~~~Eve~~~

"You've got to be more careful, Leroy," Zeke said to the prone man he was kneeling over while golden light rebuilt a large chunk of the man's innards. "I know Nate's outside, but he won't get in here fast enough to save us if we screw up too badly."

Eve stared at him in disbelief. Seriously? Then a few other voices agreed with her brother and Eve shook her head. They really didn't notice. Stanley was obviously here, watching them!

How the fuck could they not only ignore that creepy sensation but not even notice it in the first place? Her own brother among them? A god-damned shame. Or was it because none of them had spent as much time around the old fuck as she had? How long had it been now? A week? Two?

"Let's take a minute," Mathew said. "That last fight went poorly, and I think we need another talk about tactics and positioning."

"You guys do that," Eve said, heading toward the stairs. "I'll get a head start."

Zeke jumped up. "Eve, wait!"

"Work with your team, Zeke. I only came here to look out for you." Which had turned out to be completely unnecessary with Stanley lurking around. Or had it? Stanley might get distracted or wander off. Who knew with that wacko.

She left the others behind and stopped on the landing halfway up to the next floor. A cannon on her shoulder popped up, and light shone from it, illuminating the stairwell.

She set down the case she'd been carrying and an effort of will parted the formerly seamless metal, allowing her to lift the top clear.

Inside were a dozen thumb-sized metal spiders. Play time!

The spiders didn't move as Eve held a hand over them, and nothing else seemed to happen... Until a shiny liquid metal started running from underneath her gauntlet and slowly down her fingers.

She moved a finger to each spider and, with every touch, transferred a drop of the silver liquid onto them, where it seemed to writhe over the tiny machines as it sank into them. Along with each drop of the liquid metal, Eve also sent a small piece of her soul along and into the spiders.

It didn't take long to sink in, metal or soul, leaving the constructs once again a dull black.

Now, what did that cost me? Eve checked her soul attribute.

Soul 40(-35 Reserved)

An entire soul point for each spider... Fuck it. I can spare that.

Now, find me something to kill. The spiders abruptly burst into motion and skittered up the stairs toward the next floor of the lair. She could feel them as they went, like a piece of her, so it wasn't like she could lose them. Unfortunately, knowing where they were did fuck-all to help her in combat.

There was another solution for that.

Eve pulled another device from the same case and placed it over one eye. Her helmet shifted to hold it in place as a screen lit up on the inside. It showed a camera view from a spider crawling up the stairwell wall.

Another device went into the helmet above her ear, and a speaker started broadcasting the faint little clicking sounds of her spider's feet as it left the wall and climbed onto the ceiling.

She was proud of that. It wasn't easy to make them crawl up walls, never mind on the ceiling.

With a thought, she started cycling through the multiple camera feeds, building a mental map of the next floor and where the largest concentrations of bugs were.

While she did that, she pulled another case from her back and opened it up. Inside, she removed what looked like a rifle, except the barrel that she screwed onto the other half was a very bulky and boxy piece of metal.

I'd like to see you try to block my rail gun so casually!

She stroked her latest creation fondly and briefly enjoyed the idea of using it to put a hole through that stupid old man.

Caffeine would be upset if I shot him... She pulled what looked like an extra-thick magazine from the box and looked carefully at the delicate tracings of metal that coiled around and through the brightly glowing cores that filled the interior of the thing. Eh, some chicken would probably make up for it.

Eve slid her battery pack back into the gun, hiding the glow inside and plunging the stairwell back into darkness. She then went over the two batteries remaining in the case with equal attention. As long as I don't actually kill him, it should be fine.

Her belt sprang open with prepared slots down the middle, and she slotted the spare magazines into place. Well, spare batteries. Basically the same thing in her case.

It was risky to keep the not always fully stable batteries on her person, but with her ability to shape metal, she could ensure that the armor over them was always sound. Plus, from there, they could power everything on her person, and a touch of her liquid metal would let her easily monitor their condition.

Another drop for the rail gun and she was ready to go, and almost out of soul to bond more metal.

Bonded metal. A class evolution. Probably from the metal in her blood. Definitely not because of Stanley. Fuck him! Still, it let her do far more than drain mana from a distance. She suspected, in time, she wouldn't even need a camera feed in her helmet to see through their eyes. Well, their camera eyes.

The only downside of her new class was just how much soul she needed to bond with all the metal she could shove into her blood... Eve gritted her teeth at the memory of metal melting into her flesh. At the memory of her death. It was fucking worth it!

That nightmare had pushed her forward by leaps and bounds. First, a trait. Now a new class. Bonded metal had been just the thing she was missing to really progress. And the last missing piece was... soul.

Well, Stanley had come through a lot on that end... all without having to do anything. The lazy bastard!

