Massive Disaster XV
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –?
The Vibro-Bursta hummed in Zedd’s grip, the overclocked sonic mining drill attached to a sledgehammer leaking a faint, angry whine that cut right through his buzzing thoughts.
Didn’t matter.
Noise was good. All of it was good.
The drugs howled in his veins, Clear slicing his mind into sharp, gleaming pieces while Rush shoved his heart into overdrive, pounding like a jackhammer against his ribs. He barely felt the weight of the weapon—barely felt anything at all.
Except for the rage.
Oh, that was there. It was crystal. It was diamond.
Too much Clear, too much Rough, too much Rush all slammed straight into his face and surging through his veins and singing in his brain. It was beautiful, incredible. He was invincible, a god on a warpath with murder in his lungs.
His mind spiraled into flashes—images too fast to grab hold of, slipping between the cracks in his skull. Go, go, go. No time to stop.
No time to think. do, do, do, do. MOVE.
His goggles flickered, the cracked lenses showing camera feeds sparking and glitching across his vision. Half the grid offline. the rest—blurry, jagged snapshots of hell. Shuttles crammed with terrified faces. Cattle, the Batarians would call them.
People.
His people.
No, no—don’t think. Don’t think.
Do.
There.
Three Batarians. weapons up, herding the colonists like cattle.
Three targets. One solution.
Clear whispered at the edges of his mind, cold and clinical against the roaring chaos, cutting the noise into pieces he could use. The rest? Just music, background noise that pushed him forward. he sprinted toward the sound of gunfire, the memory slicing through him unbidden:
Him cramped against the side of a building. hunched over the sonic mining tool.
sparks everywhere, adrenaline already pounding as he twisted wires, cranked up voltage, slapped on plates with one hand and scribbled equations with the other into his omni-tool as he flash-forged tools with a hastily installed module. "Scream machine—yeahyeah—needs more shockwave! Oh, that’s it—"
He shoved the thought aside. Focus.
He rounded the corner, the Vibro-Burster’s weight shifting in his grip as his eyes locked onto the first Batarian. The slaver turned just in time for Zedd to cross the gap between them, grinning so wide it hurt.
“HEY THERE, BOOM BOY!” he roared, swinging the bursta like a bat. He activated it mid-arc, and the world exploded.
The shockwave hit like a freight train, tearing through the Batarian’s barriers and armor and body in one deafening, glorious burst. Ribs shattered. bone turned to pulp. The slaver crumpled, what was left of him slamming into a stack of crates with a wet, squelching thud.
Zedd barely noticed. Next.
The other two spun toward him, barking orders in that harsh, guttural language that sounded like rocks grinding in a blender. Weapons snapped up. Too slow.
He dove low, the Vibro-Burster whining in his hands, vibrations bleeding out in dangerously erratic pulses. The gunfire skimmed past, a burst grazing his shoulder—hot, sharp, distant. it barely registered through the haze of adrenaline.
“MISSED!” he cackled, voice jagged and raw. “NOT EVEN CLOSE!”
He drove the bursta into the second Batarian’s stomach, the sonic blast ripping through him in a visceral, messy burst. Blood, bone, bits of everything else sprayed across the shuttle’s ramp as the slaver’s scream cut short, body collapsing in a jerking heap.
Zedd staggered to his feet, chest heaving, the bursta sputtering in his grip. He grinned wide, wide enough to feel it in his teeth. “WHO’S NEXT?”
The last Batarian didn’t hesitate. He raised his rifle, snarling something Zedd couldn’t hear over the pounding in his skull.
The first burst hit Zedd’s barrier, the kinetic field rippling before the second round skimmed his forearm, sending a jolt of pain racing up his arm.
He barely flinched. The grin just widened.
“Oh, you’re FUN!”
He closed the gap in three lunging steps, the Bursta rattling like it was alive, whining louder with each motion. Bolts scraped loose, the whole thing shuddering like it wanted to explode, like it was screaming finish me before it broke itself apart.
“LAST CALL!” Zedd bellowed, the words spilling out as the bursta slammed into the Batarian’s helmet.
The shockwave erupted on impact, a brutal, deafening burst that pulped the slaver’s skull instantly. Shards of bone, brain, and blood sprayed outward in an arc, painting the nearby crates and floor. The body dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, twitching once before collapsing completely.
Zedd staggered back, breath ragged, his goggles flashing red. Warnings screamed across his HUD about his barriers—overload imminent, structural failure.
Ignored.
He wiped at his face with the back of his hand, smearing the warmth of blood against his skin, and grinned wider. Artwork.
He spun, the grin still stretched across his face, eyes locking on the frozen colonists huddled nearby. Wide-eyed. Trembling. Watching him like he was the real monster here.
“GO!” he shouted, voice breaking into a manic laugh. “What’re you standing there for?! GO GO GO! No thank yous—MOVE!”
The humans scrambled, half-falling over each other as they fled toward the nearest cover.
Good. Smart. Good.
Zedd’s grin didn’t falter as he dropped to his knees beside the slaver’s crumpled body, hands darting forward with practiced speed. Quick, darting movements as his fingers yanked at components, plates, and wires.
