Round two, asshole.

Engage *Infrared*

The water from the sprinkler system poured down on Mercy, dripping before her eyes from her sagging dreads. Even with the water and mist obscuring her regular vision, Mercy remained calm as her graft eye switched to infrared vision. She immediately spotted a large mass of darkness rapidly cutting through the warm mist. A few spots around the mass began to light up and Mercy’s ears confirmed the legion was starting its rockets again. The mists swirled around the legion as it lunged forward, its remaining brown eye locked solely on Mercy.

Guess there are worse things to die for...

Engage *ACCELTRA*

Even with the building’s impressive air conditioning, Mercy felt her body burning as she engaged her Acceltra graft system again. It began flooding her bloodstream with synthetic adrenaline and engaging her secondary heart. The artificial stomata all over Mercy’s body activated to provide additional oxygen as blood quickly circulated through her. Mercy’s cerebral implants began taking over regulatory processes of her brain. When everything synced together, it felt like her entire skeleton was on fire.

With each millisecond, Mercy’s body became more of a mechanical inferno. Repair nanites typically helped protect her vital organs, but the water pouring on her from the sprinkler system was helping keep her temperature in check. She was concerned with how long the water would last, especially since Mercy could already feel her body reaching its limit. These systems weren’t meant for extended use and she had already used it a few times today. Knowing she had to be quick, she let the system fire and the world became a slow, desaturated crawl.

Flowing water became floating glass sculptures before Mercy. The swirling mists lingered like frozen smoke. Beads of water no longer rolled off Mercy and instead clung to her fur like ticks. Exhaling felt like she had to force away all the atmosphere near her and she had to move away to make sure she didn’t inhale the same breath. She could only hear the manic pulsing of her twin hearts beating to keep her body working. The speed of the legion was still fast enough that she could see it move, but Mercy knew it couldn’t touch her.

Raising the pistol, Mercy waited till the barrel was nearly touching the legion’s shoulder joint before unloading its final rounds. 

Gotta go for the limbs since hitting the brain did nothing.

As Mercy fired the pistol, she watched the empty cartridge eject and impatiently waited for the gun to reset before she could fire again. Her eyes followed as the first bullet made contact with the joint, crumpling its metal shell before poking a hole through it. Sparks flew as circuits began to sever and the metal on the other side of the joint bulged before tearing open into a shrapnel blossom, letting the bullet carry onward. 

Mercy repeated the process a few more times before the gun was empty. 

I can’t even tell if that did anything. Reggie’s plan then.

Letting go of the pistol, she reached into her back pocket for the cutting tool Reggie lent her. As Mercy flipped it on, she felt it vibrate in her hand, with the hooked blade moving back and forth rapidly. Not wanting to break it or get it stuck, Mercy aimed for one of the legion’s small gardening limbs to start. Grabbing a thin one with pruning shears, Mercy was surprised by how effortlessly she could pull the hook down and watched it cleanly sever the limb. The metal pulled apart like molten cheese. She hacked away at as many small appendages as she could reach without getting struck by the other ones, letting them sluggishly fall to the floor. 

Mercy ducked as one of the legion’s hands attempted to grab her, taking a final swipe at the remaining landscaping limbs before the legion flew over her. It seemed to be keeping track of her despite her increased speed, but its body couldn’t keep up. Attempting to course correct, the legion contorted its body in an inhuman way to pivot in mid-air, the flames of its rockets fighting against the water spewing on them. The brief pause in water reaching her caused Mercy to shiver from the heat. Extending its limbs to help catch itself, the legion prepared to lunge toward her again.

Turning off the cutting tool, Mercy raised her rifle, picking out a new target to shoot. Unfortunately, she had used all of her shredder rounds to help Henry break through the window and all of her shock rounds to stop the legion just now, leaving her with only standard cartridges. Fortunately, either from being made with poor materials or having degraded with time, the various grafts of the legion didn’t seem to be able to stand up to regular firearms.

Mercy lined up her shots and unloaded the entire magazine into the legion. It was meditative pulling the trigger, reaching up to pull the bolt back, watching the empty cartridge tumble away, before feeling the clicks of the bolt sliding back into place. Small wisps of smoke lingered around the weapon and spent cartridges. With her first volley, Mercy had successfully severed a few of the larger appendages wielding various saws. As the legion drew closer, she reloaded, rolling under the legion’s hulking frame to get a better view of its rockets.

With them turned more toward her, aiming for the farthest rocket from her, Mercy fired three rounds right for the center of its burning exhaust. Predictably, the heat of the fire was too high for the first bullet and it evaporated, but it provided enough protection for the remaining ones to carry on. The second bullet began falling apart as it approached the center of the flame, but it held together just enough for the final bullet to remain intact as it impacted the rocket's exhaust port. There was a grinding noise before Mercy watched as the base of the rocket began to swell like dough being baked.

Mercy shuffled away from the legion as the rocket exploded. She tried to remain within the still downpour of the sprinkler system, but the flaming shrapnel and burning fuel were too much for her to stay within the cooling curtain of water. The moment she stepped beyond it, the cold air of the apartment building wasn’t enough to cool Mercy down and she immediately became nauseous. 

I need to take it out before I pass out from heat exhaustion.

Through the debris, Mercy lined up another shoot on a rocket that was in the middle of the legion’s back. Banking on its destruction compromising the structural integrity of the legion’s body, she fired the rest of the magazine to guarantee any of the bullets connected.

