Titan mage ruin a harem.., p.20
Titan Mage Ruin: A Harem Fantasy Adventure, page 20
“Got it,” Locke replied.
“I’ll defend the survivors as they go to the ship,” Basilka offered.
“So will I,” Ray added.
“And I’ll stay with Locke to keep an eye on the mimic,” Ember said.
“Sounds like a plan,” Locke replied, and then activated his titan’s speakers. He relayed the procedures and plan to the survivors, and then finished, “First group, head out.”
They all watched with sharp eyes as the first group of survivors emerged, and the survivors watched with equally sharp eyes as they ventured, protected but still vulnerable, into the mouth that had held them prisoner these past many weeks. Even frozen and inert, it was still creepy and not a place anyone would want to spend any significant length of time.
There were very specific circumstances in which a person would want to be in another’s mouth, and this was not one of them.
Locke recognized a few NQA Exterminators rigs accompanying the first group of survivors out, their rigs horribly beaten, but still operating, barely.
“The mercs will help with defense, too,” Basilka relayed. “Gotta complete our job, after all.”
The mercs came and went three times without incident, and when they returned for the fourth with no apparent sign of trouble, the object of this mission herself decided to make an appearance.
Dr. Erudicia Q’Van accompanied the fourth group out in her own protective gear—not quite a rig, but some type of mechanical body armor that must have been meant to aid in lifting heavy items during archaeological digs. It certainly wasn’t enclosed enough to be truly defensive, but it would be able to do some damage if she had to hit something approximately human-size.
Instead of following the group down the icy path out of the mouth, however, she approached Titan Long Shot.
“It really should take less than a mysterious disappearance to get you to visit, dear,” she said to the robot, close enough that both Locke and Ember’s auditory sensors picked it up.
“Maybe you should take more digs close to Endpoint City,” Ember snarked through Long Shot’s speakers. “The company’s better, anyway.”
“Hey now!” one of the archaeologists objected. Locke didn’t see which one, but another immediately replied with:
“She’s right, though! You can’t act like being stuck in this mimic hasn’t been more fun than literally any of our family reunions.”
A swell of “Oh, definitely” and “She’s got a point” echoed through the small crowd of researchers, and as one they asked Erudicia if they could take more digs by Endpoint City—or at least by some hot springs or a beach, which they all thought they deserved after the general stress of this dig.
Erudicia laughed. “I’ll consider it,” she shouted back to her crew. The announcement was met with cheers, and she turned back to Locke and Ember—specifically to Titan Long Shot.
She laughed again. “Given the efforts you’ve taken to rescue me and my crew, I’ll definitely take this sort of reunion.” Then she reclined in her research armor like it was a couch at her home, and stretched her arm over its resting mechanical arm like she was draping it around a beloved person.
“And I see you’ve built yourself a good titan, too. Those are some fabulous upgrades you’ve got there. Are those the result of my gift?”
Ember shook Long Shot’s head. “The titan isn’t quite ready for it yet.”
“Oh, so you took Lazare up on his offer, then?” Erudicia asked.
“No, these are Bexley originals,” Ember replied, and turned to show the mech off, as if she were trying on a new dress in a fitting room. “Our bounty schedule never lined up with Sevas’ schedule, and I think he’s assigned to an airship now, anyway.”
“Wait,” Bexley shouted again over their radios. “You know Sevas Lazare? Do you know what I would give to get Lazare upgrades?” The words spilled out of her like gibberish pouring from the mouth of a preteen girl who’d just learned that her best friend was tangentially related to her favorite pop star.
“Yes, Bexley,” Ember replied over their crew channel. “I do know what you would do to get Lazare upgrades.”
“You gotta introduce us.”
“Bexley—”
“YOU GOTTA. Also I’m honored that you’d choose my upgrades over his, but that is also dumb as—”
“Bexley, I am trying to have a touching reunion with my mom!” Ember exclaimed.
