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Much to the dismay of the cyborg's current mental state, things kept escalating. Eliza seemed to gone off the deep end and was rushing around at speeds he could only guess he would achieve by going over his cybernetic limits, all while firing ridiculously oversized guns at the giant demon spider made out of freaking magma. No, yea, that suited her. Didn't suit him one bit, but sure, what even was reality at this point.
Perhaps due to the raw absurdity and shock of the entire thing, he seemed to stabilize somewhat, remaining with his back against the organic wall on the corner, somewhere equidistant from both the Spartans and the heart. As Mayhem clicked in his grasp he would flip the gun open, exposing the oversized cylinder. There where no shells, one of the many perks of the microjet design he decided to go with, and as such it was with a strange kind of calm than the man reached into the duffel bag at his hip and recovered the last six bullets in his possession, all while bone spikes crashed and crumbled from the ceiling above, smashing against the metal plating of the floor and the cooling fluid surrounding the heartcore. Heh, it was funny really. he never quite expected to spend all his ammo for Mayhem on a single mission. Much less on a single target.
With a flick of his wrist the gun closed once more, the faint hum of the engine parts letting him know it connected properly, leaving his eyes free to scan the madness once more. Everyone was a freaking idiot. True to form for this mission, communication was ignored, and everyone was shooting at one another, and right now apparently all firing at the spider that somehow Eliza caused...ignoring the heart of the ship they were inside off. Ya know, the one sending them hurling through a realm that quite literally made no sense, and that was coming from someone that was forced to see it. For fucks sake! At this point Eligos was pretty sure that the six rounds in his gun would be put to better use inside the skulls of all living humans in that chamber. They sure as FUCK did absolutely NOTHING against a physical manifestation of what he guessed was a coalesced emotion of decadence to the very extreme of possibility.
He moved away from the wall with Mayhem still in hand, turning to the side simply to spit another mouthful of blood and what he hoped wasn't a tooth. He continued to advance towards the heart, walking instead of running, his gaze sternly avoiding even the general direction of the spider and the rest of his crew. That was NOT his problem and he wanted nothing to do with that literal nightmare fuel. He walked with a limp, his cybernetics finally reaching some sort of critical point, specially his legs, and he was horribly thankful he didn't have to turn on his pain sensors any time soon. "HEY! A little love-tap and you think we are through?" He called out to the heart as he raised his right hand, holding out Mayhem and waiting. Waiting for that eyes to blink towards him once more. "We are not through. I shoved your little mouth-piece through the void he loved so much. Not that spider, not the crazy bitch over there not even the toy soldiers. I did. So don't you DARE to look away!" He was bluffing. Through and through. His body hurt, his mind was aching and he was running out of anything that could even make a dent on this thing's body. Still, as he pulled the trigger, he hoped his stupid bravado would pull everyone's heads out of their own asses if just for a second...and give them a big fat opening.
Its magma skin plates chipped and cracked under the assault from the witch's weapons, but the demonic arachnid only laughed as the humans dove away from its vomit lava. More fungal growths snapped down, this time wrapping around a pair of its legs and cause the Phantasmaranea to snarl and snap in frustration. The Void born entity was very much using the humans as a distraction for the infernal demon, now getting the infernal arachnid where it wanted.
The witch managed to land on its head, jammed her damnable gatling gun against its cephalothorax. And just before she fired, the phantasmaranea jerked itself, barely in time as the bead-line of a targeting laser was now thrown off at the last possible instant. And yet, the barrage of pure laser force energy would slam into it, cutting a path down its fovea and through its abdomen that pierced the magma plates and spilled out a gushing flood of lava. The thrashing was enough to throw the witch clear, and gave the heart mass opportunity to further ensnare the demonic spider with more of the fungal growths.
Still fighting against its capture, the demon none the less was worn, injured far worse than it had thought possible. And as it was lifted up to be brought face to face with the heart mass, that single eye would emerge to glared at the spider. A roar in defiance, more growths snapping to grab it by the mandibles, wrapping around its head and digging in to whatever spaces between skin plates existed. The demon was in pain, violated by the fleshy fungal mass that was invading its joints and limbs.
