Chapter 11: Mech Gorilla
The stairs final landing left Walder and Henri facing the ominous metal mouth of tunnel. Its inner confines preternaturally dark, to the point that even their nightvision equipment had a hard time penerating it.
Having an adventurous spirit didn't mean being stupid. As soon as he and Henri had reached the bottom of the stairs, Walder sent another smoky, swarm, of nanodrones into the inner-chambers of the underground tunnel system.
He frowned as they waited, his drone swarm creating a map of what seemed to be an underground powerstation.
Henri pulled out her tablet, since allowing the handheld computer to draw attention to them with the glow of its screen would defeat the purpose using nightvision equipment instead of lights, she pressed a button on her tablet so it'd stream the things that should have been showing on its screen onto her goggles.
Henri cross-referenced the map that Walder's drones had generation with other maps that had been posted to the guild's information sites. Walder did the same using the implant in his head.
"Hm…Looks like we found virgin ground after all." said Walder.
"We've even got it all mapped out...Good, I always thought mazes in games were just lazy padding anyway…." Henri.
"Alright, so do you think it matters if we use the switch to get past that barrier or should we just cut our way through?" said Walder.
Henri frowned, looking at the map, and looking at the barrier that blocked the path to the center of the station. She did a quick web browser search to check the design of the power station against the designs of similar sites that had been discovered throughout the galaxy, and was pleased to find that there were enough close matches for her to be able to actually make an educated guess.
"....I think cutting our way through should 'probably' be fine." said Henri.
Walder smiled, his pearly white teeth seeming to glow in the gloom.
"Perfect...I have just the tool for that."
Henri eyed the man, her gaze drifting towards the storage devices that sat on either side of his hips.
"Boys and their toys….Whatever let's get going before something troublesome comes leaping out shadows, shall we?" said Henri. A playful look briefly flashing across her stony visage.
The tunnels of the powerstation were a mixture of tempered concrete, metal piping, bares wiring, and clear plastic plates. The tunnels were oddly clean, clear of litter, clear of dust. It was as if there was someone around giving the station diligent care at least once per day.
Nothing was broken either, all the fixtures hung as they should. In fact if Walder hadn't had to fight his way through that garbage heap of a city outside, he might have suspected that powerstation was newly built.
Which made being in those tunnels all the more unsettling, because no matter how clean and well maintained those tunnels were, they still stank of rot and disuse. The air in those tunnels was stagnant just like everywhere else on Nabrok.
The two youths would enjoy an hour's peace and quiet before something finally attacked them.
Walder heard it before they saw, then immediately ran to meet the creature as it charged in their direction. Henri's scanners picked up a strange wireless signal that made her hesitate to engage the creature.
The new creature had metal flesh and metal bones, it eyes were cameras, their lenses glowing an eerie green.
From what could be seen beneath the armor, the creature's body was clearly humanoid, but the exactly details had been distorted by its metal inner-workings, leaving the creature to look like some form of mecha-gorilla.
Walder heard the bullets before he actually saw them, the racous barking of the cannon that was mounted to the creature's arm, echoing up and down the hall.
"The monster's packing heat! Heads up!" said Walder duck as something hot, red, and fast whizzed past his face.
"I see it. Don't get caught in the crossfire..." said Henri. Her tone nonplussed, as she calmly returned fire after narrowly avoiding the metal monster's wild barrage.
She clucked her tounge when she saw that the first round of shots she fired into the creature hadn't made so much as a dent. Then she switched out the magazine in her assault rifle for something a little heavier.
Decisively deciding to go with explosive rounds because her air sampler hadn't detected anything particularly volatile within the environment.
The hallway wasn't "too" narrow, and the fact that the creature's bombastic cannon fire hadn't illicted any creaks or groans from the tunnel system made it seem likely that the place had been built sturdy enough to survive a small explosion or two. Henri figured that going off similar designs from similar facilities she'd be safe using a round of "firecrackers" to peel the beast's armor off.
Walder cackled, his laugh deep and throaty. He was simply pleased to finally run into a tougher opponent. Trogs were basically just mob monsters, low level grunts who were only a threat if you failed to keep their numbers low. They were fun to bat around but they weren't the kind of challenge he'd hoping to find as a hunter.
He brought out a kinetic-hammer, which was basically an ordinary warhammer, except made with modern materials, and built with a gravity booster, an imbedded secondary-face, and motion-battery in its head.
Each swing charged the battery which powered the gravity booster, which transfered its force to the secondary face, so that each impact from the hammer was actually two impacts, with the second impact conveying roughly between five to ten times the force of the first blow.
The result being a single elegant and brutal blow that carried enough force behind it to lift the gorilla sized metal monster off the ground and make its body hit the ceiling before the creature came down hard.
"Oh, what's that I see...a literal soft white underbelly? Hey, Walder step back for a second will you?" said Henri.
Walder darted to the side and gave Henri a clear range of fire. She shot two bursts of light explosive rounds into the upended creature's torso. Then both Walder and Henri had to quickly activate their shields to keep from being splattered in the metal creature's surprisingly gooey, suprisingly caustic insides.
"Ah….they've got acid guts now? Damn...Looks like I have to fight from a distance from now on." said Walder. Sounding slightly disappointed.
"Yes...Welcome to the land of the sane, dear husband. Now am I safe to assume you brought range weapons in that armory you're apparently carrying around on your hips? Or am I going to need to lend you my side-arm?" said Henri.
Walder waved off her concern and sighed.
"Nah...Nah...I've got a few rifles, cannons and grenades….Still, it'd a damn shame...I had a plasma-drill that probably would have been fun to test out against these things….assuming there are more of them…" said Walder.
Henri shrugged, glad that generally having no expression on her face saved her from figuring out what kind of expression to answer the sulking guildsman with.
"Well...I'm sure there's still some fun you can have with whatever firearms and the like that you've brought with you." said Henri. Half-sarcastically, half-supportingly, and not sure which she'd intended.
Walder looked up at the ceiling that was thankfully showing no sign of having been affected by their fight.
"....That's true."
Walder and Henri moved, continuing their journey to the powerstation's core. Walder stored away the body of the metal creature. Henri noted that the form was vaguely similar to that of the trogs and guessed that they might well have just run into the last portion of the non-trogified Nabrokians.
That didn't mean that they weren't still monsters though, the creature certainly hadn't seemed like it was up to the task of holding a conversation, nor had it seemed like it was merely a hostile creature reacting to an invader in its territory. There'd been a signal coming out of its body, and once the creature was killed the signal was cut.
Someone or something had either sent the mecha-gorilla out to meet them, or set it on patrol.
Similar to the trogs, this was clearly a weaponized lifeform. Which meant it was a safe bet that there would be more.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone