DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN KAMEN RIDER, DEAD SPACE OR FAIRY TAIL!
"Talking!"
'Thinking'
Location / time change
[DRIVER / RIDER WEAPON!]
"How many times have you watched that thing?"
Natsu glanced up from the holoscreen she had been watching. She was an eighteen year old female human with caucasian skin, her hair was bright-pink and went down to her shoulders while her eyes were black. She wore an engineer space suit.
The woman who had just talked to her was a couple of years older than Natsu. She wore brown pants, black combat boots, and white t-shirt over a red jumper. She had brown hair that was pulled back into a harsh ponytail, fair skin and black eyes. Her name was Kendra.
Standing next to her and working on a holographic terminal was a man with dark skin, red eyes and no hair. He wore combat armor and was named Zach.
The year was 2257 and earth was running out of time.
Humanity has long since used up the last of the resources that their cradle world had to offer. In response, humanity created spaceships called planet crackers that would fly out to distant planets and mine them for the resources that humanity needed to survive.
A few weeks ago the planet cracker called Ishimura, the ship that Natsu's long distance girlfriend was posted on, had a communications blackout. The spaceship Natsu was on had been sent to find out what was wrong and fix the problem.
"Well, don't worry, we're almost there, you can look her up once we're on board." Kendra turned back towards the view port.
Then there was a bright-blast of yellow light before something, or rather someone fell on Natsu.
"Oaff!" Natsu shouted in pain.
"Argh!" The other person replied.
"Get off of her!" Kendra shouted.
Natsu kicked the person off of her and rolled to her feet before staring. The person that had fallen on her was a teenage girl, around seventeen years old. She had tanned skin and bright-yellow hair that was pulled up into a ponytail. Her eyes were dark brown, she wore blue sandals and an eye searing orange jumpsuit. "Er, high?" The girl replied.
One hour later:
"So let me get this straight." Natsu began.
Natsu was sitting on a crate, Kendra was leaning on the view port and Zach stood against the door. All three were surrounding the girl.
"You come from a world where wizards exist and can use magic." Natsu continued.
"We called them spells, but yeah." The girl, who had introduced herself as Lucy Heartfilia, nodded.
"You were trying to escape your controlling father." Kendra continued.
"That's right." a depressed Lucy nodded.
"You found some sort of lost magic that was supposed to teleport you away but took you here." Zach finished.
"That about sums it up, believe it!" Lucy replied.
"So, do you have any way to get back home?" Natsu asked.
"Natsu!?" Kendra turned to her friend in shock.
"What?" Natsu asked back, confused at her friend's outburst.
"You cannot be believing this crazy girl!" Kendra pointed at Lucy.
Who tiled her head to the side with a question mark floating over it.
"She appeared out of nowhere in a blast of light! I think that's a good argument for magic!" Natsu defended.
"She has a point." Zach pointed out.
Kendra opened her mouth, then closed it when she realized she didn't have a good argument and started banging her head on the wall, muttering about impossibilities.
Zach, the security officer, shot her a glare before continuing. "So, what are you going to do?"
Lucy shuffled her feet across the floor. "As much as I would like to stay, I was supposed to meet up with my aunt who agreed to hide me. So I should get going."
Natsu raised an eyebrow. "You're going to do it now?"
"Yeah, but there's nothing to say I can't come back later." Lucy shrugged.
Natsu cocked her head to the side. "Well, don't worry, we'll um…" She looked at Kendra and Zach. What were you supposed to say in a situation like this!?
Lucy reached behind her waist and a belt materialized. It was black with a black square-shaped buckle. Attached to which was a gun, it looked like a magnum that was colored pitch-black with the front end being dark-blue. The line separating the two ends was diagonal going from upper right to bottom left. In the back of the gun was a rectangle-shaped loading bay that was connected to a white screen in the front section. [VULCAN DRIVER!]
This was the vulcan driver.
