The Niraya Complex [NSFW, GORE]

@Jinx  
The road itself comes to life in response, unearthing itself from the terrain, then writhing angrily…
 
Long tendrils of animate highway then flick up from the horizon, waving across the distant sky, while its burgeoning, fractalizing nexus emits a groan that reverberates across the entire region.
 
Val: “…I think you just pissed it off. No backing down now, I suppose.”

@Coriolanus  
Keep the tendrils back, my cannon is eradicating it at a molecular level. As soon as i reach the mass, order all heavy ordanance be fired into it. A low yield nuclear bomb can be effectively contained to its locality if the beast will consume it.

@Coriolanus  
“Ew- yikes. Fish are spooky. Maybe it’s being underwater. Yikes…” feesh r spooky  
“I guess I could find something cool out there. We’ll see.”

@Coriolanus  
….I can pay yoy back if you want… meows softly

@Jinx  
Further down to their right, a rectangular missile pod atop the wall hisses to life, pouring wisps of smoke slowly out the back.
 
Downrange, the tentacles flick south, sending three centipedal objects hurtling toward the town wall that crash into the desert terrain just outside. Emerged from the dustclouds, a trio of long, strung-together chains of vehicles roll, writhe, and tumble toward the wall, meeting hails of ineffective gunfire.
 
As Ev destroys the main highway leading to the Romanesco’s nexus, the tendrils surrounding it arch up and sink into the ground, before picking it up off the terrain; the sentient road itself standing a half-kilometer high above the horizon.’
 
 
@EclecticInspiration  
Hearing the Romanesco’s groan, the two old ratts look concernedly northward.
 
Skittertail Snr.: “…Well, sounds like the intrastate-160’s getting restless. Wonder what for.”
 
 
@NyantaStarhunt  
Anna: “You can if you’d like, though it’s no big dea-”
 
The souks hear the groan as well, many paused in the middle of their business to the unnatural sound, with some headed outside to look toward the source of the noise northward.
 
Anna: “Huh… guess Val’s finally gotten around to dealing with that accursed road north… We’re safe though, I believe.” ^%<.<%

@Coriolanus  
“Huh. Should we be worried…?” he ears cock back

@EclecticInspiration  
“Val’s not the sort to hide danger. If it’s worth being concerned over, we’ll know.”
 
“…Wanna go check it out, though? I got the aircar parked out back working again.” ^%<-<%

@Coriolanus  
^{>-> “Yeah”}  
He’ll grab his backpack ‘n’ tail bag, ready to gooooooooo

@EclecticInspiration  
Pulling the tarp off an awaited aircar sitting on the backyard landing pad, the two hop into the cockpit, then with the ignition of engines, and the closed-cockpit’s augmented displays lighting up, showing broadcasted graphics of delineated right-of-skyways kept updated and controlled by New Pahrump’s flying hotrod aficionados, they take off into the sky.
 

 
Passing a gate through the plastic skydome, they circle around to a scene one could only describe as a massive, thin land-starfish made of green, roadstriped tarmac thrashing around to the north, as a visible laser emitted from the town’s defense wall burns away at one of the strange creature’s two biggest highway-tentacles.

@Coriolanus  
ev seemed concerned, until out of nowhere a beam, accompanied by an otherworldly sound (the sound the purple beam makes) struck the road at its core, causing things around its impact point to warp and bend, as if a micro black hole had been created

@Coriolanus  
he meows out and looks over hm… Very interesting eh?
 
As long as you think we are safe

@Coriolanus  
“Every day, I feel like I understand less…dadgum laser beams ‘nd stuff everywhere. Think this’ll do it? I hear this thing’s been a problem for a long time now.”

@Coriolanus @Cerebrate  
The lights above and motes across the lab’s machinery all flicker off, before backup-power re-illuminates the room into an eerie dim crimson… Looking at the healing vat containing the abomination, it’s gelatinous occupant is now missing.
 
 
@Jinx  
For a moment, the whole world around everyone feels as if tilting toward the creature, as loose objects and dustclouds pull toward the inversed-refracted sphere, before the cursed road curled and compressed around it begins incinerating into ashes, as the black hole’s superheated accretions illuminate the dusklit region back up like a second sun.
 
Just as it would seem the entire earth were doomed, the black hole explodes;
 

 
the perimeter wall protects Pahrump’s citizens from the released gamma ray burst, though the paint and unprotected few-millimeters of top layer to everything that was within line of sight to the singularity end up flash-burned off.
 
A nearby radio that Val had been listening and talking through to command a missile launch warbles and hisses with static, while Val himself lays motionless next to it, the side of his body that’d been facing the explosion charred into a deep, centimeters-deep crisp.
 
Looked over the wall’s smoking, searing parapet, the hurled car-centipedes below appear to’ve been disabled.
 
 
@NyantaStarhunt  
As all the lights around them in the fish market flicker off, the dark night sky outside grows in brightness until reaching a stark, ghostly white glow, with the world around them rumbling in brontides.
 
