Scott
As we stepped off the elevator, my Com picked up a voice call. "Isaac, thank god you're okay!" Daniels's voice shouted out. "I lost you after...after the fucking swarm of those things attacked you in the centrifuge. To know that you and your friend are still alright, it...I'm... thank god you're still alive."
"We got lucky they attacked us there if I'm being honest," I said, looking over at Millie, who had just leaped into the shop, having paid for a repair on her suit. I looked back at my Com. "But on to more pressing matters, please tell me you found a way into the Engine Chamber. We need to power it on now before it's too late."
"Yes, I managed to break open the ship's Fuel Storage. It'll give you access to the Engine Chamber," Daniels confirms.
"Alright, and how's Hammond and Johnson?" I asked, worried that we had lost him. After finding Millie and saving the pilot from the ship exploding, I found a little hope that I could do the favor of getting them off this hell ship before bailing for greener pastures.
"Shooken but still breathing and looking sane if that's what you mean," Daniles answered. "I'll keep an eye on them, so just focus on giving us time to get out of here." With that, she cut the call, and Millie climbed out of the shop with a fresh suit and what seemed to be a couple of boxes of ammo. As she walked over, she tossed me a few packs of Plasma batteries, giving me something to work with again.
"Thanks, come on, we got an opening to the engine proper, and with just enough time to actually turn it on before the ship drops to the point of no return," I say as we both walk and reload our respective weapons.
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The next few rooms go by easily as my theory of the marker throwing most of the fodder at us likely cleared up any necro near engines at this point. The first room was a simple heat ventilation walkway that took a stasis pulse to pause a fan blade, allowing me to repower the door to the fuel storage. Then we accessed a smaller, if noisier, room that held a pulsating flesh wall that blocked our path. Thankfully, there was a glowing bulge that I shot without stopping; internally cheerful, another game-like mechanic was real in this world. "Ew," Millie said as we watched the flesh shake and wither away from the door, allowing me to open it to show a hallway clogged with more biomaterial. "Oh, it got worse, it got so much worse," she commented again as we walked into the room. Our boots softened as the flesh-covered floor absorbed the impact.
"Yeah, that's what the marker actually does," I said as I leaned down and grabbed the flamer on the ground. Checking the fuel tank and testing the spray for a second, I handed it off to Millie, who was happy to have another new weapon. She didn't have a pocket space, so she gave me the pulse rifle to put away for now. I wanted the points for using the plasma cutter, but after the swarm...I'd take living through this, then a ten-credit achievement. Still, I kept it away for now, as I wasn't desperate yet. I quickly showed her how to load and shoot the thing before we both took a breath and then started to slide our way through the clogged hallway of flesh.
"Ew, ugh, nmgh," Millie mumbled as we slid through the slimy and pulsating walls. I didn't comment, as while this was worse, I did have a job with the city sewage for a small stint. Back then, all we had was a reflective vest and the strength to grow a stronger stomach as we walked through sewage drains. The fact that I have on a fully insulated suit this time around, well, it's still worse but also better. Eventually, we pulled ourselves far enough for me to see another glowing boil of a weak spot and fired at it. It popped, and soon the flesh around us pulled away as it died off, allowing us to really move again. "Oh, thank god, I was gonna, Ugh, gonna hurl into my helmet if we kept going." I looked down at the Imp to see her shaking off slime as her body convulsed in the telltale signs of dry heaving.
I held back a chuckle as she started to drag her hands over her exposed horns, realising they were covered in slime and doing a little gross dance as she shook off the slime by rapidly dragging her gloved hands over both horns. "Oh, it's in the groves of my horns, I just know it!" she whined as her gloves made it impossible to swipe away the slime that was trapped between said ridges.
"Didn't you grow up on a farm?" I asked the imp as she kept trying to wipe away more slime.
"Yeah, but I didn't rub myself with Hellhorn shit," Millie said before giving up her futile effort with her gloves and simply pointing the burner up and pulling the trigger.
"I've literally seen you smile as blood covered you after killing someone," I said, remembering how blood-soaked her animated show was.
"A murder fuge is one hell of a dopamine hit, baby, also an aphrodisiac," she commented as the weapon inflamed both black appendages, burning away the slime, but not leaving any damage to them whatsoever. "Oh, that's so much better," Millie said, cutting off the hose and walking forward past me.
"Ah, so fucking on the corpse of someone we just killed is going to be a thing, huh?" I asked, following the imp as we made it to a three-level open room. It was filled with more flesh walls and flooring, something that Millie shivered about instinctively. Still, she turned to me, and I felt her grin behind the mask.