Bexley paused. “Oh, fair enough. But if we run into him—YOU GOTTA.”
“Fine,” Ember huffed, and Locke saw Titan Long Shot shake its head in exasperation.
“News?” Erudicia asked, concerned. The conversation hadn’t carried over the titans’ speakers.
“Oh. No,” Ember replied. “Our engineer’s a Lazare fangirl, that’s all.”
“Aren’t they all?” Erudicia rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Even so, from a cursory glance alone, those upgrades look solid. And some fabulous shooting you’ve done, too, I must say.”
“You’ve been inside the airship the whole time,” Ember quirked. “You haven’t seen me shoot.”
“We’re standing in a downed giant flying mutant mimic,” Erudicia said. “First of its kind, no less. It takes more than luck to bring something like this down.”
“Good point,” Ember conceded.
“How much of your crew is left inside?” Locke asked. He wanted to let Ember continue her conversation, but the mimic had been quiet too long. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it did make him feel uneasy. The sooner they were out of this thing, the better, and a half-dead mimic’s mouth wasn’t the place for a heart-to-heart conversation anyway.
“Two more groups after that one.” Erudicia gestured to the fourth group, now fully outside the mouth. “I’ll stay until everyone’s safe and then leave with the last one. I just wanted to use the lull to thank—”
A noise from inside the airship cut her off.
It was a short, startled noise. It didn’t even echo. But all of them knew what it was.
The sound of a stifled scream.
The fifth group of ten bolted out of the airship. Followed by the sixth.
Followed by a seventh. And an eighth.
“I thought you said there were only two more groups!” Locke exclaimed.
“There are!” Erudicia replied, and as she said it, Locke saw her boot up the upper half of her research armor. The mech arms activated, and she slipped her own arms inside as a metal and thick glass shield came down to protect her head.
She knew exactly what they were up against.
“If you’re real, keep screaming!” Erudicia shouted, and then she stomped toward her scattering archaeologists.
The order wasn’t necessary, and some of the false survivors gave themselves away anyway. When one of the archaeologists nearest Erudicia tripped, the pursuing researcher leapt onto the fallen archaeologist, his jaw stretching disturbingly wide in a plainly mimic scream.
But he didn’t reach her.
Erudicia punched his head off with her research armor, and then stomped on the decapitated body until he was ugly goo. Wherever the core was in that mimic, it wasn’t anymore.
She wasn’t the only archaeologist fighting back. The human mimics might have caused some initial confusion, but once they started transforming and leaping for the real researchers’ throats, their identities became obvious. And while the crew might have been unable to handle larger mimics, human-sized mimics were just their speed.
Many had come out of the airship prepared with weapons of some sort—machetes, knives, mostly melee weapons, or pieces of piping or other material that had been improvised into weapons. One group in particular had even come out with what looked like an improvised magical gatling gun, spraying constant, whirring bursts of red energy bolts at the mimics that rushed them. (Judging by the jumpsuits and goggles the three women wore, it looked like they were engineers who had come upon some excess parts lying around the airship and decided there was no better way to spend weeks trapped inside a giant mimic than building a portable shooty death machine.)
Several of the mimics were down before Locke even formed his hammer, and he reflected that, for a bunch of nerds, these archaeologists really were pretty badass.
Careful not to step on any of the actual researchers, Locke strode to where the melee was thinnest, where individuals needed the most help, while Ember lurked behind and charged up her shoulder mega-catalyst.
“Back away!” Locke shouted to the nearest one, and raised his hammer. The archaeologists listened and sprinted, just in time for Locke to bring his hammer down and splatter the mimic that had been launching, zombie-like, for their brains. Locke swung around to look for the next lone archaeologist. He couldn’t use his full power here, not without inadvertently pulverizing someone he was supposed to protect, and it was hard enough trying not to step on the wrong people. He had to be careful in these circumstances.
