IX – Breaking Point
Kaodin POV
The lever resisted, metal grinding on corroded metal inside the wall. Kaodin put his weight into it. The mechanism gave a shudder that ran up his arms. A heavy horizontal seam appeared in the vault door before him. The two halves of the door groaned, then slapped sideways into recessed pockets within the metalic housing. The air that met him tasted of burnt ozone and something acrid, chemical.
He stepped out of the elevator platform foyer. The elevator descended half a meter behind him with a smooth pneumatic hiss, locking into the reinforced floor grid. Behind him, a section of the concrete wall slid shut, its movement seamless, obscuring the vault entrance until it was just another part of the bunker's monotonous gray surface. A final, heavy thud echoed as the thick panel sealed itself. He faced the outer door, a simpler slab of riveted steel with a wheel lock. He turned the wheel, its spokes cold against his palms. The locking bolts retracted with a series of sharp clicks. He pushed the door outward.
The overground was bathed in the crimson wash of the emergency protocol. The light bled from each structured building across the above-ground surface and scattering around the circular-shaped wall. The ground smelled blood and acrid chemical as the fight was still going on. To his left, a lookout tower of lattice steel and scavenged girders groaned under strain. Cee-Ar-Tee stood on its upper platform, a blaster barking from his shoulder mount, its recoil absorbed by his frame. Other scavengers took cover around him, their pulse rifles spitting precise blue bolts at the CCs clawing upward from below.
In the center of the wide plaza, next to a large, matte-grey spherical structure whose surface was dented and scored with deep gouges, another group fought. Kaodin recognized Em-Jay and Gee. They were part of a small, desperate circle formed behind a barricade of overturned transport carts and jagged metal plates. Gee was crouched low, her face pale under the red light, gripping her spiked baseball bat so hard her knuckles were white. Her shoulders shook with tremors that had nothing to do with the vibrations running through the floor. Em-Jay stood in front of her, a long steel pipe in his hands, using it to parry clumsy, hammering blows from a creature that now heaved a burned-out vehicle chassis aside to get at them.
"Em-Jay!" Kaodin called out, sprinting across the barricade's uneven surface, Wawa flew along. His feet found purchase on the jagged concrete edges as he vaulted toward the struggling pair.
The stench of rotting flesh hit him mid-leap—Gee's scream cut through the chaos as a CC lunged for Em-Jay's exposed back. Kaodin twisted midair, planting a heel into the creature's temple. Bone cracked under the impact.
Left pivot—right snap kick. Two more CCs crumpled, their skulls cratering against the pavement. Em-Jay gaped at the splattered remains, pipe dangling from limp fingers. "Damn, kid. Timing's impeccable."
Kaodin wiped his brow, nodding toward the dented sphere behind them. "That dome—what is it?"
"Emergency shaft," Em-Jay gasped, twisting away from a CC's grasping hands. He drove his pipe deep into its rotting mouth with a wet crunch. "Only opens under Crimson Veil Protocol." His boot connected with another CC's skull, sending it reeling back. "Manual controls, near the COC—that's where we…." He sucked in a ragged breath between strikes. "Help the scavengers—left above."
Emerging from the hordes of CC, it was a larger one of among the CC horde. Two meters of muscle, bone, and grafted armor plates bolted directly into gray, necrotic flesh. Where eyes should have been, there was only a dark, gouged hole. Another one, identical in its horrific bulk, was methodically smashing its fists onto the concrete ground. Each impact sent a deep, groaning tremor through the plaza.
Kaodin's breath compressed in his chest. The air around him cooled, then warmed again as a faint, shimmering blue outline traced the edges of his forearms and shins. He didn't see it. He felt it—a current aligning, a circuit closing. His next step was a half-meter glide that carried him inside the swing arc of a lunging CC. His elbow met its lowered jaw. The bone gave with a dry snap.
Wawa condensed into a blue streak at his flank. The cub's paw slammed into the knee of another creature. The joint hyperextended with a wet pop. Kaodin pivoted on his lead foot, his rear leg whipping upward in a tight arc. His shin connected with a third CC's ribcage. The creature folded, breath leaving in a choked gasp.
He was clearing space. Each movement was economical, a product of the Chaiya stance—wide base, hips low, elbows tight. He didn't only fight the crowd; he cut channels through it. A forearm wedge deflected a clawed hand. A knee shield stopped a stumbling charge. Wawa flowed beside him, a blur of blue light and impact, raking tendons and disrupting balance. They weren't killing the horde. They were breaking its cohesion, creating a pocket of controlled chaos around the area.
The black-matte-armored militias near the east-section breach gestured sharply toward their position. Blaster fire echoed off the crumbling wall as they worked to seal the gap.
