Chapter 7
John studied the nightmarish castle, trying to determine the best way to bust his way in.
The citadel itself was like a massive slab of raw meat; a massive egg-shaped tower covered in fat and gristle and pulsing veins. At the top of the structure was a ball of flesh covered in eyes. Surrounding the disgusting structure was a monolithic wall of bleached bone, like a cliff of polished chalk.
John wasn’t a betting man, but he would’ve bet his armor that that was the creature’s lair. Seriously, something that ugly had to be an evil lair.
John placed a gauntleted hand against the bone. His touch sensors gave the impression of glazed ceramics. Now how should I bust in? He could blast his way through the bone with his pistols, but that would take time, and he was really itching for a fight. There was a possibility that he could leap over the wall with his jumpjets, but that wall was pretty high. Jumping over it would use up a lot of fuel that might be needed later.
In the end, John decided to take the direct approach.
SHLING!
At a thought, the arm blade slid out of John’s gauntlet, like a sword made of solidified mercury. John pulled his arm back and thrust the paper-thin blade into the bone, slicing through it like wet paper. Like a knife through dough, he sliced a man-sized plug of bone out of the wall. He clenched his gauntleted right hand into a fist.
“WHOOM!”
The plug flew inwards, John stomped in, pistols raised and adrenalin pumping.
“KNOCK KNOCK!” He yelled, a wicked grin plastered on his face. “ANYONE HOME?”
As if on cue, swarms of spiders popped out of the walls. They swarmed towards John, jaws wide open.
The armored human shook his head. “You just never learn, do you?” He centered his targeting reticules on the nearest spiders and his guns spat out a volley of light. Spiders popped by the scores, showering the polished white bone with blood and carbonized chitin.
Seriously? John thought as he sprayed the spiders with light. These are the Phobovore’s defenses? He was annihilating these things by the scores. All around him, spiders popped like walking popcorn kernels. The little monsters couldn’t even get close.
How this thing managed to hold off Luna and her sister was beyond him.
Needless to say, the battle didn’t last very long. After a few minutes of charging towards the living meat grinder that was John, the arachnoid horrors limped away, nursing laser scores and severed limbs.
John twirled his pistols and clamped them to his sides. “THAT ALL YOU GOT, YA’ SHCMUCK?!” His blood burned in his veins, itching for a real fight.
The creature must have heard him. A patch of pink-red flesh in front of the tower grounds began to pucker and dilate until it became massive, fleshy hole. A dry, leathery smell wafted out of the hole… and a leg the size of John climbed out.
John unclamped his pistols. Oh, this was going to be good!
The leg was followed by another leg. And another leg.And another.The chitonous appendages gripped the edge of the holes, and a spider the size of a garbage truck hauled itself out. The creatures’ piston-like legs were tipped with spear-like spurs, while its massive head sported jaws that looked like they could rip through tank armor.
John grinned like a kid at Christmas.
“That’s more like it!”
John took aim with his pistols and blasted the mega spider- an apt name in his opinion- right in its ugly face. Electric-blue rods of light punched into the red chitin, leaving black, steaming holes. The creature stumbled slightly, then righted itself. The holes slowly began to close, leaving only faint scorch marks.
John raised an eyebrow. “Looks like ya’ finally learned something.” He clamped the pistols to his side again and unsheathed an arm blade. “Guess I’ll have to do this the fun way!”
The massive spider let out an ear-piercing shriek and charged John. John ducked and rolled out of the way, and the oversized spider crashed into the wall, cracking the stone-hard bone.
“Missed me!” John taunted.” The spider picked itself up and charged at John again, jaws outstretched to meet him.
At a instant, John slid underneath the megaspiders’ body and hacked away at the nightmare’s belly. Each swing dug deep into the creatures, spraying John with bloods and globs of things best left unmentioned…until the wounds sealed themselves shut.
With a roar, the mega spider swiped at John with a leg and slammed him into the side of the wall. Pain shot through John’s body. His HUD flickered for a second.
Ow…. John thought-clicked the cross icon again and the pain slowly dulled. John picked himself up and charged the Megaspider again. The creature slashed at him with a foreleg. John sidestepped and sliced the bony limb off with an arm blade.
The creature stumbled, waving its stump of a leg.
Gotcha now.
The stump quivered for a second. The bleached bone turned to something like wet clay, then reformed itself into a fresh, undamaged leg.