"Hon, fucking you just about anywhere is going to be happening, but yes, fucking me on the remains of our enemies is going to be a thing," she said before glaring at the walls of flesh. "Now, back to how we can find enough fuel to burn this all away." I chuckled before moving to a nearby storage room for supplies and then immediately flung myself back as a few rat-sized necro flung themselves at me. "Scott!" Millie shouted as she ran over and helped me pull off the biting little shits, both of us crushing them before flinging them away.
"Shit, forgot about the fat fucker in this room," I said, pulling off the final flesh rat and killing it before getting back to my feet. "Guess he was told to stay put instead of running through the rooms to get to us."
"Should I be worried?" she asked, and I pointed at her flamer.
"No, that is going to keep these little shits off you and me, especially because I just remembered that I'm now immune to fire with the environmental immunity, much like your hellspawn self is," I said, checking my gun and walking into the storage room again.
"What about your suit? I don't think it would take the heat well," Millie questioned, and I shook my head.
"Suit be damned, one of those things nearly bit into my nutsack just now." I could hear Millie giggle at that.
"Aaww, now that won't do, that's my job," she said as I could hear the sound of her teeth clicking against one another. I shivered at the thought of her razor-sharp chompers nipping at my jewels and didn't find it a complete turn-off. Don't get me wrong, I was definitely still scared of the danger, but somehow the danger made me interested.
"Huh, so that's what scaroused feels like," I softly said as I grabbed some ammo from a container. I blushed as Millie still heard me enough to giggle while clicking her teeth a few more times.
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Pushing through the room showed a lot more of the little necro rats than there were in the game, even ruined a scene on the second floor where a nearly dead crew member was supposed to spring back to life in a babbling mess. Instead, we just walk in on a swarm of rat necro eating his body before they tried to lunge at us. Millie's new toy sprayed them down, and we looted and moved down to the bottom floor. There, Millie really wasted fuel as we came upon the fat necro literally eating a part of the flesh wall to produce as many as it could, before I fired a shot of plasma and blew the thing apart. Which did spawn a few more rat necro, but what was ten more to a swarm of hundreds. Thankfully, Millie had enough fuel to clear out the room before pulling out the ripper after the last few rat necro burned away. "That was not a good sign," I grumbled as I fired off a few shots to open up a few doors covered by flesh.
"Yeah, we might need to splurge and buy some extra fuel from the shop," Millie chimed in as she waited for me to clear out a final few places for storage.
"Yeah, and I'm upgrading it first thing too," I said while firing out a shot of stasis to stop the massive door that was malfunctioning. "Good news seems to be that they need extra biomatter to make them to this degree. So if you see a room made of flesh..."
"Burn it to the ground, way ahead of you on that one, hon," Millie answered as we walked through the slowed door and down the hallway to the engine room. It was another massive room, one that only held a fat necro whom I tested my accuracy on, earning a dead necro, without its belly bursting.
"Good, and no flesh means no swarm," I said as I walked over to see that the battery sat exactly where it was in the game, and easily inserted it into the system. I paused while flicking my gun left and right to see if anything would jump out, but only the thump of the engine rang out.
"And no ambush to boot," Millie said next to me, her ripper waving to the opening in the floor and ceiling. I nodded and walked over to the system screen. With a simple push, I restarted the engine and felt the ship rumble as it did. Again, both Millie and I waved our weapons to see if anything would pop out, and just found ourselves looking paranoid. Sighing in some relief, both of us walked out of the engine room and headed for the tram station now that the engine was online. As we did, I got a call that made me more relaxed.
"Scott, you did it. The Ishimura's moving again." Hammond said as his face popped up. He looked ragged but still showed himself to be sane as I watched his eyes. I nodded as we walked.
"Yep, thought it nearly didn't happen," I said, and Hammond nodded.
"I know, Daniels showed me the video, Scott... you're one hell of an engineer," Hammond said with genuine respect. He moved on fast, though, as he looked off-screen. "Autopilots' taking us into geostationary orbit..."
"Wait," Daniels said, cutting off Hammond. "You're flying us through the planet crack debris?"
"That's what the Asteroid Defense System is for," Hammond answered as he continued to work on something off-screen.
"But the ADS is offline! I've got the system readouts here," Daniels said, looking alarmed.
"Hammond, the Ishimura's in rough shape," I said, Issacs's skills coming into play to help guide my lips. "A couple of bad strikes could finish her off."
"That's what she said." Millie softly said with a giggle next to me. I shook in a silent chuckle, thankful my suit's mask hid my face. Hammond looked pissed as he stopped what he was doing.