"I will consume you, Voidborn, and my spawn will feast on your-"
The arachnid was interrupted by its own agonized screaming as the threads and strands tensed and pulled, tearing at the forces that held the demon together. A crack formed on its igneous carapace, spreading along its head and exposing further glowing magma under the hardened plates. The masses of fungal growth would tighten further stretching the spider's legs at it would split along the grevious wound left in its underside. It screamed in a pain it had never thought possible, the strands of fetid flesh emerging from the cracks and joints to loop back and join the larger threads to strengthen the tearing pull.
And as the phantasmaranea gave one final piercing howl, it was splinched in half, glowing orange innards and magma blood falling down and hitting the ground with thick plops and meaty thumps. The cracked halves of the demon's still glowing carcass was slowly dimming as pieces would break free of each other and dangle in the fetid web that the ship creature had woven. After long enough, the fungal mass would slowly withdraw, dumping the cooled igneous husk to the deck floor and letting its fragments shatter on impact into millions of shards of volcanic rock.
And the eye would turn its attentions once more toward the humans, blinking behind the sharpened teeth caging it. Yet despite all that, something seemed different about the entity. Almost as if it was tired somehow.
And from under the rubble of the now dead and shattered demon spider, Miller would finally emerge to rejoin the group of humans with a small transceiver remote in his hand.
Eliza had thought to take down her pact holder with a well-placed barrage of bullets, but it seemed that fate had other plans, as did Phantasmaranae, and the Witch no sooner began her attack than she was thrown from the top of the demon's fiery head. As she sailed through the air to land at the edge of the coolant pool, a blinding flash of red appeared, momentarily dazzling Eliza's vision. This did nothing to hinder her hearing, however, and as she blinked spots from her eyes, she couldn't help a shiver at the horrific cacophony of carapace being torn apart and the demon's dying shrieks. "Uh huh.. Right, so that's a thing that happened.." she muttered as she turned her attention to the primary enemy at hand. There wasn't much time, she knew, and she could already feel the full weight of her weapons in her hands. More alarmingly, the burst of energy she'd experienced since the start of the fight was fading fast. Options were running out, and quickly. With that in mind, Eliza braced herself against the floor, then aimed both her main weapons at the eye-thing, and simply opened fire, straining under the recoil of her rifle and gatling shotgun. There was no finesse, no graceful movements. She focused her remaining reserves of energy into just dumping as much firepower on the eye as she possibly could, hoping that it would be enough, and if not, that the others present would be able to make it so.
the things that you might like don't grow inside of me
It was a narrow miss, but the trade off was worth it - while the spider's sudden movement managed to save Lockheed from a rather quick and relatively painless death, the beast itself was far too large to avoid the Laser's crimson beam which generated a far more visceral response than the smaller scale kinetic weapons had prior to that point. But it wasn't dead. Not yet. Even as bodily fluids gushed from the point of impact and it by all appearances seemed to be a mortal wound, it still was moving and still making sounds. Another shot would likely fix that, but it seemed as though the entity controlling the Horizon had other plans - and for the briefest of moments the Spartan felt a twinge of genuine fear and uncertainty as the tendrils extending from the ceiling finally caught their prey.
Whatever Vincent had been expecting, though, it wasn't for them to simply finish the job. Not consume it.
Fine by him. That effectively put everyone right back where they were a few minutes prior, before Lockheed had summoned the damn thing. Down some ammunition and ordnance, but not by much. Eligos had forgone dealing with the spider entirely, weapons firing on the ship's core, and Lockheed would move to emulate him almost the moment the spider was dead. Anna and Bravo Five were still alive, and Miller was still present and moving. Vincent still had five shots to work with, and while it was difficult to describe the same gut feeling he'd been trusting since the start of all this felt a hint of weakness from the entity, one that hadn't been there before.
They were close. They were almost through this.
Shifting targets once again and thankful that no one had tried to charge in this time, Vincent would settle his weapon's reticle over the eye once more, a brief glow of charging red from the end of his weapon again preceding the massive red beam.
