"Nora!"
Ren saw his partner being dragged deeper into the train no matter how much she tried to resist. He ran after her as fast as he could, though the damage inflicted on his aura made the task more complicated than he had wanted. The distance between them didn't seem to decrease and Ren began to feel like a hamster inside a wheel.
"What's going on here?"his eyes turned back to Nora, who hugged tightly a metal pole next to some seats, "Hold on!"
Taking a deep breath, Lie Ren bolted, passing through the empty wagons in no time. Just as he went through his second wagon, an earthquake pushed him on the floor and turned out the lights. Darkness fell upon the train once more.
"Nora!"
He heard her yell something as the door closed. Then silence. Ren refused to let his fears get the better of him. He pulled himself up and ran to the door, broke the window and pulled it open from the other side. As he entered, his ears picked up an audio anomaly, for the sound of the wagon's wheel screeching against the rails underneath was not present in that area, as if it were soundproof.
A tiny, flickering light flashed into life near his feet. Ren's grip on his guns tightened, ready to jump at the first sign of a threat. Another light appeared next to the first, then another and so on until a semicircle was formed. A guttural growl resonated from somewhere as the light from the candles increased in brightness.
(Doom 64 - Breakdown)
"What?"
Where there was supposed to be a wagon, there was a claustrophobic room made of irregular stones. Ren looked up and felt the urge to vomit. A mangled corpse was chained to the wall. Distrubed, he spun around, finding an arched doorway where the wagon's door used to be. Beyond it, a poorly-lit hallway. Nora's voice echoed from it, from behind a distant corner.
"Ren! Help me!"
Ren shook himself from his stupor and ran after it, not letting himself confused or distraught by the inexplicable changes. First Nora, he thought, then everything else.
But when he went around the corner, the hallway slouched downward, with the ginger-haired team member nowhere to be seen. The cries and howls became louder, more invasive. It was harder to ignore them.
A wall to his left sank into the ground, letting an Aetherial Trooper free from his alcove. It gurgled in protest, only to be immediately shot down by Ren. The corpse dropped back into the darkness, out of which a foul smell pushed Ren away.
Lie Ren was used to depressing and horrifying sights ever since his childhood. What he had seen in that room, however, was beyond his wildest imagination. The Grimm killed people, yes. They never chewed their corpses and hanged them on hooks.
"Uuaaaagh! Kill me, pleaseeee!"
A man screamed from a corner to Ren's right. His arms and legs were missing and he was dangling from the ceiling by a rude iron chain tied to his neck. The more he squirmed, the more did the chain dig into his flesh. Ren averted his gaze, trying to process it all. He was trained to shoot at monsters, not at people, not even when it meant easing their suffering. He heard something soft squirming around the mangled man, so he turned back to him. A Shapesnatcher bug sneaked up on the stranger and hugged his head, muffling the screams. Its tiny legs went under the skin and formed a web that went for the chest. Its back became a large eye as a grayish tentacle burst from the chest, silencing the stranger.
Ren dashed backwards with a yelp, he fumbled around with his StormFlower until he gathered enough strenght to pop the bug with two shots.
"Help me, Ren! Where are you?!"
Nora's voice returned from an arched doorway blocked by thick wooden bars. More Shapesnatchers crawled from the pores in the ceiling, fusing themselves with the corpses, which freed themselves from their hooks and chains. The anguished cries of men and women became even louder, digging their way into the brain without reaching the ears.
"Gods, this is a nightmare!" Ren thought as he prepared himself for the attack of the Shapesnatchers, "And I can't get out!"
Jaune didn't know whether he should feel disgust at the amount of gore that caked the wagon or at himself for being able to bear it without acting like a sane, healthy person would. His weapon almost fell from his hand, unsure what to do with it. The whole place looked surreal, like a low budget horror movie. Sad difference was, he knew that no buckets of red paint were involved.
"They" were back and he let it happen.
And now they got Pyrrha.
Wishing for her wellbeing was pointless, though. He let it all happen. He let it happen and this was his punishment. As such, he was willing to take the blame; for Pyrrha, for the passengers, for everything. One thing was sure, though: if "they" did so much as remove a single hair from her, he would make them all pay.
With that thought in mind, he moved forward in search for Pyrrha.
Right after he nearly slipped on the blood.
"Gods." he cursed, moving his shield to the front and readying the pistol.
Jaune never remembered ever taking a ride on one of these newer trains. He also never remembered wagons being so wide and spacious on the outside. Speaking of which, he tentatively looked through the nearest window. His jaw dropped.
"We're floating?!" his mind screamed at the void below the train, which merged with the crimson clouds from above at the endless horizon, "But how?!"
He heard a giggle.
Jaune jump-spun with his gun aimed at a pair of seats down the wagon. The entrails rubbed against the floor and walls made spotting details more difficult, but he was willing to bet his head on the fact that he had seen a mass squirming behind the seats. He was not gonna fall for that trick. A couple of shots with his pistol melted the plastic into a puddle, bringing to light something Jaune didn't thought was possible to act alive.
A pile of melted organs, skin and bones wriggled and vibrated like jelly, held together by nothing in particular and twisted like a brick of flesh clay in the hands of an amateur who decided it wasn't worth the trouble. Glued to it all were a head, whose brutalized features made it impossible to describe whether it belonged to a man or woman, and a pair of what once might have been arms but now devolved into toothed writhing mass of flesh splattered on a window to the right oozed into a fat lump with two legs and a mouth filled with euphoric, severed heads.
