Go.
I scuttle forward like a crabroach, crouched on my hands, feet, and limbs. Dirt's scrubcloak rustles around me as I move, a gentle crinkle indistinguishable from the breeze drifting through the valley. A dozen figures in a double-file line continue their measured pace in front of me, postures alert.
Stop.
Red light that Box assures me only I can see suffuses the surrounding air, and one of the Corporate Marauders at the rear of the group spins into a backward walk, helmet facing our direction, pulse rifle held loosely across his chitin-armored chest. I held my breath the first few times it happened, but I'm starting to get used to the staccato rhythm of movement and pauses. He finishes his measured sweep, then turns forward once more, and the red light fades away.
Go.
Another helter-skelter advance, rocks and spiky roots digging into my palms as I cut the distance by half. I'm close enough now that I can hear them talking.
"-still don't see why we're stuck on this shitball. Damn place doesn't even have a full infonet."
The voice comes from a Marauder to the left of the one periodically scanning the rear of the group. His voice is slightly distorted, possibly because of the armor, and the two are several paces behind the next pair.
"Because the Old Man said so, which is good enough for me. Now shut the fuck up and help me watch for threats."
I freeze again, another red threat cone appearing as the Marauder spins. His partner gives a halfhearted glance over his shoulder.
"What threats? There's nothing here, man. Oh wait," he elbows the other Marauder, causing him to flinch, "you think some dirt-eater that stumbled across a CV is gonna use it to sneak up on us? Ambush us in our sleep?" He starts laughing. "Stupid savage is probably gibbering in a cave somewhere, watching their brain melt."
"It's our job to keep watch," the jumpy Marauder fires back, punching the chatty one in the shoulder, "and something took out the retrieval squads. Combat Variants are easy to learn how to use. Otherwise there's no way your dumbass would have one."
I ignore their bickering and shift into my scrabbling crawl, flowing across the hillside. Twenty meters. Fifteen meters. Ten meters. I freeze.
"Hey." The jumpy one pauses in his current scan, still walking backwards. "Was that bush there before?"
"Are you kidding me right now?" The chatty one slaps his forehead in disbelief. "This entire damn hill is covered in that shit. What, you think a violation is hiding behind it? Are you a scared little baby? Here, let me calm your nerves."
fhssswhp
A scrub brush one meter to my right flies apart in a spray of severed branches and oozing sap. My heart leaps into my throat, then just as quickly a burst of soothing calm settles me down.
Easy. We're still fine.
The chatty Marauder gestures with his pulse rifle at the drooping remains.
"Told you. There's nothing out here except dirt and dirt-eaters. Stop being such a whiny dirt-fucker."
He turns to rejoin the rest of the group, but the jumpy one grabs his arm, the two of them standing in profile in front of me.
"I'm getting real tired of your shit, man."
"Yeah? And what the fuck are you gonna do about it besides cry?"
Slowly, now...
I creep forward in glacial movements, my attention on the two arguing figures. If they turn their heads at all they're going to see me. Shoot, if they pay attention to their peripheral vision at all they'll probably see me. Nine meters. Eight meters. Seven meters.
"Look, if you want to end up another death statistic before even reaching level ten, you go right ahead, asshole. Me, I'm destined for better things."
Seven meters. Six meters.
"Oh, for profit's sake, would you listen to this pile of vatslop? 'Destined for better things?' Take the hyperspanner out of your ass. You're 'destined' to be scared of plants and pissing me off is what you're destined to be."
Five meters. Four meters.
"Fuck you. At least I pay attention to the mission briefings!"
Three meters.
"Go fuck an engine, shitdick. Those mission briefings are a waste of-"
The chatty one pauses, then tuns his head, staring directly at me.
"Has that bush always been there?"
Now.
I leap up from the ground, letting Dirt's scrubcloak fall behind me, kukri stabbing for vulnerable gaps at the neck and groin. Two bright red arterial sprays fountain into the air, and then my other limb fires the rifle.
CRACK
The next closest figure, one of the bulkier ones carrying what Box called a 'Quantum Blade,' stumbles, then collapses, the top half of his head missing, gray brain matter leaking out onto the dirt. The rest of the group scatters like wasps whose nest just got hit with a stone, intermingled shouts buzzing up and around.
"Ambush!"
"Weapons free!"
"It's the target!"
I sprint for the next Marauder, another heavy, this one carrying the Multi-Mode Missile Launcher, but reality twists around him and he reappears almost twenty meters away.
Wait, they can dash too?!
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...they're integrated... Combat Variants... Sky... of course... they use... non-causal violations...
Thin lines of red appear on me from six different angles, followed by a large sphere as the heavy Marauder who dashed away fires his shoulder-braced missile launcher. I dash at an angle that closes the distance between me and him while avoiding the other red lines.
fhssswhp fhssswhp fhssswhp fhssswhp fhssswhp fhssswhp SKKBOOOOM
Destruction billows out from my previous location, but my limb is already hacking away at the bulky figure with my kukri.
