〔Conurbation Haven〕
〔Food Stacks | District -25〕
=======================================
〔Abbatoir Factory〕
〔2/5/2306 16:43〕
"Right now she is eating...people" Dawn was not trusting his eyes seeing two anatomically human beings assaulted by the mutant queen, that snapped at them relentlessly until it finally got hold of their bodies.
"We must help them!" JP wanted to enter the room.
"Not yet. Firstly we don't know what this thing is capable of, nor how to fight it effectively." Erik objected.
"You should know better than anyone that mutants can be incredibly resilient, JP."
"To know the enemy is to defeat the enemy," Jo said faintly as if no one should hear.
"Secondly under no circumstances can there be witnesses who saw what was going on here. If Lebigot's business becomes public, we would have a huge problem in this city. You got that?"
"So we are just going to let them die?" Dawn asked.
"Dawn, scan the area" Erik gave him the order strictly as if he had overheard the question.
Immediately Dawn's chest compartment opened out from under his coat, and through the slit in his suit, an easily overlooked semi-transparent capsule came out, that he caught with his hand. He looked at the device, which used a 180-degree lens sensor to observe the surroundings like a cyclops' eye.
" - - - - - - Initiate drone scan - - - - - -"
" - - - - Select area of investigation - - -"
On the automatically generated map of the complex, Dawn selected four points between which the drone could precisely analyze the entire territory. It flew into the abandoned room in stealth mode. Dawn's view split into two halves, one from his body's perspective and one from his drone. After the drone's trajectory initially made him dizzy, he concentrated and realized that he could control its movement arbitrarily with his Neuro Engram.
Numeric codes kept appearing on his viewport, which he did not understand at first until they were deciphered bit by bit. Dawn recognized the chemical composition of the alkaline solution spread over the ground. He swung the drone over to the queen, who two workers. The first person was a small woman wearing an overall with the number 49 on her back. She was hiding behind a strong man in a boiler suit with the number 755, who was flaying around with a metal rod to frighten the languid mutant.
The queen consisted of a deformed and scarred upper body, which had entered into an unnatural symbiosis with metallic objects. The metal around it seemed to be melted by the great heat inside the creature like in a blast furnace. After the queen devoured the two people alive she spit out more molten eggs through her cloaca, in which the metal bonded with the organic substance.
***How many people must she have eaten to form such a horde?***
"What do we do now?" Dawn asked at a loss.
"We can only fight this beast if we identify its weak points in battle" Erik decided. "Access in 3" he made a finger gesture and after he clenched his hand into his fist, JP stormed through the door towards the mutant monster. One of the mutant's legs, which had duplicated limbs like a spider, was immediately torn off by JP's attack.
The confusion of the creature gave the rest of the Archetype Commando time to get into a decent firing position. Dawn lay down behind an outdated, broken control panel with physical knobs that had irregularly flickering lights and flashing sparks from their buttons. He took out his fusion pistols in cover and set his sights on the queen.
Meanwhile, the queen's initial shock had settled and she was now aiming at her eggs. As small monstrosities hatched from them, she set intense blasts of galvanic electricity that overloaded her brood, causing them to burst one by one. The Archetype Command had to avoid the small explosions, as they possessed enormous explosive power.
"Like goddamn firecrackers," Jo cursed.
***When the little ones can be overloaded under minimal tension so they blow up and the queen is a similar organism... ***
Dawn said "Fire at the queen, but only energy projectiles."
"Why?" Jo wondered.
"You heard him" Erik commanded.
He changed the firing mode of his two pistols to the Volt Projectiles and fired incessantly at the creature, which, however, was hardly affected by the fact that it continued to spit out its brood. After the first shot, he saw his HUD showing him the progress of Voltage until the maximum amount will be reached.
"Target Voltage〘0.0004%〙
Erik agreed, "You heard what Dawn said. We need more power!"
JP shouted, "Cover me, I'm going to lock the volt gun into my support turret."
Jo also used her energy shuriken, which she fired from the back of her hands. "Voltage multiplier at max" she shouted hurriedly as she rolled around between the shattering larvae.
At the same time, Zero constructed a Tesla Dome around the queen, a bubble enclosing a strong force field. Inside the bubble, the queen could no longer move because of the electromagnetic forces over her partly metallic body.
"Target Voltage〘65.58%〙
While the four of them focused on the queen, Erik kept the creeps at bay. He jumped around to avoid being hit by the little creatures, that spit acid at him and panted anxiously before he impaled them with the blade in his right arm and then landed on both legs with his thruster. "Keep the fire going, we'll have her on the verge!"
"Target Voltage〘98.76%〙
Dawn shouted "There's not much left"
Slowly, the indicator increased more and more until it reached one hundred percent. Defenseless, the mutant queen lay in the control room of the completely destroyed factory building and had meanwhile also stopped the production of new grubs before she started pulsating and slowly expanding.
"Back! Take cover!" everyone shouted at the same time
Dawn used his thrusters to escape from the queen. He turned around as he thought he was safe and saw the queen split into countless splinters of metal and flesh which were thrown into the air. He looked around for his companions who were breathing safe and sound. "That was too easy" Dawn heard Jo say.
"The hard part's still to come," Erik warned.
"Huh? We beat them, didn't we? The strategy worked," Dawn asked as a slimy slap noise distracted him from his own words and Zero pointed behind him. He turned around in horror. The meat lumps of the queen and the larvae came together on the floor and combined with the produced flesh to form a gigantic construct that broke through the ceiling of the hall. From an initial heap, it slowly formed into a shape. The lump of flesh developed into a form of a human being, whereby the structures progressively differentiated until a clear portrayal crystallized.
The Archetype Command was stunned and Dawn stuttered "Why does this thing look like me?"