Chapter 8: Ch. 8 Grotesquerie
"Standard breaching procedure," Joran commanded. The team sprang into swift, practiced movements. Joran kicked open the first door on the right in the hallway, leading the charge, followed closely by the other two members. As they entered, their lights swept through the circular room, revealing its contents.
Niroth's sentry was stationed outside in the hallway, watching for any movement from the corpse; additionally, he monitored the scene through Pathfinder's feed. He efficiently shared the mental load with S.W.I.F.T., his attention being able to be split and focused on the unfolding events and the hallway simultaneously.
Inside the room, metal lockers lined the walls, each tagged with labels in the same language seen upstairs. The lockers held various items, indicating that this space had been used for storage. Despite the presence of personal effects, there was no sign of life. A comprehensive scan from all three members confirmed the absence of any threats, and an additional check for the mold's signature yielded negative results.
Joran's voice rang out, confirming the all-clear status. The team swiftly reformed their formation and exited the room, immediately moving on to the next door on the right. In a display of remarkable efficiency, the first room had been cleared in a mere 6 seconds.
Joran led the way as they burst into the second room. This room presented a different setup, with various consoles lining the walls and primitive displays attached to the concrete surfaces. However, what caught their attention was the sight of a figure on one side of the wall. The corpse appeared to be melded into the concrete, a truly perplexing and unexplainable sight. The Thrashers reacted swiftly, their weapons aimed at the seemingly fused corpse, anticipating a potential threat. As their scans of the room were completed, it became evident that the figure posed no danger. The signs of mold were absent.
Joran kept his weapon trained on the bizarre sight as he stepped closer to examine it. The corpse was as well preserved as the ones upstairs, yet this one bore an expression of horror frozen on its face. What truly stood out was the lower half of the body, which appeared to have become a part of the concrete wall. Deeper scans revealed that the lower portion of the being's torso had, in some inexplicable manner, melded with the concrete.
Sending the scan to Kessa, Joran's voice held a mix of confusion and disbelief. "What in the moons happened here? How did half of this corpse end up embedded in the wall?"
After a brief pause, Kessa's voice responded with uncertainty. "Unclear. Even with the scan, it appears to be atomically grafted somehow. I strongly advise against touching it. Whatever occurred here defies our current understanding."
Demo chimed over the comms in his deep gruff voice "Yeah you could say that again."
Joran swiftly made the call for the small squad to leave the peculiar corpse be. "Move out and reform," he commanded, his authoritative voice guiding their actions. The members quickly fell into their practiced formation, ready for what lay ahead. As the squad cleared the second room and promptly burst into the adjacent doorway, their scanners instantly blared with the confirmation of life within.
Niroth, engrossed in monitoring Pathfinder's feed, sensed a surge of urgency from his S.W.I.F.T. AI, which rapidly sent out a warning alarm. In the span of just a few seconds, Joran entered the third room and confronted a scene that sent a shiver down their collective spines. The room was filled with metal beds lining the walls, each with a small box at its foot. But what seized their immediate attention was the grotesque centerpiece—a nightmarish amalgamation of flesh, teeth, eyes, and arms. Sinews and muscles held the abomination together, standing a towering ten feet tall, its width matching its height.
The air was filled with cacophonous, unnerving screams that seemed to emanate from the creature itself. The amalgamation strained and contorted, its horrific features twisted in a macabre dance, as it made a frenzied attempt to drag itself across the hard concrete floor. The target of its attention? The fresh and living bodies of the squad that had just entered its domain.
Joran's reactions were as swift as they were deadly. With a mere second of processing and another to raise his heavy Aurum beam-rifle, he unleashed a torrent of focused energy upon the grotesque entity before them. In a matter of two seconds, Demo had also entered the room, his eyes taking in the nightmarish sight before him. Reacting on instinct, he raised his Aurum-timed heavy grenade launcher, its angular missile-like projectile propelled forward with a resounding Toomp sound.
Joran's beam-rifle blasts were akin to surgical strikes, as he vaporized fist-sized holes straight through the abomination's body. The energy bore deep, penetrating its fleshy form and continuing through to the concrete wall beyond. Demo's timed grenade charge sailed through the air with precision, embedding itself into the creature's flesh with deployable drills that dug in for a secure hold. The charge's smart timing feature kicked in, detonating it when it had reached its intended target, resulting in a deafening crack and a brilliant golden explosion that engulfed the creature, vaporizing a fifth of it in an instant of searing light.
The explosion momentarily disintegrated a portion of the horror, reducing it to ash and vapor in an instant. Yet, to Demo's astonishment and the squad's growing horror, the creature remained undeterred. It continued its gruesome crawl, dragging itself relentlessly toward them, leaving behind a trail of red and bloody gore in its wake. The indomitable creature's persistence defied all reason; it was a nightmarish force of nature that seemed unstoppable.
