[Alysha] Monster Hunter

Alysha was reminded of the day she met John Newman, when she answered the call of her hunting partner’s whistle. The almost familiar tunnels near her people’s hiding place had lifted away like a veil to reveal the warped, angular guts of a human school. That transition had been almost nauseating, and she felt it just now when the metallic hall melted into blues and blacks. The Throne’s dignity did not permit John’s trickery, and so she knew that this time was not his doing. Another had ensnared Alysha... and what would become of her this time?

We have been captured, she reported, as no doubt the others did, and are in a chamber filled with... disks. Such was her best initial reaction to the place they had shifted into. Her naturally armored feet clicked on metal of a blue turned nearly black. She stood on a circular platform, machine-made and 100 feet wide, that marked its cardinal points with manhole-sized circles of navy-blue light carved into the metal. She was not alone: the platform was shared with Fairy and Mimic, the latter hiding behind the visage of Moira Brighton. Hovering just over the platform, as if afraid to touch it, hung Yulie with nails extended and fangs bared.

Looking up and around the barrier, Alysha guessed the monstrous space was a match for the fortress they had attempted to invade; her sight was limited, however, by the plethora of similar disks suspended randomly in the air above. As she peered into the gaps between the disks, she caught sight of the ogre and the moon “elf” as they peered over their respective edges of the two nearest platforms. None of the platforms had any features underneath; no strings holding them aloft could be seen.

The two Dorani and Rosa were nowhere to be found, nor were the other humans or Bitter Nines members. We have all been disappeared in waves; then the humans we're meant to protect are likely trapped with Rosa alone, while John is left with the Dorani, the Bitter Nines, and... Alysha quickly considered the enemy unknown, the spy that could well be alone with John, and John himself now bereft of minions or portals.

He was in danger, far more than they had already accepted. We have to find him again. Alysha gripped the chitin of her arm as she tried to ignore the worry in her chest. Instead, she focused on taking in their surroundings, as did her fellows: there had to be over a dozen of these small arenas, none with railings or other features and none that lay upon the bottom of the barrier some twenty feet below. A uniform, navy-blue wall of radiance waited down there, so ephemeral as to make Alysha doubt it was physical at all. But it must be, or else must be dangerous, if this trap is meant to hold us. No exits were apparent to contradict that this was a prison, however unguarded it seemed.

Alysha turned to regard Fairy and Greenpaw; the insect, monster, and giant were not among those Alysha addressed. “He underestimated our foe.”

“No shit, web-fucker, but I don’t think any amount of planning would’ve stopped this from happening. He knew the score: if he wants back to Earth so bad, he needs to take the Throne now.” Fairy knelt by one of the circles and dared a touch. “Praxis sure has come a long way, though...”

Tita watched them from above as she watched everything: as if they were vermin just beyond her crushing boot. Alysha returned her glare even as she spoke. “You know our enemy, then?”

“Not the way they are now... and if this is part of the plan, then... well, they probably still can't stop John.”

Alysha shot a string of web onto the underside of a disk directly overhead. She tugged and felt herself lift; the platform did not give. Whatever power made them float, then, was also adamant about keeping them where they were. “Your confidence in him is absurd. How could this be part of his plan?”

Fairy hesitated. Alysha narrowed her eyes as she wondered why, but the sprite shot back, "So is your wish that he'd fuck your brains out, puk."

Alysha did her best to not react to such an insult (her bloodline was NOT entrenched with fecal-laden backstabbers, nor was her vagina an angel’s anus, as puk implied), nor did she dare address the accusation. She could not lie, after all, and her passing moments of weakness around her master had to become nothing more. But she does not answer my question… what plan could require our capture? A human plan, I suppose. "We must leave this place. These 'barriers' are all the same, yes? We kill the enemy to permit escape?”

Greenpaw’s nervous glare bounced around the platforms expectantly. “If Tricia is not here... she could be in danger! We have to find them.”

“We are in danger,” Durr corrected Greenpaw with a laugh, “so save your worries for our future lovers after we’re done saving ourselves.”

Moira’s voice came monotone from Mimic’s body as it continued to awe at their new location. “We have seen nothing like this place. It is... a place of feeding, correctly?”

“Feeding?”

“The enemy dines like a hive: great plates to eat from, these Praxis have, and to feed hordes of drones at once.”

Alysha let the web go as she sneered in response. “This seems more like an training room, or an obstacle course, laden with traps and pitfalls to... whatever waits below. The enemy wishes to see us sit here and rot... or dare to try to ascend.”

“Our enemy is strong and... here!” Greenpaw suddenly declared.

Before Alysha could draw an explanation from the Almiraj, a break in the blue and black grew from a platform three stories overhead. All turned to watch as red eyes peered down... and an unease settled in Alysha’s gut.

