Battlefield Regulation 2 – Regardless of Rank, You are Always On Fiend Disposal Duty

I don’t have plans for things like this. Fiends don’t roam the halls of the LAGOON. So I wind up wasting valuable time scrambling for an idea beyond throwing myself out of the way of the charge.

The only idea that comes to mind is a bad one.

It’s such a terrible one that Yilmaz would have already jumped to do it if he could. And it’s the only thing that comes to mind as I realize that my dodge has meant that the lobster-shaped fiend is now right in front of the doors of the infirmary. I can hear someone – possibly whoever shouted that warning – calling for backup. So I just need to contain the situation for a little while. Just long enough for the backup to arrive.

I take a deep breath and commit to the plan despite the specter of the future migraine looming beyond the – currently distracted – fiend. It’s a battle for future me and logically I should not give that future migraine any excuse or ability to be worse when I already know it’ll confine me to my apartment when it strikes beyond the current twitch in my eyes. I arm it anyway; give it a blade and a sharpening stone by opening my bionic eye and connecting to as many of the hallway and other cameras within my range as I can. It’s far more than I usually go for, but I need information. Several respond to the connection request with odd code or outright spikes of pain – making me hiss with pain as I steady myself with my new range of vision. Curious, but that’s another problem for future me.

These aren’t cameras that I’ve ever connected to before on top of the sheer amount of them even with the rejections, so the disorientation that slams into my skull is as unwelcome as it is expected. That one’s a problem for current me as I sway in place.

Despite the urgency of the situation (a fiend! loose in the LAGOON!) I have some precious time to work with thanks to the fiend’s distraction. When I dove out of the way I left it standing face to face with the shiny outer doors to the infirmary. It’s currently chittering at its own reflection and waving that iridescent tail at the supposed other fiend. There doesn’t seem to be any other rubble coming down from the skyway either, so there’s nothing to pull its attention away.

According to my HUD this thing is a brineclaw. I don’t recognize those by sight – so the fact that my HUD immediately knows what it is means that the fiend is tagged. A shift of attention to the details from my HUD confirms that – it has an ID number designating when it was caught (four years ago) and what training deck (deck #3) it came from. Was there a breakout? Those have gotten rarer since the upgrades to the defenses outside of the training decks, but they’re not impossible. The ID numbers are part of that security, so I shift my focus to the cameras while the brineclaw stays so focused on its reflection.

If there was a breakout a brineclaw could be the least of our issues.

The cameras I grabbed don’t go all the way to training deck #3, but they can see far enough for me to notice two stark oddities. There’s only one trail of destruction – and the skywalk it fell from still has people on it. People it ignored.

…Fiends don’t ignore people. That’s part of what defines them as fiends rather than animals. That’s also why they’re confined to the training decks.

Folks have stopped moving across the skywalk at least. They’re edging back away from the edges – mouths moving and eyebrows furrowing. The cameras don’t have audio capabilities but it looks like the skywalk is handling itself. It doesn’t look like I’ll need to try to defend others. Good. It leaves me with the chance to focus on the brineclaw.

“How is there only one of you?” I ask aloud, adjusting my stance and disconnecting from a few of the cameras to lessen the load. Gathering magic is quiet and quick for what I want; a thick spear of ice crackles beside me as it forms.

Like I expected – the words draw the attention of the brineclaw. It whips around with a speed that I’d forgotten it was capable of and lets out a burbling hiss before charging with its tail up. Light flashes from the iridescence and blinds half the cameras that I’m using – so the ice spear doesn’t get the precision I wanted from it. It skewers that tail instead of the whole fiend, pinning it back to the doors of the infirmary. I wince a little and hope that Sheila won’t be held accountable for the damage. The brineclaw lets out a human scream and tugs fruitlessly at its tail.

Only young fiends still sound that human.

I reach for my weapons and- right. The infirmary sent them back to my apartment while I was being checked over and drifting in and out of consciousness. It’s happened before and I don’t really blame them. Who wants to take the risk of a trained and armed mercenary with a potentially unpredictable temperament waking up where they’re likely to panic? I can handle a giant lobster with just my innate ice magic.

The world chooses that moment to remind me to pay attention to fiend names. A sizzling hiss splits the air and I groan as the various cameras treat me to multiple angles of the brineclaw melting my ice spear.

Brineclaw. The name says nothing about the lobster fiend’s size – a bit bigger than the average horse. But it contains a warning about its capabilities like all fiend names do. Brine is excellent at de-icing. And brineclaws carry sacs of brine the way a normal lobster carries eggs. Even I forgot for a moment that those aren’t egg sacs.

So plan B it is.

