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Gunshots beat against a concrete and fulgurite pillar, echoing through the dripping passageway. Inches from his head, bullets chipped away at Apocrypha’s cover as he checked the magazine in his pistol. Mostly full. He popped it back in, feeling the uncomfortable weight in his hands as he looked just past his cover.
The Lowharf street-tunnel was covered in bodies and rubble. It was once a market, with overturned carts and piles of cardboard boxes jammed into ramshackle barricades, protecting a large, cylindrical building that capped the end of the street. Lucretia Mohn’s hideaway, if Scythe’s source was to be believed. Five remaining mercenaries hid on the far end, ducking back into small rooms carved into the side of the tunnel or behind the barricade, while Apocrypha’s group had been whittled down to four- himself, Sleet Scythe, the sidekick Frag, and his second-in-command, Sya’n Dlar. All were pinned down in similar ways- Scythe behind a wall of cracked ice, Frag behind an opened, metal door, and Dlar inside a room that might have once been a permanent shop.
Dlar was a thin Savari, with her Root manifesting spiky, deep green armor around her four arms, chest, and head. She scraped each individual cartridge over her armor before she loaded them into her revolver over it, coating it in the same green hue, before firing them at the barricade. The Root-covered bullet quickly grew into a basketball-sized orb of spikes and crackling electricity where it hit.
Frag- a young fighter Scythe brought in for the operation- pulled an arrow-like spike from their back and fired it through their bow. The arrow arced just enough to keep them from stepping out of cover, speared the spiky orb created by Dlar’s Root, and promptly exploded. A volatile mess of electricity and fragmentation smashed a hole through the barricade and laid out one of the smaller soldiers behind it, but his companions quickly pulled him out of the new breach before the Vigilants could shoot through it. Frag ducked back into cover, swearing into their earphone. “We’re getting nowhere, and if reinforcements come up behind us, we’re fucked. What’s the plan?”
Apocrypha pressed his head against the pillar that gave him cover, closing his eyes. Think, you idiot! The Vigilants and mercenaries exchanged some rounds of fire. A round caught Scythe’s chest armor, knocking her three yards onto her back and causing a web of unsettling cracks to spread throughout it. Frag reacted quickly, firing one of their exploding spikes into the ground, the plume of dust giving Scythe the chance to dive behind cover.
The fight had gone on too long- the adrenaline and overuse of Roots was making the Vigilants slow. The mercenaries fired a long volley, progressing even closer to where Apocrypha’s group had hidden. I have to call for a retreat… He raised his hand to his earpiece. “Frag, break cover. We need you to-” Apocrypha cut himself off. A cloud of gray dust and black smog had filled the area behind him. Among the explosions, he hadn’t noticed that the dust didn’t settle back down. “Vigilants, behind!” He raised his pistol.
A dark shape flew from the mist- a metal ball. Apocrypha ducked, and fired some shots back into the cloud. The ball hit the pillar behind Apocrypha with a metallic ting- then shifted its direction, slamming down onto the back of his head. Metallic, spindly legs clutched to the back of Apocrypha’s neck and head, and he had to use both hands to keep two of them from wrapping around his throat. A familiar, painful tingle, as something metal wrapped around the top of his head and around his neck. Savari tech.
Apocrypha fell to the ground, a shock of pain rushing from the nape of his neck down to his tailbone. He tried to press his Root forward from his forehead, but it simply strained painfully against a wrapping of metal and plastic, then reverted. The thing that clung to his head smothered the places he could manifest his Root- a wartime suppressor. Ironic, used against him.
Scythe rushed in front of her boss, her hands outstretched. A half-dome of thin ice sprung out between her hands, shielding them more of the thrown orbs balls- black and green things that looked like pill bugs- that came from the cloud of dust. Both Dlar and Frag ducked into the rooms they were hiding beside.
