บท 40: Chapter 40: Rode the Brave
Guardian
a Worm/Destiny Crossover
Chapter 40: Rode the Brave
If I get out of this , Taylor thought as she huddled behind cover as violet plasma slowly melted it, I am going to get so many more guns . There was a time when that thought would have frightened her. She turned into a lull in the incoming fire and plugged a pair of screamers who got bold and rushed their position. She ducked back, chased by another wave of enemy fire. That time was long gone.
Foil dropped to a crouch to fire around her cover, a rock outcropping slowly turning cherry-red from heat, and recoiled with a howled curse as a shot passed close enough to scorch the skin of her forehead. It was a sound of both pain and rage, and she screamed across the way, "I'm all right!" before sticking her automatic crossbow around the corner and firing blindly down the tunnel. With her power, and the sheer number of their enemies, there was no way she could miss.
Down the tunnel was their enemy. More importantly, their problem. It was a bottleneck. A fortified bottleneck. There were barricades made of pale, gray stone in front of a wall and, set into this wall, was a door . A fucking door. It was an open door, but that was making things worse. There were eight shooters making excellent use of the barricades keeping her and her team pinned down, and another four ducking in and out of the door-frame to support their fellows. Every minute or so, one or more screamers would make a mad dash down the long, open space between their cover and Taylor's. None had made it yet, but it was only a matter of time. The two she'd killed a moment ago had gotten the closest and had climbed over the dissolving bodies of their fallen counterparts to do so.
Grace had, at the beginning of the firefight, tried to repeat her earlier trick of turning invisible and causing chaos among the enemy. A near-solid wall of purple flame had chased her back into cover, flat against the wall beside Taylor. She'd remained there since, twitching like she was creating and discarding ideas at rapid pace.
In short, a stalemate. One that could not continue. But how to break it, she wondered, without getting someone killed? Another set of screamers, three this time, made a spirited sprint quite some way before being quickly cut down by Foil's accurate fire. She wracked her brain, then turned to Grace, shouting. "Can you climb?!"
"What?!" It was harder to tell whether she was confused or just unable to hear. The battle was deafeningly loud. Gunfire, plasma explosions, endless screaming.
Taylor gestured. "The walls, the ceiling! Can you climb them?!"
Grace scanned the tunnel, eyes darting, before shaking her head. "No! Too smooth! I only need a little grip, but there's almost none!" She ran a hand down the smooth stone walls. "It's like it's been polished!"
Or worn smooth by a giant , Taylor thought. She kept it to herself. So much for that idea. Come on , she chided herself, think. You're smarter than them. Maybe she was, but the enemy had just plain outmaneuvered them, so unless they could find a way to blind them they were just shit out of luck.
Something electric crawled down her spine. Blind them? Was it possible, with her bow?
There was nothing to lose from trying. "Foil!" she screamed. "Foil! Listen! I'm going to try and blind them! If it works, you and Grace charge them! Take the door! Got it?!"
Foil flashed a thumbs up. Grace nodded.
Okay. Here goes . Taylor passed her rifle off to Grace, who cradled it as if were a bomb. Then she formed her bow, an arrow, and drew it back. "On three!" she shouted. "One! Two! Three!"
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It worked.
More or less.
She wasn't sure what it was about the material her arrows were made of – Light or voidstuff or what – but when they detonated they erupted into confining, cloudy, tendrils. They looped and bound and blinded, enshrouding and snaring. The first arrow struck the center of the top of the frame and lashed out. The shooters and screamers – as one – emitted a bloodcurdling shriek and began to flail around, as if in a panic. She put the second arrow to the right of the door, and the third to the right, to the same result.
Then she took off, hurling herself forward, digging the balls of her feet into the stone to reach greater speed. Her bow winked out, her knife drawn in a reverse grip. The blade began to crackle and leap with electric-blue light. Crossbow bolts, gleaming black, dart around her to find targets in the bunching crowd of enemy.
Grace was...somewhere.
Taylor leaped, curling her legs beneath her and blinked into the crowd, landing feet first on the chest of a screamer. She bore it to the ground, rising to her feet. With her left hand she drew her pistol, shot the screamer in the head, and put her knife through the abdomen of the shooter to her immediate right. She stepped off the dead screamer as it fell to ash, shot another two screamers and planted her knife in the shoulder of a shooter.
