The air in the monolithic underground chamber was thick with mineral dust and stagnant moisture, only occasionally broken by the silent flutter of A2's monstrous wings. Unbeknownst to the towering bat creature, which possessed the rough-scaled body and vast, bony membranes of the transformation, the darkness was not empty.
A deep thrumming sounded beneath the calcified floor. A tremor, barely perceptible, preceded the eruption.
In a sickening, liquid burst, the ground directly behind A2 fractured. The creature that emerged was a nightmare of evolutionary adaptation: a Kharavel ruin worm, its body impossibly long, composed of segmented, moss-covered obsidian plates, slick with glowing, acidic slime. Its head was a circular maw, lined with rows of chitinous teeth that resembled rusted saw blades, surrounded by dozens of black, beady eyes.
The worm didn't hesitate. It lunged, its massive mouth slamming shut on A2's back with the impact of a falling girder.
Crraaaacckk.
The sound of shearing bone and compressed muscle echoed faintly in the vast cavern. The bat form's thickened, armored hide tanked the initial shock, but the teeth dug in deep, locking onto the very ridge of A2's spine.
A choked cry of pain tore from A2's throat, distorted by the bat form's sonic apparatus. He twisted his massive neck, glaring back at the thing attached to him. The Kharavel ruin worm was truly immense; it looked less like a crawler and more like a siege engine coated in filth.
A2 hammered his massive wings, trying to shake the creature loose, but the worm simply tightened its grip, its immense strength focused on the single lethal point of contact. It was a vice of armor and serrated cartilage, pressing down, trying to tear the spine free of its casing.
Realizing the futility of brute thrashing, A2 unsheathed his claws, talons the length of short swords and angled them back for a vicious strike along the worm's armored body.
The worm registered the intent instantly. It was a predator, not a victim. With a powerful subterranean pull, it began reversing into the black, slime-rimmed borehole from which it had sprung, yanking A2 violently with it.
"No, you fungal fucker!" A2 roared, the words muffled by his monstrous snout.
He slammed his talons down, hooking deeply into the crystalline wall. The friction of the embedded claws groaned against the tremendous, focused pull of the worm. Rock screamed as he was dragged inch by agonizing inch toward the chasm, the worm simultaneously biting down harder, pressing with lethal intent to sever his spinal cord. The pain was blinding, white-hot, threatening to tear his consciousness away.
I am not dying in a hole, dragged by underground sewage, A2 cursed internally, the effort of maintaining his grip turning his muscles into knots of screaming agony.
Far below, where the glowing shards and deep-sea crystals barely pierced the pervasive gloom, Pulse and Crystara continued their measured advance along the cavern wall.
Pulse, his light armor shifting quietly, paused as a faint, muffled thump-thump echoed down from the higher ledges.
"Hold up," Pulse murmured. He tilted his helmeted head, listening. The commotion was indistinct, suggesting something colossal moving near the ceiling.
Crystara, moving with the careless grace of someone who knew the environment could barely harm her diamond-hard physique, glanced up. "Just ignore it," she said, her voice laced with weary dismissal. "Some monstrous creatures are probably just trying to eat each other. You know, typical nature thing."
She started humming a jaunty, annoyingly familiar tune. "The circle of life—"
"Now you're just outright insulting the prey," Pulse deadpanned, scanning the shadows for movement.
Crystara stopped humming, a smirk audible in her tone. "No, I'm fucking not... I'm not insulating you."
"What does that supposed to mean?" Pulse asked, genuinely confused.
"Man, you're fucking slow," Crystara scoffed. She dismissed the moment with a wave of her hand. "Whatever, it's just a joke, innocent boy. Let's go. Don't want to get caught in the crossfire between whatever those things that are eating each other."
They moved on, leaving the faint sounds of struggle behind. The tension they carried was internal, honed by years of surviving the rifts, not external threats they couldn't immediately see.
Just as A2 felt the agonizing suction of the worm's burrow beginning to tug at his legs, and his claws started to tear free from the crystalline floor, a searing red line of energy streaked past his head.
Fzzzzzt.
The beam slammed into the edges of the worm's circular mouth. The creature shrieked, a deafening, wet sound and thrashed violently. A2 was slammed around mercilessly, his monstrous body whipped from side to side like a rag doll, but the worm still wouldn't release its death grip.
A2 used the momentum of the whipping to slam his entire bulk sideways against the solid cavern wall, catching purchase with his claws, halting the worm's thrashing.
Fzzzzt. Fzzzzt.
