Worm: Plague 12.7

Reaching behind my back, I drew my baton and knife.

[...]

Mannequin lunged for me, his bladed toes biting into the ground for traction.  He moved fast enough that his arms trailed behind him like twin ribbons in a strong wind.

He stopped several paces away from me, turning his body to swing at me with his right arm and the three foot long blade that was attached to it.  If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he’d fall well short. But his arm extended on a chain, giving the swing just enough reach to put the blade on a collision course with my head.

I parried it with my baton.  The hit was heavy, more like trying to fend off a sledgehammer than what I’d expected.  I almost lost my grip on my weapon.

As the blade bounced off my baton, he reversed the direction his upper body was turning to start spinning like a top.  His one attached arm hurtling around him, he sprung at me.  I threw myself back and away, escaping by a mere two inches.

His spinning upper body had, with his right arm spooled out, caused the chain to wind around his body.  He began reeling it in, the arm and blade drawing a lazy circle around him.  I backed away, thinking I finally had a chance to get my bearings.

As his detached arm reeled in, the fingers folded backwards around the end of one of his feet, gripping it.  He retracted the blade at the toe of the other foot and dropped that foot flat on the ground.  The motion seemed to unbalance him, and he teetered, almost falling over.  Then in one sudden motion, he righted himself and thrust out with his other leg and the three-foot blade that was now attached to it.

I didn’t have time to get out of the way, to bring my baton up to defend myself or even to do more than belatedly realize his near-collapse had been a feint.  He caught me in the stomach with that same surprising strength as before, then slashed up toward my collarbone with enough force to lift my feet up off the ground.

[...]

I drew my bugs around me to conceal my movements as I rolled to one side, set my feet under me and sprinted to his left.

While still beneath the cover of my bugs, I was struck from behind and knocked face first to the ground.  The surprise was as bad as the pain.

[...]

“Mannequin!”

He stopped and turned his upper body to face me.

[...]

What could I even do?  I had to make the call in the three or four seconds it took me to cross the floor of the factory.  He was more than half-again as tall as I was, and my weapons couldn’t do anything to him.

I threw myself at the backs of his legs, colliding with the back of his knees and his calves.  Not all of his precarious balance was an act.  He teetered and collapsed backward onto the floor, his legs on top of me.

[...]

He started running toward me, weapons at the ready.  He wasn’t impeded in his movements, nor were his senses -sight or otherwise- impaired.

I ducked beneath his first swing as he closed in, but I couldn’t avoid the follow-up hit.  His second swing scraped off the armor on my shoulder and struck my chest.

[...]

This time, his attack was frenzied.  If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he was irritated.  I hopped back out of reach of the first swing, then quickly backed up as he followed that up with a series of rapid rotations of his upper body, momentarily becoming a blender-whir of whirling blades.

I was so busy trying not to get hit by the blades that I missed it when he tilted.  He balanced on one leg and kicked out wide with the other, letting the chain out so it could stretch the seven or eight feet to me.  I was knocked back onto the wood pile a second time, landing on the edge and falling to the ground a second later.

[...]

His blades made that rasping sound as he sharpened them against one another, one edge of each blade, then the other.  After doing it just long enough to lull me into a false sense of security, he lunged, blades spearing for my chest and throat.  I struck out simultaneously with the piece of wood.  It seemed to catch him off guard.  I struck too soon to hit him, but he wasn’t my target.

I clubbed at the uppermost blade, driving it down toward the floor.  I tried to avoid the edge and strike the flat of the blade, but my strike wasn’t spot on.  I didn’t see if I’d had any of the desired effect, because he collided with me, both blades striking the armor of my chest.  Pain exploded in my collarbone and ribs, but I didn’t experience any of the telltale pain of impalement.

[...]

I managed to parry one swing of his blade with my piece of wood, then jump out of the way of the second blade.  When I tried to block his kick with the two-by-four, however, I lost my grip and it fell to the ground.  He kicked me a second time, hard, and I staggered back, hand to my stomach, nausea building up in my throat.  I controlled my breathing to keep my dinner down.

[...]

That same arm disconnected and extended towards me as he tried to grab for me, and I turned to one side just in time to avoid being caught.  He fired the other arm out with an almost explosive force and I managed to catch hold of it before it got a grip on my costume.

[...]

He attacked, stretching out the arm I hadn’t gummed up.  The pain from the most recent hit to my stomach slowed me down, and his fist collided with me, knocking me over for what seemed like the hundredth time.  I managed to backhand it off of me before he could do anything, and hurried to my feet.

[...]

Extending the chain, he flung it across the room, the blade cutting a wide swathe.  I ducked clear, but two bystanders were struck down, screaming.

—Worm: Plague 12.7