Social Spiders
2 hours later.
Vrrrooomm… Phesx Caolia rode with Teon on his back. Her hands were no longer on his shoulders but hugging his sides, having long been told to simply relax and get a better hold. Teon didn't need to be told twice, and she was glad she did, as Phesx took risky curves and leaned a lot, more than she was ever used to.
They drove in the rain. It was heavy now. Yet, it meant nothing for him and the other Artistas, who were about 5 minutes later than them. Teon leaned her front on his chest, comfortable to know he wouldn’t throw her away if needed, something many Artistas learn to guard against.
“You’re one of the youngest, right, Teon?” Phesx asked, seeing the beeping device, which was barely audible in the rain even for him, with his engine going all out through the misty streets. His voice was loud, but even if it wasn’t, Teon could hear it.
“Ajá! I’m only 19, and a few months from now before my birthday. Also a few months younger than Pheli. Why?” Teon asked with her mouth facing his right cheek from behind.
“Nothing. I just thought how a little thing like yourself became very skilled in such short time. We never speak that much, but besides Layo, I speak with you the best.” Phesx Caolia voiced loudly again. Teon fell silent. She shrugged a little. That was his way of speech, but she understood.
“We should arrive in 2 minutes… they’ve gotten into another sewer.” Teon said, looking at a few devices in her hands. Phesx nodded before saying, “Tell me where, we’ll catch him there.”
“Are you sure? It’s smelly, and we might get lost without signal. This one’s especially smelly.” Teon said, slightly unwilling and reminding him. Phesx nodded, “The others will, too. He doesn’t have these comfortable, warm ‘seats’ to put their fat asses. And are growing tired.”
Teon said nothing and checked the devices’ history of shortening the gap between them and the traitor, it looked a little faster than expected. She nodded before directing him. “That way, just go ahead until you see an elevated bridge. Jump the little sidewalk and turn to the right to go under. That’s where we have to go through to follow them… before others do.”
Vrrrrrrrooooom! Phesx went all out in the bike. Its engine could be heard in the distance, enough for the other Artistas to know something was up. They checked their stuff before nodding at each other or giving themselves a nod, rushing forward, too.
“Hold,” Phesx said to Teon as he prepared the bike. He began to sway in slow motions way before the crossing. As the bike swayed to the right and began moving leftwards, Phesx motioned for the bike and impulsed it into a jump.
With its speed, it easily covered a dozen meters despite how low the jump was. Right after, they went under the tunnel. With the inertia from before, he lengthily drifted, turning to his right before looking at the only circular entryway on the wall. Ignoring the loud, enraged, constant horns from the cars he nearly made crash. They zoomed into the tunnel.
Rushing inside, Phesx checked the speed with his eyes, looking forward. He lightly said after lowering his back to the handle’s level. “Down.”
Teon followed his instructions, bending her back and resting her helmet at the center of his back. A second later, the bike flew a little from the declining ground, with the corridor heading slightly downwards. It was just the bike’s speed that made it seem like it was a ramp instead.
Boungk! The bike cushioned the light fall. Landing wasn’t the problem, but returning to that speed on the ground did pose some trouble. Phesx forced the handle to stabilize with sheer force, which he didn’t have in abundance. Only after a while, and as they continued riding along the tunnel, did Teon sit up.
The sewers canals were lighted with bright, orange lights and were all brick walls and smooth bottom and ceiling. As they went further ahead, they noticed a narrower entrance further ahead. Teon’s eyes widened, but Phesx said, keeping her calm, “Don’t get agitated. It’s fine. Don’t move sideways and bent your back if you’re a little afraid.”
“…” Teon said nothing until they were near the narrow entrance. Immediately after, her ears quivered when the bike went from the sewer canals to this manhole corridor, from the bike’s engine reverberating slightly to immediate rush and wind past her ears.
Little by little, she calmed down until she could fully sit up. Everything was brick around them, with the roof maybe 2 meters above her, and her sides slightly further than at arm’s length. Before she could feel more calm, though, Phesx warned her.
“Someone ahead.” Phesx slowed the bike but didn’t stop. This corridor was with barely a few bright white lights every 30 or 40 meters, barely illuminating some of the way. She squinted her eyes but couldn’t see something immediately until the bike truly went slow.
Teon frowned, but Phesx was already loosening his. He said as he stopped the bike and parked it leaning at the side, “He’s not alone. The rear’s yours.”