The enemy retaliated. A trio of screamers, still clouded from the voidstuff her arrows were made of, slashed blindly at her. She spun, putting her back to the shooter's she had stabbed. It jerked as its fellows tore gouges into its body, then again as she put the barrel of her pistol against its back and fired three times. She planted her feet and heaved backwards, then pivoted – tearing her knife free – into a spin. She carved a bright line through its midsection, tearing it in half, before charging through the cloud of ash to contend with the remaining two screamers. She used the last two rounds in her pistol to kill one, shooting it in the knee and then the head as it fell. The second one was shredded by a fusillade of bolts.
Her empty pistol went back into its holster. No time to reload. She threw herself through the door, dropping into a slide, and lashed out to her left as she passed through the door. Her blade cut through the leg of a shooter, taking it off at the knee. Then she spun into a crouch, cutting across herself to the right as she did. This time, she caught a screamer in the chest. With a quick, upwards cut she turned its chest cavity into a burning valley before it dissolved into ash. She pushed forward, rising as she did to catch the falling shooter in the face with her fist. Bone crunched, ichor flew. Its momentum reversed, flipping backwards over her arm.
A searing blast of heat passed within inches of her back. She spun, cloak flaring, to see the remaining two shooters finish getting a bead on her. One of their heads, suddenly, imploded. As if a great weight had fallen on it from an even greater height. Moments later the other was suddenly torn in half as it was struck by an invisible force. As silence fell for the first time in – was it really only five fucking minutes? – she suspected that force had a name.
"Grace?" she hazarded.
There was a strange shimmer in the air, like a mirage appeared and vanished in the same second, and then the world's best Chinese ninja was standing with bloodied fists and a bent rifle. "See?" Grace panted. "Best in the world."
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Taylor sagged. She was tired. More tired than she'd been in her life. It had been...how long? Ten minutes, tops, since the fight to take the door? It felt like hours, and every second harder than the last. Every fight since had been at their disadvantage. Numbers, positioning, every advantage the enemy could conjure, they used. And they were getting smart about it. Mixed groups, with screamers to hold them in place while big shooters painted the area with massive plasma blasts. Obnoxious levels of cover for the enemy, and very little for them.
They were still winning, her and her team, but the wounds were adding up and the supplies were running low. Grace, who hadn't had any weapons to begin with, had taken the worst of the damage. The clothing on her arms and legs was in tatters, stained with ichor and blood. A weeping gash in her thigh had been inexpertly bandaged by a strip torn from Taylor's cloak. Taylor herself had run about of bullets entirely in the last, grueling engagement, and she was feeling the beginnings of what she was starting to think of as 'Light exhaustion'. Foil had managed to come out the best of the three. She still had a canister-and-a-half of bolts left. Her injuries were largely superficial; burns, scrapes, bruises, and the like. Her face had gone hollow, pale and sunken. Taylor didn't know why. She did know it wasn't good.
It wasn't going to get any better. She took a deep breath and looked around at their latest victory. It was the landing above a spiraling path that went down, down, down into the depths. The path itself was was carved from brown stone and stained with all kinds of unknowable filth. Dotting the open edges were those strange, luminous crystals. It was a long way down and there was no safety net. The enemy they'd killed were slowly vanishing piles of ash around them. The darkness loomed around them, barely pushed away by the sickly, pale-green witchlight of those crystals. Of course, on top of that, there were the whispers. Soft mumbling sounds that were coming from everywhere, and on the verge of being words. Even Taylor's keen ears couldn't pick anything out. They'd started a while back and were doing an excellent job of freaking everyone the fuck out.
Not that she would let it show. Well, she didn't want to. It was up in the air about her pulling it off. She swallowed dryly, wishing for some water for what was far from the first time. Licked her lips, and with a hoarse, raspy voice, said, "Okay. Okay, we're getting close now. Won't be far to the hive. When we get there, we won't be able to stop until it's over." She laughed, quiet and dry. "Which won't be all that different, I guess."
