Plugging a Leak

[Anders Nazret]

Anders stared out into the empty depths of space and found his own reflection staring back. The ship’s acrylic glass cockpit warped his features so that his ever-present scowl was transformed into something resembling a demon. Still, he studied his warped features. He studied the wrinkles. He studied the scars. He studied the last few straggling hairs that desperately clung to their naturally brown shade while surrounded by a forest of white. He had grown old. This, of course, was no surprise to him. But, still, it somehow didn’t feel quite real. His body hadn’t failed him yet. It hadn’t yet succumbed to the rigors of time. But how long would he have before it did? How long did he have before he could no longer serve the True Heir?

Long enough, he hoped. Then, he cursed himself for hoping. That despicable sin. Hope was the loser’s trump card and it was a poor one at that. He had never relied on hope before in his life. What use was hope when one was strong enough to enforce their will upon the world? He grimaced. He wasn’t strong enough to enforce his will. Not in any sense that mattered anyways. He was stuck running with his tail between his legs from the very thing that he had sworn to destroy. How ignoble. How regrettable. How embarrassing. To think if the True Heir was alive to see him hiding like a beat dog? Well, he couldn’t stomach the thought.

“Could you brood somewhere else?” Ydra’s telepathic voice resonated in between his ears.

He turned around with a glare on his face and said, “I told you to stay out of my head.”

Ydra sat cross legged in the captain’s chair of the bridge. Her graphite coated body seemed perfectly relaxed. Turquoise-tinted datastreams rushed across the face of her polished black helmet. Around her the ship’s control panels hummed quietly, each of them fully controlled by her mind. She had been able to control the ship from anywhere, but she mentioned that she preferred to be on the bridge. She said it kept everything tidy.

“It’s not like I can just turn this off,” She answered telepathically without physically acknowledging him, “It’s like smelling something really nasty, you can’t just choose not to smell it. Well, I can’t just choose not to pick up on your sour mood.”

Anders grunted and shook his head. Thoughts were meant to be private.

“Besides,” Ydra continued, “What do you have to be so grumpy about? It’s not like we’re in danger.”

“We’re not in danger?” Anders scoffed, “We’re not in danger?”

He walked towards the ship’s command console and began to type furiously. He accessed the medium and within moments he had pulled up several news articles detailing his exploits and the subsequent bounties issued for them. Though a few of them had been claimed by his killer in Dante’s Abyss there was still a sizable payout for anyone that brought in his head. From there he pulled Nightingale’s rap sheet as well as Demetri’s. Then he brought up Dr. Caustic’s bounty and Aquarius’s as well. Between the five of them there was a large enough payout to set someone up for a long time. He enlarged them all and projected them across the acrylic glass cockpit.
“We could be attacked at any moment Ydra,” He explained, “all it takes is some hotshot bounty hunter with more greed than sense, and I can assure you: the universe is teeming with them.”

“You’re talking to an escaped black site experiment, I know just how dangerous the universe can be,” She said, dismissing the projected wanted posters, “But… that’s not why you're upset.”

Anders stormed across the room, jabbing his finger towards her, “I said, stay out of my--”

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*

A klaxon alert screeched across the bridge, cutting Anders’s sentence short. He glanced over towards the blinking red light and then back to Ydra. A flash of red rushed across her helmet, cutting through the turquoise data streams.

“Well?” Anders asked.

“It’s a distress signal,” Ydra said.

“From who?”

“The Hub…”

Ydra’s voice trailed off as she accessed several data logs on the space station. Advertisements flashed across the cockpit. Each of them espousing a different kind of luxury or good or service available to those with enough coin to indulge. Then, just as the adverts became overwhelming, a video feed appeared. In it appeared a female captain of some sort, dressed in an obviously high ranking uniform. Behind her sparks flew down from exposed wiring and a distant explosion was heard. Despite the apparent chaos she maintained her composure and spoke.

“This is Captain Sylvia Tilly of the CRVIII, requesting immediate assistance by any combat capable vessel. We are under assault by the unmade. We have managed to fight them to a standstill for the moment, but we have been unable to completely repel them. Several of our gunboats and destroyers have been hijacked and corrupted as have members of our security force. Our defense systems have been knocked offline. We are requesting immediate assistance and will reward those that help handsomely. This is Captain Sylvia….”

