"Shit, this is going to take awhile to cut through." Heavy breathes gasped from Cameron's mouth as he huffed with his annoyance. His finger pressed against the seal pressure cap that was fitted at the top of the ladder, unable to be opened from his end without a lot of work.
"Just get through it, that's all that I care about." SilverFang calmly addressed as he hovered below Cameron.
Flickers of sparking blue light shimmered from within the darken tunnel that surrounded the ladder, the heading flames of the handheld blowtorch seared into the condensed, reinforced metal that formed the pressure seal that capped the top of the ladder as Cameron began to slowly melt into the first layers of steel.
Tender embers of dying slag sprinkled like a broken showerhead as they fall against SilverFang's helmet and shoulders as he descended down the ladder. The cinders shaded against SilverFang's visor as his foot stepped back into the murky, cold water of the sewers below, the same place that the rest of team waited until the pressure cap had been cut through. Weaver, Ricco, and Gouki stood in a loose circle under the ladder; their forms slacked and relaxed as they waited until they were able to breech through the pressure cap.
"That's a shame about the Rookie, dying like a drowning child in a pool of shit." Weaver chuckled stoutly, amusing himself with his morbid thoughts.
"I really don't think he's dead. We should found out if he is or not." The words came out like a broken spray as Ricco shook his head in disagreement.
"You have to be kidding me. He was swept away by a rush of water nearly the same size of the pipe. He's dead. K.I.A." Weaver's attitude was snarled like that of a wild dog defending its yard.
"I am going to go found out. I have to." Risking tempers stalked through Ricco's body as his legs strutted passed Weaver's watching eyes.
An extending hand came against Ricco's rushing chest, it was firm but gentle. Twisting muscles turned as SilverFang's eyes reached Ricco's halted form as he glaringly looked over his shoulder at the brash soldier, letting his gestures talk for him.
"This isn't like you, SilverFang. Think about it, if he's still alive, what if the enemy gets a hold of him? He knows what we know.
That could impair the mission." Ricco extinguished his thoughts from his anger lips. Annoyed at the forgetfulness of the team and the priority of the mission, Ricco knew that everything had to go perfect for this mission or they could all end up dead.
"Fine, Go. But the rest of the team stays here; I can't risk any more men." SilverFang lowered his arm, allowing Ricco to pass, his eyes fumed with rage as he watched as Ricco broke the mission perimeters that had been set up and at himself for allowing it.
A flock of pushing steps trudged through the same path that they had already marched across before. Ricco was enjoying doing something other than waiting for their entry point to be cut open. He was hoping for some action, something to shoot at, his finger was getting itchy. Founding the dead body of his teammate even seemed a little exciting to Ricco.
The hollow steps of Ricco's prodding feet, echoed through the casing of the pipes, the only noise that traveled through them. A reaching dull moan stretched through the sewer, one that low and quiet, but deep and gurgled. Without the metal drum that it was able to echo upon, it would not even be able to be audible. All life had been drained from it.
"Damn, he's hurt and it sounds bad." Ricco kept his lips low as he whispered to himself.
His legs skated and danced amongst themselves as Ricco bounded through the branching tunnels of the sewer system, watching for the moan, listening to found its location. Ricco's foot waged against the solid metal floor of the pipe, halting his approach as he tenses his body to a strain to hopefully help his ears to hear any sort of sound to found the cheese at the end of this maze. Like a boarding train of noise, a grouping of moans came grossly through the pipe. They reverberated horribly as they trailed around Ricco's open ears. He could hear at least four different voices within the massive collection of groans and an eerie lifelessness that accompanied them.
"What the hell is that? Ricco's body stiffed with bewilderment as he spoke out loud, his voice carrying exactly how he felt.
Creeping steps came against the end of the pipe as it opened into a square cavity that was filled with dirty water at the bottom, with another pipe at the bottom of it that continued the endless of flow of the dirty water. Riddling splashes of water chimed from the pit of grimy water as something thrashed in it. Dozens of dirty fingers reached and grabbed, pulling hard against flesh and muscle as something struggled against their grip. Gorging teeth clamped open as they came close into tearing into a piece of warm flesh.