The mega spider lunged at John. He ducked out of the way, but not before the creature left a deep scratch in his armor.
This isn’t’ working. John groaned. He stood up and faced the mega spider.
Time to get creative.
John did a thought-clicked an icon. Small vents opened up in his boots.
Fire.
At John’s command, two pounds of metastable helium flowed through his armor and into his boots. White-hot jets of flame spurted from the vents, and John shot towards the light pink sky like a homesick rocket.
Cut
The jets cut off. The armor suit lurched upwards for a little bit, as if it were straining towards the sky, then plummeted towards the ground, a meteor of metal, composites, and raw testosterone.
The ground and the spider rushed up to meet John. He bent his knees and clenched his fists. The mega spider grew larger and larger. It looked up for a second; John swore he could see a look of astonishment on its ungodly face.Then…
FOOM!
Half a ton of armor slammed into the spider like a Monty Pythonesque foot. The shockwave rattled John’s teeth like a baby’s toy.
The mega spider didn’t stand a chance. The suit smashed right through the oversized arachnoid, crushing chitin, and pulping internal organs. The spider’s body cracked like a china teapot, spraying the bony citadel with blood, chitin, and viscera.
John picked himself out of what was left of the mega spider, his armor painted with blood and innards.
I always did love crushing spiders. John chuckled, wiping liquefied mega spider off of his face. He winced.
A diagram of John’s body appeared on his HUD, portions of his legs flashing red.
WARNING! FRACTURES DETECTED IN LEGS. BEGINNING AUTOMATIC MEDIC PROTOCOLS.
A slow, dull warmth spread through John’s legs as the suit slowly reknit his cracked legs.
“JOHN!”
John turned to see Luna flying over the bony ramparts. He smiled and waved.
“ Hey Luna! ‘Fraid you missed out on all the fun!”
Luna looked around the castle. “I apologize for my absence, but my reserves of magical energy required recharging.“ The alicorn looked around. “Though it appears my presence was not needed.”
John thought-clicked an icon.
DECONTAMINATION PROTOCOLS ACTIVATED
The suit glowed white hot. Caked gore and blood turned to fine ash which fell off in a flurry of black grit.
“Wish you could have seen it Luna. It. Was. Awesome.” John flexed an armored arm. His body floated in euphoria. This, this was what it was like to be strong, to be powerful.
Luna noticed the pulverized mega spider. Her eyes widened. “I will take your word for it.” She said, bemused. She pointed a hoof at the castle. “John, I do not like this.”
John raised an eyebrow. “What do ya’ mean?”
Luna waved a hoof around the devastated castle. “Look around you. This is supposed to be the creature’s foul lair, yet you managed to penetrate its defenses and destroy its guardians without any help? This is clearly a trap!” She started tugging at John. “Come, we must leave this place before the creature chooses to spring it.”
John pushed Luna away. “So? We can take it.”
Luna’s eye twitched. “…what?”
“Luna, the two of us took on an army by ourselves. And I…” John gestured towards the mega spider corpse- “just single-handedly killed a guardian in the most awesome way possible! This thing doesn’t stand a chance against us.”
“I already told you that we caught the creature off guard. It will certainly adapt!”
John waved his hand. “So lets kill it before it does.
Luna looked John in the eye. “ John, never underestimate the Phobovore. During its foul lifetime, it has acquired countless millennia of experience against foes far greater than us.”
John raised an eyebrow. “Your point…?”
Luna gritted her teeth. “My ‘point’ is that this creature is not to be taken lightly. It knows….
John rolled his eyes. “Whatever.“ He shoved the alicorn aside, and clomped towards the central tower. “I got a monster to kill.”
Luna popped in front of him in a flash of light.
A shimmering gold aura surrounded John’s feet, freezing him in place like an iron shell.
“Hey, lemme go!”
Luna clopped over to John‘s side. She touched her horn to his forehead. “Tis as I feared. Your soul is not accustomed to such large quantities of battle-lust. Now that it has gotten its first taste, it craves more.“ The alicorns’ horn began to glow; a slow pulsing ache began to grow in John’s skull.
“What are you doing?!”
“The battle-lust is clouding your judgment, but it may be possible to siphon it from your conscious before its effects become deleterious. It will only take-”
“No.”
Luna opened her eyes. “What do you mean ’no’?”