Ready, she headed up the stairs and took up position in the doorway to the next floor. It wasn't as dark outside the stairwell, but it wasn't that much of an improvement. The long hotel hallway stretching out ahead of her had the occasional open door along its length, which let in a few rays of light. Of course, having enough light hardly mattered anymore. Her eyes could see far better in the dark these days. Well enough that she could see all the way to the stairs at the far end of the building.

She waited in the doorway, her gun tracking, as the first unsuspecting roach wandered into the long hallway from a side room.

The snapping crack of her railgun firing sounded deafening in the narrow confines, but the results were worth it when she saw the cockroach explode into goo and carapace shrapnel.

Of course, that set off the rest of the floor, and she instantly had hundreds of cockroaches charging in her direction. She was expecting that and didn't even flinch when the nearest doorway disgorged a swarm of basketball-sized bugs.

She didn't even have to move, keeping her gun trained down the hall while her two shoulder cannons went to town on the roaches. She still didn't move when the hallway ahead started to fill with even more charging insects.

Only when it was so clogged that they started crawling towards her on the ceiling did Eve pull the trigger of her railgun.

The projectile went through and obliterated over a dozen bugs before it lost momentum, and she squeezed the trigger again. And again. And again.

Eve rained death and destruction down that hallway, while her shoulder cannons blasted and burned anything that made it too close. When she stopped firing, the barrel was glowing red-hot and her battery was drained.

A thought sent the spent cores falling free, their glow a mere shadow of their former brilliance. If this was a more serious engagement, she'd already have some mana drain towers going and could plug those cores in to start recharging. This wasn't serious, so she left them where they fell and plugged in a fresh pack.

The barrel followed, falling free in a way that would probably have alarmed anyone with firearm experience, but making way for the pristine replacement that took its place.

Plenty of bugs had taken advantage of the lull to once again fill the hall as they charged towards her, but not enough. Eve unleashed death again, this time while taking steady steps forward.

She passed the first hotel room doors, and her shoulder cannons fired instantly on the attempted ambushers. It seemed that not all the bugs were suicidally stupid enough to charge a sniper down a long hall, but it didn't matter. She had eyes on them before taking her first step.

The metal spiders keeping watch in those rooms quickly advanced past the drones in the following rooms, taking up surveillance ahead. She wiped out more of the cleverer bugs that never had a chance and kept advancing, her little spies leapfrogging their way through the building.

Eve stopped halfway down the hall and took a mana break. She really should have stuck a damn mana-tower on Stanley. Maybe just bolt one to his back if he was going to insist on hiding?

He wasn't fooling her. Wherever he was. She couldn't miss that freak's power lingering over this building like a smothering blanket. What was the point of trying to spy on them if he was going to be so obvious about it? Why not just sit behind them and brood like he normally did? Dick.

But perhaps if he was nearby... She set up a drain tower. It might help. If she could feel his power, then maybe she could leech... drain some extra mana.

Another soul point wouldn't hurt either...

While she waited, Eve sent most of her spider drones back to collect the now cooler gun barrels she'd left behind. They'd probably be a little warped from her callously dropping the glowing metal on the ground, but nothing she couldn't fix while regenerating mana.

A few bugs took her delay as weakness and tried to attack, but they all died to her shoulder cannons. They really were auto-cannons with the bonded metal upgrade; all it really took was for her to notice a target and they would fire.

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After them, it was only a handful of the ambushers that refused to advance. She could wipe them out now and finish the floor, but there was no rush. Instead, she regenerated and did maintenance on her gear.

The armor seemed a little pointless after the slaughter, but it was better to have it and all that. She also used the downtime to send a spy spider, a spyder, up the stairs at the end of the hall to check out the next floor.

She'd seen fliers on the lower floors Zeke cleared, but none on this one, and she highly doubted she'd seen the last of those.

Of course, the whole time she was fighting and regenerating, Eve kept an eye on the lone spyder she'd left downstairs and the one currently watching over Zeke and company. They never noticed the tiny thing tucked into a ceiling corner, and Eve hadn't mentioned it either.

No one needed to know what she could do. It was better to keep them guessing. Especially when it came to her spies. People tended to show their real selves when no one was watching, and she didn't trust a single one of them.

Well, maybe Nate. But that guy had such a worship boner for Zeke that she couldn't imagine him doing anything to hurt her brother. Hell, he literally hadn't hurt Zeke until Stanley showed his true psycho colors. Eve was mostly convinced that Nate had only started the more violent and painful training as an excuse to keep Stanley from trying to help again.

Not that she was against the training. In principle. As much as she hated to admit it, Zeke was soft. Too soft. But she also hated to see him in pain... Fuck you, Stanley! And fuck you too, Nate!

Unfortunately, she saw Zeke's little band of merry men and women get up and head for the stairs. Which meant it was time for her to keep moving.

