Come the rain

by some weird guy

Ninety nine problems...

We at Talon Corp. like to stay up to date with the latest in firepower, armor and magical charms. We don’t like to go out wearing rags, that’s just asking for trouble. The armor must be durable and mobile; no point in wearing something like hydra hides if you can't even move in them! The charms, fully juiced and proper for the mission; do you really need to wear a charm that protects from the cold if you're going to a tropical climate? Yet, despite all this, we consider charms and armor to be like the third and fourth lines of defense.

The first would be—well—your weapon. Blunt, bladed or double barreled, it's considered the first wall between them and your tender ass. The second is you. Well, your speed and agility to be more precise. One quality that's always favored here is being able to really move when you need to. Talon's got a saying he really likes: "being immovable is good, being untouchable is better!"

Stonewall proved that point splendidly.

Pulling out his machete, the minotaur strafed right and cleaved the soaring arthropod clean in two! Fluids squirted as he demonstrated why having both speed and strength made him just as much a threat, if not more, than the overgrown insects.

Shots rained down from the aerial team as the joined us in the struggle. Talon seemed to be half shooting, half arguing into his earpiece. Grace had pulled out her primary and secondary arms, both corrosive in nature, and began spraying death while keeping an almost serene look on her face. Moon Runner and Sunburst let loose a volley of super heated projectiles from their precision COLTs, lighting up anything unfortunate enough to have been hit by Grace or already bleeding.

Seeing the impressive display of firepower, I couldn’t help but feel a little out of place. Like the little colt invited into a country club, my own weapons seemed to be outclassed. Sure, the hoof cannons can send out shots that will knock them into next week, but they can't melt, or ignite or even leave craters the way Talon's could.

Ah, well, at least I'm in good hooves… hands… claws?

Stonewall was letting loose with his scattershot, taking out clusters of the centipedes and quite literally tearing up the ground! Firecracker wasn't just idly flying by either. She had two full saddlebags of explosives, and she intended to put them to use. Dropping light explosives close to us and heavier ones away, she was making sure to scatter and keep the big bugs away.

With all the centipedes crawling out of the trees, swarming on the ground and even jumping off the branches, I wasn’t paying too much attention to what was being said over my earpiece. Didn’t mean I wasn’t aware of the bad situation we were in.

Source Code was blind to the centipedes down below. She was unable to not only detect how many there were, but from where they were coming from too.

The centipedes weren’t letting up either. One of them stopped short of being shot and reared back. I thought for sure it was going to jump, so I trained my blaster on it. The damn thing didn’t jump, it spit! It fired a thin stream of pale green fluid through the air. I jerked left to avoid it and saw it narrowly miss Sunburst's right leg, burning the plant life below.

"What was that!?" he called out.

"It’s the centipedes; they can spew corrosive fluid from their heads!" I answered between shots.

"Is this a joke, are you joking right now?" he asked, eyeing everything that moved a little closer.

I merely shrugged.

This put is in a really bad situation. Not only where we trying to fend off these flesh eaters, but we have no support from our orbital unit and now these things spit acid! Well if we weren’t going to get help from above, maybe we could get it from down below!

"Sunburst, Moon Runner!" I called back.

Grass and dirt got kicked up all around as Firecracker began to rain down phosphorous packed cherry bombs around us. Bright as hell and burning hot, they seemed to help a little more against the insects. I just hope she has more.

"Can you two dig us a tunnel out of here? If we keep fighting like this, we're not gonna last much longer!"

This time Moon Runner answered after tearing a hole through two centipedes simultaneously.

"The moment we turn around, they'll be on us like flies on a steamy pile of fresh crap!"

The minotaur's barrel momentarily protruded next to my head before discharging another round.

"No they won't," Stonewall replied, "the kid and I will keep 'em off ya!"

"And don't forget us up here!" a pegasus called down from above.