The entity was entirely focused on them now. The fungal flesh growths were emerging once more from the burrow holes in the sphere chamber, gaining the attention of Bravo Five's beam pistol as bright blue lines reached out and made all efforts to slice through the thick tendrils of flesh mass. The pulsing red beam fired lo the larger Spartan clad in black tore through the surging growths moving toward them, eliciting a painful screech and a rumbling shudder from the heart mass as the kiloton force energy slammed into the tooth bone 'cage' over the eye, finally shattering the teeth apart and leaving the eye unguarded.
Shots fired from the magnetic rail handgun in Anna's hand, screaming with super sonic micro-booms as the slugs impacted into the main brain-heart mass. All the while as the Spartans were focused on doing as much physical damage as possible, Miller was making his way to keep close to the main group, the small hand remote gripped tightly.
"Soldier, you have anymore of those grenades you used on the flying centipede?!"
A nod from Bravo Five, but his focus was on cutting down the growths before they could get too close. "Two Starbursts left, sir! I've also got a Machine Man singularity grenade that I managed to salvage from a dead Empire unit, but I haven't had a chance to get it or a scan back to SRA for study!"
Anna hesitated a moment as she readjusted the settings on the ÆSIR Magnum she had been using. She looked over at the cerulean armored man with shock as she visibly processed what he had just said. "Singularity...you have a black hole grenade?!"
Another nod, and Bravo Five adjusted his grip to fire one handed as he pulled a small egg shaped cylinder from his back hard case. "It's Machine Man tech, we never managed to get our hands on one before since they started using them five years ago. Thing generates a singularity that lasts about five seconds, and sucks in everything in a three meter radius before it collapses." He paused a moment. "Painfully pulls everything in."
Miller would eye the device warily as Bravo Five slapped it back into the hard case. His head turned toward the heart mass again, then back to where that grenade was kept safe. "Would it have enough range to collapse that eye into the singularity?"
The blue armor Spartan hesitated a moment, his head turning toward Miller even as he contemplated the idea. While his face was not visible through the visor, his head motions said enough for his thoughts. "Possibly even pull the whole thing in once it fired. It would need to be right at the center of its mass though."
The EVA hardsuit clad Miller held his hand out, almost as if that said enough of an order. When Bravo Five just stared at him, the man gave him a hard glare. "I may not be in whatever chain of command you have, but I've been stuck on this damn thing for over eight hundred years. I know about how it works more than anyone who isn't Bill Weir, and right now, I remember how this thing can die so you all can go home, alive. But I need that grenade."
A screech pulled their attention, and as they watched, a series of fungal masses began to coalesce into a form resembling the magma spider that had just been torn apart...
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Click. Each shot launched by his gun barely recoils in his cybernetic grip, his eyes tense and jaw clenched as he followed the bright trail of each gyrojet as it flew across the nightmarish air and slammed into the hardened muscle of the abomination beating before them, the literal heart and brain of this derelict vessel, digging past the outer layer as the fuel burned out, only to explode into short-lived fleshy craters moments later.
He remained there, gun empty and arm outstretched, expecting the eye to look at him, expecting something to snatch him up while everyone else focused on Not The Cause of This. As the tension and anxiety grew, he suddenly witnessed the continuous barrage of firepower released by Eliza, followed by the bright blast of energy released by the soldiers by the door, smackign against the jagged teeth and exposing that black eye beneath.
He breathed, not even realizing he had been holding his breath the entire time he had been firing, his weapon returning to its holster, useless without ammo, as he began to circle around closer to the rest, his eyes veering up towards the fungal mass above just in time to see it take a familiar and terrifying shape. "Oh fuck no..." Those were the cyborg's only words for what seemed to be Demon Spider 2: Fungal Bogaloo. Right. Fungus. What did they hate again? Thermal limits, so either very cold, or very hot as to kill the spores and damage the flesh. Well, he had no way to cause cold, but...he still had two molotovs sloshing around. He pulled them out of the duffel bag, silently realizing how lucky he was those didn't break in the previous impact he took, his thumbs breaking the tape seal and pushing the cloth in as he shook them up and down, electric sparks dancing from his fingertips, igniting the cloth ,and his hands where the liquid within had touched them, and throwing them towards the spider, hoping the ignition would at least slow the formation of the arachnid.