With that; Phesx walked to a sitting hooded figure blocking the way, with Teon protecting their behind. The hooded figure slowly raised to their feet, turning around to reveal a brown woman with a gut bion on her face. It was like 4 metallic legs with rectangular shape.
From the upper corners of her forehead and of her chins to the lower and upper corners of her eyes. Her long brown hair was combed backwards, revealing herself to Phesx before letting 2 blades slid down from her sleeves as the long hood dropped from her body to reveal armor.
“…” Phesx frowned. The armor wasn’t like a vest, but similar, like metallic fabric from Courusel machinery. Some tough structures of plastic contoured the font, sides, and back of each of her limbs and torso from their end to the torso.
“It’s semi-empowered uniform armor. Never seen it before?” She spoke, making time and staying in her spot. “It costs more than ten times that little arm you want so much. And it also puts a watchful eye on you. Since the moment I caught it, I became a fish whose memory was just- you know what? Fuck that. Get me now or Matías will get away with the goods.”
“…Good,” Phesx looked around before assessing there were no traps. He stepped forth, rubbing his wrists before pulling his light gloves further downwards. Then, he started running towards her. The woman grabbed her cone-shaped blades from their small stick handles.
Step, step! Baaam! Craaaaack- craack- craack- craack- crack, crack, crack!
Phesx ran forwards 2 meters before the walls on his sides burst, throwing explosive might towards him and ‘closing’ the path onwards. He felt some of the force hit his body before the stone and broken bricks did, but he didn’t stop.
“!” The woman’s eyes widened, and their contents shrank. Phesx continued running through the exploding walls with Teon standing up and looking his way, worried. Yet, his footsteps went silent, but the woman didn’t hear a body falling or slammed against the ground. Instead, she saw a left shoulder with a bent arm trusting towards her from the smoke.
Thud! Punch, punch, punch! Phesx tackled the woman’s chest with his left shoulder before grabbing a knife from his torso uniform’s pockets, stabbing it towards her abdomen. However, the blade broke and Phesx ended up punching her barehanded.
The woman recuperated her breath and looked down at Phesx with a frown before kicking his left waist, using the kick to impulse herself backwards. Phesx had to kneel his left leg to not be kicked to the ground before dashing ahead.
The woman had barely stabilized when she saw Phesx rush at her again. Her face’s gut glowed before Phesx heard activations everywhere around him again, only this time it wasn’t one by one via movement detection, but in one go.
Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack… The walls exploded again, this time completely, with part of the roof falling. Phesx covered his nape and head, rushing forth with his upper body bent, with fire and smoke covering everything.
When the sounds of Phesx stopped, she frowned hard, preparing to defend herself, this time with her blades up. But she heard and saw nothing, slowly easing her eyebrows, when the smoke barely moved. Yet, that single motion made her tense up.
Pam! Bang bang bang bang bang bang! Phesx slammed her again. His figure showed for half a second before he came out of the smoke, but he still charged towards her. The woman aimed her blades towards his head and neck, but Phesx used his charging left shoulder, again, to rush at her.
Phesx met the blades’ pointy end head-on, pushing one above his wrist while the other below with the end of his forearm, on the other extreme. Then, Phesx pushed them in a reverse clockwise motion until he nearly broke his elbow and shoulder backwards.
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One blade was deviated far off and out of the woman’s left hand, while the other cut Phesx’s chin, nearly deviating it below it but failing due to the woman’s strength. Yet, before he collided with the woman’s breasts again, Phesx shot her abdomen in the exact same spot 6 times in a row.
“Aaah!” The woman screamed, feeling 4 bullets burst her organs and land in her vertebral column. She had far trusted her semi-empowered uniform armor, not expecting to be penetrated. Thus, she did not prepare her insides to resist as much of the force behind the bullets as possible.
Clank- thud! Phesx rapidly turned her around and slammed her front to the ground. He kicked her hard on the nape and pushed down, letting her choke in whatever air she had left as it struggled out of her body bit by bit.
“Did they also not let you modify it? Is that why your neck and all other joints aren’t plated? You should’ve wasted your credits on either bions or this suit. Not both.” Phesx’s chest heaved up and down, but not too much, as the woman lost her breathing.
“It won’t be… gifted to you afterwards… Nothing of mine will belong to you, not even your own creations… I’ll die now, but you will— later… Now- who… who’s the sorry one?” The woman barely managed to say something before her shoulders and waist raged on, unable to fully move with her vertebral column impacted.
“Mn, I’ll worry about the future. You won’t have to…” Phesx said. His voice made this scenery look particularly sincere. “This is as good as it gets for people like… special agents… and traitors like you.”
