Sometimes Ice's intimacy with his element was utterly ridiculous, Catria mused as she held onto his coat sleeve, feeling the surface beneath her feet undulate slightly just beneath the firm part that was holding her up. They were very literally standing ON a wave of water, a thin sheet of unmelting ice supporting the entirety of Isa cell as the small tsunami bore them downward at breakneck speed. It was like surfing without being able to control the board, as dominion over the water lay solely in Ice's hands. Their momentum made Ice's white leather duster and Catria's long, honey-brown hair stream out behind them, and not for the first time, she wondered what a power like Ice's could do if he turned it toward a greater goal, such as remaking the world.
At the moment, however, his concentration was solely on their progress down the twisting pipes and the blockades he had frozen into place in all the other possible escape routes. Scythe, so named because of the deadly 'blades' of telekinetic energy that his power could create, had one arm around Catria's waist and was helping her and one of their other cell members keep their balance. They rose over a small hump created by debris caught in the pipe and then hurtled down, like a roller coaster, and Catria clenched her teeth on a scream as they swept down the pipe and leveled out, the wave beneath them washing them over a ledge and then falling out from under them. They hung suspended in the air for a moment, then stabilized as the water beneath them rose up unnaturally and let the sheet of ice come to rest upon it, lowering them safely down and depositing them on the edge of a large sluice pool before receding into the pool itself.
Catria looked and saw more tunnels leading into this sluiceway. They stood upon an island in the middle, and one of the tunnels gleamed oddly, the edges of the pipe frosted over. Ice's barricade.
"We're nearly there," Ice said, taking a moment to rest his mind. "Two more levels, and the way to go is straight down."
"Barricade holding strong?" Scythe inquired coolly as he stepped to the edge of the concrete island.
"Strong and solid. I can make our way from here."
"Strange that we haven't encountered any resistance," murmured Troy, their other cell member. He had a short staff in his hand which he spun uneasily.
"We moved fast. They may not have had time to organize any," Catria offered, eyeing the sludgy brown water with distaste.
Ice contemplated that for a moment, brow furrowing. "No," he said at length. "They're a collective consciousness. There would be no need to organize. The Core would speak, and they would do, and we've come."
"Maybe Rel's already engaged their attention?" Catria shuffled a little closer to the water, peering down into it. She couldn't see far. The darkness shifted down there, making it look as though the shadows were swimming.
"If Rel was in battle, the whole block would know it," Ice murmured. "No. Something's wrong here."
"Do we press on or wait for a signal?" Scythe wondered.
"If we abandon the plan, we could be abandoning some of our own in the lion's mouth," Troy pointed out, "and if we keep it, we could be walking into a trap."
"Rel was our vanguard. She can take care of herself," Ice said coldly. "And I'm not taking any unnecessary chances. Stay alert – I'm going to flood the lower levels."
"How far?" Scythe wondered.
Ice knelt by the edge of the island. "As far as I can reach."
X-X-X
The air was stale and stank of death as it rushed past Rel's face fast enough to give her windburn. She fell, one hand clenched around Damon's hand, the other around Mars's, who was in turn holding Stefan's hand, who was holding Flynn's, who was holding Damon's. They were close together in a tight knot, confined by the tunnel walls. Hitting the lip of a feeder pipe would mean broken bones or worse, but there was nothing except grim anticipation on the faces of the men. The girls both wore slight smiles, Rel because she loved the sensation of falling, Mars because she loved the prospect of violence.
"One-thousand, one-hundred feet," Stefan warned. "One thousand, three-hundred. One-thousand, seven-hundred."
Rel reached out with the power of her mind and leeched the momentum away from their fall, slowing them to a gentle float about twenty feet off the bottom of the pipe they were falling through. They touched down softly and released each other, looking down the curving tunnel in apprehension.
"Weapons check," Damon announced, and with swift movements, the five of them checked to make sure their belongings were all in place.
"Check," Rel said firmly, having verified the presence of her single-edged short sword and her two small-round handguns.
Mars pulled her two street sweepers around to the front of her body and checked the clips. "Check."
"Check," Damon drawled lazily, fingers caressing the hilt of his sword rapier.
"Check," Stefan confirmed as he slammed a clip into the butt of his Desert Eagle.
