The collapse shakes the cavern. Dust rains. Vael's suit groans, metal protesting, bio-joints tightening around him. He feels the groan in his own spine. Zara Kim's Culex suit is half-buried under a reinforced structural beam. Her leg is pinned. The air screams.
"Zara." Vael's suit comms crackle. The tactical display, usually clean, fuzzes around the edges.
"GRAVEMIND-7. My leg. Crushed." Her voice is clipped, strained. A low hiss of ruptured hydraulics follows. She slams a fist against the beam. It does not move.
A rasping chuckle echoes from the shadows. It is Pilot Jax, but wrong. The sound scrapes against Vael's suit, vibrating through his neural crown. The obsidian ridges of the crown pulse faintly, a low throb behind his eyes. Jax, the transformed Nestwretch variant, steps into a shaft of dim, emergency light. Its body is a grotesque parody of human form, elongated limbs ending in blunted talons, skin stretched taut over pulsing sacs of larvae. One eye, still human, glistens wetly. The other is a black, chitinous sphere.
"Wing-damage trauma," the Nestwretch variant rasps, a perfect mimicry of a medic's clinical assessment. The voice is Jax's, but colder, imbued with a predatory intelligence. "So clumsy. Still scared of heights, Zara?".
Zara snarls. Her suit's blade-forearms flash, carving gouges in the metal beam above her. She tries to leverage it, but the weight is immense. Her Culex wing-blades, usually nimble, are folded awkwardly, pressed against the rubble. Her wing-damage trauma, an old weakness, now a physical snare.
Vael's suit scans. The Nestwretch variant moves with unnatural speed, a blur of flesh and bone. Its mimicry is precise, designed to flay psychological wounds. It knows their vulnerabilities. It knows Zara. How?
A fleeting image flashes in Vael's mind. Not his own. A rapid sequence of data: a cramped medical bay, a figure on an operating table, the smell of burnt antiseptics. A foreign consciousness, quick as static. Vael shoves it down. No time for ghosts.
The Nestwretch variant lunges. It moves for Zara. Its talons rake against the beam, seeking purchase.
"Move," Vael barks. His Gravemind suit flares with green light, command protocols activating. He pushes tactical data into Zara's suit. Escape vector, weakness in the variant's form, a micro-burst from her ankle thrusters.
Zara twists, a desperate, raw movement. Her thrusters fire, a last-ditch effort, tearing her leg free. She cries out, a sharp, choked sound. The suit's armor screams as the bio-plates tear. She falls, rolls, then scrambles back, favoring her mangled leg. Crimson fluid, thick and viscous, seeps from the Culex suit's ruptured knee joint. It is not metallic. It is a darker hue.
"Too slow," the Nestwretch variant hisses, its head tilting unnaturally. "Heard that scream before. Familiar." It means Zara's scream. It means his own.
Vael raises his arm. His neural crown throbs, a physical manifestation of power, pushing against the inside of his helm. He sees the combat field with chilling clarity. Zara is compromised. The Nestwretch variant is taunting them, playing with them. He will end it.
The Gravemind suit feels like an extension, a second skin, a layer of muscle over his own. His "cold, predatory focus" intensifies. This is not a human. This is a threat. It is a tactical problem.
"GRAVEMIND-7. Its movements are too fluid. How is it doing that?" Zara's voice is ragged. She holds her damaged leg. The Culex blades are still sharp, but her agility, her defining trait, is gone. Her desperation is palpable, a raw edge of human fear that contrasts with Vael's deepening detachment.
"It learned," Vael replies, his voice flat. He raises his arm. The suit responds, a perfect, seamless motion. He fires a kinetic blast from his forearm. The compressed air explodes. It slams into the Nestwretch variant's torso.
The creature hisses, a sound of irritation, not pain. Its multi-layered skin ripples. One layer, thin and mottled, peels away, flapping like a tattered flag. Beneath it, another layer, slick and engorged, glistens wetly. It moves faster, more agile than before. It sheds layers. Each one makes it stronger.
"He likes to watch, doesn't he?" the Nestwretch variant whispers, its voice shifting. It is still Pilot Jax's, but now deeper, a mocking imitation of a stern instructor. "Always observing, Vael Rask. Even when his suit bled. Even when his father…".
