"Who the hell are you people?"
Faced with two freakish strangers who'd appeared at the altar out of nowhere, Ethan didn't hesitate. He snapped up the M1911, the dark muzzle swinging between them.
The toad-like creature sprawled on the ground, Moreau, squirmed at Ethan's challenge.
He struggled to lift his pustule-covered head, green slime dripping from his mouth onto the snow with a hiss of corrosion.
"Ignorant... ignorant insects..." Moreau forced his deformed head up, his grotesque features scrunched together, his voice like nails on a chalkboard. "We are Lords under the great Lady Miranda... I am Mo..."
He didn't get to finish.
A teeth-clenching rush of displaced air split the silence.
Heisenberg, still perched on the boulder, let out an impatient snort. He didn't even look at Moreau. The massive gear hovering above his palm snapped together with the heavy hammer in his hand, pulled by an invisible magnetic force.
The next second, Heisenberg swung the monstrous hammer down on Moreau's head with earth-shattering force and zero mercy.
The impact sounded like a sledgehammer through a ripe watermelon. Moreau didn't get half a scream out. His entire upper body exploded into a spray of green pulp. Bone fragments and organs scattered across the ground, and the stench hit instantly.
"Shut up already. Cleaning up trash just gets my hands dirty." Heisenberg wrinkled his nose in disgust, flicked a finger, and the slime-covered hammer floated back behind him.
"Holy shit..." Ethan stared at the hyper-violent absurdity of what had just happened, jaw practically on the floor. His gun hand froze in midair, his brain bluescreening. What the hell? Weren't these freaks supposed to be on the same team? The bad guys just fragged their own teammate over a speaking line?
"Clean hit, nice swing. Relax, Ethan." Ryan looked remarkably unfazed. He glanced at the mosaic of gore on the ground and even whistled. "Seems like our friend with the shades has a nasty temper, but his head's in the right place."
Heisenberg burst out laughing. He shouldered his hammer and walked straight up to them. Even behind the sunglasses, the wild energy and approval in his eyes was unmistakable.
"Karl Heisenberg." He blew out a fat ring of smoke and jerked his chin at the pile of meat on the ground. "That ugly bastard was Miranda's most loyal lapdog. Having him around made me sick to breathe. Much better now."
"So?" Ryan kept his hands in his pockets, one eyebrow raised. "You staging a mutiny, or did you just not like his face?"
"I'm done with that psycho bitch on her throne!" Heisenberg's expression twisted into something feral, his voice dropping to a snarl. "What does she think we are? Lab rats! Failed prototypes! These powers we have? They're curses she forced on us! I've wanted out for a long damn time!"
He turned to Ryan, eyes blazing. "I've been watching what you two have been doing here. Let's team up. We take Miranda down together, rip that old hag's head off!"
"Team up?" Ethan eyed him warily. "What about Mia? The woman you people took. If you can guarantee her safety, I'm in."
"Your wife's right under Miranda's nose, obviously. Help me kill her, you take your wife and walk, I get my freedom. Win-win." Heisenberg shrugged.
Ryan looked at Heisenberg with a knowing smile. "Sure, we can work together. But..."
He stepped forward and clapped Heisenberg on the shoulder of his vintage coat. "Even if worst case scenario we can't blast Miranda to pieces today, I can still guarantee I'll sever her control over you. Think of it as a freebie. Complimentary bypass surgery. Sound good?"
Heisenberg froze, clearly not expecting Ryan to see right through the nature of their servitude. He studied the unreadable man in front of him for a long moment, then threw his head back in a wild laugh.
"Hahaha! Deal! With that promise on the table, I'd tear this whole mountain apart today if I had to!"
...
With their rebel alliance sealed, the three didn't linger at the altar.
Under Heisenberg's lead, they skipped the winding roads entirely and took a deeply concealed mechanical elevator straight down into Heisenberg's Factory, buried far underground.
The moment they stepped inside, the deafening roar of machinery and the acrid smell of machine oil hit them like a wall. Massive gears churned overhead, molten iron flowed along conveyor belts in a river of red, sparks flying everywhere. The place was an underground steel fortress, pure heavy-industry brutalism.
"Welcome to my kingdom!"
Heisenberg spread his arms wide, voice dripping with pride. He snapped his fingers and the enormous blast doors ahead rumbled open.
With a scalp-prickling screech of metal, rows of towering half-human, half-machine monstrosities marched out in heavy, thundering steps. Their arms had been rebuilt into chainsaws and drill bits, reactor cores glowing red in their chests, radiating menace.
"This is my mech army." Heisenberg walked up to one of the cyborg soldiers and slapped its cold metal hull. "None of Miranda's disgusting Mold brainwashing. Just pure steel and fury! Turning these loose on Miranda's Lycan grunts would be like mowing the lawn!"
Ethan stared at the killing machines and swallowed hard. His M1911 and RPG rocket launcher suddenly felt a lot less impressive next to these heavy-industrial nightmares.
"Not bad taste. At least they're easier on the eyes than bugs and dolls." Ryan nodded in approval. This kind of big-guns-and-battleships industrial romance was right up his alley.
"Gear up, boys." Heisenberg grabbed his heavy hammer off a weapon rack, his eyes going razor-sharp as he pointed toward the steel door leading to the lowest level of the factory.
"Target: Miranda's Megamycete core. Today, we're giving that self-proclaimed 'god' a taste of the industrial revolution's iron fist!"
...
Meanwhile.
In the deepest cavern beneath the village, a vast underground chamber smothered in black Mold.
A woman with six dark wings spreading from her back, like a fallen angel, hovered silently before the enormous fungal root system.
Miranda.
Before her, countless tendrils of black Mold wove themselves into a massive mirror image. It displayed everything happening inside Heisenberg's Factory with perfect clarity. Moreau's gruesome death, the alliance between the three. All of it, under her gaze.
Watching Heisenberg's betrayal, Miranda's pale, sculpted face showed neither anger nor alarm.
She watched them the way someone watches crickets fighting inside a glass jar. Cold. Indifferent.
"Stupid, defective failures..."
Miranda's lips parted, her voice echoing through the hollow cavern, dripping with suffocating arrogance.
"Go ahead and struggle a little longer. Soon enough, you'll understand. Before the might of a god, your steel and your schemes are nothing but pitiful toys."
[Read 50+ chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/NiaXD]