Creed and Veronika rode in a windowless sandrail car painted in camouflage colors, along with a couple of veteran lakionian guards and a driver.

The dampener suspensions, of the vehicle’s large wheels and wide tires, absorbed a lot of the shock from uneven terrain, but it was still a bumpy ride. A translucent barrier made sure bugs didn’t slap or splatter into their faces.

But the ride was making her feel queasy, which bothered her. She was once Wu Chen, who could soar through the sky at death-defying speeds! And even balancing on a sword with style and charisma! To be nauseous on a car ride was an embarrassment.

One of the veteran guards had taken to the passenger seat. She was sandwiched in between Creed and another.

The driver was too enthralled with testing out the car’s suspension over everything uneven to notice her.

“How’s the Casey Fodder?” He called out cheerfully, while doing a daredevil maneuver over a junk hill. Shrapnel when flying everywhere on hard and bumping landing.

Creed scoffed and turned away to hide his chuckles from her.

“I’ll tell you when I’m not about to wear my stomach as a face mask.” She groaned and slapped a hand over her mouth to stop her insides from coming out.

The men roared with laughter.

“Jorgen. I think she said she wanted you to go faster,” said the veteran guard next to him. Giving the driver further license to go crazily over harsher terrain.

“Then hold on to your stomach.” Jorgen let out noises of glee as he drove up a hill fast and sent the car flying into the air.

Veronika cursed when she hit her head on a rail upon their crude landing. But she was still in the sandrail at least.

Eventually, the drive eased and made a gradual stop before a mountain of junk. Veronika recognized the junk wall area, where she had faced off with the two mercenaries.

“Whelp. We walk now.” Jorgen moped as parked the sandrail before junk hills and concealed it with a spell.

The took a moment to take stock of their gear before moving out. Veronika learned the names of the others.

The driver was Jorgen, who was Creed’s older cousin and like the other men had his hair tied up in a ponytail, so it looked like a pineapple top. His face was longer and his jawline sharper than Creeds. His green eyes were rounder. The back of his leather jacket had a silver bird motif, which was imaged in a moment of an attack. It was his kinetic holster, which he slapped a chunky tungsten gun to it. He shoved a couple of hand guns in his hip holsters and tested his fuel cells in his jet boots.

The other three veterans were named Brayan, Balak and Parlo. They had similar features to Creed, but with older complexions. Brayan’s brows were heavy set around his three eyes. They were all dressed similarly to Jorgen and loaded with a heavy weapon and hand guns.

“I’d give you a gun, Casey Fodder, but as you can’t fire one. So, no point, eh?” Brayan joked as he slapped her back hard.

“Pfft. I don’t need a gun, I’ve got a pen.” She cockily answered back as she whipped out her brush-pen to show it off.

This stirred up laughter between them.

“Enough. We need to get moving.” Creed soberly stopped the useless banter and returned everyone’s focus on their way forward.

The veterans knew the score as they all moved out through the hills of wasteland. They had encountered some small numbers of Concordat soldiers near some of the hills. But they weren’t a threat to the skilled lakionians, who could easily eliminate them with a few bullets. Veronika frowned when she saw her armor and theirs were the same.

“They were weak like you.” Jorgen laughed.

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She rolled her eyes and kept her grumbles to herself as she continued to follow them.

They men able to eliminate the small pockets of Concordat Forces they encountered among the junk hills. Eventually, the way forward was an uneventful trek. But Jorgen warned them that creatures lurked in the undergrounds that were way stronger than the Concordat weaklings they had been using as target practice.

“The metal junk keeps them at bay,” he whispered low to Veronika.

“What creatures?” She asked.

“Hopefully, you won’t find out”

The trek resumed a cautious silence. After covering ground for a few uneventful meters, Veronika started to get the feeling she was being watched.

They eventually arrived before an enormous concrete sewer pipe entrance.

“This way leads into the main underground mine tunnel. It should take us to the main gate.” Brayan soberly noted.

The men’s attitude has switched to a serious focus and held their guns in their hands: ready for anything.

Veronika switched her internal vision to a wireframe view of the area. As they carefully moved down the sewer tunnel, she did a detection scope for dangers.

The way forward was the same damp and cold concrete tunnel, but they started to hear eerie sounds and shuffles from the way ahead.

[Be careful. The scans are detecting movement ahead] System overlaid a heat map view to the terrain wireframe map.

She nodded and continued to follow the tunnel path to the main mine tunnel, whilst keeping an eye on movements in the area. After a few meters in, she saw a blip of a creature.

“Get ready.” Jorgen whispered as he cocked his gun and readied it.

As they approached the entry shaft, they heard beeping. Creed had activated a sensor as he had passed. A cacophony of screeches and shrieks flowed into their direction.

“Insectiods!” Jorgen shouted as a creature dropped in front of them.

It was the height of a man. A hybrid of eight black metal insect legs on a smooth, black, organic spider-type body with nine purple eyes covering most of its oblong headspace. The central eye glowed and swelled with energy. It shrieked triumphantly as it released a laser beam for their heads.

“Hell!” Veronika yelped as she dove to the ground to avoid the beam, which shattered concrete to cause shards and dust clouds around them.

She gasped when the insectoid shimmered physically out of sight.

“It can be invisible. Switch to heat map view!” Brayan coolly advised.

It reappeared just as it was about to do a slice attack for Jorgen’s head with one of its legs. Jorgen was able to dodge it and land a shot on the leg with one of his handguns. The insectoid made itself invisible again and reappeared before Veronika to do another leg swipe.

Veronika’s eyes glowed as she ducked and dodged the leg attacks. She brush-visualized a moving shield before her with her pen and kept moving around the creature, blocking its attacks whilst scoping for its weakness. The insectoid was moving around the restricted space with ease and speed.

One of its legs had struck Parlo in the arm. Jorgen fired a shot to sever it from the body. The insectoid shrieked with pain and backed off to scuttle down the tunnel away from them. This gave them a breather to recollect themselves.

[I have enough of a scan on its anatomy] System noted.

Veronika’s eyes digitally recalled the data sheet on the creature before everyone with the details from System’s scan.

Insectoids were underground predators who could grow up to two meters in height and one meter wide. They tend to scavenge minerals and metals for their exoskeleton limbs. Unlike Earth insects, these bugs also had a basic internal skeleton. Their blood system carried large traces of carbon monoxide and an acidic chemical that gave them the ability to be invisible to the physical eye. They could also concentrate a concoction of their internal fluids into plasma and release a beam from their eyes.

“Their nine eyes are used to scope terrain. As you saw, their top-central eye is also used as a weapon.” Brayan added to the analysis.

Jorgen nodded. “Insectoid use stealth and leg strikes as its basic attack. But their legs are also vulnerable to shattering with a heavy gunfire.”

“They usually keep to their nests unless hunting. But they’re territorial.” Brayan nodded.

“How’s the arm?” Creed asked Parlo, who was showing a brave face.

Veronika dismissed the digital scan and ran a medical analysis on the man’s arm.

“Concordat clone, keep your scans to yourself!” Parlo snapped at her and pulled his arm out of the scan area.

She sighed and fished through a pant pocket to pull out a healing vial that System said was stored there: hastily tossed it at him.“Use or don’t. Like I care.”

Parlo examined the healing vial in his hands, then placed it in his pocket. Brayan got everyone moving down the tunnel again.