She left the drain tower behind. It should have enough range for a few more floors, and if she had too, she could pull her soul out of it from further away. Doing that would cost her the bonded metal inside it but would protect her from potentially losing that bit of her soul.

It was another downside of her bonded metal. Metal that held pieces of her soul. Usually she could pull the soul bits back if something was about to go boom. Or if a monster was about to eat her spyders. But once she hadn't been fast enough... and that had really sucked.

The experience left her feeling a bit more sympathy for Stanley and his tale of ripping out his soul to kill the invader... but fuck him! Except she'd felt his soul screaming... right before she died. Right before she came back. Fuck him!

He was the idiot who chose to do that! Why should she feel sorry for his stupidity? Except he saved us. Saved Zeke.

Eve shook her head and stomped up the stairs to the next floor. Fuck him! Fuck everyone!

She hadn't scouted as much as she'd have liked, but time was up. Besides, she'd seen the giant roaches shambling through the hall in a neat row that was just begging for her railgun. She oblidged.

These ones didn't explode nearly as well as the ones downstairs. Only slumped over slightly in a puff of... wings? Oh shit!

Eve dropped her railgun and fumbled a half-charged battery pack from her belt as every dead roach erupted into a swarm of miniscule flying bugs that emerged from the tiny holes that covered the backs of the big roaches, holes she'd mistaken for shadows or spots. Now, out of every one of those holes flew a massive swarm which filled the hallway ahead with a roaring drone of wings.

She tweaked the battery, threw it down the hall, and pulled her soul free an instant before the entire thing erupted into a ball of expanding blue fire.

It was a massive waste of resources, but she didn't have any weapons to deal with mass swarms. Give her giant death roaches and she could slaughter them all day, but this was a problem.

Her auto cannons were firing nonstop already, and each beam burned down dozens of the insects before vanishing into the swarm. It didn't matter and wouldn't make a dent in what had to be thousands of bugs coming after her.

She could retreat downstairs. Zeke and his team were en route. Together, they could handle the swarm.

Eve didn't back down.

This was a challenge, and one she would damn well beat!

She hadn't done a lot of on-the-fly construction, but she gave it a shot anyway. In light of the limited amount of time she had to work, Eve canabalized her railgun for parts.

She hated to do it. But as needs must. It had a battery, casing, and assembly. Her bonded metal throughout the weapon made it a snap to disassemble, and then she used that same metal to create something new.

More parts came from her metal backpack as she backed slowly into the stairwell.

She threw out one more battery turned explosive with a curse, which bought her a few more seconds, then slapped the last piece into place as the swarm descended on her.

Fire bloomed brightly in the darkness of the lair. Shining even through the dense cloud of flying cockroaches as they swarmed from absolutly every direction.

Eve's flamethrower cut a swath through the swarm like a car through a parade; the smell of roasting cockroaches filled her nostrils, and she abruptly realized that her armor's coverage was far from adequate.

She hadn't realized how many gaps there were in her defense until hundreds of pinching, stabbing, and tearing little bug-mouths were digging into her flesh.

A scream escaped her, and she immediately choked it off when the bugs swarmed into her open mouth, still biting.

Eve bit back, and a torrent of foul juice gushed down her throat as bugs burst between her teeth. I'm going to fucking murder every last one of you...

Her backpedaling foot fell through the space where the floor should have been... and Eve toppled down the stairs with a screaming curse. "Fuck!"

The first landing stopped her tumble, but Eve was done with this bullshit. She tore open the guts of her flamethrower... and filled the stairwell with roaring flames in a single, building-shaking, ear-bursting boom.

Unfortunately, when her head cleared, she could still feel the bugs scrambling all over her. Biting! Including under her armor! Jesus, fucking Christ!

She ripped off her chest plate, hands scrambling to brush away the biting fucks, and found... no bugs. Only smooth, unbroken, and unburned skin. Smooth skin... with something wriggling beneath the surface.

Eve shrieked. It was a sound she'd never made before and never would again. A wholly justified noise when one is getting eaten alive by insects burrowing beneath their skin. While she was shrieking, her useless mind brought up a notification. One of many she'd been ignoring throughout the fighting.

Debuff Gained: [Infested]

She was still screaming when she started cutting open her skin and digging the still-wriggling larvae out of her flesh.

Buff Gained: [Purifying Aura]

Buff Gained: [Purifying Light]

"Eve!" In that moment, Zeke's power was the best thing she'd ever felt. Then it started pushing the bugs forcibly through her skin... and she went right back to screaming.

Debuff Removed: [Infested]

"Eve! Eve! Eve!"

"Would you shut the fu..." Eve choked off when she realized who was screaming her name over and over. "I'm fine, Zeke."

"Oh, thank god!"

"Don't thank God; thank... you."

Zeke just beamed down at her and then tackled her into a hug. While holding onto her a little too tight, he whispered, "Please don't scare me like that, Eve."

