For some time, the once living statue did not move. Then, it fell and shook the deck with a thump. The surviving ManRats, of which there were few, had poured gallons of ichor, rat-blood, and organs of many types into his mouth. Some ritual? Some hope that it would help the giant ManRat? A genetic inspiration? Who could know.
An eye opened as the flesh finished its reknitting of that part of his face. The brain had taken an extraordinary amount of foreign material to regenerate. After that, the passive process had sped up as he resumed active control. He stopped the regenerating flesh from repairing his other eye. It would not do to lose every sign of his victory over the King of the Crabs. He would take a memory from his last life into his new one.
An unavoidable groan came from his mouth as he stood up, he was still weak, but that did not matter, this new life already had things to accomplish. He looked at the remnants of RatKind that surrounded him. There were very few who had survived, some male, some female, some Rats, some ManRats. More of those electric providing Rats than he would have normally assumed to have made it through the war.
Where was the BlackJack? His eyes narrowed. There were niggling concerns from his last life that needed to be settled.
----------------------------------------
‘Them’ poured around the corner, wielding jagged shards of metal held in bleeding hands, others scrambled in and loose fingers fired off inaccurate shots. Jack charged to close the distance and pasted one of them with his shield. Are they all unauged? It’s like clubbing baby-seals.
He wasn’t sure if he actually had that experience or if it was just a saying from before Cryo. Either way, it seemed to fit the situation.
A laser shot slipped past his shield and hit him in the gut, hard.
He heard a woman’s voice, “No!”
Jack laughed as he cut through a neck and lopped off another head then pushed through to their backline. It was over quick. A few of the worms finished exploding off of him as they instinctively tried to burrow under his flesh.
The other Humans were staring at him in shock.
“What are you looking at? Pick up their weapons, let’s get going.”
Jack and Jonah continued down the primary corridor, hearing the shuffling, nervous feet of the Humans following behind them.
“How can you, do that?”
Jack laughed, “Do what? Not die?” He shrugged, was he supposed to present his entire Personnel Sheet to everyone that asked? Not likely.
“So that’s why you’re half-naked…”
Jonah rolled his eyes at that, “He destroys suits faster than he can find them.”
The red-glowing head on his shoulder nodded, “He’s actually crazier than he looks- ow damn you, meat!”
Jack had thumped the SI on his shoulder, hard. “She doesn’t need to know my life’s story, Trash.”
“Trash?”
“Yeah, that’s his name.”
Jack put his Gauntlet between the SI and his head, blocking the obligatory laser.
“My name’s Waste, if anything!”
Jenn looked confused, “Is that better?”
“Of course it is!” Jack felt her stop walking as the SI turned back toward her, he bopped it on the head. Somehow the disembodied head seemed to shrug and turn backward, “Stupid new meat.”
“Ok… Waste.”
________________________
Jack was now running, anything less than ‘at speed’ meant that they were going to be attacked by more and more worm-infected Humans. Worse yet, some of them were appearing already augmented with Nano. He left the group of Humans behind. He almost felt bad about it but not particularly, he had made sure that most of them had ranged weapons, if they were smart they’d keep moving too. Or not.
He wasn’t nearly going his full speed, after all Jonah wasn’t on his back, but still it was surprising, “How’re you keeping up with us?”
“I told you I’m Security Personnel! We got Nano when we were defrosted.”
“We?”
“Yes, my squad, before we ran into the Head of Security.”
“Ah, right.” He didn’t really remember that, but to be fair, he was hardly paying attention to anything she said, or asked. There were sounds that were getting louder and the corridor was growing larger. He felt a warm tickle in the back of his head. He recognized the noise, combat and death. Even though things were innately more chaotic when things were trying to kill each other, it was also simpler. More clear cut. He smiled.
----------------------------------------
Them were stronger here, both their latent Psy attacks and in coordination. Yuma and the Clan found out why as foot long worms burst out of their dead hosts. The larger worms died faster after being thrown out of a body but were all the more vicious and dangerous until they were put down.