I don’t have a plan B. I barely had a plan A!

My ice can’t contain the fiend for any substantial length of time and I don’t have any other weapons available. Most folks have actually done the sensible thing and evacuated the area; I can’t snatch a weapon from someone lingering around when there’s no one. Don’t get me wrong – I’m glad that folks seem to have common sense today. It’s just-

(Yilmaz would know how to adapt and twist and take it out already. He’s always been so much better at planning on his feet.)

Deep inhale. Exhale. I am not Yilmaz. I need space and time in order to handle this until reinforcements get here. Time enough to plan. The brineclaw has gotten loose from the pinning by using a few of its brine sacs to melt my spear. It screams at me again, twisting back to stare at me. The fiend burbles what might have been threats and then the brineclaw is charging at me again.

Limited options and not enough time for a real plan loom ahead of me. I don’t dodge so much as back up several steps to buy just a few more seconds. When the brineclaw gets close enough to rear back and go to bury a claw in my chest – I hit it with as thick of a sheet of ice as I can manage. I have no illusions that it can get out (somehow, even if I got the claws caught in the ice wall) – but that thick sheet should give me the actual breathing room I need. I give the ice wall one more look over and then I duck into a tactical retreat.

The brineclaw is too close to the infirmary still – and too far away from where I might be able to get a weapon to handle it. I can lure the fiend away with a bit of… ugh… luck.

It breaks through the ice sheet by the time I manage to get a good fifteen feet away. I don’t need to taunt it – the benefit of fiends is that they don’t actually need to eat, which means they’re prone to narrowing focus in on a single target to the exclusion of all else. That’s why it’s so odd that it didn’t attack anyone else between training deck #3 and the skyway where it nearly fell on my head. That’s still a problem for future me. But the brineclaw is good and angry with me now so it’s already looking for me when it busts out of my ice wall. It charges as soon as it spots me with another human-like scream.

I have to multitask while I retreat; disconnect my eye from this area and connect to the next as I move and continue that as I dart down the hallway away from the infirmary. Not doing that risks worse disorientation and not being able to triangulate what’s going on during a battle. I also need to keep my legs moving at the same time, ducking and weaving through crowds of folks that I start running into after a few minutes. It doesn’t matter if they’re folks who haven’t evacuated far enough or anything else – I bark out the order “Move! There’s a loose fiend and I’m luring it away from the infirmary!” every now and again in order to -hopefully- reduce injuries and casualties. It gets folks to start moving though. First slowly and then faster as they connect the dots to who exactly it is that’s speaking. The warning coming from me gives it a gravitates that means most folks don’t dither or stop to ask questions.

“Hey! Ice princess! Use this!” someone passes me a knife as I duck past and I take it without looking at the giver. Any kind of weapon is better than none and I don’t have attention to spare to use the cameras to identify who handed it to me. I need to keep a visual on the brineclaw, especially now that I’ve started encountering other people. Most fiends can be trusted to keep to that narrow focus once enraged… but there are always exceptions and I need to know the moment it verges off the path if this is an exception.

I make sure I’ve got a good grip on the knife as I spot the nearest spot I can end my tactical retreat. There are no vital functions of the LAGOON there and as a result there are less cameras – but it means the reinforcements will have an easier time of it and so will I. Knives aren’t my typical weapon but I know enough to make it work. All I need to do is get to the target area and round on the brineclaw. Easy.

…

I shouldn’t have called it easy, even in my head. I’ve jinxed it. Because I reach the target location, whirl around to face off against the brineclaw and find myself wondering if I’ve gotten malware in my eye. There’s two brineclaws. Both of which are still there when I blink and when I close my bionic eye just in case. I hiss under my breath. Two brineclaws? From different directions or I’d have seen the second approach through the cameras. The one I speared with the ice spear still has the hole in its tail while the other is completely uninjured. I expect the two of them to change targets. Brineclaws are incredibly territorial.

They don’t change targets.

Both lunge for me at the same time. Ripped tail is faster and I take until the last moment to shift enough that the claw thrust misses me. Seconds afterwards the claw strike of the second brineclaw hits the first and draws that human scream out of the brineclaw with the ripped tail. The first brineclaw launches its smaller claw at the second, impacting its side. The second brineclaw burbles out a bellow. Older than the first, I absently note in that way that just can’t stop making observations.

I can see a flash of movement – low to the ground and fast – over the cameras. If that’s another fiend I swear-

A mace made out of bone – a tail! – slams into the side of the second brineclaw, cracking parts of its exoskeleton. This time it does change targets, hissing as it limps away from me and the first to go after whatever just hit it.