Holding arms tensed against Hunk's arms and shoulders as they held their prey down, ready to eat their meal. Fighting muscles came through Hunk's arms as he thrashed about, trying to loosen the harden vice that was held on him. His hands were left free and empty, his gun lost within the murky waters below, knocked from his clutch from the extensive struggle. The four dark bodies pressed against Hunk's own as they pushed against the chilly and moist wall of the room. Their roaming and lifeless faces groaned with their mouths wide open, almost locked in that position, only closing, as they got close enough to Hunk's arm or shoulder. Wearing strength left Hunk's body as he resisted against the four assailants as they pulled his arm closer to themselves. There wasn't anything he could do, without the use of his arms, Hunk was easily overpowered and ready to give up. A pale, sagging face lumbered into Hunk's field of vision, the creature's dreary, blankness, creamy white covered eyes locked on to his own through his goggles. A shuddering groan came out of its mouth like vapors lifting from raw sewage, fogging against Hunk's lens.
"Take a mouthful…" The words swung with Hunk's head as he tilted it back and slammed the top of his helmet into the yawning mouth of the diseased man, shattering teeth from rotten gums with the crashing force.
The deranged man's face staggered backwards, bounded to the slumped neck that absorbed the brunt of the force from Hunk's blow. The man's mouth seeped with thicken blood that oozed nearly a blacken crimson as he lurched forward for another bite, not even fazed by the strike from Hunk's armored helmet. Shattering pellets of speeding slag plunged into the squashy flesh of the back of the man's skull, sprawling through its open mouth and impacted against the concert wall behind Hunk's right ear. Another clatter of jingling belts of metal seized with fire rattled against the head of one of the rotten creatures that held tight against Hunk's right arm. Freeing fingers slipped from tensed flesh as the man wilted away from Hunk's forearm. With room to move, the two other beings closed in on Hunk, their dirty fingers scrapping against his shoulders and neck, pulling their meal towards them. Tearing wires pull apart, as Hunk was able to pull himself away from the grasps of the putrid creatures as another vault of impacting bullets splattered in a valley into the optical bone of their skulls. Gusts of spreading blood and skull floated gently from the blossoming pressure that blown from the top of their heads as their bodies slumped with easy movements into the dirty water below.
"Rookie, you ain't going to survive much longer if you can't even handle four infected." Ricco nearly chuckled to himself, glad that he was finally able to kill something and for the fact that Hunk hadn't met an early demise.
"I dropped my gun." Hunk rasped from the back of his throat as he fished through the sewage water for the comfortable handle of his MP-5 Submachine gun. Without even a breath, Hunk was ready to get back to the mission, even after he nearly met death just seconds ago.
"You're just a big bag of zombie feed aren't you? Come on, we have to rejoin the rest of the team." Ricco's tone came off friendly at first, but turned serious and mature, realizing that SilverFang would be preceding onward shortly without them if they didn't get back soon.
"It's odd that there's even infected here. There was no mention of a T-virus leak within the mission orders." Murmuring confusion and questions came from Hunk's mouth as he paced closer to the overhang where Ricco was standing above him.
"That's quick thinking there, rookie, but it has nothing to do with the mission. It's just another obstacle for us to get through in order to do what we came here to do. Here I'll help you up. " Ricco calmly spoke, not even giving much interest into what Hunk was talking about. This wasn't the first time they were faced with the uncontrolled effects of the virus.
Ricco laid his knee to the ground, extending his hand down into the darken gully, reaching for Hunk's hand in the grasp of his fingers. Tensing nerves flared as Ricco's bare fingers clutched against Hunk's extending hand, but fingers alone were not enough to lift up Hunk's stable mass. Straining muscles stressed and broke, stretching far beyond what they were allowed.
"I've got you…" Ricco's words seeped from his mouth slowly.
