The door to the third floor burst open to the sound of a blaring fire alarm, a deafening, rhythmic klaxon that echoed down a hallway flickering between emergency red and stark white light. The air was hazy with chemical smoke. Leo had left the psychological warfare of the Night-Stalker behind and entered a full-blown warzone.
He was in the main diagnostic wing. To his left was a row of labs. To his right, the hallway led towards the patient recovery wards—and Sarah. But the path was blocked.
Skitterers. At least two dozen of them.
They were swarming over something in the middle of the hall: the broken, smoking chassis of an MRI machine that had been dragged out of a room. Chunks of its metal casing had been torn away, exposing the complex wiring and superconducting magnets within. The creatures weren't eating it; they were nesting in it, the powerful magnetic fields and residual electricity causing their chitin to shimmer with an unnatural, blue-green energy.
These weren't the same creatures he'd fought in the OmniCorp tower. They were smaller, faster, and their carapaces pulsed with a sickly, bio-luminescent glow. They were hospital-born, mutated by the unique energies of this place.
The moment he appeared, their heads snapped in his direction. A chorus of angry clicks echoed over the blaring alarm. They poured out of the MRI machine, a chittering tide of energized death.
Time remaining: 13 MINUTES.
There was no time for tactics, no time for stealth. This was a brute-force problem. This was a mess that had to be cleaned up, now.
He charged forward, his baton in one hand, his pistol in the other. He fired twice. The bullets, aimed at the lead Skitterer, struck its glowing carapace and seemed to dissolve in a shower of sparks, doing almost no damage. The energy field was acting as armor.
He holstered the useless pistol and met the first wave head-on. He sidestepped the lunge of the first creature, bringing his baton down in a vicious arc, not on its shielded back, but on its unshielded leg joint. The bone snapped with a satisfying crack. He spun, using the momentum to slam his steel-toed boot into the face of another, sending it tumbling back into its brethren.
His Agility was a blur. He moved like a dancer in a whirlwind of claws and acid. He ducked under a spray of sizzling green fluid, using the monster itself as a shield against a second spray from behind it. He jabbed with the tip of his baton, targeting eyes and joints, the only weak points he could find.
But there were too many. For every one he disabled, two more swarmed him. A claw raked across his side, tearing through his uniform and leaving a deep, burning gash. He cried out, pain flaring hot and sharp.
[HP: 195/260]
He was being overwhelmed. He needed to change the equation. He needed a bigger mop.
He leaped back, putting a few feet of distance between himself and the swarm. He fumbled in his inventory. He didn't have explosives, but he had something better: the raw components of a janitor's rage.
[Improvise Tool]!
He grabbed the last bottle of [Skitterer Acid] and his multi-tool. The System blazed in his mind.
[Analyzing materials: (1) Bottle of Acid, (1) Steel Multi-tool. Request: Area-Denial Weapon. Combining… WARNING: UNSTABLE REACTION! Creating: 'Makeshift Chemical Bomb'. Detonation upon impact.]
Blue light flared. The plastic bottle contorted, its cap fusing shut. The steel of the multi-tool seemed to melt into it, reinforcing the container. The acid within began to churn and glow with a furious, angry light.
The Skitterers surged forward again. Leo didn't wait. He reared back and hurled the bottle, not into the swarm, but at the super-magnet of the exposed MRI machine behind them.
The bottle flew through the air and slammed into the magnet. The reinforced plastic shattered.
There was no explosion of fire. There was an explosion of chemistry. The potent acid, now atomized and super-heated by the strange reaction, blasted outward in a super-dense cloud. It wasn't just acid anymore; it was an aerosolized, unstoppable solvent.
The Skitterers shrieked, a sound of pure agony that was almost lost in the klaxon. Their energized carapaces, their only defense, offered no protection. The chemical mist enveloped them, dissolving chitin, flesh, and sinew in seconds. They melted like wax figures, their bodies collapsing into twitching piles of steaming goo.
The hallway was suddenly, terrifyingly silent, save for the incessant blare of the alarm.
[You have killed Lvl 5 Energized Skitterer. +100 XP.]
…x24
[DING! YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!]
[You are now Level 8.]
[You have gained +5 unassigned Stat Points. HP/MP restored.]
The feeling of the level-up was a godsend. His HP flashed back to full, the searing pain in his side dulling to a manageable ache, though the torn flesh remained.
He stood breathing heavily in the acrid, chemical haze, his makeshift bomb having done its terrible, beautiful work. He stumbled forward, his legs shaking, past the melted remains of the Skitterer swarm. He could see it now. Down the hall. A heavy door, barricaded with hospital beds and medical carts. Voices shouted from behind it.
He had made it. He looked at his watch.
Time remaining: 4 MINUTES.