Warslave

Chapter 16: The Wolf in the Mirror

The Wolf

The first thing they noticed about the labyrinth wasn't walls or twisting corridors. One moment Wolf and Viper were walking next to each other, discussing the utility of certain knives and which ones they preferred, the next Wolf noticed that his twin was gone.

Teleportation?

Nope. And I didn't change directions either.

Wolf looked around, seeing nothing but the desert that had previously been there. Viper was off in the distance, giving him a short wave, but doubling back didn't help them meet up again.

You saw that?

Wolf noticed several distortions in the air around him, like shimmers that came and went. As he took another step, he found himself looking at a brick wall.

Behind him was still nothing but sand, yet it was a different location from where he knew he should have been.

"Fucking hell..."

He activated his comms, rolling his eyes.

"Support team stay put. Everyone out hunting, activate your trackers. They've thrown up a maze, and I wanna be able to navigate it."

He tried breaking the wall in front of him, managing without issue, but finding that the wall restored itself the moment it broke. Enough time to move through if he needed, not enough to really do much else...

"Annoying, but not much of an issue."

The more he looked around, the more walls he saw. Moving into the newly formed corridors and hallways was almost like coming home. The cramped confines in the middle of the desert made him think back on his earlier training, when they had still been confined to the Sahara, skulking underground to avoid detection.

It required a little more care now than it used to. Simply hiding underground had been enough then, mostly trying to avoid satellites. Now he was listening for movements. Anything that moved with too little care to be one of his own, he would either try to avoid, or prepare to ambush.

Most groups he heard soon trailed off, taken by the labyrinth as it worked itself into its final shape, but there was a group of mercenaries that couldn't avoid him.

The first thing he noticed in that fight was how smoothly the new gauntlets let his claws cut through his prey's skin. It was certainly an improvement when it came to offensive capabilities when compared to the previous model, though it came at the cost of defensive features. He imagined the plates scraping over skin wouldn't be too comfortable for his kin, let alone when the gear actually took a hit.

His metal hands had no such issues with the gear, as they smoothly broke through his victim's skin, wrapping around the cervical vertebrae and pulling them free from the struggling body without issue.

He dropped the bones to the ground and took a look at the blood stained gauntlets. They caught the blood on his hands, directing the flow of it into several small reservoirs flowing through the plate that protected his underarm.

That was a feature he was sure they put in just for him. He decided to use it, letting some drops crystallise and shooting them towards two more enemies. It was a decent replacement for a throwing knife, or some other form of ranged weapon. Not as destructive, but able to replenish during combat.

He looked at the last member of the patrol. The Guild hadn't exactly sent their best in the first wave. Or their bravest, judging by the smell...

But then, how brave would anyone be if their friends had just been murdered in the blink of an eye. Wolf decided on a little mercy, drawing a knife from his belt.