---[ POV: Flynn ]---

"There you are, you little fucker."

Flynn was crouching behind a calcite stalagmite, some distance away from what looked like the nesting zone of the beast.

Said zone consisted of a vast cavern almost 40 meters in height and about double that in length and width. There was an opening in the vaulted ceiling near the southern wall that let the rain and wind from outside get in. A murky pool of water had formed below.

The shrieker was lying on a pile of bones and animal carcasses that had been arranged into a morbid nest. The odor was suffocating, even at this distance and Flynn had to activate the internal air recycling system of the armor to avoid breathing the foul smell.

The creature seemed to be asleep and the growling sound was either its respiration or a kind of purring. Since it used echolocation as its main sense, the young man guessed that it was probably a feature that kept the reptile somewhat aware of its surroundings even when sleeping.

Flynn waited patiently in his spot for several minutes, making sure the creature was alone and evaluating the layout of the cave. He detected an elevated ledge that run along the eastern wall and from which he could position himself above the creature's nest in a perfect spot to launch a surprise attack.

The easiest way to reach that ledge was to scale a slightly inclined wall some 10 meters away from his current position.

Flynn dematerialized the power-hammer to avoid dragging it along and then, as silently as possible, he started to crawl toward the wall. He was able to reach it without much incident and started to climb after looking at the shrieker to make sure it was still sleeping.

Halfway up, a stone on which he had taken a foothold got dislodged from the wall. Flynn had reduced his weight as much as he could with the gravitational field of the armor but it was apparently not enough.

The stone rolled down the wall with clanking and clacking sounds before finally smashing on the ground.

The young man froze in place as the shrieker got its head up abruptly with an interrogating squeal. The monster's gills started to open and close as it let out some short and modulated sounds while orienting its eyeless head in all directions.

Flynn pressed himself against the wall as much as he could, wishing he could just meld into it and disappear.

When the shrieker started to examine the young man’s general direction, it stopped for a moment, letting out some more noises while its three long tongues probed the air like crazy snakes. Flynn’s heart rate skyrocketed, his muscles tensed and all of his nerves started to burn in the anticipation of danger.

He swallowed the glob of stress that had formed in his throat and got ready to jump from his position at a moment’s notice but the creature finally directed its attention elsewhere as if it had lost interest.

Flynn refrained from a relieved sigh and patiently waited. After two or three minutes of investigation that yielded no result, the shrieker let out a last low roar before coiling back in its resting position.

The young man waited again for 10 long minutes, just to be sure, before he resumed his ascension even slower than he previously had. He finally reached the ledge and from there on, it was easy to get to the position he had previously scouted.

Flynn thought for a moment about the best plan of action but was forced to admit that there were not many tactical options at his disposal given his current weapon load; a power-hammer, a searing-blade knife, a laser pistol, and some basic explosives. He rapidly concluded that the optimal strategy was to drop some explosive on the creature to wounds and confuse it and, if it was not enough, he would have to jump in with the hammer to finish the job.

Flynn looked at the monster and the many scars that already decorated its pale hide and realized that the pipe bombs would be insufficient to pierce through the armored scales and tough skin. The young man got five of the bombs to materialize in front of him nonetheless and bundled them together with some adhesive paste, then he got the laser pistol out and made sure the safety was off.

"Come on, you can do that Flynn! What's a big lizard compared to a Mind Eater battleship? Easy..."

He knew there was no point in waiting anymore. The voice of Commander Regus echoed through his mind as he remembered what the old man had told him before his first battle as a fighter pilot.

"True soldiers of the Empire forge their mettle in a baptism of fire or get crushed in the crucible of war, kiddo. Don’t let fear and hesitation guide you toward the latest. So, which one will it be for you?"

Flynn smiled while imagining what the commander would say if he knew what he was about to do. With one last, deep breath, he got up from cover and dropped the bundle of explosives toward the monster, then immediately raised the pistol in a firing position, closing his organic eye to optimize his aim using only the artificial one and its targeting system. Flynn also leveraged the stabilization and hand-eye coordination mechanisms of his armor for optimal accuracy, then fired the pistol before the bombs could even reach the ground and alert the shrieker that something was happening. The purple ray hit the bundle of pipe bombs while it was passing by the creature's head.

A loud explosion sound reverberated all over the cavern, amplified by its own echoes. Rocks, dust, and small stalactites fell from the ceiling. There was a flash of fire beneath the young man and he could feel a draft of heat and smoke brush past.

The shrieker was tossed on the side by the detonation and the surprised creature started to wail and flail its limbs and tail in a confused manner while rolling in its nest, trying to get back up.

Flynn did not wait for the reptile to recuperate from the confusion. He ran a short distance along the ledge to follow the rolling monster while returning the pistol to the storage and materializing the power-hammer in his hand instead.