Their palms clasped around each other's, holding tight as both of their strength met together. A loosen grasp sprung from Hunk's hand, the tautness of Ricco's hand gone, like Hunk was holding nothing but the weight of the air. Before Hunk's arm even dropped from its reaching position, a spurt of plastering globs of darken crimson blood cast harshly against Hunk's ridged gas mask, smearing into a dose of dispersing blood that ran over Hunk's visors. Not even a scream was heard, just a spray of warm blood, the blood of Ricco was all that was left of the young soldier. Perplexity manifested in Hunk's mind, unable to question what had just happened in front of his eyes. Solid shapes moved within the shadows of darkness spanning across the ceiling of the sewer duct with swinging movements too far away to make it out clear, only a nasty snarl of something large was left behind.
Hunk's palm scrapped against his blood-covered goggles, smearing the still warm blood into his own hand, before rubbing it off into the slimy water below him. As the blood swirled in the aggressive shaken water, Hunk gazed around the small square void, knowing that the only way out was the one that was several feet above his head. The walls were slicker than ice, with out an ounce of footing being giving from them. The room was empty expect for one thing. Lifting hands pried the stiff cadaver of the floating zombie from the gloomy waters and shrugged the body over to the wall, slowly building a ladder of dead bodies to reach his only way back.
"I should be all the way through it in about five." Cameron shouted down the ladder as he gave himself a rest from the burning torch that had been burning for the last fifteen minutes.
"Any longer and I think we are going to be spotted. So, everyone stay hot for now." SilverFang's voice was being pressured by impatience; things weren't going as he planned.
The struggling darkness bonded with the swift movements of pounding muscles as a pair of legs raced through it. Turning actions splattered with faulting hast as its travels were faced against the barrel of gun. Weaver's gun came against Hunk's chest as he spilled out from one of the breaching pipes.
"Who are you?" Weaver's spoke densely, not knowing if it was Hunk or Ricco coming back or if it was someone simply disguising themselves as one of them.
"It's Hunk." He bluntly said.
"Where's Ricco?" The words lashed out from Weaver's mouth not evening lowering his Mp-5 from its raised position.
"He's dead." Hunk's tongue spoke calmly.
"What do you mean he's dead?" Weaver belted back at Hunk's composed demeanor.
"Something came out of the darkness and killed him even before I knew there was something there. Whatever it was, it was large and inhuman." Hunk disappointingly addressed.
"Some sort of creature killed him? Maybe one of the B.O.Ws that was stolen from the Arklay Facility, but there was nothing in the briefing about a B.O.W. that has the ability to kill a man in a second without even being detected." Gouki stepped out from behind the two men, overhearing Weaver's shouting.
"Something doesn't add up. And if doesn't add up, then I don't trust it. And I don't trust you." Weaver alleged as he raised his gun away from Hunk's chest, letting the rookie go.
A clatter of bouncing of metal echoed like a bell that had been dropped into a well as the pressure cap had been thoroughly scored and removed. A vase of dim red light shimmered from the new opening at the top of the ladder; their doorway had finally been open.
"We're in." Cameron's chatter came over the radio, hushed and quiet.
Strobes of red light exposed through the darkness of the small closet like room. Cameron crept close to the ground, narrowly watching all the corners of the tight space. Solid layers of steel impacted into a weighty door meant to protect against fire and other hazards. The room was designed for one purpose, a way to escape something deadly.
SilverFang's helmet rose through the slot of the escape hatch as Cameron pressed against the door, unlatching it from its barred state. The door compressed with squeaking rust and scraping metal thrusting open. A hornet of buzzing noise and flickering lights clasped within the wide-open room as it was filled with several computers, metal counters, a wall of animal cages, apheresis machines, and several large machine design for systheising.
"It's a research lab. A small one at that." Gouki spoke as he walked into the room with the rest of the team, his hand grazing over several packets of research papers.
"Span out. I want to know what was going in here it may lead us to our target." SilverFang's mouth ticked out the words, watching for any clues. His fingers brushed against a random assortment of papers that laid on the top of a nearby counter, and just from a couple of words, SilverFang already knew what the people in this bunker where doing.
