Echoes of Ancient Future

The sparkles flied with a angry buzz toward the visor of the helmet, and Ethan raised a hand to cover his eyes, for instinct rather than for an actual danger to his eyes.
"Wha... Hey, cap, are you sure this is a good idea? ...this place gives me the creeps..."
"Bah! Stop whining McKrannig! It's not the first abandoned base from the times of the War of Two Worlds that the Theocracy discover, there's nothing from their ancient technology that can harm us, soldier!"
In fact, captain Frederick Jahun of the Order of the Technotemplars was just as scared, but he knew perfectly that letting the squad know that would sure not help their morale.
Private Vaenig, a superb soldier but never on the bright side, lost an excellent chance to keep his mouth shut. His voice, muffled through the helmet air filters, pierced the silence - "C'mon, cap, he's right... i've been in other of these places before, but all of them were nothing more than abandoned battlegrounds, ripe with corpses and holed by lasers and explosions... this empty place scares the crap out of me... there's nothing but dust and rust here and..."
The usually silent Lieutenant Lewis caught the chance to stop his comrade tirade before he could bring McKrannig on his side. "Shut up, Vaenig! The only rust is inside your brain, those walls are of duralloy, nothing can touch them, neither rust or weapons, i would've hoped you could know at least as much!"
With a silent bless for Jake and his swift mind, Jahun brought his attention back to the young technician. "Are you done McKrannig?"
"Almost there, sir, i... here! Done!"
More sparks flied toward McKrannig from the control panel he was fickling with, at the same time as the big blast doors before them finally opened with a loud hiss and a release of a cloud of steam which impaired both normal and infrared vision. His step back probably saved his life.
Jahun heard a huge blast coming from behind the door and saw something shoot back. The man's mind registered in a moment that the mangled heap of blood and broken bones flying past him was whatever remained of lieutenant Jake Lewis, and in but a fraction of a second he thought that he would not heard him brag anymore about his luck with women... and that he would never see back the 10 credits he loaned to him... a cynical thought that he would've regretted later on.
But he was a templar of the Theocracy even before a man, and the soldier's mind was even faster in realizing the situation and reacting to it. He thrusted himself beind a huge steam pipe at the side of the door shouting to his squad. "Take cover! Enemy offensive! Take cover!"
Through the thick steam pouring from the door, he could barely see the two remaining men flattening against the wall, behind a crumbled pipe. He signaled them to stay still, hopeing that they could see his gesture.
It was then that the noise started. A grating, screeching noise, like nails on an iron plate, vaguely intermittent. It was even more of a shock when he realized what it was... someone was laughing. Better, "something", since no human or hybrid throat could emit such sound.
Despise all his efforts to keep his cold blood, he could hear his own heart thumping on the titanium cuirass. The underground echoes were making the noise all the more weird and haunting, until it ended abruptly. The steam was fading as well.
Captain Jahun was about to signal to attack when he saw Vaenig shivering once. A fountain of dark red blood erupted from his chest with a sloshing noise as three long blades busted through the armor at the height of the heart.
He couldn't see the soldier's eyes through the visor, so why he was so *certain* that he was looking at him?
As the blades slivered back into the wall with only the slightest slicing noise, Vaenig corpse dropped forward in the middle of the corridor, leaving only the thin slits dripping red in the duralloy plate.
"What bloody thing can slice through duralloy and titanium like butter?"
He didn't realize he had spoken it aloud until McKrannig started shacking his head, shivering violently. "I don't know, cap! I don't know, cap! What do we do? WHAT WE DO?" He was shouting now, and when he fled running down the corridor, almost tumbling over Voening body, he didn't even try stopping him. He jumped instead in the middle of the corridor, the inverted magnetic rifle grasped so tightly in his hands that his knuckles were almost white. He could feel the holy rage coming upon him, but the doorway was empty now, opening on a sort of abandoned lab.
"COME OUT!! DAMNED BASTARD, COME OUT AND FIGHT ME!"
It came out. Slowly, deliberately, provocating even, a flexous female body like an angel of heaven, a face like a nightmare from hell, the long metal blades coming out of her skin still dripping with Vaenig's blood. A fearsome sight that would've frozen anyone.
But Frederick Jahun was well past fear now. With uncontrollable rage he pushed the trigger, unleashing a thick rain of inverted magnetic blasts on his enemy, the azure bursts of energy covering his view, and screaming like a madman all the time, ignoring the blisters forming on his hands even through the gloves as the rifle started overheating beyond safety limits. Eventually the safety plug kicked in, and the rifle went silent.
The warrior recovered his sight just in time to see a huge bloody maw of raw meat close silently on the things arm, leaving nothing to show where a moment ago even bones could be seen through the wound. Not anymore on the influence of the holy rage, he could only stand and look shocked at the inhuman being before him.
"Welcome home, mortal."

* - * - *

Yadda!!! Another pic, another looooooong due ded, who's been waiting for... uhhh... almost a year now? I'm soooo fast!!! 'tis dedicated to , who can finally take away her dagger from me liver... i was starting to get worried! I know that it ain't much after all that time, but i hope you like yer fallen angel hon! *huge naga *

Credits:

Holding Chamber - Stonemason
Time Prisoner 3 - Danie, Marforno
Techno Seriph Wings - Traveler
Sorayama Helmet - Mechanismo
Devil Horns - UweG
ShadowSong - Darkscorn, Soulsliver
Blade Pods 2 - RGDev
Ballistic, Ballistic Uploaded - Kirisute, Moonfire
Sf Suit - Maveris
TreadZ - the 3dWizard
TreadZ MATs - Miranda69
Cold Ethyl - Neomea
Horror Cyberimplants - Traveler
Spikey Things - Deviant Designs
Fn F2000 - Graham Shaw
Demon - Bladesmith

... and i hope y'all other can enjoy this too! C&C always welcome!

Till next time,
Grim