It was a human: not a Dorani in mere skins, but truly the wanton, ugly hunger of a human. She felt it in that soulless gaze and the poise of a trapper looking down at prey. He was dressed in the fineries of man to a point: a green jacket and gray slacks would have fit among the businessmen she saw in John’s world.

But the similarity ended where the lowest silver plates pinched the cloth to his chest and rose and thickened towards the bulbous, red-lit war helm on his armored shoulders. Segmented plates let six glowing gaps of crimson light shine like eyes on the humanoid, and this occupied the minions of John right up until he swung his glaive into view. Like all human things, it looked inelegant, if functional, to the dark elf: a simple design in a shaft of some lightweight metal led up to a bulbous collection of tacked-on boxes and cylinders of gray metals. Its blade was a mirror polish down to the red-glowing edge it sported; a soft hum vibrated through the platforms as its glow intensified.

The human did not move, at first. John’s minions also hesitated.

<Can any of you hear me?>

The obnoxious voice of John’s latest toy filled Alysha’s mind as it rang out from the psychosphere, and all at once Alysha wished that creature had at least a sense of timing for her distracting calls. Of course we can, but we face an opponent.

<Please, do your best to stay alive! Remember: John may need your abilities at a moment's notice!>

Alysha had not forgotten that trump card of their master, but such required concentration and communication; their capture, and their mysterious captor, may not permit it. “Identify yourself,” Alysha commanded, “and choose your words carefully.”

The mask made the man impossible to read, but he did not flinch at Alysha’s threat from below. His voice was wielded low enough to almost hide the metal tinge that gave away the grave inflections of his words. “I am Fraser. You may know me as the Hallowed… but I am not holy. I am here, as I have been for centuries, as only one thing… a hunter of monsters.”

Why has John not answered us-?

<He’s in trouble!!> Lily’s answer was frantic enough to sell her point. Alysha pursued it no further. They had to

“We are not monsters,” the dark elf shot back.

“A doppelgänger,” the barrier’s master rasped with the hiss of gas leaking, “a corrupted fae, a demon, an ogre, a large rabbit, and... two more creatures, of spiders and nightmares. No… monsters one and all I would say... as any righteous Frenchman must.”

Each tensed as they were identified, save Tita. Aside from refusing to acknowledge the label, she offered an audible click before responding with a casual wave of her hand. “That’s no way to speak to your superior... get on your knees and grovel for forgiveness.”

Alysha could guess the effect of Tita’s voice warping into something yet more monstrous, but the enemy did not kneel.

“Surely,” Yulie then offered, “you could spare us for a bit of time… with me?”

Again, the stranger did not yield to the charms of monsters. Alysha did not know their abilities too well, but she could guess what either had attempted: both had tried to bend the will of this man, and both had failed. “I have never before faced a summoner, nor so diverse a horde of horrors working in concert against me. Your master cannot make use of you here,” he declared in a bitter hiss, “no matter how impressive a summoner he might be... but the challenge you will pose shall be the greatest I ever overcome. So I have brought you here… to enjoy you.”

Fairy snorted at that. “Every sodding human wants to fuck us, shitface: doesn’t mean we’ll let you... except the slut here, apparently.”

He continued, unphased, “There will be no warning shots, no live capture, and no holding back... not for you beasts. I will tell you only once: you must resort to your own abilities and fight with everything you have. You will need everything you have to maximize your chances-"

A sphere of darkness suddenly exploded on Fraser and his platform, enveloping them both as dark energies swirled and fed on the matter inside. "I cannot abide," Tita mirthfully warbled, "the unending chatter of dead, wretched-" Her words paused when the sphere vanished, revealing the pock-marked, wrinkled surface of the part of the platform caught in her entropic sphere... and a seemingly unaffected Fraser. She sighed and finished, "... men."

A rumble of metal that was meant to be his chuckle rolled across the platforms before he whispered, "Que Dieu me bénisse alors que je chasse les bêtes de Satan."

Alysha felt the movement first as a fine vibration beneath her armored feet. Fairy and Greenpaw noticed just a second later as it quietly cleared the horizon of the platform's edge a beat later. Fairy’s grotesque axe was wielded high while Alysha fired a snare of web, but their foe had no intention to face the three turning to kill her; instead, she leapt up towards Yulie. The succubus was distracted by the axe turning in her direction; she had barely a chance to jolt to her left before a flat blade, segmented into squares, stabbed into her shoulder instead of her neck. The metal sunk deep before snapping the last two pieces off to leave them in the demon and leaving the new foe free to kick off from the monster's chest and land back near Alysha.