The first brineclaw skitters back a few steps and thrusts its larger claw at me again. Something about the repetitiveness of its attacks bothers me, but that’s yet another problem for future me. I duck under the claw strike and jam the knife into the soft joint in the exoskeleton just behind it. I get treated to another human scream for my troubles. It turns into a wail as I jerk the knife in a semi-circle and then to one side. Tendons snap and sever and the main attacking claw hits the ground with a wet thud.

There’s a grim sense of satisfaction at taking away one of the brineclaw’s weapons. I’m not fast enough to avoid getting hit by a sac of brine in retaliation; it sizzles and burns against my skin as I put distance between myself and the brineclaw again. Once again I’m reminded that knives are very much not my forte and I need to work on my (lack of) skill with them. While I took the brineclaw’s larger claw, I doubt that did much serious damage to the fiend. This would be faster if I had my weapons.

That said, it’s not like I planned to get attacked by a brineclaw and then a second one within minutes of leaving the infirmary!

A nagging suspicion bites at the back of my skull, sharp teeth squeezing bone, and I shake my head sharply to dislodge it. Distraction will not help the situation.

The brineclaw, now minus a claw, is distracted though. It really is young as far as fiends go. It’s staring at the stub where one of its claws used to be like this is the first time it noticed what it was. I take the chance to swivel some of the cameras to check on the other brineclaw and I blink in surprise. The pink and green mohawked riptide agent is the one who has come to my aid. Now that I have my HUD, their tag is scanned and information is presented.

Name: Chaisee (@pettyinpink)
Pronouns: She/Her
Moreau Base: Ankylosaur
“No, I don’t have feeling in the tail club. Ask again and I’ll dye everything you own hot pink. Yes, even if it started black.”
Rest of Profile Anonymized

I can’t help but bark out a laugh at her status message. The sound draws the attention of both brineclaws – giving her the opening she needs to slam her club right into the skull of the older brineclaw. It goes down with a wet thud. That’s well in line with what I expect from her given what I recall of the exam and the fact that she’s one of Yilmaz’s other friends. I can’t help an internal comparison; she’s taken out the second brineclaw – already the edges of it are beginning to crumble into piles of voxels, while the one I’ve been dealing with has… a hole in its tail and a lack of its attacking claw.

Then again, my tail isn’t a weapon like hers is so maybe I can shove that thought aside with a shake of my head. I hurl several ice daggers at the brineclaw along with the actual knife. My aim is off – the world is shaky and throbbing at the edges, precursors to the migraine catching up with me. Still – while the brineclaw swipes half of the ice daggers away with its remaining claw easily and the other half don’t do any damage at all – the metal dagger is concealed among the latter group.

Off come an antennae and the knife impales an eye. Frustration boils out between my teeth in a growl as the brineclaw screams. Not enough to take it out. Nowhere near. And now I’m without a weapon again. I thought I had more time before the migraine came for my skull.

Chaisee wallops it in the back with her tail while it screams and shakes itself back and forth. And then she hits it a second time when it collapses. Once it starts to crumble into voxels she lifts her attention to me with a cocky grin. “Having trouble?” she asks, stepping around the fallen brineclaws to come closer. “…Did they fuck with your eye? You don’t miss like that.” the grin collapses into a worried from.

“Not… not that I can tell.” I answer, too startled by the visible concern to give anything but honesty. “Hold that thought, I want to make sure that the rest of the breakout has been contained.” I hold up one hand, half expecting a complaint and getting a serious nod instead. Stepping over the piles of cooling voxels that were – just moments ago – very angry lobster fiends, I move out of the target area and into a space where there are more cameras. Reconnecting to that many is a bad idea.

I seem to have developed a taste for bad ideas in the last day or so. I do it anyway despite the pounding of my head and the way I find myself squinting to help buffer against the pain. But I need to know. I do at least connect to them slower as I start walking in the direction of training deck #3.

Chaisee sticks her hands in her pockets and follows, head tilted to one side and heavy tail dragging a rumbling warning on the ground. At first I stay tense in case the warning is for me, but given the way she keeps giving me concerned glances I’m starting to think the warning is for… someone else. There’s a question behind my teeth but containing the breakout comes first.

…What a laugh.

What breakout?

The signs I find bring back those teeth gnawing at the back of my skull. There’s no trail of destruction leading out of training deck #3 – or deck #5, which is where the second brineclaw came from. The destruction only begins several hallways away from the training decks, and head in a straight line for the skywalk and to cut off my path respectively. I double check my work on the way back to that target location, tip of my tail ticking faster and faster until I’m back where we took down the brineclaws. I kneel to fetch the knife from the smaller pile with an exhale that is both shakier and more frosted than I mean for it to be.

