Weapon System in Zombie Apocalypse

The city shook.

Buildings three blocks out trembled from the blast radius of the AC-130's impact. Glass panes exploded outward, dust clouds billowed into the air, and the streets were bathed in a flickering violet-orange hue from the burning wounds of the Colossal Worm.

Phillip and his Shadow Team, crouched on a rooftop less than four hundred meters away, shielded their visors from the shockwave. The light seared their HUDs. Static danced across their visors for a second before recalibrating.

"Jesus," Shadow 3 muttered. "We actually hit it."

Phillip's voice was even, but cold. "Target's bleeding. Get the uplink back to Command. Confirm impact zones. We need to know if that blast cracked the regenerative core."

Shadow 7 snapped back into motion. "Telemetry uploading now. Surface gel is destabilizing. Thermal is dropping."

From the MOA command center, Marcus's voice came in hot. "Shadow 0-1, we have visual confirmation. Biogel ruptured. Inner tissue exposure is confirmed. Worm is destabilizing—but it's not collapsing."

On the overhead screen, the Worm swayed slightly. Not from a breeze, not from weakness—but from some internal shift. Like it was recalibrating.

The glowing eye at the top began to open again.

"Beam formation underway!" Marcus called. "We have less than two minutes before it retaliates!"

Thomas slammed a fist on the console. "Warthog! New fire mission—now!"

A-10 Warthog One banked hard, wings flexing under the stress. "Re-engaging. Switching to APIT rounds. Concentrated fire."

It looped low and fast, engines screaming.

Then:

BRRRRTTT.

Another burst from the GAU-8 tore into the same wound. This time, the carapace caved inward—like striking a cracked shell. The plates shattered. Purple fluid sprayed into the air like blood caught in a storm.

And then the Worm… screamed.

Not with a voice. Not a roar. But through the atmosphere itself.

A wave of energy pulsed outward—visible to the naked eye. Air shimmered, sound warped, even the clouds above were momentarily pushed outward like smoke from a bomb blast.

Inside the command center, consoles flickered. Lights dimmed. Radios whined.

"What was that?" Thomas barked.

Marcus stared at his screen. "Localized EMP burst. It's not dying—it's lashing out."

"Shadow, status?" Thomas called.

Phillip's voice returned, slightly garbled but clear enough. "Still up. Static hit our drone—link fried. Moving to manual. Still observing worm's behavior. Not mobile yet."

Thomas turned toward Calix, who was adjusting the biosample monitoring from the lower lab deck. "Is it dying or adapting?"

"Both," she said grimly. "You're hitting something it wasn't expecting. But that means it's changing. The longer we drag this out, the more it adjusts."

"Then we need to finish this," Thomas growled. "We do not let it evolve."

He turned back to the screen. "Spectre. Reload and prepare secondary strike package. Switch to bunker busters."

"Roger, Command," came the reply. "Adjusting fire solution."

At the same time, the overhead drone—one of the few still functional—relayed an image that made Marcus's stomach turn.

The base of the Worm had begun to shift.

Not to move.

To grow.

Roots—more accurately, massive tendrils—were spreading underground. They cracked through pavement, emerging like bony branches clawing toward the nearby streets.

"They're spreading!" Marcus called. "It's trying to anchor deeper!"

"Shadow Team, eyes on?" Thomas said.

Phillip's voice came in. "Confirmed. Tendrils expanding into nearby sewer grid. Estimated spread rate—ten meters per minute."

"If it roots deeper, we lose the chance to kill it," Calix said. "Those roots are protective. Once it's reinforced, no amount of fire's breaking through."

Thomas's gaze was steel. "Then we stop the rooting."

"Sir," Marcus added, "we could divert the AC-130 for a secondary pass, but we'll lose the kill shot window on the core."

"Split the fire mission," Thomas ordered. "One shell at the roots. One into the breach."

Marcus hesitated. "Spectre's not designed to split loads like that."

"Do it anyway."

In the sky above Cubao, the AC-130 Spectre began to bank again, its gunners scrambling to adjust for a dual-target assault.

"New mission directive," the commander announced. "Round one: center mass, breach zone. Round two: coordinate fire to intercept root tendril spread at grid marker C-3."

"Two guns, two targets," the gunner grunted. "Not exactly textbook."

"Nothing about this is textbook," the commander replied. "Load and fire."

The first shell launched.

It spiraled down with a whine and slammed into the Worm's exposed gel core.

The second shell followed a second later—impacting two blocks east, directly on one of the fast-spreading root clusters.

Both targets erupted.

The root zone fireball cracked the street in half, sending a shockwave up the Worm's tendril. The gel-core strike, meanwhile, burned brighter than anything so far. The entire torso of the creature flared, bioluminescent veins surging, then rupturing outward in web-like fractures.

The Colossal Worm let out another EMP pulse—but this time, it staggered.

Its base shifted. Not in growth.

In collapse.

Inside the command center, Marcus slammed both palms on the table.

"We did it! It's destabilizing!"

Thomas watched carefully. He could see it too.

The Worm was starting to sink.

Its tendrils retracted. Its eye dimmed.

And its pulse—its monstrous heartbeat—began to slow.

But then…

"Sir," Marcus said, voice suddenly flat. "There's a heat signature. Something's... forming in the breach."

On-screen, where the gel had ruptured—something moved.

It wasn't more Worm.

It was something inside the Worm.

A new structure. Like a cocoon. Or worse… a chamber.

"What the hell is that?" Thomas muttered.

Dr. Calix, now pale, leaned toward the screen. "That's not bone. That's not gel. That's…"

She didn't finish.

Because the cocoon cracked.

And something inside it moved.

Back on the rooftop, Phillip saw it too.

"Shadow Team," he called out. "We've got a new emergence. All eyes on the core. Weapons hot."

They lifted their rifles.

And watched as the Worm cracked open like an egg.

Inside, something writhed.

Something… humanoid.

Dripping with violet slime.

Its limbs too long. Its spine arched like a centipede. Its eyes—if they were eyes—were just pits of shifting light.

"New contact," Phillip growled. "It's not over."

Back at the MOA, Thomas's face was stone.

"Call off Spectre," he ordered. "Pull them back to safe altitude."

"Sir?"

"The system didn't notify me that the monster is dead, so this is like the phase 2 when fighting a boss in a game," Thomas replied.