By her reckoning, Yuriko and Fluffington had traversed nearly fifty longstrides under the mountains, if it was by a straight line. She couldn't really be sure since she couldn't employ her standard method of measurement by dint of using her reach as well as the Radiant Sun or Luminous Moon for directions. It was easy enough to devote a couple of strands of consciousness to draw a mental map after all.
An hour after she wiped out the raiders, she finally arrived at her destination. The tunnel had not been without intersections or branches, but the sediment had kept the tracks clear. She eventually arrived at a large chamber that was probably more than a longstride across. The darkness of the tunnels was driven away by several electric lights on poles stabbed into the ground, and there was a generator running on neo-petrol just off the entrance tunnel.
The chamber was about a couple of hundred paces high, at least, but most notable was the absence of stalactites and stalagmites, or the pillars that they eventually joined into. There was a lack of any kind of support that kept the structure intact, despite the several million MiJins of mountain above. At the very least, the structure was a dome, and the floor dipped downwards like a crater.
In the very middle, something shimmered with yellowish light. She couldn't quite distinguish it because of the spotty lighting, and she didn't want to expand her perception beyond the handful of paces around her. Well, she could expand it a bit here, since there was less of a chance hitting the walls or ceiling.
She did so after a moment, and she could barely reach the centre of the chamber by extending tendrils of perception. She pulled it back almost immediately when she felt the same pulling sensation.
A quick inspection allowed her to pinpoint a couple of sturdily made buildings camouflaged behind the generators, and she guessed one was a parking garage or an engineer's station considering there were a couple of haulers that were having their wheels changed, or their engines checked. But there were no mechanics there, or any other people at the moment, since all of them were near the middle.
Curiosity burning within her, Yuriko wasted no time in approaching, and when she finally saw what the commotion was about, she couldn't help but snort in anger. The captives were there, all in metal cages that contained at least a couple of them. Right by the shore were the rest of them. Or rather, what was left of the other kidnapped.
Yuriko drew a sharp breath. There were at least a dozen bodies already, each one twisted in grotesque ways. Bone plates, reminiscent of Scourge, grew on their bodies, sprouting specifically from their 'chronian gear.
But there were also another couple of them still writhing in pain. Shards of bone emerged from bare skin, while their 'chronian gear—arms and neck—sprouted the same white bone.
She felt the impulse to rush in and kill the abductors, but the victims were already in the throes of whatever transformation they were suffering, and the ones inside the cages were safe for the moment. Ah, there was one that was being dragged from a cage towards the…water?
Where the kidnappers were conducting their heinous torture was at the very center of the chamber, and probably the lowest point. The yellowish glow came from a viscous pool of liquid at the bottom, though she wasn't sure how deep it was. One of the kidnappers extended a pole with a dipper at the end and scooped out some of the liquid. The screaming kidnap victim was tossed forward, and he fell in a sprawl. The one with the ple slowly moved his burden.
Well, that man could still be saved, Yuriko thought, and so she acted.
Boom!
Her leap caused shockwaves to propagate through the air, but she stilled the ones that would hurt the captives. The kidnappers suffered no such protection, and most of them were knocked off their feet. She was upon the victim before they really noticed her, and she grabbed him by the collar and tossed him toward the cages. Then, she drew her sword and yelled for Fluffers to open fire.
Rat-ta-tat!
The rifle's report competed with the shockwave and the victims' screams. Yuriko beheaded the one with the pole-dipper, then continued to kill the guards around the captives. She noted the prominent kidnappers, but it wasn't easy to tell who was stronger by her standards. None of them had Elemental energies swirling around them, nor did they exude pressure from their Anima strength. The only way she could judge was by how much chronian gear they sported, and what weapons they held.
Well, that and by looking at who the rest of the raiders respected. There was one such figure seated on an elevated chair. The man was clad in something similar to the Lawbringers she saw, sleek articulated and powered armour, but he carried no visible weapons. He wasn't the only one seated on a platform, but he was the one with the most ominous feel.
"Intruder!" The raiders yelled unnecessarily. The guards reflexively raised their weapons but instinctively didn't shoot because of the potential crossfire. That little bit of hesitation didn't last long, however.
Rat-ta-tat! Blam! Boom!
Assault rifles, hand cannons, and shotguns. Yuriko bursts through the wall of lead, slashing away those that would hit her face, but otherwise allowing her Anima to absorb and deflect the munition. She fell upon the lead guards and killed them with quick swipes of her reinforced sword. Fluffers shot up a few, but he didn't reinforce his bullets so most of them deflected off metal skin or armour.
Yuriko plucked ball bearings from her pouch and sent them flying towards the other assailants. The metal balls over-penetrated the initial targets, but she aimed them pointing slightly downwards, which stopped the bearings' flight after going through a couple of men.