Once Flynn caught up with the shrieker’s position, he jumped from the ledge, using the thrusters in the heels of the Stygian Predator to increase his velocity as much as possible.

Maybe it was to quell his fear or a simple byproduct of adrenaline and anticipation, but a feral scream escaped from the young man’s lips despite his best efforts to contain it. Flynn raised the hammer above his head and prepared to smite the monster with all the renewed power of this military battle armor.

Hearing Flynn’s war cry, the shrieker turned in the young man’s direction to assess the situation but it was too late. Flynn’s controlled fall had brought him close enough so he struck the monster in the head once again. A thunderous sound resonated all over and the head of the lizard was thrown against the ground with a painful ‘smack’ sound.

Flynn continued to fall and landed directly on the back of the creature. The moving surface and his momentum proved too difficult for him to stabilize, however. He tripped down and continued in his trajectory, rolling down the shrieker’s back until he reached the ground.

The armor and its advanced Aegis absorbed any potential damage so the young man quickly got back up.

The shrieker had also found its footing again and was now screaming in pure an unadulterated rage, its wide, fanged mouth pointed toward the puny human facing it. The ear-splitting scream shook the vault and threw some spittles of fetid saliva in Flynn’s direction.

The monster charged at the young man, trying to crush him with its maw, but Flynn was ready. He jumped on the side with surprising speed, taking full advantage of his enhanced strength and the propulsion system of the armor once again.

The jaw of the monster bit the air where he had stood a moment ago but the shrieker had seen this trick already and was not about to let his opponent repeat it over and over again. With a contortion of its entire body, the lizard followed its first attack with a sweep of its long and devastating tail.

It was impossible to dodge this attack without jumping over it or getting flat on the ground and Flynn realized he was not fast enough for either.

Seeing the tail coming his way, he activated all possible defenses at his disposition and braced with his arms crossed in front of him. The normally invisible shield generated by the Aegis of the armor got charged to the point it became visible; a spherical bubble composed of a pattern of purple hexagons started to shimmer around Flynn.

The attack felt more like Flynn had been hit in the face by a tree trunk swung by a giant on steroids than the whiplash he was expecting. He was sent flying toward the vault with stupendous force.

The young man impacted the ceiling not far from the opening to the outside. His shield crackled with purple static and shattered but it had done its job in absorbing most of the damages. Unfortunately for the young man, his flight did not stop there. The stone ceiling behind him cracked and exploded under the immense pressure and he was catapulted outside the cave while a portion of the vault collapsed, enlarging the already existing hole.

Flynn flew some distance away before meeting the ground again and rolling down a small hill in the sludge and rain of the storm.

He was still in one piece because of the armor but found himself in intense pain. A quick diagnostic informed him that he probably had a broken rib or two. He laid there for a moment, waiting for the confusion to pass and the pain to go away, but the sound of the hulking mass of the shrieker clawing its way out its lair through the hole in the ground brought him back to his senses.

Through JAX, Flynn immediately willed his biochemical vesicles to release some of their stored combat drugs. The chemical cocktail would inhibit pain, focus his senses and boost his adrenaline for a short while. It was not recommended to use all that crap at once but Flynn knew he had to take some risks if he wanted to survive. He got back up and also activated neural time dilation to stack every possible advantage he had. A couple of days of feeling like shit was better than being dead. He grabbed the hammer that was strewn on the ground nearby and got ready for the second wave of attack.

The shrieker soon spotted him through the rain of the storm and charged while screaming. This time, instead of dodging, Flynn answered the reptile scream and charged back. Now that he had taken an attack head-on and survived, he was more confident in the armor's ability to protect him.

The wrath of his hammer clashed with the death-promising mouth and claws of the monster for what seemed like an eternity but none of the combatants were able to establish a clear advantage over the other. Flynn quickly realized that the storm was playing in his favor since the ambient sound apparently disoriented the eyeless creature entirely reliant on its echolocation to see. It was a fortuitous circumstance that would probably not present itself again in the near future so he had to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, Flynn also realized that, whilst he had a formidable weapon, he had no proper techniques to exhibit its full potential and that the shrieker, now fighting an invader on its territory, did not seem as bothered by the sound of the hammer as he had been before.

The storm impeded them both; the young man and the reptile each fell over and tumbled around in the mud more than once. The deathly shrieks of the creature mingled with the explosion of the hammer impact and the thunderstorm in a cataclysmic orchestra that could be heard leagues away.

At some point, Flynn slipped on a wet rock while trying to swing at the shrieker’s leg and his attacks missed and struck the ground instead. This created a small crater and initiated a landslide some distance above them.

Flynn cursed and tried to get out of the way to reach a safe point atop a large stone formation but he was not fast enough and got dragged away by a river of mud and sliding rocks. Slates and boulders ground against his armor and would have crushed his bones into dust if he had not worn the protective suit.

