Cold Scales

by Konatra

Demon

Her head pulsed, a migraine couldn't begin to describe this surge of blood and pain in her brain. Her vision was clouded as she swore she busted several blood vessels in her eye, no matter, nothing matters right now. Using Carbon EX put a greater strain on her body; combined with her severely battered form it was a wonder she didn't fall apart with every movement. The suit did its best to manage this torture, using up all the morphine and anesthetics in a way that still allowed her to fight coherently. 'Solaris dammit all to Tartarus...' She thought sluggishly.

She pulled herself out of another one of her many barely conscious hazes. Her suit took the brunt of another massive clawed attack, right she was already in the middle of this deadly encounter. She flew back as more blood pooled out of her mouth. "Gods, how long has it been already?" The Dragoness held out her arm despite its protest and unloaded another flurry of micro missiles that hit their massive target. Each pin pierced the abomination's misaligned flesh and ignited hundreds of compacted explosions leaving a sizeable hole in its massive form.

Before Spines could even think of this as a victory of sorts the flesh mass seemed to just create a chunk of more flesh t replace what has been lost. Yes, she knew of the Spawn's ability to regenerate wounds but to see it at such an instantaneous level still made a pit form in her already mangled stomach. The demon didn't even seem to notice the should be fatal damage. In response, Clot roared another unearthly wail that shook the Queen's ears even through the hermetically sealed helmet. It suddenly threw out what one could consider a tongue that stretched out in the fashion of a toad's, something in her systems screamed to move and she did so just barely. "I am detecting several million serrated bones in that tongue, one bad hit could easily rip right through your armor." Okay, another thing to worry about, she noticed she was in the middle of a backflip, dodging the bladed organ again. She was letting her senses do the work which was not exactly a smart move, such a thing can not be relied upon because one slip could spell instantaneous death.

Its mouth still had more to offer when four harpoon-shaped bones shot out from its throat right at her. Dodge to the right, hop over the other, unload her blade and slice the third right down the middle. With her free hand, she daringly grabbed the bone right out of the air only inches away from her face. She pulled in energy for a high jump and in the air she flung the harpoon-like dart right into one of its eyes. Without waiting she boosted downward going for a flying kick to further lodge it deeper, perhaps a hit to the brain could end this torment, that is to say if it even had a brain.

Her wings shielded her from the other smaller attacks made from the lesser forces from below. The Clot waved its claws out again but was slashed in pieces by her blazing sword. The vents on her suit powered her impact like a railgun and injected the rod right through its armor-like bones. The impact managed to force the giant back a step. While nothing notable in terms of damage she at least proved it was not all unstoppable. As she thought this a blinding light impacted her suit, suddenly the air vented space felt like a lava pool, anything less than dragon would have been vaporized in a second. In response, her wings folded forward to reflect the energy ray. Suit diagnostics showed several melted systems and a loss of articulation in the left arm due to her scales fusing with the advanced alloys that were made to protect her. A calculated 12% loss of efficiency her suit informed. 'What was that?' Only a second in that beam and she was crippled. In barrelled out of the way before her metallic wings could melt.

She saw it, those crystal blue eyes were shooting lasers. It seemed this demon had no end of surprises, again a wave of fatigue hit her and caused her to lose footing. In her stupor, she failed to see the serrated tongue go for the kill. Her suit saw this and forced one of her exhaust vents to push her to the side but not fast enough to avoid the chainsaw grazing right through her left arm. As she fell she felt like she was missing something, it was hard to really tell due to the constant pain she was already in. There was no time to think through as smaller more tentacle-like stands came out of its body. She sliced away several of them with relative ease but was starting to be pushed back. Pulling out her pistol with her left hand she could shoot apart a few before they got near, she aimed her gun only to realize she was missing almost half of her arm. 'Ah...' In actuality, it didn't hurt as much as she expected it too which she attributed to her internal systems shutting down the nervous system to that arm. Blood gushed out of her severed limb and in an act of being in a near drug-like state as well as mortal desperation she charged her blade and sliced off the brutally torn chunk of the arm to leave a cleanly cauterized edge.

Yes this battle was falling apart fast, even though she was staring at her missing limb lying next to her it didn't fully register the gravity of the situation. Actually, she made a few weak chuckles, 'I'm going to die here.' She moved back again while cutting apart more tentacles, the massive monster that towered above made another earth-quaking scream. As time slowed, due to the advanced trauma, she decided this was no longer a one-woman job. "Zinc, I need an assist now!" Spines hoped she could pull one Elite from the field while keeping up the defense. As expected the newly built guardian made in her near image came at her call by flying across the battlefield like a cannonball, impacting the beast hard enough to make it stagger. Zinc pulled back and stood next to her leader.

"What do you command my Queen?" Spines had to keep in mind the lack of weight on her left side now as she struggled to keep an upright position.

