193 - Sewer Wars Pt. 2 [Cherno] (Patreon)

The Stillborn, 82, surged forward, sprinting past the corner, its buzzing rising to a scream-like fever pitch as it raised its left arm and began firing. With a repeating sequence of whirring charge-up and thumping release, its weapon’s focused shockwaves tore up the water surface with their mere passage.

But the distant footsteps only became quicker, and a sound unsettlingly like the caw of a raven resounded, followed by a sequence of cannon-like, thumping explosions, sound not quite like gunshots, but close. What came from beyond the corner were not bullets, however. Achmed barely got a glimpse as he was busy retreating and preparing the detonator; they were comets of swirling blackness, zipping through the air like swift arrows, their trajectories bending to all strike 82. A greenish glow lit up inside the Stillborn’s chest as glassy wards of the same colour revealed themselves around it, and these defenses held for a moment, only to be torn apart soon after. The creature continued firing back for a moment longer while its body held up. Soon, 82 was shaking in place as countless explosions tore open the Stillborn’s exoskeleton, spilling its oily inner fluids into the water and painting the walls with the iridescent rainbow of their puke-like hues. A pretentious sort might interpret those stains as a veritable work of abstract art commenting on the traces left by those who are consumed by an opposing force’s overwhelming violence.

Without needing to be commanded, 143 quickly prepared itself to face the enemy ducking to the wall as its left arm split open to expose the emitter nodules. A black blur zipped past the corner, trailing with black smoke and red light as it flew. It was a raven, or at least something in the shape of one. Opening its beak, the thing screamed with the banshee tone of a woman being murdered, its eyes flashed, and the section of wall Achmed was hanging from exploded. Though not enough to make him fall, his right foot was left hanging onto a chunk of loosened stone, forcing him to release it and right himself, moving even further up the wall to the point he was nearly hanging upside-down.

Just as he got his bearings, Achmed saw it; a human shape in black armor, with an unfamiliar device on its waist. It didn’t even cross his mind that it was a Mamon Coupler; he was not particularly familiar with those devices, and only had passing knowledge of common models that his fellow gang members used.

The shape’s face was concealed by a beaked mask. Its eyes were two impassive, circular lenses within which green fire burned, trailing light in a near perfect line as it moved. Its left arm bore a heavy, gun-like catalyst, spewing smoke and flames from its muzzle, while the right was concealed by a shield-like bracer and pauldron combination.

It walked as quickly as any normal person would run, gliding through the ankle-deep water with an unsettling, mechanical smoothness. Even its arms remained unnaturally stable as it leveled its weapon at him. In Achmed’s mind, that thing had to be some kind of graft-beast, maybe meant to compete with or replace the Red Hoods. Its mask certainly looked Zaveshian.

A swarm of smoke-missiles spewed forth in Achmed’s direction, and the shape threw a reflective, black sphere towards 143. Neither fighting back nor setting off the charges crossed his mind, only escape, and escape he did, raising his unique Barrier. A pair of ghostly-green wings formed on his back, contorting to cover him as he jumped from the ceiling to the ground.

Meanwhile, the smoke-missiles’ trajectories curved in an effort to strike him, but they only ended up drawing a line of holes along the wall in front of where he landed, passing through the water and kicking up a cloud of nasty mist. A spark of hope; their homing was limited.

Achmed spun around, continuing to run backwards as he watched and waited. That black sphere exploded, throwing 143 across the tunnel and into a wall, blowing off the Stillborn’s legs below the knees, and leaving ominous black smoke eating away at the stumps, almost like a smoldering alchemical flame. Achmed continued retreating, dodging, and blocking the missiles that managed to reach him with his Wing Barrier. Each one struck with terrifying force, making it no wonder why the stillborns didn’t hold up so well against the intruder. Their firepower was truly monstrous.

Even wounded, 143 fought back, raising its arm to the intruder. A barrage of pinpoint-focused shockwaves bombarded the invader, each punctuated by a high-pitched sound, but the shape neither slowed in its march nor showed any other signs of being affected. There was only one sign that the weapon was even hitting; the deformations in the armor. With each shot, a dent the size of a coin formed on the green-eyed demon’s monolithic chestplate, but each time, the armor’s eldritch runes pulsed with light and the metal simply buckled back into shape. Without slowing down or even turning its head, the matte-black monstrosity turned its left arm to 143 and recorded the end of the stillborn’s struggle in oily splatters upon the wall.

Feverishly clicking the detonator, Achmed cursed the fact that after playing with it, he had forgotten to make sure it was set to detonate all paired charges at once. With each click one of the charges came alive, its respective rod slamming into the wall as the surrounding spikes grew out at odd angles, creating obstacles and preceding the true detonation.

Somehow, someway, the shape simply stepped out of the way of the spikes, as if it knew exactly where they would go just by looking at them before they grew. In a rapid sequence, numerous such stone spikes grew, dense enough to skewer or entrap the invader. The main charges were then consumed by forceful vibrations, their tetrahedral shells resonating. They were not mere pyramids full of gunpowder; instead, they sequentially released enormously powerful shockwaves with a range precisely confined to the tunnel’s inner volume. The first shockwave traveled down the tunnel, and Achmed had to stop moving and cover his ears.

“No collateral damage, fucking bullshit…” he seethed inwardly. Each shockwave that came made his bones and tendrils shake, immobilizing him and disrupting his focus. The tunnel was indeed untouched, however.

When the shaking stopped and Achmed looked the way of the killzone, he saw nothing; just a brownish cloud formed from the powderized stone spikes and vaporized water.