As he was quickly sliding down the slope of the mountain, the young man’s only consolation was to see that the shrieker was not able to escape the landslide either and was getting carried away too. Flynn was getting tossed from a boulder to a trunk, to another boulder to a stone, and could do nothing other than hope it would end soon.

The angle of the slope decreased after about 2 or 3 minutes of this wild tumble and Flynn noticed they were losing some speed but they were also getting dangerously close to what seemed like a high and steep cliff that plunged into a large canyon.

At first, Flynn tried to get unstuck from the mud but seeing he was not able to do so, he instead materialized the searing-blade knife in his free left hand and stabbed it in the ground in the hope of using it as an anchoring piton to stop his descent.

The blade plunged into the rocky soil with little effort and the plan worked but one of the large boulders passing by Flynn struck his right arm and caused him to lose grasp of the power-hammer. The young man looked in horror as the weapon got carried by the sludge right to the cliff edge before tipping over and disappearing from his sight.

Flynn let out a frustrated scream while trying to hold on to his position until the landslide finally stopped.

Some distance away, a writhing mass of mud started to move. The shrieker shook the dirt off his scales with anger before starting to walk in Flynn’s direction with some vexed hisses.

Flynn got back up and staggered around in the sludge before getting a sure footing. He looked around desperately but he was cornered against the cliff edge and there was nowhere he could run. Given his current condition, he would probably not survive a fall from that cliff, even with his armor. There was only so much he could endure and the last days had not been particularly uneventful. His entire body was starting to wear down.

Nonetheless, he would not go down without a proper fight. More than his duty to the Empire and his own personal pride, there was someone counting on him; he was the only hope of the person trapped in the crate, powerless and alone.

Flynn raised his knife in a fighting stance but laughed at how risible a weapon it was when pitted against the gigantic shrieker. His only comfort was that the creature seemed in as bad a condition as him, with multiple bleeding wounds all over, broken claws, and a heavy limp. Despite it all, its hatred and rage brought it closer and closer to him.

Once the alien monster had almost reached the young man, it stopped and they faced each other for a long moment, panting and appreciating each other's might and tenacity.

Then, the shrieker lunged with surprising speed considering its health condition. Flynn was too late on the dodge and got snapped by the hungry mouth. The barbed tongues started to latch around his abdomen and legs, apparently trying to rip him apart. Fortunately, the armor protected him from them and the hundreds of razor-sharp fangs of the monster.

What it could not protect him from completely, however, was the sheer crushing power of the shrieker's jaw. As he was lifted well above and past the cliff edge by the monster, he could feel his already damaged ribs starting to protest against the pressure applied on them.

Flynn screamed in pain but since he was free from the chest up, he quickly started to stab the face of the shrieker with the knife, hoping it would let him go, but his efforts were to no avail. The 25 centimeters of the blade were barely enough to pierce through the scales, skin, fat, and muscles. It was not long enough to reach a vital organ inside.

While the lieutenant was screaming in pain and desperate rage, the creature started to shriek in excitement, agitating its gills as if to taunt him. The young man grunted but this time a small laugh found its way past his lips as an idea crossed his mind.

He looked at the undulating gills along the shrieker's neck.

"That's how you wanna play, you son of a bitch?!"

Flynn dematerialized the knife and raised his arm as much as he could to charge a punch, then struck with all his strength directly through the closest gill. As he did so, he brought one of his pipe bombs out of storage and removed the safety pin while retracting his hand from the gills.

There was a muffled and wet explosion sound at first, closely followed by a painful and distorted screech. The neck of the shrieker inflated before its gills and mouth vomited a torrent of blood and smoke.

The beast opened its mouth while flailing its head around and Flynn was launched several meters into the air. As he was wildly spinning above the cliff, his eyes glimpsed at a shining reflection down below; his power-hammer was tucked on a lower ledge, some 15 meters lower than the cliff edge.

Using every ounce of energy and willpower left in him, he activated the gravitational returning function of the hammer and used the thrusters of the armor to stabilize in an upright position.

There was a 'whooshing' sound coming from beneath him. Flynn outstretched his arm, hand open, and could feel the hammer handle collide with his palm with a clanging sound. A satisfied smile appeared on his lips as his upward momentum came to an end and he started to fall back down toward the wounded shrieker.

As if to salute his determination and cap off the fight, a powerful lightning strike illuminated the sky at the same time as his hammer struck the final blow to the shrieker's head. The thunder of his hammer and that of the storm mixed together as the culminating note of the battle.

Flynn continued his fall and impacted the ground way too close to the cliff edge for his own comfort.

The shrieker left out one last defeated squeal before collapsing down.

The creature bruised and battered corpse slowly slid down the cliff edge but Flynn could do nothing to prevent it. With an almost inaudible curse, his vision faded and he fell unconscious.