The clumsily swinging limb would have crushed a normal human's back. Against Ilshar it was only hellishly painful, the raw force buckling knees and crumpling armor, [color=f7941d]weakening it against future attacks unless repaired[/color]. Retaliation would be swift if subtler thatn his heavy machine gun. 

In the [color=ed1c24]qillatu choked air, rapidly driving the puppets into a frenzy[/color], the horde of ten were beginning to power through etheric disruption. Fluttering theads of flesh peeled and re-coiled around the doubting, staggering limbs and forced mockeries of flesh forth; barbaric intent defied confused nerves. 

Like a singular mass they surged forward. Hyper-extended digit-joints in odd-numbered formations extended, curled, sickle-pointing and swung. Cranial tendrils whipped out wildly, swinging dangerously close to heads. The very ether-shields made skin and nerves chill and shudder as the qillatu that powered them begin to evoke a nauseating collective aura. [color=8dc73f]Alice's sniper rifle spoke first with the corrosive round immediately taking effect[/color] - a huge chunk of flesh loosened, twitched, and quivered before falling to the floor a greasy, frothing slop. Limbs quivered and balance staggered as its body shook.

Her handgun whipped out and zeroed in on three un-shielded uppets barreling her way. The nauseating aura assaulted her senses but not before the first three bullets fired, [color=8dc73f]scoring centre-of-mass shots across three torsos[/color]. Intransigence munitions tended to be heavier and often with a secondary effect even for sidearms. Each slug cracked bones and ignored stringy flesh, embedding where coalescing mass was at its foulest and thickest. 

Then they detonated; blast force gusts spraying a hellish mess of thankfully non-etheric innards and fluids outwards, splashing against armor and boots. The corpses staggered as the aura of nauseation retaliated, sending two of the shots off course and a third slamming into the gut of the middle corpse, blowing open its wriggling contents and most of its spine. Its upper body nearly toppled backwards but the other two pressed on unaffected. Cranial pseudopods whipped forward with a life of their own, lashing at her shoulders and arms.

Before they could lacerate and smack her, her handgun had blown apart the tendril and a half-blink later, turned the head of one of the creatures into a stumpy fountain. [color=8dc73f]The now-decapitated puppet [/color]flailed blindly in front of Kleo, awkwardly stumbling closer as its long claws sliced and slashed at air with drunken inefficiency, [color=c4df9b]nearly dead but in need of a proverbial nudge[/color].

A split second later and a spray of smoke and fluids squirted and burst from the hybrid hulk. [color=8dc73f]The otherworldly worm from Ilshar had struck, gashing the core and dealing a nasty wound[/color]. The creature's stomping travel path became a stumble as it teetered off to the left. A massive swing of its arm smashed through an shielded puppet, popping its meagre defences then splattering it like a soggy egg against a wall and spraying qillatu into the increasingly ethertoxicated space. The force of its swing dislodged a few of the over-developed bones on its arm as the corrosive bullet weakened their ties, scattering them like steel bars around the gooey corpse slowly sliding down the wall.

[color=ed1c24]The nine remaining corpses[/color] shuddered and began to sprint almost as if incensed by the destruction of compatriot, rather the maddening effect of additional qillatu.

From behind Kleo and Alice, [color=ed1c24]three of the puppets[/color] (one shielded) descended upon the human and the voidhanger. [u]One leapt[/u], both arms over its head like a hammer aimed at Kleo's body. [u]The shielded one[/u] staggered to the side and spun about with fingers cracking backwards in a reverse swipe, pointed like pickaxes at the human's side. [u]Another unshielded one[/u] blindly charged at Alice, arms outstretched and aimed at her face and right shoulder. 

Meanwhile, the decapitated puppet had the misfortune of nearing King. Moments later, etheric psychedelia erupted from its form. Qillatu around itself dissipated as the mixture of stringy floating meat and fluids rapidly un-created out of realspace. Soft void-flesh matter peeled and vanished off of crackling bone before King struck. A judgement of a miniaturized eclipse eradidcated whatever was left into shreds and strips, blowing clean through the puppet until it was a pile, simply deleting whatever fog was in front of it and reducing three other corpses into little more than gangly, strips of bone and scoured, de-therealized meat. 

A few of them, held together with stretching, partially living veins and sinew paused as if to take stock of their situation - more skeleton than putrid imitation of biped, and collapsed into sizzling, dissolving heaps.

[color=ed1c24]The fourth survived[/color] - half of it anyways, an upper torso pulling itself across the gound, as its wormy bodily mass thrashed and twitched inside its cage of ribs.

[color=ed1c24]Six puppets were left now[/color], all unshielded and temporarily in a stupor as the qillatu concentration sharply dropped. 

The squad leader and the unztadtlige in the meanwhile unleashed a small artillery strike worth of violence into the hulk. Half-melted, hide torn open, carried by little more than instinct and helpless before hungry weapons. It did not register the grenade planted its body, the rain of shells that tore off colossal chunks, nor the massive explosion that ended the window of consciousness it served as and in the process, blasted three cadaver puppets into unrecognizable smears.

The room seemed to grow in size; an illusion of the anchor for the unseen controller's etheric power vanished. The bond that tied the remaining puppets went with it, but not pre-implanted vicious instincts. With reckless abandon, they fell upon Echo and Salvatore, their bodies writhing and seeming to pull apart at the seams - one last attack of mindless, violent instinct.