“I am a dead weight, dammit!” Vasily cursed as the group retreated across the corridors. “Leave me and dash away!”

“Oh, shut up already, Mr. Professional,” Ratcatcher laughed nervously. “Everyone makes a blunder or two; no need to go all drama queen on me! How did this thing manage to hack you? I thought our armors are protected against it!”

She ducked, evading the piece of debris aimed at her head. The stone flew above her, and she kicked it to pieces before it could hit Carlos. The damn thing had gained on them! Edward kept his silence, looking back, and Ratcatcher was grateful for this small mercy, observing the chase through his lenses. This mech, robot, cyborg, or whatever else it was charged a few dozen paces behind them, simply bulldozing a new, wider corridor with its massive arms as it went. The machine’s dynamics still screamed out obscenities and death threats.

“They are!” Vasily clenched his fist. “This metallic bastard made a full sweep in response to my attempt to connect to its systems, and it used my own tool to connect to the armor. You saw how the drones fell? It tried to down all of us at once!”

“Wait, can it break into my system through the drone launcher?” Esmeralda asked.

“No idea! I have never seen anything like this, but better be…” He laughed, hearing how the girl violently tore the device off her arm, unbothered to unplug it properly. “Just drop me! I am only holding you back! It is my fault the instructor got mauled to death!”

“Leave you behind and miss the chance to tease you for eternity about? Nah, that opportunity is too good to pass, Vasily.” Carlos closed in on Ratcatcher and quickly knocked at Vasily’s helmet. “Also, hold on with the funeral party. That petty bourgeois is probably alive.”

“And don’t hog all the credit for yourself, mate!” Rowen chimed in. “That steel son of a whore behind us might disagree with your assessment; am I right, bitch!?”

“BUTCHER YOU!” The mechanical arm swept across the corridor, propelling another hail made of rubble at the group.

“See,” Rowen groaned, creating an invisible wall in front of the rubble. It collapsed against his force, but then the steel body of their pursuer broke through his wall, making the boy cry out in pain. “… The bitch agrees.”

Ratcatcher only grinned nervously. Vasily was a moron, of course. He had nothing to do with what has happened, but he does have a point. Augustus was left behind, his arm torn, and only the Planet knows what other grievous wounds the man had on his body. His icon briefly flashed on her HUD during the retreat before the thick walls and the raging sandstorm cut the connection between them, so she knew he was alive when the cyborg moved after them. But what if he bleeds to death?

“The instructor will make it through,” Elina said, guessing the trainee’s thoughts. “He is a Rho. They leave even Barjonis in the dust when it comes to biotech.”

“Well, I wouldn't put it that way; the family has made significant advances in bioengineering,” Carols said.

“From the stuff your family stole from Rho Medical,” Edward said.

“Such baseless accusations! Barjoni Biomedical purchased it perfectly legally from a third party! It’s not our fault that these mercs lied to the matriarch about how they got the data. We can't exactly erase the knowledge out of our heads, can we?” Carlos chuckled. “And what does it matter? Anyway, speaking from experience, short of having his skull liquidated, the Rho bastard should live. And even then, I would’ve bet on his survival. Rhos are nothing like any of us.”

Jumail led the retreat, leaving traces of ichor on the floor. Elina stubbornly refused to let the Malformed guard the rear, and Ratcatcher understood her concern. Who knows what goes through this boy’s head? If he chooses to try and fight against the mechanical monster, there’s no way they could’ve saved him in time. But leading the way, he was magnificent! With blindingly fast strikes of his legs, Jumail simply pulverized the stone falling from the ceiling and sent the rubble either back at the mech or forward, clearing the way for the rest of the team.

The group made one last turn and entered the corridor leading to the hall where they had fought recently. Ratcatcher could see the open doors a few dozen meters ahead. The cyborg followed them, slamming into a wall without grace. The collision did little to stop him; if anything, it only collapsed a section of the corridor ahead, making the group ram through it and slow down in the process. Step by step, their would-be murderer was gaining on them.