A jolt. A sudden, sharp pain in Vael's skull. A memory flicker, more vivid this time. Not the previous pilot's, but his own. A vision of cracked concrete, laboratory equipment, the smell of ozone and burnt flesh. A familiar hand, large and scarred, reaching for something, pulling a lever. His father. The image snaps, replaced by the grim reality of the crumbling cavern. This is a fight.
Vael pushes the memory down. It does not matter. Only the present. Only the kill.
Zara lunges, screaming, a desperate, almost suicidal charge. Her Culex blades flash, aiming for the Nestwretch variant's exposed abdomen. She tries to draw its attention, to buy Vael time. It is a calculated risk. A human element Vael is losing.
The Nestwretch variant laughs. It parries Zara's attack with a blunted talon, a practiced, almost bored motion. Then it strikes. Not with brute force, but with precision. Its free hand slams onto Zara's uninjured leg, its grip tight. The suit's pressure sensors spike.
"You're so predictable, Culex," the variant rasps. "Always protecting. Always sacrificing. Just like your little family. Remember how they screamed?" It twists, yanking Zara's leg, slamming her against a concrete pillar. The blow resonates through Vael's suit.
Vael moves. His group command protocols blaze. He sees the optimal approach. He can predict the Nestwretch variant's next move, its counter, the precise moment its guard will drop. His neural crown glows brighter, a subtle, internal pulse beneath the obsidian ridges. This is not just sight. It is knowing.
He fires another kinetic blast, aiming for Zara's compromised leg, not to harm her, but to force the variant to adjust its grip. The blast connects. The variant flinches, its grip loosening. Zara pulls free, falling back, gasping.
Vael closes the distance. The Nestwretch variant pivots, its single human eye fixing on him. It raises its taloned hand, ready to strike. It knows his fighting style. It learned from him, from Jax.
"GRAVEMIND-7. They call you a ghost. But you bleed, don't you? Like your father." The voice is a venomous whisper, Jax's, but warped, infused with something cold and intelligent, something from the Fracture Event itself.
Vael does not reply. Dialogue is a weakness. He lets his suit guide him. He shifts, a blur of matte black armor. His forearm slams into the Nestwretch variant's extended arm, shattering bone. The creature howls, a wet, guttural sound, losing the mimicry for a second.
This is it. The opening.
Vael's hand, armored and reinforced, punches into the variant's chest. The bio-plate shell of his suit, the reinforced structure, grinds against the soft, pulsating flesh of the Nestwretch variant. He drives his fist deeper, searching for the core. The variant convulses, larvae sacs bursting under his armored hand.
Zara tries to crawl forward. "Vael! Kill it!" Her voice is raw, desperate.
Suddenly, comms burst open. The squad leader's voice, sharp and cold, cuts through the chaos. "GRAVEMIND-7. Retreat. Fall back. This is an infected asset. Terminate at range." He sounds closer now, his presence reinforcing his earlier betrayal, the callous disregard for a transforming comrade. He just wants it gone. A liability.
Vael ignores him. The Nestwretch variant struggles, its remaining layers of skin peeling back, trying to form new defensive plates. Its remaining eye, the human one, widens, staring at Vael. A flicker of something, fear or recognition.
"Vael," it gurgles, the sound distorted, choked, a last, desperate echo of his civilian name, of Pilot Jax's final, dying humanity. It is a challenge. A whisper from a part of him that should not exist.
Vael's hand tightens. His neural crown throbs, a profound, chilling sense of triumph mixed with a disturbing lack of empathy. This is the cold, predatory focus solidifying. This is the truth of his power.
He pulls his hand free, ripping through the variant's chest cavity. The Nestwretch variant screams, a high-pitched, tearing sound. It collapses, a grotesque pile of sloughing flesh and ruptured sacs, larvae squirming in its dying throes. The smell is copper and something rotten. It is done.
The squad leader's comms crackle. "GRAVEMIND-7, report. Status of infected."
Vael takes a deep breath. His suit feels… different. Thrumming. Beneath the bio-plate shell, beneath his own skin, a subtle, involuntary pulse of bio-luminescent light emanates from his arm, a soft, green glow. He does not know how it started. It is a new thing. A direct consequence. Something is incorporating. Something new is growing. He feels it. A cold power.
