The group of mercenaries were standing in the tight circular formation, watching the ruined surroundings with unhidden worry, despite having enough firepower to blast any living being into nothingness in mere seconds. Their flashlights on the battle armor were illuminating enough space to make a huge area around them, but with a spreading stream, they failed to penetrate the darkness too deep. It was crucial as the lurking creature was still somewhere around after its initial attack. Especially, considering the pitch-black color of the unknown being, which made the absence of the lights its best ally. Therefore they watched, stressing their eyes behind whole piece helmets.
“No heat signature… What is this thing?” Asked one of them, glancing at the beheaded corpse of their teammate. The suddenness of the assault and no registered damage from the few clear hits caused his voice to tremble.
“Don’t panic, Sam. We just need to be careful and watch each other’s backs. Doesn’t matter what that thing is as…,” Another mercenary tried to answer, trying to calm his younger colleague, but failed to finish the phrase as a fist-size fragment hit his helmet from the side. Flying at the insane speed, it was strong enough to throw him off balance. Before he managed to react, another projectile was already touching the surface of his helmet. This time the impact was much stronger, dropping the soldier-for-hire onto the floor.
Luckily, the group was already sending a rain of bullets into the potential direction of the creature. The multiple gunshots lightened the surroundings, showing eleven armored figures standing almost in a straight line while blasting the debris of the fallen section. Quite a few of them had explosive ammunition equipped with their rifles, blowing up the stone and creating holes in the metal. Just a ten-second shooting was enough to cause a cloud of dust to rise, obstructing the sight even more.
“Stop! Don’t spend everything on…,” The commanding voice of the leader was interrupted by another thrown rock. Hitting the flashlight, it crushed it at once, making the area slightly darker. “Crap, it’s aiming at our sources of light. Be careful!”
“I thought it was just an unintelligent beast.”
“How the fuck do you know it, Jeremy? It might be anything, even a damned robot with AI!”
“Aren’t they banned after the accident in Loret-3?” Questioned another mercenary, while the whole group was already forming another circle, controlling the area around.
“Like many other things everywhere but not in Fantasy City… Ryan, let’s follow the example of the civilians and get out of here. I’ve heard that the engineer knew the way to the spaceship. We need…,” new hit broke another flashlight, causing a wave of swear, “Fucking creature! Do you hear me? I will kill you, bastard!”
As if answering his request, the darkness instantly moved, quickly forming into a humanoid figure. Grotesque, and unproportional, it was leaning to the ground as its frontal limbs appeared to be too huge. It was almost copying a gorilla. Pitch black gorilla with multiple spikes all over its body. However, the scariest thing was its face… if it could be named one. As if melted under the insane heat, it had lost any features, leaving only two tiny holes for the dark green eyes and a huge gap for the maw. The latter had a row of curved teeth, protruding outwards right from the lips. Made from the same material as the creature, they were in constant motion, clearly craving for the flesh of pitiful humans, who dared to anger it.
“Sho…”
The mercenary tried to shout, but the creature shot forward at an insane speed, simply vanishing from one spot just to appear right in front of him. Its clawed paw halted its movement an instant later when it made its way through the shoulder’s joint. Pausing for a second, it simply tore the arm off only to grab it and send it flying into the nearest human. The next moment the survival instincts of the group kicked in, pouring a rain of bullets onto the weird monster… just to fail miserably as the creature was faster. Much faster.
Kicking the mercenary that lost his arm with so much force that the frontal armor plate broke his ribs, it dropped to the ground on its four limbs like some kind of lizard. A moment later it launched itself into the air, pouncing on another victim. Hitting with all four limbs, it pushed the armored figure onto the floor with ease. Not stopping on it, the creature bit the helmet, trying to penetrate the protective gear with its teeth. The grinding sound of metal against the metal lasted just for a second before the bright white light appeared in its mouth. In the next moment the head of the unlucky mercenary simply disintegrated, being completely burned together with half of the chest. The monster was already in the midst of the next jump, rushing to the next target.
The latter tried to aim at the fast-moving enemy, but the wide swing hit the rifle, directing a short burst right into the other teammates. Too occupied with the results of his shots, the soldier-for-hire missed the moment when his own weapon was grabbed by the barrel and pushed backward right into his helmet. The strong impact broke the visor and cameras, effectively blinding the mercenary, thus making him even more disoriented and vulnerable. His mind started to process the surroundings only when he felt he was flying. The following hit against his own ally was the last thing that he registered.
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The monster was already jumping upwards, blasting the surface under its feet with a white explosion. Raising high into the air, almost reaching the ceiling of the level, it dropped down even faster and with so much force as if its weight suddenly increased tenfold. The hit crushed two lying bodies, not caring about the armored plates in the slightest. Moreover, the splashes of the blood from the mutilated bodies and the raised dust for a moment covered the terrible creature. However, at this point the survivors didn’t care about possible friendly fire, directing a real hellish rain onto the enemy.
