(Welp, this went way better than expected.)
To put it as simply as absolutely possible, the sight before us was rather... chaotic, to say the least. We had just arrived a moment ago after the mayhem that we had intentionally caused had calmed down, and yet despite knowing what we'd come across it was still quite the sight.
Dead splicers littered the area, their malformed bodies riddled with bullet holes from which streams of blood leaked. Around them were dozens of security bots, some in states of complete destruction while others were still rather intact. Overall, however, the whole place was a complete mess, not to say that it wasn't rather unsightly before, but still, you get my point.
"How the hell...?" Connor's voice echoed through the damp halls as he disassembled one of the bots. "Wait, they... is that how... what the fuck..." He rambled to himself; he seemed honestly surprised that the people of Rapture were able to make these things.
"Just looks like shitty versions of the things we had in our world," Ashley said as she glanced over his shoulder.
Connor just shook his head at that. "You don't get it. This thing shouldn't be able to function properly with the machinery that's stuffed into it."
"You sound impressed." Red, for his part, just muttered, his sniper rifle held at the ready just in case.
"I am, surprisingly." The grumpy engineer admitted with a shrug.
"Nerak must say, we were not expecting to witness such a show, although Nerak will admit that it was quite thrilling to witness indeed."
"Y-yeah... I suppose 'thrilling' is one way to put it..." Sapphire sighed, looking somewhat uncomfortable.
(Honestly, I might have gone a bit overboard this time, oh well.) I thought to myself as I remembered back to the chaos that had just occurred.
_ _ _ _Flashback_ _ _ _
It had started not with a boom or a cry of battle but a flicker, a sudden shift in the atmosphere. The first thing those close by noticed was the lights of the various security cameras flicking off, their usual red lighting going dark, much to the confusion of the splicers wandering the level.
For a moment that's all there was; it wasn't exactly irregular for things around here to just up and break down out of nowhere, after all the structure wasn't exactly in the best of conditions. And so, little thought or care was directed toward this abrupt turn of events. There was clear annoyance in the air but nothing substantial, something that would soon change however.
It wasn't long before they switched back on. The lights flickered back on, momentarily stunning those few splicers that had walked over to investigate. They were, however, quick to notice that something was different: the glow that now emitted from the cameras was no longer their usual red; instead, they now glowed a dark, violent colour.
What followed was rather chaotic, to put it mildly. The cameras, now registering all the splicers in range as hostiles, began blaring alarms all throughout the floor, and their calls were quickly answered. All at once, across walls and ceilings, dozens of hidden vents and compartments opened as swarms of security bots emerged, their weapons ready and armed.
In an instant the level was drowned in the sound of gunfire as the security bots opened up on anything their systems marked as a threat. Large numbers of splicers, taken momentarily by surprise by the sudden shift, were quickly gunned down before they could process the situation.
On the other hand, many of them were, in fact, able to react far quicker to the danger, allowing them to begin fighting back with whatever weaponry they had on them at the time. Add in the turrets that almost immediately opened up on the buzzing drones that now whizzed through the air, and you get quite the firefight.
Things, of course, didn't just stop there, no, it only got more violent by the second. Splicers that had been off in areas without any security cameras began funnelling in by the dozens, drawn in by the sounds of battle. The fighting only escalated even further when several splicers with plasmid given powers appeared; although they were few and far between, they definitely made an impact. So yeah, to put it simply, the chaos took quite a while to quiet down.
_ _ _ _Flashback over_ _ _ _
With what had just occurred, making our way over to our destination wouldn't be difficult at all; we probably wouldn't run into any opposition on our way there. Not to say that all the enemies on this level had been eliminated mind you, there were definitely still some present, but their numbers had definitely taken a hit.
Still though, the path to the maintenance room was now open and clear of any potential dangers which was all that really mattered right now. We'd still need to keep our guard up just in case, but we could definitely be a bit more relaxed knowing that we wouldn't get swarmed by mutated maniacs anytime soon.
(I think I'll stick to the ceiling.) I thought, crawling up onto the roof to avoid the pools of blood below.
(It's a shame that the others can't do this; however, at the very least they are wearing shoes, I'm not.) I reasoned, only to stop that line of thinking when I felt the familiar sensation of several new creatures joining the hive mind.
"Hummm?" Following the mental link I realised where it came from. "Oh, looks like the kiddos I had left behind have 'moved out' of their hosts," I muttered under my breath.
Before I took a second to investigate more, however, a voice brought me out of my musings. "Carmen?"
"Yeah? Sorry, I was just thinking about something. What's up?" I asked, looking down from above at Sapphire.
"I was just saying how we should probably get moving now," she said while gesturing in the direction which we should be heading.
"Right." I nodded, before glancing at my human companions. "Guys, we're moving out."
Ashley and Red nodded immediately at my words; however, Connor glanced up me for a moment questioningly. "Once we get set up I'll send someone to grab as many of the mostly intact bots as possible for study," I added, answering his unspoken question.
"Thank you." He nodded appreciatively as he stood from his crouching position.
"No problem, now let's get moving." I said back as I started crawling across the ceiling.
"They will take point as we advance," Nerak called, motioning to two of his men, something that caused me to look at my own team.
"Keep them company," I said, and the three humans moved ahead with the two members of The Tainted Water.
(Time to see what we're working with...)
It didn't take us long to arrive at our destination, only a few minutes in fact. We didn't run into any opposition, fortunately. The hardest part, honestly, was actually getting into the room itself since it had been completely sealed off with no clear way to open it. I could have just melted through it with my acid; however, I'd rather not accidentally create a hole in front of what was to be our main staging point. In the end, Ashley had to slowly cut her way through the door with her plasma cutter.
And so we entered, and immediately took a look around. The whole place looked more akin to a control room than what you'd expect a maintenance room to look like. Multiple consoles were lined up one after the other with a large generator built into the wall to the right of us. The whole place was illuminated by the violet lights of a security camera that was now very much under our control. Thankfully, however, there had been no splicers in here when we took over the cameras, so everything was still intact and hadn't been damaged in the mayhem.
"Nerak, please watch the hallway with the others while we check things out here," Sapphire mumbled, turning to the fish-like man in question.
"As you wish, princess." He bowed, his fellows following him outside.
Once they were gone Sapphire walked over to me and asked, "S-so... should we start calling in some of the others now?"
"Yeah. We'll let Connor work his magic here while we do just that," I agreed, causing her to nod in response.
"Alright."
(Once everything's secured I should look into those new xenos that are now running around.) I thought half-heartedly as I opened up a gate to my sanctuary. (I'm really curious how the Adam in the splicers has affected them...)