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Hunter in Space
Chapter 1: Must be Monday.
The coldness and the stench of death, decay and urine was the first sign that something was definitely off for Rachell as her purple colored eyes snapped open, immediately flipped backward from the cold steel floor and brought out one of her guns from digital storage as she aimed at any possible hostiles as her cat like eyes scan the area around her.
The interior of the room she is in is a standard industrial looking place where some form of mining or old government work used to do before the collapse, but instead of old machinery, old rusted or broken tools and computers that greets her it was some sort of futuristic shit she can't identify.
At first her thoughts was that she somehow ended up in one of Kethrals mining or underground bunkers but quickly squashed that theory as the clear color scheme around here definitely doesn't scream the usual black and red color those corporate parasites love to use.
What is worrying however is the huge amount of human blood covering the walls, floor and ceiling, along with raised eyebrow worthy human sized vents on the walls that CLEARLY something inhumane has used them as transit of sort, due to some have clearly been smashed opened. Looking around, the Cyborg cat girl can see mutilated body parts strewn around, some are freshly killed or days old.
Either whatever attacked here took the bodies with them for feasting or the body themself became some sort of undead abominations and now moving around trying to find other victims to kill and turn them into more of them.
Either way, nothing new.
Looking at her hand cannon as she realized she whipped out one of her most powerful weapon, she put it away and brought out pair of pistols. Both used to be USP Match pistols before her oldest best friend Aily upgraded them to not only pack some serious punches to pierce heavy armor but also updated their internal cores to allow her fire indefinitely without needing ammo or reloading.
There is nothing wrong to whip out her Volt5 Anaconda hand cannon, its just that this particular weapon is friggin hard to modify to fire endlessly like her USP Match pistols to still have the same firepower, so she rather save her precious ammo for the more tougher opponents in any battles she likely gonna face soon.
Twirling both the pistols like some wild west cowboy before holding them up, ready to blow any inhumane son of a bitch that dares to try attack her.
As She steps out of the shadows and out to the flickering light ahead, Rachell Flowers shows her full appearance of a dark skinned thicc busty human woman with cybernetic cat ears and a tail, short lime green hair and purple cat like eyes. Wearing long sleeve dark green jacket which she happens to have her jacket unzipped; reveling her ill fitted sports bra with a black color base and green lining to it. Wearing dark grey stocking leggings and panties, practically showing her near bare ass to the world. Green sneakers with black soles and black gloves, last of all wearing a custom made respirator mask that resembles a front mussle of a cat with green metal parts and purple glowing lines.
Overall, by all account Rachell looks far too out of place in a place like this.
Then again, if it wasn't for the fact she is an enhanced super human hunter; enhanced through science and magical rituals she definitely wouldn't have survived the many horrors she encountered back home on earth. Because as she tries to contact any of her friends or HQ support of her current whereabout with the Neural link, all she got was static from her HUD and her mini map telling her she is out of contact with any nearby satellites.
Last time something like this happened was when she, Alice and Aily got their asses sent to another world through an anomaly portal, granted its a bit of a stretch but right now; She's in hostile territory and have no info of how and why she ended up here.
Quietly walking through the bloody mess of the hallway and into a narrow corridor, she eyed any nearby vents that she can see as they looks good for ambushes, while also criticizing the designer of who the hell makes these vents THAT big for a human being to fit through.
Like, that's CLEARLY a safety or security hazard! Some psycho could easily use them to sneak around undetected and murder someone!
But of course, she wouldn't be surprised if this was done by some fat corporate parasite that barely understand how the real world works, considering the only ones left practicing that old outdated ways are the kethrals Union and they already having issues of their own to deal with to bother the Frontier Militia.
Say what you will about the collapse of the old world and how much destruction has caused to the planet and nearly wiping out 60 % of the human race over 400 years ago, but her ancestors were fucking stupid and greedy as all hell as they ALLOWED the corruption of both corporation and government to make their lives a living hell, god awful decisions that made no damn sense and waste of resources that could be used to save lives and better living conditions.
