Chapter 4: Humanity Lost
U.S.S Constantine, Skies above Kronos
10:40 am
The Constantine was the personal flagship of General James Ironwood, a high-ranking leader in the Aletian military. It was originally stationed in Vale during the Vytal Festival, but had been recalled by the Aletian Government following the attacks carried out by Inquisitor, in which Ironwood had been granted command of the Aletian forces until Inquisitor is stopped. It was a large military flagship, and the airship carrying Donnic, his team, and Anna landed in the hangar bay and they were greeted by General Ironwood himself...
" Donnic, it's been too long." Ironwood said.
" Jimmy, still the hard-headed jarhead aren't you?" Donnic said.
" Play nice." Andrea said.
" Anyway, I heard you five had a skirmish with Inquisitor's soldiers." Ironwood pointed out.
" Yes, they were trying to kill us after we found out what he was up to in the Whitehall institute." Andrea explained.
"Andrea and I here were attacked by some crazy bitch with cybernetic upgrades." Donnic said.
" Scythe." Ironwood said.
" You know her?" Evan asked.
" She's Inquisitor's personal bodyguard and assassin, she had attacked Section 33 and stole an experimental power core they were developing a while back." Ironwood explained.
" She was also silencing anyone who was getting close to discovering Inquisitor's plans." Andrea pointed out.
" I see, what did you children find out that Inquisitor had his personal assassin and his military commander try and kill you?" Ironwood asked.
" First, we prefer the term "young adults", and second, we found out Inquisitor has somehow managed to combine Human and Grimm DNA." Donnic explained.
The look that overcame Ironwood's face was a look of horror and anger combined, in which he immediately lead the five kids to his office on the ship while two Aletian guards tailed behind them...
" How did you find this out?" Ironwood said as he locked the door.
" We found a group of hybridized babies in a hidden under level of the institute." Donnic explained.
" Infants? Then he has recreated it..." Ironwood said.
" Excuse us, sir?" Desmond said.
" Years ago, we raided the hidden lab of a man named Robert Darnell, who was a former member of the Atlas Science Council. He had approached the council with the same idea that Inquisitor has succeeded at, the creation of Human/Grimm hybrids that could make effective super soldiers for the Aletian military. But the council shot him down, claiming his idea was an abomination, and thoroughly dismissed him from his position on the council." Ironwood explained.
" What happened?" Anna asked.
" We found out he had been kidnapping prostitutes from black market dealers and using them to breed the hybrids." Ironwood said.
" So he bred hybrids using human hosts." Evan said.
" Yes, but the parent host kept dying after a while." Ironwood said.
" Well, that's never good." Donnic said.
" It wasn't, somehow Inquisitor must have found a way to prevent the hosts from dying." Ironwood figured.
" If he has, there's no telling how many hybrids he has produced." Desmond said.
" What ever happened to Darnell?" Anna asked.
" He died from injuries he received in the raid, but his research was never found." Ironwood responded.
" So you believe that Inquisitor may have found Darnell's research?" Donnic said.
" I think he has after you found actual hybridized infants underneath the institute." Ironwood said.
But before Ironwood could speak, there was a knock at the door, in which he opened it and watched as an attendant was executed in front of him and a whole squad of soldiers poured into the room...
" What the hell?!" Ironwood exclaimed.
" Stay where you are, General." The soldier ordered.
" What the heck's going on?" Donnic asked.
" You know too much, we can't let you interfere with our employer's plans." The captain said.
" You work for Inquisitor?" Ironwood asked.
" He's done something amazing, we can't let you ruin it." One soldier said.
" Well, we're kind of the party poopers." Donnic said, striking the soldier pointing a gun at him.
Ironwood then assaulted the captain, and the fight ensued with the kids and the highly-experienced General going to toe-to-toe with a whole squadron of hardened Atlas veterans. But the veterans were surprisingly outnumbered quickly, and they were immediately overpowered and taken away by guards loyal to Ironwood...
" I trusted each of those men with my life, and this is how they repay me?!" Ironwood said.
" One of the guys had an address on his person, I got Evan running a location check." Donnic said.
" I hadn't expected Inquisitor's influence to have spread into the ranks of the kingdom's military." Ironwood explained.
" What if Inquisitor had a spy in your central leadership?" Desmond figured.
" What?" Ironwood asked.
" Those men could have actually been loyal to someone who worked for Inquisitor, and that someone was in Atlas Central Leadership." Desmond explained.
" That could be possible..." Ironwood said.
" All right, I have a lead." Evan exclaimed.
" What is it?" Ironwood asked.
" Wait, this address is to an abandoned shipyard warehouse...right here in the city." Evan said.
" Must be a safe house of some kind for Inquisitor's operatives." Desmond figured.
" Or, he must have needed more storage space." Donnic said.
" Well, I've got to clean up the mess these traitors made." Ironwood said.