John snarled. Stupid horse, keeping him away from his target.“ I mean I want you to stay the hell out of my head, you bitch.”
Luna gasped. “John!”
John sneered. “That’s right, I called you a bitch. What are you going to do about it?”
“John, listen to me!” Luna said. A tear trickled down her cheek. ”You need to…”
John slapped the alicorn with the back of his gauntleted hand. “No YOU listen to ME,! If you’re scared, fine. Sit this one out. But I’M not going to run away ’cuz it might be a trap. No, I’M GOING TO GO IN THERE AND KICK THAT THINGS’ ASS! DO YOU HEAR ME?!”
Luna’s eyes began to glow. John swore he could see a tear trickle down one of her cheeks. “Do not test us, John. We bestowed thou with alicorn power, and we can just as easily take it away.”
Is that a threat? John growled. He let some of his power flow into his suit. An icon appeared on John‘s HUD.“’Cuz I don’t like threats.”
A compartment opened in John’s plastron. John thought-clicked the new icon, and a mass of tangled black wire shot out and stuck to Luna’s neck.
“What trickery is…”
At a thought, the wire came to life, wrapping itself around Luna’s body like an overfriendly octopus. The alicorn fell to the ground, her body as rigid as a statue.
“Shouldn’t have threatened me, Luna.” John unclamped one of his pistols and pointed it to the alicorns head. He let some of the power flow into the weapon. A flash of green light shot out of the emitter, and the struggling princess went limp.
John lowered the pistol. That’d keep her quiet until he got back. He raced towards the fleshy tower.
It was time to close in for the kill
-
Shlick
The atom-thin blade bit into the fleshy wall like wet tissue.
Shlink
Shlick
Shlick
John sliced at the bony wall, his arm blade a blur of shining metal.
WHOOM!
A plug of foul-smelling flesh flew into the tower.
“You ready Phobovore? Here I come!
John leaped into the impromptu door, pistols raised and heart pumping.
The interior of the castle was like stepping into a living body. The fleshy walls quivered and twitched, as if they were in pain. The bony floor was crisscrossed with veins, pulsing land quivering like blue-grey worms.
In short, it was really, really icky.
John scanned the area. There, in the middle of the chamber, was a massive spiral staircase, like a DNA molecule made of bone.
A tiny seed of doubt formed in the back of John’s mind. There was nothing here. No guardians, no spiders. Just the staircase. He knew he’d killed most of the defenders, but he expected something.
John crushed the seed. He slowly, clomped his way up the massive staircase, his heavy footsteps reverberating throughout the tower. Halfway up the staircase, a membrane of rock-like flesh extended from the side of the staircase, blocking John’s path. Snapping, slimy jaws emerged from the wall, snapping at John like rabid dogs.
“You think you’re so clever, don’t you?”
John burned each mouth with a blast from his pistols. A few slashes from his arm blade later and the wall parted like a ripped curtain.
“You thought that you could use my fear against me, huh? Make a world catered to my greatest fears?”
A tentacle of muscle and sinew extended from the wall. It whipped itself at him.
John caught the tentacle and sliced it apart. The tendril screeched in pain, spurting blood everywhere.
“I’ll admit, for a second, it almost worked…” A few shots from John’s pistols seared the tentacle to ash.
“…Almost.”
John continued clomping up the staircase. His heart raced. The adrenaline flowed through him like molten lava. He resisted the urge to rush up the staircase guns blazing. He wanted to savor this.
Finally, after a lengthy climb, John reached a fleshy orifice. This had to be the creature’s lair.
“You feed on other being’s fear, huh? Well it’s time you started making some of your own!
John slashed at the orifice and rammed his way into a cavernous chamber.
There, on a blob-like throne, was the Phobovore.
-
John smirked. Seriously? He’d thought this thing was scary?
The Phobovore looked much like it had in his nightmares; roughly humanoid, gaunt, and covered with snapping mouths. Back then, John had found it the most terrifying monster ever. Now it was pathetic. John towered above it by at least a foot.
John stuck out a hand and motioned with two fingers. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
The Phobovore slowly rose from its fleshy throne. It raised its sucker like hands and charged, its thousands of mouths howling in an unholy choir.
John extended an arm blade and charged with a cry born of raw adrenaline. The two beings grew closer. The Phobovore leapt.