“Aghhhhhh!” One of the Clan killed three of Them at once and only managed to block one of the worms that burst out. Two, foot-long worms burrowed under his skin and blood poured from orifices as his flesh fought to keep them inside. Apparently the worms couldn’t both occupy a body, or refused to. He burst in a shower of vicera and gore before Hendrew burned through both worms and the remainder of the Clan Member’s body with a targeted stream of light. Korl, Telane, and Cura’s skilled bladework brought them dangerously close to the Human forms but was able to cut through hordes of the bodies and the leaping worms.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
A whining noise built then fired a beam of bright purple laser through their formation. It didn’t hit any Clan but it winged one of Them. She saw the effect of the beam quickly flayed a tunnel made of flesh then proceeded to peel bands of steed off the floor.
While they had been fighting the 'dark ones' she had stopped using her AK and switched to her light-bar finger-gun since the AK had been too low powered to punch through their flesh. She was thankful that she had saved ammunition for it. Against Them, her AK was making a comeback. It barked and fired, she was too short to see over most of the head’s surrounding her but was aiming for the worms that threatened to catch Clan by surprise.
Another whining build up met the first one. Then, a third sound layered itself on top of the other two.
“Clan Head! What’s the plan?”
Two beams ripped through the crowds and flayed holes into Them and Clan alike.
A projectile punched through the meat of her arm and she spun away and landed behind a Clan that was standing still.
Time slowed down as she looked at the Clan member's frozen body in front of her. She saw layers of flesh around their middle start to peel as it lit in purple light, she started to scramble away but it was like everything but her Senses had slowed down, she couldn’t help the reflex to close her eyes as it…
Was stopped?
She opened her eyes to a pink energy shield and a shit-eating grin.
“Need some help?”
She rolled her eyes but couldn’t keep the smile from her face, she opened her mouth to speak before a piece of sharpened deck-metal speared through Jack’s neck and, startled, she half screamed, half yelped.
He coughed out blood and stabbed his sword into the floor and tore out the piece of metal as the flesh reknit itself, “Kind of ruined my entrance.”
Jack took the black, jagged, mean-looking piece of metal that some could have called a ‘sword’ out of the floor and cut down his attacker. She took a deep breath as the pounding headache started to recede, despite the sound of combat, it was finally quiet. She couldn’t hear their screams and dark promises inside her head anymore.
Jack looked, different. More wild but less… chaotic maybe. Yuma was kind of shell-shocked so hadn’t been able to capitalize her EQ in the short interaction. Of course, he was still half-naked. She reached out her hand and zapped him.
He turned and smiled, she could see the relief on his face as a burst of electricity swept through his body, “Missed you too.” She tensed for a moment before realizing that it wasn’t a Smile.
Then, he turned back to the Clan and shouted, “Behind me!” and plunged into a gap he had just formed by cutting down three Them and tanking the worm’s leaping, burrowing attacks. Their wriggling forms burst into little showers of blood after making contact with his skin.
“Clan, follow Jack!” That was the Clan Head, she caught the smile on his face. He was back. They were close. Almost there.
The Clan poured into the gap behind Jack, their positioning shrinking and consolidated into a wedge, three-wide, that pushed into the gap. Thankfully the worms seemed dead set on attacking Jack before they burst in sparkling splashes of blood.
“Yumata! Haha!” She didn’t recognize the laugh but saw Jonah’s eyes twinkling. He looked, weathered would be the best way to say it. His wild wisps of white hair were even more disorganized than when she had first met him. He was using her Wrist Rocket. She was glad about that, it had probably helped keep him alive.
Jonah looked at the bursting worms on Jack’s form then got her attention again, “Yuma, don’t get Jack’s blood on you.” He looked deadly serious.
“Oh…k?”