Two more beams struck quickly. One tore through the worm's armored plating near the neck joint; the second, agonizingly precise, hit one of its black eyes, instantly vaporizing the ocular tissue and searing the flesh beneath.
The pain was overwhelming. The creature's jaws finally, reluctantly, sprang open, spraying A2's back with a hot mixture of acid-laced slime and foul-smelling ichor.
A2 gave no quarter. Free but enraged, he snapped the massive, wounded head of the worm into his powerful grasp.
He didn't bother with claws or teeth. He deployed his core power, focusing the full might of his vocal apparatus. A primal, focused wave of sonic energy tore loose, aimed directly into the worm's gaping, ruined mouth.
The Kharavel ruin worm was subjected to the concentrated force of a focused acoustic weapon. Inside its body, everything began to violently resonate. Muscle tissue liquefied. Organs ruptured and vibrated themselves into a viscous slurry. The armored plates began to subtly shake themselves loose. The reverberation was so intense that the creature's immense body buckled, collapsing in on itself with a repulsive, wet internal pop.
Even after the worm ceased all movement, A2 continued the scream, venting his sheer terror and blistering pain into the creature's ruined cavity, ensuring every cell was annihilated. He kept screaming until the vibration hit his hip.
Bzzt. Bzzt.
It was the dedicated tactical comm unit.
The voice that cut through the sonic chaos was sharp, feminine, and utterly disgusted. "A2, fucking stop screaming already, holy shit! The entire ecosystem of this chamber knows we're here. Get here right now."
A2 cut the sonic blast, leaving the interior of the worm a silent, pulped mess. He pushed off the wall and dropped altitude, morphing halfway back toward his human proportions before landing near the faint crimson glow of his benefactor.
There stood A1, his energy rifle already cooling down, calm and professional. Next to him was their handler, the Boss.
"Good work, asshole," the boss said, not a compliment, merely a statement of fact.
A2, reverting fully but still breathing heavily, felt the acidic burn on his back and grimaced. "Give me a break. It's a fucking Kharavel ruin worm that bit me from my spine. I couldn't attack because if I did, I would be immediately pulled into its hole. Thanks for that, btw, A1."
A1 just nodded. "No prob. Stay alert next time."
The boss stepped closer, his expression shifting slightly from annoyance to professional assessment. "Well, where are they?"
A2 pointed across the vast, dark expanse. "They're just walking along the walls, trying to stick to the lowest light. They will probably set up camp on the sides."
The boss smiled, a cold, predatory flash of perfect teeth. "We'll follow them for a while, then attack. I want them alive, understand? We need them alive as requested by our customer."
He placed a hand familiarly on A2's shoulder, her grip unexpectedly firm, and her voice dropped, now carrying a stern, almost maternal severity. "Be thankful for our clients to be able to give you that power, A2. But understand this: there are so many people nowadays who could transform into a monster bat just like you because of the serums of theirs. And some of them are bigger and stronger than you. Don't get comfortable."
It was a reminder that the power was borrowed, and he was the lender.
"Let's move," he commanded, peeling off into the shadows, A1 following silently, his rifle ready. A2 lingered a moment, pressing a hand to his back where the worm had almost succeeded in tearing him apart, then hurried after them.
On the distant segment of the chamber wall, Pulse and Crystara finally found a deep mineral overhang that offered a modicum of cover from the ambient gloom and potential flying threats.
"Alright, let's make camp," Crystara announced, dropping her massive dual guns onto the crystal-dusted floor with a clank. She stretched luxuriously, her flexible crystal body easing the tension from the long trek. Her skimpy attire, the cutoff shirt and booty shorts seemed ludicrously inadequate for the environment, yet her body was her armor, impervious to the cold and most physical harm.
She turned to Pulse, her eyes reflecting the dim light of the crystals, a low, inviting purr entering her voice.
"Hey, Pulse, could you..." she paused, moving closer, deliberately letting her fingers trace the armored plating on his forearm, "...could you massage me again?"
"You're not even tired, Crystara," he replied, his voice flat, though his body was already reacting to her proximity. "Your whole body is quite hard to massage when you're in crystal form. And it's not recommended to turn into a human while we are in this hell chamber."
"Please and it doesn't mean I can't be tense," she countered, pushing closer, her hips brushing the front of his armor. "Besides, I need the fine tuning massage and you could still massage me with your vibrator powers while I'm in my crystal form. You know how it is, the low-frequency humming," she whispered, leaning in, her breath hot against the mesh of his helmet. "It gets the vibration flowing better than anything."