Post by Eliza Silvermantle on Dec 14, 2019 4:32:23 GMT
Eliza ignored the growing burning sensation in her limbs as fatigue began to creep up, focusing on simply dumping as much firepower into the strange eyeball-heart as she could. However, even in her focused state, she couldn't fail to hear the screeching. "DAMN YE TA HELL!" the Witch snarled as she raised the still-firing gatling shotgun up, peppering the ceiling of the chamber with shot as she turned partially to attack the remains that were attempting to reform while still keeping up her assault on the entity itself with her rifle. This didn't look good, and she wasn't at all certain how long she could stave off exhaustion. "Eligos! Hardcase on my armor! ONC charges!" she growled out, hoping the cyborg would hear her over the roar of her weapons. "Pick a target and fry it!"
the things that you might like don't grow inside of me
Despite the pure, unadulterated chaos of the situation they now found themselves in, the utter strangeness of it all...
Vincent found he was still calm. No, that was the wrong word for it. He was aware of the urgency. He had some vague idea as to the stakes at play and that it wasn't merely a simple matter of life and death, that worse awaited them if they should fail and fall here. But he was focused. For as long as Vincent could remember conflict had been his home - built for battle, raised for war, the battlefield itself might have changed with the times but there was always a fundamental element of it that remained the same.
Kill or be killed.
There was the matter of whether or not their ships had followed the Horizon in whatever transition it had made, but his Prowler would've sent a recording of everything back to FLEETCOM after a predetermined amount of time if he didn't return. There was no telling what had happened to Lockheed's ship, but that frankly wasn't his immediate concern. The Beatrice might present other options later, but that would all have to come after this. Focus on what needed to be done, what he could do and ignore those who you knew you could trust unless they were in the line of fire - if they needed help they'd say as much, and worrying about them would require energy and attention best spent on other endeavors.
Miller was still alive. He and Bravo Five were out of the immediate line of fire and seemed to be working on their own approach to the problem, their own potential solution. Anna was doing what she could with the weapon she'd been given.
That just left Eligos and Lockheed, both of whom had to be running low on ammo given what he'd seen them carrying prior and how much fire they'd been putting out since this fight had started. A correct assumption for at least the former as the distinct click of a weapon trying to fire without ammunition was heard and the cyborg holstered the gun, only to take note of the reforming fungal mass the same time as Lockheed and Vincent himself, to the latter's slight dismay.
Again, not quite what he'd been expecting but still close enough to what the Spartan had hoped to prevent earlier by opening fire on it.
Two targets, one of opportunity and another of critical importance. Miller and Bravo Five seemed to have something in mind regarding the core, and while Eligos seemed to likewise have a solution in mind for the fungal spider, crude as a molotov might have been... fire tended to prove effective against most things. But just in case it wasn't...
Four shots left in this battery, and the previous one had proven effective enough against the same fungal growths a moment earlier.
Moving off to the side along the edge of the circular chamber, Vincent would train his weapon's reticle on the fungal spider and begin holding the trigger down, the red targeting laser dancing over the growths... but hold his fire as the weapon charged. At least until the effects of the molotov became clear. If the thing remained moving after taking the hit the Laser would fire again, intending to torch what remained in a brilliant flash of red. But if the incendiary proved effective Vincent would instead shift his weapon to target the ship's heart once more.
Flames exploded, racing along the building form of the spider, and igniting the fetid flesh mass into a bonfire. The constructing arachnid screeched as it was consumed by the fire, flames racing back up the strands of fungal flesh and up into the hollows they had come from. Within moments, charred chunks of fungus would hit the decks of the central chamber, not even twitching they smoldered.
Which left the heart-brain as the brilliant red beam of energy laced out and burned through the mass, causing a horrific screech from within the creature-ship. More of the thick oily black 'blood' spilled into the pool of coolant, causing an oversplash to slosh around.
Further shots fired, the magazine clip dropped from the MR-1 magnum as Anna pulled another clip and loaded it into the weapon. She eyed Bravo Five, wary of the device he has shown and explained to her and Miller, then shook her head. "Look, I get it's tech that you're on standing orders to bring into ONI for study, but if we don't get out of this, that won't matter!"
