4. The Heap

Reina exited the transport in her hastily made Symbiote. She had the oxygen converter that she needed in order to survive the harsh environment. As she gazed out at the land before her she realized why it was a dire modification. The Nervian Hills were located on a moon outside of the planet. Incidentally the world had three moons. Also, the hills weren’t natural hills, they were giant mounds of trash that formed hills.

The first set of scenery gifted to Reina as she stepped off the platform was piles and piles of trash. On the left she could see old cars, broken symbiotes, coffee machines and even just good old fashioned trash. The only bright side was that there were no insects because of the lack of oxygen. But there were other terrible creatures that lurked.

Without her mask on she supposed it might stink, but the lack of breathable air made Reina doubt she’d smell anything. It was more so that the place looked like it reeked and in a strange way that tricked your brain into thinking things stank. The worst part was that the hills could collapse at any moment, trash dumpers would float high above and drop stuff with reckless abandon.

Then there was also the golems. Sometimes things would move, mechanical snakes, titan like robotic monstrosities would come alive from right under your feet. Even smaller, stranger contraptions could activate causing all sorts of trouble, the least of which were explosions, bear traps, or even mini EMP’s that could leave your suit fried. Reina knew in her mind that she probably wasn’t strong enough to make it out of here by herself. But she needed to try.

Okay, I’m here. Now I just have to find one guy in a pile of trash….A really big pile of trash.

Reina didn’t like her chances but this was the only good lead she had. Looking around she didn’t see anyone but that didn’t mean no one was close by. As inhospitable as the place was, people frequented often, looking for good gear. The golems were trouble but dropped randomized and rare materials, sometimes even weapons. All in all it was a good place to look for things.

If only she were of a high enough level to take advantage of it. She didn’t have the support of her friends here and she certainly didn’t have the proper equipment. She rid the thought of finding any valuable loot and focused herself around what was possible. Finding Devourer. It had to be possible. The heap was a vast and seemingly endless pile of junk, but because there weren’t any biological creatures that meant bio readings on her sensors would pinpoint people much more easily. Now, it was possible that Devourer was using jammers or scrambling his signature but even that in such an environment would lead to him. For example if she got to an area that was jamming her signal it was either a technological monstrosity or a person scrambling her sensors, she just had to hope it was the latter.

Making her way through the various piles of garbage, Reina continually observed her sensors. She was hoping to pick up anything significant. However, for the first two hours every biosensor she picked up was just a random scavenger or hunter passing through.

When she got to a particularly gigantic mountain of who knows what, Reina examined the area thoroughly and figured she would have to go around it, as there didn’t appear to be an easy way through or over. She could fly of course, but the mountain would require a decent flight and the possibility of being ambushed by a monstrosity or golem was too high if you wandered inside the trash. Therefore she stuck to the roads and outskirts, it was much safer that way, and she was able to avoid the confrontations. This time around however she realized something awful. The road ended, going around would require her to travel through some heap. Reina took a deep breath and pulled out her rifle. She set it to full auto and double checked to make sure she had armor piercing rounds. She couldn’t afford the EMP rounds that would have made it much easier but the armor piercing rounds worked wonders here as well. At least that’s what the guides said. She had never been here personally before now.

Be tough, you got this, eyes forward, watch your step, and dismantle any golem that stands in your way.

Wading through the trash, carefully stepping over piles of rubble, broken down machines, and bullet ridden steel kept her on edge. It took about twenty minutes longer before her apprehension boiled over and she noticed movement about thirty yards out.

“Hello?” Reina called out. She aimed her rifle at the movement and double checked her scanners. No life forms were displayed on the readout. The most dangerous part of the golems and monstrosities was that they required an entirely specialized and expensive scanner. Something she obviously couldn't afford.

Reina spun at the sound of clamoring metal pieces, she saw nothing, save for a mound of various old parts collapsing into itself. She spun again at an old car door flying through the air, and once more at a trail of trash moving in a snake-like fashion akin to a shark wading through water. The steel and various pieces parted and made way in a slithering motion. Then it headed towards her, but just before whatever was coming could reach her, Reina jumped and flew into the air.

A drill that measured roughly between ten or twelve feet in diameter exploded from out of the pile attached to the top of a snake-like monstrosity's head. The snake had one large, glowing red eye that appeared to have come from a car’s brake lights, it was a melded mesh of different sized lights, morphed into a singular eye. The body was sleek and aerodynamic, obviously borrowing much of its appearance from broken chunks of junked space ships. The drill must have been taken from an excavator of some sort.