The woman roughly chuckled one last time before slowly limping out below Phesx’s left sole. He never stopped stomping her neck down, with enough strength to avoid breaking her neck, keeping her death to one of asphyxiation.
“Haahh,” Phesx exclaimed with a sigh before grabbing the corpse. He placed it over his left shoulder before walking back to Teon, who looked at his returning figure with slightly knitted eyebrows. She watched him walk to the bike, maybe to throw the corpse behind.
Step. But Phesx stopped, kept his head low, and turned after thinking of something. He laid the woman’s body in front of the bike before directing his attention to the bike and Teon, “Help me carry it over there.”
Teon helped him carry the bike until past the explosion zones with some struggle. Both weren’t raw strength-focused. Phesx tapped her seat behind him before walking back, “I’ll be back in halfa minu.”
Teon nodded, but she also noticed the blood on the back of his head, nape, upper back, and his left shoulder. She prepared yellow ointment to when he returned, when she saw him carry the corpse again. Phesx placed it in the second explosion zone, where too much debris made it impossible to even jump on the bikes without becoming headless after landing on the ground.
“Let’s go.” Phesx said after covering her body with some large, heavy chunks of the wall he scrapped off as debris to avoid her being moved away. Then, he hopped onto the back. Before he could put his helmet on, Teon smeared ointment on it, “It’s for your injuries.”
“Thanks,” Phesx said before starting the bike. He went a little slower until Teon finished treating him. Then, she sat properly and put her helmet.
“According to the map, there are various ways ahead. All lead to the same, but we don’t know how many they are. Which should we choose?” Teon asked after half a minute. Phesx could see a divided path ahead. Each new route taller than the corridor but still as narrow.
“The center.” Phesx voiced. Teon asked, “Why?”
“I’m too annoyed to care about deciding,” Phesx replied. Teon nodded and fell silent, preparing her muscles for the upcoming whatever would come. They had already been slowed down, so the other Artistas were a minute or 2, at most, from them.
They went through the path at the center. Phesx rode for a few seconds before his eyes contents expanded, “Ahead!”
Teon knitted her eyebrows before clenching her fists. The bike was fine, but there were contraptions to brutally kill anyone going in a bicycle, let alone a motorcycle. Phesx drifted the bike, stepping onto the seat with his feet’s balls together, and Teon hugging his back like a frog.
Clanch! Clenk, clink, clank- CLUUNK- craaaashh!
The bike met twirled, metallic strings attached from the walls to the floor and vice versa, all installed one before the other. Some went high into the walls, others not so much, but the bike met some head on. It broke part and further more as it went on, roughly cut by inertia as Phesx and Teon crushed their bodies onto the side, stopping their speed by rolling from the right wall to the floor for a few seconds.
They slammed against a few stings, but they reacted fast and prepared their skin, only getting cut, not dismembered or disfigured. Teon bled a little from her armpits, a cut which she endured to not be left armless. While Phesx was better off, with his previous wounds, he looked worse.
They stood up and looked at each other before rushing past the strings. They were black, so barely visible, but that was before. They smoothly rushed across, not being hurt again even once until they arrived at a semi-open area.
There, they saw a small circular opening far away, with some brightness from the other side contrasting it. However, Phesx and Teon frowned. Everything was dark, so as figures moved within it before them, they prepared to fight.
“They actually sent Fox and… Tailburn!” A person shouted, showing a pair of gauntlets. They weren’t semi-empowered like the brown woman from before, but a glow emitted from under his skin, highlighting his hands and wrists’ bone structure.
The gloves couldn’t stop the glow from showing it. Others just wielded some bions, and weapons. They had submachine guns, rifles, and pistols. Phesx and Teon looked at this, standing closer to each other as the enemy wouldn’t underestimate them.
Fwip- clink! Bang bang- trrr rrrr rrrrrr step, step, step- thud! Bang! Bang, bang!
Both parties commenced without wasting time in words. Phesx hid behind Teon as she joined her hands. Her top-quality combat gloves held a small cloth partition that elongated as soon as she rubbed it in between her palms before showing them forward.
The enemy fired at them, but the bullets were deviated or blocked by it. But it was breaking fast. They kept firing before one of them felt weird, and had a sensation of being called. He looked more closely at Teon before noticing there was no one behind her anymore.
Everything remained dark, with only the far away entrance being slightly illuminated from the outside. Everyone shoot Teon as her void began to break, so they didn’t pay attention to their surroundings, focused on killing them both. All except for that one person.