Meanwhile, on the far side of the mouth, he saw a thin white bolt zip through the air and freeze another, and in that moment, he developed a new appreciation for how precise Ember’s aim could be. He’d known she could hit a big target from an incredible distance, but to hit a human-sized target with a hyper-concentrated, narrow cannon blast? That was impressive.
Ember had few limits when it came to her marksmanship, even in these close quarters.
Soon, between the titans and the badass archaeologists, the human mimics had been wiped out. (The three engineers were still shooting at the original mimic’s walls, though, because why not?)
Erudicia stomped another human mimic into goo for good measure, and Locke came up to her in Titan Chimera.
“How did mimics get into the airship?” he exclaimed.
“It’s been working on the walls since it grabbed us,” Erudicia replied. “It must have finally digested a hole in an outer wall.”
“I have a better question—” Ember stated. “Why’s it producing new mimics at all?”
Locke didn’t even have time to say “Shit.” The frozen flesh around them suddenly jolted again, and again, and again, as if what remained of the living mimic was trying to shake its dead, frostbitten flesh off. And then it did.
The iced-over tissue rocked. Bright sunlight diffused into the frozen mouth cavern as the back half of the mimic loosed itself from its dead flesh. In a disturbingly fast flash, it sprouted four grotesque, hairless, catlike legs, and then it leapt over the icy form—straight for the Blue Heron.
“Alyssa! Take off! Take off!” Locke commanded.
But he quickly realized that the mimic wasn’t going for the ship. Its bizarre, amorphous form, all spindly legs and ragged, bony mouth, was going for the half of itself that had dropped off earlier.
And, once it reached that piece, it began eating it.
Locke watched with gut-wrenched disgust as the haunting flesh blob devoured that piece of itself, as it grew in size with every bite, as it finished the entire disgusting meal—and then turned back to them.
Locke wasn’t even sure what it looked like anymore—an airship-sized naked sphinx cat with long, bony legs, raptor-like talons and a hooked bird face but with fangs because, hey, if you’re going to be a gruesome insult to nature, why not be as weird as possible? And really, it didn’t matter what it looked like.
What mattered was that it was looking at them, and it looked hungry.
“Expedition! Back on the airship!” Erudicia commanded.
“What? No! There’s a hole in it! You’ll be eaten!” Locke exclaimed.
“There are safe rooms,” Erudicia replied as her team ran on her orders. “Places we can fortify against any mimics. There’s no time for us to make it to your ship.”
“Fine,” Ember replied. “We’ll protect you. Stay as safe as you can.”
“Ray, Basilka, Alyssa! Where are you?” Locke radioed.
“In the air,” Alyssa reported. “Thirty survivors on board.”
“I’m on the Blue Heron,” Basilka replied.
“As am I,” Ray added.
“Stay there for now,” Locke ordered. “We don’t know what’s coming.”
He and Ember took up positions in front of the airship, charged their catalysts, released simultaneous, tense sighs as they heard the airship door latch closed.
And then the giant mimic launched.
Chapter Fourteen
Locke and Ember stood their ground as the huge mimic charged for them, Locke with his beam saber fully heated, Ember’s cannon buzzing with fury just waiting to be unleashed—but the mimic didn’t attack them. It leapt over them as if they were nothing more than inert obstacles and speared headfirst into its old, thawing flesh—the piece they’d just been standing in. It moved and chomped with such speed and ferocity in this slender, fleshly, unarmored form that Locke could barely register where it was before it had moved elsewhere. Soon it had consumed all of its old flesh—
And grown back to its original size.
Now it hunched over the still-exposed airship, eyeballing them as if deciding upon what its next move would be.
“Damn, we’re right back where we started,” Locke muttered. He raised his saber for defense and returned the mimic’s stare as ferociously as he could, even though it couldn’t see him. What was it even mimicking at this point? he wondered. Or was its body its own invention? Was this mimic exceptional enough that it could imagine new forms it had never seen before?