Shlick
The Phobovore stopped. John’s arm blade was buried up to the hilt in its abdomen. John twisted the blade like a key in a lock. The creature writhed for a few seconds, spraying John and the rest of the room with thick grey ichor, then went still. John threw the creatures’ body off of his arm blade. The body crumbled into powder which quickly evaporated away.
The seed of doubt returned. This time bigger than ever. Something wasn’t right about this. This hadn’t been a fight at all.
It was almost as if the creature wanted him to win.
Drip
John started. What was that?
A wet, fleshy gurlge erupted out of nowhere.
The chamber began to squeeze and contract. John reeled, trying to keep his balance. A drop of clear liquid splattered on the palm of his armored hand. The instant it touched, the armor began to hiss and steam. Intense, searing pain shot up John’s arm.
Acid! They were drops of acid! John looked around. Where was it coming from?
John noticed that the walls of the chamber were covered with thick fleshy ridges. There was something familiar about them. He’d seen something like them before; an anatomy textbook he‘d read out of boredom. What was it again?
John’s heart stopped. It had been a textbook on the digestive system.
Rivulets of acid began to pour from the walls, slowly filling the chamber. The air filled with a sour, bitter scent, like that of vomit.
John dashed for the exit. The muscular sphincter instantly regrew, closing itself tight. John extended his arm blade into the thick orifice, and slashed it open… and it regrew instantly.
John pulled the blade out. Gotta get out gotta get out. He could feel the acid begin to slosh around his boots, raising wisps of white smoke. John raced over to the nearest wall, splashing through hissing puddles of acid. He hacked at the wall with his arm blade like a murderer in a slasher film. The thick tissue parted like water, only for new flesh to fill in the gap just as quickly.
“C’mon, c’mon!” An idea flashed into John’s mind. Quickly, he pressed his right boot against the wall and thought clicked an icon.
Fire.Strength low.
Two small jets of bright blue flame squirted out of the boot vents. The fleshy wall charred and blackened, crumbling to ash as the flame touched it. John pushed himself through the scorched hole, trying not to gag on the smell of burnt flesh.
He was at the very top of the Phobovore’s tower. The ground seemed impossibly far away.
The flesh around the opening began to grow back. John could feel it press against his hands.
Looks like I don’t have much of a choice.
John stepped out of the hole, and into empty space.No italics or quotations if this is a thought or comment on john's part. Otherwise, switch to third person.
It was originally in italics. When I transferred it to Googledocs it undid that.
Something's wrong here.
You're going to need a space here.
No need to put these sentences on separate lines, they'll be fine next to each other.
1) Is this going to be one word(megaspider) or two words(mega spider) like you said two paragraphs ago? Be consistent.
2) The apostrophe should come before the 's'.
4 periods instead of three. On the other hand, do you really need an ellipsis here? Also, you lost your italics again.
Was this part supposed to have italics?
italics
italics?
Were italics supposed to be here?
No period. Or italics.
You should probably add this to the rest of the preceding paragraph.
period missing here.
period missing here.
Where there supposed to be italics here? This could work if said verbally too. You might want to add an 'I' though.-"I always did love crushing spiders."
Add quotation marks to the end and remove the space between the first quotation and the word 'Hey'.
adrenaline*
Again, add an 'e' to the end of that.
Should probably be italicized. All of the onomatopoeia things should.
also is this 'shlick'?
seen*
When making up words, remember to adhere to the rules of the English language. The word would be 'muscley'
double space.
italics.
while, two 'C'mon's are okay, they always say it three times in the aforementioned slasher films and the like.
Add a space. Was this supposed to be bolded?
Italics.
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- Lord Erhswin Wholewheat · 4.4k words · 25 4 · 801 views
- ThunderChaserCreate · 1.8k words · 89 2 · 3k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.093 seconds
Total duration
942 users online
1,245,607 hits today, 2,073,628 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Ooooh this promises to be interesting. I've never been interested in fics with humans before, but you've caught my attention. If I had more time right now, then I'd read it, but it will have to wait.
This fic is going on my read later list... not for long, though.
You have no idea what you've just brought upon yourself. I'm sorry in advance.
i.imgur.com/Cu0gsNe.gif
Lol what's at the end?
Great job on the chapter, dude. This is awesome.
MOAR!!!!
This review is brought to you by Zero Punctuation Reviews
Alrighty then! Fuck... let’s get back to work, shall we?
