This wasn't going well.

Miles raised the drill before him as another wall loomed close, punching a hole through one side and out the other as the lower story of the building behind him exploded into green flame.

His poncho had been in there.

Not much of a loss though, it had been trying to eat him.

Miles switched drill for bowgun for a split second as the crimson-irised eye warped through the wall, crimson laser bolts scorching marks across abandoned furniture in rapid succession as he slipped from spot to spot, frantically sending a blazing arrow to sink into the centre of its pupil.

On the blue eye a pencil had been enough to make it shriek out in pain, these eyes barely even registered the injury, even when flame engulfed its surface. Miles tumbled over with a growl as its green-eyed counterpart, attached to its sibling by a strand of bloody tissue, launched a burning projectile of its own through the open space he'd entered from.

He couldn't fly with the angry needle clouds and bloody rain.

Miles hurled himself into the door of the building, smashing it open into a bloodman with explosive impact. Green flame engulfed the room behind him.

He kept moving, tearing the door off its hinges and holding it over his head as he spun into a pirouette, blazing tails sizzling through a horde of groping hands and gnashing teeth as he struggled out into the street, fur burning with every splash of tainted liquid that spattered across his body.

At least the eyes were flammable. He slipped his hammer out one handed to launch a bisected zombie into Redeye like a blazing golf ball before taking cover behind another building. The rain was almost horizontal now from the driving wind. Harder to avoid. Especially while fighting so many targets at once.

And every drop took its toll. Miles snarled as Greeneye soared above, pupil blazing as another orb of flame brewed within.

He couldn't move freely among the crowds and the puddles and the buildings.

He pulled his paintgun free, blinding the monster before turning to run.

A pair of chattering wind-up teeth rounded the corner in front of him, the click of a detonator the only cue he had before it exploded. Miles' hastily raised door splintered as it absorbed the blast that turned it into a thousand barbs of pain. He hurtled through the air, spinning uncontrollably to smash into a stone wall on the neighbouring street, metal shrieking against stone as he slid down to the floor, ruptured eardrums ringing painfully.

Still alive. The thick folds of his scarf and goggles had kept his face intact at least, and between helmet and armour his vitals were still fine. He just had to keep mov-

He fell sideways, leg giving out with a wet crunch.

Miles blinked down at it.

He hadn't even felt it. Didn't even feel it. By whatever combination of blast and corruption what was left of his thigh wasn't even leg anymore. Propping himself up on one elbow he pulled the scarf off his face to down a flask of red liquid. Was it the same stuff as what was raining down on him right now? Should he just open his-

Miles shook off the dangerous notion as his destroyed hearing restored into ringing pain and vile nausea. No feeling in his leg still, the tissue was back but still liquid hanging off the bone. He had to move. Drill the-

Clicking teeth sounded over the rain. Miles spun to see another set of explosive dentures hopping down the street, heralding the first of many monsters as they shambled between the buildings, following him.

They always followed him. Everyone else was incidental, targets of opportunity as they tried to wipe him from the planet. He'd dragged them across town, away from everyone else. Even the eyes. Where were the eyes? Where was he? His mental map of the area was confused now. He needed-

Leaves swept across the street from nowhere, clinging to the horde and himself alike. Miles rolled himself up to hands and knees, spraying a salvo of paint pellets into the crowd, flinching as lightning rumbled overhead.

Cosmo? Miles forced himself up to one shaky foot, still firing. Where were the eyes? He slipped the drill into his tails, using them to dig backwards into the wall as he retreated into the cover of the building, clutching the wall for support. The teeth bomb leapt forward, only to get snapped up in the jaws of a magical skull. Miles felt the familiar emptiness in its wake as his target exploded harmlessly in midair.

The door burst open behind him. Miles spun to see a shambling woman dressed in complete bridal attire lurch through the doorway, vacant eyes glittering in the light of a long untended candle. A muzzle flashed from behind her, and the zombie collapsed to the floor. Dante stepped over its remains, gunfish smoking.

"Damn, you're still in one piece, kid?" He shook his head with a frown, firing a spray of bullets into the corpse bride at his feet until its body fizzed away entirely, leaving bullet-riddled dress and veil sat in a hissing puddle on the floor.

