Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Sixty-Six - Impaled... Again

“There has never been a problem that can’t be solved with enough high explosive ordnance.”

--BoomBox, to the Gun Nut Association of America, June 2041

***

I’d been hurt before. Plenty of times, even.

Losing an arm had been pretty rough, so was the whole ordeal with my eye melting in my face and my entire right side getting toasted. But that had been years ago, the day I became an orphan even.

That particular pain was a forgotten one, or at least a pain so far back that the memories had dulled a bit. I knew, intellectually, that I’d been hurt, but that was it. Just like I could recall a first day at a new school, or the day I met Lucy, or a bunch of other memories. Even the most vivid of them still faded.

Having my face meet the ground while something hot shoved its way through my left thigh was a brand new sort of pain. Much fresher, much more... in the moment.

It kind of reminded me of having a pole shoved into my gut, actually.

I gave it point five gut-poles out of 5.

I gasped, the stinging in my nose that was making my eyes water quickly fading from my attention as I rolled over and stared down at my leg.

There was a nice bit of quill sticking into and out of it, a sharpened black spine with two points and probably all sorts of other interesting features that I couldn’t make out because it was currently impaling me.

“Fuck,” I managed to whimper.

“Stray Cat?!” Gommorah screamed. She moved over to my side in a flurry of black robes, stared at the wound in my leg, then unfroze. The next thing I knew she was spraying a forest fire’s worth of napalm all across the street, creating a wall between us and the nasties. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Fuck no,” I said.

Dumbass the First skittered by my side, wiggled to and fro a bit, then settled down.

The quill missed the bone. Not only that, its payload failed to inject itself. You’re rather lucky.

“What?” I asked. I touched the quill, some vague memory about putting pressure on wounds coming up to the surface.

That memory could get fucked, touching the hole hurt like an entire bag full of bitches.

You’re going to need to push the quill out from the entry wound. I would advise against pulling it out the other end until at least half of it is out and you can avoid touching the point.

“Are you fucking serious?” I asked. “What about the blood loss?”

You have a few minutes. It’s hardly as if this is your first time being impaled today.

I wished that Myalis had some sort of physical avatar I could direct a well-deserved glare at. There was no way she wasn’t saying that on purpose. “Gomorrah,” I said. “You need to push it out!”

The nun laid down another line or fire across the street, the asphalt around us ticking and steaming up. I didn’t know if it would hold back the more adventurous plants, but it was something.

She crouched onto one knee next to me, and I heard a sharp intake of breath as she looked at my leg. “I need to push it out?” she asked.

“That’s the idea,” I said. I wrapped my hands around my thigh, ignoring the warm blood seeping around my hands and running off of my jacket. At least the jacket seemed hydrophobic, which was neat.

“You should be wearing armour,” the nun said as she gingerly began to poke the back end of the quill.

I gasped as the entire thing moved and she instantly stopped. “S-sorry,” I said. “No one’s ever been that deep in me before.”

“A-ah,” she said, a sort of confused sound choked off halfway. When she pushed next it was with a lot more force. Was she being vindictive because I poked at her prudishness?

The quill’s middle was a lot thicker than the tip. I felt like I could maybe sympathize with women giving birth naturally as everything around the exit wound stretched and pulled. And then it was out and the quill clattered to the ground with a glass-like tinkle.

“Oh, fuck,” I breathed.

The wound was bleeding a whole lot more, and wasn’t exactly a pretty sight. “Myalis, nanos and blood and something to cover this shit up,” I said.

We’ll start with some Woundstop, a Nano-Regenerative Suite, and yes, some Hemo-Restore to top you off.

Three boxes appeared next to me one after the other and were ordered by nearness. I popped the closest, pulled out the syringe within, and gingerly shoved it into the hole in my leg and allowed the gunk inside it to patch up my new orifice.

The pain faded to a dull throb, but I still felt light headed as I grabbed the other two medical supplies and jammed them into the exposed skin of my thigh. “Running’s going to be fun,” I said as I tested my muscle and found it completely fucked.

“Let’s get started with walking then,” Gomorrah said. “The alley will have cooled down enough by now.”

I grunted something that could pass for agreement and accepted the hand she gave me to get onto my feet. Dumbass the First skittered behind me, its big plasma cannon thumping a few times as it fired into and past the wall of fire Gomorrah had laid out.

“Let’s get going,” I said.

My steps were a hobbling mess, like Lucy on one of her bad days, but with none of the experience and only half the grace. If it wasn’t for Gomorrah next to me to hang onto I would have found myself ordering a cane from Myalis.

And then Gomorrah grunted and pitched forwards.

I took a half-step, expecting her to support me, but she was busy dropping to the ground next to me. I hopped on one leg for a couple of steps before dropping onto a knee, the opposite from my injured leg, and rolled to the side.

We were nearly at the entrance to the alley, so the ground was like an unlit oven, painfully hot, but not enough to burn.

I winced as the tumble sent a shock up my leg, but I had bigger things to worry about.

“Goodness,” the nun swore as she stumbled back to her feet. There was a trio of Quills embedded into the back of her robes. They fell off as she turned around and faced the bastard that had attacked her.

I glanced over too.

A Model Five, the same one that had burst through our barricade, was stomping through the fire as if it didn’t give a shit about the flames licking at its stumpy legs. Its body, covered in bristling quills, shifted as it turned towards Gomorrah.

Then a pair of little tentacles wiggled out from its belly, tore out some of the spines along its side, and flung them forwards with a pair of whip cracks.

Gomorrah shielded her face and hopped to the side in time to avoid one of them. The other glanced off her ribs with a dull thump.

“God damn you, heathen monster!” she shouted before turning to incinerate the beast.

That’s when an entire pack of Model Threes charged around the Model Five and lunged towards her.

The nun started walking backwards, her arms dipping to lay down some fire onto the dog-like aliens aiming to take her out.

The Model Five, not to be outdone, started to lumber forwards as well.

I wasn’t about to let it kill my nun buddy, I’m sure she had many years of complaining about my heathen ways left in her.

Whisper was off to the side, my shoulder-mounted guns had emptied their loads into the Model Threes already and were dipping back to reload. I wasn’t at the right angle to pull out my Trench Maker or the handgun I’d gotten from Cleanze.

Dumbass the First was already firing into the blaze around us, presumably thinning out the herd.

So I raised my new arm, pointed it to the biggest asshole in the bunch, and screamed. “Rocket!”

My jacket’s arm flared out as a tiny black speck darted out of my arm and slammed into the Model Five’s flank. The big beastie seemed to pause for just a second, a second long enough for me to close my eyes.

The world flashed white, I felt a wave of pressure shoving me down, and then a nice smattering of pulped aliens started to rain down around me.

When I blinked again, it was to find the Model Five’s front legs standing up, with nobody to support them.

Gomorrah had stumbled back a bit, and the Model Threes nearest the back had all been flung away.

“What,” the nun asked.

“It might be tougher than average,” I said. “But we’re still two Samurai.”

***