How to Kill a Dragon
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The Sexy Scarab's tracks rolled across the planes of Victor-Zulu, staying low between the gentle, dry grass hills. Low sunlight, filtered diffusely orange through a dust cloud zones away, penetrated the tank-van's windows.
Solstice was up top with the commander's zapper rifle, since they'd come across the occasional Wasp. Pax was reloading the cluster blaze launchers from inside. Axil laid on the crescent sofa, ass pointing into the space and plugged with the pink replica of Bautista's hand. Occasionally he spasmed as the c-collar forcibly unloaded, otherwise focused on bug detection.
Bautista sighed. "Anything?"
"Picked up a Roach, I think, sir," the psycho said. "Just a blip. Passed like a cumshot."
"Either this entrance goes deeper than my fist or doc sent us to the dud location. Riders are gonna beat us to the ass-punch."
Pax huffed a laugh. "They'll wait for us. If just'ta rub it in."
"Drone is picking up terrain fuckery," Ferryn reported. "Forty degree left."
Bautista course corrected and Axil jolted.
"I- Sir, there's something. Lotsa somethings."
The commander's grin was reflected on the canopy. "Suck my fist, Quillen. We got this."
It was an unassuming hill. You had to get up close to see the irregularities. Too much vegetation, draped over the place, hiding a hole in the side of the hill, the size of a house, invisible from above. They looked at it through the drone's eyes while Bautista reported over sat-com to Wolfram.
They had free reign to wait around, return... or investigate.
Bautista drove them closer, everybody but the bound Axil outside on the hull. The roof hatch remained open.
"Could at least clear the entrance," Solstice proposed. "Rip off that camouflage."
"That's gonna alert them, I bet," Pax said. "Can do, though. Either we go slow like fisting a virgin or we rush by like a cumshot. Waddya say, sir?"
"We dip in deeper," Bautista decided. "Open'em up for an assault. Oasis can organize something, or we get the gang from Haven over here. Get the splasher ready."
With everybody in position, Bautista drove the Scarab up to the entrance in the hill and let the battle wagon's main gun charge. The Ripper's white beam scorched the hole in the ground clean, burning shrubbery falling away from a gateway big enough to fit the vehicle with ease.
"Parting like pussy lips for a freedick," Bautista said. "Psycho, what's happening?"
"Nothing, sir." Axil had handcuffed himself to a pipe in case of possession. "There's some movement deep down, almost out of my range. They don't give a fuck."
"Is it possible they... didn't hear us?" Pax asked.
"We go in," the commander decided, "far as this baby's gonna drive, mark out an area, bail."
The Sexy Scarab entered the seemingly abandoned tunnel.
Everybody pulled their bandanas up, secured to their face. Bug motes no bigger than earthly insects hung in the air, ready to infect victims who inhaled them. Solstice mounted the blaze launcher on his shoulder pads. Pax started tossing glow splash -- light sticks that popped on impact, painting the packed earth in luminous neon splotches with an inner light.
The tunnel naturally had to be wide enough to accommodate bugs bigger than the Scarab but the slope was also gentle enough the tank tracks had an easy time descending.
Pax tossed splashers into the side tunnels that were only man-sized or even smaller, the neon paint staying behind the battle wagon's front-light glare.
"S-something is-" Axil started. "Sir, they're moving. All at once."
"Trap?" Bautista asked. "Who's coming?"
"Roaches, Wasps, everything. Fuck."
Bautista brought the vessel to a jerking halt. "Turing around. Get ready, boys. What do we do?!"
Axil wiggled free from his pipe but stayed cuffed. He climbed the ladder to the top.
Pax, Solstice and Ferryn put their hands together. Solstice shoved his foot into Axil's face as the teen's head poked above the hatch.
"Fuck up bugs! Fuck up bugs! Fuck up bugs! Hoo hooo hoooooo!"
Pax sat on the mass driver's Helping Hands like he was a broom-riding witch, the green fist poking out between his legs. He turned the gun along its swiveling platform one-handed, the other holding the zapper.
Axil struggled to the top with the commander's zapper rifle on a strap. He wore his beige bandana.
Ferryn was on the right Q-pulser, Solstice had squeezed into the left one with his launcher still hanging off him. The swarm poured from every tunnel. Axil kicked the top hatch shut to keep their driver safe.
Killing fog rolled from the Sexy Scarab, diffusing the neon splotches. Auto zapper fire sent flashing lights along the tunnel walls.
Axil went down as his c-collar unloaded. His ass was still gaping from the dropped fist plug.