"And check," Flynn echoed, giving his own, much-abused claymore a fond pat and pulling one of his semi-automatic pistols from its hip holster. "We're in business, love."
"Then let's make some noise," Rel said with a grin. Her hands cupped and a ball of bright blue energy sprang into existence between them. She turned toward the darkness. "V formation, weapons out, let's go." A flick of her wrist flung their only illumination down the tunnel, and Rel took off after it, booted feet kicking up splashes of water as she hurtled down the tunnel, her team at her heels. They had about a half mile north to go before the tunnel dropped away again, according to the map, and they needed to cover it fast and come down hard.
The tunnel floor was slick with slime, but they all wore boots with heavy treads, and managed to hold their feet just fine. The bodies of dead rats crunched underfoot occasionally, threatening to trip them up or cause a twisted or broken ankle. Their footsteps echoed off the stone and metal tube, as did the sounds of their harsh breathing.
"No animal minds ahead," Stefan called.
"They're in the wrong line of work," Mars scoffed. "They should go into the extermination business."
"No rats at all," Damon said smoothly, a bored expression on his handsome face. "How convenient. I smell a trap, angel."
"Then let's not be rude guests," Rel tossed back, shooting a barbaric grin over her shoulder as she ran like the wind. "Look guys, there's our exit." Ahead of them was a patch of darkness that the ball of blue light could not illuminate. Her grin widened as she put on a little extra speed. "Cow….a…. BUNGA!" she whooped as she leaped and dropped into the tunnel, followed closely by her cell. Mars let out a whoop as they hurtled through the darkness, which swiftly grew brighter as Rel conjured another ball of energy between her hands. It blazed brighter and brighter until it was almost white in color, and she pulled it up to her face level as the end of the drop approached. "HADOKEN!" she barked, sending the ball spinning down. There was a moment of silence as the light faded, and then an explosion that made the walls rumble and a gust of air that made them fight to hold their balance. This time, Rel waited until they were a few feet above the crater her attack had created before slowing them, and they dropped to the ground in ready positions, weapons bared.
They were alone in a sizable cavern, littered with the bones of rats and other small animals. The stench was truly sickening, and Flynn and Stefan gagged slightly. Damon merely wrinkled his nose and stepped into a more relaxed stance.
"There doesn't seem to be anyone here," he observed, eyeing Rel.
"But we pinpointed them," Rel said lowly, glaring around the cavern. "Five hours ago, they were here, all through these levels."
"Maybe we're not far off," Mars suggested. "Wrong room?"
"No," Damon said quietly. "They're not here at all. I can't sense the dead minds anywhere."
"They got out somehow, then," Flynn murmured, kicking a few carcasses aside. "They knew we were comin'. Coulda read our minds, maybe?"
"No," Rel said, her voice deadly quiet. "Could have been warned ahead of time."
"What makes ye say that?" Flynn wondered.
"The pack of plastic explosives attached to that support strut," she said calmly, pointing.
"FUCK!" Mars exclaimed, and Stefan grabbed hold of her just as Rel threw up an electric blue kinetic shield around them and the entire cavern exploded in a blaze of searing fire and blinding light, thunder echoing as timer after timer went off. Debris rained down around them, flying past them and shattering into dust as the ceiling gave way with a tremendous groan and several thousand tons of metal, rock, and dirt came down on their heads.
X-X-X
There was a low rumble and the water's surface trembled slightly, and Catria lifted her head. "What was that?" she snapped, and Ice leaped to his feet, upper lip curling back in a snarl.
Troy glanced up and behind them, and his green eyes widened in horror. "DOWN!" he snapped, throwing himself at Catria and knocking her to the floor even as the others whirled in that direction. Scythe half-crouched, but Ice flung his hands up in front of him, blue eyes blazing.
The tunnel that had been frozen over was glowing an ominous dark red and water ran off all sides of the pipe, which was also taking on a slight reddish tint. The ice cracked, and the red became brighter and then the remaining shards burst outward, disintegrating into steam as they went, and a sweeping motion of Ice's hand drew the water up in front of him just in time to block a torrent of fire that poured from the pipe as if propelled by the bellows of Hell's forges. Catria screamed and the whole room filled with fire that roared as it climbed the walls and reached hungry fingers toward the humans clustered in the center of the room. The water that stood between them and the fire evaporated instantly upon contact, and Ice poured more and more of it between himself and the flames. They couldn't see or hear anything beyond blinding light and the roaring in their ears, and the air was too hot to breath, stifling their lungs and burning their throats. The flames kept coming and coming, battering and reaching, and Ice channeled water as fast as he could force it, but then his shield gave way and he let out a cry of impotent rage as the inferno closed around them.