I mean, the only thing more annoying than waiting for someone to show a few signs of life on an online platform -- let alone actually put some fucking work out there again -- is to read an entire novel from said individual that basically boils down to “I had shit to do IRL, k thx sry bye!”, so how about we skip that part?
Anyway, our lucky story to approach the gallows today is titled Phobovore, and boy, did I luck out on this one, for it happens to be a member of one of my favorite genres in the vile ocean of vomit that is MLP fanfiction: dark. Finally, something to look forward to! Yes, dear writers! Show no mercy! Give me your erotic fantasies about Fluttershy eviscerating the Wonderbolts while Rainbow Dash violates Rarity with a giant diamond dildo at the speed of a Sonic Rainboom! I welcome it all, even if your ideas turn out to be completely unoriginal and about as engaging as watching a female koala feed herself, then take a shit into her babies’ mouths. Even if they’re tedious and frustrating as fuck to read, the one redeeming quality they all share is that the “dark content” is sure to upset quite a few wimpy readers out there who insist that “such content doesn’t belong in this fantasy world!” Call it “indirect trolling” of the fanbase, if you will...
With that said, let’s start by looking the very first things this story throws at us. The title, as mentioned, is “Phobovore,” which, as the story itself kindly explains to you, literally means “fear eater.” I must admit, that is one fucking awesome name, especially for some nightmarish freak of nature, and the cover art certainly suggested that we might end up meeting such a being somewhere down the line. As for the description, look no further: some poor bastard’s mind is being invaded through nightmares, turning every night’s beauty sleep into a first class trip to hell. Even the fact that it isn’t 100% original, or that “human in Equestria” bullshit seems to be on the horizon, can barely dent the surface of such a promising setup. So let’s see: good title, good cover art, excellent premise... that should mean this story is going to be piss-your-pants-because-you-couldn’t-wait-to-get-to-the-end type of amazing, right?
Well, if the context were shifted to “I just wanted to get this turd out of the way already,” then that description might be a little more accurate. Better yet, it’s like one of the worst kinds of nightmares where everything starts off fine and dandy, full of marshmallow cupcakes and happy rainbows and swag, but then you take a wrong turn, open a door, and find yourself in a vast chamber filled with eldritch horrors, all of whom promise to suck your innards out while they convince you that God, if he even exists at all, never loved you and will never ever care for you. Yep, this read was pretty much all of the above, except the content is in reverse order, with delicious darkness giving way to vomit-inducing stupidity.
I cannot state this enough times, dear readers: I hate being disappointed. I really hate it. Seriously, with all the annoying crap that tainted this story, not unlike how the titular creature taints the world of dreams around itself, it soon became much more fun to count how often twitterdick ends up saying “but maybe I’m the only one who thinks that way” (or something similar) in his reviews instead. The ratio is about 57% so far, by the way…
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Technical issues are the first item on our Agenda of Anal Abominations, a.k.a “(S)hit list”: not too many, and none very glaring, but the text could use at least one more round of editing here and there, particularly in the first few chapters. And just to give credit where it’s due, the author does employ rather impressive wordplay from time to time, particularly when it comes to describing the dream sequences. I must amend that praise with a huge asterisk, however, which notes that although the “giving things polar opposite descriptions simultaneously” trick worked the first time, it doesn’t mean you have to cram in fifty more variations of “hard as granite and soft as a puddle of jelly” and the like because you thought your “dream world” didn’t quite sound like a bad acid trip during a Pink Floyd music video just yet. On that note, trippy stuff is always welcome, especially when one pulls it off well, so extra points there for giving said world a genuinely interesting and immersive feel. Same goes for some of the later bits, and despite my overall distaste for what followed, I won’t go into any detail since I don’t wish to spoil impact of the imagery.
