Empyrean Iris

Chapter 38

"Well shit." It wasn't exactly an imaginative opening line, a bit cliché actually. If he – Captain Vir – was quicker on his metaphorical feet, or indeed maybe a little smarter, he might have been able to come up with a cooler exclamation of displeasure, but he was honestly neither clever nor quick on his feet, so a cliché would have to do despite his inner eye rolling.

It was definitely lucky for them that the Burg seemed just as shocked as they were, giving Sunny just enough reaction time to produce her spear and execute a powerful, sweeping overhand arch that knocked the front row of burg right off their feet.

The attack was so powerful and so sudden that he honestly should have been brained right along with it, but somehow, he had sensed it coming, diving to the floor just as the spear shaft went arching over his head. He hit the floor hard and rolled to the side coming to a halt beside one of the unconscious – or dead bodies – of the Burg.

He looked up eyes wide as the next line of Burg advanced.

Well guess stealth wasn't really a thing anymore, so with a roar, he lashed out with his prosthetic leg, feeling the powerful hiss of the pneumatic actuators as they fired at full capacity. The heel of his prosthetic foot rammed hard and fast, directly into the stomach of the waiting burg. The blow was so powerful that he felt a sudden snap, and a sharp reverberation up his leg and into his stump as the fiberglass composite sleeve of his prosthetic cracked open from the impact.

He could feel heat and pressure and tension and vibration from the skin of the leg, so he felt rather than saw the vertical fracture than run up from the top of his foot to just below his knee.

Captain Vir cursed loudly, but was at least partially rewarded as the powerful blow lifted the Burg off the ground and sent him flying at least two feet in the opposite direction to land flat on it's back, arms clutched around it's shattered carapace.

Captain Vir scrambled to his feet feeling the plexiglass flap and crack some more as his leg moved.

The sound of the actuators were louder now, without the sleeve to cover it.

A Burg came roaring at him from the left, and he ducked wildly under it's flailing arms coming up from the other side, and applying another powerful kick to its back.

Something else snapped, and he felt a piece of the plexiglass completely detach.

He had definitely put the piece of hardware through more than its paces, and he wasn't looking forward to getting a new one.

He ducked under another wild swing, from a second Burg eager to finish him off, but just as it was about to connect with the side of his head, a silver spearhead sprouted from it's chest and glittered for a long moment with blue icor before being ripped back and out, sending the creature collapsing to the floor.

Sunny stood behind the Burg, her feet planted shoulder width apart, her golden eyes glittering with savage glee.

And that is when he saw it. The Burg approaching her from behind.

"Sunny!"

She turned, but not in time. He leaped past her, tackling the Burg to the ground and sending them both rolling across the floor. He drew his fist back and punched the creature square in the mandibles.

A sharp burst of pain erupted through his hand, but accompanying it was a loud snap and a scream of agony from the Burg, whose chest he now pinned to the floor.

Ignoring the pain from his right hand, he punched it again, once, twice, then three times before it stopped moving, multiple legs twitching and then growing still.