by Randi Darren
They’re creating a firing position.
Glancing up as Sam and Irene came over, Wren locked eyes with Sam.
They were glowing brightly, a continuous stream of red-mist seeping out from her nostrils and mouth. She was incredibly excited.
She really is built for war. Need more of her.
Reaching out with his Essence, Sam quickly cleared Wren and Tiffany’s hearing. Just in case it’d been damaged.
Wren went back to work as if nothing had changed at all, shoving the desk onto its side and then going back into the adjacent office.
Irene marched up to the impromptu position and gave it a once-over.
Dropping the bi-pod down onto the most likely spot, she pointed at the desk nearby.
“Ammo there please,” Irene said. Then she held her left hand out in front of herself, and purple and black walls of magic sprang up. They slid down into the space between the desks in front and Irene’s position behind them.
Sam nodded and put down her ammo cans where she’d indicated.
“Great. Come on,” Tiffany said and then gestured down the hall. “We need to start moving shit into that pocket dimension. Clocks tickin’.”
“Two and Five moving to armory doors,” Tiffany transmitted.
“One will join shortly,” Wren added, still in the office nearby.
Grunting, Tiffany turned away from Irene and started heading down the hallway. Idly she started to rub at the side of her vest.
“Get shot in the tits?” Sam asked.
“Yeah. Three times. Vest took them all, thank fucking god for that, but it still hurts. One hit me in the god-damn nipple,” Tiffany complained.
Really is a magnet for bullets.
Reaching the first armory door, the locking mechanism clacked loudly before they’d even tried the door.
“Armory two is unlocked and clear. Four is shifting to armory two. Coms will be silent for two minutes,” Abigail reported. Then the com signal went silent.
Tiffany looked down the hallway toward where the other armory door was likely located. Then she sighed and looked at Sam.
“Is this really a good idea?” Tiffany murmured. “Going up against… what we are?”
“We were always going to end up going against the Silent One, to a degree,” Sam admitted. “Mostly because we’re working with the Curator.”
“Oh. Yeah, that makes sense,” Tiffany said. Then she grimaced and started shoving at her vest again.
“Hey.”
Looking to the voice, Sam saw Wren coming up to them.
“Hey,” Tiffany grumbled, pushing down on the front of her vest.
“We ready?” Wren asked, moving straight to the door.
“Yeah. Just decided to wait for you and Ab—Four,” Tiffany replied, taking up her SMG with both hands. Shaking her head, Tiffany looked annoyed and distracted. “My tits hurt.”
Wren rolled her eyes and then pushed the door open, peering inside.
It looked a lot like the warehouse they’d been in earlier, just with a much taller ceiling, and a considerably denser amount of things inside of it.
“Nothin’,” Tiffany growled. “Just like Four said.”
Glancing hard at Tiffany, Wren didn’t respond.
Tiffany looked annoyed, but didn’t say anything further.
The sound of Abigail coming down the hall was obvious long before she got there.
She was huffing and puffing, the sound of her boots clomping along.
Wren and Tiffany clearly both wanted to say something about Abigail and her joining the PMC, but clearly neither was going to say anything.
Sam was curious so he said nothing, and waited.
“She’s earned her spot,” Wren said almost at the bottom of the hearing range.
“Yeah,” Tiffany agreed. “She has. And then some. No argument.”
Sam didn’t respond, but he was glad to hear their opinion was positive.
“Hey,” Abigail said as she reached them. She was hauling a rather heavy looking cart behind her. “Uh… we ready?”
“Yeah, we were just waiting for you,” Wren said, giving the other woman a smile.
“Oh. Thanks. Alright. Ready,” Abigail said, grinning back at everyone else.
Wren entered the armory, followed by Tiffany. Moving in quickly, they took up positions on each side of the entrance.
“Clear,” Wren said.
Abigail nodded her head and started lugging her cart along behind her into the armory.
Passing through the door and by the others, she quickly went to one side.
