CHAPTER 20: UNDER THE SKIN OF THE EARTH [3]

DING!

As the wheel spun, Ethan could feel his heart beating rapidly against his chest.

BADUMP! BADUMP!

His eyes were dilated, following the movement of the wheel right until it stopped, and then... the screen updated.

~----~

[Improvisation Draw Activated!]

[Improvised Gear: Null – Chord Spike!]

Tuned vibro-spike that anchors into resonant surfaces and projects a phase-canceling tone. Suppresses hive command within a 9-meter radius for 12 seconds.

~----~

All it took was a quick glance over the improvised gear for Ethan to understand just how lucky he was, and how he could utilize it in this life and death encounter under the skin of the earth.

"Create window," he said, already moving. The others didn’t hesitate.

Reid nodded, took two steps and drew

the Conductor’s attention with a raised guard that looked like invitation. The Conductor dipped its head and pushed a harrowing new chord.

The rail under Ethan’s hand vibrated so hard it numbed his fingers. His teeth sang, but he managed to stay focused on his target, then...

WHOOSH!

He threw the spike like a dagger.

It flew through the air in an arc and hit the floor at the Conductor’s feet and bit, teeth flaring briefly bright as it tuned itself into the right phase-canceling tone.

Then it screamed... it was a quiet tone, private and haunting. A sound that didn’t travel far but ate everything where it reached.

And then...

BZZZ!

The formations broke. The creatures within the radius stuttered, crown-fronds crumpling like wet paper under the influence of the Chord Strike. The Conductor recoiled as if the floor had slammed it in the soles.

"Twelve seconds!" Ethan shouted. "That’s all we have!"

"Make them count," Reid said, and attacked.

The next ten seconds were a study in controlled violence as the team let loose. They held nothing back knowing that their lives was literally on the line, as they tapped into the depths of their special abilities to wreck devastation.

Reid closed the distance rapidly with a few long strides and his blade found seams at the Conductor’s hips, shaving sparks from plates, biting into something softer beneath that bled light instead of blood.

He was quick and brutally accurate with his strikes.

Just behind him, Kara came in from the right in a low, skidding lunge and pinned one of the backward struts to the floor.

Jonas reappeared from below with a sound that wasn’t a laugh and tore a guard-beast in half on the rail, using it as a weapon against another. His raw power was on a whole other level and it showed.

Ethan? He did his thing quietly. He kept the wire singing a lullaby of blood, death, and savage destruction, taking limbs and making lanes with brutal efficiency.

He may not be the strongest, definitely not the most intimidating in the group, but his ways were definitely the most efficient in the group.

Holt’s shots were commas; stop here, pause there, period. It was almost like painting a masterpiece on a canvas. With his uncanny special ability to read environmental signs with extreme precision, he knew where to be and what to do at the right time... always.

While the others went on a brutal rampage with their special abilities, Mira’s wind grew teeth. Hers was a methodical rampage. Underground, the concentration of wind was not much and so she had to improvise to stay useful in battle.

Afterall, her life was literally on the line.

So instead of controlling localized bursts of wind like she normally did, with no ample supply of wind, she became clever. She didn’t shove air, rather, she took it from creatures mid-breath... brutal!

She didn’t even know she could do this with her special ability till now.

The moment she thought of it, she did it. The first creature that she took air from, the poor guy went limp for just long enough to die.

It was brutal. It felt like torture, but it was efficient.

"Sweet," she murmured, somehow finding pleasure in the thrill of this battle after discovering a new facet of her special ability.

At the eleventh second, the Conductor changed tactics. It was intelligent, and it could tell that being stubborn against these enemies and sticking rigidly to old ways would lead to an early death.

And so, it drove a spike of its own into the floor; a spike that was grown from its arm in an instant, a blade that flowered and set and pushed a chord that wasn’t a command but a call.

The air vibrated, then the Null-Chord Spike cracked.

"Down!" Ethan yelled.

The spike shattered at the twelfth second, and all hell broke loose. The hum slammed back like floodwater breaching a dam. Every creature not already dead turned as one.

For a brief second or so, it felt like doomsday.

"Fall!" Reid snapped, and they did without hesitation.

They went down the inner slope of the gallery, sliding on polished chitin into the pit where the light was. Not a retreat, but a vector. The Conductor couldn’t pivot its mantle fast enough to keep the lane closed, and for three heartbeats there was a gap between its will and its geometry.

They took it.

The pit floor was a heart, and this was no metaphor. A thing of muscle and crystal grew there. It was the size of a carriage, beating slow and eerie.

Each beat sent a ripple through everything above; a breath’s worth of lowered gravity. It folded and unfolded; it was a cycle.

Tendrils ran from it up the columns, and through those tendrils the light pulsed, carrying the hum just like blood carries heat. This was the core.

Jonas stared at it with plain hatred. "Tell me I can hit that."

"Hit that!" Reid barked.

The Wheel flared without question. Ethan didn’t even ask.

DING!

~----~

[Improvisation Draw Activated...]

[Improvised Gear: Core – Sunder Charge!]

Adhesive shaped charge tuned to bio-crystal lattice. Destabilizes rhythmic integrity on detonation. 3-second fuse.

~----~

Ethan looked at the new gear on his hand, then...

"Cover!" He shouted and broke into a sprint that felt like sin.