Chapter 99 - EMP and Chaos

The back wall pulsed again, flexing its darkness at him. The armory lights flickered as something vast and terrible gathered itself between the weapon racks. [Situational Awareness] hit him like a slap, every nerve firing before his conscious brain caught up. Whatever was forming in that darkness, it was bigger than anything they'd fought down here.

"Everyone back," Luca hissed, his blaster already raised as the darkness coalesced. It stretched tentacles through broken ceiling panels and around weapon displays, forming a shape that towered over them. His stomach dropped. A Nullmaw Champion.

The thing unfolded, massive and grotesque, its obsidian plating glistening wetly. A dozen tentacles, each as thick as his torso, swept outward. Then the shimmering energy bubble registered, a translucent blue shell surrounding its central body. Luca saw it and went cold. The thing was shielded.

"Fuck," Ryan whispered beside him. "Is that thing... shielded?"

Luca’s jaw clenched. "Yep. Just like that boss in the other portal."

The nullmaw's body heaved as it fully emerged, its tentacles slithering over equipment racks and knocking armor stands aside like paper toys. One tentacle wrapped around a plasma rifle on the wall, and the weapon crumpled like tin foil.

Emily's twin blasters hummed to life on Luca's right. She'd already raised her injured arm, both weapons leveled at the thing like it had personally offended her. "Call it, Luca," she said, her voice tight.

"Light it up!" he ordered, his voice cracking slightly. "Everything you've got!"

The room erupted into chaos as seven weapons unloaded simultaneously. Note to self: never volunteer for Captain ever again. Emily's blasters hammered shots into the shield. Chris unleashed a full-auto barrage. Ryan's shotgun blasted chunks of energy at the monster.

Luca activated [Hard Lock], hoping the glorified auto-aim would do something glorious. He squeezed the trigger, letting loose a volley of shots that slammed into the shield. The cobalt barrier rippled and sparked at each impact but held firm.

"The shield's holding!" Joey shouted.

The Champion moved faster than something that size had any right to, its body flowing through a gap in the weapon racks. Tentacles whipped outward, smashing display cases and sending shrapnel flying.

Luca hit the deck as glass shards sprayed overhead, his [Adaptive Cover] skill identifying the safest spot behind a fallen armor stand. "Spread out!" he shouted. "Don't give it a single target!"

His energy tomahawk hissed to life as he rolled to his feet. He dashed forward, using [Silent Movement] to approach from its blind spot, and slashed upward. The tomahawk bounced off the shield, the impact reverberating up his arm.

"It doesn't do shit!" he called out, jumping back as a tentacle lashed out, missing his head by inches. I should have used the goddamned upgrade mod. "Stick to ranged attacks!"

Danny activated [Taunt], his war hammer slamming into the ground. "Hey ugly! Over here!" The Champion's attention snapped toward him.

"We need to find a weak point!" Zoe called, tracking its movements with her rifle.

Luca tried to coordinate their attacks, his mind racing. "Ryan, Chris - flank left! Emily, stay back and cover them! Zoe, look for fluctuations!"

Just as its shield started flickering, the Champion went still. Every hair on Luca's arms stood up. The air tasted like ozone.

"incoming!" Ryan shouted. "Brace for it!"

The EMP pulse hit like a physical blow. Luca's HUD died instantly, plunging him into darkness as his visor went black. All their lights, sights, and armor indicators died. The only illumination came from the faint emergency strips in the corridor behind them.

For three terrifying seconds, they were blind, comms dead, with nothing but the sound of the creature slithering across the metal floor. He felt the vibrations rather than saw it moving.

Something massive swept through the room. He tried to shout a warning, but it was too late. The impact caught him square in the chest, lifting him off his feet and sending him flying into a wall of weapon racks. The breath left his lungs in a painful whoosh as he crashed to the ground.

Dazed, he struggled to his knees as his systems slowly rebooted, green status lights flickering back to life. His ears rang with shouting and plasma fire. Through the dim light, he saw the others scattered. Danny was halfway across the room, his armor dented. Ryan and Joey were taking cover behind a collapsed support beam.

