_ _ _ _Carmen Pov_ _ _ _
Blood. There was so much of it; it filled my mouth and assaulted my senses. There had been a struggle, a desperate and vicious one, but in the end it was all futile. My teeth dug into soft flesh until they hit bone, then I pulled, yanking my head backward in one swift motion. Flesh ripped, muscle and tendons tore, and bones splintered. A second later I was taking in my surroundings: the head and spine of a dead splicer hanging limply from my jaws, crimson fluid pouring from the now headless corpse beneath me.
All around, chaos and violence rained unchecked. Xenomorphs poured into the room one after the other, crawling across surfaces and clashing with hordes of Rapture's more insane inhabitants. Marines and Calthraxs let loose with their weapons, occasionally taking cover from either enemy fire or the occasional adam-imbued attack. I even saw a Veltour, one shaped like a humanoid crab, grab a hold of a splicer before lifting them up and tearing them in half.
And the carnage wasn't just here either; things had honestly gotten a little out of hand. It had started with a small skirmish but quickly accelerated into a full-blown war that extended through the whole structure we were currently within. The sound of gunfire and explosions of plasma filled the air; acidic blood melted through surfaces, causing several levels to be completely flooded as the green fluid occasionally splashed against nearby windows. Simply put, it was anarchy.
I didn't linger for long mind you, just long enough to take everything in before I was moving again, my next target already selected. I, of course, took a moment to toss the head away and spit out the blood in disgust. I may have been possessing one of my warriors right now, but that didn't make it any less gross. Either way, though, that's beside the point; right now I had a battle to focus on.
It was not long before I was back in the thick of things. My tail tore through the back of another splicer, her gurgling scream filling the air as blood filled her lungs. Her eyes went hollow as the final cry of pain to leave her lips alerted three of her companions, all of which had been firing down at some of my marines. The three of them managed to whip around just in time to see me rip my tail out of her body; her corpse crumbling lifelessly to the ground.
I rolled out of the way of their attacks, finding cover behind some rubble. It wasn't much but it did the job of protecting me from most of the incoming bullets. It also gave me a second to properly think for a moment and come up with a plan. They weren't going to stop shooting until I was dead, that was obvious from their rambling that I could barely make out over the gunfire. Unfortunately for them, they had to reload eventually. The moment the shooting stopped, I jumped up; colliding with the ceiling, my claws digging into the hard surface allowing me to firmly anchor myself in place.
I then quickly turned my attention back to them. Before they could reload and turn their guns upward toward me, I spat acid from my mouth, acid that hit one of them square in the chest. His screams of agony were violent as the fluid melted through his skin and muscle in moments, eventually reaching his organs. Additionally, now that the marines below weren't being pinned down by their fire, the remaining two were quickly mowed down from behind, a barrage of bullets tearing through their back.
"You guys okay?" I asked, shouting down at the marines below.
"Mostly; however, one of us took a bullet to the chest," one of them called back. "We've stabilized them but they need medical attention."
For a moment I went silent as I reached out through the hive mind before speaking up again. "Medical teams are on their way. I've sent some xenomorphs to clear their path, so they should get here soon."
"Thank you, my queen," they said, and I simply nodded back in response.
(Alright, next target.) I thought, leaping down from my elevated position.
Unfortunately, as my body lunged through the air I didn't notice the object heading right for me. I didn't even have time to register it before pain exploded through the link. A second later I found myself impaled through the side, my body pinned to a wall. It wasn't hard to spot the mutated freak that had telekinetically thrown a sharp, jagged piece of metal at me.
Of course, the metal almost instantly began to melt thanks to my blood, although it seemed that it didn't work fast enough. In fact, as I was about to begin to try and struggle loose, something rather unfortunate happened: I was rudely interrupted just as I was about to break free. Said interruption came from the same guy who had thrown the thing currently buried in my hip, and it came in the form of a wave of bullets that flew toward me with surprising accuracy. And considering I was still stuck, well, I wasn't exactly able to dodge.
The feeling of the link being cut and the mental strain of the body I was possessing dying caused me to cringe in discomfort; my senses becoming incredibly hazy for a few seconds. The feeling sucked, to say the least, not only was it taxing on my body physically, but it also pained my mental state as well. Honestly, it felt as if centipedes were crawling across my brain, a sensation I did not find pleasant in the slightest.
