16 Red Twilight Demon of the Flowers chapter 16

Chapter 16 Battle the Zzurage part 6

Kauri topples and rolls along the roof of the ship, the zombie hyena's might was unpredictable. The hyena slams the bulkhead shut on Maize and Chin as the two of them struggle to gain their balance; the monster vomits on the door burning it closed. Maize punches at the door trying to open it once more, and Maize yells at Chin "Open it!"

Chin crawls over Maize to reach the door "Out of my way fox." Chin starts constructing another I.E.D.

Kauri grunts pushing himself up to a kneeling state. The zombie walks to him, she whispers in a ghastly voice, sexuality oozing from her lips "you don't need to fight me, just let me be inside you."

Kauri reaches for his pistol, but the puppet of a hyena is atop him before he has time to aim. The hyena girl claps her hands over the gun and collapses Kauri wrist making his throw his weapon across the roof. Kauri is forced to adjust his defenses; he throws an uppercut into the zombie's pelvic girdle then pushes off its hip-flexors to push himself into a standing.

"What are you?" Kauri draws his knife from his shoulder holster.

The puppet strolls, unintimidated by Kauri's threats "Just another link in the chain of life." Kauri rushes the zombie, he throws out a flurry of slashes at the monster: backhanded slash to the neck, fronthanded slash, backslash across the underbelly, cleaves down the noise, stab to the chin.

Claws and teeth grow from every wound sealing them shut as quickly as they are made. The monster brings both arms down atop Kauri knife-hand pilling his arm to her breast. A pair of spider-like arms tare from her back and snap around in front of the puppet's body to forcible hug Kauri. The monster's mouth drops open, and a stinger climbs out of its throat.

Kauri brings up his free hand wrapping it around the eyes of the monster and pulls back on its head to force it to look up. The rooftop hatch blast open again, Maize and Chin jump onto the rooftop. In an instant Maize sees the struggle underway and runs over jumping onto the zombie's back to aid her partner.

The zombie disengages off Kauri chest sending him toppling away, then snaps her spider legs backward to grab Maize and spike her at the ground. The zombie vomits its flaming goo onto Maize setting her armor on fire. Maize crawls away discarding her armor as quickly as she can strip down to nothing more than her government-issued undergarments in record time, the heavy metal gear boiling away like sugar in water.

Chin covers Maize by dropping into tripod stance and laying into the beast with her rifle. The monsters skin chips away like paint reveling dozens if not hundreds of insectoid monstrosities intertwined around a hyena skeleton. The bugs pull and stretch at the skin forcing it back into its original shape to the best of their power. Clearly, the hyena body is nothing more than armor.

Enraged by Chin the zombie runs at the coyote. Chin tries back hopping to keep away from the zombie, but it seems the zombie is unnaturally speedy and dextrose. The beast wraps a hand around Chin's head and hoists her into the air. It snaps it's spider-like claws into Chin's arms shattering her armor. Chin screams. The zombie opens its mouth again ready to sting Chin and claim ownership of her body but ends up getting distracted by Kauri.

Kauri finds his pistol and tacks a few shots at the demon before them, quickly the last of his shots are fired. The devil throws Chin's broken body at the ground and turns to face Kauri. This monster is unlike any other; guns don't harm it, they only make it mad, knives are useless, in melee range, no one can hope to overpower this thing.

In the blink of an eye, the zombie is standing over Kauri again, it slaps him to the ground breaking his helmet apart. "enough fourplay, I want your body." The monster stands over Kauri straddling him. It lowers itself down and places her hands on his chest, slowly its head moves in ever closer sensually, it offers a forceful kiss and grinds it's body lightly before pulling back and summing its stinger, it clotures stiffening in anticipation. All this, this fighting, this killing, to the zombie this was never a war, this was a mating dance.

Kauri is too tired to fight; Maize has no weapons and no hope, Chin is too injured to do anything but lay on the ground and bleed. Kauri drops his head back and awaits whatever may come next.

A spotlight fills their vision; the command ship floats down before them, the wings glow and a trail of laser-fire rains down on the mining ship. This is enough to frighten the zombie, she drops Kauri and crawls along the ground ferally. Elion tries to blast the monster chasing after it with the ship 'till the thing jumps down off the side of the ship vanishing into the swamp.

***

Corporal's log

Mission status: Active

Corporal Dawg: MIA

Report: transmitter signal still firing. Has moved out of range. Inquirer with the upper command has been responded to as CLASSIFIED.