The two canines shared a look before nodding in unison and slinging their weapons. They immediately got to work ripping into the ground, making sure to keep it wide enough for their larger friend to fit through. They worked fast, I had only turned away for a couple seconds and they were already half submerged!

Grace's voice came alive in my head.

"You'll need to dig at least one eight—no, two hundred meters north to be in the clear!"

"Two hundred meters north, understood!" Sunburst confirmed.

The seconds dragged on like hours waiting for the digging duo to reach their mark. All the while, endless waves of centipedes continued to pour out through seemingly every crevice.
Where the hell were these guys all coming form!?

Shots continued to rain down, accompanied by small explosives. Firecracker was no longer using her phosphorous charges. I could only assume she either ran out or she's saving what little she has left.

Pretty quickly, my attention was stolen by my left cannon when I noticed that the shots were not only smaller but they had a shorter knockback distance as well.

"From bad to worse…" I mumbled.

Crystal powered weapons are pretty awesome. They give you incredible range, allow for a broad variety of customization and creativity, and offer destructive power with lightweight mobility. Needless to say, they excel where weapons that use charges and black powder fail. That doesn’t mean it’s without some drawbacks though.

When you reach the end of a crystal’s charge, a couple of things tend to happen. First and most obvious, your weapon will start to weaken. Range, power and sometimes even accuracy will take a dive for the crap. After that, the crystal itself will start to physically weaken. This can cause areas of the crystal to crack and chip off. Not only will this damage the weapon’s internals, but you run the risk of splitting the very crystal itself in two. And that’s when things really hit the fan.

If you're lucky, you'll only suffer what's called a "burnout." The crystal's power depletes, turning your once deadly distance weapon into little more than a fancy club. That's not to say that all is lost. The crystal may still be restored, although it will be a weakened version of itself. This option is still generally cheaper than trying to bond the broken pieces together or buying a new one entirely, which is good since you still have to worry about damages to the weapon's housing. Broken geodes being tumbled about and jettisoned at high speeds will tend to leave your internals looking like they were used as a prison for wet, angry cats. Overall though it's nothing some maintenance and money can't resolve, plus it'll teach you to be more careful next time.

Of course, if you end up on the other side of the luck spectrum, things don’t end so simply.

The heavy cracking and destabilization of the crystal can lead to some… unhealthy results. The newly loosened crystal may begin to leak its magical contents, causing it to oscillate at some pretty vicious frequencies causing further damage to itself and the entire weapon. The escaping energy will also affect the shots being fired, sometimes causing things like premature detonation. If that’s not enough, the crystal has the capability to split apart and violently release the entirety of its remaining power, turning your COLT into a magically infused bomb.

Different crystals have different likelihoods for reaching that catastrophic level. Crystals with explosive and incendiary properties would be at a higher risk than, say, ones with corrosive and freezing,

I currently had two concussive, and although not too likely to go critical, the chance still existed.

The centipedes continued to swarm en masse and I didn't have time to change the crystal. I would just have to hope that the crystal will last a little longer.

"How much longer is this gonna take?" I cried into the hole.

My head rang with Moon Runner's voice.

"One hundred meters, halfway there!"

Halfway there. Okay, not too bad. I should be able to hold out that long.

Shots whizzed through the air as Stonewall and I fought to hold back the horde. Talon had switched to a freezing crystal and was trying to create a small levee with frozen corpses to hamper the progress of the living ones. I could feel my left cannon shake and vibrate more than usual, so I laid off it a little trying to give the crystal time to settle down.

And then it stopped responding altogether.

"No! Not now, not yet!"

I wasn’t about to hide my frustration. A burnout already. Damn, I really thought it would last just a little longer! Unloading two more shots with my right, I chose to look down the barrel and try to spot the problem.

"What the heck are you doin', boy!?" Stonewall yelled.

"Burnout." was my only reply.

"Doesn’t matter if it's workin' or not, you never look down the barrel of a—!"