Then Lucy reached behind her back and pulled out something that made Natsu's eyes go wide. It looked like a buckley keycard that was colored pitch-black, on the keycard's top line, positioned on the right side, was a light-gray button. There was a cover on the front of it that covered three fourths of the key, leaving the bottom fourth uncovered. The cover was light-gray and linked to the keycard by a light-gray hinge with a black outline on the left bottom corner of the cover. On the right side of the cover was a clear circle with a light-gray upside down raccoon head inside it, coming out of it were several lines that were cut into the cover, forming a raccoon's image. There was several lines cut out from the cover's top that spelt the words 'DIMENSION RACCOON' under which were the words 'ability: CONNECT'
This is the dimension raccoon progrise key.
Lucy hit the progrise key's silver button. [CONNECT!] She flipped the cover off the progrise key so it was facing forwards, everything on the key was now upside down but the raccoon's head was now right side up. She slammed it into her driver's loading bay after removing it from her buckle, the driver's screen now displayed the raccoon head, which had stopped behind it as the key was slid in. Narukto pointed the gun forwards and pulled the trigger. [DIMENSION SHOT!] She pointed the gun forwards as a beam of light formed inside the barrel as Naruka attempted the jutsu that had sent her here.
Everyone else had to cover their eyes because of the blinding light.
Lucy prepared herself as she felt the chakra growing even stronger.
[ERROR!] and her stomach plummeted as that sound came from her driver, the chakra fizzling out along with it. Lucy blinked in shock.
The crew stared in confusion as they uncovered their eyes.
"What the-!? I can't do it!"
"Are you alright?" Natsu asked.
Lucy reached behind her back and yanked out a large paper scroll before pulling it open and looking through it, desperately searching for an answer to her problem. "This doesn't make any sense! The only reason this spell shouldn't work is if-if." her head snapped up as something clicked in her mind and she scrambled back to her feet. Lucy raced past the, rather confused, crew members and pressed her face up against the viewport. She quickly released that she was not staring out into space, at least not what the humans of her planet saw as space from their planet's surface.
The ship was traveling through some sort of ethereal haze with blue rings occasionally passing around the ship. It gave off the appearance that the ship was traveling through a tunnel. "That can't be normal."
"Technically no." Natsu answered her.
Lucy turned to look at the pink-haired girl.
"We're in hyperspace right now. Our humanity's method of traveling vast distances. While we're in hyperspace we can cover great distances in a tenth of the time it would take in normal space." she explained, she could have sworn she saw a light bulb over Lucy's head.
"Ugh, this hurts my brain." Lucy groaned.
"What do you mean?" Kendra asked.
"A footnote said the only reason someone shouldn't be able to teleport back was if they were no longer in the reality they teleported to." Lucy explained.
"Which hyperspace counts as?" Zach guessed.
"Right." Lucy nodded. "I won't be able to go back home until we return to normal space."
The three crewmates looked at each other, nervous.
"So how long until we return to normal space?" then Lucy noticed. "Why do you all look so nervous?"
"Well." Zach sighed as he leaned against the wall. "We're on a repair mission to the edge of humanity's territory, so we'll be in hyperspace for at least another week."
"What?" Lucy whimpered, it felt like a kick to the stomach at hearing that. "No! My aunt will be worried sick about me back home!"
Zach shrugged and gave her an apologetic look. "Sorry miss Lucy, but every second counts. We lost contact with the space station that we're going to repair two weeks ago. If their oxygen scrubbers have broken down then they'll have an hour after our arrival before they run out of air."
Natsu jumped in. "It takes about an hour to slow the ship back into normal space and another hour to get back into hyperspace. Sorry, but we cannot stop to drop you off."
Lucy sighed in defeat. "I understand, sorry about all this."
Zach smiled. "It's alright, you have nothing to apologize for."
Kendra nudged him in the back with an elbow. "So how are we going to organize everything? Our oxygen and food supplies can easily accommodate an extra passenger, but she had nowhere to sleep."
"No problem." Lucy ressaured her. "I can just sleep in the…" She trailed off, realizing she didn't know what this room was called.
"In the cockpit?" Kendra clarified.