Privet Howe: KIA

Report: Bata team recovered privet Howe's body alongside Privet Stine.

Details: death by internal bleeding. It has been postulated that Howe and Stine survived the encounter with life form KRAIN possible with the aid of Dawg. Concussive damage to armor resulted in hemorrhaging and eventual death.

Privet Stine: KIA

Report: death via artillery fire

Details: body recovered by Bata team alongside Howe, Stine suffered multiple gunshots to the abdomen, the visor was broken and head trauma seems to have occurred. If this was before or after death is unclear.

Privet Dover: MIA/ presumed KIA

Report: Armor was recovered by Bata team. Body has not been found

Details: Under republic law, a solders body must be recovered before death is deemed official. A delta team is currently on the surface attempting to find the remains of Dover and Huston. Dover's family has been contacted.

Privet Huston: MIA/ presumed KIA

Report: transmitter data from command ship Morpheus suggest that unknown life form attacked Huston.

Details: unlike in the case of Dover, Huston's armor was not found on the sight. As the mining ship, Nautilus is being recovered a hand full of its crew hands have been found with inverted skeletal structures. There are still 44 bodies unaccounted for. I fear that Huston has suffered the same fate.

Privet Maize: Active

Report: Maize after recovering from critical epidermal damage has been restored to active duty.

Details: Maize is currently aboard the SOLARUS receiving secondary training in heavy armaments

Privet Churnibog: Medical leave

Report: Chin has been pulled from active duty and is undergoing reconstructive surgery.

Details: lifeform KRAIN had broken both of Chin's shoulders and seemed to leave behind a corrosive substance that did considerable damage to muscle tissue but slowed bleeding at the same time. Chin is expected to return to active duty.

Lieutenant Corman: UNKNOWN

Report: N/A

Details: N/A

Lieutenant Elion: FOOTLOCKER

Report: According to official channels Elion has been removed from her post for insubordination

Details: unofficial channels tell me that Elion made contact with Dawg 48 hours after Delta team arrived. What happened after that is unclear.

Privet Note: after my encounter with lifeform KRAIN I started suffering from night-terror. I will be seeing specialist afforded to me by HQ. I found life form KRAIN terrorizing, yet my thoughts are hunted by what she must have been before the bugs took her, and I want to be with her…

***

Hetatsubachi runs across the swamp for an untold amount of time. The smell of salt hangs in the are think and bitter. The white wolf comes to find a battleship rolled on its side and burning. The sweet and sour scent he had been tracking has brought him here. Tatsu jumps atop the melting stack of metal, slim creeps up the side drawing an impregnatable line to stop the crawling fire.

A hollowed out humanoid skin rest discarded on the ground. Seven termites crawl around nearby, two feet long each, each with a single exaggerated body part, a shell of needles grow from their backs, long antenna and mandible grow from their heads.

Hetatsubachi smile as he approaches the termites "that is a new look for you Krane."

The bug with the longest antenna speaks "My shell was damaged, I needed to shed it."

"How do you get a new skin?" the wolf walks around the bugs looking them over.

"I need to find a freshly dead mammal, burn out its insides, then marinate the skin in the juice from my salvific gland to harden it. Then we can climb in and claim the body for ourselves."

Tatsu looks at one of the bugs with an oversized terga and distended abdomen "Krane, I have been trying to get back to the Steel Rose. But it seems to be somehow locked."

The main bug turns to face him "Did no one tell you?"

Hetatsubachi brings his head down sniffing at Krane's multitude of bodies "I haven't seen anyone but Loki in some time." He next steps up to one with an elongated stinger "you have seven bodies but only one brain between them?"

Krane makes a strange happy sound "seven? At the moment there are only seven of me. There have been times when I have needed to divide myself 500 times to inhabit a body. This body was just small and needed very few moving parts."

The two of them sit up looking out into the middle distance. The sky is bright; the air is warm; the night is inviting. Krane leans over resting on Hetatsubachi's side "Cilverant is no longer under control of the Steel Rose."

Tatsu looks down at Krane. "you help me in a hunt once Krane. Will you help me again?"

There is a long silence. The two watch each other trying to understand what the other is thinking. Krane lowers her eyes in shame "do you understand what you are asking of me?"

Tatsu shakes his head "truthfully I don't. I don't know what your relationship with Seeker or Cilverant was."

"find Jloose and Jessica, if they will fallow you so will I."