Rune Seeker

Vanguard Ekert stared at the strange, paused image a second longer in his overclocked state, then fed the filter-slash-image combination through his PIRSA’s software, and shared it with the others. Just like that, the nothing on Jackal and Dawk’s screens took terrifying shape. A monstrous, eight-foot squid had their medichanic wrapped tight in its nine tentacles, each of them trying to bend her in directions she really shouldn’t bend.

But, as soon as it became visible, it became a target.

Trails of purple flames hanging behind her in the falling rain, Jackal was at Dawk’s side in the next second. A pulse of energy from her PIRSA activated her Blink-Cut engram, and suddenly Jackal moved like she was in an old-fashioned slideshow while everybody else stayed stock-still.

Cutting down and through, the first version of her severed the tentacle working on Dawk’s arm. Before her enflamed blade fully even parted that limb, the second version of Jackal appeared on the opposite side, down low and cutting across with her second sword, aimed at the tentacles pinning Dawk’s legs. The third image of her appeared hanging upside down, like she’d done a cartwheel over the prone medichanic, her twinned blades scissoring backhands across in front of her to slash at the body of the invisible squid.

Then, even as the spray of blood seemed to flicker through the air like a bug in the PIRSA’s sensory suite, Jackal’s fourth and final image appeared, this one immediately behind the recoiling squid. Legs already spread in a lunge, the speedster thrust both blades forward, piercing the back of the monster, and erupting from the front of it. A twist and brace with one blade, then Jackal ripped the other free, taking a good chunk of the squid’s body with the burning sword.

A shriek of pain rippled out through the falling rain, like the individual drops paused and shuddered at the sound before continuing to the ground. At the same time, the squid on top of Dawk shifted, whipping one of its tentacles around like a cudgel to try and catch Jackal.

It wasn’t nearly fast enough, the woman tearing her other blade free and darting to the side before the invisible limb snapped through the air right where she’d been. Which, as practiced, lined it right up for a burst from Ward’s rifle.

Two, armor-piercing rounds led a third, concussive, buster-round to tear a wound into the chest of the monster, before ripping it open wider. The squid on top of Dawk shuddered backward, more of its glitchy blood splashing into the air in front of it. Hell, it might’ve been thrown right off her, if its body didn’t press up against something that held it in place.

Dawk’s drawn sidearm.

Point-blank, she pulled the trigger again and again, pushing the speed of her PIRSA and the weapon to its limit. Despite being a single-shot weapon, it practically auto-fired with how fast she squeezed her finger, emptying an entire clip into the beast on top of her.

When even that didn’t seem to be quite enough to put the creature down, Dawk’s other – empty – hand snapped up at the same time Jackal darted back in. Pressing up against the squid’s invisible flesh, the medichanic unleashed possibly her most dangerous weapon – a swarm of unstable nanites that began to ravage the monster at a cellular level.

Invisible flesh turned into invisible goop as the nanites went to work, and the creature would’ve been in for a – relatively – slow and painful death, except Jackal’s blades cut across in opposite directions just above where the mass of tentacles met the rest of it.

Before the terrifying edge of her swords, the squid’s body parted like invisible butter, and finally the tension of the remaining tentacles on Dawk’s armor lessened.

Reports from Dawk’s PIRSA fed directly into Ekert’s, updates on her status and her armor, but he didn’t have time to review them now. Just as the squid had died, another had shown up down the street. This one – massively larger than the first – zipped along the road in their direction. Likely responding to the death-cry of the other monster, it charged straight for Ekert, Salvo, and Cool, confident in either its power or its invisibility.

Time to show it neither of those things was enough to protect it from the Heralds of Peace.

Four weapons snapped in the speeding monster’s direction, PIRSA-enhanced muscles and accuracy lining up the shots with – literal – military precision. Two, shoulder-mounted, rotary mini-guns went from zero to death-dealing in point-three seconds, spitting a barrage of hard-light rounds capable of undressing a tank. Next to it, Cool’s PUNCH sniper rifle silently boomed, the shockwave from the sound of it bursting outward in a sphere around the trio, though it didn’t make an audible peep, thanks to one of his engrams.

