393: A Good Fight (Patreon)

One came sailing out from the dark on a collision course for Marlo, who lunged to meet it. His hand flashed up, caught its arm as it came in and he punched and it clawed at the same moment.

It tore a line of bloody flesh and scored chrome down his body with a flare of crackling energy as it sliced effortlessly through his skin shield. Then his fist slammed into its head, heavy as a bullet, and sprayed its brain into the air and sent it tumbling away, with a pulse through the Aura like a ringing of a bell.

Marlo stomped back, head twisting in search of more.

‘Oh my God,’ said Junko, eyes wide, staring at him, speaking loud over the crackle and boom of Serrin and Maverick’s gunfire, ‘Marlo, you’re hurt!’

‘Eh?’ He looked down in surprise, grunted. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, raising a hand to her. His Mark flickered and his wounds knit together. He flashed a smile. ‘We’re champions now.’ Nicolai’s eyes rolled almost into the back of his head as Marlo’s smile faded. ‘But that thing cut straight through my skin shield,’ the big man growled.

Another big white shape came flying out the dark, and Nicolai’s muscles tensed as he read its trajectory, moved to meet it, eager to discover what his Knife would do to it.

Through Soul Sense, he felt Junko come charging up behind him, one hand raised, energy building within as she activated Symbiotes. Her Soul boiled over with what felt an awful lot like a competitive need to prove herself.

Nicolai twitched aside just in time to avoid the blast of force that slammed out from her palm, and it punched into the creature and sent it, too, sailing into the dark. He watched it go with some disappointment, though that was soon overridden by his rising fury as he spun to face his would-be attacker.

‘Shit, sorry!’ cried Junko, emanating shock and dismay, backing away, eyes moving from him to her hand, as though it’d betrayed her.

The Modules finished their instant replay of what had just occurred, and with their report he understood. She’d stumbled as she rushed in, hadn’t meant to hit him; it had, in fact, been an accident.

His rage transformed into calculation and amusement.

‘You tried to kill me,’ he said, loud as he reasonably could, injecting all the horror and shock he could manage into his voice.

‘No, no, I’m sorry. It was an accident. I just wanted to hit the thing!’ Her expression was a mess of anger and upset and annoyance, angry at him and at herself, recognising she’d given him ammunition against her. Psychology was frothing with its hunger to make use of it, but for now Nicolai had other fish to fry.

‘We’ll talk about this later,’ he said ominously, and spun away from her. To his further disappointment there were no more attacks, and it wasn’t as though there had been very many in the first place. Rather than a rain of things to kill he saw the enemy… fleeing!?

Yes, they were bolting toward the edges of the rooftop, limping and twitching with still-completing regrowth, pursued by Serrin and Maverick’s bullets. The moonlight coated them in a sickly white sheen, pale and naked, grossly muscled. A few fell under the unceasing gunfire but they rose quick, dragged themselves off the roof.

But not, he was pleased to realise a moment later, to leave. The rasping scrape of heavy claws on stone formed a constant din, and Nicolai watched through drones as the things crawled like great ugly white orangutans over walls, scoring great lines in the stonework.

‘What the fuck are they doing down there?’ spat Marlo.

‘Thinking about how many times I shot them, probably,’ said Maverick, armour whirring as he padded over to a new position.

Nicolai zoomed in on a random specimen, unmoving, hanging off the side of the building, clawed hand grasping the corner of a window and hanging very still, waiting. Its other arm was missing, just a pale stump dripping blood, black and thick like oil. The flesh of that stump was flexing and twisting, bulging out as it regrew.

All around, the others were likewise stilling, the scrape and clatter of their movement fading. They were speaking, using something like ripples and emanations but more natural, at a pitch he initially found hard to sense. But as he and the Modules worked at it, it was becoming clearer. There he saw them, their thoughts thick wedges of intention shoving through the Aura like steel nails.

‘They are going to come as one,’ hissed Yue, focus boiling out of her, fingers twitching at the air. Junko stood ready beside her, like a defender, blasting hand outstretched. Her green energy had expanded now to enclose the centre of the rooftop, a circular space about a dozen feet across. ‘Stay in my glow,’ she added. The glow just about reached him and he felt it, a heavy weight, but one that wasn’t acting on him. He and the Modules considered how to counteract its anticipated effects—slowing—regardless, in case that changed, then he stepped out of it, disliking its touch.

She was right. He could see it clear now, felt strangely attuned to the monsters’ thoughts. Their intent was floating there in the Aura for any who cared to recognise it. The moment their wounds finished healing, they’d come.

‘We have about thirty seconds,’ he told the others. ‘If you have anything that takes a moment, do it now.’

The group exchanged uncertain frowns. Serrin looked to Junko, hesitant. ‘This might be a good time to summon something?’

Junko looked back at him, expression shifting interestingly. She looked pained.

‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘Striker is still on cooldown. And the rest of them—Silver was my emergency summon. I was—’ She trailed off, shaking her head.

‘You were meant to keep him in backup in case something dangerous occurred,’ finished Yue.

Junko, shamefaced, avoided the other woman’s eyes. ‘Yeah,’ she said.

Nicolai, through astonishing strength of will, managed to wrestle down the urge to laugh in scornful disbelief. He succeeded only by keeping his focus on what was to come. He’d already worked out how to fight them, was at about a 95% certainty that he just needed to destroy their Souls to stop the regeneration.