"Right! Strange name by the way." Lucy glanced around at all of the equipment.
Five days later:
"Are you feeling alright?"
Lucy jumped a foot in the air as Natsu's voice came from behind her. "Please don't sneak up on me like that!"
"Sorry, but you looked really worried about something." Natsu had a concerned frown on her face.
Lucy glanced down at the holoscreen. She had finally gotten bored enough to try reading.
She had already read most of this version of humanity's history, including humans leaving earth, weird name for a planet, the construction of the USG Ishimura, the foundation of the church of Unitology, which was based on the preachings of Michael Altman.
While the church unsettled her, the planet crackers flat out scared her.
"I'm fine, I just found a video of a planet cracker breaking open a planet. It startled me a bit." Lucy explained.
"Yeah." Natsu nodded. "I see your point, but they're the only way for humanity to keep up with the resource demand." Natus explained.
"Okay then, out of curiosity, where are we going and what is your group supposed to do when we get there?" Lucy questioned.
"We lost contact with the USG Ishimura two weeks ago." Natsu explained. "We've been sent to repair whatever went wrong and then we'll return home. Simple as that."
Lucy quickly noticed the sad frown upon Natsu's face. "You look worried."
Natsu's shoulders fell. "Well, it's just; my fiance, Nicole, is working onboard that ship as a medical expert. I'm just hoping she's alright."
Lucy gave her new friend a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, I'm sure she's fine."
Natsu chuckled. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I'm probably overthinking this, you know?" She caught Lucy staring at her attentively. "I know I'm hot, but I am engaged, you know." She joked.
A slight blush colored the ninja's face. "It's not that! I was admiring you're suit!"
"You like?" Natsu raised an eyebrow.
"I was hoping to take one back to show my teacher and village leader, to show I'm not crazy." Lucy looked away. "I shouldn't be saying that, I've already asked enough of you."
Natsu raised an eyebrow and scratched her chin. She pondered the subject for a minute before speaking. "You know, I think we have a spare suit somewhere that I can modify to fit you."
Lucy was much smaller than a normal sixteen year old because of her all ramen diet.
The blonde's head shot up in excitement. "You do?" Then she calmed down. "I'm grateful but you really shouldn't bother."
"It's fine." Natsu chuckled. "It's an older model that got put on the ship by mistake and will be recycled when we get back. It'll take my mind off Nicole while I modify it."
Two days later:
They had arrived.
The kellion existed hyper space, the normal universe appeared like a light at the end of a tunnel.
Lucy, now dressed in a grade one maintenance suit, couldn't help but gasp at the beauty of the scene. The system's sun was partially hidden behind the planet, Aegis Seven, the bright rays illuminated the planet's crimson surface. Large pieces of debris spun around it in a lazy orbit, a gigantic crater scarred the red world's surface.
Lucy correctly guessed that was where the Ishimura had mined. "Wow." She whispered.
"Alright everyone we're here." Zach announced. "Syncing our orbit now."
"All this trouble for a hunk of rock." Kendra sighed.
Zach turned to her. "Deep-space mining is a lucrative business, Miss Daniels." He corrected her, his voice had gotten very serious. "According to the prospector reports, Aigis Seven is a gold mine. Cobalt, silicon, osmium, all of them and many more elements can be found in great quantities on this planet." He turned back to the viewport. "Now, where is she?"
The Kellion slowly made its way through the debris field.
Lucy quickly saw the ship appear from behind an asteroid.
The USG Ishimura was revealed to Lucy and the crew in all its glory. It was a massive construct that looked like a huge mechanical ribcage. It had four oversized engines emerging from its behind. Four large spires stuck out from its underside, Lucy had read that these were the gravity tethers, the purpose of which were to rip pieces of the planet from the surfaces and pull them up to the spaceship.
This was the first planet cracker ever built.
Behind Lucy, Natsu simply stared at the machine, deep in thought about something.
"There she is." Zach stated the obvious. "We have visual contact."