Not that that was the scary part of the weapon. No, the round it fired was what made it so dangerous. Crafted from a strange and hard to find material, the six-inch-long bullet was actually a composite flechette that separated and reformed depending on the distance it traveled. Even more peculiar, it gained speed and penetrating power with distance – until it reached its limit, where it just straight dropped to the ground.

Next to them, Ekert’s three-barreled RHC looked tiny by comparison. So much so, it was almost a question of if he even needed to pull his trigger.

Almost.

Near on thirty-five years of hard service had taught Vanguard Ekert a lot of things, and two of those always stood at the forefront of his mind.

One, never underestimate an opponent – especially one you haven’t fought before.

Two, don’t start slow. Don’t pull punches. When it turns time to kill something, kill it fast, hard, and with extreme prejudice.

So, as Ekert’s finger squeezed the trigger of his RHC – the three barrels spinning to life in an instant – he also activated his namesake engram-ability. The one he’d found in his first dungeon – along with the sword in his hand – right after he’d gotten his PIRSA. The one that’d gotten him noticed, promoted, and then on the front line of every major sortie for the past three decades.

They didn’t call him Veil because it was easy to say or rolled off the tongue. He didn’t wear a gauzy mask over his face, or try to hide himself away.

No, they called him Veil because he was the thing that stood next to life and ushered it into death. He was a killer. A reaper. A force of nature himself.

Black, flame-like energy rippled across his hand and into his weapon, igniting the spinning barrels of his RHC within a heartbeat. In the next, more bolts of hard-light joined the shower coming from Salvo’s mini-guns, though these ones flew wrapped in hungry, black flames.

Veilfire, the unique ability was called. A flame made of a swarm of insatiable nanites. One that fed and burned off life. As long as life existed within the target, the flames would continue to burn. Merciless. Unending. The only possible outcome when Ekert’s Veilfire struck was simple – death.

And strike his shots did – along with Salvo and Cool’s attacks – crashing into the squid speeding toward them like a runaway bus.

Cool’s flechette reached it first, shredding PIRSA-imaged, simulated flesh, and almost stopping the monster cold from the sheer impact of the shot. Then, before the creature even had a chance to shriek in pain, Salvo’s… salvo… arrived, battering and tearing at the body as it went from horizontal to vertical. Tentacles slithered out from where they’d trailed behind, bringing themselves up to try and reflexively block the shots chunking pieces of its body off into the falling rain.

And, that was its first mistake. Well, it’s second – it never should’ve tried to fight the Heralds of Peace in the first place. No, instead of trying to block the shots, it should’verun.

Ekert’s black bolts arrived even as the tentacles rose to intercept the rain of fire practically drowning it. One after another, the Veilfirerounds found flesh. Tentacles, body, it didn’t matter. So small compared to the heavy shots from Salvo’s mini-guns, the monster couldn’t have imagined their threat. Hell, it probably didn’t even feel them hitting compared to the sledgehammer-like shots it was already taking.

But, it sure felt something when the flames took hold.

A dozen wounds – in the blink of an eye – ignited across the squid, another of those shrieks of pain and outrage spreading through the falling rain as it recoiled. Except, then, when it should’ve started dying, it did something very strange.

Energy readings spiked to Ekert’s sensors – levels he’d never seen before in something that size – and strange symbols seemed to flash to life on the ends of the tentacles. All at once, the barrage from Salvo’s guns and Ekert’s RHC began hitting a wall of light in front of the monster.

Some kind of forcefield?

Unexpected, but not something they couldn’t handle. Already, Ekert’s PIRSA was analyzing the strength of the field based on how it reacted with each impact of their hard-light rounds. His own Veilfire didn’t seem to be doing anything extra to the shield, so he like the ability drop – no reason to waste energy – and opened his mouth to start giving orders.

The squid moved faster, one of its tentacles flicking up with a tiny gesture that scythed a beam of energy along the street and straight up the center of Savlo’s body.

Warning alarms flashed through the man’s readout as he staggered back, his guns going silent. The beam had cut through the PIRSA, and into the man underneath. The injury wasn’t deep, barely more than a papercut thanks to the crazy durability of the protium that made up the armor. Nanite swarms were already going to work both on the flesh wound and the damage to the armor, but the fact the squid could whip out an attack like that at the drop of a hat changed things.