“I’ll be hooked up in no time,” Abigail murmured. “I’ll get the pocket dimension powered up as well.”
Sam personally didn’t understand the need to move their command post to the armory, but everyone had assured him it was for efficiency of defense. Holding fewer positions was generally a better option.
Instead, he looked up one way along the corridor, then down the other.
“Holy shit. It’s like a mech from an anime,” Abigail exclaimed.
Curious, Sam leaned through the doorway to see what she was talking about. Over to one side was indeed a rather large machine that looked exactly as she’d described.
“What was that?” Wren asked, her tone tight.
“I don’t… I don’t know,” Abigail murmured. “It sounded like it came from near you.”
“It did sound like that. Something broke,” Tiffany said in a rumble. Getting down into a three point stance she vanished around the corner of his view. Sniffing loudly. “Glass. Something was in it. Magic. Smells like magic. Made the glass break?”
That got Sam’s attention. Moving further into the armory, he looked to where Tiffany was.
Tiffany took a deep inhalation.
“And smells very faintly like rotten eggs,” she amended.
“What?” Sam asked from not far away. “Rotten eg—get out. Get out now. Go, go!”
Turning, he went to exit the armory.
Only to slam into a barrier of red sulfur-stinking hellscape magic.
Thirty - Feast -
Not wasting more time, Sam started to call up a number of Essence attacks and defenses.
“What’s wrong?” Wren asked, lifting her SMG.
“We tripped an alarm. Might have been me being here,” Sam said. “Might have been someone’s deodorant. Demon from hell is coming. Just not… here yet.”
“Hell? You said hell wasn’t real,” Abigail said, her eyes darting around.
“I said you didn’t actually go to hell when you died, I never said it wasn’t real,” Sam disagreed.
Spinning up multiple Essence shielding spells, he started to put them around his people.
In a blaze of scarlet flame, a twenty-foot-tall monster burst into reality.
Dark leather wings, a head as big as a truck, black and red skin, and six-foot horns, Sam was dismayed at what’d appeared.
A Pit-Demon.
Damn my twisting nethers.
Flexing its long claws, the monster acted with agility and quickness that was surprising.
Its hand flashed out, slapping Tiffany into a wall and then slamming Wren into the ground. The talons of the creature went right through Sam’s magical defenses as if they weren’t there.
Talons curling around Wren, it jerked her up off the ground.
Firing her weapon into the face of the Pit-Demon as she went, Wren was shoved into its mouth.
Only one arm and her legs were sticking out as the monstrous thing bit down on her.
A sickening crunch followed by the snap of bones and Wren’s body went limp in the Pit- Demon’s mouth.
Biting down a second time and then chewing, the Pit-Demon severed the arm that stuck out of its mouth, along with everything below Wren’s rear end.
“Oh my god!” shrieked Abigail as the Pit-Demon continued to chew on Wren.
Wren’s soul had long since been ejected from her corpse. Having fallen from the creature’s mouth after the first bite.
Grimacing, Sam began to hurl massive Essence spikes at the fiend.
Each attack struck true, then slid off to one side or the other as if the thing was made of ice.
“I can’t do a damn thing. It’s a stronger demon than I am!” Sam yelled.
“I’ll fuckin’ kill you!” roared Tiffany getting up to her feet. She began firing unceasingly, moving out in a strafing run and getting out of range of the demon.
A chipper voice announced, “You’re not Felix. Access denied!”
Looking to that side, Sam saw Abigail ripping things off her cart and putting them at the feet of the mech.
Sam realized that Abigail had the right of it. Use whatever they could find in the armory.
Storming over to a crate, and grabbing Wren’s bottom half as he did so, Sam ripped it open.
Throwing what was left of Wren beyond the crate, Sam peered inside.
If he could keep at least that much of Wren, it’d be much easier for Jes to rebuild her body later.
If we get out of here. This is certainly turning into a problem.
Rifling through the contents of the crate, Sam didn’t find anything of use.
With a grunt of frustration, Sam started to move over to another crate.