"Emily?" Luca called, his voice hoarse as he scanned the chaos. "Emily!"

A flash of movement caught his eye: Emily's armored form, hurled through the air by a whipping tentacle, flailing as she disappeared down a darkened side passage. Goddamn it, not her.

"No!" he scrambled to his feet, but another tentacle slammed into the floor between them, cutting off his path. The monster's body heaved, positioning itself between him and the corridor where Emily had vanished, its shield flickering blue in the darkness.

Luca lay there for a moment after the impact, ears ringing, tasting blood. His HUD flickered back to life, status indicators crawling across his vision.

So much for a clean regroup.

The crash had landed him in a maintenance alcove off the main armory floor, a junkyard of discarded weapon parts and broken armor plates. He hauled himself up, wincing as pain lanced through his ribs. Probably cracked a few.

"Emily?" he croaked into his comms, but got only static. The champion variant had dropped an EMP. He strained his ears, picking up distant plasma fire and muffled shouting. The team was scattered, fighting independently.

His thoughts raced. Emily, injured and alone. The others, separated and vulnerable. And him, stuck here while a tentacle beast hunted his friends. This thing was smarter, faster, and more deliberate in its attacks.

He closed his eyes, forcing his breathing to slow. Panicking wouldn't help. He had his abilities. It was time to use them.

He activated [Threat Radar], and the world shifted. He could feel the vibrations through the deck, the subtle shifts in air pressure. The Nullmaw was hunting, a vast, slithering presence just beyond the wall.

It was tracking them individually. The thought both terrified and fascinated him; System creatures usually didn't show this level of tactical intelligence.

He unholstered his plasma blaster and checked his gear. Tomahawk: still useless. Synth-O₂ canister: still full. [Neural Boost] capsule… he hesitated for only a second, then popped it into his mouth. The effect was immediate: his thoughts sharpened, reaction times kicked into overdrive, and the world seemed to slow around him.

Time to move. He activated [Stealth Protocol], his boots instantly muffling all sound as he crept from the alcove. I have no idea how the hell the nanites work, he thought, but the abilities work, and I'm still myself. Or so I want to believe. His muscles tensed with each careful step, practically a ghost sliding between shadows.

He worked his way around the perimeter of the armory, staying close to the walls where support beams would offer protection if the ceiling collapsed. A flash of plasma fire illuminated a section of the corridor ahead; someone was fighting.

As he approached the junction, movement flashed in his peripheral vision. He froze, finger tightening on his trigger.

"Don't shoot," came a familiar voice, barely above a whisper.

Zoe materialized from the shadows, her Phantom armor's cloaking systems creating a strange shimmering effect around her outline, a glitch in reality.

"You okay?" he asked, keeping his voice low.

“Yeah,” she nodded, pressing a hand to her side where a dark stain spread across her suit. "Caught a piece of shrapnel. Not deep. Cloaking's rebooting." Her eyes met his. "Emily?"

His jaw tightened. "Thrown down the east corridor. I was heading that way."

"That fighting you heard was me," she said. "That thing found me while my systems were down."

They crouched together behind a fallen weapon rack. "I noticed something before the EMP hit," she whispered. "When we concentrated fire on one spot, the shield flickered. Not enough to bring it down, but definitely weakened."

That sparked something in his brain. "Like overpowering a single shield emitter?"

"Exactly. I think its shield overcompensated, and its energy reserve went down. That’s why it hit us with the EMP. To get away and recharge. We hit one spot with enough energy; we can pin it down."

He nodded, mind racing through tactical options. "We need to regroup, coordinate our attack."

A distant crash sent vibrations through the floor, followed by the distinctive sound of Danny's energy war hammer connecting with something solid.

"At least some of them are still fighting," Luca muttered. "Let's—"

The wall beside them erupted outward in a shower of metal fragments. A tentacle punched through, but it was different now. The flesh had hardened, metallic spikes protruding from the surface like some medieval weapon, gleaming wickedly in the emergency lighting.

