09-10-2017, 11:43 PM
Vines whipped through the suddenly-stale air, grasping wildly at the Liberators' weary limbs as a legion out of nightmares spilled forth from the void beneath the earth.
Kelly turned away from the gaping maw, estimating the location of the gate that had brought him here - quietly hoping that he'd find it open. The traveler plunged towards the rapidly-withering treeline. His hobnailed boots pounded across the writhing blanket of roots that had erupted from the soil. He ignored the viscous squelch of the half-closed hole in his midsection and the growing ache in his head, pushing aside the cloying familiarity of it all and forcing his muscles into coordinated action. He'd made it through the frantic chaos of battle with his body more-or-less intact this time, but his mental reserves had been severely taxed. The psychic doubted he could even bend a spoon right now, let alone more strenuous psychokinetic displays.
It was an improvement over the outcome at Darkshire, but still less than ideal...
Analyze later. Right now, escape the collapsing pocket-continuum.
Something slammed into the traveler's back, and all around him rubbery pink orbs hit the ground, bounced and rolled, tentacles lashing and beaks flaring. Pseudopods wrapped around his neck as a four-lobed, chitinous orifice screamed in his ear. He stumbled and nearly fell, tripping over the shifting ground - and then a vine caught his leg, and he went down, twisting as he tumbled so that the beast on his back took the brunt of the fall.
The impact seemed to stun it momentarily. Kelly abandoned his quarterstaff, using both hands to haul the misshapen creature of his shoulders and toss it aside.
Next problem...
The psychic was being dragged back towards the inexorably widening maw of the nothingness that had once been Plant Man, facing an oncoming hoard of biological mistakes. Before his eyes the massive tree that had stood at the center of it all plunged into the gullet of the abyss and vanished; Part of him protested that it shouldn't have been possible - the perspective was all wrong. A swarm of giant hornets with two sets of wings and wriggling human fingers for eyes overtook a group of hobbling tripods that resembled nothing so much as the unholy unions of elephant skulls and enormous buckets of squid.
X ran past him, damaged components sparking wildly within his ruined azure armor as the megaman affected a sort of galloping limp. He spared a single buster shot to sever the vine around Kelly's ankle.
It would have been a good time for a pithy observation if they weren't both about to die. As it was, the android simply continued his escape while Kelly spun and scrambled, sprinting to catch up as swarms of mutated insects and tumor-riddled bat-winged fish dove towards him, spitting acid and bile against a descending backdrop of nonexistence.
The scene was well past sinister at this point, firmly in the realm of the surreal. Distances flexed and changed with every passing moment as the empty sky grew lower and soil was overtaken by cancerous tree-roots, strangling each other like the folds of some massive, sinister brain. Kelly leapt over a thing with the shape of a spider and the gaunt, eyeless features of a man, closing the distance between himself and his fleeing ally. Catching up, the psychic grabbed X by the reploid's good arm and began to pull him along, grimacing as something caustic fell from the sky and soaked what was left of his shirt. Wisps of chemical smog stung his nose.
As the two triumphant Liberators passed the shrinking treeline, the ground shook, accompanied by a massive, shuddering groan. Kelly could feel claws and tentacles tickling his calves through the shreds of his jeans, lashing at the back of his knees and plucking at his shirt. The horde was hot on their heels.
To either side of them the forest disintegrated, withering like a time-lapse photograph of a perfect ecological disaster - verdant abundance turning brown and brittle, then grey, crumbling as they charged down the path. A group of the vicious masked fetishes that had harried the Liberators on the way into the stronghold ran past screaming, their flesh falling from their bones in calcified chunks.
A sourceless wind began to howl. The air filled with sand, and the sour, fuzzy smell of mold as the quality of the light turned gangrenous and dim.
"I think," said Kelly through gritted teeth, not risking even a backward glance as he half-dragged his less-nimble partner, "that this situation may be getting out of hand."
Kelly turned away from the gaping maw, estimating the location of the gate that had brought him here - quietly hoping that he'd find it open. The traveler plunged towards the rapidly-withering treeline. His hobnailed boots pounded across the writhing blanket of roots that had erupted from the soil. He ignored the viscous squelch of the half-closed hole in his midsection and the growing ache in his head, pushing aside the cloying familiarity of it all and forcing his muscles into coordinated action. He'd made it through the frantic chaos of battle with his body more-or-less intact this time, but his mental reserves had been severely taxed. The psychic doubted he could even bend a spoon right now, let alone more strenuous psychokinetic displays.
It was an improvement over the outcome at Darkshire, but still less than ideal...
Analyze later. Right now, escape the collapsing pocket-continuum.
Something slammed into the traveler's back, and all around him rubbery pink orbs hit the ground, bounced and rolled, tentacles lashing and beaks flaring. Pseudopods wrapped around his neck as a four-lobed, chitinous orifice screamed in his ear. He stumbled and nearly fell, tripping over the shifting ground - and then a vine caught his leg, and he went down, twisting as he tumbled so that the beast on his back took the brunt of the fall.
The impact seemed to stun it momentarily. Kelly abandoned his quarterstaff, using both hands to haul the misshapen creature of his shoulders and toss it aside.
Next problem...
The psychic was being dragged back towards the inexorably widening maw of the nothingness that had once been Plant Man, facing an oncoming hoard of biological mistakes. Before his eyes the massive tree that had stood at the center of it all plunged into the gullet of the abyss and vanished; Part of him protested that it shouldn't have been possible - the perspective was all wrong. A swarm of giant hornets with two sets of wings and wriggling human fingers for eyes overtook a group of hobbling tripods that resembled nothing so much as the unholy unions of elephant skulls and enormous buckets of squid.
X ran past him, damaged components sparking wildly within his ruined azure armor as the megaman affected a sort of galloping limp. He spared a single buster shot to sever the vine around Kelly's ankle.
It would have been a good time for a pithy observation if they weren't both about to die. As it was, the android simply continued his escape while Kelly spun and scrambled, sprinting to catch up as swarms of mutated insects and tumor-riddled bat-winged fish dove towards him, spitting acid and bile against a descending backdrop of nonexistence.
The scene was well past sinister at this point, firmly in the realm of the surreal. Distances flexed and changed with every passing moment as the empty sky grew lower and soil was overtaken by cancerous tree-roots, strangling each other like the folds of some massive, sinister brain. Kelly leapt over a thing with the shape of a spider and the gaunt, eyeless features of a man, closing the distance between himself and his fleeing ally. Catching up, the psychic grabbed X by the reploid's good arm and began to pull him along, grimacing as something caustic fell from the sky and soaked what was left of his shirt. Wisps of chemical smog stung his nose.
As the two triumphant Liberators passed the shrinking treeline, the ground shook, accompanied by a massive, shuddering groan. Kelly could feel claws and tentacles tickling his calves through the shreds of his jeans, lashing at the back of his knees and plucking at his shirt. The horde was hot on their heels.
To either side of them the forest disintegrated, withering like a time-lapse photograph of a perfect ecological disaster - verdant abundance turning brown and brittle, then grey, crumbling as they charged down the path. A group of the vicious masked fetishes that had harried the Liberators on the way into the stronghold ran past screaming, their flesh falling from their bones in calcified chunks.
A sourceless wind began to howl. The air filled with sand, and the sour, fuzzy smell of mold as the quality of the light turned gangrenous and dim.
"I think," said Kelly through gritted teeth, not risking even a backward glance as he half-dragged his less-nimble partner, "that this situation may be getting out of hand."
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