Watery vomit spewed from Mercy’s mouth as the world returned to normal speed. She collapsed to the ground, coughing and sputtering, unable to look up at the carnage she had just caused. She could hear the roar and feel the heat of the explosion, followed by the hiss of fires being extinguished by water from the broken sprinkler system. Debris rained down around her, occasionally landing on her as she remained hunched over trying to support herself. In her regular eye, she had double vision and everything was spinning. Trying to combat the dizziness, she looked out the window, but she instantly regretted it. Invisible to her regular eye, her graft one could faintly make out a face from beyond the window. Although the thermal vision was preventing her from seeing the details of the face, Mercy knew it was the creep that was always in her head. She could already picture their beady eye staring through that stupid broken mask they always wore.

Fuck… you… not now…

A loud crunch of metal directed Mercy’s attention back to the legion. The sprinkler system had managed to put out most of the fire before the water slowed to a trickle, but some flames remained where fuel had splattered. The scent of charred corpses wafted to Mercy’s nose and she dry heaved. She saw that almost half of the torso had exploded off the legion and it was using several of its remaining limbs to keep itself together. It was also using its remaining tendril as an additional support to stay upright. The legion turned to Mercy, the haunting green glow of its brown eye fixed on her. Chunks of muscle and various decayed organs slithered out from its newly exposed cavities, sizzling in the heat of its scorching carapace. Whether it was from the heat sickness or the grotesque spectacle before her, Mercy’s body shivered violently.

“Tee…tee…tee…” The legion’s speaker crackled more ferociously.

Trying to get to her feet, Mercy collapsed, her body finally giving out. Her dreads fell over her eyes, and to her relief, blocked her view of the masked figure in the window. As she lay on the floor, she could hear the legion take a step toward her before more gunshots broke out. Mercy thought she heard Henry yell, but she was too disoriented to know what he said. Peering through her dreads, Mercy watched the legion turn as Henry ran toward it. Sparks flew from the legion’s body as Henry shot at it, but he only managed to shoot off a few plates of metal. 

When Henry reached the legion, Mercy was surprised to watch him go for a right hook to the legion’s head. Even more surprising was that he actually caused the legion to stagger. Taking a stance like a boxer, Henry used his right hand to throw blows while taking pot shots with the pistol in his left. The legion swiped at Henry’s helmet, scraping its claws across the visor as it connected, but Henry stood defiantly. Although he was initially putting up a decent fight, Henry kept trading blows with the legion, and Mercy could see the legion hit harder. 

Blindly feeling around, Mercy’s hand grazed against her rifle and she pulled it closer. Reaching into her back pocket, Mercy retrieved the final magazine she had left. Crawling to the window beside her, Mercy sat up and leaned against it as she reloaded. Glancing through the window, ignoring the person staring back at her, she could make out dark clouds off the shoreline.

The rain here always felt nice. So… clean… It’d been nice to feel it one last time.

Struggling to hold the rifle to her shoulder, Mercy shakily aimed through the scope. Carefully observing, she looked for whichever joints the legion was using to support itself whenever it was hit or when it struck back. As she spotted her targets, she focused on finding the right time to take her shots. At best, a missed shot would do nothing, and at worst, she could hit Henry. With Mercy’s body still shivering from the heat sickness, she had to brace herself against the window to help steady her aim. 

Keeping her finger on the trigger, she patiently waited until the opportune moment presented itself. She held her breath and squeezed. The bullet ripped through the air and tore through one of the legion’s knees. Henry’s fist connected with the legion, but he didn’t follow through, instead turning to look at Mercy. She didn’t have the energy to talk, so she motioned with the rifle to keep going. It took all of Mercy’s strength to load the next cartridge, but the legion was slow to recover, so she had enough time to ready herself for the next shot. 

As the legion directed its attention toward Mercy, Henry landed a few blows to distract it. This began the ping-pong game between the two of getting the legion's attention after the other person distracted it. The sounds of gunshots and crunching metal echoed through the hallway as the two bounty hunters unloaded their barrage upon the death-fueled corpse machine. Despite how much they damaged it or knocked it to a knee, the tenacious monstrosity refused to stay down. Mercy could feel they were close to putting this thing down for good until she pulled the trigger and only heard a heart-stopping click. As the air was sucked from her lungs, Mercy pulled the trigger a few more times, being met with another click each time.

Fuck… was it a dud? Did I break the gun?

The legion, seemingly picking up the pause in her assault, made its move. Grabbing Henry by the arm, it used its remaining rocket to violently spin both of them before throwing the man directly at Mercy. She didn’t bother to move, knowing she couldn’t, and mentally braced for the impact. The legion was still strong enough that it threw Henry with enough force to buckle the window Mercy was leaning against. They both gasped as the wind was knocked out of them and Mercy dropped her rifle. Her body crumpled to the floor beside Henry and they both could hear the legion coming. 

Henry barely got to his knees before the legion knocked him to the ground again. He tried to get up, but the legion’s large clawed foot stomped on his right arm, pinning him as it coiled its tendril around his neck. Mercy grabbed Reggie’s cutter, but the legion grabbed her by the throat before she could get to Henry. She watched Henry desperately pull at the tendril with his free hand, the sound of his choking played through his helmet speakers. Mercy tried to hack away at the hand around her throat, but the cutter kept getting caught on the thicker parts of its joints. The legion readied a hedge trimmer, aimed toward her throat.

Cassidy, hope I won’t look too fucked up when I meet you.

As the hedge trimmer inched closer, Mercy began hearing two girls talk with each other. She couldn’t make out what they were saying over the malicious gardening tool aimed at her, but she realized that the legion had stopped. It slowly turned to look down the hallway and Mercy turned to look too. Standing a few meters away was Patricia holding out some kind of old cellphone that was playing a video.