(God damn it!) I hissed, momentarily disoriented.
(That's the first time I've died while possessing someone in for quite some time now, and it was to a telekinetic lunatic of all things.) I grumbled, shaking the feeling away to the best of my capability.
Despite all of this, however, I was quick to return my focus to the task at hand. Not hesitating, I quickly jumped back into the fight, possessing another one of my xenomorphs without further ado. Once fully in control of the body I was quick to lock on to the asshole that had turned me into Swiss cheese. It didn't take me long to find them.
They were standing on an outcropping, tearing shards of metal out of the walls with one hand while firing the machine gun in their other hand wildly, all the while cackling like a madman. I couldn't tell if they were a male or a female from how malformed they were, but it didn't matter; instead of worrying about that I got moving. I jumped up onto a wall and rapidly began making my way toward them while moving rather erratically. It didn't take them long to notice me, especially when I let out a screech that was specifically intended to get their attention.
Immediately I was bombarded with bullets and jagged pieces of metal; thankfully I was able to dodge most of them, but a few bullets did collide with my exoskeleton. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that their full attention was now on me. And that's exactly what I wanted.
They didn't even notice it until the xeno sneaking up behind them bit into their leg, tearing a massive chunk out of it. They screamed of course, collapsing to one knee as blood seeped from the wound. To their credit, however, they still had enough fortitude to turn and try to fire at their new attacker, but they had seemingly forgotten all about me. Although they quickly remembered when I launched myself off the wall, tackled into them, and slashed open their throat with my claws.
"Fuck... that was a pain in the ass," I hissed, breathing out as the splicer slowly went still.
(Oh, guess that was the last of them here.) I muttered internally, noticing that the fighting around me had mostly concluded.
Of course, things were still raging elsewhere. In fact, it took several hours after for the fighting to finally calm down and sizzle out; however, things eventually did settle somewhat. Even then, several small skirmishes continued within the structure, but I saw no real need to interfere with those personally. Instead I left any stragglers to the cleanup crew while I returned to my true body.
(Well... that definitely got out of hand.) I thought as my consciousness returned to my body.
"How are things looking?" I asked, picking myself up from where I was lying down.
"Good, all things considered," Harper, who had volunteered to keep track of everything for me while I was fighting, answered simply. "Reports are coming in slowly, but it seems we have cleared out most of the place."
"And Sapphire? How's she doing?" I muttered while rubbing the smooth part of my head.
Harper paused for a second before answering; she was probably asking someone for information through the hive mind. "She's doing well all things considered, she was helping at one of the bridges to stop the chaos from spreading any deeper into our established perimeter."
"Good." I nodded before asking the last and most important question. "Casualties and wounded?"
"I don't have exact numbers just yet, but from the reports, not many. Most of the deaths were in the form of your xenomorphs; however, there were a few unlucky individuals that didn't survive," she explained, causing me to curse under my breath at that last part.
"I need a minute, so can you do me a favour and get a few teams to help with moving the bodies to somewhere safe?" I asked, not letting my discomfort show. "Eno and the medical team will tend to the wounded."
"Got it." She nodded as she stood up and turned to leave.
(It's to be expected... but it still pisses me off.) I thought as Harper walked away.
A part of me accepted it; however, another part felt as if it could have all been easily avoided. (If I had known we had boxed them into a corner, I would have been more careful with how I played things...)
Indeed, it had all started because I hadn't realized that as we were expanding many of the splicers that fled were forced to gather here. This structure had no exits, no pathways connecting to other structures; all of them had been destroyed for whatever reason. Additionally, most of the cameras in that area were not functional, so we had no idea that there were several thousand splicers hiding out here.
When we had sent in our forces to scour the place I thought that it would be over relatively quickly; however, since the splicers had nowhere to go, things quickly got out of control. When I realised how many there were I called in reinforcements, but that only seemed to escalate things even more. Eventually we were up to our necks in psychopathic mutants that had nowhere to run and so chose fight over flight.
(Well, whatever; it went as well as it probably could have... or at least that's what I'm going to keep telling myself.) I sighed internally.
"Anyway, I should probably get over there and help out..."