Iron Drumbeat Chapter 9 (Patreon)

The first of the consumed to see me was mostly humanoid, except that each of its fingers split in two and extended out into whiplike tendrils. It screamed— no, it screeched, and twenty very long fingers reached out to grasp me.

Using both hands, I swung my pipe in an almost casual uppercut that took it under the chin with an extremely satisfying clong sound. Its head whipped up at an impossible angle with the crunching of breaking bone. Apparently it still had bones, despite the fact it looked like a foggy shadow. Good to know. I couldn’t fight the fog, but I could break bones. I’d been doing it all my life! Now I just had to do it to other people’s bones. Actually, calling these things people was extremely generous…

For a brief second, I thought that breaking the bastard’s neck wasn’t going to drop him, but it did. Another came at me, this one a mass of skittering human legs with a human head that opened in the middle of its head to reveal way too many teeth.

It reared up, trying to kick me with four of its legs at once, but I danced backwards and smacked it with my pipe. It howled when a kneecap shattered like it’d been stepped on by an enforcer bot. It tried to back up, showing some vague sense of survival, but I was having none of that.

I lunged forward and stomped down on the now floppy leg, pinning it within reach while I brought the pipe down on the head/mouth thing. Crunch. Shadowy teeth flew in all directions, only to fade into dissipating fog when they got too far from its body. Huh. That was interesting. I wonder if the same would happen to me and my body if something got… dislodged from the main whole.

The monster was still writhing pitifully, though, so I raised my weapon in both hands and smashed it down on its head. Blood, bone, and brain matter sprayed everywhere after a truly satisfying crack-pop. Oh boy, that felt good. I could get used to thi—

A flash of pain, then darkness.

What… what just happened? Hold on, a pinprick of light was approaching—

I slammed back into full awareness like it’d just jumped out of a speeding car running at the exact velocity needed so I didn’t wipe out in a tangle of broken limbs and blood. The first thing my eyes fell on was my own decapitated head fading into fog while blood still pumped from my body, which was doing the same as the head.

Standing over my… uh, corpse, was a humanoid monster with massive clawed hands and a long thin neck that arched up and then down like the branch of a dead willow tree. It also appeared to be having issues of the corporeal kind. The exact reverse of me, as my body reformed out of the fog from the creature. None of the monsters around me were fully… solidified yet, and it appeared that I could subconsciously use that fog to be remade.

A slow, eager, and very deadly grin spread over my face. Oh boy, this was just unfair. Hell, not only did I respawn, but apparently the fog was considerate enough to keep my clothing, weapon, and legs. The collar, though? That was a twisted mess where my body used to be.

With a scream that was definitely bordering on manic, I swung my pipe and the arm of the creature that killed me. More broken bones, and this time it reacted with surprised confusion. I hit it again, and again, and again, each time breaking a different limb.

“How’s that, huh?” I laughed. “Shouldn’t have tried to fuck with me!”

Pure black eyes glared up at me from the ground, so I took my pole, flipped it so it was pointed at the monster, and drove the fucking thing through its face. It shuddered and fell limp.

“Ah, I see you have escaped your chains!” A voice said from high above. Mi-DOS had run out of ammo for his minigun. “Worry not, after we’ve taken care of these invaders, I’ll build a new one!”

“Go fuck yourself!” I called, and jumped to the side to avoid another fog monster as it did its bloody best to disembowel me.

Mi-DOS didn’t get the opportunity to reply. The giant monster with the huge blade-arms finally finished climbing the scrap castle and leapt off it towards the hovering robot. At the last second, Mi-DOS turned one of his thrusters on the face of the creature, burning and blistering it. The monster missed with its claw, but the arm itself hooked around and snagged Mi-DOS. Together, they fell to the ground.

Watching them fall, I realised in a split second that I had an opportunity. It might end up with my death again, but I was two respawns in now, and frankly, pain was nothing new to me.

Diving forward, I placed my pipe sticking straight up right below where the monster fell. The metal bent and buckled under its weight, then punched clean through its chest. Enraged, it raised its bladed forearm and rammed it through me in turn. I sprayed blood up out of my mouth and into the air like some sort of ghoulish water feature, before the gigantic claw retracted and descended once again.

More pain, followed by more darkness.

This time, when the pinprick of light came for me, I could sort of make out where I was heading. With nothing but sheer willpower and bloody mindedness, I grabbed the proverbial steering wheel in both hands and shifted where I was reconstituting.

I sprouted up out of the giant monster’s back like some sort of tumour and immediately began to jump up and down with both feet. Welcome, boys, girls, and rebels, to woodworking 101 with me, uh… whatever my name was. Today we will be learning how to hammer a nail into wood.

“My goodness, you certainly are persistent!” Mi-DOS exclaimed, wiggling out from under the monster. He tried to get away, but… well…

With a savage zeal, I thrust my hand into his central thruster. Agony rippled through me, surging down my nerves, eclipsing anything the shock collar once inflicted. A momentary lapse of consciousness pulled me bodily out of the action, darkness closing in, before clarity returned with a vengeance. The thruster, now disrupted, held some juicy, delectable catastrophic potential. As my flesh charred within its chamber it caused a cascading ignition that quickly escaped containment in a fiery explosion that obliterated Mi-DOS and what was left of my arm.

Steel, sinew, flesh, and wires were expelled in a gruesome symphony. My arm and chest bore the brunt of the fiery shockwave, agony branding my senses as I tumbled into the gravel. Each sharp rock must’ve had some personal beef with me, because it skinned my back into raw and bloody meat.

Dying took a comparatively long time when you look at my last two jaunts over the styx, and when the darkness came I was very very grateful.

In the bygone age of two weeks ago when I lived on the lower streets, I was always scrappy, but nobody ever actually taught me how to fight. Today, it seemed fate had decided that I would be getting a crash course in the topic.

When I was reconstituted this time, I veered off in a different direction. I needed a new weapon, since my last one got busted.. I needed a new weapon, and I figured I’d have a better chance of finding something slightly outside the scrap compound.

I claimed the fog of some smaller non-humanoid monster and jumped for the first beat-stick I could see. Another pipe. Great. I wasn’t actually a fan of bludgeoning weapons. They took way too much effort to use. Give me a good sharp blade anyday.

Now… time to do some impromptu chiropractor consultations. Starting with… ah, you!

My chosen patient was some wolf-looking thing with way too many teeth. Like, an excessive number of jumbled and mismatched brown teeth that made it so the poor animal couldn’t even close its mouth.

It’s okay, little cursed puppy, I’ll fix you! Crunch.

Oh. My first blow took the wolf in the side of the jaw, but all that did was throw teeth in all directions and piss it off. Normally, knocking a bunch of teeth out of the mouth of a rabid wolf would be progress, but this one had many teeth to spare, so yeah.

Amusingly, it wasn’t the teeth it got me with. It lunged, maw gaping, and I shoved my new metal pole right into it sideways. Enamel scraped and ground against the rusted, pitted steel of my weapon until it came to a halt against the tendons of the jaw.

Lifting one cybernetic leg, I shoved it down into the twisted mouth of the wolf and shoved with all my might. First came the stomach-turning ripping sounds as the tendons became unmoored from their anchors. Then, the mangled wet pop of cartilage stressed past its limit.

In a desperate attempt to save itself, the monstrous wolf lashed out with its clawed forepaws. White-hot pain seared down my arm, but I refused to budge, and instead pressed harder. Finally, with more godawful moist, organic sounds, its jaw came apart, and we tumbled to the ground. I didn’t bother getting up, I just took my bent pipe and I bashed its brains in. Subtlety could be something I acquired after I did some training.