“My… what has this Vigil come to? Its Ace, pinned down by mere humans.” The deep voice rasped like grit across slate, and its owner emerged from the smog. A conical bloom of purple shelf fungus exploded from where a man’s head should be like a bouquet of coral, and yellow and red sheafs of rotting lichen fell across an emaciated body as a macabre trench coat. The coat split across his chest, lips formed from fungal gills pressing through the jagged tear. A plume of black smoke fed out from a cylinder in his hand. “I thought I could wait until you brought the woman out, but you all are worthless.”
Fuck. “Don’t be reckless, Scythe.” Apocrypha commanded, then leapt for the nearest carved room. A flurry of bullets from the safehouse- one cracking the armor on his back- trailed him as he rolled into it. He pulled against the suppressor’s legs, hearing it start to bend. He just needed time.
The mercenaries didn’t spare Mr. Mycelium with their assault. The remaining defenders unloaded automatic weapons into the thing. It didn’t even stop its movement- the mushrooms somehow absorbed the bullets’ impacts, and those few holes that were punched through the monster didn’t seem to slow him. As they fired down on him, he walked forward slowly, pulled a pistol from his coat, and fired cleanly through one of the mercenary’s foreheads. The others ducked down. “It’s a Specter- inside, now!” One of them commanded.
Mr. Mycelium lazily fired once at them as they fled. “There’s no escape from that building.” He turned back to Scythe in front of him. “I am not here for you, but you will interfere regardless. I have time to finish you off.”
He fired a shot, and leapt towards her with inhuman speed. The bullet cracked Scythe’s ice shield, and his fist shattered it, only barely missing her neck as she rolled away. He turned to follow her, but his foot stuck fast- trapped in ice formed from the rune she’d drawn with her foot. He fired his pistol at her, catching her shoulder and sending her reeling onto her back.
Apocrypha peeled the suppressor off by an inch.
A spike speared the monster’s arm, then shattered, casting its gun to the side. Dead flesh and a plume of white spores filled the air, and Scythe wove her last defensive option before the spores washed over her- a full-body freeze. The ice totally encased her body, with needle-like holes on her back punching into her veins to keep her breathing. A technique only viable alongside Apocrypha or a mage capable of thawing the user out.
Mr. Mycelium yanked his leg forward, tearing through the hastily-formed ice. A long cord of bone held together by frayed lichen was all that remained of his arm, but he still leapt towards Frag’s hiding spot. The sidekick raised their bow in defense, but the monster’s strike launched them three yards back, clean through a rotted couch and into a pile of beer cans. He ran after them.
Apocrypha fit his palm under the suppressor. Blood dripped down his hands. He pushed.
A bullet slammed into Mr. Mycelium’s back, staggering him. A plume of spikes and hefty carapace bloomed from the injury, pulling him off-balance, and Frag kicked hard at his ankle. Mr. Mycelium fell onto his back, the spikes of Dlar’s Root pinning him in place. He flailed, grabbing the edge of a steel chair, and began to pull himself up, breaking off the spikes inside him. Whips of lichen and shattered bone cracked on the side of Frag’s helmet and caught Dlar in the shoulder, spinning her into the frame of the door. Her revolver scattered behind her.
The monster stood, plunging its hand into its chest, and methodically tearing out a cracked and sharp rib. It wielded it like a dagger, raising it over the sluggish, dazed Frag.
The rib fell from its hands, as every muscle and intention in his body went limp. The writhing of the mushrooms stopped. Unceremoniously, the sparks of electricity from the broken bits of Dlar’s spikes caught on its spores, the fire quickly spread across its fungal frame.
Apocrypha stood at the entrance of the utterly ruined room, the bent suppressor held in one bloody hand. His Root, Fair Fight, sprouted as an iridescent, insectoid eye from his forehead, though the only thing he saw through it was a rough, gray outline of what was in front of him. “So, it works on those things. Good.” He breathed out his relief.
Once the thing was in full blaze, Apocrypha briefly turned his gaze onto Scythe. The ice around her cracked and evaporated, and a few shuddering wheezes brought her back to consciousness. It was a moment before she could stand back up.