This whole little trek didn’t take all that long – but Chaisee followed me through it anyway, sharp gaze alternating between looking around and watching me.

“Take it you’re done with your check?” Chaisee asks into the silence.

I do not startle. I just happen to straighten up at that moment. That’s my story. “It looks like those brineclaws were the only fiends that got out and even then… there’s no initial trail of destruction. It’s like someone picked them up out of the training decks and let them loose close enough for the logical assumption to be a breakout. But-” I stop. I don’t want to finish that thought aloud because it feels like grabbing on to the sharper edges of a conspiracy I truly hope isn’t taking place here.

Please, by the Blades and whatever other gods will listen, not this home too…

Chaisee exhales and leans against the wall a good three feet away. “Mhm. I thought so, but I figured you needed to do the check yourself. Yilmaz always said you had a head for this kinda shit an’ a need to see evidence for yourself.” she sighs and leans her head back against the smooth metal of the wall, squishing her mohawk. “When shit started going sour for Rehema, Sara, an’ me – I assumed you had something to do with it. I mean…” she trails off and shakes her head. “Don’t get mad, okay?”

“I am already mad, but it is not aimed at you.” I say, standing the rest of the way up and finally giving the knife I was handed an actual look. “Were I in your position, I likely would have assumed the same of you.” It’s standard issue, which tells me absolutely nothing about how to return it.

That gets a laugh out of her, makes her lean forward with it. “Fair enough.” Chaisee says when she’s finished laughing. “Seriously, Yilmaz’s well known rival an’ probably one of the last folks to see him alive. Plus you don’t interact with us all that much, so…”

Another trailing off where I can put the pieces together easily enough. It’s a sound reason to suspect me. I start to open my mouth to say something when Chaisee speaks again.

“But see, the timelines don’t add up. You spent a lotta time in the infirmary recently, an’ they fucked with your eye. An’ then there’s this targeted attack”

“There’s no proof-” I cut her off because I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to linger on the teeth in the back of my skull. It can’t be true.

“Two brineclaws.” Chaisee holds up one finger, “An enemy that renders your very well known innate magic – ice – useless against it.” she waits for me to make a face before she continues. “One of the two damn near fell on your head as soon as you came out of the infirmary after retrieving your eye – which was exchanged for no reason.” her thick tail scrapes against the ground, as she puts up a second finger.

“No sign of any actual breakouts.” I add, voice faltering as the evidence piles up and an irritating wetness starts gathering at the corners of my eyes like a stubborn itch.

Chaisee puts up a third finger. “And you know as well as I do that brineclaws are territorial bitches that fight each other on sight.” she kneels and starts pushing the cooled voxels around until she finds a metal object. She finds a matching one in the other pile and tilts her head at me. “Can you snap a couple pictures of these?”

Those are… odd. I’d rather take them with us, but if this really is exactly what I don’t want it to be… then leaving them here would be better. I nod quickly and focus on my bionic. Snapping pictures using it is quieter and more covert than otherwise, and I give Chaisee a hand signal to let her know that I’ve got them.

She puts them back where she found them; makes a show of kicking around the voxels like she’s mad at the brineclaws. “This is an attempted hit on you. As much as the mechanical failures are on us. But that? Those failures wouldn’t work on you. Not when you rarely take in-LAGOON transit as is. You see what I’m seeing, right?”

I look away. “…I don’t want to see it.” I breathe out. “It’s bad enough that I can’t even hold pride in being Riptide. I don’t…” I trail off and grit my teeth. This is far too much emotion bearing and I need to build those walls back to where they belong.

“If it helps, I get it.” Chaisee says. “We busted our damn asses and it wound up like this.” she falls silent for a while.

I stay silent as well, breathing slowly as I get what I’m feeling under control. This, happily, gives me something else to focus on instead of the pain of the migraine.

“Hey, why don’t you come back to my apartment? Have a celebratory dinner since we both made Riptide?”

The question is so out of the blue that I do jump this time, but then I spot cadets rounding the corner into hearing range and… well. I haven’t had a lot of luck with my plans over the last day. This might be walking right into a lion’s den while the migraine is ramping up; still, I nod. “Sounds good. Would you lead the way? I don’t know where you live.”

That part’s true. I don’t know where her apartment is. But I doubt this is just for a celebratory dinner.

We start moving after she nods. The rumor mill catches that invitation and response with all the tender care it shows everything else – I can already hear the whispers. Digging for information through it will be tiresome.

If I’m being targeted – if this really was an attack designed to take me out or keep me out of the picture… then someone in power knows.

And if this is really what it seems like… then I’ve had another home turn against me.