"We don't trust you why do you think we should help?" Ethan asked raising an eyebrow
But Selene just smiled
"We aren't going, right?" Kai asked. "Are we"
MOMENTS LATER
The white sands outside the buried subway weren't sand. They were pulverized skyscrapers. The sun was really burning the earth.
[ENVIRONMENT: RADIATION LEVELS-MODERATE | BIOHAZARD - EXTREME].
Selene's Solar Skiff hovered silently, against the wasteland. Its ramp lowered, revealing the golden interior.
"Move," Selene ordered, visor scanning the horizon. "Orbital window closes in five minutes. Vultura's scouts heard that acid melt."
Lena didn't budge. Her damaged cannon-arm sparked, dripping coolant onto the sand.
"You expect us to ride in that? Legion tin-can's probably got self-destruct codes for unclean cargo.'"
"It has shields," Selene retorted, "and sensors that see through Vultura's bone-dust storms. Your choice: ride… or fry."
The hologram countdown on her wrist pulsed
[T-MINUS 4:22].
Ethan hauled Kai onto the skiff. His leg was hastily splinted with salvaged rebar and duct tape, his face pale. "Cozy,"he rasped, eyeing the benches. "Needs some… bloodstains."
Lena spat on the ground but followed, dragging the corrupted Engine schematics in a sealed acid-proof bag.
The ramp sealed. The skiff shot forward, acceleration pressing them into gel-seats.
Through the polarized viewport, the wastes land blurred , remnants of mag-lev trains half-buried , and in the distance, the Bone Market's mobile figure, a huge, crawling spine fused to tank treads, draped in flayed hide banners.
"ETA to Market perimeter 72 hours," Selene stated, piloting with glacial precision. "We avoid the open wastelands. Too many eyes. We take the Gloom Tunnels."
"Pre-System sewage lines?" Lena scoffed. "They're collapsed. Or crawling with Vultura's Drones."*
"Updated Legion scans show Section Gamma stable," Selene replied, pulling up a holo-map. Glowing blue lines snaked underground.
"And Vultura avoids them. The Gloom's bioluminescent fungi interfere with her neural implants. Causes… feedback in her pets."
"Feedback?"* Ethan asked, Perpetual Core leg humming as he monitored Kai's vitals.
[KAI: HP 48/120 | STATUS: LEG TRAUMA | INFECTION RISK: HIGH].
"Screaming," Selene said flatly. "Lots of screaming."
Soon the Solar Skiff descended a crumbling service shaft into absolute blackness.
Then, slowly, light emerged… sickly blue and pulsating green from walls covered with bioluminescent fungi and dripping stalactites of congealed nanite-sludge.
The air reeked of rot, ozone, and something gasoline.
"Seal suits," Selene ordered, tossing them Legion-issue hazard gear, flexible polymer with integrated rebreathers.
Lena refused, activating her arm-cannon's internal air scrubber. Kai's splinted leg wouldn't fit the suit's leggings.
"Guess I'll breathe the cancer," Kai coughed.
Ethan sealed his suit, the crowbar mag-locked to his back. "Stay close."
They disembarked. The skiff retracted into the ceiling , cloaked. Selene led with a wrist-mounted light, its beam cutting through gloom that seemed to swallow light.
Lena scanned the walls with her multi-tool eyepiece.
"Fungal growth's aggressive. Legion scans are old, Selene. Structural integrity's at 40%."
"Then walk quietly," Selene snapped.
They moved. The tunnel floor was slick with viscous fluid. Strange, crabs scuttled away from their lights.
Kai stumbled, biting back a cry as his leg jolted. Ethan caught him, Perpetual Core whining softly.
"Hear that?" Lena froze.
A low, rhythmic thrumming vibrated through the soles of their boots.
"Heartbeat?" Kai whispered.
"Bigger," Lena adjusted her eyepiece. "Resonance matches… geothermal vents? But filtered through… bone?"
Ahead, the tunnel opened into a vast cavern.