Jaune took few steps back as two more monsters shaped themselves into existence by using both the fresh and rotting meat they could find. To him, it was as if they used someone's leftovers to imitate life and growth. That's what they were, he thought, they were Leftovers and nothing more.*
Their numbers kept increasing, to the point that Jaune had to retreat to the wagon he left earlier. He fired with the Energy Pistol at the crowd. The monsters lost their limbs and bits with the same ease it took them to fuse them to the bodies. Amidst the the meat zombies, Jaune noticed how some of the Leftovers in the back grew in size and appendages, the latter being the very same limbs he shot off.
Jaune kicked back a particularly thin monster and closed the door, locking it with the handle. Going through the horde was impossible without more potent firepower, something he currently lacked.
"I need to find another way!"
A leg with tiny hands smashed the glass, sliding across the door like a tongue. Jaune retched and left the wagon. Hot wind blew into his face as he searched for a ladder that would let him on the roof. There was none, leaving him to improvise. The horde of Leftovers tore down the door as Jaune used his sword to cut holes into the metal for him to climb. Something wet and slimy coiled around his foot as he climbed. He looked down and into the jaws of a humanoid made entirely out of skinless, atrophied muscles. He shot its tentacle off, shot the"head" twice then gave it a good kick, throwing it off the train.
Jaune threw himself on the roof and gasped for air that was twice as foul as the one in the wagons. A certain dread washed over him as he stared at the red clouds above him, even more so when he picked up the moans of the tormented.
He didn't know what was happening. He didn't know where he was. All he knew was that he was going to reunite his team and bring it to safety.
The sound of heels clicking on the metal made him turn his head. His heart sank when he saw Pyrrha limping towards him, under the control of that damned bug.
"Since when were things that easy?" he grumbled to himself as he stood up, ready for a fight he felt he would most likely lose.
He observed the work of the Flesh Artists as they meticulously infused life into the corpses the way they saw fit. Their disgusts for life as is commonly understood among mortals was rivaled only by his own whenever he would observe the decrepit temples they made as hosts for their being. He hated their ethos, their infantile attempts at drawing the attention of the One who created them. Cowards and parasites busy with the sewing of the perfect vessel for their perfect master, the one who taught them their ways. Sickening as it was, hearing the pleas of the victims as their skulls were picked clean so that something else might take their place, he wanted nothing more than to send them back to the depths of Hell.
It would seem his superiors had different plans.
Were they different from the demons with whom they made the contract, he often asked himself. The owner of his soul didn't think so. He shook his head. Philosophizing wouldn't get him anywhere now. The past couldn't be changed and the cruel fate meant for him after death awaited somewhere in the future. What remained was the present and what better way to spend it than to read His words?
The Flesh Artists hated him for it. Too bad they couldn't do anything, for his master was the one in charge of things. Far be it from him to taunt them with the hand his master was willing to extend to them and their cause. They would most likely plot a way to get their revenge in the future, he was sure.
"Yo."
And then there was her. The woman in red. If their site were a circus, she would have been the whiteface, ironically enough. How else could he describe such a brazen thing? He couldn't believe that he had to share the same squad with a sadistic, murderous, amoral psychopath such as her. If it weren't for him and his babysitting, she would have messed up the whole operation from square one.
"Someone took the bait, but it's not the target. Told you that the plan was shitty."
Yes, he was painfully aware of that. Rather than the one they were looking for, four young souls ventured into the train. From what he was able to gather through careful contemplation, each of them was, or would like to be, a warrior. Probing their depths revealed to him their motives, their mission, their beliefs. He found them good. It was meant for the yonger generations to bring changes to the world around them. So the Creator saw fit.
He saw their potential, unlike certain someone. He was willing to give them a chance, to bring out the light that is hidden within them.
"I will leave the task to you, but you are forbidden from killing them."
"Heh? You're kidding me, right? Pick one thing and stick with it, you insane fuck."
"Do as I say and you won't be left wanting."
"Whatever."
He watched her diminishing back before letting out a sigh. He had little tolerance for brutes like her and her dog of a lord, but he was willing to praise her whenever she would listen to those who are better. He was alone in the middle of monsters again. The past couldn't be changed and the cruel fate meant for him after death awaited somewhere in the future. Only the present remained.
And what better way to use the present than to praise the Creator?
PDA Biopedia:
*Entry #201: Aetherial Leftovers
Type: Hellspawn - Aetherial
Description: "One of the first things you learn when being a fleshmancer is that no body part goes to waste. Quite literally. But the Flesh Artists, being the flamboyant and self-disrespecting eccentrics, like to use things they deem fit, so they tend to leave quite a lot of trash behind. What many don't know (or don't care enough to know) is that, strictly speaking, the trash feels "left out" and "abbandoned", so it starts gathering into random shapes and sizes, with the IQ of a rock and the ferocity of a wild feline. Obviously that happens due to the surge of negative energies and emotions that are left haunting a place where their depraved experiments took place. How do you kill them? Simply stop them from regenerating. I dunno, turn them to stone or freeze them or burn them, or..." (health regenerates itself when damaged, ressurects after being killed (unless if it was killed through Incendiary, Cryo, Corrosive or Explosive damage (any damage that might utterly destroy the creature))