A head tilt from the blue clad Spartan at mention of 'ONI, but he soon shook it off as his attention returned to Miller, who was still waiting. "Sir, I lost my squad to this damn thing. The last twelve hours since I first came on board have been hell, and now we have some chance of getting out of here and going home. I hope you know what you're doing -"
"You are all going back." As soon as the singularity device was in his hand, Miller took the chance to key open the hardsuit and pull himself out. "Miss, you're gonna have more use for this than I am." His eyes met the youngest Spartan's as he picked up the grenade and transmission remote. "I've been waiting in chaotic purgatory for over eight centuries. You have a second chance because it panicked and grabbed you out from beyond. I only get to rest once it's dead."
Devices in hand, Miller ran to where the black clan Spartan was discharging the thermal build up in the M6 Galilean laser. "Soldier, as soon as this thing is dead, you get all of these people to safety, then blow the corpse of this ship to hell and don't look back." He was already making adjustments to the remote in hand, and was clearly satisfied when it, and the singularity grenade, beeped in sync. "Make sure no one can repeat the mistakes of this ship."
Even with the reflective visor being all he could see, Miller was well aware of what look he was receiving. "I don't know all you've seen, but trust me...what I remember of over eight hundred years, trapped in this thing since those freakish bastards found this ship and killed me, has been enough. I'm finishing this fight, and you all are going home." A pause as his eyes turned toward the central mass. "Just make sure I can get to that thing and set this charge off. See how it likes being pulled into a real black hole for once."
The eye screeched. It somehow knew. The blown open wounds were still oozing black oily blood, and the speed at which it had been repairing its wounds had stalled immensely. It was tired, worn...and very clearly afraid. And few things were more dangerous than a predator that was scared.
Post by Eliza Silvermantle on Dec 19, 2019 23:10:42 GMT
Eliza hadn't expected a simple Molotov cocktail to be quite so effective, but she didn't question their good fortune. She had neither the time nor energy left for such matters, after all, and she found her reserves of both shrinking more and more. Already, she struggled to keep her aim on target, and the edges of her vision blurred, tunneling as fatigue rolled across her body like an inexorable tide. The steady thunder from her rifle grew more sluggish by the second as she struggled to bring her shotgun back around, though as she began to raise the five barreled monstrosity, the Witch's arms finally gave out, allowing both limbs to sag until the muzzles of her weapons rested on the fleshy floor.
"'Ligos.." she called, the first syllable more an exhale than an actual vocalization as she swayed, held up by her weapons, it seemed. Eliza's guns went silent as her grip slackened to the point the triggers were no longer being engaged. It seemed she might start to walk, as the Witch began to turn towards her armor, still blaring an ancient rendition of an even more ancient Terran song, but then she stumbled, perhaps for the first time the mercenary may have ever witnessed, and collapsed in a heap. "Bit of help..?" she asked faintly, clearly only barely conscious, too weary to move. She had no idea if the Daiban native had heard her, or even cared to assist after her action of summoning her former pact holder. She didn't even know if they'd survive the present ordeal, but she managed a faint smile nonetheless, knowing that whatever else might come, she would be free from the fate of the rest of her long-dead clan.
the things that you might like don't grow inside of me
Well. Fire seemed a viable enough solution to that problem, and as Eligos' incendiary effectively erased the reforming spider Vincent would immediately put it out of his mind - and shift his aim to let loose another shot from Selene's Lance, targeting the central pillar of flesh yet again.
It was screaming. The Lance was effective, but the fact that it had survived even two or three shots let alone five spoke volumes regarding the thing's durability. The weapon Vincent was using was something he'd intentionally set aside for emergencies, and while this qualified as such the intent had been to use it in breaching ship hulls to gain entry for boarding if it came to that while exploring the Horizon. And for all the noise the thing was making and all the blood it was oozing into the coolant pool below the Spartan was beginning to grow more than a little irritated that it wouldn't simply die.
Three shots left. Ten in another reserve battery. He still had forty kilos of high grade military explosive. It wasn't a question of "if" it would die but of "when", and how much Vincent would have left in regards to munitions after it did.