The light pulses again. A single, distinct beat. Something is breaking. Inside him. Inside the suit. Not bad. Just new. The sensation is sharp. A fracture, a deep, unseen break in his very nature. And then, silence. A silent break.The collapse shakes the cavern. Dust rains. Vael's suit groans, metal protesting, bio-joints tightening around him. He feels the groan in his own spine. Zara Kim's Culex suit is half-buried under a reinforced structural beam. Her leg is pinned. The air screams.
"Zara." Vael's suit comms crackle. The tactical display, usually clean, fuzzes around the edges.
"GRAVEMIND-7. My leg. Crushed." Her voice is clipped, strained. A low hiss of ruptured hydraulics follows. She slams a fist against the beam. It does not move.
A rasping chuckle echoes from the shadows. It is Pilot Jax, but wrong. The sound scrapes against Vael's suit, vibrating through his neural crown. The obsidian ridges of the crown pulse faintly, a low throb behind his eyes. Jax, the transformed Nestwretch variant, steps into a shaft of dim, emergency light. Its body is a grotesque parody of human form, elongated limbs ending in blunted talons, skin stretched taut over pulsing sacs of larvae. One eye, still human, glistens wetly. The other is a black, chitinous sphere.
"Wing-damage trauma," the Nestwretch variant rasps, a perfect mimicry of a medic's clinical assessment. The voice is Jax's, but colder, imbued with a predatory intelligence. "So clumsy. Still scared of heights, Zara?"
Zara snarls. Her suit's blade-forearms flash, carving gouges in the metal beam above her. She tries to leverage it, but the weight is immense. Her Culex wing-blades, usually nimble, are folded awkwardly, pressed against the rubble. Her wing-damage trauma, an old weakness, now a physical snare.
Vael's suit scans. The Nestwretch variant moves with unnatural speed, a blur of flesh and bone. Its mimicry is precise, designed to flay psychological wounds. It knows their vulnerabilities. It knows Zara. How?
A fleeting image flashes in Vael's mind. Not his own. A rapid sequence of data: a cramped medical bay, a figure on an operating table, the smell of burnt antiseptics. A foreign consciousness, quick as static. Vael shoves it down. No time for ghosts.
The Nestwretch variant lunges. It moves for Zara. Its talons rake against the beam, seeking purchase.
"Move," Vael barks. His Gravemind suit flares with green light, command protocols activating. He pushes tactical data into Zara's suit. Escape vector, weakness in the variant's form, a micro-burst from her ankle thrusters.
Zara twists, a desperate, raw movement. Her thrusters fire, a last-ditch effort, tearing her leg free. She cries out, a sharp, choked sound. The suit's armor screams as the bio-plates tear. She falls, rolls, then scrambles back, favoring her mangled leg. Crimson fluid, thick and viscous, seeps from the Culex suit's ruptured knee joint. It is a darker hue.
"Too slow," the Nestwretch variant hisses, its head tilting unnaturally. "Heard that scream before. Familiar." It means Zara's scream. It means his own.
Vael raises his arm. His neural crown throbs, a physical manifestation of power, pushing against the inside of his helm. He sees the combat field with chilling clarity. Zara is compromised. The Nestwretch variant is taunting them, playing with them. He will end it.
The Gravemind suit feels like an extension, a second skin, a layer of muscle over his own. His "cold, predatory focus" intensifies. This is not a human. This is a threat. It is a tactical problem.
"GRAVEMIND-7. Its movements are too fluid. How is it doing that?" Zara's voice is ragged. She holds her damaged leg. The Culex blades are still sharp, but her agility, her defining trait, is gone. Her desperation is palpable, a raw edge of human fear that contrasts with Vael's deepening detachment.
"It learned," Vael replies, his voice flat. He raises his arm. The suit responds, a perfect, seamless motion. He fires a kinetic blast from his forearm. The compressed air explodes. It slams into the Nestwretch variant's torso.
The creature hisses, a sound of irritation, not pain. Its multi-layered skin ripples. One layer, thin and mottled, peels away, flapping like a tattered flag. Beneath it, another layer, slick and engorged, glistens wetly. It moves faster, more agile than before. It sheds layers. Each one makes it stronger.
"He likes to watch, doesn't he?" the Nestwretch variant whispers, its voice shifting. It is still Pilot Jax's, but now deeper, a mocking imitation of a stern instructor. "Always observing, Vael Rask. Even when his suit bled. Even when his father…".