And now comes the real kicker: the plot. Now, before I go on to curb stomp this fic to death for all of its sins, I must point out that it is not yet finished, therefore not all of my observations here may end up still valid once the story concludes. One the other hand, that is still no excuse for how incredibly stupid this tale began to feel just as it seemed to be getting good. The plot starts off, rather predictably, with a nightmare sequence, in which our main character named John (a name that is used as often and with about as much dignity as toilet paper) is trying to escape from the titular creature in the woods. He then wakes up to the equally nightmarish life of being 24, living in a shitty apartment complex somewhere, working an undescribed job, having fantasies about becoming a successful author with his “magnum opus” (do I detect a little self-insertion, dear author?), and being hesitant to ask some girl named Maria out. I’m not sure I got all of that exactly right, but it doesn’t really matter anyway, because once we get beyond the second chapter, this information becomes about as useful and necessary as a dildo-shaped Bible in the hands of the janitor of an atheist kindergarten. Princess Luna, who plays the role of a “dream cop” of sorts, is on the lookout for the Phobovore, and when she finally nails the beast in John’s nightmare, she fights it off for long enough to whisk him away into the “realm of dreams.” This sequence is where the aforementioned excellent writing takes over for a while, the experience comparable to taking LSD on the International Space Station, then going for a little “spacewalk” to meet up with the spirits of Laika and all the other dead astronauts. All things considered, rather dazzling, and not at all unpleasant.
That is, not until the plot takes a left turn off the Highway of Pleasant Journeys, straight into the manure processing plant, and everything turns to shit.
To avoid giving away too much, I’ll keep it short and vague: they chat for a while, John learns what the Phobovore is, they agree to fight it together, and we bear witness to one of the most absurdly stupid “Suit up!” sequences ever. Don’t get me wrong, it might fit in some adventure/comedy fic, but this is supposed to be a dark and suspenseful fic about nightmares! I’m not exactly on the edge of my seat and getting the chills while I watch our main character give ridiculous, infantile battle cries as he guns down monsters with the weapons of a giant mech suit or whatever. If I wanted to read fucking MechWarrior fanfiction, then I wouldn’t do it anyway, because that shit is for video games and not books that try to tell serious stories...
Sure, when they go off to hunt the creature on its own turf, the scenery does look kinda disturbing, and things do start inching toward the atmosphere that is appropriate for the premise, but the overall tone is completely ruined by the idiotic speech and behavior of the main character, not to mention how Luna never gets around to bitch-slapping him for it.
You may have noticed, however, that I refrained from revealing too much, despite my misgivings. I did this for two reasons: 1) all of my complaints were in regards to how this story was anything but the “ride of terror” that it promised itself to be, so it’s quite possible that others may still find it enjoyable, and 2) the story is not yet completed, and so far it is by no means “beyond saving,” nor is it unbearable. In fact, the main character’s repulsive personality in the latter half might be related to the fact that they’re about to go to battle in a freaking dream, and in their dreams one does tend to act like a cocaine addict who suffers from mad cow disease, so I’ll give it a pass… for now...
Well, there you have it. If you can look past an annoying human main character, not to mention the fact that Phobovore and “horror” have about as much in common as an arsehole and an aerosol does (they both spew out gases, but some more pleasant ones than others), this story may still be worth your attention. The descriptions of scenery during the dream sequences are definitely worth a look, and overall it works fine as your run-of-the-mill action story.
4719626
That was a good review...but maybe I’m the only one who thinks that way.
4721054
bbsimg.ngfiles.com/1/23101000/ngbbs4e34ea2b56d55.jpg
4719626
Thank you for your honest (and painful) critique.
(Sorry if this is a bit late)
Um, you realize that you left your editor's notes at the bottom right?
If you're going for horror, you're forgetting one of the most important qualities of the genre; namely, pacing. There's a reason that, in the movie Alien, you don't see the damned thing clearly until the very end. Humans have an inherent fear of the unknown, so the more you know about something, the less scary it is.
Basically, what I'm recommending is a rewrite. Give the story a slower boil, let us stew in our own fear and confusion for a few chapters. When Luna swoops in to save the day, the story just loses any sense of threat it might have had. Perhaps make her (and by extension, Mr. Protagonist) a bit less omnipotent. To use the Alien example again, in the sequel, when Ripley has her giant mech battle with the alien queen, there's still some nagging doubt that "Maybe she can't win this one. She could be screwed." In addition, there's a slow buildup to the film, and the aforementioned robot smackdown is the very climax of all that.
One possibility that comes to mind is that Luna doesn't actually know what she's fighting. If the two of them had to figure it out together, it would allow for more conversation and characterization. My point is, you have to work up to your There-Is-No-Spoon power armor battle with the eldritch horror from your worst nightmares. At present, it feels like you just got bored with it.
7035026
Yeah, that sounds about right. Unfortunately..........