“At least the airship is free,” Ember said, her cannon following the mimic’s every cautious move. “If we can get it away from the ship, the Blue Heron can come down to complete the rescue while we finish it off—or at least distract it.”
Suddenly, as if hearing what she’d said, the mimic moved again.
It didn’t lunge this time, though. It melted. Its entire body collapsed as if its very cells had become unknit, and then it splashed atop the damaged airship … and began to re-form.
“Oh, sh—” Locke shouted. He couldn’t even bring himself to finish the word this time. He was tired of having reasons to say it, and he bolted for the churning, amorphous flesh of the mimic as it reshaped itself around the Gilt Eagle.
“Why’s it still want the ship?” Ember exclaimed, blasting white-cold bolts of energy at the monster. “There’s not even that much to eat on there now.”
“I think it wants hostages,” Locke replied. He slashed at the purple-grey tissue, to no avail.
“Is it that smart?” Ember shouted.
“I think it is,” Locke breathed.
At that moment, the mimic stopped moving—and then started moving again, all at once, in all directions.
Thick tentacles of flesh exploded out of its every surface like the spines of a Lovecraftian porcupine or sea urchin. Several crashed into Titan Chimera and Titan Long Shot, knocking them back, but they didn’t stop there. They detached, wriggled upon the ground like short, fat, headless snakes, and began to take shape. Where they lacked heads, they sprouted them, and arms, and legs, but not of flesh—of hard Precursor armor shaped conspicuously like … suits of armor.
The mimic had made more mimics, and those mimics were making titans.
Rig-sized titans—half the height of Chimera and Long Shot—but titans all the same, and for a mimic that could produce a gravity furnace, there was no telling what that could entail.
“Alyssa, we need backup down here!” Locke shouted. “We’ve got mimic titans!”
“On it!” Ray replied.
“So are we!” Basilka added, and Locke heard the shouts of the other mercenaries behind her. “Bexley got us all fueled up and fixed as best we can be. We’ll take the little mimics. You two focus on the big one.”
“Got it!” Locke replied, and ran for the big mimic as it, too, began to change.
It was risking no external flesh this time. As it churned and transformed before them, Locke saw spines of purple Precursor crystal begin to punch out of its skin, then smooth into flat, angular plates of armor. Those pieces of armor in turn began to take shape, first as the body of a fiercely angular new airship, as if the mimic had analyzed all the weaknesses of the Gilt Eagle and decided that the best way to fix them was to upgrade them with this obvious boss-level design, which then sprouted a titan-like helmet from its top and plated arms from its sides.
A sickly, flickering, glowing fluid—perhaps a variant of the Precursor goo that had created it—began to flow through pipes, or perhaps veins on its surface, and the titan airship mimic opened its mouth and screamed as it lifted off.
Toward the sinking Blue Heron.
“No! We’ve got to get on that thing!” Locke cried. He was close enough to the mimic that a good punch of his gravity catalysts would thrust him in range of a grip, so he super-jumped—and jammed his fingers between two plates of armor on the side of the airship.
Below, Ember had to get clever, but she did. Locke saw her shape an impromptu stairstep of ice with her energy cannon and vault up the other side, then heard the crackling whooshes of her arm catalysts firing again and again. She must have been making handholds.
Locke looked around desperately to find his own handholds. He freed one hand and tried to punch it into the armor, but the mimic must have found a way to make even stronger Precursor armor, because even his titan-strength fingers wouldn’t go in. He tried his beam saber next, but while it did go in, it didn’t go far enough to hold his weight, and if he had to keep stabbing it into the armor, he wouldn’t go unnoticed. The mimic—which miraculously hadn’t acknowledged him yet—would only have to slap him off with its gigantic titan hands, and that would be that.
But how, then, to reach the top of the airship?
He fired his gravity catalysts again to reduce the creaking strain on his finger joints—
