Chapter 4
"Don't let him get away!"
A tall, lanky man with shoulder length dark hair ran through the streets, clutching his wounded stomach. He thought he was going to get away with stealing this time, until the cops caught him red handed and fired once he tried to get away, resulting in this injury he was trying so desperately to ignore as he tried to flee. He turned a corner and collapsed to the ground, falling to his knees and breathing heavily. He groaned, the wound getting worse, he looked down at the blood flowing freely from his stomach.
"Shit...I can't keep going like this..." the thief mumbled to himself, he felt a sudden presence near him and looked up to see a blonde woman standing before him. Her blue eyes emotionless as she stared down at him, the man was confused. He was about to speak when suddenly he heard people shouting.
"He went down here!" one of the police officers called out.
Maria heard them, and began walking out towards them.
"Wait-!" the thief hissed, but Maria ignored him. She stepped out in front of the cops, causing them to stop running.
"You shouldn't be out here alone, miss, it's too dangerous," one of the officers spoke.
Maria remained silent, staring intently at them. Suddenly her back began pulsating, and several large bladed tentacles formed in sight. Before the cops could react, the tentacles flew into action and sliced their way across them, screams were heard as they were mutilated within seconds; blood spattering across the concrete ground. The thief sat there helpless, watching in horror as the bodies of those men lay scattered in pieces across the floor, Maria turned to him and began walking over. He shuffled back, trying to escape but the pain from the wound was too much, he was too weak. His whole body shook as Maria knelt in front of him, she then placed her hand over his open wound. His eyes widened, he felt something strange surge through his body, travelling through his veins. The pain from the wound was getting worse, and then all of a sudden it died down.
Maria pulled away from him and he looked down to find that his wound had completely vanished, he felt a little dazed, but oddly enough he was calm. Almost like the events that played out before him meant nothing anymore.
"What...happened?" he asked.
"It's ok. You're safe now," Maria replied blankly. "Those horrible humans were going to hurt you."
"I feel strange..." he said, clutching his head.
"Don't worry, I'm going to help you. I'll take you somewhere safe," said Maria, pulling the thief up to his feet.
His legs felt like jelly, causing him to keel over and hold onto Maria's shoulder for support. "The name's...Jason, by the way," he said, drowsily.
"I'm Maria."
Everything suddenly went white, and soon enough they had vanished, leaving behind a bloody slaughter for some unfortunate soul to discover.
Shadow entered the work room inside G.U.N HQ, he could see Towers pacing up and down angrily, the rest of the soldiers seemed quite on edge today as well. Shadow could only wonder what it could be.
"Something happen, Commander?" Shadow asked, taking a seat.
"Of course something did! And today of all days, God dammit. Months of nothing happening, and now this out of nowhere," said Towers, suddenly stopping to face Shadow.
"What happened?" Shadow persisted.
"We're not really sure on how it happened, but there's been a report of a gruesome murder down at central Westopolis, there was a burglary before that judging from the CCTV - a young man - then all of a sudden the footage becomes grainy and we can't quite see clearly, but the bodies get sliced up in a way you couldn't even imagine. It's horrifying," Towers explained, shaking his head.
"Sounds a bit unusual...may I see the footage?" Shadow asked.
"Very well, here it is," said Towers, he switched on the TV before them and the footage began playing, Shadow could see the burglary clearly and the thief being chased down, once it got to the alleyway it became distorted and unclear, though Shadow could slighlty make out a silhouette from behind the graininess. It was the shape of a woman, he couldn't see what she looked like, but suddenly there were shapes around her and soon after the police officers were cut up instantly.
Shadow couldn't help but feel uneasy, this didn't seem like any ordinary murder. Just who was this woman? Were they even human?
"That's very strange...the footage before the killings was clear, could it be just that the CCTV malfunctioned at that moment?" said Shadow, frowning.
"That's what I wanna know myself, but we don't know for sure. I need you to look into this case for me, Shadow. Find out anything you can, if there's someone out there capable of doing this to civilians then I want them caught, no matter what!" said Towers, clenching his fists.