“Threat level: Red,” Ekert said into his comms as he darted to the side of the street. Not a moment too soon, either, with another of those scything beams parting the pavement right where he’d been. Quick scans from his PIRSA showed the beam wasn’t a laser of any kind – no residual heat – nor was it plasma or ionic. In fact, his armor couldn’t pick up any recognizable energy signature from the attack.

Another flick of a tentacle – this one horizontal – and Ekert’s predictive modeling software urgently suggested he duck. Again, not a second too soon, as the beam carved across above him, parting the building next to him at shoulder height.

Scans indicated the cut went clean through the entire building, the slice so perfect, the material probably didn’t even realize it’d been chopped apart.

It was like the beam didn’t cut, it was cutting. The purest form of it. And it was dangerous.

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Another flechette round from Cool’s rifle slammed into the wall of light in front of the now-stationary squid – black flames still burning across its body – drawing its attention away from Ekert. Using that second of distraction, the Vanguard leapt through a shattered window and into a nearby storefront. Landing and rolling, he was back on his feet an instant later – the PIRSA giving him athleticism that’d make most gymnasts jealous – and he sprinted through the first door he saw.

Behind him, a predictable beam slashed through where he’d entered, but didn’t follow. In fact, readouts from his armor indicated the squid wasn’t moving or firing at them. Cool had managed to get himself and Salvo into another building on the opposite side of the street, and it was like it was waiting for them to make their next move.

Waiting… and unable to see them?

The Heralds had the advanced software and sensors of their PIRSAs practically mapping out the terrain around them, as well as their opponent. Even though Ekert couldn’t visually see the squid, his armor was bouncing around enough tracking pulses, he had a highly accurate, rendered map of the area. One that was real-time within zero-point-one seconds. Combined with his predictive modeling…

“Down!” he ordered into the comms at the same time he dropped to his belly behind the counter of some kind of hardware shop.

An instant later, that same modeling software proved its worth, with the squid’s tentacles lashing out in every direction, beams of absolute cutting following. Like it was randomly trying to find them in the buildings in front of, beside, and behind it, the beams lashed through everything.

Around and around they went, making spaghetti out of everything. Sheer luck and a lot of predictive modeling kept Ekert rolling and stretching enough to stay in one piece.

The buildings, though, they couldn’t say the same thing.

Finally, they’d had too much, collapsing in on themselves one after another.

Within seconds, a full, city-block around the monster had fallen to pieces, and silence came with it.

Black, insatiable flames still ravaged the thing’s body, but it hovered there like it hardly cared. Like it was taking a deep breath after defeating a powerful opponent, injuries-be-damned. Too bad for it, a falling building wasn’t any more impediment to a B-Rank PIRSA than the rain was.

Ahead and to the side, one very angry man in a heavy suit of armor hurled off the shattered roof that’d fallen on him. Gone were the mini-guns on his shoulders, instead replaced with mini-missile canisters on those same shoulders. As well as his arms, legs, torso, and back.

Salvo was done playing around.

“Raaaaaaaah!” he shouted, his loudspeaker vibrating the air and rain in front of him from the volume, as he threw his arms back and unleashed his weapons. All at once, dozens of small missiles rocketed out from him, filling the air with their exhaust, and then converging on the squid.

All nine tentacles stuttered in shock, then snapped up, more of those strange symbols appearing at their tips in the second before the missiles arrived. Just in the nick of time, too, with the wall of force appearing to intercept the volley.

Explosions rocked the street. Shattered the pavement. Filled the air with smoke that rolled past the erected barrier.

The barrier that was only in front of the squid.

So, imagine its surprise when Ekert burst out of the smoke and rubble on its side, PIRSA pushing his speed far beyond any human limits. In that split second, he went from throwing the building off him, to leaping, to landing on the side of the bus-sized squid. Sword coated in its swarm of black nanites – the same power as his Veilfire – and held reverse-grip, the Vanguard drove the weapon hilt-deep into the side of the monster.

Then, using that as an anchor point, he pressed the three, flame-enshrouded barrels of his RHC up against the thing’s flesh, and pulled the trigger.