"So that's the Ishimura?" Kendra observed. "Impressive."
"The USG Ishimura." Zach was quick to correct her. "Biggest planetcracker in her class and it looks like they already popped the cork."
Kendra approached the viewing port and quinted. "Why is it all dark? I don't see any running lights."
"Corpal take us closer and hail them." Zach ordered Chen. "And stay clear of that debris field, we're here to fix their ship. Not the other way around."
"Aye sir!" The pilot started navigating towards the larger vessel.
While he was doing that Johnstone, the man sitting next to the pilot, started trying to contact the planetcracker. "USG Ishimura, this is the USG Kellion responding to your emergency distress call. Come in Ishimura."
Nothing but static came through the radio.
"You're gonna need to boost the signal if the power's low." Kendra instructed.
"Yes, we know." Zach interrupted, he turned to the man in charge of communications. "Boost the signal."
More static came through the radio.
"More." Zach ordered.
Lucy approached the window to get a better view. They were approaching the ship's exterior hull now. She could see that Kendra had been correct: The ship was completely dark, the entire thing absent of any movement.
It was a bit unsettling.
"Never heard of a total communications blackout on one of these things." Kendra mused. "You'd think with over a thousand people on board someone would pick up the phone."
The dashboard lit up and played the Ishimura's response, but it sounded like gibberish.
"What is that?" Johnstone wondered aloud.
"It's a busted array, like we thought." Kendra cocked her head to the side and continued to listen. "Sounds like they're having problems with their encoder as well. You get us down here, Natsu and I can fix it. Forty-eight hours and we'll be done, tops."
"Alright you heard the lady." Zach ordered Chen again. "Take us in and see what needs fixing."
The asian pilot pressed a couple of commands on his screen and the ship rocked slightly. It was surrounded by the blue glow of the gravity tethers. "Gravity tethers engaged, automatic docking procedure is a go."
The ship was suddenly rocked violently and something to it's starboard side exploded! Alarms blared across the ship while everyone desperately tried to hold onto something.
"What the hell-?!" Zach shouted.
"Sir, the autodock-!" Chen yelled.
"What is it?!" Zach demanded.
"We're off track! We're gonna hit the hull!" Chen explained in a panicky voice.
"Activate manual control! Hit the blast shields!" Zach ordered.
Chen fought with the controls, desperately maneuvering the Kellion across the Ishimaru's hull, trying hard not to crash the ship.
Lucy desperately clung to the side of the cockpit, her heart pounding in her chest with adrenaline and fear!
"Their guidance system is damaged!" Zach realized. "Switch to manual! Now!"
"Inside the magnetic field!?" Are you insane!" Kendra shouted. "Abort!"
"NO! We can make it inside!" Zach didn't take his eyes off the window. "Corporal, I gave you an order!"
The pilot reached up and pulled down on a large lever, armored plates unfolded over the cockpit's window to protect the occupants from the, seamling, inevitable crash.
A holo screen appeared, giving the pilot a view of the outside. He typed several desperate commands into his console, trying to somehow break their descent. "Agh, the field's too strong!" But to no avail.
The Kellion shook violently as it crashed into the Ishimaru's loading bay, throwing its passengers around.
Nartuko lost her grip on the wall and was flung into the window. Her head slammed into it and she fell unconscious.
Later
After an unknown amount of time in blackness, Lucy woke up with a dull headache. While she had hit her head pretty hard, she couldn't feel anything more than a dull ache on her person.
Natsu was shaken up but had not been hurt in the crash. She shook her head and panted as the adrenaline slowly settled down. "You okay Lucy?"
"I think so." Lucy pulled herself back to her feet.
The two of them were relieved to find the rest of the crew okay, although they were coughing from the smoke that had settled in the air.
Zach straightened up. "Is everyone alright?"
Kendra looked around before confronting him. "What-What the hell were you thinking?! Were you trying to get us all killed!?"
"I just saved our asses Miss Daniels." Zach returned calmly. "If we had aborted at that speed and distance we would have smashed right into the Ishimaru's side. Now settle down and lets get to work." He turned to Chen. "Corporeal, report."