"Of course, Commander," said Shadow.
"I've also contacted Agent Rouge, she will be helping you on this case," Towers added.
"What-"
There was a sudden knock on the door, interrupting them. Commander Towers nodded to one of the soldiers and they walked over to open it, revealing Rouge herself standing at the door with a smirk plastered upon her face.
"Mornin' boys! Did you miss me?" said Rouge, stepping into the room and waggling her fingers at one of the soldiers.
"Just in time Rouge, I was telling Shadow about the case you'll both be working on," said Towers, gesturing for Rouge to take a seat.
"So you've said, sounds like a messed up case, nothing we can't handle anyway. Right, Shads?" said Rouge, winking at Shadow. He stared blankly back at her.
"Excellent. The murder took place down on Union street in Central Westopolis, I want you back down there, try and find anything that could give us some sort of clue on who or what did this, understood?" Towers explained, turning his back on them.
"Yes, sir," said Rouge.
"Understood," said Shadow.
"Good, there are a couple of documents left in both your offices, you will fill these out once you come back, now go!" said Towers.
Both Shadow and Rouge stood up from their seats and made their way out the door, there was a moment of silence between the two as they made their way down to Central Westopolis, it irritated Rouge.
She cleared her throat. "Isn't this great? It's just like old times," said Rouge, playfully.
Shadow glanced at her, narrowing his eyes. "I think you were less of a distraction back then."
"Excuse me? What's that supposed to mean?" Rouge snapped, placing her hands on her hips.
"Nothing, just remember we're here on a mission. No funny business, got it?" said Shadow, walking ahead.
"I'm not gonna start groping you if that's what you're so worried about, I take my job seriously too y'know," Rouge retorted, picking up the pace.
Once they'd reached Union Street Rouge took it upon herself to investigate an area further away from Shadow, just to spite him. There were police tapes everywhere, and Rouge had to be careful not to trample on anything important. There was an eerie atmosphere surrounding the place, it sent chills down her spine, but she continued down the long alleyway. Rouge kept walking until she stepped on something sticky, the gooey substance stretched as she lifted her shoe away from it; grimacing as it refused to come off.
"Ugh, what the hell is this?" Rouge mumbled, reaching down to swipe a small piece of the substance and examine it on her fingers. It was red with a tinge of green on it. "Well, I suppose it's something to look into," Rouge added, pulling out a clear plastic bag and placing the sticky substance inside it.
She was startled when she suddenly heard a noise from behind her, causing her to whip around, but there wasn't anything there. Rouge's ears flattened against her head, her heart beating hard against her chest, she didn't like it here anymore. The noise was heard again, this time louder.
"Wh-who's there?" Rouge called out, walking slowly towards the sound. It was coming from the large dumpster, clattering and banging was heard inside it, almost like something was trying to break free.
Rouge edged closer, clenching her fists. She needed to know what was inside it. She reached out towards the lid, her heart beating so fast she could barely think straight. Rouge grabbed hold of the lid and slowly began opening it, whatever was inside it suddenly burst through the lid and flew up towards the sky, causing Rouge to scream. She looked up and could only catch a small glimpse of the creature, it looked like a bat of somesort, but she knew that it wasn't. It was strange.
It vanished out of sight before Rouge could go after it, all she could do was stare up, desperately trying to see where it could have flown to.
"Rouge-!" Shadow called, suddenly turning up behind her, causing Rouge to gasp loudly.
"Shit! God, don't scare me like that!" Rouge snapped, clutching her chest.
"Sorry, did you find anything?" Shadow asked.
"I found this gooey stuff, but then there was this...thing, it looked like a bat but it wasn't, fuck it scared the shit out of me, it just flew off somewhere, I couldn't even react fast enough," Rouge gabbled, her heart still beating fast.
