"AHHHHHHHHH!!" The Hollowed's amputated arm detonated through another engineer, splashing the tunnel walls with a soaking red arc.
Blue Eyes bent forward on the catwalk, his mask crumpling into a grin. "I'll bet you ten credits the ghost of the electrician haunts Silas's favorite latte machine."
Fog Eyes cocked her head, tone straightforward. "No ghosts exist. But it's a different matter when it comes to Lucus's clumsiness. Funny how the"
THWACK.
A gloved hand splintered both their skulls.
"Frig-" Blue Eyes spun, stroking his head.
The woman behind them stood with a posture that screamed: I bench-press motorcycles.
She had one side of her head shaved, the other painted neon violet, and braided with razor wire. A scar had split her lip into a permanent time, and the jacket, the patches of which were embellished with the symbol of the Iron Crown, was open, showing a holstered throbbing blade.
"Veyra," Yapped Fog Eyes. "You're as explosive as a dump truck."
"And you two chattered like sewer rats," Veyra intertwined as she thumbed toward the wreckage below. "Silas told us to close that gate, not pose in front of it. Complete mission before any higher sector gets to know about it. Now move."
Blue Eyes sniggered while pulling out a dagger from his sleeve. "Calm down, Crown Jewel. Those fools willingly became playthings of Lucus. Let them have their last show."
"Look who is saying!" Veyra's looked at him mockingly.
The Iron Crown symbol on her jacket was deliberately half-burnt off. "You think I'm here for loyalty? Please. Silas owes me a ticket off this rock if I clean up his mess. So unless you want to explain to your 'Master' why his pet abyss is still munching on interns-"
CRUNCH.
The hollow underneath sliced a steel beam like celery. Fog Eyes frowned deeply. "Jokes on you, It's growing fast."
"No kidding," Veyra barked well, producing a hexagonal device from her belt, a relic core thrumming with raw energy. "This'll stabilize the gate for six minutes. Six. Then let's continue planning. So help me get it fixed to that rift, or I'll throw you to the thing first I seen."
"You two fight like lovers!!" Blue Eyes rested his back against the railing, slouching. "Why the hurry? The Iron Crown's been seeding gates into competitive sectors for years. Poetic justice, watching their pawns get eaten."
Veyra froze.
Slowly she turned, voice as cutting as a knife. "You expect me to believe you do not know? I saw the Crown burn my district to cinders. But this..."
She indicated toward the screaming gate. "...is not revenge, but It's suicide. That gate is not Crown tech. It's older, and Hungrier. If it collapses, It'll bring the whole block down with it, maybe half of this city, including Silas's favorite hideout."
Fog Eyes, who was simply called Wren, didn't think much. Their porcelain face reflected the horror inside. "Wow?! Do you care about collateral damage?"
"I look out for my paycheck," Veyra lay suavely, hefting the relic core. "Now are you two glamorously useless mercs gonna assist, or do I get creative?"
Blue Eyes (real name: Jax) teased his friend. "Fine. But if I get killed, I'm haunting your latte machine in hell."
The three rappelled close to that gate when the hollow was overfilled with people, boots crunching on rubble.
Jax observed as the Hollowed tore a steel door from its hinges. "Why does it resemble my Ex?
"Concentrate," Veyra snapped, charging the device. "Jax, take left flank. Wren, hack the frequency of the gate. I'll set the Nightlight."
Wren's gloved hand wove across a helipad. "The Crown's rift is... singing. A lullaby in Old Corporate dialect.".
"Doesn't this make it... creepy, Ewww." Jax snarled, arming a flechette pistol. "However, this is catchy.".
Veyra disregarded their presence, walking towards the gate. The air was supplied with static electricity, causing her skin to bristle as the rift exploded, muttering unintelligible words: Return home, return home…
"Veyra." Wren's voice turned hard—a rarity. "The Hollowed is a secondary effect. Amplification is the rift's purpose. The Crown isn't tearing the sector apart. They're mapping it. For conquest."
Jax stood still. "So, this is a… scout?
"A scout..." Veyra snarled, "with teeth.".
She slammed the Nightlight into the rift's core.
The machine burst, strands of dark energy sewing the gate shut. "We have five minutes before it collapses. Move!"
The relic core's dark energy encircled the gate like chains; the air, however, still stank of decay. Jax revolved his flechette gun, the barrel hot to the touch. "Five minutes? Time enough for a break."
Snap.
Four figures lurched out of the shadows of the tunnel - Grey Wraiths, their pale skin flaking like charred paper, eyes empty voids dripping black ichor. They lurched with jerky, insectoid accuracy, jaws unhinging to show double rows of serrated teeth.
"Oh, great," Jax snarled. "Silas didn't inform us we'd be sitting on corpses."
"Agree!" Wren's holographic decoys sprang to life. "Those things are Grey Wraiths. Neural decay indicates they were human. Now they are nothing, but puppets."
The first Greywraith thrust.
Jax shot, flechettes tearing into its torso, but it just kept on coming without causing any damage, clawing at his coat. "Persistent little roaches!"
Wren took the lead, a vibro-blade buzzing in their gloved fist.
They sliced through a Greywraith's spine with precision. "Hit the cerebellum. It breaks their hive-link."
"Understood!" Jax grinned, spinning a grenade pin around his teeth. "Brain surgery it is."
BOOM(X3)
Three Greywraiths were reduced to ash.
The last scrambled backward, until the Hollowed's claw speared it from behind, absorbing the Greywraith into its shimmering body.
"Cheater!" Jax shouted.
Wren's helipad vibrated. "Energy surge! It's adapting—
Jax dodged a claw, shooting point-blank into Hollowed's chest. "Adapt this!"
The entity stuttered, with crevices transferring throughout its transparent exoskeleton; however, the injuries commenced closure, utilizing the Greywraith biological material.
Veyra's voice crackled over comms. "Cut it out! The Mercenaries are-
THUD.
A net of plasma enveloped the three, thrusting them violently to the ground.
The Ruthless Mercenaries flooded the tunnel as eight executed soldiers led by Ryn, a lithe assassin with a scarred cheek and a sniper rifle fused to her arm.
"Cute toys," Ryn grabbed Wren's holo pad from him. "But the Crown desires this gate open. You're finished."
"Ryu?" Wren's light-colored eyes narrowed. "Motherfucker- The gate is beyond your control. Don't do anything reckless-"
"You know me? My doubts were correct that Nightshades will interject us!" Ryn smiled, gesturing to a Mercenary who carried a glowing grate - Iron Crown Resonators, devices to handle void energy. "We'll see it if this is dangerous or not!"
Ryn's mask versus Wren's sniper rifle. "You'll wish you'd stayed dead."
A shudder ran through the tunnel. The stitches that kept the gate together came loose, the relic core overpowered as a second Hollowed, bigger and with Crown-tech armor, emerged.
Ryn paled. "No… This is not our design-"
The Hollowed Enhanced emitted a deafening roar, the jaws of the creature aglow with power drawn from resonators.
Suddenly, shadows descended upon Aria, who stood at the entrance of the gate as she gazed upon Ryn and the others, her masked face tilting slightly. "You people better tell me why you're touching my city."
Behind her, the cracks widened.
Something ancient beyond the Hollowed moved in the depths of the gate — a formless mass with too many eyes.