Purple Q-energy and green blaze fire kept the enemy at bay as the Scarab drove in reverse, not able to turn around in the available space.
Roaches dropped from a passage above. The distorted human faces and limbs were shredded under Pax' zapper blasts, their insect-parts detonating with brown liquid. Weevils battered the fighters. Even as the repellent neurotoxin on the zoners' skin incapacitated the bugs on contact, the man had to be careful not to touch the serrated pincers and legs.
"F-fuck," Axil said and reached for the com in the roof console. "Sir, Worm. Worm from behind. They're cutting us off."
The Sexy Scarab jerked to a halt again and the titanic maggot broke through a side shaft not quite large enough for it.
Bautista had no choice but to floor it. Unable to turn the front mounter Ripper to the Worm, they had to rely on lesser guns to tear chunks out of the creature.
Axil was on one knee, firing the large zapper blindly. Pax pushed him down between spiky domes so he could shoot the mass driver over the psycho.
As Axil spasmed under a shock again, the gunner took the rifle. "Gimmi that, boy. Glow duty. Toss sticks."
The rifle was made for two hands but Pax was able to one-hand it as long as he mostly kept it pointed up to the shafts Roaches dropped from. The other hand was still firing the mass driver's bullets to the Worm chasing them.
They won eventually, leaving the tattered maggot behind. Even before the warriors were out of sight, other bugs started tearing the Worm apart.
"From the front!" Axil yelled into the com.
A Worm erupted from the ceiling ahead, causing a minor cave in. But the tunnels were getting higher and wider. The Ripper phaser cast pure white against the foggy darkness and the massive bug turned to smoldering flesh.
The Sexy Scarab rammed through the remains, Axil tossing splotches at the writhing corpse to add to their trail of light.
"Is it safe to turn?" Bautista asked.
"N-" Axil arched under shocks. "Ugh ugh ugh, fuck. Sir-no-sir. More Worms from behind." Walls gave way to two of the beasts clogging the way back. More Weevils streamed into the killing fog and fought drowsily up the exterior, across the corpses of their brethren clogging up the hull's spikes.
"The bitches are bringing us in deeper," Ferry said.
"I think I can sense a Dragonfly." Axil rose to his knees, eyes wide. "Not much deeper."
"No choice," Bautista said and continued to race as fast as the environment allowed.
Tossing blaze clusters ahead of itself, the battle wagon rattled through a sea of Flea. Bug corpses on fire rose beside them like a parting wave.
Hornets dropped from ceiling shafts. The tunnel was now high enough for them to stay at a spear's distance, improvised weapons supplementing their jagged tentacles and thorny arms.
The flying mutant hybrids were hard to kill. The mass driver couldn't shoot straight up. Pax two-handed the zapper rifle but that left him unsteady on his legs. He dropped to his knees. Axil was on all fours next to him, breathing hard but not moving. Frozen in shock? Beginning possession?
Pax took a second to click the psycho's cuffs shut behind the teen's back, letting him semi-gently faceplant. It almost gave a Hornet enough time to come down on him.
"Dragonnguaaa-" Axil said before he got c-collar wrecked.
The Ripper phaser blinded Pax as it hit something up ahead and the commander hit the brakes.
Bautista yelled into the com. "Get down! Get down."
Pax threw himself over Axil.
The vehicle broke through a membrane of dirt and bug-goo, its remnants flapping over the speeding battle wagon, washing over the fighters.
They entered a cavern, high and wide enough it could have fit a Sanctuary city block. It was faintly illuminated by bright blood flowing through the veins of tissue that seemed to wrap around everything. The tissue rose in pillars like meat skyscrapers. The caverns stretched on, the flesh city getting lost in dimness.
A brood hallow.
The Sexy Scarab slithered to a halt over five seconds, metal creaking at its breaking point.
Wings unfolded. Pearlescent, shimmering with inner light.
Each of the irregular, flowy wings could have covered a superflashball field. Unwrapping itself from an organic-pillar, the Dragonfly opened itself, its dark central body extending to a tail of squashed and contorted human heads below and a small, pincer-clad head above.
A second one unfolded behind the first. A third farther back yet.
Pax' heart beat calmed near instantly as his breath slowed at their sight.
Angels of peace! They would bring about harmony. Everyone working for a greater purpose. It was time to rejoice, to love, to-
Axil's hand landed on Pax' shoulder and the gunner groped for his zapper rifle. Fuck fuck fuck. Where had he dropped it? He had to kill those wing-flapping mancunts.
