Chapter 3: Fight for Quiet Lawn Cavern
The woman’s shot wasn’t aimed to hit them. It was a signal flare, a declaration.
The Phosphoro streaked upward, a comet of sickly red, and burst.
The light wasn’t illumination. It was an assault. It pierced the eyes, a deep, painful crimson that seared the shadows black and painted the world in the color of an open wound. Fred hissed, throwing his left arm up over his face. Behind his eyelids, purple after-images swam. He heard the others cry out—a sharp gasp from Trixie, a growled curse from Kord.
“Inside! Now!” Eli’s voice, strained but commanding.
Fred didn’t argue. Blinded and disoriented was a death sentence. He stumbled forward, one hand outstretched, grabbing blindly until his fingers closed on the doorframe of Gable’s shattered shop. He shoved Trixie through ahead of him, felt Kord’s massive back brush past, then pulled Eli in by the strap of his harness. Pronto scrambled in last, whimpering.
The relative gloom inside was a mercy. They crouched behind the overturned remains of a crystal display case, the air thick with dust and the sharp smell of broken electronics. Fred blinked rapidly, his vision slowly swimming back into focus—first the worried faces of his friends, then the jagged hole where the front wall used to be.
Outside, the red glow faded, leaving a deeper, more menacing dark. The Hooligang’s laughter filtered in, ugly and taunting.
“Everyone see okay?” Fred’s voice was a low rasp. He checked Voltage first; the little slug was blinking hard, his golden markings dimmed but steady. A nod from Trixie, a thumbs-up from Kord. Eli was peering through the wreckage, his jaw tight.
“We’re fine. For now.”
“Okay,” Fred said, wiping grit from his eyes. “So what’s the play? What do we do against those things?” He gestured violently towards the square. “They’re not just wild slugs. They’re… wrong.”
Eli shook his head, frustration etching his features. “I’ve seen ghouls before. Fought a few. Blakk’s tech, it twists them, makes them aggressive, powerful. But to just show up here with a pack of them?” He met Fred’s gaze, and for a second, the legendary confidence flickered, revealing the 18-year-old underneath. “We beat them by being better slingers. But I don’t… I don’t have a special trick for this.”
“Pronto suggests a tactical retreat!” the Molenoid squeaked, pressing himself flatter against the floor. “A strategic repositioning to a more glorious battlefield later!”
“We’re not leaving Quiet Lawn to them,” Trixie snapped, her camera hanging forgotten. She was thinking, her eyes darting, assessing the shattered room. “They’re not here for loot. They’re making a point. And those slugs… they’re in pain. You can see it.”
Fred listened, his mind clicking through options like the chambers of his blaster. Direct assault against three corrupted slugs and their psychotic riders? Suicide. A holding action until… until what? There was no cavalry.
He looked at his blaster. The deep red barrel was dust-covered but unbent. The gold-flecked tube felt solid, ready. Red Hook’s words echoed: You made a statement.
An idea, cold and sharp, formed.
“We split their attention,” Fred said, his voice dropping into a flat, planning tone. “They’re cocky. They think they’ve got the ultimate weapon. So we give them a show.”
Eli looked at him. “What kind of show?”
“The kind you’re good at.” Fred nodded towards Eli, then Trixie, Kord and Pronto. “You four. Go out there. Be the Shane Gang. Be loud, be flashy, draw their fire. Keep them looking straight ahead.”
Understanding dawned in Trixie’s eyes, followed by immediate concern. “And you?”
Fred’s thumb stroked the textured grip of his blaster. “I’m going around. Through the back alleys. Come up behind them.” He looked at Eli. “You said we beat them by being better slingers. So I’ll sling. One shot, right at the guy calling the shots. Maybe taking out the rider shakes the slug’s focus. Maybe it doesn’t. But it’s a plan.”
Eli held his gaze for a long second. The unspoken competition, the legacy versus the newcomer—it all hung in the dusty air between them. Then Eli Shane nodded, once. It wasn’t a surrender. It was an agreement. “Alright. Don’t miss.”
“Never do.”
Kord cracked his massive knuckles. “I’ll give ‘em a big, distracting hello.”
Pronto popped his head up. “And Pronto shall… provide moral support from this very secure location!”
They moved.
Eli went first, bursting from the shattered doorway with Burpy flaming like a miniature sun on his shoulder. “Hey! Remember us? You left in a hurry last time!”