"Sure." Miles shrugged, coiling his tails together behind him. They were stained - hopefully just stained - in a protective layer of scorched blood and soot, maybe the human wouldn't notice. "What are you doing out here? Where are the eyes?"

He turned, swinging his hammer in blazing arcs to keep the horde at bay. More leaves swept up from the earth, stifling their movements. Had his batteries recharged yet? Should have test fired the combilaser in a safer environment first.

"You're not the only one they want, Fiona." Dante stepped past the room's table, his body dripping with crimson wet and covered in bites and scratches. "The heck are you still walking? You look like hell."

He unloaded his gun into the horde, blood and rot exploded across the street. Another explosion rang unseen nearby. Miles followed suit, paint pellets barely even registering compared to the true gun being fired alongside.

"I thought you weren't allowed to help me?"

"I'm not helping you, kid." Dante snorted, barely stopping to switch targets before firing another volley. "You're helping me."

"Huh?"

"I'm working out some tension." The last of the horde - at least for now - fell to the floor, leaf choked and gunshot riddled corpses melting into the puddles of red. "And you're carrying my coat for me."

The gunman slipped off his duster, dropping it unceremoniously on Miles' head.

"Keep up. The clown's out here somewhere and I don't want chunks of you all over my jacket."

Miles raised an eyebrow. Was the gunslinger a tsundere?

No time to ponder. Miles hopped after the man as he strode out onto the street, grabbing his hammer into hand to use as an oversized crutch. The duster was like a tent on him, it was all he could to keep it from dragging across the wet floor using his tails but the rain simply flowed off the thick fabric, keeping him dry.

"Where are we going?"

"We're getting you out of my town." Dante strolled briskly down the street, blasting apart a cluster of bloody eyes without breaking his stride. "Ah damnit."

A mad giggle broke the night as a sphere rolled into view, ridden by a human in full wig and makeup.

The clown, presumably. Bullets ripped across his chest and he kept coming, lobbing a hissing ball overarm towards them. Miles lurched one legged into Dante, pushing them both aside as it exploded.

A salvo of laser beams slammed into the ground around them, the human let out a pained grunt. Redeye loomed above them, deep gouges across its surface. Whoever it had been fighting had done plenty of damage.

Miles pushed himself upright, hammer extended towards the clown, gaze on the eyeball in the opposite direction as he struggled to distance himself from the prone human.

There was a mechanical winding noise. Miles hopped to the side to avoid a crimson beam, turning his attention to the clown as he tossed a pair of clattering teeth to the ground with a cheery grin. The clicking explosive lurched towards Miles without hesitation.

"Much obliged." Miles tossed the duster over Dante and lunged forward with his hammer, half scooping, half clobbering the windup toy with a flaming swing. The teeth slammed into the surface of the redeye, exploding with a flash almost as bright as the lightning itself. Chunks of flesh tumbled away from the enormous eye to reveal its interior, a mechanical laser cannon housed inside a metal shell.

A robot?

Well that was even better. Miles had been killing giant robots most of his life. He stretched his hand out, paint spattering across the surface of the laser emitter before it could fire again, then followed up with a flaming arrow to its internals. The numbness in his leg was spreading. He needed to-

A wall of leaves formed around Miles for a brief moment before a bomb exploded on the street next to him. The blast launched him sideways, skidding through puddles to land in a heap beside Dante. The burning in his left arm ceased, as did his grip on his hammer. It scattered across the ground.

Darn it.

Miles swung his good arm, grapnel latching onto the wall to heave him up and away from the human, tails snatching his hammer from the floor as he passed. He struck the wall of the building foot first, flipping the hammer into his hand as he launched one legged into the air. Rain pounded the lenses of his goggles as his tails spun into a blazing spiral behind him, propelling him like a rocket towards the redeye.

A laser shot. He didn't feel it, but he felt lighter all the same. Another shot. Sparked through the ear of his helmet.

Impact.

Metal collapsed beneath the flaming meteor he'd become, imploding around him as he erupted out the other side…

A metal blur surged into him from the other direction. Miles briefly perceived metal teeth before his breastplate caved in. Dull pain blossomed out from his stomach to his throat as he hurtled backwards, crashing down through a collapsed roof and rolling out the door on the other side, smashing through a pair of zombies like a bowling ball before he flopped to a wheezing halt in the middle of the road.