The multiple projectiles caused even more chaos as the tough skin of the monster seemed to be made from metal. Ringing sounds of the hits and following ricochets together with flame sparks from tiny explosions that were barely visible through the enveloping mist of dust, but the mercenaries continued, despite occasional hits from their own teammates. All their attention was focused on the huge inhuman figure whose body seemed to melt under the bullet storm. Still, only the clips were emptied, the rest of the group had stopped, quickly recharging their weapons.
“Is it dead?” Asked one of them, looking at others. The shocking revelation that only five mercenaries were left from the former dozen went into the background of his mind, being pushed away by the danger right in front of him, “I can see blood.”
The motionless figure of the creature stood still, opening a view of several deep wounds that managed to penetrate its outer armored shell. The bloodied meat among the sick black plates showed gruesome injuries, but not knowing the resilience of the creature it was hard to tell if they killed it or not. That prevented them from lowering their weapons.
“Well, it’s not a robot…,” one of the mercenaries started, but was interrupted by another.
“Let’s shoot it again just to be certain. We don’t need… Damn, it’s healing!” Quickly raising the rifle, the man was still a bit slower. The creature was already dropping down to the floor while pushing five long spikes in different directions. Shooting forward at insane speed as if they were not moved but created right in mid-air, they aimed right at the shooting barrels. Only three of them managed to get inside the hole, causing an explosion of the rifles from inside when the flying bullet hit the sudden obstacle. Two others were already firing, alas not for long.
One of the spikes started to glow only to turn into a white ball of energy, piercing the chest of the shooter. The other changed its form into a hook, simply pulling the shooter right to the maw of the creature. The mercenary still caught sight of how the outer shell of the monster was fixing itself before feeling a tight grip around its waist. The weird limb was enveloping it from all sides while pushing its “flesh” inside the gaps of the armor. His spine broke first, being broken from the powerful hug. Unfortunately for him, the pain didn’t disappear, providing a full sensation of the multiple cold needles that were crawling through his back to the heart. It took less than a few seconds but felt like an eternity. Then the heat came, burning his inner organs in an instant.
The following micro explosion disintegrated half of the torso under the armored gear, killing the mercenary. The creature grinned, looking at the dead man, and finally turned its attention to the last three fleeing humans. Dropping the body, it moved to the still-breathing prey with the hole in the chest before stomping its helmet a few times with an oversized limb. The sound of what seemed to be a mixture of a mad laugh, and a beast growl could be heard before the creature pushed itself into motion, continuing its hunt.
All three escapers ran in different directions, betting their lives on the luck not to be the one to be followed. Not that it helped them in any way. The first one died when he tried to use the gap in the debris to hide. The monster simply leaned on the ruins, causing the following fall that completely buried the man under the rubble without a chance of saving himself. The second tried to resist, being cornered into the technician corridor. Shooting from the handgun, it watched with horror how the bullets barely did any damage to the creature, and even if they did, any signs were gone just in a second. However, the man had fought to the last moment, using the short vibro-blade as the last resort. That led to an even worse fate than being dead.
As if angered by futile resistance, the creature broke the knees and elbows of the mercenary before proceeding with the most electronic devices inside the technological armor. Ripping off the armored plates, the monster left a horrible hole in the stomach of the man by cutting it with a claw. Not big enough to kill immediately, but enough to cause a bleed. After that it just stepped back, grinning with the same wild and terrifying smile. An attempt to bite the tongue was prevented by the nearest metal stick that penetrated both chicks of the mercenary and gave no space for this action. Stomping the palms into a meat paste, the creature simply disappeared, leaving the critically wounded soldier-for-hire to wait for the inevitable death, while screaming from the pain and horror.
Such delay allowed the last survivor to flee unharmed, following the other civilians. Most of them were scattered around in panic, not thinking clearly about where to run and what to do. Some of them even decided to hide not far from the gathering place, patiently waiting for mercenaries to deal with the threat and to save them. Running past them, the last survivor ignored them without a second thought, too focused on the search for the man, who could be his ticket from here. The dumb engineer with so much knowledge.
“Where the fuck did you go? I need to find you before that monster will get me!”
Mumbling the very same thing, the mercenary searched for the traces that might have been left by the technician. Opened panels. Clear cuts on the pipes. Anything that could show him the way. The loud screams of dying idiots who decided to hide only accelerated his already hurried movement. He only prayed that there were enough of those morons to keep the monster busy and lose his traces in the dark corridors of the ruined station that had recently been boosting with life, but now turned into a playground of a bloodthirsty creature.