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72.35% Steel Waste / Chapter 513: Ghosts Appear

Chapter 513: Ghosts Appear

Veronica unconsciously growls at Elijah's words, "We aren't going anywhere, Elder." she spits while taking her helmet off, revealing her face to him and causing him to go silent.

"Veronica." he audibly mutters, half in disbelief and half in confusion. "Why are you here?..." he asks, his tone noticeably softer than before.

"Why do you think I'm here?" Veronica retorts, her question clearly rhetorical.

...

"I imagine it's to retrieve your... Childhood sweetheart...?"

Afton nods, "It's good you acknowledge it so quickly, means you must already know where she is." he says, taking advantage of Elijah's strange state.

"N-no no no, she isn't here! You've come and achieved nothing! Leave before the cloud takes you!" he demands, the sound of his fist slamming into something becoming audible.

Veronica puts her helmet back on and shakes her head, "We aren't going anywhere without finding her! And if we can't do that, I'll find you instead and wring your neck until you speak the truth!" she growls.

"THEN YOU WILL DIE!" Elijah finally shouts as a strange sound starts emitting from a nearby siren. The hologram cuts out, leaving the trio cautiously standing in the middle of the town square as the sound of scrambling and staggard movements start occurring around them.

Afton whips around when a manhole cover is thrown from its position, it leaves a trail of corrosive red fog as it flies through the air, and from the manhole, a strange humanoid figure appears. It creepily crawls out with a cleaver in one hand... It seems to be a person wearing a strange black hazmat suit with glowing green eyes.

Afton's eyes widen when he sees it, quickly recognising it as one of the experimental hazmat suits designed by the Think Tank before the Great War. "Stop there or I'll blow your damn head off!" he commands while pointing his rifle at it.

The creature ignores his commands however, slowly moving towards the trio while its body bends and contorts are awkward angles the human body made to perform... To Afton, it looks more akin to a zombie than anything else...

Once it gets a couple of meters away from the group its weird and awkward movements change as it throws itself towards them at surprising speeds! Afton isn't surprised, however, allowing its cleaver to skitter off of his armour as he drives his metal elbow into its face, pile-driving it into the floor and kicking up a good amount of dust.

Afton stands up from the attack and looks down at the creature, surprised that it's still moving... The force of his attack should have completely crushed its skull and liquified its brain... Yet it still seems aware and aggressive...

He tries to finish the creature off by firing his Anti-Material Rifle into its chest, this blows a huge hole into it, destroying its heart, lungs, ribs, and spine... But it still continues to move. The hole that was created even starts to be filled with a strange substance similarly coloured to the red corrosive fog...

Finally having enough and wanting to alleviate his curiosity he targets it with [Living Anatomy] to see just what the fuck this thing actually is.

[Ghost]

Health : ??%

Stamina : ??%

DT : 18

Strength : 10

Perception : 3

Endurance : 10

Charisma : 1

Intelligence : 1

Agility : 1

Luck : 1

Ailments :

[Cloud-Ridden] : An unfortunate soul complete contaminated by the Cloud, forcing them to live an agonized and tortured resistance. Unable to die through most conventional means, regenerative capabilities, enhanced strength and endurance while everything else is significantly reduced.

[Blood-Crazed Hunter] : Massively enhanced agility when attacking, mental derangement.

[KILLMEKILLMEKILLMEKILLMEGODITHURTSKILLMEPLEASEHELPKILLMEKILLME-] : ??

Afton's hard look softens slightly as he reads through the status... "Sorry bastard..." he mutters, firing a shot into its head and splattering its brain matter across the ground... Only for its head to start slowly regenerating.

Veronica fires her Gauss Rifle at it but it achieves similar results as Afton's attempt. "Why won't it die!"

Afton holsters his rifle onto his back while igniting his Ultra Chainsword, "The fog is preventing it from dying." he states, "Best we can do is chop it up and stop it from regenerating."

He slices his weapon at the Ghost, cutting it in half before continuing his attacking, cutting it into four, eight, sixteen, etc. Eventually, all that's left is a pile of bloody flesh that seems to be emitting particles of red fog.

Despite his efforts, the flesh still seems to be trying to heal itself... Annoyed, he kicks the pile of flesh which forces the many chunks to separate as they're scattered around the area. This seems to put the creature out of commission as while it still seems to be trying to heal, its flesh is spread too far apart to properly regain its mass.

He sighs, "That should deal with it for now..." he mutters, looking back at the disturbed-looking Veronica and Anja.

However, it's only when he turns around that he notices why they were looking that way... Behind him, he could spot more ghosts entering the square. Twenty, thirty, almost forty of them stumbling towards the group...

Afton glances at his companions, "Yeah, fuck this. We barely 'killed' one, I'm not getting involved with... That!" he exclaims, grabbing Anja and forcing a knife-hand into the side of a building, penetrating the wall and creating a temporary handhold for him to climb.

He quickly scales up the building with Anja holding on via her hands around his neck... Veronica slowly follows, using the handholds he'd created. Once they all reach the roof he kneels down and looks over at the Ghost people trying to follow but completely failing at it.

He looks at the others, "See? I told you this was like a horror movie... At least we have the advantage in technology... Though, wouldn't that make this Alien?" he ponders.

"Afton, we don't have time to deconstruct your vague callbacks that no one's ever heard of... There's literally an army of undying creatures inhabiting this town, and we still have no idea where Christine is!" Veronica exclaims.