Should I try to halt him? Ratcatcher wondered. Theoretically, she should be able to take a hit or two thanks to the thickness of her armor, and Vasily has already begun to regain his mobility… She bit her lips, banishing the thought. Torosian was right. Augustus was right. Live. She had to live for her family, for the home Mom wanted to buy, for her Dad and Liam. As long as her legs carry her, she will try to get Vasily out safely. Yes, this is the way to deliver the best results for the time being. If you can’t beat it, escape it!

Elina sent an approximate plan for their retreat, pointing out several corridors big enough to let Jumail fit in. Her orders were for the team to split up. She and Jumail would move deeper into the complex, while the rest of the team would use the airways to get outside. At first, Ratcatcher had planned to object, but then it hit her. The main elevator was on the surface! In accordance with the still-working protocols of this place, this industrial platform moved up after delivering the cargo. Even if they could outrun their murderous pursuer, there was no way they could hold out long enough or dodge the bastard until the elevator arrived.

“I am going with Jumail,” Ratcatcher said.

“You’re not,” Elina responded.

“Don’t play dumb!” Ratcatcher snapped. “If that blasted thing is truly after abnormals like us, then it is more likely to follow after the two of us when given the choice.”

“But the danger…”

“Negligible!” Ratcatcher cut Elina off once again and said it in a softer voice. “I… I have a family at home, so don’t worry; I am not planning on doing anything stupid.”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“Cut the chatter, trainees.” Instructor Akebia's voice came over the comms, and her icon flashed on their HUDs, joining the connection. "Trainees, you are to proceed directly to the elevator. We will take care of the rest.”

Akebia Duclos was something of an enigma. Originally a lieutenant of the 194th Field Artillery Brigade, the woman left the service to join the Explorators Corps after Iterna switched from sonic weaponry to energy weaponry. Orthodox to the bone, Akebia had still used the heavy model of power armor, brutally augmenting her body with the implants rather than relying on biological enhancements, and she considered melee combat little more than an archaism of the past. All of her students rigorously trained with the ranged weaponry, studying the doctrine of downing opposition before it could have even a licker of a chance of getting closer. This practice had earned her some scorn from the other instructors, as most of them believed close combat to be paramount in the explorators’ work. But no one could argue that this B-class explorer had done more than her share of field work in the past, unearthing several valuable relics for Iterna across the globe. She was even invited to open an exhibit in the National Museum.

The group obeyed her words without hesitation, rushing out of the corridor in a panic and filling the vast hall with loud stomping. The machine came right after them, widening the entrance several times and raising both arms in an attempt to smash the group. He was greeted by an instructor clad in nanomachine power armor. The man slithered between the column-like legs, fast as quicksilver. It took him a second to calmly assess the situation and realize that the machine refused to focus on him, directing its full wrath at the retreating trainees. The man’s arms enlarged; the unique version of his power armor has allowed him to momentarily trade speed and agility for an exponential increase in raw physical might and durability. His kick lifted the opponent a meter in the air—almost nothing—but it was enough for the Instructor Akebia.

A stream of concentrated air smashed into the cyborg, swatting its enormous body aside like a fly. The ear-piercing sound that made the nearby pillars tremble had made Ratcatcher and the others halt their retreat, turning around in genuine shock. Akebia wasn’t born abnormal, nor did she have any power. Bedecked in the heavy power armor, with the round helmet shielding her head and looking at the opponent through two purple burning lenses, Akebia brought about the sonic cutter on her foe. And not just a portable handgun version of this weapon, but a true heavy cannon. The barrel of its gun originally merged with her backpack, but now the deadly weapon fully unfolded itself, lying on the instructor’s shoulder and emitting sound waves potent enough to reduce a battle tank into a pile of metal dust from a range of over seventy kilometers with pinpoint accuracy.

This technological marvel worked by creating high-frequency vibrations strong enough to break molecular bonds in most known metals. It went out of use after the military started experiencing common problems. Strong enough abnormals could survive its deadly touch, and the lack of an arc of fire made for poor artillery. Energy weapons cauterize wounds, limiting the regenerators’ ability to recover from them. Heavy sonic cannons were archaic weapons in every sense of the word.

But damn it, it feels great to see it in action! Ratcatcher grinned from ear to ear, giving out a cheering cry at seeing how the cyborg was being pile driven deeper and deeper into the wall. The metal of the complex trembled and turned into dust, allowing Akebia to keep on firing, pushing her opponent deeper and deeper into the wall.