Reina let loose on the snake, aiming for its eye. A few shots landed before it crashed back into the pile burrowing somewhere deep underneath. She watched the piles of various parts shuffle and part as it moved.

Then the monstrosities tail whipped, heaving a scattershot of random projectiles at her, Reina evasively parted and spun, dodging the largest pieces and only suffering a couple of scrapes. She fired a few more shots into the piles to no success and realized how difficult this fight was going to be.

“Come out here you shitty ass recall!”

The snake no doubt could not understand her, but angry nonetheless it launched itself from the ground with such surprising velocity that Reina just barely avoided the drill. She shot it on its way down and felt that, at least in the air, she was more or less safe if she could avoid the junk being flung at her. Even if that were so, she didn’t want to take chances and she wouldn’t be able to fly forever, at some point her fuel would run empty.

Reina quickly reached into her pack and pulled out an explosive. It was actually an A4-s22 breaching charge. The charge was specially designed for implosions in order to minimize damage to those on both ends of a given door. It was Reina’s only one and it was luckily a high output explosion meant for solid composite bunker doors. She had swiped it from the clan storage in case she needed to get into some hideout Devourer was in, but with something so large her rifle wasn’t going to be enough. Cursing herself she set it and flew closer to the ground, skimming the trash, utilizing her back camera she tracked the trail following her, lurking just behind ready to strike. Reina spun and shot up into the sky once more, the snake followed suit and flew into the air, trash scattering around it in a flurry of metal rain. Reina narrowly avoided the drill and slapped the charge onto the base of the drill.

However, she made a miscalculation, the trash that followed the snake shot towards the sky a bit too violently, Reina’s symbiote was pelted with various metal scraps and lost her trajectory. Because of her slower speed, the monstrosity whipped its tail and sent Reina spiraling out of control.

“Oh no, no, no!” Was all Reina could muster as she crashed head first into the garbage. Her danger readings flickered and an emergency alarm rang in her ear.

She heard the explosion from the charge ring out as the snake smashed into the ground. There was another drizzle of garbage that fell around her due to that explosion and after getting her bearings she saw the snake writhing around in the scrap. Its drill hadn’t been completely blown off, but it was hanging haphazardly and no longer functional. The glowing red eye was also severely damaged and nearly non-existent.

Reina stood up and unloaded her clip into the snake. It whipped around viciously, and slithered toward her, with much less speed than it had done previously. Its sensors were obviously damaged and it was operating blind. Reina flew above the snake and avoided it, she reloaded and flew as close as she could firing into the hole that the snake’s eye used to occupy. Sparks began to sparkle from the hole and something ignited, the snake was set aflame and it whipped its tail with reckless abandon. Reina was incapable of dodging everything thrown at her and suffered a severe crack on her vizor when a chunk of an engine slammed into her.

Reina flew to the side and skidded to an abrupt stop. She caught herself only to fall on her ass right after narrowly avoiding more scrap.

The snake finally appeared to seize up and vibrate before its pieces fell off in various chunks. After another minute it stopped moving entirely. The only motion from the flicker of flames writhing around its dead parts.

Reina sighed heavily. “…this is bad.” She stared at the screen readouts and realized her vizor was now leaking oxygen. Her suit had taken significant damage. Now her searching timeline had been cut down significantly.

“What do I do…” Reina ran slender fingers along the crack on her vizor.

She heard a whistle, prolonged and pointed. “Monstrosity-X-SSNAAKE, bit on the nose, dumb name, really, but that drill head is a good part for excavating these mounds, I’m upset that you blew it up! How could you? Don’t you realize how precious these parts are? Do you have no consideration for the pieces of rare materials? Huh? Answer me!”

Reina stared up at the unfamiliar voice and saw a man, not in a symbiote, but instead in a large containment suit. His jet pack was larger than normal, and he was accompanied by an assistant robot, or PERCON, as they were called: Short for personal construct.

The PERCON had a wagon that it was hauling, filled with parts. And the man’s large helmet was comically sized. It was at least twice as big as it should be. He almost looked like a beekeeper.

“Who are you?” Reina said, grumbling as she rose to her feet. But as she looked at the readout she couldn’t believe her eyes.

The man's arms were crossed and he did not look happy.

But Reina could not care less, her prayers had been answered. His name was clear as day. As clear as the obvious glare hidden underneath his stupid helmet. “Old Devourer!” She couldn’t help but shout.