“Badbadbad designs,” he muttered, breathless. The words tripped over each other, tumbling from his lips faster than he could think them. “This armor? HA! Weakpoints EVERYWHERE—c’mon. you couldn’t fix this? No? Ohhh, this scope though... ohoho, this’s NICE.”
His hands moved faster than his brain, ripping apart the armor with reckless precision. Plating, servos, a fuel cell—each piece vanished into his bag, the growing collection rattling against the mess already inside.
He wasn’t sure what it would all make yet, but the picture was forming, sharper with every second as his mind continued to race.
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He stood, chest heaving, the chaos around him blurring for a half-second as his brain tried to catch up with his body. The next burst of gunfire cut through the haze, snapping his focus forward. his grip tightened on the bursta, the weapon groaning under the strain.
The Batarians had to be there. Slavers.
His feet started moving before he could finish the thought, the world dissolving into motion. His pack clanked against his back, metal parts and shattered ideas rattling in a frantic rhythm that matched his pulse.
The Burster buzzed faintly in his hands, its protests growing louder, each vibration a warning.
Reuserenewrecycle! No downtime!
He sprinted into the open streets of New Abraham’s pre-fabbed suburbs as the sun hung on the horizon, the colony stretching out in every direction. Prefab homes caved in on themselves, transports overturned, smoke curling through the cracks in the pavement.
But none of it mattered.
Above, the ships circled like vultures—Batarian transports, big and ugly, their shadows cutting long across the wreckage. no defense turrets firing. no resistance in the air. Bats took care of those first. Efficient bastards.
His focus tunneled as his feet slammed against the ground, his vision narrowing to the blur ahead. The chaos was background noise now—fodder for his brain to chew through and spit out in a flood of probabilities. Every sound, every flicker of motion spun into a new web, a dozen branching paths folding in on themselves with each step.
His hands worked as he ran, pulling at the gutted sonic drill dangling from his pack. Wires spilled from the exposed chassis, snapping and sparking as his fingers flitted over its internals, twisting components into place.
“Vibro-BurstA’s old news. Frost-Shrieker! Frost-Shrieker, yessss,” he whispered, grinning as his omnitool lit up, reshaping parts with bursts of heat and hissed omnigel.
The refrigeration unit he’d salvaged earlier dangled from his grip. He jammed it into the drill’s housing, twisting it with something halfway between brute force and precision. The tubing hissed faintly—fine. Manageable. Almost done.
His boots skidded against the cracked pavement as he rounded a corner, his breath catching as his eyes locked onto the scene ahead.
Another three Batarians.
Three colonists. A shuttle humming idly behind them, ramp down, waiting.
The slavers barked orders, voices sharp and guttural, weapons snapping toward the trembling group.
Zedd’s thoughts snapped into place, the rest of the world dropping into background static. His grin sharpened.
“Big, scary, four-eyed bastards.”
He didn't slow.
His hand slammed down on the Frost-Shrieker’s trigger, and the gutted drill screamed to life, vomiting a jet of high-pressure nitrogen that ripped through the air. The blast hit the nearest Batarian dead-center in the chest.
The slaver froze mid-motion—literally. Frost spread fast and greedy, spiderwebbing across his armor as the nitrogen solidified him into a jagged, humanoid sculpture.
Zedd barreled into him shoulder-first, the impact shattering the frozen body into a spray of glittering shards. Ice to meet you!
The second Batarian whipped around, rifle snapping up, but Zedd was already there. The Frost-Shrieker hissed in his grip, frost leaking from every gap, unstable as hell. He swung it like a club, an upward arc that smashed into the rifle.
The weapon flew from the Batarian’s hands, clattering to the ground.
“MY TURN!” Zedd roared, slamming the trigger again.
A fresh blast of nitrogen hit the slaver in the face, frost spreading fast. The helmet groaned under the pressure, frost blooming across the visor until it cracked, then exploded inward with a wet crunch.
The last Batarian fired, rounds splitting the air as they zipped past Zedd’s shoulder. One grazed him—sharp sting, hot burn, nothing. Adrenaline drowned it out, the rush surging through his veins too loud to leave room for pain.
He pivoted, tossing the Frost-Shrieker aside as it coughed out one final, pitiful hiss. His hand dove into his pack, pulling free the Slap-Chop—a modded and overclocked plasma cutter, ugly and janky, the capacitor humming like it might detonate at any second.
“You’re gonna LOVE this one,” he laughed, voice jagged, broken on the edges. “Slice, dice!”
The Batarian aimed, rifle steady, but Zedd was faster.
The Slap-Chop flared to life, its plasma arc buzzing as he swung it two-handed. The blade cut through the slaver’s barrier first, then his armor, then flesh.
One swing. Shoulder to hip.
The slaver split in two, halves crumpling to the ground in a wet heap, blood and viscera staining the pavement.
Zedd staggered, breath ragged but grin intact. He turned to the colonists, their wide-eyed stares locked on him, frozen in shock. “What? You’re fucking welcome!” he barked, throwing his hands up. “Get going! Runrunrun—hide or something! ”
They bolted, stumbling over themselves as they fled into the wreckage.
