While they sat safely in the calm spot near the floating landmass in this insensible sort of place and tried to calculate a way out, as well as how to stay safe while they were here, the energy wave that they had fled from was rapidly approaching them from behind.
Everything in the Cutter seemed to pause as the wave reached them, with the crew fearing that those creatures would appear inside, but the wave seemed to pass right over them. Unfortunately, it also brought with it a gust of the current that drove the Cutter to the surface.
"Here we go again. The creatures are forming on the surface. Prepare for incoming attackers in 30 seconds." Nico called as she ran for her Mecha.
"Keep the bay door closed and use the ship's defensive weapons if they try to force their way inside. We don't need anyone getting killed today." Max instructed the Innu Researchers.
"Got it, Commander. We will work on our theories with all this new information and keep the ship safe while you drive away the enemy. We will signal you when it's safe for us to lift off again, and you can come back." Nergal agreed.
Max could sense Nico's excitement building every second as the chance to fight again approached. Her pre-trip inspection and system power-up was finished, and she joined Max in racing out the door to meet their opponents for the day, nearly cheering with joy before a moment of confusion set in.
"Hey, I already killed that guy once today. See the scar over the purple thing's eye? It's really recognizable. I definitely chopped his head off earlier." Nico complained as she realized it was the exact same group as the first time.
"Maybe we're doing a best three of five or something." Max joked as he powered up the Disintegrators to clean out the smaller Demons.
That was good enough for Nico, and the staccato rhythm of the hypersonic Mass Driver rounds tore the air apart to signal the start of the battle.
At this distance, nothing Max knew of could dodge that round, and the ranks of creatures began to rapidly thin as the solid projectiles punched through multiple bodies before being redirected either into the ground or out into the air.
The two groups were working together this time instead of squabbling over who got to fight, and Mecha and the line had managed to maintain their coherence even with the heavy casualties from the four rapid-fire Mass Drivers operating at the same time.
Once they were close enough, Max fired a dispersed blast from all his Disintegrators that turned the smallest Demons near him back into energy and left him with six rapidly healing greater Demons to face.
For some reason, they actually seemed happy about this development. Possibly because they carried no ranged weapons, and now they could immediately reach combat, but there was no sense of concern for their comrades at all.
They also didn't seem to be interested in the Cutter now that there were no visible targets in that direction. These creatures were here exclusively to fight, as far as Max could tell in their thoughts.
Max was happy to oblige their desire. Maybe not as happy as Nico, but still, when his shield slammed into the closest of the fast-moving purple Demons, the crunch of broken bones was immensely satisfying.
The creature flew back into its comrades, and an immensely muscular red demon took its place. The two axes in its hands were fairly easily blocked, but only a burst from the Mass Driver kept it from throwing Max's arms wide apart and kicking him to the ground.
Max took a step back and reconsidered his tactics. The creature was stronger than his Mecha, and whatever it was made of, the three Mass Driver holes through its chest hadn't killed it.
The two in its shoulder had left its right arm limp for the moment, though, with the axe hanging by its chain and dragging on the ground, so Max launched a flurry of attacks with his sword, trying to get a good angle at the massive Demon's vitals.
An upward strike flowed into a hard thrust, which bounced off of the Demon's shield, then Max engaged his thrusters to lift up a few metres and turn that strike into a downward chop.
The Demon's axe was too slow to come around, and the blade cut deep into its arm, shattering the bone and leaving it defenceless as Max's blade took its head.
As soon as the one fell, two more took its place, and Max found himself hard-pressed again. Not only were these creatures nearly as fast as he was, but they were also stronger than the Mecha. Mostly he just needed to keep them in combat and away from the Cutter, but the only way that he could do that was to kill them as fast as possible, which was proving difficult.
The Disruptors being arm mounted was usually a very handy technique for aiming at multiple targets, but at the moment, Max needed both hands to keep the flurry of claws from the twelve arms of his new opponents away from his armour.
Finally, a knee strike with his shield left an arm free, and a concentrated blast of the Disintegrator took out one of the two Demons while the other tried to circle around to get at his back.
Max spun the Mass Drivers to face behind him and moved forward to engage another pair of Demons as the weapons rang out, and the head of the Demon behind him exploded.
The rivalry between the two factions of creatures was beginning to show now, and the red demons were laughing at the unfortunate ending of the foolish one who thought that Max's back was vulnerable.
The Demons pulled back for a moment, regrouping and trying to draw Max into a small dip in the open field, where they would gain a metre or two of height advantage. It would put the majority of the large demons in a better position to actually hit the vital areas of his Mecha, while the largest of them would finally have the height advantage.
[Good try, but I'm not falling for that.] Max laughed over the loudspeaker as he moved away from the sunken spot and engaged a group of demons further from the Cutter.
The red demons roared back, sounding like an angered beasts, but the violet ones hissed at him like snakes. Neither matched the incomprehensible language in their minds, an oddity that Max hadn't encountered many times before. Normally, what language you spoke was the one that your thoughts operated in.
That might finally be a clue to discovering the secret of these creatures. They thought in the same language but did not speak it. So, if he could learn it, he could learn more about where they were and how to get out.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l