Cold Scales

by Konatra

Savage Breakthrough

Spines struggled to breathe, the coil around her threatened to crush her sides at any second. The tendrils wiped around the room sporadically. Whenever they hit a surface the metal would show deep tears on the surface. She was frozen still by the horrid sight before her, the roar could be described as unholy and disorienting in a sense. "WHAT AM I?" The monstrosity asked again for the fifth time this past minute. Spines of course still had no answer.

When none was giving the demon picked up the girl from off the ground and punched her through the wall. Luckily the fist took the brunt of the damage but Spines was certain she had at least one broken rib. Now on the other side of the wall, Spines staggered up to escape until the savage beast broke through the wall and dashed away in the opposite direction. Spines felt relieved that she was no longer a target until she felt the tug of the tendril around her waist. "Oh shi-" She was forcefully dragged through the ship.

The broken Hunter pounded through the ship aimlessly in rage. So many years of anger and isolation have finally broken the Hunter, right now all he could think was to run. After some time he stopped when approached by a group of androids.

"Lord Tendrix! What is the situation?" The leader asked in concern. 'Tendrix' just roared, the androids took a cautious step back. "I don't understand." The beast growled and prepared to attack the unassuming group of mechs, that is until Spines forced herself up, she was tattered for sure with torn clothing and blood coming down from her nose.

"STOP HIM." She yelled as loud as possible. The androids then pulled out their hands that shifted into miniature cannons that pulsed a powerful blue glow.

"Acknowledged General Spines, activating nonlethal attack measures." The five androids circled the savage demon in a well-planned fashion. The leader dodged a heavy tendril coming his way by just an inch. "Lord Tendrix, we order you to cease your actions and return to your quarters at once." It stated firmly but still held an amount of respect to the superior it was speaking to. The beast lashed out with a slashing claw attack. The leader jumped back and aimed the gun near his face. "You leave me no choice." The five unloaded blue lasers into the beast. The weapons left frozen chunks into his flesh, these were freeze guns it seemed.

The beast roared as the blast melded into his white skin. The androids shifted around him at breakneck speeds, Spines could barely keep up with their movements. The deranged Hunter swiped three tendrils around the leader in an attempt to rip him to shreds, the agile android flipped forward head on, face to face with his demonic smiling face. The android was unfazed and fired a charged blast directly into his mouth.

Spines felt the coil around her shift around in panic. Before she could even think about trying to remove it she was already flung into the air. Before she fell she clung onto the backside of the hunter like a buffalo. The savage, now enraged far beyond anything from before pushed forward away from the battle and charged into another wall. The androids gave pursuit and fired more rounds occasionally.

"Stop! Please stop and calm down!" Spines yelled as he crashed through another wall. In an attempt to grab his attention, Spines balled her fist up and gave a heavy punch to the monster's back. She expected for him to get annoyed and stop, what she didn't expect was the violent jolt the savage took. The force of the hit forced him down and to skid a bit across the floor. Spines held on and was amazed at her own strength.

Before she could decide what to do next he got up and started thrashing around to get her off. Spines dug her claws into the oddly soft flesh of the monster. He smashed into the wall next to them repeatedly until the metal began to tear apart. "Oh no!" With one last push, the savage broke through the wall into the outside darkness. Spines still held on to him in hope that he would break their fall.

Seconds passed by until Spines felt the hunter fall right into another surface. Gravity shifted around oddly again which threw off Spines greatly. Something was destroyed and it seemed like they were falling down one layer at a time. After the fourth layer, they finally came to a stop. Despite being quite shaken she was mostly unharmed. The Hunter could be in better shape through... She looked down to see several poles of metal and shards jut through his flesh, he breathed a ragged breath occasionally.

She stepped off the downed monster and poked him gently. "...You okay?" No response. She looked around for help by those androids but noticed the interior was far different from before. The walls were black with blue pulsing wires glowing around them. The halls were more circular and smooth than the shape-edged ones. Before she could explore the place more a wall panel opened up. Relived the androids have arrived she called out. "Over here!" The mechanical creature this time looked different however, it came in some ball form and rolled over. It stopped rolling and protruded out four legs and two thick arms that carried two curved glowing purple swords. The head came out to show an odd four-mouthed blue-eyed face. "uh...hey?"

The crab-like mechanoid rushed over to her with swords drawn. "Oh crap!" Spines hopped back to avoid the forward swing of the crab. It was around seven feet so it was quite intimidating. She scrambled up the fallen Hunter's body in order to get a higher stance on her enemy. It made a series of garbled yells and swung again. She narrowly sidestepped out of danger, but too late she noticed the other arm swing at her coming in from the opposite side of her, she was far too close to him to duck or step back. Without thinking, Spines felt her body twist around at the waist and she jumped back to her side, her leap let her just by a scale avoid the attack, she rolled away.

