The bullets raced past Ratcatcher, ricocheting off the cyborg’s arms. Before the girl could recover from the shock, the captain had already grabbed both her and Elina. The massive autocannon on his wrist adjusted itself with a slight whine, keeping firing at the enemy. Despite being made outside of Iterna, Osero’s power armor granted the man impressive strength. He easily overpowered both trainees, flinging them beside himself with enough force to dent the walls of the elevator tunnel. Ratcatcher never felt a thing; the collision’s impact fully dissipated against the battle plate.
And the robot’s claws kept on moving, utterly ignoring the armor-piercing bullets. Edward gave out a warning cry, and Carlos tried to get closer to jerk Osero back when he himself got yanked away from the captain. And not by the machine or Osero.
Darkness swirled around the Reclaimer, thick as oil spilled on the floor and stilling the lights of the trainees’ oculars. A solid patch of darkness flew before Osero, sucking in his bullets like a sponge and cushioning the metal arm, arresting its movement. The darkness ruptured, releasing black tendrils that moved across the cyborg’s limb, covering his body next, and lifting the massive machine off the ground.
“You have harmed my students,” a familiar cold voice said, and an icon of the headmaster Torosian appeared on Ratcatcher’s HUD, followed hesitantly by Osero’s ID after the headmaster allowed the Reclaimer access to the joint communication. “Become a pile of garbage.”
The darkness erupted, engulfing the cyborg like a waterspout. It lifted his body with ease, carrying the steel machine upward. The steel claws broke the edges of this darkness, but the darkness enlarged in response to this movement, flowing over the freed arms like water and containing all attempts to escape. The dark tendril slammed the machine against the steel, dragging it across the ceiling with a loud screech.
Still in awe at this casual manhandling of the supposedly invincible opponent, Ratcatcher looked in the direction of the flashing icon. Headmaster Torosian, now wearing a yellow suit of power armor, stood calmly, his hands behind his back and several orbs of darkness flowing around him, forming the foundation of this long thread that mercilessly pummeled the cyborg. At first, the girl assumed that her eyes were playing tricks on her, but then she realized that these orbs didn’t merge with the darkness reigning in the hangar. No, they were of the color of a pure void, utterly impregnable even for the projectors. They sucked the dark out of the confines of the basement, forming a sort of gray halo around itself. This coloration never lingered for long; the usual dark color soon returned, but each time the headmaster needed to expand his unusual weapon, these orbs were taking darkness out of their surroundings.
Torosian power armor looked surprisingly light without the hefty coverage of black. The joints were made out of nanomachines, flowing into fully solid greaves, sleeves, chest plate, and helmet. Each piece of his strange suit belonged to a different set of power armor: the legs were of the more mobile Victorian MK V, meant to be used by scouts; the arms belonged to Infiltrator H17, a model of an exoskeleton often used in industrial espionage; the chest plate was taken off Sentinel MK2, belonging to a line of power armor famously known for perfect organ protection; and the head was a piece of machinery often used by the scientists. All of these models had long since gone out of use, becoming outdated in favor of a more superior nanomachine power armor. Four oculars—purple, green, and two blue ones—decorate the man’s faceplate and were placed on an oval circle. This circle rotated, allowing the headmaster to inspect the struggling enemy through different specters of vision. Set pieces of various power armors often worked badly when merged together, becoming very picky either due to the conflict in the operational systems or due to the energy shortage, making such armors a nightmare to maintain in the field. But it seemed that the headmaster had solved this conundrum.
Vasily was the first to break the shock, stumbling clumsily toward the elevator. The boy cursed slightly, powering up his gauntlet, and used to start summoning the platform.
“Language, Vasily,” Torosian said, never drawing his gaze away from the struggling piece of darkness on the ceiling. “Akebia, are you still with us?”
The woman gave out a groan, lifting her trembling hand to form an “OK” sign before letting it fall to the ground.
“I am taking this as a no,” a steely hint appeared in the headmaster’s voice. “Osero! Escort the students out, please; I will finish here and join you soon enough.”
“Discharge of an unknown weapon has been detected,” the machine’s voice said from the ceiling. A hand broke from the darkness, sinking its claws into the ceiling. “Additional elimination targets are acquired. Beginning the process of dismantling the target for the subsequent post-mortem examination.”