A shriek of pain followed by a ground pounding slam cut his thoughts away.
Looking up, Sam saw that Tiffany had been smashed flat to the ground. Her soul stood to one side, shocked, having been freed from her body in a single blow.
The Demon reached over with its free hand and ripped one of Tiffany’s legs from her still trembling corpse and then stuffed her thigh into its mouth. Tearing off a chunk as if it were a turkey leg.
Turning, the creature looked at Sam.
“They’re very tasty, Sameerixis,” grumbled the massive thing. “No wonder you stay up here so much.”
Fuck.
No matter how hard he thought, Sam couldn’t place the creature. It was likely that he didn’t know the monster, but Sam was a bit of a known person in many parts.
Grunting, the Pit-Demon stuck Tiffany’s leg in its mouth and stripped the flesh off as it pulled it back out. With a grunt it flicked the hanging flesh and a dangling bone off to one side.
Then it reached over and tore off Tiffany’s other leg, even as Sam began searching through another crate.
Realizing he couldn’t let it go any further, he built up a small Essence spell and jerked Tiffany’s remains over to himself.
Tossing it atop the lower quarters of Wren, he went back to the crate.
“Felix! I love you! Time to Fist the bad guys!” shouted the same chipper voice from earlier. “Give ’em what for and all that! Fist of the Legion active!”
Frowning, Sam looked over to where he’d seen Abigail last.
The massive mech was powered up, the cockpit wide open. Displays were glowing all over the interior.
Abigail was clambering up and into the machine.
“Felix, did you shrink a bit?” asked the disembodied and quite chipper voice. “Measuring! Adjusting! Configuring! And ready!”
With a thunk, the cockpit slammed shut and then the mech stood upright. The cannon on its right arm lifting up.
“External notifications activated! External speaker activated! Plasma selected!” said the voice.
The weapon in the right hand of the walking tank clanged and opened up wide.
A bright blue plasma ball shot out from the tip.
“Holy fuck!” shouted Abigail from inside the mech, her voice projecting through the external speakers.
Screeching across the distance, it slammed into the face of the Pit-Demon, the creature lighting up like a blue matchhead.
Motion caught Sam’s attention out of the corner of his eye.
Looking over, he found the soul of Irene and Caer holding onto Tiffany and Wren’s souls. Each arm holding one of the other women tightly.
Their feet were sticking out behind them, their clothes and armor fluttering as if it were in a gale.
Not thinking, not considering it, Sam strode over, and grabbed Tiffany and Wren by their cores. Holding tight to the two women, Sam moved further away from where he assumed the portal was.
The much stronger soul that was Irene and Caer nodded at Sam and then vanished back through the wall.
Likely to go get Irene.
Wren and Tiffany clung to Sam as if he were the only thing in the world.
Realizing he could do nothing to assist Abigail, Sam stood there. Watching her in the mech as the bystander he was.
The mech had been firing unendingly into the Pit-Demon. Plasma rounds knocking it further and further into the armory.
“Plasma depleted! Charging. Another round will be ready in twenty seconds,” said the chipper voice.
“What the fuck else do we have?” asked Abigail. “Switch to something else!”
“Flechette rounds selected!” cried the happy voice of what Sam assumed was the AI in the Mech.
The cannon snapped into a new configuration and then began unloading a never-ending stream of screaming rounds into the Demon.
“Insignificant mortal!” screamed the Demon as it began to charge forward under the withering fire.
The mech jerked to one side, stumbling over itself, before it smoothed out and began moving much more fluidly.
“Oopsie! Sensors need to be adjusted for new physical dimensions!” called the voice of the mech.
“Ow! You’re squishing my tits!” Abigail screamed as the mech smoothed out its movements.
Moving at an angle to engage the mech, the Demon pulled its right arm back. A dark and ugly force was starting to gather long before it got close enough to even swing at Abigail.
“Defenses! Activate! Something!” Abigail yelled, her voice amplifying through the microphone.
