Fantasy Action Adventure Scifi A Growing Menace - *Any Character, Any Genre*

[Fatal Nymph]

The bugs made her shiver, but it didn't hinder her movements. A slow and choppy start ended up becoming a fluid and almost artful display of her swordsmanship skills. While she could have certainly used the large AOE weapon upon her back, that was akin to a rail gun, the dog like female left the weight upon her shoulder and back.

The ion sword made for less heft, no ammo to reload and it was decent at cutting through if not just straight impaling the blink bugs. From the shrieks of the large entity one might assume Captian Rochdale was carving a lovely hole into it, though Zava didn't dare take her eyes off of the immediate surroundings to look. This things were like an endless sea.

Though the anthro fully felt as though she was truly doing everything she could manage by herself. The bugs piling up around her, guts and liquids making it impossible to have any type of solid footing. It was near impossible to keep up with this task.

"I'm not sure how much longer I can handle this." Her own cloths splattered and the stench beginning to sting her nose and eyes. Though she kept going, her hands trembling as her arms burned. Her every day routine did not prepare her nearly enough for this type of fighting. Yes, she was slaying bugs in one or two swings however the stroke of the blade was powerful and precise which took a toll upon her body and mind.

So far it might have been a total of ten minutes at most, but her muscles screamed and ached. The large weapon upon her back only seemed to hinder her. Though it wasn't true. She had been through much wore situations, held onto heavy items for longer to make a precise shot with no room for error. But it had all been so long ago. Now instead of it being a fight that would come to an end, it seemed like a fight for survival.

Zava could only hope that what she was doing would be enough, if nothing else the large AOE weapon would do the trick if she could fire it.

 

[Sylent Hyll]

The lower corridor was as silent and empty as the one she’d initially explored. As above, the elevator had no power and there were no lights. She continued to use her night-vision down the corridor, switching to x-ray only when coming up on the stairwell doors or passing rooms to investigate. She encountered nothing. But those insects had to come from somewhere; they had chewed their way up from below; it stood to reason she needed to continue descending. She encountered several insects on the next floor down. Painting the targets, she quickly emptied eight more rounds - four from each pistol. By the time she moved on, mere seconds after her initial encounter, the corridor was covered in biological refuse.

In total, she descended eight levels and emptied her first pair of mags. She was just reloading as she descended yet another staircase when she detected a significant alteration of the environmental status: an increase in temperature and humidity as well as localized ambient static electricity. She was getting close to the source, or so it seemed. She was about halfway down the corridor when her auditory receptors picked up the sounds of distant weapons fire.

>Escalating ready state
>Engaging active combat mode

Her body and equipment began to shimmer as a close-set forcefield sprang into life and her visual mode switched to thermal imaging. As she came upon the stairwell, she saw it: bodies moving below her, blocked by a large object that was radiating heat but very quickly cooling; exiting the object was an object that was not losing heat, however. It was quite large and segmented, with many smaller joints and legs picked up by her HUD despite not being immediately visible given her current visual mode. She almost immediately identified several weak points that would cripple it and took aim.

Six shots rang out from somewhere in the dark, each one slamming into the creature just at the juncture where segments met. She only had a clear shot of three of those segmentation joints, but that meant two shots each to do the most damage with the shortest number of rounds. Three rounds from each pistol, and her HUD suddenly grew brighter - as did the stairwell - as the insect’s body began to glow and expand rapidly where the rounds had hit. The sudden violent expulsion of biomatter shrapnel was distant enough from her and at a decent enough angle that she avoided being splattered entirely, but it was highly unlikely that those below her would avoid it.

The insect was making panicked insect noises as it twisted and reeled in agony and terror. It wasn’t dead yet, but it was now unable to properly move due to a significant portion of its body being decimated by small-scale explosions. The temperature surrounding the insect briefly skyrocketed but quickly cooled, yet the insect’s body temperature remained high despite fluctuations due to the detonated rounds.

KRMX prepared to fire again, analyzing what remained of the enormous insect.

 

[Hekazu]

The situation was quick to change. He was no active participant for a majority of it, but to his surprise the assistance that would free him came not from his present company but someone else within the stairwell. Even as the monstrosity that was grappling him exploded bits and pieces all over him, he forced himself to not look the gift horse into the mouth and readied his harpoon once more. Seek. Strike. Heave. Release. Strike. Seek. Strike. Heave. Release. Strike.

Seek. Find a potentially fatal spot and a seam in the armour protecting it. Strike. Create leverage via the harpoon. Heave. Use said leverage to open the plate. Release. Pull back the weapon, observe the flesh beneath. Strike. Make the pulsing organ quit its business. And on the third of the series, the bone weapon throbbed as it absorbed more along its length than on any other strike. He had found life. And the monster lost its own share. Rochdale twisted the weapon deeper in the wound, and the familiar convulsion travelled once more along the bone harpoon.

The big one was gone for all that he could tell. Pulling forth the backup weapon from his coat, he shot wildly towards the two directions he could surmise had the most targets to take out while still avoiding friendly fire. The weapon was empty after that, much like Zava had suggested and as he knew. But so was the battle calming down now, with further gunfire or swings of other weapons. And so, at the end of it, he would pull his weapon away from the corpse and turn first to Zava, to see if his existing company was all right. Lacking any immediate signs of concern, his next point of focus would be the unfamiliar party. Dressed in a manner that only reminded him of the most capable burglars around his home. But this was a strange place, and clearly with weapons like that she was no burglar.

"Thank you for the assistance", he regarded the new arrival, his tone even and lacking of emotions such as full gratitude. "That could have ended up worse if not for the timely interdiction." Yet to begin with, he did not have much more to add. The response to his words would tell enough. And people seemed to like talking with Zava more either way. She seemed to gather far less blame and assumptions of malice than he. Though, granted, a lone man standing over a corpse of a beetle matriarch with a notched weapon of bone in a trench-coat coated in the beetles' juices might not be a sight to inspire feelings of camaraderie, especially not with his verbal output.

 

[Fatal Nymph]

Zava continued to strike barely sparing a glance when things became rather explosive. Though the mass seemed to be slowing and dying or blinking out of existence now that it's mother was no more. Survival the blink bugs number one priority. Still her attention could not be on anything other than the bugs lest they actually decide to go for anyone other than her. The captain had one hell of a fight as much as her if not more. She prayed that the explosion was a blessing in disguise as the bugs began to dwindle to a point in which she could finally check on her comrade.

The dog like anthro turned to see what had happened and to her surprise she found an android. "That's certainly not a normal entrance for any mere battle machine. You're not rouge are you?" She questioned loudly enough. Even if the answer was yes, Zava was certainly not going to be saying anything really, after all, up until recently, she had been a fugitive. "Sorry, I meant more or less, do you view us as a threat?"

White fur matted with black matter from the bugs mixed with who knew what really, her body nearly covered in the slick concoction which left her attire a little too revealing, an ion sword, which she was using to stab anything that so much as twitched. "I don't have money really, but I do believe that if nothing else, that getting out of here would be our best bet before this becomes our mess and fault. That and a bath." Those doe eyes staring between the two waiting for confirmation. Her mind spinning and taking in the new information. Dead mother blink bug, they were covered in the evidence to connect them to this mess and still in the vicinity, this android that she practically invited home could be anyone, and the captain before the fight wanted to leave as soon as it ended. This was not the best situation to be in and it didn't seem like anyone was making a move.

"Come with or don't, but no matter what you do, we absolutely should not be sticking around here." There best bet was probably back down the way they had come or to find an alternative route out of here. She looked down the stairwell. "I think down and out is our best bet, correct me if i'm wrong."