The metal groan hits them first.
A long, dragging SCREEEEE–CH echoes through the chamber—like steel being pulled against rusted bone. Netoshka freezes, hand lifted, signaling the squad to halt. Her flashlight beam cuts across the cavernous maintenance hall, dust drifting in the stale air like ashes.
The ceiling disappears into darkness.
But the sound came from above.
Genrihk lifts his revolver.
Twila presses closer to Zopi.
Taran stands tense, infected veins faintly glowing beneath his collar.
Circe whispers,
"Something's moving…"
Netoshka narrows her eyes and steps forward onto the catwalk.
"No. Something's hunting."
Another metallic scrape.
Another shift of weight.
Then they see it—
A massive industrial crane arm, still intact, hangs over the hall. At its end swings a huge hook, long enough to impale a truck. It dangles lazily… except—
It twitches.
Once.
Twice.
Like something heavy is perched on top of it.
Rue's voice cracks.
"Uh… is that normal?"
"Nothing in this place is normal," Zev mutters.
Suddenly the hook jerks violently downward—WHAM, smashing into the catwalk just inches from Surgien. Sparks explode across the walkway.
Everyone scatters.
"CONTACT ABOVE!" Netoshka shouts.
Her glitch-scarred forearm lights up with static as she materializes her blade. She leaps back just as the crane hook swings again, slicing the air hard enough to shear metal.
Twila fires upward, her bullets ricocheting off something chitinous.
A guttural, warped growl rattles through the chamber.
Then it drops.
A hulking Vitraspawn variant, elongated limbs fused with old mechanical servo-motors, slides down the crane arm like a spider. Its entire body pulses with sickly blue veins—wired corruption merging with Kraustein's bio-experiments.
Its skull is half metal, half bone, and all wrong.
Zopi shouts,
"It's a Vitraspawn—but bigger! And Stronger!"
"No," Genrihk corrects,
"It's adapting."
The creature lunges across the catwalk, claws scraping.
Netoshka intercepts it in mid-air—her glitching blade meeting its metal mandibles with a shower of distorted sparks. The two slam into the railing, nearly tipping over the abyss below.
Taran grabs her by the back of her coat and yanks her away just in time as the monster swipes, tearing a chunk of catwalk loose.
Circe tries to flank it, but the crane shifts again—its motor reactivating with a sharp electrical whine.
"Something's controlling the machinery!" she yells.
"Not something," Netoshka growls.
"Someone."
The crane hook swings wide—straight toward Rue and Zev.
Netoshka moves instantly.
She glitches through a burst of static, appearing between them and the incoming hook. Her blade slashes upward, deflecting the steel just enough that the hook slams into a concrete pillar instead of their bodies.
The entire hall shakes.
Debris rains down.
The Vitraspawn roars and charges again.
This time Taran meets it head-on, veins glowing blue as he wrestles the creature back using both cybernetic and corrupted strength. He slams its head into a railing—but it barely reacts. Its body twitches, recalibrates, and its limbs begin to shift shape.
Like it's learning his movements.
Like it's learning him.
Zopi shouts,
"The crane controls—there! On the far platform!"
A small panel glows faintly across the chamber, half-broken but still active. If someone reached it, they could overload the crane's motor—maybe drop the entire hook onto the creature.
Netoshka sees it instantly.
"Taran! Hold it down!"
Taran grits his teeth. "I—can't—for long—!"
"Zopi, Genrihk, Twila—cover me! Moving!"
She sprints across the shaking catwalk as the crane swings wildly overhead, cables snapping like angry whips. The hook crashes down behind her, sending up a spray of sparks.
Rue fires suppressing shots at the Vitraspawn.
Genrihk chants under his breath, attempting to summon his corpse-command… but nothing answers. This place, wired and wrong, is dead in ways that defy even him.
Twila barely dodges a falling piece of catwalk.
Netoshka reaches the console—slams her palm against the manual override.
CRANE EMERGENCY RELEASE: ENGAGED
The motor screams.
The chain snaps.
The hook plummets.
Taran jumps back just as the full weight of the crane hook crushes the creature beneath it—impaling the Vitraspawn through the torso and pinning it into the steel grate below.
It shrieks, flailing.
The chamber lights flicker, blue static crawling across every surface.
Then—
BOOM
The Vitraspawn detonates in a burst of blue fire and corrupted tissue, splattering the walls and shaking the entire maintenance hall with a shockwave.
Silence follows.
Silence, except for the faint hum of machines deeper in the dark.
Netoshka wipes the ichor off her blade and breathes out slowly.
"That wasn't random," she says.
"Someone knew we were coming."
Genrihk nods grimly.
"And they're leading us deeper."
Twila whispers,
"To what?"
Netoshka stares down the dark corridor on the other side of the hall.
"To the part of New Horizon where Kraustein never wanted anyone to see."
She gestures forward.