The message continued to play on loop and Anders stayed quiet. Even in the depth of space the unmade were unavoidable it seemed. He didn’t hate them. In fact he regarded them with the same sort of indifference that one would regard a grizzly bear. The kind of indifference that persisted until one was face-to-face with the threat. The unmade were mindless beasts, but to think they weren’t dangerous was foolish. Even still, Anders wholeheartedly believed himself to be more dangerous than anything they could create.

The door to the bridge slid open and Demetri walked in. He smirked and looked up towards the looped video and asked, “You two watching a movie or something?”

“As if I’d waste time on such frivolous pursuits,” Anders answered.

“Right,” Demetri answered, “Forgot you were such a stick in the mud.”

Anders ignored the comment and said, “Go rouse Nightingale, we have some bugs to squash.”

Demetri laughed, “My-my, aren’t you a bit cranky today, not even a good morning?”

“Set course for The Hub, Ydra,” Anders said as he turned back towards empty space, “I doubt there will be much good this morning.”

Red Alert
Quest Giver: Kaalakiota Corp. Liaison
Quest Length: 5,000 words
Quest Location: CRVIII 'The Hub'
Prerequisites:
A personal starship vehicle base or master skills in machinery, engineering, computers, repair work, etc.
​

Following the devastating attack from Rose Quartz against The Hub in her initial appearance, the massive space arcology is struggling to carry out repairs and lock down its civilian trade traffic. Half the station is overrun with a variety of Unmade humanoid monstrosities, and the other half is in smoldering disrepair.

Tibus Heth and his brutal, militaristic Number One, Captain Sylvia 'Killy' Tilly need your help in restoring order to CRVIII, either through helping get the automated defenses back online, or, fighting off any of the heavily armed gunboats and destroyers that are being intermittently hijacked and corrupted by Unmade pilots.​

Repeatable? No
Rewards: +3 Influence with Kaalakiota Corp.

 

[Anders Nazret]

Preparing for a battle was tantamount to the holiest of rituals for Anders. This was true for all swordmages. For it was because battle, above all other things, was what they had devoted their lives to. Countless hours had been spent pushing his body to its limits to cultivate a near-superhuman physique. Even more hours had been devoted to arcane study with which he used to sharpen his magic. And many more hours would be spent in the name of both, until the day he died. That day was no different. He equipped himself pragmatically, wearing nothing more than his sword and the clothes on his back. Once fully dressed he began to meditate, drawing in arcane energies and preparing his mind for the coming conflict.

Deep in practiced meditation he stayed. He stayed there until the entire ship rocked violently as a series of explosions reverberated across the vessel’s energy shield. Alarm klaxons screeched overhead and Anders jumped to his feet. Another series of explosions sent him stumbling forward and through the open door of his cabin. Using the bulkhead as a brace he rushed towards the bridge, stumbling again as another attack shook The Tonegawa.

Demetri and Nightingale were already there, as was Ydra. Red text rushed across the former’s gloss-black helmet. She was perfectly still, save for the rapid twitching of her fingers. Each twitch was a command she sent to the ship and it obeyed her dutifully. Through the glass cockpit Anders could see their attacker, or rather their attackers. Several military-grade gunboats floated between them and The Hub. Each of them was bristling with weaponry that would have turned a civilian ship into a floating pile of slag. Just as Anders was about to speak another volley of plasma was launched towards them. The Tonegawa pitched violently to one side as Ydra commanded it to roll end over end, narrowly avoiding the incoming attack.

“Ydra, status,” Anders shouted.

She didn’t respond. Holographic projections of various data feeds and calculations began to spontaneously appear around her head. Each of them running through numbers and lines of code at a pace that turned the floating numbers into red smears of text. Again the ship lurched, throwing Anders to his knees, but managing to avoid a torpedo. Her body was practically vibrating as she controlled The Tonegawa with the same sort of mastery a concert-level pianist would have over their instrument. The maneuvers she performed were so close to the ship’s material tolerances that even the gravity generator struggled to keep up. Even still, she managed to inch the ship closer and closer to The Hub.

“Ydra, status report!” Anders shouted again.

“I think she might be a bit busy,” Demetri said, “And, we should probably strap in.”

“Fiveclaws is right,” Nightingale said, buckling herself into one of the bridge chairs, “Whatever that one is doing is working, best to leave them alone.”

Anders grunted in response and buckled himself into a chair. They were right, whatever Ydra was doing was indeed working. The Tonegawa slipped past gunboat after gunboat, only ever taking glancing blows. The research vessel was not made for direct combat, but under Ydra’s control it became a graceful fighter. Still the Unmade assault rallied against the new arrival and though Ydra’s mastery of spacecraft was impressive it was still with limitations. As they drew ever closer to The Hub an unmade frigate unleashed its primary weapon - the railgun.