X-X-X
Lupe Torres was not a leader by nature. Growing up in the streets of Detroit, she had learned a vital lesson – live by the sword, die by the sword. She had met Jake Delano there, and under his charismatic guidance, Auspex Cell had sprung up and thrived. They had moved to New Jersey later on, where they had picked up Guilbeaux and Ash, and their group only knit itself tighter as it grew. The end result was that all of them sorely missed Jake now. His confidence was their driving force. But Lupe had his orders to go on and her own intellect, which was as sharp as the blade she carried in her right hand. Behind her, Ash, Nate, Rhian, and Guilbeaux prowled through the tunnel, Ash muttering periodically as his stylish clothing was ruined further and further by the muck that dripped from the ceiling. There was a soft smack as Nate hit him and whispered harshly for him to shut the hell up, and Lupe held up a hand for silence. They came to a stop at a junction of three waterways, and Guilbeaux took the opportunity to light a cigarette, which both Nate and Ash eyed enviously.
"We take the left fork," Lupe instructed them. "The other two should be frozen over."
"So where's the ice?" Ash inquired. "Further down?" He eyed the darkness of the other two passages with suspicion. They seemed curiously devoid of any blockage, and Lupe slid carefully up to one, extending a hand down it.
"The air is no cooler," she murmured, liquid brown eyes narrowing. "And the walls are blackened. There was fire here."
"Fire," Nate growled. "Fire melts ice." He flexed his hands, odd, bone spikes protruding from his knuckles that gleamed coldly. Rhian glanced around paranoidly through stringy hair and skittered sideways like a nervous cat.
"We've got ourselves a problem, cherie," Guilbeaux said with a slightly mad grin. "Your call. Press on or turn and run?"
Lupe stepped back from the passages and narrowed her eyes. "Neither. We take the right fork. We can take another series of passages to our destination from there. I know the way."
"Is d'at wise?" Guilbeaux wondered, exhaling a cloud of smoke and eyeing the tunnels thoughtfully. "If d'ey know we're comin'?"
"I refuse to abandon the mission," Lupe told her firmly. "There's too much on the line. But leaving our flank unprotected would be idiotic. So would following the route we planned if they know we're coming that way. This way, at least we have the advantage of surprise. Put out the cigarette. Ash, no talking. Let's go." She turned and began scuttling carefully down the tunnel.
Auspex fell in behind her, moving carefully now, watching their backs as they made their way through the passageways. Lupe led with her sword, Guilbeaux at her heels with twin semi-automatics. They clung to the edge of the tunnel, trying to stay out of the water and move as quietly as possible. Rhian made odd sniffling noises, eyes darting back and forth.
They ducked through twisting tunnels, ever descending, and the stench of smoke became stronger and stronger as they went. Finally, they arrived at a sluice tunnel that emptied into their original route, dropping down a dozen or so feet before leveling out again. Lupe paused and peered down into it. "I can't see," she cursed. "Damned tunnels…"
Rhian let out a yowl of alarm and Lupe whirled as the tunnel lit up, illuminating a single standing figure from which the light was pouring. He was male, with trimmed black hair, and held his hands out to the side in crucifixion style as fire licked at his body. His eyes were blank and staring, and Lupe cried, "DOWN!"
Fire reached forth, but two thunderous gunshots echoed through the tunnel and the flames flickered out before reaching them as the pyrokinetic dropped to the tunnel floor. What was left of his skull made a sickening splat as it hit the concrete, and Guilbeaux ejected the spent cartridges from her guns. "Coonass," she muttered derogatorily. "D'ese boys think everybody only knows one way ta waltz."
"What do we do?" Ash demanded. "There'll be more of them along soon."
"If somebody doesn't destroy The Core, we'll be dead anyway," Lupe told them. "Running won't save us. They'll have moved The Core somewhere else."
"D'ese tunnels go for miles," Guilbeaux pointed out. "And we ain't playin' paintball. We got a crawdad in a kettle's chance o'findin' 'em before d'ey cut us off."