Round after round chewed through the rubbery outer-layer of the squid, the body twitching in shock and pain, before drilling deeper inside. Even as the black flames began to literally eat away at its insides – while the rounds themselves blended them – the thing howled in pain and shot into the sky.

Twisting and bucking as it moved, it sought to hurl Ekert from its body, his finger never leaving the trigger, and his body holding on like it was glued there. When that didn’t work, a tentacle came around to swat him off.

Too bad for the squid, a flechette round severed the limb even as it moved, Cool’s nearly-impossible shot just another day in the office for the man.

Another shriek of pain and glitchy blood fountaining into the air, and three more tentacles flexed to remove the unwanted passenger. The rifle-bearing man couldn’t possibly fire three times that quickly, right?

Unfortunately, that was true.

Fortunately, Ekert had more than Cool to rely on, and Jackal appeared in the air with her Blink-Cut ability. Three of her images sliced the incoming tentacles, while the fourth got her safely back to the ground.

Now, nearly out of its mind in pain, the squid brought all its remaining five limbs around to peel Ekert off it. Well, to try to.

What it found, instead, were four hovering shields completely encircling Ekert in a field of energy. Ward had done his part.

Now, it was time for Ekert to do his.

The Veilfire ravaging the monster would kill it. His smallRHC could also, eventually, kill it. The thing had proven too durable though. Too dangerous. It needed to die now.

Instead of the weapons in his hands, Ekert reached out to his FS Storage ability. It was one of his trump cards, but holding back wasn’t in his nature.

A pulse of energy – along with another activation of Veilfire – and FS storage portals began opening one after another around the squid. And, from those portals, the barrels of Ekert’s arsenal emerged. Shotguns. Sniper rifles. Assault rifles. Revolvers. Mini-guns. Crossbows. Throwing knives. If somebody could imagine the weapon, it was present.

And black flames wrapped them all aiming at the squid in the middle.

Even the monster seemed to pause as it saw or felt death reach out from those portals to wrap around it. But, if it thought it could do something to stop what was coming, it didn’t even have a chance.

Ekert didn’t bother removing himself – or take his finger off the trigger – as every single weapon opened fire simultaneously. New thunder and lightning roared in the center of the storm, Veilfire-coated rounds converging on the squid like another rain.

Symbols flashed on the ends of its five tentacles, planes of force forming to shield the creature from the attacks, but they didn’t seem to be able to shield more than one side at a time. As soon as the barrier came up and blocked a few rounds, a dozen more hit it from every other side. And, it wasn’t like it could use Ekert as a shield from his own assault.

Bullets rained around him, even as he moved and repositioned to keep his pistol breathing death directly into any open wounds he found. With his PIRSA’s predictive software, he was a leaf in the wind of his own firestorm, shots passing a hair’s breadth from him, but never even nicking his armor.

Within seconds, the squid’s invisible body was riddled with holes, while black flames outlined it from tip to top. Black flames that devoured it. A few more seconds, and the thing crashed to the ground, Ekert riding it down the entire time, guns never ceasing their onslaught. Water splashed where it landed, limbs twitching in its death throes.

Then, all at once, the black nanite flames extinguished. Gone, without a trace like they’d never been there, and Ekert pulled his finger off the trigger.

“Target number two, down,” he said into the comms. “Good work team. Status?”

“Shit myself, but otherwise okay,” Salvo said. “Armor is finishing repairs now. Integrity is going to be a little iffy until its had about an hour to fully patch itself up. Unless Dawk can help with that?”

“Negative,” Ekert said. “Dawk, I need you to figure out what the hell we just fought. Ward, help her get that corpse into one of the nearby buildings. A basement if we can. These things don’t seem to have an easy way to find us inside.”

“That means there might be survivors,” Jackal pointed out.

“There might,” Ekert agreed. “But, unfortunately for them, they aren’t our priority. Ward, Dawk, you have your orders.”

“Affirmative,” Ward said.

“I’ve already got some information for you,” Dawk said. “Something you’re really not going to like.”

“And what’s that?” Ekert said.

“These things were only C-Rank,” the woman said, and Ekert’s head looked down at the bus-sized, invisible corpse he stood on.

