>> The Freakshow
Air screams vengeance through the tunnel above us. The sealed hatch of the tiny control-pod shuddering, flexing, and leaking air as the pressure equalises with a BOOM of thunder to equal the clouds above. A moment later, I shift in the cramped metal space welded to the underside of the hyperloop. Wobbling on Demon's hard shoulders, as I reach up to crack the trapdoor. Eyes scanning the endless procession of lights streaming off into the heart of infinity.
"Crisp-packets followed us." I chuckle, eyes gleaming in the darkened gap. "C'mon."
We flow from the tiny pod in a wave of guns and golden claws. Reaching down to hoist a slightly-flat Badger (clutching even flatter rat-thing).
"We seriously letting him keep that?" Kami grumbles, in her kindest and most caring tone, as we spread to circle her. Zipper and me on the flanks, SMGs out. Demon prowling the edges, with Tufty in tow. With zero cover to be had, she's our ace in these long, barren, tunnels. And she knows it.
Nowhere to hide, so quickest shooter wins.
Except she's really low on ammo.
I glance at the virtual ammo-counter floating above her back - and my implant fuzzes out. Cracking my vision into lines. Thankfully, the look still toggles open her [Loadout] in the corner of my eye.
LMG 'Thorn Of The Oppressor' - Anti-Materials Rifle :: 8/8
Ammunition (loaded/carried)
Guided Explosive :: 1/6
Explosive :: 3/5
Kinetic :: 4/8
Armour Piercing :: 0/0
AP Guided :: 0/0
Destroyer :: 0/0
EMP :: 0/0
Guided Kinetic :: 0/0
Incendiary :: 0/0
'Thorn' microNukes :: 0/0
Plasma :: 0/0
"Red light. What's that?" Zipper says, forcing my eyes up.
I jerk my chin out. "That's our target. C'mon."
We close distance, and stop - crouched on the dimpled plastic. Eyeing the sudden, sharp, split in the hyperloop track. A trail of crimson lights splitting, suddenly, from the main path.
Forming a blind left turn, with no real corners to peer round. Dammit.
"Polybius. Ya cracked their cameras yet? Their real cameras?"
"No." It states, shards of static picking at my skull. "It may be hardwired."
Kami lets off a curse.
"Whatever it is, they probably got eyes-on our asses. At minimum, they felt that blast." I growl. "Zip - gimmie scouts. Kami - you're up."
"Shit. Here we go." She mutters as brassy eyes flick open on her suit. Kindling their halos of burning gold as she steps off to the side. Her entire body compacting as light bends around her. Vanishing her down to a dot.
At the same moment, Zipper's body erupts as dozens of tiny toy bees take off. Trailing a buzz of wings as they streak off down the tunnel, and vanish out of sight. Red lights whirling across grim faces we roll forward - fast as we can. Guns out, and ready.
No surprises.
We're almost to the second vacuum-seal, right at the end of the tube, when something stirs up ahead. A double-thump of sound that stills the GMOs in the group, sending Kami's shimmering mirage stumbling a few extra steps.
"What?" She hisses over comms, irritation blazing.
"Mate, like, uh, hold on....." Zip stutters as his bionic eyes flicker with light. Then they widen. "Shit! Hostiles! We got brutes, mate! Big bastards!"
"Back! back!!" I roar at them, shoving off my pads into a running reverse. Tufty a green streak, herding Badger - ears flat, tail spiked. Zipper bounding elegantly off his toes as Kami stumbles on the heels of her boots. Demon huffing - borderline snarling. His fingers splayed like weapons, as we reverse.
Which is right when the two huge shadows bloom against the edge of the tunnel.
Vast, and twisted, and wrong.
"Zip. What are they?" I breathe out in a low, urgent, tone. Eyes never ceasing.
"Dunno, mate!" He yells as a huge, mutated, paw slams into the side of the tunnel. Wrinkly, slough-skinned, fingers ripping sharp lines across hardened plastic. Plastic that had weathered centuries unmarred.
And then its left hand hits the other side of the tunnel.
"Gone Wrong." I whisper, as the muscle-thick nightmare drags itself into view. Twinned heads mangled together into a single, truck-wide, body. Too many eyes, wet with pus, leering down at us with mindless intent. Raising all the hairs on my tail, as it shoves itself forward. Its own a thick, rubberised, cable bound together. Patchy armour covering its split-in-two chest - rimmed by weird tubes that pulse with unknowable chemistry.
"Hi there, pretty boy." Kami sneers as her massive rifle cycles up with an ominous little 'pweee~'.