Eve bit back the words on her tongue and instead patted his back gently. "Nice save. Love you too."

It was only after he let go and she sat up that Eve realized her shirt was blood-soaked and shredded. Her attempts to remove the burrowing insects might have been a little... over-zealous.

"Why the fuck is Stanley here if he's not going to help out with shit like that!?"

"Stanley's not here," Zeke said, far too convincingly.

"Seriously?" Eve stared at him. "You still can't feel that?"

"Feel what?"

She glared around at the rest of the team, all of them with the same stupid expression of pure ignorance. Except one. Mandy was looking up the stairs and pointing. "Maybe he is here?"

Eve followed her pointing finger with a cannon-turned flashlight and blanched at the sight it revealed. A squirming, writhing wall of roaches. Floor to ceiling. Wall to wall. And too thick for any light to shine through. All of that skittering, scratching, fluttering, all of it silent behind an invisible barrier holding back the swarm.

"Woah! Wait, Stanley is here? Why didn't he say anything?"

Eve ground her teeth and swallowed all the venomous things she wanted to say as she looked at the tide of horror looming above them. That would have really sucked. For her and the others.

No! Fuck... She convulsed with the strain of turning her thoughts away down another path. It was time to kill all those bugs. "All of you get back to my tower downstairs. I'll be right behind you."

She gathered up the few salvageable scraps of her flamethrower and followed. On the way, she rebuilt it. Not only that, she built it better. More powerful.

Then she posted up outside the stairwell downstairs. "You can stop interfering now!"

Stanley must have heard her, because the swarm came roaring down the stairs with a vengeance.

Eve burned them all to ashes in a torrent of blue fire that filled the entire stairwell. Not one bug made it past the door.

Upstairs, her spyders confirmed the lack of more swarms; only the big, slow roaches remained. The only downside was that none of the little bugs dropped cores. Well, the burrowing into your flesh was probably slightly worse than the lack of cores... but talk about some bullshit!

Eve sighed and got to work crafting a new railgun. She'd keep the flamethrower in her arsenal after this. "You guys can go ahead."

They left, but Eve saw who was coming up the stairs below. Great.

"Not bad, Eve," Nate said, sauntering into the room. Worse, behind him floated Stanley.

Then Caffeine was in her face and crying like he hadn't seen her in days. Which... well, she hadn't seen him since yesterday. "Hi, Caff. You're a good boy." She didn't look up. "Thanks... Stanley."

"No problem. I like your new gun. That one actually packs a punch. Bet it would go right through the lair walls."

Eve frowned as she realized that her shots should have at least hit the walls hard enough to count as an attack on the lair... unless someone was blocking them. God damn cheater!

Caffeine licked her face, and Eve finally looked up to find Stanley staring at her drain tower. Then the metal structure lifted into the air. "It's alright if I move this, right?"

"I... yes." Should she tell him? Caffeine's big brown eyes felt accusing as he looked up at her with a wagging tail.

"Come on," Stanley said, floating past her with that ridiculous crown on his head. "Everyone knows I'm here now so there's no point in hiding."

"Where did you say these wizards were at?" Nate asked while following Stanley into the stairwell. He stopped and looked back. "Everything okay, Eve? You need a minute?"

Eve shook her head and stood up. "No... I'm fine."

She was fine. Zeke had healed her right up. More than that, though, she felt powerful. Not to the level of Stanley, but maybe catching up with Nate. She felt like she could see the future potential of her new class going forward. Plus, this small bit of fighting had filled her mind with new ideas that should only improve her power.

No longer did protecting Zeke feel like such a wild dream. No longer did it feel like just a lie that she told herself to feel better. Worse, she couldn't deny Stanley's part in all of it. Caffeine definitely played a role, but Stanley did as well.

A big part of that was all the soul she'd leeched off of him... Hell, it was almost the entirety of her power now. Maybe she didn't have to tell him? What if she just stopped using the leech skill and put a little more effort into learning one of the skills Stanley had been trying to teach her?

Eve caught up in time to see the last giant roach crumble beneath Matthew's blow. The thing was almost entirely hollow without all its little bugs inside it.

She watched Zeke and company head up toward the next level, Nate following and leaving her temporarily alone with Stanley. And Caffeine.

"Stanley."

He stopped and turned to look at her. "Yeah?"

"I need to tell you..."

+1 Soul

The skill was still going; she kept it on by habit these days...

Soul Leech has granted you a Temporary Trait: [Angry Soul]

[Angry Soul]

You have leeched repeatedly from a wrathful soul. Some of that anger has carried over into you.

Continued leeching from the origin of this temporary trait may make the trait permanent.

Effects:

You are more prone to anger and emotional instability.

"You son of a bitch!"