Vision clearing following the red glare and once again holding the weapon slightly away from himself as the Lance began to hiss and visibly vent the excess heat, around the same time Vincent would notice Lockheed collapsing by her armor. Alive, but barely moving from the look of it - whatever she'd done to gain the mobility she had earlier apparently came with a price. The timing was far from could, but considering that the core was all that remained it certainly wasn't as bad as it would've been a minute or two before.
Not ideal. This thing was going to die one way or another, but if it still had fight left in it they couldn't keep this up and protect exhausted civilians at the same time, mercenary or no. As that assessment crossed Vincent's mind, though snippets of the impromptu war council the other two Spartans were convening with Miller finally caught his attention shortly before the engineer ran to the black clad Spartan and began to speak, and while he didn't recognize the specific technology in the man's hands he knew an explosive and a detonator when he was looking at them.
Vincent didn't like it. His first instinct was to take the explosive from Miller and attempt to plant it himself - it ran counter to every fiber of the Spartan's being to allow someone else to make that kind of sacrifice, much less a civilian. His job had been to recover whoever he could from the wreck, and with the Sinoviet team most certainly dead Miller was all that was left. No. That wasn't true. But for himself, Anna, Marshall, it was different - that kind of risk was something they had all signed on for in one way or another. Although... that was exactly what Miller was doing now, and while Vincent didn't doubt it'd bother him for a while to come they weren't in a position where they had a lot of choices. Lockheed was down, Eligos was running on fumes with improvised weaponry after running out of ammo moments earlier and Anna likely about to burn through all of the reserve ammunition Vincent had handed her.... pretty soon it was just going to be him and Bravo Five - or Spartan Marshall, as the TEAMCOM had labelled the man - left in the fight.
And Miller had a point that the Spartan could not argue with. This place would need to be destroyed afterwards, and that wasn't a job Vincent would've felt comfortable with leaving to someone else. More to the point it had jumped using whatever experimental FTL technology it was built around, and there was no telling where it would drop them or what might be waiting on the other side. In terms of purely pragmatic thinking the engineer had the right of it. Not that it made the decision any less ugly, it taking a significant act of willpower to force down the verbal and physical response the Spartan wanted to give the man as he finished speaking.
"..... understood, and good luck. Just don't get caught in the singularity when it goes off, you do and relativity says you're never leaving here even if its dead." Vincent replied, a clear note of reluctance in his voice as he stepped back and his weapon finished cooling. Speaking of weapons... as moved back his foot would nudge something metallic, looking down as a flash of light blue would make itself known on the ground, his VISR tagging a curious find that he could only assume had been dropped at the edge of the room earlier. Shifting it forward slightly with his boot, Vincent would turn his attention back to the fight and the other two Spartans ahead and to the side.
"Spartan Marshall, think this is yours." Vincent said, relying on the TEAMCOM once again to transmit his voice directly to the other Spartan as he used his foot to send the futuristic MA5 rifle skidding across the metal deck towards its original owner.
Eligos blinked, incredulous, as his remaining molotovs spread like wildfire across the fungal arachnid mass, seemingly penetrating to its very core and leaving it naught but charred ash. His incredulous reaction is however soon cut by the sound of the violently red beam carried by one of the soldiers, cutting through the air and smacking against the beating heart of the vessel. Right. That was still a thing.
Eliza's voice finally reached him, causing him to look in her direction just in time to see her collapse upon the ground, seemingly dragging herself towards her discarded armour. Huh...That was new. The cyborg quickly reached for Scream, the one of his two automatics still featuring a full clip, before advancing towards the woman. Making use of his still enhanced strength, he would loft her up and begin to drag her towards her armour, his eyes never leaving the heart's one. "Hey, remember saying you were not going to drag me out of this mess if I broke down? Bet you regret that choice of words now huh?"
He had no idea hoe her armaments worked, but he hoped they would be automatic to a degree, and respond to her biometric signature. Without much further thought, he would push her into the blaring armour, mildly amused that he wasn't the only one that brought music along for the mission, before moving to face the still beating heart, drawing Shout, the other automatic. And he waited. He looked around as another red beam cut through the area, and he waited.