“Shield activated! Yay!” said the voice in its oddly over-excited tones.
The left hand of the mech came up as a blazing shield of energy grew out around it right around the same time the Demon closed in on it.
A massive bloody fist—encircled by what felt like the doom of thousands—slammed into the shield and was halted outright. A wash of dark energy blasted out behind and around the mech, disintegrating some of the wooden crates as if they weren’t there. Their contents spilled to the ground or vanished as well.
“Attack him! Give me something to hit him with! Anything!” screamed Abigail.
“Laser sword engaged! Pshooooow!” called the Mech.
Whipping around in a wide arc came a bright red beam of crackling anger attached to what looked like a sword hilt.
Zipping through the elbow joint of the Pit-Demon, it carved the flesh as neatly as it would a stick of butter.
The Demon fell backward with a roar of anger and pain, holding its remaining hand against the stump of the other.
Opening its mouth, it let out a belch of deep scarlet flame. Fire rolled out of its mouth as if it were propelled by a jet engine.
Holding the shield out in front of itself, the mech vanished in a storm of flame.
Ten seconds later, the massive incinerating fire let up.
Standing there was the mech, shield raised in front of itself, and untouched.
“Shield deactivated!” called the happy voice of the mech.
Charging forward, Abigail lunged out with her sword. The tip of it went straight into the Pit-Demon’s head and popped out the back. Most of its skull went with it, along with a good portion of its brain.
The sword ripped through the top of its head, as the Pit-Demon collapsed and hit the ground. Blood rushing out of its exposed skull.
The body exploded in a giant blood-red flame which was bright enough to momentarily blind.
Then it was gone. As if it were never there.
“Target no longer valid. Poo. Acquiring new targets. None found!” exclaimed the voice. “Victory! DADADA-DAAA-DA-DA-DADADUN! No loot found.”
Irene stormed through the door at that moment, the machine gun crad
led in her arms and an ammo belt flung over her shoulder.
She looked like some sort of odd sexy action hero.
Looking around every which way, she seemed rather confused.
Not letting go or even considering letting his tight grip relax at all, Sam didn’t even know where to begin with what to do next.
“Uh… can I get out now? Open? Exit?” Abigail asked.
“That’s not how you ask!” exclaimed the Mech. “Try again, Felix!”
“I’m not Fe… yeah… uh… pop the cockpit? Disengage? Let me out?” Abigail tried.
All the while, the mech seemed to be moving around to match Abigail’s movements inside it.
It looked equally confused, and annoyed.
Sam could only stand there, clutching to Wren and Tiffany.
***
The lid of the crate was pulled open and Sam found himself staring up into Decima’s face.
“Welcome back. Eugenia sent you here, rather than back to her location. She’s in the middle of a running battle from what I understand,” Decima said, looking up and down the crate. Her lips pulled tight and went flat on her face. “You shouldn’t be alone in there.”
Sam grimaced, then sat up.
“Yeah. We ran into something unexpected and it kind of kicked us around,” Sam muttered. “Irene is in the second large crate. The third has… remains, in it. We need to get those to Jes.”
“Remains,” Decima repeated, grabbing Sam by a shoulder and hauling him up. “Jes is already on her way. I notified her by radio as soon as your crates arrived. I wasn’t sure what everyone’s condition would be.”
“Two dead,” Sam said as Decima got him upright. “One trapped in a… machine.”
“Trapped in a machine,” repeated Decima once again.
“Yeah. Abigail got in a mech to fight a Pit-Demon. She can’t get out now. She’s in the pocket-dimension since she wasn’t going to fit in the crate,” explained Sam, stepping out of the crate.
They were in the portal room he’d built. He wasn’t sure on the details of how they’d ended up here, but if what Decima said was true, Eugenia had deliberately sent them here rather than retrieve what she’d asked to be taken.
I’ll need to contact her later.
In his hands, he held tightly to Tiffany and Wren. He’d clung to their soul-cores since he’d gotten a hold of them and hadn’t let go.
