Miller couldn’t understand what was happening. There should be only one and only morphus. It couldn’t just multiply in the blink of an eye, could it? It had to be some sort of trick, just like the cloud of darkness it had spewed out moments before.
He watched the scene unfold before his eyes. The mutants moved so fast and chaotically, dodging the bullets his men fired, that it was hard to grasp how many there were. Eventually, he was able to count them: five. They all looked identical, but as he observed them dart around, he was quickly growing confident that only one of them was real while the rest were illusions.
He watched the five mutants dash around, skillfully dodging bullets. More often than not, he saw a shot pass right through a mutant’s body instead of hitting it and exploding on impact. It was obvious that four were mere imitations, duds. He had a good idea of what morphus had summoned them for: to sow confusion among his men and exploit their momentary disarray to its own advantage.
Miller hoped his men would be able to figure out what was going on quickly enough, but they were too dumb for that. Well, actually, they were simply scared out of their minds, which clouded their thinking. Yet, to him, those details hardly mattered.
What really mattered to him was that the morphus’s plan seemed to be working. His people were panicking, blazing away at the duds without realizing that most of the mutants were fake. They didn’t even notice their shots passing straight through the imitations’ bodies, probably genuinely believing they were simply missing.
He saw one of the imitations dash toward one of his men, causing him to collapse on the floor. He didn’t fall because the creature ran into him, but simply because he stumbled back clumsily in fear, tripping over his own feet. The fake creature fell on top of him, opening its jaws wide to reveal rows of pointed, jagged teeth.
For a second, it seemed that the mutant was going to sink its teeth into the unfortunate man. However, that didn’t happen. Instead, the dud jumped back to its feet and ran away. The man sat up, watching the creature retreat, clearly not understanding why it hadn’t killed him.
Miller couldn’t help but roll his eyes.
“They’re fake,” he yelled at his men. “Four of them are just duds! Search for the real one!”
Just as he shouted that, a panicked scream erupted from his left. He turned to look in that direction just in time to see the morphus—clearly the real one—ram into another of his men, causing him to collapse to the floor. Before he could do anything, the morphus slammed his exceptionally huge fist into the man’s face, causing his head to burst apart like an overripe melon.
The morphus had its back turned to Miller. This was the moment he had been waiting for. Finally, one of his men had fulfilled his purpose. By letting himself get killed, he provided Miller with the perfect opportunity to line up a clear shot. He aimed his energy cannon at the creature and fired.
Immediately, the morphus dashed away, narrowly avoiding the energy projectile. Miller couldn’t believe his eyes. How could that be possible? The creature didn’t have eyes on the back of its head, so how had it known a shot was fired at it from behind? The only explanation Miller could think of was that the morphus had an ability that warned it about immediate dangers and directions to expect them from.
The freak spun around to face Miller, fixing its large, emotionless eyes on him. He lined up another shot just as the freak extended one of its arms toward him. A pitch-black glob formed at the center of its palm. Miller didn’t waste any time wondering what it was. He opened fire, sending another energy bolt zipping toward the morphus. At the same time, the black glob detached from the freak’s hand and flew through the air at Miller.
He wasn’t really surprised when he saw the morphus dodge the energy projectile without much trouble. What did surprise him, however, was that the black glob the freak had just launched suddenly expanded and transformed into a cinch net, hurtling toward him at an alarming speed.
Unlike the morphus, Miller couldn’t dodge what was launched at him. The cinch net enveloped his mech, tightening around the contours of his metal armor and pinning his arms to his sides. He strained to lift his hands to tear the net, but it proved to be impossibly strong and resistant.
Miller struggled against his restraints but couldn’t tear them apart. The net tightly wrapped around his mech was clearly made of the same strange material as the morphus’s body. He was astonished by its strength. The servomotors whined painfully as he strained to lift the suit’s arms, but the net held firm, refusing to relent.
While he struggled against his restraints, the morphus attacked another of his comrades. With terror etched on his face, the man opened fire on the mutant. The creature didn’t even bother to dodge the bullets this time. They impacted its chest and exploded, yet the damage inflicted on the morphus was minimal.
The man ran out of bullets in his gun, but instead of reloading, he decided to flee. He spun around and dashed away. Only he didn’t get far. The morphus quickly closed the distance and seized him by the head, wrapping its oversized fingers around him. It then simply squeezed, causing the man’s skull to cave in. His legs gave way, and when the morphus let go, he thudded to the ground, his body spasming violently in death throes.
When the morphus emerged from the portal, it was clearly taken aback by the welcoming party awaiting its arrival. For a moment, the unexpected ambush seemed to spook the freak, causing it to run chaotically, trying to dodge the barrage of bullets fired at it.
However, the tables had turned. The morphus was now on the offensive.
The fake mutants suddenly vanished, leaving only the morphus standing. However, this did nothing to boost his men’s morale. When the cloud of darkness obscured Miller’s vision, the morphus had killed several of his men. Now, it had claimed a couple more lives. The floor was littered with corpses, and only three of his men remained.
However, they must have decided they had enough, as they turned and dashed toward the exit. Seeing Miller trapped, tightly ensnared in the cinch net and unable to help them fight the creature, certainly didn’t raise their spirits either.
Only the morphus wasn’t willing to let them go.
The mutant held out his left hand, and in the blink of an eye, it morphed into something that looked like a harpoon. It zipped through the air, trailing a pitch-black cord behind it. The harpoon pierced one of the fleeing men, going all the way through his body, bursting from his chest in a spray of blood. Smaller hooks shot out from the tip of the harpoon, and when the morphus suddenly pulled the cord back, the hooks dug into the man’s body, preventing the harpoon from slipping free.
The man was still alive, though. He screamed in pain and horror as the freak yanked the cord back, causing him to collapse to the ground. He thrashed around but was unable to free himself as he was being dragged across the floor toward the morphus, who transformed its other arm into—Miller could hardly believe his eyes—a freaking chainsaw! The freak powered up the weapon, causing the jagged teeth to spin at great speed.
When the captured man glanced back and saw what was waiting for him at the end of his journey across the floor, he completely lost it.
“Help me,” he screamed as loudly as he could. “Oh God, no! Please help me! Anybody, help! Oh no! Oh God! Oh no!”
The man flailed his arms helplessly, trying to resist the backward pull, but he was unable to stop the incredible force drawing it toward the morphus.
The other two members of Miller’s team, who were now behind him, actually stopped and looked over their shoulders to see what was happening. The captured man had just come within the freak’s reach, and their eyes went wide when they saw the morphus thrust its chainsaw into its prey’s body. The jagged teeth of the weapon tore into the man’s flesh, sending blood spraying every which way. The dying man’s agonized screams rose to a crescendo.
When its prey was dead, the morphus retracted the hooks at the top of the harpoon and pulled it from the dead body. The mutant then turned his attention to the other two men, who suddenly remembered they needed to flee.
Only the morphus wasn’t going to let them go. Moving as silently as death itself, it lunged after the other two men. The mutant brushed past Miller, who still couldn’t tear free from the cinch net tightly wrapped around his mech, no matter how hard he tried.
All he could do was watch as the freak chased after the remaining men to give them the same treatment as the previous victims.