Such a device was designed precisely for punching holes through all manner of defenses. Thick armor plates and robust energy shields alike were no match for the weapon. The railgun’s payload, a rod of tungsten treated with anti-shield materials, pierced The Tonegawa as easily as a tailor’s needle pierces cloth. A meter wide hole was punched through the ship’s body with a terrible metallic screech. Ydra cried out in sympathetic pain and forced the bridge’s bulkhead shut while the rest of the ship decompressed into the vacuum of space. She angled The Tonegawa sharply, avoiding another volley and pointing the nose of the ship towards a hangar bay in The Hub.

“Brace yourselves!” Ydra cried out.

There was only so much bracing they could do. The Tonegawa breached through the hangar bay’s energy matrix opening and crashed. It tumbled side-over-side, ripping one of its wings off completely and skidding to a halt on its side. The ship’s internal relays powered down immediately and the bridge was plunged into darkness. The ship’s gravity generator powered off and Ydra fell limp in her seat. Even the alarm sirens fell silent as The Tonegawa came to a rest.

“Fuck,” Anders muttered as he unbuckled himself. With the ship’s orientation sideways he slipped out of his chair and landed with a thud on the bridge’s glass cockpit. Outside he spotted a throng of deformed creatures closing in on them. He drew his sword and looked for his allies in the dark. He cried out, “Demetri!”

“Up here,” Demetri answered as he unbuckled himself and fell to the floor with a practiced grace.

Nightingale materialized beside them, cradling the unconscious Ydra. Steam billowed up from the experiment’s helmet. Nightingale spoke, “Ydra is out… well, not cold, but this one suspects she will need medical attention.”

“It will have to wait,” Anders muttered as he pointed outside. One of the unmade, a grisly creature with far too many limbs pressed its bulk against the ship’s cockpit. With one muscular push the beast burst through the glass and spilled into the bridge. Anders uttered a word so suffused with arcane energy that his lips crackled with lightning. In an instant the word traveled through the air and wrapped around the beast. In the next moment a myriad of devastating wounds spontaneously appeared across the creature’s gelatinous hide and it screamed in agony. Anders stepped forward and cleaved through the injured monster with one solid motion. He stepped outside of the ship to face the encroaching horde and said over his shoulder, “Now is the time for battle.”

2,058/5,000 words
12,107 characters​

 

[Demetri Malius]

With a heavy sigh, Demetri dusted himself off from their impromptu landing and glanced over at the unconscious Ydra. What a wonderful start, their new recruit already knocked out and needing extraction. Anders had already introduced himself to the assaulting horde, and they quickly needing to get moving. The thief's eyes darted around for something of use, before grabbing his dagger and cutting out one of the seatbelts of the ship.

"Ra, bring her here. She wont slow me down too much and I can still fight while like this, so long as we stay close. Anders," he looked up at the man with a shrug and a nod. "You already know what you're doing, we'll watch the flanks while you carve our way forward." Before Anders could even properly respond, another beast came rushing towards him, diving for his arm before the blade of the swordmage cleaved through its jaw.

"Alright, cool, good." Demetri raised a brow before his attention was pulled back by Ra'tima.

"Demetri, tell me what you need, We do not have the time!"

"Ah, right! Here Let me just-" he rolled back his sleeves and hooked one of the chain blades into it, before kneeling down and motioning to his companion. "Get her up on my back." The khajiit followed along silently and propped their unconscious ally up on him, fashioning it securely on her body as he crossed each blade into the opposite wristplate, tugging to make sure she was secure.

"You sure you can carry her, sleek-claws?" Ra'tima questions, watching his arms hover slightly from the weight of the woman strapped onto his back.

"Sure," he spoke with his arms raised and bent at the elbows. "I can move quickly enough to cast, just not going to be doing any flips any time soon. Be sure to make a couple in my honor? Preferably from the rear~" he teased with a smile through his effort.

A chuff was her only response as she led the way to Anders and began to take evaluation of the situation.

"They've started sending units our way, we need to move to better cover. You two will need to keep up!" Anders had already started on his way as finished scanning their surroundings. The hangar bay stretched far with metal catwalks and multiple levels for maintenance and repair for docked ships. Fires spread nearby their crash site, with smoke billowing from the remnants of the ship.

