Board Thread:Role Plays/@comment-5999656-20190205035159/@comment-26571677-20190621003106

Rats.

Gods, why did it have to be rats?

Their straggly fur was caked in mud and filth; teeth and bone white masks stained brown with a stench that made her shudder involuntarily with memories of past ages.

They were lowly, even for the standards of the monsters that threatened their everyday life.

Just their luck that apparently, this damnable cursed craft apparently held the largest repository of the things she’d ever seen.

Just their luck that emboldened by the disorganized fighting and lofty scent of heavy, liquid iron in their air, they’d decided to go after fresh meat; tearing away one person after another with sheer, disgusting numbers.

The situation was rapidly devolving into utter chaos, and she watched as the odd and ragged medley of people from such different walks of life sprung into action. Flame and electricity arced out to fry and singe; sending an even more assaulting stench of shit and burnt hair into the air as if the current miasma wasn’t yet enough.

In the distance, she saw what looked like a high ranking officer go down under a mass of black, and silently grimaced beneath her mask; a pitiable fate, for both her and the other woman that accompanied her.

But her trigger figure never stopped to rest; firing off round after round into a crowd that replaced each loss with two more of its brethren.

She couldn’t worry about them. Not yet, not while their own escape had yet to be found; the docks were yet a ways away and if they wasted time here…

“Hazel! Gimme my gun!”

She hesitated, dual pistols still drawn and still firing as she picked off each rat that dared to come close.

They’d discover the ploy.

“Hazel! They’re getting torn up! I need to help them!”

She didn’t reply.

“Hazel!”

She tossed a small vial of red dust into the air; sniping it mid flight to explode in a flurry of fire; incinerating a large circle of where there had previously only been black, writhing bodies.

''Did they really even matter? Her job was to get them out alive, after all. There were ways besides the helicopters…''

“Hazel…''please. I need to do something'' to help. Anything.”

Her teeth grit and grinded. To hell with the other criminals. They didn’t matter either.

As one of her hands went to grab another mag, a finger clicked a clasp to release a heavy weight from her back. She lifted a foot, and flicked it back at her ‘prisoner’, who caught it, checked the charging handle, and jumped up onto a pile of rubble to begin loosing incendiary rounds at the ever growing mass of rats swarming the copters; trying to help the woman who’d lost her partner down a large hole, apparently created out of thin air.

Shaking her head, she rolled a grenade into the midst of a crowd that was getting too close for comfort, watching it detonate with a satisfied nod as it instantly vaporized those that had run towards and around it.

But for all her technology and weaponry, the circle that she and the other fighters were keeping free was getting steadily and steadily slower as ammo began to run dry and stamina began to come up short. Breaths heavy and mags light; not a stunning combination for people surrounded by relentless hatred.

And then the ground began to split, and their options began to run out exponentially faster.

The entrance she’d been planning was blocked off; blood seeping between the cracks of a mass of concrete and rebar that bad crushed bone and torn flesh.

The alternative piping was dangerous at best, fatal at worst; inclined to warp and bend to crush them while they crawled inside.

The option to swim underneath and emerge at the docks was worse; the red eye of a leviathan peering up at her underneath a crack. Given the chance, the monsters would have no qualms dragging her and everyone else down towards a watery, agonizing grave; torn apart by sharp teeth while water filled their lungs.

Two options, neither appealing. The pipes seemed the best.

And then there was an explosion above her, and she looked up in horror as a bullhead descended upon them.

There was no time to think. They’d be dead within seconds of hitting the water if that bullhead crushed their aura.

She leapt backwards; landing heavily on her back as she raised her rifle; the hum and crackling of electricity making the hair on the rats around her stand on edge. She reached into a pocket and withdrew a dull green rod, sliding it into the feed and flicking the charger.

And all while she did this; rats swarmed her stationary body.

They crawled over her chest, over her legs and her face; their disgusting bodies swarming and nipping at her defenceless form.

She gave no notice.

Not even as they nipped at her fingers and tried to find their way under her clothes to bite at exposed flesh underneath.

Not as she aimed at the flaming bullhead while the bodies of rats crawled over her sights.

Not now.

She couldn’t spare it.

The wreck was nearly upon them. Now or never.

She took a breath of stinking air.

She grit her teeth.

She fired, and her shoulder punched back into the ground; all while the sky exploded around them.

-

It was always a sight to behold; Hazel’s weapon.

Dust had been worried when he saw her form disappear amongst a cloud of writhing blackness, even more so when she seemed not to react. He’d thought she’d finally given in; given into her demons and her fatigue.

And then there was a flash and a boom and a crunch and the agonizing sound of metal tearing at the seems; like the grinding of nails on a chalkboard in assault on their hearing.

Her gun erupted, flame and plasma spewing from the barrel as the shockwave tore away the black masses swarming over her. He saw the recoil punch her shoulder into the ground; her aura flaring from the force of an absurdly powerful rifle discharging its package.

There was no indication of the travel of the round at first; not as it flew through the air and not as it punched a gaping hull in the bottom of the bullhead all through the top at a speed unrecognizable to the human eye, and barely seeable through the enhancement of his semblance. Time itself seemed to hang in anticipation as her weapon fired in such a confined space; abating breath in wait as the bullhead slowed and the swarms calmed by a presence unable to be ignored.

No, no, rather, the trail came a split second later, as the very fabric of the air seemed to burn in a scream of tormented yielding to the power unleashed. At first, there was a slight wobble in the air; akin to the waves of heat that rose off a road underneath the hot summer sun. Then there was the splitting of plasma; orange and red bulging outwards as if the fabric of reality itself couldn’t handle the energy being unleashed. And then there was the release of red, orange and blue; the explosion outwards of beautifully terrifying, multicoloured waves of energy that followed a line through the air and through the crippled bullhead, literally tearing it apart by the seems of the plates; before rocketing out into the midnight sky, following the round aimed straight at the heavens.

It lasted for but a split second, but it was enough. Enough to silence, enough to fear, enough for the bullhead to tear into chunks and scatter around them; covering up the secondary choice of pipes and shattering the ground further but leaving them and the other criminals intact.

It took him a moment to regain his bearings before he jumped down towards her; Hazel already getting to her feet, kneeling on the ground with mask covering what must have been an agonized expression.

“Hey, are you o-“

She raised a finger with her non dominant hand, chest breathing hard. Without even a tremble, she gripped her other shoulder, and shunted it back into place with a sickening pop and crunch of relocating bone.

Not a sound, not a word. Barely even a shiver of hand or body.

And despite his years of seeing horrors and sickening crimes, he felt a twinge of fear.

“I’m fine. We need to get moving.”

And all he could do was nod.