But it was too late.
Punch, bang! Slash, kick- slam! Bang bang bang bang!
Phesx punched the perceptive one in the neck before firing his small pistol a few inches from the traitor’s forehead, nearly blasting half of it backwards. Then, Phesx turned him around and kicked his butt while throwing a dagger to the only one wielding a pistol.
The traitor with gloves saw a knife sweep past him, almost wanting to grab it before realizing it wasn’t meant for him, but it cut a female Artista’s neck afterwards. She bent forth and held her neck’s front, slightly bleeding.
Meanwhile, Phesx’s kick made the limp body heavily hit another traitor who noticed what he did. Before the traitor could aim at Phesx with the submachine gun, he was tumbled about by his dead comrade.
Then, Phesx moved from their right flank’s rear to the center, aiming his small pistol at their backs after headshooting the man tumbling around. 2 traitors were killed in less than 2 seconds, Artistas much older in the secret world than him.
They responded, half turning to face him with firepower, while the other half continued to shoot Teon. Phesx knitted his eyebrows low, hurrying his footsteps irregularly, avoiding bullets and being grazed by many more. He walked sideways to his left while the enemy stayed in place.
His accuracy was affected, but as they also jerked their bodies into harsh angles on the spot, they couldn’t land one in Phesx neither. But then, Phesx held his pistol with his right hand before grabbing 4 pivots between his left hand’s fingers.
He threw 2 towards Teon’s enemy firing line, and another 2 towards his. Phesx alternated his shots to keep everyone aiming at him busy. When the pivots went into effect, he rushed towards them. Some pre-fired in the opposite direction and others on the path he was following before.
But no one got him. Phesx grabbed as many daggers from his shirt pockets before throwing them all towards a person, the female traitor whose neck he cut before. Her eyes widened, but the gauntlets traitor protected her with his arms and thighs getting stabbed.
Phesx rushed towards another, rapidly reloading his pistol with only his right hand while throwing daggers with his left. He feinted throwing them to the others, making them move beforehand, for no reason. Since they were so close, portions of their shoulders, necks, and heads blew off as Phesx shot them dead, humiliating them, with derision.
By the time they knew they weren’t being targeted, and the gauntlets man protecting the female traitor had multiple superficial stab wounds, Phesx had run out of daggers and arrived before another 2 traitors.
Pam, kick, pah, pam- bang! Punch- crack, thud- bang bang bang bang!
Phesx punched with his right, aiming for a forehead, but was blocked. Yet, his right elbow moved down and sunk the traitor’s collarbone, making him widen his eyes in terrifying pain. Afterwards, Phesx kicked his stomach, about to aim with his right pistol, kept behind his collar.
Phesx Caolia shot a bullet, directly killing the traitor trying to defend the already injured other traitor. His head’s upper section blew off, leaving only his nose’s tip and eyes intact before they drooped, hanging from his skull before the corpse smacked into the ground, dead.
Phesx threw his pistol away, making the traitor whose collarbone broke frown, confused. His momentum was gone, and Phesx took advantage of that. Phesx’s right hand punched towards his face, but the traitor evaded, bending his body backwards. His whole body hurt, so he semi-paralyzed himself right away.
Phesx’s punch didn’t stop, though. It went further ahead and landed on his neck, breaking it and making sure it was broken to the point of being dead. He heard from many of the circle’s encounters with other lagjs about how those fuckers lived despite breaking their necks. It had to be irreversible.
Right after feeling he could grab the traitor’s neck and that it would fall apart out of his body if he yanked it outwards, Phesx jerked his right wrist. His small pistol bounced back towards him in the air. He dashed a little forth to the right before grabbing it with his left hand.
He impulsed his boy into the air, aiming his pistol and downing another 2 traitors who tried to shoot at him while he fought the previous 2. 8 shots was all Phesx needed, from the air to the ground, to hit their neck and right eye at least once to kill them.
Meanwhile, Teon had already used his pivots to rush ahead, protecting her left side with what remained of her void protection, and rushed towards the other half of enemies. Her knees rushed unto someone’s abdomen but were blocked. Yet, a moment later, she slapped the traitor’s left ear with her open palm, stunning the traitor with blood coming off the other in a squirt before rotating her body leftwards to kick open the same head.
From then on, Teon jumped from enemy to enemy, using their weapons against the others, their bodies as shields, and using her nimble, fast body to surpass them in 2 or 3 moves, killing them after only one unprotected strike.
…