"Ash," Lupe snapped. "Can you sense anything?"
"Nothing," Ash told her immediately. "It's a complete dead zone." He shook his head, then paused and slowly looked back at her. "Complete. I don't sense…." He stepped toward Nate and raised a fine-boned hand. "I don't sense ANYTHING."
Nate bristled and Lupe snarled. "Someone's blocking us. All of us. The other groups are in danger."
"We can't do dis on our own," Guilbeaux ascertained. "We goin' after de other cells, den?"
"Yeah," Lupe growled, whirling and breaking into a run. "Let's go! The others might have already walked into a trap! We're closest to Midnight and Isa, if we can get to them, we might be able to keep those putos from closing the drag-net!"
Auspex Cell burst into motion behind her, and the tunnels echoed with the sound of their footsteps as they ran with all their might back the way they'd come, cold dread coiled in their bellies.
It was likely already too late.
X-X-X
Catria was enclosed in darkness, pressed against the hard surface beneath her by a heavy weight on top of her. Her head spun for a moment before she managed to recall how she had gotten there – she remembered fire. She gasped quietly and strained to get her hands and feet under her. The weight on top of her fell to the floor with a heavy thud, but she couldn't see what it was. She couldn't see anything at all – she was trapped in complete darkness.
Feeling around with her hands, which were raw and burning, she encountered equally burning flesh and something metal that was still hot. She pressed her fingers around it, finding a glass plate and a small jewel set in the rim. Troy's watch. Troy.
"Troy!" she croaked, throat thick with smoke. She coughed violently for a moment, then swallowed hard and tried again. "TROY." She shook his inert body and got a groan as a response. "Troy, wake up! You have to wake up NOW," she insisted in a panic. The One could be here any minute, couldn't they? Unless they had assumed that the fire had killed them all. Maybe it had. But Troy was still alive, for the moment. "Troy, WAKE UP!" she tried to scream, but ended up doubled over coughing again.
He didn't move again and she left him to thrust her hands out into the darkness, feeling for her other two cellmates. Her hands came into contact instead with something hard and warm. She blinked, rubbing her palms against it, unable to feel accurately what it was, but there was a familiar smell… pressing her nose to it, she sniffed.
Wood. There was a wall of wood around her. Heavy, dense wood, from what she could tell, but she couldn't identify the type by the smell. It didn't much matter, since she didn't have to – the short staff Troy had been carrying was made of Yew, so this was likely the same. Where any type of plant was concerned, Troy was… singularly gifted. In fact, he had one of the oddest Gifts she'd ever encountered, but at the moment, it was an unprecedented blessing. She breathed a sigh of relief and turned around, crawling across the cement in search of Ice and Scythe. She found a body in a heavy coat that was not leather and followed the coat to the face, which no longer bore stubble. Finding his shoulders, she gave him a shake. "Scythe, please, wake up." He didn't stir, but her fumbling fingers found a pulse that beat far too quickly for her liking.
This was going to be hell, she realized as she sat back. If Ice was conscious, he would have heard her calling and said something. If he was even inside Troy's wall. She crawled into the darkness again, searching for him, but her hands found only cement and scorched wood. She made a full circumference of the round enclosure, but Scythe and Troy were the only bodies she encountered. She spared a moment to curse liberally before scrambling back over to Troy's body and placing her hands on him. She didn't need to see to feel the currents of energy that ran through his body, and she passed her hands over him slowly, assessing the damage. He'd been burned, they all had, though her body had already begun knitting itself. She'd likely taken the lightest damage, since she'd had Troy's body shielding her.
Which had been damned thoughtful of him, or damned quick thinking, protecting the one who could heal the rest of them as long as she lived. His body was struggling to withstand the damage, but it didn't seem life-threatening yet. Infection would kill him swiftly, and his wounds were far from clean, but she could bring him back, she felt. She reached down inside herself and began to hum under her breath, rocking back and forth as her hands hovered over him. Her fingers and palms tingled, and a slight glow illuminated a patch of his t-shirt as she reached out for his body's energy centers and began re-channeling that power, adding her own to it and removing the blockages caused by pain and damage.
