doom community story!

[Katgut]

More of concern at the immediate moment is Kia's shoulder wound and the civilian. You fire quickly, dropping the civilian, then examine the wound. No blood, which is odd enough, but the synthetic muscles... wait a minute...

"Yes, Russ," she says. "I'm a cyborg. I was in a car accident, and they had to 'borg me to keep my brain alive. Definitely weird, but it makes me a better soldier than anyone who's still totally organic."

[Doom-Child]

"Can you move fast enough?" you ask. "I think so. Just gimme your pistol. I don't think I can use this thing right now." She drops the gatling gun and slowly gets to her feet. After checking her shoulder and the ammo in your pistol, she motions for you to take point. You never did like point.

[Katgut]

Just before leaving, you pick up the gatling gun. No sense in leaving a good piece of weaponry behind.

As you lead your way through a corridor with crates stacked on alternate sides, Kia starts slowing down. "Damnit, Kia, this is no time to fall asleep," you say.

"I'm not falling asleep. That bullet took out one of the main power lines. Let's see... I think I've got some spare power cable in my pack. You think you can fix it in... oh, say, two minutes?"

[Katgut]

You shrug. "What the hell. I might not be an electronics specialist, but I can get this done." Kia winces. Quickly, you cut the power cable twice to give flat ends so as to splice in a new segment, then grab a pair of wirenuts, twist the ends together, and slap a metaskin patch over the fix.

Just as you finish, a round shadow floats towards you. "Uh, Russ... we have company."

[danarchist]

You turn around and see a large brown demon, much like the red thing you evicerated a while back, but with stubby arms, horns, and a burning fire which comes from within.

It slowly opens its mouth, and inside you see hellfire, filled with the souls of a thousand damned that cry out in pain...and what is that which comes toward you? A skull?

[Katgut]

You raise the gatling gun, point it at the monstrosity, and say, "All right, fuckhead. You ready for a dose of some sweet lead lovin'?"

You lean on the trigger, ripping the beast to shreds and blasting you back into the wall. Dazed, you start mumbling, "Mommy, I don' wanna go to school today..."

[GooberMan]

Just after you finish complaining about homework, you snap out of it and realise Kia had taken the gun off you and used her cybernetic arms to hold and contain the vulcan cannon centered on one spot on the monster. The monster seemed to explode and let out a couple of more skulls, which were quickly cleaned up by a few bursts of the vulcan cannon.
"Hmmm, I gotta get me some of those," you think to yourself in regards to the cybernetic arms...

[GooberMan]

(n/t)

[Tek]

With Kia repaired and more or less a functioning soldier again, you set down the heavy gattling gun. Your arms feel suddenly weightless as you put down your burden. You unsling your Double-Barreled and head over to inspect the corpse of the downed UAC civilian. Thinking the person was a traitor, for one reason or another, to the demons' cause, you violently turn over the corpse onto its back. The sight disgusts you.
The flesh of the former UAC civvie is pallid, with open wounds all over, even where pellets from your shotgun didn't hit it. Its eyes don't seem fixed in death, rather they are turned a milky white. There is a large hole in its neck. It looks like something pierced it there, but nothing ballistic. Something like a knife or shiv.
You take off the hood over the person's head to discover that the hair has turned a sickening green, like the toxic goo you've seen in the waste dumps.
Kia walks over to inspect the corpse as well, though she doesn't handle it as well as you did. She turns around and loses her lunch.
"Sweet Jesus," she breathes. "It's like a zombie from a 50's horror-flick."
You nod your agreement and stand up to see if there are anymore surprises for you two.

[Tek]

Oh, oops, Kia already has the gattling gun. A minor inconcistency.

[Katgut]

As you start walking forward, you see a bank of lockers to one side. Civilians, you snort. Bunch of people who can't trust their fellow man to cover their back and not steal their lunch.

Then one of the locker doors falls down.

You jump, and Kia starts laughing at you. "For Christ's sake, Russ! It's just a locker do--" She stops speaking as she looks into the locker. The contents sure weren't the kind of thing your average civilian would have in a locker...

[Doom-Child]

Very quickly you notice a disgusting odor. Whatever's in that locker WAS somebody's lunch. Pushing through the stench, you look down to see...parts...of a human. A rotting torso and several unidentifiable fragments of bone and flesh squirm and writhe out past the fallen locker door.

You hear Kia heave again, and you very nearly lose everything you've eaten for the past few weeks.