The reaction was instant. The three riders wheeled their clanking Mecha-Beasts around, their sneers visible even from a distance. The lead rider, a bulky man with a scar bisecting his lip—Billy, Fred thought—let out a roar of laughter.
“The Shane brat! And you brought friends to the party!”
“Party’s over,” Trixie called, stepping out beside Eli, her Tormato already in her hand. Kord loomed behind them like a cliff face.
Billy laughed again, unholstering his own blaster. The corrupted Thresher slug in his hand pulsed a threatening purple. “Let’s see how you dance!”
Chaos erupted.
Billy fired. The Thresher slug shot out, not transforming into its usual metallic form, but becoming a writhing, purple-edged vortex of grinding energy. It tore a furrow in the cobblestones as it raced towards Eli. Eli was already moving, diving sideways, shouting, “Burpy, Flaming!” A fireball met the grinding vortex in a shower of sparks and sickly purple light.
Trixie’s Tormato zipped out, a blur of orange, aiming for the woman’s Mecha-Beast’s leg joint. Kord launched a Rammstone slug at the third rider, the sheer kinetic force of the shot making the air thump.
It was loud, bright, and utterly consuming. Perfect.
Fred was already gone, slipping out the ragged back of the shop into a tight alley that stank of moss and stagnant water. He ran, boots silent on the wet stone, using the sounds of the battle as his cover. Voltage was a tense, electric coil on his shoulder, his light dimmed to nothing.
He navigated by memory, by the sense of space he’d built fixing pipes and patching roofs. Left, right, through a narrow pass between two fungal growths. The shouts and explosive clashes grew closer, then shifted to his left. He was circling behind.
He emerged from a crevice piled with mining trash. The square was spread out before him, backlit by the flashes of slug energy. From here, he had a perfect rear view. The three Mecha-Beasts were clustered, their riders focused entirely on the frontal assault. Eli was a blue-and-black streak, ducking and rolling. Trixie’s shots were precise, forcing defensive moves. Kord was a relentless barrage.
Billy was the centre. He bellowed orders, firing wild shots, his face alight with cruel joy. His back was to Fred. Wide open.
Fred didn’t rush. He breathed in. The smell of damp stone, ozone, the acrid tang of corrupted slug energy. He saw the deep red of his barrel, now smeared with alley grime. He felt the diamond-cut rubber grip firm in his left hand.
This was the moment. The test.
He unclipped a gold-flecked tube. Voltage slid inside, a bolt of contained potential. The slug looked up at him, and in his bright yellow eyes, Fred saw no fear, only a focused, crackling agreement. He loaded him. The click was the loudest sound in Fred’s world.
He raised the blaster. The smooth motion was pure instinct, the red barrel becoming an extension of his will. He sighted down its length. The world fell away. There was no Eli, no legacy. There was only the triangle of his sights, the steadying exhale, and the pulsing, arrogant centre of Billy’s back.
His finger took up the slack on the trigger.
“Voltage,” he whispered. “Arc.”
He fired.
The sound was different—a sharper, cleaner crack than the blaster had made before. The gold-flecked tube became a tunnel of pure, streaking light. Voltage transformed mid-flight, the brilliant blue Tazerling elongating, his form streamlining into the sleek, jagged-crested Velocimorph. He didn’t just fly; he arced, a living, forked bolt of lightning, leaving a ghostly after-image in the dark.
He crossed the square in a blink. There was no dodging it.
The crackling bolt struck Billy square between the shoulder blades.
A network of brilliant blue energy webbed across the man’s body. He screamed, a short, sharp sound of utter surprise and pain. Every muscle in his body locked rigid. His hand spasmed open, and the corrupted Thresher slug tumbled from his grip, landing on the cobblestones with a wet thud. Billy toppled sideways from his Mecha-Beast, hitting the ground with a stiff, twitching crash, smoke rising from his jacket.
The violent crackle of electricity died, leaving a ringing silence in its wake.
Billy’s two companions stared, their cruel bravado shattered. The sharp-faced woman’s laugh choked off into a stunned gape. For a second, they just looked at their twitching leader, then their heads snapped towards Fred, standing alone in the mouth of the alley. Rage twisted their features into ugly masks.
“You little–” the woman spat, fumbling for her blaster.
Voltage was already moving.
The Velocimorph didn’t return to Fred’s shoulder. He was a creature of pure kinetic energy, and the arc of his first shot became the launch for his next. He banked hard in the air, a blue streak tracing a vicious semi-circle behind the remaining Mecha-Beasts. The two Hooligang members barely had their weapons raised when he struck again.