The cyborg pushed out of the darkness, escaping the tendril long enough to swing its body to the side. Even now, the egg-shaped torso bore no cuts or dents. It crashed into a wall, nimbly jumping off it and landing in the corner with enough force to make the broken remnants of railways jump in the air. Immediately upon landing, it charged at the headmaster.
Torosian shifted his head, and the darkness immediately followed, falling to the ground. It formed a spearhead before the headmaster, slamming its tip against the charging bulk of the machine. This time, the cyborg was ready, plunging his claws into the floor. Torosian didn’t give it a chance to perform like it did against Akebia, and his darkness split into a fork. The two lesser ends wrapped themselves around the arms and pried them off the floor, while the bigger one was pushing the cyborg further away from Torosian.
“Ha! Nice to see you’re as popular as ever, Torosian.” Osero laughed, walking closer to his brother. “Even the machine wants to tear you apart.”
“Detected a similarity in the genetic codes. Updating the secondary target list. The Ibis Corporation promises you a painless expiration if you do not resist, intruder,” the machine mumbled, and its voice changed back to the crazed berserk. “MURDER YOU! SLAUGHTER! KILL! TEAR ASUNDER! KILL! DESTROY! EXTERMINATE!”
“Don’t lump me with the likes of him,” Torosian hissed, and his power pushed harder, leaving long gouges made with the enemy’s arms and legs on the floor. The wall of darkness rammed the machine against the wall, only to be torn asunder by the massive arms. “My brother is nothing compared to me.”
“Well, that certainly wasn’t how I hoped to spend my Friday,” Osero said with a yawn, and his helmet closed around his head, igniting the crimson optics.
He reached back, grabbing a small grenade launcher that shot out of his backpack. He quickly aimed his weapon and fired.
A small grenade arced and landed squarely on top of the egg-shaped machine, and Ratcatcher’s armor went insane, demanding immediate retreat from the contaminated area. With a scream, the air recycling system kicked in, allowing the girl to feel only the slightest acrid smell before twin needles pierced her body, injecting her with antidotes powerful enough to stop most of the known poisons in Iterna, along with halting a potential radiation sickness. With a snap, the power armors of each trainee went into sealed mode, separating them from the air outside. Jumail recoiled, taking a couple of uncertain steps back, and eagerly caught a detox pill tossed to him by Rowen.
With a hiss and the sound of a crushing rock, a cloud of white smoke rose around the cyborg, making the machine topple when the floor beneath its legs turned into mush. It clumsily grabbed the edges of the widening chasm, only to have part of the wall behind it collapse on top of itself in a roaring avalanche. The three-fingered clawed hands twitched erratically, and Ratcatcher saw how the gleaming steel started losing its shine in several places, giving up to the acidic coverage and instantly melting even the rubble on its corpus. Even Torosian’s darkness didn’t stay unharmed; a droplet of acid had melted a meter-wide gap in it, making the headmaster return his weapon in concern.
“Are you insane?!” Torosian shouted for the first time, breaking his cool. “What major malfunction caused you to bring G-Acid near my trainees?!”
“Honestly, I hoped you would betray us, so I could legally bathe you in it,” Osero replied, reloading the grenade launcher without a worry. “But that works too. Be honored, Iternians, and marvel at the technological genius of the Reclamation Army! Where you falter, we…”
The floor between the two erupted, releasing the roaring in mindless anger cyborg, wreathed in white mist pouring from the floor beneath, but otherwise unharmed.
“Fall even faster?” Torosian asked with a dry voice.
“Less talking, more fighting!” Osero’s next grenade erupted with a brilliant flash of a newborn star, leaving only the headmaster’s darkness present in the entire hangar and making every shadow stretch for meters.
Unharmed, the robot made it through the explosion, only to find the darkness closing in. Torosian turned his shroud into various instruments, trying to pry, break, or pierce the moving robot. But his weapons harmlessly slithered down the machine, and it charged forward with a double-speed, jumping aside to evade the main bulk of the flowing darkness and using its claws to shred the lesser part, opening itself a path straight into the cryo-grenade of the captain. The ice, too, had failed to postpone the thundering advance; the ice crust broke beneath a single exertion of force, and the robot closed in on Osero, slashing the man across the torso.
