As the mogwai continued to close the distance at an eye-wateringly fast pace, Mai somewhat regretted her hubris. She’d never seen so many different body types on mogwais before.

“Andries would have loved this,” she muttered to Fat John, giving him a sideways glance to make sure he was still with her. Considering how quickly he’d moved just minutes before, she wanted to make sure she wasn’t making a desperate last stand on her own.

“Too damned right. Always one for skilling up whilst helping out the sewer companies,” Fat John even managed a chuckle as the distance between them and their enemies closed.

“What the Hells have you done!” It was the leader of the urbexers, she stood white-knuckled to Mai’s left. The rest of her party were spread out in a line to the left, looking just as nervous as Mai was starting to feel.

The mogwai she’d killed with the mines had been either an advance party, or the fastest runners, which was why there was such a distance between them and the rest of the horde.

Howls filled the sewers as dozens of paces dwindled to a mere handful. Mai roared back, unable to control the urge, giving voice to her fear and rage. These creatures had taken her first true friend. The one person she’d been able to trust entirely with her life.

With a thought she formed a shield on her left arm, choosing one with vicious spikes more for the look than anything else. Her right arm changed into a shotgun.

BIOMASS – 80%

Ten per cent for a shield and a shotgun filled with DRAGON’S BREATH rounds was a price she was more than willing to pay. She added the pain of forming the weapons out of her own body to her roaring challenge.

The mogwai were so close that she could see gloopy, poisonous saliva dripping from their finger- sometimes even hand-length fangs. Bracing her shoulder into her shield, she slid her right foot behind and slightly to the outside of herself, raised the shotgun, activated her skills and fired in one smooth motion.

INSTAKILL!

BOUNTY! 50 UC!

MOGWAI TITLE HERE

Her shell took the mogwai straight down the throat, flames leaping out of its eye sockets as the body tumbled to the floor bare paces away from her, sliding to a stop as flames and smoke started to pour out of the length of its corpse.

Not that she paid it any attention, as soon as the notification had popped up on her retinal monitor she was shifting aim. One of its brood tripped on the corpse, giving itself a STAGGERED glyph.

With USE SHOTGUN, TUNNEL FIGHTER and SEWER COMBAT active, she had any number of hit and critical hit boxes to aim for. A mere twitch of the barrel, a thought, and the DRAGON’S BREATH shell bathed it in fire.

CRITICAL HIT! 50%

BURNING @25% PER SECOND

PANIC!

Squealing, her target started thrashing about in its death throes, its attempt to hold onto life for a few precious seconds only serving to hamper its brethren. Flames sprang up on mogwai to its flanks and her retinal monitor filled with notifications.

BURNING! @5% PER SECOND

PANIC!

BURNING @3% PER SECOND

PANIC!

She ignored them, switching her aim towards a red and white striped mogwai. It had two normal arms, and a third which sprouted somewhere from its back. Much longer, the three-clawed hand at the end of arm was just reaching for Fat John when she fired.

CRITICAL HIT! 45%

BURNING @15% PER SECOND

PANIC!

“Hel..!” Fat John was blasted off his feet by the screeching mogwai. Mai started to turn, an instinctive action, and one she regretted an instant later.

SOAK! 95%

DAMAGE! 1%

HIT! 5%

[email protected]% PER SECOND

She’d never been hit with a sledgehammer, thankfully, but was pretty certain she knew what it felt like as she was buried under one of the worst-smelling creatures she’d ever had the displeasure of fighting.

Its smell filled her nostrils, a mixture of rotten flesh, excrement and something sweet that she couldn’t quite put her mind on. Not that she was trying to work out what it smelt like, but the smell was so pervasive it dominated. It was as if it was an attack all by itself.

Shotgun arm trapped under one of the creature’s many legs, shield pressing down on her, Mai felt utterly helpless as her chest started to compress under the creature’s weight. With each breath she found herself unable to fill her lungs properly less and less.

“Help!” she managed to gasp, voice muffled by the folds of saggy skin threatening to suffocate her.

KILL!