Two more bolts, swift and surgical, lanced out from his crackling form.
They weren’t aimed for flesh. One sizzled into the woman’s blaster, the other into the man’s. The electricity found the firing mechanisms, the power cells, the delicate circuits within. Sparks erupted from their grips. The metal barrels glowed orange for a searing instant before dying completely, dark and dead in their hands.
The woman yelped, dropping the hot, useless metal. She looked at her blaster, then at her companion’s, then back at Fred. The math was simple and terrifying. Their leader was down, their slugs were corrupted and unpredictable, and their weapons were fried slag. The man met her eyes, a silent, frantic conversation passing between them in a heartbeat.
They didn’t say a word.
Scrambling off their machines, they grabbed Billy under his limp arms, dragging his heavy, spasming form through the dust. It was graceless, desperate. They heaved him onto one of the Mecha-Beasts, clambered on themselves, and gunned the grinding engines.
The Shane Gang walked toward Fred. Eli holstered his blaster, Trixie slowly lowering hers. Kord’s expression was one of open astonishment. Pronto peeked from behind Kord’s leg, his mustache twitching. They stopped a few feet away, and for a moment, no one spoke. They just looked at him, and at the sleek, red-and-charcoal blaster still smoking faintly in his hand.
Kord broke the silence with a deep, rumbling chuckle. He closed the distance in two massive strides.
Before Fred could react, the Cave Troll wrapped him in an embrace that lifted his boots off the ground. It was like being hugged by a warm, blue boulder. Fred’s ribs creaked, the air forced from his lungs in a pained oof.
“That,” Kord boomed, setting him down and clapping his shoulder so hard Fred stumbled, “was some primo redirecting!” He leaned in, his wide eyes taking in every detail of the custom blaster. He let out a long, low whistle. “And this piece! You made this? In Red Hook’s shop? It’s mean. I love it.”
Pronto strutted forward next, puffing out his chest as if he’d orchestrated the whole affair. He gave Fred a long, appraising look, from his oil-stained boots to his determined face. He gave a single, firm, satisfied nod, as if Fred had finally met some unspoken standard. “Adequate flanking maneuvers,” he declared. “Pronto approves. For a rookie.”
Then it was Trixie.
She stepped closer, and for the first time since the chaos erupted, Fred really saw her. The adrenaline was draining, leaving his senses raw. His gaze, against his will, traveled over her. The practical gear, the vibrant red hair tied back, the sharp intelligence in her eyes. It dipped lower, taking in the curve of her hips, the swell of her small breasts under her shirt, the specific, intimate outline of her body pressed against the fabric of her pants. He felt a hot jolt of something that had nothing to do with battle, and he violently wrenched his eyes back up to meet hers.
She’d caught it. Of course she had. A slow, knowing smile touched her lips, and she didn’t look away. She just shook her head slightly, then stepped in and gave him a solid, playful punch on the arm. “Don’t get a big head, grease-monkey,” she said, her voice low. “But… yeah.” Then she turned and walked back toward the center of the square, already pulling out her camera to document the corrupted slug.
Finally, Eli.
He approached more slowly, studying Fred not with rivalry, but with a frank reassessment. He looked at the blaster, at the stunned townsfolk beginning to emerge, then back at Fred’s face. After a long moment, he extended his hand.
Fred took it. Eli’s grip was firm, calloused from his own slinger’s work.
A grin broke across Eli’s face, genuine and bright, and Fred felt one spread across his own in answer. It was a wordless, perfect understanding.
“That was a hell of a shot,” Eli said. “Clean. Strategic.” He paused, his grin softening into something more thoughtful. He glanced back at Trixie photographing the slug, at Kord poking the disabled Mecha-Beast, at Pronto already embellishing the story to a gathering crowd. He looked back at Fred. “Look, we could use someone who thinks like that. Who isn’t afraid to get dirty. The Shane Gang… we’re a team. We watch each other’s backs.”
He took a breath. “You want in?”
The question hung in the damp air. Fred’s mind went blank of all the practiced replies, all the dreams of proving himself. The words just came, raw and immediate. “Yes.”
Eli’s smile widened. “Good. Welcome aboard.”
From Fred’s shoulder, Voltage erupted in a series of happy, crackling chirps. A blur of orange flame shot from Eli’s collar—Burpy, the Infernus. The little fire slug launched himself onto Fred’s shoulder, gave Voltage an appraising look, and then gently bumped his head against the Tazerling’s in a fiery, electric high-five.