Apocrypha leveled his gaze back at the burning mushroom puppet before it could start to move again. Better safe than sorry. “Dlar, status.” He commanded.
“Four of us remain.” She explained, grabbing her revolver and looking over the bodies on the ground. She knelt beside one- a large man with a mane of scarlet hair- testing for a pulse. She grimaced. “Hell. Just us four. Relic and Sidekick Larovic are gone.”
Apocrypha’s jaw tightened. Larovic was a sidekick from some cushy Sky City Sub-Vigil- he was no great loss. But Relic was a veteran. He’d earned the trust of the other Vigilants and the people of the Lower City. It’ll be difficult to replace him. “Understood.” Apocrypha reloaded his pistol without looking, ensuring not to break eye line on the burning corpse. “Frag, how are you holding up?”
“Oh, just great, boss.” They growled, yanking off their dented helmet. Their normally styled, black hair fell in frazzled strands across their pale face. Blood streamed from where their helmet was dented, matting the buzzed sides of their head. “I’ve broke a rib, killed three men, and been stuck in this fucking nightmare suit.” They uncomfortably shifted the too-large suit of black ballistic armor that Apocrypha had insisted his crew wear. “How do you think I’m holding up?”
Apocrypha shook his head. The Canines had a reputation, even among the sub-Vigils. Still, they were among the few who actively worked in Lowharf, and performed admirably under Vigil command before during the estate battle. He sighed. “Scythe, Dlar, patch yourselves up. We’ll go in once this thing is done burning.”
As the two Vigilants went to work preparing to breach the safehouse, Frag leaned back against the pile of empty cans they’d found themself in. Their hands fished through them almost subconsciously, found an unopened one, and cracked it with one hand. “So, what’s a Specter?” They asked before drinking.
“An old BRR classification.” Apocrypha wrapped his hands in gauze as he spoke. “Guardian, Striker, Shifter, Specter, Enhancer, and Controller. Used to determine how a power is best used- regardless of its source.” He snapped off the bandage, tying it in place. “Most of those terms are outdated, based on a rigid philosophy of martial arts. We only still use Enhancer and Controller now.”
The teen raised an eyebrow. “So, what’s it mean? I can intuit the others- Guardians guard, Strikers hit shit, Shifters are Rooted. But why ‘Specter’?”
“It means something invulnerable. Unable to be touched by anything, either through sheer power or because they were intangible.” The body finished smouldering. No bit of fungus remained on the charred flesh. Apocrypha let his Root sink back into his skull. “They’re a myth. Everything can be killed.”
“What about Champion?”
The question hit the Ace Vigilant like a hammer. He winced, and turned away. “What about her?”
Frag crushed the can and stood. “I heard you fought alongside her. Operation Longshot. She was supposed to be invincible, and could move mountains. Before she disappeared. Was she a Specter?”
A moment. “Everything can be killed.” It was almost said to himself.
Gunshots echoed from the building. Apocrypha’s hand fell to his side. “Did Mycelium get past us? I thought that was a dead end?”
“It should be.” Frag loaded their bow, then jutted their head past the hole in the barricade. “Shit.” Only a bloody smear marked the spot. “The body the mushroom fuck shot.” They growled. “It’s gone.”
His spores possess that quickly? Apocrypha tore off his helmet and tossed it to Frag- it had some scratches and a glass visor where his Root would manifest, but it was better than the dented mess they had. “Let’s go, fast. Every second he’ll infect someone else.”
Apocrypha had thought the Mohns were only a drug supplier, and had only been pursuing them to find out what Nekera had been negotiating with them- and how they got their hands on a Hound. His investigations couldn’t have prepared him for the safehouse.