"Yah! Wait! Maybe Boris can make friend-" Badger's innocence is crushed as two throats roar in broken harmony - their voices the exact opposite of 'cute'. And then it shoulders down, and charges on all fives. An extra paw smacking the side of the tunnel, as me and Zipper dive clear.
Tufty dragging the shrimp behind him - right as Kami's aim centres, and she locks her stance. White-hot energy arcing between the rails as she eases back on the trigger. Her focus suddenly shot as Tufty reaches Badger, hauling him away from the fight. And I see the rifle shift, just a fraction, with her head. "Don't you d-"
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BOOM.
The whole tunnel thunders with the shot. Flame and sparks blooming in a pillar around her, as the rocket snaps down the hallway. Piercing a little round hole in one of the monster's shoulders, and blowing the entire back of it clear across the ceiling. Rocking the thing a step toward us, as it staggers. Blood of every colour but red spraying up half the wall.
The kill-shot missed.
"Oh. SHIT!" I scream, launching directly into a full on sprint toward the monster. Zip, and Demon, flanking to the right as Kami stares in horror at her gun.
"No....." Kami's eyes widen.
She recovers, quickly. But 'quick' is never quick enough in a fight, and the rat-champion is an avalanche on legs. Punching one massive fist into the wall, purely for freaking balance, as it launches a massive kick at Demon. Catching him clean in the chest.
He flies.
But I'm already blazing in from the side. My SMG hurling out a roar of bullets that rain tiny pinprick holes all over its body. Slapping its leg, and melded torso, on the way to the smaller skull.
The monstrous rat-thing doesn't even notice.
LMG ‘Red Glory’ SMG :: 180/220
Zip drops flat as the rat-champion tries to swat him aside, hitting only air. "Problems, mate!"
"What??" I scream back.
"Two-" He rolls away in a whipping blur of blue as the thing stomps. "-two more! Smaller!"
"Oh. Hell." I groan. "What is this? A bloody convention?"
I flick a slashing motion, and Demon nods as I snap my SMG to my armour. Dropping to all fours, as we curve along the sides of the tunnel - with Gremlin giggling madly after. I draw breath, and shove myself up the curve - in mirror to him. The world tipping around me as we gain speed and height, until I'm forced to leap or fall.
Right before gravity makes traction irrelevant, I kick off in a massive bound. Diving for at the left-hand head, while Demon takes the right. The pair of us landing, in a flurry of claws, as Gremlin slams in beside us. Sinking tiny teeth directly into a huge, bulging, eye.
With, really, just way too much enthusiasm.
And the rat-champion somehow ignores her. Focusing, instead, on the two much bigger threats. Its fist swinging past me as I carve open a roaring artery. Smearing strange fluids across my visor as I grab its massive, ragged, ears and flip clear over one head. Landing between it and the other.
But the claws come slashing down on me, and I'm forced to hop onto the head itself. Slashing ears as the melee boils around me. It's just too much. Even with one arm down, the rat-thing is mayhem itself. And though we jink, and slash and curse we aren't doing a damn bit of damage.
"FIRING!" Kami screams, and we abandon the monster. Diving for cover behind it.
Even at half-charge, Kami's rifle lets off an echoing roar too huge and hideous to ever be called an explosion. Fire venting, wildly, as it slams a thick round down the length of the tunnel. Spirals of acid smoke trailing directly to the forehead of the right-hand head.
Rocking it, suddenly, forward. Shockwaves whipping up hair and wires as the back of its head erupts into a spray of skull, and brain, and oddly coloured mist.
And metal. And tubes.
The thing staggers. One leg, and arm, slumping as the right-most head almost seems to deflate.
But then, as if it's not even slightly bothered, the other head drives it forward. Hauling it along, with mismatched limbs, as another two hulking rat-things claw their way into the ruby dark of the hyperloop. One sleek and lean. The other little more than a wire-filled torso, half bald and bloodied with mange.
Instantly, they zero in on the weakest pair - and my blood chills worse than the [battleStim].
My eyes fixate on them. And then on Badger - petting a terrified, sobbing, Tufty. His green eye glazed, and twitching. Tail wrapped tight. Both hands clamped to his furry ears, as-
Something brutally fast and wickedly sharp cuts the air by my face as I jerk backwards. Oily-dark claws of glossy black twisting to come at me again. Hammering me in a flurry of demented, staring, eyes and slick fur. Catching Gremlin, literally from the air, and hurling her hard into the side of the tunnel.
Holy. Shit.
Nobody catches Gremlin. Nobody.
In panic, I block a falling strike - then slash blindly. Claws humming air. Catching a fleck of its wide, ratty, ear as Demon works to flank it. Lashing bladed fingers as he snarls and works himself into a froth of fury.
