Plans made, she watched as her skills went passive. There was no way that she was going to take on a nest of hatchlings and their not-so-distant mother without every skill she had ready to go.

Absorbing the grenade launcher, she ignored the flare of pain.

“John, I’m going to have to wait until my skills have cooled down. Once they’re back up, I’m coming in with silenced SMGs. All guns blazing. When I do, I need you to keep an eye out for momma.”

“Yeah, got that,” he gasped. “I’m all out of BIO-MASS. Bitch really did a number on me when she first took me. Broke a stack of bones and tore a load of muscles. Took all the BIO-MASS I had to get some healing done. I’m … I’m still not in a good shape.”

Her stomach dried at the pain in his voice, he’d managed to mask it before, but now that rescue was in sight, his guard had come down.

“Let me worry about that,” she kept her tone calm, no hint of the worry she had for him. “I’ve got a nearly full bottle of BIO-MASS. As soon as these little buggers are dead, I’ll cut you down, you can top up and then we’ll run like crazy before momma gets back.”

I hope she thought but didn’t add. Fat John was an experienced mogwai fighter. He knew the score, and that there was little chance they would get away before the brood mother returned. No matter what, they were going to have a fight on their hands.

It seemed as though time slowed whilst she waited for her skills to become ready again. Finally, they left cooldown, the countdown entering zero.

By absorbing the grenade launcher and all of its ammunition, she’d regained the BIO-MASS she’d spent on it, so had plenty to make the twin SMGs. She wasn’t planning on fighting these creatures hand-to-hand like she had before.

Time was of the utmost essence, and a hail of bullets was the best way to turn the hatchlings into just so many piles of dead meat.

A fair fight is where I get to walk away, she thought as she formed the SMGs, paying an additional two per cent BIO-MASS for the suppressors. They changed the balance of the weapons somewhat, and she knew that she would tire quite quickly if she was using them in a protracted battle, but since this was going to be – hopefully – quick and dirty, she wasn’t too bothered.

The SMGs cost three per cent each, four with the suppressors, and she went with two magazines of explosive ammunition. That cost six per magazine, bringing the total for the weapons to twenty per cent BIO-MASS.

More than enough to kill these little shits, heal myself a little bit, and switch to the grenade launcher if I need to.

She’d chosen explosive rounds because of the horrendous damage they would do. Each one had a five per cent chance of a critical hit. On top of that they caused BLEED, STAGGERED, and SUPPRESSED.

And, even though they were explosive, they weren’t explosive in the way grenades were. Mass-reactive, the bullets entered the target and then detonated, the target’s body mass reducing the sound of the explosion to little more than a sharp crack. If that.

“John, get ready,” she activated SEWER COMBAT, TUNNEL FIGHTER, and USE SMG.

Target boxes appeared. With the hatchlings focussing solely upon Fat John as he dangled above them, she was offered much higher chances to hit, as well as much higher chances at a critical hit.

Just in case, she added STEALTH to her active skills. Weapons raised, reticles pointed at the base of the skulls of two of the hatchlings she moved forward. Barely daring to breathe, she waited until she was no more than five paces away from the hideous creatures then fired.

HEAD SHOT!

INSTAKILL!

MOGWAI BANE 25%

BOUNTY 50UC!

HEAD SHOT!

INSTAKILL!

MOGWAI BANE 30%

BOUNTY! 50 UC!

Her SMGs were whisper quiet, the explosive bullets making barely any noise as they detonated inside the hatchling’s skulls. Bone and brain matter showered in all directions, their bodies dropping limply to the floor, dead before they knew it.

Mai twisted, shifting aim as quickly as she could, trying to fire before the other hatchlings had the chance to realise they were under attack. She fired, aiming for the heart of one, and the head of another.

HEAD SHOT!

INSTAKILL!

MOGWAI BANE 35%

BOUNTY! 50 UC!

HIT! 50%

BLEED! @10% PER SECOND

PANIC!

Glyphs sprung into life above the wounded hatchling as it let out a blood-curdling scream of agony. Even as Mai fired it seemed to grow louder, as if the echo was louder than the original scream.

“Oh shit,” whispered John’s voice in her ear. “Momma’s coming back.”

Mai abandoned all attempts at subtlety. Switching her SMGs to fully automatic she aimed at the remaining two hatchlings.

Both were facing her, bellies low to the ground, maws opened wide. No matter that they were considered to be babies, they were still utterly terrifying to behold.