Instead all of it went to bunch of entitled shits that they believe they own the world or even the universe while seeing the rest of the "Commoners" lesser than themself, not realizing they are barely even a speck on the radar of the universe and the horrors that exist outside their once safe homeworld.
Now, most of the descendant from the old world all around half of Europe has become far more united and learned from the past mistakes without some greedy old farts not blinding them with wool over their eyes, the only one that still does that is the Kethral Union on that godforsaken island that used to be called England before they butchered its entire identity into something else.
As for the rest of the world... No idea if other humans manage to survive in the old mysterious lands known as America and Africa, but from what she heard they have seen lights of cities here and there.
Not a lot, but it does point that some humans of the past manage to survive the collapse in those continents and continue to live to this day and age, question is are they humans or something else that was brought forth during the collapse that now reside in these ancient cities?
Shaking her head lightly, she need to focus here and now instead of shit talking in her head about the past actions of humanity several hundred years ago. She need to focus on her survival and make sure she cannot make any mistake.
Like right now...
As she stops in her track, her left ear twitching as she picks up a faint noise of something shuffling.
Something wet with hint of rotting flesh hits her nose as her respirator mask filters away the awful smell, as she glance toward one of the unbroken vents in front of her that happens to be few feet away.
Whatever is inside definitely trying to be cute with their little ambush.
*Click*
Unfortunately for it, she doesn't have time to play games.
She fires first shot into the wall next to the vent opening as something screech in pain as the bullet penetrated the metal wall and into the monster, the creature flung itself out of the vent and breaking the cover into pieces as it stood up glaring at Rachell with its milky white eyes.
Rachell can't help but raise an eyebrow when she saw the thing, it was some sort of an undead zombie intimidating a praying mantis with its scythe like arms where the bone blades protude out of the palms, its stomach torn open to allow the intestines to spill out while two pair of fleshy arms sticking out.
It's legs broken and twisted into some form of cokery to a human feet, and it was missing a lower jaw but still shows new set of teeth where the jaw used to be.
Oh and the shot she took blew a good chunk of its left side of the torse the size of a football where it shows its shattered ribcage and torn meat and organs.
Good thing her weapons were design to kill monsters~
The mantis zombie roared out as it charges at the dark skinned neko as she fired rapidly into its body, the blow from her pistols are powerful enough to blow huge chunks of its lower and mid torso that one of the shot split its spine in half, making it fall to the metal floor with a wet thud.
It was still not dead yet as it growls while crawling toward her with its bladed arms. Rachell shot its head as it blew apart like a ripe melon, but to her surprise it still moved toward her with the intent to kill her despite not having a head.
"Curious..." She ponders as she shot boths of its arms off, seeing it twitch for a second before finally lies still; dead and limbless.
"No motor function needed without the head to guide it, no limbs mobilize it and remove it from being a threat... Also patient hunter, awaits for prey to pass by before pouncing..." Rachell quietly muttering to herself as she pokes the corpse with her shoe, inspecting and theorizing how this thing function and its weaknesses.
Her ears flickered a bit as she picks up more shuffling noises from the vents, indicating more of its kind are coming.
"Hallway too narrow for movement, need more open space." Rachell thought as she now sprinted away in speed that certainly didn't match normal human speed as she was now a blur.
Speeding through the bloodied corridors and passing by locked doors with red hologram in the middle, along with some human corpses in maintenance clothing either laying against the walls or sprawled out on the floor torn to shreds. The busty neko girl glance behind her as she can hear the sound of more vents being broken near where she killed the abomination, likely the damn monsters trying to overwhelm her with numbers from the amount of roars she can hear back there.
Coming to near the end of the halls, she stood before a door with light blue hologram that ask "Open?" which she waved her hand over it and it opened upward, allowing her entrance.
