Ch. 16 Rescue in the Ruins

[VirusZero]

Stark didn't know how the heck it happened, but the watery deluge from these things somehow congealed enough and dragged him under. The enemy in question bashed him against the wall several times, Stark feebly tried punching, but the fluid merely moved out of the way like he expected it to. His repulsor blast attack had limited effectiveness, cutting a small hole out of the enemy. But it lasted but a second before sealing itself up. He was trapped and unable to go anywhere until it had decided beating him off rocks was no longer fun.
Thankfully it was not too many impacts before two of the resistance members had defeated a few of the others. Having managed to find a solution to bypass their defences and defeat them, the monstrosity let go of Stark and he dropped with a splash and a clank onto the ground. Meanwhile the remaining ones formed together and transformed into one giant version.

Stark fired as much as he could into it. He could hear others taking shots at it, but he didn't really look to see what they were up to. Though thankfully it was not long before something caused a reaction and then ruptured, splashing them with enough slime to last a lifetime.
Stark was forced to the ground when a this new gross coating hit. Thick strands of the goo hung off his armour.
"As if once was not enough" he muttered to himself as he slowly stood back and peeled off as much of that goo as possible. But he didn't have long to wait before the sound of a buster charging was heard.

Running was the only option and so Stark took off, following the others. Though their attempt to lose him wasn't going to work this time as he merely ripped through a wall and continued pursuit. His golden aura gleaming and illuminating the dim tunnel to show just how seriously pissed off he was. His buster was raised and another shot fired. This time Stark was ready. He pushed himself in front of it with his jets active and engaged his energy shield. His shield took the hit and managed to absorb it. But Stark was still sent careening into ground for his trouble. He didn't hit that hard thankfully due to his shield taking the brunt of the force, but that saved his allies from taking a hit. It also meant that his indiscriminate fire wasn't causing damage to the tunnel and risking it collapsing on them.

That gave him an idea though... And from his vantage point on ground he noticed a good opportunity to enact his plan. He raised his arm and launched one of his missiles. It struck the ceiling. Stark engaged his jets and boosted along the ground, armour scraping against the floor in the process. But a second later when his missile exploded and rocks began to fall from the ceiling, he was glad not to be directly underneath them. A little scraping of the pain was nothing compared to being buried under all those rocks.

He hoped that bought them a few seconds before the enemy could get through so they could lose him. But he didn't exactly have high hopes. In fact he could hear the sound of a buster charging. Maybe they didn't have as long as he hoped...