One had eyes like those on a fly, only it had four sets. Tentacles writhed from its flanks, large tooth-filled suckers lining it.

The other one, slightly nearer than its sibling, had a ridge of spikes along its spine, with partially-formed scales of thick armour growing down from its back. It too had more than the usual number of eyes. It seemed as though its whole skull was taken up with them. None of them blinked at the same time, but in rapid succession which utterly repulsed her.

“Two hundred paces! I can see the bitch!” John shouted, his voice nearly deafening her as he hadn’t remembered to close the comms channel.

It made her jump, throwing off her aim just as she fired. Bullets ploughed into both of the hatchlings, but instead of hitting the critical boxes she’d been aiming at, they chewed into non-vital areas.

Blood and flesh puffed out as the bullets exploded, the hatchlings screaming in agony, the one with the fly-like eyes even biting at where it had been injured. Mai cursed, but kept firing, adjusting her aim, using the explosive effect of the bullets to bore into the hatchlings before they had a chance to defend themselves.

BLEED, STAGGERED, PANIC and SUPPRESSED glyphs appeared above their heads as their health bars rapidly went from green to black. Hit notifications, too many to account, filled her retinal monitor as she reduced the creatures to nothing more than steaming piles of meat.

KILL!

MOGWAI BANE 40%

BOUNTY! 50 UC!

KILL!

MOGWAI BANE 45%

BOUNTY! 50 UC!

KILL!

MOGWAI BANE 50%

BOUNTY! 50 UC!

That third kill was from the one she had wounded earlier, some of the bullets aimed at its siblings striking it, adding to the already disastrous amount of blood it was already losing.

“One hundred paces!” warned Fat John.

Mai absorbed the now-empty SMGs, accepting the twelve per cent BIO-MASS loss. Forming a knife, she activated FREE RUNNING and charged at John, leaping and swiping at the fibrous mass holding him in the air.

They both fell to the ground simultaneously. Him with a groan of pain, her on her feet in a hero pose.

Pulling her BIO-MASS boost bottle from her belt she took enough swigs to get her back to one hundred per cent before forming the grenade launcher, grimacing at the now familiar pain. Another couple of swigs and she was back to one hundred per cent.

“Here,” she tossed the bottle to Fat John. “Drink, heal, fight.”

The Brood Mother screeched again. It was no more than thirty paces away. Mai activated her Use Grenade Launcher skill. She only had the base score of twenty per cent, but it was more than enough.

Not as though I’m trying to squeeze it through the eye of a needle, she thought as she laid the area of effect just in front of the mogwai. The grenades the launcher fired were much larger, heavier, and therefore slower than normal bullets, meaning that if she wanted to do the maximum amount of damage possible, she would have to aim at where the mogwai was going to be, and not where it was.

The Brood Mother was huge. Not as big as the Ushi-Oni, but still much larger than she would have liked. Her mouth dried at the thought of having to face the creature in close-combat, even with Fat John by her side.

Even as the thought of the Ushi-Oni flashed across her mind, she realised that the mogwai slightly resembled one. It too was spider-like, but instead of one head it had two canine-like heads. The screeches coming from its mouths were nothing like that of a dog however. More like sharp nails being dragged down a chalkboard.

She fired three grenades in quick succession, each one slightly closer than the other, but with the areas of effect overlapping so that the mogwai would be hit.

There was a slight pause as they flew towards their target, then a ripple of explosions.

HIT! 30%

HIT! 25%

HIT! 20%

BLEED!

SUPPRESSED!

INTIMIDATED!

CRIPPLED!

One of the mogwai’s legs had been reduced to nothing more than strings of flesh and sinew. Still galloping towards them, the mogwai tried to place its weight down on the shattered limb. With a howl of pain it lost its balance, crashing into the ground, its momentum causing it to continue sliding towards them.

“My turn,” Fat John laid a hand on Mai’s grenade launcher barrel. Stepping forward, he guided her behind him as the creature continued to slide towards them so quickly Mai thought it would just plough through if they didn’t move.

A glow appeared around his hands. Then, when the mogwai couldn’t have been more than five paces from them, Fat John stamped forward with a great shout. A blast of energy shot from him and the mogwai ceased to exist, the force of his attack blasting it into a shower of gore and red mist.

Silence filled the sewer, broken only by the sound of their breathing and, Mai was sure, the hammering of her heart.

“I think it’s time we got out of there. Don’t you agree?” Fat John took a stunned Mai by the arm and gently guided her away from the battle.