"Yeah." Grace contributed, voice tight with the effort of hiding her pain. She was leaning on the wall and pressing her palm against the bandage on her leg. "Gotta say, this hasn't been my favorite day."
"Eh," Foil made a solid effort at humor. Her sunken eyes really didn't help. "I've had worse." It was good enough for them to share a small laugh at the top of the downward path. Then by unspoken agreement they moved forward and down. Down, down, down.
Into the hive.
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The path felt endless. The only sounds were those of their footsteps and the endless, sinister whispers. The only light source, the crystals. It was gloomy. Mist swirled around their feet as they descended. It was oppressive. The gaping darkness loomed in on them, pressing against them. Not quite a living thing, but a thing with more substance than a mere absence of light should have. As they progressed, the whispers grew louder. Almost to the point where they could be understood. There was a feeling, a suspicion, that if she ever did hear the whispers, and understand them – that would be a very bad day.
That being said, in comparison to having multitudes of monstrous creatures constantly trying to kill them, it was almost...nice. Well, for lack of a better word. It was peaceful, for sure, in the way a cemetery was peaceful.
After an amount of time, they came to a landing. The air was, paradoxically, growing warmer and wetter as they went down. The stone beneath their feet was starting to grow slick, and darkening from a slate gray to a sticky, taffy-like black. It was familiar. She called a halt. They didn't have any food or water to share, so they just took a minute to breathe. Grace sat, favoring her wounded leg, and began unwinding the makeshift bandage. Taylor drew her knife and cut another bandage from her cloak, handing it over with an encouraging smile. With what she intended to be an encouraging smile. Grace took it, hefting it in salute, before starting to wind the fresh er cloth around her slowly scabbing wound.
Taylor moved over to Foil, who was standing at the edge of the landing, staring down over the edge in a contemplative manner. "Anything interesting?"
Foil pointed. Roughly forty feet down, the path ended, emptying out into a wide, flat space. There was a dome in the center of the floor, made of a thick glass-like material. From within that dome came a strange, orange glow. It illuminated the scattered piles of bone and wet refuse in the room. It also did a good job of showing that there was a hole in wall across the floor from the dome. A big one. Big enough to fit a giant through. The more Taylor studied it, the more she was convinced: it was more door than hole. She was equally convinced that through it they would find the hive. Whether that was due to some instinct from her status as a Guardian or the fact that there was nowhere else to go, she couldn't say.
Taylor turned to her team. "Time to go."
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It was a shame, really. To come so far only to die. It was morbid to think, she knew, but...circumstances called for it. They had gone through the door, down yet another tunnel – this one built with a level of sophistication that far surpassed anything the enemy had made before. Then they found it. The hive. An excavated cavern the size of a football field. Terraced escarpments leading down to a center stage. On that stage was the strange, floral-shape of the hive. The thick, petal-like walls had fallen, pooling and puddling and piling into a small of hill of fleshy horror.
"Fuck me." Foil breathed. Her grip on her blades had gone slack.
Beside her, Grace nodded. "We survive this? I just might."
Taylor didn't say anything. She couldn't. Her voice had fled at the sight before them.
Circling the hive, heads swiveling like hounds on watch, were giants. Not one. No, they'd dealt with one before, and no matter how unpleasant it had been, they'd been able to defeat it. Not two. Two would have been bad enough, but just on the edge of what they were capable of. Not three. No.
Four.
Four giants, each larger than any she'd ever seen, were guarding this hive. Around their feet, scattering like water drops in a hail-battered pond, were big blades and shooters. Dozens of them. They circled the exposed hive. All of them, each and every one, from the pyramidal eyes of the blades to the fetid, weeping clusters of the giants, were glowing with a bright, venomous green.
When Taylor and her team entered the hive, all movement ceased. The entire guarding force went still in the same moment, a feat of coordination beyond any separately thinking creature. All of those dreadful eyes were upon them. Utter silence had fallen.
Then, an eruption of sound. The chamber rumbled with it, loose stones falling from the ceiling like rain. The ground beneath her boots hummed with the force of it. The sound would have struck her dumb with horror were she not already there. Why? Because it wasn't just sound.
They were words. Two of them.
" INTRUDERS! KILL! "
=+= Chapter 40: Rode the Brave =+=
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