His grenade launcher broke, and the autocannon flew through the air sliced clean off his wrist by the talons. Spilling pieces of metal and armor casings, the captain landed against the opposite wall, making a crater twice the size of his body with the weight of his armor. The cyborg spun in place, coming down at Torosian with its full fury and making the man step back, hiding behind his darkness. The headmaster created a whole dome before his opponent, covering fifteen meters with his shroud, and the cyborg still knew exactly where he was. A slash tore the cocoon, driving Torosian back, his hand on his side.
“He is going to die,” Ratcatcher said worriedly, taking a step back. Carlos grabbed her by the shoulder.
“There’s nothing we can do,” the boy said simply.
“So we should just leave him to die?” she snapped, shrugging off his hand. A kick sent Torosian against the column. The man used his own darkness to cushion the impact and received a claw against his knees. The headmaster concentrated every ounce of his darkness before himself, pushing one metal hand aside just in time to evade a sweep of the other hand aimed at his head. “Screw it, I…”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Won’t do anything stupid,” Elina finished for her, stepping before the girl. In her hands, the girl held the map. Elina tore the helmet off her head, looking nervously at the map, and bit her lower lip. “Yes. It might work. Everyone, ready to do something insane?”
“You bet!” Ratcatcher laughed, her voice joined by the others.
“Vasily, summon the elevator down and keep it here. Jumail, Carlos, get ready. At my signal, grab the wounded and bring them here. Rowen, rest up and prepare your power. Edward, Esmeralda, at my command link or transmit my feelings to the Akebia Group, I don’t care which. Worry, panic, everything, hold nothing back,” Elina ordered.
“And I?” Ratcatcher asked, confused at being singled out of whatever this plan was.
Elina turned to her, and she saw no hint of former arrogance or pride in the girl’s eyes. Only fear, worry, and care. Here and now, Elina looked resplendent, as if she had shrugged off a weight crushing down on her shoulders and allowed her former self to come back, returning that clever girl who had so quickly formed the rescue teams during the attack of the Numbers. The girl took Ratcatcher by the shoulders with steady hands.
“Distract the bastard. He will need some time to charge his power to full capacity,” Elina said sternly. “Lead him to the corner damaged by Akebia’s weapons and get clear of him. And don’t get hurt.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am!” Ratcatcher laughed and broke free, wondering why Rowen would need time to prepare his telekinesis. He seems to use it freely whenever the situation calls for it.
She darted on all fours, running toward the towering metal form. Her heart beat up like crazy; the surge of adrenaline and endorphins filled her bloodstream, both slowing down the impending chaos and helping her focus on the present. These mighty arms were currently cutting the headmaster’s body. These immense legs were capable of turning her into a bloody smear. The sheer mindless hatred and rage pouring out of the cyborg’s dynamics. A single misstep and not even a trace of her being will be left in this world.
So I won’t make one! Ratcatcher summoned the memories of her family, ending up having the opposite effect of encouragement. Mom would totally whip her ass for what she was doing right now. All the more reasons not to get hurt! She reached the steel machine and kicked it, earning herself its full and undisputed attention.
A gush of darkness hit her in the chest, driving the girl away from the falling fist, and she accepted this unexpected help, gracefully turning in the air and landing on all fours as the metal beneath her shook like water. The fist crashed in the floor beneath her, and Ratcatcher slapped her ass with a tail, giving out a ringing laughter, and darted away, dodging the upward swing as the machine tore its arm free.
“FREAK!”
“Takes one to know one!” She cried out, evading the falling stones. One of the stones got shattered all of a sudden, and two more got carried away. The girl looked aside and saw the team near the elevator. Rowen nodded, and Elina’s face was filled with sweat. In one hand, she held the map, her eyes quickly darting between it and Ratcatcher. Edward held her helmet upside down, allowing the image of the complex to be projected directly on the map, overlapping the two ghostly images. Her other hand pointed at Ratcatcher, sending out the shockwaves to beat aside the stones, while Edward and Esmeralda helped her stand.
Not alone! She beamed and charged faster, dodging a swing that tore through the pillar. Not alone! I am in a group! My friends are watching over me! And I will never, ever fail! The headmaster, Elina, Rowen, and everyone else cared and relied on her, and Ratcatcher refused to fail, feeling herself drunk on confidence. It was a dangerous feeling, and she remembered Augustus’ teachings and Dad’s pointers, using the shared vision to evade the cyborg.