The source of the light and sound lay before them.
The Bio-Lume Grove.
A forest of giant, mushrooms glowed with internal light. Between them rose crystallized skeletons.
Towering ribcages fused with glowing quartz, skulls like some holloweeen pumpkin.
At the center, a massive geothermal vent glowed orange, its heat radiating through the crystal bones, making them sing.
"Pre-System mass grave," Selene murmured, her voice tight. "Overseer cleanup after the First Descent. Their bones resonate with planetary heat. They call them the earth's choir"
"It's… beautiful," Kai breathed, pain forgotten for a moment.
"It's a lure,"* Lena hissed, pointing. Nestled in the ribcage of a crystal giant, half-hidden by glowing fungi, was a Drone. Not moving.
Tendrils of bioluminescent moss grew into its neural ports, making its limbs twitch erratically.
"Feedback,"Ethan realized. The fungi were parasitizing Vultura's tech.
"We go around,"Selene ordered, veering left along the cavern wall. "Disturb the grove, and we wake every drone within a mile."
They crept, hugging the dark. The thrumming grew louder, vibrating in their chests. Ethan's crowbar hummed in harmony.
[ENTROPY SYNTHESIS: GEOTHERMAL/BIO-LUMINOUS ENERGY DETECTED - ABSORPTION POSSIBLE].
Tempting, but reckless.
Halfway around, Lena froze. "Contact. Right flank. Not drone."
A figure crouched behind a quartz femur. Humanoid. Clad in scavenged plating spray-painted with a crude white handprint….Ghost Faction. But not attacking. Watching.
"Scout?" Kai whispered, phase-dagger flickering in his hand.
"Worse," Lena zoomed her eyepiece. "It's Grudge."
Grudge stepped into the faint glow. His piston-fist was gone, replaced by a crude, hooked blade welded to his stump.
His face was gaunt, eyes fever-bright.
"Lost, little rats?" he rasped, voice echoing in the cavern. "Tunnels eat the unwary."
Selene's plasma rifle snapped up. "Stand down, traitor."
"Traitor?" Grudge laughed, a wet, hacking sound. "I serve the future! Vultura's ascension!" His eyes locked on Ethan.
"You should have just given me the core. Waste Disposer. The Market's hungry. And Vultura… she wants her schematics."
"You sold children, Grudge," Lena snarled, cannon-arm powering up with a whine that disturbed the fungal glow nearby. "Mama will be dissapointed in her boy."
"Mama's DEAD!" Grudge roared, spittle flying. "Her 'strength' got her erased! Vultura survives! She adapts!"
He pointed his hook-blade at Kai. "She even makes use of broken things. Your sister sings, rat. Sings pretty for the Engine."
Kai lunged. Pain forgotten, phase-dagger aimed for Grudge's throat. "I'LL KILL YOU!"
"KAI, NO!" Ethan yelled.
Too late. Kai phased through a giant mushroom….
SCREEEEEEE!
The disturbed fungi pulsed violently. Bioluminescent spores exploded into the air.
The captured Drone in the crystal ribcage jerked upright, eyes blazing red , neural ports tearing free of moss. Its bio-cannon swiveled, targeting Kai.
Grudge grinned, melting back into the dark. "Feeding time!"
The Flesh-Drone fired a stream of bio-acid. Kai phased sideways, but the splatter hit his bad leg.
He screamed, synthetic muscle sizzling.
[HP: 48 → 32/120].
Spores swirled thick, triggering suit alarms
[WARNING: NEUROTOXIC SPORES - REBREATHER FILTERS AT 85%]`.
More twitching shapes emerged from the fungal forest ,drones waking.
Selene cursed, firing precise plasma bursts. "Ethan! Contain the grove!"
Contain it? The geothermal hum vibrated through his bones. The crowbar's resonance spiked.
[ENTROPY: 65%].
He slammed the crowbar into the cavern floor.