Without hesitation, Joran and Demo unleashed a relentless assault on the creature's form. Joran's beam-rifle was a continuous torrent of deadly energy, dotting its grotesque form with searing holes. Simultaneously, Demo's timely launch of another grenade produced an explosion akin to the previous one, tearing away another fifth of the creature's monstrous body. And yet, the abomination's relentless crawl never faltered, its determination and resilience bordering on the unnatural.
Above ground, the historians were abruptly jarred by the first explosion that resonated from below. Their reactions were swift and instinctive; jumping in their places as the unexpected noise shattered the tense silence that had settled upon them. Albana, ever curious and quick to gather information, voiced the question that was likely on everyone's mind. "What's happening down there?"
Without a word, Niroth swiftly tapped into his connection with Joran's feed and shared it with the group. The holographic displays before them revealed the chaotic scene unfolding in the depths of the ruin. Gasps and shocked exclamations escaped the lips of the historians as they beheld the grotesque creature and the intense firefight that ensued. The rapid succession of gunfire, the vibrant flashes of energy weapons, and the distant echoes of the battle created an otherworldly tableau that held them in a state of both awe and trepidation.
Kessa, driven by her training and the urgency of the situation, instinctively drew her weapon and positioned herself at the top of the stairs. Her eyes were focused, her senses heightened, awaiting the command that might signal the need for her to join the fray and provide support to her comrades below.
Niroth, on the other hand, remained a calm and unwavering presence. His gaze was split between the holographic displays that shared the unfolding battle and the unmoving corpse. His demeanor mirrored his S.W.I.F.T. AI, focused and methodical, capable of seamlessly attending to both his watch over the battle and his assigned target.
Slowly being Pinned to the wall by the approaching creature, Joran continued to pour fire into the creature's form as it drew ever closer. The nightmarish entity's movements defied all logic, defying the laws of physics with its unnatural speed. In a horrifying instant, one of its numerous arms lashed out like a viper, snaring Joran's leg in an iron grip that threatened to crush bone. Pain radiated through Joran's body, his grip on his beam-rifle momentarily faltering.
In a heartbeat, Pathfinder burst into the room, a blur of motion as she nimbly dodged the creature's flailing arms. Her golden talon blade, a gleaming weapon of pure energy mounted on the top of her suit's forearm, ignited with a brilliant gold light. With a grace that defied the chaos of the moment, she sliced through the creature's arm in a swift, clean motion, molecularly separating the arm and releasing Joran from its crushing grip. In her other hand, Pathfinder aimed her Aurum beam-caster at the creature and joined in the destruction.
The severed arm fell to the ground, still twitching and writhing with an eerie vitality. The creature emitted a guttural, almost animalistic scream—a discordant symphony of tortured voices. It continued to crawl forward, its malevolent intent undeterred even by the loss of a limb. The squad's efforts seemed to do little more than provoke the creature's wrath, its persistence becoming even more horrifying with each passing second.
In the following intense moments, Demo's precision-timed grenades detonated within the creature's form, each explosion tearing away chunks of its grotesque mass. Pathfinder and Joran continued their barrage of precise fire, adding to the devastation. Slowly but surely, the monstrous amalgamation of flesh began to resemble a twitching, writhing pile of muscle on the ground, its tortured moans filling the air. The squad members were left panting and gasping, their adrenaline-fueled efforts taking a toll on their breath.
As the lingering echoes of their intense struggle subsided, Joran was about to speak when a sudden cacophony of small explosions erupted from the hallway. The squad instinctively trained their weapons on the entrance, ready to face whatever new threat might be emerging. But Niroth's calm voice cut through the tension. "Killing that thing started to make our little friend there antsy, it twitched, so I vaporized it."
Stepping out of the room, the squad bore witness to the aftermath of Niroth's swift action. The once-distorted corpse was now a black, shadowy stain of soot against the floor, its form obliterated. The metal door that had been behind the hallway body, now melted and liquefied, still emitted a faint red-hot glow.
Joran's voice cut through the aftermath, focused and commanding. "Kessa, send down your medi sentry. I want to scan what's left of that thing." His gaze then shifted to the molten entryway of the last room. "Form up," he ordered, and with a well-practiced rhythm, the squad fell back into formation, ready for whatever lay ahead.
As one cohesive unit, they burst into the final room. This chamber was different from the others; it was illuminated by the humming consoles and displays that covered the walls, all powered and active. Their scans detected no signs of life or mold contamination in this room. Yet their attention was drawn to the largest central display, emitting the brightest glow.
Among the alien characters flashing on the other displays, the largest display had simple, short writing; a hint of understanding emerged from the depths of the Alphermeric Codex, providing a simple translation for the squad:
"FREE ME."
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
-- Power
stone