69 - Re: Slaughterhouse 9 Pt. 6 [Cherno]

Casus’s High-Pressure form had the same main traits as Omniphage: A blade on the right arm, a mostly faceless visage with sculpted lips, and an overall slickness of form that blended with the armor’s own aesthetic, in this case that of a humanoid racing bike. It also looked like it was an inch from crumpling like a paper bag after taking that hit, a crack in the helmet exposing Casus’s left eye.

He peeled himself off the wall and zipped across the battlefield to Krahe’s previous cover wall, taking up a smug pose as he leaned against it and taunted the Foreman: “At this very moment, my omniphage has emulsified with the rejection-suppressant solution keeping your graft-beast from pulling itself apart. Either you purge the system and face the consequences of grafting the stolen flesh of your gang’s victims, or you watch your creation disintegrate in mere minutes - not just the organics, but the skeleton and mechanics, too. Every inch with a suppressant delivery line is subject to being affected by my omniphage.”

Krahe could tell he was, at the very least, exaggerating the potency of his omniphage - it was potent, certainly, but it was also being stretched across a body the size of a small building. Much of the tank’s tainted contents would also leak out well before they could be circulated, even assuming that the suppressant was being treated as blood of a sort

Meanwhile, Casus quietly suppressed frustration at his failure to puncture the fuel tank, as doing so would’ve set a much harder timer on Tindalos’s functionality. If the Foreman was competent, his pet’s stolen tissues would resist rejection symptoms for days even without active suppressant. He was betting that the Foreman either wasn’t that good, or that his own bluff was stronger than the Foreman’s self-confidence.

As the Foreman furiously commanded his beast, blue liquid run-through with mercurial threads of silver began gushing out of the gaps between its many muscle-bundles, quickly pooling on the ground. A moment later, it turned and blasted Casus, who casually dodged, causing Krahe to fire several rays in the Foreman’s direction.

Finally, he made Tindalos fire at her… And blast apart the Gor’ah barricade when she inevitably dodged. With her level of mobility, though, it was a fairly narrow dodge. She immediately raised a short, yet thick 5-charge wall, and like clockwork, Tindalos smashed one of its forelegs into it. To her relief the Foreman didn’t seem to have noticed her ploy, so she popped off a few gunshots with Tracers after him and followed up with a burst of Cinder Gatling. He spat a swear when she hit him and saw the rays tearing into his Wards. It felt… Thin. Like his Wards wouldn’t hold up to more than one or two good hits. He was, however, smart enough to realize that the Cinder Gatling had a limited range, moving out of it while mocking her and commanding his pet to fire at her again while fending off Casus with melee strikes from its legs.

She ducked out from behind her cover as she heard the distinct noise that signaled the Blasting Array’s charge-up… And the beast fired right as she was across from the Gor’ah barricade. What had been left of it was now turned into a brief, but intense river of gore flooding into the courtyard beyond before washing back out onto the street. Several writhing Gor’ah survivors wriggled around at her feet, while Krahe simply ran off into the alley cackling. Casus ran well ahead of her, having smashed the door in and reached the basement before she even entered the building.

Another door smashed down. A seemingly random gangster tried to ambush them from behind a door, but Casus’ reactions and Krahe’s room-clearing experience had him on the ground before he could do anything. A Tracer in the face and a blade through the head sent him on his way to reincarnation. The reason for the absence of further guards was simple: One couldn’t hide something and then post an obvious guard next to the hidden entrance. There was no way in hell they would’ve found this trapdoor without extracting information from someone who knew, or failing that, some way to discern the belt’s true location.

Unfortunately, guards weren’t needed. Casus had made it down those stairs, but before Krahe could follow, she glimpsed Tindalos’s head through the window to her left. She just barely managed to leap out of the way before the wall and half of the room was torn asunder, the Blasting Array’s violently-revolving force perfectly tuned to this exact type of demolition work. Stone torn from stone, furniture was pulled into the vortex, rubble piled into the stairway… And she was alive, only a meter from the edge of the destruction’s edge. Even then, the wards around her feet were shredded down to at best one-third strength.

She stood, finding Casus peering at her through a tiny gap in the mass of crumbling brickwork. In any other situation clearing the way would’ve been a matter of maybe half a minute, but they didn’t have that kind of time.

Rather than speak, she gestured around her waist and aggressively pointed in the direction of his real belt. He understood her well enough to vanish from sight, entering deeper into the basement… While she was left to deal with the Pet and Foreman on her own. This was fine.

Tindalos shoved one of its forelimbs into the hole, sweeping it back and forth.

An Isotope smoke grenade lobbed so as to bounce off the wall and out of the room. The ceiling creaked at the lack of support, but held. Acrid smoke obscured her presence, and Tindalos redoubled its thrashing of the interior at its maker’s command. By the direction of his voice, he was still on a roof somewhere… But closer. She formulated a basic strategy using her mental map. Entering a building and getting to the roof wouldn’t work quickly enough, and there were no conveniently-placed single-floor structures she could climb onto. If nothing else, the Foreman’s choice of position was well thought-out; from where she was, she couldn’t reach him without going past his pet. But if she could pass it, she could reach him. It would just take some creative problem solving.