She quickly went inside and aimed her guns at any potential threats but saw nobody as the room she is in looks like some sort of a repair station of sort. hearing the rattling of the vents once more she ran up to the railing and jumped, kicking the nearest support beam as she wall jumped up to the ceiling itself as it was high enough up in the air to allow her to grab onto what looks like a metal claw arm, hang for a moment before climbing it up and hid in the shadow and among the many arms and wiring as she watch the vents and the door she came through to see if they are following.
Soon enough more of those same mantis looking zombies came bursting through the vents with their guttural roars, most either completely naked while others wearing clothes of the unfortunate victims once worn before turning into these freaks.
They seem to look around, trying to find her as they seem to fail to look up as she gazed down upon them. Taking in every details of their behavior, their hunting tactics and how they handle with any potential prey escaping them.
The creatures began to just shambling around, waving their arm scythes and moaned pitifully as they began to search their next victim. Indicating their intelligence is that of a more pack animal than sapient as they seem to rely on ambushes and numbers to overwhelm their foes.
Not to mention instead of using door to open it was literally not locked as she had no idea how to lock it, they uses vents as alternative form of travel, meaning they don't have the same understanding of solving complex obstacles problems like most animals does.
Dismissing one of her gun as she looks at her left hand, gathering the energy within her to form into one of powers that she has gene modded into herself to see if this will work or not.
Her left hand began to darken as dark veins began to appear while spots of black wet growth grew out of her palm and half of her arm as red crackling of energy gathered onto her hand as a red glowing orb appeared with black veins covering its form falling onto her palm as she gave it gentle squeeze.
Having conjured up an enrage orb, one that is good to cause chaos among enemy rank by having one of their own go berserk and attack their allies, good to sneak around and cause distraction while she either escape or sneak inside enemy bases to steal anything important or assassinate those in charge.
Glancing down to see the monsters has yet to spot her, she eyed each of the monsters as she counted there are 7 of them gathered down below. Seeing a rather bulky one in what looks like security uniform shambling toward a corner with boxes to inspect anyone hiding behind them, she threw the orb as it flew straight at the unaware thing as it exploded into red mist on its back, soon covering the monster as its once pale skin became tinted red and red glowy veins appeared as it whip around to show red glowing eyes as it looked at the closest mantis zombie and roared.
The now frenzied zombie charged toward the confused ally before it sunk its blades into the creature, stunning it for a second before it also roared and slashed back, hacking each other apart with the other zombies watching in confusion as they just stood there stunned and watched it happening.
Seeing as they were stunned, Rachell threw another enrage orb at one of them and the results were the same as the afflicted zombie began to attack its closest ally, thus chaos soon erupted as they now fought among themself as the hacked and slashed apart each limbs, skin and organs until both affected mantis zombies lies dead with two unaffected ones still standing.
Or more like, one standing and the other crawling as that one lost both of its legs.
Wanting to test another power to see if it has any effect as well, she dismissed the enrage power and called forth Lightning as electricity danced around her hand as she aimed it toward the one standing and shot a bolt of Lightning, striking the creature as it now spasm uncontrollably as lightning dance around its twisted form, stunning it in place as it screech in pain.
Now normally anyone hit by her Lightning bolt are usually stunned if they can either resist most of the damage for few seconds or caught in pool of water. But Rachell's eyes widen in surprise as she can see something is happening to the creature as its flesh began to convulse and expand, almost as if it's inflating as its inside are being cooked and creating gasses.
Soon enough the damn thing actually exploded, as gore and bones flew everywhere like a hand grenade detonated as its bone shards became literal shrapnel that either cut or dented the metal around it or left scars on the surface.
As for the one on the floor, its body was torn to shreds from the bone shrapnel as both of its arms and head was torn to pieces and good chunk of its back torn off.
Rachell just sat there in her hiding place, baffled and very intrigued that she found a new method on how to take out larger group of those things...So long she stays from a distance.
Jumping down and landed on her feet, she inspected the mess she caused and noted some had dropped what looks like chips of sort. Unsure what they are she pocketed them away in her inventory storage for later identification. Glancing around for anything noteworthy that might explain where the hell she is, but sees more human corpses on the other side of the room that she has to walk up the ramp to cross it.