Kaodin jerked his chin toward them without breaking rhythm, sweat beading along his jawline. "Em-Jay—that side."
Em-Jay pivoted with a grunt, steel flashing as his machette sword carved through a stumbling CC's outstretched arm. He cursed as black fluid sprayed across his boots. "Moving!" His blaster barked twice, clearing a temporary path as he herded Gee and the others toward the repair team.
The last scavenger guy from Em-Jay group fired covering shots into the tide of shambling corpses, buying Kaodin precious seconds. Brass casings clattered against the pavement as a wave of CCs surged forward.
The larger CC's elongated limbs swung the two smaller carcasses like hammers, their bodies cracking against the pavement. Concrete fractured under the impacts. Its head swiveled on a neck thick with tendon-strands. Kaodin broke from the melee, angling toward the curved wall of the emergency shaft. His feet found purchase on the dented metal. He ran three steps up the vertical surface, using the momentum to launch himself backward into a spinning arc. His body became a lever, torque building from his core down through his hips.
A five-forty-degree kick.
His spinning heel connected with the monster's jaw. The impact drove the massive head sideways, twisting the bone and forcing the creature into a sudden, graceless crouch. Black-and-green fluid spurted from its mouth, splattering across the concrete where it sizzled and ate into the surface slightly before it dried off.
Kaodin landed in a deep squat, knees bent, and surged forward to face the large CC. Its stumble had swiped several nearby carcasses aside, clearing the area for Kaodin and Wawa as the two pivoted together, facing the monster now lowered to Kaodin's eye level. Wawa hit from the other side. Kaodin's fists became pistons—short, brutal uppercuts driven from the floor, targeting the jaw hinge, the temple, the base of the skull. Wawa's forepaws raked across its blinded eye socket, blue Qi searing into necrotic tissue. The creature's head rocked under the synchronized barrage. A sickening, internal pressure built visibly beneath its gray skin, the skull distending like overripe fruit.
It burst.
A geyser of viscous black and green fluid erupted, spraying in a wide, foul arc. Kaodin turned his face away, but the liquid splattered across his shoulder, his arm, his cheek. It sizzled on contact, the acrid smell of burning organic matter filling his nostrils. But the heat was superficial, neutralized the moment it touched his skin, evaporating into wisps of foul-smelling steam. But his nose caught the smell of rotten meat. Kaodin's stomach turned almost simultaneously, his mind connecting the image of the monster's burst head. He immediately turned sideways as bile clogged his throat and he began to vomit.
The headless large-statue monster remained upright for a second, then its massive frame shuddered and collapsed forward like a felled tree. The plaza floor shook under its weight before the blood spurted from its torn spine. Kaodin turned aside, forcing his focus onto the other threats closing in.
"Kaodin!" Cee-Ar-Tee's voice cut through the chaos from the lookout tower, where he and a handful of scavengers kept up their fire. His alloy arm jerked toward the warped vault doors. "Weird-looking CCs—forced their way inside!"
Kaodin wrenched his attention from the collapsing swarm. Beyond the shattered entrance, figures moved with unnatural coordination, prosthetic limbs glinting under crimson lights: too attentive for reanimated corpses.
"You see that?" Cee-Ar-Tee's optics whirred as he tracked their movements. "Not CCs." A beat. "Outsiders."
"Understood, Mr. Cee-Ar-Tee." Kaodin called up toward the lookout tower, his voice tight yet controlled. His gaze flicked upward just long enough to confirm the older android's position before snapping back to the encroaching threat.
Outsiders. The word settled in his gut like a stone. His fists tightened around the blood-slicked wraps, the black-green ichor still fresh from his knuckles.
Rogan's POV
The photogenic crystal lattice along the CSDS wall destabilized, its camouflage pattern collapsing in uneven bands until the rusted metal plating beneath showed through under the moonlight. At the same moment, the crimson lights across the settlement died, leaving only the dim lunar glow washing over the exposed structures.
"Ready?" Rogan's deep voice rumbled low. "You know the stakes."
"Got it," hissed one of his men, barely audible. His blackened armor plates shifted as he crouched lower.
"Move."
Rogan's knuckles pressed against the alloy floor, tendons stark beneath the dark ink sprawling across his forearms. His nostrils flared with each controlled exhale, jaw muscles twitching under the strain. The grappling hooks bit into metal above with a screech, their tethers taut as the men ascended alongside the wall. Rogan gripped two grapples, one in each fist. Each of them wore composite-plated armor streaked with viscous CC residue, the substance hissing where it clung to the blackened surface.