But there's no rat-tail of wires and tubes to grab and cut. Not this time.
Kami is far too slow to help, and her gun's on charge. She'll hit the torso.
Zipper is a blur of blue that comes crashing to a stop. Light stuttering, in the shape of a creature, as his head rocks suddenly back. As if punched by Kami at full stealth. He yells, and rolls. A blade in his hand, whiplash fast, but the thing hits him again. Again. Driving him toward Badger and Tuft.
Kami snarls, and moves to help - hammered in the chest for her trouble.
And, right in that moment, I realise we are in very deep shit.
That I only have one option. One I can't afford to go gentle on.
Not anymore.
"Hey!" I whisper-snarl across a stuttering private line, diving to cut off the blur of rat-man. "You think we took them bloody chains off so you could WATCH US DIE?" I choke back the sudden scream, forcing my voice as low as I can. "Do you?"
"S-Spook-"
"You bloody promised me!" I mouth, even as I want to shout it. Almost feeling a terrible thrill of panic go through the cat. "Come on! Now's ya chance! Come on! You gonna prove me right, or The School?"
"Spook! Please!" Tufty whispers. "I- I can't!"
"Can't or won't!?" I scream as a viper-headed tail snaps at my face. Ebony-dark claws peeling fine, curling, ribbons from my armour. Zipper blazing past, fighting nothing but air. Kami trailing and cursing, as the torso drags itself ever closer to our line.
I barely realise I was distracted before the ratlike-blur hooks my leg, and hammers me down by the chest. Claws streaking right for my throat, as something savage and slathering follows. But a gold-clawed foot bites down, right by my face, and Demon's horns slam it from above.
Or try to. The rat-blur twisting again to plant feet on my chest. Fighting me, and Demon, at the same freaking time.
"SPOOK!" Badger wails as I grab the rat's foot and twist. Claws shredding free from my hands, as it spins away. Leaving them bloodied, and stinging. I snarl, and twist after it. Rolling up. One hand leaving a bloodied print as the other curls into a finger-strike that harms only air.
Which is when the Goddamned insectile legs unfurl from its back. Stabbing at us both with blade-edged tips that force us to dive and pivot and roll. "Tufty! We need the bloody edge! We ain't fast enough!" I scream back as Demon blasts furious breath from his nose. His claws a five-point blur of brass that clash with those of the whip-quick rat. His sheer momentum carrying around, into my bladed kick.
Which it slithers around. And over. More fluid than creature.
Slipping ever closer and closer to Badger as it ducks his [Berserker] charge.
Together, we should be pinning it between us.
In reality, it's pinning all three of us. Forcing us to defend the weaker links, or see them ripped apart before us. Kami's brawler fists swinging, almost drunkenly, at nothing as she plays her mad game of keep-away. Zipper twisting to stab it from both sides, with no idea where 'it' is at all.
And, all the while, the weird torso drags itself closer. Twenty seconds, and it's gonna be one Hell of a problem.
"Spook..... the monsters.... I can't....."
"It's now or never." I whisper, almost sadly, as the heat of sweat burns down me. No room to disengage. No room to shoot. We got too focused on melee when we could've bloody blasted them. I thought-
"But what if....." Says a very, very, small voice as Demon's leg flashes an arc of mayhem past my face. Golden eyes fully wild. Fully berserk. The creatures pressing us. Herding us.
"BETTER! BLOODY! DECIDE!!" I scream as the rat-blur cuffs my helmet with one hand, right as that snake-tail slams my leg. Janking my balance half-way to falling. "FIGHT OR RUN!!!! JUST PICK ONE!!!" The needle-legs come striking down. Demon's arm slapping out, as Gremlin latches onto its face but gets ripped away before she can settle. "COME ON!" I roll away. "FIGHT OR RUN! YOU WON'T SAVE BADGER OR ANYONE JUST SITTING THERE!!!"
And there is a sudden moment of stillness, so sharp it cuts my breath.
An an echo of Tufty from the very instant The School lost all control over us. From the moment of our escape. From the heart of betrayal, when all things came undone. When Moon came cajoling, and Mother smiled at all her little games.
And killing Tufty felt like a palpable inevitability.
"I.... It's not just the monsters.... out there..... I'm afraid of....." The sad, green, shape breathes into the terrified hush of that moment out of time.
And then....
.....a hideous slash of searing red explodes across my visor. Something darkly green, smeared with bleeding-red light. My body, suddenly, not my own as I'm blown backward by the hammerblow speed of the attack.
Barely visible, it's moving so fast.
"Oh, Hell." I whisper, to nobody, even as I fall. "He's smiling."
And that's when the real violence begins.
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