The crab shouted again and gave pursuit. She ended her roll and corrected herself, she found a wall that had more metal spikes as long as a meter sticking out from them, before the crab could get near she pulled out a thin spike and held it as a mock weapon. "Come on then!" She taunted in unexpected confidence. The crab lunged forward to slice her from the waist but was blocked by the spike. With her free left-hand Spines delivered a powerful hit in the center of its body frame. The bot flew a step back but recovered at once. Still, a good-looking dent adorned the crab's metallic chest now.

Now the bot seemed enraged, it fled several steps back and slotted out two more arms from its back to reveal two more swords. Spines felt her confidence diminish at that moment but too late to run because the improved robot clamored up to her. It gave out several quick slashes but Spines's now improved senses allowed her to swing the spike around to avoid almost all the attacks, almost all of them. "AH!" One attack got through her defense and slashed through the side of her left shoulder, were it a regular sword the damage would be next to none but this was some kind of superheated laser sword that managed to slightly cut through her tuff dragon scales. Despite the pain, she pushed through it and aimed a thrusting attack into the face of the bot. Luckily it seemed fazed when the hit didn't fully cut right through her and was just distracted enough to let the hit go directly into its left eye, but before she was done she arched her weight down and severed a lower chunk of its face.

It throttled back and blue blood like oil sprayed out of the wound. It screamed in a high pitch whirl and rushed the girl once again with a barrage attack ready. On instinct, she met its approach with her own, before it made the move to cut her to bit she sped into its newly developed blind spot. Now out of sight she slashed the bladed end of her spike upward and severed the lower right arm of the crab. Her body became covered in blue blood and the sworded arm flew in the air. She gave a high jump and snatched the purple blade out from the air.

Now armed with a real weapon the dragon pulled all her strength together and made a clean cut right through the center of the bot. The blade's heat was powerful enough to get through the armor and slice the bot in two, effectually killing it. Standing over her kill, Spines felt triumphant but then dropped her sword as the pain in her cut shoulder began to pulse. She clutched the wound and gave out a pained grit. While the hit did little real damage to her body, the heat of the blade burned her inner flesh which was an entirely new experience for a flame-resistant being like herself. "Dammit this sucks!" At the very least the wound was already cauterized so blood loss was not a threat.

Getting up she moved back to the fallen hunter while retrieving the weapon. The pain could be ignored for now.

"CRAAZ KALLAG UNITY!" A ear-piercing siren almost broke the eardrums of the girl, the halls were alit with a blue light that flashed continuously. More panels opened up that ejected eight rolling crab drones. Two giant doors shut in front and back of Spines, trapping the two in this new attack formation. The crabs unfolded showing two held similar swords while the rest had cannons on their arms...Spines didn't know how to fight this herself.

Luckily she was not alone. Two large tendrils shot in from the side that tore through two crabs. The rest of the group looked down to see the rising Hunter still in his savage form. They fired blue plasma rounds into his face and chest but he looked hardly fazed. The Hunter bull-rushed one and knocked the other two down. His fist smashed the three to pieces. One threw a blade at the Hunter that pierced his head but still, the Hunter was unmoved. He flicked the weapon off his face and shot a tendril through its chest, severing the core. The one beside it made an attempt to attack the distracted Hunter but the remaining tendrils wrapped around its legs and arms and tore it from each joint. The Hunter began violently dismembering the downed drone until it became nothing but scrap.

The sound of metal getting sliced filled his ears. The Hunter came back to his senses and looked to his side to see the last drone holding up a blade in an attempt to decapitate the distracted Hunter. It might have succeeded if not for a similar blade lodged through its head. The drone fidgeted once and fell dead. The Hunter looked back to see Spines getting out of a throwing positing, looking very frazzled. "That worked?" She looked to the Hunter for confirmation, then she held up a fist and gave a hop. "YES, that was awesom-OW ow!!" Jumping aggravated the wound.

The Hunter stared at the girl for a few moments as she twitched from the pain, his mouth arched up slowly to show off a horrifying but gentle smile. Yet, before he could speak the walls unlatched and opened up again, instead of empty halls there were now whole squadrons of drones, some were larger and more complex looking than the other ones. Spines looked back to see the same ordeal, they were surrounded. The leading crab unit fired a large green ball of plasma aimed at Spines, both her and the Hunter could not move quick enough to defend or avoid the damage. They didn't have to.

Spines braced herself to get hit and felt a flash of heat. The heat although wasn't the horrible burning sensation she expected. She opened her eyes to see the back of a familiar-looking android. The friendly android fell down in front of the deadly blast with a glowing green shield raised, the plasma splashed around the shield but left the two unharmed. "We have arrived Generals." With that, nine more androids fell from the hole in the roof with weapons drawn.

The enemy stepped back, calculating the new party members. The allied group circled around the two generals in a defensive pattern. The Hunter primed himself for a battle and Spines did the same by raising up a sword. "FOR UNITY" The lead android shouted

"KAZLA VOID!" The leading crab answered back. This battle would be messy, that much was certain.

Comments

[Thebaconpiggybank]

Wat.
Im loving this but wat?

Great chapter though!