Visions of planted plastic sheets glared against one of the far walls. They were designed to be cages as well as viewing platforms, to see what their research did to living flesh. Through the clear plastic glass, shadows of darkness kept to themselves as they laid hidden in a single corner in the back of the cage. Hunk's eyes came closer to the viewing window; the darkness wasn't the only thing that was in the cage. A curl of ratty, unkempt fur gathered into a loose pile at the back of the cage, a contrast of frowning white teeth of an open mouth gave a sense of where its head was positioned in the gloom. The animal's body was shriveled, its fur and skin pulled close to its body. A froth of bubbling foam stemmed from the primate's mouth, but most of it had dried into a crust that lined its dehydrated lips. It had died a horrible death from infection and starvation.
"It seems that they were testing various viruses. There are cases full of Rabies, Yellow Fever, Influenza, even Ebola. It seems they were trying to strength these viruses to be used as biological weapons. All they are, are just a group of Bio-Terrorists, I don't think Umbrella really has anything to fear from them." Weaver spoke as he read through several research papers that he held in front of his face.
"It doesn't make sense. Why would they need a bunker in the middle of the Arklay Mountains to conduct this type of research?" Gouki's mouth marked with the question, he wasn't certain what this organization was up to and what they were planning to do.
"Their goal isn't of defense, but of offense. They were here to spy on Umbrella, not destroy them. They're conducting virus research for weaponry purposes, but by the looks of it, it is very primitive. They need to steal information from Umbrella to gain what they are looking for. Why would a parasite kill its host if it still needs to feed on it? With that said, we know their purpose, so we need to kept on the mission objective. We need to move." SilverFang's leadership passed through his lips, he was always able to validate a situation well before anyone else. He knew what he was dealing with from the start of the mission, SilverFang had seen hundreds of men do exactly the same thing and they always failed in the past. This company was no different.
"Out of the way, rookie!" Weaver's taught shoulder broke into Hunk's own; nearly doubling the young soldier over as Weaver passed by him.
Hunk could feel the tension that was the growing between him and the others. It was a rough feeling, like sandpaper being scrapped against an open and bleeding wound. Hunk knew it all stemmed from a lack of respect. For a soldier to have respect for another solider he had to be prove it to him, not being dead yet was the only thing that Hunk had accomplished so far and it seems that that's what all the other team members were hoping for. Hunk didn't care about his emotions or anyone else's; his skills were the only thing that he was worried about. And he knew that with the hate coming from his teammates, his skills would be put to a challenge and Hunk was looking forward to that.
Hunk traded into the well-lit hallway from the opening door of the laboratory as the team moved on in a single file fashion in front of him. He was the last one to leave, after being nearly knocked down by Weaver, taking his time to regroup. Hunk could get his revenge against Weaver easily, but he knew that it would have to wait. If Hunk started something now, he knew that he wouldn't be able to handle the rest of the team turning on him and it would disrupt the mission. It just wasn't needed right now.
The hallway that walked through was nothing more than a shine of white light as the overhead lights illumined the metal walls and the grated floor, giving a very sterile and clean feeling to the wide hallway, compared to the dark and messy laboratory they had just left. The hallway ended against pair of darkened metal doors that formed into the entrance of a large elevator. With a quick press of a single button, the doors hissed open.
"All right, everyone in the elevator. This floor doesn't contain anything that we need." SilverFang commanded as his team loaded into the elevator as he stood guard at the door.
Spiraling ropes and pulleys bared the weight of the heavy elevator as it was glided deeper into the complex before it came to a stop. With another hiss, the doors pressed opened quickly. They're eyes were welcomed against a bulky, reinforced steel blast door, one that spanned across the whole width of the hallway; it had been closed and sealed on purposed.
"We have to found a way through this door." SilverFang harped sharply from his tongue, knowing that this was an obstacle that they had to get through by any means.
"There's no way through it." Cameron jarred from his teeth has he rubbed his hand over the thick layers of plated steel, knowing that it would take weeks to even burn a dime-size hole into the reinforced door. His fingers grazed against it again, taking in the feeling of the freezing steel.
A startling ring of crumpling metal sounded from the door as something jarred against it. The reinforced steel riveted and shook as another tremendous hit came against it, buckling the layers of steel. There was something that wanted out more than the team wanted in and now the door that they wanted to get through was the only thing keeping them apart.