Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System

"Damn, if this is how they keep the tunnels, no wonder the little aliens are terrified of them. It looks like something straight out of a horror story." Khan noted as she surveyed the damage to one of the injured Hunters.

"It just makes it that much more interesting, right? Now we get to worry about being killed and catching something that science doesn't even have a name for." Nico joked, getting back a hacking cough from the injured Huntress.

"The injury is fairly minor, but there are broken ribs. Give the medical device a few seconds, and it can deal with that. We will patch up your armour once you are healed, and you can take the first post. Good job on the blitz." Khan congratulated her team members.

Max looked up as he heard splashing and the sound of metal clanging from down the hallway as they hesitated.

"Second rank, move forward and secure the next rooms along these three tunnels," Max ordered, getting everyone moving again.

The Hunters had a lot of practice, but their plan hadn't expected to have a four-way intersection at the bottom of the ramp. There weren't enough of them to hold many points at this rate, and they would only clear a few rooms before they were fully extended.

Two of the rooms were only a few metres down the tunnel, but one extended out into the darkness.

"Shall we?" Khan asked, gesturing to the longer tunnel.

With the three of them down that tunnel, and one left in the first room, that left three in each of the other rooms to hold against the enemy advance.

Hopefully, it would be enough. The Hunters had brought all sorts of defensive goodies with them to avoid being overrun, so they shouldn't have too many troubles, but the tunnels were not at all what Max had expected.

As they ran down the narrow passage, the walls became more and more covered in gory runes, and they began to find body parts scattered along the walls in various states of decomposition.

This must have been the original tunnelway that led past the trenches, and the rest were newer, not so corrupt and without all of the lingering signs of slaughter.

"This place gives me the creeps," Khan muttered as they advanced.

The sound of footsteps and battle was getting quiet behind them as they put distance between themselves and the first room, and it only made the tunnel even more eerie, like they had stumbled into some monster's lair.

Only they knew that the monster was a bipedal humanoid and an intelligent one, which made it even worse.

"The sound sensors are picking up something ahead of us. Twenty metres, and it sounds like there is a closed door between us." Nico whispered as if the noise of her radio would be detected by the enemy.

Perhaps it was. Or perhaps the enemy heard them too because a split second later, the door was slammed open, and a giant warrior in dark red armour rushed through with a heavy grenade launcher in his hands, already firing before the door even hit the wall.

Nico, being the shortest of them by a large margin, ducked while Max and Khan pressed against the wall and let the first few rounds that he had fired down the tunnel pass by, then the three sets of Mass Drivers tore the champion apart, leaving a shattered mass of armour in the doorway, and a stunned group of fighters behind.

Nico showed them no mercy and lit up the room with her Fusion Flamer, incinerating the partially armoured warriors and filling the air with smoke.

But from that smoke emerged one of the Demonic beings that they had faced in the other layer. It was slightly blistered but moving with incredible speed toward Khan, who was second in line.

As it vaulted over Nico, the cunning behind its strategy was revealed. The demon had an energy blade attached to its tail, which whipped out at Nico, who parried with her energy claws and rolled to her feet.

With the long tail and the twin swords, the pale violet creature had the advantage of reach, but the triple blades on each gauntlet made the defences of the Mobile Suits hard to break, and it found itself trapped between the two women, who both had ranged weapons in their arsenal.

The Mass Driver couldn't track fast enough as the demon leapt up to the roof, and Khan's first round missed and exploded against something inside the room in front of them.

She crossed the claws in front of her to fend off the blades that were coming her way, and the synchronous shots from Max and Nico both hit the creature, vaporizing it and leaving only one blade on the ground as evidence it had even existed.

"That was insane. Who would have thought that something could be faster than the tracking systems that we have put into the Mass Drivers." Khan sighed.

If she hadn't been so fast, she would have been in real trouble. If she had been alone, she might well have lost to the pure speed of the creature unless she hit it with an area attack.

"There's always something new and exciting to find when you go Hunting with Nico." Max laughed as the small Mobile Suit moved into the scorched room.

"This one is clear, but there doesn't seem to be an entrance or an exit." She informed them.

"That doesn't make sense. This is the oldest portion of the tunnels. It should lead somewhere." Khan sighed.

Max shrugged. "Check the room again. They might have hidden something from us. Or this might have been an isolated branch for ritual purposes, and the other teams could be in trouble back at the exit."

If the main tunnel wasn't this one, then they had taken all three of the most experienced fighters away from where the worst of the battle was likely to occur.

That would give the younger Hunters a chance to prove themselves, but the idea was that they would do this without casualties, and they had already nearly suffered two.