BOUNTY! 50UC

MOGWAI TITLE HERE

Ribs creaking, she tried to push her shield up arm. Even a fraction of a finger’s width would allow her to draw a full breath. It was made all the harder by the mogwai on top of her as it tried to pull itself from the shield’s barbed spikes.

HIT! 2%

BLEED @1% PER SECOND

HIT! 3%

BLEED @1% PER SECOND

DAMAGE! 2%

CRUSH!

The mogwai was now bleeding at three per cent per second. Her shield had done ten per cent damage. With ninety per cent of the mogwai’s health remaining, she didn’t have thirty seconds in her.

“Gah!” she pushed with all of her might, losing precious oxygen as she screamed with the effort. For a moment of time too small to measure she gained breathing space. Literal breathing space.

Strength gone, she lost the battle and the mogwai crashed back down onto her.

DAMAGE! 5%

CRUSH!

Something deep inside her popped. It didn’t hurt, but it felt inherently wrong, wet even.

Gods! I’ve got to get out from under this damned thing!

Changing the shotgun to another weapon wouldn’t work as no matter which one she chose her arm would still be pinned, and the barrel would still be pointing in the wrong direction. Even if she chose a bladed weapon she wouldn’t be able to use that.

For a brief moment she considered creating an explosive charge, going out with a bang. As her breath was slowly driven out of her body the idea of taking her killer with her had some appeal.

But if I die, I’ll never get home to Li! And she’d promised herself and her sister that she would live. That, and she’d never get to tell the Celestial Court to go fuck itself.

HIT! 1%

BLEED @2% PER SECOND

HIT! 2%

BLEED @2% PER SECOND

Every time the mogwai tried to free itself from her barbed shield, it forced her ribs closer to her back bone. Stars burst into life before her eyes as her tortured lungs desperately cried out for air.

PANIC!

Another needless notification. She could feel the fear flooding through her body.

I’ve got to get away! It was only natural that she wanted to flee the awful fate awaiting her, but the negative effect of PANIC! Only served to make that fear many times more powerful. And with it, came renewed strength.

Barely a whisper of air escaped her mouth as she twisted, bucked and pushed with every fibre of her being. A gap opened and she took a whooping, wheezing, lungful of air. A moment of clarity, her oxygen starved brain finally able to operate properly, even if for only a split second.

DIRTY BOXING and UNARMED COMBAT activated before she even realised she’d thought of it. Bucking her left hip, whilst dipping her right shoulder she was able to dislodge the mogwai.

Pain filled her shotgun arm as bone grated on bone, and then it was free. Bending her arm she jammed the barrel into the mogwai’s side and fired.

CRITICAL HIT! 76%

BURNING! @30% PER SECOND

PANIC!

KILL!

BOUNTY! 50UC

The notifications came too quickly for her still starved brain to parse. As the PANIC! notification popped up, the mogwai twisted itself off of her battered body, its squeal of pain ear-piercing.

“Want a hand?”

Shaking her head to clear it of the fugue being slowly crushed to death had caused, Mai looked up at Fat John. Patches of skin hung from his face, whilst wisps of smoke rose from what remained of his hair.

Grasping hold of the hand he offered her, she allowed herself to be hauled to her feet.

“Thanks for that, where the fuck were you!” she snarled, raising her shotgun to blast at another mogwai. Still unable to see clearly, she missed, the roaring fire burning itself out after only a few paces.

“Burning, clearly,” he snapped, and she winced. A quick glance at her retinal monitor clock showed that mere seconds had passed whilst she was under the mogwai. Mere seconds which had felt like a lifetime to her.

Battle raged all around her. With Mai and Fat John taken out of the line, it had collapsed, the urbexers folding in upon themselves, forming a tight circle. As it stood, she and Fat John were technically behind enemy lines as the Brood tried to swamp the low-level humans.

“Ready to get back at it?” Mai surprised herself by grinning at Fat John as she spoke. No matter how close to death she had been, she was alive, and she was with a man she liked and respected.

“Just try and fucking stop me.”