Book 6. Chapter 35: Shellfish is not on the menu
I spun, pointing right at the waterfall wall and yelled out a warning over comms to Drakonis. Must have screamed so loud even the sound leaked out of the helmet, since the wolf instantly jumped backwards, already skittish and too close for comfort.
Good on the wolf, because it’s about to get way worse than two humans running around in the forest.
Drakonis on his part didn’t question anything. He let the power cell bag go, outright dove forward onto the stepping stone while spinning backwards, his rifle aimed straight at where I’d been pointing. He landed hard on his back, but otherwise remained safe.
The move bought him a second life, since an instant later where he’d stood now featured a set of four massive claw like spikes, glowing with occult edges, embedded deep into the rock ground. They lifted back up, edges powering down as all four limbs folded back into what looked like the mouth of a giant lobster-like silver and violet creature. Metal plating, glowing violet light under the plating, all signs pointed to a machine.
That wasn’t even the entire beast. Half of the bulk was on the side of the wall, ending in a large tail of fans, spread out and vibrating. The thing was so big it was having a hard time fitting in the small sanctuary here. A set of giant antenna were flickering through the air as if whiskers, moving independently with the bulk.
And it had eyes. A lot of them. All on short and long stalks, wildly turning different directions, before almost all at once focusing right back down on us.
And I mean down on us. The thing was the size of an oversized drake, with a mess of comically tiny legs supporting the entire body. Worse, it had fins and flat flipper-like attachments that were sprayed out, almost like a mane.
Drakonis opened fire, the rifle barking out bullet after bullet. Two things happened. For one, all the eyes on the monster instantly retreated back into the shell, now looking like a few dozen glowing violet holes on the carapace. And second, I could see small yellow sparks of bullet fire all across that armor, with the occasional bits of light blue shielding flaring to life on top of the eye holes.
In comparison to other machines which might have paused dramatically here to wait for Drakonis to run dry on the bullets as a power move, this bloodthirsty specimen didn’t want to wait.