CRACK
My rifle limb drops another Marauder with a smoking hole through the center of his chest, but the one in front of me refuses to go down despite suffering from multiple wounds. He growls at me, pulling a strange looking pistol-
Mark One Jinseki Plasma Inducer.
-but before he can raise it the entire area around me flashes red. I look frantically for a place to dash to but there's nowhere safe. The red glow intensifies, then flickers orange for the briefest instant. Immediately after, searing pain smashes through my upper back, a thousand angry Glowbeasts tearing me apart from the inside out.
static
Current Life: 138/350
Redistributing biomass... projecting biomass totals... projected 47% remaining biomass after Life restoration
...need to... take out... Kinetic Displacer...
A red bracket appears around one of the bulky Marauders thirty meters to my left near the bottom of the hill, a disturbingly organic weapon merged into both his arms. Its sides shift like it's breathing, and an oversized eye tracks my movements from the bulbous end, sickly orange and yellow streaking through the milky sclera. It's revolting to look at, my brain wanting to deny its existence, much like the violations and anchor I fought earlier.
...non-causal... weaponry... we don't have... any defenses... yet...
I finish hacking at the heavy Marauder in front of me, his plasma pistol dropping from lifeless fingers, and my limb snakes into one of the rents in his armor before he can fall.
Current Life: 194/350
Redistributing biomass... projecting biomass totals... projected 55% remaining biomass after Life restoration
I try not to think about what just happened as an empty set of armor tumbles to the ground. Looking around, I see the five remaining regular Marauders are spreading out across the hillside, creating distance from me and from each other as they fire pulse rifle blasts my way. I narrow my eyes.
Executing 360NoScope.exe
BRRRTTTTT
My rifle fires impossibly quick, the repeated retorts blending into a grinding roar that's over in less than a second. Lines of slowly wriggling tears in reality attach themselves between the distant Marauders and my limb, and then straighten with a whipcrack slurp. The Marauders twitch horribly, spastic marionettes suffering under the hand of some madly giggling conductor, and then they collapse, strings cut, tumorous masses of fleshy flowers bursting from their headless corpses.
WARNING: Energy depleted.
Current Energy: 0/150
WARNING: Biomass depleted.
Current Life: 267/350
A dashing shape slides through me, trailing a bright blue line of fire. The other quantum blade heavy Marauder appears on my left, curved sword hissing along its single edge.
Current Life: 237/350
I dash through him, returning the favor, but he stays upright, a long slice on his left flank. We close as one, my kukri severing his left hand as he stabs me through the right shoulder. More lurid red appears around me, followed by that strange orange blink.
static
Blinding pain, a hailstorm of sickening impacts jolting my body around like a rat caught in a crabroach's claws.
Current Life: 5/350
I grit my teeth and swing at the heavy Marauder in front of me again, this time flaying him open from crotch to throat through the chitinous armor, my kukri somehow impossibly sharp. Warm blood sprays across my face and torso, but I'm already turning to find the last opponent, my limb salvaging what it can from the corpse.
WARNING: Biomass depleted.
Current Life: 63/350
I start running towards the distant figure bracing itself at the bottom of the hill for another attack.
CRACK
My rifle shot staggers him, but he doesn't fall, and the bulging eye at the end of his grotesque weapon focuses on me again, a toxic green secondary pupil opening within the black main one. Another shroud of red descends, blanketing the world in soft crimson. I grit my teeth. Even if I dash he's too far away to reach in time, and I don't think I have enough life to survive another of those obscene hits.
...Sky... dash forward... flashes orange... be precise...
I barely have time to process Box's words before the red closes in, gathering around my running form. I try to remember the timing of the previous shots, racking my mind for details.
Brighter. Brighter.
Brighter.
NOW!
I dash down the hillside in sync with the orange flicker, and the world distorts around me. It feels like the walls of reality are falling away, replaced by an endlessly stretching corridor of doors fighting to open themselves, bulging and creaking at their hinges with malicious intent. Something reaches out from within me and twists my perspective, just enough of a nudge that wrong is now right and I step through the length of the incomprehensible hallway in one stride, back out into the normal world.
A flurry of impacts distorts the hillside behind me, but I'm already past the violent rips in space, my kukri limb hoisting the last heavy Marauder into the air via the blade impaled through his chest. A gout of black blood bursts from beneath his helmet, and then the twitching eye at the end of his weapon slowly closes as the device disappears. He gives one last jerk, then falls still and disappears as well, my limbs extracting their due.
Panting, I collapse back on my butt, hands in the dirt, trying to wrap my mind around yet another impossible event.
!! sparkles DING sparkles !!