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Niggross Niggross

Hope you bois liked the chap, if I missed anything please let me know. Thanks!

Also, thanks to my patrons for their support :

ShinAmazake

Chris Lindsey

Kingsprovince

Michael Jarrett

Nazlican Erdem

next chapter

Chapter 514: Local.

Afton pokes her in the forehead of her helmet, "Calm down. We'll find her, and we'll kick Elijah in the balls while we're at it, so chill." he says placatingly,

Veronica releases a sigh but doesn't say anything else, instead, turning her attention to the rest of the town. Honestly, there wasn't all that much to see, aside from the sprawling rooftops it was difficult to spot anything that indicated what distract they were in, what building was which, or what wasn't completely covered in fog.

They could see a few streets heavy with fog, but aside from that it was a gamble attempting to enter any buildings. Just opening a door could release fog onto you and burn you to death, so the whole town was basically a death trap.

With nothing else left to do, the trio starts hopping from one roof to another, hoping to find some indication of where Christine was, or where they could even go without being swarmed by Ghosts... Every time they touched the ground, Elijah would activate a siren that would bring more creatures towards them, making it impossible to go anywhere...

Still, at least they now knew that Elijah was in a security station or someplace that allowed him access to the area's systems.

"Urgh! This is getting us nowhere!" Veronica groans, though Afton and Anja were feeling similar sentiments.

"Yeah, but we don't really have any other options, so persistence is key." Afton states.

Veronica just shakes her head, and is about to retort when she spots movement off in the distance... The other's also notice the faint figure, moving swiftly and almost gracefully, unlike how the Ghosts get around...

The figure vanishes into an alleyway and Afton quickly hops to the next roof towards it, "Come on, this might be our key outta here." he says.

The group continues moving across the rooftops, and eventually drop down onto a balcony to see if they could find the figure. Afton pokes his head through the doorway into the building and is surprised to find the entire place rigged with explosives and traps... The stairway has two shotgun traps, and an active mine on the landing. If you get past that you'd find tripwires linked to the pins of grenades that were hanging from the ceiling...

All in all, if you tripped all the traps wall bumbling through here, the entire second floor of the building would explode. Needless to say, it'd probably put any Ghosts who wander up here out of commission and prevent any more from coming up...

Come to think of it, the only reason someone would do this would be to stop the Ghosts from coming up here... Seeing as whoever had set it all up wasn't here, that meant that it was meant to protect something else... Like another path?

Afton pulls back and looks at the others, "Don't go in there, it's rigged to blow to kingdom come with a single mistake..." he says while looking around the balcony, quickly noticing the large sheet of metal linking the balcony to the next one over.

Following it, he looks into the room connected to it and finds that the stairway had been blocked off entirely. However, the place was still empty... Afton walks atop the next sheet of metal linking the balconies, and after finding a few empty rooms, he stumbles across a balcony doorway covered by sheets, he takes a peek behind it and spots lights, meaning the sheets were meant to stop the lights from attracting attention.

"Hello?" he calls out, hoping to not get attacked by a surprised resident.

...

Nobody answers, but he can hear rapid movement, meaning whoever lived here was still inside. "I'm coming in, don't shoot or we'll both regret it." he warns as he cautiously steps through, watching for any traps.

Veronica and Anja trail behind him closely, the latter making sure to utilise the others as human shields.

Soon enough, Afton eventually spots the person living here... A ghoul wearing a ragged black suit, big sunglasses, and a collar? around his neck. He was sat in a chair looking out of a large hole in his apartment wall, there was a chair next to him, and Afton could see a couple wires sticking out from it, meaning whatever was there had been hastily made, or the aesthetics weren't important.

The ghoul turns his head to look at them and was about to speak when he freezes, "W-what are you doing here in those suits of armour!?" he asks, the words unconsciously slipping from his mouth.

"What do you mean? Have you seen those things out there? I'd rather be wearing this than that suit." Afton retorts, causing the ghoul to frown.

"No. That's not what I meant, HE, would have never let you IN... D-did you kill him?" he tentatively asks, but loses hope when his collar buzzes to life.

"*Bzztch!* No. I'm not dead, nor are they able to kill me... Do not speak to them, or you know what will happen.*Bzztch!*" Elijah says through the collar before shutting off communications.

The ghoul scowls and stands from his seat, throwing his glasses at the floor and causing them to shatter, "Oh, you bastard... I'll toss you into the cloud when I find you, chaining me up like a-a dog!"

Afton takes a sideways glance at Veronica, "Another one of Elijah's victims then?" he guesses, getting a small nod but pursing his lips when he thinks to say more. "You heard him, I say anything to you and my head explodes," he taps his collar that's started to slowly and rhythmically beep, "And I know from experience that he does not lie."

Afton frowns, quickly recognising the collar as the one's formerly used at Little Yangtze to keep the ghoul prisoners properly behaved. He cuts out the microphone of his helmet and whispers to Nyx, "Do we have any way to deactivate the collar? We still have those one's that Elijah had altered in the Think Tank, right?"

"We do, sir... If you give me a moment, I could pull up their schematics." Nyx states.

Afton nods in agreement before turning his microphone back on, "What's your name?"


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Niggross Niggross

Hope you bois liked the chap, if I missed anything please let me know. Thanks!

If you like my content or want to read ahead please go to https://www.p.atreon.com/Nagross, I'd appreciate it.

Also, thanks to my patrons for their support :

ShinAmazake

Chris Lindsey

Kingsprovince

Michael Jarrett

Nazlican Erdem

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