Demetri kept steady pace and followed Anders down the catwalk, making their way further inside the gunboat. The initial, lesser unmade that had arrived were quick and weak, but now, Anders struggled to dispatch them with as much ease. Larger creatures began to appear, and the sudden beams of fire forced them to retreat behind a pile of crates.

"How are you holding up, Shadow?" Anders looked over to him. "I can carry here if-"

"No, no, I can handle it. I'd rather have you swinging that big sword at full force right now, plus your magic will come in much more handy against unmade monstrosities than mine. Plus..." Anders raised a brow.

"I may have.... possibly left my spare pistol in the glovebox." The Swordmage gave a grunt before looking over their cover and charging a orange whip of magic that lashed out at a nearby unmade troop and wrapped around their neck, giving a sickening crack before being jolted in return to the trio, landing just next to them before Anders lifted his foot and stomped it into its skull.

"Take it." He motioned to the laser submachine gun that the unmade soldier held, now loosely held in its grasp.

"See, told you that's why I do the carrying, and you do the killing." He quickly swooped up the weapon and looted the few clips of ammo, his deft fingers easily finding the pockets and slipping the gear into his own.

"Now, for the cover..."

Demetri held up his free hand after locking the SMG comfortably against his shoulder, and with each finger he pulled downward, an unmade rifleman slipped into the suddenly liquid catwalk before it solidified again, the soldiers stuck halfway through with their arms frozen in place. The sudden ceasefire gave a window of opportunity as Demetri raised his hand with the back of his palm flat and forward, creating a shimmering black wall that blocked vision down the line of the catwalk perpendicular to them, blocking off the vision of more reinforcements.

"Let's go, move forward!"

Ra'tima dashed up first, engaging with one of the unmade beasts. She leaped forward and spun, daggers in hand, to clash with it mid-air as she sliced neatly into its side with a hiss, before kicking off and launching it off the platform.

"Come, quickly!" She spoke as she slammed the button by the entrance of the hangar bay, the doors sliding open to reveal another humanoid unmade. Demetri cocked the submachine gun and sprayed into the creature, staggering it for long enough for Ra to give it a kick into the wall and follow up with a dagger in the throat.

"You know, I gotta say, this is definitely one of my flashier entrances... though maybe not the top one." Demetri announced aloud.

"You've assaulted a gunship before?" Anders questioned as they pushed past the door and closed it behind them, before he reached out and shocked the controls to prevent pursuit.

"Well, I wasn't being shot and and forced to crash into the hangar the last time. Though, I did have a counterfeit trading pass. Unfortunately, I dont think that works with unmade."

935/5,000 words
5,298 characters​

 

[Masahir N'air]

"Once you've cut one bloody path through a single plane of oblivion..." Ra muttered under her breath as she slid through the door before it hissed shut. It never ends. Countless dull thuds crashed up against the other side of the metal door as the unmade screeched their displeasure at being shut out. Their myriad of bodies slammed against the door and rattled the walls.

Past the docking bay was hardly any less chaotic. Shouts and laserfire echoed through the carbon alloy hallways, punctuated by the wails of triggered alarms. Overhead the lights flickered and cut out for seconds at a time, leaving only the glaring red strips of emergency guide lights to illuminate the increasingly claustrophobic interior of the hall. Ydra had managed to brief Ra'tima before they had entered into an active battlefield, and Tilly certainly hadn't been shy when she declared the situation aboard the hub to be dire. The khajiit shook her head. They needed to get deeper into the ship and find backup before they were buried under the tide.

The Nightingale turned to look at her companions: Anders' face shone with the barest layers of sweat, made all the more apparent by the HUB's sterile lighting whenever it briefly stuttered to life, his face was pulled into an expression of focus and quick contemplation. She could see the way his fiery eyes danced between the available options given their current situation; Demetri stood between them, Ydra strung across his back like a college backpack, his silver eyes shifted across the environment the way a cornered wolf's did, searching for any advantage. For such a witty man, he seemed chronically unable to plan far ahead when it came to situations. She doubted that he had any plan in mind past 'don't die'.

The rogue smiled at her despite the hail of fists and angry limbs pounding against the door beside them. He knew that look she was giving him, those calculating and steely cold feline eyes were waiting in expectation for him to prove himself. The way she stood, shoulders squared and tail lashing, told him everything he needed to know. "Seeing as our poor ship wasn't a fighting vessel," he spoke up smoothly and started making his way down the hall, "and there's approximately ten thousand of those unmade things on the other side of this wall, I suggest we find one of the security terminals and find away to bring them back online as soon as possible."