"I'm not getting any readings from the port booster, we've lost comms and autopilot. This'll take a while to fix." Chen reported after a few seconds of looking at his screen.
"Alright, let's get some extra hands from the flight deck to help us out." Zach ordered.
Kendra approached Natsu and Lucy. "Hold still, I'm syncing everyone's RIG's to the ship" She proceed to activate the other two girl's suits.
The health bars on their backs slowly filled up as their RIG's booted up. Both of them put their helmets on and were fed live info, including the others heart monitors through their helmets.
Lucy couldn't help but feel a little electrified by this.
"Okay, we're done. Clean bill of health for everyone." Kendra smiled.
"This is amazing." Lucy stated enthusiastically.
Kendra smiled gently. "Glad you like it."
"All right everyone." Zach commanded. "We've still got a job to do. We're moving out."
As everyone exited the ship, Lucy couldn't help but stare at the size of the hanger bay they had crashed into. These people sure liked to build things big.
Lucy's suit was a bit more bulky than what she was used to wearing, but was far lighter than what she would have expected for what was basically body armor for engineers. She walked around for a minute to get used to the weight and feeling before following the others.
Lucy noticed Kendra scowling at the Kellion. "You didn't lose power to the port booster, you lost the port booster! Unbelievable!"
The group continued walking through the hanger.
It was strangely quiet, except for a screen above the door that had lit up, it was playing a recorded message that welcomed them onboard.
They gathered around a locked door.
"Guess the power's down everywhere." Zach stated after trying to open the door with the computer console. "Natsu, get over here and hack the door open."
Natsu walked over to the console and pulled the interface off. "This should work." She pulled several wires out and crossed them, causing the door to spring open.
The group walked through arriving in a lounge with several chairs around the edges and two back to back rows in the middle of the room.
The place was suspiciously empty random luggage was scattered everywhere, Lucy and Natsu could smell a faint trace of dust in the air.
"Seems like everyone was trying to pack in a hurry." Was Kendra's observation.
Zach eyed the surroundings suspiciously. "There should be a security detail in here."
"Yeah? Well there's not. There's nobody here! I can't pick up any broadcasts." Kendra snapped, she had been working on a device the size of a smartphone.
Zach, ignoring Kendra, looked around and discovered a console behind the window of a checkpoint. "That security console is still live. Natsu, get over there, log in and see what you can find."
Lucy decided to follow Natsu on a hunch.
"Kendra, get that elevator back online." Zach ordered.
"Powers dead. I can't." Kenfra complained.
"Then reroute the damn power!" Zach snapped.
Everyone turned to look at Zach in shock. He was normally calm and controlled, they had never heard him talk like that!
Zach took a calming breath. "Look, if we all cooperate, we can get through this a lot quicker than if we're at each other's throats. Natsu, get that console worker."
Natsu nodded and walked up to the console, after a bit of fiddling she got a holo screen up. It displayed the entire Ishimaru, several sections were flashing red. The screen was being projected on the one of the lounges windows.
Johnstone approached the screen from his side of the glass. "Huh, that doesn't look good. She's taken a lot of damage."
Zach looked at the screen from the other side of the room. "The tram system's offline, getting around is going to be difficult."
Suddenly, with a loud whirring sound, the fans came online.
"The air's flowing again, that's a start." Zach looked around.
Suddenly, the interface in front of Natsu and Lucy turned bright-red. The word 'QUARANTINE' appeared in white text. The lights turned off and bright-orange emergency lights started spiralling in the lounge. Alarms started blaring.
Everyone tensed, the security officers bringing up their pulse rifles.
"What the hell was that?" Kendra questioned.
"The automatic quarantine must has tripped when the filtration system restarted. Everyone relax." Zach ordered.
Suddenly, there was the sound of something crawling overhead reached their ears.
Natsu tensed.
Lucy looked around nervously, trying to pinpoint whatever was making that noise.
The rest nervously looked around the room.
