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Chapter 73 : Rescue
🕑 Added 2025-09-15 08:57:33 +0000 UTCChapter 73: Rescue
The creature's muscles coiled, preparing to drop onto its unsuspecting prey.
Batman was still fifty yards away when his lead drone's camera picked up the transformed dog clinging to the ceiling directly above the intersection. The inmates were three steps away from walking directly beneath it.
Two steps.
One step.
"Drone strike, now!" Batman commanded through his mesh network.
His combat drones converged on the intersection from multiple directions, their micro-weapons systems acquiring the target just as the creature released its grip on the ceiling. High-velocity rounds struck the mutated dog mid-fall, sending it crashing into the corridor wall instead of onto the inmates below.
The two men spun around at the sound of gunfire and the creature's impact, their faces going white with terror as they saw the nightmare that had nearly killed them.
"What the hell—" the younger inmate started to say.
"RUN!" his companion shouted, grabbing the younger man's arm and pulling him away from the intersection. "Just fucking RUN!"
They sprinted down the corridor as Batman's drones engaged the creature. The transformed dog recovered quickly from the initial strike, its elongated spine allowing it to move making it surprisingly agile despite its injuries. Black ichor sprayed from multiple wounds, but the creature seemed to barely register the damage.
One drone swooped too close and was caught by the creature's razor claws, exploding in sparks and metal fragments. The remaining units adjusted their position, maintaining distance while concentrating fire on the creature's exposed brain tissue.
Through his surveillance feed, Batman watched the battle unfold while closing the remaining distance at maximum speed. The creature was tougher than he had anticipated. His drones' weapons were having limited effect on its enhanced body.
The mutated dog managed to destroy two more drones before the concentrated fire finally began taking its toll. Its movements became sluggish as its critical systems started failing. With a final, defiant snarl, the creature collapsed to the floor, its elongated spine going rigid as death claimed it.
Batman reached the intersection thirty seconds later with his remaining drones providing overwatch as he examined the scene. The creature's corpse lay in a pool of black ichor, its brain tissue finally still. Scorch marks from the drones' weapons scarred the walls and ceiling around the impact site.
"Tactical assessment complete," Batman muttered into his comm. "Transformed canine eliminated. Inmates continuing south through service corridor seven."
But as he tracked the fleeing men through his mesh network, new alerts began flashing across his HUD. Multiple heat signatures were moving through the facility's upper levels—something was hunting from above, using the ventilation systems to move between floors.
Batman's enhanced hearing picked up sounds that confirmed his suspicions: the scrape of claws against the metal ducts, and something that sounded disturbingly like wet breathing echoing through the air circulation vents.
The two inmates had stopped running and were now moving cautiously through a maintenance area, both men looking exhausted and terrified. Through his surveillance, Batman could see they were heading toward a dead end—a storage area that would trap them if they were cornered.
"Redirect to emergency exit route," Batman said, activating speakers in their vicinity through his mesh network. The sudden voice made both men freeze in panic.
"Who's there?" the younger man called out, his voice cracking with fear.
"I'm here to help," Batman replied. "You're heading toward a dead end. Turn around and take the corridor to your left—it leads to an emergency exit."
"How do we know you're not one of those things?" the older inmate demanded.
"Because those things don't give you advice to escape," Batman replied dryly. "They just kill you."
After a moment's hesitation, the men changed direction as instructed. Batman tracked their progress while analyzing the heat signatures moving through the facility's upper levels.
His comm system crackled with Robin's voice emerged through the static: "Batman, this is Robin. I've breached the facility perimeter and connected to your mesh network. Justice League has been notified and are en route. What's your status?"
"Multiple hostiles confirmed," Batman replied, noticing that the heat signatures were converging towards firefly's lab. "The Architect has weaponized the facility's population. Unknown number of transformed subjects hunting survivors."
"Any sign of Firefly?"
"Still secured in the laboratory. Defensive perimeter is holding. But the creatures are now heading towards there." Batman paused as his sensors detected movement ahead. "Robin, I need you to coordinate evacuation of any survivors you encounter. The Architect is making selections—some people are being kept alive in organic cocoons, others are being killed outright."
"Kept alive for what?"
"Unknown. But I believe he's judging each person individually." Batman drew several specialized grenades from his utility belt as shadows moved in the darkness ahead. "Be extremely careful. These creatures adapt quickly to countermeasures."
The conversation was interrupted by a sound—a wet, tearing noise followed by human screaming. One of the heat signatures on his HUD suddenly disappeared, while another began moving erratically.
"Shit," Batman muttered, breaking into a run toward the source of the disturbance.
Through his mesh network, he caught glimpses of what had happened: one of the creatures had dropped through a ceiling grate and attacked a guard who'd been trying to reach the facility's armory. The man was still alive but badly injured, crawling along the floor while leaving a thick trail of blood.
The creature—another transformed human with elongated limbs and chitinous armor—moved slowly as it tracked the guard's movement, apparently in no hurry to finish the kill.
Batman arrived just as the creature's claws were about to end the guard's suffering. A cluster of cryo-grenades detonated around the transformed human, instantly dropping the temperature and slowing its enhanced metabolism. The creature's movements became sluggish as ice crystals formed across its carapace.
"Medical assistance required," Batman said into his comm while applying emergency first aid to the wounded guard. The man was unconscious but breathing, his injuries severe but not immediately fatal.
"Negative," came Robin's reply. "All medical personnel are either dead or cocooned according to the facility schematics I'm accessing. We're on our own until backup arrives."
Batman looked at the frozen creature, then at the dying man at his feet. The situation was deteriorating rapidly, and he was running out of options for protecting the facility's remaining survivors.
From somewhere in the darkness ahead came that bone-chilling roar he'd heard earlier—the sound of the apex predator that had emerged from the cafeteria massacre.
"Robin," he said quietly into his comm, "how long until Justice League arrival?"
"ETA twelve minutes."
Batman looked at his dwindling supply of specialized weapons, then at the multiple heat signatures converging on firefly's postion from all directions.
"That might be eleven minutes too long."
Comments
Radiant Tiefling
Thank you for the chapter.
Axel Gerard
👍
