And then it was solely sheer momentum that carried it on, while the man pressed himself even tighter to the wall, in order to not get fried as a huge thunderstorm's worth of lightning broke loose in front of him.
The black beast screamed. Bluish-white tongues of raw power snaked across the armoured body, the graceful bounds became a stumble, then an uncoordinated flail. The last thing it did, before succumbing to the searing shockers, was to growl. A long, fading sound, like "Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr."
Then it lay still. Alive, yes, tremors ran over the giant body, claws clenched and unclenched spasmodically, the long tail twitched at times. But the black carapace had lost its silken sheen in parts, looking dull and crisp like charcoal instead.
The armoured man smiled cruelly as he stepped towards the fallen monster, heavy gun ready in his hands.
"Don't shoot!" a harsh order came over the com, causing the soldier to look up in surprise. "The thing just tripled its prize on the free market."
"Market? There's a market?" Another security man, safe in the control room, also looked at his leader in surprise.
"There always was and always will be a market for nightmares on sale."
Disbelieving eyes followed the chief of security, as he made his way over to a weapon rack and helped himself to a shock-stick almost his own length, angry eyes and … calculating ones.
In the right – or wrong, depending on point of view – company, the laws of the market are as absolute and inevitable as the laws of physics. Money, like mass, exerts a strong attractive force.
By the time Nevins had tested his weapon with an expert flick of the long staff and found the bluish fire crackling inside the bifurcated tip to his satisfaction, the gravitational pull of greed had brought everyone in line.
"Let's go," he said, and all his men complied.
For reasons known only to the Powers-That-Rule-Computers-And-The-Internet (and maybe the administrators of this website - which stubbornly refuses be spelled out here, odd, isn't it!), all email notifications were taking days last week. Seems to be back to normal now, though.