Chương 21: Weaponised Catastrophe

Something burst out of the crates. No—something was the crates, towering above men, military-reinforced casing, with predatory, hungry legs beneath each.

"The mimics changed forms? Again? How?!" One of the Obsidian gunmen reeled back in shock, weapon half-lowered as he took in the impossible sight—his own cargo turning on him, his crate angled too closely.

"Who cares?!" Another barked, already pivoting into position.

"Covering fire, secure priority cargo! Prepare route B!" Their weapons came up as one, unloading rounds into the swarm of security mechs and capture units as they battled monstrosities. A few mercs laid down suppressive fire. Rounds chewed into the walls around the security units, punching holes through metal paneling and shattering a dormant display screen. The bots ducked back behind a support pillar, their advance stalled.

Without the mercs picking them off, the units would adjust their approach, spread out, and surround the creatures they'd sent as distractions and quickly neutralize them. The mercs were buying a window, and every one of them knew exactly how narrow it was. Further down the platform, other contractors hauled out angled cargo. The cargo shifted, unfolding and locking into sleek, high-speed motorcycles.

The transition was seamless—polished panels folding into place, internal engines coming online with a low hum—sleek black, built to move fast and leave faster. They secured them to troll-sized cargo boxes, their movements precise, practiced and far too coordinated for this to be a last-minute escape plan. While the units and security battled creatures that should not even have existed. The mimics didn't dodge. They had no reason to.

Instead, they charged like living battering rams, angling their heads, plates of reinforced casing duplicated to deflect high-pressure rounds as they rushed forward. Bullets hit solid graphene—or a perfect mimicry of it—ricocheting off like sparks on armor, their bodies instinctively twisting mid-sprint to minimize impact zones, absorbing the kinetic energy without slowing. Each hit left its mark—dents warping the edges of their metallic forms, some strikes biting deeper, rupturing the plating.

And yet, where they should have leaked oil or hydraulic fluid, something thicker seeped through the cracks, too dark for human blood, yet biological, and too sluggish for coolant. Some were torn apart mid-charge—weaker, less resistant than the materials they attempted to mimic, shredded down to twitching limbs and teeth, collapsing in ruined heaps before they reached their targets. But the larger ones? They didn't stop. They slammed into the droids, and their casings split wide—not from damage, but by design.

The insides should have been circuits, steel, and wiring. Instead, they had jaws. Unfolding, stretching too wide, filled with jagged metallic teeth, an impossible abyss that swallowed whole the machines meant to stop them. The first droid disappeared whole, metal shearing under the strength of their bite. The next fell in seconds, limbs torn off as the creatures gorged themselves. Others pushed forward, overwhelming a mech in a swarm, their reinforced plating shifting angles to redirect incoming fire. They learned.

They adapted. They consumed. The security units were starting to lose. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Mark me as a friendly and redirect all security units to stopping Obsidian and wrecking their vehicles, I'll take care of the mimics," Kelly said between explosions. Rook's voice cut through the chaos, sharp with realization.

"Shit—they're going to get away." His gaze tracked the swarm, cutting through the shifting mass of living, armored nightmares.

"They're mimicking bulletproof military casings, but—" He exhaled, tension creeping into his frame.

"Not perfectly." He turned to regard Kelly, but Kelly was already gone. She sprinted toward the firefight, a gun in one hand, a knife in the other, and a bag full of weapons on her back. Boots pounding against the reinforced flooring, her eyes locked on the creatures tearing into station security. They weren't just wearing their old cages—they were becoming them.

Every surface and angle a perfect facsimile of the engineered crystal hyperweave designed to shrug off ballistics, disperse energy, and hold under forces that should have shredded them to pulp. Even the logos were there, stamped onto the plating like they'd eaten the branding too. Like living fabricators—but without millions of algorithms sustaining them. That level of biological replication shouldn't have been possible. But it was right there.

And if they could fake material density, hijack structure on this level—she needed one. Badly. The mimicry wasn't perfect, though—some were crumbling under sustained fire, their dense armor cracking in places, failing to fully maintain the integrity of the original material. Flawed pattern replication? Energy degradation? Partial assimilation of material properties? Even the bigger ones weren't quite right—some buckling under fire, others bleeding when they shouldn't. They hadn't perfected it yet.

A work in progress, a prototype of something bigger. She'd tear one open herself if she had to. Their bodies carried the same matte finish, the same reinforced plating, the same military-grade casing. She caught sight of one much bigger than the rest, the monster's plating patterned with Vaughn's defense subsidiary insignia, a near-perfect replica of what she now suspected might be ultra-dense graphene nano-crystal hyper weave, so expensive it hardly ever saw battlefields.

Kelly lobbed a grenade into the cluster of mimics, immediately pivoting to fire rapid bursts at the nearest box-legged monstrosity—less to harm it, more to piss it off. The grenade sailed overhead, clattering among the mimic creatures as the one she peppered with bullets reacted on instinct, legs slamming against the ground as it charged headfirst, deflecting the rounds like a walking slab of armored plating. She didn't move until the last second. Then she met it head-on. A mental command.

A wave of pressure—an explosion of absolute liquid influence erupted from Kelly. The wave crashed into the creature like a wall of pushed blood cells. The thing's next step was a lower, slower, a microsecond of invisible influence, a shove. A step inside its reach—a single cut, downward, clean, fast. The mimic split from the top down, halves crashing apart as she landed behind it.

A second later, the grenade detonated, shockwaves rippling through the remaining creatures, hardly damaging the larger ones, denting armor of a few, and splitting weaker ones apart. [Uncommon title: 'Mimic Hunter (I)' gained!] The battlefield froze for half a second, shock gripping the mercs as they registered what just happened. One of them, gripping his rifle too tight, took a sharp step back.

"She—what the fu—" His words died as he stared at the bisected mimic, still twitching, its split casing slick with something that wasn't supposed to bleed. Another merc let out a low curse.

"That was diamond-hardened graphene. She cut through it—focus up! Drop her, now!" The lead contractor barked, snapping them back into motion, rifles swinging toward Kelly—and then the station came alive. Metal boots hit the ground hard. The mechs moved first, massive humanoid constructs storming forward, reinforced plating gleaming under the harsh station lights. Security bots followed, sleek and efficient, weapons locking onto the Obsidian gunmen with ruthless precision.

From his vantage point, Rook exhaled, low and measured.

"…Huh." Then louder:"Engage." The mercs barely had a second to process before the first suppression rounds fired.