Starsnatcher - Trapped In An Alien World [COMPLETE]

Chapter 6.6

A/N: The above picture (which shows H.P. Lovecraft's Shoggoth) is what I imagine Cherub as.

I hated those split-second decisions. If we ran now, we took our eyes off of Cherub before understanding its capabilities. If we fought, we risked the possibility of not being able to defeat it.

Kira knew what to do. She swung her blaster and shot all wavelengths available. Green beams, blue beams, red beams, invisible beams. The best she accomplished was cutting corners off Cherub's formless black slime mass.

Cherub re-arranged its football-field-sized body, shrugging off damage with the ease of squashing pimples. It approached Kira until they stood feet apart. Then, it opened a tunnel-like mouth and spit green acid at the enhanced human. It dug through the black fabric of her suit and even her clothing, revealing exposed fat, bone, and muscle underneath her arm panels.

Kira screamed in pain.

I removed a navy-blue balloon-like weapon from my belt: The acid gun Crick had given me. Meanwhile, Cherub snatched Kira with hideous tendrils. I ran to the scene of the fight, pointed my weapon's end at the tendrils, and squeezed as hard as I could. Colorless hydrochloric acid squinted from my gun and tore the tendrils apart.

Cherub remained unimpressed. It was too massive and I had too little acid. My strategy felt like extinguishing a volcano with a water pistol.

I jumped backward, dodging the next spit of green vomit. Then, Kira grabbed my wrist and dragged me out of the way. She ran without sedating me with her singularity stone like in the forest or the Dragonfly. She lacked the energy. I felt the full force of her motorcycle-like velocity. The fog's headwind threatened to blow me away.

A wall came into sight. With her blaster, Kira cut a comfortably large hole into it. It started closing, but we passed it in time. Behind us, the wall sealed itself, blocking Cherub's path.

Kira stopped and dropped me like a foul egg. I didn't mind the impact, though since my muscles hurt like hell, I only lay down and rot. I needed a second or two to adjust to the fact that we weren't running like crazy anymore. My wrist still contained intact tendons, so, somewhere along our path, her singularity stone must have restarted working.

"Slept well?" a familiar voice asked and it wasn't Kira's.

I got up.

Kira leaned against the wall, recovering her dissolved flesh before she jumped at the sight of our new adversary.

Layla was back.

Unlike the last room, this one had access to functioning floodlights which illuminated an area smaller than the previous room. Layla stood not far from us, decked in purple armor and surrounded by red-and-black spider robots twice as tall as a human. Her rocket launcher dangled from her arm.

I straightened my back and assumed a confident posture. In this situation, it was best to pretend strength, regardless of how inauthentic it appeared.

"Where are the aliens you kidnapped?" I asked.

"Already traded them, pal," she said. "Unfortunately, we didn't get much out of the deal. Our partner is a bit difficult."

She left it at that. No further threats, no demand for us to go away and leave Mustafa alone.

"You traded with the monster, didn't you?" Kira asked calmly.

"S-so what if I did?" Layla answered.

"Lucas," Kira said, "the monster held back against us. It spit the acid after I tried to shoot it. Maybe it's more after Layla than it's after us. She stuttered when I mentioned it."