The dark elf's blades held up a guard as she assessed the enemy. Whatever it was, it appeared human and female. The dark skin visible only on her face was unblemished, symmetrical, and too perfect to be natural, as were the rows of perfectly-knotted hair upon her head. Below the petite and molded features of this unnatural woman was a jumpsuit so darkly blue as to vanish into the background of this place; it outlined a feminine, attractive shape that was broken only by the slits on her wrist for the two blades now extending from her forearms. Two more mechanical arms, each tipped with a foot-long scythe blade, began to grow out of her back. Rising from behind her shoulders came two silver brackets that sat upon them… and anchored twin miniguns thereupon.
The blade “broken” off by two segments grew to replace them, triggering the explosion inside Yulie’s flesh before she could get the shards out of her body. Black blood and sinew splashed out where it was not disintegrated by the contained explosion; Yulie screamed as her mangled body was thrown down near one of the blue circles on the platform… just as it rose to reveal that every such circle was the widest part of a conical drone.

John’s minions wasted no time: Fairy cleaved one of the four new drones almost in two as her axe ravaged its core. Spilling out from its innards came chains of blades and a small fountain of unspent ammunition; each contained weapons hidden by their sleek designs, Alysha surmised, and she did not want to see them employed.
But first, the cyborg had to be stopped. Alysha was the first to charge her, blades dancing as she pushed the offense. The cyborg returned her **** after a few simple ripostes, shocking the dark elf with the machine efficiency of the four blades she faced. The guns began to whirl and Alysha was soon struggling to strafe out of their path. All the while, the unamused foe calmly droned on, “Director Fraser: reckless endangerment of parent company property is a violation of your fiduciary duty to the shareholders as well as the standard of-”

“A hunt like this only comes once in a lifetime… and justifies all expense.”

The guns fired dozens of rounds into Alysha as the enemy pivoted ahead of Alysha’s strafing blows. The whirlwind of blades never faltered; Alysha’s swords found no purchase before shrapnel was driven into and occasionally through her chitin. Another drone came in to try and flank the distracted dark elf; its blue-lit rim suddenly dimmed and split open to reveal the chainsaw belt that now spun rapidly around its top. It thrust forward, ready to split Alysha in half… and she only became aware of it after Fairy’s chains flicked the drone with a spiked mace tip, crushing its center until it fell to the ground and drew sparks with its dying saw.

“Wake up, breeder!” Fairy shouted as her axe found another drone. Alysha couldn’t tell what Durr and Tita were doing to their drones, but it was working: bits of crushed drones were flying from the lip of Durr’s platform while Tita was carelessly slamming hers away, usually to send them crashing into more of the incoming drones or other platforms. Greenpaw, after wrenching his spear from the only one he managed to kill so far, ran in after the cyborg. Alysha was sure the fool would perish or lose that paltry spear in the process… except, by whatever strange exchange they now managed, the two were stuck in a far more equal dance of feints and attempts to trip the cyborg with the haft of his weapon. Greenpaw’s movements seemed erratic, but the cyborg was put on the back heel by the unpredictable attempts at attacks, probes, and counters sometimes made before the woman had begun the thrust or swing it was to meet.

Alysha would not waste the opportunity, and the bullets in her body told her the first priority. She extended her arms, swords pointed to the earth, as she unleashed as thick a torrent of web as she could. Although the cyborg’s limbs moved with inhuman alacrity, her shoulders only barely swayed in her present fight; the webs struck true and began to fill and clog the miniguns in what Alysha prayed was not a futile attempt to disable them. As if to test her theory, the guns began to whirl, taking her webs into a violent spin… that slowed, jolted, and after just a couple of rounds shot at Greenpaw, jammed.

The Almiraj, with foresight Alysha did not yet understand, had already posed mid-air around the seven bullets meant for his body, each barely missing him before he was back on his feet and challenging the false human once again.

As that fight raged, Mimic posed over Yulie’s broken body with as menacing a pose as it could while unarmed, but no drones remained at the moment to threaten it or its charge. Yulie simply mewled in agony as she tried to disregard the disfigurement that marked her; without Tita or John to heal her, she feared she would dematerialize at any moment.

It was into this mess of enemies that “Director Fraser” finally leapt down. He had unceremoniously stepped forward and dropped as if to pass between Tita and Durr to land feet-first and within arm’s reach of Alysha. The dark elf prepared to leap from the cyborg to have Fraser’s landing prove fatal; her blades were held defensively as she got on her back heel, ready to shift to his point of landing and impale him. Even if she only managed to wound his legs, it would be the end of him if he could not stand anew: his polearm looked unwieldy and slow, and Alysha was confident he would underestimate her even now.

With a leap, she disengaged… but Fraser did not land where his trajectory had promised.

It was hidden in his clothes, or perhaps his magic simply manifested this way, but Alysha saw, ever so briefly, the rippling of air from underneath the folds of cloth at his back… just before he was suddenly thrust sideways and into Tita.

A swing of a blade so powerful it could be heard tearing the air… it was not something Alysha thought she would hear from a human warrior, but its song rippled in the air just as Tita’s left arm and major tentacle could be seen flying away from the platform.