His breathing grew easier as she worked and his muscles relaxed the tense positions they had curled into. When she felt she had done what she could, she shifted over to Scythe and began to work on him in much the same way. He was a bit more difficult, as the source of his psychic powers was not inborn talent, but a prenatal mutation which had changed some of his cell structures. None the less, she managed to repair and realign the flow of his aura. Weary now, she sat against the wooden wall, ear pressed against it. Outside, she could hear nothing but complete silence, so perhaps the fire had passed. But just in case foot soldiers were following the initial assault, she slid her hands down her thighs and felt the leather-wrapped hilts of her knives. She pulled them from their sheathes and held them tightly in sweating hands, unable to do anything except wait for the boys to come back to consciousness and be ready in case the worst occurred.
X-X-X
"Something's wrong," Schuldich murmured as they crept through the stinking darkness, Farfarello leading, prowling like a hunting cat on the balls of his feet, Crawford bringing up the rear with his gun cocked.
Nagi looked up at him blankly, youthful face expressionless. "What is it, Schu?"
"Bad vibes," Sabbath said under her breath. "I feel it too."
"We are not the hunters here," Farfarello murmured, pausing to crouch and examine something clinging to the stone beneath his feet.
"The other teams?" Crawford inquired.
Schuldich paused, then shrugged. "The other teams check out."
"Are we still being followed?" Farfarello wondered as he straightened.
"I can't tell. Cross is hard to get a handle on," Schuldich told him, sighing and running a long-fingered hand through his hair. "No surprise."
"There are always surprises," Crawford told him dryly. "Has anyone else engaged The One yet?"
"No," Schuldich told him. "They're still moving."
"Wait," Jake said sharply. "They're still moving? They haven't encountered anything? Surely The One would try to move once they found the tunnels frozen over, and the only way to go is through us."
"I'm quite well aware of that," Crawford told him a bit irritably, and paused to eye the tunnel in both directions. He took a few slow steps in the direction they had been going, then stopped abruptly and pressed his fingers to his forehead.
"What do you see?" Nagi inquired.
"Get ready," Crawford told them. "We go on ahead."
"Would it kill you," Schuldich wondered caustically, "to just ONCE tell us what you saw, instead of giving us nebulous instructions?"
"We move on, Schu," Crawford told him, already striding past him with his gun pointed at the ground. Farfarello picked up the pace again and Sabbath fell in beside Crawford, leaving Schuldich to glare at Crawford's back while Nagi watched him.
"Fine," Schu muttered, slogging forward again and chambering a round in his handgun. He managed a few angry steps before Sabbath fell back, holding her naked katana tightly, the sheath stuck into the loops of her pants.
"Hey," she murmured. "Weren't there two of Schwert?"
"Yes," Schuldich snapped at her.
"Was the other one a quiet mind too?"
Schuldich paused. "No. He isn't."
"Then how can you not tell if he's following us?" Jake wondered.
Schuldich raised his head for a moment, then cursed. "Brad!" he snapped, slogging ahead in an attempt to catch up. "I'm being blocked!"
"But The One doesn't have that sort of power," Sabbath protested, and Schuldich snarled at her.
"I KNOW THAT."
"We have bigger problems," Crawford told him. "But we have no choice but to move on inward. Be on your guard, Schuldich. Mr. Delano, if you would be so kind…."
Schu went silent and the knot of people tightened subtly as the shadows rose and wrapped around them, cloaking them and making their progress more difficult, but much stealthier, as the thick darkness muffled their footsteps. They crept onward carefully, anticipation breeding tension as Sabbath's palms began to sweat and she breathed harder. They turned a corner and stepped into a wider access tunnel with several other tunnels feeding into it, all of them capped by a layer of ice except for one. Crawford led them there, murmuring a "be ready," under his breath as he tensely headed for the tunnel.
They passed several tunnels along the way, and even despite Crawford's warning, most of them were taken by surprise when the ice covering one of them shattered and a massive form swayed into the larger tunnel. It made a low, growling, groaning sound and its footsteps made the stone under Schwarz's feet shake. Roughly humanoid, it had hands the size of Crawford's torso and stood almost twenty-five feet tall.
"Kill it," was Crawford's calm order.