"No point in trying to follow it now, it might have been nothing. Anyway, I couldn't find anything else except strands of hair near the crime scene, but that was it. Better than nothing I suppose, we'll bring them back to HQ and run some tests on them, see what we can find," said Shadow, turning away from Rouge.
Rouge caught up with Shadow as they walked out of the alleyway, she was still shaken up.
"I don't know why you're acting so cold and nonchalant about this, but it's starting to piss me off. What if that thing was a connection with the murder?" said Rouge, angrily.
Shadow sighed. "We don't know what that thing was exactly, you can't just go making blind assumptions like that. It could be anywhere now. We have what could be some evidence, that's good enough for now."
"And what? Wait for another gruesome murder to happen?" Rouge spat.
"Enough! We don't know what happened exactly, the least we can do is run some tests on what we have now so we can get a better idea on what we're up against," Shadow snapped.
Rouge frowned, not bothering to say another word. Shadow didn't mean to act like such an asshole, to truth was he was a little afraid himself, the footage from the CCTV didn't make sense to him. He wanted to know what this creature was that did this. It infuriated him that they couldn't find as much evidence as he wanted, there was barely a sign of anything down there, and no one had seen anything except for what was caught on the camera, and even then it was so unclear. To make matters worse, the thief seen on the CCTV footage was nowhere to be seen, if he'd been killed as well there was no body recovered. The entire situation was baffling, to say the least.
They made it back to the headquarters and Shadow went straight to the laboratory to run some tests on the evidence they'd found, Towers wasn't amused at the little evidence they'd come back with but left them to it. He had sent his soldiers to patrol the area in case of another attack and for now that was all they could do. Rouge was still giving Shadow the silent treatment, she retreated back into her office to finish filling out the documents Commander Towers had left for them, while Shadow decided to head back into his own office and work on them as well. Even though he was busy writing down on each sheet of paper, his mind was elsewhere. Could there have been any other cases similar to this one? The image of that silhouette of the woman flashed in his mind, the shapes that had formed around her, if he didn't know any better it looked like they had formed from her body.
'Could this be a connection with the Black Creatures that killed Sarah?'
Shadow shook his head, he didn't want to think about that. He needed to focus on what was happening now, it was probably nothing to do with them. Shadow looked down at the files he was filling out, he began trying to write again when a pain pierced through his head.
"Ugh!" Shadow groaned, clutching his forehead. Blurred images of Sarah getting sliced through her chest by one of those Black Creatures shot through his mind. Another blurred image of a blonde haired woman running down the corridor, she stopped and looked in fear at the soldiers surrounding her, Shadow could barely make out her face. Gunshots were heard and...her name.
'What was her name again?'
Then a scream.
A scream.
"Shadow?"
Shadow suddenly snapped back into reality, he looked up to see Rouge standing at the doorway with a look of concern on her face. She bit her lip, suddenly feeling a bit awkward.
"Are you ok?" she asked.
Shadow ran his fingers through his quills. "I'm fine, I'm just tired."
Rouge folded her arms. "Y'know you can be real with me, right?"
Shadow only stared blankly at her. "I don't wanna bore you with the details, it's just the usual."
Rouge sighed and walked over to his desk. "Why are you being so cold all of a sudden?" she sat on the edge of the desk, much to Shadow's slight annoyance.
"I'm not..." he sighed, it was useless trying to pretend. "Look, I just don't want my friends getting wrapped up in my personal shit. Especially with what happened to Sarah. I don't know if this murder case is any connection with that, but I don't want anyone involved."
"Oh for God's sake, Shadow! We want to help you! I know you're mister lone wolf and all but fuck that, we're all in this together and whatever is happening in our city is as much our concern as yours, you can't dictate what we can't and can do!" Rouge shouted, slamming her hands on the table.
Rouge waited for Shadow to react, to stand up and yell in her face, but he just remained silent. Staring at her with a deep frown on his face.
Rouge sighed, exasperated. "Whatever, I'm going home. See you when you get back." With that, she quickly marched out of the room and slammed the door behind her, leaving Shadow to finish filling in his documents.