This was being a bit too easy, and the heart had just been taking it thus far. It was caged, panicking. For the first time in its existence it was faced with the prospect of death, and he could feel the desperate wails in his mind...It was pushed to a corner, but that's when things became the most dangerous, when they have nothing left to lose. SO while the others kept attacking, he waited...for the last-ditch measure.
Cerulean armored hands picked up the compressed form MA5, and as the computer protocols recognized the ID signal in his armor, Bravo Five was greeted to the assault rifle snapping back out into full combat ready configuration. "Thirty-two rounds of magnesium incendiary ready to go," he reported as his beam pistol was stowed away on his leg plate. "And four spare clips in my leg compartments, Crimson."
"That's gonna leave some third degree burns when they go in." Anna took a deep breath, making sure her last spare clip was at hand when she would need it, and adjusted the firing settings. "What support do you need, Miller? Just get you to the eye so you can jam that thing in and hit the switch?"
A nod as Miller kept his eyes fixed on his target. "I don't expect to leave this, not like you get to, kid. Don't waste the second chance you've been given, because it's not going to come again." A deep breath, a silent prayer to whatever higher beings might be their side of the cosmic tables, and Miller primed the grenade. "Good luck to all of you. And make sure this ship dies when you get back to the other side."
And then the screech came. More fungal masses dropped out of the openings in the ceiling, forming a web structure while trying constitute into the brain-heart's defenses. Large pulpy 'pods' dropped as well, splitting open as they crashed to reveal more of the risen dead that had been in the corridor, except they all, now, showed signs of the fleshy infestation of the ship entity. Tiring or not, it was not going to make this last stretch at all easy for them.
And then Marshall and Anna opened fire on the infested undead, the fungal masses trembled, and the battle was joined.
Micro booms echoed with every shot from the massive magnetic rail handgun in Anna's hands, accompanied by the high burn incendiary rounds fired from Bravo Five's MA5 that were even now tearing the undead targets apart. As several more pods began to drop, the bright red landing beam from the projecting shoulder launcher burned through with uncaring fury, vaporizing the undead creatures within. Another hiss of heat discharge, the wait for the M6 Galilean to cool down before refire.
And Miller hurrying toward the central mass, even as the chamber seemed to expand between and around him. Growths built up between him and the centre mass, some forming tendrils to attempt trapping him as well, but a series of bright blue beams managed to cut through those and clear his way. A pod hit and opened up to reveal the grotesque parasitically infested parody of a massive leonine Kilrathi, which lunged and was brought down by a series of bursts from Spartan Corporal Marshall's MA5.
A nod of thanks, and Miller hurried, searching for the method to reach that eye so he could set and detonate the singularity grenade. Behind him, Vincent shifted his grip on the M6 Galilean laser to carry it one handed while Marshall tossed the larger Spartan his beam pistol. Within a second, the Macro AI had interfaced the weapon with the Mjolnir armor's updated firmware, gaining precision data, power capacity, heat index, anything it could glean from the energy weapon.
And then a near instant beam of blue laced out and burned through more of the growth, clearing the way for Miller. Another shot, cutting through a pod while the infested corpse inside was prying itself out. A mach three round blew out the infected's head, a smirk from Anna as she continued to play the point role for Miller and Vincent. Burst fire joined in keeping the podborne infected, Eligos joining once he had made sure the white haired woman in his care was safely back in her hardsuit.
Despite the expansion of space created by the entity, Miller and his black armored escort closed in on the heart mass. He breathed in, preparing for what he knew would be his end, but also that of the abomination that had imprisoned him for over centuries. For him, it was the end of a long nightmare.
"Take care and get them home, Soldier."
And with a growth burning away from a well placed shot of the beam pistol, Miller hurried toward the center said, feet hitting the bone construct that would have been the catwalk ramp of the mundane state of the ship. Only feet away now, and the entity was staring at him.
Was it afraid?
And then a hand erupted out of the ground, grabbing the man by his leg and throwing Miller to the pool of coolant while the black armored Spartan would suddenly find himself flung aside as well, crashing into the bone-structure bridge around the curve of the central dais.
