19 Althea (1/2)

I dart sideways, running towards her from under some trees. If her harpoon lands through my skull, I'm dead. After a second passes, another destructive detonation of sound booms in the distance. A tree beside me splinters as another harpoon disappears into the soil.

I sprint, the branches bouncing off my face as I pass through them. I tear through vines and briars and underbrush as I pound my heels into the forest floor. Whenever I appear from the forest, Althea's cannon reforms into a rifle of sorts without a scope.

She fires the laser sighted rifle, the momentum sink in the back exploding backwards. It was a giant slug of metal that bounced backwards as she fired, eliminating most of the recoil of each shot. Each shot dug straght into my chest, exploding like a honet's nest. I weave back and forth, but she keeps calm as she fires burst after burst.

Running towards a gunman is nothing like in the movies. In this instance, it was even worse. She no doubt had skills for gunfighting, aiming, and whatever else she needed to tear me apart. Combine that with her power armor and whatever stimulant it pumped through her, I was running straight into her firing range.

So I pulled myself closer, sliding back and forth with sharp movements. Her accuracy lowered tremendously. It was as I predicted. She doesn’t actually know how to fire a gun. She only has the skills Schema gave her for assistance.

At times, Schema was an easy way of getting powerful. You could rapidly gain proficiency in a skill with little effort. If you didn't monitor this carefully though, then Schema's system became a crutch.

This gunner was a prime example. She relied on the system to auto aim for her. If I moved specifically against something that auto aimed, then I was no longer facing a gunman who couldn't miss. I was facing an amateur with auto aim.

So I slid back and forth, taking my time with my approach. After a few minutes, I was within a hundred feet of her. Her hands shook, nerves getting the best of her. Oppression would eliminate any precision she had left, but I couldn't use it.

My hp dwindled at half, but once I reached Althea, I was confident that I could beat her in close combat. I leaned below a burst of fire before pushing off my heels, sprinting towards her. Her knees wobbled as she unloaded a full clip into my incoming chest. It did not stop me.

Grabbing the end of the rifle, I jerked the weapon from her. She tried hitting me, I ducked under the blow before smashing her in the side. She keeled over, and with another dense hook, I smashed the side of her helmet. Glass cracked as she stumbled to her side.

She pulled out a knife of red energy, but I weaved between her slashes. She held the blade backwards in her hand, and the slashes were well aimed but predictable. Just like everything else about her fighting. She was like a living textbook, not someone who loved battle.

I laughed as crystal fragments from bullets pushed out of my chest as I regenerated. My hp bar filled from my regen as she struggled to hit me with the dagger. I pressured her back, her strikes turning desperate and wild. When she stumbled back, I charged towards her.

That's when my front foot fell into something like a bear trap. The edges closed onto my foot like a viper's fangs. I howled out as she bounced off the back of her heels, bolting towards me. Her knife came with a changed proficiency. Her movements turned agile. Her hands firm with intent.

I grit my teeth as the knife neared my throat. Goddammit. She played me. She lured me near for the trap, pretending like she had no backup plan. I'd ran right into it.

Right before her knife sliced into my throat, a thought sprung into my head. I lunged out, biting towards her hand. Like a monster from hell, my helmet split open and chomped onto her exposed forearm.

A torrent of blood flowed into my helmet as her armor crumpled under the might of my armor. I pulled her down like a lion pulling down its prey. She lost her balance, falling onto the ground. The red knife of energy fell from her hand as a high-pitched voice screamed through her voice intercom.

She writhed in my grasp, but my flesh was stone to her. She hit my helmet with her free hand, but my jaws clamped onto her arm like a crocodile’s jaws. I pulled open the trap, my arms shaking as my legs crumbled with the trap's might. I ignored the discomfort, jerking the trap off my leg.

The trap tore out chunks of flesh, but I removed it. In a surge of anger, I jerked my neck with all my strength. The bones in her arm cracked. I released her arm from my helm’s mouth before pulling myself over her. My legs pinned her down before I lifted a fist high into the air. She raised her hands and said,

“Stop! You don’t want to do this.”

I smashed my fist downward, shattering the glass over her helmet. A pair of deep, purple irises looked at me, fear stricken and panicked. “Like fucking hell I don’t.” With another crushing blow, I bent her helm, “You piece of shit. You try killing me, and now you want mercy? Now that you're fucked?”

With another vicious strike, I struck her helmet, “It’s too goddamn late.”

Like a downpour of lead rain, I pummeled until her head flung back and forth, limp and broken. The glass tubes pumping her with red liquid shattered behind her. The gunk spread a vibrant red, mixing with the crimson shade of our blood on the ground.

I kept smashing, her face falling apart under my fists. Still, I gained no notification. When I lifted another fist, a black tentacle shot out of her face mask and grabbed my arm. Like a tendril of steel, the tentacle lifted me upwards. As I rose off her, the power armor bulged outwards, the metal squealing as it bended.

With a sharp pop, the metal ripped open, revealing the growing limbs. Eyes opened in sporadic places, glancing around in a frenzy. Her stomach opened, intestines writhing outwards. Her flesh reformed into arms and feet and teeth. As if hell was let loose, this abomination kept growing from the power armor.

I bit through the tentacle holding me with my helmet. As I landed, I rolled away before standing. The mound kept expanding.

”What in the fuck?”

A ball of shadow radiated outwards before Torix walked from it. He turned and said,

“What the fuck indeed.”

He reached out a hand, freezing the creature in place. His hand shook as he slowly closed his hand into a fist. As he did so, the mound of meat retracted back into the torn armor. It stabilized until a surprisingly attractive girl was sprawled out on the ground.

The transformation destroyed her clothes, leaving her naked. You’d think I’d be drooling over the sight, but if anything, I was stunned. She was beautiful, like an amethyst in a silver ring. Her eyes and hair shared the same shade of deep purple. Her skin was almost silver in shade, though it wasn’t shiny. She obviously wasn’t of this world, in every sense of the word.

As I gawked, Torix said, “Have you never seen a woman’s form?”

“Of course I have. I’ve fucked before too, but you gotta admit-“ I pointed at her, “Having that come out of that disgusting monster…I mean, I just didn’t see that shit coming.”

Torix created a portal rimmed with purple before pulling her into it. “Well, I can give you that much. She’s the first of her kind, I believe.”

I frowned, “First of what?”

He turned and faced me as he said, “A half breed. One of those halves is eldritch. The other, I can’t tell, likely due to the eldritch.”

My eyebrows raised, “How in the fuck are you supposed to get a half-eldritch from anything?”

Torix cupped his chin with his hand, contemplating the question. He said, “I wouldn’t know. This is dark, twisted magic mixed with a few trinkets of science. It’s beyond my knowledge, for now.”

I frowned, “Wait a second, why are you here?”

“I followed you on your way out. You think I’ll trust you so easily after accepting you as my apostle? That, and I thought something like this might happen if you wandered off.”

I rolled my eyes, “Oh come on. You found me from the other side of the galaxy. How am I supposed to hide from you?”

He grinned as he said, “There are ways, though they are rather…unpleasant.”

Just the tone of his voice made my skin crawl. “What about her? What’s the plan?”

“I’m going to see what she knows. Perhaps even some experimenting if she proves that she isn’t useful in other ways.”

I waved a hand, “Try not to torture her too bad. I’m off to take the dungeon core. See you at BloodHollow in a bit.”

Torix stared at me, his jaw slack. He said, “That’s it? No more questions?”

“You don’t have any answers, not yet at least.”