“That can’t possibly be the city’s defenses, or the Romanesco… something’s happened.”
 
 
@EclecticInspiration  
The explosion sears the aircar’s windows facing toward the blast, leaving them opaque and only giving the two a mild sunburn, though the craft itself is horrifyingly silent; the sounds signifying running jetfans now absent. Looking to his left however, Benko’s abuelo is perfectly calm and as silent as the now-dead engines, easing the aircar’s descent back down to earth with the steering-yoke steadily gripped between his paws.

@Coriolanus  
he grunts and meows out softly damn i was really looking foreward to this little date. But if we need to, we can post pone and figure this all out!

@Coriolanus  
Imos: “you know, this exact thing happened nearly 1 to 1 to me before, so you should really just give it up and get over here, we can be friends, i can help you understand, i can set you free for real, our partnership would be one of mutual gain.”
 
he wasn’t even really lying, the dormant intelligence of the ccreature was in dire need of getting contextualized knowledge, and if in return he gained the power to turn into goop so more the better, if gloopy and him later decided to split that would not be hard at all either.

@Coriolanus  
ev stands back up, watching the floating residue and checking his surroundings for wounded
 
That…that was Quake. He must be closer than i realized.

@Cerebrate  
In moments, the brighter florescent lamps above flash back to life. Looking around, the lizard finds a trail of corrosion leading off into the adjacent room for cold storage.
 
 
@NyantaStarhunt  
The streetlights up and down the souk, as well as within the fishmarket eventually buzz back to life as well, illuminating Pahrump’s business plunged into darkness for only a few moments.
 
“…Town breakers just had to reset, this pile of rubble we’ve made our home in won’t topple over that easily.”
 
 
@Jinx  
With Val having bit the dust, down the battlement atop the wall Ev is on, a turret creaks to life, then steadily levelling it’s weaponry toward each centipede below, demolishes each in turn, before the gunner–“Charlemagne”, the quartermaster their old caravan before–steps out to visit Val’s location.
 
Charles: “…Val’s dead, are you all right, Ev? Where’d that beam come from?”

@Coriolanus  
“the cold storage?, wouldn’t that mess with your viscosity?”
 
he follows the trail.

@Coriolanus  
Do we have to go check anytbing out ?
 
he meows still looking towards the dorecrion of excitment

@Coriolanus  
ev reached down and touched val, a significant portion of metal slithering in and making to reanimate val
 
That was a decisive blow from my hatchmates astromag cannon. That road monster is dead.

@Coriolanus  
He shivers, fur on his neck and arms standing up, regardless of the temperature, his tail heavy and still. It was like he’d just witnessed a nuke from up-close. Despite the sinking feeling in his gut and the lump in his throat, he dares not break the reign of silence holding hostage the interior of the aircar.  
Though, he’ll certainly be trying to blink away the afterimage of whatever had just happened. Oof, bright

@Jinx  
Reaching a small capsule implanted within Val’s body, tubes running from it into his skull, chest, and groin suddenly light up as fire trails up through them, blowing flames out his nose, mouth, and eyes as it rapidly incinerates away his corpse.
 
Charles: “Eeeeogh boy, that reeks… I think he had that implanted to keep himself from getting captured, though. Something about fearing ‘displeasure’-wireheading, er some other paranoia… Anyways, it’s good that Romanesco’s out of the picture. Now we can turn the tables, start encroaching on ‘their’ turf instead, up into Beatty even.”
 
“Where is your ‘hatchmate’, though? Did they leave already?”
 
 
@NyantaStarhunt  
Hearing the steady cannonfire on one point of the wall, she shakes her head.
 
“City’s defenses have it covered, nothing much else we can do ourselves. I am worried about that power outage, though… I hope Imos is alright back at my lab.”
 
 
@Cerebrate  
Passing rows of dissected wastewalker corpses hung within vacuum-sealed clear bodybags, the lizard happens upon the creature attempting to absorb one zombie’s corpse.
 
Right before his eyes, the creature envelopes around the body, standing the corpse up as it dissolves within down to blackened bones and muscle, before the creature’s own slimy form shapeshifts in color and texture, matching what may in fact have been reptilian features hidden beneath the zombie’s black bodysuit and mask.
 
The shapeshifter hasn’t noticed Imos yet, instead inspecting the claws of its own splayed hand before itself.

@Coriolanus  
ev sighs, the metal returning
 
On his way here, actually. I expect within the hour we will see some form of gunship flying up to greet us.

@EclecticInspiration  
“You alright, sonny?”
 
Linus says, after waving at the guards on Pahrump’s southern wall having spotted them and sent a large truck seen coming down the road.

@Coriolanus  
“the dead bodies won’t do you much good, the decomposition instills a very vicious weakness to fire, gas buildup in your form and constant bloating… nono, you need a proper, living host.”
 
with that he blasts the creature with his own fire, intending to weaken it enough.