both of them. “SHOOT THE FUCKING WORMS KAYTER, FOR FUCK SAKE!” Acid splashed around them as Akila clung onto Kayter for the girls life, they began to sink into the ground as it softened rapidly from the acidic bombardment but Kayter returned fire with her arm cannon from the prone position, shot after shot, punching through worm hide and guts over and over again. Akila's shields began to run hot, her reactor was running out of power, it couldn't keep up with shielding two bodies versus this amount of acid, the shields flickered as the power began to run out, it became a desperate race to execute the worms as fast as possible before Kayter was melted into the ground.

The Lioness decided she was going to risk it and fired a salvo of missiles from her other shoulder, which impacted the ceiling with tremendous force and left only a couple of tremendously worried worms alive, both of whom received a couple of armour piercing shells to the body, blowing their blood all over the walls behind them and causing their corpses to fall from the ceiling, but there was little room to celebrate as the ceiling cracked and gave way...

From it, a huge, pulsing mass of worms fell and landed in the middle of the cave with a booming splat as multiple tonnes of entwined worms of various sizes slithered over one another. They weren't spitting any acid yet, quite shocked by their rude unearthing, but this was a seriously large biomass of dangerous creatures. Kayter was hyperventilating in her armour, seeing the pulsing mass in her spotlight, it just kept getting worse.