Shadow couldn't help but feel a stab of guilt, he knew his behaviour had been distant and confusing nonetheless, but it wasn't like he knew what to make of it either. He had these emotions welling up inside him, and he didn't know what they meant, or what to do with them for that matter. He wanted to rekindle his friendship with Rouge, but so far it didn't seem to be going so well; they were using each other for their own sexual gratification and that probably wasn't the right way to go about things, and Shadow knew this. But, he also knew he couldn't resist Rouge for a number of reasons, one of them being the immense pleasure he gained from sleeping with her. It made him forget everything for a moment, and that's all he wanted right now. As good as it made him feel, he also felt strange about viewing his old friend this way. It was different with strangers, he had no real connection with them, but with Rouge there was. Shadow knew he had always cared about Rouge, but as his friend and partner, to question that there may be something else there made him feel weird. It was probably just lust, and nothing more.
With his thoughts racing again, Shadow found it hard to concentrate. Filling in some stupid document was the last thing on his mind right now, yet he somehow managed to get it done. Just in time too, it was getting quite late, he glanced up at the clock in his office and it read 12am. Had he really been sitting there that long?
He left the documents to one side and made his way out of the headquarters, it was pitch black outside; Rouge had left the front door unlocked so that Shadow could let himself in once he got back. He reached the apartment at long last and was about to open the door when it suddenly opened in front of him, and out came Manic.
Manic stopped abruptly, a little startled to see Shadow standing at the doorway.
"Shit, you scared me, dude!" said Manic, laughing nervously. "I forgot you live with Rouge now."
Shadow remained silent, frowning at Manic. Manic swallowed hard, feeling the uneasy tension building up in the air.
"Well, I'll see you around!" he said, stepping around Shadow and quickly walking back down the road, disappearing into the night.
Shadow stepped inside the apartment and shut the door behind him, there was no sign of Rouge in the living room, not that Shadow was surprised really seeing as Manic was here. Whatever deeds they'd been doing was obviously done up in her bedroom, probably to avoid the embarrassment of if Shadow had arrived back early and walked in on them fooling around on the couch. Or something like that.
It was more of a reason to take the couch tonight, he knew Rouge had a spare bedroom upstairs but he wasn't in any mood to bump into her right now. All he needed at this moment was sleep. Shadow pulled his shirt over his head, he unbuckled his belt and was about to take off his trousers when he heard a noise behind him.
"Ahem."
Shadow turned to see Rouge standing with her arms folded and her favorite dressing gown on, she was still a bit miffed with him, but she found it very hard to remain so when someone as attractive as Shadow was standing shirtless right in front of her. It wasn't like she hadn't seen him topless before, but that didn't stop her cheeks heating up at the very sight of him, she couldn't deny that Shadow had a pretty amazing body. The muscles in his arms, his taut stomach, it was enough to make her feel weak at the knees; but she managed to regain her composure.
Shadow raised an eyebrow. "See something you like?"
Rouge frowned deeply. "Oh, shut up! What are you doing anyway?" she snapped.
"Clearly, I'm getting ready for bed," said Shadow, gesturing to the couch.
"I have a spare bedroom upstairs, y'know," said Rouge.
"I didn't wanna disturb you, thought you might have been pretty tired with having Manic around and all," said Shadow, folding his arms.
Rouge couldn't control the blush forming across her cheeks now. "That's none of your business."
Shadow shrugged. "All right."
Rouge sighed, placing her hands on her hips. "Just come with me, you're not sleeping on the couch."
Shadow followed her upstairs to where the spare bedroom was, it was directly across from her own bedroom. She unlocked the door and opened it up, it was clear not many people used the spare room, but it was nice. Smaller than her room, but still quite spacious. Rouge grabbed some extra pillows and blankets from the wardrobe and lay them out on the bed for Shadow.
"Here. Sorry if it's a bit dusty in here, I don't really get a lot of guests in this room," said Rouge, wiping the dust off her hands.