" We'll check it out for you, good luck in cleaning up the mess." Donnic remarked.
Donnic and his teammates left the Constantine in search of the address that one of the traitorous soldiers on the ship had, without knowing that what they were about to learn was going to be like something that had come out of a horror film...
7734 Arcturus Street
Kronos Shipyards
11:01 am
The warehouse address had lead them to a large faded white building that looked like it hadn't been used in years. Windows were shattered, metal siding was falling off, and there were visible holes in the roof, but the team was determined to find out why Inquisitor was so interested in the place...
" This place is a dump." Andrea said.
" So why is Atlas's number one terrorist so interested in it?" Donnic pointed out.
" He's probably got something hidden in here." Evan said.
" Well, why are we standing around out here?" Desmond said, heading for the door.
" Geez, Mr. Attitude." Andrea said.
The four teens proceeded into the building, believing it to be a decrepit mess, only to see a large steel bulkhead that looked like it had just been recently installed. Desmond forced the bulkhead open with his bare hands, and they entered to find a hidden laboratory inside with dozens of cells inside with multiple tables and scientific sets set up...
" What is this place?" Evan said.
" Looks like some kind of mobile laboratory, using the outside building to disguise it." Andrea figured.
" Yeah, duh." Donnic said.
Andrea was walking by the cells when she heard somebody singing in one of the cells, and she followed the singing to a cell that was close to the wall, in which she found a young girl in an Aletian Security Federation uniform singing to a hybridized infant in a tank similar to the ones they saw back in the Whitehall institute...
" I know you're there." The girl said when Andrea tried to hide.
" You do know that's a hybrid of human and Grimm DNA?" Andrea pointed out.
" I know." The girl said.
" So why are you in that cell with it?" Andrea said.
" DON'T TALK ABOUT MY DAUGHTER LIKE THAT!" The girl growled under her breath.
Andrea had immediately realized who the girl was: It was Nina Colvin, one of the abducted girls who had been kidnapped during the Balthor Library attack. But Nina was different now; her skin was pale white and had darkened veins in some areas, her hair was no longer it's ginger shade but now jet black, and her hazel irises were now replaced with blood red ones.
" What happened to you miss?" Andrea asked.
" I became a mother." Nina said.
" To a human-Grimm hybrid?" Andrea said.
" Yes, and I actually feel proud of it." Nina explained.
" Miss, are you feeling alright?" Andrea asked her.
" I've never felt more alive in my entire life in the ASF." Nina said with a smile.
" What?" Andrea said.
" You see, when you are carrying a kid as special as this, you change. You evolve to suit your child's needs, becoming more than anything that our race could ever imagine." Nina started.
" What the hell is she saying?" Andrea thought.
" I resisted at first, until I felt power coursing through my veins. I was stronger and faster than ever before, but my immune system had suffered a bit during the evolution, so I am confined to this cell until it becomes stronger." Nina said.
" This is horrible, why do you think it is right?" Andrea asked.
" I'm sorry?" Nina said.
" You're basically combined with the DNA of the very enemy that huntsman and huntresses are sworn to fight every day, the very same enemy that nearly exterminated our civilization just centuries ago, and here you are claiming they kept power from us." Andrea exclaimed, attracting the attention of her brother.
" YOU BETTER CURB YOUR WORDS BEFORE I RIP OUT YOUR TONGUE." Nina exclaimed with a monstrous-like voice.
" What's going on over here?" Evan inquired.
" I found out how Inquisitor managed to prevent the parent host from dying." Andrea said.
" You did, and who is this?" Evan asked.
" This is Nina Colvin, one of the kidnapping victims from the Balthor Library attack." Andrea said.
" Why is she...like this?" Evan asked.
" Your sister is afraid to tell you that I am a Human-Grimm hybrid now." Nina said blatantly.
" Wait, what?" Evan said.
" That's how the host survives, they're converted into hybrids while in pregnancy." Andrea explained.
" My god." Evan said.
Nina simply rolled her eyes at the two siblings, and she had resumed her song to her hybridized child. Evan and Andrea left the cell area to regroup with their teammates...
" So their immune systems are weak after the transition?" Evan asked.
" Yes, just like the infants." Andrea said.
" Interesting." Evan said.
But as they approached their teammates, they found them unconscious on the floor, and they were impacted by a shock device that a young jackal-Faunus with cybernetic upgrades and a masked individual that looked like a robotic firefly had deployed...
" Four more bite the dust." Firefly said.
" On that we can agree." Kaia said with a smile.
This chapter concludes with the arrival of Kaia and Firefly, two more agents of Inquisitor's, who have just captured the team at the mobile facility Inquisitor had. Nina Colvin from Chapter 1 makes a return, though she is a Human-Grimm Hybrid and mentally unstable. Now things are going to get interesting in the next one as Ironwood narrows in on the traitor in Aletian High Command, and Donnic and his team learn what Sanctuary really is...
WAIT AND SEE.