"That would be nice if any of us had a functional blueprint to this place." Ra hissed tersely. The ears of her dark hood crinkled down as her ears flattened against her skull. She edged away from the door, half-expecting it to burst at any second and allow a flood of foes to pour over them. If she was honest Ydra's wonderous power to interface with technology could have been of massive help, had the psionic not been evicted from a conscious state of mind. "Unlike you, sleekpaws, this one is not a local."

A twinge of excitement flashed against the rogue's features and settled in the lines of his confident smirk as he moved to the front of their party. "Allow me to lead us to safety, then."

Demetri lead them through the maze of access tunnels and blaring alarms gracefully, but despite that grace Ander's footfalls still thundered down the halls. The firebrand hardly considered even the barest thoughts of stealth in this situation, what with all the overwhelming ruckus around them he didn't see the point of painstakingly watching his own noise. He didn't need to resort to such cheap and underhanded tricks against the wild, untamed and unintelligent unmade masses. They were inelegant, a writhing sea of bodies organized in measures of random noise. He was a scalpel, his form composed and steady, and he would cut through them like a scythe through paltry grain.

They had been walking for about five minutes when a horrible screech echoed down the hall so loud that it vibrated the entire structure and caused the trio of criminals to skid to an abrupt stop just before a rather plain and non-descript intersection of carbon-copied hall. Suddenly a monstrosity careened through the intersection. It sliced through the air with four razor sharp insectoid wings that had come only a hair's breadth away from carving a new pinstripe scar across Demetri's nose and cheeks. The ghastly creature shrieked with fiendish delight and wheeled itself around mid-air to face the group down, its eyes burning red with hellish excitement over finding new prey to torment. Within mere seconds three more of these fetid insects had arrived as backup, jaws chittering at the thrill. The first unmade solider leveled its submachine gun at them with little fanfare, keen to pump the quartet full of holes.

"Shit." Demetri exhaled sharply. He barely managed two staggering steps back when Ra'tima burst up from below with Eight-Claw in her grasp. She delivered a brutal uppercut right up and through the leading paradaemon's lower jaw. Its head snapped back with literal neck breaking speed as its jaw shattered in an explosion of oily green tar-like gore. The decimated creature was sent tumbling to the floor, yet its rancid allies advanced forward with little regard for the show of intimidation. Ra darted in and grabbed her fallen foe's gun, ripping it from the monster's dying grasp with a rolling growl of exertion.

The Nightingale retreated with a hiss, then cast a glance back at Demetri and mimicked the way she had seen him hold his own firearm, threading her neck and shoulder through the sling. "Is it too late to ask him for that shooting lesson he promised her~?" Her chuckle rang out from behind her steely silver mask.

"Not at all sweetheart~!" The Shadow grinned wolfishly, his pupils dilated wide with the rush of adrenaline pumping through his veins. He adjusted Ydra on his back and laid several rounds into one of the paradaemons' chitinous exoskeletons in rapid succession. "As long as you're not opposed to learning on the job~" He called to her over the laserfire before ducking into one of the recesses lining the walls.

Anders wove his arcana through the air, tearing one after another apart with only a spoken word. Still more unmade footmen trickled in to take the place of their fallen comrades. Some where barely humanoid-shaped globs of mass intent on violence, while others were still harrowingly recognizable as freshly killed people in their state of decay. They shambled and crawled and shuffled and hissed, a mix between the hive mind mentality of eusocial swarming and that of a frenzied horde of desperate rats.

"Ha, she has always been quick with hands-on learning!" Ra'tima quipped, her tail flicking as she peeked from around a pillar and shot off a few bursts, peppering the chest and wings of the next paradaemon that snarled at her. It shrieked in fury and lunged at her through the bullet hail, the cruel blade of its glaive caught the flickering lights in flashes of cold tinny steel. It fancied itself quick, but she was far quicker still and rolled under the insect, springing up behind her recovering foe. She pounced upon its back, her momentum sending it crashing to the metal floor where she grabbed its neck and divorced its head from its body in a single motion. Bolts of plasma splashed against the void black fabric of her cloak, and unable to fully pierce it merely contented themselves with scorching smoldering marks into her Noctra blessed armor.

The Nightingale rose to her feet, her form wreathed with the trails of dark smoke rising from her burnt cloak, and returned the favor with a loose spray of laser bolts before advancing with a low roll into cover. Demetri considered it as a teaching moment and took advantage of a small break in the crossfire to sidle up beside his partner in crime. He was careful to not knock Ydra's head against the wall in the alcove.

