_ _ _ _3rd Person Pov_ _ _ _
Flickering lights, dripping water, and sparking wires, what had once been a small slice of a grand marvel was now long since dead and decaying. Unfortunately, these rotting halls were far from empty, horrid things lurked within the darkness, and it wasn't long before they revealed themselves. Like maggots in a corpse, they crept through the dank and crumbling hallways, their flesh mangled and warped with cancerous growths. There were three of them in total, each more grotesque and malformed than the last. All three had torn and ripped clothing draped over their bodies; the clothing was covered in a mixture of blood, dirt, and who knows what else.
The first of them, who seemed to be female, was the shortest. She was completely bald and had a mouth filled with sharp, mangled teeth. A slightly broken ball mask covered most of the top of her face. Her body was covered head to toe in scars as well as a variety of mutations that seemed to cause her pain and hinder her movements. The second was taller than the first and was obviously male. He was by far the most human-looking of the three; however, that was not to say he wasn't disturbing to look at. His hair was visibly falling out in large patches, and his spine had clearly mutated, causing him to have a permanent hunch. One of his eyes was missing, an eye that he himself had seemingly gouged out, if the scratch marks around it were anything to go by.
And finally the third, by far the most disturbing, partially because it was impossible to tell whether it was male or female due to how twisted it had become. Their skin, like the others', was sickeningly pale; however, what truly set them apart was their height and proportions. They were freakishly tall, with skin that looked as if it had been stretched to its absolute limit over their skinny yet somehow still slightly muscular frame. One arm, their left, was also slightly longer than the other, with what appeared to be tumours swelling beneath the skin of their shoulder and around the joints. What was more was that their body seemed to constantly twist as they moved, with stiff, almost manic motions that were horrifically unnatural. Worst of all was the sound they made: their teeth were constantly clacking together like laughter as their bones seemed to crack with even the slightest motion.
"Shut up! Shut the FUCK up, Skinny! SHUT UP!" The second, a splicer by the name of Twitchy, screamed at the tallest one, his singular eye completely bloodshot.
"L-l-loud... loud... y-you're b-b-being louder... l-louder... louder t-t-than them..." The clearly female member of the group said, her voice coming out as a manic stutter as she scratched at her own neck, drawing blood.
"What did you say, Itchy?" Twitchy asked, his head whipping around to glare at her. "Say that again! FUCKING SAY IT! Say it again! Say it, say it, SAY IT! If you do, I'll kill ya!" He rambled incoherently, spitting into her face. Before she could respond to his clear invasion of her personal space, something happened.
"Ah?!" Itchy suddenly hissed as something fell down onto her head with a loud clang of metal.
"W-w-who... who... w-who d-d-did... did that...?" she asked, looking down at what appeared to be a metal pipe that had been ripped off a wall somewhere.
"I don't know... was that you Skinny?" Twitchy hissed, as he glanced up at the big one, who simply continued to clack their teeth while looking vacantly off into the distance. "I'll kill you if it was."
"W-where... w-w-where... where did... d-did it... did it come from?" Itchy muttered, causing Twitchy to facepalm.
"You dumb bitch," he groaned before pointing upwards. "Where the hell do you think? IT CAME FROM UP THERE! UP THERE! Look, you dumb bitch! UP THERE! IT CAME FROM UP THER-!" He abruptly stopped screaming when he noticed something above them.
Following where he was looking, the other two turned their heads upwards, and what they saw gave them pause. There, hanging from the ceiling like some kind of spider, was a dark-violet creature that none of them had ever seen before. It looked to be around several feet in length and had a smooth, eyeless head; its whole body was covered in what appeared to be a slightly mechanical-looking exoskeleton.
For a moment they just stared at it until the tallest among them suddenly grinned, the skin around their face stretching even further as their eyes flushed with a maddened excitement for some unknown reason. The longer of their two arms shot up with surprising speed, reaching out to snatch it from the ceiling; however, the moment their hand got close to it, the appendage was suddenly blown apart. Before they could scream out in agony, a pale, hand-like thing that had seemingly been hiding close to the dark-violet creature, launched itself downwards, grappling onto Skinny's face in one quick motion.
"What the HELL?! What is that? WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!" Twitchy yelled as he watched his apparent companion struggle for a second before collapsing to the ground.
"Itchy? ITCHY! Itchy, what is tha-?!" He tried to say but stopped as he turned just in time to see another one of those hand-like creatures jump out of nowhere and latch onto Itchy's face as well.
Now the only one left, Twitchy tried to take a step back, panic clear across his face. He opened his mouth to scream, to shout for those he knew were close by; however, he didn't get the chance. Before he could call for help he was met with a stream of green fluid spewed from the strange creature's mouth. It slashed against his face, covering his eye and pouring into his open mouth. That shout for help quickly turned into a gurgling scream as the fluid began to eat through his skull, melting through his flesh and remaining eye.