[ENTROPY SYNTHESIS: THERMAL/BIO-LUMINOUS CONDUIT - OPEN]`
Not absorption. Redirection.
He focused the grove's pulsing energy, the geothermal thrum, the screaming spore-release, channeling it through the crowbar into the crystal giant skeletonabove the main geothermal vent.
HMMMMMMMM…
The giant's crystallized ribs glowed white. Heat radiated in waves.
The bioluminescent fungi around it withered instantly, their light snuffed out. Spores combusted in mid-air with tiny pops.
The Drones shrieked, their neural implants overloading without the fungal interference they'd grown dependent on. They spasmed, collapsing.
Silence fell, broken only by Kai's pained gasps and the angry hum of the superheated crystal giant.
"...Temporary," Lena breathed, scanning the grove. "Fungi will regrow. Drones will reboot. We need to move."
Selene stared at Ethan, her visor hiding her expression. "Synthesizing environmental decay. Impressive. And reckless."
She hauled Kai up roughly. "Can you walk?"
"Do I… have a choice?" Kai gritted out.
"The vent," Ethan said, pointing past the glowing giant. "Lena's scans show it connects to Section Gamma. Less fungal growth. We follow the heat."
Selene nodded curtly. "Lead, Ethan?. And try not to wake the next nightmare."
As they limped past the cooling crystal skeleton, Kai looked back at the twitching drones. "He's down there, isn't he? Grudge. Waiting."
"Yes," Ethan said, Perpetual Core leg clanking on the rock. *"And next time, we don't let him run."*
Soon they arrived Ay Section Gamma.
It was a claustrophobic maze of dripping pipes and collapsed rubble. The air grew hotter.
Selene's map flickered, interference spiking.
"Geothermal interference," she muttered. "And… something else. Bio-signatures. Faint."
"Survivors?" Lena asked, disbelief warring with hope.
"Doubtful. Reading multiple life signs… clustered. Weak. Flickering."
They rounded a bend choked with corroded machinery. The tunnel opened into a smaller cavern. Steam hissed from fissures. And there, nestled against the far wall…
Cages.
Rusted pre-System animal transport units, repurposed. Inside, huddled figures. Children. Dozens.
Most slept or stared vacantly. All bore crude neural ports welded to their skulls, linked by snaking cables to a central pulsing hub covered in Vultura's bone-sigils.
"Battery farm," Lena whispered, horrified. "Feeding the Flesh-Engine remotely…"
"Zara?" Kai's voice trembled.
Then Ethan heard it. Faint. Chilling. Cutting through the steam-hiss.
A child's scream. Of pure, agonizing overload.
It came from a cage slightly apart from the others.
Inside, a girl of maybe twelve convulsed, neural ports glowing white-hot. Her eyes were wide, streaming tears that evaporated on her cheeks. Above her cage, a cracked viewscreen flickered
[SUBJECT: ZARA]
[STATUS: BIO-ENTROPIC SURGE - CORE SYNCHRONIZATION 12%]
[WARNING: NEURAL CASCADE IMMINENT]
"NO!"Kai screamed, lunging forward.
SHUNK!
A hooked blade erupted from the steam, impaling Kai's good thigh.
Grudge appears, his branded face twisted in a rictus. "Told you she sings!" He yanked the blade free. Kai crashed down, blood soaking the hot rock.
[HP: 32 → 18/120].
"Touch that cage," Grudge snarled, hook-blade dripping, "and I make her scream forever."
Zara convulsed again, her scream echoing in the static-filled cavern. The viewscreen flickered
[SYNCHRONIZATION: 13%]
"Let. Her. Go," Ethan growled, crowbar flaring green-gold, Perpetual Core surging to critical hum.
[ENTROPY: 89%]
Grudge grinned, pressing a crude transmitter against Zara's cage bars. A single, blood-red button glowed. "Make me, trash boy."
Steam billowed. Cables pulsed. Zara's eyes snapped open…..glowing with the same toxic green as Ethan's Entropy.