She inspected the corpses and ignored the horrific wounds on them as she patted them for anything of value, until she sees something next to a female corpse.
Picking it up, she accidentally pressed something as it began to play an audiolog.
"Benson to Engineering. You got a Stasis module handy? We need one in the Tram Maintenance stat. The auto-loader's fried. I got a damaged tram car on the tracks, and if the whole system's gridlocked, guess who they're calling." a disgruntal male voice came out from the device that she is holding.
"Temple here, sending a stasis module now. What happened to the auto-loader?" a new man voice spoke up, sounding less grumpy and more soft spoken.
"No idea. A lot of shit's been breaking down, and... I keep hearing things... Down in the gears, where no one could be. You know?"
"I know."
Rachell blinked at this new information but still not sure what to make of it.
"So it seems something has been going on, the people working here has been hearing these freaks below them but has yet to find out before this clearly massacre started...Still doesn't tell me much where I am though." She let out a frustrated sigh.
Great, more questions and no answers in sight.
Suddenly Rachell head snapped up as she felt...something.
She felt like an unknown force trying to force its way in her head, to try perhaps influence her in some ways. But thanks to her enhancements and mental blocks it couldn't get in and now that she is aware of it, her guard is even more up than before.
"of fucking course there gotta be some eldritch shit going on..." Rachell growled behind her respirator mask, her eyes narrowing as she felt faint attempts of trying to push itself into her mind.
"Nice try." She says as she focused her mind and expunged the intruder away from her mind, letting both her magic and the cybernetics to do its thing to protect her mental faculties.
One positive about facing eldritch horrors is that the eggheads can come up better ways to defend themself from going insane with new gene mods or cybernetics. Especially for the many Hunters and soldiers facing the horrors to keep their people safe from the otherworldy creatures.
Thankfully Rachell has both and have faced lots of horrors over the years that they literally don't phase her anymore. Not like when she first started as a young Hunter, helping mankind to reclaim some of their lost territories to either the Voidborn or psychotic marauders and bandits.
Not the proudest moment as she remembers when she first started as a Hunter at the age of 15, where she broke down crying and hiding from her first Voidborn grunt. Just the sheer sight of those things made her once tough silent persona break immediately back then and later would be plagued with nightmares for two whole years, and that was before she even got the enhancements and gene modifications so she was just a young teenager facing against a two and a half meter tall monster born from an imprisoned old one.
Thankfully she adapted and got over her fears and nightmares over the years, now she has no problem facing the damn things or any new threat.
Tossing the audiolog to the floor where she found it, she glance back to the door she came through and wondered if she should continue explore and see if she can find any survivors that could tell her where the hell she is and how she got there.
Because she still has no connection to anyone with the Neural Link system, meaning she is running dark with no intel or any support of her friends or allies.
Stuck inside what she presume to be either a huge facility or underground lab of sort. Infested with unknown monsters that she has never seen before but goes down like any other she killed in the past, most humans that she seen are dead bodies torn apart by these freaks with nobody alive to answer her goddamn question of where the fuck she is.
Must be Monday already.
Her right ear flick to the side a bit as she hears a distant roar that sounded...Like an Elephant of sort?
"Well, not getting any damn answers standing here." Rachell mutters as she pulled out her second gun once more, ready to shoot down more of those freaks. "Might as well go on a hunting spree."
With that, Rachell Flowers left the tram repair station. Hoping that she can find someone alive to explain to her where she is at and what the hell is going on.
And pray that she is actually on Earth and not some random ass planet that accidentally got connected to hers due to the screwed up anomalys going around Earth.
Or heck, she hope she isn't on some spaceship in the middle of nowhere, above a planet where these fuckers came from!
"...Why did I feel a sense of foreboding all of the sudden?" Rachell asked herself dryly, with a deadpanned expression before shrugging and walked off.
End of Chapter