Kendra was frozen in place, her eyes darting everywhere. "What was that? Did you hear that?"
"I'm not sure." Zach replied absently.
Then came the sound of a vet breaking overhead.
Natsu tried to determine the location of the noise. Trying to see anything was hard in the darkness. He could barely make out the silhouettes on Johnstone and Chen. He knew Kendra and Zach were in the corner.
Lucy paced around nervously.
Something caught Natsu's eye. A vaguely humanoid shape rose from the floor, yet something felt very wrong with it.
Like it wasn't fully human.
"Something's in the room with us!" Kendra realized.
In the darkness the figure slowly approached Johnstone from behind, raising its arms.
There was a glint as the lights passed over it.
In horror, the engineer realized those were not hands at all, but sharp, wicked-looking blades.
Before Natsu could shout a warning, the thing brought its appendages down on the unsuspecting Johnstone!
Lucy get an instinctive cry of fear as the poor man's internal organs and blood splattered the windows with his vitals flatlining. The monster continued to carve into his body with its blades.
"Jesus Christ! Open fire!" Zach ordered.
Both he and Chen took aim and squeezed the triggers on their pulse rifles. The pulse rounds ripped through the monster's torso.
"Kendra! Power!" Zach shouted over his shoulder.
It didn't seem particularly effective as it roared and pounced at Chen.
"KENDRA!" Zach screamed.
The poor pilot didn't stand a chance, the creature sliced him in half. This blood and intestines poured across the floor as it turned towards Zach and Kendra.
"Come on…" Kendra was frantically working at the door. "Come on!" The door sprung open. "Got it!"
Zach let off one last burst from his pulse rifle as the creature jumped at him. He dove back through the door and it slammed shut, causing the monster to slam into it, face first before falling to the floor.
If the two people hadn't just been carved up like thanksgiving turkey, it would have been funny.
The creature got up and, to Lucy and Natsu's utter horror, turned to look at them.
"Natsu! Lucy! Get the hell out of there!" Zach's voice came through their communicators.
"The door's unlocked! RUN!" Kendra added.
The engineer frantically opened the door behind the security check point and the two raced through it. They could hear more and more creatures breaking through the ceiling behind them.
Neither dared to look back. Both of them were hyperventilating, terror, fear and shock controlling them. The sight of an elevator was like heaven to both of them.
"Run, Natsu! Lucy! Get the hell out of there!" Kendra shouted through the comms.
"In here!" Natsu literally punched the console to the elevator as both of them dove into it.
The doors slammed shut and for a second both of them thought they were safe. Without warning a pair of blades pried the doors open and the two of them caught sight of the monster.
It's skin looked like a black undersuit with its hands looking like gloves and its feet appearing to be boots. It had silver toes on the feet that looked like armor. Two green wires went up the front of its lower legs and a single green armor went up the front of its upper legs, moving around to the outside of its hips. Around its waist was a bright-silver belt with a rectangle-shaped buckle. On the left side of the rectangle was a red button and the right line was missing, revealing an opening. Within the opening was a black keycard with a screen in front of it. The screen was green and had the negative of a mantis-like insect on the front of it. Above the negative was the word 'BEROTHA' in black and under that was the words 'TYPE: EXTINCTION' Wires came from the belt into the keyboard, cracking the screen.
These were the extinction riser and the ancient mantis progrise keycard
It's chest was covered by bright-silver armor that was shaped like an upside down triangle that had two points at the bottom connecting a fourth line. Attached to either side of the top was half a bright-silver circle. Three green wires came from either side of the triangle and wrapped around the bottom half of its chest.
It's shoulders were covered by bright-silver shoulder guards with rivets on the front of them. Around its lower arms was black armor that was under green armor which made its arms look mantis like. Instead of hands it had a pair of bright-green sickle blades. It's head was large, green and insectoid shaped with yellow protruding diamond-shaped eyes. Finally, coming from its forehead was a pair of antennae.
This is a Berotha Magia.