_ _ _ _Carmen Pov_ _ _ _
"Well, that went better than expected," I muttered as I dropped down a second later.
(God damn, these guys are not pleasant to look at... I honestly feel bad for the facehuggers...) I thought, not at all enjoying the smell either.
I then stepped away from the three and glanced into the darkness behind me. "You can come out now, by the way," I called as several figures emerged.
So yeah, things had progressed, to say very the least. It had taken an hour or so of swimming around, but we had eventually found the perfect area to act as our staging area. It was a cluster of skyscrapers that we had selected for two reasons. First, most of the structures here looked relatively intact, with only a few of them severely damaged. Second, it was close to the edge of Rapture, far from the more central area of the city which we guessed would be far more populated.
Thankfully getting inside wasn't so hard since we had just used the airlocks that the Big Daddies use to get around. It did take us a hot minute to figure out how to get the door controls to work, though; eventually we were able to sort it out.
"Also, by the way," I sighed as I looked over the familiar individuals. "What the hell was that? This is a stealth mission, so why did you shoot their hand off like that?"
"Like I would allow such a disgusting thing to touch my most precious queen; it was unworthy to even stand in your presence," Ashley answered back with a proud smile, Connor and Red walking out behind her. "Also, my gun has a silencer on it, so everything should be fine."
(What am I gonna do with her?) I groaned internally.
"I understand finding them disgusting, they are after all, but if they'd screamed it would have attracted more of them to our location," Connor muttered, shaking his head in clear disapproval.
"You should have aimed for the head, since they can't scream if they're dead," Red added, causing Ashley to let out an "Ah" sound in response.
"Fair point. Thanks for the advice, Red."
As you can see, I had called for some help once we got inside. I would have called for more, but I thought it best to keep things small until we could lock down an area. Additionally, I wasn't the only one to call for backup once we were inside; Sapphire did as well.
"That was... that was really impressive," Sapphire mumbled as she approached. I was actually a little taken aback at how calm she was, considering I had just melted some guy's head off with acid.
Anyway, my attention was soon pulled to the six individuals standing behind her as one of them spoke up. "Nerak must agree; thy did well, friend of our most dear princess."
These were members of The Tainted Water, Sapphire's people, and they were quite the sight. Imagine if a dragonfish, an anglerfish, and a human had a baby and you might be able to picture it. They were humanoids about two metres tall, with heads reminiscent of an anglerfish, but without the lure. Their bodies were covered in jet-black scales that were translucent in places, making their blue bioluminescent blood vessels very visible. They all wore armour made of the same metal that had covered the Abyss Tyrants, and each carried weapons of varying kinds that seemed to incorporate a strange neon cyan-blue liquid.
Among the six was Nerak; he was slightly shorter than the others at 1.8 metres tall, but what truly made him stand out was his white scales. From what I could tell, he was probably an albino of their species, and that seemed to grant him some respect from his fellows, if the way they stood behind him was anything to go by. He was also the only one who could speak English, something I assumed he picked up from Sapphire. Oh, and if you're surprised about him calling her princess, well, so was I, and I planned to ask her about that later.
"By the way, are you sure it was a good idea to leave Kurash out there?" I asked, gesturing to the open sea outside a nearby window.
Sapphire had returned the one I was riding back to her sanctuary but had left her big shark friend to explore the waters around Rapture. "I-it should be fine. From what you told me, there shouldn't be anything here that can really hurt him; even the Big Sisters should leave him alone so long as he doesn't bother them," she said before adding. "Also, he'll be able to look for the Songbird. We have to find it, so why not let him look for it while we get set up in here?"
(That's a fair point, but still, just how well trained is that shark?) I thought. I had been genuinely surprised by how much more intelligent Kurash was than he seemed, able to follow quite a few complex commands despite still being an animal.
"All right, fine. We can worry about all that later; right now we should probably keep moving," I mused as I began making my way forward through the dimly lit hallway.
"R-right," Sapphire nodded in agreement, walking after me.
"And what of them?" Nerak hissed as he noticed that the two splicers with facehuggers latched onto their faces were still breathing.
"Leave them; they'll be dead soon anyway," I said while looking over my shoulder. "Right now we need to find a way to take control of this structure's systems; I'd rather not have to destroy all the miscellaneous defences littered throughout."
"And I guess that's my job," Connor sighed, already knowing the answer.
"Who else?" I called back with clear amusement in my voice.
"Yeah, after all, you have so much experience dealing with PRIMITIVE technology, it's only right you'd be the one responsible for that," Ashley chimed in with a chuckle.
"You are quite efficient at such things," Red added with his usual flat tone, much to Connor's growing irritation.
"God damn it..."