He joined Threat Analysis, lending the weight of his Soul to its prying at the Aura, extending out his Soul Sense tendrils as a pair of spiralling antennae. Yes, there they were, their minds like balls of lead, simple and direct. An odd thrill ran through him when he felt them sense him in turn, and their minds seemed to turn, locking onto him, and something rose, a sense of challenge. They saw him, he realised, as some kind of rival. And as the Dark rose stronger within him, pulled his tingling hands into aching fists, he felt he understood why. Because he and they weren’t all that different.

‘They’re angry,’ murmured Yue, as the creatures started beaming murderous intent right at him. He felt her there in the Aura, fumbling around, guessing at what he felt so clear.

He ignored her. Together with the Modules, he was striving to work out how to speak, how to reply to the monsters in kind. He dressed up his own hungry desires and started beaming images and intentions out at them: their bodies all piled one atop the other, blood leaking out of knife wounds. He grinned wide when he felt their rage, a sudden furious spike like a silent scream of challenge.

Now, he breathed, as there came an eruption of clattering, claws tearing at stone. The monsters came all at once, arriving like big white slugs vomited up out of the darkness.

They were met by a wave of gunfire. Nicolai had taken up his M99 and in the instant before they arrived he managed five rounds, the rifle beating against him like a heart. As monsters tumbled down he shoved the M99 into the Big Mouth, drew his Knife in a flash.

One came out from the dark, claws wide, teeth bulging out of its grin. He went right at it, and it lashed out at him as it touched down, but too slow, too high. He’d already flowed under its arm like mist, and by the time it found its feet he was set up perfect behind it. Its broad back filled his vision, an empty canvas begging for paint. The Knife dug in just to the right of that big knobbly spine. Effortless, like cutting a cake, and black blood spurted from its white back. Through the Knife, he felt its Soul tremble.

The second stab went in just as easy, and its muscles strained and flexed, and he felt a sudden fear from it as it tried to rise up and away, launch itself into the air. It pushed off, quick as a frog, but not quick enough. He’d already got the Knife in again, all the way to the hilt, edge down, and he tore a great line across its back.

Its Soul shattered and it spun off into the dark, limp and dead. Two more came at him, but their need to see him dead was like a searchlight shining out in front, far more warning than he needed. He slipped around one and gave it a few quick pecks with the Knife as he went, and that was all it took. The other tried to corner him against its collapsing friend but it might as well have tried to corner the clouds in the sky—Nicolai slipped through the maze of its flashing claws and barrelling shoulder like a fox hunting through the rushes, and he stab-stabbed it in the side as he went.

Then there were no more on him so he wheeled around and threw himself at the first he saw, widening his focus to absorb the fight.

Maverick was backing up toward Yue and Junko, guns thundering. Serrin spun around the pair, slashing and stabbing.

Marlo was isolated from the others, nearer to him, ducking and weaving around slashing claws. One sprung at him, but he twisted and his fist lashed out, caught it a glancing blow to the shoulder and sent it tumbling away.

Another came from behind, swiping, and its first slash tore into his back with a gout of blood and a spray of sparks. It lashed out again as he was turning to face it, caught him in the side of the head, sent him reeling away with a pained gurgle. Right toward Nicolai, who stepped out Marlo’s way into the space he’d left. His arm twitched as he stabbed out at the one that had done the slashing, put three holes in its chest and blew its Soul to splinters.

Two more came either side, but Nicolai went between them like the wind between the trees. He read the shape of the fight, felt them bright and hot all around, painted in lines of fire over the dark of his mental space. In this moment, with him and the Modules merged so tight and perfect, he could see the future. The Thrill was a furnace within him and the Dark had risen to clutch, but he held the high ground.

So when a claw came at him from either side, launched on the end of big meaty arms, Nicolai simply followed the steps that were written for him.

A shift to the right took him out the range of one and into the arms of the other. He snapped his elbows up, caught its forearms and held, steady as a stone and patient as old roots. It showed off rows of jagged teeth and strings of spittle as it roared into his helmet, and it flexed its great arms, tried to press in and crush him with all its strength. Nowhere near strong enough.

By the time its head darted forward and its mouth scissored closed, he was already going low, a rabbit into the bushes. His arm worked one, two, three, four big red holes in its belly, and he was out the circle of its arms as it toppled to the ground, dead.

He laughed as the other one threw itself at him, spun out the way so it slashed, oafish, at empty air, flexed his legs and came right back in as it stumbled. His Knife described a beautiful arc of shining steel that bisected its neck and halfway took its head off, then he twitched back out the way of its last, weak, reflexive claw. As it stumbled around clutching at its half-off head he gave it a couple casual pokes and its Soul burst, kicked it and it tumbled off the side of the roof and was gone.

There was a pure, glorious joy in just stabbing things and at that moment it ran riot through him, something wonderfully intimate that work with a gun rarely matched. ‘Is that all?’ he roared, bloody arms raised, delighted grin wild across his face, and he turned and he hunted for more.

[Author note: Was planning to have this whole fight in one chapter but as usual I overran ._. I really enjoyed writing this one anyway, feel like I'm back to form, actually one of my favourite fights yet!]