The steel door was easy enough to pick, with Scythe taking only a moment to mold the Rooted, black claws she grew from her fingertips into a thin skeleton key. The first floor was a bloodbath. The newly infected body of Mr. Mycelium had torn through the remaining mercenaries with brutal efficiency, coating the cots, crates of firearms and supplies, and the wide table in crimson. He hadn’t used a firearm, but the mercenaries had. It did them no favors, and Apocrypha’s fears were proven right- there were far fewer bodies than there should have been.
The center of the room plunged into a spiral staircase that fed into the other rooms of the complex. Spores clung to the walls. The chambers they passed were full of the usual goods- meticulously portioned barrels and sacks of dark green and white drugs, benches with half-composed firearms fitted with alien mods, and rooms full of well-organized documents. Each was littered with signs of combat, and, after the first few rooms, with the bodies of workers. He hadn’t hasn’t possessed these. Apocrypha wondered. Does he have a limit?
A steel security door swung lazily open at the bottom of the stairs, undoubtedly unlocked by the retinas of the caved-in head lying beside it. Beyond, a sterile, curved hallway of white plaster and stainless steel stretched on, LEDs humming to alight it from above and white doors, all slightly ajar, flanking it all the while. Only a couple specks of blood across the floor and the lingering spores in the air suggested the Mycelium puppets had come down this way. “Be careful.” Apocrypha whispered. He manifested his Root, letting it pulse ahead of him. The spores that lingered in the air seemed to shudder under his gaze. “If I’d set a trap, it’d be here. Scythe, protect our rear. Dlar, set up a barrier.”
Scythe moved to form a rectangular shield of ice in one hand behind them, while the black claws of her Root sharpened from her fingertips instinctually.
Dlar drew a dagger, scraping it across her armored shoulder, then lightly dragged the knife across the frame of the door. Unlike her when she coated her bullets, her Root grew into a thin layer of carapace and spikes, and, with some focus, she caused the electricity to arc across between each spike of the frame, weaving into a doorway of sparks. She took a moment with her hand on the externalized Root, before stepping away. “Those bodies won’t follow us through this, flammable as they are.” She said, a bit out of breath. “We’ve got five minutes.”
Apocrypha led the slow procession through the hallway, with Dlar by his side. Each room they passed held rows of glass cylinders surrounding surgical tables. The cylinders stood a yard tall each, and half its height in diameter, and held all manner of body parts, both alien and human. One room was entirely full of eyes. The Mohn operation was larger than I knew. Apocrypha wondered, wrinkling his nose at the smell of formaldehyde and chlorine in the hallway. Sale in bodies. But who is the buyer? None of the body parts looked Rooted or magical in any way, so no Monk or mad scientist would want them. Between the cylinders, the unmoving bodies of people in punctured hazmat suits were scattered about the rooms.
A scream echoed down the hallway, loud and ragged. Then, something else- something between a chirp and an sob. A crash of glass and the bending of steel. An upper half of a body- a woman covered in red mycelial threads- flew down the bend of the hallway and was crushed beyond recognition. The four- fools of Vigilants they were- rushed towards the danger.
The controlled body of the mercenary stood with its back to the Vigilants, observing the chaos in the large room beyond, where five other mushroom puppets were being torn apart by an amalgamation of a monster. It had to crouch- at full height it would stand easily twenty feet tall- and dragged its arms forward like a gorilla. Its head was a stub of matted fur and too many eyes, and a lamprey mouth, and its muscular body staggered across on three stubby legs. It was still damp from the oversized tank it had burst from, which dominated the back of the room. The thing tore apart the last puppet, then turned its many eyes to Mycelium and the Vigilants.
“A horrid failure, isn’t it?” The controlled mercenary spoke. Apocrypha had let his Root fade- mostly in shock of the beast. Mr. Mycelium turned his head to Apocrypha. “I will produce beautiful things with the tools in this facility- once you kill it for me. Good luck.” The fist of the monster slammed into the mercenary, leaving it little more than a plume of scarlet spores.
Looking into the monster’s rabid eyes, Apocrypha hated how easily he’d been played. “Take cover!” He cried. “We’re not letting this thing out!”