The Successor, The Fall of Morrow (4.2)

(Updated)

Douglas and Lucas’s group fell back, sprinting and hopping from one pile of debri to the next; careful not to touch the ground. Unfortunately, the truth about any plan is that it never quite works out.

“Go, Go, Go!”

“Move your asses! Don’t slow down!”

Lucas hopped over and landed, but immediately felt an intrusion in his oculus magic in the same direction they were headed.

“Face-Eater, eleven o’clock! Ren! Checkpoint two is compromised, they’re flanking us! We’re holding our position here!”

“Negative! Keep moving! Forget checkpoint 2, find a way to maintain your distance!” Ren yelled through the comms.

A soldier raised his rifle and fired at the Face-eater; a large slug/slime-like mixed creature that had the faces of all its meals imprinted into its flesh. One shot from the plasma round, and it exploded into pieces of goop. Behind it came demonic boars charging at them; ramming aside everything in its way. Though, that was the least of their problems.

“Incoming wyvern!” A soldier alerted. They raised their rifles and fired, but failed to kill it in time. A carpet of fire showered them, catching five of the soldiers; killing four immediately. The last one was half-way through his jump to the next mound of debri. He dropped to the ground, tossing and turning to put out the fire, but the ground cracked and crumbled beneath him.

“Shit!” Douglas cursed.

Before he could do anything, an Earthworm appeared from below, tossing the soldier into the air and devouring half of his body. Douglas closed the hole which cut the worm in half. It collapsed in between the group wriggling in pain before slowly coming to a halt. Its body filled the gap between the debris acting like a bridge, and the group were able to regroup with ease.

Thirteen remaining, not including Lucas and Douglas. No matter how much they shot, the hellspawn’s numbers seemed about as infinite as a colony of ants; and the fliers took this opportunity. Succubi gathered together and casted magic beams at them, drilling through one of the soldier’s knees, and another blasting a clean hole through a soldier’s face. Gargoyles flew by and chucked tridents, nailing Lucas in his calf and another soldier in the chest.

“Heal up!” shouted Lucas. The injured pulled out a thin cylindrical vial with Cecilia’s blood and drank it. Those who weren’t injured gathered in a line, using their bodies as a shield while the injured recovered. Meanwhile, Lucas grabbed the rifle of the poor soldier who lost his face and fired at the incoming hellspawns. “Douglas! We need you to fight or we’re not gonna make it!”

“Those Earthworms are still around unless you want to get eaten from below! What the hell is Blaze doing?!”

A soldier’s scream softened rapidly into the distance. Gargoyles had flown by and took him into the dark cloudy sky. His last words were heard on the comms, “I HOPE YOU LIKE YOUR MEAT EXTRA BURNT!!” An explosion of plasma lit up a small part of the sky immediately after.

“Fuck! Douglas!”

“I just said!...wait...” Feeling the ground and trying to sense the Earthworms locations, the vibrations underground progressively became softer and weaker from what he could feel. As far as he could tell, they appeared to be headed in the direction of...

Just as Douglas looked up, a bright surge of light radiated from the distance once more.

“Take cover!”

Waves of fire spread and flooded the land like a tsunami, drowning everything it touched. The center of it all continued to shine even brighter, making the ocean of flames stretch further and more fiercely. Columns of fire surfaced into the air from holes the Earthworms made. In fact, the hole that Douglas closed up a few seconds ago came spewing out. Then, when the tunnels couldn’t contain the armageddon of flames, the fire created its own fissures and burst free.

Douglas immediately threw his palm against the ground when this disaster of fire came to a halt. As if it wasn’t obvious enough, all the worms were dead; and hopefully some hellspawns were caught in the mix.

“Damn, even that wasn’t enough to kill you?” Blaze’s voice entered the comms.

“Plasma bullets can’t pierce my barrier, what makes you think your flames are going to do anything?” Said Cecilia.

“Did you let the goggles, cloak, and filter, burn?”

“Those only get in the way.”

“Or you could...you know, take them off.”

“I heard that! Those are valuable resources, Cecilia!” Ren joined the comm. “Lucas! Douglas! What’s your sit!?”

“All Earthworms dead!” Reported Douglas.

“That attack gave us room to breath!" Reported Lucas.

“Roger that, Me and Josh will rally to you guys. Keep as many people alive as you can!”

Douglas punched his fist into his palm, cracked his knuckles and his neck. Slamming his palms onto the ground, spires of spike protruded from the ground skewering hellspawns like barbeque sticks. “It’s go time!”