Despite his considerable size, Rogan handled both grappling guns with practiced ease, descending alongside his unit. How did I end up here? The chaotic scene before hiim unfolded—scavengers holding the line against the CC horde, refusing to buckle. Their skill was undeniable. He remembered joining Korren's crew for simple thrills: raiding low-tech settlements, stealing loot, taking women. But this? This was different. Full-scale infiltration against trained scavengers in a high-tech fortress. His jaw tightened as he watched them move: too disciplined, too coordinated. The tang of dried CC blood on his knuckles suddenly felt heavier. This wasn't the fight he'd signed up for.
His knuckles whitened as he clencehed his fist. No turning back now. Forward meant survival, hesitation meant death. The choice was s brutally simple. Just keep moving. The CC residue burned against his exposed skin, a grim reminder of what awaited if he faltered.
Kaodin's POV
Kaodin stood at the threshold of the forced-open door. "Hey, who are you?"
One of the men was tinkering at an opened lid where a line connected to a portable laptop. The others walked around the makeshift shop interior, unable to activate the vault's elevator platform. Emergency crimson light pulsed through the space.
"I said, who are you." Kaodin shouted, and Wawa next to him also gnawling aggressive feline shouted.
"Hey Rogan," one of the raiders called over his shoulder, barely glancing at Kaodin and Wawa. His fingers paused on the circuit panel he was working. "Got a kid and his horographic pet show to handle." He jerked his chin toward the doorway before returning to his work. "We'll crack this vault. You deal with that."
Rogan cracked his knuckles, the thick cords of his neck shifting as he turned. "Why boss put me in charge when you got all the answers?" His voice carried the flat resonance of someone long tired of this argument.
Kaodin's nose wrinkled at the stench of rotting meat and CC blood clinging to the raiders. These guys reek worse than a corpse pile. "How long has it been since you bathed?" he called out.
Rogan rolled his shoulders, the heavy chain links biting into his palms as he wrapped it around his fist. "Long as we've been plotting to take this shithole over."
"Own this place?" Kaodin echoed.
Rogan's gaze flicked between the boy and the flickering blue cub. "Thorium blast was just the start. Once we're done here, we peel this settlement apart—chain up every useful body left standing. Break 'em proper before putting 'em to work."
He grinned, saliva glinting between his teeth. "Run along now, taking your kitten pet along. Before you wet yourself."
Kaodin's breath hitched. The blue glow across his frame wavered, tendrils of crimson-Qi began threading outwardly.
Rogan leaned in, savoring the reaction. "Dont' you hear it kid, let me spell it out, we gut this vault. Take the thorium. Take the people. Own every brick of this shithole. Crystal clear?" His chain creaked as he tightened his fist.
Kaodin turned and began walking, his gaze blank. Wawa purred at Rogan once before following his master.
Rogan turned back toward his men. "The kid and his holographic pet are gone. Enough."
"Yes, good for you," one of the men shouted back. "Now let's open this shitty tech before I get bored and start killing kids around here."
Kaodin swallowed hard, his hands curling into fists. Cee-Too's cracked chest plating glowed dimly under my arm—like the fading embers of a dying fire. The crimson Qi flickered brighter along his skin, pulsing hotter with each ragged breath.
Kaodin pivoted sharply and sprinted toward the shophouse housing the vault elevator platform. His body flushed with crimson light, his Qi merging with the glow of the Crimson Veil Protocol from the inside of the shophouse lattice.
Inside, he launched himself across the shop counter on the left, right leg struck the man standing over the crouched figure. The kick snapped into the side of the man's jaw, driving his head into the concrete shelf beside him. Blood spattered from the impact.
"Hey, what did you spill?" the crouched man shouted, looking toward the raider who should have been standing beside him, now collapsed with wide eyes. Kaodin lifted his leg ninety degrees upward in a practiced motion, pivoting it downward in a clean arc that struck the man's temple with his heel. The man working near the exposed edge of the hidden elevator platform glanced sideways. "What are you guys doing? I need to focus here."
He turned toward where Kaodin and Wawa stood. "Wawa, go," Kaodin said as he noticed the raider turning toward him.
Wawa purred once before sprinting low, a blue-crimson streak shooting over the crouched man as his master ordered. Kaodin hurled himself across the shop counter toward Rogan, who stood behind the crouched man now under attack by Wawa, now dumbfounded.
"Hey, you fat jerk reeking of corpse," Kaodin called out. "I finished all your friends. Is that all you got?"
"Wha—what, i thought you…" Rogan turned to look at his men, "What…"
Rogan's eyes widened, his fingers twitching toward the revolver at his hip.
"Boss warned me about you," Rogan growled, cracking his knuckles. "Said you'd be worth extra if I break you."
Kaodin's eyes burned with fury as he squared his stance. "Then try."