A jolt. A sudden, sharp pain in Vael's skull. A memory flicker, more vivid this time. Not the previous pilot's, but his own. A vision of cracked concrete, laboratory equipment, the smell of ozone and burnt flesh. A familiar hand, large and scarred, reaching for something, pulling a lever. His father. The image snaps, replaced by the grim reality of the crumbling cavern. This is a fight.
Vael pushes the memory down. It does not matter. Only the present. Only the kill.
Zara lunges, screaming, a desperate, almost suicidal charge. Her Culex blades flash, aiming for the Nestwretch variant's exposed abdomen. She tries to draw its attention, to buy Vael time. It is a calculated risk. A human element Vael is losing.
The Nestwretch variant laughs. It parries Zara's attack with a blunted talon, a practiced, almost bored motion. Then it strikes. Not with brute force, but with precision. Its free hand slams onto Zara's uninjured leg, its grip tight. The suit's pressure sensors spike.
"You're so predictable, Culex," the variant rasps. "Always protecting. Always sacrificing. Just like your little family. Remember how they screamed?" It twists, yanking Zara's leg, slamming her against a concrete pillar. The blow resonates through Vael's suit.
Vael moves. His group command protocols blaze. He sees the optimal approach. He can predict the Nestwretch variant's next move, its counter, the precise moment its guard will drop. His neural crown glows brighter, a subtle, internal pulse beneath the obsidian ridges. This is not just sight. It is knowing.
He fires another kinetic blast, aiming for Zara's compromised leg, not to harm her, but to force the variant to adjust its grip. The blast connects. The variant flinches, its grip loosening. Zara pulls free, falling back, gasping.
Vael closes the distance. The Nestwretch variant pivots, its single human eye fixing on him. It raises its taloned hand, ready to strike. It knows his fighting style. It learned from him, from Jax.
"GRAVEMIND-7. They call you a ghost. But you bleed, don't you? Like your father." The voice is a venomous whisper, Jax's, but warped, infused with something cold and intelligent, something from the Fracture Event itself.
Vael does not reply. Dialogue is a weakness. He lets his suit guide him. He shifts, a blur of matte black armor. His forearm slams into the Nestwretch variant's extended arm, shattering bone. The creature howls, a wet, guttural sound, losing the mimicry for a second.
This is it. The opening.
Vael's hand, armored and reinforced, punches into the variant's chest. The bio-plate shell of his suit, the reinforced structure, grinds against the soft, pulsating flesh of the Nestwretch variant. He drives his fist deeper, searching for the core. The variant convulses, larvae sacs bursting under his armored hand.
Zara tries to crawl forward. "Vael! Kill it!" Her voice is raw, desperate.
Suddenly, comms burst open. The squad leader's voice, sharp and cold, cuts through the chaos. "GRAVEMIND-7. Retreat. Fall back. This is an infected asset. Terminate at range." He sounds closer now, his presence reinforcing his earlier betrayal, the callous disregard for a transforming comrade. He just wants it gone. A liability.
Vael ignores him. The Nestwretch variant struggles, its remaining layers of skin peeling back, trying to form new defensive plates. Its remaining eye, the human one, widens, staring at Vael. A flicker of something, fear or recognition.
"Vael," it gurgles, the sound distorted, choked, a last, desperate echo of his civilian name, of Pilot Jax's final, dying humanity. It is a challenge. A whisper from a part of him that should not exist.
Vael's hand tightens. His neural crown throbs, a profound, chilling sense of triumph mixed with a disturbing lack of empathy. This is the cold, predatory focus solidifying. This is the truth of his power.
He pulls his hand free, ripping through the variant's chest cavity. The Nestwretch variant screams, a high-pitched, tearing sound. It collapses, a grotesque pile of sloughing flesh and ruptured sacs, larvae squirming in its dying throes. The smell is copper and something rotten. It is done.
The squad leader's comms crackle. "GRAVEMIND-7, report. Status of infected."
Vael takes a deep breath. His suit feels different. Thrumming. Beneath the bio-plate shell, beneath his own skin, a subtle, involuntary pulse of bio-luminescent light emanates from his arm, a soft, green glow. He does not know how it started. It is a new thing. A direct consequence. Something is incorporating. Something new is growing. He feels it. A cold power.
The light pulses again. A single, distinct beat. Something is breaking. Inside him. Inside the suit. Not bad. Just new. The sensation is sharp. A fracture, a deep, unseen break in his very nature. And then, silence. A silent break.