The air was thick with tension. Daimona and Will stared intently up at Bash. There wasn't a shred of doubt in her returned expression, her mouth drawn in an unyielding line beneath her steel lilac eyes.
Daimona opened her mouth to ask her captain what their next move was, but a sharp click startled her. Will suddenly pulled a rifle up, the silver winged scope clicking into place to meet his eye. There was no hesitation. He fired the shot as soon as his breathing stilled. Daimona whipped her head back to follow the ascent of the shot, a diagonal rise directly aimed for Bash’s throat.
A dark, jagged line appeared just before Bash’s body, hovering in the air outside of the tower's brick wall. It looked as though someone had taken a serrated knife and carved into the sky like the belly of a boar. The bullet disappeared into the darkness, its silver light vanishing on the other side in an instant. A wet, flopping noise came in the silence after the shot, followed by a round, red ball tumbling out. It splatted on the ground violently, revealing a mangled tongue impaled on sharp teeth.
“Meatballs,” Daimona chortled. “Like that'd stop us from coming up there and beating the shit out of her.”
A geyser of the balled creatures shot forth from the incision. Hundreds seemed to rain down from the sky, the first falling to form a platform of corpses for their brethren to land on. The survivors toddled forward with grubby limbs, clawed hands of three fingers reaching out for Daimona and Will.
She stomped through the first two to come close to her, pulling her gut-soaked boots out of their remains with a disgusted groan. But the swarm encroached her space, biting at her and clinging to her harder than the rat-like creatures before had. Daimona struggled to free her right fist from the hungry mouth of one. Will jammed his rifle into its side and fired, the bullet grazing her fingertips inside as it decimated the creature. Pressed back to back by the horde, Daimona leaned against Will heavily.
“Switch,” Will ordered bluntly, tossing his rifle to the side. Daimona shifted uncomfortably against the writhing mass walling her in, pivoting around Will’s left just in time to see his portal closing. One of the creatures tried to reach inside the pooling light, only to be disintegrated instantly. Must be another perk of brand loyalty, Daimona thought dryly.
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A loud wooshing sound suddenly pierced through the chattering noises of Bash's creatures, and Daimona turned her head to peer over Will's shoulder. In his hands was a massive black canon, with three long barrels that jutted out of the face and spun when he fired. Instead of bullets, however, green flames erupted forth from it and incinerated the throes of enemies before the gun.
“This is one of my own,” Will explained with a grunt, hoisting the cannon higher with both hands. “Kell helped me put it together a couple months ago.”
“That is so much cooler than your lame peashooter!!” Daimona exclaimed with awe. “Why don't you use this one more often?”
“Because it still has-- ugh, technical difficulties,” he replied stiffly, and Daimona noticed the burns forming on his hands, his palms sizzling as he adjusted his grip. “Just stay behind me for now, I don't want to hurt you.”
Daimona followed his lead, stepping carefully as he turned in a full circle and enveloped the onslaught around them in his flames. After several minutes of spinning around one another, a wall of flames remained around them, burning up the fallen army of flesh creatures relentlessly.
Will slowed, gasping for air as he dropped the cannon and let it slip from his grasp. Flakes of his burnt skin peeled with it, revealing the under layer's sheets of bloodied red behind.
As the flames slowly died down, Daimona realized their victory was still just out of reach. On the other side waiting for them stood a new swarm of flesh creatures, only these were a far cry from the meatball monstrosities they had been fighting before. They stood a few inches taller than Daimona, pale and bipedal with gangly limbs that ended in hook-nailed stubs. They had no face; instead, each bore a single, bulbous eyeball with a green iris, rounding over like a massive tumor from their shoulders. They raised their hooked appendages in unison high over Daimona and Will's heads.
“Now these guys look worth my time,” Daimona growled eagerly.