There was another woman there, in an armored suit, panting heavily, “Jonah, can I put the body down?”
He shrugged then let off a metal bead that punched a deadly line through several of Them, “I’d ask Jack before you did anything like that.”
The woman looked at Jack then gulped as he carved his way through Them, heedless of their greatest threat, the Psy-attacks and infestation of the burrowing worms.
“Maybe later.”
“Who’re you?” Yuma didn’t wait for a response before resuming her fire into the crowd. Head, jumping worm, shoulder, head, emerging worm, another worm.
“I’m Jenn!”
She took a split-second to flash a raised eyebrow that clearly communicated, ‘is that supposed to mean something to me?’
Yuma was distracted from the answer and a little shocked as Jonah easily plunged in to follow the stream of Clan, his fingers dicing and whirling strange energies that cut, burned, immediately decayed, and evaporated the surrounding flesh. If this was Jonah, then what had changed with Jack? She was very curious to hear this story.
Yuma pulled the new girl forward as they put themselves in between the Clan’s shrinking formation and followed.
She didn’t have time to make out the face of who she was carrying, who WAS she carrying?
----------------------------------------
The Clan Head refused to wipe the smile off his face. Jack was an excellent line-breaker and now, he wouldn’t have to spend Clan lives to do the job that Jack could without killing himself. It felt good to add more pieces on the board rather than constantly having them taken away.
Most of all, he felt a deep sense of warmth at the thought that Leanne would be back. He, of course, assumed that Leanne had come back, but perhaps she was saving another Clan Member in the melee. Perhaps she was floating around the edges somewhere. He was openly thrilled at the prospect of seeing her again.
The forward momentum propelled them through the crowd, even he was getting into it, whirling his walking stick into crumpling heads and squashing worms.
Time to finish this.
----------------------------------------
Jack plowed through the crowd, if he couldn’t kill Them, he would knock Them down and out of the way and let the Clan clean it up. He broke through and stopped.
“Shit.”
Three of those purple-lined cannons were manned by three worm-people apiece and were facing him. They fired off at nearly the same time. He flared out his energetic GreatShield and caught the beams, while he braced for the impact. There was none.
He had been expecting some kinetic impact, but, he wouldn’t complain if there wasn't. He was between two of them and didn’t want to take the middle cannon, he saw what they did to people and had no desire to get caught between in the middle of the formation. He aimed to the left.
They fired again in unison but he blocked two and dodged the third. Difficult since the purple glow seemed to stay at the same level no matter when they were about to fire, very easy when he could see through his Affinity.
He didn’t brace himself as he caught another one then jumped up to avoid the next beam that was aimed at his feet. The next shot was coming in soon, but he had time. He planted his feet then threw his blade into a scything spin toward the middle cannon. It missed but managed to hit the worm-man controlling the cannon and the beam shot up and out of sight.
Jack impacted into the the leftmost cannon and threw the end of the barrel aside. He hammered his finger into the face of one of Them then moved toward the second cannon. The Clan would clean it up.
The second cannon, only staffed by two, wasn’t even close to being ready to fire again by the time he got to it and crushed the defenders. He checked his Affinity and raised his shield to block but they weren’t aiming at him. Jack stepped to the side to block the shot fired at the cannon. He spun the second cannon around and looked down. Two handles, one for each hand and he couldn’t get his hands in place, the Gauntlet having reformed his hand as it had made it impossible for him to click, what he presumed to be, the trigger.
“Mind?”
Jack stepped aside and then grinned as he saw Yuma, “All yours.”
He felt both her and the enemies cannons energetic build up and he saw that Yuma wasn’t going to beat them. He put his hand down on what he assumed was the capacitor bank and burned an unreasonable amount of electricity to get it out of his hand. He managed to push a small amount of electricity through. Yuma fired first.
She was aiming at the flaying cannon and it started to lose layers of its metallic covering then the capacitors exploded as their casing was stripped. The last flaying cannon was down.