I chose to tune him out at this point. Yes, I know the safety procedures, what's unsafe, the proper way to do things and all that. I'm not stupid; I know what I'm doing. I just don’t have time to do things the "right" way.

I saw the problem through the lens. The crystal was cracked and vibrating pretty badly. It was on the verge of going critical. Great.

Well, no point in dwelling on it right now. Pulling out the buck knife, I got straight back to work.

It was twenty times more dangerous letting them get close enough to use the blade, but it would be a million times more to continue using the faulty firearm.

A steam of centipede juices shot my way. Avoiding the worst of it, a bit landed on my right wing. I could feel it eating through the charm's protective spell. Using the knife, I scooped out as much as possible and flicked it back at the insect. A burning sensation let me know that I didn’t get all of it.

How much was left now, forty, thirty five meters? Not much, I know that.

Come on, just a little longer!

A carpet of death was dropped by Firecracker in a horseshoe pattern around us before pulling out her signature sidearm, a medium range COLT housing an explosive crystal, which she endearingly referred to as: Heart Breaker.

Grace holstered her own dual shooters and instead opted to arm herself with twin machetes. In an instant she was zipping around from tree to tree carving up any centipede unfortunate enough to be within reach.

Grace is widely regarded as the fastest member in our group and with good reason! Speedy maneuvers matched with quick wit make her a very valuable ally. Instantly analyzing any situation before responding without any real hesitation, she becomes the embodiment of a swift end. Those creepy crawlers never stood a chance.

”It's done," Sunburst reported, "the tunnel is finished. Now, get yourselves out of there!"

Finally!

Firecracker dumped a couple more explosives to cover our escape as the minotaur dove in, followed swiftly by me. If anything tries to follow us down here, I'll blast them straight to kingdom come!

As if on cue, half a dozen crawlers fell into the tunnel to join us. I wasted no time training the cannon on their sorry heads and knocking them back on their multi bug asses.

It's amazing how long two hundred meters can feel when you're being hounded by death in the form of carnivorous arthropods. All the while, more kept pouring into the tunnel with us. Talon tried to freeze a couple bodies in place to block the hole, but the others just pushed their deceased brethren aside like last week's newspaper. They weren't slowing down.

That’s when I got my most brilliant—and outrageously stupid—idea.

I took the cannon off my left hoof and, aiming as far back as I could, launched it through the tunnel. The insects paid it no mind as they started to crawl over it. Of course, they probably wish they had as I fired a concussive round at the destabilized weapon.

The blast was intense, and was only amplified down below. My bones were quite literally rattled. I was actually pleasantly surprised to find myself alive! Dirt and viscera coated the far end where the entrance used to be.

Crawling out of the exit, I coughed at the newly formed pollution as I looked up at the others' stunned faces.

"Fire in the hole…" I mumbled with a stupid grin on my face.

Of course, we weren’t done. All we managed to do was give ourselves and escape route into the jungle. But the centipedes were far from done with us.

Out of the dirt plume they came, more determined than ever to have our juicy hides.

"Damn." Stonewall stated.

"Anyone got a 'Plan B?'" Moon Runner sheepishly asked.

A few rods suddenly soared overhead and landed between us and the incoming hostiles. Instantly, they produced a wall of freakin' fire, scattering centipedes in every direction!

Expecting Firecracker to be the source, she merely shook her head in mutual confusion.

"You know, one thing that never fails to impress about you seven—"

We immediately searched about; trailing the voice to an ashen coated Diamond Dog perched on a high branch behind us. Accompanied by a small force of heavily armed canines, they made it a point to show that they very clearly outnumbered us.

"—is how you're able to make one hell of a racket wherever you go!"

Author's Note:

Wooo! Next chapter's up and, look, you didn't have to wait forever this time! Ain't I just the bee's knees? A real cat's meow!

Hehe.. okay, I'll stop now. Don't forget to critique.

Seriously... I need some feedback here!

Just a little... for Tiny Tim? ^_^