Still not dead.

And there was a mad chuckle as a colourful sphere rolled towards him, a mechanical clicking as the clown wound up another denture bomb.

"No!"

A flash of orange and white fur leapt from above, crashing into the clown in a flurry of fang and claw. Both attacker and cackling human fell into a side street. A single explosion punctuated the night, followed by a flash of lightning.

"Maria!" Miles gasped. He could barely breathe, the crushed armour had clamped down on his chest like a vice.

A hand reached down to pluck Miles from the floor by his remaining arm.

"Nug you're heavy." Dante grunted as he wrapped Miles in his duster and slung the armoured fox unceremoniously over his shoulder. "Cosmo!"

A door opened in a nearby building. The human lumbered towards it, blood trickling from his laser scorched flesh as he unleashed a volley of bullets into the gathering crowds.

Miles focused through the spots in his vision, slipping his body armour into hammerspace and let in a shuddering breath. Dante straightened with a grunt of surprise as over half his load was deferred somewhere that gravity couldn't have an effect on. He ran towards the open door at renewed speed.

But not quickly enough. Miles grimaced as the greeneye, "eye" parts now replaced by gaping mechanical jaws, hovered before them, green flame spilling from its mouth, burning away leaves and bullets alike as they bounced uselessly off its leviathan frame.

"Hey, Foxboy! Catch!"

Miles blearily looked up to see a metal disc spinning through the air towards him.

His hand snatched out, clamping down on the rim.

A huge shield as tall as he was, almost the mirror image of the "eye" bearing down on them, a white surface with a jagged mouth torn open where the iris would be. A horned silhouette loomed for a moment against the lightning sky, then vanished into the dark once more as the greeneye sprayed out those brutal flames like a flamethrower.

Miles was already moving, tearing out of the duster to throw his grapnel into the flame. It clamped down on a metal tooth and he hurtled into the stream. Licks of green spilled around the edges of the shield, his fur conflagrating in half agony, half relief as the seeping horror burned from his bones along with everything else.

And he laughed.

Because he deserved worse.

Miles slammed shield first into the eye, feeling something in his leg give on impact. Metal teeth bent and cracked as he jammed the shield into the robotic horror's open maw, stemming the flow of fire. Miles held on with burning tails as he swung his hammer again and again, feeling metal buckle and break beneath his blows, laughing all the while.

And then he was swinging at air. The massive sphere collapsed away from his attacks until nothing remained and he fell, shield rolling away as he sprawled smoking out on the street. New growths rippled across his torso as charred flesh was rinsed clean by blood rain.

And a coat was thrown across his body. Dante stood over him, lips curled in a sneer, fishgun raised.

"Still alive?"

"I'm sorry." Miles rasped, trying and failing to shrug.

"You should be." The human once again plucked Miles off the floor, fingers sending needles of fresh pain through his torso. "What dumbass kid doesn't know how to run?"

He pulled the trigger, holes exploding through the body of the nearest bloodman as he walked briskly into the building from before, slamming the door shut behind them.

Miles was dimly aware of a lack of furniture, and a presence of Cosmo, stood beside a gaping black hole that extended far beyond the flickering light of the torches installed above it.

"Here. Toss her, we can't hold out here."

Miles, coat and all, felt himself thrust into the dryad's outstretched arms. She barely strained under the weight of what was left of him.

"The twins have fallen?" She didn't even look down. "This fool slew another?"

"And the ogre girl." Dante pressed his shoulder against the door as a dozen hands battered against it. "No pact. Never seen anything like 'em."

"It changes nothing. There is no hope for us." Cosmo shook her head, eyes - blue streaked with red - narrowed as green energy flowed through her. "Now or forever."

"You're a real peach during the- oof!" The door burst inwards, zombie, wrapped like a mummy in leaves, stumbled through the doorway, one in a sea of faces behind it.

And a cackling laugh rang out as a hissing bomb bounced into the room.

Miles tried to move, burnt, tainted flesh unresponsive. Cosmo cursed, leaves hurtling towards the explosive.

And Dante lunged into them both, pushing them tumbling backwards into the void.

"I'm comin' Katie."

The human's smile was the last thing Miles saw before the world above exploded into fire and ash.

And then there was only Cosmo's arms around him, and the dark rushing around them as they fell.