The air in the tunnel exploded with gunshots as the creature roared and raised its fists, stomping toward them. Bone spurs jutted from points on its body, including its knuckles, and its mouth hung open in a permanent scream, jaw twisted sideways. Crawford and Schuldich were both opening fire on it, and Farfarello leaped in without hesitation, his odd sword/spear ringing off the bone spurs as he searched for a hole in the creature's armor. Nagi stepped back behind Schu and Crawford, eyes closed in concentration as he reached out toward its body with his mind. But he found that even as he wreaked damage on the cellular level, the creature's body repaired itself so quickly that he couldn't do it serious harm. Crawford and Schuldich's bullets were having no effect on the thing except to slow its advance. However, Farfarello gained its immediate attention and it concentrated its efforts on him, catching him across the back with its knuckle-spurs and slicing his Kevlar vest open. Farfarello didn't even react, whirling and driving his spear point-first into the creature's wrist. It jerked its arm away and tore the weapon from his hands, but Farfarello was never without back-up blades. He gave his hands a shake and a set of long, single-edged knives appeared in them, and he quickly ducked under the slower creature's angry swing, slicing its other arm open. But the cuts healed instantly and the thing yanked Farf's spear out of its wrist, driving it down toward the Irishman. Farf dodged, and the spear splintered as it was slammed into the concrete.
"We aren't hurting it!" Jake yelled as he aimed for the thing's skull, his large-caliber handgun able to do a bit more damage. He pulled the trigger and a chunk of skull was blown away, staggering the creature before it pulled itself together and rumbled toward them. He ejected the spent cartridge and concentrated, pulling the shadows down around the creature's head, making it thick and suffocating. "Nagi!" he called. "Concentrate on its throat and its lungs! If we can deprive its cells of oxygen, maybe they'll all die!"
Nagi nodded curtly and shifted his attention to the creature's trachea, clenching down with an invisible vise and closing its airways as Jake stole the breath from it with his shadows. The creature slowed a bit, but it seemed to decide that Farfarello was too fast for it to catch, and turned, reaching out a mammoth hand for Schuldich.
Schu's face screwed up with effort, and suddenly a burst of force drove the thing's hand back long enough for him to scramble out of reach. It groaned unhappily and swiped at him, missing and driving its knuckle spurs into the wall of the tunnel. The entire pipe shook ominously and dust rained down.
Protecting his head with one arm, Crawford snapped, "get into the smaller tunnels! Sabbath! How did the Inconnu kill one of these before?"
"Jordan was a pyrokinetic," Sabbath said quickly, pressed against the side of the narrower tunnel, shaking in terror. "Burns are hard to heal, I guess? I don't know, they died trying!"
"That, I was already aware of," Crawford muttered, aiming at the thing's cranium, which was already healing from Jake's bullet. "It must have a weakness…."
"It's slow as hell!" Jake snapped. "By the laws of the universe, that's enough of a weakness!"
"It would help if we could actually hurt it," Schu snarled.
"Blades are better against things that heal," Sabbath suggested. "Or so says most vampire lore."
"Brilliant. Half of us haven't GOT ONE," Schu told her. "You're in the other half. Why are you still standing there?"
"I can't use this!" she protested.
"You're a fucking coward…."
"Children," Crawford cut in coolly. "Help has arrived."
Barely had he said it than the monster roared in anger and swung around, revealing a flash of black and red before its massive form obscured the scenery again. But Cross soon came dodging around the side, under the beasts arm, his longsword flashing as he hacked at the thing's armored body. There was a meaty thud and the thing staggered, a sword the size of a grown man lodged deep in its ribcage.
"Farfarello," Crawford snapped. "Take out its spinal column! Jake, Schuldich, fire at the head! GO!"
Farfarello fearlessly scrambled up the thing's back as bullets whizzed past his ears, using the bone spines as handles and fingering a slender, leaf-like blade. The monster took a swing at Calan, which he ducked, and drove its fist into the side of the tunnel with a thunderous crash even as the blonde brought his sword under and around, putting all of his formidable strength behind a downward slash. The sword thunked into the creature's arm and hit bone, managing to shear through it before losing its momentum and messily tearing through the rest. The severed arm dropped and the beast howled, thick blood spurting as the stump tried to heal itself. It swung around, but Calan dodged out of the way and Cross took a shot at its unprotected back. With the monster facing them, more shots rang out from the three holding firearms and chunks of skull were blown away, causing the beast to stagger.
