The quiet little park in small town USA suddenly erupted in a terror as a pack of EVOs rampaged through, trailing behind them was a Latino teen who's arm suddenly morphed into a large cannon. The back end slammed into the asphalt of a basketball court and with a grin on his face he fired the compact ball of dirt and stone at the pack of mutated coyotes. It knocked down a few, but drew the attention to him rather quickly the remaining ones turned rather quickly and growled. Strands of saliva oozed off of the enlarged curved fangs, the once furry faces were now covered by a skull like cap the eyes a deadly shade of red.
The ones that had been hit were getting up and growling now ready to take on whatever had hit them. They advanced rather slowly sizing up their prey, getting ready to strike.
"Rex, you need to get them back to an unpopulated area. We can only close off an area for so long without providence back up." Holiday's voice chirped into his ear.
"I'm trying, I think I have their attention. Six you in place?"
"Ready when ever you are." Six replied in his usual stoic manner. He was waiting with the hidden cages to bring the stampede to a stop so that they could either cure the EVOs or bring them back to the petting zoo 2.0 as Rex had dubbed it.
"Be ready should have them there in less than a minute." There was a sense of sureness in his voice, though there rightfully should have been. He had been improving since training with Six these past few months had been intensified. Six would wait only a few minutes before checking in on the ETA of the stampede, there was only radio silence.
"Holiday?" Six only had to have the questioning tone to imply that he felt that something was wrong. Rex hadn't been that far off and it shouldn't have taken him long considering his methods of travel.
"I'm looking for him. Six, his biometrics just dropped suddenly. Sending you the coordinates." Holiday bit her lip, Rex's biometrics had been doing quite well and hadn't been experiencing sudden drops like he used to when he was a bit more rebellious.
Six dropped from the tree he'd been crouched in and tapped the screen on the ATV, the coordinates were programmed in and already giving him a route to where the nanite readings from Rex were last found. It only took him a few minutes to hear what was going on before he saw it. The growls and yips from the EVOs filled the area followed by weak shouts from Rex as well as the sound of metal falling apart.
Six burst into the small grove and let the ATV plow straight into one of the EVOs, this sudden disturbance distracted them from their current toy which was a barely conscious Rex and the eerie red eyes now were directed to Six. The katanas came out and he went to work to go rescue his partner, half wondering what he did wrong or if someone else was involved in this fiasco. The first two EVOs went down with some effort, Rex had done a number on them before he got there. The next group went down and Rex's body had disappeared in the fight, Six scanned the battle field while keeping an eye on the last two EVOs that were circling him. No sign of bright orange coat that he usually sported, this was troubling until a third EVO appeared from the trees carrying a familiar human shape by the arm.
Despite the training that Six had taken to control himself and his reactions, something inside him cracked a little. Rex had taken a beating before and come out of things relatively okay, but something had happened that pushed the kid beyond his limits of handling things. Six ran at the EVO and couldn't really remember what happened up until he was trying to figure the best way to carry Rex without further injuring him. Something had pounded him and it wasn't just an EVO wrangle gone wrong, it was something personal. His face was bloodied and the rest of him look bruised and possibly fractured, something had hit him hard and rather unexpected. His clothing was torn and bloodied from where the EVOs had tossed him around and grabbed him, it was a lot for Six to take in at the moment but some how he found the ability to get them both on the ATV and radio Holiday to prep a med station.
The next couple hours were a blur for the group, blood being transferred, bandages, scans and clean up. The dam was fairly quiet except for the sound of machinery and the sounds of a punching bag being hit, Holiday knocked on the door that lead to Six's room.
"He's not dead because of you." She said softly knowing that he was feeling guilty.
"He shouldn't have been handling that alone, I should have known better." Six gave the punching bag a good solid heel to where the neck would have been on a human being.
"You can't live your life by shoulds or coulds." Holiday shrugged, she looked tired but was doing the best she could to deal with everyone. "He'll be fine in a couple days, he's bounce back before. He'll do it again."
Six sighed rather deeply, he gave Holiday a look. "We don't know anything for sure with him, maybe I did in the past but..."
"But you still know somewhere deep inside that he does have the strength to come back from this." Holiday finished his sentence trying to be a bit more cheerful despite his words ringing in the back of her head. She knew it was true with Rex that she didn't fully understand how his Nanites repaired injuries that would have normally killed human beings. He was 16 and already dealing with the weight of the world on his shoulders, the recent destruction of his confidence since the Scarecrow incident hadn't helped much but Holiday did genuinely want to fix that chaotic seed that had been planted.
She did still feel a bit shaken up from the entire matter but she knew she had to press on, Rex had been able to help cure her sister. He was willing to do what it took to help her and to protect others even when things looked bleak.
"Six, get some rest. There's nothing you can do and beating yourself up isn't going to help. Just...think of what Rex would do in this situation." She gave him a smile and turned to leave, when his hand found hers.
"Rebecca, I don't know how you can have such faith in things like this." Six confessed.
"I don't know either, but I have to try." She looked at his face, even behind the sunglasses she could see he looked overly tired. She leaned in for a moment to kiss him when something in her pocket beeped, Six let go of her hand to let her fish out the beeping device.
"I have to go check on him. Just get some rest, we'll see what happens over the next couple hours or so. I'll let you know if anything changes."
Six let her walk away and once more he shut the door and began beating the bag to a pulp trying to figure out where he had gone wrong with this whole operation. Finally feeling too tired to continue this beating of a mindless weighted bag he found his bed and began to go over that entire day in his mind.
EVOs had been reported roaming through the town and had been mainly out in the woods but lately they'd been coming farther in town. They attempted to try to get ahead of providence due to not having a strong presence in that area and to give Holiday a chance to study EVO activity in this area as it had not been a problem until recently. There was luring them back toward the woods, something had gone wrong and then an unconscious Rex. Over and over he went through the day in his head trying to pull some small detail of who he could direct his anger at, but nothing came to mind and only left him feeling more angry at himself.
Holiday peered into the tube where Rex was slowly healing, much of the bandages were less bloody that before, his nanites were already working on the minor flesh wounds. Current scans were showing that there was still a small amount of danger concerning the fractures and swelling to his head. Whoever or whatever had done this to him, it was done out of a deep hate or rage. She shook her head and went over the data again that she'd gathered from the field before turning the lab into a trauma center. He hadn't moved much since she got him into the tube and began pumping whatever painkillers and stabilizers she could into him. While she tried to have a positive outlook on the entire thing, she couldn't help but hear the echo of Six's uncertainty in the back of her mind.
She glanced down at the teenager again and then back to the screens, she felt like it was going to be a long night and longed for those days when she had complete faith in everything Rex's nanites could do.