A deep-throated snarl snaps your mind out of the idea of empyting your bowels one way or another and into the here and now.

[Tek]

You turn around to find a creature, a towering three meters high with horns coming out of its forhead. Its pinkish flesh glistens with sweat. The muscular legs of the monster curve back at the kneee and end in goatlike hooves. Its hands are clawed, and emit an eerie greenish glow, almost like they're radioactive.
It looks every bit like an image of the Devil as it raises its left hand, roars with rage and projects a ball of green, fould smelling goo in your direction. You lunge frantically out of the way and the goo lances past you and Kia and hits a locker behind you, melting it and its contents into a pile of red slag. The thing howls again and raises its claw to fire at you again. Your weapon is underneath your large bulk and you don't have enough time to get it.
You hear gunfire erupt behind you, though not from Kia's gatt gun. Regardless of where it came from, though, you're thankful as bullets rip into the demon's flesh and the thing goes down, gurgling on its own blood. You turn around and look behind Kia to find a man in heavy kevlar body armor, camouflaged helmet and light-amp goggles, like what the Marines wear. The military has arrived!

[Katgut]

You shout out, "Boy, are we glad to see you, uh... uh..."

The man starts to talk. But not in any human language. His speech sounds like a tape of someone talking being played backwards.

Once he winds down, Kia looks annoyed. "Uh, this guy isn't military. He might have been once... but he's not even alive. I, well, feel some radio waves going to and from him."

You walk around to behind him, where there's a small electronic device with a blinking red LED. Seeing the blinking light reminds you of something else with a little blinking red light... something roughly the same size and shape...

"Kia, RUN! He's got a radio-activated explosive on him!"

[Tek]

You barely have enough time to roll out of the way as the former Marine falls on its stomach and explodes, seemingly shaking the whole complex on its foundation. You lose conciousness for a moment, but regain it seconds later, as a locker falls on your legs. You feel an incredible pain that knocks the air out of your lungs, but doesn't knock you out.
Ignoring your incapacitation, you look around wildly for Kia. She was further away from the blast radius--she should be in a better situation than you.
You see that she is, as her slender, though well-muscled form glides through the smoke towards you. You breathe a sigh of relief, more for her than for yourself.
She kneels down next to you, checking for any wounds other than the locker over your thighs. Seeing none, she grunts as she helps you lift the locker off your legs.
"Are you alright?" She asks as she dusts off her hands. She looks sincerely worried for you.
"Yeah, I'll manage," You say, picking your DBS up off the ground. You brush the debris off the barrel and sling it over your shoulder.
"What the hell was that thing?" You ask as the two of you head towards the service elevator leading to the nuclear armory.
"I have no idea...but it looks like we're going to have to watch out if we find anyone else. I don't think we're prepared for more surprises."
You nod your assent.

[Doom-Child]

Descending in the elevator, you hear a series of explosions, all of them muted, and all of them forcing the already off-balance elevator to shake and sway in its drop.

"Thank God I don't have anything else in my stomach, or this might be a very unpleasant ride."

You grimly grin at Kia's remark and silently count the shells in your bandolier and pocket. Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six. Shit, you think. Well, I suppose I can still but a few pellets in the asshole that put me in this.

[Tek]

A teeth-rattling explosion from overhead pulls you violently out of your reverie.
You look up and instantly shield your eyes from the falling debris. Small bits of shrapnel land all over, cutting up your hands. You throw yourself over Kia's hunched form, making yourself her own personal shield. You'd be lying to yourself if you said you didn't enjoy being on top of her...
You shrug off the perverted thought as you see tiny pinpricks of light coming toward you.
You breathe a sigh of relief, thinking that it's a military craft coming down to rescue you two and take you out of this hellhole for some quality Miller Time--but you realize you are gravely mistaken as the lights come closer, showing themselves as actual flames. But not normal flames--there are skulls in the middle of the floating hellfire. The skulls wear hideous grins as they emit high-pitched war cries and accelerate towards you and Kia...
You throw yourself off of Kia and pull out you DBS, but you're not quick enough to avoid one of the skulls, which takes a nibble out of your combat vest, clipping your stomach. You grunt in pain as you give it a face full of pellets. It explodes in your face, but there is no heat from it. Weird.
You slap two more shells home and run to help Kia fend off two more of the flying skulls, but you realize with satisfaction that she can take care of herself. She pumps huge Gattling Gun rounds into the flaming skulls, extinguishing them forever. You breathe another sigh of relief as the elevator abruptly stops. You're at the armory.