Elina mentioned something about needing time, so the girl took a long road, taking a wide turn to avoid the downed Akebia as Carlos closed in on the wounded instructor, carrying her to the elevator. The machine followed her, bellowing promises of a terrible and inevitable demise. His legs beat aside human-sized chunks out of the floor, the clawed hands damaged the pillars, throwing small rain made out of debris against the girl. And she weaved amidst it all, jumping off the largest pieces of rubble, using her own tail to beat aside the smaller pieces, and relying on the team’s help to stay alive.
Despite the urgency, despite facing against the impossible opponent, Ratcatcher felt as if wings sprung out of her back. She knew what to do! Her pursuer was too massive to clear through the pillars freely, so she led him to the narrowest places, gaining distance as he stubbornly pushed through. Had the bastard been smart, he would’ve averted his gaze toward the others, forcing her hand. But in his desire to smash her into the pulp, the machine had made a serious miscalculation.
A burning sensation, a sort of fugue of desperate urgency, came upon the girl. She had to get to the damaged corner. No, she simply needed to; her very being demanded her immediate presence. Ratcatcher breathed out, calming her nerves at either Edward’s or Esmeralda’s intrusion into her mind. The scariest thing, beside the monster behind her, was that she had almost gotten used to it! She even started understanding when the twins were sneaking their thoughts into her brain.
I still don’t like it. She grinned, trying and failing to feel displeasure. Too much adrenaline for it. Ratcatcher ran directly to the ruined corner, carefully observing the approach of the murderous beast. Move in too fast, and it would adjust its advance, leaving her no way out. Move in too slowly, and her plan would be busted. It was a simple plan, but one she felt genuinely proud of. And for this sake, she slowed down, ignoring the arousing panic.
When two paces separated her and the machine, Ratcatcher sped up, climbing across the ruined wall. Just as she expected, the bastard struck with his arm, seeking to bury his claw in her back. Well, he buried his claws into something, alright. His claws went all the way through the ruined wall as the girl climbed above him and made a gracious somersault, landing on top of the egg-shaped torso. With one arm stuck inside the wall, the machine tried to grab her with another. She dodged almost in time, but a massive talon reached her faceplate, mostly missing the helmet. But the blunt side of the giant weapon had touched the helmet, bulging the metal inward and breaking.
She felt strange. The arm neither had the speed nor the velocity to cause this much damage to her, or at least Ratcatcher believed so. It was a lazy swing, but the impact that reached her poor nose, the impact that was diluted by the defensive mechanism of her power armor, felt like a strike of a sledgehammer, making her head spin and filling her ears with intense ringing, threatening to split her poor brain in two. Ratcatcher fought off the concussion to the best of her ability and jumped off his head, feeling a throbbing sensation in her head and not the one caused by the flow of blood pouring out of her poor nostrils.
Get away. Get away now! RUN! She landed on two legs, shaking her head and making a mental note to speak with the twins about the intensity of this feeling. She nearly wet herself from the creeping fear spreading across her body! What could be the urgency… She backed away, laughing like a maniac after Rowen’s power tore the half-broken column, burying the turning machine beneath the tons of rubble. The column itself, part of the ceiling, the room above, the contents of the room above—heavy pieces of broken machinery—all of that has been falling straight at this bastard, immobilizing him for a time being. Excellent, now we have some time to…
A squeak left her lips when she felt the floor tremble, and the armor screamed a warning about the rising temperature. She barely made a step when a hand wrapped around her neck, turning everything before her eyes into a blur. Carlos closed on her, dragging his teammate at the top of his speed, moving fast enough to leave dents in the metal floor.
They barely made it out alive. The floor didn’t melt; it didn’t fall apart; it simply evaporated, being ionized by the spear of light rising from the complex’s depths. The robot figure became a black spot, locked in a perfect pillar of violet color, banishing every trace of darkness out of the room and superheating Carlos’ and Ratcatcher’s power armor to the point of their legs, leaving molten footprints on the floor. Their lenses blacked out, turning off, and the oculars closed with steel lids to shield the teens’ eyes.
What in the Planet’s holy name did Elina cook in here?! She observed the rest of the chaos through the eyes of her team, starting to quake in her boots from sheer terror. The thing coming from beneath changed its intensity, becoming thicker, like liquid. On and one it went, utterly swallowing the black form of the machine, widening the edges of incredible destruction. The scope of destruction became large enough that the team received a brief connection with the allied forces above. A few panicked messages came, demanding an explanation for the pillar of pure plasma rising out of the complex.