"It's fine, don't worry about it," said Shadow, sitting on the edge of the bed.
There was a moment of silence, before Rouge spoke up again. "Well, I hope it's comfortable for you. See you in the morning."
She was about to walk out the door before Shadow called out, "Rouge, wait."
She turned back to him. "What is it?" said Rouge, rather impatiently.
"Look...I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've been very cold and not overly open with you. I know I keep giving you the same excuses over and over, and I haven't been very good at patching up our friendship. I just want you to know that I don't want anything bad to happen to you," said Shadow.
Rouge sighed. "You're being a bit vague again, but all right. Just tell me what's on your mind," said Rouge, walking over and sitting down next to Shadow.
"That's the thing, it's all a bit messy to me too. What do you even do when you're trying so hard to keep the past behind you and the past doesn't even make sense to you at this point? Why are my memories such a blur?" said Shadow, placing a hand on his forehead.
"Shadow...do you even remember what happened on Space Coloney Ark?" Rouge asked.
"A...bit. This image of a blonde haired girl plays in my mind over and over, and for some reason I can't even remember her name," said Shadow.
Rouge bit her lip. "Her name's Maria...she was your best friend. I don't really think it's an appropriate time to just tell you about all this, seeing as your memories are a mess at the moment. I don't wanna overwhelm you," said Rouge.
Shadow looked at her. "Rouge, I wanna know everything."
"I'll tell you everything you need to know tomorrow, it's getting late and you need sleep," said Rouge, standing up.
"You're not just saying that to avoid the subject, are you?" Shadow questioned, raising an eyebrow.
Rouge let out a small snort. "Of course not, don't be silly. But for now, I'm exhausted and I need my beauty sleep," said Rouge, stretching loudly. "Sweet dreams, sushine."
Rouge waggled her fingers at Shadow and shut the door behind her, leaving Shadow with a million questions circling his mind. How did she expect him to sleep after that?
Shadow sighed and lay back down on the bed, pulling the covers over him. A small bit of relief washed over him knowing that he'd at least get some answers to the blurred memories he was having, but that same familiar feeling of dread lingered inside his chest.
Something wasn't right, and he couldn't understand what it was and why he was feeling like this.
Maria watched as Jason's body lay in an incubator, he had been unconcsious for several hours now as his body adjusted to the new cells it was producing after being infected by the Black Arms' blood in Maria's system. Something she didn't realize she could do up until now, Black Doom wasn't amused in the slightest.
"Fool! Why did you bring a human here? You should have killed him along with the rest of them!" Black Doom's voice boomed angrily.
"The humans wanted him dead, I pitied him. I thought he would be able to help us," said Maria, staring up at Black Doom.
"The girl is right, see this as a perfect opportunity for you. We could use the boy as our very own meat shield, a weapon out on the front line to fight with your Black Arms' soldiers while Maria focuses on convincing Shadow to join you," Dr. Snively spoke up, visibly fascinated as he watched Jason's uconscious body.
"Very well. Though I have no interest in your little experiments, Doctor. You take care of the boy," said Black Doom. He turned to Maria. "My child, the time of reckoning is upon us. We must prepare for our attack."
Maria nodded. "I am ready."
"Excellent. Come, let us gather our army."
Maria followed Black Doom out of the room, leaving Dr. Snively to watch over Jason. He watched as his body contracted, the same way Maria's had once they had injected the Black Arms' blood into her body. It was fascinating. Snively wasn't aware of the possibilty of infecting a human being with the blood of a Black Arms alien, he wondered if Jason would possess the same strength Maria did despite having fully live and functioning cells before hand. He would soon find out. Snively watched as Jason's eyes flickered open, looking around the strange room before him, before setting his gaze upon Snively himself.
"Ah, you're awake! And just in time too, the preparations for our attack have just begun..."
Author's Note:
Ahhh, sorry this took so long to upload, I've been busy with work. Thank you to all who have shown interest and reviewed the story so far, it's much appreciated! I hope you all enjoy this chapter!
~ Kisa