[Tek]

The armored doors of the armory slide open, revealing a candy store of firearms, artillery, explosives, vehicles, and just about everything under the Martian sun that can blow up, perforate, slice, dice, run down, and just plain kill anything. The armory is huge, spanning about three football fields in length, from where you are to the wall across from you. You feel small.
Kia starts to laugh uncontrollably at the sight of so much firepower--You're getting to like her every minute you're with her. You decide to ask her out if you two ever get through this alive. You join in the jubilation, screaming your lungs out.
"We've hit the mother lode!" You yell, running over to a crate marked "Danger--Explosive."
Kia merely shouts out in joy as she starts to pry open a weapons crate with a crowbar.
You open up your crate by shooting off the lock with your pistol. The lock flies off, and you open 'er up to find five military grade fragmentation grenades. You laugh maniacaly as you stuff them into your bandolier.
Kia opens her crate up to find a veritable weapons buffet--M4's, M16's, a Browning Automatic Rifle, two Ingram Mac-10's--one for both of you, how romantic--and a Gas-Action ML-17 Plasma Rifle, along with a stack of fully loaded clips for each weapon. Your heart leaps as she throws you a Mac-10 and five 9mm clips. You sling your Double-Barreled over your shoulder and lovingly snap a clip into the Mac-10.
Kia plugs an energy cell into the ML-17. The rifle hums as pure plasma flows into it. The barrel glows red, superheated by the plasma. Kia holds her rifle across her breast and grins at you.
You don't want to date her--you want to MARRY her!

[danarchist]

Just then, you hear a clatter to your right. You look over and see a pile of marine armor rise up as if it was fit onto a human body. Quickly, an assult cannon flies into its grasp as two glowing red eyes appear in the open visor of the mask.

Before you can react, this repeats itself several times until you are surrounded by about ten of these hellish marine spectres. You and Kia move to stand back to back in case they attack.

"Don't fire," Kia warns, "one stray bullet would send off a chain reaction which would destroy half of this base." You meely give a nod as the spectres advance a couple steps.

You hear a voice seemingly coming from all dirctions, inside your mind: Humans, you have proven yourselves strong, but remain a thorn in the side of the Dark One. You now will be escorted into It's presence. Do not try to escape.

"Don't worry Kia, I've got your back," you say as they get into formation around you.

[Katgut]

As the circle closes around you slowly, you realize that you've still got your survival knife. Which reminds you...

"Kia?"

"What now?"

"You've got your blade, right?"

"I've got one better." A swoosh and a click come from behind you, along with the sound of ripping fabric. Kia lets out a whoop and rushes at the nearest thing, while you head over at the one directly opposite it. With a flurry of slashing, stabbing, cutting, gouging, and assorted martial arts moves, you and Kia take down a couple. Enough to get some breathing room.

Then you see the map of the armory. As a precaution, there's a small medical office here, you notice.

You start heading for the medical office, leaving Kia behind. Nothing decides to make its way in front of you, and you make it into the medical office, where you find...

"Holy shit," you breathe. Inside are the usual items, like a bed, IV stand, refrigerator, sterilization unit, and a few cases of allergy kits. Complete with epinephrine syringes.

You grab one of the kits, pull out the syringe, and then head on out to where Kia was...

[danarchist]

Yes, where she WAS. Now there is nothing. No Kia, no spectres. Just the empty armory, silent except for the low hum of nearby machinery.

Just as you start to look around you hear a malicious, lingering laughter, like the voices of the spectres, but deeper, inside your head. Fool, now I have your 'girlfriend', and theres nothing you can do.

Suddenly, you can see nothing. Did the lights just go out? Or did you just go blind? You can't be sure, for you are able to see nothing. At least you are sure you still exist, because you can feel to hard floor beneath you, and can feel your muscles move as you wave your hand in front of your face.

"Damn. Should've brought a flashlight," you think to yourself. You begin to walk forward, holding your gun out in front of yourself so you don't stumble blindly into any obstacles. You walk forward a few paces, then your foot steps out into nothingness.

"Funny, I don't remember any pits in this room," you muse as you begin falling...