With a roar, the monster pounced at the two humans. Before any hard could befall them, the elevator door slammed shut, crushing the monster's body, sending blood and body parts everywhere. One of the claws only missed Natsu because she ducked while the head rolled towards Lucy.
The younger girl was completely traumatized and scurried away into the corner. She hugged her knees and started sobbing controllably.
Natsu shakily got to her feet and crouched to one knee beside the young kunoichi. She hugged the distressed girl in her arms, trying to comfort her. "It's okay, Lucy." She whispered. "It's dead now, it's not gonna hurt us anymore… It's not gonna hurt us anymore."
The elevator ground to a halt.
Natsu nervously peaked out and sighed in relief at seeing an empty room. She shuffled back in and turned to look at Lucy.
The poor seventeen year old was huddling in the corner, still shaking.
She felt sorry for the younger girl. Being attacked by the creature and losing two friends had pained her heart. She hadn't known Chen or Johnstone that well but they seemed like good men. Now they were gone, brutally hacked to pieces by whatever that abomination had been.
She crouched to her level and gingerly put a hand on her head. "Hey." she said gently. "I know you're scared, believe me I'm terrified. But we have to find Zach and Kendra, okay? We-We will get out of this."
Lucy didn't respond for a second before whipping her eyes and getting up. She put on her helmet and nodded towards the door.
They exited the elevator, eyes and ears peeled.
The maintenance level was almost pitch-black, only a damage ceiling light and their helmets lit the room. There was a smell of dust in the air, along with the metallic taste of blood and something rotten.
The sound of scuffling and growling could be heard inside the wall, making a shaky Lucy shift closer to the engineer.
Natsu noted nervously that a lot of blood was smeared across the rusty walls, everything from large splashes to red handprints.
'Something doesn't feel right' Natsu gulped. 'Where are the bodies?"
Natsu really wished that she hadn't thought that a few seconds later.
They were in a long room with a lone door in the center of the opposite wall. To the left was a sickly-green storage room, it had skeletal walls, allowing a clear view inside of it.
And a view of the violently mangled bodies, all of which had missing limbs or huge chunks of flesh torn from them. A pair of victims were decapitated, their heads having rolled off in different directions. Some were even stripped of their skin, their flesh and muscles bared and sliced, their tendons torn through.
The overwhelming smell of bodily fluids hit them, assaulting their noses and making them gag.
Natsu could feel the bile rise up in her through but quickly swallowed to counter it.
Lucy was not so lucky. She tore off her helmet again before thoroughly emptying her stomach, erupting into a hacking fit before clearing her throat.
Natsu noticed that she was shaking even more now. Her face was paling and her pupils dilating at the sight of the carnage, beads of swat were rolling down her body. She regretted that she could do nothing for her condition right now.
"What the hell is going on?" Lucy whispered in horror. Her gaze was transfixed upon the pile of dead people, unable to avert it out of fascinated horror.
The engineer made her way across the room, staying well away from the corpses. The trail of blood continued across the ground towards another body, it was as if it had been dragged to that point. The dead man had his legs severed and several deep cuts all over his remaining body. His hand clawed against the wall in a desperate attempt to get out of this nightmare.
Natus's stomach heaved before she noticed a message on the wall scrawled in the man's own blood.
CUT OFF THEIR LIMBS
The S was unfinished, the trail of blood dragging down towards the deceased crew member's hand.
As much as the message was ominous, a glimmer of hope surged through Natsu; these monsters were not invincible. She approached the dead body and turned him gently, his tag revealing his name. "T. Benson, Tram Engineer." Natsu silently offered her thanks to the man.
"Someone help me!"
Both females jumped at the loud scream coming from behind the door.
"I don't have the key!"
The two of them looked at each other and ran down the stairs.
"I can't get away from them!"
The voice was becoming more and more desperate as the two of them reached the door.
"HELP ME! NO NO! GET OFF ME ARGH!"
Natsu opened the door, just in time for another Berotha Magia to rip a poor man apart before it turned to the two of them.
Then it lunged!
To be continued!