"Not at all like a bow, huh?"
​

1,351/5,000 words
7,847 characters​

 

[Demetri Malius]

“Just be sure to keep track of your ammo, it can be hard to keep count.” Demetri noted as he peeked the corner, planning a route as he gave quick pointers to his Khajiit partner. “Laser guns can be a bit tricky, but at least they often have a little screen to keep track. Just need to keep track of batteries in that case.”

Ra’tima nodded as she checked the small digital display. Unfortunately, she only managed to snag a single extra battery on her way to cover, and the meter on the weapon showed half empty.

“Well, sleek-claws, what next?”

Anders stepped forward and spoke up before the thief could pipe up. “We move forward.” The towering slayer stepped forward to confront the two corrupted crewmen that had rushed forward, methodically swinging his sword around to knock them off balance, one after the other, and deliver a deadly blow.

“Yeah, that.” Demetri followed suite and directed them through the halls, blasting lesser unmade as they navigated to the security room. Resistance continued to build as they pushed through, slowly wearing them down until they reached the large bay before the security panel.

“Just through here and we should be at the-” Demetri ate his words as he nearly ran into the hulking figure that stood just inside the entrance. “Big guy… a really big guy.” His companions spread out, looking at the monstrosity. It seemed like some type of ogre, disfigured and covered in pustules and folded flesh. It held what seemed to be a torn metal cabin door, which it quickly began to rear back to swing as it roared in anger and anguish.

Demetri barely managed to dodge the brunt of the swing, hearing the whoosh of air before clipping his should and sending him spinning to one side of the room. He managed to mostly avoid landing on Ydra, grunting as he pulled himself to his feet.

“Ugh… what… where are…” Ydra spoke up as she groaned and awoke, opening her eyes to the giant in front of them before snapping to focus.

“Wait! What are we doing?”

“Ydra! We need to get into this room.” Anders shouted, trying to keep the monsters attention. With another chanted word, Anders flared up a wound from the creature’s arm, evoking another growling roar as it pounded the floor. Demetri’s mind raced as he heard footsteps down the hallway of approaching opposition. Ratima had managed to reach the security door, but it was locked and required a passcode.

Ydra thrashed for a moment before Demetri managed to loosen the chains, a bit panicked at the situation.

“Alright, alright, chill out! Hold still and… there!” He unhooked the chain and she dropped to the flood on her feet, both letting out a sigh of relief.

“Go, I can handle the big guy. Anders, can you make sure nothing slips past me?” Demetri shouted, receiving a look of suspicion.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, now let’s hurry, this is gonna get a uglier than it already is.”

Demetri raised his hands as one would when controlling a puppet, eyes glowing with magical energy as the brute began to do the same. They raised their arm and wipes their eyes as their surroundings changed.

Everything looked wrong, felt wrong, tasted wrong. But in it’s current state, it could not fully comprehend what was happening. The small, annoying beings had disappeared, and the stampede of footsteps finally arrived, more unrecognizable figured in need of being undone. To suffer as it had.

With a fierce grunt and windup, they swung the door wide, swiping a large swath of the small annoying creatures that spoke in gibberish and clamored about. They moved oddly, but it did not matter. They must be squashed. The creatures fought back, slashing the monstrosity with blades while they circled it. They clashed and filled the air with screams and blood.

Ra’tima beckoned Ydra over to help with overriding the security door. The room filled with parademons, and Demetri had pressed himself to a corner of the room as he worked his illusions.

“He is buying us time, hurry!” Ra’tima hissed as Ydra brought up her techpad and began to hack her way in.

“I know, hopefully it will be enough.” She ran through different programs to crack the security measures. “It is good that you brought us here, we may have a chance at not being completely on our back foot.”

Anders kept watch on the two, waiting in ambush until a parademon seemed to gain some valor and confidence in side-stepping the brute and heading for them. With a great leap the unmade warrior dove for Ydra, with Ra’tima stepping in front to attempt to deflect the attack. A lightning whip stopped the attack, allowing enough time for her to reach to her sling and bring the barrel of the laser rifle to the beings chest and fire the rest of the battery’s worth of heat into it. The parademon slumped to the floor before Anders cleaved it in half.

“Almost done?” Ra’tima questioned as the chaos continued and she popped the expended battery out, replacing the smell of burning flesh with smoke and scorched metal.

The sudden high pitched beep and swoosh of the door was their answer. Inside, two more parademons turned their attention towards them, ready. Past them was their chance to turn the tide and take back the station.

1838/5000 Words
10,433 Characters