Farfarello placed the slender blade at a spot right between the two highest vertebrae he could locate and drove it in with the heel of his hand. He left it there to prevent the creature from healing and leaped off of it as it dropped to its hand and knees.
It roared as it slumped toward the ground, almost in slow motion, and Calan swung his greatsword around, chopping it directly into the middle of the thing's back. The sword tore free as it fell, still twitching and moving its limbs feebly.
"Its nerve endings must have been double-wired so it would still be able to move if the spinal cord was severed," Crawford observed, stepping quickly up to it and emptying the remainder of his clip into the creature's head until there was literally no brain matter left. "Nagi, can you destroy it now?"
Nagi tilted his head and stepped up quietly, concentrating again on the thing's body and on pulling it apart at the seams. This time, it came apart with a wet rip, broad cuts opening along its body as the small telekinetic tore it limb from limb.
Schwert stood aside and said nothing as Nagi worked at his gruesome task.
"Now," Crawford said when he was finished. "Let's move on. Nagi, cave the tunnel in behind us. I don't want that beast coming back, or anyone else tailing us." He cast a meaningful look Schwert's way, and the two men simply offered grim smiles in return.
"If we hadn't been tailing you," Calan pointed out, "that thing might have killed you. What the hell IS it?"
"A biokinetic war machine," Sabbath said quietly, very pale and speaking as though she was afraid she might throw up. Or faint. "At one point, that was a human being like you or me, but the Collective turned it into something else. We can only hope they don't have any more."
"Well, now we know how to kill them," Cross said easily, flicking a bit of gunk off of his coat. "You'll have to forgive us for tagging along. We didn't realize you were involved in something so… Parasite Eve."
"This is not your fight," Crawford told them, as dust rose with a rumble and the tunnel in which the monster's corpse lay began to cave in, piece by piece. "But I suppose there's no help for it now. Truce, then, until we reach the surface?"
Calan eyed Farfarello. "Keep him off my back, and I'll gladly help you hack up behemoths."
Farfarello's eye narrowed to a golden slit.
"He won't touch you," Crawford told Calan coolly. "Let's move on. I'll brief you on the way." He turned and started down the tunnel, reloading his gun as he went.
Cross shot Schuldich a grin. "Ah, the fight-followed-by-a-team-up. It's a comic book classic. You don't look so good, Schu."
"I'm fine," Schuldich told him disdainfully. "Or as fine as I can be for being stuck in the sewers miles underneath the city with a collective of mindless psionic drones itching to graft my body into their neural net, walking into what I am fairly confident is a well-set-up trap."
"Some days just suck," Cross told him evenly. "But you've just got to sweat them out. Besides, 'I'm still alive' sex is some of the best, second only to make-up sex and 'I haven't see you for months' sex."
"What makes you think we're going to be having sex?" Schu wondered, smirking his way. "We're on opposite sides, in case you've forgotten."
"Pretend you're seducing me into disobeying Kritiker's orders to put a bullet through your head," Cross offered with a grin.
"Isn't that what I did?"
Cross smiled in amusement. "No. I never wanted to put a bullet through your head in the first place."
Schuldich sighed and shook his head. "You're one of a kind, Kreuz. I'm not sure why I like you, but I do. Which is why you have to understand, there's never going to be anything between us."
"Good," Cross told him firmly. "I never asked to date you, Schu. We'll survive this, we'll have incredible sex, you'll go back to Tokyo and I'll go back to my home, and it will be a nice thing to remember on sunny days when I'm feeling contemplative."
"A lot of people say that," Schu told him dryly.
"A lot of people think another person can make them happy, and that sexual satisfaction and happiness go hand-in-hand, when neither of those two ideas is necessarily true." Cross shrugged. "I'm already happy. I'm already content. I'm not missing any pieces. I won't cling to you. But since you seem wary of the idea, I'll drop it. I wouldn't force you into anything." He sped up and caught up with Calan, who was conversing with Crawford, so he could listen in on the rest of the briefing, leaving Schuldich to think it over.
Schuldich watched him with a look that was wryly thoughtful.
"He's the enemy," Nagi said quietly at his side.
But Schuldich shook his head. "I don't think Schwert has ever been our enemies," he said simply.
"Crawford won't like it."
Schuldich offered him a nasty smirk. "Well, that's all the encouragement I need."
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