“Instructor!” Ratcatcher said on the comms, remembering the most important thing. “Our instructor is still there! That thing tore his arm off!”

“Curses. Couldn’t he last for five minutes? John, help that useless sack of meat!” Akebia said. “I’ll keep the bucket here until Torosian arrives.”

“On it, Kebi!” The instructor’s hands returned to their normal size, and the man jumped into the half-ruined tunnel, almost swimming through the collapsed stone.

“You lot! Stop being daft and head for the elevator! We will bring Augustus out when…”

A tremor cut off the rest of her words. The cyborg emerged from the crack in the wall; its arms doubled in length and its claws sunk deep into untouched walls. The machine pushed against the incoming waves of sound, stepping back into the hall. He retracted his arms to the normal size and made an unsteady step toward Akebia. Then another. And finally, he walked steadily, ignoring the destructing sound washing over its armor plates and turning the wall behind him into dust.

“Stay down,” Akebia said, and her mounted weapon roared, leeching off not just from its internal generator but off her backpack as well. The robot trembled, struggling to make another step. Spikes came out from the sides of her ankles, slamming into the ground with full force and fixating the woman in place. Her backpack shifted, releasing another sonic cutter, the twin brother of the first one. The weapon took its place on her free shoulder. “I said stay down!”

The floor before the instructor turned into dust as the combined force released by the twin heavy weapons slammed into the advancing machine with enough potency to topple a skyscraper. A patchwork of cracks appeared on the nearby pillars, threatening to bury both fighters beneath the thousand tons of solid rock. The deafening sound of her mounted cannons drown everything in the room. And the cyborg kept advancing. He reached out to stand on all fours, climbing toward the instructor with an agility unbecoming of his enormous body. The metal hands steadily pushed the torso closer and closer to Akebia, never once allowing her to push him back again.

A force-field bubble sprang into the air around the instructor, allowing the sound of her weapons to pass freely but deflecting pieces of stone falling from the ceiling. The machine ignored it, closing the distance between the two in a sudden run and smashing one clawed hand against the energy shield. Akebia’s generator, already stretched to its limits by powering the two massive weapons, went out in sparks, falling to sustain the shield. The claws broke through, rendering the weapons into broken tatters, breaking the instructor’s helmet, and sending the woman against the floor with such a force that she bounced off against the solid steel. Her body ended up a dozen meters in the air.

Ratcatcher’s HUD immediately became filled with warnings about the instructor’s condition. Akebia had suffered a severe skull fracture. The brutal blow had torn a chunk of skin from her face, removed her nose, and popped her left eye, filling the air with both the crimson of her blood and the reddish streaks of her hair. Two of the claws punctured the armor in the midsection, reaching all the way to the solar plexus and damaging the lung. The woman’s body twitched upon falling down; a hiss of electricity and sparks came out of the grievous wound in her torso, mixing with the currents of blood. The cyborg immediately lost all attention to the opponent and turned toward the group.

“FREAKS! MUTANTS! KILL! MURDER! EVECIRATE!” The male voice shouted through the growing silence.

Impossible. Ratcatcher felt her heart about to jump out of her chest. Not a single crack marked the shell of their enemy. The cyborg moved with casual ease, crossing the distance between them in seconds. He took down the instructor in less than a minute! What are they even going to do!?

“Run, everyone!” Edward’s voice broke the shock, and Ratcatcher felt a surge of will to live, overcoming the crushing despair she felt a moment ago. Run! She has to run! She must survive!

The claws had begun to descend, targeting Ratcatcher and Elina. The two girls turned around, only to be greeted by a barrel of a high-caliber autocannon mounted on the power armor’s wrist. A long belt of automatic ammunition stretched from the weapon to the massive backpack. Captain Osero stood between them and the elevator.

Ratcatcher remembered the stories about Ivar and about the wars that the Reclamation Army had waged against Iterna. Could it be a betrayal? Maybe this dammed robot was their doing? Could the Reclaimers finally try to settle the score for the Cursed Purge? She tensed and leapt, aiming to tackle the captain and save others.

The weapon fired, and Osero advanced.