"Shit, Daniels, give me all the data you have, I'll try to adjust course," He finally answered before looking back at me. "Scott, take the tram from Engineering. Meet me on the Bridge, I'll lift the station lockdown. We need to work on this together." I nodded, and the call cut off right when we made it back to the engine main control room. Millie ran over to the shop and bought as much flamer fuel as she could without draining us of cash, as I walked over to the controls to double-check everything was working correctly. I saw we didn't have that much fuel left, but that didn't really matter in the long run. Millie finished fast, and both of us left for the tram.
As we got there and called it over, we greeted Johnson, who looked just as ragged as Hammon. "Hey girl, everything okay?" Millie asked the pilot, who visibly flinched.
"Uh, yeah, just feeling a little cooped up," Johnston said, never really looking away from Millie even as I moved to the controls and sent us to the bridge. "You guys fix the engines?" she asked as I really looked at her eyes. They were near pinpricks and shaky.
"Yep, but now we might be in danger of the planet's debris, so we're heading over to Hammond. Might be a good idea if you come along, someone to talk to," I said, making her flick her eyes to me before still looking at Millie.
"Uh, no, no, I think being in here is probably the safest place. Let me move away from danger even" Johnston answered. "Hey, umm, I never asked, but the horns coming out of your helmet..." the pilot said, looking at the two appendages. Millie grabbed onto her horns and giggled.
"Oh, these? Just something I added to keep the monsters at bay when they try to bite at me," Millie answered, her lines easy-going as we had come up with them even before Johnston woke up on the tram. Johnston nodded with a smile, a soft "Smart" leaving her lips, but never reached her eyes. I sighed while looking over at the tram camera without moving my head. I could tell Johnston was at the brink, likely remembering Millie's true appearance, which the marker was absolutely warping to an extreme degree. I also caught the small smear of blood that she had wiped from her nose. I looked over to Millie, who seemed to have the same idea as me, before we both just sat in silence with Johnston.
"Now arriving at the Bridge," the tram sounded out, and both Millie and I got up.
"Hey, umm," Johnston said while looking at both of our guns. "Could I get one of those from you?" she asked. I looked to her and then to Millie, who looked back at me again, before looking back at Johnston.
"No, just stay put and will find a way out before you know it," I said before walking out with Millie. I looked back to see the twitch and sneer Johnston gave us as the tram door closed. "Well, she's gone," I said, walking to the door that led to the bridge.
"Yep, think she might sabotage the tram?" Millie asked as we walked through the hallway.
"If she could, then yes, but I made sure I had remote access well before we saved her," I said as I eyed a specific glass window pane that was down the hall. It was right above a dead body.
"Do you think it would be a good idea to buy the pocket apartment so we could dump her off in a less mind fucky place?" Millie offered up.
"No, not now at least," I said, tensing as we got closer to the spot. "Dropping her off is a bad idea, as she might just fully freak out and go completely insane. To save her now would require stamping her and holding her for three days straight."
"Which would just end up with you selling her, I'd assume?" Millie asked, and I nodded. "Well, sucks to suck, I guess, not like saving everyone was your plan in the first place, right?" Again, I nodded before holding Millie back as a massive arm slammed through a glass window right in front of us.
"FUCK!" Millie said about to send out a ripper blade, only for me to stall her. She paused as the arm flailed around for a moment, trying to grab one of us, before pulling back through the reinforced window. As it did, I pulled out an explosive tank I stored in my pocket space from the engine room proper. Something that I should have been doing from the start, as it would have helped a fuck ton with the swarm, but I'm chalking it up as game mechanics still hardwiring my brain to say that they couldn't be easily carried. So now I had five on me at all times going forward.
I waited as, sure enough, the massive Necro that just tried to grab us shoved its mouth out of the hole to try and bite us. Instead of flesh, it had received a cylinder of volatile chemicals. I grabbed Millie and leaped backwards, just as the thing bit down hard enough to crack the tank, and set off the explosive. A loud boom and thump of pressure hit us, sending us skidding down the hall before screeching to a stop.
I hissed at the slight pain in my back from the quick dodge as I pulled myself up from the ground. Millie had been cushioned by my body, thankfully, as she sprang up to point her ripper at the smoke-filled part of the hallway. I joined her soon after with my plasma cutter as the smoke started to clear. When it did, we saw what seemed to be the lower half of the Massive Necro, slumped on the ground and dead to the world. "And that is a boss battle skipped", I said as I dropped my gun with a smile.