The wall disappeared just as suddenly as it appeared, leaving white-hot edges on the ruined walls. Tons of sand and broken metal poured out of the cracks, filling the black chasm made by Akebia’s student. A thick mist made out of white steam rose in the air, obscuring the ensuing destruction.
“I will never again say that the headmaster hogged the best students for himself ever again,” Ratcatcher whispered with a heavy nasal voice, feeling the edge of her broken nose tearing the skin. Unlike Normies, the abnormal part of her body had formed a sort of exoskeleton over the cartilage, and now part of this bone growth has come out. Noticing the lava lamp, she picked it up with her tail.
“What?” Torosian demanded to know, throwing a glance at the happily coughing Akebia. One of the headmaster’s arms was broken, and he used his own power to make a pseudo-sling to support his hand. One of his kneecaps got torn by the claws, but the pure darkness replaced the missing bone, fusing with the torn muscles and forming veins to let the blood flow down his leg.
“Bet.” Carlos nodded nervously, hugging Elina.
“I am suddenly okay with being outdone just this once,” Elina said, securing the helmet on her head.
“One fucker boiled alive, fuck yeah!” Vasily exclaimed, working hard on opening the elevator’s doors. “Iterna one, Reclaimers zero!”
“Two months assisting in the hospital, trainee,” the headmaster said, ignoring the laughing captain.
“Sir, yes, sir!”
“Sure could use a smoke or two right now,” Rowen said, and quickly stood at attention, himself putting one hand to his head. “I mean, speaking theoretically, sir!”
“Relax, boy,” Captain Osero laughed, struggling to stand up. One of his lenses fell out of the socket as the man reached for his belt, extending a cigarette pack to the trainees. “I’ll say we all can use a smoke. These shouldn’t kill you.”
“Throw away that poison!” Torosian snapped, and his darkness whipped out of his armor, slicing a cigarette in two before Edward could take it. “Trainees, don’t take anything from Osero; the fool had gotten artificial lungs, not because of the injuries.”
“Hey! I take offense to that!”
“Good,” Torosian said coldly. “Students, is there a perceived belief that I have abused my position by taking in the supposedly strongest abnormals?”
“Nice ego check, eh, Rowen?” Edward slapped the other boy on the back.
“I bet you want to thank us for talking you out of that sparring match!” Esmeralda giggled, lifting the wounded Akebia alongside her brother.
“Fine, fine, I owe you two ice creams!” Rowen scratched behind his head.
“Two full lunches at Beryl’s or bust!”
“Do I look like I’m made out of credits to you?!”
“Don’t care, don’t listen!” The twins sang in unison. “Lunches at Beryl’s! Lunches at Beryl’s!”
“I am still waiting for an answer, trainees.” Torosian tapped on the ground.
“Fucking hell, the Akebia Group is full of monsters!” Jumail fired up and bowed at Torosian’s glare. “I mean, Rowen, ya bastard, use your power to pull the sand away from the wounded!”
“FREAKS!” The roar filled the room, and the group fell silent.
Something pierced the veil of steam, moving faster than Ratcatcher’s eyes could follow. Darkness rose in the way of the flying object, halting it for a barest moment and giving Osero just enough time to shove Ratcatcher and Rowen aside with a shoulder. The object crashed into the man, piercing the armor at his midsection and throwing the captain into the open elevator.
“Code Purple,” Osero gurgled, fighting for every word. The still red-hot metal spike protruded out of his belly, hissing as it was melting its way through flesh, damaging his intestines and boiling blood. “Warlord. Save the kids. Captain. We need your might.”
“Bullshit!” Vasily screamed, almost throwing Esmeralda and Edward, along with the wounded, inside the elevator. “Nothing could have survived this heat! Nothing!”
The cyborg stepped out of the steam, every inch of his steel surface glowing red. He made a step and fell to the knee, the overheated metal of his limb melting through the solid surface. His arms grabbed the ground, dragging the giant body toward the group and bringing more and more destruction in its wake. Soon enough, its corpus will cool itself.
“We made it worse!” The trainees yelled as one and rushed into the elevator, carrying Torosian along with them. Jumail ignored the headmaster’s attempts to stay and fight, simply kicking the man into Ratcatcher’s and Carlos’ embrace.