The heavily armoured man was giving her some tingles of anticipation, so she moved towards him. He sat there impassively, mechanical eyes glowing red. His helmet closed around his head, snapping into place almost as soon as her attack began. She didn't catch his features, but that red glow shone through the visor. It was probably a vanity effect. Huh.
Yuriko's view was suddenly filled with pixels as her visor sparked.
"Tsk."
She saw the sudden connection to REI-space and her counter-intrusion software fizzled out. She snipped it before it could transfer to her Autowatch. Unfortunately, she didn't know where the intrusion came from, since connection threads always came from REI-space nodes. Well, it was probably one of the raiders. She pulled her visor off her face and tossed it over her shoulder, taking hold of it with her kinesis and sliding it inside her backpack.
The armoured man finally stood up, and as he did so, he picked up a long gun that had been resting by his feet. Yuriko thought it was a shotgun from the wideness of the bore, but it wasn't a model she'd seen in the gunshops.
The man hopped down from the platform, raised his gun and braced it on his shoulder, tracking the barrel at her movement.
All the while, Yuriko had been killing the other raiders, and she only noted his actions through her peripheral vision. She did assign a strand of consciousness to keep track and used another to keep using Metal Sense.
Blam!
The armoured man's shotgun fired explosively, and the recoil made him skid a couple of inches back. The shotgun slug briefly registered in her Metal Sense but was completely absent from her perception aura. She felt a violent impact at her side. Her condensed Anima crumpled inwards by a fraction of an inch and spread more than a bit of fissure from the damage. Her brows raised in surprise since the slug had not been infused with anything.
Kachak! Blam!
The sound of the shotgun chambering was oddly loud, but the blast overpowered every other sound. Somehow, this slug was even more powerful, and when it slammed into Yuriko's aura, it crumpled a bit farther. Nowhere near close enough to actually hurt her though.
As such, Yuriko simply insulted the man by ignoring him. She continued to kill the raiders. By sword, by bullet, or by metal balls. Each foe died facing her, running away, or on their knees.
Bloodthirst filled the air, and she could feel the flares of emotion seeking to connect with her Mien. Oddly enough, the flow of fear, hatred, and strange lust didn't seize even if the origin had already perished.
After merely five minutes, she and the armoured man were alone. Every other foe died, and the survivors were only those left in the cages. Ah, that man she rescued at the last minute had crawled away, and one of the writhing victims had managed to stand up. The others joined the rest in death.
The survivor did not look as if he had been through whatever dreadful initiation the rest failed. His clothes were a bit torn, but she could see his eyes were steady. There was a gleam underneath, however, but she was sure it was not the Mishala Mien's doing. It was something else.
Blam!
This time, Yuriko caught the slug with two fingers. She glanced at the armoured man, then she sniffed and mockingly tossed the slug at his feet. She couldn't see his expression, but she thought he might have been angered rather than frightened by her display.
'So what can you do?'
She ignored the changed captive, though she more than suspected that they were what had been referred to as Dragon Blooded. The other victims who had died suddenly jerked to life. Their bodies were covered in bone, and they barely managed to get to their feet.
The armoured man blasted her with another slug while jogging away from the freshly turned. With an eyebrow raised, Yuriko jumped towards him.
Fluffington in the meantime, had run out of bullets, so he returned the rifle into her backpack. He jumped off her shoulder and prowled towards the other man, slowly regaining his true size.
Yuriko's leap closed the distance between herself and the armoured man. But in midair, her foe let go of his shotgun. His hand folded down and exposed something concealed within his forearm.
Hssst!
A pointed, cylindrical object that spewed fire from its bottom, sped at her. She swatted it away, but at the point of contact, it abruptly exploded into a giant fireball. The concussive burst washed off her aura, but she was unmoved. Smoke and dust covered the air, and she instinctively expanded her perception, only to hiss in annoyance as it brushed the bared floor. Circuitry pulled at her aura, and she had to take a moment to pull it back.
That gave the armoured man an opening.
The next thing she knew, there was a chain blade careening at her face. She deflected it to the side, but there was another that curled around her back. She knocked it back with a focused application of her Animakinesis, and the chain blades retracted. The angle of return was different from where they originally came from, however, and Yuriko swept away the smoke.
The armoured man was running. Not towards the tunnel exit, but towards the yellowish pool. Yuriko moved to intercept, her kinesis lashing out to hold the man. But his body armour proved to be as resistant to her Anima as 'chronian gear, and she didn't put as much pressure as she should have. Her Animakinesis pressed down on him, but instead of holding him in place, he squirted out of the hold like sunflower seed on oiled fingers.
He splashed in the middle of the pool, which wasn't more than a dozen paces wide. The ripples were lower than she expected, and he sank to the bottom in the blink of an eye, leaving nothing but bubbles on the surface.