"Shit!" Zoe hissed, rolling away as the tentacle swept the area where they'd been crouching.

The spikes caught a nearby conduit, tearing through the metal like it was paper. Sparks showered down as live electrical cables whipped free, spitting arcs of blue-white electricity. Steam burst from a ruptured cooling pipe, instantly filling the corridor with scalding vapor.

Perfect.

"The steam," Luca said, his mind latching onto the one advantage they had. He yanked Zoe's arm. "We can use it as cover!"

She caught on immediately, a sly, feral grin spreading across her face.

They darted forward as another tentacle punched through a different section of the wall. Luca's [Cover Spotting] ability automatically identified the way through the spreading electrical fires and steam vents, highlighting safe zones in his HUD. He let Zoe lead them through the chaos, her smaller frame moving more easily through the tight spaces as the steam clouds masked their movements.

"There!" he pointed ahead where the corridor branched into a narrow maintenance passage.

They sprinted, ducking under sparking cables and leaping over fallen debris. The steam provided perfect concealment, but the heat was intense, his suit's temperature regulators straining. Sweat poured down his face, stinging his eyes. At least I’m not dead yet.

The Champion must have sensed their movement. Long, hardened spikes crashed through walls and ceiling panels, trying to cut them off. One limb slammed down inches from his foot, embedding itself in the deck plating. He dragged Zoe sideways just before it would have hit her.

"Get your ass in here!" he roared, ripping a maintenance panel off the wall. His muscles screamed 'you idiot' as he shoved Zoe through the opening first. Another tentacle smashed into the wall above them, raining debris onto his back as he scrambled in after her.

The passage led upward, eventually opening into a junction where four corridors met. And there, backs to the far wall, weapons raised, stood Ryan and Danny. Danny's Juggernaut armor showed deep scratches where the spikes had connected, but he was still standing, war hammer at the ready.

"Luca! Zoe!" Danny's voice boomed from his external speakers. "About time you showed up to the party!"

"What'd we miss?" Luca asked, sliding into position beside them.

Ryan didn't look up from his work; he was tinkering with a jury-rigged comm device. The world could be ending and Ryan would still be elbow-deep in somebody else's hardware. "Same shit," he grunted. "Fighting for our lives against a nightmare squid with an energy shield. The usual."

Luca grinned. The fear was still there, the worry for Emily a constant ache in his chest, but mixed with it was the thrill of matching a worthy opponent.

"Any sign of the others?" he asked, checking his blaster's charge.

Ryan finally looked up, his face grim. "Actually, yes. I think I've got Emily on comms." He held up a device attached to his suit. "Found a mod, an EMP-resistant module. It's bypassing the fried circuits. Range is garbage, but it's something." His fingers tapped a sequence, and static hissed from the speaker. Then, cutting through the white noise like a beacon, came Emily's voice.

"—anyone copy? We're pinned down in section—" Her words faded, then resurfaced. "—Joey and Chris with me. This thing keeps circling back—"

Emily was alive. They all were. Relief hit him hard enough to make his knees feel loose, and then the worry came roaring back. Pinned down meant trapped.

"Emily!" he shouted into the comm. "Can you hear me? What's your position?"

More static, then: "—auxiliary corridor B, near the lift. Can't move. Joey's hurt."

Danny's armor creaked as he shifted, the deep gouges in his plating catching the emergency lights.

"That's not far from here," Zoe said.

Ryan worked his device, trying to clean up the signal. "We need a plan. That shield makes it nearly invulnerable."

Luca nodded, his mind racing. "Zoe says concentrated fire might overload it at a single point."

"Makes sense," Danny agreed. "But we'd need to hit it with everything we've got, simultaneously." Translation: we’re fucked if this grenade doesn’t work.

Ryan rummaged through his pack, producing a dark, cylindrical grenade. "I've got something better. EMP grenade. One-time use, but it should disrupt the shield long enough for us to do some real damage."

Then Emily's voice cut through the static.

"—it's coming back. It knows we're—"