His View ability hadn’t triggered because he couldn’t actually see the thing beneath him. But, that much trouble, and only C-Rank? It was almost too bad he knew she was right. These things were stronger than any other C-Rank’s they’d fought, by a lot.

“Understood,” he said. “Cool, we need some intel on the surrounding area while Dawk cuts up some calamari and Salvo repairs his armor. These things are dangerous, so go full ghost. We’ll worry about the cost later.”

“Understood,” Cool said, saluting, then stored his rifle in his FS storage. That done, his entire PIRSA grew insubstantial in the rain, and when he jogged at a nearby building, he passed right through it like it wasn’t there. Or, more accurately, he wasn’t entirely there.

Being able to turn insubstantial was an almost unfair, cheat ability, and Ekert was damn glad it was on his side. It would also – hopefully – keep Cool safe from these monsters until they knew more about them.

Their scout gone, Ekert hopped off the corpse of the larger squid, then jogged into a nearby building, Salvo at his heels. Jackal came behind a second later. His gut was telling him to get out of the open and stay out, so that’s what he did.

“We’re going to take the long way around to you three,” he said over the comms to Dawk and Ward. “I want heads-down and no contact until we know a bit more about what we’re up against and where they came from.”

“Got to be a dungeon-bust,” Jackal said. “Something in those ruins they dug up. Must’ve cracked something they shouldn’t have.”

“That seems like the best answer we have so far,” Ekert said. “But, it doesn’t explain this storm. Never heard a dungeon-bust manifest like this. Something else is going on here too.”

“Something that can bring down a spaceport,” Cool said into the chat. “Found what’s left of it, few blocks from where you are.”

“Any idea what brought it down?” Ekert asked.

“Honestly? If we hadn’t just fought a bunch of flying squids, I wouldn’t know what did this damage I’m seeing,” Cool said.

“But now you do?”

“Tentacles,” Cool said. “Very, very big tentacles. The wreckage looks like something reached up and pulled it down here.”

“One of these squids pulled a two-mile-long spaceport out of orbit?” Jackal asked, clear disbelief in her voice.

“No,” Cool said. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Good…” Jackal started.

“The one that pulled this thing down was much bigger.”

“Oh, bloody hell. You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Very.”

“How bad is the damage to the city?” Ekert asked. “Could that explain the communications blackout?”

“Most of it came down outside city limits, I think,” Cool said. “PIRSA is still simulating the crash zone for me to…” the scout trailed off.

“Cool?” Ekert asked, pointing Jackal and Salvo to a set of stairs they found in the building heading into some kind of basement. Water had come in through the broken windows, and a thin layer of it rain down the steps. As long as it wasn’t completely flooded down there, it could make for a decent place to regroup. Hell, even if it was flooded, that wouldn’t be a problem for most of their PIRSAs, though the damage Salvo’s had taken was still a big question mark.

“The rain suddenly stopped,” the Corporal said, and Ekert’s head snapped to the open window, before he jogged over to it.

“It’s still raining here…” he started, looking out and up. And up. Through the still falling rain, his PIRSA’s optics overlaid a familiar combination of filters and camera options.

Just what the hell was he looking at?

It took his brain a solid two seconds to make sense of the blur that seemed to fill the entire sky. A massive flying squid hovered above the city. Now that he knew what he was seeing, even without his suit’s sensors, he could spot the heavy rain pooling and waterfalling off its huge body in places.

Very suddenly, it wasn’t so unbelievable that something had reached up into orbit and pulled the space-station down.

“Cool, contact immediately above you,” Ekert said, sharing his video feed with his unit. “Find cover and stay hidden until it passes.”

“Holy hell,” Jackal breathed into the comms when she saw what he was looking at.

“That… uh, that…” Salvo started a few times. “That doesn’t look like something that’s C-Rank.”

“No way it is,” Ward said. “That’s B- or A-Rank, at the least. Are we looking at something S-Rank?.”

“Sarge?” Jackal asked. “What… what are we supposed to do about that?”

Ekert took a breath before he responded, centering himself. “The same thing the Heralds of Peace do whenever we find a new monster – a new Enemy – we find a way to kill it.”

Fin

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