Zedd crouched over the nearest corpse, hands already moving, tearing at the armor, ripping components free. “Barrier emitters... good, good. Oh, faulty wiring? HA! dumbasses. What can i… nooo… kinetic mines? Oh yeah, I can do THAT.”
He crammed pieces into his pack, muttering to himself, words spilling out in quick, fractured bursts. The Slap-Chop hummed faintly in his hand, the heat from the capacitor searing against his bandaged palm.
“Batarians. Stupid, four-eyed freaks. No imagination. No style.” His feet started moving again, jerky and unsteady but purposeful. Every step carried him deeper into the chaos, screams and gunfire drawing him forward.
His goggles flickered, the overlays glitching—thermal, structural, potential weak points flashing across his vision as he mapped the streets ahead.
He stopped long enough to plant traps—mines slapped together from salvaged drills, fuel cells, and whatever he’d grabbed earlier. Quick work.
Messy, yeah, but good enough.
They’d blow.
They’d cripple.
That was enough.
“Perfect. Beautiful. ART.”
His thoughts wavered, the edges slipping between manic energy and sharp, fleeting lucidity. He caught his reflection in a cracked storefront window—a gaunt figure smeared with blood, grime, goggles askew, wild-eyed and hollow.
“...look like shit.”
The distant thrum of engines pulled him back to the present. He grinned, his hand tightening around the Slap-Chop as he broke into a sprint.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –?
His chest heaved as he tore through the narrow gap between two prefab houses, boots hitting the dirt in sharp, heavy beats. The manic haze still clawed at him, but it was thinning—enough to notice, enough to hate. makes sense. Rush burns out fast, barely ten minutes. didn’t get the dose perfect.
His head pounded, a dull roar behind his temples, but the splintered chaos of earlier had pulled together into something sharper, cleaner.
Controlled chaos.
“Five of them. maybe six. no—seven.” His words came low and quick, half-breathed. “Boots too heavy. Too wide. Not sneaky.”
He ducked behind a rusted fence, barely holding itself upright, the guttural barks of Batarians growing louder. Close now. Their boots rattled the prefab walls, the vibrations humming through the ground under his feet. His eyes flicked to the edge of the lot, where a half-collapsed shed slumped into shadow.
Inside, waiting, was the burner.
His mind jumped—too fast, too sharp—to when he’d slapped it together.
Scraps of motion: hands pulling wires, slicing insulation, the hiss of an old welder biting through metal. The mining laser had been the best find—oversized, overpowered, meant to tear through rock rather than drill through it like the sonic tool.
No finesse. Who needed it?
“Beamy-Burner,” he’d muttered, grinning as he’d tested the weight, the grip. too hot, too sharp. perfect. “Big beam. Lotta burn. Overheat? Part of the fun”
Now, crouched behind the prefab, he wrapped his fingers around the burner’s patched-together frame. Its jagged edges pressed into his palm, but the weight felt solid. The hum beneath his fingers buzzed with unsteady power.
Unstable, sure, but alive.
The Batarians rounded the corner, their harsh commands grinding against the air. He stood slowly, deliberately, the burner cradled in both hands.
His thumb flicked the switch.
The laser chugged and then screamed to life, blinding and furious, a spear of light and heat that ripped forward. His goggles dimmed on reflex, the world washing into a haze of white and orange as the beam lashed out.
The first Batarian didn’t even twitch. The beam carved through his chest, clean as paper, before his body crumpled to the ground in silence.
Zedd grinned—a sharp, predatory expression that curled his lips but left his eyes cold. “Burn, baby. BURN.”
The beam swung wide, wobbling in its path like it might tear itself apart. The second Batarian caught the edge full-force. His torso split at the waist, the scream catching in his throat as his top half hit the ground first.
The others scattered.
But the burner didn’t forgive.
Zedd twisted the grip, dragging the beam in a wild, searing arc. Barriers flared and cracked, armor buckled and gave. One by one, the Batarians dropped, their bodies folding into twisted, smoking heaps.
The beam roared forward, relentless, even as it met the prefab wall behind them.
The structure shrieked in protest, metal warping and melting as sparks flew. The beam chewed through, slicing the wall clean apart until a section gave way, crumbling inward with a crash.
Behind it, bathed in the laser’s fading glow, was a family. huddled together, wide-eyed and pale, the jagged hole spilling heat and smoke around them.
Zedd blinked, his thumb slipping off the switch.
The burner hissed as it powered down, steam curling off its overheating frame.
He stared at the line of damage: bodies, wall, and the jagged wound scorching across and through the prefab.
“…Sorry!”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –?
5k Words (100 FP)
Triple Threat (100 FP)
ROLL: Aerospace Engineering Makes Things Go Fast (100 FP) [Kerbal Space Program] {Vehiclesl}: “You have an intuitive grasp on the mechanics of wind-flow, material sciences, atmospheric drag, tensile strengths, rocketry, so on and so forth, and how it applies to the art of designing vehicles that traverse the sky and space.”
ROLL: Fixer (100 FP) [Smash Up] {Time}: “You're really good. All your repairs seem to take half as much time as normal. A true miracle worker.”.
Forge Points: 200 FP