"Watch my back and follow my lead." Such a command said little but to the fast-thinking brains of the Android Legion, it was all that had to be said. Zinc charged up her hammer with a furious glow of green. Spines flew back up and unloaded a charged blast of plasma from her arm, strong enough to get its attention. She narrowly avoided its eyes lasers and deflected others with her sword. Below Zinc dodged the ground tentacles and delivered a powerful blow unto the kneecap of the enemy. Like a tower, it collapsed onto the damaged knee leaving Spines an opportunity she would not miss. Her wings folded around her body and begun to spin around at an incredible speed, with her hand she held out her charging sword and together she flew through the air like a fiery saw blade. She shot through the air like a bullet aimed right at what she considered to be a neck. Her blade and wings tore through its flesh like butter but even still she failed to get that far in due to the millions of strands that held the beast together.

Zinc took a massive hit to the body and was blown back before she could destroy the leg. Spine held herself up and started slashing again and again into the mass. "JUST DIE YOU MONSTER!" But it refused to die. All too late she noticed her legs were sinking into the flesh and no matter how hard she struggled she couldn't get out. She felt pain in her legs, piercing drilling pain that overpowered the usual waves of pain she felt already. Her suit warned the flesh mass was eating through her armor with millions of needles. She couldn't escape with her own strength but knew a way to get out, unfortunately in her current state she forgot the meaning of self-preservation as she plunged her hand right into the mass and unloaded another payload of micro missiles.

The force of the explosions and the fireball that melted the flesh threw Spines out of its grasp but such a point-blank attack with compromised armor tore it apart at several points. She impacted the ground hard enough to leave a crater, she struggled to get up but found she was hard-pressed into the stone ground. Shakily she looked up to see the demon rush at her intent to finish the fight. With some effort, she tried to raise her blade and maybe throw it to do some damage but found that her hand was blown to bits leaving behind a stump. Her legs were pierced and a powerful venom crawled up her legs slowly, her helmet cracked in half as well as several open points in her chest. Her head was filled with orders from the suit but she was already on her way out. 'This...sucks.'

The creature of her demise looked down at her and fired another laser that would vaporize her in mere moments. Only a meter away Spine prepared for the unknown that death would bring her. Even if she failed here she knew she did her best, the androids would hold it off until the barrier was done, they had to.

...and for some reason, Spines felt strong. Time really slowed this time, something she felt was hyperspeed as the entire world seemed to stop. Her body moved on its own, she pulled herself up from the rock with her arms, arms she somehow had again. They were pure black, a black she knew all too well. A part of her heart swelled 'You came back.' Now free time began to return, she only had one chance to get through this impossible situation. And for some reason, she remembered some trivial thing Dusk once told her about the power of reflective panels. It was something so distant when she was still a child but it came up at this very moment. 'Okay, I get it.' Just before she would feel the heat her wings folded forward. She held her ground as the laser melted through their strong armor but slowly she began you redirect the laser by moving her wings in a curved position. Spines began yelling, not out in pain or fear but in total anger. A deep rage built inside her at the demon that killed her trusted second in command and caused her so much agony.

Her wings were giving way to the heat but she wasn't close to turning the beam back at it. If they could just hang on for a bit longer...

A beautiful noise filled the field, the sound of flesh and bone being pulverized by a massive hammer. Zinc pulled back again with all her might and blasted through the injured leg to pieces. The beast fell into the path of the reflected laser onto its still opened neck and like a blade to water, sliced right through the head. The head popped to the ground like a meatball and the body stood still. Spines felt like she could relax for a moment as her wings fell apart, a second longer and she would have taken the force of a small sun right to the face.

The Spawn around her was being killed off in droves, yes the end was almost here. Then another familiar wail made her step back. "Oh dammit!" The head still lived without a body and even worse it moved around with makeshift tendril legs that came out from the neck, it crawled at her like some kind of eldrich spider. Zinc came into view, thrown across the field torn in half. 'Wha-?' Even the body lived on to the lack of notice from the Elite and in a moment of respite was ripped in half by its claw.

Both the body and head went right for her, she felt the demon inside her rage up, increasing the power. She felt better than strong. But before she could use this power to its full extent a loud buzzing noise took over the battlefield. She could see millions of bullets fly in the air aiming right at every Spawn. Suddenly a wave of relief crashed upon the young girl. She did it, she lived through the storm and won, the barrier was completed. Her foe in front of her was decimated by the bullet hell, even it could not recover from such an unending barrage. In ten seconds all was finally quiet, then she collapsed. For some reason, her arms were gone once more, and the venom injected into her legs started to crawl up her form. But then a wonderful thing happened, darkness overtook the pain and encompassed her like a blanket. Finally, she felt nothing, the last legible thing in her wondered if this was death.