And as fire would begin rising from the walls and the pool of black oily blood-coolant, so did rise out from the floor the disturbingly familiar visage of the man who had declared himself the creator of the monstrous vessel they had been fighting.
"Did you really think killing my creation would be that easy, Captain Miller?"
the things that you might like don't grow inside of me
They were close. So, so very close, and despite Vincent's dislike of the plan and what it had come to there was little doubt in his mind that it would work. As the designer of the ship obviously knew, conceptually there was little that could stand up to the reality bending power of a singularity, and even during his time the things had remained an enigma because of that power - ultimately knowable beyond mere theory and thought exercise, unfeeling, they simply were and their effect on the universe around them undeniable. And that seemed to be a sentiment the entity controlling the Horizon agreed with. Up until now it had... well, not been content with but tolerated the Splazer shots, but the moment Miller had settled on his plan it had begun pulling out all the stops. Dozens of walking corpses like in the earlier hallways, fungal growth and pods seeming to grow out of the walls and ceiling all with the intent of impeding Miller's path to the central pillar and the eye.
It didn't matter.
While Anna and Marshall maintained their position and opened fire to burn down every hostile that so much as looked at Miller the wrong way, Vincent was getting to the point where he was no longer thinking, operating on little more than nerves, raw emotion, honed instinct and nearly thirty years' worth of muscle memory, military training and combat experience made second nature. What little thought that was allowed to pass through his increasingly weary mind was largely inconsequential - slight marvel, for example, at the handling of the sidearm that Marshall had tossed him. Near perfect accuracy and precision in his off hand, near ambidexterity be damned. Next to no recoil, a weapon of light and pure efficiency not unlike the Promethean weapons Vincent had the occasional pleasure of using on Requiem and Wargames simulations after. If nothing else it made keeping pace with Miller remarkably easy even in spite of the M6/E's bulk, the blue beams the weapon in his left hand fired torching and erasing near everything they touched.
And just as Miller made it to the entity in the center of the room, pausing for the briefest of moments after climbing up onto the bone walkway, Vincent felt something change - nothing he could put words to beyond a prickle at the back of his neck before a hand would erupt from the coolant to grab at Miller's ankle, an invisible force simultaneously yanking the Spartan off the ground and throwing him. Already perceiving events at a slower rate than most in the room, the initial shock and rush of adrenaline was immediately overcome by muscle memory and training, his armor's thrusters flaring to stabilize his path - a glimpse of the center of the room telling him all he needed to know as the head of a familiar figure began to rise out of the coolant with portions of the room catching aflame once again.
No.
Still hurtling through empty space, Vincent would bring his right arm down to tuck the Laser down against his torso to protect it against whatever might have been behind him, left hand snapping up and the corresponding reticle tracking across his HUD until it passed over Weir's emerging head, the weapon flashing blue. A miss, and risky with Miller so close but his aim was good enough to avoid that potential complication at least. A fraction of a second later and Vincent's back would slam into the solid bone walkway circling the chamber, his armor's shields flashing an incandescent gold over his body before failing and collapsing into a yellow static that would arc over his suit. Pain, but nothing he hadn't felt before - annoyance more than inconvenience, already overtaken by the shrill beeping of his armor's empty shield meter as it flashed red on his HUD. With Weir speaking again, however, Vincent's mind would focus again, as goal oriented as it had ever been.
"Did you really think killing my creation would be that easy, Captain Miller?"
Yes.
With only a rough two seconds gone by, Vincent's legs would shift under himself to push his massive frame free of the crushed and cracked bone around him even as his armor continued to flash with yellow static, Laser going up over his shoulder to lock onto his back. Deftly swapping the sidearm that Marshall had thrown to him into his right and dominant hand, Vincent wouldn't speak a word as he snapped the weapon up and began firing, first at the offending arm that had thrown Miller before shifting his aim to each limb in sequence as successful. His pace never faltered as he walked towards Miller and Weir with only two concerns in mind - first, the captain's freedom to do what he needed to do, and second, the three meter blast radius that Vincent fully intended to stop well short of.
Even should his shots on Weir's limbs prove successful, though, that wouldn't be the end of it - the only things liable to stop Vincent's assault being another attack from the abomination or the weapon either overheating or running out of charge.