[Tek]

The short fall only startles you.
You realize you only fell about a meter into a pool of--something, but it DID give you one hell of a start. It's still pitch black as you begin fumbling around blindly for a wall, a ladder, anything. Off in the distance, you hear a faint rumbling noise--almost like a ship's engines. You start to think that you've been teleported to some other location, but you dismiss the thought as ridiculous and keep feeling around for a wall.
Success! Your fumbling produces something right in front of you. But it doesn't feel right--it feels moist, fleshy.
You need light. Feeling around in your backpack, you find two small, stick things. Flares! You pull the pin on one of the flares and soft, red light erupts around you.
Unfortunately, you wish you hadn't done that as you realize you're in...

[Doom-Child]

You realize that you're kneeling in a pit of parts. Human parts. Or rather, parts that once belonged to several humans. Quite a few of them, really. After a double take and a quick retch, you stand and wipe the ichor from your hands.

Unbidden, a memory from training jerks itself into your memory, taking with it the thought of your current plight.

"Marines, by the time you leave here, you will be able to spit fire and shit lightning! We will drop you on our enemies and pick you up knee deep in the dead!"

"Well look at me now, sarge," you think to yourself grimly, "knee deep in the dead."

[Katgut]

More of immediate concern are one, the current nonpresence of Kia, and two, getting out of this pit. You look up, and see a faint glimmering of stars. Nothing you're terribly familiar with, but hell, you're not a spaceship navigator, you're just a Marine.

Gradually, your vision adjusts to the darkness. You make a quick circuit around the pit, and find behind you a small panel, still covered in blood and intestines. Suppressing an urge to retch, you activate it, opening a door... and turning on a light... and you hear that mechanical noise again, much closer. You look up again.

[Tek]

You look up to find the snarling brain-face of an Arachnotron staring angrily at you, its eyes burning through your soul and out the other end. Not realizing that it isn't firing at you, you unsling your shotgun and fire pellets at the thing's brain-dome, hoping to quickly silence it so you can get the hell out of here undetected.
Unfortunately, the pellets stop short of it in midair and are deflected in all directions, as if some unseen hand was keeping them from finding a home in the Arachnotron's skull. The air where the pellets hit ripples, and you realize your happy little pit is enclosed by some kind of force-field.
You let out a harsh curse.

[Doom-Child]

You suddenly stop and realize that the beast isn't firing. In fact, you wonder if it sees you at all. Its beady eyes shift rapidly around the perimeter of the pit, seeing everything, except for you.

After nearly a minute of sweat running down your already tense brow, the thing leaves, its mechanical legs clacking all the way down the corridor.

Quickly wishing for a clean set of pants, you wade through the pit towards the door. You find climbing out to be a real chore, almost as if some unseen hand is pushing you down into the bloody refuse. You push past the field and out the door. Blinking mightily, you find a clean corner and check your weapon.

[Katgut]

The weapon checks out fine. You start walking down the deserted hallways of broken sandstone and obsidian, checking each one for any sign of Kia. Nothing.

As you continue down the hallways, you see one hallway lit more brightly at the end, and follow it into an atrium. Unlike the rest of the corridors, you can hear the wind outside, sounding like a lost woman being tortured.

You hear a voice saying, "Russell... Russelllll..."

[GooberMan]

You start thinking... wind sounding like tortured female... someone calling your name... Shit! It isn't wind at all! You start to race down the end of the corridor but stop after a few steps. The walls appear to be moving. Sure, they're full of body parts, but body parts generally don't degenerate in to an oozing mass in a few seconds, drip down to the floor, and start to reform in to those crab creatures...

[pritch]

...a trap!
It takes whole seconds to figure it out you're so hazed, there seems to be thick cloud floating on your eyes.
In the distance you make out a familiar shape... is it Kia? You'll have to get closer.
But a sharp sound puts things into perspective. A crab creature is two seconds away from your skull...

[Tek]

The monster crab emits an ear-splitting roar, bringing you back to harsh reality. A clawed hand lances toward you, the sharpened fingers shining in the dim light as they speed toward your skull.
Startled and frantic, you bend your upper body back at a near-90 degree angle. The claw sails inches over your snarling countenance as you reach back and pull out your double-barreled, your body still bent impossibly backward.
The crab screams in rage at missing its target and lunges at you. Its large bulk comes in contact with you at incredible speed, and you are sent flying backward, the wind knocked out of your already-pounding lungs.
That doesn't stop you from pulling the trigger, though, and as you land on your back, the pellets rip through the monster, perforating it in a thick cloud of crimson. The thing lets out a screeching death-squeal, and you are once again alone in the hallway, listening to the pain-filled screams of the woman you love.